BMEWS
 
Sarah Palin's presence in the lower 48 means the Arctic ice cap can finally return.

calendar   Saturday - July 24, 2010

The Warrior Song – updated!

Last year, just after the Ft. Hood Islamic Terrorist Attack, I posted the The Warrior Song.

There is a new version:  The Warrior Song - Hard Corps

Semper Fi!


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Posted by Christopher   United States  on 07/24/2010 at 08:21 PM   
Filed Under: • Patriotism •  
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A ‘Ground Zero’ Mosque? Over Allah’s dead body!

I don’t even know where to start on this travesty.

Oh, yes, I do know. I’ll post this:

H/T The Jawa Report.


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Posted by Christopher   United States  on 07/24/2010 at 07:17 PM   
Filed Under: • CULTURE IN DECLINEOutrageousPaleswineRoPMAScary StuffSharia lawStoopid-PeopleTerrorists •  
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yuks from Carol

Cleve’s New Truck

I bought a new Ford F250 Tri-Flex Fuel Truck. Go figure it runs on either hydrogen, gasoline, or E85.

And I returned it to the dealer last week because I couldn’t get the radio to work.

The service technician explained that the radio was voice activated.

‘Nelson,’ the technician said to the radio.

The radio replied, ‘Ricky or Willie?’

‘Willie!’ he continued and ‘On The Road Again’ came from the speakers.

Then he said, ‘Ray Charles!’, and in an instant ‘Georgia On My Mind’ replaced Willie Nelson.

I drove away happy, and for the next few days, every time I’d say, ‘Beethoven,’ I’d get beautiful classical music, and if I said, ‘Beatles,’ I’d get one of their awesome songs.




Yesterday, some guy ran a red light and nearly creamed my new truck, but I swerved in time to avoid him.

I yelled out, ‘Dumb Ass!’

Immediately the radio responded with, “Ladies and gentlemen, The President of The United States . . .”




Man, I love this truck!


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/24/2010 at 05:56 PM   
Filed Under: • Humor •  
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Screwing the pooch is a government job function

Welcome Back Peiper!

Welcome Back Peiper? (Why is it I suddenly have visions of Arnold Horshack?)

Anyway, peiper, this one’s for you:

Lone Castle Transvestite in Black Dress

(Cornwall, England) This story has multiple elements of alternative human behavior in a castle of King Henry VIII.

A transvestite had sex with a dog in the moat of an English Heritage castle. The cross-dressing man was caught with the animal in the dry moat of King Henry VIII’s Pendennis Castle overlooking Falmouth Bay in Cornwall.

The 33-year-old mounted the pet after it chased him out of sight of its woman owner.

The owner had been walking around the ancient castle with a friend when the pair spotted the lone transvestite on the morning of Saturday July 10th at around a quarter to twelve.

He was wearing a black dress and walking around the steep-walled, empty moat.

As the two ladies spotted the cross dresser he ran away. Later one of the dogs chased after the man; by the time the women had caught up, the man was having sex with the pet.

The police were called, the transvestite was detained, and then escorted home where he was cautioned about outraging public decency. A police spokesman said the lone transvestite was handed over to liaison agencies, whatever they are.

[Add.] It’s not known whether or not sex with a dog that chases you is against the law in England. However, general everyday sex with a dog appears to be quite legal and widely practiced among the political elite.

After all, when one observes absolute moronic law-making and governance, one must conclude that screwing the pooch is a government job function.

Emphasis added.

H/T Interested Participant


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Posted by Christopher   United States  on 07/24/2010 at 06:34 PM   
Filed Under: • Battling Brits Odd-Strange •  
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Billion Dollar Safety Investment

Oil Companies Pledge $1B For New Spill Containment System



Scared shitless that Obama is about to nationalize them, the Big 4 companies put oil spill R&D into high gear. Ok, that’s my opinion, but it’s pretty obvious, right?


Four U.S. oil giants announced a spill-containment system to be used to deal with deepwater blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico.

Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Shell have committed $1 billion to fund the initial costs of the system, which they say would be able to deploy within 24 hours and operate in waters almost 2 miles deep under harsh weather conditions, with an initial capacity to contain 100,000 barrels of spilled oil a day.

“As an industry, we must rebuild trust with the American people in order to demonstrate that we can produce energy in a safe and environmentally responsible manner,” Marvin Odum, president of Shell Oil Co., said in a statement Wednesday.
...
“If we all do our jobs properly, this system will never be used,” said Rex Tillerson, chairman and chief executive officer of ExxonMobil. “The extensive experience of industry shows that when the focus remains on safe operations and risk management, tragic incidents like the one we are witnessing in the Gulf of Mexico today should not occur,” he said.

The companies said they would form a non-profit organization, the Marine Well Containment Co., to operate and maintain the system.

While BP is not part of the initiative, the four companies said members of the oil industry would be invited to participate.

“The oil and gas industry has long been recognized as a technological leader, and the American public expects us to improve our ability to respond immediately to offshore incidents,” said Jim Mulva, ConocoPhillips chairman and chief executive officer. “The creation and development of this sophisticated system will greatly enhance industry’s ability to ensure a quick and effective response.”

