Cynical Nation

No need to smuggle it in from Mexico.

Whew! Now I can sit down when I'm returning from my next trip.

I've heard this, but so far they're not that easy to come by.

I haven't had a Coke in almost a year and part of the reason is the corn sweeteners. That form of sucrose is so refined that virtually all of it is absorbed into the bloodstream. Cane sugar is actually somewhat healthier, if only because it's metabolized a lot slower.

I'd actually break my soda ban for a cane sugar Coke!

I got all cranked up when i read your post tonight and went to Kroger and scored a 2-Liter Yellow-Cap Kosher Coke and oooooooo, it's so lame. I can't believe this is even a story.

It tastes like a flat-ass Coke with no burn. Bah, i hate it. Is this what capitalism hath wrought? Whining about corn syrup?

Bring back the version with Cocaine!

¡BTW my ass is from Atlanta and I know WTF Coke tastes like.

Where is your blog on Bush admitting to declassifying and leaking information and then pretending bewilderment at where all these damn leaks are coming from?

Come on apologists!

How do you like paying your Bush Tax at the pump now? Tax and steal Republicans!

The burn was actually from the carbonation, not cocaine. You can't get that kind of carbonation in a plastic or aluminum container so you don't get the burn anymore.

I am plenty old enough to remember cane-sugar, big-bubbled, glass-bottled Coca-Cola (like God intended it to be) and I would vote a straight-party ticket for just one more of those six ounce bottles before I go on to my just reward -- I'm assuming that they only serve warm diet Pepsi in Hell.

Now this is what I call a public service posting. Thanks, BNJ.

i dunno, when i drink a regular Coke in a can it has da burn. I was just kiddin about the Cocaine (i was on a Coke high last night). Corn Syrup Coke just seems more 'aggro' to me. Personally i think coke from McDonalds tastes best, with a more cinammonny flavor.

i tried the kosher coke again and i just ain't feelin it. don't believe the hype. 'Course Pepsi just sucks all the way around.

"Where is your blog on Bush admitting to declassifying and leaking information and then pretending bewilderment at where all these damn leaks are coming from?

Come on apologists!

How do you like paying your Bush Tax at the pump now? Tax and steal Republicans!" (Anonymous)

Well....How about that COKE, anonymous?! How about that cane sugar Coke?!

Honestly, why would they have to blog about "Bush leaking classified information," when the WaPo did such a great job of defending Bush in a recent editorial?

Exhibit A:

A Good Leak

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/08/AR2006040800895.html

President Bush declassified some of the intelligence he used to decide on war in Iraq. Is that a scandal?

Sunday, April 9, 2006; Page B06

PRESIDENT BUSH was right to approve the declassification of parts of a National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq three years ago in order to make clear why he had believed that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons. Presidents are authorized to declassify sensitive material, and the public benefits when they do. But the administration handled the release clumsily, exposing Mr. Bush to the hyperbolic charges of misconduct and hypocrisy that Democrats are leveling.

Rather than follow the usual declassification procedures and then invite reporters to a briefing -- as the White House eventually did -- Vice President Cheney initially chose to be secretive, ordering his chief of staff at the time, I. Lewis Libby, to leak the information to a favorite New York Times reporter. The full public disclosure followed 10 days later. There was nothing illegal or even particularly unusual about that; nor is this presidentially authorized leak necessarily comparable to other, unauthorized disclosures that the president believes, rightly or wrongly, compromise national security. Nevertheless, Mr. Cheney's tactics make Mr. Bush look foolish for having subsequently denounced a different leak in the same controversy and vowing to "get to the bottom" of it.

