Planned Parenthood official sez: there is a right to POST-BIRTH abortion

God have mercy on us.

Alisa LaPolt Snow, a lobbyist representing Planned Parenthood in Florida ("Planned Parenthood"?  Now there's a contradiction in terms...) testified before that state's legislators this week that babies who are born after an attempted abortion should be killed at the discretion of the mother and her doctor.

Killing a baby.  After it has been born.

Back in the old days, we used to call that "infanticide".  Something that King Herod and certain pharaohs were fond of.  Y'know: murdering infants.

The Weekly Standard has more of the story and here's the actual video of Snow advocating putting to death babies who have taken their first real breath of life...


Folks, this blog's longtime readers know something about me: I am really, really careful about the language I use.  There is a certain word which has appeared on The Knight Shift but only as part of quotations from other sources.  It has been used only ONE time by my own volition.  It happened four years ago and it was the first time in my entire life that I had ever used it in publication.  At the time it was about a man being driven to suicide by hostile agents of the government.

There were no words in polite language that could have possibly conveyed my rage, my frustration and my lust for justice in that situation.  I'll never use that word unless it's absolutely, positively necessary.  When all other linguistical tools have failed.

For only the second time in my life, it has come to that again.

I don't care if my language here offends people.  At this point, I cannot find any other words that could telegraph my disbelief and horror at what we've come to:

We are fucked.  We are literally God-damned, for letting things come to this.  And damn if we don't deserve it.

One friend has noted that Mizz Snow's argument will never be allowed to pass into law or regulation.  Perhaps so.  But that it has even been seriously suggested at all screams volumes about how far we have fallen as a society.

We are on a very slippery slope down.  This will not end well.

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The Shroud of Turin? There's an app for that!

Before I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark in the theater (yeah I was that young: it was a weird weird childhood) and got hooked on archaeology, the Shroud of Turin had grasped my fascination.  All I knew at the time was that it might have been the cloth that Jesus was wrapped in after His death and that somehow, His picture got transferred into the material.  I've been reading every serious article and journal paper about the Shroud for most of my life and my curiosity about it has grown more and more.  Especially at this time of year.

What do I think of the Shroud of Turin?  Well, despite many attempts to reproduce it, those have always failed.  And then there is the forensic analysis: just this week scientists announced that the Shroud is almost certainly a product of the First Century.  When you figure in that pollen grains from plants found only in the region around Jerusalem have been extracted from the Shroud and well... if nothing else it is a historical relic of the utmost intrigue.

This being Holy Week, for the second time in history (the first was 1973) the Shroud of Turin is going to be televised live, beginning tomorrow.  And if you want a REALLY up-close look at the Shroud, you should check out The Shroud of Turin 2.0 for iPad and iPhone.

Haltadefinizione is the studio that did the high-definition photography of the Shroud five years ago.  It was the best photo documentation of the Shroud to date and now courtesy of those same folks it's all in the palm of your hand (or your lap). The Shroud of Turin 2.0 takes the 1,649 pics of the Shroud, combines them into a 12 billion pixel image weighing in at 72 gigabytes and streams it to your device (be still your heart: the actual app is only 50 MB in size).  You can download a free version, or pay $4 that gives you the option for even higher-resolution images.  If you want it, mash down here to find it on Apple's App Store!

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The thirtieth anniversary of Strategic Defense Initiative

It was thirty years ago this week that President Ronald Reagan gave a historic speech proposing, for the first time, a space-based anti-ballistic missile system for the United States.  The plan, once developed, would utilize ground and space-based weaponry to blast apart incoming nuclear missiles.  The basic premise was an array of missile-launching satellites around the Earth.  A far more radical design called for the deployment of platforms in orbit: either carrying anti-missile lasers or particle beams, or as part of an adaptive-optics system which would focus a surface-generated laser onto a moving target anywhere around the world (see illustration).

The official name for the concept was Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI.  But for reasons apparent to everyone it was quickly labeled "Star Wars" by the mainstream press and the name stuck.

SDI gained notoriety overnight, as much from many people in the United States as from the government of the Soviet Union.  Reagan's political enemies swore and declared that "Star Wars" was a ridiculous fantasy that would never work.  Soviet officials were outraged: among other things, claiming that SDI was a violation of the SALT II treaty.

