Dangerous Logic

Get Over It

Sometimes you have to endure a Carter to get a Reagan.

We survived Jimmah; we'll survive this.

How Long Until He Stops Calling Them The "Near Abroad" And Starts Calling Them "Republics?"

It's pretty well established that Vladimir Putin wants to bring back the Soviet Union; his actions (Medvedev? Who?) in Georgia point pretty strongly to that. In true Soviet style, he's trying to blame the U.S. for the Russian invasion:

MOSCOW: As Russia struggled to rally international support for its military action in Georgia, Vladimir Putin, the country's paramount leader, lashed out at the United States on Thursday, contending that the White House may have orchestrated the conflict to benefit one of the candidates in the American presidential election.

Putin's comments in a television interview, his most extensive to date on Russia's decision to send troops into Georgia earlier this month, sought to present the military operation as a response to brazen, cold war-style provocations by the United States.

. . .

On Thursday, Putin, now prime minister, also said Russian defense officials believed that United States citizens were in the conflict area supporting the Georgian military when it attacked the separatist region of South Ossetia.

"Even during the cold war, during the time of tough confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, we have always avoided direct clashes between our civilians, let alone our servicemen," Putin said. "We have serious reasons to believe that directly, in the combat zone, citizens of the United States were present." [emphasis added]

Putin is lying. Surely he can't have forgotten about KAL 007, where a Soviet fighter pilot shot down a Korean Airlines 747, killing all 269 aboard (including 69 Americans - one of whom was a Congressman).

And let's not forget that Soviet MiG-15 pilots fought beside Chinese and North Korean pilots in the Korean War:

In order to begin to understand the military, political, and diplomatic forces that shaped the Cold War, it is useful to start with what we now know of the Soviet Union’s military participation in the Korean War. Before scholars gained access to previously top secret Soviet-era archives in the early 1990s, they could only guess at the extent of Joseph Stalin’s direct involvement.

. . .

Recent research in the Soviet-era archives in Russia not only verifies the direct involvement of Soviet units, but also provides an inside view of Stalin’s high-level diplomacy and the military deployments that implemented these policies.

Tags: Vladimir Putin KAL 007 Korean War Georgia South Ossetia

At Least She Can Point To Her Record Of Legislative Successes - Oops, Never Mind.

Let me get this straight - not only did the first female Speaker of the House not get a headlining speech at her party's convention...

"Now we have Nancy Pelosi bloviating, and I say that in an affectionate way, behind us," [Bill] O'Reilly said. "It doesn't seem like the crowd is on the edge of their seats."

Fox's viewers weren't allowed to judge for themselves. Same thing for CNN at the time, where Wolf Blitzer was holding court as Pelosi talked. Among the cable news networks, only MSNBC gave Pelosi's speech any real attention.

... the keynote address was given by the candidate's wife.

Now *that's* respect.

Tags: Nancy Pelosi Michelle Obama

Time Of Death: 10:5 - Oh, Wait, He's A Democrat. We'll Let It Slide.

Joe Biden announced today that he was entering the 2008 Presidential race. Today, he also stepped on his dong with track spikes:

Mr. Biden is equally skeptical—albeit in a slightly more backhanded way—about Mr. Obama. “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said.

This SHOULD mark the shortest campaign for President by a major party candidate that I can remember, but since he's a Democrat, he'll probably get away with it.

Ironically, given his prior originality-impairment problem, he is attempting to attribute the remark to someone else: to his mother:

My mother has an expression: 'Clean as a whistle and sharp as a tack.'

Tags: Joe Biden

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

You've probably heard by now about John Kerry's slam on the military. Of course, the Waffler can't get his damage control straight, lashing out at the folks who called him on it:

The Massachusetts Democrat called the White House attack "a classic GOP textbook Republican campaign tactic" that reveals Republicans' "willingness to reduce anything in America to raw politics."

"I'm sick and tired of a bunch of despicable Republicans who will not debate real policy, who won't take responsibility for their own mistakes, standing up and trying to make other people the butt of those mistakes," he said. "It disgusts me that a bunch of these Republican hacks who've never worn the uniform of our country are willing to lie about those who did."

while simultaneously trying the old bully-caught-red-handed-by-the-principal tactic of 'it was all a joke:'

Kerry said the comment in question was "a botched joke about the president and the president's people, not about the troops ... and they know that's what I was talking about."

First of all, there's the old Freudism about there being no such thing as a joke, from which one could infer that Kerry does indeed hold the military in contempt. Second, was he trying to say "pay attention in school, or you'll end up President of the United States?" Sure, that'll be a deterrent. Third, even if he was trying to say "pay attention in school, or you'll end up like Bush," that would just be another Operation Foot-Bullet for him, because Kerry didn't do any better at Yale than Bush did!

John F. Kerry was the candidate often portrayed as intellectual and complex, while George W. Bush was the populist who mangled his sentences.

But newly released records show that Bush and Kerry had a virtually identical grade average at Yale University four decades ago.

In 1999, The New Yorker published a transcript indicating that Bush had received a cumulative score of 77 for his first three years at Yale and a roughly similar average under a non-numerical rating system during his senior year.

Kerry, who graduated two years before Bush, got a cumulative 76 for his four years, according to a transcript that Kerry sent to the Navy when he was applying for officer training school. He received four D's in his freshman year out of 10 courses, but improved his average in later years.

Incidentally, here's one of those "Republican hacks who've never worn the uniform of our country" (from the second link above):

GOP Sen. John McCain, like Kerry a decorated Vietnam veteran and a potential 2008 rival, said while campaigning for Republican candidates in Indiana that "the suggestion that only the least educated Americans would agree to serve in the military and fight in Iraq is an insult to every soldier serving in combat today."

The backlash is so bad that Democrats are diving for cover:

A Democratic congressman told ABC News Tuesday, "I guess Kerry wasn't content blowing 2004, now he wants to blow 2006, too."

and recognizing a Lurch endorsement as the kiss of death:

A Democratic Congressional candidate from Iowa is canceling a campaign event later this week with Senator John Kerry.

Brucy Braley says Kerry's recent comments about the Iraq war were inappropriate.

Braley is running against Republican Mike Whalen in Iowa's First District congressional race. It's a contest considered to be one of the most competitive House races in the country.

Braley's decision to distance himself from Kerry came as a furor grew from comments Kerry made about the Iraq War during a campaign stop in California on Monday.

A Democrat running in "one of the most competitive House races in the country" doesn't want to be associated with his party's candidate from the previous Presidential election. Priceless.

Tags: John Kerry Brucy Braley

What, You Thought He Was Going To Disappear?

Ned Lamont is 'surprised by [the] harshness of attacks' in the wake of his primary victory over Joe Lieberman. MSNBC:

Conn. Senate nominee stunned by partisanship
Lamont says he’s surprised by harshness of attacks from Lieberman, Cheney

WASHINGTON - Democratic Senate nominee Ned Lamont, the anti-war candidate who toppled Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut primary, says he was surprised by Lieberman and Vice President Dick Cheney’s claims that his victory could embolden terrorists.

. . .

After British officials disclosed they had thwarted a terrorist airline bombing plot on Thursday, Lieberman warned that Lamont’s call for a phased-withdrawal of troops from Iraq would be “taken as a tremendous victory” by terrorists.

Cheney on Wednesday had suggested that Lamont’s victory might encourage “the al-Qaida types” who want to “break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task.”

If he's surprised, he ain't paying attention, for two reasons. First, that's the Vice President's response to EVERYBODY who wants a timetable from a withdrawl from Iraq. You may not agree with that argument, but for Lamont to be surprised by it is, well, surprising.

Second, it's not like Lamont's hands are exactly clean on this. He'd like us to forget that a prominent leftist blogger who he didn't know who he met once who directed him in a commercial and followed his campaign with very close access posted a picture of Lieberman in blackface and tried to send it down the memory hole when busted on it.

I'm OK with bare-knuckle politics, but don't do shit like that and act surprised when your opponents respond in kind.

Tags: Ned Lamont Jane Hamsher

Code Monkey No Like War Protesters

So you're a modern-day Northern Irish socialist, lazing around the commune, when you hear that the Zionists have invaded Lebanon and are driving back the heroic Hezbollah charity who wants nothing more than to be left in peace so they can distribute rockets food to the Israelis poor people of Lebanon.

This is absolutely the last straw; now you've just GOT to stick it to The Man. Remembering the axiom "Think Globally, Act Locally," you recall the local instantiation of the Imperialist Capitalist Running Pig-Dog Military/Industrial Complex just over the hill in Derry. Your mates have been protesting this Raytheon building on and off ever since it came to Derry, but just kid stuff, really - a brief sit-in and a bit of street theater. No, it's now time to show the Zionists and their warmongering enablers some Direct Action:

Anti-war protesters today stormed American arms manufacturer Raytheon's Londonderry base, with nine people barricading themselves into the building and wrecking equipment.

The protesters were soon locked in a tense stand-off with upwards of 50 police officers, after some of them inflicted considerable damage, especially to computers.

According to the protesters, the computer system was "completely disabled".

Amid chaotic scenes at the Buncrana Road site, thousands of documents and dozens of computers were burned and thrown from windows by members of a group that entered the building at 8am today.

That the building is a software development center writing Air Traffic Control systems software is irrelevant; it's all about the symbolism:

Fellow anti-war protester and member of Socialist Environmental Alliance Goretti Horgan, who was one of those protesting outside the building at the Ulster Science and Technology Park on Buncrana Road, said: "There is a bit of property damage but that is as nothing compared to the thousands of people dying.

"We had to do the damage in order to get a chance to put Raytheon in the dock. We want to try and stop or slow down Raytheon production even for a short while because any kind of delay to getting bombs to Israel to drop on innocent Lebanese and Palestinian people has to be welcomed."

And your stunt must have worked really really well - so well, in fact, that Bu$hCo was forced to trump up a pretend terrorist crisis in order to keep you off the front page! Brilliant!

I, for my part, will help you take your message to the next level: if you really want to 'stop or slow down Raytheon production,' I'll start a collection for plane fare to fly you to Tucson where the missiles are actually built.

You'll have to bring your own body bags, though.

Tags: Eamonn McCann Goretti Horgan Socialist Environmental Alliance Raytheon Systems Limited Northern Ireland Systems & Software Centre

False Dichotomy

I read in several places that Brian Bilbray's narrow victory over Francine Busby in a special election to replace ousted Congressional scumbag Duke Cunningham was a bullet dodged by the GOP, and that the closeness of the election in a thought-to-be-solidly-Republican district was a bad sign for Republicans in general in November.

Did it occur to anybody that there was an additional factor at play in this election that won't be in effect in November - that there might be some resistance in this particular district to replace this particular disgraced Congresschmuck with somebody else from the same party?

Tags: Brian Bilbray Francine Busby Duke Cunningham

Ask A PETArd

Ace (via Potfry) has pointed me to a site where you can actually ask PETA questions.

Boy, are they going to regret that one, and if 1/10th of the questions in the comments of Ace's post get sent to Carla, she's going to need therapy - that is, if she doesn't already for being a human-hating animal-worshiper.

So here's my question:

Dear Carla,

Recently, some Canadian geese have migrated into my neighborhood and decided they don't want to migrate out of it. Their droppings are a real nusiance and are starting to become a health hazard, especially for my canine life partner, who has developed a taste for them. I want to deal with the geese in a humane fashion.

So what I need to know is how fast I should hit them with my car to kill them as quickly and humanely as you kill 85% of the unwanted dogs and cats that come into your possession?

Update: Apparently you can't actually submit a question to be answered. Too bad.

Tags: PETA animal worship

Actively Pursuing A Resume Stain

So my former mayor (and by that I mean 'the SOB who is responsible for the fact that I now live in the city limits against my will without even moving') is going to assume the helm at the Brady Campaign:

. . .he considers finding that common ground [with Second Amendment defenders] the primary mission of his new job.

“They can’t agree on anything at this point,” he says. “Part of my job will be to review where the focus is, to see what makes sense. Let’s find where we’re getting the greatest pitched battles. It seems there should be at least some room for agreement.”

So it won't be a long tenure for Helmke as President of the Brady Campaign - once the disarmers see that he's seeking common ground, he becomes their enemy.

Tags: Paul Helmke Brady Campaign

Remember When I Said 'Scumbags Is Scumbags, No Matter What Side Of The Aisle They're On?'

(Sure you do; I said it here)

The media beat the dogshit out of Duke Cunningham for being a corrupt scumbag; let's see how much pub William Jefferson (D-New Orleans) gets for doing something even worse:

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - A Kentucky technology executive pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to bribing a congressman in charges stemming from an investigation of a Louisiana House member.

Vernon Jackson, 53, chief executive of Louisville-based iGate Inc., pleaded guilty to bribery of a public official and conspiracy to bribe a public official.

The congressman was not identified in court documents or during Wednesday's plea hearing, but documents make clear that the congressman whom Jackson admits bribing is Rep. William Jefferson, a Democrat who represents New Orleans.

I know, that's just garden-variety corruption. But if the name William Jefferson, Democrat from New Orleans, rings a bell, here's why:

Amid the chaos and confusion that engulfed New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina struck, a congressman used National Guard troops to check on his property and rescue his personal belongings -- even while New Orleans residents were trying to get rescued from rooftops, ABC News has learned.

On Sept. 2 -- five days after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast -- Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., who represents New Orleans and is a senior member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, was allowed through the military blockades set up around the city to reach the Superdome, where thousands of evacuees had been taken.

. . .

The Louisiana National Guard tells ABC News the truck became stuck as it waited for Jefferson to retrieve his belongings.

Two weeks later, the vehicle's tire tracks were still visible on the lawn.

The soldiers signaled to helicopters in the air for aid. Military sources say a Coast Guard helicopter pilot saw the signal and flew to Jefferson's home. The chopper was already carrying four rescued New Orleans residents at the time.

A rescue diver descended from the helicopter, but the congressman decided against going up in the helicopter, sources say. The pilot sent the diver down again, but Jefferson again declined to go up the helicopter.

After spending approximately 45 minutes with Jefferson, the helicopter went on to rescue three additional New Orleans residents before it ran low on fuel and was forced to end its mission.

"Forty-five minutes can be an eternity to somebody that is drowning, to somebody that is sitting in a roof, and it needs to be used its primary purpose during an emergency," said Hauer.

Coast Guard Cmdr. Brendan McPherson told ABC News, "We did have an aircraft that responded to a signal of distress where the congressman was located. The congressman did decline rescue at the time so the helicopter picked up three other people.

"I can't comment on why the congressman decided not to go in the aircraft," McPherson said. "Did it take a little more time to send the rescue swimmer back a second time? Yes … You'd have to ask the congressman if it was a waste of time or not."

But this wasn't just normal abuse of power, known and loved on both sides of the aisle. Where it gets fishy is why he had to go to his house right then. It sure looks like he was trying to obstruct the very investigation mentioned at the beginning of this post:

In an unrelated matter, authorities recently searched Jefferson's property as part of a federal investigation into the finances of a high-tech firm. Last month FBI officials raided Jefferson's house as well as his home in Washington, D.C., his car and his accountant's house.

Scumbag. And he didn't even shoot down any MiGs in Viet Nam, either.

[H/T Ace]

Tags: Vernon Jackson William Jefferson

I Guess "Thou Shalt Starve" Was The Lost 11th Commandment

More proof that PETA is an animal-worshiping cult (I've written about them before): Row over 'crucifix' protest

Vienna - A row erupted on Thursday over plans by animal protectionists to symbolically "crucify" three activists with animal masks in a Good Friday protest outside Vienna's St Stephan's Cathedral.

The militant pro-animal group PETA said the activists would be suspended from crosses with crowns of thorns on their heads.

The slogan of the protest action would be "We suffer and die for your sins of nourishment." [emphasis added]

Here's what you do: clear the square, detain all the ground-level PETurds, and rope off the whole area.

Take all the PETurds back to HQ for 'questioning.' Make them watch you eat your lunch. I recommend a nice veal parmesan or maybe some tuna-free dolphin.

What? The people on the crosses?

Leave 'em there.

[H/T The Shane]

But At Least They'll Float After The Next Hurricane Hits

While perusing this Porkbusters article on The Blogfather, I encountered a very interesting quote from Don Surber:

Earmarks also can lead to insider playing. His [Rep. Allen Mollohan's (D-WV) (although the original NYT article doesn't mention his party until verrrrry late in the article)] ex-staffer Laura Kuhns now heads the Vandalia Heritage Foundation and sits on the boards of three other nonprofits that catch earmark money. Her Vandalia salary alone is $102,000 a year.

She and her husband are partners with Mollohan and his wife in five properties in Bald Head Island, N.C., worth $2 million.

BHI is the island just east of my favorite vacation spot. I've never been there - it's accessible only by ferry and I don't feel like spending $30 just to walk/ride around on it (since there are no cars) - but I've seen a lot of pictures of it. If they own five properties on BHI totalling only $2M, then those five properties are probably dumpsters. I suspect there's even more non-Euclidian accounting going on here than we think.

Update: I suppose they could be condos, but I don't think BHI has any. On the other hand, I may have found the properties that the Kuhns and Mollohans own! Go here and search in the price range of $250K - $500K.

Tags: Laura Kuhns Allen Mollohan Bald Head Island

That's "Ace" As In "Ace-Hole"

A friend of mine challenged me today thusly: "You always claim that you, as a South Park Republican, are violently opposed to crooked politicians wherever they are, but I haven't heard a peep out of you on either DeLay or Cunningham."

The jury's still out on DeLay (heh), so I'm withholding judgement on him for now. As far as Duke Cunningham, I'm reminded of a '70s SF novel called Galactic Medal of Honor. I don't remember the book real well, but I recall that the Medal was awarded for extraordinary service in the cause of humanity against the alien invaders, or some such. It was, literally, a 'Get Out Of Jail Free' card, since one of its many perks was that a GMH holder was immune from any laws. It looks to me like Duke Cunningham thought being a flying ace in the Vietnam War was the equivalent of winning the Galactic Medal of Honor.

So let me be clear: scumbags is scumbags, no matter what side of the aisle they're on or how many MiGs they shot down in 'Nam.

Tags: Duke Cunningham

He Forgot To Mention Halliburton

I love BoingBoing - I rssSurf them every day and always read at least three posts in their entirety - but it's safe to say that the intersection between the sets 'BoingBoingPolitics' and 'DangerousLogicPolitics' is only slightly larger than the set 'SuccessfulPoliticalCandidatesBackedByDailyKosMoney.'

Anyway, they recently fawned over an appearance of the Chomskybot on the NoOne's Listening podcast:

Professory Chomsky gives his short, sharp take on corporate news (the stuff between the ads), consumer propaganda, and the potential of citizen journalism.

So what does BB contributor David Pescovitz quote as part of this 'short, sharp take?'

Both political parties and the media are far to the right of the general population on a whole host of issues. And the population is just disorganized, atomized... And that's why the media and campaigns keep away from (political) issues. They know that on issues, they're going to lose people. So therefore you have... George Bush... this pampered kid who came from a rich family and went to prep school and an elite university. And you have to present him as an ordinary guy who makes grammatical errors, which I'm sure he's trained to make--he didn't talk that way at Yale--and a fake Texas twang, and he's off to his ranch to cut brush or something. It's like a toothpaste ad. And I think a lot of people know it.

From (paraphrasing) 'legacy media is far to the right of the general population' to 'George Bush is like a toothpaste ad, dumbed down on purpose' in one paragraph. If that's a sharp take, I'd hate to see what Pescovitz thinks is obtuse.

It's Science Because God Said So!

Can anybody explain to me exactly what the hell this guy(?) is talking about? I think he just called me a humanist atheist, with a not-so-subtle hint that I'm also a socialist or communist, but I'm not sure:

Regarding David L. Eiler’s letter, “‘Designer’ was mean or not so intelligent” (Sept. 20): The writer sides with another professor, who said, “intelligent design theory is bad theology as well as bad biology.” Truth agrees with truth. That is, true theology agrees with true biology like hand in glove. If your science is evolution, then your religion would fit humanism, atheism or some other “ism.” If your science is creationism, then your religion would fit Christianity. Luke 16:31 teaches that “If they do not listen to (believe) Moses... they will not he convinced even if someone rises from the dead (resurrection).” A person may have some doubts like John the Baptist; but a Christian who believes in the Resurrection cannot deny the creation.

Eiler seems to blame the “designer” for AIDS, smallpox, tsunamis and hurricanes. Rather, we should make the connection with “the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work” – Ephesians 2:2. He had permission to be malicious.

Eiler said in his letter, “nearly all competent biologists accept (evolution).” When the “theocracy of academics-ism” has been under evolution so long, any challenger is branded for blasphemy. Any challenge throws the evolutionist into panic. One university professor said, “If a student is a creationist, flunk him out.”

Like the Sadducees who although they didn’t believe hung around when they might as well have played golf, we now have many “experts” who don’t believe. Jesus said, “Woe to you experts... because you have taken away the key to knowledge... and have hindered those who were entering” – Luke 11:52. Paul said, “turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge” – I Timothy 6:20-21.

Forget What I Said Last Time; Now There'll Be A Bloodbath

So Florida has now enacted a law saying you can legally stand your ground and fight rather than run away, as long as you're someplace you're legally allowed to be. As you might expect, Disarm America, Inc., isn't too happy about this:

MIAMI -- Clark Ramm said he sees shades of the Wild West in Florida's new law giving greater legal protections to people who shoot or use other deadly force when threatened or attacked.

"It seems like everybody ought to be packing a piece," said Ramm, a visitor from Ukiah, Calif., who found out about the law Monday from a gun control group handing out leaflets at Miami International Airport. "I don't know if that's the right thing to do."

Ramm was one of dozens of people at the Miami airport who were given the leaflets beginning with the words "An Important Notice to Florida Visitors" in bold red type by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which has also taken out ads in major Detroit, Chicago, Boston and London newspapers about the new Florida law.

"There is no other state in the nation -- and no other civilized nation on Earth -- that has a law like this," said Brady Campaign spokesman Peter Hamm. "It could cause the most aggressive people in society to overreact."

Florida's "stand your ground" law, which took effect Saturday, removes a duty on the part of citizens to retreat in the face of an attack as long as they are in a place they have a legal right to be, including a public street or their place of business. It also gives immunity from criminal or civil charges to a shooter as long as the person shot is not a police officer.

What Guns Are Bad, Inc. doesn't want you to remember is that when Florida enacted a law in 1987 making it much much easier for law-abiding citizens to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon (known as a "shall issue" law), they said exactly the same thing:

David Kopel has noted, "Whenever a state legislature first considers a concealed- carry bill, opponents typically warn of horrible consequences. Permit-holders will slaughter each other in traffic disputes, while would-be Rambos shoot bystanders in incompetent attempts to thwart crime. But within a year of passage, the issue usually drops off the news media's radar screen, while gun-control advocates in the legislature conclude that the law wasn't so bad after all." ("The Untold Triumph of Concealed-Carry Permits," Policy Review, July-August 1996, p. 9.)

. . .

Opponents waged a fear-based campaign, claiming crime would increase if law-abiding citizens carried guns. Anti-gun politicians predicted Florida would become the "GUNshine State." The news media forecast vigilante justice and "Wild West" shootouts on every corner. One newspaper said "(A) pistol-packing citizenry will mean itchier trigger fingers. . . . South Florida's climate of smoldering fear would flash like napalm when every stranger totes a piece, and every mental snap in traffic could lead to the crack of gunfire."

It didn't happen then, and it won't happen now. But that won't stop the Personal Disarmament lobby in their quest to make guns go away. Good luck with that.

'Cause There's Some People What Need Offending

My take on Some People throwing a hissy fit over President Bush's recess appointment of John Bolton as UN Ambassador, and how it's going to hurt the President politically?

Nobody who's pissed off about it was going to vote Republican anyway. No harm, no foul.

Shouldn't There Be A Telethon Or Something?

This just goes to show that Bush Derangement Syndrome can strike anyone, even someone I thought was fairly sane by Democratic standards:

Young liberals this week flocked to the nation's capital to hear, among other things, liberal television pundit and Democrat political strategist Paul Begala accuse Republicans of wanting to kill him and his children to preserve tax cuts for the rich.

Begala was featured at the first-ever Campus Progress National Student Conference, which was designed to provide campus liberals with the tools necessary to fight the conservative movement. The event also drew former President Bill Clinton, for whom Begala once worked as an advisor.

. . .

Begala's presence on the panel created a stir when he declared that Republicans had "done a p***-poor job of defending" the U.S.

Republicans, he said, "want to kill us.

"I was driving past the Pentagon when that plane hit" on Sept. 11, 2001. "I had friends on that plane; this is deadly serious to me," Begala said.

"They want to kill me and my children if they can. But if they just kill me and not my children, they want my children to be comforted -- that while they didn't protect me because they cut my taxes, my children won't have to pay any money on the money they inherit," Begala said. "That is bulls*** national defense, and we should say that."

OK, let me try to follow this: Begala saw the plane hit the Pentagon (but I thought the evil neocons blew up the Pentagon! Guess Begala didn't get the moonbat talking points memo). Because he saw it, Republicans now want to kill him and his family? Or maybe just him, and then take care of his family? And this is a national defense problem how?

Wow. But it gets weirder:

The Clinton administration's national security efforts involved the right blend of "experience" and "strength," Begala said, an assertion with which the 9/11 Commission apparently disagreed.

Here, I can see his point, for sufficiently broad definitions of 'experience' and 'strength:' "turn our military into the Peace Corps" and "flip a couple of cruise missiles at an aspirin factory and an empty training camp," respectively.

Maybe the infection vector for BDS is verbal:

"Okay, they are utterly and completely brain-dead," echoing comments earlier this year by Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, who accused Republicans of being "brain dead."

Frank [Thomas Frank, author of "What's the Matter with Kansas"] insisted that Republicans are not quite as tough on national security as many Americans think.

"Franklin Roosevelt got us in World War II. They dragged the Republicans kicking and screaming. They didn't want to get in that war. They didn't have any problem with Hitler. I won't go so far as to say they thought Hitler rocked. But there were people in America who did, and they didn't want us to get in that war."

The insinuation here is that because some Americans supported Hitler, and the Republicans (allegedly) had to be dragged "kicking and screaming" into fighting in WWII, that Republicans are Nazis.

"Democrats have always been just as tough as Republicans once they're in office," Frank said.

See the definitions of 'experience' and 'strength' above.

What's The Expiration Date On Human Loin, Anyway?

My biggest problem with this little turd of PETAformance art [link]?

They didn't stretch the cellophane tight enough for long enough.

And I Will Defend With The Evil Geniuses For A Better Tomorrow Assisted By The Orbital Mind Control Lasers

My long-time reader knows I've got this thing about Daylight Savings Time - specifically, anger that it isn't observed in most of Indiana (I've discussed this before, in April of '04 and April of '01). This puts us in our own time zone, which I call 'Indiana Stupid Time' because it makes us look like backwards-assed country fucks every time I have to explain it to somebody not in Indiana (and when I worked on the program I spent half of last year on, which required us to telecon on a near-daily basis with multiple sites spread across all four time zones, I had to explain it a lot).

And even though Governor Daniels is more actively pushing the 'adopt DST' issue than any previous governor in my memory, I'm not going to get my hopes up unless and until he actually signs a bill into law. It seems that every year, it looks like it's going to finally by God happen, then the Farm Bureau Illuminati makes a couple of phone calls and the whole thing goes down the memory hole and nobody speaks of it again... until the next year.

The local news last night had coverage of some of the debate in the General Assembly, including something I thought very curious:

Several members of the Indiana Theater Owners Association said that if the state added daylight hours, fewer people would go to the movies, and theater owners would lose money.

All the GA is debating at this time is whether or not to adopt DST. If they do, then they'll consider the question of which time zone to align with (a nontrivial issue, since Indiana is on the western edge of the Eastern time zone and on the eastern edge of the Central time zone). It seems to me the smart play for the theater owners would be to favor adopting Central Daylight Time, since that would lead to earlier sunsets year-round (if you're on the eastern edge of your time zone, your sunrises and sunsets are earlier than if you're in the middle or on the western edge). Earlier sunsets -> increased theater revenue (actually, the broadcast last night had the spokeslady for the theater owners claiming that movie patronage would drop 20% if the state added more daylight hours, which sure smells like a brown number to me).

So clearly the theater owners are working as the pawns of someone else. And by applying Tetrick's Law ("Once you play Illuminati enough, all games become Illuminati") and Carter's Corrolary ("Every weird thing you see in the world can be expressed in terms of Illuminati plays"), I have concluded this:

The Indiana Theater Owners' Association, assisted by the Farm Bureau, is attacking to control Indiana.

[Incidentally, I would be just as happy if the rest of the country abandoned DST; my beef is against constantly having to remind out-of-staters what time zone Indiana is in on any given day.]

Yes, It Really Is As Simple As 'Eat The Rich'

Leftists often accuse their opponents of caricaturing them as hating rich people simply because they're rich. But they make it so easy when they write things like unreconstructed Marxist chowderhead Adam Roberts' letter to the editor of The Independent:

The capitalism that positions us as happy, healthy consumers - hallelujah - is the same one found in Marx's sophisticated exposition of the mechanisms of the capitalist process(es), the one that located the majority of people as workers, whose labour power was exploited at the point of production for the profit of the few. There remains today a clear continuity from the earlier industrial ages that cannot be denied. The difference now is the degree of sophistication that masks the exploitation and allows an obviously bright individual such as Mr Hammond [In a previous letter] to imagine himself and his fellows free from the old shackles.

Dude, it's been done. It's called The Matrix.

And anyway, we can turn a blind eye to the obscene gap between domestic rich and poor, and to the terrible price being paid around the globe for US and UK (Mr Hammond's economic "triumphs") wealth accumulation. As long as we have our share certificates in the bank, our performance bonuses and our private healthcare plans, what does it matter that others are profiting grotesquely at our expense?

So his screed boils down to 'Sure, you think you're doing OK, but that guy over there is richer and he must be punished!'

BDS Is More Like An Addiction - To Cure Yourself, You Have To Want To

[Hellishly busy at work and elsewhere lately; this'll have to be brief and even less polished than usual.]

John Perry Barlow, always worth reading even if you don't agree with him (perhaps especially if you don't agree with him), seems to be kinda sorta recovering from an acute case of Bush Derangement Syndrome:

Perhaps it's just the bargaining phase of grief, but I can see that one of the things I must do to feel less a stranger in my own land is to have more conversations like the one I had with Dale [a conservative friend of Barlow's]. Indeed, as I've said repeatedly before, we must do our collective best to shatter the fetters of intolerance and live more in the necessary amnesty of interdependence. We need to quit scaring each other. Both sides are convinced that the other is trying to impose his culture on us, whether by law or by Internet. Fear of the Other, whether Bush or bin Laden, whether terror without or terror within, has been murdering reason and civility in America. We need to look one another in the eyes and see the human being behind the enemy. If we're not going to start shooting each other over the next 4 years, we will need to do that a lot.

At the very least, I need to take the other side seriously. Dismissing them as a bunch of homophobic, racist, Bible-waving, know-nothing troglodytes, however true that may be of a few, only authorizes them to return the favor. I don't want somebody calling me a dope-smoking, fag-loving, one-worlder weirdo, however true that might be. We are all masks that God wears, whatever God that is. We might try to treat one another with according reverence. At least we might try to listen as though the other side might have a point.I truly think we all owe one another an apology.

Sounds good, and I think he actually means it. Dean Esmay is, um, a bit more skeptical:

Well Mr. Barlow, you said you wanted to try to understand. You spent a lot of time in your missive confessing to your anger and your hatred. Well now I'm telling you: Yup, a whole lot of us saw that. We saw it real well, and heard it loud and clear. We aren't stupid you know. You guys treated not just the President but all of us who agreed with his decisions with absolute contempt, and when we tried to call you out on it you just got nastier.

Meanwhile we were, many of us, talking to the boys and girls doing their work over there in Iraq. While some had their doubts, most were proud of the war effort and cared about the Iraqi people and made friends with them. (You do know that Bush got more than 70% of the vote from the National Guadsmen who are supposedly trapped in Bush's "back door draft," don't you? And that most of the soldiers interviewed in Michael Moore's movie hate his guts for the way he twisted their words and quoted them out of context? Did you know about the families of the fallen that he abused and betrayed just to tell his twisted story?)

Hellfire, a year and a half ago I played a role in helping to found an organization to ship toys and medical supplies for soldiers to distribute to kids over in Iraq. (You can donate to it right here by the way). Do you know how many lefties we were able to get to help us with that? Almost none. You guys were too busy shrieking about the evil BushCo-McRove Machine to actually do something to help those soldiers and those Iraqis you guys claim to care so much about.

That, to a lot of us, is the greatest irony you know. All the war supporters I know--all of them--read and listen to the anti-Bush and anti-war invective. We're most bemused when we hear your plaintive wails that we are closed-minded and fearful and zombified and that if only you'd try harder and be more passionate maybe we'd finally understand you. Meantime we're listening and we're watching and we're reading and we're thinking, "Yeah we understand you perfectly. We just think you're wrong. Why aren't you listening to what we're saying?"

A commenter on Dean's response:

I am a proud San Francisco liberal, but I have tried to understand the viewpoints of Bush supporters. I really don't think you understand your own viewpoint unless you can listen to and at least attempt to sympathize with those you disagree with. I started reading this blog and contributing to it because there are a lot of things I could understand about the points of view of the posters here.

And I realized that I was getting warped view of Bush supporters by just reading Free Republic and Little Green Footballs.

. . .

I don't like Bush much and I like the War in Iraq even less, but I respect the fact that these are just my opinions and that we live in a democracy and that the people have spoken.

So I will just bite my tounge and do my best to support him in his efforts.

And I know that I am not really the kind of person your comments are directed at.

But don't put us all in the same box.

It seemed self-evident to me that that Dean wasn't putting everybody who voted Kerry 'in the same box;' anyone reading his post would know who his target audience was and think 'OK, he doesn't mean me.'

Unfortunately, his target audience by and large also appears to be thinking 'OK, he doesn't mean me.' Like this chowerhead (who calls herself 'Living In 2 Worlds,' which I think refers to both Bizarro and Planet Liberal) in a comment on Barlow's post:

I showed up with my 4-month-old baby to watch my 10-year-old nephew get baptized in a Christian Coalition Church-- something my nephew had been asking about for months. It was important to him. While I was there I figured out why Bush won this election, and sadly it is something I have known for a long time. Only my husband had heard me rant about this, but now I'll share it here and see if you think I am just nuts.

Bush won this election because we Democrats did not speak to the lowliest people, we only spoke amongst ourselves. We have become more enlightened, more highly educated, more economically successful, and detached. We would rather donate money to the campaign and hire people to go door-to-door, than speak with our own passion to others of opposing views about our ideas.

. . .

So I looked around this room and I saw losers. I saw people who had little money, who probably would not make it in a rigorous work environment, who had limited educations. And I thought to myself, I don’t think we can say that the Democratic Party is embracing all the outsiders. These people were outsiders, but they got roped into this environment because no one else would talk to them. Ever hang out in a nursing home for a while? All the elderly people want is someone to talk to. I think it is the same with this group. Then in the process, they get brainwashed with these extreme views, but they could change to other views as easily.

The other interesting thing about that comment thread is that the vast majority of early commenters were similarly elitist. You can definitely tell where the Instalanche hits, as the majority of late comments understand Barlow's message better (even if, as Esmay, they don't fully buy into it).

In This Case, The Light At The End Of The Tunnel Is The Landing Light Of A Go-Team Plane

My wife, after viewing a particularly distasteful campaign commercial, remarked 'Thank God this will all be over in ten days.'

Unfortunately, with both sides having SWAT teams ready to jet at a moment's notice to anywhere there's a perceived irregularity (and if there isn't one, the Dems at least have shown no reluctance to make one up), that November 2 will be just the beginning.

We Don't Hope You Die, But...

The Democrats want Dick Cheney to die. OK, maybe they don't, really, but they're on his case for getting a flu shot:

Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign slammed Vice President Dick Cheney, a heart patient, over reports he had a flu shot, despite a shortage of the vaccine.

The only thing that surprised me in this AFP story was that they admitted

Cheney would fit into the government's definition of those most vulnerable to a looming influenza epidemic as he has a long history of heart disease.

[Full disclosure - SecTreas John Snow and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist also got flu shots, which seems pretty dumb unless they're part of a high-risk group, which I doubt.]

I'm waiting for their similar criticism of Bill Clinton, another heart patient who got a flu shot.

Update: Michelle Malkin sez both Frist and Snow are indeed considered high-risk:

Cheney, Snow, and Frist are all high-risk as defined by the CDC. Cheney has heart disease. Frist is a practicing physician. (According to this article, Frist spends many weekends practicing at free clinics in Washington DC and in Tennessee.) Snow is 65 years old.

It's One, Two, Three Crimes In One!

They say truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense. And even with that in mind, and knowing that the Donks will do everything they think they can get away with in order to get President Bush delected, I couldn't even have guessed at this:

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- An Ohio man was arrested and accused of filling out more than 100 voter registration forms that were ficticious, the Defiance County Sheriff's Office announced Monday.

So far, so normal, right? Just another case of voter reg fraud (and at 100 registrations a fairly small one), just one of thousands undoubtedly in the works by the Delusional Party. But wait until you see how dude got paid:

Defiance County sheriff's deputies allege the man "was paid crack cocaine for the falsified registrations."

According to Sheriff David J. Westrick, Defiance deputies along with Toledo Police Department detectives searched a residence in Toledo, believed to be the home of the woman who hired the man to solicit voter registration.

Officers confiscated drug paraphernalia along with voter registration forms from the home, Westrick said.

The occupant of the home, Georgianne Pitts, 41, advised law enforcement that she had been recruited by Thaddeus J. Jackson, II, of Cleveland, to obtain voter registrations.

Pitts admitted to paying the suspect crack cocaine for the registrations in lieu of money, the sheriff's department said.

Well, that's interesting. A guy in Cleveland is using a lady in Toledo to try to register voters in Defiance County (about 150 miles away). That's some kind of outreach program! But who is Thaddeus J. Jackson, II, anyway?

A business card provided by Pitts indicated that Jackson is the Assistant NVF Ohio Director of the NAACP National Voter Fund, Westrick said.

I think its safe to say that the extra votes wouldn't have gone for President Bush.

Sheriff's officials indicated the initial complaint "came from the Defiance County Board of Elections. The Board had received the 100 plus registration forms from the Cuyahoga Board of Elections that had been submitted to the Cuyahoga Board by the NAACP National Voter Fund," Westrick said.

Well, score one for the hicks (I can say that; I live in the next county over. Besides, there actually is a Hicksville in Defiance County. It's where I buy my beer on Sundays). The Dumbocrat machine figured they'd be too stupid to notice ONE HUNDRED REGISTRATION FORMS WITH NEAR-IDENTICAL SIGNATURES FROM ANOTHER COUNTY'S BOARD OF ELECTIONS!

Out Of The Bunker To See... Nothing

OK, my fantasy football league's draft is done and I can now get back to blogging. Forgive me if I'm not back up to speed right away.

Hey, wasn't this 'A31' anarchist group supposed to raise havoc in NYC two days ago? You know, liberate everybody, destroy the Evil Republicans, that kind of thing? Like this:

Well, apparently they got 0wnz0r3d:

Tuesday, August 31 – The day protesters had designated as "direct action" day certainly lived up to its billing, but not as they had planned. As the second day of Republican convention speeches dragged on a few blocks away at Madison Square Garden, an extremely aggressive New York Police Department pre-empted protest actions, trapped marchers in no-escape cul de sacs, and surrounded groups and individuals in orange netting as though they were capturing schools of fish. Police arrested hundreds (the New York Times reports at least 900), perhaps more than 1,000. Most of the arrested were young people who were merely exercizing their right to free and peaceful assembly.

Advice From The Loser

MSNBC has an article with detailed advice for the Kerry campaign from Donna Brazile, who did such a sterling job leading the Gore/Lieberman campaign. A taste:

There is also room for negative message. The Kerry-Edwards ticket needs to find the one, overarching negative message about Bush that you want voters to hear time and time again. Why not say, “President Bush can't be trusted, is too extreme, etc.”? Team Kerry must get up every day and put in place events, developments, news, surrogates that drive the negative message. The campaign should recognize that you are either on offense scoring points and moving the ball downfield or on defense being scored upon. Thus, the Kerry-Edwards campaign must divide each week up like it as an inning and try to score some points.

Never mind that you don't have innings in football, but what do you expect from the crew that put Gore on the rubber-chicken circuit?

I hope Kerry reads every word.

When Animal Supremacists Attack

From Rodger (now posting at SondraK's), al-Guardian gives us what sure looks like incitement:

A top adviser to Britain's two most powerful animal rights protest groups caused outrage last night by claiming that the assassination of scientists working in biomedical research would save millions of animals' lives.

To the fury of groups working with animals, Jerry Vlasak, a trauma surgeon and prominent figure in the anti-vivisection movement, told The Observer: 'I think violence is part of the struggle against oppression. If something bad happens to these people [animal researchers], it will discourage others. It is inevitable that violence will be used in the struggle and that it will be effective.'

Vlasak, who likens animal experimentation to the Nazis' treatment of the Jews, said he stood by his claim that: 'I don't think you'd have to kill too many [researchers]. I think for five lives, 10 lives, 15 human lives, we could save a million, 2 million, 10 million non-human lives.

Why is he saying this? Because we aren't listening to him!

While acknowledging that his views might alienate some people, Vlasak, who claims animal experimentation 'wastes billions of pounds a year', said more and more people in the animal rights movement were drawn to violent action. 'The grass roots are tired of writing letters. The polite approach has not worked,' he said.

Oh, fucking WAAAAAAAAH! Did it ever occur to him that a couple of hundred people writing a couple of hundred letters opposing research that SAVES LIVES is going to change a damn thing?

Incitement, you say? Surely you're blowing this a bit out of proportion, aren't you? Maybe, maybe not:

Vlasak will address an animal rights conference organised by Shac and Speak [two British animal supremacist groups] in September. Legal experts warned that, if he uses his speech to promote violence, he could be charged with incitement.

You know, Jerry, if you're really opposed to the 'senseless' killing of animals, why don't you go right to the top? Try to stop recreational hunting in the U.S.! Head on up to northern Michigan on the first day of firearms deer season and run through the woods blowing a whistle and banging cymbals to scare the deer away from hunters!

That oughta solve a real problem in about ten seconds. Unfortunately, if I go into too much detail as to exactly what real problem might be solved, it could be considered incitement...

Kerry Ready To Sell Out Taiwan...

...the only real question is whether or not he's already done it:

In 1998 I reported ("Year of the Rat," Regnery), and this year NBC News confirmed, Mr. Kerry's unfortunate relationship with Chinese military intelligence. During the 1996 election cycle, Chinagate figure Johnny Chung made a $10,000 contribution to Mr. Kerry's campaign in return for arranging a high-level meeting at the Securities and Exchange Commission. The beneficiary of Mr. Kerry's assistance was Chinese military spy Lt. Col. Liu Chao-ying. NBC has a photograph of the Communist Chinese espionage agent with Mr. Kerry, taken in his office.

But that's OK, because it's not like the Bejing regime is actually, you know, Communist or anything:

At an SFRC hearing on June 27, 2001, Mr. Kerry got into a strange debate with Sen. Jesse Helms, North Carolina Republican, over whether China has a "communist government." Mr. Kerry held that it does not have a "communist government" anymore, a position no serious China scholar would support.

(chain o'hat tips: from the Washington Times via AlphaPatriot via Cranial Cavity)

Paraphrasing Richard Pryor On Property Rights And Lethal Self-Defense

Greenie Watch has yet another piece of evidence that animal 'rights' advocates are really Animal Supremacists:

As the bear forced it's way into the dining room area, the beast found the grilled salmon it had smelled from what authorities estimated was over a mile away, where they found the bear's tracks around a small cave. Ryan tried shouting at the bear to get it to leave, but the bear seemed to be intent on the salmon it was feasting on. Ryan then proceeded to throw various kitchen utensils at the bear to get it's attention. "I wasn't sure what I was going to do," he said. "After I hit the bear in the head with a wooden spoon, the bear started coming after me!" The would-be bear snack ran to the other side of the kitchen counter as the bear raised up on it's hind legs and tried swatting at him.

"The bear was blocking my way to my room where I actually have a gun, so I found the only thing I had that I did not throw at him, my frying pan." he relates. "I picked up the frying pan and shouted, bring it on, bring it on!" Ryan jumped over the counter and started swinging the frying pan. The animal, estimated at six feet tall on all fours and over eight hundred pounds, got back on all fours and started to charge the young man. When the bear was about 1 foot away from him, Ryan swung the cast iron frying pan and hit the bear on the right side of its head. "The bear appeared to be dazed, so I just kept pounding him with the frying pan."

"After I hit the bear about fifteen times, the bear fell to the floor, but I dared not let up. I hit him for about another five minutes until he was not moving at all," Ryan says. Only then did he take the time to call for local law enforcement. "When the police showed up, they could not believed what they saw."

"It was the craziest thing I've ever seen," said Officer F. Barnes, of the Victoria crime scene investigation unit. "He actually killed a bear with a frying pan." The local wildlife officer showed up and took measurements of the bear, one of the largest involved in a home invasion incident in recent memory.

There is no word on what became of the animal's body, but local animal rights activists are filing to take possession of the bear's remains, claiming it was an immoral act of killing, and Ryan should not be allowed to make a bearskin rug out of it. Darcy Morris, president of the local chapter of Animal Rights Abuse Watch (ARAW), says, "This young man should be prosecuted, not praised. The bear was simply following his natural instincts, and had this Ryan criminal left it alone, no harm would have been done. It's disgusting, and he can expect to hear from our lawyers.

I am reminded of an old Richard Pryor bit about the time Jim Brown (legend has it) bit the finger off a would-be tackler after he grabbed Brown by the face mask. As the legend goes, when Brown was asked why he did it, he replied "Everything outside the face mask belong to him. Everything inside belong to me."

It's A New Track Record!

John F'n Kerry is infamous for being on both sides of about every issue at one time or another, but this is a new low even for him:

The presumptive Democratic nominee complained that Bush has not taken steps to drive prices down, calling on the administration to stop pumping oil into the nation's emergency stockpile until Americans see cheaper prices. The administration has rejected that notion.

Just because Clinton dipped into the strategic reserve during his term to artificially depress pump prices doesn't mean it's a good thing (I think, but don't have the info to prove it yet, that if Clinton hadn't done that, Bush wouldn't be in the position of having to put it back now!). I think the President is being smart here by trying to replenish as much as can be done before OPEC's scheduled production slowdown.

Eight paragraphs later:

Kerry also raised the specter of the uncertainty in the Middle East in light of the Iraq war, saying, "no young American in uniform ought to ever be held hostage to America's dependence on oil from the Middle East."

First, there's no connection. It's not like we seized Iraq in order to steal its oil (despite what the Communists at ANSWER try to tell you). Second, we're buying the oil to replenish the reserve so we're not dependent on oil from the Middle East in the event they try to screw us like they did in 1973. There's nontrivial logical gymnastics involved in being on both sides of an issue while simultaneously claiming your opponent is wrong both times.

Update: Jon Henke has a better analysis of this, with a couple of points I haven't thought of: mainly, if we start dipping into the SPR for non-emergency reasons, it encourages US oil companies to reduce their inventory (since they know they would be able to count on the SPR to cover the shortage). It also encourages OPEC to reduce their production, to keep prices where they want them to be.

How Many Nuggets Can You Get From An Eight-Foot Chicken, Anyway?

PETA brought their wacked-out animal supremacist freak show to a Fort Wayne elementary school yesterday:

Representatives from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals showed up at the school on Cook Road as promised at the end of the school day to give kids "Chicken Chumps" trading cards. The cards, with names such as "Cruel Kyle," "Sickly Sally" and "Tubby Tammy," show children eating chicken and looking miserable.

When I saw this on the news last night, I was all ready to go nuclear on the local school administration for allowing this to happen until I learned that the Chikkken Corps stayed on the public sidewalk instead of school property. I am happy to hear that parents didn't take too kindly to the idea:

Carol Mills, who walks her children home from the school every day, was furious about the activity.

"They don't even understand," she said. "How mature are these people to come harass elementary school kids because they eat chicken nuggets? Are they serious?"

The PETA representatives, including a person in an 8-foot-tall chicken costume, were barred from school grounds and warned by crossing guards to stay out of the way of children. When school officials kept children from crossing the road near the chicken, Ravi Chand, PETA vegan campaign coordinator, and the chicken moved to the other end of the sidewalk closer to the children.

Nor did the school board:

School board Secretary Jon Olinger, who visited the school Thursday, said an elementary school was the wrong place for PETA to spread its message.

"I think it's pathetic that they're aiming a political message at 8-, 9-, 10-, 11-year-olds," he said. "It's a professional terrorist organization as far as I'm concerned."

I think Mr. Olinger has it exactly right. People for the Ethical Equal Treatment of Animals are trying to get us to recognize rights animals don't have. I say it all the time: for the vast majority of practicioners, veganism/vegetarianism (and I don't care enough to learn the distinction) is an animal-worshipping religion based on guilt over the fact that humans are sentient and animals are not. In fact, if I'd heard about this in time, I would have made a big placard that said "This is the god PETA worships" with an arrow, and just followed the chicken around. It's a public sidewalk, right? They wouldn't be able to stop me!

And I think it's pretty clear that this kind of thing doesn't play well here:

Countering their demonstration was Jay Thompson of Huntertown, who was handing out raccoon tails and holding a sign that read, "Wildlife Population Control Specialist."

He said PETA's message is not appropriate for elementary-age children.

"There is an ethical way to treat and teach children," said Thompson, who owns Land and Lakes Outfitters, a bait and tackle shop in Huntertown.

[PETA vegan campaign coordinator Ravi] Chand was able to distribute cards to just a handful of children - most of whom were from Shawnee. The cards, modeled after the Garbage Pail Kids trading cards, illustrate the cruelty the organization said chickens are subjected to and the ill health PETA said comes from eating them.

"Chickens should be our friends not food," said 14-year-old Chance Kuruda, although he said he eats chicken.

So will he continue to do so, even after what PETA had to say?

"Yeah," he answered.

There's one more thing about this that really bugs me. There's a high school just down the road, and some of those students can even vote! Why did they target elementary school students? The only reason I can see is that little kids are more easily swayed by the "don't hurt the cute little chicks" non-argument. Scumbags.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go kill an animal and eat it.

Update: My friend Jim says that PETA's tour (and it actually is a tour; look on the 'Press Releases' tab under peta.org for the story, since I refuse to link to it here) is targeting elementary schools rather than high schools because they can intimidate little kids, but high schoolers can intimidate them (or at least mock the hell out of the dork in the chicken suit).

It's also been pointed out to me that my idea for a 'This is the god PETA worships' protest sign is designed to get an emotional response from the predominantly conservative Christian population, which is more than a little hypocritical given my attitudes towards religion in general. I disagree with that; my religious beliefs are irrelevant to this issue.

And it's not like I'm wearing an eight-foot Jesus costume.

I'm Sorry, I Didn't Know You Wanted A Return Ticket

We gave Aristide a face-saving (literally) way out - "Sign here, please, watch your head getting on board, have a pleasant flight, bear in mind that the closest emergency exit may be behind you" - a free plane ride to a luxury resort in South Africa the Central African Republic (telephone not included), and this is how he thanks us?

AN attorney for exiled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has asked the US to investigate high-ranking US government officials involved in what Aristide claims was a kidnapping and coup d'etat to remove him from office.

Ira Kurzban, who was for years the US legal representative for the ousted president's government, said Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega and Luis Moreno, the deputy chief of mission of the US Embassy, were behind Aristide's February 29 removal and forced him and his wife into exile in the Central African Republic. "Because they were kidnapped, by officials of the United States Government, a claim has been filed," Kurzban said at a news conference in Miami's Little Haiti.

. . .

In his letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft, Kurzban asked that the Justice Department launch a criminal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the departure of Aristide - who insists he's still Haiti's president - and his wife, Mildred Trouillot Aristide, who is a US citizen. They fled the country aboard a US chartered plane.

Kurzban said US laws were violated, including those banning kidnapping, the imprisoning of internationally protected persons and committing such acts against a person on board an aircraft registered in the US or owned by an American.

He said Aristide's removal from office was also a violation of an international treaty, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Internationally Protected Persons. Kurzban said his call for an investigation was the first step toward bringing the case before an international court.

Um, okay, Mr. President. We'll fire up the VC-32 and drop you off at the steps of the Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince. How's that sound? We apologize for any misunderstanding.

The Over/Under on his life expectancy if we did that: two minutes, six seconds. Take the Under.

Well, What Did You Expect?

Call me cynical, but I'd be willing to bet the 9/11 victims' families that are complaining about the Bush campaign ad are 99% Democrat.

Update: It's worse than that. This NY Post editorial lays out how it's all a scheme by a group called September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows - a group that, despite its name, isn't anti-war: they're actually on the other side:

But now it turns out that this whole furor is driven by a tiny group that's motivated by a far-left agenda and a festering hatred of the president - and has some quite dubious financial ties.

Leading the rhetorical charge has been an outfit called September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows - which, the group admits, has only a few dozen members and represents relatives of no more than 1 percent of the 9/11 victims.

More to the point, the group was formed specifically to oppose the entire War on Terror: Not just the campaign against Saddam Hussein, but also the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Indeed, the group's leaders traveled to Afghanistan, drawing a detestable moral equivalence between the 9/11 attacks and U.S. bombing of the Taliban and opposing "violent responses to terrorism."

In Other News, Blix Accused The U.S. Of Acting Unilaterally In Missouri

From the Navhind Times (via Drudge):

Reuters London Feb 28: Former chief United Nations weapons inspector Mr Hans Blix said today he suspected the United States bugged his office and home in the run-up to the Iraq war, but had no hard evidence.

I'll save him the trouble. Yes, we did. Yes, we are right now. Yes, we will again. I'd be more than a little disappointed if we didn't.

Describing such behaviour as "disgusting", Mr Blix told Britain’s Guardian newspaper in an interview: "It feels like an intrusion into your integrity in a situation when you are actually on the same side."

Blix is making a dangerous assumption, and I don't mean about the bugging allegations.

Mr Blix said his suspicions were raised when he had trouble with a telephone connection at home.

“It might have been something trivial or it might have been something installed somewhere, I don’t know,” he said.

Because EVERY TIME there's trouble with a phone connection ANYWHERE, my first thought is 'The CIA's doing it.' Damn, even these guys aren't THAT paranoid.

He said US state department envoy Mr John Wolf visited him two weeks before the Iraq war with pictures of an Iraqi drone and a cluster bomb that the former inspector believed could have been secured only from within the UN weapons office.

"He should not have had them. I asked him how he got them and he would not tell me," Mr Blix said.

Well, Hans, he could have told you, but then he'd have had to kill you. Otherwise, the story would get out about how the U.S. put machines in orbit that can take pictures of things on the ground. Not only that, he'd have to reveal that the U.S. actually pays people to tell us what they know about what their governments are doing, and even sometimes to get pictures! No way in hell is the world ready to hear that yet.

Former UN secretary-general Mr Boutros Boutros-Ghali and another former chief UN weapons inspector, Mr Richard Butler, said yesterday they believed they had been spied on.

“From the first day I entered my office they told me: beware, your office is bugged, your residence is bugged,” Mr Boutros-Ghali told the BBC.

“It is a tradition that member states that have the technical capacity to bug will do it without hesitation,” he said.

Like I said. We've always done it, we're doing it right now, and we'll always do it. Although I have to wonder what it is they're so worried about us finding out...

Always Always Always Read The Small Print

Buried in a RasmussenReports.com report about Kerry's poll numbers slipping is this little lovely:

Kerry is in a very competitive race with George W. Bush for the General Election. Kerry and Bush are also very even on the question of who voters trust more to manage the economy. One of the most startling recent survey results showed that voters trust Kerry more than Bush on the issue of controlling government spending.

Yes, that sure did seem startling to me. At least it did until I read the next paragraph:

The national telephone survey of 570 Democrats was conducted by Rasmussen Reports over the past three nights. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4 percentage points, with a 95% level of confidence. [emphasis added]

For their next trick, Rasmussen Reports will ask 570 Catholics who they trust more on theological issues: the Pope or Jerry Falwell.

J F'n K, Part I

If there's a bigger weasel in contemporary American politics than John F'n Kerry, I haven't seen him yet. He said this during tonight's Democratic debate:

"Kerry criticized Bush's judgment in going to war and his failure to view it as a last resort. A decorated Vietnam veteran, Kerry drew a contrast with his own combat experience in Vietnam and Bush's decision to send men to war.

"I know what it's like when you lose the consent and the legitimacy of that war," Kerry said."

Of course you do, you schmuck - you helped make it happen!

O'Neill and O'Bobb

I don't blog much on the weekends - hell, I barely follow the news then, which is why I'm just now getting to a development in the Paul O'Neill classified document incident. When I wrote about this originally, the point I wanted to make was that it didn't matter how he got classified documents - if he got them, he was obligated not to use them in the preparation of an unclassified document (his book)!

About the only defense O'Neill would have in this case would be if he could make a credible claim that he didn't know the documents were classified. Af first glance, it looks like that's the case:

The Treasury Department said it improperly released classified information to former Treasury secretary Paul H. O'Neill for a book about the Bush administration.

The department said the fault was in the document-screening process and that no action would be taken against O'Neill or the book's author, Ron Suskind. "The corrective action is to be taken internally," said Anne Womack Kolton, a Treasury spokeswoman. She said there will be no effort made to prevent publication of the documents, which are being released over the Internet.

In a letter to lawmakers, O'Neill's successor, John W. Snow, said a preliminary review done by the department's inspector general found "a number of documents that contain classified information."

"The Treasury Department recognized that those documents were not properly reviewed before their release," Snow wrote.

O'Neill provided about 19,000 pages of documents to Suskind for his book, "The Price of Loyalty," which is critical of President Bush and his administration. It portrays Bush as detached from policy details and his administration as unconcerned about deficits and determined to go to war in Iraq even before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Suskind said yesterday that he has hired lawyers who have been in discussion with government lawyers over the online release of the documents. "None of the documents in the 19,000 that we know of were stamped 'classified,' " he said. "There may be documents the government feels retroactively that should be classified. Those are the documents the government in the last few days has alerted us about."
. . .
The Treasury investigation began after one document, marked "secret," was shown in an O'Neill interview on CBS's "60 Minutes." But Suskind has said that document was only a cover sheet for secret documents that were not included in those released to O'Neill.

So what the hell is 60 Minutes doing throwing around Secret cover pages? The quote from my earlier article says they didn't really have a classified document:

"We don't have a secret document. We didn't show a secret document. We merely showed a cover sheet that alluded to such a document," said CBS spokesman Kevin Tedesco.

So they were 'sexing up' their story? We all know how well that worked for Andrew Gilligan and the BBC!

One last thing - Chuck Rangel gets another quote and as usual manages to miss the point entirely:

Rep. Charles B. Rangel (N.Y.), ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, responding to the inspector general's report said, "While the administration has gone through all of this trouble to see if they can find something that Secretary O'Neill did wrong, they have not contradicted the accuracy of his account."

Was Bush interested in toppling Hussein before 9/11? Sure. So was Clinton. The difference is that Bush was serious about it.

I think what surprises Rangel is that a possible leak of classified information is actually being investigated.

In Today's Lesson, We Learn That Leaking Classified Information Is OK If It Damages President Bush

So former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill may have shown classified documents during his 60 Minutes interview, and the Treasury department is investigating (strangely, no mention of this story appears on CNN.com's front page at press time, or its U.S news page, or its Politics page, or its Law page, although you can see it here). This report in the London (Ontario) Free Press sure makes it look that way:

"They showed a document that had a classification term on it, so we referred this today to the Office of Inspector General," [Treasury representative Rob]Nichols said. "I'll be even more clear -- the document as shown on 60 Minutes that said 'secret.' "

O'Neill is described as a principal source for the new book, written by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind. In addition to interviews with O'Neill, Suskind drew on 19,000 documents O'Neill provided. Suskind also interviewed other Bush insiders for the book.

On 60 Minutes, CBS journalist Lesley Stahl said O'Neill had briefing material involving Iraq. Suskind said: "There are memos. One of them, marked secret, says 'Plan for post-Saddam Iraq.' [emphasis added]" A 60 Minutes representative said a cover sheet of the briefing materials was shown.

"We don't have a secret document. We didn't show a secret document. We merely showed a cover sheet that alluded to such a document," Kevin Tedesco said.

Never mind whether a document marked 'Secret' was shown on TV; by the author's own admission, classified information was used by (presumably) an uncleared person in the preparation of an unclassified book. If I did that in my job, I'd be fired and prosecuted!

CNN had a side-by-side while I was working out this morning (as usual, there was no sound and I could only read some of the captions) between a Bush defender and somebody I think they labeled as a 'Democratic spokesperson' (I really need to be able to take notes on the stairclimber). The Democrat said the Treasury department was being petty by investigating this, and that it revealed President Bush's pettiness by letting them do that. Funny, weren't these the same folks who were calling for an Inquisition over Who Outed Valerie Palme?

Today's Democratic Marching Orders

Apparently the decisive recall vote was as much a referendum on George Bush as it was on Gray Davis. Howard Dean:

"Today's recall election in California was not about Gray Davis or Arnold Schwarzenegger. This recall was about the frustration so many people are feeling about the way things are going. . . . Tonight the voters in California directed their frustration with the country's direction on their incumbent governor. Come next November, that anger might be directed at a different incumbent . . . in the White House."

DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe:

"People are worried about their jobs, their health insurance, and they are taking it out on Gray Davis. And they will take it out on George Bush, too."

Maxine Waters also said something similar on CNN about 7AM CT, but I didn't get the exact quote.

Sorry, we ain't buyin' it.

Of course, if Davis had survived the recall, the spin would have been "This was a successful referendum on the way Democrats are running California, and this will surely impact George Bush in 2004."

Cruz Bustamente: Sucks To Be You. You'll be even more irrelevant than a normal Lieutenant Governor.

Stop Or My Wife Will Bust Out The Checkbook!

Last Sunday in Parade, a letter in Walter Scott's Personality Parade asked if Teresa Heinz Kerry planned to use her fortune to help her husband, Democratic Senator John Kerry, in his Presidential campaign. What makes the question interesting is the source of her wealth--she inherited half a billion when her first husband, Republican Senator John Heinz, died in a 1991 plane crash. Her response:

"I would never spend family money on any campaign unless the honor of John's name was attacked. If a political rival launched a personal attack on my husband, would I take it lying down? My hunch is I would not."

In other words, look for the family money to show up the next time an opponent questions Kerry's war record (which, by the way, could be any day now).

For My Next Trick... Next Week's Powerball Numbers

Victor Davis Hanson's NRO column this week offers a much different way of looking at the events of the last twenty months:

"These are still perilous times. But if anyone on September 12, 2001, had predicted that 22 months later there would still be no repeat of 9/11; that bin Laden would be either quiet, dead, or in hiding; that al Qaeda would be dispersed, the Taliban gone, and the likes of a Mr. Karzai in Kabul; that Saddam Hussein would be out of power, his sons dead, and an Iraqi national council emerging in his place; that troops would be leaving Saudi Arabia, Arafat ostracized, and Sharon seeking negotiations; that new Middle East agreements under discussion — and all at a cost of fewer than 300 American lives — then he would surely have been written off as a madman."

Well, I didn't predict it on September 12th, or in that much detail, but I did say this a month later:

"[I]f the terrorists' goal was to get the US to end its support for Israel, what they should have done is kept on doing what they were doing--attack American interests overseas. Eventually, we may have tired of being nickel-and-dimed over something most people see--or at least saw--as irrelevant (I mean, how many people knew who Osama bin Laden or the Taliban were before September 11?), and just rolled over and said 'The hell with it. Israel, you're on your own.' Instead, by taking the fight to our homeland, the terrorists have made exactly the same mistake the Japanese did in 1941. And we all know how that one ended."

And speaking of predictions, I'd like to point out that I called The Amazing Race's final four before the season started.

If Hamas Had Helicopters, They'd Be Calling It Sectional Chart To Murderville

I'm not a big fan of the so-called 'Roadmap to Peace.' LGF refers to it as 'Roadmap to Murderville', but I prefer to call it the 'Roadmap to Piece,' as in 'Roadmap to Ensuring That Every Jew In Israel Is Eventually Blown Into Tiny Pieces.' Anyway, they've taken another turn on the merry-go-round: Israel tries to take out a Hamas leader with a missile, Hamas responds by using a splodeydope to blow up a bunch of innocent people. Again. James Lileks is one of the best--and usually funniest--writers out there (every day!); incidentally, this one makes me think of a live-action Red Meat, kinda like this one. But I digress.

Lileks' Bleat today has this answer to the apologists that say 'they only use suicide bombings because they don't have helicopters:'

"They don't have helicopters, we're told, so they use suicide bombers. If they had helicopters, they would have strafed the bus and everyone waiting at the corner. Give them a nation where Hamas runs unchecked, and they'll have helicopters."

And since I try never to miss an opportunity to pile on France, I'll include his next quote:

"They won't be Apaches. The bill of sale will be calculated in Euros and the manual written in French."

UpDATE: /2003 Damn, I'm already a turn behind. The IDF just bagged Yasser Taha in a missile attack. Also, the IHT is reporting that the Israeli Army has declared "all-out war" against Hamas (Deustche Welle is reporting the same thing). About damn time.

Next Up: Roll On Over You by Thin Lizzy

LGF reader jenbr had a great Alan Sherman parody as a comment to this story about another pancake martyr wannabee.

Where, Oh Where, Have The WMDs Gone?

One of the recurring punching bags the dupes (if you want to be charitable) / commies (if you don't) over at lefdymedia.org keeps banging on is this: "How come we haven't found any WMD in Iraq yet? Huh? How come? Huh? Wasn't that our [sneeringly, accompanying eye-roll optional] 'justification?' Well, then it must have been about oil/imperialism/racism/Zionism/insert-pet-rock-of-choice-here after all! Hail Marx!" OK, I overdramatized it, but it's at least a semi-valid point (never mind that Iraq is a nation of non-trivial size, unlike, say, the People's Republic of Berkeley). They say we should have let Hans and his Keystone Kops stumble around for as long as it took to find them, if that was our real intent, which (according to them) it wasn't.
Fair enough, but consider this: we essentially own Iraq. We can go anywhere we want to (granted, in some cases it would be unwise to do this in less than company strength) and look in any basement, behind any dumpster, underneath any pile of weapons of regular destruction, inside any U-Stor-It we want to anywhere in the country without anyone really being able to call ahead and say "The Americans are coming! For the love of Allah, move the Anthrax! And the copies of the TotalFinaElf contracts!" With all that freedom of movement, we haven't found anything yet. Given that, what are the odds that UN weapons inspectors, with all the BS they had to put up with, would ever have found anything?

A Few Random Thoughts On The War (and the one in Iraq, too)

Sometimes bias is subtle. Quoting this McPaper article:

"Dozens of flag-waving rallies for American troops in Iraq look like spontaneous, grass-roots gatherings. But many are orchestrated by conservative political groups, just as anti-war protests are led by peace groups and activists on the political left."

Note that conservative rallies are 'orchestrated' while leftist rallies are 'led.'

I also had a response to this Beruit Daily Star op-ed piece that basically complains that we're trying to knock Iraqi TV off the air:

"Mr El-Affendi's comments seem to indicate that the United States is somehow obligated to allow their enemy's state-run television network to continue broadcasting. I personally am not surprised by this; differing standards of expected conduct for the sides in this war is the order of the day for virtually all commentators outside the US and Britain (and indeed, as Mr El-Affendi's affiliation indicates, a non-trivial number of commentators in those countries as well). Instead of criticizing Saddam for parading clip after clip of Coalition POWs, he criticizes the US for attempting to prevent continued broadcasts of such a nature.
The propaganda battle is an integral feature of modern warfare; there's no reason to let your enemy get his say if you can do something about it."

Surprise, surprise--as it turns out, it can be argued that our attempts to silence Iraqi TV are a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Basically, the argument goes like this: Iraqi TV serves no military purpose; thus, it's a civilian target and not fair game. Personally, I think that's a load of crap - Article 72 indicates that we're on the hook to provide scientific equipment, musical instruments, and sports outfits to our Iraqi EPW's! Well, we do have them decked out for one game already--Blind Man's Bluff!

More Crap From The Left

More Crap From The Left

The March 2003 Esquire (no link; why increase their Google score?) has a short interview with Nation communist--err, columnist Eric Alterman (nl;wihGs?), who just scraped together a book-length hack job (nl;wiiGs?) on Coulter and Limbaugh, among others. Among his nuggets of wisdom:

• When asked whether he thought engaging in a dialogue with Ann Coulter is a mistake: "I debase myself every time I say her name. That's why I said from the beginning that it's gonna [sic] take a lot of money to get me to do this." Silly me - I thought money issues were only the concern of rich evil conservatives.


• "Now, I happen to think the country is to the left of not just Republicans but the Democrats on most issues." Sure. This explains the landslide of Green and Socialist winners in the off-year elections.


• "I hate to say it, but I wish the guy [Limbaugh] had gone deaf. I shouldn't say that, but on behalf of the country, it would be better without Rush Limbaugh and his 20 million listeners." I bet a dollar that he enjoyed saying that.

And they call conservatives hateful and mean-spirited. Riiiiiight.

In other news, I think I've figured out why a liberal talk-radio programming slate won't work: because all six people who'd listen to it are already listening to NPR (National People's Radio)!

Why Do You Think They Call Them The Green Mountains?

From Slate's Today's Papers:

"Two of the Republicans' most loathed figures in the Senate--Sens. James Jeffords and Patrick Leahy--represent Vermont. Leahy was the Democratic Judiciary Chairman who has held up all of President Bush's judicial appointees, and Jeffords is the former Republican whose defection from the party a year and a half ago allowed Democrats to gain control of the Senate and Leahy to take his post. Now that Republicans are back in power, they are thirsting for revenge, and the NYT says Vermonters can expect a nuclear waste repository to show up in their state soon."

Now that's hardball.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

CNN reported this morning that John Glenn isn't too happy with Dennis Tito's vacation on the International Space Station (now, inexplicably, named 'Alpha'). Glenn told CNN it would be like the U.S. paying for most of an expensive lab on Earth, and another partner "placed a Greyhound station or hot dog stand on one end." OK, now it's my turn in the Metaphor Game: Taking a septugenarian senator and way-long-retired astronaut and Shuttling him would be like replacing Peyton Manning with Johnny Unitas. Oh, wait. Glenn already did that. Huh. My bad.

Or could it be that there were more pragmatic reasons for Glenn's flight? And one more thing--has anybody ever heard from the other people on board that Shuttle? Maybe the ten-day-mission was a cover-up, and the truth has been suppressed.

At The Tone, The Time Will Be... 5:00. Except In Indiana, Where It Will Be 1927.

One of the (countless) things that embarrasses me about living in Indiana is the fact that we can't get the hang of this daylight savings time thing. Y'see (for those of you who live in the 47 other states that understand 'spring ahead fall back' as something other than a line dance step), most of Indiana observes Eastern Standard Time year-round. The practical effect is that in the spring and summer, we observe the same time as Chicago; in the fall and winter, the same time as Detroit.

What this also means is that the rest of the country is never exactly sure what time it is here. At best, it's tedious, like whenever I make plans to visit my family in Michigan or vice versa and have to remind them whether we're on the same time or an hour behind; at worst, it can cost Big Money. It would be comical if it didn't reinforce the stereotypical image of Hoosiers as backwards-assed country fscks, but it happens the same way every year--a big push goes on at the beginning of the legislative season, where this by God is the year we're going to finally do it, and then the next thing you know, the Indiana Farm Bureau bitches about how the farmers can't cope with it, and the initiative vanishes without a trace.

Of course, there are folks who think the entire DST thing is a crock and we should all go back to 'normal' time anyway. In a twist, some think that God set the clocks and we should leave well enough alone [these people think of evolution as a Communist Satanic plot, so don't even get me started here].

Wow, that's a lot of venting over something so trivial as what time zone we're in. I wonder what'll happen when I decide to comment on something meaningful?

Let McVeigh Die, But Save The Cows!

In a particularly egregious case of sticking their noses where they don't belong, PETA sent a letter to Harley Lappin, warden of the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute where Timothy McVeigh is scheduled to get The Needle next month, asking that McVeigh's last meal be vegetarian. I'm pretty sure their request was rejected on Constitutional grounds. Failing that, PETA appealed to McVeigh personally to request a vegetarian meal. His response is far more charitable than mine would have been, were I in his shoes: "I'm kind of preoccupied right now, what with my impending death and all, but look at it like this: I offed over 160 people. What makes you think I give a flying fsck about animals?". Then I'd order a panda steak (seasoned with powdered bear's gallbladder) with extra dolphin sauce and a bowl of spotted owl's nest soup. Thanks to pure (watermelon) sugar for the ref.

I have always said that vegetarianism (or whatever the PC term is today; I don't keep up because I don't care) is a religion based on guilt, and that it's the closest thing to animal worship extant in the First World.