« June 2008 | Main | August 2008 »

July 31, 2008

McCain Ad Repercussions

Once the McCain campaign compared Obama to other puerile, morally vacuous celebrity media creations like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears in this ad…

…this became inevitable:

HuffPo reveals that the McCain ad is even meaner than it seems. It's actually a subliminal call for the Obamessiah's assassination! Now do you see why the Second Amendment needs to be repealed?

Hat tips: Ace of Spades HQ, Hot Air; on a tip from V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:07 PM | Comments (19)

Visitability: A New Frontier in the Tyranny of the Minority

You might have thought the demented Americans with Disabilities Act — a bonanza for lawyers that requires any public facility to be designed with handicappers in mind or be sued out of existence — would be the last word in otherly-abled totalitarianism. Not so. Visitability is a concept that makes the ADA downright libertarian by comparison.

The initial objective of Visitability proponents is to impose on every home a zero-step entrance, interior doors at least 32" wide, and at least one wheelchair-accessible bathroom on the ground floor. Once they've managed to have this mandated, we'll see where they go from there.

In the name of Visitability, the Disability Rights Action Coalition on Housing has been pushing for DRACHonian measures to bend the world to the will of the disabled through government coercion. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) is already writing the concept into law.

It could be said that your home is still yours in a sense, and you should be the judge of how wide the doors are and whether there are steps. But in another sense, it's the world's home, and since a tiny fraction of the world is confined to wheelchairs, regulations must be imposed.

Soon the concept of private property — the essential foundation of free society — will be lost forever in a sanctimonious cloud of touchy-feely moonbat authoritarianism.

On a tip from Lyle.

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:51 AM | Comments (19)

Our Future, if We Let It Be

You won't need a crystal ball to see America's future if the government is taken over by characters who, like Barack Obama, believe in race-based wealth redistribution. These policies have been tested in Zimbabwe. Here's how it's been working out:

Zimbabwe announced Wednesday that it is knocking 10 zeros off its hyper-inflated currency — a move that turns 10 billion dollars into one. […] The move comes a week after the issue of a 100 billion-dollar note — still not enough to buy a loaf of bread.

Not that there is anything to buy anyway, "amid chronic shortages of food, medicine, power and water."

Unemployment is now 80% in Zimbabwe, and inflation is 12,500,000%. The erstwhile "Breadbasket of Africa," Zimbabwe was a relatively wealthy country before the introduction of a political ideology known to some as Black Liberation Theology. Someday they may be saying the same about America.

On a tip from hiram13pm.

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:17 AM | Comments (16)

English Flag Found Unsafe

There is more than one reason to ban the English flag. Not only is it "offensive and racist," but there are safety considerations:

A retired teacher says she was banned from waving her Cross of St George flag during a Proms performance on health and safety grounds.

A steward told Rosalind Hilton to put the five foot flag away during the Last Night of the Hallé Proms event at Manchester's Bridgewater Hall.

She and sister Susan Stanyard were preparing to hoist the flag above their heads for Land and Hope and Glory in the rousing finale, having unfurled the flag over the balcony by her seat. She was later told it could have been a danger to those below.

It's as if Benny Hill took over the country and turned it into a sarcastic skit:

Ridiculing the assumption that dangling flags were dangerous, she plumped the furled-up standard on the manager's head and asked him: "Would that really hurt if it fell on your head?"

She said the interruption last Saturday "ruined the whole evening" and commented: "Who wants to get up and sing, 'Britons never, never shall be slaves,' when the health and safety Nazis are making a mockery of our freedom?"

Why are flags bad, really? Because we are to revere the government, not the nation. England's Cross of Saint George is particularly egregious because there is no English government to speak of, so its use instead of the Union Jack explicitly refers to the English nation — which won't be around for long, if moonbattery prevails.

On a tip from mega.

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

I Know I've Seen This Somewhere Before…

If you doubt Jonah Goldberg's well-supported observation that historical revisionism aside, fascism and Nazism fit smoothly into the history of modern liberalism, check out this logo for the Progressive Governance Summit hosted by Gordon Brown:

It's as if progressives believe so firmly in the moral imperative of recycling, they even recycle their symbols.

On a tip from V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:54 AM | Comments (2)

Dems Condemn Coburn for Delivering Babies

Dems have the goods on gutsy anti-pork Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK). He's committed the ultimate crime (according to moonbats) — bringing babies into the world:

Coburn has come under new pressure from the Ethics panel for delivering babies at the Muskogee Regional Medical Center, which changed from a public to a private institution in April last year after it was acquired by Capella Healthcare. […] In May, Coburn received a strongly worded "final determination" memo threatening him with a Senate censure if he did not stop delivering babies for free.

According to Democrat leaders' deranged alternative to logic, Coburn shouldn't be allowed to deliver babies for free at Muskogee because it is no longer a public institution.

Too bad Coburn isn't a Democrat. Instead of delivering babies for free, he could abort them, and the Congressional leadership would start naming hospitals after him.

Hat tip: Michelle Malkin; on a tip from Burning Hot.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:38 AM | Comments (9)

Penn and Teller on Envirolunacy

Language alert — Penn and Teller go after the global warming swindle:

Watch while you still can. Climate change denial might be illegal soon.

On a tip from Smoke TNT.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:16 AM | Comments (2)

Edwards Pulls Plug on Scholarship Program

Now that he's no longer running for President, ambulance-chasing metrosexual John Edwards no longer needs so much publicity — in fact, he must be very grateful to the mainstream media for sparing him from it. Consequently, he's pulling the plug on a scholarship program intended to prove how much he cares about that "other America" that isn't populated by zillionaire trial lawyers:

Edwards started the "College for Everyone" pilot program at Greene Central High in 2005, shortly after he was the Democratic vice presidential nominee. It was a privately funded effort designed to increase the number of students at a rural high school who attend college.

The program provided the cost of tuition, fees and books at a public college for one year. In exchange, students had to work at least 10 hours a week while in college, take college preparatory courses in high school and stay out of trouble.

The program cost a total of $600,000 for the first two years and helped 190 students go to such colleges as East Carolina University, Lenoir Community College and N.C. State University.

$600,000? Why, for that Silky Pony could get 1,500 of his $400 haircuts, almost enough to last him to the next election. That's when he's likely to start the program up again, no doubt to great fanfare from the same media that's ignoring this story.

Hat tip: NewsBusters; on a tip from V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:04 AM | Comments (1)

Obama Calls for Race-Based Wealth Redistribution

This shouldn't surprise anyone: Barack Obama is floating a call for explicitly race-based coercive wealth redistribution, otherwise known as "reparations":

Sen. Barack Obama told a meeting in Chicago the U.S. should review how it can make amends for "offenses" committed during its history. […]

"I consistently believe that when it comes to whether it's Native Americans or African-American issues or reparations, the most important thing for the U.S. government to do is not just offer words, but offer deeds," he said.

Our "post-racial" candidate is testing the water to see if he could get away with openly expropriating money from Caucasians to pass out to his black supporters. This is how Zimbabwe is run.

Why not? The ideology of his "church" of the last 20 years is Afrocentric Marxism.

I wonder how much I owe Oprah Winfrey and Ludacris for oppressing them.

Clearly the point is not to sooth racial tensions, but to exacerbate them as much as possible so that they can continue to be exploited. Why not just run O.J. Simpson for president?

If this kook gets into the White House, we are headed for another civil war.

