Carnivalia, and an open thread

It's raining, but on the bright side, I'm a vegetarian so I have no cookout to miss. :)

For those of you who are from outside the US, do you celebrate a Memorial Day type of holiday in which you visit the graves of veterans? In the US, the holiday is often a time to put flowers on the graves of non-veterans as well.

In Australia we have ANZAC Day on April 25th(Australian New Zealand Army Corp),it dates back from WW1.
There are dawn services, marches and general flag waving honoring the war vets. and remembering the fallen. Also lots of drinking and used to the only day you could legally play "Two Up" a coin tossing gambling game.
Now I'm living in the USA this will be my first Memorial Day, I'll be working in a pub...mmmmmbeer

"...I'm a vegetarian so I have no cookout to miss."

Two words. Grilled veggies. Grilled corn is one of the most delicious of summer treats. A salad of grilled onions and peppers with a touch of basalmic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil is wonderful. Grilled portobello mushrooms on a soft roll replace burgers. Think outside of the microwave. Enjoy. ;-)

Ahem... balsamic. In my hurry to spread the Gospel of the Grilled Veggie I got sloppy. Forgive me.

I'm barbequing chicken and hot dogs. I'll have to try the grilled veggies a different time. Of course, the kids have to have their smores (roasted marshmallow with piece of chocolate between two graham crackers) too.

My mother, who grew up in rural Kansas, tells me that in her childhood, the idea of grilled chicken was never mentioned — no, never thought of! Chicken was to be fried.

If the good citizens of Labette County had been told of grilled vegetables, they would likely have dropped dead on the spot, and we could still be generating electric power from the spinning in their graves.

Please excuse my spam. I promise that this is the last one.

Tequila Portobello Mushrooms

INGREDIENTS
1/4 cup tequila
1/8 cup unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons roasted garlic oil
1 lime, juiced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 large portobello mushroom, cut into 3/4 inch slices

DIRECTIONS
In a small bowl, mix together tequila, melted butter, roasted garlic oil, lime juice, and minced garlic. Let stand for at least 15 minutes.

Preheat grill for medium heat.

Brush grate with vegetable oil. Brush mushroom slices with tequila mixture, and place on grill. Cook until the mushroom slices begin to wilt, then turn and brush with more of the tequila mixture. Cook for a few minutes, until mushrooms are tender. Watch carefully so they do not burn.

I forget where I got this from, but it's great. Roasted garlic oil is just oil that had roasted garlic soaking in it for a while. You can skip it if you don't have it.

@speedwell

Cube and marinate some tofu, and it grills up real nice as a replacement for that nasty meat in kabobs. Grilled tofu in general is really good, if you know how to season it. Tofu dogs, veggie burgers, squash, potatoes, peepers (green, yellow, and red), onions, and tomatoes.

If you want to get really fancy, slice some apples (core and slice, your choice) and grill them with brown sugar and cinnamon on top. Doesn't take long. you could skip the slices, core and stuff with (soy)butter, brown sugar, cinnamon. Wrap in foil, cook until soft.

I've got the flu. Fun. I'm trying to at least get a lot of reading done, but I keep drifting off into a half-asleep daze.

Everyone is making me wish it was late summer, because some grilled zucchini and eggplant from my garden would be great (well, right now, chicken noodle soup would be better).

Holy Julia Child's Ghost, you guys are awesome. Thanks for the tips, honestly. Now wave your hands and take care of the rain for me, there's a good couple fellows... :)

Seriously though I have a new oven with a broiler begging to get used, and some fifty dollar balsamic vinegar not earning its keep in the pantry at the moment. Signing off and munching down. Hooray :)

Well there was the Pirate Ship Live dive on Channel Five TV in the UK today.

Fishpeddler, soups are my territory. Any soup you make with plenty of fresh veggies and a small pasta will help you, even if you (as I do) use a slightly browned mirepoix of celery, onions, leeks, garlic, and carrots in place of the chicken. (Ok to leave the leeks out and use garlic powder if you're feeling ragged.) Throw in some leftover spaghetti sauce and a can of beans for a lefthanded minestrone.

