State of the Race

To make a long story short: 24 days out, Obama is dominating, very far ahead of McCain in the state polls, and poised to win the presidency.

Here's about the most objective read you can find, showing Obama's poll averages (including all polls) across the battleground states:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/11/11173/709/20/627471

Here's the key part:

State EVs Poll Total EVs

Safe Obama states 190
(10/7 res)
IA 7 O+14.2 (n/a) 197
PA 21 O+14.1 (O+12.9) 218
MI 17 O+13.6 (O+10.3) 235
NH 4 O+11.1 (O+11.6) 239
WI 10 O+9.0 (O+6.9) 249
MN 10 O+7.7 (O+10.9) 259
VA 13 O+7.7 (O+5.3) 272

So, Obama's up by over 7 points in the state he needs to win. And this doesn't include his, oh, 97 or so other likely pickups such as Colorado(9), Nex Mexico (5), Ohio(20), Florida (27), North Carolina(15), blah, blah. You get the picture. TODAY, it's looking good.

I add that last condition it's not time to celebrate or get complacent. But clearly, the complete fucking economic meltdown of the last few weeks has fundamentally altered the conditions of this race. States like Pennsylvania and Michigan, have moved into the guaranteed win status because concern with our dire situation has focused minds and reminded a lot of folks about just who's been watching over this disaster the last several years. McCain's attacks on Obama's 'otherness' and his (completely GOP-manufactured ) 'ties to terrorists' look tone deaf, clueless and pathetic when measured against the historic events of the last month. On the other hand, Obama's calm demeanor and steadiness are just very reassuring qualities to have in a leader.

It's not over, but it's going to take a lot to alter the fundamental new course this campaign has taken.

Still-sweet Scotch Ale

So I racked my super-sugary Scotch Ale last night. It had an Original Gravity of 1.065, and is down to 1.032. For normal human beings, that means it has the potential of being pretty alcoholic (7% or so) while maintaining a rich, sweet quality. But wow, this stuff is still syrupy sweet and is taking its time fermenting.

That's fine; I'm sure it'll be awesome after it ferments down and ages for a while (I'm thinking of drinking it in mid-July, but stretching it out into the fall). I'm also hoping for a hint of smokiness to emerge as the malty flavor fades.

I have no experience with or knowledge of Scotch Ale apart from the one chapter I read in the wonderful if totally geeky Designing Great Beers, so I won't have any idea if I screwed it up. That's probably a good thing.

Hillary: I'll Win Because I'm White

This thing is over. What is the point of remarks like these?

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."
"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.

Yeah, there's definitely a pattern: A once-respected Senator and powerful former First Lady has engaged in a pattern of shameful race-baiting to score political points.

Way to go, Hillary!

Updates!

For anyone waiting with bated breath:

Spicy and banana-y wiezenbock chilling;
Strong Scotch Ale fermenting;
Hops sprouting;
Garden tilled and planted;
Politics turned back on with a primary annoying me daily.

The Wonderful Immigration Agency I work with Daily, Episode 3

Citizenship and Immigration Services wants you to know it's working full-time to welcome legal immigrants and new citizens to the country:

The number of people who legally immigrated to the U.S. dropped 17 percent last year, largely because of administrative problems, according to a Homeland Security Department report.

A total of 1.05 million people became legal permanent residents in 2007, falling from 1.27 million a year earlier, according to the report by the department's Office of Immigration Statistics.

Citizenship and Immigration Services has been under fire after processing times grew because immigrants flooded the agency with applications filed last year in advance of a dramatic increases in filing fees. The delays will keep some people from becoming citizens in time to vote in November.

To be fair, "I don't think anyone could have anticipated" a massive increase in immigration and citizenship filings before fees tripled last July.

Plus, most of these potential new citizens would vote Democratic in November. Best to nip that problem in the bud right now.

Weihenstephan Weizenbock for Brooke

Weihenstephan Monastery in Germany has been brewing beer since 1040. 10-freaking-40. It's tough to really wrap your brain around the idea of a continuous trade in a good for nearly 1,000 years, but it makes sense. Stan Hieronymus in Brew Like a Monk notes that Benedictine Monks were ordered to sustain their living through work and trade. Add that to the demand that they offer hospitality to all who passed through (i.e. beer rather than the contaminated water of the middle ages), and you've got a built-in brewing tradition.

Weihenstephan makes an incredible weizenbock. They keep the color light to fit the heavy 'bananas and cream' flavor to this beer. It's just delicious - full-bodied, goes down smooth, very creamy and all at around 7.5%.