The affair concerns, once again, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV and his absurdly over-examined visit to the African country of Niger in 2002. Each time the case surfaces, opponents of the war in Iraq use it to raise a different set of charges, so it's worth recalling the previous iterations. Mr. Wilson originally claimed in a 2003 New York Times op-ed and in conversations with numerous reporters that he had debunked a report that Iraq was seeking to purchase uranium from Niger and that Mr. Bush's subsequent inclusion of that allegation in his State of the Union address showed that he had deliberately "twisted" intelligence "to exaggerate the Iraq threat." The material that Mr. Bush ordered declassified established, as have several subsequent investigations, that Mr. Wilson was the one guilty of twisting the truth. In fact, his report supported the conclusion that Iraq had sought uranium.

Mr. Wilson subsequently claimed that the White House set out to punish him for his supposed whistle-blowing by deliberately blowing the cover of his wife, Valerie Plame, who he said was an undercover CIA operative. This prompted the investigation by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald. After more than 2 1/2 years of investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald has reported no evidence to support Mr. Wilson's charge. In last week's court filings, he stated that Mr. Bush did not authorize the leak of Ms. Plame's identity. Mr. Libby's motive in allegedly disclosing her name to reporters, Mr. Fitzgerald said, was to disprove yet another false assertion, that Mr. Wilson had been dispatched to Niger by Mr. Cheney. In fact Mr. Wilson was recommended for the trip by his wife. Mr. Libby is charged with perjury, for having lied about his discussions with two reporters. Yet neither the columnist who published Ms. Plame's name, Robert D. Novak, nor Mr. Novak's two sources have been charged with any wrongdoing.

As Mr. Fitzgerald pointed out at the time of Mr. Libby's indictment last fall, none of this is particularly relevant to the question of whether the grounds for war in Iraq were sound or bogus. It's unfortunate that those who seek to prove the latter would now claim that Mr. Bush did something wrong by releasing for public review some of the intelligence he used in making his most momentous decision."

God, I'm loving this. First the NY Times, of all outlets, proves the "Bush Lied" charge was a pack of....well, LIES, by showing that Hussein's own Generals believed they had stockpiles of WMDs, a circumstance brought about by Baghdad's policy of "Detterence by Doubt," which led the rest of the world to believe that Saddam's Iraq possessed WMDs and now the WaPo goes and writes an editorial like the one above.

The truth is that "Joe Wilson lied" (at least in his NYT OpEd) and that lie was used by the enemy within our own borders to try and undermine and righteous and necessary global war against radicalized Islam (pan-Islamicism) and the secular, pan-Arab rogue states that have harbored, sponsored and supported the various Islamo-nazis, using them as a weapon against the West.

Once again, "How about that cane sugar Coke?!"

Are you saying that Bush is responsible for corn sweetener in Coke?

"Are you saying that Bush is responsible for corn sweetener in Coke?" (WF)

Isn't he responsible for ALL that's bad in the world?

I've heard that when Bush leaves office it'll rain beer and pizza will fall from the trees.

God, I can't wait! I CAN'T WAIT!!!

I sure hope AAR isn't exaggerating things. I'd be terribly disappointed.

JMK, i still don't understand what the point of the Fitzgerald investigation was if Bush was the one who declassified the "wife got wilson the job" story (in the NIE).

Was the point of Bush's release to counter the idea that Cheney sent Wilson to Niger and to discredit Wilson? If so, why did Bush insist he'd get to the bottom of the Plame "Covert" leak?

And are we any closer to knowing who leaked plame's identity? does it even matter anymore?

JMK, i still don't understand what the point of the Fitzgerald investigation was if Bush was the one who declassified the "wife got wilson the job" story (in the NIE).

Just curious, ortho: Where did you get the idea that Plame or Wilson were even mentioned in the NIE? I don't think any credible source is even suggesting that the NIE was the origin of that information.

Yeah, I don't think the "Plame leak" is at all connected to the NIE, which was purportedly declassified, at least in part, to defend the basis on which Bush decided to invade Iraq.

If Saddam's own Generals believed he had stockpiles of WMDs, could ANY other country's Intelligence be expected to know more than they?

As far as the Plame investigation goes, Joe Wilson himself has said that his wife hadn't left the country in nearly ten years, insinuating that she was not a covert agent at the time of her "outing."

