Video clip of the day

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This is pretty much a no-brainer, right? As the following clip from reason.tv describes, May was fertile territory when it came to nanny state antics but who took home the ring could only be America's Nanny-in-Chief, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, for his efforts to disarm NYC's denizens their 22 oz. Big Gulps.

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Brilliant. Instead of one 22-ouncer, how about two 16-ouncers with an extra trip to and from the soda fountain to work off those extra calories? Everybody wins.





#counterproductive #noneofyoureffingbusiness

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#OWS update

Occupy Our Home working out pretty much as you would expect.

Inequality of income and home foreclosures are bad, apparently, but what to do about it?

From The Post:

“Occupy Our Homes” was that idea. The group would take over an empty house, foreclosed on by a bank, fix it up and provide shelter to a homeless family.

For those sympathetic to the Occupy movement, it was a brilliant strategy. Foreclosures touched almost every neighborhood in America; an estimated 1.2 million homes were repossessed in 2011. In East New York, the hardest hit in the city, the foreclosure crisis struck 16.8 homes per thousand. Occupy Our Homes would alleviate neighborhood blight, provide shelter to the poor — and put banks on the defensive.

Last week,Wise Ahadzi opened the door to the house he still owns, 702 Vermont Street in East New York.

Inside is a war zone. The walls are torn down, the plumbing is ripped out and the carpeting has been plucked from the floor. It’s like walking through a ribcage.

Garbage, open food containers and Ahadzi’s possessions are tossed haphazardly around the house.

“This is where my kitchen was,” Ahadzi says. There is no sink, no refrigerator and no counter space. Instead there are dirty dishes piled high waiting for a dip in three large buckets of putrid water that serve as the dishwashing system.

In a first-floor bathroom, Christmas lights dangle from a shower curtain rod. The only thing separating a toilet from the elements outside is a thin veil of paper.

Ahadzi, a single father and homeless advocate, appeared to Occupy to be the perfect candidate for Occupy Our Home while he moved into a smaller rental to work on his finances with the hopes of being able to move back into his house.

To date, Occupy has yet to pay for any of the damages to his home.

And what's worse for the neighborhood than a foreclosed, un-occupyed home? A foreclosed, Occupyed one.

Even in this condition, protesters are still squatting on the floors, cooking using a bunsen burner and walking around guided by candlelight when a generator is not up and running.

Their efforts have actually made the neighborhood worse — because what used to be an empty house is now a hovel of squatters and probably should be condemned.

Ahadzi has our sympathy... to a certain point. Out of work and out of your house... but Occupy?

It's beyond all reason how it is this man thought that his house would not turn out like your typical big city Occupy encampment upon letting the same set in.

Mr. Ahadzi, what in god's name were you thinking?

Another Occupy success story.




We're probably going to lay off the Occupy updates for a while. Too easy of a target. Good intentions aside, far too many of them have proven themselves to be counter-productive moral degenerates as demonstrated by the story above. Until politicians, as they did in the beginning, start attempting to align themselves with or co-opt the movement here in the spring and as the political heat starts getting turned up, we're going to give it a break.




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A snapshot of the American Academia death spriral

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As predictable as the Sun rising in the East, NYU students chasing their unemployable, self-actualization bachelor of arts degrees can further pursue navel-gazing in the form of Occupy 101 or "Why Occupy Wall Street? The History and Politics of Debt and Finance" and taught by Lisa Duggan, a professor of social and cultural analysis.

Lab will, of course, consist of them trooping down to Zuccotti Park not too far from the NYU campus to stare at each other.



Harvard, the 2nd most expensive university in America, which has matriculated a demographic that has made an absolute mess of this country, doesn't see fit to offer a class on the American Revolution and now NYU is offering their contribution to the American higher education bubble.


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* The quote was inspiring and compelled us to share this particular photo.

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OWS: Everybody loves a parade...

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... well, almost everybody.


Let's see. Rape. Check. Assault. Check. TB, head lice and STDs. Check. Hmmmm.... what's missing?

Oh, but of course. Who's up for terrorizing young school children?

OWS has now hit for the anti-social/aberrant behavior cycle:

They were caught in the middle of madness.

Some grade school students were forced to walk a gauntlet of screaming “Occupy Wall Street” protesters just to get to school on Thursday.

