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Topo Chico Hard Seltzer is kicking off the new year with the launch of Topo Chico Ranch Water hard seltzer in select regional markets and releasing its variety pack nationwide.

Fresh off my annual multi-state fall hunting tour—part of the occupational hazard of being an outdoor television host, former magazine editor and book author (I know, it’s a dirty job…)—it seems an opportune time to assess the state of hunting.

Wagyu steak is a one-time investment into luxury for many, usually at a high end steakhouse. The price on a piece of meat like that at a restaurant can be eye-wateringly expensive, however. These days, if you’re at a butcher that carries specialty meats, or even Costco, you can pick up an ultra-marbled piece of meat…

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It's possible to turn lemons into a beautifully citrus-forward cocktail, and the 1920s are proof.

The post Bee’s Knees, French 75, and more: Fall for these 9 iconic Prohibition cocktails from the Roaring ’20s appeared first on The Manual.

'Quit Big Tech entirely'

A new way forward?

Modified using NASA techniques, this is an exacting replica of the cameras used on the Mercury missions.

Visit Uncrate for the full post.

It’s been quite a year, and I hope it’s been good for everyone. I’m so grateful for all the love, and wish you all the best for 2022. Due to popular demand, I’m sharing our ten most viewed posts during the year, and there were some surprises.

#1- Shark Tooth Beach, Jekyll Island

#2- Crystal Lake, Irwin County

#3- The Varsity, 1963, Athens

#4- Harville House, 1894, Bulloch County

#5- Home of Georgia’s Last Confederate Veteran, Fitzgerald

#6- Abandoned Amphiteater, 1973, Jekyll Island

#7- Wasden House, Brooks County

#8- White Sulphur Springs, Meriwether County

#9- Williams Seafood Sign, Savannah

#10- Top Hat Cafe, 1945, Columbus

Investment is too strong for real estate to go to waste

To find the best new releases of the past year, we asked brewers, cicerones, writers, podcast hosts and other beer professionals to share their personal favorites. These are the 50 beers that debuted and dazzled in 2021.

Ranked: the cheapest places to live in America that also have good weather.

Former Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) died on December 28 after recently being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was 82 years old. Reid was one of the most influential Democratic politicians of the last four decades before retiring in 2016. He spent most of that time in the Senate, first winning a seat there in 1986. Reid led Senate Democrats for 12 years (from 2005 to 2016). He served as the Senate's majority leader for eight years (from 2007 to 2014). Only two other senators have served longer in that role: Sen. Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.) and Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.). And like Mansfield and Byrd, Reid had an outsized impact on the Senate—and not for the better.

Reid earned a reputation among his opponents as a scrappy partisan street fighter who would do anything to win. He routinely infuriated Republicans with deft parliamentary maneuvering and unapologetic rhetoric. Reid often worked closely with his counterpart, Sen. Mitch McConnell, (R-Ky.) to ensure that the Senate passed legislation that the two leaders, and a bipartisan mass of senators, supported over the objections of liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans. Yet Reid's leadership prowess also helped create the dysfunction that grips the Senate today.

And therein lies Reid's lasting, and tragic, legacy. He skillfully wielded the majority leader's limited powers to make the Senate work while, at the same time, creating the impression that it was bitterly divided between Democrats and Republicans. Reid simultaneously downplayed Democrats' policy disagreements and highlighted their differences with Republicans. And he ensured some bills still passed by setting the Senate's agenda, overseeing important negotiations with Republicans, and then structuring subsequent floor debates to make it harder for any senator, liberal or conservative, to alter or defeat the products of those negotiations.

Reid's skill as a leader allowed him to essentially eliminate genuine deliberation on the Senate floor while ensuring that the Senate still legislated, a balancing act that his successors have struggled to perform.

Reid's tenure as majority leader set the standard for what senators expect of their leaders. That is, before Reid, senators understood the majority leader's primary responsibility to be facilitating the participation of interested senators in floor debates and keeping the legislative trains running on time. After Reid, senators understand the majority leader's primary responsibility to be protecting senators from taking votes they want to avoid, crafting legislative compromises, and structuring the legislative process to ensure that the Senate approves them.

Reid's dramatic transformation of the majority leader's responsibilities is especially striking because senators did not create the position officially until the 1920s. Before then, Senate leadership was provided by senators of extraordinary ability (e.g., Sens. John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster) or committee chairmen. And while the centralized role that today's Senate leaders play first emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, no majority leader before Reid was as intimately involved as he was in all aspects of the legislative process inside the Senate.

