Month: March 2024

The boys drink and review Giant Flaming Zombie Polar Bear Double IPA by Atlas Brewing, then discuss Frank Herbert’s Dune and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

Which one is better? Where are they similar, and where are they different?

Dune is a great work of science fiction and the Lord of the Rings is a great work of fantasy. They have a lot of things in common, including a medieval fee, knights, castles, great houses, wizard-like characters, and immense, involved world building.

There are strong differences as well. Dune looks to the future while the LOTR looks to the past, and has more of a nostalgic feel. Dune is technological, but in the LOTR, it’s usually the bad guys who use technology.

The LOTR has a much clearer moral universe, with more differentiation between the good guys and the bad guys. It’s not exactly clear who the good guys are in Dune.

Tolkien was a devout Catholic, and the LOTR is infused with a religious sensibility, even though there is not actual religion in the book. Herbert was not a believer and presents religion as a tool to be manipulated for political ends.

The LOTR is very mythological, and sometimes even sacramental, while Dune is speculative and includes psychedelics.

The P&C Man of the Week this time is James Carville. (Starting about 34:00.)

The boys drink and review Big Red Norm Red Ale from Denizen’s Brewing, then discuss speed dating.

Imagine that a friend drags you into speed dating. What would you do?

First, you have to decide what your intentions are. But given that, what questions can you ask to find out if the woman is nuts?

What are the deal-breaker questions? Tattoos? Drinking? (Not drinking?) Weed?

The questions you ask in speed dating might focus on sussing out a few issues, such as …

* How boring they are
* Their interests
* Personality
* Neuroticism
* Intelligence

There’s not much time. How would you prioritize your questions?

Man of the week: All the Planet Fitness members who are leaving.

The boys drink and review Delicious IPA from Stone’s Brewing, then try to work through the confusing world of gender and the horrible legacy of gender theory.

Isn’t “gender” about language? How did it come to describe people’s sexuality?

Enter John Money, the disgusting pervert who is the father of gender theory. He promoted the idea that gender is not connected with sex, and that gender is malleable. He coined the terms gender role and sexual orientation.

Money was behind the tragedy of David Reimer, who after a horrible accident during a circumcision lost his entire penis. Money convinced the parents to raise the boy as a girl.

It was a catastrophe, but it became the proof — among sexologists and perverts — that sex was just a social construct, and that if you raise a boy as a girl, he’ll be a girl.

It didn’t work out that way and it ruined poor David’s life. He never took to his female “identity,” and eventually committed suicide.

We’re coming to a point of reckoning. Children who had this butchery done to them are growing up, and they’re starting to sue the monsters who did this to them.

It won’t be long before we look back on this “gender theory” nonsense the way we look back on the Satanic panic. But how many children will have to be butchered before we get there?

The boys drink and review Crowhill’s homebrewed Viking Stout, then catch up on recent news with electric vehicles.

There has been concern about fires and EVs. They burn hot, and it’s hard to put them out. With some experience behind us now, while there are still concerns, it’s not as bad as feared.

EVs are still mostly a luxury item. They’re great as a second car, but they can’t completely replace gasoline vehicles. They don’t work well in the cold. They take a long time to charge. There aren’t enough charging stations. They don’t have enough range. It would be a disaster if people tried to evacuate Florida in EVs.

Home charging is not an option for people who live in apartments, or otherwise don’t have access to home charging options.

Government goals for EV production and adoption have been way too optimistic. After a solid flood of early adopters, demand has softened considerably.

EVs are not as green as people expect. They usually get their power from coal. The materials required to make them are mined in environmentally unfriendly ways. They’re not easy to dispose of or recycle. The metals used to create EVs release toxic chemicals into the soil that are toxic to important bacteria.

EVs are also much heavier than gasoline cars. Parking garages, safety guard rails, and other infrastructure will have to be re-engineered to deal with the increased weight. It also affects passenger safety in crashes.

Put simply, there’s no free lunch. EVs are a marginal improvement in some ways, but they’re not the green panacea we’ve been told.

We need to put away the cultic, apocalyptic, emergency thinking and allow engineers and the market to figure this out.

The boys drink and review O’Hara’s Nitro Irish Red, then discuss Tucker’s trip to Moscow and his chat with Putin.

When only one side of a story can be told, you can be sure you’re not hearing the whole truth. It makes sense to try to hear the other side.

According to some, Putin is the devil and you can’t say anything nice about him or give him any platform. (Even though the same critics were jealous that they didn’t get the interview.)

Putin begins the interview with a half hour of his perspective on Russian history, but they eventually get into some interesting Q&A about Ukraine and other issues.

Some of Putin’s claims were absurd, such as blaming Poland for WWII. But there were other details about possible peace deals to end the Ukraine war that we don’t hear about much in the U.S.

After the interview, Tucker went on a tour of Moscow and said some very stupid things about grocery stores and subway stations in Russia. That undercut the significance of the interview and made him look stupid.

Pigweed, Crowhill, Longinus, and all three wives went to Baltimore to see an adaptation of The Oresteia, which was originally a 3-part play by Aeschylus. In this podcast they reflect on the play and related issues.

