News Flash: South Doesn't Suck, say Southerners

Seriously. That's the premise of this column by Doug Giles, who I distrust from the get-go because his last name is a first name (it's not as bad as the alternative, though- Anderson Cooper? Get real). Giles' column is half name-calling and half screaming fanboy book review of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to the South (and Why it Will Rise Again)". More on the P.I.G. series later.

Let's take the fisking one at a time. First, Dougie-Fresh:

If you listen to the Ditsy Chicks, if you like Rosie O’Doggerel and if you think John Kerry is cool, then more than likely you assume the South sucks. Yep, our current culture has been brow beaten by the loons on the Left into viewing the South as societal swill.

First of all, nobody I know has ever claimed John Kerry was cool. EVER. Second, when the Dixie Chicks first started pissing off Republicans by daring to stand up for a different side of Texan values (as opposed to the fake-cowboy-act our prep school New Englander President likes to put on), I seem to remember everybody saying they liked their music fine and just wished they would stop talking politics. (Hence the "Shut Up and Sing" mantra.) And societal swill? Maybe I missed something, but last time I checked, almost everybody in the US has some sort of superiority/inferiority complex. Your column and the PIG book only confirm this.

In Hollywood, the hedonistic thought thugs make certain that Southerners are tarred and feathered as inbred, Ricky Bobby, moonshine slammin’, KKKMart shoppin’, fat back eatin’, cousin humpin’ square dancers with three teeth and an IQ of 50.

I can assure you that I for one don't even know what fat back is. Furthermore, as someone who has traced their ancestry extensively, I have confirmed several cases of inbreeding AND moonshining. You don't get to have a monopoly on this stuff. As for KKK and Kmart, last I checked both these institutions were more than mere regional phenomenons. If Hollywood is misrepresenting that, then they're jerks, pure and simple. That said, some of those popular images of the South are based on facts- as demented and distorted as Will Ferrell's Ricky Bobby might be (I just got the reference a second ago), NASCAR has traditionally been associated with the South, and for good reason- it got its start there and its headquarters and most of its races continue to be in the South. (Which is not to say that a preppy New Englander driver character wouldn't have been funny.)

The liberal Belief Police want America to hate the South because the South represents the Secular Regressive’s (SR) chief political and cultural (and armed, I might add) high hurdle.

Um... maybe, I guess. If by that you mean that the South is a bastion of cultural and political conservatism.

The autoerotic “elite,” which form the intellectually line bred gene pool of the soulless Left, are hell bent to bar from our borders all praises and practices of the principles which have made the South substantial. What are the things that make Dixie so darn good? Well, I know it’s hard for those of you who are wedged up Hollywood’s backside to understand our virtues, but its stuff like author Clint Johnson points out in his predestined to be best-seller The Politically Incorrect Guide to the South (and Why it Will Rise Again) . . .

Doug, it sounds like you're just using random words you got from the thesaurus at this point. What the hell does autoerotic elite even mean? And why the binary? Why must all non-Southerners (or non-Conservatives) automatically be renting a condo up Hollywood's ass? Why is there no possibility of a soulFULL left? Now who's being simplistic?

Onto the piggy (channeled by Doug) ... Apparently the South is great because it has:

• A strong sense of patriotism that protects the rest of the nation. Dasypygals on the left who incessantly bash the South and hate everything sweet home Alabama stands for ought to eat a little sautéed crow tonight and send the South a thank you card in the morning, as the South makes up the overwhelming majority of the armed forces who protect our country and are willing to take a bullet for these ungrateful and derisive jackasses. The South accounts for 35% of the population, but 41% of the military recruits.

I'll send the South a card when they send me one for all the relatives I had who fought in WWI, WWII, and the Korean War. Get off your high horse. Secondly, as I well know, not everyone who fights in a war is automatically a patriot, or primarily motivated by patriotism- how many of the people in the army right now are there because they didn't have any better options? A lot of people wind up in the army because they need money. How about all the poor National Guard guys who joined up for a few weeks a year and are now on their second tour of Iraq? Pragmatism is probably responsible for just as many enlistments as patriotism, if not more so. Incidentally, for the curious, Dasypygal apparently means "hairy ass". Because that's relevant.

• A sense of morals and religion. The fact that we haven’t flushed God and Christ down the toilet, as the anti-Christ secularists want us to do, has made the liberal, tassel-shoed Nancy’s have a hissy. When other sectors of our society are shamefully caving to the godless cabal’s secular agenda and keeping quite about their convictions, the South sits back, yawns, scratches its belly, and then shoots these glib sisters a defiant rebel finger. In addition, no matter how much the liberal Presidential dopefuls play the “we like Jesus and Moses, too” card in the upcoming ’08 election, the South isn’t fooled. We see the fecal fumes coming off their heads. Serious faith is a southern thang, a conservative thang, and not a 21st century liberal thang.

Anti-Christ secularists, huh? Man, gotta love that Christian love. Also, I think you meant "Nancys" back there. As far as your convictions- go nuts, man. I could care less about your theology (I'll even let you bring it into your fake Congressional Oath ceremony), just keep it out of other people's face. Not such a big deal. Also, congrats on that "finger thang"- and you say we libs are lowering the discourse. And why bring Moses into this? Oooh, heaven forbid a Presidential candidate acknowledge somebody important besides Hey-seuss. I know, let's tar and feather them!

• A creative atmosphere. Clint further prods the north by taunting them with their lack of creativity. He states that, “few folks think about ‘northern literature,’ but there is an abundance of southern literature. There’s no such thing as northern music. I’m sorry, rap is a NY derivative. But then again rap is not music. There is, though, country music, southern rock, southern jazz, southern blues and bluegrass. CJ goes on to say that “there is something about southern lovers, rivers, dogs, ex-wives, ex-husbands, magnolias, pine trees, eccentrics, and soldiers that keep writers and musicians inspired. “

So he's an idiot. What does this prove? Observe. Edgar Allen Poe was mighty creative, wouldn't you say? What about Emily Dickinson? Emerson? Hawthorne? Ben Franklin? Longfellow? Thoreau? That's just a few from Massachusets, Doug. Take a look at Wikipedia and get back to me.

Incidentally, what about the fact that Clint's being might unspecific about exactly what constitutes "the North". I was raised in California. Is that North?

• Real men. “Southern men are gentlemen, but they’re also uncompromising, opinionated, and won’t defer to what ‘the group’ wants. . . . ” America needs men who stick by their guns and southern men do just that. Southern men, saith Clint, don’t flip flop; they stick to the convictions and principles they got from their families. Remember families?

Except when the group wants to own slaves or spray black people with hoses, right? Yeah, great guys who stuck by their guns like Thurmond and Lott, and don't forget Bull Connor! Here's an idea- maybe it's better to actually THINK about your principles rather than blindly follow ones you inherited. (See Haskalah). Wait, I know- everyone in the South is actually a principled individual, they just all happen to think alike. Brilliant.

• Real women. Unlike the female chauvinist pigs on the Left, Southern women are charming and ladylike and like their menfolk, they have backbones of steel. Also, note to single guys: from Georgia peaches to Mississippi belles, there’s no doubt about it: southern women are prettier. Since the first Miss America pageant in 1921, one-third of the winners have been Southern.

Again, genius, having backbones of steel is worthless if the things you're defending aren't worth the trouble. And yeah, gentility has its place, but so does a lack of BS- something I've been assured you won't find in the South. And since when do we judge beauty by Miss America standards? And again, what counts as Southern? Anyway, take a look at Miss America 2005- she looks like a Barbie-doll sent out to turn a trick. Oh Ken, you're the best pimp ever.

Oh, that's right, I said I'd mention more about PIG- well, let's just say they've been busy. I'm thinking about getting this one for myself and this one for the girlfriend. Or rather, I might if they weren't 20 bucks a piece. Maybe it's time to use the ol' library...

Oh Townhall, whatever would I do without you?

Jonah Goldberg tries to revive the Conservative cliche that a bad plan is better than no plan- or, that, conversely, criticisms of Bush without presenting an alternative (or an alternative Conservatives like) are illegitimate. Goldberg argues, as his title suggests, that regardless of problems with Bush's plan, at least he's being forthright about his goals, and oh yeah, that he wants to win (um, hooray?).

Americans are torn between two irreconcilable positions on the Iraq war. Some want the war to be a success - variously defined - and some want the war to be over. Conservatives are basically, but not exclusively, in the "success" camp. Liberals (and those further to the left) are basically, but not exclusively, the "over" party. And many people are suffering profound cognitive dissonance by believing these two positions can be held simultaneously. The motives driving these positions range from the purely patriotic to the coldly realistic to the cravenly political or psychologically perfervid. Parsing motives is exhausting and pointless, but one fact remains: "End it now" and "win it eventually" cannot be reconciled.

