I MAY BE A BORING, BRAGGADOCIOUS, PSEUDO-SOPHISTICATE BUT . . .

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. . . to quote a friend of mine:



~ McDogg

YE OLDE COMMENT POLICY: All comments, pro and con, are welcome. However, ad hominem attacks and disrespectful epithets will not be tolerated (read: "posted"). After all, this isn’t Amazon.com, so I don’t have to put up with that kind of bovine excrement.
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HOLEY ATHEISTS VS. NED FLANDERS (Or, #$&% THE SUPREME COURT!)

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If there is such a thing as an intellectually honest atheist, I’ve yet to meet him or her. Experience has taught me that there is something psychologically far deeper and more nefarious to atheism than mere skepticism or disbelief. In fact, I suspect it involves something more than just psychology, too; I believe it is sometimes spiritual in nature.

I don’t know how many times I have encountered professed “intellectually honest” atheists to whom I have recommended certain books that examine the evidence for God and Christ, and have had those so-called “honest” atheists fail to explore my recommended texts.

See, here’s the deal: If there is a God to whom we are accountable and who will ultimately judge our behavior, the atheist, well, he or she don't wanna know! Eyes closed, fingers jammed in the ears, mouth goin’ “La!-La!-La!-La!,
I can’t HEAR you!”

But the Evolutionary theory is so full of holes it’s “holey”; while the evidence for a Creator is so overwhelming it is almost “Holy”. (I know, I know . . . “La!-La!-La!-La!”
You can’t hear me.)

In the July 4, 2011 edition of The New American magazine, there was a good article pertaining to the mythological “Separation Of Church And State” concept that the holey atheists have brainwashed most Americans with. In that article, the author, Mr. Wolverton, wrote:

“Regardless of the source of the assault on constitutional principles, constitutionalists should be able to defend those principles by relying on history and reason, without ad hominem disparagement of the attackers. The polestar of defenders of the Constitution is the document itself, not emotional recriminations of those opposed to their position.”

In theory, I agree with that viewpoint. In practice, well . . . I don’t always practice it anymore. The success of the holey atheists in conditioning We The People to accept the premise that any Christian idea must be entirely eradicated from every public sector is one of the most significant reasons that the U.S.A. has become a moral cesspool and a rotting corpse; it’s one of the principal reasons that the U.S.A. will ultimately and utterly fall. Recognizing the factually flawed and underhanded tactics of the God-haters, and seeing the devastation that their dishonest work has wreaked upon my country, I have lost all patience with them.

I do not consider myself a “Christian” by the modern definition, and therefore I do not play patty-cake with the holey atheists the way these Ned Flanders types do. I’ve seen what the “kid glove” treatment from the Ned Flanders Crowd has resulted in: Atheists: 666 Trillion - Flanders: 0. That’s what you call “a blowout”. If you’re an atheist and you want to debate me about this topic, be forewarned that I get a ‘D-minus’ in “Plays Well With Others” and you’ll get no “Heidely-ho, neighbor!” from me.

To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: A time to reason, and a time to fight. And the season to reason has passed.

Did any of you God-haters want some book recommendations to help straighten you out (or to “make your hair curl”)? I didn’t think so. The article - alright, let’s get on it! . . .

“THE ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE”
by Joe Wolverton II, J.D.

In a letter to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus and Thucydides, for Newton and Euclid; and I find myself much the happier.” Constitutionalists surely sympathize with the Sage of Monticello when they read the chronicling of the evisceration of our Constitution that is printed daily in newspapers around the country.

From Article I to the Tenth Amendment, every essential protection of liberty enshrined by our Founding Fathers in the Constitution is being attacked (successfully) and set at nought by those determined to divest the United States of the rule of law and the freedoms it ensures. No single aspect of American constitutional liberty is more misunderstood, misapplied, and manipulated than the First Amendment’s defense of religious freedom.

For example, a recent opinion piece published in the Baltimore Sun accused the U.S. Naval Academy of “defying the Constitution — specifically the First Amendment.”

Specifically, the author (an adjunct instructor at the academy) asserts that the Naval Academy administration is violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment through the practice of saying grace before meals. As the author describes the tradition: “They [Naval midshipmen] are marched into the mess hall, called to attention to listen to announcements, and then to prayer by a chaplain before sitting to eat. They are not permitted to leave, and thus they are forced to listen.”

