The Third Angle

Found at Protein Wisdom:

A Russian nuclear-powered attack submarine armed with long-range cruise missiles operated undetected in the Gulf of Mexico for several weeks and its travel in strategic U.S. waters was only confirmed after it left the region, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

And Jeff comments:

Meanwhile, between our intentionally open borders, our now uncontrolled waters, and all the cuts to the military, it’s almost as if Obama wants us vulnerable. To something.
Or am I just connecting dots that aren’t related?

Or there may be a third option here.
Maybe the Russian sub and crew were really good at their job, and they managed to operate undetected*. You see, the designers and builders of subs and the crews manning them spend a lot of effort trying to be as stealth as possible. And effort pays off.

In other words, sometimes the other side wins because they are better than you, not because there's someone sabotaging your efforts from inside.

One aspect of Americans that I can never really grasp is hot they become scandalkized at the idea that some other country may be better than the USA in some aspects. It must be all that American Exceptionalism.

*I know, it begs the question: "How can it be known that it was there in the first place, then?". A possibility is that someone re-checked the data from surveillance systems and found a sub signature that was missed earlier.

Blame America, Always

Unsurprising:

TEMPO.CO , Jakarta - Intelijen Rusia berpikir Sukhoi Superjet 100 yang jatuh pada joy flight 9 Mei 2012 di Gunung Salak Bogor, Indonesia, kemungkinan disabotase Amerika Serikat. Hal ini ditulis salah satu media besar di Rusia pada Kamis, 24 Mei 2012.(Trans.)Russian intelligence think that the Sukhoi Superjet 100 that fell during the "joy flight" on 9 May 2012 and hit Mount Salak, Bogor, Indonesia, could have been sabotaged by the United States. This was written by one big Russian media on Thursday, 24 May.

Pada salah satu artikelnya, tabloid Rusia Komsomolskaya Pravda menulis judul 'Amerika yang Akibatkan Kecelakaan Sukhoi?'.
(Trans.)In that article, the Russian Tabloid "Komsomolskaya Pravda" writes"Did America cause the Sukhoi crash?"

Yes, if the Pravda says so it must be true. They have never ever been the propaganda arm of the Soviet and then Russian government, right?

Am I So Good

Really, am I so good that someone from India decided to use my blog for his/her thesis project?

This student from New Delhi is using this blog's archive of Jan - Feb 2007 for a thesis "on flares".

I'm not offended or anything, but if someone wants to use my work for academic purposes, I'd like to be informed by e-mail.

From Each According to... What the Hell?

About the Federal Income Tax Burden Distribution in the USA:

In 2008, the most recent year for which full data is available, the infamous top 1% – those earning over $380,354 – paid 38.02 percent of federal income taxes, according to an analysis of IRS data by the Tax Foundation. Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent of income earners – the group that, according to the liberal world view, is subsidizing tax handouts to the wealthy – shouldered just 2.7 percent of the federal income tax burden. And keep in mind, in 2008, the higher income earners share of taxes slipped from the previous year's 40.4 percent due to the economic downturn.

Yes, I know these figures do not take into account local taxes, sales taxes and this and that. Still, the federal income tax system in the USA is nothing but "progressive".

Briefly on Poverty

There is nothing at all noble or dignified in poverty.

There is dirt and bad smells, piles of rubbish and stale food. There is ignorance and corruption. There are people suffering and dying because they cannot afford medical treatment.

There is squalor and misery and backbreaking toil from cradle to grave.

Green Money

Watts Up With That publishes a piece on the amount of funding for environmental groups and lobbies and global-warming research.

It is a lot of money, and there are very well-paid executives in environmentalist organizations too.

But to top it off, a company pouring millions in the Green Movement is the oil giant BP, also known for the Macondo disaster.

The Deadman's Revenge

Now that the old goat Bin Laden is dead, there is in many countries fear of revenge attacks by al-Quaida or some other organization.

But large-scale attacks take long preparations, a few months at the very least - it is also a function of the magnitude of the operation.

So, even if Bin Laden's comrades in arms started plotting revenge right yesterday, we won't see them in action for large-scale operations before the end of the year. And with the almost obsessive attention to terrorism of this age, I doubt that another attack of 9-11 scale can be mounted, at least in the West.

