Good Eats

Few things are as delightfully aromatic as good extra virgin olive oil mixed with fresh, hot pasta.

Thomas Friedman Has a Point

Osama and Katrina - New York Times

Besides ripping away the roofs of New Orleans, Katrina ripped away the argument that we can cut taxes, properly educate our kids, compete with India and China, succeed in Iraq, keep improving the U.S. infrastructure, and take care of a catastrophic emergency - without putting ourselves totally into the debt of Beijing.

God Help Them

The catastrophe in Lousiana and Mississippi beggars description. God help those people.

Andrew Sullivan describes what's happening in the Sunday Times.

Then and Now

Why did riding a bike seem so much easier when I was a kid?

Good Eats

What better breakfast than slow cooked oatmeal, with blueberries and cranberries, a splash of buttermilk and a sprinking of cinnamon?

Pastaferianism

But Is There Intelligent Spaghetti Out There? - New York Times

The New York Times contemplates whether the universe was really created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The Times notes:

The history books show that parody isn't always the smartest strategy when it comes to persuasion. Remember Galileo? Some recent scholars say that it may not have been his science so much as his satire, "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems," that got everyone steamed up. Under threat of death, Galileo ended up recanting his view that the earth revolves around the sun, and had to wait 350 years for vindication.

Perhaps persuasion is not what is at issue here, but rather energizing the faithful.

Thanks to Gayle for the link.

Remorse - Thomas Lynch

Left Behind - New York Times

And maybe this is the part I find most distancing about my president, not his fanatic heart - the unassailable sense he projects that God is on his side - we all have that. But that he seems to lack anything like real remorse, here in the third August of Iraq, in the fourth August of Afghanistan, in the fifth August of his presidency - for all of the intemperate speech, for the weapons of mass destruction that were not there, the "Mission Accomplished" that really wasn't, for the funerals he will not attend, the mothers of the dead he will not speak to, the bodies of the dead we are not allowed to see and all of the soldiers and civilians whose lives have been irretrievably lost or irreparably changed by his (and our) "Bring it On" bravado in a world made more perilous by such pronouncements.

Sherlock Holmes with a Stethoscope

It appears that I am not the only one to notice that Dr. Gregory House of the Fox television series is a dead ringer for Sherlock Holmes. House shares Holmes' cool detachment, total absorption in problem solving, musical talent, and even drug addiction. While other doctors fumble or guess at diagnoses, House's relentless application of deductive reasoning invariably produces a satisfying and elegant solution to each successive medical dilemma to the amazement and consternation of his less gifted colleagues. In his rare off hours, House devotes himself to his piano in his spare, impeccably modern apartment. House's intellectual elegance beneath his gruff exterior is mesmerizing.

Democrats Regroup . . . Again

Rich Liberals Vow to Fund Think Tanks

In addition, the number of liberal bloggers on the Web has been growing at a fast pace, and their blogs have become both central forums for debate over party strategies and hugely successful vehicles for campaign fundraising, including raising through online contributions more than two thirds of the $750,000 used in the surprisingly competitive House campaign of Democrat Paul Hackett in Ohio. Rosenberg has created the New Politics Institute, an organization that works with bloggers.

Democrats are franctically scrambling to match the conservative network of think tanks that has fueled the conservative political resurgence. The million-dollar question is whether all the money that is being raised will actually result in any new ideas.

A Man And His Toys


  • Most useful kitchen implement: cast iron frying pan

  • Second most useful kitchen implement: rice cooker

  • Third most useful kitchen implement: chef's knife

  • Most exciting new kitchen implement: burr coffee grinder

  • Favorite ingredient: olive oil

  • Most exotic kitchen implement: ibrik or couscousiere (a tie!)

  • Most interesting recent cooking show: Alton Brown's Good Eats on making sushi

Plame Game Keeps Playing

Frank Rich of the New York Times thinks the President's premature Supreme Court announcement and unexpected choice are signs of a vain attempt to escape the widening scandal over administration insiders' blowing a C.I.A. Agent's cover as political payback.

One particularly ugly note is that Rich reports that Karl Rove has a history of trying to smear his opponents by questioning their sexual orientation.

Wouldn't Want That

White House Aims to Block Legislation on Detainees

The Bush administration in recent days has been lobbying to block legislation supported by Republican senators that would bar the U.S. military from engaging in "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" of detainees, from hiding prisoners from the Red Cross, and from using interrogation methods not authorized by a new Army field manual.

Apparently John McCain and other moderate Republicans are hoping to preempt a more sweeping Democratic bill calling for a 9/11-style Commission to investigate torture of American prisoners.