15th Anniversary: Absinthe Goes From Banned Drug to Legal Liquor

“In the 20,000 years or so that humans have been getting piss-drunk, no spirit has earned a worse rap than absinthe. Said to turn mild-mannered imbibers into raving maniacs, it was banned in the US and much of Europe in the early 1900s. (Remember Van Gogh’s ear incident? Some scholars blame the green fairy.) The chemical culprit was thujone, a toxic compound found in the crushed flowers and leaves of absinthe’s key ingredient, wormwood. Or so we thought.

Ted Breaux, a chemist and microbiologist who had reverse engineered the liquor’s recipe and discovered that there was barely any thujone present (November 2005). During harvest and distillation, he explained, its concentration was reduced to a minuscule five parts per million.

In March, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau approved the sale of absinthes that were “thujone free” (containing less than 10 parts per million).

To date, there are four brands on US shelves: Lucid (Breaux’s formula), Kuebler, Green Moon, and St. George Absinthe Verte. “The US is lucky in that its first absinthes are high-quality products, distilled from whole herbs,” Breaux says. “In the European market, 80 to 90 percent is industrial junk.” via Wired

McCain Chooses Youth With Palin Pick

” Ending the suspense with a surprise choice, Republican John McCain reached up into Alaska to choose a woman as his running mate: Sarah Palin, the 44-year-old governor.

She is destined for the history books as the first woman to grace a GOP presidential ticket.

A mother of five, a Christian, a hunter, and a lifetime member of the NRA, Palin brings juice—and youth—to the Republican ticket. She’s a former beauty queen, too.

She campaigned on an ethics reform platform but more recently has come under fire in a scandal dubbed “Troopergate.” It involves allegations that she may have pushed for the firing of her former brother-in-law, a state trooper. He went through a bitter divorce from Palin’s sister. The governor is alleged by some to have axed the state’s public safety commissioner for refusing to fire the trooper.” via Yahoo

VP Candidate Biden Is No Friend to File Sharing, Net Neutrality Protection or Online Privacy

“• He asked Congress to spend $1 billion to monitor peer-to-peer activity. (In fairness, much of this is to prevent child pornography, but the tactic is apparently a little blunt.)

• Two Biden bills have been explicitly anti-encryption, because you know, encryption makes it hard for the FBI to read people’s e-mails.

• He has expressed support for internet taxes and internet filtering in schools and libraries.

• The RIAA seems to be one of his best buddies: Biden sponsored a bill that would restrict recording of songs from satellite and net radio, and another one that would make it a felony to “trick” a computer into playing back unauthorized songs or running bootlegged videogames. That latter one died when Verizon, Microsoft, Apple, eBay and Yahoo all argued against it.” via Gizmodo

Biden Joins Obama on Democratic Ticket

“Sen. Biden, 65 years old, used his speech Saturday to praise the presumptive Democratic nominee and paint Sen. McCain as elitist. “Your kitchen table is like mine…You talk about how much you’re worried about being able to pay the bills,” Sen. Biden told the crowd. Sen. McCain will “have to figure out which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at.” via WSJ

USA Basketball Returns to the Top

“

They pulled one another up to the gold medal podium on Sunday after a 118-107 victory over Spain in an old-fashioned shootout that could long resonate as a standard for international play. After hammering their opponents by an average of 30.2 points through their first seven games, the Americans outlasted the Spaniards in their first wire-to-wire test of the Olympics, a game as aesthetically pleasing as it was entertaining.

The United States never trailed in the second half but did not officially put Spain away until Dwyane Wade, unofficially the best player in these Olympics, drilled a 3-pointer with 2 minutes 2 seconds remaining.

Wade, who led the team with 27 points, stayed in that spot for a second and posed with his hands on his hips and a cocksure grin. If there was ever a night for the Americans to show off a bit, this was it: They had completed their long journey back from a disappointing bronze medal at the 2004 Athens Games. ” via NYT

Zimbabwe annual inflation rate soars to 11.2 million percent

“HARARE (AFP) - Zimbabwe’s annual inflation rate zoomed to 11.2 million percent in June, state media reported on Tuesday, amid a ruinous political crisis which is exacerbating the southern African nation’s meltdown.

“Zimbabwe’s annual rate of inflation surged in June to 11.2 million percent,” The Herald newspaper said, adding: “It gained 9,035,045.5 percentage points from the May rate of 2,233,713.4 percent.”

“The actual figure could be high as 40 million percent in June,” said independent economist John Robertson.

“The actual figure for July could be as high as 300 million percent, while for August it could be 600 million percent,” he added.

Once hailed as a model economy and a regional breadbasket, Zimbabwe’s fortunes have nosedived since veteran ruler Robert Mugabe seized white-owned farms and handed them over to landless blacks, often with no farming skills.

The currency, once on a par with the British pound, is in freefall; unemployment is pegged at a staggering 80 percent; food and essential goods are in short supply and the vast majority of people go hungry every day.

In one Zimbabwean village, people have turned to barter, exchanging a bar of soap for maize, and are cutting down on meals.

Villagers who once stashed savings from grain sales are now refusing to accept cash as they cannot afford bus fares to travel to shops and fear the money will be worthless before they arrive.” via Yahoo

Bolt sets 200m world record to claim sprint double

“BEIJING (AFP) - Jamaican Usain Bolt streaked to the 200m gold in world record time Wednesday to complete the sprint double for the first time in 24 years at the Olympic Games and then loudly declared himself “Number One”.

Bolt’s scintillating run in front of 91,000 people in the packed Bird’s Nest stadium came four days after his epic record-breaking victory in the 100m final.

On the eve of his 22nd birthday, Bolt bagged the 100m-200m double last achieved by Carl Lewis in 1984, stopping the clock at 19.30sec to shatter Michael Johnson’s 12-year old record.

After an impromptu dance on the track, an ecstatic Bolt repeatedly chanted “I am number one” as the crowd responded with a chorus of “Happy Birthday”.” via Yahoo