Iowahawk celebrates the restoration of America’s popularity with socialist European weenies and shares in the joy felt at the election of America’s first black president by the enemies of the United States everywhere.

Although I have not always been the most outspoken advocate of President-Elect Barack Obama, today I would like to congratulate him and add my voice to the millions of fellow citizens who are celebrating his historic and frightening election victory. I don’t care whether you are a conservative or a liberal—when you saw this inspiring young African-American rise to our nation’s highest office I hope you felt the same sense of patriotic pride that I experienced, no matter how hard you were hyperventilating with deep existential dread.

Yes, I know there are probably other African-Americans much better qualified and prepared for the presidency. Much, much better qualified. Hundreds, easily, if not thousands, and without any troubling ties to radical lunatics and Chicago mobsters. Gary Coleman comes to mind. But let’s not let that distract us from the fact that Mr. Obama’s election represents a profound, positive milestone in our country’s struggle to overcome its long legacy of racial divisions and bigotry. It reminds us of how far we’ve come, and it’s something everyone in our nation should celebrate in whatever little time we now have left.

Less than fifty years ago, African-Americans were barred from public universities, restaurants, and even drinking fountains in many parts of the country. On Tuesday we came together and transcended that shameful legacy, electing an African-American to the country’s top job—which, in fact, appears to be his first actual job. Certainly, it doesn’t mean that racism has disappeared in America, but it is an undeniable mark of progress that a majority of voters no longer consider skin color nor a dangerously gullible naivete as a barrier to the presidency. ...

It’s obvious that this newfound pride is not confined to Americans alone. All across the world, Mr. Obama’s election has helped mend America’s tattered image as a racist, violent cowboy, willing to retaliate with bombs at the slightest provocation. The huge outpouring of international support following the election shows that America can still win new friendships while rebuilding its old ones, and provides Mr. Obama with unprecedented diplomatic leverage over our remaining enemies. When Russian tanks start pouring into eastern Europe and Iranian missiles begin raining down on Jerusalem, their leaders will know they will be facing a man who not only conquered America’s racial divide but the hearts of the entire Cannes film community. And those Al Qaeda terrorists plotting a dirty nuke or chemical attack on San Francisco face a stark new reality: while they may no longer need to worry about US Marines, they are looking down the barrel of a strongly worded diplomatic condemnation by a Europe fully united in their deep sympathy for surviving Americans.

Read the whole thing.

From the Onion:

2:39 video

Hat tip to Daniel Lowenstein.

Red State Pundits argue whether Elrond Half-Elven started an unnecessary war which precipitated the dwindling away and passage to the West of his own people.

Besides, no One Ring was ever found when the allied armies invaded and occupied Mordor at the cost of millions of gold pieces per month, the loss of thousands of elves, dwarves, and men, which war-of-choice resulted also in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of orcs, trolls, wild men, and Southrons, and the enormous and wide-spread destruction of Mordorian infrastructure.

An anniversary has recently passed. On October 25, 3018 Third Age, Elrond Half-elven, son of Eärendil of the line of Thingol, bearer of Vilya the great Ring of Power, made a critical decision for his people.

Rather than allow the last remaining outposts of the Elves at Imladris and Lothlórien continue without disruption from the outside world, he chose to invest the Elves in a grand global fight to rob Sauron of his power permanently, in the process destroying the Rings of Power of his own and Galadriel’s. At the Council of Elrond, a Fellowship was constructed, representing Elves, Men, Wizards, Dwarves, and Halflings, all united by a supposed common cause.

But where are the Elves now? All gone West. Was this great act of foreign policy by Elrond a self-destructive act? Would Elves not have been better off allowing Sauron to remain, acting as a counterweight to the Men, and preventing Men from being an undisputed hyperpower in Middle-earth?

Ben Affleck does a superb job of parodying the pompous and perennially indignant windbag.

video 8:48

John McCain, accompanied by his wife Cindy and Tina Fey (as Sarah Palin), displays real talent as a comedian on SNL.

5:59 video

Iowahawk posts the Apologia Pro Proditio Sua of T. Coddington Van Voorhees VII, Columnist, The National Topsider.

Trust me, I haven’t taken this tack lightly. No Van Voorhees has supported an avowed socialist since great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandpapa Cragmont Van Voorhees lent Peter Minuet $24 and a sack of wampum to swing a subprime mortgage on Manhattan Island. Old dad himself often recounted how, as a lad, he would command the family chauffeur Carleton to drive the Duesenberg down to the Times Square Trans-Lux so he could hiss Roosevelt. But I’ve taken a good measure of this Obama fellow, and I must say I like the cut of the man’s jib.

How can I say this, you ask? One look at this Obama chap is all the answer you need. Suave, tanned, unflappable, Harvard connections; it’s obvious that here is a man to the conservative manor born. One imagines him at the helm of the Ship of State, basked in the sunlight diffusing through the seaspray over the bow, like some beautiful rugged Othello from a rapturous Ralph Lauren catalog, calmly issuing instructions to the deck crew in that magnificent mellifluous baritone of his. It’s that easy-going, almost effortless grace that has all the A-list conservatives like David Frum and Kathleen Parker whispering Reaganesque in hushed tones. Even Peggy Noonan—the Grand Dame of Gipperism—has succumbed to Obama’s undeniable conservative charms. Just last month I listened to her wax poetic about the Adonis of Chicago between chukkers at the Newport Club polo tournament final. “Why Peggy, you old dowager,” I quipped, “I believe you just had an orgasm.”

