Sadly, No!

ABOVE: The Yellow Badge of Courage

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Sooner or later it was inevitable that some wingnut would blame the tragedy in Mumbai on the Mumbaiites themselves, arguing that their cow-free diet turned them into a bunch of curry-breathed cowards unable to stand up for themselves. That’s why ten terrorists kept the city of 19 million under siege for three days.

But what couldn’t be anticipated is that Ye Olde Butte Missile, whose sole act of courage in his entire lifetime was a decision eleven years ago to have his tuna salad on rye rather than wheat, would be leading the charge:

Somebody Get Me A Gun

This post … describes a microcosm of India’s failure to defend itself aggressively against Islamic terrorism. The hero of the story is Sebastian D’Souza, a picture editor at the Mumbai Mirror, who took one of the most famous photos of the terrorists in action …. D’Souza describes his experience at the railway terminal where many innocent Indians were murdered:

“I first saw the gunmen outside the station,” Mr D’Souza said. “With their rucksacks and Western clothes they looked like backpackers, not terrorists, but they were very heavily armed and clearly knew how to use their rifles.

…

But what angered Mr D’Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. “There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything,” he said. “At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, ‘Shoot them, they’re sitting ducks!’ but they just didn’t shoot back.”

…

What is the point of having policemen with guns if they refuse to use them? I only wish I had a gun rather than a camera.”

If Mr. D’Souza ever wants to emigrate to the United States, we’ll take him.

I wondered earlier today how a mere ten terrorists could bring a city of 19 million to a standstill. Here in the U.S., I don’t think it would happen. I think we have armed security guards who know how to use their weapons, supplemented by an unknown number of private citizens who are armed and capable of returning fire. The Indian experience shows it is vitally important that this continue to be the case. This is a matter of culture as much as, or more than, a matter of laws.

Apparently, Hinderaker gets most of his knowledge about gunfights while masturbating to an old video tape of Rambo. The likely reason the police didn’t fire back is that their pistols or bolt-action rifles weren’t likely to be effective against gunmen wielding AK-47s. If the cop missed, he’d be dead before he could fire the next shot. There’s also this tricky problem of collateral damage — the cops wouldn’t want to hit bystanders, whereas the terrorists didn’t care. Instead of seriously thinking about the consequences of the mismatch in firepower between the terrorists and the station cops, Hinderaker prefers a racist explanation which turns a country filled with dusky people into a nation of cowards. Let’s just hope that, the next time Hinderaker dines in an Indian restaurant, his dal has strange “creamy” taste eerily reminiscent of snotchos.

Above: Thomas Sowell

POLITICIANS, CEO PAY & THE TALE OF BORIS’ GOAT

• Not only has government regulation run our economy into the ground, but liberal malefactors are casting aspersions on our heroic CEOs.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

This K-Lo post is amusing…

Self-Reliance [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

is a beautiful thing.

…when you consider the following:

Our swollen toes and other (true!) NRO journalistic sob stories [Jack Fowler]

Folks, these things don’t happen by magic or the sprinkling of pixie dust. It takes a lot of bucks to run NRO. Of course, each and every dollar we have is stretched to the max — we don’t have the luxury of, well, having luxuries. Cabs? Ha! Subway fare? Think again! How do I get to the press conference then? By foot! That’s how we operate. Calluses, fallen arches, and vibrant conservatism are the consequences.

NRO exists in no small part because of the generosity of our readers. Join the ranks of these revered souls. If you come to NRO every day or many days, if you understand how important NRO is both to you and to the cause of conservatism, then help us out. Whether it’s cold hard cash or warm soft cash — we need it, boy do we need it, and pledge to spend every penny über-wisely. For an alternative, picture this world wide web without NRO (as surely its inventor, Mr. Gore, does).

So please donate today. Come on, I’m begging – and that’s a very ugly sight, so ugly that we’re prohibited from running my picture with this post. Make your generosity known here.

And:

Consider [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

donating.

And:

If You Are Happy with Jonah’s Shatnerfest [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Donate now.

Or, if you’re not, donate NOW.

Basically, I will sleep if you donate now.

