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June 30, 2007

Farfour the Terrorist Mouse Buys the Farm

Sad news for Palestinian children:

Remember Farfour, the sinister Mickey Mouse look-alike on Hamas-run television who has been exhorting Palestinian kids to drink their milk, pray to Allah, and blow up infidels? The evil Jews got the better of him.

In the final episode of the program, Farfour is beaten to death by an Israeli official trying to buy his land. Demonstrating that at least Palestinians have a gift for irony, Farfour denounces his attacker as a "terrorist."

Sara, the teenage host, explains the tragic conclusion to the kiddies:

Farfour was martyred while defending his land… [He was killed] by the killers of children.

It's a hard world for six-foot, helium-voiced, jihadist mice. At least now Hamas doesn't have to worry about Disney developing enough of a spine to complain about copyright infringement.

On tips from Wiggins and Toa.

Posted by Van Helsing at 5:29 PM | Comments (11)

British Magistrate in Trouble For Not Accepting Muslim Veil

As terrorists lay siege to the remnants of Great Britain, the moonbats who have reduced this great country to such a vulnerable state continue to chip away from within, working in more or less open alliance with the West's jihadist enemies. The situation is so bad now that Manchester magistrate Ian Murray faces disciplinary action because he refused to deal with a defendant who would not show her face in court. Zoobia Hussain is of course "shocked and distressed" that anyone would expect her to take off her Muslim veil for the sake of legal proceedings, just so people can see who she is, as if the UK were its own country with its own legal traditions that should take precedence over Islamic ways.

Given a choice between rule of law and pandering obsequiously to Muslims, the authorities choose the latter with ever-increasing regularity. Murray is already groveling and apologizing, so he may be permitted to keep his position, so long as he never again questions the confines of the shameful dhimmitude Britain has voluntarily chosen to adopt in the name of political correctness.

On a tip from V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 5:04 PM | Comments (3)

A Harmful Effect of Rising CO2 Levels Finally Discovered

It turns out CO2 emissions actually have a harmful effect after all. By making plant life healthier, more CO2 leads to more potent poison ivy.

For a scientific study, groups of poison ivy plants were grown at 1950s and at current CO2 levels. The results:

After about eight months, leaf size, stem length and weight and oil content of the plants raised at current carbon-dioxide levels were, on average, 50% to 75% higher than the plants under the 1950s conditions, according to the study, expected to be published this year in the journal Weed Science. Not only did the higher CO2 level double the growth rate, but it made for hardier plants that recovered more quickly from the ravages of grazing animals.

The hardier poison ivy plants produce more powerful urushiol, which is the oil that gives people an itchy rash.

We sure don't want healthier plants, not if it means poison ivy that itches even more. We'd better put a cap on economic activity immediately, before we run out of calamine lotion.

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:23 AM | Comments (16)

Code Pink Kook Passes Out in Lieberman's Office

To get an idea of who populates the base of the Democrat Party, check out the video below of Leslie Angeline, a Code Pinko activist who attempted to coerce Senator Joe Lieberman to listen to her ravings by going on a hunger strike. She managed to get into his office, where she lay down on the floor and apparently passed out.

In the video, she tearfully shares with the world the message she wants to impart to Lieberman: that Iran is a beautiful country, so we must rule out using military action to prevent it from blowing us to bits with nuclear weapons.

Lieberman is as liberal as they get on every other topic, but believes common sense should prevail when it comes to dealing with maniacs like Saddam Hussein and Iran's Mad Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This has earned him knives in the back from his Dem colleagues and now his own version of the Ditch Witch.

If common sense prevails in dealing with Leslie Angeline, she will be carted off to the funny farm and subjected to appropriate treatment.

On a tip from Wiggins.

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:14 AM | Comments (6)

June 29, 2007

BBC: What Terrorism Problem?

Given today's foiling of a terrorist attack on Piccidilly Circus, will any Britons wake up and realize that their massive and quickly growing Muslim population is a profoundly serious threat? Not if the BBC can help it. A few man-on-the-street quotes gets across the Beeb's message: "Problem? There's no problem. And besides, Tony Blair caused it by siding with America."

By some remarkable coincidence, the first person featured is from the Middle East:

I escaped the car bombs in Lebanon to come to London but I still think this is a safe city. We don't yet know who is behind this but the UK has become a target because of its efforts to promote democracy abroad.

More carefully selected Londoners express their insouciance:

I feel safe actually. If it happens, it happens.

The chances of becoming a direct victim of such an attack are low.

I'm actually more concerned about gun violence at the moment than I am about terrorism.

I feel as safe here as anywhere.

But of course it isn't that the BBC wants to downplay the seriousness of Muslim terrorism. They just couldn't seem to find anyone in London who thinks their city getting bombed is a big deal.

On a tip from V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 3:05 PM | Comments (19)

How the UN Falsifies Data on Rising Sea Levels

According to Al Gore and his acolytes at the UN's hyperpoliticized Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we will soon need to abandon civilization and head for the hills, because the sea is rising up to wash us all away. Like most everything else having to do with the global warming hoax, this is a lie, as helpfully explained by sea-level specialist Nils-Axel Mörner, the head of the Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics department at Stockholm University.

One way we determine if sea levels are really rising is by measuring the speed of the Earth's rotation. Rising sea levels would increase the Earth's radius, thereby slowing it down. This method confirms a measurement of not more than 1.1 millimeters per year, which has been going on for ages. There is no trend of an increased rate in the rise of sea levels. So the UN's global warming hoaxers created one.

First, they chose a Hong Kong tide gauge which helpfully gave them a 2.3 mm per year reading, thanks to the fact that Hong Kong is subsiding due to compaction of sediment.

This 2.3-mm rate was then confirmed by satellite data, with the help of a "correction factor." Mörner was outraged:

Then, in 2003, the same data set, which in their [IPCC's] publications, in their website, was a straight line — suddenly it changed, and showed a very strong line of uplift, 2.3 mm per year, the same as from the tide gauge. And that didn't look so nice. It looked as though they had recorded something; but they hadn't recorded anything. It was the original one which they had suddenly twisted up, because they entered a "correction factor," which they took from the tide gauge. So it was not a measured thing, but a figure introduced from outside. I accused them of this at the Academy of Sciences in Moscow — I said you have introduced factors from outside; it's not a measurement. It looks like it is measured from the satellite, but you don't say what really happened. And they answered, that we had to do it, because otherwise we would not have gotten any trend!

That is terrible! As a matter of fact, it is a falsification of the data set. Why? Because they know the answer. And there you come to the point: They "know" the answer; the rest of us, we are searching for the answer. Because we are field geologists; they are computer scientists. So all this talk that sea level is rising, this stems from the computer modeling, not from observations. The observations don't find it!

Welcome to the new science of political correctness, where first you decide what the data needs to say, then you go out and find it.

Hat tip: Ranting Stan.

Posted by Van Helsing at 2:27 PM | Comments (19)

Dan Rather Wins the James Earl Carter Bitter Old Man Award

Congratulations to Dan Blather, formerly a leading propagandist at CBS News, for winning the first annual James Earl Carter Bitter Old Man Award. The award is named after Jimmy the Dhimmi for good reason:

Having not gotten over his 1980 landslide loss to Ronald Reagan, Carter has become a perpetual critic of his successors and shown such little grace in his retirement that the only times he appears in the media, he seems to be criticizing his own nation (and its leaders) while praising its adversaries (particularly the most vicious). Ostensibly committed to human rights, Mr. Carter seems to find that only the United States and its allies violate them, while blaming other nations' violations on the policies of the United States (and its allies).

Through the better part of his public actions since voters in 44 states rejected him, this sourpuss has helped redefine the term Bitter Old Man.

The Dan was granted the award for good reason too:

He seems to delight in grousing against nearly the exact same people whose very success (and just plain presence on the national stage) makes Mr. Carter so unhappy. But, what really sealed the deal for the Awards Committee was Mr. Rather's recent lambasting of Katie Couric, his successor at CBS News. The committee found this particular attack showed Mr. Rather to be a bitter old man in the same spirit as Mr. Carter, attacking his successor(s) in order to deflect attention from his own failings.

"This is not just the pot calling the kettle black," said one of the judges, "This is the old pot, long since unusable, calling the new kettle black because of its first burn mark."

Winning this award could be Blather's greatest accomplishment since establishing "fake but accurate" as the criterion for network news reporting.

