As a kid, I loved the sauerkraut my aunt made. Once I was an adult and out on my own, I didn’t like sauerkraut that I bought from the store. Recently, I ‘discovered’ fermented vegetables and made my own hot sauce. So, I decided to try making my own sauerkraut.
I checked out a few a books on fermenting vegetables and came across this: ”Wild Fermentation” by Sandor Katz. I learned of this book from the subreddit Fermentation. From what I read on the subreddit, I expected a hippy-dippy, “Diet for a Small Planet” kind of book. I was wrong. This is IN YOUR FACE, punk fermentation in all its DIY glory. I love this book! I will never make most of the recipes in this book, but I am happy to read what Sandor Katz writes about them. This guy is obsessed with fermentation – he ferments everything. This book covers fermenting dairy, grains, making your own wine and beer, and finally, even making sauerkraut.
I decided to make a red cabbage kraut. My recipe is actually based on one in Fermented Vegetables by Kristin Shockley, rather than Katz’s book. That’s because I decided to use red cabbage before I found his book. I’ll also use onions and apple in the kraut because I like apples and onions with my red cabbage. I’ll put it into two pint jars.
I sliced half the cabbage thinly and then sprinkled on a teaspoon of sea salt and tossed it well. Then, I rubbed the cabbage between my fingers and squeezed it. The goal is to massage the salt into the cabbage so that it will release the liquid in it. Sauerkraut typically doesn’t use a separate brine – instead the brine comes from the cabbage. After a few minutes, it already starts to look shiny and wet. At this point, I taste the cabbage. You should be able to taste the salt, but it shouldn’t be salty. I worked it for about five more minutes and then set it aside to rest (and develop more brine).
While the cabbage was resting, I sliced half an onion thinly then peeled and sliced half an apple. I cut the apple slices into little match sticks which I added to the cabbage. After it had rested for about half an hour, a lot more liquid has developed, but not enough. So I pounded on it with my potato masher. Traditionally, people would pound the cabbage with a wooden rod. I don’t have one, so potato masher it is (Sandor Katz would approve). The goal is to bruise cell walls to create more liquid.
Now it is ready to be packed into the jars. Really press it down. The key to fermenting vegetables is to make sure all the vegetables stay below the brine. So, you don’t want any gaps where the brine collects, you want it on top of the vegetables. When you press down on top of the cabbage, you should see the liquid. When I put the weights in the jars, you can see the brine come to the top.
Then I add water to the airlock and put the lids and airlocks on top. Set them aside somewhere out of direct sunlight and wait. It should be ready in about seven days. It will continue making more brine – here is a photo from the second day – you can see that the amount of brine has increased and there are bubbles in the airlock. By day three, the brine has turned a little cloudy. That’s normal. At this point you could start tasting it. I tried a little and think it needs to get a little more sour before it is ready.
Checking on the fourth day, there is a little white stuff on top. I think it is yeast and just skimmed it off. That’s normal. As long as the scum on top is white or pale gray, just skim it off.
After a few more days, I tried it again. (There’s been no more white stuff on top of the liquid.) It’s ready. I replaced the airlocks with lids and put it in the fridge. It should keep for up to a year.
Well damn, now I have a new thing to try.
One of my favorite stories from my dad involves making sauerkraut. When he was a kid, his dad would have friends over and they’d drink and cut up cabbage. They’d put it in a big barrel, and it was my dad’s job to jump into the barrel with his bare feet and smash the cabbage. I’m guessing that was to release the liquid.
Now I’m wondering if that bacteria that makes cheese smell like feet is also present in sauerkraut.
Same as traditional grape pressing for wine?
Yep. The peasants did what they had to.
I sliced half the cabbage thinly
Should this be cross-referenced to glibfit?
Looks great!
My family always makes sauerkraut. My dad has 20-gallon antique crocks and does the whole wooden rod thing. I think the most he made was 300 pounds one year.
I make small batches, but have never done red cabbage. Hmmm.
It’s so pretty! I love the color and thought it would be fun.
Local kraut company does a red beet kraut which includes red cabbage and carrots.
Agreed! It’s one of the reasons I love German red cabbage recipes so much. Just beautiful.