Certainly, my endorsement has raised more than a few eyebrows around the National Topsider water cooler, particularly among the alumni of jejune cow colleges like Michigan or Dartmouth. They sometimes point to Mr. Obama’s radical Rolodex and his hooey about “weath redistribution” and “dictatorship of the proletariat.” But, as I patiently explain, this is precisely the point – it is hooey, over-the-top rhetorical flourishes obviously designed by Mr. Obama to win over benighted inner city hoi polloi (a feat, I might add, that even the Great Communicator himself was unable to accomplish). As for his so-called radical ties, who among us hasn’t sent dinner party invitations to Gore Vidal and a leftwing terrorists or two to enliven the postprandial conversation? Leonard Bernstein loved hosting all manner of Weathermen and Black Panthers and Symbionese Liberation Army celebrities at his Park Avenue pied a terre, but it didn’t mean the Maestro wasn’t in favor of low taxes. On the contrary; I know for a fact he itemized every cent of the catering bills for his famous terrorist cocktail parties.

Just so, I have every confidence that Obama’s true conservative butterfly will emerge once in office, coaxed from its Maoist cocoon by conservatives like myself and Frum and Parker and Noonan—all of whom I am pleased to report are already under consideration for the Obama Administration State Dinner shortlist. Certainly there may be a tax increase or two, but isn’t that what estate attorneys and Cayman Island banks are for? Under a worst case scenario some of us may have to set up a lease-back depreciation arrangement on one or two of our vacation compounds, as Dad was forced to in in the dark years of Carter.

Read the whole thing.

Jules Crittenden says (publicly at least) that he’s planning to drink the Kool-Aid.

So I was thinking, maybe it’s time to do what all the other guys are doing. Colin Powell, Ken Adelman, Douglas Kmiec, Christopher Hitchens … OK, he’s just going back where he came from … Charles Fried, Francis Fukuyama, Chuck Hagel, Bruce Bartlett kind of, Bill Weld, Lincoln Chafee, Scott McClellan, Christopher Buckley … damn, there’s a lot of them. Looking at that very long list of august names, considering where we stand at this important portal in history, I think the question anyone at all progressively minded should be asking is … hey Condi, why don’t you grow a set?

You know what Mom always said, if everyone else was jumping off a cliff …. But maybe it is time, right now, in 2008, to do what everyone else is doing. Shrug, say what the heck, get on the Bush-bashing wagon … you have to admit, that does look like fun … and finally acknowledge what the deep booming voice from that opening in the clouds with all the blinding rays of light has been telling us. Obama is the Anointed One.

The candidate was in mid-drone, sandwiched between sob stories, when it finally hit me. I mean really hit me, personally. The time has come. I’ve been ignoring infomercials, channel-surfing away in hardhearted self-centered annoyance for decades. But at longlast, the time has come when we have to let those little nagging voices speak to us. It’s time we all reached down deep, some maybe deeper than than others, to Save the Children. It’s Obama as the Sally Struthers of our national conscience. It’s more than that. He’s the guy on our big national speedboat with lots of babes in bikinis. What are you waiting for? He’s got the secret to attaining universal health care and wealth equity, you just have to buy his tape. America can have killer abs, without all that sweating and going to the gym and kicking down third-world mudhut doors. It is that easy. Return it in four years, no obligation, if not fully satisfied.

And that’s why I’ve decided to announce that I’m voting for Obama.

That’s what I’ll be telling pollsters, the national media and everyone I know, anyway. What I do in the polling booth is my own damn business. Look, the leadership of the free world and all that is really important, but the last thing I want is anyone to think I’m a racist. Or even worse, not cool.

From the People’s Cube.

Obama never much liked the current national anthem anyway, and he’s already produced his own presidential seal and his own salute, so clearly a new Obama anthem must be in the works.

Glenn Beck imagines what it might be like.

1:27 video

Via Jawa Report and Newsbusters

Very funny.

7:02 video

A commenter who signs himself “Waynes World” at Political Punch explains his reasons.

I’m voting Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending MY MONEY than I would. I think when you spread the wealth around it is good for everybody! It’s Patriotic!

I’m voting Democrat because I believe that business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. All profits are evil and should be confiscated for Government Redistribution.

I’m voting Democrat because I believe that MORE Government regulations and higher taxes on Business will stop Business from exporting their jobs to Countries with LESS Government regulations and lower taxes.

I’m voting Democrat because I believe terrorists should be allowed to have trials in American courts. And be able to subpoena top secret documents, soldiers, government officials, etc. to cross examine for their defense. They should have ACLU lawyers who can help intimidate Americans who serve on the juries!

I’m voting Democrat because I believe Gay Marriage should be the law of the land and will probably produce better children.

Read the whole thing.

A good animated commentary from Reason TV:

4:05 video

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Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.

A Halloween treat from Iowahawk.

3:41 video

Funny.

10:55 video

Jim Treacher has the scoop.

Peter Hannaford reports in the American Spectator.

Months had passed since we last talked with Ms. Henny-Penny, whose famous declaration—“the sky is falling!”—electrified the world. At the time, her barnyard colleagues quickly fell into line with her, save one, Chicken Little, who demurred. When last Ms. H-P and I talked, she scoffed at her former friend as a “denier.”

