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September 30, 2005

Poverty Versus the Underclass

Charles Murray draws an excellent distinction in an editorial in yesterday's Wall Street Journal (thanks to Byron for the tip). Opportunistic politicians believe that they have rediscovered poverty in the wake of the hurricanes, but it isn't poverty we've been confronted with — it's the underclass.

Poverty is associated with the underclass only because the mentality that characterizes the underclass inevitably leads to indigence. Absent this mentality, poverty is solved by opportunity. But the underclass, by definition, rejects opportunity because of the responsibility it entails. The availability of jobs that draws so many immigrants into this country makes no difference to the underclass, because its members have no interest in jobs.

There were people who didn't evacuate New Orleans as Katrina approached because they couldn't be bothered to, despite some predictions that would have put them under 30 feet of water. When they lucked out instead of drowning, they looted and shot at rescuers, or inertly waited for someone else to do something. This is the behavior of the underclass.

Certainly there are poor people who struggle and take responsibility for themselves and their families. But in America, people like that don't stay poor for long. To stay poor long enough to pass poverty on through generations, Americans would almost have to be members of the underclass.

The reason throwing money at poverty only exacerbates the problem is that free money allows the underclass to thrive. For the most part, the sort of poverty that we saw floundering in the wake of Katrina is not caused by lack of opportunity. It is caused by an underclass that thrives on the wrong kind of opportunity: the opportunity to avoid responsibility.

Posted by Van Helsing at 1:53 PM | Comments (5)

Gaza Synagogue to Be Converted to Terror Weapons Museum

More cheerful news from the abandoned Gaza strip:

Emboldened by Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and part of the West Bank, Hamas yesterday announced its plan to turn a synagogue in Netzarim into a museum that would display weapons employed by the terrorist group's members against Israeli civilians.

The museum will display "Qassam rockets and other locally made arms" that according to Hamas, "evicted the occupation forces." Presumably this would include the sort of bombs used to turn school buses into abattoirs.

Israel has insisted that no armed terror groups participate in the parliamentary elections scheduled for January. But whether the Palestinian Authority can or will even seriously try to disarm Hamas remains in question. A joint statement by the USA, European Union, Russia, and UN indicates that an armed-to-the-teeth Hamas has found international acceptance:

We also agreed that ultimately those who want to be part of the political process should not engage in armed group or militia activities.

The operative word here is "ultimately" — bureaucratese for "maybe someday" — which effectively negates the whole sentence.

I wonder if Hamas' new terror weapons museum will charge admission, or if it will rely on subsidies from Western taxpayers.

Thanks to Wiggins for the tip.

Posted by Van Helsing at 1:09 PM | Comments (1)

Border Moonbattery Soon to Decline?

When it comes to the fundamental duty of our government to defend our borders from invasion, there has been plenty of moonbattery on both sides of the aisle. But if James Pinkerton is right, it might be due to let up.

For their own political reasons, neither Republicans nor Democrats have had any interest in protecting us from an invasion across our southern border. Democrats of course will welcome anyone who isn't Caucasian into the country, in hopes of promoting the ruinous balkanization of America, which they have been able to exploit for votes. For their part, Republicans have betrayed Lincoln's "one nation" legacy in favor of cheap labor and politically correct pandering.

Obviously, there have been downsides to the "open border" approach. One is that, as Pinkerton observes, "homeland security is a joke if the government can't figure who people are and how they got here." Another is a crippling drain on our social resources. A third is an increase in violent crime, particularly crime by vicious gangs like MS-13. A fourth is the illegal drugs pouring over the border. I could go on.

Pinkerton certainly speaks for me when he announces that the American middle class has finally had enough:

Enough of illegal immigration, enough of multiculturalism, enough of carelessness about homeland security. The Silent Majority will no longer allow an arrogant elite to speak for it on fundamental issues of national and cultural destiny. The Lincoln vision — a house not divided against itself — looks pretty good right now.

He's not the first to notice this growing swell of opinion. Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, probably the government's most outspoken advocate of controlling our borders, recently finished second in a 2008-preference straw poll by Michigan Republicans. Southwestern Democratic Governors Janet Napolitano and Bill Richardson appear to realize that the border issue cannot be ignored.

Pinkerton calls immigration the sleeper issue of the 2008. There's been enough sleeping when it comes to border security. By 2008, our representatives are going to have to wake up — or suffer the consequences on election day.

Thanks to Byron for the tip.

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:30 AM | Comments (2)

September 29, 2005

Another Six Years of Robert "Sheets" Byrd?

The 87-year-old Democrat Robert Byrd is running for reelection to the Senate yet again.

The former butcher and KKK Kleagle began his political career as a state legislator 59 years ago. Although Byrd left the Klan in 1943, he continued his association with the group long afterward, and was still publicly calling people "niggers" as recently as 2001. In 1964 Byrd demonstrated his devotion to racial harmony by filibustering the Civil Rights Act for 14 straight hours. His opposition to black nominees Thurgood Marshall, Clarence Thomas, and Condoleezza Rice was unyielding.

He does have a gift for rhetoric, as displayed in this well-known quote:

I should rather die a thousand times and see old glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again than see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen of the wilds.

Thanks to the remarkable moral elasticity of the Democratic party, none of this has prevented Barack Obama from pleading for money on Byrd's behalf.

But Byrd is known for more than his bigotry. Some know him as the King of Pork. Byrd doesn't mind a bit:

They call me "The Pork King," they don't know how much I enjoy it.

Thanks to his privileged position on the Appropriations Committee, Byrd was able to rake in $399 million in pork for his state in 2005 — that's $220 for each of West Virginia's inhabitants.

Byrd is also remarkable for his ego. He convinced the state legislature to erect a statue of himself in the state Capitol, despite the West Virginia law prohibiting statues of government officials who have not been dead for at least 50 years.

At least Sheets won't have to worry about senility. Anyone who has seen him holding forth on the Senate floor can tell you that he has passed through to whatever lies beyond it.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:51 PM | Comments (10)

How to Lie With Photography

The key is not what the photograph says, but what you make sure it does not say. Zombie demonstrates how it's done by the pros at the San Francisco Chronicle.

Say you're a photojournalist of the useful idiot variety and you come across a communist stage-managing some ghetto riffraff to pose with obscene placards and Palestinian flags in order to express their hostility toward Western Civilization. The communist is way too far out there to understand or even care that the scene she has composed will frighten and/or disgust normal people; if she weren't, she wouldn't be walking around in a shirt representing the flag of the totalitarian regime that brought hell to Earth in Vietnam.

The useful idiot photojournalist's task is to convert this scene into something that can be sold to people who shower on a regular basis. Bridging the gap between pompous, phony liberal elitists and the barely human barbarians they champion in opposition to their own society is a crucial task of mainstream media propagandists. Failure to perform this task effectively could result in moonbattery being laughed out of existence.

Here's a shot that takes in the whole scene (please excuse the obscenities; not to worry, they will be edited out):

Even most Democrats would cross the street — if not move to suburbia — to avoid this kind of sociopathic lowlife. But notice the girl in center — if you just zoom in on her, and cut out everything else, the bandana over her face loses its context, so that it seems almost more cute than sinister, just as a little kid dressed up as a pirate for Halloween would evoke none of the dread of a real-life cutthroat buccaneer.

So here's how the Chronicle presented the scene to its readers:

Nice work, huh? Images often go right to our subconscious, bypassing the usual critical filters as if they were raw experience. One properly cropped picture is worth a thousand words of frenzied editorial page bloviations. You have to hand it to the mainstream media: they may not know what they're doing, but they know how to do it.

Thanks to Debris Trail at Celestial Junk Blog for the tip.

Posted by Van Helsing at 1:06 PM | Comments (9)

Pataki Spikes Ground Zero Desecration

Excellent news:

Governor George Pataki has cancelled plans to build the controversial International Freedom Center at the World Trade Center site — and representatives of the center say the location change has forced the entire project to be scrapped.

Yes, this abomination — a scheme by leftist extremists to subvert a symbol of national unity — really is dead. From a statement by the IFC:

We are deeply disappointed that the will could not be found to continue the development of the International Freedom Center at this hallowed site. We do not believe there is a viable alternative place for the IFC at the World Trade Center site. We consider our work, therefore, to have been brought to an end.