Mmm. I love sauerkraut!
Costco had been carrying a brand I really liked, but it has disappeared.
Looks like the gods want me to make my own.
Thanks, Tulip!
I love it too. It’s one of dozens of things I hated as a kid but I love now.
+2 bewbs!
Add me to that list.
I make it a point to go back and try things again every once in a while.
Like zucchini? *runs away*
I have retried zucchini… still not a fan (and not cooking it the way my parents did). When I did a Community Sponsored Agriculture half share, we got tons of zucchini and eggplant. Neither of which either the girlfriend or I like, so we tried them all sorts of different ways.
Zuch Spears was my latest most successful incarnation. Slice like pickle spears and roast in the oven, most important though, get em on a rack up off the sheet pan, so they get a bit dried out rather than turning to squish like every other cooking method. I still like zuch-mush no matter how it’s heated up, but these were really nice.
My mom would always slice it very thin with a mandoline, bread it, and fry it; it was crispy and delicious.
Yeah, breading and frying anything is pretty good….it’s also a lot of work and prone to failure. A lot of the challenge in Eating My Veggies is getting them made, so KISS helps me a lot in that regard. Those zuch spears take all of 5mins to get into the oven.
My brother and I went camping once. Joking aside, the canoe really did capsize and we lost most of our food. We stayed several days anyway but ended up surviving on zucchini the whole time.
I don’t eat zucchini.
The other thing I notice is that as I get older, I miss those holiday-specific meals I took for granted as a kid.
Big time. I was just talking with a friend about how much I miss the Crostoli my Grandmother made for Easter.
When I was an adult, I realized I had the freedom to have those holiday-specific meals anytime I wanted instead of having to wait. I burnt myself out on them and now I have nothing special to hold onto.
RED sauerkraut. Served, I’m sure, with pineapple, in the deepest dishes available, at a bris.
For St. Paddy’s, the cafeteria here (which is run by a company called Mazzone) served corned beef and red cabbage.
For the colorblind, right?
Frank’s Sauerkraut is the superior
racekraut.As for home made kraut, the best I ever had was from a great uncle on my dad’s side. At his wake they served all of his left over kraut. It was great, but the dumplings weren’t as good as my mom’s side of the family make them. All this said, that great uncle wasn’t even a natural born sconnie, but he took up the mantle well.
My sister just sent me some brats from a meat market in St. Joseph MN that are phenomenal. I think I’ll have a go at making my own kraut to top them with. Thanks for this.
So, a college bar?
‘brats’ not ‘bros’.
My mother in law makes galuskies every year for Thanksgiving. Basically pork, onion and rice wrapped in a cabbage leaf then slow cooked in a pot full of sour kraut. I’m a bad German who hates sour kraut but anyone who likes it seems to love galuskies. I prefer Bierocks which is beef onion and cabbage packed into a bread dough pocket. I believe Galuskies and Bierocks are both “fake” German dishes that German immigrants concocted when they came over and settled.
I make a veg version of runzas with mushrooms, onion, and sauerkraut. I love them.
At first I didn’t get what you were referencing, then I realized the Slovak version starts with an “H” instead of a “G”. Or the American version, “stuffed cabbage”.
Ya it’s a weird dish. I’ve looked into it. Seems to be only known in Kansas and Nebraska. It’s similar to slovak and Ukrainian dishes in name and ingredients.
Nope, my mother made it, and she was a Prussian-descended Chicagolander.
Ah so it’s more widely known than I thought.
She also made meatballs out of torn up white bread and ground pork which were cooked in a pot of sauerkraut.
John Candy and Eugene Levy sing its praises
My mom tried that once. Either nobody liked it (I sure didn’t) or it was too much work for the payoff. I suspect my dad didn’t like it, so she never made it again.
I earned my very first merit badge in Cub Scouts for making stuffed peppers. The next year, we moved and the new pack leader expelled me for taking the lord’s name in vain. Sigh…
People were shit to kids long before covid.
fun fact- round these parts, green bell peppers are often called “mangos”. Mama Tres used to make “stuffed mangos”, which I still find abhorrent.
This sounds very similar to Golubtsi, which is a very popular dish in Russia and Ukraine.