On a tip from V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 12:59 PM | Comments (2)

Politically Correct Child Abuse

In the olden days, if a disturbed child exhibited persistent delusions, science would attempt to provide a cure. But we're more enlightened now. We indulge the delusions, and twist reality around in an attempt to conform to them. After all, who's to say one reality is more real than another?

This has resulted in some appalling examples of child abuse, one of which is featured in this video of a CNN story on a 7-year-old boy whose parents have decided he is actually a girl.

At 18 months, he was observed to be "drawn to all things pink, pretty, and feminine." At four years, they started dressing him up as a girl. When he was in the first grade they took him out of school, changed his name to a girl's name, kept him away from the barber for awhile, then reenrolled him in a new school as a girl. His mom claims the 7-year-old would have committed suicide otherwise.

CNN's Paula Zahn smiles encouragingly throughout the alarming report, indulging the confused parents and their poor messed-up kid by referring to him as "she." Doctors also egged them on by diagnosing the kid as "transgendered" instead of delusionary. In conclusion, Zahn says of the parents:

They know they will face difficult decisions as [the boy] reaches puberty, but for now they say they'll do whatever it takes to make their child happy.

How thoughtful. Apparently his future will feature hormone-induced mutation and sexual mutilation, all because no one was politically incorrect enough to refrain from feeding a small child's delusions.

On a tip from Bob.

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:51 AM | Comments (18)

Europeans Flock to Danish Animal Bordellos

The moral collapse of Europe is proceeding at a gallop. Danish animal owners have been attracting tourists to their country by advertising bestiality for pay. According to the law, this is fine, so long as the animal doesn't suffer.

Owners claim the animals like it. The veracity of this doubtful claim is irrelevant. There was a time when laws weren't about what the animals like; they were about what was good for human beings — and letting society degenerate to the point where it's permissible to have sex with animals is not good for anyone.

On a tip from V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:53 AM | Comments (9)

Does Global Warming Cause Muslims to Rape Europeans?

Sweden has been suffering from a rape epidemic. Rapists who were born abroad reportedly outnumber rapists born in Sweden four to one. This isn't entirely surprising, considering that Sweden is being colonized out of existence by Muslim hordes exploiting liberal immigration policies. European women have taken to dying their blonde hair black and even wearing head scarves to avoid being attacked by Muslim colonizers, who hold them in total contempt.

Rape has a noble history in Islam. Muhammad himself raped his slaves, which is perfectly acceptable behavior according to the religion that we are allowing to replace Christianity. As Scandinavian blogger Fjordman observes:

If you postulate that many of the Muslims in Europe view themselves as a conquering army and that European women are simply war booty, it all makes perfect sense and is in full accordance with Islamic law.

Despite all this, it would be xenophobic to blame the rape epidemic on Muslims. Actually, the weather is to blame. According to an article in Aftonbladet, warm weather stimulates the hormones, causing rape.

The number of rapes in Sweden has increased fourfold in the last generation. But resist the temptation to associate this with the ongoing Islamic conquest by immigration. A correct person will realize that it's only proof that global warming is real after all, and is deflowering our maidens.

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:42 AM | Comments (6)

June 28, 2007

Ted Sorensen's Moonbat Acceptance Speech

The lefties at Washington Monthly asked former JFK aide Theodore C. Sorensen to write the acceptance speech "of his dreams" for whichever moonbat wins the Democrat nomination. The results will make you think twice about boycotting Republicans over their illegal immigration shenanigans. From amid the vacuous platitudes and petty digs at the current administration emerges a seven-point plan for the ruin of America. Our next Democrat President will promise to:

1. Surrender Iraq to Islamic terrorists, the Iraqi people and our crucial strategic interests be damned.
2. Establish an official Palestinian state; i.e., give Hamas official nation-state status, as if one Iran weren't enough.
3. Close down Club Gitmo because the obsequious treatment terrorists have received there makes it a "hideous symbol of injustice."
4. Prostrate himself before the odious United Nations, grovelingly promising that America will never again put its own interests ahead of those of that cesspool swimming with socialists, dictators, Islamofascists, and fools.
5. Sign the Kyoto Protocol, as if Al Gore hadn't already done so as Vice President, and submit it to the Senate for ratification, as if the Senate hadn't already voted 95-0 not to ratify this demented suicide pact.
6. Cuddle up to the fiends running rogue regimes like Iran, North Korea, and Cuba.
7. Stop incarcerating unlawful combatants, and stop listening in on al-Qaeda's plans for the next 9/11.

You may wonder why anyone should care how some kooky old has-been like Sorensen would like a President to behave. After all, only a lunatic would vote for any candidate who enact such an agenda.

The answer is, as our society comes unraveled, lunatics are becoming the majority, and if Dems win, Sorensen will get his way.

Hat tip: The Corner, on a tip from V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 5:51 PM | Comments (2)

With Friends Like These…

Jewish support for the abomination known as the Democrat Party gets more puzzling with every vote. When Mike Pence (R-IN) introduced an amendment to a foreign aid bill prohibiting groups that deny Israel's right to exist from getting cash handouts at American taxpayers' expense, 30 of his fellow Representatives voted against it. Of these, 27 were Democrats, including liberal favorites Dennis Kooksinitch (D-OH), John Dingleberry (D-MI), and unsurprisingly, our celebrated first Muslim Congressman, Keith Ellison (D-MN).

On a tip from Byron.

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:40 AM | Comments (9)

Venezuela's Anaconda

Hugo Chavez has stolen $4.5 billion in assets from the American firms ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil, but as Investor's Business Daily observes, they seem to be taking the hit quite well. Not so Venezuela:

Standard & Poor's, for instance, downgraded the country's outlook, citing "a highly negative climate for investment, which results in virtually no foreign and private investment."

Venezuela has strict capital controls on its currency, so the bolivar trades only in the local black market. Its value to the dollar fell from 4,050 to 4,180 yesterday as dollar demand for capital flight rose, Bloomberg reported.

Even the "official" rate of 2,150 bolivars to the dollar signals ruinous inflation, likely well above the most recent inflation rate of 19%. A lack of dollars has emptied store shelves of imported goods, causing food prices to shoot up.

The methodical strangulation of the economy is progressing in tandem with Chavez's destruction of democratic institutions:

This year, Chavez turned what was once a democracy into one-man rule by legislating for himself the right to rule by decree. […This] puts to rest Chavez apologists' claims that Venezuela is a democracy because he was "elected" democratically. Protests continue to convulse the streets of the capital over his destruction of free speech with the shutdown of the RCTV TV station.

Chavez is a case study in how a determined political criminal turns a democracy into a tyranny. He used the same means of securing total power as Adolf Hitler did, even using Hitler's "enabling law" term for it.

As he tightens his grip, Chavez has not only driven foreign investment out of the country, he's driving out home-grown entrepreneurs as well, convincing them that you simply cannot do business in a socialist police state as he squeezes them ever more tightly.

Like the country's fabled anaconda, Chavez is choking this once-prosperous economy to death, leaving what's left only a ruin.

The only question remaining is what happens when he runs out of things of value to destroy. It can take decades for such a severely mismanaged economy to recover. And there's no sign he's going to stop.

What could be a prosperous country is being reduced to the Western Hemisphere's answer to North Korea. The road of moonbattery leads straight to hell.

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:06 AM | Comments (3)

British Bureaucrats May Delete the Word "Prostitute"

One of the more disturbing aspects of 1984 is the way the government would attempt to control our thoughts by deleting words from the language. More disturbing still is the way real-life bureaucrats have followed suit.

The word "prostitute" may be removed from British legal statutes because it carries "stigma." A spokeswoman for the Justice Ministry says of the word:

It's been around since 1824, so it was a bit outdated. It just wasn't really helpful to label people.

Instead of using the incorrect word, bureauweenies refer to "persons who sell sex persistently."

I'm sure other criminals don't like being labeled either. Is "child molester" still on the books? They might want to check its expiration date. How about "burglar"?

Of course, the reason the word "prostitution" is being erased is that you can't resist what you can't name, and prostitution typifies the moral climate liberals have been imposing on us with increasing success for generations. Next, they might want to go after the words "degeneracy" and "moonbattery."

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:25 AM | Comments (9)

Shamnesty Crashes

Bad news for Bush, Reid, Kennedy, McCain and the whole rotten gang of shamnesty co-conspirators: due to public outrage, their atrocious bill has crashed and burned in the Senate.

