Sometimes its fun when another successful Saturday without any effort on my part whatsoever, just comes together.
This is my review of Brouwerij Alvinne Land Van Mortagne:
The Jacobins are going to Jacobin…
Big Alcohol is one of the most powerful and profitable industries in the world — yet this constellation of massive corporations, lobby groups, and governments faces almost no scrutiny for the immense health and social harms it causes.
Like climate change is to fossil fuels and lung cancer is to cigarettes, these countless alcohol-related harms — cancer, organ failure, traumatic injury, dependency — are a direct result of Big Alcohol’s thirst for profits. Now, it is fighting make alcohol even less regulated, and cheaper, stronger, and more ubiquitous, as it expands into the Global South and seeks even higher returns.
A more comprehensive review of the book is available here at Jacobin (where else?). The main argument is alcohol is a social pariah at its core. While they aren’t technically wrong about that, they ignore any social benefit it has and focus on alcoholism as the result of poor economic conditions:
Here, Wilt puts forward a radical solution to avert total breakdown and ease the collective malaise: regulate drugs and sell them through licensed providers, and curb Big Alcohol’s profit-seeking. “The only reason that alcohol feels so inevitable in terms of its consumption is because so few options are easily available,” he notes. “The point with all of this is not to eliminate alcohol but to provide genuine alternatives to its use, whether it’s low and non-alcoholic beverages, synthetic alcohol, or other psychoactive drugs . . . Public ownership and control will allow for many other pleasurable and lower-risk alternatives to be developed.”
They not even hiding it anymore.
They argue the bad economy exasperated by the pandemic has given us clues to population behavior that can be applied to similar conditions related to population decline, climate change, or whatever stupid solutions to the contrived boogieman government figures come up with to screw over entire nations in the future. It ultimately leads to feelings of isolation, which drives people to drink. This in turn is picked up by the seedy capitalists in the intoxicating beverage industry who will respond to economic incentives and sell more…maybe even advertise the fact they have more booze for sale.
The horror.
Perhaps the isolation and feeling of despair is the result of actual isolation imposed by the same people now coming up with soft prohibition as “the solution?” As experiments on rats in the 1970’s have shown, the presence of drugs does not imply abuse of drugs is inevitable. The researchers found when the rats are isolated in a small cage and given the choice of water with heroin, or without they choose the heroin—and dose themselves to death. Give them a significantly larger cage with physical contact with other rats, better suited to their natural environment—they still pick the heroin but not to the point it kills them or completely inhibits their ability to fully function in their environment. Simply put, whether physical or mental: stop locking people in cages.
What is old is new again it seems. The same way the temperance movement has its roots in Baptist churches and simply coopted later by early 20th Century Progressives and suffragettes, right wing commenters (I’ll let you look them up) extolling the virtues of putting down the bottle as a societal good is being argued alongside actual communists. Totalitarians never change, and to them I say: fuck off.
This is a beer I picked up from Rare Beer Club, and apparently is an exclusive to their distribution network. Not quite an amber quadruppel ale, they classify this as a Flemish Sour Ale. Which makes sense because the brewery is located in the Flanders region. It medium to full bodied, not particularly carbonated but very complex in flavor. Is it sour? Yes, but not to the point where it is a cruel joke, and is counterbalanced by dark fruit. All in all I would certainly get it again should I ever come across it. Ever. 12.5% abv, pair it with roasted or cured meats heavy meals. Brouwerij Alvinne Land Van Mortagne: 4.5/5
“Sometimes its fun when another successful Saturday without any effort on my part whatsoever, just comes together.”
You love it when a plan comes together?
No. TPTB tried an A-Team conversation once, and we got hung up on non-stop arguments on the Col. being Swiss or the Old Man, Murdock being Mad Scientist and myself, Face being me (I.am.not.Face), and Baracus being Warty and HM.
We shouldn’t go down that road.
“synthetic alcohol”
This isn’t Star Trek.
After what Scottie went through, thank goodness.
“Totalitarians never change, and to them I say: fuck off.”
I’ll drink to that!
Puritans and temperancers shriek.
*hic*!
Seriously. These people are so wrong about everything I can’t even. They’re like from opposite-world.
#metoo
I have an Irish coffee.
It’s the whole utopian thing. They’re all assholes.
