I suppose, on one of them thar' sidebars, I should publish a warning that if you send me a stupid email, it will henceforth be published and subjected to harsh mockery. Well, I don't have any such warning posted. Pfft. Like that's gonna stop me.

While I've never had the need to publish such a warning---mainly because the Cake Eater mailbox has, mostly, been an unloved, ignored place---today has proved to be the exception to the rule. After all, it's not everyday you receive an email heralding that, since you have set yourself up as a vigorous opponent of Islamofascism, a fatwa has been issued against you.

Since whomever wrote this email has their wires crossed in such a way that they could light up Antarctica simply by blinking two times really fast, I feel the compulsion to have a little fun at their expense.

Let the mockery begin! more...

Posted by: Kathy at 09:49 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The husband has said in the past that we should simply send in the Marines and that would be the end of that.

Jeff G. says, "{...} I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit."

Me? Well, I think we should just make everyone that works there eat a lot of French cheese, wait for the lactose intolerance to set in, and then light a match.

Cost effective, no?

Posted by: Kathy at 01:30 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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...to take on the Xenophobe Hour of Power (aka "Lou Dobbs Tonight") than the crack young staff at "The Hatemonger's Quarterly?"

Posted by: Kathy at 01:02 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Yesterday, my neighbor put me to shame.

To explain: I like to bake. I really go all out during this time of year, too. The problem with this is that the husband and I can't eat all that I produce, even when I just stick to the basic favorites. Simply. Cannot. Eat. It. All. Or. Hips. Would. Go. Even. Wider. Than. Already. Are. Which would be bad. Neither do I want to listen to the husband complain about his lovehandles expanding. No one needs that. (And I'm positive he doesn't want to listen to my complaints about hip expansion, either, so fair's fair.)

This was a conundrum for a large number of years. We want all the goodies, but don't want fudge sitting around until February, either. When we actually attained neighbors that we liked (well, for the most part) a solution presented itself: I'd bake all the stuff we liked, would box most of it up and give it away as Christmas/Hannukah/Ramadan gifties. (The three major religions---as well as a token agnostic in the form of the husband---are well represented in the Cake Eater Alley.) This worked perfectly: we'd get the stuff we liked, but body parts wouldn't expand, and we'd get in good with the people who lived around us. Perfect, no?

Well, it was until the nasty Cake Eater Neighbor expanded his house, which included another huge kitchen for his (exceedingly lovely and very nice) wife's baking habit. She didn't like to bake in her old kitchen: it was too small. So, while their regular kitchen is now the size of a football field, she has another kitchen in their basement which is specifically set aside for her baking. A problem arose when she appropriated my habit of baking for the neighbors at Christmastime.

The first year she did this, I wasn't worried because everyone told me that my stuff was better. And I knew that they meant it. Great. I was confident in my abilities and everyone still wanted my stuff, and would go so far as to drop veiled requests for a larger share of the lemon bar stash and would wonder aloud about when the box of goodies would arrive. The second year was when the problem appeared: she decided that she was going to go whole hog and produced a huge tin of many varied sorts of cookies for our consumption. And they were good, too: the tin that was delivered to our house was snarfed down in record time. I had gained competition, it seemed, but the outcome of the race was unsure. Her first batch of cookies was nothing to write home about. But the second, well...as noted above, they were good, and the presentation was excellent.

This year, however, she went nuts. The third time round, indeed, appears to be the charm.

Crap.

Yesterday, high on Christmas Cheer, the obnoxious Cake Eater Neighbor delivered a oversized gift bag full of the following, most of it impeccably presented in clear, beribboned bags, replete with printed labels:

1. A huge bag of adulterated Chex party mix (which is really damn good)
2. A huge bag of this caramel coated puffy stuff mixed with cashews (the husband's favorite)
3. An oversized tin of Christmas cookies: macaroons, ginger bread men, coconut balls---and those are just the ones I've eaten. There's lots more in there. All perfectly baked and positively scrumptious.
4. A bag of pan baked chocolate chip cookies
5. An extra bag of those puffy white cookies that are coated with powdered sugar. And there are two chocolate cookies in that bag, too, that are also coated with powdered sugar. (She even thought to put the stuff coated in powdered sugar in a separate bag!)
6. A jar of elderberry jelly (she canned!)
7. And the most clever use of extra homegrown tomatoes that I've seen yet: a bottle of homemade Bloody Mary mix. (Which, I am sad to say, I'm going to regift: I despise Bloody Marys, and as the husband doesn't drink anymore and doesn't see the point in drinking Virgin Marys, well, there's no real use in keeping it around, is there? Besides, we'd have to buy celery. The ickiness of spiced tomato juice aside, it's still pretty darn clever if you ask me.)

