Pathetic Earthlings

2003-06-25T12:31:00.000-07:00

Which is why I'm not spending the Euros

My sweet wife and I were planning do a trip to Europe - Normandy, Belgium, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Peneemunde - or something like that. Given the recent rise of crap like this, we're going to Australia instead.

"I've spent 100 days a year for the past 30 years in Europe, and, generally, people always managed to differentiate a government's action from its citizens," says Rick Steves, a Seattle-based tour operator who specializes in Europe. "But I have never seen this level of frustration in my lifetime. They just can't understand our push for war, especially the younger generation." Steves says the current climate is in stark contrast to the "breathtaking" we-are-all-Americans sentiment that gripped Europe on Sept. 11, 2001.

The Europeans were sympathetic to passing Americans on September 11. Let me call the press! Seems to me our reaction would have been a little different.

The day after the Paris metro gets gassed or a dirty bomb irradiates the City of London, our reaction to our passing European traveller will not be: "I'm so sorry" but "we'll take care of it."

The former is comforting. The latter is useful.

2003-06-10T08:36:00.000-07:00

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT

Like Eusthenopteron, I'm crawling out of the muck.

Pathetic Earthlings is now at www.patheticearthlings.com --- it may take a bit to get all the archives up, but I hope you'll switch on over to my new site -- and change those blogrolls -- while I try to work up some decent front legs.

2003-06-07T17:09:00.000-07:00

Like Eusthenopteron, I'm crawling out of the muck

Pathetic Earthlings is now at www.patheticearthlings.com --- it may take a bit to get all the archives up, but I hope you'll switch on over to my new site while I try to work up some decent front legs.

2003-06-07T17:01:00.000-07:00

Eat Your (Organically Produced, Free-Range) Young

If I've got to have some fresh tamarind for my jerk chicken dipping sauce, I go to Berkeley Bowl. Despite the political overtones, it's a damned fine store. But there's just about nothing that gives me the giggles more than a progressive business establishment being shaken down by its progressive employees in an effort to unionize.

This isn't quite as much fun as the former CEO of US Repeating Arms, Perry Odak, taking over at Ben & Jerry's, but it's close.

2003-06-06T14:16:00.000-07:00

Hosting Matters, meet Moveable Type, Moveable Type... Hosting Matters

Actually, the service desks at both places here are extrodinarily responsive... but I keep having to forward emails between them. I haven't a clue what they're talking about.

Oooooo.... I'm leaving blogspot --- neener neener neeeeener --- although I will keep this place up as a backup.

2003-06-06T10:59:00.000-07:00

The new heading needs some smoothing out...

But I think it'll be something like that.

2003-06-06T08:13:00.000-07:00

Let It Be

The original, rear-engine VW Beetle will end its 70-year run when the Volkswagen-Mexico produces the last one this summer.

2003-06-06T08:01:00.000-07:00

The Pataki-Def Jam Axis of Progress

A great piece over at Joe Conason today about Def-Jam chairman Russell Simmons' work with Governor George Pataki to reform the drug laws in New York State under which "a rapist or a murderer can receive less time than a first offender holding a small amount of cocaine."

As a successful businessman, Mr. Simmons says he regards a political campaign as an exercise in "branding" and "deal-making." The rappers are "the world’s greatest brand-builders," he says, and no politician "wants to be branded as being insensitive." Now he wants to "get a deal, get some people out of jail and give [the political leaders] the credit they deserve"—if they end up deserving it.

I hate Conason's little asides, not so much because they're often tautological: if they deserve it well... yeah... then they deserve it, but not if they don't. Bush's policies would be good.... if they weren't bad. I gave a complete quote from the Chairman of the IAEA... only I didn't. It's because half the time they're so nested in with what his interviewees are saying, I never know whether it's his comment or not.

Anyway, this is a fine article on one of the strongest salients against the drug war. There was a smaller victory on medical marijuana here in California, when yesterday Ed Rosenthal was sentenced to one day in jail (with credit for time served) and although the result was just, I haven't (and won't) spend the time relearning criminal procedure to opine on it.

A note on these sort of mandatory minimums. These are sentences below which judges are not permitted to go for certain (generally drug-related) offenses -- are not only a hideous injustice, but more's the point, generally absurd. Prior to post-September 11 reforms of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, I worked out a scenario under which a person could get less time for simple possession of an atomic bomb than for simple possession of four ounces of crack. Mind you, you had to figure out a way to avoid the 36-level enhancement that would come if possession had a "substantial likelihood to hurt the United States or help an enemy of the United States" -- perhaps if you got stopped at a border crossing at Point Roberts, Washington sporting a 54-40 or Fight! bumperstrip -- but the law contemplated a situation where cocaine needed a stiffer penalty than weaponized uranium.

2003-06-05T17:44:00.000-07:00

Version 3

Mars needs women... and Glenmorangie.

2003-06-05T09:56:00.000-07:00

Starting the Move to Moveable Type

It will be (at least) few days yet before I get things moved over, but I'm going to switch to Moveable Type and non-blogspot hosting --- assuming I can get it all worked out. I'm trying to do the whole page in gray-scale, so it's got a bit of that Atomic Horror feel.

Here's a mock up for the new title.

2003-06-04T16:27:00.000-07:00

When I commit a crime, I like to use ten thousand dollar rifles and four dollar bullets

Fortunately, California has put a stop to me.

2003-06-04T08:43:00.000-07:00

Something very, very cool.

I'd say that this Honda commercial was Rube Goldberg-esque, but it's better than that.

Via Common Sense and Wonder.

2003-06-03T23:21:00.000-07:00

Marvin the Martian Heads Back Home

The mission patches for the next two Martian rovers show Marvin the Martian and Duck Dodgers from the 24 1/2th Century, respectively.

Via Robert Pearlman's CollectSpace

2003-06-03T21:36:00.000-07:00

Spike Lee Claims Trademark Over the Word "Spike"

Spike Lee apparently believes that TNN's rebirth as "Spike TV" is a violation of his trademark and that, as he must maintain (if I recall my trademark law) -- that its use will, among other things, be likely confused and caused a dilution in the value in his own name.

I liked this part:

According to Lee, TNN's president, Albie Hecht, has said the public associates the name 'Spike' with Lee.

"Lee, whose given name is Shelton Jackson Lee, included in court papers affidavits from people including former Sen. Bill Bradley, and actors Ossie Davis and Ed Norton. The affidavits said the signers had thought of Lee when they heard about Spike TV and some said they believed he had become affiliated with the network."

Let's see... Ossie Davis, fine actor, long-time civil rights advocate and friend of Spike Lee. Ed Norton, fine actor, one time employee of Spike Lee and friend of Spike Lee. Bill Bradley, lousy Senator, former basketball star, recipient of Spike Lee's $1,000 donation to his Presidential campaign (type in "Lee, Shelton") and friend of Spike Lee. Yeah, gee, they might think of their friend when someone calls something "Spike TV"

But I thought Spike Lee's beef was that no one in America paid attention to him -- this connection didn't cross my mind -- yet America will, nevertheless, be confused by this.

Perhaps he ought to get an injunction against Charles Schulz while he's at it.

2003-06-03T20:13:00.000-07:00

Truth Laid Bare's New Blogger Showcase

I'd checked out The Whiskey Bar even before the Showcase mostly to make sure he wasn't cutting in on my territory (no, seriously -- I'd love to find a Tequila blogger to help me understand higher end Mexican ambrosia, or a beer blogger, or a champagne blogger or anything else). I think Billmon he's completely wrong on... well... lots of stuff, I sure like his blog.

Check him out. I'm giving him a permalink among the Earthling's Loyal Opposition.

2003-06-02T17:15:00.000-07:00

Macrobiotic Fascism

Give up beer or give up medical care. God bless socialized medicine.

Zen fascists will control you
100% natural
You will jog for the master race
And always wear the happy face

Close your eyes, can't happen here
Big Bro' on white horse is near
The hippies won't come back you say
Mellow out or you will pay

California Uber Alles
California Uber Alles

-- Dead Kennedys, California Uber Alles

2003-06-02T13:21:00.000-07:00

Whiskey: Moonshine and Quality Control

Say Uncle notes an article about impurities in untaxed whiskey. He also has some good advise for checking the quality of the output of your friend's backyard pot still.

2003-06-01T23:20:00.000-07:00

Susan Sontag's Self-Indulgent Travel Agency

Andrew Sullivan awards Susan Sontag the Sontag Award for suggesting to graduates that they should "try to imagine at least once a day that you are not an American." But I think Andrew misses the better part of her rarefied little world:

Try to imagine at least once a day that you are not an American. Go even further: try to imagine at least once a day that you belong to the vast, the overwhelming majority of people on this planet who don't have passports, don't live in dwellings equipped with both refrigerators and telephones, who have never even once flown in a plane.

I'm all for empathy here for those of us not as fortunate as we Americans are to have been born (or moved) to this wonderful country, but her comments belie her own elitism. Being "Not American" I'm sure is an inherently good thing for Ms Sontag. But what's amusing is how readily she equates being an American with having the resources, time and, indeed, inclination to want to hold a passport. I'm sure in her American circles, every single one of her friends has a passport, but only about one American in five actually holds a valid, current passport.

I wonder if she even knows anyone who doesn't hold a passport...or if she could imagine that someone could live life without one.

2003-06-01T11:23:00.000-07:00

Just Buttered Beans and Collared Greens and Biscuits on the Table

Over at Joanne Jacobs, I note that the new Montgomery, Alabama minor league team has been dubbed.... the Biscuits. The Montgomery Biscuits.

The only rule about naming a minor league teams is that folks need a team that people can cheer for without being embarrassed. The name can be silly (e.g., Lansing Lugnuts), it can be tough (e.g., the Kane County Cougars), it can be abstract (e.g., Las Vegas 51s, it can be cultural (e.g., the Saltillo Sarape Makers (there's an organized AAA Mexican league now... who knew?), it can imitate the Simpsons (e.g., the Isotopes) but it can't be stupid -- not if you want parents to bring their kids down to the park.

The Stockton, CA single A team tried to get all fancy, by switching their name from the Stockton Ports to the Mudville Nine, on the grounds that Stockton was occasionally referred to as Mudville and that Casey at the Bat was, supposedly, written there. Well, it was a dumb name that was unrootable, to coin a word, ("Go... Nines!") -- people hated it and, after a couple of years, they switched back.

But mostly, I just don't understand what the hell the name means -- I like biscuits as much as the next guy and, given a year in Little Rock, I think I have some sense of how much Southerners like them, but I don't know how one looks at the name "Montgomery" and decides that of all the mascots in all the world, they'd decided they needed to name themselves after part of a not-very-nutricious breakfast.

The official explanation doesn't really help.

(Check out Uncle Bob's near-scoop)

2003-05-31T22:42:00.000-07:00

No Doubt the Work of the Saranap Liberation Front

If this fellow felt the need to own a grenade launcher, you'd think he'd want to keep it accessible 24/7 and not just during banking hours because if central Contra Costa ever explodes with ethnic strife, I'm pretty sure the banks aren't going to stay open past about three.

2003-05-31T22:25:00.000-07:00

Organlegging

I have a longer rant in me somewhere that will involve Mickey Mantle, Judge Richard Posner, Jerry Garcia, Larry Niven, Michael Jordan and Motorcycle Helmet Laws. But for now, I'll just say that knocking out $5,000 to the families of organ donors is a damned fine idea.

