Sadly, No!

The penalty for public displays of affection
By Michelle Malkin · April 16, 2007 11:13 AM

Last week, Pakistan’s Minister of Tourism got in trouble for hugging a “foreign man” (her skydiving coach). She faces fatwas and calls for her dismissal.

Guess Richard Gere must have missed those stories, because now he’s in hot water for his PDAs with Indian actress Shilpa Shetty.

Actor Richard Gere has sparked protests in India after kissing Celebrity Big Brother winner Shilpa Shetty at an Aids awareness rally in New Delhi.

Demonstrators in Mumbai (Bombay) set light to effigies of the Hollywood star, while protesters in other cities shouted “death to Shilpa Shetty”.

The protesters said Gere insulted Indian culture by kissing the hand and face of the Bollywood actress.

Next time, do your homework, Dick. Over there, your lips could cost you your head.

Yeah, Dick.

Above: Tonight, hundreds of pale, mulleted Malkin devotees will set light
to effigies of Bryan Preston

John Hawkins of Right Wing News (and Townhall, and Conservative Grapevine, and the Duncan Hunter campaign, and who knows where else this bright and peripatetic young man will surface?) helps set the record straight on the war in Iraq.

Above: “Almost there…”

The I “Changed My Mind About The War” Crowd

I can understand being for or against the war in Iraq from the beginning, but the people who have changed their minds since the start of the war have gotten entirely too much of a free pass for their wishy-washiness.

Now, the average person? They may not be familiar with history, but any politician, columnist, or blogger should know that it’s not the least bit unusual for wars to be much longer and considerably more difficult than anticipated.

So while few people anticipated the length and number of soldiers killed in action that we’ve had in this war, any informed person should have known going in that it was possible that we’d lose north of 3,000 soldiers and could be there on the ground, in numbers, for more than four years. In fact, going in, some people predicted that we could lose 10,000 soldiers in the initial fight against the Iraqi military.

Meanwhile, in an alternate dimension that some know as March 27th, 2003, John Hawkins helps set the record straight on the war in Iraq:

The Length Of The War, Civilian Casualties, & How The Useful Idiots Unwittingly Help Saddam:

[…]

Before this war started, the most optimistic estimates I heard suggested that it would take about three weeks for us to win the war. But, most “experts” were saying that it should be over in “weeks” as opposed to months. That means even if everything goes as expected (which is never a given), we may very well have another six weeks to go.

Bonus Hawkins, from three days earlier:

[C]an I just suggest a little self-imposed rule for the left-wing media out there? Could you wait, oh let’s say at least six months before you start shouting, “Vietnam! It’s another Vietnam! Quagmire! Did you hear what I said? It’s a Quuuaaaaggmmiiirreee!!”

The Right Wing News archives are indeed the greatest forgotten trove of comedy since they found all those lost Honeymooners episodes. You wouldn’t believe what’s in there.

Update: Extra Bonus Hawkins, from the same day as the first quote:

I mean when (not if) we find large caches of WMD, that’s going to be very embarrassing for a lot of people who have spent the last year saying there was “no proof” that Saddam had them. And what about all the people who said “inspections can work”? They’re going to look foolish as well when we find WMD all over Iraq while the inspectors found nothing.

[whistling tunelessly, kicking a pebble]

Over at Dr. Atrios’ place, Thers discusses why lefty blogs love to pile on and make fun of people like Jonah Goldberg:

If the question is, “how come the left blogosphere is so reflexively derisive whenever they encounter an argument from people like Goldberg and [Clifford] May,” I think that May actually puts his finger on exactly why this is so:

It’s because so many conservatives want to argue things like global warming is fake and that there were significant ties between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

These aren’t arguments: they’re conspiracy theories (as is another foundational conservative myth, that the media has a partisan liberal bias). They have the same basis in fact as the notion that “9/11 was an inside job.” And so, consequently, such “arguments” are treated as conspiracy theories deserve to be treated: with derision and scorn.

In response, Jonah insists that he isn’t crazy and that he deserves to be Taken Seriously:

I don’t think I’ve ever said there was a connection between Saddam and al Qaeda — even when I suspected their might be one, I don’t think I ever wrote it. And I’ve never said that global warming is fake. I’ve said that the alarmism is over done, a view that is hardly unique to conservatives.

Jonah, let me remind you that this is the cover of the book that you’re allegedly writing:

If the cover of this book is any indication, you are arguing that fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was actually a liberal, and that Hillary Clinton is his natural ideological successor.

Read the rest of this entry »

• A song about eels in which each measure ends, ‘That’s a Moray!’
• A long story about a famous dish in Rockland County, NY, which is identified at the end as ‘Suffern succotash.’
• Something about a sign in a chiropractor’s office reading ‘No backs, double tax.’
• A restaurant like Kenny Rogers Roasters called ‘Jimmy Buffet.’
• Letters columns in magazines:
  
  1) Lyme Disease Society Newsletter: ‘Tick Talk’

  2) Something involving professional familiarity with excrement: ‘Shit Chat’

  3) ?