The new system will be designed to be flexible, adaptable and able to begin mobilization within 24 hours and can be used on a wide range of well designs and equipment, oil and natural gas flow rates and weather conditions.  The new system will be engineered to be used in deepwater depths up to 10,000 feet and have initial capacity to contain 100,000 barrels per day with potential for expansion.
...
“As an industry, we must rebuild trust with the American people in order to demonstrate that we can produce energy in a safe and environmentally responsible manner,” said Marvin Odum, president, Shell Oil Company.  “Beyond Shell’s absolute commitment to oil spill prevention and robust well designs, additional safeguards must be strengthened across the industry to develop the capacity to quickly respond and resolve a deepwater well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, regardless of how unlikely it is that this situation will reoccur.”

Work on this new containment system is being accelerated to enhance deepwater safety and environmental protection in the Gulf of Mexico, which accounts for 30 percent of U.S. oil and gas production and supports more than 170,000 American jobs.

The companies are also actively involved in significant industry efforts to improve prevention, well intervention and spill response.  This includes rig inspections and implementation of new requirements on blowout preventer certification and well design.  The industry has proactively formed several multi-disciplinary task forces to further develop improved prevention, containment and recovery plans.

The companies have reviewed the system with key officials in the federal Administration and Congress and will conduct briefings with other key stakeholders.

Well, this is nice. And I hope it all sits around and turns into rust without every being used. But like a gun in your pocket, it’s better to have it and never need it, than it is to need it and not have it. And the BP mess is a case of the latter, from an industry that took a 2 generation nap because they could. Now the dogs are barking, so they’ve got to do something. I’m sure they will: “this isn’t rocket science, it’s just plumbing”. But plumbing at the end of a really, really long wrench. High powered deep sea robots and subs? We’ll see what they come up with. And then we’ll see them test and train. And we’ll pay the price, but it’s still cheaper than government takeover.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/24/2010 at 05:01 PM   
Filed Under: • Oil, Alternative Energy, and Gas Prices •  
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Newest Ship In The Army

Keel Laid for USS Spearhead JHSV 1



Just over six months after the official opening of Austal’s new Module Manufacturing Facility (MMF) in November 2009, Austal USA hosted a keel-laying ceremony at its shipyard in Mobile, Alabama on July 22, to signify the erection of the first modules on the U.S. Department of Defense’s next generation multi-use platform, the Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV). This is part of a 10-ship program potentially worth over $1.6b.

Keel Laying is the formal recognition of the start of the ship’s module erection process. In earlier times it was the “laying down” of the central or main timber making up the backbone of a vessel. Today, fabrication of the ship modules begins months before the units are actually joined. However, the keel laying symbolically recognizes the joining of modular components and the ceremonial beginning of a ship.

Spearhead (JHSV 1) will be a US Army vessel (USAV) and its name represents a major feature of the Regimental Insignia of the Transportation Corps. The insignia is a gold color metal and enamel device consisting of a ship’s steering wheel bearing a shield charged with a winged vehicle wheel on a rail, all gold, centered upon a brick red spearhead point up, all standing upon a curving gold scroll spanning the lower tips of the spearhead and inscribed, “Spearhead of Logistics,” in blue letters.

The ceremony signified the erection of the modular components that will form part of a 338 ft aluminum catamaran capable of transporting troops and their equipment, supporting humanitarian relief efforts, operating in shallow waters, and reaching speeds in excess of 35 knots fully loaded. This is the first of a class of 10 vessels to be operated by both the US Army and Navy.



For some old timers who might be wondering if the Army having it’s own ships isn’t some form of wackiness, what I found out about this class of vessels is anything but. For starters, these JSHV ships are fairly inexpensive at under $200 million each, ready to sail. The ships themselves are only slightly modified, armed versions of an existing commercial design, the shallow draft trimaran ferry built by Incat Tasmania Pty Ltd., of Hobart, Australia, now partnered with Bollinger Shipyards of Mobile Alabama and doing business as Austal.

The ships are 338 feet long, and made primarily from aluminum. They are wide beam, shallow draft, light weight, and very stable. They can hit 35 knots or faster, and they use far less fuel than standard ships of their length or capacity. The Navy has been testing a few of them for most of a decade now, and everything seems to work well. The design is pretty odd, and highly modern.



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These “little” ships will serve mainly as “floating pickup trucks” moving goods and people. I do not know what their role will be regarding the LCS (littoral combat ship) paradigm. The Spearhead and her sister ships can carry more than 300 troops quickly to shore and back again. This is the same ship design that Hawaii used for an inter-island high speed large superferry, until the enviro-wienies killed it. Those ferries could move 866 passengers and 282 subcompact cars at one go, and used jet propulsion instead of propellers to minimize risk to sea life. But that wasn’t good enough for the greenies!

All in all, it looks like this project was put together with a miraculous amount of common sense. Off the shelf ship that uses a radical but efficient and proven design. Cost effective from one end to the other. See what that kind of ship can do - the earlier ships tested by the Navy were used for logistics support in Iraq, to ferry aid to victims of the Indonesian Tsunami and victims of hurricane Katrina - then grow a role for the military around their capabilities. That’s the exact opposite of the I Have A Hammer approach, where they try to make everything look like a nail.

The JHSV (Joint High Speed Vessel) is a new generation, multi-use platform capable of transporting troops and their equipment, supporting humanitarian relief efforts, the ability to operate in shallow waters, and can reach speed in access of 35 knots fully loaded. The project brings together United States Navy, Army, Marines, and Special Operations Command to pursue a multi-use platform.

