The Daily Beast:

Templeton Rye, by contrast, has built its successful brand on being a product of Templeton, Iowa. They tell an elaborate story about how their recipe was used by the owner’s family to make illicit whiskey in Iowa during Prohibition, and how that rye had become Al Capone’s favorite hooch. They publish a description of their “Production Process” so detailed it lists the temperature (124 degrees) at which the “rye grain is added to the mash tank.” They brag that they focus their “complete attention on executing each step of the distillation process.” And yet, for all this detail, the official “Production Process” somehow fails to mention that Templeton doesn’t actually do the distilling.

....

Another challenge actual craft distillers face is that the armies of new rye drinkers have come to expect whiskey with a particular flavor—that is, the taste of MGP [the giant industrial distillery] rye. “If you’ve tried Dickel rye, Redemption, and Templeton, you’d think that’s how rye whiskey should taste,” says Clay Risen, author of American Whiskey, Bourbon & Rye. MGP’s whiskies are marketed under so many different labels that they “have colored perceptions” of what rye should be.

Sigh. I do like Redemption Rye. But if it's made in a giant factory and sold by the truckload, it's probably way overpriced.

Update: So, in some cases, and maybe in a lot of cases, it's not quite accurate to say the whiskey is made in this giant factory. In some cases, the maker will cook/mash/brew up the raw ingredients themselves and ship that to this place to be distilled. Distillation is a highly-regulated and capital-heavy process that many makers just can't afford, or haven't had the time or money to set up for themselves. Then, they get the distilled product back and put it in their own barrels for aging and/or blending. So, it's not entirely a sham. Not always. Just sometimes.

I suppose this is similar to how many wineries operate. If they grow their own grapes, they might use the facilities of a larger winery to process/ferment their grapes, and then put the result into barrels and age them at their own warehouse, or maybe at someone else's warehouse. Or maybe they own a winery but not a vineyard, so they buy their grapes from independent farmers and do the rest themselves. Or maybe they buy anonymous wine made at an anonymous winery, blend it or oak it, and slap their own label on it. And every mix and combination thereof.

David Anthony at the AVClub trolls the internet:

It’s hard to think of a song as ineffective as “You Shook Me All Night Long.” It’s an ode to a particularly talented sexual conquest of Johnson’s, but not a single word in the song expresses that. Not only does Johnson open the song by comparing a woman to a car (a metaphor so weak it deserves to be put on cinder blocks), but then goes right ahead and says, “She’s the best damn woman that I ever seen.” He plays coy in the shittiest way possible, only to drop the facade less than a line later. It’s lazy in all the worst ways, never fully committing to its premise, and never rising above mediocrity when it at least tries.

"It’s an ode to a particularly talented sexual conquest of Johnson’s, but not a single word in the song expresses that." - WTF does that even mean? The entire song is about how "talented" the woman was.

I usually make meat loaf once every two weeks.

• Meat loaf mix from the store (beef, pork, veal ground together)
• An egg
• Bread crumbs
• Some finely-diced garlic, onion & bell pepper, gently-sauteed to soften (since they otherwise won't have time to cook in some of the variations below)
• A good squirt of Sriracha
• Salt, pepper, etc..

Squish it all up. And now you have pink slime.

Given a bowl of this squishy mess, I usually make one of the following:

1. The classic: a big ol' loaf
2. Mini loaves cooked in a muffin pan. They're a handy serving size!
3. Micro loaves cooked in a mini-muffin pan. They're like little oddly-shaped meatballs.
4. Meatballs (hand-roll, fry, bake). Takes the most work, but frying them makes increases the yummy.

Wifey likes the smaller ones because they're easier to take to work - pop a handful of meatballs into a baggie and then you can eat them with your fingers! And, the little ones cook quicker. But it takes a lot of work to clean a muffin pan after meatloaf grease has caramelized all over it.

But, the best thing to do with meatloaf mush is to shape it into patties and then grill it. And put Pepper Jack cheese on it. It's sublime.

Well, it was the hottest June ever, anyway.

