Grab the Johnny Walker and the aspirins

Why? Because Kerry L. Marsala is back, that’s why! Kerry’s new adventures are titled Grab Your Keyboards and Pajama’s. Frankly, if the thought of Kerry in her pajamas doesn’t get you excited, there really is no hope for you. Kerry writes:

When you sign up today with the P J Club (pajama club) you’ll get full rights to espouse your ideals, opinions and investigations via the World Wide Web. The P J Club is open to all that love the free flow of information and value what our founding fathers valued and that is- freedom of speech.

Hey everybody — Kerry is writing a blogger in pajamas column, and it only took her two more weeks than everyone else. Frankly, we hate to be the ones to tell Kerry this but one can’t become the internet’s hottest young conservative writer on the web by recycling jokes that were only marginally funny in the first place.

It would seem bloggers, ezine journalist, and editorialist via the net are causing a wave of elitist fit throwers to spin their large craniums of, how dare anyone else have an opinion who hasn?t attended the school of stuck up journalism, into a bit of a quagmire.

ok, so Kerry says her poor spelling is meant to annoy us (among others.) Who is supposed to be annoyed by her total fucking lack of any coherence and sense?

Now personally as a card-carrying member of the P J Club, and most others like me, subscribe to several newspapers worldwide.

In Kerry’s world, does “several newspapers worldwide” mean all the regional editions of USA Today?

Those who belong to the P J Club don?t pretend to have all the answers. We can’t and we never will. So who is it that makes up the P J Club? Well, many of us have master’s degrees in a wide range of subjects. Most of us hold down regular jobs and drive a compact car. Many of us have families and are happily married.

Gee, we hate love to be rude but who the fuck died and made Kerry Captain Blogger? Most bloggers have M.A. degrees? Drive compact cars? Isn’t it easy to write when you can just make up shit as you go along?

There will be times those of us in the P J Club will be wrong, but when we are wrong it will not crush us and cause us to run, hide and lie our way out.

Yeah, it really was nasty of that Dan Rather man to lie and refuse to apologize for that 60 Minutes story.

The union of elitist journalism is dead, the P J Club is here to break the bonds of tyranny the elitist journalist have tried to ink blot this world into believing. Our pens, typewriters, and computer keyboards have become the tools needed to expose the biased skewed print of the media.

Sign on today, the P J Club is open to all that love free speech and the freedom to exchange ideas, investigate, and espouse truths.

And if that isn’t enough, remember that the P J Club will mow your lawn, do your laundry, educate your kids and cuckold your husband for you (and no, we don’t mean subliminally.)

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Naomi is just a little too grumpy, or?

Thanks to SullyWatch, we find out about Naomi Wolf’s latest offering of Grumpiness in a can:

The charges are sticking because of Teresa Heinz Kerry. Let?s start with ?Heinz.? By retaining her dead husband?s name?there is no genteel way to put this?she is publicly, subliminally cuckolding Kerry with the power of another man?a dead Republican man, at that. Add to that the fact that her first husband was (as she is herself now) vastly more wealthy than her second husband. Throw into all of this her penchant for black, a color that no woman wears in the heartland[.]

To SullyWatch’s (and Jim Capozzola’s) comments we’d only add this: a column that simultaneously praises Republicans for going all Oprah (with great success,) written by the woman who launched the earth tones debacle of 2000, should be a bit more careful to realize that black, well, it isn’t always that bad really. Seriously you guys.

We’ll throw in, just for fun, that in the few hours we spent here earlier today there were countless women wearing black pants, black jackets, and many other things black. It surely wasn’t the heart of America, but there sure was plenty of land.

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Isn’t that too little to live on?

Steve Gilliard writes:

Blogs make money and are cheap to run, compared to what came before. By going small and doing most of the work yourself, you can make money. The real hero in this is not any blogger, but Henry Copeland of Blogads. The first truly honest ad broker. I don’t think Kos, Atrios or Jerome Armstrong would disagree. Copeland makes blogs possible, along with generous readers. Those two make this more than the hobby of the frustrated.

