Beer And Conversation With Pigweed And Crowhill

The boys drink and review a fresh hop IPA from Stone Brewing, then discuss common biases in the way we think.  Cognitive biases are examples of ways in which our brains can point us down a non-rational path. But why do we have these biases? Why did they evolve?  Could it be that there are situations where it's better not to be rational?  The boys discuss as they review the following examples.  * Reactance * The framing effect * The availability heuristic * The sunk cost fallacy * Groupthink * Declinism * Self-serving bias  * The Placebo effect  * In-group bias  * The halo effect  * The curse of knowledge  * Anchoring  * Confirmation bias It's good to be aware of these departures from strictly rational thinking, but it's also good to be aware of why we have them in the first place. 

Pigweed and Crowhill drink and review two beers from Springfield Manor Brewery, then discuss the disappointing results of the 2022 midterm elections.  The proverb says "Hope deferred makes the heart sick," and that's certainly the case here.  What in the world happened to the Red Wave?  The modern Democratic Party has gone so far past the insane label that it's hard to believe anybody would vote for them. But ... apparently a lot of people don't feel that way.  Republicans severely under-delivered. Why?  Part of it is candidate quality. Some of the Republican candidates were not that great, and some of them were too Trumpy. Abortion also played a larger role in the vote than many polls predicted.  One lesson from the midterm election might be that the country wants normal, and both parties are offering crazy.  Despite the poor showing, there are some good things from the election. First, this might be the end of Stacey Abrams and Beta O'Rourke. Second, Democrats are losing t

Mr. Energy, who knows a bit about wine, returns to the show to review three Chilean Cabernet Sauvignons, and discuss some basics about wine.  The boys discuss white vs. red grapes, vintages, tannins, price vs. value, etc., as they drink their way through three cabs.  What's the right way to buy wine? Is there a price where you can be sure you're getting good wine? And what about pairing wine with food? Do you have to drink red wine with red meat?  How should a newbie approach the topic? What do you do if you want to bring good wine to a dinner party?  Wine can get so complicated. What's the role of aging with wine? Should you turn up your nose at wines with a screw top? What do you do if you try a wine and don't like it? And what do you do when the waiter comes to the table and presents the cork?  P&C and Mr. Energy try to demystify the topic. 

Along with special guest Mr. Energy, the boys drink and review The Glutenberg, a gluten-free IPA, then discuss energy policy.  In a previous episode, the boys made fun of California for requiring more electric cars in the very same week they asked people not to charge their electric cars because the grid couldn't handle it.  Mr. Energy -- an old friend who has covered energy issues for decades -- wanted a chance to chime in on the topic.  While he shares some P&C principles, like the need for a market-based approach, an all-of-the-above approach to energy, and the need for a national energy policy, he disagrees with the boys on a few points, especially related to global warming.  The discussion is lively and interesting, and Mr. Energy brings some good news about the future of modular nukes! 

With special guest Longinus, P&C drink and review Bloodline, an IPA by Flying Dog, then discuss Vlad the Impaler and Dracula.  The boys discuss the origins of vampire stories and the association between vampires and Dracula.  Bram Stoker loosely based his story on Vlad the Impaler, who was a 15th-century badass in the general area of modern-day Romania.  P&C review the basic historical situation and life of Vlad, and his reputation for cruelty. Some reports say he was a psycopath, worse than Caligula and Nero.  Stoker's book (and a few contemporary works) introduced many of the elements of the modern-day vampire story. No reflection in the mirror. Doesn't sleep at night. Fear of crosses and holy objects. Can change into a wolf or a bat. Is seductive and sophisticated.  The boys then review a series of Dracula movies based, to one degree or another, on Stoker's work.  To celebrate Halloween, they wrap up the show with a series of 2-sentence horror stories. 

As part of their ongoing and popular "shortcut to the classics" series, Pigweed and Crowhill, with special guest Longinus, review Tell Tale Heart IPA, then discuss Poe's life and works, including his connection to Baltimore, Maryland.   They review several Poe short stories and poems, including The Fall of the House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, and The Raven.  For each story, the boys give a brief review of the basic details, then delve into some interpretation and commentary.  The stories play off common horrors: being buried alive, tortured, crushed to death, betrayed by a friend, falling into madness, your dead body carved to pieces, and losing the love of your life. Poe uses them all perfectly, creating suspense and horror out of common experiences, echoing normal human reactions, but in a unique and frightening way. 

