When "Yes" Really Means "No"

If you really want to drive a telemarketer crazy give this a try. Just keep saying yes to each question they ask. This is pretty funny stuff, check it out.



It might be worth leaving your number off the no-call list just to give this a shot.

The Sauce

On the show this morning I talked about a great BBQ sauce I came across. Many of you have asked for the recipe, so here goes:

B.B.'s Mild BBQ Sauce

B.B.'s Lawnside BBQ

INGREDIENTS

• 4 cans ketchup

• 5 cans applesauce

• 3 cups molasses

• 2 cups vinegar

• 2 cups brown sugar

• 1 cup white sugar

• 4 tblsps white celery seed

• 1 tsp ground clove

• 3 tblsps ground cinnamon

• 4 tblsps mild red pepper

DIRECTIONS

Mix all ingredients in a large pot. Stir well.

Bring to a boil. Allow to boil for 20 minutes, stirring often. Simmer for additional 30 minutes.

Be sure spoon reaches very bottom of pot while stirring to prevent sugars from sticking or burning.

Very tasty, have fun!

Back To School

Thanks to my buddy Vano for sending this along. Food for thought.
The excerpt below is from an article, titled “On the Sadness of Higher Education,” by Alan Charles Kors, which appeared in New Criterion, was later quoted by the Wall Street Journal, and was subsequently republished here.


Under the heirs of the academic ‘60s, we moved on campus after campus from their Free Speech Movement to their politically correct speech codes; from their abolition of mandatory chapel to their imposition of Orwellian mandatory sensitivity and multicultural training; from their freedom to smoke pot unmolested to their war today against the kegs and spirits-literal and metaphorical-of today’s students; from their acquisition of young adult status to their infantilization of “kids” who lack their insight; from their self-proclaimed dreams of racial and sexual integration to their ever more balkanized campuses organized on principles of group characteristics and group responsibility; from their right to define themselves as individuals-a foundational right-to their official, imposed and politically orthodox notions of identity. American college students became the victims of a generational swindle of truly epic proportions. If that part of the faculty not complicit in this did not know that it was happening, it was by choice or willful blindness.

In the academic university-the curriculum and classroom, and the hiring that underlies them-it all varies by where one looks. To understand why and to understand one of the few vulnerabilities of universities to actual accountability and reform, one must understand the hierarchy that predicts academic institutional behavior: sexuality (in their language, “sexual preference”) trumps neutrality; race properly conceived easily trumps sexuality; sex properly conceived (or, in their language, “gender”) easily trumps race; and careerism categorically trumps everything. From that perspective, the careerists who run our campuses have made a Faustian bargain (though they differ on which is the devil’s portion).

Being careful, on the whole, to keep the natural and physical sciences, mathematics, and a variegated Column A of departments (sometimes psychology, sometimes philosophy, sometimes linguistics), and the professional schools that relate symbiotically to practical America relatively free of political agendas-though even in these cases, the barriers to crude politicization may break down-the careerist administrators have kept largely intact those disciplines where added value might be measured. From diverse motives of ideological sympathies and acute awareness of who can blackball their next career moves, they have given over the humanities, the soft social sciences and the entire university in loco parentis to the zealots of oppression studies and coercive identity politics. In the latter case, it truly has been a conspiracy, with networking and common plans. In the former case-the professoriate and the curriculum-it is generally, with striking politicized exceptions, a soft tyranny of groupthink, unconscious bias and self-inflated sense of a mission of demystification. Most of the professors I meet are kind, indeed sweet, and certainly mean no harm. It is profoundly sad to see what they have become. ...

Academics, in their own minds, face an almost insoluble problem of time. How, in only four years, can they disabuse students of the notion that the capital, risk, productivity and military sacrifice of others have contributed to human dignity and to the prospects of a decent society? How can they make them understand, with only four years to do so, that capitalism and individual- ism have created cultures that are cruel, inefficient, racist, sexist and homophobic, with oppressive caste systems, mental and behavioral? How, in such a brief period, can they enlighten “minorities,” including women (the majority of students), about the “internalization” of their oppression (today’s equivalent of false consciousness)? How, in only eight semesters, might they use the classroom, curriculum and university in loco parentis to create a radical leadership among what they see as the victim groups of our society, and to make the heirs of successful families uneasy in the moral right of their possessions and opportunities? Given those constraints, why in the world should they complicate their awesome task by hiring anyone who disagrees with them?

