Ayn Clouter's Blog

PUTTING THE BLAME WHERE IT BELONGS:

It's all made clear by eye of the storm (imitating the newly fashionable capital-less style, and, yes! skippy started that shiftlessness!):

possibly when your average catholic priest asked himself: should i force this little boy to have sex with me? he said to himself: michael dukakis would approve! hillary clinton would dig it! the various cardinals who helped conceal the matter (no doubt many were also participants), certainly take their moral bearings from the women's studies program at harvard.

JOE GANDELMAN DOES DOSTOYEVSKY:

This one isn't funny, but it's frighteningly insightful, and damn good writing, at BTK Killer Pleads Guilty Amid Fear And Loathing.

THE GALL OF THESE VILLAINS:

Bolstered by falling poll numbers for the President (which are irrelevant, because they will all shoot back up after the strikes against Persia Iran), the leftists are not even trying to hide the Satanic methods they are using against us. Rox Populi gleefully grinds her spiked boot in our faces by using the title "What Do Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, Leo Strauss, and Tim LaHaye Have in Common?" to urge readers to go visit The Weblog, whose author openly admits their evil plan:

As a card-carrying member of the ACLU (quite literally card-carrying), I think that I easily qualify as a bomb-throwing leftist for the purposes of this discussion. ...

"What I have here is what you would call a 'magic book.' It's a simple item, something you can order off of Amazon. But the words inside this book hold the key to unimaginable power over the course of nature itself. ...

Here we have a spell to cause young Iraqi men to join insurgent cells. This spell inspires its victim to plan and execute a car bombing in the Green Zone. And this -- this spell is my pride and joy. It causes its target to take pictures of his fellow soldiers abusing prison inmates and mail the photos home to his friends and family!"

WHY BILLY GRAHAM SAID THAT:

At last, a sensible explanation, from phin's blog:

People are also discounting the Reverend's knowledge of future events and his divine knowledge. I've yet to see anyone mention the possibility that the Rapture is coming and the good Reverend knows the people left behind will need leadership. Since it's a pretty safe bet the Clinton's will be among the group left behind, why not give them a recommendation. The Clintons' charisma and leadership abilities have been proven time and again; maybe after the rapture the Clintons can help lead those left behind down the path of redemption and righteousness.

SAUCE FOR THE GANDER:

Avedon Carol, an unconservative overseas who has cited items from my blog before, but suspiciously never permalinked me (which probably indicates more than the usual level of discernment among those not on the starboard side of the web), has discovered, at the cleverly named spectacularly obtuse blog, a tale of continuing discrimination in the land of the great Ty Cobb:

Genital piercings for women were banned by the Georgia House Wednesday as lawmakers considered a bill outlining punishments for female genital mutilation. ...

An amendment adopted without objection added "piercing" to the list of things that may not be done to female genitals. Even adult women would not be allowed to get the procedure. The bill eventually passed 160-0, with no debate.

Amendment sponsor Rep. Bill Heath, R-Bremen, was slack-jawed when told after the vote that some adults seek the piercings.

"What? I've never seen such a thing," Heath said. "I, uh, I wouldn't approve of anyone doing it. I don't think that's an appropriate thing to be doing."

The ban applies only to women, not men.

Obviously, this is unfair to distaffers, who can no longer insert convenient rings to be tugged at during bizarre bedroom bouts, whereas their male partners (if any) are free to puncture themselves at will with any strange form of eyelets and such regalia. Are we going to hear the feminasties flailing the legislature for unfair treatment of peach state belles? Or will they reveal their true antipathy to those handicapped by the lack of one X chromosome, by gleefully encouraging all those good old boys to exercise their lonely legal privilege by having themselves pricked and pierced repeatedly?

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION GONE TO SEED:

Yes, the liberals keep bothering us with their burdensome reminders to mention every microscopic group in every field of study, even the most obscure, irrelevant, and defunct. But they change their tune when it comes to ideological diversity. See how they yell over a mere effort to inject alternative theories into education. Well, then, let them face a really serious difference of opinion and see how they'll react. It's all in someone's OPEN LETTER TO KANSAS SCHOOL BOARD:

...I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design. Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. ... We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him. ...

