the thought spot

A while back Paul announced his quest for the perfect sangria recipe. My mom told me she has always been a fan of my Uncle Jim’s version, although I have never actually tried it. I am sure he did not create this recipe but I have no idea where it comes from. If you want to give it a whirl:

18oz of Red wine
8oz of Orange juice
4oz of 7-up
1 shot of triple sec
1/2 shot of brandy
cut-up oranges and apples

It seems the 7-up replaces the simple syrup and adds a little bubbly citrus. Enjoy!

“We still support the guy, he is a good guy. It happens to the best of us”

“It doesn’t faze me in the least, it’s just the human condition.”

One would think that quotes such as these refer to say, Derek Jeter making a costly error during the regular season of a Yankees Red Sox game.  It’s the human condition for Derek to make a mental error on the ball field.  No one is perfect!  Not even Derek!

However, these quotes were not used in a New York times article about Derek Jeter making a mistake on a ball field.  These quotes were made about my Congressman, Vito Fossella, a Republican who represents Staten Island and lower sections of Brooklyn.  His mental error:  

Driving while intoxicated at twice the legal limit on his way to a woman’s house with whom he had been having an extra marital affair to visit his 3 year old son, who is a product of the affair.

Mr. Fossella ran a red light, causing him to be pulled over.  Upon being asked to recite the letters of the alphabet from D through T, Mr. Fossella said ““D, E, F, H, G, H, I, J, L,” .  To be at the level of intoxication that he was at, one would have to have 5-6 servings of alcohol within an hour.  I have had this many drinks in an hour, and wow, I was a mess.  I’m actually amazed he didn’t hurt anyone on the road.

I am shocked and appalled at both Mr. Fossella’s actions and by the responses of many citizens condoning drunk driving.  How can you actually trust someone that acts this recklessly?  The marital affair and love child aside, he is facing JAIL TIME for his offense.  It shocks me that he did not immediately announce his resignation, and in fact has specifically refused to resign.  It blows me away, and I hope the democrats blow him out of the water next election.

On a perhaps more important note, I am saddened by the opinion held by so many people that drunk driving is an accepted practice.  This thing that “happens to the best of us” was responsible for the deaths of close to 13,500 people in 2006.  There has been almost no progress on this problem, as the amount of drunk driving deaths in 1996 was 15 deaths lower.  Throughout my college and adult life I have been shocked by the amount of people who refuse to acknowledge this. 

Vito, make an example out of yourself.  Resign, and dedicate the rest of your public life to teaching children and adults about how much drunk driving can take away from you.  All things considered, you got away pretty lucky.

Honeybees are arguably the insects that are most important to the human food chain. It is estimated that one third of the human food supply depends on insect pollination, most of which is accomplished by bees, especially the domesticated Western Honeybee. They are the principal pollinators of hundreds of fruits, vegetables, flowers, and nuts. The number of bee colonies has been declining since the 1940’s, even as the crops that rely on them have grown. Recently the disappearance has been increasing due to a phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). The cause or causes of the syndrome are not well understood. Proposed causes include environmental change related stresses, pathogens, malnutrition, mites, pesticides, and genetically modified crops. Bees simply disappear from colonies that have CCD with no bodies left to investigate.

Bee colonies have already been under greater stress in recent years as more beekeepers have resorted to crisscrossing the country with 18-wheel trucks full of bees in search of pollination work. With the decline of both wild and domestic pollinator populations, pollination management is becoming an increasingly important part of agriculture. The movement and transport of managed bees for commercial pollination purposes poses several important problems and risks to colonies. Lack of suitable nutrition, particularly during times of transport, results in weakened colonies that are less effective pollinators. Colonies are weakened further by the presence of parasitic mites. Migratory honey bee colonies in the southwestern U.S. and California face an additional challenge from populations of Africanized bees which can invade hives and replace managed European bee colonies.

The movement of bees across the country is seen as a key reason for the spread of CCD. In the U.S. at least 24 different states as well as portions of Canada have reported cases of CCD. There have been varying claims appearing in the media regarding the size of colony losses. It also appears the general landscape for bee survival has become harder, leading to colony losses above trend that may have no connection with CCD. This is making harder to isolate CCD and take preventative actions.

The value of bee pollination in human nutrition and food for wildlife is immense and difficult to quantify. In 2000 Drs. Roger Morse and Nicholas Calderone of Cornell University, attempted to quantify the effects of just one pollinator, the Western honey bee, on only U.S. food crops. Their calculations came up with a figure of US $14.6 billion in food crop value. What ever the reason is, and most likely it is the combination of all the previously mentioned problems, the European Honeybee population is down 90% in the past 50 years by best estimates. So the next time you see a bee take a moment to appreciate what it does for you and the world as it may not be around for much longer.

