Tuesday, October 10. 2006
Monday, October 9. 2006
 It is Indian Summer in New England. There is nothing finer. Nights are cool, in the 50s - perfect sleeping weather with the window open and the comforter tossed around, and the dogs at your feet. Blue skies, low humidity, nice breezes for sailing - and hunting season has begun, up north. And, at dusk, the crickets, which have grown large by now, cheer you up with their merry, end-of-life chatter. Here, near Hartford, few leaves have begun to change, but the crisp mornings tell you that they will, soon.
Why George Bush? Because he controls the weather, does he not? Thanks George, for this remarkable Indian Summer we are having. And, speaking of the diabolical Bush, isn't it time for a big Thank You to him for this economy too, which is rolling along with essentially zero unemployment, a shrinking federal deficit, a record-breaking stock market, and rising wages without inflation? Who shall we blame for this? It's called the Bush Miracle Economy, and it's the biggest news - except for the Foley thing, and NoKo's creepy nuke test - but it isn't reported, and will not be. The press will give Bush credit for nothing. They are on the other side.
Submission is, of course, the translation of the word "islam," - and also the title of Theo Van Gogh's film - the one he was killed for making. Willisms has Part one of the film on YouTube. And, speaking of YouTube, will Google buy it for 1.6 billion? Or is it just a fad?
Saturday, October 7. 2006
From Horsefeathers: Horsefeathers has been fascinated by the decline of Liberalism. Perhaps this is because its rise and fall has occurred over the course of his own lifetime. It sometimes strikes us that all the people, now departed, whose opinions mattered most to us were liberals. While they are gone, Liberalism itself lingers, sick unto death, an almost moribund version of its once lively self. Liberalism was a part of the world of ideas in which we lived, part of what we admired in the older generation. It was the air we breathed and the way we thought of ourselves: we were Liberals, and proud of it. And now it is no more. How did a once robust philosophy devolve into a childish set of insular, self- flattering beliefs? How and why did the requirement for reasoned self-criticism, so vital to Liberalism as we knew it, give way to a whiny, feminized set of politically correct sentiments articulated with all the intelligence of a bumper sticker? How did feelings come to assume primacy over thought, while victim status became more sought after than real achievement? Finally, how did Liberalism come to reject reason itself, in favor of politically correct stances and naïve fantasies about human nature?
He is a recovering Liberal, like so many conservatives. For his answers to these questions, read the whole thing.
Wednesday, October 4. 2006
But in Poland, where the state retains many of its old monarchical temptations as it does in most of Europe, a guy is being chased by police for farting in a reply to "How do you like our President?" Dust my Broom. Run, dude, run. Your irreverent impulses are welcome in America...except by Al Gore, who might be distressed by your immoral and reckless methane emissions. (He produces none, ya know - not counting the volume of CO2 that comes out of his mouth. He is carbon-neutral and elevator-safe, and his feces are lily-white and completely organic.)
What is the big deal? Clinton did way worse with his young charges (with the sex IMs too), plus the BJs and all the rest. Why is this any different? Can't a good ol' Southern boy have his fun? How is flirting "predation?" Boys will be boys, right? Plus it's his personal life, ya know. And no BJs, as far as we know. Like a friendly uncle. Oh, it's different because Foley is gay! Gay flirting is predation. As the New New Dems wish to say, the guy is a pervert. Yes, yet another typical youth-stalking gay pervert. "And you gay Dems in the back row - Shut the hell up. We have an election to win." This would be a business-as-usual non-story if Foley were a Dem, and he wouldn't have quit, either. I am eagerly awaiting Barney Frank's and the Clinton's view of this story, but they are having too much fun watching the Repubs trip all over themselves - plus there's nothing they can say. Truly, election time is Silly Season. Wake me up when it's over.
