So that's where they came from!

I've enjoyed Eggs Benedict for as long as I can remember, but I've never known where the name (or the recipe) originated.  Thanks to Atlas Obscura, all is now revealed.

The most important thing to know about eggs Benedict is that they have nothing to do with the famed traitor Benedict Arnold.

In fact, some give credit for the dish to Pope Benedict XIII, who ruled the Vatican from 1724 to 1730, and was put on a strict eggs and toast diet while there–dressed in a lemon-based sauce, at his request. But it wasn’t eggs Benedict, exactly, and that pope’s ultimate legacy was sartorial, not culinary: he forbade the wearing of wigs by the cardinals.

Pushing aside stories of traitors and popes, it seems the real source of eggs Benedict was New York City in the Gilded Age, an era when rich people were starting to party in public instead of private homes, in plain view of commoners who also liked staying out late and spending money in restaurants.

There's more at the link.

There look to have been two possible claimants to fame, although I understand neither can be confirmed with 100% accuracy.  Still, the location and approximate era of the invention of Eggs Benedict seems to have been nailed down with reasonable certainty.

(By the way, there are many interesting variations on Eggs Benedict.  Wikipedia helpfully provides a list.  I think I'm going to take it as a personal challenge to sample every one of them!)

Peter

About that bathroom transgender incident . . .

A couple of days ago I posted (very angrily) about a father who confronted a person dressed as a woman, but who was very visibly male, in a supermarket when the individual tried to use the ladies' restroom while his daughter was inside.

It seems my uncompromising attitude has upset some people.  I've received a few accusations that I'm 'bigoted' and/or 'closed-minded' and/or sundry (often less polite) things.  To those who feel this way, I can only say:  Bite me.  I don't care.

Common sense is sorely lacking in this entire situation.  For 99%+ of the human population, the chromosomes have it.  They, and they alone, determine an individual's gender.  For the less than 1% who suffer from sex chromosome abnormality, one can only have the deepest sympathy.  It must be a truly ghastly condition with which to have to live.  However, in the current high-pressure situation chromosomal issues are seldom, if ever, mentioned.  Instead, there are those who argue that one's mental or psychological or (God help us - and I mean that!) spiritual gender identification should be the only criteria in deciding which restroom to use, ignore the fact that there are medical names and diagnostic codes for that.

That's not normal - it's abnormal.  That's not healthy - it's unhealthy.

I have real sympathy (and I really mean that) for those who suffer from gender dysphoria.  They are, indeed, in need of help - but that help should not be to enable, encourage, legitimize and reinforce their dysfunction.  It should rather be to treat it, cure it if possible, and - since a cure is seldom medically possible - provide them with coping mechanisms to help them live a more normal life.  Furthermore, such approaches should not involve forcing the rest of us to pander to their dysfunction, particularly not when it puts our children at risk.  Pandering to mental dysfunction is itself an aberration, IMHO!

Unfortunately, those who jump to the defense of anyone and everyone they consider (laudably) 'different' don't see it that way.  I think Blue summed up their attitudes very nicely in this infographic.  Go take a look.  It's very apt.  (Recce Room has a somewhat less politically correct approach to the problem, not dissimilar to mine.  You'll find his here.  If I were in his shoes, I daresay I'd feel exactly the same way.)

Furthermore, the involvement of pedophiles and sex offenders in the movement to 'open' restrooms to those not necessarily of the 'correct' physical gender has been demonstrated on more than one occasion.  The most recent of which I'm aware was in North Carolina last month.  When unmasked, the person concerned stepped down from his pressure group leadership, but was unrepentant.

Before he stepped down as chamber president, Sevearance-Turner said the N.C. Values Coalition’s criticism “did not surprise him.”

He said his conviction had not stopped him from achieving success, such as being chamber president.

There's more at the link.

(Note that his presidency was of an LGBT pressure group.  I suppose that, to some, this would qualify as a 'success'.  Now, if he'd become president of a mainstream Chamber of Commerce instead of a pressure group version thereof, the rest of us might find that more convincing.)

I believe I'm part of the vast majority of people when I say that I'm simply not prepared, under any circumstances, to accept the very real risks of allowing those with gender dysphoria (real or imagined) to use bathrooms intended for (and therefore restricted to) the use of members of one physical gender.  It's too easy for those with criminal intent to take advantage of such leniency.  It puts the most vulnerable members of our society - our children - at risk, and that's completely unacceptable.  I don't care whether or not laws are passed to permit it.  I will not obey such laws, and if anyone tries to use them in my presence as a legal 'fig leaf' to justify and/or get away with such conduct, they will regret it.  End of story.

