Wimoweh (The Lion Doesn't Sleep Tonight)

Walter Palmer, a dentist from Minnesota, is now wanted in Africa for poaching. Do we have an extradition treaty with Zimbabwe? Because I'll be happy to set up a GoFundMe to ship him back there to face trial.



I don't oppose hunting. Culling the herd, eating the meat: at that point, if you also want to take a trophy? Well, it's a little creepy, but that's another part of the animal that won't go to waste, I guess.

But every time another detail come out about this story, it just gets worse and worse.

Palmer claims he was on a legal hunt, with all the proper permits. That's bullshit - pure, unadulterated bovine fecal matter. Palmer is so full of crap his eyes are brown.

At what point did anything about this hunt seem legitimate? They dragged a dead animal behind their jeep to lure an endangered animal out of the preserve. That didn't seem a little questionable to him? They let him shoot a 200 pound lion with an under-powered crossbow. When, as anybody who knew anything about hunting could have foreseen, the lion didn't immediately die, it took them almost two full days to track it down, as it slowly bled out, suffering and in pain. They tried to destroy the radio tracker around the lion's neck, but couldn't even do that right.

Nobody eats lion meat by choice. It's a predator, which means the meat is tough and stringy; it's a carnivore, which means the meat is rank. The only reason to hunt them is because you think you deserve to kill any damned animal on the planet.

Palmer isn't a hunter, he's a sadist. He's been charged for illegal hunting before, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that his basement was set up as a torture chamber for the squirrels he could trap around his home. He was probably the type of evil kid who giggled after jamming firecrackers up a cat's butt or stapling a duck's beak shut.

I've got to admit that I don't have any problem with the fact that, in the uproar, he's had to close his dental practice, and protesters are setting up a memorial to Cecil the Lion outside it. Palmer is an evil, overprivileged bastard, and he needs to learn what the inside of a Zimbabwean jail looks like.

Cheerleading for a past that never existed

Have I mentioned that RenewAmerica is an unfettered font of feculence? Well, it's true. They don't allow comments on their articles, probably because the sheer weight of the ignorance, stupidity and paranoia expands to fill all available space.

(In the case of some of these columnists, they occasionally reprint their drivel elsewhere, where they do allow comments. But not all of them.)

Case in point: Selwyn Duke. I guess he thinks he looks intelligent, gazing off into the distance (in this case, the distant past) stroking his chin; I think he's contemplating adding more fiber in his diet. But he, for some reason, spewed several hundred words extolling the virtues of this commercial for the "Gung Ho Commando Outfit."

Every toy gun in the commercial looks (gasp!) realistic; there are no sissified colors, no orange plastic piece at the end of the barrel."

(Let's just pretend that the commercial isn't in black and white, OK? That seems like the polite thing to do.)

Yet, in the times that it aired, you never heard of a child being shot after pointing one of these toy weapons at a policeman.

I suppose that, if I was to be completely honest, I have no evidence that his cognitive impairment has a genetic source. After all, one can only imagine the psychological damage caused by a lifetime spent with the name "Selwyn."

My mother always told me not to argue with the mentally challenged, but when did I ever listen to her? And these stories aren't particularly difficult to find.

5-year-old with toy gun killed by officer

(March 5, 1983) A 5-year-old boy locked in his bedroom while his mother was at work was shot to death Thursday night by an Orange County police officer who mistook him for a possible burglary suspect.

The boy, Patrick Andrew Mason, who stood 47 inches tall, was holding a toy gun in his dimly lit bedroom when the officer kicked in the locked door after twice yelling he was a police officer, witnesses said.

The 24-year-old unidentified officer - on the Stanton Police Department 15 months - told investigators he fired his weapon when he saw a "shadowy figure holding a gun" in the room lit only by the flickering light from a television set.

And that's another reason the rule was enacted. Frequently, a cop isn't seeing "a kid with a toy gun," but a "shadowy figure holding a gun." He doesn't have time to assess age, height, weight, or fucking eye color. He's faced with a person holding a gun.

All that, despite Selwyn's assertion that "As for policemen, they could assume that a child wouldn't target them with a real gun." Which is stupid on a number of levels - as a kid, we had a set of brothers living down the street; one of them shot and killed the other, because they were playing with Daddy's gun.

The story I found, by the way, was not, technically, the 1970s (although arguments can be made), when Selwyn claimed he was a boy. But since the rule that toy guns be brightly colored or have an orange plug wasn't enacted until 1992, I'm pretty comfortable with saying he's an idiot.

It's true

I can be a dick sometimes.

And yes, that's what I'm using as my FB icon these days. You got a problem with that?

On, Wisconsin!

So, I'm clicking through Time Magazine yesterday, and I come across this column by Joe Klein, regarding the Wisconsin trade union debate. Now, I don't always disagree with Klein, but this column was just a revelation to me.

Revolutions everywhere--in the middle east, in the middle west. But there is a difference: in the middle east, the protesters are marching for democracy; in the middle west, they're protesting against it.

Actually, it sounds to me like the public employees in Wisconsin are demonstrating so that they can keep getting their voices heard, and so the government doesn't gain more control over their lives. Really, it sounds kind of like "democracy" to me.

But maybe I'm misreading the situation up there. Go on, Joe.

I mean, Isn't it, well, a bit ironic that the protesters in Madison, blocking the state senate chamber, are chanting "Freedom, Democracy, Union" while trying to prevent a vote? Isn't it ironic that the Democratic Senators have fled the democratic process?

Isn't it interesting That the Senate Republicans want to force through a bill to strip away decades of rights, and only allow it three days of debate? Why is it that they're in such a hurry again?

An election was held in Wisconsin last November. The Republicans won. In a democracy, there are consequences to elections and no one, not even the public employees unions, are exempt from that.

Absolutely right! There was an election! And because of that, you people have to lose your civil rights! That's just logic!

(You know, it's funny. I've been hearing that quote from the Right a lot lately. "Elections have consequences." It's funny, though. You'd think that if they really believed it, they'd have been saying it after the 2008 elections, wouldn't you? But I digress.)

There are no guarantees that labor contracts, including contracts governing the most basic rights of unions, can't be renegotiated, or terminated for that matter.

Uhh... Joe? Isn't that the point here? The unions want to be able to renegotiate as needed. The governor wants to take that right away from them.

Oh, yeah. And by the way, "contracts can be terminated"? (I reworded that a little; the double negative bothered me.) Yes, they can. But, being a contract, the courts get to step in, and if it turns out that one side is not "acting in good faith," they get to face penalties for being a lying bag of douche.

That's the point of a contract, isn't it?

And it seems to me that Governor Scott Walker's basic requests are modest ones--asking public employees to contribute more to their pension and health care plans, though still far less than most private sector employees do.

