Things I Learned While Looking Up Other Things

Back when I was a kid, my dad used to bring home the Sun-Times at night after reading it on the train. He liked the Sun-Times, he claimed, because it was a tabloid and easier to handle on the crowded train car. I've always suspected though, that the real reason was that the Sun-Times was Chicago's blue collar paper, and my dad was more comfortable reading the every man's rag. He usually read the Wall Street Journal in the morning, so the whole tabloid vs. broadsheet bit was a tad suspect.

One of my dad's, and later on my, favorite columnists was Sidney Harris. Mr. Harris was an interesting sort since he was kind of an intellectual and had a habit of writing about a broad range of topics. A notable accomplishment for a writer in a tabloid.

Over time I became familiar with Mr. Harris' work, and he had one feature that I always found fascinating: Things I learned while looking up other things. It was great! In one column title he let you know that in a short time you were going to be treated to certain odd facts and tid bits that would intrigue, inform, and on the whole, entertain. Simultaneously, Mr. Harris was also revealing not only the fact that we are always learning, but that the learning process itself is one of life's great adventures.

I have no illusions, that this new feature in my blog will be as revealing or as regular as Mr. Harris', but I do hope you find the following of interest:

1. Since the first Thanksgiving, cooks with varying degrees of success have been stuffing turkey cavities with all sorts of items in an effort to impart more flavor to the turkey. The best way to ensure that you're successful in this venture is to first stick with aromatic vegetables, and the most importantly, steep them in a cup of water in the micro-wave before draining them and putting them into the turkey

2. Penultimate: Means the NEXT to last. For some reason I thought it meant the last

3. Division 1 schools can only give 9.9 scholarships for each female soccer team per year. Division III schools are barred from giving athlete's sports scholarships

4. Note to Hillary and Obama: The vast majority of lost jobs in Ohio went to states with lower taxes and right to work laws, not foreign countries. For example, GM is right now building a new plant for hybrids in Texas, not Ohio or Michigan

5. And speaking of manufacturing, per the St. Louis Fed we now manufacture more goods (even adjusting for inflation) than we ever have! We're just doing it with less people per unit produced.

6. Following on this productivity theme, in 1900 it took 40% of the population to feed the country while today it takes only 2.5%

The Pursuit One Second Thought - Edition 1

"It seems to me that the Sully who Sully thinks he is would be embarrassed by the Sully that Sully really is."

Absolut - Dopes

I see that Absolut has apologized for its recent Mexican ad depicting an enormous chunk of the United States as being part of Mexico. Apparently, there is some nostalgia in Mexico for some long past “good old days” when the western U.S. was part of our neighbor to the south, and Absolut was playing to this nostalgia by hoisting the above map up on billboards across the country.

As could be expected by everybody, save for the uniquely clueless execs at Absolut, a great cry of protest was heard from those who saw the ad as an insult to the U.S. Of course, they’re correct, if perhaps a bit overly vociferous in their outrage. And what does this say about Mexico? Whatever latent fantasy exists there for a return to the above drawn borders, the fact is that the land is U.S. territory and by virtually any measure we’ve done far more with it than anything our neighbors might have contemplated. As someone put it, the only real difference would be they'd be trying to sneak into Oklahoma.

What I love about this controversy though, is how even in the supposed triumph of this ad, Mexico still loses and seems to not have even noticed! Because, while the map represents their view of a better world, the message itself is written in English.

A Confession

Well, after my swearing off the Cubs post from a few years ago, and my little "Welcome to the season schmucks" post earlier last week, I believe it is necessary to 'fess up.

Yesterday, I took PD1 out driving. She is 16 in a couple days, and we haven't come close to doing enough driving to qualify her for her license. So I thought it would be good to go out for a couple hours on Saturday and just drive all over the place. As it turned out, Saturday was a beautiful day, with plenty of sun and a 63 degree breeze.

Naturally, I thought of grilling out for dinner, and suggested to PD1 that we drive into the city to Paulina Market (The Mecca of Meat) and buy a selection of fresh sausages for the grill. As we were driving in, traffic was a bit heavy and I realized that it was probably Cubs traffic; Paulina is very close to Wrigley Field.

As I mentioned this, PD1 suggested that it would be a most excellent adventure to see if we could scrounge up some tickets and take in the game. Who could argue with such logic?!

So we found some guys parking cars on their empty lot, and as we pulled in PD1 asked one of them if he knew where we could get some tickets. Immediately, the guy was on the phone and told us he could get us two club box seats in the 6th row, behind third base.

Whoa.

Well, we haggled a bit over the price, I went to the ATM and a moment later some dude pulled up on a bike with our tickets. What a fantastic time we had. I had a beer, PD1 a pretzel, the game was exciting and most amazing of all - the Cubs won.

A spectacular afternoon for us and proof that the best times are those that you don't plan. They just are meant to be.

Face Melting Rock and Roll

I was working out today, and this tune came up on my Ipod. Man, Sass Jordan just rocks, or at least she used to, I have no idea if she still does. At any rate enjoy this, and while you're at it, contemplate this musical question.

If Sass Jordan and Chris Robinson had a rock and roll baby, would it not be the most soulfullest, rockinest child ever?

Cannibalism?

Whew boy, now I know why Al Gore has lost so much weight! Click here my friends.

A Gusher!

I found this article in a link off of Instapundit last week, and Scott referenced it in a comment he made over at Tom's today. Originally I thought about posting it, but for one thing it was Friday night and a manhattan (2 cherries) was issuing its seductive call, and for another I figured this news would be all over the place.

After all, one of the main problems this country has when it comes to energy independence is that we put so much exploration off limits. There is ANWAR, the coast of Florida and California, just to name a few. When one considers the enormous find off of Brazil late last year and other recent, although admittedly lesser, discoveries the concept of "peak oil" becomes just a bit creaky. This is particularly so with the price of oil at such high levels, which has the benefit of making costly extraction technologies more economic.

Which brings us to today's link. Apparently Montana could be sitting on a literal ocean of oil. We'll know more when the U.S. Geological Survey is released, but if this is true this find would dwarf virtually all other known reserves in the world. Add in the oil sands of Canada, and suddenly we see that North America could be viewed as oil rich.

I won't argue the politics of any of this. All I want to know is why isn't anyone talking about it?