…if you continually decide,

to faithfully pursue…

something something something…

I think Jonathan Springston knows the next lyric.  He probably knows the whole song by heart.

Objective truth, is not the  kind of truth that the editor of the Atlanta Progressive News deems a good fit for his rag. Truth is not their policy, so they fired it.

In the end, we had to make a very difficult decision to move forward as a publication without Jonathan Springston. Last Wednesday, we informed him it seemed more appropriate if he found work with another publication or started his own publication.

At a very fundamental, core level, Springston did not share our vision for a news publication with a progressive perspective. He held on to the notion that there was an objective reality that could be reported objectively, despite the fact that that was not our editorial policy at Atlanta Progressive News. It just wasn’t the right fit.

We have already begun drafting a more programmatic statement on our editorial position regarding objectivity, inter-subjectivity, and news. To be sure, I’ve commented on Creative Loafing’s blog previously about such issues.
(Inter-subjectivity?!)

In the meantime, here is some information from our Frequently Asked Questions page:
“Progressive news is news that brings us closer to universal health care, living wages, affordable housing, peace, a healthy environment, and voting systems we can trust.

We provide news of concern to working families, and therefore, our writing is geared toward a specific audience. Fortunately, our audience–working families–comprises a majority of people in the United States who are largely ignored by corporate media sources.

We believe there is no such thing as objective news. Typically, mainstream media presents itself as objective but is actually skewed towards promoting the corporate agenda of the ultra-wealthy.

The truth sure does give these guys the vapors, doesn’t it? He prefers subjective truth, which is a fancy Orwellian phrase for “lie”. But only uber-wealthy corporate media, and troglodytes like Joe Wilson, would use such an objective “fact-based” word.

The editor made sure to clarify his position in the comments section:

APNEditor Says:

1. February 15th, 2010 at 6:59 pm Also, I didn’t mean to imply–even indirectly or in the slightest way–that Creative Loafing was objective. Quite the opposite- Creative Loafing’s slant is so inline with the bourgeois, corporate ideology of most of the corporate media in Atlanta, that you all kind of reinforce and reify each other to the point where one can easily become deluded that this corporate ideology you propagate is somehow an objective truth.

I have a subjective truth. I think the term bourgeois is tres passe. I mean, who is this guy? Some mustache-twisting, goatee stroking throwback to the Bolshevik revolution? What kind of currency does Cardinale get paid in for his work ? 1905 rubles?

Probably.  I’ll go search for his picture.

That is definitely the APN editor on the far left, circa 1919.  According to my subjective truth.  Guess you have to go back that far to be “progressive”.

(I found this somewhere on Big Journalism but I lost it somewhere. I certainly didn’t find it by reading Creative Loafing.)

Update: (Or inconvenient objective truth) Atlanta Progressive News is not a non-profit, it is a corporation.

In response to the Georgia Right-To-Life billboard above, another overeducated fool stumbles on the Holy Grail Fail:

Abortion rights advocates are disturbed. Spelman College professor Beverly Guy-Sheftall called the strategy a gimmick.

“To use racist arguments to try to bait black people to get them to be anti-abortion is just disgusting,” said Guy-Sheftall, who teaches women’s history and feminist thought at the historically black women’s college.

“These one-issue approaches that are not about saving the black family or black children, it’s just a big distraction,” she said. “Many black people don’t know who Margaret Sanger is and could care less.”

To use anti-racist arguments to bait black people into killing themselves is what’s disgusting in an evil genius kind of way.  You don’t know who Margaret Sanger is but I assure you that she’s looking up to you and smiling at this very moment for continuing her pioneering work in  “Weed” Eradication.

Fortunately for you, your mother was not as “educated” as you are.

Who doesn’t love an underdog?  Year in and year out for decades the lowly Aints have struggled to even make it to a playoff but now they’re in The Big Game.  Are we supposed to be surprised when they can’t act like they’ve been there before?

NEW ORLEANS – A student at a Maurepas school was sent home by the principal for refusing to take off an Indianapolis Colts jersey, according to a statement from the American Civil Liberties Union.

“(T)he Principal of Maurepas High School, which had declared that students could wear jerseys in support of the New Orleans Saints, punished a student for wearing a jersey in support of the Indianapolis Colts,” said ACLU Executive Director Margie Esman in an e-mail.

“The student, who had lived most of his life in Indianapolis and has an outstanding academic record, was called out of class and told that he was not allowed to wear that shirt. When he refused to change his shirt, the principal sent him home.”

We’re just talking about one out-of-control, tinpot fascist here – right?  A rogue principal whose school spirit borders on North Korean nationalism.  But then you delve into the comments section and see how far some people are willing to go to support his actions.  Running the gamut from calling for permanent expulsion of the student, to veiled personal threats of the student because “they know who he is”, to calling for arresting his parents with a few “whodats” peppered inbetween.   Rules are rules!

Maurepas High Valedictorian, Lootie: Just following the rules!