How, I ask you, my devoted Cake Eater Readers, am I to compete with that?

My little box of extra goodies is going to look like crap when compared to hers. And I have to whine a bit, because she got the friggin' idea from me, and now she's completely outdone me. She's put me in the shade. I can't up or vary my recipes: we just can't eat any more than we already do and I don't want to switch things around just to compete. While I'm sure she's looking forward to my cookies and is completely unaware of the angst she's created in me because she is a really nice person (despite her atrocious taste in husbands) she's nonetheless boxed me in and I don't like it.

Grrrrr.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:47 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Damn. I wish I'd written this.

It appears I'm not the only one who's had it with the constant staging and restaging of The Vagina Monologues.

{hat tip: Drew}

Posted by: Kathy at 12:52 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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What the hell is it with these people?

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Dozens of children visited Michael Jackson (news)'s Neverland Valley Ranch on Friday at the invitation of the pop superstar who is awaiting trial on child molestation charges.

Three buses containing mostly grade-school children and some parents as well as five minivans drove through the gates of Jackson's sprawling estate in the foothills above Santa Barbara, California, Reuters photographers said.

It was unclear where the children had come from. Jackson's spokeswoman said on Thursday such invitations were regularly extended to groups including churches.

What the @#$k are these people thinking? Let's take a crack. Could it be something like...

...Oh, it's Michael Jackson! Never mind that he's a freak---with a capital 'F'---of nature. Never mind that a grown man has a goddamn amusement park at his house. Never mind that he's facing charges that he sexually molested a young boy. Never mind that pedophiles are the worst of the worst sexual predators when it comes to recividism. Never mind that when there's smoke, there must be a frickin' fire somewhere nearby. Never mind any and all of that----HE'S A CELEBRITY AND HE'S RICH! Therefore we must get as close as humanly possible to him, lest he decided to shower us---the unwashed and unfamous masses---with his largesse on the day we're in the same zipcode with him.

Could that be it? Ya think?

Man.

I feel for all the people whose children have been molested by strangers. They must just be absolutely appalled that people would allow their children to get anywhere near this freak. I can only think that it must be like being forced to watch a train wreck and being able to do nothing to stop it.

Sigh.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:32 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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It had to happen sometime.

The San Antonio City Council has passed a measure to regulate strippers:

SAN ANTONIO - Strippers in this city will soon have to put on something they can't take off — a business license.

The City Council on Friday approved a measure requiring exotic dancers to apply for permits and wear them while performing.

Law enforcement authorities said the rule, which was unanimously approved by the 11-member council and goes into effect in 10 days, will allow them to quickly identify those dancers who are breaking nudity ordinances. (Among other things, full nudity and contact with customers are not allowed in San Antonio strip clubs.)

"We're trying to reduce criminal activity inside the establishments on the part of the entertainers, i.e., prostitution," said Lt. Mike Gorhum, who heads the vice squad.

The permit — expected to be roughly half the size of a credit card — would include the dancer's stage name and a photo. Police would be able to check that information against club records to determine her real name and other personal data.

{...}The new rule also mandates a 3-foot space between dancers and patrons to ensure no touching during table dances. Such contact is already banned, though violations are not uncommon.

Proving that once again, if you can't ban it, the best way to control it is to regulate it!

Snort.

More ruminations after the jump. more...

Posted by: Kathy at 01:42 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I didn't feel like working this afternoon, so I hopped a bus to the mall and went to go and see a matinee of Flight of the Phoenix.

Dennis Quaid is, indeed, sans shirt for a few scenes.

This is good.

If you need more details than that, well, you'll find them after the jump. more...

Posted by: Kathy at 09:45 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Drew makes some very good points about the Michael Moore vs. Mel Gibson, flog to the death-athon that's happening within the media as Awards Season starts.