It was a wild day in lower Manhattan for most everyone involved, including elementary school children who had to brave the mayhem just to get to class on the other side of Wall Street.

n the middle of thousands of protestors yelling and chanting — some kicking and screaming – CBS 2’s Emily Smith found little school kids trying to get to class. Nervous parents led them through the barriers on Wall Street. The NYPD helped funnel the children, anything to ease their fears while some protestors chanted “follow those kids!”

“These guys are terrorists, yelling at little kids,” one father said.

“For them it’s horrible. They’re afraid of all the crowds. We’re not even able to get through. They’re just, he’s … very afraid now,” a mother added.

One protester followed a father and his little daughter all the way down the block. As the school day ended just after 3 p.m. children trickled out of Leman Manhattan Prep on Broad Street. Smith heard a 4-year-old boy telling his mom he was scared. He told Smith it looked like a parade.

“There was a parade. It was scary — crowded with school,” the boy said.

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On a lighter note, enjoy The Daily Show's absolutely priceless and spot-on takedown of the OWS movement.

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

"OK, does the drum circle know we're all here, now?"

What makes this particularly rich is the fact that we imagine quite a few of these Obamaville squatters are big fans of Stewart and The Daily Show. Hey, isn't Stewart just speaking truth to power?

And we hoped you appreciated the redistribution for thee but not for me attitude demonstrated by the one gentlemen with the laptop. Yeah, everybody may be hacked off at the bailouts and subsidies for corporate interests but the redistributionist/involuntary confiscation of property-as-solution remains the unbridgeable gap between OWS and the tea party.

Your #OWS update

... what the legacy media doesn't want you to know and refuses to cover.



Via Big Government:

At the very beginning of the video, a distraught occupier complains about having been assaulted twice (“once with contaminated vomit“), and of other assaults in the camp occurring; including sexual assault. And the community’s failure to properly address the incidents. Directly after, another member points out the videographer (a non occupier), leading another member to attempt to censor the man behind the camera. All of which, mind you, is taking place in a public park.


A bit later on, the first man who broached the subject of assault, gives the camera man permission to film him, and he then proceeds to expound on the groups covering up assault and their policy to not get the police involved.

Via The Blaze at Zuccotti Park in Manhattan:

In a video posted on YouTube yesterday, a woman identified as an Occupy Wall St. protester in New York claimed that a deaf man was “raped” and that the incident might not have been reported to police. She also noted the rampant drug use making things unsafe.

“We’re trying to figure out what to do about [the drugs],” the girl begins in the video, and later hints that she’s part of the community affairs committee. “It’s putting all these people in danger–that, there’s sexual assault going on, we’re trying to deal with that … mostly drunk guys, going, groping girls, there was a guy that got raped, too, here–a deaf younger man.”

After the girl notes that there’s actually a place in the park for people to sleep under the watchful eye of others, the man interviewing her circles back around to the alleged rape:

Man: Did the guy, I mean, do these, did that get reported to the police, or did that stay inside the camp?

Girl: Well, OK, I’m not sure for that particular incident. Yeah, no I–that might have stayed inside the camp.

Later, she also recalls seeing a girl crying while saying that some guys tried to take advantage of her while sleeping.

Still, the alleged protester casts blame on the police, saying that they haven’t been responsive to some reports of abuse, including a woman getting punched in the face. However, she said that the organizers to encourage people to go to the police with claims of abuse.

So, let's get this straight: The Occupiers don't want the police until, of course, they want the police. Got it.






Via Big Government at Occupy Baltimore:

Young woman says she was raped over the weekend and nobody from the protest movement helped her.

Via Media Research Center at Occupy San Diego:

Here are a few highlights of the liberal press's love for police:

•Cries of ''police state'' and ''shame, shame, shame'' when the police won't do what the two protesters want;
•Harassing one officer about his daughter who is allegedly taught by the daughter of a protester, asking, ''Do you care about your daughter'' and screaming, ''you look like you are about to cry.'' When the officer arrested a protester who asked to be arrested, the duo threaten to show that video to the officer's daughter.
•The woman threatens the officers by shouting, ''You will be exposed,'' another implied threat going back to the docs-ing attack.

Another nearby protester's comment about one police officer: ''Fuck him!''

(ed. note: "We are Legion"... It is noted that is the response given to Christ before Christ cast the demons out of the man from Gadarenes. There is a certain symmetry here.)




Terrific...

Occupy Wall Street protesters are flocking to nearby health clinics for STD and HIV testing after getting their freak on in ’60s-style hookups with crusty strangers, sources told The Post yesterday.

“Last week was free love,” said a medical professional at a clinic located a short walk from Zuccotti Park, referring to the number of people who organizers have referred for sexually transmitted disease testing.

