Zeta Woof

This blog has deliberately refrained from reading or commenting on the various articles about and reviews of this book, preferring instead to wait until we have it in our hands and can take the time to read it carefully and made up our own mind.

When we form an opinion we will almost certainly share it with you. Patience.

I've been messing around with my sidebar and tweaking the blogrolls. They're subject to constant change now (every time I post), and there's an element of randomness involved, so don't take offense if your link disappears altogether. It will most likely return in a day or two.

I was down at the hardware store a couple days ago talking with Don. He says he's probably going to close the doors after the first of the year. It just isn't making it any more.

"You know," he said, "I really can't complain. Thirty-five years I've been in business. How many people can say that? Thirty-five years. Only the last two years have been terrible."

Anyway we got to talking about guns, on account of he's got some odds and ends of ammunition still left on the shelf. I bought his last box of .22 shorts for my sister's purse gun, and that led to us talking about small game.

"Actually squirrel tastes really good," he said, "They're delicious."

"That's good to know, 'cause I've got sixteen different recipes for squirrel. Never actually ate one, though."

"Well, you should."

And then just yesterday the BBC comes up with this article.

Is squirrel the perfect austerity dish?

The notion of stewed squirrel may not tempt everybody's taste buds, but in an age of tightening belts and financial severity, the humble abundance of the squirrel is causing some to reconsider its epicurean virtue.

They interviewed a man from Georgia.

Mr Smith boils the squirrel until the meat separates from the bone, then stews the flesh with canned corn, onion, tomato, bell peppers, salt and pepper. Sometimes he makes squirrel dumplings instead of stew.

"Squirrel stew has a very distinctly sweet flavour," he says, likening it to stewed pork, which also tastes sweet even without the addition of sugars.

"It's a quite pleasant tasting dish and I would not be afraid to offer it to the Queen," he says, before quipping, "Y'all are overrun with squirrels in England. You need to eat some of them!"

We're overrun here, too.

Joubert the Born Again Redneck has a video you have to see.

(And if you can figure out his comments thingy, tell him I sent you.)

Copenhagen was not a political breakdown. It was an intellectual breakdown so astonishing that future generations will marvel at our blind credulity.

Margaret Wente in the Globe and Mail.

R. Emmett Tyrrell: I Was Wrong

Along with the turkey, which shall go in the oven at eight o'clock sharp tomorrow morning with stuffing made from a recipe clipped from The Wall Street Journal, I also volunteered to make the pies. Leslie assured me that, except for the mincemeat, they would be superfluous, since her sister is to bring three more pies and how many pies do you need for eight people?

“One each” seems like a reasonable answer to that question.

The whole idea of Thanksgiving dinner is that you get to dine on leftovers for the next three days, and no snack is complete without another slice of pie. So I made a pumpkin and an apple pie too — my first experience with each of them. Only the mincemeat came up to my standards, but I've made five mincemeat pies in the last five weeks and I'd better be getting good at it by now.

Buried under fresh whipped cream, I'm sure they'll all taste fine.

J.R. Dunn has an article today in American Thinker with that alliterative title. I like it just for that, but he also has the best two paragraph explanation of the cargo cult phenomenon that I've ever read. Not to mention a very good political point.

Paul Johnson has a new one out just in time for the holidays. Humorists: From Hogarth to Noel Coward.

It's on my Wish List (nudge, nudge).

Oh, and Eric Felten reviews it in The Weekend Journal.

We're having a stay at home Thanksgiving this year. It just didn't work out to go traveling, and no one's coming to visit us either, although some people might stop by.

So I volunteered to cook the turkey. I've never done it before but I've watched plenty of times. Mom always put the giblets in the stuffing or the gravy. I think I'll do that, just to be ornery.

For sensible men I prepare only three kraters: one for health, which they drink first, the second for love and pleasure, and the third for sleep. After the third one is drained, wise men go home. The fourth krater is not mine any more — it belongs to bad behaviour; the fifth is for shouting; the sixth is for rudeness and insults; the seventh is for fights; the eighth is for breaking the furniture; the ninth is for depression; the tenth is for madness and unconsciousness.

Words of wisdom from the ancient Greek playwright Euboulus, as quoted in A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage.

I am reminded also of the ancient American philosopher John Steinbeck's Graduations of the Jug.

Matthew Continetti, whose book I haven't gotten around to reading yet, posted this comment yesterday on The Weekly Standard's blog.