Originally built as a car ferry, the Swift [one of the earlier test ships] is a wave-piercing catamaran, a two-hulled, multi-decked craft with the length of a football field. She has a mission bay with 15,500 square feet of vehicle and module space. Her crane can launch and recover small boats. Her vehicle ramp is sturdy enough to accommodate M1A1Abrams tanks. A 4,000-square-foot flight deck has an adjacent hangar for two MH-60S Knighthawk helicopters. She can carry up to up to 250 combat-equipped Marines resting in airliner-style seats and up to 605 tons of cargo.

Propelled by four sets of Caterpillar 3618 marine diesel engines, gas turbines and water jets, she can cruise at a top speed in excess of 45 knots.

Yet the Swift’s aluminum hull draws only 11.15 feet of water. This allows her to operate in the shallow coastal waters of the Gulf of Mexico—or similar regions anywhere in the world. In the two years since the lease began, the vessel has provided transit support during the invasion of Iraq, participated in exercises off the coasts of West Africa, Honduras and Norway and provided tsunami disaster relief in the Indian Ocean.

“The Swift’s high speed makes it extraordinarily responsive, compared to other vessels,” Sodol said. “The higher payload requires fewer trips than a smaller high-speed craft, and the shallow draft enables it to enter ports and use small piers that are inaccessible to deep-draft ships.”

The Army and the Navy are alternating ownership of these ships. The first one built, Fortitude, and this one, Spearhead, are Army ships. #2 and #4, Vigilant and Fall River, will be Navy owned. So maybe it’s wrong for me to call this vessel USS? Maybe USAS instead? Naming conventions are out the window at this point, though the Fall River will be USNS.

Note to dedicated ship spotters: This is not the TSV-1X Spearhead, even though that ship is nearly identical to this one. TSV-1X was a test ship (hence the X) and this one will be a line ship. But the Army so loves the name it will get used on this one as well.

I can’t say how this new class of smaller, chunkier ships will fare in the long run, but one oxymoronic benefit they have is that they are not visually intimidating. Seriously. Maybe we all grew up understanding that the Navy was a floating steel manifestation of Force Projection, but that might be a bit unsettling for other countries when the Navy stops by for a social call.

A now-familiar gray catamaran pulled into the city of Port Antonio, Jamaica, on Jan. 4, carrying a team of sailors and Marines set to deliver a lesson in high demand among all the seafaring nations in Caribbean — how to fix small boats.

Boat repair, port security and basic law enforcement are part of the core curriculum available from the trainers aboard the high-speed vessel Swift, now three nations deep into a seven-nation tour of Central and South America as the United States’ floating embassy. Dubbed the “southern partnership station,” the Swift is becoming a regular visitor to many ports in the 4th Fleet area of operations, which is exactly what the Navy wants.

“This puts the U.S. military in good standing down here with these countries,” said Cmdr. Chris Barnes, the Swift’s mission commander, who spoke to Navy Times from Jamaica.

“In the three countries where we’ve been so far, we’ve been very, very well received. They appreciate the training, and we’re learning stuff from them, as well.”

Hearts and minds ... the theme that just won’t quit. All well and good in peacetime, but the real reason behind these ships is that they can take a quarter thousand soldiers in comfort and all their gear - the equivalent to 20 C-130 cargoes - and get them nearly up on the beach anywhere, and then offload the whole thing in under 15 minutes. Neat rah-rah video here.

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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/24/2010 at 03:38 PM   
Filed Under: • High TechMilitary •  
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Food,baseball,hot dogs and beer and Palm Desert, Ca.  Hello people …

Hi gang ....  Been so long I think I forgot how some things work tech wise.  Will catch up.

Lots to write about and share I guess, including my surprise that I still had a country to return to.. What joy. The Feds want to sue one of the states
who want to enforce a Fed law.  Some cities are boycotting Az.  Jerks.  Lunacy is not restricted to these shores alone.

Remember some time ago how ludicrous I found a health and safety measure here with regard to barbers NOT using straight razors? Well, I found the same in Calif. (no surprise) but not for H & S reasons.  Fear of legal action should a customer get so much as a nick by a barber.  And I understand their position in this sue happy world of compensation culture.

Having said all that, I am compelled to share this with all and sundry. 

Shortly before returning while still in good old USA, I found the need to get eye exam and new glasses.  So I called an optometrist’s office and tried to make an appointment. What a nightmare.  After waiting for some time, (typical of everything in Palm Desert) I got the receptionist who took my name and number and then informed me that the person who did the actual booking would be with me “shortly.” I should have asked what she meant by “shortly” but I was on hold too soon. And waited.  And waited.  Meanwhile the clock on my phone was ticking time away and before long I realized I’d been on that phone for 6 minutes.  After 7, I hung up. 

So I called another opt. office, the call was answered reasonably fast and I asked about an appointment.  Sure says the lady who answered.  Can you hold while I get the appointment book?  Sure says meself thinking well this shouldn’t take long.  Although I did think it funny she wouldn’t have had the book right there in front of her as most I have seen do.  And so again I waited and had to remind myself that this was after all, Palm Desert. Home. So I waited yet again.

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And I waited.  How long does it take to find an appointment book?  No surprise, I hung up after 5 or so minutes had passed.  Jeesh.  Not even a recording telling me how important my call was.

