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Last year Congress made the slaughter of horses for food illegal in the US. It sounded like a good idea at the time, particularly to people (like Congressmen) with no understanding of supply and demand. The demand for a horse steak has not changed in Europe and Asia. So now horses are bought cheap at auction, stuffed on trailers and transported to Mexico or Canada for slaughter.
Or, they are dropped off on public land to fend for themselves. The lucky ones may end up at rescue farm. Or they just suffer when the owners can no longer afford to feed and care for them. This is only getting worse as hay and grain prices go through the roof as farmers grow more corn to sell off as vehicle fuel.

So what do you imagine will happen if Congress bans the export of horses for slaughter?

A) We’ll have even more unwanted abused horses in the US
B) The horse fairy will visit us and magically insure that all these unwanted horses are cared for.

I’d rather no horses end up as steaks in a restaurant in France. However, if the choices for the horses are drawn out suffering from starvation and disease, or a quick death in a FDA inspected slaughterhouse, the latter seems to be the more human option to me.

David Cook was the only one that brought his A game tonight. As much as I’d like to see David A sent home, I don’t think it will happen. Syesha knew she had no hope and pretty much mailed it in. However, she’s beautiful and talented, she’ll do just fine.

David vs David next week. I predict David wins.

• PearBudget | Really simple budgeting.
  (tags: finance money)

Back in the late 1930s psychologist George Crane developed a marital rating scale for husbands to rate their wives. I don’t think he created one for wives to rate husbands. Page one of the test is online. I have to take serious issue with puts her feet on husband at night to warm them only being one demerit. That’s at least as serious an issue as flirts with other men, which is worth 5 demerits.

There are also positive merits, such as has meals on time, plays a musical instrument, and reacts with pleasure and delight to marital congress. That last one was worth ten points.

Apparently, it was ok for you wife to be a talentless hack that can’t cook and flirts too much, as long as she was enthusiastic in bed.

If Obama is the next President, homeschooling parents will live in fear of the government ripping their children away from the family. So says this right wing whack job, who pays so much attention to the news he apparently missed the fact that Obama is in fact, a Christian.

• Bad Astronomy Blog » Vaccines do not cause autism!
  (tags: health)
• Things younger than Republican Presidential candidate (oh, and did I forget to mention “war hero”?) John McCain
  (tags: blogs funny politics)

If you haven’t seen Stardust add it to your rental queue now. If you liked The Princess Bride you will like Stardust. It’s a fairy tale. It’s got a naive young hero. It’s got a spunky princess. It’s got pirates, witches, a unicorn, and evil government overlords. It’s based on the book by Neil Gaimen, so it’s got literary cred. too. Really, it is just a highly amusing family movie, if your family can deal with movies that involve characters that drink ale in a pub called The Slathered Prince, implied out of wedlock sex, the casting of spells, and gay cross dressing pirates. Not to mention one of the great I Love You speeches in cinematic history.

In other words, it’s just perfect for my readers.

The topic is sounds, smells or tastes that remind you of home, or that you otherwise find comforting.

Dude spends the last 20 years searching for a match to the heirloom Buddha mother-of-peal cuff links that belonged to his grandfather and were stolen over 20 years ago. He posts a request for help on finding them to Ask Metafilter at 7.04 PM.

20 minutes later somebody posts a link to the cufflinks on Ebay.

• Party Like It’s 2008 - New York Times
  Excellent analysis of the election and why so many deluded conservatives think they can win
  (tags: politics)

Mother’s Day Card

Originally uploaded by ChrisOD

We spent yesterday moving Skip to a new home. The place we were boarding him is shutting down at the end of the month as the owner is pursuing other opportunities. We sort of knew this was a possibility so we had plan B ready to go. We went back out today so I could caulk a leaky roof seam on my one year old horse trailer. Hopefully it’ll keep the dressing room dry as it’s pouring at the moment. I’ll be calling the dealer tomorrow, but from what I can tell the 3 year warranty on my trailer only applies to a single bolt on the undercarriage. When I was caulking the seal I noticed that some of the rivets on the roof are already rusting out. That should not be happening after 16 months. I’ll give them a chance to fix things before I write the trailers suck post.

