Tonight I was invited to dine with some other Twitterers at Water Buffalo (249 N. Water Street). After a little difficulty, I found it hidden in a tiny corner on, wait for it, Water and Buffalo Streets in Milwaukee.
Water Buffalo has just changed up their menu and, like all the cool businesses, is using Twitter to promote. Tonight they promoted with a free sampling of the menu. I like my Twitter people and, more importantly, I like food. Especially when I don't have to choose from a giant menu because everything's been picked already. Decisions are not my specialty.
And I love taking pictures of good food, of course! So, here are some snapshots of what is pleasantly resting in my belly right now...
But first, the most important part of any kind of Twitter Gathering...
Tweeps! Complete with Camera phones! Twitter is serious business.
Moving on in no particular order...
First came the Honey Roasted Tomato Bruschetta. Fresh tomatoes... roasted with honey. I'm not usually a fan of ricotta cheese, but this pile of ingredients served on toasted ciabatta (crisp enough not to get soggy and bread enough not to be a cracker) made me a believer.
Then came the lobster and fennel fritters, served with some crispy vegetables and balsamic honey. I loved how it was light on the batter so I could taste more than bread and oil. And the balsamic honey gave it a little zing.
The other end of the tasting table was kind enough to pass down these little bites of flavor. Calamari may not be for everyone, but I certainly enjoy it. Especially when it is almond crusted and paired with a sesame honey dipping sauce.
Salads came next. Not just any salad. Butternut sprinkle salad. Complete with fresh greens, onions, dried cranberries, walnuts, and, you guessed it! Butternut squash. I loved it. The squash and the cranberries gave it just a tad bit of sweetness. Combined with the salt of the walnuts and the tang of the toasted sesame soy dressing, it made for a light, zesty salad. Full of flavor without being too extreme.
Next up was the Ahi Tuna mignon, seared with toasted sesame aioli, and served on some seasoned rice. While I do prefer my tuna a little more rare than this was served, this was still full of flavor, and like slicing into butter.
Chicken rolls, I hear, are a popular favorite, and I can see why! Not something I would order as a meal, but definitely good for those times when you don't quite know what you're craving, but you're in the mood for something delicious. Served with a blend of avocado and sour cream that, I won't lie, is pretty good just on its own.
I did save the best for last. Beef and sausage lasagna. This is not my grandmother's lasagna! I don't know if I've ever tried one to top this. Delicious and filling and incredibly rich, the blend of ground meats and artichoke cream cheese was, let me find a word for it, delightful. Delightful and savory and incredibly filling, this is not the one to order if you're lacking in self control. Definitely what you want if ordering off of the comfort food section.
I apologize for the shoddy quality of some of these photos but, like I said, it was kind of a Twitter thing. Which means camera phones. Camera phones and fun times and, in this case, great food.
The food at Water Buffalo is good and it's creative. Creative gets me every time. And it feels like I'm eating at an upscale, fancy pants restaurant. And, you know what? The prices are totally decent. I really recommend checking out their menu and stopping by!
I have composed a list of things that make me happy. While driving. And by "make me happy," I mean "give me a smug sense of superiority." I usually reserve these simple pleasures for college kids driving expensive cars their parents bought them. And people who drive Priuses (not including Beth). Those 2 categories seem to contain the most asshat drivers.
Maybe I'll make a book out of these too.
Things That Make Me Happy (When Driving):
Driving the speed limit in residential areas when someone is tailgating me
Slowing down and stopping at yellow lights when someone is tailgating me
Stopping for people waiting at crosswalks when someone is tailgating me
Letting cars waiting to get out of parking lots go in front of me when someone is tailgating me (but really only if there is a line of cars behind that person)
Not making a right turn when the sign says "no turn on red" when the car behind me starts blaring their horn for me to go
Letting the pulled over bus in front of me when someone is tailgating me
Not driving into, and then blocking, the intersection when all the cars on the other side of the intersection are stopped when the car behind me starts blaring their horn for me to go. This is incredibly humorous when the light turns red while I'm waiting for the road in front of me to clear. This is probably my favorite thing that makes me happy.
