Comments Are Back

Woo-Hoo! Thanks so much for your patience and kind words of advice! Extra-Swill thanks to Ken, Kathy, Wunder and most especially Bill!

That About Covers It

“He was saying to them: ‘How do I know when I come out, that you’re not going to shoot me? I’m scared‘.”

The only thing I can see fit to add is “Jesus, Lord Jesus, I hope they got them all.” It’s what the Brits do with them now that matters most.

Oh, HOT Damn!

Iknewit, Iknewit, Iknewit!!!
Presenting:
Moi (in this dimension or any other)

Possessing a rare combination of wisdom and humility, while serenely dominating your environment you selflessly use your powers to care for others.
Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.

Yup. That would be me*. And I promise never to change.
Thanks to Diptera ex tenebris (Nightfly) for this complete and timely validation of
my wisdom, compassion and incredible hair.
*ASNIDE ASIDE: I did notice in Dipt’s comments that
a certain wussy boy ( ) also scored a Galadriel.
Pffft and bwahahahaha!!
‘Nuff said.

Go Good Guys, GO!!

New arrests in failed London bombings
Italy says one alleged bomber held; two others reportedly caught in London
LONDON – A suspected plotter in the failed July 21 London bombings was arrested in Rome Friday, Italy said in an announcement that came shortly after London police arrested three men in the case, two of whom also were suspected plotters, according to British media reports.
In Rome, Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said that Somali-born Osman Hussain, a naturalized British citizen, was picked up by Italian police. He is suspected of being one of at least four plotters in the botched July 21 attacks.
In London, police said they made three arrests in two raids in the Notting Hill area during their search for suspects in the July 21 attacks, but they would not confirm reports that alleged plotters were among those arrested.
But one police source told Reuters the arrests were “potentially very significant.”

Keep roundin’ ’em up, ya’ll!!

It’s Gonna Be a Long, Hot Summer

First: The hair ~ it wasn’t Bigfoot, barefoot or even ‘my left foot’; it was four hooves.

Bison, not Bigfoot, stomped through Canada
DNA test of hair sample shows it came from bison, not Sasquatch

Second: The other hair ~ it wasn’t Natalee Holloway’s. There goes any chance of Greta Van Sustern reporting like, real news.

FBI: Hair found in Aruba is not Holloway’s
Focus on pond and landfill in search for missing American teen

Just at it’s bleakest moment, someone thinks to send a little humor our way:

Question: What is a sonofabitch, exactly?

Read more »

Cawring Hans Brix Redux

Bring a bag lunch with you. It could be a long one, for once.

6-way North Korea talks to hit record 5th day
Despite prolonged meetings, few signs of progress in nuclear discussions
BEIJING – The top U.S. envoy pledged Friday to keep at nuclear talks with North Korea as long as necessary, meeting again with the North’s delegate as negotiations stretched into the longest round since the six-nation process began…
…Despite the apparent impasse at the talks after a record fourth day — the previous rounds never exceeded three days — he said Friday’s meetings “were not lower than my expectation…”

… as he oozed nothing but encouragement.

Another Part Of Being A “Host” Country, I Guess

I guess the flights to Bangkok will be empty:

A German company is looking to cash in on an expected boom in the sex trade during next year’s soccer World Cup with a 60-room brothel a walk away from Berlin’s Olympic Stadium.

Well, on second thought, maybe not, as it doesn’t specify that the ladies here will be teens from the interior.
One thing puzzles me though:

“This is no flash rip-off joint where clients are taken for a ride,” a spokesman for the Artemis GmbH investment company behind the project, told the newspaper.

Funny, I thought that “…taking clients for a ride” was the point of such a place.

Read more »

Swill Friend peteb…

…takes a Northern Ireland-ish look at what the IRA said yesterday and what people heard.