Two weeks ago, this happened:

DONETSK, June 29, /ITAR-TASS/. Self-defence forces of the Donetsk People’s Republic have taken control over a missile defence army unit equipped with Buk missile defence systems, the press service of the Donetsk People’s Republic told Itar-Tass on Sunday.

So far, no details are available about the number and condition of the missile systems taken over by the self-defence forces. The press service refused to comment.

The Buk missile defence system is a mobile medium-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) system designed to defend field troops and logistics installations against air threats in conditions of heavy electronic countermeasures and intense enemy fire.

And today, this happened:

According to the anti-terrorist operation's information center, Ukraine's aviation did not fly today. The area where the plane crashed was in an area controlled by Kremlin-backed separatists.

Russian-backed separatist leader Igor Girkin (who also goes by the name of Strelkov) claimed credit. "The plane has just been taken down somewhere around Torez (Donetsk Oblast). It lays there behind the Progress mine. We did warn you – do not fly in 'our sky.' And here is the video proving another 'bird' falling down. The bird went down behind the slagheap, not in the residential district. So no peaceful people were injured. There is also information about another plane shot.

And now they are lying about it, because they didn't know WTF they were doing with their big weapons, and don't want anyone to know that their reckless negligence has killed hundreds of innocent people.

Delusional assholes with weapons they can't handle - fucking the world up, everywhere.

And, this whole thing puts me to thinking about what the US would look like if the blithering idiots who hoard guns for the always-coming revolution actually managed to get access to heavy weapons. Lots of innocent dead people, killed by trigger-happy suburbanites playing soldier, I suspect.

It's about projecting aggression.

Researchers at Texas A&M University, for a study published in the Journal of Human Resources, concluded that homicides had increased by 8 percent in the more than 20 states that had passed "castle doctrine" laws, many of which include Stand Your Ground provisions. That equals 600 additional homicides every year in those states, they wrote.

At the same time, however, the researchers found no detectable decrease in burglary, robbery or aggravated assault.

It's about trying to assuage gun-fondlers' insecurities.

BJ Pie Filter has been updated to accommodate the latest GreaseMonkey changes.

"I don't want [to] get into the debate about climate change," state Sen. Brandon Smith said, according to Louisville NPR affiliate WFPL. "But I’ll simply point out that I think in academia we all agree that the temperature on Mars is exactly as it is here. Nobody will dispute that. Yet there are no coal mines on Mars. There’s no factories on Mars that I'm aware of."

Maybe Sen Smith thinks John Carter was a documentary?

A Manassas City teenager accused of “sexting” a video to his girlfriend is now facing a search warrant in which Manassas City police and Prince William County prosecutors want to take a photo of his erect penis, possibly forcing the teen to become erect by taking him to a hospital and giving him an injection, the teen’s lawyers said.

...

The male teen was served with petitions from juvenile court in early February, and not arrested, but when the case went to trial in juvenile court in June, Foster said prosecutors forgot to certify that the teen was a juvenile. The case was dismissed, but police immediately obtained new charges and also a search warrant for his home. Police also arrested the teen and took him to juvenile jail, where Foster said they took photos of the teen’s genitals against his will.

The case was set for trial on July 1, where Foster said Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Claiborne Richardson told her that her client must either plead guilty or police would obtain another search warrant “for pictures of his erect penis,” for comparison to the evidence from the teen’s cell phone. Foster asked how that would be accomplished and was told that “we just take him down to the hospital, give him a shot and then take the pictures that we need.”

What the fuck kind of barbaric medieval nonsense is this? Because his GF texted him pix, and he responded in kind, he gets to be sexually assaulted and made into child porn by the local DA ?

Claiborne Richardson sounds like a complete asshole. And fuck you, too, Prince William County.

Update: common sense prevails.

Throwback to last week when a woman—not her boss—made her own decisions about her health care. #TBT pic.twitter.com/xmQ5e7DFmW

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) July 3, 2014

I'm wondering if I need to ask prospective companies what religion the corporation follows, the next time I'm looking for a job.