November 15, 2012

At the Wine Beaker Café...

Untitled

... drink up and chat all night!

IN THE COMMENTS: Jimmy said: "Those aren't beakers they are Erlenmeyer flasks." I knew I had the wrong word and I tried — a little! — to get the right word. If I hadn't drunk an 2 Erlenmeyer flasks of wine, maybe I would have tried harder. (The flasks only held a modest glassful, despite the appearance given by the camera angle.)

89 comments:

pm317 said...

Hi Nina!

n said...

Offro io!

Loosely, in italian, " The drinks are on me!"

Anonymous said...

Wow, even in Pakistan is Petraseus-Paula-Jill story famous.

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/national/16-Nov-2012/petraeus-love-scandal-amuses-taliban

This needs to be a TV movie - fast, real fast. I cannot believe it that there is no production on going.

Kim K. as Jill
Angelina J. as Paula
George Cloony as Petraseus
Etc etc.

You cannot make this shit up. If you did, no one would believe it

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Levi Starks said...

Is that a climate scientist behind those drinks?

Levi Starks said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
edutcher said...

If you slug down a beaker of that stuff, you'll be awake for another hour, tops.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Having wine with Hillary Clinton?

Dante said...

Here is a vision of America from Ron Paul I really like. It's about a 45 minute speech: they should play it in schools, and let every child think of it for themselves. He hits on a lot of points I agree with.

The one thing I disagree with him on is the Defense issue, but only in that we have to get our own oil going. Then I'm with him on that too.

I think it's a very positive message: people CAN. If you tell them they can't, you run enough Jerry Springer shows, the whole society degenerates.

Dante said...

It certainly looks like it would be a very pleasant and enjoyable experience to sit down with Ann and drink wine.

What's the limit? Is it allowed to get to the giggly point?

Wince said...

Can anybody give me the argument against why the Republicans shouldn't:

1.) give Obama the tax rate, yes, tax rate increase on the top income bracket;

2.) leave deductions alone (that was evil Romney's idea anyway);

3.) make Obama name any budget cuts;

4.) let Obama take responsibility for the consequences; and then

5.) run on repeal and reform in 2014 and 2016.

peacelovewoodstock said...

Dear Dante,

What point drinking if one isn't allowed to get to the giggly point?

Freeman Hunt said...

The news on Facebook is that now that the consequences of Obamacare that conservatives warned about are happening, business owners are outrageously cold-hearted and want to hurt their employees on purpose.

One person went so far as to suggest that businesses could obviously make up the difference by offering better products and services, so only laziness and spite could drive payroll cutbacks.

Also, unicorns pee streams of gold.

peacelovewoodstock said...

EDH,

Indeed, let Obama be the lemming in chief, to lead us over the fiscal cliff.



Freeman Hunt said...

Weird how there are all these "The Economy Sucks" articles in the news now. If only reporters had had some indication of that before the election, they could have reported on it then.

Dante said...

Can anybody give me the argument against why the Republicans shouldn't:

I think it would be a good idea for R's to roll over and say to the Wealthy: "Sorry, we have to give on the tax increases, we only have the house left, and Obama is right, everyone but a few want to raise taxes on the rich. We won't be here if we don't."

Then, the wealthy will feel the pain, and there will be a powerful advocate for diminishing government size.

peacelovewoodstock said...

I take comfort in the knowledge that human progress appears to be inexorable, that despite frequent byways into periods of unspeakable horror, it seems that the good guys always win.

Let's hope that the path we seem to be on doesn't take us as far down one of those dark roads as we have been in the too recent future.

Wince said...

Jimmy said...

Indeed, let Obama be the lemming in chief, to lead us over the fiscal cliff.

Passing the legislation would avoid the across-the-board tax rate increases and spending sequestrations that are the basis of the "fiscal cliff", as commonly ascribed.

Spending cuts would no longer be automatic; that's why I say let Obama make them.

Of course, fiscal imbalance would likely continue for at least another two years, but Obama would own it.

Irene said...