New Sisyphus takes a look at a document from 1939 by the Reichspropagandaleitung. One excerpt from the piece: And, then, as now, "good hearted" Americans believed this: The response on the part of the American people to this New Year address shows us that they reject the plans of their president. He was told that he had no business interfering in the affairs of other countries, and Congress was told to think carefully before permitting the president to engage in foreign adventures. A national article asked if America was threatened by Hitler and if Roosevelt should force the Germans to democracy, something that has been attempted since 1917. The article concluded with these words: "Roosevelt is playing with fire."
and Congressman Hamilton Fish gave an even clearer answer. He gave a radio speech that strongly attacked Roosevelt's policies and declared that attacks by the president and his cabinet on the so-called dictators could lead only to war. All the totalitarian states that the president was attacking were occupied with their own problems, and would be for years to come. They had no thought of waging war against the United States or Latin America (Central and South America). Representative Fish said he could not be silent when the life, freedom and happiness of his nation were at risk. The time had come to put a stop to the warmongers of the New Deal, behind whom stand the war profiteers, communists and hysterical internationalists who want America to shed its blood and waste its money as the world policeman. Roosevelt's policies, Fish said, would lead to American involvement in every crisis in the entire world.
His speech was supported by the entire American press. It is also an indication of what the American people really think. The speech must be emphasized because it puts in words what the greater part of the American people think.
Why did the Nazis hate us? Rational Americans no doubt took these points at face value and sat down to think hard about how America could shore up her image in Germany, how legitimate grievances of Germany could be met with a helpful response, how the misunderstandings here could be avoided.
A fool's errand. The document continues: Why is Roosevelt doing all this?
The reason is clear. The American opposition party asked "Why this warmongering?," and gave the answer. It claimed that Roosevelt was using such methods to:
1) to conceal the embarrassing sale of the most modern American warplanes to France,
2) to divert the attention of the public from unsolved domestic problems, and
3) to provide a reason for his premature return (from the naval maneuvers), which might have some impact on Congress.
We would add a fourth point: Roosevelt is acting as the mouthpiece and puppet of international Jewry when he attacks the authoritarian states. They want to use every means to destroy the newly awakened nations.
Read the whole thing, at New Sisyphus
Monday, October 2. 2006
Hugo Chavez is truly a character of the times. He has a way of letting MSM capture his ranting and ravings and put them on the airwaves and now he duping the Venezuelan public into believing the United States is going to send agents to assassinate him. I think he has gone off the deep end and is in need of psychiatric attention immediately before someone or some nation actually gets hurt. What really bothers me is that the Venezuelan populace is unable or unwilling to do anything about having a mad man for a leader. Hugo although a laughingstock around most parts of the globe does have his followers since his money is very petrol good. What are the Americans to do? I think we should just watch and wait because he should blow himself up within time, and by all accounts it may happen sooner than later and then maybe we should call Austin Powers to the scene. After all Hugo is becoming one big joke!
Saturday, September 30. 2006
Pajamas Media's Roger Simon interviews Joe Lieberman. It is politically interesting. The Youtube is here.
This came in over the transom: Subject: Marine Intel Officer, Comments about Iraq Classification: UNCLASSIFIED All: I haven't written very much from Iraq. There's really not much to write about. More exactly, there's not much I can write about because practically everything I do, read or hear is classified military information or isdepressing to the point that I'd rather just forget about it, never mind write about it. The gaps in between all of that are filled with the pure tedium of daily life in an armed camp. So it's a bit of a struggle to think of anything to put into a letter that's worth reading. Worse, this place just consumes you. I work 18-20-hour days, every day. The quest to draw a clear picture of what the insurgents are up to never ends. Problems and frictions crop up faster than solutions. Every challenge demands a response. It's like this every day. Before I know it, I can't see straight, because it's 0400 and I've been at work for twenty hours straight, somehow missing dinner again in the process. And once again I haven't written to anyone. It starts all over again four hours later. It's not really like Ground Hog