It’s easy to think some people are engaging in a bit of pre-Super Bowl hyperbole but since most Saints fans can’t spell “hyperbole” I dismissed that out of hand.  They’ve expelled one of the brighter students at their school for engaging in a harmless bit of free expression because he didn’t read the DRESS CODE.  This criticism coming from people who couldn’t watch a weather forecast for an entire week warning them to get out of the way of a CAT-5 hurricane the size of Germany.

Dumbasses don’t follow rules.

Rule #1:  Big Hurricane = Move.

But seriously, folks – Go Colts!

And if by some miracle of animal sacrifice and voodoo magic New Orleans is able to win then the police will need to be on standby.

To prevent Houston from being burned to the ground.

Artist’s Rendering: Ass not really that dark.

Projection ain’t just for movie theaters, folks. As Cranky pointed out the selective outrage that always seems to effect national Democrats, the revelations that Mark Halperin and John Heilemann’s book “Game Change” is threatening to unleash is bound to give us a sequel to America’s Historic Conversation On Race that we all need to have so much:

–In lobbying the late Sen. Edward Kennedy to endorse his wife, former President Clinton angered the liberal icon by belittling Obama. Telling a friend about the conversation, Kennedy recalled Clinton had said “a few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee,” the authors paraphrase.

At least he didn’t say anything about Obama being the half and half for his coffee. These arbiters of racial sensitivity. And at least he didn’t say anything about shining his shoes or then Chuckles McPonytail would be obligated to defend him.

It’s this type of black-on-black violence, the First Black President and the Second One, engaged in these rhetorical drive-bys by the Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X of our times that makes me worry about the future of our Idiocracy. A real tempest in a demitasse.

–Reid said Obama could fare well nationally as an African-American candidate because he was “light-skinned” and didn’t speak with a “Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one.” Saturday, the majority leader said he had used “poor choice of words” and called Obama to apologize; the White House issued a statement indicating that the president had forgiven Reid.

Now everybody’s making ado about the “light-skinned” and “Negro dialect” mentions but I don’t see anyone talking about the last part of it – the “unless he wanted to have one” comment. That’s the part that needs fleshing out. Why would such an erudite, by all appearances “clean” and well-scrubbed politician want to speak in some ghettofied dialect? Presumably, Reid is not referring to an African dialect but the one that Al Gore and Hillary Clinton usually devolve into – the Stepin Fetchit-ism from the pulpits of black churches.

That’s the explanation I want. When does Reid think that it is beneficial for Obama to get ghetto? Maybe when he’s going to shame someone on the other side for an innocuous remark?

Not to worry, folks. Not to worry. Once he knew the story was going to break (read: yesterday), Dingy Harry immediately called to apologize and kiss Obama’s light-skinned ass. All that’s left is for him to kiss it and for the media to ignore this story by tomorrow morning.

Nothing fosters racial conciliation more than a bigot and a race huckster coming together in the name of stealing all your money.

Thank God For Taxation Without Representation Update:  Attention, all you Washington, D.C. vacationers.  If you think you can seize on Harry Reid’s comments and find a friend in the black community then you better recognize:

D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton is warning Republicans against trying to make hay out of Harry Reid’s comments about Barack Obama’s skin color and lack of a “Negro dialect.”  The nonvoting member of Congress said Reid’s opponents “will not find a welcome mat in the black community” if they try to seize on his remarks.

Norton, a black woman who represents one of the most heavily African-American cities in the country, said Reid will enjoy support from the black community because he has “earned it with long support of civil rights and many other issues that matter most to African-Americans.”

So don’t wonder where the mat is if you end up in the D.C. area.  You won’t be able to find it. Some crazy woman stole it and is running around with it to protect a man who can appreciate the finer points of her negro dialect that she’s taking out on you.

He earned that right.

Did you hear the one about all U.S. oil companies being frozen out of the bidding on Iraqi oil reserves and them being awarded to Russia and China thus rewarding the accomplices who helped Saddam Hussein break every UN sanction placed on him while enslaving the country?

Those who claim that the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 to get control of the country’s giant oil reserves will be left scratching their heads by the results of last weekend’s auction of Iraqi oil contracts: Not a single U.S. company secured a deal in the auction of contracts that will shape the Iraqi oil industry for the next couple of decades. Two of the most lucrative of the multi-billion-dollar oil contracts went to two countries which bitterly opposed the U.S. invasion – Russia and China – while even Total Oil of France, which led the charge to deny international approval for the war at the U.N. Security Council in 2003, won a bigger stake than the Americans in the most recent auction.

How could this happen one might incredulously ask.  Why, why, why?  Look to the usual suspects and their actions from a year ago:

Why, after all the assistance we’ve given to Iraq over the past five years, was the first major Iraqi oil deal signed with China and not with an American or even a western company? The answer is, in part, because three Democratic senators intervened in Iraqi domestic politics earlier this year to prevent Iraq from signing short-term agreements with Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total, Chevron, and BP.

