Grilled Tomato and Red Bell Pepper Soup Why is everything better when you grill it? This soup is definitely worth polluting the air for, plus it gives you a great excuse to buy three pounds of tomatoes at the farmers market.
:: currently reading ::
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
Alternative history in which FDR is defeated in the 1940 presidential election and, instead of fighting against Germany & co in WW2, the US tacitly allies with them. Bad news for Jews everywhere. Good reading.
:: archive ::
:: Wednesday, February 22, 2006
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I continue to find my ethics class more interesting and provocative than I expected to (I thought I already had everything pretty much figured out). Thought I'd throw out some questions from today's meeting.
Should You Be Able to Sell Your: 1. Vote 2. Military service 3. Sex (be a prostitute) 4. Sperm/ova 5. Kidney 6. Womb-space (be a surrogate mother) 7. Embryo 8. Child
If not, why not, etc. Next week: Should parents have the option to kill their profoundly handicapped babies? It seems like an obvious no, but before today I would have opposed a kidney market, and now, hell, I'm about ready to sell my own.
:: Leslie H - 5:05 PM -
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:: Monday, February 20, 2006
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Food may be the best thing ever. And my how I've enjoyed it in the past week. Three highlights:
1. Valentine's Day Dinner: Bryan and I cooked; it rocked. [Recipes and pictures on his blog.] 2. Beer and Chocolate pairing: Friday-night dinner with "the Beer-Chef" and half the brewers in the Bay Area. Chimay + Sharffenberger chocolate = bliss. And increasingly rowdy patrons. 3. Birthday dinner at Downtown: One of my favorite places, conveniently located a 10 minute walk away. We got all daring and ordered oxtail. Oxtail!
Yes, it's been an indulgent week. We've thrown a few more pictures up in our miscellaneous spring album. Now I'm off to revel in the last of my 3-day weekend.
(Oh, and many congratulations to Leyla!)
:: Leslie H - 10:19 AM -
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:: Tuesday, February 14, 2006
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I don't watch the Daily Show very often anymore, but they do still have their moments of brilliance. I ran across this bit from last night's show at the end of a New York Times article (Groans at Home Re: Cheney Joke Here):
The shooting was fertile ground for Jon Stewart, the host of "The Daily Show," the popular fake news program on Comedy Central. On Monday night one of the show's correspondents, Rob Corddry, introduced as a "vice-presidential firearms mishap analyst," said that "according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush," and "everyone believed there were quail in the brush," and "while the quail turned out to be a 78-year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he would still have shot Mr. Whittington in the face."
Oh, and there's also this. I gave it to Bryan for his Valentine. Make your own here.
:: Leslie H - 12:41 PM -
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:: Monday, February 13, 2006
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Yeah, I've been working pretty constantly since my last update. I did nothing at all fun this weekend (unless modeling disruption in gas prices qualifies as fun). Fortunately the work ends Friday, and it's a long weekend coming up, and birthday #25 on Sunday (#26 if you count my actual birth-day).
Anyhoo, since I have no exciting news whatsoever, here's the prompt for my ethics paper due Wednesday. Input is welcome.
You are the senior policy adviser to CIA chief Porter Goss. It is the fall of 2005, and you have just come across a trove of documents concerning the secret domestic surveillance program that the Agency is carrying out. You have serious ethical concerns about what you have found. While you regard national security concerns as critical—that’s why you took your present job—you believe that the surveillance program, as the documents describe it, violates basic privacy rights. In your judgment, if the government wants to tap someone’s phone or otherwise spy on them, it should seek a warrant from the judiciary—indeed, there’s a special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court that is supposed to handle these situations. You raise this question with Goss, but he brushes aside your concerns. “If we don’t catch these terrorists in our midst, there won’t be a Constitution to preserve because the country will be destroyed,” he says, adding that “the White House has approved the surveillance program, and that’s enough authorization for me. If anything about this gets out, the CIA’s entire culture of secrecy—the intricate web of trust relationships—will be jeopardized.” What you want to say to Goss, but don’t, is this: “What are we protecting if we’re undermining the constitutional protections of citizens?” You believe that Congress, and the public, have a right to know about what’s going on, whatever its impact on the culture of secrecy. But from everything you know of your boss, he won’t take this argument seriously. As it happens, you have a lunch date with a friend who works on the Senate Intelligence Committee staff and a dinner engagement with a Washington Post reporter; you know that each of them will pump you for information. What is the ethically appropriate way to handle this situation: Say nothing (lying, if necessary)? Disobey your boss and leak the information (if so, to the reporter or the congressional aide)? Resign from your position to protest the administration’s policy?
