MacPhoenix: WebSpace> Lincoln is still the only head of state in the world to submit himself to an election during a revolution, during a rebellion, during a Civil War.
[Found here.][1]
[1]: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/02/pundit_who_publ.php
Recently, we got a product notice in the kitchen telling us that the brand of tofu we order was being replaced by another. Both brands were organic, but the new brand was superior by way of packaging, apparently. The new brand, Woodstock Farms, highlighted their colorful packaging in the notice, and emphasized how there was no difference in the manufacturing or the quality of the product. Except, of course, there was. The new brands were an ounce less than the originals.
When I found out about the change, I asked the kitchen manager, Tara, if the new packages were smaller. I had noticed previously at supermarkets that Nasoya, a popular brand, had just changed their packaging to look more gourmet, more classy, and took the opportunity to sell less of their product for a little more money. They went from $1.89 for 15 oz. to $2.19 for 14 oz. at my local supermarket. I stopped buying Nasoya, and learned that Trader Joe’s has a private label 15 oz. for $1.19.
Anyway, at the kitchen, Tara said that nothing on the flyer indicated that the new packaging contained less. We had to look at the tiny images of the packages on the notice to see that the new ones, indeed, had less than the original.
This has been going on for years, of course. Products like coffee and ice cream, which traditionally had been sold by the pound and half gallon, respectively, had been nudged down years ago, when the products prices shot up. Coffee is now 13 to 14 oz, and ice cream is 1.5 to 1.75 quarts. It’s fine that the manufacturers do this so they can keep the price down, but it often strikes me as tricky. I’m happy that they’re mandated to put the actual amount we’re getting in these things, but I wish consumers were more aware of this.
In the past month I noticed a couple of other products shrinking in order to keep the price level the same:
* Barilla tomato sauce. Was 26 oz. Changed the packaging to look more gourmet. Now 24 oz. Price $2.99. 8% less product or 8% cost increase, depending on your outlook.
* Marcal 6 pack 1000-sheet toilet paper. Packaging changed to reflect 100% recycled paper. Price $3.99. This one was sneaky. Even though each roll is still 1000 sheet, the old package was 750 sq ft, and the new is 675 sq ft. 10% less product.
I’ve noticed this trend in juices, too. If the package is cardboard, we’re still getting a full half gallon, but when these same products are in plastic containers, we’re getting around 54 to 56 oz. That’s 13 to 16% less product.
Being a savvy consumer is difficult and time-consuming, and I’m sure manufacturers and retailers are expecting that we don’t notice these changes, but as I come across them, I’m going to post them. These things shouldn’t be hidden behind fancy packaging.
Last night, I tried *Hershey’s* “Heath Milk Chocolate Layered Cookies.” These are square-shaped sandwich cookies, with a toffee flavored filling. And they’re not good.
The first thing that I noticed was the strong buttery scent upon opening the package. It was so strong that it reminded me of margarine, which smells like a parody of butter. But when I tasted it, the scent and flavor mingled into butter cream, super sweet butter cream.
Now, I like toffee. It’s not necessarily on my list of favorite flavors, but I do like it. When it is done right it has a butterscotch subtlety–a long, mellow flavor that lingers after it’s consumed. The cookie, on the other hand, tasted like a wedding cake dipped in granulated sugar. It was too sweet. I had just finished a *Starbucks* Mocha Frappachino, too, so my palate was already desensitized to sweetness. Nothing should be that sugary, with the exception of eating a quarter-cup of plain sugar crystals.
The filling has a crunchiness to it, which I assume is meant to imply little toffee flakes, but, instead, it just reinforces the sugariness, as if the cream is so filled with sugar, some it didn’t dissolve.
The selling point behind these cookies is that they are made with real milk chocolate; a counterpoint, one presumes, against *Nabisco* Oreos and their dark chocolate wafers, which apparently the American consumer has been loathing for over 100 years. The problem with *Hershey’s* solution, though, is that I couldn’t taste the cookie. My taste buds were burnt out from the super sweetness, so that the wafer could have tasted like dry cardboard, and I could not appreciate the fine quality of the milk chocolate that they bake into every cookie.
There were two other flavors of these cookies on the shelves. One was a vanilla cream filling, and the other was peanut butter. I doubt I will be trying either one of them.
Over at [TMP][1], Josh Marshall asks this question:
>November 2004 to November 2006 represented a remarkable turnabout for President Bush and the Republican party. Was there one key event responsible more than any other for the reversal of fortune: Katrina, Iraq, Social Security, Abramoff? What was the tipping point? We’re [discussing this now at TPMCafe][2].