If I can’t make poor decisions, I don’t really want to live anymore.
a direct result of Big Alcohol’s thirst for profits.
Blah blah blah profitz is de DEBBIL!
So fucking tedious.
Such clever.
“12.5% abv”
Wow.
12.8!
4.5/5!
It’ll get ya drunk!
“It gets the job done.”
+1 Colt .45
On holidays, I often enjoy big beers like that.
Yesterday I had Bravo 2017 from Firestone Walker, an Imperial Brown Ale at 13.2% abv. Later that night I had Old Jetty 2019, a barrel aged barleywine from El Segundo Brewery, also 13.2% abv.
Closed out the night with a homebrewed imperial stout with vanilla beans, at a slightly lower 10.5% abv.
“The point with all of this is not to eliminate alcohol but to provide genuine alternatives to its use, whether it’s low and non-alcoholic beverages, synthetic alcohol, or other psychoactive drugs . . . Public ownership and control will allow for many other pleasurable and lower-risk alternatives to be developed.”
The point is to control other people.
These folks never talk about the quality of life benefits of being left the hell alone.
We must control the opiate of the masses!
Rocky Mountain High! A few weeks back I took a walk in the woods with my hunting partner.
Looking at the trees, I told him I’d already found heaven. No neighbors that I can see, rarely hear unless they’re target shooting.
I’ll also add that we have an establishment culture that says “I want to boss random strangers around” is completely normal and even praiseworthy, while “I want to be left alone” is somehow strange and illogical.
I dare say that the ratio of people who want to be left alone to people who want to boss others around is minuscule. It’s human nature for “me” to not want people to do things that make “me” unhappy or uncomfortable. It’s also human nature to want boundaries and to be told what to do and not do.
And I’m not even saying that’s a bad thing. Given a world of choices, not having to think about what one is not allowed to/shouldn’t do has its advantages. Societal mores exist for a reason and that’s usual through trial and error of what’s best for a thriving, healthy society.
A society of “leave me alone”rs would only really work with a large number of people with integrity who are responsible citizens. See: hoarders v code enforcement. We as a society don’t know how to deal with people like that, so we appoint someone else to make rules that will somewhat enforce societal mores. If anything, the comments on that article tell me even WE Glibs don’t know how to solve that problem.
Agreed. And alcohol has been socially acceptable in many places for hundreds (thousands?) of years.
Then commies come along and say, nope. They want to rebuild man in some utopian image that has never existed and never will. They don’t care about mores – they just want to “smash” everything.
On point, every word. That’s where the difficulty comes from.
I’m not really trying to be devil’s advocate. I just don’t know how to keep this tide from going leftward.
“I just don’t know how to keep this tide from going leftward.”
Deterrence like a really well armed voluntary community.
Thousands would be correct (even for young Earth creationists). The people saying this also seem to believe they’ll still have access to the items they want, because who could be against those items?
At least they won’t have to worry about roads, at that point
human nature for “me” to not want people to do things
And that is all the reason I need to hate humankind, even though there are persons that I do like.
points taken, like the ratio of people who want to be left alone to people who want to boss others around is minuscule yup, no doubt
A society of “leave me alone”rs would only really work with a large number of people with integrity who are responsible citizens. See: hoarders v code enforcement.
Okay, but who needs society?
We as a society don’t know how to deal with people like that, so we appoint someone else
Okay, but who needs society when I know how to deal all by my lonesome. Here’s the crux: society doesn’t deal with anything anyway (**scrapes hobo shit off my shoe**)…it’s all tax and switch. Punks run over everyone and cops don’t even answer the phone: who needs a society like that?
Let me buy 100 acres and chill with twenty families who think the same way and get rooftop Korean on it and we will be better off than I am today. Everyone would be.
Society circa industrial revolution was great; now it’s morphed into a talker’s scam. I wish I had enough years left to try something that might work and escape what clearly doesn’t anymore.
“Society circa industrial revolution was great”
There’s a lot more truth to that than most people know or are willing to learn/accept.
There’s no rational reason it can’t happen again in communities of similar size (still lots of space to spread out).
Tom Woods is right about the Gilded Age, and he’s right about it being time for a national divorce.
Ted’S gets it.
Progressivism is a constant search for finding the one weird trick that is the cause of all social ills, and then banning it, thus achieving utopia.