Mother’s day was typically low key. You can probably guess which kid made the card in the photo. Breck’s card came from CVS, as did mine. The card selection at 4 PM the day before Mother’s Day is a little weak. We ate out last night to avoid the rush, so I grilled chicken tonight and served it with a mandarin orange and pineapple salsa, with rice and fresh strawberries. The weather is bad here so I was grilling in a thunderstorm. That was fun, and wet. Stardust is showing in the basement theater tonight. The Red Sox are on TV too, however once again I’m sacrificing for the love of my life

• Dana Milbank - Republicans Vote Against Moms; No Word Yet on Puppies, Kittens - washingtonpost.com
  House Repubicans acting like spolied kindergarterners, not that the Dems were any better when they were the minority
  (tags: politics)
• A Real-life ‘I Am Legend?’ Researcher Champions Development Of ‘Reovirus’ As Potential Treatment For Cancer
  Says movie scenario is absolutely impossible
  (tags: health)
• Craft Brewers Reformulate Beer to Cope With Hop Shortage
  (tags: beer)

I made my weekly stop at my favorite neighborhood beer and wine shop this evening and picked up something new. He had six packs of Eggenberg Pils for $7.99. That’s dangerously close to grocery store beer pricing for a real Pils imported from Austria. It was tough though, as the last six pack of Bell’s Two Hearted Ale was calling me from the fridge. Ultimately, I went with the try something new approach and bought the Pils, after visiting the wine bar for a few samples of wines I’m not sophisticated enough to describe. They were very good though.

The Pils, I can handle though. It pours crystal clear with a light and frothy head that did not stick around for long. The nose is a bit maltier than i expected from a pilsner, with a grassy undertone. The start is nice and smooth,and finishes the same way. It’s light, refreshing, and quite smooth for a pilsner. The skunky characteristic you get with any pilsner is very subdued.

I’m generally not a real big fan of pilsners, but this is quite good.

• choccoveredbacon.jpg (JPEG Image, 500×375 pixels)
  Chocolate covered bacon. Enough said.
  (tags: food)
• LibertyTown Arts Workshop
  (tags: f Fredericksburg)

Yahoo published a list of the top 25 hair metal bands. There was zero chance that I would let this pass without comment.

25. Winger - Best of and Winger should never be used in context together.

24. LA Guns - I would probably put them higher on the list. They were under appreciated and did hair metal much better than many more commercially successful bands.

23. Queensryche - They simply were not hair metal. They were progressive metal. The music and attitude never matched up with the hair metal norm.

22) Enuff Z’Nuff - Was never really a fan, but they might belong on the list.

21) Hanoi Rocks - If Vince Neil hadn’t killed their drummer in a drunk driving car accident they may have ended up bigger than Motley Crue. They wrote some seriously catchy pop metal tunes.

20) Angel - An early 70s band by definition can not be hair metal. It’s not possible.

19) Loverboy - Wasn’t hair metal, wasn’t pop metal, wasn’t any genre of metal at all.

18) Faster Pussycat - Should have been more famous.

17) Bon Jovi - I’d put them top 5 at worst.

16) Ratt - Peaked with their debut album, but they probably belong on the list.

15) Quiet Riot - Cum on Feel The Noize sort of started the whole hair metal on MTV craze, so that alone gets them on the list. Metal Health was the best song on that album though.

14) Kix - Sort of got screwed by having a power ballad break them big. Their real sound was much better, AC/DC with a bit of melody.

13) Vixen - No fracking way. If you have to put a token chick band in the list Lita Ford is way superior.

12) Scorpions - They kicked ass prior to the hair metal thing, but definitely belong on the list.

11) Cinderella - They actually were a very average hair metal band. Their later blues rock stuff is far superior.

10) Twisted Sister - The ultimate one hit wonder. But oh what a hit is was. The album before Stay Hungry (You Can’t Stop Rock and Roll) is a much better metal album IMHO.

9) Spinal Tap - I would have put them at #11.

8 ) Motley Crue - Should be #1 IMHO. No band better exhibited the excesses of the hair metal lifestyle while still selling 10s of millions of albums.

7) Ozzy Osbourne - Not hair metal. Bark at the Moon did certainly stray into hair metal territory, but dude, it’s Ozzy.

6) Kiss - They didn’t do enough in the hair metal era to justify this ranking. I’d put them at the bottom of the top 25 for their 80s hair metal contributions, even though their overall contribution to rock is hall of fame worthy.

5) Aerosmith - I much prefer classic Aerosmith to hair metal Aerosmith, but they did make the transition successfully.

4) Def Leppard - I might put them at #2 behind the Crue. A dead guitarist, a one armed drummer, 2 seperate albums that sold over 7 or 8 million copies, and girls throwing their underwear on stage during concerts. What’s not to love?

3) New York Dolls - WTF? That they inspired the look of hair metal in no way makes them hair metal. Glam rock or glam punk maybe. And there is that decade issue too.

2) Van Halen - Yeah, DLR was hair metal before hair metal was cool. And they certainly churned out some damn good records in the hair metal era. 70s rock purists may argue the hair metal designation with DLR era VH, and I sympathize. However, Van Hagar would never be #2 on its own merits.

1) Guns n’ Roses - Personally, I see GnR as the band that killed hair metal. They brought a ferocity and seriousness to their music that was the opposite of the happy go lucky lets get drunk and screw while playing 3 chords attitude that defined hair metal. Music got more angry after GnR and eventually we ended up with Nirvana.