We hate to disagree, but frankly that’s just a bit much. More than a bit really. How many blogs make real money? It’s great for their respective owners if DailyKos, Atrios or MyDD make money, but are there more than 10 blogs out there that bring any kind of meaningful revenue stream? (Let’s define meaninngful as anything that works out to more than minimum wage once the expenses are paid.)

According to Blogads, the average blogger makes $50/month. We don’t know if Henry is the first honest ad broker out there, but we’d wager that the big blogs who do make money could easily afford to work out the ad selling part of their business without him. Blogads certainly does make it possible for small time bloggers to raise some money — but those blogs that do make money are not the ones “going small” — they’re the ones who have gone big. Good for them — but Blogads deserves little of the credit for that.

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AP Headlines we like

Bush Twists Kerry’s Words on Iraq

More please!

Campaigning by bus through hotly contested Wisconsin on Friday, Bush sought to counter recently sharpened criticism by Kerry about his Iraq policies:

* He stated flatly that Kerry had said earlier in the week “he would prefer the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein to the situation in Iraq today.” The line drew gasps of surprise from Bush’s audience in a Racine, Wis., park. “I just strongly disagree,” the president said.

But Kerry never said that. In a speech at New York University on Monday, he called Saddam “a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell.” He added, “The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure.”

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Been drinking a little too much of late?

Justin Darr, one of our favorite hottest young conservative writers on the web today, shares his concerns in this week’s column:

Personally, I am always worried while on a business trip that some corporate auditor will show up in my hotel room while I am sleeping and try to harvest my internal organs for sale overseas just so they can hit their quarterly projections.

When he’s not scared however, Justin is busy painting a picture of the new conservatives, a proud and courageous bunch of people (young and old) who make America what it is:

No, we (new conservatives) place our faith in the small business and entrepreneurs who struggle under an ever increasing government tax load.

Funny how that happened with Republicans controlling Congress and the White House.

New Conservatives have no time for racism. We are too busy trying to live our dreams than to worry about what color your skin is or what your religious beliefs are.

Become a new conservative: a political movement of none.

The last time I checked, freedom still meant freedom even if it was said in Spanish.

Funny thing that, because we noticed the same thing about wingnut.

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There he is!

No, we’re not talking about ourselves (though we too had been missing around here of late.) The new arrival we are happy to note is that of Miles. Just think of this as Friday newborn blogging. Aaaaaahhhhh…

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Will A Chimp Tamper With This Presidential Election?

According to Fox News, that’s a distinct possibility.

Critics of the Diebold touch-screen voting machines turned their attention Wednesday from the machines themselves to the computers that will tally the final vote, saying the outcome is so easy to manipulate that even a monkey could do it.

Uh oh.

And they showed video of a monkey hacking the system to prove it.

Monkey, eh? This being Fox, of course, they’re not actually kidding.

In the minute-long video produced by Black Box Voting, Baxter the chimp is shown deleting the audit log that is supposed to keep track of changes in the Diebold central tabulator, the computer and program that keeps track of county vote totals.

So we have a test in which it is shown that even a Rove-less chimp is capable of manipulating the outcome of the election.

Can we learn anything from this?

Well, I’d hate to speculate but right next to the bit about the monkey there’s a little box that reads “Only On Fox” and has this photo (with the words “Bush Approval Rating”):

Fox News. They report. You decide.

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Wing Nut Fashion Alert!

See what all the cool Wing Nuts are wearing this fall.

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Announcements

Well, Seb?s off on his two-week nude vacation in the Seychelles so nobody?s favorite guest-blogger is back to keep you from getting too restless (and to make sure you don?t wander off and start reading other big-time blogs instead). I have several time-constraints myself over the next couple of weeks so I?ll only be posting here intermittently. But when I?m not here, you can find all kinds of great stuff over in those blogs listed to your right.

