Drink Blog

At Thanksgiving, I blogged about my choice of alcoholic beverage. Here's my Christmas Eve libation. It's fantastic. From here

Silky Kiss (makes 2)

1 shot rum
1 shot triple sec
1 shot store bought eggnog

Pour into cocktail shaker with ice (you have a cocktail shaker don't you?), shake, and strain into champagne glasses halfway up. Fill the rest with champagne. Be careful. The champagne mixes with the eggnog to make a foam that easily overflows.

Natale hilare et Annum Faustum!

The presents are wrapped and bagged, the stockings stuffed, and Santa's plate holds only artfully placed crumbs (nothing says Santa was here like crumbs). Visions of racetracks are still dancing in the head of the six-year-old, blissfully unaware that the day he has been counting down toward has arrived.

Six is the magic age for Christmas. Belief in Santa is in full force, egged on by the arrival of a letter from the man himself and reinforced by Mom who reminds him Santa is somehow always watching. His room has been perpetually clean, and he has been treating his sister like a princess, always aware of the omnipresence.

This Santa scheme is a fabulous idea. My parents didn't know what they were missing when they shunned the whole Santa phenomenon during my childhood. I doubt I would have fallen for it. But little William de Scribbler didn't seem to notice that Santa's letter was posted with a one cent stamp, uncancelled (I'm cheap a tightwad a monetary genius), or that it arrived on Christmas Eve, a mail-free Sunday. He may have questioned why Santa must have skim chocolate milk, but was alert enough to hush me when I mentioned Santa's waistline.

Sure, many of the inconvenient discrepancies of Santa can be explained away with magic; a billion children served in one night is easily the result of time zones and super sonic sleigh speed; Santa's handwriting looks like Mommy's, but so does many people's -- it's a popular style; it's true that most reindeer don't have red noses, but Rudolph drinks a lot. It's a stressful job.

And the six-year-old is now awake and dancing with excitement. Yes, he commented on the cookie crumbs.

Merry Christmas! (Or glædelig Jul, if you prefer.)

Carter Jumped the Shark

In my opinion, Carter jumped the shark when he first entered politics, but I was to young to remember then. Anyway, as an ex-president Carter certainly jumped the shark when he gave in to Kim Jong Ils nuclear program, but you have to blame that one on Clinton, not Carter. Certainly, Carter has jumped the shark with his recent book on palestine - especially when liberals like Alan Dershowitz says your an idiot.

Carter has gone even beyond the errors of his book in interviews, in which he has said that the situation in Israel is worse than the crimes committed in Apartheid South Africa. When asked whether he believed that Israel's "persecution" of Palestinians was "[e]ven worse . . . than a place like Rwanda," Carter answered, "Yes. I think -- yes."

How pathetic....

No tax increases

Jim Pinkerton writes that President Bush is considering raising taxes. I doubt this is the case and Bush was most likely only indicating that he is willing to listen to all ideas, which is a reasonable response. Nevertheless, if Bush caves to a tax increase, I will be pissed. Bush has done a good job with judges, on fighting terrorism, and on taxes. In my opinion, these successes make a great legacy despite the increased spending (which was the Congress' fault, not Bush's. While tax increases may be supported by the likes of Federal Farmer and the other psuedo conservative-paleocons here who all want to see Bush go down in flames, that should be signal enough that tax increases are a very bad idea....

Baker = Chamberlain??

I'm not quite ready to go that far (although I'm this/close), but David Zucker of "Airplane!" fame apparently is, and does so in his unique style.

Strangers on my flight

Here's the link to the Frank Sinatra parody that some of us talked about at the debate last night.

Resolved: Bring Back Blue Laws

Debate tonight, Dec 13, at the University Club.

Map and directions here.
Full Whip Sheet available here.
Drinks and banter at 7 p.m.
Debate begins precisely at 7:30.

This is the last debate of the term and the last opportunity to qualify to petition for Membership.

Kofi Annan -- Outta Here!

Hey, Kofi, don't let the door hit ya on your way out! Whew!

But what do we know about Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General-Elect? A quick surf revealed nothing alarming. Well, he has been a bureaucrat his entire life. Red Flag. And he did actually campaign for his new position as figurehead of the United Nations. Big Red Flag. But by his very nature, a Secretary General of the UN would be an unsavory character.

The John Birch Society does not like Ban Ki-moon. Of course, the John Birch Society would not like anyone heading the UN. The JBS does not like anyone who has ever said anything favorable about the UN, which is one of their beefs with Ki-moon. I like the John Birch Society.

John Kerry -- How not to apologize

This letter from John Kerry to the father of a serviceman in Iraq is, well, reminiscent of the hooker that charges extra for sincerity. The Dad’s response comments better than I can or have a right to.

The ISG Report

I am not sure what to make of the Iraq Study Group Report. Most of it is actually nothing new. I think in the end Bush will put it in the drawer where it belongs.

The report is supposed to be drafted by the Foreign Policy "Realists" - aka foriegn policy paleocons. These are the same folks who wanted to stay with the British crown during the revolution and wanted to let the South go during the Civil War. They are also the same group who freaked out when Reagan called the Soviets the evil empire. Nothing gets accomplished under the realists approach. They are the George McClellans of history.

Foreign policy realists are to their core anti-American, which is why all of the anti-american groups around the world hailed the ISG report.

Bush's idea for the middle east - to try and create democracies and turn a new leaf in an area that has only known corruption and tyranny for hundreds of years, is still the only new and fresh idea. WHy would we attempt to adopt a realist approach that has already proven in the past to be a failure. Yes, it is turning out to be difficult, but not nearly as difficult as other challenges in the past.

Let's hope Bush sticks it out.

"Happy Feet": Liberal Propaganda?

The answer to the question stated in the subject of this post is a resounding "YES!" I told my kids I'd take them to a movie yesterday afternoon if the Bears won (and they did, in a rather ugly fashion against an even uglier Vikings team), and they chose the animated movie "Happy Feet". So off we went.

It starts out fine, and by about 20 minutes into the movie, I think it's going to be one of those "little creature is different than all the other little creatures, is shuned by the group, befriended by one, is banished, goes on an adventure, come back, saves the colony and is elevated into hero status" kind of movies. Generally predictable, a warm if squishy "everyone has value" message.

And I was right. EXCEPT along the way, they manage to:

• Poke fun at mono-theistic religion
• Portray humans as evil
• Pump up the United Nations
• Push the agenda that all fishing (at least around the southern nether regions of our planet) should cease
• Make the "plastic six-pack ring stuck around an animal's head" a major storyline
• Screw up Stevie Wonder's "I Wish", one of his greatest (Penguins should not sign this song)
• AND heavily stereotype some Latin-American speech and culture traits (Puerto Rican, I think - it was darn funny with Robin Williams doing the voiceover, but in our PC culture today, I'm really surprised that this has not created an outcry)

I'm going to have to send my youngest son (4) back into the Family Festivus Re-education Room, as when his mother asked about the movie, he said "it said we should stop eating fish". I've clearly done a better job with my older son, as when asked by me what he thought of the message that we should stop fishing, stated "someone has to be on the top of the food chain - might as well be us. And there's plenty of fish out there".

Fellow conservatives, we are missing the boat by allowing liberals to create the majority of these animated kiddie films.