The thing is, Strategic Defense Initiative did work.  But not at all in the way that it was advertised.  And out of all of Reagan's accomplishments, it is SDI that stands as the most genius.  Because SDI didn't have to function at all as Reagan had proposed.  Instead, it was the very idea of SDI that compelled the Soviet government to pour an insane amount of money into its military budget in an effort to "catch up" with the United States.  It was money that the Russians didn't really have to begin with and the rush to build up that country's military and technology took a severe toll on an economy that was severe enough already.

In short: SDI was one of the biggest reasons for the fall of the Soviet Union.  It drastically accelerated the Russian's bankruptcy and inability to contain its own people as it had for many decades.

I'll put it in even shorter terms: Ronald Reagan is the man most responsible for ending the Cold War.  He did it with SDI.  And he did it without a single shot being fired by either side.

Like I said: genius.

There are a number of retrospectives about the thirtieth anniversary of Strategic Defense Initiative, but one of the better ones I've found is a series by Jay Nordlinger running all this week on National Review's website.  It's recommended reading for anyone interested in the very rare crossing of politics, technology and history that is SDI.

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This week's Tammy Tuesday's got some pearly whites

I've had Tammy for ten months now. That's plenty of time to chronicle a lot of her but one thing that keeps eluding me is a perfect shot of this baby's teeth. She had those needle-like daggers that pups always have at first but ever since she lost her puppy teeth she's grown in some positivalutely gnarly chompers.

Well, it's not ideal by far, but this really is the best pic I've been able to take of not just her teeth but that psycho look in her eye when she's showing them off :-)

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"This Sorrowful Life": Thoughts on THE WALKING DEAD penultimate Season 3 ep

For the record, I wanna state that I just knew what Glenn was doing when he went walking along the fence!  Let's hope he thought well enough to sanitize that thing...

(Guess we're gonna see a spate of The Walking Dead-inspired weddings now, huh?)

There's been a pattern this late in Season 3: seems that AMC's The Walking Dead has been oscillating between "unbelievably greater television than we possibly deserve" and "better than much else".  The latter isn't where The Walking Dead should be: not after everything else that has happened this season.  Last week's "Prey" was an example.  It ended on a great shot but c'mon: forty minutes of The Governor stalking Andrea coulda, shoulda been much more fun.

But "This Sorrowful Life", this week's episode and the final before next Sunday's season finale, brought the pendulum swinging back... before making us watch it break completely off the chain and flying through the window...

I've thought from the getgo that The Walking Dead's biggest strength is how this is a story about human strengths and weaknesses and what any of us are capable of doing in the very worst of situations.  We saw that out the wazoo in "This Sorrowful Life": from Rick's inner turmoil about The Governor's ultimatum to that very touching - even uncommonly encouraging from television - scene between Glenn and Hershel in regard to Maggie.  The part where Hershel is having Bible study and prayer with his family was also a nice touch.  And then there was the scene where Rick called the group together.  He owned up to his mistakes, and I got the sense that we've now seen closure to his arc that began with declaring the "Rick-tatorship" at the end of Season 2.

But more than anything else, "This Sorrowful Life" was the long-coming payoff for Merle Dixon (Michael Rooker).

Merle has come a long way from the borderline neo-Nazi we saw chained to the roof in Season 1.  The racist aspect seemed to have vanished entirely, or at least covered with a practical veneer (sorta) during his time in the quasi-civilized society of Woodbury.  But even so, from the moment he re-appeared as one of The Governor's henchmen we saw the same ol' despicable Merle was still in there.  That he's had a bayonet in place of his right hand didn't help matters much...

So for most of Season 3 we've come to have a grudging tolerance for Merle Dixon.  But in the wake of "This Sorrowful Life" I expect him to become a character we'll be spending a lot more time studying as we re-watch this series in the years to come.  I think that in the end, Merle wound up his personal story as well as anyone can be expected.  Maybe he'll never be remembered by anybody else, but he had the conscience to do his best to make things right.  Not for himself as much as for others.

That doesn't make things easier for little brother Daryl (Norman Reedus, who has become the biggest breakout television sensation in many a moon).  That final scene of "This Sorrowful Life", where we had to witness Daryl's breaking down as he has never before, was sincerely heart-rending to watch.  I'll say it again: Reedus deserves an Emmy nomination for his work on this show (along with Chandler Riggs).

