I was browsing the fantastical images of Les Edwards and came across this image he did for a CD by the band Prodigy.



If ever there was an image that so accurately represented the Liberal World-view this is it.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer displays its Left-wing bias with headlines regarding the Dalia Lama's visit to Seattle and Pope Benedict XVI's East Coast visit.

Dalai Lama: Dalai Lama conference ends with call for 'compassionate action'

Pope Benedict XVI: Pope says he is 'deeply ashamed' of clergy abuse scandal

Bias at the Seattle P-I? Naahh. 'Nuff said.

I wonder what Senate Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid clings to:

Does Harry Reid think the protracted nomination fight between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will harm the party?
"It makes me bitter," he [said].

At least he has a sense of humor.

Muslims are not afraid to declare that they are engaged in a religious war against all infidels. So how come we in the West are afraid to admit that, in fact, we are at war with Islam?

"Allah has chosen you for Himself and for His religion," al-Astal preached, "so that you will serve as the engine pulling this nation to the phase of succession, security and consolidation of power, and even to conquests through da'wa and military conquests of the capitals of the entire world.

"Very soon, Allah willing, Rome will be conquered, just like Constantinople was, as was prophesized by our prophet Muhammad," [Yunis al-Astal, "a prominent Muslim cleric and Hamas member of the Palestinian parliament", said].

Perhaps that should be our position unless and until we see Muslims protest these kinds of comments in, at least, the same number as they  protest what are perceived as "insults" to Islam.

Instead there is nothing but silence from the Islamic world when these kinds of comments come out. And I'm supposed to believe that Islam is the "religion of peace"? I don't think so.

And if that means lying to make a point, then so be it. Paul Krugman admits as much in his latest Democrat Times of New York commentary, reprinted in Seattle's Democrat Anti-Intelligencer.

The Times, in an actual bit of news reporting, made it clear that Hillary Clinton was continually repeating a story, about a woman who died for lack of health insurance, for which there was no basis in fact.

The woman, Trina Bachtel, did die last August, two weeks after her baby boy was stillborn at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio. But hospital administrators said Friday that Ms. Bachtel was under the care of an obstetrics practice affiliated with the hospital, that she was never refused treatment and that she was, in fact, insured.

For uber-Leftist Paul Krugman facts matter little if it helps creates the Leftist vision America; "... while some of the details were slightly off, the essentials of her story were correct." In fact, the only fact that was correct was the tragedy of Ms. Bachtel's and her baby boy's death. Everything else was false. Mr. Krugman makes it clear that that matters little when there are more important things at stake, like Socialized Health Care:

And even more important, Clinton was making a valid point about the state of health care in America.

... It was particularly sad to see a number of Obama supporters ... join enthusiastically in the catcalls against Clinton's good-faith effort to put a human face on the cruelty and injustice of the American health care system.

... politics is supposed to be about more than cheering your team and jeering the other side. It's supposed to be about changing the country for the better.

When hard core Leftists embrace lying as a means to "changing the country for the better", be afraid. Be very afraid.

Sen. B. H. Obama's has recently stated that the federal government has effectively abandoned Pennsylvanian's and left them with no prospects, such that "they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Many in the punditocracy are declaring this as just another example of Sen. Barry's elitism. I find I am persuaded by Roger Kimball's simultaneous defense of elitism and clarifying attack on Obama.

That some people are elite and some are not is an uncomfortable fact of life that many, on both the Left and Right, would like to ignore. Kimball quotes William Henry's book, titled In Defense of Elitism,

the simple fact that some people are better than others—smarter, harder working, more learned, more productive, harder to replace. Some ideas are better than others, some values more enduring, some works of art more universal. Some cultures, thought we dare not say it, are more accomplished than others and therefore more worthy of study. Every corner of the human race may have something to contribute. That does not mean that all contributions are equal… . It is scarcely the same thing to put a man on the moon as to put a bone in your nose.

If anyone should understand this it is conservatives.

Kimball then makes clear why Obama's comments and subsequent denial that he meant exactly what he said were so odious. It is not because they are the elitist utterings.

It was smug; it was self-righteous; it was blinkered, bigoted, emotionally impoverished, and otherwise odious; it but it was not in any normal sense of the word “elitist.”