… Senators Chuck Schumer, John Kerry, and Claire McCaskill wrote a letter to Secretary of State Rice asking her “to persuade the GOI [Government of Iraq] to refrain from signing contracts with multinational oil companies until a hydrocarbon law is in effect in Iraq.” The Bush administration wisely refused to do so, but the resulting media hooraw in Iraq led to the cancellation of the contracts, and helps to explain why Iraq is doing oil deals instead with China.

Their release (available along with their letter to Secretary Rice at the New York Observer quoted Senator McCaskill as follows: “‘It’s bad enough that we have no-bid contracts being awarded for work in Iraq. It’s bad enough that the big oil companies continue to receive government handouts while they post record breaking profits. But now the most profitable companies in the universe–America’s biggest oil companies–stand to reap the rewards of this no-bid contract on top of it all,’ McCaskill said. ‘It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to connect these dots–big oil is running Washington and now they’re running Baghdad. There is no reason under the sun not to halt these agreements until we get revenue sharing in place,’ McCaskill said.

Yea, those multi-national American oil companies are running Baghdad aren’t they?  China, Russia and the French are getting the run of the Iraqi roost because Democrats preferred that the oil go to the people who undermined the effort to free their people every inch of the way rather than an American company to make a profit.  Remember that when they speak of “The perfect becoming the enemy of the good.”

Especially when it’s coming from the relentless enemies of the good.

I need to instruct my kids in the art of state sanctioned child abuse by the use of “very, very, brief” stuns with the Taser and then putting them in handcuffs. We could make it fun! Dad could cheer me on!

OZARK, Ark.  —  Ozark Police Chief Jim Noggle says one of his officers used a Taser on a 10-year-old girl who was combative when the officer tried to get the girl into a patrol car to be taken to a youth shelter.

Noggle said Tuesday that officer Dustin Bradshaw went to the girl’s home after her mother called police woman called police. (UH EDITOR?)

According to a report filed by Bradshaw on Thursday, the officer found the girl on the floor of the house screaming and crying. She refused to follow her mother’s instructions and the mother told Bradshaw to use his Taser.

The mother told Bradshaw to use his Taser. Imagine what it felt like for that child.

Bradshaw carried the girl to the living room and told her she was going to jail, according to the report.

Told her she was going to jail.  Good way to calm her down.

The girl was violently kicking, the report said, and struck Bradshaw in the groin with her legs and feet. The report said Bradshaw administered a “very, very brief” stun with the Taser, put the girl in handcuffs and carried her to his patrol car. She was taken to the Western Arkansas Youth Shelter in Cecil.

Poor child.  I hope she finds a way to get over the trauma.

No word on how hard that officer hit the pavement when he was booted off the force.

Update: Police Chief is defending him.

Update: Here’s the face of the child the mom (and others) were so happy to have tased.  From the Smoking Gun.

If this healthcare bill were a sweet, innocent little cherub I would saw it’s head off and rub the stem-cell rich blood on my face with the zeal of your average Emily’s List supporter:

We developed this chart based on Nancy Pelosi’s new health care plan….The new chart shows more than 90 of these new mandates, commissions and agencies.   The true number is well over 100, we simply ran out of space.

In terms of sheer bureaucracy, if the IRS and Medicare had a baby, it would look like this. And the question is how is that going to make our health care more affordable?

Mmmm, dead baby bill.  The only thing better than killing it yourself is making the person who doesn’t believe you should be doing it in the first place pay for it.

Our nation’s unwanted, single parent $3.4 trillion dollar punishment for a one night stand back in November of last year.

Even the worthless Catholic bishops’ league is on board.  Don’t they realize how this is going to impact the altar boy harvest in a few years?  Thus, dwindling their already diminished supply of fresh molestables.

You guys just aren’t thinking this through.

Forgive the long post.  I’m not known for being particularly laconic.

Does idolizing someone require you to suspend rational thought?  If independent, rational thought is at the core of your principles, can you really ever have an idol?  Even if that idol inspired your radical libertarian way of thinking?  Because at some point have to accept as a creed of sorts that humans are deeply flawed, overemotional, and irrational on the inside and many will disappoint you at all turns, especially the ones you put on a pedestal.  How can they let you down if you didn’t hold them up in the first place? I assert that you probably hold someone in too much esteem because they have only revealed to you what they want you to see, and that you don’t truly know them.  If you still feel deep affection for someone despite who they actually are, and you are in full possession of your senses, then that is called love/friendship and is a whole different issue.

I started thinking about this a few months ago while researching Ayn Rand.  I was curious about what she thought about the infirm, the mentally ill, and the unborn.  I discovered to my dismay that her belief in the inalienable rights of the human individual does not extend to those who still have an umbilical cord attached, no matter which trimester.  She also believed that handicapped people shouldn’t be seen in public, especially by children.  So there’s a hole in her belief that she would never ask another man to give up his life for her.  And her belief that one should never initiate violence. But I guess that depends on your objectivist definition of “man”.  If his existence is an undue burden for you , and he has no ability to rationalize, then he is not a human, and therefore he is dispensable.