And I think that as far as American public opinion goes, it was Katrina. Really, there’s no question about that to me. Suddenly, overnight, there were working men and women talking about the idiots in Washington. The idiots were always there of course, but Katrina ended the playtime fantasy that Bush was our daddy/savior.
The press didn’t begin to turn around until the Foley scandal. Suddenly, overnight, the pretty people on our televisions started hinting at a Democratic take over of Congress. This was amazingly crass. Foley was embarrassing, sure, but did real people actually care about it? I don’t believe so. The press did, however, because they are part of Washington, and they hate things that embarrass the Washington establishment. I will offer the *Hunt for Clinton’s Penis* as Exhibit #1,634, proving that the press doesn’t care about America. Rather, it attempts to destroy those that scandalize the elite of Washington D.C.
There were those in the press that saw Katrina for what it was, which was a complete fuck-up from the top to the bottom of our nation’s emergency services. (To be fair, the Coast Guard did exactly what it should, with [the resources it had][3].) But the press didn’t move aggressively enough to highlight the deficiencies within the government that would lead to such mismanagement. Part of that, I believe, is that journalists and reporters themselves feel so detached from crises. They’re there to report on them, not interfere. So during Katrina, many of these reporters catalogued days of agony and suffering, and didn’t do anything themselves to help with it.
That’s not a criticism of journalists. They report the story, not make it. The guys like Anderson Cooper, who did get involved, became part of the story, and lost some credibility in the process. But the disconnect between the suffering and the camera has to be hard on the psyche. I think many news companies began to soften their reporters stance on the Katrina rescue efforts, because those news companies realized that some of us may have begun to wonder why they don’t just send in the helicopters that shuffle their stars to and from the disaster sites. Why don’t they get involved?
So, again, the press drops the ball, because it makes them feel uncomfortable. They are part of the establishment in Washington, along with politicians and lobbyists. Katrina was embarrassing to everyone. But Foley was just embarrassing to congressional Republicans, and the press had no problem making an example out of that idiot.
Which only leaves Iraq; the elephant in the room, if you’ll pardon the pun. Why didn’t that affect Bush and the Republicans all along? Now, of course, it’s amazingly easy to criticize Bush for his ineptness regarding Iraq, but, to those people who think that Iraq has only recently become a mess, you’re delusional. Iraq was a mess the moment we invaded. Sure, statues fell and missions were accomplished, but that was all bullshit, and anyone, seriously anyone, with any bit of intelligence knew it. Iraq isn’t Bush’s fault. It’s all our faults. We let this happen.; we’re all complicit. And, so, now that Bush is so weak and ineffectual that he can’t hold a significant majority in the midterm elections, people might say that the reason they voted Democratic is Iraq, but, American Joe, you had your chance to hold that to him in 2004, and you didn’t. Iraq wasn’t a tipping point. Iraq is a nightmare that we’re not half-way through.
But, if Iraq really is the reason that you suddenly can’t stand Republican rule, congratulations. You’ve become an adult again. You should check up on what they tried (and will try again) to do to Social Security. It’s not going bankrupt. Learn the name of Abramoff and be amazed at his long arms through the reach of our government, even though absolutely none of us elected him. I might also suggest taking a look at recent events pertaining to China, North Korea, Iran, and Lebanon to get a nice clear picture of how our crack team of officials, who handled Iraq so wonderfully, also get to play with other nations.
And don’t forget to hold the Democrats responsible for the horrible bankruptcy bill that they helped pass while a minority. They’re going to do idiotic things, too. Don’t suddenly wake up and realize it years after the fact. Hold them responsible *before* they pass their stupid laws and bills that benefit no one, but play nicely on the evening news.
[1]: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/011701.php
[2]: http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/dec/26/event_of_the_two_year_cycle
[3]: http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0505/050505kp1.htm
On my usual Monday night delivery route, I passed a lit sign in front of a church somewhere out towards the north fork of Long Island. It said, “GOOD WITHOUT GOD IS JUST O,” and for a little bit, I didn’t catch what it was trying to convey. Good is just O? I thought. O? As in *oh no*? As is the *big O*? Good is an orgasm without God? What? I didn’t get it.
But that’s because I’m a typesetter at heart. *O* is not *0*. I never say “oh” in phone numbers when I mean *zero*. *O* is a letter, and *0* is a digit. Any typeface that is not trying to mimic a typewriter is going to have two different [glyphs][1] two represent two different characters. Anyone who finds it acceptable to replace a zero with the letter *O* should also have no problem replacing the number *1* with a lower-case *l*.
