Lead.
How did you pronounce that word in your head when you read it? Did it rhyme with "seed" or did it sound more like "bed?"
Which pronunciation is correct? Well, it depends on the usage. "Lead" is not one of those words like "neither" which has two perfectly acceptable pronunciations which both have the same meaning; "lead" has very specific pronunciations depending on the meaning.
If you're referring to the heavy metal, then "lead" has a short E and rhymes with "bed," but if you're referring to the noun or verb which indicate being at the front of the pack, then it rhymes with "seed." There is only only way to pronounce the word in each of these sentences, but the pronunciation is different in each of them:
"The candidate's proposals sank like a lead weight."
"The view is always the same unless you're the lead dog."
In the first sentence, "lead" rhymes with "bed" because it refers to the metal. It would make no sense to rhyme it with "seed." Native speakers has no problem with this, but this is one of those aspects of English that can be incredibly confusing to a learner. The only way to know how to pronounce it is by the context of the usage.
Another such word is "read."
Unlike "lead," "read" doesn't vary its pronunciation based on varying definitions; the two pronunciations of "read" indicate the tense of the verb. Present tense, long E; rhymes with "seed;" past tense, short E, rhymes with "bed." Here are two sentences:
"I must read the instructions before I attempt it."
"I read the instructions before I attempted it."
Again, a native speaker won't be tripped-up at all, The first one rhymes with "seed" and the latter sounds like "bed."
(A small aside, the first sentence is not strictly a present tense construction. After I wrote one that is:
"I read the newspaper every day."
I realized that the sentence could be read either way. If I rhyme it with "seed" then it would indicate actions that I perform habitually currently, but if I use short E, then it would refer to actions that I performed habitually in the past. Same words; same word order; same spelling. I have to understand the context to pronounce it correctly.)
With such confusion and difficulties., it's a wonder that English has been adopted as the world's second language.
Friday, December 30, 2016
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
Superdelegates Super Problem
It's time for Democrats to abandon the concept of Superdelegates. Using the Superdelegate rules, party establishment insiders were able to pack the DNC Convention with Hillary votes and deny the nomination to Bernie Sanders, who was the clear favorite of the Democrats' rank and file voters in the primaries and caucuses..
On the other side, the Republican establishment was't so lucky: since there are no Superdelegates in the GOP, the party insiders were forced to accept the nomination of outsider Donald Trump because he was the candidate who had accumulated the most delegates in the primaries. They didn't like it, but there was nothing that they could do about it.
In the end, one has to wonder if the election would have been more interesting if there had been outsider candidates on both sides, candidates who had enthusiastic, dedicated followings; a general election pitting Bernie vs Donald. Only the Superdelegate machinations prevented it, to disastrous effect for the Democrats. The era of party bosses picking nominees may be over.
On the other side, the Republican establishment was't so lucky: since there are no Superdelegates in the GOP, the party insiders were forced to accept the nomination of outsider Donald Trump because he was the candidate who had accumulated the most delegates in the primaries. They didn't like it, but there was nothing that they could do about it.
In the end, one has to wonder if the election would have been more interesting if there had been outsider candidates on both sides, candidates who had enthusiastic, dedicated followings; a general election pitting Bernie vs Donald. Only the Superdelegate machinations prevented it, to disastrous effect for the Democrats. The era of party bosses picking nominees may be over.
Saturday, November 5, 2016
Recipe: Meatloaf
A meatloaf is the ultimate comfort food.
This one is easy make and comes out of the oven out moist and delicious
Ingredients:
2 lb ground beef
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 cup bread crumbs
4 oz sliced mushrooms (1 1/2 cups)
1 cup chopped onion
1 tbsp chopped garlic
3 tsp Worchestershire Sauce
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp pepper
Olive oil pan spray
This one is easy make and comes out of the oven out moist and delicious
Ingredients:
2 lb ground beef
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 cup bread crumbs
4 oz sliced mushrooms (1 1/2 cups)
1 cup chopped onion
1 tbsp chopped garlic
3/4 cup brown sugar
BBQ Sauce3 tsp Worchestershire Sauce
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp pepper
Olive oil pan spray
Before you get started, turn on the oven and preheat it to 325°F. Coat a saucepan with pan spray, and saute the mushrooms, onions, and garlic over medium heat. Let the mixture cool some while you work on the rest of the ingredients.
