Indeed, I had forgotten to ask myself if America was ready for a president who would not have a beer with *anyone*. It puts the choice of a Wisconsinite running mate in a new light.
I'm just waiting for some conservative outlet to refer to it as "home brewed malt liquor" or make a reference to Colt 45 or something.
That cherry is wild, man! It's rugged wild west cherry that lives by its own code and acknowledges no man (or fruit) as its better. It's a manly man's cherry! Not like hippie-ass home-brewed beer. It's probably all organic and shit, sneering down its nose at wholesome industrial beers like Coors and Budweiser, the beers of the Real Americans who drive pickup trucks with gun racks and fake rubber nuts on the trailer hitch.
Are my tax dollars going to fund Obama's home-brew?
Too good for Budweiser, Mr. President?
I do hope 4 goes to Laurie Anderson, just because.
The caffeine-free diet soda thing has always struck me as so sad--but also really generational. My mom used to drink caffeine-free diet Pepsi with a piece of lemon. Maybe wanting to have pop or soda dates you that era when teenagers went for a soda at the fountain?
togolosh is on the case. Hippie-ass home-brewed beer, I guess brewed in the White House. I don't see how that helps private industry at all. Sheesh.
Hey, remember the genius who nearly self-immolated last week trying to light Cheerios on fire in front of General Mills to protest their same-sex benefits policy? Don't go masturbating to him.
Oh, don't worry, the Obama has apparently been staging plenty of photo ops with a Bud Light or a Miller Light in his hand as well.
I'm not totally happy about the campaign tactic of making fun of the other guy's religiously-based teetotalling, but at least he's going about it the right way.
I do hope 4 goes to Laurie Anderson, just because.
Indeed.
I'm not totally happy about the campaign tactic of making fun of the other guy's religiously-based teetotalling
I'm in favor of mocking all candidates' religious beliefs, in the hopes that it will one day get them to STFU about them and talk about something that matters.
I saw a "Glenn Beck for President" sticker today. His downfall was really fast and utter, huh? I'm not sure why.
get them to STFU about them and talk about something that matters
To my knowledge, the word "Mormon" (or "LDS") hasn't crossed Romney's lips in the campaign context. He's not talking about his religion, he's just living by it, and this looks to me like picking something distinctive about the way he (quietly) lives his life, identifying it as a marker of a weirdo minority religion, and mocking him for it. Not cool.
I don't care that Romney is Mormon any more than I do that Biden and Ryan are Catholic. I just want our political leaders to quit invoking God and "family values" and "the culture of life" and focus on their damn jobs already.
The caffeine-free diet soda thing has always struck me as so sad--but also really generational.
i'm 41 and i drink caffeine-free diet Dr Pepper and Coke/Pepsi almost exclusively.
i'm pretty sensitive to caffeine, and don't really need the sugar crash. so, options are few...
i'm pretty sensitive to caffeine, and don't really need the sugar crash. so, options are few...
Well, gin, uh, sloe gin, uh... pond... waters.
18: Smearcase and I would like to share with you the message of seltzer.
15: I confess I perpetually confuse Glenn Beck with Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh fell due to his calling Sandra Fluke a whore. Beck ... I don't recall.
15: Yes, it is not precisely clear why he got the crazy relative in the attic treatment compared to other right-wing asshats*. But I guess he's still out there plugging away on talkhate radio where you can leak around the edges a bit more than on
*Take Limbaugh, please.
Limbaugh fell
Limbaugh hasn't gone anywhere. Beck's running theblaze.com now.
I agree with 17 completely. I also think talking about the other guy's religion is even more pernicious than talking about your own, and that's what this "I drink beer, not like Mr. Mormon over there" tack is (arguably) doing. I mean, maybe it's just an innocent relatable-regular-guy move, but the suggestion is that it's a deliberate contrast with Romney, and if so that's still offensive.
5.2: I guarantee I will hear/overhear* about taxpayer-financed home brew form the usual suspects here at work ten times between now and the end of next week.
