Holy S**t!!! McCain pulls ahead of Obama by 5 points in national poll

According to a Reuters/Zogby poll released today, Republican John McCain has opened up a 5-point lead on Barack Obama in the U.S. presidential race. McCain leads Obama among likely U.S. voters by 46 percent to 41 percent, wiping out Obama's solid 7-point advantage in July and taking his first lead in the monthly Reuters/Zogby poll.

"There is no doubt the campaign to discredit Obama is paying off for McCain right now," pollster John Zogby said. "This is a significant ebb for Obama."

I can't tell you how many Democrats have told me over the last few months that this race is in the bag. Unfortunately, it appears to be the air-sickness bag. I remember when McGovern, Humphrey, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry had it "in the bag." Laugh all you want about John McCain. . .he is a threat and the threat will only grow stronger as some degree of Obama fatigue inevitably sets in (and/or he makes his first serious mistakes).
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A broken pine-tar covered bat comes flying into the stands. What do you do?

A broken pine-tar covered bat comes flying into the stands. What do you do? You put up your arms in hopes of deflecting it. This photograph is an interesting study in crowd reflex.


click to enlarge...
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All This Is That's Dead Celebrity Cook-off: President Dwight Eisenhower's vegetable soup vs. Linda McCartney's vegetable soup

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who took office eight months before I was born and was the first President of all 50 states, gave this nearly 900 word recipe to the Women of Christ Episcopal Church, back in the 1950's. Wiki Answers calls it "the best recipe for vegetable soup."

We have to give Ike a generous mulligan on this one. Back then, you could still call a soup made with a beef bone ("the bigger the better"), chicken parts, and "a couple pounds of ordinary soup meat, either beef or mutton" a vegetable soup. Linda McCartney's soup, on the other hand, is even vegan. You do have to give Ike a point for using such a hip ingredient as nasturtiums. Linda McCartney's soup is magnificent: the best I've had and the only pure vegetable soup I make. Her much briefer recipe follows DDE's. Ike was well-known for his cooking and grilling, particularly for his steaks, cornmeal flapjacks, and his "vegetable soup."

First up, Ike's recipe, verbatim:

"The best time to make vegetable soup is a day or so after you have had fried chicken and out of which you have saved the necks, ribs, backs uncooked. (The chicken is not essential, but does add something.)

"Procure from the meat market a good beef soup bone, the bigger the better. It is a rather good idea to have it split down the middle so the marrow is exposed. In addition, buy a couple pounds of ordinary soup meat, either beef or mutton, or both.

"Put all this meat, early in the morning, in a big kettle. The best kind is heavy aluminum, but a good iron pot will do almost as well. Put in also the bony parts of the chicken you have saved. Cover it with water, something on the order of 5 quarts. Add a teaspoon of salt, a bit of black pepper and, if you like, a touch of garlic (one small piece). If you don’t like garlic put in onion. Boil all this slowly all day long. Keep on boiling until the meat has literally dropped off the bone. If your stock boils down during the day, add enough water from time to time to keep the meat covered. When the whole thing has practically disintegrated pour out into another large kettle through a colander. Make sure the marrow is out of the bones. Let this drain through the colander for quite awhile as much of the juice will drain out of the meat. (Shake the colander to help get out all the juices.)

"Save a few of the better pieces of meat just to cut up a little bit in small pieces to put into your soup after it is done. Put the kettle containing the stock you now have in a very cool place, outdoors in the winter or in the ice box; let it stand all night and the next day until you are ready to make your soup.

"You will find that a hard layer of fat has formed on top of the stock which can usually be lifted off since the whole kettle full of stock has jelled. Some people like a little bit of the fat left on and some like their soup very rich and do not remove more than about half of the fat.

'Put the stock back into your kettle and you are ready to make your soup.

"In a separate pan, boil slowly about a third of a teacupful of barley. This should be cooked separately since it has a habit, in a soup kettle, of settling to the bottom and if your fire should happen to get too hot it is likely to burn. If you cannot get barley, use rice, but it is a poor substitute.

"One of the secrets of making good vegetable soup is not to cook any of the vegetables too long. however it is impossible to give you an exact measure of the vegetables you should put in because some people like their vegetable soup almost as thick as stew, others like it much thinner. Moreover, sometimes you can get exactly the vegetables you want, other times you have to substitute. Where you use canned vegetables, put them in only a few minutes before taking the coup off the fire. If you use fresh ones, naturally they must be fully cooked in the soup. The things put into the soup are about as follows:

"1 quart of canned tomatoes
1/2 teacupful of fresh peas. If you can’t get peas, a handful of good green beans cut up very small can substitute
2 normal sized potatoes, diced into cubes of about 1/2 inch size
2 or 3 bunches of good celery
1 good sized onion, sliced
3 nice-sized carrots diced about the same size as potatoes
1 turnip diced like the potatoes
a handful of raw cabbage cut into small pieces
Your vegetables should not all be dumped in at once. The potatoes, for example, will cook more quickly than the carrots. Your effort must be to have them all nicely cooked, but not mushy, at about the same time.

