For all of the AMERICAblog chefs out there

Truffles! During our window gazing walk, we caught a glimpse of these little beauties. The black truffles were going for €2990 per kilo (roughly $4,300/kilo or $2,100 per pound) and the white truffles a cool €13,990 per kilo or $20,000/kilo, $10,000 per pound. I hear the black truffles cost between €500 - €800 per kilo in the south though somehow, I just don't see them slipping into our budget. Read the rest of this post...

Ron Paul won't give a firm no to a third party run

Ron Paul has a lot of money. That money and his people have to go somewhere because he's not getting the GOP nomination. On Meet The Press, Paul wouldn't rule out a possible independent run for President. Paul had to know Russert would ask the question, so it sounds like he's laying the groundwork. Have at it, Ron:

Texas Rep. Ron Paul refused to rule out a third party bid Sunday if he fails to win the Republican Party presidential nomination.

When Tim Russert of NBC’s 'Meet the Press' asked the Texas congressman if he’d consider an independent bid, he replied: "I have no intention of doing that."

When pressed by Russert to state unequivocally that he would not, Paul demurred. "I deserve one weasel now and then, Tim!"

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Conservatives turn on Rudy for being too neo-conservative

Now there's a twist. The conservatives are concerned that Rudy is too much a neo-con, too much a conservative. The writer is from the George Bush School of Government, literally, and is writing in the American Conservative magazine:

Giuliani’s tendency to conflate all terrorist groups—whether Islamist or not and whether they attack the United States or just allies like Israel—led Fred Kaplan of Slate to dub him the “anti-statesman.” Sending him and his team to the White House might actually ignite World War IV.

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Super Bass-O Matic 76

We don't share nearly enough of the YouTube treasure trove. I'm going to change that. Especially on the holidays, when I really would rather not have nasty news up all day long. Think they'd get away with the Bass-O Matic today?

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Boston Globe's NH poll shows McCain closing in fast on Romney; Obama now with slight lead

Factor in that "roughly 40 percent of likely voters in both parties indicated they are still undecided" and the poll has a margin of error of +/-4.9 percent. But one thing is clear, voters are moving around in New Hampshire -- and the movement is benefitting McCain on the GOP side and Obama on the Democratic side. Also, remember, New Hampshire voters are notoriously fickle, so this could change overnight -- especially over the night of January 3rd, the Iowa caucus.

The Boston Globe has Romney leading McCain by a 28% to 25% margin. Rudy's dropped to third with 14%. On the Democratic side, it's Obama at 30%, Clinton at 28% and Edwards with 14%. More below.

Senator John McCain of Arizona, whose bid for the Republican presidential nomination was all but dead this summer, has made a dramatic recovery in the Granite State 2 1/2 weeks before the 2008 vote, pulling within 3 percentage points of front-runner Mitt Romney, a new Boston Globe poll indicates.

McCain, the darling of New Hampshire voters in the 2000 primary, has the support of 25 percent of likely Republican voters, compared with 28 percent for Romney. Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani has slid into third place, with 14 percent. A Globe poll of New Hampshire voters last month had Romney at 32 percent, Giuliani at 20 percent, and McCain at 17 percent.

Among Democratic voters, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has opened up a narrow lead over Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, 30 percent to 28 percent. That, too, represents a major shift from last month's Globe poll, which had Clinton with a 14-point advantage. Former senator John Edwards of North Carolina remained a steady third at 14 percent.

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Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

All Presidential candidates all the time today -- Giuliani on ABC, Obama and Huckabee on CBS and, in what could be the most fascinating, Ron Paul is with Russert for an hour. Fox has Petraeus, btw, and CNN is doing a year-end review.

Rudy better come clean about his night in the hospital. He's been weirdly evasive so far. The full line up is after the breakABC's "This Week" — Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

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CBS' "Face the Nation" — Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

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NBC's "Meet the Press" — Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas.

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CNN's "Late Edition" — Excerpts of previous interviews are featured in an end-of-year special.

"Fox News Sunday" _ Gen. David Petraeus; Joel Osteen, pastor at Lakewood Church in Houston; Morrill Worcester, president of Worcester Wreath.

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Paris window shopping at Christmas

During the holidays, Parisians love to give gifts of chocolates and special candies. Joelle and I did a bit of window shopping last night to see what the big names had on offer this year. The big names on and around Place de la Madeleine were packed with shoppers. The most fashionable names (to foreigners, at least) include Hediard and Fauchon. Superior quality is just around the corner at La Maison du Chocolat where the lines ran outside. La Maison even had a friendly person managing the flow and offering free chocolate! Who says the French aren't friendly?

Thanks to Americablog readers for the the holiday gift! We won't be breaking the bank at any of the posh stores listed here though we are now planning our Christmas Eve dinner, which will be tonight. (I guess that makes it a Christmas Eve, Eve dinner.) We bought our 7 euro ballet tickets last night so we'll be at the Opera Garnier for Christmas Eve. Our special dinner will be fresh fish (to be decided when we see what is available later today), snow peas and our favorite Roederer sparkling wine from California that a friend kindly brought over from California. Since it's a Franco-American product (like the two of us) we love toasting with it on special occasions, including at our wedding here in France a few years ago.

More window gazing, after the jump.





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Japan stops humpback whale hunt

The US and Australian diplomatic (and public) pressure was effective. The entire hunt made no sense because the Japanese, especially the younger Japanese, simply aren't interested in this battle. They hardly eat whale any more and have come to view the whale hunts as a bad thing. It was just a small group who led this hunt to promote their own strange brand of nationalism.

Now if we could get Norway to catch up, we'd be in pretty good shape. Read the rest of this post...