More than that, though, their Weizenbock 'doesn't have that yucky back of your mouth stingy' taste (paraphrased) that Brooke despises in beer. In fact, she loved the bottle we bought a couple weeks back. That's a big deal. A good friend of mine once commented that when her husband makes her beer, it's like having a song written for her.

So I took a stab at a similar style this weekend. I didn't match the Weihenstephan recipe and I didn't try to hunt one down. I did, however, use Weihenstephan weizen yeast, a ton of wheat and the same or similar noble hops. The original gravity wasn't at all what I was going for (this is an alcoholic beer, but it's also got a lot of delicious non-fermentables in it that add to the body), so I threw in a pound of turbinado sugar. I was careful in pitching and fermenting temperatures (55-65 degrees), which is central to the weizenbock style. I'll take advantage of the landlord's second fridge and cold-condition it for a week or so.

It won't be the same as the monks' brew. It never is. Hopefully it resonates with Brooke and the rest of us who drink it this late spring.
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*For Brewing Nerds: I used about 50% wheat, with the remainder split between two-row, munich and light crystal. The color was definitely darker than the commercial variety, but I knew that going in. Disturbed by the gravity reading, I added the sugar to the wort. I threw in Saaz at the boil, and a couple small additions of Hallertau in the last 20 minutes of an 80 minute boil. It's fermenting with Weihenstephan Weizenbock yeast from Wyeast.

Homegrown cascade hops

I am not a gardener. I would like to be, but I'm not. Or at least I haven't been.

The last time I "gardened" was when I was about 8 or 9 years old. I feel like it had something to do with Boy Scouts, but it may have been just for fun. Sadly, I often kill plants, or neglect them to the point that they're the sad-faced, plaintive stepchild of the yard.

But making beer at some point is going to lead to growing your own ingredients, so on a whim, I bought a hop rhizome a couple of weeks ago. I planted it yesterday.

It was fun. I like getting dirty in pursuit of making something, especially since it's novel and not what I do at work every day. Colorado's soil sucks but I added a bunch of good organic soil and compost to the heap, and threw mulch around it to help keep in some of the moisture. I think I'll set up a simple trellis to train the vines around, though I may get lazy and just use the fence. I hear they grow like mad, so it could be fun watching this little plant take over a sizeable portion of our yard's north border.

I planted a cascade rhizome. Cascade hops are just wonderful. They impart a ton of fresh-smelling, flowery aroma and citrusy flavor to pale ales, lagers and IPAs. Cascade hops remind me of a beautiful, mild May day spent outside.

It snowed just a touch last night, but I don't think that matters. With a little luck, I'll be picking and using my own this summer. That's a joy to think of but like I said, I'm not a gardener, so I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch.

The Wonderful Government Agency I Work with Daily, Episode 2

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services wants you to know it cares deeply about the sacrifices made by Iraqis in waging our Glorious War on Terror:

Sam Ahmad is a war hero and has the medals to prove it - the Navy-Marine Corps Achievement Medal and the War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal. But he's a civilian, not a soldier, and an Iraqi citizen to boot. After putting his life on the line for the United States in Iraq, death threats by anti-coalition forces forced Sam - whose entire family had been wiped out by Saddam Hussein's gas attack on Halabja - to flee to the United States under the auspices of a 2006 law granting visas to Iraqi translators. Sam was granted the visa, and subsequently granted asylum.

The next step is the "green card," or permanent residence. But in a stunning case of the left hand not knowing the right hand is even on the same planet, the government turned Sam down, saying he is "inadmissible" because he once belonged to a "terrorist" group. That group would be the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP,) a group that sought the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and now holds seats in the Iraqi parliament.

Is the KDP on a U.S. government list of terrorist organizations? No. USCIS decided the KDP is a bad apple based on one unofficial nongovernmental website, a DHS-funded anti-terrorism think tank in Oklahoma.

Did Sam hide his KDP past on his translator visa and asylum applications? No. That was fully disclosed from the get-go.

But really, what more do we owe any Iraqi after so graciously liberating them?

Free Joe Nacchio!

That's definitely not a popular view in Denver: the home of Qwest, the company at the center of former CEO Joe Nacchio's insider trading trial. Also, I suppose that as a liberal, I should whole-heartedly support pro-stick-it-to-the-man policies in all cases.

But I don't, and the 10th Circuit appeals court doesn't either:

Former Qwest chief executive Joe Nacchio was granted a new trial Monday when an appellate panel decided 2-1 to toss his insider-trading conviction because of an error by the trial judge. ...

The majority decision — by Judges Michael McConnell and Paul Kelly — said Nottingham erred in not allowing expert testimony from Northwestern law professor and private consultant Daniel Fischel.

