Idaho Brewing Company

There's a new brewpub in Idaho Falls, the Idaho Brewing Company. The pic below is of their seven offerings, and Brewmaster Leon, who was happy to explain in detail how he crafted the brews.



He explained the processes, the types of malts, hops, all kinds of stuff. Unfortunately, after trying the sampler platter, it seems my memory of the evening is not that crisp.

The Hefeweizen had a fair amount of banana, and some clove, per Leon. I picked up the banana, not the clove so much. My fav was entitled "Scotch." Really nice malty flavor, and 8% alcohol. The rest were in the 4-5% range. Had a couple of good pale ales, and had a decent stout. Leon recommended I try the stout last, as "the malts in it will coat your mouth and affect how you taste everything afterward." So I saved it til the end, and well worth the wait.

Aren't bottling it, yet. They don't serve food, and aren't sure whether they will. Don't want to get overwhelmed.

Have a nice outdoor seating area, and a pleasnt bar, tables, couches, and a fireplace inside. Hope they do well.

Here's how to get there. Red dot near the bottom. (Click to enlarge.) Kind of tricky to get into.

Here we go

See this?


That's Walt Minnick's signature on a letter from the House Blue Dog Coalition saying they don't like the current health care bill. One of the listed problems? It's not bipartisan.

The letter says a reform to the bill must address each of their concerns, including bipartisanship, and it says "We cannot support a final product that fails to do so."

Yes, thanks Walt, for standing up for Republicans. It's pretty gratifying for Democrats to see you going to bat for the Party of No.

Time to change the Constitution?

Our founding fathers set up a system of government that intentionally made it difficult to pass legislation. They feared the power of unfettered authority, and desired a structure that would protect individual rights, and would keep minorities safe from the tyranny of the majority. A wonderful system, and it has worked well.

It’s not working so well any more. Our government seems incapable of doing anything well, and is almost certainly incapable of doing the right thing. Part of the reason is the inherent structure. Legislation has to pass both houses of Congress, and then be signed by the President. But the biggest reason Congress is such a sinkhole of stupidity can be laid on the steps of the Supreme Court.

Actually, two reasons, neither of which was anticipated by the original authors of the Constitution. The Supreme Court has issued two rulings which together have completely upended and subverted our government. They might appear benign or innocuous, but they unleashed a sort of cancer that’s consuming our leaders.

Ruling one: that corporations have the 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech. Ruling two: that campaign contributions are political speech. That’s it; we’re toast.

You can see where this is going. Politicians have to get elected, then reelected, and that takes increasingly large amounts of money. Who has money to give? Rich people and corporations, mostly. Given the two rulings I mentioned, we can’t really restrict the amount of money corporations can spend to influence legislation.

NPR is following the obscene money being spent on the health care bill. Have a look. Click on the photo and gaze (in disgust, or fear, or maybe wonderment) at all the lobbyists leeched onto the hearing. Business is well represented; you and I aren’t. I know, we elect “representatives,” but they don’t give a shit about us. Our vote they care about, periodically, but us, not one whit.

We no longer have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. We have a government of the people, by the elite and well connected, for the corporations. And we can’t do anything about it.

Join the Navy and see the world

While driving home last night, I passed a small strip mall and saw a store front for a Navy recruiter. Perhaps you recall that their advertising/recruiting tag line was "Join the Navy and see the world." Two doors over in the same mall was an Army recruiting storefront.

The recruiting storefronts are scattered all across America. The Air Force and Marines also have them, as all are trying to gain recruits. In fact, they're all competing for the same demographic. So, we have brand differentiation. Army Strong! The Few, The Proud, The Marines. You get it.

It seems to me that is pretty stupid. That's not duplication of effort, or triplication of effort, it's quadruplication of effort. Pentuplication (if that's a word) if you count the Coast Guard. Here's my money saving tip; close down all the separate recruiting stations, and send those soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen back to their bases where they're needed. Develop a professional sales/recruiting force that will work with recruits to determine their interests and desires and help them get into the most compatible service.