@speedwell

Tomato paste thrown into the beginning saute gives the soup a lovely sun dried tomato flavor...

Americans believe in religion - but know little about it

Courtesy of Digg.

It's important to remember that fully half the population has below-average intelligence.

I'll second what Rich said. Grilled veggies, especially corn and potatoes, are delicious. (I realize neither of those are technically veggies... corn is a fruit and potatoes are.. well... they're underground stems... I guess they are veggies then?)

Analyzing and remembering Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which I saw at eight PM on Thursday.

Also planting things in the garden.

Not to be a downers, but we're still in Iraq (and elsewhere)attempting occupation in the cause of Democracy.

and of course, bin laden is still out there.

I can't believe all you guys talking about grilling veggies for the holiday.

Helooooooo??? Go to a mirror. Open your mouth. Look at your front teeth. Do they look like they were created by some intelligent designer as tools for rooting around eating lettuce and carrots?

Sheeeeeesh!! Just wait until the Intelligent Design guys figure out that
vegans == evolution denyers
and you guys'll be their poster children.

mjr.
(PS - if you didn't evolve a sense of humor: just kidding)

Well, yes. There is that. A large percentage of the people in the USA can go by the name of "courageous at a distance". I guess that I am one of them. I fully support the persons fighting and dying in other countries. But I do not support my present government in their starting a useless war, nor do I believe that we should continue to be there.

The whole thing that I have a problem with is the "we". I am not in that "we". I was not one of the "we" that sent people to fight. I am not one of the "we" fighting. I am one of the "we" here in the USA that have opinions about the people fighting and dying elsewhere. My opinions don't count where it matters the most. And never will. If any soldier or person in Iraq, who has had a friend die reads this, I want to apologise for the morons in charge here. I want to help you but I can't. I'm in the wrong "we".

If I may be so forward though, I'd like to speak about the "we" right here at Pharyngula and places like this. We care. We are trying to make things better. We care about those that have died because of the moron "we" population. We don't particularly like them. We hope to make that "we" go away.

I personally wish that all of the soldiers from every country could just come home and stop dying. I also wish that people here and abroad would just stop killing each other over fucking religion.

To me, one memorial day isn't enough. And it's too damn much. Less memorials. More grilled veggies...

Hitler was a vegetarian, and Nietzsche disliked vegetarians. QED

But other than above rambling, let's have more useless ramblings. Like, is God able to ejaculate such that the ejaculant travels across the universe in both space and time and hit him in the back of the head nearly instantaneously upon ejaculation?

Mindboggling. /immaturaity

I don't know about god's ejaculation, but if he's perfect then he must taste like chocolate chip cookies straight out of the oven. You know, the warm, gooey kind that melts in your mouth?

And when you're done with that, he tastes like pizza. Hmm... pizza....

Um. Sorry about the previous. Too much beer with dinner. Never drink and post. I sincerely apologise.

I am looking for a description/image of a spider I saw on St Croix. The person leading the leatherback turtle patrol called it a 'mango spider' (it was awe inspiring), but I have been unable to find a description/image of said critter.

Getting away from food and stupid wars - how about music for Memorial Day? I just attended a concert at a world class concert hall given by a 250 voice a capella chorus. It was stupendous, especially when you consider that the chorus was made up of 40 years worth of high school madrigal singers back for a reunion. They rehearsed for two days. I was in awe.

Closer to PZ's realm, my wife is in Minnesota today for her brother's wedding - at a Lut'ren church, of chourse. Happy hamburgers, all (I grind my own meat, and will do so tomorrow. Down with e coli, I say!)

While reading about the whales who swam up the Sacramento River ship canal about as far as they could (there are locks near the point where they stopped on Friday), I ran across this article:

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/193350.html

The fun part is in the comments, where I read this gem:

Has anyone thought of using dolphins to show the whales the way home? Since we can communicate with dolphins and the dolphins can communicate with whales, they seem to be the perfect translators.

