The Fighting First Family

I created this tribute to the contribution the Bush children, nephews, and nieces are making to the war effort.



Elsewhere: The First Family fights on another front.

Crossposted to Operation Yellow Elephant.

Thanks

Thanks to Nez of The Unapologetic Mexican for filling in. Now, all I have to do is wait for a call from Lou Dobbs.

Thanks also to everyone who expressed good wishes to my daughter. We're hoping we can bring her home from the hospital today.

Gifts to celebrate the birth of our Lord

A repost.

Support the people who fight in the Glorious Conservative Christian Cultural Revolution. Please buy your holiday gifts from the General's readers and other friends of the Francosphere.

Books

Most of these books are linked through my Amazon Associates account, but if you'd rather support an independent bookseller, call or email JG commenters SeattleDan and SeattleTammy at Jackson Street Books, (206) 324-7000.

Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus by Rick Perlstein (It's out of print, but you can email him for a copy). I've read it. It's a fantastic book.

Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media by Jeff Cohen (Great book, especially p. 187)

The Lifelong Activist by Hillary Rettig

Over Here: An American Expat in the South of France by Randy Lofficier

Scary: A Book of Horrible Things for Kids by Joaquin Ramon Herrera (Check out his blog too. I love it.)

The Scopes "Monkey Trial" by Anne Janette Johnson

The Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right by Robert Lanham

Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese American Community by David Neiwert (Other great books by David: Death on the Fourth of July: The Story of a Killing, a Trial, and Hate Crime in America and In God's Country: The Patriot Movement and the Pacific Northwest.)

DVDs

Red State: The Movie

This Divided State

Helping others

Give the gift of life.

Other

National Character Counts Calendar by Attaturk and Watertiger (see Kathryn Jean Lopez naked!)

Miss Poppy Dixon's gifts for your inner Christianist.

Books written by friends in the Francosphere and friends of the Francosphere

Again, most of these books are linked through my Amazon Associates account, but if you'd rather support an independent bookseller, call or email JG commenters SeattleDan and SeattleTammy at Jackson Street Books, (206) 324-7000.

Crashing the Gate by Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga

The dKos Trollhouse Cookbook by 42 and grndrush

FUBAR by Sam Seder

Hell in a Handbasket" by Tom Tomorrow

Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government--and How We Take It Back by David Sirota

How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok by Glenn Greenwald

Is That a Politician in Your Pocket: Washington on $2 Million a Day by Micah Sifray and Nancy Watzman

Kosmos: You are Here by Steven Darksyde and Mark Sumner

Lapdogs by Eric Boehlert

Sweet Relief: The Marla Ruzicka Story by Jennifer Abrahamson

Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy! by Bob Harris

The Politics of Truth by Joseph Wilson

Wait! Don't Move to Canada: A Stay-and-Fight Strategy to Win Back America by Bill Scher

What's Liberal About the Liberal Arts?: Classroom Politics and "Bias" in Higher Education by Michael Bérubé

CDs

In the Year of Storms, composed by Stirling Newberry

XaoS, composed by Sterling Newberry

DVDs

Offerings by Brave New Films:
Iraq for Sale
Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price
Outfoxed
and more..

If you'd like to be added to this list, please leave a comment.

Ask Nezua: El General de Jesús Home Version.

WE BEGIN THIS EVENING'S ESPECIAL EDITION OF Ask Nezua™ (Sponsored by Google Results in My Stats®) with a final thanks to our host, El General de Jesús. I've enjoyed his leather chair, and hope everything has gone smashingly well with his day.

Moving right along and checking The Unapologetic Mexican's stats we are given a few very interesting queries.

OUR FIRST QUESTION IN TODAY'S SHOW is a rather casually-phrased one. And that's good. It always helps to address Google in an intimate manner. They say "Google Is Your Friend," after all. Not "Google Is A Robot Spy With a Photographic Memory And An Alliance With the Corporate Military Medical Industrial Complex," or ya know. Something like that. However, while Google does enjoy such familiarity, unfortunately, my control panel software seems to be suffering a cultural gap or something. Because your wish for knowledge, upon pinging my website, elicited this response:

Before I move on, I must apologize for my software. It doesn't have the proper updates, or it would first have congratulated you on attempting to enlighten yourself. Because you deserve a round of applause in my Mexican opinion. Also, if my software were up to date, it would not be laboring under the false impression that information online is suspect. Cursed machines! They can't even believe in their own kind.

Well, I—speaking for all humans of Mexican blood, as well as for the trees and rocks and sand and ancient temples and bananas of Mexico—do thank you, Conversational Googler.

OUR SECOND QUERY COMES FROM a curious and visual sort, who wants to see a "diagram of how many Mexicans are fat." Well, I don't have much to say on this one, intrepid typist—aside from I sure do know what you mean!

In fact, you have accidentally stumbled upon a long-standing and quite vexing problem for us Mexicans. We also very much want diagrams of fat Mexicans, too. Perhaps a nice rotund pie chart (mmmm! I'm drooling into my gluttonous brown folds of belly blubber as I imagine it!), or even a flow chart of some type. Something. The problem is, there are so many fat Mexicans that we can't fit them all in the graph! At the last board meeting, someone claimed that the Maya had a solution, but sadly they had to go and destroy themselves before creating the first stone diagram of Fat Mexicans. Who knows how long until we solve this one?

NEXT IN LINE OF PROVOCATIVE AND IMPORTANT QUESTIONS ABOUT MEXICANS is actually directly related to the last question posed. While this seeker does not begin with any sort of colloquialism such as "yo," or "'sappenin'" or "hey chowderhead," they at least are polite and using proper English, (which of course, doth really please the Mexicans of this world). The question, "How did Spaniards treat Mexicans?" can be answered very simply. And that would be "fantastically!" Man, what divine men they were.

Dig: they rode wooden ships across oceans to arrive at the shores of Mexico over four hundred years ago (that is what you call Staying the Course, and something El General would understand), bursting with pride and vigor over their "Holy Religion," (well...and to find gold) determined to save the poor backward lot of us (well, I wasn't there, but you know what I mean, yo) and to this day, we are muy, muy grateful. Sure, it's true that the last throes of the "conquest" (as some Negative Naldos like to call it) ended up—eventually—with the Mexicans rising up against the Spaniards who had established bases of operation and residence in Mexico with machetes, sticks, stones, and even stampeding animals until they drove the invaders from their shores...but that's what happens when you bring a better life to people who are slow to appreciate it. It just takes a little while, half a millenium or so. All the anger has gone away by now, and Mexico is a peaceful land reveling in prosperity and a harmony. Shouts out to the Spaniards who knew what was best for all of us!

FINALLY, WE COME TO A ENTREPRENEURIAL SORT who wants to know "Is there a Mexican Rummy?

To which I can only say Yes!


And here he is:

Thank you for playing, Señores y Señoras! And thank you for all your kind words in the comments. Perhaps one day we shall again meet. Keep up the glorious fight for Christmas, compadres. Adios for now, and remember: Don't hate us because we're beautiful. Hate us because it was us working hard in the fields who made sure as a child you had all that Spinach you couldn't stand.

¡Que Viva el Amor!

---

Nezua Limón Xolagrafik-Jonez blogs as The Unapologetic Mexican. Behind the scenes of NLXJ, Señor Herrera is an author and an artist, and while he does not always write satire, it is his secret religion. It is such a worldview that allows him to cohabitate a planet with such people as Pat Buchanan, Bill O'Reilly, John Gibson, Alberto Gonzales, Lou Dobbs, Jim Gilchrist, and George W. Bush without going utterly mad.

-

From the Bunker of El General

AY DIOS MIO, I'M IN! Inside the walls of El General's fortress. It took some work, but with great grace and determination, I have prevailed. And never before has such a world-weary and unapologetic wanderer as your narrator seen as well-guarded a bunker as this. The good Christian General's fortifications are, for sure, a gleaming and splendiferous example of the manliest of American architecture! It is little to wonder that he speaks with such booming and heteropowered tones that he does. ¡Claro! I tip my sombrero in his direction, and of all well-decorated hombres, he knows as well as anyone that I mean that in the manliest of ways.

Of course not even El General de Jesús's machinations could resist the salsamatic touch of yours truly, the occasionally humble (but always grateful), Unapologetic Mexican. I have brought his key, unused, and I now place it upon this strange and massive altar of Señor George W. Bush, one that seems to (mystically) ooze a libertinous glow all about the keyboard. Perhaps this is how Señor Christian manages to exude such memorable manifestos.... Nonetheless, the painting disturbs my concentration, and so I must have nothing to do with it.

If I turn my head and look out of this reinforced window, I can see all the land around, and even the sun beginning to rise. The day will soon be getting on. So let me begin my important declaration. I may send you yet another cyber-grito on this most especial of days, but despite the frothy diatribes of Señores Buchanan y Dobbs, Mexicanos are good guests and it would only be right if I divulged exactly how El General and I met up. As you intuit, ours is a strange and bedeviled plot, and I could never reveal all of it to you! I am almost certain there are insurgente forces amongst this crowd.