"The fire must not be too hot but the should should be kept bubbling.

"When you figure the soup is about done, put in your barley, which should now be fully cooked, add a tablespoonful of prepared gravy seasoning and taste for flavoring, particularly salt and pepper, and if you have it, some onion salt, garlic salt, and celery salt. (If you cannot get the gravy seasoning, use one teaspoonful of Worcestershire Sauce.)

"Cut up the few bits of meat you have saved and put a handful in the soup.

"While you are cooking the soup do not allow the liquid to boil down too much. Add a bit of water from time to time. If your stock was good and thick when you started, you can add more water than if it was thin when you started.

"As a final touch, in the springtime when the nasturtiums are green and tender, you can take a few nasturtium stems, cut them up in small pieces , boil them separately as you did the barley, and add them to your soup."

And now, Linda McCartney's justly famous vegetable soup:

Linda McCartney was born 12 years before me, and eventually married one of our generation's great heroes: Paul McCartney. She was a photographer, and later a highly-regarded vegetarian cook, and food entrepreneur.

This recipe is from her excellent cookbook, Linda McCartney's Home Cooking (Arcade Publishing, 1989). When I make this soup, I only change a couple of things: I add a couple more cloves of garlic (I'm an addict), I peel the potatoes, and I probably use a heavier hand with the parsley and thyme. The recipe doesn't mention it, but after you add the tomatoes, I usually only cook the soup about five more minutes. I like this recipe because it tastes great and it is open-ended. However, she got it right, so you don't want to not stray too far from her instructions.

Linda Macca's Vegetable Soup

Total time: 1 hour 30 minutes

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
2 cups trimmed (greens included), cleaned and sliced leeks
2 cups chopped celery
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 1/2 cups unpeeled, sliced carrots
1 cup shredded cabbage
2 cups unskinned cubed new potatoes
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon fresh parsley
6 cups vegetable stock (fresh or canned)
8 medium tomatoes or 1 16-ounce can of crushed tomatoes
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

1. Heat the oil in a soup pot over medium flame, and saute the onions, leeks, celery and garlic for 5 minutes. Do not brown the garlic.

2. Add the carrots, cabbage and potatoes. Stir well. Add the thyme, rosemary and parsley. Cover with vegetable stock and simmer, covered, for 1 hour. Stir occasionally, adding water if evaporation is excessive.

3. If you are using fresh tomatoes, place them on top of the simmering liquid for about 2 minutes, or until their skins can be easily peeled away. Remove the tomatoes with a slotted spoon, and when they are cool enough to handle, remove the skins. Gently crush the whole skinned tomatoes and stir them into the soup. If you are using canned tomatoes, stir them, liquid and all, into the soup.

4. Season to taste. Serve hot.

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Ralph "Dingbat" Nader says Obama will pick Hillary as his running mate

By Pablo Fanque,
All This Is That National Affairs Editor

Ralph "Dingbat" Nader called Politico.com today to tell them he didn't think Barack Obama would select Senators Joe Biden, Evan Bayh, or Virginia Governor Tim Kaine as his running mate. The political mastermind--who these days is perhaps best known as the spoiler in the 2000 election who allowed George Bush to become President--offered his bizarre theory that Hillary Clinton has the VP slot in the bag.

"I don’t think he’s that dumb,” said Nader, commenting on public "short list" of Obama’s choices.

"The smart pick, " Nader said, "is Hillary Rodham Clinton."

Nader phoned Politico Tuesday afternoon to prediction a surprise choice of Clinton is what Obama has had in mind all along. But what about their apparent distrust and distaste for each other after the bruising primary battled? “He just has to swallow hard and do what JFK did” when he chose rival LBJ as his running mate in 1960.

The liberal "activist" and maverick (renegade, rogue?) presidential candidate has spoken. Was my article about Joe Biden yesterday wrong? No way. . .and if you believe anything that comes out of his piehole, well then friendo, I have some land in Florida I'd like to sell you.
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Another All This Is That List: A few things you didn't know about the President of the United States

click to enlarge...

