Sausage Breakfast Casserole

This recipe I got from my mother, who got it from a friend decades ago. I haven't looked into it, but I suspect some variant of this is quite common.

It's a family favorite at the Van Horn Estate, and I usually make it ahead of holidays.

I remember it now because my daughter thought it would be a good thing to bring to my mother's house last weekend when we visited her.

Interestingly, my daughter hates bread -- which this recipe calls for -- but loves this stuff.

Call it comfort food, but I highly recommend my serving suggestion under Notes at the end.

***

Sausage Breakfast Casserole

Preparation Time is about 20 minutes the evening before and 40 minutes baking.

Ingredients

• 1 lb. bulk sausage
• 6 eggs
• 2 cups milk
• 6 slices white bread
• 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
• cooking spray
• plastic wrap

Directions

1. Brown and drain sausage. In parallel, perform steps 2 and 3.
2. Beat eggs.
3. Tear bread into bite-sized pieces.
4. Thoroughly mix all ingredients in a large bowl.
5. Pour mixture into a greased 9x13 baking dish.
6. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours or overnight.
7. Bake, uncovered, at 325 degrees for 40 minutes.

Notes

1. Keeps well in refrigerator and reheats well in microwave.

2. Recipe can be halved and baked in an 8x8 glass pan.

3. Is great with sriracha sauce.

Bon appétit!

-- CAV

A Corollary to Your Body, Your Rules

Sometimes, people in romantic relationships make (or are considering) changes to their appearance and worry about how it might affect the significant other. Naturally, some of them send letters to advice columnists or post questions on discussion boards.

These questions can range all the way from the relatively minor (changing hair color), through major (getting a tattoo), all the way to the drastic (gender reassignment).

On the forums, it's not unusual to hear some variant of Your body, your rules! (often, as if how the change might affect the relationship has little or no bearing) or Your actions, your consequences (often again, as if being in a relationship involves a vow to become a doormat).

For examples, see the first link, where an advice columnist shares samples of the "equally divided" reader responses to advice she gave to a woman who wanted to stop dyeing her hair. The columnist's answer was a reasonable attempt to account for the fact that both "sides" grasp part of the truth.

I'd say that both answers are correct and contextualize each other. It is your body, but you share a relationship, and the change could take some getting used to or even, as in the last example, potentially end or drastically change the character of the relationship. (When I read columns that answer these, there is usually some attempt to cover both of these aspects of the change.)

Good communication and knowing what you want is key for both parties, however consequential the proposed change might be.

-- CAV

P.S. For the record, my wife, who is a few years younger than me (but greying faster) once mooted the idea of "going grey" over dinner. I told her I was okay with it, but our son, who was ten at the time, got upset enough at the idea that she decided against it.

Also, I'm glad we both hate tattoos.

When 'Everyone' Doesn't Know

When I spot an interesting headline at Hacker News, I often save time by taking a look at the comment thread first.

Recently, though, the very first comment on a thread about an archaelogical discovery proved worthwhile on its own.

The paper concerns a site at which the authors claimed evidence of fat rendering activity by Neanderthals.

With the proviso that I am not myself an archaelogist -- but that the commenter gave citations that back him up -- the below comment is worthwhile:

When I first read this a question jumped out at me: Wait, Neanderthals were able to render fat? That requires boiling, and doesn't boiling require pottery?

This led me down a bit of a rabbit-hole. It turns out that no, you don't need pottery to boil things, because you can do it just fine in combustible materials like animal hide or birch bark... so long as you keep the water level consistently high enough, because then the container material will never get hotter than 100 degrees Celsius! So that's kind of obvious once you think about it, but what's interesting about this is that nobody ever considered it until just recently and the whole of paleo-anthropology "knew" that humans couldn't boil things until the invention of pottery! To me this is a particularly interesting and surprising example of how, in scientific disciplines, bad assumptions can stick around unquestioned even though from the perspective of physics it's quite obvious that they're bad assumptions. [lightly edited, footnotes removed, bold added]

(1) An entire field went on making a bad assumption for a long time. But also (2): Hooray for the inductive nature of knowledge, that ultimate corrector of error!

One of the references explicitly notes this blind spot and another tests the idea of boiling things in combustible containers.

Another commenter describes a teacher in his high school science class boiling water in a paper container. This means of boiling is not new!

It is unusual to see so many intelligent and educated people failing to make a connection so obvious in retrospect, but it happens.

This all reminds me a little of Chesterton's Fence, which cautions against over-hasty reform.

