America was settled in large part by Puritans. In rural Texas, I live with the consequences of that: a dry town. The predominantly Baptist citizenry of this town also live with the consequences, the primary one being the absence of acceptable dining options. While the Baptists profess to be alcohol free, and no doubt some of them are, many people here show all the signs of an over-indulgence in cream gravy and sweet tea. I suspect they might improve their overall health by giving up soft drinks in favor of beer.

So I’m cheered to see celebrations of a countervailing American tradition. I mentioned George Washington’s distillery awhile back. And now, we have news that Thomas Jefferson’s interest in brewing ale will once again bear fruit with the introduction of Monticello Ale. (H/T Paco)

Beer is, as Ben Franklin said, proof that God loves us. So to my patriotic and devout Baptist friends who encourage us to cultivate a personal relationship with God, can’t we do away with these local laws that prevent us from sharing the love?

Naked breasts have been suggested as a means to curb immigration of Islamic fundamentalist into Demmark.  Some doubt their value as a deterrence.

Paco has found a more effective answer to militant Islam.

Once you’re funny, there’s no going back.  Steve Martin had the bad taste to answer the interviewer’s questions, and the interviewer had the temerity to ask Martin about his latest book An Object of Beauty.  The audience went nuts, wanting Martin to be funny, sending messages to the interviewer to ask different questions, and then demanding refunds.

Tweet attributed to Ranger starter C.J. Wilson yesterday before the game: “Rangers on the bus, random citizens/street people giving us salutes of some sort. A city this diverse, united by hatred of buses.”

Manet: Le Bon Bock

Beer
George Arnold (1834-1865)

Here,
With my beer
I sit,
While golden moments flit:
Alas!
They pass
Unheeded by:
And, as they fly,
I,
Being dry,
Sit, idly sipping here
My beer.

O, finer far
Than fame, or riches, are
The graceful smoke-wreathes of this cigar!
Why
Should I
Weep, wail, or sigh?
What if luck has passed me by?
What if my hopes are dead,—
My pleasures fled?
Have I not still
My fill
Of right good cheer,—
Cigars and beer

Go, whining youth,
Forsooth!
Go, weep and wail,
Sigh and grow pale,
Weave melancholy rhymes
On the old times,
Whose joys like shadowy ghosts appear,
But leave me to my beer!
Gold is dross,—
Love is loss,—
So, if I gulp my sorrows down,
Or see them drown
In foamy draughts of old nut-brown,
Then do wear the crown,
Without the cross!

The feds are now coming after your cocktails. Is there anything they won’t regulate?

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The risk of salmonella from raw egg whites is apparently quite low:

Of course, salmonella is no joking matter. But the reality is that since the salmonella scares of previous decades, the danger of encountering the bacteria has become infinitesimal. You’re more likely — about four times more likely — to choke on a handful of bar nuts than you are to get salmonella poisoning, according to statistics from the National Safety Council. Beyond that, most cocktails that call for raw eggs also call for fresh lemon or lime juice — and the citric acid, along with the alcohol, further neutralizes salmonella risk.

Well, that’s not my area of expertise.  And besides, I’m not inclined to drink fizzy, frothy cocktails.  I drink the real thing: martinis without qualifying adjectives like “vodka” or “chocolate.”  Then again, I’m reminded of Pastor Martin Niemöller’s poem.  Better to speak up now.

The new Coffee Party touts its philosophy: The government is “not the enemy of the people, but the collective expression of our will.”

Could Orwell have crafted a better slogan? Could any statement plead more effectively for acquiescence or appeal to a mindset of appeasement? Were these same people making this argument when Bush was president and Republicans controlled Congress?

Allah Pundit observes too kindly: “I’m getting a distinct ‘beta male’ vibe from this group.

I’m not a member of the Tea Party movement, although I’ve considered joining just as a retort to those who insist on equating them with right-wing militias and attributing to them every act of violence (never mind what Stack’s manifesto actually says). Reading Frank Rich’s columns will make you “beta” in every respect. If his guilt-by-association meme catches on, I want to be sure no one associates me with Rich.

We Texans drink iced tea in copious amounts, and I occasionally indulge in a cup of hot tea (the black variety – none of that fruity stuff).

But tea, like the Tea Party, is optional, whereas coffee is essential. The Coffee Party has no business tainting the good name of that noble beverage. Really, they could have more accurately described themselves with the name of some coffee drink like cappuccino or “skinny cinnamon dolce latte.”

We live in a dangerous world when coffee becomes associated with lefty wackos. Nothing is safe.

So we must start the Beer Party preemptively. We can work out a more detailed philosophy and agenda later. For now, it is enough to ensure that beer will forever be associated with real men and good-hearted women, that it will never be commandeered by some group of effete whiners, and that’s its primary purpose will remain conspicuous consumption.

