Silflay Hraka

We pulled Ngnat out of bed around 9:30 tonight, brought her downstairs to view the newly hung Christmas lights, twisted red, gold, blue and green around the tree. She sat on our collective lap in the dark quiet, half-asleep, sucking her thumb under the ancient Holy Hobbie comforter Sainted Wife covered us with. “Holly Hobblie” Ngnat calls it.

“I like the green ones” she said, eventually. We cocooned for a while longer, went outside to see what the tree looked like from the street, then put her back to bed. “Night, night, M&Ms,” she told the string of novelty candy lights as I carried her upstairs.

Tonight was lights night. Tomorrow is deck the tree night, or so I am informed. I don’t make these decisions, I just abide by them. Sainted Wife makes them by default, coming as she does from a family of early decorators. Were it up to her, the ornaments would have been deployed as soon as the Thanksgiving washing up was over with. I don’t recall ever decorating until a week or so before the 25th, but the very thought of such laxity is enough to cause SW to break out in hives.

I managed to delay the onslaught, though not by much–unless one counts the snowman placemats on the kitchen table as Xmas decor, in which case I failed miserably. We’ve been eating off them since the 15th.

Two of the neighbors began decorating while we were at the inlaws–seeing their efforts when we returned home yesterday was the wreath that broke the reindeer’s back. Today the decorations came down from the attic.

We bought a tree from a stand just down the road, from the same red-haired family who sold us pumpkins in October, tied it down on top of the SUV and drove it away. Once home, I pounded the tree stand onto it with a rubber mallet before taking it down–it’s much easier to attach the stand when the tree is more or less immobile than it is to lower the bulky thing into a stand after it has come off the roof. Better for my back, as well.

Later on, after a lights run to the Big Lots, SW complained of an odd rattle in the car whenever she went over a bump. I went outside to check, and sure enough, there was the rubber mallet, still on the roof. She’d remembered to remove the tree blanket before going, but had overlooked a two-foot hammer.

And she has the gall to consider me absent-minded.

It is of course Silflaykia that is the linchpin of the entire alliance. Without our secret owlsa police, the entire region would be awash in decent jeans and soft toilet paper.

Of course, our comrades in the unseen reaches of Hrakastan are also a great help in the struggle.

Yakima Brewing is selling 500,00 shares of stock in order to boost production of Grant’s Mandarin Hefeweizen.

The company has been unable to keep up with consumer demand but hopes raising capital will enable it to increase production.

As a preferred stock, shares will sell for $1 each and pay a 7.75 percent semiannual dividend, Brown said. Investors in Yakima Brewing would have the option to convert their preferred shares to common stock shares in that company or its parent company.

At a dollar per, shares will cheaper than the beer.

Rank the comments below on the Bush visit to Iraq, all of which originated from one post or a link off of it, by the level of their insipidity, with 1 being the mosit insipid, and 5 being the least. It’s fun for the whole family, especially at the end of a long weekend with everyone cooped up together! Practically guaranteed to cause generational rifts that will last for years!

1. I’m surprised they didn’t ship that yellow-bellied coward to Iraq in a submarine.

2. Bush going to Iraq was probably one of the best and bravest things any President has done in a generation.

3. I hear the rat from Crawford snuck off to stage a psy – op some-fuckin’-where even more dusty, ratshit and misbegotten than buttfuck Texas.

4. Apparently someone didn’t get a transcript of George Bush’s nipple-hardening speech.

5. These men and women in the military are not protecting me, and I do not want or need their protection. Bush should get off the big lie that they are there to protect me as an American. I would rather die than be protected in that way.

Thanks to our first player, Oliver Willis, who feels that when it comes to tepid and tasteless, number 2 is the winner going away!

And I agree with him. Comparatively, it is the most “Lacking in qualities that excite, stimulate, or interest; dull.” Approval is always duller than disapproval, especially disapproval spiced with a soupcon of rage, and the disapproval of the dinosaur Left has been seasoned with considerably more than a soupcon that emotion in last couple of years.

