Newley Purnell

Meat art!

(Via Slashfood.)

meat, art, slashfood

Thanks to an unexpected mention on linkfilter, I’ve been getting a lot of traffic to my buddy CD’s hilarious story about an emergency room trip due to a run-in with a bunch of jalpeno peppers. If you missed the tale when I first related it, be sure to give it a read.

jalapenos, cooking, linkfilter

I knew that headline would get your attention.

Moleskine porn isn’t what you’re thinking it is. Moleskines aren’t animals or weirdo fetishists. They’re notebooks. (And good ones at that; I own a couple myself.)

For the best in Moleskine minutia, check this site out. And this one. This one’s pretty good for pics, too.

But my favorite moleskine site is micronomicon.com, which gives the Codex Seraphinianus a run for its money; the author also has a cool travel blog. (Micronomicon link via DY.com.)

Moleskine, notebook, journal

The details, from the BBC:

Ecuador’s state oil company says it is suspending crude oil exports following five days of protests in two provinces that have slashed production.

Hundreds of demonstrators in Sucumbios and Orellana have occupied oil installations and airports.

What it all boils down to:

Not all sections of Ecuadoran society have benefited equally from oil revenues.

The traditionally dominant Spanish-descended elite gained far more than the indigenous peoples, who make up a large proportion of those who live in poverty.

Ecuador, oil, protests

This hits a little close to home.

tiger, Thailand

SF Chron:

For all the criticism that Wal-Mart receives for its low wages and minimal health benefits, the retail giant says more than 11,000 people in the Bay Area are clamoring to get a job at its new Oakland store.

The country’s largest employer plans to welcome customers into its 148, 000-square-foot store on Edgewater Drive next Wednesday, and it says it already has filled 350 of its 400 openings.

I have zero problems with Wal-Mart. In fact, more to the point: I like Wal-Mart. They have a lot of stuff there. For cheap.

Okay, so they’re anti-union. That’s not cool. But let’s face it: the labor movement is stuck in the 1950’s: they’re battling corporations with anachronistic tools that don’t work in today’s globalized world. Unions don’t matter when big companies can simply shutter their stores and move to another “right to work” state — or to a third-world country.

The people who complain about how evil Wal-Mart is are usually rich enough that they can shop wherever they want. And they can rail against the company’s labor record because they’d never ever be reduced to actually working there, so the issue’s purely academic. The truth is that if you want to support the working stiff, you should be all for Wal-Mart, since they offer goods for lower prices than anywhere else.*

I feel the same way about McDonald’s and Starbucks, two corporate behmoths similarly disliked by the patchouli-wearing trustafarian crowd. You know what? I like a quarter pounder with cheese every once in a while. And also, I think Starbucks coffee tastes pretty good.

In the third-world countries I’ve visited and lived in, the local folks — despite what the anti-globalization, Che Guevara-T-shirt-wearing college kids claim — feel a similar affinity for Mickey Dee’s and Starbucks. They’re good places to work. And they provide pretty good products.

It doesn’t surprise me, then, that the Oakland Wal-Mart is getting swamped with job applications. Even in the People’s Republik of California.

*Another anti-Wal-Mart argument is that they use their size and clout to unfairly put independent hardware stores out of business. Yes, that’s unfortunate. But you can no more blame Wal-Mart for this than you can blame cheap imported cars for the troubles of the American auto industry. Them’s the breaks in a free market economy.

Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, Starbucks

Okay, so the rankings may be inaccurate, but they have implications for the next World Cup.

(Via Dana.)

BBC:

More than 100 people are feared drowned after an Ecuadorean ship carrying illegal migrants sank off the coast of Colombia, local authorities have said.

The boat is thought to have sailed from the port of Manta in Ecuador.

Ecuador, shipwreck, migrants, Colombia

NK News: “Database of North Korean Propaganda.”

Korea, North+Korea

Thanks to a link from the excellent Global Voices Online, my post about Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Foreign Policy’s Failed States Index Map has attracted interesting comments from bloggers boz and Miguel A. Buitrago.

Boz agrees that the Index was flawed; he says the evaluators “tried too hard to rank all states on some common standard, and managed to fail a common sense test.” And Miguel points out some pages on the FP site that list the criteria they used in their rankings.

Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Foreign+Policy

Michele McLellan: “How I learned to relax and build a house on the Mekong River.”

Cambodia

Some truly stunning pics. Click on thumbnails for related galleries and narration.

(Via Gridskipper.)

Myanmar, Burma

Taipei Times:

A 12-year-old girl dialing a wrong telephone number sent Taiwanese security officials scrambling after the ambassador from Swaziland was threatened with death, officials said yesterday.

Officers in the Shihlin District of the Taipei City Police Department yesterday established after investigations that the matter was the result of a misunderstanding.

It turned out that a 12-year-old ethnic Chinese South African girl intended to make a phone call to a friend to request her to return her iPod, but she accidentally dialled the number incorrectly.

Unaware of this, the girl used abusive language while speaking with what turned out to be the Swazi ambassador.

Ambassador Njabuliso Gwebu told police she was warned that “you will die” in the late-night call to her official residence on Aug. 3, an official at the Swaziland Embassy said.

After checking phone records, police traced the owner of the phone, an ethnic Chinese South African businessman. It turned out that his 12-year-old daughter had been using the phone regularly and made the threatening call that night.

(Via The Taipei Kid.)

ipod

I wish it weren’t true.

Yesterday I ran in my first ever 10K (6.2 miles) road race. That’d be the 17th Annual Harris Teeter YMCA Loudoun County Leesburg 10K & 20K road race. I’d never even run a 5K — 3.1 miles — race, which would have been a natural introduction to competitive racing, but I am a badass.

Or so I thought.

The good news: I finished the race. Without walking (save for stopping to get water at a couple of the water stations).

The bad news: I ran it slow. REAL slow. Like in an hour, seven mintues, and 30 seconds, which comes out to a eleven minute, 10 second pace. I knew I was running more slowly than my training pace, but I didn’t care. It was extremely hot. (Kudos to my buddy Jack W., who completed the race in 57:58.)

The really bad news: I was beaten by one Robert Gurtler, of The Plains, VA, who finished the race in 1:01:55. Robert — who I now consider my mortal enemy — is 70 years old.

The really really bad news: I was also bested by one Robert Smith, age 71, of Comus, MD, who finished the course in 58:26.

I hereby declare war on all septugenarians named Robert who run faster than me.

Here’re the offical race results, which reveal the sad fact that I finished 257 out of 289 male competitors. (Had I raced against the ladies, I would’ve come in at about 172 out of 234. Next time I’m running in drag.)

One final word: despite my poor showing, this race was a lot more fun than the last endurance athletic event I participated in, the dreaded VentureQuest.

running, 10K, DC, Leesburg