And:

Help Us Lead the Renewal

By Kathryn Jean Lopez

Your donation — whether it be $5,000 or $50 — will go directly toward the cost of running NRO: our recent necessary server upgrade, salaries, author’s fees (which have not grown with inflation since NRO was first established) and essential support services. Your generosity, in other words, will keep this light on and shining bright in the wilderness.

And as you donate, I encourage you to e-mail me with your suggestions as we look toward the next four years together.

Make your donation here. Thank you for your support. We can’t do this without you.

And so on.

Has anyone else noticed that a lot of wingnut punditry consists mainly of lecturing everybody on the need to be self-reliant while simultaneously begging for money? It’s almost like they don’t actually believe the stuff they’re writing…

Each year, a time comes to give thanks for the blessings we have received, and to roast a big turkey. We’ll do the thanks and blessings later, because here comes Pastor Swank.

Above: Goodman Swank thanks God for some corn he
found sitting around unguarded

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OBAMA, WILL YOU EVER END A SPEECH WITH ‘AND GOD BLESS AMERICA’?
J. Grant Swank, Jr.

John McCain and Sarah Palin concluded their speeches with “And God bless America.” The crowds cheered.

Did you ever hear B. Hussein Obama do that?

Hm. It is possible.

I cannot recall him ever stating such a praise petition to the God of the Bible.

Another question that comes to mind is this: Will we ever hear the National Anthem at B. Hussein’s scheduled events?

A good question, for he has been known to close events with a repeated phrase from the Algerian song ‘Kradoutja,’ which has been known in the West under various titles including ‘The Streets of Cairo.’ His followers have held hands and sung in unison, “All the girls in France do the hoochie-coochie dance…”

Some may note that Obama was excoriated for cutting the National Anthem from his events, but as we well know by now, the fact that he was blameworthy and bad for stopping doing something does not mean that he ever did that thing at all in the first place. For instance, we all remember how he stopped his 20-year support for his radical Christian pastor, his best friend of all time Jeremiah Wright, while actually being a Christian-hating radical Muslim all along.

I doubt it. Will be glad to be proven wrong.

That never happens.

B. Hussein is out to mesh all religions as one, just as his mother believed. Forget America’s Judeo-Christian heritage. Out. Done. Disappear. Read “Obama is not Christian but Muslim” at http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/swank/080515

See? It’s just like we were saying.

He in truth is a Muslim, just as he let slip on an ABC interview these words: “ my Muslim faith.” There is such substantial evidence that he was born Muslim and held to Islam as his religion, just his father stated when he was born. Read B. HUSSEIN: Who is Barry Soetoro? at http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_21594.shtml

Therefore, B. Hussein knows that to invoke prayers or praise to the Judeo-Christian heritage deity is anti-Allah. It is totally contrary to the Koran stipulations that infidels must be slain while Islam World Rule takes hold. Therefore, he cannot provide even “And God bless America” statement for that is entirely hypocritical in the eyes of the Muslims who know him to be Muslim.

After following his work for a few years, it seems fair to say that Pastor Swank’s default discursive mode will soon be indistinguishable in tone from the ravings on a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s soap.

Further, B. Hussein has no concern or allegiance for the National Anthem. He is out to make this country socialist / communist, just as one his staff members had a communist flag taped to his office wall.

Read MUSLIM OBAMA SAYS IN HIS BOOK HE’S ON THE SIDE OF MUSLIMS at http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_21764.shtml

Read GADHAFI: B. HUSSEIN IS MUSLIM at http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_21594.shtml

Ah, but luckily, Obama is ineligible for the presidency.

God bless you, Pastor Swank. And by ‘God’ we secretly mean Ba’al.

Gratitude

• What am I thankful for this Thanksgiving? I’m thankful that Proposition 8 passed and California homos can’t get married, because if I can’t get married, then neither should they. And that Sarah Palin didn’t have an abortion. And that President Bush protected us from the terrorists and will one day be finally recognized as the best leader we ever had. Amen.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

ABOVE: “Gay” Patriot West

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You want something to be thankful for this Thanksgiving? Well, then, be thankful that you are not B. Daniel Blatt, aka “GayPatriotWest.” In case you’ve forgotten, Blatt provides truckloads of unintentional comedy as he ties himself up like a pretzel on a near daily basis explaining how he can be a gay conservative Republican. And that just can’t be a very comfortable way to spend one’s life.