The Island of Manhattan, Panorama, taken from Pier B, Hoboken, NJ

(click to enlarge)

NASA launched a new site today showcasing hundreds of hours of digitally-remastered, high definition footage of vintage space exploration.

This comes as exciting news for space program enthusiasts like John L. and me. Well worth the look; there are some fascinating and exhilirating views.

A bearded Walter Schirra, Apollo 7 commander, gazes out the rendezvous window in front of the commander’s station on the ninth day of the Earth orbital mission. Apollo 7 was crewed by Donn Eisele and Walter Cunningham.(JWST) The mission was an engineering test flight designed primarily to test space vehicle and mission support facilities performance during a manned mission.

Image Credit: NASA

The recent controversy surrounding Miley Cyrus amplifies a more polarizing debate on American pop-culture. As most everyone is well-aware, Cyrus sparked a global uproar upon release of a photo taken for Vanity Fair in which she appeared wrapped only in a blanket. The image, taken by world-renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz, drew the ire of parents and community leaders, who found the photo risqué and highly inappropriate in light of Cyrus’s wholesome, “Hannah Montana” image. Others, however, remained unperturbed and found the image rather mild in light of current fashion trends and advertising campaigns.

The Huffington Post writes cogently on teen-celebrities’ appeal as products rather than people:

she’s a product, posing in a product, garnering publicity on TV shows that are products themselves. And I would like to think that when it comes to the “scandalous” or “controversial” quality of the subject matter, that today’s teens recognize it for what it is: something some people want to buy, rather than be. And that if their parents are worried that they don’t get it, they can help them to do so.

The Cyrus controversy requires a more contemplative discussion of the excesses and consequences of branding and the ill-effects of misogyny. Moreover, as the New York Sun points out, it necessitates a frank discussion in “a country that seems to demand either squeaky clean, corporate-approved, cryonically cute kids or smoldering vixens with raging drug problems when we choose our youthful entertainers.” This hullabaloo is just another example of the interplay between the alternative axioms of community values and personal expression, and it demands a thoughtful, balanced conversation rather than polarized, salacious coverage.

• James Q. on favorite summer beers, and concocts an elegant mint julep
• Paul S. reviews some palatable warmer-weather brews
• Marissa C. on pub-crawling, Cinco de Mayo style

I’ve been stumbling around checking out some new music today and found something super awesome that my girlfriend has been recommending to me ad nauseum. Philly raised but now lives in Brooklyn, Santogold is currently rocking my world. Super diverse album, similar to the artist M.I.A. with the huge amount of influences coming from everywhere (think dub, ska, R&B, and funk with some catchy frickin’ hooks and bombastic production) but she puts it all together in a different way. Lots of cut time happening, which is pretty cool, gives it a great energy. Her voice really has me moving and grooving. I think just about anyone can enjoy this on some level, so without further ado, check her out. I’ve posted a track here, however if you go to www.free.napster.com you can hear the whole album for free (I seriously encourage you guys to make use of this site as it’s the best free resource for music I know of, though I do prefer Rhapsody in general). Check it wut wut!

You’ll Find A Way (Album)

Cinco de Mayo- A truly fabulous day where white American twenty somethings can drink in the afternoon and wear sombreros all in the name of diversity. Not one to dismiss the liberation of Mexico, I’m all about Cinco de Mayo. I embrace it like I embrace cheap tacos and Coronas in the summer…especially when it becomes a week long celebration. Because May 5th falls on a Monday this year, I am handed the opportunity to celebrate this fiesta not once, but twice. “Tres de Mayo” occurred yesterday and I’m happy to say that I’ve survived Round 1.

“Tres de Mayo” presented me and my three drinking cohorts with 20 bars in NYC to visit between noon and 8pm. $3 Tequila shots and $2 Margaritas were just two reasons that I began creating my plan of attack for this past Saturday every free second I was at work. If you’ve done a bar crawl before, you know there’s a science to it. Drink to much too soon and you’re slurring by the second bar. Go too slow, and you’ve successfully hit all the shot spots, but who cares? Everyone else has forgotten their name and is making out with a stranger. And then you have to figure out what route to take. Which bars to choose, which places to skip. Did you miss out on the man who is surely your future husband because you had to pee and skipped the sixth bar for the nearest Starbucks? It’s like the Y Generation’s game of RISK. Strategy is everything.