Rage is addictive. Like a drug, it deadens the the perceptions. It’s as good an explanation as any, and one more forgiving than most, of why Oliver found insipidity to be the most objectionable quality on display in the sentiments above.

Well, relatively cheap.

Since we’re at the in-laws in Rock Hill for at least some part of the Thanksgiving weekend, having driven here last night after dining with the Maenads, I stopped by Brawley’s Beverage in Charlotte to pick up a couple of bottles of lambic for the upcoming neighborhood Christmas party.

Yes, I realize that other beers would be more appropriate for a winter celebration; The Samuel Smith’s 2004 Winter Welcome Ale, for instance, or the Mahr’s Christmas Bock. I would take one of those, were I going to a party with attendees more familiar with the genre.

But they are not. I’ve always thought lambics are a good introduction to what beer can be, instead of what most Americans think it is, so they are party-bound by default.

I priced the bottles a couple of weeks ago, during my first visit to Brawley’s, and was very pleased–so pleased, in fact, that I feared there would be none left today. I use the Lindeman’s lambics as shorthand for a couple of things. For one, their brews appear to be the most widespread Belgian beer aside from Hoegaarden in the Southeast–certainly it’s the most widespread lambic, so it should be easy to find. A beer store without a Lindeman’s is almost certainly not going to have much else in the way of interest. Secondly, the price of one can be used as a shorthand for the cost of the rest of the beer in the shop.

For instance, the last Whole Foods I patronized priced a 330ml bottle at $9.49, which is hellaciously expensive unless one happens to be in New York, where a bottle can go for upwards of thirteen dollars. At Harris Teeter, on the other hand, one can take a 330ml Lindemans home for $5.99. You can get one for the same price at Total Wines. For the 330ml, Frugal MacDougals has the best price I’ve seen at $5.49, making that store the cheapest of the big boys.

Liquid Solutions prices them at $6.05 per 330ml. Internet wines offers the same size for $6.25. The Beer Geek will sell you one for $5.99, but shipping from all three online shops runs at something around a dollar per bottle, so the price per bottle there is misleading.

Brawley’s is the hands down champion, though, offering the harder to find 750 milliliter bottles for just $7.99. Total Wines comes close, pricing their 750ml lambics at $8.99. Both of those are jaw-dropping low prices for the big Lindeman’s, running 4 to 8 dollars less than what other stores charge. The other beer store in southern Charlotte (all are within a mile of each other, which is extremely convenient for me, if a bit nerve-racking for the owners of the shops), Mike’s Discount Beverages, doesn’t sell the 750ml bottles. You can pick up the 330ml for $7.99–comparable to most normal stores, but an almost certain loser in the area they happen to be in.

Excellent, excellent news, if only because it allows me to continue to hope that the throne of England will one day be mine.

For those of you wondering, which I realize is a very small number;

Edward III begat John of Gaunt, who begat Joan De Beaufort who begat Anne De Neville, who begat Humphrey Stafford, who begat a line of Staffords that eventually included not only myself, but my wife’s great-grandfather (We are 13th cousins, once removed, according to my mother, who keeps track of these things)

However, we suspect there’s a bastard in my direct line, something not present in the wife’s genealogy, so Ngnat’s claim on the throne is probably better than mine. Yes, our claim is shaky, but we could do at least as good a job as the German family of sex-crazed deviants presently occupying the position.

Imho, Bush going to Iraq was probably one of the best and bravest things any President has done in a generation, if not longer.

Here’s how some others on the Left responded to it;

Hesiod

OK. You know you’re all thinking it.

I’m surprised they didn’t ship that yellow-bellied coward to Iraq in a submarine.

DailyKos

Too bad some of those 600 soldiers couldn’t come home with Bush. Given the chance, I bet most of them would’ve leapt at the chance. Instead, they get to stay behind and take incoming on behalf of the president’s reelection bid.

