…the Canadian edition.
Newly centrist Harper heading for polls upset
Until the Canadian election campaign got under way in late November, Stephen Harper, leader of the opposition Conservative party, was widely viewed outside his home province of Alberta as a truculent and condescending ideologue. That image helped seal the Conservatives’ defeat in the last election, in June 2004.
But voters have seen a different candidate this winter, one more centrist and much more to their liking, setting the stage for what could be one of the biggest upsets in Canada’s political history.
And he likes us ~ as in the U.S. us.
I can’t wait until he insists on being called Kingley Bingley. You know it’s going to happen as soon as he reads this.
Irish king left a wide genetic trail
Scientists say 3 million men are descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages
He’s such a poser.
…Desert Storm started.
I was in NS Norfolk and Major Dad was in Ras Al Gar, Saudi Arabia. His pictures to follow.
But the right man at the right time.
If only he’d had more time.
The West Virginia mining disaster (A Swill Salute to Florida Cracker) has something to do with homosexuals burning in Hell. In my limited imaginative capacity, I really have a problem making a connection. Perhaps you do, too. (God, I hope so.)
So we’re all clear on the dogma behind this hatefulness: this is what Jesus would do…how? I thought we were taught he loves us all? I musta read a different book. But I know for a fact I had better manners than that drilled into me, regardless of religious leanings.
Just because you’re doing something in the name of the Lord doesn’t make it “Christian”. Or “right”. Sometimes it just makes you an ignorant a$$hole.
…since no one’s remembered a little number named Ivan, either. Witness how we were left out of the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act. Bangla-cola might as well be in Asia.
Many on Miss. Coast Feel Overshadowed
GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) — Nicki Henderson has had plenty of reasons to be angry since Hurricane Katrina destroyed her Biloxi home, but it was a simple news item about dislocated dolphins that really made her blood boil.
Henderson lost her temper when she logged on to her computer and spotted this headline: “New Orleans Dolphins Find New Home.” She knew the dolphins actually came from a hurricane-ravaged marine park in Gulfport, not New Orleans.
The headline writer’s error reinforced her belief – shared by many on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast – that New Orleans has gotten a disproportionate share of the news coverage and the nation’s attention in the aftermath of the storm, now more than four months gone.
Unfortunately, all I can tell her is get used to it. If you think it s*cks now, try along about next December. The collective consciousness will be lucky if they can remember Mississippi’s a state, less mind what happened in Gulfport/Biloxi.
Welcome to our world.
Anyone up for one?
…that complements the article…
Ice Wine Is Called ‘Nectar of the Gods’
…about New York State Ice Wines. (Make sure you click through the link that says “Harvesters of Ice Wine”.) I’ve always wanted to try one, but at that price and with my luck, I’d get the $100 half bottle of petroleum.
So to go with the Latour, as I said, I decided to splurgeulate a bit and cook a rib roast. I’d never made one before, but by following Sis’ Bingley-proof recipe it turned out trés yum:
For the side dish I decided to try out a recipe from a book that I’ve gotten a great bunch of steak side dish recipes from (written, oddly enough, by a fellow Virginia grad). The recipe is for Tuscan beans and potatos.
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Bingley’s cable’s out ~ a communication vacuum courtesy of the lovely weather he photographed ~ so say whatever you want while you can!
No ‘P’ or ‘C’ words, though, or I’ll splash ya.
Off to bake cookies. (I watched the Oracle scene in “The Matrix” last night and have been starving ever since.)
…Man of Romance and Action.
A great ball is taking place. African drummers are beating out primitive rhythms. Liveried servants are passing canapés of blackened tapir and wildebeest tartar. Titled Brits, maddened by the prospect of new blood and old money, are gyrating wildly, except for Lydia, who is necking with the butler in the pantry.
MR. BINGLEY, the wealthy Londoner who has rented Netherfield Park, is chatting with Elizabeth and Jane. Elizabeth, exquisitely attuned to her gentle sister’s feelings, intuits that Jane is very much attracted to Mr. Bingley, for she is lying on the floor, clinging to his leg.
Read more »
Several Democrats expressed frustration over what they saw as the Republicans outmaneuvering them by drawing attention to an episode Wednesday when Judge Alito’s wife, Martha-Ann, began crying as her husband was being questioned. That evening, senior Democratic senate aides convened at the Dirksen Senate Office Building, stunned at the realization that the pictures of a weeping Mrs. Alito were being broadcast across the nation – as opposed to, for example, images of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, pressing Judge Alito about his membership in an alumni club that resisted affirmative action efforts.
“Had she not cried, we would have won that day,” said one Senate strategist involved in the hearings, who did not want to be quoted by name discussing the Democrats’ problems. “It got front-page attention. It was on every local news show.”
Gosh, guys! No, no and NO, duh. For all those 50 pound brains in the Democratic Party, they don’t have a frickin’ clue that they should be sending the distressed Mrs. Alito a dozen ROSES for her tears, instead of bitching. Watching her diverted people’s attention from Teddy Kennedy’s rocket propelled descent into real life charicature of the “Watch it LIVE!” Tammy Faye Baker variety. And we’re STILL hammering the boys’ club thing? After their own witness for the prosecution was discredited? Sheesh. I couldn’t pay for someone to come up with this stuff. Why haven’t more of these erudite cosmopolitans listened to one common sense young fellow in their own party?
“George Bush won the election,” said Representative Rahm Emanuel, an Illinois Democrat. “If you don’t like it, you better win elections.”
Not the way they’re going, they won’t.
Yesterday it was 60º and sort of misty-raining.