John Quincy Adams, our 6th President, often skinny-dipped in the Potomac River on summer mornings. [See All This Is That: POTUS 6: President John Quincy Adams - First Son Of A President To Become President And The First President To Become A Congressman Post-White House]

William Henry Harrison was inaugurated on an extremely cold day and "caught a cold that developed into pneumonia" [ed's note: hmmmm...we know now that cold weather neither causes colds or pneumonia]. He died exactly one month after becoming the 9th President. [See Jack's portrait and biography of Harrison here: 166 Years Ago Today, William Henry Harrison Became The Fastest President Ever.]

John Tyler, POTUS No. 10, fathered 15 children with two wives. Number 15 arrived when he was 70. [See Jack's portrait and bio of Tyler here: POTUS 10: Pres. John Tyler - The First Accidental President]

The 11th president of the United States James Polk survived a gall bladder surgery when he was 17. The only anaesthetic was brandy. [See All This Is That: POTUS 11: Pres. James Polk - The Man With The Mullet]

Lanky Link a/k/a Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President, often carried letters, bills, and notes in his stovepipe hat. [See All This Is That: POTUS 16: Pres. Abraham Lincoln - The Most Beloved President?]

The 17th U.S. president Andrew Johnson never went to school. Ever. His wife, Eliza McCardle, taught him to write when he was 17. [See All This Is That: POTUS 17: Pres. Andrew Johnson - The Worst President Ever]

James Garfield was ambidextrous and multilingual. The 20th president of the United States could write--[ed's note: is this cool, or what?] at the same time--Greek with one hand and Latin with the other. [See All This Is That: POTUS 20: Pres. James Garfield]

The ubiquitous toy, the teddy bear, arose from 26th U.S. president Theodore ("Teddy") Roosevelt's refusal to shoot a bear with her cub on a hunting trip in Mississippi. [See All This Is That: POTUS 26: President Theodore Roosevelt - The Roughrider]

32nd president of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt was related, either by blood or by marriage, to 11 former presidents. [See All This Is That: POTUS 32: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt - The Man In The Wheelchair Who Lifted The Country On His Shoulders; The Only POTUS To Win Four Terms]

The letter "S" in the 33rd president's name, is just that. His middle name is S. Harry S. Truman's middle name came from two of his grandfathers, whose names both had "S" in them. [See All This Is That: POTUS 33: President Harry Truman - "The Buck Stops Here"]

Military leader and 34th president of the U.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower loved to cook; he developed a recipe for vegetable soup that is 894 words long and includes the stems of nasturtium flowers as one of the ingredients. See, separate post today, that includes his recipe. [For more detail on President Eisenhower, see All This Is That: POTUS 34: Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower - A Most Detached President]

40th president of the United States Ronald Reagan broke the so-called "20-year curse," in which every president elected in a year ending in 0 died in office. Ronald Reagan broke the curse, and George Bush looks like he will carry on the tradition! [See All This Is That: POTUS 40: Pres. Ronald "Dutch" Reagan - B Movie Actor To President]

George W. Bush, 43rd president of the United States, and his wife Laura were married three months after meeting each other. [See All This Is That: POTUS 43: Pres. George W. Bush - One Of The Nearly 5% Of Presidents Who Are Sons Of Presidents]
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Obama settles on Joe Biden for his Vice-President

By Pablo Fanque
All This Is That National Affairs Editor

Senator Barack Obama is ready to announce a running mate, according to an article by Adam Nagourney and Jeff Zeleny in the New York Times/International Herald Tribune.

Barack Obama has settled on his choice for a running mate and set the stage for a multi-pronged, multimedia rollout that begins with a crack of dawn alert to supporterss via a wide-spread text message to be transmitted to cell phones and Blackberries around the country.



The article said "Aides said perhaps a half-dozen advisers were involved in the final discussions in an effort to enforce a command that Obama issued to staff members: that his decision not leak out until supporters are notified."

The Senator has focused in recent days on two Senators and a Governor: Senator Evan Bayh (IN), Governor Tim Kaine (VA) and Senator Joseph Biden Jr. (DE). Falling off the list were Hillary Clinton (on the list because "She'd be on anyone's short list"), Governor Bill Richardson (I how Richardson ended up in the doghouse? and Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, who has been a very strong contender, but in the end her selection would only have riled up the pro-Hillary faction of the party, in addition to being virtually unknown in the rest of the country (not unlike Governor Kaine).

The Obama machine may be virtually leak-proof, but I hold in my hands an email sent to us through a circuit of anonymous internet remailers. The email was originally sent from an Apple Macintosh at a Kinkos in McLean, Virginia and includes just enough detail to leave no doubt about its veracity. The email informs us that Barack Obama has selected fellow congressman, Senator Joe Biden as his running mate.

