Government has been amassing DNA database

Now before you click away thinking that this is a tinfoil hat conspiracy, note that this has been going on for years and has been saving lives. Before I’ve talked about some of the technologies we should be afraid of:

Scary tech – Family DNA solves crime
Scary tech – Video: Total coverage
Scary tech – RFIDs the new age tracker?
Scary tech – Is your boss reading your email?

But while the American government DNA database is a reality should we be afraid of it? First some background; as talked about in the CNN article this database has been around for decades collecting DNA samples from newborns that can be tested for various diseases. This testing has saved countless infants from fatal and debilitating diseases but what has the tinfoil hats outraged is the DNA samples are being kept indefinitely. The specific laws vary from state to state with some states like Texas allowing parents to erase their child’s DNA sample to Florida that keep the sample with the an attached name.

Privacy advocates are worried because this information could prevent people getting a job or health insurance in the future. Health insurance companies aren’t going to give someone insurance if they know they have potential for certain diseases or more susceptible to things like heart conditions or cancer. Like wise employers will shy away from hiring someone who might have the same problems. As it stands now the states claim the information is safe but with drives to privatize government programs its only a matter of time before this information falls into the hands of some conglomerate that might not have the same qualms of keeping the information secret. Also, another worry is that if they’re not already, the government could decide to crack down on some crimes by running a DNA sample from a crime through the state DNA database. At issue is the personal info attached to the DNA sample. Things like names exist in the state DNA databases. Having large DNA databases are useful for medical research but they don’t need the name of who the DNA sample belongs to. A database of anonymous DNA samples is fine but one that lists names attached to the samples is very troubling!

 

Hard to find famous videos

Before I went over images you’ll never see.  Now I present famous images that exist but you haven’t seen.  We’ll start with the horrible:

The Star Wars Holiday Special

In 1977 the world was changed forever by the blockbuster movie and soon to be legend of Star Wars.  As the money poured in TV Execs decided to get into the action and somehow got Lucas to clear the abomination that would become, The Star Wars Holiday Special.  I would normally say watch it to see how bad it is but this is so horrible that I would plead with you to just take my word for it.  Lucas to his credit eventually got out of the project and had his name removed. He was once quoted as saying, “if I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every bootlegged copy of that program and smash it.”  One good thing that came out of this mess was the introduction of the Boba Fett character.

Pacino

The Local Stigmatic

In the late 80s while Pacino was still trying shake his godfather image. So he bankrolled a film, The Local Stigmatic.  The 56 minutes piece was shown once at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in March 1990 but then he kept in under wraps for years, only showing it to friends.

Chinese Coffee

Like Stigmatic this was a play that Pacino adapted to the big screen.  It is an intense dialog piece starring Al Pacino and Jerry Orbach talking back and forth.  It was also directed by Pacino.  Released in 2000 as part of the Tribeca Film Festival but again he refused to release it to more theaters or on to DVD.

Finally on June 19, 2007 both movies were released as part of a three-movie boxed set called Pacino: An Actor’s Vision The release wasn’t announced and the neither of the films have been reviewed much or had any media attention.

The Program

In 1993 the football movie “The Program” was released with a scene where the members of a football team, as a test of their bravery, lay down on the middle of the road while cars wiz by.  Almost immediately idiot teenagers everywhere were getting run over by speeding cars as they attempted to replicate what they saw on screen.

Alarmed by the copycat incidents and likely lawsuits, Buena Vista pulled the scene from the movie and re-released an edited version to theaters.  The old versions were destroyed and it was rumored that the scene was itself edited out of and destroyed from the master copy.  Presently VHS and DVD copies of the film don’t have it.  However unedited versions are shown outside the US in foreign TV markets.

Snuff film

In an effort to promote assisted suicide or euthanasia, Kevorkian aka Dr Death did an interview with 60 minutes.  The segment included a clip were Kevorkian flipped the switch on his death machine killing willing volunteer Thomas Youk, 52, who was in the
final stages of Lou Gehrig’s disease and couldn’t kill himself.   Broadcast on the November 22, 1998, it wasn’t the first snuff film broadcast on TV (think Budd Dwyer or Christine Chubbuck) but caused huge controversy as it was aired on the respected  60 minutes platform.

