Brakes.

Replaced the Left Front Pads tonight. Will carpool w/Morgan tomorrow and do the Right Front Pads then. And, because I'm too cheap/lazy/stupid to have the rotors ground (or just replace them) I'll probably be doing it all again in six months. Maybe then I'll spring for ceramic pads and new rotors. Not looking forward to the RF pads - tight spot in the garage, and I won't have the wiggle room.

unzammechat:"What is the kashrut's take on abominations of natu

unzammechat asked in a comment on this post:
"What is the kashrut's take on abominations of nature?"

I once asked the Orthodox Union what effect pig DNA would have on the kosher status of a fruit, vegetable, or kosher animal into whose genome it was spliced. ( This was their answer. )

My own take is that, apparently, when dealing with certification customers the size of Monsanto, Cargill, and Archer Daniels Midland, the Orthodox Union is willing to apply false analogies and otherwise tortured exegesis to rule in their favor.

My own thoughts on the matter are as follows:
We don't know why the Kosher laws exist. They're there, and our speculation ranges from health concerns, to questions of ritual use of non-kosher animals by non-yahwistic cults, to the belief that God makes rules "just because." But given that we don't KNOW what those rules are doing there, we don't know, when we transfer a gene that codes for a given protein from the genome of a non-kosher animal to a kosher food-source, that we aren't transferring the very reason that particular prohibition. We cannot do such a thing without, to some degree, second-guessing the intent of the Kosher laws.

Additionally, it seems that if one cannot sow different kinds of seeds in the same field, sowing different kinds of things in the same seed can hardly be permissible.

As for the OU's "Magnetic Tape" analogy, by this reasoning the word "fuck" would cease to be a swear-word upon being recorded. They ignore the fact that the message being recorded is part of what makes a pig a pig - DNA is not a recording so much as it is a template. Regardless of how you generate the template, the thing you will get if you follow it completely is a pig.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am basically reformed, not orthodox, in my practice. I do not eat forbidden animals, but I also don't worry about sh'chita - so long as the animal did not die of natural causes, I'm fine with any method of slaughter that leads to rapid brain death and does not taint the meat. I buy organic meat, and talk to my suppliers about the abattoirs they use. I avoid buying meat processed at the "big plants." I mix milk and meat freely, but do not cook mammal meat in dairy (though I may add dairy after cooking is complete, as with stroganoffs). I find the ruling that Chicken and Dairy should be kept separate bizarre on the face of it. I am much laxer in restaurants than at home.

Brakes II

Got the Passenger's Front taken care of. Went more easily than I expected. No more Crunchy noises when I brake. This is good.