Mayor Bloomberg responded as you might expect of a socialist who runs as a Republican:

Although I understand Governor Pataki's decision, I am disappointed that we were not able to find a way to reconcile the freedoms we hold so dear with the sanctity of the site.

What? This was never about freedom; it was about America-bashing at the one site where it would be least appropriate. Mayor Mike sure knows how to make you miss Giuliani. Here's what Rudy had to say:

The governor has made the right decision.

Amen. Kudos to Take Back the Memorial, for proving that we do not have to accept passively what the Left tries to hand us.

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:45 AM | Comments (4)

September 28, 2005

William Bradford: The Anti–Ward Churchill

From the point of view of a moonbat, what could be more intolerable than a black conservative? The way blacks with the independence and self-respect to stray from the Democratic plantation are treated, you might think nothing. But what about a patriotic Indian?

There's no reason that Indians shouldn't be patriotic, or any reason to think that they aren't — but don't spread that around in the morbid alternate reality known as academia.

Indiana University Associate Professor William Bradford has gotten himself into hot water by refusing to sign a petition in support of faux Indian Ward Churchill and Churchill's belief that those who died on 9/11 deserved what they got for being "little Eichmanns." What makes this thoroughly unforgivable is the fact that unlike Churchill, Bradford really is part Indian (half Apache).

Bradford's other sins include support for Operation Iraqi Freedom and writing a defense of a flag display put up after 9/11 (it was eventually taken down by his left-wing colleagues). He is also a Gulf War vet who served in the U.S. Army infantry from 1994 to 2001. Despite impressive productivity and popularity with his students, he has been denied tenure on the grounds that he is "uncollegial" — a term that is evidently synonymous with "politically incorrect."

The petition was circulated by IU law professor Florence Wagman Roisman, a certifiable moonbat who openly takes pride in her fanaticism. One of her leftist jihads involved successfully removing evergreens from holiday displays at the law school at Christmastime. Roisman, who seems to have taken an active roll in blackballing Bradford, is a walking parody of ivory tower hypocrisy. Here she goes:

I find it ironic that Professor Bradford is going to the media to complain about his status here and he doesn’t understand why academics supported a tenured professor whose tenure was being threatened. The whole point is that people who teach — whether or not they are tenured — should enjoy freedom to express what they believe to be accurate, true or important. I don't have to agree with Professor Ward Churchill to support him. I support his right to think what he thinks is accurate.

But what Professor Bradford thinks is accurate is forbidden — particularly for an Indian.

It's no wonder that only jellyfish float to the top in the sea of academia these days. Anyone with a spine is set upon by sharks. If Bradford were only a contemptible weasel willing to endorse Ward Churchill and malign his own country, he would probably have his tenure by now. But his self-respect is worth considerably more.

[source] [source]

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:00 PM

Charlie Rangel Opens the Floodgates of Demagoguery

Did Congressman(!) Charles Rangel step over a line when he incongruously compared President Bush to Birmingham's former Police Commissioner Bull Connor, the Democrat who came to personify anti-black bigotry? Not at all. He merely threw down a gauntlet, challenging other race-bating demagogues to see if they could match him for the sheer absurdity of his incendiary rhetoric.

It didn't take long for them to rise to the challenge. NYC Councilman Charles Barron bellowed that the comparison is "an insult to Connor." Al Sharpton intoned that "we've gone from fire hoses to levees" (New Orleans levees were damaged not by Katrina, but by the Bush Administration in order to harm black people, according to the Calypso Louie crowd). Another Congressman(!), Major Owens, declared, "Bull Connor didn't even pretend that he cared about African Americans. You have to give it to George Bush for being even more diabolical."

If anyone has encountered any credible information that President Bush has ever shown any ill intent toward black people, inform the mainstream media immediately. They will be eternally grateful.

Posted by Van Helsing at 1:09 PM | Comments (7)

Academic Proves Religion Makes America Inferior

In a truly astounding display of bigotry and arrogance, The Times relates the findings of a study that started with the irrefutable (for some) premises that (a) America is excessively religious and (b) America is a horrible place, and arrived at the conclusion that religious belief causes damage to society.

Religion is held accountable for increasing the rates of murder, abortion, sexual promiscuity, and suicide. I'm not kidding, and apparently neither is The Times. If the lie is outrageous enough, people just might believe it — especially if they want to believe it, which Times readers presumably do for such an appalling piece of garbage to make it into their publication.

The study, which appeared in the American academic journal Journal of Religion and Society, wears hatred of America on its sleeve. "Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world," the author Gregory Paul curls his lip to sneer, before gloatingly declaring that "the United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so."

Paul's clever research was able to discover that "the least devout nations were the least dysfunctional." Due to an alleged high incidence of syphilis, gonorrhea, and abortion in the USA, Paul couldn't avoid the logical conclusion that these problems are caused by faith. After all, according to Paul, "The study shows that England, despite the social ills it has, is actually performing a good deal better than the USA in most indicators, even though it is now a much less religious nation than America." Paul found the disparity even greater when comparing the "dysfunctional" US with dreamy places like France.

"I suspect that Europeans are increasingly repelled by the poor societal performance of the Christian states," Paul sniffed. "The Christian states" in this context means the United States.

Personally I suspect that decent people, religious and otherwise, are increasingly repelled by pompous moonbats who try to pass off their bigotry as science.

Hat tip: Drudge Report.

Cross-posted at The Wide Awakes.

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:45 AM | Comments (5)

September 27, 2005

Radiology Offers Clues Into Democratic Party's Pathology

Thanks to Byron for passing this along.

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:24 PM

Tweety Gets His Feathers Singed

Representative Pete King (R-NY) laid into a smirking, adolescent Chris Matthews on Hardball last night. Here's a quote that Tweety and his colleagues would do well to remember:

Just because the President doesn't watch you on television doesn't mean he's not doing his job.

Political Teen has the video. Thanks to Byron for the tip.

Posted by Van Helsing at 5:17 PM | Comments (3)

Moonbattery Is Not Pretty, Part III

If you're not convinced yet, check out this and this (hat tip: LGF). If those don't do it, Mike's America was kind(?) enough to pass along this.

Warning: all pictures rated R for Revolting. Guaranteed to counteract excessive doses of Viagra.

Posted by Van Helsing at 12:25 PM | Comments (8)

Moonbattery Is Not Pretty, Part II

Sorry about this...

Compliments of Wiggins.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:44 AM | Comments (10)

Moonbattery Is Not Pretty

Here are some pictures from last weekend's gala moonbat extravaganza in Washington, via Narley.org, where you can go to see plenty more.

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:49 AM | Comments (1)

September 26, 2005

"Antiwar" Movement Is Anything But

Christopher Hitchens published a piece today that serves as a good reminder that what the revolting riffraff constituting the "antiwar" movement is against is America, not war.

International ANSWER, which has played a key roll in most of the major "antiwar" demonstrations since 9/11, has no problem whatsoever with military force when it is applied on behalf of totalitarian communism. It is a front group for the Workers World Party, which split off from Trotskyist communists because the latter disapproved of Soviet tanks rolling into Hungary in 1956 to crush those brave enough to aspire to freedom there. To the WWP, the only good place for a counter-revolutionary is under the treads of a tank.

Hitchens makes some good points about the folks behind the scenes of spectacles like the one in Washington last weekend, points you won't see raised in the New York Times:

To be against war and militarism, in the tradition of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, is one thing. But to have a record of consistent support for war and militarism, from the Red Army in Eastern Europe to the Serbian ethnic cleansers and the Taliban, is quite another. It is really a disgrace that the liberal press refers to such enemies of liberalism as "antiwar" when in reality they are straight-out pro-war, but on the other side. Was there a single placard saying, "No to Jihad"? Of course not. Or a single placard saying, "Yes to Kurdish self-determination" or "We support Afghan women's struggle"? Don't make me laugh. And this in a week when Afghans went back to the polls, and when Iraqis were preparing to do so, under a hail of fire from those who blow up mosques and U.N. buildings, behead aid workers and journalists, proclaim fatwahs against the wrong kind of Muslim, and utter hysterical diatribes against Jews and Hindus.

Most of the people who participate in these demonstrations are just useful idiots. But the ones running the show are something infinitely worse. They are the ones to whom useful idiots are useful — the ones who would like to see the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge and the gulags of the Soviet Union replace the USA. Without employing the concept of evil, their mentality would be impossible to fathom.