P&C drink and review yet another offering from the Pastryarchy -- an Almond Brittle Imperial Stout -- then discuss the Republican Party's "Commitment to America."  Newt Gingrich famously engineered a Republican revolution with his Contract with America. Contemporary Republicans are trying to imitate that strategy with their Commitment to America. It's an attempt to put forward a positive message.  The boys love the idea but are not impressed with the details.  Overall, the commitment expresses nice sentiments, but it doesn't provide enough detail. The Contract with America put forward ten specific pieces of legislation which people could read. The Commitment to America is just a bunch of vague sayings with no details.  The Commitment also seems to tread on federalism, promoting to make changes that are not in the federal government's purview.  Overall, the boys are not pleased with the effort. It seems too wishy-washy.

P&C review Kentucky Pumpkin Barrel Ale, then discuss the annual celebration of Yorktown Day.  Why do we celebrate the day that we declared our independence rather than the day we actually won it?  The boys review the history leading up to the battle of Yorktown, in which the main British army surrendered to George Washington.  During the phase of the war just prior to Yorktown, the Brits moved south, hoping to collect recruits and support from the loyalists. It didn't work out that way, and they had to hold up in Yorktown. With the help of the French navy and French troops, Washington beat Cornwallis and forced his surrender, which effectively ended the war.  Pigweed believes we should acknowledge and celebrate this victory. 

The boys drink and review Pigweed's D.C. Bro, an attempt to clone D.C. Brau's India Pale Ale. Then they discuss male employment.  Does it matter if men are unemployed? P&C say yes, it matters. In fact, it's a serious problem, and our culture is not addressing it.  As a general rule, young men need to be reined in. A successful culture needs to steer the aggressive, competitive instincts of men towards something useful for society.  We're not doing that. Men are falling behind. They're killing themselves more, suffering more addiction, and getting less education. They commit more crimes, are more likely to go to jail, and are more likely to be obese. Testosterone and sperm counts are falling. Men are not getting married. This is a societal disaster that no one is talking about.  If women are getting 60% of the college degrees, and aren't interested in "marrying down," what's going to happen to the marriage rates?  This is a crisis, but nobody is paying attention. Why? Pigweed and C

The boys take a break from beer and do The Vodka Challenge, in which they do a blind taste test between Titos, Skol, Smirnoff, and a mystery vodka.  They start off with a general discussion of vodka -- what it is, what it's made from, how it's made, etc.  If vodka is a neutral spirit, why should you spend more on expensive vodka? Does it matter? What are the characteristics of a good vodka?  The mystery vodka was simply grain alcohol, diluted down to 80 proof, with a little glycerin and sugar to round it out.  After doing their 4-panel test, they tried another common vodka story, which is that you can transform cheap vodka into top-shelf vodka by running it through a Brita filter. 

With special guest Longinus, P&C drink and review Warsteiner Dunkel, then discuss the philosophy of Nietzsche.  He's famous for his declaration of the death of God -- which is not the smirky, triumphalist statement of a modern atheist, but a lament at the loss of traditional foundations of meaning, morality, and purpose. Once you've pulled out the foundations that come along with belief in God, what do you have left?  Nietzsche is considered one of the early existentialists. He says that since our lives have no inherent meaning or any meaning imposed from outside, we need to create our own meaning.  He tries to avoid the nihilism and pessimism of Schopenhauer by building his own ideas about how to find meaning in a meaningless world. He criticizes Christianity as slave morality and urges a more aggressive form of self-assertion.  Nietzsche sees "will to power" as the essential element of who we are, and rather than suppress that, we should recognize and rejoice in it. 

In this latest edition of "shortcut to the classics," the boys review Czechvar Lager, then review The Metamorphosis.  Special guest Longinus joins the show to contribute his literary expertise.  After a very brief biography of Kafka, the boys review the characters, the basic plot, and the structure of the book, then delve into its possible meanings.  Gregor, the main character, wakes up one morning as a bug, with predictable but rather amusing consequences for his job and his family.  In some ways, the story sounds like something a 5th grader would dream up. But there are interesting layers of meaning in the text, and plenty to think about. Pigweed, Crowhill, and Longinus discuss a few possible interpretations of the story. 

