The Reason God Put New Orleans 30' Below Sea Level?
Put down your lunch -- you may not want to finish it when you read this.

This woman, if she's guilty of what she's been accused of, rebuts the argument that some of the people of New Orleans were worth saving by virue of our shared humanity. This is simply disgusting.

And if that's not enough to make you toss your lunch, here is a National Post (Canada) story on another murderous parent who won't even face the rigors of a government trial. The inimitable Mark Steyn comments on this atrocity, and adds a reprint of an article about what happens when the pie-in-the-sky unreality of multiculturalism meets real life. And dead children.

You Don't Need a Brain to Write for The Washington Post...
Great story about a 6-year old kid in Virginia who tried to drive himself to school, here. It appeared in the Washington Post.

I especially love the blurb at the end of the story, where the reporter says the boy was not identified because of his age, and yet at the very beginning of the tale, his parents are identified by name and age, and the fact that he has a 4-yr old sibling is also mentioned.

Good to know they're protecting the identity of the little guy!

And they wonder why people are not reading newspapers anymore...

This is the man who may steal a Senate seat in the State of Minnesota. Don't let it happen!

Of Foxes and Hen-Houses...
For the last eight years, our ears have been assaulted by a constant cacophony of caterwauling from the political left in this country, to wit that their political opponents on the right are outright crooks, villains who act with callous disregard for the 'working families' they claim to defend (I hate this phrase: it sounds as if Mom and Dad had to sell the children to the black, Satanic mill, churning out piecework for pennies on the dollar per hour).

The 'evidence' is nothing of the sort. Democrats will tell you that all republicans care about is the modern-day robber barons of Wall Street, that the Bush Administration has been criminally-lax in ferreting out fraud, corruption and theft in the corporate boardrooms, since Big Business lines republican pockets. Were it not for all that dirty money entering the republican coffers, this latest financial meltdown would never have happened!

The dems tried hard to hammer this mantra home, forever, and it never took, until, of course, the markets collapsed, gasoline became more expensive than a healthy kidney, and the republican party suddenly decided to give money away on a scale not seen since the bad, old days of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. Then, when the airwaves were full of stories about executives at AIG enjoying vacations paid for by taxpayer bailout funds, the CEO of Merril-Lynch escaping with a $100 million golden parachute, when the CEO of Enron can call the White House -- directly -- as his company crumbles, the spectre of Jack Abramoff, Randal "Duke" Cunningham, and so forth, the dems could (plausibly) make the case that republicans were simply helping out their friends on the taxpayer dime, and the fact that the banks and insurance companies and other recipients of the TARP funds given away so far refuse to account for it, and the Bush Treasury Department refuses to demand that information, continues to lend credence to the charge.

But, of course, the dems never point to their own, real crooks.

Chris Dodd is currently the subject of a Senate Ethics Committee investigation over allegations that he received sweetheart deals on two mortgages from Countrywide Financial, the largest private mortgage broker in the land -- or at least it was, until it went bankrupt. Dodd sits on the Senate Banking Committee, you see, and his job is not to accept special mortgage deals from Countrywide; his job was supposed to be overseeing the mortgage market, and ensuring that Countrywide and other lenders like it, and FreddieMac and FannieMae (the two government-owned mortgage lenders) were solvent, strong and capable. Of course, when it was brought to Dodd's Committee's attention that Freddie and Fannie were in dire straits, Dodd looked the other way. Probably because any investigation of Freddie's and Fannie's problems would have discovered criminally-lax oversight on the part of the democrats (particularly Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank, House Banking Committee, who was sleeping with a member of Freddie's board!), who not only had conflicts of interest with regards to their committee responsibilities, they had them with their personal business dealings, as well.

