soapbox

In addition to the overuse/misuse of antibiotics and Nathaniel’s suggestion about stocking up on said items, here’s another doomsday scenario to keep you up at night: Ug99

One consequence of the farce that is the current US Agricultural “plan” is the horrible dependence on pesticides combined with the use of hyper-genetically-modified grains. Monsanto has done a great job of marketing and as long as no foreign plagues are introduced, we’re all good – but between global warming and what stem rust, there’s reason to worry.

“A significant humanitarian crisis is inevitable,” said Rick Ward, the coordinator of the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

The solution is to develop new wheat varieties that are immune to Ug99. That’s much easier said than done.

After several years of feverish work, scientists have identified a mere half-dozen genes that are immediately useful for protecting wheat from Ug99. Incorporating them into crops using conventional breeding techniques is a nine- to 12-year process that has only just begun. And that process will have to be repeated for each of the thousands of wheat varieties that is specially adapted to a particular region and climate.

“All the seed needs to change in the next few years,” said Ronnie Coffman, a plant breeder who heads the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project. “It’s really an enormous undertaking.”

The text on the bottle says:

Rufus Teague made some sauce. He put some in a jar and shared it with the boys. They kept on painin’ him ’til he fixed up another batch. Next thing he knew, he’s makin’ sauce all the time.

The thing the bottle fails to mention is that Rufus Teague and the boys didn’t have functioning taste receptors on their tongues due to years of smoking and as a result, the sauce has about four times more sugar in it than it needs.

Stubbs original is still my sauce of choice.

With all of the fuss about Vista and Windows 7 – and there’s no denying that MSFT could have done a better job over the past few years – there are a couple features that are actually pretty cool.

Of particular note is something called readyboost, which allows you to use a USB flash drive as an instant RAM boost. The thumbdrive serves as an additional memory cache that can be accessed much more quickly than data on a hard drive. I don’t know how much of a long-term solution this is, but it’s pretty slick, given that it would take me a LONG long time to do the same thing with a linux box.

Speaking of flash drives, and this is specifically for Ryan Johnson, it’s time to eat your corn flakes:

a hi-tech band embedded with a 1 Gigabyte USB flash drive pre-loaded with exclusive Star Trek content

… you just need 8 UPC codes from specially marked Kellog cereal boxes.

*holding arms way way far apart* This much.

So, as we suffer through the Rays-Sox game tonight, K reminded me again why I love her so much.

“He’s the worst of all of them. He says nothing, and he takes a long time saying it, and he’s not coherent… and that’s from someone who knows nothing about baseball.”

Of course, just one inning after this fantastic assessment, he re-verified his should-be-fired-ness by stating “I don’t really like this (the Rays) rotation. Sure they have Garza and Kazmir, and some good young guys in the minors, but after that I’m not impressed.”

What a freaking moron. I leave it to Jeremy to tell us exactly where the Rays’ staff ranks in MLB, but I’d put it in the top 5 especially looking ahead a few years.

I really want to learn how to hack a DVR and install a voice-recognition-and-mute algorithm.

[P.S. K also said "call the post 'How Much Joe Morgan Sucks.' " Have to give credit where credit is due.]

Lightly muddle together the mint leaves and sugar with a few drops of water in the bottom of the glass. Then almost fill the glass with crushed ice and pour the Bourbon over it. Garnish with a sprig of mint.

mmmmmmm. Oh yeah, the race is ~6pm EST, fyi. Don’t forget your hat.

For details or clarification on the subject, I refer you to Nick, but it seems as though Utah has finally picked up on the idea that it might be a good idea to allow a person to just walk into a bar and order a beer. Up until a couple weeks ago, in order to enter a bar you had to be a member (or have somebody sponsor you)… or rather, all bars were required to be private clubs, and if you wanted to enter then you had to pay a membership fee or know a member. You probably have to be straight to be served, but all in good time, let’s not be hasty… there are still a bunch of other weird rules.

My friend Brianne is up to #4 in the voting and made the first cut, check it out:

Really, pretty remarkable on several fronts, and a very clever bit of advermarketing by Solo.