OK so.  LAX was a madhouse as you’d expect. Especially on intl. flights.  Have to be there hours early.  When at long last we were called to board and went through xrays and got as far as the ramp/tunnel before getting on board, I heard a voice shout, “STOP THAT MAN.”
Now guys, I forgot to mention there were 6 muzzies in full dress and beards on our flight. Oh boy. 
Anyway ... I hear stop that man and look around and find people looking at me and suddenly there’s this large policeman asking me to please step aside and saying, “I’ve got him.” Huh?

It turns out that one of my medical tests two weeks before this flight, necessitated the injection of a small amount of radioactive something or other. Two weeks.  Apparently, my blood (how do they know?) still had enough of something to raise an alarm. 

So now we’re back in the UK and this Thurs. past (or it could have been Wed), the wife and I go to have our eyes examined. (No Charge, and my reading glasses and frames cost less then $20. And that’s for two pair.  Hey, that’s Tesco.)
This little episode brings me right back to Health and Safety lunacy as practiced here.  I doubt any of you could make this one up and I sure couldn’t.

You go into a small exam room, there are two machines. I don’t know what else to call em.  One takes snapshots of the eye and then next that one is a unit that puffs a little air into your eyes.  No big deal right? 
So you’re sitting on one of those small office like chairs with wheels and after one unit looks at your eyes you have to scoot over to the unit right next to it for the puff of air. But the darn chair hardly moves and so you try and force it a bit and give up and simply move the chair over and sit down again. Saying at the same time to the examiner, gee. The wheels must be stuck on this chair. Hard to move. 
Oh she then informs.  There aren’t any wheels on chairs that customers must sit in.  Huh? Why is that I dumbly ask.  I should have known.
It’s a health and safety rule she informs me.  The ministry of H&S doesn’t want to chance ppl perhaps falling over. So the wheels were taken off.
If that isn’t stupid then I do not know what the word means.  They are so worried about health and safety and at the same time we read about violent prisoners being released, and killings being committed by ppl with loooong violent records who literally get away with murder.  But the folks at H&S are concerned about wheels on small office chairs.

We rented a place at Sun City while in Calif.  Small but then we weren’t there but two and a half months. How come they’re still called condos even when they’re free standing units with no shared wall? More house like really.

Photo above taken in the gated community. I wouldn’t mind living there. I think. They have three club houses, a small library, three restaurants and I don’t know what else. Oh, they even have a regular post office right there.  Of course this is all on a major golf course, so you can imagine how nice things are kept.

With all the negative things I can think of about the place, the traffic and long waits for everything during snowbird season, I actually like Palm Desert. A lot.

It’s also very much an artful place and the galleries are fun to visit.  In off season. Like now.

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We hardly ever ate all meals at home. Snacks maybe. The odd breakfast.  Mostly we went out to eat. Unless the Dodgers were playing in which case we stayed in and had things delivered.  There were some disappointments.  For example. There used to be a cafe called Louise’s Pantry which we found renamed and under new ownership. All the nice old (some cracked) booths shiny and new and I think they repainted the place.
Well, the service was spotty and instead of all the folks we once knew, meaning waitresses and manager, the new staff seemed like they could care less.  Hardly a smile and the uniforms looked drab.  6 years ago the ladies wore shorts. Real shorts and not just the younger ones. And they all looked nice and were friendly. But this place now?  Nah. And the food wasn’t good enough to justify the price.  The coffee was pretty strong like maybe it was in the pot too long.
Now that was the same but in the old days we didn’t care.

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Then my favorite restaurant. A place called The Elephant Bar.  I don’t know why.  We had waited over 6 years to revisit that place.  Now?  Well,
the food was a great as ever it was.  I had planned on lunch or dinner there every single day. That’s how good the food is.  I wanted to work my way through the whole damn menu.  BUT .... The damned background music (if you can call something with a few words repeated over and over and over to the constant banging of a drum machine music) well, you get the picture.  Asking them to lower it brought little relief as it wasn’t lowered that much.  You could hardly hear yourself think, never mind trying to carry on a conversation.  So after the second visit we never went back.  Fortunately, there are other very good eateries in our area.

Unfortunately ... ALL the supermarkets run their music (?) at insanely high volume also.  You just can not get away from it.  Happy to say that so far in our area here, there is little or no background sound effects/music.  And none at our local Tesco.  High marks for that.
And that’s something else.  We missed the choices that the markets have here in the UK.  Hard to explain to anyone not living here and being in a position to compare. Trust me on that.  We might have eaten in more often if we had these choices.  The down side?  They just don’t have real American hot dogs here.
Ah ... popcorn, hot dogs, Bud and the Dodgers. What else is there?  Yeah, I do miss that already.

Have run on longer then I thought I should and so will leave ya with a few pix from Sun City.  I think I could live here happily and right now with the housing market depressed, the prices are favorable.  There is so damn much to take into consideration. Oh well ...  Cheers all and have a good weekend.

Artists works are displayed down the center of the main drag with names and prices. They look even better at night but we just were too worn out by that time to bother going out late.  This is just a small sample of what’s on display.

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Sun City ... Palm Desert, Ca.