Unrelated, you said Steel was tomorrow at 1pm?
Yup!
👍
Preach, Ted.
Brooks’d it.
All we ask is to be left alone
I hope I can pay off my debts soon, so I can go up with my brother to look at land in North Florida. Surrounded by 40 acres, I won’t have to care what my neighbors are doing. But that’s likely a long way off.
Also, since you’re here, let me linkthis. I think it predates you, but you must have heard it growing up. Also, Ted S (and anyone else). Mr. Sandman.
Me and the Chordettes, all the way to the senior prom.
Thanks, Penguin
We should be up by more than 7, goddammit.
😃
Good to know our corners still fucking suck ass.
Well, looks like you shouldn’t have said anything…
MARVIN!!!!!!
We should be up by 10 at least. Probably by 17. Our defensive backs are keeping those skunk-weasel fucks in the game.
TTUN up 4 and driving. May take a miracle.
Fuck this shit. Our staff doesn’t get it.
Clemson also in trouble.
We’re done. Fuck this shit.
Could be worse, you could be a Mexico fan too.
I may have to send my sister over for a wellness check on my dad.
You’re a lucky man, sloop.
That beer sounds gorgeous
Yeah, pretty much my dream beer, except during summer.
Happy (slightly late) Birthday to Abigail Adams!!
Here’s part of one of her letters to husband John Adams in 1776.
TO be fair, all ladies would be tyrants too if they could.
I’ve mentioned it here before, but when I was watching Ingrid Bergman’s first movie back in her native Sweden in the mid-1930s, there’s a scene of two men talking about their ration books for hard alcohol. This made me look up whether Sweden had tried alcohol prohibition, where I found out the country had a non-binding referendum on the subject in, I think, 1922. The result was not to ban alcohol, by a 51-49 margin.
But for some reason, men and women voted separately. Men voted about 59-41 to keep alcohol legal, while women voted 59-41 to ban it.
I had no idea you were so old. Nor that you’ve spent time in Sweden.
🤪
🤔
Abigail Adams said all men would be tyrants if they could, which is why I used “all” for the distaff side.
My bad. Clearly I don’t know my history well enough.
Part of that is that women historically have not been required or even asked to think rationally.
When emotions are indulged, women will vote foolishly overall. There are obviously exceptions.
Usually when you break down the women’s vote, married women tend to vote just like “most” men, while single women (whether mothers or not) vote just like single men. In other words, like people who want Big Daddy government to take care of them.
Abigail was by no means woke or “tyrant-y.” If you see her other writings, she wanted women to be able to inherit land, leave their land and possession to whomever they designated in their wills, and not have to get male family permission to marry.
In other words, “fuck off, slavers”.
It’s been a while since I read much on AA but my recollection is that she was not in favor of women voting or running for office. I stand to be corrected on that though.
You are correct sir. Property rights, including over her own person, were her focus.
For the record, I avoid churches with female pastors. Not saying “THERE SHOULD BE A LAW!!” but that’s my preference, for a number of reasons.
We won’t attend a church that does not allow for the ordination of women and women as elders. My wife has spent 20 years busting her butt for her local church only for a succession of pastors to refuse to allow women any real voice of leadership in the church. Most recently, the current pastor hired a half-time (female) Director of family life who counseled people, led bible studies, etc., but whom he categorically refused to allow call herself pastor. Even for tax purposes.
Oops, which is not to say you’re wrong in what you choose; just offering our current perspective FWIW
No problem! I was the head of the church council for about a decade in minnesota, and that worked out great. I just happened to be organized and able to lead council meetings efficiently, and also draft bylaws, run the annual meetings, deal with difficult issues.
I think my avoidance to churches with female pastors (as in, the actual preachers andleaders) is based on my experiences wherein the female pastor fosters a greater progressive agenda and “feminization” of the church, including watering down the scriptures.
I believe there are some good female pastors, and I’ve heard some good sermons and bible studies led by women, but it just ain’t for me overall. Maybe it’s partly because I had 2 stepsons and I wanted them to see a male Christian leader.
I also told my husband it’d be best if he led the pre-meal “grace” prayer to help set the example. He still does it to this day, and it’s been good for him and for me.
Do I know more about the bible than he does? Yes. But it was still right for us.
she wanted women to be able to inherit land, leave their land and possession to whomever they designated in their wills
They could, if they were unmarried. Feme Sol vs. Feme Covert.