• Something about a physician named U.B. Illin.
• Something about, you go into a Greek tailor shop to get your pants fixed, and the clerk says, “Euripides?”
• Something like, ‘A priest walks into a bar. [clanging sound] Ow!’
• Something about Nazi peer pressure, with the punchline: ‘We have ways of making you toke.’
• Something about the whole comédie humaine being a pain in the Balzac.

Shorter Martin of Solomonia

Anti-Semitism Lives Among Academics

• As this editorial shows, critics of my work in eradicating the International Muslim Bacillus are secretly Nazis.

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

Kevin Drum writes:

THE LORD’S WORK?….You know, I sort of admire the way Matt Yglesias continues to take on Charles Krauthammer and Brad DeLong continues to take on Donald Luskin — though I think Brad may have cried uncle on the Luskin thing a while back — but at some point you have to wonder if we’re endangering our national resources by allowing this to go on. Surely every moment spent reacting to the increasingly feverish drivel from people like this reduces your IQ by some fracton of a point? And fractions add up. How long before Matt and Brad, Flowers for Algernon-like, end up behind the business end of a mop in an industrial bakery?

You’re kidding, right? What do you think happens to us after we get done with writing a post about Mark Noonan, huh?

Actually, wait. You just don’t want to know.

Travis adds: Whenever I eat a slice of cobbler or munch on some leftover chicken tikka saag while I’m doing the Two-Minute Townhall, I often catch myself holding the fork in midair as I stare longingly at the overloaded surge protector over by the leaky piranha tank.

And I’m nowhere near as smart as those two, so consider this a cautionary tale!

Knock-knock. Who is it? It’s-the-plumber-I’ve-come-to-fix-the-sink.

Actually it’s the opposite: It’s Blogs For Bush again, coming to clog up the drain.

Hey, Lefties, Let’s Make a Deal
By Mark Noonan

You know, I sometimes get the feeling that Mark writes these bizarre ‘Hey, Lefties’ statements purely to make our lives easier when we haven’t ridiculed him for a couple of days. Let’s act dumb and play along.

I’ll trade you universal health care in return for a ban on abortion.

What say you to that?

Duh, I don’t know. Health care sounds good and all, but without abortion, America would have a huge number of kids out of wedlock. And aren’t conservatives really mad about that too?

Hey, here’s a deal. If you give us universal health care, we’ll make sure it includes universal free advanced contraception, and therefore fewer unwanted pregnancies. Woo woo! Sexy consequence-free party time!

He’s glaring. What?

…Sa-ay, it’s almost as though conservatives talk about abortion, but actually have some kind of comprehensive anti-sex agenda. Wait, Mark’s about to say something:
Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the latest from Richard Miniter, author of ‘Shadow War: The Untold Story of How Bush Is Winning the War on Terror,’ and Pajamas Media’s Washington Editor:

Above: Miniter

John McCain, Statesman

Senator John McCain writes about his recent trip to Iraq in the Washington Post—and is greeted by crickets.

McCain is actually acting like a statesman. He deserves to be commended, not ignored. His willingness to take on the congressional and media consensus shows guts and reveals character.

He was critical of the implementation of the war earlier and, based on direct experience there, now sees reasons for cautious optimism. When the facts change, he changes his mind.

Now let’s see if the media have the same ability.

Actually no, here’s the very latest that just came in from Richard Miniter:

Breaking: Present At The Bombing

Richard Miniter, PJM Washington editor, was at the Iraqi parliament in Baghdad when it was bombed this morning killing 8 and injuring over 20.

In this exclusive report he describes the carnage, the aftermath, and what led up to it, including the fact that two suicide vests were discovered inside the Green Zone on April 1, with a resulting, if unsuccessful, search for others.

We don’t want to be all life-lesson with Mr. Miniter here, but the discovery of suicide vests inside the Green Zone on the very day of McCain’s famous market stroll is what you’d ordinarily call ‘a clue.’ Specifically, to Miniter, it ought to have been a far-advanced, way-down-the-line, gratuitously Providential i-dotting and t-crossing clue, furnished as though by a lovingly watchful God, that the days of pumping positive stories from Baghdad while archly baiting the working media are the stuff of dream-clover and memory for right-wing journalists at this particular point in history.

It must’ve been nice while it lasted, but those who stick with the program risk ending up like Jules Crittenden, who will one day be allowed out of his cell only for de-lousing and dental visits. Even Michelle Malkin, the most persistent of all badgery-creatures, has stopped talking about Iraq, and now focuses wisely on attacking war critics and ethnic minorities.

Apparently, though, the lesson wasn’t enough, because it took a bomb actually blowing the hell up in his very presence to turn the flummoxically self-serious Miniter into an Iraq-security skeptic.