Just a thought... here from Park City, UTAH

I laughed for about 20 minutes after reading that one. Do people really think this kind of stuff? What's after whales? Sharks? So can we talk indirectly to sharks, or does too much get lost in the translation?

Just thought I'd pass this gem along.

Analyzing and remembering Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which I saw at eight PM on Thursday.

I hope you stayed until the very end of the credits to see the final extra scene.

In Michael Shermer's June 2007 Skeptic column in Scientific American, he is promoting nuclear fission with hydrogen.

For those of you who are from outside the US, do you celebrate a Memorial Day type of holiday in which you visit the graves of veterans?

Funny you should ask - I had to google "Memorial Day Weekend" since I didn't remember the term at first. No specific day what I know of, but OTOH Sweden sneaked out of the 2nd WW. I think other European countries celebrates though.

The closest I can think of is when some celebrate the death (!?) of Karl XII, the "warrior king" whose life and death meant the end of Sweden's ambitions as superpower. But since it is the neonazis who does the celebration I don't think this is what you are thinking of.

I guess you could say that we are sort of tired of wars over here. But with our soldiers dying on UN missions, it would be sort of appropriate with a remembrance day again IMO.

In the US, the holiday is often a time to put flowers on the graves of non-veterans as well.

In Sweden it is Alla helgons dag (originally Allhelgonadagen; roughly "All saints day"). That is the day when people traditionally visit graves, which presumably goes back way before christianity to the Celts.

This holiday tradition is sort of messy though, due to the reformation.

To make a long story short, Alla helgons dag is now a saturday. The day after is Alla själars dag (roughly "All souls day"), which is supposedly when the churches are open for remembrance.

And Halloween, which is presumedly the anglo-saxon version, has been introduced by youngster on the day before the earlier fixed Allhelgonadagen.

Three separate remembrance days, if you wish. But usually one remembrance day and one party day. :-)

nuclear fission with hydrogen

Wow - he can do quark separation of the protons? :-)

Perhaps he is pushing for hydrogen fusion technology. The minimum time table is for the first time pretty detailed and solid (but, what do you know, it is still 40 years in the future ;-) but it would take a continous support to make it happen.

it is still 40 years in the future

Actually, the prototype stage is now projected to be operative 40 years from the decision to go beyond ITER ( http://www.iter.org/Future-beyond.htm , http://www.iter.org/a/index_nav_2.htm ) in a more elaborate but staged roadmap.

So the start of production of large scale energy production facilities is beyond 2050 if all efforts are made.

Funny you should ask - I had to google "Memorial Day Weekend" since I didn't remember the term at first. No specific day what I know of, but OTOH Sweden sneaked out of the 2nd WW. I think other European countries celebrates though.

I think on different holidays than in the States, though. In Finland candles are put on veterans' graves on Independence day (6 Dec), and on everyone's graves on All Saints day same as in Sweden.

It seems that 9 May (equivalent of VE day) is an important day to commemorate veteran graves for Russians and Russophiles, if the recent kerfuffle over the Soviet statue in Tallinn is any clue. Whatever one may think of the outcome of WWII for Finland, at least we were spared many kitschy statues ;)

Perhaps he is pushing for hydrogen fusion technology.

Actually, Shermer was really discussing energy liberation while debunking "Secrets". As usual, Blake Stacey is on top of this, see http://www.sunclipse.org/?p=104.

Shermer is making one of several elemantary mistakes in physics. As one can see from the link, Shermer has been making these mistakes repeatedly, while he seems otherwise to be factually correct.

do you celebrate a Memorial Day type of holiday in which you visit the graves of veterans?

Nope.

Same situation as in Sweden for Allerheiligen and Allerseelen and now Halloween (since a few years ago). Nobody visits the graves of veterans that don't happen to belong to one's own family.

Many European countries (such as France) celebrate May 8th, the armistice of WWII, but there, too, AFAIK nobody visits the graves of soldiers that don't happen to belong to one's own family.

