FlaSoxxJim

This common argument is pretzel logic. We are, by definition, borne into the very heart of the most improbable thing in a chaotic, entropic universe: ordered, sentient living systems. That's merely because interstellar hydrogen atoms don't think about such things as they whiz along in this expanding universe while we do. The odds against life in the harshness of the universe are staggering indeed, yet here we are. But A (our being here) doesn't prove B (a Divine Agent making it so). Out of millions of systems and billions of stars, Life IS the exception and not the rule (at the same time, the law of averages sides with the probability that life occurs elsewhere as well). The complexity of living systems is amazing, and it at first glance seems to be too 'perfect' to be the result of anything other than a Divine Hand. But, the fact that 99% of all forms of life that once existed on earth are now extinct defies the notion of organisms being created perfectly adapted to life on a perfectly created earth. Furthermore, the well-documented trend of the complex/adapted arising from the simple/primitive in living body plans etc., demonstrates that life took on today's complexity over 3.5 billion years or so of organic evolution. Hundreds of millions of years of simultaneous experiments conducted in billions of separate "laboratories" (individual living organsisms) has led to amazingly complex and adapted modern forms. But, neither divine nor teleological forces (the supposed pre-destined place of man at the top of the heap - rubbish) need to be invoked to arive at that complexity. All the jazz about the bible not being refuted etc., is an argument that can never be won if you are debating literalist fundamentalists. To them, 6 days is 6 days, the Earth is only 10K years old or so, fossils that science dates to much longer than that are evidence of a pre-deluvian fauna wiped out by the Old Testament flood, all the animals really did fit on the Ark, Lot's wife was turned unto a piller of salt, etc. The bible contains remarkable writings throughout, and so do many other texts of antiquity (the remarkable similarity of several creation accounts from various religions is worth looking at). And there is ample historical documentation of the existence of several biblical castmembers, including the Nazz himself, of course. But it ain't science, and it ain't history, and it ain't the perfect in-toto guide for living in the 21st century, no matter how many people want to insist otherwise. CW is the real authority on all of this, and I think he is embarrased to read our penny-ante theological discourse. But he has previously on this board done a graet job in pointing out what parts of the bible really were the laying out of societal tennets of the day - ritual cleanliness, not eating cloven-hoved beastes, etc. Most of the guidelines were quite practical for the day. 'Unclean' animals were the source of contamination and disease, and rules making men wait x days after their wives were done being 'ritually unclean' each month put horny couples in each others arms at precicely the time in the ovulation cycle when women were most fertile. None of this was, to my knowledge claimed to be the literal Divine word of God in the way the Catholic Church has ruled the Gospels to be. Maybe CW will pitch in and fill in what I have left out in my ignorance. Finally, I'll posit that one can believe in purgatory without believing in Heaven or Hell. Yes, I have been forced to spend time in Gary, IN.

Are any of Goose Island's offerings still available there as well?

Ah, the deus ex machina approach to religion is just one step away from agnosticism so watch out. Yes, humans want answers to the questiosn of life the universe, and everything (apparently "42" was not answer enough, despite Doug Adams' best efforts). But, science and logic hold that the simplest explanations are usually closest to the truth, and invoking a Divine Agent is hardly the simplest of explanations in most cases. Not that people waaaay smarter than I do not wholly believe in a divine agent. Astrophysicists, cosmologists, quantum mechanists and the like – basically the people with the most insight into the beginnings of the physical universe – ARE by and large a spiritual group. I know this both from personal acquaintance with a Stanford quantum egghead who I happened to grow up best friends with, and from the little bit of reading on the subject I have done. My friend and I joke with each other about the seeming incongruity in that so many of my ilk (evolutionary biologists, life sciences) shy away from divine explanations while the people that supposedly spend so much time trying to boil the complexities of the universe into a couple universal mathematical principals tend toward the spiritual. Interesting indeed...