Thanks to Byron for the tip.

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:23 PM | Comments (3)

If This Woman Doesn't Disgust You Yet...

...then nothing I can say will help:

She wasn't getting enough attention, so today she resorted to the infantile but reliable tactic of deliberately becoming enough of a public nuisance to get herself arrested. On top of disgracing her son's memory in route to becoming the most shameless media whore this country has ever seen, she has also broken the heart of poor Chad at Cake or Death?.

Photo lifted from Caption This!.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:44 PM | Comments (2)

Coalition Against Civilization

On his way to the library, Baron Bodissey of Gates of Vienna happened upon the Charlottesville Vegetarian Festival, where he came to a table set up by the Coalition Against Civilization, an activist group that is upfront about its goal of literally destroying civilization. His account of what he learned is highly recommended reading, especially for anyone who thinks it's a coincidence that whenever left-wing extremists actually take power, people die by the millions.

In moonbat ideology, genocide is inescapable. How could you sustain 6 billion people (many of whom are not on board with the left-wing agenda) after ridding the world of capitalism and industrialization so as to liberate Gaia? You couldn't. The vast majority of us would have to die. The Greenies know it, and don't mind. Because if the Green crowd ever took control, they would get to decide who stays and who goes.

It seems fantastic that we should have to be afraid of lowlife idiots of the Cindy Sheehan variety. But we do need to be afraid. Even Sheehan is apparently sophisticated enough to brush her teeth, which is more than could be said for Mao Zedong, who was nonetheless able to kill tens of millions of people in a highly civilized country.

As Stalin famously said, "One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic." The phrase "kill tens of millions of people" probably slid right by most readers without even raising goose bumps.

Don't let it slip by.

We don't ever want to forget that no matter how absurd it is, no matter how it tempts us to snicker and roll our eyes, the Left isn't just insane — it is evil. The road of left-wing politics may lead through a funhouse, but it inevitably dead ends here:

Thank you V the K for the tip.

Posted by Van Helsing at 1:41 PM | Comments (4)

Moonbats Converge on Washington, Few Seem to Notice

After hearing reports that a rally sponsored by the Stalinist front group International ANSWER drew such respected intellectuals as Cindy Sheehan, Al Sharpton, and Jesse Jackson — as well as cultural heavy hitters in the prime of their career such as Joan Baez and Jessica Lange, and political powerhouses Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader — President Bush realized that he had no choice: He agreed to unilaterally withdraw all troops from Iraq immediately. A formal surrender to al Qaeda was not thought necessary; after a year or two of horrific blood letting, al Qaeda will surely be able to take over Iraq and translate the country's oil wealth into nuclear, chemical, and/or biological weapons that will render surrender on our part a superfluous formality.

Just kidding, fortunately.

Despite the MSM's attempts to portray the surrender-to-al-Qaeda movement as representing a rational point of view, even the Democratic Party knows better. You didn't see Hillary or even Hanoi John Kerry with an arm around the Ditch Witch last weekend. As far as I know, the only elected official involved was Cynthia McKinney, a malevolent kook who has publicly implied that the Bush Administration was in on 9/11, and who — when Rudy Giuliani turned down a handout from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal after 9/11 because it came with a "but you deserved it" message attached — wrote the slimy Prince pleading that other Americans would not be too proud to take the money.

Even the gushingly sympathetic New York Times buried the Sheehanista rally on page 26 Sunday morning. Poor Cindy, her 15 minutes are up and no one is paying attention anymore. Here's what she had to whine on Daily Kos recently (hat tip LGF, on a tip from V the K):

i am watching cnn and it is 100 percent rita...even though it is a little wind and a little rain...it is bad, but there are other things going on in this country today...and in the world!!!!

Imagine, wasting time covering a stupid little hurricane, as if Cindy Sheehan and her revolting left-wing freak show weren't the center of the universe.

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:43 AM | Comments (3)

September 25, 2005

NPR Reporter Lobbies to Reschedule Supreme Court Hearings

Anyone who spends much time listening to NPR has probably developed a tolerance to the general air of privilege, superiority, and downright arrogance that characterizes this bastion of liberal elitism, but this is too much:

Nina Totenberg, the legal reporter for National Public Radio, cornered the chief of staff of Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee; Totenberg was lobbying to schedule the next round of Supreme Court hearings around her vacation plans, which she had scheduled to coincide with her wedding anniversary.

Any other requests, Nina? Maybe you would like the hearing room to be redone in chartreuse to match your new handbag? Why not ask to have Roberts replaced by Garrison Keillor as the nominee?

Thanks to V the K for the tip.

Posted by Van Helsing at 1:35 PM | Comments (3)

Carnage Caused by Slapstick Jihadists

It's nice that now all the evil Jews are pulling out of the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians there will be free at last to live in peace and harmony in a kind of Muslim Shangri-la, free from Zionist oppression. But wait, what's this:

JEBALIYA, Gaza Strip — A truck filled with masked militants and homemade weapons exploded at a Hamas rally Friday, killing at least 15 Palestinians and wounding 80 — including children...

Hamas of course blamed Israel for the incident, claiming it was a missile attack, and vowing to "avenge the blood of our martyrs." But Palestinian officials said it was an accident, caused by mishandling explosives.

Due to the popularity of terrorists among children in that culture (kids need to have role models, after all), dozens were wounded because they had crowded around the exploding militants' truck like teenyboppers greeting the Beatles.

This isn't the first deadly mishap to occur in Gaza in the wake of Israel's pullout — a Hamas weapons warehouse exploded; a militant managed to accidentally shoot himself in the head during an Islamic Jihad rally — and it probably won't be the last:

Even after the blast Friday, seven or eight gunmen stood in the back of another truck riding through Gaza, using their feet to stop a half-dozen rockets from bouncing around in the bed.

Maybe if we send the Palestinians enough free money, they'll have some left over after buying all the rockets they need to invest in safety courses for terrorists.

Thanks to Wiggins for the tip and the picture.

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:08 AM | Comments (3)

September 24, 2005

The International Freedom Center and Slippery Hillary

New York Newsday is conducting a poll on the sacrilegious International Freedom Center planned for Ground Zero, which shows every indication of serving as a soapbox for anti-American propagandists at the one place on the planet where their sociopathic bile simply cannot be tolerated. Results of the poll so far look highly promising — last I looked, 96.8% are opposed to the IFC (and Newsday is by no means a conservative publication). Still, these results are 3.2% off of where they should be, so please cast your vote.

In other IFC news, it seems Senator Clinton's finger to the wind has detected the righteous rage decent people feel when confronted by the IFC obscenity. She is now on record as opposing it.

Let's see if Hillary can be equally reasonable when it comes to the demands of the black leadership network Project 21 that she publicly condemn the outrageous remarks made in her presence in front of the Congressional Black Caucus by race-baiting demagogue and Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel, who compared President Bush to Bull Conner, the Birmingham Alabama Police Commissioner who came to personify anti-black racism. From Yahoo! News:

"I'd be interested in viewing any footage Congressman Rangel has of our President turning fire hoses on black Americans," said Project 21 member Kevin Martin. "While the differences between George W. Bush and Bull Connor begin superficially with the fact that Connor was a Democrat, it's more important to note that President Bush has the most racially diverse administration in presidential history, and these appointees serve in some of the highest positions. If Congressman Rangel is referring to policy, I fail to see how trying to give everyone the ability to make their own choices on things like retirement security, medical care and education, not be burdened by taxes and be safe at home and abroad is akin to enforcing a separation of the races."

But of course, the Congressional Black Caucus was a different audience than the 9/11 relatives waiting for her to object to the IFC, so Hillary spoke out of a different side of her mouth, warmly applauding a diatribe by Harry Belafonte in which Day-O! basically blamed America for every problem suffered by anyone anywhere:

I move among the poor, I move among the tragic, I move among those who are the victims of human and moral disaster. And when I go to these places I see American policy written on the walls of oppression everywhere.

Hillary followed this up with a speech of her own, in which she demonstrated her devotion to American unity with this preposterous and inflammatory lie:

There is a concerted effort to make it even harder for poor people and non-English-speaking people and elderly people to vote in this country.

Kind of reminds you of Yasser Arafat, the way he used to tell the Western media that all he wanted was peace, then turn around and tell his fellow Arabs to kill as many Jewish civilians as possible. Too bad Hillary can't speak in two different languages the way Arafat did, one for her rabid down-with-America base, and the other for everyone else.