[Sen. Obama] regarded most Americans as bitter, small-town, gun-toting, God-fearing, xenophobic, unemployed isolationists who needed help. That is bad enough. Even worse, however, is the disgusting pretense that he actually meant something more emollient. Most of us have gotten used to being treated with contempt by politicians. But Obama has upped the ante. It isn’t pleasant. But it is, at any rate, useful to know just how stupid he thinks we are. I for one will not forget it.

And neither shall I.

I am wondering why no one, not even talk radio, is at least pointing out what I think are troubling connections between Democrat opposition to the Free Trade agreement with Columbia and recent discovery of Democrat operatives exchanging letters with Columbian terrorist group FARC, assuring FARC that there would be information exchanges in Washington DC that would benefit FARC.

The only main stream media reporting I’ve found on this is in a Wall Street Journal editorial: 

There have been several blog commentaries on this subject. Gateway Pundit is one of several blog that has discussed this issue.

Would there be as much media silence on this if the tables were turned and instead we discovered someone connected with Republicans were having communication with a Venezuelan terrorist group that was working to undermine the Chavez regime? I have a strong suspicion that that storyline would be a front page New York Times story … for many days. Especially if a Republican controlled Congress killed a free trade agreement with Venezuela.

We all know about Mark Steyn's current battles with the absurdly named Canadian Human Rights Commission. Now I've learned that Mark Steyn is not their only target. Now some well known conservative bloggers are in the sites CHRC's gunsites.

...[S]ome Canadian conservative bloggers are being sued by the fellow who Mark Steyn has called "Canada's most sensitive man" -- serial "human rights" complainant Richard Warman.

The suit names:

• Ezra Levant (famous for the YouTube video of his confrontation with the Canadian Human Rights tribunal after he published the "Mohammed Cartoons")

• FreeDominion.ca (Canada's answer to FreeRepublic.com)

• Kate McMillan of SmallDeadAnimals.com

• Jonathan Kay of the National Post newspaper and its in-house blog

• and me, Kathy Shaidle of FiveFeetOfFury.com

More details at my blog, FiveFeetOfFury.

Richard Warman used to work for the notorious Human Rights Commission, which runs the "kangaroo courts" who've recently charged Mark Steyn with "flagrant Islamophobia".

Richard Warman has brought almost half these cases single-handledly, trying to get websites he doesn't like shut down.

He's also sued libraries for carrying books he doesn't approve of.

PLUS Richard Warman wants to ban international websites he doesn't like from being seen by Canadians.

I'm beginning to worry less and less about Mexico and more and more about the Liberal Fascist threat North of America's borders.

For the second time in as many days, I've seen a report about how the economy in 2008, with a Republican in the White House, compares with the economy  in 1998, with a Democrat in the White House. David Freddoso posts this useful table at National Review Online:

Key Labor Market Statistics in 1996 and 2008
	March 1996	March 2008
1. U.S. Unemployment Rate	5.5%	5.1%
2. Number of Long-Term Unemployed	1.33 million	1.28 million
3. Average Weeks Unemployed	17.3 weeks	16.2 weeks
4. Median Weeks Unemployed	8.3 weeks	8.1 weeks
5. Not in Labor Force because discouraged over job prospects	451,000	401,000
6. Democrats calling for Extended Unemployment Benefits?	No	Yes
7. President’s Party Affiliation	Democrat	Republican

I wonder how many in the Main Scream Media will have this information handy  when it reports the following:

“The bottom line is that this administration is the owner of the worst jobs record since Herbert Hoover." (Senator Charles Schumer, Press Release, March 7, 2008)

I'm betting on not many.

That would be headline if the Left took the same attitude toward the government run public schools that it took toward the Catholic Church after this story came to light. Maybe we can get a series, like this one in the Seattle P-I, declaring Seattle public schools as "No Safe Haven".

I wonder if we'll now see a slew of stories in the movies or on TV that portray the wretched pedophiles that infect the taxpayer funded public education. Don't hold your breath; and for good reason - it would be an extremely unfair portrayal of the millions of teachers by characterizing all teachers as the worst among them.