Blatt is the kind of guy that, had he been born a turkey (at least, that is, of the avian variety), he would have spent his formative years dreaming of growing up to be a spokesman for Butterball. And then when he was rejected for that job by Butterball and sent back to the barn to await his execution, he would have spent his final days before Thanksgiving, not recriminating against Butterball, but reproving himself for not being a good enough turkey to please the Butterball folks. And seconds before his final appointment with the guillotine and the plucking room, he would have cried out “Butterball’s Best Boy Forever!” Ker-thunk!

Well, today Blatt has outdone himself. And in a long line of lame rationalizations, foolish analogies, and frissons of self-loathing, that really is saying something. Blatt brings it home in a post titled “On Joining Forces with Social Conservatives When Necessary to Preserve Our Liberty,” which you might think says it all but astonishingly only provides the scarcest glimmer of the inanity to follow:

My main concern in politics is maintaining my freedom. And, in practical, definable terms, the daily threats to my liberty are not being pushed by religious conservatives. It wasn’t religious conservatives who’ve told me I’m breaking the law if I light up in a bar. It wasn’t religious conservatives who’ve forbidden me from buying food made with trans fats. … It isn’t the religious conservatives who have told me that I have to separate my trash, even to the point of removing individual trashcans in my office building.

Shorter Gay Patriot West: I’m willing to forgo marriage to the man of my dreams (well at least I would be if I had a man of my dreams) as long as I can eat all the trans fats I want. Hell, you can even fire me for being gay (well at least you could if I had a job) as long as I can still smoke in a bar. And I’d trade the theoretical possibility of marriage in a heart beat if I could just put glass and paper in the same trash can again.

So this Thanksgiving, when Uncle Miltie is complaining at dinner for the eleventh time that turkeys aren’t as juicy as they used to be, that cranberry sauce makes him constipated and that people keep sneaking into his room and stealing shit from him when he’s stuck on the toilet, it’s time for you to just sit back, relax and remember this: at least you aren’t B. Daniel Blatt.

UPDATE: Bonus silliness from B. Daniel Blatt:

How do you know when you’re linked on a left-wing blog? [That would be us.] You discover an increased number of hate comments in your spam queue.

…

Oh, and one last point, anyone who would use a doctored photo and put it forward as authentic is someone obviously someone [sic] who is easily duped.

A big slice of absinthe-laced lemon chess pie for anyone who can explain the logic of that “last point,” which, sadly, we fear won’t really be B. Daniel Blatt’s last point. We think the one who is easily duped is Mr. Blatt if he thinks that we put forward any picture on this site as authentic.

Above: Jules Crittenden

From The Airport That Brought You 9/11

• Thank you, George W. Bush, for keeping America safe from terrorists carrying firearms can easily board planes at Logan Airport, thanks to [mumble mumble] cops.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

* Cf.

What should Bush do now?

One thing that I haven’t seen: work more closely with Obama’s transitional economics team than an outgoing president usually does.

Everything I’ve seen about Bush and the transition indicates that he has been entirely classy. But right now, classy is not enough. The more publicly he is seen to coordinate with the Obama team, the more reassuring it will be to markets.

As usual, ‘markets’ is a word that McArdle uses to denote a big economic thingy of no fixed qualities, much as ‘cyberspace’ used to mean an interactive post-media nexus of transformative hyperrealities whose multi-dimensionalized datasphere you flew through as a bodiless post-human, via sitting in a farted-out desk chair typing on Usenet.

Let’s look again at what she just tried to say.

The more publicly [George W. Bush] is seen to coordinate with the Obama team, the more reassuring it will be to markets.

In the time it took you to remember Bush’s approval and disapproval ratings, and to form the thought that ‘markets’ are widely supposed to be smarter than the bottom 25% of Americans, such as for instance Jersey guidos with hair mousse and four-finger rings, blank-eyed women wandering angrily through dollar stores, people who cut you off in traffic and shout incomprehensible expletives that sound like “Gawaaa!”, people who equal ass, bonk-headed yar-yar dingbrains, those who sit on their porches with earthenware jugs and mail-order guitars, singing “‘Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus” as the 20th Century struggles to free itself from the possum trap it walked into as it tried to cross their property, and people who listen to Coheed and Cambria — in that mere span of time, Glenn Reynolds woke up, walked the dog, had breakfast, turned on the computer, had another cup of coffee, sat down, checked his RSS feeds, went “Say, that’s a good point,” and quoted McArdle’s post nearly in full.

