#1
They may have a point. For most of human history, beer, wine, and later whiskey, was a way to store grain long past the time when it would have rotted. Especially in cooler climes, when food ran very low in early Spring.
Thus, whoever ran the kitchen was the maker and keeper of the beer.
#3
In fact for most of humankind's history men have performed the tasks who fed the family while women who were less productive (both for reason of strength and pregnancies) performed "auxiliary" tasks who made life more pleasnt.
Thus when humans ate mostly game, women engaged in agriculture (if crops were bad it was not a such big deal) but once agriculture became critical for survival men ensured most/all of the work in the fields. In the same way, once brewing "became a professional sport" ie some families relied on it for providing most/all of their earnings, men had to take over since not having beer or only in small quantities (like when a woman has also to care for the children or exhausted due to pregnancy) was no longer an option
#4
...suppose, in order to make my comparison as little complicated as possible, that he brews nothing but beer as strong as the generality of beer to be had at the public-house, and divested of the poisonous drugs which that beer but too often contains; and I shall further suppose that he uses in his family two quarts of this beer every day from the first of October to the last day of March inclusive; three quarts a day during the months of April and May; four quarts a day during the months of June and September; and five quarts a day during the months of July and August; and if this be not enough, it must be a family of drunkards. Here are 1097 quarts, or 274 gallons. Now, a bushel of malt will make eighteen gallons of better beer than that which is sold at the public-houses.
That's from William Cobbett's Cottage Economy (link is just the brewing part). Once you get past the rant on tea, about halfway down, you come to a very interesting and useful discription of brewing at the level of a country household.
Before the rise of craft brewing in the late '70s, this was one of the very few good descriptions of how to brew from malt at a small scale. It's still one of the best.
I highly recommend the whole book, actually, it's available from Gutenberg, and it's in print. Check out William Cobbett on Wikipedia.
#6
"Men have women to thank for making beer popular"
Men may have to thank women for making beer, but beer made itself popular among men.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/02/2010 19:28 Comments ||
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#7
I'll toast all of you with Ninkasi's Sumerian Ale. After Passover is over, of course.
When you pour out the filtered beer of the collector vat,
It is [like] the onrush of Tigris and Euphrates.
Ninkasi, you are the one who pours out the filtered beer of the collector vat,
It is [like] the onrush of Tigris and Euphrates.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
04/02/2010 22:49 Comments ||
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What is it like to be a foreign ally of Barack Obama's America?
If you're a Brit, your head is spinning. It's not just the personal slights to Prime Minister Gordon Brown -- the ridiculous 25-DVD gift, the five refusals before Brown was granted a one-on-one with The One. Nor is it just the symbolism of Obama returning the Churchill bust that was in the Oval Office. Query: If it absolutely had to be out of Obama's sight, could it not have been housed somewhere else on U.S. soil rather than ostentatiously repatriated?
Perhaps it was the State Department official who last year denied there even was a special relationship between the U.S. and Britain, a relationship cultivated by every U.S. president since Franklin Roosevelt. And then there was Hillary Clinton's astonishing, nearly unreported (in the U.S.) performance in Argentina last month. She called for Britain to negotiate with Argentina over the Falklands.
For those who know no history -- or who believe that it began on Jan. 20, 2009 -- and therefore don't know why this was an out-of-the-blue slap at Britain, here's the back story: In 1982, Argentina's military junta invaded the (British) Falkland Islands. The generals thought the British, having long lost their taste for foreign lands, would let it pass. Besides, the Falklands have uncountably more sheep than people. They underestimated Margaret Thatcher (the Argentines, that is, not the sheep). She was not about to permit the conquest of a people whose political allegiance and ethnic ties are to Britain. She dispatched the navy. Britannia took it back.
Afterward, neither Thatcher nor her successors have countenanced negotiations. Britain doesn't covet foreign dominion and has no shortage of sheep. But it does believe in self-determination, and will negotiate nothing until and unless the Falkland Islanders indicate their desire to be ruled by a chronically unstable, endemically corrupt polity with a rich history of dictatorship, economic mismanagement and the occasional political lunacy (see: the Evita cult).
