Army of Dog

The Code Pink gals are still maintaining their ever-weakening siege on the Marine Corps Recruiting Center in Berkeley, and now their going with a Mother’s Day theme-week that ends today.  To bring this wildly successful campaign to a close, they’ve decided to forego costumes and just come to the protest as witches and crones.  They’re claiming to also have “sirens,” but we have photos of these women and they just aren’t going to be able to pull that bullshit off.

Code Pink and their pathetic protest have been boring as hell for months now, but there was one really interesting quote in the article.  The quote comes from Zanne Sam Joi, Code Pink truck driver and certified fucking nutjob.

“Women are coming to cast spells and do rituals and to impart wisdom to figure out how we’re going to end war,” Zanne Sam Joi of Bay Area Code Pink told FOXNews.com.

Click the link, I’m not making that shit up.  Hell, I couldn’t make it up if I wanted to.  Before we examine that inane contribution to the issue of war and peace, let’s get a little background, shall we.  Zanne Joi has her own blog here, where she describes herself thus:

i’m a 57 yr old jewish lesbian anti-racist mother striving radical womonist/feminist; daughter & granddaughter of survivors of the holocaust, mother of a young amazon healer & amazing human being, lover of wimmin & student of consicous living…………even tho i am the one actually driving the truck, i could not even head out from home if it were not for the support of many, many, many wimmin (and several men as well). If you want to help support my trip across the country, spreading codepink, registering voters, working to DEFEAT BUSH, please click the “Make a Donation” link below- it’s secure!

For those of you who only speak Literate, let me translate.  “I hate men, and America, and I’ll use my parents suffering to try to add legitimacy to my batshit political views.  I drive a truck, Bushhitler sucks, now send me money.”

Zanne and her Code Pink friends like to travel around trying to bring “peace” by protesting anything that even looks like it might be able to protect American interests in a time of crisis.  Their success, to be kind, has been limited.  I have a humble suggestion for the crones of Code Pink.  Why don’t you pack up your shit and go cast spells and do rituals to end war in the front yards of the people who actually start this shit?  Seriously, get the kids, tell your life partner to take off a few weeks from work, get in the truck, and head on over to Gaza, Mosul, Tehran, or Beirut and cast spells on the jihadi assholes who are, as we speak, training kids to hate Jews and kill Americans.  Maybe then your dumb, shriveled ass could have some chance of ending the need for the best and brightest of American society to travel over there and get shot at.

I’ll tell you why they don’t do that.  Because standing around a Marine Corps Recruiting Center and doing this crap is easy, and it has the added benefit of not being particularly dangerous.  You see, when a publicity-seeking group of desperate attention-whores needs a way to make spectacles of themselves, not being killed in the process is of paramount concern.  And make no mistake, if they pulled this witchcraft shit in any of the places I just mentioned and confronted the Bronze Age assholes who make all of this war and conflict necessary, even as a joke, they would be kidnapped, tied up in a burqa, and stoned to fucking death.  But it’s the Marines who are the killers, right?

And let me not end this tirade without bringing a little attention to another vapid piece of verbal spittle:

“The grandmothers were here and tried to get recruited,” Joi said. “They tried to have conversations with the Marines, but the Marines were too scared to talk.”

Let’s get one thing fucking straight, you crusty nutjob, if the goddamn Japanese Army couldn’t run the Marines off of Iwo-fucking-Jima, your gang of shriveled shrews not going to run them out of Berkely-goddamn-California.  I can’t speak for the mental state of every Marine in that office obviously, but I will bet every damn dime I have to my name that not one of them is fucking scared of you.

Michelle has a post up about “Things Muslims Don’t Like” and her first item is bikinis. She posts a couple of pictures of the offending attire:

I admire her attempt, I really do, but I respectfully contend that, if you’re going to come up with a true jihadi-offending collection of swimwear, the JC Penny catalog is not the most effective source. Allow me to present a more suitable collection for drawing the ire of the fundamentalists amongst us.

The key element of a properly offensive bikini post is the use of a suitably gifted model. There are many options, but Kelly Brook is always a fine choice:

Now, the nice thing about someone as popular as the lovely Ms. Brook is that we have an excellent assortment of religious-extremist-offending material to choose from. We can go with the traditional bikini look in the picture above, or we can go with something a little more risque:

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Michelle Malkin posted the transcript of prepared remarks that John McCain delivered at Wake Forest yesterday on the issue of judicial appointments.  She ends her comments on the speech with this question:

Do you trust him? Can you trust him?