Amnesty for illegal aliens appears to be completely dead until after the 2008 elections. Sorry, W, it looks like you might not be able to count bankrupting the country as part of your legacy. But we'll remember how hard you tried.

Unfortunately, we're now left with the intolerable status quo — unless of course the government can be compelled to enforce the laws already on the books, which would include building the promised fence. Hey, if We the People killed shamnesty, maybe we can even persuade the government to perform its basic functions in exchange for the $trillions it sucks out of our veins.

On a tip from Varla.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:54 AM | Comments (7)

Confirmed: The UN's Computerized Climate Models Are Useless

Kevin Trenberth heads the US National Center for Atmospheric Research and has been called "one of the advisory high priests" of the UN's pseudo-scientific Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which endlessly huffs and puffs about how the planet is doomed if something isn't done to stop economic growth. The IPCC's direful predictions about rising sea levels, soggy polar bears, etc. are based on computer General Circulation Models (GCMs). Interestingly, Trenberth dismisses these models as sheer bunk.

As Trenberth notes, GCMs don't consider many relevant climate factors, including recovery of the ozone layer and forcing agents. The models are not even initialized to reflect the current observed climate. GCMs "assume linearity," but many aspects of climate are not linear. Trenberth asserts that "we do not have reliable or regional predictions of climate."

He's not the only one with doubts as to the validity of the IPCC's colorful forecasts. In a paper being presented this week at the 27th International Symposium on Forecasting, Scott Armstrong and Kesten Green conclude that "because the forecasting processes … overlook scientific evidence on forecasting, the IPCC forecasts of climate change are not scientific."

Even Jim Renwick, a lead author of the IPCC Working Group 1 science report, admits that "climate prediction is hard, half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable, so we don't expect to do terrifically well." His admission comes in response to an audit revealing that forecasts by New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmosphere were accurate only 48% of the time.

Professor Bob Carter, a geologist at James Cook University, sums up:

There is no predictive value in the current generation of computer GCMs and therefore the alarmist IPCC statements about human-caused global warming are unjustified.

This is hardly surprising. If scientists can't reliably predict the weather for next weekend, why would a bunch of corrupt, ideologically motivated bureauweenies be trusted to make forecasts for the next 100 years?

But maybe we ought to slam on the economic brakes and plunge the world into abject poverty anyway, just to be on the safe side.

On a tip from Bergbikr.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:28 AM | Comments (4)

Border Patrol to Be Redeployed to Alaska and Utah

Ever wonder why Republicans would support the Senate's shamnesty bill, even though it will change the demographics of the country to tilt overwhelmingly in favor of Democrats? Pork is why.

Porksters Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are supporting the bill because it calls for locating a Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Fairbanks.

Border control offices in the middle of Alaska. There will also be a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Monticello, Utah. That was the price of Senator Bob Bennett's vote.

If this country is to be saved, the entire Senate needs to be ridden out of Washington on a rail.

Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ, on a tip from V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:00 AM | Comments (3)

BBC Employs Members of Hamas

This might shed some light on the BBC's point of view when it comes to the Middle East:

At the request of the BBC, one of their Palestinian employees was allowed past Israeli checkpoints into Gaza so he could check with his pals to see who kidnapped journalist Alan Johnston.

The Israeli security agency Shin Bet didn't like the idea, on the grounds that the BBC employee is a member of Hamas and possibly an terrorist operative. But the Defense Ministry let him through anyway.

After consulting with his buddies, the employee reported back to the Beeb that Hamas isn't holding Johnston.

Naturally the BBC denies that they employ members of Hamas, which everyone except Jimmy Carter regards as one of the most vicious terrorist organizations in the world.

Hat tip: Sweetness & Light

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:34 AM

June 27, 2007

Starbursts Sued For Being Chewy

Starburst Fruit Chews aren't just chewy, they're dangerously chewy — or so claims Victoria McArthur of Romero, Michigan, who is suing Mars, Inc. for $25,000 for making candy so chewy that she sustained "permanent personal injuries."

According to her lawyer Brian Muawad, eating the candy caused her to develop "temporal mandibular joint dysfunction." I think that means "a sore jaw."

Not surprisingly, the shyster offered to negotiate a settlement. To their credit, the people at Mars told him to stick it, though no doubt the legal fees for this latest farce will cost tens of thousands.

On a tip from Wiggins.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:45 PM | Comments (13)

The Cost of Shamnesty

If Bush didn't manage to ensure our country's bankruptcy with his prescription drug handout, amnesty for illegal aliens ought to do the trick. Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation recounts a few facts you won't hear from Bush, Kennedy, McCain, or the rest of the irresponsible fools who are steering the ship of state straight at an iceberg, including this one:

Low-skill immigrants receive, on average, three dollars in government benefits for each dollar of taxes paid. This imbalance generates a net cost of $89 billion per year on U.S. taxpayers. Over a lifetime the typical low-skill immigrant household costs taxpayers $1.2 million dollars.

Rector estimates that the cost of amnesty alone will reach $2.6 trillion once illegal immigrant recipients of government largesse reach retirement age.

As for the wishful canard that making millions of low-skill illegal aliens eligible for every entitlement under the sun will somehow keep Social Security afloat,

In the not too distant future, the Social Security trust fund will be in deficit. Government will have to use general revenues to help pay promised benefits. Since amnesty recipients and their families will consume more government revenues that they contribute, they will undermine the financial support for U.S. retirees even before they reach retirement age themselves.

There will come a point where the American economy simply cannot pay the bill for all the moonbattery gushing out of Washington, no matter how high taxes are raised. Our current crop of bureaucrats may even live to see it. Let's hope they do. They certainly deserve to go down with the ship.

On a tip from Byron.

Posted by Van Helsing at 2:48 PM | Comments (4)

Legislature? I Don't Need No Stinking Legislature!

Governor Eliot Spitzer stands ready to streamline New York's bureaucracy by governing without the legislature.

Contemptuous of the state's Republican-controlled Senate, the Democrat Spitzer says he favors regulatory changes and executive orders, which do not require prior approval from the legislature. He's been making political hay from the Senate's decision to go home at the end of their 6-month session, even though there are still more laws that could be passed.

Shouts Spitzer:

We will use the capacity of the executive branch to govern the state, whether or not the legislature joins us in this pursuit.

Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno noted that Spitzer, "ought to understand that we're not a third-world country where he is a dictator."

Not yet, anyway.

On a tip from Wiggins.

Posted by Van Helsing at 2:01 PM | Comments (4)

Moonbat vs. Moonbat

Even the morally depraved Ingrid Newkirk, president of PETA and inventor of the slogan "A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy," has one redeeming quality: she can't seem to stomach Michael Moore, whom she ridicules for raking in more millions by bashing our healthcare system with his latest schlockumentary, while making no effort to stay healthy himself. Newkirk wrote to Moore:

There's an elephant in the room, and it is you.

She advises him to lose some weight by becoming a vegetarian. If Moore has a redeeming quality, it's that he isn't likely to.

On a tip from Wiggins.

Posted by Van Helsing at 12:55 PM | Comments (5)

Run For Your Lives! The Scaremongers Are Coming!

Head for the hills! A hysterical Paul Newman warns in a fund-raising email that if the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee doesn't raise $114,941 by June 30, we could be left at the mercy of pitiless scaremongers.

After all these years, Newman is still boasting about being enough of a moonbat to make Richard Nixon's enemies list. But he also has a more recent source of pride:

I am proud now to stand with a new generation of Democrats against a president who poses what I believe to be the biggest internal threat to American democracy in my lifetime.

Looks like we're in big trouble! The Democrat-controlled Senate might save us, but only if it stays in Dem hands after the 2008 election — and as Newman gasps in terror:

One seat is all that separates Republicans from retaking the United States Senate.

The biggest internal threat to American democracy in Newman's lifetime will then be leaving office anyway, but never mind that because Republicans have "destroyed the American spirit by using xenophobia and fear to hold onto power," which is "scare-mongering pure and simple"!

Using fear to hold onto power, huh? Good thing libs never stoop that low.

On a tip from Wiggins.

Posted by Van Helsing at 12:19 PM | Comments (6)

Hindu Prayer For the Senate

Per tradition, a prayer will be recited when the US Senate opens for business on July 12. But there's no need to alert the ACLU, because it will be a Hindu prayer, delivered by one Rajan Zed, who says he plans to begin and end the prayer with the mystical Hindu syllable "Om." It may be the most intelligent thing that's said on the Hill all day.