If you?re dead set on the usual low-quality fare you normally find here, Seb should drop in from time to time to post some unclothed entries himself. If that?s not low-quality enough, you can always find me back at my own blog.

In the meantime, I?m here and you?re a captive audience so sit back, relax, and read the following entry about the rising menace of school textbooks and Native American cannibals. If you don?t like it, Seb will refund your price of admission.

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They’re Coming For Our Children!

Everybody?s all upset over at the Christian Broadcasting Network (the Pat Robertson Channel) because today?s school kids might be learning about Islam. And worse, they might be learning that it isn?t all evil. Fortunately, David Brody, CBN?s crack Congressional Correspondent, is on top of things with a piece entitled A Seat at the Table: Islam Makes Inroads in Education.

CBN.com ? WASHINGTON — If you look closely, what is inside your child’s textbooks may shock you. They are full of evolution theories, and many liberal historians are rewriting American history as well.

Good God, no! They?re learning biology and being exposed to the horrid idea that people lived in North America before Christopher Columbus arrived! No wonder CBN sent their Congressional Correspondent to cover this important story.

But there is even more.

That practically boggles the mind.

How Islam is portrayed in today’s textbooks is a subject of concern also.

I can only imagine.

The familiar images of Islam include praying at Mecca, and the prophet Muhammad, a man Muslims say is the messenger of God. But this is not the whole story.

No, ladies and gentlemen, there?s also the little fact that Islam is the religion of Satan.

Since the early 1990’s, teaching Islam to kids has taken on a new dimension. As our society moved into the era of political correctness where it became taboo to offend any one group, many educational analysts say that the controversial nature of Islam started to not only be downplayed, but to be totally ignored.

?Many educational analysts.? I love when ?reporters? use phrases like that.

Here?s an example (citing an American Textbook Council report) of what?s being ignored:

And the report says, when it comes to women, most textbooks do not mention how many men in the Islamic world look at women as just another possession. Many times, it just ignores that aspect altogether. One textbook says, “Although men had most of the power in Arab society, women had some freedom. For example, women could own and inherit property. Women contributed to the group through such activities as spinning and weaving.”

The nerve!

At this point, ace congressional reporter David Brody decides to provide some balance and asks Shabbir Mansuri from the Council on Islamic Education if students are getting a ?complete and true picture? of Islam.

Mansuri answered, “I think that is a valid point. I don’t think it’s a point we shouldn’t put on the table for us to discuss. I think it’s a valid point.”

But, Mansuri says, with just a few pages devoted to Islam in the textbooks, you can only include so much. And, he says, kids in grade school may not be ready to comprehend it all, anyway.

Mansuri added, “You can make an argument that we want them to know the good and bad of it. Valid argument. [But] are they equipped to understand the good and bad of it?”

One wonders how CBN would react if there were a clamor to discuss ?the good and bad? of Christianity in school textbooks.

Mansuri said that all his group is trying to do, is to make sure that what is written about Islam comforms to the textbook standards in each state. In California, the standards say, “When ethnic or cultural groups are portrayed, portrayals must not depict differences in customs or lifestyles as undesirable, and must not reflect adversely on such differences.”

So, Mansuri says that he strives to make that happen.

Sounds like an evil man to me.

But Historian David Barton says that all the facts must be put on the table. Barton remarked, “They [Muslims] may want to be presented well today, but historically there are some footprints that have to be looked at.”

And he says those footprints are not always so flattering. Barton said, “There was a Barbary Powers war that went on for 16 years in America, where America was dealing with Muslim terrorists for 16 years back, from 1790 through 1806. That is the reason we have the Marine Corps hymn. ‘From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli’ was because the American Marines went inland in the same area where they are now, to release enslaved Americans [who] had been taken prisoner by Muslim terrorists. And for 16 years, for four presidents, we fought a war against Muslim terrorists.”

Having recently read Max Boot?s excellent book about small wars (like the Barbary Coast incidents) that greatly affected US history, I would agree that the story of Tripoli doesn?t get the attention it deserves. But Barton?s point is ridiculous. Because the Barbary pirates were Muslim, he?s saying that these stories should be included in textbooks when they?re discussing Islam. Does this mean that Barton would include the major wars of Europe when discussing Christianity because the participants were at least nominally Christian? Or how about the Crusades? Or the European pogroms? Are those ?footprints? that must be ?looked at? as representing Christianity?

But in today’s textbooks, Muhammad is not made to look bad at all.

Replace Mohammed with Christ and imagine how the Wing Nuts would howl.

He is mentioned numerous times in a positive light, but critics are curious as to why there is no mention of the controversy in which he supposedly had multiple wives, and one of them was a very young girl. Instead, you find role-playing exercises for students, like reading the Koran in class or dressing up as Muslim pilgrims on their way to Mecca.

Again with the unnamed ?critics.?

Just who is this Barton guy? CBN Congressional Correspondent David Brody and he made a special appearance at the Dark Window back in June in which they shared many of the same ideas we?re hearing from them today:

Political correctness seems to be the problem. In an effort to not offend any one group, especially when it comes to history, what happens is that the full story is not being told. Barton says key information is ignored or left out. Like with the Native American Indians.

Says Barton, “There were just some Native American tribes that were cannibalistic and that’s just the way they were, and you just can’t make them look good.”

Dave has an excellent point. If little Jeffy doesn?t learn these important facts, he?s in grave danger of becoming lunch for a tribe of hungry savages.

So how would Barton have our textbook writers frame history for the kids instead?

Barton says when writing history, those writing these textbooks might want to look at how the Bible does it.

Okay, so he?s a nut. A real live Wing Nut. But why devote so much space to him? It?s not like he has any influence.

Well, except that he does.

Barton is the founder of an organization called Wallbuilders, a group ?dedicated to the restoration of the constitutional, moral, and religious foundation on which America was built.?

WallBuilders? goal is to exert a direct and positive influence in government, education, and the family by (1) educating the nation concerning the Godly foundation of our country; (2) providing information to federal, state, and local officials as they develop public policies which reflect Biblical values; and (3) encouraging Christians to be involved in the civic arena.

And, you know, to talk about how the cannibalistic Commanches are just waiting for a chance to eat your kids. Don?t forget that one.

It would be easy to dismiss the WallBuilders as a fringe group but they seem to have some prominent fans:

?While watching [your] tape The Spirit of the American Revolution, I wept thinking how far our nation has moved away from the concepts of the Founding Fathers . . . . What can we do to get back to the founding concepts and blessings that our forefathers received???U. S. Senator Sam Brownback (Kansas)

Well, if we?ve learned one thing today, Sam, it?s that you won?t find that answer in your kids? textbooks so you?d probably better just ask Dave.

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Das alles ist Deutschland…

Unless you started reading Sadly, No! late this week, you know that we just moved to Kaiserslautern (aka K-Town) to spend 2 months working here. That, at least, is what we said.

The truth is that while we just finished our first week, we won’t be working for the next two. Have we been fired you wonder? Sadly, No! For one thing, if you read The Washington Times, you know that it’s impossible to get fired in Germany. Besides, who would ever want to fire us? The answer is simpler and, dare we say, more European: after working for a full week, we are taking two weeks off. It’s not easy being Sadly. We won’t be too far though, and we will be checking in on you, posting various poorly researched, ill advised, gramatically deficient entries. And when we can’t do that, Pete M. will do it for us.

