Defenders Saturday

What makes the Defenders great? Not much.

The Defenders were outcast heroes – but the X-Men had gotten there first and would end up doing it better (the Defenders came around before the Claremont run on the X-Men). They were a non-team, but it was unclear what that was supposed to mean, since they still got together each month for a new adventure (admittedly Sub-Mariner or the Hulk might sit an issue out). Eventually they started getting members who wanted to be a part of a real team (like Valkyrie) and eventually they were a real team.

This is the progression of a lot of teams, by the way. The standard teams are the outcast team (the X-Men) or the heroic family (the Avengers (sort of) and the Fantastic Four). Other variations have popped up over the years. There were regional teams, like the West Coast Avengers or Alpha Flight or Excalibur. But once you stripped off any novelty of the region (which happened quickly) you were left with an outcast team or an heroic family. There were interesting variations in the early nineties with both X-Factor (a Government Team) and X-Force (paramilitary team), but the novelty was quickly quashed in an attempt to make such teams as much like the X-Men as possible.

It happened to the Defenders too – they went from being the Non-Team to being an outcast team (with three former x-men to boot). That was the era I actually read for a bit. But they brought the title to a close, in part so the three X-Men (Iceman, Beast, and Angel) could join X-Factor (which at that time was simply the reuniting of the original five X-men).

Anyway I recently purchased the Essential Defenders Volume 1 (I suspect the only Volume in the series (but maybe I’m wrong), and I am going to be providing a review of the various issues for reasons too complicated to go into here.

Dr. Strange #183

Synopsis: Here’s a standard synopsis for any Dr. Strange comic. Something bad is going to happen for reasons that are never satisfactorily explained. Dr. Strange stops this something bad using methods that are never satisfactorily explained. But, because I care, here’s a more complete synopsis.

Dr. Strange gets a telegram that triggers a synopsis of recent issues. Apparently in order to hide himself, he changes his name to Dr. Saunders, and erases all trace of Dr. Strange. He also starts wearing a mask. It looks goofy. After three pages of reminiscing, Dr. Strange/Saunders blurts out “But Wait. In my concern there is something I forgot. I never read . . . the telegram!!” He reads it and suffers not one but two premonitions of doom. But, in his maniacal pride, he says, “. . . but, I could not ignore my former friend’s plea, when tonight came ‘round.” I think that last phrase is a reference to jazz music, but with Dr. Strange you can never tell.


At any rate, the flight to visit his old friend allows time for another internal monologue, in which we find out that this old friend, Kenneth Ward, helped sponsor his medical career. When he gets there, the servants act suspiciously and his old friend seems drugged or, get this, under a magic spell. Dr. Strange is taken to his room, where he observes, “though my sorcerer’s senses tell me I am no unobserved, I am equally sure someone will look in on me later!” I’m not sure that statement warranted an exclamation point, but when you are Dr. Strange everything you say warrants an exclamation point.

Anyway Dr. Strange creates some mystic mamajama to make a copy of himself, and goes out and talks to Kenneth Ward. After he breaks the spell that is keeping Kenneth Ward drugged, Kenneth says “Something compels me . . . to tell the whole story . . . from the beginning.” So he does just that. Apparently Ward traveled in the Himalayas and found some weird statues. He finds one particular small statue that is related to the “Undying ones.” Just then the servants pop in and, surprise, surprise, they are servants of the “undying ones.” They fight. Dr. Strange declares they are evenly matched. But then the dying Kenneth Ward opens the curtains, letting the sun in, which disintegrats the baddies, who like vampires, can’t abide sunshine. Unfortunately Ward immediately dies, and Dr. Strange is left to ponder the threat of the Undying ones.

Dr. Strange Humility Quote – (upon realizing he never actually read the telegram mentioned above, Dr. Strange makes a mystic gesture and says) “ But, that is a situation easily remedied! Nor must Mohammed go to the Missive . . !”

Rush Limbaugh sums up Liberal Partisanship

Those of you with strong stomachs, consider these words from yesterday's program.

Now they [Democrats] are a walking laughingstock. And they become more so each and every day. And I firmly believe this, folks. I know a lot of you people are just scared to death of them, and I guess that's somewhat healthy. They're never going to go away and they're never going to be totally vanquished but this is a bunch of people that ought to be more scared of themselves than we need a to be afraid of them. You corner a lion, what's it going to do? You take a king of the jungle, king of whatever, corner it, a rat, whatever, it's got one chance to get away and that's kill you. That's destroy you. That's where they are. They are a bunch of cornered vermin, cornered rats, and their only way out of this is to destroy their enemies.

Cornered Vermin. That's how Rush Limbaugh sums up the Democratic Party. That's how his followers look at liberals.

Of course other people in history have demonized their enemies as vermin.

Nature is cruel; therefore we are also entitled to be cruel. When I send the flower of German youth into the steel hail of the war without feeling the slightest regret over the precious German blood that is being spilled, should I also not have the right to eliminate millions of an inferior race that multiply like vermin.

Not that Rush Limbaugh's hatred of Liberals is anything like Adolf Hitler's hatred of Jews.

Thank Goodness the Adults are In Charge Pt. 2

Of course you all know that Tom Delay has had to step down from his position of power because of questions of whether or not he solicited corporate moneys to support Texas campaigns. And of course Bill Frist is in trouble because he may have pulled a Martha Stewart and set up his own reality show ripping off Donald Trump. No I'm just kidding (but I would watch that show), he's actually possibly guilty of insider trading.

But another name high up in this little scandal you may not be ware of is a dude named Jack Abramoff. Actually you probably have heard of him, but if you haven't now you have. He's the subject of a recent article by Robert Sheer, and apparently a real piece of work.

It was reported last week that Timothy Flanigan, Tyco International Ltd. general counsel and Bush's nominee for deputy attorney general, stated that Abramoff's lobbying firm had boasted that his access to the highest levels of Congress could help Tyco fight tax liability legislation and that Abramoff later said he "had contact with Mr. Karl Rove" about the issue.

Comforting isn't it?

Republicans read that, throw up their hands and say "That sort of thing happens all the time. It's no big deal." And it isn't to them. If you expect government to fail, it's no big deal when it fails. But since I expect government to work, I do get annoyed when I read this kind of story.

This story takes on greater weight given the rebuilding of New Orleans.

The hurricane season is proving to be a windfall for GOP-connected companies such as Halliburton, which are being rewarded with lucrative contracts despite their shoddy performance in Iraq. In the vocabulary of crony capitalism, the word "shame" does not exist.

Indeed.

I Want You to Trip Like I Do

This is from the leadoff track from the Crystal Method's album Vegas. Why am I referencing the Crystal Method? Read on.

A couple of months ago, a black guy escaped from prison and took a white woman (Ashley Smith) prisoner. She, being a Christian and all, fed him and helped him realize he needed to go back to prison. This was a little parable for all us faithless blue-staters who doubted the power of God. Those of us who snicker at Touched by an Angel sure learned a valuable lesson. Women with pie and faith can sooth the savage criminal.

Now it turns out she gave him a bit more than pie. She gave him methamphetamine. Or, to use one of it's street names, Crystal Meth.

In her book, "Unlikely Angel," released Tuesday, Smith says Nichols had her bound on her bed with masking tape and an extension cord. She says he asked for marijuana, but she did not have any, and she dug into her illegal stash of crystal meth instead.

Praise the Lord, hallelujah.

The police have no intention of charging her for possession of illegal drugs. Presumably all that pie and faith works on them too.

If you haven't heard Trip Like I Do, it's a great little tune for getting the blood pumping.

Got this from The News Blog.

Do You Know What the Words "Fort Marcy Park" Mean?

They mean that, in the delusional right wing world of the Limbaugh, Hillary Clinton has murdered to further her political ambitions and she will kill again. Fort Marcy Park is where Vince Foster was found dead after he committed suicide.

Excuse me, that should have read where he was found dead; his death was later ruled a suicide. Because of course in the delusional world of the Clinton-Hater, Foster's death was clearly the act of the Clintons in an attempt to . . . well it's not clear. Sometimes it's because he and Clinton were having an affair. Sometimes it's because Foster knew too much and "dead men tell no tales."

Of course Foster's Death was investigated numerous times (once by Kenneth Star) and ruled a suicide each time. Which just shows the enormous power of the Clintons to control the government.

Of course if they had such power and the will to kill, it's kind of odd how they let the whole Lewinsky mess happen, but I suppose it's best not to question that.

You might be thinking that this is old news and I shouldn't be wasting your time with it. I agree, but Rush Limbaugh felt the urge to recently bring it up. And he is America's Anchorman. So I felt I needed to bring it up too.

If you want a more thorough examination of the many deaths the Clinton's are supposed to have committed, check out this article by Snopes.

Return of the Haters

I hate President Bush, apparently. I think he's been a bad President, and after 5 years, I don't think I'm going to see anything that's going to change my mind. The problem is, if you are a Bush supporter, I've got plenty of ammo at this time. Even if we leave aside the recent embarrassment of "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," there's plenty of other things to bring up. So if you are a supporter of President Bush like, say, David Limbaugh or Dennis Prager, what do you do?

