Archive for February, 2009

The Atheist Left Coast

Posted in Politics, Religion on February 20th, 2009

An Orange County, CA counselor with eighteen years of experience with foster children was suspended from her job for six (6) weeks because she took four teen girls from an Emergency Shelter Home for abused, abandoned, and neglected children, the Orangewood Children’s Home, on a  field trip during the summer of 2006, first to a 5 kilometer run and then to the beach – where the girls overheard Christian music.

Upon returning from the outing, the counselor was ordered into a “disciplinary meeting” that focused on the inappropriateness of Christian music.  There was no punishment imposed immediately, but weeks later after another meeting at which the same subject was reviewed, the counselor was suspended six weeks for “exposing children to unapproved religious activities.”

The counselor, after exhausting California state administrative remedies, has filed a lawsuit against Orange County.

A lawsuit has been filed against Orange County by a veteran group home counselor who was suspended six weeks for exposing four teenagers to Christian music. The counselor is represented by affiliate and staff attorneys of Pacific Justice Institute.

The lawsuit states that, in the summer of 2006, the counselor took four teenage girls from the Orangewood Children’s Home on an approved field trip to a 5K run and then to the beach. At the beach, the group encountered a “Surf Jam” taking place at the Huntington Beach pier. The group also overheard Christian music for about ten minutes while they were eating.

Following the beach outing, the counselor, an eighteen-year employee, was summoned to a disciplinary meeting focusing on the Christian music. Several months later, the same incident was brought up again and the counselor was slapped with a six-week suspension for “exposing children to unapproved religious activities.”

After many months of exhausting state administrative remedies, the counselor filed suit late last week in Orange County Superior Court to recover the financial losses she suffered from the suspension and to vindicate her constitutional rights. The counselor is represented by John and Laurie Messerly Stewart, attorneys in Orange, California, and the Pacific Justice Institute.

Brad Dacus, president of Pacific Justice Institute, commented, “What happened to this counselor was insane and unjust. Allowing teenagers to overhear a few minutes of Christian music while at the beach should not result in a six-week suspension.”

Pacific Justice Institute
Press Release – February 18, 2009

So…A woman who performs an vital service to the community, who most likely is underpaid, under-respected, and forced to work a caseload far above what would be optimal, was suspended because children in her care in a public venue overheard Christian music. How exactly does this make sense outside of the context of an institutionalized anti-theist attack?

Some times you have to wonder how far the secular Left will go in their vicious white-collar jihad against the religions in America. One also has to wonder how long Americans will continue to tolerate it.

The Racist Chimpanzee

Posted in Politics, Society on February 19th, 2009

On Wednesday, February 18, 2009, the New York Post published a cartoon by the famed cartoonist Sean Delonas showing two police officers, one with a smoking gun, standing over the presumably lifeless body of a bullet-riddled chimpanzee. The cartoon appears both on the New York Post website and on page 12 of the Wednesday edition of the paper.

Sean Delonas' Dead Chimp Cartoon from the NY Post
Now they will have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill

Delonas’ cartoon immediately sparked outrage from the Black community and many Liberals. The cartoon was denounced as being horribly racist because it portrayed President Obama as an ape and because it showed White policemen with firearms.

Alright – I can accept that the Black community and US law enforcement have long had an adversarial relationship and that depictions of a “shooting situation” involve White police officers might incite nervousness and anger among some of them. I can also appreciate that Blacks were depicted as being less than men for a long time and that various simian comparisons were prevalent in previous years.

The problem is that President Obama wasn’t depicted or mentioned in the cartoon, nor did President Obama write the abomination that is commonly called the Stimulus Bill. Congressional Democrats – almost all of whom are White – wrote that particular piece of legislation, and it’s been publicized enough that few people in America would believe otherwise.

I often find myself comparing Congress to a yammering pack of monkeys who spend their days screeching and throwing feces at each other and at anyone else who is nearby.

So what has happened is that the people who congratulated themselves on electing America’s First Black President saw some imagery that could – with a change or twist in context – be taken as racist and they got very, very upset. This is what happens when people define a political candidate by his race; it allows people to project their own racial sensitivities upon that person and re-frame any direct or implied criticism of that individual as a racist attack.

Of course the President of the United States has already been specifically portrayed as a chimpanzee and as other things that are equally insulting and hurtful in their own ways.

That was OK though, as was developing a cottage industry marketing tee-shirts, mugs, posters, and other items that visually insulted or defamed President George W. Bush. There was little or no outcry over that behavior – certainly none from the Liberals or Blacks.

Was Sean Delonas’ cartoon particularly funny? No, I didn’t think so. It was a cheap and overly contrived blending of two headlines stories, the recent chimpanzee attack and the Stimulus. It has become significant though because it highlights the lingering rage, bitterness, and insecurity of America’s Blacks, as well as the Liberals eagerness to paint any dissent from President Obama’s agenda as being racist.

By the current imposed standard I’m sure that the NY Post’s current (Thursday, February 19, 2009) lead story will draw even more outrage than Delonas’ cartoon has done.