Freeman, I had the same thought. Why did the phrase "fiscal cliff" appear only on the day after the election?

peacelovewoodstock said...

Dante,

Ok, we give Obama his tax on the 1%.

Results most likely are that unemployment grows, and net gain to Treasury receipts is negligible.

Point made??

peacelovewoodstock said...

Those aren't beakers they are Erlenmeyer flasks.

peacelovewoodstock said...

BTW I'm the guy that would have won Ann if it weren't for Meade, also the fact that I am happily married.

Wince said...

Of course, that should have been "Can anybody give me the argument why the Republicans shouldn't"

Mea culpa.

ampersand said...

I rolled my dough out of the stock market today It'll probably boom tomorrow, but I need to sleep peacefully at night.

As my whimsy leads me.. said...

Is that Nina?

Toy

ampersand said...

It's like the the Al Hirschfeld caricatures. You have to find the Hidden Ninas. There's at least one but possibly more in the plants.

rcommal said...

Oh, my, I don't know what to say. Althouse: I just flipped to Bravo and there is Camille Paglia on "Watch What Happens Live." That surprised even me. So glad that you had a cafe up here, so that I could just share that. Dang.

Craig said...

Ever play air hockey with someone totally toasted on grass? Field sobriety test, my ass!

leslyn said...

That woman has had too much already. Cut her off.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Our high school's varsity football team won tonight, advancing again in the playoffs, 11-0 undefeated woo hoo! They're good kids and it's lovely to be a part of a community that treasures them and their accomplishments.

leslyn said...

She looks happy about it, though.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I'll have a club soda...

Make that a 32 once.

William said...

On Marie Antoinette and envy... If you think the upper crust don't understand our problems, you should consider the things we get wrong about them......At her trial, Marie Antoinette was charged with seducing her five year old son. Marie was an airhead, but she wasn't a depraved monster. You really have to be immersed in hatred and totally drunk on it to come up with a charge like that. She was acquitted of that charge but convicted of living larger than the sans cullottes and duly executed. Her five year old son was imprisoned in a stone cell in solitary confinement. No contact was permissible with him. He died about a year into his dismal fate. How much do you have to hate rich people to subject a kid to such an ordeal? Poor people are as crazy with their resentments as rich people are with their contempt. We're all jerks.....I'm a child of the lower orders and have my resentments against the effortless lives of the rich. But there are so many more variables than money in life. At one time I thought JFK Jr had a far better deal than me, but all things considered I've had a much more colorful and interesting life than he in recent times. The system's rigged, but it's rigged against everyone

Lydia said...

Or as his papa, JFK, said: Life is unfair.

Lydia said...

Just googled that JFK quote and found this:

In 1962, Kennedy increased the American presence in Vietnam to nearly 10,000 troops.

When Army reservists began being called up to serve there, as well as in another Cold War front in Berlin, some felt that they had “done their time” and publicly expressed their resentment by holding demonstrations. One reservist even began a hunger strike.

President Kennedy was asked about this during a press conference held on March 21, 1962.

He responded by saying that calling up the reservists “strengthened the foreign policy of the United States.”

After making this political point, Kennedy waxed philosophical.

“There is always inequity in life,” he mused. “Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded, and some men never leave the country, and some men are stationed in the Antarctic and some are stationed in San Francisco. It’s very hard in military or in personal life to assure complete equality. Life is unfair.”


Seems a tad flip. Wonder if a politician could say that today?

Other than Obama, that is.

Dante said...

Dante,

Ok, we give Obama his tax on the 1%.

Results most likely are that unemployment grows, and net gain to Treasury receipts is negligible.

Point made??


I could see a number of good outcomes. Unemployment increases, the country goes into another recession, and people rethink the role of government, and the massive forced spending it does, at the expense of producers.

But even to me, the Rush Limbaugh and other advocates of low taxation on the income rich and wealthy seems duplicitous. With middle class tax rates so much higher in marginal and effective rates, it's pushing down families. It's destroying them, by requiring multiple earners in the home, among other things.