To support his accusation, the author cites a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision. He provides the following history of the case:

That is the opinion of our courts and the compelling reason to end it. In 2003, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th District ruled in Mellen v. Bunting that the Virginia Military Institute’s suppertime prayer was unconstitutional: “Put simply, VMI’s supper prayer exacts an unconstitutional toll on the consciences of religious objectors. While the First Amendment does not in any way prohibit VMI’s cadets from praying, before, during or after the supper, the Establishment Clause prohibits VMI from sponsoring such a religious activity.”

Moreover, in April 2004, the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to the Court of Appeals’ ruling, thus affirming the lower court’s decision.

After rehearsing this bit of jurisprudential precedent to his end, the author gloats over the fact that the other service academies fell into line and discontinued the practice of preprandial prayer. Then, he provides for the reader the logical (to him) conclusion of the argument he has presented: “The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Let’s get the Naval Academy to act to fully support and defend it — not defy it.”

Further proof is found in the story recently published by The New American online describing how a federal district court held that “the Medina Valley Independent School District of Texas could not include prayer in its commencement ceremonies, nor use any language perceived to be religious in nature.” The lower court ruling was later reversed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, but the fact that such a challenge was originally upheld by the district court is disturbing. In the Medina Valley case, the complaint was supported by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a group dedicated to scouring religion from every nook and cranny of American society.

A Principled Foundation

Regardless of the source of the assault on constitutional principles, constitutionalists should be able to defend those principles by relying on history and reason, without ad hominem disparagement of the attackers. The polestar of defenders of the Constitution is the document itself, not emotional recriminations of those opposed to their position. In an effort to follow that injunction, it is necessary to examine the legitimate purpose and provenance of the so-called Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, the oft-cited “wall of separation” between church and state, and the role of the Supreme Court in defending or destroying those ideas.

First, we must base ourselves firmly on the premise that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. In fact, the Constitution itself proclaims such in Article VI: “This Constitution … shall be the supreme law of the land.” With that, constitutionalists have no quarrel, as it is that supremacy that we long to have recognized and respected by legislators and Presidents. This article, as applied to the issue of the Naval Academy’s mealtime prayer, however, does not support the opinion piece’s author. Furthermore, those challenging the prayer at school commencements will find no fuel for their fire. To the contrary, the history of Anglo-Saxon law, the words of our own Founding Fathers, and the plain language of the Constitution itself all testify that the Establishment Clause was never enacted to proscribe such piety.

First, the three branches of the federal government have enumerated powers — that is to say, they may not act outside of the defined theaters of action ceded to them in the Constitution. One of these branches, the legislative, is composed of a Congress, and to that Congress is granted by the Constitution “all legislative powers.” Therefore, no other branch may make laws.

Furthermore, Congress itself may enact only those laws which address subjects found within the sphere of specifically enumerated powers listed in the Constitution. As there is no grant of power to Congress to legislate with regard to “religion,” it may not pass laws in that area.

Second, the Constitution in the First Amendment reads in relevant part: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The threshold question of this analysis is the understanding of what is meant by the “establishment of religion.” We may begin with a cursory review of the history of the practice of establishing religion in England.

Throughout the tumultuous history of the monarchs of England, the official and exclusive recognition of religion has swung (usually violently) between the Roman Catholic faith and the Protestant (Anglican) religion. Whichever of the two denominations held sway in England, the “establishment” thereof consisted chiefly in the mandatory payment of (and forceful collection of) tithes. These “donations” were used to support the church and the clergy.

The critical aspect, then, of the establishment of a religion was the employment of the sword of state in the collection of tithes to support that state-sponsored religion. The people were compelled at the point of a sword (quite literally) to provide the funds necessary to perpetuate the control of the approved clergy through the payment of their living expenses.

In America, the establishment of religion continued in most of the colonies. Non-conformists could be imprisoned or fined (or worse) for failing to pay the mandated tithe. The history of the founding of America, however, made the establishment of a religion by the civil authorities more difficult than in England. This was to be expected, given that many of the earliest settlers of America fled England to escape the persecution heaped upon them by the crown and its representatives for refusing to support a faith they considered errant and perverted from the straight and narrow.

By the time of the outbreak of the War for Independence, prominent Americans were advocating the end to established religion and the support of religion built on voluntary donations, as made by congregants according to their conscience, without influence or compulsion on the part of the civil authority.