Well, yeah. When you factor in all the private sector employees who don't even have heath insurance, sure. (That's about 46 million people nationwide, incidentally.)

But here's the point you're missing, Joey. "Governor Scott Walker's basic requests" - what he's asking for now. Because he's also taking away any ability to argue later, when he gets completely unreasonable.

And he will. See, Scott Walker has always been against unions. He longs for the days when the worker had no rights, and the employer could pay slave wages and fire for no reason. It's been a dream of his for years.

But again, I digress.

When I covered local government in New York 30 years ago, the school janitors (then paid a robust $60,000 plus per year)...

OK, hang on here for just a minute.

You're saying that thirty years ago, a janitor was paid almost twice what he is now? Because the current median salary for a janitor in New York is $33,483. And in 30 years, without adjusting for inflation, janitors are earning 44% less than they did in the 80's?

Man, that union sucks!

(Quick math check - 60,000 - 33,483 = 26,517 / 60,000 = 44.195% - does that sound right to everybody?)

I'll skip a little here, while Klein spends about a paragraph whining about how mean unions are. I mean, I could point out the backbreaking demands of the industrial Barons of the 1800s, leading to the formation of labor unions, which were opposed by those privileged elite millionaires who hired thugs to yadda yadda yadda...

Nobody cares. Rich people want to stay rich, and don't care who they have to destroy to do that. If you don't know this history, you're probably too stupid to care.

But that does bring us to this:

Industrial unions are organized against the might and greed of ownership. Public employees unions are organized against the might and greed...of the public?

Uh... no, Joey, that would be the government. You know, like millionaire governor Scott Walker and his billionaire backers. How is that hard to understand?

But then Joey just gets stupid.

Despite their questionable provenance, public unions can serve an important social justice role, guaranteeing that a great many underpaid workers--school bus drivers, janitors (outside of New York City), home health care workers--won't be too severely underpaid. That role will be kept intact in Wisconsin. In any given negotiation, I'm rooting for the union to win the highest base rates of pay possible...and for management to win the least restrictive work rules and guidelines governing how much truly creative public employees can be paid.

Oh, god. I swear we've covered this. Read back up to the top. I'll wait.

OK, now, since Walker wants to remove any ability of the unions to bargain for anything except base salaries... what the hell are you saying here? That they'll win on topics that they can't even argue about anymore?

You're an idiot, Klein. In fact, let's go further than that.

The basic theme here is that public employees are overpaid. According to a study by Jeffrey Keefe, professor of Labor and Employment Relations at Rutgers, public employees are compensated 3.75% less than similarly skilled and educated private-sector counterparts.

And, in fact, Scott Walker is trying to say that he has to do all this to "save" Wisconsin, to plug a big hole in the budget. But you know the funny part? Wisconsin was doing fine (in fact, they had a budget surplus) until Scott Walker became governor, and created a crisis by giving the state's money away to his cronies.

So, basically, Walker is a lying, thieving bag of fuck, with all the integrity of a rabid weasel.

And here you are, Joey, supporting him. What does that make you?

Upchuck

World Nut Daily, in its crusade to provide infotainment to drooling morons everywhere, pays Chuck Norris to pen a column for them. In fact, they think that his insane rantings are so important that they've put a button to link to him on their front page. Admittedly, it's under their latest attempt to revive the "birther" corpse (they love fucking that chicken), but it's above the first ad-disguised-as-a-news-story. This must be big stuff!

So, in honor of his 70th birthday, I'm going to grit my teeth and try to read some of his senile rantings.

Obama's Oscar

OK, sorry, Chuck, but I have to stop you right there. See, what he won was a Grammy, not an Oscar. I mean, I know that they seem like the same award to you since you've never won either of them, but the distinction is important to some people.

Fulton J. Sheen once said, "Pride is an admission of weakness; it secretly fears all competition and dreads all rivals."

I am no pinnacle of humility,

...and I don't think they give out an Oscar for "Biggest Understatement," either. If they do, though, this one's in the running.

and I've learned my fair share of hard lessons from the camps of conceit.

Is this like those POW camps you pretended to break people out of, despite never having gone to Vietnam?

But I'm not sure the former Chicago politician occupying the White House has ever been schooled with a primer on the perils of pride.

OK, first, "President" is a lot easier to say. And it would be nice if you could get at least one thing right in this column.

Oh, and be careful, or Alton Brown will arrest you for Unlicensed Use of Alliteration.

It's one thing (though still distasteful) to be boastful in a sports or fighting ring...

And you should know.

...it's quite another in the Oval Office. We were promised change, but it seems to me this White House's smug swagger and strut rivals the great taunts and bluster of Mohammed Ali in his heyday.

Yeah, who can forget Obama circling the bruised and bleeding McCain, shouting "That's right, I said 'Keating 5,' bitch! What you gonna do about it?!?"

In fact, if I were handing out awards, President Obama would win hands down the Oscar for overconfidence and arrogance.

Is that another way to say "uppity"?

Here are a few examples of his Oscar political performances:

Who can forget the State of the Union back in January, when the president utterly disregarded and disrespected our military commanders and the U.S. Supreme Court?

What? What?!? Did you even see the same State of the Union that I did? I mean, yeah, he took the Supremes on about their pig-ignorant, pro-corporate ruling, but... the military commanders? Where?

President Obama rebutted the entire Supreme Court in its presence and before the whole nation, with a premeditated and prepared accusation that the justices "reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections."

Yeah, OK, Chuck. I know you've taken a few kicks to the head, but... Well, here. Check this out. That's a page listing all the US corporations, headquartered in the United States, but owned publicly by Mitsubishi. A Japanese mega-corporation. I'm just curious. Which one of them is prohibited from dropping a couple of million in support of a candidate?

Here's the argument. As Justice Stevens said in his dissent, this ruling "would appear to afford the same protection to multinational corporations controlled by foreigners as to individual Americans."

But... you're OK with that?

I ask you, which is worse: South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson's impromptu outburst "You lie" to President Obama during his September 2009 address to Congress or the president's premeditated public innuendo and lie during the State of the Union that the U.S. Supreme Court justices are not protecting American sovereignty but handing over political sway to international powers?

Ooh!! Oooh!!! Me!! Pick me!!

...um... Wilson? Because he interrupted someone else's speech? We may become slaves to foreign corporations, but we should at least be polite about it, right?

And did anyone see the mainstream media afterward pressure the president to apologize the way Wilson had to?

Um... again, "interrupted"? The president at least had the floor. That's got to count for something, right?

And what about the faces on the military commanders during the State of the Union?

What? Did he hurt their feelings? Are you saying that they're thin-skinned and can't take a little criticism?

You really don't understand the military, do you? They get cussed out all the time.

Regardless of one's views on gays in the military, the president's smug demeanor...

