The good news is, you're not drunk...

I don't have much to fear from a drunkometer test - I probably get more alcohol from mouthwash than anywhere else. But those who do have tried and recommended many things to avoid detection of their condition. One in particular swore by hyperventilation.

Some years back I thought there was a bestseller about an English or Canadian country physician. In it I recall he learned that having a sour or rotten apple smell on the breath was a sign of appendicitis. Hmm - how far can you go with this?

Max Jacobs of Common Sense and Wonder notes a new electronic nose of sorts, along with applications. Some can be used in food processing to detect subtle off-odors consistently. But the ones under development are to be used for health diagnostics such as for lung cancer:

Scientists tested the e-nose on 60 people at the Forlanini Hospital in Rome, including 35 waiting for an operation to remove a large lung tumour. Each test took just over a minute and the nose successfully pinpointed every cancer patient, according to New Scientist.

I wonder if they'll be able to detect drug abuse by this means. Anyway, the implications are fascinating, and I'm sure civil libertarians will have a lot to say about this before it's over.

Afterthought: what's next, flatulence? Sweat? Handkerchiefs?

Last Call for Blogbash

At TNGs in Kirkwood tonight, as shown here. See ya!

Heading back...

I made it to my destination and I've done nothing but loafing and sponging for a few days now. But duty calls, so I will start back to St. Louis bright and early tomorrow AM. Then it's time to decompress, have a Blogbash, organize, pack, and make tracks to the next work assignment a few hours away from St. Louis on Monday.

Enquiring minds want to know...

Still alive...

I'm on the road, posting this from a coffee shop at my alma mater. I haven't been on campus in 20 years and I barely recognize the place. Anyway, things will be slow around here for the next several days while I'm on the road visiting some relatives and friends, so check out the links on the sidebars. Or even the archives.

Sex and the Single Senior

From the NY Times, via The Corner.

Yes, The Corner.

Most dangerous intersections in the US

This list is national. Toward the bottom you can request a list by state.

Blogbash, at last

Yes, I've been dragging butt about announcing the latest Midwest Blogbash in St. Louis. But now it's settled - May 9, at 7:00 to whenever, at TNGs in Kirkwood. Yes, it's the same place as last time, so it's convenient for Austin and Gato to call Australia and JD can have another shot at the barmaids.

For you slackers who didn't show the last time, it's here, and here is some info.

Yes, it's short notice, but there's a good reason - it'll be my last Friday night in St. Louis. See you there.

Culinary catchall

Where I grew up in small-town central IL, the food was pretty basic and conservative. Meat and potatoes, yes sir, with corn or green beans on the side. Maybe a salad once in a while, or lima beans or brussels sprouts. But that was about it - even onions were exceptional, and breakfast sausage was about the spiciest thing we ate. Pizza showed up in town in the mid-60's, but even it was bland. All other Italian food was Chef Boy-Ar-Dee. And but for a restaurant that served chop suey once a week, Chinese and Mexican food came in cans.

The potatoes were boiled, mashed, baked, or maybe even scalloped or au gratin. Occasionally they might assume the form of French fries. But these were usually frozen, and were eaten with ketchup.

Later I heard that some people eat their french fries with mayonnaise. Ugh. I suppose it's not so much different from potato salad, but it's the thought - this just isn't done. (Then again I thought it would be disgusting to get sauerkraut on a pizza but it actually wasn't too bad - you'll find this near the Mississippi River around the Quad Cities and points north.)

It gets worse. I've never had poutine, and until I stumbled across it on Colby Cosh (yeah, just try to link to a post there) I hadn't heard of it. No doubt purists will scream at this description, but near as I can tell it's french fries covered with gravy and curd cheese. We have Quebec to thank for this, but now the virus is spreading via McDonalds and others to points west and south.

Then there's this concoction found around US 66/I-55 in downstate IL and St. Louis called the horseshoe sandwich. It's kinda what you'd get if you ordered a hot beef sandwich, but swapped the mashed potatoes for french fries and the gravy for cheese sauce. It doesn't have to be roast beef though - as interpreted by the Ariston Cafe in Litchfield, IL (salute!), you can have it with turkey breast, ham, bacon and tomato or hamburger. (Maybe somewhere you can order a horseshoe sandwich with poutine on the side and a deep-fried Twinkie for dessert. Throw in an extra-large milkshake and you might as well call the coroner.)

Food doesn't have to be good to be good. If you ever go to Atlanta, check out the Varsity and you'll see what I mean. You can't miss the place, just off I-75/85 at the North Avenue exit, just east of that bulwark of civilization known as Georgia Tech. I'll probably be passing through there shortly, and I'll stop for chili dogs, the world's greasiest fries and an FO. The stuff must be brain food, because generations of engineers and scientists have lived off it.