Terror plans already underway may be hastened to conclusion, but they would have to be at an advanced stage already. So I don't see much of an effect on attack plans already underway.

What can happen is action by isolated fanatics acting out individual jihad. It happened already in the past, and can happen again in the future. However, while these attacks can cause death and spread fear, their real potential is very limited: isolated individuals cannot perform actions that require... more than one individual; their supply routes for weapons and explosives are restricted and time constraints make difficult to draft complex and articulate plans.

We might see some attacks that result in the death of the attacker and maybe a few people unfortunate enough to be in close proximity, but not much more. At least I hope.

Revenge attacks are not a sufficient reason to adopt more extraordinary anti-terror measures. Also considering that a good part of the measures of today are more for the show than for effect, actually.

Precaution Does Not Fly

The long and wide closure of European airspace due to the ash plume produced by that volcano with an improbable name in Iceland has just been lifted, and damage is being counted now.

Besides grounded flights and airlines claiming losses above one and half billion dollars, there are tons of rotten perishable goods to dispose of; delays in international shipments of various goods and probably also missed business opportunities. And passengers still slowly making their way back home here and there.

What has truly hit me about this story is not the magnitude of economic damage, tho. It is that the competent national and European authorities issued blanket bans, binary decisions in which the forecasted presence of ash was enough to completely shut down air traffic.

Yet, when the European transportation ministers finally had a meeting - after some five days, soon afterwards the airspaces were reopened.

Is it because the ash magically disappeared, or because thei nitiale "zero tolerance" approach was flawed? I bet on the second option.

Some interesting information can be found in this document prepared byt the Italian agency ENAC: exploratory flights, with various aircrafts, were ran over Italy and no damage was observed even after flying into an airspace indicated as contaminated. The only important recommendation there is to avoind flying into visible ash clouds.

It seems that decisions of great importance for the economy of entire nations and the lives of hundreds of thousands were taken on the basis of dispersion models of dubious reliability and - more damning - without the support of empirical measurements and observations. It is not even known what ash concentration remains safe for jet engines*; a rather generic statement from the British CAA says that manufacturers of airplanes and engines have agreed on a safe threshold of 0.002 g/m3 - while concentrations above Britain always remained way lower.

Why this does not surprise me much? First, because for bureaucrats it is easier to say NO than YES - in other words, the default response when asking for an authorization is negative unless a set of conditions is met. Second, because the EU has adopted the infamous precautionary principle as a policy. In fact, it seems that even ICAO has adopted a similar principle - and more curiously, that they rely on dust dispersion models without requiring actual measurements of ash concentration.

Now you see what precautionary principle does.

* Not even considering the many different models and specifications of jet engines out there.

A Blimp on the Radar

I am writing this piece offline while I wait for the installation of software on some computers to finish. Yes, IT jobs can be that exciting.

Some days ago my blog-friend Wellington asked me a question about blimps, and that made me think. Apparently there are blimp enthusiasts out there who think that those devices can have a much more widespread use than now.

Instead, I think not, because blimps suffer from a basic but serious physical limitation: air density.

In order to provide buoyancy, a blimp must be less dense than the surronding air. But air is already a low-density fluid, roughly only 1 kg/m3 near the sea level (by contrast, the density of water is 1000 times higher). Even if the blimp were "full" of vacuum, and the mass of the shell and other hardware were trascurable, the most lift that can be provided is of one kilogram per cubic meter displaced.

A blimp with any relevant payload must necessarily be huge, and consequentially cumbersome and slow and very susceptible to wind (because the force exerted by wind is a function of the cross-section of the body). Fixed and rotary-wing aircrafts satisfy the needs for speed, payload and manouvrability much better; their only disadvantage is higher fuel consumption.

However, one use where blimps can be the best choice is for semi-mobile (or semi-fixed) observation and surveillance posts. A crew of a few men – or better, automated sensors – does not require a big payload; the blimp can move around in appropriate patterns slow and steady using little fuel and with little noise. Something that airplanes and helicopters do not do as well.

Subtle Differences

I want to illustrate a couple of subtle differences that are important but appear elusive to a lot of people out there.

The first is the difference between civilian and non-combatant. The two terms are often used as synonyms, but they are not. A civilian is someone who is not part of a country's military (police forces are supposed to be civilians too, but it is not always the case). A non-combatant instead is someone who is not part of the military and is not involved in combat (against a specific enemy). The point here is that a civilian can also be a combatant, if he takes up fighting.

