Andrew Taylor Recommends

Oh however will we pay for health care? By paying the true cost

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 18:39:00 +0000

I'm presenting this section from the July 17 entry on The Daily Howler fully and without comment, other than to say it's mind-boggling that more people don't see the ridiculousness of the current "debate" about health care in America.

The atrocity in the room: How much extra will we rubes have to pay to get what everyone else already has? Sorry: To get what everyone else already has--at half the price we're already paying? We're not sure what the answer will be. But bowdlerized versions of that question have been in the air all week.

Yesterday, the AP began explaining the $1.5 trillion price tag (over ten years) it had put on the current House health reform bill. (For their explanation, click here.) This morning, the Washington Post leads page one with the CBO's latest gloom:

MONTGOMERY (7/17/09): Congress's chief budget analyst delivered a devastating assessment yesterday of the health-care proposals drafted by congressional Democrats, fueling an insurrection among fiscal conservatives in the House and pushing negotiators in the Senate to redouble efforts to draw up a new plan that more effectively restrains federal spending.

Under questioning by members of the Senate Budget Committee, Douglas Elmendorf, director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, said bills crafted by House leaders and the Senate health committee do not propose "the sort of fundamental changes" necessary to rein in the skyrocketing cost of government health programs, particularly Medicare. On the contrary, Elmendorf said, the measures would pile on an expensive new program to cover the uninsured.

Though President Obama and Democratic leaders have repeatedly pledged to alter the soaring trajectory--or cost curve--of federal health spending, the proposals so far would not meet that goal, Elmendorf said, noting, "The curve is being raised." His remarks suggested that rather than averting a looming fiscal crisis, the measures could make the nation's bleak budget outlook even worse.

Numbers are going to move around, and Elmendorf's testimony will be read different ways. For ourselves, we'll just marvel again at our society's Ongoing Agreement to ignore the atrocity in the room.

What's the atrocity in the room? It's the astounding amount of wasted money involved in our current arrangements. Yesterday, the Post referred to "President Obama's ambitious drive to overhaul the nation's $2.3 trillion health-care system." We don't offer what follows as a criticism of Obama. But let's consider what that amazingly large number means:

Let's assume that our society is currently spending $2.3 trillion per year on health care. Since we're spending twice as much per person as other developed nations, about $1.15 trillion of that money is essentially "wasted" spending. Some of it goes to pay the middle-class salaries of middle-class people engaged in (useless) paper-shuffling at insurance companies. Some if it goes to doctors who perform useless procedures. Some it goes to insurance and pharmaceutical companies in the form of large profits.

But, in the larger sense, it's all wasted/misspent. And let's enjoy a bit of straight talk: That much misspent money is an utter social obscenity. And yet, that remarkable sum rarely gets discussed as we try to figure out how much more we'll have to pay--to get what everyone else already has. That astounding amount of misspent money thus becomes the atrocity in the room.

It's isn't Barack Obama's fault that this obscenity goes undiscussed. The liberal world has taken part in this gimmicked discussion for many years. But that misused sum does represent a true social atrocity. And alas! When it gets discussed at all, it tends to get discussed in the manner which follows.

Chrystia Freeland (The Financial Times) appeared on last night's Ed Show. She said more than is normally said:

FREELAND (7/16/09): This president likes to talk about the best being the enemy of the good, and is very much someone who is focused on achieving what is achievable. Having said that, I agree with you that the public option is really essential for true health care reform.

One of the nightmare outcomes that you could have is some sort of reform which is a half measure and ends up making things worse. I think the way you could get to that would be maybe to have coverage extended, but not to have action taken to bring down the costs, which is one of the things that the public option could do.

One of the really the ridiculous things about the American health care system, if you look at it from the outside, is America spends more on health care than other western industrialized countries, significantly more, but actually has equal or, in most cases, worse outcomes. So you should be able to have reform that gives more coverage and costs less money. I think it has to be the target that the president aims for.

Freeland, a Canadian, correctly noted that our system is "really ridiculous" ("if you look at it from the outside"). Well guess what, rubes? The situation Freeland describes remains deeply ridiculous if you look at it from the inside! But almost no one ever does. Freeland herself understates the insanity a tad--and her host, Ed Schultz, moved directly to a different consideration.

In that presentation, Freeland offers a bit of obvious logic. If the US pays twice as much as other nations for similar health care outcomes, "you should be able to have reform that gives more coverage and costs less money" (our emphasis). In the short run, it wouldn't be easy to accomplish that outcome; any actual "overhaul" of our profoundly ridiculous system would involve economic dislocations. But it's rare to see anyone make the obvious case Freeland offered last night. When she did, she understated the lunacy a tad--and Schultz moved instantly on.

