Getting a Good Martini Out Nearly Impossible

I love martinis, but I almost never order one when I'm out because it's so difficult to get a good one. First of all the "dry" martini lobby has ruined the taste of a classic martini by causing the average bartender to believe that the appropriate amount of vermouth used in the drink is an amount insufficient to civilize the innate brutality of raw gin. Secondly, the extension of the appellation 'martini' beyond the ingredients indigenous to a classic martini—that is gin and vermouth—to include drinks made with vodka and a whole raft of peculiar and vaguely sissified beverages flavored with fruits and candies has eroded the integrity of the genre. Seriously, if you're going to drink one of those abominations you ought to at least have the decency to order it in a silly glass with an umbrella to warn passersby of the potential for noxious fruitiness. Worst of all to me though is the inability of modern bar staff to prepare a proper twist. The twists I see, and the twists I get when I'm moved to order one, are huge swatches of lemon containing virtual slabs of pith. These things do not impart any sophistication or subtlety to a proper martini. Instead they make for a bitter drink with a disagreeable appearance. Better to just build your own at home. Have a nice glass of wine when you're out. No one is likely to screw that up.

The little animation below is indicative of my experience. Enjoy.

Dear Achmed

Achmed Fatwahd

Common sense advice for the Jihadist on a short fuse!

Q.      Allah’s blessings be upon you, Achmed, and upon your sons and their sons to the twelfth generation. I am troubled Achmed, and seek your counsel. I am come late to the fight, and while I am ready to tape explosives around my middle, to light the fuse, and to embrace the infidel in public places, I fear that my reward may not be as great as I had once hoped. (Forgive me, Allah, for doubting.) So many of our faithful brothers have gone to their reward already, before I was of age, before I had the chance to serve our cause, that I begin to wonder (have mercy on your insignificant servant) whether there will be sufficient virgins left for me to get my allotted 6 dozen. Even worse I fear that even were sufficient numbers of virgins available to populate my heavenly domicile, the stocks may have been so severely depleted by the brave warriors before me that the ones left to my humble allotment may not be so comely to look upon as those whose fate it might have been to be possessed by me had I been able to blow myself and sundry infidels to kingdom come some years ago. Can you give me some assurance, Achmed, that my virgins will be beautiful enough under their burkahs to make my sacrifice worthwhile? – Moahmahr.

A.      Moahmahr, you faithless pile of camel dung. Have you no shame? Is it not enough for you to have a noble cause for which to sacrifice your miserable life? Must you also insist that your heavenly virgins be comely? Be glad that you have been called to give your life for the cause, and that your glorious demise will bring honor to your family and death to the infidel. Knowing this should be reward enough for the faithful and committed brethren. But, as you are young and your faith yet imperfectly formed, I have some comfort for you. I myself, not wishing to tax Allah’s munificence have elected to trade my own celestial virgins for a single pole-dancing bimbo with with blond hair and enormous implants. 

AIGee

I for one am getting tired of the sanctimonious blather coming out of Washington about the AIG bonuses. First of all, and what no one seems to understand, is that these were not performance bonuses but retention bonuses. Retention bonuses aren’t pretty. They are incentives to keep existing executives on board as the ship is sinking, and as such are usually viewed with skepticism and bitterness by all the stakeholders who are not compensated for going down with the ship. They are however fairly common business practice and, arguably at least, a necessary evil. Even though the executives who get the bonuses are the self-same scoundrels who scuttled the business in the first place, their knowledge of the systems, processes, markets and other particulars of the business are seen to make them useful in forestalling the chaos that attends a catastrophic business failure.

Secondly, the contracts that put the bonus payments in place were dated March of 2008. Thus they predate not only the bailout agreements but any general public knowledge of the company’s imminent failure.

These two reasons alone explain why Secretary Geithner passed on the payments. They were and remain--all the commotion aside--standard business practice governed by legal contracts that had been in place for a year.

My guess is that Secretary Geithner in particular and the rest of the Obama administration in general thought--with blushing bride naïveté--that that is how the bonuses would be regarded by most reasonable and knowledgeable men. They were subsequently blindsided by Washington's stellar capacity for self-righteous indignation and woeful disregard for sensibility. Now the President himself, knowing that he is never ever going to be able to justify or even explain the bonuses--not even to an adoring public--in the face of the self-aggrandizing vitriol spewing out of Congress, is forced into the duplicitous role (he does seem to wear it comfortably though) of condemning the bonuses as morally objectionable on the one hand while defending the actions of his secretary and his administration on the other.

What galls is this. At the same time that AIG was spiraling down the toilet, at the same time they were facing a massive cash shortfall that they knew or could reasonably expect would require a taxpayer bailout, at the same time they were contracting to pay these allegedly immoral and irresponsible retention bonuses, they were also making substantial campaign contributions to the same lawmakers who are now shrieking on the nightly news.

If Congress wants the bonus money back, if the President wants to exhaust every means possible to recover the bonus payments, if all this is being done and championed in the name of the taxpayers, then we (the taxpayers) ought to get the campaign contributions back as well as the bonuses. Congress is at least as culpable as the AIG executives for our current economic turmoil. For them to keep the money given them by AIG is at least as arrogant and reprehensible as a bunch of incompetent insurance salesmen hanging on to their bonuses.