T1B

War Wagon wrote:

Screw_Michigan wrote:sales don't mean shit...

What? Are you still in kindergarten or something?

Sales mean everything, stupid.

Go to bed and ask Mommy to make it stop...maybe Magoo will drop by and give her a golden shower later.

War Wagon wrote: I won this debate before it even started, because alls one has to do is look at the sales figures to know that Miller can't touch Bud.

PSUFAN wrote:What makes a man buy a case of Bud?

Taste? No.
Unavailability of other options? Increasingly, no.
Price? No. Bud ain't cheap. Where I live, Bud is ALWAYS more expensive than Yuengling, Straub, Stoney's, and other PA beers. All of them are better.

PSUFAN wrote:Bell's products aren't cheap, but they are worth every penny. Nothing like sipping a beer and thinking "damn, this shit tastes fucking GREAT" with every sip.

Isn't that why we drink it?

War Wagon wrote:Self annointed?

the sales figures

I personally own like at least 1/10th of one percent of Anheuser-Busch, but 'self-annointed' beer snob cunts like you know better, right?

Why don't you try telling me which wine goes best with sushi

As for the Whitey gloss...who the fuck are YOU, again

why in the hell are you in here babbling about something that you know nothing about?

Screw_Michigan wrote: bud's overall sales is probably 100,000x the sales of Bell's Brewery, doesn't mean that bell's puts out an inferior product.

War Wagon wrote:

Screw_Michigan wrote: bud's overall sales is probably 100,000x the sales of Bell's Brewery, doesn't mean that bell's puts out an inferior product.

So?

You were comparing Bud to Busch, and gasp Miller, and saying they were all the same.

I throttled your inane comments with facts and now you're talking about some podunk brewery named Bells?

You're even stupider than you think that I think you are.

Guntslinger wrote:Better to let them know that you aren't stupid then to open your mouth and let them know.

Smackie Chan wrote:Yes, the piss you snobbishly refer to as "beer" reached its lofty regality as a result of self-anointment.

War Wagon wrote:

Screw_Michigan wrote:sales don't mean shit...

What? Are you still in kindergarten or something?

Sales mean everything, stupid.

Go to bed and ask Mommy to make it stop...maybe Magoo will drop by and give her a golden shower later.

Ken wrote:Hey, WW... that button says 'submit' not 'saw off another one of my arms and ram it up my bunghole'.

'saw off another one of my arms and ram it up my bunghole'

PSUFAN wrote:

how refined does your palate have to be to actually recognize the difference between Busch and Bud?

That always used to baffle the hell out of me in my bartending days. People would come up and ask for coors lite draft. we didn't have it, so I'd offer natty lite or bud lite. They acted like I'd urinated in their faces.

What in the bleeding fuck is the difference between piss and urine?

BSmack wrote:There is a taste difference. But not by much.

BSmack wrote:

PSUFAN wrote:What in the bleeding fuck is the difference between piss and urine?

There is a taste difference. But not by much.

Goober McTuber wrote:

BSmack wrote:

PSUFAN wrote:What in the bleeding fuck is the difference between piss and urine?

There is a taste difference. But not by much.

I’ll take your word for it.

BSmack wrote:

Goober McTuber wrote:

BSmack wrote: There is a taste difference. But not by much.

I’ll take your word for it.

Bud is more bitter. That's the difference.

Goober McTuber wrote:

BSmack wrote:

Goober McTuber wrote:

I’ll take your word for it.

Bud is more bitter. That's the difference.

Probably something in his diet.

PSUFAN wrote:You quit before they started making good ones again.

War Wagon wrote:12 freaking Steps?

War Wagon wrote:Why don't you try telling me which wine goes best with sushi, you goddamn faggot.

Willamette Week wrote:Guess who controls Portland's sushi supply?
BY ELIZABETH ARMSTRONG MOORE | 503 243-2122

As recently as 1980, according to old phone books, Portland did not claim a single sushi restaurant, or at least none that advertised as such. Today, there are more

than 50 restaurants in town—Japanese, fusion and otherwise—that boast menus with raw fish.

"That's an explosion," says David Lutjen, marketing manager at Pacific Seafood of Oregon, the local branch of one of the Northwest's largest seafood distributors, Pacific Seafood Group. "There's been a steady increase in interest here, because it's very healthy food."

It's hardly news that Portland has been an easy convert to the Japanese-style vinegar-flavored cold rice topped with fish or veggies. What's far less known, however, is that one company, True World Foods, not only dominates Portland's—and the nation's—sushi industry, but may have helped fuel it in the first place. True World told WW it provides sushi to 95 percent of Portland's sushi houses, and its website claims to sell its fish to more than two-thirds of the country's estimated 9,000 sushi restaurants.