Today we woke up to this:
22º with 40 mph gusts creating lots of wind-blown snow whiteouts.
The weather changed. It’s Bush’s fault.
Where’s that durned puppy…
…in honor of Mr. Summers and the ‘split infinitive’.
polymath \PAH-lee-math\ noun
: a person of encyclopedic learning
…to lose, sometimes.
After 155 Years, Marine Sentries Removed
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — A Naval Academy tradition that lasted 155 years has come to an end: The Marine Corps sentries who guarded the gates and the crypt of Revolutionary War Capt. John Paul Jones have been withdrawn and sent to war.
The four dozen Marines were released from their security duties in a ceremony on Friday and are being replaced by Navy enlisted personnel.
“Pray for them, for many of them are going into harm’s way,” a chaplain said in an invocation for the departing members of the Naval Academy Company, Marine Barracks.
Vintage-wise, I’ve lived a pretty charmed life. I graduated HS in 1982, took my University degree in 1986, and I got married in 1989. Those are simply the 3 finest wine years of the past century. Sadly, my parents lacked the knowledge at the time to properly commemorate (oh fine, I split the infinitive: “commemorate properly”. And to boldly go where no man has…) the first two events with a case or two of delightful treats, and I sadly lacked the depth-of-pocket to properly attend to the later event. But I have managed over the years to scrape and scrabble out a few bottles of my favorite chateau. Unfortunately from a wine standpoint, my daughter was born in 1993, which was an awful year everywhere. I don’t think she had anything to do with it.
Anyhow, what started me thinking along these lines was an article in Friday’s Wall Street Journal, where the folks who review the wine talked about coming across the bottle of 1989 Chateau Latour in their cellar and wondering “is it time?” I must confess the exact same thought occured to me over Christmas. I have a few bottles of Latour, and they’ve been with us for many years, from apartment to apartment to rented house to owned house, kept under the best conditions I could manage but conditions far from ideal, and I thought “should I…should I?”…and I didn’t. I haven’t. I couldn’t. It’s a strange love affair that we have with those special bottles. We remember where we bought them, how we’ve cared for them. We guard them like precious children, waiting for that special moment to open and enjoy them. Is this particular moment special enough? Do you know how much this bottle is worth! When will they be ‘perfect’? When is the right time? When it’s opened, it’s gone forever. There’s a finality there that stays the hand. Oh, the torments we put ourselves through! And there have been times when I waited too long, when years of excited expectation are lost in a powdered cork, in a flat, dead wine, in a sour vinagrette.
So the article made me think. By gum, I’m opening one tonight.
It’s close enough to my birthday, so that can be the reason. But the real reason is I love life. I love my wife. And I love wine. What the heck other reason do I need?
So I bought a big honking rib roast. I’m making a nice sage-accented side of new potatos and canelli beans. We’ll have a salad with a bleu-cheese vinagrette dressing.
And we’ll open this
I’ll let you know how it goes.
Update and bump below the fold
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45 weeks a year of 697 channels with not one damn thing to watch, so WHAT DO THE S.O.B.’S DO??
Schedule the National Football League Play-Offs, the Eukanuba Cup National Championship AND The National Figure Skating Championships for the EXACT Same 3 HOUR BLOCK on Saturday night.
Jacka$$es.
UPDATE: And just for the record: No, Michelle Kwan should not get a free pass into the Olympics.
There. I said it.
~ an on going theme as we’ve covered cannibals, zinful types, green hams and fine wines this week ~ the Carnival of the Recipes is up at The Common Room. Yums!!
I love Zins. I adore Zins. So I’m always on the lookout for new Zins to try, especially in the $13 or so-ish price range. Sure, some of us can plunk down 30 clams with out blinking an eye, and I certainly have a few muy caro bottles, but for, say we say, every day drinking that simply ain’t an option. This is why I’m so fond of aussie Shiraz, where you get great big jammy wines for under $20 pretty consistantly.
Anyhow, I’ve been trolling the Zin Bin at the Evil Clown looking to see what jewels I could discover, and I came across this Clos du Bois Zin and I thought I’d give it a try. It was $12.99.
Well, if you are a fan of big Zins, this isn’t for you. It’s frankly one of the most un-Zin like Zins I’ve ever had. It is a soft, thinnish sort of wine that frankly tastes like a merlot, albeit a pretty decent one. With Zins I want/like big gobs of jam, a fair bit of spice and cedar, and by gum darn near 15% alcohol. This falls short on all accounts. Don’t get me wrong, it is a pleasant-drinking enough wine…but it’s not a Zin with a capital “Z”.
…to Westerville, Ohio!!
The central Ohio city of Westerville, once known as the “dry capital of the world,” is dry no more.
A pizza parlor on Thursday became the first establishment in Westerville’s uptown business district to legally serve a beer since 1875.
I’ll take a slice and a cold one, please.
Oh, I see Miss Emily’s celebrating too!
He can’t think of things like this to say:
“Figure skating is an amazing ride,” Weir said. “You’re feeling like the lowest scum in the pond two hours ago, and go to the prettiest flower in the pond…”
Bingley has no such poetry in his soul. And has refused to wear any less than both ruby red gloves ever since Michael Jackson broke his heart.
We’ve had this. 
We’re looking forward to more.
…in the sports world. But rabid haters ~ like Bill and Kcruella ~ best avert their eyes, lest you be stricken BLIND by the radiant GLORY of it. Better yet…
DON’T CLICK THROUGH AT ALL !!
For the children.
People | Mr. Bingley | 
January 17, 2006 1:26 pm | 
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