I only made it to 4 bars last night, but the following is a breakdown of why I had, perhaps, my most successful bar crawl to date:

• Number of people who I gave my number to: 2
• Number of people who to my parents’ sure disgust, got a Viva la Mexico! smooch: 1
• Number of strangers I am BFFs with (like, I think we know each other’s names…maybe): 13
• Number of Marist alumni I saw on the crawl (we.are.EVERYWHERE): 12
• Time I got home and in my nice, warm, Corona-free covers: 11:30PM

The 4 NYC bars turned Mexican villages that welcomed me with a loving embrace:

The Village Pourhouse (64 Third Avenue at 11 Street/ 12-2:00)

• I’ve wanted to go to this bar for a while and I’m glad that when I first walked in, I was not only handed a delicious margarita, but saw the smiling faces of 7 Marist alum. It like we can smell cheap alcohol. Three large rooms with ample seating and standing room and enough bars so that everyone can get a drink without having to throw some bows at some guy in an Abercrombi & Fitch polo made for a great starting point.

Still (192 Third Avenue/ 2-3:30)

• My accomplices and I passed on the second bar on the map, Bar None, and instead went to Still. A smart move considering Still provided an ample amount of attractive folk to talk to and a big screen TV where my Yankees could be seen dominating over the Mariners. I bonded with a child who said he actually wanted to move to Verona, to which I replied “why?”

Failte (531 Second Avenue/ 4:30-7)

• After scarfing down an order of mozzarella sticks and chicken fingers and with mi amiga, Jillian, I hydrated myself and rebooted so that I could parade up Third Ave and cross over to Second where we stopped at Failte. Mind you, we entered at least half an hour before “Tres de Mayo” was officially supposed to begin at this spot, but it was well worth 40 minutes waiting in silence as the room became packed by 5:30. Friends were made and beers were bought. Two young men introduced themselves as construction workers at the new Yankee stadium. I humored their slur-filled conversation because I felt in my bones I was one shot away a Bronx Bomber date. Sadly, when they went outside to smoke I got distracted by somebody wearing the same style polo as me (ooo, a bird!) and talked with him the rest of the night. Love, c’est une bitch, no?

McSorleys Old Ale House (15 East 7th Street/ 8-8:30)

• I’m a big “to each his own” kinda gal, so I can appreciate when situations really are just black or white. At McSorleys, I asked for a Guinness (I’m still Irish at heart, people) and got a curt “no” from the bartender. They only serve light or dark beer in half pints at McSorleys, making drinking decisions amazingly simple. The dark stout did not let me down and the pub itself is truly a little slice of Dublin. Wooden tables are filled with friends and soon-to-be friends shouting and laughing amidst empty pint glasses. Grouchy, sarcastic Irish bussers are included. Established in 1854 - McSorley’s is New York City’s oldest continuously operated saloon. Though I didn’t stay long, I think I’ll be back when I don’t wreak of booze and marinara sauce at 8PM. I hope that one day the website will read “everyone from Abe Lincoln to John Lennon to Marissa Connelly have passed thru Mcsorley’s swinging doors.”

Place this idea…

John McCain Believes We Should Institute A Summer Gas Tax Holiday. Hard-working American families are suffering from higher gasoline prices. John McCain calls on Congress to suspend the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and 24.4 cent diesel tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

…against this:

John McCain believes that America’s economic and environmental interests are not mutually exclusive, but rather inextricably linked…[John McCain] has offered common sense approaches to limit carbon emissions by harnessing market forces that will bring advanced technologies, such as nuclear energy, to the market faster, reduce our dependence on foreign supplies of energy, and see to it that America leads in a way that ensures all nations do their rightful share.

Square this idea…

…with this one:

Centered on a cap and trade system for carbon emissions, stronger energy and auto efficiency standards and a significant increase in green research funding, Hillary’s plan will reduce America’s reliance on foreign oil and address the looming climate crisis.

Does anyone else see the inconsistencies here?

With the $4.00/gallon gasoline only a matter of time, the topic of high energy prices has been elevated from a barely-acceptable nuisance to a national crisis. As if we didn’t already know. A personal friend of mine, Fran Pantzar, own his own contracting business and pays for his family’s health insurance out of pocket. He expresses his concern with gas prices, symptomatic of the public at large, in a Scranton Times-Tribune letter, stating:

I have finally had just about enough. I am self-employed and drive a diesel-powered pickup truck.