Pri-Mates - The Happy Couple: Bizarre Love of Gal and Ape
Pri-Mates – The Happy Couple: Bizarre Love of Gal and Ape

I’m sure the overtones of bestiality combined with the imagery of a chimpanzee and a White woman must be setting off all sorts of painful race memories about the Jim Crow laws…

A Surge By Another Name

Posted in Politics on February 18th, 2009

Very recently President Obama approved sending approximately 17,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, his first significant move to change the course of the war against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda – a war that his closest military advisers have warned him that the United States is not winning with the current tactics and force levels. About 8,000 Marines are expected to go in first, followed by about 9,000 Army troops. This represents a 50% increase in our force levels in Afghanistan, which was 34,000 troops.

A surge by any other name is still a surge. Strange, that President Obama no longer has a problem with such things when he’s not running for office against a Republican.

The Liberal Media (MSM) has been largely conciliatory in their reporting of Obama’s war in Asia Minor – when they haven’t been utterly silent on the topic. There’s little signs of outrage on their part over this escalation of violence by Obama, unlike their near constant ranting about the same topic under the Bush administration.

Why are we not being inundated by anti-war coverage from the MSM outlets? Why aren’t we seeing one contrived interview after another with protesters demanding that President Obama “bring the troops home?” Is the media – in love with- and well-controlled by Obama – effectively silencing dissent, or is there no actual significant dissent for them to silence? Are the Liberals finally tacitly admitting that they have no real objection to America’s efforts against terrorism and that their only issue was with President Bush?

Perhaps Obama has certain advantages. Perhaps a Black President can kill Brown people with greater social impunity than a White President can.

No matter what the reasons are for this disparate coverage and level of outrage over Bush’s and Obama’s prosecution of the War on Terror it’s still disgusting. It starkly points out the prejudice, ethical failings, and utter lack of patriotism of the Left in America. If – and that’s a very big “if” – this was wrong when President Bush did it, then it’s wrong when President Obama does it. If it is right when President Obama does it, then it was right when Presient Bush did it.

A surge by any other name is still a surge.

Bipartisanship Revisited

Posted in Politics on February 17th, 2009

I have recently written about the Obama’s and the Liberals deliberate misdefining of the term “bipartisanship.” I’m revisiting the topic for the purpose of showing just how much this redefining of the term is based solely on political machinations.

Genuine bipartisanship, though, assumes an honest process of give-and-take, and that the quality of the compromise is measured by how well it serves some agreed-upon goal, whether better schools or lower deficits. This in turn assumes that the majority will be constrained – by an exacting press corps and ultimately an informed electorate – to negotiate in good faith. If these conditions do not hold – if nobody outside Washington is really paying attention to the substance of the bill, if the true costs of the tax cut are buried in phony accounting and understated by a trillion dollars or so – the majority party can begin every negotiation by asking 100 percent of what it wants, go on to concede 10 percent, and then accuse any member of the minority party who fails to support this “compromise” of being “obstructionist.” For the minority party in such circumstances, “bipartisanship” comes to mean getting chronically steamrolled, although individual senators may enjoy certain political rewards by consistently going along with the majority and hence gaining a reputation for being “moderate” or “centrist.”

— Senator Barack Obama
The Audacity of Hope, Chapter 4 – Politics, pg. 131

As a Senator from what was then the minority party Obama wrote about the realities and horrors of false bipartisanship. As the POTUS from what is now the majority party, Obama chooses to capitalize on exactly the behaviors and circumstances that he bemoaned just over two years ago.

Does any of what is happening today in America sound horribly similar to what Obama had previously seemed to abhor? Well, we were all warned by Obama himself.

Perhaps Americans should look more closely at President Obama’s earlier writings to determine what other harbingers of a dark future that they might contain. Demagogues do have a long history of putting their manifestos in writing after all…

Death To All Juice

Posted in Politics, Society on February 16th, 2009

Sometimes one’s enemies do things that are far more laughable than they are dangerous. The Islamists are often among the more humorous enemies of civilization – though one shouldn’t discount their desire and capacity to enact savage acts of violence and terrorism. Still, we should enjoy the humor as we can.

Death To All Juice - illiterate, funny, but still potentially dangerous Islamist
Death To All Juice

Quick! Lock up the OJ! Guard the grapefruit! Protect the nation’s apple supply!  The Islamist Kefir Caliphate may soon be attacking a grocery store near you. 😆

This poor, illiterate antisemite, who was protesting Israel in Manhattan on December 28th, 2008, really made a fool out of himself and what passes for his cause. Notice the look on the better dressed and presumably better educated Muslim behind him – the one trying to yank that sign away. Ouch!

The poor, benighted fool also seems to have never learned that oranges were one of Gaza’s major exports and cash crops before the interdiction.  Death To All Juice might not be the best or most appropriate slogan to brandish at a pro-Palestinian street protest.

Sometimes I wonder how these fools manage to use their weapons. Oh yeah, sometimes they don’t.

On a much more serious note – I wonder if improving the dismal literacy rates and overall education levels in many of the more problematical Islamic nations would reduce their peoples’ likelihood of joining the jihad or just make them more dangerous.