I have a vague memory that New York, in 1771, passed a law limiting what a husband could do with property a wife brought into a marriage. While the English Common Law provision of feme covert still applied (i.e. the property was the husband’s on marriage), he required her permission before he could sell it. Judges would meet in private with wives as an attempt to ensure her permission was not coerced.
A little more: English Common Law, starting in the 13th century or possibly Time Immemorial, held that husbands had to provide for their wives in the event of the husband dying first. A husband could will her property to be hers (i.e. she owned it since she was, after his death, feme sol) or the estate had to provide her rights to part of the estate (something similar to a modern trust with the widow as a beneficiary).
I have a vague memory that statutes watered this down in the run-up to the 19th century.
Simply put, whether physical or mental: stop locking people in cages.
But then how would Progressives be Progressives?
The beer sounds good.
While running errands this morning, I saw a double masker in the wild at a store I was at. I also saw him get into his car and drive away. He was alone in his car.
Drove along a toll road last week – fairly rare in my part of flyover country. The toll collector in the booth was wearing a mask.
I’d give them their own island or maybe even a planet. Leave cameras around the settlement and film it as a reality show.
Now that I think of it, this sounds like a South Park episode.
I like the ambiguity of your response.
The same way the temperance movement has its roots in Baptist churches and simply coopted later by early 20th Century Progressives and suffragettes, right wing commenters (I’ll let you look them up) extolling the virtues of putting down the bottle as a societal good is being argued alongside actual communists.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
Them sounds like fighting words!
So this is kind of interesting, and relevant to our recent discussions about parties, RCV, etc.
Comic strips honor Charles Schulz’s 100th birthday:
https://schulzmuseum.org/tribute/
A nice lineup (Yay Agnes!!!) but I’m sorry they couldn’t drag Watterson out of retirement for the occasion.
No Gary Larson or Berkeley Breathed either. Even more tragically, no triumphant one-day return of Cathy.
I was hoping against hope to see him in that list. I even went to his website, but nothing
Watterson has come out of retirement a couple of times. Once to fill in for Pearls Before Swine, and another for the documentary Stripped.
I hope he gets to celebrate it with the red haired girl.
Going to take a crack at these Thanksgiving eggroll thingies. Pray for me.
Alright, I’ll Pray for Mojo.
Not worth the work. Also I had the oil too hot there at the last ao the outside of the wrapper was crispy but the inside of the wrapper was raw.
Today in stupidity.
TL;DR – shut up whitey
It’s good to learn the deaf community also has wokesters.
Yeah – just ask some of the most
vocal…umm… assertive advocates for deaf culture about cochlear implants.[much really furious handwaving]
I’ll never understand that. Do they really think their identity is solely defined and dependent upon being deaf?
Wut?
Forgive me if I’m a bit skeptical when anti-alcohol crusaders propose other psychoactive drugs as the solution.
And I’m not a chemist, can someone explain to me how synthetic alcohol is OK but the organic stuff is trayf? Unless by synthetic they mean methanol (Zardoz approved).
Also, fuck off slavers.
The point is to commie. The gibberish in support of that doesn’t matter.
“…and sell them through licensed providers..”
I think I see your 1st problem. Unless the author intend to ca$h in on that.
They’re expecting the Star Trek synthahol to go along with the post scarcity economy.
1) Develop free power
2) ????
3) New Soviet Man comes forth
Do we all have to wear ST:TNG onesies in the future, too?
Hmm… I believe Mrs. Patzer would look quite fetching in one of those.
Those were only for those in the service, a couple of episodes did show civilian clothes. Which were also terrible.
I always liked that Babylon 5 showed the off-duty officers and enlisted guys wearing blue jeans when they were just hanging out.
HS gets it.
I’m starting to lose interest in this game. What sort of dumb mistake will the Buckeyes make this time?
75 yd TD run qualifies.
Would you believe 85 yards? /Maxwell Smart
Missed it by that much.
And tOSU is done.
I woke up for this?
There’s still time.
THE other OSU (Oklahoma State) laid an egg too. Maybe their fates are linked.
Next up is the other, OTHER OSU: Oregon State.
Maybe they can break the OSU curse.
After a somewhat promising start…
Neve mind.
Michigan is making it UGLY now.