2003-05-30T11:29:00.000-07:00

Go Taikonauts!

A great piece on the Chinese Space Program, by former Rep. Bob Walker, one of space's great champions.

Bob Walker thinks the Chinese might be on the Moon in ten years -- a few folks think it could be earlier than that. I still think China's intermediate goal, following a manned flight this October, is to go circumlunar, ala Apollo 8, by the time of the Beijing Olympics.

UPDATE: Cool, Instalanch!.

2003-05-30T09:55:00.000-07:00

Damned Italian Drivers

Space station forced to move for Italian satellite.

2003-05-29T18:06:00.000-07:00

The Recall Gains Some Big Mo

I've got no love for Gray Davis, but I'm unalterably opposed to this recall effort, for reasons which I've set forth previously.

But now I've got even more reason to be against it. Congressman Darrell Issa, a Republican from southern California, is apparently going to drop $2M into the recall drive to help pave the way so he, himself, can run for Governor. To which I say: over my dead body.

What's my beef with Darrell Issa? I have no particular political beef with the guy, I suppose: mostly harmless. He's not too far off on the issues and, to his credit, was a bomb disposal technician in the Army. But he made his fortune on car alarms. And I don't mean any old car alarms, I mean those miserable fucking Viper car alarms which cycle through ten different tones: breep-breep-breep-breep, doo-na doo-na doo-na doo-na, whu-er whu-er whu-er whu-er, doeep-doeep-doeep over the course of fifteen minutes. Which is to say: that rat bastard sleeps on a bed paid for by my sleeplessness. He's cost me more hours of sleep than any drunken teenager, any low flying airplane or any tricked out, subwoofing Hyundai I can think of.

I've never voted for a Democrat in a California election -- I've voted a few third parties here and there -- but if Darrell Issa is the contingent candidate on the recall ballot, I intend to make an exception.

I, for one, intend to exact my vengeance.

2003-05-29T17:50:00.000-07:00

I'm sure they got a great B-Roll

KPIX, our CBS-affiliate here in the Bay Area, decided to go do a story about the traffic problems on Highway 4 between Concord and Pittsburg....and proceeded to cause a very large traffic jam.

"If the story is about traffic congestion, obviously you don't want to create a mess yourself," said California Highway Patrol Officer Cliff Kroeger.

I should say so.

2003-05-29T11:43:00.000-07:00

Snuff Box

I had no idea people still made....or consumed.... snuff. It's apparently the next big thing. I'll stick to burning Cuban crops, thank you very much.

(Noted via The Corner)

2003-05-29T08:59:00.000-07:00

What if he's got a pointed stick?

Passengers on a Qantas flight out of Melbourne overpowered a would-be hijacker wielding a pointed stick.

Eric Idle would have been prepared for this.

2003-05-29T08:38:00.000-07:00

Brighter Days on K Street

I don't have much patience for the Iraqis who thought our special forces should have knocked on the door and asked nicely when coming into Nasiryiah to get Pfc Jessica Lynch, although these complaints seem to be old news.

What struck me was that the Iraqi lawyer, Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief, who tipped our troops off to Pfc Lynch's whereabouts is now working as a lobbyist with the Livingston Group in Washington, DC. Only in America.

2003-05-28T18:21:00.000-07:00

Real Tolerance, Real Close

I'd never noticed Jake Curtis' byline in the San Francisco Chronicle before, but I checked out this story about a high school athlete in the East Bay who was going to have to choose between his arranged marriage and his chances to qualify for the state track championship, before SARS put the kabosh on the thing. It's usually odd when a high school student gets married, I suppose, and there's bound to be some interest when the high school student is a member of the Unification Church, headed by the Rev. Sun Yun-Moon. But what I wasn't prepared for was the tone of the article.

Now, I'm no follower of these guys -- so, apart from a fondness for the Washington Times, I've got no dog in this fight -- but I was bracing myself for some cheap slap at the Moonies. Har har. Get a load of these crazy guys! His parents got married in that mass wedding at Madison Square Garden. Can youbelieve it? Yuk. Yuk.

But in an article about a religion that's probably ahead of even one followed by a number of Hollywood luminaries and Catholicism for a religion that you can make fun of in polite company -- this reporter doesn't do anything but take the kid's word for it. There's not an unkind word about it in the entire piece.

Maybe I'm a cynic, but noting the effort the LA Times is putting into cleaning out bias and the New York Times to, well, whatever the hell it's doing, I was impressed to find Jake Curtis of the Chronicle already gets it.

I'll be watching for more of this guy's stuff.

2003-05-28T10:44:00.000-07:00

I'm 32.34714% Geek, i.e., Total Geek

I'm so proud.

2003-05-28T09:50:00.000-07:00

I've had my glory. The rest of you can fuck off.

When Mrs Earthling and I were at Ayers Rock earlier this month, we wouldn't have climbed up Uluru even if the winds hadn't closed the trail to the top --- it's disrespectful to local custom and, so long as they remove their hats in church, I'm happy enough with that quid pro quo --- but I sure wouldn't want to hear the lecture that I shouldn't go up there by someone on his way back down.

I used to think very highly of Sir Edmund Hillary, the fellow who first followed Tenzing Norgay up Mt Everest -- who did something dangerous and glorious just for the hell of it -- but Hillary doesn't like that people are actually following in his footsteps and (horrors!) drink beer at Base Camp. I'm all for rules about keeping the mountain clean and encouraging folks to be truly prepared for the ascent, but Hillary apparently wants to close off Everest to future expeditions.

Nature is not just for those deemed worthy by the National Geographic Society, the local surfing thugs (more) or the editors of Rock and Ice. I'm not for building condos in Yosemite Valley or building a catwalk all the way up the Narrows at Zion, although I do think it is important to allow for easy access to many of the nicer spots. That said, nature ought to be for those who take the time to get there and know how to treat it. But if you are going to break trail, surf a break, or lead a pitch, don't get pissed off because people follow right behind.

2003-05-28T05:50:00.000-07:00

Moving Up in the World

Do a Google Search for "Pathetic" -- by itself -- and I'm #8. Woooo-yah!

2003-05-27T22:34:00.000-07:00

Tim Blair has moved

John Howard apologist Tim Blair has changed his website. Check out his new location here.

2003-05-27T16:02:00.000-07:00

Boost My Own Debt Limit

Not counting Casa Earthling and Mrs Earthling's student loans, our consumer debt is pretty much limited to the Honda. But I still think I want to boost the Earthling Family debt limit by $968 billion.

2003-05-27T13:44:00.000-07:00

Big City Nights

A great little piece about Baghdad-based Heavy Metal band, A. Crassicauda.

"I think like young people anywhere who are a little different than the kids around them, maybe a little too smart for their own good, Waleed has an uncertain future. I could as likely see him at 30 years old, alone, sitting in a dark room listening to old Def Leppard records, as I could see him running the country."

In the meantime, the band is stuck in Baghdad, with its ovenlike temperatures, frequent blackouts, uncollected garbage and masses of newly unemployed.

"I'll go to Mongolia, man, I don't care. Africa. What do you think?" asks Aziz with a grin. "I know they'll like Iraqi death metal there."

2003-05-27T10:58:00.000-07:00

A New Law Blog

My friend and fellow Chicago alum, Lyle Roberts, a partner at Wilson Sonsini, has a new blog focused -- entirely -- on securities litigation. The aptly named 10-b5 Daily promises to do for Securities Litigation what Howard Bashman has done for, well, every other kind of litigation under the sun.

Check him out.

2003-05-26T14:12:00.000-07:00

Whiskey of the Week: Old Potrero Single Malt Spirit

[N.B.: I was sure I posted a version of this review several months ago, but it is nowhere to be found in my archives.]

Not that I often do, but now, at 33, I think I’m finally old enough to drink Rye – to order Rye – without a self-consciousness that the barkeep will think I’m doing it just to satisfy decades-old curiosity as to whether Don MacLean knew what the hell he was talking about. The first time I order rye at a bar – most likely Wild Turkey’s Rye – I thought it tasted like pumpernickel toast points in a drano-basalmic reduction.

Now, I've come to like a good rye whiskey. I recommend late afternoons in the summer – when you had too much to eat at an afternoon barbecue and are rather inclined to just skip dinner. With no plans for the night and John Lee Hooker on the turntable. It can be delightful, but it needs to be accepted on its own terms. The taste and the bite (especially if served without ice) can be overwhelming.

Today, I thought I’d talk about an American single malt whiskey made here in San Francisco: Old Potrero, but first, I’ll start with a story of industrial espionage gone horribly wrong.

* * *

Beer can be made with almost any grain. Get sugar out of the grain and yeast will produce two of the pillars of goodness: alcohol and carbon dioxide. Most beer is barley based. Wheat is distant second to barely, but common enough. Ethiopia makes a Sorghum beer which a friend said was virtually undrinkable, but he nevertheless failed (ahem!) to bring me back a bottle to prove his point. The big companies, like Budweiser, use rice and corn as well as barley. Not to knock Budweiser – although it’s not my favorite – their mastery of the brewing process is so complete that they could make a tasty beer out of lawn clippings.

To get from beer to whiskey, you just need to distill beer. And what can possibly be wrong with distilled beer? Nothing, so long as you don’t stop in the wrong place. Jack Daniels starts as a corn beer – which tastes like carbonated corn muffin mix – but if you know where that proto-Jack is heading, it’s like your first kiss - sort of sweet, mostly awkward, but full of promise better things to come.

* * *

The reader may recall that in the early 1990s, Red Hook Brewing Company of Seattle came out with Redhook Rye, a rye-and-barley beer, rolled out with some fanfare along side their existing beers. It was not, as I recall, so much as a specialty beer but meant to sit along side their flagship beer, Redhook E.S.B., and as part of the main line of beers. In the early 1990s the only liquid forms of rye were a few obscure rye whiskeys: Old Overholt for one, and both Wild Turkey and Evan Williams made them. But rye is for men beaten down by life. Rye is a drink for people who find Johnny Cash too uplifting. It’s certainly not a drink for the hip beer snobs. At least that wasn't the way to bet.

So why the push? Even in those heady days of the 1990s, when you could sell anything labeled as a microbrew and people would be predisposed to think it was good (even Samuel Adams). Still, it was an expensive guess. Or was it possible that Redhook had apparently found a market niche whose depths could be plumbed? A unique beer, perhaps, or just a way to wedge more shelf space at Safeway and draw more beer drinkers to your wide array of craft beers. Whatever their reason, they backed the launch to the hilt. And while I’m all for experimenting with beer for its own sake, spending the money on a big product roll-out suggests that Redhook knew something. Well, the story is, they did.

* * *

Mrs Earthling once told me that the best way to judge the prospects for commercial real estate is to follow the Golden Arches. Nobody does a better job (a least, perhaps, until a few years ago) researching location that the boys from Oak Park and if you can find out where a McDonald’s is going to be placed, you can move your odds ona real estate investment in the right direction. McDonald’s knows this, so its location decisions are a closely-guarded secret.