Posted by Van Helsing at 5:53 PM | Comments (4)

Hard Times for Leftist Propagandists

Air America continues to thrash out in all directions, grasping for whatever cash it can find to sustain its pathetic existence from one day to the next. Leather Penguin (tip from V the K) reports on a fundraising letter they are sending out, begging their handful of listeners to become "Air America Associates" — i.e., to donate money to this corrupt enterprise as though it were a charity. Just like with NPR you get cheesy little "gifts" in return for the money. But unlike NPR, it isn't a tax write-off, and unlike NPR, Air America hasn't been allocated a government teat to suck on when the free market shows the good sense not to sustain it. If you have suffered a head injury that has left you willing to spend $100 on three bumper stickers and a "stylish tote," here's your chance. But hey, this is less pathetic than stealing from a charity.

Fortunately for the leaky boat known as Air America, its like-minded allies in the mainstream media are keeping its scandals quiet, lest the bad publicity it so richly deserves sink it completely. The print Washington Post has apparently never even mentioned the looting of Gloria Wise. The two liberal New York papers, the Times and the Daily News, have barely touched on it, and not since early August.

Unfortunately for Air America, their MSM allies aren't doing well either. NY Times stock hit a new low after their announcement that they are laying off 500 workers. They too seem to be desperate for cash — they are now asking people to pay $49.95 per year for online access to an editorial page that features cartoonish left-wing fools Frank Rich, Thomas Friedman, Paul Krugman, and Maureen Dowd. If they really want people to read this crap, they ought to be paying us. At fifty bucks, they could at least throw in a stylish tote.

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:03 AM | Comments (8)

September 23, 2005

How to Blame Bush for Rita?

Well, if the media can't convince people that President Bush has power over the wind and the rain and is only hitting his home state by mistake, they could always take the approach of blaming the American economic system in general, which Bush has generated so much hostility by personifying in the minds of liberals.

It's true that I'm referring to the economic system that has created the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. But thanks to liberalism, even here you can find people who react to adversity by lying on their backs bawling for the government to come and change their diapers. These folks make for great propaganda, especially when they aren't Caucasian — as demonstrated by a piece on KOMO News stirringly entitled "No Way Out: Tears, Anger As Many Poor Are Stuck", which proclaimed:

For the poor and the disenfranchised, the mighty evacuation orders that preceded Rita were something they could only ignore.

This is supported by the heart-wrenching story of a guy trying to get into a check-cashing store at the last minute:

"All the banks are closed and I just got off work," said Thomas Visor, holding his sweaty paycheck as he, too, tried to get inside the store, where more than 100 people, all of them black or Hispanic, fretted in line. "This is crazy. How are you supposed to evacuate a hurricane if you don't have money? Answer me that?"

Others are apparently being further oppressed by the fact that they are in our country illegally:

On Bellaire Boulevard in southwest Houston, a weeping woman and her young daughter stood on the sidewalk, surrounded by plastic bags full of clothes and blankets. "I'd like to go, but nobody come get me," the woman said in broken English. When asked her name, she looked frightened. "No se, no se," she said: Spanish for "I don't know."

Her daughter, who appeared to be about 9, whispered in English, "We're from Mexico."

But the white man isn't all bad. Here's an uplifting anecdote:

Eddie McKinney, 64, who had no home, no teeth and a torn shirt, stood outside the EZ Pawn shop, drinking a beer under a sign that said, "No Loitering."

"We got no other choice but to stay here. We're homeless and we're broke," he said. "I thought about going to Dallas, but now it's too late. I got no way to get there."

Where will he stay?

"A nice white man gave me a motel room for three days. Just walked up and said, 'Here.' So my buddy and me will stick it out," he said, pointing to another homeless man. "We got a half-gallon of whiskey and a room."

Nice to see that they gave some thought to provisions.

Middle-aged surfer John Benson of Galveston is all set to weather Rita too:

Benson said he planned to use his surfboard as transportation after the hurricane. "The main thing is you have a contingency plan," he said, and thumped his board. "You got buoyancy."

Shamefully, it appears the Federal Government has taken no responsibility for seeing to it that residents are equipped with surfboards.

Thanks to Wiggins for the picture and the tip.

Posted by Van Helsing at 12:03 PM | Comments (4)

Congrats, Chirac — You Must Be Very Proud

A dhimmi and a terrorist are honored together on Palestinian Authority stamps. From Jihad Watch via ¡No Pasarán!.

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:45 AM | Comments (7)

September 22, 2005

Hillary Throws in Her Lot With the Cuckoos on Roberts

Hillary Clinton is between a rock and a hard place. She wants to come across as reasonable enough to get elected, and yet the Democratic Party is increasingly falling under the domination of rabid fanatics who regard fair play as akin to collusion with the enemy.

The Roberts nomination had to present a real quandary for her. As far as I know, no one has questioned Roberts' qualifications. Even Patrick Leahy, hardly a moderate, voted to confirm him. Yet the foamy-mouthed Sheehanista Deaniac set will never forgive a stance that falls short of total dedication to obstruction. They require that any Republican nominee be voted against for the sin of being a Republican nominee.

This evening Drudge reports that Hillary has made up her mind, and has thrown in her lot with the fanatics. She will vote against Roberts, regardless of his qualifications.

Three years to go to the election and the moderate mask is already slipping off her face.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:29 PM | Comments (3)

The Difference Between New Orleans and Houston

From GOP Bloggers, via No Oil for Pacifists.

Posted by Van Helsing at 5:07 PM | Comments (3)

Mother Moonbat's Numbers Not Adding Up to Much

Cindy Sheehan and her moonbat horde marched down Pennsylvania Avenue to attack the White House yesterday, confronting President Bush with their latest prop, an oversized petition. An awesome army of righteousness, aren't they?

Of course, as Confederate Yankee points out, they look a little less awesome without Yahoo's helpful cropping:

The truth is, Sheehan's army consisted of only about 30 drooling kooks. They could have tripled their number by getting sympathetic journalists to put their cameras down and join in.

After hearing a local shock jock yukking it up at Mother Moonbat's expense by asserting that Sheehan "smells like New Orleans" and "if I knocked out a couple molars, I could look like her," V the K concluded that it is time to stick a fork in her. This weekend's planned Gala Moonbat Extravaganza featuring Sheehan, George Galloway, and Ramsey Clark notwithstanding, it looks like he's right.

Hat tip: LGF.

Posted by Van Helsing at 1:46 PM | Comments (6)

The Domino Effect II

A. M. Mora y Leon has written a chilling piece on The American Thinker on the reemergence of possibly the purest distillation of evil yet devised — communism — as an aggressively expanding threat.

It seems the domino effect that left millions dead in Southeast Asia may be alive and well in Latin America. Hugo Chavez is well on his way to reducing Venezuela to another pitiful hellhole like Cuba. Now he and his role model Fidel Castro are backing a Marxist named Evo Morales who wants to do the same to Bolivia. Next in line appears to be Paraguay, which would give the totalitarian Left leverage over Brazil and Argentina. Meanwhile, Brazil is paying about as much attention as Clinton did to bin Laden.

Thank you Byron for passing along the link.

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:49 AM | Comments (2)

September 21, 2005

RIP Simon Wiesenthal

Yesterday the Simon Wiesenthal Center announced the death of its namesake. After surviving the Nazi death camps, Wiesenthal devoted his life to hunting down the perpetrators of the massive crime known as the Holocaust. He is credited with helping to bring over 1,100 war criminals to justice.

Wiesenthal was liberated from the Mauthausen concentration camp, where inmates sewed this flag in secrecy during the final days of World War II:

The inmates didn't know that the flag should have had 48 stars, not 56.

But they knew what the flag means.

Thank you Wiggins for information and the picture.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:17 PM | Comments (3)

Sheehanista Potheads Call Kettle Black

When the Cindy Sheehan Show rolled into Manhattan's Union Square Monday, her handlers didn't bother with the necessary permits, and consequently had their party shut down after Mother Moonbat delivered her daily diatribe against the Great Satan America. What you might not know about this incident if you learned about it from the NY Times' cloying coverage was the reaction of Sheehan's zombie hordes to being asked to obey the law like everyone else.

