Like I’m Gonna Believe Anything

…a guy with a name like THAT says.

Shark bites diver in the fjord
Odd Ingebretsen told Aftenposten.no on Wednesday that he was diving off Sjøstrand in Asker when he saw what he thought was a large, dead fish on the sea bottom.
“When I touched it, I realized quickly that it neither was dead nor an ordinary fish,” he said.

This is what bit diver Odd Ingebretsen.
~ PHOTO: KJETIL PALMQUIST

Shark in the fjord my akterspeilene.

Well…Sorry About That, I Guess

Why wasn’t anyone bemoaning the broken families left on the Mexican side of the border when Juan scuttled over the fence initially?

An estimated 1.6 million children and spouses have been separated from family members forced to leave the country under toughened 1996 immigration laws, a human rights group said Wednesday.
The separations have taken a toll on families who have sold homes, lost jobs, lost businesses or been thrown into financial turmoil, Human Rights Watch said in a new report.
The widespread impact on American families has been truly devastating, said Alison Parker, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch.

But that’s exactly the problem. If they were AMERICAN (or even just ‘LEGAL‘), no one would be sending anyone anywhere.
UPDATE: Let me expand on this whole concept. Yesterday on MSNBC I saw an African American D.C. alderman or ward boss, not sure which. He was furious about a $200,000 day laborer center that had been set up to keep the illegals in one convenient place, vice scattered on this corner and that. Now, we lived across the street from one of these popular corners in Santa Ana, CA a MILLION years ago, so this problem is not new. And yes, these people are just looking for a day’s wages. Granted. That sounds innocuous enough, but, until you’ve lived with it, most folks have no idea what really goes on, day after day. They ~ anywhere from fifteen to fifty on any given day ~ would start to wander over to the corner around sun-up, bringing their radios and maybe some tools. (The radios would be ON.) As they whiled away the hours, nature would invariably call and ~ since you didn’t want to leave the area for fear of missing a cruising landscaper/construction/restaurant looking for help ~ you pissed across the street on the nearest wall. Which happened to be mine. As the day wears on and hopes of employment slim, you pool your pesos and send a buddy down to the corner bodega for whatever cervesa can be bought cheaply and in quantity. That in turn generates more urination, coupled with trash flying everywhere, the occasional violent Latin temper explosion, bored mischief making/cat calls and/or out-and-out larceny attempts. They all wander home around 4 p.m. to rest up for the redux on the morrow. I watched them racially stereotype themselves, rain or shine. Five. Days. A. Week.
For twelve years.
So here’s this poor, earnest D.C. type wondering WHY ~ when there’s homeless CITIZENS sleeping on the street and off-the-charts unemployment amongst the other ills of life in the District ~ WHY they’re spending $200,000 of the TAXpayers’ hard earned cash to make it easier for employers to hire illegals. (He might wanna double check the $200K. This article says: “Mr. Thomas has secured $500,000 in budget funding to build the center, which he hopes will connect day laborers and local residents to jobs….But it is still not clear how or whether D.C. officials will check the immigration status of workers at the proposed site.”) I have to agree with him. And, if I were him, I’d do some digging in the figures they’re throwing around since, in Montgomery County, Maryland, the center’s cost isn’t all they’re forking out.

…Annually, the county spends about $200,000 on this facility and doles out about $2.3 million to CASA of Maryland, a nonprofit immigrant advocacy group.

Hot DAMN! I could sure stand to be on that dole! Wonder if taxpayers know about that budget item.
UPDATE REDUX: Trust me, they were never this well mannered.

Home Intruder Found Sitting On Toilet
A startling sight greeted a Fredericksburg woman when she returned home from picking up a newspaper early Thursday, police said. A man she didn’t know was sitting on her toilet. The man had apparently entered her home in the 300 block of Germania Street by cutting a screen and unlocking the door, police said.
…When she got home, she noticed that the bathroom door was closed. She opened the door and the man was sitting there.
Bledsoe said the woman asked the man a couple of questions, including “How long are you going to be?” but didn’t understand the man’s response because it was in Spanish.
She then told the man she was calling to police and he got up and left. The woman noticed the cut screen after the man was gone.

Congress Is On a Roll

…eerily similar to Jack and Jill after they’d made the hill with the pork barrel pail.