While, it seems that Redhook bought grains from the same place as Fritz Maytag owner of the Anchor Brewing Company and was tipped off that Anchor had been buying quite a bit of rye. If Anchor - makers of Anchor Steam, Liberty Ale and Anchor Porter - a company that, more than other, had revitalized craft brewing in this country - was buying rye, it stood to reason that Anchor was going to make a rye beer. Since Anchor knows what it’s doing, we’d better get to work on it and beat them to it.

But Anchor never bottled a rye beer, and it certainly never marketed one. I found Redhook Rye to be virtually undrinkable. It was interesting, yes. But not good. And the beer died off ignobly. It might still be available at their brewery, but I haven’t seen it in years and I doubt I would ever buy it again. Redhook got suckered it a market which never existed and Anchor went on with its plans, unabaided.

Anchor Steam made a rye beer, alright, but only so that rye beer could grok its happy destiny and be distilled into one of the greatest single malt whiskeys available: Old Potrero Single Malt.

* * *

Old Potrero is, as the link notes, a 100% single malt (rye) whiskey. It’s a traditional American whiskey - pot stilled, a bit harsh and much closer to the kind of whiskey at issue during the Whiskey Rebellion than is, say, Jack Daniels.

Old Potrero’s rye taste hits you up front – and with the sharper anise-like notes of rye, not the lingering slightly bitter taste you’d get in a rye bread – and the warm after glow is to be savored. It’s definately something to be enjoyed over ice – at 61.5% it’s probably not best consumed neat. And the flavor is so strong than even cooled down considerably, about a broad a flavor to be had in a whiskey. I think it goes best as a nice drink to have when you are reading something very, you know, manly and I had a splash as I started Victor Davis Hanson’s Carnage and Culture. It’s not cheap – at no better than $55 a bottle – it’s an investment, but I think after the last few months events I’ll be buying it just a little bit more often.

* * *

When, a few weeks ago, I watched the icons of Saddam come down around Baghdad, I wanted to drink something, well, American. Much as I love our British allies, single malt Scotch wasn’t quite right. So I poured myself a couple of fingers of Old Potrero. I almost tossed it in the sink.

The only time in my life I’ve really gotten drunk off Old Potrero the stuff was in the waning hours of September 11 (this is my one, and only September 11th story... ever... bear with me, or skip ahead). Mrs Earthling, who lost three coworkers in the South Tower and who had been scheduled to go to that meeting until a few weeks before, had finally gotten to bed around midnight. And I, after a fifteen hour televised parade of horrors, drank three big helpings of the rye. Not surprisingly, I didn’t feel a thing until I’d washed that down with a couple of beers. When I finally got to bed, I cursed myself because I’d ruined one of my favorite drinks. It was a particularly selfish thought, but in as much as my wife (then of less than four months) was with me and not at some pointless meeting in New York, it was a thought that came to me nevertheless. And for the last eighteen months I couldn’t drink it without so much of that day coming back to me.

Mrs Earthling bought me a bottle for Christmas 2001 - 18 months on, I still have most of it.

Well, when I sat down and watched the fall of Baghdad and pushed down a couple of fingers of Old Potrero. I wanted something to rinse away the old flavor and I hope, now, this caustic goodness will be associated here on out with liberty. If the Buddah can be as comfortable in a motorcycle engine as in a mountain stream, liberty can ring out just as well in bronze or with an ice cube. And if I can pour a glass of rye – especially one from San Francisco – from here until well past my three score and ten, and associate it with this... this new birth of freedom. It will be bad for the liver. But it’s good for the soul.

So here’s to Democracy. And Whiskey. And Sexy.

Let Freedom Ring.

2003-05-23T17:43:00.000-07:00

Weekend Plans

Light, if any, posting this weekend. See you guys Monday evening.

Have an excellent Memorial Day.

2003-05-23T09:32:00.000-07:00

Please Note: It does, indeed, block the view of Venus

2003-05-23T08:35:00.000-07:00

I may ride a dinghy, but I happily rise with the tide.

A nice little note about my favorite institution, the University of Chicago Law School.

2003-05-22T12:31:00.000-07:00

Cuban Agricultural Policy

I intend to discuss Cuban Agricultural Policy this evening with my friend, and one of the most knowledgeable people in the entire anime* industry, Carl Gustav. I think, particularly, we may discuss how trade relations between Glasgow and Havana might be improved by combining their important agricultural product under the umbrella of a single marketing scheme. I will report on our discussions later.

Tomorrow (maybe tonight... it's nearly finished), I'm putting up a review of Old Potrero, a single-malt rye whiskey made just across the Bay, in San Francisco.

* For identification purposes only. I own exactly one Anime film: the Wings of Honneamise which I think is not only excellent anime, but is one of my favorite films.

2003-05-22T09:07:00.000-07:00

Possible California Senate Candidate for 2004

US Treasurer Rosario Marin has resigned. Possibly to run against Barbara Boxer in 2004 for the US Senate. Don't know that we stand a snowball's chance in hell of beating Boxer, but when it gets right down to it, Barbara Boxer makes me miss uberliberal Alan Cranston.

(I hasten to add that, in the 1930s, Alan Cranston did America a great service by reading, translating and publishing an unabridged American edition of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, but as Senator, he certainly didn't do much on my account).

2003-05-21T14:45:00.000-07:00

Explosion at Yale Law School?

CNN headline only. Let's hope it's something gas-main related.

2003-05-21T09:07:00.000-07:00

The Luso-Canadian War of 2007

A couple of good articles are up via NRO on the recent report about devastating overfishing noting, essentially, that (a) it's true and (b) there are some solutions, largely involving removing some $50B in worldwide subsidies.

For a tad more on the history of modern European conflict over fishing rights, check out John Baden's 1996 article, "Democracies Don't Fight -- Except Over Fish."

And if you haven't read Mark Kurlansky's Cod -- A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, you are missing out.

2003-05-20T17:44:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Gets Into the French-Bashing Business

Yesterday, I downloaded from Microsoft the demo of Rise of Nations, a Civilization-like game where you start in the stone age and try to conquer the world. I think the game is just out today. Fun, yes, though I think I prefer Civilization, the original of these rise-from-the-muck games.

Nevertheless, I noticed that among the Wonders of the World (e.g., the Terra Cotta Army, the Kremlin, the Space Program, etc.) which you can build in your various towns and cities -- to give you extra military units, cheaper research, better trade -- you can build the Eiffel Tower.

Which increases your trade... in oil.

Hehe.

2003-05-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

Another Frank Chu Site

I'm a big fan of Frank Chu, but I'm not the only one. And here's another great interview with the hardest working protestor in the world.

2003-05-20T08:46:00.000-07:00

Hooters Comes to San Francisco

Hooters is about to open its first Northern California franchise, right down at Fisherman's Wharf. I'm surprised this hasn't caused more of a stir with the Neo-Puritanical Left, but I was still amused by this bit:

Several kitchen staff from the city's upper-end restaurants have applied to pick up a second job at Hooters..."They tell us that they're tired of being so worried about presentation, presentation, presentation," [the General Manager] said. "Here, you don't have to worry if your artichoke syrup is dripped just right on the plate."...Somewhere, Alice Waters is weeping.

2003-05-19T22:45:00.000-07:00

California Legislators on the Cutting Edge

I'm all for Howard Coble getting kicked out on his arse for thinking Japanese Internment was a swell idea. I'm not very impressed that it took the California legislature three months to get around to denouncing it.

I shall not overstate the importance of blogs, but if politicians want to build on public discontent to score political points, they'll need to pay attention to the scuttlebut on blogs, and be a little quicker than this.

2003-05-19T11:45:00.000-07:00

Bobblehead Rehnquist

Adam Bonin points to an article about the hot collectable this summer : the Rehnquist Bobblehead, produced by those excellent folks at the Green Bag. One thousand of these gems are going to current subscribers of the Green Bag and, presumably, a few lucky former contributors. Although I was a charter subscriber and am friends with virtually everyone on the staff of the Green Bag, I let my subscription lapse a while back, so I'm pretty sure that I am shit-outta-luck.

2003-05-18T18:33:00.000-07:00

Why Ruben Wins

Throwing Things’ Adam Bonin claims: “Clay Aiken will win the American Idol competition ‘because he's white, and so is the majority of the teenyboppers calling in.’”

Although Adam Bonin means to predict the result of American Idol, he has labored to produce a brilliant thesis about why Clay Aiken survives any race involving three or more. His analysis, I believe, is more akin to understanding a primary vote and breaks down when confronted with the general election.

I cannot compete with Adam’s Charlie Cook-like analysis of American Idol – so I have to stick with some mind-numbing Bill Schneider-like platitudes where the audience is already way the hell ahead of me, but I think there are a number of points that attack, but not, destroy Adam’s primary thesis. Clay may win this thing, but I think Clay's a Thomas Dewey, both talented and strange-looking --- where a hundred replays of the 1948 election sends 99 Harry Trumans back to Missouri. Whether Ruben is Harry Truman... or another upset Democrat... remains to be seen.

One: I don't buy into the Clay Aiken as Racial Vanguard thesis. He may make the teeny boppers sway, but he's Rick Astley, not David Duke. His appeal is his charm. Although there may be some tendency for white audience members to identify with a white contestant, I don't think it's a very strong one. Suburban white teenagers are the largest consumers of gangsta rap and even with the strong 12-18 age group participation in the early voting, any bias in the sample for whites may help Clay over the edge (but then Ruben should pick up the votes from the chick that just lost out) but I don’t think this makes it a lock.

I note, too, that Adam himself argued that Frenchie Davis would have won this thing in a walk. Frenchie Davis would have played all comers like Walter Mondale to her Ronald Reagan (and I mean to include Reagan’s shameful phone sex experience).

Two: Unless the "bottom two" has been edited to enhance the story (which, in any event presages well for Ruben), I’m assuming – without evidence – that these votes are indeed close. I have no belief in the overall integrity of either the contest or the voting and if Clay were an unstoppable juggernaut with Maxine Waters-like reelection margins, this would have been identified – and edited against – during the last few weeks. Clay may be winning, but he’s not winning by much – Adam’s latest records sales statistics notwithstanding.

Three: There will be a much larger voting constituency for American Idol final. And this is what I think helps Ruben out. The buzz on this show is such that more people, and I believe likely more adults, will be tuning in – and voting – for Ruben. Clay’s constituency, if Adam has read this right, is the young, repeat viewer (and, I hasten to add, repeat voter). I don’t know that you are going to get a big upsurge in an already motivated constituency. The marginal voter goes to Ruben and there will be a lot of extra votes Tuesday night. If I’m right on point two, I think point three carries the day.

Four: Simon Cowen wants Ruben. Ruben is Luther Vandross, he’s Boyz II Men. Clay is Rick Astley – talented, yes, but limited. Ruben can make a career. Now while Frenchy would have run the table, I don’t know that Clay’s got this thing locked. He might not be Thomas Dewey, he might not even Bill Clinton – talented, flawed and unstoppable. But I think he’s going to play Richard Nixon to Ruben’s Kennedy and when the Long Count is over, Ruben’s going to win the day.

2003-05-17T23:33:00.000-07:00

Challenge from Throwing Things

Those of you who are coming over from Throwing Things regarding my bet with Adam that Ruben, not Clay, will win American Idol, I should have my response up by mid-morning Pacific Time Sunday.

UPDATE: Terribly sorry, but I forgot that I have a Christening to attend to this afternoon. Catholic though I am, Greek Orthodox services just kick Western Rite's Ass when it comes to ceremony. Hopefully my response will be up later today.