The second is the difference between national and international law. People living in a country must abide to the laws of that country whether they like it or not; partecipation is mandatory (in fact many countries these days allow a limited degree of choice - for example, conscentious objection to military service) and laws are enforced by indipendent and impartial police forces and judiciary. A country's partecipation to treaties and international organizations instead is voluntary; each country can decide what to do in this regard and the only way others have to influence its behaviour is to gather enough strength, alone or in a group, to apply pressure on it. Despite some fantasies such as the pathetic blue helmets, there is no effective, indipendent and impartial judiciary or police at the international level.

After-Action Report

The last few days were spent battling an acute gastroenteritis that manifested itself on the early morning of the 15th, obviously when my return flight was scheduled. I was unable to keep anything in my stomach for more than half a hour or so (and it went either up or down, if you get what I mean) but had barely the energy to move from bed to toilet and back. Taking the plane that night was pretty much out of the question.

A doctor recognized it as gastroenteritis and gave me antiemetics and antibiotics, but on the morning of the following day the situation was only little better. It took a shock antiemetic therapy to calm my stomach down enough to swallow more or less a shovelful of antibiotic tablets per day, and a few other pills. The situation improved rather quickly (apart from the heartburn), and on the 20th I was able to travel again; this time, with the magnificent Singapore Airlines - if it's not the best airline in the world, it must be among the top 3. But those airline ticket thingies do not come for free, rest assured.

Things I learnt in and around Jakarta: changing the timing belt of an old Opel car is one hell of a job; yes, you can lose 2 kilos in 3 days; air conditioning is a blessing upon humanity; Indonesians like Italian soccer; I could get used to living in a very nice apartment complex; a travel insurance is no guarantee of having your ass covered; I should be able to cook a decent sweet & sour sauce myself. And other miscellaneous stuff.

Today is once again the Winter Solstice - it doesn't make a difference in the Tropics, but above my homeland of Italy, it does. Yet now the days can only get longer.

The Data Grinder

Blogger Jeff Id is an aeronautical engineer who did some investigation into the statistical methods used by Mann to produce his Hockey Stick temperature graph.

And his work has uncovered what probably is a fundamental flaw not only of Mann's temperature reconstruction, but of paleoclimatology at large.

Past temperatures are measured through proxies such as tree ring width, which is (or at least, supposed to be) correlated with temperature of the environment where the tree grew.

These time series, however, are highly noisy and uncalibrated against temperature. Calibration is done by calculating the correlation of the proxy series with instrumental temperature record (that covers only recent times); Mann's method then rejects series having a correlation value lower than a certain threshold. And here is where the problems begin.

The chosen data series are then scaled to match the slope of temperature in the calibration period (or its mean/standard deviation), and all these manipulations have a curious effect: they introduce a rising temperature signal in recent times (obviously, because only series in agreement with this assumption are retained), and compress and offset the signal in the past. Jeff used random noise superimposed to temperature signal that is flat except for a hump in the past to obtain these findings.

He then used actual Mann's data, and not only confirmed his findings, but also that the scaling process gives a disproportionate weight, in the reconstruction, to the series with lowest correlation to instrumental temperature.

But the best comes last. The high noise of proxy series allows for a lot of room in correlating them to a temperature trend, so Jeff was able to fit the same proxies used by Mann to all sorts of temperature trends: linear rise, linear fall, cyclic variations... in a final twist of irony, the reconstruction getting the best score is one with a falling temperature trend in recent times.

Mann's method of temperature reconstruction is fatally flawed: it is only useful to find only what one is looking for. Paleoclimatology must find better methods for the task of reconstructing past temperatures.

My First Legal Entanglement

As you, my readers, should know, in March and April of this year I did some work as freelance IT technician for a computer firm. I worked for a total of more than 20 days, accumulating a credit slightly above €1700.

As it turns out, the owners of the firms have the positively annoying habit of not paying their collaborators. I think that some of you already know the drill: "Our clients are bahind with their payments, but it will soon be alright" - "We'll pay you next week" - "Really, we had a bit of a problem but by the end of the month you'll have all your money" - "I am sorry, Mr. Scrooge is unvailable to discuss your payment issues".

