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POPSTragedy on a bicycle built for two More: I first saw this story on the Tucson Bike Lawyer blog with a link to the original news story . More in depth blogging on this incident and the failed vulnerable road user bill by San Antonio local Veronica Flores . The obituary with more details about the couple is posted here . A trust fund has been set up for 7 year old Kylie Bruehler and donations can be sent to Kylie Bruehler Benefit Fund, c/o 24165 IH-10 West, Ste. 217-270, San Antonio, Texas 78257-1160.
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POPSOakland’s Little Guatemala – The early bird gets the tamale … and churrasco More: The tamales were pretty terrific too, tied with a little string. If you eat them there, the tamale lady unties the banana leaf and the fragrant wonderfulness perfumes the air. There is also a onion/pepper sauce which I was warned was hot … no kidding. Extra points for the woman being in native costume with her Guatemalan skirt, pink frilly apron and long-braided hair. She only sold the atole and tamales and had a larger variety of tamales, chicken, beef, pork and cheese…A half a block up from tamale lady #2 is another tamale vendor. I was so stuffed at this point that I didn’t even get out of the car to check it out. However, she has some sort of coleslaw with her tamales and three types of sauce…It is always surprising to me the food that can be found only early in the morning, the vendors vanishing like the dew once the sun rises in the sky. I have to get up early more…or stay up later.
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POPSSelf-guided walking and eating tour of Oakland's Fruitvale District More: Browse, watch the tortillas come out of the machine, maybe buy some take-out for later. I love the way all the staff say where they're from (including Oakland) on their name tags. There's also a churro vendor on that corner. When you're ready to eat again, cross back over High St. to El Grullo and get a carnitas taco. Walk back down to International. If El Gordo is open, get an al pastor taco and a suardero taco. Continue back down International to El Huarache Azteca. Get something made with fresh masa with chicken tinga (chicken stewed in chipotle sauce) -- a sope would be a good choice… Walk down E. 12th to Nieves Cinco de Mayo for ice cream, and you're back at the BART station. Have fun! Pace yourself!
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POPSOakland: Unicos de Cuernavaca Tamal Shop - "the best tamales in the Bay Area" More, from the comments: Go early to have the best selection as some days I have gone later and been left with only sweet tamales to choose from. I like the queso/rajas and the chicken… I am still standing by my vote of queso con rajas but with a disclaimer. . .I really, really like masa. . and these are so all about the masa. The queso panela gets sort of tight and chewy when it's steamed and the rajas add just the right amount of flavor and heat to the tamal. . .but if you're not a fan of lots of fluffy, light masa - this is not the tamale for you… Turns out they have more than tamals… $4 carne asada tortas ... estillo D.F. authentico … They handle the drive home very nice,almost to hot to eat right after you buy them… probably one of the best tamales I've ever had. Both were light and flavorful…They were so big I only ate half of each, then reheated the leftovers a few hours later, and they were still good.
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POPSAbout smoked paprika Click through for the list of suggested uses. More: The color is a striking deep red that spreads through any dish to which it is added. It has an intoxicating smoky aroma from the slow oak smoking, and a silky texture from the repeated grinding between stones. We like to add it to our spice rub or barbecue sauce for baby back ribs, or as an accent for roast potatoes or as a flavoring for potatoes and fish dishes, all things with shrimp, light stews, sauces, garlic chicken and roasted meats.
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POPSLooking at the SCIENCE behind the new mammography recommendations More: So the panel, which does not take cost into consideration when making its reports, no longer recommends regular breast screenings for this population. For women between 50 and 59, the evidence shows that a mammogram every two years preserves the benefits without increasing the harms. Though even for them, mammograms are far from a panacea. (The recommendations for prostate cancer screenings have similarly declined, as have tests for colon cancer.) Mammograms are so unreliable—as many as one in 10 gives a false positive reading— a woman is nearly guaranteed of having a false positive test in her lifetime . These lead to biopises (not a painless procedure) and sometimes radiation and chemotherapy for tumors that were so slow growing they would never have killed you anyway.