The power of universities comes from their monopoly of credentials. As Richard Vedder so deeply understands in his “Going Broke by Degree,” they are the only institutions allowed to separate young individuals by IQ and by the ability to complete complex tasks. They do not add value to that, except in technical fields. Recruiters do not pay premiums because of what the Ivy League or the flagship state universities teach in English, history, political science, or sociology. They hire there despite, not because of, that. Recruiters do not pay premiums because our children have been sent to multicultural centers for sensitivity training. Recruiters pay premiums for the value already there, which universities merely identify. So long as recruiters pay premiums, however, it is rational for parents who wish to gain the most options for their children to send them to the university with the most prestigious degree. That will not change in the current scheme.

We now have closed-shop, massively subsidized, intolerant political fiefdoms, and they are the gatekeepers of society’s rewards. Without incentives for different models of higher education, we shall have this same system of colleges and universities as far as the mind can foresee. The tax-free mega-endowments will grow. The legislators and the public will not end the subsidy. The alumni will continue their bequests. The trustees will proudly attend the administrative dog-and-pony shows, the most efficient act on any campus. Well-intentioned donors will support ghettoized “centers” (without faculty lines, cross-listed courses, graduate fellowships, or degrees) that marginalize inquiries that should be central to the academy. These provide protective coloration for administrators, help with fund raising in certain quarters, and permit a transfer of funds to the accelerating thirst for ever new forms of regnant campus orthodoxies. Until civil society makes administrators pay a price for the politicized hiring, curriculum and student life offices they administer, nothing truly will be reformed.

New Diet, Same Old Song

It seems every so often a new crazy diet comes down the pike to pray on those who have weight problems. We've seen everything from carbs, to low fat to high fiber to just take some pill. The latest diet that seems to be getting some traction is the Big Breakfast diet. No kidding. Some group of researchers somewhere has done a study that shows people who eat breakfasts of more than 600 calories lose more weight than those who eat smaller low-carb breakfasts.

After losing a bunch of weight, I'll give you the secret. Burn more calories than you eat and you will lose weight. Any time you lose weight it's because you are burning more than you consume. So go ahead and have a thousand calorie breakfast. If you burn more than that it will result in weight loss.

The diet industry does its best to hide that simple truth from people because they make billions peddling snake oil to those who are desperate. The simple truth (or the math diet as I call it) isn't very sexy or easy and won't make anyone millions of dollars.

So here goes one more time and this won't cost you anything. Just burn more calories that you consume and you will lose weight. Save your money and don't fall for the latest and greatest "diet" that's getting hyped this week. Today it's "big breakfasts." One thing I know from personal experience is that too many big breakfasts will lead to a big butt. That's just common sense.

Is Your Next car A Hybrid?

Honda has announced that it will begin selling a new "inexpensive" hybrid car in the U-S next year. They haven't announced what the name is or what the price point will be. Here is a concept of what the car looks like.

It irks me that Honda can produce this new car in less than a year and the U-S car makers are closing plants as they try to figure out how to compete. If Honda can do it, why can't the domestics? A car like this could have saved a lot of jobs in Janesville.

Honda also announced this week that it has started selling a hydrogen car. About 200 have been offered for sale in the U-S. They lease for about 600 a month and most have been snapped up by Hollywood big wigs.

See Ya and Good Luck

Caught this interesting blog in Business Week. It was written by a graduating UW business student. Interesting insight into the mind of a recent grad and her thoughts on Madison as someone "passing through."

Click HERE to view the blog.

40 Days and 40 Nights, Again

It figures that I picked this last week to be in Iowa. I made it back home tonight, but it wasn't easy. I started in Des Moines, but my usual route to Highway 151 through Cedar Rapids was not an option. Instead I headed due north from Des Moines and shot across the state of Iowa on Highway 20. Because I-80 was closed between Iowa City and the Quad Cities, they detoured all of the interstate traffic onto 20. It was slow going, but dry for the most part.

The devastation across the state of Iowa was widespread. The picture you see above, I snapped at the Mississippi River in Dubuque where a barge slammed into a bridge and sank. That closed the bridge for a while until authorities deemed it sound despite the accident.

The flooding I saw in the Des Moines area was very bad. Many people had water in their homes and the streets were lined with all manner of wet items that had been pulled from basements and now await the landfill. The water was lapping right up to the interstate highway system in many parts of town. I wasn't scheduled to leave until Sunday, but I feared if I waited I might not be able to get back.

On my way down I had passed through my old stomping grounds in the Cedar Rapids area and saw the destruction first hand. That city is totally submerged. I've never seen anything quite like it. I'm not sure how they will ever fully recover with damage so widespread and so severe. More than 400 city blocks are swamped.