U.S. military personnel filled in additional details. The American soldiers asked not to be cited by name, because they are not authorized to give statements to the press. Two suicide vests were discovered inside the Green Zone on April 1, setting off a massive search for additional bombs, I was told. It is possible, a corporal said, that the vests were smuggled in weeks earlier and the bomber was told where to find the hidden cache.

Ooh, ooh, is one of the unidentified soldiers U.S. military spokesman Rear Admiral Mark Fox? Because this story is from twelve days ago.

No one here has any confidence in Iraqi security, which is responsible for maintaining security around the convention center.

[…]

It is unlikely that the bomber acted alone. He would need help to penetrate several layers of security to get inside the Green Zone. The question that hung in the air: Was his accomplice among the sweating suits being escorted out or was he one of the guards?

“He would of been a good man,” some wag might one day say of Miniter, “If it had been somebody there to blow something up in front of him every minute of his life.”

Is it just us, or are the wingnuts devolving into a sort of pre-toddler ontological state, in which an unpleasant stimulus simply makes them go Blaa! and lash out, and a pleasant one makes them go Whee! and clap their hands?

Democrats invite Muslim Brotherhood leader to speak to Congress

Maybe he’ll perform live genital mutilation surgery on Nancy Pelosi and several of her female grandchildren… Sorry to be gross, but we are doomed with “leadership” like this…It is getting very hard to take. hat tip Andrew Bostom

Democrats invite Muslim Brotherhood leader to speak to Congress Jihadwatch

A new apex of cluelessness (if the story is accurate). Would they have invited Hitler to address Congress in 1942?

One hour earlier:

A 3rd Wife? OFF WITH YOUR NOSE!

Love this story. In a word? Toosh.

Two Muslim wives rip husband’s nose off Right Truth via Myrtus hat tip Yidw/lid

A Saudi man lost part of his nose in a heated argument with his two wives because he threatened to marry a third woman, Shams newspaper reported on Tuesday.

YAY! I would have ripped a different appendage off but hey that’s just me

When Walt Whitman wrote the line, “I contain multitudes,” this wasn’t quite what he meant.

Although, to be rigorous about it, he didn’t mean Stoli Appletinis either.

Oh dear, this is still going on:

The Left/Anti-Semite Alliance/Overlap

An interesting look into the overlap in the rhetoric between old-fashioned right-wing anti-Semites and the radical Left at Zombietime: Racist Literature Distributed in Berkeley. It all goes far beyond a few posts at Democratic Underground.

Actually, it is interesting: Here you have a political splinter group that’s been howling for years for a global ethnic-cleansing war to eradicate the bacillus of the International Muslim (under the Iron Boot of History!) — and for some reason, they find it fascinating to run around peace demonstrations ‘exposing’ fringe characters and random anti-Israel signs, and to scour lefty blogs for insufficient piety against fascist imagery.

• Michelle Malkin cuts in line at the supermarket: “A new outrage! Unhinged moonbats are cutting in front of people at the supermarket. ***UPDATE*** Insane leftist wackos are paying by check. Uh, the wine is separate.”
• Chazmo Johnson bangs his thumb with a hammer: “Ow! The shocking and nauseating spectacle of the Left banging its thumb with a hammer proves that the… [bang!] Ow! I have never seen such a sickening display of…”
• Solomon of Solomonia, eating a plate of eggs: “A Jew-hating Muslim is eating eggs.”
• Dafydd ab Hugh masturbates to Hentai while eating Bac-Os: “The Left is weak and would perforce sell all dignity for the comfort of the moment.”
• Michael Ledeen answers the phone: “Nuke Iran now, I mean hello? Yes, a nuclear Iran is a terrible threat to regional stability. Sure thing, Mr. Khan, talk to you later.”
• Dan Riehl, whistling to an Anne Murray song on the radio, rear-ends another car: “You shameless dirty scumbag with no honor, you’ll pay for rear…back…front-ending me with your going-backwards treasonous leftist claptrap garbage!” [speeds away from the scene]
• Jules Crittenden shoplifts a Snickers bar: “As the rosy fingers of dawn spread over the bivouac, the thrill of war once again overtook the senses of a journalist, a patriot — a soldier-journalist-patriot, eager for whatever fate should. . .Oh my God, we must vanquish the dusky-headed wogs before they steal this Snickers bar!”
• Allahpundit walks into a light pole: “Fuck Mo-ham-med, fuck Mo-ham-med, fuck Mo… [clong!] Ow! Jesus Christ!” [looks around, sees a priest is watching] “I condemn disrespect for religion!” [runs away]
• Glenn Reynolds is approached by a Nazi, Charles Johnson, two Minutemen, and Eric Rudolph: “Excuse us, sir. Can you tell us where to find a container of gasoline?” [Reynolds points]