Cobra 2, G.I. Joe 0

It's been a while. Oddly, I've been urged to post again. I've also been told blogs aren't polished, hysterical, medium length essays, but short, insipid, episodic journals that are frequently updated. Look, telling me I don't know what a blog is is like telling Proust he didn't know what a novel was, so save it.

Here are some quick beer hits, with few details:

Alesmith IPA = 10. Best beer I've ever had. Hard to find at times, but usually available at Beaumont and Belmont. It's not particularly hoppy for an IPA, but it's deep and rich in a way you imagine Natalie and Scarlet are in quiet moments (though they're really boring).

Jolly Pumpkin La Roja = 9. I was wrong about JP's beer. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. This is a slightly sour, fruity, amber beer in a Belgian style. It's unforgivably delicious and complex, while still being amazingly drinkable for a 7.2% ABV. Amazingly full mouthed yet light considering how layered and interesting and enjoyable it is. A great conversation beer and highly drinkable for beer newbies to get into. Start your next beer party off with a bottle.

Terminal Gravity Golden = 6. Not bottled, on tap at Amnesia. A pretty simple, very delicious, fairly light golden, which still has enough hop complexity and richness to make it memorable. Another seemingly effortless success from TG. I bet they go with this at the Oregon Brewer's festival.

Unibroue 2005 = 7. A really strange beer and I had it a while ago, but . . . I take a sip, and am amazed, and disappointed, at how appley it is. Apples, apples everywhere. I keep drinking. It's a very strong belgian style, very sweet, and, oh, those apples. As I get halfway through the bottle it occurs to me that, in a perverse effort to live out a childhood rhyme, I eat an apple everyday. On some level then, I must like apples. The beer is very enjoyable from there on out.

The only book I've been reading lately is Cobra II. Cobra II is kind of the ugly stepchild serious Iraq war book. It didn't do as well as Fiasco and some others. It has a horrible cover. It also probably bounced off its intended audience a little (lefties), as it's not polemical, offers little analysis on the whole, and is chock full of facts. In other words, it mostly fails to politicize the most politicized issue of the day, while containing the most facts we are ever going to get on the topic, unless they do a 2nd edition. You start reading the book, and you wonder how they got that quote from Rumsfeld's guy. Oh, they spoke with him. And that CENTCOM quote seems like bullshit, where did they . . . oh, he did an interview.

So, the book is unimpeachably sourced and plods along with a complete military history of the war, in a less than bracing narrative. It convincingly debunks most of what I thought I knew about the war and the supposed incompetencies of the Bush administration and replaces them with far more troubling and well supported incompetencies of the Bush administration, which are less newsworthy, but more fucked.

The unstated thesis of the book and the only thing you need to know when deciding if you want to read it or not is whether the following is interesting to you: The Bush team, particularly, Rumsfeld, Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rice (in that order) were so successful in creating their own reality (based on whatever they wanted to believe about the world at the time) that it led to an unconscionably simplistic and arrogant worldview and invasion of Iraq. I know that's not news to most of you, but let's linger for a second with an example. Bush and co. don't dismiss counterarguments and bury contrary evidence because they are sleazy and dishonest and want to do what they want to do (at least not primarily). They do it because they cannot assimilate any information that falls outside their thinking. It's like when you love someone who doesn't love you, and you ignore the 100 things they do to shy you away, but focus instead on the time they offered you a piece of gum. You're not stupid, just certifiable. And when Colin Powell taps you on the shoulder and tells you that maybe she isn't so into you, you look at him like he's the crazy one.

That's all for now. The new job is splendid, for those who know or care.