On tips from Adrian and Wiggins.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:12 AM | Comments (10)

Portrait of a Moonbat: Anni Telfer

Pat Dollard has a little background on the moonbat who repeatedly spits on a veteran about 6 1/2 minutes into this video:

Her name is Anni Telfer. She is originally from Bakersfield, California, Bakersfield High School Class of 2004…her claim to fame is that she actually founded the very first chapter of the Gay-Straight Alliance Network at Bakersfield High School. Bearing that in mind, one might tend to think that she's probably an advocate for tolerance, and no doubt, by her participation in the "Peace Protest" in Santa Barbara a week ago, a peace advocate, as well.

However, "tolerant" and "peaceful" are difficult words to apply to the socialist thugs who parade at antiwar rallies.

Telfer lives part time in the workers' paradise of Vietnam. Here's her MySpace page. Be sure not to question her patriotism or support for the troops.

On a tip from Burning Hot.

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:01 AM | Comments (12)

July 30, 2008

Obama the Symbol

The Obamessiah's ballyhooed visit to Berlin not only provided an opportunity to put down America in front a vastly exaggerated crowd of cheering Germans, it allowed him to transcend his humanity by becoming a symbol of a better America, and even inspired new artwork from Hugh:

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:37 AM | Comments (10)

Iraqi Minister Visits Wounded US Troops

When Obama learned that he couldn't bring his media circus, he blew off visiting wounded US troops in Germany. But Iraq's Minister of the Interior Jawad Karim al-Bolani holds them in higher regard, visiting them at Walter Reed and offering them the thanks for ending Saddam Hussein's menacing and genocidal rule that have not been forthcoming from the Democrats who helped send them to war.

Bolani also wanted to visit Walter Reed itself:

(We wanted) to witness firsthand the level of technical (and) medical sophistication that is being practiced here so that we may learn from it to help our foreign wounded and the many, many victims of terrorism and violence in Iraq.

Obama should have tagged along, so as to witness firsthand how grownup statesmen behave.

On a tip from Byron.

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:06 AM | Comments (1)

The Road to Our Future May Not Be Paved

In Washington State, our moonbattery-induced slide toward Third-World shabbiness has been accelerated by a shortage of liquid asphalt:

A change in the type of oil processed at the Tesoro refinery in Anacortes has led to a liquid asphalt shortage for at least four counties in Washington, affecting miles of road maintenance. […]

On Tuesday, Pierce County announced that it will be able to seal only 22 lane miles of roadway this summer, instead of the planned 70, because of the shortage. Jefferson, Lewis and Clallam counties are also among those affected, along with 18 projects planned by the state Department of Transportation.[…]

The woes in Washington state are the latest in a growing challenge for counties, cities and states, as the rising price of oil prompts refineries to switch to oil that does not produce asphalt. New York, Colorado, and Oklahoma are other states that have reported delays in road projects.

[…Tesoro spokeswoman Sarah] Simpson said refiners that do not own oil, such as Tesoro, have been hard-hit by rising crude-oil prices, prompting them to focus on a type of oil that produces products such as gasoline and diesel fuel.

There aren't many aspects of our lives that aren't affected by Democrat restrictions on oil production. But then, paved roads are probably eco-insensitive anyway.

On a tip from Pete.

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:45 AM | Comments (6)

First They Came for the Cats and Dogs

Retired game show host Bob Barker has decreed that all cats and dogs in Chicago must be spayed at the age of 6 months to prevent them from reproducing.

Barked Barker:

Overpopulation is one of the most tragic animal problems that we have in our country […] the only answer is legislation.

But even in left-leaning Chicago, he's met some resistance. Alderman Ray Suarez told the crusading has-been entertainer:

I don't like when the government tries to get involved in everything to solve problems. Right now we're starting with pets… What's the next step?

In light of strident calls from the increasingly powerful environmentalist movement to reduce the human population radically (see here, here, here, here, here, and here), I wonder too.

On a tip from Wiggins.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:43 AM | Comments (6)

Environmentalism Is Imposing Our Decline

The economy looks bad and will likely get much worse, primarily for a single reason: power-drunk liberal bureaucrats are both exploiting and being exploited by the environmental movement, thereby strangling the freedom that makes our way of life possible. Walter Williams explains:

For several decades, environmentalists have managed to get Congress to keep most of our oil resources off-limits to exploration and drilling.

They've managed to have the Congress enact onerous regulations that have made refinery construction impossible.

Similarly, they've used the courts and Congress to completely stymie the construction of nuclear power plants. As a result, energy prices are at historical highs and threaten our economy and national security.

High energy costs — a direct result of the nefarious influence exerted by the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund, et al. — affect every aspect of the economy. But the situation is likely to get much worse, as politicians hostile to everything this country stands for milk the enviromoonbattery craze to meet their own wicked ends.

Soon we'll be subjected to the "cap-and-trade" strategy, whereby the government will issue allowances for emitting CO2. This will cause energy prices to shoot through the stratosphere. According to the government itself, a 15% cut in utterly harmless carbon emissions would raise the average household's energy bill by $1,300. This doesn't take into account the massive impediment it would place on our struggling economy.

But the more people are thrown out of work, the more will rely on government handouts, so Democrats are unlikely to see this as a downside. Then there's this:

How will it be decided who received how much allowance to emit greenhouse gases?

Congress could sell the allowances and/or give them away to favorite constituents. You can bet the rent money that a new army of lobbyists, with special pleadings, will descend on Washington to lobby Congress. And you can be sure that campaign contributions and favoritism will play an important role in the decision of who receives what allowances.

Issuing allowances for C02 emissions effectively means rationing human activity. Only the favored will get their fair share. Producers of anything disapproved of by health Nazis — French fries, soda, beer — will be subject to having their air hose cut. So will companies deemed not to hire or promote enough blacks, gays, or Muslims.

Williams concludes:

The thirst to wield massive control over our economy helps explain the near religious belief in man-made global warming and the attacks on scientists and others who offer contradictory evidence.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are trying to railroad EPA chief Stephen Johnson for his hesitancy to seize control over all human activity by moving forward on the regulation of CO2 as a "pollutant" in the name of the farcical global warming hoax. This won't be necessary if the EPA is headed by the kind of irresponsible leftist Obama would appoint. Either Al Gore or Bill Ayers would be perfect for the position.

The words of Leonardo da Vinci again bear remembering:

It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.

Inflated gas prices and a staggering economy prove we're past the beginning. But this isn't a Third-World country yet, so we're nowhere near the end.

On tips from Oiao.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:57 AM | Comments (7)

Pervert Demands Access to Ladies' Locker Room

A middle-aged man who calls himself Karen Deamons has taken a stand:

Deamons decided last month she would no longer abide by Cleveland's requirement that she [sic] change in the men's locker room at the indoor pool at the city-run Cudell Recreation Center. A transgender who identifies as a woman — but has not had sex-change surgery — Deamons wants to be able to put on her [sic] bathing suit in the women's locker room.

Deamons, 53, said she [sic] filed a complaint June 2 with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission. She's [sic] also asking the Ohio Legislature to pass a bill that would prohibit cities from discriminating because of sexual orientation or gender identity.

You'll note that Mr. Deamons has not undergone a chopadichophomy procedure, and thus doesn't qualify as even an artificial woman, the media's obsequious use of feminine pronouns notwithstanding. But the effect on young girls of watching creepazoids cavort naked in the ladies' locker room is of no significance where political correctness is concerned. Being psychosexually defective, Deamons is special, so his whims take priority over the needs of normal people to protect their children.

On a tip from Burning Hot.

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:59 AM | Comments (10)

British Bureauweenies Turn Attention to Trees

British bureauweenies are finally doing something about the falling tree menace, which subjects the innocent to a 1 in 10,000,000 chance of being killed.

Under new guidelines proposed by the British Standards Institution, every tree near a road or path will have to be inspected by "a trained person" every 3 years and by an expert every 5 years at the owner's expense. This will result in people cutting down trees to avoid paying for the inspections, thus sparing the populace from the danger of the trees falling down on them. It will also help avoid lawsuits, and even the tedious chore of raking leaves.

