Good evening, fatster, a great summary as usual.

I sure hope volunteers accompany Birgitta Jónsdóttir and watch her back during every step of her visit here. I would worry about both legal and extra-legal actions against her.

In Tunisia the secular party has fortunately backed off its threat to quit and thereby destabilize the moderate Islamic-led government, at least for the moment.

Thank you, E.F. Beall. And I do hope Birgitta has a safe journey, too. Dicey situation in Tunisia; thanks for the good update.

Maker’s Mark gets watered down:

Struggling to keep up with skyrocketing global demand, Maker’s Mark has decided to … decrease the amount of alcohol in its bourbon by three percentage points, from 45 percent alcohol by volume (ABV) to 42 percent.

Haven’t these people ever heard of Chained-CPI?
They should have raised the price, so less well-off drinkers could move to cheaper hooch,
CPI-C would show negative inflation,
and it would be a win-win for all concerned.

Lololol! allan, before we know it you’ll be earning big bucks as products pricing and marketing consultant in the spirits industry.

Didn’t the Portuguese call the uke or its forerunner “machete?”

Found it for you, prostratedragon. Now, let’s have a little toast to the machete/ukelele before allan raises the liquor prices.

Aloha, fatster…! Learn something new everyday…! I did not know that the Portuguese made the first ukes…! ;-)

scottish renewables:

“Latest figures from the Department of Energy Climate Change have confirmed that Scotland’s renewable energy industry is now the second largest source of our electricity production, beating both coal and gas for the first time.

While nuclear remains the largest source of electricity production, output from renewables was more than double that of gas-fired generation in Scotland and a quarter more than coal.

The renewables industry in Scotland attracted almost £1bn (£909m) of capital investment in the first six months of 2012 alone and supports more than 11,000 jobs.

http://www.scottishrenewables.com/news/scottish-renewables-bigger-coal-or-gas-first-time/

Wrestling is voted off of the Olympics™ island.

The gun demo in Oregon legislature is insane.

Good morning, pups. I’m very pleased to see the David Kelly death (assassination) back in the headlights. The knife that he killes himself bore no fingerprints, even though he wasn’t wearing gloves at the time. (I can’t recall whether he also stabbed himself in the back) The whole business stunk to high heaven. It’s pretty clear th at Blair wanted him put down because he knew there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and also knew the Iraqi scientists who could prove it. He was in touch with Judith Miller, who may have fingered him to the CIA. As he was an extremely minor player in all this, one has to wonder why the PTB thought it was so important to take him out. Perhaps they expected to find (or plant) evidence of biological weapons (I believe that was his domain) and feared that he would expose it as fraudulent. It’s hard to conceive an alternative scenario. As it happened, the whole business went south in mid-July 2003′ when the Iraqi resistance reorganized. After that, the search for secret weapons as justification for invasion had to take second place to pacification.

I hope the coroner gets to the bottom of this, but it seems unlikely. Kelly’s assassination sent a pretty strong message.

That’s interesting, mafr. The conventional wisdom is that if Scotland indeed separates from the UK it will get about 90% of the off-shore oil, but maybe the Scots aren’t counting on that. (Cameron might well go to war over the possession.)
Not that there are no hurdles to independence: A new legal opinion says that Scotland would have to reapply for membership in international bodies but England would not.

Thanks so much, fatster. Great, as usual.

Increasing the eligibility age for Medicare is not something either health insurers or drug companies would want. So, I am not surprised that it’s been ruled out.

We’re told that “sometime this week” Rep John Conyers (D-MI) will be introducing “The Expanded & Improved Medicare for All Act”. He’s got over three dozen co-sponsors, needs more.

Good for Conyers, but everyone knows that single payer will never pass a Republican House, even if Hell does freeze over.

I don’t know why a bill need lots of co-sponsors. However, the original single payer bill, H.R. 676, had over 100 sponsors.

A Democratic Congress could have started the process in 2006 and had the bill ready for Obama to sign on Inauguration Day, much like the Lily Ledbetter bill that Dimson had vetoed. If Democrats were serious about passing single payer, that is. Apparently, they aren’t.

I don’t think H.R. 676 ever made it as far as a House vote.

I have always wondered why the U.S. did not plant chem & bio weapons.

unnecessary

“POLL: MOST REPUBLICANS STILL BELIEVE THAT IRAQ HAD WMD | A new poll conducted by Dartmouth government professor Benjamin Valentino found that 63 percent of Republican respondents still believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the United States invaded in 2003, even though this assertion has been thoroughly debunked. In comparison, only 27 percent of independents and less than 15 percent of Democrats believed in the misinformation.

june 2012 thinkprogress.”

❖ “White House Rules Out Raising Medicare Eligibility Age”.

… the TPM commenters’ responses are an object lesson in abject denial…

As a modern pentathlon junkie, I’m very pleased that the Olympic Committee kept that ever popular sport and dropped wrestling. /s

some very depressing and sad stories and information here Fatster.

Thnx to prostratedragon, you now know. Aloha back, CTuttle.

Thnx so much, nixonclinbushbama.