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I wasn't saying those were all core values, just things I believe in. 

You know what gets me, is when Bush says this "Massachusetts liberal" bullshit...I don't know why Kerry doesn't develop a backbone and call him out on it.Ã,  Why's "liberal" a bad word?Ã,  Fuck that.Ã,  I'm liberal, and proud of it.Ã,  I'm from CONNECTICUT, another one of those eastern LIBERAL states, and I'm proud of it.Ã,  Gosh darn it, I even believe in crazy things like people should have the right to organize unions, corporate executives and management shouldn't make so much more money than I do, queer couples should have the legal right to marry, women should have the right to choose...and I'm proud of all those things.Ã,  It just gets me that so many of our democratic politicians shy away from the word "liberal", when it really stands for so many core values that most Americans believe in.

-Logan

What was the arguement that he ruined?

Allright, the last debate is behind us, and soon we can forget about this awful thread.Ã,  :'(

Did everybody see Bush lay the smack down on "ENGLAND"?Ã,  On a question regarding the flu vaccine, he said something like, "Well first of all, the product was manufactured in ENGLAND"....see, and I always thought Bush liked England for, you know, helping out in his wars of compassion.

That was another great line, he talked about his "armies of compassion."Ã,  Awesome.Ã,  Next stop, Ministry of Love.

And more importantly, what was with the spittle on Bush's lips for half the debate.Ã,  Very distracting.Ã,  You can see I take these things seriously.

I was in Wroclaw once and tried Zywiec, it wasn't bad!

I homebrew too!Ã,  Though I haven't done a batch in almost a year because I was traveling/unemployed.Ã,  The first batch I made tasted like stale vomit, but I later made a Robust Porter that tasted great.Ã,  I definitely like darker beers...Guiness is my favorite...in terms of other brews I really like Budvar Budweiser (the Czech brew, jaz, you're right, it's great!). Isegrim, I like Schneider too, but it was never my favorite wheat beer.Ã,  I always liked Franzikaner a lot.Ã,  When I lived outside of Hannover in high school, we used to go to the happy hour special at the Paulaner, they'd give you liter of great beer for something like three marks.Ã,  It was amazing.Ã, 

That's really interesting about Fosters.Ã,  Because the commericals they show over here say Fosters is "Australian for Beer".Ã,  It's everywhere over here (America).Ã,  I've been working in Iowa for the past five weeks and the only beer I could find were the American industrial brews, Heineken and Fosters.Ã,  What's that about?Ã,  I'm happy to be back in DC.

I remember I was in a german bar once and I was drinking a Fosters, and this Germanguy, who my friends tell me was hitting on me, said, "Fosters...hmmm...I sink it is an ugly bier."Ã,  Ã, I thought about it and said, "Yes, I also sink it is an ugly beer."

Very ugly.

Ok.  I know there are plenty "of age" people on this board that appreciate beer.  Right?  Come on.  Please? 

Beer is an acquired taste.  I like cider too though.  I made some homemade cider once with some regular old Mott's apple juice, and some beer yeast.  It didn't taste so bad. 

As a break from the rough and tumble DEBATE thread, I thought maybe we could each take a stand on beer.  For my part, I'd like to say: Isn't beer great?  I know this is a controversial opinion.

Now this isn't a drunk post.  I just seriously like beer.  Someone said in another thread that Australian beer is good.  I've only had Fosters, and I've heard that Fosters is a joke in Australia.  Is that true?  I don't really like it at all.  Name some good Australian beers.  Name some good English or Scottish beers.  I'd like to know.

And for everyone that wants to bash on American beer...yes, the big corporate beer companies produce crap, but there are some top notch micro brews and smaller company beers in America that will stand up to a lot of European brews. 

So, um, beer? Anybody?  Beer? 

Thanks for bringing me down to earth DG.  You're absolutely right.

Man, I wish I had the foresight to choose Faulkner1138 as my screen name. 

Poop, I'm happy that you can still view America as the land of opportunity from within your fancy house, in your gated community, while going to a fancy private school.Ã,  I'm sure it's a real struggle to get out of your finely appointed bed in the morning, knowing that those damn hippies want to take it all away from you!Ã,  I feel so bad for you!Ã,  You certainly are the victim in this situation.

No, wait...I hope you lose it all someday.Ã,  I hope you end up having to go to an underfunded public school system that lost its accredidation.Ã,  I hope your single mom has to work three jobs to put food on the table (you have a single mom in this scenario).Ã,  I hope you never have the opportunity or money to go to college.Ã,  I hope you live in a depressed town where your only employment opportunities will be in the form of a paper hat and golden-arches adorned apron.Ã,  Then I wonder if you'll still view America as the land of opportunity.

