I Hate What You Just Said

Who do those Europeans think they are, pretending to show us Americans how to brew beer?  Hop pellets, rice…ginseng, guarana.  B-to-the-E doggg, it’s what fine brewing is all about:

B^E is Budweiser’s newest entry in a long line of innovative beers. This remarkable new product combines beer with caffeine, ginseng and guarana giving you a new malt beverage with a variety of ingredients.

B^E has a bold and bracing beer taste with lightly sweet/tart tones, and a “wow” factor in the finish. Created for those contemporary adults who are looking for the latest flavors and variety of mixtures to keep up with their fast paced and highly social lifestyles, B^E takes beer to the next level.

It’s different. It’s exciting. It’s beer with something extra!

How’d that work out?

Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc. will reformulate its alcoholic energy drinks to remove caffeine and other stimulants they contain as part of a nationwide legal settlement, it announced Thursday.

An investigation by attorneys general of 11 states found the largest U.S. brewer was marketing its caffeinated alcoholic beverages to minors and misrepresenting the drinks’ health benefits, New York state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said.

Though the company agreed to make changes, it insisted its Tilt and Bud Extra drinks were not marketed to minors.

CNN

Any more questions about how the King of Beers became the Belgian biatch?   Europe is kicking our ass, admit it.

In the situation room

There was a toy world

And a flight costume

and a picture of–

It’s Goodnight Bush!  Sweet Dreams…

Oh, I’m just getting warmed up Berlusconi today.  His latest scandal centers around a series of recorded telephone conversations that show just how hard he’s willing to work to secure policy positions for topless models.  This man’s sacrifice is truly mind boggling; why he’s the Jesus Christ of Politics! In response to the incriminating transcripts, Berlusconi did what any self-respecting unreconstructed fascist would do: try to make government accountability illegal.  So in America, wiretapping expands while in Italy, it becomes more limited.  Excuse me for a moment while I laugh and cry at the same time.

Problem is, the cat is already out the bag on this one, and it is a non-stop quote machine.

First, there’s the case of Mara Carfagna, the current minister for Equal Opportunity.  This headline pretty much sums up her situation: Carfagna denies pleasuring Berlusconi.  Even better is this long piece from the Guardian:

For more than a week now, Rome has been alive with rumours that police in Naples, working on yet another investigation of Berlusconi for alleged corruption, taped sexually explicit discussions between the prime minister and his 32-year-old equal opportunities minister, Mara Carfagna, a former topless model. The tapes were reportedly made while investigators were probing the relationship between Berlusconi and the head of drama at RAI, Italy’s equivalent of the BBC.

Moving on, it’s the case of the journalist Virginia Sanjust di Teulada, that has the most, ahem, legs.  What happened here?

As for Sanjust di Teulada, the intelligence officer’s wife, her role remains mysterious. According to Armati’s version, set out in documents submitted to the Rome court and summarised this week in the daily La Repubblica, the flowers his wife received were the prelude to a lunch the next day at the prime minister’s office and a gift of a diamond bracelet. The intelligence officer claims it was the start of a intense romance from which he initially benefited…

Contacted by a journalist from Corriere della Sera, she replied with a refined ambiguity worthy of a character in a Pirandello drama. “The truth,” mused Virginia Sanjust di Teulada, “is always - but in this case particularly - impossible to explain in words.”

Courts in Naples and in Rome are currently sifting through over 250 hours of transcripts.  Stay tuned.

The Italian left Bush Administration pulled no punches during the recent G8 conference on climate change, setting the record straight once and for all on the record of Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (born 1936) is one of the most controversial leaders in the history of a country known for governmental corruption and vice. Primarily a businessman with massive holdings and influence in international media, he is regarded by many as a political dilettante who gained his high office only through use of his considerable influence on the national media.

Encyclopedia of World Biography

Oops!  Picture the scenario.  Intern X is charged with circulating a short biography of G8 leaders for a White House press release.  Like any other red blooded 21st century American scholar, she hops online and nabs the first thing that looks authoritative, cuts and pastes, and voilà, the job is done.

Hated by many but respected by all at least for his bella figura (personal style) and the sheer force of his will, Berlusconi has parlayed his business acumen and influence into a personal empire that has resulted in Italy’s longest–running government ever and in his becoming the country’s wealthiest man. Bursting onto the scene with no political experience in 1993, he campaigned—using his vast network of media holdings—on a promise to purge the notoriously lackadaisical Italian government of corruption. He won appointment to the office of prime minister in 1994. However, he and his fellow Forza Italia Party leaders soon found themselves accused of the very corruption he had vowed to eradicate.