Ready for some heavy irony? Via yesterday's New York Sun:

The arrest of an organizer of an anti-war gathering yesterday at Union Square that featured Cindy Sheehan provoked a furious reaction from protesters, who pressed up against police officers and called them "pigs," "fascists," and "Stalinists."

Emphasis mine, although I doubt you would have missed how rich it is that literal Stalinists (as at least some of Sheehan's handlers are — e.g., International ANSWER) would choose that particular epithet to insult the police officers charged with the unpleasant duty of having to protect the public from their disorderly behavior. Given the low personal hygiene standards and high degree of anti-Semitism prevalent among Sheehanistas, their choice of the terms "pigs" and "fascists" is also good for a snicker.

The arrested organizer was Paul Zulkowitz, who was hauled off to be charged with unlawful use of a sound device and disorderly conduct, as a trumpeter described as "sarcastic" played a disrespectful rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" and Mother Moonbat was whisked away to yet another television interview. This is Zulkowitz's third arrest in the last six months. By now we're getting a pretty clear idea of the sort of company Cindy Sheehan keeps.

Hat tip: Times Watch.

Posted by Van Helsing at 12:36 PM | Comments (2)

The Mouth From the South Sounds Off

Wonderful news! North Korea is not a threat, according to the great Ted Turner, founder of CNN, where he appeared on Monday to share his remarkable opinions with Wolf Blitzer and the world.

North Korea may be able to nuke South Korea and Japan, but that's no problem, because at the moment they can't reach the USA. Well, they can already reach parts of Alaska, but according to Turner, "there's nothing up there but a few sea lions."

It turns out Kim Jong-Il has been getting bad press. Although Turner didn't get to meet him on his recent trip to the North Korean workers' paradise, he has seen pictures, and the Stalinist dictator "didn't look too much different than most other people." Two eyes, a nose, a mouth — same as us, so how bad could he be?

Life under communism isn't as awful as we thought. Although Turner admitted that the people are thin, he didn't personally witness any brutality during his visit, and didn't seem much bothered that the inmates of that hellish country are literally starving.

Turner, who has been outspoken in his contempt for Christians, referred to the Bible in the course of an incoherent attempt to explain why we ought to embrace Kim Jong-Il as a friend:

But you know it's, in the Bible says you're supposed to forgive seven times seventy, or something like that, but just because, just because, you know, I mean, in 1940, the Germans were our enemies. For the last 50 years, they've been our allies.

More good news: Germany is our ally. Someone get the word to Gerhard Schroeder.

As to whether North Korea would continue to violate nuclear proliferation agreements as they have consistently done in the past, Turner asserts, "I am absolutely convinced that the North Koreans are absolutely sincere." He believes that people should "at least go up there and look in their eyes and have a chat with them" before accusing the North Koreans of being untrustworthy.

It's true that there's more to North Korea that gulags, starvation, and nuclear weapons development. The Washington Times reports that they are also heavily into counterfeiting American money.

Speaking of free money, Turner believes that passing it out will cure us of terrorism. On David Letterman last Friday, he opined that "You don't stop terrorism with tanks, you stop it with giving people hope so they won't want to blow themselves up." You give them hope, if you're a liberal, by giving them money that you have appropriated from whoever earned it. Turner figures that a $62 billion payoff, courtesy of American taxpayers, ought to do the job.

Turner also used the Letterman show to get it on the record that the Iraqi people were better off living under a brutal dictator who used chemical weapons on his own people than they are with democracy.

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:35 AM | Comments (10)

September 20, 2005

The Sincerest Form of Flattery

It's encouraging to see that Gerhard Schroeder — who once again ran a campaign that relied heavily upon pandering to the baser emotions of Germans who resent America — must not hate the USA as much as you might think. Apparently he thinks enough of us to follow our model for how a liberal loses elections — the one pioneered by Al Gore and further developed by John Edwards. Rather than gracefully slinking back into whatever hole he crawled out of, here's how Schroeder responded to losing to Angela Merkel:

"I feel myself confirmed in ensuring on behalf of our country that there is in the next four years a stable government under my leadership," he said to cheering supporters at party headquarters, flashing the thumbs-up signal and holding his arms aloft like a victorious prizefighter.

Due to Merkel's narrow margin of victory, it's conceivable that her party might have to form a coalition with Schroeder's. When asked if he would be the chancellor in such a coalition, Schroeder's response was, "How else would it work?"

Never mind that Merkel got more votes.

Thanks to Wiggins for the link and pictures.

Posted by Van Helsing at 5:48 PM | Comments (4)

Sheehanstein Monster Attacks Hillary

Cindy Sheehan — a monster created by the media in hopes of undermining the Bush Administration by undermining support for the War on Terror — has now circled around to bite liberals in the seat of their pants. First on the Left to feel the Ditch Witch's teeth in her buttocks: Hillary Clinton.

The New York Times reports that Sheehan denounced Hillary in front of crowd of grunting moonbats in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

"She knows that the war is a lie but she is waiting for the right time to say it," screeched Sheehan, as if unaware that Senator Clinton voted to authorize Operation Iraqi Freedom. Waiting doesn't appeal to Mother Moonbat, who challenged Clinton: "You say it or you are losing your job."

A Clinton spokesman predictably squirmed, trying to have it both ways by admitting that Clinton voted for the war, but reminding us that, like most Democrats, she hasn't been very helpful since.

Of course the Times piece barely mentions the assault on Hillary before moving us quickly along. But even if they don't want to think about it, they have touched the tip of an iceberg. Despite the media's spin, most people are at least dimly aware that Hillary is corrupt, Machiavellian, and thoroughly insensitive to the plight of her subjects should she take power. Yet she is at least potentially electable, due to the continued efficacy of the "triangulation" ploy, whereby you pretend to be moderate until the election is over.

However, the media's best efforts will never confer electability upon the psychopaths of the far Left, as currently personified by Sheehan. These people are no more capable of strategy than brain-eating zombies. They want what they want and they want it now. Anyone even willing to pretend to be moderate can go straight to the guillotine.

The sort of government the Sheehanista/Daily Kos Left wants doesn't get elected, even in desperate times, and our times are far from desperate. Leftists believe that the answer to all problems is coercion, and sure enough, coercion is the only way they have of taking power. Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot didn't get voted into office. So it's small wonder that election strategy bores Cindy and her friends. Thanks to the growing clout of its lunatic fringe, a Democratic Party that would let Howard Dean be its Chairman is becoming increasingly inhospitable to candidates sane enough to even try to appeal to the electorate.

The end of the Times piece briefly notes that Sheehan is taking potshots at the media, accusing it of not being seditious enough. They had better get used to it. Just as no amount of money stolen from the productive in the name of the unproductive could ever be enough, no amount of hostility toward their own country on the part of the media is ever going to satisfy the monstrosity they themselves created by treating creatures like Sheehan as if they were reasonable people expressing a legitimate point of view.

Posted by Van Helsing at 12:04 PM | Comments (3)

Show Biz

The MSM's answer to the Three Stooges was honored during the Emmy Awards Sunday night. Brokaw and Jennings even got standing ovations. Apparently Rather didn't warrant one, despite his undisputed creativity. Brokaw told their admirers that the three of them were friends as well as competitors.

As every one keeps saying, it's the end of an era. Or, in Rather's case, the end of an error.

With thanks to Wiggins and RushLimbaugh.com.

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:30 AM

September 19, 2005

Leftists Run Wild in Athens

See if you can find sense in this:

Left-wing activists gathered in Athens Saturday to protest a planned neo-Nazi rally. The neo-Nazis didn't show up, but the lefties weren't about to let that spoil the party. They went after the police instead, pelting them with rocks, bottles, and Molotov cocktails. Once they had their blood up, some launched an assault on the main opposition Socialist party offices. Others contented themselves with vandalizing automobiles. Then there were the 200 or so who attacked Polytechnic University and set it on fire.

That's right, the leftists attacked rival socialists and a university. Maybe I'm missing the finer nuances of their philosophy, but there are times when I think "leftist" and "nihilist" are synonyms, and that these goons will seize on any opportunity to behave like vicious beasts. The results when the far Left manages to take control of a country — as evidenced last century in Russia, China, Cambodia, etc. — certainly support this theory.

