Congress should at least remove their blackmail that virtually requires states to have the law at 21 to get their full highway fund money. Letting states decide what they want is the proper federalist answer.
Despite its popularity, I never knew anyone that had the 12C. I had the 16C computer science model (I lost it in college in the late 80s when I left my backpack in class), and most of my friends 11 or 15.
Egad, not the conspiracy theory that the fed is a private business again. The federal reserve is not a private corporation. It's semi-public, semi-private institution, with completely public government components (the Board of Governors, which acts independently from Congress and the Executive to ensure the lack of political pressure and influence), partly public/partly private aspects (the reserve banks, which are "owned" by the banks in the reserve district), and wholly private sections (the actual banks everyone deals with every day). The federal reserve banks issue stock, but it's not something you can buy on any market. It's non-transferable and owned by the banks in the reserve bank's district. It pays a dividend set by federal law, which is meant to offset the money that banks are required to keep in reserve in the reserve banks, which earn no interest.
The federal reserve system is a lot more open and transparent than many central banking systems around the world.
Discover gives 1% cash back... what's complicated about that? I usually just apply it to my balance to save about $150 on one month's payoff (I never keep a balance month to month), though this year I did a cash-back * 1.25 reward to LL Bean. They sent me several 50 dollar gift cards, that were easy to enter into the website. I got 7 shirts and a cat blanket that's become my cat's favorite sleeping spot at night. AND LL Bean send me another $10 gift card for "spending" so much at their store.
Of course, if you're talking redeeming them for frequent flyer miles--it's the miles programs that are insanely complicated. Redeem them for something simple and you'll be happier.
Distillation is not that difficult. You can do it very safely using refrigeration, relying on the fact that alcohol freezes at a much lower temperature than water. Freeze distillation also retains much more of the fermentation characteristics of the original drink than fractional distillation. It's just as illegal, under federal law, mind you, so don't talking indiscriminately about it. It's difficult to produce anything stronger than 25 or 30% alcohol using freeze distillation, but it's my favorite method because it requires less aging and retains many of the flavor components that are lost in fractional distilling (I'm a homebrewer--I like keeping hop and yeast character).
Fractional distillation can be done fairly easily with a pressure cooker and some copper tubing (running off the cooker and through an ice bath). You just have to be careful to discard the heads and tails. And the product that comes out is raw and needs to be aged a few months or a few years, to develop some complexity. Age it in good wood to add that complexity. You can buy seasoned casks from wineries and distilleries without too much problem.
Again, be careful who you talk to about the stuff you make. The penalties are stiff: up to 5 years and $10,000 fine per count for each offense, plus the IRS can hit you up for excise taxes unpaid on the production (see 26 U.S.C 5002 and 560l).
Also, can people cut the political crap here? I'm as much a political junkie as anyone, but I leave it behind on the political blogs. This blog is for fun stuff, regardless of your affiliation.
I see the Trinity monument up on front page. The Trinity site opens usually once a year for tourists. Some friends and I made a road trip there in 1995 for the 50th anniversary, arriving about 5:30 in the morning. There was a half-mile line of cars. There were quite a few people who worked at Los Alamos during the war, together with a fair many veterans and a pretty good number of Japanese tourists. There were also a bunch of incongruent hippies who sang peace songs and then threw fake blood on the monument--they didn't really fit in with the reverence that most other people had for the site.
The factoid about guns being '20 times more likely' (actually, the famous study said '43 times more likely') was a terribly flawed study. It was done by totalling homicides, suicides, and accidental deaths in a single county (King county, WA), and comparing the number against the number of justifiable homicides. During the period they looked at, there were a total of four justifiable homicides. The vast majority of the firearm related deaths (nearly 90%) were suicide. If the absence of a firearm made suicides less likely, that would be one thing, but multiple studies have found no correlation between the availability of guns and the rate of suicide. Gun control reduces gun suicides, but has no effect on the general rate of suicides.
