After my glowing review of Paula Deen’s “Quiche of Doom”, a reader suggested that I take a look at the following recipe: Paula Deen’s Butter Balls.

I’ll summarize. Mash together two sticks of butter, 1/4 cup cream cheese, some flour and bread crumbs. Then deep fry in peanut oil.

What the hell, Paula Deen!?! That is my question to you. What the hell?

I couldn’t be happier that the film “The Cove” won the Best Documentary Oscar last night.  And not just because I enjoy the spectacle of dolphin murder. Rather, I hope that it brings the shameful issue of dolphin killing to the forefront of the Japanese conscience.

Like most people, I have some conscience regarding the ethical treatment of animals. I eat meat, but I prefer that the animals be raised naturally and slaughtered humanely.

I also have a “sentience frontier” that applies to my eating. Unless I’m starving, I would never approve of the hunting and killing of animals that I know to be above a certain level of intelligence and awareness. There is some gray area here where I’m knowingly inconsistent. For example, I would never eat dog, but I do eat plenty of pig, even though the two species are close in intelligence. I suppose dogs get an exception because of their bred love for humans.

Once creatures rise above a certain level of intelligence, however, that gray area turns to black and white. I would never eat human meat, nor would I eat chimp meat. Dolphin meat is in this same area. It may in fact be the most taboo of all non-human meat, because despite our occasional brutality towards them, dolphins are also display empathy and altruism towards humans.

The reality of human existence is that in areas where people are starving, all food sources will be exploited.  Dolphins, chimps — even other humans become fair game in the struggle to survive.  Once a civilization has adequate food sources, however, it becomes shameful, vulgar, and cruel to continue such abuses of intelligent creatures.

There is no excuse for Japan’s continued mass killing of dolphins.  It doesn’t matter that this was a traditional practice in Japan.  So was clan warfare.  Japan is no longer in the dark ages, and it needs to join the rest of the developed world (and much of the undeveloped world) in prohibiting the mass killing of dolphins.

As many of my readers already know, for a long period of time I haven’t been able to afford decent food.  I almost exclusively ate Ramen noodles and Mac & Cheese for much of this period, to which I’d sometimes add some low grade hamburger meat.

For a few months now though, I’ve been going to a local church that gives food away to starving students.  It consists of expired products that have not visibly turned, along with bread that is past its prime.

Occasionally we are privy to some rather unusual items.  A few weeks ago, they were offering Pillsbury pie crusts that had just expired.  Then a while later, I was able to obtain a 2 pound brick of cheese.  Coupled with the healthy amounts of expired green produce always available at church, and the optimal meal was obvious: quiche.

I looked up a recipe online by Paula Deen.  I had to buy some bacon, eggs, and cream in order to fill out the ingredients, and I was on my way.

For some reason, I never stopped to consider just how heavy her recipe truly was.  A single quiche required 1.5 cups of heavy cream, 1 pound of bacon, and 6 eggs.  And don’t forget about the pie crust underneath!  To amplify the heaviness of this still further, I made the quiche in a souffle dish that caused it to be much taller and less flat than a usual quiche.  It was about a triple deep dish quiche in appearance.  I also appear to have undercooked the bacon, so that it continued to cook and leak bacon grease into the quiche.

The net result was the single fattiest, saltiest food product I have ever even attempted to consume.  Imagine a thick, fat cylindrical egg pie with a layer of clear bacon fat on top, runny bacon fat throughout the creamy innards, and then a pie crust saturated with dripped fat.  I ate a single piece of it, and then couldn’t eat anything else all day.  I just drank some skim milk and water instead.

I gather that Paula Deen has a reputation for rich cooking.  I’ll take that into account next time.

Appearing in full body robes at a press conference today, Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda claimed full responsibility for the automaker’s recent recalls.

“I have done great dishonor to company and family.  I now must atone for shame I have brought to house.”

An assistant then brought out a single piece of toro sushi, Toyoda’s favorite food.  He was also served a single cup of fine sake.  After Toyoda consumed both, another assistant brought out a single tanto knife and placed in on the plate.  Toyoda picked up the knife, opened his robes, and plunged it into his abdomen with a yelp.

With Toyoda unable to complete the full disembowelment, another assistant approached from behind and delivered a perfect dakikubi, leaving Toyoda’s nearly decapitated head dangling by a small filament of flesh.

The present Toyota executives then bowed to the assembled press, and quietly left the room.

We all rememeber the disgusting, over the top Nike ads prior to the Torino Olympics in 2006, portraying Bode Miller as some sort of Buddhist messiah. We were supposed to believe that his uncaring, oblivious attitude was a form of enlightenment: “Bodeism”, as Nike would have it.

