Self-composed

I had a hell of a good time yesterday on Feministing.com discussing human rights and cultural relativism with these wonderful
women. Vanessa posted a story about two Chinese men from a western province in China who were arrested for murder. They had bought the retarded daughter of a poor family who’d hoped selling her could only give her a better life than they could. Not so much. The new “owners” learned the girl was worth more dead than alive if her corpse could be sold another couple who believed they needed to bury a corpse bride with their deceased son so he could have a wife in the afterlife. After making the sale, they tried it again on a prostitute. Original story here.

Of course, all this was an outrage for these one-track minds.

“…seriously creepy shit. It’s terrifying when a patriarchal tradition not only extends into the afterlife, but when women are slaughtered in order to respect it.” -Vanessa

The elightened, progressive, liberal, open-minded commenters:

“What the f*** is wrong with people?” -Manda

“Insane…” -Sam Cai

“these are the times where i am grateful to live in the united states. we have some messed up stuff, but none of it includes burqas, foot binding, marrying dead men and throwing yourself on your husbands burning body.” -Katie

That is where I jumped in. I noticed they had forgotten they weren’t talking about white American men in spewing the vitriol. Katie (soon to backpeddle) had even stepped off the “blame-America-first” reservation. I wanted to know how long that would last. I posted:

I’m with Katie on this. I’m glad I live in a superior culture that doesn’t tolerate things like the opression of women.

That threw them for a loop. They’d been rattled. Shook up. Dazed. They went first for the liberals first weapon of choice. Calling me racist. This is the liberals’ first weapon of choice because they believe it requires no ammunition.

Eric - You are being sarcastic, right?
A superior culture? Wow, that’s a pretty racist thing to assert. -Anorak

Notice they asked me if I was being sarcastic, but they didn’t flinch at Katie’s or the earlier remarks. I wish I hadn’t jumped in until later so I could have seen how much longer they would have gone on bashing (rightfully so) the practices, beliefs, and customs involved in this story.

But I called it a culture, and that’s where the contradiction appears in the liberal articles of faith. You can’t say a culture (set of beliefs and customs of a group) is worse than your’s if you’re American. But oppression of women can’t be tolerated and no words are strong enough in criticizing those who would.

This looked like a job for moral equivelancy:

Besides, even if women aren’t as oppressed in the United States, the government still tolerates oppression of women in other countries and even does things that make it worse. Iraq and Afghanistan, anyone? -prairielily

prairielily, you are totally right, the status of women throughout the world is certainly part of my feminist agenda.

It is problematic for me, however, as a caucasian woman from a developed [1st world] country to know how to support women who live in oppressive countries without reinacting cultural imperialism…

And, yeah, I wanna third the “what the f*** is wrong with people?”
This sucks. -anorak

Huh? What Anorak means is “How can I call these people nasty and backwards while still maintaining the moral high ground of being a culural relativist.?”

I came back with:

Racist? Towards which race?

My position is very simple.

A culture that sells people, that arranges marriages for its daughters, that forces women to dress a certain way, denies them education and freedom over their own lives, and the right to be involved in the political process, etc., and so forth - a culture like that is inferior to a culture that won’t tolerate those things.

We have our problems here - not saying we’re perfect, but I’m happy to know that the women I know will never be sold only to be murdered and buried as part of some primitive mysticism, or have their fingers cut off for polishing their nails, etc.

I don’t see how my position is any different from Vanessa’s in the original post or Katie’s comment. Maybe I’m just too blunt?

I thought that should simplify things nicely for them. But they wouldn’t bite. Just more moral relativism - beginning with katie’s backpeddling from her original remarks. No matter how hard they tried to say “we’re just as bad” it didn’t work:

i dont think our culture is superior, bc i am sure we are inferior in other ways comparatively to china or whereever, i am just glad we dont have those customs here, even though we have our fair of problems. and yes, we allow oppression like this to occur in other countries with no problem, although i will be the first person to say you have to take care of your own first, and we have a LONG way to go with that. - Katie

There are equally misogynist crimes against women committed here in the US, for different rationales. Think about how often you read about some “distraught” man who shoots his wife and children. -EG

Eric, it is racist to contend that a culture is “superior” to another one.

Certainly, there are practises in different countries and cultures that my ethical code forbids, but this doesn’t make my culture “superior”.

I have a feeling this is not an argument I will be able to persuade you of.

