Sadly, No!

A Labor victory means that John Howard is finally out.

BRISBANE (Reuters) – Australia’s Labor leader Kevin Rudd, a Mandarin speaking former diplomat, swept into power at national elections on Saturday on a wave of support for generational change, ending 11 years of conservative rule.

“Today Australia has looked to the future,” Rudd, flanked by his wife Therese and family, told jubilant supporters. “I will be a prime minister for all Australians.”

The surge to Labor left conservative Prime Minister John Howard struggling to win even his own parliamentary seat, which he has held since 1974, putting him in danger of becoming the first prime minister since 1929 to lose his constituency.

Rudd, 50, presented himself as a new generation leader by promising to pull Australian combat troops out of Iraq and sign the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, further isolating Washington on both issues.

Just out of curiosity, has supporting George W. Bush done much to help the political career of any non-American politician?

Wait… I forgot Poland!

Then again, perhaps not.

ABOVE: Family Guy Rick Moran

Let’s Hear It for the Pilgrims

• People should stop blaming the Europeans for slaughtering Native Americans; if the Europeans hadn’t done it, a bunch of “rapacious yellow men” from China would have done it instead.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard.

Each year there comes a time to give thanks for the blessings we have received, and also to roast a big turkey. We’ll think about the ‘blessings’ part later, I guess, because here comes a column from our pal, Pastor Swank:

Above: Swank thanks God for the corn he found lying around

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PILGRIMS, THANKSGIVING AND GOD
J. Grant Swank, Jr.

The Pilgrims had a spiritual impetus to what they did, where they went, and what they thought. It was not a political agenda that governed their futures. It was belief in God and His guidance that would propel them and their future generations into what God had planned for the new country.

Or, as Garrison Keillor famously noted of his Puritan ancestors, they wished to practice greater religious intolerance than was currently allowed under English law — much like Swank today. And they couldn’t hack it in the Netherlands, and wanted to go to Guiana instead, but God guided them to Provincetown. Except it was apparently too gay for them even in the 17th Century, so they ended up in Plymouth. God then killed half of them.

However, previous white visitors to the area had given them a great material advantage by spreading smallpox, which wiped out 90% of the native population in the Massachusetts Bay area in the years immediately before they arrived.

And basically, hang a few Quakers, fast forward to today, and here we are! It’s indeed wondrous what faith can accomplish.

With the Pilgrims, there was a conviction that they were to separate themselves unto the holiness of God. They took seriously the admonition of the apostle Paul in II Corinthians: “Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord.”

It’s a little surprising that Swank would be encouraging anyone to ‘come out,’ but let’s keep our momentum up here.

…No wait, hang on. Aside from having it in for many common denominations of Christianity, doesn’t he believe that Mormons are literally communing with Satan? So much for the separatist message of II Corinthians, unless you wear a charming hat with a buckle on it and chase turkeys with a blunderbuss.

William Bradford set forth the mindset of the Pilgrims when he said they had “great hope, for the propagating and advancing the gospell of the kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world.”

First Cannibal: “I just don’t like that new pastor.”
Second Cannibal: “Meshugeh! So try the brisket!”

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Since his churches seem to keep getting infested with demons, maybe we should start a fund to send Pastor Swank to a remote part of the world to propagate and advance the gospel.

In other words, the Pilgrims were on a divine mission. It was not egocentric. It was God ordained. They were to answer to God in their daily lives. They were going to answer to God for what they did with their new land. In that new geography they would have the chance to give forth the gospel — the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ.

It seems we’ve heard this sort of thing before, but it certainly sounds like a winning plan. Amidst his other obligations in remote parts of the world, maybe we can find some time to send Swank to Iraq to rewrite the Koran.

There are those in present-day textbook writing who would never include that fact in the pages read by today’s pupils.

There honestly isn’t much space with all the anal sex step-by-steps and instructions on how to black-magically summon the howling shades of Lenin and Darwin. Today’s kids demand practical learning.

However, it is history. Therefore, there are those intent on putting back into the public schools’ texts that spiritual truth about America’s start. That will include such statements as William Bradford.

Or statements such as William Bradford’s (possessive case), which actually goes like this: “A great hope and inward zeal they had of laying some good foundation, or at least to make some way thereunto, for the propagating and advancing the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world; yea, though they should be but even as stepping-stones unto others for the performing of so great a work.” It comes just after the part where he explains that the Pilgrims decided to leave the Netherlands because some of their kids had turned into drunks, and others (not much better) had become soldiers and sailors.

See? We’re helping.

[…]

So when a passenger aboard ship was saved from drowning, those watching on regarded it as the Lord’s deliverance. When Puritans came upon corn to eat, it was providential.

Hey, who left all this corn lying around in this bark house with these human skeletons in it?

[…]

Today’s America is in need of a spiritual reawakening. It may come upon just that as the righteous remnant remains faithful in prayer and thanksgiving.