The boys drink and review Yeungling's Porter, then discuss disaster preparation. What's responsible and what's over the top?  What would it take to be ready for a big snow storm, or a 3-day power outage? What if it's 2 weeks? Or 2 months?  What would happen to the utilities? Would you still get gas, electricity, and water?  Then they go into the disaster scenarios. Beyond prudent, reasonable precautions, what happens when society breaks down? When money isn't worth anything. When there's hyperinflation.  How hungry do people need to get before they start breaking into their neighbor's house?  And even if you are prepared for a long-term disaster, are you going to shoot your hungry neighbors who come begging for food?  Or what if you get a bug-out location in the boonies? Will you be safe?  When you think it all the way through, this prepper stuff doesn't make much sense. 

In this mini-episode, the boys discuss the case of the Canadian shop teacher who decides to dress in an outrageous costume that parodies women.  You may have seen the photos of the male school teacher wearing enormous prosthetic boobs.  Is this guy acting our some weird fetish, or is he trolling the woke?  And in either case, why do we need to tolerate such nonsense? Why should parents be obligated to put up with this?  We've created an environment where "gender identity" is some sort of magic word that trumps all other considerations. If some absurd behavior can be explained as an expression of gender identity, the rest of us have to applaud.  Sorry. Not doing it. 

The boys drink and review Copper Legend from Jack's Abby, then discuss ESG.  ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance. It's a way to rank companies by their compliance with left-wing social goals.  People have every right to invest in companies that uphold their social values if they want to. The problem with ESG is that big corporations are forcing these partisan standards on companies -- using other people's money, and without their permission! It's a classic shakedown.  When big investment companies like Blackrock do this sort of thing, they're violating their fiduciary duty to their shareholders by applying standards other than profit. When I put money in a fun, I want a return. I don't want them to impose their social agenda on my investments.  ESG threatens to withhold investing money from companies that aren't willing to follow a partisan agenda.  This is a new form of totalitarianism. It's not Marxism or fascism or socialism. It's an ideologically driven capitalist

The boys drink and review The Troegenator by Troegs brewing, and then discuss our non-sensical energy policies.  In the same week California announced that all new cars in California could not be powered by gasoline after 2035, they announced the grid was having trouble and would people please refrain from charging their electric vehicles. Did they have the sense to recognize the humor in that?  To power all these lovely new electric cars, California would have to triple its generating capacity and vastly expand and enhance its power grid. Are they willing to spend that money and risk the wrath of the environmentalists?  The only possible way to achieve this goal is to use nukes. But the left hasn't been willing to do that.  It's as if energy policies are being written by ideologues rather than engineers. We're planning to get rid of the energy that works to replace it with energy that doesn't work.  Even if we make this transition from fossil fuels to other sources, what are we going

P&C drink and review Sunny Little Thing from Sierra Nevada, then discuss Howard Zinn and his partisan "history" books.  Zinn was a 60s leftist and one-time communist who wrote a "people's history" of the United States, which has become way too influential, especially in the educational system. This anti-American propaganda has been used to poison young minds against the U.S.A.  One big problem with Zinn's focus on American sins is that there's no sense of proportion. E.g., "as compared to what?" When we evaluate the past, we have to measure people against their contemporaries, not against our 2022 view of what a perfect country should be.  Also, he is clearly re-interpreting American history from a Marxist perspective, but then pretends he is simply telling the truth and setting the record straight.  Zinn can write any book he wants, and, in fact, it's useful to have a Marxist perspective on history. But it's going too far for this narrow, partisan, anti-American view to be taught to o

P&C drink and review Coffee Among Friends Vanilla Latte Milk Stout by Monument Brewing, then discuss cat pictures and other silly things that are meant to inspire us.  Some popular motivational sayings are 100% stupid, while others are right some of the time, or at least you can put a good spin on them. P&C review some common ones they've seen and render judgment.  This is a fun and silly show, not meant to be taken too seriously. 

The boys drink and review Crowhill's 2022 Christmas Ale, then discuss censorship.  Is it okay for search engines to "curate" our search results, based on what they think we should know and be exposed to?  Should medical associations or journals crack down on doctors who propose alternative theories or treatments?  What about when the government gets involved and asks Big Tech to ban certain people or certain messages? Is it right for the FBI to tell Facebook what to suppress?  Is it different in times of war?  The boys think through the issues and come to the conclusion that there's too much censorship in the world today. 

In this special edition of Nooze and Booze, Pigweed and Crowhill do a spontaneous, off-the-cuff tribute to Queen Elizabeth II, who died on Sept. 8, 2022.  As Americans, P&C aren't as familiar with the details of the transition of power, rules of succession, and so on, and spend some time asking questions and wondering what happens next.  The boys also reflect on monarchy in general, and discuss some of its positive aspects, such as having a source of stability that exists outside the political cycle.  God save the King!