I think every Eastern European country has something like this. My Hungarian/Romanian grandmother certainly did, although it was not cooked in sauerkraut, but in a thin sweet and sour tomato sauce.
Couldn’t stand it when I was a kid, or any U.S. versions as an adult. Then got to have it as a side during a meal while boating down the Rhine. Maybe it was the lure of the Lorelei, but it was delicious. Haven’t found any since as good as that back in the U.S.
I had to eat bulk sauerkraut made in a vat when I was a child at daycare. I have hated it ever since. Relatedly, I hated brussels sprouts too. I’ve come around on brussels sprouts lately, and I’ve learned that shitty American versions of German food are not the same thing as the real deal, so maybe I could give it a try. Maybe.
Trump Confirms There Will Be No Presidential Pardon For Rian Johnson
JJ Abrams had already kidnapped it, raped it and left it in a ditch. Ryan Johnson just wanted to finish the job.
Cool, I’ve been telling myself I should make some sauerkraut for about a year now.
I was going to try Townsends’ version, but this looks good also.
What is up with HVAC filter pricing? A 2 pack of 16x25x1 is over a $100.
Weird, i just bought filters in August, 6pack of 10x20x1 for only $33. What grade? I got the cheapos….
Filtrete MPR300 cheapos
Yesterday, I was downright shocked to find our local Ace franchise had them (the basic slumlord cheap stuff) for significantly less than Amazon, Target, HD, and Lowes. I’m a buy the cheap filters but change them frequently type, so $5 Amazon (when purchased in a bulk pack) vs. $3 Ace looks really nice.
the filter ain’t for us, buy cheap and replace every 90 days, Iobot said it^
I am not sure what to make of that.
What retailer and what grade of filter?
What? What kind? 8″ HEPA filters?
Awhile ago I got a six pack of 14x24x1 for $30-something.
I just bought a 3 pack of 16x25x1 at Lowes for $10. Home Depot has the cheap blue ones for $1.25/filter but the closest one was out.
These.
A Waste of money, your house isn’t sealed enough to make a difference, and they Aren’t for filtering YOUR air, just to Keep the Evap coils and Heat exchangers clean,
But what do I know….
Ah. Rated for viruses, bacteria, smoke etc.
A 0.3 micron filter for your air conditioner? That seems a bit much unless you have allergies. I buy the cheapos, change frequently and use a lot of kleenex.
At ~$45, I bought them cuz the gf has allergies. At the new pricing, I’m buying something cheaper.
Yusef is correct. Those filters don’t help you, they help keep your HVAC unit clean.
Buy the cheap ones and put them in at the return inlet in order to keep dirt out of your ducts as well as the handler. Change them on a fixed schedule.
Vacuuming and cleaning your house will have more of an effect on her allergies than those filters.
What about one of those in-room HEPA filters, those do anything for unclogging the nostrils?
My wife says she can tell the difference in air so ours gets used.
Annoyingly my current air handler uses some weird Aprilaire filter thing that’s like 8 inches deep. I have to manually spread out the accordion fold across a comb every time I install it, which is buckets of fun since the whole unit is in the attic. I bought an adapter to use a 25x20x4 filter, which run above $25 on a good day, but haven’t used up the old filter media yet.
Aprilaire makes a kit to convert the older filters with the comb to their newer system that is easier. I converted mine last year.
Yeah I think that’s what I’ve got. It doesn’t really save any money but it does make things more convenient.
Filters available online along with local sources got cleaned out in August and September for smoke. Shelves were bare for weeks. I imagine any retailer with variable price (Amazon) hasn’t reset yet.
Thank you.
Guessing it is the filter media that is the costly/hard to get part. The media for the higher end furnace filters is probably used for multiple kinds of filters, including wearable n95 masks.
Did you check the thermostat?
Sauerkraut!!?
Its Freedom Cabbage. Are you on the side the Huns?!
Ok grandpa
Bet he has an onion on his belt.
All right, this is a good place for this question.
Once upon a time, there was an outfit that made Pyrex mason jars. They were expensive, but incredibly strong and resistant to careless handling.
A few years ago, these Pyrex jars disappeared from the market. Are they still available anywhere? Or has someone come up with a viable replacement?
