The best game of the year, the annual Army/Navy match-up, is on today at 2:30. Don’t forget to watch.
Archives for December 2005
Friday Beer Blogging: Brews For Kwanzukahmas
The winter solstice has almost arrived, and with it comes the deep need to celebrate family ties, bring evergreen trees into our home as a symbol of nature’s determination to survive the harsh winter months and to drink dark, rich beer. The other Michael Jackson, a guy who is to beer scholarship what that first guy is to crazy has-been pop stars, describes winter beers thusly:
Brewing special seasonal beers predates modern history and has its origin in the pagan celebrations of winter solstice. Later, as monasteries often functioned as the local brewery, some monks made the the first holiday commemorative beers to celebrate the birth of Christ. Winter beers are as much a state of mind as a style, but beers best for fending off the cold of a long winter night — such as old ales, strong ales, barleywines and strong lagers — are often associated with winter.
Most respectable breweries release some sort of seasonal beers to keep their patrons warm through the cold months. A good example is Delirium Noel from Brouwerij Huyghe in Belgium, almost redundant when you think how rich are Huyghe’s two better known beers, Delirium Tremens and Delirium Nocturnum.
Happy holidays!
I can still taste my last Noel in the back of my throat, which is all the recommendation Delirium Noel should need. But as long as the season lasts there’s no reason not to make a go at trying everybody’s seasonal beer. My ma adores the Black Chocolate Stout from Brooklyn Brewing (don’t tell her that it doesn’t actually contain chocolate) and any well-made barleywine deserves a try. Some brews you should try for the name alone. And of course, whenever possible you can hold true to the principle of act globally, drink locally. If your local brewhouse makes a knockout winter beer, give it a try and let us know. If you brew your own, here’s the chance to share the recipe.
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In honor of the dark, rich and spicy, this friday’s non-beer alternative is Talisker, made from sea-whipped peat on the isle of Skye.
This dram’ll grow hair on the back of your knees.
The sea leaves more iodine on Talisker’s peat than any other in Scotland, which gives Talisker a uniquely explosive personality that you won’t get anywhere outside of grampa jeb’s firewater. Without a doubt my favorite single malt, as long as I’m not looking for a soothing after-dinner cordial. Then it’s Highland Park or Oban.
Friday Beer Blogging: Brews For KwanzukahmasPost + Comments (28)
Put Down That Zaire Fruit Bat Sub. Now.
The source of ebola discovered. If you read The Hot Zone you kind of knew this was coming, but it’s still cool to know.
Please Stop
I know you all mean well, but I am going to take after the next person who emails me the “Marine Night before Christmas.” The first 42 copies were adequate.
Seriously.
*** Update ***
I guess you guys don’t know what I am talking about. Here is one version of it. I checked my mail today and had about 8 copies/versions of thi.
Scott Adams Update Update
You’ll remember that a few days ago I dropped the bomb that Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, had come out on the wrong side of the evolution “debate.” The next day Adams replied (to me? the ego likes to think so, but probably not) in his own cryptic way that he didn’t think any such thing, he was just complaining that the two “sides” of the “debate” don’t listen to what the other is saying. Then he tried to get evolution advocates to support using the word ‘god’ in the classroom via a convoluted thought experiment. I replied here, here and here.
Let’s say off the bat that I don’t think there’s a “debate” at all. There’s science, and then there are a group of interested parties who want to pervert science for their own gain. Adams wants to make the point that scientists themselves are ‘interested parties,’ but that’s ridiculous. The safest way to make your name in science is to prove that what everybody else thought about something is wrong. That counts for evolution just as much as it does for every other field.
Adams thought that it would be healthy for kids to ‘learn the debate,’ which I also think is wrong. Kids should ‘learn the debate’ when they have enough grounding in the fundamentals to distinguish a valid argument from a cleverly-constructed fake. If my own experience is any guide, a college elective is the perfect place to learn the ins and outs of the “debate.” The high-school me would never have picked up the bogus arguments in a book like Darwin’s Black Box and there’s a good chance the entire field of science would have ended up looking murkier, uncertain and confused between skepticism and dogmatism.