This issue has been bandied about by pundits and political junkies on the right since the day it became clear that McCain would be the Republican nominee.  The logic for voting for McCain despite deep ideological disagreement is that the ability of the next President to appoint as many as three justices to the Supreme Court (to say nothing of other federal-level judicial appointments) makes electing a Republican essential.  The common counter to that argument postulates that McCain’s penchant for poking conservatives in the eye makes him unreliable at best and therefore not worthy of support on that basis.

I will state up front that I have an ever-increasing list of issues where Senator McCain and I disagree strongly.  In fact, after a few shining moments where I allowed myself to hope for his conversion on issues like government bailouts of homeowners and commitment to spending reductions, the senior Senator from Arizona seems to be on a barn-busting campaign to alienate me and every other fiscal conservative in the country.  We’re still of one mind on Iraq and a commitment to fighting terrorism, but in every other area, from global warming to gas prices, we don’t see eye to eye.

Having said all that, I’ll still vote for him.  Not only that, I’ll probably do it sober.  The reason I can so comfortably say that I will vote for a man who will no doubt get further away from my political ideal in the coming months is that I play poker.  Certainly not professionally, but I play in a variety of games pretty regularly.  Poker, for those of you who haven’t watched television or been on the internet in this decade, has become so popular that it’s best players are now household names.  It seems that everyone has played Texas Hold’em at least once and the game’s terminology is showing up in the vernacular.

Anyone who wants to play poker at any level other than “sucker” has to understand one fundamental concept of the game, odds.  Calculating odds on the fly is the most basic tool of poker.  The ability to calculate and judge odds at a table is as important to Doyle Brunson as the ability to putt is to Tiger Woods.  You can have all the God-given talent in the world and if you can’t calculate odds, somebody’s going home with your money.

If I were sitting at a poker table deciding whether to call a large bet I would need to know three things to make my decision.  First I need to know what I stand to win.  That’s pretty simple math, I just take what’s in the pot and add the amount of my opponent’s bet.  I also need to know how much I stand to lose.  Also a simple calculation, I stand to lose the amount required to call.  The third thing I need to know is my chances of winning.  This is where the math gets slightly harder.  Without digressing into a dissertation on calculating hand odds, I have to know how many cards are left that will help me versus the total number of cards left in the deck.  That gives me a ratio and the rest of the decision making process is about comparing ratios and making the most profitable choice consistently.

“How in the name of all things holy does this relate to politics and John McCain?” you ask.  Simple, voting for McCain is about odds.  When we decide what to do in the upcoming election we face a similar choice to that of a poker player.  Our hand is not made, we don’t have a known quantity.  What we do have are choices that have different potential consequences.  We can stay home and not vote at all.  The Democrat will be elected and our only real hope is to minimize the damage they can do in four years by using our minority in both houses of Congress.  Given the lack of Republican political power that seems like a very bad option with very long odds to me.  Given what I know about the penchant Republicans have for “getting along,” it looks even worse.  Or we can vote for McCain and hope that his election buys us enough time to develop the next true leader of the conservative movement.  This strategy has the added benefit of creating a crisis within the Democratic Party.  Having a supposed dream slate of candidates and still managing to lose a Presidential election that was all but in the bag would have devastating consequences on the party from the top down.  This is the electoral equivalent of firing back over the top and forcing your opponent to make the hard decision.  You may not have a hand you like, but the other guy has shown weakness and if you win, he will have a very hard time recovering both psychologically and in terms of the game. 

Unlike poker players, however, the one option we don’t have is folding.  At the table, you can simply leave the hand and survive long enough to try again later.  It’s more often than not the best choice in the circumstances I’ve described, but unfortunately electoral politics has no muck.  One of the candidates left in this race will be the next President.  The only play we have left is to back the best odds, and right now John McCain, like it or not, is the best of a bad field.

I’m actually a rather cautious poker player by nature, but I’ve played enough to know that when you’ve run out of other options, aggression is usually the best strategy.  So I say we not only back the man who may betray us at any turn, I say we do it with gusto.  The answer to Michelle’s question is “no.”  I don’t trust him to make good judicial appointments, but I do trust the two he’s running against to make bad ones.

this idiot would be in the middle of childbirth. 

Re: “Speak English around children,” by John B. Dodson, Tuesday Letters.

Let’s be honest, don’t most of us wish we were fluent in at least one more language? A parent giving his or her child the gift of a foreign language can only be an asset on this planet.

As for culture, if these thousands of beautiful Hispanic children were taught the richness of their culture, it could only help them to become successful. The Mayan and Aztec civilizations were far more advanced than those of the ancestors of the pilgrims.

