While it brings us treasured moments of mirth to watch the shrieking bozos ranting on and continually being proven wrong as events come to fruition, in the end when we forget that stupidity is dangerous we reveal our own silly side.

From Victor Davis Hanson:

The so-called Arab street and its phony intellectuals sense that influential progressive Westerners will never censure Middle Eastern felonies if there is a chance to rage about Western misdemeanors. It is precisely this parasitic relationship between the foreign and domestic critics of the West that explains much of the strange confidence of those who planned September 11. It was the genius of bin Laden, after all, that he suspected after he had incinerated 3,000 Westerners an elite would be more likely to blame itself for the calamity — searching for 'root causes' than marshalling its legions to defeat a tribe that embraced theocracy, autocracy, gender apartheid, polygamy, anti-Semitism, and religious intolerance.

As one of our few 2004 New Year's resolutions, we at Joe's Original Alpaca Burger corporate headquarters resolve to try and take serious things more seriously.

Posted by John Climacus at 01:49 | Permalink

Instapundit notes in light of the MEMRI report on 'Palestinian Authority Sermons: 2000-2003':

THE UNITED STATES SHOULD NOT TRY to play a 'neutral arbiter' in the Israeli/Palestinian dispute. We should, in fact, be doing our best to make the Palestinians suffer, because, to put it bluntly, they are our enemies....

...let's stop pretending that what's going on between Israel and the Palestinians is some sort of family misunderstanding. It's war, and the Palestinians -- and their EU supporters -- think it's a war not just against Israel, but against us.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian street keeps the faith with Saddam.

Meanwhile, PA-controlled territory is no place to be a Christian.

So while we are still in the process of dismantling, rebuilding and securing a formerly anti-American, islamofascist, terrorist-producing state in Afghanistan, we are proposing the creation of a new one - right next to Israel?

Reflecting on the decisions that led to his loss in the 1992 presidential election, George H.W. Bush said he got both good and bad advice, but took the bad advice. George W. seems to have some of the same advisors. Let's hope he stops listening to them.

Posted by John Climacus at 01:29 | Permalink

...is the mainstream media getting their first taste of the super-sized dung sandwich that's getting served up:

U.S. forces operating in the so-called Sunni Triangle -- the region of Iraq most loyal to captured former dictator Saddam Hussein -- found a significant weapons cache that included al Qaeda literature and videotapes...

A brief psychological interlude is in order.

Cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon which refers to the discomfort felt at a discrepancy between what you already know or believe, and new information or interpretation....

...dissonance can go 'over the top', leading to two interesting side-effects for learning:

* if someone is called upon to learn something which contradicts what they already think they know — particularly if they are committed to that prior knowledge — they are likely to resist the new learning. Even Carl Rogers recognised this. Accommodation is more difficult than Assimilation, in Piaget's terms.

* if learning something has been difficult, uncomfortable, or even humiliating enough, people are not likely to admit that the content of what has been learned is valuable. To do so would be to admit that one has been 'had', or 'conned'.

In other words, they may feel like they are eating a dung sandwich. As the Iraq-Al Qaeda connection and weapons of mass destruction program are revealed, and the War becomes generally recognized as one of the Good Things of the past century, there's going to be a great big picnic on the bozo bus.

Posted by John Climacus at 07:39 | Permalink

Lest we had any doubts, General Crock has confirmed his standing within the bozo wing of the Democratic Party:

Gen. Wesley Clark said Sunday that his old boss Bill Clinton - not President Bush - deserved credit for forcing Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi to abandon his weapons of mass destruction programs, even though Gadhafi's turnaround came nearly three years after Clinton left office.

Meanwhile, Mr. Furious is silent on the topic, apparently in hiding to formulate his next major gaffe. Developing an argument that America really is not safer than before Saddam's capture is going to take some ingenuity, given that facts are not on the Democratic frontrunner's side. Indeed, Gadhafi's own words will need to be discredited.

In light of ominous current national security issues, it may be time to leave this nonsense behind.

Posted by John Climacus at 11:36 | Permalink

When I was about six years old and my sister was four, I learned that I could dominate any argument with her by forcing her into making indefensible statements. She had learned to disagree and contradict, but had not yet developed the ability to analyze facts. It would usually go something like this:

Me: That's my truck, not yours.

