I'll have to remember to try Macallan the next time I buy a bottle of hooch. For the money I don't think you can beat regular old Bushmill's. Last I saw, a fifth was priced around $22.00 American, and yet it tastes better than most whiskeys twice the price. Maybe you wouldn't care for Irish whiskey because they almost never use peat.

Back to the smoky variety, the best in that category IMHO is still Jack Daniel's. The difference between it an bourbon is that JD is charcoal filtered before it's casked. That mellows it some, yet still leaves distinctive character. All Tennessee whiskey is charcoal filtered, but Jack Daniel's is the best. It's a very popular brand for a reason.
In reply to this comment by Fusionaut:
Ahhh, I love the smokiness of scotch, but there are some scotches that have more sherry-like flavours than the peaty flavours. Aberlour's Abunudh is a nice one that only has a hint of peat. If you can get your hands on a MaCallan that's a really nice whiskey with no smoke at all.

Anyways, I'll see if I can taste some of that Gibson's or Wiser's soon. We can compare notes
In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
Really? I kid about Canadian whiskey - Crown Royal, Pendleton, and Tangle Ridge are all great tasting, and even regular old Canadian Club and VO are pleasing to my palate. I know there are a few people out there who dismiss Canadian whiskey because they claim it's too 'light' in flavor, and for the cheap shit that's true. But a glass of good Canadian hooch, especially the higher end stuff like Gibson's and Wiser's, can stand toe to toe with whiskey made anywhere else on Earth, IMHO.

Scotch and bourbon both taste too smoky to me, but they'll do if there's nothing else around.
In reply to this comment by Fusionaut:
Lol, I've only had bourbon once and it didn't really impress me. I still haven't had any Canadian whiskey. Weird, eh?

I know bourbon is sweeter than scotch, but then a cup of black coffee is sweeter than scotch too. However, all bourbon is aged in charred oak barrels, and that does give it a hint of smoky flavor, which my sensitive palate can detect. That's why if I have to drink an American whiskey made mostly from corn I'll drink Tennessee whiskey, like Jack Daniels, because it's charcoal filtered. That helps remove a little more of the smoky flavor.

Fuck Kentucky and their fucking bourbon - unless I'm on a jag and there's nothing else around. I'll drink girly peppermint schnapps before bourbon, and that sweet, syrupy shit is pretty damn low on my list.
In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Now I know you're a Yankee. Bourbon isn't typically smokey. What bourbon are you drinking? It's typically made from mash and is sweeter.

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
Really? I kid about Canadian whiskey - Crown Royal, Pendleton, and Tangle Ridge are all great tasting, and even regular old Canadian Club and VO are pleasing to my palate. I know there are a few people out there who dismiss Canadian whiskey because they claim it's too 'light' in flavor, and for the cheap shit that's true. But a glass of good Canadian hooch, especially the higher end stuff like Gibson's and Wiser's, can stand toe to toe with whiskey made anywhere else on Earth, IMHO.

Scotch and bourbon both taste too smoky to me, but they'll do if there's nothing else around.
In reply to this comment by Fusionaut:
Lol, I've only had bourbon once and it didn't really impress me. I still haven't had any Canadian whiskey. Weird, eh?

It's like 52 pickup after-Aerial pinata with an after-dose of a potassium nitrate, charcoal, and sulfur cloud ready for an army of eager Boy Scouts to breathe.

That ain't oil. Looks like clay, or even charcoal. Clay is often used to control erosion on beaches susceptible to it. I suppose nobody saw this massive cover-up operation or got pictures of it either. Did the perpetrators also spread driftwood and other detritus over the top to make it look "natural"? Looks like they even hit some choice spots with a fire hose to make it look like natural erosion, eh?

"Different pattern in the sand"? Wasn't there just a huge storm (Alex) passing through this week? Those booms look like erosion control to me. Storms can take and deposit large amounts of sand to a beach. Not everything is a frickin' conspiracy. What is happening in the gulf is a tragedy, and deserves all the outrage one can muster, but this type of brain-dead "journalism" is only leading the blind to battles that don't exist. It's a guy on a beach with a camera. Are you going to believe it's oil just because this shitwit says it is? Pick some up, camera guy. Rub it between your fingers on camera so we can all get a good look. Does it smell like oil? Does it smell like anything? Does it burn? If so, what color is the smoke? What color and kind of residue does it leave? Did you even collect some so it could be tested/verified by an expert? Unfortunately, Billy "Scoops" Batson here has already decided that it's oil, and so should you.

Move along. Nothing to see here.

I dont know if I should till anymore charcoal from the fire-pit, into the garden anymore. I did put a good pound of it in a week ago. I do have this plethora of charcoal from the pit of fire.

How are people not voting for this? I especially like the miniature violence of the disintegrating charcoal -- fragmenting and flying apart like earth under the guns.

I absolutely love this film. It's beautiful and terrifying (the space stuff is scary, being so cold and alone. When Pinbacker goes nuts, that part's not scary it's just kind of frustrating).

I wish it didn't go all Event Horizon in the third act, but still. People who want to denigrate it for the sci-fi conceit are idiots. Yes it seems a bit preposterous knowing that even the entire mass of the earth splashing into the sun would be exactly like tossing a bit of charcoal into a nuclear reactor core. But I think there is just enough said and shown in the movie to support the notion that they're using technology far beyond what we know.

And for the record, I also love Event Horizon for what it is. Every film is different and so long as the film is true to itself I will let it stand on its own merits.