A volunteer at the park admitted concern among protesters about STDs.

“We give directions to clinics if people ask for information regarding STDs,” said the volunteer, who identified himself only as “Captain” and added that pregnancy tests are also a hot item.

“Like anything else, it happens. People ask, and we do the best we can for them.”

Volunteers at the medical tent hand out cash, usually $15 or $20, so the randy radicals can visit clinics that cater to a low-income clientele, the source said.

To the scoreboard: Screaming at and making thinly-veiled threats to the police... refusing to report crimes to the police including drug use and sexual assault to the same police while simultaneously blaming the police for allowing it to happen... forcing one's STD upon others....

By dammed, it is kind of like a tea party.


It is our sincere hope that the victims of these crimes successfully sue the living beejeezus out of the cities in which they are occurring as these same cities have abrogated their resposibilities to these lawless and degenerate Occupy villages.

Video clip of the day

Peter Schiff, radio host, financier and unabashed capitalist and proud member of the 1% went down to the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan to chat up the Occupiers.

Touring the Occupy Wall Street scene in New York with a sign that read "I Am the 1%, Let's Talk," Schiff spent more than three hours on the scene, explaining the difference between cronyism and capitalism, bailouts and balance sheets, and more.

"The regulation we want is the market," said Schiff. "That's what works."

Schiff describes himself as "sympathetic" to the plight of the OWS protesters, but thinks their anger is misdirected at legitimate business interests and should be better at the White House, Congress, the Federal Reserve, and the crony capitalists they've bailed out.

We'll play and break down the full 20 minute video within the next couple of day.

Video clip of the day

Reason.tv went down to lower Manhattan last week to check out the Occupy Wall Street protests and this is what they saw.






We've been kind of rough on the OWS crowd and perhaps unfairly so as though we sympathise with over-arching complaint of corporatism/crony capitalism (something that we have railed against in full throat on these pages) that is the coin of the realm here in America currently, we see a generally anti-free market/anti-capitalism and, at times, authoritarian values system that informs the movement and that will, of course, draw our suspicion and ire as warranted.


Labor unions and the Democratic Party will attempt to co-opt the movement but as the video shows, what cogent message is there to co-opt? And as far as the establishment Democrats are concerned, who cares? as long as a lap dog media gives it heavy rotation and allows it to become a distraction from the failed statist/cronyist policies of a failed administration.

Photo image of the day

Corporate America marches on Wall Street this past week... makes strong showing.

Video clip of the day

Reason.tv takes a look at the results of the Housing Act of 1947 and urban renewal's devastation of Manhattontown

"urban removal means Negro removal"

What is wrong with this guy?

On a day of remebrance, reflection and unity, here is what the New York Time's Paul Krugman decided to put down on his blog yesterday:

Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?

Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

In Krugman's alternate universe, the solemnity of yesterday's commemorations had less to do with the loss of life and the shock and horror of an attack on our nation's soil, the likes of which have never been seen, and more to do with what Krugman perceives as a tacit acknowledgement of bad behavior in the wake of 9-11. Uhh, yeah.

"Fake heroes"? Who was calling these men heroes to begin with? Regardless of what you think of these convenient-to-be-Republicans, it was generally agreed that those men provided a healthy degree of much-needed and steady-handed leadership in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 to where even a wing-nut like Rosie O'Donnell was singing President Bush's praises before reverting to default Truther wing-nut form.

But "heroes" is a grossly misleading straw man since most everyone agrees that showing strong leadership in a crisis situation does not qualify for "hero" status rather knowingly putting yourself in harm's way even at the risk of death in order to come to the aid of another.

We imagine Krugman knows this all too well, which makes his attempts to air partisan grievances on 9-11 all that more pathetic.

How sad. On a weekend where most of the nation was enjoying late summer/early fall weather and reveling in the first full weekend of college and professional football and yet also taking in very somber and moving 9-11 commemorations, Krugman decides to set finger to keyboard to generate that blog post. Contrast that with the grace and dignity that both President Bush and President Obama (who visited all 3 attack sites yesterday: Shanksville, PA, Washington D.C. and Ground Zero in New York City) handled the ceremonies yesterday. What a sad, bitter, little man Krugman is.

9-11 open thread

The very first thing that was noticed was that the usual wild and wacky banter of the local sports hack DJs was unusually subdued when the alarm clock radio went off at 6 AM ten years ago. Odd. Getting reports of a small plane crashing into one of the two World Trade Center towers. After showering, went downstairs and turned on the television just in time to see the second plane hit the other tower.