I will, however, start with this point: Adam claims that Clay can't lose because he's white and the competition's black. Its not a racial thing as Adam himself once pointed out when he himself argued that Frenchie Davis would have won this thing in a walk. And I can't help but agree. Frenchie Davis would have played all comers like Walter Mondale to her Ronald Reagan (and I mean to include Reagan’s shameful phone sex experience).

2003-05-17T18:35:00.000-07:00

Cheap Giants Tickets for Tomorrow

Any of my loyal or semi-loyal readers looking for some very cheap (but good) Giants tickets for tomorrow v the Mets? Upper Deck, Sec 311, Row 10. Fire me an email and let's talk.

2003-05-17T16:17:00.000-07:00

Vexed?

Kevin Drum's got a post up about how our supposedly keystone-cop corps of propagandists over in Iraq have chosen an eight-pointed star as a symbol of our new TV station. He notes -- as a New York Post report claims -- that this eight-pointed star which was "seen on many buildings" around Iraq was, supposedly, the (at least a) symbol of the Baath Party. And if we'd just done the most basic research, we wouldn't commited some grave faux pas.

This sort of error -- and I think Kevin acknowledges this -- strikes me as simply too cute to be true. But it's possible.

I am trying -- and so far failing -- to navigating the Baath Party website -- I speak no Arabic and the English link doesn't seem to work and even if my German were any better than really, really bad there's no German link to help me out. And I can't find any 8-pointed stars there that would obviously be Baathist.

But if this is the case, that the eight-pointed star is indeed an obviously Baathist symbol that easy consulting with the locals would have avoided, I'd love to have someone explain why the 1959-1963 Iraqi regime (post-Monarchy, but pre-Baathist) used a flag with an eight-pointed star, but the Baathist regime - switching to Pan-Arab colors - went to a flag sporting five-pointed stars, the one with which we are more familiar (the Arab writing for "Allah Akhbar" was added only during the Gulf War).

It strikes me as odd that Saddam would have allowed anything anti-Baathist to stick around, but as many folks, especially those critical of the President on the war are fond of pointing out, Saddam Hussein at least kept all those important works of Iraqi history in one place and in good shape. So before I chalk one up for administrative dunderheadedness, I'd at least like to know that there's not some independent meaning of the 8-pointed star adopted by the regime which preceed the Baathists.

2003-05-17T10:22:00.000-07:00

California Politics
Boxer Challenger Bows Out

Rep. Doug Ose, a Republican elected from the Sacramento Valley, has declined to challenge Barbara Boxer for her Senate seat when it comes up next year. Ose, who had been considered a strong contender as he could both raise money and considerably out-poll Republican registration, has also declined to run for a fourth term in the House, citing his three-term pledge.

The nerve of the guy, actually living up to his campaign promises.

Former Attorney General Dan Lundgren is planning on moving into Ose's district to run for the now-open House seat.

2003-05-17T07:16:00.000-07:00

Just something to annoy the senses.

Oliver Stone has called Fidel Castro, well, "one of Earth's wisest people."

2003-05-16T23:16:00.000-07:00

Ba'athist Deck - Available at Walgreen's

Cool. The playing cards depicting Iraq's most wanted is now available at Walgreen's.

2003-05-16T18:04:00.000-07:00

Spaceflight Pioneer calls for the end of the Shuttle

Max Faget, who was the primary designer of the Mercury capsule and had his hand in the design of every manned spacecraft the United States has ever used, has called for the end of the shuttle program (LA Times, Registration Required).

"We ought to get a decent vehicle," he said. "It could carry fewer people, but it ought to be a new vehicle."

The tide's turning. Maybe we can get this albatross of our back.

2003-05-16T17:33:00.000-07:00

FAQs

I don't have a FAQ about whisky (or whiskey for that matter) up yet. But that's because folks don't email me with enough questions. While I am not an expert, I am an enthusiast and I'd be happy to share my knowledge about single malt whisky if it will help you enjoy this sweet nectar. Want a good starter bottle, but you didn't that dram you picked out while trying to look cool at your local watering hole? Enjoy a particular bottle, but would like to try something a bit different? Hoping to buy a bottle as a gift? Ask me the question, bridgekeeper, I am not afraid.

N.B.: I may use your question as a teaching tool. If you'd like me not to use your name, please let me know in your email.

2003-05-16T17:01:00.000-07:00

Whisky Survey # 4 : Ready for the Whiskey Rebellion : Kim du Toit

Most people in the blogosphere know Kim du Toit for his love of three things: his family, his firearms, and his country. I did not know – but was not surprised – that a man like Kim, with his priorities straight, also enjoys a good single malt whisky.

I must confess a certain fondness for the man – not only do I like his site, chock full of muzzle velocities and stopping power and commentary on elephant guns – but, most importantly, Kim is that most special breed of American – a new recruit. I’m N-th generation American. I was lucky enough to be born here. Kim, on the other hand, took a good look around and decided this is where he wanted to be – and he doesn’t forget his good fortune. Say what you will of his politics (and if I do have a complaint, I’ll be sure to make it from my currently safe distance of 1800 miles), his evident love of country is something more of us “real” Americans ought to have. And I, for one, am glad to have him on my side. And if you don’t want him on your side, take a look those paper targets even from so-called “bad” days at the range.... and think again.

If you haven’t checked out his site, you should. His knowledge of firearms is utterly encylopedic, with both strong commentary and objective background on guns he likes... and those guns he doesn’t care for. Mostly, I didn’t realize how much someone could actually know about guns until I first came across Kim du Toit. And if I can someday know half as much about whisky as he knows about, say, an H&K VP70Z*, I’ll have served my audience well.

Kim was kind enough to answer the Whiskey Blogger’s Questionaire.

* * *

What is your favorite bottle of single malt whisky?

Probably Aberlour

What bottles of whisky do you have open at home right now?

Glenmorangie (10 year), the Macallan (25 year) and the Bavlenie (12 year) [I assume Kim means the 12-year Doublewood, not their 10-year old standard bottle. I’ve emailed him to check up on this point. Either is tasty].

What other whiskies do you like?

Blended – J&B; Bourbon – Knob Creek, Jack Daniels; Ryes – none.

How do you take your whiskey?

Single malts and Knob Creek – neat, with a glass of ice water on the side; J&B – weak, with lots of water and ice; Jack Daniels – with ice and Coke.

How were you introduced to single malt whisky?

By so-called “friends” back in South Africa and later on by a fiedish barman in downtown Chicago.

* * *

Now Kim has three excellent bottles of whisky there on his shelf (these are all Highland malts and while each is good, if you are looking for something with a bit more taste of the peat or that salty air or even a bit of sting, you’ll need to look a bit further). But I can’t say enough good things about Glenmorangie -- the 10-year you should be able to pick up for around $25-$30 at a discount bottle shop – although I try. It's light, sweet and a little bit thick on the tongue. It doesn't run away from you like some single malts, so you can enjoy that long, lingering taste after each and every sip.

The Balvenie 12-year Doublewood is another of the “wood finished” styles of single malt – where a whisky, to give it a hint of a secondary flavor – are first aged in one barrel for most of its maturation (in this case 12 years) and then moved over to another barrel, in this case a Oloroso sherry cask, to give it 6 or 12 months to give it a hint of something else. If you’d like to know a bit more about wood finishes, I’ve discussed them previously here. Balvenie -- all Balvenie, really, is a bit sweeter than most. I haven't priced Balvenie lately, but I'm guessing that you might have to lay down around $40 or $45 for the Doublewood, $35-$38 for the regular 10 year.

The Macallan 25 year is pretty much liquid crack – and one of the best things I’ve let slip across my palate. I'll do this one justice in another review, but while it may be one of the best scotches on the planet, even if you can afford the non-negligible price of admission, you might consider working on your palate before you get there. Not that you won't enjoy it -- immensely -- but that you'll have one less thing to look forward to down the road.

* Kim, if it’s wrong to like the VP70Z, forgive me. I know you aren’t a big fan of 9mm anyway and the VP70Z is hyper-stylzed – but it was the first handgun I ever fired and I still have a bit of a crush on it.

2003-05-16T11:04:00.000-07:00

Laser Conspiracies

Little Green Footballs notes some conspiracists at Indymedia who can't let the Columbia rest in peace, claiming that the US may have shot down the Columbia for reasons unknown.

It is worth a note, however, that there was a laser incident involving the space shuttle Challenger on October 10, 1984. The Soviets, apparently miffed that we were pressing ahead with SDI, fired a low power laser at the Challenger, causing certain systems failures and temporary blindness among certain members of the crew.

You can read all about it at Astronautix.

2003-05-15T22:21:00.000-07:00

Whisky Survey # 3 - Repent, Heathen! : South Knox Bubba

From Knoxville, Tennessee, the Haight-Ashbury of the Blogosphere (which, I think, makes Instapundit its S. I. “Sleepy Sam” Hayakawa (well, except for the sleepy part)), I was able to get Rocky Top Brigade ringleader and all around good guy South Knox Bubba to answer the Whiskey Blogger’s Questionaire.

SK Bubba is, without doubt, my favorite Democrat blogger out there and, likewise, is one of the most articulate critics of President Bush working the blogosphere today. No paranoia, no belief that the President has managed to emulsify omnipotence, omnimalevolence and incompetance into a new, creamy blend of emerging fascism. He just asks tough questions that everyone who wants to reelect President Bush (N.B.: he doesn’t) need to carefully consider.

SK Bubba is a bit more of a bourbon drinker (and being from Tennessee, why not?) but in an effort to fulfill the Rocky Top Brigade manifesto – the search for Truth, Justice and a Good Bottle of Single Malt Scotch for around twenty dollars – I’ve introduced him to a couple of interesting bottles of single malt which I believe fit the bill. He’s been a long-time booster of Pathetic Earthlings and I’m delighted to present his response.

***
What is your favorite bottle of single malt whiskey?

The Glenlivet (12 yr. old)

What bottles of whiskey do you have open at home right now?

Woodford Reserve [A Kentucky bourbon, and a damned fine one]

How do you take your whiskey?

On the rocks (I know, blasphemy!)

What other whiskies (bourbon, rye, blended) do you enjoy?

Woodford Reserve, Maker's Mark, Tullamore Dew, W.L. Weller Special Reserve

How were you introduced to single malt?

Honestly, I don't remember. I just remember not liking Chevis or Johnny Walker too much, and someone mentioning Glenlivet.

And, finally, what are your preferred circumstances for enjoying a dram? (alone, with friends, after dinner, what have you)?

Before dinner, on the deck with Mrs. Bubba watching birds at the feeders or chipping a few golf balls and watching pupster chase them. Sometimes she even brings them back.

***

I’m going to get back to some single-bottle reviews here pretty soon, and I ought to hit up a couple of the classics, so I may do Glenlivet soon enough. As an all-arounder, it’s a solid single and can form a backbone of any good whiskey shelf (not that you can’t design a good one based on any of your favorite malts – ask me how, if you like).

I do, however caution against using ice with a single malt. If you find a malt is a tad too harsh, add water, not ice. You want to thin the flavors, not suppress them, and cold can really collapse what you’ve got. Water will smooth things about. Of course, if you find you enjoy it over ice, drink it just so. It’s just whisky. But please don’t assume that ice is the only way to hatbox the flavor curve.