In 1772, Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia wrote in a letter to a London newspaper:

Now to determine on the justice of this charge against the present dissenters, particularly those in America, let us consider the following facts. They went from England to establish a new country for themselves, at their own expence, where they might enjoy the free exercise of religion in their own way.

Alexander Hamilton expressed a similar view of history in remarks written three years later:

While tithes were the free, though customary, gift of the people, as was the case before the passing of the act in question, the Roman Church was only in a state of toleration; but when the law came to take cognizance of them, and, by determining their permanent existence, destroyed the free agency of the people, it then resumed the nature of an establishment, which it had been divested of at the time of the capitulation.

Finally, James Madison, the very man endowed by history with the honorific title of “Father of the Constitution,” in 1832 wrote in a letter to a reverend:

In the Colonial State of the Country, there were four examples, R.I., N.J., Penna., and Delaware, & the greater part of N.Y. where there was no religious Establishments; the support of Religion being left to the voluntary associations & contributions of individuals.

The testimony of these three witnesses corroborate one another and provide compelling evidence that early on in its history, the establishment of religion was contrary to the will of the American people and the spirit of the founding of our nation by those seeking freedom to practice religion according to the dictates of their own conscience, without fear of royal repercussion.

Finally, in light of the steady dissolution of established religions throughout America, it is useful now to read the specific language of the First Amendment so as to understand the metes and bounds of its proscriptions.

A Control Over Congress

A careful reading of the plain language of the 10 amendments that comprise the Bill of Rights reveals that there is one organization that is prohibited from making laws establishing a religion: Congress. Read the First Amendment again: “Congress shall make no law.” When this restriction is read in concert with the last of the 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights, it is clear that the states and the people retain the right to establish religions, if that is their desire. In fact, many states retained their established religions after ratification of the Constitution: New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, for example.

To recap the scope of the Establishment Clause, then, the intent is to forbid Congress from establishing a national religion (as was done by the British Crown, often at the point of a sword); Congress is forbidden from restricting the right of individuals from worshiping as they choose; and Congress, therefore, has no constitutional authority (and, remember, all the authority of Congress is enumerated and is not natural) to infringe at all upon the right of the states and the people to fully and freely exercise their liberty of conscience.

As with so many other matters of constitutional interpretation, the Supreme Court has not bound itself nor based its decisions on the pure principles of freedom as explicated in the Constitution.

In the early years of the 20th century, for example, the high court decided that the 14th Amendment applies not only to the states, but that it incorporates (or imposes) the First Amendment (which, remember, applies only to Congress) on the states, as well. In the case of Benjamin Gitlow v. People of the State of New York (1925), the Supreme Court overturned the decision in the case of Barron v. Baltimore (1833), that the Bill of Rights applied only to the federal government (Congress) and that, consequently, the federal courts could not stop the enforcement of state laws that restricted the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights.

The court in Gitlow found that the guarantees included in the First Amendment were “fundamental personal rights” and could not be impaired by state governments. That represents a radical revision of American constitutional jurisprudence, the first of many such decisions that would rewrite not only the First Amendment, but redraw the boundaries around the power of Congress to abridge the right of worship.

As for the abolition of prayer from the public school, subsequent Supreme Court decisions piggybacked on Gitlow and its progeny to accomplish that end. In Engel v. Vitale (1962) the majority (6-1) decided the voluntary recitation of a non-denominational prayer in a New York public school represented the “establishment of religion” as proscribed by the First Amendment. In the majority opinion, “religious activity” was substituted for “establishment of religion,” thus outlawing prayer based on a completely unsupportable judicial sleight of hand. All of this damage to the Constitution was done without a single word of explanation of how the definition of an “established religion” (a denomination supported by the civil government) as understood for centuries included the voluntary recitation of a non-denominational prayer. The deed was done.

In 2000, the Supreme Court continued perfecting its skill at misdirection by citing itself in a decision that created a new constitutional standard for the “establishment of religion.” In the case of Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, the majority held that student-led, voluntary, non-denominational prayer was “perceived” government sponsorship of prayer, thus a violation of the Establishment Clause. Further, the court held that any policy that made “nonadherents” feel like “outsiders” was unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court, in defiance of centuries of Anglo-Saxon law, the words of our own Founders, and the plain language of the Constitution itself, had in the course of about 80 years obliterated the Constitution and altered the proper relationship between government and religion. The next plank of the platform was carved from a phrase Thomas Jefferson likely never knew would be so wrested.