Furthermore, it is disrespectful to teach our beliefs without wearing His chosen outfit, which of course is full pirate regalia. ... You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s.

See how moderate we are? We're not asking for injecting weird theories like this one in the schools, just a little redefinition of the way science works. Count your (or, rather, our) blessings, and give in -- or you'll have to deal with even stranger stuff, perhaps also found, like this item, at evil-mongering sites such as The Pagan Prattle.

DIG IN:

I spy with my unsleeping eye that another blogger has displayed the good taste to permalink me. This newbie, called jockeystreet, is another ex-philosophy student, who also happens to be a vegan.

Now in practice, I am an effective vegan myself. That is not from a disinclination to devour fellow creatures, or a distaste for meat. Preserving a near-anorexic weight simply requires eschewing even the croutons on the salads, much less the bacon bits or chicken.

Why engage in this constant teetering on the edge of hunger starvation? It's all about the last phrase of Romans 12:20 ("thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head"). Nothing does your heart more good than showing up in micro-sizes at high school reunions. Just to rub it in, eat some ice cream while you're there. Lick your lips a lot. The fumes from fatter female faces will fry frozen food.

THE MEDIA BLOWS IT AGAIN:

Sometimes one wonders if legal reporters have to flunk literacy tests. The latest example of how they fail to understand what just happened comes with today's Supreme Court ruling on posting the Ten Commandments. They've misunderstood it all. The real truth is in my post "And The King Said, Divide The Living Child In Two".

HANG YOUR CENSERS AT THE DOOR:

I see that another fine patriotic American has permalinked me. Learned Limb seems to be following in the footsteps of Jesus' General: "Learned Limb is Christ's strongman! Let no man doubt it, lest he be wrestled to the ground and showered with Christ's manly love!" Unfortunately he misses the main point of torture in his post "Sacred Purification of the Flesh". He advocates it as part of "our holy mission to stamp out the Mohemmedian (sic) heresy."

LL, you are falling into the trap of taking words literally. We don't care about the specific beliefs of our enemies; the long "cold war" against communism certainly wasn't against heresy. The Muslims just happen to be a convenient tool to use in stirring up domestic rage and blind loyalty. Fortunately, murderous Muslim terrorists did exist to replace the fading commissars as foes, or else we would have had to demonize someone else. The homicide bombers give us a "two-fer". We get to use them to foster our political agenda, and any of those fanatics we kill are also a net gain for humanity. I'm going to go ahead and permalink you here, LL, but try not to believe all the tales we have to spin for the bread and circus folk.

JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED:

Angered by the Extreme Court's new ruling that cities can serve as the paid middleman for land grabs for shopping centers (or for even more useful new baseball stadiums), some libertarians have told me this proves we don't have a conservative high court after all. They misunderstand. Conservatism is not about using government power to protect the alleged property rights of individual land owners; it is about using that power to funnel profits to private companies.

The Constitution was not written by Thomas Paine, or Patrick Henry, or even a temporizer like Thomas Jefferson. It was drafted by pro-business trimmers like that monopoly banker Alexander Hamilton, and enabling trimmers like James Madison -- who should be thought of as the economic Joe Biden of the Convention. Yes, the state at all levels can funnel profits to entrepreneurs.

We never needed a Constitution to fight off the British. All that rhetoric about "free markets" is only a campaign slogan. Or to put it bluntly, what we are really trying to conserve isn't your home, it's our profits. You got a problem with that, then you're un-American and pro-terrorist. When it comes to the basic law of the land, the court has now quite properly told the little people just what Dr. Frank-n-furter told Janet about Rocky Horror: "We didn't make it for you."

THE PERVERSITY OF LIBERALISM:

Yes, we always knew that they were into vile kinky sexual practices, but it's refreshing to read them actually admit it:

And when wingnuts tell you such torture is deserved by terrorists who behead captives and run suicide bomb missions, remind them that the beheadings began in response to the Abu Ghraib revelations. Then tell them that even us liberals think it's okay to torture suicide bombers after they've completed their dastardly deeds.

