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December 31, 2005

Woman Marries Animal

Anyone who doubts that the gay marriage issue could be the thin edge of a bizarre and disturbing wedge must have missed out on the recent wedding between Sharon Tendler, a Jewish millionaire from London, and a dolphin named Cindy in Israel:

And so on Wednesday afternoon, the thrilled bride, wearing a white dress, walked down the dock before hundreds of astounded visitors and kneeled down before her groom, who was waiting in the water.

Cindy, escorted by his fellow best-men dolphins, swam over to Tendler and she hugged him, whispered sweet nothings in his ear, and kissed him in front of the cheering crowd.

After the ceremony was sealed with some mackerels, Tendler was tossed into the water by her friends so that she could swim with her new husband.

"I'm the happiest girl on earth," the bride said as she chocked back tears of emotion. "I made a dream come true, and I am not a pervert," she stressed.

Like the word "marriage," the word "pervert" seems to be losing its meaning.

Hat tip: Further Adventures of Indigo Red

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:49 AM | Comments (10)

Satanic Fashion

In Swedish fashion news, Cheap Monday jeans are making a name for themselves by prominently featuring their logo: a grinning skull with an upside-down cross carved into its forehead.

"It is an active statement against Christianity," declared logo designer Bjorn Atldax. According to Atldax, the purpose is not just to sell jeans, but to encourage hostility toward the "force of evil" that is Christianity.

Rev. Karl-Erik Nylund, vicar of St. Mary Magdalene Church in Stockholm, regards the jeans as a "deliberate provocation" against Christians. As he observed, "No one wants to provoke Jews or Muslims, but it's totally OK to provoke Christians."

But Orjan Andersson, the creator of the brand, doesn't take Atldax's message as seriously. "I'm not interested in religion," he said. "I'm more interested in that the logo looks good."

Obviously, if the logo were an Islamic crescent in a circle with a slash through it, no one would care how good it looked.

The jeans have been selling well at about $50 a pair.

Hat tip: Wiggins

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:19 AM | Comments (4)

December 30, 2005

Middle East Moonbat Snatchings Continue

Useful idiots have started a new fad by traveling to the Middle East to denounce Israel, the USA, or Western Civilization in general and getting themselves "kidnapped" by the Islamic terrorists they adore. There is a fishy smell to some of these accounts, particularly the story of German moonbat Susanne Osthoff, who may have been released in exchange for a terrorist convicted of murdering an American, and whose abduction may have been staged. The latest Islamophile to get herself nabbed is British "human rights worker" Kate Burton, who managed to get her parents abducted too.

Burton had been working at the Al-Mizan Human Rights Center in Gaza. According to local security sources, she and her parents were snatched by an armed offshoot of Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas's Fatah movement.

Foreigners kidnapped in Gaza are usually released within a few hours, but not all lefties who journey to the Middle East to make nuisances of themselves and subsequently get kidnapped by the very terrorists they fawn over are so lucky. The kooks from Christian Peacemaker Teams are still missing. Moonbats traveling to the region are advised that you don't have to be as stupid as Rachel Corrie to get yourself killed.

Hat tip: LGF

Posted by Van Helsing at 1:41 PM | Comments (5)

Hippie Influences at the BBC

Moonbattery doesn't get as entrenched as it is at the BBC overnight. According to state files recently released to Britain's National Archives, BBC Chairman Michael Swann admitted at a 1974 lunch with Prime Minister Edward Heath that the BBC had a "problem with hippie influences" among its producers.

According to minutes of the lunch, Swann "thought that too many young producers approached every programme they did from the starting point of an attitude about the subject that could be summed up: 'You are a sh*t'. It was an attitude which he and others in the management of the BBC deplored and they would be using their influence as opportunity offered to try to counter it."

Apparently opportunity did not offer often enough. Given the bias of its reporting, aging hippies seem to have been running the BBC for years now.

Hat tip: Lucianne.com

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:57 AM | Comments (6)

December 29, 2005

Sean Hannity, Please Come Back!

Like a lot of people during the last two weeks of the year, Sean Hannity has been out on vacation. Sher Zieve at the Post Chronicle reports that his antithesis on Hannity & Colmes has been taking advantage of his absence to indulge in the verbal bullying that is becoming increasingly popular on the Left.

Alan Colmes is sometimes referred to as "the Sneech" because of his resemblance to something Dr. Seuss might have created if he had wanted to frighten children instead of entertain them. Without adult supervision, he tends to go berserk. Zieve reports on last night's show:

When I joined the program, Colmes was beginning a full-court press against former Advisor to VP Cheney Ron Christie. Christie was on camera but, not in-studio. Alan told Christie that the NSA warrantless wiretaps were illegal and asked him to provide an answer as to why they weren't. In his typical wild-eyed-and-mouth liberal fashion, Colmes allowed Christie only 2-3 sentences to explain the administration's legal position then cut him off and began to spout his own torrent of somewhat disconnected statements. Each and every time Christie attempted to get even a 'word in edgewise', Colmes' voice became louder and more shrill until he veritably shouted Christie down. Then, instead of allowing Christie to respond — at all — Colmes turned to his in-studio guest leftist civil rights attorney Michael Gross. Totally ignoring Christie's voice in the background, which continued to ask if he could complete his response, Colmes continued to talk with Gross. As is typical of Gross, the attorney referred to President Bush's "arrogance" and made some oblique and bizarre references to "concentration camps". Colmes allowed Gross to meander through a morass of somewhat nonsensical statements.

Conservative Mike Gallagher was left to baby-sit in Hannity's absence, but apparently was not up to the task. His attempts to question Christie were rudely interrupted by Colmes. Zieve found the Sneech to be even more ill-mannered than Chris "Tweety" Matthews, if that can be imagined.

The tactic of talking right over opponents has served liberals well in the absence of the credible arguments that would be required for them to hold their own in a civilized debate. Thanks to characters like Colmes, its popularity is spreading beyond the sort of scruffy goons that recently shouted down Ann Coulter at the University of Connecticut, to the apparent approval of CNN's audience.

Hat tip: Wiggins

Posted by Van Helsing at 5:03 PM | Comments (6)

Democrats Stampeding Off Cliff?

According to the Washington Times, there are still Democrats who have not drunk too much Kool-Aid to know that their constant carping about what a fiend the President is for defending us from terrorists is likely to blow up in their faces.

Says Michael O'Hanlon, a national security analyst at the left-leaning Brookings Institution:

I think when you suggest that civil liberties are just as much at risk today as the country is from terrorism, you've gone too far if you leave that impression. I don't believe that's true.

Neither do most normal Americans, despite the best efforts of the media. The Dems are already known to be weak on national security. With the rise of characters like Kerry, Murtha, Dean, etc. they have gone beyond weak, to the point that people can't help but wonder whose side they are on. Harry Reid's triumphant proclamation at a Democratic rally that "We killed the Patriot Act" will not be forgotten when the next terror attack hits our country — a day that will come all the sooner thanks to Reid's efforts, as many voters are aware.

If Democratic leaders were actually in the pay of al Qaeda, it would be hard to imagine what they would do differently. They are already testing the limits of the public. With each new attempt to undermine the War on Terror, they push the boundaries of what the media can dupe the populace into tolerating. We already have Democratic Senators demanding that the President be impeached for listening in on al Qaeda phone calls. How much farther can they go?

It's reassuring to know that there are still "centrist" Democrats who have qualms about reflexive opposition to preventing another 9/11. But it's doubtful there are many left. As Power Line observes:

One basic question is how many centrist Democrats still exist. My guess is that most of those who could legitimately be termed centrist, especially on foreign policy, have left the Democratic Party, or at least stopped voting for its candidates. The party's leadership team of Howard Dean, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi must be the most extreme in modern American history. But I've seen no indication that their extremism hurts them with the party's rank and file. So I don't see much prospect that the Democrats' leftward march will be halted; the question, I think, is whether they are marching off a cliff.

Posted by Van Helsing at 12:24 PM | Comments (5)

December 28, 2005

NY Times Toys With Treason

It's common knowledge now that the erstwhile "paper of record" — the New York Times — has become so devoted to its sophomoric ideology that it can no longer be considered a reliable source of news. Its obsession with race at the expense of ability gave us Jayson Blair; its obsession with dragging down the President at the expense of our country is giving us something much worse. An editorial in yesterday's New York Post notes that the Gray Lady is approaching the line between partisan propaganda and treason.

There seems to be no regard for the collateral damage caused by irresponsible attempts to embarrass the Bush Administration. The much-hyped wiretapping "scandal" — whereby the Times strategically revealed that the NSA has been listening in to phone calls to terrorists overseas — involved publishing classified information that will impede efforts to defend against the next 9/11.