Atrios

Count me as one who thinks that Bush’s little trip is, on balance, a “good thing.” I mean, it’s better than him not doing it. But, what’s with the press acting like, as Hesiod says, Bush grabbed a machine gun and personally stormed a building filled with armed insurgents?

He didn’t meet with any locals. He didn’t meet with the governing council. He flew into a heavily fortified military base and then flew out again.

FoH Skippy

we can’t help but wonder if awol’s trip wasn’t a spur of the moment thing to blow hillary’s pr out of the water.

but then, we’re cynics by nature.

Indymedia One

I hear things…I hear the rat from Crawford snuck off to stage a psy – op some-fuckin’-where even more dusty, ratshit and misbegotten than buttfuck Texas.

Indymedia Two Like a Cowardly THIEF in the Night!

Oliver Willis

I honestly think it was a pretty good thing, unusually, on his behalf. Yeah, you could view the “surprise” element as political, but the danger involved in transporting any president into a warzone such as Iraq far outweighs that.

MEANWHILE: Senator Clinton visited the real front in the war on terror

TBOGG

Four mortar shells hit a U.S. military compound Friday in the northern city of Mosul, killing a soldier from the 101st Airborne Division, the military said.

Apparently someone didn’t get a transcript of George Bush’s nipple- hardening speech.

Matthew Yglesias

Scanning around the web, it seems to me that too many of my liberal colleagues are willing to give the president credit for today’s little stunt supporting the troops. Consider, however, whether you think that the leaders of the Democratic Party would have been wildly opposed to taking a little Thanksgiving-time trip of their own to pose with the troops for photo ops. Seems to me that they would love to have done that. But they weren’t invited. And not only were they not invited, but the planning for the trip was kept secret so that they couldn’t protest at not being invited. Result: Many photos of GOP supporting troops, zero photos of Democrats supporting troops. Very good outcome for the president.

Meanwhile, what the troops need is not a visit from the commander-in-chief, but a commander-in-chief who knows what he’s doing. Similarly, the president doesn’t need to spend a couple of hours with the soldiers, he needs to figure out what the hell is going on in Iraq and what he’s going to do about it.

Steve Gilliard (scroll down)

The stunt of landing in Iraq at the dead of night to not eat with our troops says two things about Iraq, neither of them good. Yes, he only served food, he didn’t eat any.

Two, Bush still has no answers on how to deal with Iraq other than “we’re gonna get them terrarist sums uh bitches”. The one game plan which isn’t working. So he sneaks in, pats a few soldiers on the back, happy to see anyone from home, and sneaks back out. Does he stop at Walter Reed? Invite some local Waco-area families who lost kids in Iraq over to the ranch for pecan pie? Nope. See, only the healthy soldiers were needed for this photo op. Any reminder of sacrifice was a bad thing. And it kind of hard to get the right visuals when you have soldiers struggling to eat with a hook where their hand used to be.

Juan Cole

Instead, the President had to sneak in and out of Iraq for a quick and dirty photo op, clearly in fear of his life if the news of his visit had leaked. He did not even get time to eat a meal with the troops. He was there for two hours. He did not dare meet with ordinary Iraqis, with the people he had conquered

Emerging themes, gathered from the above as well as a number of other sites/discussions.

1. It wasn’t as brave as when Clinton went to Kosovo.
2. It was a response to Hillary’s trip to Iraq
3. President Bush was a coward for landing at night.
4. President Bush was a coward for staying only two hours.
5. Johnson went to Vietnam, look what it did for him.

More as I notice them.

Update: Andrew Sullivan has a couple of reactions (direct links do not work, for some reason–scroll down), as do A Small Victory and Little Green Footballs. Finally, there’s a media roundup here, (courtesy USS Clueless), and a whole ‘nother lefty link list at Ballooon Juice.

Some People Never Learn

We learned that the UN and the EU are run by feckless career bureaucrats whose top priority is preserving their cushy jobs, followed closely by sticking a finger in the eye of the Great Satan whenever possible. We learned that these people will turn a blind eye to the actions of repressive regimes, especially if they have a sweetheart deal with the thug who runs the country. And we also learned that in a crisis, these people are about as reliable as an ’84 Yugo; they will cut and run as soon as things get tough or unglamorous.