"Smug"? Is that another synonym for "uppity"?

...in pushing the issue and our military's stoic response prompted me to ask, "Is the State of the Union really the place for a commander in chief to cast in-your-face politics before his leading military personnel, with all America watching?"

Oh. Hang on a second. Let me see if I've got this straight. (So to speak.)

Is this the quote that hurts you so much? "This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are. It's the right thing to do."

Is that it? 38 words? Out of almost 7500? All it took to make the Joint Chief's cry was 0.5% of the State of the Union address? Man, our military is a bunch of wimps.

Consider even the recent so-called health-care summit. It might sound simple to some, but I believe it is symptomatic when, away from the teleprompters but still on C-Span, other members of Congress call the president "Mr. President," while he calls them only by their first name..."

Funny, I don't recall you complaining when Dubya called them, not just by first names, but by nicknames like Big George and Freddy Boy...

...oh, right. Obama's a negro. I forgot. Carry on (but we'll skip the paragraph of examples of the Commander-in-Chief taking liberties with the white folks. Shorter Chuck Norris - "Boy, you best not sass back to your betters!")

In addition, to Sen. John McCain's, R-Ariz., genuine concern for ramming a pork-ridden health-care bill through Congress by politics as usual, president Obama replied, "We're not campaigning anymore. The election is over."

Yeah, that was pretty funny, wasn't it?

And after Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., politely opened his remarks by saying, "Mr. President, thank you again very much for having us and for staying with us for the six hours. I appreciate that," the president sarcastically commented about the high stack of pages in front of Rep. Cantor by saying: "Let me just guess – that's the 2,400-page health-care bill. Is that right?"

Man, it really does irk you that he doesn't say "Massa" any more, doesn't it?

Is it just me, or does the president's lofty arrogance bother anyone else, too? Imagine how it would make headline news if anyone in that health-care summit addressed the president as simply: "Well, Barack, let me tell you my opinion..."

My lord, Chuckie. How you go on...

Down here, particularly in the South, we use sir, ma'am, Mr., and Mrs., your honor, etc., and every other fitting and proper title in addressing others. People call it Southern hospitality.

Southern hospitality in action

(You'll excuse me if I skip a little bit here. He keeps going on about the lawfully elected President of the United States neither stepping nor fetching. It seems to bother our boy Chuckie quite a bit.)

I mean, how much pride and arrogance does it take for a president to ramrod a national health-care bill through Congress and down the throats of all Americans...

Why does every GOP tool use that same phrase? "Ram it down our throats"? Is this some kind of Brokeback Mandingo thing?

...despite a majority of Americans have voiced opposition to it...

Actually, Chuckie, you got those numbers backwards - latest polls show a majority support healthcare reform.

...every Republican in the House and Senate opposes it...

Yeah, but that's all they do these days, isn't it? They even vote against bills they co-sponsored.

...and Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak and 11 other Democratic lawmakers vow to kill it?

Remind me to explain "Blue Dog" Democrats to you sometime, Chuckie.

And to those average Americans and others who oppose Obama's far left agenda...

Yeah, yeah. A radical, leftist, socialist, Marxist centrist. Right, Chuckie. Whatever you say.

...rather than respecting their opinion or working with their differences, the president spoke about them before a live audience a few months back and condescendingly declared, "To those who are trying to stand in the way of [my] progress, let me tell you: I'm just getting started! I don't quit. I'm not tired. I'm just getting started! It's important for those folks to know: We're just going to keep on going."

First, let's be honest. What he said was "...stand in the way of progress," not "...in the way of [my] progress." I mean, he's good, but I'm pretty sure he can't pronounce brackets.

But you're right. He should just fold the first time he gets any pushback. That's what any reasonable person does - principles are just there to give us something to abandon.

And President Obama had the audacity before an audience in France in April 2009 to call America "arrogant"?

It was actually a little more nuanced than that, Chuckie.

"Such an effort is never easy. It's always harder to forge true partnerships and sturdy alliances than to act alone, or to wait for the action of somebody else. It's more difficult to break down walls of division than to simply allow our differences to build and our resentments to fester. So we must be honest with ourselves. In recent years we've allowed our Alliance to drift. I know that there have been honest disagreements over policy, but we also know that there's something more that has crept into our relationship. In America, there's a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.

"But in Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual but can also be insidious. Instead of recognizing the good that America so often does in the world, there have been times where Europeans choose to blame America for much of what's bad.

"On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common. They are not wise. They do not represent the truth. They threaten to widen the divide across the Atlantic and leave us both more isolated. They fail to acknowledge the fundamental truth that America cannot confront the challenges of this century alone, but that Europe cannot confront them without America.

"So I've come to Europe this week to renew our partnership, one in which America listens and learns from our friends and allies, but where our friends and allies bear their share of the burden. Together, we must forge common solutions to our common problems."

Funny how much better it sounds in context, isn't it?

The president believes he is above any opposition, and even tried to demonize No. 1 Fox News as an illegitimate news organization because some commentators disagree with him.

Technically, that would be "all commentators," wouldn't it? And really, they didn't "demonize" them, just mentioned that they're the propaganda arm of the Republican Party... which, in a sane world, would be demonization... OK, so one point for you, Chuckie.

Of course, if you're trying to claim that liberals idolize Obama, do you see the humor in you referring to that joke of a network as "No. 1 Fox News"?

No? (Somehow, I really didn't think you would...)

But he goes on for 500 more words. And my little debunking here is already crazy long. So I'm just going to skim through the rest:

Pat Buchanan...

Please, Pat is America's second most famous surviving racist, right after David Duke.

...drinking the political Kool-Aid...

No wonder one acrostic for E.G.O. is "edging God out."

...ummm... yeah, and another is "Eating Goat Ovaries" - is there a point to this, or have you stopped taking the medications that the retirement home gives you?

I mean, dude, you're seventy! And you've spent most of your life risking cerebral trauma. I'm surprised that you can still walk (with or without a colostomy bag), so the fact that you don't make a huge amount of sense is understandable. But do you have to waste so many words to do it?

President Obama described the Constitution as "an imperfect document … a document that reflects some deep flaws … an enormous blind spot … and that the framers had that same blind spot." In so doing, the president places himself above the Constitution and those "blind framers" who just couldn't see the big picture as he does today.

Chuckie, if you're going to repeat talking points, you should probably be aware that cutting and pasting a quote together doesn't make it reality. That's not what he said, and it's getting hard to understand you with your head shoved so far up Glenn Beck's ass.

...Al Capone...Chicago politics...

Come on, Chuck! At least try to write something original! You're just phoning it in at this point. Is it past your bedtime or something?

...he denigrated biblical books like Leviticus and Deuteronomy, ridiculed the issue of inerrancy and the Bible...