But our safety is hardly a concern of the Times; it's happy to supply ammo to far-left Democrats and media allies like CNN and CBS, who are now screeching for the President to be impeached for taking common sense (and hardly unprecedented) steps to block the next big terror attack. By highly dubious coincidence, the Times released this story (after sitting on it for a year) on the day the Senate was to vote to overcome a Democratic filibuster against renewing the Patriot Act, which pretty much all grownups and even a lot of Democrats agree is a crucial tool in our defense against Islamic terrorism. According to the Post, "[a]t least two previously undecided senators said they voted against the act precisely because of the Times piece."

Aiming a blunderbuss at the Bush Administration and shooting the head off our national security is getting to be standard procedure at the Times. Its highly detailed accounts of the CIA running its own airline service disguised as a private charter company so that it could come and go without terrorists being the wiser was another unnecessary barricade thrown in the path of those trying to protect the pampered little left-wing elitists at the Times — as well as the rest of us — from getting blown to bits in the next al Qaeda attack.

Even at the local level, the Times can be counted on to undermine the defense of public order, as when it announced last week that the NYPD uses plainclothes officers to make sure protest demonstrations don't get out of hand, even publishing pictures of undercover officers, with no effort made to protect their identities. This not only makes it more difficult to prevent the next moonbat rally from degenerating into Seattle in 1999 — it also impedes the ability of undercover NYPD officers to defend against terrorism.

After touching on all of these stories, the Post sums up:

Does The New York Times consider itself a law unto itself — free to subversively undercut basic efforts by any government to protect and defend its citizens?

The Times, it appears, is less concerned with promoting its dubious views on civil liberties than with undercutting the Bush administration. The end result of the paper's flagrant irresponsibility: Lives have been put in danger on the international, national and local levels.

The ability of the nation to perform the most fundamental mission of any government — protection of its citizens — has been pointlessly compromised.

The Jayson Blair and Judith Miller fiascoes were high-profile embarrassments for The Times, but at the end of the day mostly damaged the newspaper alone.

The NSA, CIA and NYPD stories are of a different order of magnitude — they place in unnecessary danger the lives of U.S. citizens.

The New York Times — a once-great and still-powerful institution — is badly in need of adult supervision.

Hat tip: Varla

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:53 AM | Comments (9)

December 27, 2005

Freed German Moonbat Praises Her Terrorist Captors

German archeologist Susanne Osthoff has some highly original views of the terrorists who kidnapped her in Iraq. She is free now, very possibly in exchange for Hezbollah terrorist Mohammad Ali Hammadi, who had been found guilty of the brutal murder of US Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem. In an interview with al-Jazz, she declared that the terrorists who held her for 24 days were nice guys who didn't want ransom, but only "humanitarian aid."

"I was so happy to know that I had not fallen into the hands of criminals," said Osthoff, a convert to Islam. She didn't blame the terrorists for kidnapping her, on the grounds that they are unable to enter Baghdad's high-security Green Zone to kidnap Americans.

Osthoff is reportedly planning to return to Iraq soon. She'd better hope the German government has another killer of Americans to trade.

Hat tips: Davids Medienkritik, LGF

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:47 AM | Comments (4)

December 26, 2005

Hairspray Your Way to Millions

Prepare to pay more for hairspray thanks to one Lorraine Squicciarini, who decided to open a can of Aquanet with a can opener, near a gas range's pilot light.

Evidently the can's nozzle had become clogged, so Ms. Squicciarini thought she would open up the can to see what the problem was. The results were predictable. According to her family's lawyer, David Schoen:

She soon became engulfed in flames, turning her whole body, virtually from head to toe, into a ball of fire.

The next day her stupidity proved fatal, when she died of her burns in a Staten Island hospital.

Naturally her bereaved relatives are blaming the company that made the hairspray. There are plans to loot Unilever USA for $10 million in compensatory damages, plus $100 million in punitive damages.

There was a printed warning on the hairspray against puncturing the can, but Schoen regards it as "insufficient." After all, anyone dumb enough to take a can opener to a can of hairspray can hardly be expected to read.

For Schoen's sake let's up he can find equally wise individuals to serve on the jury. Chances are he will.

Hat tip: Wiggins

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:02 PM | Comments (2)

Never Trust a Moonbat

Opponents of the Patriot Act have been hobbled by the fact that no one has ever had their rights infringed in any way by its common sense antiterror provisions. Some have reacted to this problem in typical moonbat fashion — by believing in lies.

A student at UMass Dartmouth managed to start an Internet firestorm recently by telling professors that he received a visit from Homeland Security agents after requesting the genocidal tyrant Mao Zedong's "Little Red Book" from a library. At last the Left had some proof that the Bush Administration isn't actually concerned with terrorism, but with harassing the readers of leftist propaganda.

Unsurprisingly, it has come to light that the whole thing was a lie, as the student admitted after being confronted with the inconsistencies that piled up as he embellished his story. The young man behaved in true "reality-based community" fashion:

The story began to unravel, and the student, faced with the truth, broke down and cried.

The unmasking of this lie is a disappointment for Ted Kennedy, who passed it along in a bombastic diatribe attacking the Bush Administration for defending us from terrorism. Here's what Massachusetts's esteemed senior Senator had to say in the Boston Globe last Thursday:

Just this past week there were public reports that a college student in Massachusetts had two government agents show up at his house because he had gone to the library and asked for the official Chinese version of Mao Tse-tung's Communist Manifesto. Following his professor's instructions to use original source material, this young man discovered that he, too, was on the government's watch list.

Think of the chilling effect on free speech and academic freedom when a government agent shows up at your home — after you request a book from the library.

Incredibly, we are now in an era where reading a controversial book may be evidence of a link to terrorists.

Of course Chappaquiddick Ted has apologized profusely for unwittingly disseminating lies to the public by buying into this hoax... Just kidding! Here's the Kennedy camp's reaction, according to Saturday's Boston Globe:

Laura Capps, a Kennedy spokeswoman, said last night that the senator cited ''public reports" in his opinion piece. Even if the assertion was a hoax, she said, it did not detract from Kennedy's broader point that the Bush administration has gone too far in engaging in surveillance.

Or, as the likeminded Dan Rather might put it, the hoax was fake but accurate.

The imaginative student, whose name has been withheld from news accounts, will apparently pay no price for leaving egg on the Cape Cod Orca's misshapen face:

John Hoey, spokesman for UMass-Dartmouth, said the university did not expect to take any action against the student. ''This was a conversation that took place between a student and his faculty members," Hoey said.

Whoever this sniveling young moonbat might be, we owe him one for providing a lesson in the pitfalls of willful gullibility — although I'm guessing that more than a few will fail to learn from it.

With thanks to V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:43 AM | Comments (7)

December 25, 2005

Nancy Pelosi Christmas Pinup

In the spirit of Christmas, Moonbattery reaches out to its liberal readers with this special gift:

Merry Christmas!

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:32 AM | Comments (7)

December 24, 2005

Tomorrow's Headlines Today

Here's a sneak peek at the front page of tomorrow's New York Times, via Sacred Cow Burgers:

Posted by Van Helsing at 2:09 PM | Comments (4)

The Compassion of Partisan Democrats

Ted Hayes is the kind of guy who makes the world around him a better place. His efforts to help the homeless treat not only the symptoms, but the disease that causes them. Democrats don't much seem to appreciate his efforts.

Hayes founded Dome Village, which houses the homeless and also helps them take charge of their lives, so that they won't be needing assistance in the future. They aren't swamped with sanctimonious pity or exploited for political purposes, but helped to fix their broken lives:

The Dome Village's philosophy of self-governance, responsibility, productivity, volunteerism and respect for individuals and the community right where they are, allows avenues for homeless people to seek empowerment and make a break from the chronic cycle and psyche of homelessness.

Unfortunately the project's landlord, Kerry donor Milton Sidley, discovered that Hayes is a Republican, apparently from this article in the LA Times. He reacted by increasing the rent by over 630%.

In explanation of the rent increase, Sidley reportedly declared, "This Democrat is tired of supporting Ted and his Dome Village."

Unless Hayes can come up with a fortune, the people he has helped will soon be back on the street. But at least no one will be poisoning their minds with sinister concepts like personal responsibility.

Hat tips: Brain Terminal, Libertas, on a tip from V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:15 AM | Comments (4)

December 23, 2005

More Notable Quotables

Times Watch has their own awards for Quotes of Note from 2005, these of course taken from the esteemed Paper of Record, the New York Times. A few highlights:

And in the shadow of the bleak and often horrific news emerging from Iraq nearly every day, historians and political experts are finding at least a wan hope in those imperfect historical analogies. Even in the absence of a sudden and dramatic shift on the battlefield toward a definitive victory, there may still be a slight opening, as narrow as the eye of a needle, for the United States to slip through and leave Iraq in the near future in a way that will not be remembered as a national embarrassment.