It might surprise people that one vendor provides most of Portland's sushi joints with at least some of their mackerel, salmon and yellowtail. But there's more: A significant body of evidence suggests that True World Foods is secretly controlled by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, self-proclaimed "Messiah" and founder of the Unification Church. Moon, who has been investigated by the FBI, imprisoned for tax evasion, accused of megalomania and brainwashing, and criticized for hosting massive weddings for hundreds of couples in highly visible places such as New York City's Madison Square Garden, runs one of the most controversial—some say cultlike—religions in the world.

Officially, the church denies any involvement in True World. Others disagree.

"You can hardly buy a California roll in this country without getting their surimi [imitation crab]," says Monica Eng, a reporter at the Chicago Tribune who began investigating the ties between True World Foods and the Unification Church in 2004.

"It's like Al Capone," adds Larry Zilliox, a private investigator in Virginia who has been tracking Rev. Moon's movements for more than 20 years. "His name doesn't show up anywhere on paper, but if Moon says to do something, [his followers] do it."

Of course, it may not matter if Moon and his church have staked a major claim in the sushi industry. But this country—and this city—has a long history of voting with its checkbook. Many remember the Gallo of Sonoma wine boycott in the '70s that resulted in California's Agricultural Labor Relations Act, as well as the ensuing boycott, in 2005, over questionable labor contracts. In 1993 Snapple barely avoided a boycott when it was accused (with no proof) of funding anti-abortion clinics; Coors Brewing Co. could not avoid a boycott after it was accused in 2003 of supporting racist causes. Closer to home, New Seasons Market refuses to stock Rockstar energy drinks in part because the founder, Russell Goldencloud Weiner, is the son of the inflammatory radio talk show host Michael Savage, author of such books as Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder.

Will some be compelled to change their eating habits? "I wouldn't eat here again," said Donald Sook, a sushi fan on his way out of Mio Sushi on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard last week, after hearing of possible ties between True World and Moon. "That's nasty. Seriously. That brainwashing is ghetto."

Others couldn't care less. One woman waiting in line at Mio, who asked to remain anonymous, said that Moon is too far under the radar to cause concern. "If I were worried about conglomerates taking over the world, I'd worry more about Microsoft—or the Republican Party. For now I'm not going to stop eating sushi."

Nobody disputes that True World Foods—whose parent company, True World Group, is headquartered in Manhattan—has a major presence in the nation's sushi industry. True World Group, a private corporation, is actually a conglomerate with a role in at least four major industries: wholesale seafood (True World Foods), fleets of marine vessels (True World Marine), Japanese food restaurants (True World Restaurants) and grocery retailers (True World Market).

True World Foods alone oversees 22 satellite locations, stretching from Hawaii to Texas and Massachusetts, with revenue last year of $250 million, according to interviews with company officials. True World harvests and sells everything from salmon to pollock; its specialty is the high-grade sashimi that makes it to sushi houses across the U.S.—and it says it is the Portland area's only local distributor of the savory Spanish mackerel. (See sidebar, page 27, for a glossary of sushi terms.)

A WW survey of 23 sushi restaurants in the Portland metro area found that 21* say they are supplied by the company. Todai declined to comment, while Saburo's, in Sellwood, did not return numerous phone calls. True World says Saburo's is a major buyer.

While True World's sushi supremacy is undisputed, Moon's involvement is harder to nail down. Officially, the church denies any direct ties to True World Foods. Unification Church spokesman Rev. Phillip Schanker, contacted in Washington, D.C., says, "There's no direct connection." In the same breath, however, he admits that members founded True World Foods "in line with the vision laid out by the founder in terms of reaching out and developing things in the ocean."


Unification Church founder Rev. Sun Myung Moon and his wife wave to some 40,000 believers and supporters during a 1992 mass wedding ceremony at the Olympic Stadium in Seoul, South Korea.
The church does have an entrepreneurial reputation. Many years ago federal investigators found that it had invested in luxury hotels, a bank, a publishing company and farm land in Uruguay, and that it owned a South Korean weapons manufacturer and titanium firm, as well as newspapers in Montevideo, Cyprus, Tokyo, New York and Washington, D.C. (It is no secret that Moon founded the politically conservative Washington Times.)

And Larry Zilliox, who was the source for a Houston Chronicle story last week about the $1 million that he says recently made its way from the Washington Times Foundation into the elder George Bush's pockets, says Moon is running something much larger than the Unification Church.

"The church is just one small aspect of the movement," Zilliox says. "You've got to look at everything intertwined or interconnected. The for-profit companies exist to support the nonprofit entities. It's all a big brown wheel of fortune, essentially."