Next, perhaps they will invite famous Scientologist Tom Cruise to read some science fiction at the start of business. It's bound to be more interesting than the endless phony bloviating of that gang of treasonous gasbags as they attempt to justify their refusal to defend the country from invasion.

Hat tip: In the Days, on a tip from Nanc.

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:49 AM | Comments (5)

Another Argument Against Gay Adoption

In case you missed it, now that she's taken it down, here's the photo of her 4-year-old daughter that the militantly anti-American Rosie O'Donnell put up on her website:

The only text was "a picture is worth a thousand posts," leaving readers to figure out for themselves just what the deranged woman was trying to express. Many readers were appalled, especially since the Muslim terrorists Rosie invariably sides with use small children as suicide bombers.

Rosie by the way is adamantly opposed to our Second Amendment right to bear arms — except as it applies to her bodyguards.

On tips from V the K, Wiggins, and Varla.

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:21 AM | Comments (12)

Killing the Second Amendment One Gun Shop at a Time

Liberals don't have the leverage to repeal the First and Second Amendments outright, so they chip away at them. Just as they attack the First with "hate crimes" legislation, "campaign finance reform," the "Fairness Doctrine," etc., they are inflicting death by a thousand cuts on the Second by siccing swarms of tedious little bureaucrats on gun shops.

A favorite strategy is for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to close down shops over trivial license infractions. Once bureauweenies find a clerical error, the dealer has his license revoked and must go through an appeals process straight out of Kafka's The Castle. Appeals go directly to the people who originally made the decision to revoke the license, so that business owners end up having to sue in federal court.

In Baltimore, a family-owned gun store was closed down because the space provided for the city on the government forms was so small that the owners abbreviated it to "Blto." Other owners have gotten the guillotine for forgetting to provide the name of their county.

At least bureaucrats are showing some imagination for once. A dealership in Texas has paid $600,000 fighting to retain its license following unproven allegations that bullets from a shooting range near the store were polluting groundwater.

Rebecca Hazen, who had to close down her Idaho sporting goods business a few months ago after the Feds revoked her firearms license, sums up the situation:

I believe government has been unable to take guns from the hands of citizens or sue gun manufacturers out of business, so they will use government agencies to revoke licenses one at a time until there are no stores to buy guns.

Twenty years ago, there were a quarter million gun shops. Now there are barely more than 100,000. Looks like the strategy is working.

On a tip from Wiggins.

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:11 AM | Comments (6)

June 26, 2007

Enviromoonbattery Causes Forest Fires

Those who lost homes in the recent wildfire south of Lake Tahoe are enraged at the envirokooks and complicit bureauweenies who have made it all but impossible to clear land. The result of their endless red tape has been a buildup of deadwood that inevitably led to this:

Uh oh, I think some carbon might have been emitted. A spotted owl or two may even have gotten its feathers singed. But so long as the environmentalists mean well, that's the important thing.

On a tip from Forest.

Posted by Van Helsing at 3:33 PM | Comments (7)

More on the Green Prince

Britain's moonbat prince is back in the news already, and unfortunately it isn't good news for Charles.

The Sainsbury's supermarket chain has dumped him as a vegetable supplier because his organic produce doesn't meet standards. Apparently damaged and rotten carrots were a problem, as was a carbon footprint greater than would result from growing conventional carrots on an industrial scale.

Speaking of carbon footprints, claims of having achieved a carbon-neutral household notwithstanding, Prince Chucklehead leaves a giant one. His household has generated nearly 1,600 tons of CO2 in the past year, and not everyone is buying his attempt to "greenwash" the issue by blowing part of his publicly financed fortune on carbon offset swindles.

The Prince's lavish lifestyle produced more CO2 on the year than 600 cars. This is largely a result of his frequent jet travel. For example Chucky, Camilla, and a large entourage of aides flew first class across the Atlantic and back so he could pick up an environmental awareness award.

Proving that the Goracle isn't the only one who knows how to live large, the Chuckster's three homes ran up utility bills over £100,000 in 2005–2006.

In his defense, Chuckles does his best to make up for all this by driving a Jag that runs on recycled cooking oil.

On tips from Byron.

Posted by Van Helsing at 2:42 PM | Comments (4)

New York Times Doing Its Part For Shamnesty

If the New York Times has a redeeming quality, it is that its ham-handed propagandizing is so over the top that no reasonable person would ever mistake it for objective information. Here's how the Gray Lady depicts the supporters and opponents of the Senate's outrageous amnesty bill, which is opposed by 80% of the population.

For amnesty:

Against amnesty:

The New York Times isn't a newspaper. It's a cartoon.

Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ, on a tip from V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 12:55 PM | Comments (11)

Chucklehead, The Green Prince

Attempts by Prince Charles to elbow his way to the front of the environmentalist bandwagon by achieving a "carbon-neutral" household go beyond blowing $60,000 a year on dubious carbon offsets. Taking a page out of the demented Daryl Hannah's playbook, the Prince of Wales now fuels his Jaguar on used cooking oil.

Perhaps next time Daryl decides to live in a tree for awhile, Chucklehead will join her there.

No word on whether Chuckles is following the advice of Cheryl Crow and limiting himself to only one sheet of toilet paper. Maybe someone could ask the Royal Manicurist.

Posted by Van Helsing at 12:30 PM | Comments (4)

Cloture Vote

Here's the roll call on today's cloture vote, which opens the door to granting amnesty to anyone who has seen fit to break into our country:

YEAs — 64

Akaka (D-HI) Bennett (R-UT) Biden (D-DE) Bingaman (D-NM) Bond (R-MO) Boxer (D-CA) Brown (D-OH) Brownback (R-KS) Burr (R-NC) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Clinton (D-NY) Coleman (R-MN) Collins (R-ME) Conrad (D-ND) Craig (R-ID) Dodd (D-CT) Domenici (R-NM) Durbin (D-IL) Ensign (R-NV)

Feingold (D-WI) Feinstein (D-CA) Graham (R-SC) Gregg (R-NH) Hagel (R-NE) Harkin (D-IA) Inouye (D-HI) Kennedy (D-MA) Kerry (D-MA) Klobuchar (D-MN) Kohl (D-WI) Kyl (R-AZ) Lautenberg (D-NJ) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) Lieberman (ID-CT) Lincoln (D-AR) Lott (R-MS) Lugar (R-IN) Martinez (R-FL) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY)

Menendez (D-NJ) Mikulski (D-MD) Murkowski (R-AK) Murray (D-WA) Nelson (D-FL) Nelson (D-NE) Obama (D-IL) Pryor (D-AR) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Salazar (D-CO) Schumer (D-NY) Snowe (R-ME) Specter (R-PA) Stevens (R-AK) Voinovich (R-OH) Warner (R-VA) Webb (D-VA) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wyden (D-OR)

NAYs — 35

Alexander (R-TN) Allard (R-CO) Barrasso (R-WY) Baucus (D-MT) Bayh (D-IN) Bunning (R-KY) Byrd (D-WV) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX)

Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Dole (R-NC) Dorgan (D-ND) Enzi (R-WY) Grassley (R-IA) Hatch (R-UT) Hutchison (R-TX) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Landrieu (D-LA) McCaskill (D-MO)

Roberts (R-KS) Rockefeller (D-WV) Sanders (I-VT) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Smith (R-OR) Stabenow (D-MI) Sununu (R-NH) Tester (D-MT) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA)

Some cowardly bureaucrats who voted for cloture will then vote against the bill itself, knowing that it will pass anyway, so they can bleat to their outraged constituents, "Hey, I tried to stop it." Hopefully voters will not be deceived. Any Senator on the YEA list above must be removed from office at the next possible opportunity for compelling reasons of national security.

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:05 AM | Comments (4)

British Acknowledge Loss of Freedom of Speech

In a survey of British adults, only one third believe free speech exists in their country. Only one in five believes they can safely voice opinions on sensitive issues. Yet 98% believe they should have the right to free speech.

The British fought off the Nazis, but they haven't fared so well against the more insidious threat of political correctness. As friction.tv Chief Marketing Officer Andy West notes:

We live in such a politically correct society that people don't know what they can and can't say anymore and there is a constant fear that if you go against the grain, you'll be vilified by your peers.