As far as I can tell, most of the borosilcate glassware has been made not available to the unconnected because of meth makers. Pyrex is just a brand now, it’s the regular water glass.
Yeah, it blew my mind when I found out I needed a license to order lab glassware here.
A license. To order lab glassware.
*must…control…fist.of…death…”
Yep. I had an Ace catalog around here somewhere. I tried ordering some and was told I needed to ask permission.
I replied with some not very genteel language.
I obtained a borosilicate glass baking dish from Amazon. A company in France made the dish. I forget how many years ago it was. Maybe five?
Lots of borosilicate glass stuff still available on Amazon.
I have never been a fan of veggies that contain asparagine….except for asparagus. I love asparagus. Go figure.
You know when a rat is so happy it runs around chasing its tail then leaps straight up into the air spinning and squeaking? That’s me.
https://www.glibertarians.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/gang-colors.png
Being a lefty, I particualrly like the rattlesnake being on the gun side.
I love it. I’m totally going to do it for 2021 (probably not the same color, though.)
A non-yellow Gasden?
I know it’s not traditional, but yellow really isn’t my color.
Get one in buff to match the targets!
Nice.
Nice. You will look like a real shitlord.
By the way can we all upload documents and pics for easy linking to Glibs?
If you have the “new” … “media” option at the top, yes.
Sweet,
Thanks. Nice shirt
Techwear has great customer service, and their shirts work well in the heat.
Being a lefty,
UNCLEAN! CAST OUT THE HERETIC!
The other kind.
Happens every time. I have a small Amazon order and try to think of something else I need. I give up and and submit the order anyway. Then I read this and now I need airlock lids. A small order. Must be something else I need.
Thanks Tulip. Tried sauerkraut in a jar once and all I got was some mouldy biology specimen. The airlock should fix that.
Get weights for jars
Tulip, I’m really enjoying these articles. I’ve started keeping a batch of pickled red onions in the fridge to throw on to sammiches and such. I never liked pickled stuff as a kid but it grew on me in middle-age.
I’m glad you like them. Next up is how to make your own cake recipes.
Same here – the only vinegar-y food I could eat was pickled cucumbers. Then in my early 20’s, I ordered a pastrami sandwich and got a Rueben. I tried it, and really liked it (a ton of corned beef probably helped, though). Sauerkraut is definitely the correct end state for cabbage.
…and good article, Tulip.
What is up with HVAC filter pricing? A 2 pack of 16x25x1 is over a $100.
Do they trap snifflecooties?
NO, it’s a good scam, always has been,
My house started getting much cleaner (judging by how fast my vacuum cleaner fills up) once I upgraded my filters.
Upgraded to what?
These. To be honest, I could have upgraded from what the house came with by quilting together some paper towels and coffee filters.
I just ordered a 4 pack from them. Thanks!
A tight space is easier to filter,
Yeah, modern construction is the shizzle.
My vacuum fills up with pet hair, so I wouldn’t be able to tell if my furnace was catching more or less dust with different filters.
If you have AC attached to the furnace, Keep up on the filters, Doghair coils are a death sentence for equipment
/jots down note to thoroughly inspect coils before spring
Now, hold on. What if you duct taped them to your face instead of putting them in the furnace?
Convid mask?
That was the question, do they trap snifflecooties. Maybe not as a furnace filter, but as a face mask?
Cooties: ~0.0125 microns.
Diatomacious earth will filter 0.01 microns. It is not practical to try and filter out the cootie bugs.
The whole country seems to have gone insane.
I have a small Amazon order and try to think of something else I need. I give up and and submit the order anyway. Then I read this and now I need airlock lids. A small order. Must be something else I need.
I go through that, too. As much as I tell myself, “Amazon Prime- free shipping. It doesn’t matter.” I still feel like I should order “efficiently”.
I need some ginseng. I need to quit shilly-shallying and just order it.
I still feel like I should order “efficiently”.
Amazon’s deliveries aren’t efficient. There are days when we get two or three small items, each delivered separately.
So I ordered a trackball for my brother. 5mins later, talked to his girlfriend and realized she needed one too, but amazon doesn’t have a “add to order” feature, so, fuck it, order another single item.