So writes Kevin Hayden at The American Street. Can you say "necrophilia"? Talk about your pointless interrogations....

KISSING UP:

As DC awaits Billy the CJ's retirement to an impending mausoleum (or perhaps burial next to Richard the Last himself), at least one of the remaining nine is still trying to butter up his betters to grab the top spot himself:

The Supreme Court overturned a Pennsylvania man's death sentence Monday, saying his court-appointed lawyers failed to adequately investigate evidence that could have persuaded a jury to spare his life. ...

Justice Anthony Kennedy dissented, joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Kennedy said Rompilla's lawyers couldn't be expected to look in every court file for mitigating evidence, and there was no reason to look in the one the court faulted them for missing.

"Under any standard of review, the investigation performed by Rompilla's counsel in preparation for sentencing was not only adequate but also conscientious," Kennedy wrote. "Today's decision is wrong under any standard."

Personally I favor the views of that crusading bishop: Kill them all; God will know his own. Tony the K isn't fooling anybody. The ship has sailed and he won't be on it. One of the finalists, assuming the W. House is bold enough, is of course *ahem* myself.

Yes, I am qualified to be CJ, even if I'm not practicing now. More to the point, sending up my name would be certain to provoke a filibuster because of "extraordinary circumstances", thus giving us grounds to break up that ridiculous "moderate" agreement. It's a step forward for true majority rule, and if I have to be the sacrifice fly to torpedo that idiocy, I say "bring it on".

ART IMITATES LIFE:

An art work purportedly made from excess fat from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been sold for $18,000.

Switzerland-based artist Gianni Motti claims to have bought the fat from a clinic where the leader had a liposuction operation performed.

He moulded it into a bar of soap which he named Mani Pulite (Clean Hands).

The work was put on display at the Art Basel fair in Switzerland and was sold to a private Swiss collector.

Motti gave it the title Clean Hands as a reference to an anti-corruption campaign of the 1990s.

I had the mixed blessing of helping a great grandmother make some lye soap years ago. It was a very unpleasant process. She used hog lard as a base. Obviously she missed a great financial opportunity. Think how much soap we could sell with unused fat from Teddy alone....

ANOTHER REASON WHY TORT REFORM IS URGENT:

The graduation of students from Canada's first Inuit law program multiplied the number of lawyers in Canada's far north from one to 12. ...

They are the first graduating class of the Akitsiraq law school, a joint project by the University of Victoria in western Canada and the Nunavut Arctic College that aimed to bridge the gap between Western and local aboriginal cultures and help more Inuit join professional ranks.

FREEDOM FIRES?:

Three former waiters at New York's posh 21 Club, where a hamburger costs $30, have filed a $5 million discrimination lawsuit saying they were fired for being French.

In a civil suit made public on Monday at Manhattan Supreme Court, the three men, Rene Bordet, 68, Jean Claude Lesbre, 63 and Yves Thepault, 68, said the restaurant's management falsely accused them of drinking wine on the job and "created and fostered an environment rife with anti-French sentiment." ...

The suit accused 21 Club of engaging in "a concerted and egregious course of action to rid (the restaurant) of its older and long-term employees of French national origin." ...

The suit also said that management of the restaurant "made fun of Bordet's French accent" and "expressed glee" that "President Bush hated the French."

THREE OF A KIND:

My short example of Jungian synchronicity between a noted comic book deconstructionist, a politician practicing the same toward Kansas education funding, and the character in a classic movie western who aimed to do the same thing to an old enemy, may be found at "Inherit The Name". Or perhaps not....

OVER THE EDGE:

Now and then I check out the web to see if anyone new has permalinked to me, thus proving that they deserve a reciprocal place in my sidebar (since my policy is to only permalink to those who do so to me first). The latest one is called ZenYenta, clearly the result of carrying ecumenism way too far. Sure enough, her cultural confusion manifests itself in her politics. She is clearly one of the many leftists who just don't take me seriously.

Exploring her other links for more suspicious sites, I found one I had to check out, called Badtux the Snarky Penguin ("Herring, liberty, and libertarianism in service of truth"). That blogger has gotten even more confused about theology, judging from this rant:

My life has been so much better since I accepted George W. Bush as my personal Lord and Savior and let Him into my heart! I've had my sins washed away in the Blood of the Lamb who died in His place in Vietnam, and have been saved, saved I say!

