Sadly, No!

ABOVE: The Confederate Yankee Deployed in Local Mall to Provide Protection
for Christmas Holiday Xmas Winter Solstice Shoppers. Backup by Dafydd Ab Hugh

Bob Owens, a former car salesman who now blogs as the “Confederate Yankee,” doesn’t want you to “shop in fear” so he helpfully provides a few tips on how to escape a crazed mall shooter. Now frankly his advice to run like hell is pretty fricking obvious, but the rest of what he says is … well, you be the judge:

If you happen to be walking in the mall and a shooting occurs, get into the nearest store or side hallway.

Good idea, especially if the shooter is in the nearest store or side hallway.

Get low. Firearms, be they handguns, rifles, or shotguns, are typically fired from the shoulder. Most bullets or pellets travel roughly on a horizontal plane from shoulder to waist high.

This would be great advice if the shooter has a strange physical affliction that forces him to keep his arm parallel to the floor and unable to point down. Sadly, few shooters do.

Get out. Stores do not bring their merchandise in through the front door. Almost all have loading docks, and to comply with fire codes, an emergency exit that leads either to a back hallway, or provide directs access to the outside of the building. Look up for the “exit” sign on the ceiling at the back of the store, and make your way there as fast as possible, keeping as low as possible.

I know you fancy-pants city folk with multi-story malls are probably scoffing at the idea of running to the back of the Radio Shack on the second floor of the mall to find a loading dock, but you have to realize that the largest shopping mall Bob has ever seen was in Hobgood, North Carolina and had only ten stores, four of which had the word “dollar” in their names.

Once you make it outside, keep moving. Put as much physical space and as many physical objects between you and the scene as possible.

Now you have to wonder why on earth Bob thinks that he’s providing some great pearl of wisdom to his readers by saying that once outside you should get the fuck away as fast as possible. Is he worried that his typical reader might be unable to make it past the Applebee’s in the parking lot without popping in for a Chicken Fingers Platter or a Quesadilla Burger?

I love this time of year. It brings out the best in everyone. It’s our chance to remember the kindred spirit of all humankind, to reflect upon the virtures of kindness and generosity of both spirit and of material goods. It is also once again time to be instructed in the duties of Christian charity and virtue by our favorite conservative bloggers.

Above: Hung with care

---

This time, it’s John Hinderaker from Powerline, who shows us that, just as Jesus would have done, he’s not above scoring cheap points against his political enemies off of a genuine human tragedy.

The man who shot up a training center for missionaries and a church in suburban Denver, killing four people and wounding a number of others, has been identified:

A law enforcement official says the deadly rampages at a megachurch and a missionary training school were believed to have been carried out by the same person—Matthew Murray, a 24-year-old suburban Denver man who “hated Christians.”

It is perhaps worth noting that the toll in Sunday’s shootings exceeded the combined total in all “hate crimes” against Muslims in the six years since September 11

Now, let’s just set aside what a poorly written sentence that is, shall we? Because after reading it, I’m not sure if Hindy means to compare the number of murders over the weekend with the number of Muslims who have been murdered in hate crime incidents, or if he means to compare the murders over the weekend with the number of hate crimes in general against Muslims. Either way, aside from being a pompous, callous jackass, he’s just wrong.

A quick perusal of the FBI hate crimes database shows that in the years 2001-2006, exactly one person was murdered out of religious bias. In 2002, one person whose religion is listed as “other” was murdered in a hate crime. The real kicker here is that this attack in Colorado shows absolutely no signs of being a hate crime in the first place.* Hinderaker, like most of his ilk, has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about when it comes to hate crime legislation. But then again, why should he? After all, he’s just a lawyer. But trying to imply that Muslims don’t have it as bad as Christians do when it comes to bias murders is pretty damn stupid when nobody in this country gets murdered over religious bias — not, at least, as far as the statistics kept by the FBI are concerned.

If, however, he meant to compare the deaths in Colorado this weekend to the “combined total in all ‘hate crimes’ (love the scare quotes, by the way) against Muslims in the six years since September 11″…..um, I’m not quite sure how to put this delicately…..