— From reporter James Glanz's November 27 story for the Week in Review section.

By most measures, the economy appears to be doing fine. No, scratch that, it appears to be booming. But as always with the United States economy, it is not quite that simple....It all means the economy is likely to end the year with a splash. But before you splurge on a new car, consider this: Many economists do not expect the party to continue, especially if the Federal Reserve continues taking the punchbowl away and raises interest rates. That could further slow the housing market, damp consumer spending and crimp corporate profits.

— Economics reporter Vikas Bajaj in a November 30 front-page story.

My own sense is that Mao, however monstrous, also brought useful changes to China....But Mao's legacy is not all bad. Land reform in China, like the land reform in Japan and Taiwan, helped lay the groundwork for prosperity today. The emancipation of women and end of child marriages moved China from one of the worst places in the world to be a girl to one where women have more equality than in, say, Japan or Korea. Indeed, Mao's entire assault on the old economic and social structure made it easier for China to emerge as the world's new economic dragon....In the same way, I think, Mao's ruthlessness was a catastrophe at the time, brilliantly captured in this extraordinary book — and yet there's more to the story: Mao also helped lay the groundwork for the rebirth and rise of China after five centuries of slumber.

— Foreign policy reporter turned columnist Nicholas Kristof reviewing a new Mao biography in the October 23 Book Review.

By the way, the Gray Lady's friend Chairman Mao probably killed more of his own people than any other tyrant in history, including Hitler and even Stalin.

In fact, [Sen. Hillary] Clinton has defied simple ideological labeling since joining the Senate, ending up in the political center on issues like health care, welfare, abortion, morality and values, and national defense, to name just a few.

— Raymond Hernandez and Patrick Healy, July 13.

Reality Check: The American Conservative Union gives Sen. Hillary Clinton a lifetime rating of 9 (with 100 being the most conservative), the same as liberal Sen. Tom Harkin.

Why were developers permitted to destroy wetlands and barrier islands that could have held back the hurricane's surge? Why was Congress, before it wandered off to vacation, engaged in slashing the budget for correcting some of the gaping holes in the area's flood protection?

— Editorial page, September 1.

VS

Anyone who cares about responsible budgeting and the health of America's rivers and wetlands should pay attention to a bill now before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. The bill would shovel $17 billion at the Army Corps of Engineers for flood control and other water-related projects — this at a time when President Bush is asking for major cuts in Medicaid and other important domestic programs. Among these projects is a $2.7 billion boondoggle on the Mississippi River that has twice flunked inspection by the National Academy of Sciences. The Government Accountability Office and other watchdogs accuse the corps of routinely inflating the economic benefits of its projects. And environmentalists blame it for turning free-flowing rivers into lifeless canals and destroying millions of acres of wetlands — usually in the name of flood control and navigation but mostly to satisfy Congress's appetite for pork. This is a bad piece of legislation.

— Editorial page, April 13.

Between Terri Schiavo and the pope, we've feasted on decomposing bodies for almost a solid month now. The carefully edited, three-year-old video loops of Ms. Schiavo may have been worthless as medical evidence but as necro-porn their ubiquity rivaled that of TV's top entertainment franchise, the all-forensics-all-the-time "CSI."

— Arts Editor/columnist Frank Rich, April 10.

And as ultraconservatives and bottom liners circle, PBS appears to be too accommodating in response. When conservatives attacked the respected Bill Moyers, labeling him a dangerous liberal, PBS offered Tucker Carlson and Paul Gigot. Whatever slight liberal flavor might be dug out of the Moyers broadcasts, those are openly ideological conservative editorialists. Will they do investigations like Mr. Moyers?

— From a February 21 editorial defending PBS.

VS

The entire federal government — the Congress, the executive, the courts — is united behind a right-wing agenda for which George W. Bush believes he now has a mandate. That agenda includes the power of the state to force pregnant women to surrender control over their own lives. It includes using the taxing power to transfer wealth from working people to the rich. It includes giving corporations a free hand to eviscerate the environment and control the regulatory agencies meant to hold them accountable. And it includes secrecy on a scale you cannot imagine....And if you like God in government, get ready for the Rapture.

— Some "slight liberal flavor" from Bill Moyers from the November 8, 2002 edition of his old PBS show, "Now."

Indeed, one of the favorite mantras of the current Bush White House and its conservative allies is that the media suffer from a "liberal bias" — a constantly repeated accusation designed to drill this notion into the public consciousness while putting the press on the defensive. Recent history flies in the face of this assertion.

— Chief book critic Michiko Kakutani promoting an anti-Bush book by Congressional Quarterly writer Craig Crawford, November 11.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:29 AM | Comments (3)

December 22, 2005

Code Pink Targets Incorrect Toys

The harpies at Code Pink have taken a few minutes off from haranguing wounded soldiers to make their own special contribution to the War on Christmas by inflicting themselves on stores that sell toys that are deemed incorrect. Carrie Lukas reports on their campaign at NRO:

While the group urges activists to don pink camouflage and distribute sidewalk propaganda on the evils of war toys, it also instructs would-be peace warriors to pursue their campaign inside stores.

One suggested tactic is the "buy and return." The idea is for activists themselves to purchase war toys and then head straight to customer service. There they return the offending products while engaging in a verbal strike — imploring managers to take "violent" toys off the shelves and pestering fellow customers about war toys' dangers. (Certainly, there's no better way to win converts than to gum up the return and exchange lines during the holiday rush.) Code Pink suggests pre-arranging local media to cover the impending ruckus.

At least Code Pink's "buy and return" silliness is probably legal. Operation "Stick It To 'Em," however, encourages activists to deface private property by placing surgeon general-style warning labels on offending toys. The Code Pink website includes helpful samples that, they explain, are easily printed on sticky mailing labels. One sums up the heart of the campaign: "Violent Toys=Violent Boys."

Code Pink's financial support for terrorists in Iraq suggests that they don't have a problem with violence so long as it's directed against Americans. Maybe toy stores could get back into their good graces by selling toys more likely to get the Code Pink seal of approval than water pistols and plastic soldiers. Here's an idea:

With thanks to V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 1:26 PM | Comments (3)

FBI Keeping an Eye on PETA

WaPo and their colleagues at the ACLU have their knickers in a knot over revelations that the FBI has opened a preliminary terrorism investigation into People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Naturally, PETA is screeching like a cat swung by the tail.

"You shouldn't have to wonder when you go to a speech at a college campus, or when you go to a meeting, whether you're being surveilled by the FBI," squalled PETA general counsel Jeff Kerr. Sticking close to moonbats' beloved this-is-the-early-70s template, he added, "It goes back to the dark days of Nixon and the enemies list."

However, PETA kooks are not being investigated for spewing propaganda, for wearing lettuce bikinis, for giving highly objectionable comics to children, or even for killing dogs and cats. They are being investigated because environmental and animal rights militants pose a serious terrorist threat. Before a Senate panel last May, FBI deputy assistant director for counterterrorism John Lewis cited more than 150 pending investigations.

PETA is suspected of funding, supporting, and acting as a front for ecoterrorist outfits like Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front that express their sociopathic views primarily through arson and vandalism.

Now where would they get the idea that PETA endorses the use of violence to promote their antihuman agenda? Could they have been listening to PETA's own campaign director Bruce Friedrich? Or maybe they were reading letters like this one from James Bowers of Center for Consumer Freedom.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:48 AM | Comments (46)

Moonbat Gratitude

Here's the mainstream media's thanks for relentlessly hyping, fawning over, and all but deifying the despicable neohippie Cindy Sheehan, from Newsweak I mean Newsweek:

Newsweek:

But the peace movement in the U.S. remains small. Why?

Sheehan:

One thing that has prevented the peace movement in America is the media. I spoke with 5,000 people in North Carolina on March 19, 2005, and the press called the protest "insignificant." They covered the Terri Schiavo case instead.

Newsweek:

You feel like you were mistreated by the press?

Sheehan:

They got hold of everything I've ever said and scrutinized it so carefully. They never scrutinized what Bush said. No one said, "Why did you lie to the American people and say there was WMD?" The press found an easy target in Iraq, and they found an easy target in me.

Time Magazine just piled some more mistreatment onto poor Mother Moonbat.