Day, it's more like a level from Dante's Inferno. Rather than attempting to sum up the last seven months, I figured I'd just hit the record setting highlights of 2006 in Iraq. These are among the events and experiences I'll remember best. Worst Case of Déjà Vu - I thought I was familiar with the feeling of déjà vu until I arrived back here in Fallujah in February. The moment I stepped off of the helicopter, just as dawn broke, and saw the camp just as I had left it ten months before - that was déjà vu. Kind of unnerving. It was as if I had never left. Same work area, same busted desk, same chair, same computer, same room, same creaky rack, same . . . everything. Same everything for the next year. It was like entering a parallel universe. Home wasn't 10,000 miles away, it was a different lifetime. Most Surreal Moment - Watching Marines arrive at my detention facility and unload a truck load of flex-cuffed midgets. 26 to be exact. I had put the word out earlier in the day to the Marines in Fallujah that we were looking for Bad Guy X, who was described as a midget. Little did I know that Fallujah was home to a small community of midgets, who banded together for support since they were considered as social outcasts. The Marines were anxious to get back to the midget colony to bring in the rest of the midget suspects, but I called off the search, figuring Bad Guy X was long gone on his short legs after seeing his companions rounded up by the giant infidels. Most Profound Man in Iraq - an unidentified farmer in a fairly remote area who, after being asked by Reconnaissance Marines (searching for Syrians) if he had seen any foreign fighters in the area replied "Yes, you." Worst City in al-Anbar Province - Ramadi, hands down. The provincial capital of 400,000 people. Killed over 1,000 insurgents in there since we arrived in February. Every day is a nasty gun battle. They blast us with giant bombs in the road, snipers, mortars and small arms. We blast them with tanks, attack helicopters, artillery, our snipers (much better than theirs), and every weapon that an infantryman can carry. Every day. Incredibly, I rarely see Ramadi in the news. We have as many attacks out here in the west as Baghdad. Yet, Baghdad has 7 million people, we have just 1.2 million. Per capita, al-Anbar province is the most violent place in Iraq by several orders of magnitude. I suppose it was no accident that the Marines were assigned this area in 2003. Bravest Guy in al-Anbar Province - Any Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician (EOD Tech). How'd you like a job that required you to defuse bombs in a hole in the middle of the road that very likely are booby-trapped or connected by wire to a bad guy who's just waiting for you to get close to the bomb before he clicks the detonator? Every day. Sanitation workers in New York City get paid more than these guys. Talk about courage and commitment. Second Bravest Guy in al-Anbar Province - It's a 20,000 way tie among all the Marines and Soldiers who venture out on the highways and through the towns of al-Anbar every day, not knowing if it will be their last - and for a couple of them, it will be. Best Piece of U.S. Gear - new, bullet-proof flak jackets. O.K., they weigh 40 lbs and aren't exactly comfortable in 120 degree heat, but they've saved countless lives out here. Best Piece of Bad Guy Gear - Armor Piercing ammunition that goes right through the new flak jackets and the Marines inside them. Worst E-Mail Message - "The Walking Blood Bank is Activated. We need blood type A+ stat." I always head down to the surgical unit as soon as I get these messages, but I never give blood - there's always about 80 Marines in line, night or day. Biggest Surprise - Iraqi Police. All local guys. I never figured that we'd get a police force established in the cities in al-Anbar. I estimated that insurgents would kill the first few, scaring off the rest. Well, insurgents did kill the first few, but the cops kept on coming. The insurgents continue to target the police, killing them in their homes and on the streets, but the cops won't give up. Absolutely incredible tenacity. The insurgents know that the police are far better at finding them than we are. - and they are finding them. Now, if we could just get them out of the habit of beating prisoners to a pulp . . . Greatest Vindication - Stocking up on outrageous quantities of Diet Coke from the chow hall in spite of the derision from my men on such hoarding, then having a 122mm rocket blast apart the giant shipping container that held all of the soda for the chow hall. Yep, you can't buy experience. Biggest Mystery - How some people can gain weight out here. I'm down to 165 lbs. Who has time to eat? Second Biggest Mystery - if there's no atheists in foxholes, then why aren't there more people at Mass every Sunday?
Continue reading "A Marine's Letter from Iraq"
Thursday, September 28. 2006
Rush played a clip today of Nancy Pelosi suggesting applying the Golden Rule to our terrorist enemies. Thus far, she has not suggested applying the Golden Rule to fellow Americans, like Republicans, however.