I think that's part of the human condition, the egocentric view that life or a universe without us in it at some level is incomprehensible. Death is the big unknown for us in this world where we have successfully demystified and explained most of the other things people used to need a pantheon of gods for. As planetary movements, the seasons, natural growth cycles, the effects of drugs and alcohol, etc. were explained away scientifically, the pantheons of harvest gods, sun gods, etc., were dispensed with until all that was left was basically the god of death and presumed afterlife. Maybe this opinion is too jaded for some, but it's where I come from at any rate. I love theological discussions, love comparing the religions of the world, and vigorously defend the right of all people to worship as they see fiy so long as it does not impose on the rights of others (love and do what you will). But, at my heart I am a secular humanist. On good days or to keep more spiritually-minded people enganged in a discussion I'll call myself an agnostic. In reality, I have for most of my life been more of an athiest than many people find comfortable. Doesn't mean my moral compass is out of whack. In fact, since I am not counting on any sort of eternal reward I do the best I can to make the time on earth reward enough. I know humans can be intrinsically motivated to be good and comit to leaving the planet and its inhabitants better off rather than worse, without needing the extrinsic carrot/stick motivation of eternal salvation/damnation. Thinking adults who strive to do good only because of the promise of an eternal reward (not because it is the right thing to do) kind of make me nervous. Adults who use religion as a sinister toilet-training device to program their kids to never question their faith instead of teaching them to be critical, questioning thinkers just plain scare me. Love and Do What You Will.

The style is traditionally low to medium in alcohol strength, owing to the fact that half the grain bill is not malted. The use of a traditionallu 'undermodified' pilsner-style barley also means that there is not enough diastatic (starch-converting) enzyme potential to get much alcohol from the wheat either. That being said, versions with a large grain bill (e.g., holiday interpretations, etc.) can be more alcoholic. These are often nominally designated as 'grand cru' or something similar, instead of simply witbier. The wit style was born in the Belgian countryside and brewed basically with whatever cheap ingredients were on hand. That is why the unmalted what is there - readily available and cheap. It is also why the hopping rates are traditionally low, as the hops used were normally imported Czech or Brit "nobel" varieties and usually too expensive for farmhouse breweries to buy much of. That's the real beauty of Belgians indigineous beer styles - tthey were absolutely products borne of the practicality of their times.

The Belgian wits and their derivatives should NOT traditionally be served with the citrus slice. Your local bar folks are confusing Bavarian weissbier and Belgian witbier - both grand styles, but not the same animal. If you like Fat Tire's stuff, not to mention Duvel (I'm impressed) I'm sure you will like authentic witbier when you come across it.

An old professor of mine had a yeast allergy (one of many he had), and good beer was the thing he missed the most. You probably had mild adverse effects with the Blue Moon because the yeast cells are filtered out with either membrane of diotomaceous earth before bottling. There are still some yeast metabolites in the finished products but 99% of what would caus you problems has been removed. That's usually the case with any of the mainstream brews. A notable exception is the offerings from Cali's Sierra Nevada (yumm). All of their products are bottle-conditioned, which means there is a light dusting of live, dormant yeast cells at the bottom of every bottle. That's good news for homebrewers that want a source of the famous "Chico" yeast and are too cheap to spend a couple bucks on a culture, but bad news for people with yeast issues. Yeast in the bottle is a blessing and a curse for craft beer. It's beneficial because it scubs the beer of diacetyl, a fermentation byproduct that tastes like butter to people that can perceive it and usually considered a flavor flaw. It's also a great source of B-complex vitamins, so it can be its own best preventive for a hangover. On the downside, if the bottled beer is mishandled, exposed to heat, etc., the yeast will autolyse and affect the beer. Bottle-conditioning is also too inconsistent for the homogenized desires of the megabrewers and they have instead gone with artificial carbonation of a heavily filtered product for a long time. Just curious... do breads and other bakery products that use baker's yeast also cause problems for you?

