Daily Archives: January 30, 2009

Spiting Your Face

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Terrorists may use Google Earth, but fear is no reason to ban it

Criminals have used telephones and mobile phones since they were invented. Drug smugglers use airplanes and boats, radios and satellite phones. Bank robbers have long used cars and motorcycles as getaway vehicles, and horses before then. I haven’t seen it talked about yet, but the Mumbai terrorists used boats as well. They also wore boots. They ate lunch at restaurants, drank bottled water, and breathed the air. Society survives all of this because the good uses of infrastructure far outweigh the bad uses, even though the good uses are – by and large – small and pedestrian and the bad uses are rare and spectacular. And while terrorism turns society’s very infrastructure against itself, we only harm ourselves by dismantling that infrastructure in response – just as we would if we banned cars because bank robbers used them too.

Hot Dog Etiquette

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The Slaw of the Land: West Virginia Hot Dog Map

Cole slaw on hot dogs? Ugh.

[I]t has this to say about ketchup on hot dogs: “There are many reasons why one shouldn’t eat ketchup on a hot dog any hot dog.First, the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council’s Hot Dog Etiquette rules dictate that no one over 18 should ever eat ketchup on a hot dog. Ketchup is destructive of all that is right and just about a properly assembled hot dog since its sweetness and acidic taste overpowers food and disguises its true flavor.”

Yes, there is a National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, and they do have etiquette rules. I guess I’m an outlaw or a rebel, because I like ketchup. (Cole slaw is OK, but ketchup is taboo?) But the actual admonishment is “Don’t use ketchup on your hot dog after the age of 18.” I never eat 18-year-old hot dogs, though. That would just be weird.