*I try to avoid political discussions, but I'm routinely outed via body language etc.
Hey. Maybe Republicans decided they needed less crazy-sounding spokespersons. After all, the 27% are already on board.
Glenn Beck is an insane crazy person who was mainstream-famous for about three years in the mid-2000s when Fox News found his nonsensical apocalyptic rhetoric to be useful, then Fox News took him off the air for being too unpredictable and he's back to having just a massive radio presence. Rush Limbaugh is a completely rational money-worshiping asshole who has had an extremely consistent role in society for over 20 years, going on the radio every day and explaining in a jocular tone how left-wing people are subhuman imbeciles who have comical fantasies about holding dictatorial power and whose presence makes our country a laughingstock. They really don't have much in common.
16 and 24 are great exemplars of the discussion provoking comment. Well done, and I hope I havent jinxed it. Now give me a few to figure out which side of this issue I passionately believe in, and let's get this party started.
29: Thanks. I was starting to think that my side was so self-evidently right that it wasn't going to take off. Depending on where you land, I guess we'll see.
Related: I've been in and out lately. Did you all talk about whether Harry Reid is lying about Mitt's tax returns, and if so whether that is horribly debased or just bare-knuckle politics? This beer thing is subtler than that, certainly, but if we accept for purpose of argument that it's a deliberate other-izing based on his religion, it's way worse.
I'm going to start a religion where you can only drink wild cherry-flavored diet beverages.
Maybe Obama just can't take it anymore and is drinking a lot of beer to help him cope with all the bullshit, and the whole mocking Romney's religion thing is a ruse to hide that Obama is sliding into alcoholism.
Reid's not lying about Mitt's tax returns -- he hasn't said he knows firsthand. He may be lying about what someone told him about Mitt's tax returns, and he's even more likely to be equivocating about whether his source (assuming the source exists) is credible. Personally, I'm fine with it.
On the subtle otherizing front: I need a reasonably strong basis for reading something as a dog-whistle. Pajamas that say "Good Night" don't make me think racist, and holding a beer doesn't make me think anti-Mormon bigot. I'd need to see something that actually looked directed at Romney for being a teetotaller to object.
talking about the other guy's religion
But just as Romney hasn't said the words "Mormon" or "LDS", neither has Obama. And inasmuch as the GOP regularly proclaims that it's the party of real Christians, fuck a bunch of politesse about it.
I mean if the dude drank Grape Crush or caffeine-free Tab or Sunkist or Fresca or shit even Sprite Zero then whatever, fine. But Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi? Why not just pack a two liter of Diet Squirt in a special holster?
something distinctive about the way he (quietly) lives his life
Quietly living his life while running for president and the only reason he's quiet about it is that it's a liability. If it was an asset he be giving stump speeches dressed like this. I'm with apo in 14. Romney doesn't seem to have any problem getting all Jesusy when it's time to court the evangelicals.
And inasmuch as the GOP regularly proclaims that it's the party of real Christians, fuck a bunch of politesse about it.
This too. Given the general atmosphere on these issues, I'm really not going to get worried about offensive stuff you have to squint hard to see.
I'm really not going to get worried about offensive stuff you have to Diet Squirt! squint hard to see.
Yeah, I also don't have a problem with Reid, and am a little bemused by how easily everyone has concluded that he must be lying about having a credible source. Even if he is, I think it's more funny than horrible, since there the allegation that Mitt paid no taxes is not so terribly taboo. Along with the fact that it's easily disproven.
On the otherizing thing, I'm basing my pre-outrage on the Time article I linked in 11, which talks about how Obama lost the "beer primary" to hard-drinking Hillary in '08, but his aides are confident he can win that one this time so they're making a point of having him order and hold (but not drink, it seems) beer at every opportunity.