The total loyalty is commendable, but actual worship of Our Noble Lame Duck does violate one of the Big Ten, so tone it down a notch, freebird.

OUT OF THE FREEDOM FRYING PAN:

We can thank Gary Cruse for spotting this report that the new Prime Minister of France, following the tradition of Joan of Arc herself, is really a witch:

Philippe Boggio recounts the first meeting eight years ago between M. de Villepin, 51, and the celebrity philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy.

During their conversation, M. de Villepin compared the philosopher and writer to "a Christ without wounds". Levy, now 56, was badly shaken by the comparison, and according to several sources - including his wife - woke that night bleeding from his palms.

After weeks of recurrent bleeding, and unsuccesful treatment in Paris, Milan and London, Levy went to see M. de Villepin a second time, according to the book. M. de Villepin, head of President Chirac's private office at the time, is reported to have said jokingly: "I knew I had powers, and that I am a great African sorcerer, but not to that extent."

Obviously this explains a lot about his performance as French Foreign Minister. Now we know why he supported the evil Saddam against Our Noble Lame Duck. Since the truth is out, he should beware of what finally happened to that Maid of Orleans, in accordance with the rule of Exodus 22:18: Tu ne laisseras point vivre la magicienne. Perhaps he is counting on being able to flee across the channel, since those British secular wimps have decided to appease the dark side:

Satanists, witches and cult members will be protected by controversial new laws banning incitement to religious hatred.

The legislation, which has twice been abandoned in the face of resistance from opposition parties, writers and comedians who argue it threatens free speech, is designed to protect Muslims from extreme prejudice.

But as it launched a fresh attempt to drive the law on to the statute book, the Government said the law would carry a wide-ranging definition of religion. Officials confirmed it could include satanists, pagans and religious sects.

THE HANDLE TOWARD MY HAND:

In the land of the disarmed bobbies, the busybodies never rest:

A&E doctors are calling for a ban on long pointed kitchen knives to reduce deaths from stabbing. A team from West Middlesex University Hospital said violent crime is on the increase - and kitchen knives are used in as many as half of all stabbings. ...

The research is published in the British Medical Journal. The researchers said there was no reason for long pointed knives to be publicly available at all. They consulted 10 top chefs from around the UK, and found such knives have little practical value in the kitchen.

Obviously, those do-gooders have never seen Samantha Caine working in the kitchen in one of my favorite films, The Long Kiss Goodnight. This story was spotted by Ahistoricality, who also pointed out the inevitable harms across the sea:

Think lawsuits: now that the idea that knives could be made safer is out there, every knife wound is a product liability lawsuit waiting to happen. I give it three years, on the outside....

But won't someone please think of the sports fans? What about that lefty scourge Molly Ivins? She once claimed to support gun control only because she really likes knife fights. If points are outlawed, those won't be nearly as colorful, or as quick. It takes a long time to bruise someone to death with a blunt object.

A SPLASH OF COLD REALITY:

Doesn't it just give you diabetes, to see how TV sitcoms turn even horrible premises into silly, Pollyanna-ish, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm-style rainbows of positivism? The tragedy of poor aliens trapped on earth, held up for our mocking laughter? The agony of urban housing shortages, relegated to excuses for bedroom-shuffling antics? One of the worst offenders was a program which I mocked myself in Hadji's Heroes. That show probably has fed the liberal outrage over Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, by giving people a foolish idea of how amusing and orderly life is in prisoner-of-war camps.

We need to remind them of reality, so that they will stop their yelping, and let us get on with the job. (Which, as I've said before, is not getting information from the captives, but intimidating the enemies still on the outside.) The Rude Pundit has provided a valuable service for sinking liberal expectations by showing what those efficient Teutonic troops would have really acted like when that "don't ask, don't tell" token American tried those televised tricks. Read it all at "If Stalag 13 Had Been Like Bagram".