If one should be careful reforming that which one doesn't fully understand, one should be doubly so of accepting that which one does not fully understand.

-- CAV

Why Trump's Swivel on Ukraine?

Trump has sounded tough (for him) on Ukraine lately.

Given his embarrassing, years-long man-crush on Vlad Putin, one naturally wonders Why just now?

One should also wonder For how long?

At least for the first question, Jonathan Lemire of The Atlantic has you covered, and the answer will not inspire confidence:

The change, though, is not reflective of Trump adopting a new strategic worldview, two White House officials and two outside advisers to the president told me, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. Trump did not develop a new fondness for Ukraine or its president, Volodymyr Zelensky. He did not abruptly become a believer in the traditional transatlantic alliances prized by his predecessors as a counterweight to Moscow. Rather, Trump got insulted.

By ignoring Trump's pleas to end the war and instead ratcheting up the fighting, Putin has made Trump look like the junior partner in the relationship. The Russian leader has "really overplayed his hand," one of the officials told me. "The president has given him chance after chance, but enough is enough."

Trump has a fragile ego and craves attention, so if he becomes aware he looks bad to enough people -- with his backing down from "Liberation Day" tariffs being a prime example -- he will alter course, at least for a while.

Continuing with tariffs as an example, we shouldn't expect a big or lasting change from Trump's past behavior as practically a Russian asset, barring more humiliation.

One might still ask Why now? Putin has been making a fool of Trump for ages already. Perhaps part of the problem is how easily-distracted Trump is. Certainly, as the Atlantic indicates, the pro-Russian elements on his inner circle bear much of the blame.

The long-term question, then, might be: Is Putin (or a Putin successor) going to be outrageous enough for long enough that even Trump comes to his senses and effectively switches sides?

As with tariffs -- where markets seem to assume the courts will save Trump from himself -- perhaps in this foreign policy matter, Putin will accidentally do the same.

-- CAV

Have Fun With That, Donnie!

Trump's base, which includes a large number of people prone to conspiracism, is up in arms about recent announcements concerning Jeffrey Epstein:

Trump's Department of Justice and the FBI said in a memo made public last week there was no evidence that the disgraced financier kept a "client list" or was blackmailing powerful figures.

They also dismissed the claim that Epstein was murdered in jail, confirming his death by suicide at a New York prison in 2019, and said they would not be releasing any more information on the probe.

The move was met with incredulity by some on the US far-right -- many of whom have backed Trump for years -- and strident criticism of Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel.

I am agnostic about this beyond my certainty that Epstein and Trump are both sleazebags.

Did Epstein procure women for Democrat politicians? Probably.

Trump himself? Maybe. It wouldn't surprise me at all.

Am I microwaving some popcorn? Yes.

Have I lost sleep -- or will I ever lose sleep -- over this? No.

Our entire political establishment is sleazy and this disgusting aspect of it is par for the course, but hardly the biggest fish to fry.

As I see it, there could be enough dirt on Trump that he wouldn't dare pursue charges for fear of blowback, even though he could pardon himself. Or, there could be a whole lot of nothing/not worth pursuing in there. This doesn't excuse it, but it might well be a legal nothingburger for any variety of reasons.

But I am not a conspiracy nut. Many of Trump's supporters are, and it is hilarious to see him say things like the following to them, as if it will matter:

"What's going on with my 'boys' and, in some cases, 'gals?' They're all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB!" Trump said Saturday in a lengthy post on his Truth Social platform.

"We're on one Team, MAGA, and I don't like what's happening. We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and 'selfish people' are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein," he added, referring to his "Make America Great Again" movement.

The predictable response from a conspiracist to a denial of what they choose to believe isn't to review or look at the evidence or their interpretation.

It's to think They've gotten to him or even He's one of them, or (most generously) They've tricked him. The reactions of Alex Jones and Laura Loomer bear this out, and it's amusing to see Trump trying to downplay something he'd been happy to gin people up about/move them on to other favorites, like the "stolen" election narrative about his 2020 defeat.

I'll close by noting a similarity I have observed between these elements of MAGA and far-left people I sometimes encountered in my days in academia: Their reactions to cognitive dissonance are substantially the same.

They don't process what they hear at all, only that someone doesn't believe as they do. With MAGA, the "explanation" is that someone is credulous or evil.

Likewise, leftists would accuse me of spouting or falling for "propaganda" full stop.

Both examples of this cognitive type are in a bubble and unreachable. I recommend not wasting time trying to change their minds, and moving along, instead.

