major dad, Ebola and I Have a Swill Evening Planned

…with Chief Running Tab. Yes, a fellow Marine and blogger is foolishly headed our way. We intend to treat him rudely and with little respect. He should feel right at home. Copious libations on tap, with fresh beef of sufficient quality and quantity at Mc Guire’s. UD is flip-flops, shorts and loud shirts.
Sergeant Major, execute the Plan of the Day.
That is all.

Miss Emily Takes Issue

…with reasons given for ‘why don’t more women blog’. As usual, she refutes things/sexist stereotypes beautifully, as does the fellow she links to. The comments section (with Sheila, Lisa, et al, weighing in) is lively and entertaining. Again, as one would expect from women bloggers of their calibre.
But the “put another log on the fire” tone reminded me of one of my favorite VW print ads of all time…and how things change. Or don’t. I give you Readers’ Digest, September 1964…

Sooner or later, your wife will drive home one of the best reasons for owning a Volkswagon
Women are soft and gentle, but they hit things.
If your wife hits something in a Volkswagon, don’t worry. It doesn’t hurt you very much.
VW parts are easy to replace. And cheap. A fender comes off without dismantling half the car. A new one goes on with just 10 bolts. For $24.95 plus labor.
And a VW dealer always has the kind of fender you need. Because that’s the one kind he has.
Most other VW parts are interchangeable, too. Inside and out. Which means your wife isn’t limited to fender smashing.
She can jab the hood. Graze the door. Or bump off the bumper.
It may make you furious, but it won’t make you poor.
So when your wife goes window shopping in a Volkswagon, relax.
You can conveniently replace anything she uses to stop the car.
Even the brakes.

I’d Heard His Lawyers Were Going For This

…the other day and it looks like it’s stuck.

Confession in girl’s slaying thrown out
Judge does allow discovery of Florida 9-year-old as evidence
The confession of a man charged with kidnapping, raping and killing 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford isn’t admissible in court, but the discovery of her body can be used as evidence, a judge ruled Friday.
John Evander Couey, a 47-year-old convicted sex offender, gave the confession to detectives, but also told them that he wanted to consult a lawyer. He wasn’t given the opportunity to do so.

I cannot believe ~ CANNOT believe! ~ that the detectives made that egregious, that indefensible, an error in a case of such horrific magnitude. We’ve watched enough Law and Order to know how NOT letting a suspect chat with his Johnnie Cochran bites you in the a$$ EVERY time. WTF?! Why would they jeopardize the WHOLE thing? I can only think they were desperate to find her and decided that overrode procedure. Fortunately, the judge is allowing the body’s discovery to remain. And in case anyone doubts why this animal should rot in hell forever AFTER the state executes him…

Jessica was found kneeling and clutching a stuffed animal, hands tied with speaker wire and fingers poking through the garbage bags in which she was buried alive in February 2005. Two days earlier, Couey told detectives he had kidnapped, raped and killed the girl, and he told them where to find the body.

UPDATE: More from the AP wire.

A judge in Citrus County decided today that investigators compromised that evidence when they ignored Couey’s repeated requests to talk with an attorney.
“He said no less than eight times in 46 seconds” that he wanted a lawyer, Circuit Ric Judge Howard said, adding detective Gary Atchison and former detective Scott Grace also failed to tell an FBI polygraph expert of Couey’s request.
Howard said there were two possibilities: “They forgot or … they didn’t want (the agent) to know.”
“The inescapible conclusion is they chose to ignore it,” he said. “Such police misconduct … is a professional violation of a bedrock of criminal law.”

Mini-Van Driving Soccer Moms They Ain’t

And you thought 16 year olds running off gave My Space a bad name? I bid you welcome to the online world of the lovely ladies of the Canadian Jihad.

