I kept score this time! This is a scoring method introduced to me by an old roommate of mine in '04, is loosely adopted from hockey's +/- stat, and is completely subjective. Ideally, (a) there should be beer involved, and (b) the score should track the amount of bullshit used in the debate, but I've waffled this time, and allowed relevance to enter the mix. The raw scorecard is here. My initial scoring tally (prior to corrections):
John McCain: +26
Fred Thompson: +20
Mike Huckabee: +19
Rudy G: +19
Tom Tancredo: +11
Duncan Hunter: +8
Ron Paul: +6
Anderson Cooper: +5
Mitt Romney: 0
CNN Production: -6
Further notes:
The candidates were fish-in-a-barrel all night, and there will definitely be fallout. That sound you hear is the burble of 'conservative' propaganda tanks generating "talking points" decrying CNN as enemy and candidates as brave combatants...
Anderson Cooper gets a hero tag for detecting (and detonating) Romney's Bible pitch, exposing Romney as a less-charming version of John Edwards. (i.e., they're both peddlers of snake oil, but Edwards' customers need the stuff)...
Reagan this, Reagan that. Reagan is a closer match to Bush Jr. than anything else, and making claim to Reagan's legacy is going to cost the candidates in the general...oh, wait. I forgot about the Democrats. Never mind...
There were quite a few "Wow, I'm going to get whacked for this answer" moments; it was interesting to see which candidates (McCain, Giuliani, Thompson, Paul) took their medicine, and which ones (Romney,Huckabee, Giuliani) didn't...
Ron Paul is officially a one-note band...
Fred Thompson undercut the entire party with the "we've all hired people..." jab (referencing Kerik, per MSNBC blog). I interpreted that comment as "Yeah, we're Republicans, we do most of the hiring in this country anyway."
Thompson torpedoed Romney and Huckabee, but Huckabee was too wrapped up in preaching to care. Expect the Bible-thumpers to turn out in droves...
There was not one single mention of Faith-based Initiatives during this debate, and that pisses me off...
According to the above, I'm a John McCain fan, and I'm mostly ok with that. The "surge strategy" term is just a garbage buzzword, though. Surge is a vile-tasting soft drink, not a strategy...
I'm trying out the following recipes (first one is in the oven now); hopefully they will turn out better than the last time I attempted Thanksgiving cookery...
Pecan Roast
1 1/4
cup
bread crumbs
1
cup
pecans or walnuts
1/2
cup
evaporated milk
2
whole
eggs
1 1/2
cup
milk
2
tsp
onion
1
tsp
salt
1/4
tsp
sage
Beat eggs. Add all ingredients; mix well. Place in greased pan - Bake @ 350 - 1 hr.
My initial reaction is: "needs Tony C's (or similar seasonings)", but I'll sneak this into dinner tomorrow, and see what happens.
Tomato Loaf
2
cups
ground beef
1
whole
med. onion
1
cup
corn meal
1/3
cup
shortening
1
tsp
salt
2
whole
eggs
1
cup
tomatoes
1
tsp
paprika
1
tsp
pepper or chili powder
[may substitute 1 can cream-style corn for corn meal] Fry meat and onions. Add remaining ingredients. Mix Well. Bake in greased loaf pan, 350 x 30 min.
This one, I'll wrap tonight and nuke tomorrow, because I'll be using my loaf pans for...
Chocolate Pound Cake
2
sticks
butter
1/2
cup
shortening
6
whole
eggs
3
cups
flour-sifted
1/2
cup
cocoa
3
cups
sugar
1
cup
milk
2
tsp
vanilla
1/2
tsp
baking powder
1
pinch
salt
Cream butter and shortening - add sugar gradually. Add eggs one at a time. Sift flour, salt, cocoa & baking powder; add to mixture alternately with milk and vanilla. Bake in 10" tube pan - 325 x 1 1/2 hours.
If there's some reason why I don't either make it to sister's place for Thanksgiving, or leave sister's place before Saturday, this cake would be it. The only thing missing from this recipe is bacon, and if I were worthy, I'd use bacon grease for the pans.
How much trouble do I want to get into for Thanksgiving? Pumpkin pie, the standard Thanksgiving offering, isn't quite what I have in mind, although the new oven will be more than capable of baking such things. Cookies are another option, based on any number of recipes. Biscuits or rolls would also work. however, none of those involve much in the way of risk of disaster. Pralines made on a gas stove....now, that's what I'm talking about. Can I finish the batch before char-welding the sugar to the bottom of the pot?
