Wiener of the Year - 2011

It's time for the least prestigious unknown award currently presented by the denizens of the old WWW - The Vulture's Wiener of the Year.

I received a number of nominations for WotY for 2011, including three very good ones from April Day. Each and every individual nominated is certainly deserving of derision. The list includes:

California Jim (AKA Jammin, AKA CAJim) - a troll from the execrable FLDS Texas website bigotry cauldron, who once took over this blog's comments for a full week to debate "journalistic integrity" and my lack thereof.

Gregory Prickett (AKA The Prickette, the 2010 WotY - nominated due to his ludicrous lawsuit against various blogger cohorts of mine, a lawsuit meant simply to harass, a lawsuit dismissed by a judge who saw through the pointlessness of the suit.

Former Seattle police officer Ian Birk, about whom I wrote earlier last year, for murdering in cold blood an innocent civilian. Throw in the fact that Seattle PD did NOTHING about it - no charges, no disciplinary action, N-O-T-H-I-N-G, and you have a most Wiener-worthy nominee.

The usual suspects came up as well. Il Duce. Big Media (the BM for short). Congress. The TSSA*. The inaptly named "justice" system. The Occupy movement. Team Elephant.

But this is the year when the Wiener of the Year award achieves absolute synchronicity. The 2011 WotY award winner truly IS a Weiner -- Anthony Weiner.

Weiner, a gawdawful socialist member of Congress since 1999, inadvertently sent a tweet intended for a single individual to his entire "followers" list. Ah, but this wasn't just any old tweet. This was a picture of little Anthony's, well, wiener. After claiming that his Twitter account had been hacked and trying one excuse after another for another several days, Weiner finally resigned from Congress. As I noted at the time, Weiner "pulled out" at a senior center in his District.

What makes Weiner's story even more wiener-worthy is that he is married to a smoking-hot woman who was pregnant when all of this was going on. What. A. Douchebag.

But isn't that what makes a Wiener, after all?

Heretofore, the Wiener of the Year award logo will no longer be the three strutting wieners I've used since 2007. From now on, this will be the WotY logo.

Congratulations to former Representative Anthony Weiner! You are the 2011 Wiener of the Year!


* You can't abbreviate Schutzstaffel without the double 'S'.

Trial by Media

Deadeye watched the Casey Anthony trial with rapt fascination over the past six weeks. I would venture that there is no one out there as knowledgeable about that case (outside of the attorneys, that is) than Deadeye. When Casey Anthony was found not guilty on all charges except lying to police yesterday, Deadeye was dumbfounded. She has officially lost all confidence in the jury system.

While I would tend to agree with her the the cumulative evidence should have led to a verdict of guilty, I'm less concerned with the verdict and more concerned about a growing trend that became apparent during this trial. Call it what you will, it boils down to trail by media.

The worst offender was Nancy Grace, of course. Were it up to Ms. Grace, Casey Anthony would be dead already. Nancy Grace has spent the past three years proclaiming the guilt of "tot mom". I thought that the "not guilty" verdict might elicit some sort of contemplative pause from her. As if! She said in response to the verdict that "the devil is dancing tonight". On her show last night, she spent an entire segment excoriating the defense team for having the audacity to celebrate their victory. Claiming "I never did that as a prosecutor", she heaped derision on Casey's attorneys. Being ever cynical...and knowing Nancy's predilection for playing fast and loose with the law during her career as a prosecutor...I would guess that the reason she never celebrated was because she didn't want to draw too much attention to her tactics.

If it were just Nancy Grace acting this way on the airways, you could dismiss this is as one bitter crank amid a sea of babble. But it's not just Ms. Grace. It's Jane VOLUME-Mitchell. It's Vinnie Politan. It's the hosts of In Session on Tru TV. The babble from this Tower of Babel is not just harmless words. If you listen to the comments of people around the country, they are convinced that the jury flat out blew the case. They're convinced that Casey Anthony is GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY. And the reason they're so convinced is because they've been harangued for three solid years by people selling sensationalism for ratings.

Still not convinced it's all that dangerous, Vulture. Okay, indulge me for a second. What happens when a sizable segment of the populace is worked up into a frenzy about something or other? Answer: laws get passed. Bad laws. Laws that make us less free and more susceptible to unwarranted incarceration. THIS is what concerns me. THIS is what I see as the danger.

Here's hoping that the Casey Anthony verdict does NOT have the effect of giving politicians a premise for abolishing or negating trial by jury.

A retraction of sorts

CAJim seems to think I owe him a retraction. It seems that the quote I cited in my last post, which I got second-hand from the Tizona Group, is misleading, and that both Tizona and I have misused the quote to misrepresent the meaning of the AGW-worshiper's words.

Ignore for the time being that the inclusion of "let's fight global warming" in an alleged expression of condolences to the Japanese people is a de facto piggy-backing of two unrelated calamities and leads to the impression that the warming-worshiper is linking the two. CAJim says I owe a retraction, and, by God, a retraction I'll give.

Okay, CAJim, Nilsson's comment doesn't link the earthquake and tsunami to global warming. But these "scientists" do link earthquakes and tsunamis to AGW.

Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and landslides are some of the additional catastrophes that climate change and its rising sea levels and melting glaciers could bring, a geologist says.

Note the weasel word "could". That's so that the "scientist" has plausible deniability when his patently ridiculous premise is dismissed by real scientists.

And, lest you think that the preceding comment was cherry-picked, there's this one.

Scientists are to outline dramatic evidence that global warming threatens the planet in a new and unexpected way – by triggering earthquakes, tsunamis, avalanches and volcanic eruptions.

Reports by international groups of researchers – to be presented at a London conference next week – will show that climate change, caused by rising outputs of carbon dioxide from vehicles, factories and power stations, will not only affect the atmosphere and the sea but will alter the geology of the Earth.

Of course, you have to read on to get to the part where the polar ice caps have to disappear and the glaciers melt away for this to happen...

But the question wasn't "Do AGW quack scientists attribute earthquakes and tsunamis to AGW?" It was, "Does this particular AGW quack scientist attribute a particular earthquake and tsunami to AGW?" The answer is, apparently, no.

So CAJim has his retraction. Who is CAJim, and why is he so adamant in seeking a retraction from your friendly, neighborhood Vulture?

CAJim is a common troll. He is a habitue of that den of bigotry, FLDS Texas. He wants to discredit the Vulture because I have written some extraordinarily mean (but true) things about his boyfriend, the Caput a Palos (hereinafter referred to as The Prickette). CAJim thinks that by discrediting anything I say he discredits the factual things I wrote about his butt buddy.

Sorry Jim. You lose. Nobody who reads this blog on a regular basis is going to believe you or your fellow FLDS Texas bigots over me.

Nobody.

A thought for today

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

— C. S. Lewis

Couldn't have said it any better.

Once again, NWA was right

'cause a cop think a badge give him the authority to kill a minority.
NWA, F*** tha police

Some time back, I referenced a tragic shooting in the Seattle area of a Native American man by a police officer donut-eating self-important bully. John T. Williams is still dead. And the tax-fed waste of oxygen who killed him is still a free man, as per standard procedure in this type of case.

“If you’re going to prosecute a cop for excessive force amounting to manslaughter or homicide, you have to prove that the officer acted with malice,” says Strait. “(The standard requires proof) that (the officer) acted with intent to harm (the victim). You have to prove he really wanted to get the guy.” Birk has presented the shooting as an act of self-defense.

The inquest brought out the cloudy nature of some of the aspects of the case. Witnesses and Birk presented several different versions of the afternoon’s events — Birk believed that Williams presented a threat to passers-by, while civilian witnesses perceived Williams as a normal pedestrian.

The jury leaned somewhat toward the witnesses’ version of events. Four jurors out of eight believed that Williams “pose(d no) imminent threat of serious physical harm to Officer Birk.” Three jury members were undecided and one agreed that Williams was a serious threat.

Several other key points of the incident are in dispute: Jurors were split on whether or not Williams was facing Birk when he was shot, if Williams was able to put down his knife before he was shot, and whether or not Williams’s knife blade was open or closed.

With a demanding burden of proof, Washington prosecutors are often loath to pursue prosecutions of police officers who have fired on citizens.

Often loath? OFTEN?!?!?! How about 'virtually never'. Cops literally get away with murder in over 90% of these cases. Why? Because cops and prosecutors are on the same "team", and it's bad form to throw a member of your "team" under the bus.

The reactions of citizens and local officials to the decision not to prosecute are telling. The few private citizens quoted are foursquare in the Williams camp. The tax feeders and union hacks are foursquare behind Birk. And the prosecutor does his best Pilate.

The policy of this state is to give police officers this special protection. The underlying policy, passed 25 years ago, is a sound one. My first and foremost responsibility is to follow the laws in the state of Washington. I had to look and see, 'Is there malice, is there a lack of good faith?'

Translation from lawyer-speak: Cops get special treatment. Go pound sand if you don't like it.

I, for one, don't like it.

Apparently, a badge DOES give a cop the authority to kill a minority...or anyone else...and will continue to do so until right-minded people demand that policies like the Seattle area "the cop is innocent unless we say so...and we won't say so" policy are abolished and cops are treated the same as ordinary citizens who commit acts of violence.

What anonymity really means

There once was a blog called Coram Non Judice (known to regular readers of this fine blog as Caput Penitus Culus).  The blog was purported to present valid legal opinions on issues related to the FLDS raid in Texas.  The blog was run pseudonymously by a fellow identifying himself as TxBluesMan.  No one knew his real name.  No one knew what his credentials were to opine on legal matters.  No one.

When asked how he justified writing anonymously what essentially amounted to hate-filled propaganda in the guise of legal opinion -- citing precedent often, of course -- TxBluesMan compared himself to the Founders, who at times wrote anonymous tracts against the colonial government and the King.

This, of course, was complete horse hockey.  There was nothing remotely similar to what the Founders did in anything TxBluesMan wrote.  The Founders hid behind anonymity to avoid arrest for sedition.  TxBluesMan wrote anonymously for a far different reason.

Anonymity, Martha Nussbaum, a professor of law and philosophy at the University of Chicago observes, allows Internet bloggers “to create for themselves a shame-free zone in which they can inflict shame on others.” The power of the bloggers, she continues, “depends on their ability to insulate their Internet selves from responsibility in the real world, while ensuring real-world consequences” for those they injure.

As the tipster who passed this story on to me wrote, "That, boys and girls, is the story of TxBluesman."

100% true and accurate. Think I'm kidding? I was accused by TxBluesMan of being pro-polygamy and pro-pedophilia for simply opining that 4th Amendment protections were violated during the Texas Stoßtruppen's raid! 

TxBluesMan is an intolerant bully.  He desperately needed to be outed.  And he was.

TxBluesMan turned out to be Sgt. Gregory Prickett, AKA the Caput a Palos, AKA The Prickette.

Once he was outed, The Prickette immediately shut down his odious blog to try to bury the evidence.  You see, now his real self was linked to his Internet self -- and real consequences awaited.

It's not pleasant when the curtain is parted and the Great and Powerful Oz is revealed to be a two-bit loser with a penchant for throwing his weight around and playing the big shot.  At least, not for Oz.

UPDATE: The same tipster who passed on the NY Times article adds the following:

Just FYI: while online at any sites controlled by Google, your "anonymity" is subject to their selective authority that may or may not conceal it.

Wiener of the Year

Prior to 2010 I awarded the Wiener of the Week award and the Wiener of the Month award every week/month.  I discontinued that practice this year because it constrained my flexibility with regard to subject-matter selection.  It was a decision I'm glad I made, given that the past year I've had significantly less opportunity to post than in past years.

But at the time I announced the discontinuation of the Wieners of the Week and Month, I stated that the Wiener of the Year award would still be given out to the person or persons most deserving of that dishonor.

In past years I solicited nominations for the WotY.  Not this year.  There was no need for that.  The winner (wiener?) was decided months ago.  There aren't even any candidates for the runner-up spots.  Nope, for 2010 there's just one, and he may be the most deserving recipient yet.

Ladies and gentlemen, your Wiener of the Year for 2010 is: Sgt. Gregory Prickett (hereinafter referred to as The Prickette).

It's ironic, but The Prickette is a two-time Wiener.  Last year I picked co-Wieners when I awarded the WotY to two blogs noted for their anti-FLDS bigotry.  At that time the identity of the person behind the execrable Coram Non Judice (known by regulars here as Caput Penitus Culus - Head Inside Ass) was unknown.  Thanks to the efforts of The Pharisee and others, the identity of the Caput a Palos was revealed.  Rather than bore you with the history of what transpired in the wake of that revelation, you can read up on it here.  Suffice it to say that The Prickette has paid dearly for playing lawyer and accusing innocent persons of pedophilia.

What makes The Prickette Wiener-worthy?  Let me count the ways.

1. He shut down his blog once he was outed.   It's gone for good, deleted by its owner.  Note that The Prickette has never at any time denied that he is TxBluesMan, the sorry excuse for a human being who proudly used his purported legal "expertise" to espouse bigotry and hatred.
2. He presented himself to his blog readers as a legal expert.  He not only isn't a lawyer, he wasn't even a real law enforcement professional (campus cop does NOT count as law enforcement).
3. He lost his job as a campus cop.  It would be purely speculative on my part to posit a theory as to why he is no longer employed by UNT, but it is likely related to alleged misuse of university resources in furtherance of his malignant campaign of pure bigotry against the FLDS.
4. Now that he's been "outed", his relationship with Natalie Malonis has become fodder for speculation.  I wonder how Mrs. Prickette feels about the coziness between her pompous-ass husband and Ms. Malonis.
5. He has attempted to sue those responsible for outing him for "damages", yet, as noted earlier, he has NEVER denied being the cowardly subhuman behind Caput Penitus Culus.  Never.  Kinda hard to prove damages when the "damage" is the result of the revelation of the truth.

Face it, Prickette.  Your life is a colossal fail.  Epic.  You sat in judgment of others, flinging baseless accusations from behind the cloak of anonymity like an ape throwing feces at the zoo (a fitting mental picture of who you really are).  And you've proved to be a fraud, a loser, a nothing.

Congratulations, Prickette.  You're the Wiener of the Year.

 Pictured: the Caput a Palos himself

Speaking of getting fired...

Yesterday I wrote about Steven Screamin' A. Smith losing his gig as the Fox Sports Radio morning drive host.  Today I wish to write about a different individual losing a different type of job.

The Pharisee reported on Monday that the Caput a Palos, AKA TxBluesMan, AKA Sgt. Gregory Prickett, AKA The Prickette (pictured at left), has left the employ of UNT-Dallas.  It is unknown at this time if he jumped or was pushed.  Regardless of how or why, he is no longer employed by UNT.

I'm an empathetic person at heart, so I have a certain feeling of sadness for the Caput a Palos.  There is nothing more damaging to a man's self esteem than the loss of his employment.  Most of us feel somewhat defined by our occupation ("I'm a doctor", or "I'm a lawyer", or "I'm a glorified mall cop", for example).

That stated, I have to admit to a certain schadenfruede over the news.  After all, Mr. Bigshot has wrongfully maligned me and blogger friends of mine with the vilest of accusations, and did so under cover of anonymity.  That his cover has been blown and his shady acts of cowardice exposed is a satisfaction ranking right up there with a 49ers Super Bowl victory for me.

When The Prickette was outed, he lashed out against those most prominent in the exposure of his identity by filing a bogus lawsuit against them.  The Pharisee reported on Tuesday that the lawsuit is effectively kaput.  Given that it was strictly an intimidation ploy by The Prickette all along, Hugh has filed a criminal complaint against him.  It seems that in Texas -- and pretty much nowhere else -- it is a felony crime to engage in Barratry - the act or practice of bringing legal action solely to harass. The complaint also details The Prickette's harassment of Hugh's daughter, an innocent bystander in this particular pissing contest.

Hey, if this is a pissing contest, has Hugh succeeded in making it halfway up the 30' pole (as compared to The Prickette's measly 2 feet)?  I always suspected that The Prickette was a little...uh...lacking...in the man-plumbing department.

I hear that every time a cop gets fired a member of NWA gets his wings. Could be.  All I know is there's one less goon out there busting teeth today than there was last week at this time.

Piling on: more TSSA abuse

TSSA (you can't spell Schutzstaffel without the double S) is the hot topic these days, crowding out the G20 Summit, the ConAgra/Archer Daniels Midland/Big Agra food industry takeover bill, and, well, everything else. And why not?  After all, they make it so easy!

The latest is this tale of humiliation.

A retired special education teacher on his way to a wedding in Orlando, Fla., said he was left humiliated, crying and covered with his own urine after an enhanced pat-down by TSA officers recently at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

“I was absolutely humiliated, I couldn’t even speak,” said Thomas D. “Tom” Sawyer, 61, of Lansing, Mich.

Sawyer is a bladder cancer survivor who now wears a urostomy bag, which collects his urine from a stoma, or opening in his stomach. “I have to wear special clothes and in order to mount the bag I have to seal a wafer to my stomach and then attach the bag. If the seal is broken, urine can leak all over my body and clothes.”

Long story short...

I tried to warn him that he would hit the bag and break the seal on my bag, but he ignored me. Sure enough, the seal was broken and urine started dribbling down my shirt and my leg and into my pants.”

The security officer finished the pat-down, tested the gloves for any trace of explosives and then, Sawyer said, “He told me I could go. They never apologized. They never offered to help. They acted like they hadn’t seen what happened. But I know they saw it because I had a wet mark.”

Humiliated, upset and wet, Sawyer said he had to walk through the airport soaked in urine, board his plane and wait until after takeoff before he could clean up.

Ah, but don't worry, Mr. Sawyer.  Il Duce feels your pain.

President Obama said today he sympathizes with passenger complaints about aggressive body pat-downs at airports, but his counter-terrorism aides say they are necessary to guard against hidden explosives.

Balancing privacy and security is a "tough situation," Obama told reporters at a news conference following the NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal.

"One of the most frustrating aspects of this fight against terrorism is that it has created a whole security apparatus around us that causes a huge inconvenience for all of us," Obama said.

Uh, no, Mr. President. It is NOT a huge inconvenience for ALL of us.  You traipse all over the world in the opulence that is Air Force One.  And even those members of Congress who make a big show of flying commercial (hey, how 'bout that? [/sarcasm]) manage to skip the humiliation reserved for the rest of us (hat tip: Ye Olde Journalist).

No airport pat-down for the incoming House speaker.

On Friday, the GOP's John Boehner was guided past the metal detectors and hand inspections given to other passengers on his flight home to Ohio.

Boehner's spokesman Michael Steel said his boss followed procedures set by Capitol Police and the Transportation Security Administration. Steel said the same rules apply to other congressional leaders.

Yeah. The same rules apply to other congressional leaders. Because, after all, only we mundanes should be humiliated, NOT the elites who rule us.

Toes forwarded a proposed solution to the TSSA madness. I think it's a huge improvement over the current MCF.

Solution to issue of full-body scanners at airports: A booth you step into that will detonate any explosive device you may have hidden on or in your body. The explosion is contained within the booth. Win-Win? No profiling and will eliminate long and expensive trials. Hmmmm: In the airport you hear a muffled explosion. Later an announcement, "Attention, standby passengers! Seats now available on flight number...

Priceless.

What am I, chopped liver?

For those of you keeping score in the ongoing blogwar between the forces of good (The Pharisee, Ye Olde Journalist, and Free the FLDS Children) vs. the forces of evil (the Mall Cop a Palos, et al), yet another shot has been fired across the bow in the form of a cease-and-desist order from the wannabe lawyer to the aforementioned forces of good (see full text here).

I have just one question.  How come I wasn't included in the cease-and-desist?  What am I, chopped liver?  I've also been quite vocal in my disgust and disdain for the Mall Cop a Palos.  Is it because ole Greggie views me as small potatoes, since I get a fraction of the site hits that the bloggers ordered to cease and desist get?

C'mon, Greggie!  Where's the love for the Vulture?

UNMASKED!!!!!

The Modern Pharisee has done it!  He not only unmasked the execrable Ron in Houston but now he's hit the ultimate target - the Caput a Palos himself!

Via Free the FLDS Children, Bill Medvecky's excellent blog:

Hugh McBryde has flushed TBM out of the woodwork, the cockroach is a rent-a-cop for the University of North Texas (UNT).

His name is Greg Prickett (What a surprise), and he and Natalie have been running around erasing all the e-mails and incriminating evidence (Also illegal) they can locate to try to thwart the on-going investigation of their criminal State and Federal violations of Law.

I REALLY wanted to keep the knowledge of his discovery quiet until the investigations were complete, but sadly, he was called by an over-zealous investigator of ours prematurely. Since the cat is now out of the bag, he’ll be happy to know that we’ve already stockpiled all the e mails and correspondence between himself, Natalie, The Banana, Lover boy and Wisan needed, and those we don’t have, can’t be erased from the net anyway.

He reports that he walks around with a gun. Be careful Greg, you don’t want to shoot your Prickett off before we send your ass to prison.

I can hardly contain my joy at the thought that this flaming asshole has finally been outed!

THIS is the guy who called ME a wannabe lawyer?  Who mocked ME for being "just a programmer"?  Who accused ME of being a pedophile?  THIS hayseed POS?  This clown who put the "prick" in "Prickett"?

He's not only NOT a lawyer, he's not even a REAL law-enforcement officer.  His job is one step above Mall Cop.  Worse yet, he's the kind of nightmare cop Will Grigg writes about.

Wait.  It gets better.  From the comments of the referenced Medvecky post, an open letter to the Prick's employer:

Dear Mr. Price,

It is my understanding that you employ Mr. Prickett as your Chief of Security.

In view of the findings of the Appeals Court concerning his involvement in the assault of a student of the school a few years ago, I can honestly say I don’t understand the University’s continued support of this person, but that is not the main purpose of this letter.

I am here to address Mr. Prickett’s blatant use of the University’s name and his position with it, as well as his use of the Universities computers to repeatedly violate the Privacy Act with regards to HIPPA Laws, both State and Federal.

Mr. Prickett authors a site on the web entitled “Coram Non Judice”. He fancies himself a legal expert and, with the assistance of a rogue Attorney named Natalie Malonis, distributes the private, confidential Medical and Psychological Records of children and adults he opposes on his site as well as on a site entitled “FLDSTexas”.

Further, calling himself “Texas Blue’s Man” Mr. Prickett uses his position and the equipment of the University to disseminate on his and other websites what he pro-ports to be “Child porn”. They are un-redacted pictures of children which he claims are in sexually explicit poses. As you may know, presenting a picture of a child as a sexual object or in a sexual light is illegal and considered child porn even if the child is fully clothed.

In a recent letter of explanation to Wikipedia concerning his conduct, Mr. Prickett self reported that he has now taken to wearing a concealed weapon at all times.

Mr. Prickett is running around your campus and is, frankly, a lit fuse ready to explode at those he fears “Might kill me”.

What you do about Mr. Prickett is up to you, but you HAVE been advised that he is potentially a far greater liability for the University than he was in the case of the student he allowed to be assaulted by Campus Security.

We intend to bring charges against Mr. Prickett for the HIPPA violations and for attempting to portray the children of a religion he does not favor in a sexual light, as well as bringing charges against those who aid and abet him in his perverted goals.

Thank you,

W.J. Medvecky

Is this simply the greatest thing ever? If the 49ers had beaten the Seahawks 49-0 I wouldn't be as happy as I am right now.  Sweet, sweet, schadenfreude!

Check it out, bigots!  Your champion, your hero, your great legal mind, is nothing but a glorified Mall Cop with a bad attitude and a sociopathic need to throw his weight around.  At least Ron in Houston is almost a lawyer, almost a professor, almost SOMETHING.  The Caput a Palos is a gigantic fraud.  And a colossal pussy; once he caught wind that he had been outed, he marked his execrable blog "private".

Hey Prickett!  I got yer Coram Non Judice hangin' RIGHT HERE!

Asshole.

---

One more thing. I went over to FLDS Texas to see what the bigots had to say about their legal hero (and, let's be honest, to poke a stick through the bars and laugh at them). Apparently Ron in Houston (if that is, in fact, his site) is every bit the coward that the Mall Cop a Palos is: all of my attempts to post comments were deleted.

Still believe? Fool!

You silly Republicans!  You really believe that your party has, like Jake Blues, "seen....the....LIGHT!"

I'd like to take this opportunity to shatter that illusion.

Forty Jim DeMints or 60 Lindsey Grahams? Forty Christine O’Donnell’s or 60 Mike Castles?

These are questions conservatives have to think about when they see polls like the latest Rasmussen, which has Rep. Mike Castle, a moderate Republican thoroughly unloved by tea partiers, leading Democratic nominee Chris Coons 48-37 while conservative Republican Christine O’Donnell trails Coons by the same eleven-point margin, 47-36.

And if you think that O’Donnell can turn those numbers around in two months, you owe me a pretty good argument.

So, again: would conservatives in Delaware rather win, or send a message?

"Win"? Win WHAT exactly?  What in the name of all that is good is remotely "victorious" in electing someone who is 180 degrees opposed to everything you believe in just because he has an "R" next to his name?

Vox Day has the correct answer to Mr. Foster's question.

For actual conservatives, the only rational answer is 40 DeMints. Daniel Foster has asked a misleading question. The correct one is, would conservatives rather elect a false conservative majority that will vote against conservative principles while ensuring that a Democratic majority succeeds it when the inevitable reaction comes, or continue building towards a genuine and committed conservative majority?

You Elephants go right on believing in your John McCommies, your Lindsay Grahams, your Olympia Dukakases.

Suckers!

Royal Messiah Complex

I used to be amused by the Royals.  I mean, they were a harmless lot, weren't they?  The horse-faced old queen who probably hasn't smiled since 1948.  The jug-eared doofus err (no misspelling) to the throne.  The scandals. 

At worst they were an anachronism, a set of living tourist attractions, right?

But they're apparently not all so harmless after all.  The jug-eared doofus has decided he's the messiah.

The Prince of Wales says he believes he has been placed on Earth as future King ‘for a purpose’ - to save the world.

You can't make this stuff up.

Price Charles, I hate to burst your bubble, but your purpose on Earth is NOT to save the world.  Rather, it's to serve as a cautionary tale: this is what happens when first cousins marry.

Warren Jeffs freed

The Modern Pharisee messaged me yesterday afternoon with the good news.  His post about it can be found here.  The Salt Lake Tribune (probably grudgingly) wrote:

The Utah Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned polygamist Warren S. Jeffs’ convictions on rape as an accomplice and sent his case back for a new trial, finding there were “serious errors” in instructions given to the jury that deprived Jeffs of a fair hearing.

The justices unanimously ruled 5th District Judge James Shumate erred when he rejected a defense request to instruct jurors that in order to convict they had to find Jeffs knew when he performed a 2001 marriage that unwanted sex would take place and intended for a rape to occur.

Unanimous.  Let me repeat that so that it can sink in.  The decision to vacate Jeffs' conviction was UNANIMOUS.  Unambiguously unanimous.

The wheels are falling off the witch hunt against the FLDS, it would appear.  Good, says I.  The whole effort on the part of the so-called "Justice" system has been driven by pure, raw bigotry, and nothing more.

It looks like the "Justice" system is running out of ways to persecute the FLDS and has effectively boxed itself into a corner.  Let's hope this will result in the Texas FLDS men convicted in the aftermath of the YFZ raid being freed as well.

---

Continuing on the same general theme of the bigots who hate the FLDS.  There was additional good news breaking just today.  Flaming anti-FLDS bigot Ron in Houston (who, I believe, is the proprietor of FLDS Texas, the most virulently bigoted of all of the bigotry blogs) has been outed by the Pharisee.  Only one thing would make me happier: for the Caput a Palos (TxBluesMan) to be outed.

It turns out that self-proclaimed smart guy Ron is a middling lawyer in Houston.  By "middling", I'm implying that he's not very good or very reliable.  Keep in mind that this is one of the people who accused me of being "not too bright". 

Hey Ron!  Sux when you can't call names and accuse real people of being pedophiles when you can't hide from the consequences, doesn't it.

Asshole.

Journalistic "integrity"

For those of you who think that my disdain for Big Media (the BM for short) is the result of some sort of kookish projection on my part, this story will enlighten you as to why I feel the way I do about the so-called "mainstream" media.

Gibson asked Obama why it had taken him so long – nearly a year since Wright’s remarks became public – to dissociate himself from them. Stephanopoulos asked, “Do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?”

Watching this all at home were members of Journolist, a listserv comprised of several hundred liberal journalists, as well as like-minded professors and activists. The tough questioning from the ABC anchors left many of them outraged. “George [Stephanopoulos],” fumed Richard Kim of the Nation, is “being a disgusting little rat snake.”

Others went further. According to records obtained by The Daily Caller, at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate. Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.

In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.”

Isn't that cute? "Journalists" conspiring to take action through their reportage and/or columns on behalf of "their" candidate.

Remember this the next time that you're told that Internet writers (particularly bloggers) can't be trusted as news sources because "they're not objective".

More anti-atheist blowback

Buzzfeed, a site where pretty much anything and everything and everyone is mocked (particularly Christians and Tea Party types) really doesn't play favorites.  Or.......perhaps even people in the "hipster, agnostic, anti-Tea Party" crowd are sick to death of militant atheists.  Either way, this was the result.

Top 10 Reasons Atheists Suck

1. Atheists really enjoy being smarter and more rational than everyone else. Have you noticed that about Atheists? I have.

2. Atheists tend to be haters who don't believe in anything. You get excited about something cool and they are always all skeptical, asking lots of critical questions, and basically kill the positive energy.

3. They love reading Reddit.com, which is a perfectly good site, but they get all smug about how Reddit is better than other sites. Like is there some rule that if you don't worship the real God, you have to worship Reddit instead?!? WTF?

4. Atheists love to mock hard working, religious Americans who love their kids, work hard, and go to church.

5. Atheists think they are rational and scientific but isn't it more rational and open minded to say that God *might* exist? Should real scientists keep an open mind?

6. Atheists are some of the biggest trolls on the Internet. They will probably start trolling me just for writing this post.

7. Have you ever known someone who would rather be right than loved? And eventually you are like, “dude, ok, ok, you are right” but you are also thinking “what an a-hole!” That a-hole is almost certainly an atheist.

8. Atheists are the kind of people who enjoy telling small children that Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny are all fake. Thanks for ruining all the fun, atheist! I guess you think a 5 year old knowing “the truth” is more important than them having a happy childhood.

9. Atheists are selfish. Instead of praising God for good things that happen in their life, they just praise themselves. Like “wow, I really deserved that raise. Praise myself!”

10. They just suck. You don't even need a reason. It is obvious. Just accept it.

I have to add, so you know where I'm coming from, that most atheists are perfectly normal, likable people.  I have no problem with them.  I have no beef with them.  I'm live-and-let-live.  They're live-and-let live.  It's those militant Richard Dawkins wannabe assholes who fit the "type" described in this list.  You know, the people that Vox Day so loves to pillory.

The amazing thing about this list is not the list itself.  It's that it made Buzzfeed.  Things don't just end up on Buzzfeed.  They end up there because a sufficient contingent of "hipsters" think it merits the attention.

Being the consummate connoisseur of schadenfreude, I have to opine that the idea of militant atheists being subjected to increasing ridicule warms the cockles of my dark heart.

Now go say 10 "Hail Darwin"'s and contemplate the total purposelessness of your wretched existance.

AMF Tax Waster

A tax waster goes home to that great pork patch in the sky.

Robert Carlyle Byrd, the longest-serving member of Congress in United States history, who spent much of his career as a conservative Democrat and ended it by fiercely opposing the war in Iraq and questioning the state's powerful coal industry, died Monday. He was 92.

Showing the press's penchant for confusing terms, the linked news article refers to Mr. Byrd as a "conservative Democrat".  Conservative in what way?  What in the name of Zeus is "conservative" about a Senate appropriations chairman who has more than 30 public works projects named after him?  Think I'm kidding?  This page contains a list of some of the "public" projects/buildings/roads created in the name of Robert C. Byrd.  Citizens Against Government Waste has dubbed him the "King of Pork".  He also voted for ObamaCare.  That's hardly "conservative", wouldn't you agree?

Mr. Byrd lived a Teflon life, thanks mostly to a lapdog media that takes great care not to be too hard on folk with a "D" after their name.  Byrd was a bigot; his membership in the Klan and his reference to some despicable people as "white niggers" are case in point.  Yet Trent Lott was forced to resign the Senate for one flippant gaffe, while Byrd was sheltered.

Politicians like Robert Byrd are precisely what's wrong in Washington.  He was more concerned with "bringing home the bacon" to West Virginia than he was with the well being of the nation or with his Constitutional duty to protect the freedoms of US citizens.

AMF, normally "adios, my friend" has a different MF in this case.  We'll call it the Robert C. Byrd Memorial Sendoff.

I'm not the only one

Il Duce (the President) got that nickname from me because his policies reflect those of Il Duce (Benito Mussolini), the thuggish ruler of Italy during the 20's, 30's, and early 40's.

For a time I feared that I was the only one making the connection.  The blathering heads on the radio and on TV keep calling him a Socialist or a Communist.  He may be, ideologically.  But his governing style is all Corporatist.

But now I'm not the only one to make the connection. I've finally found someone else who correctly identifies the applied governmental style of Il Duce.

Today’s leaders of the Democratic Party are not at all progressive. In fact, their ideology is regressive – a throwback to an ideology popular in the 1920s and 30s and 40s. Their vision is that people they consider the “ignorant many” should be governed by people who see themselves as the “enlightened few.”
[...]
Nowadays, “fascism” is just an all-purpose insult. Few of those who call people they don’t like “fascists” know what fascism is. Fascism is an economic system. The name comes from an ancient Roman symbol, the “fasces,” a bundle of sticks – referring to how all sectors of society would be tied together by the government.

Back in the day, many intellectuals and other so-called progressives hailed fascism as a “third way” between communism and capitalism. Under fascism, private property does exist, but it is concentrated into big businesses, controlled by the government. Workers are also concentrated, into huge unions, again, controlled by the government.

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”

“All within the state. Nothing outside the state. Nothing against the state.”

– Benito Mussolini

I couldn't have said it any better myself...except that I already said it better myself.  Corporatism is Oligarchy-friendly Socialism.

I'm currently reading a book called God of the Machine.  It was written 70 years ago, in 1940.  It reads like it was written today. I'll be reviewing it in the next week or two.  It boggles the mind to learn that the bailouts of 2008 dovetail perfectly with the bailouts of The Great Depression: the first recipient of Great Depression "relief" was none other than J.P. Morgan & Co.!

I would recommend that you get a head start on reading that book.  It's an eye-opener to the methods and madness of the collectivist.  Such as, well......pretty much our entire government.

Liberals and atheists are smarter than us (and other popular myths)

As if militant atheists aren't annoying enough.  Now there is a study that purports to prove that liberals and atheists are more intelligent than conservatives (I suppose that includes libertarians) and people of faith.  This is a sampling of the paper-thin "logic" employed in this "proof".

Before reviewing the specific findings related to atheism and intelligence we should note that Kanazawa takes it as settled that, “it is evolutionarily familiar and natural to believe in God, and evolutionarily novel not to be religious.” Kanazawa maintains this based on recent research in evolutionary psychology that suggests a hyperactive perception of intentionality in the brain that is adaptively paranoid about unknown causes and thus attributes quasi- or supernatural causation as an explanation.

I presuppose it, hence it is true. Tool.

The great divide in intelligence between the "smart" group and the "stupid" group:

[A]dult subjects who identify as “not at all religious” had a mean intelligence as adolescents of 103.09 while the “very religious” had a mean intelligence of 97.14.

Uh huh. Allowing for sampling errors and standard deviation, there's about a credit card's width between the two groups.  And given that the "scientist" who conducted this "study" had a preconception going in - that atheists are more "evolved" than the religious - who's to doubt his "findings"?  [/sarcasm]

As Vox Day ably demonstrated in his excellent book The Irrational Atheist, which I reviewed shortly after it came out, atheists are not only NOT smarter than believers, but also tend to overestimate their own intelligence.  It is not unusual for an atheist of slightly above-average intelligence (IQ in the 115-120 range) to consider themselves highly intelligent.

Not to rub anyone's nose in it, but this libertarian Christian with a Mensa-eligible IQ of over 140 (tested) isn't impressed nor swayed by this idiotic excuse for "science".

Atheists aren't smarter than believers.  They're just more annoying.

The Imperious Maryland State Police

I wrote previously about the Maryland State Police and their "attitude" problem.  A more imperious group of a-holes you'll never find, not in any law enforcement or non-law enforcement group, not ever.

Now, it seems, they've decided that the act of recording them while arresting you is illegal.

Several Marylanders face felony charges for recording their arrests on camera, and others have been intimidated to shut their cameras off.

A man whose arrest was caught on video faces felony charges from Maryland State Police for recording it on camera.

"We are enforcing the law, and we don't make any apologies for that," said Greg Shipley, MSP.

Get a load of the 'tude displayed by the MSP spokesmouth! It's exactly what I've come to expect from those tools.

First, Mr. Spokesmouth, you are wrong.  The law which you cite involves SECRETLY recording a person.  When the asshole officer is aware of the recording being performed, there is no secret.  Given the recent spate of brutality on the part of police in Maryland, it's a very good idea to record any contact with them around here.

Second, if it isn't legal to record the particulars of an arrest, how to you justify dashcams in cruisers recording...wait for it...people being arrested?

What we have here is an arrogant group of bigger-than-the-law jerks throwing their weight around in an attempt to intimidate.  If the State Attorney General doesn't step in and put a stop to this patently unconstitutional activity on the part of the MSP, it will show him to be in accord with the MSP's thuggish behavior.

Which wouldn't surprise me.  Not one bit.