Classicist Norman O. Brown got very hot in the mid 1960s. In his very hot book, Love's Body, he described how societies die:

BROWN (1966): I sometimes think I see that societies originate in the discovery of some secret, some mystery; and end in exhaustion when there is no longer any secret, when the mystery has been divulged, that is to say profaned...And so there comes a time--I believe we are in such a time--when civilization has to be renewed by the discovery of some new mysteries, by the undemocratic but sovereign power of the imagination, by the undemocratic power which makes poets the unacknowledged legislators of all mankind, the power which makes all things new.

We don't recall what that means any more. But we will say this: Societies die when they can no longer see, or discuss, what is standing right before them. A ludicrous, deeply disordered discussion continues in today's Post.

Got $10? Go get some Root:1 wine

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 01:02:00 +0000

The last few years, as I've honed my wine snobbery, I've taken to looking outside the traditional winemaking regions of the world to find wines with something to prove. Wines that have to be good, otherwise they'll just disappear, along with the vineyards. And as it turns out, I'm not alone in this quest; it seems you can't swing a bottle of Kendall Jackson in a grocery store without hitting a nice red from Spain, a whole rack of Australian and Kiwi wines and a selection of fermented beverages from a handful of states at least.

And the more I look, the more I read and listen to what people are saying about wines, the more I hear a steady drumbeat of praise for South American wines, particularly those from Chile. Apparently Chile, with its vicinity to the extreme cragginess of the Andes mountain range, has ideal climatology for several kinds of wines and somehow the original rootstocks from European colonists have survived all these years untouched, whereas rootstocks from Italy, France and the other renowned wine hotspots have been damaged by disease, necessitating manmade grafts with newer, less mature rootstocks.

And somehow the Chilean wines seem to be affordable -- nay, cheap -- even though they consistently garner top praise from wine critics. I've had a few Chilean wines (all red, all from 2003-2007) and I've liked what I've tasted, but it wasn't until I had Root:1's Sauvignon Blanc that I decided to raise the alarm.

This is seriously good wine. I have a bottle of 2008 vintage that cost me $8 at Meijer and it's blowing my mind. And I'm not even a fan of white wines. It's crisp and tart and refreshing with an extremely clean finish reminiscent of granny smith apples, strawberries and fresh-mown straw on the nose. This is a wine for summer.

And it's got a screw-cap bottle, which I just decided needs to be implemented on all wines ASAP. I hate having to recork or use one of those little "wine-saver" vacuum spigots for my bottles. Just give me a cap and I'll be fine. Also, as you can see, the bottles are kind of gorgeous and tell the story of Chilean wine and why it kicks so much butt.

Enjoy the denouement of summer with this wine, and with the price as low as it is, you should enjoy a lot of it.

Read more at Root:1 Wine

Why the GOP is dead: It opposes something 8 in 10 of us want

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:30:00 +0000

Political author and snarky blogger Bob Cesca has a giant, sprawling, fantastically sarcastic missive on the Republicans' uninformed, ignorant and stubborn refusal to even consider the fact that American health care as it currently exists may NOT be the best system that's ever existed.

While I spent a few moments of my holiday weekend revisiting the irony of anti-socialism protests taking place on socialized park land, it occurred to me that the proposed government-run public health insurance option probably won't cost nearly as much as the CBO is suggesting.

Because clearly there won't be any Republicans signing up for it.

I mean, no Republican would dare sign up for inexpensive, easily portable health insurance. Not when red, white and blue All American for-profit health insurance is available. After all, free market private health insurance will probably continue to be the more expensive option, so that must mean it's the finest insurance, right? Expensive equals good, no? (No. More on that presently.)

And of course none of the Republicans or Blue Dogs in Congress are covered by a government health insurance plan. Except for all of them.

Please explain, conservatives and wingnuts, why you wouldn't seriously consider switching to the public option if it turned out to be more affordable and portable from job to job -- not to mention the fact that you wouldn't be turned down for a preexisting condition; you wouldn't be randomly booted from the plan as soon as you needed it most; and you would never have to worry about health insurance coverage ever again. Employed or unemployed. Sick or healthy.

I find it hard to believe that you, Mr. and Mrs. Wingnut, would defiantly pay more for less reliable insurance if offered a better deal. To pay more for less would be outstandingly backwards. Palin backwards. "Quitter" equals "fighter" backwards.

The facts: We spend more health care money per capita than any other country on the planet and we're not getting the return. We already spend more than enough to care for every man, woman and child in the United States (plus the illegal ones, in all likelihood), so any doomsaying about "paying for" public health care is misinformed at best; misleading at worst. We're paying for it now, and we're not getting it. The Republican party as we know it -- the party as it's existed since at least the Reagan administration -- is dead, and the battle over health care is just the straw that's broken the trust-fund baby's back.

California's marijuana consumers say "Tax me, please"

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:49:00 +0000

This is for real. I'm not a Californian, but in a time of financial crisis the likes of which we're seeing right now worldwide, legalization and regulation of marijuana seems like one of the most no-brainer steps to help raise revenue for just about any state. Keep in mind, FDR ended Prohibition of alcohol in the United States in 1933, which just happened to be the beginning of the end for the Great Depression.