Enough - it's time to eat.

Just in time for graduation

The Internet Toilet Roll Browser

Another constitutional amendment?

Anne Wilson proposes one here to prevent abuse of our citizenship rules. Hmm.

Santorum - you know what I'm talking about

It seems that most of the objections to Rick Santorum's recent statement take the form of "Republicans are equating homosexuality and incest" or "Don't the Republicans know when to keep their powder dry?"

Good grief, doesn't the fact that some want Santorum to step down from various party positions based on a contrived partisan misrepresentation of his remarks tell you what this is really about? If you don't like the guy, fine. But if he's as bad as some of us would have you believe, surely he's done worse than this or will. And there's still a long time before the next big elections - can't you build a better case than this?

In a welcome breath of common sense, John Leo lays out everything here.

It must be a rhetorical question

From here:

One "top Egyptian editor" told the Wall Street Journal back in 1991 about a conversation he had with Saddam. "I remember his saying, 'Compared to tanks, journalists are cheap--and you get more for your money.'"

Glenn Reynolds pointed to the item that contains the above, and later asks "Is it ethical not to expose these people, if we find out who they are?"

Time for an Iraqi Marshall Plan?

The ends of wars are always messy. George W. Bush's partisan enemies would like to present the current conditions in Iraq as a failure of his policies.

I'm sure that analysis after the fact will reveal some areas for improvement. But by historic standards, which are the only reasonable standards, we expect some chaos after a war like that in Iraq. For examples, Glenn Reynolds excerpts this right here.

Auto-blogrolling

Going through my referrals, I decided to follow one of them to see where it hit me. Ah, right here on this page. If you haven't been reading this blog for very long, well, just look at what you've been missing!

The Perfect Man

Long have we humans sought the perfect mate. For centuries men have poured their hearts out into poetry like the following:

"I've finally found the perfect girl, I could not ask for more,
She's deaf and dumb and oversexed and owns a liquor store."

Women tend to value other criteria more highly. Ravenwood knows these things. Lacking the stamina to service all women (I presume), he offers us the Perfect Man.

Other women, notably bulimics, may find this more appealing.

Bill Clinton, neocon

From Blaster.

Where's the hate?

I've done a little frog-bashing here, but apparently I haven't done it right - I'm just not getting the hate mail I deserve. But Beaker did, and he has some fun with it here.

But frog-bashing is so anonymous - if you want to get personal, he offers www.famousidiot.com with its celebrity quotes. It includes this from Jennifer Aniston:

( 9/1/2001 ) Aniston mentions how musicians in the Eighties had something to be pissed off about, with Reagan in the White House. I ask her what she thinks of Bush. She vents about him in detail, eloquently, but off the record. She says she doesn't want to come off like another actor blathering about politics. On the record, she'll only say, "Bush is a fucking idiot," and flip him a double-bird, and that Jenna Bush - the Bush daughter whose underage drinking has proved embarrassing for the administration - had a summer internship at Brillstein-Grey, the management firm where she and Pitt are represented. "We'd pass her in the hall," Aniston says, "and Brad would say, 'Heyyyy, Jenna, wanna beer? I got one in the truck!'"

Charming.

But I love that dirty water...

John Hudock of Common Sense and Wonder points to this ecological problem that caused a massive clam die-off.

AIDS - the conservative, Southern connection...

Drudge points to this article in the Atlanta Urinal-Constipation in which we learn the connection between conservatism and AIDS:

The South is more greatly plagued by AIDS and HIV infections because of racial and economic differences and a conservative cultural attitude that interferes with attempts to halt the disease, the report said.

Right. A disease that's spread primarily by needle drugs and anal sex is to be blamed on "conservative attitudes". Have Southerners been encouraging this behavior?

And there's this:

More than half of the people with AIDS in the South are African-American, though only 20 percent of the region's population is Black. African-American men are less likely to acknowledge that they are in a high-risk group for AIDS and are less likely to volunteer for HIV testing, researchers say.

Yep, and African-Americans typically vote conservative as a bloc, right?

And this:

In addition, it said AIDS/HIV rates closely parallel the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases, such as syphilis and gonorrhea.

Yep, that accounts for the heterosexual cases that don't involve needles, transfusions or anal sex - the other STDs cause lesions in the genitals which permit AIDS to do its dirty work. OK, then how do you get STDs? By sleeping around. This isn't unheard of among conservatives, but at least they take the trouble to be hypocritical about it.

C'mon, AJC, don't try to sound like the NYT. They'll never respect you because you're from the South.

Hold still, Bessie

You've heard of the old anti-hunting bumper stickers that said "support your right to arm bears"? Well, this guy arms cows.

Courtesy of Last Page - if I were a cow, she could arm me anytime.