1. I hate writing lists like this.
2. but only because I'm afraid I don't have enough cool stuff to put on them
3. I swear.. a lot, but I get away with it... in person, because I'm Irish, and in writing, because I'm an eloquent motherfucker
4. When I was a kid, I really wanted to be a space shuttle pilot. My entire room was covered in space posters, until I was eventually convinced this wouldn't happen in my early teens (kinda hard to be a shuttle pilot when you live in a country with no space program or even an airforce).... at which point....
5. I started listening to heavy metal and for years I wanted to be a touring musician. Played in a few bands, even recorded some stuff, but I was never really that good, but I did teach my brother to start playing
6.... who is now waaaay better than I ever was, has a degree in music and releases some of my favourite music.
7. I am by a long way the most level-headed member of my family.
8. I like to think I'm resourceful (read as "watched one too many episodes of macgyver as a kid") and set myself little challenges all the time (like trying to break into my own house)
9. I've been arrested once and spent a night in a cell
10. I love the mountains (snowboarding, mountain biking) but didn't realise this until my late 20s. It's one of my great regrets that I didn't start these things sooner.
11. I'm a 3rd dan (soon to be 4th!) black belt in Aikido, but....
12. I haven't been in a fight since high school.
13. A small immature part of me really wants someone to attack me so I can find out.
14. The rest of me isn't nearly that stupid.
15. I love to cook (especially BBQ), and will happily spend all day preparing a meal for my wife or my friends.
16. I don't have or want kids, but I get on great with them (I suspect they think I roughly as mature as they are).
17. I teach a kids Aikido class.
18. I'm very good at my job, but it's just a means to an end for me. If I never needed to work again, I wouldn't.
19. No-one will read this far.
20. I think people are basically good, but they're also stupid and easily manipulated... this goes for me too.
21. I really want to travel again, but life keeps getting in the way.
22. I'm a total geek.
23. I like to look at everything from all angles, but there are somethings I have no time for (homepathy, racism, homophobia, climate deniers, etc). I don't believe in debating these people.
24. I sometimes wonder if I should put my money where my mouth is and run for public office, but then I remember that that would seriously cut into my snowboarding/mountainbiking/aikido-ing time.
25. I am very tempted to delete this list.

I say that every time I see a dog video. They don't call them Golden retrievers for nothing. You always retrieve seconds when they are on the BBQ.

One wonders, however, if it's strong enough to clean the asshole off BK33... \= |

@Payback, there was another video recently of the rustcleaner where the operator put their finger under the beam actively cleaning rust with no obvious ill effects. Not sure how/why that happens but I didn't see smoke or BBQ so it seems pretty flesh safe.

The best evidence you have for your claims (as I see it) is anecdotal at best.
3rd world countries 1) are not at all vegetarian and 2) don't get most cancers Westerners do largely because they don't eat processed foods or expose themselves to carcinogenic chemicals constantly....we do.
Again, NEVER get your science from the internet.

"Pro-life" is by definition "anti-choice".

If you're really pro-planet, a MUCH better way to go about it is try to get people to have fewer children. That will make exponentially more difference than some people eating fewer animals. In fact, if past human behavior is a guide, if we all stop eating animals, animals will cease to exist for the most part, so that's not helpful to them at all.

Again, fewer people is the proper answer, not forcefully change biologically engrained behavior. I made that choice, so I can eat all the animals I ever possibly can and I've done more for the planet and it's animals with that single action than 1000 vegans with vegan children...or more positive difference than one vegan with children, depending on how you want to look at it.

As a living being, I'm standing up for all living beings who certainly object to your choice to breed, both the voiceless and those with voice, and saying stop making choices that negatively impact us all, like having more children and grandchildren. If enough people would do that, eating meat won't be an ecological issue. ;-)

I didn't watch the videos, I don't get my science from the internet. I read scientific publications that contain peer reviewed science papers, and I've never seen one that said ALL the nutrients found in meat could be replaced with vegetable nutrients easily, simply, viably, or without excessive expense.
Also, it ignores that fact that most produce available in the first world comes with a huge carbon footprint and massive ecological damage because of the production methods, so it's not the 'clean' trade off you seem to assume.

Small family farms were plenty to meet demand for all of human history until about the last 50 years. Quit having kids, and it will be enough again and we can stop abusing animals and the eco system just to make enough food for humans.

A short, good life is preferable to no life at all.

Nope. I should have scheduled the one in that picture that's mine to end his life at least a year earlier, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. NOT doing it was immoral. If someone had been willing to eat him, I would be all for it. If someone wants to eat me, go for it...I suggest slow smoking and a molasses based BBQ sauce. Eating my dog would be ecologically sound, as opposed to the cremation we ended up with, or burial, being the only other option available.
If I raised dogs for food, I would not think twice about ending their life in their prime. That would be the reason they existed in the first place, and without that reason they would never get that chance.

Again, milk cows only exist because someone wanted to partner with them to benefit both. Without that symbiosis, they would not get the opportunity to exist at all. IMO, existence is preferable to no existence. Yes, they need to get pregnant at least once, but as I understand it, that's it so long as you keep up with milking them. Veal, now there I'll totally agree with you that IT'S abuse.