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POPSvideo: Affectionate cat distracts police officer Very funny. And to the eejits commenting on some of the YouTube versions of this clip: no, the officer did not "kick" the cat. He used his foot to scoot it away. It's not the same thing at all. You notice the cat keeps coming back for more? They're not stupid that way...
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POPSA brief PSA on language More: You don’t have to take the brunt of it. You don’t have to deal with the negative consequences. You don’t have to face employment discrimination, street harassment, caretaker abuse, and other people’s general cluelessness about our lives. You get to sit tight in your privilege, enjoying it without even realizing you’re doing it.… We’re the ones who are putting our safety on the line trying to change the cultural system that oppresses us. Two seconds to reconsidering what you’re really trying to say? Easy. Changing other people’s deep-seated attitudes? Really damn hard. How do you think we feel when you complain that two seconds is just tooooo haaaaard for you to take on?
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POPSIke's Place sandwiches, San Francisco More: Caution: Ike's Place can be very busy, and the wait times can be very long, but if you avoid the DAILY 11:30-3:30 p.m. rush it shouldn't be too long. Or even better, call in your order and we will tell you when to come and get it. So why does it always take 'forever' at Ike's? Good question! Unlike most sandwich shops where the bread was baked earlier that morning, the bread your sandwich is made on isn't baked until after you order your sandwich. That means every sandwich is freshly baked to order.
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POPSSunday 11/22/09: Oakland Taco Truck Tour Numero Dos — don't miss it! The first Taco Truck Tour was a lot of fun. If you're in Oakland on Sunday and have a bike, I highly encourage you to come join the ride. I will point out again (oh so modestly) that the two people sitting down in the center of the photo, behind the dark blue bike, are {{Spiritualmonkey}} and me. :-D
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POPSCupkates Truck battles City of Berkeley over parking location issues more: On Monday, I met with two departments: one who assured me my permit is still valid and I am authorized to vend in legal parking spaces, and another who told me that it is against city law to do so. The deputy city manager assured me that she would resolve the discrepancy and get back to me on Tuesday. Today, I went to meet with her and was informed that she was too busy to see me; Berkeley Police then escorted me out of the building. I stressed to the city that I quit my job and invested my life savings building a business that the City of Berkeley permitted and endorsed just three months ago. Every day I remain closed, waiting for the city to sort out internal miscommunications, I lose a tremendous amount of income. The city’s response to my crisis has been to continually ignore me and now to have an armed officer escort me out of city hall.
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POPSBook review: The High Cost of Free Parking More: By breaking the relationship between use and payment, "free" parking eliminates the negative feedback that keeps the system in balance. As a result, everyone decides to drive everywhere, and the car crowds out other forms of transportation… Of all the transport systems available, including public transit, shipping, and rail, cars are unique in that terminal costs (doing something with your vehicle when the trip is finished) are offset to the rest of the economy… Worse still, "free" parking provides the biggest per-mile subsidy to the shortest trips, meaning drivers have a major incentive to drive to destinations they would otherwise be able to reach with ease by foot or bicycle… Anticipating the righteous ire of those drivers accustomed to free parking, Shoup notes that the biggest barrier to eliminating this subsidy is political, not technical, and proper implementation is critical.