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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 07/24/2010 at 07:40 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
Comments (11) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

calendar   Friday - July 23, 2010

“NOT the whiteman’s bi#ch”

Unfortunately, it appears that the bi#ch is the whiteman’s burden.

H/T Weasel Zippers:

State elections officials narrowly rejected a Milwaukee Assembly candidate’s attempt to run with the slogan “NOT the ‘whiteman’s bi#ch’ ” under her name on the ballot.

Ieshuh Griffin, a Milwaukee independent running to replace retiring Rep. Annette “Polly” Williams (D-Milwaukee), said in response she would sue the Government Accountability Board for infringing on her freedom of speech.

“I’m not making a derogatory statement toward an ethnic group. I’m stating what I’m not,” Griffin told board members. “It’s my constitutional right to freedom of speech.”

Okay…? Personally, I don’t mind if she uses that on her own campaign materials. But she’s asking the taxpayers to foot the bill to have that printed on ballots. The only thing I’ve ever seen on a ballot was a name and party affiliation. So unless NOT the ‘whiteman’s bi#ch is the name of her party… nyet.

Even Rush Limbaugh commented on this.

The only reason I posted this was because of the comments at Weasel Zippers:

Running Bare says:
July 21, 2010 at 9:19 PM

So… ummm… this begs the question – whose bitch IS she, then?

9-11 infidel says:
July 21, 2010 at 9:22 PM

‘NOT the ‘whiteman’s bi#ch’ ? Hmmm…interesting slogan. I wonder what she would think if a white chick ran for the same job under the slogan “Not the “ni**er’s ho?” Would she then also be stating what she is not? Would that be her constitutional right too? Nah. Not with your double standard… bee-yatch.

Wiley C. says:
July 21, 2010 at 9:23 PM

But you are a BITCH – right?

Now we know who’s bitch she isn’t. But we’re still haggling over her price.


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Posted by Christopher   United States  on 07/23/2010 at 08:31 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat LeftistsInsanityRacism and race relations •  
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Tasty and Tasteless All At Once

BrewDog, World’s Strongest Ale: 110 proof

bottled in the dead small animal of your choice


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It’s super-strength, costs £500 ($760) a pop and goes by the fetching title of The End of History - oh, and it’s sold inside dead stuffed animals such as the humble stoat.

BrewDog, of Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, is the firm behind the new ale that’s apparently stronger than whisky and vodka at 55 per cent volume.

Indeed, the brewer recommends that the tasty beverage is served in a shot glass ‘to be enjoyed like a fine whisky’.

Twelve bottles of The End Of History have already slid off the production line and been placed inside seven dead stoats, four squirrels and one hare.

The animals weren’t killed specifically for the purposes of housing the bottles, but died of natural causes.

The critters also sport a range of eye-catching outfits including a kilt and a top hat.

BrewDog co-founder James Watt describes The End Of History as ‘a perfect conceptual marriage between taxidermy, art and craft brewing’.

‘This is the beer to end all beers. It’s an audacious blend of eccentricity, artistry and rebellion; changing the general perception of beer, one stuffed animal at a time,’ he continues.

‘The bottles are at once beautiful and disturbing - they disrupt conventions and break taboos, just like the beer they hold within them.’

Infused with nettles and juniper berries, the blond Belgian ale is created by freezing the liquid to separate water from the solution, fact fans will be delighted to know.

The squirrel version will run you £700, the stoat £500, all for the illusion that your ludicrously strong brew is being vomited up by a rodent. As for that beer, it’s supposedly a blond, Belgian-style ale, but it’s unlikely that you’d be able to taste much aside from the alcohol.

Animal rights activists and others lashed out at BrewDog’s latest offering, according to the Daily Telegraph.

“Using shock tactics to get attention is terribly out of date, especially when this involves exploiting or degrading animals,” said Ross Minett, campaigns director for the charity Advocates for Animals."The modern approach is to celebrate the wonders of animals and respect them as individual sentient creatures. I’m sure this would have much greater appeal with the animal-loving public.

“We will be getting in touch with BrewDog to advise them on what people today really think about animals and how a positive caring approach and appreciating live animals is the best way forward.”

[company co-founder James] Watt says he doesn’t know why there is a fuss over the animal bottles. “All the animals were roadkill so they were dead anyway,” Watt told QMI Agency over the phone from Scotland.

Mr Watt argued that criticism of the beer’s high strength was “totally misguided”.

He said: “This artisan beer should be consumed in small servings whilst exuding an endearing pseudo vigilance and reverence for Mr Stoat.

“The real catalysts for a binge-drinking culture are not well- crafted beers but the monolithic corporate machines that have cultivated a culture of quantity rather than quality amongst UK beer drinkers.”

He also responded to criticisms of the packaging of the product and stated: “I can think of no grander way to celebrate these animals than for them to be cherished by the lucky owners.

“The animals used to bottle The End Of History all died of natural causes - better to be celebrated and valued than left to rot.”