Get mauled by Grizzly Bear: Veckatimest

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:19:00 +0000

I really really really liked Grizzly Bear's first album, "Yellow House," for all of its solemn beauty and especially after I heard some of the group's a cappella interpretations of some of their own songs and realized "holy crap, these guys are a secret doo-wop group!"

With their sophomore album, "Veckatimest," the boys from the boroughs lose the secrecy and step a bit more fully into their neo-doo-wop/freak-folk skins and come away looking even better. For instance, revel in the sweet glory that is "Two Weeks," the (very smart) choice for first single.

And "Southern Point" may be one of the best track ones I've heard in a while in terms of setting the table for its album.

I can understand this kind of thing not being everyone's cup of tea, but for people who already like certain inferior acts in this genre (*ahem* Bon Iver), this should be a homerun; a shutout; a hat-trick; a wicket; a 92nd minute, game-winning goal; a slam-dunk; a six-length Derby win. Buy in digital or physical form via the boys' Web site.

Shake and drank: Ocean Spray On the Go Cran-Pom

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:23:00 +0000

Every once in a while I dabble in the single-serve drink mix powders because let's face it: This is on some futuristic, astronaut type stuff. Keep a couple in your pocket/purse/desk and turn any container of water into a delicious juice; it's Jetsons come to life.

OK that's a stretch, but it's still a pretty brilliant, simple, convenient concept. Unfortunately, most of the flavors I've tried have been subpar at best. They're either too bland or too grainy-tasting or the flavor doesn't quite match what it's going for, plus they're generally too expensive (10 or 12 packets for more than $2.50 = gyp).

But I gave Ocean Spray's entry into this product pool a try because I generally like Ocean Spray's juice and it was on sale at Kroger (I think $1.80 or so for 10 packets, not terrible). It came through for me. Cranberry and pomegranate are both strong, influential flavors and they're well represented in this mix. Each serving has 5 calories and 100 percent Vitamin C for your day, plus it's delicious. Definitely worth a try if you can stand cranberry and pomegranate juices.

WOW! Mountain Dew Game Fuel has returned

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:33:00 +0000

WoW, World of Warcraft, get it? Before, when the excellent Game Fuel hit the shelves, it was in conjunction with the release of Halo 3. Now it's back for a promotion for the well-aged MMO World of Warcraft and it's brought along a new flavor.

Before, the lone electric red colored soda had a nice cherry citrus kick to it, like Code Red but a little less syrupy sweet. That flavor has come to represent the Horde, which is one of the sides in the overarching battle in the game. The new flavor, a bright blue wild fruit punch citrus soda, represents the Alliance, which is sort of the "good" side in the battle. I don't play the game, so don't jump down my throat if I'm misrepresenting here.

At any rate, the company has a Web site set up where you can enter codes from your bottle caps for whatever side you choose, earn tokens and play for prizes, including in-game prizes. What's more important, however, is that the new addition to the Game Fuel lineup is a worthy competitor to the old one. It does indeed pack a nice fruit punch flavor with the traditional Dew citrus kick with not too much syrupy stickiness. I recommend both flavors and I genuinely couldn't care less what you play in WoW.

Side track: A comment on the DOJ actions lately

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:11:00 +0000

I'm going to have a review of the new Mountain Dew Game Fuel flavor up later on, but right now I wanted to turn my attention (and yours) to the news that the U.S. Department of Justice will defend the Defense of Marriage Act, otherwise known as DOMA, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman, thus excluding same-sex couples from matrimony.

Gay rights groups are outraged, simply outraged, that the DOJ is defending the law of the land. Listen, I understand feelings of outrage and betrayal given that President Obama campaigned, in part, on getting rid of DOMA and Don't Ask, Don't Tell and several other gay rights road blocks. But that's misdirected outrage: Obama has no control over what the law of the land is, and it's the DOJ's sworn duty to uphold the law of the land. The DOJ can't change laws or ignore them; Alberto Gonzalez and the Bush administration only made it seem that way.

Here's what's happening: Obama and the progressive leaders of this country want to defeat DOMA, DADT, whatever else, but these are law right now. So the DOJ does its duty of defending the law as vigorously as possible, knowing full well that these laws won't stand up to a sensible constitutional challenge. As they are doing with the Bush administration's wiretaps, secret prisons and suspension of habeas corpus, they're throwing the kitchen sink out onto the lawn, pushing every vile and reprehensible defense of these indefensible policies out into the public record, setting a precedent so that when these things are eventually defeated, whether through legislative means or a Supreme Court ruling, there won't be a defense left. It will have all been argued through in the most pure and meaningful exercise of American jurisprudence and American government.

The DOJ can't be an activist agency. Neither can the Supreme Court. And the executive office can't just blink laws in and out of existence at will (though the president does have SOME limited powers to change policy unilaterally, he couldn't bypass Congress for everything without eventually getting impeached [I know, I know, Bush did it, but he should have been impeached, that's not a radical notion]).