With Wednesday night's speech, President Bush made it clear that he will settle for nothing less than winning. He may be deluding himself, but he at least has done the nation the courtesy of stating his position, despite an antagonistic political establishment and a hostile public. What's maddening is that the Democratic leadership cannot, or will not, clearly tell the American people whether they are the party of "end it" or "win it."

... Here we have a president forthrightly trying to win a war, and the opposition - which not long ago favored increasing troops when Bush was against that - won't say what it wants. This is flatly immoral. If you believe the war can't be won and there's nothing to be gained by staying, then, to paraphrase Sen. John Kerry, you're asking more men to die for a mistake. You should demand withdrawal. But that might cost votes, so they opt for nonbinding symbolic votes.

The flaw, here, of course, is suggesting that being honest about your goals somehow contributes to those goals being particularly achievable or problem-free. While praising Bush's directness, Goldberg attempts to perform a subtle slight-of-hand, hoping that people won't realize that the effectiveness of a strategy has nothing to do with how straight-forward you are about it. Yes, politics would be much nicer if people would actually fess up to their positions and not worry about votes (Lincoln Chafee comes to mind), but get real, Jonah- you're conflating apples and oranges, and I'm not drinking that smoothie.

Wednesday, Bush finally acknowledged what Americans already knew: The war has not gone well. But he also acknowledged what few Democrats are willing to admit: If we leave - i.e. lose - it will be a disaster, a geo-strategic calamity for America and possibly a genocidal one for the Iraqis. One moral argument against the Iraq war in 2003 was that it would create an enormous humanitarian crisis in the form of refugees spilling over the borders, which in turn would destabilize the region. That didn't happen. But it would be the most likely result of a U.S. withdrawal now. Yet that's a risk the antiwar crowd is suddenly willing to take.

No, Jonah, he question is to what degree will there be a disaster either way- are we going to stay there for 20 years to try to avoid a civil war? We're going to have to leave eventually, and unless there's some dramatic change in Iraq, the result will be a bloodbath. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see what we could possibly do within the next five years (and that's being super-generous; I doubt that even most Republicans will support us being there that long) that is going to affect this change. Killing them doesn't work, and telling them to stop killing each other doesn't work either- so what are we going to accomplish by staying? Or is the plan to kill or maim enough of the country so that they can't fight effectively? Because I've heard of cases where people with no arms learned to shoot with their feet or mouths- where there's a will, you know.

Lies, Damn Lies, Statistics, and Plagiarism

Mike Gallagher is touting a study indicating that a lot of illegal immigrants are getting arrested- repeatedly, no less.

in a group of 100 illegal immigrants who were arrested and let go, each of these people had been arrested, on average, six times each.

Give us your poor, your tired, and those yearning to become habitual criminals in America, eh?

One would think this is a pretty big story. After all, the image that pro-illegal activists try to portray is one of poor, hard-working, wonderful people who simply do the miserable jobs that no lazy American would bother to do, at a fraction of the living wage.

I guess some of those “jobs” include robbing, raping, plundering, and otherwise violating the laws of our land.

Gallagher willfully ignores possible explanations for the high rate of arrests, including but not limited to racial profiling, inability to communicate with officers or complainants, ignorance of the law, and, oh yeah, being arrested for doing minor and/or stupid things, like loitering, trespassing or public intoxication, to say nothing of whether they were actually CONVICTED.

Gallagher conveniently avoids giving us any information about what the arrests were for, so we really have no way of knowing if the men in this study are the evil Latino Vikings he makes them out to be. Looking at the actual report (which he didn't bother to link to), we find this paragraph:

we judgmentally selected a sample of 100 criminal histories, which we reviewed for evidence of arrests of criminal aliens subsequent to June 30, 2003. The criminal histories for 73 of the 100 individuals documented at least one arrest after that date. Those 73 individuals accounted for a total of 429 arrests, with 878 charges and 241 convictions. These figures represent an average of nearly six arrests per individual.

The charges for the 73 individuals ranged from traffic violations and trespassing to more serious crimes, such as burglary or assault. Some [482]of those charges included: 166 drug-related; 37 immigration-related; 213 burglary, robbery, or theft; 40 assault; 10 property damage; 13 weapons charges; and 3 terrorist threats [defined as misdemeanor charges based on domestic disputes].

Stop the illegals before they double-park again! Oh yeah, let's have some fun with that math- of those 73 repeat offenders, it looks like only half of those arrests led to conviction. Could it be that some of those arrests weren't justified? Heaven forbid.

Lastly, there's the flip-side of repeat offender statistics: released criminals often continue to commit crimes. This isn't a racial thing or an illegal immigrant thing, it's a human nature thing and possibly a commentary on the effects of the justice/prison system. Nice try, though, Mike. Oh, and incidentally, apparently the Justice Dept was FORCED to use the sample of 100 because the FBI information couldn't be effectively interpreted on its own:

The FBI provided us with nearly 433,000 individual text files that were not searchable by automated means. Because the files were not in a searchable format, we were not able to quantify all the arrests that occurred subsequent to the cutoff date for FY 2004 funding... Instead, we reviewed a judgmental sample...

And they note,

Based on this limited sample, we cannot statistically extrapolate the number of offenses committed by undocumented criminal aliens who were released from local custody without a referral to ICE... but if this data is indicative of the full population... the rate at which released criminal aliens are rearrested is extremely high

Yes, it may be high, but the reasons for this are probably not the not so-subtle ones being offered by Gallagher and his ilk, namely, that illegal aliens are the spawn of Satan, or possibly Eve and the serpent.

What's that you ask? Let's have more fun with fake stats? OK... how's this? Jim Kouri, CPP (I don't know either), is ecstatic at the fact that Operation Predator has made 6,085 arrests since 2003, and that 85% of those arrests have "involved foreign nationals in this country whose child sex crimes make them eligible for removal from the United States". Only one problem- well, two. First, I don't know what the 85% refers to- is it that the aliens can be deported? Or is it that 85% of those arrested are foreign nationals? Given that Operation Predator is a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement program and TARGETS foreign nationals, this doesn't seem very surprising. Maybe there's something else the 85% refers to...

Hey, I know, we can look at an old column of Kouri's. Let's see...

85% OF CHILD PREDATORS ARE CRIMINAL IMMIGRANTS

Hmm, well, that's something. Let's read on, shall we?

Top officials at the Department of Homeland Security recently revealed that arrests for child sex crimes during the first two years of Operation Predator have exceeded 6,000 and 85 percent of them are criminal immigrants.

Ah, so they're illegal aliens? Or are they immigrants who are also criminals?

The majority of the arrests under Operation Predator - roughly 85% - have involved foreign nationals in this country whose child sex crimes make them removable from the United States.

That wasn't very helpful, Jim. In fact, this all sounds kind of familiar.

Hey, wait a minute-

Kouri 2005:

Since Operation Predator began on July 9, 2003, the initiative has resulted in 6,085 child predator arrests throughout the country - an average of roughly 250 arrests per month and eight arrests per day.

Kouri 2007:

With federal, state and local law enforcement working together, the initiative has resulted in 6,085 child predator arrests throughout the country -- an average of roughly 250 arrests per month and eight arrests per day.

The son of a bitch plagiarized HIMSELF! And got his stats horribly wrong! According to WND, Predator has caught over 9,000 predators since 2003 (and they even interview Kouri for the article!!). Mazel Tov Jim, you may be the laziest and stupidest bastard I've seen in a long time. If you're going to rip off your own stuff, AT LEAST bother with some cut-and-paste stuff for the statistics. Come ON!

Incidentally, according to the ICE (which is from 2005, so Kouri has no excuse):

Targets: Foreign national sex offenders (deportable aliens)
Child sex tourists
Human smugglers and traffickers of children
Traders, producers, distributors of Internet child pornography

Arrests:

More than 6,000 individuals arrested nationwide, including foreign nationals and U.S. citizens.

More than 85% of arrests are of foreign national sex offenders.

• Approximately 40% of these are lawful permanent residents.
• Approximately 40% of these are illegal aliens.

Oh REALLY? So the 85% are "criminal aliens" in the sense that they have broken the law by having sex with little kids, NOT that they are illegal aliens. Boo to Jim and WND, both of whom tout the 85% foreign national figure, without bothering to mention that a good half of those people came into the country legally. Jerks.