Hat tip: Michelle Malkin

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:33 AM | Comments (6)

December 21, 2005

Even USA Today Gets ANWR Drilling

Even left-leaning USA Today grasps what an absolute no-brainer it is that we need to drill for oil in ANWR:

The nation's painful but fleeting experience with $3 a gallon gasoline this summer demonstrated the need to both increase the supply of oil and curb demand for it. The disruptions from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita also showed how domestic oil production is dangerously concentrated in the Gulf of Mexico region. Drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), the largest untapped oil pool in the country, is ... a necessary step to augment long-term supply, one that can make the nation less vulnerable to the whims of nature and oil-producing countries.

Oil-producing countries that will use the proceeds to finance Islamic terrorism and the destabilization of democracies in Latin America, I might add.

More from the USA Today editorial:

ANWR has at least 6 billion and maybe 16 billion barrels of recoverable oil, U.S. Geological Survey says. It could provide 1 million barrels a day for 30 years, or about 5% of daily consumption. ... It could be done without wrecking the environment. ... Only 2,000 acres of the 19 million-acre ANWR refuge would be subject to drilling, in an area so remote that few Americans not associated with the oil industry will ever see it. ... Drilling would have economic benefits. It could create 250,000 to 735,000 jobs nationwide, supporters say. ... Allowing ANWR drilling would show that the nation is finally getting serious about acting in its best interest by tapping a rich energy source and curbing its dependence on Middle Eastern dictatorships.

If those arguments don't convince you that drilling in this godforsaken frozen wasteland on the far side of nowhere needs to start yesterday, this ought to: Congressional Dems — reliably wrong about pretty much everything — are so opposed to drilling that they used their beloved filibuster to kill a critical defense spending bill in order to stall it.

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:35 PM | Comments (3)

Straight Talk From a Moonbat

Kudos to animal rights activist Chris McIntosh, who last week was sentenced to 8 years for torching a Seattle McDonalds on behalf of ELF and ALF — sure the guy is a psychopath who most definitely belongs in a cage, but at least he's upfront about his beliefs. Here's what he has to say to his supporters:

I no longer see the use or satisfying results of petitions and demonstrations. The truth is the crunch has come, and it's time for a feral rampage in everyone's heart! Whether its wreaking drunken havoc upon the civilized pillars of society or some other way that gets you off, we are the barbarian hordes. Let's sack Rome!

If only the Congressional Democrats who have been doing whatever they can to obstruct the War on Terror would be so straightforward about their objectives.

Posted by Van Helsing at 4:13 PM | Comments (1)

NBC Reaches Out to Christians

It looks like the mainstream media is serious about paying more attention to people of faith. Beliefnet reports on a new series picked up by NBC called "The Book of Daniel," featuring an Episcopal priest whose son is gay, whose daughter deals drugs, whose lesbian secretary is having sex with his sister-in-law, and whose 16-year-old adopted son is having sex with the bishop's daughter. The priest is addicted to Vicodin and meets with Jesus in his station wagon.

The series' writer, Jack Kenny, who wears his homosexuality prominently on his sleeve, considers himself to be "in Catholic recovery," and has taken an interest in Buddhism.

"Organized religion is, to me, almost the same organism as the Mafia," says Kenny. "I always wanted to explore religion the way 'The Sopranos' explored the Mafia, through the focal lens of a family."

Hat tips: Touchstone Magazine, Ankle Biting Pundits

Posted by Van Helsing at 2:46 PM | Comments (6)

Reid and Co. Come Through for Al Qaeda

"We killed the Patriot Act,'' Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid crowed to loud applause at a Democratic rally after helping to filibuster extension of a piece of legislation regarded as crucial in preventing future terrorist attacks that are likely to dwarf 9/11.

The alleged violations of the civil rights of terrorists involved in the Patriot Act are uncontroversial when used for investigating health-care fraud and marijuana traffickers. But of course, this has nothing to do with civil rights; the idea is to hobble the Administration, which has been much too effective at protecting us from terrorism for Democratic leaders' liking.

We'll know whom to thank when we look out the window and see this:

Posted by Van Helsing at 12:27 PM | Comments (3)

New York City Stews in Its Moonbattery

New York City remains paralyzed this morning, as workers walk miles through the freezing cold and many stores remain closed during the busiest shopping week of the year, seemingly all because of the runaway greed of the illegally striking Transport Workers Union.

But can the blame really be placed completely at the feet of the thugs at TWU? It's hardly a secret that unions tend to be dominated by greedy goons who will take whatever they think they can get, with no regard whatsoever for their effect on society. What makes them think that by holding New York City hostage, they will be granted their outrageous demands (retirement at age 50, 8% pay raise per year, no employee contributions to pensions or health insurance)?

They think so because, in NYC's left-wing, pro-union environment, this sort of extortion tends to pay off. From the Wall Street Journal:

Founded in 1934 originally to represent workers in the private sector, the TWU was one of the radical unions that formed the Congress of Industrial Organizations. An early president, Mike Quill, was a member of the Communist Party who reveled in his nickname, "Red Mike." Though Quill quit the party when it refused to back an early transit fare increase (on the grounds that it would hurt the working class), he remained a militant power for decades, especially after New York Mayor Robert Wagner misguidedly signed an executive order giving public employees the right to organize and bargain collectively in 1958. Quill began a predictable cycle: Every few years, during the critical Christmas shopping and tourist season, the TWU threatens to shut down New York if officials don't acquiesce to its demands.

The union first struck on New Year's Day, 1966, John Lindsay's first day as mayor, demanding a 30% wage hike, a four-day, 32-hour work week and retirement after 25 years service. Workers stayed out for 13 contentious days, and though public opinion mostly opposed the strike, in the end the union won a rich settlement, estimated at some $70 million (about $400 million in today's dollars), or twice what city negotiators had originally offered. In 1980, with the city still recovering from the fiscal crisis of the late 1970s, the union struck again, this time for 11 days, and when a judge imposed fines on workers, they simply upped their demands to cover the costs, winning 18% wage increases over two years.

The pay these low-skilled transit workers receive is already outlandish, which is why there are 30 applicants for every job opening. Average pay is $40,000 (plus extremely generous benefits) for cleaning subway cars, a job requiring no more skill than shopping cart wrangling. Nothing could be easier than replacing them on reasonable terms. If Reagan could fire the highly skilled air traffic controllers in 1981, what — other than engrained moonbattery — prevents TWU members from being canned for sabotaging their own city with this illegal strike?

Mayor Bloomberg has been filling the air with appropriate rhetoric, using words like shameful, thuggish, selfish, and unconscionable to describe the TWU. Let's see if he can back it up with some action. This crisis could actually be a great opportunity for the city, allowing it to put an end to the transit union shakedown cycle.

New York needs to strike a blow against moonbattery by firing the bums immediately.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:01 AM | Comments (8)

December 20, 2005

A Lesson From the Art World

For centuries, Western Civilization took justifiable pride in its great works of art. Unfortunately, the realm of art has been overwhelmed by a mentality that combines pompousness, vanity, phoniness, and infantilism in such a way that it can only be called moonbattery. A crucial aspect of our culture has been left in the hands of the sort of people who write for the editorial page of the New York Times.

The results have been predictable. In place of Rembrandt's stirring masterpieces, we get Jackson Pollock drunkenly smearing paint all over the place.

If you've ever stared at some famous piece of modern art, attempting to find some hint of redeeming value, before finally giving up and muttering to yourself, "But a monkey could do this," you just might have been right. From The Australian:

The director of the State Art Museum of Moritzburg in Saxony-Anhalt, Katja Schneider, suggested the painting was by the Guggenheim Prize-winning artist Ernst Wilhelm Nay.

"It looks like an Ernst Wilhelm Nay. He was famous for using such blotches of colour," Dr Schneider confidently asserted.

The canvas was actually the work of Banghi, a 31-year-old female chimp at the local zoo.

If moonbats could reduce art to this state of affairs, imagine what they would do in the realm of politics. They might take America and turn it into France — or worse. We need to be very sure they don't get the chance.

Hat tip: Free Will

Posted by Van Helsing at 4:49 PM | Comments (3)

Moonbats Visualize Humanity's Demise

You have to hand it to the folks at VHEMT (pronounced vehement). Liberals in general just don't seem to think things through. But the VHEMT people have thought their ideology through to the very end. They have also taken the self-hatred that drives leftist thinking to its natural conclusion. Why settle for hating your own country or your own ethnic group when you can hate your own species?

VHEMT stands for Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. Their goal: the eradication of the human race.

Fortunately, in contrast to some of the gory fantasies on display at Democratic Underground, VHEMT's approach is nonviolent. All you need to do to become a member — a "VHEMT Volunteer" — is live by this creed:

All of us should voluntarily refrain from reproducing further, bringing about the eventual extinction of Homo sapiens.

From their website:

We don't carry on about how the human race has shown itself to be a greedy, amoral parasite on the once-healthy face of this planet. That type of negativity offers no solution to the inexorable horrors which human activity is causing.