On the other hand, if all bathrooms are made 'unisex', with partitions and doors that fully enclose every toilet cubicle without gaps, and basins and other shared facilities are laid out in such a way that close proximity to another person is never forced upon their users, and such areas provide adequate separation to prevent accidental (or not-so-accidental) touching, intrusion, etc. - I'd have no problem with that.  A father could then stand outside the stall in use by his daughter and ensure that she wasn't bothered, and no-one would question his behavior.  (Of course, Mother Nature provides just such a solution . . . )

One wonders why the pressure groups haven't bothered to press for this alternative.  I can only presume it's because some of them, and some individuals associated with them (see, for example, the incident mentioned above), have ulterior motives.  I do know exactly what to do about that.  So, I suspect, do most of my readers.  Do I hear an "Amen!" ?

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #900

Today's award goes to all the idiots involved in this battle of the machines.

Police in northern China say an argument between construction workers escalated into a demolition derby-style clash of heavy machinery that left at least two bulldozers flipped over in a street.

. . .

The construction workers were from two companies competing for business, Xu Feng, a local government spokesman in Hebei province’s Xingtang county, said Monday. He said he couldn’t disclose details about arrests or injuries until an investigation concludes.

There's more at the link.

Here's how it went down.

I wonder if we could get those nitwits to volunteer for China's construction projects on disputed islands?  With skills like that, they'd sink the damn things!

Peter

Will fighter aircraft become obsolete?

I've questioned for some time (including in these pages) whether, with the advent of light-speed energy weapons, manned aircraft have a viable future over the battlefield.  Now Flight Global asks the same question.

Despite anaemic sales growth, the defence industry somehow sustains 11 different fighter types in active production, with more in early development. Yet the future of the fighter’s core mission has never been more uncertain. Fifth-generation designs were supposed to give way by 2030 to a sixth, which would leverage advances in tailless flight controls, advanced stealth, efficient supersonic propulsion and new weapons.

Now the US Air Force is having second thoughts about developing such a fighter. In unusually candid remarks, the service’s lead requirements setter, Lt Gen James Holmes, says no new technology on the horizon is likely to make a sixth-generation fighter survivable against advanced ground-based air defences.

It has been known for some time that a modern-day, close-in dogfight is essentially a mutual suicide pact for the opposing pilots, due to advances in high off-­boresight targeting and missile agility. But it is ­astonishing that the USAF should now acknowledge the fighter aircraft’s fundamental vulnerability to attacks from terra firma.

There's more at the link.

Of course, one can't help thinking of the 'missile mafia' of the 1950's and 1960's, who argued that aircraft were no longer needed because missiles would 'do it all'.  We all know how that turned out . . .

Peter

Not the world's best movers

This is how not to do it.

Peter

The British Raj isn't quite dead yet . . .

. . . even though one of its more audacious throwbacks is no longer with us.  The Telegraph reports:

Lieutenant-Colonel Graham Tullet, who has died aged 74, was the last Englishman to be elected president of the Royal Bombay Yacht Club.

Only about a dozen Britons are to be found among the 1,200 members today. But as a tall, popular local businessman who liked to sport an eyeglass and had the swagger of one born to command, Tullet was a natural choice to keep the peace between bickering Parsees, Sindhis and others. Agreeing to take control for 1974, he set about tightening up the way the club was run and reviving some of the glory it had known in the mid-19th century.

There were rumbles about the retention of its name after the doors were opened to Indians in 1957; but it was 30 years later that he and a predecessor as president, Major Frank Courtney, challenged the suggestion that the “Royal” of Royal Bombay Yacht Club, used since 1876, was redundant. They wrote to Buckingham Palace inquiring if it was still appropriate and were reassured to receive the Queen’s approval.

Few in Bombay/Mumbai now resent the club’s name, although one member insists on making his cheques out to the “Royal Mumbai”, without his bank objecting. Younger members enjoy the story of the upright Field Marshal Montgomery being asked to leave after dancing on tables as a subaltern, and approve of the sign declaring: “It is prudent to be attired appropriately for the time of day.”

Tullet ensured that the steak and kidney pie was properly cooked. A Christian choir still sings at the Christmas lunch. The Queen’s portrait retains pride of place in the Lounge, and the old trophies and sepia photographs were brought up from the basement to remind members of their 150-year history. Club staff showed their appreciation of his clear orders by presenting him, uniquely, with a silver salver on his retirement.

Looking out from his office at the Gateway of India in the Mumbai harbour, Tullet used to say that his most important task was to preserve the club’s artefacts – which included himself.

. . .

