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The horse-meat saga continues. Earlier this year, certain burger patties were found to contain 29% horse. Today it was announced that Findus brand frozen lasagne contains up to 100% horse. If you live in the UK and like to eat boxed Lasagne and don’t like horse, then you should probably return your Findus brand frozen lasagne.
Image from s. bar via flickr
Here are two more adverts that cleverly play on US and UK differences. While neither of them are as good as the Enterprise UK advert, they are neat. The first is with Jennifer Aniston.
This video is archived here if it ever comes off youtube.
The second one is with Bruce Willis and is the better of the two. It fits his movie personality very well.
First off, I’m not going to spend this post talking about why I’m against gay “marriage.” I am because the Bible says marriage is between 1 man and 1 woman. Out of wedlock sex with anyone is a sin regardless of who it happens between. Quite simply, I want to say this isn’t a “rights” issue. It is a “we want to redefine a word to fit what we want” issue. Why?
Well, quite simply gays, straights, upside-down, or right-side up, all people could get married. What?!?! I hear the cries. No they couldn’t you say. Yes they could I say. Cyndi and I got married. A gay, lesbian, purple-people-eater or whoever had the same right. Any man could marry a woman and any woman could marry a man. Everyone was equal and had the same rights. But yet, the opponents of “traditional” marriage pressed on.
They wanted the word marriage redefined in the law so a man could marry a man or a woman a woman (or, I assume to a purple-people-eater). Well, on Tuesday, that happened in the UK when the House of Commons in England voted to redefine marriage.
Interestingly enough, though, this has caused havoc with the definition of other words. For example, adultery is defined something like out of wedlock sex between a man and a woman. Interesting. Did you catch that? That means that gay people can’t commit adultery in the eyes of the law. That causes all sorts of other havoc. If you’re “married” then sex with anyone other than your “other” should be adultery. Something similar happened in the US with divorce. The laws in the states with gay marriage proposals didn’t adjust to include other terms.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too. This isn’t a civil-rights issue. It is a we-want-to-force-you-to-accept-our-way-of-life issue. Before the law changes, everyone had exactly the same rights. They just couldn’t do what they wanted. There is a difference.
Image from o. ortelpa via flickr
FatSecret for 8 Feb 2013
Weight: 109 kg
Waist: 47 in
Neck: 17 in
Body Fat as reported by DietAndFitnessToday: 33.71
Total Weight Loss: 9 kg (from high of 118 kg)
Image from TMAB2003 via flickr
On the way to/from work one day, the gas company was doing some works. I saw this sign had been put up in place of one of the standard “caution” signs. The text says “Please drive carefully so I can see my daddy tonight and you can see your family. Love Gracie”
FatSecret for 7 Feb 2013
Weight: 110 kg
Waist: 47 in
Neck: 17 in
Body Fat as reported by DietAndFitnessToday: 33.71
Total Weight Loss: 8 kg (from high of 118 kg)
I haven’t lost much weight over the past week. I think the reason is I haven’t been drinking enough water. I’ll bump it up this next week and see what happens.
Image from Take it to the Manx via flickr
I have continued reading the Scratch series of books with Buffalo Palace. You can read more abou the first book, Dance on the Wind, here. It ends with Titus Bass working in St. Louis wanting to head west.
This second book picks up with Bass 31 years old actually leaving St. Louis. Headed west to “that land” he’s been ichin’ to see from when he left home at 15. In this book, Bass gets to see the buffalo he’s wanted to see for so long (and he finds out they are difficult to kill). He crosses the grass sea of the plains with no indian trouble. Then, once he’s out west, he starts trapping. He doesn’t have much luck because he doesn’t know how to trap.
A group of free trappers walks up on him while sleeping one morning. He throws in with them and, at location 2727, we see them accept Titus and give him a nickname. Here’s the quote:
“Scratchin’ is what he’s doing,” Silas said. “So—I say let’s give him a new name what’s fittin’ for all them nits he’s been digging at.” “We gonna call him nit?” Hooks asked with a silly grin. “Nawww,” Cooper growled as he stood and stepped over behind Bass with his warm tin cup of coffee in hand—which he slowly began to pour on Titus’s head. … Then Cooper flung his cup aside and spread a hand over the crown of Bass’s head, raising his eyes to the black of that winter night, his voice booming in declaration. “Henceforth and for yonder time—let all men know this here pilgrim…no longer be called Titus Bass, greenhorn … but from now on he be the free trapper we gonna know as—Scratch!”
After having some run-ins with indians, getting some pelts stolen, and having more indian run-ins Titus meets up with another group of people. This second group of people really take Scratch in after a serious wound. For three years, they trap together, throw in with some indians, and have even more indian battles.
All in all, if you liked the first Scratch book, you should continue the story with Buffalo Palace. if you haven’t read it yet, go pick yourself up a copy. Here is a link to Dance on the Wind at Amazon.
Oh, towards the end, there is a great observation on this era in American History (from location 6105):
In the span of less than two momentous years, a breed was born out here among these rich valleys sheltered and shadowed by the high and snowy places. A novice who was at first content to follow others up the Missouri River to the beaver country, William H. Ashley had ended up fathering a whole new strain of frontiersmen. Unlike their predecessors, those “longhunters” who had roamed the hardwoods forests back east of the Mississippi, these fledgling grandsons were only beginning to tramp across an unfathomable territory much more hostile in both geography and native inhabitants than anything ever before encountered by their eastern forebears. Unlike their grandfathers had ever done back east, men of this new breed would live their simple existence permanently in the mountains—but without a permanent base. Such rootlessness, such unending wandering, suited this new breed just fine. This was the dawn of a glorious era. The mountain man had been born.
Ok. Growing up in the states, I always assumed that people I elected went to Congress, the statehouse, etc… and voted how they thought they should vote. No one could tell them how to vote and certainly no one could force them to vote a certain way.
Well, the recent vote on gay marriage here in the UK made me do some looking. It was called a Vote of Conscience where MPs could vote how they wanted. This implies that normally someone tells them how to vote. If that is true, I understand the Parliamentary system of government even less and think it is inferior to something like a Representative form of government like we have.
Perhaps someone can help me out. Have I misunderstood it? Do MPs get forced to vote certain ways? As someone who elects them, doesn’t it make you feel as if you have no representation in the government?
Image from sam llic via flickr
I’m not so much a Republican but a Conservative. The Republicans aren’t. Sure, they are more so than the Democrats, but they aren’t Conservative. The party needs to make a nice hard right turn to save itself. This is totally the wrong direction for the party. Another link is here.
Image from Keith Bloomfield via flickr
FatSecret for 6 Feb 2013
Weight: 110 kg
Waist: 47.5 in
Neck: 17 in
Body Fat as reported by DietAndFitnessToday: 34.33
Total Weight Loss: 8 kg (from high of 118 kg)
Image from ~gomez~ via flickr