So, the other day I called her to see how she was doing as the recording secretary of what was now the Holy Order of the Sky is Falling, the Hon. Al Gore, pontiff.

“I’m fine,” she said, “but more importantly, Mr. Gore pontificated at a recent gathering in Washington and it was thrilling. He said we could switch all of the nation’s electricity production to wind, solar and other carbon-free sources within 10 years.” Does he have any experts to back up that assertion, I asked. “Oh yes,” she said. “Just the other day Nancy Pelosi at a news conference said the very same thing.”

“Hmm,” I replied. “Solar power now provides one-tenth of one percent of our electricity, with wind not much more. How do you propose to accomplish this feat?” “That’s easy,” she said, “Everyone will follow our motto: a windmill on every automobile and a solar panel on every roof.”

I reminded her that experts have estimated it would take about $100,000 to make the average house capable of getting 100 percent of its electricity from solar panels and that wind technology for automobiles was a gleam in her eye. How would she pay for all this?

“That’s not so hard as it sounds,” she said with a chuckle (or cluckle). Once President Obama is in office, Pontiff Gore will simply ask him to increase the windfall profits tax on oil production, the corporation taxes, the Social Security taxes and the income tax rates beyond what he’s already said he would do. As for wind-driven car, we’ll just ask Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to pass bills requiring it. American ingenuity will do the rest.”

Read the whole thing.

David Brooks wrote the speech that should have been given at recent democrat convention. A must read.
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Hat tip to Scott Drum.

1:04 Obama supporters’ video mocking Hillary.

Democrats are such nice people.

Hat tip to Larry Johnson.

Iowahawk reports new Obama surge aimed at vital Reagan democrats.

With new polls showing Barack Obama’s once-commanding lead over John McCain all but evaporated, the Obama campaign announced today it has begun deploying its vast volunteer army of downtown hipster douchebags to help reconnect the presumptive Democratic candidate with middle-American voters.

“Unlike Iraq, this is one surge that is actually going to work,” said Obama campaign manager David Axlerod.

Sources within the campaign say the new strategy was prompted by recent national poll trends indicating McCain pulling even with, and in some instances even overtaking, Obama. More troubling for the campaign were internal tracking polls that show the candidate losing significant ground in key Midwestern, Southern and Western battleground states. As the numbers dropped, some within the campaign were left in stunned disbelief.

“It really didn’t make sense,” said Carly Voorhees, an East Village experimental performance poet, Cooper Union graduate student and member of Obama’s 600-expert foreign policy team. “We knew in theory there were a handful of stump-toothed biblebillies and neocon dead-enders out there, but by all rights we should have had at least a 60%-75% lead. Even after Barack threw that awesome victory rave in Germany, the numbers kept deteriorating.”

“At first we were stumped,” she added. “Then it dawned on us—McSame’s subliminal attack ads were stoking the deep-rooted, latent racism of white middle America. We needed to warn these uneducated simpletons that McSame was exploiting their superstitions and genetic bigotry. The big question was—how?”

At first, the Obama team looked into major media buys in key battleground states. But with a campaign budget already strained by price increases in arugula and Hawaiian airfare, the impact was deemed to be minimal. Instead, they turned to a key campaign asset—a dedicated cadre of young urban hipster douchebags willing to take Obama’s message of change to America’s small town streets and rural blacktops. An intensive eVite recruitment campaign on websites like the Daily Kos and Huffington Post yielded over 1,500 volunteers for the potentially dangerous mission.

“I couldn’t be prouder of all of you wonderful young indy rock assholes,” said Axlerod at a swearing-in ceremony at the campaign’s official training center in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “You represent our party’s finest, the best of best—you are our Douchebag Delta Force.”

Highly motivated, and with skills ranging from post-modern gender theory to espresso cafe blackboard chalk art, the volunteers were eager to get to work on the campaign trail. But before deployment Obama officials insisted that all recruits undergo an intensive training regimen to prepare them for the rigors of life in Red Country.

“A lot of the plebe douchebags come in here full of swagger, thinking all it takes is a few hours of FM country music endurance training, and I have to tell them they have no idea what they’re up against,” says Ethan Dodge, a Seattle conceptual theater set designer and veteran douchebag of Obama’s Iowa caucus campaign. “Believe me, I’ve been to Dubuque. I know.”

To toughen up the recruits for the task ahead, Dodge and other drill instructors take a direct approach.

“We tell them straight up: we aren’t your mommy or daddy or your au pair. There aren’t any independent lesbian film festivals in Youngstown, and just because Iowa has a lot of farmers it doesn’t mean they are going to see a lot of Sunday chill-out farmers’ markets,” says Voorhees. “After that shock wears off, we tell them about how the natives drink Pabst unironically.”

“Sure, it scares some recruits off,” admits Dodge. “But the ones who stay are much less likely to crack under the pressure of a two week isolation from American Apparel or Urban Outfitters.”...

Whether Obama’s douchebag heartland surge will ultimately succeed remains to be determined, but longtime political analyst and What’s the Matter With Kansas? author Thomas Frank thinks the basic strategy is sound.

“Unfortunately this election comes down to winning the hearts and minds of whitebread, middlebrow, middle-class, middle-Americans,” says Frank.”This effort shows that Obama troops are willing to reach out and condescend to them, one-on-one, no matter how pathetic and stupid they are.”

Read the whole thing.

1:53 video

Hat tip to Michelle Malkin.

The best collection.