Moore's film concerns politics. Gibson's film concerns faith. Creating this false dichotomy may also put faith and politics in competition, or perhaps equate them in a dangerous way -- as if both filims express extremist views, or both play fast and loose with the truth.

When drawing ideological divisions in this country, it's tempting to call "The Passion" a Red State movie, and "Fahrenheit 9/11" a Blue State movie, but labels are never that simple. Just as there are people who are not professing Christians who support our President, there are certainly people critical of George Bush who also have faith in Christ.

Go read the whole thing.

Posted by: Kathy at 03:16 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Taking to heart the general consensus of my very generous commenters, I am starting with Jeeves. Then will move on to Psmith and then the golf stories, leaving Blandings for last.

As such, I have reserved Very Good, Jeeves, Much Obliged, Jeeves and Ring for Jeeves. And courtesy o' the Hennepin County Library's incredibly generous delivery policy, which allows for the winging of books hither and thither across the county, I shall be picking them up at my branch within the next week or so.

Thanks for all of your help, and I will update when I get into them.

Posted by: Kathy at 03:08 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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And no, I'm not talking about this or this or this. (Although, while the critics appear to be evenly divided about whether the last one sucks rocks or is a bit of escapist fun, the reason I want to see it is because I've always had the hots for Dennis Quaid, and he's sans shirt in it! Woohoo!)

Rather, I'm talking about this. Make sure you watch all three movies. Then go and listen to Jonathan's critique.

How the hell he got three plus minutes of funny, yet somehow valid, film critique out of those I have no idea.

{hat tip: Galley Slaves}

Posted by: Kathy at 02:21 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Just got a photo Christmas card from my brother's family.

My fourteen year-old-niece, who, when I saw her this past summer, swore she was never going to smoke or drink because she'd seen the movie Thirteen and it scared her straight, has gone goth.

Yep. That's right. Goth.

She has dyed her formerly brown hair to that purply-black color that generally leads to bad things. Like dark purple lipstick, loads of black eyeliner, tattoos of Japanese characters that look cool, but in all reality mean "I'm an idiot," and multiple piercings in places most of us would cringe to think of having a needle touch. While she's wearing a very pretty, well-adjusted smile, a normal amount of makeup and a sweater that I'd swipe if we lived in the same town, it's the hair that's completely throwing me. It's black! What the hell?

This is surprising behavior from the girl who literally begged her parents for tickets to a Britney Spears concert for her birthday. As in she wrote a dissertation on why she should be allowed to go and posted it on the kitchen bulletin board, for all and sundry to read and chuckle about. Em didn't give care what other people would think of it: she simply wanted to go thought that if by posting her dissertation for all to read that perhaps she could gain a few allies, well, so be it. She's got chutzpah. Moxie. Whatever you want to call it. I can only surmise that this hair coloring adventure was not Mom and Dad approved. It was probably achieved in a friend's bathroom, under the cover of a slumber party.

Ah, the joys of transitioning from grade school to high school. I'm sure she'll outgrow it, but damn. Em! Your hair is black!? What the heck were you thinking? Aieeeeee.

Of course, this makes me wonder about high school nowadays. Particularly the high school she attends, because it's the same high school where I matriculated. All I can say is that there must not be too many hard-ass nuns left teaching there, because if Sr. Anthony (and yes, that was her name) was alive, well, let's just say my lovely niece would receive a reaming like you wouldn't believe based strictly on the color of her hair.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:40 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Man, that's just disturbing.

Ah, well. At least I won't have to bite my nails to the quick during next year's World Series, wondering when Pedro's arm is going to give out.

Posted by: Kathy at 05:41 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Oliver Stone sez that Alexander didn't do well in the States because Americans iz stooopid. At least when compared to those Humanities lovin' Europeans.

"People in America are apathetic to ancient history — they are," Stone told reporters Thursday in Paris. "They don't study the classics like they do in Europe, so there is a significant difference in reaction. I know this because I've been in 12 foreign countries in the last month, to 12 openings."

The director noted that his film — based on the life of Alexander the Great — was No. 1 in about 18 countries, including Greece. He said he's happy just to share the story of Alexander.

"It was a privilege to make a film about such a unique man, so financial concerns were not uppermost," he said. "I'm glad people can at least get a part of his mind and remember this man because he will be forgotten."