Thinking two steps ahead?

Our blog buddy, Harrison, over at Capitol Commentary has some thoughts on the Weiner scandal and included in the post is a quote from former Washington Post editorial page editor Meg Greenfield from her book on Washington D.C.:

Political/governmental Washington is psychologically fenced off from the larger community within which it makes its home, free — like irresponsible youth — of all but the minimal obligations of citizenship to that community, and absorbed to the exclusion of all else in its own eccentric aims and competitions.

(emphasis, ours)



We believe this describes what we like to call the West Potomac Virus which seems to afflict every pol we send to Washington. Or as Harrison put it: it's (Washington D.C.) like a big high school.


As for Weiner himself, we think this is brilliant career move. As an uber-liberal from a Brooklyn-Queens congressional district, his national brand probably wasn't going far beyond snarking at Megyn Kelley on Fox News but this... this?


He’ll take the obligatory time off, enter "rehab" and then perform the necessary mea culpas on the talk-show circuit as the deep well-spring of American graciousness and forgiveness will allow his image rehabilitation to take root. Following a speaking tour and/or some guest-hosting on MSNBC, he will be primed to re-enter the political arena with his cred burnished as an “experienced” politician who has suffered and survived the meat grinder that is D.C./New York political scene and his brand will be transformed into a “seasoned and learned elder” of the Democratic Party all by the age of 49!


You see, unseemly sex scandals just aren't what they used to be. Does anyone even remember Eliot Spitzer as Client #9 anymore? Or as the person Kathleen Parker couldn't stand when they shared the set together on CNN's ParkerSpitzer
and which she left just a couple of months ago. Talk about an endorsement.

And how about the grand poo-bah of sex scandals, Big Sexy himself, Bill Clinton? You're thinking Monica Lewinsky, right? Un-uh. He's become the administration's go-to guy for truly sticky international pickles. Got a problem out on the peninsula? Not a problem - send Billy Jeff. Lewinsky, not so much - try Laura Ling.


So don't feel too bad for Congresman Weiner. Getting caught behaving badly is almost a necessary rite of passage anymore for career advancement in politics. Yep, brilliant career move.

Video clip of the day

Something light-hearted to kick off the work week... behold one man's struggle against the illogical nanny state.







H/T: Hot Air

Video clip of the day

Man bites dog: Blacks protesting the NAACP in Harlem

Why would the NAACP fight to keep those schools open?

I think there is an ideological affinity with the Democratic Party on education where they want more spending and more things.





The black community has a stake in keeping these education options open.

Riley and McGurn touch on something that we have noticed in the charter school battle with respect to political parties. Though we have urged the Republican party to seize this issue as it plays well with minorities as well as simply being the right thing to do, it is Democrats, if not necessarily the Democratic party that are at the forefront of this issue.

To wit: Democratic mayors and pols in rust belt and northeast/mid-Atlantic cities are doing battle with the Democratic party machinery, i.e. teachers' unions to close down these failing schools and open charters. Because of these political, geographic and demographic realities, the GOP is on the outside looking in on much of the charter school struggle.

Quotes of the day

Via Instapundit:

Now that DADT has been repealed, tools finding new and tortured rationalizations for keeping ROTC off college campuses.

ROTC and its warrior ethic taint the intellectual purity of a school...

Who the hell says things like this? The same person who also says this:

I admire those who join armies, whether America's or the Taliban's: for their discipline, for their loyalty to their buddies and to their principles, for their sacrifices to be away from home.

And from the nanny-state files...

If you really want Mayor Bloomberg to do something about the snow, just tell him that people are enjoying it.

heh

Headline and sub-headline of the day (UPDATED)

New York mosque controversy worries Muslims overseas

Some can't understand the fuss over a house of worship and how a democracy promoting religious freedom could even be having such a debate. Others are offended at the conflation of the 9/11 attacks with all Muslims.

We realize that it's the height of the political silly season currently in these dog days of August but is it really too much to ask this nation's political left and the Arab "street" to wrap their brains around the notion that one can accept that there is nothing legally-speaking that can or should be done to prevent a Muslim community center from being built two blocks from Ground Zero while simultaneously believing that this same community center would better serve its alleged intent of tolerance and understanding by being built elsewhere?

It isn't but for the American left it's brutally obvious that this is simply about misrepresenting the views of those opposed to building this community center, mosque, whatever, at that particular location.