A few samples:

Every now and then, Obama opens his eyes and the world springs into existence.

When a tree falls in the forest, Obama hears it.

Obama can clap with one hand.

When Obama squints dreamily into the distance, he can see next week’s lottery winning numbers. But he never plays because that would mean poverty of ambition.

Hat tip to PatRacimore.

A couple of YouTube 19 year old comedians satirize youth for Obama. They were sufficiently persuasive that some angry Hillaryites at Larry Johnson’s blog took this for a real endorsement.

3:55 video

Paris Hilton was evidently piqued by John McCain using her in a recent campaign video, so she’s responding with her own

1:49 video reply.

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And the McCain campaign was quick to reply:

In the unkindest cut of all, McCain’s spokesperson Tucker Bounds (said) that on the subject of energy, Paris is deeper than Barack. He says, “Sounds like Paris is taking the ‘All of the Above’ energy approach that John McCain has advocated—both alternatives and drilling. Perhaps the reality is that Paris has a more substantive energy plan than Barack Obama.”

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Hat tip to Stephen Frankel.

The Onion:

Former vice president Al Gore—who for the past three decades has unsuccessfully attempted to warn humanity of the coming destruction of our planet, only to be mocked and derided by the very people he has tried to save—launched his infant son into space Monday in the faint hope that his only child would reach the safety of another world.

“I tried to warn them, but the Elders of this planet would not listen,” said Gore, who in 2000 was nearly banished to a featureless realm of nonexistence for promoting his unpopular message. “They called me foolish and laughed at my predictions. Yet even now, the Midwest is flooded, the ice caps are melting, and the cities are rocked with tremors, just as I foretold. Fools! Why didn’t they heed me before it was too late?”

Al Gore—or, as he is known in his own language, Gore-Al—placed his son, Kal-Al, gently in the one-passenger rocket ship, his brow furrowed by the great weight he carried in preserving the sole survivor of humanity’s hubristic folly.

“There is nothing left now but to ensure that my infant son does not meet the same fate as the rest of my doomed race,” Gore said. “I will send him to a new planet, where he will, I hope, be raised by simple but kindly country folk and grow up to be a hero and protector to his adopted home.”

Penn & Teller get members of the public at a Worldfest gathering to sign one more environmentalist petition.

3:23 video

Is there really any difference between these people’s decision to support this particular environmentalist initiative and their decision to support any of the many others they currently support? Answer: Nope, not one iota of difference.

You can support this environmental action cause, too. link

Hat tip to Fred Karp.

Even the Times of London is moved to ridicule by the self-importance of him who Rush Limbaugh likes to call the Dalai Bama.

And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth – for the first time – to bring the light unto all the world.

He travelled fleet of foot and light of camel, with a small retinue that consisted only of his loyal disciples from the tribe of the Media. ...

And suddenly, with the men appeared the archangel Gabriel and the whole host of the heavenly choir, ranks of cherubim and seraphim, all praising God and singing: “Yes, We Can.”

Read the whole thing.

Decisions by committee, you know what those are like.

4:32 video

Hat tip to Ketchup and Caviar.

Andy Borowitz reports:

McCain Makes Historic First Visit to Internet—Will Spend Five Days at Key Sites.

In a daring bid to wrench attention from his Democratic rival in the 2008 presidential race, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) today embarked on an historic first-ever visit to the Internet.

Given that the Arizona Republican had never logged onto the Internet before, advisors acknowledged that his first visit to the World Wide Web was fraught with risk.

But with his Democratic rival Barack Obama making headlines with his tour of the Middle East and Europe, the McCain campaign felt that they needed to “come up with something equally bold for John to do,” according to one advisor.

McCain aides said that the senator’s journey to the Internet will span five days and will take him to such far-flung sites as Amazon.com, eBay and Facebook.

With a press retinue watching, Sen. McCain logged onto the Internet at 9:00 AM Sunday, paying his first-ever visit ever to Mapquest.com.

“I can’t get this [expletive] thing to work,” Sen. McCain said as he struggled with his computer’s mouse, causing his wife Cindy to prompt him to add that he was “just kidding.”

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Hat tip to David L. Larkin.

The Onion Imagines the next Time Magazine Obama profile.

Time managing editor Rich Stengel said he was proud of the Obama puff piece, and that he hoped it would help to redefine the boundaries of journalistic drivel.

“When the American people cast their vote this November, this is the piece of fluff they’re going to remember,” Stengel said. “Not the ones by Newsweek, Harper’s, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The Economist, Nightline, The Wall Street Journal, or even that story about lessons Obama learned from his first-grade teacher we ran a month ago.”

The article, which follows Obama for 12 days during his campaign, was written by reporter Chris Sherwood, and is relentless in its attempt to capture the candidate at his most poised and polished. Sherwood said the profile easily trumps all other fluff pieces in its effort to expose the presidential candidate for who he really is: “an awesome guy.”

“My editors told me that if I wanted to uncover the most frivolous, trivial information on Obama, I had to be prepared to follow the puff,” Sherwood said. “That meant that not only did I have to stay and watch Sen. Obama play endless games of basketball with city firemen to show readers how athletic and youthful he is, but I also had to go to NBA shooting experts to learn what aspects of his jump shot are good and what parts are great.”