Tuesday, September 26. 2006
Thanks to Assistant Village Idiot for pointing out what those lies were that the Hungarians are getting steamed about. Because they are ordinary, everyday political lies, and not specific deceptions. Here is what Prime Minister Gyurcsany said, as quoted in Brussels Journal: “I was speaking about the whole elite. We repeated and repeated that you can be richer, fulfil your dreams, and we can give you happiness and fortune as a gift. This is a real lie. For the last 15 years, none of us were brave enough to initiate deep reform. We wanted to avoid painful measures and always found excuses not to act. That’s the real lie.” He added that he is the first politician who is brave enough to admit his mistake, i.e. Gyurcsány is the first politician in Europe who is honest enough to admit his dishonesty.
First in Europe? How about first in history? A vigorous wag of the dog's tail to this guy. Whole piece in Brussels Journal.
Monday, September 25. 2006
 When a snake-oil salesman has the crowd going good, the last thing he needs is someone in the crowd getting wise and breaking the mood. That's why they always have a shill in the audience, trying to keep the vibe going. Well, Bill Clinton had the mood going the way he wanted, but a crummy made for TV movie is mucking up his act. The shills are muffing it for him, and he knows it.
Now, Bill Clinton was two presidents, really; he spent his first term as a the most orthodox of liberals, trying to nationalize the healthcare industry like some Arkansan Peron. The voters slapped his nose, hard, with Newt Gingrich, and Bill Clinton 2.0 signed the the conservative's Welfare Reform bill and NAFTA, then settled in to his second term as a sort of Democrat version of Warren G. Harding. He spent a lot of time trying to cobble together some narrative that would serve as his legacy, but his legacy was both defined and degraded by his shameful behavior and the lengths he would go to avoid facing up to the essential infantilism of his tenure. And it's hard to get around it: Bill Clinton had nothing to offer on the central problem of the post Soviet Union age: Islamic totalitarianism. Neither he nor any of his acolytes identified the danger that would sweep into the vacuum left by the collapse of the CCCP, and they slashed the Defense budget, cheated at golf and just plain cheated, and waited around for Monica to bring him a pizza. But hindsight for his followers is not 20/20, it's blind; how many people even remember the World Trade Center was bombed the first time while he was president? Clinton's Whitehouse just worked overtime to make sure that the intelligence agencies never talked to each other, and never told him anything he didn't want to hear. But almost by mistake, the idea that Clinton slept while Osama Bin Laden worked late was broached, and Clinton desperately wants to get that toothpaste back in the tube. The president is never really "on vacation," They all go places remote from the WhiteHouse, but the duties, responsibilities, the staff -- all of the machinery of government -- never sleep. But there is a limited amount of attention any chief executive can pay to their duties, and Clinton seemed then, as we are being reminded now, to be preoccupied with all sorts of pointless and self-serving folderol to the detriment of the United States, and in its turn, the whole wide world. Clinton doesn't like that idea to be out in the ether, because the image he's trying to cultivate of his time in office pops like a bubble under close inspection. He was doing pretty good for a while, considering how many things that belonged to America got blown up while he was in office. But Sandy Berger can't stuff everything down his pants, after all. And Clinton's taken to shouting at everybody that will listen to him, going back into his old playbook for the only thing that has ever worked for him: pretending to be the poor victim of an unfair attack, while viciously attacking his opponents. So I leave you, dear reader, with visual evidence, intentionally made to make Bill Clinton seem like what he was not, which was charming; and unintentionally showing you exactly what he was, and is: a shameless pandering slacker, always on the make for attention, never paying attention when it matters: What President Clinton was doing while Osama bin Laden planned the second World Trade Center attack.
Continue reading "While Clinton Slept"
 This species of the Southern longleaf pine forests (which have been harvested almost to extinction and re-planted with faster-growing commercial pines) has been in the news recently (see Monday links below). It has been endangered since the 1970s because of habitat loss. I have never seen one, but haven't spent any time trying to.
