FACP - It's Everywhere!

FACP? Does anyone know what that stands for? It stands for From A Certain Perspective. Does that work for you? I'm trying to be snazzy and use acronyms when relating to my website. In all honesty, it is about as well developed as this site. Actually, it is a bit less developed. May the route I should take is to tell you all the wonderful things it will contain... hopefully in the near future. Well, the purpose of my website is the same as my blogspot. It is my goal to develop an online magazine and to generate traffic to my Etsy.com store where I will showcase my floral and fashion designs. Hope you'll choose to stay with me and enjoy the progress. It'll be like a makeover in slow-motion.

Breakfast on a Burger

Tonight, I felt like I was on an episode of Man v. Food. Is anyone familiar with this show? It comes on the Travel Channel and follows this guy who travels back and forth across the United States exploring different regional cultures and looking for the craziest eating challenges. I'd been aware of the show for a while and had steered clear because I figured it would be a disgusting display of eating competitions. *picturing hotdog and egg eating contests and turning my nose up* But I was wrong. Instead, I get to watch adorable Adam Richman (yes he is a bit overweight but still adorable) get cozy with the locals and freak out at every challenge as if he hasn't done something similar to it more than twenty time before. I have placed his challenges into two categorie. The first one is quantity because he's usually expected to eat an insane amount of food. Here are a couple of pictures of what this crazy man has attempted to consume in one sitting.



Ultimate Slider Challenge at Chompie’s


If I remember correctly, this challenge consisted of twelve steamed mini beef patties with cheese and grilled onions as well as a POUND (I might be exaggerating) of fried onion strings that he was supposed to be able to put down in thirty minutes. I do believe food won this one.



Eagle's Deli Burger Challenge at Eagle's Deli in Boston



This monstrosity is made up of eight 1/4 or 1/2 pound beef patties, slices after slice of cheese and too much bacon. And don't forget about the fries. So many that you need two plates?? Forget about it. He's a Crazy Man! with a cast iron stomach! And I do believe he managed to win this one. Had an entire hour... I think.



"Ludicrous Wings" Challenge at The Chicken or the Egg



Doesn't even look like that much food does it? Well the second type of challenge category is fiery. Here is where Adams's expected to eat something insanely hot. Please allow me to say Crazy Man! once again. Crazy Man! And these are made special with habanero pepper extract and what they call "satan's blood". (The devil is a lie.)

You know what? I've gotten COMPLETELY off topic. Is anyone wondering what all this extreme eating has to do with breakfast on a burger? I'm beginning to. All this Man v. Food business was supposed to serve as an intro to this...



Steak 'n Shake's Royale Steakburger



Does anyone else see what I see? There is bacon and egg on this burger! Hence, breakfast on a burger. While I was eating this deliciousness (Yes, I know that fast food is the devil -- Been mentioning him a lot in this post, huh?) I was taken back to an episode of Man v. Food where hashbrowns as well as a fried egg were put on a burger. So I figured I would use that show as an introduction. Got carried away, I guess. Oh well. There you go. Not usually a fan Steak 'n Shake but I guess I recommending this burger. It was pretty good by it Actually, I usually call them Choke 'n Puke *shrug* I don't think there's any smooth way to end this post after that bit of information so I'm just gonna end it. Tah.

Broken Promises

Everything has been fluffy and artsy lately. Please allow me some time to let off a bit of steam and voice my frustrations. Time to discuss a more serious topic... our government's fiscal irresponsibility. I listen to talk radio -- both liberal and conservative. Well, the Republican side (conservative posers, I like to call them) was all abuzz about overreaching government spending and a need to cut the budget. And of course they promised during the election season to tackle this matter head-on. Yeah, right *rolling eyes*


According to usgovernmentspending.com the US Gross Public Debt for end of fiscal year 2011 is $15.476 trillion dollars. Yes, trillion. Can anyone tell me how many zeros that is? *looking for raised hands... and seeing none* That would be twelve zeros. ($15,476,000,000,000) That is over 15 MILLION billion... or 15 BILLION million. Did I get that right? Somebody check my math. It can all be a bit overwhelming, right? Yup.

Time Series Chart of US Government Spending

Who deals in such large amounts of currency?? What in the world was purchased (even over time) that costs so much? I truly do not understand but at the same time am not so curious that I'm going to go in a detailed breakdown of exactly what makes up the federal government and debt. Today, I'm talking about broken promises.

Republicans were allowed to take charge of the House of Representations based upon the promise that they would rein in the spending of the federal government. There was the repeated declaration that when it came time to vote on the budget they would demand $100 BILLION in cuts. $100 BILLION. After the dust had settled from the scuff-up of the election and after weeks of extensions in order to avoid a government shutdown, an agreement was finally reached. And what was that agreed upon amount? Well, we were told that the original amount had been reduced to just over $63 billiion and then $38 billion but then settled on a whopping $300 million, yes MILLION dollars. 


