Hey folks, all is fine in Earlville.  Some people tell me that I should list the menu.  Well, here is my best attempt!  Anything you can imagine cook on a grill!  From regular steaks to seasoned ones, chicken and ribs to a great seafood line up brought in fresh by Geno Haas.  Kabobs of all sorts.  Portabella mushrooms and vegetable steamers for the non meat eaters.  Clams and wings for an appetizer?  It's all good.  It's all done on a big ol' barby right in the middle of the room or on one of three out back by you!  That's the party!  Rock on!         jim
 

Current Beer collection at the Bar as of 1/6/06
 

Duvel: 12oz.  A Belgian Ale, not too heavy.
Chimay: 25oz.  Top of the line Belgian.  I can't drink 'em-- instantly trashed.
Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout:  These products speak for themselves (winter)
Samuel Smith Nut Brown Ale: Good solid back ground.
Troegs Hop back:  Amber Ale.  Not too heavy but hoppy. (winter)
Newcastle Brown Ale:  English. Joel really likes it.
Bass:  There is nothing I can say that you don't already know.  Mixes well with Guinness draft.( but
           that whole story about Guinness and Bass being the original "black and tan" is a load of crap.
           The Irish and the English never liked each other that much.)
Straub:  A small brewery in St. Marys, Pa. This is a refreshing lighter beer.  "No Suger, no salt added."
            A diabetic buddy of mine turned me on to it. Never a hang over!!
Corona:  The number one imported beer again!  With a 40% increase in '98.  Gotta do the lime thing.
Rolling Rock.  Hey for all the crap people lay on Rock, it's a nice lighter beer.  To hell with them.
Hoegaarden:  The original white Belgian.  Super smooth with no after taste.  Kinda girlie but I'll drink it.
Rogue's Dead Guy Ale:  Flowery and more bubbly.  On the sweet side.  This is party stuff.
Guinness Draft (right now in the can) :  The liquid of the gods.  Life is good.
Franziskaner Weissbier Draft:  Belgian stlye German wheat beer. Joel likes this one too.
Yuengling Lager Draft:  The MacDaddy of draft in the area.  "gimmealager"
Victory Hop Devil Draft:A bitey blend of hops and malt round out this India pale ale from Downingtown.
Boddingtons: A creamy pub ale.  In a can like the Guinnness.  Good stuff.
Bud:
Red Strip:  How in the hell could I forget Jamaica's Budweiser!  Ah, the memories of riding through Nassau on the back of a cattle truck full of  natives, bags of drugs and cases of the Caribbean's finest?  Rough nights.

Light beer was first created for the girls that stayed behind to make the bullets during WW2.  They needed it.  We don't.  Drink Straub.
 
 

Politics................................................

FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows.They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers.You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and as many eggs as the regulations say you should need.

FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both,hires you to take care of them,and sells you the milk.

PURE COMMUNISM: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

RUSSIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.

SINGAPOREAN DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. The government fines you for keeping two unlicensed farm animals in an apartment.

MILITARISM: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY: The government promises to give you two cows if you vote for it. After the election, the president is impeached for speculating in cow futures. The press dubs the affair "Cowgate".

BRITISH DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. You feed them sheep's' brains and they go mad. The government doesn't do anything.

BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you canfeed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. After that it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requiresyou to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows..

ANARCHY: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to kill you and take the cows.

CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

HONG KONG CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly - listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother - in - law at the bank, then execute a debt / equity swap with associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Islands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows' milk back to the listed company. The annual report says that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.

ENVIRONMENTALISM: You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.

FEMINISM: You have two cows. They get married and adopt a veal calf.

TOTALITARIANISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.

COUNTER CULTURE: Wow, dude, there's like... these two cows,man. You got to have some of this milk.

SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

LIBERTARIANISM: You have two cows. One has actually read the constitution, believes in it, and has some really good ideas about government. The cow runs for office, and while most people agree that the cow is the best candidate, nobody except the other cow votes for her because they think it would be "throwing their vote away."
 

 test
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR New York Times
State of the Union: Another Take

By RANDY NEWMAN

Published: January 24, 2007

A Few Words in Defense of Our Country
By Randy Newman

I’d like to say a few words
In defense of our country
Whose people aren’t bad nor are they mean
Now the leaders we have
While they’re the worst that we’ve had
Are hardly the worst this poor world has seen
Let’s turn history’s pages, shall we?
Take the Caesars for example
Why within the first few of them
They had split Gaul into three parts
Fed the Christians to the lions
And burned down the City
And one of ’em
Appointed his own horse Consul of the Empire
That’s like vice president or something
That’s not a very good example, is it?
But wait, here’s one, the Spanish Inquisition
They put people in a terrible position
I don’t even like to think about it
Well, sometimes I like to think about it
Just a few words in defense of our country
Whose time at the top
Could be coming to an end
Now we don’t want their love
And respect at this point is pretty much out of the question
But in times like these
We sure could use a friend
Hitler. Stalin.
Men who need no introduction
King Leopold of Belgium. That’s right.
Everyone thinks he’s so great
Well he owned The Congo
He tore it up too
He took the diamonds, he took the gold
He took the silver
Know what he left them with?
Malaria
A president once said,
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”
Now it seems like we’re supposed to be afraid
It’s patriotic in fact and color coded
And what are we supposed to be afraid of?
Why, of being afraid
That’s what terror means, doesn’t it?
That’s what it used to mean
The end of an empire is messy at best
And this empire is ending
Like all the rest
Like the Spanish Armada adrift on the sea
We’re adrift in the land of the brave
And the home of the free
Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.
 

Thomas Jefferson First Inaugural Address

 

                                                   First Inaugural Address

                                                       March 4, 1801

                                             FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS,

    Called upon to undertake the duties of the first executive office of our country, I avail myself of the presence of that portion of my
fellow-citizens which is here assembled to express my grateful thanks for the favor with which they have been pleased to look toward me, to
declare a sincere consciousness that the task is above my talents, and that I approach it with those anxious and awful presentiments which the
greatness of the charge and the weakness of my powers so justly inspire. A rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all the
seas with the rich productions of their industry, engaged in commerce with nations who feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly to destinies
beyond the reach of mortal eye -- when I contemplate these transcendent objects, and see the honor, the happiness, and the hopes of this beloved
country committed to the issue and the auspices of this day, I shrink from the contemplation, and humble myself before the magnitude of the
undertaking. Utterly, indeed, should I despair did not the presence of many whom I here see remind me that in the other high authorities provided
by our Constitution I shall find resources of wisdom, of virtue, and of zeal on which to rely under all difficulties. To you, then, gentlemen, who
are charged with the sovereign functions of legislation, and to those associated with you, I look with encouragement for that guidance and support
which may enable us to steer with safety the vessel in which we are all embarked amidst the conflicting elements of a troubled world.

    During the contest of opinion through which we have passed the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect
which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the
nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in
common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to
prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would
be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection
without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance
under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and
capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated
man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant
and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But
every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all
Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them
stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed,
that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough; but would the honest
patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear
that this Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the
strongest Government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would
meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself.
Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this
question.

    Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative
government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure
the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation;
entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from
our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them; enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed,
and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring
an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter --
with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens -- a wise and
frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry
and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to
close the circle of our felicities.

    About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should
understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration. I will
compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations. Equal and exact justice to all
men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with
none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest
bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies; the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of
our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people -- a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped
by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle
of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well-disciplined militia, our best
reliance in peace and for the first moments of war till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy
in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened; the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith;
encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the
public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries
impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution
and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our
political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in
moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.

    I repair, then, fellow-citizens, to the post you have assigned me. With experience enough in subordinate offices to have seen the difficulties
of this the greatest of all, I have learnt to expect that it will rarely fall to the lot of imperfect man to retire from this station with the reputation
and the favor which bring him into it. Without pretensions to that high confidence you reposed in our first and greatest revolutionary character,
whose preeminent services had entitled him to the first place in his country's love and destined for him the fairest page in the volume of faithful
history, I ask so much confidence only as may give firmness and effect to the legal administration of your affairs. I shall often go wrong through
defect of judgment. When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground. I ask your
indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional, and your support against the errors of others, who may condemn what they would
not if seen in all its parts. The approbation implied by your suffrage is a great consolation to me for the past, and my future solicitude will be to
retain the good opinion of those who have bestowed it in advance, to conciliate that of others by doing them all the good in my power, and to be
instrumental to the happiness and freedom of all.

    Relying, then, on the patronage of your good will, I advance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become sensible
how much better choice it is in your power to make. And may that Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe lead our councils to
what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your peace and prosperity.