…But the marks for Congress, mired in gridlock over a series of partisan political battles after Democrats took power in the 2006 elections, continued to drop.
While 83 percent said Congress was doing a fair or poor job, just 14 percent rated it excellent or good. Last October, in its final days, the Republican-led Congress earned ratings of excellent or good from 23 percent of voters.

“There is a growing sense that people voted for change in 2006 and they aren’t getting it,” Zogby said.

King Harry fell down and broke his crown, and Nance came tumbling after.

38 Years Ago Tomorrow

Blubbo went driving.

The World’s Most Convenient Busy Airport

Which is also why it’s probably the most dangerous

Imagine LaGuardia sitting on a little hill in the center of Manhattan and that’s Congonhas and these poor people

A passenger plane has crashed and burst into flames at Brazil’s busiest airport, in the heart of Sao Paulo, killing up to 200 people.
Rescue crews said none of the 176 people on board the Airbus A320 could have survived, while more people were killed on the ground.
The TAM airliner skidded off the runway as it landed in wet weather, shot over a busy road and hit a fuel depot.

I’ve flown in and out of there many times and it always amazes me. You feel like you are literally dodging the 30-40 story buildings as you come in to land.
Update: The best way to describe Congonhas is an aircraft carrier, that’s what landing there is like.

Let Me Not Add to Bingley’s Miserable Mood

…by sliding in a little Birthday Shout Out.
So I won’t.

What I’m Drinking Tonight

Man, I know it’s only Tuesday but it sure feels like at least Thursday.
and I really really need this

the dirtiest martini you can imagine, chock full of blue cheese stuffed olives
Come here you wild rascal you…

Sweden

…isn’t just for blondes, anymore and it’s starting to worry them. Good. Get a handle on it now.

Sweden has welcomed immigrants with open arms for decades but now it is grappling with how to integrate them into society, especially in the southern town of Malmoe amid a massive influx of refugees.
Once a thriving industrial town with full employment, Malmoe has seen many of its plants shut down since the 1990s. That, combined with a never-ending stream of foreigners arriving, has led to rising juvenile delinquency and rampant unemployment.
Of the town’s 280,000 inhabitants, a third are foreigners and 60,000 are Muslims.
…Compared to slums and projects in France or the US, Rosengaard looks like a nice community. But it stands out in a Swedish context.
On a recent visit, veiled women walk behind the men, casting quick glances at their husbands before refusing to speak to AFP’s reporter. At the local mall, more Arabic is heard than Swedish and 28 of the 30 shopkeepers are immigrants.

“I’m Too Sexy For My Car Bus”

“…too sexy for the bus, too sexy…“

I get that all the time, so I understand completely the burden ‘babe-ness’ is.

German bus driver threatened to throw a 20-year-old sales clerk off his bus in the southern town of Lindau because he said she was too sexy, a newspaper reported Monday.

“Suddenly he stopped the bus,” the woman named Debora C. told Bild newspaper. “He opened the door and shouted at me ‘Your cleavage is distracting me every time I look into my mirror and I can’t concentrate on the traffic. If you don’t sit somewhere else, I’m going to have to throw you off the bus.'”

Ebola

…will be crushed to hear this.

IHOP to buy Applebee’s for $2.1 billion

The last time Kcruella and I were in a IHOP, it cost an arm, a leg and three quarts of blood and ~ both service and meal ~ sucked to high heaven.

Swillers Know Where We Stand on the Whole Teen Driving Thing

Lord knows we’ve taken our share of heat for it. But dang if parents and their late children don’t keep lining up to be examples for our next futile rant.

Text messages were sent and received on a 17-year-old driver’s cell phone moments before the sport utility vehicle slammed head-on into a truck, killing her and four other recent high school graduates, police said.
…Goodman’s inexperience at the wheel; evidence she was driving above the speed limit at night on a winding, two-lane highway; and a succession of calls and text messages on her phone were cited Friday by Sheriff Phil Povero as possible factors in the June 28 crash in western New York.
…Routine tests ruled out alcohol as a factor in the 10 p.m. crash, and police don’t suspect drug use was involved. Goodman had only a junior driver’s license, making it illegal for her to be driving after 9 p.m. without supervision or to be carrying so many young passengers.