Tullet’s greatest boast was that he could drink at the Royal Bombay late on a Friday evening, then pick up a bag from his bearer to catch the 1am KLM plane to Amsterdam. He would then fly to Bristol and be driven to his Somerset house for breakfast before riding out with the Chipstable Hunt at 11am. It was an achievement echoing the spirit of Major William Hodson, the leader of Hodson’s Horse, whom Tullet played charging across the screen in Junoon (1978), a film about the Indian Mutiny.

There's more at the link.

It sounds as though he was quite the character.  I'd have liked to have met him.

Peter

A spectacular view of Earth

NASA has released an ultra-high-definition 4K video of the Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis, taken from the International Space Station.  It makes for spectacular viewing.  Watch it in full-screen mode for best results.

I don't suppose I'll live long enough to get into space.  It's the only thing that makes me wish I was younger.  The odds are pretty good that someone in his or her twenties today will be able to take a tourist flight to orbit before they die, and see such sights for themselves.


*Sigh*


Peter

So you think your smartphone is secure?

Not according to CBS's '60 Minutes' program.

Hering is a hacker himself, he's the 30-something whiz who cofounded the mobile security company "Lookout" when he was 23. Lookout has developed a free app that scans your mobile phone for malware and alerts the user to an attack.

Sharyn Alfonsi: How likely is it that somebody's phone has been hacked?

John Hering: In today's world there's really only -- two types of companies or two types of people which are those who have been hacked and realize it and those who have been hacked and haven't.

Sharyn Alfonsi: How much do you think people have been kind of ignoring the security of their cellphones, thinking, "I've got a passcode, I must be fine?"

John Hering: I think that most people have not really thought about their phones as computers. And that's really starting to shift.

Sharyn Alfonsi: And that's what you think-- it's like having a laptop now?

John Hering: Oh absolutely. I mean, your mobile phone is effectively a supercomputer in your pocket. There's more technology in your mobile phone than was in, you know, the space craft that took man to the moon. I mean, it's -- it's really unbelievable.

Sharyn Alfonsi: Is everything hackable?

John Hering: Yes.

Sharyn Alfonsi: Everything?

John Hering: Yes.

Sharyn Alfonsi: If somebody tells you, "You can't do it."

John Hering: I don't believe it.

There's much more at the link.  Highly recommended - and disturbing - reading.

Peter

Excessive tolerance, transgender edition

This morning I received an e-mail that made my blood boil.  I'm not at liberty to provide details that might identify the persons involved or the place, but in brief, a father was standing outside the ladies' room at a supermarket, waiting for his daughter to come out.  A transgender individual with obvious and easily identifiable male characteristics made as if to enter the ladies' restroom.  The father stopped him, only to be told by this individual that he was female.  A certain amount of disorder ensued, and eventually police escorted the father out of the supermarket.

This is complete and utter BULLSHIT!!!!

That father had no way of knowing whether this was a genuinely transgender case, or some pervert or weirdo looking to get his rocks off at the expense of the ladies and children in that room.  Therefore, if I'd been in that father's shoes, my response would have been something like this:

"Sir, you may claim to be a woman, but physiologically you're very visibly male.  My daughter is in that room, and it's my job as her father to protect her.  Since I can't do it any other way in these politically correct times, I'm also going to self-identify as a woman - just long enough to go in there with you, collect her and escort her out.  If you come within ten feet of her while I do that, there's going to be a very loud bang, and you will require the services of the coroner.  Any questions?"

Peter

Oops!

Several readers, knowing of my interest in rallying, have sent me the link to this video recently.  I recommend watching it in full-screen mode.

Thrills and spills galore!

Peter

Book update

Here's a quick update for those wanting to know what's happening with my forthcoming books.

I'm hard at work on revisions to my Western novel.  It's an interesting experience working with an editor for a publisher - something I haven't done before.  I'm learning a lot, and enjoying it.  I've promised to send the corrected manuscript to him by the end of next week, God willing, and publication should follow shortly thereafter.  I'm excited, particularly at the prospect of more books in the series if it sells well.

Maxwell Volume 5 is also progressing, albeit on the back burner for a few weeks while I hurriedly get the Western in order.  I anticipate publishing it sometime in June - again, God willing.  Laredo Volume 3 will follow, hopefully in September or October.

I'm very hard at work, but enjoying it after the hiatus during the second half of last year caused by my problems with kidney stones.  Allow me to assure you, creative writing while writhing in agony and under the influence of some pretty strong pain-killers . . . let's just say it ain't creative, and there's not much writing!

Peter

Of course he's Irish!

The poor kid's going to grow up so traumatized . . .

Peter

Errr... only in Texas?

