Filed under: World News — Steven A. Stehling @ 15:42
The French lose again. Nice.
It’s been long accepted that the French make the best wine in the world, but that doesn’t appear to be true. A panel including several French judges found Californian wines to be better for a second time. The California wine industry has a relatively short history and its heritage began here in Wisconsin. The site where Wollersheim Winery is today was first selected as a location for vineyards by Agoston Haraszthy. He labored at the vineyard for several years, but ultimately couldn’t overcome problems with winter damage to the vines. He also suffered from asthma and his doctor advised him that he should move to a more temperate climate, such as California or Florida. The discovery of gold deposits in California is said to have influenced his decision and in December of 1849 he headed west to San Diego where he planted another vineyard.
Eventually Haraszthy established more vineyards near of San Fransisco, Crystal Springs and Sonoma. Frustrated with vines dying in vast numbers, in 1861 he traveled to Europe to find a varieties that would be more suited. He collected 350 varieties and successful vineyards in California soon followed.
In 1976 the first blind tasting pitting French against Californian wines found California wines to be superior. That’s an impressive accomplishment considering successful vineyards had been growing in California for just over 100 years, compared to France’s history of over 2000 years.
I just saw something on the History Channel that made me laugh. There’s some show about the Kennedy Curse and near the end they started discussing Ted Kennedy. They have a sound bite from some clown and he says Ted Kennedy has made a greater impact on American society than any other Kennedy. Who does this guy think he’s kidding? What has Ted done? His political career is little more than a curiosity and a joke. He’s only in office because he’s owned by the unions and a majority of voters in Massachusetts are idiots.
Without a doubt, the Kennedy that has made the greatest impact upon society is JFK. He was the President that got us into the Vietnam War after all. There’s no other Kennedy that can even come close, except maybe Joe. You could argue that because of Joe the Kennedy boys got into politics, therefore he had the greatest impact.
I tried finding a song that would convey my frustration with this Macbeth garbage. There are several songs that would fit the bill, but given that I have no interest in becoming the target of the RIAA or some music industry lawyer, I can only use songs that have been released to the internet.
I eventually gave up on that and decided that civilization as we know it has to change or we’re all doomed. Which led me to a song.
Pennywise rules. When I was on active duty in California we used to sit around in the barracks with our guitars and play all sorts of music. When we couldn’t play well, we played loud. There was a lot of Metallica and a lot of punk. Let’s face it, when it comes to learning how to play, those are easy songs, or can be simplified and still sound close to original. Except for the Cliff Burton solos, good luck with that.
In those days back in the barracks I was listening to a lot of Social Distortion, NOFX and Pennywise. Dropkick Murphys had just released Do or Die. We could spend entire weekends at the barracks grilling, drinking and making noise. Every now and then we’d have a Metallica Marathon which was nothing more than putting every Metallica CD known to man into the 100 disc changer and then hitting random play. It was a simpler time.
But of course our favorite Pennywise song was Bro Hymn. We could play that on our guitars fairly well and the message fit our lifestyle. We were a band of brothers that were in a dangerous line of work. But we knew if push came to shove, we’d be there for each other.
Society and Bro Hymn are both found on the Full Circle album. Which was the first Pennywise CD I ever bought. Being a lowly Private in the Marine Corps wasn’t easy. I was stationed out in the middle of the desert and didn’t have a car. So during the first year the only music available to me was whatever they had for sale at the BX on base. Luckily the store manager had a small punk section, which we eventually convinced them to expand. If you’re a manager of a store, you have to follow the basic rules of economics. The punk was selling. That boy band crap wasn’t.
What kind of sick bastard pretends to be an Army Ranger just to dishonor them? I’d love to know the real name of the guy in the video. I think he and whoever else was involved with producing the video should at least be sued for defamation of character on behalf of all Army Rangers.
Here’s Jessie Macbeth’s Ranger picture.
Here are the two type of sleeve rolls used by the US military.
On the left is the sleeve roll style used by the Navy and Marine Corps. No one in the Army would ever roll their sleeves like this under any circumstance, especially if they’re going to be photographed posing in front of the flag for an official photo.
On the right is the way the Army and Air Force roll their sleeves. You can’t possibly mistake one for the other and the sleeves are rolled in such a different way that you couldn’t accidentally roll your sleeves wrong. But even if you did, someone would say something to you. You can’t walk around on base wearing the uniform improperly without someone saying something to you.
I used my uniform in this picture. I was in the Marine Corps for four years and I’ve been in the Wisconsin Air National Guard since 2001, so I know how to roll both ways. And don’t tell me the rolls are sloppy. I know they are. If I was going to actually get in uniform, I would make the rolls much tighter and neat.
There’s more details that prove Macbeth is a fraud, but I’m not going to cover them all. Uncle Jimbo already did that, so check it out.
The anti-war crowd is desperate for someone in the military to say what they want to hear, but so far they’ve come up empty handed. Their first attempt, Jimmy Massey was at least actually in the military. However everything he said was a complete lie. Of course Massey and the rest of anti-war movement refuse to admit he lied. But what good is just one guy that says the military is committing war crimes in Iraq? They need more. After all, over a hundred thousand military members have served in Iraq and they can only get one to say what they want to hear. Apparently they couldn’t wait for the real thing, so they had to manufacture Jessie Macbeth. That’s really pathetic. And then to produce such an easily debunked video is just hilarious. The people that made the video know absolutely nothing about the military.
Yesterday at the opening day ceremonies for the Milwaukee Hurling Club, the teams were escorted onto the field to the sound of a bagpipe.
I got a fever. And the only prescription is more bagpipe. Here’s Boston oi punk band Dropkick Murphys performing a cover of the classic Irish folk song about the potato famine, Fields of Athenry.
One of the founding members of Dropkick Murphys and the first lead singer, Mike McColgan stayed with the band for only two years. This came as a surprise when he decided to leave the band in 1998, especially since their first album Do or Die was a huge success and they were quickly gaining popularity across the country. But Mike wanted to pursue his lifelong dream of being a fireman for the Boston Fire Department.
Fields of Athenry is found on the Blackout album, but if you’ve never heard Dropkick Murphys before, you should start with Do or Die, their best album to date.
