Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Hawt Gay Hypocrite Republican Sex - It Can't Happen Here?

Poor, poor Sen Larry Craig (R, Idaho).

According to a Hennepin County, Minn., court docket, Craig pleaded guilty to a disorderly conduct charge on Aug. 8, with the court dismissing a charge of gross misdemeanor interference to privacy.

The court docket said Craig paid $575 in fines and fees and was put on unsupervised probation for a year. A sentence of 10 days in the county workhouse was stayed.

Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, which first reported the case, said on its Web site Monday that Craig was arrested June 11 by a plainclothes officer investigating complaints of lewd conduct in a men's restroom at the airport.

...

Roll Call, citing the report, said Sgt. Dave Karsnia made the arrest after an encounter in which he was seated in a stall next to a stall occupied by Craig. Karsnia described Craig tapping his foot, which Karsnia said he "recognized as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct."

Roll Call quoted the Aug. 8 police report as saying that Craig had handed the arresting officer a business card that identified him as a member of the Senate.

"What do you think about that?" Craig is alleged to have said, according to the report.

Craig said in a statement issued by his office Monday that he was not involved in any inappropriate conduct.

"At the time of this incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions," he said. "I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter. In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously."


For those not in the know, tapping one's foot in a bathroom stall or urinal next to another, occupied stall or urinal is a "mating call" for men on the make. If the other person taps back, you can assume they're looking for the same thing and go from there. And if they don't, you can assume they're just not interested... cause all men are secretly gay, apparently.

Poor Sen. Craig! What a sad world it is when someone who consistently votes against teh Gay can't go cruising for man-ass in an airport men's room without getting busted. And darn that jerk at BlogActive who's been trying to expose Craig's hypocrisy all this time, too!

Why can't we just accept that people who hate teh Gay for political reasons are often tempted to engage in "fact finding" missions, so they can discover what they're missing, and leave it at that?

phooey!

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Girl Dragged in Christian Boot Camp - Air Force Evangelism in Action?

Corpus Christi, Texas: Charles E. Flowers, Senior Pastor at Faith Outreach Center, International, and "Commandant" of Love Demonstrated Ministries' Christian Boot Camp, stands charged with aggravated assault after allegedly dragging a girl behind a van. Her crime? She couldn't keep up with her fellow "trainees" during a run at the boot camp for wayward youths Flowers runs with his wife.

Authorities said both Flowers and Bassitt restrained the girl June 12, tying her to the back of a van with a piece of rope before dragging her on her stomach ... Schertz police assisted Nueces County authorities in the arrests because the camp’s orientation sessions are held in Schertz, and the 15-year-old girl claimed she was assaulted there, too ... Authorities interviewed on Friday could not say how far the teenager was allegedly dragged. Her mother complained to authorities after boot camp personnel took her daughter to get treated for scrapes and bruises on her stomach, legs and arms.

It's unknown at this time if this is the first allegation of serious abuse to come from the camp, operated ten miles out of Corpus Christi in Banquete. Who knows what else might have gone on, covered up by peer pressure, soothing words and the love and fear of God?

But a previous article on the camp, from 1998, reveals an interesting connection.

Charles Flowers started the Christian Boot Camp four years ago to show at-risk teen-age boys that “God has led them to be mighty people on Earth.left the United States Air Force after 12 years to start the program at Faith Outreach Center, a nondenominational church where he is an associate pastor.

The Air Force - its academy in particular - has recently been accused of being a hot-bed of reckless, even ruthless, Christian evangelism. A lawsuit was brought against the Academy for Constitutional violations, but dismissed by the Judge for technical and substantive grounds. That said, many questions remain.

Flowers himself did not attend the Academy. According to his history at the camp's website,, he joined at 18, and went through Basic at Lackland, tech training in Denver, and had his first assignment at Hahn AB in Germany.

The family came back to San Antonio in January of 1983 on a special duty assignment to Kelly Air Force Base - Security Hill. He later became a professor military instructor (PME) and served in that capacity until he ended his 12 year military career in November of 1991

According to Weinstein's book, the Evangelical movement at the Air Force Academy takes advantage of the harsh training conditions that exist, there, to instill an unthinking obedience to their preferred brand of Christianity. Did Flowers get the bug in a sideways manner in Europe, or at Kelly, as a PME? Are the harsh conditions at his camp, aimed at turning wayward youths' lives around, a more physical reflection of what goes on at the Academy?

