Pennsylvania isn't going to pay its state employees.

HOW DO ANIMALS WITH THICK FUR MAKE VITAMIN D?????????

I AM NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO SLEEP UNTIL I KNOW!!

I love dyeing fabric! I love it so much. I have dyed a dozen onesies and a hat for the baby, half a dozen long sleeved tees and a pair of pants for mini-Common Reader, sets of jammies for the minions, a skirt for me, multiple sets of curtains, a very long length of fabric that I want to hem for a tablecloth, some silk, and a lot of random yards of muslin.

It's like the Cultural Revolution, except in California.

The parts about how killing off the rodents is killing off their predators? You guys know how this story ends, right?

I am full of wincing sympathy for poor Sonia Sotomayor. It's every accomplished person's worst nightmare: being publicly revealed as a complete fraud, totally unqualified for your post.

Great, government by the pathologically insecure, here we come.

It seems to be true that nearly everyone who uses the internet lives in a city and I think that my year in a little rural English village, given the short bus and train hops that would bring one to Liverpool or Manchester, could not really be considered an example of what I am thinking of today. But I have lived in the real Big Empty, in the North West Territories where it is advisable to take a gun and survival gear with you in the truck if you are going to go to the next town to buy something. And in a place like that, the absolute necessity, for simple survival, of having other people around comes home to you.

I think the de-population people mostly live in cities too. They probably take crowded commuter trains to work in their internet-equipped offices every day. They probably get a coffee at a crowded coffee bar and have to dodge busy traffic to get a paper. Most of us are used to this kind of thing. It would not surprise me to hear that the entire staff of a group like the Optimum Population Trust live in central London. And certainly, living cheek-by-jowl with two or five or eleven million people can really put one off the idea of more people.

But go out into the country and things are different. You realise very quickly how much you need others. In city life, other people are a burden, something to be escaped as often and for as long as one can. But I can well imagine what it must have been like to have lived in the middle ages in some country village, in winter, with the wolves in the woods and the real and immediate possibility of starvation held off only by the combined labour of your own family and those of your neighbours.

The wolves aren't here yet but the crows and coyotes are. Or, rather, Crow is here and also Coyote.

Hey, there is a cheap Indonesian vacation in my future!

How I Became an Accidental Slumlord

I became a landlord unintentionally too. Somehow I have avoided all of these problems and therefore cannot write a vaguely anti-private property screed for Newsweek. Not buying a random duplex in the middle of Idaho probably helped.

I finally got around to sticking the tomatillos I got last week in the oven, and making green salsa.  I really, really like that stuff, though this batch didn't come out very hot.  The flavor seemed good and balanced, and it's easy enough to make.

Vanilla vodka in root beer is sweet, and blends in well.  You could totally get someone drunk on this before they even noticed.

I went to look up one thing and got Wikipedia'd again.  You know who has a foot fetish?  Everyone.  From my experiences with foot fetish webmasters, I'm willing to bet everyone on this list is a total asshole.  Also, I love that the second item under the related list for Natalism is Cannon Fodder.

from twitter: If you need to check family members regarding Jakarta explosions, call MMC hospital: +62-21 520-3435, +62-21- 527-3473

We went there! The baby sang a song to the bears.

I've been working on updating the Trash Film Orgy website - check it out!

My roommate, John, called a night of Plus and A2 square dancing at El Camino Reelers last night, and I accompanied him. His choreography is always fun, but his delivery was a little bit rusty, and there were more than a few times when he had to start us over. Fortunately, though, the dancers were all very good-natured, especially when he was workshopping us through this square dance record from the 1960s called "Guitar Polka." All the calls were basic calls, but called in ways that we don't really do too much of nowadays, so it was a little challenging, in a fun way.

After dinner, some of the dancers, as well as ECR in exile, went to Frankie, Johnny, and Luigi's Italian Restaurant for dinner. I had a salad, eggplant parmagiana, and a personal apple pie for supper.

Originally published at Tawdry Talk.

Everywhere I turn, there is a divide between those who idolize Sarah, and the few who see beyond her image and pay attention to the difference between who she presents herself as and who she is.
I think her family's issues was one of the biggest divides. Yet, family is one of the core foundations of true conservatism. People everywhere were excusing her (and reacting to the vicious liberal media) by saying that "everyone makes mistakes," but few bothered to reason that those "mistakes" occurred because of the (non-conservative) structure she had set up: her career ambitions with a young family in tow; her inability to calm and control her daughter.

Well, yeah, that's because "real" conservatives have been completely defeated. There is nowhere, not anyplace on Earth, where "real" conservatives values can form a social context, a livable world. People can play at it in wealthy suburbs but it's fake.

So it's a lot more important to knock up Bristol Palin, early and often, than it is to be ideologically pure.

In fact, it is the most important thing.

Seriously, is someone just producing reality right out of their copy of The Camp of the Saints?

This is a white man:



This is a wise Latina:



This is a map of the Mediterranean:




Who would have ever thought that the particular dialect of Latin your Mediterranean ancestors picked up would be so important?