When it came time to write up the premarital agreement between Zakaria Amara and Nada Farooq, Ms. Farooq briefly considered adding a clause that would allow her to ask for a divorce.
She said that Mr. Amara (now accused of being a leader of the alleged terror plot that led to the arrests of 17 Muslim men early this month) had to aspire to take part in jihad.
“[And] if he ever refuses a clear opportunity to leave for jihad, then i want the choice of divorce,” she wrote in one of more than 6,000 Internet postings uncovered by The Globe and Mail.
…The tightly knit group of women who chatted with each other includes Mariya (the wife of alleged leader Fahim Ahmad), Nada (the wife of Mr. Amara, the alleged right-hand man) Nada’s sister Rana (wife of suspect Ahmad Ghany), as well as Cheryfa MacAulay Jamal (the Muslim convert from Cape Breton, N.S. who married the oldest suspect, 43-year-old Qayyum Abdul Jamal). The women’s husbands are part of a core group of seven charged with the most severe crimes — plotting to detonate truck bombs against the Toronto Stock Exchange, a Canadian Forces target, and the Toronto offices of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
The women were bound by the same social, political and ideological aims. They organized “sisters-only” swimming days and held fundraisers for the notorious al-Qaeda-linked Khadr family. With the exception of the occasional Urdu or Arabic word or phrase, their posts are exclusively in English.

YOW. Stunningly, stunningly hateful creatures.
A warm Swill Salute to Alyosha Popovich at the TAO of Defiance, who notes…

“On some forums they are derided, disciplined, put in their place and educated, while in other places they are the ones attempting to do the disciplining and educating. And I would at this point commend the Muslims of the rational, scholared and non-insecure varieties, who have to confront these degenerates and put them in place, even as they rant on deliriously, all the while making a mockery of their religion. I have seen great patience and perseverence displayed by those who try to bring these fevered jackasses back to the straight path. Now that is a community service.”

Indeed.

So What Are…

“Hetai porn free videos: Free hentai beastiality porn videos”

…huh? Sometimes what the SPAM filter snags confuses the beejeebus out of me. Sounds like they filmed girls(?) they picked up at the Mos Eisley Cantina.
I do live in a cultural vacuum.

Woof! I Had to Double Check the Subject

The tone of the two reports is so markedly different, one might almost be forgiven for thinking they referred to separate events. I’d noticed a quick turn around in the DOW futures and, knowing they were waiting on the core-PCE deflator (Keep in mind, the first quarter GDP had been revised UP last Thursday, from 4.8% to 5.3%, with the inflation gauge remaining steady at 3.3%, “further easing anxiety over escalating prices. ” So pretty good news all around, all things considered.), thought “sheesh ~ must be okay news”. The Market Watch brief was chipper…

Both income and spending for May were up 0.4% versus expectations for increases of 0.2% and 0.4%, respectively. The core-PCE deflator, meanwhile, was up 0.2%, which was right in line with expectations. While that reading puts the year-over-year rate at 2.1%, which is above the Fed’s forecasted range, it has been viewed favorably by the market since it wasn’t worse than expected.

…and I waited for the wire reports. The first was al-Reuters ~ a sober, hyperbole free report. They even used the word ‘moderate’ and added encouraging words from the Fed’s statement yesterday.

Core U.S. consumer prices rose a moderate 0.2 percent last month, as expected, but inflation-adjusted spending advanced just 0.1 percent as high energy prices ate into disposable income, a government report showed on Friday.
…In announcing its rate hike, the Fed acknowledged inflation readings had been elevated in recent months, but said a slowing pace of economic growth should ease price pressures over time as it left its options open on future rate decisions.

Fair enough. But from the AP? Check the language ~ doom, gloom, death and disaster:

Consumer spending slowed sharply in May as rising gasoline prices left Americans with less to spend on other items, the government reported Friday.
The Commerce Department said that spending rose by just 0.4 percent last month after a 0.7 percent gain in April. Income growth also slowed to an advance of just 0.4 percent last month, reflecting weaker job growth.
Nominal consumer spending increased 0.4 percent in May, right on Wall Street forecasts and just enough to stay ahead of inflation. The scant 0.1 percent rise in inflation-adjusted spending, however, marked a slowdown from the 0.2 percent gain logged in April.
The report on personal incomes and consumer spending provided further evidence that the economy, after growing strongly in the first three months of the year, slowed sharply in the spring as Americans were battered by rising gasoline prices, higher interest rates and a cooling housing market.

