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January 31, 2006

Mad Howie's Mismanagement

It looks like Howard "Dr. Demento" Dean's reign as Chairman of the DNC may be headed for some rough water. Dems don't seem to mind his obnoxious and even seditious rhetoric, but they are starting to object to his fiscal incompetence. From Drudge:

Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill are privately bristling over Howard Dean's management of the Democratic National Committee and have made those sentiments clear after new fundraising numbers showed he has spent nearly all the committee's cash and has little left to support their efforts to gain seats this cycle, ROLL CALL reports.

Congressional leaders were furious last week when they learned the DNC has just $5.5 million in the bank, compared to the Republican National Committee’s $34 million. ...

"A lot of people are scratching their heads as to what's going on," said one senior Democratic aide.

Thankfully these people aren't overseeing the economy.

Hat tip: Wiggins

Posted by Van Helsing at 5:22 PM | Comments (6)

An Israeli Glimpse Into the Abyss

You might be tempted to think that if our backs were against the wall — if we were staring imminent extinction in the eye — even the Left would set aside its sanctimonious nonsense and admit that our civilization deserves to exist and has a right to defend itself. But don't be too sure. Consider the example of Israel, which is openly slated for destruction by the soon-to-be-nuclear Iran, and now has on its border a quasi-state where a blood-drenched terrorist organization was just democratically elected. Even there, the instinct of self-preservation has yet to replace moonbattery with patriotism in some quarters.

As Steven Plaut observes on FrontPageMagazine.com:

Israeli leftists increasingly cheer for Hamas, because they openly endorse Hamas's agenda itself, which just happens to be based on annihilating Israel.

Americans have known at least since the McGovern candidacy that the Left can be suicidal politically; Israel shows that its suicidal impulses might be quite literal. Gideon Levy is a prime example. Here he is crowing about Hamas' victory on Haaretz.com:

First, these are very authentic results, achieved through elections that were respectably democratic, even though they took place under the least democratic circumstances imaginable, the occupation. As usual, we were threatened by our experts with "anarchy," and, as usual, the Palestinians did not meet those expectations. There was no shooting and no rioting; the Palestinian nation had its say with admirable order. It said "no" to a movement that did not bring it any achievements in the just struggle against the occupation, and it said "yes" to those who appeared to the voters to be braver and with clean hands. The religious issue was set aside: Most of the Palestinians, it can be safely said, don't want a religious state; they want a free state.

Ahem, Mr. Levy, no shooting, no rioting, no anarchy? What about this:

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Firing into the air, Fatah gunmen stormed Palestinian parliament buildings on Saturday and demanded the party leadership resign following a crushing election defeat by Hamas. ... "No partnership with Hamas," gunmen chanted as they fired in the air in Ramallah. ... In Gaza, police briefly stormed the local parliament compound in protest at suggestions by Hamas that it take over security forces once it forms a new government. ... Eight people were wounded in street battles between Fatah and Hamas supporters in the Gaza Strip on Friday. ... Hamas, behind a suicide bombing campaign that has killed hundreds of Israelis, has said it will accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza as a first step toward conquering Israel

Appallingly, the "clean hands" Levy refers to are the hands that do this:

Where Levy got the notion that the "religious issue was set aside" by the election of Islamic fundamentalists, only the Devil could say.

No serious person disputes that Hamas is and has always been a terrorist organization devoted to bringing about the complete annihilation of Israel. Liberal Israelis who actually side with Hamas provide a glimpse into the abyss of self-destructive lunacy that is the black heart of moonbattery.

Update

Welcome readers of Rightwing Nuthouse's Carnival of the Clueless #32.

Posted by Van Helsing at 2:23 PM | Comments (3)

Hollyweird Moonbattery, Continental Style

It isn't just in Hollywood that the movie industry is overrun by some of the phoniest moonbats imaginable. Davids Medienkritik reports on the ravings of Dieter Kosslick, director of the International Berlin Film Festival, who expressed this "special wish" while discussing the film "The Road to Guantanamo":

I would really very much like to greet the 450 inmates, who are being held and tortured at Guantanamo in opposition to human rights of any kind, on the red carpet.

Medienkritik has a special wish too:

Why not send all 450+ inmates from Guantanamo to live with Mr. Kosslick in his house and in his neighbors' houses in Germany? After all, if you're willing to roll out the red carpet for hundreds of Al-Qaeda and Taliban Islamofascists, why not go the extra mile and take them into your home? Put your money where your mouth is Mr. Kosslick, not just your foot.

Posted by Van Helsing at 1:23 PM | Comments (2)

Cannibal Holocaust: The Alito Confirmation

Speaking out from the site BlameBush!, the esteemed Senator Ted Kennedy issued a dire warning concerning today's confirmation of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. An extract:

Barring a miracle, Samuel Alito will be confirmed to the Supreme Court of the United States this Tuesday. Roe v. Wade will be repealed, and the clock will effectively be turned back 50 years to a time when women were herded like cattle into back alley abortion clinics and beaten with the King James Bible until they miscarried. Affirmative Action will be scrapped. Blacks will be thrown back into chains. Cub Scouts will go from door to door, spreading their message of hate and intolerance. There will be a bug in every telephone, a nativity scene in every park, and a heterosexual in every Showtime drama series. Dr. King's dream of justice and equality will succumb to George Bush's Great American Nightmare.

I've tried pleading with congressional Republicans. I've tried threatening them with a filibuster. I've even tried rolling around on the floor of the Senate until I got my way. Unfortunately, the close-minded conservatives who control Congress will simply not respond to reason. Therefore, I have no choice but to appeal to their primitive, apelike instinct for protecting the lives of children over the rights of the mother.

For every vote cast this Tuesday in favor of confirming Judge Alito, I, Senator Edward Kennedy, will eat one small child.

Sometimes a guy with Chappaquiddick Ted's moral integrity is forced to take drastic steps.

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:53 AM | Comments (2)

George Galloway: January Moonbat of the Month™

In association with Something... and Half of Something, Moonbattery is pleased to announce the Moonbat of the Month™ for January 2006: George Galloway!

This left-wing British MP's recent accomplishments include making a laughing stock of Parliament by appearing on the show Celebrity Big Brother, where he performed for the public by crawling around on all fours pretending to be a cat, and by dressing in a leotard to express "the emotions of bewilderment when a small puppy won't come to you" employing the medium of robotic dance.

His disgraceful behavior caught on camera was not limited to reality show antics. A video came to light this month that showed Galloway sucking up to the torturer, murder, and serial rapist Uday Hussein. Unfortunately, Jihad George did not live up to his promise to stick with Uday (who was killed by US forces) "until the end."

Earlier accomplishments on Galloway's part include traveling to the Middle East to incite violence against the West with this kind of rhetoric on Arab television:

Two of your beautiful daughters are in the hands of foreigners — Jerusalem and Baghdad. The foreigners are doing to your daughters as they will. The daughters are crying for help, and the Arab world is silent. And some of them are collaborating with the rape of these two beautiful Arab daughters.

Of course Galloway's ability to convert his seditious impulses into nearly $600,000 through the UN's oil-for-food scandal also deserves mention.

Congratulations, Mr. Galloway — you richly deserve the honor of Moonbat of the Month™!

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:21 AM | Comments (1)

Playpen Politics

What would happen if people stopped maturing at age two? Would we still have political discourse?

Sure we would — and we may see an example of what it would look like tonight:

Anti-Bush protesters plan to hold a noisy demonstration outside the U.S. Capitol Tuesday night, when President Bush delivers his State of the Union speech to Congress. During a protest demanding that "Bush step down," liberal activists, headlined by anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, will try to drown out Bush's address with drums, violins, pot-and-pan banging, car horns, church bells, and raised voices, according to a press release. "People will use flashlights to shine the light on Bush's lies," protest organizers said. The demonstration, which supposedly will attract thousands of people, is being organized by The World Can't Wait, a national organization launched in November to spread the word that "Bush lied, Bush spied, Bush must step down." Representatives from Veterans for Peace, the Hip-Hop Caucus, Interfaith Alliance, Progressive Democrats of America also will take part.

Impressively, the World Can't Wait folks have in their corner John Conyers, the US Congressman and kangaroo court make-believe judge whose office has been accused of stealing turkeys from charity.