After a rather long while, I had enough of this crap. I first tried to rally my colleagues in order to launch a collective legal action, but it didn't work out - because I was by no mean the only one the bastards tried to screw over.

They can consider themselves blessed that I'm a civilized person, otherwise they'd be mourning the loss of their kneecaps or worse.

So, all by myself, I contacted a lawyer and we submitted a pleading requesting the firm to pay compensatory damages - the credit I accrued, plus interest plus legal expenses.

The request has been approved and a court order issued. My lawyer has provided to notify it to the firm but she has not received confirmation yet.

Developing...

Tibetan Scenarios

How could Tibet regain if not indipendence at least real autonomy from China?

I don't think that international pressure is going to accomplish much; the Chinese regime has a way too thick skin for that. And they also wield considerable military power, and immense commercial power. No-one in the rest of the world can take China head on even in a commercial war at this point; even a strong gesture as boycotting the olympic games is pretty much going to remain just that - a gesture with little weight.

As a few millennia of human history teach, when non-violent methods fail, violent ones may work. However, for Tibet even that is not much of a solution, because China has both the capabilities and intentions to brutally crush any Tibetan rebellion - as it's happening now.

So what is left? The military doctrines developed to allow small and under-equipped forces to take on a much stronger enemy: guerrilla and terrorism. The Tibetan rebels don't have enough troops (if any) to reach the level of guerrilla, so terrorism is the only violent option they may have.

But terrorism as in attack on non-combatants works quite well against western democracies, where the life and well-being of citizens, and their opinions, are held in quite high regard and media remain free. In China, where massive social engineering, deportation, arbitrary imprisonment, mass executions (and mining disasters) and strict governmantal control on the media are the norm, civilian casualties will go almost unnoticed.

Back to Clausewitz then: what is most important issue for the Chinese regime? Not the well-being of its citizens, but rather the strength of the economy. An attack that forced the Shanghai stock exchange to close for one day would be first impossible to censor; and second, cause much more damage than the death of dozens of peasants. Targeting the central nodes of Chinese economy is the only way Tibetans may use to force China to compromise.

Problem is, someone would have to help the Tibetans with getting started, and any country doing so would be exposed to Chinese ire, which is something most countries want to avoid. Being no Communism or Islam involved from the Tibetan side, there are almost no chances of help (or meddling, if you like) from international, non-state actors.
Moreover, initially the Chinese reaction is bound to be exceedingly brutal and thorough; there is a definite chance that any Tibetan terrorist organization may be rendered ineffective. Only a prolonged campaign might succeed.

Another possibility is for the Dalai Lama to act like Gandhi in a non-violent uprising, and he himself become the target of the repression and brutality of the Chinese regime. However, I am highly skeptical: I think that Gandhi's success was due to an unique situation - first of all, a basically decent foe like the United Kingdom of 1930-40 - and is not going to be repeated anytime soon.

But while I can list scenarios, the decision of what course of action to take is definitely not in my hands. Oh, and strategic analysis is by its own nature cold and hearthless.

Il Pre-Prodi

Il governo Prodi e la sua prematura - ma non sfortunata - dipartita sono in gran parte conseguenza della legge elettorale approvata durante la legislatura precedente.

La legge è stata battezzata da Calderoli, il suo stesso promotore, una porcata - il che ha portato molta gente a chiedersi "Ma allora perchè l'avete votata?".

Qualche giorno fa, Calderoli in un'intervista al Giornale ha raccontato la sua versione dei fatti. Ci sono un paio di passaggi particolarmente interessanti:

Vuol dire che ci sono porcate peggiori?
«Vede, quando si fa una nuova legge elettorale si prova, come si dice in gergo, a farla girare».

Cioè?
«Si inseriscono dei dati nel cervellone del Viminale e si verificano i possibili risultati a seconda dei diversi esiti. Purtroppo, in quell’occasione scoprimmo che c’era una possibilità su mille che il nuovo sistema desse la maggioranza a chi aveva meno voti e io decisi di denunciarlo».

Sarebbe interessante sapere di più sulle procedure usate per provare le proposte di legge elettorale - quale modello si usa, quali dati in ingresso vengono forniti ed i criteri per la loro scelta, e poi chi esamina i risultati finali.