In a large bowl, whip the eggs, stir in the milk, worchestershire sauce, kosher salt, and pepper, and then add in and knead together the ground beef and bread crumbs. As you continue to knead the mixture, add the brown sugar and the mushroom/onion/garlic mixture.
When the ingredients have been mixed together thoroughly, Transfer your meatloaf mixture from the bowl to a baking dish*. Press down to make the meatloaf match the shape of the pan, and strive for a mostly level loaf. A crown is ideal..
Pour the BBQ sauce over the top of your meatloaf. You're not looking to smother it: just create a pattern of poured BBQ sauce on the top to give it some nice color and ensure that, when it's cut, every slice will have some BBQ sauce on it. Cover the whole thing with foil.
Cover the meatloaf with foil, and bake it for about 55 minutes at 325°F. Remove the foil and continue baking for another 15-20 minutes. The loaf should be 160°F in the center.
* Most meatloaves are cooked in a baking dish which is 13 x 9. I use a 8 x 8 square dish for a thicker loaf.. The tradeoff is that the smaller dish yields fewer slices. With two pounds of ground beef, this is probably too big for a "loaf" pan (9 x 5).
\
When the ingredients have been mixed together thoroughly, Transfer your meatloaf mixture from the bowl to a baking dish*. Press down to make the meatloaf match the shape of the pan, and strive for a mostly level loaf. A crown is ideal..
Pour the BBQ sauce over the top of your meatloaf. You're not looking to smother it: just create a pattern of poured BBQ sauce on the top to give it some nice color and ensure that, when it's cut, every slice will have some BBQ sauce on it. Cover the whole thing with foil.
Cover the meatloaf with foil, and bake it for about 55 minutes at 325°F. Remove the foil and continue baking for another 15-20 minutes. The loaf should be 160°F in the center.
* Most meatloaves are cooked in a baking dish which is 13 x 9. I use a 8 x 8 square dish for a thicker loaf.. The tradeoff is that the smaller dish yields fewer slices. With two pounds of ground beef, this is probably too big for a "loaf" pan (9 x 5).
\
Recipe: Vegetable Beef and Barley Soup
I like to make a pot of soup in the winter time. Sure it takes several meals for me to eat it all, but that is good for the budget and also super easy for those nights when you get home and don't really want to cook.
It'll take you about a half hour to cut everything up and brown the meat, but then you're pretty much on autopilot after that.
Ingredients:
2 tbsp olive oil
1 lb stew meat
2 tbsp chopped garlic
1 onion (2 cups)
3 stalks celery (1 1/2 cups)
1 16 oz bag baby carrots (3 cups)
3 medium-sized potatoes
2 5.5oz cans tomato juice
1 tbsp sugar
4 beef bullion cubes
1 can corn (15 oz)
1 can peas (15 oz)
This meal is prepared mostly in a slow-cook pot, although you will need a saucepan to brown the stew meat on the stove.
Begin with the stew meat. With the stewmeat I buy from the grocery store, I often find that the size of the cubes is too big for my liking, so I usually begin my cutting the cubes into smaller pieces. Once you are ready to begin browning the meat, place a saucepan over medium heat and add the 2 tbsp of olive oil. When the oil is warm, add the meat, and the garlic. While the meat is cooking, chop the onions and then add them into the saucepan, too. Cook until the meat is browned. (The meat doesn't have to be fully cooked and the onions may still be crunchy, but they'll cook through in the soup; just make sure that the meat gets to the proper color). Put the meat/garlic/onion mixture into the slow cooker.