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:56 AM | Comments (4)

January 30, 2006

School Forbids Raising Your Hand

If there's one thing that will make you almost as terrified for the future as Iran developing nuclear weapons, it's got to be the pervasiveness of moonbattery in education, from higher ed all the way down to grammar school, where the pupils of one London school are now banned from raising their hands in class.

The principal explains that it's often the same children who raise their hands. When teachers try to involve the ones who don't raise their hands by calling on them instead, the tots experience the dreaded sensation of victimization. And so:

To spare embarrassment of the students who do not know the answer, the school has incorporated a "phone a friend" system, allowing one child to nominate another to take the question instead.

What an ingenious concept. I can just picture the characters in the Guinness commercials shouting "brilliant!"

Hat tip: William

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:47 PM | Comments (5)

Moonbattery Oppresses Blacks

The weather isn't really harder on blacks — but moonbattery is, as Stephen Towe explains on Citizen-Times.com.

Towe points out that blacks are five times more likely than whites to be in jail not because of a sinister Caucasian conspiracy, but because they commit five times as much crime. If we're going to find root causes for this state of affairs, let's not waste time on hollow demagoguery about the white man's racism. Any reasonable person will admit that whites have been bending over backwards to facilitate black integration. True, this integration is still resisted by narrow-minded, hate-spewing racists — but white racists gave up resisting it a generation ago. In the modern age, it's the race hustlers promoting themselves as "leaders of the black community" who are succeeding where the KKK failed at keeping blacks down. As Towe puts it:

The more African-American leaders play the blame game on whites, the less likely their constituents will wake up to the truthful realization that the moral virtues of hard work, education, sexual restraint and honoring our laws are the only tickets out of their self-imposed exile from the American dream.

Enraged by race-baiting UNC Political Science Prof Dwight Mullen's demands that institutions "deliver racially just outcomes," Towe rails,

Meritorious behavior be damned — if you are black, you deserve equality of outcomes ... same pay, same benefits, same health care, and you don't even have to work for it. According to this argument, whites owe equality of outcomes to blacks, regardless of their behavior or merit, simply because of their skin color. ...

Truthfully, until this attitude of privilege by skin color is erased from the African-American mentality, they are doomed to failure and despair in a nation that celebrates and rewards achievement earned by hard work and efficiency, and not by skin color. ...

The moment anyone feels they "deserve" something they have not earned, they doom themselves to resentment, anger and a self-defeating psychology of privilege. It is unfortunate that prominent and influential leaders who should know better still cling to this defeatist psychology, which only alienates their partners and reinforces the racism they claim to despise.

But there is a downside to overcoming moonbattery and participating in American society on an equal basis. It's likely to have a harmful impact on the racial grievance industry. Parasites like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton might actually be forced to do something constructive with their lives.

Hat tip: Lucianne.com

Posted by Van Helsing at 3:25 PM | Comments (5)

The Road to Hell Is Paved by Kooks Like Cindy Sheehan

The media blitz never ends for Cindy Sheehan, she of the "absolute moral authority," who in addition to threatening to run for the Senate is planning to pull her silly Ditch Witch stunt again by camping out outside the President's ranch. But there's more: she reports that noisily anti-American strongman Hugo Chavez endorses his new cuddlebunny for President of the USA:

"He said, 'Why don't I run for president?'" she said. "I just laughed."

Sheehan's trip to South America was admittedly financed by Chavez, an avowed enemy of the United States, who obviously wanted her there for the propaganda damage she could inflict on our country. Mother Moonbat used the opportunity to announce to the world that she agrees with fellow lunatic Harry Belafonte, who recently called our President "the greatest terrorist in the world." She also let us know that her affection for terrorists is not limited to the "freedom fighters" who killed her son, as she cozied up to Elma Beatriz Rosado, widow of FALN terrorist Filiberto Ojeda Ríos. That's Elma on the right:

Wizbang asks an obvious question that doesn't seem to occur to many on the Left:

[W]hat do you think would happen if Sheehan were a citizen of Venezuela who traveled to Washington D.C. to speak out against Hugo Chavez while standing next to President Bush?

To get an idea of the answer, read this.

The hell Chavez is making out of Venezuela probably doesn't differ much from what Mother Moonbat's fan base would do to our own country. Some on the Left will admit straight out that they want to destroy America and replace it with a totalitarian regime. Others take a more gradualistic approach. But as Wizbang points out:

Whether a socialist state be brought about by revolution, as the leftist/socialist radicals want, or brought about by a slow usurpation of our personal liberties by modern liberals and Democrats matters not. For any move toward socialism is a move toward totalitarianism and oppression.

Hat tips: General Jack D. Ripper, Six Meat Buffet

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:45 AM | Comments (9)

January 29, 2006

Loony Left Inquisitors Find Another Heretic

As they say, conservatives look for converts, liberals search for heretics. This is why the Democratic Party continues to become more extreme — and why its base of support continues to shrink.

The latest heretic to face a trip to the stake is Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic lobbyist who was an advisor on Hanoi John Kerry's 2004 campaign. Elmendorf's sin was to utter this blasphemy:

The bloggers and online donors represent an important resource for the party, but they are not representative of the majority you need to win elections. The trick will be to harness their energy and their money without looking like you are a captive of the activist left.

In other words, if you are going to take money from militant kooks, at least don't make it obvious that they are calling the shots, or only kooks will vote for you.

The inquisitors at Daily Kos were not amused:

Here's notice, any Democrat associated with Elmendorf will be outed. The netroots can then decide for itself whether it wants to provide some of that energy and money to that candidate.

Got that, Dems? Elmendorf is a witch, and anyone who consorts with him is probably a witch too. If you don't like it, maybe you're a witch.

Let the auto-da-fé get underway.

Hat tip: Ankle Biting Pundits

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:20 PM

Mother Moonbat Threatens Feinstein

Thank you Mother Moonbat for your best efforts on behalf of the lunatic Left to pull the Democratic Party ever farther out on a limb that is starting to crack. Her latest contribution to the marginalization of this once formidable party — threatening Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) for not agreeing to filibuster the obviously qualified Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court.

Feinstein has already adopted a position that most people could probably agree is unreasonable: she admitted that Alito is qualified, but promised to vote against him anyway because he is considered a conservative. In a Democracy, if the people want conservatives on the bench, they elect a conservative president to appoint them. Since this is exactly how Alito came to be appointed, Feinstein is basically admitting to trying to circumvent the democratic process by voting against him.

But even Feinstein has acknowledged that Democrats have no grounds for stalling the nomination. This won't do. Hanoi John Kerry got in line with the Michael Moore/Cindy Sheehan contingent by trying to phone in a filibuster from a posh resort in Switzerland. Feinstein had better follow suit — or else.

Speaking from Venezuela, where she is visiting at the expense of a hostile regime in order to propagandize against her own country, Sheehan declared that if Feinstein doesn't support a filibuster, the Ditch Witch herself will run against her this November.

Well, why not? Even the allegedly right-wing Chris Matthews thinks Mother Moonbat should run for Congress. And it's not as if we've never had a treasonous individual in the Senate before.

Hat tip: Wiggins

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:23 AM | Comments (11)

January 28, 2006

The Left's Rosenberg Fetish Still Lives

The Left's half-concealed sympathy for psychopaths who would like to kill us — currently highlighted by the War on Terror — isn't actually new. Nor is its dogged insistence on living in some alternate reality where the only real threat to America is America itself. Liberal elitists' fetish for the Rosenbergs is a case in point. Demonstrating a third characteristic of the Left — its refusal to live in the present — a piece in the Wall Street Journal reveals that the Rosenberg fetish is still alive.

A quick refresher on settled history: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were justly executed for espionage in 1953 after helping Stalin's Soviet Union develop nuclear weapons by stealing American secrets. It is no thanks to the Rosenbergs that these weapons weren't used to kill us by the millions. Hell's hottest fires are richly deserved by these profoundly evil communist spies.

Naturally their execution made them martyrs to moonbats. For years the Left pretended the Rosenbergs were innocent. By now everyone knows better. For example, Khrushchev's memoirs make note that the Rosenbergs "vastly aided" Soviet development of weapons of mass death. Their guilt was corroborated by the 1995 declassification of the Venona documents, as well as by NSA intercepts in the 1940s (no wonder the NY Times doesn't want the NSA doing its job).

