"Digging up the buried beer at Hotel Timbuktu."

"After months of Islamist rule, Timbuktu is getting back to normal - with thirsty journalists replacing the traditional tourists and backpackers."

"We are monks, we don't want to be too commercial."

"We needed some money to help us buy the new abbey and that's it."

So you can have your Westvleteren 12. Here's where you can buy it, for $85.00 a 6-pack. No Wisconsin retailers, unfortunately.

And you can't buy it on Amazon, though I see Amazon offers a book: "Brew Like a Monk: Trappist, Abbey, and Strong Belgian Ales and How to Brew Them."

"Whether dogs like Harley actually need a romantic curtained-off suite to breed seems beside the point."

"Some dog owners simply like the concept of a love motel for their amorous pets and are willing to pay about $50 for each session, which Animalle will happily arrange."

Animalle Mundo Pet, an eight-story enterprise in an upscale district in this city... introduced its dog motel alongside aisles featuring items like beef-flavored Dog Beer (nonalcoholic), a dog spa with a Japanese ofuro soaking tub, and canine apparel emblazoned with the symbols of the local soccer clubs....

At the Vitamin D Café...

... retain the peak of sunny summer health!



(Enlarge to read.)

"Obama Polishes His 'Regular Guy' Image With Beer."

NPR chooses a good Saturday to polish Obama's image with a puff piece about the President and beer. 

Polls show President Obama has been winning that likeability contest. And he's been raising a lot of frosty mugs on the campaign trail, hoping to press his advantage over the teetotaling Mitt Romney.

The strategy could come to a head in the swing state of Colorado.

As President Obama was holding an outdoor campaign rally in Golden this past week, the signature smell of beer brewing washed over the audience, a reminder of the nearby Coors brewery.

Did anything else happen this past week? Anything relevant to the election? I mean, more relevant that that Obama drinks beer and the White House has its own homebrew with "a secret recipe [that] was just declassified with a video on the White House website."

The White House beer is flavored with honey from the first lady's beehive....

Speaking of teetotaling Mitt Romney, the beehive is an important symbol to Mormons (and Masons):

Freemasons also used the bee and beehive as symbols of cooperative work, and the images are found in early American art and literature. "Many of the founding fathers were Masons, and America had become the new "promised land" of opportunity," says Staker. Many early Mormons were also Masons, including Joseph Smith.

The Book of Ether in the Book of Mormon tells the story of the Jaredites, a tribe that lived at the time of the Tower of Babel in the Old Testament. According to the Book of Mormon, the Jaredites made a miraculous 344-day voyage across the ocean to North America. They brought with them the "deseret" which means "honey bee" in the language of the Book of Mormon.

When Brigham Young and the Latter-day Saints arrived in Salt Lake Valley in July of 1847, Young chose the name "Deseret" for their new home, and the beehive as its emblem, symbolizing the kind of cooperative work that would be required to make the desert bloom....

Mark Twain commented on the Utah beehive symbol in his book on the 1860s American West, Roughing It, "The Mormon crest was easy. And it was simple, unostentatious and it fitted like a glove. It was a representation of a Golden Beehive, with all the bees at work."

“A lot of people ask ‘What’s in the water in Wisconsin?’”

“But a better question is, ‘What’s in the beer?’”

Reince Priebus, at the GOP Convention.

"Cosmo remains the ne plus ultra of usually implausible, occasionally unfathomable, and invariably hilarious sexy tips..."

... so here are the 44 most ridiculous ones.

Did I ever tell you about the job I had (before I went to law school) reading magazines? We produced a monthly report for advertisers that required us to categorize every article in about 100 magazines. I read a lot of magazines circa 1974. Cosmo was nowhere near as explicit about sex back then, but it was always its own special world of implausible pleasure. We spent many hours reading things out loud to each other and cracking up (an activity that's kind of like blogging).

Of these 44, I'm not sure what's most ridiculous because there's a cumulative effect. But I think #37 made me laugh the most:

"Give him a beer facial - the combination of the egg white and the yeast in the hops hydrates and improves skin elasticity... but you can just tell him that your lips can't resist his delicious, beer-flavored face."

I would have laughed more, but the idea of salmonella upsets me.

The Woman's Christian Temperance Union doesn't "think it's cool at all" for Scott Walker to serve beer...

... at his "beer and brat summit" — a post-recall-election, bipartisan outreach effort.

The cookout menu features brats, a local sausage whose name is pronounced "brahts"...

(Somebody tell John Kerry before it's too late!)

[Rita Wert, president of the WCTU] said the problems facing Wisconsin are serious, and policy makers shouldn't cloud their judgment by drinking alcohol.

"That portrays kind of a party atmosphere, and I don't think that's what people want," she said. "It's just really a shame that it has to be that way."