Maybe one reason these children begin to fail in middle school is because the only place they read about themselves is when studying the Alamo, which doesn’t do much for a child’s self-esteem.

Andrew Goldsmith, Irving

The original letter in the reference line was arguing that new immigrants whose children were learning English should speak English in the home instead of their native language as a means of immersion to speed up fluency.  Dickhead here is taking that solid piece of advice and whining about bilingual children, the Mayan civilization, and the fucking Alamo.  I know that white lefties are supposed to be intensely self-loathing.  It’s in the manual between driving a hybrid and overusing the word “ironic.”  However, this screed seems to distinguish the writer even among the usual “white people are evil” mantra.

Let’s take the first point.  It is obvious that being bilingual is beneficial.  And if the original point had been that children should only learn one language, it would be a valid and well-thought-out retort.  If, however, the original point was that too many children of Hispanic immigrants are falling behind in school because they can’t speak English, then going on about the benefits of being a polyglot makes you sound like an enormous retard.  Guess which category Mr. Goldsmith falls into.

We then take a complete fucking left turn into a diatribe about Latin American culture.  Putting aside the fact that it doesn’t have thing one to do with the issue at hand, let’s examine the contention.  The Mayans and the Aztecs certainly had advanced civilizations at various points throughout their history.  Keep in mind, however, that the heyday of the  Mayan civilization began about a hundred years after Alexander the Great died.  That means that while the Mayans were using hieroglyphs, the Greeks were building massive libraries.  So the idea that Meso-American cultures were even comparable to, much less “far more advanced than,” the European and Asian cultures of the same time period is utter bullshit.

The last point can only truly be appreciated if you live in California, Texas, New Mexico, or Arizona and study your state’s history in school as a child.  The idea that Texas History classes don’t start mentioning Mexicans until the Alamo is so laughable that it makes me think this asshole is really an imposter.  Texas History lasts an entire year, usually the seventh grade, in public schools (at least it did when I was in school in the late 80’s).  You start hearing non-Spanish surnames somewhere around Spring fucking Break.

Well, Barack Obama has taken a brief break from stalking me and begging for money to let his wife stalk me and beg for my help in harassing other voters.

Brett –

In every state across the country, there are thousands of qualified voters who are not registered to vote.

Some believe their vote doesn’t matter, some have been actively disenfranchised, and some have been overlooked or excluded by a broken system that has lost touch with the concerns of ordinary Americans.

Barack and I entered this race because we believe there’s a chance to change that.

If I were John McCain or Hillary Clinton, I would get down on my knees and pray to Jesus every night that the Obama campaign continues to remind people that Barack and Michelle are a package deal. That woman is Hillary circa 1992 without the charming sense of humor and easy-going personality.

>From the beginning, our goal has been to reach out to people of all races, ages, and backgrounds and bring them back into the political process. We must use the rare opportunity we have right now to bring people together and make this a better country for all Americans.

Here is the crux of the Michelle Obama talking point. The implication here is that making America “better” is an opportunity that comes around once in a blue moon. And the blue moon in this case is electing a black man.

That’s why I’m excited to announce a 50-state voter registration and mobilization drive we’re calling Vote for Change.

Beginning with a nationwide kick-off on Saturday, May 10th, more than 100 Vote for Change events will take place in every state, organized by our dedicated volunteers who are leading this campaign for change in their own communities.

Sign up to get involved now:

http://my.barackobama.com/voteforchange

“Vote for Change?” What about hope? How can they just ignore the half of Obama supporters who are committed to Hope? Are hopeful people going to be second-class citizens in an Obama administration?

This campaign is about the change in all of us — it’s about demanding that we live in a different world and being ready to fight for the vision that we have for our children.

And that starts with being engaged and engaging others.

If you’re reading this, you’re already somewhat engaged in this campaign. But if your experience is anything like mine, you know at least 20 other people who are not engaged, who are not focused on politics, and who may not vote in November.

If we are going to change this country, the change must come from the bottom up. That means reaching out in your community, in your circle of friends, and even in your family.

You can help get new people involved in the process so together we can finally solve the problems that this country faces.

Join Vote for Change today and start registering and mobilizing voters:

http://my.barackobama.com/voteforchange

Millions of little Obama supporters, drunk on the vapor of their own naivete, harassing their friends, family, and co-workers about their nebulous commitment to “change.” Pass the fucking popcorn.

Throughout this campaign, we’ve seen millions of Americans get involved who have never been interested in politics, never volunteered on a campaign, and many who have never even registered to vote before.

And some of our greatest successes have been recent.

Voter registration drives organized and conducted by supporters like you have registered more than 200,000 new Democrats in Pennsylvania, more than 165,000 new Democrats in North Carolina, and more than 150,000 new Democrats in Indiana.

Those numbers just scratch the surface of what’s possible.

And that’s why Barack needs you. He needs regular folks, engaged not just with their dollars, but also with their energy.

If you get involved with Vote for Change now, you can help equip enough people in this country with the tools necessary to bring about the kind of change we so desperately need.

I like to imagine that even Obama wakes up some mornings, looks at himself in the mirror, and says “Wait, what the fuck do I mean by ‘change?’”

Politics in this country can no longer be the way it’s been: divided, isolated and cynical. We know in our hearts it can be so much better.

We’ve already come this far, and this nation-wide voter registration and mobilization drive is the next step.

Be a part of Vote for Change, bring move voices into the political process, and help America move toward a future filled with hope:

http://my.barackobama.com/voteforchange

Thank you for getting involved,

Michelle

I know in my heart that people who talk about unity while appealing to racial identity and hiding behind a thinly constructed wall of racial sensitivity are completely full of shit.

Hollywood hates Arabs. At the least Hollywood uncritically reflects the fact that Americans hate Arabs. That’s why we make them the bad guys in all of our movies. How else would you explain the fact that Arabs keep showing up as the bad guys in movies about terrorism? I could understand the meme if most of the people out doing crazy shit like flying airplanes into buildings and blowing up schoolchildren were Arab Muslims, but most of that stuff is being done by little old Irish ladies from what I can tell.

Luckily, Jack Shaheen agrees with me about the whole “Hollywood unfairly portrays Arabs” thing, so he wrote a book called Guilty — Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs after 9/11. In the book he apparently singles out movies that he thinks are the worst offenders. Films like The Kingdom and television shows like 24 have unfairly created an “Arab-American bogeyman.” If Hollywood were responsible when they make terrorism films, they would have the villain be Italian or maybe a militant Native Hawaiian separatist. Anything but an Arab Muslim.

Here’s a comparison list of Jack’s good films vs. bad films in terms of Arab Muslim portrayal:

I know what you’re thinking, “Brett, all of those films in the ‘good’ column seem to be virulently anti-American, anti-military, and anti-Bush Administration films. Is it possible that a man who describes himself as ‘a committed internationalist and a devoted humanist‘ might, perhaps, be making this ridiculous contention in an attempt to equate narratives that don’t fit a left-wing view of terrorism with ethnic bigotry?” To which I say “RACIST!!!”

Okay, now he’s just starting to feel like a stalker.  I got another email from Barack this morning.  It’s the same intro where he flatters me with all of the bullshit about how important I am, and how he can’t do this without me, but now he’s trying to buy my affection on the cheap. 

Brett –

Next week, we have the opportunity to close out this race and secure the nomination for Barack — but there’s another deadline coming up even sooner.

Financial reports for April will be filed this Wednesday at midnight. The media pundits and Washington insiders will be watching the results and judging the strength of our campaign by the money we raise.

But what’s most impressive about our movement is that our funding has come from grassroots supporters like you. We’ve never accepted donations from Washington lobbyists or special interest PACs. Instead, more than 1,500,000 ordinary people have stepped up to own a piece of this campaign.

To meet this deadline and celebrate our grassroots donors, we’ve created a special gift.

Make a donation of $15 or more before midnight on Wednesday, April 30th, and receive a limited edition Vote for Change car magnet:

https://donate.barackobama.com/magnet

The crucial North Carolina and Indiana primaries will require unprecedented resources. But we also need to start preparing for the general election.

We’re building a powerful grassroots movement in all 50 states — organizing communities, registering voters, and bringing new voices into the political process.

We have accomplished so much, but we need your support today — to finish this contest, and to get ready to take on Senator McCain.

Yesterday, he was trying to give me t-shirts with his name on them and a DVD of him giving some speech, but today it’s car magnets.  Is that what our friendship comes down to?  “Hey Brett, give me a few bucks, I gotta go win North Carolina.  Oh, and here, have a car magnet buddy.”  Yeah, how’d that $50 for the contest in Pennsylvania work out?  He keeps begging me for money, meanwhile he doesn’t show up for his job, he sends his wife out to drum up money for him, and he jet-sets around the country partying with people he don’t even know and wants me to fund it.  This is getting really old, I mean I’m willing to help out a friend here and there, but this constant demand for money is really damaging my trust.