So by airing these arguments out as fully as possible instead of propping policy up on backdoor meetings and flimsy "because I said so" rationale, the Obama DOJ is laying the groundwork for a just and fair future for the GBLT community. If you're reading this and you're angry about DOMA or illegal wiretaps or anything else, agitate. Protest. Give money to progressive causes. Volunteer for political campaigns that fall in line with your values. Do these things because without We the People, these powers of checks and balance don't always work as they're intended. The DOJ is pushing, so push back. I'm sure the president will support you.

Let 'em do Hardin time: Why not move Gitmo to Montana?

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Sat, 30 May 2009 21:00:00 +0000

As a disclaimer, a preface to this rant I'm about to go on, let me just say if you're one of these people who lives in constant fear of terrorist attack because of what happened on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, in New York City, the Pentagon and one other plane that crashed into a field in Pennsylvania due to some heroic and badass citizens, you and I may not see eye to eye on this issue.

Because here's the thing: These terrorists that we're all so afraid of, they're not really that scary. Let's take a look at how they pulled that attack off. They went to flight school and said "never mind landing, I just want to learn how to steer a plane." They bought some box cutters and some fake bomby-looking stuff, they got some plane tickets (and hell, a couple of them nearly missed their flight) and then they threatened to blow up the plane (with bombs that didn't exist) and brandished their knife cutters to get control of the plane.

Knife cutters and half-assed flight instructions and the knowledge that airline protocol for hijacking presupposed that your hijackers will just want to land somewhere and do a hostage negotiation, not slam the plane into a building: That's what it took. Crafty, yes; scary, no. Have you ever seen the clips from al Qaeda or Taliban training videos? I'm no firearms expert, but these people, who you have to presume are the Best and Brightest, otherwise why would they star in training videos, barely know how to operate an AK-47, which was designed to be literally so easy a child could operate it. They know how to run around sloppily, take defensive positions sloppily and lay down cover fire (code for "spray bullets in that direction to keep them from shooting or moving around") sloppily. Also, they apparently know where to hide pipe bombs in the desert. You probably live within 5 miles of someone more dangerous and more adept at killing than most of these clowns.

So all this brings me to this story about a sleepy Montana town about an hour's drive east of Billings, in the flattest part of the flattest area on the continent; a town whose council recently voted unanimously to offer up their unoccupied, shiny new $27 million prison to hold the detainees at Guantanamo Bay until they get their days in court. See, Hardin, Mont., is a destitute little town of 3,400 with crippling unemployment and no industry to speak of. They built this prison on spec -- meaning without any contracts in hand from anyone who'd actually want to use it -- out of desperation. It was a last-ditch effort to attract money and people to the town.

Do you see that? That's concertina wire.

I say, good for them! This is an ideal situation: A town in the middle of nowhere, where everyone owns a gun and knows who belongs and who doesn't, who has a shiny new prison and nobody to put in it, and has a willingness to update the prison to whatever specifications are needed to hold these "dangerous" "terrorists."

But the congressional delegation of Montana, which includes a dude who's missing a couple of his fingers, wears a flat-top and likes to hunt, said nosirreebob, we're not taking any TERRRRRRISTS here! And the Democratic governor of the state, too, said "nope, can't do it."

WHY. THE HELL. NOT? Right now we've got these so-called dangerous people holed up in a ramshackle, ad-hoc military facility that honestly shouldn't even exist given our adversarial relationship with the nation it sits on (Cuba). Here in our country, we have a wide variety of prisons to hold the most hardened murderers, rapists and actual terrorists in their own tiny cells. We have facilities where people convicted of the most heinous crimes go and are never heard from again. The movie-style image of prisoners milling around in a common area with relatively little supervision ("where terrorists could recruit other criminals to their cause!!!") is just that: A MOVIE, MADE UP. General population situations only happen in the lowest-level jails with the lowest-level offenders, and even they've been placed in separate cell blocks as to avoid interactions between warring gangs or allied groups of prisoners.

Think about how many prison riots there are in the United States every year. There are two or three that make the national news at most. Then consider that the United States is the most prison-happy nation in the history of the world, with more people locked up at any given time than the populations of many civilized countries. If our prisons, with all these angry-ass, neglected, uneducated, unloved and hopeless characters, aren't erupting in riots every week or two like they do in Brazil or Mexico, why do you suppose that is? Could it be because we have top-of-the-line facilities with cameras in every corner, three security checkpoints between any given cell block and the nearest open area and well-trained, well-armed guards?

Spoiler alert: The answer is yes. When politicians say they don't want the "danger" of terror suspects in our jails, not only are they being ignorant -- seeing as how we ALREADY HAVE many terror suspects in prisons around the country -- they're also saying that they're afraid our resources aren't good enough; that American correctional officers and military base staff aren't capable of keeping some emaciated foreigners in line. If I was a warden or a guard or even just a sheriff's deputy and I heard my elected representatives say "not in my prisons," I'd be insulted.