There's not a lot of hard answers, here. But this is a question worth looking into.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Bush's Brain Does a Bunk



Well, it was nowhere near that glorious, but yes, MC-Rove is leaving the stage. We're told he wanted to resign back in 2006, but was urged to stay on. I wonder why - it's not like there was any more real damage he could do to the other side of the aisle (or his own, if the 2006 elections were any indication).

All I can offer to what's already been said are the words of John Edwards, who said, some time ago, that Rove should be fired.

Words are as follows: "Goodbye, Good Riddance"

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Cheney on Iraq in 1994: Against Invasion BEFORE He Was For It

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll want to punch holes in the walls.



(H/T Grand Theft Country: America)

Interviewer: "Do you think the US, or UN forces, should have moved into Baghdad?"

Cheney: "No."

I: "Why not?"

C: "Because if we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anyone else with us. It would have been a US occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq. "

And it goes on and on. The predictions he makes in 1994 are chillingly similar to the ones thinking conservatives who opposed the current war made. And a lot of them seem to be on the cusp of coming true. He even uses the term "quagmire" to describe what would happen.

And then there are US casualties:

"The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact that we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action, and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war. And the question for the President, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, and took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans was Saddam worth. And our judgment was 'not very many,' and I think we got that right."

So the next time someone points out that Al Gore was in favor of going into Baghdad to topple Saddam before he was against it... be sure to point out that Cheney was against it before he was before it.

What a difference a 9/11 makes.

Monday, August 06, 2007

Dr. Pipes on Banning Burqas

When we last saw our buddy Dr. Daniel Pipes, he was defending Michelle Malkin and her historical revisionism regarding the Japanese Internment. Poor Michelle had just written In Defense of Internment: The Case for Racial Profiling in World War II and the War on Terror and, along with being rebutted to hell and back, was being accused of being a lot of nasty things. So he popped in to say yes, she was right.

Wasn't that nice of him? Well, now Ice is back, with a brand new edition - saying we should ban the wearing of all-covering Islamic Burqas and Niqabs. Why?

...burqas and niqabs should be banned in all public spaces because they present a security risk. Anyone might lurk under those shrouds – female or male, Muslim or non-Muslim, decent citizen, fugitive, or criminal – with who knows what evil purposes.

He then goes on to list some of the more spectacular criminal purposes to which the all-covering garments have been put: fleeing Jihadis and escaping thieves and murderers have tried to drag their way to freedom. He also points out that folks who wear all-covering garments aren't getting enough Vitamin D, though he seems to have overlooked that they make vitamin pills for those exact reasons.

Oh, and there's a Pakistani horror movie where 'burqa man' slaughters people. Can't have that around these parts, no. Throw those Captain Kirk masks away, now!

Pipes ends his missive with the following: Nothing in Islam requires turning females into shapeless, faceless zombies; good sense calls for modesty itself to be modest. The time has come everywhere to ban from public places these hideous, unhealthy, socially divisive, terrorist-enabling, and criminal-friendly garments.

So let's see, here: according to him, "a woman's freedom of expression grants her the option to wear a hijab" (so nice of him to allow for that, pity France can't say the same). But a woman who covers up everything to show piety through modesty - however overboard most non-Muslims may consider it - has become a "shapeless, faceless zombie" by wearing something "hideous."

Both my wife and I had students who wore Niqab back in the UAE (she more than I). They tended to come from the more conservative families, yes, but they were anything but zombies, as their instructors could well attest. They just believed, as was their custom, that duty to God involved wearing something that kept them as covered as possible.

Do I have objections to all-covering garments? Yes, but those objections relate only to me and my own form of belief, which does not require them. My problem comes when people are forced to don something they do not want to, such as when the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan and forced all women to wear burqas, whether it was their own custom or not. I have a similar problem with non-Muslim women being forced to cover in places like Iran and Saudi Arabia, too, but if one chooses to go there then one has to respect the rules.

Likewise, that respect is a two-way street. I agree with those who disallow Muslim women to cover for their drivers license and other photo IDs. To do so renders such IDs useless.

But to ban a woman from wearing it altogether because it might be used for criminal purposes, or terrorist actions, opens us up to all kinds of clothing rules in the name of security. And you'd think that's something a thinking conservative would shy away from?

