I noticed the Russian guy that ran a small convenience store in my neighborhood sold the store to a new guy a few months back.  The new guy is cool, but I can’t call him the Russian guy at the A-1 store.

This is my review of Robinson’s Trooper Fear of the Dark English Stout:

So how cool is the new guy?  He bought out most of the existing inventory from the Russian guy and rearranged the aisles to have an additional counter in the center of the store as you walk in.  The inventory?  Its mostly crack pipes and other drug paraphernalia.  Granted recreational marijuana is legal in AZ so his variety of bongs is no longer a legal issue.  But how does one sell crack pipes when crack is illegal?

There is nothing illegal about owning a glass tube, right?  The crack-cocaine is illegal not the pipe, and none will be the wiser since he set up a Bitcoin ATM in the store.  No, I haven’t used the ATM yet.

Which brings us to this Snopes article where they initially explain it is “mostly false” the government is giving away crack pipes.

What’s False

This was just one of around 20 components of the grant program and far from its most prominent or important one, despite being the primary focus of outraged news reports. The purpose of the program was to reduce harm and the risk of infection among drug users, not to advance racial equity, although that was a secondary consideration.

Right.  They continue to argue…

While the reporting around this document focused almost exclusively on “crack pipes,” it could just as easily have focused on the infectious disease testing, naloxone provision, or even sterilized syringe distribution required of grant recipients. Disapproving news articles zeroed in on the safe smoking kits not because of the prominence given to them in the grant description itself, but simply because it allowed them to include “crack pipes” in their headlines.

Its almost like arguing they never explicitly funded drone bombing weddings in Yemen because they were really just funding 1000 other things related to the War on Terror.

Snopes updated their rating on this a day later to “outdated” after HHS put out a statement saying:

HHS and ONDCP are focused on using our resources smartly to reduce harm and save lives. Accordingly, no federal funding will be used directly or through subsequent reimbursement of grantees to put pipes in safe smoking kits…

That’s a relief.  It gets better because after this was updated progressive groups are now complaining they are NOT giving away crack pipes in the safe smoking kits.  In the meantime, I will continue to purchase beer and other sundries from this guy since I am operating under the premise Team Brandon is about to drop the bottom out of the gray market for glass tubes by distributing “free” crack pipes to every American.

 

But this guy does have an interesting variety of beer in the cooler.  This one in particular for all the Iron Maiden fans out there will probably be a bit disappointed.  Its..okay.  I thought it was kind of flat and didn’t really have much to go on.  Its not really sweet like a milk stout, but doesn’t quite get to the dry (Irish) variety either.  Its just blah.  Which is fine if you are looking for blah.  In the realm of food and drink, the British do blah remarkably well.  When they venture down the rabbit hole of blah they get hilarious, sometimes disastrous results.  So in that sense this is perfect.  I just find it fitting Bruce Diskinson put his name behind it, because like everything else Iron Maiden related today, its just coasting on its well-earned nostalgia. Robinsons Trooper Fear of the Dark English Stout: 2.8/5