Not surprisingly, the Falkland Islanders have given no such indication. Yet inexplicably, Clinton sought to reopen a question that had been settled for almost 30 years, not just pointlessly stirring the embers but even taking the Argentine side (re: negotiations) against Britain -- a nation that has fought and bled with us for the last decade, and that today has about 10,000 troops, far more than any other ally, fighting alongside America in Afghanistan. Of course, given how the administration has treated other allies, perhaps we shouldn't be so surprised.
-- Obama visits China and soon Indonesia, skipping India, our natural and rising ally in the region -- common language, common heritage, common democracy, common jihadist enemy. Indeed, in his enthusiasm for China, Obama suggests a Chinese interest in peace and stability in South Asia, a gratuitous denigration of Indian power and legitimacy in favor of a regional rival with hegemonic ambitions.
-- Poland and the Czech Republic have their legs cut out from under them when Obama unilaterally revokes a missile defense agreement, acquiescing to pressure from Russia with its dreams of regional hegemony over Eastern Europe.
-- The Hondurans still can't figure out why the United States supported a Hugo Chavez ally seeking illegal extension of his presidency against the pillars of civil society -- its Congress, Supreme Court, church and army -- that had deposed him consistent with Article 239 of their own constitution.
But the Brits, our most venerable, most reliable ally, are the most disoriented. "We British not only speak the same language. We tend to think in the same way. We are more likely than anyone else to provide tea, sympathy and troops," writes Bruce Anderson in London's Independent, summarizing with admirable concision the fundamental basis of the U.S.-British special relationship. Well, said David Manning, a former British ambassador to the U.S., to a House of Commons committee reporting on that very relationship: "He (Obama) is an American who grew up in Hawaii, whose foreign experience was of Indonesia and who had a Kenyan father. The sentimental reflexes, if you like, are not there."
I'm not personally inclined to neuropsychiatric diagnoses, but Manning's guess is as good as anyone's. How can you explain a policy toward Britain that makes no strategic or moral sense? And even if you can, how do you explain the gratuitous slaps to the Czechs, Poles, Indians and others? Perhaps when an Obama Doctrine is finally worked out, we shall learn whether it was pique, principle or mere carelessness.
#2
Krauthammer is withering except he forgot to mention BO's dust up with Netanyahu--you know where he delivered an ultimatum to him to give him a peace answer on the Jewish Sabbath, dismissed him as worthless dreck and called him a white honky semite. O.K., O.K. I made up the last part but isn't that out of the playbook of the current crop of Obama sychophants around him?
#4
Will the Brits answer when Obama makes a 3AM bootie call?
Posted by: ed ||
04/02/2010 19:25 Comments ||
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#5
So wasn't the Churchill bust given to the American people, and not the president? If so then Obumble gave away something that belongs to me. And you. And you. Get the AG on the phone, I want my bust back!
Abandoning all loyalty to the democratic processes this nation holds dear, President Obama has made the decision that getting energy tax legislation through Congress with the approval of the American people is just too much of a pain to bother with. Instead he will have the EPA declare as early as next week that CO2 is a dangerous global warming gas and will start regulating its emissions immediately.
Obama's promise to open up vast stretches of ocean on the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico to energy exploration is simply a ruse to soften up the public for soon to be announced draconian regulations.
Similar to how Obama used the $50 million dollar study on healthcare companies competing across state lines to sell ObamaCare as a bipartisan bill, his recent decree allowing energy companies to explore (not drill, not produce energy from just explore) new stretches of ocean for oil is also meant to be a trivial, yet impressive enough sounding carrot for conservatives right before he stuffs his Marxist trash down their throats.
House Minority Leader John Boehner responded to Obama by saying At the same time the White House makes today's announcement, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is plotting a new massive job-killer that the American people can't afford.'
Every American who doesn't live in a technology adverse commune in California will now pay even more of their hard earned cash to the federal government for absolutely no good reason.