They arrived today, despite the alleged snowmaggedon delay, in the same box.
That generally means they came from different warehouses. They box together all kinds of crap you wouldn’t expect to be together.
Shilly-shallying? Yeah, knock that shit off asap. At least try to lolligag or something, god, have some consideration for the rest of us. Ugh.
*adds popcorn to grocery list*
Defying McConnell, Sen-elect Tuberville suggests he will challenge Electoral College, while stumping in Georgia
I am off to the store.
Tonight: wife insists I make boneless, skinless chicken thighs stuffed with jalapeño and cream cheese wrapped in bacon so I have to go catch a chicken.
Yum.
Yeah, there’s nothing in that sentence I don’t like.
Pollopeño poppers?
Amazon’s deliveries aren’t efficient. There are days when we get two or three small items, each delivered separately.
Exactly. I’ll wait and make one order, and then the stuff comes from different warehouses, so you end up with multiple packages anyway.
I trod on a sleepy warsp and it stingered me right in the sole of my foot. Yowchers.
I really do not like anything “mit kraut” and especially could not bring myself to eat some neat. I’m just not a fermented foods kinda guy.
Ps – I enjoyed the article regardless of my disposition towards sauerkraut ?
The last wasp that dared sting me broke his stinger on my skin and then died a horrible death when I bashed his head in.
You still have wasps in December? I thought St. George drove them all out.
No, that was St. Patrick, with his companion St. Kevin.
My Mistake, I thought St. Patrick was the one who saved the children (but not the English children).
And his boozed up, obnoxious brother, St. Ides.
Falling in line.
After all, it’s working so well in all the other countries in Europe. I guess they felt left out.
Speaking of wearing face masks on public transit, this one is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow for my flight to FL after Christmas. No Mint cabin on my flight. And I’m already on the list of mask rule breakers with the airline. But probably not on the black list yet. Just in case, I booked a flight on another airline on the same day. It can be cancelled without penalty.
So you are going after Cuomo and Whitmer?
Omar said, “I lost my father on June 16. I remember my dad was in Kenya, he came back into the U.S. when Covid hit because he thought he was going to be safer here. My father and over 300,000 people have lost their lives to Covid because of dangerous criminal neglect by Trump and his administration, and I agree with Clyburn that it is not enough for us just to issue subpoenas, we have to investigate and prosecute these people who are responsible for these reckless deaths.”
“My father should be here today, so many of our family members should be here today and they’re not here with us because we had leaders who didn’t care about their lives,”
Speaking of snifflecootie scams- I had a notion the other day.
What if we put our collective brainpower to work to imagineer a magic air “purifier” consisting of a fan and some high intensity UV lamps to kill off the airborne virus as it passes through the magic purification chamber?
We’ll all be rich!
Trump once mentioned something like that, so of course it’s a non-starter.
So you’re saying I should spend more time hanging out in my buddy’s Grow Room?
I make artificial Sun Tea
30000 Lumens! let’s get a tan!
Put it in the fridge instead, the light adds nothing to the process. And putting it in the sun just gets the water right in the bacteria temp sweet spot.
“Ill have the Arnold Palmer petri dish, please”
Also, ages ago I tested a pilot tea-leaf sterilization process out in San Diego. Essentially, leaves were hung on a rack in a giant chamber which was then flooded with Ethylene Oxide (ETO) for (x)hours. QC at the facility wasnt the greatest, and there were numerous piles of leaves stuck together. I probably go through 2-3 quarts of tea a day, and for that reason I always use boiling water.
Its already been done. And quite a while ago.
do you even collective brainpower, bro?
I don’t know that a fan is required, normal breathing airflow should be sufficient. The UV led’s could be packaged in a small bar-shaped enclosure mounted on the upper lip, with the user inhaling through the nose.
The Chaplin Nasal Sanitizer.
Uhhhhmmmmm….breathing all of that ozone will definitely keep you from dying from the cooties.
Thanks for the article, Tulip. It’s too much for my little brain, but other people’s hobbies always amaze me.
After Sweden’s king declared that the country has failed in its effort to suppress the coronavirus, Sweden has ordered a host of new COVID-19-related measures, including requiring that all people riding on public transit must wear facemasks.