What a Man!!

You need to have served in the military to understand the effect on troop morale. President Bush didn’t need to go to Iraq; I’m sure the secret service tried hard to talk him out of it. But he went anyway, and in so doing showed his loyalty to the troops. This is one of those intangibles that separates genuine people from fake hucksters. By braving danger to be with the troops, he became one of them.

I’m Confused

Great Britain obviously does not have a First Amendment, which means that one can be investigated for hate crimes for suggesting that homosexuals can change their orientation.

Clearly it seems that one can get away with any type of hateful speech in Britain if the target is the Jews. Some people, after all, are more equal than others.

More Newzbites

Okay, does anybody else here think that the Muslim Army Chaplain accused of espionage on Gitmo oughtta be tried and shot, if for no other reason, than he downloaded porn on an Army laptop, while deployed to the highest security environment around?

Another Ngnat anecdote, before I forget it completely.

She and I took in a play at the public library down the street on Monday; “Jack and the Beanstalk” as presented by a troupe* devoted to introducing young children to the theatre. While we were waiting for the performance to begin, Ngnat announced that she had to go potty, as she inevitably does whenever we go anywhere. I suspect she collects public potty experiences as a hobby–certainly she never misses a chance to go to a new one.

So I packed her off to the bathroom– the boy’s bathroom, by the by. Given the choice, she would go nowhere else. We crowded into the smallish space, and Ngnat inspected the room as I wiped mysterious fluids off the toilet seat with the side of my sleeve.

Well, toilet paper, actually. Using my clothing to sop up unknown toilet fluids would have been disgusting, though I don’t doubt a number of you believed me perfectly capable of doing so without a second thought.

Anyway, as I mopped and polished, Ngnat gazed around with a designer’s eye.

“This room is very cute,” she decided. “And functional!”

No more staying up late watching the Home and Garden channel for you, missy.

*There were three of them. I assume that’s enought for a “troupe.” We left halfway through the performance, as the thought of Jack having to face the giant for a second time drove Ngnat from the room in fear.

Spent Thanksgiving day at the House of the Maenads, where the boards groaned beneath the weight of the feast, and the wine flowed like a liquid that was not beer.

I had two glasses of a Gallo Merlot, and a nap in front of the Lions/Packers game. Scotty M had strained peas and a four-second nap in a strange crib before he was picked up and comforted by a maiden great-aunt who obviously suspected us of child abuse, so long had we let him scream. I’m not sure what the Sainted Wife had, as she, starved for conversation that didn’t revolve around poopies, playtime, or this cool thing I read on the Internet today, honey, spent her time socializing.

Ngnat had a handful of meat and a fight with her younger cousin over who was the more able of the two when it came to incessantly ringing the bells beside the basement fireplace. Various female relatives of the two attempted, U.N.-like, to draw up an equitable agreement alowing a shared use of the valued auditory resource–with as much success as one would suspect given a metaphor involving the United Nations.

My input into the situation, which consisted of shouting “You can take him, Ngnat. You’re bigger than he is!” from across the room, was not appreciated at all by the presumptive referees, though they occasioned some amusement among the male relatives present, thus illustrating yet another gulf between the sexes.

Women are from the United Nations. Men are from Texas.

For those males now standing, or sitting, as is the more likely case, aghast at the sheer wrongness of the metaphor when applied to themselves, rest assured that there is an alternate location available.

You can be from France.

————–

Ngnat also spent some time in the company of her great-grandfather, playing dolls in front of the fireplace. He’s a WWII veteran–spent his service time as part of the Marine contingent aboard a pocket carrier in the Pacific, the USS Cape Gloucester.

60 years ago a West Virginia mountain boy gave two years of his life to America. Yesterday was part of his reward. Pray that 60 years from today those now serving receive a similar gift.