Hello. Sorry to rain on the grief parade YET again, but her parents are as culpable in this tragedy (and a good argument could be made that the other girls’ parents are as well) as that young thing they gave the keys to.

And the Beat Insanity Goes On

Court of Appeals takes up Corrie lawsuit
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will hear arguments Monday whether there is merit to a lawsuit by the family of Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old activist from Olympia killed by a bulldozer in the Gaza Strip in 2003.
The defendant in the case is Caterpillar, which made the D9 bulldozer involved in her death.
…Cindy and Craig Corrie, the woman’s parents, allege Caterpillar violated human rights and committed war crimes by knowingly selling its equipment to the Israeli army, which used the bulldozers to raze Palestinian homes and endanger people. Rachel Corrie was run over by a bulldozer driven by an Israeli soldier as she tried to block a home from demolition.
“We are essentially arguing that you cannot knowingly provide substantial assistance — the means to commit war crimes, which is essentially what Caterpillar has done here,” said Maria LaHood, with the Center for Constitutional Rights, on the Corries’ legal team.

I can see how their daughter was WHACKO impassioned enough to jump in front of a bulldozer to begin with ~ family genes will out, you know. And, as major dad succinctly notes: on these grounds? If we were Mercedes-Benz, we’d be poopin’ our drawers right about now, since they’ve recently qualifed as ‘weapons of mass-destruction’.

If the Courts Won’t Play Dhimmi Ball

…then it’s fatwa time!

Islamic Society of Copenhagen can’t accept the secular laws of Denmark, and therefore they plan to seek support in the Middle East for a fatwa against Jyllands-Posten, if the newspaper is acquitted in a pending civic case, which a number of Muslim organizations has initiated against the paper, and if the European Human Rights Court also makes a decision that goes against the legal demands of the Muslims.
This is tomorrows top story in Jyllands-Posten.

…”No Muslim will ever forget that the prophet was insulted,” says Kasem Ahmad.

I know a judge who lost a pair of pants who won’t give up, either. For God’s sake, give it a rest already.

Run Away!!

F*ckin’ weasels.

House votes to pull troops out after Iraq report
White House report cites success on 8 goals, failure on 8, mixed effort on 2
Iraq has achieved only spotty military and political progress toward a democratic society, the Bush administration conceded Thursday, an unenthusiastic assessment followed quickly by a House of Representatives vote to withdraw U.S. troops by the spring.
The measure passed 223-201 despite a veto threat from President Bush, who has ruled out any change in war policy before September.
…While Bush announced last winter he was ordering thousands of additional troops to the war zone, the full complement has only arrived in recent weeks. “The full surge in this respect has only just begun,” the report said.

And they only just got there?! And have acomplished almost half of the goals already? Let’s just send a loud and clear to those troops that all that effort makes them losers and those ‘losers’ of ours are gonna have a bullseye on their backs thanks to these weasels. How much harder is their job going to be when the world knows that Congress wants us to start buggering out in four months ~ FOUR months!
Lord. I’m completely revolted.

BREAKING NEWS

MSNBC is reporting:

President Musharraf vows to crush Islamic extremists in Pakistan

No link yet. You go, guy! Maybe Zawahiri shoulda held off on the “Kill the Pakistani!!” YouTube for a week or so.
Now they’ve just pissed him off.
UPDATE: Got it.

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf vowed on Thursday to crush Islamic extremists in every corner of Pakistan, after the captured chief cleric of the Red Mosque led funeral prayers for his slain brother.
The army crackdown on the radical mosque has raised Musharraf’s standing among moderates and foreign backers worried about rising extremism in Pakistan.

But WHAT kind of whacko move was this?

…Officials released Ghazi’s body directly to his relatives, who carried it to his ancestral village in Punjab province for burial on Thursday.
Captured cleric leads brother’s funeral
Police escorted Aziz, who was caught during the eight-day siege while trying to flee disguised as a woman, to Basti Abdullah so that he could lead the prayers at his brother’s funeral at a seminary set up by his father.

I’m not too sure about that. I like our “you shoot up the government, you don’t get out for the funeral” way of handling men in girls’ clothing here. EsPECIALLY when you know he’s just going to run his mouth ~ WHY give him the platform?
These people are strange.

Just Another Case of a State Representative

…who sucks.

