I am sick for the second week-end in a row. Felt great all week, woke up Friday morning with the creeping crud. GRR.
Archives for 2008
Friday Beer Blogging – Tim F’s Midwinter Stout
Homebrewing goes on nonstop, although otherwise I’m mostly too busy to go near a blog. But since it’s Friday, and since I promised beer blogging when you guys voted us to the top in that crazy Wizbang contest, here is the latest brew that is just about done bottle fermenting.
White Labs Irish Ale yeast, prepped for 36 h. in a 1 l. starter culture
8 oz. 80L crystal malt
4 oz. 40L crystal malt
11 oz. chocolate malt
6 oz. black patent malt
4 oz. roasted barley
3 cans John Bull dark extract
20 BU mixed bittering hops
1/2 oz. cascade hops for aroma
The gravity reading was clearly wrong (1.055, ha) so I can’t say how big it is. But it’s BIG. The color is pitch black while secondary fermentation mellowed the hops from intolerable to something like a Lagunitas. The thinnish head comes from adding a packet of yeast nutrients in secondary, drying it out and increasing the alcohol, but for a guy who finds Guinness saccharine the crispness is worth it. One bottle takes me a long time to drink. Of course I bottled half in 22 oz. bottles; it’ll be fun to see how I get through those. Hic.
My next batch is an OG 1.075 pale ale with Cali ale yeast, but something feels off. Fermenting yeast usually rises fast and mostly exhausts itself in a week or so, but this one took a few days to get started and has gone on tepidly bubbling for over a week. Most likely I’m growing bacteria this time.
Question for the community: do Belgian breweries take some precaution against stealing yeast out of the bottom of their bottles? I’ve tried to culture that beautiful stuff twice and came up empty both times.
Also on the topic of Friday theme blogging, Tom Levenson’s Newton blog this week is sublime.
Friday Beer Blogging – Tim F’s Midwinter StoutPost + Comments (33)
Lack of Self-Awareness Alert, aka Great Moments in Movement Conservatism
Conservatives at CPAC care mostly about one thing: getting the policy right. Saying the right words is of paramount importance. And what you say today is more important than what you said yesterday (provided you didn’t make a sport of poking conservatives in the eye). And so while we all got a chuckle out of “Flip Romney,” CPAC rewards the candidate whose words (today at least) most closely match the clearly defined worldview of its audience. Much the same is true of the predominantly economic and national security conservatives in the blogosphere and on talk radio.
Just say the right words, and us CPAC fools will take off our panties.
Tax cuts – “MOAN.”
McCain-Feingold- “OH, BABY.”
End Illegal Immigration- “DO ME BABY!!!”
The Democrats want to surrender- “OH MY, YOU ARE SO BIG!”
Will these people ever stop embarrassing themselves?
Lack of Self-Awareness Alert, aka Great Moments in Movement ConservatismPost + Comments (178)
The Comedy Never Stops
Fresh off their good hot dickings from Mr. Romney losing the race, the right-wing blabosphere and punditocracy is now telling McCain who he has to choose as his Veep, with Pat Toomey leading the way. Like he cares what you think?
Is this funny, pathetic, or both? Consider this an open thread.
The Romney Post-Mortems
And with the demise of Mitt Romney come the inevitable few months worth of “What went wrong?” columns rehashing the new conventional wisdom about why Mitt lost. Howard Fineman:
I have covered a lot of presidential campaigns, and I can’t think of one that so lost its way-so expensively-as that of the former governor of Massachusetts. A board room and business favorite, a man with a Midas managerial touch, he was widely admired and even beloved. But he was a Republican of an old moderate school-that of his own father-and, like George W. Bush, Romney the Younger decided that he had to jettison all that he was to become something that he was not.
The NY Times:
Yet Mr. Romney’s advisers acknowledged Thursday an array of tactical missteps and miscalculations. Perhaps most significantly, they conceded that they had failed to overcome doubts about Mr. Romney’s authenticity as they sought to position him as the most electable conservative in the race, a jarring contrast to his more moderate record as governor of Massachusetts. And during the January nominating contests, as his opponents attacked his shifting on issues, polls showed his favorability ratings plummeting.
Mr. Romney spent more than $35 million of his own money trying to get himself elected, but his campaign faced challenges from the start, some from obstacles beyond his control.
