Beer Update
Thanks to the yeast I used, the ESB (now fully carbonated) went through a bit of a stuck fermentation, or so I thought. I had used Wyeast 1968, London ESB Ale, because, hey, that was the style I brewed up.
What i didn’t know was that the 1968 ferments EXTREMELY quickly. As in, “1.5 days in the primary”. That’s some fast yeast, and it fooled me: I thought I hadn’t extracted enough sugar from the grain, and so I added yeast energizer (essentially a concentrated mix of nutrients yeast loves). That didn’t work, and it wasn’t until I placed a call to my local homebrew supply that I learned what the deal was.
But after a quick burst of activity Sunday afternoon, the latest batch of IPA has been… well, dormant. I had the house thermostat set around 64 degrees since the yeast packet suggested a citrus overtone at a cooler fermentation temperatures, but nothing was happening. So last night before bed, I kicked the heat up to about 69 degrees: this morning, the fermenter was bubbling away like mad. In fact, some of the green beer had bubbled up into the airlock (no worries, it’s still sanitary).
I’m still thinking of adding another couple of ounces of fermentable sugar to see if I can boost the alcohol content, but such an addition is clearly not necessary at this point. i may be able to transfer as early as Thursday at this rate.
Jennifer Hardy: Torture Princess
The young woman pictured above is Jennifer Hardy, or as i’m calling her, “the Torture Princess”:
The Torture Memos will forever be known as the work of John Yoo, the former Office of Legal Counsel lawyer who took the lead in preparing them. But the internal Justice Department report on the memos, released Friday, reveals that a less experienced OLC attorney, working under Yoo, played a key role in the process — in some cases writing initial drafts of the opinions before getting feedback from Yoo and others.
The name of that lawyer is redacted throughout the report. But in what appears to be an oversight in the redaction process, a footnote identifies her as Jennifer Koester.
Talking Points Memo has much more on this pretty, but nasty, piece of work.
She appears to have had no authority to approve the final versions of the memos that went out from the department, and was tasked with working with Yoo on them in part because having just joined OLC, she “had some time available,” according to the report. But she did take the lead in developing the first drafts of the memos, and briefed the White House on their contents. And it’s perhaps surprising — given the intense level of scrutiny that Yoo has rightly received for his role in producing the memos — that Koester has until now remained almost entirely under the radar.
Today, the Torture Princess is a partner at Kirkland and Ellis (the page is having some trouble opening, leading me to wonder if her employers are taking it down to prevent more embarrassment). here’s her bio:
Professional Profile
Jennifer Hardy is a litigation partner in Kirkland’s Washington office. She concentrates her practice principally in appellate litigation.
Other Distinctions
Office of the Secretary of Defense, Exceptional Civilian Service Award for support to the Secretary of Defense in the War on Terror, October 2002
John C. Yoo and Jennifer L. Koester, Judicial Safeguards of Federalism and the Environment: Yucca Mountain from a Constitutional Perspective, 75 U. Colo. L. Rev. 1317 (2004)
That “Exceptional Civilian Service Award” is from Don Rumsfeld’s tenure, so it’s probably not worth the folded tin foil it’s made of. She’s also a member of the super-wingnutty Federalist Society, “which famously aims to get ideologically conservative lawyers appointed to high-level posts in government and the judicial system.” Indeed: what better way to do an end run around the country’s longstanding legal obligations than by seeding the justice system with lawyers who believe in anything but?
Here she is at a party, sponsored by the same
You have to wonder about people like Ms. Hardy: what kind of sick fuck rationalizes participating in an illegal torture scheme?
New Philly Weekly: the Halliburtonization of the Philadelphia School District
It’s one of my last remaining Philly Weekly columns before the budget axe comes down:
by neutering ESOL in Renaissance-eligible schools located in neighborhoods with high numbers if immigrants, the district is effectively setting those schools up for failure — possibly to unload on private companies like Mastery or KIPP. Maybe that’s because there’s more money in failure than success: let’s face it, the feds are dangling LOTS of money in front of districts for failing schools.