Yeah! Now look here, Barack! That's my job!

...here's a verse that might help you. Proverbs 16:18: "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."

Here's a chorus that might help you, Chuckie. Gin Blossoms, from Empire Records: "Well, maybe I don't want to take advice from fools..."

Update: Ann Coulter is still insane

So, if you happen to go wandering through Townhall.com (and if you do, I strongly suggest taking a shower immediately), you'll note that Ann Coulter is continuing to regurgitate the rantings of the voices only she can hear. (Technically, this could be considered an offshoot of her continuing problem with bulimia, but that is a completely different subject, and one that we'll deal with another time.)

Ahmadinejad: 'Yep, I'm Nuclear!'

The only man causing President Obama more headaches than Joe Biden these days is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (who, coincidentally, was right after Biden on Obama's short-list for V.P.).

See? That's funny because it reminds you of the easily-disproven GOP canard that Obama is a Muslim!

Despite Obama's personal magnetism, the Iranian president persists in moving like gangbusters to build nuclear weapons, leading to Ahmadinejad's announcement last week that Iran is now a "nuclear state."

Interesting how somebody with no personal magnetism at all seems jealous of somebody who is remarkably charismatic (despite having ears the make him look like a taxi backing down the road with its doors open). Let's be honest. Conservatives listen to her because she fits their divisive profile, and because she makes sarcastic jokes. Oh, and because they think she's pretty, despite her Adam's Apple and ridiculous man-hands.

Fascinating how our anti-gay contingent is attracted to somebody who could easily be a pre-operative transsexual.

Gee, that's weird -- because I remember being told in December 2007 that all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies had concluded that Iran had ceased nuclear weapons development as of 2003.

OK, so let's see how she works around the fact that this was during the Bush administration. I'll just bet she has some clever way of tying it to liberals. What do you think?

At the time of that leak, many of us recalled that the U.S. has the worst intelligence-gathering operations in the world. The Czechs, the French, the Italians -- even the Iraqis (who were trained by the Soviets) -- all have better intelligence.

Now, our girl Annie has this on-again-off-again relationship with the CIA. She loves them part of the time, and then comes up with some lame 9/11 crack and hates them again.

Burkina Faso has better intelligence -- and their director of intelligence is a witch doctor.

Get it? Burkina Faso is in Africa, so they have witch doctors! Funny stuff! And not racist as all!

The marketing division of Wal-Mart has more reliable intel than the U.S. government does.

OK, she's got a point there. But then again, the US government doesn't often really care about the price of knock-off dress shirts produced in Pacific island sweatshops.

After Watergate, the off-the-charts left-wing Congress gleefully set about dismantling this nation's intelligence operations on the theory that Watergate never would have happened if only there had been no CIA.

See? I told you she could do it.

Ron Dellums, a typical Democrat of the time, who -- amazingly -- was a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, famously declared in 1975: "We should totally dismantle every intelligence agency in this country piece by piece, brick by brick, nail by nail."

And so they did.

Yup. Took them completely apart. And it's amazing how, in 2005, the tattered remnants of the CIA alone still consumed a budget of $44 billion. Imagine how much money they'd eat up if they hadn't been dismantled!

So now, our "spies" are prohibited from spying. The only job of a CIA officer these days is to read foreign newspapers and leak classified information to The New York Times. It's like a secret society of newspaper readers. The reason no one at the CIA saw 9/11 coming was that there wasn't anything about it in the Islamabad Post.

Huh. Look at that. August 6, 2001, Presidential Daily Briefing, entitled "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US." You're right, Annie. They had no clue. Of course they didn't.

(On the plus side, at least we haven't had another break-in at the Watergate.)

But, to be honest, the Watergate Complex is a relatively low-crime area, unless you count all the politicians in the neighborhood.

CIA agents can't spy because that might require them to break laws in foreign countries.

Wow. You're serious? So the 23 agents who can never go back to Italy, or any country with an extradition treaty with Italy, were acting on their own when they kidnapped a man off the streets of Milan? Do you ever listen to this crap you spew? Iran/Contra? Downing a missionary plane thinking it was carrying a drug shipment? For that matter, smuggling their own drugs?

They are perfectly willing to break U.S. laws to leak to The New York Times, but not in order to acquire valuable intelligence.

Aw, Annie. Be honest. That isn't the only reason, is it? Do you really believe that? Why do you hate America?

So it was curious that after months of warnings from the Bush administration in 2007 that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapons program, a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran was leaked, concluding that Iran had ceased its nuclear weapons program years earlier.

OK, Annie. While I realize that you are a habitual liar, it's vaguely possible that you don't have any idea about how thist stuff works. I mean, you could easily learn about it with only a few minutes of research, but I understand that a lot of your time is spent sacrificing chickens to the altar of Ronald Reagan. Let me help you out.

Iran is now a "nuclear state," in that they have functioning nuclear reactors. The thing is, nuclear reactors can use low-enriched uranium as fuel. In order to create nuclear weapons, the Iranians would have to produce a much more highly enriched fuel.

Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a signatory state has the right to enrich uranium to be used as fuel for nuclear power. They just have to allow inspection by the IAEA. Iran is allowing that inspection.

But I guess these little details are a little too technical for you, huh?

Republicans outside of the administration went ballistic over the suspicious timing and content of the Iran-Is-Peachy report.

Although, to be honest, the basic GOP strategy now is to go ballistic over everything, up to and including stubbing their toe on the curb.

Even The New York Times, of all places, ran a column by two outside experts on Iran's nuclear programs that ridiculed the NIE's conclusion.

Yeah, about that - Annie, I know that you, along with most of the GOP, have been saying that the mainstream media is liberal. But just because no self-respecting newspaper carries your column any more, that really doesn't make them "liberal." It just means that they want to carry columns that tell the truth, say, one time in ten.

Gary Milhollin of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control and Valerie Lincy of Iranwatch.org cited Iran's operation of 3,000 gas centrifuges at its plant at Natanz, as well as a heavy-water reactor being built at Arak, neither of which had any peaceful energy purpose. (If only there were something plentiful in Iran that could be used for energy!)

Now, Gary Milhollin used to publish Iraqwatch, which was dedicated to "tracking weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." How'd that work out for him?

And you know what Gary is doing now? He's publishing IranWatch (an "online clearinghouse for articles about Iran"). So you're quoting him, and Valerie Lincy, the editor of IranWatch. Are you noticing a pattern here?

You're quoting the same pubication twice. As if it's two separate groups. You see where that might be a problem?

Oh, sorry. I forgot that you're a lying blond troll.

Weirdly, our intelligence agencies missed those nuclear operations. They were too busy reading an article in the Tehran Tattler, "Iran Now Loves Israel."