Let’s just point out for argument’s sake, though, that your culture - if you are from the United States - has genocide, slavery, segregation, illegal invasions of foreign states, the death penalty, laws oppressive to women and other practises in its history and present state, practises that my ethical code opposes, and I don’t feel it is inferior to mine.

It is possible to ahbor rape and murder and injustice wherever they are found, without having to believe they make the culture they are found in “inferior”. -Anorak

The moral equivelancy is deafening eh? I told them, and I’ll say it again here. “Feminists here measure the “plight of women” by how long it might take to get a morning after pill, where problems in other parts of the world are measured in how long before the execution if a woman caught doing something she’d be perfectly within her rights to do here.”

To be fair, I should add that some of them actually got it. One of two of them defended my position. Maybe they’re what Tammy Bruce would call a “classic liberal.”

Outside the Beltway Traffic Jam

Joe Biden’s words, not mine!

According to the article above, his exact words were:

“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy … I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

I’m thinking he’ll get somewhat a pass on this one. There’s going to be some hay made over it, but the left will defend him. They usually like to circle the wagons in these cases. Of course, the classic question: Can you imagine the fallout if a Republican had said this?

Update:

The backpeddling has already begun. And as predicted, the wagons are circling. It’ll be interesting to see Jackson and Sharpton’s response even if Obama has the integrity not to play the victim card. Oddly enough, Biden has yet to announce he’ll be checking into rehab.

You’ll find the original version of this tobacco review here, where it first appeared on tobaccoreviews.com.

Tin Description

Piccadilly is a provocative blend of several Virginia tobaccos, delicately spiced with Latakia, and finished with Louisiana perique. The alluring flavour is revealed in layers throughout the smoke. It’s lighter and sweeter than the others, but still rich, with hints of cinnamon and citrus. The mildest of the blends in this collection, so far, Piccadilly is the perfect “English Breakfast Mixture.”

The Latakia seems to lay between the Virginia base and the Perique’s spice, complimenting and accentuating both. This combination brings out the sweetness of the Virginia while highlighting the fig and raisen notes brought by the Perique. The blend is very approachable, it burns nicely, doesn’t bite, and the ribbon cut packs easily.

Those seeking heavey Balkan and English blends look elsewhere. No orientals are present, and the latakia is a condiment not a component in this fine blend. The taste is natural and unique. It can be smoked any time of day or all day. This is one of my favorite Pease blends and most definately has my highest recomendation for anyone looking to try something different.

Malkin has posted some of the highlights and links to the entire pdf document.

Greg Pease is easily among the best at his craft - blending pipe tobacco. I’ve often wondered what the process is like in developing a blend. It’s art and science. In The Road to Westminster, Greg outlines what was involved in developing his latest creation. Its an interesting article - maybe even if you don’t smoke a pipe. Read the whole thing.

In March, I took samples from several vintages of London Mixture, some kindly sent to me by friends knowing about the journey I was about to embark upon. I smoked each, taking careful notes. Then began the laborious task of dissecting, with magnifying glass and forceps, the blends into their component parts. This is an inexact science, at best, as after years of melding and aging, it can be quite difficult to discern the different tobaccos, but it would provide me some starting points for my own experiments aimed toward recreating a classic, or at least capturing something of its essence. The dissection done, I weighed each little mound of tobacco carefully, and began to examine and analyze each. Countless hours were spent on this part of the project, but the insight gained was invaluable.

Once I had a good idea of both components and proportions, I began the real work of creating a new blend. Several prototypes were mixed, each carefully assessed, and adjustments were made. This is one of those incremental processes that can consume all available hours, and one that never really reveals the end point until you come quite close to it. By the middle of May, I’d narrowed it down to two different rough recipes, consisting of percentages of component classes - like Latakia, oriental, virginia. From here, I started working on the balance of the components in each group, and what sort of processing would be necessary to accomplish the final goal. More prototypes, more experiments, more little glass jars full of 20-50g of blended tobaccos.

I’m looking forward to trying this blend. I sway more towards Virginas and Virginia-based blends, but there’s room in my rotation for something like this. Of English and Balkan blends, I like the lighter ones over the latakia bombs. Think Dunhill “Early Morning Pipe,” Rattray’s “7 Reserve,” and Russ Oullette’s “Nemaste.”

That’s what Neil Boortz is calling Harry Reid. It looks like there might be a little something fishy going on.