Britons owe their rulers a debt of gratitude for finding yet another way to keep them safe through excessive regulation.

On a tip from baldeagle390.

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:31 AM | Comments (12)

Scariest Album Art Yet

From Change by Rafael Brom:

Even if people rise up against the media and Obama loses, some of us are going to have nightmares for years.

Posted by Van Helsing at 6:55 AM | Comments (3)

July 29, 2008

Congress Apologizes for the Sins of the White Man

Here's what Congress has been doing instead of alleviating our economic woes by lightening up on drilling restrictions:

The House on Tuesday issued an unprecedented apology to black Americans for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow segregation laws.

In case it isn't obvious that this was a cheap political ploy:

The resolution, passed by voice vote, was the work of Tennessee Democrat Steve Cohen, the only white lawmaker to represent a majority black district. Cohen faces a formidable black challenger in a primary face-off next week.

Cohen even tried to join the Congressional Black Caucus, but they wouldn't let him, because he's Caucasian. Try to imagine a White Caucus that blacks couldn't join.

Now that America has officially apologized for evil deeds done to people who died a long time ago by other people who died a long time ago, can we leave the neurotic race guilt behind us at last?

Of course not, because moonbattery is like a fire: the more you feed it, the hungrier it gets. Next up will be renewed calls for "reparations" — i.e., openly race-based wealth transfers, as opposed to the relatively subtle race-based wealth transfer called welfare. Worse still, an utterly unqualified, anti-American Marxist may be installed in the White House to punish the white man for the sins of his ancestors.

In the long run, not even characters like Steve Cohen and Obama will benefit from this lunacy. When the ship goes down, all hands will be lost.

On tips from CoderInCrisis and Wiggins.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:55 PM | Comments (33)

Obamania Affects Mugshot Fashion

Even if we defy our would-be masters in the media, and spare ourselves the catastrophe of a Barack Obama Administration, the boy socialist will still have had an influence on our society. Look what he's doing for mugshot fashion, via The Smoking Gun:

Memo to Barack Obama supporters everywhere: If you plan on soliciting some sexual favors from a prostitute, perhaps you should leave your t-shirt promoting the Democrat's presidential campaign at home. For the second time in recent weeks, a Chicago man has been nabbed on a misdemeanor rap for soliciting sex from an undercover officer while promoting the hometown pol's White House bid. Sherman Cleveland, 40, was arrested last week and had his car impounded after he allegedly offered a female police officer money if she'd perform a sex act upon him, according to Officer Laura Kubiak, a Chicago Police Department spokesperson. As seen in the mug shot below, Cleveland was wearing a shirt with the words "Obama For Change" and a caricature of the presumptive Democratic nominee. Previously, a Chicago man with a "Barack" t-shirt was arrested on a similar solicitation charge.

Hopefully the dearth of Republican campaign shirts in mugshots won't inspire any misguided outreach efforts.

On a tip from Lyle.

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:28 AM | Comments (14)

Social Justice Defined

Most of what Barack Obama reads off his teleprompter has no more significance than the chirping of a bird. But unlike "the audacity of hope," the term "social justice" — which he uses quite often, to the hungry cheers of his supporters — actually means something. Investor's Business Daily explains:

"Economic justice" simply means punishing the successful and redistributing their wealth by government fiat. It's a euphemism for socialism.

In the past, such rhetoric was just that — rhetoric. But Obama's positioning himself with alarming stealth to put that rhetoric into action on a scale not seen since the birth of the welfare state.

In his latest memoir he shares that he'd like to "recast" the welfare net that FDR and LBJ cast while rolling back what he derisively calls the "winner-take-all" market economy that Ronald Reagan reignited (with record gains in living standards for all).

Obama has spent his life surrounded by fellow fanatics who believe in "social justice" — ie, the coercive redistribution of wealth on a massive scale — going all the way back to his father:

As a Nairobi bureaucrat, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a Harvard-educated economist, grew to challenge the ruling pro-Western government for not being socialist enough. In an eight-page scholarly paper published in 1965, he argued for eliminating private farming and nationalizing businesses "owned by Asians and Europeans."

His ideas for communist-style expropriation didn't stop there. He also proposed massive taxes on the rich to "redistribute our economic gains to the benefit of all."

"Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed," Obama Sr. wrote.

Similar policies have gotten Zimbabwe where it is today — and where we will be tomorrow, if "social justice" prevails.

On a tip from Oiao.

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:08 AM | Comments (19)

LA Moves toward Ban on Fast Food

LA's City Council is moving forward with a moratorium on building new fast food restaurants in South Los Angeles.

Observes Andrew Casana of the California Restaurant Association:

[Fast food] is the only industry that wants to be in South LA. Sit-down restaurants don't want to go in. If they did, they'd be there. This moratorium isn't going to help them relocate.

But this isn't about forcing people who can't afford it to eat at fancy restaurants. It's about extending totalitarian control over even the most personal aspects of our lives, right down to what we eat.

It's also about demographics. Fast food restaurants provide easy opportunities for the poor to climb on the first step of the economic ladder, which could eventually lead them out of the ghetto, government dependence, and the Democrat Party. As far as the moonbats ruling Los Angeles are concerned, it would be much better if they just sit home and collect welfare instead of cooking each other hamburgers.

On tips from V the K and Charles.

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:34 AM | Comments (6)

Deranged Doctors Diagnose Humans as the Disease

"First, do no harm" was once the motto of the medical profession. But that was before it became infected with the antihuman ideology known as modern environmentalism. The prestigious British Medical Journal has actually published an editorial calling on doctors to discourage their patients from having children, on the grounds that human beings are bad for the planet.

Frank Furedi reports:

According to the authors of the editorial — life-long Malthusian Professor John Guillebaud and Pip Hayes, an Exeter-based GP — not having children is "analogous to avoiding patio heaters and high-carbon cars." Newborn babies are a danger to the environment, they argue, and although they rhetorically state that "we must not put pressure on people," pressure is exactly what they want doctors to exercise as part of this new Malthusian crusade.

These sick doctors aren't alone:

One Australian professor of obstetric medicine, Barry Walters, believes the survival of the planet requires stringent controls on the number of children parents can have. He argues:

"Anthropogenic greenhouse gases constitute the largest source of pollution, with by far the greatest contribution from humans in the developed world. Every newborn baby in Australia represents a potent source of greenhouse gas emissions for an average of 80 years, not simply by breathing, but by the profligate consumption of resources typical of our society. What then should we do as environmentally responsible medical practitioners? We should point out the consequences to all who fail to see them, including, if necessary, the ministers for health. Far from showering financial booty on new mothers and thereby rewarding greenhouse-unfriendly behaviour, a 'Baby Levy' in the form of a carbon tax should apply, in line with the 'polluter pays' principle."

We have reached the point where obstetricians regard babies as something bad that should be discouraged through punitive taxation. A more advanced stage of depravity would be inconceivable. Now it only remains for liberals to follow their psychotic ideology to its logical conclusion and apply it. Then there won't be any more nasty humans to oppress the poor polar bears.

Nazis, communists, and Muslims may seem to have strived for pure, satanic evil, but only liberal environmentalists have attained it.

On a tip from Beef.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:56 AM | Comments (14)

Moonbats Call for Skipping School

Obama's only significant work experience is as a community organizer in a skeevy part of Chicago. Some might wonder what this job entails. Here's an example:

Community leaders on Monday called on students from poorer parts of Chicago to protest inequalities in school funding by skipping the first day of classes.

Bellows James Meeks, a South Side preacher who like his friend Obama went from community activism to becoming a State Senator:

Today we are back to two-tiered schools — white and affluent on one side, and black, brown and poor on the other. That's an injustice and it's immoral.