Word of the Day

crabwise \KRAB-wyze\ adjective
1 : sideways
2 : in a sidling or cautiously indirect manner

Would it were going that well…

Comments Whacked

THIS IS A BUMP
’cause they still are, even tho there’s lotsa new SwillStuff to read. And please email Bingster or moi~ swilling*at*beegewelborn.com ~ with anything you would have posted. We’ll be putting those in the extended sections. And…
Would SOMEBODY PLEASE help Bingley???
(see double update below) I’m whining and begging here, Swillers.
UPDATE: Mr. Summers has kindly demonstrated that, at least, the trackback feature is functional. Bless your little pointy head, sir!
I have no idea why you get the “Where’d you learn how to type?” message when you try and comment. I’m even getting it. The Cialis Holdem Scum must have hacked us. Argh. I’ll fix it when I can. If you have pithy comment email them to me and I’ll post them.
Sorry.
[insert head tilt here] *Update: Well, it turns out it was the Cialis Holdem Scum. They were pounding Hosting Matters, who sensibly turned off comments on a number of blogs to keep the servers alive. Once (If) I manage to get Blacklist installed tonight we’ll be up and running again.
**Update – ah, this is ticking me off. I have no idea how to upload this. anybody have any idea/experience on uploading blacklist? email me please! thanks

An Opinion From the Folks Who…

…would actually die, if the ‘fixes’ don’t work.

Discovery commander surprised by debris problem
HOUSTON (Reuters) – Shuttle Discovery commander Eileen Collins said on Friday she was surprised the flying debris problem that brought down Columbia in 2003 re-emerged on their flight and said shuttles should not return to space until it was fixed.
She and astronaut Andy Thomas said in press interviews from space they were not worried about damage the debris may have caused Discovery, saying the orbiter looked “very clean” despite a few nicks to its protective tile.
“What I’d like to say is this is something that has to be fixed,” Collins said. “I don’t think we should fly again unless we do something to prevent this from happening again.”

Yeah ~ what she says. And good on her.
An NASA sage (who shall remain nameless) once pointed out that an airline averaging 7 dead people for every 50 flights probably wouldn’t last long.

The Idea of a Nurturing T-Rex…

…just gives me the willies. Maybe it’s that smile of hers. The beady eyeballs. The 5-7 tons called ‘Mom‘.

Tiny embryos linked to giant dinosaurs
Oldest such fossils hold surprises for paleontologists
The oldest fossilized dinosaur embryos ever found reveal how the creatures grew from tiny hatchlings to become such giant land beasts.
The embryos, including one that was ready to hatch before being frozen in time, had no teeth. That is further evidence that at least some dinosaurs must have tended their young, scientists said Thursday.

Yeah, let’s start with the cuddly ones. It’s gonna take a while to get used to the idea.

Goin’ Down in Flames…

…NOT.

Economy kept growing solidly in 2nd qtr
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. economy grew solidly at a 3.4 percent annual rate in the second quarter, the government reported on Friday, just slightly below the first quarter’s pace and with room to grow as stocks of unsold goods fell for the first time in two years.
While second-quarter growth eased from a 3.8 percent rate in the first three months of the year, it nonetheless marked the ninth straight quarter in which gross domestic product or GDP increased at a rate exceeding 3 percent, Commerce Department figures showed.

Not bad for a chimp and his minions. Now if I could just get hurricanes to quit blowing away the shops and tourists who buy my work, everything would be peachy.

And Then the Guy With the Hockey Mask Jumps Through the Window…

In a move worthy of a Freddie/Jason/Chucky horror sequel, CNOOC seems intent on proving they’re “not dead yet“.

CNOOC considers raising Unocal bid
CNOOC executives are weighing whether the Chinese energy company will this weekend launch a potential knock-out bid of up to $20bn for Unocal, the US energy group, or accept defeat from US rival Chevron.
While people close to the situation warned that a decision had not yet been taken and was too close to call, they said it was still possible CNOOC would increase its $18.5bn bid for Unocal in spite of pressure in Washington and Unocal support of Chevron.
It is understood the state-controlled group has drafted plans to increase its $67-a-share cash bid to more than $70 a share, valuing Unocal at about $19.3bn – about $2bn above Chevron’s proposal.
One person familiar with the matter said CNOOC was considering going as high as $72 a share to compensate Unocal’s shareholders for the 51-day delay to the completion of its bid imposed this week by the US Congress.

I’m assuming we’ll hear from Mr. Schoenfeld shortly, urging the board to bite if this hits the table.