"We conclude that on the record before him the district judge was wrong to prevent Professor Fischel from providing expert analysis, and that this error was not harmless," the ruling states.

To be honest though, I could care less about the expert's testimony - I have no idea what he was going to testify about. It's Nacchio's other main (losing) argument on appeal that bugs me:

Mr. Nacchio also argues that the district court was wrong to prevent him from presenting certain classified information as evidence at trial. He claims that the evidence would have shown that he personally had reason to believe that Qwest’s economic prospects were much better than others realized. Thus, he says, this evidence should have been permitted both to show that he did not have material information and to negate scienter. We affirm the district court’s decision, because even if the classified information were presented and established what he said it would, it could not exonerate Mr. Nacchio as he claims....

Essentially, Mr. Nacchio argues that undisclosed positive information can be used as a defense to a charge of trading on undisclosed negative information. We disagree. If an insider has material information that he cannot disclose because it is confidential or proprietary, then he must abstain from trading. That is the lesson of In re Cady, Roberts & Co....

Note the oblique reference to "classified information." What was that, anyway?

A former Qwest Communications International executive, appealing a conviction for insider trading, has alleged that the government withdrew opportunities for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars after Qwest refused to participate in an unidentified National Security Agency program that the company thought might be illegal. ...

In the court filings disclosed this week, Nacchio suggests that Qwest's refusal to take part in that program led the government to cancel a separate, lucrative contract with the NSA in retribution. He is using the allegation to try to show why his stock sale should not have been considered improper.

So let's review:

1) Qwest had major government contracts in the pipeline in 2001, as the company was facing other financial difficulties.
2) Qwest got approached by the Bush Administration to see if the company would mind breaking privacy laws by helping the government illegally spy on millions of Americans contacting or being contacted by anyone overseas.
3) Qwest lawyers and Joe Nacchio reviewed the request and said "No. That would be illegal."
4) George Bush gets pissed, the government retaliates and Qwest loses all above-mentioned major contracts.
5) Joe Nacchio gets convicted of insider trading after the judge refused to allow classified evidence regarding the illegal spying into court under the "State Secrets" doctrine.

As to the above court holding regarding the classified evidence, it's absurd on its face. The court would have had Nacchio abstain from trading notwithstanding the fact that he thought the good and the bad future acts would cancel each other out. Cady, Roberts didn't address this situation at all and is, as they say, clearly distinguishable.

So that part of the holding is ridiculous, but whatever. Nacchio will get a new day in court in front of a new judge. It'll be interesting to see whether this classified information gets in.

After all, it'd just be shocking to discover that George Bush sold a corporate CEO down the river on criminal charges after fucking his company for obeying the law. Right? Right?

Mead today, bock tomorrow

We moved into our little fruit tree surrounded home about 9 months ago, just as the peaches were really growing. We heard that they usually went to the birds pretty quick every August. Happily, they got yellow and delicious, and the birds got few. Brooke and her mom and mema chopped a lot of peaches. I jumped in a bit too; it was fun and gross getting covered in peach juice. They're really tasty - we still have some in our freezer.

On the first day of September, I got up early to buy honey at the farmer's market. I bought a gallon of peach blossom honey harvested (or got, or stolen from angry bees, whatever) near Longmont, and the farmer (bee rancher?) asked "Making mead or eating all that?"

I spent that late morning making my first batch of mead, the kitchen humid with sweet honey water. I'm enjoying it for the first time tonight. I've drunk a small bottle from time to time, but it's only now near ready (and poised to get better with age).

The peaches are coming through in a wonderful way - I'm glad we got to them before the birds did.

***

Shiner Bock helps make Texas great. I have a lot of warm feelings for any craft brewery that can bring the surrounding area a great brew that's a lot different from the other beers you can buy (in Texas, at least) at your corner gas station. Dark, crisp, caramel, easy drinking, widely consumed and loved. In Colorado, it's easy to take good, diverse beers for granted. In Texas, Shiner stands out amongst a sea of Miller and Bud, which is not to lessen its appeal. It just has less competition in the "good beer" market. The drink is a source of pride in the state for good reason.

I'll try and get close with a batch tomorrow. Shiner's worthy of a personal attempt. I'm sure it'll be a lot different, though. It always is!
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FOR BREWING NERDS: The mead had about 10 lbs of honey, including a little choke cherry as well from my brother-in-law. Of course the peaches, and a yeast that made the folks at the beer store pause. "This could be really interesting." It was sharp at first but is working out well. I should let this sit a while longer.

The bock has 2-row pale, munich, amber and a pinch of black patent, plus flaked corn. I got a standard lager yeast and centennial and liberty hops. We'll see.