While the meat is cooking, after you've chopped the onions, you may begin cutting the other vegetables. Cut the celery, carrots, and potatoes into bite-sized pieces and toss them all into the slow cooker.
Add the remainder of the ingredients. There is no need to drain the water from the cans of corn, peas, and tomatoes. The order in which the ingredients are added into the slow cooker is not important. Once you have at least some of the liquid ingredients added, you may turn on the heat.
It'll take you about a half hour to cut everything up and brown the meat, but then you're pretty much on autopilot after that.
Ingredients:
2 tbsp olive oil
1 lb stew meat
2 tbsp chopped garlic
1 onion (2 cups)
1 16 oz bag baby carrots (3 cups)
3 medium-sized potatoes
2 5.5oz cans tomato juice
1 tbsp sugar
4 beef bullion cubes
1 can corn (15 oz)
1 can peas (15 oz)
1 can crushed tomatoes (14 oz)
1 can stewed tomatoes (14 oz )
1 can stewed tomatoes (14 oz )
2 cups beef broth
2 cups water
2 cups water
This meal is prepared mostly in a slow-cook pot, although you will need a saucepan to brown the stew meat on the stove.
Begin with the stew meat. With the stewmeat I buy from the grocery store, I often find that the size of the cubes is too big for my liking, so I usually begin my cutting the cubes into smaller pieces. Once you are ready to begin browning the meat, place a saucepan over medium heat and add the 2 tbsp of olive oil. When the oil is warm, add the meat, and the garlic. While the meat is cooking, chop the onions and then add them into the saucepan, too. Cook until the meat is browned. (The meat doesn't have to be fully cooked and the onions may still be crunchy, but they'll cook through in the soup; just make sure that the meat gets to the proper color). Put the meat/garlic/onion mixture into the slow cooker.
While the meat is cooking, after you've chopped the onions, you may begin cutting the other vegetables. Cut the celery, carrots, and potatoes into bite-sized pieces and toss them all into the slow cooker.
Add the remainder of the ingredients. There is no need to drain the water from the cans of corn, peas, and tomatoes. The order in which the ingredients are added into the slow cooker is not important. Once you have at least some of the liquid ingredients added, you may turn on the heat.
Stir the entire mixture, and continue stirring it every 30 to 45 minutes as the soup cooks. It will be ready in about five hours.
Saturday, October 29, 2016
In Defense of the Two Party System
I know this is not a very popular opinion, especially in light of our choice in 2016, but two-party system is still the best way to pick a leader. By all accounts, most Americans view this year's election as a vote for the lesser of two evils. Most people are casting their ballots against one of the candidates rather than affirmatively for one of the options. This has caused many people to say that we need more choices - more parties.
If you agree with that sentiment, take a closer look at how the system works in the countries that have multi-party parliamentary systems. In England, Germany, Australia, and even Canada, it's extremely rare that one candidate or party wins an outright majority in any election. Instead the votes are scattered across five, six, or even more parties. After the election is over, no single party or candidate has an outright majority, so then comes the task called "forming a government." The leaders of the scattered parties meet behind closed doors and bargain to form a coalition. It takes a lot of compromising and horse trading to make this happen. One party may be offered a couple of cabinet posts in exchange for their votes for a Prime Minister of another party. The voters have no assurance that the deals made by those politicians are the choices that those voters themselves would have made. There's not even any assurance that the deals struck are even in the best interests of the voters who sent them; often the primary benefit of the coalition deals is to the politicians who negotiated the deals."Forming a government" is really back office dealmaking. Governments are "formed" in smoke-filled rooms away from public scrutiny.
That, as I see it, is the biggest problem with the multiparty parliamentary system. All of this horsetrading to build a coalition happens in secrecy behind closed doors. The voters themselves may have been given a clean choice, with candidates with whom they can agree universally, but then the messy work of give and take is left to the politicians.