Calderoli continua:

Ce l’ha con il Quirinale?
«Nonostante i continui contatti con Gianni Letta, Ciampi fu irremovibile. E con una telefonata di uno dei suoi più stretti collaboratori ci costrinse a trasformare il premio di maggioranza del Senato da nazionale a regionale. Altrimenti non avrebbe controfirmato la legge».

Altre correzioni in corsa?
«Avevo previsto uno sbarramento al 4%. Poi si è passato al 3 e infine al 2. Tutti i piccoli si sono coalizzati affinché fosse abbassato,l’Udc in testa. Anzi, fosse stato per Casini lo sbarramento l’avremmo tolto,visto che lui puntava a correre da solo e fare il terzo polo».

Soprattutto la strenua opposizione dei partitini ad un qualsiasi significativo sbarramento è più che plausibile. Non sono io a pensare che Calderoli possieda la verità assoluta sulle leggi elettorali, ma è meglio sentire anche la sua campana prima di tranciare giudizi.

Agricultural Free-riding

In the last few years there has been a proliferation of organic farms - refusing to use synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides; the latest trend seems to be going local, using only products available in a relatively short (some say 100 km, others 100 miles) radius.

All nice and good; I've always had an orchard and I know that well-tended and vine-ripened vegetables are much better than the mass-produced ones. And free-range livestock has superior meat. However, I think that the supporters of organic and local productions have failed to ponder long-term and wide-range effects.

Organic and local productions are more subject to loss of crop due to parasite and insect infestations and natural events. I don't know whether the organic production protocols allow the use of synthetic chemicals in an emergency, but when the infestation reaches the point of emergency, it may be too late to treat it succesfully.

It is machines, fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides that made possible to produce all the food required to feed a large part of Earth's population - and the possibility of transporting food from where it's convenient to produce it, to where the consumers are.

At this point, if local/organic supplies fail it is still possible to acquire food from mass-production sources, sometimes located halfway around the globe. Yes, prices will go up, but there won't be any real shortage of products.

However, consider a world which has gone vastly organic and local (or regional). The agrochemical industry will be reduced to a minuscule size, and the logistical organization required for long-distance transport agricultural products will be vastly downsized. There may not be enough agrochemicals available to counter an emergency - or not available in time. So, if crops are lost in a certain region, other regions may not have excess products to export - worse, the very means needed to transport food may not be there. At this point, in the disgraced region a food shortage if not famine becomes a real possibility.

It's free-riding because we can afford to go local/organic as long as someone else continues with mass production; we have the benefits while others bear the costs. But free-riding is not sustainable for long.

The Insoluble Problem

Here in the center of Parma, on Thursdays automotive traffic is subjected to severe restrictions: only cars and vans meeting the most recent pollution control directives can circulate - my car is methane-powered, so I can circulate freely (curiously enough, vehicles that pass the mandatory annual exhaust test can not). There are other exceptions for food transport and so on.

Is all this effective? Only up to a point. I rode m bike into the center yesterday, and I noticed trafficel ighter than usual - but not so light to make me think "This is heaven!". Luckily, Parma is small enough that all important places can be reached by bicycle.

Traffic in Parma is nothing compared to Jakarta, where congestion and pollution reach levels that one can't believe without experiencing firsthand.

The problem of traffic congestion - and thus pollution - in cities comes from the high density of population. Lots of people and cars in small territory lead necessarily to heavy traffic, there's no other possible outcome. Public transport? It's not nearly efficient enough to substitute private transport - and it does not give the same independency.

One solution would be severe coercion: limit by law the number of cars, and/or how they can be used. I'm sure that the nannies and enviro-fascists are drooling all over the proposal, but I'm not enthusiast at all about it.

Another one is to spread out cities and make bigger roads in order to reduce population density. Problem is, that cannot really be implemented in historical cities - knocking down buildings is not feasible. Besides, more spread cities mean less land for crops and farming, and that's not good either.

Save for unforeseeable technological developments, cities will always be crowded, congested and (relatively) more polluted.

Common Misconceptions

Reading the letters to the editor of my local paper I came across yet another case of a common misconception: that a natural state exists, where there is equilibrium and harmony between all living beings and Nature as a whole.