The future is hard to predict. I say let the Democrats have their head. Let's stop being frogs in a pot of slowly heating water, and let's heat up the pot fast.

It's the attitudes of the people that is wrong. Sure, it's encouraged by politicians, well thinking ex-hippies, and a liberal arts press that doesn't know how to add.

Meanwhile, if it makes a difference to you, I think the tax rates in this country are excessive, particularly on the middle class. Outside of government union workers, and others who petition the government, it's a big negative.

Since math is beyond the press, and even evidence is beyond the press, it's time to let the consequences come home.

Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for Inga to tell us how much better things are going to get with the Obamao as president.

Chip S. said...

Seems a tad flip.

I thought it seemed amazingly thoughtful and honest. What the hell kind of press conference was that?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Obama amassed a coalition of purchased votes trough massive largess called a 'stimulus' that went mostly to the Unions... a large amnesty of undocumented Hispanics (guess who they voted for)... and the mother of all gifts... Obamacare, one that while not yet implemented, it is on the books with the SCOTUS seal of approval and Romney represented the hope of a last ditch effort against it.

In Newspeak... Romney committed a gaff... but if you go back and look at what Romney said... he only hinted at what I listed above.

Maybe what the left really wants is to say none of things happened during Obamas first term... they want a ministry of "truth".

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The MSM is the ministry of 'truth'.

Lydia said...

Chip S.:

I think what struck me as flip about the JFK remark was what it was in response to -- legitimate complaints by over-burdened reservists. I’d love to know what some of those reservists at the time thought of it.

Chip S. said...

I see what you're saying, Lydia. Today that would be a "gaffe" that would consume a couple of news cycles.

I suppose to any WW2 vets the reservists seemed like whiners.

Mary Beth said...

I am contemplating the possibility of a world without Hostess cupcakes.

leslyn said...

Lem said that Obama bought the votes of..." a large amnesty of undocumented Hispanics (guess who they voted for)..."

I'm still trying to figure out how that works.

Probably some conspiracist will tell me.

William said...

I suppose you can argue that life was very unfair to JFK. He was in pain most of his life. That whole Presidency thing was more the fulfillment of his father's ambitions than his. He never truly owned his life, and his life was short.....As a counterweight to that, he enjoyed sailing and got laid a lot. But if you weigh the pros and cons, it wasn't such an enviable life......The only lives I truly envy are those of athletes, but even among them there's lot of deficits. Joe Dimaggio's wife Marilyn cheated on him during their honeymoon. When he tried for hold out for more money (he wanted something like $60,000 after his streak season), the press vilified him. American men on the front lines aren't making $60,000, you greedy bastard.....As noted, the system is rigged and everyone eventually gets snared in the rigging.

rcommal said...

William:

I appreciate your comments on this thread. Thanks for your thoughts, and also thanks for the thought-provoking.

Regards,
L

MayBee said...

Nina is so pretty, but I would kill any friend who posted a picture of me from that angle, doing that "get out of the picture" thing with my neck.

Ann Althouse said...

Nina said I could post any picture and I had to pick that one because of the way her camera's focus light lit up the glassware. I was worried and what weird camera-face she was getting from me.

@ jimmy Thanks for the correct name for that labware. I tried to look it up but not that hard.

kentuckyliz said...

Chemobrain and aging = memory problems. I had a nagging feeling was forgetting something. I kept going through my to do list, and I had done everything needful for my big field trip today.

About 5:30 and I'm at my salon and think oh crap the deposition is tomorrow and I haven't cancelled! I tried to get someone else to lead my field trip but couldn't. So we have to reschedule again. My atty was still in her office. Yeay.

Full big van today, but there's usually a no-show rate.

MayBee said...

Nina said I could post any picture and I had to pick that one because of the way her camera's focus light lit up the glassware. I was worried and what weird camera-face she was getting from me.

Aha. It's good she gave permission,then.
I had to beg my friend not to post every single picture on Facebook. You know, the friend who only makes sure it's a good picture of *her* before she posts.

