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Happy New Year!

Happy New Year’s Eve to all of our blog family. We will be spending New Year’s Eve at home this year — preparing for our annual New Year’s party on January 1st. I will be toasting to everyone on our extended blog family.

Tonight Leslie and I will share our traditional bottle of Schramsberg Sparkling wine. This is my wedding anniversary. Thirteen years ago, Leslie and I eloped on New Year’s Eve after eight years years of dating. (There is an ongoing dispute over calculating the event, I insist that this is our 22nd anniversary but Leslie insists on not counting the eight years of dating). We always celebrate with a bottle of Schramsberg. This was the bottle I bought after we got hitched at Alexandria City Hall. I used my house school ring to seal the deal.

The kids made it to midnight and watched the painful display of Anderson Cooper trying to restrain Kathy Griffin. It turns out the Mayan Apocalypse merely predicted Griffin’s appearance on New Year’s Eve. This included her attempt to throw cash into the crowd – a moronic idea that had to be physically stopped by Anderson to avert a disaster. If this was Griffin’s idea of a joke, it came across as an unhinged, unfunny person trying to fill time. The kids insisted that we turn to NBC instead.

We are expecting 200 friends to share in Wasabi Bloody Marys) and our traditional soup: The Bowl of the Wife of Kit Carson Soup. I have smoked two turkeys to put into the soup. I also have enough Wasabi to light up Tokyo.

Everyone drive carefully and have fun. I will be giving a toast to our entire blog family tonight (and, of course, my marriage).

308 thoughts on “Happy New Year!”

  2. Elaine,

    I would like to but the ATF and the FDA wouldn’t allow it due to alcoholism concerns. The notion of Five Husbands would drive any woman to drink heavily. 🙂

  4. Rafflaw asked:
    So Darren,
    Are you buying the first round now that you are rolling in dough??
    ~+~
    Certainly ! As many of you know, I have a large stock of booze and booze accessories. But unfortunately getting the post office to deliver alcohol is the problem. 🙂

    In the spirit of this blog, a bottle of Five Wives Vodka to you all !

  5. nick:

    You (and me for that matter) might want to adopt more of a honey approach and eschew the vinegar. You and the other commenters have a lot of interesting things to say but they get lost in the snappy –and sometimes acerbic –repartee’. As an offender myself, I can tell you it does no one any credit as my family reminds me on occasion. Plus, it disrupts the good dialog and makes people wonder if all us are here to lash out or learn.

    Just an observation. Make of it what you will.

  6. “Some 3,000 people were kidnapped and killed during Pinochet’s 1973-1990 rule. Another 28,000 people were tortured during military rule, among them former President Michelle Bachelet.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2013/01/02/world/americas/02reuters-chile-jara.html?hp

    Former Chilean Military Officials Held in Singer’s 1973 Slaying

    By REUTERS
    Published: January 2, 2013 at 1:58 PM ET

    SANTIAGO (Reuters) – At least four former military officials were detained in Chile on Wednesday for their alleged role in the slaying of singer-songwriter Victor Jara during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.

    Jara was killed days after the coup that ousted left-leaning President Salvador Allende, and his death became a symbol of the political violence and human rights abuses that ravaged Latin America in the 1970s.

    Chilean prosecutors have accused two former lieutenants, Hugo Sanchez and Pedro Barrientos, of fatally shooting Jara and named six others as accomplices in the 1973 case.

    Sanchez was detained on Wednesday after surrendering to police, the judge in the case said. An extradition request will be made for Barrientos, who lives in the United States.

    Three other men, accused of being accomplices in Jara’s killing, also were being held at a military base after turning themselves in. Another suspect was expected to hand himself over to police, his lawyers said.

    Jara, author of well-known songs such as “Te Recuerdo Amanda” (“I Remember You Amanda”) and “El Derecho a Vivir en Paz” (“The Right to Live in Peace”), was arrested along with students and teachers at the State Technical University.

    He was taken to the Chile Stadium, a sports venue that was used as a torture center in the days after the September 11, 1973, coup and is now named after Jara.

    According to witnesses, he was tortured for several days – his hands battered with the butt of a revolver – before he was shot dead on September 16. His bullet-riddled body was found dumped near a cemetery three days later.