Selective editing and ‘just the facts’ makes for a pretty damning report if your average Joe doesn’t know the rest. (And I guess they need to get it via mind meld, since the AP isn’t going to tell them.) A quick fisking? 5.3% growth is phenomenal but also unsustainable, so gradual ‘slowing’ is a good thing and what both the Fed and the street are looking for. Even the housing market, which has been insane, is ‘cooling’, not crashing. (Of course, when all those ARM’s come due…but that’s another story.) The ‘weaker’ employment’? The Labor Dept. reported a drop in claims of 40,000 last week and the unemployment index is at 4.6. (May job growth was weaker than expected ~ +75K ~ but still a positive number.) Many states have tax revenues streaming in well above predictions. And the final June consumer numbers say people are significantly cheerier. Could things be better? Sure they could. But they could be ~ and have been ~ a whole lot worse.
So there’s your reason for Bush not getting credit for this economy. In spite of everything nature and man could throw against it, it’s still chugging along, but who would know when the AP has us all in line at the soup kitchen?

Gitmo Trials Decision

I’ve been reading through reports on this decision and I’m trying to figure it all out.

The court declared 5-3 that the trials for 10 foreign terror suspects violate U.S. military law and the Geneva conventions.
The ruling raises major questions about the legal status of the approximately 450 men still being held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba and exactly how, when and where the administration might pursue the charges against them.

Ok, that seems clear enough: the SCOTUS leftwits think that al-Qaeda deserves Geneva Convention protections. Color me shocked. But this bit:

“Trial by military commission raises separation-of-powers concerns of the highest order,” Kennedy wrote in his opinion. “Concentration of power (in the executive branch) puts personal liberty in peril of arbitrary action by officials, an incursion the Constitution’s three-part system is designed to avoid.”

Confuses me a little, as we’re not dealing with US citizens here, and frankly I don’t give a flying fudge about the ‘personel liberty’ of people who have taken up arms agaiinst our troops; if I have to choose between protecting America and protecting the personel liberty of some guy with an AK in Basra, well, “you’ll get used to the food, Hachmed” is all I can say.

The PP Judge

…convicted. I think it’s his lawyer’s fault.

In closing arguments Thursday, defense attorney Clark Brewster called the device “a joke.”
“Why in the world would anybody have this behind the bench?” he said, holding the pump.
“It’s a stupid thing,” he said, setting it down.

What a stoopid question to ask that jury.

I Don’t Know If These Touchy ~ Feely Things

…work ~ they sound kinda stupid to me.

…Researchers at Indiana State University in Terre Haute tried a small experiment to test the effects of having kids play with heavier toys. They found that 10 children ages 6 to 8 burned more calories and had higher heart and breathing rates when they moved 3-pound toy blocks instead of unweighted blocks.

But I know for a FACT this does.

A pair of pot smokers picked the wrong day to use the drive-through window at a KFC restaurant in Buffalo, N.Y.
Two men in their 20s pulled up to the window at the KFC Wednesday afternoon and asked for the daily special.
Narcotics detectives, who were inside ordering their usual Wednesday special, noticed a cloud of marijuana smoke wafting into the restaurant and spotted the two men smoking what one of the cops called “the biggest marijuana cigar your ever saw.”
The detectives went outside and arrested 23-year-old Charles Morris and 26-year-old Gregory Quick, both of Buffalo. The two men are charged with possession of marijuana and smoking it in public.
One of the cops said he got the cashier to refund the pot smokers’ money for the Wednesday special.

Hey ~ however and whatever keeps your hand outta the fried chicken bucket is a good thing.

Gettin’ Some of Your Own Back

Literally.

Camp Fallujah, Iraq – Call it a little bit of justice.
Marine snipers from 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment shot and killed an insurgent sniper and spotter preparing to shoot at passing Marines, June 16. And the insurgents were going to use a stolen Marine sniper rifle for the attack.
That rifle – an M-40A1 – belonged to the “Magnificent Bastards” of 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, a battalion within the Regimental Combat Team 5 family. It was taken by insurgents when a team of four Marines were killed in a rooftop outpost June 21, 2004, in Ramadi.
Nearly two years to the day, Sgt. Maj. James E. Booker, the battalion’s sergeant major during their tour in Ramadi, said the news “sends a chill down my spine.”
“It makes me feel real good to know a brother sniper got final revenge,” said Booker, in a phone interview from his post as the Marine detachment sergeant major at Fort Sill, Okla. “I really respect those young studs to do what they did.”

There Are Some Things in a Guy’s Life You Don’t Mess With

His liquor, his car, his guns, his dinner, his lightbulbs and his…well…gonads. (The technical term.)