The play focuses on the web of vengeance within the family of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, starting with Agamemnon’s sacrifice of their daughter, Iphigenia, before the battle of Troy.

When Agamemnon returns home with Cassandra the prophetess of Apollo as a spoil of war, Clytemnestra invites him back in regal style, but then murders both her husband and his new girlfriend.

It then falls on Orestes, their son — urged on by their daughter Electra — to avenge the death of his father.

But then, who is to avenge Clytemnestra? How far does this go? Where does it end?

The play addresses issues of just war, faith, free will and determinism, religious and moral obligations, family relations, and vengeance and justice.

The show ends with a discussion of Troy and the alleged historical backdrop to the play.

In another edition of “shortcut to the classics,” P&C drink and review Pigweed’s homebrewed IPA, then discuss Lord of the Flies by William Golding. (Starting at 2:55.)

Pigweed gives a little biographical background on the author, then the boys delve into the heart of darkness and survival in this compelling short novel.

The story takes place on a deserted island, where a group of British boys find themselves stranded following a plane crash. With no adults to guide them, the boys attempt to govern themselves … with disastrous consequences.

“Lord of the Flies” is a compelling exploration of human nature, power dynamics, and the thin veneer of civilization that separates order from chaos. Through the eyes of Ralph, Piggy, Jack, and other vividly drawn characters, Golding poses urgent questions about leadership, morality, and the inherent savagery within us all.

As we discuss the novel’s themes, symbols, and the development of the characters and their interactions, we invite you to reflect on what “Lord of the Flies” reveals about the complexities of human behavior and how fragile “civilization” really is.

The boys drink and review Founder’s Dirty Bastard, a Scotch ale, then they discuss the distinction between Scotch and Scottish ale before they get into five topics in five minutes each.

#1 Why can’t we deport violent criminals who are here illegally? NYC mayor Eric Adams says he has to change the law before he can do that. How did we get into such a ridiculous position?

#2 Why did Sports Illustrated tank? Was it the internet? Online vs. offline issues? The overall decline in publishing? Or was it that they went woke? The media doesn’t want to admit that going woke sometimes causes you to go broke.

#3 Is the NFL responsible when people don’t dress warmly at a cold football game? Do we want a nanny state where every organization is telling you what’s best for you?

#4 Grammar and usage problems that bother P&C. It’s vs. its. Unnecessary apostrophes. Then vs than. Media and data are plural. Your vs. you’re. To, too, and two. Their, there, they’re. Principal vs. principle. Capitol vs. capital. Insure, assure, ensure.

#5 Voting for the good of the country even if it affects you negatively. Some people actually have the good of others in mind even when that requires incredible sacrifice.

P&C drink and review a Bock from Guilford Hall Brewing, then ask whether educated people are smarter than the man on the street.

Even if you could make the point that smarter people should make public policy, are our educational systems making people smarter? Probably not. “Man on the street” interviews regularly show that college-educated people are dumb as a mud fence.

If you ask the college student and the man on the street questions like this …

* Can men menstruate?
* Is drug-induced breastmilk from a man as good as milk from a woman?
* Is your neighborhood safer with fewer cops?
* Should illegal aliens get a home and an allowance?

… it’s the college student who gives you nonsense and the man on the street who talks sense.

If you’re educated, you might believe something like this. Genitalia have nothing to do with your “gender,” but cutting them off or creating fake ones is “gender affirming.”

Babied, temper-tantrum-throwing morons in the universities have created an environment where people are afraid to say the truth. As a consequence, education has become indoctrination — into woke insanity.

If there’s a “hate has no home here” sign in the yard, you can be pretty sure that hate swirls around that house.

Why is that? Because liberals don’t understand conservative positions, and the only way they can process them is to accuse conservatives of hate.

Conservatives don’t hate liberals. We think they’re uninformed and have childish ideas. But liberals truly hate conservatives.

This all ties back to some work by Jonathan Haidt on moral foundations, which Crowhill reviews briefly in the beginning of this mini-episode.

The boys drink and review Snow Pants Oatmeal Stout by Union Brewing, then discuss how the left tends to project what they’re doing on the right. (Starting at 4:00.)

“Projection” is, according to Freud, a kind of defense mechanism where people attribute their own unacceptable thoughts, feelings, and motives onto other people.

Let’s say there was a political party that spent four years saying “illegitimate president, not my president, Russian collusion, Stacey Abrams is the real governor, Glenn Youngkin is not the real governor,” then after having done that for years they said “why are Republicans such election deniers?”

Is this a Freudian thing, or is a conscious, deliberate, strategic choice to accuse the other side of what you’re doing?

This concept applies to political violence. After years of violence, riots, burning public buildings, etc., the Democrats accuse conservatives of being domestic terrorists.

“Threat to Democracy” has become the phrase of the hour for the left. After they tried to take down an elected president, caricatured all calls to tighten election laws (to make it harder to cheat) as “voter suppression,” and so on, they have the gall to say that ff you don’t vote for the Democrats, “democracy” is at stake.

The people who try to remove a candidate from the ballot aren’t suppressing democracy. No. That’s the people who say the voters should have a right to choose.

It’s upside down world, and the accusations are completely unhinged.