What's on your mind today?

[Mister Joy]

The last time I went to Dublin I went to the Guinness brewery and they were giving away samples of their newest creation, Guinness North Star. It's pretty darn tasty. On par with the original, I reckon. I haven't found it in any stores around where I live though, so I don't know how readily available it is here or in the States. But I'll say this: if you see it, get it.

My mind: I've nabbed myself a house, innit. It was cheap because the previous owners died in some horrible accident involving old age and it's been abandoned for years. Can't move into it yet though because it needs 13 grands worth (around 30,000 dollars) of damp work done (really can't afford it) the power box - which was probably installed some time in the 30s - is illegal & the whole place looks like the a set from Eraserhead. Woke up with a horrible hangover this morning and spent the entire day ripping up carpets and painting the garage (breeze block - not easy to paint). Now I'm rewarding myself with more Jack Daniels and I've pinched some of my mother's supposed 'absinthe'. So if I'm not drunk now (which I probably am) I bloody well will be.

Aaaand I've got a friend from Alaska coming over to visit the U of K soon, possibly, so it could do with being ready for then. I wouldn't want to expose her to my criminally insane relatives... not too much at least. Have to entertain myself a little, don't I?

And Tom64, yeh jammy bastard! Good on you! Get out of Europe while you can, I say. If I didn't have responsibilities here, and if I didn't love Walker's crisps, rain & slang so much, I'd probably migrate to Canada . I've never been to Washington DC; almost did but never got around to it in the end. Hope it works out for ya.

Incidentally, off-topic question here, my mother got herself an American citizenship about ten years before I was born (long story) so does that mean I should have one? Because she's as clueless and monosyllabic as ever.

[Tom62]

I like Corona once in a while, especially when it is very warm outside. Normally I'm not such a fan of very light beers. The  "St. Adrian's Alt Beer" sounds just like what I need. Thanks for the tip! The turkey burger with blue cheese got my name on it as well.

[SteveS]

I've pinched some of my mother's supposed 'absinthe'.

Wow - the holy grail of alcohol.  I think absinthe is still illegal in the states, although I can't think of why.  There was a lot of hype about this stuff that the science says is bunk.  I've heard you can find it on cruise ships, though.  While I'm not much of a 'hard' liquor drinker, if I'm ever in place where they have absinthe I've promised myself to try --- you sort of have to, don't you?  The legendary drink that has brought both untold joy and unmitigated tragedy to it's imbibers.....it'd be like having a taste of distilled history!

[Mister Joy]

I think it's illegal here too. You can still buy "absinthe" in the occasional off-licence (pretty much the strongest drink you could possibly hope to find here without distilling your own moonshine) but I'm pretty sure it's all fake. I reckon the hype is because of the wormwood being a mild hallucinogen & because it makes it far more toxic than your average drink of the same alcohol content. Plus it's supposed to make people very violent. You know the artist Vincent van Gogh who cut off his own ear? He was apparently legless on the stuff at the time. But then he was a psycho anyway, so who knows what to believe...

[SteveS]

That was it - there was a chemical in the wormwood that had everyone worked up.  Although I've read modern medical claims that the amounts in absinthe are so small that they would not have a significant effect on anyone.  I think absinthe is also distilled stronger than most liquors; a fact that everyone seems to forget when assessing it's effects  :wink:  .

Interestingly, absinthe would not be the strongest thing you can buy here in the States - because you can legally purchase distilled ethanol (one popular brand is Everclear) which is something like 198 proof - almost pure ethanol.  I use this when I brew beer - its safe to consume (unlike, say, chlorine bleach or iodine).  I use it to sterilize the yeast vial lip before pitching (apply ethanol then flame with lighter) and to fill my airlocks (in case some fluid gets sucked back into the beer - its just ethanol, which won't harm me or contaminate the brew like an unsanitary liquid like pure water, or a sanitary but harmful solution like bleach water).

So ... I would think consuming pure ethanol would be far more hazardous than consuming absinthe ... which leaves me convinced the law is bunk on this one.

And yes, I know of van Gogh.  I'm not a big art aficionado, but I do like his work.  My favorite is Wheatfield with Crows, although there are countless others I enjoy.  Here's a little sample:

Allee des Alyscamps

Wheatfield with Lark

Landscape with Green Corn

[ryanvc76]

I have a bottle of Absinthe sitting right here on the liquor shelf. It's pretty easy to get in Germany. Come on over folks!