They are one of a very few bird species which are found only in the US. As with other woodpecks like Downies and Hairies, the red cockade is usually not visible. These birds have unusual breeding habits: they are "cooperative" breeders, and the males incubate the eggs. Read about them here at CLO, from which we borrowed the photo. What can be learned from the news story? I think the message is that the Feds cannot expect American citizens to roll over every time a Federal bureaucracy decides they know what is best. However, it is one of the jobs of the Feds, for better or worse, to try to protect endangered species. These are Federal laws and, in this case, their enforcement threatens individual property rights, which Americans feel as strongly about - or more so - than they do about the Second Amendment. So if the Feds want to do their job effectively, they need to approach such issues in a humble, friendly, cooperative, compromising manner. In DC, far from the piney woods of North Carolina, it is all too easy to feel the power, and to forget who pays their salaries and for whom they work.
Sunday, September 24. 2006
Mix and match. Do it yourself post-modern Leftist dialectics, at No Pasaran.
Thursday, September 21. 2006
Coulter thinks we are overdoing it with the moral purity thing: Or as the New York Times wrote in the original weasel talking points earlier this summer: "The Geneva Conventions protect Americans. If this country changes the rules, it's changing the rules for Americans taken prisoner abroad. That is far too high a price to pay so this administration can hang on to its misbegotten policies."
There hasn't been this much railing about the mistreatment of a hostage since Monica Lewinsky was served canapes at the Pentagon City Ritz-Carlton Hotel while being detained by the FBI.
The belief that we can impress the enemy with our magnanimity is an idea that just won't die. It's worse than the idea that paying welfare recipients benefits won't discourage them from working. (Some tiny minority might still seek work.) It's worse than the idea that taxes can be raised endlessly without reducing tax receipts. (As the Laffer Curve illustrates, at some point -- a point this country will never reach -- taxes could theoretically be cut so much that tax revenues would decline.)
But being nice to enemies is an idea that has never worked, no matter how many times liberals make us do it. It didn't work with the Soviet Union, Imperial Japan, Hitler or the North Vietnamese -- enemies notable for being more civilized than the Islamic savages we are at war with today.
Whole thing at Human Events online.
  This piece is a bit behind the news cycle, but what the heck. Breasts are interesting subjects which keep popping into the news: see Anchoress. More on "boobgate" at Protein. Boobgate is just too silly, and not worth commenting on at any length. (Ed: Basil does a great job with the subject today.)
But remember the fuss about that BabyTalk magazine cover last month? I thought it odd that many were upset by story about the mom breast-feeding her baby on the cover. Some termed the image "disgusting." Meanwhile, that magazine for new moms probably sat on a magazine rack five feet from a wide variety of porn magazines. Why did anyone find that Baby Talk cover worthy of comment at all, much less negative comment? Can a society be puritanical and licentious at the same time? Well, why not? We're not supposed to be reminded that breasts are for food? Nobody gets upset about using T&A to sell things (tits=hits, as the old blog expression goes), but something about using breasts to feed babies seemed to touch a nerve. Very strange, because feeding a baby is the most natural and beautiful thing in the world, or so we are told. I figured that it bothered people because it's an animal function, and we aren't animals, are we? John of Part-time Pundit has a theory, as quoted in his piece Where Feminism and Motherhood are Forced to Do Battle, in the Daily Illini: Earlier this summer, breast-feeding mothers were harassed by staff at Sholem pool for breast-feeding in public. Women caring for their children have been harassed in restaurants, parks and pretty much anywhere you find children congregating.
The law is quite clear that breast-feeding is not indecent or sexual. The medical community and community health advocates have concluded breast-feeding is what is best for the baby (and usually the mother). However, there is still tremendous public pressure against breast-feeding.
Despite the fact I see more boobs walking across the Quad, or for that matter watching C-SPAN, somehow breast-feeding is apparently too much for this promiscuous college town. After all, Champaign County does have a syphilis epidemic for a reason. A society that uses breasts to sell every conceivable product on the market is horrified by the concept of a breast being used for its designed biological purpose.
