Careful Thought

UPDATE:  Here is a link to the McCain press release announcing Gov Palin’s selection. (You may need to scroll down.)  (HT: PalinforVP)

I take back some of that stuff I said about Old Grumpy. Yahoo News has this:

DENVER - John McCain tapped little-known Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential running mate on Friday in a startling selection on the eve of the Republican National Convention.

Two senior campaign officials disclosed Mccain’s decision a few hours before the Republican presidential nominee-to-be and his newly-minted running mate appeared at a rally in swing-state Ohio.

Palin is a self-styled hockey mom and political reformer who has been governor of her state less than two years.

Palin’s selection shocked numerous Republican officials.

In making his pick, Mccain passed over several more prominent prospects who had figured in speculation for months — Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge among them.

At 44, Palin is a generation younger that Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, who is Barack Obama’s running mate on the Democratic ticket.

She is three years Obama’s junior, as well — and McCain has made much in recent weeks of Obama’s relative lack of experience in foreign policy and defense matters.

Palin flew overnight to an airport in Ohio near Dayton, and even as she awaited her formal introduction, some aides said they had believed she was at home in Alaska.

McCain said to choose Alaska gov as running mate. - Yahoo! News.

Technorati Tags: John McCain, politics, Sarah Palin

Tags: John McCain, politics, Sarah Palin

Drudge posted the first graphic amid the speculation regarding Old Grumpy’s VP pick.  Sarah Palin is probably the most electable of McCain’s choices.  Personally, I prefer the second graphic.  ABC News puts Palin back in Alaska today, and presumably out of the running, but others sources report her in Ohio. We shall see…

McCain’s only comment was, “Hey, you kids get the $%^& off my lawn.”

Technorati Tags: John McCain, politics, Sarah Palin

Tags: John McCain, politics, Sarah Palin

The webcams at the Panama Canal have been upgraded with the addition of a high-resolution camera at Miraflores.  (Java required).  It’s always interesting to see what’s passing through the canal and with the new camera at the Miraflores Lock, you can get a very clear view.

Technorati Tags: panama canal, webcam

Tags: panama canal, webcam

Over the weekend I jumped in the car and made my way across the barren wastes of Kansas and Missouri to the fabled land of my ancestors - Illinois.  My mom turned 85 and we threw a picnic lunch party for her.  She’s doing pretty well, all things considered.  I now live in Colorado, which is pretty arid, so it was great to get back amongst the greening, growing things.  I grew up on the farm and remember as a kid pitying the other kids who had to grow up in the city.  Most of them had to lock their doors at night.  How sad is that?

I drove back through Iowa and Nebraska, by way of putting some different highway under my wheels.

This picture was taken at a rest stop in Iowa just west of the Quad Cities on I-80. I think it captures the beauty of the Heartland.

This was taken along I-70 near Manhattan, Kansas. Wind farms are popping up all over in Kansas and Iowa. I also saw a lot of new farm equipment being hauled around.

Technorati Tags: farms, Illinois, travel, wind farms

Tags: farms, Illinois, travel, wind farms

I’m off to the ancestral home in the fabled land of the Illinois for my mom’s 85th birthday.  Back on Tuesday (or so).

Technorati Tags: blogging

Tags: blogging

Ambisinister: Clumsy with both hands. (Literally, with two left hands.)

Technorati Tags: words, wotd

Tags: words, wotd

KingDavid at The Far Wright has for some reason developed an unnatural distaste for furry critters.  I think they’re just misunderstood and just want a quiet place to drink a pint in peace…

Technorati Tags: drinking squirrels

Tags: drinking squirrels

“Never moon a werewolf.”

Technorati Tags: miscellaneous, thought for the day

Tags: miscellaneous, thought for the day

One of the best things to happen to me in the past several years was getting the boot from our last church.  Our views on creation and the age of the earth were too heretical for the fundamentalist church to which we had belonged for eight years.  In the time since then, God has been doing some amazing, and often painful, things in my life.  One of the biggest things is the understanding that the church building we go to on Sunday is not as important as the God we profess.  We tend to get wrapped up in churchy things and pretend that churchiness equates to living a Christ-like life.

So I’ve been trying to understand just who I am as a believer and what that belief means.

