Ab exercises – No Crunches!

Citracal has a list of abdominal strengthening exercises you can do that don’t include any crunches. I hate crunches but want flatter abs.  You can find the list here.

Pesticides in Produce Ranked

The Enviornmental Working Group has a list of the fruits and vegetabel with the most to least amounts of pesticides.  You can get a copy of the full list here.  The worst offenders are peaches, apples and sweet peppers.  The produce with the least amount of pesticide contamination include onions, avacado and frozen corn.  So if money is tight and you can’t afford to buy all organic fruits and vegetables, you may want to consider spending your organic budget on the the most pesticide laden produce.

I had made smoothies for my kids this last week with nonorganic peaches and after reading this list wished I had gotten only the organic freeezer fruits for them.

Food for Thought Quotes

The globe is warming……it is natural or is it manmade? ~ George W. Bush

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. ~ Antoine de Saint Exupery

It is easier to ask forgiveness than to seek permission. ~ Proverb

The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings and that these individuals are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder and be murdered in quarrels not their own ~ Aldous Huxley

Skillet Recipe for the Iron Deficient

I made this dish the other night from odds and ends and it tasted great. In an iron skillet spayed with canola oil, I stir fried yellow pepper, cherry tomatoes cut in half, yellow squash, garbanzo beans, pistachio nuts and ground beef.

I made it because I felt like I was low on iron, and cooking in the iron skillet helps with that.  Plus the pistachios, beans and beef all have iron.  It actually tasted pretty good.

James Bond Movie Review: A Quantum of Solace

Before I went to see this movie, one relative told me it wasn’t very good and another said it was pretty good. I really liked the last James Bond movie with Daniel Craig, so I’d been looking forward to this next one. I don’t know what all of the fuss was about over Daniel Craig not being Bond. I thought he was the best Bond ever. The person I never thought was a good Bond was Pierce Brosnan. He always kind of looked like a pretty boy to me – not someone he could be a real secret agent.

The comment that it wasn’t very good I guess set my expectation low, and I was pleasantly surprised. While not as good as the first movie, it was entertaining nonetheless, and well worth the price of admission ($7.50 with movie tickets bought in advance from Costco).

This movie, like the last one is set in exotic location around the Globe, and center around a conspiracy and possible coup in a South American country. As always the special effects are great and the action highly improbable, but heh, who wants to go see a dull, logic based movie. Craig shines again as Bond and the latest Bond girl, Olga Kurylenko, hold her own. All in all I’d rate it a B+. If someone you know is a Bond fan, there is a calendar out for 2009 with Daniel Craig in Casino Royale on the cover which might make a cool Christmas gift.

Sarah Palin: The Difference Between Her and a Pit Bull?

If John McCain, a seventy-two year old cancer survivor, gets elected, we have a very real chance of Sarah Palin, hockey mom and former mayor of the crystal meth capital of Alaska,  becoming president. And if she becomes president,  is war with Russia far behind?

What is the difference between a pit bull and Sarah Palin?

One is a breed of dog and the other is an ignorant bitch.

More Sarah Palin humor.

John Stewart Pones Karl Rove, O’Reilly and Mike Morris

In classic Jon Stewart style, the Comedy Central star points out hypocritical comments from right wing morons regarding Sarah Palin.

A Look Back: Don’t You John Edwards Apologists Feel Stupid Right Now?

Bertrand Russel is often quoted as having said, “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.”

Personally, I may not always succeed, but I try to keep an open mind about things, especially anything I read in the paper. Bizarre ideas and rumors often end up being true. At various times people have thought the world was flat, the sun revolved around the earth, machines could never fly and that Lisa Marie Presley could not have possibly married Michael Jackson. They were all wrong.

It is interesting that based on recent events, the National Enquirer story about John Edwards seems to be true and John Edwards seems to have been a bald faced liar.

In hindsight, truly intelligent people may have been skeptical about the National Enquirer, but would not have dismissed the story as an impossibility. Thanks to the Internet, we can know look back in time many months and find out who kept an open mind, and who was dead wrong and totally gullible to John Edwards lies.

For a look back see

The LA Times comments from an article about the Edwards affair printed last October.

The people who time proved were correct made comments like:

“I would be shocked if Edwards did NOT have the affair.”

“I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the Enquirer. They have broken several high profile stories in the last few years.”

I won’t print the comments here of the people who now look like idiots, but you can visit the site and read them for yourself. They are all of the people who support John Edwards without question and called the LA Times sleazy for even reporting the rumors of the affair.

Hindsight and Internet archives can create some pretty entertaining stuff.

Old Proverbs You Just Don’t Hear Anymore

Oh, sure we all like to repeat old sayings like, ” A stitch in time saves nine” or “A penny saved is a penny earned.” But what about all of the old proverbs that went away like Nehru jackets and pet rocks? Here are some actual gems from an old proverb book from 1852:

Be a dog rather than a younger brother. – Persian Proverb

Carry an old man with you in a sack. – Marathi Proverb

You may blow till your eyes start out, but if once you offer to stir your fingers you will be at the end of your lesson. – Gascon Proverb

Do not speak of a cup; there is a bald person in the house. Osmanli Proverb

Ah, they just don’t make proverbs like they used to. And maybe that’s a good thing.

Unhappy? Maybe Your Expectations are Just Too Damn High

“He who dies not in his twenty-third year, drowns not in his twenty-fourth, and is not slain in his twenty-fifth, may boast of good days.” – Dutch Proverb

I found this proverb in a book published in 1852. So forget Maslow’s hierachy of needs and all of that namby-pamby new age stuff about self actualization and personal growth. Just not dying a tragic death was all it took to be happy in the good old days, when life was less complicated.