And if you doubt our veracity, you'll just have to wait until Wednesday morning, when Barack Obama unveils his choice. For our part, it's a great choice. It will be most interesting to watch Obama attempt to keep the ebullient, gregarious and oh-so-talkative Joe Biden in check. With Obama increasingly under fire from the Republicans on defense matters, and not making any headway in the national polls, he had no choice but to select Biden. Biden presided over two of the most fractious Supreme Court nominations ever (Clarence Thomas, and the Robert Bork fiasco), in addition to being a prominent, active, and thoughtful member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

We know Senator Biden will accept the post. He said so in a June 22, 2008 interview on NBC's Meet the Press.
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Video: Be a game tester!

And now, cut to the commercial...


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Japanese African-American Slang Dictionary

Randall C. Miller, Jr. has published a book of African-American slang for the Japanese audience. Here are some of the more family-friendly of the pages in the book:

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Could you pass the Acid Test at Google or Microsoft?

Over the years, I've known dozens of people who've interviewed at Microsoft, and who have been asked all sorts of insane questions in their interviews. In interviews, I have often found the simplest questions were the best, like "What is the last book you read, and when was that?" When is almost always instructive. The answer ranges from "on the bus coming here," to "7th grade."

The Pingdom website came up with this compilation of questions:

Questions by Google

How many golf balls can fit in a school bus?

You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and your mass is proportionally reduced so as to maintain your original density. You are then thrown into an empty glass blender. The blades will start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?

How many piano tuners are there in the entire world?

In a country in which people only want boys, every family continues to have children until they have a boy. If they have a girl, they have another child. If they have a boy, they stop. What is the proportion of boys to girls in the country?

Describe a chicken using a programming language.

Questions by Microsoft

You have a bucket of jelly beans. Some are red, some are blue, and some green. With your eyes closed, pick out 2 of a like color. How many do you have to grab to be sure you have 2 of the same?

Pairs of primes separated by a single number are called prime pairs. Examples are 17 and 19.

Prove that the number between a prime pair is always divisible by 6 (assuming both numbers in the pair are greater than 6). Now prove that there are no ‘prime triples.’

Imagine an analog clock set to 12 o’clock. Note that the hour and minute hands overlap. How many times each day do both the hour and minute hands overlap? How would you determine the exact times of the day that this occurs?

How much does a 747 weigh?

Imagine a disk spinning like a record player turn table. Half of the disk is black and the other is white. Assume you have an unlimited number of color sensors. How many sensors would you have to place around the disk to determine the direction the disk is spinning? Where would they be placed?
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The Star Trek Red Shirts

This image is from the wired blog...artist unknown

If you accompanied Captain Kirk, Spock, and Dr. McCoy down to an alien planet and you wore a red shirt, the chances are you would not be beaming up.

Matt Bailey of SiteLogic analyzed the numbers and found 13.7% of Kirk's crew died during their three-year televised mission, and that 73% of those deaths were Red Shirts.

Here is someone's YouTube homage to the red-shirts.

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John Edwards experienced a Penile Zipper Injury in his rush to escape the Beverly Hilton Hotel

By Pablo Fanque,

All This Is That National Affairs Editor

I wrote an article a couple of days ago, in which I stated that All This Is That had published its last article on Ex-Senator John Edwards. I should have said "next to last."

How was I to know that I would be in the Formosa Cafe in Hollywood the next day, striking up a conversation with a young woman who turned out to be an intern at Cedars Sinai Medical Center (near Beverly Hills and West Hollywood)? Or that she had treated, along with a resident, a man named "Jack Olson" who was in fact John Edwards? And that she would treat him for a trauma that most often occurs in young boys?

You may snigger, but in fact, Ex-Senator Edwards experienced a common emergency room complaint about which dozens of articles have been published in medical journals. Look here. Or here.

As it turns out, my intern friend, Jenny, treated the Ex-Senator for a Penile Zipper Injury. She only understood what actually happened after the National Enquirer broke the story wide open. The Senator was in a hurry to zip up and hightail it out of the Beverly Hilton Hotel when he experienced a most painful misfire. The injury did not require catgut sutures, but did necessitate application of an ointment and dressing to the former Senator's tallywhacker. John Edwards was zipping up quickly as he realized the hotel was crawling with reporters and photographers.

"Jack Olson" and Rielle "Baby Mama" Hunter

The zipper injury John Edwards incurred has thus far not been mentioned in the press. Until today.
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analog+ digital painting: Map of New New Amsterdam

click the painting to enlarge

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