Month: November 2025

The boys drink and review Forgotten Lore American lager from Nepenthe, then discuss food stamps.

A lot of people were concerned that the recent government shutdown was interfering with the funding for food stamps (SNAP), but it brought up another issue. People started to wonder how we got to the point that one in eight Americans are getting food stamps.

Food stamps started out as a relatively modest program to distribute surplus food to people who could use it. The original program ended during World War II, but it was resurrected for the “war on poverty” under Lyndon Johnson. As with most government programs, it’s grown ever since.

In the early days of the program you had to purchase the stamps. In 1977 they abandoned the purchase requirement, and now it’s just a giveaway.

And boy are we ever giving it away.

P&C discuss.

The boys drink and review Raison Dêtre, a Belgian brown ale from Dogfish, then discuss the Charlie Kirk assassination and his legacy.

Charlie Kirk was an amazing man. He could go into enemy territory and take on all comers. When he took questions from a crowd, he would invite the people who disagreed with him to the front of the line.

Is there anyone like that on the left?

What did the Charlie Kirk assassination say about America? What did it say about the right and the left?

Who will be Charlie’s successor? How has his death changed the conservative movement?

The boys drink and review a Helles lager from Sam Adams, then discuss the Mississippi miracle. They’ve moved from the bottom to near the top in reading.

How did they do it?

They abandoned the failed modern educational ideas, like whole language, that have been destroying education for decades, and went back to phonics and strict standards.

Modern ideas confuse how a proficient reader reads with how beginners learn. It was a comical error.

People become proficient by learning and internalizing the basics. Later they don’t need the basics anymore, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t need to learn them. Modern methods try to take a shortcut, and it doesn’t work.

Mississippi went back to the basics and pulled off a miracle.

The boys drink and review a supercharged pumpkin ale and wonder what people mean when they say we should abolish ICE.

If we assume they haven’t gone completely into a “no borders” position, then how do we make sense of this?

We have borders, and we have rules for who can cross them. Somebody needs to enforce that. If it’s not ICE, who’s going to do it?

This is, once again, one of those cases where the left is reacting emotionally and hasn’t thought the thing through.

If they’re upset about ICE tactics … okay. We can have reasonable discussions about that.

But somebody needs to enforce our immigration laws, and that means that in some cases people need to be deported.

What do the “abolish ICE” people actually want?