Animals are not people. They do not usually have the same need for freedom, and those that do have that need were never domesticated. It is not immoral to form a symbiosis with another species as long as you both benefit in some way, otherwise you're just a parasite.

? Taste, as in how animals taste? BS, that's not all. That's a component, sure, but there's incredibly more to it than that.

I prefer to give animals a reason to exist, knowing that without that human centric reason, they simply won't get the chance, but I do my best to purchase animal products that are created with the least distress and best conditions for the animals in question...granted that's not always possible to know.

Trust me, I've tried vegetarian 'meats', I know the difference, and absolutely don't prefer vegan fare, or vegetarian fare that attempts to emulate meat. If I want meat, I'll eat meat. You'll get my butter only by prying it from my cold, dead hands. ;-)

I don't think taste is quite as simple as you imply. Yes, there is a component of 'addiction' to certain foods, especially sugar rich foods.
There's no such thing as vegan cheese or chocolate, you mean tofu and carob...and I agree, they both suck.

Sorry, that's simply wrong. A poor eating vegan can certainly negatively impact the planet with their food choices. It's easy. Oreos for instance, are most certainly made with ecologically damaging factory farm methods creating the ingredients...well, those methods and chemists. I don't know off hand the carbon footprint and ecological impact of an oreo, but it's not "none".

I think it's just easier to simplify an argument when it's part of another society. Even George Saliba criticizes western civ by simplifying Copernicus, Galileo, and others into monopolizing crooks; something he warns his own, "morally just" Islamic society against.

Both Neil and George are railing against each other's society whIle acknowledging a truth.

Always good to hear both sides, and one from an actual historian, but honestly, none of this is news. Any time someone says "this" is why this happened, it's safe to call bullshit until you've seen a multitude of angles (deduction). It's like debating the multitude of reasons for the fall of Rome or the start of WWI. Nothing in history truly repeats itself because it's so convoluted there's rarely a single cause for rises and declines. It's just easy to find a historical pattern and then hold onto it as THE pattern of history and exclude things that are contrary.

Mongols have good bbq... Koreans have good bbq... Americans have good bbq... What does it all mean?!?!?!

I mop my BBQ with an oil and vinegar emulsion. It doesn't make it 'sour' but the subtle sour flavor of the vinegar balances the richness of the fat and gelatin nicely. Plus, it seems to help the smoke ring penetrate, although, I've never tested that.
Try it some time.

Gotta have that onion or it ain't Texas BBQ.

?
Having sauce on it doesn't make it not BBQ, but ONLY having sauce on it doesn't make baked meat BBQ either. If it's slow smoked with a spicy rub, but not smoked to dry jerky, I say that qualifies as BBQ.
Sour pulled pork? Something's not right. Mine is almost too sweet, but I use a brown sugar and pepper based rub.
They all need to be served with large-cut sweet onion. That's the proper side for all BBQ in my eyes....but I was raised in Texas, so I have a very particular idea of what makes BBQ good.

A lot of folks wouldn't consider that proper BBQ. I mean, it's got sauce on it for god's sake.

Your video, Korean Girls Try American BBQ For the First Time, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by eric3579.

You have now. DST is awesome. I love having an extra hour in the evenings. I can go for a bike ride, meet up with friends, have a bbq.

Quite frankly, I'd keep it all year.

As one of my favourite chefs says on her NY vegetarian restaurant webpage:

Anyone can cook a hamburger, leave the vegetables to the professionals.

It's just easier to make meat taste good, but vegetables can be amazing. The rub is that it's just not as easy as throwing meat onto the BBQ.

Ha! That's awesome. And insult to injury, beer just seems to make it burn more.

Last time I ate a reaper straight was at a friends BBQ, she assured me she had milk...it was buttermilk. I've had better days.
The lunacy is that your brain doesn't remember the pain, so you end up doing it again. Right his moment I'm looking at about two dozen reapers on a plant that I brought in for the winter. I know sooner or later I'm going to eat one raw. I DON'T know why.

These comments are fun. Sounds like a bunch of old men, sitting on the porch yelling at the kids on the street.

"Stop foolin' around with that wood out there. Don't jump your bicycles over that! Get out of the road!!"

Take risks when you're young because the negative consequences are mostly restricted to your own stupid self. Later in life you'll have too many responsibilities and obligations. We've given up a lot in our modern societies. By sanitizing and padding our life experiences, we've lost the connection to the deep animal part of our brain.

There are still places in the world, even first world industrialized nations, where public ritual includes personal risk. Community celebrations that tap into our hidden animal instinct with displays that overwhelm all the senses. This is a powerful way to build a deep sense of tribalism and community, to draw people together into a supportive whole.

Tomorrow many of us will enjoy the July 4th celebrations. Sitting comfortably in our folding chairs with portable BBQs and coolers; behind ropes and guard rails designating a safe area to stand...emergency response vehicles in attendance. We'll enjoy our safe, convenient family activity then curse the traffic on the way home, inside steel boxes with triple air bags. Later on we'll feel slightly unsettled by the neighbor kids setting off bottle rockets around the block. Somewhere else in the world, they'll light a bonfire the size of your house and sing songs while they watch the young people trying to see how far they can walk into the flames. They'll feel the heat, see the light up close, sense danger and ultimately give up a piece of themselves to the crowd and the untamed thing that lies below sensibility.

I'll take the bonfire please.