Beer is the elixir of charity, the path to clear thinking, the promoter of Gemütlichkeit, proof that God loves us, and the antidote to Frank Rich.

Photo by dr_sponge

What we need is a “Terminable Stupidity” clock instead of the “Doomsday” clock trotted out by the scientific community.

A spokesman said: ‘Factors influencing the latest Doomsday Clock change include international negotiations on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation, expansion of civilian nuclear power, the possibilities of nuclear terrorism, and climate change.’

If we look at the last item on this list, climate change, scientists should be rolling the clock back, not forward, based on mounting evidence that there is no evidence.

But if you really believe in AGW, civilian nuclear power represents one of the best solutions to the problem. A ready solution, of course, would take the problem out of the hands of theoretical scientists and turn it over to engineers. That would spell doomsday for grants that feed the families of scientists.

Meanwhile, we keep talking about the weather and pretending there is no real threat from terrorism – unless of course the terrorist get a nuclear bomb – the first of which was detonated by a group of theoretical scientist who weren’t entirely sure whether the reaction would be confined to the New Mexico desert as opposed to incinerating the whole planet. Talk about your global warming!

The scientists would presumably feel better if we get rid of the nuclear devices that they so graciously gave us in 1945 – “we” being the civilized world with democratic and accountable governments. As for failed states and terrorist organizations, “agreements” and kind words will have to suffice.

I tend to think Doomsday is not just around the corner, or at least it needn’t be if we can avoid giving scientists control over our economy and national security.

The Strafer (occasional contributor to his blog and curator of destroyers) writes:

WTF?  Evil exists?  We must fight it?  Singing Kumbaya and apologizing will not solve all world problems?  This is refreshingly close to the Bushman, except he does not want to “go pre-emptive” . . . or does he?  Does Robert Gates have this much sway?

Please explain, Fitzroy!  What’s the catch?

I’ll give it a try, Strafer. First, as you should know, answers can sometimes found at the bottom of the glass.

We live in unserious times, which means very serious times lie ahead. Going preemptive is something only serious people do. Whether preemptive action is right or wrong in a particular instance is a different question, but preemptive action is at least a serious act.

Unserious people elect unserious leaders who borrow speeches, ideas, and serious thoughts from other more serious people.  They don’t do preemption because they don’t admit that inaction has consequences.

Let’s approach the problem from a new angle. Martinis were once the drink of serious people, and serious people made martinis with gin. Along came some less serious people who made pretend martinis with vodka and popularized them in the fictional world of James Bond. Proof of slippery slopes followed with chocolate martinis and the post-modern, relativist lie that anything in a martini glass is a martini.

That relativist lie can be applied to empty suits in a variety of professions. Unserious drinkers who prefer some syrupy blue slush with a parasol borrow the trappings of serious drinkers – the martini glass. Unserious politicians borrow the speeches of their more serious counterparts, complete with fighting words and references to evil.

Speaking of Robert Gates, former head of the CIA – yes, this is a leap – Ingo Swann writes about the spy world post James Bond and describes the “eight martini result.”

Well, this is an intelligence community in-house term for remote viewing data so good that it cracks everyone’s realities. So they have to go out and drink eight martinis to recover.

Obama talking like Bush is an eight martini occasion: it cracks everyone’s realities. The people who supported him in the hopes that he would never call anything evil are already at the bar and a few rounds ahead of you. They are easy to recognize. Their martini glasses will be full of blue slush, chocolate, and parasols.

I suggest you have the bartender fill your glass with gin in preparation for the more serious days that lie ahead.

Image by Ken30684 - Creative Commons

Germany is always a welcome diversion.  My second home of Weimar has a pleasant urban environment, parks, good train transportation, and bratwurst and beer always readily available.  The artistic offerings are many and often quite good.  When they are bad, they are really bad.  But there are certain things that compel one to live in Texas.

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The beer summit is on tap for tonight, and American beer companies are hopping mad. Obama has ordered up brews that fit the profiles of his guests: a color-sensitive selection of Red Stripe and Blue Moon. Obama himself intends to drink Bud Light. Yuck! One more thing they apparently don’t teach you at Harvard.

American companies wonder how the gears of domestic diplomacy can be lubricated with foreign brews. (Anheuser-Busch is now a Belgium enterprise, which makes we wonder if Obama drank Bud Light before it became European.) At any rate, beer apparently makes Obama’s list of things unexceptional in America. In attempting to quell one dispute, Obama is fomenting bitter resentment in other quarters.

So I’m betting that Sgt. Crowley gets the best of this teaching moment. After all, he will be up against a literary scholar who testified as an expert witness that 2 Live Crew lyrics were akin to Shakespeare’s “My love is like a red, red rose” (without questioning his own expertise long enough to discover that Shakespeare never wrote that line) and a president so enamored with things European that he will uncritically buy the worst they have to offer.