Put simply, it means $8 for a gallon of gas and 2-3 times higher electricity bills. It also means the loss of millions more sorely needed jobs as businesses are hit with higher operating costs and the transfer of whatever remains of our manufacturing sector to China where energy is cheaper and they aren't so concerned about CO2.
In the first week alone, American businesses estimated that ObamaCare will cost them $14 billion. By most estimates this latest Obama nightmare will be far more expensive and may literally destroy the economy in less than 20 years.
All because of climate science that has been clearly exposed as inaccurate and untrustworthy. Obama may or may not be a communist plant sent to destroy America, but he sure is acting like one.
#1
IONBAMMER BUDGET > CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > UN CHIEF [Ban Ki-Moon] CALLS FOR WHOLESALE REBUILDING OF HAITI. Gonna take a whole lotta OWG-NWO LOVE + Decades, Generations of MASSIVE INTERNATIONAL GLOBO $$$ SUPPORT TO SAVE HAITI FROM ITSELF, + QUAKE-CAUSING GW = EX-POTUS??? DUBYA???.
It is often difficult to make sense of words uttered in anger. And Pakistan is an angry country. It has now whipped up another dispute with India out of thin air. It has alleged that India is stealing' its river waters. It has alleged that New Delhi is violating the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 that governs the use of river waters by the two countries.
Pakistan's allegations, at the moment, centre on the Nimmo-Bazgo and Chutak hydroelectric power projects over the Indus river in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). The allegation is that by going ahead with these projects, India is trying to divert river waters that rightly belong to Pakistan.
A meeting earlier this week between the Indus water commissioners of the two countries to discuss the dispute' in Lahore remained inconclusive. It had to, for keeping matters inconclusive is Pakistan's aim.
The facts are simple. By the 1960 treaty, Pakistan is allowed unfettered use of Indus, Chenab and Jhelum rivers. India cannot store any water from these rivers or stop them from flowing to Pakistan. India can construct hydroelectric power projects over these rivers, but has to allow a free flow of water. It can go in for pondage', i.e., water being held behind a dam for a short time (say, as it flows into turbines to generate electricity) but even this is limited. This is very different from storing this water, say, for major irrigation projects. In addition, India must share designs of these projects, water flow data and a host of other information with Islamabad.
Since 1960, India has executed the terms of the treaty in letter and spirit. But now, out of nowhere, the civilian government in Islamabad has created a new issue. Its effort is to ensure that these projects never take off. Pakistan has a good track record of derailing such projects in the past. The Wullar Barrage project (in J&K) has been stalled for two decades now. The Baglihar project (again in J&K) could proceed only because the government of India showed the will to move ahead.
Islamabad's complaint is a red herring, a device used to mobilize public opinion against India to deflect attention from serious inequities in water sharing between different provinces of Pakistan. It's an old trick to keep India on the defensive. There is no reason to be defensive. A blunt response will serve our interests well.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/02/2010 09:20 ||
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#1
First the Islamists wanted the US out of the Saudi Islamic Apartheid Republic, then it was the Palestinian issue, then it was the building of houses in Jerusalem, now this. Next we'll have the Islamists claiming that infidels are breathing too much.
#3
Under the Indus Waters Treaty, Pakistan gets 4 times the amount of water from these rivers than India gets. No other upper riparian state in the world has surrendered its right to use the water from 3 entire rivers, leaving all for the lower riparian.
Pakistan may well regret its noises regarding the treaty. A renegotiation will not be as favorable to Pakistan. Nehru is long dead.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/02/2010 16:05 Comments ||
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#4
PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > PAKISTANI MINSTER LETS WATER SECRET OUT [INDJUH is NOT stealing water somuch as PAK is WASTING IT].
* OTOH SAME > [India Water Treaty CHairman]INDIA HAS 52 PROJECTS TO INCREASE CONTROL OF PAKISTAN'S WATER. ALso calims that INDIA is receiving international Govts-Corpors, Pruvate Assistance for approxi 17 of same. Previous 130-plus atempts or rounds at INDO-PAK water negotiations have failed = come to naught.
SAME > WATER WOES MAY TURN PAKISTAN INTO ANOTHER SOMALIA OR ETHIOPIA?
