‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard.
* Cite here.
Over at WizWank, Kim Priestap thinks she has a gotcha on two silly lieberals from Democratic Underground:
A DUer and his brother waterboarded each other to prove that it is torture. The first time, he lasted 9 seconds and he said it was terrifying. But then he went back three more times to see if he could last longer and longer. In his fourth final go around he lasted 20 seconds. His brother lasted even longer.
Do we really need to explain to this guy that waterboarding isn’t torture if he kept voluntarily going back for more for the purpose of challenging himself. Lordy, what an idiot.
Do we really need to explain to Kim that when people are waterboarded they don’t get to decide when to stop?
That is why reading Kim Priestap, painful though it may be, isn’t torture.
You can always stop.
On a recent drive across Nevada’s barren moonscape from Mesquite to Las Vegas, Mark Noonan lets his mind wander toward his two favorite subjects: Bible stories and topics on which he disagrees with college sophomores who smoke grass and pierce their noses:
We are, of course, endlessly reminded that we are to be good stewards of the environment – but what the environmentalists who harp upon this really mean is that we are to leave the environment alone as much as possible, unless what we are doing is restoring an environment to its pristine condition. That, my friends, isn’t being a good steward, but being a lazy servant.
Indeed, if a tree fell in a forest and no one could hear it, would it make anyone any money? Verily, no, I say unto you.
Whether one believes that we were created by God and given stewardship or that we were evolved randomly, the plain fact of the matter is that only humanity has the ability to intervene in the environment – to make it better, or worse or just leave it as is.
I’ll be generous here, in the interest of not listing every organism that exists from the lowliest honeybee to the mightiest kudzu vine, and presume that Noonan means that humanity is the only species which consciously makes an impact on its environment. (Less charitably, it’s entirely likely that Noonan simply believes decades worth of petroleum-industry-published pamphlets that imply that the environment is an animated rain forest found only in South America and some other faraway locales.)
It is that first part – making it better – that I believe we are failing in; we are not being good stewards, and we’re paying a price. We spent much time making it worse, we’ve now spent a lot of time trying to leave it alone, but what we have really failed to do is make it better.
I’ve spent a little bit of time in and around the brine-crusted, dried-up seabed that surrounds Las Vegas, where Noonan lives, and I suspect that unforgiving geography dotted with absurd, emerald-green golf oases is deeply relevant to his understanding of man’s relationship with nature.
If the environmentalists are right, then the best thing we can do for our yards is leave it alone – just let grow whatever happens to pop up and make no effort at controlling it. Would this really be better? To be sure, you might get a much larger number of individual plants growing in the yard, but would they be growing as best they possibly can? Of course not – we carefully plan what we want in the yard and then carefully nurture it to the best growth possible.
I’ll skip past the easily made comparison to some of Chance the Gardener‘s monologues and focus on the likelihood that Noonan once drew a paycheck as a landscaper — a perfectly honorable profession, to be sure, but once again relevant to our discussion.
What I think we need to do is fight forcefully against the basic environmentalist concept that the environment has intinsic value beyond that assigned by humanity. Created or evolved, the only species in this world which can actually make use of it is us; without us, its just a bunch of stuff serving no great purpose.
What might have been an interesting (and no doubt entertaining) philosophical discussion on the relationship between humans and their environment, if not our appreciation for what we describe as nature, is turned into an opportunity to complain about the special rights enjoyed by endangered species and hippies who don’t cut their lawns. And since I’ve spent the previous half-dozen paragraphs pawning off hastily considered comparisons as droll observations, I’ll mention that, as of this writing, the comments to the original Blogs For Bush post have veered offroad into a discussion of ATVs and birdwatching.
As always, it’s worth mentioning.
This post, from Small Wars Journal, is causing quite a stir among right-wing bloggers. A complete and unequivocal rejection of torture by a US Navy combat veteran and intelligence expert who once supervised a program that taught American troops how to resist waterboarding, it naturally must be disputed by our domestic no-hopers who have bought fully into the idea that we have the right — nay, the obligation — to use the rack and screw. But it’s proving harder than usual; they can’t just call this guy a traitorous terror-loving commie snake like they would a civilian or a Democrat. After all, this is a military man, a front-line terror warrior, a FOX News expert, for goodness’ sake.