Reid's success in altering senators' expectations of the majority leader's responsibilities is even more striking because he led a Democratic Caucus that was beset with widening divisions over major issues like immigration, health care, and guns. As majority leader, Reid kept such party-fracturing issues from jeopardizing Democrats' ability to pass other bills by preventing senators from forcing floor votes on them. The result of Reid's efforts was to create the false impression that the Senate was bitterly divided between Democrats and Republicans when the reality was that there was considerable bipartisan agreement between senators on most issues.

Reid's leadership skill is evident in his creative use of the Senate's rules and practices to tightly control the floor and ensure that nothing happened there without his permission.

For example, Reid pioneered the now-ubiquitous tactic of filling the amendment tree and filing cloture on bills preemptively once the Senate began debating them. Filling the amendment tree blocks opponents of the bill from offering alternative proposals and protects its supporters from having to cast votes that could be used against them in their future efforts to win re-election. And filing cloture preemptively speeds Senate consideration of legislation and often confronts senators with a fait accompli, forcing them to choose between offering their amendments and passing the underlying bill.

Most controversially, Reid set the precedent for ignoring the Senate's rules when he could not use them to his advantage.

In 2013, Reid led his fellow Democrats to invoke the so-called nuclear option to effectively eliminate the filibuster for most presidential nominations. And McConnell and his fellow Republicans followed in Reid's footsteps by using the nuclear option to effectively eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations and to shorten the amount of time permitted under the rules after the Senate has invoked cloture on a nominee but before a final confirmation vote.

Reid's successors have struggled to imitate his example. They have successfully stifled deliberation on the Senate floor. But, unlike Reid, they have not figured out how to fashion bipartisan compromise on most controversial issues (e.g., not infrastructure). Consequently, today's Senate neither debates nor deliberates. We have Harry Reid to thank for that.

The post How Harry Reid Broke the Senate appeared first on Reason.com.

Hoover Dam has tight security, especially in this post-9/11 era. There are strict limits on where the public is allowed in the vicinity of the dam. In particular, views of the dam from downstream are not available to the public, with one exception: an authorized float trip that puts into Lake Mohave, which is backed up by Davis Dam downstream, just below Hoover Dam. This launch point is reached on a road that otherwise is closed to the public.

The launch point marks the beginning of the Black Canyon National Water Trail. It was the first water trail in the Southwest and the first in a desert. Although the rapids formerly present here have been drowned by Lake Mohave, so that the float trip is not a whitewater experience, the lake remains narrow enough to preserve much of the flavor of the Colorado River as it flows through this deep desert canyon. A well-defined current is even still present. Dark craggy rock walls loom over the water, with springs marked by incongruously green vegetation here and there. Sightings of wildlife, including the desert bighorn sheep, are practically guaranteed. The water is cold and clear, due to Hoover Dam, so that even on a hot summer day when the sun is baking the canyon walls a dip in the water provides quick relief.

The takeout point for the float trips is usually Willow Beach, a small marina, campground, and launch ramp on the Arizona side about 11.5 river miles below Hoover Dam. At this point Lake Mohave is clearly broadening out into a lake, although the Black Canyon trail officially continues another 13.5 miles to Eldorado Canyon on the Nevada side.

This year, Modern Farmer reader interests were wide and varied. The early days of the COVID-19 pandemic inspired more people to get back to gardening and composting—or start doing so for the first time. That trend spilled over into 2021, and some of our most-read stories this year involved houseplants and indoor gardening systems. We’ve also seen a continued interest in news about the quality of our food and the people who grow it. Our team is committed to bringing more of that to you in 2022.

Here’s a list of this year’s top 10 most-read articles for you to catch up on.

10. The Issue of ‘White Striping’ in Store-Bought Chicken

A new report claims that the vast majority of supermarket chicken is affected by this muscle disease.

9. The Rise of At-Home Hydroponic Gardens

With intelligent indoor gardening systems, you can now grow leafy greens, vegetables, herbs and fruits in your living room, kitchen, even tiny studio apartment.

8. The Future of Hay Drying in America

Although hay dryers are a staple throughout Europe, they are few and far between on US farms. But as climate change intensifies, that’s changing.

7. OPINION: Don’t Stop at Big Tech—We Need to Bust Big Agriculture, Too

A wave of consolidation has given a few large companies control of proprietary, multi-level systems of traits, seeds, agrochemicals and digital technology.

