Guest Beer

"Guest beers" are cheap, watery beers you hardly ever drink yourself.  You keep some around in case surprise visitors show up.  If the need arises, you'll appear like a good host while being extremely frugal at the same time.  Cheapness is the key attribute.  When you offer a guest beer to an unexpected caller, your unspoken message is:  "Yes, I am being hospitable, and yes, this is a really bad beer, so I'm sure you won't be staying long."    

In no particular order, here are ten fine examples of guest beer:

Natural Light.  a.k.a. Natty Light, Nasty Light.  Probably the #1 choice of poor college kids.  If you drink enough to catch a buzz, you'll either puke or you'll pee for a day and a half.

Keystone.  a.k.a. Kidney Stone

Ice House.  a.k.a. Lice House, Mice House

Milwaukee's Best.  a.k.a. Milwaukee's Worst, Milwaukee's Beast












MeisterBrau.  a.k.a. Mister Beer.  Norm's quaff on Cheers.

Iron City.  a.k.a. Iron Shitty

National Bohemian.  a.k.a. Natty Bo, an old Baltimore standby.  "Natty Bo, Natty Bo, the more you drink, the more you go!"

Old Milwaukee.  a.k.a. Old Mil-yucky

Pabst Blue Ribbon.  a.k.a. PBR, a current favorite of hipster douchebags.  Doubles as a laxative.

Schaefer.  a.k.a. Shitter.  Brewed by Pabst.  "The one to have when you're having more than one."  Stay close to the bathroom.










And a bonus pick from the archives, the now-defunct but fondly remembered guest beer . . .

Olde Frothingslosh.  "The Pale, Stale Ale With the Foam on the Bottom"

Take The Deal, Cuz

On the eve of President Obama's prime-time speech to urge Congressional approval for military action against Syria, suddenly Syria is willing to accept a Russian proposal to relinquish all its chemical weapons.  They would be turned over to the international community for destruction.

This development presents a handy escape hatch.  It lets us avoid a military strike which literally no one in the world wants (except John McCain, of course).  The idea that we could lob a few "limited" cruise missiles into Syria and suffer no consequences has been absurd from the start.

I love ya, Cousin Barry!  So revise your text, make your speech, rattle a sabre or two, but take the deal!






(Should we give any credit to Russian President Vladimir Putin for introducing the idea at last week's G20?  We could, but Putin's the narcissistic megalomaniac obsessed with restoring Mother Russia to its "former glory" who's always being photographed with his shirt off.  So fuck him.)

Serena: Strong On The Court, Strong With The Pencil

Congratulations to Serena Williams, who recently won her 5th U.S. Open championship.  She is one of the best female tennis players ever, and at age 31 (old for top players), she's still going strong.

But seriously, what's up with those eyebrows?  Serena seems to be going for the Classic Hollywood look -- the Joan Crawford-Kim Novak heavy pencil.  Because her eyebrows seemed unchanged by a hot, sweaty 3-set title match, it is rumored she had them tattooed onto her face.  Sure hope not, 'cause, you know, damn!

He Should Have Mailed It To His Cat

Yesterday, Cleveland Indians relief pitcher Chris Perez and his wife Melanie pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor drug charge, drew probation, and paid a small fine.  The court also ordered Mr. Perez to speak to children about drug use.

Perez's problem began when he mailed some marijuana to his home, but addressed the package to his dog.  This "I'm-so-high" decision attracted suspicion from the postal inspector and eventually the police.

He has acknowledged his error and said he'll counsel kids to make better choices than he did.  "I'm gonna tell 'em to really think before doing something like I did," said Perez.  "Mailing weed to 'Fido Perez' was really dumb, a dead give-away.  I shoulda sent it to my cat, 'Garfield'."

Big Pile Of Shit Disappears

(How did I miss this story until now?)
________________________________________________

The Detroit River "pet coke" pile

Petroleum coke, or "pet coke", is a waste byproduct of extracting oil from Canadian tar sands at the Keystone XL site.  Pet coke is a grainy, dusty solid that is officially "safe", but contains the toxic metals selenium and vanadium, and who-knows-what-else.

Detroit had a big mountain of it 4 stories tall.  It was piling up for a year along the banks of the Detroit River.

Who put it there?  Marathon Oil.  They process Canadian tar sands into oil at their Detroit facility.

Who owns the pile of pet coke?  Koch Carbon LLC of Wichita, a.k.a. the Koch brothers.  Although pet coke is generally considered to be useless crapola, the Kochs are buying it up.  They see a market for it as a cheap, high-sulfur, dirty-burning fuel for Chinese and Indian power plants.