Well, it's preferable to shift the discussion away from the President's actual performance and onto some other aspect of this discussion. Let's see what they've come up with.

"Ever since President Bush took office, liberals have been rooting from one thing to another in a frenzied quest to find that one issue, one tragedy, one scandal that would bring him down. The list is too long to recite here.

"Bush's critics treat each of these issues, in turn, as the final straw that will break the back of this abominable presidency. Everything is blown out of proportion, every possible ambiguity is resolved in President Bush's disfavor, and every possible malevolent motive is attributed to him. The most innocuous of events is treated as scandalous. Hyperbole rules. Panic prevails. Fantastic conspiracy theories triumph. Sober, balanced analysis is absent." - David Limbaugh

"If you want to understand the Left, the best place to start is with an understanding of hysteria. Leading leftists either use hysteria as a political tactic or are actually hysterics." - Dennis Prager

Ah. So rather than focus on President Bush's failure to succeed, they'd rather talk about how my Bush-hatred distorts my views. This is probably smart politics. You should only sell your man when you've got something to sell, but it's never a bad idea to trash your opponents. And this form of attack makes it less likely that anybody in the middle will listen to the arguments of such unhinged people.

Very smart; but I'm not sure it's going to work. It does seem like the American people are making up their minds about President Bush, and it doesn't seem like their assessment is going the way Prager and Limbaugh would like.

Ideology vs. Practicality

Robert Novak's latest column deals with a divide in the Republican Party. You might call it a divide between ideology and practicality. Conservatism stresses cutting government programs and shrinking the government. Practical politics dictates bringing back federal money to improve your district and employ your constituents. How does a Republican negotiate this divide?

Well one method is to argue for cutting the programs benefiting some other state. I mean if you are the Republican Senator of Kentucky, why not try to cut the programs benefiting those people in New York who can't vote for you anyway. I'm reminded of a bit Michael Moore did back on TV Nation when good ol' Newt Gingrich was on his way up the ladder. He simply went around and pointed out all the federal money pouring into Newt's district and called on Newt and the citizens to eliminate such spending. Naturally nobody there was in favor of this idea.

But this method of cutting spending for other states while continuing to spend in your own only goes so far. Plus, if you squint your eyes, it seems a little hypocritical. So some of the younger members of Congress (as described by Novak) are coming into conflict with their seniors over cutting government spending. Because, see, they actually want to cut government spending and not just pretend to cut government spending.

In case you are wondering I'm in favor of smart government spending. That may involve some cuts and some increases.

Anyway Novak concludes with strong support for these younger "cut-government-spending-firsters."

The beleaguered conservatives see all this spending leading inexorably to a tax increase, which would redistribute the tax burden to the disadvantage of the successful and threaten an economic recession. Barry Goldwater long ago assailed Dwight D. Eisenhower for presiding over a "Dime Store New Deal." That stinging rebuke no longer would be appropriate for today's Republicans. They outdo Democrats on pork and are in the same ballpark on entitlements. Even Katrina and now Rita do not restrain them.

A bit of a scare tactic there isn't there? Redistributing the tax burden to the disadvantage of the successful? That's going to keep me up at night - thinking about people who have plenty still having plenty.

Under normal circumstances one would assume acclimitizing to Washington would smooth the ideological edges off of these younger Republicans. But right now the Republican base is ideologically charged. It's possible a congressperson could trade the benefits of bringing government spending back to his or her district for the benefits of being ideologically pure and trading on that with the national base. So perhaps this struggle between ideology and practicality may not take the expected route.

An Attempt at Humor

Boxey: Can I ride in your ship sir?
Apollo: Fighter planes are no places for little boys.

Watching the original Battlestar Galactaca. I enjoyed it a lot as a kid, but I was a kid and so my standards weren't that high. I am really enjoying the new series on the Sci Fi Channel. It's really about as good as any thing on television. Anyway this little exchange takes place just after Cylon's have wiped out pretty much everything, and Lorne Green/Commander Adama and Apollo have landed on earth to visit Adama's old home and get photo albums. A crowd of survivors gathers around (armed with futuristic torches and pitchforks), seeking confirmation that the world has ended. Commander Adama confirms that, yes, the world has ended. Suddenly bolting out of the crowd runs little space-kid Boxey who has this heart-warming exchange.

Yeah one advantage the new version has over the older one is no annoying space kid.

In a more serious vein, the Wall Street Journal has a story with this title and sub-title.

Why German Nudists
Are Wearing Frowns
As Others Disrobe

Baring It All in Public Is
Nothing Special Anymore;
Joining Camps is Passe

My first thought was slow news day. And then I thought, hey, isn't there some kind of hurricane bearing down on Texas? Isn't that, you know, news?

Thank Goodness the Adults are In Charge

Joe Klein has written an article for Time this week. It's a recit of the Bush Administration's failures in persuing the Iraq war as well as the difficulties they face and would not be remarkable save for the lucid writing style of Mr. Klein.

At any rate, for those of you who want to believe the Bush Adminsitration, being Republican, will automatically wage war more effectively than the hated Democrats, you might want to skip it. Frankly, it's filled with passages like this.

It is no secret that General Tommy Franks didn't want to hang around Iraq very long. As Franks led the U.S. assault on Baghdad in April 2003, his goal--and that of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld--was to get to the capital as quickly as possible with a minimal number of troops. Franks succeeded brilliantly at that task. But military-intelligence officers contend that he did not seem interested in what would come next. "He never once asked us for a briefing about what happened once we got to Baghdad," says a former Army intelligence officer attached to the invasion force. "He said, 'It's not my job.' We figured all he wanted to do was get in, get out and write his book." (Franks, through a spokesman, declined to comment for this article.)

The rush to Baghdad, critics say, laid the groundwork for trouble to come. In one prewar briefing, for example, Lieut. General David McKiernan--who commanded the land component of the coalition forces--asked Franks what should be done if his troops found Iraqi arms caches on the way to Baghdad. "Just put a lock on 'em and go, Dave," Franks replied, according to a former U.S. Central Command (Centcom) officer. Of course, you couldn't simply put a lock on ammunition dumps that stretched for several square miles--dumps that would soon be stripped and provide a steady source of weaponry for the insurgency.

Something to think about. Still it's lucky we don't have Kerry in there; he might have really messed things up.

Seeking Justice is un-American.

Seeking the Truth is un-American.

Standing up for people who are suffering is un-American.

Trying to make this Country better is un-American.

or, to put it another way, Whining is un-American. That's the title of a column at Townhall by Jennifer Roback Morse. Whining is un-American. I haven't read the article yet; frankly I'm not sure I want to. Just reading the title makes me want to put my fist through the window of my car. Well, that and the fact that it's covered in dead bugs.

OK I read it - basically it's crap. Childish crap.

When I heard Mayor Nagin whining, I thought to myself, this sounds positively French. Maybe this lame attitude is part of the French heritage of Louisiana and New Orleans and all that. And then I’m chiding myself for tasteless ethnic stereotyping.

I just have one thing to say to that crap.

Cheery here. We're sorry but the remainder of Bryant's commentary has been deleted; once again he has lapsed into fairly salty language, and we want this website to be safe for children.

Everybody Likes to Pitch In

The right wing Heritage foundation has some suggestions on how to best rebuild New Orleans. They'd like to see us drill in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and institute a school voucher program. Don't believe me? Check out this memo.

There's some comfort in knowing that no matter what the tragedy, the Right Wing always has the same damn answer.

Got this from Salon's War Room.

The Mentality of Bush

Well we are going to rebuild New Orleans. President Bush said so. Hooray. But wait, maybe we should consider the words of Paul Krugman.

President Bush subscribes to a political philosophy that opposes government activism - that's why he has tried to downsize and privatize programs wherever he can. (He still hopes to privatize Social Security, F.D.R.'s biggest legacy.) So even his policy failures don't bother his strongest supporters: many conservatives view the inept response to Katrina as a vindication of their lack of faith in government, rather than as a reason to reconsider their faith in Mr. Bush.

And to date the Bush administration, which has no stake in showing that good government is possible, has been averse to investigating itself. On the contrary, it has consistently stonewalled corruption investigations and punished its own investigators if they try to do their jobs.

Interesting. But it does seem to follow a pattern.

Back on the Road

Well we are on our way back to Tallahassee - in the same care we came down here with. How did I know this was going to happen? We did get some nice pictures out of it - which I will be posting later.

I did catch some bits of the speech last night - I have to say I agree with the analysis in this New York Times Editorial.

Last night, the president was particularly strong when discussing the nation's shocking lack of preparedness for disaster, and the stark fact - obvious to every television viewer around the globe - that the people left homeless and endangered by Katrina were in the main poor and black.