Of course the reason that this movie failed wasn't that the movie sucked, but rather that we Americans are apathetic to ancient history. And of course financial concerns weren't an issue: he's a friggin' genius and as such he's not ever going to be held accountable by the Gods of Money in Hollywood. They'll just keep forking over the cash for him to make movies that suck.

Because he's Oliver Stone and all. His reputation precedes him.

By at least a mile. And makes people laugh at his delusions of grandeur.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:59 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Can somebody find this guy and kill him?

Please?

Posted by: Kathy at 11:41 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Honestly, is there anything better than Blaques Jacques Chirac shooting off his mouth to make your day better?

Tee hee.

President Jacques Chirac lifted a French flag from a plaque and dedicated the Millau span, which is billed as the worldÂ’s tallest road bridge.

{...}“This exceptional opening will go down in industrial and technological history,” Chirac said, praising the bridge’s designers and builders for creating “a prodigy of art and architecture – a new emblem of French civil engineering”.

The bridge will serve as a symbol of “a modern and conquering France”, he said.

(my emphasis)

A conquering France. Hmmm.

What's that old joke? French rifles for sale: never fired, only dropped once.

Of course, I'm assuming he meant "conquering" in the most literal sense of the word. It could be a metaphor or something equally obscure. Seriously.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:42 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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...when it comes to this sort of thing. Sigh. You know who's responsible for feeding my addiction to these sorts of things: the blog which shall not be named because I feel like a very weak person for always succumbing and I'll be damned if I'm going to give them any credit.

Read on after the jump if you're interested. more...

Posted by: Kathy at 11:23 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Much to the detriment of my reputation as a literary lionness, I must admit that I have never read any of P.G. Wodehouse's work. Thinking it was time I remedied this problem, I was browsing through the online catalog of our local library system the other day and completely failed to suss out the beginnings of his enormous catalog. I have absolutely no clue as to where to start. Usually I can suss this sort of thing out with a little patience and perserverance. Not so with Wodehouse.

Soooo...

Do I read Blandings first or do I stick strictly with Jeeves?

Where did you, you estimable Wodehouse fans, start with your obsession? Gimme the details, too. I want the reasoning behind your choices.

I'm counting on you people. Don't let me down.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:55 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Mike Kinsley has put out a bleg via Sully:

My contention: Social Security privatization is not just unlikely to succeed, for various reasons that are subject to discussion. It is mathematically certain to fail. Discussion is pointless.

The usual case against privatization is that (1) millions of inexperienced investors may end up worse off, and (2) stocks don't necessarily do better than bonds over the long-run, as proponents assume.But privatization won't work for a better reason: it can't possibly work, even in theory. The logic is not very complicated.

1. To "work," privatization must generate more money for retirees than current arrangements. This bonus is supposed to be extra money in retirees' pockets and/or it is supposed to make up for a reduction in promised benefits, thus helping to close the looming revenue gap.

2. Where does this bonus come from? There are only two possibilities: from greater economic growth, or from other people.

3. Greater economic growth requires either more capital to invest, or smarter investment of the same amount of capital. Privatization will not lead to either of these.

a) If nothing else in the federal budget changes, every dollar deflected from the federal treasury into private social security accounts must be replaced by a dollar that the government raises in private markets. So the total pool of capital available for private investment remains the same.

b) The only change in decision-making about capital investment is that the decisions about some fraction of the capital stock will be made by people with little or no financial experience. Maybe this will not be the disaster that some critics predict. But there is no reason to think that it will actually increase the overall return on capital.

4. If the economy doesn't produce more than it otherwise would, the Social Security privatization bonus must come from other investors, in the form of a lower return.

a) This is in fact the implicit assumption behind the notion of putting Social Security money into stocks, instead of government bonds, because stocks have a better long-term return. The bonus will come from those saps who sell the stocks and buy the bonds.

b) In other words, privatization means betting the nation's most important social program on a theory that cannot be true unless many people are convinced that it's false.

c) Even if the theory is true, initially, privatization will make it false. The money newly available for private investment will bid up the price of (and thus lower the return on) stocks, while the government will need to raise the interest on bonds in order to attract replacement money.

d) In short, there is no way other investors can be tricked or induced into financing a higher return on Social Security.