Ooh! Zing! Funny stuff. Now, I'll admit that somebody should monitor Iran's use of nuclear materials. There could be some concern there. But you know what? Somebody is. And it will relieve you to know that the "somebody" who's monitoring them is the United Nations. Which is made up of all those other countries with better intel than we have.

Oh, and by the way, I know you're aware, but Iran has offered several times to not just comply with the UN's nuclear inspectors, but they've offered to implement restriction even stricter than what the UN requires.

See, when you take something that might just be a minor concern, and start getting all red-faced and shouty about it, you begin to look like a bit of a cock. (And after all, you're trying to get that bit of a cock removed, aren't you?)

I mean, what, exactly, is your point here? Are you trying to suggest that we should invade Iran? When we can't even afford the two wars that your favorite president got us into?

Now, you'll excuse me if I skip a little bit here, because you just get all red-faced and spittle-covered trying to smear the "liberal media" in your usual hyperbolic way.

Feb. 11, 2010: Ahmadinejad announces that Iran is now a nuclear power.

Yeah, he also said that the use of nuclear weapons is contrary to the teachings of Islam. Now, I wonder why you're ignoring that part of his remarks?

You have to pick a side, Annie. Either he's a liar, or you're wrong. And since we know that you'll never admit to being wrong, then you'll probably have to admit that Amadinajad is known to lie most of the time. You know, kind of like you.

Thanks, liberals!

Well, Annie, on behalf of liberals everywhere, let me just say, you're welcome. Oh, and fuck you, you anorexic transexual lying skidmark on the underwear of journalism. Feel free to throw yourself under a bus; that's about the only way you could possibly make the world a better place.

Oh, yes. And don't forget to take your meds. You're starting to lose it again.

An open letter to Ted Nugent

Dear Ted Nugent,

You know, my new debating buddy showed me a column that you wrote, and it's the perfect example of the fact that, just because you're an expert in one thing, it doesn't follow that you're an expert in everything.

Ted, you've always played some serious guitar. I'll give you that much - you are awe-inspiring on the strings. But you are not, however, a particularly deep thinker, and this column is proof of that.

Let's start with the title. I mean, you have a perfectly good bumper-sticker slogan, but you rush to explain what you means in the first six words people are going to see, instead of letting the rest of the column explain it.

The Party of 'Know,' Not 'No.'

You should have cut that off after the first four words, Ted. Let me draw you an analogy. (Oh, sorry: an "analogy" is where you compare two things and show where they're a lot alike. I'll try not to use too many of them educated words on you.)

This is like when you're playing along on a guitar solo, and you realize that you repeated a phrase one time too many. If you repeat something too often, it gets redundant... sorry. It gets "boring." (No, really - that word had nine whole letters. I'm sorry. I'll try to do better.)

But the title, which is just... well, Ted, it's like writing lyrics. Sometimes they just don't work. But then we get into your actual column, and I'm afraid that things only get worse.

In an effort to deflect criticism of (the Democratic leadership's) ongoing program to bankrupt the entire nation

OK, Ted, right off the bat you get it wrong. The Democrats are trying to fix everything that Bush and company screwed up over the last eight years. (I mean, you do know that it was Bush who started this whole bank nationalization/bailout thing, right?)

Let the guitar boy help the spelling-challenged Democrats understand what the bedrock of the Republican Party -- conservatives -- instinctively know.

Well, Ted. Sorry, I only wish that the conservatives had control of the Republican party. Sadly, the neocons, religious lunatics and the inbred have taken it over. I had respect for the Republican party once, but lately they're just sad and outdated. And very, very wrong. Much like your column.

Sometimes, the things that you think you know turn out to be horribly wrong. People used to think that the world was flat. As it turns out (I'm not sure you're aware of this), they were wrong.

You hang out with musicians, Ted; you're used to the people around you having a ridiculously high unemployment rate. For the rest of the country, that isn't considered a good thing.

So let's see what else you messed up on.

We know that stimulating the economy and getting America growing again begins with tax cuts across the board, including payroll, corporate and individual taxes.

Look, Ted, I know that you're rich. And I know that you miss your tax cuts. But you're really going to have to pay a little bit. The country is in trouble, and it needs your help. I thought you loved this country. Why do you want it to fail?

I'm sorry. Things aren't like they were back when Bush was in office. (We already covered the fact that Bush was the major force screwing all this up, right?)

We know that prosperity can not be brought about by taxing, borrowing and spending trillions of dollars.

OK, here's another new word for you - "oversimplification." You're taking a big problem, and trying to sum it up in less than twenty words.

The sad part is, to explain this to you, I've got to do the same thing. So try this: poor people need jobs. The business people aren't giving them out. The government has work it needs done. So the government gives them jobs. This helps the poor people out. And now the government needs to get the business people to start hiring, too.

Again, I'm sorry - I know this is confusing for you. It's a big problem. It takes a big plan, not small words.

We know the economic producers cannot be punished without also punishing the working class.

Wow. By that philosophy, business people can do whatever they want and never face any consequences. Of course, I guess that you don't produce much of anything except music, so maybe you don't understand business, either.

(Oh, how is that whole "music" thing going for you? Did anybody buy that album you did two years ago? Even with the help of your Damn Yankees friends?)

We know that GM and Chrysler will ultimately fail because they are now being run by the federal government and the labor unions.

You really don't know the difference between "stockholder" and "management," do you? Wow, you don't know jack-shit about business.

We know energy independence includes drilling off-shore and building many new nuclear power plants...

"...because completely destroying the environment will make everything better!"

Christ, Nuge. I know reading is hard, but the information is out there. Instead of just spouting off, you could actually look around. Best estimates tell us that even if we drilled on every inch of coastline, it would work out to one percent of daily consumption, and wouldn't kick in for ten years. It wouldn't do much of anything for us.

I thought you were a big supporter of conservation? What happened to that?

And nuclear power? Well, studies by the people actually building them tell us that building a new nuclear power plant costs more per kilowatt hour produced than any other type of power plant. Weird, isn't it?

I mean, there's other reasons, but I'm trying to keep this simple for you.

And let's ignore that we don't know what do do with the nuclear waste we already have lying around. Oh, wait! You have all that land in Michigan, and probably some other land! You should volunteer to store it for us!

No, huh?

We know that bailing out failing businesses with tax dollars is not what our founding fathers had in mind

Why do overwrought Republicans keep bringing up the Founding Fathers as if they were gods or something? It's true. The Founding Fathers didn't think of that. Of course, for that matter, using the internet, mass production, and the concept of a "global economy" were also not figured into their equations.

Do you really think that a pre-industrial society is the best source for economic advice? See, that's something else you missed out on in school, Nuge. It was called "history."

We know that more gun control laws will not reduce violence but will instead create more victims. We know that more guns equal less crime.

