Belle was mentioning today that she was ready for the weather to cool off so we could make gumbos and stews and corn maque chou. (mock chew)
Corn maque chou is a regional thing, with lots of different recipes. The only real constants are corn and cream. Everything else is the chef's choice. I like onion and bell pepper, while Belle might add some petit diced tomatoes.
Below is Bruce Mitchell's recipe. You can tell that the weather is cool, because Bruce is wearing a shirt.
I lost my wedding band last week. I've been losing weight and noticed that the band was getting a bit loose, but didn't think much about it. Until it was gone. Doing yard work, I noticed that I was not wearing a wedding band. Well, hell.
It was a plain gold band, 10-carat, size 9. I think, when I got married, I paid about $50 for it.
This morning, I went to my jeweler and ordered a new wedding band. Yellow cold, 10-carat. The guy didn't blush went he told me the price, but he did apologize. $500. Yeah, really. I'll pick it up on Tuesday. The gold spot price today s $4284.25.
I'm one of those guys who feels naked without a wedding band.
I just finished a dry week, which is something I do occasionally. For one entire calendar week, no alcohol of any kind. No beer, no wine, no whiskey. It helps reset the palate, gives the liver a break, and makes sure that there are no psychological problems. It's a good idea.
Surprisingly, I don't miss it at all when I take a dry week, which is exactly the point.
We did get a passing thunderstorm late this afternoon. We need the rain.
Over Sunday lunch, I heard a rumor that truck drivers and others are planning a diesel strike for October 1st. What?? That don't make sense.
Yeah, I know. Fuel prices are high. But the idea that truckers are going to turn off the engine to protest high prices sounds a bit odd. Doing a little Google-fu tells me that the idea seems to have gotten the best legs on the Book of Face. That particular social media page has a world-wide reputation for accurate information (/sarc). So there you have that.
More pressing concerns is what's for lunch? I have a good tomato, a loaf of fresh bread and a pound of bacon. I believe it's time for a good ol' bacon and 'mater sammich.. I'm going to preheat the oven and slide that bacon in there for 30 minutes or so.
Climate change - This is the first summer that I can remember when we have ot had a hurricane in the Atlantic basin. I've lived here through 72 summers and can't remember a summer like this one. NOAA bacs me up on this, and I am not complaining.
The hummingbirds are passing through and my feeders are totally engaged. I'm going through sugar water at an enhanced rate.
Human migration - After watching Nick's video yesterday and thinking abut the lessons we can glean from it, I am wondering what the Atakapa people might think about it. Or the Huron or Chippewa or Arisaka? The worst part is that the folks who defend illegal migration is that they probably don't know who the Chippewa or Atakapa people are. We can learn from history. How did hat work out for the Cherokee?
The AI Kerfuffle - Has anyone but me noticed that the AI democrats are making the same arguments that they used when trying to quell covid? Trust the science... Flatten the curve... It's going to kill us all... My strongest argument is that Bernie Sanders hasn't been right about anything yet. If Bernie says that it is an existential threat, we should probably ignore him. He ain't been right about anything yet.
This is Saturday and I have things to accomplish, so if you will excuse me.
Nick Freidas is a conservative voice in the United States. A proud veteran, he served with the US 1st Special Forces in overseas deployments. Post military, he served in the Virginia legislature. Now he is speaking out on a range of issues.
Nick put out a documentary on the problems of unrestricted immigration. It is a cautionary tale for US politics and social policy.
I have three big AC units in the shop, and since June I have left one of them running even when we aren't in the shop I have the thermostat set and it seems to help keep the place cooler, with a shorter cool-down time.
This mooring we awoke to milder temps, drier air, and the coffee on the patio was very pleasant. When the dog and I walked out to the shop, I was pleased to see that the AC unit was cycled off. It's cooler in here than it has been sine last May.
We still have a lot of summer left in subtropical Louisiana and we are in a drought with no relief in sight for the next week or so. But, this morning gives me reassurance that milder temps are on the way. In another month, I might be able to make a gumbo.
Very soon, I'll be hauling propane bottles to the feed store to heat the place.
It's a popular meme in science fiction, dramatized by Arnold Schwartzenegger about the day that Skynet became self-aware. Great movie and scary gloom and doom about computers are going to kill us all.
Now in an Orwellian twist, I see that the tech giants on the forefront of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are asking government to regulate them. That is the most bizarre thig I have ever heard. Huge companies asking government to get involved in their business.
The huge fallacy here is that government is capable of intelligently regulating technology that so few of us understand. My congressman, for example, is incapable of regulating himself. He's an idiot. Come November, he will be out of work, but I don't hold out much hope for his replacement, at least in any technical field. Congress is the last body I want to see regulating AI.
As for these tech giants, are they incapable of regulating themselves? They need Big Brother to keep the genie locked in the bottle?
Lets note the timing. We are less than two months away from the mid-term elections. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but both the subject matter and timing are suspicious. This whole idea is so bizarre as to beg for conspiracy theories. What is the real play?
Something is afoot and all we are seeing is the smokescreen.