So, it's come to this: a completely natural, understandable and visceral response by 67% of New York City residents is proof-positive of this country's Islamophobia.

Unfortunately for the left, however, and similar to the Arizona illegal immigration issue, it's tough for your false narrative to gain much traction when you are on the losing side of a 70/30 hot button issue... particularly when prominent members of the left's own team like Harry Reid and Howard Dean as well as the hottest Muslim in the nation desire the mosque to be built elsewhere.

It slays us that the L.A. Times can run that article with a straight face. Maybe when the broader Muslim world gets serious about purging the extremist elements from their ranks, we'll actually start paying attention to rebukes with respect to religious tolerance and understanding.

And given the deliberate misrepresentation of mosque opposition by the left, who is it that really needs a lecture on tolerance and understanding?

And since when did critiquing a religion or aspects of a religion become synonymous with "hatred". When same-sex marriage supporters demonstrated in front of the large Mormon temple in University Town Center last year, that was simply American-as-apple pie flexing of 1st amendment rights, was it not?

As this whole mosque debate neatly illustrates, though, the American left is highly subjective when it comes to the practical application of the 1st amendment.

So, just in case there is any doubt as to where we and we believe most Americans stand on this:

By all means, build your mosque; but please, strongly consider a different location


(UPDATE #1): B-Daddy chimes in:

My position? I oppose the idea of a mosque at that site, but I also oppose action by government to stop it. I will applaud every protest at that site if the center is built. However, it falls into the category of lots of other things that I oppose, but refuse to support state suppression of, because granting the state the power to correct the problem I want solved inevitably leads to a long string of abuses of that very power. I don't like pornography, swearing, fools on motorcycles who don't wear helmets, cigarettes, fools in cars who don't wear seat belts, marijuana, and generally anything inspired by hippies. But in a free society, we put limits on the power of government to correct these ills, because the cure is truly worse than the disease.

Part of what is central to the concept of American exceptionalism is that the 1st amendment simultaneously allows for both the building of the mosque at Ground Zero and the ability to protest against building that mosque there. The concepts of freedom of religion and freedom of dissent in this country make this position fully consistent.

Quickies

A round up of articles, news items and blog posts that caught our eye this past week.



With the President's approval numbers in the tank, we see a surge in Obama is a Muslim and Obama's not a citizen polling data. Outlets like the WaPo and New York Times circle the wagons and connect the dots: Of course the President is not going to be popular in a nation full of wingnuts.



2005: The President betrayed the country.
2010: For the sake of national unity, we should treat the President with more respect.

Dan Riehl on Mark Halperin's appalling double standard.



Paint it Blue: Top ten highest taxed states.



Antonio Cromartie of the New York Jets breaks down the duties and responsibilities of fatherhood. Well, he was before he decided to give us a taste of his rather prodigious fathering talents instead.



Just glad this degenerate is no longer with the Chargers.



Secular Apostate explains how to make a billion dollars of profit.... gummint style.


Color us among those that are baffled by BYU (Mountain West conference) going independent in football and leaving all their other Olympic sports to the WAC (not an unsimilar arrangement to that of Notre Dame who is an indy in football while Big East in all other sports). Alas, even Notre Dame considered joining the Big 10 in football this past spring and BYU is no Notre Dame. Maybe there is a vast Mormon Nation out there of which we were previously unaware that will tune in every Saturday on BYU.tv to watch the Cougars.

Conference realignment a' go-go will take more uneven twists and turns in the near future and all which leads us to believe that a PAC-10/Mountain West merger is in the 3-5 year future. Lock it up.



Hard hat strike?: it's going to be awfully difficult to build that mosque if every one refuses to build it.


Joel Kotkin on California's war on itself:

What went so wrong? The answer lies in a change in the nature of progressive politics in California. During the second half of the twentieth century, the state shifted from an older progressivism, which emphasized infrastructure investment and business growth, to a newer version, which views the private sector much the way the Huns viewed a city—as something to be sacked and plundered. The result is two separate California realities: a lucrative one for the wealthy and for government workers, who are largely insulated from economic decline; and a grim one for the private-sector middle and working classes, who are fleeing the state.

