Sadly, No!

Some staff attorney from the Alliance Defense Fund has raised the grim specter of religious oppression over at Townhall. In a nutshell, a federal lawsuit was filed last month by the mother of a 10-year-old boy who doesn’t celebrate Halloween for religious reasons but tried to take part in holiday activities by dressing up as Jesus Christ:

But the idea went over like a vampire at a blood bank. The boy’s principal decreed that his costume violated the school’s unwritten religion policy, and that he should exchange his outfit for something more seemly.

Like what?

Like, maybe a Roman emperor, a teacher said.

A vampire at a blood bank? That actually seems like a pretty perfect match, even better than that time I toured the Heineken brewery and took part in an hour-long free-beer drinking contest with some zany French-Canadians. That was fun. Instead, I’d maybe suggest a simile about a vampire at a tanning salon. That wouldn’t work out well at all.

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Turning from the ‘fat joke = ultimate moral crime’ brigade to my Left toward the ‘anti-free trade = ultimate moral crime’ brigade far, far to my Right:

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“Brrring! Brrring!”

S,N!: Hello? We’re looking for the Worst. Perfessor. EVAR!!

WPE: ‘Allo? Oh, sorry. He doezhn’t live here anymore!

S,N!: Damn. Well, see, we need an umpire over at this thread, which is, like, totally out of control now.

WPE: [Looking] Merde! Er, I mean, zhat isz too bad, no? But zee Professor, he is not here. He isz gone.

S,N!: [Slumps] But we really need him to explain some things to us. Not that we’re assholes — we already knew that — but that there is indeed a distinction between civility and decency, is there not? Wasn’t it a Frenchman who said all humor is based on cruelty? But then again isn’t the cruelty in humor a matter of incivility as opposed to indecency? Doesn’t it matter to whom, and why, the punchline is directed? Finally, why on fucking earth do some people feel that ‘telling’ two — TWO! — fat jokes, evar, is, in moral egregiousness, similar, comparable to, or even worse than the advocation of genocidal policies and torture? Whyyyyyyyy?!?! We are at our wit’s end about this. Comment?

WPE: [????]

Gavin adds: I just rescued a bunch of comments from Ye Olde Filtre of Spamme. How did that happen? I don’t know! I’ll check it periodically to make sure nothing languishes in there.

My new work schedule has kept me away from my old friends at Townhall, but a quick visit today reminded me of why we used to hang out in the first place:

Why liberals are right to hate the Ten Commandments
by Michael Medved

Ah, it’s like I never was away.

The left’s fiery obsession with removing Ten Commandments monuments from public property throughout the United States may seem odd and irrational but actually reflects the deepest values of contemporary liberalism.

Those last five words are bracketed by air quotes.

Even for militant separationists like the ACLU, this ferocious hostility to innocuous and generally uncontroversial monuments looks excessive, even self-destructive. The overwhelming majority of Americans instinctively accept the Commandments as a timeless, cherished summary of universal moral precepts. A closer look at the specifics of the Decalogue, however, suggests that it makes good sense for leftists to hate The Big Ten: each one of the commandments contradicts a different pillar of trendy liberal thinking.

This paragraph is packed so densely with stupidity and emotionally charged words that I’m afraid to unpack it for fear that it will pop open like those novelty snake nut cans and I’ll never stuff it all back inside. (However, I will call your attention to the singular “pillar” in that last sentence, which is nagging me like a boner in math class.)

Above: Much closer in form to my own idea of an innocuous, generally uncontroversial monument

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Crooks & Liars covers the conservative outrage™ over Al Gore’s use of electricity, and brings up a startling question.

Do you suppose that they are equally up in arms by the fact that taxpayers are paying Dick Cheney’s electric bill at the Vice President’s mansion? You know, the one that had an $186,000 electric bill in 2001?

That’s not the startling question. (The correct answer is “Ha ha! Oh man, now you’ve done it: Pass me that forty of Crazy Horse.”)

The question is: A $186,000 electric bill?! What the flaming hell are they doing up there at the Vice President’s mansion!?

Above: Private showing of Laser Floyd

Townhall’s newest sage, Henry Edmondson, has heard that many wordsmiths recommend using an amusing anecdote to begin a speech or column.