If only the "open minded" and "nuanced" Minders in the American Media could be as circumspect about how it portrays Catholicism.

And even the Lefty graphic novel fans are not happy. It seems even the Left has its limits.

Howard Zinn, the historian perhaps most loathed by conservative Americans, has top billing on a graphic adaption of A People's History of the United States, titled A People's History of American Empire.



Here is part of the Amazon.com description:

Narrated by Zinn, this version opens with the events of 9/11 and then jumps back to explore the cycles of U.S. expansionism from Wounded Knee to Iraq, stopping along the way at World War I, Central America, Vietnam, and the Iranian revolution.

Noticeably missing from this list of American Imperialism is WWII. However, Zinn is not even willing to say that what America did, to get rid of Hitler in WWII, was moral:

Dennis Prager: ... there are historical examples of where war is the only way to achieve a moral end.
Howard Zinn: Well, I'm not sure that's the only way.
DP: Was there another way to have gotten rid of Hitler?
HZ: In the case of WWII, I don't know what it would have taken to get rid of Hitler. We certainly had to resist him, we certainly had to get rid of him. . . . What bothers me most today is that people use WWII as an example for what we should do today. It's a very different situation.
DP: No, we use it as an example of where war is the moral choice. Are you prepared to say that war is ever the best moral choice?
HZ: No.
DP: Never. Not even against Hitler?
HZ: Well, I'm not sure about WWII
DP: Wow.

Maybe even Zinn, historian Paul Buhle, and cartoonist Mike Konopacki know that American people, even Left-wingers, have their limits.More than likely it was the editors who put the kibosh on the idea that WWII was not a moral war.

But what really amuses me is that Left-wing comic fans are not finding this book all that appealing. Commentor FZ was kind enough to inform me of this review at ComicsWorthReading.com, where I was rather tickled to read this, by Johanna Draper Carlson:

I should be smack in the middle of the target audience for this book. I love graphic novels, including non-fiction ones, and popular history, plus I have grave misgivings about the choices made by the current government of this country in the name of security.

Thus, I was stunned to discover that I couldn’t force myself past the second chapter. It’s much too hectoring and didactic, even to those already inclined to be interested in reading a “greatest hits of America’s sins”.

Tom Spurgeon, another Lefty comics review, also doesn't like the graphic adaption of Zinn's anti-American screed. But, for some reason, Spurgeon's review can no longer be found at his own website, TheComicsReporter.com. You have to go to the Google cached page in order to read Spurgeon's own words:

This is a crushing disappointment of a book, a smart list of criticisms of American foreign policy presented in hamfisted fashion.

While I won't agree with Spurgeon or Carlson on matters political, I will give them credit for not letting their passion for the graphic novel and non-fiction art form be overtaken by their Left-wing politics.

Or a sexist, if Hillary is the Democrat Presidential Nominee. Because when you see a black or a woman you tend to categorize this person by race or gender.

Nicholas Kristof takes an early shot in that bit of overheated, nonsensical rhetoric, implying that a vote not cast for Obama or Hillary by white men, is a sign of racism, albiet unconscious.

My favorite bit of the psychological "studies" cited by Mr. Kristof is this, "Most whites and many blacks are more quick to shoot blacks, no matter how egalitarian they profess to be." (emphasis added)

That latter fact seems to be lost on Kristof, and others of his ilk, who think psuedo-intellectual psychology "studies" have anything of value to say about reality.

The full length theatrical trailer for Hellboy II: The Golden Army is up at Yahoo. Yeah, I'm excited.

I'm a fan of first one and a devotee of all the B.P.R.D. comics. When most American government agencies are being treated in Hollywood as enemies of freedom and liberty, it is nice to find one agency (albiet a fantastical one) full of good guys (and gals) fighting evil.

Newsarama.com has done comics fans a favor by totaling the cost of Marvel's Secret Invasion, at least through July.

Rooting out racism and bigotry at NASCAR events and in Southern communities is important enough for ABC and NBC to create elaborate hoaxes to ensnare unsuspecting folks.

When very real racism is found at Planned Parenthood centers in Idaho, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Ohio where is the Main Scream Media?

Maybe they are out pounding the pavement looking for bigoted "typical white people" for Sen. Barry H. Obama.