Which is why I think, whether it winds up being in Hardin or Terre Haute, Ind., or Florence, Colo., or any other capable facility in these United States, these detainees will be imprisoned on American soil sooner than later. And not the "American soil" on a corner of Cuba, the real stuff. And nobody -- NOBODY -- has any reason to fear that.

They keep getting better: Auto tune the news Vol. 4

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Sat, 30 May 2009 17:35:00 +0000

Is it just me or did Katie Couric seem like she was intentionally being lyrical and musical to secure her usual spot in ATTN?

Edy's Slow Churned Yogurt Blends: Tart Honey

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Mon, 25 May 2009 17:31:00 +0000

There is a paucity of affordable frozen yogurt products in grocery freezer cases, at least around here (northern Indiana). Most of the good stuff is extremely expensive and only comes in smaller containers. That's a big reason I applaud Edy's for incorporating more and more frozen yogurt flavors into their Slow Churned line of products all the time. I've yet to try one of the company's Yogurt Blends that wasn't extremely tasty.

But I'm here to point out that one of their new flavors, Tart Honey, is based on one of the world's most enduring sweet treats; a flavor that I haven't seen portrayed by any other mass-produced frogo to date. I'm not saying there aren't any companies out there producing honey-yogurt frozen treats, but I am saying it's something of a watershed to see a huge company like Edy's (owned by Nestle) put this Greek favorite into a large, prominently positioned package.

And it is indeed pretty legendary: The well-formulated, smooth honey ribbons (they incorporate corn syrup and some other ingredients to keep the honey from getting all hard and unwieldy in its frozen environs) is a perfect companion for the soft and creamy tart yogurt. My first spoonful tasted just a bit too honey sweet to my palate, but my tongue sorted itself out for the second through 43rd spoonfuls, which were wonderfully balanced, light and cool.

Lindsay Graham debating both sides of torture argument

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Wed, 20 May 2009 19:06:00 +0000

Why is it he had it right in the summer of 2008, and now suddenly thinks we desperately need to torture people in order to keep ourselves safe? Generally the application of time and consideration helps a person advance toward a more rational conclusion, not away from it.

Torture has actually been around for THOUSANDS of years, but its longevity isn't a testament to its usefulness; rather, like slavery, another long-lived human practice, it speaks to our most basic evils. And if he thinks the limits set out by the Army Field Manual are "shameful," perhaps he should go try littering or spray painting public property in Singapore sometime.

Auto-Tune the News Vol. 3: The best yet

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Mon, 18 May 2009 21:12:00 +0000

The ad libs in this one crack me up, as well as Ron Paul's melodies.

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix and Lady Gaga: Pop prodigies

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Sun, 17 May 2009 18:05:00 +0000

Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart was born in what is now Austria, but throughout his life, the prodigious composer seemed to be repelled from the Salzburg region, choosing instead to travel across Europe in search of a permanent gig somewhere -- anywhere -- but back home with the rest of his famous musical family. For a while in the late 1770s, Mozart was penniless and desperate, pawning belongings and playing the classical equivalent of roadie bars for scraps of money in Paris, all the while accompanied by his mother and being pressured to take permanent jobs by his father back home.

The young prodigy eventually admitted defeat and slumped back home with stopovers in Munich and Mannheim, where he was spurned by a love interest for good measure.

I'll admit I'm not sure why Parisian pop masters Phoenix decided to name their latest album, due out at the end of May here in the states, "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix," since the connection between a French electro-pop band and Austria's most famous classical composer appears to be tenuous at best. But I will say with some measure of hyperbole that Phoenix could be considered the Mozart family of current pop music.

Those of you familiar with the ATR tastes will recall the band's last effort, "It's Never Been Like That," was the album of the year in this blog's first year of existence. It was a dazzling, shimmering piece of booty-moving excellence that helped reinvigorate my taste for well-executed pop music (along with dearly departed The Format, Justin Timberlake and a few others). I don't imagine Phoenix will be able to take their rightful place atop the American Billboard pop charts -- I'm not sure if our pop consuming populace is ready for grad-level mastery -- but the signs are encouraging.

Primarily, I'm fascinated by the public's apparent love for Lady Gaga, a Ziggy Stardustian fever dream with such incredible grasp of what should make dance music go that I'm amazed people get it. She has all the fun and ebullience and oblivious silliness and none of the sticky, gross cynicism and winking commercialism of Fergie or Beyonce. Phoenix is all fun and ebullience and heartfelt melodies and lyrics and none of the self-seriousness or ambitious missteps that seem to mark the careers of pop-rock icons (Oasis, Radiohead, Weezer, just to name a few).

Just a few years ago, Gaga and Phoenix would be (and in Phoenix's case, actually WERE) relegated to the back shelves of niche pop; the kind of acts we music nerds indulge in, but never gain universal acceptance. Gaga's star turn with her album, unabashedly named "The Fame" for the aspects of fame that can be integrated into the lives of the non-famous, gives me hope that Phoenix can break through here and play "The Tonight Show" and sell a lot of albums. They deserve to and you, the pop public, deserve proper music to groove to in your automobiles and Levi jeans.