As of this date, Dodd has promised to turn over all the pertinent information and documents regarding his mess, and has yet to do so. Several months or so after the investigation into his activities began. As for Frank, he's obviously taken the tact that if he simply doesn't admit guilt and complicity and attacks his detractors viciously, while hiding behind his victim status as a homosexual, the whole thing will blow (no pun intended) over. Both men should be horsewhipped, on Pay-per-View, for their shocking behavior.

One of my personal favorites, New York Representative Charles Rangel, is also up to his armpits in alleged illegal activities. These range from not reporting rental income (to the tune of $75k) on his income taxes, illegally using a rent-controlled apartment in Harlem as a campaign office, somehow managing to get control of three other rent-controlled apartments in NYC, using campaign funds to pay his parking tickets, accepting a 'donation' to a foundation of his (Rangel's)from an energy executive who lobbied Rangel hard to come through for him on some piece of legislation or other. And that's just what we know so far --- new shit about Rangel is revealed every week. I would not be surprised if any day now a bevy of young women emerged from the woodwork, all claiming Charlie Rangel is their baby-daddy. At the rate at which the doo-doo is piling up around Charlie, I would actually consider laying a bet on a love-child or two, and then I'd double-down, figuring Charlie pulled a Jesse Jackson and paid the mommies off (only with taxpayer money and probably no-show government jobs).

Rod Blagojevich, Governor (for now) of Illinois is up to his eyebrows in a Pay-for-Play scandal involving the potential raffling-off of Barack Obama's soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat. It's a scandal that grows by the day, and has even tarnished Rep. Jesse Jackson, Junior, who was compelled to call a press conference to protest his non-involvement in any such scheme. Even Obama himself was forced to deny, vehemently, that neither he nor his staff had anything to do with this attempt to wrangle a bribe for Blagojevich. To keep the wolves at bay, Obama and his staff conducted a 'thorough investigation' of their own activities, which lo and behold!, they passed with flying colors...until it was proven that Obama's Chief-of-Staff-to-be, Rahm Emmanuel, had only met/spoke with Blagojevich over the Senate seat something like 10 times.

Now Obama's pick for Commerce Secretary, Bill Richardson, who was perhaps the most able and experienced, democrat politician in this country, and Governor of New Mexico, has had to withdraw his name from consideration for the post. Why? because he may be ass-deep in a bribery scandal, too!

We won't even get into Hillary Clinton, nominal pick for Secretary of State -- her list of crimes is too long to get into, and only God knows where her husband's 'Foundation' (a.k.a Bill's slush fund) gets it's money. Rumors are it's Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt, amongst others, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a cancelled check with "Osama Bin Laden" on the signature line.

And who could forget Rep. Jefferson, he of the freezer with $90k in cash stuffed into it?

And republicans are crooks? In this light, I would tend to think that republicans are hardly crooks; when a repub gets nailed for something it's usually for something like soliciting gay sex in an airport men's room. Perhaps you are a closet pedophile. Maybe, on a good day, you took a bribe in the form of having your billiards room refinished for free. The point is, democrats have criminal activity down to an art form.When republicans get caught doing something, it's a matter of looking hypocritical, foolish, or both.

When Dems get caught, actual cash --- great, big bundles of cash --- has actually passed from hand to hand.

If anything, besides the screaming hypocrisy of the pot calling the kettle black, what all of these incidents seem to indicate is a pattern which, only in retrospect, begins to make sense:

Democrats are criminals. Of this there can be no doubt. Republicans, on the other hand, are grossly incompetent. When Barack Obama and the democratic party promised "Change", I'm not certain this is what they had in mind; changing incompetence and stupidity for naked graft.

Of course, it has crossed my mind that in the case of Richardson and Clinton, Obama floated their names absolutely knowing that the former was mired in a scandal that is perhaps bound to ruin him, and that the latter would bring her own scandals in the form of her husband with her. And that both would fail to be confirmed because of it. In one fell swoop, the two best democratic contenders for a 2012 primary would be severely wounded before they could even announce.

But I digress...

This is what government in America has been reduced to. It should make you sick to your stomach.