There’ll be no joy in Sloopville.
Day needs to go. stroud needs to move on. Fuck his shit.
Jimbo Fisher might be available.
Well, Joe Woods and Mike Priefer may be available next year…
Somebody needs to check on Sloopy
Hang on, Sloopy…
Tosu *and* Mexico both got their asses kicked.
Not a bad outcome.
Mortagne? Sounds fancy.
LET’S GO BLUE!!
Is that block, rock or Morton’s table?
Why not all 3
I think sloop is salty enough as is.
Just a reminder that the weekend Holiday Zoom is still up and running, I’m getting ready to head downtown to eat some BBQ, drink some beer, see Mr. Jingeling, and see a tree lighting.
Sounds like a cult.
Which one sounds like a cult? The Keeper of the Keys?
Ya, the Jingling fellow.
It’s a local tradition that started back in the 50’s.
Cult confirmed.
I’m up for some zooming. I am still slightly sober.
I’ll join up later maybe
I got a bottle of The Kraken
Here, Wilt puts forward a radical solution to avert total breakdown and ease the collective malaise
Get back to me when the proposed solution involves more freedom, instead of less.
The sad reality about humankind is, more freedom is an aberration. And most people prefer comforting lies to reason that is cold and uncaring.
Freedom’s just another word for having experts and Top Men make all decisions on your behalf.
Great article MS. I’d like to try that beer but it doesn’t sound like I will ever see it.
Inna Godda Da Vita
Sorry, that was contextless.
I wrapped up a game I’d been playing, and one of the last enemies was “Iron Moth” And now I’ve got music stuck in my head.
There’s much worse songs to have stuck in your head. Ted’s will probably be along with one any moment now
Ooh, I got one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMLMxpckpS4
Why?! WHY?!?!?!
???
Sooo… I gather you found your corkscrew and opened your bottle of kinnath’s mead?
Nope. ‘fraid not.
Push the cork into the bottle.
I will not.
I have to right tool for this job… somewhere.
I had a bottle of Irish whiskey which had a cork. The cork came apart, and while trying to get the rest of the cork out, I accidentally pushed it into the bottle.
It constantly got stuck in the neck making pouring a pain in the ass.
Not a pain in the neck?
It was that too.
You just need to pour faster. 🧐
Trick I was taught on that: cover the top with foil to stop evaporation. Everytime you pour, run it through an unbleached coffee filter to keep the cork out.
Time to go back to Maine and forge yourself one.
Then your current one will turn up.
I actually asked my blacksmithing instructor about forging corkscrews when I was there (we’d made so many bottle openers by that point, it seemed appropriate) I forget exactly why he said it wasn’t a good project for beginners.
“You too, snitchy.”
I fondled a Girsan P35 today. Mushy safety and overly stiff trigger. Passed on it.
Looked good though and the slide to frame for was very nice.
Not for…fit.
Irene Cara is dead.
So much for living forever.
Now there’ll never be a DC Cab II.
RIP.
Big10 commish sucks entire state’s worth of dicks.
Minnesota (U of) has only 15 seconds left to blow their lead against Wisconsin. Can they do it?
A little something to get your blood boiling.
https://open.substack.com/pub/openthebooks/p/agitate-agitate-agitate-militarys?r=xh92y&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Why would I want that?
Are they trying to make sure the US will never win a war again?
Because this is how you lose all the southern boys and salt-of-earth types who used to be the backbone of the fighting force.
This ridiculous Chief of DEI for DoD education is even worse than the woke Disney-style animated recruiting videos.
I didn’t make it through the first paragraph before my blood started boiling:
$52,000 per kid. Nothing. Left. To. Cut.
Also from google – 15,000 employees who serve 71,000 children so one employee for every 5 kids.
You expect someone to educate 5 kids for only $250,000/year?
They would need to pay me millions to do that
As opposed to 30 students + per pupil
Huh not all of em. Mine went to normal public school
Yeah, the air base near me has sent their middle and high-school kids into the nearby city for as long as I can remember. I assume it’s the same at many other basses around the country.
I wonder if they give the local districts any extra money when they send military kids to their schools.
Radical, racist Marxism doesn’t come cheap.
One more reason to hate Tom Brady.
Tom Woods interviews Jay Bhattacharya about the recent SoHo debate on lockdowns.