08/07/2010 archive

Evening Edition

News?  What News?

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

Health and Fitness News

Welcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

Greens for the Summer Heat

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Spinach is the green that comes to mind for light summer dishes. It’s available year-round both at farmers’ markets and supermarkets, wilts in minutes, and afterward keeps well in the refrigerator.

In summer, you can use it for cold soups or quick omelets, or combine it with seasonal tomatoes in easy pastas. Spinach contains iron, vitamin A and vitamin C, manganese, folate, calcium, potassium and a variety of other nutrients.

One thing to note: The sodium content can be high in some brands of bagged spinach. A 3-ounce serving of Dole organic baby spinach, for example, contains 135 milligrams of sodium. The same amount from Fresh Express contains 65 milligrams. The difference may have to do with the solution that certain commercial producers use to wash the spinach.

If you do use bagged baby spinach, check the values on the package. A 3-ounce serving (85 grams) should not have more than 70 milligrams of sodium.

Pasta With Tomatoes, Spinach and Goat Cheese

Spinach and Yogurt Soup With Walnuts

Sautéed Spinach With Mushrooms

Spinach Salad With Tomatoes, Cucumber and Feta

Spinach Omelet With Parmesan

Punting the Pundits

Fareed Zakaria: Build the Ground Zero Mosque

I believe we should promote Muslim moderates right here in America. And why I’m returning an award to the ADL.

Ever since 9/11, liberals and conservatives have agreed that the lasting solution to the problem of Islamic terror is to prevail in the battle of ideas and to discredit radical Islam, the ideology that motivates young men to kill and be killed. Victory in the war on terror will be won when a moderate, mainstream version of Islam-one that is compatible with modernity-fully triumphs over the world view of Osama bin Laden.

As the conservative Middle Eastern expert Daniel Pipes put it, “The U.S. role [in this struggle] is less to offer its own views than to help those Muslims with compatible views, especially on such issues as relations with non-Muslims, modernization, and the rights of women and minorities.” To that end, early in its tenure the Bush administration began a serious effort to seek out and support moderate Islam. Since then, Washington has funded mosques, schools, institutes, and community centers that are trying to modernize Islam around the world. Except, apparently, in New York City.

Fareed Zakaria’s Letter to the ADL

Five years ago, the ADL honored me with its Hubert Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize. I was delighted and moved to have been chosen for it in good measure because of the high esteem in which I hold the ADL. I have always been impressed by the fact that your mission is broad – “to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens” – and you have interpreted it broadly over the decades. You have fought discrimination against all religions, races, and creeds and have built a well-deserved reputation.

That is why I was stunned at your decision to publicly side with those urging the relocation of the planned Islamic center in lower Manhattan. You are choosing to use your immense prestige to take a side that is utterly opposed to the animating purpose of your organization. Your own statements subsequently, asserting that we must honor the feelings of victims even if irrational or bigoted, made matters worse.

On This Day in History: August 7

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour a cup of your favorite morning beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

On this day in 1947, Kon-Tiki, a balsa wood raft captained by Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl, completes a 4,300-mile, 101-day journey from Peru to Raroia in the Tuamotu Archipelago, near Tahiti. Heyerdahl wanted to prove his theory that prehistoric South Americans could have colonized the Polynesian islands by drifting on ocean currents.

Heyerdahl and his five-person crew set sail from Callao, Peru, on the 40-square-foot Kon-Tiki on April 28, 1947. The Kon-Tiki, named for a mythical white chieftain, was made of indigenous materials and designed to resemble rafts of early South American Indians. While crossing the Pacific, the sailors encountered storms, sharks and whales, before finally washing ashore at Raroia. Heyerdahl, born in Larvik, Norway, on October 6, 1914, believed that Polynesia’s earliest inhabitants had come from South America, a theory that conflicted with popular scholarly opinion that the original settlers arrived from Asia. Even after his successful voyage, anthropologists and historians continued to discredit Heyerdahl’s belief. However, his journey captivated the public and he wrote a book about the experience that became an international bestseller and was translated into 65 languages. Heyerdahl also produced a documentary about the trip that won an Academy Award in 1951.