Almost a thousand Muslims have experienced either aggravated assault, simple assault, or intimidation qualified by the FBI as “hate crimes” since 2001. And yeah, I actually sat and compiled the data off the bases for five years, just to make a point about how completely ignorant and petty John Hinderaker is. I’m not sure why I did it, either — consider it my Christmas gift to the Powerline boys (the grand total, barring any addition errors on my part, was actually 912, in case anyone’s interested).

But being John Hinderaker means never having to say you’re sorry, even when you are wrong by several orders of magnitude.

Merry Christmas, John! Maybe if you’re lucky, someone will burn down a megachurch sometime this week, just so you can have more excuses to make catty comments about how good those nasty Muslims have it here in America, where they don’t even deserve to be, after all.

* Hindy provides the following in an update:

UPDATE: Murray was apparently a former Christian who was kicked out of Youth With a Mission, the missionary training program, some years ago.

This should be unsurprising to all but Hindy, because the article he was quoting in the first place continues thusly:

Authorities searched the Murray home Monday on a quiet street in Englewood. No one was home when a reporter visited the split-level brick home early Monday. Murray’s father, Ronald S. Murray, is a neurologist who is chief executive of the Rocky Mountain Multiple Sclerosis Center in Englewood.

Matthew Murray lived there along with a brother, Christopher, 21, a student at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla.

A neighbor, Cody Askeland, 19, said the brothers were home-schooled, describing the whole family as “very, very religious.”

Apparently, the creationists also have a grievance against astronomy.

How many gaping scientific howlers can you spot in this brief documentary?

Update: If your brain isn’t bleeding yet, here’s what seems to be a different edit of the video, without most of the material above, but with tons more sophistries (including a version of the infamous banana theory):

Read the rest of this entry »

Above: Sex Guru David Gelernter

How could I possibly pass up an article called “Instant Sex“? Even if it does appear in the Weekly Standard and even if it is written by that burning hunk o’manlove David Gelernter, certainly “Instant Sex” had to be worth a read. Sadly, no. I probably should have realized that in the pages of the Weekly Standard instant sex would, like international diplomacy, civil rights, habeas corpus and social security, be a really bad thing.

Now why instant sex is so awful is something Gelernter doesn’t fully explain, probably because instant sex is something that, for a variety of reasons, he hasn’t ever experienced first-hand (unless you count his own hand.) So Gelernter resorts to some staggeringly awful metaphors:

Instant sex and romantic love can’t coexist any more than hurricanes and forest fires. One drives out the other.

Hey, but what if the hurricane is romantic love and the forest fire is the instant sex? Then the instant sex doesn’t destroy the romantic love, does it? I bet Gelernter didn’t think of that.

But the wingnutaphors have just started:

Why can’t they coexist? Because, just as green leaves transform sunlight to useful energy in a process called photosynthesis, human beings transform longing for an adored object into a heightened state of consciousness in a process called falling in love.

I’m sorry but comparing love to photosynthesis is, well, just icky. It’s like comparing romantic love to, say, fungal anastomosis. Ewww. Given the choice between instant sex and photosynthesis, I think I’ll pick the instant sex.

Thwarted sexual desire is nearly as necessary to young people as food and shelter.

That sounds to me like a desperate rationalization of an unhappy adolescence, but even if its true, I suppose that means you can start the instant sex business at age 35 or so. Yippee!

Premarital, premature sex drains the power reserve that would have propelled them into emotional (versus mere physical) adulthood.

And it makes you grow hair on your hands, lose track meets, and go blind, not necessarily in that order.

Unbelievable:

Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002
In Meetings, Spy Panels’ Chiefs Did Not Protest, Officials Say

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said. […]

With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).

Reading this really and truly makes me want to barf.

Why do I even bother voting for Democrats again? I mean, WTF. It would be nice, really really nice, to have at least one goddamn party in this doomed nation that stands fully against torture. Jesus H., you horrible assholes. Don’t you have any damn principles? Don’t you have any ethics? Have you ever, at any point in your miserable lives, taken a principled stand on any issue?