    Jara’s family has welcomed the eight arrest orders and hope progress in the case can spur advances in investigations of other dictatorship-era crimes.

    “If Victor’s case serves as an example, we’re pushing forward in demanding justice for Victor with the hope that justice will follow for everyone,” Jara’s widow, Joan Jara, told reporters.

    Jara’s case has been closed several times but the investigation was revived in 2003 by Judge Juan Guzman, who also investigated Pinochet over human rights abuses.

    Some 3,000 people were kidnapped and killed during Pinochet’s 1973-1990 rule. Another 28,000 people were tortured during military rule, among them former President Michelle Bachelet.

    (Reporting by Chile newsroom; Writing by Helen Popper; Editing by Bill Trott)

    And what Tony C. said.

  7. nick,
    The regular commenters here on this site have an unspoken “Don’t be a dick” rule.

    Irony, debate, logical challenges and dark humor are all different from sarcasm and general bad manners.

  9. So Darren,
    Are you buying the first round now that you are rolling in dough?? 🙂

  10. W=^..^

    I saw it a couple of months ago on one of the movie channels. You’ll like it.

    P.S. Check your e-mail. It’s about WWF.

  12. Wootsy, Great clip. I’ve never even heard of this flick but I like the 2 “Italian” actors. Have you seen the flick and what’s your review? And, I do get the message via humor.

  15. “More evidence” collecteed by an attorney w/ no career. Will I be tried in moot court, counselor?

  16. Ooo. A material misrepresentation of the facts about your manufactured outrage over your sister again, nick. Appeal to emotion much? That’s a logical fallacy that won’t help you when the time comes around here. We’re an evidence and logic based sort of folk.

    Keep it up though.

    Simply more evidence.

  17. Congratulations to Darren for being the blog’s first trillionaire!

    Don’t spend all of that in one place.

  19. OS, I have Gene telling me there will be “consequences”. I have you telling me “I’m pushing my luck.” Well, OS where were you when I had a nice conversation w/ SWM about my deceased sister and our love of Mexican food and out of the f@ckn’ blue I get, “And Hitler loved his dog.” What the hell have I said here that even comes close to that? Please tell me. I know you guys are friends so I have little hope for an objective response but maybe you’ll surprise me.

    ID, Lets get to the substance. “Some came from detainees subjected to enhanced interrogation.” THAT’S what I have said. We are talking about percentages, not that NOTHING came out of it as some here believe. ID, I know I’m out of my league but here’s my pedestrian analysis. I am obviously the only person here who read the book by the man in charge of these techniques. I have seen MikeS and Gene discredit books w/o even having read them, in this instance and others. I refer to the transcript here that shows my thoughts on these techniques. WE ARE IN AGREEMENT. I’ve been told by a man who is supposedly the smartest guy here that the Senators who released their study[just a couple weeks prior to this flick!!] had “no vested interest.” Well, that’s preposterous on its face. But let’s be specific. I believe their intention is noble. However, we all know w/ what the road to hell is paved. Polls show that 50-54% of Americans support these techniques. And, which way do you think those polls will go if we get hit w/ a chemical weapon, dirty bomb, etc. Hell, most people will abide cutting off fingers and toes. I’m thinking of the last poignant scene in the flick, Three Days of the Condor. In that regard, we know the power of film. And, if Americans see these techniques helped w/ the killing of bin Laden..no matter how much, those polls will go up. That’s the fear of these, in this case, noble Senators and the current administration’s CIA guy. I HAVE THAT SAME FEAR. However, I will never abide rewriting history to abate it. This was a dark moment in our history. We have had much darker. However, the motives of these Senators shows how our politics have devolved. In a way they are trying to preemptively control the pols. If they were truly noble the polls would be irrellevant. You swear to uphold the Constitution. Some will be doing that next week. In a perfect world, the polls should not matter. We know this world is less than perfect.

  20. Woosty,

    Truckers sign? Yeah. And Bron was observant too.

    Here comes besserwisser:
    It is a mini-replica of the stone pile in the middle of the bill.
    It shows the stone age which Mugabe wishes to return to.
    Actually perhaps a part of their pre-European culture time when they built a city which is largely standing today. More trivial later.

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