Sherwood said he was granted full access to the candidate, and was permitted by chief strategist David Axelrod to ask any question he desired—an opportunity the reporter used to lob the easiest softballs at Obama yet, ranging from how happy he felt when he met his wife to what songs are currently on his iPod playlist. Sherwood was also fearless in his effort to paint the candidate as someone who is “surprisingly down to earth,” a phrase that is used a total of 26 times throughout the feature.

“If we were going to get the story we wanted, it was my responsibility as a journalist to ask the really tough questions to his two young daughters,” said Sherwood, who grilled Malia and Sasha Obama, 9 and 7, about whether they were “proud of [their] daddy.” “I also had to capitalize on every opportunity to compare the story of Obama’s upbringing and rise to power to that of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s and John F. Kennedy’s, no matter how suspect those parallels really are.”

According to the Time reporter, work on the profile was often harder than he had anticipated, with Obama at times dodging questions about whether or not he played a musical instrument, and about what Monopoly piece he thought best represented his candidacy and why.

The talented JibJab gang have delivered another of their good-humored, non-partisan political cartoons:

Time For Some Campaignin’

They’ve certainly gotten Obama right.

via The Onion:

1:50 video

The July 21, 2008 issue of the New Yorker features a cover cartoon of B. Hussein Obama and his wife Michelle in the Oval Office looking more or less the way some of us are prone to imagine they might some day.

The New Yorker’s intention was to satirize right wing images of the Obamas, but some people in politics have no sense of humor, and both campaigns were quick to get all pious and sanctimonious about it.

Chicago Tribune Swamp:

The Obama campaign, as well as the campaign of Republican rival John McCain, slammed the cover as offensive:

“The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Sen. Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement, reported by Politico. “But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.”

“We completely agree with the Obama campaign, it’s tasteless and offensive,” McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a statement.

Transgressing the boundaries of convention is precisely what makes a lot of the best kind of humor funny. Besides, cartoonist Barry Blitt isn’t really endorsing the viewpoint of the Obamas depicted in the cartoon. He’s mocking it, and poking fun at people like me who think that image isn’t so very far off the mark.

Conservatives do have a sense of humor, though, so I am able to find it funny, even if I am one of the targets of the satire. Kudos, Barry Blitt.

Those looking for more laughs this morning need only to scan the Comments section of this posting over at HuffPo. A lot of the lefties are, as the saying goes, having a cow.

After Charles Johnson demonstrated that the photograph of Iran’s recent missile test had been Photoshopped, for the sake of world peace, and in defense of the Free World, the blogosphere was obliged to retaliate upon the mullahs.

Noah Schachtman, at Wired, has collected many of the best, and Gizmodo is running a contest with the winners to be announced on Tuesday.

My own favorites (so far):

Are We Lumberjacks?

Farc (good but slow to load)


BoingBoing

Snapped Shot

In the year 2008 the Lord came unto Noah, who was now living in England and said:

‘Once again, the earth has become wicked and over-populated, and I see the end of all flesh before me. Build another Ark and save two of every living thing along with a few good humans.’

He gave Noah the CAD drawings, saying: ‘You have 6 months to build the Ark before I will start the unending rain for 40 days and 40 nights.’

Six months later, the Lord looked down and saw Noah weeping in his yard, but no Ark.

‘Noah!’ He roared, ‘I’m about to start the rain! Where is the Ark ?’

‘Forgive me, Lord,’ begged Noah, ‘but things have changed. I needed Building Regulations Approval and I’ve been arguing with the Fire Brigade about the need for a sprinkler system.

My neighbours claim that I should have obtained planning permission for building the Ark in my garden because it is development of the site, even though in my view it is a temporary structure.

We had to then go to appeal to the Secretary of State for a decision.

Then the Department of Transport demanded a bond be posted for the future costs of moving power lines and other overhead obstructions to clear the passage for the Ark ’s move to the sea. I told them that the sea would be coming to us, but they would hear nothing of it.

Getting the wood was another problem. All the decent trees have Tree Preservation Orders on them and we live in a Site of Special Scientific interest set up in order to protect the spotted owl. I tried to convince the environmentalists that I needed the wood to save the owls – but no go!

When I started gathering the animals, the RSPCA sued me. They insisted that I was confining wild animals against their will. They argued the accommodation was too restrictive, and it was cruel and inhumane to put so many animals in a confined space.

Then the County Council, the Environment Agency and the Rivers Authority ruled that I couldn’t build the Ark until they’d conducted an environmentalimpact study on your proposed flood.

I’m still trying to resolve a complaint with the Equal Opportunities Commission on how many disabled carpenters I’m supposed to hire for my building team. The trades unions say I can’t use my sons. They insist I have to hire only accredited workers with Ark-building experience.

To make matters worse, Customs and Excise seized all my assets, claiming I’m trying to leave the country illegally with endangered species.

So, forgive me, Lord, but it would take at least 10 years for me to finish
this Ark. ’

Suddenly the skies cleared, the sun began to shine, and a rainbow stretched across the sky.

Noah looked up in wonder and asked, ‘You mean you’re not going to destroy the world?’

‘No,’ said the Lord. ‘..........the British Government beat me to it.’

Not terribly funny video satire offering a democrat’s view of Republicans, which has a few moments.

Arnold Jones (posed as American Gothic farmer, in tone of belligerent stupidity): “Because all other countries are inferior to us.”

Trudy Jones (American Gothic female): “We should start as many wars as it takes to keep it that way.”

3:28 video

Photoshop commentary by TerrellAfterMath.

