IPA or any kind of hoppy beer tastes like someone took a perfectly good beer and added a few drops of dish soap to it.

2011. The Arab Spring. Color revolutions. Google was ecstatic. They were going to spark a revolt in China! Because they were strongly pro-free speech! (how times change)

They were going to tear down China's government with all of their free information about how oppressive it was to live in China, and the best part was that China couldn't do anything about it! Speech wants to be free! :freeze-peach: (how times change)

They were going to pull the rug out from the government that brought a billion people out of poverty and into the modern world, come hell or high water! They were going to put a billion people in a new age of chaos and war and damn anyone who would stop them! LOL they fucked around and found out. Turns out, you can block entire websites off the internet if you want. Google retreated to google.com.hk and huffed in the unique frustration that is a tech aristocracy being told they can't have everything they want. Then it turned out the Arab Spring was a total disaster and Egypt was put in the position of being a few weeks away from starvation. But don't listen to me, let's see the kind of situation they had planned for China.

Last year I arrived early for a lunch address by Gen. Michael Hayden, who ran the National Security Agency and later the Central Intelligence Agency in the George W. Bush administration. Hayden was already there, and glad to chat. The conversation turned to Egypt, and I asked Hayden why the Republican mainstream had embraced the Muslim Brotherhood rather than the military government of President al-Sisi, an American-trained soldier who espoused a reformed Islam that would repudiate terrorism. "We were sorry that [Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed] Morsi was overthrown" in July 2013, Hayden explained. "We wanted to see what would happen when the Muslim Brotherhood had to take responsibility for picking up the garbage."

"General," I remonstrated, "when Morsi was overthrown, Egypt had three weeks of wheat supplies on hand. The country was on the brink of starvation!"

"I guess that experiment would have been tough on the ordinary Egyptian," Hayden replied, without a hint of irony.

And of course, years later, we found that Google were heavily into censorship themselves. Not Chinese style of course! But penalizing sites so hard that they appear on page 134 of search results. Not so different.

My dad booked me for a second leg of a long-haul flight (out of LAX) in first class (domestic flight so just 2 classes). Boy, it was great. The seat was like an armchair with plenty of room, and free booze of course. It wasn't even like being on a flight, it was like being in a restaurant. The steward was outstanding and was funny and at one point he made fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies in an onboard oven. Would do again.

The "best" part was being in LAX and getting to go to the first class lounge! Ruling class territory! It felt great showing my boarding pass and being admitted inside the forbidden zone. But once inside, boy what a disappointment. The lounge had clearly been the victim of several rounds of cuts and it was the bare minimum. They had a buffet, but the only actual food was this mean little Thai curry. The rest of it was all french fries and other non-meal items that I know were super cheap. I went where I had long longed to go: the bar! Woo-hoo, it's all free! And best of all, they announced a flight delay. If there's anywhere you want to be delayed, it's the free bar at the first class lounge! But another disappointment. I was expecting the best bartenders in the business. Nope. All they knew how to do was pull beers and fill chardonnay glasses. I asked for a Singapore sling, one of my favorite cocktails, and one of the bartenders, clearly the junior one, had to look up how to make one on her phone. It was subpar (I'm a cocktail man when I can get good ones). The other bartenders sat around doing nothing and talking about how great it was to use your company discount to play golf in Phoenix. It was comforting to know that the airlines screw the first class customers, too.

If the company's paying, who the hell cares?

My favorite are the "sophisticated" American beer drinkers on :reddit-logo:. "Oh, I would never drink Budweiser. I drink superior European beer like Stella Artois." Man, that's European pisswater.

I like Pilsners. I've drank a ton of "good" beers, and I always come back to Pilsners. They're just good beers. To hell with "oatmeal stout" or "chocolate doppelbrau" or "cherry ice cream sundae IPA". Besides the weird taste, these beers make you full after two. Beer is just liquid bread, remember. I can't drink enough to get drunk!

Lagers too. Boy, they're great. Sure, the corporate beers suck, but have you ever been overseas? The locally made beers suck too. Sometimes the beers are fake. And God knows what's in them, even in the name brands sometimes they put formaldehyde. I got to where even at the "we have 100 beers from all over the world" bar, I would specifically seek out Made In USA Bud Lite. It was just so refreshing to drink something light, like chilled iceberg lettuce in beer form.

Listen carefully: this is a meme. Not those silly little graphics with cartoon frogs.

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Houston is the 4th largest city in the US, and there were no scammers and beggars on every block. Honestly that sounds like homeless-blaming.

To heck with Wade-Giles, use straight-up English. Which is easier to identify, Kwangchow or Canton?

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America was a trust-based society for a long time. Well, in some parts, anyway. I can remember appealing to total strangers for aid and receiving it with a smile. Also having strangers come up to me and I'd help them out.

I suppose I didn't grow up in the urban area of a big city, which helped. I'd always see these movies based in New York where people were assholes to each other, and I just couldn't figure out why those people would be so mean. Doesn't it make you feel good inside to help people?

Most people don't, which is why it's a dick move to do. But the author has got to display that "ooh, look at me I can use PINYIN! I M SO KEWL!!@#!@#!"

Idiot

What's the code of conduct like there?

This sounds great but they're not going anywhere. Our banks have lent to them and we will see those debts repaid. Fun fact: that's why the US entered the Great War. In 1916 Germany was winning and if that happened they weren't going to pay back the loans. So Woodrow Wilson sent enforcers over to ensure the banks got their money.

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美国鬼子 but that's nonstandard. Usually used with 日本鬼子, Japanese devils. Just use 美国佬, that's the demeaning form of American.

I hate when they use modern Pinyin on these historical names. Nobody knows who the fuck Jiang Jieshi is or the GMD. History knows them as Chiang Kai-Shek and the KMT.

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