The WSJ piece reports on a forum sponsored by Fordham Law School, which convened in Manhattan to discuss the "artistic influence" of the Rosenbergs. The invitation referred to the Rosenbergs as "the accused" — as if there were some question of their guilt even now.

Heavy hitters at the event were novelist E.L. Doctorow and playwright Tony Kushner, both of whom have created fictional works expressing sympathy for the Rosenbergs. The forum was "arcane and self-serious" as the participants bloviated about the nature of "historical art," which was defined as "an aesthetic system of opinions."

Apparently liberal intellectuals still won't admit that Stalin was a threat to us, any more than they will admit that Saddam was a threat.

"We knew that the Russians were no threat, but we wanted to persuade Americans to be afraid," Doctorow intoned, in denunciation of those who did not want our nuclear weapons technology going to a genocidal dictator clearly hostile to our civilization.

The connection to the current War on the War on Terror by this same class of useful idiots is so obvious, even Kushner could see it:

Our failure to come to terms with a brutal past, our failure to open up the coffins and let the ghosts out, has led to our current, horrendous situation.

By "brutal past," he was apparently referring to our execution of the Rosenbergs, not the tens of millions Stalin killed. The "horrendous situation" presumably refers to the War on Terror.

Of course, the audience ate it up:

As the artists [Doctorow and Kushner] turned the Rosenbergs' treason into dissent and then into patriotism, the audience was enthusiastically in tune. Present were the Rosenbergs' children, Robert and Michael Meeropol, who continue to contest their parents' Soviet entanglement, and the former editor of the Nation, Victor Navasky. When it came time to ask questions, the moderator warned off any "Cold War warriors" from asking "disrespectful" questions, like, presumably, how these authors could defend an ideology that took millions of lives. No one did.

No doubt a generation from now, if Manhattan hasn't been nuked by then, elitist morons will gather there at snooty forums to discuss the martyred Saddam Hussein's noble contributions to "historical art."

Posted by Van Helsing at 5:11 PM | Comments (10)

Moonbattery Corrodes D-Day Museum

Further evidence that moonbattery has limited appeal to the public comes to us from France, where a museum designed primarily to commemorate the heroes who died to liberate that country on D-Day has degenerated into a cave of moonbattery, predictably losing its visitors in the process.

The Memorial Museum in Caen, Normandy has been attempting to transform itself into a "place of reflection on the contemporary world" rather than "the great museum on the Second World War in France," which was its original objective, according to former chief historian Claude Quétel, who was canned for complaining that political correctness had subverted the mission.

"Peace begins at home, in the office, with our neighbors," according to the museum's brochure. This advice wouldn't have been of much use to the 53,000 American, British, and Canadian troops who died at the Battle of Normandy.

The museum now includes sections devoted to "the principal disorders in the world today" and the need for "eco-responsibility."

In 2004, the 60th anniversary of D-Day, attendance dropped from 560,000 to 400,000, and the museum lost €400,000. But not to worry, there's a rescue plan in place. It includes cuts to the guided tours of D-Day landing beaches, and new exhibitions on "Living Without Petrol" and "Father Christmas."

No doubt French taxpayers are being called upon to keep this idiotic abomination afloat.

Hat tip: William

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:04 AM

January 27, 2006

Solution to World Hunger Discovered by NYC Moonbats

It looks like freeganism isn't just for smelly unemployed squatters anymore. A true freegan is someone who refuses to buy any food, on the grounds that doing so would entail participating in capitalism. But if liberal ideology were to demand total compliance on the part of its advocates, it would soon be very short of advocates — if you doubt it, read Peter Schweizer's excellent Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy. So it was only a matter of time until freeganism became a part-time principle, a practice engaged in as convenient by people who probably bathe fairly often, usually buy their food, and even participate in capitalism to the point of having jobs.

Whereas the purist freegan rejects all voluntary commerce, these freegan-lites are more focused on the perniciousness of over-consumption. Breitbart.com reports that they gather two or three times a month to do some "shopping" among the rat-infested dumpsters and stinking trash bags of Manhattan.

"I make good money and I can afford to buy food," says a freegan who works as a social worker, "but it's a shame to see this waste."

A high school teacher named Janet Kalish is moving toward true freeganism. She has become so skilled at digging stuff out of the garbage to eat that "the only food she still purchases in traditional fashion are the soy-based products she requires for her strictly vegetarian diet."

"My meals have become more diversified because I find surprises," chirps Kalish. "Things I probably wouldn't buy in stores, like endives and avocado. I wash them well and I know where there's clean garbage."

You have to admire her resourcefulness. Clean garbage isn't easy to find in New York City.

"There's not a single food we can't find in perfect condition in a bag on a sidewalk," boasts math teacher Jason Samuels.

No wonder Adam Weissman, the organizer behind the local chapter, believes that "The solution to world hunger lies on the streets of New York."

Hat tip: Drudge

Posted by Van Helsing at 1:44 PM | Comments (10)

Moonbats Hunt Down Heretics

I'm no fan of Chris "Tweety" Matthews, but anyone who gets the Michael Mooron crowd this worked up can't be all bad.

Matthews' sin was to display ideological impurity by noticing the obvious — namely, that Osama bin Laden has been drawing directly on the rhetoric of fifth-columnist moonbats like Moore:

Matthews on January 19:

This is from bin Laden in the audio today. "There is no defect in the solution other than preventing the flow of hundreds of billions to the influential people and war merchants in America." I mean, he sounds like an over-the-top Michael Moore here, if not a Michael Moore.

Matthews on January 20:

Why is he [bin Laden] trying to track what he picks up in the Internet and from the media as the lingo of the left in America, like Moore? Why would he start to talk like Moore?

Moonbats are now on a jihad against Matthews, calling for a boycott against MSNBC on account of his right-wing bias. That's correct, the right-wing bias of a guy who wants Cindy Sheehan to run for Congress and who thinks terrorists "just have a different perspective."

While conservatives look for converts, liberals search for heretics. In the grand tradition of their Uncle Joe's show trials, they are going to sniff out anybody who isn't sufficiently eager to be at the front of the herd as they stampede off the edge of a cliff into irrelevance.

Signs indicate that Shrillary herself could get hoisted on this same petard.

Hat tips: ex-expat, Lucianne.com

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:39 AM | Comments (7)

January 26, 2006

Google, the Gray Lady, and the Tinfoil Hat Brigade

It appears that the paranoid hysteria the Dems and their left-wing media accomplices are trying to whip up around the President is taking its toll on the psychiatrically vulnerable. The Federal Government has requested anonymous data from the major search engines for a study of online pornography. Yesterday the New York Times managed to report this take on the story without sniggering:

Kathryn Hanson, a former telecommunications engineer who lives in Oakland, Calif., was looking at BBC News online last week when she came across an item about a British politician who had resigned over a reported affair with a "rent boy."

It was the first time Ms. Hanson had seen the term, so, in search of a definition, she typed it into Google. As Ms. Hanson scrolled through the results, she saw that several of the sites were available only to people over 18. She suddenly had a frightening thought. Would Google have to inform the government that she was looking for a rent boy — a young male prostitute?

Ms. Hanson, 45, immediately told her boyfriend what she had done. "I told him I'd Googled 'rent boy,' just in case I got whisked off to some Navy prison in the dead of night," she said.

Ms. Hanson's reaction arose from last week's reports that as part of its effort to uphold an online pornography law, the Justice Department had asked a federal judge to compel Google to turn over records on millions of its users' search queries. ...

Instead of seeking professional help for Ms. Hanson, the Times reporter then launched into a breathless account of this emerging menace to our privacy rights. Readers are left with the impression that black helicopters will soon be landing in their backyards if they search for terms like "Hamas" or "abortion."

"It's scary to think that it may just be a matter of time before Googling will invite an F.B.I. agent to tap your phone or interrogate you," one tinfoil-hat–wearing moonbat fretted.

"I have been known to send very unflattering things about our government and our president," muttered another. "I still do, but I am careful about using certain phrases that I once wouldn't have given a second thought."

Today, as if aware that she had once again made a fool of herself, the Gray Lady ran another article on the subject, which without mentioning the first one, tacitly admits that it was utter bunk:

[T]he case itself, according to people involved in it and scholars who are following it, has almost nothing to do with privacy. It will turn, instead, on serious but relatively routine questions about trade secrets and civil procedure. ...