Sounds to me like this James Watt is the true heir of the original famous James Watt. Yeah, him that invented the modern unit of energy, the Watt. Because he was looking for a simple way to improve the efficiency of steam engines, and thus cut down on their fuel costs. Leave it to another Watt to look at all the roadkill up and down the motorways and figure out how to use them as bottles. Or bottle covers I guess. And then to sell that as art, recycling, and a celebration of animals. I love it. It’s a real stick in the eye to the PETA folks, who have their knickers in a twist ... why? Watt is being as green as possible here, isn’t he?  LOL


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/23/2010 at 04:22 PM   
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •  
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cheap fix

Shortly after I got the air conditioning on my old Satrun fixed, the check radiator light started coming on on the dashboard. I know that the coolant level sensor has always been very sensitive, so I ignored it for a bit. It kept coming on. So I took a look, and the overflow tank was a bit low. So I added some water. Fine. A couple days later the light came on again. Added more water. Then it came on after only 50 miles, and this time it took more than a quart to top the thing off. I’ve got a leak. My guess is that the mechanics who did the A/C were a bit heavy handed, and clonked the radiator. Not only is the thing almost 14 years old with 200K miles on it, it’s a thin aluminum core with plastic end tanks. So I investigated ... and found a crack on the inside of the top of the left end tank. I looked things up online - God, how I love the internet! - and found that not only is replacing the radiator a very simple job, I could get a brand new one, heavy duty, with new upper and lower hoses, all name brand parts, for under $125 delivered. Awesome. I was expecting $400. But then my inner cheapskate came to the surface, and I wondered if I could fix it myself. It’s plastic, after all. So I got out the super glue and the epoxy, and found a fairly thick lid to a plastic tub of cat litter in the recycling. After cleaning and drying off that part of the tank, I ran a bead of super glue along the crack, and while it was drying I cut 3 plastic rectangles from the lid. Each one fits between the ribs on the tank, and extends about an inch to either side of the hairline crack. Mix up a big blob of 5 minute epoxy, slather a generous amount onto each rectangle, and press them in place. Then I used a chopstick to flow more epoxy over each rib, so every last part of the crack is covered with a thick coat much wider than the crack itself. It’s out there drying in the heat right now.

Will it hold? Have to wait and see. It’s not like I can’t afford $125 to get the parts, and I can do the work myself. But if this fix gives me a bit of time, or works perfectly, or even if it only slows the leak down a whole bunch, then it was a half hour well spent. Just in case, I’ll carry a couple of gallons of water with me.

Yeah, I know. I was looking for some excuse to use duct tape, but there’s nothing there that could take any. The hoses are just fine and the rubber radiator mounts are holding up as well.

To my surprise, a Saturn doesn’t really have a radiator cap! It’s a closed system, so the cap on the overflow tank is built to handle 15psi instead. 


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/23/2010 at 03:46 PM   
Filed Under: • Daily Lifeplanes, trains, tanks, ships, machines, automobiles •  
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Homework

I can’t demand that any of my readers go and spend an hour reading this essay in American Spectator, but I certainly can recommend it.  It’s a long read, and a somewhat academic one, and it puts into words written at a higher level the chalkboarding and emoting you catch on Glen Beck every day. But it really is worth it: if We The People are ever going to get our acts together and take back our nation, then this shared awareness is where we will have to start.



Ever since Oliver Wendell Holmes argued in 1920 (Missouri v. Holland) that presidents, Congresses, and judges could not be bound by the U.S. Constitution regarding matters that the people who wrote and ratified it could not have foreseen, it has become conventional wisdom among our ruling class that they may transcend the Constitution while pretending allegiance to it. They began by stretching such constitutional terms as “interstate commerce” and “due process,” then transmuting others, e.g., “search and seizure,” into “privacy.” Thus in 1973 the Supreme Court endowed its invention of “privacy” with a “penumbra” that it deemed “broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.” The court gave no other constitutional reasoning, period.

When the government declares, and its associated press echoes that “scientists say” this or that, ordinary people—or for that matter scientists who “don’t say,” or are not part of the ruling class—lose any right to see the information that went into what “scientists say.” Thus when Virginia’s attorney general subpoenaed the data by which Professor Michael Mann had concluded, while paid by the state of Virginia, that the earth’s temperatures are rising “like a hockey stick” from millennial stability—a conclusion on which billions of dollars’ worth of decisions were made—to investigate the possibility of fraud, the University of Virginia’s faculty senate condemned any inquiry into “scientific endeavor that has satisfied peer review standards” claiming that demands for data “send a chilling message to scientists...and indeed scholars in any discipline.” The Washington Post editorialized that the attorney general’s demands for data amounted to “an assault on reason.”

By identifying science and reason with themselves, our rulers delegitimize opposition. Though they cannot prevent Americans from worshiping God, they can make it as socially disabling as smoking—to be done furtively and with a bad social conscience. Though they cannot make Americans wish they were Europeans, they continue to press upon this nation of refugees from the rest of the world the notion that Americans ought to live by “world standards.”
...
The country class actually believes that America’s ways are superior to the rest of the world’s, and regards most of mankind as less free, less prosperous, and less virtuous. Thus while it delights in croissants and thinks Toyota’s factory methods are worth imitating, it dislikes the idea of adhering to “world standards.” This class also takes part in the U.S. armed forces body and soul: nearly all the enlisted, non-commissioned officers and officers under flag rank belong to this class in every measurable way. Few vote for the Democratic Party.

But the Republican Party does not live to represent the country class. For it to do so, it would have to become principles-based, as it has not been since the mid-1860s. The few who tried to make it so the party treated as rebels: Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. The party helped defeat Goldwater. When it failed to stop Reagan, it saddled his and subsequent Republican administrations with establishmentarians who, under the Bush family, repudiated Reagan’s principles as much as they could. Barack Obama exaggerated in charging that Republicans had driven the country “into the ditch” all alone. But they had a hand in it.