Thanks to V the K for the tip.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:15 PM | Comments (4)

Blair Pulls Plug on Kyoto

Although it was assiduously ignored by the mainstream media, something noteworthy actually occurred at the Clinton Global Initiative. James Pinkerton reports at Tech Central Station that Tony Blair — a longstanding supporter of the Kyoto Protocols — finally acknowledged the pink elephant in the living room by admitting that the Kyoto approach will not and cannot do any good.

Warning that he was going to speak with "brutal honesty," Blair confessed that his "thinking has changed in the past three or four years." Then he admitted the glaringly obvious but politically blasphemous: "No country is going to cut its growth."

That is to say, no country run by sane adults is going to fling itself into an economic abyss for the sake of politically correct ideology.

Of the countries that produce the most pollution, only the USA was to be included in Kyoto; and of course our Senate rejected this economic suicide pact 95-0. Any Kyoto-style treaty that does not include the USA, China, and India is a joke, and Blair has now publicly confessed that these countries are not likely to slit their own wrists so that latte-sipping moonbats can pretend it's preventing icebergs from melting.

The entire notion that you can prevent pollution by preventing economic growth is almost as absurd as the idea that we can meet our energy needs through conservation. Clean air is a luxury that only wealthy countries can afford. Engineering a depression in the USA might make Europeans feel good, but it is not going to reduce pollution in the long run. Poor countries pollute more, not less. Take a trip to India if you don't believe me.

So what to do about global warming, always assuming there really is such a thing?

"What countries will do is work together to develop the science and technology," said Blair. "There is no way that we are going to tackle this problem unless we develop the science and technology to do it."

Exactly. Reducing pollution, like meeting our energy needs, is a technological issue — not a problem that can be constructively addressed by deliberately crippling our economy.

Thank you Wiggins for the tip.

Posted by Van Helsing at 12:26 PM | Comments (10)

Moonbat Vandals May Get Justice

Two days before the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, four moonbats — fully grown adults who were old enough to know better — were arrested at an Army and Marine recruiting station in Lansing, New York, where they had indulged their infantile political views by splattering blood all over the place — as AP relates, "onto the windows and walls, posters, pictures and an American flag."

Unbelievably, the first attempt to bring them to justice for this behavior resulted in a mistrial when some of the jurors in Tompkins County Court voted to acquit them. Now they are being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office.

The bold protestors, courageous enough to take a righteous stand against their own country and the War on Terror, are predictably sniveling like soft, slimy invertebrates as they face up to 6 well-deserved years in the pen for their destructive and antisocial behavior.

"This is part of the right wing agenda," one of them whimpered. "It is nothing short of fascism."

The irony of someone arrested for breaking various laws while protesting on behalf of a fascistic dictator then accusing the democracy that deposed the dictator of "fascism" would no doubt be lost on the ACLU, whose rep Barrie Gewanter irresponsibly alleged that "this appears to be about more than just keeping order and enforcing the law ... this suggests the government is more motivated by the message than by the conduct of the defendants and is retaliating for that message and opposition to government policy."

So, we're supposed to let people burst into recruiting stations and splash everything with blood, on the grounds that all behavior is permitted so long as it is motivated by hostility against your own country?

Here's something for the protestors to think about while they sit in their cages: Imagine if they had defaced property in a protest against the military in Iraq under the Saddam Hussein regime that they so righteously struggled to preserve. Here's what would have happened to them.

Thanks to V the K for the tip.

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:51 AM | Comments (2)

President Bush Remains in Danger

When Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) warned she would punch President Bush if he criticizes Louisiana officials, the Secret Service brushed off her technically illegal threat as a joke. However, Landrieu has now affirmed that she meant it and still does.

President Bush has not been noticeably critical of Louisiana officials, although this may have more to do with graciousness than fear of Landrieu's right hook.

Thank you Wiggins for the tip.

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:45 AM | Comments (3)

September 18, 2005

Case Study in Group Schizophrenia

In support of my belief that the Left is not just fundamentally mistaken but psychiatrically diseased, the following reaches us from Democratic Underground. To retain the genuine flavor I'll refrain from correcting the capitalization and just put in a few strategic asterisks.

what's keeping it from utterly collapsing? you can only put duct tape and lipstick on it for so long before it sinks asunder. how can it continue as if nothing were wrong? why aren't people rioting yet? why do so many STILL support the ape? where are the f**king democrats? how is it all propped up and held together? what fog is blinding so many millions to the actual state of the union? what mind trick? what curse?

how long can it stand before it finally implodes like the twin towers? not much longer i'm afraid. how long before the distracted masses have that 'what the f**k'? moment? what invisible string binds it all together still?

what hypnotic trance are we in that prevents us from surrounding the white house and ridding it of the cockroaches?

dead people are floating down the streets of america, and we all go to church on sunday like robots. what the f**k america? what the f**k?

Posting in response, another DUmmie has the answer for the immortal question, "what the f**k?":

It's obvious, it's got to be, it can ONLY be, that a Dark force constantly protects the Bush bastard. All of the crap he's pulled, all of the destruction that he's caused...and yet NOTHING touches him.

So I can only think that a dark force keeps him safe, because Junior's from the dark side.

Anything else just seems to defy all logic, like you said, if somebody would have done HALF of what Junior's done they'd have been tarred and feathered a long time ago.

Obviously reasonable discussion with these people is not an option. A major mental health initiative is called for.

Thanks to V the K for the tip; hat tip: LGF.

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:19 PM | Comments (3)

Military Families Voice of Victory

Had all you can stomach of Cindy Sheehan's Gold Star Families for Peace? Would you prefer a little reminder that most military families actually support our troops? Check out Military Families Voice of Victory. The organization is intended to give a voice to "relatives of our Armed Forces, both United States and Coalition, who are interested in achieving a more accurate representation of the war on terror than is currently published by most of the media."

Cofounder Ray Davis gave an excellent interview with FrontPage Magazine. Here's a highlight:

FrontPage: You keep a close eye on the "peace" groups. An American withdrawal from Iraq, which these groups want, would clearly lead to a bloodbath — as had occurred in Vietnam after the communist victory. What do you think motivates these groups? Why are they so clearly indifferent about the human lives for whom they purport to speak?

Davis: First I think we need to separate the antiwar movement into subgroups. First are the ones who get all their news from their local paper and the evening news. With a little patience and solid facts you can convince these people we are doing the right thing. Second are the people who are normally very patriotic but they are older, lifelong, die hard Democrats. They hate George Bush because he is a Republican and anything he does is wrong. It takes a mountain of effort to change their minds, but it can be done if you can get them to think beyond partisanship. Third are the "peace" groups. There is just no nice way to put it, they hate America and they hate any free society. They are an aggregate of anti-capitalist groups. For them it is not about peace but control. In their mind if they can control the United States they can control the world. The only human life that has any worth to them is their own. You only have to spend a few minutes in a debate with one of these people before you realize they are not peaceful people. They may have a polite peaceful veneer but underneath beats the heart of Joseph Stalin. For our troops their biggest enemy is a collective of terrorist groups. For those of us at home it is a collective of Marxists, communists, fascists, and Maoists masquerading as peace groups.

Read the rest at FrontPageMagazine.com. Thank you Byron for the tip.

Posted by Van Helsing at 12:56 PM | Comments (1)

German Elections

Let's keep our fingers crossed that things go poorly today for Gerhard Schroeder in Germany's elections. Opponent Angela Merkel may be a little lacking in charisma, but she is a good bet to put the breaks both on Germany's headlong economic decline, and on its government's shameless pandering to the anti-American bigotry that has been so fashionable in Europe since not long after 9/11.

Schroeder continues to play the hate-America card to the bitter end. His campaign has put up posters featuring flag-draped American coffins that one Western diplomat, quoted in the Washington Times, described as "absolutely tasteless and outrageous" (link via Wiggins).

Refer to Davids Medienkritik for the latest coverage.

Update:

To give you an idea of what civilization is up against in the German elections:

The female figure represents Angela Merkel. Hat tip: Fake But Accurate.

Posted by Van Helsing at 12:29 PM | Comments (2)

"USA Out of New Orleans" and More Mother Moonbat Madness

The Cindy Sheehan spectacle continues its pathetic downward spiral. Here's a recent message from Mother Moonbat that can be found on the website of her soul mate Michael Moore:

George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power.

Referring to "occupied" New Orleans, Sheehan screeches, "I saw soldiers walking around in patrols of 7 with their weapons slung on their backs. I wanted to ask one of them what it would take for one of them to shoot me."