"[T]his particular subpoena does not raise serious privacy issues," said Timothy Wu, a law professor at Columbia. "These records are completely disconnected. They're just strings of words."

That is, strings of words that cannot be traced to any individual. Google's refusal to comply with the order is not based on privacy concerns. The privacy issue is only raised when Google complains that the order may create a false perception that users' privacy has been violated — which it might, with the help of irresponsible publications like the Times. "This is not a perception that Google can accept," writes a Google lawyer.

By the end of the article, the Gray Lady has reverted to form ("Still, the current subpoena to Google, legal experts said, has given rise to an important debate, whether the facts of the case are apt or not."), but not before admitting this:

Other Internet search engine companies, including Yahoo, America Online and MSN, have complied with the same Justice Department subpoena, which also sought a random sample of a million Web addresses. The companies all said there were no privacy issues involved.

Not Google though — although Google has no problem cooperating with other governments. For example, they have been helping communist China censor the search output for terms like "democracy" and "human rights." As Fox News reports:

Google called its decision a necessary trade-off to allow Chinese users greater access to other information.

Uh huh. Ironically, Google's mantra is "Don't be evil." By the way, the cultlike company scores a perfect 100% blue on BuyBlue.org, by giving 100% of its political contributions to the Democratic Party.

If any paranoia is in order, it might be more sensible to direct it toward the ham-handed opinion-manipulators at the NY Times — or at Google.

With thanks to V the K and OpinionJournal.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:58 PM | Comments (8)

Ecoterrorists Indicted

Kudos to the FBI for recognizing that not all terrorists are Islamists. We have our own homegrown variety, the product of sociopaths who take the premises of liberal ideology to their natural conclusion: violent hostility to human civilization.

From the Wall Street Journal:

The Justice Department on Friday released a 65-count indictment against 11 members of an animal-rights and ecoterrorism outfit that for more than four years had spread violence and destruction across five Western states. Using fire and explosives, the individuals stand accused of targeting ranger stations, animal-holding facilities, lumber companies, timber farms, a ski resort and even a police department. Eight have been detained; another three are believed to be hiding outside the country.

Moonbat terrorists — aka "green extremists" — have been responsible for over 1,200 criminal acts and $millions in damage. Many of their cells are linked to Earth Liberation Front or Animal Liberation Front, both of which have ties to PETA. Their coercive tactics are spreading a climate of fear. For example:

The New York Stock Exchange's recent decision to postpone the listing of Huntingdon Life Sciences — a U.K. animal-research company that has been a top terrorist target for years — was put down to the Exchange's worry that it would be next on the hit list.

Although it is often difficult to take animal- and earth-rights kooks seriously, the damage they cause is very real and puts innocent life at risk. As WSJ points out, Congress needs to address the failure of current statutes to cover some of their antisocial activities, such as coercion against third-party targets. Responsible news coverage from their fellow moonbats in the MSM wouldn't hurt either.

Posted by Van Helsing at 1:14 PM | Comments (2)

Jihad George Was Pals With Uday

Could anything be more disgusting than the sight of leftist British MP George Galloway performing robotic dance in a leotard? How about Galloway schmoozing with rapist and torturer Uday Hussein?

Video is reported to have surfaced showing Jihad George sucking up to Saddam's maniacal son, calling him "Excellency" and vowing to stick with him "until the end."

Uday — known by Iraqis as The Wolf — was an evil degenerate even by the standards of Saddam's regime. His behavior was so over the top that his father had to lock him up. Among his accomplishments, Uday beat and stabbed to death Saddam's personal valet and food-taster Kemal Hana Gegeo. The many women he raped before being killed by US forces are believed to include a visiting Russian ballerina. Uday also oversaw the imprisonment and torture of Iraqi Olympic athletes whose performances did not meet government requirements.

Of course, it is already known that Galloway was on great terms with Uday's genocidal father, who helped him line his pockets through the UN-sponsored oil-for-food scam. Said Galloway to Saddam:

Sir, allow me to salute your courage, power and indefatigability.

Killing people by the hundreds of thousands is hard work, but thanks to his indefatigability, Saddam just kept chugging along.

Thanks George, for making the moral character of the Left too obvious for any reasonable person to deny.

And thank you Wiggins and V the K for tips.

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:13 AM | Comments (5)

January 25, 2006

High School Teachers Refuse to Fly Gay Flag

The Left's campaign to homosexualize children has hit a small snag in the Bay Area, where five teachers at San Leandro High School have refused to comply with a school district order to display this in their classrooms:

The rebels cited religious issues, but according to district Superintendent Christine Lim, who initiated the policy, "This is not about religion, sex or a belief system. This is about educators making sure our schools are safe for our children, regardless of their sexual orientation."

The sexual orientation of our children? And these screwball degenerates are running schools? But wait, she just said this isn't about sex. The important thing is, they are protecting the children — you're not against that, are you?

Gay art teacher Tom Laughlin oversaw the poster's design by students. He can vouch for the need to propagandize on behalf of tolerance. Once a student called him a "fag."

But this isn't about protecting people from being called names, which is a practice we are unlikely to eradicate from high schools. It's about making it very clear that everyone must get on board with the official ideology. As Bookworm points out, the poster "amounts to a gay flag."

What will happen to the five conscientious objectors? Who knows, but the attitude of Principal Amy Furtado sounds ominous:

Furtado said she is confident that every teacher eventually will comply with the district mandate. She said she intends to work with those teachers who have refused to ensure they comply with the order.

This isn't the first culture war battle fought at San Leandro High. When English teacher Karl Debro was actually disciplined for outraging parents by using his position to inflict pro-homosexuality politics on children, he sued and was awarded over $1,000,000. Imagine how long he would have to teach English to make that kind of money. This should go some ways toward explaining high property taxes, as well as why people who can afford to tend to get their kids out of public schools.

Hat tip: Scott's Conservative News & Commentary

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:30 PM | Comments (6)

Jack Bauer Weighs in on the NSA Eavesdropping Issue

From Strange Cosmos via Right Wing Nation, on a tip from Byron.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:34 PM | Comments (4)

Venezuela Continues to Crumble Under Chavez

When the disease of communism takes hold of a country, it causes both the economy and the human spirit to disintegrate. Very soon the whole civilization visibly crumbles.

Take Venezuela under Hugo Chavez. Once-beautiful Caracas isn't the only part that is beginning to rot under this moonbat regime. From Publius Pundit:

Venezuela is literally breaking off in chunks under the Hugo Chavez dictatorship. The Viaducto 1 bridge to the airport is tottering on its last legs, and unusable, leaving anyone flying in from the Maiquetia airport on the coastline the wretched specter of mountain donkey trails to cross in order to get to homes or hotels in inland Caracas.

But that's not all. El Universal is reporting that a critical bridge to the hinterland has just collapsed, this one linking Yaracuy state, where Daniel of Yaracuy lives, to the outside world. He is now cut off. There are more donkey trails of course, but this goes to show the neglect and lack of investment and maintenance that is plaguing Venezuela as it Cubanizes. There literally will be no difference in the look of the two places by the time Chavez gets out of there.

Spanish readers can get the whole story at El Universal. Tip from V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:19 PM

Hugh Hewitt Eviscerates La Times Moonbat Joel Stein

If you saw Joel Stein's piece in the Los Angeles Times yesterday and felt overwhelmed by an explosive urge to rip out his stinking guts, throw them on the floor, and trample on them, forget about it — Hugh Hewitt has done the job for you.

The piece in question is "Warriors and Wusses," in which Stein proudly announces that he has the courage to not support American troops, on the grounds that anyone who joins the US military is "willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism."

Hugh Hewitt interviewed this useless little fool yesterday, after which Stein was carried out in a basket. The transcript and audio are available at Radio Blogger.

Unsurprisingly (to those who have read his column) the La Times pundit came across as a scatterbrained fool with a credibility problem. For example, he asserted that he has "no family at all" in the military — and then a few minutes later started talking about his cousin who graduated from West Point and is currently serving.

Although Stein clung tenaciously to his spiteful position on the troops, he was so overmatched intellectually that he hardly put up a fight against Hewitt, who had no problem squeezing embarrassing admissions out of him.

On removing the Taliban and disrupting al Qaeda's base of operations after 9/11:

"I did not support the invasion of Afghanistan."