While I was deciding whether I was going to throw the baby out with the bathwater, I realized that my beliefs are not an all-or-nothing proposition.  Independent thought is an a-la-carte menu and I don’t have to dine exclusively at the table of Ayn Rand.  I can take from her table some very important ideas and accept that despite her brilliance she is still deeply flawed.  I also am freed from idolizing her.  Which is refreshing, because I dislike the idea of submitting myself to someone else’s ideas so completely.

All that being said, I found this video very interesting.

I think Penn’s problem is that he suspended his independent thought when it came to his idol. And when his idol disappointed him, it hit him like spit in the face.  Literally.  The sad thing is that Jillette is temporarily abandoning his own reason by thinking that perhaps his unhinged hero may have been correct .  But it jars a person when he gets yelled at by someone dear to them, and most deeply flawed human beings want to make things right when their world gets a crack in it.  Jillette can’t change Smothers, so instead he considers changing himself.

I just have to say, if I had to agree with someone on all core principles in order to even engage them in conversation, then my husband and I would never speak to one another.

I also believe Tommy Smothers is an ass, but I still like his yo yo tricks.

I guess these are general questions, but they have come up again since this Rush Limbaugh/NFL flap.

It seems the left spends a lot of time making spurious claims, and in Sarah Palin’s case, dragging public figures into lawsuits based upon these falsehoods.    The people bringing the suits know that their claims are based on fabrications, but that’s not the point.  The point is to destroy the image of the political figure, talk show host, plumber etc., and also, in Sarah Palin’s case, to bankrupt them.

Because they don’t have the patience or guts to do the actual work required to civilly defend their positions, the left makes sport out of  fighting strawmen. They coat conservative figures in stories they have created out of whole cloth to make a monster that doesn’t even exist, so they can set it on fire.  Do they at some point forget that they created the monster themselves?  If all of the Hitler mustaches, bloody fangs, and unsettling uplighting are stripped away, what are their true feelings about the grandma they put inside the wolf-suit?  Do they really feel that strongly about policy? And which actual policy is it that they take issue with?

At what point, when confronted with the actual facts, would  they have to break down and say “well, I just didn’t like the tone of his voice” or “her glasses were funny” or the more honest: “I believe a bunch of bullshit that’s not based in truth or rational thought, and I think that’s a superior way to think”?

Childish.

What the left doesn’t seem to understand about the right is that we don’t operate that way as a general rule.  We’re not out looking to create a boogeyman when we say, based upon economic and historical fact, that someone is implementing socialistic or fascistic policies, but when we make assertions like that are told what we are saying is derogatory or I am ignorant or misinformed, and lately we get accused of incitement to violence and hate speech.  But we are not hunting down imaginary monsters we have sewn together.  We are arming ourselves against a very real threats to freedom. The czars, ACORN, the stimulus, the government control and rationing of health care… we could go on and on ad nauseum about very real threats to freedom.  We don’t have to invent something to disturb us, but the left is too immersed in Alinsky’s Art of Poo-Flinging to see that the right’s protests arise from serious concerns.

There is a true a living, breathing threat, but it may take some unadulterated education on history and economics for the left to understand the monster, and that’s just too much work for them. In the meantime we’re all about to get our heads chewed off.

I don’t know what Day By Day’s copyright standards are or I would have reposted it here but this pretty well sums it up.

I learned from Cracked magazine.

Six bullshit facts about psychology that everyone believes.

When Barack Obama was first introduced to the now famous three-word call to arms that came to define his quest for the presidency — “Yes, we can!” — his initial response could be paraphrased as “No, I won’t!”.

According to a new book, when the slogan was first suggested to him he blanched, because he felt that the phrase was “corny” and “childish”.

Well, you do have to remember who your audience is and “childish” and “corny” are unarguably the better angels of their nature.  Assuming puerile and clichéd aren’t virtues.

Dream up a standoff-ish, three word statement that even a two-year old banging away at it’s high chair with a bowl of spaghetti on it’s head and demanding all the cookies in the jar can understand.

Yes, you did.

And yes, “blanched” is racist.

Apparently, according to the bastions of rationality that are Joy Behar and Whoopie Goldberg, ACORN is doing the job Republicans won’t do, which is helping the poor.

GOLDBERG: Everything, I mean, you know, there are boneheads in all organizations. We’ve worked for them. We know that they’re there. But do you kill the whole thing? And I don’t think so. A lot of people think that you should kill it. But you can’t answer, you can’t tell me where those people who become even more disenfranchised go. Because we know the Republicans aren’t going to take care of them. Cause we see that doesn’t work anymore for them. So now where do they go? I am sick and tired of people dismantling stuff and saying, “Oh, we’re for the people,” and then leaving the people this. Because they don’t care. Find a way to fix it.