The glassware in this is very pretty.

pm317 said...

College drop-out journolister Chucky Todd in a moment of unusual candor admitted a couple of months before the election may be to Laura Ingraham that the media whores were deliberately suppressing stories/news on the bad economy. "We should have done a better job on it", heh.

Rusty said...

Mary Beth said...
I am contemplating the possibility of a world without Hostess cupcakes.

Fried pies. I love their lemon fried pies.

Jim in St Louis said...

Jimmy wrote:
"I take comfort in the knowledge that human progress appears to be inexorable, that despite frequent byways into periods of unspeakable horror, it seems that the good guys always win."

Can't say as I agree with you there.Technology, science, computing power are all increasing, but that is immaterial compared with human development. Do you ever wonder why philosophy is still debating the same Plato vs Aristotle argument? That golden age in greece was a wild advance- to have people actually thinking about thinking. And we have not had another since then.

Christ in the first century gave us a total revision of power and concept of what it means to be 'first' and what it means to be 'last'. And again nothing since then.

I could see us slip backwards very easy into a dark ages, or worse. There is no promise of advancement.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I took a call from Planned Parenthood last night.

Young woman. Painfully earnest.

Please give anything. Something about matching funds. They need money now more than ever because Obama won and the other side is energized and working harder than ever.

Something like that. I was already drunk

But I'm positive she said that abortion is only 1% of what they do. It's mostly Pap smears and breast exams.

I told that earnest young woman to take me off their list because abortion is good birth control and I'm going to give my money to an organization that performs lots of abortions.

Pap smears? Breast exams?

Feh.

Saint Croix said...

So this made me mad. Our media actually is Pravda now. The government gives them their talking points and they regurgitate it in unison.

But then I read this and I am speechless. NPR, actual government radio, is doing a better job of covering the human disaster caused by Hurricane Sandy than our Pravda media. They cannot cover Sandy because it might make Obama look bad. Like Katrina made Bush look bad.

So they ignore it. Hurricane Sandy is not news. Anything that makes Obama look bad is not news. Indeed, the only reason you cover Hurricane Sandy is to make Obama look good. Chris Matthews sees Hurricane Sandy as a prop for Obama. That's it, that's all he sees. Our media is filled with people like that. Insanity.

Rusty said...

Dante said,

"I could see a number of good outcomes. Unemployment increases, the country goes into another recession, and people rethink the role of government, and the massive forced spending it does, at the expense of producers.

But even to me, the Rush Limbaugh and other advocates of low taxation on the income rich and wealthy seems duplicitous. With middle class tax rates so much higher in marginal and effective rates, it's pushing down families. It's destroying them, by requiring multiple earners in the home, among other things.

Taxing the 1% isn't going to get us out of this. We passed that Rubicon with the ACA. Which needs to be done. What won't be done until there are smoking ruins, is create an environment forthe creation of more millionaires and billionaires. Lower the tax rates for the middle class. Drastically cut federal spending across the board.

The future is hard to predict. I say let the Democrats have their head. Let's stop being frogs in a pot of slowly heating water, and let's heat up the pot fast."


The economic future is unfolding pretty much in a predictable way. Capital is contracting. Wealthy individuals are taking their profits now and securing their assets to prevent further confiscation. Corporations are downsizing. They're sending more capital off shore where it is safer. Which means higher unemployment, less capital spending, and more importantly, less innovation. There is absolutely nothing Keynesian that can be done at this point that will effect the long term decline. We are nearly done eating the seed corn. There will be no recovery in the next four years, or ten, or twenty if continue on this path. Sorry to be so gloomy but history has shown this to be true.

KCFleming said...

2010 Planned Parenthood service numbers
Number of abortions (medical and surgical): 329,445

If abortion = 1% of all PP activity, that means they must be doing 32.9 MILLION Pap smears and breast exams for that claim to be true.

