You Know, I Thought A Blackout Affecting 370 Million People Was Bad

Silly me, I think so small

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s energy crisis cascaded over half the country Tuesday when three of its regional grids collapsed, leaving more than 600 million people without government-supplied electricity in one of the world’s biggest-ever blackouts.

…The massive failure – a day after a similar, but smaller power failure – has raised serious concerns about India’s outdated infrastructure and the government’s inability to meet its huge appetite for energy as the country aspires to become a regional economic superpower.

Good thing our Glorious Leadership in Washington wisely used those hundreds of billions in Stimulus Money to repair and upgrade our electrical grid instead of wasting it on Pie-In-The-Sky projects, right?

Right?

Just don’t try to get “24 Hour Tech Support” from any company anytime soon…

Spam Of The Day

My wife style of bogus body art were being quite unsafe. Mother worked with gun 1st, following which they your lover snuck totally free upon an tattoo ink ink. I was sure the fact just about every need to not be epidermal, due towards the tattoo ink could be attracted from the entire body. make an own temporary tattoo

I can see how your mother tattooing with a gun might be somewhat unsafe…

Great Return on That Solyndra Investment, Obama

Overheard as a Fox News Alert on the bankruptcy settlement just now:

We get a whopping $24 million back on that cool HALF A BILLION we gave them.

We can’t afford four more MONTHS of this guy, less mind four more YEARS.

NNNNNeeeeeeeyyyyyaaaakkkkaaaaaahhhh…..

BOOM!!!!

GIGANTIC MISS: DALLAS FED REPORT PLUNGES TO -13.2

Oof, mega-whiff.

According to Bloomberg, the main Dallas Fed index report fell to -13.2 from 5.8.

This is one of several regional Fed indices that offer a gauge on the manufacturing sector in said region…

*********************

…Texas factory activity continued to increase in July, according to business executives responding to the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey. The production index, a key measure of state manufacturing conditions, fell from 15.5 to 12, suggesting slightly slower output growth.

Other measures of current manufacturing activity also indicated slower growth in July. The new orders index was positive for the second month in a row, although it moved down from 7.9 to 1.4. Similarly, the shipments index posted its second consecutive positive reading but edged down from 9.6 to 7.4. The capacity utilization index came in at 8.7 after rising to 13.3 last month.

Perceptions of broader economic conditions were mixed in July. The general business activity plummeted to -13.2 after climbing into positive territory in June. Nearly 30 percent of manufacturers noted a worsening in the level of business activity in July, pushing the index to its lowest reading in 10 months. The company outlook index remained positive for the third month in a row but fell from 5.5 to 1.6.

If Obama is indeed trying to drive us off a cliff, as seems to be the case:

“It Worked“.

Are There Any Editors At The Telegraph?

The number of errors in this article is mind boggling

The grandson of Harry Truman, the US presdident who ordered the dropping of the atom bombs, will visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki to attend ceremonies marking the 67th anniversary of the event.

Clifton Truman Daniel will visit Japan from August 2, and attend ceremonies in Hiroshima August 6, and Nagasaki on August 9, according to Kyodo News as reported in the Nihon Keizai Shinbun.

It is the first time a member of the late president’s family will attend the ceremonies, and will holds a deep symbolic meaning for the Japanese.

…While in hospital, Sadako attempted to make 1,000 origami cranes in the belief that the gods would grant her a wish. Some reports have her completing 644 cranes before she died, and her friends making up the difference before burying them with her. The story was made into a book, Sadako and the 1, 000 Cranes. Her statue stands in the Peace Park in Hiroshima.

There are only seven short paragraphs in this story and yet they manage to squeeze in an impressive amount of errors in such a short space.

A NEW Pensacola Commercial Debuted at the Ballpark Last Night

And we just LOVE it!

Pepper Stout Beef

I haven’t used my smoker in a while but there was this one recipe that has been calling my name for years that I finally decided to make.

