The misspelling is intentional. Idiot jihadi blowed himself up after sending an exceptionally overwrought email to the media and the police.

"Now your children, daughters and sisters will die just like our brothers, sisters and children are dying," the e-mail said. "Our actions will speak for themselves."

The e-mail lashed out at Swedes for their "war against Islam," for "denigrating the prophet" and for their "stupid support of the pig Vilks," a reference to the artist Lars Vilks, whose drawings of Muhammad as a dog sparked controversy in 2007.

Fortunately, he only managed to kill himself. Two bystanders had minor injuries.

Swedish police are investigating and probably looking for accomplices. He said "our actions."

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:16 AM | Comments (132)
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I am currently digging my sidewalks and driveway out from about a hundred feet of snow, so this book thread is going to be a mere place-holder, I'm afraid. Indulge yourselves in the comments.

Posted by: Monty at 06:39 AM | Comments (122)
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One of the truisms of the past two years is that the best mainstream media coverage of the Obama Administration, its policies, and the US in general has come from overseas, particularly from Britain. And while domestic news outlets noted the recent sell-off in US Treasury bonds, most downplayed or ignored the implications. Not so the British media. Note in particular that second sentence (emphasis mine):

US Treasuries last week suffered their biggest two-day sell-off since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. The borrowing costs of the government of the worldÂ’s largest economy have now risen by a quarter over the past four weeks.

Debt service costs have reached such astronomical levels even though, over the past year and more, yields have been kept historically and artificially low by “quantitative easing (QE)” – in other words, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s virtual printing press. Now borrowing costs are 28pc higher than a month ago, with the 10-year Treasury yield reaching 3.33pc last week, an already eye-watering debt service burden can only go up.

Few on this side of the Atlantic should feel smug. The eurozone’s ongoing sovereign debt debacle has pushed up Germany’s borrowing costs by 27pc over the last month – to 3.03pc. The market has judged that if Europe’s Teutonic powerhouse wants the single currency to survive, it will ultimately need to raise wads of cash to absorb the mess caused by other member states’ fiscal incontinence. . . .

Some say that growing signs of a US economic recovery are positive for stocks, which means money is being diverted out of Treasuries, so lowering their price, which pushes up yields. That’s wishful thinking. Sovereign borrowing costs have just surged in the US – and therefore elsewhere – because a politically-wounded President Obama caved-in and extended the Bush-era tax cuts, combining them with a $120bn payroll tax holiday.

Lower taxes, and the certainty of lower taxes, may bolster business investment and growth. ThatÂ’s the logic employed by those painting last weekÂ’s global yield spike in a positive light. Government borrowing costs rose in America and elsewhere, they say, as a re-bounding US economy is now drawing investorsÂ’ cash away from sovereign bonds and towards more productive uses.

The reality is, though, that the market is increasingly alarmed at the rate of increase of the US governmentÂ’s already massive liabilities. AmericaÂ’s government debt is set to expand by a jaw-dropping 42pc over the next few years, reaching $19.6 trillion by 2015 according to Treasury Department estimates presented (amid very little fanfare) to Congress back in June. Since then, government spending has risen even more. So US debt service costs, like those of many other Western nations, are expanding rapidly in terms of both the volumes of sovereign instruments outstanding, and the yields on each bond.

Don't you just love the phrase "fiscal incontinence"? Go read the whole thing. Hey, it's Sunday morning -- you've got time, and this has real implications for your personal financial future. ..fritz..

Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:08 AM | Comments (139)
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I don't know where Genghis or any of the other cob loggers are. So here you go!

Nice pic, huh!? more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:20 PM | Comments (360)
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Jewbelation.

The set includes eight 12-ounce bottles of beer -- one of each of the past six years' Jewbelation releases (6), this year's release (1) and a new blend of all of them that was aged in Sazerac rye whiskey barrels (1) -- plus an empty bottle to hold the shamash, or middle candle.

The He'Brew Jewbelation series, brewed in New York for San Francisco's Shmaltz Brewing Co., began with Jewbelation 8, which contained eight malts, eight hops and 8 percent alcohol by volume. Each year's new release ups the malts, hops and alcohol by one, meaning this year's Jewbelation 14 (also sold separately from the gift set in 22-ounce bottles) has 14 malts -- including flaked quinoa -- 14 hops and 14 percent ABV.