The entire nation, he said, saw the poverty that "has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America." Polls show that black Americans are far angrier and more skeptical than whites about the administration's actions since the storm. Mr. Bush's words could begin a much-needed healing process. But that will happen only if they are followed by deeds that are as principled, disciplined and ambitious as Mr. Bush's speech.

A lot of people will say that this President does what he says. I say, well, not necessarily. Take the aid to Africa to fight AIDS. Only a fraction has gone through because of stringent rules on how the money is to be spent; not to prevent waste but to prevent even an acknowledgement of the existence of abortion.

On the other hand, it's safe to say nobody was watching Bush at that time - and now plenty of people are watching him. So maybe he will fill compelled to live up to his promises.

The Legend of Spoomonger the One Noble Soul in the Blog-O-Sphere

Gather real children and listen to the tale of Spoomonger.

It was in the wake of Hurricane Katrina that he revealed himself. Those were dark days for those virtuous souls who loved America. For President Bush's response to Katrina had been seen as base and ignoble, and Spoomonger's mighty heart was troubled. And he stepped to the Blog-O-Sphere and asked these immortal questions.

Am I the only one not buying all the mud slung at President Bush over Katrina? Am I the only one who is fed up with all the petty garbage the media seeks out in the midst of a serious catastrophe?

Yes poor noble Spoomonger was all alone in asking these questions. For behold an amazing thing - the Republican National Committee, the various Conservative Pundits in Print, on Radio, or on the Television, and his fellow conservative bloggers had all ignored these questions. They had all unquestioningly accepted the mud slung at President Bush. Only Spoomonger, the only noble soul in the internet, had stepped forward to ask these questions and to defend President Bush.

And if you believest that, you would also have no trouble believing the rest of his statement. But do not read such documents as this timeline, for this may cast doubts in your mind as to the truthfulness of the mighty Spoomonger, the one noble soul of the internet. Simply remember that not that many people died and the Mayor and the Governor are responsible for those dead.

Remember this question - are you going to be a citizen or a critic? A citizen of the United States would never question his president - particularly not in the middle of a tragedy like this.

In Sarasota

Hey all. We are in Sarasota now. The Monster got us into a pretty nice place. The Lido Beach Resort. Anyway it's pretty nice. All the shampoo and bath products have marine themes. We have Kelp Shampoo and Conditioner, Algea Body Wash, and Sea Cucumber Soap. I'm not sure what the properties of these various products are - but will be using them later on.

For now I'm going to catch some shut-eye while the monster goes down and hangs around the pool.

A Clarification

The Monster wanted me to reassure you all that we were swamped with animal impalas and not Chevy impalas.

He also wants to say that he has nothing against Chevrolets. In fact he really likes that Taj Mahal song "Chevrolet." I like it too.

Now he is saying that he likes that song so much that we need to drive to Sarasota and purchase a Chevrolet for the office. I don't know why we can't buy a Chevrolet here, but apparently Sarasota is the place to buy a Chevrolet.

So, uh, I guess we are going to Sarasota. The Monster does not always think in the same way you and I might think. Well I, at any rate. Anyway we'll have to see how this goes.

Oh, and I know President Bush took full responsibility for the screw-ups around New Orleans - I am not yet sure what to think of that, so don't have much to say. Part of it I think is very nice to see for a change and part of it reads like "I'm sorry those other guys screwed up; I guess I should have stopped them." Anyway I'll probably have more thoughts someday soon - but for the moment, I have to go pack so we can leave for Sarasota. In the middle of the night.

Yeah, I have a great gig here.

Low Posting today

Hey the office is being fumigated, due to an unexpected visit from a herd of impalas. Don't ask. Anyway these weren't particularly clean impalas, so we are getting fumigated - we might have posts this evening.

Yet Another Piece of the Puzzle

Conservatives like to believe they are the only virtuous people in America. Us liberals? We are scum sucking jerks who don't give a shit about anybody but ourselves. And don't get them started on anybody who isn't from the United States. Nope, Conservatives are pretty much the sum total of all virtuous people around.

Consider, for example, the comments of Ann Coulter on a recent episode of Hannity and Colmes.

Moveon.com is down protesting outside the White House today. How about putting together some evacuee bags? How about actually helping out? And you know, speaking of that, I think, you know, I'd like to see a breakdown at the end of this -- how much churches are contributing versus, say, Barry Lynn's church.

Of course Moveon.org did participate in hurricane relief - arranging for temporary residences for some 250,000 people. But that doesn't fit the pattern, so it's convienently edited out of Ann Coulter and other Conservative's realities. Instead, in their little mythology, we have the President valiantly trying to save people (instead of, you know, attending birthday parties and goofing around with Country Music stars) while pathetic liberals carp on what a jerk he is and do nothing of value.

Ann Coulter is, by the way, the id of the modern Republican / Conservative movement. If you want to know what your Conservative Friends think but are embarrassed to say outloud, just give her a listen.

Incidently for those of you who don't know who Barry Lynn is, he's the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ, another fact Ann was blissfully unaware of as evidenced by this exchange.

COULTER: I'd like to see a breakdown at the end of this -- how much churches are contributing versus, say, Barry Lynn's church.

HANNITY: What church?

COULTER: Right, that was a joke.

HANNITY: Did he actually have one?

After all you can't admit that some liberals go to church can you? That would fly in the face of the self evident conservative truth that they are the only virtuous people in America.

Another Piece of the Puzzle

One of the issues I've been grappling with is how, given the massive incompetence of the Bush Administration in the face of Hurricane Katrina, people still continue to support him. One piece I already discussed; the fact that they are more focused on how much they dislike Liberals than they are on the President. According to Jinx, I am full of crap.

Another piece of the puzzle I've alluded to is this; Conservatives expect government to fail. They don't believe in the power of government to accomplish anything; so when the government fails in the face of Hurricane Katrina, they shrug their shoulders and say "It's tragic, but what do you expect?"

I don't know what they think about such events as the Normandy Invasion or the Apollo Program or the G.I. Bill.

I, on the other hand, believe that government can accomplish great things. So when the government fails so spectacularly; well, I'm upset. I want to see those leaders responsible held accountable. I'm not willing to just shrug and say, "Well that's the way the cookie crumbles."

All This Time

I strongly urge you to all read Joe Conason's latest article, even though doing so requires you to watch a short ad at Salon (unless you are a member).

It's strong indictment of the Bush Administration for it's failures and it's betrayal of the American people.

And we can have no doubt now, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, that critical agencies of the United States government are staffed by patronage hacks unable to fulfill the most basic responsibilities of the modern state. The outstanding example, of course, is Michael D. Brown -- apparently known as "Brownie" to the admiring president -- the FEMA chief whose résumé contains nothing to recommend him to one of the most critical positions in government, although he had amply padded it with unearned honors and bogus titles. He claimed, for instance, to have worked as an assistant city manager, when he was actually a glorified intern. (The holder of a degree from an unaccredited law school, Brown's most significant lifetime work experience was as a "commissioner" for a horse show association, a position he departed involuntarily and left off his official biography.)

For four years, since the tragedy of September 11th, President Bush and his followers have been resolute in telling us how lucky we are to have him in charge, in these dangerous and trying times.

I don't know about anybody else, but I don't feel all that lucky.

Incidentally you might also check out Paul Krugman's latest, in which he suggests that "Brownie" may not be an exception but an example of President Bush's hiring standards. It's always been clear that this president values loyalty and doesn't give a damn about any other qualities a person might have. So if you like how Michael Brown performed in the face of Hurricane Katrina just imagine how President Bush's other office holders are performing. Or instead of imagining, here's a quote.

Unfortunately, it's easy to find other agencies suffering from some version of the FEMA syndrome.

The first example won't surprise you: the Environmental Protection Agency, which has a key role to play in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, but which has seen a major exodus of experienced officials over the past few years. In particular, senior officials have left in protest over what they say is the Bush administration's unwillingness to enforce environmental law.

Maybe this is just me, but isn't there likely to be a lot of gunk floating around New Orleans? Isn't that sort of the Environmental Protection Agency's mandate, to clean up gunk? Hmmmmmm.

Still when you elect a President who doesn't believe in the power of Government to help people, I suppose it's no surprise that he appoints lunkheads to positions of power which, to him, are totally useless.

A Question Presents Itself

One might reasonably wonder how far Bush supporters are willing to go to stand by their man. The answer, as evidenced by their performance (and his) in the wake of Hurricane Katrina presents itself.

How far are they willing to go? All the way.

Rebuilding New Orleans

A lot of people have pointed to an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that commented on how the wealthy of New Orleans are doing. Apparently they are doing fine. People like Jimmy Reiss, descendent of an old line New Orleans family, are well able to take care of themselves.

Mr. Reiss commented to the Wall Street Journal, "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically, and politically. I'm not just peaking for myself here. The way we've been living is not going to happen again or we're out."

I wonder how they want to change the city demographically? I mean that, to me, has a bit of an ominous ring to it. But maybe I'm reading too much into it.

I can't link to the article, but it was a front page article that continued on page A12.

A Clarification

Some of you may find some of what Rush Limbaugh and others of his ilk says about New Orleans hard to understand, particularly as he pontificates about the terrible damage welfare has caused to New Orleans. This may be particularly confusing if you realize that the majority of New Orleans was not on welfare. Poor, yes, but on welfare? No.

What you need to understand is that to Rush Limbaugh and those who follow his philosophy there is absolutely no difference between a poor black person who has a job and a poor black person who is on welfare. In both cases they are parasites, and in both cases they pretty much deserve what they get.

If they wanted to qualify for our sympathy they would be middle class white people, or, at worst, middle class black people.

Hope that helps you follow along.

Katrina Timeline

I'm not interested in pillorying President Bush for things he didn't do, nor am I interested in shielding the Democratic Mayor of New Orleans or the Governor of Louisiana from legitimate criticism.

Of course, the Bush Administration reporting that the Governor of New Orleans failed to declare a state of emergency when she had (on August 26) is an example of illegitimate criticism. And you have to wonder how Bush Supporters feel about their guys telling such transparent lies.

But that's where it's helpful to have a timeline of the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina. Think Progress has done a pretty nice one, and it seems easily verifiable. In particular it's nice to see how little Hurricane Katrina impacted President Bush's vacation. After all, a rested President is an effective President. That's why things have gone so smoothly - think about how cranky and unpleasant President Bush would be if he hadn't been able to celebrate Senator McCain's Birthday or goof around with Country Singer Mark Willis.

One might ask, well what could President Bush have done? He could have engaged. He could have gotten involved and treated this like a national disaster that has killed thousands instead of as an inconvenience to his personal life. I'll be blunt, President Bush is an idiot, so maybe we're all better off with him goofing around with Mark Willis. But those of you who support President Bush or who voted for him, well, don't you have a higher opinion of him than I do?

Being President of the United States is difficult. Ask Abraham Lincoln. Ask Franklin Roosevelt. Ask John F. Kennedy. You either rise to the occasion or you don't. And if you don't, well, I'd think you'd want a stronger defense than "well I couldn't think of anything that the president could do to help."

Quotations from Ann Coulter

Those of you from the Big Apple might not want to read her remarks from the Radio Factor.

COULTER: Yes. No, I know, I thought the exact same thing. And in the same way the rest of the country ran to support New York, I'm waiting to see if New Yorkers will run to support the suffering victims of Katrina.

RANTEL: Do you have doubts?

COULTER: New Yorkers don't really consider themselves a part of the rest of America.

I'm not sure how New Yorkers might respond to this particular statement.

Got this from Media Matters.

A Question Answers it

It's hard to make the argument that President Bush has done well in responding to Katrina. Even charitably it's clear that President Bush has failed the citizens of New Orleans, Mississippi and Alabama. So one might wonder in the face of this manifest failure, how do Bush supporters go on?

There is a great secret here.

They've trained themselves not to look at President Bush at all. Paying any attention on President Bush at all would expose his weakness as a President and a man. So they must direct their attention elsewhere.

You see when many conservatives relate to President Bush they relate to him in a very specific way. They feel like they have been held back by forces beyond their control, which they have named Liberals or Elitists or Democrats or Northerners and so on and so forth. They feel like those forces have hurt them; and they see those same forces lined up against President Bush.

So rather than focus their attention on President Bush and his heroism (which clearly doesn't exist (they don't even have the low-grade machismo of "Bring it On")), they focus on us. Because if they can't build up President Bush they can always attack liberals!

Of course, I could be wrong. And there are, of course, plenty of Conservatives who don't give a damn so long as they get their tax cut.

A Proud Day for American Conservatism

Yet another opportunity for pride for all those American Conservatives who voted for President Bush. Here are some comments he made about the disaster in New Orleans.

Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house--he's lost his entire house, there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch.

Yep - that's what this disaster means to President Bush - a chance for his wealthy friends (in so far as Trent Lott is one of his friends) to have an even nicer house. For more on how President Bush is doing in the face of this tragedy, check out this article by Time Magazine.

Cindy Sheehan and Hurricane Katrina; the Unholy Alliance

According to Suzanne Fields, Cindy Sheehan and Hurricane Katrina are similar tests of the American Spirit. Yep - American must stand up and deal with the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the terrible actions of Cindy Sheehan. Yep. The two are equivalent.

The Hurricane death toll may be in the thousands, but consider the spiritual devastation caused by a mother questioning the war in Iraq.

Hitler was surprised when the British did not give up when he blitzed London, so he set out to break the British spirit with "Coventrieren," a tactic to extend the destruction of Coventry to 20 additional cities. But instead of breaking the British spirit, "Coventrieren" strengthened it. The people of Coventry began rebuilding their houses and factories at once.

Hurricane Katrina and Cindy Sheehan must be similar tests of the spirit. The winds of the storm, like the winds of war, beat against our emotions and our will, and the American will to survive must prevail against the despairing voices that, as the poet says, will wake us only to drown.

Yep, Cindy Sheehan is not only an equivalent test to Hurricane Katrina, but also to the battle of London.

Pretty impressive for one anti-war protester.

At any rate, if the foundation of this war in Iraq were strong (which it's not), than this wouldn't be an issue. She'd be a crank. Instead Americans are listening to what she has to say because it dovetails with their own opinions on the war. Republicans can continue to paint hazy pictures of "liberated Iraq" but shouldn't be surprised if the American people find Ms. Sheehan's views more compelling.

Prediction

I, the Amazing Bryant, will predict the future. We will soon hear Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives talking about how Liberal Environmentalists want high gas prices and so are happy about Hurricane Katrina.

Watch for it.

It might already have happened, but this being labor day I'm unwilling to labor. So I don't know if someone is already saying.

Round the Horn. An Irwin J. McIckleson Production

Good morning all. This is Irwin J. McIckleson, fictional 1910's plutocrat, providing a review of the Liberal Coalition for the week. As you know, there has been a terrible disaster in New Orleans. I have visited New Orleans on a few separate occasions - most recently to arrange a warehouse for storing my products on their way to South America. I've always found it a beautiful city. I generally dislike the south due to their baffling racial mores (Frankly I don't care whether a working man is black, white, or green; I'm ready and willing to exploit his labor), but New Orleans is a bit different.

Plus they have the most lively music there.

I guess I'm saying that even though I'm fictional, I still wish the people of New Orleans courage and strength to face this tragedy, and I hope their country men will come to their aid.

Anyway most of the posts reviewed will do with this tragedy.

Iddybud has a good collection of thoughts on how the Bush administration has failed to plan for this particular disaster and is not doing very well at responding to it. Which is a shame.

LEFT is RIGHT has more on President Bush's disingenuous claim that "No one could have foreseen the levee's breaking" or words to that effect. I must say such a claim strikes me as the worst kind of nonsense. Even in our day we knew what could happen if those levees broke.

Apparently Mr. Bush has responded to these criticisms by asking American's not to play politics right now, according to Sooner Thought. That's an interesting response because the way America deals with problems is to play politics. That's what democracy is all about. I should know, I've purchased enough politicians in my life.

archy has the news that one of the two relief organizations suggested by the Governmental Site on Helping Disasters (FEMA?) is headed by the same blackguard who called for the assassination of the President of Venezuela.

First Draft has some information on how other nations are coming to the aid of the United States, which is heartening.

The Countess has the story on a gentleman who is in New Orleans in some kind of hideout who is posting on what he sees around the city. It is very interesting.

The Fulcrum has other information on what is going on in the city. Apparently the army tried to use some kind of flying machine based on Di Vinci principles to rescue some people, and were shot upon. The author asks why we are not ready to deal with such banditry?

Words on a Page has a letter by a former supporter of President Bush confronting him on his failures in responding to Hurricane Katrina. I must say, I'm all for Presidents being shamelessly pro-business (as it appears this Bush fellow is), but there's something to be said for general competence as well.

Gamer's Nook has the words to a song, which are quite poetic and meaningful. But the song does not contain any reference to Turkeys or Straw.

And that is it for another week. Please do what you can to help those suffering people in New Orleans. I would commit my entire fortune to the rebuilding and rescue efforts, but my fortune is, like me, fictional.

Liberal America Doesn't Give a Damn About the South

This is the message of Matt Towery's latest article. Doubt me? Here's the last of paragraph of said article.

But this week, I speak the words no one else wants to say: The South has been hit with the equivalent of a nuclear bomb. And too much of America didn't want to notice until it had to.

There's a lot I could say about this, but too much of it would be mean-spirted and hurtful; so I'll just suggest that Mr. Towery stacks the deck a bit in his presentation in order to reach this answer.

What is an American Liberal?

Yes this question has been puzzling us for generations, but Emmett Tyrell has the answer in his latest article.

What is the American liberal? I conceive the American liberal as a fat, florid-faced archbishop from some declining episcopacy in New England waiting around the buffet table late in the dinner hoping to scoop up a few extra desserts, another bon bon to put in his pocket or her purse, an extra glass of sauterne, and to burp when no one is within listening range.

Now a further question presents itself. What is Emmett Tyrell? Well let me tell you . . .

I'm sorry, the rest of this post has been deleted. While I (this is Cheery) appreciate Mr. Bryant's passion, this is a family site. Have a nice morning all. : )

I hate my Generation!!!

I offer no apologies.

I am a bit down today, and a bit pissed off. I was driving around at lunch listening to Rush Limbaugh (as is my wont) and he was going off on how this tragedy in New Orleans is largely the Environmentalists and Leftists fault. If environmentalism Whackos (his term, not mine) hadn't prevented New Orleans from building better leevees, New Orleans would be safe (or something like that).

Of course, in part, he was responding to leftists, like posters at Democratic Underground, who spent all yesterday castigating President Bush for not immediately returning to Washington DC to head up relief efforts. Many Democratic Undergrounders also seem to be of the opinion that we need to abandon New Orleans, and that the ensuing catastrophe will mean the end of the American Economy and/or American Imperialism.

Meanwhile hundreds have died and the toll will probably go into the thousands as hunger and disease take their toll.

A tragedy on this scale, well, it's just another reason to bash our political enemies.

And, if I'm honest, exactly the same passions I'm bemoaning in others are in me as well. I want to use this tragedy as a club to hurt those I disagree with politically. If I am going to hate Rush Limbaugh and a few at Democratic Underground (which, under normal circumstances is a wonderful discussion board) I have to hate myself as well.

At any rate it's very depressing.

Bill Murchinson Knows What People Want!

Yep. And one thing people don't want is comic book movies. I know you might be thinking, hey didn't the X-Men and Spiderman and Batman movies do pretty good at the box office? Even Fantastic Four did alright. But you'd be wrong. In truth the movie going public wants adult movies (not that kind of adult movie, but movies made for adults), like they used to make.

Adults tell stories; juveniles crash cars and fixate on their childhood heroes and hang-ups. Juveniles, in terms of maturity if not chronology, run the motion picture industry, telling the "stories" juveniles enjoy -- not about life but about hang-ups and rude noises and bad language.

And comic books! If 10 percent of the money spent on bringing comic book characters to cinematic life found its way into the telling of honest stories about the human condition -- love, fear, ambition, hatred, sacrifice, etc., etc., etc. -- half-empty theaters might fill once more.

Well first off, Mr. Murchinson doesn't know much about Comic Books if he thinks they don't cover ambition, hatred, fear, and sacrifice (although, admittedly, comic books don't do as good a job with love (superhero comics I mean)).

The truth is that in every generation a lot of crappy movies get made. That's kind of the way it is. The other truth is that since the 70s (at least) movies appeal to a younger generation. There are plenty of smart films that older people can enjoy, but they aren't the target audience anymore.

I think Murchinson assumes that if a significant number of movies were made that catered to older generations, those generations would start going to the movies as regularly as the younger generation. I don't think that's necessarily true. The older you get the more you value your time; it takes more for a movie to get older people in the theater. And even then they are less likely to see a movie multiple times and more likely to say "well that looks good but I'll wait for it on DVD." So which generational group do you aim your movie for? Assuming you want to make a profit of course.

Also how do you tell a story about rude noises or bad language?

Updates to the Site

First of all we discovered a few problems with our Logo Gallery, so we have fixed them. Also we are adding links to the stuff section over there on the right.

Good News for White Males

It's hard being a white male these days. I should know because I am, in fact, a white male. Well, now there's relief, in the form of an easy to read 7,500 word article with over 70 footnotes. Something with that many footnotes has to be good. Check out this fascinating selection.

Since we live in an age when students are likely to hear more about Marie Curie than about Albert Einstein, it is worth beginning with a statement of historical fact: women have played a proportionally tiny part in the history of the arts and sciences.4 Even in the 20th century, women got only 2 percent of the Nobel Prizes in the sciences—a proportion constant for both halves of the century—and 10 percent of the prizes in literature. The Fields Medal, the most prestigious award in mathematics, has been given to 44 people since it originated in 1936. All have been men.

The historical reality of male dominance of the greatest achievements in science and the arts is not open to argument.

See I'll bet you didn't know that most of the scientists and artists you studied in history were males. Is that due to women not being allowed to participate in such works before 1900 (and not all that much since then)? Nope. Apparently, according to Charles Murry (the author of this wonderful article (wonderful for us White Males of course, not for the rest of you)), women's brains are smaller. Mr. Murrey also talks about how we White Males compare to other races (basically Blacks), and, surprise surprise, we come out ahead there too.

So why is it so important to recognize the supremecy of the White Male?

Elites throughout the West are living a lie, basing the futures of their societies on the assumption that all groups of people are equal in all respects. Lie is a strong word, but justified. It is a lie because so many elite politicians who profess to believe it in public do not believe it in private. It is a lie because so many elite scholars choose to ignore what is already known and choose not to inquire into what they suspect. We enable ourselves to continue to live the lie by establishing a taboo against discussion of group differences.

The big problem is that brave scholars like Charles Murrey are not given huge research grants and allowed to appear on talk shows constantly to explain the dominence of the white male. See if we didn't have political correctness all the women and non-whites would naturally rise to their appropriate place, and we white males would run everything as genetics intended!

So to sum up, all hail the White Male! That rhymes, and you know it rhymes!

Note: if some of you do not recognize B.S. when you see it, you should maybe start here. Enjoy!

The Gallery

For those interested, here is a Gallery of logos that have appeared on the site. Kind of fun to take a look back - particularly since our recent redesigned overwrote all our previous designs. Anyway hope you enjoy.

Good morning

Hey slow posting today. Cheery is at the dentist and I am being held by work. Grumbly was given a weeks suspension after the incident last week, I'm afraid. The monster phoned in from Zhanjiang, China, and, after listening to Cheery's tearful complaint mandated that Grumbly Muffin be suspended for one week or until she had "got me one hundred squirrels!" Me being the Monster.

I assume Grumbly will wait out the week.

Anyway since I can't post much, here's a few links.

Echidne of the Snake has a nice story that refutes the whole "why don't peaceful Muslims ever protest against the terrorists?" So naturally this will be ignored by conservatoids.

Bark Bark Woof Woof has a story on how Cindy Sheehan Did get to meet with an American President. Kind of nice.

The Goblin's Lair has a selection on why we shouldn't be ashamed to be "liberals." Damned inspiring, if you ask me - go read it and see what you think.

Anyway hopefully we'll have some more later on, if things quiet down.

Lamps too

OK, I think I got the Lamps Page fixed up. Here it is, for those of you interested.

Meta-Commentary

I know you are all smart enough to pick up on these parallels yourselves, but I think I ought to underline where Grumbly Muffin might have acquired her "flexible" relationship with the truth.

I mean, Cindy Sheehan is just Bill Burkett. Her story is nothing more than forged documents. There's nothing about it that's real, including the mainstream media's glomming onto it. It's not real. It's nothing more than an attempt. It's the latest effort made by the coordinated left.

- Rush Limbaugh, August 15.

Apparently, what's out there is that I said that Cindy Sheehan is no different than Bill Burkett, that Bill Burkett lied and Cindy Sheehan lied. They're actually out there, people saying that I am accusing Cindy Sheehan of making up the fact that she had a son and making up the fact that her son died in Iraq. And of course, I've never said this.

- Rush Limbaugh, August 17.

You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war.

- Pat Robertson, August 22.

Wait a minute, I didn't say 'assassination.' I said our special forces should, quote, "take him out," and "take him out" can be a number of things including kidnapping. There are a number of ways to take out a dictator from power besides killing him. I was misinterpreted by the AP, but that happens all the time.

- Pat Robertson August 24.

I'd just like to say that all of the readers of this website are TOTAL MORONS.

- Grumbly Muffin, August 24.

I've noticed a lot of people commenting that I said something "hurtful" to our readers or that I called our readers total morons. I don't know how these sorts of RUMORS get started, but I think it's telling that the left has to resort to blatent DISTORTION to win arguments.

- Grumbly Muffin, August 25.

Now to be fair, Mumbly Gruffin's comments were a little different than Limbaugh and Robertson's. They waited two days before they started making stuff up; she only waited one day.

Lamps

As mentioned previously we are gallerizing some of the artwork presented at this website, such as it is. Mainly because this is turning out to be a slow day, and also because the Monster likes pictures. Anyway, those of you who remember my lamp pictures, here they are. Enjoy!

Edited to add - this isn't working right - need to figure out what I did wrong.

Ben Shapiro

I would like it better if Conservative Americans did not have any power or very little power. Let me amend that. I would like it better if the neo-conservative boneheads along the lines of Ben Shapiro, Pat Robertson, and President Bush, had no power to implement their policy. I don't think they add very much positive (if anything). On the contrary the influence of this type of modern conservative has been very very negative. So I would like to see these people, others like them, and people who support them lose power in America.

