Philadelphia is a significantly better food town than Pittsburgh - I know you guys want to compete there, but there isn’t a comparison. Sorry.

I’ve moved my official long-winded rant on this subject up to your “My Fellow Americans” topic.

Take it anyway, you make a lot of excellent points that I never credit you for.

But I think the point I’m actually stealing from Randy is that if you make it overly hard for someone to come to this country, when they arrive they don’t feel any great desire to become a part of the great melting pot. The country didn’t want them anyway.

Oh - and only some one from Pittsburgh would think that the best cheesesteak is made there. ;)Remember, my only Pittsburgh food experience was the famous Permani Bros. sandwich; what a crock!

This guy has every right to serve whomsoever he wants to, and his heart is in the right place, being patriotic, but we need to remember the whole idea of a melting pot isn’t assimilation, but integration.

It’s hamhanded, but I can kinda understand where it’s coming from — like this dude’s parents or grandparents came from Italy and they had to learn to speak English and assimilate…so why can’t everyone else?

It’s been repeated over and over in the course of this country’s history that earlier immigrants pick on more recent immigrants (like Irish - who came over in the late 1800s discriminated against Italians who came over in the early 1900s.) The oppressed become the oppressors. My grandfather’s family changed their Italian surname to a German one shortly after arriving in Philadelphia to escape discrimination…and my Italian aunt married a guy from an Irish family and never told him she was Italian because his family hated Italians!

But I digress…

Anyway, the owner was on TV this morning saying business has never been better, so he has no intention of taking the sign down.

And hey — Pat’s is somethin’ unto itself! I haven’t been for many years, but I remember loving “cheese without” — super-drippy whiz & the great hot sauce you added yourself. What a mess to eat, but it tasted so good…a unique experience.

Moore and Coulter locked in a room — they’d probably have a very entertaining discourse, if a moderator would intermittently duct-tape their mouths. I like Michael Moore, but faced with the inspiration of each other, neither one would EVER be capable of shutting up.

Agreed, Spencer, provolone or American. I’ve tasted Cheez Whiz somewhere along the line, but never on a cheesesteak. And it’s comin’ up on 46 years in Philly for me!

One admission, though, (and it wasn’t just because of the politics…) When the campaigning John Kerry was lambasted in the press, having mistakenly order a cheesesteak with Swiss cheese (a horrific faux pas in South Philly) I may be the only one that was thinking “sounds pretty good; I’ll have to try that…” For me, any steak, with any cheese, can’t really be a bad thing.

Man, Now i’m hungry.

AS for the whole whiz thing - that’s a south Philly thing. No one I know (and I’ve lived here for all of mt 37 years) puts cheese whiz on the their steaks. Matter of fact, you might not be able to get it outside of south philly. No it’s either provolone or american - nothing else.