The group raised similar objections in 2009 when President Barack Obama invited a black scholar and the white police sergeant who arrested him to the White House to share a beer and talk about race relations.

Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie said the governor respectfully disagreed with the WCTU's objections. "In keeping with the bipartisan theme of the event, in this case we agree with President Obama" ...

He's bipartisan, and they are consistent. A toast!

"I would take a Johnsonville brat from the hand of a Koch brother if it were offered with the proper condiments and a good beer."

Citizen Dave explains Wisconsin values.

IN THE COMMENTS: The Farmer said: "Bravo, ex-Mayor Dave! And MadisonMan said: "Yes, Bravo -- except for the no ketchup part, you heathen!!!!" Original Mike said: "Ketchup on a brat??? MM, you're kidding, right?" Mr. D said: "Mayor Dave is right. No ketchup on a brat." And David-2 said:

MM - meet DH!

"Gov. Scott Walker's call for a bipartisan 'brat summit' is being met with its first boycotts."

And not just from Democrats:

State Rep. Steve Nass, one of Walker's fellow Republicans from Whitewater, said... he was not attending the event because Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate said at his party's convention over the weekend that "Scott Walker will see the inside of a jail cell before he sees the inside of another term." Nass also criticized weekend comments by Democratic Sen. Fred Risser of Madison about Walker.

Meanwhile, state Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Madison) said in a tweet he won't be attending either.

"I'm passing on 'Brat Summit' photo op. We need cooperation & compromise from Gov., not brats & beer," tweeted Pocan, who is running for Congress.

Rejecting an offer of beer and brats... What has happened to Wisconsin values?

"I must say this venture of mine into this Intrade market has been worthwhile."

"I have never really interacted directly with you wingnuts before, and the expression, 'shit for brains,' now has a meaning I never quite appreciated as much before now. Thank you for making it real for me."

A comment, just now, on the Intrade market "Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to win the 5 June 2012 recall election," which just hit 94.5%.

Hey, remember the new civility? The weird thing is: Tom Barrett (Walker's opponent) has made his main issue the prospect of restoring civility — ending what he repeatedly calls "the civil war." But I'm only seeing incivility from the anti-Walkerites. Walker fixed the budget, and (some) people flipped out, mainly over an issue that Tom Barrett doesn't even want to talk about anymore (because the clear majority of Wisconsinites agree with Walker).

Check out what happened over at the Isthmus forum (Isthmus is our local "alternative" newspaper) when Meade — responding to a guy who'd said "What do you know personally about the rest of Wisconsin? Little, I think." — said:

Tell you what, Mr. Henry. A week from tomorrow, June 6, if your guy Tom Barrett has more votes than Governor Walker - you name the place. Anywhere on Monroe Street. I will buy you a beer. And I'll listen to anything you feel like teaching me about Wisconsin.

Incivility ensues.

ADDED: Sorry about leaving out that last link until just now.

There's a human rights complaint against Earls Albino Rhino beer.

"Ikponwosa (I.K.) Ero of Vancouver has alleged to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal that the name singles out people like her who suffer from albinism, the absence of pigment from the skin, hair and eyes."

It's a medical condition, not a taste treat, Ero argues.

"You go into a restaurant and someone says, 'Can I get a palsy? Give me a palsy,'" she said. "And what it stands for is a cerebral palsy cocktail. I don't think that would fly well at all with anybody with cerebral palsy, or their families, who have to live with the condition.

"So how does it work, in [the case of albinism] that you can market food with a medical condition?"

And how does it work, that you go from believing a product is poorly named to believing human rights are violated

Ero, who was born in Nigeria, said in her complaint that in Africa ablinos [sic] are often targeted for ritualistic murder.... The threat of persecution was one of the reasons she and her family fled to Canada when she was a teenager.

You came to Canada for liberty and you became an agent of repression. But that's your idea of liberty, controlling others.

That reminds me, at the Supreme Court oral argument yesterday, the Solicitor General ended his woeful week by talking about freedom: With all the new compulsions and coercions of Obamacare, "millions of people with chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease... will be unshackled from the disabilities that those diseases put on them and have the opportunity to enjoy the blessings of liberty."

In the words of Bob Zimmerman:

Ah, my friends from the prison, they ask unto me
“How good, how good does it feel to be free?”
And I answer them most mysteriously
“Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?”

In the words of the U.S. Supreme Court Justice Kennedy — who will decide the Obamacare case singlehandedly, as the pundits tell it, but who wrote this along with Justices O'Connor and Souter:

At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.

Raise a glass of Earls Albino Rhino to liberty!

"Governor Scott Walker set to ease home-brew restrictions."

Hey, this recall battle is getting serious.

Release the beer!

"Irish call for apology following 'Drunk Vomiting Shamrocks' clothing line."

