Dutch brewer creates beer that’s 60 percent alcohol. Incidentally, travel to the Netherlands spikes.
Anti-Defamation League agrees that bowing to religious bigots is not only wrong but goes against the founding principles of our nations, but thinks we should go ahead and do it anyway because we might hurt someone’s feelings.
Taliban says it will target all names mentioned in the WikiLeaks document. Also swears its Canadian girlfriend is WAY hot.
GOP filibusters bill that would cut taxes. Did I wake up in Bizarro World?

As summer winds down to August, all those movies that studios either couldn’t make sense of or otherwise couldn’t cut it get unleashed on the public. Consequently August is a kind of limbo; most of the releases have the hallmark of a blockbuster but aren’t quite “award season” material. They’re somewhere in between. As with February, some serious gems can slip in under the radar. But there’s a lot of chaff to get through to find that wheat.
Bureau Chiefs Dorian Wright and Ken Lowery take a look at the upcoming …

Asshole available. Cost: $18 million.
A judge blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona’s “show me your papers” law on the grounds that requiring legal aliens to carry proof of citizenship infringes their liberty. Libertarians not expected to be sympathetic, strangely enough.
Life insurance company puts payments for dead soldiers into their corporate accounts rather than paying the beneficiaries. In case your populist rage needed stoking today.
A new study shows that the “digital native” generation is not necessarily more Web-savvy than older generations, despite growing up with computers. A generation of Baby …

WARNING: There will be plenty of spoilers in this frank and open discussion of the fourth season premiere of Mad Men, “Public Relations.” So hold onto your hams, because here we go.
BENJAMIN: I’ll just start off by saying that it’s going to be tough to be objective about the entire episode when it ended on such a ridiculously high and thrilling note. Seeing Don grasp the spotlight with both hands with the zeal we’ve previously only seen him have for finding translations for “Hilton” was a practically fist-pumping moment. Nashville Teens’ booming “Tobacco Road” didn’t …

Well, shit, here we go again.
Google to bring the success of Nexus One and Buzz to Facebook Clone.
Washington man robbed banks to fund “true patriot” movement. An isolated incident and not part of a larger pattern, we’re sure.
Top Fox News sponsor Goldline under investigation by agencies local and federal for potential criminal practices. It turns out Glenn Beck–wait for it–may have been distorting news and history to sell you stuff.
Oliver Stone likely out of running for Anne Frank movie.

Consumers given free reign to find new ways to screw up their toys.
Internet users not willing to pay for services they can get for free according to new study. In a related story, researchers continue to get funding to conduct studies with painfully obvious answers.
“Nothing new revealed here,” Obama says. “We already knew the Afghanistan war was an unwinnable fiasco.”
Jersey Shore cast opens NYSE.Stock tumble shortly afterwards bound to be a coincidence.

In the immortal and possibly slightly paraphrased words of noted philosopher Jamie Farr (from one of his appearances on The Gong Show): “What you see is what you got, what you don’t see might be hot!”
Oh, Mr. Squirrel in Underpants…you are such a tease!
Though thinking on this further…the auction reads as follows:
“Are you sick and tired of squirrels running naked in the trees around your house?  Have you had to hide your children’s eyes when a tiny furry streaker crosses the sidewalk in front of you?”
I’m assuming these squirrels were …

This week, since there weren’t really any albums coming out I felt compelled to review (none I could stream, anyway), I figured I’d take a look back at the shows I saw weekend before last at the Pitchfork Music Festival here in my newly adopted home city of Chicago.
FRIDAY
The first set I saw on the sweltering first day of the festival, fresh from ditching work a couple hours early, was former Def Jux label head El-P, who started out a little rough — the first song, “Smithereens (Stop Crying)” was …

Health insurance companies stop providing coverage for children. Another crushing blow against socialism!
Florida church plans “Burn a Koran” day to demonstrate how Christianity is a religion of peace and love.
Arizona’s economy on verge of collapse.
Hedge fund manager corners world cocoa supply. Yeah, you laugh now, but this is basically how super-villains start.
Wealthy white man calls people opposed to racial discrimination names.