State Rep. Bob Allen was arrested Wednesday afternoon at a local park after offering to perform a sex act on an undercover officer in exchange for $20, police said.
…Titusville police were at Veteran’s Memorial Park on East Broad Street on a burglary detail when they noticed an unshaven man acting suspicious, going in and out of the restroom three times, said Lt. Todd Hutchinson.
An undercover officer decided to go into one of the bathroom stalls, Hutchinson said. Moments later, Allen knocked on the stall door and offered to perform oral sex on the officer for $20, according to the police spokesman.
…Allen told a television reporter that what happened was a “misunderstanding.”

Well, that blows.

UPDATE: Holeee CRAP! He’s a McCAIN aide!

A day after four of Sen. John McCain’s top political strategists stepped down, the Arizona Republican’s presidential campaign was dealt another setback when the co-chairman of his Florida campaign was arrested Wednesday for allegedly offering an undercover police officer money for a sex act, Titusville police said.
…Allen told CNN affiliate WFTV the incident was “a very big misunderstanding.”
“This is a very gross mistake, a very big mistake,” he said, adding that this is what the judicial system is for.

I’m with him on the ‘gross’ and it might also explain why he needed the money… I don’t think McCain-Feingold covers donation solicitations like this.

A Wednesday American Factoid

…Americans typically use twice as much toilet paper as Europeans — as much as an arm’s length each pull, Thorne says. The company decided the best length is about 20 inches — or precisely five standard toilet paper squares, though the machine can also be adjusted to churn out 16 inches or 24 inches, depending on the demand.

The machine they’re referring to is Kimberly-Clark’s latest mechanical wonder ~ the TP dispenser ~ which, I am relieved to say, at 5 sheets per whiz (of the mechanical roll, not the act necessitating the sheets) obviously wasn’t developed with Cheryl Crowe.
World traveler major dad informs me that such a marvel was already in use in Singapore in 1979, in the form of a little Singaporean responsible for doling out the appropriate amount per pooper. Which was, in this case, very Crowish ~ one sheet. Being Marines, it resulted in major dad’s buddy (6′ 4″ corn-fed redhead) snatching the whole roll from the terrified ‘headboy’ to use as he saw fit (“You’re sh*ttin’ me! I can’t wipe my NOSE with one sheet!!“) and then tossing it over the stall wall to major dad in a text book perfect example of military camaraderie. The unused portion of the roll was gallantly returned to the toilet police, minus more than the alloted two sheets.
(My experience in the Orient has been the exact opposite. Whatever toilet paper I had access to came from what I could fit in my tennies before heading out to the ville, so I am green with envy.)

Pour Mon Frere Bingley et Mademoiselle Suzette

My inestimable local food columnist has renewed my faith in her choices yet again. I give you :
Chicken Spaghetti
1 (2-pound) package spaghetti
1 teas margarine
12 boneless chicken breasts
Accent seasoning, to taste
Garlic powder, to taste
Onion powder, to taste
Lawry’s seasoned salt, to taste
(Getting mighty tasty here, aren’t we…? ~ ths)
Dash of black pepper
1 cup milk
1 (8-ounce) box Velveeta cheese
1/2 (10 3/4 ounce) can Cream of Chicken soup
1/2 (10 3/4 ounce) can Cream of Mushroom soup
1/2 (10 3/4 ounce) can Cream of Celery soup
1 (16-ounce) bag frozen green peas
1 (8-ounce) bag shredded mild Cheddar cheese
Preheat oven to 350º
Boil spaghetti according to package directions, adding margarine. Drain.
Season chicken with Accent, garlic powder, onion powder, seasoned salt and pepper.
Sauté chicken in skillet until done. Cut into bite-size pieces.
Coat two 9 inch by 11 inch or one 15 inch by 18 inch casserole dish with non-stick spray. In a saucepan, combine milk and Velveeta cheese. Cook over medium heat until cheese is melted.
Place chicken in dish. Layer spaghetti noodles, melted cheese and (1/4 can each) soups. Top with spaghetti. Layer half bag of peas, melted cheese, remaining (1/4 can) soups, peas and spaghetti. Pour remaing cheese over top.
Bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees, or until peas are done.
Sprinkle cheddar cheese over entire top and place back in oven for 5 minutes until cheese is melted.
Serve with Granny’s yeast rolls* and a tasty dessert.
*ths note: You’ll have to come up with Granny’s yeast rolls on your own ~ typing this was ghastly enough.
Bone appateet.