Bear Flees for 2nd Time Before Neutering
A freedom-loving grizzly bear named Boo smashed a heavy steel door and barreled through two electric fences to escape a second time from a resort near this south-central British Columbia town.
Boo was recaptured Friday, two weeks after breaking out of an artificial den at the Kicking Horse Mountain Resort, but escaped from tighter confinement within a day, resort spokesman Michael Dalzell said Tuesday.
“It’s unbelievable,” Dalzell said. “We thought there was no way, it was absolutely impossible, but he found a way. It was basically like breaking out of Fort Knox.”
…Resort staff had planned to neuter Boo, but he got away first. Once he’s located, authorities will decide whether to try to recapture him again, Dalzell said.
“Right now we are in the process of looking for him . . . we are not out to try to trap or tranquilize him,” he said. “We are looking at all options. Obviously, we need to just really look at our program and figure this one out.“

It’s easy to figure out ~ keep yer paws off his stuff. Ask first.

Oh, Way Down Here in the Land a’ Cotton

They’ve figured out the Gov’ner’s rotten...

Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman was convicted Thursday on federal charges of bribery, conspiracy, mail fraud and obstruction of justice in a case that derailed his campaign for governor amid wide-ranging claims of corruption in office.
Former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy also was convicted of bribery, conspiracy and mail fraud on charges accusing him of buying a seat on a state board with $500,000 in campaign contributions.

Look away! Fade away!
Time to pay, grafter man.

Bingley Sees the Light

…at the end o’ the tunnel.

How High Is The River Mama?

40 feet high and risin’…

Hail The Brave Palestinians

They’ve shown their bravery and virtue by murdering a teenager:

Eliyahu Asheri, the 18-year-old from the settlement of Itamar, was found dead by Israel Defense Forces early Thursday morning in the A-Tira neighborhood of Ramallah.
…Shin Bet agents and special IDF troops found the body buried in a field around 2:30 A.M. Thursday morning, and determined that he had been shot in the head soon after he was kidnapped Sunday. Soldiers arrested a militant in connection with the murder early Thursday morning.
Palestinian militants from the Popular Resistance Committees said they executed the teenager.

I’m sure they’ll be dancing in the streets all weekend.
Animals.

And These Are the LEGAL Ones

The numbers of permanent residents eligible for citizenship.

Looks Like They Have This Well in Hand

…even though that’s precisely what caused the whole thing to begin with.

The jurors sometimes exchange awkward looks and break into nervous laughter when the testimony takes a lurid turn.

Oh, I’ll bet.

A Hearty Swill Salute…

To the English Swillers:

ENGLAND’s massive army of World Cup fans is drinking Germany dry, it emerged yesterday.
Breweries warned beer could run out before the final because of huge demand from our supporters.
In Nuremberg, organisers revealed 70,000 England fans who flooded the city drank 1.2MILLION pints of beer – an average of 17 pints each.
Astonished bar keeper Herrmann Murr said: “Never have I seen so many drink so much in such little time.”
His bar at a fans’ tent in the city ran out after they drained all 32 of his 50-litre (11 gallon) barrels.
Herr Murr calculated Britons were shifting beer at a staggering rate of 200 pints per minute.
City official Peter Murrmann said: “The English proved themselves world champs. They practically drank us dry.”

Gentlemen, you have done us proud.

Israel Talks “Take-Out”

…and not with the fat police. You’re pretty much screwed when they tell the world they’re coming after you…I hope someone’s scattering the virgins.

Justice Minister Haim Ramon said Wednesday that Hamas’s Syria-based leader, Khaled Mashaal, is a target for assassination for ordering the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier in the Gaza Strip.
“He is definitely in our sights … he is a target,” Ramon told Army Radio. “Khaled Mashaal, as some who is overseeing, actually commanding the terror acts, is definitely a target.”

Swill Salute: Counterterrorism Blog.
UPDATE: In keeping with the ‘scattering of virgins’ theme, there could well be more murdering bastards headed that way…

In Moscow, meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin ordered the special services to hunt down and “destroy” the killers of four Russian Embassy workers in Iraq, the Kremlin said.