[Tom62]

I think  that one of the strongest drinks that I've got  at home is Strohrum.  It is made in Austria and it is 160 proof.  It is great to mix it with coke or to put it in a "Feuerzangenbowle" (for more info see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feuerzangenbowle).

[Mister Joy]

Interestingly, absinthe would not be the strongest thing you can buy here in the States - because you can legally purchase distilled ethanol (one popular brand is Everclear) which is something like 198 proof - almost pure ethanol.

I think that one of the strongest drinks that I've got at home is Strohrum. It is made in Austria and it is 160 proof. It is great to mix it with coke or to put it in a "Feuerzangenbowle" (for more info see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feuerzangenbowle).

I don't know 'proof' very well, cuz we just use ABV here, but I get the gist and jeezus you're lucky . Unfortunately, I can't use the same argument to support absinthe since I live in an over-the-top socialist nanny state. Looking at the amount of limits there are around booze, fags, food, the way people raise their children and the political agendas we're allowed to support, the way the law treats absinthe seems comparatively relaxed.

Pisses me off actually, and because of this I'm now going to go off on a heated rambling tangent. They've started searching children's lunch boxes in a lot of state primary schools to make sure the balance of nutrients is perfect, taking them away if they're even slightly off & then having a go at the parents for things like giving their kids the same type of sandwich twice in one week. That isn't healthy! It's child abuse! Channel 4 says so! etc. Then a bunch of MPs - inbred sex offenders - get in a huff because a lot of teenagers have actual plans for their lives & don't want or feel they need to go to university. The solution? Target them young. Fill their heads with a crippling fear of academic failure complete with a sense of inescapable doom and dependency - in UCAS we trust - before they even get a chance to learn their fucking ABCs. Makes me sick.

And this whole "target them young" thing goes for everything (academia, political attitudes, life aspirations, health - the whole shebang). It's come about now, I think, because they've twigged that teenagers are very slippery when it comes to brainwashing. They're very good at recognising what people want of them - slimy manipulative rhetoric or no - and making every effort to contradict it, so little children are the way to go. At the college I finished before the summer, the intellectual nannying was constant. We had "Headmaster's lectures" - completely pointless hour long talks from different people every Monday - and sifting through all of the bullshit in those was utterly exhausting. Now that they're wanting to move these methods into primary schools, people don't stand a chance of having a mind of their own.

To paraphrase an actual example: "Don't call me sir! Call me SEB ['Seb', according to market research, is the most trusted name in Britain. Coincidence?] I'm not a teacher, we don't need to be all formal! We're friends. That's it, open up those succulent brains so I can fill them with garbage..." the man then went on to explain why it's perfectly justifiable to let serial killers and child rapists out of prison early if they complete a course in social studies (though he didn't express it like that of course; he used lots of R&L spin like 'methods of rehabilitation' and so on). It's far worse than just preaching: it's disturbingly sly and so totally bonkers that it makes the Bible read like a welcome dose of common sense.

Well that was some steam let off. I have more to relieve but in order to do the job properly I'd have to carve one and a half thousand pages worth of ranting all around the surface of a cannon ball and fire it into the houses of parliament.

EDIT: Just to explain this

the man then went on to explain why it's perfectly justifiable to let serial killers and child rapists out of prison early if they complete a course in social studies

our prisons are too full, so they're thinking of all sorts of ways to empty them, including getting people to think letting criminals off is a good thing.

[MikeyV]

Proof is Alcohol by volume X 2.

So, 40% ABV = 80 proof

[SteveS]

Hey Mister Joy - sweet rant, dude!  Suffice it to say that I understand and agree with your objections to your described political situation.

Searching the lunch boxes seems ridiculous to me --- this appears to be so far over the top I'm honestly left speechless.

In fact, I'd say this is one of those things I find disturbing about elements of the political left --- they claim to be 'liberal', but they would enact just as many restrictions, regulations, and obligations as would the right --- just on different topics.  So, it seems to me that their objection to the right is not really that the right is too restrictive, merely that the right is restrictive on the wrong issues.  They have no objection, in principle, to a restrictive government.

Oh - and MikeyV explained the proof thingy.  Looks like I overestimated Everclear - its more like 190 proof, ~95% ABV.

On the prison issue - we've got crowding problems here in the States as well.  I think that by reviewing what acts we think are crimes and what the purpose of a prison is ... well, we might find that maybe a significant number of people currently imprisoned shouldn't be locked up after all.  But - if we're going to start letting people out, I highly doubt we should include the murders and rapists.  Unless a person imprisoned for one of these crimes can mount a legitimate argument that they should not have been found guilty, I can't imagine what reasonable grounds they could have for being let out.