So it seems that Hannah Montana did a photo shoot with Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair and at least one picture contained implied nudity. Yes, I think that photographs involving 15-year-olds should avoid even implied nudity, yes I think that goes double when the 15-year-old is a near demi-goddess to tweeners everywhere, but please forgive me if I can’t manufacture outrage. Really, the idea that any parent of a preteen girl has the right to be surprised at this is laughable.

Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Lindsay Lohan, is any of this starting to seem familiar. Frankly, Miley Cyrus will be doing well by those standards if she isn’t appearing three times a night at the Spearmint Rhino in five years. We’ve turned teen stardom into a proving ground for oversexed, alcoholic, twenty-something disasters. I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news here, but that seemingly innocent teenage girl that your 11-year-old daughter wants to emulate is going to be naked on film somewhere in the next three to five years. It’s pretty much a certainty. She’s going to reach an age where being pigeonholed as an innocent teenage girl is going to interfere with her plans for her future career. When that happens, someone is going to convince her that getting naked on screen or in a photo session will break her out of that mold. One day Anne Hathaway is doing Ella Enchanted and The Princess Diaries, the next she’s topless in the backseat of a convertible blowing some douchebag. You have no right to be surprised at this by now. I’ve seen dogs figure out a pattern with less repetition.

Just in case you need a more visual demonstration of the express lane to whoredom that is the modern teen pop superstar, follow me below the fold for a pictorial journey through time.

*** Fair Warning, the pictures below are Not Safe for Work.***

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Senator Obama, or Barry as I call him when we talk, sent me another email this morning asking me to travel to North Carolina and campaign for him.  It’s asking a lot, but he was pretty cool about it.

Brett —

I’ve just landed in North Carolina, and I wanted to let you know about where we stand in this battleground state.

All across North Carolina, I’ve spoken to veterans, students, and factory workers about the challenges small-town America is facing — and about how we’re going to start solving them.

I see the excitement on the ground, and I truly believe North Carolina is ready to stand up for a different kind of politics. But only if people like you get involved and take ownership of this effort.

In the coming days, supporters across the country will be coming to North Carolina to knock on doors, make phone calls, and Get Out The Vote for Primary Day on May 6th — and they need your help.

I know this is a big decision. But what’s brought our campaign where we are today is that so many people — including many who never thought they’d get involved in politics in their lifetime — have taken that leap to help us succeed.

We need to finish strong in the Tar Heel State, so I hope you’ll sign up to take the trip this weekend.

I’m trying to imagine what will be descending on the good people of North Carolina in the coming days.  The influx of Trans-gender Unionized Healthcare Workers for Obama alone will make Sherman’s March seem like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade by comparison.

Okay, I admit it, I’ve been lurking on HuffPo again.  I know, but I can’t help it.  David Sirota is whining about the fact that Congressional Democrats are coming to the reality that the socialist pipe dream of universal, government-run healthcare won’t be happening anytime soon.  It’s the usual bullshit about how there’s really a massive swell of popular support for pseudo-communist state-run "healthcare."  The post itself is pretty damn boring, but the comments are a real hoot.  Evidently, the fact that Democrat politicians are putting their political aspirations ahead of fealty to left-wing ideology is just a shock.

One portion of a comment stood out among all of the whining, however.  In a sea of misinformed stupidity Phoenixfire089 managed to distinguish himself.  Here’s the first paragraph of his comment (emphasis is mine):

Schumer’s quotes illustrate the gap between politicians and regular people. This morning I woke up to a guest on a tv program speaking about how American’s average lifespan has stagnated and that 20% of women will not make it to that average. Further, the United States is 24th in a ranking of infant mortality…lower than Cuba. According to recent studies, there is a statistically significant relationship between wealth and life expectancy.

I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t take a college-level understanding of statistics to grasp the idea that a certain percentage of any data set will fall short of the average.  Hence the term average.  So we’ve established that Phoenixfire089 is an idiot, but the statistics cited in that paragraph present an interesting, and common, argument for universal healthcare.

Virtually every discussion with a left-wing nationalized healthcare advocate will eventually lead to a lecture about America’s dismal performances in the areas of infant mortality and life expectancy.  Naturally, they’ve picked two of the worst possible indicators of the quality of a healthcare system.  Why are they such bad indicators?  Because the results are contaminated by too many factors that are outside the control of any healthcare system, much less a government-run one.

But don’t take my word for it.  David Hogberg has an article on this issue that gives a number of reasons why these two statistics are poor indicators of the quality of a healthcare system.  It’s a couple of years old, but I found it particularly informative.  If you find yourself having this debate with someone and need to respond to those statistics, this article is an excellent resource.