Rage

Not a movie but a book written by Stephen King under the name Richard Bachman in 1977.  The plot describes a school shooting and hostage drama.  A number of real life school shootings have been associated with the book.  As a result King pulled the book from American markets to prevent the possibility of the book inspiring anymore, “incidents”.

 

Japanese pizza hegemony

Eating Pizza in Japan is one of my guilty pleasures. Sometimes you can only take so much fish and rice; you need something with real meat and grease. Days when I crave western food I pick up the phone and call the local pizza man. Of course after I finish gorging myself on pan fried goodness I feel guilty. Not because I’ve submitted to the great Western culture beast but because pizza is so expensive in Japan. It pains my cheap ass to hand over almost double what a pizza would cost back home.

In Japan the pizza companies seem to have gotten together and conspired to price fix the cost of pizza extraordinarily high. Looking at the costs there shouldn’t be much difference. Take a look at typical Hawaiian pizza ingredients:

Ingredients	Cost in America $USD	Cost in Japan $USD
Flour	1.33/kg	1.48/kg
Olive oil	11.99/L	11.15 / L
Salt	.12/100g	.37 / 100g
Sugar	1.46/kg	1.46/kg
Tomato sauce	2.94/L	5.06 / L
Mozzarella cheese	2.22/100g	1.11/ 100g
Pineapple	.35/100g	.33 / 100g
Ham	1.65/100g	1.65/100g
Onions	1.95/100g	.37 / 100g

I got the American grocery quotes online and the Japanese prices from the supermarket but the prices are almost the same. The prices should be even cheaper for the pizza store as they would be buying from a wholesaler or using a franchise discount.

Labour costs might be a little more in Japan with minimum wage in Tokyo for 2009 standing at 791yen/hour or $7.40/hour ( 2009 average dollar yen rate was, 93.68 ). But a large city like New York also has a minimum wage of $7.25/hour. OF course in New York pizza places probably use illegal immigrants that are paid a lot less.

Rent on the actual pizza restaurant should be about the same for Tokyo and New York. Actually New York pizza places probably pay more. As for the delivery, both use motorcycles or other cheap methods of pizza to door service.

So looking at all the costs the prices should be the same but they’re not. A large Hawaiian pizza from a New York Dominos ( Yes I know New York has infinitely better Pizza than Dominos ) costs $17.41 to get to your door. Where as the same size pizza in Japan (14 inches equals 36cm) costs 3100 yen ($29.04)

Unless there is some hidden cost in Japan, there has to be some sort of price fixing between the big pizza chains.

 

Pork Ragu and some wine

Today….damn this weather.  It is cold, dreary and the rain has been fairly consistant for hours.  My workouts today were crap. My grandmother can train harder than I did today…but my grandmother is likely half cyborg so just forget that. 

(She is about 5 feet tall and I once saw her lift this little ENGINE BLOCK!!! in her tool shed, she just bent down and picked up, all the while going on to me about how wonderful it is that I can help her weed the garden that day.  And another time, I shit you not, she fell asleep next to the fire place in her house, and it took me a few minutes to notice that her HAND was IN the fire and it was fucking SMOKING. I woke her up, terrified, my face a twisted mask of disgust and horror and she goes “oh….its time for hot cocao.”)

Perhaps its the rain or perhaps just making the mistake of taking a day off yesterday but I felt like I had been pumped full of Kedomine and suspended by fishhooks all day when I attempted to move any faster than an arthritic 120 year old saint Bernard. 

Having said all this however, I will discuss briefly my rather wonderful evening last night. 

I cooked! I know, I know some of you are already moving the mouse to escape before I can tell you about the wonderful ”Balony grilled cheese sandwich with chili frie”s I made but don’t!  Not yet….for you dear reader, are mistaken.

I decided that I wanted to get my gourmet on so I had to go shopping.  It has been quiet some time since I did any kind of real cooking, anything beyond cup noodles and an all time American favorite: over/under cooked spaghetti and CRAP…so…I needed the first step to any genuinely decent meal: QUALITY INGREDIENTS.

Oh but I am getting ahead of myself….the first thing I did was clean up my room.  This was well over do.  With my current schedule in the gym and at work I have little time for properly stowing anything and on any given day my room looks as though I have, as my father used to say, “dropped a frag grenade is this dump”.  Just clothes and laundry and nonsense all over, essentially, BEDLAM. 