Considering how relatively lucid and non-ravening this Thanksgiving column was in comparison to Swank’s yearly (and sometimes hourly) ouvre, we can only imagine that this ‘reawakening’ came in the form of a turkey stuffed with Vicodin. More like this, please!

As always at this time of year, as always, I am thankful for you, dear readers, you gorgeous intelligent sexy creatures you. But this is also the time of year that the conservative talking heads who spend the other 364 calendar days being horrible to people put on a noble face and talk about kindness and decency and concern for their fellow man and all that other stuff they usually hate. So I’m thankful that they’re really, really bad at it.

Above: turkey right wing; below: right-wing turkeys.

Over at Butt Propulsion Laboratories, Scott Johnson informs us of the horrifying story of an evil SOMALI immigrant (named Ibrahim!) who raped a woman while ten of his SOMALI neighbors looked on and did nothing. I’m thankful that white people would never be so cruel!

Meanwhile, failed raisin farmer Victor Davis Hanson wonders: “Why this abrupt amnesia about Iraq, given a radical drop in American casualties?” I’m thankful for this sort of top-shelf reporting!

Cutey-pie Randroid Sequoia Megan McArdle would like to know “why both the third world countries I just visited offered excellent airport baggage service, while JFK took over an hour to offload my bag“. I, too, am thankful that the impoverished darkies of other lands are still properly deferential servants, at a time when our own domestic coloreds are all too often overpaid and cheeky!

The tragic story of an Iraq war vet who lost his three children in a car crash inspires naughty girl Michelle Malkin to some lofty thoughts about gratitude and perspective. I’m thankful that Michelle feels so deeply for the victims of automobile accidents, unless they have the bad taste to survive the crash and require medical attention!

At the always-reliable Corner, the Human Steyn takes a break from arguing with the Doughy Pantload over whether that horrible crazy rap music is the worst thing that has ever happened or merely terrible to praise Australian PM John Howard, whose loyalty to America has stood in marked contrast to that of the hated French. I, too, am thankful for friends who stand by me not just when I have been attacked and am in need, but when I do a bunch of crazy shit that endangers me and everyone around me!

And finally, at Clown Hall, Larry Elder claims that health care for the poor wouldn’t be a problem if only there weren’t so many senseless big-government restrictions on who can and can’t practice medicine. I’m thankful that I live in a country that so values free enterprise that I can look forward to the day when poor people who can’t afford to see an MD will be able to get cut-rate health care from their local herbalist, liquor store clerk, or guy who was once issued a first aid kit by the Naval Reserve. HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYBODY!

Dr. Atrios posts this 1994 transcript from PBS’ News Hour of several polite and serious people politely and seriously debating whether black people are born stupider than us whiteys. This graf in particular tells you everything you need to know about Mr. Murray’s “thesis”:

MR. MAC NEIL: Given The Bell Curve’s thesis that intelligence, in large part, is something one is born with and can’t be changed, Murray and Herrnstein argue that the current anti-poverty programs such as “Head Start” and affirmative action are ineffectual and a waste of money.

In other words: “No more money for stupid and hopeless niggers!! Spend it on no-bid contracts for my corporate masters instead!!!”

Certain ideas do not deserve to be “debated” by civilized people. The idea that black people are inherently stupid and that we should stop investing in early-childhood education for poor black kids is assuredly one of them. Civilized people shouldn’t respond to this idea by saying “I am told by people whom I admire that Charles Murray is a reputable scientist.” Civilized people should respond by saying, “UP YOURS ASSHOLE!!” Because anything less than that simply gives these people far too much credibility.

ABOVE: Jill Stanek, separated at birth from Chicken
Little?

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Woohoo! Wingnut Daily has a heart-warming Thanksgiving treat for everyone: Nurse Jill Stanek tells us we’re all gonna die. Real soon. She can hardly sleep. And it’s because of abortions. So, take it away, Jill:

At this risk of sounding like a crazy person, I am driven to say I believe a civilizational collapse is near. Worse, I think it is too late to reverse.

It’s not a risk, Jill. It’s a fact. You do sound like a crazy person.

But when you explain why you think a “civilizational collapse” is imminent, you won’t sound like a crazy person anymore — no, hon, you’ll sound like a full-throttle, half-naked, slobbering, howling at the moon, delirious nutcase in need of a horse-syringe full of thorazine.

A report the United Nations Population Fund released three weeks ago on what it calls “the masculinization of Asia” has me so distraught I can’t keep my affect flat. … This all comes thanks to population control pressures, sometimes forced such as in China with its one-child per family policy and Vietnam with its two-child per family policy, coupled with technology that enables those prejudiced against females to hunt them down before birth and abort them.

Well that clearly sucks if you’re Chinese (except maybe for teh gay Chinese), but it’s not likely to cause the collapse of the United States. Or is it?

