September 2012 archive

When you think about Cocktails you generally think about distilled spirits and sufficiently filtered and concentrated they have no taste at all, just a burning sensation as it reacts with your mouth.  The 2 most common brands sold are Graves and Everclear.

But that’s why mixers were created.

Oddly enough the most frequent thing to mix with neutral spirits is other types of alcohol that have the aromatic impurities we call ‘taste’.  Blended whiskies, which include almost everything except for craft bourbons, single malt scotches, and some brandies, are put together from different distillations to achieve a particular taste and then balanced with water and neutral spirits to create the desired concentration of alcohol by volume (proof).

Use crappy water, get crappy booze.

Most spirits are sold at between 80 and 100 proof, meaning 40% and 50% alcohol (proof is double the volume) but at those concentrations is too strong in my opinion for proper appreciation and enjoyment.  While I encourage sampling it as presented from the bottle (at room temperature and in a snifter), you’ll enjoy even the noblest single malt or bourbon better toned down a little.  With scotch I order straight up with a side of ice and drop the cubes in one at a time until I have the desired temperature and dilution.  Bourbon gets a splash of branch but I leave it pretty strong and chase it with seltzer (no salt).  Either way it’s for sipping and not pounding back.

If on the other hand you’re looking for semi-instant inebriation and unconsiousness you can do far worse than a Boilermaker or its Depth Charge variant.

Use the cheapest, awfullest beer and liquor you have, taste is no object.  Natural Ice and Dubra are perfect.  Chill your beer as cold as you can without freezing, likewise the booze.  For a Boilermaker just pour a shot (or so) right in the beer.  With the Depth Charge presentation is everything, so use a clear mug that will hold a pint (yes, slightly more than the 12 ounces in your can, you’ll see why in a moment).

Take a fairly heavy clear shot glass and fill it with your liquor, position directly in the center of your beer as close to the surface as you can and bombs away!

In either case open your throat for a shooter.  The reason an Ale Horn doesn’t have a flat bottom is you’re not supposed to put it down!  With a Depth Charge be careful not to break your mug when the shot glass returns to the bottom, though all the kool kidz will wrap their lips around it, pull it out hands free, and swab it with their tongue, before planting it on the bar next to the mug.

Oh, and be careful standing up.  You’re much drunker than you were 30 seconds ago.

Our regular featured content-

• On This Day In History September 24 by TheMomCat
• Punting the Pundits by TheMomCat

And these featured articles-

• Pique the Geek 20120923: Neon, as Inert as Elements Come by: Translator
• Campaigning by: ek hornbeck
• Election 2012: Congress by: TheMomCat
• US Authorizes Terrorism by TheMomCat

Write more and often.  This is an Open Thread.

it can only be failed.

Among some Paul Ryan backers, disappointment at Romney campaign trajectory

By Felicia Sonmez and David A. Fahrenthold, Washington Post

Updated: Monday, September 24, 1:50 AM

Dissatisfaction with the trajectory of the campaign seems highest among Ryan’s most ardent backers. They view Romney’s campaign as having doubled back to a cautious strategy, avoiding Ryan’s trademark big ideas, and hoping President Obama will beat himself.

…

Still, there have been unforced errors, such as the one Ryan made last month when he misstated his marathon time in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt – a misstep that has so become part of Ryan’s national profile that it was lampooned in the season premiere of “Saturday Night Live.”

…

And it’s not that Ryan is neglecting to cite the need to focus on the big problems facing the country. Aside from his first week on the trail, during which he barely mentioned his signature plan to overhaul Medicare, he has raised the issue at the majority of his roughly three-dozen campaign stops as GOP vice presidential nominee, including in his appearance on Friday at the AARP’s annual summit, at which he received a mixed reception.

Rather, the concern of some of the seven-term Wisconsin congressman’s supporters is that nowadays Ryan’s discussion of the big issues facing the country offers more specifics on what Obama has done wrong than what Romney and Ryan would do right.

…

A Ryan spokesman disputed the notion that the campaign has not delivered on its promise of honing in on the big ideas, noting that Ryan frequently focuses in interviews as well as in his campaign-trail remarks on Medicare, tax reform and balancing the budget.

“Only one ticket has had the courage to talk about solutions to the big challenges facing America,” spokesman Brendan Buck said. “Not only has Paul Ryan championed the Romney plan to save and strengthen Medicare – he’s done it in front of Florida seniors and at the AARP. We are running on bold solutions – made even bolder compared to the pettiness of President Obama’s campaign.”

