Thursday, February 5, 2015

Seven Great Restaurants In San Pedro, California; John "Dead Last" Kerry As Secretary Of State -- Febraury 5, 2015

From The Los Angeles Times: seven great restaurants in San Pedro for food lovers. This one was listed first:
J. Trani’s Ristorante: Ante’s Croatian restaurant is gone, so is Papadakis Taverna for the Greeks. Of all the old-line traditional ethnic restaurants in San Pedro, Trani’s is the only one that remains. And its fans appreciate that — on any given day the sunny front bar and the clubby back dining room are likely to contain a who’s who of the San Pedro power structure. Celebrating its 90th birthday this year, Trani’s is now under the direction of fourth-generation chef Dustin Trani, who also runs Doma in Beverly Hills. The menu mixes old-school Italian and more current dishes such as seared ahi tuna. The grilled octopus over a tart bean salad, and the seafood pasta in a textbook OG red sauce, liberally dotted with tiny sweet Manila clams, argue for the former. Service is particularly strong, old-school and warm.
Kei: thank you for taking us.

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Some days the news is just too good not to link. From The Washington Post, 1,615 international relations scholars from 1,375 US colleges were asked who the most effective Secretary of State has been in the last 50 years?
  • Henry Kissinger: 32%
  • Don't Know: 18%
  • James Baker: 18%
  • Madeleine Albright:  9%
  • Hillary "What Does It Matter" Clinton: 9%
  • George Shultz: 6%
  • Dean Rusk: 4%
  • Warren Christopher who: 2%
  • Cyrus Vance who: 2%
  • Colin Powell: 1%
  • Condoleezza "I Would Like To Buy a Vowel" Rice: 0.5%
  • Lawrence Eagleburger: 0.3%
  • John "Dead Last" Kerry: 5 votes
The Post notes: Dr Know came in 2nd. John Kerry came in last with 5 votes.

One wonders whether the five were joking or accidentally ticked off the wrong box. Alphabetically Kerry would have come just before Kissinger in the list and if five of the scholars had poor near vision (very, very likely), it's very possible these five scholars meant to tick off Kissinger and not Kerry (though I doubt anything really ticks off Kerry).

The Post notes:
Eagleburger was only secretary of state for six weeks, from Dec. 8, 1992 to Jan. 20 1993. To be sure, he was acting secretary for three months before that, but it’s hard to say he left a huge diplomatic footprint.
(On the other hand, we always marveled at Eagleburger’s unerring ability to keep from blowing himself up as he alternated an inhaler in his right hand and a cigarette in his left.)
The fact that John Kerry is ranked so far down suggests that he is actually do more harm than good for the global community. 

My thoughts: Colin Powell ranked too high. Hillary ranked too low. Madeleine ranked too low. Sexist scholars?

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