Anyone interested in Sarah Palin's future, or in the 2012 Republican presidential race, ought to read Robert Draper's New York Times Magazine cover story this week. Draper did the unthinkable--he conducted on-the-record interviews with Palin and her team, rather than rely on anonymous quotes from Palin's enemies.

I wasn't going to bother with it because I generally don't read anything from the New York Times, but I was bored tonight, so I gave it a try.

It's worth reading.

Nothing personal, Chuck, but I hope you and everybody at the FDA die in a fire. Screaming.

Tam said it.

Can I sit down with a bowl of popcorn and watch?

Astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson on the International Space Station. Today's APOD.

I miss the future.

Dave Winer explains.

They make a wide variety of colorful and fun cages for hamsters that are designed to keep the hamster, and their human owners, entertained for hours. When you get tired of one, you can buy another. It's looks great until you realize one day, that you can't get out! That's the whole point of a cage.

And that's what Facebook and all the rest are.

When they say you get to use their social network for free, look for the hidden price. It's there. They're listening and watching. It's pretty and colorful and endlessly fun for you and your human owner.

Unto us a Son is given.

And every time this chorus pops into my head. This time it's to Kelly, the flower girl at my wedding, now married to Ken, a lineman in Benson, Arizona, and the child is call- -ed Landon Bruce Murray, though hopefully the govern- -ment will not be upon his shoulders, even if he's as handsome as any politician I've ever seen.

Here's a peek: Ain't he gorgeous?

The Top Ten Reasons Why Conservatives Should Not Be Celebrating the Election Results

Via Instapundit. But I concur: read it and weep — or buy ammo.

Sgt. S.B. Langeberg 20933420
Co. I, 162 Inf APO 41
c/o P/M San Francisco, Calif.

Miss Carolyn Boylan
393 South 1st St
Walla Walla, Wash.

Aug. 3, 1943

Dear Carolyn,

Hello — if this ever gets to you. Got your two 'V' letters yesterday. They were very hard on me. It's like trying to breathe while in a chest.

Oh I say Carolyn, you would not know me. Remember my 36 & 38 waist — I am now wearing a 32 and with plenty of room.

Your ol' pal has moved to 147 S. 7th St. He says he doesn't like that part of town at all at all.

The nips must have got one of my letters to you. I did get the telegram about 2 days after my birthday — thanks a million.

Well, I have been living a life-time every day lately, But I still have time to think of you now and then. Am still keeping my fingers crossed too.

Kieth come walking into the house one nite. He had been stranded on an icy island for 6 months. His ship was ship-wrecked.

Well, hang on —

Love,
Stan.

147 S. 7th St. That's latitude and longitude, boys.

Christopher Hitchens.

As the populations of Tumortown and Wellville continue to swell and to "interact," there's a growing need for ground rules that prevent us from inflicting ourselves upon one another.

Worth reading. Via Instapundit.

I'm reading When Money Dies: The Nightmare of Deficit Spending, Devaluation, and Hyperinflation in Weimar Germany by Adam Fergusson.

Chas put me on to it.

Certainly we can and should back sensible center-right candidates in bluer states, but I see no point in backing someone who supports cap-and-tax, Obamacare, bailouts, taxes, and more useless stimulus packages. If you think such a candidate will be with us when it comes time to vote down an Obama Supreme Court nominee, you're living on a unicorn ranch in fantasy land.

My candidate, Sarah Palin.

Three men are out in a boat. The man on the left leans far out over the side. The man in the front, who by the way is the editor of a large national newspaper, senses that the boat is about to capsize, and advises the man on the right to move to the center.

Bret Stephens said it:

Pundits, particularly those who lean right, are schooled always to praise the wisdom of the electorate. Please. Only three years ago, Americans became acquainted with a junior U.S. senator with an interesting personal history, notable rhetorical gifts, programmatically liberal ideas and zero legislative accomplishments. Whereupon he was hailed as a saint and elected president.

I think Max said it better:

It looks like the independents are breaking right, which may be good news for Republicans in the coming days. It's not exactly good news over the long term, though. Independents are basically sheep.

Today millions of people who couldn't pass a basic civics test will be urged to get out and vote. I'd rather they didn't.

Now before you get all twisted out of shape, remember that if you're reading this you probably could pass a basic civics test. You probably have studied the issues and weighed the arguments and formed a coherent, supportable opinion. You should vote.

But urging every drooling idiot to "get out and vote" is not a good idea. Voting is not a self esteem exercise. It's serious business.