Ariana Huffington identifies:

TiVo Moment #1: After Cheney walked Hume through the specifics of the shooting, including a cataloguing of Whittington’s injuries (“He was struck in the right side of his face, his neck and his upper torso on the right side of his body”), Hume inexplicably followed up with this jaw dropper: “And I take it you missed the bird?”

Hat tip to Ace. Grin for Brit. Condescending pat on the head for Ariana.

FrankJ concludes that there is no hope of victory.

Seneca the Younger at YARGB links a thoughtful response to the widespread Islamic sense of injury and outrage over the Danish cartoons featuring images of the Prophet Mohammed.

link

Laughing at Europe in the Weekly Standard:

I AM JUST NOW CHOPPING up my Danish modern coffee table and throwing the pieces into the fireplace. I want to show my support for Muslims outraged by publication of Prophet Muhammad caricatures in Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten newspaper. All over the Muslim world there are riots and boycotts of Danish products. And I join the Muslims in solidarity (although, come on, you’re Muslims, you shouldn’t be drinking Carlsberg anyway). Next into the flames go my kids’ Legos, invented in Denmark. They’ll be followed by the satisfying smash of my wife’s Royal Copenhagen dinner plates.

I haven’t actually looked at the satirical drawings. Mainstream American media, recognizing that the First Amendment encompasses the right to shut up, have left them unpublished. I guess I could find them on the Internet except our computer was attached to Bang & Olufsen speakers. I seem to have crashed the system while yanking wires. But I’m sure these depictions of Muhammad will infuriate me as much as they infuriate Muslims, if for somewhat different reasons. The cartoons are badly drawn and not very funny. I know that sight unseen, because the cartoons are European.

(Arrived by email today:)

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost.

She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.

The sailor consulted his portable GPS and replied, “You’re in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.

She rolled her eyes and yelled down, “You must be a Republican.”

“I am,” replied the man. “How did you know?”

“Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information, and I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve been no help to me.

The man smiled and responded, “Then you must be a Democrat.

“I am,” replied the balloonist. “How did you know?”

“Well,” said the man, “you don’t know where you are or where you’re going. You’ve risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You’re in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but, somehow, now it’s my fault.”

As far as I am concerned, they can pound sand.

From a conservative email list this morning:

EV: Apparently, al Zawahiri has called Bush a butcher and a failure. If he’s a butcher, wouldn’t that make him a success?

BP: No kidding. That must be the terrorist equivalent of “the food was so bad, I couldn’t eat it, and the portions were too small.”

Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten apologized to the Islamic world today for a series of twelve cartoon caricatures of the prophet Mohammed. All twelve can be seen here. (You will have to be patient today. Francis’ server is overloaded.)

Evidently bucking to replace Jimmy Carter as the most embarassing former president, William Jefferson Clinton has spoken out on this free speech issue (quoted in Junkyardblog).

Clinton described as “appalling” the 12 cartoons published in a Danish newspaper in September depicting Prophet Mohammed and causing uproar in the Muslim world.

“None of us are totally free of stereotypes about people of different races, different ethnic groups, and different religions … there was this appalling example in northern Europe, in Denmark … these totally outrageous cartoons against Islam,” he said.
The cartoons, including a portrayal of the prophet wearing a time-bomb-shaped turban, were reprinted in a Norwegian magazine in January, sparking uproar in the Muslim world where images of the prophet are considered blasphemous.

Hat tip to LGF and to Francis at L’Ombre de L/Olivier, whose comments are worth a look.

We do not apologize.

video

Tom Stienstra, the SF Chronicle’s Outdoor columnist, tells the story of this guy who was scared to death of bears.

But he was going to Bear Valley, and anyplace with a name like that would require some bear repellent, he figured…

He was tortured with the nightmare of a pack of bears surrounding him, slapping him around for fun, and then jumping on him, slobbering in his face. So he bought a canister of bear pepper spray, which is similar to mace. That is, if attacked, you spray it on the attacker’s face.

The outfitters from Alaska I know told me the hardest thing about administering pepper spray is that it hurts like heck when the bear stuffs the can down your throat.

Well, as the story goes, this guy in hysterics came running into the Bear Valley fire house.

“He was in great pain and wanted first-aid,” Jung said. “He thought pepper spray was like mosquito repellent and had sprayed it all over himself.”

That’s right, the guy sprayed himself with pepper spray.

In honor of this excruciating encounter, I hereby award Bear Repellent Bill the Bite-The-Alligator Award that I occasionally bestow.

This award is in honor of a small poodle dog in Florida that yapped at the alligator that climbed out of the canal, nipped it in the tail, whereupon the alligator whipped around and promptly ate it.

————————————————————————————————-

Of course, there is also the famous alleged Glacier National Park advisory sign:

MONTANA GRIZZLY BEAR ALERT

In light of the rising frequency of human/grizzly bear encounters, the Montana Department of Fish and Game advises hikers, hunters, and fishermen to take extra precautions and to stay alert for bears while in the field.

It is advised that outdoorsmen wear small bells on their clothing so as not to startle bears that aren’t expecting them. We also advise outdoorsmen to carry pepper spray with them in case of an encounter with a bear.

Additionally, it is also a good idea to watch out for fresh signs of bear activity. Outdoorsmen should be able recognize the difference between black bear and grizzly bear sign.

Black bear excrement is smaller, and contains lots of berries and squirrel fur.

Grizzly bear excrement has lots of little bells in it, and smells like pepper.

Actor’s Studio James Lipton delivers a dramatic reading of the lyrics of rapper Kevin Federline’s PopoZow.