"Urban Outfitters' St. Patrick's Day products, including a trucker’s cap illustrated with a drunk vomiting shamrocks and a 'Leprechaun P***' beer jug have, angered the Irish community in the United States and Ireland."

"How is it that activities we wouldn’t in a million years be roped into doing in real life... become strangely alluring online?"

"... paging through an acquaintance’s baby album, suffering through a relative’s slide show from Turkey...."

“I had to go on a vacation-photo diet,” admitted Laura Zigman, the novelist. “I had this bizarre, voyeuristic habit of scrolling through people’s travel photos online and then feeling like, Why haven’t I walked the Great Wall of China? And guilt: I should be taking my son to Spain. I don’t even like to travel!”

This feeling is kind of like nostalgia for a past that never existed. And it's really not just about the internet. You can feel nagged by envy for things you know you don't really want or you know aren't really the way the look in pictures. When I was younger, I used to look at TV ads for various products wielded by models who were great at feigning ecstasy. I wanted to be there, on the beach with those friends who are drinking Michelob and laughing at all the hilarious things they're saying to each other....

Oh, Facebook and Twitter are different. Those really are real people, but they're crafting an image. If they're any good at doing internet.

NYT "Frugal Traveler" comes to Madison.

Concentrates on biking, eating burgers, and drinking Wisconsin beer (including Leinenkugel). Following some rule of frugal traveling, he stays in the outlying town of MacFarland, and then has to bike 10 miles to get back to his room at night — after tanking up with beer. I don't quite get that. He went to some of my favorite places — Olbrich Gardens, Picnic Point, the Capitol building. But he doesn't seem to notice any protesting. In fact, there's nothing about politics at all!

"It’s a guerrilla campaign that is secretly filmed and features a cinema full of burly scary looking men..."

"... with the only 2 seats in the place being sold to unsuspecting couples. As you’ll see from the video below most of the people who walk in pick up on the intimidating atmosphere and leave immediately rather than taking the last 2 seats in the theater...."

Today's protesters "have no understanding of civil disobedience."

Says Matthew Knee:

To far too many young leftists, “civil disobedience” is a get-out-of-jail-free card that should allow people to break the law so long as they are really, really, self-righteous about it. The idea of evoking sympathy through the moral power of passively enduring suffering for a just cause is foreign to many safe, middle-class, revolutionary wannabees who want a free lunch out of their rebellion as well as their government.

Yes, the Wisconsin man who poured a beer on a legislator he didn't like enjoyed himself and basked in the love and encouragement he got from the other protesters. (And speaking of "free lunch," our Wisconsin protesters got lots of free pizza.)

My test for the defenders of the protesters is: Think through a reverse hypothetical. Make the protesters an exemplar of the ideology you oppose and the target a proponent of what you love.  See my post yesterday about the Doubletree incident, in which I challenged someone who supported a pro-affirmative action protest: "Picture a press conference by a beloved advocate of civil rights stormed by a group of racist skinheads... Make all the actions exactly the same, but change the political viewpoints. Would you then use the words 'mob' and 'physically violent.'"

Those who cheered the beer-pourer need to picture a Tea Partier dumping a glass of beer on... You know, I'm too averse to violence to name a particular individual who is embodies the ideology of the left. I don't want to put the picture of an attack in anyone's head. That's why I wrote "a beloved advocate of civil rights" in my reverse-Doubletree hypothetical. To me, whatever the politics of the target, pouring a beer is physical violence. It's not cute. It's nothing to be celebrated.

It's not just that people lack an understanding of civil disobedience. They don't understand what principles are. In the previous post, I wrote about the French ban on covering your face in public and linked to a Metafilter thread. I just noticed that someone over there wrote:

Once again, I find myself not having sympathy for any parties involved. This French approach is simply antithetical to my American sensibilities. On the other hand, I just can't relate at all to these women, and I can see why French people don't like the niqab.

I responded to that:

If you really care about freedom and equality, you should move beyond the question of what kind of people you can "relate" too. The test of your principles is whether you can apply them to people you don't even like at all, who are making what you think are bad choices.

Is critical thinking a lost art?

A law authorizing police to enter a private home whenever they can see a keg inside.

An outrageous ordinance proposed in Madison, Wisconsin:

Downtown Alcohol Policy Coordinator Mark Woulf said police wanted the ability to enter house parties with visible kegs, especially in situations where kegs could entice more people to come and make parties "even more out of control."

"Friendly bet on #Packers #Saints game w/ @BobbyJindal."

"We put up WI cheese & beer, looking 4ward 2 getting some seafood after #Packer win."

Tweets Gov. Walker, whose tweeting style is more tweety than that of Gov. Jindal, who tweets"

I bet WI @GovWalker some fresh LA seafood that the Saints beat the Packers tonight. He agreed to send us WI beer and cheese when we win!

Feel free to talk about the big game all you want, right here.