Rather, The Movement presents an encouraging alternative to the callous exploitation and wholesale destruction of the Earth's ecology.

As VHEMT Volunteers know, the hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo sapiens... us.

Each time another one of us decides to not add another one of us to the burgeoning billions already squatting on this ravaged planet, another ray of hope shines through the gloom.

Nice of them to avoid negativity. Lest you dismiss these people as twisted lunatics, I should point out that the literary giant and esteemed intellectual Kurt Vonnegut has expressed very similar views:

We are killing the planet as a life support system. We may have gone so far already that there's no recovery from it. The game may be over. ... I think the earth's immune system is trying to get rid of us. And it's high time they did. We are a disease on the face of this planet ... it's time we got out of here. We are a disease on the planet, and I think we ought to become syphilis with a conscience and stop reproducing.

But if you want to dismiss Vonnegut as a twisted lunatic too, be my guest.

It would be nice to think that this movement could result in the voluntary extinction not of humans, but of moonbats. However, moonbattery seems to be a matter of choice, rather than genetics.

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

The Strategy Is Working

Despite suggestions to the contrary by carping Dhimmicrats, the Bush Administration actually does have a strategy to win the war in Iraq — and it's working.

An important aspect of the overall strategy is the "clear, hold, build" approach, which entails clearing an area of terrorists, then building it up with reconstruction projects before handing it over to Iraqi security forces. The residents see the contrast between squalor and terror under the "insurgents," and wealth and freedom under democracy. Few people who lack a journalism degree have a hard time choosing between the two.

Here's how the Telegraph describes the state of affairs in Tal Afar, which was a terrorist stronghold until recently:

[T]he approach of an American military convoy brings people out to wave and even clap, something not seen since the invasion of spring 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein.

The next step beyond "clear, hold, build" is the "ink spot" method — the spreading of one area of control to another. But there's a problem with spreading the Tal Afar success story throughout Iraq:

The strategy will require more troops, which is politically unacceptable right now in America, given growing public doubts about the war.

In other words, before we can win the hearts and minds of Iraqis, we have to win the hearts and minds of Americans — not an easy task when the Democratic leadership and the MSM are pulling out all the stops to undermine support for the war. Their own strategy is clear — to make a self-fulfilling prophesy out of claims like the one by Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean that the "idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong."

In the words of Colonel Col H.R. McMaster, commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment based in Tal Afar:

The enemy is really good at disinformation and propaganda. We have to win the battleground of perception.

Hat tip: Byron

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:15 AM | Comments (2)

December 19, 2005

Financial Advice

Based on this graph of its performance, I would advise anyone who holds any stock in the New York Times to sell immediately. As for anyone who takes any stock in the New York Times, I would advise psychiatric care.

Hat tip: Florida Cracker

Posted by Van Helsing at 5:17 PM | Comments (4)

Notable Quotables

The Media Research Center has released its Best Notable Quotables of 2005, aka The 18th Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting. There are 16 award categories, with runners-up and video clips. A few highlights:

Slam Uncle Sam Award

Andrea Mitchell: "It is an iconic picture: American hostages, hands bound and blindfolded, being paraded outside the U.S. embassy in Tehran by their captors. But has one of those student radicals now become Iran's newly elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?...Tonight, U.S. intelligence officials say that they will continue to study this, but may never have definitive proof of what the role was of Iran's new president, Brian."

Brian Williams: "Andrea, what would it all matter if proven true? Someone brought up today the first several U.S. Presidents were certainly revolutionaries and might have been called terrorists at the time by the British Crown, after all."

Mitchell: "Indeed, Brian."

— NBC Nightly News, June 30.

Madness of King George Award for Bush Bashing

"It's like he [President Bush] stuck a broomstick in his [FDR's] wheelchair wheels."

— Newsweek's Jon Meacham on MSNBC's Imus in the Morning May 9, discussing Bush's criticism of Roosevelt's Yalta deal with Stalin on post-war Europe.

The Kanye West "George Bush Doesn't Care About Wet People" Award

"The dilatory performance of George Bush during the past week has been outrageous. Almost as unbelievable as Katrina itself is the fact that the leader of the free world has been outshone by the elected leaders of a region renowned for governmental ineptitude....The populism of Huey Long was financially corrupt, but when it came to the welfare of people, it was caring. The churchgoing cultural populism of George Bush has given the United States an administration that worries about the House of Saud and the welfare of oil companies while the poor drown in their attics and their sons and daughters die in foreign deserts."

— Former New York Times Executive Editor Howell Raines in a Los Angeles Times op-ed, September 1.

Captain Dan the Forgery Man Award

Dan Rather: "My principal problem was that I stuck by the [Memogate] story, I stuck by our people for too long. I'm guilty of that. I believed in the story, and the facts of the story were correct. One supporting pillar of the story, albeit an important one, one supporting pillar was brought into question. To this day no one has proven whether it was what it purported to be or not....You know, I didn't give up on my people, our people. I didn't and I won't." [Applause]

Marvin Kalb: "Dan, thank you. You said, I believe you just said, that you think the story is accurate."

Rather: "The story is accurate."

— From The Kalb Report, an interview series produced by the George Washington University and Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University, and shown live on C-SPAN September 26.

Crazy Chris Award for Chris Matthews' Left-Wing Lunacy

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan: "We're not going to cure terrorism and spread peace and good will in the Middle East by killing innocent people or — I'm not even saying our bullets and bombs are killing them. The occupation — they don't have food, they don't have clean water, they don't have electricity. They don't have medicine, they don't have doctors. We need to get our military presence out of there, and that's what's gonna start building good will....I see Iraq as the base for spreading imperialism...."

Host Chris Matthews: "Are you considering running for Congress, Cindy?"

Sheehan: "No, not this time...."

Matthews: "Okay. Well, I have to tell you, you sound more informed than most U.S. Congresspeople, so maybe you should run."

—Exchange on MSNBC's Hardball, August 15.

Good Morning Morons Award

Matt Lauer in Baghdad: "Talk to me...about morale here. We've heard so much about the insurgent attacks, so much about the uncertainty as to when you folks are going to get to go home. How would you describe morale?"

Chief Warrant Officer Randy Kirgiss: "In my unit morale is pretty good. Every day we go out and do our missions and people are ready to execute their missions. They're excited to be here."

Lauer: "How much does that uncertainty of [not] knowing how long you're going to be here impact morale?"

Specialist Steven Chitterer: "Morale is always high. Soldiers know they have a mission. They like taking on new objectives and taking on the new challenges...."

Lauer: "Don't get me wrong here, I think you are probably telling me the truth, but a lot of people at home are wondering how that could be possible with the conditions you're facing and with the attacks you're facing. What would you say to those people who are doubtful that morale can be that high?"

Captain Sherman Powell: "Sir, if I got my news from the newspapers also, I'd be pretty depressed as well."

— Exchange on NBC's Today, August 17.

Politics of Meaninglessness Award for the Silliest Analysis

"It's been 11 days since two African-American teenagers were killed, electrocuted during a police chase, which prompted all of this."

—Anchor Carol Lin after a Nov. 6 CNN Sunday Night story about riots in France. The two teenagers were not Americans, but French citizens of Tunisian heritage.

What Liberal Media? Award

"I'm going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee. We have an ideological press that's interested in the election of Republicans, and a mainstream press that's interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don't have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people."

— Bill Moyers, who retired in December 2004 from the PBS show Now, as quoted by AP television writer Frazier Moore in a December 10, 2004 dispatch.

Oh, That Liberal Media! Award

"The elephant in the newsroom is our narrowness. Too often, we wear liberalism on our sleeve and are intolerant of other lifestyles and opinions....We're not very subtle about it at this paper: If you work here, you must be one of us. You must be liberal, progressive, a Democrat. I've been in communal gatherings in The Post, watching election returns, and have been flabbergasted to see my colleagues cheer unabashedly for the Democrats."

— Washington Post "Book World" editor Marie Arana in a September 29 contribution to the Post's "daily in-house electronic critiques," as quoted by Post media reporter Howard Kurtz in an October 3 article.

Posted by Van Helsing at 4:33 PM

Another Reason Why Vegetarianism Is Bad for You

It leads people to do things like this:

There are reasons why humans come equipped with teeth designed for eating meat — just as there are reasons why we aren't born with bicycles growing out of our faces.

Posted by Van Helsing at 1:15 PM | Comments (3)

Jimmy Carter, Pioneer of the Paranormal

Ex-President and Nobel laureate treasonous moonbat Jimmy Carter has revealed that he employed a psychic to find a missing plane in Africa:

The director of the CIA came and told me that he had contacted a woman in California who claimed to have supernatural capabilities. And she went into a trance and she wrote down latitudes and longitudes, and we sent our satellite over that latitude and longitude, and there was the plane.

