Hebrew Messiah Bold

So is this beer one whose name is total hot air? Well, maybe a little, since they aimed THAT high. This is a great beer, though. It's like a milder, smoother, version of Guiness with hardly a hint of bitterness. I think the flavor is just a tad 2-dimensional, but I will try another six pack to see if this is a batch issue. Bottom line: nobody who likes thick, rich brews will be all that disappointed.

More Oktoberfest Marzens

I keep trying to find Warsteiner's Marzen, but no dice this year. I wonder why.
What I did find were Marzens from Linenkugel's and Paulaner.

The Linenkugel was my favorite this year. It tastes a lot like Warsteiner. The Paulaner is sweeter and yeastier, still good though and better than the Sam Adams.

Sam Adams Octoberfest

Beer is amazing. Let the brevity of that sentence speak volumes!

I have just had a Sam Adams Octoberfest (sic) and I liked it. It was not the best Oktoberfest/Marzenish thing ever, but good. Why write about? I need to keep track. This beer is one of a few the tastes better in the bottle. My wife reminded me that this is the second time I said that, but neither of us recall what I said it about... so here it is, a way to keep track.

Whoa

Life's been a little crazy lately and it's all I can do to stay in the loop. We just had our first child, actually.

My wife bought a book for the occasion, one that you can put things in like footprints, photos, and newspaper headlines. That last one just about stopped me cold.

When I was born, Skylab was falling. Iran was revolting. The economy was in tatters. Global cooling was going to freeze us all to death. The Doomsday clock was just shy of midnight.

Well, how little things change. NASA has been castrated, the former space pioneer now relegated to supporting dogmatic pseudo-science and making a group of people who have not made a significant scientific advance since the Dark Ages feel good about their contributions to science*. Iran is still revolting, just back the other way while the world once again forgets about the plight of the people there. The economy is in tatters again, and like last time, the government is largely to blame. Global warming is supposedly going to drown us all and to stop it, we are supposed to use toxic lightbulbs with cold, soulless light and drive cars with toxic battery packs made in a nation that promises war with us. The Doomsday clock will soon be on our minds again as Russia gets harder line in the hands of her old puppeteers and Iran gets the bomb... and as the nation that sells us toxic battery packs gets more restless as the world economy continues to fall.

Why did my wife and I bring a child into this? The same reason my parents did. It's always hopeless. Life is always hell. Still, I became not some helpless victim of the world, but a man of principle who fights to keep what's good intact. I have not been bought, I have never bowed, and nobody tells me what to do. I use this freedom to make the world better through my kindness and my opposition to tyranny. This is what I hope my son does as well. I will teach him as I was taught: to tell the truth always, even when it hurts. To do the right thing, even when it means you get nailed to the wall. To protect those who can't protect themselves. To be kind to all and to help people in trouble. To reject the bait that the material world waves in front of us and to instead pursue the unchanging wisdom of times past. To build instead of destroying. To conserve instead of consuming. To remember the past and remind those too stupid to study it of what the future will be. ...and most of all, to oppose tyranny of all kinds wherever it rises regardless of the cost.

Some will say I have a hero complex and that I doom my son to the same... whatever. I have made a small difference already. I will try to make a bigger one. I hope he makes a bigger one still.

Puzzling

I have asked this before, but where is the outrage from Western feminists at Sharia law? I would think that anyone who believes that women are equal to men would be beyond enraged by any attempt to spread or even continue Sharia law anywhere in the world. Why is it that so many are silently accepting this?

More puzzling, why is it that when real feminists like Michele Malkin and Laura Ingraham criticize Sharia law, they are criticized as racists, crusaders, bigots, worse?

I believe in religious tolerance... to a point. I think most people agree with me. But there has to be an ultimate standard of what is and is not acceptable. Religion can not be a license for cruelty, crime, or intimidation. Religions that do not hold people equal to each other are not acceptable. Religions that advocate violence are unacceptable. Religions that persecute others are unacceptable. I'm not talking about putting all religions on trial for all crimes since inception, but I do think that we as humans need to stand against and, if necessary, fight against religions that are hurting people today, and I mean really hurting people. It is not hurting anyone to say that homosexuality is wrong, for example. You may not like that sentiment, but how are you really hurt? I have told you how I FEEL, I have not FORCED anything on you. However, if I demand that my wife mask her identity from the world, I have crossed a line. I have forced an equal to my will and I have denied her a basic right, identity.

So all you left wingers... do you believe in freedom for all? Are you unwilling to criticize Sharia because you think that cultural values trump supposedly universal human rights? What do you really believe? You must choose, for if you silently consent to the horror of Sharia law, you are just as bad as those who practice it. But if you believe in freedom and equality, you have an obligation to speak up for those who are denied it. If you spent half the effort trying to end the barbaric treatment of women at the hand of Sharia adherents that you did trying to make gay couples use the same institutions as straight couples do, perhaps the world would be a better place. I will always speak against Sharia. Why don't you join me?
"But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men."

Why?

Why did the President's administration reject the Dutch skimmer ships the day after the BP spill? If they had come on scene from the beginning, the spill would probably be over 90% contained.

Why is the Jones Act still in force in the Gulf right now?

The answers to these questions are important. The fact that we have to ask them shows either gross incompetency of the Administration from DOT, EPA, DHS, and the Executive branch or calculated destructiveness. There is no other angle here. Why would you reject help in a situation where you are thin on resources, causing one of the worst environmental disaster in American history?

Any buyer's remorse yet?

Why do we even have the Jones Act, by the way?

What's Going On Here?

By "here", I mean there...
A FELONY? Really? No closeups, I guess... I will be waiting to see which reporter is arrested first.
There something more to this, though. You will find it here. Connected? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, we are inching closer to a world with no First Amendment.
Check it out. Dig in. You have only your freedom to lose.