You guys. Being a good and courteous driver really makes people angry! Unbelievably angry. So angry that all you can do is laugh and be grateful that your life isn't as sad and empty as theirs must be.
This blog brought to you by thoughts containing more than 140 characters.
I think I'll write a book. A book called, "Being an Adult Means" because I tweet it all the time and it's time to put it all together. And by "all the time," I mean "I've posted like 3 tweets." And here they are:
Being an adult means...
being able to put as much chocolate syrup in my milk as I want.
begging to go to bed at the time you used to whine about your parents setting for you.
I agree with everything this guy has to say. I couldn't have said it better myself. I don't throw around words like "socialism" and "death panels" because, well, it's silly and you shouldn't have to use extremes or make stuff up if what you believe is solid. And it is. The current plan to reform health care does absolutely nothing to reduce the cost of health care. Which is the main issue. I could go on, but I won't. Because that is what ctrl+c and crtl+v are for.
The House Saturday took the first momentous step toward overhauling this country's health care system. The plan, advanced by our supposedly visionary and post-partisan president, passed by a margin of 5 votes. It brings the country precipitously close to an inefficient and oppressive health care regime.
I believe this video segment succinctly captures my (and millions of others') emotional response to the news of the bill's passage:
Ah, yes. My sentiments exactly.
I know what you’re thinking: contained herein are the rants of another rabid, rightwing lunatic. Well, think again. There are many valid concerns about this plan that have nothing to do with “death panels” or “socialism.” Here’s another preconceived notion you may have about my position that I should also dispel immediately: I believe this country is in dire need of health care reform, the sooner the better. So why the ululation?
The reason for my lamentations is two-fold. One, this current health care plan will not actually help anyone in the long run. Most importantly, it will not significantly reduce health care costs relative to the amount of money it will cost. Two, the health care bill represents discomforting government attacks on our personal liberties, since it includes an ‘individual mandate’ that forces- literally forces- Americans to buy health insurance.
I’ve divided this piece into two sections, one for each component of my thesis: the first is dedicated to the economics of health care, and the second to the politics.
THE ECONOMICS OF HEALTH CARE REFORM
I like to say that Democrats are good people. They mean well. And this health care bill is an example of that- health care for all is an honorable mission. But, as I also like to say, Democrats don’t seem to quite understand how economics work. Their honorable plan would simply not work in the real world, and would only worsen millions of Americans’ access to affordable, quality health care. There is a better way, and the Democrats who currently occupy the halls of power refuse to even consider it. Quite simply, market forces will more efficiently and effectively ensure that the mass majority of Americans receive quality and affordable care.
This no doubt will come as a surprise to some- Democrats have cast the current system as a free market system rife with insurance companies’ cruelty and avarice. But the health care status quo is far from a free market system. The status quo is rife with government regulations and mandates, and is totally unacceptable. It is maddeningly ironic that the House’s solution to this system is more government interference.
So if America’s current health care system isn’t guided by the free market, what drives it? The heart of our current system is the HMO. An HMO, or health maintenance organization, is essentially a private corporation that dictates what treatments a patient receives and what doctors or specialists they’re allowed to see. This is a disturbing set up- imagine, an HMO employee, sitting in some dark, cramped cubicle, deciding what type of care you receive based on maximizing the HMO's profits. It sounds like an example of a free market, corporately-biased health care system gone awry. But it’s not. Congress decreed this system into existence with the HMO Act in the 1970s.
So what’s a better alternative to our current system and the system proposed in the House bill? First things first: clear the way for a true health insurance free market. This has several implications for our current policy, the most important of which is the encouragement of perfect competition in the insurance market.
Congress must create laws that encourage competition in the insurance industry, or more importantly, repeal laws that stifle competition. Competition is essential; it is the lifeblood of a free market system, since it serves two important functions. It drives prices down, since companies lower the costs of their product in order to attract customers, and it drives quality up, again, since companies want to attract customers.