Take it easy, Cindy. If they haven't shot you by now, it's because they are far too professional to ever do the world that favor. But don't let me stop you from enjoying your fantasies.

In other Mother Moonbat news, Sheehan's Jew-bashing buddies at the Crawford Peace House have discovered that a pirate radio station is jamming communications signals in New Orleans. They call upon the Air Force to bomb those responsible immediately, then go on to suggest that actually the Pentagon is responsible, which would put the Air Force in the awkward position of having to bomb itself. Or maybe a Navy ship is doing the jamming, in which case, the crew should mutiny.

You think I'm making this up? Check out the link above. Here's the condensed version:

Who is jamming communications in New Orleans? ... In this case, the Bush administration cannot hide behind national security and it is the duty of every patriotic American to report such criminal activity to the press. Even though the information on the jamming may be considered classified — it is in the public interest to disclose it. ... UPDATE: We can now report that the jamming of New Orleans' communications is emanating from a pirate radio station in the Caribbean. ... The Pentagon must locate the positions of these transmitters and order the Air Force to bomb them immediately. However, we now have a new unconfirmed report that the culprit may be the Pentagon itself. The emitter is an IF (Intermediate Frequency) jammer that is operating south southwest of New Orleans on board a U.S. Navy ship, according to an anonymous source. ... If a U.S. Navy ship is, in fact, jamming New Orleans communications, the crew must immediately shut down the jammer and take action against the Commanding Officer.

The establishment media either thinks or wants us to think that Sheehan and her cohorts are normal people. Keep that in mind next time you are tempted to take their word for anything more controversial than sports scores.

Thanks to V the K for tips. Hat tip: LGF.

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:37 AM | Comments (2)

September 17, 2005

ABC Gets the Wrong Answers From Katrina Refugees

Sometimes the people they interview aren't quite as malleable as journalists might like. Take some of the people ABC's Dean Reynolds interviewed in the Houston Astrodome parking lot right after President Bush's speech on Thursday. Apparently the refugees hadn't read the script, which seemed to call for them to denounce Bush in the harshest terms. Despite Reynolds' goading, not one of the six people interviewed would say anything nasty about the President.

NewsBusters has the full transcript, along with video. Here are some highlights:

Reynolds: You heard the President say repeatedly that you are not alone, that the country stands beside you. Do you believe him?

Refugee: Yeah, I believe him, because here in Texas, they have truly been good to us.

Reynolds: Did you harbor any anger toward the President because of the slow federal response?

Refugee: No, none whatsoever, because I feel like our city and our state government should have been there before the federal government was called in. They should have been on their jobs.

Reynolds: And they weren't?

Refugee: No, no, no, no. Lord, they wasn't. I mean, they had RTA buses, Greyhound buses, school buses, that was just sitting there going under water when they could have been evacuating people.

The others wouldn't help Reynolds out either. "Well, very little skepticism here," he ruefully observed. Next time ABC will have to screen their interviewees more thoroughly.

Thank you Wiggins for the tip.

Posted by Van Helsing at 4:57 PM | Comments (7)

Hugo Chavez Performs at United Nations

Hard-core believers in unguided evolution will tell you that if you leave a bunch of monkeys in a room full of typewriters long enough, one of them will type out the complete works of William Shakespeare. In support of this theory, leftist dictator Hugo Chavez has spent so much time talking that he has finally put together a sequence of words that a reasonable person might agree with. While showboating in front of his colleagues at the United Nations Thursday, Chavez demanded that the UN pull out of the USA.

A little urban renewal in the Turtle Bay part of Manhattan would be a great idea. First you would have to clean out the lowlife, as Chavez suggests. Then maybe that big domino at the edge of the East River could be put to some useful purpose — apartments or corporate offices.

Chavez of course sees the issue not in terms of urban renewal, but as part of his monotonous and patently contrived campaign to denigrate America in general and President Bush in particular. You have to hand it to the guy, he knows how to get the press on his side.

Pulling the UN out of the US should be in response to the great wrong committed to another one of Chavez's esteemed colleagues, Saddam Hussein, according to Chavez, who like other leaders at the summit had been asked to speak for only 5 minutes. However, according to CNN, "when the presiding diplomat passed him a note saying his time was up, he threw it on the floor. He said if Bush could speak for 20 minutes, so could he." Bush had addressed the opening session the day before.

When Chavez finally ran out of hot air, CNN reports, "he got what observers said was the loudest applause of the summit."

Chavez's cartoonish act — in which this miserable little socialist dictator plays the Man of the People who stands up to the Great Satan and pokes it right in the eye for attempting to spread democracy — could be expected to play well before the corrupt clowns that make up the UN's General Assembly. Following in the footsteps of other showboating dictators like Mussolini and his idol Castro, he pays close attention to stage managing. As Thor Halvorssen pointed out in the New York Post:

As Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hit town for this week's special U.N. session, Chavez's flunkies were renting buses and offering to reimburse activists willing to create a "spontaneous" welcome crowd for the populist anti-American.

Halvorssen also pointed out that Chavez's righteous objections to Pat Robertson's admittedly misguided suggestion that he be assassinated take on a new light when you consider that Chavez himself tried to kill Venezuela's President Carlos Andres Perez in 1992.

Calls for the death of our own president resounded loudly at a conference hosted and funded by Chavez's banana republic last August. Chavez and his cabinet took an active part in the 16th World Youth and Students Festival — a communist gathering that attracts screwed-up moonbats from all over the world. In the past it has been held in totalitarian hellholes such as Soviet Moscow, East Berlin, Havana, and Pyonyang. Writes Halvorssen:

The multimillion-dollar extravaganza included an international tribunal, broadcast in Venezuela and Cuba. The presiding judge: Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel. Star witness for the prosecution: President Chavez. The accused: George W. Bush, charged with (among much else) being the cause of the world's terrorism. Delegates are on film chanting "Death to America" and holding signs that read, "Death to Bush."

Halvorssen wonders why the US media give Chavez a free pass. Hopefully the question is rhetorical. Ever since he went international with his Fidel Castro II act, Chavez has been expertly tailoring his thuggish persona to the tastes of the flaky, hypocritical, America-hating elitists who run the media both here and in Europe.

These pictures from Chase Me Ladies, I'm in the Cavalry (hat tip: Caption This!) give an idea of the sort of people you could have encountered at the 16th World Youth and Students Festival:

Why do I get a terrible feeling that half of these people are majoring in journalism?

Thank you Byron for links.

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:20 AM | Comments (7)

September 16, 2005

Try Reasoning With This

Reuters caption:

Members of Greenpeace protest against the federal government's environmental policies while seated on a mock toilet during a demonstration in front of Mexico's finance ministry in Mexico City September 13, 2005. The banner reads "Do not throw environmental policies down the toilet."

Hat tip: Caption This!

Posted by Van Helsing at 12:15 PM | Comments (7)

Beetle Chews Tree — Bush Blamed

We already know President Bush caused Katrina and its aftermath.

Now this:

Four states sued the Bush administration Thursday over an invasive beetle that has stowed away on overseas freighters and gnawed away trees in New York City, Chicago and on Long Island.

Excuse me, I have a headache. I need to file my suit against Bush for causing it before it goes away.

With thanks to Wiggins.

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:38 AM | Comments (3)

Rubbing in Salt at Ground Zero

To get an idea of the kind of art we might expect to be seeing at Ground Zero, this was on display in the neighborhood on September 11, courtesy of an exhibit by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council:

Other exhibits include a suitcase bomb and a straitjacket made out of an American flag.

Honorees of the exhibit include Susan Sontag and Edward Said, both of whom made it very clear whose side they were on when it comes to Islamic terror. It wasn't our side.

I hope this sort of thing appeals to those who come to Ground Zero to pay their respects, because as the New York Post pointed out:

Sponsoring all this are some of the same folks designing the IFC and Ground Zero: LMCC President Tom Healy is on the IFC's planning staff. Charles Maikish, tapped by Gov. Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg to run the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center, is LMCC chairman emeritus.

The IFC is the International Freedom Center — which the Left prefers to a tasteful memorial to the victims of 9/11 at Ground Zero.

Thanks go to the arts community for constantly reminding us that not all of our enemies are overseas.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:10 AM | Comments (5)

September 15, 2005

More on Mother Moonbat's Jew-Bashing Associates

Cool shirts, huh? Sweetness & Light saw this photo and caption on Michael Moore's website and asked what turns out to be a more interesting question: Who is Hesham Tillawi?