So I cleaned things up (stuffed everything into invisible storage spaces) and headed off to Isetan Department store in Shinjuku.  Despite being a mad house on Saturday, the food mall downstairs is extraordinary. I can and have wondered around that place for hours just gawking at the things offered and the people there. It is a great example of the cosmopolitan nature of Tokyo, one can find almost anything.  So I pulled out the list I had prepared.

PORK RAGU with papperdelle (or rigotoni??)

I love this dish. It is marvelous and it is a MAN’S dinner.  Active and robust, the flavors are simply lovely and although it can take sometime to prepare do to slow cooking, it is not too much trouble and I have always found the eating experience well worth the wait.  When you eat this meal with some good bread and smoky red wine you start to understand why Italian men are the way they are….”Ciao Bella!”

The list was simple enough….

• Pork (or game is ok too, next time I’ll use rabbit)
• flour about 1 table-spoon
• FRESH parsley
• FRESH thyme
• FRESH Rosemary
• red onion
• couple of nice carrots
• chicken stock like about 2 cups full
• sea salt (you get what you pay for people)
• black pepper
• fresh parmesan cheese
• An Orange
• pappardelle or rigotoni or some MANLY pasta not any of this fettucine bullshit.
• Extra Virgin Olive oil
• knob of butter
• big glass of white wine (for the dish…not for your pain)

So I got home from Isetan having found some really great Papperdelle.  Various colors due to different ingredients like tomato and I think asparagus or something.  I started getting things ready.  Basically it went as follows…

• chop up the carrots, the rosemary, the Thyme, the onion, and I mean finely shopped yeah.
• pour a good bit on olive oil into the pot, I also add a dash of water, then dump in the veggies and spice. Cook for about 5 minutes.
• then I add the meat, pork bits yesterday, then I stir.
• pour in the glass of white wine. Red is ok too and using one or the other is very different.  I used white last night.  I did this to lighten flavors and bring out others. Red, a Chianti perhaps, gives the food a great color and fills your home with the most wonderful aroma. So both have upsides. Anyway, then add the chicken stock, make sure it covers the meat.
• generously season with sea salt and pepper.
• bring it to a boil, then turn the heat down a bit and let it cook good for about one hour and forty five minutes.  Till the pork is VERY VERY soft, almost to the point that it melts in your mouth.  I took this opportunity to enjoy a selection of wines my dinner guest brought. More on that in a minute.
• when the  Ragu sauce is getting to that 1:45 mark, start cooking your pasta in a big pot of salt water. 
• Then when you feel the sauce is about done, the pork is melting in your mouth, add in the knob of butter, squeeze in the juice from at least half a big orange, stir in about half your parmesan cheese. cook a few more minutes.
• THEN….drain the pasta and then you want to toss (mix) the pasta with the sauce….here you will also add more cheese with some extra virgin olive oil on top, and well as sprinkle on some very finely sliced orange rind.  It looks lovely, smells amazing and tastes damn good. 

Remember here to also sprinkle that freshly chopped parsley on top.  It makes all the difference.  This is also a great dish reheated, the ragu sauce can go on good bread in the morning for a quick breakfast or lunch….its good eats.  This will put hair on your chest.  Or…for the ladies, curves in the correct places.

The wine provided by my wonderful dinner guest was also very nice.

We enjoyed tasting four different wines.  two white, two red and I can say these made the meal even more enjoyable.  The wines were Chakana Sauvignon blanc 2008- a great, really fun and fruity wine from Argentina.  A Meursault Premier Cru 2005 from France, also very nice, I described it as “clearly my mothers choice here” it being more elegant than the white from Argentina yet also less playful.  In red we had a 2006 Chateaux Dufort-Vivens Margaux that was relaxing and smooth followed by a 2005  Vosne Romanee from Chateaux De Laborde.  This had such a smoky rich aroma and a very deep taste, it complimented the cheese we had and really made an impression.

It was a wonderful evening….and as I look outside now and see that it is in fact SNOWING…I will open up one of these, maybe that Argentinian bottle, and imagine myself on a warm beach someplace in the sunshine because face it….we have a month and a half left of this nonsense.