Also, in times of need, the Dept of Defense can prioritize one or the other to try to keep its numbers up. If one service is to grow (as the Army and Marines are under a recent budget proposal) then perhaps a bit less $$ goes into the Air Force advertising budget and more into the others.

I also think one other tragic result flows from the current system, in addition to the waste of money. And that is, the Marines trying to convince themselves and everybody else that they're "the toughest." They are a very competent fighting force, but have gotten beyond their core mission of amphibious landings. The general concept was, the Navy takes large numbers of Marines in on ships. The Marines take the beach, so to speak, and set up operations. Once set, the Army comes in and conducts the land offensive.

Well, there's not a lot of call for amphibious landings any more, so Marines are being used in many cases just like the Army. See, Iraq, Afghanistan. The Marine brand is, "we're the toughest," and many of the Marines, the younger ones especially, believe that. Part of being the toughest is being aggressive. And that's where the tragedy comes in.

Look at the casualty rates in Iraq. Much higher per capita for Marines as compared to the Army. (see below, link here) Marines are overly aggressive and put themselves in harm's way needlessly. It is not because the Marines, being the toughest, are in all the toughest spots. They have no lock on difficult and dangerous missions. It's because the kids believe the advertising and try to prove how tough they are by being aggressive. And it's killing them.

So, Dept of Defense recruiters can enlist recruits and steer them toward compatible jobs, and toward the needs of the overall DoD, and the services won't need brand differentiation. We'll save lives and money. (Probably do need separate recruiting for Active vs Reserve component, however.)

Minnick and health care

As I've written, I think it's reasonable to give Walt Minnick quite a bit of room to be the conservative Blue Dog he ran as. And that is how he's been voting.

I was hoping that we could count on his vote for the big items, but so far I've been disappointed. He voted against the economic stimulus package and he voted against the energy/jobs bill. The next big vote is on health care. Here's to hoping that Minnick will support the plan favored by the majority of his party, even if it ends up including a "public option." I'm hoping, but certainly not expecting.

I guess Minnick is okay with House leadership to vote with the Party of No so often, so long as his vote is not a crucial tie breaker. If his vote really doesn't matter to the outcome of the bill, I suppose he's allowed to vote against it.

But I see two problems with this. One, by not supporting his fellows in the majority party, he is not racking up any chits and favors, and thus has little to call in should he ever decide to try to get something passed (instead of just voting no all the time).

The other, bigger, problem is that Minnick gives Republicans cover when he votes with them. S.C. Senator Lindsey Graham last week on one of the Sunday yak shows said that the true bi-partisan position on the energy bill was the Republican position, because so many Democrats voted with Republicans against it. So Minnick's vote, though not needed to pass the bill, was not harmless. It provided comfort to the Republicans and allowed them to argue it was an extreme position.

Sanford saved again

N.C. Governor's revelation about his affair was knocked from the headlines by the sudden death of Michael Jackson. He failed to capitalize on this, and gave another long statement, saying thing's like "she's my soul mate'" which put him back in the headlines. (And probably made it even more difficult to reconcile with his non-soul mate mate.)

So now soon to be ex-Gov. Palin's announcement of her soon to be ex-ness has again knocked Sanford from the headlines. So, I'm curious. Will he give it a couple of days and give yet another long interview that will put him back in the spotlight?

And regarding Gov Palin, speculation abounds about her real motives for her resignation. I'm throwing in the the crowd that thinks this was a preemptive strike ahead of some negative revelation about her shenanigans in office.

And also regarding her statement, she said that she polled her kinds, and "the count was unanimous." "It was four yeses and one "Hell yeah.!" Her kids are Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trig. So that adds up to five yeses. But really, did Trig, the baby, weigh in with an answer? Did he understand the question? Palin just cannot seem to avoid exaggeration.

We need more Down's babies

Yes, it appears that Sarah Palin is resigning as Governor of Alaska. In her - well, there's no other word for it - rambling speech, she said a number of crazy things. But one that jumped out at me was that "the world needs more Trigs, not less fewer of them."

So, the world needs more Down's babies. Weird.