“GOLD WITHOUT GOD IS JUST L” doesn’t make any sense. Let’s put that in proper case (all caps is a crime against typography and clarity anyway). “Gold without God is just l,” is still obviously idiotic. But on a typewriter that could mean “… just one.” It sounds more poetic, but has no meaning, which, all cleverness aside, is what I think of the original as well.
Good without God isn’t *nothing*. Good without God is still good. Why do you need an absolute reference point to do good? Why does one need a specific brand of bearded cloud-father (Methodist, I think) to determine good or evil? Ethics exists without the assistance of religion to classify right from wrong.
And, anyway, it was a poor pun, and it depended on the invention of typewriters and cheap signage to make it work.
[1]: http://www.answers.com/topic/glyph#Technology
Once, several years ago, I punched a hole in my head while working on my piece-of-crap car. I don’t remember if it was the car that leaked transmission fluid, or the one that leaked oil from the faulty head gasket, or if it was the one that needed daily transfusions of coolant. In fact, that may have been a single piece-of-crap car. Time, and a good smack to my head, have mushed many memories together.
In any case, while working on this particular car, I punched a hole into my forehead on the latch that hung down about two inches from the roof of the hood. It hurt like hell. For a second, I didn’t even realize what I did. I went to look at something in the engine block, ducking my head under the hood, thinking I had inches of clearance. I mean, I wailed my head into this thing. It dazed me.
I was out in front of my friends house, and I remember staggering in the doorway. His family was gathered around the kitchen table, and they all looked at me as I held my hand to my head and giggled weakly. I laughed as soon as I realized what I did, looking at the hook that gouged me in my car. I couldn’t believe that I hit it; I just didn’t expect there. So I was still laughing when I walked into my friends kitchen, all ashen and dizzy. The hook left a perfect tiny circle in my forehead, right below the hairline, perfectly in the center of my head. The wound lasted for days.
Good times.
I often laugh when I smack my head into something. It’s funny, after all. If someone saw me do it, hearing the clunk of my big fat head cracking into a corner or hanging lamp, he’d laugh, too. Just because I don’t get to observe it doesn’t mean it’s not funny.
A couple of weeks ago, I cracked my head into the top of a doorway, walking down a low set of stairs into somebody’s basement. Actually, I thought I had cleared that, too, but there was a staple halfway stapled into the [lintel][1]. Maybe it was sticking out about 2 millimeters. I thought I just wailed my head into the doorway and that was that, until about 15 minutes later, my friend says, “Your head is bleeding!”
I got a good chuckle out of that one, too, along with a scab that my fiancée thought was a pimple, but instead was another hole in my head.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lintel “A horizontal beam above a door that supports the wall above it. Yeah, I had to look that up, too.”
Last Christmas, my fianceé tried to buy reindeer meatballs for her father. It was kind of a tradition to get him some sort of unusual Norwegian treat, since his family is from there. But we couldn’t find them. There was a site that wouldn’t ship them out of Norway, but that was the closest we got.
Honestly, I figured that the demand just wasn’t there for any company to go out of its way to ship them, but Kathy assured me that she’d been able to get them in the past, and, really, the internets make it so easy to buy just about anything, no matter how obscure. My curiosity was piqued, but I didn’t find any information on the missing meatballs until articles started talking about the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. It turned out that the meatballs were banned from export, because 20 years after the initial fallout, a specific type of radiation was falling back to earth in Scandinavia and being absorbed by lichens and fungi.
Reindeer consider the lichens a delicacy. They were eating the contaminated lichens and becoming poisonous.
Now, an article from the New Scientist says that the sheep farmers in Norway are having problems, because sheep like mushrooms, and this particularly wet summer saw a bumper crop.
There’s an amazing quality to a pollutant that can poison thousands of miles from its origin and two decades after the fact. And, sadly, this is only a minor problem with nuclear fallout.
Keith Olbermann on terrorism and the modern Republican Party:
…The dictionary definition of the word ‘terrorize’ is simple and not open to misinterpretation: ‘To fill or overpower with terror; terrify; coerce by intimidation or fear.’ Note please that the words ‘violence’ and ‘death’ are missing from that definition. For the key to terrorism is not the act–but the fear of the act. That is why bin Laden and his deputies and his imitators are forever putting together videotape statements and releasing virtual infomercials with dire threats and heart-stopping warnings.