It could seem plausible to blame the religious right; After all, they were responsible for the protests over the infamous Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction of 2004. However, the religious right is generally more child-friendly than those on the other part of the political spectrum. The religious right supports women having children in the first place, as opposed to the left which supports slaughtering them on the altar of abortion.
Here is a more reasonable theory about the source of resistance to breast-feeding: It collides head-on with radical feminism. When former Harvard President Lawrence Summers suggested there are biological differences between men and women, he was run out of town. Breast-feeding is the ultimate expression, next to child-birth, that women are indeed different from men.
The whole piece is here.  In my opinion, breasts are multi-purpose organs: breasts are for feeding babies; tits are for fun, bosoms are for comfort, and snuggling; and boobs are ART to look at. Guys look at boobs - always. We cannot control our eyeballs, which have little tiny minds of their own. And, dear lady readers, we love 'em all, regardless of size or shape. I know that you understand, ladies: you check us guys out in your own sneaky ways.
No workplace rules or social rules will ever prevent men from staring, or admiring, or glancing, or covertly appreciating. Guys are made to like them - and women are always interested in their own, too. No amount of PC will prevent this fun and intriguing male pastime. But I think that it is an unusual guy - or an adolescent boy - who would find nursing mothers sexually titillating. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breast-feeding for a minimum of 12 months. Not only is it best for the baby, but it's best for the mom, too. Every month a mom breastfeeds, she reduces her risk of breast cancer. Moms with jobs find it challenging, unsurprisingly. Image on top of blog: Picasso's Nursing Mother For a t-rated, adolescent-type humor image, see continuation page for a gal for guys (or gals) who think they have it all.
Continue reading "Tempest in a B-Cup: Breasts, Bosoms, Boobs and Tits"
Wednesday, September 20. 2006
We were fishing through the cut-out bin at the used record store and came across this gem. If Punxsutawney Chavez comes out of his hole and sees the shadow of El Diablo Bush, do we get six more weeks of $2.25 per gallon gasoline?
Mitchell gets it (quoted his piece in full, below, from Democracy Project). Our bold font: Today's Democratic leadership came of age during the 1960s and 1970s, in the era of anti-Vietnam War protest. Moreover, the party activists have a left wing view of the world whereby conflict between labor and capital, oppressed and oppressor, first world and third world, black and white or left and racist right play a central role. Much as Marx omitted a careful discussion of how communism would work, with the result that his philosphy was the ugliest, most violent and vicious of all philosophical ideas, today's leftists conceptualize themselves as protestors rather than leaders. This includes the leadership of the Democratic Party. The Democrats have not been able to articulate a coherent strategy for the Middle East because they see themselves as protestors who right wrong rather than leaders who obtain and use power effectively. The focus on demonizing Bush and the left's inability to articulate a strategy for Iraq illustrate my claim. Should the protest Democrats win the White House and Congress, America will be set on a self-destructive course. It would be nice to see competent Democrats running agains competent Republicans, but there are few competent Democrats too be found, and the few that can be found such as Senator Lieberman, are demonized by the rest.
Tuesday, September 19. 2006
 Two hat-tips and three generous wags of the dog's tail to Dinocrat, who found this excellent piece by Spengler in Asia Times, entitled Jihad, The Lord's Supper, and Eternal Life. A quote:
What distinguishes Allah from YHWH and (in Christian belief) his son Jesus is love. God gives Jews and Christians a path that their foot can tread, one that is not too hard for mortals, to secure the unobtainable, namely immortal life, as if by miracle. Out of love God gives the Torah to the Jews, not because God is a stickler for the execution of 613 commandments, but because it is a path upon which the Jew may sacrifice and yet live, and receive his portion of the World to Come. The most important sacrifice in Judaism is the Sabbath - "our offering of rest", says the congregation in the Sabbath prayers - a day of inactivity that acknowledges that the Earth is the Lord's. It is a sacrifice, as it were, of ego. In this framework, incidentally, it is pointless to distinguish Judaism as a "religion of works" as opposed to Christianity as a "religion of faith".