2:05 video

Hat tip to Bird Dog and Meaningless Hot Air.

Barack Obama:

We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times, whether we’re living in a desert, or living in the tundra, and then just expect that every other country’s going to say okay, you guys just go ahead and keep on using 25% of the world’s energy, even though you only account for 3% of the population.

2:33 video

Hat tip to Nicola Karras.

3:43 video

Hilarious.

H/t to Karen L. Myers.

August J. Pollak has a very good cartoon commenting on the noticeable partisanship of the MSM’s commentary.

via HuffPo.

Iowahawk imagines what Barack Obama’s advice column for the lovelorn might look like.

Sample inquiries:

Dear Barry,

I’ve been married to the same wonderful man—Let’s call him “Jeremiah”—for 20 years. He’s a great provider and we live in a beautiful home. He dotes on me and treats me like a queen; even after twenty years he still brings me little gifts and opens doors for me. Best yet, our sex life is fantastic! Jeremiah enjoys spicing things up with role-play, such as “Adolf and Eva,” and we host weekly swinger get-togethers for like-minded couples. I know it probably must sound kind of kinky, but trust me – it keeps things interesting in “the boudoir.”

That’s where the trouble comes in. Lately it’s been hard for Jeremiah to step out of his bedroom character, even when we have company over. For example, the other night I was hosting bunco night for the neighborhood girls and Jeremiah came goose-stepping into the rec room in his black leather swastika thong and riding crop, screaming “Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer!!”

Frankly, it was somewhat embarrassing. I’ve asked Jeremiah to “tone it down” and save the Nuremberg speeches for the privacy of swinger’s night, but he refuses. Also, I think he may be clinically insane. I’m worried that if word gets out it may hurt our chances of getting membership in the country club. What should I do?

Confused in Hyde Park
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Dear Barry,

I am a graduate student at a large Midwestern university. Last semester I was seduced by an older female professor and we have been having a secret affair ever since. I know this is probably a “no-no,” but despite our age gap we share many common ideas and values, and she has been very helpful in lining up grants and scholarships for me. The trouble is I recently discovered that she is also a fugitive bomb maker from a radical neo-Maoist terrorist splinter cell affiliated with the Manson family. My conscience tells me I ought to break things off, but I’m worried how it might affect my GPA. Please help!

Torn in Evanston
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Dear Barry:

As a widow with three beautiful teenage daughters, life can sometimes be a lonely struggle. Luckily my friends recently set me up on a blind date with a Syrian immigrant gentleman whom I will call “Tony.” Although Tony is not particularly handsome, and is living in the U.S. illegally, and is facing 36 federal indictments, and has terrible body odor, he has been very kind and generous to me and my girls.

Lately, I think our relationship has gone to the next level. Yesterday Tony offered to buy a beautiful spacious $1 million house for us. I told him I was flattered but I just couldn’t accept a gift like that from someone I had only known a few weeks. He told me not to consider it a gift, but a loan that I could pay back in small installments, such as having my girls dance at a local club he owns. Not only would I be getting back a return for all those expensive after-school ballet lessons, Tony says the girls will get to meet many important businessmen from Syria, Iran, Cicero, etc.

My question—do you think this might be Tony’s prelude to a proposal?

Curious in Chicago

Read the whole thing.

This was made by some liberal bed-wetters as satire, but I pretty much agree with 99% of it, so what the heck! I’m posting it entirely in earnest.

1:55 video

If cities full of liberals get flooded, that’s just too bad. And we won’t have to eat rocks, we’ll have all those tasty fish who’ve been mopping up the drowned liberals.

The artist at the time of her high school graduation

Helaine S. Klasky, Yale University Spokesperson, raised some interesting issues in the administration’s statement denying the reality of that naughty Aliza Schvarts’ senior art project:

(Yale now has at least one Spokesperson, forsooth! Demonstrating that the current president and his entire skulk of deans are too self-important, or know themselves to be too inarticulate, to speak for the University. Jesus wept.)

Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art. Her art project includes visual representations, a press release and other narrative materials. She stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages. The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body.

She is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance art.

Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns.

But Ms. Schvarts fired back a manifesto, repeating the story of her project, and artfully identifying it as “myth,” while darkly hinting at a purpose and meaning capable of shaking the Yale art department and the University’s administration to their very foundations.

For the past year, I performed repeated self-induced miscarriages. ...

To protect myself and others, only I know the number of fabricators (Note the term -JDZ) who participated, the frequency and accuracy with which I inseminated and the specific abortifacient I used. Because of these measures of privacy, the piece exists only in its telling. This telling can take textual, visual, spatial, temporal and performative forms . copies of copies of which there is no original. ...

The artwork exists as the verbal narrative you see above, as an installation that will take place in Green Hall, as a time-based performance, as a independent concept, as a myth and as a public discourse.

In other words: the supposed piece of art never existed at all, except as a concept, a narrative, and a spoof.

Then, embedded in more jargon, Schvarts delivers the ultimate ambiguity.

Is she spouting a bunch of ridiculous leftwing cant, or is she producing what looks like a classic example of the genre in order to mock and satirize it? Is Aliza Schvartz possibly really a nice, ethically-concerned Jewish girl, taking a shrewd whack at the conventional liberal consensus on sex, reproduction, and abortion in the contemporary elite university with a vicious parody of the methodology and hermeneutics of fashionably politicized “art?”