The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.
But the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
There’s a lube joke in there somewhere.
Know how you loosen up that stuck back door? Give it a couple hard bangs.
They are still below Belgium in deaths in the 2nd wave, and Belgium had the huge first wave. Its like the Florida vs New York comparison.
He never did learn to play defense.
It would be tempting to dismiss this self-mutilation as merely the triggering of overly sensitive “cancel culture.” But some of this public braying does immediate harm to the foundation of society. Giuliani’s attacks on the integrity of the 2020 elections, without any substantive evidence, has undermined the democratic process. A post-election poll indicated that 77 percent of Republicans think Joe Biden won because of fraud. Since no credible proof has ever been shown, this opinion can only be held because they practice flat-earther, anti-vaxxer cult-think: Someone in authority told me what I want to hear, so it must be true. Unfortunately, they include celebrities as “authorities.” (Yes, I’m aware that I am a sports celebrity, but I have been writing books and articles about history, culture and politics for 30 years to establish my credibility.)
Actors seem especially intent on self-implosion. Roseanne Barr had achieved the near impossible, sabotaging her career not once but twice. After she left her top-rated sitcom, she faded into irrelevance with out-of-left-field political musings. Seeking to connect to the Trump demographic, ABC gave Roseanne new life, but her character was killed off after she went on a racist rant. James Woods, winner of a Golden Globe and Emmy, was once considered a dynamic actor. Now, after his caustic social commentary tweets, he’s viewed as the cranky geezer who won’t let you get your ball from his yard. Jon Voight, once a shining star among actors, recently posted a rambling video calling the political left “Satan” and promoting conspiracies about the election, reducing him from brilliant Oscar winner to cultural dumpster diver. Black Panther actor Letitia Wright posted a link to a YouTube video questioning the COVID-19 vaccine and vaccines in general. After a tsunami of social media backlash, she wrote: “My intention was not to hurt anyone. My ONLY intention of posting the video was it raised my concerns with what the vaccine contains and what we are putting in our bodies. Nothing else.” At best, that’s naive, and at worst, disingenuous. If someone wants to raise concerns — that’s legitimate — they need to do basic research: Find facts, statistics and qualified authorities. Because the reality is that when she posts, readers believe she endorses the false conclusions — and that can’t be undone.
Social media companies have begun slapping warnings on some messages that are false, incite violence or cause harm to society. But this needs to be done with more consistency and vigilance. Studies indicate that when readers see these warnings, they are less likely to read or believe things. However, as another study showed, there can be a backfire effect in which content that isn’t flagged, even when inaccurate, is perceived as true.
Barr herself said “I thought the bitch [Valerie Jarrett] was white” but it still gets labelled “racist” because other people make the association “planet of apes = monkeys = black people = Jarrett” even though Roseanne made no such connection.
That’s not what backfire means, and I doubt these “studies” even exist never mind are repeatable.
Jon Voight, once a shining star among actors
Was that before he bit Kramer?
CWAA
They keep saying there is no evidence while we drown in evidence.
Two time loser Joe Biden: “I am going to fuck you to death”. “I dont need your vote”. “I have the largest voter fraud organization in history”.
*goes and hides in basement, sleeps all day and speaks gibberish*
No one believes that shitbird won this election, not even Creepy Joe.
If you don’t care for making your own, these guys make a fantastic live kraut
Can confirm (points up to the red beet kraut upthread). Pricey, but I do pick it up when it’s on sale up here. I seem to remember reading that they’ve got national distribution now too.
Tulip? Nice article. I have a number of un-used mason jars that I may put to use for ‘kraut.
From the local news: Coronavirus live updates: Biden to get COVID-19 vaccine Monday.
So if this virus is so deadly for old geezers (and Biden is 78), why would anyone wait 3 days to vaccinate the assumed leader of the US ? Seems like it would have been done already, unless it wasnt really all that serious.
I would have liked to ask Fauci “how many people died because you didn’t vote until a day after the vaccine data was presented?”
