I've been using keyboards for 20+ years, and I still don't know the best way to clean one. I've tried tipping them over and banging them to get out all the crumbs and cigarette ashes. Q-tips, Pledge, Windex, a toothbrush, but no matter what, the keys are sticky. In a fit of drunken frustration one night, I think I used my tongue to clean off the Ctrl and Shift keys. Yes, I'm ashamed. You would think if you were drunk, it wouldn't matter all that much, right?

Please, take pity, and help me from being reduced to the latter by offering your favorite keyboard cleaning method.

Then, today, I saw this. Remember how simple those were to clean?

NOT.

I want to see this man go down. I simply cannot believe that race plays a factor in politics, or any other area of life, in these days. Or am I just naive? In any case, he deserves a particular place in hell where his ass will be whipped until it suppurates.

Whew. Okay. Where was I going?

When I was 13 or 14 I was innocently dating a guy, meaning we just went to the movies, held hands, and he'd walk me home from school. One day I came home and one of my parents said, "I can't believe you were walking down the street with...that...that...".

"What?"

"You KNOW."

"NO, I don't. You mean was I walking down the street with my friend?"

This was the mid-70s.

I made them say it. It was ugly and it made me conscious for the first time that some people were black and others weren't.

So, remembering this incident, I'm wondering if it's possible for a person to change their tune? I think perhaps with my one parent because I can't imagine them saying that now. Then again, I just don't know.

But I don't think it's possible with Lott. He's just desperate and doing his evil hoodless tiddlywink "I have black friends" dance while he whispers to a black person in the background after his press conference, "Come on, boy!"

The hidden bias test is a good place to start thinking about this issue on a personal level (which is all we can really do), courtesy of the Southern Poverty Law Center, UW, and Yale.

Okay, sulli mentioned PMF's Strong Drink Recipes and I thought I'd share my own.

On Silvester (what Germans call New Year's), this is THE traditional alcoholic offering and it's generally lit at midnight. Silvester (or Sylvester) is named after Pope Sylvester who died on Dec. 31st. He supposedly cured Constantine I of leprosy.

But, that's not the point. This is (it'll probably cure you too):

3 bottles dry red wine
juice from two oranges
juice from one lemon
8 or so cloves
a few cardamon pods if you have them
a bit of cherry juice is nice but optional
if you like cinnamon, throw in a stick
aluminum foil
Zuckerhut (1)
a bottle of at least 101% proof something (I use Bacardi 151)

Heat the first seven (or eight) ingredients gently and slowly. You don't want to boil out the alcohol. Give it an hour.

Find some tool that is all metal and will safely rest across the pot you made the above in. Tongs. Pliers. Whatever. As long as it's metal.

Make sure the Zuckerhut can balance itself on your chosen tool. If so, place it lengthwise across it. You will be lighting it on fire.

Place a piece of aluminum foil on top of a countertop or stove. You also might want to keep a fire extinguisher or pot lid close by if you haven't done this before.

Ready? Pour the 151 (or other) over the Zuckerhut. Saturate it!

Turn the lights out. Stand back. Light the sugar with a BBQ-lighter or a long matchstick. Do NOT light it with a regular lighter or matches.

The sugar and alcohol creates a flameball. You want all the sugar to caramelize and melt into the wine. If the flame goes out, pour more alcohol over it (but not directly from the bottle!). Use a ladle and relight. If it's too much of a flameball, remove the tool holding the sugar and place it over the aluminum foil you've nicely laid out until it dies down a bit.

When the sugar is all melted, pour a tad more of the 151 into it. Cool about 10 minutes and serve.

1. Here's a picture of one. You can find them in your local German store. If you can't find a Zuckerhut, you can use a handful of sugarcubes in a metal sieve.

2. Feuerzangenbowle = fire plier punch.

Gute Rutsch! (happy slide! into the new year).

You know how sometimes you have an idea and because it's so diabolically simple, you're convinced that someone else already thought of it so you just don't pay it much attention?

Don't. (Thanks Metafilter!)

I received this email from Dianne Feinstein when I wrote to express my disappointment and dismay that she voted for the HSA. By the way, if you haven't read it, try to (yes, it's masochistic) and tell me what you think, especially the very vague portion on information security (fuck, the entire HSA is vague).

Read the penultimate paragraph and/or read sulli's journal about his dealings with Ms. Feinstein. There's got to be a better Democratic candidate. It was most likely her nose (or Lieberman's) they found up Bush's ass during his colonoscopy.

