In Aztec mythology, Xipe Totec (“our lord the flayed one”) was a life-death-rebirth deity, god of agriculture, the west, disease, spring, goldsmiths and the seasons…..Annually, slaves were selected as sacrifices to Xipe Totec. These slaves were carefully flayed to produce a nearly whole skin which was then worn by the priests during the fertility rituals that followed the sacrifice. Some accounts indicate that a thigh bone from the sacrifice was defleshed and used by the priest to touch spectators in a fertility blessing. Paintings and several clay figures have been found which illustrate the flaying method and the appearance of priests wearing flayed skins.

My God. The sights one must have seen in the Aztec capital. Their tapestries made from bird-feathers (tweesed into the individual fibers) were reportedly awesomely beautiful, and the floating flower gardens were supposedly quite impressive too. On the other hand you had guys dancing around in skins, and the inner chamber at the main Temple to Huitzilipotchli was apparently had a layer of semi-congelead blood more than an inch think on floor.

I don’t expect Dear Leader to be jumping to her defense any time soon (even Jeb says she isn’t electable). Yes, the guy appears to value loyalty, but in others, not himself. His real loyalty is to the two Republican deities: Money and Power.

I suppose if Gore voted for it, Stossel considers it legit to hang the whole thing on Gore’s neck. Putz.

Thanks for the primer on Aztec/pre-Columbian culture. Very nice.

One minor correction: The word you’re after is “fisking” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisking), not “frisking”.

Some could argue that Michelle also needs a serious frisking, but that could be taken as a sexual slur, and we would have to condemn anyone who said that.

Michelle’s column needs a serious frisking. Now, I am a fairly ignorant person; I’ve never heard of any of the organizations or people Michelle mentions, and I’m far too lazy to look them all up.

So how do I know her column is idiotic? Simple: Every statement she makes about Mexican history or culture is astoundingly ignorant.

See, I don’t know much about most things, but I do dabble in Aztec/Mesoamerican history, so I noticed quite a bit of stupidity. Come with me as we explore it, together.

“Among The Race’s most infamous government-funded charter schools is La Academia Semillas del Pueblo, the Los Angeles public school that teaches “Aztec math” (ancient dot math is the new math) and the Mexican indigenous language of “Nahuatl.” The ethnic separatist principal of the school, Marcos Aguilar, told a sympathetic UCLA interviewer:â€?

Okay, why the scare quotes around “Nahuatl�? It’s a real language, spoken by nearly 1.5 million people, which makes it one of, if not the most widely spoken indigenous language in North America.

Now, I realize that it isn’t really a language from what is now the USA, but it is pre-Columbian, and, again, is incredibly widely spoken. It seems to me that learning an indigenous language would be a great way for the children of Spanish immigrants to assimilate into North America. I mean, don’t Michelle and her ilk think learning the local language is one of the most important things an immigrant can do?

Okay the math thing bothers me too. I’ll admit that the Aztec system of mathematical notation wasn’t particularly advanced, but I imagine that learning Aztec math is just a fun activity to learn about the culture, like when I learned about Roman numerals in grade school. In fact, the Aztec notation is so simple (A dot means one, two dots means two, three dots means three, etc. Plus a feather means 20 and a bag means 8,000. There, you’ve just learned Aztec math) that I can’t imagine it taking more then a couple of hours to teach.

More then that, as a base-20 system, it offers an introduction to the fairly useful mathematical concept of bases, which is more then you can say for Roman numerals.

Besides all that, “ancient dot math� in Mesoamerica actually became quite advanced; As early as 40 BC, the Olmec invented the concept of zero as a discrete numeral, a concept that basically makes all of modern math possible, and yet only arose twice in all of human history.

In other words, one of those dot mathematicians was one of the greatest mathematicians in the history of the world. Call me crazy, but that sounds like somebody worth studying.