I found this at Wirecutter's place, and simply had to re-post it for Phlegmmy's benefit.

Yea, verily, the mind doth boggle . . .




Peter

Technology and toilets - not an ideal mix?

I was rather taken aback by this report.

In 2014 a ... study by researchers from the University of Leeds found that airborne germ counts were 27 times higher around jet air dryers [in restrooms] in comparison with the air around paper towel dispensers.

Research lead Professor Mark Wilcox said: “Next time you dry your hands in a public toilet using an electric hand dryer, you may be spreading bacteria without knowing it. You may also be splattered with bugs from other people’s hands.

“These findings are important for understanding the ways in which bacteria spread, with the potential to transmit illness and disease.”

There's more at the link.

It's a yucky thought, particularly for those of us who travel by road and have to use gas-station and rest-stop restrooms, which are usually equipped with several hot-air hand-dryers.  Looks like we may unknowingly be stepping into a highly contaminated atmosphere.

Food for thought . . .

Peter

Remember what I said about the political establishment?

A couple of months ago I postulated that the political establishment in the USA equated not so much to left- or right-wing inclinations or ideologies, but to riches.  The real political 'establishment' in America is wealth.

The Washington Post has just provided evidence to confirm my hypothesis.

A small core of super-rich individuals is responsible for the record sums cascading into the coffers of super PACs for the 2016 elections, a dynamic that harks back to the financing of presidential campaigns in the Gilded Age.

Close to half of the money — 41 percent — raised by the groups by the end of February came from just 50 mega-donors and their relatives, according to a Washington Post analysis of federal campaign finance reports ... In all, donors this cycle have given more than $607 million to 2,300 super PACs, which can accept unlimited contributions from individuals and corporations. That means super PAC money is on track to surpass the $828 million that the Center for Responsive Politics found was raised by such groups for the 2012 elections.

The staggering amounts reflect how super PACs are fundraising powerhouses just six years after they came on the scene. The concentration of fundraising power carries echoes of the end of the 19th century, when wealthy interests spent millions helping put former Ohio governor William McKinley in the White House.

. . .

To put that in perspective: This tiny cohort of mega-donors supplied more money than the combined contributions of nearly 1 million supporters of Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, whose campaign raised $161 million in the same time period. Unlike super PACs, candidates cannot accept corporate money, and individual contributions to them are limited to $2,700 per election.

Michael Malbin, executive director of the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute, said the last time political wealth was so concentrated was in 1896, when corporations and banking moguls helped McKinley, the Republican candidate, outspend Democratic rival William Jennings Bryan.

. . .

Populist anger over how presidential races were financed led to a 1907 ban on corporations donating to federal campaigns. Forty years later, Congress prohibited unions and corporations from making independent expenditures in federal races.

The picture dramatically changed in 2010, when the Supreme Court said in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that corporations and unions could spend unlimited sums on politics as long as they did it independently of campaigns and parties. The decision paved the way for super PACs, which are now a norm in federal races.

There's more at the link.

If anyone believes that these super-rich individuals are pouring their money into politics out of sheer altruism, expecting nothing in return . . . well, there's this bridge in Brooklyn, NYC that I'd like to sell you.  Cash only, please, and in small bills.

Peter

A spectacular musical display

This footage was released in January, but I missed it at the time.

A spectacular display of drone technology by Intel Corporation (USA) involving 100 small aircrafts being launched skywards in formation has earned a new world record title for the Most Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) airborne simultaneously.

Controlled on the ground by a crew using PCs with Intel software, the mass of drones lit up the night sky in sync to a live performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and executed a stunning light show resembling a fireworks display.

“Drone 100” took place at Flugplatz Ahrenlohe, Tornesch, Germany, in November ... The record was set in collaboration with Ars Electronica Futurelab to push the limits of the UAV industry and to show what UAVs can be used for.

There's more at the link.

Here's the video.  Watch it in full-screen mode for best results.

I can't help thinking that Beethoven would probably have enjoyed that augmented performance of his music.

Peter

Not the best selfie ever

Several readers have e-mailed this picture to me, claiming that it's the 'best selfie ever'.

Er . . . no, it isn't.  Check the reflection in his sunglasses.

Photoshop, or something similar.

Peter

Doing something about sex trafficking

I'm not a follower of professional sports at all - or most amateur sports, for that matter.  In the past I've thought that most professional sportspersons are in it for the money alone.  However, people like recently retired baseball player Adam LaRoche make me think twice about that.  I was startled to read this in a recent article about his decision to retire.

But what if the origin of LaRoche's decision can be found in early November, in -- of all places -- the red-light districts of Southeast Asia?