As you might recall, former First Lady Nancy Reagan was ridiculed by liberals for consulting an astrologer. But Nancy Reagan was never in charge of the country. Then again, neither was Carter — but he did try to be in charge.

Carter has also been reminiscing on his UFO experiences.

There were about 25 of us men standing around....And all of a sudden, one of the men looked up and said, "Look, over in the west." And there was a bright light in the sky....[I]t got closer and closer to us. And then it stopped, I don't know how far away, but it stopped beyond the pine trees. And all of a sudden it changed color to blue, and then it changed to red, then back to white. And we were trying to figure out what in the world it could be, and then it receded into the distance.

He might have tried taking another hit of acid; that might have brought the spaceship back for a closer look.

With thanks to V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:52 AM | Comments (7)

December 18, 2005

Gray Lady Rides the Gay Cowboy Hobbyhorse

The American West is more than a region. It's more than a culture. It's a vast symbol, representing things like freedom, self-reliance, and virility. No wonder the Left hates it so much. No wonder they would like to subvert and corrupt it.

This should help explain the overblown hype over the limited-release movie "Brokeback Mountain." As a movie, it may or may not have its merits, but its merits as a movie are irrelevant. After all, how many people outside of Manhattan would be willing to sit through a gay cowboy love story for its own sake? This isn't a movie — it's a tactical maneuver in a propaganda war.

The New York Times, the vanguard of the Left in this war, is squeezing all it can out of the movie's release. Two thirds of the front page of today's Sunday Styles section is devoted to an article about oppressed gay cowboys. You have to hand it to the Times: they must have done some serious digging to come up with not one but two Wyoming residents who regard themselves as gay cowboys (although they did have to resort to also including a male hairdresser who lives in Cheyenne and some guy who grew up on a sheep ranch in Idaho). A blurb proclaims:

To some gay men in Wyoming, "Brokeback Mountain" isn't just a story. It's a documentary.

If "Fahrenheit 9/11" can be a documentary, why can't "Brokeback Mountain"? Both are aimed at the same audience of sneering liberal elitists, and both are political vehicles before they are movies, or only a handful of people would ever have heard of them.

"Where I live, you can't really go out and be yourself," a genuine gay cowboy whines to the Times. As a conservative employed in greater New York's vociferously intolerant publishing industry, I know what it's like to have to keep your head down, and yet I just can't work up much sympathy — not even when Matthew Shepard (who was killed in Wyoming seven years ago supposedly for being gay) is predictably disinterred yet again:

And Mr. Shepard's death soon assumed to moral and symbolic dimensions of martyrdom.

Christians may have Jesus. But the New York Times has Matthew Shepard.

They also have Frank Rich, who crows that the movie, which is "all the more subversive for having no overt politics, is a rebuke and antidote" to opposition to gay marriage.

Of course this isn't the first movie to sympathize with gays. What makes this one so exciting to moonbats is the political point being made — namely, that the Left can use Hollywood to superimpose their agenda on our ideal of the West.

Posted by Van Helsing at 12:46 PM | Comments (5)

December 17, 2005

Mandatory Transvestite Bathrooms in Brazil

Jacko of Arabia may want to consider relocating to South America. Fox News reports that the city council of Nova Iguacu, Brazil has passed a bill that with the mayor's okay would require night clubs, shopping malls, movie theaters, and large restaurants to provide a third restroom for transvestites.

Never mind how much it would cost for all these businesses to build a third bathroom. Like all moonbattery, it will be ostensibly free to its beneficiaries because someone else will be forced to pay for it.

The Brazilian bill goes beyond the trend at American colleges — promoted by such high-minded organizations as People in Search of Safe Restrooms and Queer Action Campaign for Gender-Neutral Bathrooms — to provide "de-gendered" restrooms that anyone can use, on the grounds that "lots of people don't fit neatly into our culture's rigid two-gender system."

This is certainly good news for Dr. Frank-N-Furter, who won't have to stop and think before using the restroom the next time he/she visits Nova Iguacu.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:49 AM | Comments (6)

December 16, 2005

Condolences to the Kos Kids

Democracy is gathering strength in Iraq, and the moonbats at Daily Kos are not dealing with it very well. Like other bats, they retreat into their cave at the first sign of light, snug and safe in the darkness of their fantasy world. But they still know that the gathering light is out there, and it seems to make them very bitter.

Decision '08 has the top 10 Kos Kids reactions to the triumphantly successful elections in Iraq. Here are a few highlights (needless to say, the asterisks are not in the original comments):

[I]t's precisely what BushCo is trying to do. Distract us from the violence and the deaths, of both U.S. and coalition forces and the Iraqi people, by staging these elections and giving us these photo ops.

Earlier this week, on Air America, I heard about a truck of ballots being intercepted on it's way from Iran.

I won't believe the numbers anyway. After the last election took 3 weeks to finalise the votes, I didn't trust those results either.

maybe america needs a good and bloody civil war to remember what democracy is about

This so-called election is utter bullsh**, nothing more than photo ops and PR props.

Has any reporter asked anyone in the administration why the f*** Iraq has had even 1 election if the country can't even employ 60% of the people?! If 50 people are dying a day. Can't one a**hole just ask the f***ing question?!?

I had a realization today while driving to work listening to all the talking heads blather on about Iraqis voting. I. DON'T. GIVE. A. SH**. ABOUT. THIS.

Cheer up, guys. Tyranny still prevails in places like Cuba, North Korea, and Iran — for now, anyway.

With thanks to V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 1:16 PM | Comments (8)

Democrats Lose Another Election

Whoever wins in the Iraqi elections, it's pretty clear who lost: the Democratic Party. That nefarious organization's best efforts have been insufficient to prevent the Iraqi people's steady march from tyranny toward democracy. Despite risk to life and limb, turnout was high — and now even Sunnis are taking part in the process. The violence was less than expected.

Democracy is actually taking root in Iraq. We are winning.

But I wonder how well the elections would have gone if our country followed the advice of Murtha, Pelosi, et al., and told Iraqis and terrorists alike that we planned to tuck our tails between our legs and bail out.

Iraqi voter Betty Dawisha sums it up nicely:

Anybody who doesn't appreciate what America has done and President Bush, let them go to hell.

Hat tip: The BLOG

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:33 AM | Comments (10)

December 15, 2005

Chris Matthew Blames America for Iranian Hostage Crisis and 9/11

Despite the best efforts of fellow MSNBC moonbat Keith Olbermann, Chris "Tweety" Matthews continues to hold his position as that floundering network's most demented left-wing ideologue. On his Hardball program earlier this week, he subjected Karen Hughes to nostalgia for the disastrous Carter Administration, while blaming America not only for the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis but even for 9/11.

See if you can extract any sanity from this rant:

Let me ask you about, you know, there's a definition of a gentleman, I'm sure you heard it. It's not hurt someone's feelings or insult someone unintentionally, and if you want to call somebody out for a fight, fine. But if you don't want to hurt their feelings, don't do it by accident. You know, when I was working in the White House for President Carter as a speech writer, I was shocked to realize that the people in Iran hated the shah, that they, not just the Islamists and the right wing and the fundamentalists, but everybody wanted him out of there, including the middle-class business people wanted him out. And we, unfortunately, were wining and dining with him right to the end, and you saw what happened. We were hated and they took our hostages and humiliated us for a year. And then, of course, bin Laden, rightfully or wrongly, called out, called us for insulting his country by keeping 10,000 troops there for 10 years under the Bush, under the Clinton administration, coming into your administration, the President's. Are we sometimes to blame for the hell that we’ve raised? That's all I'm asking. Is it always the other guys' fault, or do we do things that send signals that we are the enemy of those people?

He's right about this much: the ineptness of an American administration — namely Carter's — did help bring about and through its incompetence exacerbate the Iranian hostage crisis, which might have been avoided if Carter had not pulled the rug out from under our ally the Shah, and which dragged on for 444 humiliating days until the blessed day of Ronald Reagan's inauguration.

But we shouldn't harbor any hard feelings toward Islamic terrorists. As Tweety has pointed out in the past, "They just have a different perspective."

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:52 PM | Comments (2)

Moonbats Claim Christmas Hurts Mother Earth

It seems like Christianity is under fire from every direction these days. In Australia, not only are Muslim thugs burning churches, but ecokooks have declared that Christmas is harmful to the environment.