"This Sorrowful Life" featured some of the most brutal scenes in The Walking Dead's three years thus far, especially the ambush at the motel where Michonne makes creative use of that wire.  And did anyone else notice that The Governor (David Morrissey) had one line of dialogue in this episode?  Just one... but it certainly got his point across.

An extremely solid episode.  Here's hoping that it will keep it up going into the season finale next week: presumably the long-awaited war with Woodbury!

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Awright, raise your hands...

...how many of y'all didn't have your NCAA Basketball Tournament brackets thoroughly broken after this weekend?

I'm not much up to speed on sports of late. But watching the agony from brackets getting busted in full gory on my Facebook front page has been pure comedy gold!

Even though I don't have a dog in this hunt (I would have rooted for my alma mater Elon if it had gotten into the Big Dance for the first time) I have to say: from the getgo this has been a weird weird tourney. Probably the most topsy-turvy one in recent memory.

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Angry Wife Billboard Update: Is it a restaurant publicity stunt?

The talk of the area since yesterday morning has been this billboard on Battleground Avenue in Greensboro (North Carolina). In big bold letters on a wrathful red field it reads thusly: "Michael- GPS Tracker - $250, Nikon Camera with zoom lens - $1600, Catching my LYING HUSBAND and buying this billboard with our investment account - Priceless. Tell Jessica you're moving in! - Jennifer".

That LED billboard has caused at least one car wreck (was his name Michael?!).  Some have said the photos are fake but it's really been on display.

(Photo credit: Fox 8 WGHP)

Now there is evidence that the entire thing has perhaps been, rather than a jilted wife airing her husband's dirty laundry on Battleground Avenue, a marketing ploy by a restaurant instead.

At right you see the new message that showed up on the same billboard today.  It's now alternating with the original note from "Jennifer".  The new one references "Yodaddy's".  Incidentally, there is a local restaurant called Yo Daddy's.

Mash down here for what the good folks at Fox 8 WGHP have discovered about the billboard since yesterday.  Feel free to draw your own conclusions.

Ehhhhhh... okay.  If it's some kind of stunt, I don't get it.  In retrospect it's not the cleverest thing that I've heard of.  Maybe they could have stretched this whole thing out into an ongoing drama or something...

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STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS has a new trailer!

Less than two months before this baby erupts across our peepers and I can't wait!

Whether he turns out to be Khan or not, Benedict Cumberbatch has already sold me as being a classic Trek villain.

Does anyone else think that the Starfleet war room looks a lot like the one in Dr. Strangelove? Here's praying that Star Trek Into Darkness doesn't end with Kirk riding a torpedo while whooping and hollerin'...

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Do you think Jennifer is angry at Michael?

An actual LED billboard this afternoon on Battleground Avenue in Greensboro, North Carolina...

Tip o' the hat and credit due to journalist Chad Tucker of Fox 8 WGHP, who posted this on Facebook a short while ago!

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Frank Thornton - AKA Captain Peacock - has passed away

Found out some sad news yesterday: Frank Thornton, an amazing British actor who shone in every part he played but will forever be most remembered as the unflappable Captain Stephen Peacock on the BBC's legendary comedy series Are You Being Served?, has passed away at the age of 92.

(Does this mean that Peacock is now spending an eternity listening to Mrs. Slocombe prattling on about her pussy...?)

I know that 92 is a good run but still: Thornton made millions laugh during the very long run of Are You Being Served? (along with its sequel series Grace & Favour) and he will be sorely missed.  Of the original cast, only Nicholas Smith - who played Mr. Rumbold - is still with us.

Frank Thornton leaves behind his wife of 67 years.  I found that to be pretty dang remarkable in this day and age.

So in honoring his memory, as well as that of the rest of the wacky crew at Grace Brothers Department Store who have taken the elevator up, here is one of the many classic episodes of Are You Being Served? From March 13th 1975 it's "Up Captain Peacock"...

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It's double the dachshund on this Tammy Tuesday!

Want more wiener dog?!?  Tammy is a more fortunate pup than many.  Ya see, my cousin nearby wound up with Tammy's litter-mate Sassy.  And because of that they've had plenty of occasion to romp and play together.

So here is Tammy (with the red collar) and her sister Sassy, along with my cousin's two children.  Hey, it's two cute dachshunds and two cute kids: what could possibly be cute-sier? :-)

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The Iraq War is ten years old today

George W. Bush is the worst President in American history.  In less lucid moments (mostly when hopped-up on allergy medicine) I would write that Barack Obama has been far far worse.  But there would have not been Barack Obama in the White House had Bush the Lesser been a competent leader.

