Behold my solution to a problem that may soon be consuming the Defense Department: How to spend the obscene oodles of boodle Donald Trump’s lapdog Congress seems poised to deliver to them for fiscal year 2027.
Hadn't really thought about it before now, but thanks to Dear Leader keeping to his custom at the Pool of introducing poop regularly (think of it as the literary version of a stool transplant or a Baby Ruth), it strikes me that indeed poop jokes are the yuks that keep giving --- the perfect vehicles for wordplay, social inversion, or conceptual misdirection. There's your basic and least sophisticated "poop" --- the base of the poop joke pyramid. Then, we work our way up through: potty sounds; situational embarrassment ("Has to be that second burrito..."); euphemism* (e.g. seeing a man about a horse); poop as a metaphor for failure, chaos or disaster; poop-adjacent wordplay ("Duty calls..."); social inversion (a king farting and pooping is a magnitude funnier than a peasant; looking at you Shakespeare); scatology as criticism (the eternal, "steaming pile"); misdirection (that mathematician working it out on paper) and finally, the meta-poop joke --- jokes about the existence of poop jokes like, “Poop jokes aren’t my favorite kind of joke……but they’re a solid number two.”
* Seems to me this would make a natural Invitational. Maybe next time the Empress goes on vacay.
Growing lobsters who become “uncomfortable in their skin” produce a chemical that softens the shell in the abdominal area and then bend almost double to get out of the old shell. They then can eat the shell in order to consume nutrients that assist them in growing a new one that fits. How’s that for efficiency? Can Pete Kegsbreath do that ya think??
Your concept of an idea of a plan for lobsters as combat crustaceans is almost (but not quite) in the same league as other attempted uses of animals and other creatures for intelligence gathering and actual engagement. Among my favorites was the CIA's "acoustic kitty," an attempt to turn a cat into a mobile listening device by implanting a microphone in its ear canal, a transmitter along its spine, and an antenna in its tail. This failed because of well...cat. Another CIA project met pretty much the same fate. This one was an effort to build a biomimetic robotic catfish ("Charlie") for underwater surveillance and water‑sampling missions which turned out to be limited by battery life. Go figure. Then there were the "backpack" surveillance insects which, it was soon discovered, could not be reliably directed to a specific location. Insects for ya, huh? Speaking of insects, there was --- yes the CIA again ---the micro‑drone designed to look and fly like a dragonfly. Cute: wings flapped using a tiny gas‑powered piston engine, the body housed a miniature listening device and it was launched from a small tube like a dart. Thing was, it couldn't fly in even mild wind, steering was nearly impossible, the fuel system was delicate and unreliable and payload capacity was extremely limited. Otherwise a slam-dunk and developed at an estimated cost of $140,000 (in '70s dollars), a bargain.
As a brief respite from lobsters and poop, a piece from NOTUS (soon to be "The Star"), "16 Washington Post veterans on what they would change about D.C. journalism." What happens in D.C. rarely (only) stays in D.C., so presumably of interest beyond its borders.
Gene's lobster tale has talmudic implications. Since lobster is treyf (not kosher), I think the rabbis would conclude that “If eaten, forbidden. If it explodes before eating, permitted.”
And here I thought bated breath had to do with sushi and sardines. Anyway, after some research and more beer for two retired Navy friends who worked in the Special Warfare Command, I am forced to disabuse you of your plan for concussive crustaceans, and lobsters in particular. Right off the bat, it was pointed out that they don't happen to live where targets are likely to exist; add to that they are biologically and behaviorally incompatible with every requirement of a delivery platform. After considerable thought (and more beer), the consensus was if you had to have a crustacean, your better (if not not best, by any means) bet would be the crab, and specifically the coconut crab: more stable body plan for attaching equipment; better lateral mobility; can carry heavier loads and can climb rocks, docks, and structures lobsters cannot. Although they do have a certain amount of navigation ability, you still run afoul of the lack of the one essential criterion --- they refuse to be trained.
Back in the 1980's, I did some research on how to most humanely kill a lobster... combing through the scientific literature, phoning and chatting with Julia Child who previously had been an appreciative customer at a restaurant where I had cooked in the 70's. Etc.. The resulting document remains available here: https://policyforanimals.org/lobsters/
From the "Alice's Restaurant Cookbook": I read somewhere that if you drown your lobster gently in white wine it will die happy and relaxed and therefore be more tender than if you plunge it into boiling water--which is enough to make anyone tense up.
Thanks. Hadn't heard of that one, so it did not make it into my report. AI advises me: "Reality: While wine does not technically make a lobster "happy," it is a long-standing (though ineffective) culinary myth intended to make the killing process seem more humane."
I didn't read your whole paper, but I couldn't resist looking to see if the wine technique was there. Thanks for the AI's response. I haven't cooked lobster in years, but I would use wine when I did. It was great!