52 Card Pick-up
By Henry Edmondson

As kids we used to play “52 Card Pick-Up.� It starts by asking an unsuspecting friend, “Do you want to play 52 Card Pickup?!� “Well, I’ve never played before, but sure,� he says.

You then throw the deck in the air, let the cards separate and fly around the room, and say, “Okay, your turn. Pick-up!�

That’s not how the joke goes at all! It starts by asking an unsuspecting friend, “Hey Henry, do you want to play You Will Pick Up 52 Cards That I Throw In The Air?”

And he says, “Well, I’ve never played before, but sure.”

And then you run him over with one of these!!!

Above: This joke only works once

Something like that is going on in education. It has to do with the movement to discard the academic disciplines in favor of teaching students “what they really need to know� or introducing them to “the real world.�

The disciplines, however imperfect they may be, provide—well, discipline. They bring organization and accountability to the curriculum. A college education is not like “52 Card Pick-Up”, whereby you throw up the deck of cards and let them land where they will. The curriculum must be organized in some reasonable fashion. It’s a practical matter.

You can sense where this is going, right? Toward resentment of ‘liberalism!’ Let’s skip ahead.
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Ampersand writes:

Why Sadly, No! Will Never Be On My Blogroll
(Fortunately for them, I’m sure they couldn’t care less.)

But we do care! So what can we do to remedy the situation, to earn an endorsing link? Right, we have to avoid the singular crime of making fun of the appearance of a wingnut like Daffydd ab Hugh, who is a living, breathing, reactionary version of the Comic Book Guy. It’s mean, we understand. Beyond the pale. An atrocity, even. Perhaps a war crime. So we’ll stop that shit right now:

New, improved, morally-acceptable Dafydd ab Hugh picture

There. We hope that makes amends. Now, if we are fortunate, we might join concentration-camp advocate Tacitus and torture-enthusiast Eugene Volokh, our moral superiors who would never ever reduce themselves to making fun of the ridiculous person of Daffydd ab Hugh, on Ampersand’s blogroll.

Shorter Dennis Prager:

Above: Asked his rabbi whether ham-handed analogies are kosher

‘George Soros and the Problem of the Radical Non-Jewish Jew’

• It’s okay to feel anti-Semitic about George Soros. He’s not even Jewish!

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

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Feb. 27 /Christian Newswire/

Xenon Pictures has announced today the March 13, 2007 DVD re-release of THE DA VINCI HOAX, a documentary debunking author Dan Brown’s fictional theories on the relationship between Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene, the beginnings of Christianity, and the Catholic Church. This thought-provoking film, hosted by best-selling authors Carl E. Olson and Sandra Miesel, as well as Jesuit biblical scholar Fr. Mitch Pacwa, S.J., exposes the inaccuracies and falsehoods of the popular novel, The Da Vinci Code.

If any filmmakers would like to collaborate on a project, we possess compelling evidence of a pattern of inaccuracies and falsehoods in the novels of wingnut author Dafydd ab Hugh.

Above: Theories of ‘zombie space marines’ ripe for debunking

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to eat my lunch by running over it. After that, it’s another long afternoon of jumping on crates and gibbing noobz — work’s a bitch, hoss, but those silver keys don’t just find themselves!

Update: Several have asked about the giant sandwich now missing from the picture of ab Hugh. This is an interesting question, and it reminds me of a story.

Actually, no — we were lectured about making fun of fat people.

Our own opinion is that if someone is going to archly accuse others of cowardice for not having a military background and blogging from the war zones of Iraq or Afghanistan — as ab Hugh recently did to Eric Boehlert — then it had better not be, you know, funny if for example that person wears a red shirt (see above) and some wag shouts out “Hey, Kool-Aid!”

However, sensitivity is Job One around here, and comity our mission.

Above: Dafydd ab Hugh with a salad

There, now. Issue resolved?

Things are happening at the Washington Times’ Political Blog:

Seems like we’re not the first ones to notice either:

2 Responses to “Did Justin drive Britney off the deep end?�

–>tracey Says:Why are you covering this?

posted at 11:18 AM

Good question.