Everyone has heard the phrase “separation of church and state.” The anti-religious wail those words as a war cry against any “actual” or “perceived” influence of faith on government. As is evident from the analysis presented above, that phrase exists nowhere in the Constitution. It has its origins in a letter sent by our third President in response to one sent to him by a church in Connecticut.

As mentioned above, Connecticut maintained an established religion (the Congregational Church) until 1818. In 1801, members of the Baptist denomination in Danbury sent a letter to Thomas Jefferson, plaintively setting forth their difficulties at being an officially disfavored community of faith.

In his response, Jefferson sympathized with his correspondents and declared his hope that “their [Connecticut’s] legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”

Far from being advocacy of the relegation of religion to solitary confinement in the private sphere, Jefferson cites the Establishment Clause itself as the model for other legislatures. As President, and as a student of the law, Jefferson undoubtedly understood that the First Amendment applied those restrictions on Congress, not on the church. As a perhaps relevant bit of context, the day after Jefferson penned the letter to the Danbury Baptists (January 3), he attended a worship service conducted in the House of Representatives presided over by a Baptist minister. Hardly the behavior of a man opposed to the offering of prayer in a government venue.

So we see that despite efforts of the Supreme Court to redefine the borders of the First Amendment (and all other articles and amendments of the Constitution), the misunderstanding and misapplication of the clear language of the First Amendment, and the unjustified conflation of the “wall of separation” phrase in a private letter, there is no evidence that the Establishment Clause was included in the Constitution to prevent students from asking the Lord’s blessing over their food or from giving Him thanks for it. To the contrary, the Establishment Clause was written into our Constitution to prevent Congress from impinging upon that right.

Written by Joe Wolverton II, J.D.

Published by The New American magazine

Posted by Stephen T. McCarthy

As a dog returns to his own vomit,
so an atheist repeats his folly.
~ Proverbs 26:11

YE OLDE COMMENT POLICY: All comments, pro and con, are welcome. However, ad hominem attacks and disrespectful epithets will not be tolerated (read: "posted"). After all, this isn’t Amazon.com, so I don’t have to put up with that kind of bovine excrement.
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“THE VIEWS OF A MUSICIAN - YEAH, I’VE GOT SOME”

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ESPN changed the lock on our front door
Now my key don't fit no more …
Move over old dog ‘cause a new dog's movin' in

If you haven’t been following the poop-flinging, then here, in a nutshell, is what happened:

Bocephus, or Rockin' Randall (or “Hank Williams Jr.”, for those of you who ain’t “Country”) has been dumped from ESPN’s Monday Night Football program for making some anti-Obama / anti-Biden comments.

The Monday Night Football theme song, “Are You Ready For Some Football?”, is a reworked version of Hank Junior’s original Country song “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight”. It’s become almost an American anthem because it has opened the Monday Night Football games since . . . uh . . . I don’t know, maybe since about the time Howard Cosell died.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXyzuVk7SoI

In a recent Fox News interview, Bocephus said of Obama playing golf with House Of Representatives speaker Boehner: "It'd be like Hitler playing golf with (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu."

Bocephus also categorized Barack “USAP” Obama and Joe Biden as “the enemy."

For further details, you can click the headline below:

ESPN, HANK WILLIAMS JR. PART WAYS

According to the article linked above:

On his own website, Williams said he was the one who made the decision:

"After reading hundreds of e-mails, I have made MY decision," he wrote. "By pulling my opening Oct 3rd, You (ESPN) stepped on the Toes of The First Amendment Freedom of Speech, so therefore Me, My Song, and All My Rowdy Friends are OUT OF HERE. It's been a great run."

It seems that ‘Rowdy Rockin' Randall’ has yet to “settle down” :



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ieC3mKJ78A

So, you’re probably wondering what my take on this is. Actually, you’re probably wondering who the hell I am and what makes my opinion worth reading. Well, I’m a patriotic American, which is just another way of saying “an old school Constitutionalist”.

So, what do I think about ‘ESPN’ (‘Extra Sensitive Puszy Network’) dumping Bocephus? Were his First Amendment rights trampled?