Still, they’re trying (very trying). Some, indeed, are trying harder than others. Take famed right-wing milblogger Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive, for example; in his latest post on the virtues of a police state, he has this to say:
The activities of those operating on the dark side are undertaken in the dark for two reasons. First so no one can see what is happening, and second no one can see what is happening. The reason that character is so important in choosing a President is that the Commander in Chief powers are almost unchecked. If our national security depends on it the President can do pretty much whatever he deems necessary. This must be so and it we need to know our leader is capable of taking the often harsh actions needed to keep us safe. Anyone who advocates closing CIA’s rendition and “ghost” prisoner operations is too naive to serve as Commander in Chief even if they can get elected President.
Let’s recap that, for those of you who are slow readers: Uncle Jimbo is arguing here that anyone who does not advocate the use of torture and secret prisons should be disqualified from fulfilling the duties of the President.
Let’s recap it again, because probably a number of you have had your brains freeze up and may be in need of a quick jumpstart: what Uncle Jimbo is saying is that even if the American people were to elect someone who is, inexplicably, not in favor of torture and secret prisons, that someone should not be allowed to command our armed forces.
Let’s recap it one more time, because there is a slight possibility that it is insanely crazy and we might wish to put it in simple words so we can appreciate how crazy it is: The official position of Uncle Jimbo is that being an advocate of torture and secret prisons should be a requirement for being President.
President of America!
Gavin adds: Um, wait; I’m trying to puzzle this out. If someone not in favor of torture and secret prisons is elected President, but is perforce ‘unqualified’ to serve as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, then. . .um, what precisely are we talking about here?
Leonard responds: Well, Gavin, I’m not one to speak for the mentally ill fascist contingent, but perhaps what Uncle Jimbo is suggesting is that if we elect some insufficiently pro-torture weak sister, they should be allowed to be President and do, you know, presidential stuff, like lowering taxes and making sure homos can’t get married, but they shouldn’t be allowed to be Commander-in-Chief and boss around the military. That job, I assume, would fall to a more qualified imperator like…oh, I don’t know, what’s Bill Boykin up to these days?
There will never be a comprehensive explanation for the reasons behind the wingnuts’ hate of Hillary Clinton. In this corner, Henry Mark Holzer:
Hillary Clinton: Immoral or Amoral?
Come back in the next few weeks as Holzer poses the following questions:
Those who have been here before won’t be surprised to know the time has come for you to ask your version of a Holzer question.
Nazis? By Their Fruits We Shall Know them…….And so we know them
Above: False Soros-Nazi allegations are like so totally five minutes ago
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard.
The really good stuff comes at the end.
Chuckles Johnson at LGF, now something of an icon of sanity in the kill-the-Muslims community, is testy at some more of his comrades who are deciding to embrace actual Nazism:
BNP Leader Invited to MSU by ‘Conservative’ Students
Sat, Oct 27, 2007 at 4:15:20 pm PSTIn the boneheaded move of the year, conservative student group Young Americans for Freedom invited British National Party (BNP) leader Nick Griffin, a flat-out racist and Holocaust denier, to speak about the dangers of Islam at Michigan State University: Protesters shout down anti-Islam speaker at MSU.
It’s not clear from the article whether this was part of Islamofascism Awareness Week or not, but if it was, the Young Americans for Freedom have just handed the enemy a huge gift on a platter, tied up with a lovely white supremacist bow.
It’s typical of Johnson that ‘handing the enemy a huge gift’ is the problem he’s most concerned about. In fact, a greater problem is that David Horowitz, the organizer of ‘Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,’ once again has a lot of explaining to do. A press release went out on October 22nd adding a number of pre-existing speaking events to ‘Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,’ and claiming joint sponsorship for the program between Horowitz and the Young America’s Foundation, an organization that books conservative speakers on college campuses. While this event wasn’t listed, the Young America’s Foundation, funnily enough, is the front office of the Young Americans For Freedom — a phony-nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization that uses the Young Americans for Freedom as its activist, 501(c)(4) bête noir.
