American Madness

In her column in today’s New York Times, 2/23/08, “A Bad Year to be a Mallard,” Gail Collins quotes several of the current and former candidates regarding their liking for hunting:

“I’m pretty sure there will be duck hunting in heaven, and I can’t wait.”
— Mike Huckabee

“I’ve been a hunter pretty much all my life.”
— Mitt Romney

“I’ve always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints if you will.”
— Mitt Romney, amending the record once it was pointed out that he had never had a hunting license.

“Maybe he can get out his small varmint gun and drive those Guatemalans off his yard.”
— John McCain

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Adam will like this post.

I highly recommend The Angry Economist. It’s rare that we really think here at AM. Mostly we tell you about cool ideas, products, culture. The AE appears to think every day. Not easy to do.

Teaching Climate Change

A California legislator wants the state’s science cirriculum to teach climate change. Climate change is a documented fact. Within recorded human history we have gone through two 1500-year warming / cooling cycles. There’s evidence on every continent of this. But human-caused global warming is bullshit. Basically, we’re being asked to believe that the inevitable warming is *more* warm *now* than it *should* be. We have zero evidence of that. Nobody can say with any precision how quickly the earth warms when it warms. It was warmer during the Roman Warming than it is now. Fig trees grew in northern Italy where they don’t grow now.

Yeah, teach climate change, but teaching global warming is as bad as teaching creationism. They’re both faith-based education.

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

Oh, and there’s a Josh Groban cameo, for all you rabid Groban fans.

Videos after the jump:
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Perhaps one day, when we are not all working to pay the rent, we will have time to develop a simple “buy this wine for this entrée” guide. It will appear on the right-hand side and include a dozen or so can’t miss pairings. If I were to be tasked with this project today, I’d have Portherhouse Steak in the entrée column and 2000 Bordeaux in the wine column. Then I’d place scallops in the line below paired with Michel Brock’s Sancerre, seeing as how this delightful, crisp Loire Valley white did wonders when paired with our scallop meal.

Winery: Domaine Michel Brock
Grape: Sauvignon Blanc
Region: Sancerre, Loire Valley, France
Year: 2006

Source: FreshDirect.com
Price: $23

Color: Pale yellow

Nose: First whiffs gave me grapefruit, lemon and a touch of vanilla while Mrs. Wines of FreshDirect picked up heavy floral scents. With a little more time, notes of melon and grass were detected.

Taste: We tasted this wine in two ways. First, was the normal tasting, exclusive of the food pairing. Upfront, the wine presents honey and sweet fruit taste that compliment the strong minerality nicely. As the wine moves to mid-palate tastes of crisp celery and lettuce come out then move away for more tart fruit flavors, such as grapefruit, which stays with the wine through the end. The finish is long and enjoyable as the citrus notes subside into a pear aftertaste. With the scallops, the wine brought forth melon and kiwi flavors, and perfectly complimenting the scallops’ natural seaside flavor. (more…)

Name all the:

• States in the U.S.
• U.S. Presidents
• Countries of Europe

From Slate, God bless them.

Frank Rich. Damn. This is a well researched and extremely compelling column. He and Gail Collins are now my favorites. Maureen Dowd is occasionally funny, but I’m always reminded that she’s no Anna Quindlen. And Bob Herbert changes lives, but mostly he just moralizes. David Brooks is a clown who has made stuff up in the past. And then there is the awfulness that it Roger Cohen. Like some hilarious modernist version of a Greek sage, Friedman can’t speak without using absurd metaphors. Kristof exists to make you remember that no matter how much good you might do in America, there is always the awful reality of some impoverished nation to make you feel bad about the world. And now we have William Kristol to contend with, which should prove interesting.

But enough. Read The Audacity of Hopelessness and marvel at the fine art of column construction as performed by a master. It’s about time he got the Pulitzer. I mean, if they’re going to give one to Fifth Grade Book Club essayist Michiko Kakutani…

The NYTimes, February 18, 2008, in an article entitled “Luxborough Journal Tally Ho! A Determined Crew Hunts for Fox Hunters” discusses some of the pitfalls of a group of people in England who seek to enforce the ban on foxhunting. In discussing their successes and failures they state:

“Losing cellphone contact with Mr. Tillsley, they paused to reminisce about earlier forays, such as the day they hid so well that they were flushed out by a pack of hounds. Or the times they have seen adulterous members of the hunt ducking quickly into the bush for “some rumpy-pumpy,” as Mr. Floyd put it.”

Now, in connection with “rumpy-pumpy” a disagreement has arisen in my office as to the sexual proclivities of the adulterous members that are being discussed. Does rumpy-pumpy refer to gay sex on the hunt? And, if it refers to heterosexual adulterous activities, shouldn’t it be humpy-pumpy?