[Mister Joy]

Searching the lunch boxes seems ridiculous to me --- this appears to be so far over the top I'm honestly left speechless.

Yep. This whole country's gone utterly insane. It transcends the outragious and goes into the absurdly stupid. Especially the idea that not giving your children a perfectly balanced diet is feckin' child abuse. The way they bang on implies that there's some sort of malicious intent at the centre of it all. Like unhealthy food in general is a conscious force of malevolent evil.

"Damn, I didn't get that promotion I wanted. I shall take it out on my innocent children. Come here Jimmy!"
"Y-y-yes?"
"YOU. Wipe that pathetic look off your face before I buy you some fish and chips. How would you like some ice cream, HMMM? WELL!? CHOCOLATE ice cream full of ARTIFICIAL FLAVOURING!!?"
Are you suffering the torment of unhealthy eating at the hands of someone close to you? Call the child helpline on...

I can also picture the CEO of McDonalds sitting in a leather arm chair with a monocle/eye-patch and an obscenely over-done, badly acted British accent, perhaps stroking a small furry animal:

"Wot's your la'est diabolical scheme, sir?"
"Well, I'm glad you asked, generic cockney henchman *sips his tea/virgins blood*. I'm going to... raise the salt content of our burgers by 5%! Think of it. People will be dying of cardiac arrests left right and centre. Pretty soon they'll be BEGGING me to reduce the salt content back to what it was before! Like a pack of filthy grovelling obedient dogs!" manic laughter ensues, coupled with atmospheric thunder and lightning. The vision of the world that New Labour would have us adopt.

In fact, I'd say this is one of those things I find disturbing about elements of the political left --- they claim to be 'liberal', but they would enact just as many restrictions, regulations, and obligations as would the right --- just on different topics. So, it seems to me that their objection to the right is not really that the right is too restrictive, merely that the right is restrictive on the wrong issues. They have no objection, in principle, to a restrictive government.

Agreed. Actually, I tend to associate the left with restrictiveness far more than the right in general, not just in certain areas. I call myself 'right wing' based on the notion of economic libertarianism; free market and all that; and as far as I'm concerned, though many would disagree, abstract philosophies of social authoritarianism or liberalism are on an entirely separate scale to the material economic policies, the balance of private/public sectors, that truly define left from right. Having said that though, when it comes to the economics of socialism (that joyous ever growing thing in my country) and more extremely communism, you speak muchos truth in that it becomes very hard for a nation state not to adopt a very restrictive & authoritarian way of seeing things. A friend of mine tried to tell me once that "fascism is the opposite of communism," going by the misconceived idea that fascism is the right wing extreme. Is it possible to make a more ridiculous statement, given the historical examples? In fact I don't believe it's possible to have a communist state without fascism to uphold it. It would either collapse completely or fall back into a mixed economy. On the other hand, if you you were to somehow create a full market economy, the true opposite of communism and my idea of a right wing extreme, it could only be anarchistic because there would be no state.

Oh - and MikeyV explained the proof thingy. Looks like I overestimated Everclear - its more like 190 proof, ~95% ABV.

That's still worthy of awe. Is it legal to distil alcohol over there? It's very much illegal here. However, I've heard that it's still OK to use freeze distillation... not that it matters because nobody's ever going to get caught.

On the prison issue - we've got crowding problems here in the States as well. I think that by reviewing what acts we think are crimes and what the purpose of a prison is ... well, we might find that maybe a significant number of people currently imprisoned shouldn't be locked up after all. But - if we're going to start letting people out, I highly doubt we should include the murders and rapists. Unless a person imprisoned for one of these crimes can mount a legitimate argument that they should not have been found guilty, I can't imagine what reasonable grounds they could have for being let out.

Agreed, again. Trouble is, and I'm assuming that it's the same there too, they tend to let people out after serving a generously short sentence for their offences rather than simply sending less teenagers down for petty crimes like shoplifting and vandalism (because that's the main thing that's causing such a build up). A prison - though they call it some other more PC word like 'centre' or something, I think - specifically to house paedophiles, conveniently down the road from a school, released a load of their inmates at once on one occasion; which naturally incited the wrath of rioting parents. They're meeting the problem with very stupid means.

[pjkeeley]

On the other hand, if you you were to somehow create a full market economy, the true opposite of communism and my idea of a right wing extreme, it could only be anarchistic because there would be no state.