* SAME > [Major general TARIQ KHAN] PAKISTAN TRIBAL ZONE [FATA] NEEDS US$1.0BILYUHN TO PREVENT IT FROM BECOMING AN ALQAEDA, TALIBAN BASE.
- FIVE OF SEVEN FATA DISTRICTS NOW UNDER FULL GOVT. CONTROL, +
- EXTREMISTS/MILITANTS may be forcibly ousted by PAk Govt-Army from FATA = Tribal Zones in about TWO MONTHS?
#1
We live in a cosmic shooting gallery. And I for one would prefer to do something about it. We might not get hit by a major object for another 10,000 years or we could get nailed in the next week.
#2
Theory doesn't fit the facts. Recently found evidence of fires all over North America at the time of the die back. More likely a firestorm happened than an icestorm and the cooling followed.
#3
wouldn't the ice boulders burn up coming into the atmosphere
Posted by: chris ||
04/02/2010 13:23 Comments ||
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#4
wouldn't the ice boulders burn up coming into the atmosphere
Posted by: chris ||
04/02/2010 13:23 Comments ||
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#5
wouldn't the ice boulders burn up coming into the atmosphere
Posted by: chris ||
04/02/2010 13:23 Comments ||
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#6
sorry for posting that 3 times
Posted by: chris ||
04/02/2010 13:24 Comments ||
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#7
The United Nations Theory: Cavemen burning too much wood triggered massive "climate change" (they will undoubtedly site this blog post in their research). CaveBama says "we can no longer keep our caves at 72 degrees year round.
#8
I assume these are the same "scientists" (Small s on purpose) agonizing over the entirely fictional "Global Warming".
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/02/2010 15:33 Comments ||
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#9
Intensive, extensive fires across North America, Zebulon? Because the alternate theory to this wild celestial iceball business is the successful invasion of the Americas by stone-age humans, who catastrophically hunted the megafauna into extinction, often with semi-controlled brushfire tactics. Which is where you'd get scattered, rolling brunt-over scarring.
There's a certain Rousseauan faction which desperately needs a way, however ludicrous, to acquit the Noble Savage of responsibility for the American megafauna extinction event.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
04/02/2010 15:48 Comments ||
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#10
I assume these are the same "scientists" agonizing over the entirely fictional "Global Warming".
Au contraire, R.J. These appear to be the sort of scientists that are willing to debate their theories and argue over the evidence in public. What you might call 'scientist' scientists.
#11
To make a long story short, the same people pushing the "climate change" brouhaha now are the same ones who try to erase the previous climate swings (like the medieval warm period or the Little Ice Age) from the historical record.
* MAN-MADE GW = the SUN, or POTUS DUBYA.
* GLOBAL WARMING = GLOBO COOLING.
* RISING SEAS = EVAPORATING/RECEDING SEAS-OCEANS.
* NUKULAAR = "GREEN" ENERGY.
Etal.
Iff Politicos had their way, US Voters = Mainstream won't hear about OWG-NWO for GENERATIONS, OR AT LEAST UNTIL YEAR 2050???
COMET APOPHIS 2029-2036 + MOON EXPLOSIONS > Our "WE CANNOT CONFIRM OR DENY" FUTURE OWG-NWO HAS FROM NOW TO THEN TO PERFECT ITS MATH, INTERNATIONAL OR GLOBAL "UNITY" + FIREPOWER, ETC.
TO PRECLUDE ANY ERRORS.
Lest we fergit, to paraphrase SGT ELIAS in "PLATOON" > [defense line]IFF ANYTHING GETS THROUGH YOU'RE all All ALL A-L-L AAAAAAAAAALLLLL TRULY F **** ED!
WARD BOND in "THE SEARCHERS" > "ALL, ALL, A-L-E, ALL"!
#13
Cheaderhead: As far as asteroids go, there are a bunch of interesting theories as to how they can be diverted. A simple one is to deploy a strong "net" in its path, which catches the asteroid. A very strong tether is attached to its spaceship, dragging it along in an increasingly unstable orbit, dragging the asteroid slightly off course.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
By Charles Krauthammer