Working through a nonprofit called the Exodus Road, LaRoche and Boyer conducted surveillance in brothels and tried to determine the age of the girls -- known only by numbers pinned to bikinis -- and identify their bosses.

"Something huge happened there for us," Boyer says. "You can't explain it. Can't put your finger on it. If you make a wrong move, you're getting tossed off a building. We were in deep, man, but that's the way it needed to be done. Adam and I truly believe God brought us there and said, 'This is what I have for you boys.'"

When it came time to board a flight back home, LaRoche hesitated. "I was sick," he says. "I was thinking about my kids and then thinking about the hundreds of thousands of parents who are searching for their 12-year-old daughters."

As they waited for their plane, LaRoche asked Boyer, "What are we doing? We're going back to play a game for the next eight months?"

They wielded their emotions like crude homemade weapons. Every crazed thought ran through their minds. Quit the game. Sell the house and move here. Give up everything and fight the fight full time.

LaRoche couldn't talk about it for two weeks. It's going on tonight, he thought as he tried to sleep. And here I am, in paradise at the ranch with my kids, where everything's safe.

There's more at the link.  It makes interesting reading for those who, like me, think that family and relationships should come before money whenever possible.

I've seen something of the murky world of sex-trafficking and the kidnapping and sale of young girls, forced into prostitution at an unconscionably early age (many of them long before puberty).  In parts of Africa there's a pernicious belief that sex with a virgin can cure AIDS - and since a young, pre-pubescent girl is almost by definition a virgin, they're in high demand by desperate men who will grasp at any straw to stay alive.  As a result, many young girls - some as young as three or four years old - are stolen and trafficked for that purpose.  It's sickening . . . particularly when those youngsters themselves end up with AIDS, and die before puberty.

I'm very grateful to Mr. LaRoche for mentioning this problem in so public a forum, and particularly for trying to do something about it himself.  We can't eradicate it - evil has been with us since the dawn of time, and will be until it ends - but we can at least make a difference in some lives.  It looks like he (and Mr. Boyer) are trying to do just that.  Thank you, both of you.  I wish there were more like you.

Peter

A smile for tax day

Courtesy of the Wizard of Id this morning:

Peter

A cute little flying toy!

I'm sure many of us remember James Bond flitting around in a tiny Bede BD-5J microjet, playing tag with a ground-to-air missile in the film 'Octopussy'.

With the failure of Bede Aircraft Corporation, it seemed for some time that the era of the microjet was over.  However, Sonex had their own ideas about that.  Courtesy of the latest entry in Earthbound Misfit's 'Sunday Jet Noise' series, I learned of the latest iteration of Sonex's SubSonex single-seat build-your-own jet aircraft.  AVweb says of it:

The kit with engine costs about $130,000, so by the time you throw in the avionics, paint and other extras, call it $150,000 to $160,000. For a jet, even a single-seat jet, that’s not a lot of money in the context of upper strata experimentals or even LSAs. In fact, it strikes me as a decent value for a would-be builder or owner who passionately wants to fly a jet airplane.

. . .

How would you use such a thing? I think it’s primarily a VFR sport flyer similar to other experimentals or LSAs. Take off of a Saturday morning and burn up 30 gallons of Jet A beating up the local area and the pattern. Great fun. (You’ll need a longish runway, however. The SubSonex isn’t exactly a STOL airplane and the brakes need improving.) 

Sonex gives the still air range as 480 miles at a 240-MPH cruise, so you could use the airplane for light travel, although it would take planning and effort. It burns about 34 GPH during takeoff and typically half that in cruise with a 40-gallon capacity. I wonder if a creative builder might find room for a little more fuel.

The engine is a 40-pound jewel of a creation from PBS Velká Bíteš, a Czech Republic company formerly in the Soviet orbit. The TJ-100’s origins are in APU applications, but it finds use in small UAVs today. Rated thrust is 250 pounds, which Carleton says is a perfect match for the airplane. When we were shooting the airplane, he explained how a jet engine’s simplicity percolates down through the airplane itself. With no heavy structure to support a piston engine and no linkages for throttles and props, the SubSonex is an exceptionally simple build. The engine is FADEC controlled and throttle by wire, so the only connections are the fuel line and a few wires. Carleton told me when he tours with his Salto glider for airshows—same engine—he unpins the engine and takes it into his hotel room at night. Try that with an IO-320.

There's more at the link.

Here's the SubSonex in action at EAA's AirVenture show at Oshkosh, WI in 2014.  Watch it in full-screen mode for best results.

Looks like a fun toy.  I wonder if Miss D. would like to fling one of those around the Texas sky?  Note to self:  must sell more books . . .

Peter