CNOOC has been considering a pledge to sell all of Unocal’s US assets to help defuse criticism in Washington. But an attempt by CNOOC to win over Unocal’s board with a “knock-out” offer could backfire by offering critics more evidence the bid is being heavily subsidised by Beijing.

Beijing’s paying for this? I’m shocked, shocked, I tell you!

An Energy Sleight of Hand

As Swillers know, I am for restricted drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The 100 mile mark off my beautiful Panhandle and the rest of the state seems eminently reasonable. We all drive our chariots to and fro and, while no one wants to watch the oil rigs on the horizon during a beach visit, the out of sight/out of mind proposal allows Florida to contribute to lessening our foreign energy dependence and makes a bit of spare change for the state in fees. Win-win, as I see it. But because of the state’s elected officials’ general intransigence as far as compromise goes ~ coupled with entirely too much weight given to our Governor’s status as ‘First Brother’ ~ a certain complacency has crept in. This news must have come as a shock. I’d like to say it surprised the hell out of me, but it didn’t…

Jul. 26–Florida’s congressional delegation is protesting a White House plan to open the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico off Florida’s coast to oil drilling and allow Louisiana and Alabama to reap the financial benefits.
The plan would allow those states to lease drilling rights in federal waters south of Florida’s coast near the Panhandle and receive royalties from the leases. A congressional conference committee is expected to finish the final draft of the plan today and have it ready for a full vote this week.
The White House proposal would continue to prohibit oil and gas drilling 100 miles out from Florida shores — but would allow drilling along a diagonal path beyond that, extending from Louisiana and Alabama due south from Pensacola to Fort Walton Beach in the western Panhandle.

While our representatives have been slumbering in a Jeb-George LoveFest induced coma, the rest of the world has seen a need that has to be met and we have resources to help alleviate some of the burden. It would have been far wiser, as I’ve written time and again, to lay the ground rules down in a compromise that let them drill far off shore, rather than get totally screwed in the end. Well, thank you Senators Nelson and (pfft) Martinez, all our Congressional lesser lights and the tourist board morons screaming about tarballs on the beach. It’s looking like we’re gonna get those oil rigs 100 miles out anyway, lose how many thousands of miles of sovereignty that we’ll never get back, with nary a dime for the effort. Better the devil you know, than the one you have no control over. And they’re still sputtering the same tune, in the face of this.

But Florida senators Bill Nelson and Mel Martinez vowed to oppose the measure if it emerges as part of the energy bill this week. They believe they can derail the plan if the powerful coalition of coastal states remains together, and Nelson has threatened to mount a filibuster to derail it if the provision is included in the final bill.

WHAT coalition, when Washington is waving billions of dollars and extended territory at your neighbors? I think the ‘united Florida delegation’ is gonna hear a collective ‘see ya!’ Brain dead, I swear to God. Haven’t they ever heard ‘be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it?’ Welcome to La La Land.
UPDATE: Comment notes via email, as those are still non-functioning, in the extended version.

Read more »

BushieChimpMcHitler…

…is destroying this country economically and everybody knows it….don’t they?

Business activity expands in June, July
Price pressures eased or were flat across most of country, Fed reports
WASHINGTON – U.S. business activity continued to grow in June and early July, and overall price pressures eased or were flat in most places despite higher energy and building costs, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday.

Ignore that man in the corner!!!

More Than I EVER…

…wanted to know.

Rudy rakes in the cash
…Some are grumbling that the former mayor of New York City is rumored to have received what has been called a “staggering sum” of “something in the region of” more than $85,000 for speaking to the British Local Government Association’s annual conference…
…The speech was well-received, however — although it was interrupted. “He had to leave the podium mid-speech because, he said, a brush with prostate cancer sometimes left him caught short,” according to the London Times’ account taken from the Local Government Chronicle. “Was this the most expensive pee in local government history, LGC wonders.”

I…

…AM the winner. And Bingley is the loser we all know him to be.
Ah-hahahahaha! Ah-hahahahaha!
Diptera ex tenebris once again displays his remarkable good taste and exquisite sense of humor. I thank him and the academy.
And Bingley lost. Bingley’s a loser. Bingley. Didn’t. Win.
UPDATE:

los·er/’lü-z&r/noun
1 : one that loses especially consistently
2 : one who is incompetent or unable to succeed; also : something doomed to fail or disappoint; see: Bingley

Buuhwhahahaha!