After taking many complaints from residents about this giant shit-pile blowing black dust all over the place, Detroit officials finally ordered Koch Carbon to remove it.  At last, it's gone.  Yay!

Where did it go?  Ohio!  To an unspecified location.  No one is exactly sure where.  The Ohio EPA says it hasn't received any notification and, in fact, none is required.  Because it's "safe", right?  Gosh, thanks, Koch brothers!

Don't be surprised to see the "Black Hills of Ohio" popping up all over the Buckeye State.  One of the many problems associated with refining tar sands into oil is that it generates so much pet coke waste.  The Marathon Oil plant in Detroit is just a small-time player.  Up in Canada, there are over 80 million tons of pet coke waste just sitting around Keystone XL, with more coming every day.  The more we process tar sands in the U.S., the more we'll create our very own shit-pile disposal problem.  Hell, just ship it all to Ohio. 

"All Wells Are Fracked"????

Recently, at a wonderful gathering of some of my oldest and dearest friends, one of my old buddies was holding forth, darting rapidly from topic to topic.  He landed briefly on fracking, and declared himself amused by all the fuss, because, he said, "All wells are fracked.  Always have been."  From there, we bounced to a quick story about his father posing for a photograph standing by an oil well while lighting a cigar with a $100 bill.  (Cute?  Crass?  Depends on your point of view, I guess.)    

Not wishing to argue or debate on such a fine social occasion (and being unaware that the retired securities attorney was now a geologist), I just smiled and said nothing as the conversation flowed elsewhere.  But now . . .

"All wells are fracked."  Really?  Yeah, in the sense that any type of well drilling fractures some of the surrounding rock.  But beyond that superficial comparison, it's disingenuous to suggest there's no real difference between a residential water well, or a conventional oil well, and a fracked natural gas well.

A vertically-drilled well fractures some rock as a secondary consequence of the process.  A horizontally-drilled nat gas well intentionally fractures large fields of rock with pressurized water.

All well drilling uses some water for cooling, lubricating and flushing.  The nat gas hydro-fracking process uses much, much, much more water -- 6 to 8 million gallons per frack -- than conventional drilling.  And a single frack doesn't guarantee a producing gas well.

Hydro-fracking water isn't just water.  It's known as "slick water" or "brine" -- water doped up with salts, benzene, hydrochloric acid, and a whole host of toxic and carcinogenic additives (which the nat gas industry is loath to specify).  Such concoctions aren't needed for ordinary drilling.

Fracking wastewater temporary impoundment

After fracturing given (large) spots in the shale fields, these millions/billions of gallons of toxic soup can't be just dumped into the creek (although they certainly would be were it not for legal prohibitions).  All the nasty brine must be "contained", i.e. pumped into a fortified storage tank, where it will be kept  . . .  forever!  Required with regular drilling?  Nope.

But of course nothing can be contained forever, especially in some hole-in-the-ground designed by the petrochemical industry.  Some estimates say 35% of storage wells are leaking already.  We have literally no idea of long-term consequences, but we're proceeding willy-nilly anyway -- because there's money to be made!

Today's fracking isn't occurring in the wide-open spaces of Oklahoma.  It's happening in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia -- older, forested, populated, developed areas.  Nat gas fracking poses significantly more threat to the environment and to public health than any sort of conventional drilling ever has.  Fracking has already damaged land, wildlife and drinking water.  It has caused earthquakes.

And you say all wells have always been fracked?

Respectfully, no.  Not really.  Not by a long shot.  And even if they had, it wouldn't make it right.

Click the link for a few facts:
www.gaslandthemovie.com/whats-fracking

And if you're a real glutton for punishment, enter "fracking" in the Buster's Blog search window.

Foreign Policy Follies

These days, the political norm in our nation's capitol is that Democrats and Republicans are in a state of perpetual opposition on everything.  They can't even agree on what friggin' day it is.  But give them the prospect of lighting up another country with a few cruise missiles, and suddenly they're all holding hands and singing Kum-Ba-Yah together.

A large majority of Americans want nothing to do with a military strike against Syria, but the D.C. politicians are banging the drum about "strong intelligence" and "irrefutable evidence" of "a violation of international law" that has "crossed the red line" and demands a "shot across the bow".  We must "send a clear message" to Syria that their "behavior will not be tolerated" and so a "limited surgical strike" is called for to "degrade their capabilities" because the "cost of inaction" could worse than the alternative.  Of course, "there will be no boots on the ground".

It sounds just like the rhetoric from Dubya, the Dick, Rummy and all the other neocon nitwits 11-12 years ago in the run-up to Iraq.

And it sure looks like we're gonna stick our dick in the hornet's nest again.  What's the worst that could happen?