Hey, that's right! And since the United States has more guns than any other industrialized country, we must have less crime!

Actually, not so much. The overall US crime rate is pretty much the same as in other, similar countries, except for violent crimes: our homicide rate is three to five times higher than anybody else's. So really, guns haven't reduced crime, and the fact that they're easy to get has killed a lot of people. Where's the upside here?

And you keep going! I've already written more than you did, and I'm only halfway through. I mean, my god, Ted! How can you stand to be so wrong on every subject? Is the ADHD really that much of a problem at your age?

Tell you what, Teddy. You stick with playing the guitar, and leave the deep thinking to the people who can actually do some of it, OK?

Let's look at the news

As my two regular readers might have noticed (and I'm only married to one of them, to the best of my knowledge), I usually prefer longer blog entries with multiple links, occasionally comparing or contrasting news items that I consider related in some way.

It's simple. By concentrating on this "long-form blogging" rather than the brief blurbs most bloggers go for, I can feel better about my sheer laziness in only posting an entry roughly once per week.

Not this week though. I found two unrelated stories this weekend that I'm going to heckle. That's just the way it is, sometimes. First of all, the reason I have no plans to move to Utah any time soon.

You have to admire any story that starts with:

Utah County Republicans ended their convention on Saturday by debating Satan's influence on illegal immigrants.

I mean, come on. For an opening line, you just can't beat that.

The group was unable to take official action because not enough members stuck around long enough to vote, despite the pleadings of party officials.

You kind of wonder if "embarrassment" had anything to do with that...

Don Larsen, chairman of legislative District 65 for the Utah County Republican Party, had submitted a resolution warning that Satan's minions want to eliminate national borders and do away with sovereignty.

In a speech at the convention, Larsen told those gathered that illegal immigrants "hate American people" and "are determined to destroy this country, and there is nothing they won't do."

And he's right. They'll pick lettuce for pennies per day, they'll collect your garbage, and generally do jobs that nobody else wants for less money than any American would accept. Anybody who tries to claim that they're "stealing jobs from Americans" needs to show me a list of Americans who would accept those jobs, at those wages.

"Illegal aliens are in control of the media..."

Excuse me? Not even Univision... ah, never mind.

...and working in tandem with Democrats, are trying to "destroy Christian America" and replace it with "a godless new world order -- and that is not extremism, that is fact," Larsen said.

(Excuse me while I misquote an American doing a bad Spanish accent.) You know, you keep saying that word "fact." I do not think that word means what you think that word means.

While I realize that Larsen probably doesn't consider "Roman Catholic" (the religion of most Mexican immigrants) to be equal to "Christian" (they are, after all, godless idolators under the sway of the Antichrist in the Vatican), it does give a somewhat limited definition to his concept of "Christian America."

At the end of his speech, Larsen began to cry, saying illegal immigrants were trying to bring about the destruction of the U.S. "by self invasion."

"Self invasion"? They're invading themselves?

I suspect that he started to cry because he'd finally realized what an idiot he is.

One speaker, who was identified as "Joe," said illegal immigrants were Marxist and under the influence of the devil.

"Marxist"? This just gets better and better, doesn't it?

Another, who declined to give her name to the Daily Herald...

Again, "embarrassment," perhaps?

...said illegal immigrants should not be allowed because "they are not going to become Republicans and stop flying the flag upside down. ... If they want to be Americans, they should learn to speak English and fly their flag like we do."

So if their ship is taken by pirates, they won't be able to use the standard international symbol of distress?

Senator Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, spoke against the resolution, saying Larsen, whom he called a "true patriot and a close friend," was embarrassing the Republican Party.

Finally, somebody who makes a little sense.

"This only gives fodder to the liberal media to give negative attention to the Republican Party."

Too late.

Larsen was allowed to finish the debate with a one-minute speech.

"If the Democrats take over the country, we will be dead, and we will have abortion and partial-birth abortion and the Republican Party will go into extinction," he said.

OK, let me get this straight. We'll all be dead, right? So how will we be getting abortions at that point?

And isn't the "Republican Party will go into extinction" bit a little redundant at that point?

But these mental giants couldn't manage to not embarrass themselves even when they switched to other subjects.

(Enid) Greene (state Republican Party chair) said she was disappointed in BYU professors who protested Dick Cheney's visit to campus, calling them "self-appointed intellectuals."

OK, folks. Be real. These guys were hired as professors. Yes, they're "intellectuals." Isn't that what you want as a teacher?

But they definitely don't qualify as "self-appointed." If anyone, BYU and the Dean of Faculty appointed them to that position, right?

But while that was my favorite story this weekend, I've got to pass along this little gem.

Two police officers pleaded guilty Thursday to manslaughter in the shooting death of a 92-year-old woman during a botched drug raid last fall. A third officer still faces charges... The charges followed a Nov. 21 “no-knock” drug raid on the home of Kathryn Johnston, 92. An informant had described buying drugs from a dealer there, police said. When the officers burst in without warning, Johnston fired at them, and they fired back, killing her.

Fulton County prosecutor Peter Johnson said that the officers involved in Johnston's death fired 39 shots, striking her five or six times, including a fatal blow to the chest.

He said Johnston fired only once through her door and didn't hit any of the officers. That means the officers who were wounded likely were hit by their own colleagues, he said...

When the plainclothes officers burst in without notice, police said, Johnston fired at them, and they fired back.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Yonette Sam-Buchanan said Thursday that although the officers found no drugs in Johnston's home, Smith planted three bags of marijuana in the home as part of a cover story.

So they're some real winners, right? Fine, upstanding knights in blue. (And really bad aims, too.)

But let's ignore the fact that a bunch of unidentified men broke into her house, and Ms. Johnston was only protecting her home. (Shouldn't the NRA be all over this story?) She was 92 years old! Let her get baked once in a while. At her age, she's earned it.

But that isn't the punchline. This is.

The case raised serious questions about no-knock warrants...

Well, duh! But it gets better.

...and whether the officers followed proper procedures.

Yup. That's would be the question, all right...

Heckling the State of the Union

This post might be a little longer than most. Bush gave his "State of the Union" address last night. It might have been easier to watch if I'd been drinking. Or if he had.

You know, the "State of the Union" address is actually a requirement from the Constitution. To be exact, Article II, section 3: "The President shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient."

That's it. That's the requirement. "From time to time." And here, by the way, is where I'm supposed to say something snarky like, "Well, gee. We've found a part of the Constitution that Bush isn't willing to despoil. Yet."

On the other hand, I could just say nasty things about his speech. That might be fun. So let's see what we've got here. He starts by talking about Coretta Scott King, who died yesterday. Nice touch. So he covered that. Let's move along.