Blow it out your ear

The latest in religious coercion from Israel. Holocaust survivor dies, wants to be cremated. His haredi first-cousin once removed files a lawsuit to stop it because it made her feel uncomfortable. Since there's no law against cremation in Israel, the judge told her to shove it. Well, at least we got to hear fun rhetoric about how cremation is evil. This from Yona Metzger, arbiter of all that's kosher and proper:

"[Cremation] awakens difficult and bitter memories from the darkest period in Jewish history, the Holocaust, during which millions of our brothers, scions of the House of Israel, were led to the crematoriums by the evil Nazis and their helpers," the statement said.

"Ever since, cremation has been etched in the collective memories of all Israelis, and Holocaust survivors in particular, as a sign of the attempt to annihilate Judaism and the Jewish people."

I know, let's ban tattoos and short haircuts, too. And striped shirts while we're at it. Better yet, we can follow the haredim's example and burn them all.

Best line of this fracas:

"The law recognizes no other way of disposing of a body other than burial," said Schussheim, who claimed he was contacted by representatives of Yad Vashem who, he said, voiced interest in joining his petition against cremations. He said he did not remember the names of these Yad Vashem representatives.

Hmm...

So now what? One of UTJ's freshman MKs has submitted an amendment to the burial law to forbid cremation in Israel. Great. Hey, people are already going to Cyprus to get married, maybe they'll be cremated there too. Sheesh.

Edit: Apparently MK Cohen isn't as dictatorial as I originally thought; it seems that the caveat is "illegal unless there's a signed and notarized will". Well, at least that's something.

Also in Israel news: Rabbi Mordechai "Fake Bomb" Eliyahu called abortion providers murderers, this despite the fact that traditionally, Jewish law has not seen abortion as murder, nor fetuses as having the status of people until birth. Quoth the sage:

“Why is it okay to kill fetuses that have a heart and a soul – because an ‘advisory committee’ decided that it is okay to murder fetuses?” he told a magazine published by the Ma’ayanei Hayeshua movement.

“In Egypt there was also an advisory committee that decided that is permissible to bathe in the blood of Jewish babies.”

Just the kind of reasoned debate we've come to expect from the Barbie-smashing rabbi.

El Al airlines finally reached an agreement with the Chief Rabbinate- it will agree to keep the Sabbath, and can only break it if it gets the ok from rabbi Amar (that is, assuming he isn't busy beating up more of his daughter's boyfriends). Haaretz writes:

If the rabbi is not convinced there is an emergency situation that justifies the violation of Shabbat, and the airline chooses to proceed with the flights, this action will be perceived as a violation of the agreement.

Now, yes, this might sound like medieval blackmail, but at least the rabbis didn't get everything they wanted:

However, El Al said some of the rabbinical committee's main demands were not accepted. Among them were the demand for a veto-wielding rabbi who would rule on company decisions, as well as specifying sanctions against the airline in case the agreement was violated.

Criticism was voiced regarding some of the ultra-Orthodox interlocutors, and El Al said the crisis could have been resolved three weeks ago.

MK Avraham Ravitz (UTJ) concurred, saying the negotiations involved persons who were not familiar with the "nature of negotiations."

Other demands rejected: Shatnez-tested carpeting, leather cushions removable for Yom Kippur, Glatt-kosher bottled water, burka tznius-attired flight attendants, electrified mechitza separating men and women (and the first class from those slobs in coach).

The airline has, however, promised to look into getting local artists to paint fun reflective artwork on the windows to simulate Ezekiel's LSD chariot experience (point for the Breslovers!).

What else, what else- oh, some Shas MKs discussed magic and charms in their political philosophy. Money shot:

Rabbi Isaac Batzri, whose father, Rabbi David Batzri, is a world-renowned Kabbalist, couldn't have agreed more with Idel's recommendation for the second Lebanon war. In fact, he told the panel that Defense Minister Amir Peretz met with him and his father recently to discuss IDF operations.

"Actually we told him that the dates he chose for the operation had been completely unsuitable for the war, so it was not surprising how we fared," said Batzri. "If [Peretz] had met with us before the war, we could have told him that in the Jewish faith there are days for everything."

Oy, oy, oy.

And lastly, some have accused me of only going after Haredi faults. This is not true. I go after jackasses, and a lack of posting about any one group usually suggests either ignorance or a lack of time on my part, not any real agenda. To try to amend this perception, I offer this: Kadima sucks; more corrupt than Likud. You know, I really hate haredi corruption, but at least it's going towards feeding, clothing and (arguably) educating their millions of kids. I don't see any UTJ MKs flashing any "bling" around (though I suppose they could be hiding some precious jewels or platinum hairpieces under those yarmulkes). What is Tzahi Hanegbi spending his ill-gotten gains on?

Bring on the rhetoric

Turned on O'Reilly this evening and got to see splotchy and a few guests rant on about how pornography is a slippery slope leading to rape and serial killing- money quote- "Then they become serial killers and rapists, and THEN turn to harder things." Harder things like what, moron? I think serial killer is about as "hard' as it gets, don't you?

So I turn on to Olbermann- just in time to see Arianne Huffington call Joseph Leiberman mentally ill (and then compared him to cancer).

Wow, nothing like reasonable discourse like this to make you long for the day when Zell Miller would challenge people to duels (more duels, less idiots around).

Jacket's Island

Tracing your family tree is fun. I remember back in 2001 when Ellis Island first came online, and the many fun hours of sitting up at 2 in the morning on the West coast, hoping in vain that the schmucks in New York hadn't woken up yet and those damn servers would finally let me in. In the years since I've probably found well over 50 relatives, and it's always a learning experience- like finding out that the reason I couldn't find g.g.aunt Yetta ("Yache") was that some moron in Southampton had written her name as "Jacket" (damn anti-semitic shipping clerks).

Anyway, I was trying to figure out what else I could do to justify my $30-monthly Ancestry.com subscription, and I discovered that Ancestry lets you look up pictures of the ships your relatives came in on (and save them to your hard drive along with the manifests, thereby giving a giant finger to the Ellis Island foundation, which makes you pay but whose website is free). Take that, Ellis Island! The ghosts of my illiterate, smallpox-ridden ancestors are finally taking revenge, and they're doing it in Yiddish. That'll teach you to detain all single women under suspicion of being prostitutes. (Poor Jacket.)

So I looked up the ship that my g.g.uncle Lev used to go from Liverpool to New York. And this is what they came up with.


Wow, and that was first class. It's times like this you really appreciate all those sacrifices and stuff. Thanks for coming to the grand-ol' melting pot, 16 great-grandparents. Without you, there'd be no me, and that would really affect my posting schedule.

The Best of WND headlines

WND's front page was quite a riot today. See, apparently there's this crap called global warming, but WND doesn't believe in it, so they're putting it all in quotes, like "Easter Bunny". Only one problem... well, just take a look. And keep scrolling down.


That's right. When facts get in the way, just blame it on the rapture. Brilliant.


Moving along to BizNetDaily, we get to see some more interesting headlines- like, did you know that apparently oil isn't actually made from Dinosaurs? Oh yeah, and you know you can trust them. After all, just look at the other stuff they're offering.


Yeah. Thanks anyway, Joe.

If I was a Conservative, this would piss me off

I saw Sean Hannity’s new show, “Egotistical Jackass” last night. The highlight was him declaring Sean Penn an “Enemy of the State” for making anti-American statements. Really? Sean Penn? Isn’t that so, like, 2003? At least Cindy Sheehan or Keith Ellison would be somebody current. Come on, Sean, your first show and you’re beating up on Senn Penn? Who’s next, Rosie O’Donnell? Rob Schneider?

Sean must be taking yoga or something, because after Enemy of the State’s ying came its ever so-moronic yang, a "Great American". Now, I was actually curious about who Hannity would pick for this one- would it be a Bush administration crony? A Republican politician? An injured serviceman? A Fox News employee? Or maybe Sean Hannity, for his courageous decision to launch a new show in the face of the overwhelming liberal bias of the media? Hell, let’s just give Sean a Pulitzer for breathing.

No. It was a mother from middle-America who cares so much about the troops that she sends them… are you ready? Cookies.

That’s right, baked goods. The American hero is a wannabe Betty Crocker.

See, this is the kind of crap you get when you’re convinced that criticism equals negativity, equals hostility to America, its causes or its people. It forces you to look for bullshit like this because your programming or philosophical perspective only allows you to like “good” news or positive people.

You know who’s much more heroic than the cookie mom? Mothers sending their kids body armor. Yeah, it’s a sweet story, but it’s total pabulum; absolute inconsequential rot. It’s not even good enough to be ironic like when we gave Kissinger a Peace Prize. This Mom made DESSERT, and that makes her a Great American? In what alternate universe? What does she get if she makes pie, or, be still my beating heart, a three-course dinner? Somebody get me a Congressional Medal of Honor.

This kind of mentality restricts debate and limits who’s legitimate for each side to talk to and hear out, and it’s utterly self-defeating, and particularly MORONIC when done by people who’s job is ostensibly to INFORM people. When you decide it’s not cool to listen to people being “negative” you wind up ignoring real problems (like no body armor) and being forced to hide your head in the sand (the war’s going great). If I hear one more jackass on Fox whine that the media isn’t reporting the “good stories” from Iraq and Afghanistan, I’m going to shoot someone. It doesn’t matter how many schools your built if people are getting blown up crossing the street, ok?

I disagree with the conservative ideology, but I respect that it can be a legitimate point of view. What’s illegitimate is censoring information because it doesn’t conform with your ideology. Good news from Iraq? Great. Let’s talk about it. Bad news? Let’s talk about that too. But only allowing yourself to talk about nice topics leads to praising chocolate chip cookies like they’re going to bring world peace. Unless those cookies can stop machine gun rounds, Sean Hannity has no business talking about this shit, and should be embarrassed to be peddling this kind of patronizing crap to his audience, who, if they weren’t already brain-dead from watching his regular show and listening to him on the radio, would be so offended they would boycott him faster than French champagne.

Tonight on Sean's other show we got to go over the Ellison crap… again. Mercifully, Hannity kept his mouth shut during the segment- probably because they only gave it about two minutes worth of airtime (maybe the Malibu fire cut in).

Jay Sekulow, angry Christian attorney (a Jewish convert to Christianity, Sekulow brings Jewish tenaciousness and general pissed-offed-ness and offers them to the Christian right. What a combo. Sekulow consistenly manages to sound outraged as only a Jewish lawyer appearing on national Television and with his own daily radio show can. )- "We live in a country with a history of ceremonial deism, which is part of our Judeo-Christian tradition. Once you get out of our tradition, you get into a slippery slope. Better he should use nothing. That’s why we start the Supreme Court proceedings with, “God Bless America and this honorable court”. If you’re going to go outside of the American tradition, don’t use anything at all.”

Sekulow, of course, is forgetting that it is perfectly constitutional to use a banana for the MOCK ceremony. Hannity and Sekulow are acting like Ellison is setting up a muezzin on the House Floor.

Sekulow concluded by saying elected officials need to respect people’s religious traditions and sensibilities- and that the whole Judeo-Christian thing represents a “national consensus”. The only problem with all this, of course, is that it’s much ado about nothing. There’s no law that keeps Ellison from doing what he did, and the fact is, there’s no practical or physical consequence to it, either. Furthermore, the so-called consensus Sekulow referenced is, as noted before when fisking Dennis Prager, largely superficial and illusory. Not only is the Judeo-Christian stuff a historical fiction, it also demands a tacit acceptance and adherence (or at least no objection) to the most vocal and extreme elements of Christianity. Essentially the loudest Christians get to set the terms, and everyone else is commanded to follow suit so as to not violate the consensus. Considering that the country is becoming more diffuse about matters such as the nature of God, the so-called consensus is starting to look like it exists in few places outside of people like Sekulow's brains.

The culture war is alive and well, and manifesting itself in the most idiotic things people can think of.

"What a country!"

Disgusting

That's the second or third time I've heard a yutz on FNC make a snide dig at Katrina victims while talking about the ongoing Colorado blizzard. This morning Doocy, who keeps using his Kansas corn-field-farm-cred to talk crap, was in rare form.

"You know, it's interesting- growing up on a farm, people just help each other out. It's just something you do. And nobody in Colorado is whining about needing to be evacuated, or asking for help for FEMA or for government checks- they're just banding together and getting the job done."

Yeah, maybe that's because you don't drown in a blizzard, asshole. Maybe that's because people's houses are being covered in snow, not washed away. And ranchers ARE getting government assistance to help save their cattle, and the National Guard, Civil Air Patrol, and Colorado Division of Emergency Management are all going around helping people. Was there a secession I didn't hear about? And Colorado lawmakers are begging the government to declare it a Disaster Area! Rugged individualism my ass

Let's look at destruction. Worst comes to worst, the blizzard is going to be a kick in the economic pants because people's houses are damaged and their cows have died- but Denver isn't going to need to be rebuilt. This is NOTHING compared to Katrina, which people have estimated to have caused 84 billion dollars in damages (and that's not even getting into what's being spent and will continue to go into actually rebuilding New Orleans and other areas). A 1997 blizzard in CO killed 30,000 head of cattle at a cost of 28 million dollars. Even if every cow in Colorado (300,000) up and dies in the next week, that's still only 280 million. That's dirt-cheap compared to Katrina.

Or we can talk population displacement. It's estimated that up to 1 million people were displaced from their homes during Katrina. New Orleans' population was around 400,000 before Katrina (Aug 2005). Over a year later (Nov 2006), it was still only about half of that- and that's including God knows how many new workers, laborers, rebuilding contractors, etc. I haven't been able to get any stats on who's been evacuated from their homes in Colorado, but somehow I doubt it's anywhere close to 200,000. Just a hunch. Unless, of course, you count all those poor people stranded in the warm, powered, and above water-level airport.

Another point- loss of life. Katrina killed almost 1900 people, that we know of. The present death-count of the Colorado blizzard, counting the earlier storms around Christmas (grand total of three) is about twenty-five, ten of those being from traffic accidents.

Screw off, Doocy. Katrina was and continues to be an absolute disaster and a star example of government incompetence on the highest levels. Comparing it to the crap going on in Colorado so you can get a shot in at poor blacks while highlighting the noble "heartland" ranchers is obscene.

A Google search suggests Doocy's tirade might be motivated by a recycled email (originally about N. Dakota) that's been circulating the net for over a year but has made a comeback in the past few weeks.

Here are a few places where the email's popped up:

Fisking of a schmuck

Yutzes

Putzes

And Dipshits, oh my.

Doocy isn't just a moron, he's also intellectually lazy. Congrats Fox.

Fox & Friends leave their brains at home

Steve Doocy and the asshat judge from Fox & Friends & random blond bimbo number five were bitching about the Democrats and decided to mention for the umpteenth time that Robert Byrd is, well... Robert Godamn Byrd. And rather than talk about anything the guy's done in the past, say, forty years, they go back to the Klan thing when he was 24. "This guy is three heartbeats away from the Presidency. If Bush goes, then it's just Cheney and Pelosi and then..."

And then what, idiot? Then all the Jews get shipped to camps and Byrd lynches Ellison on the House floor? And you have the audacity to compare this to Trent Lott's "joke" four years ago? "Yeah, they made him resign." Hmm, maybe because he just said it in 2003, as opposed to being a racist moron in the 1940s- which Byrd has apologized for, repeatedly. Don't get me wrong, you can still criticize him, but let's see some parity- what did Bush spend his 20s and 30s doing?

And frankly, if we're going to fret about whose psycho agenda is more likely to get us all screwed, I'm worried about Dubya's personal communications with the Lord a hell of a lot more than Robert Byrd's possible repressed memories of joyful cross burnings of decades past. But that's just me.

Then lady Bimbo forgets what side her bread's buttered on and decides to strike a blow for feminism- "why is it that we're talking about what Pelosi's wearing? We would never be having this discussion about Dennis Hastert."

Doocy- "Thank God! Am I right!"

Bimbo- "Seriously, though. What's with this double-standard?"

Doocy- "What are you talking about? I'm just saying, she looks nice. She wore those really pearls and this... look, it isn't red, or blue, it's a plum power-suit. Doesn't that look great?"

Judge- "And she had it custom-made, no less. Look, Bimbo, I think it's reasonable that Americans expect women to put more effort into their appearance, and we notice that."

Doocy- "Yeah, and it could be worse- we could be talking about Hastert's looks!"

Judge- "Yeah, I mean, are you saying that if Hastert wore a 5000 dollar suit to his swearing-in, we wouldn't be talking about it?"

Bimbo- "Absolutely."

Judge- *scoff* "Well I guess that just tells you something about the difference between men and women."

Doocy- "Something else I bet Pelosi might be annoyed about- the lady's room is all the way at the other end of the building!" *snicker*

Poor girl. I'm sure between commercials they tied her down and beat her with a wooden phallus named Rupert. Respect the patriarchy, girly, or you won't get no air time.

I swear, that man and his other cohost are some of the most infuriating bozos on that channel, and that's saying a lot. I mean, at least O'Reilly has the balls to say the stupid shit he thinks, instead of being a catty bitch about it. "Did you see her pearls? No, no, they look nice."

Between this and Tucker Carlson rambling yesterday on MSNBC about how Pelosi's requisitioning a specially-designed hybrid car, AND that she said she was the most powerful woman in the country... (and going on about John Kerry's recycled Christmas cards) you can tell these guys have absolutely nothing to talk about. On what planet is this news?