On the subject of ice in your single malt, I will, however, note an anecdote from the illustrator Ralph Steadman (of Hunter Thompson chapter break and Pink Floyd’s The Wall fame. In his excellent work, Still Life with Bottle : Whisky According to Ralph Steadman, he discusses his trip with Dr Hunter S. Thompson to Zaire for the Foreman v. Ali "Rumble in the Jungle." It was the first time Dr Thompson had had single malt scotch:

He sold our tickets the very night of the fight, took the [Glenfiddich] and a 10lb bag of African marijuana down the pool’s edge. He set the Glenfiddich down carefully next to a silver bucket of ice and hurled the marijuana into the pool. Then he dived into the middle of it. He spent the time during the fight floating about, watching the marijuana disappear down the filter, whilst he sipped at the Glenfiddich through a hansome goblet full of ice. I never forgave him. That’s no way to drink Glenfiddich.

I can forgive you, Bubba, but first you must first repent.

UPDATE: Bubba, rightly, defends his use of ice with bourbon and, ahem, Tennessee whiskey. I only have a beef with the use of ice in single malt barley whiskies. I, too, enjoy Maker's Mark or Knob Creek or Jack over ice.

2003-05-15T13:56:00.000-07:00

Tom DeLay as Judge Dredd

"I am the Federal Government" says Tom DeLay, when told he couldn't smoke his cigar in a federal building. Lovely.

2003-05-15T12:39:00.000-07:00

I've reached my target demographic!

I've received a delightful email from an aerospace engineer from Texas who designs parachute systems who had plenty of interesting to ask -- and say -- about single malt scotch. This means I've now reached my target demographic, so if anyone out there sells vacuum stills or centrifugal zero-g glassware, my advertising rates are quite reasonable.

2003-05-15T00:06:00.000-07:00

Whisky Survey #2 : Freedom and Whisky

David Ferrer's blog, Freedom and Whisky, doesn't have all that much to do with Whisky, save that he's based right in the middle of it all, in one of my favorite cities -- Edinburgh. But what Freedom and Whisky does offer nearly every day is one of the best commentaries about post-industrial socialism you'll care to find. David's ongoing critique about the smothering embrace of the Scottish nanny-state is must reading for anyone who thinks that, somehow, a socialist future might be alright if only it's an argyle-stockinged gillie brogue, rather than a well-polished jackboot, stomping on your face.

David was kind enough to answer the Whiskey Blogger's Questionaire.

***

Do you drink single malt whiskey? If so what is your preferred brand?

No - I drink malt WHISKY (no "e" in the Scottish stuff!)

What bottles of whiskey do you have open at home?

Highland Park

Do you drink any other kind of whiskey (bourbon, rye, blended scotch)?

I have tried these but prefer Scotch... favourite brands [of blended Scotch] are Famous Grouse and Black Bottle.

How do you take your whiskey?

Neat or with a little water.

How were you first introduced to whiskey?

When I was 17 I was invited to the 21st birthday party of the girl next door. Her father gave me a glass of amber liquid. When I eventually managed to find our house, my bedroom was unaccountably spinning!

And, finally, what are your perferred circumstances for enjoying a dram?

Late at night - on its own.

***

So check out his blog and rest well knowing that so long as he keeps that bottle close, the light of freedom will long be reflected in the muddy waters of the Firth of Forth.

2003-05-14T19:01:00.000-07:00

An Announcement from the Ministry of Blogosphere Development

Check out a relatively new group blog, Infinite Monkeys. Lots of rambling about politics, vermouth, tasty accounts of Brazilian -themed cocktail mixology and a rather frightening endorsement of applejack.

2003-05-14T11:19:00.000-07:00

Whisky Survey #1 : The Dram of the Derbyshire

John Derbyshire of National Review Online and Prime Number Theory fame was kind enough to answer the Whiskey Blogger's Questionaire.

***

What is your favorite bottle of single malt whiskey?

Glenmorangie

What bottles of whiskey do you have open at home right now?

Glenmorangie, the Talisker and J&B

How do you take your whiskey?

50-50 with bottled water, not chilled

How were you introduced to single malt whiskey?

By Peter Paterson, from whom I rented a room, in 1981-2, in Ealing, London. Peter comes from a family of farmers in the Scottish lowlands.

And, finally, what are your preferred circumstances for enjoying a dram?

Last thing at night, after the kids are in bed.

***

Glenmorangie, likewise, is my favorite brand, although I prefer some of their other expressions, and I think for a two-bottle single malt shelf (J&B is a blended Scotch whiskey [Corrected from "Canadian", see comments -- Ed.], enjoyable on its own terms) it's hard to do better than what Derb has at home. Between those two, you've got a great every day whiskey in the Glenmorangie -- not too aggressive, not too lingering -- and, for his preferred time to enjoy it I'd stick with something that, like Glenmorangie, doesn't finish too dry. And if you want something for a bit more kick or want to give a dinner guest a taste of something with a bit of peat, Talisker is perfect (it's also what Judy Densch's M has been drinking in the last two Bond movies).

Derb likes his whiskey with quite a bit of water. But there's no wrong way to take a single malt, except chilled. A whiskey which is too watered down for your own taste it can begin to feel a bit mushy on the palate - but I'd emphasize that that point is a personal one. So if you use water, and I recommend at least a few drops, the first time you try a particular bottle of single malt, add only a few drops at a time until you've got a mixture you like. But that water should, in all events, be the same temperature as the whiskey itself and Derb gets it right.

* The Whiskey Questionaire is still in beta testing and won’t be revealed as a whole until it’s ready. Do not, however, hesitate to answer the questions yourself. Show all work.

UPDATE: Welcome National Review Online readers! I apologize for the broken links to my older whiskey links (blogger is occasionally imperfect), but I do hope you'll take a moment to dig around for them. They're listed by date in the entry immediately below and may be accessed via the archives. There are plenty of whiskey links toward the bottom of the left hand column as well. And please come back any time if you find yourself entertained. I'd be honored to have any NRO reader become a regular reader of mine. Cheers.

UPDATE: Those permalinks seem to be up. From the post below this, you can click directly to some of my earlier whisky commentary.

2003-05-14T06:55:00.000-07:00

A New Approach to Whiskey Blogging

In an effort to up the amount of whiskey blogging on this, the only whiskey blog I know about, I've started to canvas the Blogosphere to both find out what's on the collective shelf and palates of the blogosphere and as well as churn up some blogfodder. As delightful as it is to sit here with a wee dram and write about it, often times the whiskey demands my full attention and, Dear Reader, in a competition between blogging about whiskey in my cramped little office and sitting out on the patio enjoying my whiskey, well... you can guess which one usually wins.

So let's see how this works. Of course, permalinks are all bloggered so those couple of bloggers I've hit up for comments who aren't at least occasional readers (i.e., with the very low threshold of having a link back here to Pathetic Earthlings being the shockingly unprobative evidence of such), I'd point to my following, earlier, whisky commentaries:

5/10 - Whiskey of the Week: Robert Dunford's Last Dram
3/31 - Whiskey of the Week: Glenkinchie
2/26 - A Wee Pint of Whiskey
2/14 - Whiskey of the Week: Aberlour
2/8 - Whiskey of the Week: Glenmorangie 12-year old Port Wood Finish
2/6 - Upon This Charge, Cry God for England, Harry and Saint George
1/31 - Whiskey of the Week: The Macallan 12 year old
1/23 - Whiskey of the Week: Bowmore : The Legend

(I think I'm going to move over to Moveable Type -- this cold chisel coding is getting stupid)

2003-05-13T11:10:00.000-07:00

Money, Money

The US Treasury has redesigned, yet again, the $20 note.

It looks, well, European. And that's not good.

So if we're going to get all Euroweenie with our bills, let's go whole-hog and start using stylized Presidents on our bills, like the first cut of the Euro notes, which included non-existant, but vaguely European-looking domes, arches and such.

We've got plenty of fictionalized Presidents to choose from (and I'm a big fan of fictionalized Presidents) whether its clueless John P. Wintergreen from Gershwin's "Of Thee I Sing" ("We will run on a platform of... Love!") and his hapless VP Alexander Throttlebottom, or the forced aloofness of Donald Moffat's portrayal in Clear and Present Danger, we've got the best and the worst of American aspiration and fear to choose from for our new, ahistorical scrip.

I encourage reader comment, but for starters, I propose:

For the new $100: President Douglass Dillman, as portrayed by James Earl Jones in the 1972 film "The Man" - based on Irving Wallace's 1964 novel , with a screenplay by Rod Serling, where the President Pro Tempore, African American Senator Douglass Dillman, ascends to the Presidency after the President and Speaker of the House (the Vice President being dead of a heart attack a few weeks earlier) die in the collapse of the Cathederal at Cologne (I think it was). Chaos insues. Douglass Dillman is impeached for malfeasance. President Dillman finds their lack of faith disturbing and crushes dissent, demanding to see the Ambassador. My kind of President.

For the new $50: President Jordan Lyman. Fidel Castro claims history will absolve him, but that's the only thing that could have absolved a President Jordan Lyman, the embattled President in John Frankenheimer's Seven Days in May (screenplay also by Rod Serling) with poll ratings almost as bad as Governor Gray Davis. A terrible President, who would have been purified by history only due to events not of his own making. And an excellent successor to Ulysses S. Grant.

For the new $20: President Merkin Muffey (if you don't know who Merkin Murphy is, it is a useful exercise to look it up). Clueless. Whiney. Maybe corrupt. And he killed people by the acre-foot. Move over, President Jackson.

For the new $10: Alexander Hamilton, obviously not being a President, is a bit harder to replace. But apart from his own talents, folks like Hamilton since he alludes to all the Founding Fathers, federalist or otherwise. So for the $10, may I commend Henry Fonda's portrayal of the (unnamed) President in 1979's sci-fi disaster flick Meteor (and a better review here). Here was a President overwhelmed by events and had his bacon saved by those folks around him, but he no doubt got the credit in the end. More's the point, however, is Meteor had everyone in it, even people who should have known better: Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, Sean Connery, Martin Landau. And with Henry Fonda's President (compare it to him in Fail Safe and weep), we can allude to them all.

For the new $5: Sic Semper Tyrannus! Okay, I'm no freaky Lincoln hater but some of his behavior during the Civil War, while undoubtedly necessary, was... well... at times extra-judicial. So what better warning to future generations than the spectre of a computer taking over the world and the President forced to knuckle under? Gordon Pinsent as the unnamed, Kennedy-esque President in 1970's The Forbin Project has everything we need. First, he Pinsett -- especially in this movie -- looks like Jack Kennedy. And we could use a handsome fellow like that our our notes. Second, he's doing everything for good intentions -- let's make sure we don't start a nuclear war accidentally, so let's put all our weapons under the control of a benevolent, artificially intelligent computer -- and just for safe measure, when it turns out the Soviets have done the same thing ("There is Another!") and constructed Guardian to America's Colossus -- decides the best thing to do would be to have them link up. You know, so everyone gets along. Admittedly, our fictional President used a modem (110 bps audio job) to get everyone together and Lincoln, well, used the Army of the Potomac

Of course, I'm a big fan of the Forbin Project anyway -- not only is it a cool film, but it was filmed at one of my childhood haunts -- the Lawrence Hall of Science but the Forbin Project was also name of the Berkeley, California-based BBS where I first climbed online way back in 1985.

