Matthew S. Schwartz
complains about eggnog not being sold year round:
Sales of eggnog have quadrupled in the last 50 years, yet eggnog is widely available only two months out of the year. Noted libertarian Homer J. Simpson blames the government for its sudden disappearance. Why don’t dairy manufacturers make eggnog all year long?
It doesn't sell. Demand for eggnog follows traditional consumption patterns that date back hundreds of years. The drink was a wintertime favorite of the British aristocracy, who took it warm, mixed with brandy or sherry to prevent spoilage. Eventually eggnog became popular with American colonists, who replaced the expensive liquors with more readily available rum. By the 1800s it was commonly served at winter holiday parties, and it has retained its Christmastime flavor ever since.
For today’s manufacturers, eggnog season begins in the last half of October, but the exact start date varies by region, as individual plants decide when to ramp up production. Meadow Gold, sold in the western half of the country, sometimes starts as early as mid-September. Every plant is at full bore by November. ...
Eggnog purchases peak about, well, about right now every season, and then the chart measuring sales looks steeper than the face of Gibraltar. Which, if your New Year's resolutions include a diet, is probably a good thing considering that eggnog has nearly triple the number of calories as a glass of whole milk.
Whatever you're drinking, have a merry weekend. A couple of us Front Pagers will be hanging around in case John Boehner or Newt Gingrich has a vision he must share or an asteroid is spotted heading our way. So drop in and say "hi."
Blast from the Past. On this date at Daily Kos in 2010:
Since Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's unguarded remarks about the supposedly benign nature of white supremacist citizens councils caught notice early this week, he's offered a somewhat better than an I'm-sorry-if-I-offended-anyone apology. How much damage will ultimately be caused to the rest of his political career by what he told The Weekly Standard is anybody's guess.
Possibly not much. After all, the Republican Party has been pursuing a "Southern Strategy" to squeeze every last African American out of the GOP since not long after the white citizens councils were first established more than half-a-century ago. And Barbour moved quickly to quell any potential long-term trouble, unlike Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott back in December 2002. Lott blew it off when a then-obscure 30-year-old blogger with the moniker of Atrios kicked off a firestorm over the Senator's public declaration that the country would have been better off if diehard segregationist Strom Thurmond had been elected President in 1948. Within three weeks he had resigned his post as Senate Majority Leader.
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