| Nancy vs. Hillary?
Bevan's talking about all the Speaker Pelosi stories. But he might also have been talking about all the press buzz about the Baker commission and the possibility of 'changing the course' in Iraq--which could convince at least some troubled Republican and independent voters that Bush will react effectively after the election. ... Maybe these are the sorts of stories that give Republicans their best shot at changing the election's momentum in the final weeks: Not stories that fly in the face of the MSM's all-hands-on-deck last-quarter Beat Bush tendency (e.g., not a Secure Fence Act signing, which the MSM will just bury) but stories that take the media's own obsessions and turn them to the GOPs' advantage, jujitsu style. In this case, the press' intense interest in a Democratic Congress led by a woman leads them to counterproductively play up Pelosi Fever, while the press interest in anything that shows Iraq going sour gives Bush an opening to suggest that he's on top of the situation.** **--He might have to suggest a bit harder, though.
No Country for Old Men Wins Oscar for Best Picture
No Country for Old Men wins the Oscar for Best Picture as the frontrunner coming in. It was listed with around 1/3 odds and was widely expected to win. The film was written, directed, and produced by Joel and Ethan Coen and stars Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, and Javier Bardem, who won for "best supporting actor" earlier in the evening. No Country for Old Men draws heavily on McCarthy's themes of chance and fate; it tells the story of a drug deal gone wrong and the ensuing cat-and-mouse drama as three men crisscross each other's paths in the desert landscape of 1980 West Texas.
The film has been highly praised by critics. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it "as good a film as the Coen brothers�have ever made." A Guardian journalist said the film proved "that the Coens' technical abilities, and their feel for a landscape-based western classicism reminiscent of Anthony Mann and Sam Peckinpah, are matched by few living directors." The film has received almost universally positive reviews.
minazione e resistenza irakena
For the first time in years journalists want to talk to them. All year Turkey has been threatening to send its army into northern Iraq as a result of pinprick attacks by the PKK inside Turkey. But an invasion is about the last thing Erdogan wants: it would achieve little against the PKK and discredit him with Turkey's 15 million Kurds, many of whom voted for his moderate Islamist party in July's general election. Even a small war might deflate Turkey's economic boom and strengthen the power of the army within the state. But the fighting is getting more intense. A PKK attack early in the morning of October 21 killed 16 Turkish soldiers; eight others were captured. Erdogan has talked tough, but so far avoided ordering the Turkish army across the frontier. If another PKK attack of similar magnitude takes place, he may be compelled to act.
Obesity Becoming World Crisis
Projected to be a bigger threat to life than AIDS and malaria combined, obesity is quickly becoming the world's most severe health-care crisis. As waistlines grow alarmingly, so do concerns over the impact an unhealthy population could have on everything from medicine to the economy. The numbers paint a disturbing picture. The United Nations says there are now more overweight people in the world than starving people. Cardiovascular disease - commonly caused by obesity - kills 17 million people every year. Type II diabetes fatalities are expected to grow by 50 per cent in the next decade. Obesity is not new, but what's surprising is that it now plagues the developing world, too. Obesity is on a dramatic rise in poor states, as impoverished locals are increasingly introduced to mass-produced imported food that's often cheaper than their local fare.
Rangers Notebook: The Kevin Mench Chronicles
DH Frank Catalanotto 2B Ian Kinsler SS Michael Young CF Josh Hamilton 3B Hank Blalock RF Milton Bradley 1B Ben Broussard LF Marlon Byrd C Jarrod Saltalamacchia Taking that projected lineup, and plugging in each player's respective PECOTA projections for the coming 2008 season into the handy lineup analysis tool over at Baseball Musings, reveals an average runs per game output of 5.141, with the best lineup clocking in at 5.188, and the worst at 5.017. David Pinto's previous work with Tom Tango's Marcels projections yielded slightly better results, with an average runs per game output of 5.283 - albeit, with a much different lineup composition. Much of the rest of Sullivan's piece is a rehashing of what we already know, but this note on right-hander Vicente Padilla, in particular, caught my eye: Padilla has spent the winter in Nicaragua and the Rangers won't know what they have until Spring Training.
Competition Keeps Hartford Hilton Chef At His Best
Like most restaurant chefs, Peter Dwyer works when most folks are playing or resting. To him, a 40-hour work week seems like a part-time job. But since last fall, the Hilton Hartford executive chef has found time to enter culinary competitions — and the time investment has paid off both personally and professionally.
At the end of January, Dwyer won his first American Culinary Federation gold medal at the 2008 Myrtle Beach ACF Southeastern Chefs' Competition. He competed in both the Hot Foods Mystery Box Competition and the Cold Food Salon. About 80 chefs tested their culinary skills at the event, hosted by the ACF, a North American organization of about 20,000 professional chefs.
Dwyer took home the gold in the hot foods category for a seared skirt steak with potato and tarragon rissole, tempura asparagus and slivered garlic sautéed spinach with sake infused veal glace and scallion tomato compote.
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