LT Saloon

Brew Biz: Werts and All- Troubles Brewing

Written by Ken Carman

This edition’s topic: losing a talented Brewer.

As always Mr. McGuire’s fictional cousin; whose exploits are told throughout both McGuires restaurants, met me at the door…

“Nathan McGuire! Good to see you! I see you’re still wearing the same old lampshade.”
Read on -- There is more »« Okay, fold it up now

The Tattlesnake – Rep. Hoot, Sen. Smalley and the Fox Swine Crew Edition

The Harder They Fall…

What a Hoot: As Keith Olbermann reported Wednesday night, perpetually-insane Minnesota comediatrix Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Daft) brought the funny the other day when she took to the House floor to condemn Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Dems for the ‘Hoot-Smalley Act’ of the Great Depression era. While you can never be sure when dealing with a dingbat like Bachmann, who apparently stole her blank eyeballs from a crazy doll in “Bride of Chucky“, she probably meant the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act‘ that was sponsored by two Republicans, and signed into law by Republican President Herbert Hoover in 1930. In reality, FDR campaigned against the act in 1932, and a Dem majority in Congress effectively repealed Smoot-Hawley in 1934 with the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, but in Michele’s loopy-dumb, wish-I-had-a-brain, far-right universe facts are a liberal, commie plot invented by the Devil to trip up those patriotically lying in the name of Jesus. If you’re a sane Republican (okay, that would be confined to ex-McCain manager Steve Schmidt and Sen. Olympia Snowe) you know that Bachmann’s Sixth District is already in the ‘D’ column in 2010 (she nearly lost to an unknown children’s book character named Elwyn Tinklenberg in ‘08), and that you must find a legal means to (a) shut this woman up before she further damages what’s left of your party and (b) prevent her from running for president or vice president in 2012. (The vision of a ‘Palin-Bachmann 2012′ ticket privately induces dyspeptic nightmares of an LBJ/Goldwater electoral slaughter among GOP bigwigs.) Of course, it may be too late – the GOP brand is so tainted that if you jettisoned all of the dotty Dittoheads, nattering neocons, tone-deaf teabaggers, putrid Palinites, raging racists, Savage Nation neo-Nazis, fatuous Freepers, flaming fully-automatic gun nuts and kinky religious kooks, you could assemble what’s left of the party in a Washington hotel ballroom with space to spare for a trained elephant act. (For more on this, read the last two items in this article.)

He’s Good Enough, He’s Smart Enough and Doggone It, the People Liked Him! Speaking of Minnesota, the drab electoral Death March of Numb Norm Coleman, the Republican Sore Loser, received a little spark of life thanks to the wily minds in Al Franken’s

Read on -- There is more »« Okay, fold it up now

Obamaman’s First 100 Days

Watch out for the Puss…

…from the exploding Conservative heads.

Arlen”Magic Bullet” Spector has decided to cross the aisle and become a DINO.  Formerly a RINO,  Spector was facing a tough challenge in the 2010 GOP Senate primary  by former Rep. Pat Toomey, who nearly defeated Specter in the Pennsylvania GOP Senate primary in 2004. Read on -- There is more »« Okay, fold it up now

Size Matters

Herd About It?

By Ana Grarian

Two Amish men in Cambria County (PA) say they won’t appeal fines for operating two unpermitted outhouses at a school (Tribune Review 4/26/08)

News report from PA about an outhouse for a school with 18 students.

A federal judge has ruled that plaintiffs in an unsuccessful lawsuit against a large southern Cayuga County (NY) dairy farm must pay nearly $24,000 in attorney fees incurred by the farm (Auburn Citizen 4/17/09)

News report from NY about a dairy with 6000 milk cows

How much sewage does a 6000 cow dairy produce? Read on -- There is more »« Okay, fold it up now

The Fox and the Hare-Brained

“Battering the Bitch”

Ever feel, politically, like you’re being forced by fellow less than Right Wing leaders and pundits into a classic relationship you know is very, very wrong? Robert Perry does a good job painting the analogy and showing the historical precedents that led to where we are today…

“In recent years, the Washington political dynamic has often resembled an abusive marriage, in which the bullying husband (the Republicans) slaps the wife and kids around, and the battered wife (the Democrats) makes excuses and hides the ugly bruises from outsiders to keep the family together.”

“So, when the Republicans are in a position of power, they throw their weight around, break the rules, and taunt: ‘Whaddya gonna do ‘bout it?’”

“Then, when the Republicans do the political equivalent of passing out on the couch, the Democrats use their time in control, tiptoeing around, tidying up the house and cringing at every angry grunt from the snoring figure on the couch.”

“This pattern, which now appears to be repeating itself with President Barack Obama’s unwillingness to hold ex-President George W. Bush and his subordinates accountable for a host of crimes including torture, may have had its origins 40 years ago in Campaign 1968 when the Vietnam War was raging.”

The article can be found HERE.

Now THAT’S Evolution!

For Sale and From Elsewhere

Here is the link to Hops Direct. Stan has been using them and says the hops are great and the price is about half of what we have been paying. Let me know if you want to split a pound and I’ll try to work with you. (Goodales assumes this “split” part of the offer is only for Escambia Bay Brewers, since shipping to two locations would require extra charges, plus Pat probably doesn’t know you!)

Pat Johnson (Escambia Bay Brewers)
850-261-9218

Today’s Quotes: Bush’s Torture Memo Lawyers Didn’t Read the Geneva Convention (or Their Oaths of Office)?

Seriously – Jay Bybee, Bush’s former Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, apparently didn’t bother to read the Geneva Convention definitions of torture before giving advice to Bush and Cheney on what constitutes torture? And this guy’s still a federal judge?

“Judge [Jay] Bybee’s résumé tells us that he has four children and is both a Cubmaster for the Boy Scouts and a youth baseball and basketball coach. He currently occupies a tenured seat on the United States Court of Appeals. As an assistant attorney general, he was the author of the Aug. 1, 2002, memo endorsing in lengthy, prurient detail interrogation ‘techniques’ like ‘facial slap (insult slap)’ and ‘insects placed in a confinement box.’

“He proposed using 10 such techniques ‘in some sort of escalating fashion, culminating with the waterboard, though not necessarily ending with this technique.’ Waterboarding, the near-drowning favored by Pol Pot and the Spanish Inquisition, was prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II. But Bybee concluded that it ‘does not, in our view, inflict ‘severe pain or suffering.” ”
– Frank Rich, “The Banality of Bush White House Evil,” NY Times, April 26, 2009.

From the Geneva Convention:

Part II, Section I, Article 13, “General Protection of Prisoners of War”: “Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention.” [...]

“Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.”

Part III, Section I, Article 17, “Captivity”: “No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.”
– From the “Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War,” adopted August 12, 1949 and signed by the United States on October 21, 1950. Published by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Everything proposed by Bybee and Yoo was illegal under both the Geneva Convention and US torture laws, and they should have known that. So should Bush, Cheney and the others who took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. Read the exact oaths below:

Read on -- There is more »« Okay, fold it up now