Meeks, an Obama superdelegate, is encouraging his slum denizen supporters to flood a school in a nicer part of Chicago and try to enroll there.

The idea that the South Side would also be a nice part of Chicago if the people who live on it would stop skipping school and whining about "injustice" but instead get off their monstrously large food-stamp-fed bottoms and do something for themselves would no more occur to James Meeks than it would to the Obamessiah. No doubt the very notion is "racist."

Here's Meeks in action:

Guys like Meeks could be running the country next year.

On a tip from V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:16 AM | Comments (7)

Mr. T Learns That Making Fun of Sissies Is Not Allowed

No one stands in the way of politically correct totalitarianism — not even the formidable Mr. T, who has been silenced in his attempt to help sell Snickers bars by intolerant homosexuals:

An advert featuring the A-team actor Mr T has been pulled after complaints in the US that it is offensive to homosexual men.[… The] advert, first shown in Britain on July 13, never aired on American television, but prompted a flood of complaints from the US claiming it was offensive to homosexuals.

During the advert, Mr T, who played B.A. Baracus in the 1980s series The A-Team, pulls up in a large truck next to a speed walker and shouts: "Speed walking. I pity you fool. You are a disgrace to the man race. It's time to run like a real man."

He then fires Snickers bars at the man until he breaks into a sprint.

The "flood of complaints" apparently consisted of two homosexuals squealing in outrage from across the ocean to Britain's Advertising Standards Authority. This sufficed for the ad to be pulled worldwide. Here I was thinking Snickers had nuts.

The forbidden ad:

Comments to Snickers can be made here.

On tips from Oiao and hiram13pm.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:44 AM | Comments (17)

Undocumented Documentation

This was reportedly presented as a drivers license at a traffic stop:

They must have been running a two-for-one deal at the DMV. Jose's girlfriend probably has one just like it, though hopefully with a different name.

You can see why the Dems want to get these "undocumented Americans" some documentation. Otherwise they end up making fools of themselves and a mockery of the rule of law, which is embarrassing for everyone.

Compliments of Matt L.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:16 AM | Comments (2)

Perfect Symbol Found for Dem Convention

Democrats have found the perfect symbol for their convention: a windmill that doesn't work:

The eastern Colorado wind turbine tapped for the Democratic National Convention's carbon-offset program has one problem: It doesn't generate any electricity. Convention organizers are now being questioned for their eagerness to market those credits to delegates.

The DNC has contracted with Vermont-based NativeEnergy to offer delegates "Green challenge" carbon offsets to soften the environmental impact of convention travel. That money is then invested in carbon-free "green" energy sources around the country, including a wind turbine installed this year by the Wray School District RD-2. But a Face The State investigation reveals the district's turbine has never produced marketable energy due to massive equipment malfunctions.

Nonetheless…

[T]he project has been touted by Gov. Bill Ritter's administration as an example of government innovation in clean energy, with district officials still attempting to reassure residents of the technology's long-term potential. Area residents tell Face The State the blades do turn some days, even though the turbine is not producing electricity. The district Web site reads, "As you note the blades turning evenly in the wind…this 'dream turned into reality' is providing an environmentally safe source of power to our community."

In a feature story in Saturday's Rocky Mountain News, reporter Jerd Smith claimed that 20 percent of Wray's power is generated by what it calls "a windmill that toils day and night producing clean electricity." Smith's report professed that the Wray project is "at the heart" of the DNC's carbon-credit program.

The Rocky report also described the school wind turbine as "a project that generates thousands of dollars for the region's cash-strapped schools," but provided no financial data regarding any energy sales to date.

The windmill demonstrates how the ballyhooed green economy will work:

Despite the fact the wind turbine does not produce energy, that hasn't stopped the district from cashing in on the project. In addition to the carbon credits sold to the DNC and others through NativeEnergy, [Superintendent Ron] Howard says the district receives downtime compensation from Americas Wind Energy, Inc., the firm that built the apparatus. "The money that we're making isn't necessarily coming from production," he said.

Politically correct moonbattery, empty hype backed by media-propagated lies, carbon credit corruption, risible ineffectiveness, economic insanity — the Dems' dysfunctional windmill sums up their party nicely. Where's Don Quixote when you need him?

Hat tip: Michelle Malkin; on a tip from Burning Hot.

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:45 AM | Comments (4)

Queen Nancy Is Saving the Planet for Us Little Folk

In a mostly fawning piece on Politico, megalomaniacal House Speaker Nancy Pelosi explains why she has been using hardball tactics to prevent oil drilling, so that we have to pay $4 going on $5 per gallon for terrorist oil instead of producing our own:

With fewer than 20 legislative days before the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1, the entire appropriations process has largely ground to a halt because of the ham-handed fighting that followed Republican attempts to lift the moratorium on offshore oil and gas exploration. And after promising fairness and open debate, Pelosi has resorted to hard-nosed parliamentary devices that effectively bar any chance for Republicans to offer policy alternatives.

"I'm trying to save the planet; I'm trying to save the planet," she says impatiently when questioned.

Oh, you're trying to save the planet. Carry on, Madame Speaker, before we all succumb to doom.

On a tip from V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:10 AM | Comments (14)

July 28, 2008

Pseudo-Scientific Snobbery: Last Gasp of the Liberal Elite

Brendan O'Neill has noticed a remarkable coincidence. Many aspects of our society that have been denounced as eco-sins were despised by left-leaning snobs even before the plight of allegedly menaced polar bears became their primary concern.

We're now told that wanting the things we can buy if we work hard is bad because making the stuff causes global warming. It used to be bad because it represented bourgeois vulgarity. Tourism was an blight because it meant the upper crust had to face beaches and museums polluted with riffraff. Now the blight is caused by the harmless CO2 emitted during travel.

The archetypal elitist moonbat, George Monbiot, once denounced supermarkets on the pretext that they put small grocery stores out of business. Now, supermarkets exacerbate the imaginary climate crisis by offering foods transported from all over the world. No doubt Moonbat's real problem with supermarkets is his distaste for the unwashed masses who shop in them. Even less do snobs like rowdy sports fans. Conveniently, it's found that soccer matches create a massive carbon footprint.

In addition to consolidating government power and allowing corrupt individuals (Al Gore) and corporations (GE) to make a killing at everyone else's expense, the global warming hoax also permits its practitioners to "scientize" their stuffy prejudices — just as the theories of Marx and Engels allowed them to brush a scientific gloss on their dreams of totalitarian control. But the more our ruling class relies on environmental fanaticism, the weaker it shows itself to be:

It suggests an elite that has lost the nerve and the will to say what is morally right and wrong, and that instead continually hides behind dubious "facts" to justify its agenda.

These facts consist mainly of preposterous lies, repeated with increasing shrillness. No one can lie about the weather indefinitely. With the last shreds of its credibility squandered on farces like the climate change crisis and the Obama candidacy, the liberal elite is going to have increasing trouble imposing itself on the hoi polloi.

On a tip from Beef.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:23 PM | Comments (11)

Obama and Friends Put the Screws to America

The media hasn't yet installed their heartthrob in the White House, and already Obama is going into our wallets with both hands to finance his moonbattery:

The U.S. Senate soon could debate whether you, your spouse and each of your children — as well as your in-laws, parents, grandparents, neighbors and everyone else in America — each will spend $2,500 or more to reduce poverty around the world.

The plan sponsored by Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is estimated to cost the U.S. some $845 billion over the coming few years in an effort to raise the standard of living around the globe.