For the new $1: President Richmond, as portrayed by Dabney Coleman in Disney's rubberneckingly awful "My Date with the President's Daughter." Coleman's mug gets on the one since President Richmond was portrayed as (a) a Republican (b) family-friendly without being creepy and (c) neither (i) corrupt nor (ii) incompetent. This is no more than a once-in-a-century event, and certainly neither was George Washington. Plus, we'd get more Dabney Coleman. He's in everything else -- why not your pockets?

2003-05-13T10:12:00.000-07:00

Bubba -- Let My People Go!

South Knox Bubba points to an interesting bit of legislation in Tennessee that will allow motorcycles to proceed through red lights with "due care" if the traffic signal doesn't... well... cycle because the metal detectors at the intersection don't register the motorcycle.

Bubba objects to this. I think he's overreading the effect of the statute -- motorcyclists can't blow a red light, I think they still need to react to it as though it were, at least, a stop sign. But more's the point, he seems to agree with this sentiment:

''Motorcyclists have enough trouble staying alive because people can't see them,'' Harper said after the vote. ''We shouldn't authorize them to commit suicide.''

The hell we shouldn't. Motorcycles aren't inherently dangerous. They're more dangerous because most drivers aren't paying attention. But they, indeed, are more dangerous -- and if we think motorcyclists ought not be authorized to commit suicide, we ought to ban motorcycles.

No law is going to make a suicidal (i.e., reckless) motorcyclist behave safely and a loophole to let motorcyclists treat stalled red lights as stop signs isn't going to make smart (i.e., most) motorcyclists behave stupidly.

2003-05-12T23:19:00.000-07:00

Which Museum Would You Loot?

Tim Blair's got a great poll up. Check it out. Not surprisingly, the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky is winning by a landslide.

Uhmmmm, yeah.

2003-05-12T22:54:00.000-07:00

Stroke This

I'm sort of amused by some of the rather hostile reaction to Annika Sorenstam's playing in the Colonial next week.

Nick Price complains that Sorenstam's appearance "reeks of publicity." Yeah, in this one-off event, the television is going to pay most of their attention to Sorenstam. Big deal. Here's a guy who clearly doesn't know where his bread is buttered. I mean, my God, not publicity! What golf really needs to do is trim back on the publicity because golf doesn't benefit from all that publicity. Tiger Woods has been so bad for the sport after all, since he drove away all those television viewers.

More amusing, though, is Vijay Singh, who strikes me as a grade one asshole:

"[S]he doesn't belong out here," Singh said after his runner-up finish in the Wachovia Championship. "If I'm drawn with her, which I won't be, I won't play...What is she going to prove by playing? It's ridiculous...She's the best woman golfer in the world, and I want to emphasize 'woman.' We have our tour for men, and they have their tour. She's taking a spot from someone in the field."

I'm all for Sorenstam playing. If she falls on her arse, fine. If she does well, good on her. I'm sure all she wants is a go.

In the end, her career will still be made on the LPGA and everyone knows it. Certainly she does. But Sorenstam's clearly as good as at least some of the folks on the PGA tour and she ought to be left alone to give it a go.

Besides, if Singh has a bad day and Sorenstam gets close, I'm sure he can find a way to... you know... shave a stroke or two off his game.

2003-05-12T14:36:00.000-07:00

The Ultimate Junket

Dems continue to complain about the President flying out to the USS Abraham Lincoln on an S-3 Viking. Drudge has a great picture of Pat Leahy suited up to an F-16. But if you want self-serving politicians flying around on government hardware, let's recall current Senator (then Rep.) Bill Nelson (D-FL), who flew on Columbia in January 1986:

Ah, yes. The seventh member of a $500 million spaceflight -- no political grandstanding there, Dems.

(Not that then-Senator Jake Garn (R-UT) didn't do the very same thing in a few months before.)

And, hell, not that I blame either of them -- I'd toss any political career you could think of overboard even for a single orbit around the Earth -- but this flight on the S-3 was obviously great for morale on the Lincoln and, cost wise, pretty small potatoes compared to the couple of hundred million bucks it cost to put these two guys in space.

2003-05-12T13:07:00.000-07:00

Tim Roemer, You Were Right

The manned space program is in the toilet and the site for the long-cancelled Superconducting Supercollider is being sold so 14 miles of tunnel and the surface buildings can be used for an anti-terrorist training camp. What a freaking waste.

The SSC -- which was cancelled the same year the space station squeeked by on a one-vote margin -- might have cost more than its $8 billion initial price tag, but for damnation's sake, at least it would be doing something useful.

2003-05-12T12:24:00.000-07:00

If you aren't wearing Dockers, you aren't wearing pants

But we now know that AFL player Paul Haselby of the Fremantle Dockers wasn't... shall we say... trimmed.

If he played for Brisbane, I'm sure I could commit a better pun.

Via Tony the Teacher.

2003-05-12T10:38:00.000-07:00

Noam's Wet Dream

The President comes to give a talk at the factory, the factory owner no doubt gets some face time with the President -- and the factory docks the pay of the workers who come to hear the President.

The factory owner says in his defense:

"Since we have another shift that will have to work, it would be difficult to just give credit to the people who didn't work while they were attending the event," Crosby said in a telephone interview. "The really good option was just to offer the chance to work on Saturday. We feel that's a more fair approach."

And, of course, he's right.

But it seems when the Commander-in-Chief shows up, no one ought to have to choose between working their shift and seeing the President.

2003-05-11T20:31:00.000-07:00

L'Chaim!

Herald the arrival of the beautiful Lucy Jane, born Saturday, May 10 at 9:00 am. Mother, Blogmaven (SnarkSpot), Friend and New York Times Best-Selling Author Jen Weiner and Father, Blogmaster (Throwing Things), Law School Chum and All Around Great Guy Adam Bonin are proud and happy and no doubt tired.

Confidential to A.B.: But Children Are Living!

And a long and happy life Lucy will have. Guided by two of my favorite souls on this entire Earth.

2003-05-11T05:15:00.000-07:00

Incriminating Photographs

Tim Blair had suggested we were going to get together for some neocon conspiring. It can now be revealed that we were, in fact, getting together for a fundraisier to help the Australian Communist Party. This issue of the Guardian, which I read earlier in the day while ~~smoking a Cohiba~~ supporting the collective labor of Cuban agricultural workers, even included a piece by Blogosphere favorite John Pilger.

Tim Blair (right), the Pathetic Earthling (further right)

Tony the Teacher, Alan Anderson, the Pathetic Earthling and Tim Blair

Note the streaks may be a result of the inadvertent use of the largest format (I will not expose my audience to Tim Blair, much less me, in 1536 x 2048). But I suspect that anyone who spends any time at all at the Bourbon and Beefsteak probably sees the exact same streaks night after night after night....

There was a fifth blogger there at the Bourbon and Beefsteak, but I can't recall the name of his blog and, in any event, I don't have a picture which includes him.

N.B.: I'll have more photos from our trip to Australia up later (permalinks are screwy, but my archive's back up), but I thought I'd start with the juicy bits.

N.B.: You can read more about this Sydney Blogevent at my April 23 entry (blogger, permalinks, etc., etc.) and also, in today's Tim Blair (blogger, permalinks, etc., etc.)

UPDATE: Bitter Bitch, over at Bitch Girls, thinks that Tim Blair looks like an ex-boyfriend and not in a good way. I'd note that, at least prior to the night's festivities, he looked considerably better than this. At least less Trotskyite.

UPDATE: Someone's got a crush on Tim Blair.

UPDATE: Ouch.

2003-05-10T15:00:00.000-07:00

Whiskey of the Week: Robert Dunford's Last Dram

Okay, the Australian won't let me look at an obituary that is two freaking days old. So I'll just crib it:

One of Australia's last remaining World War I veterans, 104-year-old Robert Dunford, has died.

Mr Dunford, a gunner with the 1st Division Ammunition Column, died at a nursing home in Sydney last night.

With the passing of Mr Dunford, only eight Australian World War I veterans remain alive.

Mr Dunford was enjoying an early evening whisky when he died.

Mr Dunford arrived in France as the armistice was being signed, but stayed a year on the Western Front, cleaning up the battlefields of France and Belgium.

The 19-year old enlisted in April 1918 and arrived in England for training in August of that year before heading to France.

On his return to Australia in October 1919, Mr Dunford worked as a dairy farmer before studying accountancy. Later in life he and his wife Thelma ran newsagencies in [New South Wales].

In 2000, Mr Dunford was presented with the 80th anniversary remembrance medal.

He is survived by two children, eight grandchildren and 12 great grandchildren. His funeral will be on [Monday, May 12].

-- The Australian, May 9, 2003

What a tremendous life. And, at his advanced age, short of being shot by a jealous husband, I can't think of a better way to go.

Rest in Peace, Mr Dunford. You've more than earned it.

2003-05-09T12:44:00.000-07:00

Australia Day 20: Homeward Bound

Sitting here in the Cairns International Airport waiting for our flight to board -- first Sydney, then via Qantas 107 to Los Angeles -- and I'm just reflecting on how genuinely a great time I've had down here. Australia -- and Australians -- are both just tremendous. Tim Blair's hospitality cannot be overstated as well as Tony the Teacher's and the other bloggers I met at the Bourbon and Beefsteak seemingly weeks (okay, it was two weeks) ago.

Pictures will be up shortly, by Sunday afternoon (Pacific Time) I hope. And it will be good to be back in the United States.

In more important news, however, herald the arrival of my friend Kim and Paul's new baby, Sawyer who, mercifully, takes after her mother in the looks department. And this, my friends, is the best news to come from home during our three week absence.

N.B: Lots of these blog entries need some polish -- and I have a few more beer mat blogs to type up.

2003-05-06T16:14:00.000-07:00

Australia Day...err... whatever: Queensland

Okay, lots of lounging around and scuba diving and walkin through the rainforest. Too much fun... and much too important to blog about. Off to Cape Tribulation this morning. Seeya.

2003-05-02T18:45:00.000-07:00

Australia Day 11: Uluru to Cairns

Now this is a damned small airport. Strictly D-class for any fans of Traveller out there.

I woke up this morning around three hoping to catch some more quality starviewing, but it was clouded over. Night before, however, was just stunning. I've never seen as many stars as I did out here -- including the large and small magellenic clouds. Alpha Centuari was so bright you could fool yourself into believing you could see that it was closer than the rest (which, of course, it is) -- and to catch a few of the closer stars to us - Delta Pavonis, Beta Hydri -- no matter how small and insignificant they seem -- they're our neighbors. I'll need to come back here some day. This is a pretty amazing place.

[outta time -- more comment later on cool aborigine legends n' stuf -- soon to be some significant blog-shattering entry... blahblah]

2003-05-01T23:09:00.000-07:00

Australia Day 10: Uluru

Drove down from Alice Springs yesterday -- not much to see, but we enjoyed the desert nevertheless. Despite the groans from the various Australian bloggers, I dutifully listened to both Diesel and Dust and Blue Sky Mining by Midnight Oil on the drive down.