BEHAR: They haven’t dismantled the Catholic Church and they have some boneheads in there.

GOLDBERG: This is true.

Just in case you evil right wingers needed to know what’s involved in helping the poor,  I have provided a list that you can refer to when you get “confused” as you often do. If you have trouble reading, there are videos that we have just released this week which will provide much of the same assistance.

1. Provide poor people with low interest loans on properties that are out of their price range.  Picket when they get foreclosed upon and go bankrupt.  It won’t help their future ability to buy a home, but hey, you looked pretty philanthropic when you where breaking the locks for them.

2. Teach poor people how to commit tax fraud in order to open a brothel.

3. Remind poor people that there is no shame in selling your body. Have posters of Heidi Fleiss on the wall, because she is a hero.

4. Teach prostitutes and pimps how to claim their underage sex slaves as dependants on their tax forms.

5. Tell a hooker how to seduce a bank president in order to get a loan to open a brothel where you will instruct youngsters who barely speak English about the LA sex industry.

6. Tell an abused woman how she can “lay groundwork” with battered women’s charities and the authorities in order to provide a cover for murdering her abuser.

7. Offer, in exchange for sexual favors, to get your contact in Tijuana’s help in smuggling children across the border to be sex slaves.

There are also ways that the poor can offer their own contributions.  Getting involved in politics by registering dead people, cartoon characters, and football teams to vote Democrat.  Just make sure the office is closed when the poor come for their paycheck.

These are just a few ideas. Because you know the Republicans never helped a poor person in quite this way.  It’s change we believe in.  If the Catholic Church wasn’t so corrupt they would get with the program and start helping the poor too. Who is going to provide these valuable services if ACORN is shut down?  I mean, do we want to give a monopoly to the mob, or the international sex-slave trade?

(BTW I know there are a few progressive ideas that I have failed to note.  So if you have any more ways in which we can educate the ignorant Teabaggers among us on how to bring about economic justice to the unfortunate in this corrupt America, just leave it for me in the comments.)

She is the perfect spokestwit for a generation of its-not-my-fault don’t-do-it-yourself kids.

Texting teen falls into manhole while – um – texting. Looks like we need a Manhole Cover Czar, Barry.

Note, super journalist Dave Carlin excuses the little dimwit right off the bat. If you’re watching where you’re going, it’s not an accident waiting to happen. But hey, I’m old fashioned that way.

Because of THEIR carelessness, she got hurt. Umhmmmmmmm.

Minor quibble there for the victim. Almost not relevant to the story, really.

Most elderly people and mothers pushing strollers actually have a lick of sense, Alexa. You, on the other hand, better cash in on this now, because when you’re waiting tables at a New Jersey gentleman’s club in your older years, you’ll need a nice nest egg to fall back on.

What a freaking embarrassment. A foreign reporter mind you has to ask this question because our stateside media can barely wipe their chins off and gurgle out a “call me later” before rushing out of the Oral Office.

Reporter:  What has the policy towards Iran and North Korea done except give them more time to advance their nuclear ambitions?

It’s funny you should ask that since no one else is bothering to.

Hrmmm….That’s a toughie.   Uh, uh, uh….

They’re doing stuff.  Not good stuff.  And we’ve talked with everybody about it.

Because talking to allies is good.  And diplomacy is always my first option.

But they have to meet us halfway and they’re not returning my calls.

Russia and China need to hold hands with us and say, “Hey, that was not a good thing you did.”

Sarkozy:  (In zee fronch)  WTF is this dumbass talking about?

Is it time for a new Projecte Quel Dommage? Because “We’re sorry, France!”  You finally listened to us and started crapping regular and 48 Million American voters, 3.5 million dead people, and 750,000 additional ACORN ballots sent Kofi Annan’s soul child to your bistros to insult your spankingly hot first lady, defile the memory of D-Day veterans and to go on a shopping spree while the country is swirling around a dirty bowl.

Watch the terrible answer given today to a question that should be at the forefront of every press conference when not discussing the economy that he’s ruining.  Somehow you just know Letterman won’t be rehashing his “Great Speeches In American History” shtick that he beat to death for eight years.

God, how I miss the flowing prose and elocution of the Bush Years and the concise, judicious reflections of Joe Biden.  He may have screwed up everything he was trying to say but right or wrong you never had any question about what he meant.

Simply dreadful.

UPDATE: Hurricane Petunia is on her way:

Amid confirmation that 20 Americans have been diagnosed with the swine flu, officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said they fear death in the United States as they expect more cases of the virus to emerge.

…

Earlier today, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the government declared a public health emergency, which will allow it to free up resources to tackle the issue.

Thank goodness Homeland Heifer is going to chew up all the pestilence on the prairie.  At least she hasn’t called for a quarantine of all our service men and women to make sure they don’t infect the True Blue U.S.S.A. with their virulent right-wing extremism yet in response.