Well, strictly speaking, the goal of communism is also to have no state. That's if we're going by Karl Marx's version. And strictly speaking there's never been a *real* communist revolution because it's so utopian it could never actually happen in real life. China, the Soviet Union, Cuba etc. are all examples of planned economies or so-called "state capitalist" societies, which is basically left wing fascism. (means of production privately owned = capitalism, means of production owned by workers = communism, means of production owned by state = state capitalism) Actual communism is closer to anarchism.

(not a communist/marxist/anarchist btw)

[SteveS]

Is it legal to distil alcohol over there?

You need a special license to distill.  Making distilled booze (moonshine) at home is very illegal - in fact, if you're caught you get to feel the full wrath of the lovely ATF (federal law enforcement agency, named for Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms).  The ATF is somewhat infamous for their ill advised raid on the Branch Davidian cult in Waco Texas that left a lot of members and officers dead.

A prison - though they call it some other more PC word like 'centre' or something

Here in the US we like to call these 'correctional facilities/institutions'    

Actually, I tend to associate the left with restrictiveness far more than the right in general, not just in certain areas. I call myself 'right wing' based on the notion of economic libertarianism; free market and all that; and as far as I'm concerned, though many would disagree, abstract philosophies of social authoritarianism or liberalism are on an entirely separate scale to the material economic policies, the balance of private/public sectors, that truly define left from right.

Interesting commentary --- there are two sides to this political coin (at least the way I see it).  

*** Warning: Amateur Socio-Political Content Ahead ***

Generally, I would term these 'social' and 'economic'.  What is interesting is that a modern American political 'liberal' is truly liberal on social issues, but conservative on economic issues.  A modern American 'conservative' is the opposite: conservative on social issues, liberal on economic issues.

Yet, for some reason we term them 'liberals' and 'conservatives' - placing the emphasis on social outlook instead of economic outlook.

So - if you primarily consider economic positions (as you state) then I can certainly understand your view.  Here in the States, people seem to be primarily interested in social outlook - and thus they see the right as more restrictive (from this perspective rightly so).

What I found curious about the case you mentioned is that this seemed to be the left dabbling in social restrictions - and I would think this would be dangerous ground for them to be standing on.  Its like just replacing the 'Church of God' with the 'Church of Nutrition'.

*** End of Amateur Socio-Political Commentary ***

In a similar theme to your lunch box story, my wife and I had to split up last weekend and take the kids to different places at the same time.  As a result, I was at my 3yo's tumbling class and among the other kid's mothers for the first time - I didn't know these people.  But - their conversation was really disturbing.  They were discussing healthy diet - one mentioned that her sister never lets her children eat cookies or potato chips - and her oldest child was apparently 8 years old.  When the child's grandmother made cookies at Christmas, the mom threw them all in the garbage.

So now I ask you --- is a life of miserable healthiness even desirable?  Isn't there something good in the simple joy of a child eating a cookie that was hand-baked by his/her grandma?  If I was overly judgmental I might be tempted to condemn the acts of this mother as child abuse!

[McQ]

On the other hand, if you you were to somehow create a full market economy, the true opposite of communism and my idea of a right wing extreme, it could only be anarchistic because there would be no state.

Well, strictly speaking, the goal of communism is also to have no state. That's if we're going by Karl Marx's version. And strictly speaking there's never been a *real* communist revolution because it's so utopian it could never actually happen in real life. China, the Soviet Union, Cuba etc. are all examples of planned economies or so-called "state capitalist" societies, which is basically left wing fascism. (means of production privately owned = capitalism, means of production owned by workers = communism, means of production owned by state = state capitalism) Actual communism is closer to anarchism.

(not a communist/marxist/anarchist btw)

Good post pj, and nice disclaimer, BTW! LOL!

[donkeyhoty]

I can't imagine what reasonable grounds they could have for being let out.

We need more room to keep Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, etc. locked up.

is a life of miserable healthiness even desirable?

I think it was Bill Maher that said, "I'd rather have 65 Sammy Davis, Jr. years, than 130 Ken Starr years."

Generally, I would term these 'social' and 'economic'. What is interesting is that a modern American political 'liberal' is truly liberal on social issues, but conservative on economic issues. A modern American 'conservative' is the opposite: conservative on social issues, liberal on economic issues.

Well, that's what happens when we try to explain politics on a single axis.  I prefer the x-y axis approach, but even that is somewhat flawed, depending on what x or y is.  Oh well, most people don't want to have to think that much, give 'em a quick, one word label and they're on their way.