We visited the Olgas yesterday and walked around (but not to the top of) Uluru (nee Ayers Rock) today. A lovely walk -- a good six miles -- but perfectly flat so it wasn't particularly tiring. But the flies -- ye gods -- the flies are horrible. They climb onto you down wind so either your front, or your back, end up covered with literally hundreds of them. They're pretty innocuous assuming you are sporting a net for your face -- which we were --

ugh, this keyboard stinks. Pay terminals need some improvement here.

Anyway, not much to tell you that's clever, but it sure is beautiful out here in the deep desert. Tomorrow we're off to Cairns.

Cheers.

2003-04-29T21:46:00.000-07:00

Australia Day 8.5: Tropic of Capricorn

Had a nice jaunt up to the Tropic of Capricorn (23.5 degrees South) -- what struck me was just how dull the monument was. I like good, cheesy road sign attractions and the Tropic of Capricorn marker did not disappoint. It was painted white box-beam frame holding up a globe at 23.5 degrees -- although, oddly pointed east -- not north or south, so it didn't provide much information if you didn't know what it was you were looking at.

Anyway, it was about as exciting as one of those "Markers of Historical Interest" that mark, say, the foundation of an old armoury or where George Washington and his army once took a dump. So, given that it lived precisely up to expectations, it was worth the drive.

2003-04-29T14:40:00.000-07:00

Australia Day 8: How Would You Like Your Camel Sir?

We arrived in Alice without too many troubles -- I had a window seat for the flight up and was just stunned by the beauty of the desert. Lots of long-dead arroyos, evaporation pools and the like. And my neck is just now recovering from being tilted over the whole 3 hour flight.

I really like the airport here (Mrs E: What airport don't you like?) - where you exit onto the tarmac and the very-modern runway, through economics or geography, dictates that the runway be used as its own taxiway. (I think there are only about 10 commercial flights here a day - 4 jets and a few turbo props that use this place as their hub. Phillip Goldsen in BElize City is sort of like it.

Anyway, Alice itself isn't much of a town -- I was expecting (unreasonably) -- that it would be a bit more Santa Fe with Aboriginal Stuff replaced for Zias and Adobe. Not that I'm compaining mind you, but I found the place to be more like Lihue, Kauai, HI -- with tourist wealth uneasil layered atop native poverty. And that is pretty apparent here, too.

We ate at a neat little restaurant heavy on the local game -- kangaroo, emu and the like - and I enjoyed a Camel Sirloin. It was a bit chewy even when quite rare, so I doubt I'd get it again. But I think it was worth it nevertheless. Unfortunately, they were out of the very high-concept Emu carpaccio.

Anyway, today we're going to drive north to go to the Tropic of Capricorn -- yes, I'll drive 40 miles to take a picture of a sign -- and then to check out both the Australian Aviation Museum here in town as well as the old Gaol ... er... jail. And the rail museum.

Tonight were going to drive a bit north into the desert to see if we can spot some of the cooler deep sky stuff like the LMGs and such.

Edited for a bit of spelling. Hurried earlier to get done with the pay terminal

2003-04-28T16:14:00.000-07:00

Australia Day 7: En Route to Alice Springs

The pay terminals here in the Sydney Domestic airport have keyboards to die for -- tough and responsive -- too bad the connection is utter crap. This is like 300 baud and it keeps prompting for more money so I can't finish.

More later.

2003-04-28T02:30:00.000-07:00

Australia : Day 5 3/4 (Delayed): Beer Mat Blogging

In a more civilized time, the activity was called "writing a journal" - no longer. Now it's blogging, whether you have internet access or no.

I am not one of those travellers who feels compelled to have Italian Food ever night in Tuscany if there is another option worth a try. That may be the way to bet, but if there is a German restaurant or an Indian restaurant worth a try - we will have a go. So I am hear in Sydney, Australia enjoying a pint of Spaten while Mrs E is off running about ---
damn. Double Damn. Australia hospitality has foiled me again. I can no longer blog via beer mat since the waitress saw my predictament and, without asking, brought me a healthy stack of 2 x 3" paper. I meant this entry to be entirely self-referential about the difficulty of blogging via beer mat, and now I must do something else.

I am tinkering with a handful of change and it occurs to me that while Australia is a considerably less grumpy member of the United Nations version of the International Community --- a sort of Homeowners' Association of the Unwilling, where France and Libya have a death grip on the Pet Leash Task Force -- but Australians willingness to attend committee meetings with a minimum of eye rolling has manifested itself in odd ways.

Their dollar coin -- all too convienent (sorry, Sacagewea, I did my part) -- has a default reverse of five kangaroos, but like our own state coins, has a number of variations on the reverse. Mostly, it's nice pro-Australia stuff, like aviation pioneers and centennaries of statehood and such. But I've also noticed a disturbing number of them read like adverts for UN campaigns -- the International Year of the Old, the International Year of the Children forced to Eat Genetically Modified Vegetables and such.

I hope that this is merely that the Australia mint is in cahoots with the Royal Australian Numismatic Society, but if not, I must call my friends in the Black Helicopter Crowd and advise their travel bureau to not come down here, I'd hate for the Australians to have an American go postal on them when they present my would-be traveller with AUD $2.25 in loose change.

2003-04-25T22:37:00.000-07:00

Australia - Day 5 1/2 : 3 Sheets to the Wind

Mrs. Earthling is off doing a tad of shopping in the Rocks here in Sydney. We may try to get together with Tim Blair and his delightful better half, Nadia, for one last shout before Mrs E and I head to the Blue Mountains to do the "Z-Train" (hurry up on that column, Tim!). We will be there for two days before we cruise back to Sydney and then fly to Alice (if nothing else, I'm going to paper-blog the Outback and put it up in Cairns).

There's so much good stuff I'm missing in the blogosphere -- George Galloway, the WMD hunt, and the like -- but Sydney has been too delightful for words. The people are generous to a fault, the weather perfect and the views unstoppable.

As a life long resident of the San Francisco Bay Area -- it pains me to say this -- but Sydney is the most beautiful city on Earth.

UPDATE: I was happy to bring Tim Blair a bottle of Junipero Gin as a small favour for his many kindnesses. He returned the favour by buying me a Deep Fried Mars Bar. Tim was slightly horrified as I ate this -- as I said I would ("Lest We Forget!") -- and then, as I described it as being essentially a chocolate-coconaut tempura -- he was strangley drawn to it. As Bart Simpson put it : "I cannot watch, yet I cannot look away."

UPDATE: A small correction to the Day 3 Entry: the bar was not the "Beef and Bourbon" - it is Bourbon and Beefsteak. Apparently, until three years ago, they only served beer in cans -- tinnys -- for fear of bottles or glasses being smashed into weaponry.

2003-04-25T18:44:00.000-07:00

Australia - Days 4 & 5 : A Brighter Day in Pyongyang

CNN International runs world weather reports at the 0:15, a listing of cities with conditions and temperature and nothing more. It's nice as we're shortly to be headed to Alice Springs, and Alice Springs is the first one that rolls on the screen. Wait a few and we can get Sydney, whose weather has been as delightful as her inhabitants.

And in between, like clockwork, you can get the weather report for Pyongyang (today, sunny and 71). Now, I'm not a media guy but there seem to be three potential constituencies for a weather report: those who are in a place, those who are travelling to a place and those who used to be in a place and are wondering what they missed. This seems tautological, but I believe it safe to say that there is no one who gets CNN International who actually falls into those three categories. Just a thought.

* * * *

Yesterday we awoke to a light rain in Sydney and I turned on the television to catch coverage of the Anzac Day parade. Anzac Day is Australia's most important holiday -- and is a commemoration of the invasion of Gallipoli, the first time Australia fought for the British Empire as a country and not as individual states and is a bit of Veteran's Day, Memorial Day and the Fourth of July all rolled into one -- it was, unfortunately, a disaster -- and the plan, drafted by Churchill, was its author's greatest failing. But for Australians it is a day of both pride and honor. And the coverage completely devoid of any of that hateful, winking irony one sees in the American media.

What struck me most was that there was nothing to say about the members of the Sydney Veterans of the His Majesty's Australian Navy "N" Class Destroyer Association except what should be said - where they fought, why they fought and why we, as members of the Free World, should be thankful to them. No forced sentimentality, no blubbering about how all Australians are -- or are not -- proud of them. No need for opinion when the day itself calls for fact. These men (and women) fought and died for you, the viewing audience and while most of you know this -- all of us must be reminded. Lest We Forget

There is no room on Anzac Day for the others -- for we, the protected. The men and women who wear their medals here, on Anzac Day, with pride in their hearts a smile on their face and a cold beer in their hands, are there as a reminder to we, the protected, that there are sacrifices required in this ugly world -- and these men and women have made them.

* * *

Mrs E and I took the ferry out to Watson's Bay and sat down in the sun to enjoy the view and a couple of pots of beer and speculate on Two Up, a game which is legal only one day a year - Anzac Day. We found a nice table with some sun -- just the two of us -- when a few Australians in their early to mid 20s asked to use the rest of our longish table. We happily obliged and, long before we struck up a conversation, these two blokes toasted "To Australia - Lest We Forget!" No irony, no winking nod and not much commentary. Just a couple of fellows who said their thanks out of any public spotlight.

We had a grand time chatting with these fellows, talking about Australian politics and Karl Marx and our experience at the Bourbon and Beefsteak -- these Australians could not have been more impressed that we'd found the lowest rock in Sydney and turned it over to expose what crawls in this city's compost.

* * *

One of my favorite things in this world are the mass flip-card rallies in Pyongyang. A million people, spit polished and spot trained to flip cards, in sequence, to promote the glory of the Great Leader and the Dear Leader of North Korea. It is a spectacle beyond measure and one of the most amazing organizations of human behavior ever undertaken. And it is done for the glory of the state. Today, whatever happens in Pyongyang under a beautiful spring afternoon, will have for the leader - and nothing that happens against the leader will be tolerated. The people starve and the Dear Leader enjoys Swedish prostitutes and Hennessey (the former, of which I have neither an experience nor an opinion and, as for the latter, I will complain about another day).

* * * *

[Add something witty about the Sydney Swans v. Melbourne Demon's AFL game -- and about the always delightful Blair household -- and nearly getting bitten by a poisonous (or at least socially maladjusted) Australia spider]

On the television, men and women marched not quite in time, worn from war and, more so, from life. Five year old boys marched, here and there, wearing the medals their great-grandfathers won in a war that they might never quite understand and fought for by a man they never will know -- too young and happy to have any care other than to march down George Street with fellows who are proud to have them by their side -- and those boys, free and happy and full of promise living in a country of boundless opportunity and indominitable spirit, in the last analysis, though they may have missed living to see it, are all the reward these men ever wanted -- and more reward than any man should ever need.

* * * *

It was raining in Sydney. And it was the most beautiful day on Earth.

2003-04-23T14:32:00.000-07:00

Australia Day 3: Artillery Tables

It does spin the other way.

I don't mean the sink or the toilet -- that flow is utterly dominated by the design of the sink and the initial flow of water. You need a tray ten feet across and an inch deep with a tiny hole and an hour to kill to tell the difference between the coriolis forces affecting a small body of water. Not that these forces aren't important. Naval artillery shoots quite differently whether you are fighting Jutland or the Battle of the Coral Sea, and woe unto the officer that forgets it. Artillery tables -- the precision guided munitions of their day -- adjusted for particular latitudes so that one could hit the target. No. Not that kind of spin.

