Tickle The Slow Loris

The Guardian does not surprise me:

The Highlands of Scotland, though, lie thousands of miles to the west: the home of the best single malt whisky in the world is Yoichi, until last year a little known town on Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido. Its rise to the pinnacle of the centuries-old tradition of turning barley into "the water of life" was enough to make any proud Scotsman weep into his tumbler of Glenfiddich.

Not only did Nikka's Yoichi 1987 vintage beat dozens of other labels to claim the single malt title at last year's world whisky awards - in Glasgow of all places - its rival distiller, Suntory, won the best blended whisky award with its 30-year-old Hibiki.

I enjoyed quite a bit of Japanese single-malt when we were there a few years ago. It was easily equal to any of the Scotches I've had - and I was careful to have plenty of each, for comparison purposes, knowing I'd write this post, three years later.

I remember spending a lot of time searching Japanese stores for a bottle of a specific Yamazaki that I had at one hotel bar. Since we couldn't speak Japanese, we couldn't ask shopkeepers for it. So I was trying to find it based on how I remembered the label - oh, it's got some big characters here, and it's off-white and there's some smaller text down the left side, etc.. Of course I never found it. We did bring back a couple of bottles of other Suntorys that I grabbed at the duty-free shop on our way home, but they disappeared (into my liver) quickly. I've never seen any of it in the States - at least not in NC. (oh look, this might be it, right here on the NC ABC special order list... seems unlikely, but i'll try it!)

How To Make A Baby

Jonah Goldberg 4/17/09, bravely taking on a list of liberal talking points he heard somewhere:

4. Republicans are hypocrites for suddenly caring about deficits.

Well, maybe. But then so are liberals for suddenly not caring about deficits. (That part always gets left out.)

Touche! Errr.. tu quoque!

Oh those fucking liberals! Damn them and their fucking hypocritical asses!

Jonah Goldberg 3/5/2004

I don't pretend to know a great deal about the deficit either. But here's what I do know:
First, it doesn't matter much politically. As Dick Cheney allegedly said, "Reagan proved deficits don't matter." I say "allegedly" because Cheney denies he said it and the only other source is former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's book. But whether Cheney said it or not, it's politically true.

Think of it this way, if the economy is doing great then voters don't care about the deficit. If the economy is doing terrible then people don't care about the deficit - they care about jobs, the stock market, property values, etc. The deficit only really seems to matter as a source of an ill-defined anxiety about the future among the relatively well-to-do who really want something grave to worry about. Too bad we won't have another Y2K issue to occupy them until Y3K.

You pathetic well-to-do types and your ill-defined anxiety. Hah! How borrrring! Please, won't somebody rid Jonah of this boring deficit?!

Now, economically, the deficit does matter, though how much and why it matters is the subject of a debate whose intensity is exceeded only by its dullness.

Boring ol deficit. zzz.... how borrrrring. Why do people keep talking about the deficit?

There's a long list of reasons why big government is wrong: A big government is inefficient; it saps individual initiative; it imposes Washington's values on a vast nation of free people; it makes us all employees of the state and so on.

I agree that a big deficit belongs on that list, but not anywhere near the top of it.

...unless there's a Democrat in office.

zzzz

The pro-pesticide lobby is scared.

Did you hear the news? The White House is planning to have an "organic" garden on the grounds to provide fresh fruits and vegetables for the Obama's and their guests. While a garden is a great idea, the thought of it being organic made Janet Braun, CropLife Ambassador Coordinator and I shudder.

Eek! A bug! To the gates! We must defend our business model against it!

I'm in the process of recording my track for Song Number One. It's quite nerve wracking - I know exactly what I want to do, but it's tough trying to get a perfectly clean and flawless track.

Fun, though :)

Update: OK, done. A track is ready for your overdubbing pleasure. I went with a nice simple bass thing, for this, my, your, our, first time at it.

Octomom ™

The Independent:

Over 1,500 farmers in an Indian state committed suicide after being driven to debt by crop failure, it was reported today.

?

?

Place a stinging insect into the box

Here's a fun blog: eating/sf. Like any good food blog, it has lots of delicious-looking recipes, interesting writing, and great pictures of the food. But this one goes a bit further and pairs each recipe with an album. For example: Seared Ahi Tuna with Sesame Spring Avocado Salad gets paired with Elliot Smith's "Roman Candle" - yum! Or Creamy Bronzed White Beans with Chard paired with Iron & Wine's "Our Endless Numbered Days".

Brilliant!