ABOVE: Assistant Supervisor Lady in your face

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Mona Charen brings us historical revisionism on par with the Doughy Pantload’s:

Giving Thanks for Genocide?

[…]

Like racism, genocide is a word that has lost its meaning through promiscuous overuse. Medved reminds us that the international “Genocide Convention” defines genocide as an act or acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such.” In the clash of civilizations between European settlers and Native Americans, millions died. But the overwhelming majority of those deaths were attributable to diseases carried involuntarily by Europeans and spread to natives who had no natural immunities to these pathogens. That is a tragedy, but not a crime.

Gee, the Trail of Tears? The Sand Creek Massacre? Wounded Knee? No, there was no concerted effort to wipe out an entire race of native peoples. Just one long trail of historical “oopsies” that white people unwittingly participated in.

I’ve often wondered what sort of people would be sick enough to engage in Holocaust denial. Now I know: they’re the same sort of people who write for the National Review.

ABOVE: One of these three things doesn’t belong

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Andrew Breitbart, LA’s most dapper wingnut, has some advice for the GOP if it wants to win any future elections. Enlist hunky models from Abercrombie & Fitch as the new GOP candidates and run them against the ugly, baby boomer Democrats. Seriously. And, best I can tell, Breitbart isn’t attempting parody. He’s as serious as Jonah “the Whale” Goldberg at the sundae station of an all-you-can-eat early-bird buffet.

[H]ere’s an unorthodox fast-track plan for a full-scale GOP recovery in 2010. The future of the Grand Old Party needs to be dangerously youthful, devastatingly attractive and outrageously fun.

Like these young Republicans.

With the economy in the pits, the young, the restless and unapologetically handsome should use their looks, vigor and Internet knowledge to wrest away elective office from joyless bureaucrats who gallingly repackaged the soiled utopian promises of their overly replayed Woodstock days as “hope” and “change.”

Woohoo! Zac Efron can be like the next Secretary of Treasury. My 401(k) got hard and throbby just at the thought.

So let’s stop first at Abercrombie and Fitch. See those shirtless models in the storefront tossing footballs in the air? There’s a better use of their time and efforts. Tanned, coiffed and seriously cut, these young studs could be tossing free-trade legislation across the halls of the Cannon House Office Building faster than you can Twitter “The Bella Twins.” Just tell these $15-an-hour beefcakes there’s a Democrat standing between them and a $169,300 job.

Um, Andy, if you’re going to salivate over A&F models and fantasize about being the slice of ham in their free-market sandwich, then you probably ought to know that the guys who pose for the photos are getting a lot more than $15 per hour. And that they’re going to charge more than that to play toss-the-legislation and hide-the-sausage with you.

Sure, a lot of our newly elected officials may not be completely up to speed on the issues, but once elected, they’ll have close to three months to cram. That’s almost a full semester – enough time to get the gist of the Constitution. Leave the details for the staffers.

Look at how well that worked for Caribou Barbie.

Under my plan, the party will grow as the parties grow. Weekly keggers and Guitar Hero and karaoke fundraisers can make a mockery of the self-serious poetry slam-faced Obama youth movement. …

We’ll even throw in some Republican punk rockers and conservative performance artists while we’re at it. They do exist.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather convert to Mormonism than attend a Republican punk rock concert or watch a conservative performance artist perform. And what would a conservative performance artist do exactly? Smear her chastely-clothed body in crude oil while chanting “Drill, Baby, Drill”?

If we’re going to make the Republican Party a big tent again, why not make it large enough to hold a rave?

That’s actually the best part of Breitbart’s column. He apparently still thinks that raves are cool, which is really kind of creepy. It’s sort of like your grandmother buying you a cocaine spoon necklace for your birthday and then saying, with a sly wink and a smile, “And you thought your granny was such an old stick in the mud.”

*Insert rhyming word in blank. Alternate porno spelling preferred.