Again, I feel sick. Favoring torture is now a bipartisan issue. David Broder must be very pleased.

(And yes, I tragically concede that Michelle Malkin was right about the Dem leadership favoring torture. Thanks again, Democrats. I never ever ever ever ever EVAR like admitting that Stalkin’ Malkin is right about ANYTHING. But now I have to admit it because you’re disgusting losers.)

(Via.)

UPDATE: This gets about a billion heh-indeeds:

Since the voters put them back in power, the Democrats have taken impeachment off the table, punted on the war, never figured out a way to hold Republicans accountable for filibusters and obstructionism, so legislation is in the toilet, and never managed to use oversight power to do anything more than chip away around the edges of the Bush regime—though they have written a great number of Sternly Worded Letters.

And now, top Democrats turn out to be enablers of war crimes by our lawless executive. What a surprise. Harry, Nancy, nice work.

One caveat: I don’t think they’re enablers. I think they actively approve of this shit.

Gavin adds: I’d be sort of careful with this story. Most of it is sourced to Porter Goss, “a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange,” “several officials familiar with the briefings,” “one U.S. official present during the early briefings,” and similar characters — i.e., possibly the familiar coterie of Republicans planting stories and shifting blame. Even when true, these stories are often trivial.

One can rest easy about Malkin being right. What she’s doing is using this AP story to implicate “the Dems” in the destroyed-CIA-tapes scandal. According to Malkin, since Jane Harman knew about the tapes but failed in preventing them from being destroyed, Harman is somehow at the center of the hurricane. This is, in a word, stupid. Also stupid: Malkin is pointing a finger at Harriet Miers, one of the few Republicans disliked by Malkin. The actual wrongdoers and their superiors are a matter of only flickering interest.

[sigh] Also, among other things, the assertion that waterboarding ceased in 2003 (repeated twice here) is just an official assertion, backed up by no evidence. We simply don’t know when it was used, who it was used on, or whether the practice has stopped.

Jillian adds: Hey, Brad, I think I found a candidate you can get behind: Jonathon “The Impaler” Sharkey! I’m not so sure I like his foreign policy, but the Satanic gay marriages performed IN the White House just might make up for it!

Above: Slightly less crazy than Bush, slightly
more spine than the Democrats

If you’re looking for a perfect Christmas gift, look no further: Fred J. Eckert, former U.S. Ambassador to Fiji and devoted acolyte of St. Ronnie, is offering a computer-generated image of Mt. Rushmore with Reagan added to the monument right next to Abe Lincoln. This unique offer can be yours for as low as $37.95. If you call within the next three minutes, you will receive, at no extra charge, a sofa-sized velvet painting of Ronald Reagan performing “In the Ghetto” with Elvis Presley.

Jack Kemp, famed fine art collector, calls this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity a “classy art image . . . an inspirational work of the highest quality in every aspect.” Craig Shirley, author of “Reagan’s Revolution,” says the former ambassador’s Rushmore image “is so realistic that it looks like Reagan is really there.”

So call now. Operators are standing by. VISA, Mastercard and earmarks accepted.

And for you reality-worshiping liberals who have been writing to complain that the picture depicts Reagan’s head as being carved from stone that is not there . . .

. . . we have one thing to say to you: silly putty.

Gavin adds:

Above: Hey, there’s still a spot in the center for a colossal Amy Goodman!

Hey all, I’m conducting a little experiment. I’m trying to see if the same language that PR flacks use to promote their companies’ crappy products will be just as effective at getting dates. Something tells me it won’t, but Mama Bradrocket always told me to not knock it if ya haven’t tried it. So here’s my romantic PR pitch whereby I invite someone over for homemade dinner. Let me know what y’all think:

Brad, a leading provider of date-related services in the Boston area, is now adding a homemade dinner solution to his acclaimed dating services portfolio. This new service, which will be made available to female customers in the Boston area beginning immediately, demonstrates Brad’s commitment to providing customers with the broadest range of date choices and the highest caliber of intimate dining options among all dating service providers in the area.