I spent more time than I cared to during the Bush years chronicling and commenting upon that maladministration's screw-ups, and I sure don't want to spend any more time on it than I absolutely must (some readers of this blog have commented that I'm too hard on Obama, even "hateful".  Where were they during this site's first several years?!).  All I will say for now is this: in regards to the Department of Homeland Security: I told y'all so.  Way back in 2001 even, I wrote in a few places that Bush was giving us something in Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Agency that we would soon come to regret and that in time it would become a tool of harassment by our own government.  Clearly when an active-duty Marine serving in spite of losing both legs to an IED gets humiliated by TSA agents, something is very very wrong.

I also thought that launching a war in Iraq would be unwise and inconsiderate of the larger ramifications.  Saddam Hussein was a grade-A asshole, no doubt about it.  But however evil the man was, the Hussein regime did keep Iraq - a nation cobbled together from remnants of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I - from tearing itself apart through internecine strife and tribal quarrels.  We can blame many of the western leaders, including Winston Churchill,  for setting up that particular board and its inevitable consequences, but I digress...

The country that we insisted be Iraq could - and can - only function when there is a "strongman" figure to keep the ethnicities and sects within its borders from killing each other.  That is the role that Marshal Tito had in Yugoslavia and that is the role that Saddam Hussein had in Iraq.  Just as Yugoslavia imploded into civil war a decade after Tito's death, so would Iraq in the absence of Hussein or a successor just as brutal.  As it is, the United States sought - and claimed - the mantle of strongman over that distant land.

The war itself has cost $1.7 trillion and climbing.  Medical and veterans' benefits will have it costing over $6 trillion across the next forty years.  $490 billion is already owed to veterans.  More than 134,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed.  More than four thousand American service personnel have died in Iraq.

Ten years ago we were told that Saddam Hussein was harboring chemical and biological weapons.  There were none.  Ten years ago we were told that Saddam Hussein had conspired with the 9/11 terrorists.  He had not (a theological improbability, that was: Hussein's Iraq was a largely secular state fully at odds with the goal of sharia law which Al-Qaida has sought).  Ten years ago we were told that a democratic Iraq would be the wellspring from which freedom and liberty would burst across the Middle East.

It did not do that either.  Ten years later and as the much-ballyhooed Arab Spring has demonstrated, the Mid-East has far less freedom than before.  Making matters worse is that following the departure of American forces from Iraq, that land will almost certainly become a territory of Iran.  In some ways it already is.

I understand that in this fallen realm of our temporal life that war is going to happen.  It is, after all, a product of human nature: something which beyond the mercy of higher authority is a vile and loathsome thing absent of all virtue.  My friends of more pacifist leanings are blessed with a grace to turn the cheek and look away from the strife of the realm completely.  I however do not have such grace.  Indeed, I am a historian by training: I gave up that grace a long time ago.

So it is that I am not ignorant of war and its place in this world.  But neither is war something which should be entered into on the most flimsy of rationales.  There is nothing glorious or magnificent about war.  Regardless of its cause, war is always... always... a failure on the part of those involved.  War means that a person or persons or even an entire nation can not or will not be persuaded that their actions are wrong and must be made to cease.  That the cost of their failure must now be either surrender or death.

More than 134,000 non-combatants in Iraq, men and women and children, who have died since we first attacked that country ten years ago tonight.  Perhaps it is easy for some to see the numbers and not think much about them. But every one of them was created by God and precious to Him.  Whether they perished at the hands of their own country's soldiers or inadvertently on our part, they deserve better than to be swept away as "collateral damage".

If that doesn't impinge on the conscience, consider the more than four thousand families across America who have lost a loved one in Iraq.  Those men and women, as all who serve in the armed forces of the United States, took a solemn oath to protect and defend this country and her people.  They chose to surrender years of their lives - years which could have been spent in school or starting careers or getting married and having children - to the service of others.

They did so fully aware that the possibility existed that they might be called upon to enter the theaters of war.  That doing so would place their lives in peril.  And yet they volunteered.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems that this kind of personal sacrifice demands a lot more respect and even sanctity from our alleged leaders.  A man or woman who puts on the uniform and swears to serve this country is expecting that their time and effort and if need be their very lives will be utilized with deepest wisdom and utmost restraint.