Bollocks. No such state exists. The real natural state is made of ruthless struggle for survival, brutal hunts, preys eaten alive and predators starving to death if they cannot inflict that brutality on a prey. It is made of untreated wounds and diseases, of no therapy for pain, exposure to all the worst of weather.

Violence is the norm and extinction a common occurrence. And some people think that humans are worse than the whole lot because we want to limit the population of some animals that, among other obnoxious things, weaken levees by digging their lairs? Morons.


Another common misconception regards evolution. A lot of folks think that evolution means going towards higher lifeforms - when humans are involved, they think evolution should go towards better morality. And "better" most often coincides with "more socialist/collectivist".

Bollocks, again. The ugly truth is:

EVOLUTION DOES NOT HAVE ANY GODDAMN THING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH HUMAN NOTIONS OF MORALITY, NO REALLY, NOT A SINGLE THING, IT HAD BEEN GOING ON BILLIONS OF YEARS BEFORE WE CAME ALONG AND CAME UP WITH ANY SUCH NOTIONS.

The main metric in evolution is reproductive success. The more individuals there are in your species, the better - and it does not matter how you reached that point; evolution is a purely amoral force.

The Return of the Useful Idiots

On August 12, the Italian prime minister Prodi said that Hamas does exist but it should be helped to evolve (into what is not clearly specified).

Now, as a declaration of principle this may be passable.
The existence of Hamas is a fact so nothing to object here. And one can reasonably agree with the idea of helping them to evolve, but some issues need to be examined first.

The final and propulsive objective of Hamas is to destroy Israel - and to kill the largest number of Jews in the process. As long as this is their objective, any agreement or truce cannot be considered as being in good faith, but only as a tactical/strategical decision intended to reach the same old objective.

Only a Hamas that sincerely and completely renounced the destruction of Israel could be taken as a good-faith negotiation partner.

So one wonders, does Prodi know this?
If he does not, he is too ignorant and uninformed to be the Prime Minister of Italy.
If he does, there are two options left: either he's speaking from an ideological rather than pragmatic position; or he is actively helping Hamas.

I am convinced that the first option is the correct one: Prodi is a pretty much by-the-book tranzist, and his statements fits well within such ideology. But this way he acts much like the useful idiots of the past - and the Hamas folks, who instead are very smart and pragmatic in foreign policy, have almost surely recognized the fact.

But even if we accept the proposition that Hamas should be helped to evolve (rather than fought to total defeat), Prodi still has to explain how to do it - the best plans are worthless if there is no way to put them into practice.

The best - and often only way - to accomplish something of this kind is the use of carrots and sticks. But the EU has a long story of being able to offer only carrots and no or pitiful sticks. What carrots and sticks is thus Prodi proposing to use? No, I don't want to know details that ought to be classified, but only the general policy address.

Healthy and Unhealthy

The debate about food is taking a dangerous direction in my opinion. The new puritans and other assorted authoritarian folks are beyond trying to persuade using words, but are leveraging on the power of the government and other institutions to make our diets healthy by law. For our own good, of course!

I'll begin with a categoric assertion: there are no inherently good or bad foods.
The only thing that actually matters is the amount assumed. As the old saying goes, it is the dose that makes the poison, and that is true even for nasty stuff like nerve agents.

So what we have is foods that can be eaten often and in large amounts with very little adverse effects, while others should be limited because a large intake of them can be harmful. Of course, these effects are generally relevant on a statistical basis: the people with certain eating habits are more likely to manifest health problems than others.

In practice this means that one doesn't have to agonize over eating a supersize meal at McDonald's, or better a batch of fried bacon and chips or a fiorentina steak. If the rest of your meals are properly balanced and do not contain too many calories realative to your energy expenditure, you're gonna be fine even with the occasional binge eating.

The total energy income is another important point. If you introduce more energy than you consume, you're gonna get fat; that is nothing more than a mass/energy balance. Excess energy can be introduced by eating any kind of food, even "healthy" ones. But admittely, it is much easier to do that with fast-food and processed meals.

Finally, a small critique. Grilled meat does contain PAHs and other nefarious substances, but the risk isn't huge in my opinion. As I said, a balanced diet will counter that, but there is more: grilling is an ancient cooking method - possibly the oldest. That means that modern humans evolved together with grilled meat, and it's plausible that some sort of resistance to its toxic substances developed.

And now what's for dinner?