The highlight of Miller’s 2006 Olympic experience was “partying Olympic style”, staying out late to exploit his celebrity status with the Sestriere Eurosluts. He took no medals and didn’t even finish 3 of 5 races. He didn’t even show for the opening ceremonies in 2006, and actually mocked teammate Darren Rahlves for having a work ethic.  And it’s not as if he was some sort of brash bad boy.  A thoroughgoing coward everywhere but on the slopes, he actually jumped a fence to run away from reporters in 2006.

Bode’s behavior since 2006 has been no better. After Team USA got sick of him, rather than cleaning up his act, Miller split off and formed the separate “Team America” to ski World Cup events on his own.

But the idiotic media doesn’t seem to care about all this.  They have picked up Miller’s banner once again, with lauding headlines like, “Bode Goes from Zero to Hero”.  That’s not what happened.  Miller may have some more Olympic medals, but he is no hero.  What parent would urge their child to emulate his consistently selfish, idiotic, shameful behavior?  Sure he’s a good skiier, but how could anyone make the case for him being a good person?

Bode Miller is a good athelete.  Nobody is debating that, just as nobody did in 2006.  But Miller is among the worst examples of a high profile human being that the world has to offer.  Hanging a gold medal around his neck may recuperate his public image somewhat, but it will do nothing to fix his selfish and cowardly heart.

Hank’s big idea:

To address the moral hazard issue, the government needs broad-based authority to liquidate any failing financial institution without going through the bankruptcy process, which is not well-suited for such complex firms in the midst of a financial crisis. We must send a clear signal to market participants that whenever this process is put in motion, the outcome is liquidation; we cannot leave any hope that we would inject taxpayer dollars to preserve the failing firm in its present form.

This idea is shockingly stupid.  The reason that bankruptcy is “not well-suited for complex firms in the midst of a financial crisis” is that they cannot be liquidated without huge losses and tremendous marketwide disruptions.  Assume for a moment that the government takes responsibility to “liquidate” financial institutions in such straits.  The only way it can do this is by taking huge losses itself (as with AIG) or taking illiquid securities on to its own balance sheets (IE, TARP).  This = bailout, so Paulson is proposing the status quo.

Paulson’s supposed goal is that, “Taxpayers never again have to save a failing financial institution.”  But his actual recommendations will guarantee that this will happen.  Paulson is still clearly living in the absurd pre-crisis free market dreamworld.  He needs to think before opening his mouth.

I was moving my computer back into school yesterday evening and I decided to economize by using my wheeled deskchair as a lorry to haul my computer tower.  After all, the tower is pretty heavy because it is so awesome.

Well, one of the deskchair wheels got stuck in a crack. The chair tipped violently forward, catapulting my tower with an end over end flipping motion. It seemed like slow motion — I knew that a disaster was in progress, and I could do nothing to stop it. After several flips, the tower slammed into the ground and shattered into what seemed like a million pieces.

Closer inspection revealed that only the case had shattered; the computer itself lay traumatized and naked on the wet ground.  I didn’t have my power cable with me last night, so I couldn’t test it at all until this morning.  I was hoping to at least salvage the graphics cards from it.

And wouldn’t you know it, it works!  The whole damn thing works.  It’s still naked, granted.  But both hard drives, all the video cards, everything works!

After such I break, I hereby solemnly swear to change my policy of occasional retardation, and never do anything retarded ever again.

When I heard that Tim Tebow and Focus on the Family were teaming up for a Super Bowl ad, I assumed we would be getting some positive Christian message about family values or something. I was shocked — SHOCKED — by what I witnessed.

Instead of complimenting his poor mother for her difficulties in raising him, the 6′3″, 240 pound Tebow viciously tackles the poor woman at high speed. From the angle of impact and the audible cracking of bones, he likely broke several of her ribs and drove them into her liver, spleen, and lungs.

I don’t know what church Tebow goes to. But when I was growing up, I never ONCE heard any preacher say that inflicting brutal organ damage on mothers was a good idea. I cannot imagine what perverse morality could possibly justify such an act.

For shame, Mr. Tebow. In our morally bankrupt culture, maternal respect was the last remaining bastion of dignity. You not only assailed this bastion; you viciously launched yourself into it and shattered it to pieces.

If only Mrs. Tebow had gotten an abortion. Then none of this would have happened.

The sculpture “Bird in Space” recently sold for more than $100 million.  Here’s what it looks like:

While I can handle some modern art, much of it really eludes me.  I can get why works by Jackson Pollock, David Hockney, or Mark Rothko are considered beautiful by some.  I have no clue why anyone would put Koons or Warhol at a similar level of aesthetic value.  Giacometti (the sculptor) is sort of in the middle ground to me.  I like his work, but it seems more a curiosity than a masterwork to me.

I understand that this sculpture is quite visually arresting.  But to me, it looks like a bronze cast of a Tim Burton character that you could see come to life on screen for a $3.99 rental fee, never mind $100 million.