But "Who would you have a beer with" is a political cliche that predates Romney (as you can see by the article talking about how Obama lost out to Hillary in terms of beeriness.) That Romney doesn't have the option of looking folksy and approachable by ordering beer doesn't make every beer Obama poses with an attempt to appeal to anti-Mormon bigots.
how Obama lost the "beer primary" to hard-drinking Hillary in '08
This might be a clue not to take the article very seriously.
In a beer primary you drink every time someone says "electable".
Now with an extra wide mouth for smooth electability. Goes down easy!
Also, after having to sit through endless coverage of Jeremiah Wright sermons and secret Muslim speculation, I'm not playing any violins for Mitt Romney's crazy extraplanetary bullshit or Paul Ryan's devotion to the First Church of Cannibalism and Pederasty.
A recent Zogby/Williams Identity Poll reflected that. It found that 57% of undecided voters would rather have a beer with Bush than Kerry.
It didn't even matter that Bush wouldn't drink beer.
Maybe Obama just likes beer. Lord knows, if I had to go campaigning, I'd be drinking beer like a fish, if fish drank beer, which they don't, and good lord that simile just fell apart on me I guess I'll shut up now....
It didn't even matter that Bush wouldn't drink beer.
Maybe the idea was to try and knock him off the wagon.
That Romney doesn't have the option of looking folksy and approachable by ordering beer doesn't make every beer Obama poses with an attempt to appeal to anti-Mormon bigots.
Hmm, okay. Romney also has plenty of other barriers to appearing folksy and approachable, and there's nothing wrong with Obama exploiting that difference between them, what with Mitt being a bizarre humanoid robot of a candidate. Maybe I (or the reporter) was looking too hard for the religion angle.
48: remember when he was fucking loaded at the olympics? Good times (for somebody).
I don't think the GOP's persistent abuse of religion as a campaign tactic would excuse anything similar on our side, for what it's worth. I've pretty much come around to the view that there's nothing here on this story, but at least on this particular point I don't want to see the good guys sink to their level.
51: He really was fucking loaded, wasn't he?
45: endless coverage of Jeremiah Wright sermons
One of the most shameful episodes in recent Presidential election media coverage. Dreadful and revealing. I concur with apo, some dog whistle on beer and Romeny's election does not even register. Dems/liberals concern trolling themselves.
anything similar on our side
I agree with apo that it would be better to leave it all alone, but there's still an asymmetry here. Obama isn't a Muslim and isn't involved in any America-hating radical black church. Whereas Romney is a Mormon.
To be clear: of course it would be stupid to focus on the religion of a politician who was a Muslim. But we're talking about Republicans completely making shit up.
Not only wanting to have a beer with someone a general metaphor for likability, there was actually a news story that ended with the people involved having beers with Obama personally. Also, the White House has apparently been brewing since 2009, which would be a lot of effort to go through just on the off-chance that a Mormon would be the nominee. (Granted, it was fairly likely, but still, that's a hell of a lot of advance preparation.) The idea that there's anything unseemly about mentioning "Obama" and "beer" in the same sentence seems really, really ridiculous.
wholesome industrial beers like Coors and Budweiser, the beers of the Real Americans who drive pickup trucks with gun racks and fake rubber nuts on the trailer hitch.
Budweiser drinkers skew Democratic. Bud Light is the best-selling Republican beer (though Coors Light drinkers are even more likely to vote Republican, and they turn out at higher rates).
I think Obama is trying too hard to push back against the pernicious rumor that he doesn't like beer.
I just wanted to say that I spotted a bottle of Moxie at the supermarket on a seltzer run on Monday and of course snapped it up because regional soft drinks are exciting and Bave and I tried it and it tastes like root beer that has seen some things a soft drink ain't s'posed to see.
Also I agree with everything apo is saying.
I do agree that any attempt on the Dem side to try to play to the in today's media climate is fraught. You're just as liable to end up with this kind of stupid stuff (Kerry duck-hunting in Ohio in October, 2004).
But after things like this (judge upholds PA voter ID law--but I guess it was always going to end up in front of the PA Supreme Court), I'm OK if they spend the rest of the campaign shoving Romney's religion up the asshole of every religious bigot on the right. And bus New Black Panthers to suburban pool site to walk around and look menacing.