Happy, HAPPY Birthday

…to a dear friend of the Swilling: Chief Running Tab
WHOOPS! Fat fingers…heh.
That 1 Guy!!

This Story Involves “Missionary” And “MILF” But Still Manages

To go tragically wrong

MANILA, Philippines – Philippine troops recovered the bodies of 14 marines, some of them beheaded, after clashing with Muslim insurgents while searching for a kidnapped Italian priest, a marine spokesman said Wednesday.
…About 50 troops went to Basilan island to check on reports of sightings of the Rev. Giancarlo Bossi, a 57-year-old missionary from Milan who was kidnapped by gunmen on June 10.
The marines were heading back to camp when they were attacked by about 300 suspected Abu Sayyaf guerrillas, Caculitan said.
But Mohagher Iqbal, chief negotiator for the Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which is engaged in peace talks with the government, said his forces fought back after marines attacked an MILF stronghold.
He denied his forces were responsible for the beheadings, saying he would investigate. Four MILF members were killed in the fighting while seven others were wounded, he added.

Is there nothing these guys don’t ruin?

Shock: Pope Declares “Only Catholics Are Catholic”

I mean, sorry but yawn. Oh sure, rags like the Grauniad would love to see some christian infighting

Protestant churches yesterday reacted with dismay to a new declaration approved by Pope Benedict XVI insisting they were mere “ecclesial communities” and their ministers effectively phonies with no right to give communion.
Coming just four days after the reinstatement of the Latin mass, yesterday’s document left no doubt about the Pope’s eagerness to back traditional Roman Catholic practices and attitudes, even at the expense of causing offence.

but really, isn’t he just restating what he’s supposed to state? I think he fears, rightly, that all these talks of “ecumenical community” need to take place in an atmosphere of clearly delineated belief, and when he sees how squishy the Anglicans and many Protestant denominations have gotten he, rightly, in my view, says “we ain’t going there.” The proof of this is right there in the Grauniad’s reporting:

“even at the expense of causing offence”

You can not be the leader of a religion, or frankly an adherent either, if your primary concern is someone else’s widdle feewings; religion is your relationship to God, not man.
I mean, as a Presbyterian I don’t overly value what the Pope says (we settled that point four hundred years ago) but unless you are unafraid to firmly say “This is what I believe” …then you don’t really believe it, do you?
And in a world that is increasingly becoming dominated by a crowd that fervently believes in something and is very willing to act decisively, indeed is required by that faith to act so, being “squishy” very quickly becomes “squashed.”
Hot Air as always has an interesting comment thread going.

Doug Marlette

He did some great stuff.

Drink Wahaha Water

And the joke’s on you

BEIJING (AP) — China’s food safety monitor promised Tuesday to investigate a report that more than half of the water coolers in Beijing use counterfeit branded water.
The water is either tap water or purified water from small suppliers put into the water jugs and sealed with bogus quality standard marks, the Beijing Times newspaper said in a lengthy report Monday.
…Suppliers keep track of how carefully their customers inspect the deliveries, and give jugs with fake or no seals to the inattentive, the report said.
…A spokesman for Wahaha water, one of the victims of the counterfeiters cited by the Beijing Times, refused to give his name or comment, saying he had not read the report, and added he was leaving the office for the day.

China’s starting to lose its sense of humor about all these food scandals.

Those Are Some Lucky Damn Guys, I Tell Ya

I’m sure they’ll be thanking the new president from the bottom of their hearts.

Clinton presents plan to end Iraq war
Democratic presidential front-runner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) Tuesday unveiled her plan to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq within 60 days of taking office.
…Clinton promised to initiate phased redeployment as soon as she takes office. However, as part of her plan, specialized forces would remain to fight terrorists.
With the absence of U.S. troops, the senator hopes to stabilize the country by focusing on aid efforts that put money in the hands of the Iraqi people.

Don’t Ski For Me, Argentina

Oh what a circus, Oh what a show

A cold snap sent thermometers plunging in South America in recent days, killing three people in Chile and Argentina while Buenos Aires saw snow on Monday for the first time in 89 years.

Anyone know if Gorezilla flew down to BA for some R&R after Live Flop Earth?