Walmart corporate headquarters blinked.

Wal-Mart lifts News Journal ban
Wal-Mart will allow the Pensacola News Journal to be sold at area stores, rescinding a ban imposed because of a newspaper column that a local manager considered derogatory to the retailer…
…”We did make an error in judgment by removing the papers from our stores,” Wal-Mart Stores Inc. spokeswoman Sharon Weber said in an e-mail from company headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. “They should be available in our stores by the end of the week.”…
…In a column published Sunday, (News Journal executive editor Randy) Hammer wrote that he, too, sometimes disagrees with O’Brien but defended the columnist’s right to express an opinion.
Hammer said that in a conversation with (Pensacola district manager Bob) Hart, the Wal-Mart manager had said he’d be willing to talk about lifting the ban if the newspaper fired O’Brien.
“I might understand it if Wal-Mart said I ought to fire Mark because what he said wasn’t accurate,” Hammer wrote. “But that isn’t the case.”

I wonder how happy the big guys are with Mr. Hart’s little display of petulance.

Word of the Day

baleful \BAIL-ful\ adjective
1 : deadly or pernicious in influence
2 : foreboding or threatening evil
The “bale” of “baleful” comes from the Old English “bealu” (“evil”), and the “bane” of the similar-looking “baneful” comes from the Old English “bana” (“slayer, murderer”). “Baleful” and “baneful” are alike in meaning as well as appearance, and they are sometimes used in quite similar contexts — but they usually differ in emphasis. “Baleful” typically describes what threatens or portends evil (e.g., “a baleful look,” “baleful predictions”). “Baneful” applies typically to what causes evil or destruction (e.g., “a baneful secret,” “the baneful bite of the serpent”). Both words are used to modify terms like “influence,” “effect,” and “result,” and in such uses there is little that distinguishes them.

I’m gonna use this six times today, starting with Ebola.

Ghetto Stylin’

You do have to wonder what Miami City officials were smoking when they came up with this brilliant idea:

Miami city leaders are apologizing for a news release that invited summer campers to a ”Ghetto Style Talent Show” and ”Watermelon Eating Contest.”
The release said that children participating in the summer camp who “know the meaning of ghetto style” would have a chance to “prove just how ghetto they are.”

And far be it from me to get in a Scripture-Quoting Contest with the esteemed Rev. Carl Johnson, but I just don’t seem to recall this part:

“Watermelon, back in the days, was a good food for African Americans, according to the Bible, but at the same time, it had an attachment with slavery and bondage ties,” the Rev. Carl Johnson said.

Idjits.

Not Just NO…

…but F@CK NO!

Iraq constitution may erode women’s rights
Draft proposal would limit rights in marriage, divorce and inheritance
BAGHDAD, Iraq – A part of Iraq’s draft constitution obtained by The Associated Press gives Islam a major role in Iraqi civil law, raising concerns that women could lose rights in marriage, divorce and inheritance…
…Most worrying for women’s groups has been the section on civil rights, which some believe would significantly roll back women’s rights under a 1959 civil law enacted by a secular regime…

Somebody needs to nip that sh$t in the bud right NOW. And I wanna hear all my feminist, Hillary idolizing sisters’ voices raised against this. Like now, NOW.

McCabe Really, REALLY Means It…

…when he says…
“Comment Spammers and their families will be tracked down and
sacrificed to the pagan gods according to ancient Aztec rites.”
It’s the cornerstone of his whole-earth-anti-spam policy. Let’s review.
“Do NOT spam Bill.”
Very good.
(But I think it’s time we put a call in to ‘Save the Children’…)

Better Late Than Never, I Guess

MSNBC has just heard about PA’s Lt. Gov. practising consolation therapy.

I Hope McCabe’s Alibi Is Good

Spammer murdered:

Vardan Kushnir, notorious for sending spam to each and every citizen of Russia who appeared to have an e-mail, was found dead in his Moscow apartment on Sunday, Interfax reported Monday. He died after suffering repeated blows to the head.

Of course, I would have expected Bill to use some type of dull katana…