A journal of political, social, and other important, possibly even somewhat related affairs, including but not limited to: Central European Society, The European Union, HC Kometa Brno, American Politics, Film, and Beer.

23 August 2012

Important Social Science!

A new study finds that Justice Scalia is 19 times funnier than Justice Ginsburg. Justice Thomas is not funny at all.


22 August 2012

Global Warming and Science

Steven Horwitz has a great article here on global warming, in which he looks at some of the assumptions behind the "science" of global warming. Similar to something your correspondent wrote 5 years ago, it takes the form of a series of questions, but much more detailed (and economically focused) than mine was.

17 August 2012

Blasphemy!

Taking a break from less important topics, such as the philosophy of scientific discovery, your correspondent stumbled upon this Reuters article, charting the surging "Radler" market in the heart of Europe -- a heart in which beer pumps instead of blood. 

The radler is a beer-and Sprite (or Fanta) combination* which is offered a light, refreshing, tangy alternative to the world of pilsener beer. Alternatively, it can be viewed correctly, as a pernicious blaspheming of one of the world's perfect products. 

Sales of what can be called instant-radler, in which the beer is pre-bottled with lemon-lime or grapefruit pop,** have nearly doubled in the Republic in the past two years and accounts now for almost 5% -- 5%! -- of the market, chiefly due to younger drinkers raised more on refined sugar and less on the natural hops-and-barley elixir. For people who seem for whatever reason to want to move away from the hangover lifestyle, this is a welcome step; for traditionalists, this is of course an abject tragedy, an uprooting and forgetting of the traditions and mores of Czech society. It undermines the camaraderie and what the Germans call Gemütlichkeit of a beer with friends, and adds a slew of god-knows-what ingredients on the back label of every bottle.

Today in the pub where I had lunch, we drank water -- WATER! This is also becoming a more common occurrence, as the youth of Czech Republic move into an information economy, wherein typing becomes more important, and other jobs, such as in steel mills, auto factories, mines, and other places in which one could work semi-cocked, become less common. As the Reuters article points out, the Czechs still drink more beer per capita than any other country in the world, but as this changes, the radler and other substitutes will continue to gain market share. 

However, the pub culture is still strong, and a hard day's work still tends to end with a půllitr krygl (half-liter mug) of the original perfect product. And in many ways, this is a golden age of brewing here, as I will document someday. (I've already done much of the field work!) But sooner or later it may even, absurdly, become more expensive than water. May that day never come.

* Don't even ask about the repulsive Diesel.
** Grapefruit? The Czechs don't even have a word for Grapefruit! They say "Grep," or just write "Grapefruit."