I finally broke down and went searching online for the mythical product known as the 3M Command Adhesive Large Strip. Not the hooks, not the multi-size refill pack (which I can't find locally, either), just the Large Strips:
UPC: 051131851269
Product Code: 17023P
I've ordered enough to populate the walls of the new place with the remaining framed art.
I also got industrious yesterday, and repaired a folding table and broken chair. So, when the table's cheap, plastic clips give way, secure each pivot tube to the tabletop with two 1-inch conduit clips and some 1/2-inch screws.
This game, for four players, was quite fun; it is a hex-based placement game, where players make roads from a chosen starting location to and between randomly-placed villages of various sizes, over varying terrain. Points are eventually scored based on rudimentary supply and demand: (village size - player shops) == (number of points allocated to each player's shop in that village), with a minimum of zero.
The board and pieces are made from heavy stock, and are illustrated quite nicely. Scoring is rather difficult to keep up with during the game; and this makes for more interesting gameplay. The lack of persistent randomness is a bonus as well.
There's a profuse load of glib bullshit over at Peach Pundit today; given the drought, I suppose it was a matter of time before we started hearing this "water market" argument around here.
Keep in mind, we're talking about municipal water systems not the shelves full of bottles and jugs at the supermarket. Supposedly, "market-pricing" of water is supposed to allow Pike and other nurseries to continue to operate, by passing on the increased cost of water to the consumers in some form of "high margin, low volume" scheme.
So, we take evil (basic resource "market"), wrap it up in a crisis (drought), and start pimping it around like it's going to solve anything. And, to reinforce the "message", we have choice blather such as: "Watering bans don't work", and "building reservoirs" (aka buffering more water for later use)..."eh, it's a good idea, but it still doesn't solve the problem of water restrictions." Stay on message...stay on message!
The sad part is that 20+ years of talkhate radio probably has that writer convinced he's correct, and there's no measure, short of injecting sense directly in between his brain-halves, to convince him otherwise.
And so, the Democratic Trial Balloon Parade hit Sin City, and the candidates did posture for the crowd and viewing audience. I joined the party late, and only after the debate did I remember I should be keeping score. So, here's my incomplete scoring, to be filled in on further review:
Gov. Bill Richardson:
His foreign policy will apparently be to defer to his VP (Biden, IMO): +1 (stalling).
Reminded Kucinich that governors don't vote on legislation: +3 (not me).
Reminded audience that governors don't have an 11% approval rating: +2 (not me).
Doesn't support the border fence, because it won't work, and Congress only funded half of it: -1 (practicality), -2 (pants-down)
Rep. Dennis Kucinich:
On why he voted against the Patriot Act: "Because I read it." +2 (surliness), +2 (blatancy).
Runs down every major flip-flop vote in the past 6 years, and sums up with "It would be nice to have a President who's right the first time." +1 (surliness) +3 (contrast)
Claims 75 votes in the bag for an Iraq proposal, for submission after Bush leaves office. Disagrees with questioner's premise of division within the country: +1 (surliness), +2 (school is in), +1 (vaporware), +2 (sowing mistrust amidst the opposition).
Caught laughing at Clinton's claim of respect for the other candidates: +1 (snarky).
Didn't specify which senators (namely, any of the other three on stage) were on board with his Iraq proposal: -2 (missed opportunity).
The office potluck dinner is the unheralded "third feast" of the holiday season, and arguably, closer to the original harvest celebrations than most of the family get-togethers of today's society.
Checking the radar...there's real rain coming through north Georgia, like it's supposed to. It's a day late, but we'll definitely accept it with eagarly-awaiting buckets.
Atlanta? An art center? It's more likely than you think! ArtRelish, as spotted on Metroblog:ATL, is a recent blog pertaining to the art scene in Atlanta, which is likely more underground than the music scene.
That's the moral of today's story, as ol' Sonny-Boy's gonna hold himself a come-to-Jesus meetin' today, with some religious folk of all strains to go pray for the good Lawd to give ourselves some Rain.
And for today's AJC-disallowed blog comment:
[insert string of unprintability here]. Sonny Perdue is now in the same category as Kathleen Blanco.
When the governor and his party, after (n) years of obstructing anything in the way of preparation for this inevitable circumstance, offers up a prayer meeting as a valid response to a crisis that is a direct function of the that party's warped worldview, that is a sign to pack one's bags and get the hell out of Dodge while one still can.