Shmaltz Brewing Company, heh. From Heather Radish's Twitter feed.

Open thread.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 02:44 PM | Comments (599)
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Nothing.

He's ending his term as Florida's chief executive with little fanfare, and a handful of empty, meaningless gestures, including an odd grant of clemency for Jim Morrison's indecency conviction.

In his final cabinet meeting Tuesday, Crist and Florida's governing board approved a biomass energy plant to be constructed near Gainesville and honored a Labrador retriever named Ace on his retirement from the state fire marshal's office after a long and distinguished career sniffing out accelerants.

The Florida mid-terms were a trifecta of BOOYAH. That slimeball Alan Grayson got his ass kicked. Allen West will be sworn into Congress this January.

And this tiresome, pandering jackass Crist got kicked in the junk so hard his political career is finished.

Good riddance.

Also, congrats to Ace on the retirement, and go easy on the accelerants big guy.

SATURDAY FOOTBALL BONUS: One college game today, Army-Navy at 2:30 EST. Navy's got a better record, but I gotta pull for the Black Knights.

Cheerleader pic via Andy over at the Hostages.

more...

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 07:10 AM | Comments (570)
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To recap: Joe Miller got an injunction from a federal court preventing the state Division of Elections from certifying Murkowski the winner of the election, but the federal court held that he would have to go to state court to resolve the questions about state law.

Yesterday evening, the state court judge ruled that Miller's spelling and fraud challenges are without merit.

Judge William Carey, in a ruling issued Friday, found that Mr. Miller had failed to demonstrate his claims that the results of the midterm elections in November were tainted by misconduct or fraud on the part of election officials. The judge also concluded that the outcome would have been the same even if the Republican candidate's charges had been true.

The state judge's decision is here (PDF). We've been over the exact-spelling rule challenge a couple times here at the HQ, so I'm not going to dig into that too deep. The judge's reasoning is not that great, especially when he's purporting to interpret the text of the statute, but he ultimately did what I expected which was apply the Alaska Supreme Court's "voter intent" rule.

The thing that interested me most about this lawsuit were Miller's late-pleaded fraud claims. Here's what the judge said about that:

Nowhere does Miller provide facts showing a genuine issue of
fraud or election official misfeasance. Instead, the majority of the problematic statements included in the affidavits are inadmissible hearsay, speculation, and occasional complaints of sarcasm expressed by DOE workers. Nothing rises to the level showing genuine material facts of fraud.

The judge seemed troubled that Miller apparently sat on these claims from November 17 through December 2 without trying to pursue them. In an ordinary lawsuit, two weeks is an extraordinarily short time to expect a party to take firm action. Miller had a couple things cutting against him: he filed the lawsuits, so the court will expect him to present allegations of genuine claims, and, as we've seen over and over election lawsuits are different.

The Division of Elections moved immediately to have the federal injunction dropped. The federal judge gave Miller until Monday to figure out what he wants to do. He could appeal in the Alaska courts and, ultimately, if he doesn't like what he gets there, take his lawsuit back to the federal courts on his constitutional claims.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:47 AM | Comments (57)
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Welcome to tonightÂ’s Ace of Leaks. Got any dirt on yer fellow threadmates? Feel free to leak your heart out in the comments. After all, theyÂ’d do it to you if given the chance. Which they just now have been given.

Tonight's obscure, mostly forgotten 80s tune is:

Quit bitchin' or I'll start posting an endless string of Michael Bolton and/or Kenny G tunes.

Usual lameness below the fold: more...

Posted by: Genghis at 06:30 PM | Comments (700)
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Conservatives are having great fun making fun of President Obama after he surrendered the podium to former President Bill Clinton.

All of this wingnutty snark just fills me with heart-ache.

Have a little compassion, folks.

Sometimes, a guy just needs a little help. more...

Posted by: Slublog at 03:56 PM | Comments (343)
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And I believe they chose Cancun partly for the low-cost, moderate-quality escorts, but mostly because they wanted to avoid the typical spectacle of a global warming summit blanketed in six feet of snow.

No luck.

Even atheist scientists must be starting to wonder if God is suggesting that they re-check their math.

Posted by: Ace at 01:41 PM | Comments (129)
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