Get Familiar: Lost

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:24:00 +0000

The next season of ABC's hit series "Lost" is the sixth and final series in the story arc. See, unlike many other shows that just go until they're canceled or until the writers run out of ideas, "Lost" is a capsule, a story told from the first episode to the last. The writers' strike in Hollywood last year changed some of the timing of the story, and parts have been changed or improvised along the way, but in these first five seasons, nothing at all has happened that hasn't fit into the larger narrative moving toward The End.

And that's just it, no matter how confused you might be at any given juncture, no matter how nonsensical things appear at first glance, everything that's important rises back to the surface eventually. This isn't a series about a bunch of people who've been wrecked on an island; it's a story about determinism and fatalism clashing with free will. How much of our own lives do we have control over? How much of our lives are directly controlled by outside forces? Is there just one force driving us, or many?

The fifth season concluded Wednesday evening. This season didn't commence until January of this year. This means you, the reader, have at least the rest of spring and summer, and perhaps most if not all of the autumn to catch up. This is absolutely the best television series of my lifetime, and I'd be willing to bet that if you went along for the ride, you'd likely count it among your favorites as well.

Why Lady GaGa is a S-S-S-Star!

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Thu, 14 May 2009 00:05:00 +0000

Seriously, how good is this dame? I need to write up my review here of "The Fame." Here's a preview: You should buy "The Fame."

Wilco's new album: Streaming for your pleasure

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Wed, 13 May 2009 18:22:00 +0000

If you're a fan of Wilco (and really, why wouldn't you be?) you ought to go to the band's Web site at some point very soon and listen to the new eponymous album on a Quick Time stream. So far, I like it a lot; it appears they're getting a bit more upbeat and less dad-rocky.

So go on, take a listen now!

The sugar conspiracy: Pepsi Throwback

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 02:38:00 +0000

I'm not old, but I am old enough to remember when soda -- good old American soda -- was sweetened with sugar. You know, that plant that grows in the South and the tropics and you can refine into the world's most ubiquitous sweetening agent?

But during the 1980s, which is when I began my love affair with soda, most soft drinks began incorporating high-fructose corn syrup instead of sugar. There are a lot of rational reasons for this switch, chief among them transportability (it's a liquid, so it can be loaded in tankers and pumped) and the relative cheapness of HFCS made from US corn, which is in turn subsidized by the government here.

Now I'm not one of those people who'll tell you HFCS is inherently evil and poisonous and turning us all into big fatties, though the complete domination of corn products in American grocery products is a bit disconcerting. But I am one of those people who, despite being born and raised in Indiana, a state known for its corn crops, will tell you that the corn lobby is inherently evil and entirely profit-driven. And over the last decade or so, the corn lobby has gotten too good for its own good, staking its subsidized maize to everything from cooking oil to soda to candy and now, in its biggest miscalculation to date, corn ethanol.

The introduction of massive subsidies to farmers who grow fuel-grade corn helped push the per-bushel cost of corn futures through the roof over the last couple of years. Less acreage for food-grade corn meant less corn to sell at market and higher costs for food that involves corn (which, remember, is damn near everything now) was just part of the relentless consumer whammy that precluded the onset of the global recession. Remember $4-per-gallon gas?

So a lot of farmers have rebelled against the ethanol subsidies because yields were down and soil was being left stripped of almost all nutrients (corn is a pretty high-maintenance crop in terms of pulling material from the earth, and fuel-grade corn needs even more stringent crop rotation patterns than food-grade) so it was more trouble than it was worth. The price of corn per bushel has come down from its highs in 2007-08 (it's around $3.50 a bushel now, down from around $8 in July 2008), but because corporations tend to buy their commodities on contract, those high prices are still affecting the cost of all those corny products. It might be another 6 to 8 months before we see food prices start to edge back down with cheaper corn/soy/rice/etc., but chances are the food conglomerates will keep most of those savings for themselves, having conditioned We the Consumer to higher prices.

How does this relate to Pepsi? Well, besides the health hysteria from some quarters about the possible deleterious effects of long-term HFCS consumption, sugar is suddenly a bit more reasonably priced. Sugar is hovering around 12 to 15 cents per pound right now, and the yields from sugar-producing regions such as the American Southeast and Brazil are excellent compared to corn sweeteners, which take a lot of refining and a lot of raw material for relatively little end product.

This sets the stage for Pepsi (and other soda makers, I hope) to transition back to sugar-sweetened drinks. I imagine nutritionists in the 1970s and '80s would have never thought sugar would be PREFERABLE to something else, but here we are. Sugar is suddenly cheap, plentiful and somewhat less scary healthwise than HFCS. The Throwback line, which Pepsi seems to be rolling out on a temporary basis, is a test to see if we soda drinkers are ready to welcome sugar cola back to market.