That has not happened in the war with Iraq, ten years old today.  Four thousand of our best and brightest have perished halfway around the world and we've nothing to show for it.  Four thousand brilliant souls, extinguished forever from the Earth.

They deserved better.  We deserve better.

I've only heard one cause for war with Iraq that has had any scrap of fact-based rationale behind it.  It was when President George W. Bush told a crowd that Saddam Hussein "tried to kill my dad."  And yes, Hussein did attempt to do so when the elder Bush visited Kuwait in 1993.  But was that enough reason to commit billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars and hundreds of thousands of U.S. service personnel toward removing from power?

A few months after the invasion of Iraq, Bush the Lesser told the militants in Iraq that U.S. forces would not be dislodged.  That they were welcome to try though.  George W. Bush told them to "Bring 'em on."

This is what "Bring 'em on" looks like...

Again, maybe it's just me, but a war is too horrific a thing to justify with a personal vendetta or a temper tantrum.

The Iraq War is ten years old today.  We haven't gained a thing from it.  Lord only knows if we'll have learned anything from it either...

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Could a Cyprus-style banks robbery happen in the U.S.?

This past weekend was spent semi-unplugged.  Heck I didn't know that Miami had beaten UNC for the ACC Basketball Tournament title until late last night!  Since all that mess was happening in Greensboro I drove a hunnerd miles the opposite direction on 220 to do ballroom dancing and general geek-ery with my girlfriend.

But even so, I have been following the mess in Cyprus, where the government is poisoned to confiscate 10% of everyone's bank accounts in an attempt to get bailed out of the monetary mess of its own manufacture.  So much commentary could be made of this: the failure of socialism, the complete failure of the Eurozone as anything remotely a feasible concept, the failure of policies that can only lead to hyper-inflation, the failure to rein-in the "banksters" (i.e. those who see banking as not a sacred trust but an exploitable resource), the failure to hold those most responsible accountable for their own mistakes and misdeeds...

Right now banks across Cyprus are closed until Thursday (at least).  The ATMs are empty or damn near it: an old-fashioned bank run for the 21st Century.  There is now concern that Italy and other countries are considering similar measures.

It was two years ago that I read Atlas Shrugged for the first time.  A book some consider to be semi-science-fiction.  It's now clear to me that what Ayn Rand had written was in fact a horror novel, and not nearly scary enough.  For all the madness that Directive 10-289 embodied, Wesley Mouch knew better than to raid the private bank accounts.  The same cannot be said of too many politicians in Europe and now, little Cyprus could set off financial disaster throughout Europe and around the world.  It might well be the camel that breaks the straw's back.

(Witless warble of words or cryptic commentary with cliche?  I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader...)

Could a Cyprus-ish raid on our bank accounts happen here in the good ole' Yoo-Ess of Aye?  Neil Boortz thinks so.  Writing at Townhall.com, Boortz suggests that not only could it happen but that it has been incrementally building up toward such for two decades (at least).  From his essay...

Oddly enough, the people of Cyprus weren’t particularly elated over this move, nor were investors and citizens throughout the Eurozone. Imagine that! Cypriots immediately grabbed their ATM cards and started to withdraw as much money as they could from their accounts. Cash in their hands wouldn’t be hit for 10%. It was clear there would be a run on the banks as soon as they reopened. Now the plan to simply seize individual wealth is being delayed, though not abandoned.

Could it happen here? Well certainly it could. Congress could pass and the President could sign legislation calling for the seizure of 10% of every checking and savings account in every bank in America. This might finally be enough to cause a resurrection, but they could do it. So in America the wealth seizure has to be just a bit more selective and subtle. And that brings us to the warning I’ve been voicing for 20 years.

There's plenty more at the Townhall.com link, including mention of something that has not been remembered nearly enough: the 1993 budget battle in Congress that saw retroactive taxation: something which according to the Constitution should never have happened.  I phoned the office of Steve Neal, my representative at the time.  His lackey listened to me rant about how wrong this was and then told me "well sir that's for the courts to decide."

The courts didn't stop it from happening then.  Anyone wanna bet that a raid on the banks by the government could be stopped now?

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Americans according to North Korea: "Buying guns to kill each other" and drinking coffee made from snow...

There is some question about whether or not this is real. Having watched numerous propaganda films made behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, my gut tells me that it's legit. That, and because this video does have that "Dear Leader/all others are inferior" tone which is a hallmark of North Korea's regime.