My current thinking is this: The ethically appropriate thing to do would be to go public and resign. What I would actually do is leak the information to the press via some anonymous email address (leakymcgee@hotmail?). I'm no hero.
:: Leslie H - 8:57 PM -
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:: Wednesday, February 08, 2006
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If any of you have burning questions about the implementation of an international agreement on trade in endangered species, I am now your gal. I have spent, if not every hour since ten a.m. yesterday, then 95% of the waking ones, on just that exciting issue. Fourteen more to go. All thanks to this treat of an assignment, the 48-hour project! (I feel like that needs some old-school animated blinking light border...) We draw some random topic out of a hat, research frantically and churn out some relevant policy recommendations, preferably backed up with some statistical and economic analysis--that we conduct, mind you, not pull from somewhere else (ha! is what I say to that). Topics are usually phrased as statements, on everything from the legitimacy of X Supreme Court case to the best way to redraw California's legislative districts. Just to be clear, this was mine:
Question #53: "The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) is good on paper but poorly implemented. Or, one might say, that the nature of the implementation problem here?looking for needles in haystacks?is such as to make good implementation virtually impossible."
Um, what the hell. And yet, I now know what can only be termed a shitload about it. So the next time you plan to smuggle some elephant ivory or panda feet in front of me, think again.
:: Leslie H - 7:52 PM -
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:: Monday, February 06, 2006
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Fantastic weekend, frenzied week. Friday, Catie and I hit Golden Gate Park, the Conservatory of Flowers, and the De Young Museum. Saturday we played with Peanut, and Doug came over in the evening to have dinner with Bryan and I and spend the night in preparation for: our day-trip to Tahoe! Catie, Doug, Bryan and I left at 5, skied all day, and got back to Berkeley before 8. Conditions were ideal, and much fun was had by all (even Doug, in Day Two of his snowboarding career). Pictures from the whole weekend are up on gallery. Here’s one of Bryan and I on the lift:
The crowning moment was near the end. The mountain was empty; everyone had presumably retired to watch the Super Bowl. Bryan and I, the only people in sight, began our final run of the day, swishing gracefully down the slope--and crashing into each other. We. Are. Awesome.
:: Leslie H - 1:05 PM -
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:: Wednesday, February 01, 2006
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Word of the Day: homoskedacity (n) (adj: homoskedastic)
I'd define it, but that would take all the fun out. I suggest you just use it randomly, as in "My, you're looking homoskedastic today!"
Policy Analyst Ethical Dilemma of the Day:
“Civilian casualties are inevitable in warfare, even if armies try hard to avoid them. Sometimes terrorists or irregular forces may try to hide themselves or their weapons in the middle of civilian populations or religious shrines in order to discourage their enemies from attacking. Field commanders must decide whether attacks on particular targets are worthwhile in light of the objective to be achieved, the likelihood of success, and the number of projected civilian casualties. But above an expected ratio of X civilian casualties to one terrorist, the request to take action must get personal approval from the Secretary of Defense or the President. Advise the Secretary of Defense what X should equal.”
(See comments for the current US answer.)
Quote of the Day:
“It’s a good observation that you the policy analyst are not God.” – E. Bardach
:: Leslie H - 1:18 PM -
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