Of course, Joe Wilson could be lying about that...too.

I'd readilly agree that this administration has appeared to have made a number of blunders over the past few years, using Joe Wilson was certainly one, and from my perspective, "occupying and rebuilding post-Saddam Iraq" was another.

I'm still wondering why, after defeating and deposing Saddam Hussein's regime in less than six weeks ("Mission Accomplished"), we felt that Iraq had to remain a "viable nation."

Hell, it didn't even exist before 1919!

In my view, it should've been allowed to break into three separate countries - northern Kurdistan, the Sunni mid-section and the Shia south.

Still, the end of the Iraq war will NOT signal the end of our war with radicalized Islam, which is a global struggle that will probably last at least another twenty to twenty-five more years...it's a huge fight.

Yeah, by all means clear it up for me. I thought that that was the revelation from Bush last week. Folks are saying that the Wifey info was leaked to the NYT to discredit Wilson's Op-Ed and to refute the suggestion that Cheney sent Wilson to Niger. I have no idea what was in the NIE.

Are there any good links out there that give a better overview? The Wikipedia page i read last night has me all confused.

Everyone else in America is quite clear on one fact: Bush lied, yet again.

Bush is a liar. DeLay is a liar. They are both criminals.

Sorry, the party is over for Republicans. You had a chance to distance yourselves from all this corruption, but you chose instead to defend it.

Gosh anony, thanks! Now i know the real deal.

You heard him, the party's over!

I believe Bush is a Mountain Dew man, so I don't see the relevance. Okay, so he used to have a fondness for coke, but that was small "c". If he has a Coke now, there's probably some rum in it.

Anyone remember playing "Coke bingo?" You look at the bottling location stamped on the bottom of the glass, and whoever got the "closest" bottle bought the round?

Until the last few years, you could still get "real" Coke or Pepsi in Jamaica. It was in glass bottles that you opened with a bottle opener, and it had that clean taste you remember from childhood. Now of course even there it's all crap corn-syrup slop in plastic bottles, but what I wouldn't give for one of those glass-bottle vending-machine cokes we used to get at gas stations when I was a kid.....

"Everyone else in America is quite clear on one fact: Bush lied, yet again.

Bush is a liar. DeLay is a liar. They are both criminals." (anony-mouse)

As stated, the NY Times, of all outlets, recently (perhaps inadvertently)proved that the "Bush lied" charge, over the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, was a LIE.

WoW! The big news there is that the NY Times actually got something right for a chnage.

The NIE needed to be declassified and should've been declassified earlier, as it too proves that the invasion of Iraq was based on the best available worldwide Intelligence accessible at that time.

More declassifications are, no doubt, on the way.

DeLay's big "crime," at least according to Dems, was going through with that very necessary redistricting in Texas where Conservatives outnumer Liberals by better than two to one. There were simply too many gerrymandered seats initially set up to preserve some Liberal majority districts, but the census and geography dictated otherwise and DeLay did the only FAIR thing.

Getting back to the topic at hand however, the corn syrup sweetened Coke is indicative of a short-sighted business model currently ascendent in the U.S. - "Increase the profit margin at all costs."

While increasing the profit margin is always a good thing to do, the "at all costs," when those costs are product integrity, product quality and the devaluation of the American worker via the insatiable push for "cheap labor" (the political intransigence on dealing with illegal immigration is largely fueled by business interests), is disastrous.

Maybe our new motto should be "Cane sugar Coke, expel the illegals and wall off our borders....TO BRING BACK AMERICA AGAIN!"

Vive Coke de azúcar del bastón!

Well crap, am i the only one who went and hunted down the Kosher Coke?

I got some, but haven't cracked into it yet.

Gee, I see you are a liar just like all Republicans. DeLay the criminal wasn't correcting some gerrymandered wrong, he PERPETRATED it.