This new homemade dinner solution, called HomeDinXP, offers customers three options to fulfill their hunger requirements. The Italian Option consists of an eggplant parmesan concoction served with tortellini and a bottle of Scagliola Busiord Dolcetto; the Asian Option, which offers chicken yellow curry served with white rice and Nga Waka Chardonnay; and a Discount Option, which offers a Twinkee and a Bud Light.

“With this new dinner solution, Brad has moved to the forefront of the romantic culinary solutions market,” said Brad, the chairman and CEO of Brad. “This new offer appeals to a wide array of customers, from those who prefer the more traditional tastes of Italian home cooking to those craving the more exotic flavors of the Far East.”

In addition to its hunger-satiating capabilities, the HomeDinXP solution also provides a newfound convenience for those customers interested in upgrading their services from a dating solutions package to a sexual solutions package. While most of Brad’s dating solutions require at least a ten-minute drive from his award-winning Intimate Customer Relations Center, the HomeDinXP kitchen is located a mere 10 feet from the center, which was recently upgraded to include king-sized bed, lava lamp-enhanced mood lighting and a surround-sound stereo.

The HomeDinXP is just one of many dating services that Brad offers to female customers in the Boston area. Others include the movie option, in which comes complete with prepaid ticket, popcorn and an optional large beverage; the traditional dinner option that includes a prepaid meal at a destination of the customer’s choice; and the alcohol-enhanced karaoke option, where customers have the option of experiencing Brad serenading them with stirring renditions of his favorite Prince songs.

Admit it, ladies… that shit wuz smolderin’!!!

Gavin adds: I like the Italian option. What’s in the fine print?

Bradrocket adds: I love you guys:

The only problem is you used the term “hunger solutions” when it should be “food insecurity solutions.” May as well change “sexual solutions” to “Temporary Schlong Caching Activities,” while you’re at it.

Awesome. And here’s some afternoon Coltrane as a reward for being teh funny:

Sad but true: I still think Huckabee would make a better preznit than Rudy:

Mike Huckabee once advocated isolating AIDS patients from the general public, opposed increased federal funding in the search for a cure and said homosexuality could “pose a dangerous public health risk.”

As a candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in 1992, Huckabee answered 229 questions submitted to him by The Associated Press. Besides a quarantine, Huckabee suggested that Hollywood celebrities fund AIDS research from their own pockets, rather than federal health agencies.

“If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague,” Huckabee wrote.

En otras palabras: “Since condoms and sex education are against God’s Will, I guess locking up the ‘mos and putting them in camps will have to suffice.”

Hey, I think Michelle Malkin’s finally discovered something to admire about this guy!

Get outta here, ya maniac!

John Lott, in comments, contributes the following:

John Lott said,
December 7, 2007 at 22:56

Evidence regarding survey:
http://johnrlott.tripod.com/surveysupport.html

Responses from the authors who published the paper with the pretty trivial coding errors
http://johnrlott.tripod.com/link3.html
http://johnrlott.tripod.com/postsbyday/6-9-03.html

Problems with relying on some of the sources that you rely on:
http://doubletap.cs.umd.edu/WikipediaStudy/namecalling.htm

Levitt case
http://johnrlott.tripod.com/uploaded_images/LevittCorrection-735079.jpg
http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/2007/08/steve-levitts-correction-letter.html

Indeed, perhaps it’s all a string of unfortunate events, one after the next, creating greater and greater chaos until the original goal has vanished to the exigencies of the moment:

Look! The good Christians at Townhall are slagging on the poor again – just like Jesus used to do! Ah, I love this time of year, when all the Townhall columnists get together and retell their favorite Bible passages in their own, inimitable, Townhall fashion. It looks like Rebecca Hagelin is going to be first this year, with the heartwarming story about the miracle of the loaves and fishses. What a perfect choice to capture the true meaning of Christmas – charity and compassion for all of humanity. Let’s listen, shall we?

Read the rest of this entry »