You have taken your first step into the wide world of beer with taste! ... that said, Blue Moon is just one small step on a very long and enjoyable journey. Yes, Blue Moon is a Coors offering, as is Killian's and a few others. There is a lot of duplicity by the mega-brews to convince people they are drinking a micro (much like Icehouse from the ficticious "Plank Road Brewery," which is a Miller product). In the case of Blue Moon, however, they came up with something pretty drinkable and it does bring awareness of a wider world of beer diversity to people like you. Blue Moon is an interpretation of the Belgian wit (white beer) category. It is among my favorite beer styles, using nearly equal parts malted 2-row European barley and unmalted winter wheat (the glutens in teh wheat give the beer style its characteristic cloudy haze, although that trait is subdued in Blue Moon). Spices like Indian coriander and bitter orange peel are added late in the boil to add complexity. Seeds of paradise is sometimes also used, and I like to include chamomile in my recipes when I brew the style. The yeast strains used leave phenolic and also sometimes sour notes in the finished product (sometimes a portion of the beer is intentionally soured before fermentation to achieve this as well). The amazing thing about this style is that it was quite nearly lost to the world, but for the efforts of Belgian-turned-Texan Pierre Celis. He worked as a young man in a traditional farmhouse witbier brewery in the Belgian countryside. The rural style died out in subsequent years until noone brewed it anymore. Some old guys were hanging out one day reminiscing about the old style they used to love, and Pierre remarked that he believed he could recreate it. He bought some used dairy farm equipment, started the Hoegarden Brewery, and hsi wit recreation was a smash hit. He sold Hoegarden, and moved with his daughter to Austin Texas, where he started up the Celis Brewery that introduced American craft beer fans to the style. Sadly, Miller bought controlling interest in the Celis Brewery (Pierre though it would lead to brewery expansion and national distribution for his products), and the %$#*! Miller bean counters decided to shut down after a couple years sunce the profit margin wasn't to their liking (Interestingly, CW, there is a group from your home state that is trying to buy the Celis name, as well much of the Austin brewery equipment, to resume production). If you liked Blue Moon, I implore you to seek out some other wit examples. Hoegarden and several other newer Belgian examples are now redily found in the states (Go to Zeke's Bar in Dowagiac if you are ever in that part of Michigan - great beer bar!). Sam Adam's Summer Ale is loosely in the style. Chambly, from Quebec's Unibrue brewery is very good (like all their beers), and is bottle-conditioned (natural yeast fermenttion). Allagash, from the northeast US, is great Limburg from New Zealand is hard to find but really good. Sorry you asked? Here's to good beer

believe it or not, this is a static gif. Weird, huh? Try printing it out and it swirls right on the page. (I think they should paint the walls of mental wards with this pattern )

So, of course it should remain illegal.

You are going to have to explain what you mean in saying that everyone is allergic to pot and that's why you get high. The pharmacokinetics of marijuana have nothing to do with allergic-type reactions -- histamine production etc. In fact, one of the non-psychoactive canabanoids in pot (Cannabidiol - CBD) is shown to be a potent anti-inflamatory agent with possible anti-histamine properties to boot. As for Soxy noting more tar etc. in a joint versus a cigarette... that's true enough. IIRC there's about 10x the tar of cigs in a joint. But, while there are lots of 2 pack-a-day smokers, how many 4-joint a day (typical) users would you expect there to be? More than likely, average recreational use would be a couple joints a week. More importantly, without nicotine, there is no physical addiction to pot, no addictive substance whose levels can be artificially manipulated by cigarette makers etc. As for the legalization debate, the medical potential alone should be enough to get people out of the "reefer madness" paranoia, arresting prescribing doctors etc., and really discussing the issues instead. Marijuana is effectively used as an analgesic/pain management tool, anti-asthmatic, and anti-rheumatic. Off the top of my head, it is also used to treat glaucoma, dystonic movement disorders, Huntington's disease, epilepsy, Taurette's (sp?), certain psychoses... what else am I missing?

Yeah, $200 mil to NPR I think. Makes my $50 donations seem small, huh?

Plus I didn't think they made a kettle big enough for that kind of a donation!

Salvation Army Getting $1.5 Billion Gift It's always good to see those that have done well in life giving back. And here's a great example of a private party giving money to a faith-based social welfare organization they believe in, which I completely applaud. On the other hand, if it was tax money handed out as part of the proposed faith-based initiative program I'd take issue with it. And, for the sake of contrast, which $1.5 billion is going to show the best ROI -- this gift which is going to fund the building of 25-30 community centers nationwide, or the pro-marriage initiative being pushed by Baby Bush and anticipated by people in that line of work having about a 7% success rate in fostering strong marriages?

I can easily see mistaking a laid-down gnome on the tracks at night for a child, and I feel bad for the driver that got rattled by the incident. I'd like to laugh at the scene of the gnome on the tracks because the visual is pretty funny, but the fact that the driver freaked out kind of takes the funny out of it. Kind of reminds me of the rattled air traffic controllers from "Pushing Tin," (good, not great film) where the other controllers would take odds on how close they would get to walking back into the tower to work before losing their nerve and leaving again.

Rats. The good stuff is always yanked before I get to see it...

"I did it My Way" - Sex Pistols version.

Have a good one!

SoxTalk panties?

You are concerned that there is hypocrasy in a local government that decides to exclude the use of a church that has been a gathering place for hate (or at least extreme intolerance) focus groups? Polling places should not be emotion- or issue-charged, and voters coming from all sides should feel comfortable bringing their views to the polls.