2011 PP Annual Survey
Total number of PP clinics: 749
Total number of affiliates: 82

Total = 831 possible clinics

32,944,500 ÷ 831 = 36,644 Pap smears, pill prescriptions, and breast exams annually, 762 per week, 141 every day, or 17.6 an hour in every PP clinic across the US.

Not possible.

Paco Wové said...

"That golden age in greece was a wild advance...And we have not had another since then."

Edith Hamilton on post-Golden Age Athens:

"...after Salamis the spirit of Solon's Athens persisted and grew even stronger. It was the Athenian's pride and joy to give to their city. That they could get material benefits from her never entered their mind except, of course, a certain degree of safety behind her walls and her army. But the state was not an asset; they themselves were the state.

There had to be a complete change of attitude before Athenians could look at the city as an employer who paid her citizens for doing her work, and the change went deep. Now instead of men giving to the state the state was to give to them. What the people wanted was a government which would provide a comfortable life for them, and with this as the foremost object ideas of freedom and self-reliance and service to the community were obscured to the point of disappearing. Athens was more and more looked on as a co-operative business possessed of great wealth in which all citizens had a right to share. The larger and larger funds demanded made heavier and heavier taxation necessary, but that troubled only the well-to-do, always a minority, and no one gave a thought to the possibility that the source might be taxed out of existence. Politics was now closely connected with money, quite as much as voting. Indeed, the one meant the other...

Athens had reached the point of rejecting independence, and the freedom she now wanted was freedom from responsibility. There could only be one result. [...] If men insisted on being free from the burden of a life that was self-dependent and also responsible for the common good, they would cease to be free at all. Responsibility was the price every man must pay for freedom. It was to be had on no other terms."

The Echo of Greece, 1957

Clyde said...

This is the biggest crisis of Obama's presidency! He needs to do something!

Twinkies Maker Hostess Going Out of Business

I'm sure that his snack-food-hatin' wife will be happy about it, but this is far worse than Benghazigate, the CIA director diddling his biographer, Israel and the Palestinians killing each other, or even the fiscal cliff. I can survive in a diminished nation suffering under Obamacare, but I don't know if I want to live in a world without Twinkies!

This is a black day indeed!

KCFleming said...

That's 17.6 an hour in every PP clinic across the US in addition to the abortions, which add another 0.19 activity per hour, equaling 17.8 services per hour.

If the number is "3%", as PP claims online, they must do more than 6 non-abortions per hour, in addition to the 1.5 abortions daily.

Mary Beth said...

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/story/20115859/hostess-going-out-of-business-nearly-18000-to-be-laid-off

I guess it's time to go stock up.

KCFleming said...

Great job, baker's union.

KCFleming said...

Unions are not a parasite, but a cancer.

Most parasites aren't stupid enough to kill the host.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Petraeus also told this source he believed the CIA talking points given to Susan Rice came from within the White House or Administration."

Clyde said...

Mary Beth, they only have a shelf-life of 26 days! :-(

Jim in St Louis said...

Paco- Heavy stuff man.

Saint Croix said...

When our grandchildren ask us why we didn't do anything about the baby-killing, we'll say, "we didn't know."

And when they ask us why we didn't know, we'll say, "the media didn't tell us."

Freeman Hunt said...

Planned Parenthood in 2012: "Killing babies is only a small part of what we do. We provide vital services to women."

Nazi in 1943: "Killing Jews is only a small part of what we do. Mostly we're about promoting Germany."

Slaveholder in 1800: "Holding people in bondage is only a small part of what I do. I work to provide important goods to people all across the country."

Matt Sablan said...

"Twinkies Maker Hostess Going Out of Business"

5,000~ employees went on strike and cost 18,000~ employees their jobs. Somehow, its the managers fault though. I just know it.

campy said...

Somehow, its the managers fault though. I just know it.

Well, ultimately it's Bush's fault. And Romney's.

All straight Christian witemales share the blame, really.

Patrick said...

My kids have never had a Twinkie. I'm going to have to take care of that this weekend. Twinkies aren't particularly good, but, c'mon...