I’ve never been crazy about sauerkraut. I’d just as soon have corned beef & Swiss (the cheese, not the Glib) on rye, not a Reuben. However, a ‘kraut with red cabbage, apples, & onions sounds really tasty! Ummm… does anybody sell that commercially so I don’t have to make it? /lazy, lousy cook
If I make some as my winter project, specially using her recipe, Ill drop some on your doorstep.
I gotchu, fam.
I’ve seen it at Aldi
I’m not sure which of you glorious bastards directed me to the book “Letter of Note” (which I recently purchased), but here’s an excerpt of one I read this morning from Aldous Huxley to George OPrwell, compliments of The Atlantic: (yeah, Im not typing all that ish out)
On October 21, 1949, a few months after the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell received a letter from Aldous Huxley, whose Brave New World had been published 17 years earlier. Huxley concludes:
“Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience. In other words, I feel that the nightmare of Nineteen Eighty-Four is destined to modulate into the nightmare of a world having more resemblance to that which I imagined in Brave New World. The change will be brought about as a result of a felt need for increased efficiency. Meanwhile, of course, there may be a large-scale biological and atomic war—in which case we shall have nightmares of other and scarcely imaginable kinds.”
Say Tres, where are all those Nukes that are going to kill us all?
Have we misplaced them again?
Evidently they’re still there. Once again, Boris & Natasha made us look stupid:
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/17/nuclear-agency-hacked-officials-inform-congress-447855
Look Stupid?
/sarc
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/18/will-dependents-get-a-second-stimulus-payment.html
The legislation also is expected to include a second round of stimulus payments — up to $600 to $700 per individual, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters on Wednesday. That’s about half of the $1,200 maximum stimulus per person provided by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, also known as the CARES Act.
The good news is that new stimulus payments will be available for dependents, including adult dependents such as college students, according to the Washington Post.
As for who’s getting a check, as of now, lawmakers are basing eligibility on the same income standards established in the CARES Act. That legislative package, passed at the end of March, provided full $1,200 payments to individuals earning less than $75,000 and $2,400 for married couples making less than $150,000.
Those who earned more than those thresholds received smaller payments with the money phasing out completely for individuals who earn $99,000 or more and married couples with adjusted gross incomes above $198,000.
Great news. College students get free weed money, and I get fucked again.
90% of my company has been furloughed and I may lose my job because of forced shutdowns, but I’m stoked to be giving privileged asshole Americans $700 each.
Go back to college ?
Who gets the dependent payment? It sounds like received by the tax filer not the dependent.
It depends.
As I understand it, the payout is an advance on a tax credit for year 2020 that is claimed at tax time in April 2021.
The eligibility for the payout it based on last year’s (or the previous year’s) income. If your income collapsed this year, but you did not get a check because last year’s income was too high, you’ll get the tax credit when you file next spring.
This implies that “tax payers/filers” get the payout (there are provisions for retired people on SS to get checks).
You can file tax forms and still be a dependent on your parents taxes.
But who really fucking knows. The feds will fuck it up again. Checks will go to dead people and foreigners again.
The one actually beneficial component of that package, shielding businesses that reopen from Covid-related liability, has been removed.
The pre-Covid cynical part of me believes this is to make it rain for the tort-lawyers. The post-Covid cynical part of me believes this was done to encourage employers to make the vax mandatory as a condition of employment. The tinfoil hat part of me wants to know why they so badly want a largely ineffective and potentially dangerous vax to be mandatory.
The “benign” explanation is quite simply that it’s what the majority want (as far as any pollster can tell, anyway). Despite all the bleating about our “democracy is under attack”, if 70% of the people will change their vote based on an issue, the politicians will ram it down the rest of our throats.
Our old church when we lived in Florida put on a big Oktoberfest every year and my wife volunteered me to help prepare food for it. One of the things I made was sauerkraut, according to a recipe they gave me. It wasn’t pickling it myself though, it was doctoring store-bought sauerkraut with minced onions, bacon, finely shredded potato, and a bit of brown sugar. I have no idea if that is Germanic at all, but it came out very tasty, with a mellower flavor than plain kraut.
The good news is that the current 10% pay cut I am living with drops to half of that in January.