Dear Ms. Claudia:

Thank you for writing to me about the Department of Homeland Security. I appreciate receiving your letter and I welcome the opportunity to respond.

On November 25, 2002, President Bush signed into law H.R. 5005, the Homeland Security Act of 2002. This legislation represents the largest restructuring of the federal government in over fifty years and is among the most important bills I have considered in my ten years in the Senate.

The Homeland Security Act would create one of the biggest departments in the U.S. government, combining some 22 federal agencies with about 200,000 employees. The new department will have four major divisions: border transportation and security, emergency preparedness and response, science and technology, and information analysis and infrastructure protection

I voted for this legislation because our current terrorism policy is terribly disjointed and fragmented. Currently, homeland security functions are scattered among more than 100 different government agencies. These agencies have many overlapping (and in some cases duplicative) activities, programs, and missions. Moreover, they often fail to communicate and share information, making it hard to for the government to "connect the dots" to prevent a terrorist attack. Now, for the first time in our history, this nation will have one federal agency charged with the primary mission of preventing terrorist attacks within the United States, reducing the vulnerability of the U.S. to terrorism at home, and minimizing damage and assisting in the recovery from any attacks that may occur.

In addition to helping consolidate and coordinate our anti- terrorism policy, the Homeland Security Act includes versions of two bills I introduced separately. First, the Homeland Security Act includes language I authored to move responsibility for unaccompanied alien children from the Immigration and Naturalization Service to the Department of Health and Human Services, and to require the Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement to develop a plan to ensure that unaccompanied children can gain access to legal counsel. Second, the Homeland Security Act includes a bill I authored to increase state and local access to federally collected homeland security information and intelligence.

Unfortunately, the final version of the Homeland Security Act contained a number of provisions giving special treatment to pharmaceutical companies, airline and rail companies, offshore tax evaders, and companies engaging in grossly negligent conduct. Many of these provisions were added at the last minute and had nothing to do with protecting our nation from terrorism. Shortly before passage of the Homeland Security Act, I supported an amendment to strip the special-interest provisions from the bill. This amendment was defeated 52 to 47. However, I am working to seek Senate reconsideration of these provisions early in the 108th Congress.

Again, thank you for writing. If you should have any more questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact my Washington, D.C. office at (202)224-3841.

Ssssssssssssss.

Honestly, this guy sounds like an utter idiot, but a non-threatening, harmless one. I need to compile a list of phrases that might no longer be safe for public consumption. Bushwacked? Beat about the Bush?

On the heels of this comes a case about a man arrested for taking photographs of Cheney's hotel. It seems over-the-top ("dirty pinko faggot"), but I can no longer tell exactly what to believe in a country that increasingly appears to be run by a camarilla of kleptocratic Bush cronies.

And, now, even wi-fi might be considered a terrorist threat.

Today is the anniversary of the ratification of the 21st Amendment.

Read some odd facts and beliefs about prohibition and alcohol here and go have a drink.

Now, if only the powers that be would get it over with and legalize pot. Oh, how I'd much rather see money used to fight the war on drugs go towards something constructive like schools.

I think the only thing better might be to sit upon a couch made up entirely of swag mousepads (yes, it's been done) or, um, single-malt whiskey empties.

"Hours of playing violent video games can affect the way the brain works on a cellular level, causing misfiring of signals between nerve cells or slowing brain activity, researchers reported Monday."

This conclusion was made after studying a group of...here it comes...38 people (all teenagers)! Not to mention, they conveniently fail to state that even non-violent TV affects the frontal lobe in a similar fashion. Sounds to me like a bit of scientific sophistry to make the PMCR and Joe Baca types happy (the latter being a California congressman who has introduced legislation to ban violent video games).

It's enough to make me want to find my copy of QII, turn up Trent, and take out some mutants but real fuckin' good.

"A group of Japanese scientists has transplanted the brain of a baby rat into the thigh of a grown-up rat as an experiment to see if brain tissue can survive if its blood supply is cut off for a while, local media reported on Sunday."

Brain: Quickly, Pinky. We must return to the past. I must change it all back again.
Pinky: But why, Brain? It'll be easy to rule a world of mice like them.
Brain: Yes, Pinky, but who would want to?

"Utilizing commercial off-the-shelf computer chips and "healing" software, the networked minefield detects rude attempts to clear it, deduces which parts of itself have been removed, and signals its remaining munitions to close the hole using best-fit mathematics. The mines, which can hop, then redistribute themselves, frustrating the enemy and quite probably terrifying him in the process."

Frustrating the enemy? How delightful to hear they won't kill the enemy.