Quote Homeland Heifer, “On behalf of the USSA gubmint, I’d like to apologize to swine everywhere for comparing it to our troops.”

***************************************************************************

So I was two years premature with my prediction that we would face a potential pandemic as a result of our de facto open borders policy.  At the time, the issue was rising tuberculosis rates in states bordering Mexico and a little compare/contrast when Chuckie Schumer was worried that we didn’t have enough border guards to monitor Canada and that “one person with a disease getting into America was one too many”.

I received the usual slings and arrows from the disease carrying Left at the time but such is the price of being right.

And yea, we aren’t facing the black plague yet but imagine if we were.

The World Health Organization is set to declare the deadly swine flu virus outbreak in Mexico and the U.S. a global concern, potentially prompting travel restrictions, said a person familiar with the matter.

An emergency committee of the WHO in Geneva will declare the outbreak “a public health event of international concern” in a 4 p.m. teleconference today, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting is confidential. In response, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan may raise the level of pandemic alert, which could lead to travel restrictions aimed at curbing the disease’s spread.

“These levels of pandemic alert are all signals for action,” said Malik Peiris, a professor of microbiology at the University of Hong Kong, who has studied influenza viruses for more than a decade. “Raising the level of alertness to influenza, especially in returning travelers, would be a relevant thing to do.”

Maybe we don’t have to imagine so hard after all.  Maybe when our nation’s Spring Breaking tanned, rested, and wretching frat boys and hoebags keel over after the Cabo or Cancun keggers then people will take this stuff seriously.

The only response the Left has to trying to prevent widespread diseases like this is to cry “racism” to a public safety issue.

When I travel abroad, I always have to make sure to check the travel section of the State Department or the CDC so that I am up to date on my inoculations as some diseases are common in other countries that I would have no immunity.  It’s a silly thing I do called “Being A Responsible Citizen”.  Likewise, with people carrying a 16th Century disease walking into a downtown restaurant and applying for a cook’s job aren’t thinking twice about that festering sore on their hands or that productive cough as they pass your plate on to the waiter who has been linguistically and racially profiled as being acceptable to send to your table.

It is not safe to allow unfettered immigration.  You are holding a syringe filled with swine flu to our necks and demanding our social services for ransom.

When Americans are dying from swine flu be sure to look at your landscaping and that subpar roof you had installed on your house and remember that it was worth it.   In a perfect world, the illegal that gave you the swine flu will also be able to dig your grave for a reasonable rate if that helps make it easier for your family.

Death to the Current TV – 2!  It’s the least we can expect as it’s all Bush’s fault.  What?  Six months after he’s gone and these Current Commie dopes take off to provide aid and comfort to Kim Jong.

Lo and behold, he be the Ill-est.  Almost as bad as Bush!  So sez the Huffinglues:

Before getting back to the formula, here are a few of the issues we’re all afraid to talk about too much because there are no clear solutions to them and they involve far larger geopolitical gamesmanship and the like that not may help Ms. Saberi, Lee, and Ling’s respective plights. Iran and North Korea are both former members of the infamous “axis of evil,” a brand that has not exactly left a pleasant legacy for either of them as they attempt to force the new Obama administration to deal with them in his newly declared era of reconciliation. [...] Then there are the human rights issues of which both Iran and North Korea have very blemished track records (not that our own is so hot right now).

Because Iran and North Korea were perfect little angels prior to January 2000, right?  The US human rights record is in league with North Korea’s and Iran’s because enemy combatants were treated to the CIA’s Extreme Yoga class and evidenced by our black site prisons where we’ve been abducting foreign journalists for years.  That mean old Bush forced them to take the Al Gore Current’s useful idiots hostage because they are children trying to get mommy’s attention:

To answer the immediate critics, yes it does involve the US extending itself beyond just finding middle ground. It does mean making concessions and inevitably planting karmic seeds that run the risk of producing even more problems down the line. But that’s the role and risk a parent sometimes has to play with a child that acts out in an effort to get attention. It’s not stooping to their level. It’s just bending down to look them in the eye and let them know you’re taking them seriously.

Who is taking who seriously, exactly?  Last month, despite all the braying and false bravado, North Korea fired off a missile towards Hawaii to underscore who they don’t take seriously.  That being one Barack Hussein Obama.

They have to stoop to his level because he’s the child with ADHD and their “karmic seeds” are being planted in his ass with both boot heels.

In short, the Huffinglue writer who claims to be one of the formative minds behind Current TV makes no mention of how the plight of two of their “journalists” is being erased from the Current TV website.  And why wouldn’t they?  This bit of international nastiness is a great distraction from our Dear Leader’s Glorious Revolution.   We haven’t even the time to enact our Righteous Retribution on Bush’ s War Criminals for daring to offer legal opinions on interrogating Khalid Sheik Mohammed over his hedgehog jihad.