Well, first of all, let me say that I was and still am a Bocephus fan. Hank Williams Jr. is one of only a small handful of Country-Western musicians I really like (and all of them “Old School”, by the way). I once saw Bocephus perform live at The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. I’ve always liked to say, “I think Bocephus was intoxicated on stage that night. But then again, perhaps I was the only drunk at The Greek.” (In truth, it was probably both of us. I had just come from "Margaritaville" [a.k.a. El Coyote Mexican Restaurant] and Bocephus was probably trying to balance on Jim’s Beam.)

Hank Junior has never made a secret of the fact that he's a musician with political views ("Yeah, I've got some."); he has even sung this fact . . .



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrXnDbOpxU4

But what of Hank Junior’s ‘First Amendment’ rights? Well, the truth of the matter is this: Bocephus had a Constitutional right to say what he said (even though equating almost anyone with Hitler is never a smart move), and the ‘Extra Sensitive Puszy Network’ had a right to dump him. Period. End of issue.

We makes our decisions, we exercises our rights, and we rides the wave of repercussions. It’s a good system.

Hank was right about this much: Barack “USAP” Obama and Joe Biden are indeed enemies of the traditional “American Way”:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seRJARhRUd8

I have no real problem with what Bocephus said. Yes, mentioning Obama and Hitler in the same sentence was not an intelligent chess move. But what disturbs me more, personally, is that he said of the GOP presidential candidates, the one he likes best is Herman Cain. Now, with Ron Paul being in the race, that was a really stupid statement! (More about my issues with Herman “Munster” Cain in an upcoming blog bit right here at ‘Ferret-Faced Fascist Friends’.)

He may have lost his Monday Night Football deal, and he may have proven his political naivete by half-heartedly endorsing Herman "Munster" Cain, but don’t you worry about Hank Williams Jr., because “A Country Boy Can Survive” . . .



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4s0nzsU1Wg

I was thinking of closing this blog bit with the statement (link -->), “If you don’t like Bocephus, you can kiss my ass!”

But then I saw what someone calling himself bamabrandon13 had posted on one of the YouTube videos I uploaded above, and I admitted to myself that I could never top its use at the bottom:

If You Voted For Obama To Prove You’re Not Racist, Then This Time Don't Vote For Him To Prove You’re Not Retarded.

~ Stephen T. McCarthy

YE OLDE COMMENT POLICY: All comments, pro and con, are welcome. However, ad hominem attacks and disrespectful epithets will not be tolerated (read: "posted"). After all, this isn’t Amazon.com, so I don’t have to put up with that kind of bovine excrement.
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I DON'T ALWAYS DRINK URINE, BUT WHEN I DO, I PREFER ‘DOS EQUIS’

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Back in my Bay Street Daze, if you had asked me to recommend one beer, I probably would have answered,
“I don’t know. But if you’re only going to have one beer, you might as well make it six Mickey’s”.



I didn’t know Diddley about beer back then. Like every stupid male, I probably thought I did though. Truth is, I knew less about beer than Bo knew about hockey.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjpSH8qJ7c4

To be honest, if you had asked me in 1982 what the best beer was, I probably would have said something like, “Heileman’s Special Export”.



Uhp! I was an idiot! But ‘Heileman’s’ still stood half a degree higher than the Coors Light that Nappy and the other League members generally drank.

Nowadays, Nappy and I both consider ourselves to be something resembling ‘beer connoisseurs’, which is just a ten-dollar way of saying “suds snobs”. We would no sooner touch a can of Coors Light or Heileman’s Special Export as touch your Grandma Gertrude.

So when people today ask me to recommend a beer, I usually say: “I won’t say unless you pay”.

I mean, come on! I spent a lot of money over the years and suffered through a lot of bad beers to achieve my extensive knowledge of beer, and why should I pass all that “extensivisity” on to others free of charge? Isn’t it enough I would save your taste buds from the bad-beer-experimentation process without asking me to do that for nuttin’?

Alright, alright, leggo my arm! Stop twisting it! I’ll say, I’ll say!

The beer-judging template that many adhere to these days goes like this: Look / Smell / Taste / Feel / Overall. So I will keep up with the Joneses by using the same format.

