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The Perfect Dip is a recipe I've been playing around with for some time.  It's current (and likely final) incarnation is listed here.  It's a great dip for parties, but it's also hearty enough to be a meal in its own right.

Ingredients:
1 lb. Ground Beef
1 Large Can of Refried Beans
1 lb. Cheddar Cheese (pre-shredded is easiest)
1 lb. Mozzarella Cheese
1/2 lb. Cream Cheese
1/2 lb. Sour Cream
2 packets of taco seasoning (or if you are creative and wise to the ways of spices you can make your own)

Brown the beef in a skillet.  Add one packet of taco seasoning as per the directions on the packet or according to your own twisted dark desires.  Throw seasoned beef into a crock pot or large stove-top pot with all remaining ingredients and melt into a puddle of tasty, stirring occasionally.  Serve hot with tortilla chips.  Serves 4 as a meal or 8-10 as a party snack.

Caution: This meal is in no way healthy.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that the ambrosia of the Greek gods was menstrual blood...

The food of the gods?  Really?

Man, no wonder the Greek Gods are so tempermental.

Machines that can replicate themselves will be the end of the world.

Imagine a nanomachine whose only program is to break apart the matter surrounding it in order to create copies of itself with the same programming.  Give it some time and eventually the planet is nothing but a swiming sea of nanites floating in space.

The latter won't happen.  The people will never tire of the wars on social ills like substance abuse, global warming, poverty, etc., because they want to combat these things.  And it is easier to envision some central entity spearheading these efforts.  Sure, grass roots organizations can have great impact.  Indeed I work for such an organization that deals with drug use by adolescents, and we've had some significant impacts.  But in the grand scheme of things, people want to know that those who (in their eyes) are supposed to be looking after them, are, well looking after them by keeping the bad guys at bay. 

This is one of the things that boggles my mind about our government.  Politicians put everyone's mind to rest by saying "I HAVE A PLAN!"  From there, "experts" give their opinions on the Plan, all of which are contradictory.  After arguing the pros and cons of the Plan for weeks it is either implemented (resulting in either no change, mixed results, or negative change--it's worth noting here that I believe any changes to any aspect of our system, as cumbersome as it is, will have both negative and positive results as the best possible outcome) or it is quietly brushed under the carpet where the hope is that, given enough media distraction, the public will forget the Plan and the problem associated with it. 
This method of pretending to do something while doing nothing is easily seen in the Congressional hearings on fuel prices.  Every two years Congress says Big Oil is charging too much and lining their pockets with the extra profit.  The end result is nothing happens.  America gets used to paying the new higher price and forgets that we went through the same rigamarole two years prior.

[War on Wars]

NOTE: This rant was much better the first time I wrote it.  Curse you, login timeout!

I Googled "The War On" today to see what I would get.

[digression]
When did "Google" become a verb?
[/digression]

Within the first few pages of search results I discovered there are a number of wars we have been fighting that we may not be aware of.  Of course we have the old favorites: the War on Drugs and the War on Poverty from the 60's and 70's, and everyone knows about the War on Terror, but there are some new kids on the block.  Now we apparently have a War on Democracy, a War on Christmas, Wars on Waste, Guns, Freedom, and Global Warming.  The Republicans are said to be waging a War on Science, and there's even a War on Bugs which is actually purported to be much more sinister than it sounds.

I realize that this is fast becoming a popular buzz-phrase and it occurred to me to wonder why.  Is it a semantics driven idea created by the government to drum up support for a cause by implying an often non-existant unity against a specific target?  Possibly, but I'm a naturally suspicious person.  It could just be a rampant meme that resonates with the American ego.

Americans have been raised to believe that we Kick Ass in All Things.  An attitude that was made nigh impenetrable ever since we "saved" the world from two destructive for-realsies wars (initially against our will, it's worth pointing out).  Never mind that we've seen nothing but a long string of failures since then (Korea and Viet Nam being only the two most famous ones).  Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty was the first of these social campaigns, but that lasted only as long as people could be bothered to care for the impoverished.  In the end, the welfare programs served as tax-funded drug money, which brought us to the War on Drugs in the 70's.

Dispite constant reinforcement of this lession the Government has refused to accept that when you criminalize something it creates an often dangerous criminal element.  Anti-abortionists, anti-prostitutionists, anti-gambling activists and supporters of the War on Drugs fail to appreciate the consequences of this fact.  Inevitably the crime and violence that is created as a result of criminalization gravitates to the areas of the city least frequented by police.  Strangely enough, that's where the large bulk of our minorities live.

As of 2006, Marijuana is the #1 cash crop in America.  This fact alone makes me chuckle every time I read it, and would have probably never been possible had it not been for the War on Drugs.  It seems to me that every time we get into one of these Wars on Societal Points of Contention the results are often disasterous or outright opposite to the expected outcome.  With that in mind, I propose a War on Wars.  This will result in one of the following:

• "Wars on" anything will become illegal.  This will lead to the advent of criminal mercenaries who will wage social war on your behalf.  The government will have no choice but to hire the criminals they've created so that they can maintain the War on War and eventually the mercenaries will own all of our money.  Our new mercenary masters will force their twisted amalgam views upon us all and America will descend into chaos as conflicting ideals and laws mean no one is safe from the authorities.  The War on Everything becomes the new motto of America.  The draft is reinstituted and while Americans are busy fighting at home they have a hard time caring that they are also dying abroad.  George Orwell's ghost says "I told you so."  The next day the War on Ghosts is initiated and the government begins killing off all of it's soldiers intentionally to help conquer the afterlife.  Decades later, explorers from other nations will set foot on a now-empty America and marvel at our stupidity.
• People finally get fed up with incessant "Wars on" everything and the proverbial horse's back is broken.  Under pressure from the people the government is forced to end it's incessant social and literal warmongering and face the issues that are crushing America.  A new American Golden Age begins.  Funded by the new Marijuana Tax the government restructures on a massive scale eventually resulting in a smaller more streamlined government that is largely responsible for doing nothing in most cases.  Federal Taxes are all but eliminated and power is returned to the States to a large degree.  The people are better able to make their voices heard because they only need to yell loud enough for the local government to hear.  Global relations are restored and America returns to the ideal that we've always imagined ourselves to be.

I wonder which would happen.  The scary thing is, I think I know which is more likely.

A susurrus of wild wind
Rushing past my face
Gee, the Earth is getting close...

Next: Armadillos

heh, it's an inside-out haiku. 

Normally I'd pretend I meant to do that, but in this case we'll chalk it up to the as yet untouched coffee sitting in front of me.

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski.  I highly recommend it--it is a spectacularly twisted read.

A susurrus of wild wind
Rushing past my face
Gee, the Earth is getting close...

Next: Armadillos

Thank you, I thought so as well.

This is the correct cryptocycle. Polyalphabetic substitution is not a secure way of encrypting anything anymore. Either one time pads (which includes the deck of cards method), symmetric encryption of at least 128 bits or asymmetric encryption of at least 1024 bits is necessary to defeat common cryptanalysis. For NSA level analysis, well, who knows...

I worked at the NSA, so I know.  While I can't give details, let's just say that if there's something the NSA wants to know they have the means to know it.  Sounds conspiracy-nut-like for me to say that, but like I said, I worked there for six years.

-R