The Australian Conservation Foundation has issued a report entitled "The Hidden Cost of Christmas" that calculates the environmental impact of the increased economic activity stimulated by Christmas. A box of Christmas candy is not only bad for your figure, it supposedly takes 44 lbs. of natural material to produce. Of course many of the gifts that are given were produced by factories, and we all know how nasty those can be. Aussies are even encouraged to feel guilty about the water used to grow barley for beer they drink on Christmas.

Don Henry, the foundation's executive director, suggests that we eat, drink, and give gifts in moderation. I think that true believers in environmentalism should take it a step further and give a gift to Gaia by taking a long walk on a short pier. If a lousy box of candy can cause 44 lbs. worth of damage, think of how much harm a single person does in the course of his or her life. By returning yourself to the sea, you can put an end to your consumerist ways, and even make a small contribution to the biosphere by feeding the fish, which will then return you to the ecosystem in the form of little turds that will make fertile the ocean floor.

With thanks to V the K

Posted by Van Helsing at 5:06 PM | Comments (1)

Australian Muslims Target Churches

Australia's Muslim hooligans are now going after churches (H/T: LGF).

Four churches in the southwest part of Sydney have been attacked over a period of 24 hours. In Auburn, a community hall linked to a church was burned to the ground, as "carol-singers were spat on and church buildings peppered with gunfire." An Anglican church with a primarily Chinese congregation had its front windows smashed.

"Community leaders" are reportedly stepping up for a change, calling for a curfew on Lebanese youths. They might be starting to suspect that this story will turn out differently in Australia than it has in France.

More violence is expected over the weekend.

"We are running the same command and control center as we would for a terrorist situation," said Sydney Deputy Commissioner Andrew Scipione — an appropriate approach, since Muslim rioting and Muslim terrorism are part of the same assault on Western Civilization.

As always, the word "racism" is getting heavy use. But this has nothing to do with race. It has to do with culture. Will Australian culture assert itself? Or will it allow its enemies to destroy it from within?

Posted by Van Helsing at 12:48 PM | Comments (4)

Mother Moonbat Hits the London Stage

How could the London arts community possibly follow up not one but two plays devoted to worshiping the world's dumbest "peace" activist, Rachel "Saint Pancake" Corrie? How could Nobel laureate Dario Faux I mean Fo possibly compete with the infantile moonbattery of fellow prizewinner Harold Pinter?

The answer to both questions is Peace Mom, a play written by Fo based on Sheehan's diatribes that premiered last week in London.

If you were wondering just how deep the brown stuff can get in the vicinity of Nobel laureate playwrights, pull on your waders and check out Fo's explanation of what attracted him to the saga of the Ditch Witch:

One of the things that grabbed me is that that there is an epic quality to the letters that Sheehan wrote to George Bush, and especially Barbara Bush. There is a rhythm and tempo in her prose which recalls the great epic writers of Greece. When she writes: "I am the mother of a son killed in Iraq; you are the mother of the man who killed him," it is almost hendecasyllabic. She has a gift of candour and directness and epic simplicity — Cindy may not know it but she is a born writer.

For those unfamiliar with Sheehan's literary skills, this is what her writing looks like after it's been edited.

It's not just Faux who knows how to shovel. Guardian arts correspondent Charlotte Higgins describes Sheehan's nails-on-a-blackboard whine as a "fluting, soft soprano" and the self-satisfied beam she greets cameras with when she's not pretending to be mourning as "her usual beatific smile."

As DL observes at TMH's Bacon Bits, Mother Moonbat sure is special.

Hat tip: Prince of Leaves

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:36 AM | Comments (2)

December 14, 2005

One Difference Between Christianity and Islam

When was the last time you went to church and heard a sermon like this:

Ruling Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani declared Friday that the Muslim world could survive a nuclear exchange with Israel — while accomplishing the goal of obliterating the Jewish state. ...

Analysts told IPS [Iran Press Service] that Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani's speech, delivered at a Tehran prayer service, was the first time that a prominent Islamic leader openly suggested a nuclear attack against the Israel.

Hat tip: Wiggins

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:42 PM | Comments (3)

Moonbats Exploit Tookie's Demise

Considering their unfailing knack for identifying evil and sanctimoniously siding with it, it's hardly surprising that moonbats reacted to the cold-blooded and thoroughly unreformed (PDF) multiple murderer Tookie Williams' long-overdue execution with yet another public temper tantrum. Zombie was on the scene and brought back pictures and video.

In Europe, the MSM has unsurprisingly twisted the execution into an opportunity to indulge in their favorite activity: self-righteously denouncing America. Davids Medienkritik has details on the outrageously biased coverage in Der Spiegel.

Lest we forget what the execution was actually about, here are some of Tookie's victims, via The John and Ken Show:

As far as I know, their deaths weren't much lamented by activists or the media. But then, they were just decent normal people trying to make an honest living, so their appeal to the Left would be limited.

Posted by Van Helsing at 1:24 PM | Comments (3)

Gift Idea for Dems

Stumped on what to buy for Democrats on your Christmas shopping list? Six Meat Buffet has just the ticket: Stratego for Democrats:

When you play traditional Stratego, do you furrow your brow at where to place your high ranking officers? Do you gnash your teeth over how best to protect your flag? Stratego for Democrats relieves you of these worries.

Just like congressional Dim-O-Cracks work in consort with the mainstream press to tie our troops' hands in combat, your hands are tied from the very beginning with Stratego for Democrats! All you've got are low ranking game pieces and a lot of white flags that you've got no way to protect.

And that leaves you wide open, since the enemy in the War on Terror is an ever changing mix of goat-raping islamofascists who hide behind women and use children as human shields. You're going to have a hell of a time getting through the car bombs on your way to capture their non-existent flag. In other words, you better hope you get the blue team because this war is unwinnable.

So this Christmas, have your own war, the Dim-O-Crack way. Get Stratego for Democrats. Rooting against the home team is always fun, but losing a war has never been this much fun — or this fulfilling! Wage peace and raise the white flag over and over again with your friends. It's the gift that keeps on giving, all year long!

With thanks to V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:25 AM

Chavez and His Useful Idiot Friends

A recent piece by Douglas MacKinnon in the Washington Times sheds some light on the accomplices who have assisted the anti-American dictator Hugo Chavez in his fuel oil propaganda project.

As you might have heard, Chavez has made cheap fuel oil available to the starving peasants of New York and Massachusetts, rather than use this resource to help his own people. Not even a Democrat could believe this was done because the Venezuelan strongman has a large heart. Now Chavez has placed a full page ad in various newspapers that include the New York Times and the Washington Post, ensuring that he gets maximum propaganda value for his fuel oil dollar.

The people at the Gray Lady and WaPo aren't the only idiots to prove useful in this project. Current and former Congressmen William Delahunt, Joseph Kennedy, and Jose Serrano have also participated. By some remarkable coincidence, all are Democrats.

As MacKinnon points out,

Messrs. Delahunt, Kennedy, Serrano and those involved in placing and running the ad need to ask themselves: Would they have done the same thing for the governments of Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot, Idi Amin or even Adolf Hitler? For Mr. Chavez shares much in common with these former dictators who killed and trampled human rights as a means to their own ends.

Where Saddam Hussein is concerned, the answer is probably yes — ads placed in major newspapers by Not In Our Name may as well have been written by the Butcher of Baghdad. Fortunately for the careers of the American politicians involved, the media has done a good job of keeping most of us in the dark as to why Chavez deserves to be mentioned along with the dictators listed above.

Hat tip: Byron

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:36 AM | Comments (1)

December 13, 2005

The Muslim Iceberg in Australia

The MSM has predictably portrayed the recent violence in Australia as a manifestation of the iniquitous racism that according to their ideology is characteristic of all Caucasians. In reality, it is that very ideology — moonbattery — that has brought Australia to a point where citizens have to take matters into their own hands in an attempt to defend their civilization from increasingly aggressive encroachments from the Islamic world.

Anyone misguided enough to rely on CNN for information might be unaware that the recent violence was instigated by Arab hooligans making Australian beaches unusable by menacing women, attacking life guards, etc. — and that once rioting broke out, native Australians were hardly the only ones to become unruly:

One resident, who did not want to be named, told the Australian Associated Press that about 50 cars had swept into the area, disgorging men of Middle Eastern appearance who began trashing every car in sight with baseball bats.

But the recent outburst is only the tip of the iceberg. The problem goes deeper, as retired police officer Tim Priest has tried to warn us. The violent hooliganism that characterizes Australia's Muslim community didn't get this far out of hand overnight — or without some help on the part of the authorities. According to Priest:

Police began to use selective law enforcement. They selected targets that were unlikely to use their ethnic background and cultural beliefs to hinder police investigations or arrests. It was mostly Anglo-Saxons and Asians that were the targets, because they were under-represented by religious leaders and the media.