And you might also think a "Middle East Scholar" like Dr. Pipes would respect the decision to wear pious clothing, and have the intelligence to see beneath the fabric, and past its potential misuses. But we're not seeing a lot of that here, are we?

But then, I don't know that we're dealing with thinking so much as feeling, here. Earlier in his article, Pipes reminds us The niqab ... became a hot topic when Jack Straw, a British Labour politician, wrote that he "felt uncomfortable" talking to women wearing it.

I wonder Dr. Pipes, like Jack Straw, might be suffering from a certain unease from seeing Muslims in general - what we like to call "Islamophobia." The sort of nagging feeling that comes when one realizes someone else is Muslim, and automatically wonders (1) if they're carrying explosives and (2) where the nearest emergency exit is.

If your first reaction on meeting someone of a different race was to grab your wallet and run, we'd call you a racist and ask what was wrong with you. But following 9/11, it's perfectly acceptable to think the worst of Muslims and - worse still - air those suspicions loud and clear.

Now, this wouldn't be the first time Dr. Pipes has had a run-in with the i-word. It often comes courtesy of useless (and possibly terrorist-enabling) people as CAIR. But I find Pipes' denials to be more about his detractors' sins and less about his own.

And as no less than Christopher Hitchens has pointed out, Dr. Pipes seems to behave sort of oddly when it comes to matters Muslim. It's almost as if they can do no right in his eyes.

Given that, it's hardly surprising Pipes is waging a jihad of his own on Muslim clothing. And I won't be surprised if he gets joined by a few other voices in the meantime.

Maybe the time has come to everywhere ban Middle East Scholars turned social engineers from having any say in sumptuary laws, lest they blare their hideous, unhealthy and socially divisive tripe to the world, enable Islamophobia and drive our enemies just that much further underground?

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Justice for Roosting Chickens - Ward Churchill Fired at Last

As you might guess from this old commentary of mine, I'm not what you would call Ward Churchill's biggest fan. I think he's a pompous, lying blowhard who understands academic honesty about as well as I understand rocket science.

So I'm glad that, after a investigation that's taken far, far too long, the University of Colorado has finally decided to fire him from his post. He has, of course, elected to sue them for violating his free speech rights... even if they didn't.

Of course, the Use America Right has been gleefully engaging in a back-slapping frenzy over this. David Horowitz has been particularly pleased, seeing as how he's been trotting Mr. Churchill (and isn't it nice not to have to call him Professor, anymore?) out as a prime example of how American academia has been taken over by tenured, know-nothing radicals whose only intention is to brainwash our youth with Leftist ideas.

It goes without saying they'd have demanded his head after the "Little Eichmanns" matter, but the fact that Churchill was such a shoddy researcher only added fuel to their fire. And that's what's really unfortunate here: even if their true motives are suspect - Horowitz has moved the goalposts on at least once occasion - the fact is that the only thing Ward Churchill should have been doing for the University of Colorado is attending classes, and hopefully being flunked for plagiarism and falsifying sources.

Considering how damned galling it is to see the whackjobs get their day - especially considering how shoddy some of Horowitz's own research is - it's no wonder not many Leftists are standing up for principles and calling the firing a good thing. I've seen some pretty silly attempts to claim censorship and repression, and yes, it's true that if he'd been sensible and just kept his mouth shut after 9/11, Ward Churchill would probably still have all his jobs.

But while his acerbic - and way out of line - comments were what drew attention to him, they weren't what got him axed. As UC President Hank Brown put it at the Wall Street Journal:

If you are a responsible faculty member, you don't falsify research, you don't plagiarize the work of others, you don't fabricate historical events and you don't thumb your nose at the standards of the profession. More than 20 of Mr. Churchill's faculty peers from Colorado and other universities found that he committed those acts. That's what got him fired.

And about damn time.

But you know what? Two can play this game.

Academic dishonesty is a bipartisan matter. And as much as David Horowitz and his ilk would like to pretend that outrageous professorial antics come from the Left alone, I'm willing to bet there's almost as many "dangerous" profs on the right who are just as guilty of the sins of Ward Churchill, and just as deserving of getting the boot.

They just haven't been caught yet.

So what's stopping us from doing some digging of our own, finding the 101 most "dangerous" conservative profs in America, and seeing if there's any skeletons in their closets, too? Consider it payback for having to swallow hard, cough a few times, and admit that Dr. Ho and his Hate Show Brigade were right, for once.

And let's do it before they wind up being right again.