-- CAV

Four Random Things

A Friday Hodgepodge

1. Phrase of the Day: Kitty Party. This armchair linguist encountered it in an Oxford English Dictionary article titled "Introduction to Indian English."

kitty party, n. (1991) – a social lunch at which those attending contribute money to a central pool and draw lots, the winner receiving the money and hosting the next lunch.

Maybe it's nostalgia speaking to me a little bit, but I love the idea.

It reminds me a little of my grad school days when we'd regularly meet for a pot luck dinner each week at a house a few of the math students rented.

Rotating hosts would have been interesting, and, while lunch might pose challenging logistics, it might make for a faster pace and livelier conversation.

2. Small Things to Improve Work/Give as Gifts. At Ask a Manager, the answers to a post asking What's something you’ve gotten for work that greatly improved your work day? are worth a read. Some notable finds after a skim:

• a Jettle -- a kind of portable kettle,
• a toaster-sized refrigerator -- a possible way to avoid lunch theft from communal refrigerators (although perhaps themselves vulnerable to theft), and
• a small mirror -- valuable for not being startled at a desk facing away from a traffic area

You will get ideas, be they products you may not have heard of, or creative solutions to common problems.

3. A Model Railroad Enthusiast's Dream Comes True: A man in Australia discovered an extensive model railroad network beneath the house he and his wife had just bought.

My brother and I had a small HO scale layout on a table in the bedroom we shared growing up. We both still have our parts from it, but no concrete plans for getting back into the hobby, which is expensive and takes up space, not to mention basically being impossible to pursue if you (a) move a lot and (b) have toddlers.

If this guy ends up having kids and stays there, he'll be able to use this as a man cave when the kids are really young, and then be able to share his hobby when they're old enough.

I am jealous.

4. Easy and Good Recipe of the Week: Crock Pot Pulled Pork. I visited my brothers a few hours way on Independence Day, and one of them smoked a pork butt for the occasion.

It was great, and my recent success with a crockpot pot roast inspired me to see what I could do.

Thanks to Sharee of Savory Spicerack, I have an even easier recipe (with even fewer ingredients) for crockpot pulled pork.

Everyone, including my son, Mr. Picky Eater, loved it and happily snarfed up the leftovers the next day.

-- CAV

Medieval Usage, Medieval Mentality?

At Jewish World Review is a thought-provoking column by someone new to me, Adrian Wooldridge.

Wooldridge contends in his title and in his conclusion that The Middle Ages Are Making a Political Comeback, but he focuses on the kind of language being used by so many of the world's leaders, most alarmingly in the West:

Trump's political success has been helped by his genius for nicknames. During his run for the Republican nomination back in 2015 and 2016, he brought his Republican rivals down to size with a collection of memorable names: "low-energy Jeb" (Jeb Bush), "Sloppy Chris" (Chris Christie), "Lil Marco" (Marco Rubio). Hillary Clinton was "Crooked Hillary;" Biden was "Crooked Joe" at first; Kamala Harris was, at various times "Crazy Kamala," "Laffin Kamala" and "Lyin Kamala." As for foreign leaders, Bashar al-Assad is "Animal Assad," Justin Trudeau is "Governor Trudeau," and Kim Jong Un is "Rocket Man" or "Little Rocket Man."

This is all reminiscent of the Middle Ages when every great political figure had a nickname. Sometimes royal nicknames mocked (or celebrated) people's physical appearance: Charles the Bald, Charles the Fat, Ivar the Boneless, Ragnar Hairy-Pants. Sometimes they celebrated their political or military successes as with Vlad the Impaler or Eric Bloodaxe or Richard the Lionheart. William the Conqueror started life as William the Bastard before he changed his reputation by subjugating England.

Or consider NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte's private letter to Trump ("Mr President, Dear Donald"), written on the eve of the recent NATO summit and then leaked by a delighted Trump to the world...

Rutte's letter belongs in the long tradition of groveling loyal addresses to monarchs from their subjects (though with shorter words and more capital letters). Monarchs were routinely praised for their wisdom, justice and foresight; the subjects were equally routinely described as grateful, humble and awestruck...

See also the disgraceful way Trump's cabinet meetings start.

Wooldridge is definitely on to something here, and he calls it re-medievalization. The trends he cites in his closing paragraphs are indeed disturbing, and he has perhaps caught onto a symptom of irrationality among our politicians and, by extension, the electorate at large.

-- CAV