Tag Archives: check-out-the

Reminder: Facebook Going Down Is Not A Good Reason To Call the Police

Mother Jones

Facebook suffered a brief outage today. When these kinds of things happen—and these kinds of things tend to happen—the key is to not lose your head. Don’t panic. Stretch your legs. Go for a walk. Check out Twitter. Check out Tumblr. Check out the real world. Whatever you do, don’t call the police.

Just remember: You’re going to get through this.

Original source:

Reminder: Facebook Going Down Is Not A Good Reason To Call the Police

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Reminder: Facebook Going Down Is Not A Good Reason To Call the Police

Tom’s Kitchen: Now Is the Time of Gazpacho

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Gazpacho can be a drag: dull and savoring of the refrigerator. That’s because its essential ingredients—tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers—are too often mass-produced and hauled in hundreds of miles from God knows where. However, when those hot-weather staples are in season and grown by talented farmers in your region—or better, in a nearby garden—gazpacho can be a revelation: vibrant, zippy, and as fresh as a sun-baked veggie patch.

Here in central Texas, it’s gazpacho time. My own tomato plants are towering and healthy, but a diabolical squirrel is helping itself to all the big ones, leaving me with just cherry tomatoes—delicious, but not right for the gazpacho blender. As for sweet peppers, mine aren’t quite ready yet. I did grow some fabulous cukes, though. So I headed over to Austin’s glorious Boggy Creek Farm, now in the midst of an epic tomato harvest, to fill out my gazpacho larder.

Now, my gazpacho mojo hit a snag a few years ago when a close friend dismissed a batch I had whipped up with a soul-crushing assessment: “salsa in disguise.” I realized my mistake: not enough cucumber and sweet pepper, and too much hot chile pepper. Since then, I’ve been using one medium-sized cucumber and one sweet pepper each for every five medium-sized tomatoes. As for hot pepper, I usually reserve it for garnish, in the form of a few chile flakes. These days, my gazpacho tastes like a summer garden in a bowl, not something you want to plunge a chip into. For a slightly spicy and ligher—but still un-salsalike—version, check out the one I came up with last year.

Essential gazpacho gear.

Gazpacho
(Serves two)

5 medium-sized tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 medium cucumber (if it’s super-fresh, no need to peel), coarsely chopped
1 medium (or too small) sweet pepper, seeded and coarsely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 slice of good rustic day-old bread, toasted and torn into pieces
Sherry vinegar, one splash at a time, to taste
Sea salt and black pepper, to taste

Garnish
Extra virgin olive oil
Something green, like chopped parsley and/or garlic chives
Crushed red chile flakes
A few coarsely chopped cherry tomatoes (optional)

Place the chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and garlic into a blender, along with the olive oil, a good dash of vinegar, and a healthy lashing of salt and pepper. Blend until smooth. Taste. Add more vinegar and salt if need.

To serve, divide into two bowls (there may be a bit leftover). Give them a drizzle of olive oil and top with remaining garnishes.

View original post here:  

Tom’s Kitchen: Now Is the Time of Gazpacho

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Plant !t, Radius, Uncategorized, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Tom’s Kitchen: Now Is the Time of Gazpacho

Watch John Oliver Take on the Death Penalty on “Last Week Tonight”

Mother Jones

On Sunday’s episode of HBO’s Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver weighed in on the recent botched execution in Oklahoma, the president’s response to it, and the death penalty in general. “The death penalty is like the McRib,” Oliver says. “When you can’t have it, it’s so tantalizing. But as soon as they bring it back, you think, ‘This is ethically wrong. Should this be allowed in a civilized society?'”

Here’s more from Oliver:

It costs up to 10 times more to give someone the death penalty than life in prison. So what a death sentence is really saying is, “Hey! This is America! And the way we treat the most despicable members of our society is by spending the entire budget of the Lord of the Rings trilogy on them.” So what we know now is the death penalty is expensive, potentially kills innocent people, and doesn’t deter crime. And here is where it gets hard—harder than is potentially appropriate for a comedy show late on a Sunday night. But if we are going to answer difficult and profound questions…the toughest one is probably if someone is guilty of committing a horrible crime, and the family of the victim want the perpetrator executed, do we want to live in the kind of country that gives that to them? I would say no. You might, very reasonably, say yes…But it’s a question that is going to need an answer.

The whole segment is very good. Check out the 12-minute clip:

Taken from: 

Watch John Oliver Take on the Death Penalty on “Last Week Tonight”

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Oster, Radius, Sterling, Uncategorized, Venta, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Watch John Oliver Take on the Death Penalty on “Last Week Tonight”