On the topic of the military:

"I'm not an expert at this at all. I mean, I think you certainly can tell."

On the topic of the salary he "earns" by spitting up one short column a week, which is admittedly more than twice what enlisted men earn — and probably a lot more than twice:

"I am grossly overpaid..."

On whether Iraq is better off for having been liberated from a genocidal dictator:

"[I]t's hard for me to say."

On whether he would write the same vile column again if he had it to do over:

"Yes. I would."

On whether it would be appropriate for people to cancel their subscriptions to the LA Times because of said vile column:

"Yeah. [I]f they feel like that's their only recourse, sure."

It's hard to argue with him there. Anyone still subscribing to La Times is urged to cancel by calling this number: 1-888-565-2323.

Thank you V the K for the tip.

Update

Welcome visitors from Carnival of the Clueless #31.

Posted by Van Helsing at 2:04 PM | Comments (5)

Minutemen Banned From California Parade

Jim Gilchrist of the Minuteman Project is filing suit against the comfy moonbat haven Laguna Beach, which has banned the Minutemen from entering a float in the town's Patriot's Day parade.

Laguna Beach — described adoringly by NBC as "a bohemian town of 24,000 tucked into coastal hills that's best-known for its vibrant arts scene, ocean vistas, laid-back atmosphere and prominent gay population" — justifies the exclusion of the Minutemen on the grounds that they have a political message.

Parade participants that are not deemed to have a political message include a gay group and an anti-war group.

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:46 AM | Comments (7)

Mother Moonbat Denounces America From Venezuela

Yet again reinforcing the point that what Cindy Sheehan and her cohort are against is not the war against Islamic terrorism so much as America itself, Mother Moonbat has now traveled to Venezuela to propagandize on behalf of anti-American strongman Hugo Chavez at the annual leftist kookfest called the World Social Forum.

"I admire him for his resolve against my government and its meddling," she said of a hostile foreign leader who has been doing his best to destabilize democracies throughout Latin America.

According to the Ditch Witch, Venezuela's foreign ministry sponsored her visit. Our enemies must think the propaganda she generates is at least worth a plane ticket. Maybe bin Laden should invite her over to speak from his cave.

Hat tip: Wiggins

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:49 AM | Comments (7)

January 24, 2006

NBC Deep-Sixes West Wing and Book of Daniel

Speaking of the declining market for moonbattery, The West Wing (h/t: Powerpundit) and The Book of Daniel have both been axed by NBC.

The West Wing — aka The Left Wing — charmed its liberal elite audience by creating a nightmare fantasy world in which the America-bashing moonbat Martin Sheen is the President of the United States. Undoubtedly its stale reruns will continue to plod along on Bravo long after the Democratic Party has joined the Whigs in the dustbin of history.

The Book of Daniel is a sitcom devoted to spitting at Christianity. It features a drug-addicted priest whose son is gay, whose daughter deals drugs, whose lesbian secretary is having sex with his sister-in-law, whose 16-year-old adopted son is having sex with the bishop's daughter, etc. etc. ad nauseam.

No wonder liberals don't like the free market. It doesn't seem to be supporting their bilge.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:27 PM | Comments (6)

Gray Lady's Ship Takes on More Water

Could it be that the market for moonbattery is taking a dive?

The New York Times Co. said Tuesday its fourth-quarter earnings fell 41 percent from the same period a year ago...

The Times, which also publishes The Boston Globe and the International Herald Tribune, earned $64.8 million or 45 cents per share in the three months ending in December, compared to $110.2 million or 75 cents per share a year ago.

The Gray Lady is responding by raising home delivery rates. Somehow I doubt that will plug the holes in her hull.

Posted by Van Helsing at 5:35 PM | Comments (3)

Still More Border Disorder

WorldNetDaily reports that the intolerable situation at the Mexican border continues to spiral completely out of control:

Texas law enforcement officers and Border Patrol agents engaged in an armed standoff with Mexican military personnel and drug smugglers just inside the United States along the Rio Grande yesterday afternoon.

According to a report in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin of Ontario, Calif., both Texas law enforcement and the FBI stated nearly 30 American agents were part of the incident.

Chief Deputy Mike Doyal of the Hudspeth County Sheriff's Department told the paper Mexican military Humvees were towing what appeared to be thousands of pounds of marijuana across the border into the United States.

Border Patrol agents called for backup after seeing that Mexican Army troops had several mounted machine guns on the ground more than 200 yards inside the U.S. border — near Neely's Crossing, about 50 miles east of El Paso.

Doyal said Hudspeth County deputies and Texas Highway patrol officers arrived shortly afterward.

"It's been so bred into everyone not to start an international incident with Mexico that it's been going on for years," Doyal told the Bulletin. "When you're up against mounted machine guns, what can you do? Who wants to pull the trigger first? Certainly not us."

Of course not. That's what the US Army is for.

Posted by Van Helsing at 4:16 PM | Comments (3)

More Border Disorder

Moonbats and Mexicans have joined forces to undermine what little territorial integrity our country still asserts. From the Arizona Republic:

Mexico's human rights agency says it will give out detailed maps of the Arizona desert, including rescue beacons and water stations, to guide migrants safely through the most popular and deadliest corridor into the United States.

A Tucson-based moonbat association calling itself Humane Borders designed the maps, which will be distributed not just near the border, but throughout Mexico in order to encourage people to travel north to invade Gringoland.

Of course, this isn't the first time we've seen this sort of thing:

Last year, the Mexican government outraged border-control activists in the United States by publishing a comic book containing safety tips for illegal immigrants. Soon afterward, the southeastern state of Yucatán published its own guide containing detailed information on routes through the desert.

The Humane Borders maps show mountains, roads, railroads, and cities, as well as where do-gooder idiots have left water tanks in the desert to facilitate the invasion, and where Border Patrol rescue beacons can be found, so that if invaders get hot and tired, American public servants can drive out into the desert and pick them up, giving them something cool to drink before letting them go again.

Future versions of the maps will show cellular telephone coverage, which should be particularly helpful for drug dealers coordinating their smuggling activities.

Tucson taxpayers may be interested to know that this project is supported by Pima County — which includes Tucson and 115 miles of the Mexican border.

There has been no word on whether the maps will also be distributed to the Mexican army — which has a use for them.

Posted by Van Helsing at 3:09 PM | Comments (1)

Pro-Life Marchers Assailed by Creepazoids

Zombie was on hand at the Walk for Life march and counter-demonstration in San Francisco last Saturday, and his multimedia account of the event is not to be missed.

No one will be much surprised to learn that the pro-life marchers were peaceful and orderly, or that the thuggish pro-abortion counter-demonstrators attempted to suppress their right of self-expression, as they had been encouraged to do in advance:

We are calling on the people and workers of San Francisco and the Bay Area to rise up and completely stop them in their tracks and shut down their march.

John Murtha's friends from Code Pink were on hand, as were the Raging Grannies, black bloc hooligans, and assorted other freaks and sociopaths. Fortunately the police were able to maintain order, despite repeated attempts by militant creepazoids to prevent the march from continuing.

Zombie's account includes this frightening video clip, as well as some excellent photojournalism. These samples should give you an idea of what pro-lifers are up against:

Sorry about the language. Documenting moonbattery is not a pleasant business.

Thank you V the K for the tip.

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:25 AM | Comments (10)

Congratulations Canada!

It looks like the moonbats who threaten to move to Canada every time elections don't go their way will have to set sail for somewhere farther away — Cuba or North Korea might do. From AP:

Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party won national elections Monday and ended 13 years of Liberal rule, a victory expected to move Canada rightward on social and economic issues and lead to improved ties with the United States...

The triumph for the Conservatives came with many Canadians weary of the broken promises and corruption scandals under the Liberal Party, making them willing to give Harper a chance to govern despite concerns that some of his social views are extreme.

Concern on the part of AP, anyway.

Harper has said he would reconsider a U.S. missile defense scheme rejected by the current Liberal government of Prime Minister Paul Martin. He also said he wanted to move beyond the Kyoto debate by establishing different environmental controls, spend more on the Canadian military, expand its peacekeeping missions in Afghanistan and Haiti and tighten security along the border with the United States in an effort to prevent terrorists and guns from crossing the frontier.

As in Germany, the margin of conservative victory was narrow, which will make governing difficult — especially if the Liberals prove to be as irresponsibly obstructionist as America's Democrats. All the same, this is definitely a step in the right direction, not just for Canada but for Western Civilization in general.

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:28 AM | Comments (7)

January 23, 2006

Jihad George and Jimbo Trip the Light Fantastic

At first I was grateful that Jimmy Carter was apparently too busy promoting Hamas to appear with the likeminded George Galloway on Celebrity Big Brother. But then I took a closer look at Jihad George's dancing partner...

With thanks to Varla and Wiggins.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:41 PM | Comments (5)

Code Pinkos Flushed Away From Walter Reed

Moonbat Jack Murtha and Howard "Dr. Demento" Dean will be disappointed to learn that their Code Pink friends, who have been staging demonstrations at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center every Friday for 10 months mocking the wounded troops within, did not renew their permit in time and have now been replaced by pro-American Freepers and Protest Warriors. For details and plenty of pictures, see The Redhunter and The Gunn Nutt.

The only cloud inside this silver lining is that Code Pinkos will now have more time to raise money for terrorists.

Hat tip: LGF

Posted by Van Helsing at 2:15 PM | Comments (11)

Jihad George Galloway in a Leotard

George Galloway, the leftist British MP known for his strong stance against the war in Iraq, for his encouragement of Islamic terrorism, for his participation in the UN-sponsored oil-for-food scandal, and for crawling around on all fours pretending to be a cat, has now taken the natural liberal gift for self-ridicule to an entirely new level. From This Is London:

George Galloway is set to attract further derision after performing a dance routine on Celebrity Big Brother — in a tight-fitting, red leotard...

His dance partner was, of course, Pete Burns. The transvestite lead singer of 1980s band Dead or Alive wore a blue leotard, even though he insisted he would not run from a burning house in it.

The pair were amusingly instructed to express "the emotions of bewilderment when a small puppy won't come to you" through the medium of robotic dance.

Check out the picture, and be grateful Jimmy Carter is too busy promoting Hamas to appear on the show.

Hat tip: Lucianne.com

Posted by Van Helsing at 12:54 PM | Comments (4)

Susanne Osthoff Found With Ransom Loot

So many Islamophiliacs with decidedly anti-American views have been getting themselves kidnapped by terrorists in Iraq lately that you almost have to wonder — especially when one captive, having been released, not only praises her captors but allegedly gets caught with the some of the money used ransom her:

Part of the ransom money alleged to have been paid by the German government to win the freedom of Iraq hostage Susanne Osthoff last month was found on Osthoff after her release, the German magazine Focus said on Saturday.

Without citing its sources, Focus said officials at the German embassy in Baghdad had found several thousand U.S. dollars in the 43-year-old German archaeologist's clothes when she took a shower at the embassy shortly after being freed.

The serial numbers on the bills matched those used by the government to pay off Osthoff's kidnappers, the magazine said.

Apparently letting US Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem's killer out of his cage wasn't enough; the Germans also had to pour cash into the terrorists' pockets — some of which then found its way into Osthoff's. As if we needed another reason to NEVER negotiate with terrorists...

Hat tip: Country Store

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:10 AM | Comments (4)

January 22, 2006

Johnny Taliban: What Marin County Moonbattery Hath Wrought

Whatever you want to call him — John Walker Lindh, Johnny Taliban, Suleyman al-Faris, Abdul Hamid, or maybe something less printable — this sorry product of liberal anomie has made it back into the news:

The father of an American jailed for fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan said on Thursday his son had been tortured and unjustly punished amid public hysteria over the Sept. 11 attacks.

"The maltreatment and imprisonment of John Lindh was — and is — a human rights violation," Frank Lindh told the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. "It was based purely on an emotional response to the 9/11 attacks, not on an objective assessment of the facts of John's case."

Torture allegations were kept vague. It's not known if he's endured the sort of horrors that go on at Club Gitmo (i.e., poorly adjusted air conditioning, having to listen to Christina Aguilera, having to watch puppet shows, having your space invaded by a female, etc.).

For anyone who has been able to blot the memory of this creature out of their mind, Johnny Lindh is a spoilt twerp born of a "Birkenstock family," named after moonbat icon John Lennon, and raised from age 10 in the hot-tub haven of Marin County, California (suburban San Francisco). After discovering Islam by reading the autobiography of Malcolm X, he got his parents to send him to Yemen to study Arabic. He ended up getting captured by U.S. forces while fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Here's what Johnny had to say about his 7-week experience in an al Qaeda training camp, where he is believed to have met noted literary critic Osama bin Laden:

"It's exactly what I thought it would be."

Did he think he had been fighting on the right side?

"Definitely," was the answer.

Yet we are now asked to see him as some kind of victim, despite his having been sentenced to 20 years rather than the execution he so richly deserves.

The Taliban American (as CNN called him) is now appealing to President Bush to commute his sentence. Sorry, Johnny — you'll have to wait until Democrats are back in office — which with any luck will be a good long time.

Hat tip: Wiggins

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:19 PM | Comments (1)

Hanoi John Bottoms Out, Becomes a Kos Kid

Since Hollywood Squares isn't around anymore, washed-up has-beens and also-rans have to look around to find continued access to their less-than-adoring public in order to get their fix of attention. Hanoi John Kerry has stooped lower than most by posting on the flagship website of the hebephrenic anti-American Left, Daily Kos.

The casual blog enthusiast may remember Daily Kos as the blog whose Moonbat-in-Chief, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, had this to say about American contractors who were brutally murdered and whose corpses were publicly desecrated by terrorists in Iraq:

I feel nothing over the death of merceneries [sic]. They aren't in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.

The independent contractors had been helping to deliver food in Fallujah.

Here's what Kos had to say about Kerry after he lost to W in 2004:

But what makes me angry was Kerry and his gang's inability to take advantage of the situation. I may regret saying this later, but fuck it — they should be lined up and shot.

Personally I think having Kerry shot is a little extreme, although I do feel that he should be tried for treason, and if he's found guilty, the punishment is for the judge to decide.

Hat tip: Ankle Biting Pundits

Posted by Van Helsing at 1:17 PM | Comments (4)

Just How Close Are the Ayatollahs to Nukes?

There may be less time to goof around negotiating than we thought. From UPI:

Tehran is planning a nuclear weapons test before the Iranian New Year on March 20, 2006 says a group opposed to the regime in Tehran.

This puts Iran ahead of their presumed schedule, but as we learned in Iraq, it can be very difficult to determine exactly how much progress hostile regimes have made toward developing nuclear weaponry. Red Ink: Texas makes a good case that an assist from North Korea could have Iran's Ayatollahs murdering by the millions in no time.

Hat tip: Byron

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:32 AM | Comments (2)

Militant Gays to Crash White House Easter Party

You might want to think twice about bringing your kids anywhere near the White House on the day after Easter. From CNSNews.com:

A coalition of homosexual advocacy groups is urging families headed by lesbians, bisexuals, gays and transgenders to show up in large numbers for the White House Easter Egg Roll on April 17.

The current plan is for the National Park Service to distribute fee tickets to the family-oriented event on a first-come first-served basis on April 15. Militant groups are urging LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) "families" — or stand-ins — to line up the night before "so we can maximize our impact."

If the White House preempts this "visibility action" by making the egg roll invitation-only, the activists "will gather together as a group as close to the media as possible to share our story."

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:40 AM | Comments (2)

January 21, 2006

Left-Wing Author Striking It Rich on Bin Laden Endorsement

If anyone doubts that the depraved propaganda churned out by the liberal intelligentsia not only demoralizes Americans but actively inspires our enemies, consider William Blum, a nasty old moonbat whose book Rogue State was plugged by none other than Osama bin Laden.

Here's what Osama had to say in his last al-Jazeera video:

And if Bush decides to carry on with his lies and oppression, then it would be useful for you to read the book "Rogue State," which states in its introduction: "If I were president, I would stop the attacks on the United States: First, I would give an apology to all the widows and orphans and those who were tortured. Then I would announce that American interference in the nations of the world has ended once and for all."

Actually bin Laden was quoting the back cover of a collection of Blum's bile charmingly entitled, "Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire":

If I were the president, I could stop terrorist attacks against the United States in a few days. Permanently. I would first apologize — very publicly and very sincerely — to all the widows and orphans, the impoverished and the tortured, and all the many millions of other victims of American imperialism.

Our war with Islamic terrorism is fought as much with words as with any other weapons. Supplying al Qaeda with this kind of propaganda is no different that shipping over crates full plastic explosives. Not that this bothers scum like Blum:

"This is almost as good as being an Oprah book," Blum burbled of receiving the world's most wanted terrorist's endorsement. "I'm glad."

It has reached the point where liberals don't even have to pretend they are not working in tandem with Islamic terrorists to bring about this country's destruction.

"I was not turned off by such an endorsement," Blum declared. "I'm not repulsed, and I'm not going to pretend I am."

Like other members of the liberal intelligentsia, Blum feels that America had it coming on 9/11: "I think bin Laden shares that view, and that is why I'm not repulsed by his embrace of my book, because that is one of my major themes."

They share not only views, but goals. Blum's mission in life is "if not ending, at least slowing down the American Empire. At least injuring the beast."

Rogue State shot from 205,763 to 26 overnight on Amazon.com. Bin Laden has made this skittering cockroach rich. At least he knows how to treat his friends — not that he will hesitate to blow Blum to bits with the rest of us at the first opportunity.

Hat tip: The MaryHunter and Penelope

Posted by Van Helsing at 5:51 PM | Comments (4)

Jimmy Carter Praises Hamas "So-Called Terrorists"

Jimmy Carter — the personification of moonbattery, whom even the Clinton Administration regarded as a "treasonous prick" — is at it again, reminding us all how supremely lucky we are to have survived four years of this evil clown in the White House:

Former President Jimmy Carter says he's encouraged by the participation of Hamas in next week's Palestinian elections because the terrorist organization has political integrity.

Carter told CNN that Hamas may consist of "so-called terrorists," but added "there have been no complaints of corruption against [their] elected officials."

Carter conceded that some in Hamas "deny Israel's right to exist," but defended the group's legitimacy as a political party.

Here are a few so-called victims of Hamas "so-called terrorists":

But of course, according to Jimbo, Menachem Begin was just as much a terrorist.

Update

Welcome visitors from Rightwing Nuthouse's Carnival of the Clueless #30.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:57 AM | Comments (9)

Snack Nazis Target SpongeBob SquarePants

An alliance of self-appointed food police has announced a lawsuit intended to disrupt the sinister alliance between Viacom (owner of Nickelodeon) and Kellogg that entails using cartoon characters to market kid food to kids.

"Nickelodeon and Kellogg engage in business practices that literally sicken our children," one of the plaintiffs has proclaimed.

While it has been found that advertising does in fact increase demand for the products being advertised, whether the products in question have any negative effect on kids is debatable:

In one of the few studies to examine snack food consumption and childhood obesity, Harvard researchers recently reported no relation between intake of snack foods and subsequent changes in bodyweight among the study’s 6,774 boys and an inverse relation (meaning snack food intake was associated with lower weight gain) among the 8,203 girls.

Hat tip: Wiggins

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:49 AM | Comments (2)

January 20, 2006

Racist Weather

According to BET.com — the outfit that recently named Louis Farrakhan Person of the Year — even the weather is racist:

Citing Katrina as a case-in-point, some environmentalists say global warming impacts minorities and the disadvantaged harder than other groups. If global warming gets worse, many African-American communities will be more vulnerable to breathing ailments, insect-carried diseases and heat-related illness and death.

Naturally, whitey is to blame:

Blacks are environmental Good Samaritans. Per capita, we emit approximately 20 percent less carbon dioxide than Whites.

But persons of chocolateness are not completely above approach. Led astray by capitalism, some ride around in SUVs instead of taking the bus.

"It has been ingrained in our heads that to be anything, you must have everything," says EJCC steering committee member Nia Robinson. "Because some of us have a big car and a nice house, people aren't seeing that racism still exists. But Katrina showed that racism is alive and well in America. Now that people have that idea, I think we're in a really critical stage to organize, educate and mobilize people."

EJCC stands for Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative. Justice will be accomplished as usual by punishing the productive for not being poor. After all, poor people pollute less, right? Poverty makes blacks environmentally righteous, according to BET.com:

Not only do we use more energy-conserving public transportation, we spend considerably less per capita on energy-intensive material goods.

Never mind that environmental protection is a luxury only the richest countries can afford — as anyone who has been to India can attest.

President Bush is excoriated because he "opted out of the Kyoto protocol global warming treaty." Actually, it was the Senate that preemptively opted out of that economic suicide pact 95–0, several years before Bush became President.

The piece doesn't mention that greenhouse emissions are going up faster in many countries that signed Kyoto than they are in the USA, despite our faster economic growth. But then it also doesn't mention that temperature fluctuations are normal, that there is no evidence that they are caused by human activity, or that the whole concept of "global warming" is based on myth.

Hat tips: Wiggins, William

Posted by Van Helsing at 4:59 PM

UCLA Moonbat Hunt

Talk about shooting fish in a barrel: the Bruin Alumni Association, through its project UCLAProfs.com, is offering a bounty on moonbat profs at UCLA:

Do you have a professor who just can't stop talking about President Bush, about Howard Dean, about the war in Iraq, about MoveOn.org, about the Republican Party, about the Democratic Party, or any other ideological issue that has nothing to do with the class subject matter? ...

If you can help UCLAProfs.com collect information about abusive, one-sided, or off-topic classroom behavior, we'll pay you for your work.

You'll need some documentation to collect your bounty. Rates are as follows:

• Full, detailed lecture notes, all professor-distributed materials, and full tape recordings of every class session, for one class: $100
• Full, detailed lecture notes and all professor-distributed materials, for one class: $50
• Advisory and all professor-distributed materials: $10

UCLAProfs.com has already posted a long list of militant kooks on the UCLA faculty, complete with profiles. The idea of these ideologues shaping young minds with an assist from the taxpayer will make your hair stand on end. Their current Radical of the Week is the ungracefully aging hippie and "Philosophy of Education" professor Douglas Kellner.

Naturally, the project stands accused of "McCarthyism" for suggesting that demagogic professors ought to climb down from their soapboxes and start teaching their classes in a professional manner. UCLAProfs.com responds:

UCLAProfs.com is not conducting a witch-hunt, engaging in police-state surveillance, or targeting privately-held political beliefs. We are concerned solely with indoctrination, one-sided presentation of ideological controversies, and unprofessional classroom behavior, no matter where it falls on the ideological spectrum. As an illustrative example of egregious behavior with which UCLAProfs is concerned, please review the article BAA President Andrew Jones wrote about his experience in a 2002 political science class. Occasional political remarks, jokes, or the like are generally harmless behavior. We are concerned with a class which in full any reasonable observer would agree was taught in an unacceptable or unprofessional manner. ...

Accusing a professor of unprofessional behavior is in essence an accusation of professional malfeasance. UCLAProfs.com will air such charges only after extended reviews of a professor's record. The taping of lectures leaves no room for a vengeful student to take questionable statements out of context, to (deliberately or inadvertently) misquote a professor, or to otherwise give a false portrait of the class. As such, we find the current hysteria, and the many intemperate accusations that the UCLAProfs.com program is a "blacklist," "ratting out" professors, or other contemptible phenomenon, to be a severe distortion. Our program is more fair and more professional than many similar ongoing projects which rely on volunteer reports that in too many cases are thinly backed by independent evidence.

Hat tip: ex-expat

Posted by Van Helsing at 1:46 PM | Comments (5)

Celebrating the Anti-Moonbat

Twenty-five years ago today, Western Civilization took a sharp turn for the better when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated President of the United States.

Reagan personified the antithesis of moonbattery. He will be remembered throughout history as the man who stood down the nightmare of communism. As noted in today's Wall Street Journal, we have him to thank for the last quarter century of prosperity.

Join the celebration in this great man's honor at Mike's America.

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:33 AM | Comments (3)

Who Dares Challenge Moonbat Jack?

Some in the media aren't much liking it that the war hero status of John "Moonbat Jack" Murtha has been called into question:

Murtha is a retired marine and was the first Vietnam combat veteran elected to Congress. Since 1967, there have been at least three different accounts of the injuries that purportedly earned Murtha his Purple Hearts. Those accounts also appear to conflict with the limited military records that are available, and Murtha has thus far refused to release his own military records.