The risks don't stop at vilification. Nick Griffith of the British National Party was actually prosecuted for observing in a private setting that Islam is "a wicked and vicious faith."

According to Anthony Browne of the independent British think tank Civitas,

political correctness, which classifies certain groups of people as victims in need of protection from criticism and allows no dissent to be expressed, is poisoning the wells of debate in modern Britain.

He proposes establishing freedom of expression in British law, as our Founding Fathers wisely did in American law with the First Amendment — which our current crop of moonbat bureaucrats is in effect trying to repeal.

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:31 AM | Comments (6)

Jimmy Carter, Oxford Idol

They'd better not be charging much for an Oxford education these days, because the school doesn't appear to be maintaining its historic standards — or any acceptable standards.

Last week an honorary degree was awarded to the verminous Jimmy Carter, who keeps himself in the news constantly by praising Islamic terrorists and doing everything in his thankfully limited power to undermine the United States and Israel.

This symbolic gesture is no worse than Princeton granting an honorary doctorate to the permanently punch-drunk Muhammad Ali for his past moonbattery. But at least Princeton isn't assigning books scribbled by Ali for its classes.

This year Oxford will be offering the course "The Middle East and the West: From Confrontation to Coexistence." It will enlighten students as to "the real causes of conflict" in the Middle East. Carter's propagandistic diatribe Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid will be used as "background reading."

As readers might recall, this particularly egregious work of pro-terrorist propaganda is so outrageously false, the publisher has gotten into hot water for passing it off as nonfiction. The lies Carter packed into it are sufficiently vile that 14 advisers at his Carter Center resigned in disgust. A few of the malicious untruths are helpfully documented by the liberal Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz.

But the book being a collection of vicious and despicable lies is certainly no reason not to use it as course material at the University of Oxford, which also called upon Jimmy the Dhimmi to deliver the Seventh Annual Hands Lecture. The Dhimmster predictably exploited this as another opportunity to propagandize on behalf of Hamas, which has plunged Gaza into violent chaos in the course of transforming it into the perfect cat's paw for the Iranian terror state Jimmah helped create.

Oxford educrats, if you ever want to rejoin the civilized world, you could do so by granting us all a major favor: next time Carter shows up to give a speech or collect an award, call the Orkin Man.

On a tip from Byron.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:06 AM | Comments (2)

Living at the Pleasure of Rage Boy

It's a thankless task, but it often needs to be performed, so Christopher Hitchens points out the obvious: nothing is ever going to satisfy Rage Boy, the Muslim maniac who has been making a career out of shaking his fist in front of cameras to intimidate us into cowering before Islam.

His tantrums are of course staged, and often involve only a handful of lunatics; but our complicit media helpfully frames every shot to put Rage Boy at the head of an imaginary but vast horde of righteously enraged activists.

It's astonishing that the liberal media, which on its face should be diametrically opposed to the Islamic extremist agenda, would facilitate Rage Boy's photo ops. But what's still more astonishing is that the photo ops work. Every time a restless gang of mental cases in some Pakistani backwater throw themselves on the ground and start kicking and screaming like two-year-olds, the West wrings its hands and pleads, But what do you want from us?

The answer of course is total submission. The willingness of our contemptible media to comply with Muslim censorship demands (as after the Cartoon Intifada) indicates they are on their way to getting it. Hitchens concludes:

Rage Boy keenly looks forward to anger, while we worriedly anticipate trouble, and fret about etiquette, and prepare the next retreat. If taken to its logical conclusion, this would mean living at the pleasure of Rage Boy, and that I am not prepared to do.

Unfortunately, far too many of us are more than ready to live at the pleasure of Rage Boy. A depraved, masochistic urge to submit to the will of Rage Boy is the essence of the widespread sickness known as "multiculturalism."

On a tip from Byron.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:10 AM | Comments (7)

Scientific Breakthrough by Local Board of Education

Maryland's Montgomery County Board of Education has made an astonishing discovery: gay activist rhetoric that babies are born homosexual is actually true, and consequently will be taught as fact to students.

This was established not through any tedious scientific process, but through the timesaving expedient of bureaucratic fiat.

Montgomery County curriculum for the 8th grade instructs teachers as follows:

Say to students, "Sexual orientation is innate and a complex part of one's personality."

In addition to ruling out the free will that makes life meaningful, the curriculum fails to mention the lethal health risks associated with sexual deviancy. Parents should be appreciative; public schools' advocacy of homosexuality isn't always so subtle.

No doubt the scientific community is scrambling to keep up by producing evidence. Maybe they could use the same sort of computer models that prove the global warming hoax is real. Fat government grants are sure to flow in for such crucial research, so long as the correct results are obtained.

On a tip from Wiggins.

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:10 AM | Comments (2)

June 25, 2007

Now All Kids Are in Special Ed

Small wonder moonbats have focused on saturating the education field. By corrupting education, they can virtually ensure the destruction of our society's future.

An example of the effective application of moonbattery to education is the practice of "mainstreaming," also called "inclusion." It involves dumping special ed kids with learning and psychiatric disabilities in with everyone else, so they won't have their feelings hurt by having to be in a separate class.

This does more than impose a liberal's notion of equality by dumbing everything down to the lowest possible level. Due to the behavioral problems usually associated with special ed cases, classes are often disrupted to the point that no one learns anything.

Reports first-grade student Shaun Hopkins of Scranton, Pennsylvania:

I can't listen because of Andrea.

The Andrea in question has Williams Syndrome, which causes learning disabilities and various medical problems. Symptoms, in Andrea's case, include hitting other children, making loud spitting noises in their ears, tearing up worksheets, and pounding on computer keyboards with her nasty little fists. One morning Andrea swept everything off the teacher's desk, shattering a glass frame. Another day, she managed to scream at the top of her lungs for nearly an hour, from 1:25 to 2:15.

In 1990, 33% of special ed students spent more than 80% of the day disrupting normal classrooms. By 2005, that rose to 54% of special ed students. This is in part a delayed consequence of the 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a piece of feel-good moonbattery that requires "free appropriate" education for children with disabilities in the "least restrictive environment."

Unsurprisingly, this lunacy is driving teachers who are interested in teaching as opposed to babysitting out of the profession. In a survey of teachers who quit their jobs, 35% cite the mainstreaming of special ed students as a main reason for their dissatisfaction.

As our classrooms degenerate into madhouses for the sake of political correctness, we can look forward to future generations lacking the education if not the raw intelligence to question their socialist masters, upon whom they will be dependent for handouts if they are to survive.

On a tip from Varla.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:17 PM | Comments (20)

More From Reid Bryson

From a recent interview with The Capital Times, here's University of Wisconsin at Madison's Reid Bryson, known as the father of scientific climatology, on the topic of the weather getting slightly warmer:

[T]here is no credible evidence that it is due to mankind and carbon dioxide. We've been coming out of a Little Ice Age for 300 years. We have not been making very much carbon dioxide for 300 years. It's been warming up for a long time.

On the impact of human-generated CO2 on the temperature:

It's like there is an elephant charging in and you worry about the fact that there is a fly sitting on its head. It's just a total misplacement of emphasis. It really isn't science because there's no really good scientific evidence.

On the alleged "consensus" that the global warming hoax is real:

Consensus doesn't prove anything, in science or anywhere else, except in democracy, maybe.

On why many scientists play along with the hoax:

There is a lot of money to be made in this. If you want to be an eminent scientist you have to have a lot of grad students and a lot of grants. You can't get grants unless you say, "Oh global warming, yes, yes, carbon dioxide."

On the media's habit of harvesting juicy global warming quotes from clueless first-year graduate students:

And that goes in the paper as "scientists say."

On the cult-like demand for conformity to a belief system that is not based on reality:

There is very little truth to what is being said and an awful lot of religion. It's almost a religion. Where you have to believe in anthropogenic (or man-made) global warming or else you are nuts.

On whether he's actually sat through Al Gore's A Convenient Lie:

Don't make me throw up. It is not science. It is not true.

Now the rebuttal, from Kool-Aid–guzzler Galen McKinley, an assistant professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, also at UW-Madison:

If you saw smoke in your house, it would be irresponsible not to get your family out, right?

That pretty much sums up the climate change apocalypse: suppositional hysteria based on imaginary smoke.

On a tip from Kevin.