What's the point of using photoshop to create an effect (pencil/charcoal) when you could use the original medium? Regardless - this was immensely well done, and no doubt took a long time to complete, what with the level of detail therein.. but still, I'd be more impressed if it was done with an actual pencil.

I guess all the wild-lands caught fire before the fed, charcoal must of been a lot cheaper back then. Thank goodness we have the fed to manage to keep out of harms way like in Katrina and the Great Depression. Public education is one the best in the entire world, people are always talking about how we are the number 1 in the world for our education system. The problem with government is it is never big enough or in control of enough. We all know political ambitions are never corruptible, so people who make laws are always going to make better decisions than we would ourselves. It is a good thing that the feds finally stopped the smoldering ashes of the national fire that had been raging for 300 years before they existed.

They hung a sign up in out town
"if you live it up, you won't
live it down"
So, she left Monte Rio, son
Just like a bullet leaves a gun
With charcoal eyes and Monroe hips
She went and took that California trip
Well, the moon was gold, her
Hair like wind
She said don't look back just
Come on Jim
(Chorus)
Oh you got to
Hold on, Hold on
You got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here
You gotta hold on
Well, he gave her a dimestore watch
And a ring made from a spoon
Everyone is looking for someone to blame
But you share my bed, you share my name
Well, go ahead and call the cops
You don't meet nice girls in coffee shops
She said baby, I still love you
Sometimes there's nothin left to do
Oh you got to
Hold on, hold on
You got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here, you got to
Just hold on.

Well, God bless your crooked little heart St. Louis got the best of me
I miss your broken-china voice
How I wish you were still here with me
Well, you build it up, you wreck it down
You burn your mansion to the ground
When there's nothing left to keep you here, when
You're falling behind in this
Big blue world
Oh you go to
Hold on, hold on
You got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here
You got to hold on
Down by the Riverside motel,
It's 10 below and falling
By a 99 cent store she closed her eyes
And started swaying
But it's so hard to dance that way
When it's cold and there's no music
Well your old hometown is so far away
But, inside your head there's a record
That's playing, a song called
Hold on, hold on
You really got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here
And just hold on.

>> ^Stormsinger:
Ouch...I'm pretty sure that radiocarbon dating only works -after- an organism dies.

Define die.

A tree ring is functionally dead when the next ring starts to grow, only the bark of a tree is actively swapping carbon with the atmosphere, in essence only the bark is alive.

from http://www.radiocarbon.eu/carbon-dating-charcoal.htm
When radiocarbon dating a piece of wood or charcoal, the event dated is the growth of the tree ring. Trees grow by the addition of rings, and these rings stop exchanging carbon with the biosphere once they are laid down. Thus, the radiocarbon age of a single tree’s heartwood and sapwood will not be the same with the innermost heartwood being significantly older than the sapwood.

Almost all of these oddities are easily explained with slight differences in camera angles mixed with extremes telephoto lenses. All of these camera shots were miles away from ground zero.

The timing of the blackouts are strangely similar, but why would there be black-outs at all? Because during live video shots, technicians were sitting at the controls with orders from the FCC to not show "traumatic imagerey" on live tv. That's why they have a tape delay. This is in large part due to a suicide by shotgun that was accidentally broadcast live in 1998. News stations all moved to tape delays and had instructions to "obscure" violence that happened during live broadcasts.

Some thought the plane impact was such a moment, others did not. Obviously two people at two different tv stations had very similar gut reactions: to obscure the moment of impact, but get back to the shot as soon as possible. And their timing was a little slow.

Obviously this is just a guess, but it is far more plausible than some vast conspiracy that the US government is incapable of pulling off.

....

Trying to finish watching, but it's too painful. Whoever made this can't grasp simple concepts like perspective.

And they think it's more likely that a super-sophisticated virtual reality program accidentally made a background character translucent rather than do a little research about video interleaving and compression.

And they think to simplify complex concepts like acoustic dynamics in a dense urban environment.

Patently absurd. I can't finish watching.

Give me some real evidence. Lets hear from some of the dozens or hundreds of government workers that had to have been involved in this so-called fabrication. I would believe one single whistle-blower with some real government credentials over a thousand "charcoal" planes and "road-runner" physics videos.

Dear god the water filter jug is a WHOOOOOOOOOOOOLE lot simpler than the activated charcoal method.

I've heard this many times before, and I disagree. When I'm training one of my cooks the temperatures of meats, I will call them over to my station every time I am testing a steak. Only by actually feeling dozens of steaks, lamb racks, pork tenderloins, ducks breasts and so on, can you begin to learn the feel of doneness.

My principle argument with this is that different cuts of steak feel different. A prime rib that is medium well may have a texture that is almost as tender as a medium rare new york striploin, just for example.

My favourite temperature? Take a large, well marbled steak, preferably rib eye or striploin, and place above the grill or under a heat lamp for 10-15 minutes, until roughly body temperature. Now season liberally with kosher salt and cracked black pepper, and grill at extremely high temperature over hard wood charcoal. Sear each side twice for about 15-30 seconds. The steak should still be bright red and gelatinous all the way through, but have beautiful char lines on each side.

Serve with red wine and shallot veal reduction, something horseradish-y (horseradish compound butter, horseradish mashed potato, horseradish creme fraiche, etc), something green and leafy and garlic-y (maybe garlic fried rapini, maybe some wilted spinach, whatever) and some colourful veggies.

Oh and as long as we're in dreamland, why not a bottle of Vega Sicilia Unico as well? I mean, if you've got a few grand to toss around.

Ok... a pet pig named after a barbecue charcoal brand... kinda like naming your children after history's most infamous pedophiles...