I was also in Des Moines back in 1993 when the city flooded. The good news is Des Moines learned something from those 93 floods. They worked on the levee system and flood control. It really worked. As bad as the floods this week are, Des Moines fared much better than in 93. Cedar Rapids did not make major changes in its flood control system following 1993. But that year Cedar Rapids did not get it as bad as the record flooding they are seeing now.

I think the Chamber of Commerce in Iowa will be sending me a letter asking me to stay away. It seems every time I go to Des Moines, there's a flood.

Silver Lining

Mother Nature's Encore

I guess every cloud really does have a silver lining. I snapped these shots at sunset Monday on the Military Ridge near Mount Horeb.

It was a tough weather weekend for many in Wisconsin with flooding, tornado damage and hail. My mood changed when I noticed what was happening as the sun set Monday evening. The beauty of something as simple as a sunset reminds me always of nature's ability to dazzle.


I'll never tire of scenes like this. We really do live in a very special corner of the world. What a show!

The Flood

If you listen to the show on a regular basis you have heard us talk about the great flood of 01 that swamped Tim's much loved Caddy.




Here's some video of found of the aftermath.

The Weight

Before

After

When I started my quest to become a healthier individual a couple of years ago I promised to keep you posted. To this point I've lost 142 pounds and 22 inches of waistline. It's been a very interesting experience on a number of fronts. The positives range from a ton more energy, self esteem and less self loathing. I think a tough part of breaking any self-destructive behavior is learning to be comfortable in your skin. Once you can master that trick the rest gets a little easier. In other words, you have to cut yourself some slack to give you room to mentally "start" the process of exorcising the demons.


On the negative side I don't have all those layers of insulation to hide behind. In an ironic twist I feel a lot more "exposed." When you are morbidly obese there are certain aspects that allow you to hide behind those hundreds of extra pounds. You are literally arms-length from getting close to people on many different levels. That emotional barrier is both a blessing and a curse depending on your personality.

Many people think shedding tons of weight will solve all their problems. Don't get me wrong, it does solve a bunch of them. The real heavy lifting comes when you have to confront the root causes of your self-destructive behavior. If you don't do that I think you are doomed to repeat the cycle that puts you in that position in the first place.

A very interesting aspect of not being the biggest person in the room is that I can disappear when I want to. When you are pushing 400 pounds it's very hard not to draw attention. You do "feel" the stares and focus when you are that big. If I choose to be Casper now, I can just fade into the landscape. That's a very new and different feeling. In many cases it's very liberating. Just imagine if you never had the ability to recede into the background in public.

As this metamorphosis continues I'll keep you posted on my progress. I'm now within just a few pounds of my goal. We'll see how it goes when the task changes from losing weight to maintaining my progress.

If you don't see me, just look a little harder. I may be just trying to blend in.

Reaping What You Sow

Today General Motors announced it is leaving Janesville and canning 2,600 workers in the southern Wisconsin city. The politicians were quick to line up offering their "shock" at the General Motors action. Mayors, senators, congressmen, the governor and others have all released statements urging the car company to change its mind. Ummm, right.

Mind you now, these are the same people that are at least partially to blame for the closing in the first place. Because they didn't have the political will to pass an energy policy that moved the country toward energy independence, we have seen gas prices skyrocket. That is one of the main reasons people don't want the gas pigs built in Janesville. They also whistled by the graveyard while the mortgage crisis loomed. Another major contributor to the economic tailspin that contributed to the woes of the auto industry. Tight credit means people don't or can't finance large purchases. Why are they so shocked?

The other factor playing into the mess in Janesville is General Motors burying its corporate head in the sand while all the indicators pointed to the looming energy crisis. They are simply producing the wrong car for the times. It's not that they build bad cars, they just build the wrong cars.

While the Koreans and Japanese were busy developing inexpensive hybrids and small high-milage cars, GM was busy cranking out trucks and SUVs where the short-term profit margin was greater on a per vehicle basis. When they finally figured out what was going on they were already ten years behind. Too bad the quality workforce in Janesville is paying the price for politicians and corporate moguls with no vision.

GM has developed the Volt. It will probably be out in 2010. It's a battery/gas car but will carry a price tag of at least $40,000. What are they thinking? You can already get a Toyota hybrid for low 20's. Again, GM is a day late and a dollar short.

You reap what you sow. The seeds of this disaster for Janesville were planted by politicians and GM execs years ago. Now it's harvest time and no one should be "shocked."

In The Slot

Remember those slot cars when you were a kid? Well, they are back These aren't your father's tiny Oldsmobiles. These new slot cars are bigger, better and of course much more expensive. I wasted many an hour watching those little cars zip around the track. Check out this video from WSJ.




What's next, a souped-up version of Shoots and Ladders???: