December 31, 2004 by s.z.

It's the End of the Year As We Know It, And I Have a Headache Yes, it's the last day of 2004, and we really should do something special to commemorate it -- but we don't feel like it.  So, while others are making "Top Ten" lists and are recapping the most important stories of the year, and stuff like that, we will bring you the same crap we bring you every other day.  But maybe we can con you into thinking it's special if we give it a snappy title.   So, here are the WO'C Wingnuttiest People of 2004!!! 1.  Ben Shapiro 2004 has been a big year for young Ben.  First, he graduated from UCLA.  Then, his book Brainwashed: Help, I'm Being Repressed by Higher Education was published.  Then his book was remaindered.  And then he moved away from home to further his brainwashing at some other institute of higher education (we think it was at Tustin Community College). Anyway, his Townhall column for this week is called Why the war in Iraq is an integral part of the war on terror.  It's about the Attack on Christmas.  Here's a bit o' wisdom from it: Islamist terrorists are like iron filings in a sandbox; there is no sieve in the world capable of separating the malignant from the benign. The only way to draw the filings from the sandbox is by using a large magnet: You let the filings come to you. And what do iron filings do if you put them in water?  Yes, they sink.  And what also sinks in water?  Townhaller #3: Uh, rocks! Townhaller #1: Magnets!  Townhaller #2: Uh, gra-- gravy! Townhaller #3: Uh, churches! Churches! Townhaller #2: Lead! Lead! Mike Adams: The ACLU. Crowd: Oooh. Ben Shapiro: Exactly. So, logically ...? Townhaller #1: If ... iron filings ... weigh the same as the ACLU, ... they're made of magnets. Ben: And therefore? Townhaller #2: They're terrorists!! Crowd: Bomb the terrorists! Bomb the terrorists! Iron filings: It's a fair cop. But back to Ben: That's the situation in Iraq. Terrorists from all over the Middle East and the world are seeping into Iraq, hot and heavy to do battle with coalition forces. And eventually all the terrorists (and evil doers, and general nogoodniks) in the world will have been magnetically drawn to Iraq, and we can just nuke the country and be done with the War on Terror.  Mission Accomplished!   2.  Ann Coulter   2004 was also an eventful year for Ann.  She got hired by USA Today.  She got fired by USA Today.  She called John Kerry a gigolo.  She called Laura Bush a boyfriend-murdering, doped-up crack whore.  Her book How to Spit On Liberals ('Cause You Know You Want To) came out to universal derision regarding the cover photo featuring Ann as a really old low-rent dominatrix.  Ann dodged a pie.  Ann dodged the draft by pretending to be a woman.  And so on.  And here are some highlights from this week's Townhall column, 2004: Highlights and lowlifes: The single biggest event of 2004 was the Election Day exit poll, which, like John Steinbeck's "The Short Reign of Pippin IV," made John Kerry the president for a few moments. But in a move that stunned the experts, American voters chose "moral values" over an America-bashing trophy husband and his blow-dried, ambulance-chasing sidekick. Once again, world events conspired to make Ann and her postdated column look stupid.  Too bad 120,000+ people had to die to do it, though. Meanwhile, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom is nipping at O'Neill's heels as the man second-most responsible for Bush's re-election. Thanks largely to Newsom's hard work, gay marriage was big news all year. In retrospect, the Democrats would have been better off if they had found every gay guy in America who actually wanted to get married and offered each one a million dollars in exchange for the Democrats not having to talk about gay marriage. (Finally – a problem that could have been solved by throwing money at it!) I found a copy of one of Ann's columns from 1964.  It concludes, "In retrospect, Southern Democrats would have been better off if they had found every black person in America who actually wanted a seat on the bus and offered each one $10 in exchange for the South not having to talk about civil rights.  (Because colored folks don't really want "equal rights," they just want to ruin the institution of bus travel for the rest of us.)   3.  Thomas Sowell It hasn't been that big of a year for Thomas Sowell, since he reached his peak in 2003 with The high costs of busybodies, which gave us this classic story: I happen to know a lady who was born with three kidneys -- and in poverty. Do you think she would have minded parting with a spare kidney, in order to have a better life for herself and her children? Anyway, although Thomas hasn't done much of note this year, he did continue to write Townhall columns, including this week's, which is called Gay marriage 'rights'.  It's about how marriage actually limits one's rights by forcing one to be co-owner of any cars your wife buys in California.  So, the gays must not actually want to be married, they must really want our kids to look stupid in comparison with Japanese kids. What the activists really want is the stamp of acceptance on homosexuality, as a means of spreading that lifestyle, which has become a death style in the era of AIDS. They have already succeeded to a remarkable degree in our public schools, where so-called "AIDS education" or other pious titles are put on programs that promote homosexuality. [...]  That our schools, which are painfully failing to educate our children to the standards in other countries, have time for promoting homosexuality is truly staggering. Hey, to quote that ad campaign from a few years ago, there's ALWAYS time for promoting homosexuality.  (Or was it, "There's always room for Waldo?"  Anyway, something like that.)  In any case, if the nanny state would just let our kids sell their kidneys to the plutocrats from other nations, they wouldn't need no fancy book learnin', would they?  4.  Bill O'Reilly Bill had a momentous 2004.  He was forced to concede that Hillary Clinton sold more books than him, and so has the bigger balls.  He became the Sole Defender of Jesus, and Jesus's producer, Mel Gibson.  He became the paid spokesman for Caribbean vacations, cock-shaped vibrators, and falafel.  He had to cut short the publicity tour for his new book, The O'Reilly Factory for Getting Money From Kids, when mothers objected to his giving the younsters showering advice.  He became the Sole Defender of Santa Claus.  And probably a lot of stuff I've already forgotten. Anyway, here's part of his latest column, which is about how the secularists and the liberal media are really mean to people who try to defend Santa.  The defamation pipeline that extends from libelous liberal internet sites to carefully selected newspaper columnists to radio and television talk shows is designed to defame and destroy any high profile person who dares fight the progressives. Talk about a cudgel! Oh, if only the regressives had internet sites, newspaper columnists, and radio and TV shows!!! Unfortunately, I am a warrior in this take-no-prisoners culture war, and it is a brutal occupation. As you may know, I have been slimed every which way for taking a traditionalist stand. It's hard work being a culture warrior.  Damned hard work.  And slimy too.  Hard, slimy, brutal work -- but it pays pretty well (BusinessWeek: Bill O'Reilly Generates $60 Million a Year). But back to Bill's whining: When I defended public displays of Christmas, I was branded an anti-Semite. When I pointed out the deleterious effect "gangsta rap" has on children, I was called a racist. After arguing for border controls, I was labeled anti-Hispanic. But the topper was an accusation that I "despised the Pope" because I criticized him for not being proactive enough during the priest scandals. And when he pointed out the benefits of vibrators to Andrea Mackis, he was labeled a "sexual harasser."  You know, it's a crying shame the way that this man is constantly being martyred -- especially since Bill has stood up for Jesus numerous times, and yet Jesus never returns the favor.  You think that Jesus is mad at the way Bill always upstages him?  Anyway, if I were Andrea, I'd still be living in fear of that day when Roger Ailes would knock on my door and BAM!, life as I knew it would be changed forever. 5.  Marvin O'Lasky Olasky Okay, Marvin hasn't done anything special this year either except be associated (via the World Journalism Institute) with star reporter, plagiarist, fabricator, and cheater-on-expense-reports Jack Kelley.  Here's part of a Christianity Today story about how WJI was trying to "change focus" and be less evangelical (and more journalistic) after bloggers focused on Kelley's connection with the institute: Interviewed in a story about the institute for National Public Radio's Day to Day, Mattingly cited World editor Marvin Olasky's book Telling the Truth: "The Bible condemns homosexuality so clearly that only the most shameless of those who twist Scripture can try to assert the practice's biblical acceptability. Biblical objectivity means showing the evil of homosexuality; balancing such stories by giving equal time to gay activists is ungodly journalism." [...] On the message boards, Case said the institute had not cut its ties to Olasky because Telling the Truth is used as a textbook. However, Case said, the institute uses other texts, and instructors are free to disagree with Olasky's perspective. And that brings us to Marvin's Townhall for this week (Christian hypocrisy, atheist insanity), which is about how Christians get all the good, solid love, while atheists have to make do with hot sex. This was a year in which many people sought the love