Today we’ll be rating Prescott Brewing Company’s ‘PONDEROSA I.P.A.’ (psst… I.P.A. stands for India Pale Ale, which is a particular type of ale). And here’s my take on it :



Look – It spills out of the can into the glass like a drunken blonde falling out of a limousine, and it forms a large, tightly curled head with the height of a 1975 afro. It’s a deep copper color, the shade of a four-times used but still unflushed urinal. As you consume the ale, the head leaves layers of heavy lacing, reminiscent of your Grandma Gertrude’s bedroom at the trailer park.

Smell - As you begin the pouring process, your nostrils are caressed by a scent best described as a damp dog on an Autumn day, wrapped in a moist wool blanket and left for 30 hours in the closed garage. The middle section reminds me of something smelled but not heard, and toward the end of your whiff, the odor softens out into that intoxicating convalescent home aroma of old flesh and ‘Evening In Pasadena’ perfume that excites your nasal cavity.

Taste – Up front, I noticed heavy notes of Yngwie Malmsteen followed by a hint of chuckberries and Bing cherries, culminating in a trace of Charlie McCarthy woodiness. There’s an astringent undertone of lima bean and things heard but seldom seen. This ale was unmistakably brewed with a generous portion of Harvey hops which gives it that bitter pill to swallow front-end bite, but in the middle I detect the tell-tale signs of mashed potatoes and gravy leftovers. It finishes clean but sharp, like a bullwhip to bare buttocks, with a faint lingering aftertaste of “penumbras, formed by emanations from” undigested bits of corn. For an IPA, it’s a little too balanced with the burnt Sherwood Forest marijuana, but it had “a nice, piquant after-dinner flavor; heady, but with just a touch of mellow smoothness.” (Although “it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘piquant’ is.”)

Feel – The mouthfeel has the usual 40-weight chewiness we’ve come to expect from ales of this style, but despite that, I was left with the impression that there’s no ‘there’ there. It also has a unique hair-on-the-back-of-the-throat sensation that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. The carbonation was fizzy but NOT too fizzy, and NOT not fizzy enough. In other words, it had just the right amount of carbonation fizz, but it could have lasted a second or two longer in the mouth which would have improved this ale’s tongue presentation – you know, like, tongue presentation?

Overall – As I clearly said above, this is an excellent India Pale Ale! It could have been improved only by less hops/marijuana balance, a little more ‘there’ there, and an extra second or two of fizz on the tongue. This is a brew that would go great with a hamburger or just a football game. Keep some on hand for when company calls or for when you’re done beating your wife for the day.

_   _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _

I hope you enjoyed that. But here’s the problem with satire:

You can’t make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you’re doing is recording it.
~ Art Buchwald

As a writer I’ve come up against a kind of wall that is starting to exist in America, which is that . . . there’s hardly anything left to parody. Almost anything you try to do satirically comes true within a few months.
~ Cathy Crimmins

If you think those quotes are incorrect, read some of the critiques of beer you’ll find by clicking the links I’m providing below. These are REAL beer reviews, and many of them are scarcely less exaggerated than the “parody” I composed above. I was attempting to be as ridiculous as possible, and yet the pretentiousness of these “serious” suds suckers is hardly any more over-the-top than what I wrote.

Here are the links, but even if you don’t Click ‘N’ Read ‘em, please be sure to scroll down further, as I have mo’ words to pour out into the glass of this subject:

PONDERSOSA IPA

DEANS BROTHERS ESB 6

DEANS BROTHERS IPA 7

O'DELL'S IPA

OLD NUMBSKULL

In all seriousness now, I want you to know that my brother Nappy and I both think that Prescott Brewing Company’s ‘PONDEROSA India Pale Ale’ is one of the best IPAs on the market today. Over the last 6 months we have conducted two blind taste tests, matching ‘PONDEROSA IPA’ against 6 or 7 similar high-quality microbrews, and both of us, both times - with eyes closed - picked out ‘PONDEROSA IPA’ as the winner.