An example of how competition lowers prices and increases quality in the health care industry can be found in the field of laser eye surgery. Generally, Lasik is not covered by Medicare or HMOs. Lasik used to be an expensive and risky procedure, but today, is safer and cheaper than ever. This is counter to the trend in almost all other medical fields- in which prices have gone through the roof. The difference between Lasik and the rest of the health care industry is that laser eye surgery is not regulated by government-run Medicare or government-mandated HMOs. The industry was left to free market forces, and Lasik evolved into an affordable, high quality procedure.
I was recently the recipient of a polemic against insurance companies and free market competition: "Insurance companies only care about their profits; providing health care to their customers is secondary,” one educated man passionately informed me. And, sir, you are absolutely correct. It’s a three-hundred year old concept, first expounded by Adam Smith: because companies want to make money, they will lower their prices and increase the quality of their product so that consumers will spend their money on that particular company’s product. Self interest drives the system, which of course seems greedy, but the end result is beneficial to everybody's interests.
“But wait,” you may rightly protest, “how is this situation different from that HMO accountant in his cramped cubicle restricting patients’ procedures and options based on profit?” The points outlined below address this valid concern.
Currently it is illegal to buy insurance policies across state lines. But in order for unfettered competition to drive prices down to rock bottom, consumers need many options to choose from, and by allowing Americans to buy insurance from another state increases the pool of companies competing with each other. An HMO is protected from out-of-state competition, and therefore is able to increase prices. This restriction on consumer choice must be rectified.
Related to the above point, it will also be necessary to ensure that the pool of health insurance companies remains, shall we say, sufficiently deep. Current decades-old (as in 1940s-old) legislation exempts insurance companies from anti-trust laws. By repealing this exemption, insurance giants will be subject to government-enforced trust-busting, ensuring that no company gains too large a portion of the market in order to artificially inflate prices. Unfortunately, our current administration is enamored with the “too big to fail” myth and refuses to deconstruct massive corporations that stifle competition (think AIG, Bank of America, JP Morgan, or an HMO of your choosing…).
“So then,” you may continue, “competition is good- that must mean a public option, which is supposed to compete with private insurers, will also be good,” you might now assert. This is incorrect.
Antithetical to competition is what we call ‘crowding out’ in the world of economics. Crowding out occurs when the government begins selling products that are subsidized by the American taxpayer alongside private companies’ products. This means the public option must not be implemented. The President claims it will augment competition by providing an alternative to insurance companies’ overly expensive policies. But a public option is funded by taxpayers and therefore has no incentive to lower costs or increase quality. After all, since the government has a virtually bottomless wallet filled with taxpayers' money at its disposal, there is no incentive for the government to cut costs. Additionally, in the real world, there is compelling historical evidence that demonstrates that the government is quite adept at driving private companies out of business: the case of Fannie and Freddie.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are companies chartered by Congress in order to provide a “public option” in the mortgage industry. At the time, Congresspersons vigorously denied that these two entities would ever gain more than 10-15% of the mortgage market. They were merely intended to provide competition to the other banks in order to lower their prices- the same justification used in defense of the health insurance public option. But today, after the creation of the mortgage public option, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae control over half of the mortgage industry, are bleeding cash at an alarming rate, and are at the center of the recent economic meltdown.
All in all, the economics of health care, and indeed just about anything, comes down to the fact that millions of individuals choosing between dozens (even hundreds) of competing products in a free market make better economic decisions and produce more desirable economic results than any sort of government regulation or mandates can.
THE POLITICS OF HEALTH CARE REFORM
Of course, besides the economic problems with the Democrats’ bill, it has serious and disturbing political implications for our freedoms. No, I’m not referring to pulling the plug on Grandma. I’m referring to the fact that this plan relies on government coercion (like any law passed by a state) rather than voluntary market interactions.
Most significantly, the Democrats’ plan includes the so-called individual mandate, which would require Americans to buy health insurance. Apparently, Congress has once again forgotten that the last time they foisted mandates upon the insurance industry (the HMO), the result was disastrous.