A couple of the local blogs have linked in video of a campaign speech from Sen. Obama, with sentiments in the "best form/he can win" range. And those posts may well be correct. I just get depressed at the thought of this speech as being the best the Democratic Party has to offer, and cringe when I hear a candidate mention that "saying what we think people want to hear, just won't do", in the middle of a 15-minute speech touching every talking point in the current party playbook.
And in a nod to Moore's Law, let's embed YouTube's flash player for the video in question:
My mental outlook is much improved, it seems. I had a good feeling about poker yesterday evening, and made a last-minute decision to play. I showed up, claimed the last of 40 seats, led my table for most of the open and midgame, and won after the final table's chip leader dispensed half his chips to the other players at the table. I made some good calls: once with 2 pair vs. flush draw (resulting in full house), and once with trip-Kings vs. second pair (with a flush draw showing). I also never got behind the 8-ball, only losing small percentages of my stack as the evening progressed. Score one win, one auto-bid for the season final, and one return to form.
Watch civilization descend into the abyss, in real time. Seriously, this is one of the better uses for Google maps I've seen yet -- currently listing terrorist ('and other suspicious') activity, and Amber Alerts in the U.S.
I think it's really a matter of population shifts; enough people have moved here (legally or not) to outnumber landholders to the degree that such a plan is feasible. As discussed earlier, georgia is a red state, aka plantation state, so this type of tax plan should not be too surprising, given the population increase.
Georgia house speaker Glenn Richardson has unveiled portions of the tax scheme he's pitching on behalf of some Reagan supply-sider, a rundown of which sales tax exemptions are to be kept or tossed is listed here. This is interesting stuff! Peach Pundit has labled Speaker Richardson the "Tax Jesus", and it seems the savior of all property only rates Two Kings: the Medical and Farming industries. So this means the role of the third King is up for grabs. Considerations may be sent to Speaker Richardson's applicable fund gatherers.
Now that we have some details, we may be able to add some voices beyond the local control issue. Lots of stuff to chew on over the next month or two. However, this list seems smaller than the list of exemptions. So, Beer Job #1: find out what isn't being advertised.
Has anyone considered the federal income tax effects of this shift? Last I checked, individuals can deduct either state/local income or sales (not both) taxes as part of itemized deductions. Property taxes are also deductible.
So basically, property owners who pay enough mortgage interest to itemize, and also deduct property taxes, shouldn't make a clean getaway with these changes.
Renters may want to itemize their sales taxes now, though. Save all receipts, etc. $5350 (in '06) is largely unreachable, but a 10% floor for deductible sales tax is not difficult: $800/mo rent + $20/mo water bill (before drought rate restructuring) + $300/mo food == 1120/mo == 537/yr. new sales tax @ 4%.
Also, I'm glad to see the state government intends to reclaim some of the enormous amounts of assistance granted to MARTA over the years.
And in other news, I finally got off the couch and set this page's font to something useful: Lucida Console. If you don't have it, get it.
Gold hit $800/oz. That would be $800 in 2007 dollars, which is more like $400 in 2003 dollars. So much for savings; they're made worthless as we unwind the useless positions created by the credit junkies.
And speaking of...heads are starting to roll as the extent of the financial rot is being felt. And think: the relevant interest rates are down 75 basis points in the past few months. This scenario will likely get worse over the next year.
Musharraf has decided to play Saddam's gambit: The truce with the Taliban was one stall tactic, this is another.
The Kurdish separatists are also playing Saddam's gambit, and are asking to get their asses kicked, hard. Turkey should be glad the Kurds don't have a separate religion, or we'd be actively supporting the separatists. As it stands, Erdogan is visiting D.C. this week, and is likely to extract concessions of some form.
The governors of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia ran to D.C. to look productive, and to make W look effective; the net result is a 16% drop in outflows from Lake Lanier. Joy. I still see lots of squeaky-clean cars around here.
Hurricane Noel was our best chance at real rain for the rest of the year, and it was deflected by not one, but two consecutive cold fronts. And that, folks, is our luck in 2006 and 2007.
One more water note: Apparently, the AJC didn't like my opening of a 'death pool' for when the first water-rage shooting will take effect in Atlanta Metro. So, I have dibs on April 28, 2008, North Fulton.
That's the underlying message from a Macon court today, as linked from Peach Pundit. Genarlow Wilson's recent shot against the primary tool of the Red State has been seconded. When I read this, I recalled the television of Berliners expanding a newly-made hole in The Wall. That sound you hear, my friends, is the sound of freedom ringing in the air, after a long, long absence.