Update: Victor Davis Hanson weighs in, in a similar vein,from National Review here. Even more in this vein courtesy of Right Wing News here.

Productive Work = Superior Culture...
I was watching television over the holiday weekend, and there was one particular show (I shall not name it here) which took a look at various cultures and the bizarre, and sometimes macabre,
rituals and traditions in which they indulge.

There were the tribal people of Turkey, who spend and entire day whipping each other bloody with knotted ropes and ripping each other's clothes off, presumably to ensure a healthy harvest. Or was it the health of their goats? I forget which, but it was something similarly silly. What was even sillier is watching men tear each other's clothes off in order to expose each other's bellies, buttocks, backs -- and other sensitive areas -- just so the knotted rope will sting that much more and inflict greater pain. I'm certain there is some proscription of this sort of activity between grown men somewhere in the Koran (which I thought all these folks believed in and took literally), but I can't be bothered to find it.

Then we're informed that the folk of a particular Central American culture set aside a special day every year to beat the snot out of complete strangers. Two men walk up to each other, and start throwing punches and kicks. Once combat begins, no one is allowed out unless he's totally unconscious, in need of serious medical attention, or perhaps dead. The 'winner', who himself may be wounded and bloody, is then challenged by other people at random until he too, succumbs. Eventually, the entire male population is bloody, bruised, battered and brain damaged. Why do they do this? To ensure the favor of the Sun God, who requires blood sacrifice. This, we're told, hearkens back to the days of the Aztec Empire, when 20,000 people a day might have had their beating hearts ripped from their chests to satiate the Sun God's need for fresh human blood. Good to see that Aztec religious ritual has softened with the advance of civilization.

Also from Central America, there is the festival which commemorates the eruption of a volcano, and which is re-enacted by people who throw balls of cloth soaked in flammable substances, set aflame, at each other. Whoever can dodge the flaming missiles is ensured good luck, or minty clean breath, or whatever, while the slow and uncoordinated can look forward to -second and -third degree burns. Occasionally, we're told, the fight gets out of hand and the errant missiles may set someones home ablaze, or start a forest fire, or even burn down the crops. Naturally, this happens because you're allowed to throw fireballs wherever you goddamned please, at whoever you goddamned please, without rules, warning or even basic safety precautions. Doing so would cheat the ritual of it's ambiance, I guess.

The entire panoply of human stupidity was on display: walking barefoot across 1,000-degree coals. Body piercing and tattooing. Hooks inserted into the fleshy parts of people's bodies so that they could be suspended from ropes. Re-enactments of the crucifixion of Christ, complete with real nails, crowns of thorns and scourges. People standing in circles, in full tribal regalia, hitting each other with sticks and spears, or blowing poison darts at each other. Others found celebration in self-mutilation: the piercing or slitting of lips, eyelids, ears and unmentionable parts, usually for the purpose of inserting a very large object into the incision, which apparently serves no useful function. Blindfolded people encouraged to swing blindly at each other within a confined space.

Let's also not forget the elaborate, decorative and garishly-pigmented penis gourds, with which primitive men attempt to overawe each other.

I noticed a few things between being alternately skeeved and stunned by the stupidity of my fellow man. The first thing I noticed was that the poorer the participants seemed to be, the more importance they placed upon their stupid ritual. As corollaries, the poorer and more educationally-deprived the practitioners seemed to be, the more violent the ritual itself, and the more likely the brutal ritual was to have some connection with sex.

The second thing I noticed is that all of the places where the most brutal, ridiculous, painful and least-rewarding activities took place look as if they are still in the Stick Age. Wait, that may be too generous. They are still in the Mud Age.

Third point: the more brutal, ridiculous, painful and non-rewarding the activity, the more resources the people who practice them seem to invest in them.