Prescott Brewing Company’s ‘PONDEROSA IPA’ has a distinctive, very pronounced burst of hop bitterness, but it’s not taken to the “xtreme” as are some microbrew IPAs on the market today. In my opinion, it has a slightly too-heavy aftertaste; I would prefer that it finished more cleanly, not lingering quite so long. I have come to the conclusion that there’s no such thing as “the perfect beer”, however, the ‘PONDEROSA IPA’ comes about as close to that impossible standard as any I’ve found. Buy Prescott Brewing Company’s ‘PONDEROSA IPA’ wherever good buzzes are sold!
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From ‘Forgotten But Not Gone’ :
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FRASIER CRANE: “Dad, tell me if you think this is too subtle for my listening audience: This delightful offering is infused with the brooding, almost dangerous, presence of . . . vanilla”.
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MARTIN CRANE: “No, that’s not too subtle . . .  unless you want them to know what the hell you’re talking about”.
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FRASIER: “Well, you don’t think it’s clear that I enjoyed the wine?”
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MARTIN: “I don’t think it’s clear you’re talking about wine”.
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~ Stephen T. McCarthy

YE OLDE COMMENT POLICY: All comments, pro and con, are welcome. However, ad hominem attacks and disrespectful epithets will not be tolerated (read: "posted"). After all, this isn’t Amazon.com, so I don’t have to put up with that kind of bovine excrement.
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SPRAY YOUR TROUBLES AWAY!

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Yesterday I told you how I occasionally wake up some mornings with something inexplicable bouncing around in my mind; it might be a word, a new joke, a song lyric, etc. Once in awhile something I wake up with finds its way into one of my blog bits.

Well, it occurred again this morning. It's not often that this happens two mornings in a row. I would estimate that generally these freakish mental manifestations occur maybe 2 or 3 times per month.

But this morning, as my mind was ascending back to the conscious state, I found myself thinking of an imaginary product and I envisioned it being used on the desk in my bedroom :

Is your desk a bit cluttered as is mine? Well, now with the revolutionary new aerosol product .CLEAN SWEEP.., messes like this need not be tolerated!



Just one spraying of .CLEAN SWEEP.. and you can instantly transform this . . .



into this . . .



And .CLEAN SWEEP.. works equally well on bookcases, table tops, refrigerator doors, you name it!

Has your cat used the living room floor for a litter box again? Does your dog continue to urinate on the lawn jockey? It's no trouble at all! With just one spraying of .CLEAN SWEEP.. you can eliminate the crappy cat and the damnable dog forever!

.CLEAN SWEEP.. - it's available exclusively at the Hendrix & Joplin Drug Store near you!

[It's a mystery to me why I awoke this morning with this new product idea in my mind. The only possible clue I have is the fact that yesterday, after the Airheadzona Diamondbacks lost Game 1 of the National League Divisional Series to the Milwaukee Brewers, I had the thought: I hope the D'Backs don't get swept. But how an old baseball term got turned into an imaginary aerosol product, only my subconscious mind knows - and it ain't tellin'!]

~ Stephen T. McCarthy

YE OLDE COMMENT POLICY: All comments, pro and con, are welcome. However, ad hominem attacks and disrespectful epithets will not be tolerated (read: "posted"). After all, this isn’t Amazon.com, so I don’t have to put up with that kind of bovine excrement.

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YOU TELL ‘EM, MAMA!

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HiYa, Dudes and Dudettes, Doggs and Doggesses!
Didja miss me?

Yeah-Yeah, Sure-Sure. I’ll betcha say that to all the fellas.

Well, it’s been awhile now and let me see if I can ease myself back into the driver’s seat of this ablogmination.

I’ve related this to various people at various times, and perhaps I’ve even made mention of it on my blogs once or twice. But here’s the deal . . .

Periodically I will wake up in the mornings with something echoing in my mind. It might be a word, it might be a joke, and oftentimes it will be a song lyric. What makes the whole thing curious to me is that most of the time I have NO IDEA why what is bouncing around in my head is bouncing around in my head. If it’s a joke, it’s a joke I’ve never heard before. If it’s a word or song lyric, it’s one I have not encountered in quite some time. So it’s not as if I recently heard a song or word and now it’s stuck in my mind.

I'll give you an old example: One morning I woke up with the word "parallelogram" in my head. What the--?!

All that having been said, all that background information having been disseminated, it’s a mystery to me why I woke up this morning with the following song playing in my mind. But here you have it :



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO9SlNJHlsc

I hope to be back soon (maybe as soon as tomorrow) with some Suds Yak. Check in again, boys ‘n’ goils.

~ Stephen T. McCarthy

YE OLDE COMMENT POLICY: All comments, pro and con, are welcome. However, ad hominem attacks and disrespectful epithets will not be tolerated (read: "posted"). After all, this isn’t Amazon.com, so I don’t have to put up with that kind of bovine excrement.
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