July 22, 2005 by s.z.

Also My American Street post is up.  It's about about VBen Shapiro and his Concerned Female equivilent.  And about plumbing, free cigarettes, and how girls are too stupid to work the TV remote.  Check it out (and the other fine reading at the Am Street) if you have the time. 9:32:29 AM

From AMERICAN STREET:

The Morality Patrol

Today’s theme is “Young People Outraged About Sex.”


First, let’s look at “Abstinence Makes Sense: A Common Sense Rationale ,” a piece at the Concerned Women for America site. It was written by one Jessica Anderson. “Jessica Anderson, a senior at the University of Northern Iowa, is an intern in CWA’s Ronald Reagan Memorial Internship Program.”

STDs pose a serious health crisis, yet liberals want to encourage our teenagers to keep having “safe sex”? […]
This approach makes about as much sense as encouraging teenagers to smoke, as long as they do it “safely” by perhaps smoking “low tar” or “light” cigarettes. Would we ever dream of launching a “safe smoking” campaign, advocating that teenagers be taught about a variety of cigarettes types, given free packs of cigarettes that are “safe,” and perhaps taught about alternatives such as chewing tobacco?

I like the part about how teaching teens about safe sex is like giving them free packs of cigarettes. So, I guess Jessica is claiming that Planned Parenthood is passing out reproductive organs to young people, and encouraging them to give them a try. (First penis is free, kid.)


Jessica’s piece has some other good bits, such as:

Regrettably, the left’s mantra is like a drippy faucet: The substance of their arguments goes nowhere but down the drain. The constant drip leaves a residue behind that others have to clean up, if they can.
[…]
Clearly, the dishonest accusations of liberals do not hold water. Their leaky faucets continue to drip, leaving behind social deterioration that erodes America’s economic and social well-being. Liberals, quite simply, need a good plumber.

Jessica doesn’t want kids taught about contraception — she believes that abstinence-only education “empowers teenagers to practice self-control to avoid the detrimental consequences that accompany sexual activity.” And if those teens with weak self-control end up with problems with their plumbing, well, they are just the residue that the conservatives have to clean up. (Probably by removing the offending pipe.)


Our next young Puritan is the ever popular VBen Shapiro, whom, as you probably know, has a new book out about how the liberals turned his his generation into the porn-seeking, “Friends”-watching, Britney-worshipping, sex-obsessed sinners that they are.


Here’s part of an interview Ben gave to FrontPage Magazine:

Shapiro: There were a few things that really pushed me to write “Porn Generation.” The first was the fact that I have three younger sisters, and I got sick and tired of having to drive them past pornographic Joe�€™s Jeans ads on Sunset Blvd �€“ the billboards depict naked rear ends with only the Joe�€™s Jeans logo in the corner. My sisters can�€™t watch TV anymore because of all the raunchy broadcasting. They can�€™t watch most movies because of the oversexualization. They can�€™t listen to today�€™s popular music �€“ even once-safe pop tarts like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera now compete to see who can become the bigger cultural disgrace. They can�€™t surf the Internet, for fear that a pop-up porn ad might attack. […]
FP: Sorry, I would just like to ascertain something. I grew up in quite a liberal environment, so I am a bit confused here. When you say your sisters “can�€™t” watch TV or movies or listen to music, what do you mean? Why “can�€™t” they? […]
Shapiro: My sisters are 18, 15, and 11. Of course, they “can” watch television in that they have the ability to. But if they want to avoid raunch and social libertinism, they shouldn’t partake of the pop culture, and they don’t.

The oldest of Ben’s sisters is 18 — and yet, she still has to be protected from all the raunchy programming on Animal Planet, PBS, The Family Channel, The Learning Channel, and the Golf Channel. Sad, really.
And if the Shapiro girls are getting attacked by pop-ups for porn whenever they surf the Internet, I’d hazard that they have been using the computer after Ben spent a session surfing for “Nude Ann Coulter Does Kinky Stuff” sites (you know, just for research purposes for his book).


Anyway, why doesn’t Havard Law Student Ben get them some pop-up blocking software and a V-chip for the TV? Or does Ben really expect society to become uniformly G-rated so that his sisters can live without ever coming across anything which might offend their (perceived) delicate sensibilities? Wouldn’t he feel better about just consigning them to the women’s quarters, where they could be protected from the soiling forces of the outside world?

By S. Z.   3:16 am     Comedy & Satire

1. Realist Says:
   July 22nd, 2005 at 5:12 am
   teaching teens about safe sex is like giving them free packs of cigarettes
   Not really. Now, giving them hookers would be like giving them free ciggies. But teaching them about safe sex would be more like giving them Joe Camel t-shirts.
2. Greg Says:
   July 22nd, 2005 at 6:40 am
   Thanks for your introduction to the Bush voter, I’ve always wanted to meet one.
3. AbbieX Says:
   July 22nd, 2005 at 8:24 am
   Yada, Yada, Yada, like so many “helpless” conservatives, Ben not only wants to control his “poor helpless sisters” but being the man’s man that he is, and so much stronger and smarter than his helpless sisters (I mean c’mon, they’re just girls…what can we expect from girls!  he wants to control all girls, even the ones smart enough to change the channel on the TV, or know how to use pop up blockers on computers! The sad thing is that guys like Ben are even at Harvard instead of a Vo-Tech in Alabama learning how to do bodywork on “The General”. Taking back your planet is about YOUR planet, not mine, or anybody else’s. But the cons want to control us all…..and that’s what their problem is, a lot of us won’t drink the Kool Aid voluntarily, so let’s legislate a little morality….sounds very 30s….very German…I think I’ll pass thanks.
4. Julia Says:
   July 22nd, 2005 at 9:17 am
   I don’t think Jessica is going to have too many problems with avoiding sex once the sex = drip equivalency thing she has going on in her head gets around.
5. Mark Says:
   July 22nd, 2005 at 9:17 am
   My sisters are 18, 15, and 11. Of course, they �€œcan�€� watch television in that they have the ability to. But if they want to avoid raunch and social libertinism, they shouldn�€™t partake of the pop culture, and they don�€™t.
   Ben will make a pretty good lawyer; he parsed that brilliantly. I’m not clear if his sisters don’t watch TV by choice or not.
6. FlipYrWhig Says:
   July 22nd, 2005 at 9:36 am
   Wouldn’t Sha-peerless be on safer ground if he talked about how *he* had been warped by “social libertinism,” a/k/a butt pictures? Because otherwise it seems like the message ought to be, let society get as randy as it likes, but if you’re A Good Boy like me, you can resist it — as opposed to We must act now to stop this ever-encroaching Porn Menace before it corrupts all our precious bodily fluids!
7. Jenny Greenleaf Says:
   July 22nd, 2005 at 9:55 am
   OK, I’m going to go out on a limb here….
   I’m a die-hard liberal. However, I personally don’t like having to drive my sons by the 40-foot half-naked Rockstar Energy Drink billboard plastered to the side of a building next to the freeway. (We refer to it as The Boobs That Ate Portland.)
   I’m trying to raise my sons to respect women. Everything around them tells them that women are boobs. It’s not easy. My 11-year-old is very confused. The 15-year-old is starting to exhibit some media savvy, although it’s usually of the form “Mom’s not going to like that.”
   Howard Dean will tell you that our side’s post-election polling showed that a big reason that women deserted the Democrats was because they’re trying to raise kids in an oversexualized culture and they don’t perceive Democrats as trying to do anything to help. They’re scared…and of course, fear drives them right into the arms of the Republicans.
   I do not believe in censorship. What people do in their own homes is fine. I just don’t want to have to look at a 40-foot sex goddess with impossible breasts every time I drive down the freeway. I don’t have a choice about it. It’s there, it’s huge, and it’s on the way to everywhere.
   I found it offensive enough to have a conversation with Clear Channel’s outdoor media folks.
8. Donna Woodka Says:
   July 22nd, 2005 at 11:27 am
   Hey, I would find 40 foot billboards of *anything* offensive! I don’t care what it is!
   I’ve raised two boys, now 15 and 19, and they are quite respectful of women. I’ve never censored them from anything, and never had any problems with sex,drugs,alcohol, or pretty much anything else. They know about contraceptives, have no desire to try it out til they find a smart woman that they respect and love and want to get to know better, which will probably happen at about 25 or 30 at the rate they are moving.
   If I had a girl, I would teach her about cotraceptiion, emergency and otherwise, and how to handle herself to avoid getting in trouble, like I have my boys. This mainly consists of telling them the truth about pretty much everything, and that some things are just stupid, which is, as they know, the worst curse I put on anything. If you raise kids to respect themselves and others, and to know that doing anything less is just plain stupid, they’ll turn out just fine.
9. zuzu Says:
   July 22nd, 2005 at 11:30 am
   Since when were Britney Spears and Xtina ever “safe”? Britney had to be one of the most explicitly sexualized ex-Mouseketeer virgins out there.
10. serial catowner Says:
    July 22nd, 2005 at 3:37 pm
    So, Jenny Greenleaf gives us a connect-the-dot account suggesting that the billboard she dislikes came from Clear Channel. Presumably the same Clear Channel that pushed Bush so hard. IOW, offensive billboards coming from the Bush camp didn’t offend our angry housewives, but the failure of the Dems to do anything about it did.
    Have I got that right, Jenny?
11. gus Says:
    July 22nd, 2005 at 7:29 pm
    Pop ups, what are those? Firefox is great.
12. Uncle Mike Says:
    July 22nd, 2005 at 10:15 pm
    Another good reason to avoid Rockstar Energy Drinks: it was started by Michael Savage’s son.
13. Jenny Greenleaf Says:
    July 22nd, 2005 at 11:32 pm
    serial catowner–yup, you got it! Bush billboards didn’t freak ‘em out. News reports about sex scenes in Grand Theft Auto did. They’re not worried about what effect Bush will have on their kids; they’re worried about MTV and misogynistic, violent themes in rap music.
    Lest anyone think I’m some sort of closet fundamentalist–I’m not. I’m a good liberal atheist and a feminist. Just somewhat distressed at the sexism rampant in the oversexualized “pimp” culture that’s so popular these days. I have no problem taking my boys to the Oregon Country Fair–an annual time-warp hippie fest where many women decide to go topless. It’s kind of the National Geographic “bodies come in many shapes and sizes” lesson. Very different context.
    And, to address the Clear Channel connection, I quoted their creed at them in an email along with my complaint. I did get a response within minutes and then had a follow-up phone conversation with the president of the division in Seattle. He’s looking into it, but I don’t know the results yet. I have to admit, he was very pleasant and not defensive.
    Clear Channel’s weird. They do some obnoxious things, but yet they broadcast Air America here in Portland. Obviously, there’s money in progressive radio here.
14. D. Sidhe Says:
    July 23rd, 2005 at 2:48 am
    I find sex-sells marketing fairly crass, myself. It doesn’t warp my values, it’s just unattractive. I find most marketing to be pretty crass, though. The thing is, to my mind there’s quite a difference between a gigantoboob billboard and “Desperate Housewives”.
    One is something I can’t avoid seeing without drastically changing my commutes, and the other is something I can avoid seeing unless I actually get up and turn the TV on after checking the schedules.
    I understand that parents get tired of having to watch their child’s TV viewing habits and internet habits, but the whole “guardianship of a child” thing is something you sort of signed on for when you took the responsibility for the kid, just as others end up with hard jobs after becoming doctors or teachers.
    What startles me is, I didn’t realize that vigilance fatigue extended to eighteen year old sisters. I’m somewhat surprised to discover that Ben’s eighteen year old sister needs him to keep her from accidentally stumbling onto a Trojans commercial or a Britney Spears album.
    Why exactly do I have to start acting like any given child, which apparently includes eighteen year olds for some reason, is in fact a fainting goat who will be traumatized for life if I try to act like an adult in public?
    I don’t swear on playgrounds or troll children’s chat rooms to tell them the Easter Bunny is a hoax, and I don’t try to explain sex to even the eighteen year olds who apparently must be protected from it. I don’t wear vulgar t-shirts to the zoo, either.
    But my own vigilance fatigue sure kicks in when a small kid comes up to me in a store and tells me that I shouldn’t say “heck”, because it’s a cuss word, and only bad people talk like that. And when his mother glares at me like she agrees. (Honestly, the least you can do is tell me not to “swear” in public yourself–but to send the kid to lecture me? Man.)
    I’ll try my best not to infringe on your theoretical child’s right to be a child, Ben, but maybe you could try to keep your theoretical child from infringing on my right to be an adult.
    If nothing else, having to glance furtively around to make sure there are no innocent children present before I ask my friend what she thinks about the latest horror novel is going to have a lot of paranoid people convinced I’m a terrorist trying to plant something nefarious in a copy of “The Descent” without being spotted.
15. Bill S Says:
    July 23rd, 2005 at 7:55 pm
    I’m sure if Ben’s sisters have anything resembling functioning brains, they all snicker at him behind his back when he says stupid shit like that. Even the 11 year old.

Where Are They Now?   The popular new Wo'C reality TV series that looks up last year's wingnuts and finds out if they've been committed yet.  Today our guest will be Annie Jacobsen, who got her 15 minutes of fame last summer by getting scared by some Arab men on a plane who all seemed to know each other.  When it turned out that they DID know each other because they were all members of a band, did she forget the whole thing?  Nope!  And when NOT A FRIGGING THING HAPPENED TO THE FLIGHT, did Annie say, "That's a relief.  Silly me for getting my knicker in a twist that way?"  No, she wrote a long, detailed column about it, and then told her story on various talk shows and to other wingnut reporters until eventually a congressional hearing was held to ask what the hell was wrong with her.  That's the Annie Jacobsen story  So, you won't be surprised to learn that what Annie has been doing lately is still writing about that flight she took last summer. Oh, and she also had a baby  --  since it was a boy, he could grow up to marry Meghan Cox Gurdon's as-yet unborn daughter Phlanx, and together they could breed a new race of clueless people. Anyway, April's chapter in the sage was entitled "Part XIII: Annie Jacobsen Gets a Visit From the Feds."  They take her to Gitmo for being such a goose and wasting so many people's time, and they let her know what REAL terror is.  The End. No, wait, Annie has more: The call came a little over a month ago, on my cellular phone -- which is not listed. That's how you know it really was the feds -- they used the Patriot Act to get Annie's unlisted cell phone number. It went like this: Hello Annie, this is [name withheld, and name withheld, and name withheld and name withheld]. We're from the Department of Homeland Security."  "Yes." "We'd like to set up a time to talk with you." "Okay, now is good." "Actually, we'd prefer to come to your house. How is March 15?" "Not so great. That's three days before I'm due to have a baby…" They came anyway. To my house in Los Angeles. By plane from Chicago. The fact that they came by plane from Chicago is significant, in that if they had taken the bus or hitched or something, it might mean that they took Annie's Scary Skies stuff seriously. Oh, and from all this we learn that Homeland's Security's Office of the Inspector General is the division in charges of nutcases. The four federal agents showed up exactly on time, in a rented green mini-van, carrying briefcases and wearing suits (it was 75 degrees). And now you know the REST of the story. My husband led them to our house through the garden and, from where I sat in my kitchen, I could hear their comments: nice garden, pretty plants, too bad palm trees don't grow in Chicago. So, I thought, federal agents are people too.  And they thought, "I guess gardners really are retards with spaces." Anyway, there are four pages of this kind of blather, so let's cut to the chase: the visit from the Homeland Sercurity agents proves that ANNIE WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG! On the telephone, the agents explained to me that the Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Inspector General, has been investigating flight 327 and flying DHS agents around the country to talk to various parties -- the flight attendants, pilots, federal air marshals and the passengers. They had saved me for last. I always put off the worst until last too. Here's what I find fascinating: while one arm of the government (the Federal Air Marshal Service) has vehemently maintained all along that "nothing happened on flight 327," the other, more muscular arm (the Department of Homeland Security) has been conducting a rather large investigation about it. Based on my 4 ½ hour meeting with the agents, I can tell you that not only have they been investigating what did happen during the flight, but they've also been investigating who botched the subsequent investigation as well as how it got botched.  When I worked for the government, I once had to investigate a woman's claim that the Russians were following her, had bugged her house, and had placed a tracking device on her car.  While I and my bosses were pretty certain that the woman had mental problems (because why the heck would the Russians go to all that trouble to spy on a housewife married to a man who no longer had any access to anything), she had written to her congressman, and he had requested an investigation.  (And since he belonged to HPSCI, we had to oblige him.) A few years previous to that, a colleague of mine had to investigate a man's claims that the Cubans regularly snuck into his house and re-arranged his furniture -- had to, because the man was a congressman. (Well, at that time he was a former congressman, but we still had to do an investigation.)  Anyway, my point is that if Homeland Security's OIG really is investigating Annie's silly story, it's most likely because some nitwit in Congress requested that they do it.  Or else, it's because Homeland Security is trying to score points against the Air Marshalls and/or FBI, possibly as part of a turf battle. Besides, even if somebody did "botch the investigation," it still wouldn't mean that there was anything to Annie's claim that the Syrians were conducting a terrorism dry-run on her flight --so she can hardly claim this as vindication, just because some agents interviewed her. And if these men in suits really were from the Office of the Inspector General, somebody should investigate them, because, per Annie, they said things that would be inappropriate to tell an uncleared, civilian witness in a case involving possible national security concerns. For instance: Standing in my kitchen, one of the agents said, "What I can tell you is this: Mohammed Atta was one of the passengers on that flight with James Woods." (Apparently, this information has never been made public.)  And apparently, Annie was the journalist that Homeland Security chose to break this important story.  Because Womens Wallstreet is the nation's most influential paper. And Homeland Security must want the item publicized if they told it to blabbermouth Annie, but they also must think that she did an effective job of getting the story out, since it hasn't been confirmed by Homeland Security or any other journalist. Either that, or (a) these are some shockingly indiscreet agents; (b) They were testing Annie ; or (c) there was some kind of a misunderstanding and/or some lying involved on somebody's part. They continued to ask my husband and me question after question but, in the course of the morning, here are some additional details I gathered -- things that I didn't otherwise know: There were 27 airports between Detroit and Los Angeles where the pilot could have landed flight 327 yet didn't. And if only the pilot would have landed at one of those airports, the lives of everyone on board might have been saved.  Oh, wait, NOTHING HAPPENED, and the plane arrived safely at its destination. The Federal Air Marshal (FAM) supervisor at LAX took statements from my husband and me on the back of an envelope, borrowing a notepad from another FAM. Not only didn't we know this before, now that we do know, we care even less Another passenger from flight 327 indicated to the agents that he did not see any musical instruments in the baggage claim area, including the oversized baggage area. This passenger also didn't see the so-called musicians play "Danke Shoen" at the Las Vegas Hilton, proof positive that these guys were terrorists! There's more stuff that we didn't otherwise know, except I'm pretty sure I knew it before.  So, let's skip to where Annie tells us what it all means. The agents who sat with me all morning going over the events of flight 327 seemed sincerely committed to getting to the bottom of what happened on that flight. It seemed obvious that they believe something happened. Was it a probe? A dry run? A training exercise or an intelligence gathering mission? My sense is that the jury's still out on a hard and fast answer. But flight 327 was far from a situation involving 13 hapless Syrian musicians and a case of bad behavior. No, it was a situation involving 13 hapless Syrian musicians who may have behaved in a culturally inappropriate manner, lingering 9/11 fears, and a ninny. (A new sitcom on NBC this fall!) There were 13 men on a domestic flight acting in such a way that many passengers felt their lives might be in danger. And yet not one of the individuals responsible for that threatening behavior was detained. Only two were put under light questioning, let alone medium or heavy questioning. Let alone interrogation with rubber hoses, let alone the full Gitmo-style treatment they deserved for making a white woman nervous. Okay, here's what bothers me the most about Annie's continual ravings: her belief because she was scared, somebody should be punished for it.  Bottom line: The men's behavior wasn't "threatening" just because Lil' Panic Annie felt threatened.  It isn't terrorism just because Annie was terrified.  Geez, can't she just face the fact that even though she got scared because a group of Arab men acted all foreign-y, that doesn't prove that they did something wrong?  Can't she even consider the possibility that SHE's the jerk?)   The latest chapter in the never-ending Terror in the Skies™  (really -- they claim that trademarked it) adventure series is from June.  Let's take a quick look at it, even though I can't take much more Annie today. Part XIV: Will the Ambassador of Syria Stay Silent?  Ambassador Imad Moustapha, Syria's number one diplomat in Washington, has been making headlines again -- ones that hardly seem diplomatic. In late May, Syria cut all military and intelligence ties with the United States.  Yeah, he's in the news now that relations with Syria are strained, but the really important thing you should know about Moustapha is that he refused to admit to Annie that those musicians were really terrorists. I am personally familiar with Moustapha's persecution complex, as well as his resistance to getting to the truth via the facts. Annie is claiming that HE has a persecution complex and a resistance to truth and facts??? Let me remind readers of my own tangle with Ambassador Moustapha. It came on the heels of a Letter to the Editor he wrote to the Washington Times, attacking award-winning journalist Audrey Hudson by labeling her paranoid verging on hysterical Annie, he was referring to YOU there -- he said the claims in Audrey's piece were "paranoid bordering on hysterical," and they were your claims, honey. and lambasting an article she wrote, "Scouting Jetliners For New Attacks." In this July 22, 2004 piece, Hudson detailed several examples in support of the ongoing theory that dry runs have been taking place on U.S. airplanes. Hudson at that time had interviewed me as well and wrote about my harrowing experience on flight 327 with 14 Syrians as a possible example of one such dry run. And if Annie got scared, the flight was "harrowing." Since our run-in last summer, I've followed Imad Moustapha in the news, not only because Syria has taken center stage but also because I have some additional questions for him. Questions that could likely solve the mystery as to whether or not the men on flight 327 might have been conducting a dry run. Here's why: I've located a photograph of Nour Mehana and his Syrian back-up band taken when the group played one of its gigs last summer -- a gig they specifically told Federal agents (when questioned at Los Angeles airport) they had played. But here's the problem: The band members in the photograph are not the same group of men from flight 327 who identified themselves as such to Federal agents. Maybe Moustapha can explain why.  Is Annie's theory that Nour came to the U.S. with a group of real musicians, played with them at his various U.S. gigs, and then had them killed and replaced by terrorists so they could do a terrorism dry-run on the flight from Chicago to Los Angeles?  If so, I hope she gets a chance to ask somebody about it.  (Maybe a shrink would be a good person to start with.)  Anyway, "Now that military and intelligence ties with the U.S. have been severed," Annie wants to use the situation to focus attention on her harrowing flight, because heaven knows, it still the most important thing that has ever happened.  She suggests that we all send Moustapha a form email asking him to "to please put journalist Annie Jacobsen in touch with Nour Mehana and his back-up band immediately."  But what I want to know is: what's to stop "journalist Annie Jacobsen" from going to Syria, locating Nour Mehana and his back-up band, and interviewing them?  I mean, if she's going to make this one story her life's work, shouldn't SHE be the one who does the heavy lifting?  Geez, what kind of a wuss demands that the people whom she's maligned do all her work for her? And that, people, is what happened to Annie Jacobsen.  Next week's guest will be Judson Cox.  At one time he was the editor-in-chief of North Carolina's largest circulation newspaper.  Then he mysteriously vanished from sight.  Did he happen to cross NC's Dr. Mike Adams, and tear-gassed to death?  Was he eliminated by Justin Darr, the former hottest young conservative writer on the internet?  And speaking of THYCWOTI, what role does Yosef play in all of this? We don't know.  But maybe by next week we'll find out something that we can print.  Or maybe not -- this may be a short-lived series. 8:57:14 AM

Ultimate Wingnut Challenge: Killing Off Two of Our Life-Style Contestants The votes are in, and it seems that Kathleen Parker has been banished from Wingnut Island.  We would give her some lovely parting gifts, but frankly, we don't want to, because she bugs the heck out of us.  So, instead of Rice-a-Roni and Turtle Wax, she will receive this rendition of one best-loved columns from the past, "Gay marriage: A trip to the moon on Gossamer wings?" I figure I'm a fairly typical middle-of-the-road heterosexual married woman when I say: I love gays and, well, the whole gay thing. I love all my gay friends and relatives, not to mention my hairdresser; I love what gays do to urban neighborhoods; I love gay humor, gay style and whatshisname in "My Best Friend's Wedding."  I was what we used to call a "fag hag" when you could still use the term affectionately without fear of offending - before most of today's gays were out of diapers (changed most likely by a mom or a dad, not by Heather's two mommies or Douggie's two daddies). Thanks to my very best friendship with my gay first cousin, I've had many a gay time as a token belle in the heart of San Francisco's Castro district. In other words, no one who knows me would call me a homophobe. No, the people who know her probably call her a ninny.  But I do love her unashamed use of the "Some of my best friends are gay" claim to preface her her argument against gay marriage. Leaving God out of the equation, it is irrefutable that Nature had a well-ordered design. Male plus female equals offspring. It is a certainty that male/male and female/female unions don't meet Nature's standard. They may occur "naturally" in that one does not consciously elect to Be Gay, but such unions fall short of any design that matches Nature's intentions. So, if Nature intended sex to propagate the species, that means that the government shouldn't grant some citizens certain rights and benefits.  Makes sense to me.  If the state goes out of its way to make marriage attractive, it is because marriage is so difficult and, in many ways, unnatural. It is far more natural for humans, animals that we are, to enjoy gratification whenever and wherever than it is to settle for decades into a system of monogamy. But wait!  I thought Kathleen just said that homosexuals should be penalized by the state for not doing what Nature intended.  Now she's saying that nature never intended monogomay, so the state should reward it.  She is either brilliant in her stupidity, or one of the finest wingnut minds who ever lived. And anyway, shouldn't we as a society be happy that gays want to give up the "gratification whenever and wherever" thing, and settle for decades into a system of monogamy?  I mean, why should they get off easier than anybody else? But I'll quit now -- Kathleen is just too irritating to take in large doses. And that brings us to our other banished contestant, Carrie Lukas.    Carrie put up a good fight with her call to make it illegal for girls to serve as interns, have sex, or drink beer, but she just couldn't beat the name-brand contestants -- which is why I recommend that she change her name to Carrie Nation.  But it was a close race, and if Adam Yoshida starts blogging again, James Lileks may be rafting back to Minnesota in search of Bath and Body Works Mint/Eucaplyptus shampoo and those cute seasonal paper towels they sell at Target. But as Carrie walks the Gangplank of  Shame, here are a couple of her clips.  The first is from "Last Call on Ladies' Night: In New Jersey, it's last call on Ladies' Night. This week, director of the state division of civil rights, J. Frank Vespa-Papaleo, announced that the Garden State will henceforth ban the longstanding practice of offering drink and admission discounts to women on designated ladies' nights. [...] Of course, the ladies' night ruling is also laughable for its unchivalrous nature. What's next, ticketing men for opening doors or giving up their seats on the bus? Yet this is the logical outcome of a campaign to eradicate any acknowledgement of difference between the sexes. Yeah, Ladies' Nights are all about chivalry.  Bar owners give women cheaper drinks on those nights because they know that women make less money than men (as they should -- Carrie has made that claim several times), and so the bars want to help out these damsels in distress. Get real, Carrie -- Ladies' Nights are about drawing in the men with the promise of a roomful of tipsy women.  It doesn't seem all that chivalrous to me.    