Pretending to be something he is not would be one of those chief obstacles. It really is that simple. I constantly trash the folks at Red State for their incessant Bush boosterism (which on many days is so over-the-top it makes Hugh Hewitt blush), but one thing they got right and stated early and often was their belief that Romney was a complete fraud. It was Erick who came up with resurrected the phrase Multiple-Choice Mitt. Any candidate who can not sell themselves to these guys is in for a LONG campaign, and Romney’s make-over was just so phony that he couldn’t fool our moronic electorate (I’m a Democrat now, which means I don’t have to pretend the people are rugged and smart anymore). Probably fitting to let Dan McLaughlin from Red State have the last word:
I may expand on this later…I am sympathetic to the people who bought into the idea of the Romney campaign but, as happened to those of us who backed Rudy or Fred, the time has come to accept that the reality of the campaign was never what it was cracked up to be. In Mitt’s case, he just wasn’t the champion of conservative principles and enforcer of conservative orthodoxy he played on the trail…
A hamburger is a delicious and popular meal. A grilled chicken sandwich is nutritious and reasonably tasty. You can sell a hamburger, and you can sell a grilled chicken sandwich; both have their virtues. But as anyone with a marketing background could have told you, you can’t get people to buy a grilled chicken sandwich by convincing them that it is a hamburger.
See you in 2011, Mittens.
Who Is More Irrelevant?
James Dobson, one of the nation’s most prominent evangelical Christian leaders, is about to endorse former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, The Associated Press has learned.
Dobson, founder of Colorado Springs, Colo.-based Focus on the Family, talked to the GOP presidential hopeful Thursday and later was to release a statement explaining his choice, said Gary Schneeberger, a spokesman for Dobson.
Huckabee had long sought Dobson’s endorsement, believing he is the best fit to advance Dobson’s conservative, moral worldview.
Until now, Dobson had never endorsed a GOP presidential hopeful during the primary campaign. But he ruled out front-runner John McCain in a blistering commentary on Super Tuesday, and on Thursday the fight for the GOP nomination narrowed to a two-man race between McCain and Huckabee, who is far behind in the delegate count but pledged to fight on. Mitt Romney, a third hopeful trying to claim the conservative label, dropped out of the race Thursday.
Dobson released a statement Tuesday that criticized McCain for his support of embryonic stem cell research, his opposition to a federal anti-gay marriage amendment and for his temper and use of foul language.
I actually kind of like Huckabee (despite his crazy ideas, and no, I would never vote for him), and have said so before, so it will grate on my nerves watching all the newfound McCainiacs beating Huckabee over the head with picket signs with “Say No To Juan McCain’s Shamnesty” crossed out and replaced with a hastily stenciled “McCain 2008.” But then again, you kind of know it has to happen. McCain is the nominee, so the enemies list must be created. So long, Huckabee, it was nice knowing ya.
The Great Conservative Rebellion of 2008
Ended not with a bang, but with whimpering chickenhawks, too afraid of terrorists to enlist in their own conservative crusade against liberal John McCain. Just a few hours ago, this comment at Malkin’s seemed to sum up the general consensus of our brave patriots who simply could not tolerate a liberal McCain presidency:
I would not boo, I would stand up and turn my back on him the same way he has turned his back on the party so many times. I would also put some black tape over my mouth to fufill his wish of keeping the detractors silent.
Turn around they did, exposing their backside, at which point they promptly bent over and grabbed their ankles:
The conservative reviews are in and virtually everyone shares John and my view: it was outstanding. That take comes from the most loyal Romney supporters to a wide array of conservative voices. The “We’ll take Hillary” view is clearly out of fashion. One speech a reconciliation does not make, but realistically there is only one way forward now for former McCain critics: take credit and make the most of it.
I am sure you are all shocked to know that the wingnuts whinged and moaned and wailed, and in the end sucked it up and embraced their irrelevance. Months of calling him Juan McCain and worse were swept aside, “shamnesty” is but a memory, and all it took was one chorus of the “democrats are worse” and our brave patriots came to their senses. And now, magically, the right-wing blabosphere and John McCain are united and go together like Cheetos and Mountain Dew. Before long, our independent bloggers and right-wing bloviators will be back to doing what they do best- regurgitating the party line.
As we close out the great wingnut “conservative” rebellion, which is winding down before it started, we should probably note this thing of beauty from K-Lo (via Sullivan):
This McCain speech would not have been given today, if it weren’t for folks like Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Andy McCarthy, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham. Can I thank them on behalf of America?
Precious. They threaten, they scream, they smear, and they are summarily ignored, and yet still they try to take credit for the outcome they didn’t like. The wingnut is a curious beast, indeed.
The Great Conservative Rebellion of 2008Post + Comments (130)