To Christians, God offers the vicarious participation in his sacrifice of himself through his only son.
That is Grace: a free gift by God to men such that they may obtain eternal life. By a miracle, the human soul responds to the offer of Grace with a leap, a leap away from the attachments that hold us to this world, and a foretaste of the World to Come.
There is no Grace in Islam, no miracle, no expiatory sacrifice, no expression of love for mankind such that each Muslim need not be a sacrifice. On the contrary, the concept of jihad, in which the congregation of Islam is also the army, states that every single Muslim must sacrifice himself personally. Jihad is the precise equivalent of the Lord's Supper in Christianity and the Jewish Sabbath, the defining expression of sacrifice that opens the prospect of eternity to the mortal believer. To ask Islam to become moderate, to reform, to become a peaceful religion of personal conscience is the precise equivalent of asking Catholics to abolish Mass.
Islam, I have argued for years, faces an existential crisis in the modern world, which has ripped its adherents out of their traditional existence and thrust them into deadly conflicts. What was always latent in Islam has now come to the surface: the practice of Islam now expresses itself uniquely in jihad. Benedict XVI has had the courage to call things by their true names. Everything else is hypocrisy and self-delusion.
Read the whole thing. Image: Botticelli's very late work, Mystic Crucifixion
Poll: In Match-up Between Hillary and Kerry, Most Democrats Would Choose Suicide Survey Spells Trouble for Dems, Pollster Says A new survey of Democratic voters indicates that in a hypothetical match-up between Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and former presidential nominee John Kerry, most Democrats would choose suicide over either candidate.
The poll, conducted by the University of Minnesota’s Opinion Research Institute, shows Mr. Kerry drawing 21%, Sen. Clinton 18%, and various forms of suicide 61%.
“Throwing yourself in front of a speeding city bus” was the most popular means of suicide at 22%, with “jumping off the roof of a really tall building or bridge” coming in second at 17%.
Read the rest, at Borowitz.
Quote from piece at Ace: There's a great amount of odious liberal condescension at work here. No matter how many times Jihadists say "We are killing you because Allah commands it," liberals keep saying back, "Oh, pish-posh. We know what's really driving you -- a need for more day-care and infrastructure development." Don't liberals believe in actually listening to the diverse narratives of oppressed peoples? Or is that just a cover for making up their own one-size-fits-all narrative and hegemonically imposing it on the world's repressed?
Monday, September 18. 2006
 The story of the Dartmouth alumni rebellion has been well-covered in the blogosphere, especially by Dartmouth alums like Volokh, Roger Simon, and the Powerline dudes. Recently, the WSJ decided to highlight the story, as reported by Volokh.
Joe's Dartblog follows the story closely from Hanover. It's an important story not only because Dartmouth is an important college: it's important because it sets an example for what alumni groups at other colleges could do when they are displeased by what is being done to their alma mater. In an era in which the tenured radicals and anti-traditionalists use their colleges and universities as laboratories for social engineering and experimentation, many alumni tend to feel dismayed, but helpless. Strangely - but not strangely - the Dartmouth administration is seeking to crush those who do not hew to the Party Line. The Party Line, at the moment, is to change the rules so that petition candidates cannot be elected as trustees. Their use of "push-polling" and intimidation are among the methods which are being applied. That sets one heck of an example for the academic ideal of diversity of opinion and considering different viewpoints. Woops - I forgot. Those ideals are just an antiquated, un-progressive, and obsolete tradition. Viva la Revolucion! Update: A comment from our Dr. Bliss: It's not just about setting an example for other higher education institutions - it's about setting examples for all levels of education. The teacher's colleges take their cues from the Ivies. The entire anti-traditionalist, political-correctness dhimmitude, dumbing-down, feel-good, social-engineering movement in primary school has been inspired by what the big guys do and say, and not just by their own socio-political agendas. One sobering example from a teacher patient of mine (a fellow who uses the subjunctive properly), who told me on Friday that the public schools in MA no longer teach grammar. It's too difficult for the kids, and it's elitist! If that's difficult and elitist, then try taking Physical Chemistry.
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