I mean, bitching about the woman's necklace? Christ. Isn't there some news happening somewhere? Please?

Oh right. World still fucked. But that would violate Fox's "good news only policy", except when referring to Dems. And it's not like we can expect Fox to really do any research. Don't worry guys, maybe another famous American will die soon and you'll be able to take another week off from reading anything (ow, ice-cream headache!)

More Iraq Pessimism

A few articles sharing my skepticism that the end of Saddam means the end of conflict in Iraq. Mark Bowden of general bad-ass reporter fame writes in the Wall Street Journal that the problems in Iraq are the same as that of much of the world- the fact is, as nice as individual people may be, on a political level, there are a lot of places that are still pretty damned screwed up.

We Americans consistently underestimate the deep hatreds that divide people. Our political system is designed to wrestle peacefully with the divisions of race, class, ethnicity, religion and competing ideological or geographical interests, and has generally worked as intended--the Civil War being the one glaring exception. Generations have struggled to live up to ideals of tolerance and diversity. When we look out at the world, we tend to see millions longing to get past the blood feuds, to be, in short, more like us. George Bush and the neocon intellectuals who led us into Iraq are just the latest in a long line of evangelical Americanists. No matter how many times history slaps us in the face, the dream persists.

Nine years ago, in the epilogue to "Black Hawk Down," I quoted ... Michael Sheehan, ambassador for counter-terrorism as follows: "The idea used to be that terrible countries were terrible because good, decent, innocent people were being oppressed by evil, thuggish leaders. Somalia changed that. Here you have a country where just about everybody is caught up in the fighting. You stop an old lady on the street and ask her if she wants peace, and she will say, 'Yes, of course, I pray for it daily.' All the things you would expect her to say. Then ask her if she would be willing for her clan to share power with another to have that peace, and she'll say, 'With those murderers and thieves? I'd die first.' People in these countries . . . don't want peace. They want victory. They want power. Men, women, old, and young. Somalia was the experience that taught us that people in these places bear much of the responsibility for things being the way they are. The hatred and killing continues because they want it to. Or because they don't want peace enough to stop it."

... there is a principle here struggling to emerge: Before a state can exist where there are deep-rooted, competing interests, there must be some broadly accepted concept of a nation strong enough to at least compete with parochial interests. There must be some generally accepted idea of a nation.

Conservative pundit Dean Barnett agrees despite himself. Half-heartedly exaggerating the initial victory of the war, even Barnett concurs that sprinkling democracy into the Arab and Muslim world and expecting everything to work out is more than a little naive.

THE HOPE WHEN WE INVADED was that we’d be greeted with garlands of roses. To some extent, metaphorically speaking anyway, this worked out. The vast majority of Iraqis were in fact happy that we toppled Saddam. Other than Baathist dead-enders and several million suddenly skittish Sunnis, the country rejoiced.

The reason that those Sunnis were skittish, though, should have given us some pause. The problem with the “garlands of roses” metaphor was that it implied that once Saddam was gone, the Iraqi body politic would be a proverbial piece of clay for America’s State Department wizards to shape and mold. Oh sure, the nascent Iraqi democracy would probably have screwy things like Kafiyehs and a constitutional clause dedicated to annihilating Israel, but the administration’s plans banked on the hope that the Iraqi people, above all else, would want to live in peace.

And that’s where the program parted with reality. The Islamic world hasn’t really excelled at living in peace over the past several decades. More specifically, Shiites and Sunnis have never been great in the peaceful coexistence department. Given the bad feelings that Iraq’s Shiites had after a few decades of abuse at the hands of Saddam’s Sunni henchmen, Iraq was a particularly problematic spot from which to launch what would have to be a historically harmonious Shiite/Sunni joint venture.

Angry Shiites can be a handful. One glance at Iran tells you all you need to know in that regard. For its part, Iraq’s Sunni population is no day at the beach and has more than its share of rabid elements. Bolstered by Al Qaeda fighters, the Sunni dead-enders soon became more problematic than ever.

WAS THIS ALL FORESEEABLE? Perhaps. I’d even say probably. It should have been obvious given even a cursory glance at Iraq and its neighbors that there would be a great number of people who, after Saddam fell, would have little interest in living in a peaceful, tolerant society.

None of this is to say that both the Sunni and Shiite communities aren’t full of good and wonderful people. But any serious appraisal of the situation has to take into account certain indisputable facts from the region: If Egypt had free elections, the Muslim Brotherhood would win. If Saudi Arabia had free elections, a Wahabist sect sympathetic to Osama bin Laden would win. A similar statement can be made of every country in the Middle East. (Except Israel, of course, where free elections are in fact held and Radical Islamic parties usually do quite poorly.)

SO WHY SHOULD IRAQ BE DIFFERENT? Perhaps a more pressing concern today is whether in fact Iraq is different. Things like the Saddam execution suggest the answer to the latter question is no. There is a deep undercurrent of savagery in the Iraqi culture that will not just inhibit the growth of a peaceful democracy there, but probably prohibit it.

Barnett concludes that the only answer is to fight even harder, and kill whoever needs killing.

How much killing will this take? That will depend on how many enemies of peace there are and how determined they are to live in a state of war. One thing's for certain - the more resolute we are, the less killing there will be.

Some might argue that we can’t get this done. But let us remember, the remnants of Imperial Japan came to embrace peaceful democracy. Eventually.

Sigh. Yeah Dean, all we need is a few good nukes and everything will be hunky-dory. Even Charles Krauthammer knows Iraq isn't sustainable- not the least because the Shiites' goals are to kill Sunnis, not join with them (and vice-versa). The only people with the slightest interest in NOT killing each other are the Kurds (and Turkey's planning to kick the crap out of them should they ever get their own country).

Krauthammer writes:

[Saddam's execution] was done on the first day of Eid al-Adha as celebrated by Sunnis. The Shiite Eid began the next day, which tells you in whose name the execution was performed.

It was also carried out extra-constitutionally. The constitution requires a death sentence to have the signature of the president and two vice presidents, each representing one of the three major ethnic groups in the country (Sunni, Shiite and Kurd). That provision is meant to prevent sectarian killings. The president did not sign. Nouri al-Maliki contrived some work-around.

True, Hussein's hanging was just and, in principle, nonsectarian. But the next hanging might not be. Breaking precedent completely undermines the death penalty provision, opening the way to future revenge and otherwise lawless hangings.

Moreover, Maliki's rush to execute short-circuited the judicial process that was at the time considering Hussein's crimes against the Kurds. He was hanged for the killing of 148 men and boys in the Shiite village of Dujail. This was a perfectly good starting point -- a specific incident as a prelude to an inquiry into the larger canvas of his crimes. The trial for his genocidal campaign against the Kurds was just beginning.

That larger canvas will never be painted. The starting point became the endpoint. The only charge for which Hussein was executed was that 1982 killing of Shiites -- interestingly, his response to a failed assassination attempt by Maliki's Dawa Party.

...The whole sorry affair illustrates not just incompetence but also the ingrained intolerance and sectarianism of the Maliki government. It stands for Shiite unity and Shiite dominance above all else.We should not be surging American troops in defense of such a government. This governing coalition -- Maliki's Dawa, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim's Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and Sadr's Mahdi Army -- seems intent on crushing the Sunnis at all costs.

So what's right? Do we betray our Iraqi allies and let them be killed? Or do we keep throwing ourselves on the grenade to try to slow down- forget even cleaning up- the mistake we made? At this point, it's starting to look like less and less Iraqis are interested in being Iraqi first and Sunni/Shiite/Kurd second. At what point does this overwhelm our goodwill? Should it?

Amazing moments in stupidity

Ann Coulter claims Democrats "invented Watergate".

And Dennis Prager, forced to deal with the fact that Keith Ellison has yet to suicide-bomb the Capital dome, is now taking credit (ok, the guy who runs his blog) for the use of the Jefferson Koran- because that's some sort of victory for your lame point, right Dennis? Do you even bother to keep track of your arguments? Or is it more like Pat Robertson's selective memory when it comes to unfulfilled prophecy?


Prager's peon writes:

(Do you think Representative Ellison would have bothered getting ahold of Jefferson's Koran without Dennis drawing attention to this issue?)

He says this as if it matters, or that Dennis has somehow accomplished something. "Well, at least I forced you to use a famous slave-owner's book. In your face!"

Mormons, Posthumous baptism, and why it matters

The post (and comments) that inspired this one.

Once again, to get it on the table, I'm an avowed agnostic- the only thing I know about God is that I can't know much about him, and as a corollary, neither can you. Got that?

Now, usually, I'm a pretty big live-and-let-live guy when it comes to religious stuff. Privacy of your own home or church, fine. But the LDS church's policy of baptizing (and re-baptizing) dead people really grates on me.