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POPSRunning Doc: PLEASE "do the aspirin"! More: Now, it's true that one case doesn’t prove anything. The International Marathon Medical Directors Association is meeting in March 2010 to develop a multi-city, multi-country research project. It may be that all runners develop high serum myoglobins, since they clear quickly (sometime within one day) -- but they also interact in the body, creating a cascade of other inflammatory elevations that may be markers of risk and may help us to get a better handle on SCD. As Dr. Siegel says: “Like the runner herein, these SCD victims during races can be saved. But wouldn't it make even more sense to try to prevent the SCD's in the first place? Taking aspirin may just do the trick." You can help us make this research project "smarter." If you happen to visit your doctor within 24 hours after finishing a full or half-marathon, please bring a copy of this post with you, record the information below, then e-mail the results to us
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POPSBrad Warner: On driving people away from Zen with a stick
More: Compared to them I am a big ol' softie. Whatever. As to the notion that the disputes among Buddhists should not be exposed on-line... All's I can say is that's just not gonna happen. It's out there. This kind of stuff did not start on the Internet. But the Internet has amplified it. And until the Internet goes away, the exposure of disputes among Buddhists on the Internet isn't going away either. It's probably best not to air any more dirty laundry in public than is strictly necessary. But, for my own part, I have no regrets about what I've said regarding Genpo Roshi. It needed saying and nobody else was saying it. At least not that I was aware of at the time. Yeah, I might have bolstered my arguments…more if I hadn't used the word scumbag. But what's done is done. What I said served to call attention to a very serious misuse of the Dharma and I'm glad for that. It probably wouldn't have gotten nearly as much coverage had my argument been more well-reasoned.
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POPSLooking at the math behind "53 miles per burrito" More: Of course, a burrito comes with sales taxes, which pay for another fraction of that road. And the margin on a burrito is much higher than on gasoline - that margin then becomes profit for the owner and wages for the workers, all of which are taxable and turn into another fraction of that road I am freeloading on. Beyond the margin for the taqueria, money is made by people who grow and sell food, which is ostensibly a nobler pursuit than drilling, baby, drilling. But the real bottom line? It's not really 53 miles per burrito. It's one burrito per 53 miles. If you are sitting in your car, you will be shortly sitting on that burrito as it becomes a permanent part of your ass. I meanwhile will be adding extra guacamole because after I rode 53 miles to work, I ride 7 miles back to Caltrain on the way home. Yum. Guacamole, anyone? :-D
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POPS"Fuck you, Disney princesses" More: But you only succeeded in teaching me these things because you weren’t alone. You were a bullhorn in a room of sympathizers. There were healthier less damaging whispers around the outskirts, but you and the like-minded denounced them as social pariahs, sexual deviants, mentally disturbed, and political extremists… In short, fuck you Disney princesses. I will not pay to see your regressive movies, I will not look up to your flawless beauty-standard-compliant faces. Additionally, I will live my life telling everyone who will listen that we’ve got it all wrong. You and your clique of impossibly beautiful peers are the ones that ought to be silenced and ostracized. Not me, and not all those other beautiful and achingly real girls who desperately need to be heard and appreciated for how they are, not scorned for how they fail to be just like you: the perfectly useless, silent, submissive princess.
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POPSCarrie Fisher: "So I 'used' to be hot?" More: I understand completely if you can’t find it in your heart to forgive me for looking like 3 decades have passed…….Of COURSE you should mock & belittle me for being so large!! What else could you POSSIBLY do?????!?… You have every right to compare me to Yoda or Elton or Kirstie…….I’ve brought it on myself. But here’s this thing that I found myself wondering………what the fuck do YOU look like??! I know i don’t really have the right to ask……I’m a public figure——Ive made an unspoken contract to keep that figure slim…….but still, I find myself wondering…….See, I think the folks that insult & mock celebrities who DARE to pack on ten pounds or—–God forbid——MORE than ten!…..I would think it only fair that they post a photo of themselves along with their poisonous observations! And you know what else would be SUPER cool??? Their IQ! ALL the numbers! An approximate count of Weight AND wisdom!
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POPSpoem: "The Power of the Dog" by Rudyard Kipling More: We've sorrow enough in the natural way, When it comes to burying Christian clay. Our loves are not given, but only lent, At compound interest of cent per cent. Though it is not always the case, I believe, That the longer we've kept 'em, the more do we grieve: For, when debts are payable, right or wrong, A short-time loan is as bad as a long-- So why in Heaven (before we are there) Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?
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