Anyhow, I bring that up now because it turns out that researchers at Central Washington U. have tested my point and found it good. Basically, undergraduates benefit from learning the debate. The authors argued that the same wouldn’t hold for grade-schoolers (subscription only):
The study provides “powerful evidence” that directly engaging students’ beliefs, rather than ignoring them, may be an effective way to teach evolution, writes biologist Craig Nelson of Indiana University, Bloomington, in an accompanying editorial. But he agrees with evolutionary geneticist Jerry Coyne of the University of Chicago that this strategy wouldn’t be appropriate for high school students, who, says Coyne, “are not intellectually equipped to deal with such [a] controversy.”
***Update***
Pharyngula has more.
Abramoff News
Once again call me late to the party. Let’s make it clear that if Jack Abramoff decides to flip, the GOP has a huge problem on their hands. As I said in my first post on the subject, Abramoff acted as the bagman for a vast network of corrupt and largely illegal cash reserves set up to benefit the GOP.
It’s easy to see this as a perversion of lobbying, which it is, and since lobbying permeates DC the problem is “the system” it indicts all of the parties and we all might as well shrug and move on. See, the Republicans thought you might have that reflex so Norquist, DeLay and Jack Abramoff kicked off a plan (more here) some years back to make DC lobbying an explicitly Republican operation, to revamp the system in to one of, by and for the Republican party. They called it the ‘K street project,’ after the avenue where the top lobbying firms usually reside. It worked pretty well for them.
The problem with owning the lobbying machinery is that when the lobbying machinery turns into a disgusting cancer you own that too. Some Democrats will go down, I have no doubt, and that’s all for the better. But if this smoldering kindling every truly catches fire you’ll see an amazing number of Reps, aides and hangers-on from the right side of the aisle disappear in smoke.
Today’s big story suggests that Abramoff is facing “increasing pressure” to flip. Pressure? You think? That doesn’t sound like news. Abramoff already faces jail time, his cronies have flipped and prosecutors have his records. God knows he’s faced pressure for a while. Reading between the lines, this suggests to me that the NYT has learned that Abramoff is negotiating a deal but can’t say so yet, except to refer elliptically to rumors. If that’s true this story would serve as a kind of placeholder, like a billboard that says ‘watch this space,’ so that when it breaks into the open they can point back and say toldjah-so. Blogically-speaking it’s one of Josh Marshall’s most annoying habits. So, watch this space.
Ten-gallon h/t
Stories Making The Rounds
* The worst attempt at protecting journalistic sources ever:
The matriarch of the Bush clan is colder than North Pole ice right now to those around her son who she thinks have undermined him. I’ll tell who my sources are if Patrick Fitzgerald gives a call and makes me — but the sources are very close to Poppa Bush (41), who has been traveling a bit with some of his old entourage, including Brent Scowcroft and others of the first Bush regime.
I can’t tell you who wrote that. Secret. But the writer is one of the moderate-left political blogs I’ve read this morning which includes Steve Clemons. On topic, Barb is pissed at everybody but Karen and Junior? Of course she is. Junior’s in the tank and she can’t very well blame her own kid. Well, she could if it was Jeb. George Jr. is “special.”
* Justice Department lawyers concluded that Tom DeLay’s Texas redistricting was illegal, superiors approved it anyway. On a practical level this doesn’t mean much of anything to me since Ashcroft’s already gone, the redistricting seems like a done deal and DeLay’s TRMPAC has already gone down in flames over it. I will gladly be proven wrong if, a) somebody did something prosecutable, which I doubt, or b) this gives ammo to people challenging the redistricting in court.
* The War on the War on Christmas: Has it become an unwinnable quagmire? Carpetbagger reports that the gloves may be coming off.