If I was the grand poobah in charge, the answer would be a resounding YES, DAMMIT. The sugar versions of Dew and Pepsi are, just as I remember them, more pleasantly sweet and less harsh than the HFCS versions, and they seem less sticky/syrupy. Probably related to that, they seem more thirst-quenching as well. My thinking is if Throwback sells well enough in its trial run, Pepsi will make the product permanent, likely as a replacement (or return-to-placement) in the main product line. Pepsi has done it before, most recently with Mountain Dew Livewire, the "limited-edition" orange drink that proved so popular that it came back for good the following summer.

So if you prefer your soda sugared, vote with your wallet and pick up Pepsi Throwback and Mountain Dew Throwback (and any other Throwback-type sodas you see) while you can. Or you can just wait until the next Passover or pay through the nose for imported Mexican Coca-Cola. Whatever.

Preview post: SQUEE THROWBACK PEPSI

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 04:49:00 +0000

OMG OMG OMG. Throwback Pepsi and Mountain Dew are here. If you're not aware, Pepsi is releasing these two sugar-sweetened colas (as opposed to high-fructose corn syrup, which sweetens most sodas today) on a limited time basis, though I think it's a way to secretly segue back to sugar soda full time because the price of corn is so much higher than it used to be.

More on this tomorrow. The cans are even cooler than the boxes.

Cooking on the cheap: ATR black bean burger recipe

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:23:00 +0000

As much as I possibly can, I'm trying to reduce my food bill and increase my culinary handiness by cooking simple recipes for my meals at work and snacks at home. And one of the biggest ways to reduce a food bill, it would seem, is to reduce one's intake of meat. I don't know if I can ever completely turn away from the simple pleasures of fried chicken, bacon, bratwurst and hot dogs, to name a few animal foodstuffs, but I can certainly reduce the amount of those things I rely on to get by.

And so one of my favorite food items is the sandwich, but vegetarian sandwiches often lack a certain heft to them. So veggie burgers are a good meatless alternative, but prepackaged burgers like the ones Boca offers are even more expensive than meat. So, in the spirit of these economically challenged times, I went to a Borders and flipped through a bunch of vegetarian cookbooks looking for easy recipes. The first one I tried, a black-bean burger, turned out excellently and I'd like to share it with you here. It's largely black beans, onions, garlic and gluten, but it has a lot of flavor and makes either six very large burger patties or eight slightly more reasonable but still filling burgers. Also, I forgot to note which cookbook I got this from, but as is my custom, I altered it a little, so whatever.

All told the stuff for this shouldn't cost you more than $10 if you have to buy every ingredient, though I'm willing to bet most of you have ketchup, mustard and maybe even onions and garlic on hand, as well as basic spices. Feel free to experiment with other spices you like, too, as this is basically the veggie version of my mom's meatloaf (which is fantastic and very easy to tweak for one's personal tastes).

ATR perfect black bean burgers

Preparation time: 15 minutes-ish, unless you fry all the burgers right away -- I stored some of the raw material to fry throughout the week as I was hungry.

Supplies:
1 16 oz. can of black beans, drained
1/2 cup vital wheat gluten (I use Hodgson Mill)
1/2 cup wheat bread crumbs
1 tsp chile powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp tomato paste or ketchup
1 tbsp mustard (your choice of style, coarse brown or horseradish mustard would work well, though I just used yellow the first time around)
tbsp minced garlic
half a small onion, grated
1-2 tbsp olive oil for pan frying

Throw your beans in a big mixing bowl and mash them by hand, either with a fork or with a hand potato masher. You don't need them pureed, just kind of roughly dashed into bean guts and bits of bean casings. Add the gluten, bread crumbs, chile powder, cumin, water, mustard and tomato paste/ketchup, then grate in your onion and scoop in the minced garlic.

Start mixing with a rubber spatula or mixing spoon until it starts to form a doughy, spicy lump. At some point, you'll want to drop your utensil and get your (clean) hands in the bowl, mixing and kneading to a uniformly sticky, moldable ball of deliciousness. At this point, you could either divvy up the ball into six or eight equal lumps and put them in a container (separated by wax paper or something for convenience) for the fridge, or you divvy them up and fry them in a pan over medium-high heat in the olive oil for about five minutes a side.

The best hint I can give you on technique is to really push these babies flat in the pan so that they cook evenly, because if you leave them too thick, the outside gets crispy and the inside stays very doughy and raw. If you like that, by all means, go that route. I just didn't like it when it happened to me the first time.

Bon appetit, y'all.

Something to remember on this tax day

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 21:20:00 +0000

There are a lot of people out there who are upset at the state of the economy and what they perceive to be injustices in our governmental system that conspire against the success of hard-working Americans. To be sure, there are injustices in the system, both inside and outside the government, but what the people waving tea bags around and "protesting" today are getting wrong is that the answer isn't less government or less spending, it's better government and smarter spending.