Did he make nice square districts? One goes from Austin to Mexico, like a crooked cane.

As usual, what DeLay did, just like what Bush does, is far beyond anything a Democrat would have dreamed of doing. Like Bush, DeLay behaved like a brazen criminal, cheating and stacking the deck to actually give Republicans TINY majorities in as many districs as possible, not any 2 to 1 margins.

Sorry liar, just stop lying, meaning stop talking, or preferably breathing.

"DeLay the criminal wasn't correcting some gerrymandered wrong, he PERPETRATED it." (anonyMOUS)

On TX you're flat out wrong mouse. Nationwide people who call themselves "Conservative" (36%) outnumber people who call themselves "Liberal" (17%) by slightly better than two to one...the disparity in TX, as in most of the South is even greater than that.

DeLay's redistricting merely helped Texans express their real, largely Conservative voice.

Liberals always overestimate their impact and underestimate their opposition, like on the current immigration debate - the Country Club Republicans want a "guest worker"/Amnesty program for the cheap labor, the Democrats want a "new voting block."

Guess who's gonna get what they want and who's most likely to wind up unpleasantly surprised?

You've got to feel bad for the Dems AGAIN...just as it was true that while most "Labor Leaders" were/are Liberal, most of the rank & file workers were/are Conservatives...same with the vast majority of these new immigrants, while most of the "Activist" leaders are liberals, the vast majority of these new immigrants from Mexico, the Phillipines, and other parts of South America are devout Catholics, who will all be highly susceptible to the Republican's "Culture War" and pro-religion campaigns.

At lest the GOP is thinking ahead. While they're risking alienating much of their Conservative (anti-immigration) base, they've already figured out a winning strategy of wooing this huge influx of new Catholic voters with a dual appeal to religion and a depiction of Democrats as godless heathens who hate religion.

Watch as all these new immigrants inevitably gerrymander themselves!

Now if the Dems could just throw off the Liberal Left (all those "godless heathens"), jetisonning them to the Worker's World Party, maybe they could pose some real opposition to a very flawed GOP, but sadly they seem resigned to playing the sad sack Washington Generals to the GOP's Globetrotters.

wait, does that mean with Amnesty comes voting-rights?

"wait, does that mean with Amnesty comes voting-rights?" (ortho)

As much as any of the Amnesty programs are short-cuts to citizenship, the most severe demand that back-taxes and fines be paid and that the "guest worker" wait up to six years to become naturalized, then YES, they ultimately come with voting rights and all other rights of citizenship.

There are two major problems with ANY kind of amnesty program, the first is that it rewards the breaking of the law. That's always a bad road to go down, as it encourages others to do the same, knowing they can break some laws with impunity. Secondly, it creates a profound downward pressure on all prevailing wage rates.

Illegal immigrants don't do any jobs "that Americans won't," they merely do jobs at wages Americans can't and won't accept. In so doing that (1) exploits these most vulnerable workers and (2) and most importantly from an Americanist perspective, it forces many Americans out of work and into lower paying jobs.

One quick solution to the illegal immigration problem would be huge FINES for companies and individuals who hire "undocumented workers." One large fine (say $25,000) for hiring the undocumented and another similar fine for paying workers below minimum wage...and those fines would have to be assessed on EACH and EVERY worker.

That would quickly eradicate the incentive of comapnies to hire illegals and without all those "opportunities," there would be little reason for illegal aliens to come here in the first place. That and making the mere possession of fake IDs (phoney drivers licenses and birth certificates) a felony, would go a long way toward eradicating this problem.

One last thing, 99.99% of people can't even tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi. They can't pick out their "favorite" beer.

Stop being shmoes, you CAN'T REALLY TELL if your Coke was made from corn syrup or cane sugar.

Go ahead, lay $1,000 on it. Fill 9 cups with different corn syrup colas and one with the cane sugar Coke. You wont be able to pick out the exception.

This whole thread just proves how stupid and gullible Republicans are by nature.