Of course there are certain constitutional and moral limits to how far I can go in shutting them up; in reality I'm mostly limited to trying to present an alternative view and, more often, criticizing their own bonehead statements. Which brings us to today's article by Ben Shapiro.

Ben Shapiro is still lamenting that as a young conservative he may be criticized for hosting a talk show in Oklahoma City rather than enlisting to fight a war he supports (and apparently four or five other wars he also supports (when we get around to them)). In this article Ben Shapiro lets out a deep dark secret; people like Michael Moore and Susan Serandon would rather see people who think like them making decisions for this nation.

What a shocker. This is totally different from young Ben who, of course, favors people who think different from him. Oh wait, that's nonsense.

What clearly gets young Ben's goat, besides the personal angle to this argument, is that this has proven an effective technique. The right wing in this nation has spent all day and every day telling America that Liberals are unpatriotic, that we don't love our country, that we don't care about regular Americans, that we are elitist snobs and so on and so forth. SO when we get a comeback that punctures this particular line of attack, well, it's worth using.

Ben Shapiro also throws around the word "pacifist" pretty loosely in his article. Apparently in the Shapiro Family Dictionary, a pacifist is anybody who doesn't support any war. It's a bit like virginity, I guess; once you think a war is stupid and you oppose it, you become a pacifist forever more.

Anyway it's nice to see Ben, in an article criticizing the democratic for making (effective) ad hominem attacks, he can't stop himself from using an ad hominem attack.

Chavez and Robertson

My colleague, Grumbly Muffin, wrote below on Pat Robertson and Hugo Chavez with typical restraint and insight. Why is it that the Republicans, who claim to be the "adults" when it comes to governing, always seem to be reenacting old Sylvester Stalloine/Arnold Schwarzenegger movies?

That said, I'm intrigued by the logic of Roberts words.

. . . if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.

I just want to let you all know that I think you are trying to give me big bags of money. Yep. I am convinced that there are dozens of my readers trying to give me money.

Just thought you'd like to know.

Further Proof of the Liberal Media

Here's how an article on Cindy Sheehan and Camp Casey, and a counter demonstration opens, written by Angela K. Brown, and distributed by the Associated Press.

A patriotic camp with a "God Bless Our President!" banner sprung up downtown Saturday, countering the anti-war demonstration started by a fallen soldier's mother two weeks ago near President Bush's ranch.

See how liberally biased this is? It fails to mention that the Anti War Demon-stration is made up of people who hate America and hate soldiers. It fails to note that Cindy Sheehan has already met with President Bush and is a crazed liberal activist. About the only think this little snippet gets right is describing Fort Qualls as "patriotic." That's a little subtle though - stupid people may not realize that this automatically implies that the people at Camp Casey are the opposite of patriotic.

When will we rid ourselves of this insane liberal Media???

Changes

We are making some changes to the website today - for one thing, we, at long last, appear to have successfully succeeded in installing an Atom Feed. This has long been a dream of mine - and I finally succeeded in doing it, I think. Anybody who can confirm this, please do thou so.

The Site Feed is here --> http://feeds.feedburner.com/MakeMeACommentator

Also we are going to redo the look of this website once more - I like this look, but it does not allow one to link to individual posts - instead each link goes to that week, which is not very satisfactory. So I am going to change it a bit.

Also we are going to open, in honor of this new switcharoo, the Make Me a Commentator Blog Heading Gallery, but that might take a few days.

Reality Used to be a Friend of Mine

Using a title of a PM Dawn song, to show you how hip and relevant this blog is.

Compare and contrast these two statements, both by Rush Limbaugh.

I mean, Cindy Sheehan is just Bill Burkett. Her story is nothing more than forged documents. There's nothing about it that's real, including the mainstream media's glomming onto it. It's not real.

That statement is from his August 15th broadcast.

Apparently, what's out there is that I said that Cindy Sheehan is no different than Bill Burkett, that Bill Burkett lied and Cindy Sheehan lied. They're actually out there, people saying that I am accusing Cindy Sheehan of making up the fact that she had a son and making up the fact that her son died in Iraq. And of course, I've never said this.

That is from his August 17th, broadcast.

So my question is, does Rush realize he's on the air? Does he realize that people are capable of remembering what he said just two days earlier? Or is he so far gone that reality, for him, is what he says it is?

After Roe Vs. Wade

I don't really know what to make of this, partly because of the source, so I'm presenting it without comment. This is from Larry Elder's latest article.

USA Today conducted a state-by-state analysis. Their analysis expects 11 "conservative states" to immediately pass laws prohibiting abortion. But those "conservative states" only had 122 abortion providers in 2000, less than 7 percent of the nation's 1,819 abortion providers. "Most of those 122 providers (65) are in Texas," writes USA Today. "If pro-choice forces can hold on to Texas (not unlikely, given the feisty Democratic minority's tendency to flee to Oklahoma to deny the Legislature a quorum when its members are miffed) we're down to 57 providers. If the Democrats controlling the Alabama and Arkansas legislatures decided to act like Democrats, not Dixiecrats, that total could fall to 36."

That leaves eight "conservative states" with only 36 abortion providers between them -- an already difficult proposition for any woman seeking an abortion in those states. In six of them -- Mississippi, Kentucky, the Dakotas, Missouri and Nebraska -- a woman cannot find an abortion provider in 97-98 percent of those states' counties. In other words, as it stands now, conservative states reduce abortion to almost non-existence, so a post-Roe world, at least in those states, changes little.

I will add one thing; I have heard that Ohio has considered an abortion law that would make it illegal to seek an abortion in Ohio, but would also make it a crime to seek an abortion elsewhere. I don't know how many of these states would consider such a law.

Live from Fantasy Land; it's Ben Shapiro

Yes young Ben seems reality challenged this week. His article is about how wrong it is for Liberals to use the Chickenhawk epithet. Apparently.

Apparently pointing out that many Republican leaders supported the Vietnam war and yet were unwilling to fight in it is an attack on their right to speak. Pointing out that young Republicans support the Iraq war, we are suffering from not having enough troops, and yet young Republicans are unwilling to enlist is similarly wrong. Not just wrong. UnAmerican.

The "chickenhawk" argument -- which states that if you haven't served in the military, you can't have an opinion on foreign policy -- explicitly rejects basic principles of representative democracy.

No it doesn't, young Ben, any more than the hundreds of ad hominem attacks you and your kind have launched over the year mean that Democrats Liberals shouldn't be able to have an opinion on, well, anything.

His flight from reality comes in the last bit.

The "chickenhawk" argument proves only one point: The left is incapable of discussing foreign policy in a rational manner. They must resort to purely emotional, base personal attacks in order to forward their agenda. And so, unable or unwilling to counter the arguments of those like Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney and President Bush, they label them all "chickenhawks."

. . . American soldiers fight for the right of all Americans, regardless of race, class or past service, to speak out on foreign policy issues. If they fight for the right of pacifist anti-military fifth columnists like Michael Moore to denigrate their honor, they certainly fight for the right of civilian hawks to speak up in favor of the highest level of moral and material support for their heroism.

OK, a few points.

1. Liberals have lots of substantive arguments against the insane policies of the Bush Administration. To pretend that our entire counter argument consists of screaming "chickenhawk" is nonsense.

2. Fifth columnist? Denigrating their honor? Criticizing this war is not the same thing as criticizing the military forced to fight in it, and if you spent even a few moments reviewing Michael Moores statements you'd find the truth. Consider this quote from Fahrenheit 9/11, voiced and presumably written by Michael.

I've always been amazed that the very people forced to live in the worst parts of town, go to the worst schools, and who have it the hardest are always the first to step up, to defend us. They serve so that we don't have to. They offer to give up their lives so that we can be free. It is remarkably their gift to us. And all they ask for in return is that we never send them into harm's way unless it is absolutely necessary. Will they ever trust us again?

I don't know how you read that, but to me that doesn't sound like a slur against the troops.

3. And, incidentally, how is "fifth columnist" better than "chickenhawk?" I mean other than the fact that there is some truth to the phrase chickenhawk and none in the slur fifth columnist.

4. The Republicans in Congress and in the White House have consistently fought to lower veteran's benefits. The penny-pinching Donald Rumsfeld, eager to protect the Bush Tax Cuts, fought the Iraq war on the cheap. It's Democrat and Liberal Activists who have pointed out both of these facts.

Anyway I admit to being of two minds about the Chickenhawk epithet. On the one hand it isn't really a response to a conservative foreign policy argument. It would be better to point out the inconsistencies and nonsense in their arguments directly. On the other hand, chickenhawk goes to a very real attack Conservatives have made on Liberals. Conservatives like to pretend that they are the party that lives America and that Liberals are the party that doesn't love America. Chickenhawk cuts right through that, so why not use it?

Any thoughts?

A Proud Day for American Conservatism

I got this from Fox 23 (Albany New York).

A pickup truck tore through rows of white crosses last night near President Bush's ranch, where a woman has been protesting the Iraq war.

The crosses stretched along the road at the Crawford, Texas, camp, bore the names of fallen U-S soldiers. No one was hurt.

Of course I am sure that there are many conservatives who would find this action reprehensible.

It all balances out

As it turns out there's no need to worry about the vast numbers of people who are barely hanging on in our economic system. Their kids are doing better on tests, and they are belonging to more voluntary associations.

This cheerful news comes to us via Michael Barone's latest article, in which he references a number of recent articles which suggest that Social Classes may be becoming more hardened. Mr. Barone, suprisingly, does not dispute the core premise of this article. Instead he, more or less, argues that there's nothing wrong with this. Which is, I have to admit, a refreshingly honest approach.

Meritocracy may mean less mobility, but that is bearable if, as Brooks says, "America is becoming more virtuous."

It is comforting to know that Mr. Barone and Mr. Brooks, both wealthy columnists are willing to bear a certain lack of mobility. And, I could be wrong, but isn't there something a little bit patronizing saying it's ok to have lots of people struggling to get by if we can get them to be more virtuous?

Odd To Ann Coulter

Marvin Olasky's latest column is kind of a backhanded ode to the leggy conservative writer.

But show business pulls us in the opposite direction: Fighting words sell. Ann Coulter, for example, says people don't respond to subtle reasoning and need to be bopped on the head.

She's probably right: Rapid-fire attacks keep people awake.

But there's more to Ms. Coulter than just slamming into liberals. Apparently she also believes in the saving power of Jesus Christ.

But the columnist has another side that a former student of mine, Amy McCullough, caught in describing a Coulter appearance at the University of Texas: "When a young, conservative woman asked how she could stand the awful things people said about her because of her stand on abortion, she hesitated, messed with her hair, and said: 'Well, it's the same way I don't care about anything else: Christ died for my sins, and nothing else matters.'"

You know I pretty much agree with Ann that Christ's sacrifice is pretty darn important. On the other hand I would also place some importance in following his commands. Christs sacrifice doesn't excuse us from following his words; rather following his words allows us to better understand and accept his sacrifice.

So consider these words from the Bible.

Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:

And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. - Ephesians 4:31-32

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:

But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. - Matthew 5:21-22

If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. - James 1:26

I would not put it on myself to judge the state of Ann Coulter's soul. If she has felt to commune with God; that is good. I would merely point out a contrast between the harsh and hateful words of Ann Coulter and the admonitions one finds in the Bible.

Mr. Olasky also seems aware of this conflict, incidentally.

How would the apostles act in today's culture? How, for that matter, would 18th century members of the religious right like Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry? Coulter can join that distinguished host as she finds more ways to rout liberal stereotypes without fulfilling others.

I have my personal doubts that she would(for one thing I still think, protestations aside, that it's all about the benjamins for Ms. Coulter), but certainly it would be nice if Ms. Coulter took a higher road.

We've Got the Whole World In Our Hands

Since the death of the Soviet Union, we are unquestionably the world's only superpower, the world's remaining empire. Acquiring an empire requires a different mindset than maintaining and expanding one. Empires either decline or they grow. If America is to survive and flourish, Americans must realize that empire isn't a choice: It's a duty.

This is from Ben Shapiro's latest. Shapiro goes on to call for the US to invade Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and Pakistan (as well as "others"). I know that's not very believable. Surely even young Ben couldn't be that bloodthirsty and jingoistic (not to mention unrealistic). But I don't know how else you read this paragraph.

That is why impatient isolationism serves us ill in Iraq. Did Iraq pose an immediate threat to our nation? Perhaps not. But toppling Saddam Hussein and democratizing Iraq prevent his future ascendance and end his material support for future threats globally. The same principle holds true for Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and others: Pre-emption is the chief weapon of a global empire.

So, there you have it. Of course young Ben is only speaking for himself. Doubtless there are many who would disagree with this crazy plan.

Band Name

Is it just me or would "Inexplicable Monkeys" be a kick-ass name for a band?

Also, you should obviously take Grumbly Muffin's words below with a grain of salt; she is after all an operative of the Republican Party / Conservative Movement.

Can't We All Just Get Along?

I must be catching Cheerryitus.

I just finished reading Dennis Prager's latest article, which is part of an ongoing series called "Judeo Christian Values." He's up to Number XX so I guess he's enjoying writing them. In an earlier article in the series, he wrote "It is difficult to overstate the depth of the differences between the Judeo-Christian view of the world and that of its opponents, most particularly the Left." When I commented on that article I expressed a feeling that the depths of our divisions were not as deep as he made it out to be.

I still think that, and his latest article does nothing to dissuade me from that view. His latest article might be subtitled "Why I focus on the Left Wing and not so much on Islam." Basically he seems to believe that there really aren't any competing philosophies outside of Judeo-Christianity and Liberalism. Islam isn't growing except by force, eastern philosophies aren't guides for society, and Communism is dead. Not sure about any of those statements but that's his position.

In writing these columns, Dennis Prager has consistently distorted Leftism/Secularism and, ironically enough, Judeo Christianity. Some distortion is
inevitable when you are boiling down such large umbrellas into two movements and then placing them within in a Manichean struggle for dominance. And some distortion is clearly the result of Mr. Prager's personal blinders.

Are Christians and Leftists enemies? Mr. Prager certainly seems to think so (this is the dude who posited a Second Civil War).

I don't think so, because I have a third value I want to throw into the mix. Americans. Judeo Christian Americans and Leftist Americans (not sure where I fit in those two categories, being a moderate liberal who regularly attends church) both want to see a strong successful America. We disagree, sometimes vehemently, on how to get there. But we agree on the main goal. So why can't we take that foundation and build from there?

Perhaps because it's more profitable to stir up hatred, isn't it, Mr. Prager?

This May Be the Most Important Post You'll Read Today

Maybe. Hard to say really.

I'm linking to a post at the Huffington Report by Fred Stembottom. Mr. Stembottom describes a serious problem with the modern Democratic Party. Namely, the Democratic Party doesn't really have any real connection with the American Working Class.

Millions of white, male blue-collar workers go around in right-wing talk radio induced ignorance. Each and every one of them thinks that the problems they have with their employer is unique, puzzling and sure to get better after a change of management ...or something.

What I do: I simply point up how these "puzzling anomalies" are actually well-known and ancient un-fair labor practices. With NAMES!

Speed-ups. Wage stagnation policies. Two-tiered wage systems. Worker isolation. These are some of the names of the classic Unfair Labor Practices that my friends experience everyday. But they don't even know that there are such things as Unfair Labor Practices!

Watch 'em go off like rockets when you give them a NAME for what they suffer everyday -- just a name for Christ's sake. They go ballistic and are ready for anything.

This is a very important idea for Democratic Party organizers to understand and to get behind. Or it could be.

If people, you know, put it into practice.

A Return to Racism

In the past, before the Civil Rights Movement, brown people posed very little threat to America. Brown people, particularly blacks, but also Hispanics, native Americans, Asians and so on, had a very specific place in society, and they were not allowed out of that place. America was run for the benefit of the White Middle Class and White Upper Class.

Under such a situation, the Islamic Terrorists would be no threat to us. They would not be permitted access to our airplanes or to other facilities from which they could launch attacks against the American People.

Unfortunately we gave black and brown people civil rights, and then, in an act of even greater foolishness, we started a fad called Multiculturalism. Multiculturism is the ludicrous belief that other cultures are, on some level, the equivalent of White Middle Class America. Michael Barone comments on this disgusting phenomena in his latest article.

Multiculturalism is based on the lie that all cultures are morally equal. In practice, that soon degenerates to: All cultures are morally equal, except ours, which is worse. But all cultures are not equal in respecting representative government, guaranteed liberties and the rule of law. And those things arose not simultaneously and in all cultures, but in certain specific times and places -- mostly in Britain and America, but also in various parts of Europe.

In America, as in Britain, multiculturalism has become the fashion in large swathes of our society. So the Founding Fathers are presented only as slaveholders, World War II is limited to the internment of Japanese-Americans and the bombing of Hiroshima. Slavery is identified with America, though it has existed in every society and the antislavery movement arose first among English-speaking evangelical Christians.

But most Americans know there is something special about our cultural heritage.

The only weakness in Mr. Barones prose is that he fails to specify that he is talking about White America; but I'm pretty sure that anybody reading that would recognize that. So what we need is a return to a society that teaches White America as superior to all other cultures, as an important first step.

Of course I'm being sarcastic and cynical here; it's possible that Mr. Barone, like others attacking the dreaded Multiculturalism, hasn't got a racist bone in his body.

But I doubt it.

Vacation!

President Bush just started his five week vacation.

Do you get a five week vacation?

Yeah, me neither.

Oh, and it turns out that, according to Forbes Magazine, you need $300,000.00 a year to lead a comfortable lifestyle. Those jerks over at common dreams didn't link to the original article (possibly it's in the print edition of the magazine) so I can't point it there.

Does it seem like the people who run this country don't really know how most of us live?