By contrast, in our system, the voters themselves must deal with the ugly choice of weighing the merits and liabilities of two imperfect candidates. It's very unpleasant, especially when the choice looks like the one we have have this year, but, in the end, I would much rather have the compromising be done by me and my fellow citizen voters rather than leaving it to the politicians to compromise behind closed doors after the election is over.
If you agree with that sentiment, take a closer look at how the system works in the countries that have multi-party parliamentary systems. In England, Germany, Australia, and even Canada, it's extremely rare that one candidate or party wins an outright majority in any election. Instead the votes are scattered across five, six, or even more parties. After the election is over, no single party or candidate has an outright majority, so then comes the task called "forming a government." The leaders of the scattered parties meet behind closed doors and bargain to form a coalition. It takes a lot of compromising and horse trading to make this happen. One party may be offered a couple of cabinet posts in exchange for their votes for a Prime Minister of another party. The voters have no assurance that the deals made by those politicians are the choices that those voters themselves would have made. There's not even any assurance that the deals struck are even in the best interests of the voters who sent them; often the primary benefit of the coalition deals is to the politicians who negotiated the deals."Forming a government" is really back office dealmaking. Governments are "formed" in smoke-filled rooms away from public scrutiny.
That, as I see it, is the biggest problem with the multiparty parliamentary system. All of this horsetrading to build a coalition happens in secrecy behind closed doors. The voters themselves may have been given a clean choice, with candidates with whom they can agree universally, but then the messy work of give and take is left to the politicians.
By contrast, in our system, the voters themselves must deal with the ugly choice of weighing the merits and liabilities of two imperfect candidates. It's very unpleasant, especially when the choice looks like the one we have have this year, but, in the end, I would much rather have the compromising be done by me and my fellow citizen voters rather than leaving it to the politicians to compromise behind closed doors after the election is over.
Thursday, October 27, 2016
My Geographic Extremes - September 2016
Prior Entries in this series:
I love to travel! 2016 was the year I finally made it out of North America! Two separate trips to Europe pushed my "easternmost extreme" point further and further east. First, to the low single-digits of west longitude as I landed at Heathrow airport and rode the Underground eastward into London. Then, to the Prime Meridian at 0° longitude as I travelled to the Greenwich Observatory and even strayed a few feet into east longitude. Last lasted only one day, as the next day, I rode the Eurostar through the Chunnel to Paris. For a couple of days, my easternmost point was the Gare du Nord in Paris. Over the course of the week, my easternmost point continued progressing eastward: to the Marne La-Vallée RER station at Disneyland Paris, then Brussels, Amsterdam, and finally on the eastern edge of Cologne. it remained there until a second trip to Europe in late September, when I flew to Athens. The Athens airport is in the far eastern suburbs of the Greek capital, and it remains, presently, the furthest east I have travelled.
I still haven't managed to get out of the northern hemisphere. The closest I've come to South America is the island of Curaçao, about 25 miles north of the Venezuelan coast.
