Wow this solar cooker could really change the third world, and living off the grid in general.
H/T Guyster.

Fine Food for Picky Eaters

I am not big on spicy or unfamiliar food. I think a good hamburger is civilizations greatest culinary accomplishment.

Shu mai Cantonese Dim Sum I could eat a dozen easy. Stab the orange with one chopstick and eat it whole.

Kimchi is what makes a Korean a Korean. Extremely healthy pickled cabbage, not unlike a spicy sauerkraut.

Robatayaki is not a food but a type of Japanese restaurant. Search one out, its a must do.


ZwebielRostbraten is an Austrian roast of beef with onions and gravy, its the best roast beef ever.

Kasekrainer is another Austrian snack food sold by street vendors(Imbiss). I can not stand USA/Canadian style breakfast sausage, but a Kasekrainer (Slovanian Kolbassa with cheese filling)is one of the best things I have ever eaten.

A Doner Kebab is the Turkish version of the Arabic Swarma, or Greek Gyro. I prefer the Turkish Lamb version pictured below.(and I generally will not eat Lamb) I have found getting a real good Doner a bit of a challenge  but if I ever see them being sold I am willing to give it a chance. The Turkis restaurant in Austria makes a superb Doner.

Schwartzs Montreal Smoked Meat Sandwich. A Montreal Institution since 1928. Some would call it corned beef, I would call it the only flavour of corned beef I really like. If you dont like smoked meat in general I promise you will love this. I have tried all the suspects in Montreal and Schwartzs is the only one to deliver me a unique delight. Be sure to get a pickle as well. Its rumored the cherry cola also opens the taste buds.

The legendary R.W. Apple picked ten restaurants worth flying to.

40 foods/restaurants for your bucket list.

The worlds best restaurant has a year long wait list.

Top rated Austrian restaurant. I have eaten here and it is not to be missed if your in Vienna and have 100 Euro a head to spend.

Thinking Diffrient (1928-2013)

We all spend way to much of our lives sitting, and Niels addressed that in spectacular fashion. He was in his seventies when he produced his masterpiece the Freedom Chair. If you have never tried a proper keyboard tray your missing out. You left the world a way more comfortable place than you entered it. R.I.P.

Neils art-forms are on permanent display at the Museum of Modern art, the Smithsonian and discriminating workstations worldwide.

Wired reviews the world best office chairs.

NSA and total awareness syndrome

This is a work in progress. For decades since the Echelon reveal I have known the government is looking and gathering and analyzing everything I do. I am not all that afraid of that if this knowledge is not used for power. Now I am afraid, I know for sure all this knowledge is used for power. I suspect its not one political party or the other, its the watchmen, have seized control. So their agenda becomes our future. If they were a team of really smart people instead of people who feared really smart people I might think its a good thing. Watch Game of Thrones, throughout history intelligence networks have changed foes into allies. But now we are talking about something on a scale never imagined. A global network of power players playing. If they were all socialists I would not object, but it appears they are all Adam Smiths and cant understand why anyone would object to finding the lowest cost labor input. Its something to watch, but in the USA I expect it will bubble over in two to five years. This will be a global match that burns everything not rooted in solid economic ground. The only people to survive in a first world way will be the little countries with resources and the EU. Sell your Gold, buy localized productive resources.

And on the hero villain scale of things I should mention where I stand, just so you know what part of a vision of mankind is my place, my final stand when all the misinformed and poorly educated people come looking for my hide.
Bradley Manning for sure was a traitor, in the context of he disobeyed the orders. but what he revealed would get him an acquittal at Nuremberg. Julan Assage is only guilty of not having a big media organization behind him. its totally ridiculous. Now Mr Edward Snowden is a special case. Here is a guy living on the beach in Oahu making double six figures, with a hot professional pole dancer girlfriend who loves him, who just throws it all away. I blame his public school education telling him to be a patriot. Programming error soon to be corrected. Villain or Hero to soon to predict, but the trend is here is a guy who took the constitution seriously. My pick is super hero Edward Snowdon, and children a hundred years from now will be told by their parents, what would Edward Snowden do?

