Jesus fucking christ. Democrats and Republicans meant totally different things back then. Democrats were big business, the South, etc.. Shortly after the above, the Democratic Party split, with the conservative Democrats hooking up with the conservative Republicans and forming pretty much what the Republican party is today. You know the one that fought the Civil Rights Amendment? Talk about not knowing history, you sound like some fucking Tea Bagger.

To try to blame stuff on a particular party from 100+ years ago is just wrong. Neither party means what it did back then. Did you know that Conservative Christians and Progressives worked together to pass Prohibition? Interesting, but not really relevant to current debate.

I have asthma, too. Thankfully, it's minor (right now).

But it seems like what you're saying is this: "Since my asthma medication is effective and necessary, that means that 100% of all drugs everywhere are exactly like that, there is absolutely no graft or abuse in the prescription drug industry, and anyone who believes otherwise is simply stupid."

I won't call you an idiot. And I certainly won't discount the condition you suffer from. But words and terms exist for a reason. Words like "iatrogenic" and "ADR" ("adverse drug reaction"). Doctors and prescription drugs save people. Doctors and prescription drugs also kill people. And they do so for reasons of incompetence, abuse, and graft. Otherwise, the prescription drug industry wouldn't have to pay the BILLIONS of dollars in fines that it does every year to settle with the government for killing people. Strange to think that the government is punishing them -- doesn't the government, in the form of the FDA, regulate drugs and keep them safe?

No, the FDA is 100% complicit. Its members consist of former drug company executives. It's a rubber-stamp organization.

Indeed, it's all about wealth redistribution. Of course, there are some cases, even in "civilized" universal healthcare systems, where the rationing board will decide that you're just too expensive to treat, and recommend hospice care as a gentle alternative. After all, it's all about putting a limited resource (money) where it's most useful, and that means that we don't waste money saving people who are older than $current_threshold. And even if you try to make sure your universal healthcare system is designed only to help the very poorest with the most exotically expensive diseases, it certainly won't stop millions of people attempting to charge every single thing under the sun (cotton swabs, sunscreen, etc.) to the universal healthcare system. And they will succeed to some degree, because some vote-hungry MP somewhere will say, "But they neeeeed it!" and it will be approved because "It's not that much money after all." $current_threshold--;

There isn't enough money to provide universal healthcare to everyone. Some children will be left behind. It's a simple matter of math.

There isn't enough money to do that.

There isn't enough money to do even what the USA has right now (Medicaid / Medicare). Those programs WILL be slashed. It's not a matter of if, but when and how. There isn't enough money.

It's a simple matter of math. You can tax the rich AND the middle class at 100% and there still won't be enough money.

My rapist said the same thing to me.

Take it to the HNL with a shot of Triple Sec.

I would love to find a traditionally fermented, alcoholic root beer. Even dry would be good. Does that kind of thing exist?

Trappist has a magical caché. "Brewed by altruistic monks steeped in hundreds of years of ascetic tradition!" Makes for a nice sales pitch, doesn't it? God, something like that you just WANT it to taste awesome.

And nothing tastes as good as the thing that you WANT to taste good. People start tasting "glacial notes" in tap water when they're facing up against that kind of faith.

Sure you do. You call them "swimming pools" or "underground clear water caves", though.

Say whatever you want about American macro-breweries and I will agree with you 100%.

Do not lie about the thousands upon thousands of micro-breweries that are turning out beers like anything that Europe can produce plus hundreds of other innovative beers that tradition-bound old breweries would never dream of producing.

This is not a post saying "America is better than Europe" -- I'm not saying that at all. I'm only saying that the most exciting and wonderful beers and produced in America -- the lion's share -- and beer lovers everywhere should rejoice. Not for the sake of America, but for the sake of beer.

But as an American and a beer lover, I can't help but feel proud.

My mother is a cilantro-hater. She is genetically predisposed to hate cilantro.

Maybe you are the same way about hops. I remember the first time I drank beer -- it was Natural Light. It tasted sooooo bitter to me.

Nowadays, I can drink beers like "Hop Czar" (if I'm in the right mood) and enjoy it. It took me a long time to build up to that, but it was a gradual growth in appreciation.

But maybe you can't do it, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. You should instead focus on finding beers that are more malty, and there is a world of them out there for people who aren't "hop heads".

I'm not snobby about anything.

I take that back. I'm snobby about one thing. Snobs. I'm a snob snob, in other words. A snob connoisseur, or "snoboisseur", so to speak. So far, ALL snobs are deficient. NONE of them are good enough for the likes of me. I look forward to the day when I find a snob that can impress me, but, to date, they are all low-quality and I eschew them.

That's why I choose to spend my time around down to earth, kind people who love life and enjoy sharing it.

(On an unrelated note, vim is better than Emacs.)

Hipsters like Miller High Life and Pabst Blue Ribbon. They drink them to be "ironic" and to impress their hipster friends. How lame is that? (Very.)

Have you ever seen the television show "Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern"? If you have seen many episodes of that show, then you will have seen the affable host eat intestines (the large ones, the feces-filled ones) more than once, where he usually cheerily announces, "When you eat this, you KNOW what you're eating!" In other words, once can taste the crap that remains within it. In other words, there are thousands of people in the world who regularly eat crap.

Likewise, you might also have seen the episode where he was in India, and he drank cow urine for "medicinal" reasons (as it was sold to him). In other words, there are thousands of people in the world who regularly drink piss.

That's why I never describe any foods as "crap" or "piss" any more, because people actually eat and drink those things, so it's just a flat out inaccurate comparison to make. Call a spade a spade: boring, weakly-flavored, low-quality, etc. (If you are a pompous food snob, then you'll spin boring foods as "subtle" or "delicate".)

Budweiser (an evil company -- go watch the documentary "Beer Wars" to find out why (if you like to drink alcohol and don't know what the "Three Tier System" is, then you need to see this movie for personal edification)), Miller, and Coors made traditionally weak-flavored beers. Most Americans are comfortable drinking those because they are not used to tasting strong flavors in general, and hops produce a very strong, bitter flavor that takes a while to build up a tolerance to and appreciation of. It just tastes horrible to people who aren't used to it. Once you are, then you start to realize wonderful differences of flavor between different types of hops (Cascade produces very distinct citrus flavors that are very easy for even a neophyte like me to pick out) that increase overall pleasure.

And that's what learning to appreciate stronger flavors is all about: increasing your pleasure and enjoyment of life. Don't try to shame people into conforming to your preferred beers (my current favorite is Southern Tier 2X IPA -- it is awesome). Invite people to try and perhaps they may take a chance and be rewarded for it. Sell it. But people generally have to be open-minded first. It's a tough sale to make. Most people don't like taking risks and most people harbor great resentments about being forced to eat things they don't like from childhood. It's literally emotionally scarring. I talked to someone once who said that he was afraid of trying something that he didn't like because it might ruin his appetite. I find that strange, because when I put something disgusting in my mouth, my impulse is to eat something delicious as quickly as possible to return myself to yummy mode as quickly as possible.

But people are weird about food. Very, very weird. Even me.