Two of the four compass point extremes are located on islands. Here are my current geographic extremes (as of September 26, 2016)
NORTHERNMOST: 52.43° N
On the A10 Ring Road on the north side of Amsterdam52° 25' 31.5552" N
4° 53' 16.0512" E
Saturday, May 14, 2016
SOUTHERNMOST: 12.07° N
Caracas Baai, Curaçao12° 4' 8.439" N
68° 51' 42.1524"
Tuesday, June 13, 2007
EASTERNMOST: 23.95° E
Athens International Airport, Athens, Greece
37° 56' 12.1956" N
23° 56' 48.3106" E
Sunday, September 25, 2016
(repeated Tuesday, September 27, 2016)
WESTERNMOST: 158.10° W
Haleiwa, Oahu, Hawaii21° 35' 35.448" N
158° 6' 12.5892" W
Monday, February 14, 2011
Plot on map
PRIOR NORTHERNMOST: 51.45° N
On the Trans-Canada Highway, about 8 km NW of Lake Louise, Alberta51° 27' 30.2652" N
116° 16' 7.3848" W
Saturday, May 23, 2015
PRIOR EASTERNMOST: 7.06° E
Cologne, GermanyTransition ramp from southbound Autobahn 3 to Autobahn 4 and 59, east side of Köln
50° 55' 29.172" N
7° 3' 30.2522" E
Saturday, May 14, 2016
Thursday, May 5, 2016: Heathrow Airport, London
Thursday, May 5, 2016: Tower Bridge, London
Friday, May 6, 2016: Royal Naval Observatory, Greenwich, England
Saturday, May 7, 2016 - 48.88°N 2.36°E: Gare du Nord, Paris
Sunday, May 8, 2016 - 48.86°N 2.39°E: Père La Chaise Cemetery, Paris
Tuesday, May 9, 2016 - 48.87°N 2.78°E: Marne La-Vallée RER Station, Disneyland Paris
Friday, May 13, 2016 - 50.84°N 4.34°E: Bruxelles Midi Station, Brussels*
Friday, May 13, 2016 - 50.84°N 4.38°E: Parlamentarium (European Parliament), Brussels
Friday, May 13, 2016 - 52.38°N 4.90°E: Amsterdam Centraal Station, Amsterdam*
Friday, May 13, 2016 - 52.37°N 4.93°E: Brouwerij t'IJ, Amsterdam
* - Also a new northern record at the time
Conversions from Decimal to Degrees /Minutes/Seconds:
https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/dms-decimal
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
Four personal finance articles that struck me this week
One Quarter of all High-Income Earners Live Paycheck to Paycheck
They make $150,000 per year, yet they still have no savings and no emergency fund
2/3 of all Americans could not Cover a $1000 Emergency
401k and IRA Nightmares
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/401-k-ira-nightmares-not-115213531.html
How one couple saved $1 million and retired at age 43
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/one-couple-saved-1-million-130858190.html
Happy reading!
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
A Majority of the Delegates
A quick civics lesson: To win a party's nomination for president, a candidate must win a majority of the delegates; not just the most delegates, but a majority of them. A majority means more than half. The candidate must have more delegates voting for him than there are delegates voting against him. Currently, on the Republican side, no candidate has a majority of the delegates awarded. One candidate has more than the others, but it is not a majority because there are still more delegates voting against him than there are voting for him.
So what happens? I'm glad you asked...
After all of the states have voted, if no candidate has a majority, which this year means 1237 delegates, the delegates will select a nominee at the convention. On the first ballot, delegates are bound to vote for their pledged candidate. After that, they are free to vote for others. Candidates will woo delegates and campaign for votes, and the delegates will keep voting until one candidate finally emerges with a majority. The winner might be the candidate who had the most delegates to begin with or it might be someone else. The key is that someone must build a coalition to amass a majority. This is not anti-democratic; it's how we end up with a consensus candidate, and it generally avoids extreme nominees.
I don't believe that any of the candidates is going to achieve that magic number for a majority this year. I think we're headed to a convention nomination this summer -- something I've never seen in my lifetime.
American politics is sometimes messy, very messy, but it always works. This year, in particular has seemed overly messy, but, it'll work out, just like it always has.
So what happens? I'm glad you asked...
After all of the states have voted, if no candidate has a majority, which this year means 1237 delegates, the delegates will select a nominee at the convention. On the first ballot, delegates are bound to vote for their pledged candidate. After that, they are free to vote for others. Candidates will woo delegates and campaign for votes, and the delegates will keep voting until one candidate finally emerges with a majority. The winner might be the candidate who had the most delegates to begin with or it might be someone else. The key is that someone must build a coalition to amass a majority. This is not anti-democratic; it's how we end up with a consensus candidate, and it generally avoids extreme nominees.
I don't believe that any of the candidates is going to achieve that magic number for a majority this year. I think we're headed to a convention nomination this summer -- something I've never seen in my lifetime.
American politics is sometimes messy, very messy, but it always works. This year, in particular has seemed overly messy, but, it'll work out, just like it always has.
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