It creates an ambiguity that isolates the locus of ontology to an act of readership. An intentional ambiguity pervades both the act and the objects I produced in relation to it. The performance exists only as I chose to represent it. ... This central ambiguity defies a clear definition of the act. The reality of miscarriage is very much a linguistic and political reality, an act of reading constructed by an act of naming . an authorial act.

It is the intention of this piece to destabilize the locus of that authorial act, and in doing so, reclaim it from the heteronormative structures that seek to naturalize it.

As an intervention into our normative understanding of .the real. and its accompanying politics of convention, this performance piece has numerous conceptual goals. The first is to assert that often, normative understandings of biological function are a mythology imposed on form. It is this mythology that creates the sexist, racist, ableist, nationalist and homophobic perspective, distinguishing what body parts are .meant. to do from their physical capability. The myth that a certain set of functions are .natural. (while all the other potential functions are .unnatural.) undermines that sense of capability, confining lifestyle choices to the bounds of normatively defined narratives.

Just as it is a myth that women are .meant. to be feminine and men masculine, that penises and vaginas are .meant. for penetrative heterosexual sex (or that mouths, anuses, breasts, feet or leather, silicone, vinyl, rubber, or metal implements are not .meant. for sex at all), it is a myth that ovaries and a uterus are .meant. to birth a child.

When considering my own bodily form, I recognize its potential as extending beyond its ability to participate in a normative function. While my organs are capable of engaging with the narrative of reproduction . the time-based linkage of discrete events from conception to birth . the realm of capability extends beyond the bounds of that specific narrative chain. These organs can do other things, can have other purposes, and it is the prerogative of every individual to acknowledge and explore this wide realm of capability.

Roger Kimball, at PJM, notes that Ms. Schvartz’s “art” has successfully challenged some orthodoxies, and recognizes that the question is exactly which ones?

Yale’s response was a masterpiece of evasion. “Had these acts been real,” their statement continued, “they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns.” You don’t say?... And what, by the way, was the standard being violated? I wonder, for example, whether the Yale spokesman would say that abortion itself violated a basic ethical standard? Or maybe the violation requires first deliberately impregnating oneself? (But why would that affect the “basic ethical standard” involved?) Or maybe it was videotaping the performance that was the problem?

I know that in the universe occupied by Ivy League academics, the spectacle of a woman repeatedly inseminating herself, quaffing abortifacient drugs (“herbal” ones, though: we’re all organic environmentalists here), and then video taping the resultant mess poses a problem. I mean, in that universe there really are basic ethical standards: Thou shalt not smoke, for example. Thou shalt not support the war in Iraq. Thou shalt not vote Republican. There really are some things that are beyond the pale. ...

Why do so many people feel that if something is regarded as art, they “have to go along with it,” no matter how offensive it might be? Perhaps—just possibly—Aliza Shvarts has reminded us how untrue that statement is. If so, we are in her debt.

James Taranto, too, at the Wall Street Journal, sees the ironic possibilities.

When Yale says that Shvarts’s project, “if real,” violates “basic ethical standards,” what kind of ethical standards does it have in mind?

It seems unlikely that Yale is making a moral claim against the putative Shvarts project. The abortion debate is driven by two irreconcilable moral premises: on the antiabortion side, that it is wrong to take a human life deliberately at any stage of development; on the pro-abortion side, that a woman has a right to do whatever she wants with her body.

In practice, most people’s actual positions on abortion amount to a compromise between these two absolutes. If Yale has an institutional view on abortion, surely it is closer to the pro- than the antiabortion side. And if Shvarts did what she claims to have done, she destroyed protohumans (for want of a better neutral term) no later than the embryonic stage of development—a stage at which, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, a woman has an absolute “constitutional” right to terminate her pregnancy.

Is Yale claiming that Shvarts violated academic ethics? This is a real head-scratcher. Academic ethics center on honesty; the most important prohibitions are against such actions as falsification of data or plagiarism (misrepresenting another’s work as one’s own). But Yale is claiming that Shvarts’s project violated “basic ethical standards” if she was honest in describing it. If Shvarts perpetrated a hoax, then according to Yale she was exercising “the right to express herself.” The implication is that if she was lying, she was behaving ethically.

Yale therefore is either taking a moral position in opposition to abortion or standing academic ethics on their head. Which raises an intriguing possibility: Could it be that Aliza Shvarts is an opponent of abortion who has staged a hoax aimed at embarrassing those who support or countenance abortion?

Earlier postings

Scrappleface:

Bush to Appoint Jimmy Carter Ambassador to Hell

As former President Jimmy Carter meets this week with Hamas leaders in the West Bank and Syria, sources at the State Department say President George Bush will soon honor Mr. Carter’s decades of freelance diplomacy by appointing him as the first U.S. Ambassador to Hell.

“Bush just wants Carter to go there,” said an unnamed State Department source, “and to set up an embassy, and try to be a good listener, open a communication channel, find common ground.”

What an excellent idea! The sooner it is implemented the better.

Scrappleface reports on Hillary’s latest populist gesture:

Hillary Totes Bible to Gun Range

(2008-04-13) — Sensing an opportunity to portray Sen. Barack Obama as elitist and out of touch after his remarks about “bitter” rural Americans who cling to guns, God and xenophobia, Sen. Hillary Clinton stopped after church today at an indoor gun range, where she fired roughly 300 rounds through a handgun she said she carries concealed everywhere she goes.