By now, what passes for an intellectual process in my house kicked in. No wonder these people are so incredibly poor, ignorant, backwards and incapable of making the great leap into the modern world: they would rather devote their energies to figuring out how to beat each other senseless for religious purposes, proclaim their sexual prowess by demonstrating how far a bamboo pole can be inserted into their rectum, or lay naked and slathered in honey atop a fire ant nest to endure thousands of stings -- just for the right to the good piece of the antelope.

Granted, there are some stupid practices in the Western World: the running of bulls in Spain, organized street fights with fresh fruit in Italy, anything having to do with people wallowing in mud in the British Isles, Rodeo and NASCAR in America. But if some of the folks in South America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East could, for a day, be given the perspective of a 'sophisticated' Westerner so that they may observe their own culture doing that which it normally does, they'd probably be very embarrassed.

They might also realize that figuring out how to sodomize a camel as a right of passage is a waste of time compared to studying chemistry, reading Shakespeare or building something out of a material other than mud and animal skins. They might even be sufficiently embarrassed to begin to realize that their lot in life will never, ever approach even that available to even the dumbest, laziest Westerner.

And then they might get mad and perhaps learn to do something worthwhile.

I've been listening to the multi-culti advocates for what seems like decades now, extolling the virtues of all cultures as being equal. After what I've seen, I think anyone who continues to believe that should be taken out and made to live that way. let's see how quickly that 'equal' culture becomes unbearable to the sappy moron when there's no flush toilets, mosquitoes are your constant companions, and you get your ass kicked daily to ensure the Fire God doesn't destroy your bamboo-and-palm-leaf village again this week.

Meet The New War; Same as the Old War...
Palestinians (can we stop using that term, please? There is no such place as 'Palestine') are at it again. And once again, Israelis are forced to act in self-defense, and yet again, the chattering rectum class piles on the Joos and calls them 'murderers' and 'warmongers' and 'babykillers', conveniently forgetting that there's several tens of millions of Ay-rabs whipping up rockets and land mines, and explosive belts in their basements and kitchens with which they hope to kill Joos. They only launch rockets indiscriminately every goddamned day. They only send suicide bombers out every goddamend day to take out a pizzeria in a crowded shopping mall. They only try to kidnap Israelis daily to hold them for ransom, or simply to torture them.

We've seen this show before, and we know how it ends:

The Ay-rabs blow up Joos, and the Joos -- who have the capacity to kill an awful lot of Ay-rabs in return -- don't. The Ay-rabs then hide behind women and children knowing the Joos are reluctant to shoot at human shields, cry they are victims, and continue to escalate the violence.

The Joos, their supplies of forbearance having been exhausted by continuously escalating violence, retaliate, but they are extremely circumspect in their retaliation; they target only combatnats and the people who lead them, they destroy only those buildings they reasonably believe aid the enemy. This is in marked contrast to the Ay-rabs indiscriminate use of force, but somehow the Joos are guilty of 'disproportionate responses'.

Eventually, the Joos lay a mighty beating on the Ay-rabs, but having been chastized by the EU, the American press, the Berkeley Faculty and every advocate of complete surrender to the dark forces of militant Islam, they don't follow up that victory in any meaningful way (i.e. in such a way that will leave these parasites starving to death and in no position to continue launching rockets at Joos) for fear of looking like bullies. They let their enemies off the mat, and the Ay-rabs simply wait for the new checks from the EU, the Saudis and Iranians to clear, before renewing the cycle.

You know what? It's been 60 years already. Enough is enough.

Someone should realize that despite the lip-service they pay to it, the Ay-rabs don't want peace. They don't want economic prosperity. They don't want freedom and democracy. Hell, they were given the opportunity to elect a democratic government and they only managed to elect Hamas, a group that makes the Nazi SS seem like a bunch of pansy, bed-wetting Boy Scouts.

My advice, if you want to take it, Joos: before you prematurely end this conflict, perhaps you should make certain these people suffer horrendously. Only people who have surrendered after suffering horrendously disavow violence. Just ask Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.