Wow. Caledonian, thanks a lot for that link.

Fewer than half of us can identify Genesis as the first book of the Bible, and only one third know that Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount.

So that's where that American kind of grapes-of-wrath Christianity without the Sermon on the Mount and without "but did not have love" comes from, and the scarily large number of people who use "bleeding-heart liberal" as an insult instead of as a praise. I already wondered...

"God helps those who help themselves" is, BTW, an adoption of a Roman proverb: Audaces Fortuna adiuvat -- Luck, more or less personified as a goddess, helps the audacious ones.

For those of you who are from outside the US, do you celebrate a Memorial Day type of holiday in which you visit the graves of veterans?

Funny you should ask - I had to google "Memorial Day Weekend" since I didn't remember the term at first. No specific day what I know of, but OTOH Sweden sneaked out of the 2nd WW. I think other European countries celebrates though.

The closest I can think of is when some celebrate the death (!?) of Karl XII, the "warrior king" whose life and death meant the end of Sweden's ambitions as superpower. But since it is the neonazis who does the celebration I don't think this is what you are thinking of.

I guess you could say that we are sort of tired of wars over here. But with our soldiers dying on UN missions, it would be sort of appropriate with a remembrance day again IMO.

In the US, the holiday is often a time to put flowers on the graves of non-veterans as well.

In Sweden it is Alla helgons dag (originally Allhelgonadagen; roughly "All saints day"). That is the day when people traditionally visit graves, which presumably goes back way before christianity to the Celts.

This holiday tradition is sort of messy though, due to the reformation.

To make a long story short, Alla helgons dag is now a saturday. The day after is Alla själars dag (roughly "All souls day"), which is supposedly when the churches are open for remembrance.

And Halloween, which is presumedly the anglo-saxon version, has been introduced by youngster on the day before the earlier fixed Allhelgonadagen.

Three separate remembrance days, if you wish. But usually one remembrance day and one party day. :-)

nuclear fission with hydrogen

Wow - he can do quark separation of the protons? :-)

Perhaps he is pushing for hydrogen fusion technology. The minimum time table is for the first time pretty detailed and solid (but, what do you know, it is still 40 years in the future ;-) but it would take a continous support to make it happen.

it is still 40 years in the future

Actually, the prototype stage is now projected to be operative 40 years from the decision to go beyond ITER ( http://www.iter.org/Future-beyond.htm , http://www.iter.org/a/index_nav_2.htm ) in a more elaborate but staged roadmap.

So the start of production of large scale energy production facilities is beyond 2050 if all efforts are made.

Perhaps he is pushing for hydrogen fusion technology.

Actually, Shermer was really discussing energy liberation while debunking "Secrets". As usual, Blake Stacey is on top of this, see http://www.sunclipse.org/?p=104.

Shermer is making one of several elemantary mistakes in physics. As one can see from the link, Shermer has been making these mistakes repeatedly, while he seems otherwise to be factually correct.

do you celebrate a Memorial Day type of holiday in which you visit the graves of veterans?

Nope.

Same situation as in Sweden for Allerheiligen and Allerseelen and now Halloween (since a few years ago). Nobody visits the graves of veterans that don't happen to belong to one's own family.

Many European countries (such as France) celebrate May 8th, the armistice of WWII, but there, too, AFAIK nobody visits the graves of soldiers that don't happen to belong to one's own family.

Wow. Caledonian, thanks a lot for that link.

Fewer than half of us can identify Genesis as the first book of the Bible, and only one third know that Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount.

So that's where that American kind of grapes-of-wrath Christianity without the Sermon on the Mount and without "but did not have love" comes from, and the scarily large number of people who use "bleeding-heart liberal" as an insult instead of as a praise. I already wondered...

"God helps those who help themselves" is, BTW, an adoption of a Roman proverb: Audaces Fortuna adiuvat -- Luck, more or less personified as a goddess, helps the audacious ones.