The individual mandate is necessary for the Democrats’ plan because it forces healthy people to buy into the system. With these healthy people now paying for health insurance, insurance companies would be able to afford to cover their totally unprofitable sick and dying customers (people who are typically denied coverage in the current system). But this is patently unethical. It would force the millions of Americans who voluntarily choose to not buy insurance into an exchange they want no part of. Why would some people not want health insurance? Well, for the same reason that some people don’t want umbrellas: if it doesn’t rain where you live, an umbrella is a waste of money. If I’m perfectly healthy, and choose to make the reasonable assumption that I will continue to be healthy for some time, then health insurance is a waste of money. I have more important things to spend my money on- like college tuition.
Additionally, the insurance mandate amounts to nothing more than an enormous tax. A tax is money that the government takes from individuals or corporations and reallocates for some national service. When someone is forced to buy an insurance policy by means of the individual mandate, that money is used to subsidize the new health care regime- that is, the money forcefully taken from a healthy person is reallocated to pay for the health care of someone else. Taxes are of course necessary in many instances, but they are fundamentally offensive to our liberties, and always impede economic growth- therefore taxes should be especially avoided during perilous economic times like our own.
Lastly, the individual mandate allows the Democrats’ health care plan to reward those who make bad decisions. Want to start smoking? Go for it; your future respiratory diseases will be paid for by the government, via your fellow citizens who chose to not smoke. Like many of the Democrats’ policies, this health care bill sweeps personal responsibility under the carpet, creating perverse negative incentives.
There are ways to encourage people to buy insurance without coercion or taxes. One such example is the HSA, or health savings account.
An HSA works something like a retirement account- you voluntarily deposit money into this account so that you have money available to you should you have a medical emergency in the future. This seemingly radical idea is true to the very definition of insurance- having money to insure against the unexpected. Additionally, the existence of HSAs would lower insurance premiums for everybody (including people with preexisting conditions), since insurance companies can expect that most of their customers will be able to pay at least a portion of their medical care from their HSA- in other words, HSAs do exactly what the individual mandate is supposed to do, but without government threats and intrusions. HSAs have the additional benefit of working with the economic forces detailed in the previous section to drive insurance prices so low that every American would be able to buy some sort of health insurance.
Would the HSA system actually work? After all, why would Americans, being the spendthrifts we know they are, be inclined to put a portion of their paychecks into HSAs? The solution is simple: the government can encourage Americans to use HSAs by providing generous tax deductions for all money deposited.
So to wrap this section up, we see that not only is the new bill economically unsound, it infringes on liberties in despotic fashion. The individual mandate forces people who don't want to buy insurance to buy it, while using that money to pay for the bad choices of another person, thus absolving the citizenry of any responsibility and destroying incentives to live a healthy lifestyle.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
So, to recapitulate: everything in the bill is contrary to progressive ideas because it ignores economic theory and attacks personal liberty.
On the economic side of things, the most effective way of making insurance more affordable is to increase competition by leaving the health care industry to the free market. The government should repeal laws that prevent individuals from buying insurance policies from other states. The government should also repeal the laws that exempt health insurance companies from anti-trust laws. Lastly, the government should not attempt to “help” competition by offering its own public option.
In the realm of liberty, the House bill allows for new, unprecedented government intrusions into American private life and muddles ethical issues of personal responsibility and fairness. It also creates a tax, which is an affront to both economic growth and personal freedom. As an auxiliary to the economic system of perfect competition, the use of HSAs would encourage Americans to save money in order to defray future, unforeseen medical costs in a manner that is consistent with fairness and effectiveness. HSAs also save "evil" insurance companies money, which enables them to cover unprofitable sick or dying patients.
The President's most recent praises of the bill drew upon nonsensical and vague appeals to "history" and "the future," while totally ignoring the unresolved economic and political repercussions. Mr. President, this is not a bill that will go down in history. This is a bill that will live in infamy.
This post is already exhaustingly long. If you’re still with me, thanks for reading. Please, if you’d like to denounce any of my ideas, I strongly encourage you to do so. There is still so much more I could address about the disaster that is our current health care system, and the even greater calamity that will be the Democrats’ health care system, but I just can’t fit it all here- so comment away, bloggers.