Of course, I couldn’t find a large enough chuck roast at Costco (shock!) but they had this beauty

which of course I bought but I was a little concerned that a) it was twice as big as I needed and b) it was a round tip, and since I was going to shred the beef I wasn’t sure at all if this meat would allow me to do that, which meant that after some 7 hours of cooking I was not quite sure what I was going to end up with. Luckily, I had lots of wine to get me through the process.

Anywho, given that this chunk-o-cow was twice the size called for I ‘had’ to make a double batch, so first thing was to slice Elsie sort of in half

and then I coated the pieces with L&P and rub (which I get from here. It’s quite yummy)

and then on to the smoker at oh 250-275 or so for around three hours until the internal temp gets up to 165° or so.

After about 2:45 as Elsie was getting close to temp it was time to get the other bits ready. Each pan got 1/2 orange pepper, 1/2 a yellow pepper and a whole green pepper

sliced and laid in the bottom. Then I added to each a jalapeño from the garden

with the seeds (my peppers are pretty mild)

and then lots of minced garlic, a sliced red onion, 1/4 cup of L&P and a pint of Guinness to each

and mixed it up moderately well.

At this point (after about 3 hours on the smoker) Elsie was at roughly the temp desired so on she went

and these were tightly covered with foil and put in a 350° oven for another 3 hours, at which point the veggies are nicely cooked down

Now came the moment I was afraid of, as I really didn’t know if this piece of meat had sufficient fat and conective tissue to shred properly, so with great trepidation I started into her with the forks…

W00t-w00t!! Success! Elsie pulled like a champ! So I mixed up the meat and juices fairly well and put the pans back in the oven for another 15 minutes to let some of the liquid evaporate and then it was sammich time!

First I put a healthy layer of gorgonzola on my roll

and then I, er, I got so involved with eating and serving the Girls that I forgot to take any more pictures last night.

But to Serve You, Dear Reader, at great personal peril I staged a Dramatic Re-Enactment of last night’s engorging under the cover of today’s lunch

Damn fine.

Whatever David Brooks Is Smoking, JUST SAY NO!

Watch Shields and Brooks on Economic Forecast, Campaign Ads on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

…JUDY WOODRUFF: … since we clearly need to get the Olympics, to London.

David, Mitt Romney arrived there a few days ago, and he has had a rough go of it. How do you size up the trip?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes. Well, he shouldn’t have gone. There is no reason for him to go. And I’m told there was dissension in the staff about whether he should go.

The election is here. And the issues are here. And so, I think it was mistake to go. And it was certainly a mistake to do a gaffe. And I think this — the gaffe, what he said was true, that there are some security issues. But you don’t say it.

And it underscores a deep anxiety in Republican circles that he is just not running a great campaign.

If you look at the Obama campaign, it’s a professional campaign. You see the storyline they’re telling.

He took people’s jobs away with Bain. They are going to turn to Medicare and they’re going to say, he wants now to take away your — he wants to voucherize your Medicare.

That is a progression. You understand how they’re doing their campaign. For the Romney campaign, the people in the campaign are saying, OK, we haven’t hit yet, but don’t worry. In a couple of months, we are about to really get on track. We are going to unveil who Romney is. We are really going to hit Obama hard.

Well, this is a faith-based strategy. Maybe they are going to start effectively campaigning, but not yet. And so this little gaffe was just icing on the cake to a deep anxiety that they are not running a coherent, effective campaign, and it’s the candidate who is overruling a lot of the things that need to be done.

First, yes it’s a “mistake to do a gaffe”. That’s why it’s called a “gaffe”. DUH.

But when you move along from THAT revelation to declaring that OBAMA is running the “PROFESSIONAL” campaign and Romney is causing “deep anxiety” in Republican circles with his awfulness/the hope that someday he’ll hit Obama hard? Dude. There’s no clear message out of the Romney campaign…say WHAT? Huh?