Because aggressive, intolerant secularism is the moral and intellectual basis of the ruling class’s claim to rule, resistance to that rule, whether to the immorality of economic subsidies and privileges, or to the violation of the principle of equal treatment under equal law, or to its seizure of children’s education, must deal with secularism’s intellectual and moral core. This lies beyond the boundaries of politics as the term is commonly understood.

Yes, that’s a lot of quotations, far more than I usually make. I did that so that you would see the very broad range of topics covered by this essay. It shows how just about everything has gone wrong, and why ... and the answer is Progressivism. We have 3 generations worth of corruption to undo, and that’s going to require far more than just a couple wins at the polls in 2010 and 2012.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/23/2010 at 01:16 PM   
Filed Under: • PatriotismPolitics •  
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Ouch

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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/23/2010 at 08:43 AM   
Filed Under: • Humor •  
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calendar   Thursday - July 22, 2010

Page c24 news

After 2 Years of Investigation, Dem’s Allegations Shown False

DOJ: Bush firing lawyers was no crime



Duh. What else is new? Another tempest in a teapot, another waste of huge amounts of money, same result: another leftist lie falls by the wayside. Not that anyone is going to notice it at this point.
These attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President. That’s it. Clinton fired 90 of them and it wasn’t even news. Bush fired 6 and it was the new apocalypse. What a load of nonsense. 10 seconds spent reading the rule book should have cleared up the whole matter back in 2006. But somehow it became a huge story ... JournoList agenda and bias? No kidding.

The Bush administration’s Justice Department’s actions were inappropriately political, but not criminal, when it fired a U.S. attorney in 2006, prosecutors said Wednesday in closing a two-year investigation without filing charges.

The decision closes the books on one of the lingering political disputes of the Bush administration, one that Democrats said was evidence of GOP politics run amok and that Republicans have always said was a manufactured controversy.

Investigators looked into whether the Bush administration improperly dismissed nine U.S. attorneys, and in particular New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, as a way to influence criminal cases. The scandal added to mounting criticism that the administration had politicized the Justice Department, a charge that contributed to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

In 2008, the Justice Department assigned Nora Dannehy, a career prosecutor from Connecticut with a history of rooting out government wrongdoing, to investigate the firings.

“Evidence did not demonstrate that any prosecutable criminal offense was committed with regard to the removal of David Iglesias,” the Justice Department said in a letter to lawmakers Wednesday. “The investigative team also determined that the evidence did not warrant expanding the scope of the investigation beyond the removal of Iglesias.”

Prosecutors also said there was insufficient evidence to charge someone with lying to Congress or investigators.

Gonzales’ lawyer, George Terwilliger, called the conclusion long overdue.

“Those who made unwarranted allegations to the contrary owe him an apology,” Terwilliger said. “After having spent months cooperating with inquiries that produced no evidence of his wrongdoing, Judge Gonzales is pleased to be free to resume a career marked to date by service to the public.”

Well I’m glad that’s all cleared up. Except for the sour grapes and those unwilling to accept the results ...

House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers (D) of Michigan said Dannehy’s decision is not an exoneration of Bush administration officials.

“There is no dispute that these firings were totally improper and that misleading testimony was given to Congress in an effort to cover them up,” Conyers said in a statement.

Go suck on a lemon Conyers. Your party threw the mud, and two years later, probably at the cost of millions of taxpayer dollars, microscopic examination has shown that none of it stuck.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/22/2010 at 07:56 AM   
Filed Under: • Politics •  
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calendar   Wednesday - July 21, 2010

Sometimes you need the MSM

I get most of my news from the internet. I hardly watch television news at all.

The JournoList story is breaking - blooming, blossoming - now ... and it’s no news at all to the folks who read BMEWS. Geez, what a surprise: vast numbers of professional journalists, the ones who gin up the stories you see on TV and read in the newspaper, were all members of a private internet forum, where they discussed the issues of the day, and generally reached the agreement that they would do whatever it takes to get Obama elected. Whether that meant burying stories about his birth certificate, ignoring the reverend Wright thing, calling any and every Conservative racist, or blackballing any individual (Joe the Plumber anyone?) who dared to question his messiahness in the slightest ... the fix was in. And now, nearly 2 years after the election, when Oshithead’s poll numbers are tanking, his approval rating falling like a meteor into a manure pile, and a large part of the 52ers waking up and looking for someone to blame for “making us” vote for this assclown ... now it’s coming out that the MFM had their playbook written up and signed off on way in advance. No shit Sherlock. Tell us what we don’t know. Conservatives have been aware of an extraordinary media bias ever since Walter Cronkite single-handedly lost the Vietnam War. Even though our troops won the Tet Offensive, even though they were caught by surprise, they battled back across a front the size of South Vietnam, and put that bad dog down but good.  But Uncle Walter said the war was unwinnable, and at that point the die was cast. From there, through Rathergate and beyond; eventually the Right woke up and called foul. Which made us crazy people, racists, and the lunatic fringe. Except that finally - and don’t expect to see this on TV, not even on “Faux News” - it’s coming out that there was deliberate collusion.

You can’t trust the press. Period.