Why? There's a few reasons. First of all, I think it's disrespectful. I think all proselytizing is disrespectful, but doing it after the person's dead seems even worse- and the idea of someone "standing in" for my dead great-grandparents as they were dunked (yes, the Mormons got 'em) makes me feel kind of ill.

Some people counter that, on a theological level, it shouldn't matter- the Mormons think they're helping, and unless you think that the baptism really does anything, there's nothing to object over. I think this is skewing the issue. It's disrespectful to the dead, but specifically from the perspective of the living- which is how all this crap works, anyway. From a secular perspective, nothing that happens to us after death really "affects" us; we're gone. The people it does affect are those who love us and see abuses against our bodies or spirits or wishes or memories as offensive. (I say this watching morons on Fox News give Lawrence Eagleburger an open forum to bitch out the NYT and others for ripping on Ford on the day of his funeral. Guess what guys? Ford doesn't care! Not only that, Ford didn't care about all the nice things you said about him the day before. Cause he's gone.)

As a comparison, let's take peeing on a grave. No, seriously. What harm is being caused? Objectively, you can't even say that the stone or ground is being damaged (ok, fine, maybe you kill some plants, but that's really hair-splitting). The issue with pissing on someone's grave is that it's interpreted as being incredibly disrespectful- and if anyone who cared about that person saw you do it, they'd probably break your jaw.

For people who see THIS as offensive, I would argue that this is an analogous situation. Saying, "they're dead, what do they care" is beyond the point. Living people DO CARE. Some have called it "raping the soul" of the departed, which I think is both a little too strong and, again, allows for an easy deflection because it puts the onus on the dead, who can't talk. But at least that gives you an idea of the emotions involved.

Now, that doesn't mean the Mormons should be prevented from practicing their religion- legally, they aren't doing anything wrong. However, I find it very upsetting that the LDS Church's position has been to basically ignore the complaints made by various groups, including Jews, Catholics and Armenian Orthodox Christians. Even worse are the many obfuscations and lame excuses the Church has attempted to make as a defense. Saying things like, "We can't control what our members do", and rejecting any suggestions offered for ways in which the baptism of certain groups, particularly Jews, could be avoided. The posthumous baptism system is deeply flawed- among other things, there does not seem to be any control over who gets baptized or re-baptized. This seems particularly odd given the supposedly utilitarian theology behind the baptisms- to OFFER the departed the OPTION of becoming Mormon "beyond the grave". Instead, a brief perusal of the LDS' baptism rolls shows that famous personalities, particularly Americans, have been baptized dozens of times. Washington, Franklin, Madison, and Thomas Paine have over sixty records between them. At what point does this cease being a religious service and simply become a farce, an attempt to "one-up" people or somehow gain cosmological brownie points?

As far as the Jewish issue specifically, Jewish groups, particularly those representing Holocaust victims and survivors, have been very vocal about their issues with the LDS' baptisms. Pick a famous Jew and the Mormons have baptized them, possibly several times. Rashi, Rambam, the Maharal, the Brisker, several of the Gerer rebbes, the Sanzer rebbe, Samuel Bronfman, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Sholem Aleichem, Chaim Weizmann... And let's not forget Jews that specifically fought, suffered, or die because of their Jewishness; men like Alfred Dreyfus or Mordechai Anielewicz.

Entire extended families have also been baptized, which is particularly interesting given the Church's new strategy of selectively removing Jews from the rolls, per the requests of Jewish organizations (who have requested as many as possible be removed). The Church has done this but only in a few cases; Einstein and Freud are gone but their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents are all there. Ditto for Menachem Begin's family. Like the fact that more Jewish names keep popping up in the rolls year after year, this selective removal indicates that the Church really couldn't care less about the Jews' or any other offended group's issues- but that won't stop them from lying to them repeatedly if it will shut them up.

Personally, I think that men like Mr. Mokotoff are mistaken when they say that the Church should remove Jews' names from the rolls. I think it would be preferable instead to leave them there, so everyone can know what the Mormon church has and continues to do. I have found family in the IGI and I want them to stay there so that years from now the Mormons will not be able to claim they were never baptized. I want the evidence to stay put and would strongly urge Jewish leaders to instead fight to get the Mormons to standardize their system, to further computerize their records and thus improve efficiency (don't need to baptize Washington anymore!), which would also enable them, over time, to greatly increase their "do not baptize" list, as well as educate their members on tell-tale signs that the person they're about to baptize was probably Jewish.

If they can't or won't stop the process, at least they can improve it. Or they could tell us to shove it. Anything would be better than the present mealy-mouthed crap.

More links:

1995
2005
2006 and another

Yes, there are tons of more important issues in the world- but if the news is allowed to spin its wheels for a week and a half on Donald Trump, I think this is at least worth a discussion.

Fun with the Yids

Interesting times while visiting with my family yesterday. My parents, Abbot (Abba) Yid and Mother Superior (Mama) Yid, had an altercation while I was out. They were speaking with their contractor, who's redoing their kitchen. Apparently on one of the last days of the construction, while the contractor was looking things over, Mama Yid decided to try and haggle. Abbot was so embarrassed he had to leave the room, and made the major mistake of calling her a "schnorer". (Gasp)

Abba has been in the doghouse for a day and a half now. The best moment of this, though, was last night when Mama came into the living room while my brother Deacon and I were hanging out.

"Do you have your Yiddish-English dictionary lying around?"

Blank state. "Um, ok. I don't know if I have it. What do you need it for?"

"None of your business."

Hmm. Go look among my books in my old room. (I have several copies of these things.) Come back out. "Actually, it's not here. If you tell me the word I could probably tell you what it means, though."

Angry stare. "I don't want to talk to you about it."

*I realize I'm an idiot* Ohhhh.

*Scurry aside to let the warpath continue*

Poor Abba. He'd run away if he could, but he's just had foot surgery, so she's got a captive audience.

But it is kind of funny that Mama Yid doesn't know enough Yiddish to be sure this word is as pejorative as she thinks it is.

Timing

A few nights ago O'Reilly was rambling about Saddam and suggested that the proximity of Saddam and Ford's deaths were intended as divine object lessons. After commenting that he "believed in God" (instead of chance, I guess?), O'Reilly commented, " No accident that Ford (good) and Hussein (evil) died within days of each other." Then he used the opportunity to wank off on how Americans keep blurring the lines between good and evil, especially in the case of Bush. Nixon flunky Ben Stein chimed in saying the liberal media had "crucified" Ford back in his day.

So let's see, Ford and Saddam died within four days of each other, so it must be a sign? That's pretty impressive, Bill, but what about all the other people who died in December, or even these first few days of January? Aren't their deaths worthy of at least some bizarre pseudo-scrutiny? You've got the Malaysian Snake King, CNET's James Kim, the first guy to break Pearl Harbor to the world, the founder of Atlantic Records, the makeup artist on Forrest Gump, a supposedly big-wig Taliban guy. Plus James Brown, the Dad from Everybody Loves Raymond, the Pabst brewmaster, AND the former Governor of Tokyo (and comedian), who probably had the funniest case of myelodysplastic syndrome you ever did see.

And let's not forget the fogeys. Once again, the oldest woman in the world has died (noooo!). Even worse, the oldest man in the U.S. (second-oldest in the world) died too. Now the titles have gone to a Canadian and a Puerto Rican. We're not even in the running anymore! How the hell can there be a contest where Americans don't win? How does your "God" explain that, Bill?

Oh, and they were both black. So I guess the real question is, why does God hate black people?

Hey, this talking out of your ass stuff is kinda fun.

Ah, Poland.

Polish lawmakers are trying to make Jesus the honorary King of Poland. Interestingly enough, the Church opposes it (too commercial). I guess we shouldn't be too surprised, though; after all, the Black Madonna's been the Queen since 1656. Of course this does pose some interesting questions regarding the incestuous politics of symbolic icon royalty. I guess Mary will have to be the "Queen Mother" from now on.

The Book of Pat

More from everybody's favorite would-be prophet, Pat Robertson.

Robertson Predicts 'Mass Killing'

Best part:

In 2005, Robertson predicted that Bush would have victory after victory in his second term. He said Social Security reform proposals would be approved and Bush would nominate conservative judges to federal courts.

Lawmakers confirmed Bush's 2005 nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. But the president's Social Security initiative was stalled.

"I have a relatively good track record," he said. "Sometimes I miss."

In May, Robertson said God told him that storms and possibly a tsunami were to crash into America's coastline in 2006. Even though the U.S. was not hit with a tsunami, Robertson on Tuesday cited last spring's heavy rains and flooding in New England as partly fulfilling the prediction.