Patrick said...

I'm sure the union will provide.

This reminds me of the US strike quite awhile ago. The Union went on strike, it lasted long enough that even if UPS had agreed to the Union's initial demand, the employees would take years and years to make up what they'd lost in the strike.

I feel bad for some of those union workers. The Unions don't seem to work for their workers, they are all about self aggrandizement for the union leadership. And the Democrats.

Mary Beth said...

Speaking of 18,000. Today is Papa John's Appreciation Day. More than 18,000 people on Facebook have confirmed that they will participate.

jaynie said...

Crazy timing of this Christian Science Monitor article :

"Where Syria's opposition groups get their rockets"

http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/print/World/Middle-East/2012/1116/Where-Syria-s-opposition-groups-get-their-rockets

Consider the whispers, rumors, that Ambassador Stevens (RIP) was in Benghazi to facilitate tranfer of Libyan weapons to these very Syrian rebels. In contrast, this CSM article seems to paint a picture of the rebels using quaint cottage industry produced bombs and rockets.

Come on! Do you believe that?

Could it be that our gummint is arming the Syrian rebels without our knowledge or consent ? ... Nah, never happen.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The unions are interpreting the Obama victory as a bonafide support of the country... whether they are hijacking it or not is irrelevant.

Stronger muscle flexing unions means a higher burden to economic recovery.

rhhardin said...

Ring Dings going away is a blow to general aviation.

There will be nothing to eat at airports.

McTriumph said...

Patrick said...
I'm sure the union will provide.

This reminds me of the US strike quite awhile ago. The Union went on strike, it lasted long enough that even if UPS had agreed to the Union's initial demand, the employees would take years and years to make up what they'd lost in the strike.

My grand father was a meat Cutters Union organizer and president, he's been dead for about 40 years. He was always against strikes, his theory was that considering the time value of money, you never catch up on lost wages. He also believed that all the militants' accomplishments and over reach were done on the backs of younger workers.

Rusty said...

Mary Beth said...
http://www.myfoxdfw.com/story/20115859/hostess-going-out-of-business-nearly-18000-to-be-laid-off

I guess it's time to go stock up.


Now is the time for some savy investor to buy up the product line.

Wanna bet that a year from now they're back again with new management.

bagoh20 said...

It's Twinky Friday!!!!

bagoh20 said...

Since we all come here to try and prove how smart we are, I would like to make the case for my own superior judgment and say: I did not vote for four more years. That does not make make superior in this room, but it definitively make me above average in the electorate.

Also, my mom thinks I'm cool.

garage mahal said...

I'm going to order a shitty pizza and eat a twinkie. In your face, Libtards.

Known Unknown said...

How I learned what an Erlenmeyer Flask was

Not a science major, me.

Known Unknown said...

Wanna bet that a year from now they're back again with new management.

You'll be eating Classic Twinkies in no time.

McTriumph said...

bagoh20 said...
It's Twinky Friday!!!

They are great with coffee or hot chocolate.

Also, it's important for a man's mother to think he's cool. Your father teaches you to be a man, your mom teaches you to be a human being.

Love your icon, reminds me of my very short career as a test pilot in the late 60s.

William said...

Even as the capitalists conspire to grind down the proleteriat, the proleteriat conspires to shear the capitalists. A union puts upward pressure on wages and benefits, but this upward preesure can eventually bankrupt the company. It happens. It's not something that union militants consider, but it happens.

tastid212 said...

To Jimmy's comment about O taking us over the fiscal cliff: that's one time he'll definitely be "leading from behind"...

leslyn said...

Petraeus says he always said it was terrorists. But other agencies changed the report.

Classic. The SODDI Defense: Some Other Dude Did It.

leslyn said...

Keep on keepin' on with your "sources," Apple.

Sam L. said...

Ya can't pour wine out of a Klein bottle.

Beldar said...

I thought everyone who ever took high school chemistry lab learned that Erlenmeyer flasks must be the ones that have straight sides, since "Florence has the curves." No?