Every other time Hogan had invoked the Geneva Convention (for instance, "Colonel Klink, I must protest as a violation of the Geneva Convention the private interrogation of my men by a Gestapo officer"), Klink had crumbled like a house of cards. But when he tried this time, he was slammed face down on Klink's desk as the Commandant exhaled a frustrated, "Hooogannnn. I'll show you what we think of the Geneva Convention." And then Hogan heard a thick sheaf of papers being rolled tightly. Well, this is poetic, Hogan thought....

PAGING PROFESSOR XAVIER:

Tree-huggers are always paranoid about anything synthetic, not because such products have no value, but precisely because they do. Anti-human lefties fear the evidence of achievement by real people, since those with pride of accomplishment are less susceptible to being ruled by their inferiors. This rant is inspired by an overlooked report from one of the twentieth century's worst hells on earth.

According to Dr. Mikhalev, a lot of children living in Chernobyl-affected areas started growing faster in comparison with other children. They have better reactions; their brain activity is more active as well. Such children have a more powerful immune system in comparison with their equals residing in other territories.

So the warnings from the alarmists are just hot air. Playing with atoms makes healthier people, perhaps even -- dare we say it -- mutants. Don't fear the nuclear reaper; your grandchildren may be able to fly or read minds.

SILLY CHILDREN:

A writer in The Boston Globe parses the Dem wanna-bes and misses the point completely. We who support the Spread Of Compulsory Democracy abroad just don't have to care which one of these mealy-mouthed meliorists makes it. They will all lose in 2008, because they are all me-too nebbishes. Want evidence our fix is in with the media already?

Most insiders have concluded that the Democratic finalists are likely to come down to Hillary Rodham Clinton and one or two anti-Hillarys.

That would be the Senator who has supported the war, and the Patriot Act, and who can only claim she would do it all better. That will not motivate real opponents, and so she would bleed support from her left flank.

Delaware Senator Joe Biden, one of the few senior Democrats with heft on defense and foreign policy....

For those who are not fluent in mediaspeak, that means he is also pro-war and occupation. Nothing for us to fear there.

John Edwards ... is not in office, and hence has three years to make speeches and alliances and acquire some foreign policy credentials.

That means he has time to convince the establishment that he still supports the war he voted for, and hasn't become a born-again Deaniac peacenik.

Kerry, older and wiser, will be armed with his formidable list of 2004 donors.

Or at least those who haven't demanded a refund from that fifty million bucks he sat on and had left after the election. Anyway, he's already proven he can't even imitate a mime walking against the wind, much less stand up to attacks on his patriotism. He won't be the McGovern of 2008.

Any of these three, and possible dark horses like Gore (who gives inspired speeches except when he's running), General Wesley Clark, or moderate Indiana Governor Evan Bayh, could emerge as the non-Hillary.

Nothing for us to be afraid of there. The only possible credible voice of opposition, Dean himself, has already sold out and withdrawn from the race to win his new position as Chief Mudslinger and Coffee-fetcher for the "responsible" big-money Dems. With enemies like this, who needs friends? Which explains why Our Noble Lame Duck doesn't worry about dividing his own ranks with polarizing positions in foreign policy. There's no one the opposition is considering who has the guts to make those the issues. The Liberator of Iraq can yawn all the way to his retirement seat on the board of Carlyle.

DEFINE AND DEMONSTRATE:

One censored ancient Greek myth is that there were in fact ten muses. The extra one you've never heard of, whose original name has been suppressed all these years, was the Muse of Puns. She was torn to death by mercenary Furies. One other form of humor, however, was completely a human invention:

A related method, sarcasm, was invented a bit earlier than theatrical comedy by Fauxpathicus of Sarcasia, a follower of Pythagoras ... Fauxpathicus complimented Pythagoras on his toga, while simultaneously snorting and rolling his eyes. ...

Sarcasm, like knife-throwing, shouldn't be practiced by those not naturally gifted in it. ... Sarcasm, unskillfully wielded, will cause you to wake up in my kitchen with blood on your face.

This valuable history lesson was pointed out by Apostropher, who didn't notice that the very day before he had cited a perfect example:

CU professor Ward ... Churchill, who was once registered as a Libertarian, told his class in February that there was no real choice between "Republicrats and Democrans." Records show he has not voted since 1992.

"I still identify as a Libertarian," he said last week. "But I'm getting ready to register as a Republican."

Wouldn't it be helpful to spread the news of his newly announced conversion to all of his former lefty friends? We don't want anybody to misunderstand his loyalties.

IT'S ONLY NATURAL:

The leftists who complain about how the evil of money has corrupted the naive primitive innocence of mankind should be trying to cover up the latest report of scientific research from a lab at Our Noble Lame Duck's alma mater. According to a self-proclaimed polytheistic deity at Advice Goddess Blog:

During the chaos in the monkey cage, Chen ... witnessed was probably the first observed exchange of money for sex in the history of monkeykind. (Further proof that the monkeys truly understood money: the monkey who was paid for sex immediately traded the token in for a grape.) ...

The capuchin lab at Yale has been built and maintained to make the monkeys as comfortable as possible, and especially to allow them to carry on in a natural state. The introduction of money was tricky enough; it wouldn't reflect well on anyone involved if the money turned the lab into a brothel. ...

But these facts remain: When taught to use money, a group of capuchin monkeys responded quite rationally to simple incentives; responded irrationally to risky gambles; failed to save; stole when they could; used money for food and, on occasion, sex.

So this means that a medium of exchange is so useful that even the beasts resort to it, once someone shows how that works. The evolutionists will no doubt observe that monkeys are not the species they claim to be our nearest relatives. Their next step will likely be to try this with the closer chimpanzees. If they are correct, then those comparative cousins may go even further, opening casinos, setting up stock markets, trying hostile takeovers, and even beginning currency speculation with other zoos. We may have to rewrite Penguin Island with different creatures as characters.

The majority of righteous Americans will instead be pondering whether this research only indicates that the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden was not an apple after all, and the possibility that Satan did not slither in, but walked in wearing a lab coat.

MY DOMINO THEORY:

Once you show a moment of weakness, everything can begin collapsing like a house of cards; such are the wages of appeasement. You can see this happening all over the news.

Sunni Muslim Arabs will be given up to 25 seats on the committee drafting Iraq's new constitution, President Jalal Talabani said Thursday. The announcement ... was a victory for Iraq's Sunni Arabs, who threatened to pull out of the political process if they were not given a bigger say on the committee.

In what could be a signal that the Bush administration realizes it won't be able to stop the renomination of Mohamed ElBaradei as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nation's nuclear watchdog agency, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday that the US may support Mr. ElBaradei.

President Bush on Wednesday left open the possibility that the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could be shut down following mounting criticism from former President Carter and others.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats have at least delayed Badass Bolton's nomination for Architechtural Truncator of the United (sic) Nations. The obvious cause of all this failure of nerve by Our Noble Lame Duck and his Senate minions is the "compromise" which let the minority wiggle out from the majority rule they give such phony lip service to. Not so: that was itself only a consequence of an earlier act of appeasement by the Rovinator, shivering at the chill political winds hitting his finger.

I refer to the wasted opportunity to call for the total abolition of Socialist Security. Sure, phase it out if you must, and call it "privatizing" if you want a euphemism, but go whole hog for getting rid of it. The "personal account" nonsense is not only not convincing, but looks like a dishonest toe in the door for the real radical step of abolition. This therefore arouses suspicion and resentment, and worst of all, looks weak. Our many enemies, smelling blood in the water, have begun closing in, but worst of all are the shivering poodles on our own side, driven to sell out the rest of the agenda of an administration they see slipping.

Is it too late? No. To restore the needed fear and obedience, what is needed is for the President to stop shilly-shallying and stand firm for ending the free lunch we give to old farts. Those who do not work should not eat, or make us pay fortunes to officiously keep them in dog food. Put those foolish enough to have no pensions out on the ice floes of the free market. Their competition should drive down wage rates so that the usual liberal complaints about "outsourcing" will end under a barrage of elderly applications for jobs. Strike at the root now, and all these nibbles by cowardly fowls will end. They'll have more important things to worry about.

