Don Kenn posts his post-its for us all to enjoy. Personally, I see Gorey, Jansson, Miyazaki, maybe more….

NYTimes.

Oh, and bonus: stupid headline.

hee hee

via WFMU’s Beware the Blog

OK, I am slow to keep up with all the political news, but this parody letter by the Tea Party Express chairman is just unbelievable. What the hell? This is absolutely appalling (and not funny to boot). How does he keep his job? That he does must say something about the party he represents, eh?

Dear Mr. Lincoln

We Colored People have taken a vote and decided that we don’t cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!

How many steps back does this country have to take before we start moving forward again?

I think last time I came to Otter Rock (age 8?) I couldn’t beat this game.

The chowder wasn’t as good as I remembered, but the place is still fun, nice staff, great view, laid back.

This is the view from the top of Cape Perpetua on Friday evening.

Here’s the view from the same CCC-built stone lookout the next morning.

*For those who don’t know this acronym, I’m going to say it stands for Adobe Caslon.

I still like the iPhone. But I’m no early adapter of anything technical, unless it’s free. This is made with that XtraNormal animation site Squidocto demonstrated before.

via Christine Gobbo

Nice “wait-for-it” moment at the end. Terrible puppetry.

Perhaps the posting of this is an indication of a little too much sun recently.

And yes there’s more of this Little Marcy, uh, goodness:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Rosauers market in Hood River had live crawdads for sale (a holiday treat?). Of course you want to keep them on ice, but some seemed to have busted out and headed across the polar wastes to the pile of salmon.

Very interesting note on nitrate/nitrites found in bacon from the always-excellent Cook’s Illustrated.

Nitrate-Free Bacon

I often see “no nitrates or nitrites added” bacon in the grocery store. How does this differ from regular bacon?
— Eric Williams, New Orleans, LA.

Nitrite has long been a controversial food additive, with studies showing it forms carcinogenic compounds called nitrosamines when heated in the presence of proteins, like those in bacon. Regular bacon is cured with nitrite (NO2) or a virtually identical chemical, nitrate (NO3), both of which act as preservatives, though only nitrite has the potential to form potentially harmful nitrosamines. Bacon labeled “nitrate-or nitrite-free” on the other hand, is brined with salt, a bacterial lactic acid starter culture, and celery juice (sometimes listed as “natural flavor”). But here’s the catch: Celery juice naturally contains a high level of organic nitrate, which is converted into the problematic nitrite by the bacteria in the starter culture and also by saliva during chewing. Despite this fact, it’s technically correct to label the bacon “no nitrates or nitrites added,” since the compounds are formed during production, not added as ingredients.

The question is: How do the levels of nitrite and nitrate in uncured bacon compare with those in its cured counterpart? When we fired up strips of our favorite supermarket bacon, Farmland Hickory Smoked, along with Farmland All-Natural Uncured Bacon (“no nitrate or nitrite added”), tasters found the sampled virtually identical in taste and texture. To quantify the nitrite and nitrate levels in these bacons, we sent three packages of each type to a lab for testing. For comparison, we also sent three packages of the Best Buy from our tasting of artisanal bacon, Applegate Farms Uncured Sunday Bacon (labeled “no nitrites added”). As we expected, all the of the bacons contained nitrite and nitrate and the nitrite levels were well withing U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines of no more than 120 parts per million (ppm).

But to our surprise, the uncured bacon actually had higher levels of nitrite than the cured meat: Farmland Hickory Smoked Bacon registered an average of 9.7 ppm nitrite (and 48ppm nitrate), while its All-Natural counterpart showed an average of 16.3 ppm nitrite (and 10.3 ppm nitrate). And the Applegate Farms Uncured Sunday Bacon averaged more than three times the level of regular bacon: 35 ppm nitrite (and nearly as much nitrate, at 44.3 ppm). The bottom line: All bacon is likely to contain nitrite and nitrate, whether added at the outset or formed naturally during processing. If you want to avoid these compounds, you’ll have to avoid bacon – and any other processed meats containing celery juice – altogether.

I think Cook’s Illustrated should post this outside their paywall to drive traffic to their site.

And a huge thread on nitrate/nitrates/saltpeter/curing/definitions of bacon on Chowhound.

A wonderful, magical animal

Ah, the tastes of home.

The Internet Celebrities have a couple videos like this, directed by Casimir Nozkowski.