I will Debate Extremists

Just read an article by Daniel Pipes on why he won't go on debate programs with what he calls "representatives of radical Islam or the far-left."

. . . today's broadcasts strive toward impartiality. For instance, a memo distributed to Canadian Broadcast Corporation staff cautions against using the words "terrorist" and "terrorism," because these "can leave journalists taking sides in a conflict." The conceit that members of the press have no stake in the outcome of war is terribly wrong; just imagine how television talk shows would be after these same terrorists took over. (They did not flourish under the Taliban, to put it mildly.)

. . . The ideal solution lies not in creating censors' bureaus to pass judgment on television content but for media executives to accept their responsibilities in time of war. On their own initiative, they should exclude the enemy's apologists and advocates. Lively debate does not require such people; patriots with sharply differing views can also make sparks fly.

Interesting argument. He's not asking for de jure censorship, but he's certainly behind de facto censorship.

And, of course, his whole argument hinges on the definition of extremist. Rush Limbaugh once defined a liberal extremist as a "proud Democrat." Is Mr. Pipes willing to go this far? When Pipes says "Patriot" does he mean conservative? This is a fair question; certainly plenty of Conservatives have a hard time imagining a liberal patriot. Unfortunately, Pipes article is pretty short and he chose not to clarify exactly who he is talking about.

Which, of course, may be how he wanted it.

Madness and Comic Books

I'm not, unfortunately, talking about the psychedelic madness that creates a Joker or a Green Goblin. I'm not even talking about the run of the mill madness that lets a Spiderman or a Batman think that dressing up and running along rooftops is a sensible course of action.

Instead I'm talking about the insane worldview that creates "Liberality." Here's a brief description of this new comic book.

In 2004, Muslim terrorists stopped viewing the weakened American government as a threat; instead they set their sites on their true enemies, vocal American conservatives. On one dark day, in 2006, many conservative voices went forever silent at the hands of terrorist assassins. Those which survived joined forces and formed a powerful covert conservative organization called "The Freedom of Information League", aka F.O.I.L.

The efforts of F.O.I.L. threaten both the liberal extremist power structure and the U.N.'s grip on America, the U.N. calls F.O.I.L. the most dangerous group in the world. It seems the once theorized Vast Right Wing Conspiracy has now become a reality.

The F.O.I.L. Organization is forced underground by the "Coulter Laws" of 2007; these hate speech legislations have made right-wing talk shows, and conservative-slanted media, illegal. Our weakened government has willingly handed the reigns of our once great country to the corrupt United Nations. The Department of Political-Correctness is required to assist U.N. monitors to properly edit all print and broadcast media. Live broadcasts are a thing of the past; all transmissions are monitored by the U.N. and any "offensive" material is dumped.

Rupert Murdoch's decision to defy the "Coulter Laws" hate speech legislations, has bankrupted News Corporation. George Soros has bought all of News Corps assets and changed its name to Liberty International Broadcasting. LIB's networks have flourished and circle the globe with a series of satellites beaming liberal & U.N. propaganda worldwide.

The New York City faction of F.O.I.L. is lead by Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North, each uniquely endowed with special abilities devised by a bio mechanical engineer affectionately nicknamed "Oscar". F.O.I.L. is soon to be joined by a young man named Reagan McGee.

Reagan was born on September 11th, 2001. He is the son of a NYC firefighter whose life was spared by attending his son's birth. Reagan has grown to manhood in an ultra-liberal educational system: being told, not asked, what to think. With personal determination, which alienates him from his contemporaries, he has chosen the path less traveled . . . the path to the Right.

What sort of mentality thinks that that is a plausible future? Not a sane one.

I think it's interesting that the "Coulter" laws are going to be passed by 2007 - middle of President Bush's second term. Guess he's an even lamer duck than I thought. Of course it also begs the question of why such laws were created. I assume, given the general tone of the rest of the piece, that the laws were just passed out of sheer meanspiritedness. I would be more realistic if they were passed in the wake of one of Ann's readers shooting up the New York Times or some other "liberal" institution, but I assume that in these writer's minds, the Conservative movement is completely guiltless.

Anyway the United States is headed by Chelsea Clinton with Vice President Michael Moore who welcome Usama Bin Ladin to the United Nations to make a speech and blow the hell out of New York, which I gather our heroes need to stop. That's liberals for you; basically we are ought to betray America to our bestest buddies, the terrorists. If this is what Conservatives seem to believe about Liberals, I'm frankly surprised there isn't more violence directed towards us.

Anyway you can also look at some preview pages here, if you are so inclined.

The Eye of the Beholder

Wal-Mart is a company that fires whistle-blowers, fights unions, discriminates against women and black truck drivers, violates child labor laws, locks its workers in their stores overnight, pays poverty level wages, and so on and so forth. But, apparently, all that is a small price to pay for the chance for small town America to get cheap products, according to an editorial at the New York Times.

See if the owners of Wal-Mart weren't such ruthless bastards, they wouldn't be able to offer the same kind of cheap prices, and people in rural communities (mainly the ones who don't happen to work at Wal-Mart) wouldn't be able to get by as easily.

According to one recent academic study, when Wal-Mart enters a market, prices decrease by 8 percent in rural areas and 5 percent in urban areas. With two-thirds of Wal-Mart stores in rural areas, this means that Wal-Mart saves its consumers something like $16 billion a year. And because Wal-Mart's presence forces the store's competitors to charge lower prices as well, this $16 billion figure understates the company's real impact by at least half.

These kinds of savings to customers far exceed the costs that Wal-Mart supposedly imposes on society by securing subsidies, destroying jobs in competing stores, driving employees toward public welfare systems and creating urban sprawl.

Yep there it is. Wal-Mart has been successful so should be allowed to whatever the hell it wants! You'll forgive me if I don't entirely buy into this line of thinking.

Salon also has an article about Wal-Mart, dealing with the growing anti Wal-Mart movement. It's a good article, although it could have been more tightly edited.

Pay No Attention to the County we Invaded behind the Curtain

David Limbaugh's latest friendly offer of help to the beleaguered Democratic Party is to suggest that we stop paying so much attention to Iraq.

But again, the profound irony is that while they see Iraq as Bush's quagmire, it has become their own. Just as their self-made myths about Republicans stealing the election in 2000 drove them to a Norman Bates-esque frenzy, their delusional "Bush-lied" ravings have driven them to a blinding monomania.

If you doubt their collective neurosis, do a Nexis search and you'll discover their ingenuity at tying every issue -- John Bolton, Social Security, Wilson/Plame, Judge Roberts -- to Iraq. To them, almost everything the administration does is either to compensate for or divert attention from Iraq.

Crazy huh? Thinking that the Joe Wilson / Valerie Plame issue has something to do with Iraq. What are Democrats thinking?

I mean, Joe Wilson got the Bush Administration mad about him because he dared to suggest that their case on Iraq was just a little suspicious (admittedly, Wilson has a bit of baggage of his own).

At any rate, John Bolton was also a member of the Bush Administration foreign policy section while the Invasion of Iraq was planned and executed, so maybe he has a connection as well.

As for the other two, Limbaugh pretends that all sorts of Democrats are saying that President Bush is using Social Security or Judge Roberts to distract away from Iraq, but he only presents one example. And anyway everybody knows that the nomination of Judge Roberts is to distract away from the Wilson/Plame issue, not Iraq!

One final note, Limbaugh writes, apparently sincerely, that President Bush's recess appointment of Bolton is a sign of his strength, not a sign of weakness. Not sure what planet Limbaugh is observing the current political landscape from, but President Bush, with a Republican Congress, could not get Bolton confirmed in the normal matter, so had to use a backdoor maneuver to get him in office. I don't know how that reflects his strength.

The Secularization of America

Well, I'm back. I naturally want to thank the Monster for giving me a new lease on this website. I'd also like to acknowledge that Grumbly Muffin and Cheery Jetson have done some interesting work while I was gone.

I will comment that the previous format did not allow commentators to challenge each other; The Monster has already suggested that that was a silly policy, and he is encouraging us to swing into each other at will. So Grumbly Muffin may find her statements falling under a bit more scrutiny.

At any rate, just read Chuck Colson's latest article. On the surface I agree with a lot of what he says. He talks about how the rise of Ideology has made political debate more and more difficult. People do not have an independent standard of truth; they judge facts based on their ideology. Which is why one group sees a decorated war hero; the other sees a vainglorious coward.

That said, his answer to the problem seems to be for everybody to accept his standard as truth. Which is, at the very least, overly convenient. Specifically he is referring to the Christian Faith. I wonder if his understanding of the Christian faith is large enough to encompass the Christian who believes that it is the governments duty to take care of the poorest among us and the Christian who believes that it is unjust for the Government to take from the Wealthy to give to the Poor? But even at that, it does leave hundreds of thousands of non Christians with no seat at the American table.

Why not just have rigorous standards of truth, and live up to those? I mean I know it's a radical idea, but why not figure out what the truth is in situations and make people hold to that. That will still leave plenty of room for disagreements and arguments, I should think.