My folks just arrived for their annual visit with the grandkids. Usually they know they are not allowed into my house without a box of Salerno butter cookies from back home. This year they were instructed to also bring down some Fanny May, which they did do. My only problem is I'm knee-deep in the %&$*$! South Beach Diet quick start phase 1 (the wife hates going it alone). It will still be several more days before I can have a cookie or a chocolate, (not to mention beer) and I can do naught but watch as my kids consume the precious items in front of me. On the plus side, I have lost more than 12 pounds in less than two weeks. But if teh butter cookies are gone before I get some ther ewill be trouble.

I think the Sox do plenty of community-type appearances, though you are right, they are focused on Chicagoland. But it makes more sense for the Cubs to work the circuit downstate than the Sox when people can be turned into distance Cub fans (unsuspecting fools) because of the exposure on WGN. Farmers from Iowa come to see the Cubs and not the Sox because they are exposed to the Cubs through WGN (the handful of Sox WGN broadcasts is a relatively new development and its still the Cubs 75+% of the time. Just like TBS is a big reason there are lots of long-distance Braves fans, The WGN connection is a huge reason the Northside team has such a large National following. That run-down, weed-coverd ballpark they play in is another...

First off, noone has said marriage is a bad institution or that pro-marriage support programs are a bad idea. But when the programs currently in place report a less than 7% (1 couple in 15) success ratio in getting these marriages to work, and the Administration decides THIS is something to spend more than a billion dollars on over the next 5 years, then I see an Administration that knwos nothing about the concept of getting a return on your investment. There are very real problems associated with government funding of faith-based initiatives, regardless fo the good those local programs do (and I do not deny the church run programs largely do benefit local communities). One of the problems that has been regularly pointed out, often by leaders of faith-based groups themselves, is that even if the government funded programs are restricted from trying to preach/convert, etc., these groups are free to hire their employees based on shared religious and social views. This is not in line with the non-descriminatory hiring practices that would be put in place and enforced in an equivalent federal program. Tax dollars would be going to fund organizations that are permitted to discriminate in their hiring. Cogent to the ongoing discussion of gay civil unions, here is another issue. Suppose the proposed (apalling) constututional ban on gay marriages is NOT created, and that a given state decides it will legally recognize gay civil unions and grant the couple the same rights as a straight couple. The gay couple seeking advice on their relationship and possible union should legally have access to these propesed 'marriage programs', including teh faith-based ones. But conservative Christian organizations running the programs are not going to accept them, recognize the validity of their couplehood, disdain them, etc. They cannot help but be discriminatory in this issue because it goes against their beliefs to validate the loving relationship of the gay couple. I see this as an intractable issue. Finally, to think that Muslum groups and other non-Christian faith-based charities are going to get an appropriate cut of government funding is delusional. Conservative Christians are among the most ardent Bush supporters and helped elect him, in no small part by calling into the question the "family values" of anyone associated with Clinton, including Al Gore. He's throwing them a bone. Another bone, I should say, to go along with the continued assault on women's reproductive rights, stem cell research, the proposed gay marriage ban, etc. It's almost like Robertson did get elect after all.

You obviously have not seen some of the superfine Brazilian women... most definately worth 'attacking.'

I don't know if anyone caught the NPR story this morning (and not having followed this entire thread, it may have already been mentioned) about the Bush 'marriage program' and plans to increase spending for 'pro-marriage' counselling services - primarily for the poor. This year, $6 million was spent on such organizations, to try to get people to understand the importance of marriage, the importance of equality in the partnership, etc. All fine and well, and $6 million sounds reasonable. Now, Dubya wants to spend more than $1 billion on these programs over the next 5 years!!! Does this sound sane? Maybe Mmmmbeer was right about Bush throwing money at programs like this with the strength of 10 Democrats! The counselors that are doing this stuff now reported that only about 1 couple in 15 that goes through their programs actually does tie the knot. If those numbers stay the same, that's not gonna be very many marriages for a billion dollar price tag. The connection to the current thread is that gay rights groups are rightfully pointing out that it would be discriminatory if these counselling services were not made equally available to gay couples considering civil unions, and at the same time the religious conservatives are applying pressure to make sure gay marriages are not validated by the programs and, ultimately, banned through constitutional amendment. Let's all worry about our own relationships and let others take care of their own.