Articleman's Eleven

11.  It's bad to eat bluefin tuna.  I'm usually pretty up on not eating endangered things.  I won't order Chilean Sea Bass.  But after reading this piece concerning NYC's Sushi Yasuda,  I have now connected the buttery "toro" I have loved with the endangered bluefin, and will no longer be eating it.  On the other hand, kangaroos are totally not endangered.  I'm going to get some kangaroo to eat for Christmas, in a peppery cherry sauce, with a good Aussie Shiraz.  And thank God, no vegemite.

10.  If Newt Gingrich wins the GOP nomination, look for him to select freshman Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) in an attempt to make inroads among Latino voters, to keep Florida within reach, and to counteract his general Newt Gingrichiness.

9.  Free agent shooting guard Caron Butler met today with the Chicago Bulls.  The Bulls' one gaping deficiency is shooting guard.  Consider that last year, they were 26-2 when subpar SG Keith Bogans scored 6 or more points.  If the pulls could pick up Butler, or make a deal for a comparable shooting guard, it is hard for me to see how the Heat would be better than the Bulls.  At minimum, the Eastern Conference Finals would be a great rematch.

8.  Early polls show Elizabeth Warren running a hair ahead of Scott Brown in the marquee Senate matchup on the board.  If Warren wins, the Democrats will still have a hard time holding the Senate, which will come down to challenging races in Florida, Missouri, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Arizona.  I give the D's a 40% chance to hold the Senate.

7.  The Senate has started moving much more quickly on judgeships than it had been during the first two and a half years of the Obama Administration.  While there are many nominees, apparently the objects of holds, who are languishing, a preponderance of them are suddenly moving.  Not rapidly, mind you, but at the speeds we got used to during the Clinton and Bush Administrations.  Meanwhile, the Obama Administration has been moving to provide nominees who are more consensually acceptable.  

6.  In a brush with roadkill, I almost hit two javelinas on the way home tonight, as they leapt in front of my car in the dark.  They are nasty, smelly animals.  And stupid, leaping out in front of cars as they do.  (Or maybe very bright, but just feeling depressed, who knows.)  Every morning I go running, and fear running into one, as they periodically maul runners.  Oh, and I haven't written about Newt Gingrich for a few paragraphs.  Josh Marshall reports he's still up in Iowa, and is the darling of older Republicans and the Tea Party, who go for Gingrich over Romney 35% to 4%.  I wonder who the non-Gingrich preferring Tea members will move while caucusing to when their fringe candidates fail to get enough votes to matter in the caucus process.  Hmm.  35%?  4%?  Hmm.  Roadkill indeed…

5.  If you like sweet German wine, 2010 was one of those years that comes along a few times in a lifetime, along with 1971 and 2005.  If you want great and affordable wine, top producer JJ Prum's Graacher Himmelreich Auslese can be had for only $42 per bottle.  Yes, they ship.  One of the best food or wine bargains you're going to see.  Trust me on this wine, though it's best if you sit it for at least a year.  Serve it at 40-45 degrees.  

4.  People may have mistaken my repeated writing about Newt Gingrich for a wish that President Obama would have an easy opponent served up to him.  In reality, it's a chance to spend a year writing weird New York Post-like headlines using his name.  So I'll be watching, as gallup.com starts its daily tracking of Republican Presidential preferences Tuesday morning.  Gallup has already reported that the race is down to Gingrich and Romney, who are the only two potential nominees considered "acceptable" by majorities of Republicans (Newt = 62; Mitt = 54).  Gingrich gets 82 among the Teasters.  Now that's Newt-work.

3.  The second season of AMC's The Living Dead remains fraught with logistical problems.  What are the zombies eating to thrive this long after most people have been turned into zombies?  Each other?  Wouldn't that food source run out too?  And why don't they finish rotting?  Apparently, they rot partly, and then stop.  Is there something about being a zombie that arrests your physical decay?  And how do zombies hunt food other than people?  Given how stiffly they walk, how do they get up?  Do they sleep or rest?  If not, where do they get the food to burn that much energy?  Are zombies essentially perpetual motion machines?  Can they be set on fire?  If so, why don't Rick and the others set more of them on fire?  Wouldn't that be easier than shooting them all in the head with crossbows?  In the zombie fighting rock-paper-scissors, I'd go with fire over crossbows every time.

2.  My seven year old son is excited about the discovery of Earth-like planet Kepler 22-B.  He's at that age when cool, imaginative kids are thinking about doing space travel.  Did any of you go through a science fiction phase as a kid that age?  I was reading Heinlein, Asimov, Harry Harrison, stuff like that.  When I visited Manhattan, I was struck by how Isaac Asimov must have imagined Trantor, the world in the center of the galaxy that was the seat of the Galactic Empire, from 1940 New York City, all that steel and iron covering up nature and dominating his reality.  

1.  Today Congressman Raul Grijalva (D.-Ariz.) called for Sheriff Joe Arpaio to resign.  And Sheriff Joe called for Raul Grijalva to resign.  Just another day in paradise out here.  As I saw someone write on a blog recently, remember, you can't have crazy without AZ.  At least we got rid of State Senate President Russell Pearce.  There may be hope for our state yet...