“– Aztlan Academy in Tucson, Ariz. According to The Race, the school’s success rests on “Aztlan’s ability to integrate a meaningful Chicano Studies program into their lives, language, and academics, as a means of developing their intellects as well as their pride and self-esteem.” The school’s name — a reference to a mythical swath of the vast Southwestern U.S. expanse, which Latino activists claim is their rightful homeland and which they seek to reconquer for Mexico — says it all.â€?

Sigh, no, Michelle, wrong, wrong, wrong.

First of all, Aztlan as a mythical concept refers not to the entirety of the American southwest, but to a small Island located there, or possibly around Baja California somewhere. The idea that it refers to the southwestern USA significantly post-dates the Aztec Empire.

Second, archeology does, in fact, indicate that the Aztecs were one of several groups who migrated to central Mexico from somewhere up north roughly around the 12th century. Aztlan is, in all likelihood, an entirely real place that did serve as the homeland of the Ancestors of many modern Latinos.

Third, there’s, like, one group with about five members that actually wants to use violence to reconquer Aztlan. Everybody else wants to do it by becoming legal citizens of Aztlan and then voting for laws that will help Latinos. It’s kind of hard for me to see voting and citizenship as threats to the Republic.

“– Mexicayotl Academy in Nogales, Ariz. Who needs the three R’s? At Mexicayotl, it’s all about the three M’s: me, me, me! The school’s program is “structured and developed around the concepts of identity, culture, and language.” Second mission: supporting local ethnic lobbying efforts “to right social injustices by educating the community and helping create social change.” Under “greatest achievements,” the school’s website lists its participation in a “Peace & Dignity Run”; its visit from Rigoberta Menchu (the Marxist academic fraud from Guatemala who lied her way to a Nobel Peace Prize); and its sponsorship of the local annual Dia de los Muertos (the Mexican holiday).â€?

Um, technically, aren’t both reading and writing included under the heading “language�?

Also, they celebrate a holiday?! Holy shit, you know how much damage Flag Day does every year. Holidays are the devil, the devil I say! Anybody who celebrates one should be shot.

“– The Dolores Huerta Preparatory High School in Pueblo, Colo. It’s named after the far-Left Latina labor union activist who recently railed that “Republicans hate Latinos,” praised illegal alien marchers and screeched that “We didn’t cross the borders, the borders crossed us” in a hate-filled tirade before Arizona students.â€?

Now, some of you might argue that a statement like “We didn’t cross the borders, the borders crossed us� is factually correct, and for Chicanos (And anybody else of Native American descent) true on at least two different levels. But Michelle knows that just because something is completely true doesn’t mean it’s not hateful.

Some of you might also argue that the statement “We didn’t cross the borders, the borders crossed us� isn’t hateful because it doesn’t actually identify an enemy nor express displeasure towards them, except in the most oblique possible way. But Michelle knows… actually I’m not sure how she’d counter that one.

“Unless, of course, you’re using Aztec math.â€?

You mean the math that kept a city of 200,000 and an empire of millions running smoothly and efficiently? That math? Because that math sounds like it would work pretty well, to me.

And I know all this just off the top of my head, from reading Soustelle’s Daily Life of the Aztecs and skimming some books I got from the library. Think how much more you could debunk if you were actually well read!

Ruppert:

Those bills (medicare drugs, energy, bankruptcy…)contained many important reforms and were worked on by many skilled people. They haven’t been a liability for Bush, and they won’t be in 2006.

Shorter: Most of their victims are dead.

Shorter Michelle Malkin:

Yes, that’s better.

Also, the fact is that I’m incredibly drunk and pumped up on Sabbath right now.

Claire McCaskill has been exposed as having very weak ethics. That, and her support of abortion, gay marriage, and gun confiscation will doom her in the election.

Dang, where’s that swirly hypno-graphic when you need it?

He ain’t got one, a liberalism that is.

e

Apparently Superman, like his dorky doppelganger, Clark Kent, is clueless when it comes to men and women, and failed to block certain speeding bullets from reaching their natural destination.

Like any mere condom could stop those Supersperm!