Ganjaman…the choom boy be already IN the White House. You need to back off the sauce, brother, ’cause you be getting the narrative information most confused and backward. Check yourself the polls of some “build yourself it you didn’t” warfare that was going on from the camps. See whose message has been crystal clear and who has spent these past two weeks professionally explaining himself over and over again.

Or just check the polls.

Barney Frank

“Unfortunately we have a system of checks and balances in this country.”

As big an asshole as ever.

“50 Shades of Grey”: A Dramatic Reading

…by…The Washington Nationals.

This is one for the ages.

And, For ONCE, My Butter Fingers

…had absolutely nothing to do with the disaster.

Historic $77,500 bottle of cognac broken by mistake

Talk about a mistake of historic proportions.

A customer at London’s Playboy Club accidentally broke a bottle of 224-year-old cognac wroth more than $77,000 that was slated to be featured in the world’s most expensive cocktail and mixed in front of judges from Guinness World Records.

The U.K.’s Evening Standard reports that the Coganc, a Clos de Griffier Vieux from 1788, was smashed after a businessman, who had ordered two glasses of the brandy at $7,800 a pop, asked to look at the bottle. But the bottle accidentally went sailing and smashed the floor when the customer stood up.

Decent of them not to enforce the “you break it, you bought it” rule any third rate junk shop usually has.

Spam Of The Day

I want to live forever. So far so good. Free sex cam.

I’m assuming there’s a correlation/causation linkage implied there somewhere.

Pooped

The Apocalypse Has Nothing to Do With Obama

Tweet of the Day Goes to Doctor Zero

It’s great the inarticulate cowboy Dubya was followed by a guy who needs two weeks to explain what he means by “that.”

— John Hayward (@Doc_0) July 24, 2012

Wanna explain to me WHO’s the “post turtle” again?

And It BETTER Be “DEE”luxe

…or he’ll let St. Peter have an earful.

RIP, Mr. Hemsley

PROOF There Is No God

Because He has not seen fit to situate ONE OF THESE WONDERFUL STORES anywhere near me.

Giant David Hasselhoff ads tempt thieves

Actor David Hasselhoff flashes a dreamy smile and displays a lean tank top-clad torso in a giant new photo cutout that his fans apparently can’t leave alone.

About 550 of the cutouts, which are part of a Cumberland Farms advertising campaign, were pilfered from outside the convenience stores in recent weeks.

Only about 20 remain for the roughly 570 stores in New England and Florida, said Kate Ngo, who works on brand strategy for the Framingham-based chain.

Not that Cumberland Farms is particularly upset about the thievery.

“We want everyone to enjoy the Hoff,” Ngo said Wednesday.

“We’re flattered by the attention.”

As it was and always should be.

Color me miffed.

J. Wellington Wimpy Economics

Rick Santelli is mighty tired of “I will gladly cut spending in the next decade if you let me blow out the deficit today.”

And he’s 100% correct: “deferred spending cuts” never ever happen.

Fire Brian Ross

John Stewart does a more entertaining job of saying it than I do in that line, but we’re both on the same page.

While Obama Decides What Kind/ How Much Poo to Fling at Romney’s Foreign Policy Trip

…Ari Fleischer asks a pertinent question via Twitter:

RT @AriFleischer I wonder if any network anchors will go abroad with #Romney this week?? All 3 went w/ #Obama in 2008… #LapdogMedia #tcot

— RJC National (@RJCHQ) July 24, 2012

Mitt doesn’t need a Brandenburg Gate appearance to make an impression or feed his ego, Barack. I’d almost bet you a dollar (if I had one) that he was actually going to ~ now, follow me here ~ talk foreign policy!

We’ve done the rock star thing, thank you.

Insta Get Hacked?

All I get is a page from Nov of 2008 when I go there.

How very singular.

Update: ah, he’s switched servers. This works whilst this old link is frozen back in the days when the seas were still rising and despair filled the land.

