>> ^Gallowflak:

Yes! There are kooks on both sides. Like there are 5 pebbles in basket A, and 20 in basket B. Both baskets have pebbles! That's a statement of fact, then. But we're not allowed, for some reason, to talk about how one basket has a significantly greater number of pebbles than the other basket. Oh! It's up for debate!
Well, no it's not. Look in the fucking baskets!
You see where I'm going with this?
8==============D??????
The unhinged, fear-driven, neurosis-addled right is really troubling. We're all on our own little islands of reality, trying to figure out what is and isn't, what it means to be good, how to develop structures of government and how best to design effective policy. But these hardcore right-wing nutjobs, slowly securing more and more of a mainstream presence, possess about them some deficiency of insight, judgement or perception that precludes the possibility of ever reaching a consensus on even basic fucking issues. Because they're crazy.
There! There. I think this (emerging?) Glenn Beckian, even O'Reilly-flavoured right consists, in large part, of fucking mental cases. And you scare the shit out of me. And I'm not even a leftist. Please stop being crazy so we can make progress on the issues that are so critically important to our species' future.


Didn't you know that anyone who doesn't agree with them is a leftist? Welcome to the party!

What I want to see is if you take most of these protesters and dump them in the same room with most of the people they claim to hate. Pretty sure they'd shut up. But to be fair, I'd do the same thing if you dropped me into the same room with Bush and Cheney. Because when it comes right down to it, we have shit for press and none of us, left or right really know what's going on in the halls of gov't.

Get rid of our sensationalist media that thrives on conflict and doesn't actually report news and I guarantee you things get better. no one feeding the fires of vitriol and hate.

Yes! There are kooks on both sides. Like there are 5 pebbles in basket A, and 20 in basket B. Both baskets have pebbles! That's a statement of fact, then. But we're not allowed, for some reason, to talk about how one basket has a significantly greater number of pebbles than the other basket. Oh! It's up for debate!

Well, no it's not. Look in the fucking baskets!

You see where I'm going with this?

8==============D??????

The unhinged, fear-driven, neurosis-addled right is really troubling. We're all on our own little islands of reality, trying to figure out what is and isn't, what it means to be good, how to develop structures of government and how best to design effective policy. But these hardcore right-wing nutjobs, slowly securing more and more of a mainstream presence, possess about them some deficiency of insight, judgement or perception that precludes the possibility of ever reaching a consensus on even basic fucking issues. Because they're crazy.

There! There. I think this (emerging?) Glenn Beckian, even O'Reilly-flavoured right consists, in large part, of fucking mental cases. And you scare the shit out of me. And I'm not even a leftist. Please stop being crazy so we can make progress on the issues that are so critically important to our species' future.

Upvote for Bubblegum Flavoured Medicine - So True.

What flavour was that?

>> ^spoco2:

>> ^Ryjkyj:
>> ^spoco2:
Urgh, she didn't use rock salt... who doesn't grind salt in this day and age, honestly
Also, bleurgh, do not like that collection of ingredients at all.
But upvote for her amusingness.

I've been curious about this whole salt grinding trend for a while now. Salt is not pepper, it doesn't "go bad", it's just salt. Grinding pepper brings out flavors (and aromatics btw) that would otherwise be lost if the pepper sat in powdered form for a long time. That's why fresh-ground pepper is so different. But salt doesn't change, so why would you ever need to grind it? Especially if you're just putting it in a sauce?

It's more to do with the coarseness of the grind I guess, I just don't like the fine grind of package salt like that, it helps get the flavour across I think. Salt flakes are even better, but harder to come by, so I make do with rock salt in a grinder.


But if you're making a sauce like she's doing here, doesn't it just break down?

>> ^Ryjkyj:

>> ^spoco2:
Urgh, she didn't use rock salt... who doesn't grind salt in this day and age, honestly
Also, bleurgh, do not like that collection of ingredients at all.
But upvote for her amusingness.

I've been curious about this whole salt grinding trend for a while now. Salt is not pepper, it doesn't "go bad", it's just salt. Grinding pepper brings out flavors (and aromatics btw) that would otherwise be lost if the pepper sat in powdered form for a long time. That's why fresh-ground pepper is so different. But salt doesn't change, so why would you ever need to grind it? Especially if you're just putting it in a sauce?


It's more to do with the coarseness of the grind I guess, I just don't like the fine grind of package salt like that, it helps get the flavour across I think. Salt flakes are even better, but harder to come by, so I make do with rock salt in a grinder.

*promote the flavour

I powder my table salt in a Magic Bullet. makes it stick better and you get more salty flavour with less salt (surface area to volume ratio goes up).

"That's where all the flavour is"

Um

Prove it

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?

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?

Fuck you! Fuckin' hippie!

