Looks like the mere fact of Teabag Cosmo Boy’s election will kill health care reform after all. Barney Frank says so. Anthony Weiner is not optimistic. Massive corporate giveaway averted!
I’m sure the insurance companies will now voluntarily roll back preexisting conditions, excisions and other predatory practices. That’s what their stellar stock performance yesterday was all about—they’re just squirreling funds away for the coming epoch of pro-consumer largesse because that’s how they roll.
Anyway, water under the bridge, spilled milk, barn door closed after the horses skedaddled, etc. I just wish there were some other hill worth dying on, some truly populist issue the Dems could use to yank the phony “champion-of-the-little-guy” drape off Senatorfold* Brown and the rest of the GOP beefcake line-up, revealing them in all their glorious, fat-cat protecting nekkidness. Think, think, think.
If you can look at this graphic without wincing, you didn’t have enough to drink.
WAKEY, WAKEY! It’s the first day of 2010 (or “XX0X” in the Old Rumpic Calendar). And no matter how early it is, Teh Stupid has already been upright, blogging and making fools of themselves on FoxNews for at least an hour.
Sure, it hurts to move. And, yes, you’re wearing the clothes you swapped with a junkie at the Greyhound Station. But, gosh darn it, staring at the toilet and making kitty-hairball gacking noises isn’t going to move the Overton Window, dictate the acceptable limits of Online Progressive Dialogue or unsled Sarah Palin’s Idiotarod to the White House in 2012.
Kevin K. has given us this safe, nurturing, trigger-free platform from which to unleash Psionic Waves of 4th-Generation Asymmetric Snark against the Evil Outernet of Unassimilated Nobots and Nutters. But, as a poor but wise man once observed, these rats ain’t gonna fuck themselves.
Let’s brush off the peanut shells, fish the butts out of our beer mugs and squint blearily into the blazing dawn of the Decade of Rumproast! Deus Lo Volt!
The corks have popped, the confetti’s thrown, the revels have faded into the watery grey light of a January morning. Is it not time to take stock, to assess where we may have gone off the rails, to try to set matters aright, to resolve to make amends and start anew? There are, after all, certain members of the blogosphere who have been done hard by, and have expressed an interest in letting bygones be bygones, if their offenders would only apologise.
That’s all. Not such a much. Just a little apology. Little one.
Anybody?
We’ve finally found the most self-destructive politician in America: William J. Kelly, Republican candidate for Illinois comptroller. This is him “singing” with Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen. It starts with Nielsen telling him, “You’re drunk.” Kelly thought it was a good idea to embed this video on his blog:
Setting aside the trademark question-begging and grotesque solipsism, this column echoes many of my own thoughts on the subject.
America’s “war of necessity,” whether you agree with that or not, has disrupted a society that was already deeply traumatized and divided. Afghanistan is incredibly poor and fatally unstable. We are rich and stable in comparison. If this conflict can be conducted in such a way that the Afghans are helped toward a minimal stability and put on anything like the right path to security, don’t we owe it to them?
So it looks like I’ve been in favor of continued military involvement in Afghanistan for reasons more or less identical to those espoused by Deepak Chopra.
Here in Western Pennsylvania, the “Holiday Celebration Turns Tragic” headlines are practically a foregone, given our dimwit propensity to show off our firearms at the dinner table.
Usually, it’s the brand-new or just-reblued “unloaded” hand howitzer with a stray round in the chamber that brings the happy blather to a halt. However, in the process of Googling the local news, I found a poster at DU who’s assembled a compendium of Thanksgiving shooting stories from around the nation—and, so far, “rage-driven” is beating “accidental” by about 5-0.
Holidays bring out the sharp edges in every group. But are we angrier as a nation this Thanksgiving? Have any of you ‘Roasters observed a spike in psychotic breaks around the mulled wine or down at the local Retail Death Star?
Field reports are welcome. I’m not sure there’s a reliable statistical model for distinguishing routine breakdowns and domestic conflicts from the ratcheting poom-poom-poom of Right-Left/Patriots-vs.-Marxists blood-oaths on the Internet jungle drums, but I’m keen to assemble the data.
Meanwhile—be safe. Be polite. Remember to compliment the chef. Don’t try to cut into the line for the Zhu Zhu Hamsters. And never trust the idiot who tells you it’s OK to look down the barrel because he took the clip out.
Still not finding any new videos worth throwing your way for our Morning Music series, so here’s some Halloween-themed weirdness for you to fill the gap…
MORE: Let’s Paint, Exercise, & Blend Drinks! was the very first post at Rumproast back when I just intended this to be a 27-visitors-a-day personal blog. Oops. Happy 2 Years One Month One Day Anniversary to Rumproast.
Good news, winos! Now you can pitch that bottle of ripple and roll into the gutter with a fine pinot noir:
The law of supply and demand has reached the world’s vineyards, tipping wine prices in consumers’ favor.
Pali Wine Co., a small California Pinot Noir producer which started out selling wines for $40, $50 and $60 a bottle in 2005, found itself with cases left from its 2006 crush even as it was bottling its 2007 production.
Most of its Pinot Noirs will now be sold for $19 a bottle.
Did you know most brake fluids have a dry boiling point of over 400 degrees Fahrenheit? What’s even more amazing is how quickly that temperature can be exceeded if you’re, say, using the brakes to keep a 5-ton camper containing your beloved mother, your only child and yourself from plunging over a 900-foot cliff on one of the Blue Ridge Parkway’s many terrifying, inadequately guard-railed hairpin turns.
It would be appropriate to illustrate a boxcar cocktail recipe with a picture of one of my boxer pups. However, I detest boxcars. So this thirsty pup ordered a far superior drink: a tangerine-vodka collins:
4 parts vodka
2 parts tangerine juice
1 part simple syrup
Pour into ice-filled glasses (about 3/4 an inch from the rim) and top with club soda. Stir and serve to a grateful public.
Oh, there’s a crappy concentrate product you could buy—just add Bacardi rum!—from Barcardi. But better to make your own. This is the closest recipe I’ve found to Captain Tony’s Saloon in Key West, which is my benchmark for the Platonic Ideal of rum runners. If you know of a better one, please share it in comments:
RUM RUNNER
(serves several regular folks or one extremely drunk person)
• 9 oz dark rum (I use Appleton)
• 4.5 oz blackberry brandy
• 4.5 oz banana liqueur
• Healthy splash of Grenadine
• 9 oz. orange juice
• 9 oz. pineapple juice
Regarding the hurricane glass: The company I worked for during Florida’s hurricane summer of 2004 gave all employees a commemorative glass. I still see my neighbor’s roof flying off and remember the sensation of making coffee on the grill every time I see it. Good times!
Anyhoo, enjoy your rum runners, and remember to leave all your most salacious Governor Palin rumors in comments. Happy 4th!
Not since El Morocco tore up its striped banquettes has café society seen such a gathering of bright lights. The rout that was Roastacon 2009 will be as long remembered as the shrapnel embedded in the historic walls of the adjacent townhouse, whose owners, while initially stand-offish, did have to break down and agree that Kevin K’s recipe for Fish House Punch certainly has a kick. That the festivities began on the sixth hour of the sixth day of the sixth month was entirely unrelated to the subsequent deviltry. Entirely.