Ditch the suicides from the study, and you get a 2.4 rate of accidental deaths or homicides to every justifiable shooting (of course, by that time, your sample size is small enough to question the validity of the data). Some might argue that's still a good reason for gun control, in that more people die unjustifiably than justifiably, but the study did not take into account any situation where a gun was used non-lethally (whether as a deterrent or by wounding) to stop a household invader. The study also included among the murderers a few who were charged with murder but acquitted by juries on the grounds of self-defence.
2 octaves below middle C? I've played a recorder pitched at that, the Paetzold sub-greatbass. Requires a lot of air. I've heard Dolmetsch is working on a sub-contra in F, two octaves under a normal bass recorder.
Here are some pictures I scanned from Strad magazine several years ago, of a rather large string bass, made by the 19th century French maker Vuillaume:
When were popcorn poppers invented? I don't think the hot-air ones are more than 20 or 25 years old, but I had a popper in the 70s that looked kinda like a curved double boiler, with electrical coils between the two pans (It didn't look anything like the popper in that video; I've never seen one of those). You put the popcorn in it, and some oil, and plugged it in, and it popped them. I guess you could probably fry something up in one.
As for eating squirrel, that was nothing unusual back in my native east Texas, at least not a few decades back. The start of squirrel season in the fall used to be the biggest outdoor event of the year. It kinda compares to what I've read about moose season in Sweden. Everyone, rich and poor, used to head out to hunt squirrels (deer were extremely rare until conservation efforts brought them back in the 60s). There were 'squirrel camps' all over. Fried squirrel with gravy was the main dish, but there were many variations. Personally, I don't get the culinary attraction. Squirrel is very gamey. But hunting them is fun.
Speaking of real potatoes and Mr Potato Head, there are few things more terrifying than putting Mr Potato Head features on an actual potato, and then leaving it in a dark cupboard for several weeks.
The old 7 deadly sins, I could easily violate all of them on a typical day. These new ones suck. None of them are any fun (well, unethical medical research is fun, but I can't afford the scientific lab necessary to replace my cat's forelegs with octopus tentacles).
The federal reserve system is a lot more open and transparent than many central banking systems around the world.
Of course, if you're talking redeeming them for frequent flyer miles--it's the miles programs that are insanely complicated. Redeem them for something simple and you'll be happier.
Fractional distillation can be done fairly easily with a pressure cooker and some copper tubing (running off the cooker and through an ice bath). You just have to be careful to discard the heads and tails. And the product that comes out is raw and needs to be aged a few months or a few years, to develop some complexity. Age it in good wood to add that complexity. You can buy seasoned casks from wineries and distilleries without too much problem.
Again, be careful who you talk to about the stuff you make. The penalties are stiff: up to 5 years and $10,000 fine per count for each offense, plus the IRS can hit you up for excise taxes unpaid on the production (see 26 U.S.C 5002 and 560l).
Also, can people cut the political crap here? I'm as much a political junkie as anyone, but I leave it behind on the political blogs. This blog is for fun stuff, regardless of your affiliation.
Ditch the suicides from the study, and you get a 2.4 rate of accidental deaths or homicides to every justifiable shooting (of course, by that time, your sample size is small enough to question the validity of the data). Some might argue that's still a good reason for gun control, in that more people die unjustifiably than justifiably, but the study did not take into account any situation where a gun was used non-lethally (whether as a deterrent or by wounding) to stop a household invader. The study also included among the murderers a few who were charged with murder but acquitted by juries on the grounds of self-defence.
Here are some pictures I scanned from Strad magazine several years ago, of a rather large string bass, made by the 19th century French maker Vuillaume:
http://plover.net/~agarvin/bass.jpg
http://plover.net/~agarvin/bass2.jpg
http://plover.net/~agarvin/bass3.jpg
As for eating squirrel, that was nothing unusual back in my native east Texas, at least not a few decades back. The start of squirrel season in the fall used to be the biggest outdoor event of the year. It kinda compares to what I've read about moose season in Sweden. Everyone, rich and poor, used to head out to hunt squirrels (deer were extremely rare until conservation efforts brought them back in the 60s). There were 'squirrel camps' all over. Fried squirrel with gravy was the main dish, but there were many variations. Personally, I don't get the culinary attraction. Squirrel is very gamey. But hunting them is fun.