Davy Crockett Redux

Many of you are probably wondering what Davy Crockett would say if he were alive right now. Probably something like "Hey, let me out of this box, I can't breathe in here!"
But seriously, folks, it's probably just as well that Davy Crockett has long since passed on to his reward - I think the current state of affairs might well have killed him. Consider some of what he said during his career in the US Congress:

"We have the right as individuals to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money."

"We must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living."

"You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas."

Democracy in America

Here are some rather amazing quotes from Alexis de Tocqueville, author of the famous 1835 work, Democracy in America (Volume 1, Volume 2).

"Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."

"A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it."

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."

"The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens."

"There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one."

"When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness."


This last one can leave us a bit more hopeful, I think:
"The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults."

Let us pray that she still can.

RIP Fess Parker

Well, I never did have a coonskin cap, but I wore my fringed suede jacket today in honour of the passing of the Davey Crockett / Daniel Boone of my youth.

Fess Parker, hand-picked for the role of Crockett by Walt Disney himself, was one of those constants in the lives of many of us of a certain age. While I can't say I've been missing those old programmes, I'm pretty sure I'd stop and watch them if I were to come across an episode in my dial perusing.

RIP, Fess Parker, king of the wild frontier.

Horrific News

This story may be especially troubling for those of you who accompanied Heidi and me to England back in 1999. You'll probably remember Geoff frequently asking, "do you want me to tell you something?"

Of course we did, and in general he delivered some quite interesting stories and information.
One of the tastiest bits was the story of the cheese rolling in the village of Brockworth.

You remember, don't you? The locals would race a half-stone-plus wheel of double Gloucester cheese down a stunningly steep hill to thrill and astonish the onlooking thousands.

Well, the safety first types have had their way with this time-honoured tradition, and it won't happen this year ...
sad times when traditions give way to fear....

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/12/cheese_rolling/

grr.

Hands Up For Detroit

I don't think I've ever simply re-posted somebody else's blog post, but I really appreciate this one, and I want as many people as possible to see it.

Check it out:
http://www.readymade.com/blogs/readymade/hands-up-for-detroit/

Is Ballmer Balmy?

The Guardian reports that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer claims that Google's culture isn't responsible for its success, but rather that it's based on their incumbency in the search arena.

Faced with Google's rampant success and dominance of the online world, legions of experts have tried over the years to dissect what makes it such a unique and powerful company.

Is it because its engineers famously get 20% of their time to develop their own projects? Is it the influence of the 'triumvirate' of top executives? Or is it that Google simply understands the future better than the rest of the world?

Ask Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer why he thinks Google is the internet's most powerful company, however, and he'll offer a straightforward alternative: it got there first.
Speaking at the SMX West conference in California on Tuesday, the man in charge of rival search engine Bing said that Google's success today was not tangibly linked to the company's culture, but simply spun out of the fact that it became successful in web search before its rivals.

"The number one thing that Google benefits from in search is that they did it right, first," he said. "There's a value to incumbency." "You can ascribe these things to things like culture, but it's never clear which came first - incumbency or culture," he added. [emphasis added]

Playing up Microsoft's own culture and staff, Ballmer admitted that the software giant was late to produce a mature, usable search engine technology - despite launching the first MSN Search website as long ago as 1998. But with Bing slowly growing market share in the United States, he said that his eventual goal was to become the dominant engine.

"We've got great long-term optimism," he said. "Tomorrow's goal is to gain a few points, a tenth here, a tenth there - just keep working and working."

His comments about culture will be seen as a sideswipe at Google, which has built a reputation based in part on its attempt to build a culture diametrically opposed to Microsoft's.

Let's take Mr. Ballmer's statements at face value. Google's being first with a good product in the search category is the reason that other search engines have been unable to wrest that top spot from them.
I get it. That explains why Lotus and WordPerfect are the dominant entries in their segments, I suppose. Oh. Wait. Reverse that, as Willy Wonka might say.

More likely, this is Steve's attempt to explain away Bing's lack of a knockout punch. It seems that this doesn't happen to Microsoft very often - Quicken, anyone? - so they're not terribly adept at explaining it away.

Carnage du Jour - 23 February 10

Wow. Perhaps the best lamb chops I've ever made.

This was very simple, and was made to go with some oven-roasted sliced potatoes and onions that Heidi had made.
I simply heated a skillet nice and hot with some canola oil, then I rubbed the chops with kosher salt, Herbes de Provence (the good stuff with plenty of lavender), and a bit of chipotle pepper.
Once the first side was down, I did the same thing on the other side - but I added a bit of dry mustard (Colman's prepared, of course) to the mix. After getting a bit of a nice crust on each side, I added a handful of grape tomatoes and a splash of beef stock (since I had some sitting in the fridge) and popped it in a 400F oven for 5 minutes. At the 5-minute mark, I put a little bit of shredded mozzarella on top of each and let it melt briefly before hitting it with the broiler to add a touch of brown.

As I said before, Wow. Perhaps the best lamb chops I've ever made.