Posted by Van Helsing at 5:34 PM | Comments (7)

Legislative Fix For Talk Radio Sounds Good to Feinstein

Calling Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) a liar, Senators Hillary Rotten Clinton (D-NY) and Babs Boxer (D-CA) deny a conversation in which they schemed to create a "legislative fix" for talk radio, which provides normal Americans outside of the liberal media establishment an opportunity to express their views.

At the time, Inhofe told his moonbat colleagues:

You gals don't understand. This is market-driven and there's no market for your liberal tripe.

Actually, they understand perfectly well. The lack of market for liberal tripe — so thoroughly proven by Err America's hapless floundering — is just one more reason for the Left to hate economic freedom, and to favor government regulation of political opinion, First Amendment be damned.

Diane Feinstein, furious that talk radio has provided a medium for the vast majority of Americans enraged by the government's completely unacceptable refusal to defend the country from foreign invasion, is more upfront than the slippery Shrillary and Barbara Bow-wow.

On Fox News Sunday yesterday, Senator Feinstein growled that she was "looking at" the absurdly named Fairness Doctrine, by which government bureaucrats would regulate the opinions that can be expressed over the radio. This would prevent the populace from being exposed to what she calls "extreme views" — i.e., views in disagreement with her own.

The concept also appeals to the left-wing elf Dennis Kucinich. Exhibiting an admirable gift for Orwellian rhetoric, he claims that putting political thought under government jurisdiction is:

derived from the public interest, and that is that there should be an uninhibited marketplace of ideas. That's what the First Amendment is all about.

Helmet-headed RINO Trent Lott agrees:

I'm sure senators on both sides of the aisle are being pounded by these talk-radio people […] leadership will have to be prepared to do what needs to be done.

According to the hysterical Lott, who manages to pass himself off as a Republican:

Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem.

Long ago, Thomas Jefferson issued a preemptive response to Feinstein, Clinton, Boxer, Kucinich, Lott, and the whole stinking pile of them:

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:20 AM | Comments (11)

Worms Cause Global Warming

No, the title doesn't refer to the hot air coming out of Harry Reid. German bureaucrats want 45% of all waste composted by 2015, in order to save Gaia from the fictitious global warming menace. But worms are used to compost organic waste, and a German study has found they produce greenhouse gases 290 times more potent than CO2.

To put this in perspective, Rosie O'Donnell's flatus is estimated (by me) to be 10,000,000,000 times more potent than CO2. Nonetheless, Jim Frederickson of the Composting Association warns:

People are looking into alternative waste treatments but we have to make sure that we are not jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

Or that, in our hysterical efforts to solve a nonexistent problem, we manage to create a real one.

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:33 AM | Comments (3)

Goracle Still Bitter

Despite attaining rock star status among the dim bulbs of Tinseltown for his leading role in the global warming hoax, failed presidential candidate Al Gore continues to be bitterness incarnate, snarling in a new foreword to his melodramatic propaganda tome Earth in the Balance that it would have been easier to "galvanise the public and persuade Congress to act" — i.e., legislatively cripple the economy, throwing millions out of work and into the arms of the nanny state — if only more scientists were unscrupulous enough to play along with the scam.

Giving an idea of how wise we were not to elect this unhinged demagogue in 2000, Gore fumes that he would have used the presidency as a "bully pulpit" so as to fix the imaginary problem of climate fluctuation, but W has refused to do so.

The Goracle actually was in the White House as VP for 8 years. During this period, American CO2 emissions went up by 15%. During W's first term, they went up 1.65%.

Gore absurdly blames Bush for not signing the Kyoto suicide pact. During his own tenure as VP, the Senate voted 95-0 not to ratify this appalling treaty, the sole effect of which would have been to hobble our economy.

Although this frightening character was defeated in 2000, he still lurks in the political waters, ominously never quite ruling out a run for POTUS, ever threatening to return like Jason Voorhees from the depths of Crystal Lake.

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:11 AM | Comments (4)

Robert F. Kennedy Blames Ronald Reagan for 9/11

At last the liberal luminary Robert F. Kennedy has determined where the blame should fall for the Muslim atrocities of September 11, 2001: on Ronald Reagan for allegedly lowering fuel efficiency standards.

The revelation was made on MSNBC's wacky "Hardball." After extolling the fuel economy standards during the catastrophic Carter Administration, Kennedy raved:

If we had left those fuel economy standards intact, Ronald Reagan rolled them back, we would not have had to import one drop of oil after 1986. Think of what that would have done to our history. The World Trade Center would probably still be standing.

Standards really were reduced for four years during an oil glut in the 1980s. Somehow that brief interval of slightly relaxed regulations caused Muslim fanatics to fly planes into buildings in 2001. Hey, it isn't any crazier than blaming Mississippi's Governor Haley Barbour for Hurricane Katrina.

It takes more than an ordinary moonbat to blame Ronald Reagan for 9/11. It takes a Kennedy. JFK continues to spin in his grave.

On a tip from Wiggins.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:29 AM | Comments (7)

NBC News Faring Worse Than Katie Cupcake

If you think Katie Couric is tanking on CBS, check out NBC's Brian Williams. Over the first 39 weeks since Katie Cupcake replaced Bob Schieffer on "CBS Evening News," she managed to lose 287,000 viewers from the 2006 average — a 4% drop. Over the same period, "NBC Nightly News" lost 533,000 viewers, or 5%.

In the first 3 months after Williams replaced Tom Brokaw, NBC's version of news averaged 10.79 million viewers. Over the last 3 months, it averaged 7.66 million. At this rate it won't be long until no one is watching but Williams' mother. NBC might want to rethink its strategy of trying to outflank the rest of the MSM on the left.

As you might recall, Williams has compared our Founding Fathers to the terrorist maniac Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whom he excuses for participating in the kidnapping of American embassy personnel during the tragic farce known as the Carter Administration.

On a tip from Wiggins.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:37 AM | Comments (3)

June 24, 2007

Father Punished After Saving 6-Year-Old From Bear

Chris Everhart was camping with his three sons in northern Georgia when a 300-pound black bear invaded their campsite and started to make off with the cooler like Yogi with a picnic basket. When 6-year-old Logan Everhart threw a shovel at it, the bear dropped the cooler and came after him. Everhart, an ex-Marine, grabbed the first thing that came to hand and threw it, managing to kill the bear by hitting it in the head with a log and thereby saving his son from a horrible death.

Can you guess who is the villain in this story? The answer, of course, is Everhart, who was ticketed for "failing to secure his camp site." Squawked Ken Riddleberger of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources:

The key thing to learn from this is if there's a bear around, do not have your garbage or food available. If we manage our food, we won't have bears around.

That same weekend 11-year-old Sam Ives was dragged screaming out of his tent and killed by a black bear in Utah. There was no food in the tent, unless you count Sam.

Hat tip: Anna's Clue Tank

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:33 PM | Comments (19)

Student Receives F, Sues School

Columbia University is being subjected to some of the moonbattery it inculcates into its students, one of whom is suing the school after flunking a class because he missed an exam.

Nicholas Perrino was chucked out of the nursing program as a result of the failing grade. He wants the "F" taken off his transcript, and to be reinstated in the program. Oh, and he wants his tuition money back for the classes he has taken.

He's representing himself in court — another amateur lawyer with a fool for a client.

On a tip from ThruHeavensEyez.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:29 PM | Comments (5)

The Cluelessness of Cameron Diaz

Being responsible for upwards of 70 million deaths in China, communist dictator Mao Zedong is almost certainly the most evil human being who ever lived, earning him a secure home in the bleeding hearts of progressives.

Not all of the misery and bloodshed caused by this demonic character was limited to China. In Peru, Maoist Shining Path guerrillas have inflicted violence and mayhem on the populace for decades in their attempt to impose a totalitarian regime. Over 70,000 Peruvians have been killed in the course of their insurgency. This is why the locals didn't like it much when Tinseltown bimbo Cameron Diaz showed up in Peru sporting a bag featuring a communist red star and Mao's empty but famous slogan "Serve the People" emblazoned on it in Chinese.

Observed Peruvian human rights advocate Pablo Rojas,

It alludes to a concept that did so much damage to Peru, that brought about so many victims. I don't think she should have used that bag where the followers of that ideology [caused so much suffering].

They probably don't have many movie stars in Peru, so Rojas can't be blamed for not realizing that expecting limousine liberals to understand the consequences of the ideologies they trendily endorse would be like expecting a squirrel to grasp algebra.

