AdamSmith

Your point about food products (what a term itself -- "processed cheese food spread," etc.) being processed for 50-year bomb-shelter shelf life is the heart of the matter. When WWII ended, the American food industrial complex -- General Foods, General Mills (funny all those generals, huh?), etc. -- were suddenly deprived of their market for military rations. And so the marketing genuises jumped to work ... and promptly convinced the American housewife that these companies' prepackaged salt-laden crap was not only a "convenience" but, somehow in one of the more stupendous marketing triumphs, even "more nutritious." James Beard and numerous others have noted how this was the ruination of a two-century-plus tradition of homely but extraordinary domestic cuisine. Alice Waters, certainly Julia Child, Beard himself and others have all helped start the long march back. Thank the gods.

The local craft brews, if you are anywhere they are made, are so much better than any mass-produced and -distributed yak piss, as so aptly put above. A business acquaintance who once worked in a brewery in Australia (Carlton) explained to me that so many mass-market beers are so shitty, watery and bitter because the brewers save $ by skimping on the malt content, then covering up the resultant weakness by dumping in too many hops. Another thing we have to put up with in U.S. is the legal requirement that beer has to be pasteurized. One U.K. pub visit and one sip of their unpasteurized brews can put one off of our boiled-to-death crap for life.

Or little Sears & Roebuck home generators fueled by those exotic substances gasoline and diesel fuel. ...Or, down here in central and eastern NC, by methane, plentifully available from proudly produced local hog shit!

Market share. Whatever they protest contrary.

This is good news. On t'other hand, my momma is an expert hand at getting SSA and other gummint admins to do some small fraction of their appointed rounds. She worked in NC state government for years, in the state revenue department (collecting NC's share of interstate trucking taxes, where among other things understanding how to wrong-foot the Feds' greedy idiocies was paramount). Then my papa, a postal worker, kicked the bucket at age 41 of massive coronary in 1968. Mama proved herself Superwoman in the innumerable days (it stretched over two ensuing years) sitting in government offices, dragging out of them fulfillment of their miserly commitments in death policies and the like. The foregoing is a hell of a diatribe. Just that my faith in the system's capability to enact and deliver on governmental commitments is weak if not, actually, nonexistent. If they aren't inscribed quite explicitly into the Constitution itself. My grandfather's death at the hands of the VA in 1963 likewise.

Why that puts me in mind of this I can't think: http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html ...The hat trick gets old, but your cadences make it so irresistable!

!!! Is he actually working on one?

Opinions remain varied about Paulson. But one of many things that I liked in his book was how he put such strong emphasis on Bernanke, Geithner, Frank and a few others being people whose judgment and honesty he trusted absolutely, in their collective groping toward some way out of the perilous mess. (In re rejecting former ideological purity, I loved what some commentator said -- approvingly -- at the time on NPR: "Well, Paulson has become a rapid convert to the Church of What Works Now.") (To add: W. himself said -- defending, at some speech after he left office, the auto bailouts and the stimulus and the rest -- "Sometimes circumstances get in the way of ideology.") (If only he had thought that a decade earlier...)

Thank you! It has been remarked in the press, a little at least, that Bill and Barack share the advantage of brain-power (Nixon's actually admiring assessment of Clinton, reported in Monica Crowley's Nixon Off the Record, which of course may be slanted because among other things Dick was bonking her once Pat passed away. But I digress) but differ in some genuinely significant ways in how they approach the effecting of governance. Bill spent all day tending to the presidency proper, THEN all evening -- from like 6pm until often well after midnight -- on the phone with House and Senate members. Of both parties. He and Dole reportedly would on the phone often find some middle ground that each party would probably accept, and then have a running joke about who would get the tedious job of selling it to Newt: "I told Newt last time! Your turn now." "No, you got me last time selling him three things in one! You still owe me two more." Etc. Obama's commitment to dinner with family, then late evening time of thoughtful solitude, of course is valuable, as that is his temperament and who he is. To sum: Bill loved practical politics. Prof. Obama finds it a nuisance. (Rightly so, but we live in the world we have.) So, as the man said, a little testicular fortitude in bending Congress to the Executive's will could go a long way. Whether BO discovers it in himself now thx to 2nd-term immunity, or whether we have to wait to learn Hillary's intentions.

Each time we think that rag can't sink any lower...

For small things let us be grateful. (Or not so small, given Turd Blossom's girth. ) It must be the oddest thing to be Ailes, and to find yourself having these occasional outbreaks of reason. Morris is hard to fathom. It seemed he gave Clinton at least a little useful advice. (Of course on the other hand Clinton can spin gold out of straw intellectually, so maybe not.) But Morris's late buffoonery in precisely the mode of The Donald really went to cloud-cuckoo land extremes (props to S.J. Perelman for that verbal nugget).

Hilarious! ...Could this be for people too embarrassed to outright buy one of those electronic dildo contraptions?

(oops. Post goof)

Boswell, Dr. Johnson and I would have made a 3-way for the ages. ...only imagine Andre into the mix.

ROFL! "Extend an olive branch..." Forgive me taking three days to get your euphemism. Neither the gray nor any other matter is quite what it used to be.

Your coming out here as a cat person makes many things clear.

You know I'd love to have you stay, but our hito is so Rosa Coldfield.

Was struck -- not surprised, just found it memorable -- by the high praise that Hank Paulson had for Frank in Paulson's book about the financial meltdown.

Absolutely he is not. But as Nixon and many others have observed, state policy and relations pretend to be trust-based but are in fact based on coldly calculated balances of competing interests. The art of the possible, as no less than James Baker III a bit shockingly publicly reminded Condi after a long stretch of her running around the globe but seeming never quite able to close the deal anywhere. Which criticism of course he was also aiming at W., for setting inflexible thus unsellable policy. He went on to reminisce to the effect (going from memory) that "Reagan would always send me off with, 'Try to see if you can get 80 percent of what we want. There's no point in going over the cliff with all flags flying.'" A colorfully apt description of Condi's largely fruitless efforts (thankfully!) to sell W.'s and his neocons' ideas.

I wouldn't know about that. Would you?

Do you mean if you ARE a vampire, or AREN'T?

You know my ideas differ from yours on that. I think that we crumble into dust a la Christopher Lee at the end of 'Horror of Dracula.' Only difference is, that was by his own carelessness. If I had eternal life, I would safeguard it with a little more caution.

well, you know. I just dont think that many people will fit into my coffin. so like our friend on the other site, I suspect I had better doitb4igo.

...Before the taking of a toast and tea. In the room the women come and go... http://people.virgin...2/prufrock.html