In a system of two parties, two chambers, and two elected branches, there will always be differences and debate.

Yeah. It wouldn't be nearly as humorous for him to say that, if it wasn't the same day that Samuel Alito was confirmed to the Supreme Court. Meaning that ONE party now controls all three branches of the government.

Not that I'm bitter...

But even tough debates can be conducted in a civil tone, and our differences cannot be allowed to harden into anger.

Is it my imagination, or is this statement coming from the single most partisan president in the history of the United States?

Tonight the state of our Union is strong

Well, yeah. Sadly, it's strongly opposed to you. But let's not get into that...

The only way to protect our people, the only way to secure the peace, the only way to control our destiny is by our leadership -- so the United States of America will continue to lead.

Where are we going, and what are we doing in this handbasket?

On September the 11th, 2001, we found that problems originating in a failed and oppressive state 7,000 miles away could bring murder and destruction to our country.

Whoa. Not even a minute into it, and he's already brought up 9/11, and used it to justify attacking Iraq. Gotta say, I'm impressed.

In 1945, there were about two dozen lonely democracies in the world. Today, there are 122. And we're writing a new chapter in the story of self-government -- with women lining up to vote in Afghanistan, and millions of Iraqis marking their liberty with purple ink...

Yup. Awesome job. The Palestinians just voted for Hamas, a known terrorist organization, the Iraqi's voted for closer ties with Iran (the second leg of the "Axis of Evil")... oh, let's just stop it there. The Middle East is a powder keg. 'Nuff said, right?

Well, you'd think. But Bush doesn't shut up about it for another couple of minutes.

We remain on the offensive against terror networks. We have killed or captured many of their leaders...

That's true. We've captured the Number Three man in al Qaeda about seventy-two times, haven’t we?

The road of victory is the road that will take our troops home. As we make progress on the ground, and Iraqi forces increasingly take the lead, we should be able to further decrease our troop levels -- but those decisions will be made by our military commanders, not by politicians in Washington, D.C.

See, it's simple. We'll pull out of Iraq, just like the Democrats want. But we'll do it slowly and carefully, just like the Democrats want... No, wait, that's not it...

In the coming year, I will continue to reach out and seek your good advice.

He probably won't listen, but at least he's seeking it, right?

Hindsight alone is not wisdom, and second-guessing is not a strategy.

Translation: ignore what I've done before now, and pretend that I know what I'm doing.

With so much in the balance, those of us in public office have a duty to speak with candor.

As long as what you say agrees with what I want. Otherwise, you're "aiding the terrorists."

A sudden withdrawal of our forces from Iraq would abandon our Iraqi allies to death and prison...

As opposed to all those other Iraqi's we've abandoned to death and prison...

...would put men like bin Laden and Zarqawi in charge of a strategic country...

Wait a minute. Are those two even in Iraq? Yeah, I didn't think so. And just how strategic is Iraq, anyway?

Our men and women in uniform are making sacrifices...

Hang on. You're talking about the people who actually joined the military, right? Not the ones who used the National Guard to avoid combat, right? And maybe didn’t even show up when they were supposed to. Of course, that was back when the National Guard wasn't sent overseas to Iraq, too.

They know what it's like... to wear heavy gear in the desert heat...

Well, some of them do. The ones who actually have armor.

So the United States of America supports democratic reform across the broader Middle East.

Until they elect Hamas, anyway.

The same is true of Iran, a nation now held hostage by a small clerical elite that is isolating and repressing its people.

What? They've got Focus on the Family there, too?

The Iranian government is defying the world with its nuclear ambitions, and the nations of the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons.

Oh, gawd. Please don't say "weapons of mass destruction." Please don't say "weapons of mass destruction." Please don't say "weapons of mass destruction."...

We show compassion abroad because Americans believe in the God-given dignity and worth of a villager with HIV/AIDS...

Which he probably caught because we refuse to send condoms to Africa. But that's OK. It's God's will, right?

But enough about those foreigners. Let's talk about how we can strip more civil rights from Americans, OK?

It is said that prior to the attacks of September the 11th, our government failed to connect the dots of the conspiracy.

That's correct. Like on August 6, 2001, when our government failed to connect with a Presidential Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In US."

...I have authorized a terrorist surveillance program to aggressively pursue the international communications of suspected al Qaeda operatives and affiliates to and from America.

See, we're calling it "terrorist surveillance" now. That whole "domestic spying" thing didn't go over too well.

This is getting boring. He's gonna try to justify spying on Americans for a while. Let's skip a little.

American leaders -- from Roosevelt to Truman to Kennedy to Reagan...

Huh, three Democrats and a Republican. Oh, wait. He probably meant Teddy Roosevelt, didn't he?

Together, let us protect our country, support the men and women who defend us, and lead this world toward freedom.

Yup. Protect their Constitutional rights, give proper armor to troops who are getting shot at, and... hmmm... don't know what Bush considers "freedom" anymore.

We will build the prosperity of our country by strengthening our economic leadership in the world.

I think he means that "outsourcing jobs to other countries is good," but I'm not clear on this one.

We hear claims that immigrants are somehow bad for the economy -- even though this economy could not function without them.

You're right. Somebody's got to pick the lettuce.

Keeping America competitive begins with keeping our economy growing.

Pay no attention to the automakers behind the curtain. And pay no attention to me while I try to justify tax cuts despite the billions (or even trillions) of dollars being spent in Iraq.

The retirement of the baby boom generation will put unprecedented strains on the federal government. By 2030, spending for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid alone will be almost 60 percent of the entire federal budget.

Oh, he is NOT going to try and justify privatizing Social Security again, is he?

Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security (applause)

OK, hear that, George? They applauded the death of your stupid program. Get a clue here, will you?

Keeping America competitive requires affordable health care...

Hang on. He just said WHAT?

And because lawsuits are driving many good doctors out of practice -- leaving women in nearly 1,500 American counties without a single OB/GYN...

You're right. Who was it that said, "Too many OB/GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country"? I know I've heard that somewhere...

America is addicted to oil...

Now is where we start giggling like schoolgirls, since most of the Bush administration gets their money from Big Oil. Hell, Bush had Harken Oil, Condi Rice had an oil tanker named after her, and let's just ignore that whole Cheney energy task force thing. So, if oil is an addiction, what does that make YOU, Mr. President? A pusher?

...many Americans... still have deep concerns about the direction of our ... They're concerned about unethical conduct by public officials, and discouraged by activist courts that try to redefine marriage.

Whoa. I'm sorry. I nodded off. Did he just talk about DeLay, Abramoff and gay marriage in the same sentence? What'd I miss?

Maybe they're going to share a cell. That would be cool.

As we look at these challenges, we must never give in to the belief that America is in decline, or that our culture is doomed to unravel. The American people know better than that. We have proven the pessimists wrong before -- and we will do it again.

