Out of some sort of misguided sense of civic responsibility, I'm watching the Dems debate, rather than George Mitchell's press conference which, arguably, will have more consequences down the road. Here's the AP's first summary of the Mitchell presser, more elaborate commentary will come along later. This is pretty spare.

MLB is going to have some hard decisions to make. Watching the way they do that will be interesting, and may have some bearing on other major league sports. And other drugs: amphetamines are not addressed so far.

Baseball steroid probe to name big names
From the Associated Press

11:21 AM PST, December 13, 2007

NEW YORK — Roger Clemens, Miguel Tejada and Andy Pettitte were named in the long-awaited Mitchell Report today, an All-Star roster linked to steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs that put a question mark -- if not an asterisk -- next to some of baseball's biggest moments.

Barry Bonds, already under indictment on charges of lying to a federal grand jury about steroids, also showed up in baseball's most infamous lineup since the Black Sox scandal.

The report culminated a 20-month investigation by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, hired by commissioner Bud Selig to examine the Steroids Era.

It was uncertain whether the report would result in any penalties or suspensions.

Several stars named in the report could pay the price in Cooperstown, much the way Mark McGwire was kept out of the Hall of Fame this year merely because of steroids suspicion.

"Former commissioner Fay Vincent told me that the problem of performance-enhancing substances may be the most serious challenge that baseball has faced since the 1919 Black Sox scandal," Mitchell said in the 409-page report.

"The illegal use of anabolic steroids and similar substances, in Vincent's view, is 'cheating of the worst sort.' He believes that it is imperative for Major League Baseball to 'capture the moral high ground' on the issue and, by words and deeds, make it clear that baseball will not tolerate the use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs."

Eric Gagne and Paul Lo Duca were among other current players named in the report, both linked to Human Growth Hormone.

"We identify some of the players who were caught up in this drive to gain a competitive advantage," the report said. "Other investigations will no doubt turn up more names and fill in more details, but that is unlikely to significantly alter the description of baseball's 'steroids era' as set forth in this report."

I've been on 'roids a half dozen times for various respiratory infections. They make me terribly depressed and did nothing for my batting average.

It's a pity that I live here on the Chesapeake Bay but I'm allergic to crab. One of the signature dishes of this part of the world are crab cakes and resaurants compete to have the best ones in town. This is a reasonable facsimile of the dish served at Phillips Seafood Restaurants but I'm only guessing since the stuff makes me go into anaphyletic shock. But you should know about it since well cleaned blue crab is now easy to find in most super-duper marts.

Chesapeake Bay Blue Crab Cakes
Serves 4 as a main course, 6 as an appetizer

2 pounds lump Chesapeake Bay Blue crabmeat, picked over to remove shell fragments
1/3 cup homemade mayonnaise
1 1/2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 extra large eggs, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon seafood seasoning
1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons finely chopped green onions
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon peel
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup clarified butter* or peanut oil

Combine mayonnaise, mustard, eggs, lemon juice, seasoning, bread crumbs, parsley, green onions, lemon peel and cayenne pepper in a large bowl. Gently fold in crabmeat. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Portion into 3 1/2-ounce cakes. Lightly flour, shaking off any excess.

Sauté in clarified butter or peanut oil until golden brown on both sides and thoroughly heated. Drain on paper towels while the late cakes are sauteeing and serve immediately.

Even the best crab will need to be picked over to remove shell fragments. The women who do this work on the Eastern Shore are among the most abused workers in American industry. Think about that when you buy your crab.

*Clarified butter has a higher smoke point than regular butter since the milk solids have been removed. To make clarified butter, gently melt unsalted butter in a saucepan. Skim foam off the top and carefully pour the golden liquid into a measuring cup. Discard milk solids left on the bottom. Store in the refrigerator until needed. A pound of butter yields about 12 ounces of clarified butter.

The clarified butter part is really important and something you should have in the fridge in a plastic container at all times. If you have an Indian market nearby, you can buy a jar of "ghee," which is the same thing and used for sauteeing in the Indian tradition. This substance gives you a smoke point which is higher than butter, lower than peanut oil, and lets you brown with flavor from the oil, which you don't do in wok frying. For a recipe like this, in which butter is one of the flavors but the temp has to be pretty high, it is the perfect oil.

I had stone crabs once in Miami at Joe's Stone Crab. Heaven, nature's most perfect food. The second time I went my throat closed and my face swelled up and the doctor said "don't try this again until you have an Epi-pen in your pocket book. My local doc said, be glad that you can eat shrimp. If I have to shoot myself up to eat something, chances are I should avoid it, regardless of how good it is

If you can find stone crab in your market, run, don't walk, to get it home and serve it with melted butter. Please. I'm begging you. Spread the table with newspaper and just throw the shells onto the paper, it will go into the trash. Cracking stone crabs will need a lesson from your waiter. They sell those little hammers at the fishmongers for a reason. Follow the links and you'll be fine.