Pretty Much Says It All

And I love how the first part of it is all quotes from Democratic Presidents.

Well played Sir.

For a Guy Who Seems to Want EVERY LAST Frickin’ Thing Out of His Opponents

…this report from a few years ago sure gives them cause to tell him to suck a stone, wouldn’t you say?

Obama Says He Has No Illinois Records

RALEIGH, N.C. — Barack Obama, who’s been scolding Hillary Rodham Clinton for not hastening the release of records from her time as first lady, says he can’t step up and produce his own records from his days in the Illinois state Senate.

He says he hasn’t got any.

“I don’t have _ I don’t maintain _ a file of eight years of work in the state Senate because I didn’t have the resources available to maintain those kinds of records,” he said at a recent campaign stop in Iowa. He said he wasn’t sure where any cache of records might have gone, adding, “It could have been thrown out. I haven’t been in the state Senate now for quite some time.”

Obama’s statement that he has no papers from his time in the Illinois statehouse _ he left in 2004 _ stands in stark contrast to the massive Clinton file stored at the National Archives: an estimated 78 million pages of documents, plus 20 million e-mail messages, packed into 36,000 boxes. While any file from Obama’s time in the state Senate would be far smaller, the idea that no papers exist at all is questioned by one historian.

“Most of those guys do keep this stuff, especially the favorable stuff. They’ve all got egos,” said Taylor Pensoneau, a historian who has written about Illinois legislators and governors and worked with them as a lobbyist for the coal industry. “It goes in scrapbooks or maybe boxes. I don’t think it’s normal practice to say it’s all discarded.”

No resources to “keep” things? I have crap in my back room from when I was three years old ~ Hell, from when my GRANDFATHER was three years old!

I think we’re all in agreement this guy’s far from “normal”, but an “ego” he’s got in truckloads, so…what gives? No state records, no college records, his birth thingee’s nothing but problems…and now ratfaced Axelrod’s claiming Romney’s hiding his Olympic records (note to Obama: NO Olympic committee will EVER tell another “how it’s done”) and yet, you can’t get a paper napkin with a phone number scribble on it out of Obama?

GOOD GRIEF! PISS OFF, pal!

Homey ain’t fallin’ for it anymore. I don’t get the feeling the country’s going to either.

H/T Joe Pounder

The Lying Stupidity Is So Deep On This One…

it hurts

Yevgeny Nikitin, 38, who was once in a heavy metal band and got the body art done as a youth, withdrew from the Bayreuth festival, which celebrates Richard Wagner’s work, after discussions with its organisers.

He was due to sing the lead role in The Flying Dutchman, the opening production, on Wednesday. The festival is particularly sensitive to Nazi associations because Wagner was an anti-Semite and his English daughter-in-law, Winifred Wagner, became friends with Adolf Hitler, who supported its performances under the Third Reich.

Mr Nikitin got the tattoos as a young man. He has a large swastika on the right side of his chest and on the left a “life rune”, a symbol used by the SS Lebensborn project, which supported “racially pure” Aryan women.

In a statement released by the festival, the bass baritone said: “I was not aware of the extent of the irritation and offence these signs and symbols would cause, particularly in Bayreuth given the context of the festival’s history. I had them done in my youth. It was a big mistake and I wish I’d never done it.

“It was not clear to me that the symbols that I have tattooed on my chest could have any connotations or even by used by Nazis and neo-Nazis,” the singer added in an email to the Sunday German newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

I mean, gee, I’m sure there are just millions of Russians who don’t know that Swastikas were used by the Nazis.

Or there would be, if the Nazis hadn’t killed them.

And There You Have It: Bush Did It

NBC’s Isikoff Links Bush to Gun Used in Aurora Shootings

…Isikoff asserted that the assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004, “was lifted under President Bush,”…

The liberal, circular logic of the crime is complete. (Except, of course, for the “unutterably evil/insane” and “three other common guns” components.)