It's allegedly a propaganda video made by the North Korean government depicting life of the downtrodden proles in the United States.  Here in America we drink coffee made from snow (which is said to be in "abundance"), there are few birds because the starving masses living in tents have caught and eaten nearly all of them, dead bodies are piled up all over the place, Potemkin-ish cities disguised to look like those of Eastern Europe, unsuccessful Republican candidates are reduced to scrounging in the garbage, and it's only because of aid from North Korea that we're able to survive at all.

This is one of the most hysterically funny "real" videos that I've ever seen!  I hope y'all aren't drinking anything that could get snorted onto your monitor as you watch it...


Tip o' the hat to the inimitably awesome Erik Yaple for finding this!

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Towns Without Pity: Modder proves EA is LYING about SIMCITY always-online!

So... that whole thing about Electronic Arts' new SimCity requiring a constant Internet connection to play?  EA told us that it was needed because most of the game's processing takes place on EA's own servers.  In other words: the official company line is that it is not possible at all to play SimCity locally on your PC or laptop.  And despite the horde of connection problems that players were made to endure throughout the past week, EA has insisted that they can't remove the always-online obligation and that doing so would require coding up a whole new game.

Lies!  Lies!  All damnable lies!!

Electronic Arts, you got some 'splainin' to do.

The video gaming realm is reeling tonight after word surfaced that a hacker/modder calling himself "UKAzzer" has made SimCity completely playable in the total absence of Internet, for however long you want!

UKAzzer was able to enter the game's demo mode and from there he turned off the disconnection timer.  A few tiny changes of code and the game kept going, and going, and going... and going.  Not only that but he's also discovered that cities can be made much larger than the limits "officially" imposed by the game.

And he's proven it too.  Look!  YouTube clip!



So it looks like the "always-online" component was only slapped-on for digital rights management.  One anonymous developer at Maxis (now owned by EA and the studio that created the first SimCity game nearly 25 years ago) has come out and said as much, adding that it was very easy to make the new SimCity a single-player experience without needing to be online at all.

This situation is really quite unprecedented so far as the video/computer game industry goes. EA practically made it a litany about always-online being needed and how SimCity absolutely, positively could not be made to function without it.  That assertion is now, without any uncertainty, a false one.

I'll wager an RC Cola and a Moon Pie that the next few days at Electronic Arts are going to be a PR nightmare.  But since they've been caught, they should go ahead and do the right thing and rip out the always-online DRM from SimCity.  Doing so would go a LONG way toward re-establishing good relations with its customers and player-base.  Ever since word (and those horrid reviews on Amazon.com) hit the street about how crap-tacular SimCity is because of the DRM, would-be players have been avoiding this game like the plague.  EA needs to come clean and fix this, STAT!

(And if Blizzard is wise, that company will do the same with Diablo III.  If the upcoming PlayStation 3 port of that game won't need always-online, there is no reason whatsoever why the original PC version would require it either.)

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North Carolina Beers: A good blog about Tarheel brew

Please note: I am not a beer drinker.  In fact, it's very rare that I'll drink alcohol at all.  There's nothing I hold against those who enjoy it (in moderation 'course).  And I know next to nothing about what makes a good beer.  The first time I tried drinking any, it was in Belgium in 1993.  To this day I still cannot adequately describe how dark that stuff was...

Even so, lacking knowledge and experience hasn't been an impediment toward enjoying Eric Smith's new blog North Carolina Beers!  A home-brewer for well over a decade, Eric's new site is "dedicated to North Carolina Beers and Breweries. Over the next year or two I plan on visiting every brewery in NC and writing a review on each of them. I will write about as many beers as I can and there may be some beer specific post as well."  In less than a week he's already got four stories up: the latest is a review of Natty Greene's Greensboro.

It's this kind of spotlight on local culture along with the history behind it that I've always enjoyed finding.  There's plenty of it already on North Carolina Beers.  Go check it out and tell 'em that Chris sent ya :-)

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Happy Birthday to Michael Caine!

The Knight Shift and its proprietor would like to wish a very wonderful Happy Birthday today to Michael Caine - one of the finest and most versatile actors ever - on the occasion of his turning 80 years young!

The above image is from Caine's 2009 film Harry Brown.  If you have not seen it yet, I heartily recommend it.  It's definitely one of the better movies I've seen made in recent years.

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