I like how he suggests that absentee ballots being one relief to the burden. You know, the voting mechanism where there has actually been some documented significant election fraud in the US in the last few decades. Especially given "The Commonwealth's asserted interest in protecting public confidence in elections is a relevant and legitimate state interest sufficiently weighty to justify the burden." from earlier in the opinion.
Count me among the anti-God extremists. If people want to give Obama shit for being a Christian, that's fine with me. He deserves it.
but if we accept for purpose of argument that it's a deliberate other-izing based on his religion, it's way worse.
Almost all religion - with the notable exception of Universalism - involves "otherizing based on religion."
Religious tolerance is greater among the Christian sects nowadays because - in this diverse country and shrinking world - there are so many other religions to hate. Likewise, if you want to get the Christians and the Muslims singing Kumbaya, just point out the existence of atheists.
Gender, ethnicity, eye color - these are not an appropriate basis for "othering" people. I'm perfectly comfortable with "othering" ritual cannibalism, Republican voting, warmongering and institutionalized child sexual abuse. That stuff's fucked up.
I'm okay with weird underwear, though.
62: I'd like to pretend that I set that up on purpose.
Wild Cherry Diet Pepsi
no es macho
es solamente
por un non-borracho
Ok, so my Spanish skills aren't really up to the task.
I'm sure Romney knows some people who own controlling interests in alcoholic beverage conglomerates.
Sure, but that isn't enough of a reason to vote for him.
Speaking of strange beverages, my parents drink diet A&W root beer. It isn't horrible and they drink it only when it is too late in the day for coffee (and in my dad's case, he has to not have more wine). I think they just won't drink water regardless.
you know what's really good? peach nehi. mmmm.
Man, I love water. Especially delicious Hetch Hetchy water.
You know what's funny? I bet wine registers as effete and liberal in the general electorate, and yet I presume an enterprising winemaker could make a mint selling some sort of Tea Party Jeffersonian Constitution Wine. Make the label the text of the Constitution or some nonsense. If only I knew an enterprising winemaker...
I bet wine registers as effete and liberal in the general electorate, and yet I presume an enterprising winemaker could make a mint selling some sort of Tea Party Jeffersonian Constitution Wine.
Is there supposed to be some sort of connection between these two clauses? Because I don't really see any.
I'm also not at all convinced the second clause is actually true.
I suspect conservative Tea Party types think of wine as effete and liberal and yet would be driven to purchase wine marketed as patriotic, is what I meant.
About them spending money on it? Yeah, I'm not totally convinced. But it'd funny if my winemaking friend made a small batch for kicks.
Yeah, I mean, I think the sort of Tea Partier who thinks of wine as effete and liberal probably also doesn't particularly like it, and isn't likely to buy it purely because it's marketed as patriotic. It's not like there's any shortage of other patriotic crap for people like that to buy.
I'm thinking more of the rich asshole visiting the winery, the guy who sort of wishes to associate with the Tea Party because "bureaucrats in Washington," and then he has a tasting and a glass of the wine he liked (it was the Jeffersonian Constitution wine). And then Bob's your uncle. He buys two cases of the stuff and loads them in his Jeep Wrangler Rubicon.
I guess I just assume that kind of guy already drinks wine and is either quiet or hypocritical about it.
Nah, dragged along half-willingly because he doesn't really want to go on a wine tasting, but he kind of does because, hey, there's wine. Haven't you ever been on a wine tasting, teo?
My dittohead uncle, who likes wine, would almost certainly buy that wine.
72: Especially delicious Hetch Hetchy water.
Because it helps keep the glacier-scoured granite special.
My grandfather was diabetic and always had diet root beer around. I think I prefer it to the regular stuff. Most non Barq's rootbeer is already caffeine free. IBC diet root beer is great. Diet ginger ale isn't bad either.