The answer: A paranoid nut job, whose TV program Current Issues is carried by al-Jazeera. His "dear friend" Mother Moonbat is scheduled to appear on the show September 18. For a glimpse into his mentality, here are a few excerpts from his essay, What Makes Palestinians Think They Can?:

Washington turned out to be an Israeli occupied space just like Palestine. ... The Palestinians and the Americans share the same enemy, the Zionist agenda. ... So how bad is the Zionist influence in America? Well, consider this:

He goes on to list a whole lot of Jews that he doesn't like because they support Israel, and then claims that Israel controls "over 95 Senators and all 435 members of the House except maybe 23."

Unsurprisingly, Tillawi shares Cindy Sheehan's opinion that the only reason we are fighting terrorists in Iraq is because the sinister Jews want us to, costing us "over 200 years of reputation building." Here's how he wraps up:

I would conclude by saying that the Zionists in America now are in the same position they were in back in 1948 in Palestine where they were in total control of the land but not the people. They were not interested in the people; they just wanted the land. In the case of America they are in total control of its people and resources, they are not interested in the land. They just want people to fight wars and the people's money to finance their ambitions.

The only thing I can't figure out is why the stars in our flag still have five points instead of six.

Thanks to Byron for the tip.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:59 PM | Comments (8)

Congressman Sidetracks Katrina Rescuers to Secure Mystery Box

Thank you Congressman William Jefferson (D-LA) (no relation to the first black president, William Jefferson Clinton) for helping to demonstrate why it is crucial that oversight from someone other than Louisiana Democrats is applied to the billions upon billions of taxpayer money that the federal government is currently shoveling furiously into that state.

ABC News reports that five days after Katrina first hit, while other New Orleans residents waited on their roofs to be rescued, Jefferson — who as a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee is a guy with lots of juice among bureaucrats — hijacked the National Guard to check on his property and save his personal things from getting wet.

He had a 5-ton military truck and six MPs take him on a tour of flooded areas that he diverted to include his own house. The vehicle pulled up onto his yard so that he could get inside without getting his feet wet. Jefferson poked around inside for an hour while the soldiers — as if they had nothing better to do in the immediate aftermath of Katrina — waited on the porch, until he finally emerged to present them with a laptop, suitcases, and a box about the size of a small refrigerator.

Meanwhile, the truck had been sinking ever deeper into his yard. By the time Jefferson's stuff was finally aboard, the truck was going nowhere. The soldiers he had commandeered signaled a Coast Guard helicopter, which had been engaged in rescuing Jefferson's constituents from their rooftops. The chopper sent down a rescue diver, but Jefferson didn't feel like riding on it — whether he's afraid of heights or didn't want to part company with the mysterious oversized box is not known. The helicopter spent about 45 minutes trying to get him on board before going back to rescuing citizens. Shortly afterward, it ran low on fuel and had to quit.

The National Guard had to send a second 5-ton truck to rescue the first truck, as well as Jefferson and his precious belongings.

But not to worry: "Jefferson insisted the expedition did not distract from rescue efforts."

Possibly shedding some light onto Jefferson's intense commitment to the particular belongings that were rescued, ABC notes that the Congressman has been under federal investigation. His house, his car, and his accountant's house have been raided by the FBI. Federal law enforcement officials want to know if Jefferson used this little mission to move materials relevant to the investigation.

But again, don't worry. Jefferson says he didn't.

With thanks to Wiggins and Byron.

Posted by Van Helsing at 12:15 PM | Comments (4)

Turner Channels Ran 9/11 Conspiracy Ad on September 11

Thank you Josh for the tip on this one:

Last Sunday, September 11, at 7:50 PM, leftist kook Ted Turner's TNT cable channel commemorated the 9/11 attacks by airing a commercial created by the tinfoil hat brigade at Reopen 911.org. At least, the commercial ran in NYC. Evidently the ad was also aired on CNN's Headline News, another Turner creation. The point of the commercial: to convince the gullible that it was not passenger jets hijacked by al Qaeda that brought down the World Trade Center, despite what your lying eyes might have told you. It was explosives placed within the building. This belief supports various paranoid conspiracy theories, mainly having to do with President Bush, the CIA, and/or the Mossad.

Before you break out in guffaws, I have personally encountered people dim enough to believe this sort of nonsense. Seeing these ads will add credibility to the schizophrenic fantasies of rabidly anti-American Michael Moore types, who have a disturbingly large audience of intellectually subnormal moonbats who will buy into absolutely anything so long as it makes our country look bad.

But don't look down on the Reopen 911.org folks. As they point out, "Stopping the real terrorists is patriotic." Kind of reminds you of O.J. finding the real killers, doesn't it? Of course, moonbats didn't cause 9/11. But they will do whatever they can to prevent us from preventing it from happening again.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:50 AM | Comments (6)

Eat Fresh — Eat French

Too bad Subway dropped this ad campaign for their chicken cordon bleu sandwich. Hey, what's wrong with a little truth in advertising? With thanks to V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:50 AM | Comments (3)

September 14, 2005

Down the Drain

Hear that whooshing sound? That's our hard-earned pay going down the drain as bureaucrats attempt to compensate for their perceived incompetence by emphasizing their undisputed generosity with other people's money.

For example, The Washington Times reports that FEMA has allocated almost $5 billion to buy 300,000 trailer homes as part of their Katrina spending — although 270,000 of them are on back order. Whether they will still be needed by the time they are built remains to be seen.

"There was definitely a factor in seeking to spend enough money fast enough that they wouldn't have to face the criticism of being too tightfisted," said Rep Steve King (R-IA). "They think that they're being measured by the amount of money they spend."

A House Democratic chief of staff accused Republicans of "being Democrats because they're trying to show how they care by shoveling money."

But a spokesman for Senator Harry "The Body" Reid (D-NV) warned, "At some point, they're going to fall back on their usual fiscally conservative ways."

Let's hope that point comes soon. Of course Katrina left us with bills to pay. But the Government is laying out a fortune with a reckless lack of resistance — a $10.5 billion bill by voice vote and a follow-up $51.8 billion bill by a 97-0 vote in the Senate and 410-11 vote in the House. It makes you wonder if our representatives know where all the money is going and how much of it is really needed.

"FEMA will act like any federal agency," said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who voted against the $51.8 billion, preferring to hand out the money in smaller allotments. "The question isn't how much we need, it's how much we can get."

Posted by Van Helsing at 5:24 PM | Comments (4)

Why Don't Moonbats Like Houston?

Houston has really been taking it on the chin lately. First the New York Times accuses it of exploiting Katrina refugees by taking them in and feeding them, and now, the great Jimmy Carter has this to say:

...Prudhoe Bay, which lies west of the Arctic refuge and is already an industrial landscape resembling Houston more than Yellowstone.

In other words, Houston is such an eyesore that it is the antithesis of the pretty word we will have once we have reduced greenhouse emissions to zero by regulating all productive human activity to a halt.

Given Carter's record, his opinionating on environmentalism and energy policy is about as welcome as his freelance anti-American diplomacy. As The American Thinker points out,

The President who helped create the oil crisis by capitulating to the overthrow of the Shah and the installation of a radical regime in Iran (which set about radicalizing the region); the President who made America look like a paper tiger by his ineffectual response to the Iranian hostage crisis; the President whose energy programs were DOA in Congress because of his own ineptitude and unpopularity; this is the ex-President who wants to frustrate efforts to curtail dependence on radical regimes.

Thank you Byron for the tip.

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:42 AM | Comments (8)

Getting Out While the Getting's Good

From Brit Hume's Grapevine at Fox News, via V the K:

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin greeted President Bush when he arrived in Louisiana last night, and was at his side as he fielded questions on the Katrina relief efforts this morning. That quality time with the president, however, marks the mayor's first visit to the disaster area since Wednesday when Nagin pulled up stakes and moved his family to Dallas. The Dallas Morning News reports that Nagin has already bought a house in the city, and enrolled his daughter in school.

When the Mayor appeared on "Meet the Press" on Sunday from Dallas, he was never asked about his presence there, or his decision to move his family.

Hopefully he will know better than to run for Mayor of Dallas. But then, technically he's still Mayor of New Orleans, isn't he? And I thought I had a long commute.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:02 AM