Without a robust and well-regulated system of government, our so-called free market would cease to exist. Without the roles of Congress set forth in the first few clauses of Section 8 of our Constitution, there would be no international trade, no currency, no patents, no structure at all. So the next time you hear someone invoke the Founding Fathers as an argument against government interference in commerce, point them quickly to the Constitution itself.

As a nice summary of the current conservative "thought" on taxation and regulation, I give you this passage from an article at the Government is Good web project:

Today, the corporate community and anti-government conservatives. ... They fail to understand that government policies that protect consumers, make workplaces safe, provide economic security, eliminate poverty in old age, provide health care to the poor, and prevent and repair environmental damage are what “humanize” capitalism and make it tolerable to people. In this way, businesses are a lot like sulky teenagers. They resent their parents’ rules – such as no drinking and driving, no unsafe sex, no experimentation with hard drugs – which they simply see as constraints on their freedom and their fun. They refuse to see that these rules are for their own good, their own long-term health and welfare.

Similarly, businesses and free-market conservatives have been unable to appreciate how government efforts to humanize capitalism have been for their own good. Instead, they have resented and opposed virtually every effort to make capitalism less harsh – from the 40-hour week and the abolition of child labor to Social Security and Medicare. They should see the costs they pay for these policies as a premium on a vital form of political insurance. Government regulatory policies and social programs are crucial in undermining popular discontent about the problems of a free-market economy and serve to co-opt potential anti-capitalist and anti-business political movements. These “liberal” reforms provide and sustain the social and political peace on which profitable business activity ultimately depends.

Even Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, understands how essential government safety net programs are to maintaining public support for our market system. He has warned of the "painful dislocations" associated with capitalism and has stated that if "we did not place some limits on the downside risks to individuals affected by economic change, the public at large might become less willing to accept the dynamism that is so essential to economic progress."

There is one final ironic twist to all of this. Modern government’s achievements in reining in abuses of corporate power and humanizing capitalism have actually backfired on those who champion an active role for government in society. These successes have fostered an illusion that a market economy is relatively harmless. Few people remain alive who actually experienced the severe problems of the “bad old days” of capitalism before the New Deal. Today, many think we are living in a natural “free market” system, but in reality it has been extensively tamed by myriad government policies. It is as if we lived in a world where all we knew about wild animals is what we learned by going to the circus, and thus came to believe that bears and elephants were naturally gentle creatures. Frustratingly, then, it has been the government’s triumphs in addressing the many problems inherently caused by a free-market economy that has allowed conservatives to argue that markets are naturally benign and largely problem free – and so we do not really need much government.

Pocket footy: FIFA 09 for the DS

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:56:00 +0000

At a time when most of my countrymen are wrapping themselves in the hysteria and relief that accompanies the return of baseball to the thawed-out fields around the United States, I can barely be arsed to watch more than a single AB of any game. I'm in full-on football mode.

The UEFA Champions League is nearing its climax, as are most of the European club leagues, including the English Premiership, Spain's La Liga, the German Bundesliga and Italy's Lega Calcio Serie A. The American soccer league, MLS, has only just started (in fact it kicked off this season on the first night of the NCAA basketball tournament ... and people wonder why soccer hasn't caught on here). Every single day, I'm swaddled in results and previews of matches from nearly every nation on earth.

It didn't help matters that I found a copy of FIFA 09 for the Nintendo DS for $20 over the weekend. It's not even the best soccer video game I've played, but its combination of portability, instant gratification and depth is nearly irresistible. And because I haven't played a soccer game with a "superstar" mode -- where you control one player at all times and try to get him as much success as possible -- I'm essentially addicted to the Be A Pro mode in this game, generally starting off as a striker on a puny English team and trying to improve myself to the point where a bigger club would want to buy me and take me to glory.

Each match only takes maybe 12 minutes or so, which is a good length for a portable game, and it compels further play whether it excites me with tastes of success or frustrates me with defeat. For $20, that's more than I could have hoped for.

Breakfastology: Gordon Ramsay's perfect scrambled eggs

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:27:00 +0000

I just made eggs this way for the first time -- the FIRST TIME -- and they were not only the best scrambled eggs I'd ever made, they were the best scramble I've ever eaten. Point-blank, period. There's a different methodology here, and the keys are to not season your eggs before they're done cooking, and to not whisk them before you cook them. Feel free to substitute sour cream for the creme fraiche; I did and they're still heaven. Also, fancy mushrooms and vine TOHMAAHTAS are optional. So simple, so creamy, so smooth and I'll never make scrambled eggs any other way.

Please stay on hold: PET ME I'M AN OWL

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:57:00 +0000

Someday I'll get back to reviewing things, I swear.

Must-see takedown: Colbert sees through Glenn Beck

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 21:16:00 +0000

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

The 10/31 Project

comedycentral.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

NASA Name Contest

There's no doubt Glenn Beck is a trainwreck, a charlatan and a cynic. Here's the best illustration of his jingoistic ratings-whoring.