of another. I feel extraordinarily blessed in my marriage, but hit television shows like "Sex and the City" and "Desperate Housewives," as well as Tom Wolfe's fine novel "I Am Charlotte Simmons," display the desperate desire for love that some sadly reduce to a desperate search for sex -- as if momentary excitement can substitute for years of contentment. Some of the gays and lesbians who lined up for "marriage licenses" in San Francisco early this year merely wanted to poke their fingers in the eyes of straights, but others were there because they thought they suddenly had an antidote to loneliness. They deserve not hatred, but pity. Yes, the foolish gays and lesbians thought that by getting married they could substitute years of contentment for momentary excitement, but, um, they can't, because Marriage is for Heteros, silly rabbit!  So, we must pity them.  And hate their damned fingers that keep poking into Marvin's eyes while he's trying to read those fine sex scenes in I Am Charlotte Simmon's Vagina.  Anyway, those aren't ALL of our wingnuttiest people.  There's still Amber Pawlik, Hugh Hewitt, Mike Adams, Michelle Magalang Malkin, and MANY MORE (to include Yosef's arch rival, Judson Cox).  But these are all the wingnuts I feel up to tackling today.  So, enjoy your New Year's Eve, knowing that you will be blessed with even more wingnuts in the new year.  Whether you like it or not.  3:43:22 AM

Who Said It? As everyone pointed out (but I think Pastor Bentonit was first), our first Mystery Guest from last time was Adam Yoshida.  It's nice to know that there are so many people who can recognize him (and use a stun gun on him) if he ever tries to actually escape to the U.S. For all of you, here's part of his most recent post where he shares how one can explain the Iraq War to all those clueless people who don't really understand why it's so cool and stuff. Take one of those people and explain it to them differently. Instead of focusing on terror, democracy and the rest, focus on the plans of Islam. Explain, in essence, that Islam is evil and wants to conquer the world and, therefore, most be resisted. Explain it that way and, more often than not, I’ve found that people will “get it” and be willing to accept this answer. It won’t work on hard-core lefties, of course, but it’ll work on most average people. You might also then explain to them that Jews control the world's money supply, and use the blood of Christian babies in their rituals, and so must be resisted.  Oh, and Catholics all get their orders from the Pope, who is not an American, and so they are all traitors and must be resisted.  And let's not even talk about the Mormons!  Anyway, the way to resist all of these groups (who, by being evil, are by definition our enemies) is to invade Iraq.  This should make things a lot clearer to most average people. Our second mystery guest was Dick Morris, whose entire being is so bound up in Hillary Clinton that at the moment of her eventual demise, Dick will disappear in a puff of smoke.  So, Rob called it.  (And Bob from Alaska, the story came from NewsMax, which is why reading all the articles at TownHall was just an exercise in masochism.  As usual.) In honor of Dick, here's a headline from today's WorldNetDaily:  RODHAM WATCH WorldNetDailyPoll: Hillary Clinton most admired woman New York Democrat previously named most corrupt, most evil of millennium  And YOU thought that the most evil person of the millennium was Valerian or somebody like that! Anyway, who said this? We did some last-minute Christmas shopping at the humongous Smith Haven Mall out here on suburban Long Island. What a depressing experience! I have heard about the teenage pastime known as “hanging out at the mall,” but I had never really witnessed it in all its full ugliness and pointlessness. The male teenagers were all trying to look like ghetto toughs; the female ones like whores. Neither effort was very convincing. Eavesdropping on their talk, I got a strong impression that this was the left-hand side of the Bell Curve that I was seeing. Even so, it’s hard to imagine why suburban kids from nice homes would disport themselves in these unsightly and degrading ways. What on earth is happening to us? Parents of America, please do not let your teenage kids hang out at the mall. Hey, he's a true believer in "The Bell Curve" and writes like a refugee from "The Happy Dale Rest Home for People Who Think They're Lord Palmerston" -- so you don't need any hints from me. Bonus Mystery Guest: Who said this in response to a caller who asked for relationship advice? Well, you know, this relationship business, they're all individual, they all have their own vagaries, and if yours works, nobody should tell you otherwise and I certainly wouldn't be the one to try. I mean, I'm not even oriented...If you like it, that's fabulous. 1:26:44 AM