Anyone who has read Unfit for Command knows how easy it is to game the system for Purple Hearts, provided you have no sense of honor. And frankly, how much honor can a guy have if he is willing to turn against his own country because his ego was bruised when the President wasn't eager enough to listen to his advice?

Nonetheless, strident charges that Moonbat Jack is being "swiftboated" were inevitable. Yet, as Media Research Center points out,

[I]n the nearly nine weeks since Murtha outlined his proposal for withdrawing U.S. troops before the insurgency is defeated, network reporters have repeatedly touted Murtha's Vietnam-era medals as either bolstering his policy view or making him somehow immune from criticism — so their authenticity should be a legitimate topic to investigate.

As with Hanoi John Kerry, all Murtha needs to do to lay the issue to rest is release his military records — although it may take more than that to fumigate the stink still sticking to him from Abscam, in which Moonbat Jack was named an unindicted co-conspirator, and from the millions of federal dollars he has funneled toward companies represented by KSA Consulting, a lobbying firm in which his brother Robert "Kit" Murtha is a senior partner.

But there's more to Jack Murtha than corruption, questionable medals, and demands that we surrender to terrorists. He has his lovable side. Here he is cuddling with Code Pink activists, with flowers apparently intended for our wounded troops:

Here's what Code Pink had to say in a statement on meeting Moonbat Jack at Walter Reed (via Free Republic):

Thank You Congressman Murtha! CODEPINK co-founder Gael Murphy and DC coordinator Allison Yorra met with Congressman Murtha to thank him for his courageous stand on Iraq. We presented him with our pink badge of courage and pink flowers sent by CODEPINK members nationwide. Rep Murtha was very appreciative of these gestures and requested that we ask legislators to support H.J Res 73 (Murtha's resolution). He also requested that we use additional donations for the wounded at Walter Reed. DC CODEPINK along with other peace groups involved in the weekly vigil at Walter Reed recently delivered baskets of goodies to the wounded at Walter Reed. Together, with Murtha's office, we will be continuing this outpouring of kindness and support to the wounded soldiers from CODEPINK.

Code Pink's "weekly vigil" at Walter Reed entails taunting wounded soldiers with flag-draped coffins. Here's video of Code Pink's despicable behavior at Walter Reed. This hard-left organization raised $600,000 for the terrorists fighting American troops in Fallujah. Here are some Code Pinkos demonstrating their patriotism at a recruiting office:

Nice friends Moonbat Jack has been making. At least no one can dispute that he's earned his "pink badge of courage."

Hat tips: Lucianne.com, Common Sense & Wonder, Andy's World

Cross-posted at The Wide Awakes

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:22 AM | Comments (20)

January 19, 2006

France to Use Nukes on Terrorist States?

Jacques Chirac has threatened to launch a targeted nuclear strike against any country that carries out a terrorist attack against France:

"The leaders of states who would use terrorist means against us, as well as those who would consider using in one way or another weapons of mass destruction, must understand that they would lay themselves open to a firm and adapted response on our part," warned Chirac. "This response could be a conventional one. It could also be of a different kind."

Encouraging as this tough talk on terrorism may be, it was probably wise of Chirac to leave open the option of a conventional response, should nuclear retaliation turn out to be empty bluster.

For France, a conventional response would probably be along these lines:

Hat tip: Wiggins.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:38 PM | Comments (5)

A Little More on the ACLU's Eavesdropping Suit

Here's a comment from V the K that deserves its own post:

The Who's Who of Moonbat Scum in the ACLU Lawsuit

Debbie Schlussel identifies the parties the ACLU is trying to protect from possible wiretapping when they talk to al Qaeda:

Noel Saleh. The thrice-disciplined attorney (who was suspended from the practice of law) openly stated at a town hall meeting with federal officials that he has financially contributed to Hezbollah. He heads an Arab welfare agency that gets millions in our tax dollars, yet was raided by the FBI for engaging in Medicaid fraud.

Mohammed Abdrabboh, a Palestinian attorney and ACLU of Michigan Board Member. Not only does he represent a number of accused terrorists, he lied in signed documents about it.

Abdrabboh's law partner, Nabih Ayad. Both Abdrabboh and Ayad go on annual trips to the Middle East with Hamad. The trips involve meetings with Lebanese and Syrian officials tied to Hezbollah, and their travel-mates include officials of a Detroit charity that openly donated millions to HAMAS and privately raised money for Iraqi insurgents at a Los Angeles area fundraiser. Ayad represented Omar Abdel-Fatah Al-Shishani, stopped at Detroit Metro Airport with millions in phony bank checks used to fund Al-Qaeda operations.

William Swor, another Plaintiff in the suit, represented an accused member of the Detroit terror cell. During the trial, the judge reportedly lashed at him for trying to tamper with and intimidate the government's Arabic translator in the case.

Nazih Hassan, a member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Michigan Chapter--a group founded with funds from HAMAS political director Moussa Abu Marzook. Of all the Plaintiffs detailed within the case, he is the most worthy of government monitoring. He is not an attorney, but is admittedly a friend of deportee Rabih Haddad--founder of Global Relief Foundation (GRF). President Bush designated GRF as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist Entity and shut it down, because it was laundering money back and forth to Al-Qaeda.

No way does the MSM ever delve into the people who are trying to stop the wiretapping of terrorists.

Posted by Van Helsing at 3:36 PM | Comments (4)

Unrestrained Restraining Orders

I never thought I would feel sympathy for a foolish and obnoxious moonbat like David Letterman, but this is too much. A judge recently granted a restraining order against him based on claims that he was using his TV broadcasts to inflict "mental cruelty" and "sleep deprivation" on a woman he had never met who lives on the other side of the country.

"If [applicants] make a proper pleading, then I grant it," explained District Judge Daniel Sanchez of Santa Fe.

Though Letterman's pricey lawyers have been able to kill the restraining order, the case emphasizes how easy it is to obtain them — and they can come in very useful when laying the groundwork for custody disputes. They can also lead to legal lunacy, as described by Capitol Hill Journal:

Restraining orders turn ordinary men into criminals by forbidding many routine behaviors. Men are being arrested for violating their orders by such acts as: returning their children's phone calls; going to their children's school or athletic events; sending their kids birthday cards; or accidentally running into them at the park or the mall.

Cathy Young, author of Ceasefire: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces to Achieve True Equality, documented one case where a father of three was arrested for getting out of his car to pet his kids' dogs when he picked them up for a visit. Later, he was fined $600 for returning a phone call from his son.

In another case, a divorced dad with no police record was convicted of a crime because he opened the door to the lobby of his ex-wife's apartment building when dropping his then-five-year-old son off after a visit. When he refused to go to batterers' treatment for this "crime," he was sent to prison for six months.

Restraining orders generally only limit the restrained person's contact with the protected person but not vice versa. As a result, husbands who have reconciled with their wives are being arrested during routine traffic stops for being in the same car with them. In one case, a father was arrested and jailed for three days for breaching a domestic violence order by taking his son to the hospital. The mother had called the father, said their son had been injured in a bike accident, and asked him to take the boy to the hospital. The conviction stays on his record and hurts his job prospects but he can't get it undone.

Some men have been arrested and jailed after being tricked into violating their restraining orders. In one Seattle case, a man was jailed for three months after returning phone calls from his ex-wife, who showed the police the phone screen with the man's number on it. The man explained that when he received the messages he worried that something might have happened to his kids. He asks "what kind of parent would I be if I didn't return those calls?"

Restraining orders have a particularly devastating impact upon law enforcement and military personnel. Under the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, individuals, including police officers and armed forces personnel, are prohibited from possessing a firearm if they are subject to a restraining order issued at the behest of a spouse or an intimate partner. The 1996 Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban expanded this prohibition to bar officers and service personnel from carrying weapons as part of their jobs. As a result, many police officers who are hit with restraining orders lose their careers.

Too bad a course in common sense doesn't seem to be part of the curriculum at most law schools.

Hat tip: Wiggins.

Posted by Van Helsing at 1:25 PM | Comments (1)

Woman Sues Over Not Being Killed

Here's another one for the lunatic lawsuits collection. From the Times Online:

Kevin Reeves, 40, was jailed for 15 months and ordered to pay £2,000 compensation after accepting £20,000 from a friend so depressed that she asked him to find a hitman to murder her. He even offered to do it hims