Melançon Enterprises • a multidivision multinational since 1980

[Friend and certified Indian person who therefore must have his identity shielded]
hey how did you cook the basmati rice

i ruined it

benjamin melançon:

pour the rice into a pot, corningware works

measure the height with a finger

put in twice as much water as there is rice, so if it's up to the first knuckle on the pinky, up to the second knuckle on the pinky

bring to a boil (can keep covered to get hot faster, but then let it come to the final boil uncovered)

People have always needed something better than mailing lists— or other communication tools as they exist now. We need something that can reach millions of people (or billions– everyone) and still be open to everyone on an equal basis. Reaching everyone means filtering to reduce quantity and increase quality. Staying open to everyone means that the filtering must not be controlled by any group, must in some true sense belong to everyone.

http://www.cepr.net/

http://www.faireconomy.org/resources/useful_links

This is just a public service announcement to those members of the general public who like to think that the life's worth of a vegan is undone by taking a bite of steak or eating a slice of cheese pizza.

Being a vegan is not defined by the same rules as being a virgin. It's not once you're not you never are again.

Is the letter C a useless letter? (Bob, arguing that it is useless, and Brian, arguing that it is good and necessary, nearly came to blows and the end of a friendship over this. They are true heroes of the Corporation.) This must be debated endlessly.

The 56-foot deep bottomless pit from FailBlog is pretty good too.

And of course the need to enforce that every sentence must end in with two spaces after the final punctuation (period, question mark, exclamation point, colon) must be a project of C.A.T.S.U.P.

"... and your life is my music"

Maybe I've been sitting outside Union Station in the sun too long.

Now there is no question that the far left controls some American politicians. And that is dangerous. I don't want a radical like George Soros running this country.

Bill O'Reilly on the July 30 edition of The O'Reilly Factor

Ah Bill... I so look forward to the day when your mind has to grasp the concepts of people with actual, not imagined, far left radical perspectives.

Maybe this will help me next time.

mountain map massachusetts
mountain relief online map New England
New England mountains

http://home.earthlink.net/~ellozy/ne-hundred-highest.html

http://wawa.wachusett.com/mountain_info/default.cfm

Pridefest parade Provincetown, MA August 21
Pride fest parade Provincetown
Pride day parade Provincetown

http://www.ptown.org/Carnival.asp

Sick around the world - PBS Frontline series that's very good

Watched it with Ian's social policy class while I was in St. Louis.

[posted first at the closed-off triiibes.com]

I am very much in favor of people's self-organization, especially to meet common needs and dreams, in fact it's the point of People Who Give a Damn. To the extent that this, and building communities, is part of what we mean by tribes, that is great. But there's also an aspect of human progress where tribes are bad.

Finally saw Cesar Millan, the dog whisperer. He says his formula is:

Exercise.
Discipline.
Affection.

In that order.

Interesting.

Good stuff, his show. Trying to figure out how to apply it to clients.

But not sure where to apply using your hand as a mouth, to bite/grab, not push. Nor holding the tail up to help get over fear.

And I love the disclaimer every episode:

"Do not attempt these techniques without consulting a professional."

On health care...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/

Definitely worth a watch.

The massacres allowed them to take apart the systems of social assistance negotiated with the unions.

http://www.colectivodeabogados.org/article.php3?id_article=1364

my unsolicited advice: you should go to a place [with a dozen or more people] at a fairly high level-- a lead consulting role, a lead design role. If it's a "we hire you and you prove yourself and move up / to different things" attitude (usually unspoken), that doesn't seem a good fit

you shouldn't have to prove yourself and more importantly you WILL prove yourself, but not necessarily in a manner, style that will be recognized

Posted at Amy Gahran's Poynter blog, commenting on a post about Many Eyes. (I lost concentration somewhere through this...)

The visualization of "problems" mostly shows, I think, that the reports are written in such unclear, fuzzy, let's-not-talk-about-what's-really-happening language that no visualization or linguistic tool will get much information out of it.

Every branch off every word seems to peter off into meaningless phrases.

In trying other words, there were just two hits for "mistakes", and none for "oops" ;-)

Maybe it's just because I somehow never heard him talk, but I'm genuinely sad that anyone, even a Murdoch/Bush sycophant and professional liar like Tony Snow, would die at 53.

[File this under 'why care' and 'what we need to do']

Michael Pollan on the Cornification of Food (AR, Boulder Colorado)

One farmer can feed 129 of us with corn.

Rather than 12, before the munitions factory converted from bombs to fertilizer in 1947.

We're putting away 200 extra calories, to take up 30 to 40 percent of

the way we're feeding the world with corn makes it harder for the world

we can sell it so cheaply because our government subsidizes the cost of production of corn

1.5 million Mexican farmers left the land

"Israel and the Diaspora: A Growing, Difficult Bridge to Gap"
Yes, read that last part of the headline again, and know that's the way it's printed in the magazine. Poor Uriel Heilman has a right to major grievances against his editors.

"A state monopoly on religion in Israel is emerging as a major impedient for Diaspora-Israel relations, the Jewish identity of Israelis, and aliyah," [president of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, Stephen] Hoffman says.

Keywords
like capitalism so much everyone a capitalist Texas
want everyone to own capital
Sam Rayburn want everyone to own capital
Sam Rayburn everyone private property
Everyone should have private property
texas politician believe in private property some
texas politician believe in private property everyone have some

Private Property

UPDATE: Apparently the answer, if this web page and the cited Mr. Galbraith can be believed: