Why Must They Laugh at My Mighty Wand?

National Review Online editor Kathryn Jean Lopez is furious!  Her boyfriends, the Virginia General Assembly, were this close to passing their Chick on a Stick law, but it was snatched away at the last moment by opponents armed with "humor," which according to Kathryn Jean's reading of the rulebook constitutes illegal use of a foreign object.

Jests Mask a More Sinister Agenda

Medieval Fool attired in traditional Pro-Choice Motley.

There's no doubt that Planned Parenthood and its supporters had a brilliant strategy: Get as many people as possible to repeat the word "transvaginal" in news and commentary stories, and accomplish two things: Defeat legislation at hand and make your opposition look like a freak show.  

I'd think the mere fact of the Virginia State government decreeing that a patient be forced to pay for her abortion not merely in specie but in pain and humiliation was enough to bring them into ill repute, but no; apparently "transvaginal" is a magic word, and like "Avada kedavra!" it killed the Virginia Vaginal Invasion Act of 2012.  (Full disclosure:  like a lot of liberals, I have been saying "transvaginal" a lot lately, but I want to assure K-Lo that it's not because I'm trying to discredit the policy goal of shoving an imaging device into every pregnant woman and turning her uterus into an episode of "Big Brother," but only because it just happens to be my safe word).

That's what just played out with a bill in Virginia that would have required women considering having an abortion to get a sonogram first.

From a Washington Post piece about a protest against the bill:

"Molly Vick of Richmond said it was her first time to take part in a protest, but the issue was too infuriating and compelling."

What's infuriating is that we can't have an honest debate about anything that involves women, because it might make Planned Parenthood or any of the political or business wings of the abortion industry uncomfortable.

Modern feminists are such easily distracted crybabies that they can't even carry on a civil discussion about which of their civil rights to give up while Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell is transfixing them with a bollard.  And let's face it, Kathryn Jean does have a point.  After all, stabbing an abortion patient with a Sonogram Shiv isn't fatal, it's not like they're getting pierced by bullets.  That kind of thing is strictly reserved for abortion providers.

This is the new feminist America, and it's just as delusional and duplicitous at the first round.

As we now know, The Feminine Mystique was an elaborate literary hoax, like Robinson Crusoe, or The O'Reilly Factor for Kids.

It's not happening at anti-establishment protests, it is the establishment.

Fundamentalist Catholics like K-Lo and Rick Santorum are the new Hippies, and are out to bring down the Man -- well, the Woman -- with powerful counter-culture events, like a conservative Woodstock, in which clean cut men and women would have fruitful, p-in-v intercourse in a muddy field while Hank Williams, Jr. musically inquired if they had made the proper preparations for football, and the organizers got on the loudspeaker periodically to warn the pregnant women in the audience not to take the brown folic acid.  They were also going to have a March on Washington, but it's hard to cover a lot of ground quickly with an aspirin held between your knees, so they're going to save that event for the Summer of Abstinence picnic.

Even "Saturday Night Live" got into the frenzy, mocking the bill and the term of the moment in a recent sketch.

Really?  Even Saturday Night Live stooped to cheapshot satire?  I'll never look at public affairs programming the same way again.

If only the sponsors of this legislation had foreseen the crippling comic effects of the word "transvaginal," and had pre-empted it with a less risible term.  They might have referred to the device in question as the Twat Twizzler, or -- as Mary calls it -- the Vag-O-Matic.  Other possibilities include "the Elder Wand," "the Pols' Pole," or "the Staff of the National Review."

Go ahead and read the bill that caused the cries of "state-mandated rape." The word "transvaginal" never appears in it.

To meet the demands of the proposed law, a transvaginal ultrasound is required, but the authors never actually come right out and say it in so many words.  So basically, the bill talks in vague, but menacing euphemisms, like a villain from a 1970s detective show ("I want this Rockford situation taken care of...permanently!").

The bill was an update on Virginia's informed-consent law

Otherwise known as the "Orwell?  Never Heard of Him" Act.

...which didn't require a particular kind of ultrasound, such as the intrusive procedure that drew mockery and outrage from the left. So doctors on site would be making the calls about what kind of ultrasound would be best for a particular women -- not the governor or the House of Delegates or the legendary exorcist Rick Santorum!

I wonder if these are the same doctors who pointed out that the only way to get the kind of image the bill required was to shish kabob the patient.  I also wonder if K-Lo feels obliged to list the lies she tells in her various columns when she goes to confession, or if she's wangled some sort of Papal dispensation that permits her to freely fib for Christ.

 And, frankly, even if the bill did mandate an invasive type ultrasound -- sometimes the age of the fetus or other circumstances will call for it --it wouldn't have been state-sponsored rape.

The woman would have had to pay for it, so it would only have been state-inflicted rape.

It's standard medical care. All things in the OB-GYN world tend to be invasive. Are routine exams rape, too? Can we just drop the nonsense already?

Kathryn Jean, are you really incapable of grasping the concept of consent?   That's like saying there's no difference between an appendectomy and getting shanked in an alley.  Yes, they both involve knives, but in the former case they won't actually cut you unless you sign the form.

I guess not. Not when those who resort to the most shameless rhetoric end up winning.

You seem depressed.  Unfortunately, your home state has just passed a law mandating that patients suspected of clinical depression be trepanned to allow the demons to escape their skulls.  Have a seat.

Moondoggie would like to remind you to (if possible) please give to the Annti Evict-O-Thon (at least, I think that's what that gesture means).  Details in the post below.

Emergency! (Not the One With Randolph Mantooth)

I need to step out of character (and these Spanx -- they're killing me) and pass on some serious and seriously bad news:  one of our own is about to become homeless.  And not the cool kind of homeless, where you lounge around on fashionable Kalakaua Avenue in Waikiki and force Dr. Diane Medved to step over you on her way into Fendi.

Our dear, beloved Anntichrist S. Coulter is being evicted on March 6th, and has 11 days to move her remaining possessions into storage -- to say nothing of finding some place to store herself -- and she urgently needs our help.

Long time Crappers know Annti well.  She was one of the earliest adopters of Wo'C -- in fact, I can't remember a time when her fluently profane rants weren't lighting up the comments section -- and we also know that she's kind, concerned, utterly decent, and the first to offer assistance to anyone in need.  But some may not be familiar with all she's done, and the fact that her generosity of spirit is largely responsible for the situation she's in now.

Annti was in a crippling car accident when she was younger, and had to have her spine pieced back together with Restoration Hardware.  She didn't let that stop her, of course; at least, not until Hurricane Katrina hit.  While George Bush was giving Brownie a reach-around at a photo op, Annti was going without sleep, loading up her truck, and shuttling supplies to refugees and the LSU Veterinary School emergency shelter.  She kept at it ceaselessly until -- and even after -- the screws, rods, plates, and Delta faucets in her spine began to break.

The damage was never completely, or even adequately, repaired, and her health and mobility have deteriorated ever since, eventually forcing her to go on disability and into public housing.  Now she's lost even that.

Mary and I gave what we could, and if you're able, please give Annti a hand.

For some reason I can't directly link to her Pay the Pal page, but you can go to her blog, Mark of the Beast, and click the button on the right. If that doesn't work, her email address, for Pal Paying Purposes, is velvetgutter-at-hotmail-dot-com.

Thanks.  I apologize for the scanty posting lately, and promise to do better next week.  And as further thanks, once we get Annti through this rough patch, I'll be posting a new cat video, which may be our most epic production ever!  (I don't want to give too much away, but here's a hint: Dr. Tongue.)

A Rasher of Roth

With Rick Santorum the Republican frontrunner (although I understand he may have blown his improbable lead with a clumsy performance at last night's debate) even wingnuts are getting nervous that he's a bit too pure and proud an example of the breed.

So this seems like a good time to introduce a little perspective.  Yes, Rick Santorum is a religious oddball whose skull is a cage full of a angry weasels decked out in papal robes and working themselves into a frothy mixture, but he's hardly the craziest candidate in the race.  That distinction still belongs to Dr. Laurie Roth.

You may remember Dr. Roth, the former disco recording artist and current "'Annie Oakley' of the airwaves," who is taking her Ph.D in Counseling and her black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and running for President on the Flip Your Whig* ticket.

New coming holocaust-- Christians and conservatives

The Coliseum is turning on the lights. Attendants have their popcorn and sodas ready. The stands are packed with distracted and thrilled onlookers awaiting "the battle of Gods."

The watchers know this will be a bloodbath and a gooey entertainment fest like never before.

Apparently the movie Gladiator left me with a rather skewed, historically inaccurate view of what went on at the Coliseum, but Dr. Roth has inspired me to stop letting Hollywood do my thinking for me.  So I've decided to do some research and learn for myself which of the many deities in the Roman pantheon was the God of Carbonated Beverages.

Who are the players who will delight the crowd? First we have "Christians and Jews" and those dangerous "Constitutionalists" on one side. Look, they are behaving just like King Obama said — their Bibles and being "bitter clingers." 

Personally, I prefer the Bitter ones to the other four flavors of clingers, because unlike Savory, the discovery of the Bitter clinger didn't lead directly to the development of monosodium glutamate.

On the other side are the leaders of Islam, Sharia law, and global elitism. These are headed by their savior, King Obama.

So the leaders are going into the arena to fight to the death?  Maybe Gladiator wasn't that inaccurate after all, 'cause this is just like that scene where Commodus faces off against Maximus (and I've got my money on the Elitists, because Obama is in pretty good shape, whereas the average "Constitutionalist" -- at least, the ones who show up on cable TV -- seem a little on the doughy side).

In special, heated box seats, I see the UN and Muslim leadership from the 57 Muslim countries. In another box next door, painted in streaks of bright colors, are all the unemployed movie stars, and wannabe terrorists such as William Ayers and Bernadine Dorn, who obsessively stand with Palestine and anyone attacking Israel.

Sarah Palin repeatedly declared that Ayers and Dohrn were terrorists, and now they've been demoted to mere wannabes?  I think at the very least they should have been offered the title of Terrorist Emeritus.

Next to them, by the pop machine, are the traitorous sell-out media and leftist political leaders who routinely sell out America and march her toward the new Holocaust — the control and eradication of Christians who support the Constitution, and Jews who just won't go away.

History teaches us that before his failed Beer Hall revolution in 1923, Hitler hung out by the vending machines and attempted a "Break Room Putsch."  And Dr. Roth is right about one thing: judging by the recent blather coming from wingnut bloggers and cable TV talking heads, especially on the topic of contraception, the entirety of "Christians who support the Constitution" probably would fit in a single luxury skybox.

The stage has been set for our demise. 72 FEMA camps have been activated.

FEMA Camps are the Wonder Twins of extrajudicial detention.

The NDAA bill has been voted into law, launched by Marxist posers John McCain and Carl Levin.

So...they're just posing as Marxists?  I somehow doubt McCain's performance is very convincing, but I admit, I haven't seen his drag act, so who knows?  Maybe he looks good with a beard.  Certainly Chief Justice John Roberts does.

None of this is new. The pattern established by Hitler is simply being copied by Obama and his thugs.

Rejected by the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Hitler spent the years before WWI becoming an accomplished dressmaker, and many of his patterns are still sold today by Butterick and Simplicity. 

Remember, Obama is the teleprompter King.

He will not be undersold!  And now that he's added HDTVs to his inventory, he's locked in a deadly price war with L.A.'s own Paul, the King of Big Screen.

He copies his heroes — Saul Alinski, Hitler, and other dictators. He also obeys what his handlers tell him — global elitists and Islamic leaders.

I never knew Saul Alinski was an unelected head of state who ruled a nation with an iron fist.  I also never knew he spelled his name with two i's, but then, neither did his publisher, so I guess I shouldn't feel too bad.  I do feel obliged to point out, however, that if you wield supreme, unquestioned power, and yet you obey your own employees, then you're kind of a shitty dictator.  (And I'm a little confused by that last sentence.  Are his handlers "global elitists and Islamic leaders" or are his handlers telling him, "global elitists and Islamic leaders," which doesn't really sound like a command as much as it sounds like a Jeopardy! category if Sean Hannity were the host.)

Adolph Hitler wrenched democracy and freedom from Germany's hands with "Hitler's Enabling Act," voted legally into law March 23, 1933.

It was smart of him to trademark it like that, because now the Justice Department can go after anyone who illegally enables, so my friends in AA are getting a lot less pressure from Ukrainian websites to have a beer.

It was also called "Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich."

And while the legislation was still being debated in committee, it was briefly known as "Butterflies Are Free."

You may recall that Hitler had the Nazis burn down the Reichstag German government building so they could create enough panic to get the votes for Hitler's enabling act.

You may also recall that just prior the Presidential election in 2004, the Terrorist Swatch Alarm went from Dusty Mango to Passionate Raspberry.

Responding to the signing of the NDAA Bill, Obama stated he would never abuse the power. GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney, also a supporter of this bill, said he would never abuse the power due to his character.

Unfortunately, Romneys' character is a Level 64 Blood Elf, and they're mean.

Listen to the words of another famous person, Adolph Hitler. 

Laurie, I don't mean to be critical, but this is not the way you play This Is Your Life.  You're supposed to make us guess who it is.

Hitler promised a ton of lies before the vote.

And yet he only delivered 1,633 pounds of lies.  The rest of the volume was just packing peanuts.

Hitler and the Nazis were part of the "Green" environmental agenda and supportive of national healthcare, as Obama is.

Maybe we're looking in the wrong direction.  Based on this evidence, it's just as likely that the real modern Hitler is Ed Begley, Jr.

From the beginning, the signs were everywhere that we had a tyrant for a president.

Yes, yes, I know, Laurie.  They already covered this on Blue's Clues.

Don't forget that Obama and Michelle were supportive of and in attendance at flag-burning events, and stated publicly before Obama was elected how they hated America.

Wow, my memory is really going, because I totally forgot both those things.  Even worse, I can't remember who played "Cooter" on The Dukes of Hazzard.

In fact, Michelle said she only started to love America after Obama was elected.

Well, that's not really a fact, since she actually said, "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country," and she actually uttered it in February, 2008, about 8 months before the election, so apparently Michelle is working for Skynet, and is able to come back in time to alter events, which explains the seemingly impossible fact that Ronald Reagan increased taxes 11 times.  It also raises suspicions about that incident in 1911 when Reagan's pregnant mother crushed a cyborg in a machine shop.

Obama constantly has surrounded himself with Communists, and with anti-American and anti-Jewish colleagues and employees. His actions from day one have been against Jews, Christians, conservatives, the Constitution, and God himself.

It's clear that Obama targeted these five opponents for one reason: so he could challenge them to a pick-up game of basketball  (I mean come on, have you seen that guy's jump shot?).  And while most commentators agree that Jesus is a dominating power forward, the ball is always tacky with blood and hard to handle after he dribbles.

Obama will not willfully give up his power. 

Well, not today, anyway -- he has a lot of appointments on his calendar.  So we're to have to do something drastic, like vote him out of office; but before we can even think about that, we'll have to undertake two perilous quests.  First, destroy his horcruxes, and second, open the peoples' eyes to Obama's true nature by marshaling a very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care.  I'm thinking maybe we could compare him to Hitler.

I predict, as the months unfold toward Election Day 2012, that Internet conservative journals and speech will be greatly diminished.

You've probably noticed, as I have, that whenever people of Laurie's ilk make forecasts, they seldom come true.  But this is the first prediction in which I can guarantee that the exact opposite will come true.

This will be a financial attack, regulation attack, and set of contrived legal attacks. Talk radio and conservative commentators will also be attacked and silenced.

This one, however, is almost certain to be fulfilled, provided we define "attack[ing]" and "silenc[ing]" a talk radio host as "switching to the light rock station in time to catch the Four Pack of Dan Fogelberg."

Watch for contrived and invented threats to attack parts of America, while the Russians are blamed......oh yeah, that was Hitler

Actually, that was Poland, not Russia, but let's not interrupt Laurie -- she's on a roll.

 Watch out for bold attacks aimed at national Tea Party groups and leaders.

Assuming you can find one somewhere.  Maybe try the Cracker Barrel...

Watch out for pastors to be arrested for preaching from the Holy Bible and not editing their speech.

Grammar Nazis.  I hate these guys.

We are seeing Obama war with the Catholic Church and Christian faith.

A price war.  Just like with Paul, the King of Big Screen, Obama is underbidding the Prince of Peace with free birth control bills!

 His healthcare mandate intends to force churches and religious organizations to provide abortion drugs and supportive products.

Oh, great.  First Obama made Catholic affiliated companies offer health insurance that includes contraception, now he's forcing the Vatican to underwrite the purchase of morally objectionable jockstraps and spleen trusses!

There is no place in our Constitution where insurance companies and religious groups can be forced to pay for abortion services and products. 

There's also no place in our Constitution where Catholic bishops get a veto on Federal legislation.

Yet, this president, who hates the Constitution, just continues to ignore it as he takes bold leaps forward into his beloved new and improved, Fascist America.

Nazis on pogo sticks.  I hate these guys.

We have a president who is demanding the nation pay for abortions regardless of Americans' beliefs.

That is Fascist.  I think the President should go the Communist route and demand that abortions be free.  Then Archbishop Dolan won't have to worry about his parishioners' donations going to subsidize an objective evil, like drugs that suppress ovulation, and can instead be spent on projects which benefit the entire body of Christ, like grudging compensation to victims of clerical sexual abuse.

 If we let him, he will start forcing assisted suicide on all who are disabled, medically too expensive, or just too old to contribute anymore. Remember, this was already done in one of the most civilized countries on earth, Germany. We are watching it unfold right before our eyes in America. History MUST NOT repeat itself.

Laurie, on the other hand, must repeat herself.  Frequently.

Those of you who love our Constitution, freedoms, and Judeo-Christian values and heritage — understand that you are on a growing enemy list. "Bitter clingers" that you are.....buy more guns, Bibles, and ammo NOW.  ... Don't ever submit to forced healthcare

Except for transvaginal ultrasounds.

Don't ever submit to authorities arresting you in the middle of the night. 

If you must die for your liberty, die with these words on your lips.  "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country, and I particularly regret that I gave it while wearing plaid pajama bottoms and a t-shirt from the "Baldknobbers Jamboree Show" in Branson, Missouri."

*Apologies to the decidedly non-crazy FlipYrWhig.

The Water-Repelling Pundit With The Glossy Shine

I get excited whenever I see a new column by Alan Caruba, probably because I tend to mistake his byline for a headline, and always think it's going to be something about the islands of the Caribbean, or perhaps the "queen of waxes."  Alas, neither subject ever comes up, and by the end of the piece I'm instead reminded that Alan's career has largely been devoted to providing positive PR spin for various pesticides, because I find myself feeling much as I did that one time, during California's Ride of the Valkyries-like helicopter assault on the Mediterranean Fruit Fly infestation, when I walked home late and got doused with malathion.

The global warming hoax is now killing people

By Friday, February 10th, an estimated 500 Europeans had died from the freezing weather gripping the continent. This is the price they and British citizens are paying for embracing the global warming hoax, spending billions for wind power when they should have been building coal-fired and other sources of energy to heat their homes and businesses.

Well, neither of the articles Alan links to blame the deaths on wind power, although they do mention, "The increasing toll of hypothermia over the past five years coincides with a surge in energy costs, especially gas prices which have gone up by 40 per cent."  This seems counter-intuitive, since gas and coal, unlike wind, are plentiful and inexhaustible resources which should only become less expensive as their use becomes more widespread.  But, as we shall see, victims of seasonable but extreme European weather froze to death directly as a result of windmills, just like Frankenstein's monster, except he burned to death.  (Spoiler alert: according to eyewitness Una O'Connor, he actually didn't)

I and others have been warning for years that the Earth has been cooling since 1998

Somebody should take it off the window ledge.  If we leave it out there much longer a raccoon might get it.

and that the planet is on the cusp of a new ice age because the average length of an interglacial period of warmth between such ages is now coming to an end after the passage of some 11,500 years.

According to Wikipedia, which seems like an apt source of rebuttal to Alan's boilerplate from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, "The Earth has been in an interglacial period known as the Holocene for more than 11,000 years. It was conventional wisdom that 'the typical interglacial period lasts about 12,000 years,' but this has been called into question recently. For example, an article in Nature argues that the current interglacial might be most analogous to a previous interglacial that lasted 28,000 years. Predicted changes in orbital forcing suggest that the next glacial period would begin at least 50,000 years from now, even in absence of human-made global warming (see Milankovitch cycles)."

For those with an incomplete grasp of the geophysical sciences, "Milankovitch cycles" refers to the brand endorsed by Lance Armstrong.

All aspects of global warming legislation and spending programs must be utterly reversed if we are not going to see huge losses of life and the disruption of entire economies.

Alan is like a trauma surgeon in an ER, except that instead of giving the patient oxygen and starting an IV of Ringer's Lactate and D5W while yelling "Stat!", he blows cigarette smoke in her face and gives her a shot of DDT.

The Ottawa Citizen published an Agence France Presse article on Friday reporting that "Thick ice closed vast swaths of the Danube on Thursday, crippling shipping on Europe's busiest waterway, as the death toll from bitter cold across the continent rose...as it has every day for nearly two weeks." The report noted that "Navigation was impossible or restricted in Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria, as ice covered the river or formed dangerous floes in shipping lanes."

No shipping means no delivery of coal and oil and no shipping of food and other necessities.

Yes, extreme weather, such as snow, ice, and sand storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, torrential rains and floods, can all play havoc with the orderly distribution of goods.  Sadly, the predictions by climate scientists that anthropogenic global climate change will result in extreme weather becoming increasingly common were clearly off base, because it's happening a lot quicker than they expected.  I'm going to go disable my catalytic converter just to display my contempt for their imprecise computer modeling skills.

 Europe is freezing over as the United States has been experiencing an unusually mild winter thus far.

Cold winter in Europe = global warming theorists are wrong!  Warm winter in U.S. = global warming theorists are wrong!

That, too, is likely to yield to the increased cooling of the planet and then, maybe, Americans will realize the threat to their lives that the closing of coal-fired plants, instigated by the Environmental Protection Agency, really means.

If only the Neanderthals had been less hamstrung by government red tape, they could have developed a bronze-smelting industry that would have jump-started global deglaciation, and today, people in Elko, Nevada would enjoy beachfront property and cool ocean breezes, while Florida would be a sandbar, but only at high tide.

England, now gripped by foolish green notions of renewable energy, has covered itself with wind turbines, despoiling its countryside and coasts while proving unreliable and incapable of meeting its energy needs.

"Renewable energy sources provided for 6.7 per cent of the electricity generated in the United Kingdom in 2009, rising to 9.6% in the second quarter of 2011."  So I don't think anyone expects them to replace other forms of energy generation.  In fact, Britain "plans to open four new [nuclear] plants in the UK by 2017."

And as everybody knows, while this is an eyesore:

 This is a delight to the senses:

Especially if you're a Jayne Mansfield fan.

In Europe, other news organizations reported that "Many of the dead were homeless people, who literally froze to death as the temperatures dropped to minus 50 degrees in some parts of the continent. Their bodies were found in the streets buried under snow, in rivers, and in doorways.

I suppose developing programs that give people an alternative to sleeping on the sidewalk might be one solution, but since Alan hates not only windmills, but also homeless shelters, subsidized housing, unemployment insurance, and all forms of welfare, the only way to keep our thoroughfares from becoming cluttered with frozen corpses, like the Siege of Leningrad, is a massive industrial mobilization to Pollute Our Way to the Perfect Temperature.

Writing in a Turkish newspaper, the Hurriyet Daily News, Sophie Quintin Adali, an analyst for a project of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, said, "As if the debt crisis weren't bad enough news, the climate freeze sweeping across Europe is wreaking havoc by severely disrupting travel, business and people's lives. Local authorities, indeed whole countries, are caught poorly prepared." Turkey is experiencing record snowfall and low temperatures.

It's the fault of those lying bastards at the EPA that Turkey doesn't have enough snowplows.

"The lack of readiness should come as no surprise because for decades the sensationalist message of global warming has dominated the public area," said Ms. Adali.

Emphasis in original.  Just in case it wasn't obvious from the name, "The Atlas Economic Research Foundation is a nonprofit organization connecting a global network of more than 400 free-market organizations in over 80 countries to the ideas and resources needed to advance the cause of liberty."  So while they clearly have an axe to grind, it's not political -- they just need to chop down a forest.

We have not built a single new nuclear plant in America since 1978.

And in the wake of the tsunami-induced meltdown in Japan, this is the perfect time to approve additional nuclear power plants, especially here in California, because ever since first seeing The Road Warrior at an impressionable age, it's been my dream to one day outrun mutants in an irradiated wasteland.

EPA rules are forcing the closure of coal-fired plants throughout the nation.

Well, that's part of it: "Two factors have made it easier for utilities to shut old coal plants in recent years. Power demand has been weakening in recent years because of the slow economy and energy efficiency programs. And natural gas prices, which have fallen to decade-low levels in recent weeks, have allowed utilities to switch from coal to natural gas without impacting customer bills. Meanwhile, demand from China and elsewhere has driven up the price of coal."

 The national grid for the distribution of electricity is in need of upgrades.

This is absolutely true, and something Al Gore frequently harps upon (so Alan, if you and the former Vice President are ever trapped in a glacier together, you'll have something to chat about until you're eventually thawed out and eaten by Siberians with a side of Mammoth).  Of course, the grid just distributes the electricity.  It doesn't care whether it came from a coal or natural gas-fired plant, a hydro-electric or geo-thermal source, solar radiation, or human beings who are trapped in a computer generated world and harvested by malevolent machines for their body heat.

The nation's policies are controlled by the most environmentally insane administration in its history, wasting billions on so-called green energy. Its new budget raises taxes and proposes a trillion-dollar deficit without any significant effort to cut the spending that has left this and future generations in debt while the price of gas soars to new heights.

By Alan's standards, I'd say Nixon's was the most "environmentally insane administration," since the EPA didn't even exist until he came along.  Still, the fact that natural gas and oil are finite resources, but Alan loathes the very notion of "renewable energy" makes me think his column is really addressing a larger issue.  Why is he so determined to stop policies that might prevent, or at least mitigate, catastrophic global climate change?  Well, he's 75 years old next October, and I think he looked in the mirror one day, accepted the inevitable fact of his own mortality, and decided that if he had to go, he was taking the Earth down with him!

America and the rest of the world have been horribly deceived by the United Nations Intergovernmental Climate Change Panel that continues to drive the global warming hoax. The lying scientists who got on the global warming gravy train, the politicians that embraced it, and the media that misled millions are all culpable, all responsible.

This is the part of the scientists' scam I've never quite understood.  How much money really is there to be made in forecasting a decrease in Arctic sea ice, or testifying on behalf of regulations to reduce carbon dioxide emissions?  If I had a Ph.D and wanted to ride the scientific gravy train to riches and bitches, I'd investigate impotence and get my name on the patent for a new erectile dysfunction drug Big Pharma could roll out right after Viagra goes generic, because there's a lot more money to be made from boners than polar bears.

They should be driven from office, defunded, and chased through the streets like villagers in pursuit of Frankenstein.

So the villagers who chased Frankenstein with torches and pitchforks were also being chased?  Presumably by other villagers who were outraged that the first villagers' torches -- while smoky -- weren't producing enough chlorofluorocarbons to keep the Danube from freezing.

It's like a Benny Hill sketch written by Americans for Prosperity.

People are freezing to death in their homes and in the streets. What will it take to drive a stake into the heart of the global warming monster?

Perhaps the people with homes could invite the homeless people inside, then they could all huddle and share body warmth.  But if that's a little too egalitarian, Alan, then I have, if not exactly good news, then at least a ray of hope to offer.  The same Ottawa Citizen  article you link to ends this way:

While many in Europe were fed up with the bitter cold, residents in the Netherlands were disappointed with a slight warming in that country that resulted in a legendary iceskating race along canals being cancelled.

The race has not been run since 1997.

So apparently there's one man who can turn back the new Ice Age:  Hans Brinker.

Post-Friday Beast Blogging: The "Never Go to Bed Angry" Edition

"Tell the gentleman from me that I'm not speaking to him!"

"And you can just tell Miss Thing over there that I'm not speaking to her!"

"Hmph!"        "Hmph!"

"(Sigh)...I hate it when we fight."

I See London, I See France...

Generally speaking, there's good news and bad news, but not true and false news.  Unless it's news about a political enemy that's so bad it's too good to be true, in which case, grab your vellum and your composing stick, and print the legend!

Which brings us to Jeannie DeAngelis' latest -- and if I may say so, definitive -- demonstration of the Does She or Doesn't She? school of journalism, in which Jeannie exposes Michelle Obama for possibly buying lingerie from a British company, thereby contributing to the collapse of the American corsetiere industry, as well as threatening the livelihoods of small business owners such as the two Ukrainian-American guys who run FirstLadyUpskirtPix.com (a fair and balanced site, by the way, which features both Democrats ["See Lady Bird Johnson's Nest!"] and Republicans [the "Barbara's Bush" gallery alone has over a hundred photos]).

Is Michelle Obama America's Agent Provocateur?

If the rumors are true -- and despite "angry denials" by the White House, it's finally public knowledge -- then when hanging around the presidential living quarters, Michelle Obama does not wear ripped sweatpants and an old "Yes We Can" Obama 2008 T-shirt. Recently, we've come to find out that last year, while hubby was out preaching the gospel of fairness, wifey may have been busy acquiring a few "must-have" items from Hollywood-style British retail lingerie shop Agent Provocateur.

So there you have it.  If the rumor is true -- and despite White House denials, we've heard about it, thereby proving that we have so much time on our hands we can afford to waste some of it reading American Thinker, which is a damning indictment indeed -- then Mrs. Obama may have bought underwear.  Some people may think this is ridiculous source material for a political scandal, but personally, I believe anyone dumb enough to deal with a company who's name means "Entrapment," has it coming.

Ironically, a provocateur is someone who "provokes trouble, causes dissension or the like; an agitator." Whether the fancy underwear story is true or not, either way, Mrs. Obama is indeed an agent provocateur. 

So she's working for the cops?  Perhaps she went undercover to help nab a gang trafficking in counterfeit Spanx and contrabandeaus (there was a similar storyline in the second season of HBO's crime drama, The Underwire).

And, based on her continued dedication to extravagant self-indulgence, spending oodles of dollars on thongs doesn't seem far-fetched.

And, based on an unsourced rumor in the Fashion section of a British tabloid, I completely believe it.

Let's remember: Michelle Obama pays absolutely no mind to public indignation over things like wearing a $2,000 sundress to church.

Which is exactly the kind of crass, tone deaf, nouveau riche crap a true First Lady like Nancy Reagan would never have pulled, because it would have reflected poorly on the Office of the Presidency, and would have required going to church.

Now we find out that the first lady may have filled a van with $600 corsets at a high-end Madison Avenue girdle shop.

She may have filled a van with stolen big screen TVs and driven it across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge at 3 in the morning to meet a fence in Staten Island, only to see the deal go sour and a brief gun battle break out, during which Mrs. Obama was grazed by a 9mm round and the fence fatally shot, forcing the wounded First Lady to dump the body in the Fresh Kills Landfill before eventually abandoning the truck at rest stop and fleeing in a stolen silver or light gray two-door sedan with Pennsylvania plates.  We just don't know.

Whether she did or she didn't, either way, Misunderstood Michelle shouldn't worry about being disparaged for behaving like the voluptuary she is.

Perry Mason couldn't have summed it up better.  "Your Honor, I submit that whether my client did or did not murder the victim is unimportant, because even if he's innocent, he was just acting like the killer he is."

If the going gets tough, the first lady can divert attention from her shopping in a store that sells "the most erotic lingerie in the world" by whining about things like being unjustly viewed as an "angry black woman," or serving turkey tacos to schoolchildren with Rachael Ray.

I must have missed that last interview, but if I was forced to spend time with Rachel Ray, I'd bitch about it too.  Especially if the taco meat steam trays were taking the curl out of my hair.  Here's a question, though:  which lingerie eroticism ranking is proper for a First Lady?  I think underwear that is seeded 18th in the world is most suitable, but you guys may have different opinions.

When asked about his clients, Agent Provocateur's chief executive Gary Hogarth refused to reveal whose names were on the "secret list."

Actually, he didn't say anything about a "secret list" in the article Jeannie linked to, but who's to say he wasn't thinking it?  We may never know.

On the other hand, this did appear in the piece:  "A spokesman for the label told MailOnline: 'Recent claims regarding Michelle Obama and purchases made at an Agent Provocateur boutique are incorrect.'"

However, he did admit that the brand had "attracted a high number of 'unexpected famous names' -- especially in the US, where sales have overtaken the UK." If U.S. sales have surpassed the U.K.'s, could it be because one very famous woman traded in bunny slippers for some size 11 Pom Pom Mules?

Meow.

"Madam, this may come as a surprise to you, but there's rather a large gulf between the fine art of Cattiness, and just being a bitch."

No one knows for sure what Agent Michelle the Provocateur hauled away in those pink and black shopping bags, or if she actually did shop there.

It doesn't really matter, though, because according to the multiverse theory, every decision you make causes reality to fracture into potentially infinite alternate dimensions.  Therefore, even if Mrs. Obama didn't go to a store on Madison Avenue and buy underwear, quantum mechanics proves that somewhere, in a parallel universe, she did.  So impeachment seems mathematically sound. 

But what we do know is that Mrs. Obama would have zero problem brazenly shutting down a street in New York City; she did it before for date night, and if in need of shopping therapy in a sexy skivvy shop, she'd likely do it again.

I didn't realize that in addition to urging school children to eat healthy, Michelle has also usurped the power of motorcade traffic management from the Secret Service.  On a more rib-tickling note, Jeannie's link goes to a Foxnews.com story from 2009, which includes these timely passages:

Even before the Obamas left Washington, the there-and-back trip drew criticism from Republicans. They questioned the president's decision to travel to New York for a night of entertainment during a recession and while automakers struggle to survive.
[...]
The Republican National Committee issued a news release that chastised Obama for saying he understands American's troubles, but then hopping up to New York for "a night on the town."

Noting that General Motors is expected to file for Chapter 11 protection on Monday, the news release said: "Putting on a show: Obamas wing into the city for an evening out while another iconic American company prepares for bankruptcy."

If the politics thing doesn't work out, the RNC could always consider shifting gears and competing head to head with the Psychic Friends Network.

Despite White House denials, it could be that at one point Michelle did shop at the Madison Avenue boutique, and if she did, reports are that she allegedly rang up a $50K tab. 

It's possible that Jeannie spent one hazy, Sterno-fueled summer haunting the Southern Pacific freight yards in the High Desert, sleeping in culverts and emerging only on moonless nights to eviscerate hobos and feast on their kidneys.  You'll note that she hasn't even bothered to deny it.

Besides buying push-up bras, $50,000 could feed and house the family of at least one disenfranchised worker to whom Barack Obama promised a job but has yet to deliver, not to mention pay for a four-year college education for a disadvantaged child.

Too bad General Motors is bankrupt, or the disenfranchised anecdote might have found work there.  Personally, though, I think that making children attend college can lead to more stress than a 9 year old can easily handle, even if universities are more likely to have working rest rooms and less Mac 'n Cheese in the cafeteria than the public grammar schools they normally attend.  Plus -- and I speak from experience -- if you try to pay off the bursar in brassiers, you're going to spend a lot of time filling out forms at the Financial Aid office.

Then, less than a week after [the State of the Union Address], the British press reported that Mrs. Obama, the woman who brightened up the SOTU address in a $2,000 shimmering peacock-blue Barbara Tfank dress, "[a]long with the Queen of Qatar, Sheikha Mozah," played by her own rules, descended on "Madison Avenue, and spent some girlfriend time slapping big bucks on the counter of a lingerie shop."

That quote certainly does sound incriminating.  Especially when you paste it into Google and find that Jeannie just made it up, because that means that somewhere in the multiverse, there's a reality where an alternate Jeannie DeAngelis found an actual, relevant quote that conclusively proved Michelle's guilt.  Now we just need to find a Federal judge willing to issue a transdimensional bench warrant.

And what exactly would Mrs. Obama buy if she did actually shop there? 

It's fun to fantasize, although Jeannie is the first grandmother I've met who's deposited Michelle Obama in her Spank Bank.

Could be that Mrs. Obama isn't a provocateur at all, and if she actually did go on a secret shopping trip, perhaps she simply wanted to introduce the "sensuality and flirtation of the 70s" into the White House. Her ultimate goal may have merely been to whip into playful submission a president who is turning out to be even worse than 1970s icon Jimmy Carter.

"Whaddya think she bought?  Huh?  Somethin' sporty.  Somethin' peek-a-boo.  Somethin' crotchless maybe?  Think she's a goer?  Huh?  Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.  Say no more..."

Kyle-Anne Shivers With Antici...pation

Francois de La Rochefoucauld observed that "Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue," and while that's a snappy one-liner that probably had them chortling in Madeleine de Souvré's literary salon and nudging each other under the table, at least until someone bumped the bloated foot of a gout sufferer, and the laughter was rent by screams, it's a little too Louis Quatorze for our modern age, when the Divine Right of Kings has given way to the testicle-crushing powers of Article II of the U.S. Constitution.   So nowadays, La Rochefoucauld's maxim would more aptly state, "Hypocrisy is the alarm lever behind the brittle pane marked 'In Case of Negro in White House, Break Glass.'"  And it's just this kind of exigency that has allowed Newt Gingrich to buy a papal indulgence from Professional Moralist (and "frequent contributor to American Thinker and PJ Media") Kyle-Anne Shiver.

Why I'm Giving Newt a Pass on the Scarlet-A Factor

Ah, so what I've been mistaking for a Republican Presidential primary campaign is actually a TV reality competition.  That explains the last debate when Moderator Joe Rogan forced the participants to drink donkey semen; I admit I was confused at the time, since in most Republican interactions with the press, the jizz traditionally flows the other way.  Particularly with David Gregory.

Newt Gingrich is an adulterer many times over, which is old news.

And Old News is No News.  Unless it's the Gospels, in which case it's Good News.

The second Mrs. Gingrich, scorned in favor of the third Mrs. Gingrich, is in the process of spilling the sordid divorce beans in her long-stated goal of stopping Newt's climb to the presidency.

I once traded a cow for some divorce beans.  Worst deal I ever made.

But I decided a couple of months ago to give Newt a pass on the Scarlet-A factor, and I seriously doubt there's a single thing an embittered ex-wife can say that will change my mind at this point.

For one thing, it would mean rearranging all the hobgoblins.

Yes, I empathize with the 2nd Mrs. Gingrich.

The 1st Mrs. Gingrich, however, can apparently suck it.

Yes, I believe that adultery is a very serious offense. Yes, I wish the man I am supporting for president had a perfect track record in all aspects of his life, both public and private.

 Ironically, the sign of a true Gingrich supporter in 2012 is they sound like a Clinton supporter in 1998.

I'm putting my country over the matron's sisterhood here, and a couple of my friends have already stared at me incredulously as I've explained my reasons.

Some of them have been so scandalized they've threatened to quit the matron sisterhood and return the traveling mom jeans.

How could I, outspoken defender of monogamy and premarital chastity, so compromise my own principles to vote for a man who has trashed his own wedding vows and, if he wins the presidency, would ensconce his former mistress as first lady?

Well, it's complicated.

You liked it as a Facebook Relationship Status, now you'll love it as a Presidential Campaign Slogan.

For one thing, I don't see red-blooded, healthy, high-testosterone men through a set of 1950s June-Cleaver glasses. 

At first I thought Kyle-Anne meant the mother from Leave It to Beaver,  but given the hyphen, I assume that "June-Cleaver glasses" are some sort of gruesome, but innocuous-looking instrument of murder, like the booby-trapped binoculars in Horrors of the Black Museum.

Newt's a Boomer, for crying out loud. He's a Boomer through and through, down to every one of his adulterous acts.

Just imagine how much richer our literary heritage would be if adultery had been invented before 1966.  Georges Feydeau might have written a farce about it.

We Boomers honestly did believe that sexual morality could be separated from all other spheres. 

Except the Music of the Spheres, because it didn't matter how cool your bachelor pad was, you weren't getting laid without a little lush cocktail jazz on the HiFi.

We heralded cohabitation as the commonsense precursor to healthy marriage. 

Worked for me.  Did Newt and the first Mrs. Gingrich shack up before tying the matrimonial slipknot?  Might have helped.

We pushed the bounds of every sexual prohibition to its furthermost limits and insisted on the right to exterminate our young in the womb to offset female disadvantage.

Male disadvantage, on the other hand, is primarily addressed by adjusting one's golf handicap.

We've embraced serial monogamy so enthusiastically that we've made it mainstream. Kids from our broken families are everywhere now

Clearly we need better womb exterminators.

...and bonded step-families are now as commonplace as they were rare in June Cleaver's America.

Bonded step-families are fine, I had one myself, but as I've matured, my tastes have become more sophisticated, and I find myself preferring cask-strength single-malt step-families.  It has a deeper and more robust flavor profile, which I attribute to all the extra hyphens.

In many ways, Newt Gingrich is us.

Great.  Now I've got to figure out how to shave without actually looking in the mirror.

He is us in ways Mitt Romney doesn't even seem to know exist in the real world.

I think Kyle-Anne is saying she'd rather spend a drunken, sexed-up weekend in Vegas with Newt Gingrich than Mitt Romney.  I say we pour some Canola oil in an inflatable kiddie pool and let her and Katherine Jean Lopez fight it out.

Not all Boomers bought into this now-quite-blemished idea of separating our sex lives from all the rest in terms of morality, but more of us did than didn't. And pretending that's not the case isn't going to put this Boomer-released genie back into its bottle. 