When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly, there’s no – and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem.- Mitt Romney

Likewise Neo-Liberalism-

Obama and the Center-Right Nation He Hasn’t Changed

By: masaccio, Firedog Lake

Sunday September 23, 2012 10:30 am

But he isn’t the only one who dismisses the concerns of his supporters. Barack Obama was elected in large part by people who wanted real changes from the Bush government. They wanted an end to wars, restoration of civil liberties, equality for LGBT people, strenuous regulation and law enforcement directed at the criminals on Wall Street, and economic fairness through support for homeowners and workers. With the notable exception of grudging support for marriage equality and equality in the ranks of the armed forces, Obama and the Democratic Party turned their backs on their supporters. It is impossible to find a single policy suggested by anyone from Paul Krugman to whatever is left of the left that made its way into any piece of actual legislation. No one from the Wall Street criminal class has been investigated, let alone prosecuted.

It was apparent by Fall 2009 that the Democrats believed what the Republicans were saying: America is a Center-Right nation. Time after time, Obama and the Democrats proposed legislation that only a Republican could love, then bargained further to the right to pick up votes from the most conservative Democrats and the least conservative Republicans. Time after time the resulting legislation was nearly useless when action was taken at all. Unions and the hard-working people they represent were probably the single greatest contributor to the Obama victory. They got slapped in the face. The stimulus was too small. Dodd-Frank relied on captured agencies to create rules. Obamacare threw millions of Americans into the maws of the private insurance companies. Every time I hear a Democrat brag on some piece of legislation, I think of the lost possibilities.

The nation was hungry for leadership, starving for action to make things better, desperate for change, and we got a President who was unwilling to push for anything that would actually change the status quo.

Ultimately, both Romney and Obama disrespect their constituents. Romney openly loathes the people he needs, and they know it. They may vote for him, but they know that they will suffer for it.

Obama is more circumspect in public, but look at the people he hires: Rahm Emmanuel who openly loathes the left, and Tim Geithner, who lives to serve Wall Street at any cost, like foaming the runway for bank foreclosures with the lives of millions of homeowners. Obama refuses even to talk to anyone who questions conventional wisdom, which is the nature of the intellectual activity of the left. It’s as if we professional leftists don’t exist for him, in exactly the same way the 47% don’t really exist for Romney.

This is no way to run a country. Ideas matter, policies matter, evidence matters. In a room full of smart people, the smartest person is the room. Romney despises his supporters, and will fill the room with silly people like those at his secret fund-raiser. So far, Obama has refused to listen to the room. He thinks he knows we are a center-right nation and that he can do nothing to change that, that he cannot exercise leadership. I hope that changes if he wins a second term.

Leadership means that the President listens to the room, clarifies thinking and helps everyone see the problems and the possible solutions. When that doesn’t happen, we are governed by a tiny group of jerks, responsible only to their moneymen and reliant on public relations tricks to pacify the masses. That will work until it doesn’t.

Five Big Opportunities on the Economy Obama Missed

By: Jon Walker, Firedog Lake

Monday September 24, 2012 9:32 am

One of the most frustrating things about having a two party political system, especially during the heat of an election, is that many important points get ignored if the don’t fit the partisan dynamic. One of the best examples I feel is the debate about Obama’s record on the economy.

The only arguments most people hear against Obama’s record comes from Republicans, but their criticisms are normally incoherent attacks based on fantasies about confidence and government crowding out the private sector. Most prominent figures who believe in Keynesian economics are at this moment defending Obama poor record mainly because it is at least noticeably less terrible than any proposal from Mitt Romney.

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People trying to defend Obama record from the left will often claim Obama didn’t try to get more stimulus only because Obama knew he wouldn’t be able to get the votes in the Senate. Yet here are things Obama could have done for the economy without Congress but he choose not to do them. Given that Obama didn’t even try to spend all the potential money for stimulus he had at his disposal, it is safe to assume the real reason Obama didn’t seek more stimulus money for Congress was simply because he mistakenly believed the economy didn’t need it.

The behavior and statements of the administration clearly show that they kept underestimating the size of the economy problem for years.

While Bill Clinton is defending Obama by claiming no president could have magically turned the economy to full employment, a honest look at the record would indicate another president could have done a better job even with the constraints Obama faced. Sadly though this critic of Obama’s record from the left is almost completely absent. Careful examinations of Obama’s failing are being completely overshadowed by how misguided Mitt Romney policy ideas are.

It is said they invented Sam because Elmer was too sympathetic.  Originally posted here May 31, 2011.

Adapted from Rant of the Week at The Stars Hollow Gazette

Black Agenda Report‘s executive editor, Glen Ford and Michael Eric Dyson, professor of sociology at Georgetown University and radio host debated the presidency of Barack Obama on Democracy Now! with host Amy Goodman.

Transcript can be read here.

Lon Chaney– The Phantom of the Opera (1925) (1:34)

The history of Lon Chaney is the history of unrequited loves. He brings that part of you out into the open, because you fear that you are not loved, you fear that you never will be loved, you fear there is some part of you that’s grotesque, that the world will turn away from.- Ray Bradbury