I was in Napa and there were whole bunches of wine tasting/touring things. Also, a hotel where the rooms were old rail cars and, if you crossed the county line a bit, the location best suited for making jokes based on the title of Jack London short stories.
The wine idea reminds me of W Ketchup, from the 2004 election season.
I regret that I've got but one life in which to drink Billy beer.
The Albemarle Ciderworks makes cider from apple varieties grown at Monticello, for those who want to get buzzed in the style of the founding fathers.
The beginning of the current wave of scandals over counterfeit wine was a historical wine that was alleged to have belonged to Thomas Jefferson.
And, come to think of it, the initiator of the wave of investigations that have led to the current wave of scandals was a very, very rich Republican who wanted to buy that wine. (One of the Koch brothers, maybe?)
For some reason, this chart of alcoholic beverages and political leanings does not include wine. It does, however, tell me that I am a center-right drinker.
96:
The bottle came from a collection of wine that had reportedly been discovered behind a bricked-up cellar wall in an old building in Paris.
Hmm, but not Fortunato's skeleton?
97: Guinness: The Beer that Unites
In Poland these days, employers are apparently demanding that new employees give them a signed blank check as a condition for employment, and then are filling it out and bankrupting them if they choose to seek employment elsewhere. Gotta love the free market
100: I was pleased, but somewhat surprised, that scotch (but not rye, bourbon, or blended whisky) has similar properties.
Also interesting is which beverages seem comparatively apolitical. Busch, Busch Lite, Coors, and Blended/Rye all seem to have a higher share of politically unaligned drinkers.
101: You can't stop payment on a check there?
101: What's to stop the workers from closing the bank account?
103 was my first thought, but it's possible that the law is different in Poland.
I was pleased, but somewhat surprised, that scotch (but not rye, bourbon, or blended whisky) has similar properties.
The Gaelic peoples are all about the love.
Sounds like Poland needs more fiscal stimulus, to improve workers' bargaining power.
106: Love isn't the only thing that brings people together. A 50/50 split could mean epic bar fights every night.
But what about their facebook passwords?
Maybe someone here would like to make a guessing game out of this.
Or, more likely, it could mean long, verbose, decreasingly coherent debates.
109: The solution is almost exactly analogous: set up an empty account.
I believe what the drinking data shows is that Republicans are white, relatively wealthier, men.
106: Love isn't the only thing that brings people together. A 50/50 split could mean epic bar fights every night.
According to Corb Lund
Well I heard it said, that you can get some heat in Irish pubs, / Servin Jameson's to an Orangeman and a Bushmills to his cuz, / Here's what you do, with Tullamore Dew, you can meet us both have way,
Though the skew on Rolling Rock, Miller High Life, Miller Lite, and Michelob Ultra is bizarre.
||
Does anyone know whether using one of these at home is likely to help with this?
|>
These aren't really checks but blank IOU's which the employer can fill out and then either demand payment him or herself or sell it to a debt collector. Further reading on Polish financial law says that such blank IOU's have to be accompanied by a separate contract which specifies terms. However, the article says that the contracts are made up of a set penalty for leaving the job, plus an unspecified amount of compensation for training and lost income and miscellaneous. So a blank check against any money you have, now or in the future in any account.
All the labor law experts cited in the article say this is completely illegal. Employers are not allowed to demand compensation for an employee's decision to quit or related losses, nor for internal training. But so far the government labor inspectorate has refused to intervene.
Washington Post goes for the terrible pun headline: Obama plays up love of beer to ferment coalition of the swilling.
116 -- I believe the answer is "not much." A lot of your pm 2.5 pollution is from the exterior anyway, and getting an air cleaner isn't really a substitute for ventilation and removing whatever the source of the internal air pollution is. But if you are say in an apartment building with lots of cigarette smoke or have allergies or something one might be useful. This is all based on secondhand conversation; I'm not pretending to be an expert.