Rick Saulton a day later expands on my observation about the US school system.

Boing Boing Chimes in.

In 1964, after Hoover called King the most "notorious liar in the country" in a press conference, a package was sent to King in the mail, a package the House select committee ultimately traced back to the FBI. Inside this package, one of the most remarkable artifacts in American history was an anonymous letter addressed to Martin Luther King and a copy of an electronic surveillance tape apparently to lend credence to threats of exposure of derogatory personal information made in the letter. We don't know to this day for sure what was on that tape. The heavy speculation throughout the years it was of personal and sexual nature recorded by a device planted in Dr. King's hotel room.

The letter that came with the tape read in part, "you know you are complete fraud and a great liability to all of us negroes. The American public will know you for what you are, an evil abnormal beast. King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You are done. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation." The committee considered it highly likely that Director Hoover had before the fact knowledge of the action.

So that's a letter encouraging Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to kill himself, sent to King from the FBI. This happened in American history. It's just one example out of many of how the full weight of the surveillance state constructed to fight the cold war was used against the people working for racial equality. It may have been constructed to defeat the Russians and the genuine threat of global communism, but it was deployed on people like Carmichael and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Secure Browsing? This is a product begging to be Kickstarted.

No its not Al Gore, the inventor of the Internet calls foul!
Rodger Cohen who I consider a right wing NYT columnist, says thumbs up!
J Edgar Hoover reminds us why we should not trust the government.

Iceland the last free place in the World?

Catching the future

I saw this picture in Gizmag and had my own idea.  Imagine you board a bus, but its not a bus its a missile. The bus is on a maglev rail, the bus accelerates and the rail rises then at 300 meters the bus is launched into space where it is captured by a perfectly timed mating with a mother ship. When the destination is reached the bus is dropped and lands perfectly on the maglev rail and then is gently decelerated until you are back at the bus stop that was your intended destination.

State of the Art Maglev Train

In Canada we may have by 2015 a train running the 20 Km from downtown Toronto to the airport. No it will not be electric, we do not need no stinking electric trains. Meanwhile in Japan where high speed trains were first put into service in 1964, they are planning to have a Tokyo to Nagoya (300Km) maglev carrying 1000 passengers floating along at 500 Kph. I expect by that time we will have diesel trains running between Toronto and Montreal at 140 Kph.

Organic Materials

Lumber is the original perfect organic building material. Nowdays companies like Ecovative Design are pushing the boundaries. They grow packaging and insulation out of mushroom mold. Read more at Gizmodo. They claim it could replace plastic. Wow another blow at big oil, do I sense a theme?

Earth Saving News of Note

The airline industry in recent months has made a massive commitment to the use of bio fuels. They are to be applauded. Even more interesting is the assertion the bio fuel will be cost competitive with Jet Fuel A, and will not require any engine modifications. Since Jet A and diesel fuel are very similar how long before diesel vehicles are using a 50/50 mix.  Well they will certainly have to ramp up production considering current demand is close to 3 million barrels a day. However imagine the threat to the oil industry this represents.

Most Beautiful/Sexy Car of all Time

The Jag E type is going to win every contest.  Some cars that did not make this list that would be on mine.

Mazda RX-7

Honda NSX

Cadillac Seville (1980-1985)

Fiat X19

Ferrari 380GTSi

Ferrari testarossa

Alfa  Romero -156

Toyota 2000GT (James Bond Edition)

Opel GT

Rolls Royce Phanton V

Edstock Editions

1954 Studebaker Starliner

1956 Lincoln Continental Mk II

1961 Lincoln Continental

More classics. and the NYT Collectibles. You will not believe what these cars are worth. The E Type is an easy quarter of a million dollars.

1936 Delahaye Type 135 Teardrop coupe

2005 XXR

Turkey in Turmoil

Credit to Reuters/Osman Orsi

Any leader in power for more than a decade seems to lose perspective. In general they come to believe their perspective is the peoples perspective. Talk about not seeing things in perspective.

I think aboot 70% of Canadians see an eerie similarity to the rule in Canada.