Reminds me of my friend's mother, who used to describe the right way to cook lobster as: "First, you put it in a pot of boiling water to stun it . . . "
When my kids were, well, just kids, I told them sushi was invented by two bored Japanese chefs, when one said to the other “Wanna bet I can’t get those American tourists to eat raw fish?”
Maybe Gene should be asked if he was actually alluding to that filler article in a 22-year-old issue of “Gourmet.” A more important question: Was Wallace alluding to “Consider the Oyster” by M.F.K. Fisher? That seems like a pretty good bet.
The lobster and sushi questions were kind of trick questions for me, since I’m a vegetarian. Back when I ate such things, I loved lobster. But seeing as I no longer eat it, lobster is a no go for me and I answered accordingly. And sushi became a big deal long after I became a vegetarian, so I don’t touch it.
Alas -- the suggested weapons platform doesn't conform to kashrut, so I'm not sure you'd be able to sell it to Israel. Maybe it's okay if you don't intend to eat it? I'm fuzzy on that. But the thermal explosion would give you instant chowder -- tough to avoid temptation.
Kashrut shouldn't be a problem, since we're not going to eat the lobsters. Sending in explosive pigs, however, would be, since we are not allowed to benefit from pigs in any way.
Hadn't really thought about it before now, but thanks to Dear Leader keeping to his custom at the Pool of introducing poop regularly (think of it as the literary version of a stool transplant or a Baby Ruth), it strikes me that indeed poop jokes are the yuks that keep giving --- the perfect vehicles for wordplay, social inversion, or conceptual misdirection. There's your basic and least sophisticated "poop" --- the base of the poop joke pyramid. Then, we work our way up through: potty sounds; situational embarrassment ("Has to be that second burrito..."); euphemism* (e.g. seeing a man about a horse); poop as a metaphor for failure, chaos or disaster; poop-adjacent wordplay ("Duty calls..."); social inversion (a king farting and pooping is a magnitude funnier than a peasant; looking at you Shakespeare); scatology as criticism (the eternal, "steaming pile"); misdirection (that mathematician working it out on paper) and finally, the meta-poop joke --- jokes about the existence of poop jokes like, “Poop jokes aren’t my favorite kind of joke……but they’re a solid number two.”
* Seems to me this would make a natural Invitational. Maybe next time the Empress goes on vacay.
The word is so much more fun than needing to refer to "fecal matter..." and besides,
any palindrome in a storm !!!
As in a shit storm?
Growing lobsters who become “uncomfortable in their skin” produce a chemical that softens the shell in the abdominal area and then bend almost double to get out of the old shell. They then can eat the shell in order to consume nutrients that assist them in growing a new one that fits. How’s that for efficiency? Can Pete Kegsbreath do that ya think??
I think he would poison himself if he did. In short, I think it's a great idea!
Why not Dr. Evil’s plan of arming sharks with frickin’ lasers?
He could only get disgruntled sea bass.
For ONE....MILION...DOLLARS...
Your concept of an idea of a plan for lobsters as combat crustaceans is almost (but not quite) in the same league as other attempted uses of animals and other creatures for intelligence gathering and actual engagement. Among my favorites was the CIA's "acoustic kitty," an attempt to turn a cat into a mobile listening device by implanting a microphone in its ear canal, a transmitter along its spine, and an antenna in its tail. This failed because of well...cat. Another CIA project met pretty much the same fate. This one was an effort to build a biomimetic robotic catfish ("Charlie") for underwater surveillance and water‑sampling missions which turned out to be limited by battery life. Go figure. Then there were the "backpack" surveillance insects which, it was soon discovered, could not be reliably directed to a specific location. Insects for ya, huh? Speaking of insects, there was --- yes the CIA again ---the micro‑drone designed to look and fly like a dragonfly. Cute: wings flapped using a tiny gas‑powered piston engine, the body housed a miniature listening device and it was launched from a small tube like a dart. Thing was, it couldn't fly in even mild wind, steering was nearly impossible, the fuel system was delicate and unreliable and payload capacity was extremely limited. Otherwise a slam-dunk and developed at an estimated cost of $140,000 (in '70s dollars), a bargain.
The Mission: Impossible TV show used a trained cat named Rusty to steal a jade seal in the Season 2 episode, "The Seal" (1967).
As a brief respite from lobsters and poop, a piece from NOTUS (soon to be "The Star"), "16 Washington Post veterans on what they would change about D.C. journalism." What happens in D.C. rarely (only) stays in D.C., so presumably of interest beyond its borders.
https://www.notus.org/perspectives/16-washington-post-veterans-on-what-they-would-change-about-d-c-journalism?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
The ones calling for more actual local news coverage. I so miss the old Metro section.