Even as a child, I blamed my parents divorce on Barbara Eden.

America will have to depend upon the new generations' learning from our mistakes to even come close to doing that. And I doubt seriously whether these young libertarians want to go back to straight-laced, Christian sexual morality enforced by law anyhow.

So tough titty, Santorum!  Newt's driving the Party Bus to Spring Break!

The point is this. Newt Gingrich, like Bill Clinton, is a Boomer in this sexually liberated regard. And right this very minute, there are as many women who identify with Callista Gingrich, the mistress who became a wife, as will identify with the formerly scorned ex. In my own circle of close female friends, two of them were former mistresses.

And astonishingly, knowing these women personally has given you a fresh perspective on life and a dash of empathy that has actually encouraged a relaxation of your normally incoherent but inflexible moral outrage.  Brava, Kyle-Anne.  On the down side, if you accidentally make a gay or black friend, you're going to run out of material real fast.

As Boomers, we would have to do a whole lot of Scarlet-A shunning to keep the marriage vow-breakers out of our midst. Unfortunately, that would mean most of us Boomers would have fewer friends than we could count on one hand. Amongst the younger generations, the only place where one can beam solidly on the side of chastity is at church on Sunday.

It's been many years since I've been to church, so I can only assume they've added American Gladiator style spectacles to attract the young, or perhaps "beaming" is the part of the service where the fornicators and the adulterers remove the lumber from each others' eye.

At any rate, fair is fair, and since the 2nd Mrs. Gingrich is now nursing her divorce-grudge in public...

Well I don't blame her.  I was pretty pissed off when I threw those magic divorce beans I bought out the window, and they grew into a giant divorce-grudge overnight.  And I wasn't even married.

... the public needs to remember just how it was that Marianne came to be the second wife of Newt Gingrich. She had an affair with him while he was still married to wife #1. Exactly so, dear readers. The second wife, now running to the press crying foul over Newt's adultery, was his mistress (in an adulterous affair) before she became his wife.

Far from crying foul, I think Mrs. Gingrich 2.0 is actually gloating that Mrs. Gingrich 3.0 wasn't nearly as good a mistress as she was.  After all, Newt left his first wife for Marianne, but with Callista he wanted to maintain a full-time mistress, but still keep a wife on the side (you know, for Bridge parties, progressive dinners, or those nights when you just don't feel like getting a blowjob).

Let's not forget that Newt Gingrich is a Southerner. And Southern men have long, long, long, long been known for their randy ways, which a great many of us women find as attractive as we find it nettlesome when we are ourselves scorned for more verdant female pastures.

When I worked in Alabama, most of the people I met were very nice, but it was often embarrassing to accompany my male co-workers to the local Hooters, where they'd get liquored up and shout, "Look at the meadows on her!" and, "How'd ya like to graze on that herbage?"

Whether South Carolina women will give Newt a pass on his hound-dog history is up in the air, but knowing Southern women as well as I do, I will bet that they will.

I haven't seen breakdowns of the vote by sex, but this still marks the first time I have ever witnessed Kyle-Anne make an even remotely accurate prediction.  I can only hope this isn't the beginning of a trend, or I'm going to run out of material.

Many are thinking right this minute along the lines of Sarah Palin.

I realize not everyone can afford a mistress, let alone three, but it's sad to think of anyone being reduced to this when there's so much free porn on the Internet.

We've got bigger fish to fry at the moment, and when one's Country is on the line, it's no time to be indulging puritan fantasies about men. Many women are thinking that we've got a once-married, publicly chaste president in the White House now, and it's not working out so well for America.

While it's true that last time the U.S. enjoyed a vibrant, expanding economy, there was a blowjob enthusiast who also defined oral sex in a narrow, pettifogging, pubic-hairsplitting way in the White House, that might just be a coincidence.  However, if Kyle-Anne can prove causation, one of you ladies might have to take one for the team and seduce Obama in order to strengthen the labor market (I presume this is what John Boehner means when he starts breathing heavily about the importance of the "job creators").

Southern women are not idealists wearing rose-colored glasses, especially when it comes to men.

However, Southern men are advised to avoid donning the June-Cleaver glasses if their wives suspect they're screwing around.

Even the most religious among us tend to see men as they are and not as we would wish them to be. Even in the Antebellum South, women turned a willfully blind eye to a husband's sexual romps in favor of financial security and the social status of marriage.

Even in the Antebellum South, when women had so many legal and property rights and so much social autonomy?  Wow.  And that's to say nothing of the white women.

Then, Civil War and Reconstruction deprivations only reinforced this already-strong survival instinct among Southern women, who quite often will put up with a mistress on the side and only get vengeful when the husband takes that mistress for his new wife.

Ah, that explains it -- Marianne is suffered from Post-Reconstruction Era Stress Disorder, which has  been demonstrated to cause deviant behavior.  I understand that Nathan Bedford Forrest was driven to found the Ku Klux Klan when he learned that one of his closest associates -- a man who had served under him at the Fort Pillow Massacre -- was seeing another war criminal on the side.

Southern women tend to believe that it's as much a woman's duty to keep her man as it is a man's duty to remain in marital fealty. 

"I'm sorry, honey, it was your responsibility to keep me honest and faithful, but so far you've done a demonstrably unsatisfactory job.  As I see from your file, you received a written warning after that intern tossed my salad.  Yet, I also note that I've been banging a Congressional aide repeatedly in my office bathroom, and you have still failed to develop and execute an effective action plan to stop me.  So I'm afraid I've got no choice but to let you go.  Please clean out your nightstand and your half of the bathroom sink, and be out of the house by five."

So, I'm getting pretty darned fed up with men running around screaming that Newt will cause a gender gap so huge that it simply can't be ameliorated by other factors more important. I'm planning to vote for Newt myself. And I can guarantee you we women are a heck of a lot more complicated than this anyhow.

Actually, c-o-m-p-l-i-c-a-t-e-d doesn't even spell the half of it when it comes to women. 

Actually, it does. All you need is a "w" and an "n," and you're good to go -- although I still think it's kind of a crummy anagram.