The more I’ve learned about the way the district is run, the less inclined i feel to send my kid to a Philadelphia school, should he wind up moving down here in the future. Indeed, when Christina and I have talked about having kids of our own, the parallel topic is often “where will we move when the child is school-age?” Cus there’s no way i’m sending him into the mess we have here in Philadelphia.
All Grain IPA
Last night, I finally kegged the ESB I made few weeks back, only to discover my CO2 tank was nearly spent. No matter: there’s enough to keep the beer flowing, and the low carbonation level makes it that much more British (the ESB was originated by the Brits).
This morning we brewed an all-grain IPA. Here’s the bill:
10# 2-row pilsner malt
1# German CaraFoam
1# 2-row light Munich
1# US malted white wheat
3 oz. Simcoe hops (1oz at 60 min, 1oz at 30 min, 1oz at 5 min)
Irish moss (clarifier)
Wyeast 1056, American ale
I’m still getting the hang of the all-grain process, and quickly realized that to make stronger beers, I’m going to need a larger lauter tun: the current one is a 5-gallon cylindrical cooler that couldn’t accommodate more than 4 gallons of hot water on top of those 13 pounds of grain. Luckily, this mash only required about a pint more than that, so it didn’t matter that much. On the other hand, my original gravity, a measure of the sugars suspended in the wort, was kind of low, enough so that I added about a pound of plain ol’ table sugar to give the alcohol content a boost. I may add more sugar over the primary fermentation, a la Dogfish Head. Depending on what kind of sugar I add, I may get the kind of alcoholy heat I associate with Belgian styles.
At the suggestion of the guy running the grain mill at Home Sweet Homebrew, we decided to use a single hop: Simcoe. “This can give you an opportunity to really understand the hop profile,” was what he said, and I agree. It really IS difficult to figure out what hop is going to provide which flavor, and to what degree. So we threw in an ounce at the beginning of the one-hour boil for bittering, another ounce at the 1/2-hour mark for flavor, and a final ounce about 5 minutes before the end of the boil for aroma. It’s going to be a learning experience for sure, and almost certainly a tasty one.
We used very light colored malts, and what we finally decanted into the primary fermenter had a lovely golden color. We pitched the yeast at about 4:30 PM (we’d started the process around 11:00 AM, so you have an idea how much longer all-grain brewing takes), and by 6:30 or 7:00 it was already at work, belching out big blurps of carbon dioxide. We went with Wyeast 1056, American Ale:
Very clean, crisp flavor characteristics. Low fruitiness and mild ester production. Slightly citrus like with cool (60-66F, 15-19C) fermentation temperatures. Versatile yeast, which produces many beer styles allowing malt and hop character to dominate the beer profile.
As it happens, the temperature in my house is just about 66 degrees, so I’m hoping to taste that citrus flavor when the beer is done: Simcoes also have a strong citrus aroma, so perhaps we’re in for another grapefruit bomb like the one I made back in December.
In another 3-4 days, we transfer to the secondary fermenter, where the beer will sit for about two weeks refining and growing clearer. We should be tapping into it by March 12 or so. But after that initial transfer it’s time to brew again because you can reuse the yeast up to 4 times before it starts to get funky. The general rule of thumb when reusing yeast is to go from lighter colored beers to darker, so I think beer number 2 will be an amber ale of some kind, beer number 3 will be something similar to an ESB, before culminating in either a porter or a brown ale.
Yummy times!
Super Devils
My new band, the Super Devils
SMACKDOWN
On Valentine’s Day, one of my favorite cartoons, the family guy aired an episode in which one of the main characters woos and dates a girl with Down Syndrome (you can watch it at the link, but warning: NSFW).
If you’ve watched the show, you know that calling Family Guy’s humor “caustic” is like calling John Hinckley “a little misguided”. There are no sacred cows: I’ve seen the show mine laughs from domestic violence, funerals, dead babies, you name it. So as you might expect, there was some pretty harsh humor based on Down Syndrome. At one point, the character explained her mother was the former governor of Alaska.