Needless to say, poverty will be reduced on a very temporary basis, if at all. World poverty won't be cured with free handouts from American taxpayers, but only by replacing socialism and corruption with functioning capitalist systems like the one Obama and his supporters are setting out to destroy.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid doesn't see a problem with $5/gallon gas. Therefore there's no need to lighten up on domestic drilling restrictions. It's so nice to have powerful Democrats looking out for the average American in these tough economic times.

Here's Glenn Beck laying into Obama's $mega-zillion global giveaway:

On tips from Wiggins.

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:33 AM | Comments (17)

The OBAMAnable Snowjob

Unfortunately based on a true story, rated L for Language:

On a tip from Holy Smokes.

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:08 AM | Comments (7)

The Letters NGR Are Now Racist

Apparently there is no extreme of self-parody to which liberals will not push totalitarian political correctness. Now the random generation of letters is regarded as racist when it produces NGR.

Arkansas is actually pulling license plates out of circulation because moonbats object to the letters. It's only a matter of time before "niggardly" disappears from dictionaries and "Niger" from globes.

On a tip from V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:41 AM | Comments (20)

Environmentalist Gnats Pester the Nats

No matter how much you pander to moonbats, they will never be satisfied:

When the Washington Nationals' season opened in March, the team unveiled a stadium any environmentalist could love — the country's first certified green major professional sports stadium, with energy-conserving lights and water-conserving plumbing.

Now, the team is the focus of protests from environmentalists who say their issue is not with the stadium, but with the Nationals' advertising relationship with the oil giant ExxonMobil.

The company's logo appears prominently on the left-field wall and is frequently featured on the stadium's scoreboard.

Despite the stadium's recognition for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design by the U.S. Green Building Council, ExxonMobil's involvement has erased any good will, say the leaders of Strike Out Exxon, a combination of environmental, civic and religious groups. The groups want the Nationals to end their advertising arrangement with the company.

According to the depraved upside-down morality of liberals, corporations that provide the energy needed for our civilization to run are evil and must be shunned. No doubt ads for escort services, abortion mills, or the local mosque would be fine, but ExxonMobil is beyond the pale, despite its assistance in making Nationals Park so eco-friendly.

Imagine trying to reason with these militant lunatics.

On a tip from Oiao.

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:21 AM | Comments (11)

Brit Gets £30 Fine for Smoking in His Car

Any Britons who think they are safe from the Nanny State when in the privacy of their own vehicles had better think again:

A painter and decorator from Ceredigion says he is "dumbfounded" after being slapped with a £30 fine for smoking a cigarette in his own van.

Gordon Williams says he had popped to the shops earlier this month [to buy tea for his wife], when he was pulled over by council officials.

"I was told that because my van is my place of work I had broken the smoking laws," he said. […] "I am dumbfounded — the van is only insured for private use and to get me to and from work," added Mr Williams, from Llanafan, near Aberystwyth.

"It['s] not my place of work — I decorate houses not vans."

Tell it to the judge, you potential drain on the socialized healthcare service!

On a tip from mega.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:48 AM | Comments (7)

Even Germans Raising Eyebrows over Obama

Regarding the Obamessiah's overseas media extravaganza, Britain's left-wing Guardian remarks:

Barack Obama has found his people. But, unfortunately for his election prospects, they're German, not American.

Why not? Germans invented socialism, and have spent two generations wallowing in the sort of ethnic guilt Obama is hoping to ride to the White House. But even among Germans, not everyone is buying:

The Hollywood-staged Obama event for a man who has yet to ascend to the presidency didn’t sit well with all the Germans. Germany’s Stern magazine carried the headline "Barack Kant Saves the World."

One of their columnists, Florian Güssgen, wrote: "The man is perfect, impeccable, slick. Almost too slick … Obama's speech was often vague, sometimes banal and more reminiscent of John Lennon's feel good song 'Imagine' than of a foreign policy agenda."

As for the allegedly massive crowds that watched Obama apologize for America at Hitler's seat of power, they were largely drawn by a free rock concert, and probably numbered closer to 20,000 than the often-repeated 200,000.

On tips from Burning Hot and Pam.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:28 AM | Comments (10)

Sweden Inches toward Privatizing Schools

Even as America's largest teachers union leaps off the edge of leftist politics, and Britons turn away from teaching because it has degenerated into a cross between social work and zookeeping, socialist Sweden is taking baby steps toward the long overdue privatization of education.

Sweden's independent schools are financed with tax loot, but run by independent companies that have to compete with each other, instead of by plodding bureaucrats. Having briefly taken power from the Social Democrats, a center-right government started the schools in 1992. At the time, 1.7% of high school Swedes were privately educated. Now the number is 17%.

Back in power, liberals are unable to kill the schools because they're too popular, and have had to settle for denouncing them as anti-egalitarian and imposing a lid on fees. Even public schools have improved due to the competition. Possibly even more distressing to moonbats than the threat of an independently educated populace is the increased input the privately run schools provide parents.

As science proves, capitalism works, socialist moonbattery does not. In education, as with healthcare and most everything else, the less government control, the better the result.

On tips from V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:47 AM | Comments (2)

Obama's Prayer

The prayer Barack Hussein bin Obama had himself photographed placing in Jerusalem's Western Wall has been recovered and made public. Whether this is a new low in journalistic contempt for privacy or another example of the media's willful assistance in Obama's packaging is for the reader to decided.

After hypocritically complaining about intrusiveness, ABC provides some humble boilerplate as Obama's prayer. But a different version has come to light at Country Store:

On a tip from Kratos.

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

Foreign Policy Magazine's Top 20 Intellectuals

The snooty intellectual elite, as represented by Foreign Policy magazine and its readers, has selected the top 20 intellectuals of our time. Here's the top 10:

1. Fethullah Gülen
2. Muhammad Yunus
3. Yusuf Al-Qaradawi
4. Orhan Pamuk
5. Aitzaz Ahsan
6. Amr Khaled
7. Abdolkarim Soroush
8. Tariq Ramadan
9. Mahmood Mamdani
10. Shirin Ebadi

What a coincidence: all appear to be Muslims. If it had been Shintoists who flew planes into the World Trade Center 7 years ago, the top 10 names would have been Japanese.

From there, the list veers even farther into farce, with juvenile America-hater Noam Chomsky at #11 and demagogic snake oil salesman Al Gore at #12. Liberal comedian Stephen Colbert was the top write-in candidate.

On a tip from nanc.

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:21 AM | Comments (6)

July 27, 2008

Critical Mass Riot on Wheels Attacks Another Motorist

It looks like President Obama might be able to put some teeth into his energy policy, which consists mainly of making taxpayers finance more bike paths. The moonbat equivalent of Brownshirts have been assaulting people for traveling by car instead of by bicycle like the Third-World communist peasants they would like us to be.

Seattle police said they were still looking today for one of a group of Critical Mass bicyclists who attacked and injured a driver during a violent altercation on Capitol Hill Friday evening. Two other bicyclists have been jailed.

As always when sanctimonious Critical Mass hooligans attack motorists, they are claiming it's all the victim's fault. The police seem to disagree.

Just after 7 p.m. Friday, the group of at least 100 bicyclists was moving en masse down East Aloha Street when a man and his girlfriend in a Subaru station wagon tried to pull out of a parking spot, said Seattle police spokesman Mark Jamieson.

For years, Critical Mass has held monthly public bike rides through Seattle to demonstrate for bicyclists' road rights.

According to Jamieson, as the Critical Mass group moved down the street, blocking traffic, some riders got in the way of the Subaru and prevented it from leaving. Some bikers sat on the car and were banging on it, he said.

"The driver was pretty fearful that he was about to be assaulted by the bicyclists," Jamieson said.

The terrified driver tried to back up, handing the moonbats the pretext they appear to have been fishing for.