The second clip is taken from "Mass-Scare-A": In Europe, activists have convinced the government to ban the use of certain substances, known as phthalates, in cosmetics. So are women being silently massacred by our mascara? Not exactly. In 2001, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied the effects of these substances on rats. Analysts concluded that rats that became ill had absorbed the equivalent of four and a half bottles of nail polish a day for 70 years. The Food and Drug Administration examined this and other data and concluded that these ingredients are safe as used in cosmetics. Why, then, did the European Union ban the use of phthalates in cosmetics? Because something called the "precautionary principle," says, in effect, we must assume every chemical is dangerous until it's proven safe. Proving something safe, of course, is an impossibly high standard. No one can prove that something will never, ever be harmful. But it's a principle that these activists want to apply to our cosmetics. Not our sacred cosmetics!  The fiends! Each day, people take calculated risks when we decide how to get to work and what to have for lunch.  There is always a possibility of danger, but the risks need to be kept in perspective.  Unfortunately, oftentimes, people overestimate some risks and overlook others. People who inflate the likelihood of a plane crash may opt to make a cross-country drive - actually increasing their odds of having a deadly accident. And people who inflate the liklihood of getting cancer from fingernail polish may opt to keep their fingernails bare, and thus run the risk of not attracting a man, getting married, and having children.  And since the earlier you have children and the more children you have, the lower your risk of breast cancer, this means that not wearing fingernail polish COULD LEAD TO BREAST CANCER!!! (Since Carrie didn't actually make this point, you were wise to vote her off the island). Anyway, Carrie's parting gift is the following classic column by Peggy Noonan.  Glenstonecottage suggested we reprint it to remind people of our proud wingnut heritage.  (It's also Brad's first nominee for the Wingnut Top Ten Columns of All Time.) So, with no more ado, here are the highlights of Peggy's "Dolphin Angels Sent By St. Ronald Reagan Saved Elian; Meanwhile, Clinton Was Getting a Blow-Job and Committing Treason, Probably": From the beginning it was a story marked by the miraculous. It was a miracle a six-year-old boy survived the storm at sea and floated safely in an inner tube for two days and nights toward shore; a miracle that when he tired and began to slip, the dolphins who surrounded him like a contingent of angels pushed him upward [,,,]. And of course this Saturday, in the darkness, came the nightmare: the battering ram, the gas, the masks, the guns, the threats, the shattered glass and smashed statue of the Blessed Mother, the blanket thrown over the sobbing child’s head as they tore him from the house like a hostage. And the last one in the house to hold him, trying desperately to protect him, was the fisherman who’d saved him from the sea -- which seemed fitting as it was Eastertide, the time that marks the sacrifice and resurrection of the Big Fisherman. [...] The great unanswered question of course is: What was driving Mr. Clinton? What made him do such a thing? [...] Was Mr. Clinton being blackmailed? The Starr report tells us of what the president said to Monica Lewinsky about their telephone sex: that there was reason to believe that they were monitored by a foreign intelligence service. Naturally the service would have taped the calls, to use in the blackmail of the president. Maybe it was Mr. Castro’s intelligence service, or that of a Castro friend. Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to. [...] And some of us, in our sadness, wonder what Ronald Reagan, our last great president, would have done. I think I know.  [...] Mr. Reagan would not have dismissed the story of the dolphins as Christian kitsch, but seen it as possible evidence of the reasonable assumption that God’s creatures had been commanded to protect one of God’s children.  [...] But then he was a man. And that, children, is how you do wingnuttery. Anyway, the Sadly, No-ers reminded me of another special wingnut, Annie "I Was Terrorized by a McDonald's Sack" Jacobsen.  Later, I'll let you know what she's been up to since the Syrian Wayne Newton and his terrorist cell caused her to fear for her life by failing to smile at her.  (Okay, I'll give you a hint: Terror in the Skies, Parts XIII and XIV.) But for now, here is our Life-Style Team roster, and the number of negative votes they received: Captain Mrs. Peggy Reagan (6) Lt. Dennis Judeo-Christian Prager (8) Private Gnat's Daddy Lileks (15) 2:12:37 AM