Yup. Hopefully in November of this year, and again in November, 2008. Assuming that we can't impeach your sorry ass before that.

Honorable people in both parties are working on reforms to strengthen the ethical standards of Washington...

Well, yes and no. "Honorable people" are indeed working on Congressional ethics. Sadly, none of them are Republicans....

OK, I'll admit it. Bush surprised me at this point. First he promised more money to rebuild New Orleans, and then he said this:

A hopeful society acts boldly to fight diseases like HIV/AIDS, which can be prevented, and treated, and defeated.

I'm going to assume he means "homosexuality can be wiped out in our lifetime," though, because a George Bush who worries about HIV makes my head hurt.

Yet the destination of history is determined by human action, and every great movement of history comes to a point of choosing.

Yup. Like Cindy Sheehan getting moved out the back door in handcuffs, because you didn't approve of her T-shirt. That's a fine choice, Mr. President.

Lincoln could have accepted peace at the cost of disunity and continued slavery. Martin Luther King could have stopped at Birmingham or at Selma, and achieved only half a victory over segregation.

Holy crap. You did NOT just compare yourself to Lincoln and King, did you?

You gotta admit, he's got cojones.

The United States could have accepted the permanent division of Europe, and been complicit in the oppression of others.

And if you’re trying to compare the conflict in Iraq to World War II, you’ve already lost. The only way the two would compare would be if the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor, and in response, American forces invaded Brazil.

May God bless America.

And may God save us from you and your cronies.

What the hell is the matter with you people?

Does anyone remember the Cold War? How about the mostly-false image that Americans had of the Warsaw Pact countries, with a cowed populace peering fearfully around the curtains, while out in the street, Stalin-trained agents waited for anyone to screw up, so that they could swoop down on them and drag them off to "reeducation camps" in Siberia.

Note that I said mostly false. I'll be the first to admit that there was some truth in it, but it was magnified in the public perception until it resembled an ongoing, Orwellian nightmare. But regardless of how overblown the fantasy was, nobody wanted to live that way.

Until now.

Apparently, there is a large contingent of people who think that should be a description of America. Running and hiding from the evils of those evil Muslim terrorists, they are willing to accept any kind of behavior from their government, as long as it can be justified in the name of "the War on Terra."

Why should the government need a warrant to listen in to any phone line they find? And, for that matter, why should they actually hold trials for the people they arrest? It's inconvenient - let's just put 'em in Guantanamo and forget about them! And of course the CIA can have secret bases to imprison enemies of the state! Hell, yes! We'll even rent out those gulags in Siberia! Nobody's using them, are they? Just tell me you're doing it to protect me from the evil terrorists, and I'll let you do whatever you want. Civil rights? Who needs 'em?

Here's a new word for you, folks. Dystopia. It's the opposite of Utopia. Look it up. I can wait.

What makes me think this? Well, for one thing, there's this little piece of whimsy from Michelle Malkin, which she entitled We Are All Homeland Security Agents:

Picture this: You're a retail store clerk. It's the busy Christmas season. A half-dozen men of Middle Eastern/South Asian descent walk into the store. They want to buy between 60-150 disposable cell phones--you know, the kind that can't be traced. The kind that have been used by terrorists as detonators.

What do you do?

Do you think nothing of the incident? Hope for the best, sell them what they want, and move on?

Do you feel guilty for "profiling" them and dismiss any misgivings you have? Or do you listen to your post-9/11 conscience and contact the authorities?

...if 9/11 taught us anything, it was to be unapologetically vigilant. To act now and avoid the cacophany of hindsight hysterics later. What good are all the "Be alert" admonitions from the government if no one alerts authorities when their alarms go off?

Some civil liberties absolutists will no doubt go bananas over "racist" store clerks who blow the whistle on suspicious behavior. But the rest of us, including the feds who are now following up on the citizen watchdog reports, should be nothing but grateful--and ready to do the same.

And she's not the only one, either. A kid with an annoying love of boldface and brightly-colored letters (but an apparent hatred of spell-checking), who self-righteously calls himself Astute Blogger (a.k.a., "reliapundit"), goes even farther.

The jihdoterrorists might now each be using a series of phones (each only once or twice) to communicate with other jihadoterrorists who are also using a series of disposable phones - each only once or twice. All they have to do is tell their comrade which cellphone number to use next. NOW HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO GET WARRANTS ON THAT!? It's impossible. Which is why it's ABOSLUTELY necessary for the POTUS, as CinC, to use his Article II powers during wartime in order to get the foreign intelligence we need to DEFEND OURSELVES.

By exposing the NSA intercept program, the leakers and their comrades at the NYTIMES have CONFIRMED valuable information to the enemy, alerted the enemy to the information, and NOW - AS A RESULT - the enemy has adjusted. Therefore, the leakers and the NYTIMES have endangered the lives OF MILLIONS of Americans, and our entire economy and also the world's economy (which after all depends on the US economy). They should ALL be charged, tried, convicted, and executed for TREASON.

I tried to reproduce his formatting, just to show you how annoying it is to read. Oh, incidentally, he also wants to make sure that you know one thing:

And BY THE WAY: I WAS THE FIRST BLOGGER TO CONNECT THE NYTIMES "NSA LEAK" TO THE "DISPOSABLE PHONE PURCHASE SURGE".

You can tell that this message is important to him. That's why he puts it in bright red, bold-faced capital letters. Did you ever feel like you're the last adult in the playground?

Nor are they alone. They link to several other blogs who are salivating to lock down the country. And what do all of these people have in common with George Bush, other than a blind love of the government posited in 1984? Well, they're all willing to go out on a limb based on inaccurate, cherry-picked intelligence. And the sad part is, Malkin even has this link at the end of her story.

Bill Vanderland, the agent in charge of Midland's FBI office... said Thursday after the ABC report aired that assertions of a connection between a terror cell and the men who attempted to purchase cell phones from a Midland Wal-Mart were invalid.

"There is no known link or demonstrated link or any other kind of link at this point between the people here and any terror cell," he said.

Yes, folks, we had a single immigration violation. No terrorists. But that's OK, right? We're being protected from the evil, wicked, vicious Islamic terrorists! It doesn't matter what the government does, as long as we're safe! After all, those nasty jihadists haven't been able to attack us since 9/11, right?

Doesn't anybody have any kind of memory?

On February 26, 1993, Ramzi Yousef tried to bomb the World Trade Center. After that attack, it took those nasty Islamic terrorists eight and a half years to try again. As I write this, it hasn't even been five years since 9/11. Maybe they just like to take their time.

Grow up, people. When you give in to fear like that, the terrorists have won. Al Qaeda doesn't have to do anything to destroy America. Apparently, we're going to do it for them.