In your dreams, Patty. Swing and a few dozen misses. And what happened to all that millennium bullcrap? Maybe someone will hit you with a pitch. Ah well, we can pray, anyway.

Edit: Hey, I found another old prophecy of Pat's-

JUNE 24, 1998-

On the June 8 edition of his "700 Club" show (released to the media by Americans United for Separation of Church and State), Robertson denounced Orlando and Disney World for welcoming gay tourists to the theme park during a privately sponsored "Gay Days" weekend. Robertson predicted dire consequences.

Noting that the city government allowed the display of rainbow flags on light poles, the TV preacher warned that acceptance of homosexuality could result in hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, terrorist bombs and "possibly a meteor."

Man, remember way back in 1998, before that meteor hit Florida? It was a happier time, a simpler time. And way to cover your ass there- a natural disaster hitting Florida, of all places? Clearly God at work.

Sheesh. Pat, take your meds. Or maybe clean out your ears.

What it takes to win

Sultan Knish has another thought-provoking post on the philosophy of war, essentially making the point that when a person or group is at risk, it is appropriate to put survival and victory ahead of the moral high ground. As is often the case with SK, I don't disagree with the general point, but things become sticky when we get to the details. I suppose I have a couple of issues. The first is where to draw the line- can anything be done in the name of victory, no matter how bloody or appalling (torture comes to mind- we're doing "aggressive interrogation" now, can we go further)? What about necessity or lack thereof? Is it ok to be bastards for the hell of it? After all, I'm sure that a psychological function would be served by making our enemies think we rejoice at their deaths and drink their blood. What about the attempt to at least get our intelligence right on the people we go after (so we don't torture people that actually don't know anything?) What are our responsibilities? To our enemies, to ourselves, to future Americans, etc.? Obviously, if we don't work to defend ourselves, our children will be at risk. But I really do believe that there has to be some acknowledgment of a middle ground and of a red line, or we risk making American society, and particularly government, significantly worse. This isn't just some idealistic desire to keep Americans' hands clean, but also an attempt to explore exactly what American values we are fighting for.

The second problem is with rhetoric. I would be significantly less troubled by American interventionism (or isolationism) and some of the more blatantly self-centered elements of American foreign and domestic policies if we would all get over ourselves and the self-serving lies that we really care about the rest of the world, or even each other. At least if we were honest about what our goals really were- regardless of party- we could have real conversations about what our realistic options are, the validity of our goals, and the best way to implement them. Instead everybody obfuscates. We didn't invade Iraq because we cared about the Iraqis. It just wasn't part of the calculus. Now people are back-flipping in an attempt to deal with the lack of WMDs and are trying to use the "liberating conqueror" myth- we freed the Iraqis, they really like us, those that don't are jerks, oh, and Americans who opposed, or oppose, the war, hate Iraqis and Iraq. Or take your pick of any similarly moronic argument by the left. It's all bullshit, and it's extremely frustrating- furthermore, I would argue that it does a major disservice to the American people, particularly young people, again, regardless of party. Idealism is a great thing. Political fiction, not so much. And you know what happens to most idealistic young people when they realize they've been snowed? They become disillusioned, apathetic, and stay home.

I wouldn't vote for a candidate with Sultan Knish's positions, but I sure as hell would respect him for cutting the crap. And then I'd bitch about him here.

No, jackasses!

CNN says the Dems are already trying to use House rules to screw Republicans from engaging in discussions or offering alternatives. They say it's only so they can pass the most important parts of their agenda and pay off their campaign promises. Problem is, even if I agree with the policies (I think just about everybody is in favor of ethics reform, though whether it will actually do anything is the real question), the methods stink. What about the promise to be bipartisan, and, you know, not giant dicks like the Republicans were?

I and many other liberal bloggers said we would call the Dems on their bullshit if it reared its head. It looks like we're going to have plenty of things to talk about for the next two years. Now we get to see if lefty bloggers have more integrity than the people they voted for.

Edit: On the other hand...

Democratic leaders said they are not going to allow Republican input into the ethics package and other early legislation because several of the bills already have been debated and dissected, including the proposal to raise the minimum wage, which passed the House Appropriations Committee in the 109th Congress, said Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Pelosi.

For clues about how the Democrats will operate, the spotlight is on the House, where the new 16-seat majority will hold absolute power over the way the chamber operates. Most of the early legislative action is expected to stem from the House.

``It's in the nature of the House of Representatives for the majority party to be dominant and control the agenda and limit as much as possible the influence of the minority,'' said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University. ``It's almost counter to the essence of the place for the majority and minority to share responsibility for legislation.'

Am I overreacting? Maybe. Maybe I'd just like to see the Dems rise above the GOP's standards a little.

Double-edit: Lou Dobbs says Dems aren't "adding any new solutions; they're putting their domestic agenda... FIRST." Holy shit, Lou, that's totally not at all like, say, stem cells, Gay marriage, or Terry Godamn Schiavo.

Help me out here, Lou, what's an example of a non-domestic agenda? (When it's bullshit that's spread around the country, like "war on the middle class?" Or does it have to be foreign policy or defense, in which case the War on Terror seems to be one of the few things that count, except maybe for your illegal alien rantings.) Better yet, name me some of these mysterious policy issues that the Republican-controlled Congress have been working on as they slave away three months out of the year. Yutz.

Brilliant!

Krum as a Bagel has a great post on another questionable decision made by haredi leaders in Israel. It's even better if you watch this first.

More Judeo-Christian narishkeit

From my homeboy Dennis Prager, attempting once again to cover his ass in the wake of Koran-gate:

If you want to predict on which side an American will line up in the Culture War wracking America, virtually all you have to do is get an answer to this question: Does the person believe in the divinity and authority of the Five Books of Moses, the first five books of the Bible, known as the Torah?

Funny, Dennis, this suspiciously sounds like yet another litmus test.

Dennis is nice enough to throw facts a bone for a change by pointing out that he says the Torah, not whole Bible because, according to a flashcard just handed to him, Jews apparently do not believe in any of that Book of Mark crap. (Not that this, of course, stopped him when he said Jews should swear on it anyway.)

It's an interesting implication- out of all the different flavors of Christianity, the one text they all agree on is the Torah. And guess what?

"Bible-believing" Christians and Jews do believe in the divinity of the Torah.

And they line up together on virtually every major social/moral issue.

Name the issue: same-sex marriage; the morality of medically unnecessary abortions; capital punishment for murder; the willingness to label certain actions, regimes, even people "evil"; skepticism regarding the United Nations and the World Court; strong support for Israel. While there are exceptions -- there are, for example, secular conservatives who share the Bible-believers' social views -- belief in a God-based authority of the Torah is as close to a predictable dividing line as exists.

Dennis conveniently forgets that all religious Jews, Orthodox or not, know damn well that the Torah doesn't always line up with the GOP. Outlawing abortion, for instance. And homosexuality might be condemned, but I don't recall Leviticus saying a damn thing about a marriage amendment. I also don't think the UN is there- unless you're going to try and twist Jeremiah around (a favorite pastime of Protestant doomsday prophets).

As for another issue that isn't in the Torah (and which a lot of Jews and right-wing Christians might disagree on), how about gun control?

That is why one speaks of Judeo-Christian values, but not of Judeo-Christian theology. Torah-believing Jews and Torah-believing Christians have very different theological beliefs, but they agree on almost all values issues -- largely because they share a belief in the divinity of the same text.

Sigh. No Dennis. Believing that a text is divine does not ensure identical interpretation. Just look at how Jews (and different groups of Christians) group the Ten Commandments (or what they do with them). And finding common threads of social and political conservatism cannot necessarily be attributed to the single factor of "believing the Torah is divine"- especially when Jews and Christians don't even agree on what that term means IN THE FIRST PLACE!

Many members of all these different religions have found it quite remarkable how similar their values are to those of members of these other religions. An evangelical Protestant who might regard Mormonism as nothing more than a heretical cult will find himself seated next to Mormons at a rally on behalf of the Boy Scouts. An Orthodox rabbi who might never set foot in a church will join a panel of Christians in opposing the redefining of marriage. And so on.

And, again, that demonstrates that there is more going on here than merely the philosophical/ethical predeterminism you're peddling, Dennis, because I'm sure there are plenty of other Orthodox rabbis who don't care about passing a marriage amendment, maybe even a few defending the gays, much less crap like the Boy Scouts. When was the last time you saw some hasidim fighting for the Scouts, Dennis? Hell, those uniforms aren't even tsniusdik.

Take Shmuley Boteach. He's against gay marriage, but does it without invective. Indeed, Shmuley's articles, much as I disagree with his argument, is one of the best I've read from the "other side", and a position I can actually respect (or at least the closest I can get).