Well, you can guess what happened next: everyone’s favorite grifter decided to make some political hay. That’s right, Sarah Palin came running, flapping her wingnutty gums:
People are asking me to comment on yesterday’s Fox show that felt like another kick in the gut. Bristol was one who asked what I thought of the show that mocked her baby brother, Trig (and/or others with special needs), in an episode yesterday. Instead of answering, I asked her what she thought. Here is her conscientious reply, which is a much more restrained and gracious statement than I want to make about an issue that begs the question, “when is enough, enough?”:
“When you’re the son or daughter of a public figure, you have to develop thick skin. My siblings and I all have that, but insults directed at our youngest brother hurt too much for us to remain silent. People with special needs face challenges that many of us will never confront, and yet they are some of the kindest and most loving people you’ll ever meet. Their lives are difficult enough as it is, so why would anyone want to make their lives more difficult by mocking them? As a culture, shouldn’t we be more compassionate to innocent people – especially those who are less fortunate? Shouldn’t we be willing to say that some things just are not funny? Are there any limits to what some people will do or say in regards to my little brother or others in the special needs community? If the writers of a particularly pathetic cartoon show thought they were being clever in mocking my brother and my family yesterday, they failed. All they proved is that they’re heartless jerks. – Bristol Palin”
- Sarah Palin
Well, apparently the actress who did the voice of the character has Down Syndrome herself, and she was not amused. In fact, she issued the following hilarious smackdown:
My name is Andrea Fay Friedman. I was born with Down syndrome. I played the role of Ellen on the “Extra Large Medium” episode of Family Guy that was broadcast on Valentine’s day. Although they gave me red hair on the show, I am really a blonde. I also wore a red wig for my role in ” Smudge” but I was a blonde in “Life Goes On”. I guess former Governor Palin does not have a sense of humor. I thought the line “I am the daughter of the former governor of Alaska” was very funny. I think the word is “sarcasm”.
In my family we think laughing is good. My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life. My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes.
OK, so THAT was funny enough, but even better, Ms. Friedman emailed her comments to the New york Times, which cut out the part about the loaf of bread. DUDES?!? THAT WAS THE BEST PART!!
Actually, let me correct myself: the funniest part is that a woman with Down Syndrome is 200 times more articulate that Sarah Palin.
Portrait of the Artist as a Super Hero
As beautiful as Aphrodite, wise as Athena, stronger than Hercules, and swifter than Mercury.
I think this one is pretty fuckin’ awesome.
One of These Things is Not Like the Other
Via Wonkette, see if you can spot the difference between these two photos, and why the first picture is OFFENSIVE TO ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY and the other is PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE?
OH. MY. GOD.
YAAAAAWN
And yes, the wingnut brigade is FLIPPING OUT, which makes it hilarious.
Live Rockabilly Next Week
I’ll be slapping bass for the Super Devils at Heavy’s on the Harbor in scenic Gloucester next Friday night. It looks like kind of a rough place, just the venue for dirty rockabilly.
Looks like the youtube video is down, but you can listen at myspace.
On Pomade
Yesterday, Monday February 15, was the first shower I’ve taken at my own home since February 4, and the first shower I’ve taken period since Super Bowl Sunday. This is because the grout took more time to apply than I’d anticipated.
As I think I mentioned, I began playing with a rockabilly band a couple of months ago. Beyond the impact on my bass playing (I’ve been learning a lot of new slap techniques), I’ve learned all about pomade, that greasy waxy shit you put in your hair when you want to look like Elvis. The other two guys in the band have pompadours so enormous, it’s almost comical; and since being in a band is as much about a look as it is the sounds you’re making, I got the haircut needed to start pomping my do. It’s been pretty successful.
So when the rubber hit the road, and I knew I wasn’t going to have too many opportunities to wash my hair, I made sure to apply a good amount of Murray’s Superior Pomade after my Super Bowl Shower. And I will be damned if that stuff didn’t take care of my hair for nearly two weeks. I am not kidding: the hair-made-of-vinyl effect died down after about 4 days, but the hold was ongoing. I’d touch my hair with my fingers and -just like that- it’d be standing straight up. It gave me a distinctly David Tennant look, which Christina really enjoyed, as she’s been crushing on him since we started watching the revamped Dr. Who.
So consider this a resounding recommendation for Murray’s Pomade!