Above: Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week Press Release
Here’s YAF’s Michigan State chapter president Kyle Bristow at a past event with David Horowitz:
Here’s Kyle Bristow with BNP chairman Nick Griffin:
How crazy are these people? Stare in awe at Bristow’s rejoinder to Charles:
MSU-YAF Denounces Little Green Footballs for Being Prissy RINOs
The Little Green Footballs blog decided to condemn MSU-YAF for hosting Nick Griffin. In case you do not read Little Green Footballs, the blog is pro-Muslim, left-wing, politically correct, and basically a front for neoconservative foreign policy (instead of defending their culture, they want to build schools in the Anbar province). They are basically a puppet of the multiculturalists and believe that Islam is not the enemy of Western civilization and Christendom. Only Bush-bots read the Little Green Footballs blog.
Instead of writing about threats to Western civilization, the LGF blog has recently attacked organizations who are fighting the culture war by doing more than just posting stuff on a blog that only like-minded people read.
Many of the comments on the LGF blog are critical of Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul, and paleoconservatism. If you are not a big government, globalist, middle-class-hating, promoter of economic treason, then LGF doesn’t like you.
LGF and Al Qaeda both have something in common: they hate Western civilization and those who stand up for it.
Wow. Just wow.
Because of course the biggest problem of all is, okay, pass the popcorn, but as has been noted, there’s not enough popcorn even on Popcornooine IV, third planet in the Popcornelgeuse System, primary supplier of popcorn to the Popcornhead Nebula quadrant of the Popcorn Way Galaxy….
[Hanx! TomMil]
Update: Horowitz and Bristow reply, each accusing everybody but himself of hatred and fascism.
Above: Bradrocket
ABOVE: Charles Johnson peers out anxiously from his front yard.
SNN NIGHTLY NEWS REPORT
Aired October 26, 2007 – 08:32 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
Clif: Good afternoon. This is Clif, reporting for SNN. We’re here at a Starbucks in in Los Angeles with Charles Johnson. Johnson has generously left his fortified bunker in an undisclosed location in the LA area to do an exclusive interview with us.
Thanks for agreeing to chat with us, Charles. Just a moment ago you ordered a mocha frappacino grande. Does it bother you to drink something with an Italian name given the failure of Italy to address the swarming-Muslim-horde issue in Florence and other Italian cities?
Charles: That’s Italian? Shit, I was positive it was Spanish.
Clif: Before we get to your well-publicized feud with Pamela Geller Oshry, I’d like to ask you about your career as a guitarist. Why did you give up that career to become a blogger?
Charles: 9/11, of course, changed everything. Afterwards, the fear that an Islamofascist would kidnap me, rape me and cut off my johnson was overwhelming. My hands were trembling all the time. Have you ever tried to play the guitar when you were pissing your jeans and your hands were trembling faster than Pammie’s personal vibrator?
Clif: Well, it seems that 9/11 has had the opposite effect on Pam. She has just launched her own music career with a music video entitled “My Sharia.” Let’s take a look:
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
Charles: I don’t know what’s worse, her singing or her blogging. I’d sooner listen to an imam chanting the Koran through his nose than listen to that again.
Clif: Perhaps you can explain to our viewers what happened between you and Pamela to cause your previously cordial relationship to break into a public cage match.
Charles: It started when Ms. Fancythong went gallivanting off to Europe to meet with a bunch of former Nazi collaborators about all those jihadis in Europe. Now she thinks that she knows more about sending these towel-headed Allah-worshiping camel-jockeys back to their dung heaps than I do.
Clif: Are you concerned that things might escalate beyond a blog war and a taunting music video war? After all, not too long ago, a salesman was shot dead at the car dealership owned by Pam and her husband. I should add that no charges have been brought in the shooting.
Charles: That doesn’t scare me one bit. Every day I am personally the target of the vast Islamofascist conspiracy that wants to silence me. Just by coming here, I’m risking my life. Every trip to the In-N-Out Burger could be my last.
Clif: Last week, in what appeared to be an effort at rapprochement, Pam apologized for calling you a tool of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. She did, however, stick by her position that you are an idiot.
Charles: What she says bounces off me and sticks to her.
Clif: Are you going to redirect her links to LGF to your “You Are A Idiot” page, the way you do to links from Sadly, No!?
Charles: I don’t do that.
Clif: Thanks, Charles. S,N!, back to you at SNN studios.