Several of the bikers bashed up the Subaru, shattering the windshield and rear window, Jamieson said.

The driver tried to drive away, but hit another bicyclist, Jamieson said. Still, he drove about a block, to the corner of Aloha and 15th Avenue East, before the Critical Mass riders cornered the car again and started spitting on it and banging against it.

One bicyclist punched the driver through his open window, and another used a knife to slash the Subaru's tires, Jamieson said.

The driver got out of his car, and was hit in the back of the head, opening a large gash.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Incidents like this may become more familiar soon, as likeminded leftists consolidate control of the government.

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

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:03 PM | Comments (24)

Climate Cops

One of the most frightening aspects of the totalitarian dystopia depicted in George Orwell's 1984 is that parents have to live in terror of their bratty children, who are encouraged by authorities to spy on them and turn them in for minor transgressions against the State. Once again, liberals appear to have been using the novel not as a warning, but as an instruction manual. Watts Up With That reports on Britain's alarming Climate Cops campaign:

Launched today with large colour ads in the Sundays, it appeals directly to children, urging them to enlist as "climate cops", to root out "climate crimes" [PDF], and thus "save the planet".

In a luridly-designed website, mimicking the style of "yoof" cartoons, it offers a bundle of downloads, including a pack of "climate crime cards" [PDF], urging its recruits to spy on families, friends and relatives, inviting each of them to build up a "climate crime case file" in order to help them ensure their putative criminals do not "commit those crimes again (or else)!" […]

How nicely this ties in with James Hansen's call to put the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming.

Climate crimes for which tykes are encourage to rat out Mom and Dad include:

• "Leaving the TV on stand-by"
• "Leaving a tap running"
• "Using the tumble dryer on a sunny day"
• "Leaving lights on in an empty room"
• "Leaving a mobile phone charger plugged in"
• "Putting hot food in the fridge or freezer"
• "Not using energy-saving light bulbs"
• "Boiling a kettle full of water for one cup of tea"
• "Leaving the room door open on a cool day"

Not even Winston Smith had to deal with a form of totalitarianism so jealous of mankind's free will as to consider it a crime to leave the telescreen on standby.

If a foreign army tried to impose such rigid and idiotic restrictions on us, we would fight to the last man — or at least, there was a time when we would have. But since we are being conquered from within, by an army of clowns too absurd to take seriously, there is virtually no resistance.

Particularly alarming is that the Climate Cops campaign is not sponsored by the usual villain, the British Nanny State, but by the power company npower. Normally capitalism protects the public from encroaching authoritarianism, because powerful corporations serve as a counterbalance to overreaching governments. When the government and corporations read from the same playbook, the people are in trouble.

On a tip from Lou.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:19 PM | Comments (16)

Congress Holds Kangaroo Court to Denounce Bush

W will be leaving office soon, but that's all the more reason for Congressional kooks like Dennis Kucinich to step up their campaign to have him impeached over the Iraq War that Congress itself authorized before time runs out:

WASHINGTON — Rep. Dennis Kucinich's quest to impeach President Bush got an unofficial airing in the House Judiciary Committee on Friday. […] Kucinich got a rock star welcome of whistles, hoots and clapping as he walked into the hearing room, holding hands with his wife, from hundreds of anti-war, anti-Bush people crammed into the room and lining the hallways outside. T-shirts reading "Arrest Bush" and "Veterans for Impeachment" illustrated the sentiments of many.

[…C]ommittee chairman Rep. John Conyers explained to the audience it was not, technically, an impeachment hearing "to the regret of many." He said the House would have to vote for an impeachment inquiry to begin, a test not met by the July 15 vote to send Kucinich's impeachment resolution to the Judiciary Committee.

As if Congress had no more serious matters to address, a long parade of moonbat witnesses where called forward to denounce the President. Vincent Bugliosi called him a murderer. Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) accused him of vague "serious abuses" and "high crimes"; his demand for impeachment "drew hoots of approval from some members of the audience." Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) called Bush "the worst president that our country has suffered," already having forgotten the disastrous Jimmy Carter. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) proclaimed that Iraq was invaded just to help sinister Big Oil, going so far as to screech:

That is why this administration let Usama bin Laden go because they wanted to justify attacking Iraq.

There were a few grownups on hand, but grownups are no longer running the show in Congress. Lamar Smith (R-TX) compared the farcical hearing to "an anger management class," and stated the obvious:

Nothing is going to come out of this hearing with regard to impeachment. … That's because there is no evidence to support impeachment.

Nonetheless, impeachment hearings can be expected to continue until the day Bush leaves office. Horrifyingly, that may be the day these ill-behaved children take over the White House.

Posted by Van Helsing at 11:56 AM | Comments (10)

July 26, 2008

The NEA: Our Mirror Image of the Taliban

Afghanistan's rigid cult of totalitarians is called the Taliban, which means "the students." America's mirror image of it calls itself "the teachers" — or rather, the Nation Education Association, which has much more to do with imposing hard left politics than it does with education:

The nation's largest teachers union, the National Education Association, attracted 9,000 delegates to its annual convention in Washington, D.C., over the July Fourth weekend. Delegates sported buttons with provocative slogans such as "Gay marriage causes global warming only because we are so hot," "Hate is not a family value," "The Christian right is neither" and "Gay rights are civil rights."

The delegates passed dozens of hard-hitting resolutions that now become the NEA's official policy. The resolutions authorize NEA members and employees to lobby for those goals in the halls of Congress and state capitols.

NEA resolutions cover the waterfront of all sorts of political issues that have nothing to do with improving education for schoolchildren, such as supporting statehood for the District of Columbia, a "single-payer health care plan" (i.e., government run), gun control, ratification of the International Criminal Court Treaty [which would severely undermine American soveignty] and taking steps "to change activities that contribute to global climate change."

When it comes to education, the NEA's main interest is in suppressing competition, the better to guarantee ideological homogeneity:

The NEA fiercely opposes any competition for public schools, such as vouchers, tuition tax credits, parental option plans or public support of any kind to nonpublic schools. […] The NEA opposes home schooling unless children are taught by state-licensed teachers using a state-approved curriculum. The NEA wants to bar home-schooled students from participating in any extracurricular activities in public schools even though their parents pay school taxes, too. […] NEA resolutions call for "programs in the public schools for children from birth through age 8" and for "mandatory kindergarten with compulsory attendance."

The unhinged feminazi agenda lives on at the NEA:

NEA resolutions include all the major feminist goals such as "the right to reproductive freedom" (i.e., abortion on demand), "comparable worth" (i.e., government control of wages according to feminist ideology), full funding for the feminist boondoggle called the Women's Educational Equity Act and censoring all masculine words such as husband and father.

The increasingly ambitious militant homosexual agenda also finds vociferous advocates at our largest teachers union:

The influence of the gay lobby is pervasive in dozens of NEA resolutions adopted by 2008 convention delegates. Diversity is the code word used for pro-gay indoctrination in the classroom.

The NEA's diversity resolution makes clear this means teaching about "sexual orientation" and "gender identification." The NEA demands that "diversity-based curricula" be imposed on preschoolers. […] The NEA wants all sex-education courses, textbooks, curricula, instructional materials and activities to include indoctrination about sexual orientation and gender identification plus warnings about homophobia.

An important objective of today's educrats is for schools to supplant parents, so that instead of family we will have the State:

The NEA wants every child, regardless of age, to have "direct and confidential access, without notification to parents, to comprehensive health education. That would include things such as learning how to use condoms for premarital sex, as well as social, and psychological programs and services."

The NEA wants public schools to take over the physical and mental care of students through school clinics that provide services, diagnosis, treatment, family-planning counseling and access to birth control methods. Family planning clinics are called on to "provide intensive counseling."