Update: Heard the speech again, and realized she used the grammatically correct word fewer, so fixed the quote.

It's near to becoming official

Yes, it appears that Walt Minnick is close to joining the Party of No. He's pretty much a de facto member, given his voting record. He put out a press release citing various reasons why he's voting against the Waxman-Markey energy bill, and said:

For all of those reasons, I must vote ‘no.’

I'll give Minnick a little credit for not calling it a "cap and tax" bill, which is the official name bestowed by the Gopasaurs in the Party of No.

President Obama described it as a jobs bill, as well as an energy bill.

The energy bill that passed the House will finally create a set of incentives that will spark a clean energy transformation in our economy. It will spur the development of low carbon sources of energy – everything from wind, solar, and geothermal power to safer nuclear energy and cleaner coal. It will spur new energy savings, like the efficient windows and other materials that reduce heating costs in the winter and cooling costs in the summer. And most importantly, it will make possible the creation of millions of new jobs.

Make no mistake: this is a jobs bill.

Idaho's unemployment rate went from 2.7% in 2008 to 6.4% in 2009. The two biggest employers in Idaho are now St. Luke's and Wal-Mart. Seems to me a jobs bill and an energy policy are just what we need.

Minnick cites some decent reasons, but I think they're window dressing. He's subordinating the possible to the perfect to give himself cover for voting against it. "Because we can't have this other, better way of doing it, I'll just forgo doing anything helpful." Politically expedient in Idaho, yes, but not helpful. I think Walt is subordinating the needs of the country to his political future in true Party of No fashion.

Gov. Sanford

Well, yet another moralizing politician laid low by personal peccadillo's. S.C. Gov Sanford, once considered presidential material, and having famously grandstanded about stimulus money, has been revealed to be cheating on his wife.

I have some empathy for the guy, but no sympathy. He's human, and is thus subject to tugs and temptations, like all of us. And like all of us, he succumbed to one of them.

It's a tragedy for his family, particularly. It is one thing to cheat on your spouse, it is quite another to have that be a national media feeding frenzy. So, I have a bit of empathy for him on the human level.

But, no sympathy, really. I saw several newscasts last night where he was critical of others with similar defalcations. Yes, not only is he guilty of violating his wedding vows and humiliating his wife, but he's guilty of one of the most dangerous political sins. Hypocrisy. It's like watching a car wreck; morbidly fascinating.

A self-aggrandizing moralizing hypocrite. But also a person with feelings and emotions. So, empathy, but no sympathy.

Crapo is undecided; riiiiight

The Statesman reports that Senator Crapo claims to be undecided about how he'll vote regarding the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the US Supreme Court. Well, if he votes to confirm, you can color me "surprised" to say the least.

He says he liked a couple of answers Sotomayor gave, but then he said this:

"I'm going to withhold a final decision until the process is completed," he said. "I owe it to her and my constituents and the country to make sure I allow the Judiciary Committee to continue its vetting process and proceed to a conclusion."

He's saying, essentially, that he wants to see what might come out in the hearings before making up his mind. Fair enough.

Unfortunately, as I've written before, Crapo toes the party line virtually 100% of the time. And I don't just mean he takes a considered but conservative position like Mike Simpson, rather, he votes the way leadership wants him to vote. Just like Craig did, just like Kempthorne did, just like Risch seems to be doing.

So, I think Crapo is probably dissembling. His mind is made up; he'll vote the way he's supposed to. He'll wait until after the Judiciary committee votes, and he'll see what Republican leadership desires, and he'll vote that way. If opposition falls apart and Republicans cast a few votes for her, Crapo may well vote for her. However, if Republican leadership takes a stand, loyal Mike Crapo will be right there with them.

Update: It occurs to me that I ought to give a little credit where credit is due. Crapo has recently taken more progressive positions regarding local environmental issues. He helped craft a compromise for protecting Owyhee canyon lands, and he seems a bit open to at least considering breaching Northwest dams. Kudos for that. I think that on local and regional matters, national Republican leadership doesn't take a position, which leaves Crapo free to vary from the Larry Craig hard line view of the environment.