Yes, that was my choice. It doesn’t matter much because gasoline is right on its tail. Diesel fuel has risen to over $4 per gallon. That was my personal breaking point. It’s bad enough that I pay over $1,000 a month for health insurance, and so on, and so on. Soon, it won’t be worth it for me to leave my home to try to earn a living.

I know this is true for countless others. Everyone has their own stories of hardship. The bottom line is that we are all paying too much for everything, and there is no end in sight. Something needs to be done now. We cannot afford to wait until next January.

Lest I remind that next January we inaugurate our 44th president, and hopefully by then the winner - if it is either Senators McCain or Clinton - will have made up their mind on which policy they would like to pursue: lower gas prices or lower greenhouse gas emissions. As it stands now they’d like to have their gas and emit carbon dioxide too.

The blogosphere, and to a lesser extent, the MSM were quite appalled recently at the proposals from both the senators - some labeling their proposal for a Gas Tax Holiday from Memorial Day through Labor Day as the “stupidest moment in policy ever.” Jerry Taylor, Senior Fellow at the CATO institute believes the net affect of the proposal on gas prices and savings to the consumer would be negligible, even deleterious to its intended outcome: lower prices as a result of the tax cut would actually spur higher demand in light of tight supply, thus applying upward pressure to the price of gas. What’s more, the direct benefit to the American public will be nominal at best. The tax cut would cost the U.S. Treasury around $10 billion in tax revenue, a hefty number. But divided into 300 million - America’s population - it yields only roughly $33 in savings for the consumer. At today’s prices, that ’s around 9.2 gallons of gasoline; less than a full tank.

Mr. Pantzar’s concern, like many other Americans’, is legitimate and pressing. “America is addicted to oil,” George W. Bush declared in his 2006 State of the Union Address, signaling to the world our intractable reliance on a natural resource that many suspect is at peak production. Americans simply cannot live without oil and its byproducts - from plastics to gasoline. And so as global demand for petroleum creeps upward in light of tight supply, it will naturally become more expensive, consuming an even larger percentage of our income. If the trend continues, we all will soon be facing a decision similar to Mr. Pantzar’s - do I have enough to pay for my health insurance; is it worth it for me to leave the house?

It is precisely questions like these that hit to the core of the issue. Senators McCain and Clinton are proposing the federal Gas Tax Holiday precisely because hard-working Americans are hurting financially, and need all the help they can get - a perfectly noble reason. And this is the only reason that justifies their proposal. Let me make this clear: Senators McCain and Clinton know that Americans aren’t upset that gas prices are high, per se; Americans are upset because they rely on gasoline, diesel and other petroleum products, all of which are becoming too expensive, with no suitable, cheap alternative available. High gas prices aren’t the enemy here, the inelasticity of demand for gasoline is.

In fact, Senators McCain and Clinton are advocates of higher gasoline prices, at least theoretically: they both advance the cap-and-trade carbon emissions program to reduce greenhouse gases. Hackett (2006) lists some of the characeristics of a cap-and-trade program:

1. An overall cap on pollution emissions.
2. A partitioning of the cap into tradable quota shares assigned to the various pollution sources; these allowed emissions are usually set as a fraction of historical emissions during a baseline time period; the sum of these allowances is equal to the desired level of emissions
3. A well-functioning competitive market for trading allowances.
4. A requirement that new firms must buy allowances from existing firms.
5. Effective deterrence against emissions in excess of firms’ allowances.
6. Sufficient policy stability over time so that firms have incentive to invest in pollution-control technology and become sellers of allowances.

At first glance, the cap-and-trade model may not appear to translate into higher gasoline prices. After all, what’s being traded under a quota here is not the gasoline itself, but carbon emissions. But this is too reductive an understanding of the underlying objective for cap-and-trade programs: if one is to significantly reduce the level of carbon emitted into the atmosphere, either (i) carbon-pollution generators like gasoline or coal-powered plants must become extraordinarily cleaner (unlikely/difficult/impossible), or (ii) the quantity of carbon-pollution generators like gasoline or coal-powered plants consumed must be reduced (more likely). The latter implies incentives must be created for consumers to reduce or stop using carbon-emitting products. Economic theory dictates this can be done through a myriad of ways: suitable substitutes, personal preferences, change in population count, or the most likely of all, increase in price. Higher prices on carbon-emitting products (like gasoline) will help to direct rational decision-makers to meet, but not exceed the aggregate cap on emissions.

Keep reading →