The bill passed by the House still has to survive the Senate, where it will undoubtedly undergo major revisions- or preferably, be thrown out all together so Congress can start afresh on health care reform. I’ll leave you all with this last commission: if you don’t like the current health care system, and loathe the Democrats’ proposed system, tell them so. Congress (supposedly) listens to the American people. Protest the bill like your life and limb depended on it- because they quite literally do.
I love my coffee. I am the first to admit that I am a snob. It is my favorite indulgence. And I take it pretty seriously.
You should take it seriously as well, or I might judge you.
My coffee comes from Alterra Coffee. They have a few locations so I'll let you know that I buy from the store on Humboldt in Milwaukee. Why? Because that is the location they roast the beans at for all the Alterras. I go there because they have the freshest beans.
My beans come in a valve sealed bag. When coffee beans are roasted, they release CO2 for a while, which affects the flavor and aroma of the coffee. The beans in the valve-sealed bag are able to release these gases. The beans you buy in a can are not, and so, before being placed in the can, all the CO2 has to be released from the beans first, or the can will expand from the gases. In order for the beans to release the gases, they have to sit around for a while, and they go a little stale. Beans in a valve sealed bag don't have to sit around, because there's an outlet for the gases. Beans sold in a nitrogen-flushed can, like those sold at Trader Joe's, are able to fight off oxygen (chemistry is sexy!), which preserves them longer than beans not in a nitrogen-flushed can, but the beans in the bag are still going to be fresher. Fresher beans make better coffee.
My beans are ground as I need them. This keeps the oils from breaking up, and keeps air from going through my beans. Again, I don't want stale coffee. Some will tell you that a burr grinder gives you the best ground coffee. I'll tell you a secret. Burr grinders are over-rated and an unnecessary expense. I have a nice grinder I got for $19 at K-Mart that has settings on it. You can grind 4, 6, 8, 10, or 12 cups worth of coffee beans, and you can grind those beans to a fine, medium, or coarse ground. For my most regular use, I grind 4 cups (4 tablespoons) on the coarse setting. I hold a button down, and my grinder grinds until it's done and shuts off on its own. That's right. It has a kind of built in timer so I don't have to think about how many seconds I need to grind for.
Once ground, I dump the beans into my French Press. The French Press is my preferred method of brewing coffee. I've mentioned oils before. Oils are what give coffee its flavor. When you use a regular coffee pot, with a paper filter, these oils are absorbed into the paper and don't make it to your coffee. Your coffee is not as flavorful and delicious. With a French Press, the beans (and their oils) are directly placed into hot (never boiling!) water, where they brew into something wonderful. Even Folgers's coffee (I'm judging you) has more flavor when brewed in a French Press.
The beans steep in the hot water for about 3-4 minutes. Then I push down the plunger to separate the beans (now empty of their essence) from the coffee, and I pour my coffee into my thermos and I'm ready to go to work! I add 2% milk to my coffee. I add 2% milk to my coffee. I prefer my coffee with milk because I think milk helps bring the flavors out a little more. I use 2% because skim milk is too watery, and whole milk is a little too thick to mix properly. The reduced fat milk seems to work just fine.
Sometimes I use a drip coffee maker. Not a regular one. The kind with the thermal carafe. I like that kind because it doesn't use a hot plate. Coffee sitting in a glass carafe on a hot plate gets burned. It makes the coffee bitter. It ruins it a little bit. I also use a reusable metal filter. Because, again, I like when the oils make it into my coffee. I like flavor.
More tips:
If you use things that are metal, rinse them with water. Maybe swipe a cloth over them. Try not to use soap too often. The coffee oils on the metal coat it and prevent metal flavors from getting into your coffee.
Clean the grinder out with rice. That's right. Grind uncooked rice in that grinder to clean it. The rice absorbs all the stale coffee flavors and oils and, as an added bonus, it keeps the blades sharp!
Water is important! It is one of the main ingredients of your coffee. If you wouldn't drink the water straight from the tap, don't use the tap water for your coffee. Filter it. Or use bottled water.