Of course, excuse after excuse was made as to how this was the best that could be done at the time and how the House on makes up one half of one third of the government. I've got something real immature to say to that. Whatever. I don't even think they care about letting up down anymore.

Molotov Time! (Is the Old Testament Obsolete?)

Mr. Mitchell speaks again, as he does every week. This week he gives well-intentioned Christians some serious food for thought. Remember that I mentioned before how he considered himself a Christian supremacist. Well here, he challenges the 'Christian' argument that marriage is only for one man and one woman which is used in the defense of the marriage amendment. He explains that in the Old Testament polygamy is never called a sin. As a matter of fact, when God is chastising David for hooking up with Bathsheba He says this, "And I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives into thy bosom... if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things." (2 Samuel 12:8) Now I believe in only one interpretation of Scripture and that would be the one that comes from the Holy Spirit. He NEVER contradicts Himself but of course... that is something that will be addressed at a later date. But I am not convinced that God was saying He would have given David more wives if he'd asked for them. I mean, did God give Adam Eve AND Genevieve? Nope.

Is the Old Testament Obsolete

Molotov goes on to reassure his viewers that he is not a proponent of polygamy. He believes that one wife is more than enough. (lol) Smart man. But at the same time he refuses to call polygamy a sin since it is NOT called a sin anywhere in the Bible. I was ready to come back with the argument that polygamy was not called a sin because all of that went on before the Law was given to Man but no. That wouldn't fly. David's story comes well after the Torah (which contains the Law). Or does it?


But then something else came to mind. I do believe the idea of marriage being between one man and one woman comes from "An elder must be blameless, the husband of but one wife..." (Titus 1:6). This scripture is explaining the requirements for a man to become an elder in a church. Since this man would be considered an example to be followed by the other men in the church is makes sense to assume that the ideal marriage situation would include only one man and one woman.


What are your thoughts?

Gyre, Gyre, Earth's on Fire

Has anyone ever heard about the North Pacific Gyre? Would anyone like to know about the North Pacific Gyre? Ha! What's a gyre you might ask? Let's start out with a pretty little picture, shall we? Yes. Let's.

North Pacific Gyre



Now I would like to apologize for anyone who felt that the title of this post was a bit on the alarmist side. Alarmism (Is that a word?) is for extremist and I'm only extreme about one Thing. (As always, we'll touch upon that on another day.) But I will admit to a mild bit of alarm when I first saw this picture. And when I found out that this was only one of five gyres in our earth's oceans that alarm grew just a bit more. I mean, what we're looking at here is an enormous swirling of plastic trash twice the size the man floating there.

Getting back to exactly what makes up a gyre. According to wikipedia (an increasingly reliable source): A gyre in oceanography is any large system of rotating ocean currents, particularly those involved with large wind movements and are caused by the Coriolis Effect. Do we REALLY wanna know what the Coriolis Effect is? *pause* I didn't think so. Either way, what's swirling around inside these things is more important. Here's a clear picture of what that is.

Pretty, right. (I know. I'm terribly sarcastic. Any comment regarding that would be welcomed... well, maybe welcomed not really the right word.) Yes, what you are seeing here is a multiple bottle caps, what looks like the fuel canister on a lighter and maybe some little plastic tabs. What happens is that when these birds fly over the face of the ocean they see these things floating and think that it's food. It's really unfortunate. Well, let me leave you with one more disturbing picture and next time we'll take about what's being done about this fascinating, man-caused phenomenon.

Heck of a way to end a post, right? Well, this is where we'll pick up next time. Until then... 

Esjaybee   

Molotov Time! (Democratic Good Guys... Really!)

Molotov Mitchell is his usually sardonic self when talking about President Obama. He goes as far as to call him "Usurper In Chief". Remember from a previous post that he believes that Obama is holding his current position illegally. Well, that was just the intro. 

Democratic Good Guys... Really!

This particular post was actually about how our representatives voted when deciding to take funding away from Planned Parenthood. He pointed out the although a majority of Republicans voted against federally-funded abortion clinics there were also ten Democrats, to his pleasant surprise, who voted not to fund Planned Parenthood. He was sure to voice his displeasure with the seven GOP members who voted to continue their funding. But he was even more annoyed with the one person who voted 'present' after promising to always vote against government funding of abortion.

I have to say, the more I learn about Planned Parenthood the more I am against them being funded by the government. Some will argue that not funding them will make much needed medical services such as breast exams as well as other testing unavailable to those less fortunate. I would argue in return that if all they did were those all important tests then there may be some standing in government support being given to them. But these clinics are mostly found in urban areas and the institution was founded by Margaret Sanger. And this woman was a believer is eugenics. This means she agreed with the idea of improving a human population by controlled breeding of those who has undesirable characteristics. This bit of information alone leads me to believe that the motivation behind Planned Parenthood is not completely altruistic. 


What are your thoughts?