Anything else, Dennis? Oh, he's talking about God now. Yeah, turns out that belief in God really isn't the major factor because people have different interpretations about what that means. Brilliant, Dennis. You clearly earned that degree in comparative theology you got over the internet.

Oh wait, I spoke too soon. God doesn't matter, but the book does. And as we all remember, Dennis has a real mental hard-on for certain books.

What matters is not whether people believe in God but what text, if any, they believe to be divine. Those who believe that He has spoken through a given text will generally think differently from those who believe that no text is divine. Such people will usually get their values from other texts, or more likely from their conscience and heart.

You heard it here first, Dennis Prager thinks consciences are bad. But I thought that we were supposed to be learning to "think from the gut" and stuff!

That a belief or lack of belief in the divinity of a book dating back over 2,500 years is at the center of the Culture War in America and between religious America and secular Europe is almost unbelievable.

He's right, it sounds even more ridiculous when he says it.

Dennis concludes by demonstrating a rare moment of insight- seculars and the religious think that each others' beliefs are dumb. Then, of course, everything has to go back to him and Keith Ellison.

This divide explains why the wrath of the Left has fallen on those of us who lament the exclusion of the Bible at a ceremonial swearing-in of an American congressman. The Left wants to see that book dethroned. And that, in a nutshell, is what the present civil war is about.

The only problem with this argument (well, yet another problem) is that even other religious (and conservative) Jews like Dennis' pal Michael Medved thought his Koran-fatwa was grade-A retarded, and said so several times in print.

Hey, I know, maybe Medved doesn't believe in the Torah! Yeah, and he probably practices witchcraft, too! What's that you say, Goody Yente? You saw him fly over your barn?

Somebody get Dennis a sling, a few bags of rocks, and a flight to Israel- this sounds like a job for the New Sanhedrin TM! (Cue Justice League music.)

Edit: Charlie Hall gives Dennis a good fisking as well.

The Miracle of Prayer! (Maybe?)

Pastor D. James Kennedy of the festively-named Coral Ridge Ministries is recovering following a major heart attack. WND seems to be using the incident as an opportunity to tout the benefits of prayer:

Dr. James Dobson, founder of the Colorado-based Focus on the Family, said:

"It has been my honor and pleasure to know him not only as a broadcasting colleague and a gifted pastor, but also as a dear friend for the past 30 years. He has been one of the nation's most powerful defenders of righteousness, never wavering from the eternal truths of Scripture. His voice is still vitally needed in this country and around the world. We are asking the Lord to restore the health of this good man, and to be with Anne and the rest of the Kennedy family during this challenging time."

...

Coral Ridge Senior Producer Jerry Newcombe, who has co-authored many books with Kennedy, told WND another Presbyterian minister visited Kennedy and read scripture to him – to which he responded strongly.

In fact, on the Reformation 21 website, a blog of the Alliance of Confession Evangelicals, Rev. Richard Phillips posted the following:

I want to thank everyone who is praying for Dr. D. James Kennedy. His condition is improved, though very serious. I spent a good deal of time with him today, praying and reading Scripture. He recognized me and was clearly responsive, although his condition remains very serious. Please pray for continued improvement and a full restoration to health. I was able to assure him of the prayers of many Christians and he was able smile in response.

Yeah, prayer always works. Just look at the Pope- JP II was old, sick and about as functional as Ariel Sharon, then people prayed for him, and now he's a world-famous break-dancing champion. Or, if you're not a fan of the one true Church, we could go with a Protestant example- say, praying for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. Hey, I'm all about the nonviolent protest. Good luck with that one, guys.

Readers might remember good ol' D. James from back in August. I'm betting the D stands for Darwin.

Oh, and if you're looking for a good time with the kids, see if you can catch a repeat of Coral Ridge's latest family-friendly brainwashing experiment:

This Sunday's "Coral Ridge Hour" will feature a special documentary titled "What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?"

Hosted by Kennedy and filmed in Europe, South America, India, and the United States, the program consults scientists, historians, philosophers, and theologians to weigh the impact of Jesus on the last 2,000 years. It shows how the rise of science, mass education, a high regard for human life, hospitals, charity, representative government, and the elevation of women can all be traced to the impact of Christ and his followers in the last two millennia.

"We're going to tell the truth – withheld from most Americans for the last half century – that Christ has been the greatest benefactor to the human race that the world has ever known," said Kennedy.

Hmm. Man makes documentary shoving Jesus in everyone's face. Man has massive heart attack. Could someone up there be trying to make a point? (Probably not, but theodicy is always fun for a laugh.)

Lazer Brody is back with more bones to pick, and this time it's with doctors. Apparently doctors without faith are incapable of practicing medicine properly. As proof, Lazer interviews some mysterious anonymous doctor who just so happens to agree with every Beams talking-point:

LB: From your standpoint, does emuna [faith] play a role in medicine?

Dr. S: It sure does, not only from the patient's angle, but from the doctor's angle. My atheistic colleagues are blind to their own deficiencies. It's literally impossible to cure without the Creator's help.

LB: Are you saying that for my benefit?

Dr. S: You know me better than that. A physician that doesn't recognize that he or she is a mere messenger of The Creator is probably arrogant and ineffective. Even worse, he or she is dangerous.

Funny, I would have argued that it's the person convinced that their decisions are sanctioned by God has the potential to be just as dangerous. What if some religious doc gets it into his head that God wants him to pull an Abraham?

LB: Does that explain the recent scandal in an Israeli hospital where 12 doctors were arrested for experimenting on patients?

Dr. S: That and more. A physician with no emuna believes he has the right to give and take life, especially for the advancement of his own career and/or bank account.

LB: What type of experiments do they perform?

Dr. S: A surgeon may try a totally experimental procedure on a patient with no firm family backing or round-the-clock supervision, such as a neglected old person. If he succeeds, he gets fame, money, and a write-up in a medical journal. If he flops, they bury the patient and nobody cares. That's why you people are problematic.

LB: What do you mean?

Dr. S: Haredi patients are usually surrounded by a bevy of caring children and grandchildren, with representatives of the Haredi community that keep an eye on doctors. Most doctors won't toy around with a patient that benefits from strong family and community support.

Got that? Secular Israelis are Mengeles waiting to happen, and being haredi, preferably with more children than socks, is the only way to protect yourself. Maybe some kollel students can start renting out their kids as bodyguards in hospitals.

LB: So the lonelier a patient is, the more vulnerable he or she is to experiments?

Dr. S: Correct.

But what about all my invisible friends?

LB: What do you have to say about antibiotics?

Dr. S: Use only as a last resort. We don't give the body a chance to repair itself. Many drugs destroy the body's ability to fight disease on its own. Nevertheless, I want to stress that when somebody has a strep throat with 104 F. fever, then you zap them with antibiotics - there's no other choice. But, I don't give antibiotics for the flu (unlike many of my colleagues that give antibiotics for anything), because they do nothing against viruses.

Well at least he isn't pulling a Tom Cruise- yet.

And for the first worst metaphor of the new year:

LB: What's your opinion on Ritalin for kids?

Dr. S: Do you ride horses, rabbi?

LB: Whenever I have the chance...

Dr. S: Then you know that a spirited horse is sometimes hard to break in, but once you do, you have a good mount. Giving a hyperactive child Ritalin is like drugging a horse instead of training it. No, I believe that caring and dedicated teachers don't need Ritalin solutions.

Funny, I have some friends who would drastically disagree with you. Then again, maybe they just need more oats and some new shoes nailed to their feet. Has anyone seen my spurs?

Lazer also has a follow-up with some thought-provoking insight, if you're a horse, or possibly a reincarnated rooster.

Ask yourself one simple question: Does your doctor really care about you? I'll give you the answer - if he or she has emuna - a strong faith in Hashem - then the answer will be yes. A physician with emuna considers himself or herself a messenger of Hashem, and therefore feels tremendous responsibility toward the soul (yours!) that's entrusted in his or her hand. On the other hand, a doctor with no emuna won't have any fear of Hashem or of hurting his fellow man; his or her game is looking out for #1, and #1 doesn't refer to the patient. Comprende?

¡Hola Lazer!

Una pregunta. ¿Qué está equivocado con usted? ¿Es su yarmulke en demasiado apretado? ¿O trata la barba de comer el cerebro? Also, since when does your doctor treat the soul?

Lazer also reprints a letter from a friend advertising a woman who managed to get rid of her own cancer with natural herbs. Maybe next week Lazer will interview this guy. Cracked-out, kinda paranoid, swindling people with bad advice? Sounds just up his alley.

Oh, and Sultan Knish calls for Christians and Jews to cut the crap on the Christmas Wars. Seems reasonable (though I'm still not exactly clear what ''side" you consider yourself on, SK).