Her: No, it's mine.

Me: Mom just said it's mine.

Her: No she didn't.

Me: Mom will come in here and tell you the same thing.

Her: No she won't.

Me: I'm older than you.

Her: No you're not.

Me: This is my room.

Her: No it isn't.

Me: We are both in the house.

Her: No we're not.

Me: You're wearing a yellow shirt.

Her: (screams) NO I'M NOT!!!

At this point the yellow-shirted one would run crying from the room.

Howard Hate's responses to the Bush administration appear to follow the same logic and one must assume something eventually is going to happen to send him wailing hysterically from the stage.

Smiling the smile of a man who's just won his neighbor's wife in a poker game, the angriest man in America has been fairly unflappable in his ability to articulate positions to contradict his critics and the Bush administration, but it's starting to look dicey. Yes, one can make the claim that we are NOT safer now that Saddam is in custody, but for the claim to hold up would require events to unfold in an unlikely manner. The smart money says a whole bunch of good, verifiable things are going to result from the dictator's capture and will be generally regarded as signs of a safer world.

Unfortunately for Team Furious, it took less than a week for a pretty definite indication of a safer world, pretty definitely tied to the capture of Saddam Hussein. And while the Dean machine might try to make the case that Gadhafi's agreement to give up WMDs had nothing to do with the success in Iraq, it will have to put on its thinking cap to explain why the agreement from Libya itself has not made us safer. The Hateman's position is going to become increasingly untenable as President Bush presses forward aggressively with a policy that appears to be passing the reality test.

One could certainly get the idea that we are going to see an unmasking of epic proportions, and a Big Lie or two going down in flames. A bunch of the poor misguided are going to learn that when you wander in the realm of the false, the scenery gets weirder and weirder.

Posted by John Climacus at 02:09 | Permalink

Debka has been reporting for for months that a big old buttload of WMDs are buried in Lebanon and/or northern Syria, now stating that

"The search has narrowed down to a section of the Syrian Desert known as Dayr Az-Zawr in Syria’s 600 sq. mile Al Jazirah province, which is wedged between the Turkish and Iraqi borders. The missing weapons systems are thought to be buried somewhere under these desert sands. This area is now probably the most keenly watched area on earth..."

Posted by John Climacus at 07:35 | Permalink

When the sh*t all finally hits the fan within the Party of Weasels, it can go one of two ways:

1) The sensible people win out, and the hard left quits. Maybe they descend like a gang of freed minks on the Green Party, or maybe they form another third party (properly called a "fourth party") with a clever name devised by one of the many, many clever members. This returns the Democratic Party to its traditional, reduced-weasel mode, and gets the bozos out where they belong, in the role of helping Republicans win elections.

2) The hard left wins out, and the others sulk for awhile, and gradually quit. This is the interesting possibility because as of now there is really no place for them to go. Some will become Republicans, of course. But wherefore the rabid, anti-GOP "centrists"? The Reform Party is to American politics what Gallagher is to American comedy: Sort of lame, and sad, and possibly dead. So a new one would have to be formed. What would be its concept/name? Maybe -

"Centrist" or "Center" - this actually could take off.

"Moderate" - yes it's lame but, er, take a look at those of whom we speak.

"Christian Democrat" - ha ha just kidding! of course they'd love to co-opt this but it's practically hate speech.

"American" - another real possibility.

We shall think about this more, later.

Yes yes some will no doubt say there is the additional possibility that the GOP breaks up and the evangelicals or some other subset leaves. This is wishful thinking by clintonoids who cannot accept the fact that the Republican Party is growing because people actually agree with much of its agenda. These poor self deluded chumps project the fractiousness of the Party of Weasels into some broader movement within society spelling trouble for both major parties. Good luck on that one.

Posted by John Climacus at 07:12 | Permalink

Mr. Furious is "under fire" again, for - again - an absurd statement while on the hustings (Q: How do you know when Howard Dean is making a jackass of himself? A: His mouth is moving) however...

...baiting his foes and plowing new political terrain didn't irreparably harm Dean when he opposed a popular president's push toward war, subjected his candidacy to the whims of the Internet or abandoned the public finance system. And several Democratic strategists and independent analysts predict there will be no immediate backlash this time, either..

So saying crazy or inane stuff is not turning off the base. By this time, this should not be news, because anyone with half a brain would have abandoned this train long ago, even before it left the station. The people supporting the Hateman are either twisted with rage, as he is, over every successive breath taken by President George W. Bush, or they are just ill informed dummies who get their information via the shrieking bozos of the "mainstream."

Again, the amazing Mr. Furious leaves us wondering: Is something going to happen that will lend this guy a shred of credibility between now and November 2004, or is he going to end up as another historical trivia answer, a punchline, spiderholed into obscurity?

Posted by John Climacus at 03:42 | Permalink

This is Reuters' unsurprising, yet still somewhat amazing, take:

Saddam Arrest Cheer Fades Into Iraqi Ire at U.S.

Joy at the capture of Saddam Hussein gave way to resentment toward Washington Monday as Iraqis confronted afresh the bloodshed, shortages and soaring prices of life under U.S. occupation...

How long before Mr. Furious, Gen. Crock, Jacques Ker-ray pick up this angle?

Peter Jennings has already grabbed this ball and run with it.

Posted by John Climacus at 09:24 | Permalink

Joe, this is your chance to take your party back from the weasels. Your opponents for the nomination are being further discredited on a daily basis. You should be all over this action, my friend.

Posted by John Climacus at 01:49 | Permalink

From the staff at Joe's Original Alpaca Burger corporate headquarters:

TO THE MEN AND WOMEN OF THE U.S. ARMED FORCES, AND COALITION FORCES, PRESIDENT BUSH AND HIS ADMINISTRATION, AND THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE: THANK YOU FOR THE OUTSTANDING WORK YOU ARE DOING ON BEHALF OF THE FREE WORLD. WHAT YOU ARE ACCOMPLISHING WILL BE REMEMBERED AS AMONG THE MOST NOBLE EFFORTS IN THE HISTORY OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION.

Posted by John Climacus at 01:44 | Permalink

Big winners today:

Non-Baathist Iraqi people

U.S. and Coalition forces

Our children and grandchildren

George W. Bush

Joe Lieberman

Big losers today:

Howard Dean, and the rest of the Motley 8

Assad, Kim Jong Il, Iranian Mullahs

Al Qaeda

Mainstream 'news' outlets, and Shrieking Bozos everywhere

Posted by John Climacus at 01:41 | Permalink

Miserable Dick on Fox and Friends this am. To paraphrase:

"We are only fighting the symptoms of terrorism - we need to get at the roots: Saudi funding, and America's reliance on foreign countries for oil."

Hey-Oh! Oh Miserable One: You are not correct, sir! Ho Ho Ho. You've left out the islamofascist ideology that wants us either reading from the Koran or off the globe.

That being said, Miserable Dick seems far more mentally stable than Mr. Furious - who is so angry that even his smile is the smile of a man who's just killed an annoying yappy dog - and one suspects the Party of Weasels would be far better off with the man from Missouri as their candidate.

Posted by John Climacus at 12:56 | Permalink

RE: Howard Hate - You have to wonder how the dude who's chief claim to legitimacy seems to be that he gets really, really angry is NOT going to screw up this campaign.

Amidst the avalanche of facts working against the Hateful One, Ann Coulter brings up another:

It is beyond dispute that Howard Dean is a more appalling candidate than George McGovern ever was. McGovern was an authentic war hero in World War II. Howard Dean showed up at the Army recruiting office with a note from his doctor and a fake limp to get out of serving in Vietnam – before repairing to Aspen for several months of skiing.

But you get the feeling that it just seems too cut and dried. What kind of bizarre twist will have to occur for Mr. Furious to make this a competitive campaign?

Posted by John Climacus at 04:55 | Permalink

"Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues..."

How much longer will it be until the decent folks in the Democratic Party realize it's been hijacked, and is now the Party of Weasels, and it is time for them to leave? I'm thinking particularly of Joe 'Republican' Lieberman, who next to the Motley 8 looks like a parson who's woken up in a busload of hookers.

But Zell Miller is another good man who seems one step closer to getting off the bus and is getting mighty shabby, but hardly out-of-character, treatment because of it.

Posted by John Climacus at 02:23 | Permalink