But why is the Republican Party imitating them? Bin Laden puts out what amounts to a commercial of fear; the Republicans put out what is unmistakable as a commercial of fear….
and more:
…This administration has derived benefit and power from terrorizing the very people it claims to be protecting from terror. It may be the oldest trick in the political book: scare people into believing they are in danger and only you can save them. Lyndon Johnson used it to bury Barry Goldwater. Joe McCarthy leaped from obscurity on its back. And now the legacy has come to President George W. Bush….
and more:
…But to forgive you for terrorizing us, we would have to believe that you somehow competent in keeping others from terrorizing us. Yet last week, construction workers repairing a subway line in New York City were cleaning out an abandoned manhole on the edge of the WTC site, when they stumbled on the horrific and impossible: human remains from 9/11. Bones and fragments, eighty of them. Some as much as a foot long. The victims had been lying literally in the gutter for five years and five weeks. The families and friends of each of the 2,749 dead, who had been grimly told in May 2002, that there were no more remains to be found, were struck anew as if the terrorism of that day had just happened all over again.
And over this weekend, they have found still more remains. And now this week will be spent looking in places that should have already been looked at a thousand times, five years ago.
For all the victims in New York, Mr. Bush, the living and the dead, it is a touch of 9/11 all over again. And the mayor of this city, who called off this search four and a half years ago is a Republican. The governor, with whom he conferred, is a Republican. The House of Representatives, Republican. The Senate, Republican. The President, Republican. And yet you can claim that you and you alone can protect us from terrorism?
You can’t even recover our dead from the battlefield. The battlefield in an American city. When we’ve given you five years and unlimited funds to do so….
Here’s the video, long at 10 minutes, but worth every second:
Spam kills small websites. Especially, small sites that have a modicum of user feedback. Because the volume of user feedback on my site was small, and I’ve had a web presence for years, my site was (and is) particularly attractive to spammers.
They inundated my forum, so I closed it down. They spammed the comment area on my blog, so I have to approve any comments. But I still get so many spammed comments that the real ones sometimes get deleted along with the spam. Since I’ve started my site, I always allowed any email that is sent to my domain to reach my mailbox. Because it costs nothing for a spammer to send emails, even to bogus addresses, I would get hundreds of spam emails to addresses like *grreks@macphoenix.com* or *qpxb@macphoenix.com*. Still, the filters in my email reader were good enough to reduce the amount of spam in my inbox to the dozens per day, which I could easily delete.
Recently, however, some enterprising spammer decided to put *macphoenix.com* as the reply-to in his latest spew. He forged the headers, illegal in America but hardly uncommon, to make it look as though these emails were being sent from my domain. Again, they were all random “users,” like my good friends *hertz@macphoenix.com* and *jfres@macphoenix.com*. When a good portion of the spam was returned, because the addresses were false, or the domain had anti-spam measures put in place, it would end up in my inbox. Last Saturday, I had 2000 emails. I had to sort through them, for the needle in the haystack, and deleted the rest. On Monday I had 3000.
I had to stop accepting every email to my domain. For five years, I’ve accepted anything, in case someone misspells my name, which happens constantly. On the fly, I’ve been able to sign up for mailings on dubious sites, because I could always route the made up name into a spam filter. It made tracking those that sold my email address easy, since I know that *bmgjunk@macphoenix.com* was the name I gave to BMG. But no more. Now, I’d have to sign into my sites control panel, make up a new email address, new password, then tell my email reader to check that account. Eventually, I’d have dozens of accounts, for the sole purpose of making sure my increasing worthless name doesn’t get shared with spamming lists, when my whole domain has been poisoned.
Because of the volume of spam that seeming has been sent by me, my IP has been blocked by certain hosts, so I can no longer grab the RSS feeds for the [weather][1] or the [Word of the Day][2]. So spam has crippled my site, my email, and my productivity. And I’m just a small, unregarded nobody out on the unfashionable end of the western arm of the Internets.
[1]: http://www.rss.noaa.gov/
[2]: http://wordsmith.org/awad/today.html
Previously, my favorite dialog box warning was a [blank box with a single button saying “OK.”][1] But then I read about an [even better one][2]:
> [Word][3] cannot edit the Unknown.
This is pure bliss for me. I’ve written it down and recite it as a mantra while I ponder the universe. Even the powerful Microsoft Word cannot edit the Unknown. Who among us can edit the Unknown? Verily, I say no mortal can. It is humbling and empowering all at once.
And just a little funny.
[1]: http://daringfireball.net/2005/05/has_to_be_ok
[2]: http://www.thedragnet.org/blog/musings/theunknown.html
[3]: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=244170