But sometimes you need them. While the internet is a great thing, it’s also a GREAT thing - there are hundreds of millions of web sites - and it’s just too much of a pain to try and filter through even the necessary several hundred to find out what’s really going on. Sometimes, you need TV and radio news.

Today was one of those days for us. Even though we have two rather large reservoirs here in Clinton, the water in them is not for us. We get our water from artesian wells. It turns out that the water department found e. coli bacteria in one of the wells 3 days ago, and just bothered to tell us about it today. And golly, if they keep finding e. coli in the well water, they’re going to do the right thing and take that well off-line until they can get it treated. Yeah, a little too little and a little too late.

How did I find out? The oldest old fashioned way: one of the former board members of the condo association I live in came around door to door and told us. After that I looked stuff up online, and it was not an easy find at the time. He’d heard about it on the semi-local TV news. We have a little NJ station, and we also have an even smaller north eastern PA station. Both of them are now carrying the story that Clinton NJ has e. coli in the water. The story was not running on the NYC (50 miles away) based MSM. Maybe it is now. And I’m finding more stories on the internet news sites. But it was TV news that broke it ... and they do still have the power to reach more people faster and easier than any given website. So we’ll have to boil water for a couple days, and hope that’s enough.

Town of Clinton Water Department issues E. coli warning; boil water advisory

WALTER O’BRIEN • STAFF WRITER • July 21, 2010

CLINTON TOWN — A water well test has indicated the presence of E. coli; the water department warns customers to boil water before drinking or using for personal use.

The Town of Clinton Water Department water system on July 19 tested positive for the E. coli bacteria in water sample in Well #11 before treatment. The department warns customers not to drink the water without boiling it first, or to use bottled water for personal uses.

Bring all water to a boil, let it boil for at least one minute and let it cool before using. Boiled or bottled water should be used for drinking, making ice, brushing teeth, washing dishes and food preparation until further notice. Boiling kills the bacteria and other organisms in the water.

The positive test of the water indicates that the water may be contaminated with human or animal wastes. Microbes in these wastes can cause short-term health effects, such as diarrhea, cramps, nausea, headaches, or other symptoms. They may pose a special health risk for infants, young children, some of the elderly, and people with severely compromised immune systems.

The symptoms above are not caused only by organisms in drinking water. If you experience any of these symptoms and they persist, you may want to seek medical advice. People at increased risk should seek advice from their health care providers about drinking this water.

The department said that repeated samples will be taken before treatment of the water to confirm the continued presence of the indicators of contamination. If any are detected, the well will be taken out of service until the problem is resolved.

The department will inform the public when tests show no presence of E. coli in the water. At that point you will no longer need to boil your water. The department anticipates resolving the problem within 3-5 days.

CLINTON — Customers of the town water system today were warned to boil the water before drinking it.

According to a notice from the town water department, water testing detected a fecal indicator (E. coli) in a Well 11 raw water sample.

Water from the Clinton system is distributed in the town itself, as well as to parts of Lebanon and the townships of Clinton, Franklin and Union. The sample was taken Monday.

The town urged people to not drink the water without boiling it first.

If I was in charge, that well would have been shut off within seconds of the bacteria being found. Run the test a bunch of times, but better safe than sorry. This seems more than a bit lackadaisical by the water department, although what comes out of the pipe every day smells like it has more chlorine in it than a community swimming pool. Will there be “why did you take 3 days to act?” repercussions? I hope so, but I don’t really care. As long as I don’t come down with 8 days of nonstop bloody diarrhea, I’m happy.

Oh, the “JournoList” situation. See here. Lots of other places too, Pajamas Media etc. But Daily Caller broke the story I think. If you can understand it all, good for you. Some of it is very “meta”, using far too many insider terms and understandings. I think I caught the real essence: the media is a total whore for Obama, a $2 trick, willing and eager to lie, cheat, and kill if necessary to do his bidding. Which isn’t news at all to any of us here, but to my surprise is shocking news for lots of other folks. I guess millions of people live under rocks, instead of in those nice McMansions I see everywhere. I suppose that the only real news part is that the scribblers involved actually were in active knowing well communicated collusion. I guess I assumed that as Kool-Aid drinkers the “professional” journalists had all just picked up on the meme by smelling the breeze and run with it. Not so! I gave them way too much credit for skills they don’t have. They got together and planned the whole thing. And now the word is leaking out.

(Fred Barnes, ever the gentleman smile )
Now, after learning I’d been targeted for a smear attack by a member of an online clique of liberal journalists, I’m inclined to amend my response. Not to say there’s a media conspiracy, but at least to note that hundreds of journalists have gotten together, on an online listserv called JournoList, to promote liberalism and liberal politicians at the expense of traditional journalism.

My guess is that this and other revelations about JournoList will deepen the distrust of the national press.

Elegant and under-spoken as always. More here.

And here! Everywhere in the VRWC actually. On ABC news? Ha!

Sean Hannity says that journalism died in 2008, when the mainstream media discarded even the pretense of professionalism and objectivity for the sake of installing an unqualified, ultra-radical community organizer in the White House. Judis’s words make a perfect epitaph for the headstone:

NOW IT IS ONLY TACTICAL

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How’s our supply of wooden posts and blindfolds? We may need more.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/21/2010 at 09:33 PM   
Filed Under: • Daily LifeMedia-Bias •  
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:
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