Sure, anybody can work hard, fund themselves to go to school (like me with six digit debt), and then maybe find some kind of high-paying job depending upon their major.Ã,  But you see, most people in this country have SEVERE obstacles in there way...obstacles that you will never have to face.Ã,  Obstacles like poverty, poor educational opportunities, no health care, high unemployment, underemployment.Ã,  No, barring your parents getting cancer and you being a complete idiot, you're on the fast track to success.

So in summation, I'm sure you're going to keep thinking that this is a perfect world without problems where anyone can just strike it rich, but please observe this tiny request: don't bitch to the rest of us about how your poor daddy has to pay taxes.  It's just insulting.Ã,  Ã,  Ã, 

-Logan

And do you seriously think everybody has 200k to spend on a second house?Ã,  Are you fucking nuts?Ã,  You must think the rest of the world consists of idiots who just don't properly invest.Ã,  Dumbass, most people in this country live paycheck to paycheck.Ã,  You see, only the rich actually have the money to get richer.Ã,  Ã, 

Sorry Andail, I tried not to respond to all this, but I couldn't resist.

He's got to be joking, right?  Is this another april fool's joke?  CJ?  Are you trying to make a fool of us yet again?

Wow, what other leader/country does this sound like? :

A. A strongly opinionated leader
B. Massive military spending
C. Tension with other nations
D. Self-imposed problems blamed on said "other nations" which unites people against common threat

I like to eat puppies.

How does it relate to the President at all?  Because the Justice Department drafted the Patriot ACT.  John Aschcrofts's Justice Department....get it?  Viet Dinh, who was a top assistant to Aschcroft was the chief architect of the document.  Get it?  It wasn't written by Congress, it was written by the administration.

DGMacphee: I guess the previous sentence I quoted from you confused me. Ã, I agree with nearly everything you're saying here. Ã, There's no doubt that FOX is a super biased media entity, and they're popularity will influence the public. Ã, I'm just saying that not everyone who watches it necessarily believes it. Ã, I have a ton of friends who watch FOX news because it's entertaining, but would never in a million years believe the crap they spew. Ã, It's like Rush Limbaugh and right wing radio...it's popular because it's abrasive, not neccessarily because people are sympathetic (though plenty are).

I also agree with you regarding your gatekeeper argument. Ã, I was just sharing the "facts" as I've read them. Ã, I'm certainly not one of your "the media is liberal" people. Ã, I believe it's the exact opposite.

And regarding Roots...look...it was late at night and I was fucking tired. Ã, So my analogy wasn't all that great. Ã, Man, get off my back! Ã, 

Journalism student, aye? Ã, I was a political science/international affairs student...in my day...

Instead of ranting at LostTravler, I'll respond to DGMacphee:

My opinion: FOX has a bigger audience, so there's a greater right-wing bias.

The size of a station's audience has little to do with whether or not it's reporters and staff are biased.Ã,  It just reflects how popular the station is.Ã,  It doesn't even neccesarily reflect the bias of the audience.Ã,  If that were the case, would everyone who watches say, "Roots" be supporters of slavery?Ã,  I hope not.Ã,  Maybe that's a wierd example, but I suspect the attraction to Fox News is that it's news-er-tainment.Ã,  It's not dry, factual, or based in reality like other "news" programs...it's just an endless barrage of baseless opinion and ranting.Ã,  Like proffesional wrestling.

Regarding the actual breakdown of political affiliations/bias among the media...the polls that I've seen (I don't know the numbers off the top of my head) showed that most media outlet owners (and they are increasingly small in numbers) are largely conservative.Ã,  Polls among actual reporters show that while they are mostly liberal regarding social issues, they are quite conservative regarding economic issues.

Woh, I so feel like going into a rant, but damnit, it's just not worth it.

I don't think that the republican party controls the media, I think it's more about access and the nature of the 24-hour news cycle.  Karl Rove and company know how the media works, and have worked it to their advantage.  Reporters need inside contacts, they want to be able to get interviews with members of the administration.  To get that access, they can't ask sensitive questions that the administration doesn't want to answer.  It's like in that movie by Alexandra Pelosi, when she was traveling with the Bush primary campaign...she had a nice relationship with Bush until she asked a tough question about the death penalty...then he stopped talking to her.  She felt the pressure from her bosses to have access to him, so she had to change the kind of questions asked.

So in terms of access, the administration knows that it can drop a reporter or paper from the loop if necessary.  As a result, the media has stopped asking tough questions.

Furthermore, with the 24 news cycle, reporters don't fact check.  They just report as fact whatever the administration or their talking heads say.  They're in such a rush to report the next story to keep up with the other channels, journalism has suffered.

When the media stops asking questions, then we're really screwed.

-Logan

By and by, there's a great article in the New York Times today about the aluminum tubes that the administration so often cited as evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program...turns out they knew as far back as 2001 that they're weren't used for nukes but for normal missiles.

By the way, is there such a thing as a Scottish jig?