Hat tips: WuzzaDem, Tim Blair

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:47 AM | Comments (14)

Rights For Spiders

This ought to make Peter Parker's day: spiders may soon have rights.

So would squid, crayfish, shrimp, and even restaurant lobsters under new animal welfare plans under consideration by Britain's bloated bureaucracy. The Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is debating the weighty issue of whether invertebrates should have rights. When this debate comes to America, John Kerry may finally be motivated to take an unwavering stand on something.

For now, invertebrates would have to be kept in captivity to qualify, so we have not quite reached the point of it being illegal to step on a cockroach. But then, Madagascar cockroaches can be found in pet shops, so they might be protected. We won't know for sure until someone is arrested for oppressing one.

Creatures protected under the Animal Welfare Act must be fed a proper diet, housed properly, have "the ability to express normal behavior," and be protected from pain, injury, and disease — or the government will make sure humans suffer the consequences.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty To Animals has already demanded that that laws be extended to protect all "sentient" animals. This apparently includes bugs.

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:09 AM | Comments (5)

Chicago Bids to Become Gay Mecca

Hosting the 2006 International Gay Games was only the beginning. Chicago hopes to join cities like San Francisco, New York, and Atlanta as a "mecca" for homosexuals. To further this grand objective, taxpayers have helped finance a $20 million gay community center called The Center on Halsted, located conveniently in Chicago's "official" gay neighborhood.

The 65,00-square-foot facility is of course "eco-friendly." It features office space for activist groups and a gym named after noisily lesbian former tennis player Billie Jean King.

According to Terry Stone, executive director of The National Association of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Centers, there are 160 homosexual community centers around the country, with 10 new ones going up each year. How much this adds up to in tax money can only be imagined.

Another executive director, Richard Burns of New York City's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, hopes that the new facility will help Chicago participate in national get-out-the-vote programs. Great news for Shrillary.

On a tip from Wiggins.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:47 AM | Comments (5)

June 23, 2007

Must-See TV

PBS blew $675,000 of our money on a documentary exploring the difference between peaceful Muslims and the ones who are trying to annihilate our civilization. But when they saw the finished product, PBS execs decided it was "alarmist, overreaching and unfair" — i.e., not sufficiently sympathetic to the terrorist maniacs who are trying to kill us. So they sat on the project, refusing to air it. Instead they ran "fair" material like Bill Moyers' long-winded denunciations of America.

But now Fox News has gotten hold of Muslims Against Jihad, and is going to put it on tonight, hosted by the lovely E.D. Hill. Tune in at 9 PM Eastern.

On a tip from Bergbikr.

Update:

My apologies, the show was preempted because they found Jesse Davis' body. As The Paperboy notes, it was scheduled to run again at 3 AM Eastern, and Fox News is sure to reschedule in prime time.

Update 2:

According the Fox News site, this will air at 9:00 Eastern this evening (Sunday, June 24).

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:32 AM | Comments (13)

$50,000 the Easy Way

From Nyack, New York comes one of countless examples of the tyranny of political correctness. An unidentified woman looted $50,000 from a local restaurant by claiming that way back when she worked for it a chef made "lewd and unwelcome remarks."

Neither the woman nor the chef has worked for the restaurant for about six years. How the avaricious woman could prove the remarks were made, much less that the restaurant should be held responsible for them, is a mystery. But the owner chose to settle because he couldn't afford to defend himself in our kangaroo courts.

The lucky winner apparently didn't have to worry about legal costs, because she had the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in her corner. John Edwards would be delighted to see our tax dollars at work, helping looters prey on honest businesses.

On a tip from Wiggins.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:06 AM | Comments (5)

June 22, 2007

Scientist Predicts Global Cooling

Don't throw away your winter clothes. Despite the ridiculous hype coming from the Left about global warming, we might be in for some cold weather ahead.

R. Timothy Patterson, director the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre, Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University, is aghast at the absurdity and hubris of bureauweenies who think they can legislate the temperature. As Patterson notes:

The fact that science is many years away from properly understanding global climate doesn't seem to bother our leaders at all. Inviting testimony only from those who don't question political orthodoxy on the issue, parliamentarians are charging ahead with the impossible and expensive goal of "stopping global climate change." Liberal MP Ralph Goodale's June 11 House of Commons assertion that Parliament should have "a real good discussion about the potential for carbon capture and sequestration in dealing with carbon dioxide, which has tremendous potential for improving the climate, not only here in Canada but around the world," would be humorous were he, and even the current government, not deadly serious about devoting vast resources to this hopeless crusade.

Climate stability has never been a feature of planet Earth. The only constant about climate is change; it changes continually and, at times, quite rapidly. Many times in the past, temperatures were far higher than today, and occasionally, temperatures were colder. As recently as 6,000 years ago, it was about 3C warmer than now. Ten thousand years ago, while the world was coming out of the thousand-year-long "Younger Dryas" cold episode, temperatures rose as much as 6C in a decade — 100 times faster than the past century's 0.6C warming that has so upset environmentalists.

Patterson reports that as politicians shriek about carbon emissions causing the sky to fall, scientists are finding ever-stronger correlations between our climate and fluctuations in the sun's brightness. This could be bad news for those of us who prefer warm weather:

Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada. As a country at the northern limit to agriculture in the world, it would take very little cooling to destroy much of our food crops, while a warming would only require that we adopt farming techniques practiced to the south of us.

Here's an even better idea: since "the science of global climate change is still in its infancy," and bureaucrats know far less than scientists do, maybe government should stop worrying about future weather altogether and stick to things they understand, like how to make us more dependent on them by strangling economic growth. But then, that's what the global warming hoax is all about, isn't it?

On a tip from Bergbikr.

Posted by Van Helsing at 12:31 PM | Comments (10)

Charity Begins at Home for the Breck Girl

Just how phony and shameless is the ambulance-chaser who would be President? John Edwards' Center for Promise and Opportunity offers a clue.

With the stated purpose of "making the eradication of poverty the cause of this generation," it raised $1.3 million in 2005. The money went toward "retreats and seminars" with foreign policy experts, political consultants, and a website. A staggering $540,000 was spent on the "exploration of new ideas."

Apparently most of the rest paid Silky Pony's extravagant travel expenses. Jetting off to places like Britain, Belgium, Russia, Uganda, India, and China can result in quite a bill — not to mention a carbon footprint the size of his vast new mansion. Not to worry, though, I'm sure he'll buy some carbon offsets so that the polar bears will be okay.

Whether so much as a penny went to help the poor as advertised is doubtful.

Edwards' bogus antipoverty center supposedly isn't a political action committee, so it doesn't have to disclose its donors, and there are no limits on the size of individual donations. Even the Gray Lady is appalled:

[I]t was his use of a tax-exempt organization to finance his travel and employ people connected to his past and current campaigns that went beyond what most other prospective candidates have done before pursuing national office. And according to experts on nonprofit foundations, Mr. Edwards pushed at the boundaries of how far such organizations can venture into the political realm. Such entities, which are regulated under Section 501C-4 of the tax code, can engage in advocacy but cannot make partisan political activities their primary purpose without risking loss of their tax-exempt status.

Between the center, another foundation with virtually the same name (the Center for Promise and Opportunity Foundation) and two admitted PACs, the Breck Girl has vacuumed up about $4 million for his presidential bid. Plus he's got $30 million in the bank he managed to loot from doctors by exploiting our deranged legal system.

But he's still got a ways to go to catch up with multi-billionaire and possible candidate Mayor Mike. Maybe Edwards needs to sue some more doctors.

On a tip from V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:44 AM | Comments (1)

NYPD Recruits Subjected to Race-Baiting Moonbat Demagogues

New recruits for the NYPD are undergoing a four-day "multicultural immersion course," which yesterday had them sitting in Harlem's Apollo Theater to be preached at by the race-baiting demagogue Calvin Butts and colleagues.

Butts, who called the militant Malcolm X "our shining black prince," is no fan of the police, nor of Caucasians, whom he frequently and loudly denounces as "racist." Nor does he like Koreans, whose lives he has done his best to make hell by calling for "massive civil disobedience" directed against their stores, in order to "disrupt business as usual" so they will know better than to try to prevent blacks from shoplifting.

He has also called for boycotts of white-owned businesses. But his followers have to spend their welfare checks somewhere.

