Free… It’s FREE! What’s free? This is free!

Free thought association…

On the third day of the eighth month in the fifth year of our LORD Ich’bin-Ein Berliner, came the jelly doughnut, a minute triceratops of a man, swimming freely in the oceans’ waters, basking in every bubble from the aerator around which the goldfish swam, as he peered outside its cavernous steel bars into the cat lounging on the spaghetti Bolognese, seeing clearly into its heart, lungs, and digestive system, while fueling the top fuel dragster from which he was born.
🤠

I don’t have opposable thumbs.

Both my thumbs have always worked in conjunction with all my other fingers, and with each other. And, they are in harmonious union with the palms… which should in no wise be conflated with date palms, Palme d’Or, iron ore, wooden oars, Cannes, Campbell’s soup cans, Andy Warhol, or else.

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The food we eat (that is to say, the food proffered to us in supermarkets, brands often advertised on teevee, print, and radio, in turn owned by mega-globally-traded behemoth transnational corporations) is largely factory-processed, made nutrient-deficient, hyper-preserved, sodium-laden — for additive preservative purpose — which nether creatively increases flavor, nor improves taste, is shelf-stable practically into perpetuity, and is all done so for one motive exclusively: Profit – to get more money.

Their interests and loyalties are NOT to you, nor to their customers, neither to your family, friends, and loved ones, but rather, are beholden to their corporate shareholders upon whom they openly ingratiate themselves, and to whom they, first and foremost, through a strong sense of obligation via stock ownership or other requirement, owe a substantial share of the profit, and in some cases, the “first fruits.”

And therefore, they work to achieve, or exceed, the expectations of the financial prognosticators and market soothsayers by obeying the edicts of the corporate overlords and executives in all details of business operation. So, when employees of the company’s various stores in select locales complain about employee mistreatment, and low wages combined with decreased hours — EVEN THOUGH the company made $24.6 BILLION in PROFITS for 2023, which in turn, effectively meant that all of its 400,000 employees could have been given an $11,000 raise and STILL have at least $20 BILLION in profit. Instead, the employees must rely upon tips for survival. That company is Starbucks.

Select Companies’ 2023 Corporate Profits

Company/Stock Symbol	Profit (BILLION$)	Owner/Majority Shareholder (shares held)
Albertsons–ACI	$21.75	Cerberus Capital Management–151,818,680; Vanguard Group Inc–32,824,226; Blackrock Inc.–20,437,201
Amazon–AMZN	$9.9	Jeff Bezos–937,774,000; Vanguard Group Inc–771,086,427
Apple, Inc.–AAPL	$97.0	Vanguard Group Inc–1,318,064,349; Blackrock Inc.–1,042,391,808; Berkshire Hathaway, Inc–905,560,000
Blue Cross Blue Shield Association	$7.5	501(c)(4) public welfare organization
Delta Airlines–DAL	$4.6	Vanguard Group Inc–71,975,018; Blackrock Inc.–40,002,925
Exxon Mobile—XOM	$9.1	Vanguard Group Inc–388,543,396; Blackrock Inc.–272,505,089
JP Morgan–JPM	$49	Vanguard Group Inc–272,426,004; Blackrock Inc.–191,756,566; State Street Corporation–125,159,471
Kaiser Permanente (Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc.)	$3.29	501(c)(3) not-for-profit public charity
Kraft Heinz–KHC	$8.973	Berkshire Hathaway, Inc–325,634,818; Blackrock Inc.–90,647,291; Vanguard Group Inc–70,398,831
Nike–NKE	$22.65	Vanguard Group Inc–109,543,029; State Street Corporation–56,238,509; Blackrock Inc.–89,775,302
Starbucks-SBUX	$24.6	Vanguard Group Inc–107,933,270; Blackrock Inc.–78,752,115
Target–TGT	$25.2	Vanguard Group Inc–44,945,524; State Street Corporation–35,979,097; Blackrock Inc.–32,467,059
Tesla–TSLA	$13.6	Vanguard Group Inc–229,806,372; Blackrock Inc.–188,183,433; State Street Corporation–108,871,505
Verizon–VZ	$78.6	Vanguard Group Inc–350,050,212; Blackrock Inc.–348,133,587; State Street Corporation–183,193,191
Walmart–WMT	$155	Vanguard Group Inc–412,546,098; Blackrock Inc.–291,761,988; State Street Corporation–181,711,812

There is an unmistakable pattern, as can be seen in Majority Shareholders.

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Things aren’t always what they seem. Or, are they?

