John & Belle Have A Blog

Shoppin'

I was going to link to a cool eBay item that I'm thinking of bidding for, when I realized that was really irrational behavior. So I'm linking to a cool eBay item I'm merely watching and not going to bid on. Y'all get in there and buy some cool 50s barkcloth with farm scenes on it. If you like that sort of thing.

If you had a windowseat in your kitchen, or a banquette or something, you could make pillows. Or they could just be curtains, albeit only for one window. The cutest thing ever would be pillows and oven mitts and an apron.

Gay Marriage: Still a Good Idea

The Federalist Society has sponsored an on-line debate between proponents and opponents of gay marriage, in which the...ah, how shall I put this...total failure of the opponents to muster any good arguments at all is the most salient point.

Nothing new here, of course. By the way, you may all be amused to know that I was contacted by an earnest Brigham Young student who wanted to use my bizzaro-world arguments in a debate. I explained that I didn't agree with them at all but he was nonetheless welcome to them. So, I did my part to advance the cause of evil in this world. Well, look, it was a teeny, tiny part of evil, and he seemed so clean-cut and articulate!

I would tell you to read the whole debate, but it's really long. I'll summarize:
Dale Carpenter and Andy Koppelman: How about some compelling arguments of all sorts. Utilitarian! Based on innate human dignity! Taking into account existing gay families with children! We got'em all!
Robert Nagel: Let's face it, if we let gay people get married we'll have to act like there's nothing wrong with being gay.
Amy Wax: Anti-monogamy gay men will form marriage sleeper-cells which will detonate into wanton heterosexual promiscuity! And it's not as good for children to grow up in households where they aren't biologically related to both parents.
D.C. and A.K. What? What does that have to do with anything?
Robert Nagel: The fact that gay-marriage proponents have absolutely all the good arguments on their side is...suspicious. Plus, in this new dystopic gay-married future, we no longer be permitted to sing songs with heterosexual themes!*
Finis

*You don't believe me, do you? Nagel: "I fear that the drive for gay marriage will end in frustration and in a sustained effort to obliterate from our schools and libraries and conversations and songs the rich heritage associated with traditional marriage."

Cole Slaw

Last night I made pulled pork and cole slaw.
1 small head cabbage, sliced thinly
2 carrots, grated
1/2 small red onion, sliced thinly
2 eggs
2 T butter
2/3 c vinegar (I used rice because thats what I had)
salt and pepper
1/2 c greek-style yogurt
1 t celery seed

1. Beat the eggs till thick. Bring butter and vinegar to a boil in a small saucepan.
2. Pour the vinegar mixture in a thin stream, whisking the eggs all the while. If you are concerned about the raw eggs, return the mixture to a double boiler over low heat and stir for a while.
3. Whisk in yogurt, salt and pepper and celery seeds. Pour over cabbage etc. while still warm. Admittedly, it's a lot better with pulled pork on the side, but...

No Fun

I know I gave Yglesias top honors a while back on having useless comment threads, and truthfully, Steve Sailer is almost a ringer from that point of view. Nonetheless, young Ezra Klein's blog is making a bid for greatness with a new player: Mixner the 'suburbs represent the apex of human civilization' troll. Now, he's not obviously a troll at first glance, because he's perfectly courteous and often proffers statistical arguments (of whatever merit). But he just inhabits the blog, squatting on it like a toad, solely to argue against increased funding for public transit, and against any suggestion that dense urban places might appeal to real Americans. He's in favor of the kind of diffuse exurban sprawl that has made our great nation into a bunch of shit-box stucco McMansions interspersed with failed strip malls.

No matter how tangential the connection to energy use or transportation policy, Mixner will be there to occupy every other slot in the thread. Sometimes he strangles it in its crib, at other times provokes some innocent with his "who's that walking across my publicly financed bridge?! gnurrr"-routine and the thing peters out into an increasingly angry exchange. This comment thread is characteristic, and notable for the fact that Atrios of all people tripp-trapps over the bridge, but it was just the first one I came up with.

The question is, who would do that for fun? It seems so un-fun, so dreary and pointless, an endless recursion of the pointlessness of blogging itself: I'm going to render the comments of this progressive blog unusable with my support for the foresightful city planners of Phoenix, Arizona! That'll show those wonky people who want to talk abut variable road pricing what for! I'm inclined to fall back on dark, John Emerson-style suspicions that, much like the Al-bots, Mixner is on the take.

Bangs

Ouch, Stuff White People Like just dinged me really bad. I would defend myself on the grounds that I cut my own bangs rather than paying lots of money, but since that obviously makes me just an artsier sub-variant of the bangs-having chicks white people like there's no point. Swipple pwned!

Slogans We Can Believe In

McCain '08:
Let's Start a Land War in Asia!!

UPDATE: Based on comments, I think I prefer, "Let's Get Involved In Another Land War in Asia!"

The Top 5 Evil Songs That Get Stuck in My Head

1. "Play That Funky Music, White Boy" by Wild Cherry [This may be the worst offender in terms of total time.]
2. "Take a Chance On Me", Abba [and the earwormish powers of "Mamma Mia" and "Dancing Queen" are likewise not to be discounted.]
3. "Careless Whispers", George Michael
4. "Daniel", Elton John
5.  "I Want It That Way", Backstreet Boys [currently stuck in my head in the Weird Al cover version "I Bought It on eBay", she said, grinding her molars like some prehistoric plant-eating proto-mammalian dinosaur.]

Kudos, Jesse

Yay that Jesse Taylor is around writing stuff like this:

Why do men do these things?

I’m going to guess that “men” (and by men, Gallagher also means several women, none of whom count because hey look ocelots.

OMG I love ocelots! The whole post is worth reading, of course. My wonder at the fathomless stupidity of Maggie Gallagher has been rekindled. Also, I'm baaack! Got in yesterday am after a 26-hour (door to door) trip with the girls. Sorry I broke the blog.