We must look beyond the 2 Google Current morons held prisoner in Pyongyang.  Many times America has been arrogant and blind.  If they need to kill Current’s propagandists (or sentence them to a decade in prison) to help tilt the Karmic Scales to the U.S. and North Korea being equal then so be it.  We are all equally worthless in Barack’s new paradigm.

I know I spin for all of Current TV and the Huffinglue Post when I say that we will build monuments to their deaths for righting the scales of U.S. historical injustice against North Korea.  When will we learn?

I really really do.  I don’t want any scary government agency breathing down my neck.  There are a few things a sane person should never do, run down the street naked, douse yourself with honey and throw yourself into the bear pit at the zoo, or to call for the assassination of the president.  Apparently there is a politician out there who misunderstood my tea party sign and posted about it in a letter to the editor of our local paper.

It is slated to run this Sunday.  Here’s the bit:

Among the most noteworthy signs were the following: ‘Revolution is Brewing’ held by a member of the College Republicans; ‘Each State is Sovereign,’ citing the Articles of Confederation; ‘Stop Predatory Taxation’ with a target on the president’s head;

I wish he had come up and asked me about it, and I would have told him that the target was not in fact on Barack Obama’s head, but the head of a businessman, meant to symbolize Congress’ unconstitutional targeting of AIG reps’ bonuses with a 90% tax. I also would have reminded him that these same AIG reps were the recipients of a polite request by Senator Charles Grassley that they give up their bonuses or kill themselves. That too inspired the target.

He could have looked at me for goodness sakes.  Imagine Debbie Gibson calling for the president’s head.  That’s pretty much what it would have looked like.

So here’s the photo of my sign:

Yes, he has big ears and a skinny neck. I should have thought of that. I went to great pains to make him balding, I put pinstripes on his suit so he would look more like a banker-type, and he wore a bright blue shirt.

Here’s the original that worked from:

Next time I’ll just go to Kinko’s. But let me say this. I think people see what their preconceived notions tell them to. Like how for the last 8 years when I was watching all of  those peaceful rallies where screaming activists painted Bush up like Hitler and the Devil and burned our president in effigy. The media never made a big deal about how dangerous these folks might be, I mean these political activists were just doing their patriotic duty to dissent and disagree. Maybe I remember that all wrong because I’m a right-wing extremist teabagging nut.

Ugh.  Enough with this blogging. I have a country barn to draw and some azaleas to plant.

…by way of idiocy.

Super-sized Kraut hops into polar bear enclosure to become one with the animals. She just about became one with the animals by traveling through their digestive tracts in little pieces and becoming one with the rest of their bear piles.

I can help you with her condition. She’s a lunatic. See for yourself (video at the link).

h/t Leo

He really should have thought twice before reminding us that he existed by vomiting forth more idiocy in Vanity Fair.

Thank goodness bankrupting the country doesn’t qualify as a “disaster”. Luckily, the job market is always flush with openings for bad adolescent poets. Give me Keith Morris any day.

Actually, there are a lot of people in America pissed off about the current economic crisis, you just don’t like our views (limited government, self-determination, support of the U.S. Constitution, strong national defense, the list goes on). And the way you respond to the average Americans who are involved in this grass-roots movement demonstrates that you’re the same bitter, ignorant, little pimple-faced twat who eventually had to bulk up into a steroid rage to prove your manhood.

I guess times are tough over at Vanity Fair if this is the best they can do. Hopefully it’s an unpaid internship for old H.R.

h/t Rob

The always brilliant Victor Davis Hanson explains why if you think as Obama does, you would do exactly what he is doing. It comes from how one sees the world.

Obama has proven to be a true believer in the philosophies of William Ayres and Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his policies bear that out.

Here is the troubling part. Troubling because it is as true as it is obvious:

Is the Pajamas Media mindtrick working yet?  Recite until it’s not an issue anymore.

Radaronline has gotten to take a look at Biden’s coke princess daughter and is shocked - shocked – to learn that the bitch she got set up.*

So what?  Did somebody force her to put a straw up her nose?

It was a setup.

The video purporting to show Vice President Joe Biden’s daughter Ashley snorting cocaine was preplanned by a man trying to get rich selling the tape, RadarOnline.com has learned exclusively.

The man, who is apparently a friend of Ashley’s, even bought the cocaine and the hidden camera, our investigation has uncovered.

“Your investigation”?  That entails what, exactly?  The guy selling the tape shoving it into your reluctant faces?

Let me say this.  You don’t need real cocaine to put out a fake video.  You don’t need a hidden camera if you’re using an actress.   You don’t hire a law firm in advance of selling the tape if it’s fake.  If it was fake both Biden and his daughter would be out loud and proud in front of the cameras proclaiming their innocence.

RadarOnline.com viewed the tape but did not offer to purchase it. The man who made the tape shopped it to several media outlets but did not receive any written offers, we’ve learned.