There is no topic on which the NEA is not aggressively wrong. Yet somehow the belligerent promoters of this deranged moonbat agenda have taken control of education. If their brainwashing is successful, the next generation will be unrecognizable as Americans.

On a tip from Oiao.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:22 AM | Comments (34)

July 25, 2008

British Grandmother Arrested for Asking Hooligans to Go Home

When will law-abiding citizens learn that in Once-Great Britain, they need to keep their heads down?

After being woken for the third time in one night by a group of drunken and noisy students, Jo Calvert-Mindell was at her wits' end.

The former policewoman got dressed, went outside and shouted at them: "Why can't you go back to where you come from and make some noise there? I bet your families and neighbours wouldn't put up with it.

"You don't care about us and do just as you like. What gives you the right to frighten my elderly neighbours, cause damage and keep us awake at night?"

[…]The 51-year-old grandmother was astonished when four months later she was arrested and accused of being a racist. It turned out that two Asians in the group had complained to the police.

"Asian" in the context of British media reports is Euphemese for Muslim colonist. Asking them to stop running wild and trashing what's left of Britain is an intolerable affront to their human rights.

Calvert-Mindell was officially charged with racism. Last week the charges were finally dropped, because authorities didn't think they would get a conviction due to lack of evidence. At least evidence is still required in racism trials.

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:57 AM | Comments (23)

Kwame Kilpatrick's Bond Revoked

Things aren't going well for Kwame Kilpatrick, who as mayor of America's most liberal city could be said to personify the politics of moonbattery:

DETROIT — A 36th District Court judge restricted Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's travel and revoked his personal bond today during a bond hearing, one day after the mayor was accused of assaulting a detective.

The mayor, who was on a personal bond that did not require him to pay any money to the court, will now have to pay $7,500 in cash — 10 percent of his $75,000 bond — to stay free, Judge Ronald Giles, a 36th district court judge, ordered.

Mayor Kilpatrick has been out on bail after being arrested for perjury and other felonies related to a police whistle-blower trial last year. This time he's is in trouble for assaulting a Wayne County detective who was attempting to serve a summons to his friend Bobby Ferguson, a city contractor. The esteemed mayor threw him off a porch, possibly breaking his hip, and also indulged in shouting "obscenities and racial remarks."

But it's not all bad news for Kwame:

Kilpatrick will be allowed to keep already approved business travel, including attending the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Kilpatrick — and moonbat-infested Detroit in general — represent a road we would be wise not to go down.

Hat tip: Michelle Malkin.

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:30 AM | Comments (14)

La Times Bans Bloggers from Violating Rielle Hunter Blackout

The mainstream media's advocacy of left-wing politicians increasingly resembles the editorial policy of Soviet-era Pravda. If you haven't heard much about the highly amusing tale of John Edwards running in terror from reporters when he was caught visiting his mistress, it could be because this story embarrassing to a prominent Dem and potential Obama VP candidate has been blacked out. At the Los Angeles Times, this blackout is official policy:

In a move that has apparently stirred up some internal discontent, the Los Angeles Times has banned its bloggers, including political bloggers, from mentioning the Edwards/Rielle Hunter story. Even bloggers who want to mention the story in order to make a skeptical we-don't-trust-the-Enquirer point are forbidden from doing so.

A line has been crossed from bias into something more ominous. It doesn't take much imagination to envision La Times et al. banning any mention of facts deemed unsupportive of the policies of the Obama Administration.

On a tip from V the K.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:54 AM | Comments (14)

Obama's Own Media Spectacle Gives the Lie to His Defeatist Rhetoric

Could it be that something constructive resulted from the Obamessiah's pretentious overseas media extravaganza? Ray Robison suggests that it might have helped people who don't follow current events closely to understand for the first time that we are winning the war against Islamic terrorists in the crucial Iraqi theater.

Coinciding with the "Obama goes to Iraq" coverage comes a poll update by Rasmussen and released on July 23rd. And it shows that a very interesting thing happened last Monday. The number of respondents in this reoccurring poll who answered that we are winning against terrorists jumped to levels not seen in four years, to 51% — now a majority. Conversely, the number who considered al Qaeda and their ilk the victors dropped to a threadbare 16% of respondents, a new low by a wide margin. And it just so happened that this poll was conducted the same day that Obama and his media entourage hit Baghdad.

Although it is not definitive, it is a strong indication that all the media hype and attention on this trip refocused the media lens on Iraq and that Americans saw a new picture there. […] They thought that Obama was delivering the straight truth to them on Iraq. But now they know he was being less than candid. The Independents and conservative Democrats now might see that he was not telling them the truth.

A picture says a thousand words and those pictures of Obama in Iraq with no body armor are telling a different story than what he has been selling to the American people. And it was a fawning media brazenly trying to tip the scales in his favor that made it happen.

On a tip from Burning Hot.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:13 AM | Comments (5)

Bin Laden Associate Wasn't Mirandized

It took less than seven years from September 11 for moonbattery to corrode our response into a farce.

Osama bin Laden's driver Salim Hamdan, who has been incarcerated for war crimes for his involvement in the 9/11 atrocities, was not read the Miranda spiel. This appears to be a major stumbling block in the case against him, along with allegations that he didn't get enough sleep while vacationing at Club Gitmo.

Barack Hussein Obama should be congratulated on his foresight. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, he was one of the few primarily concerned with how the event might negatively impact foreign terrorists. Now the mollycoddling of foreign terrorists seems to be our only concern.

One thing is clear: Osama bin Laden must never be captured. After an O.J.-style carnival trial at massive taxpayer expense, he would no doubt be freed on a technicality. From there he would have his choice of chairing the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at Columbia, hosting a talk show on MSNBC, or assuming a cabinet position in the Obama Administration. Since we soon won't even allow ourselves to interrogate them, terrorists need to be killed on sight.

On a tip from Wiggins.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:49 AM | Comments (13)

Intergroup Dialogue

Newspeak calls for removing words and terms from our vocabulary when they are associated with incorrect thoughts, but this is counterbalanced by an endless supply of new ones. One of the latest is intergroup dialogue. Minding the Campus defines it:

"Intergroup dialogue" is the new euphemism for the oppression confrontations that used to be conducted sub rosa at freshman orientations and have now been spreading across the country as formal programs for almost a decade. The goal of an oppression confrontation is to put enough pressure on white males to convince them they are racists, homophobes and sexists. Role reversal is a conventional part of the program. Whites are asked to pretend they are black, straights part the part of gays. Insults and catcalls are supposed to sensitize the whites and reveal that they are living lives of unearned privilege in a system based on oppression. White guilt, the erosion of traditional values and a strong emphasis on identity politics are the conventional results sought in these exercises.

Be sure to add "intergroup dialogue" to your Newspeak dictionaries.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:21 AM | Comments (7)

Kiwi Moonbats Announce Bounty on US Secretary of State

Condoleezza Rice had better keep her eyes open when she visits New Zealand this weekend, lest she find herself abducted on behalf of local liberals, who have offered a $3,700 reward for her arrest on charges of countermoonbattery.

We'll see if this provides as much entertainment as George Moonbat's farcical attempt to arrest John Bolton.

On a tip from Oiao.

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:53 AM | Comments (3)

Murderer's Last Words: Vote Obama!

The wise and wonderful Barack Hussein Obama picked up another key endorsement Wednesday night, just before Dale Leo Bishop paid his debt to society for beating someone to death by receiving a lethal injection in Mississippi. The Greenwood Commonwealth reports on his last words:

Bishop, who spoke for less than two minutes, then asked opponents of the death penalty to vote for presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama in the upcoming presidential election.