In 2002, the Nevada Democrat paid $10,000 to a pension fund controlled by Clair Haycock, a Las Vegas lubricant dealer and his friend for 50 years. The payment gave the senator full control of a 160-acre parcel in Bullhead City that Reid and the pension fund had jointly owned. Reid’s price for the equivalent of 60 acres of undeveloped desert was less than one-tenth of the assessed value at the time.

If Reid were to sell the property for any of the various estimates of its value, his gain on the $10,000 investment could range from $50,000 to $290,000.

Six months after the deal closed, Reid introduced legislation to address the plight of lubricant dealers who had their supplies disrupted by the decisions of big oil companies. It was an issue the Haycock family brought to Reid’s attention in 1994, according to a source familiar with the events. Reid’s legislation was unsuccessful.

It is a potential violation of congressional ethics for a member to accept anything of value–including a real estate discount–from a person with interests before Congress.

In a statement, Reid’s spokesman Jon Summers said the transaction was not a gift and that the price was due to the property’s history and the fact that only a partial interest was sold. Reid’s action on the lubricant issue was unrelated to the sale and reflected the senator’s interest in fairness for small businesses, Summers said.

Because an employee pension fund owned the land Reid purchased, a below-market sale raises additional questions, labor law experts said. Pension fund trustees have a duty in most cases to sell assets for their market value, the experts said.

This story will die a peaceful death I’m thinking. If a Republican had done this, it’d be a whole different story.

Update:

Brian at the Iowa Voice puts the Reid thing in perspective alongside the lefts other ethics and corruption problems. He also points out this somehow only surfaced “after the Democrats have been safely elected.”

Where do people come up with ideas like this? I’ve always wondered. It’s like the first person in human history to look at a snail and say “that might just taste good.”

For 300 shekels ($70), clients at Ada Barak’s spa in northern
Israel can add a wild twist to their treatment by having six non-venomous but very lively serpents slither and hiss a path across their aching muscles and stiff joints.

“I’m actually afraid of snakes, but the therapeutic effects are really good,” customer Liz Cohen told Reuters Television as Barak let the snakes loose on her body.

Seveny bucks will buy a lot of Bengay. No thanks.

Edit

Hell, $70 will buy me a massage by a human. Let’s see, a one-hour massage by a trained professional, or you can get a basket of snakes dumped on your back….

Back with the family after six years.

Cujo was a frisky 7-year-old when he sneaked out of his owners’ south St. Louis yard in July 2000. Now, thinner and grayer and with a tale that would be fascinating if only he could tell it, the golden retriever is back with the Barczewski family.
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“It’s a miracle,” Noreen Barczewski, 41, said at Friday’s reunion. “We found him!”

Six years and a side trip to Columbia can do a lot to a dog, but it was unmistakably Cujo. There was the heart-shaped patch of white on his forehead, the white fur on his toes, his manner of greeting people by rubbing against them cat-style.

Cujo’s homecoming was orchestrated by Dirk’s Fund, a golden retriever rescue group that has found homes for more than 900 dogs in the past decade.

After slipping away from home, Cujo somehow ended up 120 miles in Columbia in the home of an elderly woman. When the woman entered a nursing home, the dog was sent to the Central Missouri Humane Society in Columbia.

It sounds like the old boy was in pretty bad shape by the time he made it back to his original family, but better than being eaten by a snake.

Ok, well, snake in an orchard.

Guard dogs protecting a fruit orchard in Malaysia have met their match — a 7.1-metre-long (23-ft-long) python that swallowed at least 11 hounds before it was finally discovered by villagers.

Poor dogs.

I took a break for tinkering with this blog and web site today to attend the birthday party of a friend of our family - on my wife’s side. We celebrated this woman’s 75th birthday party. I’d have to say it was easily the largest, most extravagant birthday party I’ve ever attended. And I’ve been to Filipino one year-olds’ birthday parties.

It was held at a clubhouse at a golf course. She’s not a golfer - I guess they chose the location for the food. It was that standard Hawaiian catering fare - mahi mahi, teriyaki beef, and garlic/shoyu chicken thighs.

She’s a lucky lady. It was a surprise birthday party. Somehow the kids, and their families, and their kids, husbands, boyfriends, and girlfriends, that live on the mainland managed to travel back to Hawaii with the excuse they were attending someone’s wedding. They all put a lot of work into the party, and while I usually hate social things like this and their trappings, seeing all the dedication to this woman who I’ve known for over a decade, and always liked, warmed my heart. Though its hard to tell because the food still feels like a bowling ball in my gut.