Because of course, since 9/11 won the media's heart, Muslims will always be depicted as innocent victims of racism. Best just to avoid conflict and hope the problem will go away, right? Except that it's not going to go away until we confront it. Here's an example of why Australia's citizen's have had to take matters into their own hands:

AN EXAMPLE of the confrontations police nearly always experienced in Muslim-dominated areas when confronting even the most minor of crimes is an incident that occurred in 2001 in Auburn. Two uniformed officers stopped a motor vehicle containing three well known male offenders of Middle Eastern origin, on credible information via the police radio that indicated that the occupants of the vehicle had been involved in a series of break-and-enters. What occurred during the next few hours can only be described as frightening.

When searching the vehicle and finding stolen property from the break-and-enter, the police were physically threatened by the three occupants of the car, including references to tracking down where the officers lived, killing them and "fucking your girlfriends". The two officers were intimidated to the point of retreating to their police car and calling for urgent assistance. When police back-up arrived, the three occupants called their associates via their mobile phones, which incidentally is the Middle Eastern radio network used to communicate amongst gangs. Within minutes as many as twenty associates arrived as well as another forty or so from the street where they had been stopped. As further police cars arrived, the Middle Eastern males became even more aggressive, throwing punches at police, pushing police over onto the ground, threatening them with violence and damaging police vehicles.

When the duty officer arrived, he immediately ordered all police back into their vehicles and they retreated from the scene. The stolen property was not recovered. No offender was arrested for assaulting police or damaging police vehicles.

But the humiliation did not end there. The group of Middle Eastern males then drove to the police station, where they intimidated the station staff, damaged property and virtually held a suburban police station hostage. The police were powerless. The duty officer ordered police not to confront the offenders but to call for back-up from nearby stations. Eventually the offenders left of their own volition. No action was taken against them.

It's a good thing only white people can be racist. Otherwise this sort of thing would be appalling:

The most influential of the Middle Eastern crime groups are the Muslim males of Telopea Street, Bankstown, known as the Telopea Street Boys. They and their associates have been involved in numerous murders over the past five years, many of them unprovoked fatal attacks on young Australian men for no other reason than that they are "Skips", as they call Australians.

Here's one of the approaches Australian Muslims have taken to ingratiate themselves with the community:

A large number of Middle Eastern males would enter the club, upwards of twenty at a time. They would outnumber the security staff and begin assaulting Australian male patrons, sometimes stabbing them. The incident would be over in minutes and the gang members would be long gone before police arrived. A few days later, senior members of the gang, well dressed and business-like, would approach the club owners and offer to provide protection from similar incidents for around $2000 to $3000 a week. Many of the owners paid up and considered it a necessary expense in keeping their business viable. If they didn't pay up, or contacted the police, the gangs would wait some weeks, even months, before returning to the nightclub and extracting a terrible revenge on the owners, who would pay up or leave. There is compelling intelligence that in one well-known entertainment precinct in the city, nearly all the bars, nightclubs and hotels pay protection money to Middle Eastern crime gangs.

Of course other ethnic groups have formed criminal gangs and indulged in thuggery. But there are differences. For one, the Muslim community sees Western Civilization as its enemy, and can be counted on to side with Muslim criminals against it. Here's another:

What sets the Middle Eastern gangs apart from all other gangs is their propensity to use violence at any time and for any reason. ... The Middle Eastern cycle of violence is not local. It can occur on the central coast, around Cronulla, Bondi, Darling Harbour, Five Dock, Redfern, Paddington, anywhere in Sydney. Unlike their Vietnamese counterparts, they roam the city and are not confined to either Cabramatta or Chinatown. And even more alarming is that the violence is directed mainly against young Australian men and women. There is a clear and definite link between violent attacks on our young men and women being racial as well as criminal. Quite often when taking statements from young men attacked by groups of Lebanese males around Darling Harbour, a common theme has been the racially motivated violence against the victims simply because they are Australian.

Almost two years before the situation in Sydney broke into the international headlines, Priest had put comments like these on the record:

The critics still refuse to concede that we have a problem. They are still clinging to the multicultural theme. To highlight the problems with Middle Eastern communities in this city is to threaten to tear down the multicultural facade. .... That these groups of males can roam a city and assault, rob and intimidate at will can no longer be denied or excused. ... If the biggest threat to our society is not addressed honestly and effectively within the next two or three years it will take drastic action and enormous resources to bring it under control — if that is even possible.

No one likes to see race riots. All the same, kudos to the Aussies for fighting back. It's clear that their government, totally incapacitated by the politically correct, multicultural moonbattery that allowed this mess to develop in the first place, will be of no help to them — any more than the French government was of any use during the weeks of rioting that recently terrorized that country, or the American government is of any use in defending our borders from incursion.

Hat tips: Wiggins, The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler

Posted by Van Helsing at 5:26 PM | Comments (9)

War on Christmas Keeps Getting Uglier

From the New York Post:

Slay bells are ringing outside a $3 million brownstone on East 18th Street in Manhattan, where, rather than your typical jolly St. Nick, a skinny, bloody-bearded Santa holds a knife in his left hand and the severed head of a doll — blood gushing from its eye sockets — in the other.

The idea is supposedly to protest "the commercialization of the Yule season."

Posted by Van Helsing at 12:59 PM | Comments (3)

More Marching Moonbats

So now we finally know the truth about Katrina — it was a devious urban renewal conspiracy, brought to us by the same fiends who subjected the lovable Saddam to Shock and Awe. Check out the smiling picture of convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. Here's al Reuter's caption:

Demonstrators march down Canal Street during a protest for hurricane victims' rights in New Orleans December 10, 2005. Protesters feared they would receive federal funds to rebuild their homes.

Huh?

Hat tip: Prince of Leaves

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:19 AM | Comments (2)

Marriage and the Slippery Slope

Some are concerned that the push for homosexual marriage will lead to other matrimonial travesties, such as polygamy. But even polygamy may not be the worst thing we have to worry about.

"Indeed, why not polygamy?" pondered Cheshire C. Calhoun , a professor at Colby College who has written approvingly of same-sex marriage and "gender-neutral" polygamy.

According to South Dakota State Representative Elizabeth Kraus, Canada's government, having legalized same-sex marriage, subsequently "launched a study to look at the ramifications of polygamy. Once you open the marriage door to anyone other than one man or one woman, you haven't begun to slide down the slippery slope. You've already hit rock bottom."

Actually, this is rock bottom (H/T: Wiggins):

A 45-year-old Seattle man was videotaped having sex with a horse shortly before he died of acute peritonitis due to perforation of the colon. Bestiality is legal in Washington state. The guy got the hole poked in his colon at a combination farm/brothel northwest of Enumclaw, WA, where men go to commune with animals.

Talk about "'til death do us part." The story makes me glad for Mike Farrell's sake that any Tookie Williams fantasies he might have been nurturing will never come true, now that the Governator has come through.

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:31 AM | Comments (1)

December 12, 2005

Moonbats March on Club Gitmo

Determined to demonstrate their support for Islamic terrorists who want them dead, moonbats have traveled to Cuba to wave placards and crash diet in a show of solidarity with the vacationers at Club Gitmo.

The fellow travelers plan to live in tents at the edge of the mined military zone surrounding the US military installations for up to a week as they await a response. But they've already gotten one from the State Department, which had this to say:

These protesters, as they march through Cuba, are ignoring one of the most oppressive regimes in the world, and its systematic and institutionalized violations of human rights. They have not acknowledged the nearly 300 peaceful dissidents who today are languishing in Cuban jails under horrific conditions.

But of course, if neohippie moonbats cared a whit about human rights, they would be on America's side, not terrorists'.

With thanks to V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:48 PM | Comments (4)

Moonbat Quotes of the Year

Right Wing News has compiled The 40 Most Obnoxious Quotes For 2005. As you might expect, moonbats contributed most of them. Here are few classics:

"I took a poo in the woods hunched over like an animal. It was awesome." — Drew Barrymore

"I know people who are embarrassed to be American. They don't like showing their passports. It's becoming a scary place. It takes someone very brave not to be quiet, someone who doesn't mind death threats, their life being turned upside down, news cameras outside their door. There is no freedom of speech in America anymore. They are not living up to the constitution. There's so much fear in America and control." — Gillian Anderson

"And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the – of – the historical customs, religious customs. Whether you like it or not ... Iraqis should be doing that." — John Kerry slams the troops again

"Well I would say that in the year 2000, the country failed abysmally in the presidential election process. There's no doubt in my mind that Al Gore was elected president." — Jimmy Carter

"Meanwhile, every American who believes in racial equality and human dignity should sympathize with the rioters, not with the effete bigots on the Seine.