I’ve said before the growing Chinese gender gap is perfectly suited to grow a Chinese military full of volatile men who will never marry, hyper-testosteroned, with no place to put it but behind a bullet. China already has the world’s largest military at 2.25 million. Recently came news China will have the world’s largest navy by 2020.

Holy Peking Duck! That must mean that the the entire (and extremely horny) Chinese Navy will sail over here, overrun our borders, invade our homes, steal our women and take them back to China. Actually, I think what it means is that Nurse Stanek never got over a viewing, at an impressionable age, of this movie:

I swear the world has gone so mad the end must be near.

Save your souls while there is time.

I feel like Noah.

Poor Nurse Jill. Instead of sitting down today to some turkey and stuffing, the poor woman will be out in her backyard, building a large boat and wondering whether she can take all 52 of her cats on board or only 2.

Kathleen Parker rided on a plane with the preznit:

What does George W. Bush see when he looks out that window? A big picture and a time in a distant future.

Or days-old devastation wrought by nature, made worse by inaction.

ABOVE: President George W. Bush looks out over the devastation in New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina as he heads back to Washington D.C. Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2005, aboard Air Force One.

Or perhaps the president looks out the window and daydreams of himself, arm wrestling Jesus and sometimes letting him win, in the manner of cool older brothers.

I suggested to him that he has acquired a sense of time shared by our enemies. Radical Islamists have said that Americans have watches, but that true believers have time. To successfully defeat such an enemy, one needs to think as the enemy does, to see time from the perspective of real stars rather than rising political ones.

Is this some sort of fancy way of excusing torture?

That’s a tough concept for a drive-thru nation accustomed to insta-everything and gratification at the tap of a button. Five years at war in Iraq is an eternity for impatient Americans, but it’s a blink of a camel’s eye if you’re set on destroying the Great Satan.

Therein lies the peril of selling a permanent occupation as a cakewalk.

Bush has learned to watch the camel.

Do what now? Is this anything like walking the dinosaur?

I asked the president if, when he lay his weary head down to bed each night, he heard our prayers.

Oops. I made that one up myself. Parker’s actual question follows:

I asked the president if he found comfort in the possibility that, assuming democracy ultimately flourishes in the Middle East, history will vindicate him.

I’ll pinky-betcha the preznit says no.

No, he said. Bush finds comfort in knowing that he didn’t betray principle for popularity, that “I didn’t sacrifice my soul for politics.”

Of course not. That’s what soldiers are for!

Leonard adds:

Gotta love the total lack of awareness in this paragraph:

To his critics, this may seem like denial and stubbornness — “the Decider” sticks to script even when circumstances change. But, as Bush pointed out, “this notion of stubbornness is based upon the criticism of people who didn’t agree with the initial decision to begin with.”

“Sure, there are people who think I’m wrong now,” the President said, “but you can’t trust them, because they thought I was wrong before! Which is it, guys? Get your stories straight! Sheesh!”

Tom DeLay is dishin‘:

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay may not be in a leadership position on Capitol Hill anymore, but that doesn’t mean he can’t weigh in on the current GOP leadership.

DeLay told Yeas & Nays that Republicans in Congress are “looking for something to believe in” and “they’re not getting it out of this Republican leadership. … The leadership just isn’t getting it.”

“They’re looking for some backbone,” said DeLay, who also chimed in on the 2008 election. He said the Republican party is “going to get our clocks cleaned in 2008” and unequivocally said that “Hillary [Clinton] will be the next president.” Which ought to give DeLay’s newest projects, the Coalition for a Conservative Majority and a consulting firm called First Principles, LLC, plenty to do.

It’s always about the wingnut welfare for ol’ Tom. And hey, isn’t he supposed to be in jail by now?

The real jewel, though, comes later in the piece:

But, lest you think that The Hammer is about to start playing for the other team, he did poke fun at New York Times columnist — and favorite conservative punching bag — Paul Krugman: “I’d like to bitch-slap him.”

Civility! I guess bitch-slapping is part of the Biblical worldview Tom pledged to support when he got into gubmint!

Cap’n Ed: “Ahoy, matey, I’ll be the finest corporate
wench the likes of which ye have never seen…”

Fact-Finding Trip Disclosure

• The best part about being a conservative blogger is that the oil industry gives me free trips in exchange for being their cheerful propagandist.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard.

This sentence written by David Limbaugh might be the most explicitly fascist thing I’ve ever read at Townhall:

I dare say the overwhelming majority of Americans would think that such demonstrations of support for America should be instinctive, uncontroversial and unquestionable.

This is like a 23-word distillation of everything Dave Neiwert has been darkly warning about for the last couple of years.

Above: A patriotic display

The lesser Limbaugh wraps things up with this clumsy stab (!) at dolchstoss-mongering:

If they’re not afraid to target the Boy Scouts and our brave soldiers, apple pie better be keeping a sharp eye.

Um, isn’t apple pie meant to be cut up into pieces and eaten?