RIGHT OVER HIS HEAD:

"Deep Throat" finally fessed up, to the surprise of nobody who had paid the slightest attention. This petty bureaucrat followed our orders very well. When he was later convicted of oppression of civil liberties, we pardoned him for it, since he was only doing what we wanted. Now he will pay for his public confessional with the agony of being praised as a hero by the very leftists he once worked so hard to undermine. Meanwhile his ideological allies from three decades ago have followed our talking points well and turned on him viciously. The media even went them one better, making up a better quote than the real one to put in the mouth of one former Nixon minion:

...here's one I've seen repeated a lot already:

Former Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchanan, in an appearance on MSNBC television, bluntly said Felt was a "traitor."

Given how much I love a good Buchanan bash, I'm unenthused to note that, in fact, Buchanan said the complete frigging opposite:

BUCHANAN: Right. Well, I wouldn't used the term "traitor," because I don't know that he was ever a Nixon loyalist. ... What I'm saying is, he has no personal loyalty to Nixon, so I don't consider him a traitor in that sense, as I would be if I were Deep Throat.

A good catch by Amygdala. I share his disaffection for defending Pattie boy. He was always such an easy mark, serving as the clueless piano player for the moneychangers upstairs at the EOB. When he became an irritant with his isolationist rants, it was no trouble to lure him into cluelessly defending a real war criminal. Thus his future attacks on Operation Inigo Montoya were discredited in advance.

His most notorious example of not seeing the real war elephant in the room was his 2003 article "Whose War?" where he said

"We charge that a cabal of polemicists and public officials seek to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America’s interests."

Well, duh. Of course there is such a cabal. Just as the original one under Charles the Second was a clever acronym for its five members (Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington, and Lauderdale), so with the modern version. I immodestly point out my own initial. The remaining four current names are left as an exercise to the student.

Buckie the Wonder Writer never even grasped why we had to take down his boss. It was all a matter of a swelled head, lured by military bands hailing the chief to grab for the bubble of popularity and forget our long range goals. We tossed out LBJ one year after he agreed to the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, because it banned "weapons of mass destruction in the Earth's orbit, on the moon or on other planets". Tricky Dick was clever enough to refrain from signing the even more restrictive ABM Treaty until an election year, too late for us to defeat him for renomination. We weren't about to let him get by unscathed for that impediment to our plans, though. So we got rid of that dork Agnew by revealing his own extortions, then with a loyal puppet Veep in place, we ordered that flunky Felt to fill the files of some foolish reporters with clues to destroy Nixon himself. Reagan and Bush the First undercut and chipped away at the space weapons ban, but W is getting rid of it all together.

We need to put lots of powerful machinery out there, because we aren't just looking at short-range wars to control the earth. (Indeed, the whole Gulf War is only for the sake of domestic politics, since it makes it much easier to intimidate opposition.) We aim to control all of space. No, these petty invasions are not in the interests of the United States. They are in the interest of the multinational corporations which really matter, and will for centuries to come, when humanity expands beyond this trivial solar system. Bay's border-blocking bro, mentally mired in the mere one-nation patriotism of the obsolete past, never had the kind of broad intellect to appreciate the outline for such a truly interstellar commercial empire.

PUNCTURING THE WINDBAGS:

Didn't you know this in your heart all along?

A just-released study by a statistician at the University of Georgia ... indicates that, controlling for other factors, airbags are actually associated with slightly increased probability of death in accidents. ... The reason earlier studies have found that airbags save lives is that they used only a special subset of the available data, said Meyer. ...

"If you look at people who have some types of cancer, you will see that those who get radiation treatment have a better chance of surviving than those who don't. However, radiation is inherently dangerous and could actually cause cancer. If you give everyone radiation treatments, whether they have cancer or not, you will probably find an increased risk of death in the general population.

"Making everyone have airbags and then verifying the effectiveness using only fatal crashes in FARS is like making everyone get radiation and then estimating the lives saved by looking only at people who have cancer. Overall, there will be more deaths if everyone is given radiation, but in the cancer subset, radiation will be effective." ...

"The evidence shows that airbags do more harm than good."

Of course, I disabled the bags in my own small fleet long ago. Now we have the facts, so it's time to start repealing those do-gooders' intrusive laws.