vauntedsexboat

Do you think Shark Week does more harm or more good for the study and appreciation of sharks? It realy seems like a double-edged sword to me. On the one hand, raising awareness of ocean science seems important. On the other, 99% of it seems to be scary-voice "documentaries" with lots of slow motion black and white footage and titles like "Sharks: Nature's Most Lethal Killer." And it seems to me that a significant portion of it is just reinforcing peoples misconceptions about sharks in particular, and predators/wildlife in general.

You may already know this, but I want to point out that Trappist is not a geographical appellation but rather one overseen by what amounts to an industry association. There are Trappist breweries in several countries, including one in the US.

I'm strongly in favor of decriminalization, and I also support legitimate medical usage of marijuana, but I'm very conflicted by programs like California's medical marijuana system that seem to have become a quasi-legal backdoor to legalization. Most (not all, but most) of the people I know who've used programs like that did so largely for bogus reasons, and not because of any legitimate medical condition, and it seems to me that the existence and abuse of programs like that make it more difficult to argue for legitimate, straight-up decriminalization.

Do you have any thoughts on this?

I didn't know this until I looked it up, but apparently in the U.S. there are a wide variety of German styles that cannot be called by their traditional names without added description (e.g., "American Dortmunder" vs "Dortmunder") according to the TTB.

Here's a full list: http://www.ttb.gov/beer/bam/chapter4.pdf

And here's a relevant paragraph: For Bavarian, Dortmund/Dortmunder, Kulmbacher, Munich/Munchner, Salvator, Wein/Weiner, Wurtzburger produced outside of Germany or Vienna produced outside of Austria, the class and type designation “Bavarian,” “Dortmund,” etc., must include the word “type” or “American” or other adjective or statement, e.g., “Brewed in the U.S.,” indicating the true place of production.

As someone who works with federal regulations every day, I can say that the wheels of government turn exceedingly slowly and we're probably better off for them taking a light touch vs. trying to stay proactive. :) Imagine if they tried to legislate what could be called a Cascadian Dark Ale -- truly, the mind reels!

This list seems to be based purely on geography, which explains Pilsner being limited to Czech beers. I.e., they don't want someone calling a beer a Pilsner unless it's from Plzen, a Dortmunder unless it's from Dortmund, a Vienna Lager unless it's from Vienna, and so on. Obviously beer enthusiasts think of "Pilsner" primarily as a style and not a geographic indicator, but my guess is that this list was assembled under the assumption that a consumer might see "Bavarian Wheat" and believe that it's an import product (after all, it does say it's Bavarian, i.e. from Bavaria!), and they're trying to protect against that. (Or to take a more sinister approach, they're concerned that an American company would try to give the impression that its beers are made in Germany by calling them German styles.)