 

6. Small Ranchers, Big Problems

Some farmers are pushing for a bill that would allow states to set their own regulations for the retail sale of meat. It has failed to pass Congress five times.

5. The Great American Chestnut Tree Revival

More than a century ago, billions of American chestnuts were wiped out by an invasive fungus. Now, scientists are working to restore the tree to its former glory.

4. This Edible Peel Extends the Shelf Life of Produce

Apeel Sciences has created a way to stop food from spoiling before it reaches our plates.

3. 5 Rare Plants That Are Surprisingly Easy to Care For

These stunners will be a special addition to your houseplant collection, without all the fuss.

2. How to (Actually) Get Rid of Fruit Flies

Free your home of these relentless pests.

1. A Once-Forbidden Fruit Makes a Resurgence

How one Hudson Valley grower helped overturn a nearly century-old ban on black currants.

The post The 10 Most-Read Modern Farmer Stories of 2021 appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Whether you didn’t drink enough water in between alcoholic beverages, you didn’t eat enough that day, or you just plain had a few too many cocktails, waking up with a hangover is one of the most dreadful parts about enjoying a night of drinking.

X Shore is a Swedish marque driving the future of electric, connected and sustainable boating, as the CEO discusses the possibilities of going electric

Bloomberg Economics forecasts that only 26 percent of GDP will come from free market economies by 2050. Milton Friedman once commented, “I think that the Internet is going to be one of the major forces for reducing the role of government.” The Digital Space Race is on and is led by bitcoin.

What a Year to be Blue: Yamaha Conquer the World in 2021 Blue was the colour of 2021. Yamaha were crowned world champions in MotoGP, the FIM MX2 World Championship, FIM Superbike World Championship and [...]

The post Most successful years on record for Japanese manufacturer appeared first on Total Motorcycle.

Celebrating its 44th edition in 2022, this year’s Dakar Rally will be held in the Middle East for the third consecutive year and cover a grueling total distance of 8,106 kilometers. Split into 12 full [...]

The post Dakar Rally 2022 – Preview appeared first on Total Motorcycle.

Which wines are people looking forward to enjoying most in 2022? Here are what some top sommeliers and wine writers plan on having in their glass.

As we exit the year 2021, the gravitational irony created by Omicron has become so strong the fabric of space and time have begun folding upon themselves. The Illinois Holocaust Museum is targeting to remove the unclean visitors. [Tweet source – Story Link] As soon as tomorrow’s leaders reach yesterday, they will find us. Until […]

The post Illinois Holocaust Museum Begins Requiring Visitors to Show Approved Travel and Vaccination Papers appeared first on The Last Refuge.

Five intentions for a more purposeful, productive new year.

OSAKA, Japan — A nasal spray that combines the benefits of two drugs may be able to treat and even prevent Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia. Researchers from Osaka City University say the potentially groundbreaking treatment combines the antibiotic rifampicin with the popular supplement resveratrol — an antioxidant found in plants. Their…

The post Nasal spray combination of rifampicin, resveratrol could cure dementia appeared first on Study Finds.

These 19 barbecue spots near Birmingham make the ultimate pitstop  Bham Now

From bourbon to barbecue and hotels, Louisville landed on 35+ 'best of' lists in 2021  Yahoo News

Starting Jan. 1, home sellers will have to say whether their house has an internet connection and which provider they use.

No one wants to hear about an engine failing when you're flying. What could possibly go wrong? But within the first minute of this video, we are assured that it's not all that serious. It's a good thing that commercial aircraft have two engines! Here they explain a little more about aircraft engines, but as far as the question in the title goes, it all depends on the aircraft. At least it can fly far enough to get to an airport and land. Now, if you're flying with a single-engine plane, you've got plenty to fret about if you lose an engine. -via Digg

The already low credibility of media and the political health establishment has collapsed more in the final week of this year than most months preceding it.   Why? The main cause of this specific moment, an inflection point in the arc of COVID history, was the Omicron “winter of death” narrative pushed by Joe Biden, the […]

The post Institutional Hoaxing – Brilliant Video Shows How Media, Joe Biden and Govt Health Officials Drove the Omicron Fear Narrative appeared first on The Last Refuge.

Tags: dontlookup, climate, environment

3729 points, 251 comments.

If Mary Poppins wanted a vintage Mercedes-Benz off-roader, this is where she'd shop.