>> ^spoco2:

Agree with him... as a father of four, I agree with him.
Now... I'm not of the school of 'no tv, no video games, no fast food'... but I am of the school of IN MODERATION!
And any time one of the kids shows signs of being a little dependant on the video games, it's unplugged and put away for a week or more.
I fricken HATE the biscuits (BBQ shapes, pizza shapes, all that sort of thing) which you can just smell as soon as you open a box of them. The ridiculously overpowering smell of flavour enhancer 621, chemicals, chemicals, chemicals.
Our kids love fruit, there's always a bowl, we have 2 plum trees, an apple and a lemon tree and are growing our first crop of veggies in our veggie patch. Our kids always have a selection of raw vegetables with their meals.
When I see parents who always give their kids cordial or soft drink, or... oh this annoys me... if they give them milk they always add flavour to it, so it's strawberry or chocolate milk... ARGH! WATER and Milk are the two drinks our kids get at home.
But yeah, not militant on the TV or games etc, I have great fun sitting down with the kids to watch a movie, or playing a Wii game with them. I had those experiences as a kid, so why shouldn't they? But I also had time limits, as do they.

Ivan, I thought I told you not to use the goose-flavoured Windex on the fox pen...

>> ^JiggaJonson:

How much of the population would u estimate treats their kids like this though?
The sad fact is the major determining factor in who will win the survival war is reproductive rates.
In reply to this comment by spoco2:
Agree with him... as a father of four, I agree with him.
Now... I'm not of the school of 'no tv, no video games, no fast food'... but I am of the school of IN MODERATION!
And any time one of the kids shows signs of being a little dependant on the video games, it's unplugged and put away for a week or more.
I fricken HATE the biscuits (BBQ shapes, pizza shapes, all that sort of thing) which you can just smell as soon as you open a box of them. The ridiculously overpowering smell of flavour enhancer 621, chemicals, chemicals, chemicals.
Our kids love fruit, there's always a bowl, we have 2 plum trees, an apple and a lemon tree and are growing our first crop of veggies in our veggie patch. Our kids always have a selection of raw vegetables with their meals.
When I see parents who always give their kids cordial or soft drink, or... oh this annoys me... if they give them milk they always add flavour to it, so it's strawberry or chocolate milk... ARGH! WATER and Milk are the two drinks our kids get at home.
But yeah, not militant on the TV or games etc, I have great fun sitting down with the kids to watch a movie, or playing a Wii game with them. I had those experiences as a kid, so why shouldn't they? But I also had time limits, as do they.


Oh, absolutely, he's bang on about the vast majority of parents, and it makes me very sad.

Also, I know I do let them watch too much tv and play too much Wii, even though we limit as much as we do... I still feel they need to be using them less. I have a friend who has a couple of young kids, and they have no TV in the house. Those kids are fricken amazing with what they can already do. One is just starting kindergarten and has already read the first two Harry Potter books and is attempting to compose things on her violin. The other hasn't even started kinder and is already writing such that you can actually work out what words they are supposed to be.

Just stunning stuff, and sure, I know that after a few years kids kind of all level out and catch up on those basic reading/writing things, but it's amazing how much further ahead kids can be when those things are really full on nurtured by the parents.

Still, in our house I completely refuse to give them Nintendo DS's... so many of their friends all have them, and they spend so much time on them... ALL the time. Man, it's just wrong. My kids have pestered us for them, but no, no way will they be getting anything like that until they are old enough to buy one for themselves. And they are also never getting TVs or computers in their rooms either.

The eldest of my kids is 7, and friends of his and younger have DS's and TVs/DVD players in their rooms etc. It's just so very, very unnecessary.

If there was only the option of what most kids have today and just cutting off TV/Video games, I'd be on the side of cutting them off entirely.

How much of the population would u estimate treats their kids like this though?

The sad fact is the major determining factor in who will win the survival war is reproductive rates.

In reply to this comment by spoco2:
Agree with him... as a father of four, I agree with him.

Now... I'm not of the school of 'no tv, no video games, no fast food'... but I am of the school of IN MODERATION!

And any time one of the kids shows signs of being a little dependant on the video games, it's unplugged and put away for a week or more.

I fricken HATE the biscuits (BBQ shapes, pizza shapes, all that sort of thing) which you can just smell as soon as you open a box of them. The ridiculously overpowering smell of flavour enhancer 621, chemicals, chemicals, chemicals.

Our kids love fruit, there's always a bowl, we have 2 plum trees, an apple and a lemon tree and are growing our first crop of veggies in our veggie patch. Our kids always have a selection of raw vegetables with their meals.

When I see parents who always give their kids cordial or soft drink, or... oh this annoys me... if they give them milk they always add flavour to it, so it's strawberry or chocolate milk... ARGH! WATER and Milk are the two drinks our kids get at home.

But yeah, not militant on the TV or games etc, I have great fun sitting down with the kids to watch a movie, or playing a Wii game with them. I had those experiences as a kid, so why shouldn't they? But I also had time limits, as do they.