116 -- I believe the answer is "not much." A lot of your pm 2.5 pollution is from the exterior anyway, and getting an air cleaner isn't really a substitute for ventilation and removing whatever the source of the internal air pollution is. But if you are say in an apartment building with lots of cigarette smoke or have allergies or something one might be useful. This is all based on secondhand conversation; I'm not pretending to be an expert.
116 -- I believe the answer is "not much." A lot of your pm 2.5 pollution is from the exterior anyway, and getting an air cleaner isn't really a substitute for ventilation and removing whatever the source of the internal air pollution is. But if you are say in an apartment building with lots of cigarette smoke or have allergies or something one might be useful. This is all based on secondhand conversation; I'm not pretending to be an expert.
116 -- I believe the answer is "not much." A lot of your pm 2.5 pollution is from the exterior anyway, and getting an air cleaner isn't really a substitute for ventilation and removing whatever the source of the internal air pollution is. But if you are say in an apartment building with lots of cigarette smoke or have allergies or something one might be useful. This is all based on secondhand conversation; I'm not pretending to be an expert.
Guys, I am REALLY not pretending to be an expert. Just want to let you know.
118: And the photo caption, "Hoppy days are here again". Oy!
I was relieved to read that Obama paid for the home-brew kit with his own money.
116: I don't think there are RCTs supporting their use or anything like that, but, intuitively, it ought to help. After reading that, I found some reviews that recommend a different one that has a lower total cost because the filter doesn't have to be changed as often and it can handle more space, and then I did absolutely nothing. Seems like a good idea, though.
Now tell us about the article in 99, so I don't have to listen to a 16-minute audio file completely devoid of identifying information.
No way am I listening to that, especially from work.
Oh I listened to 30 seconds of it and it was Alice Cooper talking about how "Schools Out for Summer" was number one in the UK 40 years ago.
Alice Cooper talking about, among other things, cricket.
To the OP, according to the House Small Brewers Caucus, Obama's president-brewer predecessors include Washington, Jefferson and Madison.
There's a truly foul sounding beer recipe from Washington's records, that includes a step where you skim out the flies.
131: Of course, LizardBreath would prefer her beer with flies.
I didn't know IC Light was shipped that far.
Obama needs to start growing weed, like Washington did.
Start? The government almost certainly already grows weed.
119-22: I do live in an apartment building, I'm thinking that one in the bedroom might be helpful, as I probably do about 1/3 of my breathing there. It's probably not worth it to filter the whole apartment.
If I ever get an enclosed office, it might make sense to put one there too.
The problem is that it's not obvious to me whether non-asthmatics should expect to benefit. The fact that there's an aggregate health benefit to less pollution may just mean that a few people with bad lungs get a lot healthier, rather than a lot of people with normal lungs getting a little healthier.
almost certainly already grows weed
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/05/18/government.marijuana.garden/index.html
I'm pretty sure Obama knows better than to smoke the taxpayer-funded weed. Can you imagine the uproar from Republicans? No, dude needs to pay for his own grow-room, just like he paid for the homebrew kit.
136 was me. I bought the unit I'd originally been considering, because my bedroom is small enough that it should be accurate.
I look forward to some subset of the following possible outcomes:
1 The machine makes too much noise and my girlfriend has trouble sleeping, so the experiment is aborted.
2 The machine catches fire, ironically increasing the internal air pollution, and I die.
3 Nothing much. The machine doesn't bother us, but there are no discernible benefits - I just wasted some money that could have saved 1/20th of some poor African's life.
4 I sneeze less or something. Success!
Adequate, not accurate. Though I hope the machine is accurate too.
What would it mean if it weren't? I'm reminded of that Star Trek episode where the probe designed to seek out new life and new civilizations and communicate with them collides (improbably) with a probe designed to gather soil samples, sterilize them, and bring them back for analysis. Then they merge (perhaps slightly less improbable than colliding in the first place) into a new probe that thinks its mission is to seek out new life and new civilizations, sterilize them, and bring them back for analysis.
Yeah, I guess I do hope my air purifier is accurate as well as adequate.