Gene's lobster tale has talmudic implications. Since lobster is treyf (not kosher), I think the rabbis would conclude that “If eaten, forbidden. If it explodes before eating, permitted.”
Why not Zoidberg?
Or Voidberg?
And here I thought bated breath had to do with sushi and sardines. Anyway, after some research and more beer for two retired Navy friends who worked in the Special Warfare Command, I am forced to disabuse you of your plan for concussive crustaceans, and lobsters in particular. Right off the bat, it was pointed out that they don't happen to live where targets are likely to exist; add to that they are biologically and behaviorally incompatible with every requirement of a delivery platform. After considerable thought (and more beer), the consensus was if you had to have a crustacean, your better (if not not best, by any means) bet would be the crab, and specifically the coconut crab: more stable body plan for attaching equipment; better lateral mobility; can carry heavier loads and can climb rocks, docks, and structures lobsters cannot. Although they do have a certain amount of navigation ability, you still run afoul of the lack of the one essential criterion --- they refuse to be trained.
Coconut crabs could kill you just by the sight of them. 😬😳😨 They look like they could break a Hummer in half.
Back in the 1980's, I did some research on how to most humanely kill a lobster... combing through the scientific literature, phoning and chatting with Julia Child who previously had been an appreciative customer at a restaurant where I had cooked in the 70's. Etc.. The resulting document remains available here: https://policyforanimals.org/lobsters/
From the "Alice's Restaurant Cookbook": I read somewhere that if you drown your lobster gently in white wine it will die happy and relaxed and therefore be more tender than if you plunge it into boiling water--which is enough to make anyone tense up.
Thanks. Hadn't heard of that one, so it did not make it into my report. AI advises me: "Reality: While wine does not technically make a lobster "happy," it is a long-standing (though ineffective) culinary myth intended to make the killing process seem more humane."
I didn't read your whole paper, but I couldn't resist looking to see if the wine technique was there. Thanks for the AI's response. I haven't cooked lobster in years, but I would use wine when I did. It was great!
Reminds me of my friend's mother, who used to describe the right way to cook lobster as: "First, you put it in a pot of boiling water to stun it . . . "
Yeah, that'll certainly STUN it . . .
This is primarily why I don't eat them. I don't want to eat something that's been boiled alive, thanks anyway.
In respect to boiling alive, AI tells me that now:
Switzerland: Implemented a ban in March 2018, requiring lobsters to be stunned (mechanically or electrically) before slaughter.
New Zealand: Recognizes the sentience of crustaceans and has restrictions against boiling them alive.
Norway: Prohibits the slaughter of crustaceans without prior stunning.
United Kingdom: Following 2026 updates, the UK has strengthened protections for decapod crustaceans, including bans on boiling them alive.
Austria & Italy: Have laws restricting the practice of boiling live crustaceans in certain contexts.
When my kids were, well, just kids, I told them sushi was invented by two bored Japanese chefs, when one said to the other “Wanna bet I can’t get those American tourists to eat raw fish?”
Thank you for the shout-out to David Foster Wallace: https://www.scribd.com/document/377063962/David-Foster-Wallace-Consider-the-Lobster-pdf
Maybe Gene should be asked if he was actually alluding to that filler article in a 22-year-old issue of “Gourmet.” A more important question: Was Wallace alluding to “Consider the Oyster” by M.F.K. Fisher? That seems like a pretty good bet.
"[F]iller article in a 22-year-old issue of 'Gourmet'" seems unnecessarily condescending. It was a great read.
Yes, it is interesting and well written. And it’s an old magazine article.
Yes, he was.
The lobster and sushi questions were kind of trick questions for me, since I’m a vegetarian. Back when I ate such things, I loved lobster. But seeing as I no longer eat it, lobster is a no go for me and I answered accordingly. And sushi became a big deal long after I became a vegetarian, so I don’t touch it.
Alas -- the suggested weapons platform doesn't conform to kashrut, so I'm not sure you'd be able to sell it to Israel. Maybe it's okay if you don't intend to eat it? I'm fuzzy on that. But the thermal explosion would give you instant chowder -- tough to avoid temptation.
Kashrut shouldn't be a problem, since we're not going to eat the lobsters. Sending in explosive pigs, however, would be, since we are not allowed to benefit from pigs in any way.
If true, then why is Bibi still the Prime Minister?
Things I never knew!
Vaporized in a cloud of lobster chowder — modernist cuisine or KIA in the Battle of Hormuz?
Also, "poop" just sounds funny, and as a verb it's sort of onomatopoeic.
It's also ass-adjacent. Prefix ass onto any word and you have comedy brilliance. Try it, you asshats.
💩 looks funny, too!
And everyone even down to the tiniest animal poops!
The couple of times I’ve been served it, lobster has seemed very bland. Am I missing something? OTOH, I love sushi.