I'm talking about the bed. It's three in the morning, and I spent the evening having beers with eight Australians and the bed is spinning anti-clockwise.

* * * *

We took at tour of the Sydney Opera House at 9:30 yesterday morning, and got to hear the symphony warming up for a rehersal -- not quite the full effect, but cool nevertheless. And the SOH is probably as cliche a thing to do as the Golden Gate Bridge... but it's a cliche because everyone goes there, but everyone goes there because it's so damned cool. After, we rang up Tim Blair and arranged to meet at Kingsley's, in Woolloomooloo for dinner and carried on with our day. We walked around the Botanical Gardens and I, of course, was impressed with everything: "Oh, Look, Honey, it's [LATIN NAME REMOVED]!" "Uhhmmmm... that's crabgrass." Or "look, honey, it's [LATIN NAME REMOVED], we should put this in our garden!!" "Hon, that's asphalt." But there was quite a bit of good stuff -- including the flock (pod? murder? school?) of flying foxes I alluded to yesterday. Then we wandered around the Queen Victoria shopping center, which is cool, and then came back for a nap.

One thing we did do was stop by the tobacconist and having picked up a copy of the Guardian (not the UK Guardian, the Guardian which is the newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia) I sat outside here at McMahon's Point and smoked a Cohiba and read John Pilger (no, really, he was the back cover piece on the CPA's rag) and took in the view of the Harbour while Mrs Earthling took a nap.

Which brings me back to the Artillery Tables: don't drink in Australia... not least with Australians... without reasonable preparation. It's different down here.

* * * *

Tim Blair, for all his bluster, is far too modest to want me to say of him that which I think --- that he's a damned nice fellow and much more. But what I can say is this: this man, as cool as he is, he's gotten the better end of the bargain by with his partner-in-crime, Nadia, a delightful a woman as can possible be. Mrs Earthling spent the evening chatting with Nadia and Mrs. Earthling hasn't woken up to catch me up and I'm down stairs in the lobby of our hotel having charmed them enough to let me use their terminal so I don't need walk up a hill and pay for the internet. They even made me coffee.

* * * *

Our evening started pleasantly enough -- with a dinner of an oyster-stuffed filet called a "Carpet Bagger" -- and a lovely white wine called "Cricket Pitch" or something of the sort. Mrs E and I got there a bit early and chatted the finer points of "drink-driving" laws with the barkeep and enjoyed a very tasty comsopolitan as we watched the flying foxes, circling in thermals drawing off the heat of the billion-candle power of the Sydney skyline.

* * * *

We met up with several Australian bloggers later in the evening. I'm missing one here, but with Tony of agblog.blogspot.com and Alan of alananderson.blogspot.comand a third gentlemen whose name (and blog) escapes me. I'm hoping Tim can stick it in a comment if he gets to my blog today. But they all claimed to have read my blog -- and if they hadn't I wish I could have lied as convincingly -- and we just mused about how much the Blogosphere brings the world together -- we've got friends all over the planet now and I, who was never promethian about the internet, can't say enough good things about this.

One cool thing, of course, was getting to remind Tim to check out my friend Adam Bonin's blog -- Throwing Things. What was cool, of course, was that Tim (who didn't know Adam and I are friends) said, more or less: "that's one of the greatest blogs there is. I need to read it more. He's practically the only fellow doing something different in the Blogosphere."

* * * *

Mrs E and I are off to the zoo and then to Bondi Beach with Tim Blair to try a Deep Fried Mars Bar.

I gotta give back the terminal here -- I'm wearring out my welcome -- more on the seemer side of King's Cross - the Beef and Bourbon --and a two-stones too-heavy prostitute who bit my neck to Mrs Earthling's unending amusment.

UPDATE: The story continues...

Now, the Bourbon and Beefsteak is in King's Cross -- I think what passes for the red light district in Sydney or at least comparable to the more rundown parts of Broadway in San Francisco near the Condor Club. This bar had all the charm and decour of a New York City stereo store undergoing its ninth year of a Going Out of Business Sale. And we merry few of bloggers were drinking our share of beer and Mrs E pointed out this rather plump tart who was clearly trolling for business. Well, I think she decided I was the obvious mark among out 6:2 male to female ratio and she came along and kissed one side of my neck and then bit the other. No skin was broken, so unless she had a spray-hypo grafted into her incisors, I think I'm free of any social diseases. But it was an odd exclamation point to an excellent evening.

2003-04-22T21:13:00.000-07:00

Australia Day 2: Tomato and Meat Pie Crisps

What is with non-Canadian Commonwealth Countries that they think any flavour in the world can be distilled and fused with a potato chip? This morning, in jet-lag delirium, Mrs Earthling and I, having slept through dinner and awake and 3 am, wandered down to the vending machine and found, among other choices - Chicken Potato Crisps (not Chicken and anything, just chicken), Bacon and Cheese Cheese Puffs, and Tomato and Meat Pie Crisp flavour. Now, imagine burning a spaghetti sauce, scraping off the unmixed bits and deciding that that was the flavor that needed to be developed into a tasty snack cracker. You would be sued for malpractice if you did such a thing. At least, you hope so, but that flavour associate is now apparently partner in the society of Australian Chip Makers. Frightening.

Anyway, on to happier things -- the weather in Sydney is fantastic, the Botanical Gardens were lovely -- with lots of giant bats (flying foxes?) -- and now were at George's Street "Global Gossip" having just been to Sol Levy, tobacconist extrodinare. Anyway, we're off to do a bit more exploring of downtown and then to dinner with Tim Blair. By the way, there are cheaper ways of getting a Tim Blair-a-lanch to your website than flying to Sydney, but none that promises to be quite as much fun. On the telephone, he dubbed me an honorary Australian for describing myself as "balding and thick around the middle" -- and here I am offering John Howard honorary citizenship for courageously fighting to liberate Iraq and it turns out I can become an honorary Australian for engaging in many of my favorites fo the Seven Deadly Sins.

Cheers.

2003-04-21T21:12:00.000-07:00

Australia Day 1: A Long Ride Downhill

From the Sydney Desk.

Mrs Earthling and I managed our 14 hour flight to Sydney without too much trouble. Fortunately, we had a whole row (4 seats) to ourselves. So Mrs. got 9 of fourteen hours of the flight spent asleep and I did alright with about 7.5. But smooth sailing all the way down here and we're just walking off our jet lag stopping in at a few friendly pubs. The Quayle Ale at Lord Nelson's (named, apparently, in honour of Former Veep Dan Quayle) was quite refreshing.

We're going to get together tomorrow for dinner with a Sydney-based blogger of some note and that should be quite a treat.

2003-04-20T14:57:00.000-07:00

Arion Press

My grandfather was a printer for 60-odd years. One of his apprentices, Andrew Hoyem, went on to form Arion Press, probably the single finest craft bookmaker in the world. Here's yet another great article about Arion Press and its on-going efforts to keep the art of bookmaking alive and well.

2003-04-20T07:24:00.000-07:00

Antipodeal Blogging, Part Deux

Mrs Earthling and I are out the door --- first off to Easter Brunch with my folks, then to the airport --- and Australia!

2003-04-19T14:41:00.000-07:00

Instapundit Drinks Pureed Puppies

It's true. What an evil, evil man.

2003-04-18T19:27:00.000-07:00

Go at Throttle-Up

Now here is some great news. Dick Rutan has unveiled his entry into the X-Prize competition.

I suspect, and indeed I hope, that Rutan (or another X-Prize competitor) is going to make a suborbital hop before the Shuttle is back in operation. The symbolism of a private initative, rather than government program, putting America back into space -- even as a suborbital hop -- will do more for stirring public interest in the prospects of space flight -- and space flight for the public -- than any shuttle flight.

2003-04-18T19:22:00.000-07:00

I hope Scott Peterson has jelly in his pockets

Because that boy is toast.

2003-04-18T15:37:00.000-07:00

The RTB is TCB!

When the Rocky Top Brigade got together a few months ago, I took my role as Master Distiller and Whiskey Advisor to the RTB seriously and sent along the sampler pack of small bottles of the Classic Malts (Oban, Lagavulin, Talisker, Dalwhinnie, Craggenmore and Glenkinchie). Now South Knox Bubba has gone way above and beyond and sent me not only a five-bottle sampler pack of Tennessee bourbon (including one of my all time favorites, the W.L. Weller -- and four I've never had) but the new Dolly Parton CD to boot, which is completely excellent.

Thanks Bubba. You've proved, yet again, that the RTB is TCB!

2003-04-18T11:09:00.000-07:00

What about North Korea?

Yeah, isn't President Bush ignoring the North Korean business? Apparently not.

A swath of North Korea's military and scientific elite, among them key nuclear specialists, has defected to the US and its allies through a highly secret smuggling operation involving the tiny Pacific island of Nauru. The defections have taken place since last October and have been made possible through the help of 11 countries that agreed to provide consular protection to smuggle the targets from neighbouring China, according to sources close to the operation, which has now been wound up.

Noted via Tim Blair.

2003-04-17T16:32:00.000-07:00

I am not available as a talking, 12" Action Figure. This is an American Lie!

The Iraqi Information Minister, now available from HeroBuilders.com.

2003-04-17T11:46:00.000-07:00

The Coming Sandstorm

Victor Davis Hanson, of course, has brilliant things to say about the war. I'm just starting his work, Carnage and Culture, and I think I've learned more from his preface than I have from most whole books, but I digress. Today, VDH had this to say:

"The United States military is now evolving geometrically as it gains experience from near-constant fighting and grafts new technology daily. Indeed, it seems to be doubling, tripling, and even quadrupling its lethality every few years. And the result is that we are outdistancing not merely the capabilities of our enemies but our allies as well — many of whom who have not fought in decades — at such a dizzying pace that our sheer destructive power makes it hard to work with others in joint operations."

Russia is worried and I can't imagine that this whole affair makes North Korea feel any more safe --- or Taiwan any less.

But, I'm guessing that the Defense Ministries of the People's Republic of China are asking themselves three questions:

a) How can we destroy American satellites and how quickly?
b) How will America replace destroyed satellites and how quickly can it do so?
c) What do we need to learn how to do to exploit the time between (a) and (b) in the event of a future Taiwan Crisis?

The answer to the first question is: Yes, and with a few billion dollars behind the program, very quickly indeed. Knocking down satellites isn't hard. The USAF began development of an anti-satellite missile (ASAT) in the late 1970s.

It worked. So, naturally, Congress put a stop to it.

China certainly has the technical expertise to do it. And they aren't developing their own ASAT weapon to clear the skies of our satellites at the start of a shooting war -- the one place they can really weaken our near-total strategic advantage -- they are fools, or worse.

The answer to the second question is: Not very quickly. Even a very reliable system like a Delta launch vehicle takes at least several weeks to prepare, even assuming (as I hope, but doubt) we have replacement satellites in clean rooms in Huntsville and Lompoc to be trucked to the launch sites at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg AFB on six hours notice. Without cheap, reliable access to space, our troops can be left blind, our weapons -- now inhumanely accurate -- can be rendered nearly ineffective.

I hope our fellows in the Pentagon are thinking about this because the answer to the third question is: They're working on it.

The loss of our strategic space advantage -- even for a few weeks -- is not just inconvienent and frustrating like a sandstorm which can be ridden out.

It is the sandstorm.