A favorite Calvin Butts quotation:

Go to hell, white man!

Butts has described New York City policemen as "ignorant savages who continue to prey upon our [black] people as if we have no respect by virtue of our humanity or our citizenship."

A major responsibility of the NYPD is protecting New York from terrorist attacks. They won't be getting any help from Butts, who characterizes anti-terror measures as "Islamophobia," playing his trusty race card on their behalf as he bellows that

whether Muslims like it or not, Muslims are labeled people of color in the racist U.S. … they won’t label you by calling you a nigger but they’ll call you a terrorist.

But he shares Rosie O'Donnell's concern with "Christian extremism."

Butts feted the brutal communist dictator Fidel Castro at his Abyssinian Baptist Church in 1995, declaring, "It is in our tradition to welcome all who are visionaries, revolutionaries and who seek the liberation of all people."

Indulging vermin like Butts is now part of police officers' training. I weep for the city's future.

On a tip from Wiggins.

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:15 AM | Comments (13)

June 21, 2007

Empty

If there is one word that describes Ted Kennedy and the rest of the libs clotting up Washington, it might be empty.

As you probably know, the Left and its RINO collaborators have not yet been able to ram through an amnesty bill, despite controlling both houses of Congress and the White House, mainly because of vociferous public opposition. But pro-shamnesty Senators led by Chappaquiddick Ted (D-MA) claim that lots of people support their side too.

The other day Ted stood with fellow shamster Senators Mel Martinez (RINO-FL) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ), as well as Rep. Joe Baca (D-CA) in front of a big stack of boxes that this merry gang of left-wing liars claimed contained a million letters supporting what they euphemistically call "comprehensive immigration reform."

Unfortunately for Ted and friends, someone looked behind the curtain. Their boxes, like their rhetoric and their heads, were discovered to be completely empty.

On a tip from Bill.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:44 PM | Comments (7)

Joe Kennedy's Annulment Annulled

The latest sordid news from Camelot: Joe Kennedy II's 13-year marriage to the mother of his children isn't annulled after all.

Since Roman Catholicism doesn't permit divorce, Kennedy could only dump his wife by having the marriage officially annulled, which he did before marrying his current wife Beth Kelly Kennedy. But now his ex(?) wife Sheila Rauch Kennedy announces that the Vatican has overturned the Boston Archdiocese's 1996 annulment.

Unfortunately, Hugo Chavez's buddy Joe is probably not subject to polygamy charges.

Former Congressman Joe Kennedy II: Two wives are twice as nice.

On a tip from Bill.

Posted by Van Helsing at 2:23 PM | Comments (8)

American Muslims Abandon CAIR

The Hamas front group Council on American-Islamic Relations has managed to get itself into the news quite frequently as a sort of terrorists' ACLU, exploiting our moonbatty legal system to obstruct the war on terror. For example, it filed suit on behalf of the Flying Imams, in an attempt to intimidate normal Americans into keeping our mouths shut when we witness suspicious activity that might be related to the terrorism with which CAIR is intimately linked.

But Fred Thompson has managed to find some good news about CAIR:

CAIR's dues-paying membership has shrunk 90 percent since 9/11 — from 29,000 in 2000 to only 1,700 last year. CAIR's annual income from dues plunged from $733,000 to $59,000. Clearly, America's Muslims are not supporting this group — and I'm happy to hear about it.

But CAIR has been spending about $3 million a year and expanding new chapters all over the country, despite the absence of dues-paying members and indigenous support.

Where does the money come from? The primary source is apparently the same people who fund that madrasahs that have been spreading Wahhabism and churning out terrorists all over the world: our friends the Saudis.

On a tip from Bergbikr.

Posted by Van Helsing at 1:43 PM | Comments (3)

Space Aliens Fight Off Evil Humans

In a conflict between the human race and creepy-looking space aliens, which side would liberals take? The aliens' of course, as confirmed by Hollywood's latest, a kiddy movie called Terra that tells the story of peace-loving creepazoids on some faraway planet having their pastoral bliss destroyed by nasty humans.

You don't have to be Caucasian, or a businessman, or Christian, or American to qualify as a bad guy to moonbats. Just being human is bad enough.

Next, Hollywood will explore the moral inferiority of vertebrates to invertebrates.

On a tip from V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 12:54 PM | Comments (8)

Journalists Give Cash to the Left

The media's left-wing bias is so pronounced, not even MSNBC will deny it. A recent investigation of journalists who make political contributions found 125 giving to the Democrat party and/or other liberal causes, 17 to Republicans, and 2 to both parties.

MSNBC's insightful analysis:

The pattern of donations, with nearly nine out of 10 giving to Democratic candidates and causes, appears to confirm a leftward tilt in newsrooms.

No kidding.

Because the MSM still half-heartedly maintains of a facade of objectivity, journalists are discouraged from giving cash to candidates. Here's how propagandist Mark Singer justifies doing it anyway:

Probably there should be a rule against it. But there's a rule against murder. If someone had murdered Hitler — a journalist interviewing him had murdered him — the world would be a better place. I only feel good, as a citizen, about getting rid of George Bush, who has been the most destructive president in my lifetime. I certainly don't regret it.

Since murdering our Hitleresque President might have inconvenient consequences for Singer, he settles for giving money to America Coming Together — and writing for the cartoonishly left-wing New Yorker.

Guy Raz of CNN (now with NPR) gave $500 to John "Botched Joke" Kerry while embedded in Iraq. He claims the war in Iraq doesn't count as US news.

On a tip from V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:48 AM | Comments (5)

Osama the Hero

The treasonous depravity of the liberal arts community is epitomized by a British play entitled "Osama the Hero," disgorged by one Dennis Kelly, who won the $20,000 Meyer-Whitworth award by twisting what The Age is pleased to call "the so-called 'war on terror'" inside out and upside down until the people trying to resist terrorism are the bad guys.

The plot involves a student who is falsely accused of blowing up garbage bins after innocently announcing in school that mass-murdering terrorist Osama bin Laden is his hero. When he complains that there's no evidence against him, his tormenters proclaim that proof isn't needed when dealing with terrorists.

Naturally, this juvenile pro-terrorist propaganda is glowingly described as "provocative" — the word liberals use when they know decent people are going to be enraged and disgusted by their obscene mentality.

On a tip from The Panday.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:00 AM | Comments (1)

Hey, Animals Do It!

Here's a reassuring thought for pedophiles and other assorted perverts. The popular argument that homosexual behavior must be good because some animals exhibit it, which has been promoted at public expense and even to schoolchildren, can be expanded to all manner of sexual aberration and licentiousness.

As Dr. Robert A.J. Gagnon, Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary notes:

I never used my dear departed dog "Cocoa" and her instinctive sexual habits as a basis for determining what is "natural" behavior. You can find animals of various species where some part of the population at least practices incest, pedophilia, extreme polyamory, and cross-species sex, along with same-sex activity.

Less reassuring is Gagnon's insight that being "born gay" (or "born pedophile" or "born necrophiliac" or whatever) is no argument in favor of officially sanctifying depravity, as it is normal for people to have to struggle with immoral desires.

On a tip from Wiggins.

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:18 AM | Comments (10)

June 20, 2007

Report on Anti-Americanism in European Media

Ray Drake of the highly recommended blog Davids Medienkritik was interviewed in an excellent two-part report by the Christian Broadcasting Network on anti-Americanism in the European media.

Though you won't be surprised, you will be appalled. Here's an excerpt:

Polls clearly show that Europeans have turned against America in increasing numbers. You can blame Iraq or George Bush. But it's also true that Europeans have been fed a steady diet of media distortions about America for years.

And if you repeat a distortion long enough, it can become reality.

If you got your news about the United States only from the European media, chances are good you wouldn't like the United States either. There are a lot of reasons for the anti-American coverage in the media here, but you can start with the journalists themselves. They're mostly liberal and they're on a mission.

America gets a journalistic thumping just about every day in Europe. It's a one-way media war that our government has shown little or no interest in fighting seriously, even though it has severely damaged America's image and influence.

A British novelist wrote that "My Anti-Americanism has become almost uncontrollable. It rises in my throat like acid reflux."

One of the biggest bashers of America is the British Broadcasting Corporation. Outgoing Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted that the "BBC is full of hatred for America."

A former BBC journalist says a drawing of Bush as Hitler is hung in the BBC newsroom.

Here's Part One:

And Part Two: