February 29, 2004 by s.z.

The REAL Victims Doug Giles answers critics of Mel's Passion: First off, “The Passion” is not anti-Semitic, its pro-history.  Do the Jews want to erase from the historical record the carnage of the holocaust and its perpetrators because it makes Germans uncomfortable?  I don’t think so. Yes, the Jews crucifying Christ is just as historical as the holocaust, and we must "never forget," or the Jews will keep killing our Messiahs. Besides, Christians are the Jews best friends, for they too know what it's like to be persecuted: Modern Christians are immediately linked to the Inquisition or the Crusades every time they speak out publicly on an issue or pray over their lunch at the Olive Garden.  I've seen it a hundred times, but it still kind of bothers me when Christians who say grace in the Olive Garden are herded off to concentration camps. Christians know what Jews go through regarding persecution.  There are rabid monosyllabic anti-Christian and anti-Semitic sentiments at work in the world brought on, primarily, by the WWF tag team of Islam and liberal secularism.   Yeah, those vicious liberal secularists are always persecuting Christians -- and since the libs are tag teaming with the Islamonazis, it's THEM the Jewish Defense League should be fussing about, not Mel Gibson. 6:34:32 AM

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What Reading Sean Hannity Books Can Do To You The NY Daily News reported that four more people (including their marketing dirctor) have quit ReganBooks, "the highly profitable publishing imprint at Rupert Murdoch's HarperCollins," recently.  The problem: apparently Judith Regan is a real bitch.  The four are among "nearly a dozen" that have left in the past two years. Regan is unapologetic. "You know what? To be very successful, there's a lot of very hard work, and a lot of insanity, which goes with the territory," she told me. "I run a tight ship, work with very creative and hardworking people, who are really smart and really aggressive. We also produce at a very high level. Some people can't do that. Some people don't have the work ethic, the creativity, the drive, the ambition, the desire - and that's why they don't make it.  But a former ReganBooks staffer said: "She is the boss from hell," and half a dozen ex-employees complained to me about Regan's allegedly abusive behavior. Fearing reprisals from their former boss, none of these ex-staffers would allow me to identify them. Their testimony, however, is remarkably consistent.According to multiple sources, the 50-year-old mother of two is a brilliant publisher with an uncanny feel for the marketplace. She can also be enormously charming.But she is also, I've been told, a bully who regularly addresses underlings as "f-- retards" and "f-- idiots," and phones them after midnight at home to berate them in profanity-laced tirades. I'm told that one Regan employee developed a stress-induced rash, and another suffered stomach trouble under her steady fire. Regan has published such tomes as Deliver Us from Evil, by Sean Hannity; The Case Against Hillary Clinton by Peggy Noonan;God and Ronald Reagan by Paul Kengor; Think a Second Timeby Dennis Prager; and Bush vs. the Beltway : How the CIA and the State Department Tried to Stop the War on Terror by Laurie Mylroie.   Did the books make Ms. Regan crazy and mean, or did she choose to publish these kinds of books BECAUSE she was crazy and mean?  It's like the chicken/egg conumdrum, only with more payoffs to disgruntled employees in exchange for nondisclosure agreements.    Bottom line: I've had some bad bosses, but none of them telephoned me after midnight to call me a "f---ing retard".  So, Judith Regan wins today's World O'Crap Boss of the Week award.  She also gets, for just .99, a copy of Deliver Us from Evil.  5:53:56 AM

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From Who's Sauron -- bin Lauden or Bush? by Steven Hart:  For that matter, the invasion of Iraq makes a poor match with the War of the Ring.  It only works if we can imagine Gandalf as having cut business deals with Sauron back in the Second Age, even providing him with the seed cultures for breeding his legions of orcs.  There is no question of imminent threat in "The Lord of the Rings" -- the armies of Mordor come looking for trouble.  Had Gondor marshaled its troops only to find Mordor bare of weapons, and Barad-dur ready to crumble at a touch, then we might find parallels with George W. Bush's grand venture. And if, when rumors about Aragorn having been AWOL from the rangers began to surface, he tried to curry favor with the dwarves by banning human/elf marriage. Anyway, wait for Jonah Goldberg to be all over Hart's piece in the Corner today.  You might want to wear some of that elvish chainmail while you read. 5:19:32 AM

February 28, 2004 by s.z.

We Need a Federal "No More Inbreeding" Ammendment Say what you will about the FMA's chances of ever getting passed, you do have to admit that President Bush's endorsement of it have caused the wingnuts to really show their nuttier side.  A couple of quick examples: 1.  Here's Jerry Falwell with  A Call to Scotchguard Marriage : If this simple but powerful amendment becomes law, it would permanently protect traditional marriage from activist judges and politically correct activists from ever achieving their goal of attaining homosexual marriage rights. The traditions of our Founders would be secured. Yes, their traditions like wooden teeth, outhouses, and slavery would be secured forever and ever. Christians must be prepared to fearlessly (and immediately!) invade the culture with the Gospel of Christ to counter the godless effort to bring radical social change to our nation. This effort has no end because these social extremists will never be satisfied; if they achieve homosexual marriage there is literally no telling what they will want next  There is indeed literally no telling what they will want next, because those close-mouthed godless radical gay social extremists just aren't saying.  But we can guess: they'll probably want homosexual wedding showers and gay divorce.  Oh, and to eat Christian babies. The issue goes far deeper than homosexual marriage, though. Homosexual-rights advocates are on a relentless quest to gain governmental and social endorsement of their lifestyle(s). And our children are their targets! See, I told you they wanted to eat our children!  And you'll notice that some of them are so depraved that they have more than one lifestyle.  Be careful: some of these bi-lifestylers might be in YOUR neighborhood.   Be especially wary of the evangalist/hateful bigot.  They can be nasty when cornered.   2.  And now let's let Armstrong Williams order around the VP's daughter in Dance, Mary, Dance: One moment gay and lesbian protesters are demanding that we regard them not by their insipid sexual acts, but as complex human beings deserving of the same inalienable rights the constitution reserves for all "humans."  The next moment they are labeling and dismissing any human who breaks ranks with their cause.  Damn gays!  They want us to treat them like humans, and then they go and set up a website asking "the openly gay daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney" to support their cause.  And this means that we DON'T have to treat them like humans. Oh, and Armstrong wants you to know that his sexual acts are bold and flavorful. Get it? Mary doesn't act as gay as they feel she should so they label and dismiss her. How neat and easy and ridiculously absurd. I mean, isn't this precisely the sort of reductive stereotyping that the homosexual activists are supposed to be fighting against? I mean, isn't that their thing? Respecting a human beings freedom to make intimate decisions without heaps of third-party indignation and scorn?  Yeah, they're supposed to respect people and stuff, and yet they treat Mary like a homosexual!  The hypocrites!  Thank heavens that we never claimed to respect anybody, and so can bash people without compunction. After all, why do gay couples want the church's blessing? They could go about their business just fine without having been "wed" in a church, right?  Unless there is more to it.  It is political, and often economic.  Whoa, Armstrong has figured out those inscrutable gays!  It seems that they aren't trying to force Catholic priests marry them after all!  No, they want the economic and legal benefits that come with civil marriage.  The sneaks! But if you look behind the rhetoric about civil rights, it becomes clear that they are acting at the expense of what is best for society, and to grant them victory, would be to rip our most sacred religious and cultural ideals to shreds. This no one owes them!  Why do gays hate America and its most sacred religious and cultural ideals? 4:57:17 AM

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World O' Good Stuff Here are some things to amuse and/or enlighten you: 1.  Fried Green al-Qaedas awards their prestigious "Hoover Award" to Donald Wildmon, president of the American Family Association.  He received the honor for finding dirt EVERYWHERE.  And for sucking. 2.  In honor or Education Secretary Rod Paige, Washing the Blog presents  Terrorism Elementary!!!  It has a curriculum, illustrations, and everything.   3.  And Sadly, No! reads Adam Yoshida so you don't have it.  Per Sadly, Adam has a unique slant on Christianity (and love), in that he claims that one can love one's enemies but still want to kill them.  Oh, and somehow foot fetisists are committing dangerous acts, just like how homosexuals are sunshine patriots.  Anyway, Sadly makes as much sense of it as anyone could. 4:23:03 AM

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If You Criticize Mel, You're Criticizing Jesus What can I say about Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ that hasn't already been said? Nothing. But I have read at least 6231 "reviews" done by conservative pundits, and can distill them for you: the movie isn't (overtly) anti-Semitic; it is, however, very violent, being centered on Christ's physical suffering -- and watching 100 minutes of Christ being scourged, beaten, battered, etc., makes an emotional impact on the viewer.  Oh, and every conservative in North America is required to see the film in order to prove that he or she is on the side of religion over secularism, goodness over immorality, and conservatism over those liberal smarty-pants who think they're better than us. So, I just want to remind people that IT'S JUST A MOVIE.  For a very interesting and well-researched piece about how the film is being used as a touchstone in a culture war, see David Neiwert. And for an example of how the movie is being presented as more than a movie, see It's open season on Christianity, the latest column by 15-year-old Kyle Williams.  Under the guise of "reviewing" and "opining" on a movie, it's been a field day for any bigot to take a free swing at Jesus.  Coupled with that and their disgust at the idea of Christ's passion being brought out into the public eye, the passion against "The Passion" has flooded newspapers and various media outlets. I think I'm at least as widely read as Kyle, and I haven't seen any mainstream (or even second-string) reviewers or opiners taking swings at Jesus.  While Kyle does provide selected portions of a few reviews in order to outrage his readers with the calumny the "bigots" are directing at the film, none of his examples are about Jesus bashing, but are just criticisms of aspects of the film or of Gibson's marketing of the film.  It all started with the ardent criticism of Mel Gibson, his family and his film by some Jewish groups, claiming anti-Semitism. It was rather puzzling to see a group of people attack Christianity, the Jewish faith's closest friend, under the excuse of "The Passion of the Christ." Um, no.  It all started with Mel claiming that he was defending himself against "any Jewish people" who might attack the film.  Nobody had.  Nobody cared about his film back then.  And later, when Jewish groups finally did object to the film, they were OBJECTING TO THE FILM, not attacking Christianity. Frank Rich wrote an op-ed in the New York Times, fanatically bashing Mel Gibson, his faith, his family, movie and expressing his opposition to anything of which Gibson has been a part.   No, he didn't "fanatically bash" Mel Gibson (just regularly bashed him).  And Rich didn't bash Christianity, he just made a few snarky comments about Mel's religion, a break-off from Catholicism which believes that Kyle is not going to heaven.  Oh, and Rich said nothing about any member of Mel's family except Mel's father, the Holocaust denier.  And I don't recall Rich expressing opposition to many things which Gibson has been part of, such as Chicken Run.  And Kyle doesn't point out that Mel struck back at Rich, saying he wanted Rich dead, his dog dead, and his intestines on a stick, which sounds a lot more fanatical than anything Rich ever said.   Anyway, no bashing of Christianity in Rich's column.  I wonder if Kyle actually read it, or just read about it from other outraged anti-secular "Christians." Kyle's other examples of "bigots" attacking Christianity are all just movie reviews: Per Kyle, Salon gave the movie a "terrible review," and said the 3 major religions "should worried about its impact."  The Newsweekreviewer "compared the film with pornography and rape" (in that the long, sustained depiction of the torture of Christ gave him the same feeling as watching the real-time depiction of rape in the film Irreversible).  Christopher Hitchens "says the film was marketed toward the 'gay Christian sado-masochistic community,'" (because the focus on  whipping seemed to reflect an S&M esthetic).  Kyle concludes his run-down of movie criticism thusly: "It's interesting how general condemnations of Christianity can be excused under the banner of 'entertainment review.'"  But, I still can't see where anybody actually condemned Christianity.  But to Kyle, a criticism of the film IS a criticism of Christ.  Kyle is young, and so can be forgiven making that mistake of the emotionally immature: believing that a criticism of something he likes is a criticism of Kyle himself.  It's not.  This is JUST A FILM.  And Mel is NOT THE CHRIST, and so it's not blasphemy to object to his marketing plan or his movie.  Sure, Mel seems to be telling you otherwise, but that IS blasphemy.  I wish Kyle's elders would realize this too. In a letter to WorldNetDaily one "M.W." says that he or she will not be seeing the film because it's "a graven image," in that it's a "likeness" of Jesus, and we aren't supposed to be making images of Him.  Okay, I don't believe that the second commandment actually forbids us from making or watching movies that depict Christ, but I do think that if we start worshipping the movie instead of Christ, that we are indeed breaking this commandment.  And confounding the movie with Christ himself is also a way of breaking this commandment, I believe.  And like "M.W" sort of pointed out, there is way more to Christ than that he got beat up really bad, and so claiming that this IS Christianity is also a form of idolatry, since it takes us away from Christ Himself. So, enjoy movies responsibly, or I'm not going to let you kids watch them anymore. 3:59:28 AM

February 27, 2004 by s.z.

"There's the sound of a loud, rude raspberry"   We start this week's visit with American's Worst Mother (TM TBOGG Intellectual Property Inc.) by noting how their chaotic home life has effected the Gurdon children. Xenotrope has dropped her glass of water on the kitchen floor -- a lack of vitamin D has given her rickets, and she's unable to hold the glass.  A shoeless Prissy Lou is stomping in the water, this being the closest she'll get to a bath this month.  Or to shoes. Butte is insisting that his mother look at his Lego spaceship that can take him far, far away from his squalid home.  And it can also sense and kill "baddies."  And biddies, we would assume. The eldest Gurdonette, Julep, is worried about car bombs.  Her mother assures her that there are none where they live -- but Meghan knows that's just wishful thinking.  The liberal neighbors could be plotting to car bomb the Gurdon homestead even as we speak . . . unless Meghan takes them out first.  Maybe Butte could build her Lego bomb that destroy baddy liberals. Poor anxious Julep is worn down with the responsibility of having to keep together a household headed by an absent father and a deranged mother. [S]he is the conscience of the household, a kind of living notepad for the rest of us. You can ask her at breakfast to remind you to call Mrs. Whatsit after school about a thingie and she will always remember.  Her mind is not quite so steel-trappish about such banalities as putting her sneakers in her gym bag, but whose, at nine, ever is? Julep's tender, young mind is a lot cheaper than Post-It notes, so Meghan has no compunction about using her daughter as a living Dayplanner.  But with all her other worries (Will Mummy remember to turn off the gas before leaving little Xenotrope alone in the house today?  Will Mummy shoot the neighbors?  Is Daddy ever coming home?), it's not surprising the poor kid can't remember to put her sneakers in her gym bag.  Later, her psychiatrist will help Julep to understand that it was wrong of her parents to force her to be the conscience of the household, and she will never speak to them again.  But she'll always have nightmares about getting to school and realizing that her feet are NUDE! But an impatient Meghan can't worry about Julep's eye twiches or Xenotrope's rickets right now, because she has a strike mission to carry out.  Because my husband is working late, we're bringing dinner to his office. I'm sure it will help him finish sooner to have the five of us camped beside his desk, overturning slices of pizza on the carpet and drawing princesses on his paperwork. We do what we can. Meghan's husband has been working late a lot lately -- in fact, he hasn't been home in days.  HE gets to spend his time in a nice, orderly, office with appliances that work and furniture that isn't covered with feral rabbit droppings.  And he gets to associate with grownups who rarely dump their glasses of water on the floor or demand one pay attention to their Lego projects.  So Meghan is going to take the brats to the office to dump them on him.  THAT will teach him to abandon his family!  And let his secretary deal with pizza in her hair, pee in her shoes, and a lack of actual notepads, and then we'll see if she's still so damned perky, non-shrill, and clean. On the car ride into the city, Meghan imagines pedestrians wincing at the noise her unruly family makes.  And then she imagines those pedestrains screaming in horror as she run them down -- how DARE they think that her precious children are noisy! Meanwhile, Butte is hearing subliminal messages from Satan in the Raffi tape. "The Devil is telling me to eat the pizzas, but I'm not going to work for the Devil."  Won't somebody from Child Services PLEASE do something for these children?  Now, before it's too late! They continue to drive.  Meghan reports that Julep wants to rip down all the Howard Dean signs.  Since this doesn't sound like anxious, overly-conscientious Julep, we suspect that Meghan made the whole thing up so she could call Dean "a frothing governor." "But when is President Bush going to put up signs? What's his slogan going to be?" While Meghan attributes the question to Julep, we know that it's just a rhetorical device through which she is submitting her entry into Tbogg's "Happy, Shiny Bush" slogan contest: 'W. 2004'," I say, recalling a new bumper sticker I'd seen the other day. In the racket of the madding car, Molly is silent for a moment. Then she pipes up delightedly: "Because he's worth double you, ole Democrats!" Um, nice try, Meghan, but I don't think it's a contender.  And leave poor Julep out of this -- the kid might be your notepad, but it's over the top to use her as your ventriloquist's dummy.  And, just like a "Twilight Zone" ep, the family never does make it to Daddy's office.  They just drive and drive, while Butte's head continues to spin, Julep develops anorexia, and everybody enjoys some good, old-fashioned rude noises.  For eternity! Anyway, that's what it looked like to me.  Please tune to the TBOGG channel for the authorized, really funny version of the tale.  8:08:06 AM

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America's Worst Mom On theTalibanizing of Men TGIF, and we get another of TBOGG's patented tales of the Gurdon Bunch.  As you will recall, last week Meghan had a complete psychotic break.  She spent the entire time being harangued by the Invisible Wife for throwing such a pretentious party for four-year-old Petunia's birthday, and also hallucinated about a pack of wild children ambushing the Nonexistant Husband.  It was kind of sad.  We predict that this week the Invisible Wife will taunt Meghan for serving homemade madeleines at a kids party, and inform her that all the neighbors are laughing at her -- and the only way to get them to stop is take a rifle to the church's bell tower.  Oh, and little Myrmidian will say the cutest thing about John Kerry being French-looking. But while we wait for that, let's see what we can learn about the America's Worst Mother (Registered Trademark of TBogg/Halliburton Inc.) from selected portions of her Wall Street Journal piece concerning Naomi Wolf's revelation about being groped by Harold Bloom: In college a friend of mine used to reduce us both to teary laughter by making up funny songs about what people's private parts would say if only they could speak.  So, back in college, Meghan had at least one friend.  A funny friend who would make up songs about people's talking private parts.  Um, okay.  And somehow it reminds Meghan of Naomi's Wolf piece about being groped by Bloom -- since we know she uses her children as props to make pithy but stupid political statements, we suspect the friend with the talking vagina songs is probably fictional too.  But let's move on: A beastly incident--for both of them--if true.  For Ms. Wolf, though, we are asked to believe that it was transformatively awful. Though she was sexually experienced, this unwanted touch of a teacher sparked in her a "moral crisis" that eventually shook her confidence in Yale University itself. It seems that Meghan believes that sexually experienced women can't be emotionally effected by unwelcome sexual advances, and presumably that prostitutes can't be raped.    Now, it is indeed dismaying to find that an older man whom you take to be a mentor, or who you believe is captivated by your sparkling young intellect, has secretly been hoping to get you undressed. Young women make this discovery all the time; it is a regrettable aspect of growing up in an oversexed society with no real norms, and perhaps was always thus. So, if something like this happens to you, you should just shut up and accept it as a part of life in this oversexed culture.  Or any culture.  In any case, this kind of stuff just happens, and the man is blameless because it's not HIS fault that women have thighs. There's so much ugliness in this story, and in the publicizing of it, that it's difficult to know where to start. For one thing, Ms. Wolf's tale illustrates two impossibly contradictory strains in the feminist culture that she herself promotes. Women must be sexually shameless--meaning shame-free--and society should encourage female erotic exploration. Men, however, must observe a phenomenal degree of purity--in language, eye-movement, intentions and most definitely in the placing of heavy, boneless hands on women's thighs. This reverse-Talibanism may make sense in the steamy atmosphere of a women's studies class, but it withers into absurdity in the fresh air of real life. This sounds a lot like Dennis Prager's complaint about how women get to wear g-strings and pasties to work, but if men stare at them, the men get hauled off to Sexual Harassment Court: "There are vast checks on his sexuality, none on hers." Let me give some unisex advice, to help Meghan and Dennis understand how things work in this confusing, oversexed society: Each person is responsible for his or her own actions.  If a woman wears a low-cut, tight dress to work, it doesn't force her male coworkers to pat her butt, or comment on her breasts.  If a man wears skintight jeans and no shirt to work, it doesn't force his female coworkers to pat HIS butt or comment on his "area." However, since neither outfit would be considered "professional attire" at most places of business, the person wearing the inappropriate clothing is responsible (to a large degree) for how his or her fashion statements effect his or her reputation for professionalism, chances for advancement, etc. And if a female student, by "prearrangement," meets in her apartment with the professor from her writing seminar to discuss her manuscript, it doesn't force him to put his hand up her dress.  It's wrong for him to do it -- even if she knew he had a reputation as something of a lech, and even if she did have too much to drink. And if a male student, by "prearrangement" meets with the professor from his writing seminar to discuss his manuscript, it doesn't force her to put her hand down his pants.  It's wrong for her to do it -- even if he knew she had a reputation as something of a lech, and even if he did have too much to drink.  However, both the male and female student should learn from the experience (if they didn't know it before), that drinking too much with a person alleged to be a lech is not a good idea, and can put one in a position where one might be the recipient of unwelcome advances.  Not that the advances would be the fault of the student, but the responsible person does what he or she can to obviate unpleasant or dangerous situations.  I hope that helps Dennis and Meghan.  But back to Meghan's gripes about how the slut deserved it: Let's say, for example, that Ms. Wolf had wanted to bed her famous professor. That would be cool, right? A young woman exercising her sexual power--who is to say that she can't sleep with whomever she likes? In this scenario, the professor makes his clumsy approach, she responds and the fireworks go off Love American Style. In short, if she had enjoyed his overture--a hand on a thigh!--it would have been hunky-dory, and she wouldn't have written about it save perhaps in an analysis of May-September couplings. Since a professor is in a position of authority over his students, he shouldn't be groping them, even in Meghan's "the tart is hot to trot" scenario.  I don't think Naomi has ever written about the joys of relationships where one person holds most of the power.  Maybe she would say it would be cool if a young woman who wanted to bed her famous professor put her hand on his thigh -- I don't know enough about her writings to say -- but I don't think Wolf would say that a young woman should "exercise her sexual power" by being the passive recipient of an advance by an authority figure. Instead, he touches her leg, she recoils and he leaves. And 20 years later, in the twilight of his scholarship, Harold Bloom comes out of his house to the accusing glare of television cameras. From this point onward, a whiff of goatiness will forever cling to his astonishingly humane, passionate and abundant oeuvre. I haven't read Naomi's New York Magazine piece, and don't know if Naomi's revelation of an incident that happened twenty years ago was motivated by concerns over Yale's sexual harassment procedures, or by shameless self-promotion -- and I certainly don't know if the story was something that needed to be shared with the world after all this time.  But I do believe that if the story is true, it's not Wolf's fault if "a whiff of goatiness will forever cling" to Bloom's work.  If he groped a student, it's his own damn fault if people consider him goaty.  Everybody is responsible for their own actions. 7:05:28 AM

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Adults Write the Darndest Things 1.  Attorney Richard D. Ackerman, writing at WorldNetDaily: Why is it that President Bush is only taking a "serious look" at what is going on in San Francisco? Bush ought to be sending in the National Guard to San Francisco to immediately restore the order of law and the thousands of years of history underlying the most valued institution of marriage. I agree.  I think that Bush should send the National Guard to haul away some of those elderly lesbian couples (and maybe the young mothers with the baby in the neo-natal ICU that Rush told us about).  If they could manage to shoot some of them, it would really help people to make up their mind about this issue! 2.  And here's Carey Roberts. a self-described "analyst and commentator on political correctness": Why do Americans refer to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson as our Founding Fathers? When Christians recite the Lord's Prayer, why does the phrase, "Our Father" immediately tumble out? Why did a generation of Americans grow up watching the TV series, Father Knows Best? In days past, "father" evoked notions of goodness, wisdom, steadfastness, and self-sacrifice. And with good reason. [snip] The deconstruction of fatherhood continues to this day. Turn on your TV and you will see the sitcoms and advertisements that portray dads as speechless dolts in the face of the superior wisdom of their wives and 11-year-old children So when feminists attack the institution of fatherhood, they are rending the very fabric of families, and of Nationhood itself  The writers for all those CBS sitcoms ("Everybody Loves Raymond," "Everybody Loves Kevin James," "Everbody Loves Jim Belushi," "Everybody Loves All Those Average Guys Married to Really Hot Women") are rending the fabric of Nationhood, and should be sent to Gitmo to think about what they've done.  While they're gone, we'll watch re-runs of "Father Knows Best" and try to figure out why the Founding Fathers aren't known as the Founding Cousins.  3.  And speaking of fathers, here's what's new around the James Lileks house: We are heading into the Last Weekend of the Unemployed Interregnum – my wife goes back to work on Monday, and life will do a 180. Me and Gnat again, M-F. We’re all just ridiculously happy around here these days . . . It's so nice when it's just Daddy and Gnat.  But let's move on before we think about that too much. 4.  Frank Salvato wants to tell us about the dangers of amending the Constitution.  Yes, we could end up with a Nazi president.  Another one, he means.  Senator Orin Hatch (R-UT) has proposed an amendment to the US Constitution that would allow naturalized citizens, who have been so for 20 years, eligibility to run for and hold the office of president. By proposing this legislation (and doing nothing to protest the activities of obstructionist senators who are practicing collusion with special interest groups regarding President Bush’s judicial nominees) Hatch is signaling that his thought process is starting to become unclear as to what is right and wrong, acceptable and not. Requiring that a candidate for the office of president be a naturally born citizen of the United States creates a generational buffer, if you will. It produces a period of time where ideologies from other regions of the world would have to be sustained in their support for at least a generation before they could possibly be injected directly into our political process. Some may believe this is a type of built in protectionism and they may be right. But one need only look at the resurgence of anti-Semitism and the Neo-Nazi culture among the German youth today to understand that some incredibly evil ideologies, no matter the effort to educate against them, no matter the efforts to eradicate them from humanity, will flourish despite what society tries to do about them.  Is this example extreme? Yes, it is, but it is a legitimate example nevertheless Poor Orrin.  Instead of using emails from the Democrats computers to make political points, he goes after the Republicans who stole them.  And now he wants a neo-Nazi President.  Clearly, his thought processes ARE slipping.  We attribute it his hanging around with rockers. 4:39:05 AM

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Capitalism at its Finest  As you will recall, a couple of days ago told you about Judson Cox's most recent column, which dealt with his realization that without a conservative internet dating service, most Republican singles were going to die alone and unloved.  And about how Judson did a search for such sites, and found only one: RepublicanConnections.com.  And it so impressed him with its rigor in screening out liberals and its adherence to the conservative principle of price gouging that he signed up. Well, as you may know, industrious reader Alex did a search at www.NetworkSolutions.com and found that young entrepeneur Judson is listed as the owner and administrator of RepublicanConnections.com.  What a coincidence! Alex also found that Judson posted his article at the shared blog The Right Society, and so Alex used the comments section there to ask Judson about his connection to RepublicanConnections.  Per Alex, Judson indicated that RC isn't his site, it's his mother's; Judson just set up the domain for her because "she is not very comfortable with computers and the internet".  Which makes her decision to run a computer dating service a bit odd, but as Alex said, maybe Mrs.Cox just wanted to find a nice girl for Judson so he'd move out of her basement.  (Personally, I think that what Judson meant about it being his mother's site is that it was her $50 that paid for the domain registriation, since Judson had this great idea to make lots of money but had blown his last Walmart paycheck on Ann Coulter porn, and so had to ask Mom to finance his latest business venture.) A few other smart, snarky people apparently commented on Judson's lapse in journalistic ethics . . . and then the article and all the comments were peremptorily removed from The Right Society.  Talk about your Crushing of Dissent!  (We're sure that Glen Reynolds will be all over it.) Then a few people asked Judson about the missing article in the Right Society comments for last week's column (which was about the duties of the press, appropriately enough).  Judson replied: Watch the libs pile on - they always show their true natures if you give them the oportunity! What miserable people; is it any wonder that most of them are Canadians! Our first thought is that Judson shouldn't have given the libs an opportunity to show their true natures ("generally intelligent, well humored, have good work ethics") by doing something so weasely and stupid as using his column to talk up a business without revealing his connection to it.  Our second thought was that RepublicanConnections should match up Judson with Adam Yoshida -- they'd be perfect for each other! Our third thought was that Judson shouldn't have knocked the Canadians (a liberal but proud people), because Sadly, No! heard that one of them informed MichNews of how Judson was using their space to promote his business.  I don't know if his conflict of interest has been mentioned to other conservative sites that run Judson's articles, but it wouldn't surprise me if the word got out. FYI, Judson's article was posted today at Bush Country:"Promoting the Ideals of Conservatism." I am tempted to tell Bush that he should consider banning Judson from his country, but I guess young Judson does actually promotes the ideals of conservatism, so Bush probably wouldn't care. And what should we learn from all of this?  Miel (who blogs at Hot Juicy Breathless Bla Bla) commented: "Now I realize that this is the best strategy...we separate the Republicans when they are at breeding age and slowly they die off!"  An excellent suggestion, and humantarianism at its most basic level -- the family. 2:30:35 AM

February 26, 2004 by s.z.

Frosted Mini-TownHalls

I'm really tired.  And the pundits aren't helping any, since they are all saying the same thing ("Mel Gibson's There's Something About Jesus is NOT anti-Semitic; and while it may be really violent, you never hear anyone saying we shouldn't let kids watch Reservoir Dogs.  Oh, and the FMA is not about discriminating against homosexuals, it's about standing up to uppity judges who want to cause the end of civilization as we know it.") 

But here's a representative sampling of today's TownHall.

Terence Jeffrey

Well, of COURSE women are going to get raped if they insist on playing football with men -- because rape is about violence, and football is also about violence.  The NFL players rape each other all the time.

There is a connection between the increasing disrespect shown to women in our society and an ultra-feminist ideology that pushes teenage girls to play a brutal contact sport with teenage boys.

Thus, it's the feminists' fault if women at the University of Colorado were raped -- because the feminists pushed for women to be included in unladylike sports, causing the young boys on the college team to think that all females were bitches who deserved to be assaulted.

A boy on a coed football squad -- or playing against a coed squad -- faces an irreconcilable conflict between his duty as a man and his duty as a player. As a man, he must never strike a woman. As a player he must strike teammates during scrimmages, and opposing players during games, fairly and within the rules but with all the force he can muster.

And once he learns how fun it is to tackle a woman, he will eventually became a rapist or serial killer (through no fault of his own), all because of his duty as a player.

Make no mistake: Any football player who rapes or assaults a woman should be tried, convicted and sent to prison. Any administrator or coach who turns a blind eye to immoral behavior by the students in his charge should be fired. But the ideologues that put girls on football fields must be held accountable, too. They are guilty of normalizing the use of force against women. 

Yup, the ideologues should go to jail along with the men who actually committed the assaults -- because if only Patricia Ireland hadn't encouraged girls to do manly things, then men wouldn't have acquired all that rage against women that can only be expressed through rape.

Emmett Tyrell 

Emmet isn't going to see The Passion of the Christ because it's a fantasy.  But he will go see The Affair of the Kerry, because that one is true.

Well whether or not Kerry had a Francois Mitterrand-like relationship with a cutie, he still seems very Gallic to me. Now it turns out he has a cousin who is mayor of a small French town. Mon Dieu, how French is that? Oh, and by the way, did I hear that he served in Vietnam?  

James Taranto, the wit who edits Opinion Journal.com, has been having a grand old time teasing Kerry about his chest-beating boasts of service in Vietnam. This past week, reports have begun to surface that the senator's boasts might be highly exaggerated. It appears he only served four more months in Vietnam than the 90 percent of the men of his generation who did not serve there at all.  

When you steal material from James Taranto, the puffy-looking blogger who hasn't had an original thought since 1982, you know you're in trouble.  Oh, and by the way, did I hear that Taranto is a wit?  I didn't thnk so.

And we must point out that this week, reports have begun to surface that Kerry served in Vietnam four months more than Emmett, who too was busy founding The American Spectator to actually serve in the military or do anything constructive with his life.  And while Kerry heroically saved the life of at least one person, Emmett did head the "Arkansas Project," dedicated to exposing the truth about Bill Clinton's heroin dealing and murder of Vince Foster, so he deserves a Silver Star too.

Maggie Gallagher

If we legalize gay marriage, then every single aspect of our society will change for the worse, and we might has well just kill ourselves and our children.

A recent Winston Group poll circulated by the Alliance for Marriage (which opposes same-sex marriage) asked Americans if they support a constitutional amendment to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Sixty-one percent said yes.  

In what amounts to a bit of interesting push-polling, the pollsters next asked: "If gay marriage were made legal and schools were then required to change their curriculum to treat gay marriages in the same manner as traditional marriages, would you favor or oppose gay marriage?"

Opposition jumped to 69 percent, with just 24 percent of Americans favoring single-sex marriage.

And then the Alliance for Marriage asked those polled, "If gay marriage was made legal, and so the government mandated that your son marry Michael Jackson, and your daughter marry Janet Jackson in a topless Super Bowl half-time black mass involving the slaughter of 100 innocent puppies, would you favor or oppose gay marriage?"

Then 92 percent of respondents opposed it.     

I call it a "push-poll," yet it accurately describes just one of many consequences of gay marriage: Home economics classes, abstinence education, marriage and family life courses, even teen pregnancy prevention courses - 

 . . .children's coloring books, Mother's Day cards, Gnat Lileks' lisping utterances, the Catholic Mass, the Morning Farm Report . . .

- anywhere the word "marriage" is used in public schools, the new unisex version of marriage could be pushed.

Well, you do have to admit that gay marriage is one way to prevent teen pregnancy.

Gary Aldrich

John Kerry is no hero, maybe.  You know how he got a Silver Star for leaping off his boat to kill a Vietnamese soldier who suddenly popped up?  Well, the solider might have been dying anyway, some guy says; Gary's FBI training in hydro-shock confirms it. 

Plus, some old guys told Gary that only wimps put in for Purple Hearts, since applying for medals took soliders away from killing commies for a few hours.  You know, Gary could have had dozens of Purple Hearts if he had wanted them, and had served in Vietnam and been wounded dozens of times. 

Oh, and maybe John Kerry was attending anti-war rallies with Jane Fonda while he was supposed to be in Vietnam!  It could have happened, you know.

Did Kerry take leave-time to attend these rallies, or was he AWOL from his post while he traveled around protesting the war?

Did he only participate in peaceful war protests, or did he join the Hard-Left, anti-US, pro-Communistic cabal of Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda and other well-known Hard-Left anti-US radicals?

Did he join the Black Panthers?  Was he one of the Weathermen who blew up that townhouse in New York?  Did he kidnap Patty Hearst?

I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I do know where to find them.  Every significant leader of any anti-war, anti-US protest from the 1960’s has a large file sitting in a file drawer over at the FBI Headquarters.

[snip]

Then, like President Bush, Senator Kerry could release his FBI file to the media. 

You go first, Gary -- ask to have your FBI personnel file released to the media.  I guarantee it would make fascinating reading; plus, it would help us to determine if you are crazy or not.  (Because while blaming Kerry because a White House with something to hide released Bush's dental records is kind of crazy, it's possible that Gary's FBI medical records could help us better understand his pathological jealousy of men who remind him of the jocks who got all the girls in high school.) 

Anyway, Gary isn't leaving it at telling Kerry about the existance of his FBI file; no, he's forming a committee called, “Americans for Truth About Kerry,” to "assist and encourage" Kerry to release his file to the media.  You know, so that Gary can do for Kerry what he did for the Clintons: smear him.  What a patriot and a hero!

Chuck Colson

Chuck is calling upon everyone to thank the President for "his courageous stand" for the FMA, because there has never been an issue "as important for Christians as this," since the FMA "has to do with protecting the most fundamental institution of human life."  For if homosexuals are allowed to marry, then all life on Earth will cease!

The president’s support is crucially important for several reasons. First, it adds muscle to the long struggle required to amend the Constitution. Second, he’s defending the family. The attack on marriage is an assault on the family, the most basic building block of human culture.  

Yes, the family is vital.  As Chuck once said, "I would walk over my grandmother if necessary to assure the President's reelection."  (Of course, that was when he was a "hatchetman," before he went to prison and found Jesus.  And besides, his grandmother wasn't CLOSE family.) 

Anyway, enough TownHall for today.  More blogging later.

6:40:51 AM

February 25, 2004 by s.z.

Desperately Seeking Conservatives On a day when everybody is talking about marriage, it's nice that young Judson "Cloned Pandas of Mass Destruction" Cox takes up the concerns of us singles.  If you are single (which I am), Valentine’s Day is a reminder of just how difficult it is to find the right person. It is particularly difficult if you are conservative. For an example of why, think of the Super Bowl Halftime Show. If you found it offensive, the club scene would equally offend you. Moreover, you probably have little in common with fans of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake. Yes, it's tough to be conservative and therefore unable to find love during the Super Bowl Half-time show like everyone else.  And if you found the show offensive, then it follows that you don't like "the club scene," popular music, or breasts, and therefore you will never find a mate, and will die alone and unloved. Shared values are essential to forming long-term relationships, but it is difficult to identify people who share your values in a social setting. Politics just aren’t sexy (unless you are Ann Coulter), and they don’t make for good flirtation fodder. You will never find a collection of pick-up lines that includes, "So, what do you think about national defense?" I'm starting to wonder if Judson is really serious in his search for love, because why would he expect to find his ideal woman (one who is offended by everything except national defense) by using pick-up lines? But yes, politics ARE sexy if you are Ann Coulter, since for her it's like S&M, except that she doesn't have to be in the same room with the people she's trying to humilate, dominate, and hurt.  But sadly, nobody in (or out of ) politics finds Ann sexy.  Well, except for Judson, Ben Shapiro, and a few other pimply virgins who don't know what the adam's apple means (or who pretend they don't, so they don't have to confront what attraction to Ann means about them.) There are also environmental challenges preventing conservatives from meeting. To begin with, if you are in college, you are pretty much up a certain malodorous creek without a paddle. Not only are most college students liberal, the atmosphere on campus tends to keep conservatives closeted for fear of retribution. You can join the College Republicans, but these groups are often smaller than a Sunday school class in Manhattan. Okay, now I'm sure that Judson is just playing games with us, since he attends Liberty University, which should be chock o'block with comely Young Conservatives, College Republicans, and Young Abstainers Who Object to Breasts. With each year you remain single after graduation, your odds of marrying become less likely. If you're not married by age 22, you can pretty much forget it. Much depends on your choice of career; if you go into education, public service, sociology, psychology, journalism or entertainment, you are more likely to be struck by lightning than you are to meet another conservative -- much less a single one. You can try to increase your odds by joining political groups; however, conservative groups are usually made up of (married) retired people. That guy who plays the lead in Mel Gibson's A Fistful of Jesus* chose a career in the entertanment field, and HE got struck by lightening.  That must prove something.  But it is true that conservative political groups are usually made up of old, boring, ugly, married people.  Take the Republican Party, for example. The temptation is to settle for a person who may not share your values. For liberals, there is little danger in marrying a conservative. Conservatives are generally intelligent, well humored, have good work ethics, save and invest, plan for the future and are family oriented. The worst thing liberals have to worry about is that their husband or wife may take their kids to church! For conservatives, the situation is very different. We have to worry that our children may be aborted without our knowledge or consent! Our liberal partners may give our hard earned money to communists, encourage our children to have premarital sex, use drugs, drop out of school, follow pagan religions or become homosexual! That happened to a conservative friend of mine.  She was a junior in college, and knew that her time to find a husband was running out.  So, she married some guy whom she picked up a a half-time show by asking him what he thought about national defense (he thought it was nice).  Sure, he was a liberal, but she believed that her love could change him.  But she soon found out that while she was out delivering Avon, he was giving her hard earned money to Communists!  He was also encouraging their twin toddlers to have premarital sex, use drugs, follow pagan religions, and become homosexuals!  She was shocked, as you might imagine.  But when she learned he had aborted their other children without her knowledge or consent, it was the last straw!  She had no choice but to have an affair with a married conservative who TOOK from the commies, instead of giving (he took both money and prostitutes).  And soon she was bearing his child, without the knowledge or consent of her husband.  I don't know what her married lover encourged his children to do, but their cousins are known for their alcohol and drug excesses.  And that man's name is . . . Neil Bush.  And now you know the REST of the story. Anyway, Judson goes on to explain that some people do stupid stuff to meet other single conservatives, like getting hooked up by the Sean Hannity radio show. Usually, it is a woman, who (regardless of age) is despondent because the only men she meets, who share her values, are her father’s age. It seems the feminists of thirty years ago were successful, and today’s young women are paying the price -- there just aren’t too many John Waynes sauntering across college campuses (except for me, of course!). Thirty years ago, the feminists succeeded in their aim of aborting all the male conservatives and John Wayne clones, leaving young female conservatives no eligible mates except for Judson.  Damn that Gloria Steinem! Having experienced this dilemma, I was shocked to find that online dating sites for conservatives are few. How odd.  When I checked out the online conservative matchmaking sites, I was shocked to find that there are so many (learning of the existence of the Ann Coulter Dating Club was, all by itself, enough to floor me).  I wonder why Judson couldn't find them. The only one I found was www.RepublicanConnections.com , a new website that opened Valentine’s Day of this year. Okay, now we see the purpose of this column: Judson is shilling for RepublicanConnections.  No wonder he played up the difficulty of finding love during the Super Bowl Half-time show. This site is different from non-ideological sites. Firstly, it is exclusive to conservatives. The owner makes every effort to evaluate each member profile and weed out liberals. I visited the site.  At this point it just consists of the home page (a lame graphic of an elephant and a blurb that sounds suspiciously like Judson's paragraph about what a hardworking, moral, family oriented people the conservatives are), an application page, and a legal disclaimer which informs you of the scads of things for which RepublicanConnections is not responsible (including "personal injury or death, resulting from anyone's use of the Website or the Service"). Anyway, the questionnaire used to come up RC profile only asks six questions (gender, age, Political Party, religion and/or Denomination, Profession or Education Level, and "About Me").  Of those, you are only required to answer the first two.  So, it's entirely possible for a liberal (gasp!) to slip through the service's rigorous screening.   Thus,  you might fall in love and marry someone you met at the site, only to realize years later (after he donated all your money to the Communist Party and aborted your children) that he was actually a liberal.  And so you'd kill him and then be sentenced to death yourself, but RepublicanConnections would NOT be liable, since they said in their disclaimer that they wouldn't be. Secondly, only members can enter the site - which prevents voyeurs. I particularly like the explanation of membership, that explains, "At RepublicanConnections.com, we only accept paid memberships; because, you get what you pay for, and only liberals expect to get something for nothing." Well, that little jab should get the conservatives to cough up $20 a month, even though the service doesn't tell you many members they currently have (my guess: just Judson), doesn't let you look at any member profiles, and doesn't explain what you get for your money (except for a chance to submit your profile).  I predict that RepublicanConnections.com will become a very successful business over the next year -- I signed up! The most successful businesses look for needs and fill them; they have done just that. This is capitalism at its finest, and humanitarianism at its most basic level -- the family. As you might recall, a couple of weeks ago Judson was moaning about having to get up early and drive to his crappy job, where they made him do tiring and/or boring stuff all day in exchange for just enough money to pay the morgage on his crappy house and put gasoline in his crappy car.  So, I guess he decided that being an entrepeneur (AND humantiarian) was actually the way to the riches promised by the free market, and he quit the job at Walmart and put together a (crappy) conservative dating service. For those of you who raised a lone glass in toast to this Valentine’s Day, I wish you well in your search for love. Let us persevere in our quest so that we may not drink alone next year. The greatest hope for our nation is that it will be comprised of strong families, who will raise conservative children. I, for one, think it’s time to start looking for love in all the RIGHT places. Thanks for the thought, Judson.  And I in turn hope that you make back the $50 you invested in setting up this dating scam, and get at least one date out of it, even if it's with Rush Limbaugh. *Check out TBOGG's list of titles for Mel's movie.  I think my favorite is "Crouching Jesus, Hidden Agenda."  And while you're there, scroll up and check out The Bold and the Beautiful Bush Slogan contest (as suggested by Ben Shapiro).  I'm still working on mine, but I'm leaning towards a variation of the slogan Mayor Quimby used in the race against Sideshow Bob.  You know the one: "Vote Quimby: If you were running for mayor, he'd vote for you."  And of course, that made me think of the analogy Peggy Noonen used in the Wash Post chat (and her last column) to explain why people liked Bush, even though he was an idiot.  So, my slogan idea is: "Vote Bush: If your house was on fire, he'd stand outside and direct traffic."  5:16:07 AM

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I Can't Believe It's A Law Professor       The Wall Street Journal's "Opinion Journal" presents Mary Ann Glendon, "Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard," giving us some technical legally stuff in a piece entitled: For Better or for Worse? The federal marriage amendment would strike a blow for freedom But since YOU presumably didn't attend Hollywood Upstairs School of Law too, let me rephrase professor some of Glendon's law jargon into regular English for you. President Bush's endorsement of a constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage should be welcomed by all Americans who are concerned about equality and preserving democratic decision-making.  President Bush's endorsement of a plan to write discrimination into the Constitution should be welcomed by all Americans who are concerned about equality, and don't want homosexuals to get any.  And if you don't welcome it, then you're probably a Commie. "After more than two centuries of American jurisprudence and millennia of human experience," he explained, "a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization." The President had to support the ammendment because a few judges and San Francisco officials forced him into it by making the fundies threaten to not vote for him unless he did. Those judges are here in Massachusetts, of course, where the state is cutting back on programs to aid the elderly, the disabled, and children in poor families. Yet a four-judge majority has ruled in favor of special benefits for a group of relatively affluent households, most of which have two earners and are not raising children. The gays have everything: nice houses, fashion sense, and that "Will and Grace" TV show -- and now they want to take away the only thing that poor, disabled, elderly children of MA have going for them: the fact that they can get married and the homosexuals can't.  What same-sex marriage advocates have tried to present as a civil rights issue is really a bid for special preferences of the type our society gives to married couples for the very good reason that most of them are raising or have raised children. Gay marriage isn't about equal rights, it's about giving gays SPECIAL rights -- the special rights we give to married people.  Sure, that's the whole point, but, um, WE won't be special if they get to be special too.  And it wouldn't be fair if they got the benefits of marriage, but don't have to deal with the disadvantages: children. That philosophy of marriage [that children do not need both a mother and a father, and that alternative family forms are just as good as a husband and wife raising kids together], moreover, is what our children and grandchildren will be taught in school.  They will be required to discuss marriage in those terms. Ordinary words like husband and wife will be replaced by partner and spouse.  In marriage-preparation and sex-education classes, children will have to be taught about homosexual sex.  Parents who complain will be branded as homophobes and their children will suffer.   We give special rights to married people because they usually have kids.  Gays don't have kids, and so deserve no special rights.  But letting gays get married would mean that if they did have kids, then those kids would have two parents who are married to each other.  And that discriminates against OUR kids, who will be taught in school that those other families are just as good as ours -- and if we say they aren't, everybody will say WE'RE the jerks, calling us homophobes and such, and it's our children who will suffer.  Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children? Religious freedom, too, is at stake. As much as one may wish to live and let live, the experience in other countries reveals that once these arrangements become law, there will be no live-and-let-live policy for those who differ. Gay-marriage proponents use the language of openness, tolerance and diversity, yet one foreseeable effect of their success will be to usher in an era of intolerance and discrimination the likes of which we have rarely seen before. Every person and every religion that disagrees will be labeled as bigoted and openly discriminated against. The ax will fall most heavily on religious persons and groups that don't go along. Religious institutions will be hit with lawsuits if they refuse to compromise their principles.   Gay marriage is religious discrimination, in that if our religion says that gays will burn in hell, then the government should back us up on this by not giving them rights.  Because if same sex marriages are legal, then ministers will be forced to teach their congregations that Jesus was gay, or they will be sued for slander.  I swear it's true -- I read it in a law book, or got a forwarded email about it or something.  Besides, they allow gay marriages in Canada, and look what happened to them!  Yes, everyone has to worship Satan, under penalty of death.  I'm pretty sure that's true. Finally, there is the flagrant disregard shown by judges and local officials for the rights of citizens to have a say in setting the conditions under which we live, work and raise our children.   We want to live, work, and raise our children in a country that discriminates against some of its citizens, and these rogue judges aren't respecting that.  In a democracy, they should have to do what we say.  "The customer is always right.  That's what everyone likes about us." -- Homer J. Simpson Whether one is for, against or undecided about same-sex marriage, a decision this important ought to be made in the ordinary democratic way--through full public deliberation in the light of day, not by four people behind closed doors. That deliberation can and must be conducted, as President Bush stated, "in a manner worthy of our country--without bitterness or anger." The important thing is: whether one is against, or undecided about same-sex marriage, our President is supporting an amendment to the Constitution to outlaw it, and there is nothing you can do about it. 1:08:10 AM