Petition: Protect Net Neutrality

Senator Al Franken speaks about protecting Net Neutrality at NN10 in Las Vegas. Sign his petition

PETITION: STAND WITH ME TO SAVE NET NEUTRALITY AND STOP THE CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF OUR MEDIA

The Comcast-NBC merger is the first domino. If it falls, the rest will soon follow. If no one stops them, how long do you think it will take before 4 or 5 megacorporations effectively control the flow of information in America not only on television, but online? How long do you think it will take before the Fox News website loads 5 times faster than DailyKos?

It’s almost too late to stop this from happening, but not quite. The government can stop them. . . but first the government has to be MADE to act.

Net Neutrality is THE First Amendment issue of our time. If you want to protect the free flow of information in the country and all that depends on it, you have to help me fight this.

OMG! It’s My Fifth Blogaversary On 8/7/10!

Today I posted m 814th post at The Dream Antilles.  Sadly, it was meta: it said that 8/7/10 was the Fifth Blogaversary of the blog.

I have been plugging away, writing this blog, The Dream Antilles for five years.  That’s 35 woozle years.  It’s 30 pootie years.  And in the life of the Internet, it’s about 3 nanoseconds.  I’ve probably outlived about 10,000,000 other blogs, all of which you can still read.  If you want to.  And yet, I haven’t achieved fame, wealth, or any of the other benefits you might imagine.  There is no new Porsche in  my driveway.  I haven’t been on Rachel.

Why, you might ask, am I posting this here?  What’s the point?  

The Republican Leadership is Too Crazy

You know that you have gone too far with the wing nuttery when both Lou Dobbs and Alan Keyes think you have jumped the shark.

Lou Dobbs, for as anti-immigrant as he is, says that the 14th Amendment is not the problem

I part ways with the Senators on that because I believe the 14th amendment, particularly in its due process and equal protection clauses, is so important. It lays the foundation for the entire Bill of Rights being applied to the states.

Prime Time

Only one chance at Keith and Rachel because we need our Joe Arpaio fix.  Sharks, just tonight and tomorrow to jump them.  The highlight is without a doubt Phineas & Ferb’s Summer Belongs to You at 8 pm.  Think Around The World in 80 Days in a day.

In an hour.

Competing on the Toon front are Ben 10 and Generator Rex premiers.  Clone Wars is doing the Blue Shadow Virus set.

Later-

Dave has Sandra Bullock (Miss Congeniality) and Drew Brees.  NO ALTON!  What the heck am I going to eat?  New Children’s Hospital at midnight.  The Doctor Is Sin (Am I a bad person?).  Look Around YouHealth.  Disney has repeats of tonight’s premier and other recent Phineas & Ferbs.

I could be working with my brother right now. He’s got a dry-wall business in Compton. Does the inside of office buildings; you know, the metal studs. I could be his partner, said he’d give me that brand new Dodge Ram Charger. You know, the 318 Magnum? The beast? All indoor work, too, lots of AC. I could sleep with my wife every night, fuck her, maybe; take my kids to school every morning. And I’d run his crews, too, probably increase productivity 40 to 50%. Make $100K a year. Do you know why I don’t? Because I love this job.

I thank God for every fucking day he gives me in the corps, oorah.

Yahoo TV Listings

Evening Edition

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 BP plugs runaway oil well in Gulf of Mexico

by Matt Davis, AFP

Thu Aug 5, 5:53 pm ET

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) – BP plugged its runaway well in the Gulf of Mexico with cement Thursday, one of the final steps in permanently sealing the gusher at the center of the worst US environmental disaster on record.

Some 15 weeks after the well ruptured and 21 days after the flow was fully stemmed with a temporary cap, the massive oil slick that once stretched for hundreds of miles is rapidly disappearing from the Gulf.

But officials cautioned that a great deal of clean-up work remained and that the long-term impact of the disaster could be felt for years, even decades.