At least Bishop died knowing who his friends were. The murderer's endorsement can be placed on Obama's mantle alongside those of the New Black Panthers, Hamas, Michael Pfleger, Daniel Ortega, Keith Ellison, Richard Belzer, the Islamofascist Iranian regime, Hanoi Jane Fonda, the establishment media, and presumably Satan.

Hat tip: Rantburg. On a tip from Burning Hot.

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

Uh-bama without a Teleprompter

From el Rushbo, via Stop the ACLU:

Enough! Double my taxes! I'll embrace Hope and Change! Just stop saying, "Uh!"

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:09 AM | Comments (5)

July 24, 2008

This Time as Farce

Karl Marx got this much right:

Images lifted from And Rightly So!

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:39 PM | Comments (7)

Why Obama Blew Off Wounded US Troops

While in Germany posing as a world leader, addressing the sort of rally not staged there since the 1940s, and soaking up the adoration of people who don't like this country very much, Obama was scheduled to pay a visit to American troops. But this leg of the trip was abruptly canceled for mysterious reasons.

Now the reasons are mysterious no longer:

A U.S. military official tells NBC News they were making preparations for Sen. Barack Obama to visit wounded troops at the Landstuhl Medical Center at Ramstein, Germany on Friday, but "for some reason the visit was called off."

One military official who was working on the Obama visit said because political candidates are prohibited from using military installations as campaign backdrops, Obama's representatives were told, "he could only bring two or three of his Senate staff member, no campaign officials or workers." In addition, "Obama could not bring any media. Only military photographers would be permitted to record Obama's visit."

The official said "We didn't know why" the request to visit the wounded troops was withdrawn. "He (Obama) was more than welcome. We were all ready for him."

If it isn't a photo op, the Dalai Obama isn't interested. Why should he be? He's only real when the media's there to pretend that he is.

Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:34 PM | Comments (7)

Obama in Deutschland

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

Barack Loves Me…

Via Glenn Beck, on a tip from Lyle.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:27 PM | Comments (6)

Dems Call for Open Homosexual Conduct in the Armed Forces

Never let it be said that the Democrats don't have a vision for the future of America's military. The first step they would take is to surrender to al Qaeda and Iranian-backed terrorists in Iraq. The second: impose open homosexual depravity on military culture.

Appallingly, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) attempts to equate the military's refusal to endorse homosexual conduct with long ago discrimination against blacks. His overblown rhetoric is shameless in the extreme:

People were asked to go and serve in harm's way. They served courageously and many lost their lives. They came home to a country which said, "You can't go to this restaurant, you have got to go to the end of the line, or you can't participate in many of our activities notwithstanding what you did." They were not treated with dignity or respect. That's wrong.

By the same logic, we could be asked to weep for child molesters who are "not treated with dignity or respect."

Homosexuals are of course perfectly welcome to serve in the military. They just aren't allowed to make a public pageant of their depravity, as this would rot away the morale that is any fighting force's prime asset. Nor are they allowed to proclaim themselves homosexual-Americans and use identity politics to secure promotions. Obama, as the country's most conspicuous beneficiary of Affirmative Action, naturally wants to change this.

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:12 AM | Comments (3)

Green Fad Finally Running Out of Gas

Here's some good news for anyone sick of being force-fed a relentless diet of pernicious environmentalist hogwash:

Last week, The New York Times noted that the advertising industry is pulling back from green-themed marketing, having "grasped the public's growing skepticism over ads with environmental messages.

And advertisers' concerns are buttressed by the recent sales figures for magazines that have published a "Green Issue" this year. Time's Earth Day issue was the newsweekly's third-lowest-selling issue of 2008 so far, according to ABC Rapid Report. A typical issue of Time sells 93,000 or so copies on the newsstand; the April 28 installment, which substituted green for red in the magazine's trademarked cover design, sold only 72,000. (As usual, The Onion nailed it.)

Elle's May issue sold a mere 275,000 copies, versus the title's year-to-date average of 328,500. The last issue of Elle to sell that badly was in May 2008 — another green issue, probably not coincidentally.

Discover also published a green issue this year, and also took a hit for it, selling 86,000 newsstand copies, compared to an average of 117,000 in the first half of 2007.

Look for politicians to figure out sometime around 2012 that everyone stopped listening to bogus global warming sermons in 2008.

Posted by Van Helsing at 9:13 AM | Comments (9)

Obama Heckled at Western Wall

Don't expect this to make the nightly news:

The US presidential nominee was heckled as he visited the Western Wall in the early hours of Thursday morning, bowing his head in prayer and observing traditional custom by placing a folded piece of paper into the crevice of the wall.

Orthodox men interrupted their morning prayers to catch a glimpse of the Illinois senator, reaching out to shake his hand as he passed them by. But not all were taken by the Democrat. One yelled out: "Obama, Jerusalem is not for sale!" before Mr Obama was whisked away to his waiting plane.

Hamas, which openly calls for the destruction of Israel, endorses Obama, as he is widely understood to favor Muslim terrorists against their enemies, prominently including Israel. Yet most American Jews (though not all) are expected to vote for Obama, apparently out of sheer self-hatred.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:56 AM | Comments (11)

Another Obamathon Memento

Souvenirs have hit the market for the Berlin leg of the Obamessiah's heavily hyped traveling media extravaganza. This hot new poster comes via Michelle Malkin:

Obama's Berlin speech is to take place at the Siegessäule monument:

The Siegessäule — or Victory Column — was erected in memory of Prussia's victories over Denmark (1864), Austria (1866) and France (1870/71). The column originally stood in front of the Reichstag, Germany's parliament building, but was moved by Adolf Hitler to its current location in 1939 to make way for his planned transformation of Berlin into the Nazi capital "Germania."

You've got to hand it to Obama's puppeteers: they've got a real knack for symbolism.

Hat tip: Hot Air.

Posted by Van Helsing at 8:32 AM | Comments (4)

Rielle Hunter Blackout

When is a bombshell not a bombshell? When it makes a prominent Democrat look bad.

Anyone who doesn't rely on the MSM for news knows by now that John Edwards, who made a big deal about his loyalty to his cancer-stricken wife during his failed presidential campaign, was actually cheating on her and presiding over an elaborate cover-up. He even has a love child with the radiant Rielle Hunter:

There are at least 10 eyewitnesses to corroborate the story of his getting caught with his pants down, which would have resulted in immediate screams of "I'll sue!" from the Breck Girl if it weren't completely true.

Yet Silky Pony has been considered a leading candidate for the hollow Obamessiah's VP, so the MSM is obediently silent. Slate reports on the lack of reporting:

—The New York Times doesn't tell you what happened yesterday.

—The print edition of the Washington Post doesn't tell you what happened yesterday.

—Newsweek doesn't tell you what happened yesterday.

—Time doesn't tell you what happened yesterday.

—Katie Couric didn't tell you what happened yesterday.

—Brian Williams didn't tell you what happened yesterday.

—Charlie Gibson didn't tell you what happened yesterday. […]

Has the gap between what the MSM lets you know and what happened — and what you can easily find out happened — ever been greater? …

The silver lining to the absurd and potentially catastrophic Obama campaign: when it's finally over, no one will ever take the establishment media seriously again.

On a tip from Burning Hot.

Posted by Van Helsing at 7:51 AM | Comments (24)

Our Current Level of Political Debate

Obama being taken seriously as a presidential candidate almost makes sense in light of the entertainment community driving much of this country's political debate. Here's "Nas," a rapper with the IQ of a gerbil who, as noted yesterday, has taken a leading roll in an intimidation operation to punish Fox News for being too "racist" to join the Obama campaign:

Any Caucasian saying much less displaying the forbidden "N" word, even in private, can expect to have their career terminated immediately.

Not only does this cretin's vote count as much as yours, hordes of teenagers and