Mmmm.......Beer.....

First there was the discovery of dozens of bottles of 200-year-old champagne, but now salvage divers have recovered what they believe to be the world's oldest beer, taking advertisers' notion of 'drinkability' to another level.

Though the effort to lift the reserve of champagne had just ended, researchers uncovered a small collection of bottled beer on Wednesday from the same shipwreck south of the autonomous Aland Islands in the Baltic Sea.

"At the moment, we believe that these are by far the world's oldest bottles of beer," Rainer Juslin, permanent secretary of the island's ministry of education, science and culture, told CNN on Friday via telephone from Mariehamn, the capital of the Aland Islands.

"It seems that we have not only salvaged the oldest champagne in the world, but also the oldest still drinkable beer. The culture in the beer is still living."
Juslin said officials had talked to a local brewer about whether the new-found beer might be able to yield its recipe after experts decipher the brew's ingredients.

The newest find came as divers unearthed bottles separate from the earlier champagne find. While lifting a few to the surface, one exploded from pressure. A dark fluid seeped from the broken bottle, which they realized was beer.

All the cargo on the ship -- including the beer and champagne -- is believed to have been transported sometime between 1800 and 1830, according to Juslin. He said the wreck was about 50 meters deep (roughly 164 feet) in between the Aland island chain and Finland.
The cargo was aboard a ship believed to be heading from Copenhagen, Denmark, to St Petersburg, Russia. It could have possibly been sent by France's King Louis XVI to the Russian Imperial Court.

CNN

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In an amazing display of perverted machismo........

The Constitutional Insurgent brings you.......


The Bacon Bra! Combining the two greatest things known to man.

A New Way Forward?

The Afghanistan Study Group has released a report detailing the war, it's pitfalls and a plan to extricate ourselves while installing some form of legitimate governance in Kabul.

At almost nine years, the U.S. war in Afghanistan is the longest in our history, surpassing even the Vietnam War, and it will shortly surpass the Soviet Union’s own extended military campaign there. With the surge, it will cost the U.S. taxpayers nearly $100 billion per year, a sum roughly seven times larger than Afghanistan’s annual gross national product (GNP) of $14 billion and greater than the total annual cost of the new U.S. health insurance program. Thousands of American and allied personnel have been killed or gravely wounded.

The way Forward:
A five point approach

1. Emphasize Power-Sharing and Political Reconciliation
2. Scale Back and Eventually Suspend Combat Operations in the South and Reduce the U.S. Military Footprint
3. Keep the Focus on Al Qaeda and Domestic Security
4. Promote Economic Development
5. Engage Global and Regional Stakeholders.

The United States should by no means abandon Afghanistan, but it is time to abandon the current strategy that is not working. Trying to pacify Afghanistan by force of arms will not work, and a costly military campaign there is more likely to jeopardize America’s vital security interests than to protect them. The Study Group believes that the United States should pursue more modest goals that are both consistent with America’s true interests and far more likely to succeed.

Read the full report

Talking points once again rear their head on the "Fair and Balanced" network

Chris Wallace of Fox [I refuse to include the word News], in discussing Obama's speech on Iraq last week, stated:

In that speech, to say “my central mission is to restore the economy,” is it unfair to say that this a president whose heart doesn’t seem to be into winning the war on terror, no matter what it costs?

Well, he has been in office long enough to have invaded yet another nation that contains a fleeting glimpse [if at all] of Al Qaeda. Doesn't he know that real American icons represent the swagger and pomposity that enabled terror attacks against us in the first place?

Fareed Zakaria - 1, Mouth Breathers - 0

Fareed Zakaria has been garnering some intellectual credibility lately...at least from the likes of me. First, he returns the award he had received from the ADL, due to the misnomered 'ground zero mosque faux-controversy, then he pens a piece in Newsweek which exposes the truth to the harsh light of day.

Nine years after 9/11, can anyone doubt that Al Qaeda is simply not that deadly a threat? Since that gruesome day in 2001, once governments everywhere began serious countermeasures, Osama bin Laden’s terror network has been unable to launch a single major attack on high-value targets in the United States and Europe. While it has inspired a few much smaller attacks by local jihadis, it has been unable to execute a single one itself. Today, Al Qaeda’s best hope is to find a troubled young man who has been radicalized over the Internet, and teach him to stuff his underwear with explosives.

I do not minimize Al Qaeda’s intentions, which are barbaric. I question its capabilities. In every recent conflict, the United States has been right about the evil intentions of its adversaries but massively exaggerated their strength. In the 1980s, we thought the Soviet Union was expanding its power and influence when it was on the verge of economic and political bankruptcy. In the 1990s, we were certain that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear arsenal. In fact, his factories could barely make soap.

Newsweek

Of course predictably, the fascist corners of the blogosphere is apoplectic. It seems their tender sensibilities are offended when something is opined that differs from the standard fare of the Hanni-bots and ditto-heads. So I comment on one such blog, because the obscenity laden intellectually retarded screed was such that, out of curiosity, I simply had to ascertain if any logic resided in the authors brain housing unit. His work of art [which I won't link to here] was essentially an excuse for every invasion and occupation that the United States has committed. The apparent rationale being...well, we're America, so suck it! [cue Team America theme song and requisite chest thumping and background vocals of the chant USA!, USA!]

Of course, he didn't actually refute anything that Zakaria had stated, that would require a grasp of truth and knowledge....but he does know how to type all of his curse words. Good job little guy!

I was perplexed at how somebody so oxygen deprived could operate his own blog.

I commented to him: Al Qaeda isn’t in Afghanistan. Mission Accomplished!
We now expend billions of dollars and American lives, while Al Qaeda laughs at us in Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, etc..
Amusing screed however…..

His mentally stunted response was : Any other time, I would not give this reply the light of day. But, I want it to be here; just so real Americans who read this blog, can see just much of a stupid fucking moron you are. 

NEXT!

(Oh, and by the way, I removed your URL…. go pimp that lame ass Liberal shit blog somewhere else!)

Golly......I'm not sure if I should be proud or offended that the same style of intellectual dwarfism was used towards me, as was used in his original rant. I suppose people have to use what they've got. So, anyway, apparently I'm not a 'real American' and I'm now a 'liberal' to boot. Strange that he then informed me that I had violated his site rules, though they clearly state otherwise, and deleted my next comment. No worries, I was merely killing time and have little energy for proto-fascists who hide their ignorance and jingoism behind the paper shield of patriotism.

I just find it amazing that so many of my fellow countrymen are so utterly stupid. They believe if you're not an US, your a THEM. If you don't call yourself a Republican, then you have to be a Democrat. If you acknowledge what the rest of humanity knows of our hypocritical and damaging foreign policies, you're a not a 'real American'. I suppose 'real Americans' think in a linear, two dimensional, stunted paradigm.

According to the closing of his tirade when he states "on the behalf of all the Soldiers" [given my background of military service], he's either speaking on behalf of me or to me, when he says 'shut the hell up'. Apparently, I just may be a terrorist appeasing, asshole, liberal retard. I'm so confused....

Anyway.....there's your daily dose of crazy. Don't expect it daily, or I'd never get anything else done.

For Labor Day Weekend.......the Labor of War

Abraham Lincoln referred to the "terrible arithmetic" of war, meaning that sometimes a general or statesman would have to accept large numbers of casualties in fighting that would bring the conflict to an end and thereby save even more lives.  Whether Lincoln’s war really needed to be fought at all is debatable, but most Americans would accept that war has sometimes been necessary throughout history for a nation to survive when confronted by enemies.  When a war must be fought, the key objective should be to end it as quickly as possible and with a minimum loss of life.  We Americans of the twenty-first century are now experiencing our own "terrible arithmetic," but an arithmetic that goes on and on without end.  Worse, we are engaged in several conflicts that have nothing to do with national survival and did not have to be fought.  At least Lincoln hoped that his bloody battles would lead to an end to killing.  Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama appear to have had no such expectations and instead have been and are accepting of permanent American engagement in the Middle East and Central Asia.  Both have contrived the necessity of fighting a long war against an enemy they can hardly identify and repeatedly have failed to understand.

-Philip Giraldi

Read the rest

Kudos Associated Press!

AP: 'Combat in Iraq is not over, and we should not uncritically repeat suggestions that it is'

Memo from the AP's standards editor

From: Kent, Tom
Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2010 5:30 PM
Subject: Standards Center guidance: The situation in Iraq

Colleagues,

Many AP staffers are producing content that refers to the situation in Iraq. It might be a local story about Iraq veterans, an international diplomatic story that mentions the Iraqi conflict or coverage on the ground in Iraq itself.

Whatever the subject, we should be correct and consistent in our description of what the situation in Iraq is. This guidance summarizes the situation and suggests wording to use and avoid.

To begin with, combat in Iraq is not over, and we should not uncritically repeat suggestions that it is, even if they come from senior officials. The situation on the ground in Iraq is no different today than it has been for some months. Iraqi security forces are still fighting Sunni and al-Qaida insurgents. Many Iraqis remain very concerned for their country's future despite a dramatic improvement in security, the economy and living conditions in many areas.

As for U.S. involvement, it also goes too far to say that the U.S. part in the conflict in Iraq is over. President Obama said Monday night that "the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country." 

However, 50,000 American troops remain in country. Our own reporting on the ground confirms that some of these troops, especially some 4,500 special operations forces, continue to be directly engaged in military operations. These troops are accompanying Iraqi soldiers into battle with militant groups and may well fire and be fired on.

In addition, although administration spokesmen say we are now at the tail end of American involvement and all troops will be gone by the end of 2011, there is no guarantee that this will be the case.

Our stories about Iraq should make clear that U.S. troops remain involved in combat operations alongside Iraqi forces, although U.S. officials say the American combat mission has formally ended. We can also say the United States has ended its major combat role in Iraq, or that it has transferred military authority to Iraqi forces. We can add that beyond U.S. boots on the ground, Iraq is expected to need U.S. air power and other military support for years to control its own air space and to deter possible attack from abroad.
Unless there is balancing language, our content should not refer to the end of combat in Iraq, or the end of U.S. military involvement. Nor should it say flat-out (since we can't predict the future) that the United States is at the end of its military role.

Tom

Stay classy anti-mosque bigots....

These are the people who want to "Restore Honor"