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.

I can't get upset that I don't have the right to financially support a Communist island quasi-gulag, but I can understand why that pisses off "progressives" (those scare quotes are EARNED), so I empathize with you ... just a smidge. At the same time, so what if he "knew their laws"? No one should be punished for an unjust law. I'm sure the people in Cuba's prisons who are there for the horrible crime of criticizing the government would agree with that.

I'm sorry, what was I engaging my brain again? I just need to repeat, "They have Universal Health Care in Cuba!" over and over. War is Peace, Love is Hate. A=!A.

But who chooses which events will be reported? Events are happening all the time, all over the place. Remember that earthquake in Haiti? Things down there haven't gotten any better, but now no one cares nearly as much. Simply choosing what to report, and then doing it unbiased and accurately, is, in and of itself, biased. A reporter wants that people know some information. Wants for what? "Because it's newsworthy" assumes the point in dispute and is journo-bullshit.

I couldn't agree with you more. I find it hilarious that eco-zealots pretend that the automobile would die if not for some kind of government subsidy. Isn't that called "projection"? The killer app of the automobile is that I can get in my car and drive to work, or Disneyland, or anywhere in between, whenever I want, on a whim. If your favorite government-subsidized project can't compete with that, then you have to fall back on religion to make up the difference.

"Let them eat cake." 21st-century edition. ("cake" implies: local, organic)

What the Soviets did in Afghanistan registers as "forcing peace" to you? I'm guessing that the violent suppression of the anti-communist uprising in Hungary in 1956 also registers as a "peace mission" to you. Likewise, perhaps those millions of starved Ukrainians is merely an exaggeration or malignant propaganda to you.

Oh, and Cuba has free, awesome health care for all.

"Democracy" is probably one of the most abused words in political discourse. What does it mean to you? What does it imply?

"Eternal, unflinchingly rigid caste system", perhaps?

Plenty of people do NOT correctly guess that I am gay. I'm a software developer. I wear a wedding band. I like football (NOT soccer). When I open of mouth to speak, rainbow glitter doesn't spray out.

Person: (sees my wedding band) So, what's your wife's name?

Me: We're not married.

Person: (confused) Why not?

Me: Because the state will not allow us to marry.

Person: (ultra confused and not getting it) Why would they not allow you to marry?

I've had that conversation multiple times. I hate coming out to people. I would much rather someone else tell them when I'm not anywhere nearby. Coming out to a straight person is just saying this to someone's face: "Hi, I'm gay, which means I probably do all sorts of sexual things that you find incredibly disgusting. Now, judge me positively. I'm waiting."

Keen in mind that some gay guys could dress up as the ugliest, most offensive drag queen, and there would still be some straight people who STILL could not correctly guess. There's a whole spectrum of being clued-in.

I appreciate that you don't care. Honestly, I do. It makes life easier for gay people who live in a world where there's a great many people who DO care and are willing to do something about that problem.

My biggest worry (but it wasn't that big of a worry) about facebook when I signed up was the fact that I state myself "in a relationship" with another man. I like facebook for giving one thing: details about the goings on in the lives of people I care about that I wouldn't have known otherwise. And that is very powerful and very significant. That aside, I've been friended by old acquaintances pre-coming out and surprise!

Then again, maybe it wasn't that much of a surprise to those people. People do talk outside of facebook. But there's no question about it now -- no pretending with a lot of people who might have had only suspicions before. The ads that might be shown to me concern me the least. Then I think about whom the study may intend to protect.

Note to gay teenagers: It gets better. Hang in there!