For now, we leave you with this rather depressing news story:

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Louisiana voters overwhelmingly approved a state constitutional amendment Saturday banning same-sex marriages and civil unions, one of up to 12 such measures on the ballot around the country this year.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting, the amendment was winning approval with 78 percent of the vote, and support for it was evident statewide. Only in New Orleans, home to a politically strong gay community, was the race relatively close, and even there the amendment was winning passage. Turnout statewide appeared to be about 27 percent of Louisiana’s 2.8 million voters, somewhat low for a state election.

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Welcome to the Hotel Green Zone

You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave:

… Two U.S. soldiers were killed and 11 wounded in two car bombings on the road leading to the Baghdad International Airport.

In the first attack Saturday afternoon, a suicide bomber drove up beside a convoy near a checkpoint outside the airport and detonated the vehicle, wounding three soldiers, according to Master Sgt. David Larsen of the 1st Cavalry Division.

Another convoy on its way to assist the first was also hit by a car bomb, Larsen said. That attack killed two soldiers and destroyed two Humvees and a Bradley Fighting Vehicle in which some of the troops were riding.

A security alert had been issued before the attacks for travel on the airport road and U.S. Embassy personnel were temporarily prohibited from using it.

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Holly Crap!

Sometimes even reading something isn’t sufficient to convince you that it’s true. This is one of those times:

In the lobby, Holly (for Holland) Coors, the thin, blond doyenne of the Colorado beer outfit, had just returned from Madison Square Garden […]

“It’s [President Bush’s] faith,” Mrs. Coors said. “It breaks my heart to hear him criticized. They hated our Lord, too.” [Emphasis added.]

Just in case anyone needed a reason not to drink Coors anymore. (Yes, Blair sent us the link.)

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People ask us: who gives a fuck what Rick Lyman thinks?

The answer, by the way, is nobody:

They say that most stalkers imagine themselves to be the victim, and I guess I’m no different.

My first look at Vice President Dick Cheney was from a baking lawn on Ellis Island as he made his grand entrance into New York on a National Park Service tugboat, waving to the sweating crowd. I was just part of the small pack of reporters watching as he posed before the backdrop of Lower Manhattan, my first day on Cheney duty.

The vice president travels on Air Force Two, a tech-packed wide-body with private areas in the front, a Secret Service buffer in the middle and a media cabin in the back. A crew of about 10 reporters flies with him, representing all the networks, the wire services and two or three newspapers. There are snacks, cable television and camaraderie.

But there is not a seat for me.

If we had to choose whether I share a plane with a guy who writes articles like that, we also have to say… sadly, no! (Thanks to Blair for the link.)

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Maybe an extra week would have been a good idea?

Judson Cox continues to show that his decision to drop out of college early probably wasn’t for the best:

No college professor, with multiple degrees, tenure and a shelf full of books bearing his name, ever made a contribution to humanity greater than a single one of our soldiers.

Hmm, how shall we say… Sadly, No!:

After graduation from Princeton (then the College of New Jersey) and the University of Virginia Law School, Wilson earned his doctorate at Johns Hopkins University and entered upon an academic career. […]

Wilson advanced rapidly as a conservative young professor of political science and became president of Princeton in 1902. […]

Wilson maneuvered through Congress three major pieces of legislation. The first was a lower tariff, the Underwood Act; attached to the measure was a graduated Federal income tax. The passage of the Federal Reserve Act provided the Nation with the more elastic money supply it badly needed. In 1914 antitrust legislation established a Federal Trade Commission to prohibit unfair business practices.

Another burst of legislation followed in 1916. One new law prohibited child labor; another limited railroad workers to an eight-hour day. By virtue of this legislation and the slogan “he kept us out of war,” Wilson narrowly won re-election.

But after the election Wilson concluded that America could not remain neutral in the World War. On April 2,1917, he asked Congress for a declaration of war on Germany.

We’d add, just for fun, that it wouldn’t take someone very long to come up with a very long list of ideas, policies and inventions that can be attributed to university professors. (Nor would anyone besides Judson miss the obvious fact that a great many conservatives have taught at universities across the country. Oh yeah, her too.)

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