The evidence of the connection between the church and True World is pretty compelling.

True World Foods' parent company, True World Group, is a subsidiary of One Up Enterprises Inc., which, according to Zilliox, is in turn a subsidiary of Unification Church International Inc.

True World Foods' own website concedes that the company was incorporated by Rev. Moon's chief aide, Bo Hi Pak, in 1976. And one of its founders, Tasheki Yashiro, remains a church member.

Moon himself provides ample evidence of his involvement in jumpstarting the business. In 1980, Rev. Moon gave what is called the "Way of Tuna" speech in New York. The rambling discourse on the need to solve world hunger included Moon's calling for a revitalization of the sport, trade and commerce of fishing.

Moon said he already had "the entire system worked out, starting with boat building. After we build the boats, we catch the fish and process them for market, and then have a distribution network. This is not just on the drawing board; I have already done it."

In the speech he called himself "King of the Ocean" and hinted at more spiritual ambitions: "I knew that governments and religions would persecute us, but I always had an alternate plan for building the Kingdom of Heaven," he said. "I always thought that if people didn't like me then I would build the kingdom on the ocean first and then bring it to the land."

A few months later, in October 1980, Moon spoke again of his goals in a speech titled "Our Duty, Our Mission": "This ocean business is really reserved for Unification Church. How much income would this business generate? Roughly speaking, enough money to buy the entire world. That's true! It has unlimited potential."

One high-ranking church member, who spoke to WW on condition of anonymity, readily admits to the Unification Church's involvement with True World Foods—and that the goal of the church has always been to take charge of every part of the fishing process: "It's kind of the Korean chaebol [business conglomerate] model—try to control everything from production to distribution. The Unification Church applies that to fish. We have fleet-building plants, and fleets go out and catch the fish, and then truckers truck it to our fish-processing plants, and then we have wholesale marketers, and we even have our own sushi restaurants. So from production to distribution and sales, we try to link up the entire process."

The Unification Church and True World have some distinctly Oregon ties.

Galen Pumphrey, who, with his wife, Patty was one of the first half-dozen U.S. members, was also one of True World's original employees. A Eugene native who now lives in Roseburg, Pumphrey says he and his wife even played dinner host to Moon when he first moved to the United States in the '70s.

Contacted in Roseburg, Pumphrey told WW that in 1976, at the behest of the Rev. Moon himself, he moved his family to Norfolk, Va., to help jumpstart one of the first centers of what would later be named True World Foods. Many employees in Norfolk were Unification Church members, recalls Pumphrey, who retired from upper management in 1993. "We had other people working there, too, but we had a lot of members who were dedicated to getting the job done down in Norfolk."

Pumphrey's son Lloyd, who was "matched" by Rev. Moon with a Japanese wife, currently works at True World's regional distribution center in Vancouver, Wash., a two-story pole shed where sushi-grade fish is kept in superfreezers until it is driven to local restaurants. On a recent tour, Lloyd, soft-spoken and congenial as he pointed out the freezers at the modest facility near the banks of the Columbia, said True World has reached so many sushi restaurants in Portland because providing high-quality sushi fare year-round is difficult without a large and reliable supplier. While some restaurants rearrange their seafood menus according to season and availability, sushi restaurants are expected to have a ready supply of high-grade tuna, salmon, eel, etc., year-round.

Lloyd recalls a tough childhood as he moved with his parents, whom he describes as "mission pioneers," from Eugene to the Bay Area to Denver. He was ridiculed by classmates when, just as he was coming of age in the '70s, the church became highly controversial; "the Moonies" were often labeled a cult and accused of brainwashing young convert.

"I've had my ups and downs," Lloyd says. "I've had my times where I say I don't want to be associated with the church. People get messed up in attacking the church; they'll look at Rev. Moon and say he's a millionaire just using members. And I'll admit there's quite a few church leaders [who] have alternative motives, and they're the ones that ruin it for all the people who believe. But the main reason I keep coming back to the Unification Church is because the Divine Principle is true."

Ken wrote:With all this said... WW DOES just drive a forklift in a warehouse for a living. When you think about it, it's really not that hard to believe that the idiot worships the likes of Bud and Bud Light. I mean... warehouses, forklifts, push brooms, beeping forklift horns, '___ days w/out an accident' signs, 'Union Yes!' signs... that's a batting practice pitch right into idiot drinker's wheelhouse.

We really should lay off... he doesn't know any better.

PSUFAN wrote:What in the bleeding fuck is the difference between piss and urine?

Ken wrote: If sales mean so much, I guess those Mercedes SLK 5-Class rockets...