My work is planning to do raises in Q2 2021 that they didn’t do this year (Q2 is the normal time for them). I can’t complain, as that was all that got missed. All our benefits stayed. Although, last year we got a Christmas bonus and nothing has shown up yet this year, so that might be out too.
Last year’s raise was killed 2 or 3 months before the paycut/furlough announcement. That money is never coming back.
Us too. Well, bonuses. “Look, our choice was to keep everyone employed and no bonus, or lay off 25% of you, then have bonuses to the survivors. We chose the former.” Which was eminently reasonable.
At least I got a cut of the scarce raise money.
Today my boss, a senior director, is having a staff meeting of his underling managers (I’m one of em) to give us our group budgets for raises and the annual bonus.
Usually they don’t wait this long for that; I assume they wanted to see where we are after all the delays (many govt agencies closed up shop in March without issuing our contract payments, thus sticking us in limbo). My employer has tried everything they could not to do layoffs or furloughs.
But it wouldn’t surprise me if the bonuses are low or zero. Raises I’m hoping will be “normal” so we aren’t behind COLA at the very least.
Once I have my budgets, I can start divvying them up in keeping with the performance reviews I had to do 6 weeks ago. They always deserve more than gets allocated.
I don’t know how these junior engineers survive in Cali on their salaries. Good on ‘em!
SP has a new recipe for vegan sausage. Don’t scoff, it’s quite good. I’m seeing choucroute garni in our near future.
Cool
I scoffed.
Do I need to cat butt you? Or worse, does SP need to practice her Oddjob approach to rusty tin can lids?
Mo, a house is on fire in your town right now, I think. Not sure where you are but if it’s close, check for embers. It’s windy and I guess it’s a bad one.
Zoiks!
“SHTOINK!” -Don Martin
“Would you Believe?”
/Don Adams
This looks tasty.
One of the few upsides to my former marriage, which was to a German (born and raised, not German-American) was that I learned how to make red cabbage, sauerkraut, onion cake (quiche), and a few other goodies.
Not worth the trade off really, but I’m not throwing the culinary baby out with the spousal bath water.
Dodging a bullet.
The House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee on Thursday voted to seat Rep. Kathleen Rice on a coveted committee over her New York colleague Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the latest example of House Democrats bucking the firebrand who represents the Bronx and Queens.
The Energy and Commerce Committee handles some of the most critical legislation in the House, from the environment to health care to nuclear facilities. Its site says that it “has the broadest jurisdiction of any authorizing committee in Congress.”
This is the committee that will be dealing with the Green New Deal or its alternative.
* sad trombone *
Tulip, who was it that posted on fermented hot pepper sauces recently? I ordered “Fiery Ferments” and equipment for my hubs to use in making sixes, and I bought what I need to grow peppers for them.
I hope it’s a fun hobby we can share.
I did
I thought so! I’ll let you know how it goes 🙂
Fourscore sent me a Tranche of seeds for my Garden, based on Tulip’s recipe, I’m growing 2 kinds of sweet peppers and some Jalepenos, along with some Black Tomatoes. It’s all indoor, very doable in Winter, good luck on the Grow!
Raised bed in Springtime
But how many actual Georgians?
A record 7.7 million Georgians are registered to vote ahead of the Jan. 5 runoff election.
So many deserve credit for expanding GA’s electorate: @nseufot, @NewGAProject, @BlackVotersMtr, Helen Butler, @Georgia_NAACP and more. Let’s get it doneRightwards arrowhttp://iwillvote.com #gapol
The day after the election, I thought that they wouldn’t be able to fuck up the Senate runoff elections because they would be so high visibility.
Now, I am pretty sure they can manufacture ballots on camera and feed them through the machines in front of thousands of witnesses, and the media will still claim that there is no evidence of voter fraud.
We are fucked at this point.
We’ve been fucked for awhile. This is just one of the illusions making people think we haven’t been fucked for awhile losing its power.
This is like a bad lottery.
Just got a letter from Publishers’ Clearing House telling me I may already be registered to vote in Georgia
I wonder how many of those are for people fraudulently claiming to be “residents” of Georgia under their stupidly lax voting laws.
The Dems probably won’t even need to cheat in runoffs, given how stupid Georgia’s voting laws are.