Along comes Julie Burchill, a columnist for the UK Guardian.  She describes herself as “a former teen atheist who is now a Christian tryer.”  A turning point in her life came when both parents died within a year of each other.  She recognized that both (presumably believers) were now in a better place and that she should be celebrating their lives, not mourning their death.  Her excellent article takes atheists, muslims, catholics and other traditionalists to task for their hidebound adherence to form over substance.  (Muslims, not surprisingly, have launched the expected bitter verbal attacks.)

As a recovering fundamentalist, I would caution that we shouldn’t out-of-hand discard anything simply because it’s come down to us through the years, but our focus absolutely must be outward.  We need to meet people at their point of need, as Christ did, not where it’s comfortable for us.  Churches tend to organize programs and write checks to handle the uncomfy business of broken lives, rather than getting involved.  That’s a hard thing to learn, and harder to do.

Julie wraps up her article this way:

My favourite vicar, the Reverend Gavin Ashenden of Sussex University, never says, “I am a Christian,” but rather “I’m trying to be a Christian”.  Me too.  Between the darkness that faces me from within and the darkness that faces me from without, it may just prove to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I love it.

Saying, “I am a Christian,” is the same as saying, “I have arrived and am all I need to be.”  Christ knows better.  I hope I do, too.  Meanwhile, I keep trying.

Technorati Tags: atheism, faith, fundamentalism, islam

Tags: atheism, faith, fundamentalism, islam

UPDATE:  And what’s a day with a bacon song?  Here are the lyrics:

Pork! It’s the meat of kings!
It’s made from pig, try it with onion rings.
Pork sure goes with everything, cause it’s made from swine, and swine sure tastes fine.
Just bring some to the picnic baby,
You know you wanna stuff it in my hamper.
But please put it in some tupperware
‘Cause I don’t wanna be a porky chancer.
Let’s talk about pork.
Converse about meat.
Veggies get wedgies cause meat can’t be beat!
Ham and bacon, you should taste them.
I know it’s surprising but it’s so appetizing!

(HT: Bacon Unwrapped)

[ORIGINAL POST:]  A day with out bacon is…well, just wrong.  To fill in the gaps in your bacon sensitivities, here are two slices of bacony goodness.

Bacon is usually pork belly or back that has been cured or brined, seasoned, and often smoked. There are countless variations - sliced thick or thin, center-cut, precooked, microwavable, and made from turkey or other meats. Aside from convenience or alternative bacons, here are a few styles you’re likely to encounter in supermarkets and specialty stores:

1. Irish and English bacon. Taken from the loin, with lean surrounded by a ring of fat. Cured and/or smoked.

2. Canadian bacon. Precooked, very lean, cured and lightly smoked, and cut from the loin. (Known as “back bacon” in Canada.)

3. Country bacon. Often heavily smoked, salty, and thickly sliced.

4. Standard bacon. Sliced and packaged, usually with the rind trimmed.

5. Pancetta. Italian bacon from the belly that is seasoned, dry-aged, and cured - not smoked.

6. Slab bacon. Pork belly with fat, lean, and rind, that has been cured and/or smoked, but not sliced.

(HT:  A Bacon Sampler - The Boston Globe)

And to wake you properly in the morning, there’s this:

Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey. Mmmm…can’t you just smell that aroma of sizzling pork wafting from your alarm clock? Brent Rolen sent us a link to this Mathlete report (see swiped photo above) on a clever little gizmo timed to cook a bacon strip under halogen lamps inside a clock radio.

When the alarm goes off, the radio issues not a shrieking siren but the irresistible smell of yummy bacon. In theory, you’d wake up hungry and nostalgic for Mom’s pre-school breakfasts. In practice, you’d probably wake up thinking the house was on fire and bolt into the front yard in your underwear.

And you can’t have bacon without something tall and cool to wash it down, right? Here’s a little something to quench your pork-stoked thirst: bacon vodka. Still not sated? How about a nice chocolate bacon bar. Or bacon chocolate-chip cookies. Or maybe just a nice chaser of bacon beer.

You can run, plant eaters, but you’ll have to stop sometime. And when you do, the clock will be waiting. The alarm is already set. The hour of bacon is at hand.

(HT:  NashvilleScene)

Technorati Tags: bacon

Tags: bacon