I really, really thought it was a bad career move to grab the Russians, less mind behead them, but these big Jihadiis know everything.
When the Russians get ahold of these a$$holes, they’ll make their little execution videos look like amateur night.

For Bingley and Suzette

It’s been mighty quiet on the canned soup front, but I knew it couldn’t last. And voilá! In today’s paper, a gift from the Campbell Gods.

Tex-Mex Rice and Chicken
1 (48 ounce) bag quick frozen chicken breasts
6 cups cooked Minute rice
4 cups shredded Velveeta cheese
2 (10 ounce) cans RoTel with chili peppers
1 (10 3/4 ounce) can cream of celery soup
Boil chicken. Cut into bite size pieces. Prepare rice. In a bowl combine, chicken, cheese, RoTel and soup to the rice. Pour into a 9-inch-by-13-inch casserole dish. Bake at 350 about 25 minutes or until warm.

Well, yum. (Although I hadn’t realized celery was a big part of TexMex. You learn something new and delicious every day.)

In Honor Of Those Stolen From Us Five Years Ago

A tribute to the victims. Thanks to Emily Emily via Lisa for finding it.

How Do You Say (Or Should I Say Como Se Dice…)

“Fake But Accurate” in Spanish?

A Spanish news agency apologized for a report that described a Republican gubernatorial candidate’s proposed work program for illegal immigrants as “concentration camps.”
The story last week caused an international stir when EFE, a national news agency of Spain, quoted candidate Don Goldwater as saying he wanted to hold undocumented immigrants in camps to use them “as labor in the construction of a wall and to clean the areas of the Arizona desert that they’re polluting.”
…”Upon further reflection, our investigation has determined that your plan to house illegal prisoners in a tent city is consistent with accepted practices for nonviolent American prisoners in your area,” Sanchez said in the letter released Tuesday by Goldwater’s campaign.
The letter also acknowledged that the freelance reporter never interviewed Goldwater or any of his staff for the story.

Well, duh, like he needed to actually talk to him; he’s a Republican for gosh sake, of course he’s in favor of gulags and concentration camps!

Hmmmm. That Works Out to 242 Cans of Beer

…for every man, woman and child on the reservation.

In a desperate effort to fight the ravages of alcoholism on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, leaders of the Oglala Sioux tribe are threatening to set up roadblocks Wednesday and stop members from bringing in beer bought at four outlying stores.
Alcohol has long been banned on the 16,500-member reservation, where drinking has been a scourge for generations. But four stores in Whiteclay, Neb., a dusty village a few hundred feet outside the reservation, sell an estimated 4 million of cans of beer every year, mostly to Indians.

That’s a lot of brewskis. (Unless, of course, you live next door to the Squid Terrorist…and I do.) But I’ll be curious what the reaction will be when citizens try to stop another citizen from coming home with cervesas purchased legally. Those ‘standing by’ tribal police could be caught in a sticky wicket.

He Can Durka, Durka to His Heart’s Content

“The preliminary inquiry has been concluded. No punitive action will be taken against Corporal Belile. And there will be no further investigation,” said Maj. Shawn Haney, a spokeswoman at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point in North Carolina.
Haney said the inquiry ruled out any violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice
Another Marine Corps official, who asked not to be named because details of the inquiry are private, said poor taste, poor judgment and poor timing, not to mention offensive lyrics, do not necessarily amount to criminal conduct.

Cpl. Belile is free to carry rock on.

Chariots of FIRE Frozen Manufactured Potato Product

I’m not quite sure I get the correlation.

Earth’s Climate Warming Abruptly, Scientist Says
Earth’s climate is undergoing an abrupt change, ending a cooler period that began with a swift “cold snap” in the tropics 5,200 years ago that coincided with the start of cities, the beginning of calendars and the biblical great flood, a leading expert on glaciers has concluded.
…But the finding likely to cause the most debate is Thompson’s conclusion that a swift and sudden cooling of the climate five millennia ago occurred simultaneously with key changes in civilizations.

“It represents a time where, for many parts of the world, people ceased to be hunters and gatherers and formed cities,” he said. “Many of the modern calendars began around this time. It would also fall in the general time frame of the biblical flood.”

We caused the cooling 5200 years ago and now are causing the warming…ack! (He doesn’t mention polar bears at all.)
But what do I know ~ I thought a ‘grill’ was a…never mind.