This is an extremely sloppy mistake for an administration that has been so disciplined in distributing its version of reality.  Did someone at the White House forget that Berlusconi and Bush are good personal friends that go way back?  Ah, who can forget the good times they had together after September 11, 2001?  But why, oh why do they always leave the best parts out?

He released a CD in 2003 of Neopolitan love songs. The prime minister prefers to spend his spare time at his 70–room villa in Sardinia named “Arcore,” whose amenities include a private park, a movie theater, and walls of large–screen televisions.

Bush is just jealous I guess.

Call me old fashioned, but it might be a good policy to actually write the things published under the guise of official government communications.  It’s easier to stay on message that way and cuts down on the written apologies, not that it’s necessary to apologize for speaking the truth every now and then.

President George Bush signed off with a defiant farewell over his refusal to accept global climate change targets at his last G8 summit.

As he prepared to fly out from Japan, he told his fellow leaders: “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.”

The Independent

What else can I say?  Our president is a dick who thinks that he’s funny.  Sure, you argue, Bush gave some ground at the talks, agreeing for the first time to reduce greenhouse emissions by 50% by 2050 after extracting signatures from China and India.  But these targets are well below those set by Kyoto protocol and such emissions are still on the rise worldwide and in the U.S.

Yeah, things are looking up, good times ahead.  We’re finally headed in the right direction and the G8 is showing the kind of leadership necessary to get the job done:

One day, in particular, he said, was “gloriously incoherent.” At a meeting in the morning, participants focused on finding ways to reduce gas prices, he said, while a session that afternoon focused on raising them through caps or taxes on fossil fuels.

The most discouraging aspect of the statements out of Japan, for many experts, was seeing the persistent gap between what science is saying about global warming and what countries are doing.

New York Times

Speaking with one voice…out of both sides of the mouth.  Now, that’s funny.

Those Irish punks have ruined everything, now Poland :

In a newspaper interview published Tuesday, Mr. Kaczynski said it would “pointless” to sign the Lisbon Treaty in light of the Irish rejection.

Damn, that’s the height of amazing nerve.  I’ll bet Sarko’s not happy.

“The European idea is in danger if we don’t protect Europeans,” Mr. Sarkozy said Monday.

What’s the “European idea” you ask? Is it a more moderate, sensible version of the American dream? A collective light bulb hovering over Belgium?  What kind of fuel economy does it get?  Does it include peeing standing up?

In a surprisingly frank admission, the French foreign minister, Bernard Koucher said the no vote in Ireland illustrated how the European Union had alienated its citizens by conducting politics in a manner they find incomprehensible.

“They understand nothing,” Mr. Kouchner said in comments to journalists in Paris “The institutions interest no one.”

He argued that, in contrast, voters did appreciate that Europe “was not able to respond to the rise in the price of petrol.” As for the jargon in which business in Brussels is conducted, Mr. Kouchner said, “no one understands — including me.”

New York Times

Conducting politics in a manner they find incomprehensible.  Good thing we don’t have that problem here in the greatest and best country God has ever given man on the face of the earth.

Ah, who isn’t just a bit nostalgic about the great Gold Rush of 1849?  You remember the fun we used to have claim jumping, exploiting Chinese workers, and once we got warmed up, strip mining?

For my money, it doesn’t get any better than the old Amalgamated Copper Mining Company mine in Butte, Montana, now known as the Anaconda Mine with its main attraction, the Berkeley Pit.

Is there nothing better than seeing American ambition from outer space?  Yeah those were good times indeed, when men were men, the West was wild and digging massive holes in the earth’s crust was but a glint in the eye of Copper King William Andrews Clark.

So let us then hail the arrival of the next Gold Rush, renew our rugged individualism and place our claims once again:

Today, record gold prices, widespread economic turmoil, and the enduring optimism of America’s entrepreneurial classes have combined to entice fresh swarms of prospectors to head west in search of hidden riches beneath the picturesque hills and ravines of the Golden State.

The “new 49ers,” as today’s wave of fortune-seekers are known, are a breed apart from their historic predecessors, driving trucks and SUVs down the dusty tracks first created by trains of horse-drawn wagons nearly 160 years ago. But they share with them a timeless predisposition for what veterans call gold fever. “It’s like going to Vegas, except with this, we actually get to win something,” said Mike Dunn, clutching almost an ounce of nuggets unearthed from the south fork of the Feather river last Sunday. “We’ve just hit a halo of gold, and this lot alone must be worth between $500 (£250) and $1,500. I’ve just about paid for my trip already.”

The Independent

I just felt a tingle down my spine.

Dreams won’t be the only things broken. Last week, three men were killed trying to reopen a 19th-century mine in rural Madera County. Police said the men, all in their twenties, died from carbon monoxide poisoning while using a petrol-powered pump to drain the 20ft-deep shaft.

And no risk.

“There is so much of that stuff out here you wouldn’t believe,” said Ekhard Davisky, who pans for gold near Paradise in Butte County. “The trick is finding it. I think it was Mark Twain who said a gold mine is just a hole in the ground owned by a liar, and I think he just about got it in one there. But if you know what you are doing, and you are prepared to listen and learn about how to do it properly, there’s never been a better time to be looking for gold. Back in 1849, an ounce of gold was $18.80, which was about enough to buy a man a nice suit and a steak dinner. And when you think about it, that’s the price of it now. These are happy days.”

Damn right they are.  Meet me and Jedadiah at the Buttercup Pantry in Placerville and we’ll strike it rich.

From baking to the dap:

That’s what politics is all about, baby.  Build that bridge girls.

Cindy McCain cribbing cookie recipes?  Color me shocked.  Michelle Obama’s amaretto-laced shortbread bombs?  Raised my roof doggg!  So, now that Hilary is out of the race, the remaining women revert to a fucking bakeoff (not that there aren’t a number of kick ass feminist bakeries dotting our fair country)?!

If John McCain loses in November, his wife Cindy may catch some of the blame after apparently cheating in a high stakes presidential cookie bake-off.

Every four years, in the approach to the presidential election, kitchens across America are busy testing cookie recipes submitted by candidates’ spouses for the Family Circle magazine competition.

The stakes could hardly be higher. In the past four presidential elections the magazine’s readers have successfully predicted America’s next first lady. Hillary Clinton’s chocolate-chip oatmeal cookies beat Barbara Bush’s effort, and Laura Bush’s cowboy cookies triumphed over Tipper Gore’s ginger snaps. In 2004 Mrs Bush won again with oatmeal chocolate chunk cookies.

The Independent

Of course Hillary once disparaged baking (and, goddamnit, drinking tea, for which I have never forgiven her), but the recipes that she later released to quell the backlash of a horrified American public could never fully dispel the taint of “uppitiness” that so manifestly makes her unsuited for public office.

Update: This story has legs! Mary Todd may have been a Hellcat but her gingerbread is the shiznit.

Courtesy of Boing Boing, it’s the Talking Jesus Doll. And don’t forget those traditional sandals!

You might be forgiven for not having registered the significance of the Irish public’s rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, viewed by some as the failed 2005 “constitution” of the European Union in drag, last week. Perhaps you saw an article flit by the New York Times website over the weekend before the issue took a backseat to Kobe’s ongoing experiment in athletic eugenics at the NBA Finals or the latest journalist (yes I’m thinking about you Kristol) to elegize the passing of Tim Russert. And damn, wasn’t that a clutch put Tiger sunk to force a playoff?

Meanwhile, somewhere outside Donegal all hell broke loose in European politics. A relatively small European country, Ireland (the only country to put the ratification of the treaty to a referendum so far) is an exemplary case of what is at stake, as the treaty seeks to further centralize key policy positions–such as labor regulations and foreign policy–at the expense of member state autonomy:

The Lisbon treaty is complex. It offers sweeping changes to the way the union runs—creating a new full-time “president” to represent member states, and a foreign-policy chief to speak for Europe round the world. It also sweeps away national vetoes in some important areas of policy, such as cross-border policing and justice. Many Irish no voters voiced suspicions that the treaty would, in reality, rob their small state of clout at the EU’s top tables.

The Economist

“EU leaders were to be heard crowing last year that they had made it “unintelligible” in order to smuggle it past voters,” The Economist continues, rightly noting that this was a much easier task in most European countries, eighteen of which had already shoved it through their respective parliaments with little or no debate.

“So pay no attention to the wailing in Brussels,” writes Anne Appelbaum, “If the most enthusiastic Europeans in Europe didn’t care enough to read the treaty they’ve just rejected, then maybe it’s just as well it didn’t pass.” I guess Applebaum figues that libertarianism European-style means more centralized government and concentrated economic and military power. Apparently, European citizens lack the free-thinking gene possessed by all rational, Cato Institute supporting Americans that allow them to cut through hundreds of pages of bureaucratic doublespeak. But I digress.