We human beings, especially in the United States, acknowledge incongruity as a daily part of our existence, often as visual incongruity, which also helps explain why, so many of us are fascinated by sleight-of-hand trickery known as “magic,” and why, when one one non-native individual reported purchasing a container depicting a whole cooked chicken prominently displayed upon it, at home was shocked to discover upon opening it, that it contained chicken broth, and not chicken. Increasingly, however, canned and prepared foods sold at grocers’ markets depict the food item contained therein. What if a motor oil container depicted a waterfall? What if a penis came along with those drop-dead gorgeous looks and great tits? Or, what if the bearded, muscled, deep-voiced man had a clitoris and vagina? The clitoris is a penis in miniature. Hormones do amazing things. Do you really want to see that in the women’s rest room alongside your daughter? Or, perhaps no one would think twice if such a person went into the men’s room. How will the government operate the penis police, penis patrol, or penis enforcement agency now that those Repugnicunt laws have passed?

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The Law of Unintended Consequences

Y’know… the fact that the production of Electric Vehicles (EVs) actually does more collective and severe damage to the environment than gasoline-burning so-called “carbon spewing” Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) is more often than not, wholly overlooked by most. And there’s ne’er a peep from the Main-Stream Media (MSM) — or the right, left, or center about the findings of numerous valid scientific organizations, or environmentalists — or from the climate deniers. It’s the quandary that entities like Exxon Mobile, and the tobacco and sugar industry faced: Their own research findings showed undeniable, independently-confirmed harms done by consumption of their products, so they internally covered-up, and buried all evidence of the research projects — especially and particularly the findings.

And apparently, the “Law of Unintended Consequences” dates back to John Locke and Adam Smith’s era, though the phrase itself was used by many, especially by those associated with the so-called Austrian School of Economics, including Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, though it was in 1936 when Dr. Robert K. Merton, PhD, an American Sociologist and Researcher categorized the 5 basic types of unintended consequences.

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In 3, 2, 1…

Wanna’ know something TRULY IMPRESSIVE?

Going from a motionless, dead stand-still, to over 100mph in less than a second, reaching nearly 300mph, and pulling 4Gs while doing so with 11,000 horsepower, in 1000 feet — and all under 4 seconds.

That’s what a Top Fuel dragster does.

The fuel is 90% nitromethane, the balance sometimes blended with methanol.

Believe it, or else, nitromethane is much less flammable or energy-dense than regular gasoline, and burns much more slowly. It’s just that when nitromethane becomes oxygen and hydrogen in the process of producing energy, both of which are very conducive to combustion, which — if it weren’t so, they wouldn’t increase fuel flow to decrease pre-ignition pinging, and instead, would cut back.

But they don’t.

And instead, they increase fuel flow rate, which also acts as an engine coolant by absorbing heat. The unburned portion of fuel is typically lost through engine exhaust, and upon contact with oxygen, instantly ignites, producing the characteristic yellow flames often seen emerging from the exhaust pipes. The fuel consumption rate is enormous, frequently between 14 to 20 gallons per run — again, each run is 1000 feet. It is all so phenomenally loud that mandatory hearing protection use is enforced, with venues even giving attendees who have none, hearing protection. A Top Fuel race is the closest thing to observing in the first person an only-nominally-controlled series of explosions from combustion of nitromethane — the volatile rocket fuel that requires no external oxygen to burn… because it creates its own O2. Use of nitromethane as a fuel for internal combustion engines has been characterized as “skating on the edge of destruction.”

Notable in the sport — in addition to “Big Daddy” Don Garlits, and Don “The Snake” Prudhomme — is Shirley “Cha Cha” Muldowney, the “First Lady of Drag Racing” and first woman to win a major racing championship, who in 1982 became the first person to win the NHRA Winston points championship three times — drag racing’s most prestigious title.

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Here’s your $64 Question of the Day:

Great Britain’s Parliament is a bicameral legislature, with an upper and lower chamber, somewhat similar to the United States Congress. Their House of Lords, and House of Commons is akin to the Senate and House of Representatives, respectively. That nation’s Office for National Statistics finds their population is about 67.1 million. The United States Census Bureau finds over 336 million here. There are 650 Members of Parliament (MP) in the elected House of Commons, while the House of Lords has 90 members appointed through hereditary peerage, a type of nobility system in which titles accompany the family name, and until 1999 were entitled to sit in the House of Lords, and exempted from jury duty. Over 670 people are qualified to sit in the House of Lords. Reform efforts to change membership in the House of Lords to an 80% or 100% elected term of office of 12 or 15 years has been underway since 1999, with significant progress made in 2006, and 2007.