5. If the privatization bonus cannot come from the existing economy, and cannot come from growth, it cannot exist. And therefore, privatization cannot work.

Q.E.D.

Bzzzzzzzt. Wrong!

Kinsley works from two assumptions:
1. That Social Security should always be available.
2. That Social Security should always work the way it currently works.

Of course, if you look at it from his perspective, privatization looks likes a bad, unworkable idea.

I, however, work from these assumptions:

1. Social Security is the only legal pyramid scheme in this country. We pay out current recipients from current contributions. This is no way to run a retirement plan. If Wall Street offered this kind of a plan, and then ran it the way the government runs Social Security, the SEC would be all over them. Which is a moot point because no Wall Street firm would ever be allowed to run such a scheme in the first place because pyramid schemes are illegal.

2. Most people my age---thirty-four---do not believe Social Security will be available to us when we retire. We have accepted it and have planned accordingly. Moreover, we don't want Social Security to be available to us when we retire because we:

a. don't want to burden our descendants by forcing them to pay into a bankrupt system to support our aging carcasses.

b. it's our bloody money, not the government's. We're tired of dumping cash into a system that doesn't work and will not pay our grocery bill when we finally reach retirement age. Which, considering the government's habit of upping the eligibility age every few years, means I will, roughly, be around Methuselah's age when I qualify for membership.

Social Security needs a complete overhaul that will be pricey in the short term, but will enable it to survive. But an overhaul is only necessary if you believe that there is an inherent social contract between the citizen and the government to provide for a pension in the first place. I don't and that's because I don't believe the government will ever hold up its end. I don't trust the government to spend my tax dollars wisely. Why on earth would I trust my financial future to them, particularly when there are other options available?

It's all about choice. I could do a lot with the money that is currently in my Social Security account. If I lose it in a chancy investment, well, that's my fault. Like the losses we suffered in our 401K account when the market tanked a few years ago, I won't whine and moan about holding someone accountable for what was a market fluctuation. I fully understand what it means to invest in the stock market: it's about as chancy as placing your all your chips on the spin of a roulette wheel. The difference between that spin and Social Security is that I at least have a chance at a return on my investment with the roulette wheel, whereas with Social Security, I know I'm not going to ever see dime one. I'd rather take my chances with the stock market, and as it's my money, and not the government's, I fail to see where they get off denying me the opportunity to do just that. Moreover, that they would deny me this opportunity because the faulty house of cards they've built would collapse if privatization were ever to come to pass is insulting. They're covering their asses with my retirement money and that pisses me off more than Kinsley will ever know.

If Social Security were investigated by the SEC, it would be shut down in a New York Minute. I fail to see why I should be legally required to keep throwing my money into a failed system. It does no one any good in the long run to keep blathering on about the worthiness of a "social contract," when the real issue at hand is the breach of the current social contract by blatant mismanagement.

Q.E.D.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:18 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Bill Kristol has unwittingly joined a group of accomplished individuals: people possessed of a unique speaking style, who, when they write something and I sit down to read it, I hear their voices on my own inner stereo system.

Does that make any sense? No? I'll try to simplify. When I read these pieces, I hear the author narrating them, rather than just being able to read the text. I have my own internal audio-book narrator library.

Mr. Kristol is now in league with Henry Kissinger, Margaret Thatcher and William F. Buckely, Jr. Distinct voices all. Ever tried to read one of Buckley's Blackford Oakes novels? Ever tried to focus on these works of fiction, where the character has his own unique voice, without Buckely's part English/part Connecticut-boarding-school-boy accent horning in? It's hard. Same goes for Kissinger, whose doctoral dissertation I had to read for undergrad political science coursework. I barely made it through it: not because the subject matter was boring---hardly, but rather because if there's anyone who can put you to right to sleep with the droning, monotone quality of their voice it's Henry. Maggie Thatcher gets a little annoying because she's just so righteous. You should hear her narrate the passages in The Downing Street Years devoted to trade unions. Wow, did they ever piss her off.

I just realized this as I read this WaPo piece. I am undecided about two things. First, if Rummy really needs to go as Kristol asserts. Second, if I like having him inside my head when I read his work.

Hmmph.

{hat tip: Galley Slaves}

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