Predictably, establishment politicians have been wringing their hands over the result, especially from the larger states, who stood to gain the most. Nicholas Sarkozy, the immigrant-bashing-top-model-marrying-archconservative president of France is especially pissed off. He’s threatening to travel to Ireland to learn firsthand why they had the temerity to say no to even more big business payola and the prospect of increased European military integration. Guess which countries would assume effective control of the latter? Now you’re getting the picture. Stay tuned, France assumes the rotating presidency of the European Union in July.

BUMP!  The Rocket weighs in on the “dushbag” media as some of his email correspondence with Brian McNamee is released.  Nice 22.

Let me first confess, that I have never particularly liked Roger Clemens. Since the first time I laid eyes on his rookie card, my young brain sensed that there was something profoundly douchey about this cocky young lantern-jawed ballplayer. Throughout the 80’s he cultivated a reputation as an intimidating tough guy, whose intensity on the mound seemed almost personal, such as the infamous bat throwing episode with Mike Piazza during the 2000 World Series. And don’t EVEN bring up his asking out of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. We all know Billy Bucker was the goat of that game right?

Rather than discuss his career as a Yankee, I will only refer to the photograph below as exhibit A as evidence of his serial douchbaggery in the Big Apple:

Yes, there has always been something shifty and mercenary about the career of Roger Clemens, a man who has made going to the highest bidder sound like a homecoming. In sport, where such straightfaced pronoucements are commonplace, Clemens went the extra mile when he trotted out his family as the deciding factor when signing his record-setting 4 year $31.1 million deal with Toronto in 1996:

“I’ve always enjoyed this city,” Clemens, 34, said in his gentle Texas twang. “When we came here for the All-Star Game (in 1991), obviously playing here, my wife and my boys have loved this area. That was the most important factor.”

Clemens said fans have always been gracious toward him when he’d go out for dinner after games, when he hit the links (he’s a five handicap) and when he was at the ballpark. Hey, Canada, politeness pays.

Another factor was that the Jays are only too happy to let him bring his kids (he has four, Koby, 10, Kary, 8, Kacy, 2, and Kody, seven months, all starting with K, the letter used in baseball scoring to indicate a strikeout) onto the SkyDome carpet to bang the ball around on game days.

“I wanted it to be Roger’s call but if it had been New York we probably wouldn’t have come to the ballpark an awful lot,” said his wife, Debbie. “We would’ve lived in Connecticut and watched TV.”

Toronto Star, 14 December 1996

“If I was single, maybe New York,” admitted Clemens yesterday. “Nothing against New York, but I can’t see me going out at 2 p.m. and playing catch with my boys out on the field there.”

Debbie insists the Rocket is a great dad, but that doesn’t stop him from maintaining some of his image while with the kids. Back when Koby and Kory were small, the family would reportedly act out Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle episodes. Roger’s role? He played Shredder, the Turtle’s enemy.

When he’s not playing with the kids, Clemens is working out.

Toronto Sun 14 December 1996

Fast forward to 2008 and fill in the blank. When he’s not playing with the kids, Clemens is ____________.

The New Jersey Daily Trentonian hit the nail on the head with its 14 December 2007 headline: “He Took it in the Butt.” Yes, the steroid scandal that has erupted around “Shredder” only demonstrates the pain he has suffered in his quest for greatness and now an unfeeling world has somehow turned his selfless sacrifice into a gaudy scarlet A. But let us not feel too much pity for dear Roger, who has the moral support of the first family of America, whose patriarch George H.W. Bush “found me in a deer blind in south Texas and expressed his concerns that this was unbelievable, and stay strong and hold your head up high.” Winged words indeed.

As Republican members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform grooved easy questions to Clemens during his appearance, the Rocket Man waxed emotional, reiterating that “my family is and has always been my top priority,” while also adding, for good measure, that “I have had the privilege and honor to visit our troops in Kuwait, Qatar, and Afghanistan and salute them as our nation’s true role models.” What? You thought this hearing was about steroids? No, this is about a man teetering on the edge of a messy public self-douching. “If I am guilty of anything, it is of being too trusting of others; wanting to see the best in everyone; and being nice to everyone. If I am considered to be ignorant because of that, then so be it.”

Rest easy, Roger, you are not ignorant, but if you thought a scorched earth defense again Brian McNamee was a good idea, perhaps you trusted your lawyer and your high and inside fastball a bit too much. Once you started playing hardball the my-family-is-everything defense has blown up in your face. Do not ask for whom the douche tolls, Rocket Man, it tolls for thee.

Roger Clemens Doucheroll:

• Wannabe Texan
• Spokesman for a car dealership
• Former New York Yankee
• Reported serial adulterer
• All his kids’ names begin with the same letter “K” (Bonus: in honor of his many strikeouts)
• Reported user of performance enhancers