The United States Congress has 535 members consisting of 100 Senators (apportioned equally as 2 elected Senators from each state), while 435 Members of the House of Representatives are elected proportionally according to the population of each Congressional District in the nation, which averages about 761,179, making the ratio of Members of the House of Representatives to People 1 to 761,179.

In Great Britain, the ratio of Members of Parliament to People is 1 to 103,231.

Read that again: In Great Britain, there is 1 Member of Parliament for every 103,231 people. In the USA, there is 1 Member of the House of Representatives for 761,179 People.

Great Britain has a significantly SMALLER population than the United States, but their people have a FAR GREATER representation in their government than the USA, where representation is significantly diluted.

Why?

The United States’ Apportionment Act of 1911 affixed the size of the House of Representatives at 435, following the 1910 Census which found 92,228,496 People in the nation. Then, the Representative to People ratio was 1 Representative to  212,020 People. It is now 1 to 761,179. So, if you feel like you’re not being represented in Congress, guess what? You’re not. Our population and ratio has MORE THAN TRIPLED in the 113 years since, and yet, we have a severely restricted and hamstrung system of (mis)representation, in comparison to Great Britain, which has 5x FEWER people.

Why?

If we returned our People to Representative ratio to what it was in 1911 — 1 Representative to 212,020 People — our nation would have significantly improved representation with 1586 Members in the House of Representatives to represent We The People.

And who knows? It could help begin to end the death-grip the 2-party system has long had on America.

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Two more things your doggie can’t eat

Macadamia nuts, and any part of the avocado plant (including guacamole, avocado toast, etc.).

That’s in addition to: Grapes, raisins, chocolate, xylitol (foods with), and alliums (onions, shallots, garlic, leeks, chives, etc.).

I’ve previously written about this, in “Do NOT feed these foods to your dog!“ on Wednesday, October 12, 2022.

And how the President was going to make us make the dogs vegan, I do not know.

Just wanna’ make sure you’re paying attention, you understand.

But it’s true: The entry dated from Wednesday, October 12, 2022, is entitled “Do NOT feed these foods to your dog!”

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FACT? -or- FICTION?

Recipe writers get it wrong!

Read enough recipes and you’re bound to find errors, mistakes, exaggerations, and maybe even some flat-out lies.

Here are 2 FICTIONS in a single recipe which I recently found. I have corrected them, providing FACTS to disprove FALSE FICTIONS.

FICTION: Use fresh herbs versus dried. Garnish the soup with fresh herbs versus dried. There is just no comparison when it comes to flavor!

FACT: Dried herbs/spices are STRONGER than fresh. The reason why MORE FRESH HERBS are required to obtain the same taste & result/flavor level is, because fresh herbs naturally contain water, whereas dried herbs do not, and so dried herbs’ flavors (essential oils) are concentrated.

“The general rule for substituting fresh herbs for dried herbs is to use three times the amount of chopped fresh herbs for the dried herbs called for in a recipe (and vice versa). So, if your recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of dried basil, you can substitute 3 teaspoons (or 1 tablespoon) of fresh chopped basil.”
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“As a rule of thumb, use about one-third the amount of dried vs. fresh, says Chicago-based Registered Dietitian and Chef Raeanne Sarazen, author of “The Complete Recipe Writing Guide.””
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“The substitution threshold for spices is to use three times the fresh spices for every dried quantity.”
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“Oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) is the standard test used to measure different foods’ antioxidant activity. According to the ORAC scale, most dried herbs have far higher levels of antioxidant activity when compared to their fresh counterparts. This is because there is degradation of the antioxidant compounds in the period between the harvesting of fresh herbs and when you actually use them. The drying process can dramatically slow down that degradation. Antioxidants like flavonoids and polyphenols take much longer to break down in dried herbs.”
SEE ALSO: https://www.spiceography.com/dried-herbs-vs-fresh/

FICTION: Slice the carrots and onions big. Slice the carrots and onions big enough so they are easy to drain from the broth. Also, feel free to leave the onion skin on – it packs a ton of flavor! Just make sure to rinse it beforehand to rid it of dirt.

FACT: Don’t peel the onion? Onion skin “packs a ton of flavor”? Please… Just go away. Slice “carrots and onions big enough so they are easy to drain from the broth”? What’s the point? Why bother slicing them at all? Throw them in whole. The reader should detect significant sarcasm. Fact is, the MORE surface area is exposed, the MORE flavor is released/infused. Cut them finely.