I'm supposed to get exercised over The Hill's outrage over union endorsements and contributions? Here is Mike Huckabee's last quarter report:

Top Contributors

Stephens Inc $34,850
State of Arkansas $11,850
Stephen's Group $11,500
Challenger Inc $9,200
First Tape & Label $9,200
Wal-Mart Stores $8,750
Tyson Foods $8,100
Murphy Oil $8,050
Life Outreach International $8,000
Bentley Forbes $6,900
Grubbs Infiniti $6,900
Mt Vernon Investments $6,600
Morgan Stanley $6,100
Friday, Eldredge & Clark $5,800
Midnight Sun $5,000
Tenn PAC $5,000
American Interventional Pain Physicians $5,000
Guide Capital Llc $4,600
Grace Group Interiors $4,600
Killology Research Group $4,600

Here is John McCain's:

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/indus.asp?CID=N00006424&cycle=200...

1 Citigroup Inc $145,050

2 Blank Rome LLP $141,100

3 Greenberg Traurig LLP $126,987

4 Merrill Lynch $121,975

5 Goldman Sachs $111,050

6 Univision Communications $82,000

7 IDT Corp $80,150

8 Pinnacle West Capital $77,850

9 Bank of New York Mellon $74,000

10 JP Morgan Chase & Co $72,100

11 Irvine Co Apartment Community $68,400

12 MGM Mirage $67,100

13 Credit Suisse Group $61,050

14 Bridgewater Assoc $58,300

15 Cisco Systems $56,850

16 Lehman Brothers $56,350

17 Triwest Healthcare Alliance $54,350

18 Wachovia Corp $53,400

19 FedEx Corp $52,100

20 Morgan Stanley $51,950

I assume that all of these lobbies are covering their asses with contributions to both sides so I find it hard to get exercised over the unions when they are so overmatched by the corporate lobbies. But The Hill didn't cover that. So much for your "liberal media."

Merriam-Webster's Word of '07: 'W00t'

By STEPHANIE REITZ

Associated Press Writer

10:57 AM EST, December 12, 2007

SPRINGFIELD, Mass.

Expect cheers among hardcore online game enthusiasts when they learn Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year. Or, more accurately, expect them to "w00t."

"W00t," a hybrid of letters and numbers used by gamers as an exclamation of happiness or triumph, topped all other terms in the Springfield-based dictionary publisher's online poll for the word that best sums up 2007.

Merriam-Webster's president, John Morse, said "w00t" was an ideal choice because it blends whimsy and new technology.

"It shows a really interesting thing that's going on in language. It's a term that's arrived only because we're now communicating electronically with each other," Morse said.

Gamers commonly substitute numbers and symbols for the letters they resemble, Morse says, creating what they call "l33t speak" -- that's "leet" when spoken, short for "elite" to the rest of the world.

For technophobes, the word also is familiar from the 1990 movie "Pretty Woman," in which Julia Roberts startles her date's upper-crust friends with a hearty "Woot, woot, woot!" at a polo match.

Purists of "l33t speak" often substitute a "7" for the final "t," expressing a "w007" of victory -- an "in your face" of sorts -- when they defeat an online gaming opponent.

"W00t" was among 20 nominees in a list of the most-searched words in Merriam-Webster's online dictionary and most frequently submitted terms from users of its "open dictionary."

The choice did not make Allan Metcalf, executive secretary of the American Dialect Society, say "w00t."

"It's amusing, but it's limited to a small community and unlikely to spread and unlikely to last," said Metcalf, an English professor at MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Ill.

The 2006 pick, "truthiness," also has its roots in pop culture. It was popularized by Comedy Central satirical political commentator Stephen Colbert.

Prof. Metcalf obviously has no experience with the blogosphere. Here on the liberal side of things, we have a regular commentor who goes by the handle "w00t." I'm not a programmer or a gamer, but even I, as out of it on pop culture as one can be, am familiar with this locution.

So, I say to Merriam-Webster: w00t!

Make science part of the debate
Which candidate can best analyze issues like global warming and stem cells?
By Lawrence Krauss and Chris Mooney
December 12, 2007

Today, countries such as South Korea, Singapore and China are producing a far higher percentage of science and engineering graduates than the United States. Indeed, as Bill Gates has put it, "When I compare our high schools with what I see when I'm traveling abroad, I am terrified for our workforce of tomorrow." Test results released last week by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reinforce the concern: U.S. students performed below the average of 30 countries in science and well below the average in math.

These dismaying facts present a fundamental challenge to our nation's future, one that our next president must have a plan for overcoming.

And, in fact, it's not going too far to say that science in its broadest sense -- by which we mean scientific thinking -- is crucial in every area of policymaking. Science requires a willingness to reject conclusions once they're shown to be in error, and it demands that all the data be considered, not just that which agrees with a priori opinions. A president capable of assessing scientific issues by weighing competing positions, and evaluating the evidence supporting them, could be expected to carry the same mode of reasoning over into other policy arenas where it's equally crucial.

That's why we need to hear from all of the candidates about where they stand on specific science-related issues, on U.S. competitiveness and, finally, on the broad role of science in the policymaking process. Our next president needn't be a memorizer of facts, but he or she most definitely should understand how to critically analyze data and should embrace a broad empiricism in national and world affairs.

Already we've seen science form the basis of some of the thorniest public policy issues in recent history, from the fate of Terri Schiavo to the fate of evolution in schools and the fate of the Earth. A presidential debate on science would help voters determine who among the candidates is up to the task of dealing with whatever comes next.

In a perfect world, this would work. But Americans are so scientifically illiterate that they are unable to judge the truthfulness of scientific claims made by candidates.