Now, RadarOnline.com has discovered that the woman who is alleged to be Ashley Biden was set up in an elaborate plot by her “friend.” The man bought cocaine and a hidden camera and brought the cocaine to a party.

He then made sure that he was in correct position to film her when she snorted the drugs.

Click here to read report that the lawyer representing the drug tape seller quit.

The seller had planned to get the woman alleged to be Ashley on tape doing drugs for at least three weeks. The tape was shot this year.

It is clear from the tape that the woman said to be Ashley Biden does not know she is being filmed.

There is nothing illegal about videotaping someone without their permission unless they have an expectation of privacy. For example, some place like the inside of your home by yourself or in a bathroom.  We’re videotaped every day without our permission.  At a traffic light.  At a store by surveillance.

Having someone else in the room with you diminishes any expectation of privacy you might have in the event you decide to start wiping your ass or hoovering up a mirrorful of sweet Colombian Marching Powder in plain view.

Let’s all tilt our heads to the left and wipe that tear out of our eyes.  It’s all gonna be ok, pumpkin.  We’ll announce in the press conference that you’re already seeking treatment at a swanky rehab centre and that this is “a private family” matter and that they hope the press will let this story die so this poor, little rich girl can get the help she so desperately couldn’t have cared less about before this video surfaced.

The press will dutifully oblige and send flowers.  Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan’s stakeout of Bristol Palin’s vagina will resume it’s regularly scheduled broadcast.

Eww.  This whole topic is just so unpleasant.  Let’s talk about something else!

How about how Obama’s ruining the country?

Oh, wait.  We’re not allowed to talk about that anymore either.

Tell me fellas, when did ya’ll switch out the pajamas for a straitjacket and a mouth gag?

Here’s over 30 stories the New York Times ran on the Bush Twins illegally buying their own completely legal alcohol when they were underage.

Current Biden daughter cocaine stories?  Zero.  A commenter in one NYT blog post about the British press mentions it.

USA Today from the Wayback Machine:

Bush twins in spotlight

Most college kids get away with it. But when you’re famous and shadowed by a stone-faced guardian with a squiggly radio cord coming out his ear, delivering the fake ID with nonchalance is a challenge.

So President Bush’s twin daughters got caught. Last week, Jenna and Barbara Bush landed in the nation’s newspapers and all over TV, one charged with possessing alcohol, the other with using someone else’s ID.

The Bush White House responded to the widespread coverage by taking snide shots at journalists in a news conference and getting testy in private discussions. What they want is simple: The same hands-off coverage that Chelsea Clinton received as a child of the first family. Whether they recognize it or not, that’s exactly what they are getting. Most responsible media avoid writing about presidential children — unless their actions force them into the limelight.

…

It’s not just a family story either. As governor, Bush signed the law that stiffens the penalty for second and third alcohol offenses in Texas. A majority in the U.S. House and Senate voted to withhold federal dollars from states that didn’t stiffen enforcement of under-age drinking laws.

…

Coverage of alcohol and the legal system is not pointless. Both impact millions every year. With Bush’s daughters entangled in the two, expecting media silence is fantasy.

Forbid!  Alcohol and the legal system.  It impacts millions.  To expect media silence is fantasy.

Where’s USA Today, today?  You guessed it:

Welcome to Fantasyland.

Seriously.  I do not even care if she did it.  I want everything decriminalized.   What matters is the selective media blackout when we have clear-cut examples of a double standard.  That and that Joe Biden has gleefully tossed millions in jail and ruined their lives for doing less than his daughter is alleged to have done.

Now for some stupid news:  a bill to regulate vasectomies in Tennessee has been snipped, folded, stitched, hopefully cauterized and rendered irreversible.

The resolution sponsored by Rep. Karen Camper, a Memphis Democrat, was voted down Tuesday in the House Public Health and Family Assistance Subcommittee.

Camper says the measure is similar to one that would amend the Tennessee Constitution to allow the state to impose greater limits on abortions. Part of the language in that proposal says “nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion.”

Campers legislation would have said nothing in the state Constitution “secures or protects a right to a vasectomy.”

She says if restrictions are placed on women, the same should apply to men.

Camper says her main objective was to start dialogue on the issue.

I’m not the sharpest scalpel on the tray, but I know fallacious logic when I see it.  I also have a pretty thick skull because today I was finally convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that you really don’t have to have brains to get into political office.  I know.  Shut up.

Short lesson on analogies for Karen:  Vasectomy is to Abortion as Immunization is to Lethal Injection.

And if you want to start a dialogue, then get a blog.

It’s enough to make you cry.

There is some serious mental illness and stupidity out among the population. The Obamessiah more popular than Jesus? Sure, we have fun calling President Hussein everything from Obamessiah to Urkel Christ to a variety of other names, but this poll demonstrates how detached from reality the idiots in the hopey changey crowd actually are.

I have to wonder where Harris interactive found this bucket of losers. Then again, there are 54+ million of them out there. Probably wasn’t too difficult.

h/t MB