Though he does more essay style writing that is a tad different than the staccato bursts coming from both Capt. Ed and Allah Pundit on a daily basis, we believe Doc Zero to be one of the most talented writers on the web. His thoughts on pessimism, the state of the union, an inevitable American decline and what it is we can learn from the resourcefulness and resiliency of our armed forces now that we can reflect upon the end of combat operations and troop withdrawal in Iraq:

Inevitable? Like hell. The heroes of Operation Iraqi Freedom heard that word a lot over the last few years, but they never paid much attention. They’re coming home to the early days of an amazing story about the resilience of liberty. I’m sure their Iraqi pen pals can’t wait to hear about it.

Blessings: take them where you can find them

There are writers out there like Victor Davis Hanson or George Will whom we greatly admire and then there are writers that we also admire and where we think... damn, wish we had thought of that. David Harsanyi of the Denver Post is becoming one of those writers.

Given that there remains overwhelming opposition to the ground zero mosque, this viewpoint would mean that 70 percent of Americans are impulsively hostile to freedom of religion and irrationally narrow-minded.

Could be. Or, maybe a few of these folks believe the First Amendment features more than one clause. Even a newfound reverence for religious liberty on the left does not negate our right to protest and criticize the philosophical disposition of others. And applying public pressure in an effort to shut down a project is as American as protesting the arrival of a new Wal-Mart. Religious institutions, as far as I can tell, are not exempted from these disputes.

In 2008, thousands of gay-rights activists protested the Mormon temple in Westwood, Calif., for its role in passing Proposition 8 — the ban on same-sex marriage. This grew into a national protest to undermine the influence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — even though not every Mormon was involved.

I don't recall anti-Mormon protesters being referred to as bigots for targeting religion; it appeared to be just the opposite, in fact. And if I am offended by aspects of Mormon theology, why not voice those concerns? Put it this way: If Mormons proposed the erection of a 13-story community center in West Hollywood or the West Village, I would be happy to join the outcry of protest.

The left wanted a scrap with this whole Ground Zero mosque debate and they have so screwed the pooch with respect to the narrative, they have been reduced to calling for investigations of those opposed to the mosque and, wait for it... pining for the wisdom and understanding that George W. Bush would have for this situation.

No, seriously... it's that bad: The brush-clearing, war-mongering, neo-con would handle this cultural dirty bomb better than our cool, calm and collected, closet Muslim.

That old Chinese blessing of wishing someone to live in un-interesting times is definitely not being observed of late.

Quote of the day

“This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are.”

That was from the President and in defense of the proposed mosque at Ground Zero. President Obama made these remarks on Friday as he hosted an iftar at the White House kicking off Ramadan.

What the President said got us to thinking about this whole thing and the lecturing we've been receiving from the left regarding the opposition to the mosque: it is in no way inconsistent to simultaneously believe that building the mosque there is an abjectly horrible idea and acknowledge that as long as zoning requirements are met, there is not a damn thing, legally speaking, that should be done to prevent this mosque from being built.

So, with that in mind, we ask our friends on the left to join us in welcoming, nay, actively supporting Greg Gutfeld's gay Muslim bar that will be built as close as possible to the mosque in order to build bridges of understanding, or something. The left has been a shining example of what constitutes tolerance and religious freedom here in America with respect to this mosque, so we are positive that they will be with us on Gutfeld's bar. And, yes, we have to go there: Bottoms up!

Exit question: Considering this is the first time he had said anything about the mosque, was his timing, doing so at the iftar, shameless pandering or totally appropriate?

A few thoughts on the Times Square bomb plot

In keeping with this administration's efforts to downplay the threat of jihadist-inspired terrorism we note that we keep being reminded that the Times Square bombing attempt was "amateurish" in nature. Had it detonated would it still have been amateurish? An "amateurish"-ly planned bombing scheme that does succeed would still be a "bomb detonating in Times Square" by which no one would've given a damn whether or not it was amateurish.

Betsy's Page has a nice round-up of some rather curious reactions (or call them talking points, if you are so inclined) to the bomb plot in its immediate wake (before the arrest of the suspect) and even given the benefit of hindsight there is an odd tone to them that now seem patently ridiculous.

And imagine the disappointment at MSNBC that the unidentified "white man" in his 40s who was suspected of being the bomber is a U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent (Well, whattya know? Right on cue Contessa Brewer of MSNBC is like, totally bummed that the suspect may harbor some extremist views. Consistency!*)

And to think that Frank Rich won't be taking the week off afterall because "the column that writes itself" fizzled out just like the contents inside that Nissan Pathfinder.

Not to worry Franky-baby. You can always fall back on writing about the violence at Tea Party rallys.


* We started working this post yesterday and came up with the MSNBC hypothetical before we were alerted to Brewer's hand-wringing.