Her lower lip bulging from a dip of Skoal, Sen. Clinton put her Bible in her handbag, and drew out her own Para Ordnance Warthog .45 caliber pistol.

As reporters looked on, the Democrat presidential candidate emptied one 10-round magazine after another, with fair accuracy, at a human silhouette target.

“Small town folk like us,” said Sen. Clinton, “don’t cling to God or guns because we’re bitter about the economy, as my opponent suggests. We believe in God because he’s real, and we keep and bear arms as the best insurance against tyrants who would strip our freedoms if they didn’t fear our collective power.”

Read the whole thing.

Many of us living outside the urban communities of fashion have experienced mild astonishment at the capacity of mankind for complaint upon reading of protests stemming from the improvement and rehabilitation of formerly slum neighborhoods by new arrived upper middle-class residents, a process pejoratively termed “gentrification.”

The Onion reports that the a new upscale trend, fueled by increasing affluence and the limited supply of urban housing, has appeared, of even more alarming character.

Hat tip to Frank Dobbs.

The Onion reports that a black man began harrassing strangers in downtown Chicago and has subsequently spread his operations to other cities.

According to witnesses, a loud black man approached a crowd of some 4,000 strangers in downtown Chicago Tuesday and made repeated demands for change.

“The time for change is now,” said the black guy, yelling at everyone within earshot for 20 straight minutes, practically begging America for change. “The need for change is stronger and more urgent than ever before. And only you—the people standing here today, and indeed all the people of this great nation—only you can deliver this change.”

The black guy is oddly comfortable demanding change from people he’s never even met.

It is estimated that, to date, the black man has asked every single person in the United States for change.

“I’ve already seen this guy four times today,” Chicago-area ad salesman Blake Gordon said. “Every time, it’s the same exact spiel. ‘I need change.’ ‘I want change.’ Why’s he so eager for all this change? What’s he going to do with it, anyway?”

After his initial requests for change, the black man rambled nonstop on a variety of unrelated topics, calling for affordable health care, demanding that the government immediately begin withdrawing troops from Iraq, and proposing a $75 billion economic stimulus plan to create new jobs.

“What a wacko,” Schaumburg, IL resident Patrick Morledge said. “And, of course, after telling us all about how he had the ability to magically fix everything, he went right back to asking for change. Typical.”

“If he’s really looking for change, he’s got the wrong guy,” Morledge added.

Read the whole story.

Ian Frazier, in the New Yorker, satirizes conspicuous real estate consumption.

Typically, this New Yorker essay ridiculing the super-rich manages to combine with its satire a very characteristic note of complacent self-identification with the supposed target.

I feel sorry for people who still think of their places in terms of square feet. My partner, Scott, and I recently purchased Wyoming, which we are in the process of having renovated, and, yes, I do know the square footage (something like two trillion seven hundred and thirty billion square feet, give or take). But that’s just not a very practical type of measurement when we’re dealing with all the plumbers and contractors and security staff and reporters and other non-wealthy service personnel we have to give instructions to. ...

Basically, we are looking at this purchase as a tear-down. There’s really not a lot here you’d want to keep, except one or two of the Wind River Mountains and some old nineteen-twenties Park Service structures in Yellowstone. Scott and I bought for the location—it’s convenient to anywhere, really, if you think about it—and for the simplicity of line. We wanted someplace rectangular, a much easier configuration from a design point of view, and we won’t have to fuss with panhandles and changeable riverine property lines where we’re going to get into disputes with the landowner next door. Spare us the headaches, please! We’ve had plenty already, with the former occupants (thank heavens they’re gone) and all the junk they left behind—the old broken-down pickup trucks, houses, eyesore water towers, uranium mines, the University of Wyoming, Yellowtail Dam, Casper. I’m a thrower-outer. I believe we must first clear everything away, then see what we’ve got. Scott is more sentimental. He thinks we should leave the North Platte River, for example, and work around it. I haven’t said yes or no. I’m secretly hoping he changes his mind.

Read the whole thing.

Saturday Night Live offers a different version of the famous Hillary 3:00 AM campaign advertisement

5:29 video

from Iowahawk:

Excerpt:

15 All sondry folke urbayne and progressyve

16 Vexed by Musselmans aggressyve.

17 Hie and thither to the Arche-Bishop’s manse

18 The pilgryms ryde and fynde perchance

19 The hooly Bishop takynge tea

20 Whilste watching himselfe on BBC.

21 Heere was a hooly manne of peace

22 Withe bearyd of snow and wyld brows of fleece

23 Whilhom stoode athwart the Bush crusades

24 Withe peace march papier-mache paraydes.

25 Sayeth the pilgryms to Bishop Rowan,

26 “Father, we do not like howe thynges are goin’.

27 You know we are as Lefte as thee,

28 But of layte have beyn chaunced to see

29 From Edinburgh to London-towne

30 The Musslemans in burnoose gowne

31 Who beat theyr ownselfs with theyr knyves

32 Than goon home and beat theyr wyves

33 And slaye theyr daughtyrs in honour killlynge

34 Howe do we stoppe the bloode fromme spillynge?”

35 The Bishop sipped upon hys tea

36 And sayed, “an open mind must we

37 Keep, for know thee well the Mussel-man

38 Has hys own laws for hys own clan

39 So question not hys Muslim reason

40 And presaerve ye well social cohesion.”

Read the whole thing.