Conventional wisdom as fed to the masses, and absorbed by them without question:

It is bad to be a Muslim. You definitely can't be in our government if you are.

Afros are a negative. Your natural hair is associated with radicalism and home grown terrorism.

Burning the flag is bad. Even though the supreme court says it is your constitutional right. Fuck the constitution.

Being old is bad. You must be a dribble mouth if you are over 70.

Having a previous addiction problem is terrible and means you are a bad person.

Question the logic of these "smears." They aren't smears at all. They are simple truths that we allow the propagandists in our media define as smears.

The media that feeds us a consistent stream of lies doesn't get to use these features of journalism and speech with a free pass. They don't get to use satire, anonymous sources, and other typical journalistic practices because they have burned all these bridges with the public. We are not stupid. We know how this works. Repeat the meme over and over until it is ingrained in people's minds. "Obama is a terrorist." "Obama is a terrorist." "Obama is a terrorist." "We've drawn a front page cover of Obama as a terrorist, see how rediculous that is. haha."

So now for the next week, every day on the news:

"Big flap over satirical cover with "Obama depicted as a terrorist."

"Big flap over satirical cover with "Obama depicted as a terrorist."

"Big flap over satirical cover with "Obama depicted as a terrorist."

Obama=terrorist. Advertising 101. Thanks for your help media.

This flap isn't about satire or cartoons. It is about the practice of the media to overtly or inadvertently manipulate us, and in turn do the bidding of those who would manipulate it. The reason we aren't laughing, is because this shit isn't funny anymore.

If Ghandi were protesting today, he'd be ignored by the press, relegated to "free speech zones," and ridiculed by those in power as a kook. In essence, his shit wouldn't fly. A "peace movement" won't work. You'll have to come up with motivations stronger than the incentives provided to the military/congressional/industrial complex to have any effect on our foreign policy. Even the people in charge can't stop the inevitable roll towards war.

I went to the war protests. I looked around at the code pink idiots, the giant paper mache puppet heads, the punk rockers, people on stilts dressed as uncle Sam etc... All this self aggrandizing posturing. I don't think more half of them are even really anti-war. They are just anti-whateva.

No need to come around by the end of the article. You had it right in the beginning. These people are more detrimental to their cause than helpful. Next time you pursue a premise, stay on it until the facts prove otherwise.

As a former bartender who has served hundreds of thousands of beers, I can attest to Budweiser's strong arm tactics at the bar/pub level. If they came in the door with some new product that they were advertising the shit out of like "Bud light Ice," we'd have to take a few cases, or they would threaten to cut us off the rest of their product, or they would slow down deliveries. We'd roll. Sure enough though, after the marketing takes effect, some douche would come in and that would be his/her regular beer from now on. Some tavern owners were hard asses and didn't like getting pushed around by them. They don't server Budweiser, and they make it well known when you walk in the door. It becomes their identity. Another trick the big three would do would be to buy the tap flow system for the bar. This would be enticing to a new bar with little capital. Miller buys your coolers, Bud buys your tap system, Coors cleans your system, BMI puts a juke box on your wall, Camel cigarettes buys your air filtering system etc... You get the idea. You are into pocket to these companies, you can't ditch them if you wanted to. Used to be called organized crime when I was a kid, now it is called doing business.

The crappy American pilsner comes from WWII. The men went overseas and fought the war, the women stayed behind. The breweries shifted their target and watered down the beer and served it cold. When the guys got back, they decided they liked this new 'type' of beer... It was branded as a refresher, remember the ads of sweaty guys rubbing beers on their foreheads to cool off.

I salute all swill breweries that fell in the great beer wars. I take my room temperature can of bud, poke my car keys in the side... shotgun. "Here's to my homies."

I tried to log in with my current username and password to no effect. The site states with will email me a link to change my password to no effect. I try to register from scratch and it says my username is taken. Is this a separate registration from salon.com? Why am I not auto logged in when already logged into salon.com. If I am not already registered why is it offering to send me my username or password to my signup email? Where are the emails?

If you have to register from scratch, what are you thinking? Someone has already stolen my username?

We trained Al Qaida, the Pakistani secret service, and most recently the Georgians. Are we ever going to stop instructing our future enemies in the art of warfare?