But I do understand how you may wonder what fate brought two such unlikely traveling companions. Let me savor my pipe a moment and continue. Mmmm. Es muy bueno.

IT ALL BEGAN ON A HOT AND FATEFUL DAY. I was out rounding up recruits for the glorious Reconquista plot wherein all Mexicans on the continent will communicate using subtle rustlings of Holy dried jalapeño peppers that have been clasped to the chest of liberal American virgins. Unfortunately, Michelle Malkin, Lou Dobbs, and Pat Buchanan seem to have stumbled onto our plan to organize as a massive group of starving, hunted, underpaid people, and are trying to warn the rest of the country. This will make the Great Pepper Plano de la Patria that much harder to bring to fruition, and our alliance with Mexiran may suffer. I must preempt these soggy pundits and thus, the great Aztlán (heretofore secret and well-guarded) plot will be revealed—in it's entirety and for the first time—in issue Three of the celebrated mag de la gente, which I expect all good soldader@s to purchase in solidarity! Using American media, we can communicate at fifteen times the speed of dried jalapeño, and thus stymie the efforts of these antagonists.

So there I was, scouting for hombres to join up and I spotted El General at the bar. He was standing with a few muscled and well-armed compañeros, and I can only assume they were part of his vaunted militia, a force not unknown to me and my amigos. We glared at each other, as all utterly-heterosexual soldiers do in such a situation. We understood immediately that there was something fated. Was it combat? Was it a death? Was it glory?

The General stood, then, taking his weight off the bar. The hazy light from the dirty lanterns twinkled patriotically from the surface of his helmet, and he slowly chomped on what I assume was a cigar. I never did get close enough. It may have been a large raisin, or vanilla bean.

"Well. You're no Frenchman, that's for sure," he said. His eyes ran appreciatively over the bullet-belts slung over my shoulders, the rounds that wrapped across my chest.

I nodded.

"And you, Señor, are no chavalita." It was a statement of respect, for of course I respect even my enemies. Before I shoot them and laugh in a very high-pitched and delirious fashion simultaneously unfurling a giant Mexican flag over their squirming remains, and singing the Star Spangled Banner backward to the tune of ¡Viva La Revolución!, of course.

We both stood for a moment, the clinking, murmuring, coughing sounds in the cantina fading as the rest of the room realized what was about to unfold in their midst. And as much as I wanted to draw my pistola on this gringo, I had to admire the angle of his chest and the way his eyes seemed to sear the horizon with their haunted machismo.

"Yes, machismo, that is it, eh?" I said softly, reaching for my gun.

"Are you flirting with me, Mexican?" the General snarled, his hand moving to what I assume was his own weapon.

And I laughed then. In the face of his threat, I tilted my head back and laughed, flaring my magnificent mustachio in the glow of the light streaming through the door behind me. Suddenly, I became quite wild-eyed and serious, quivering my wide nostrils rather frighteningly.

"I will cut off your hands and feet and use them to beat your dog until you bring me breakfast on a tray held between your teeth, carnál! I am the manliest Mexicano you've known! Never imply that I am acting womanish! I have strung up entire cities for insinuating as much! Take it back!" I already had my hands on my machete, but strangely, El General was smiling and holding an arm up to restrain one of his men.

"That's a Holy Cross on your neck, isn't it, Mexican?" the General said.

"Yes, it is, vato! And this cross gives me license to strike in the na—"

"Hold it there one moment, soldier. I think we may be on the same side. Because you are a God-fearing man, aren't you?"

I took a breath and relaxed a bit. The room was dead silent.

""Dios no le diá, alas a los alacranes. I am strong in my faith, señor. And you can call me Nezua."

There was a moment of near-quiet as the dust settled a bit.

"Nezua, did you know that the Islamunistofascists have launched a War on Christmas?"

I said nothing, only curled my (freakishly macho and sexy) lips, letting the full horror of such a statement sink into me. I then looked (suavely) toward the door and out at the mountains. I could feel the tender gaze of many señoritas upon my cheek as I did so, and so I let the moment draw out a good, long time, until finally El General coughed rather loudly and I swiveled my head back to meet his eyes.

"Take me to Lou Dobbs, General," I said softly but with great urgency. "I must see this pendejo at once."

"Lou Dobbs is not the trouble," said he.

"Yo sé. I know, I know," I said. "But he's a good start, qué no? And once I scalp this powder-jowled puto, I will bring my soldados to aid your War for Christmas."

The General stared at me another moment, and then when he next spoke, it seemed to draw everything together. The room settled back into a comfortable, sawdust-lined shape; the people all around were once again immersed in their harmless and ridiculous chatter, and Señor JC Christian—patriot—put his arm around me as we walked toward the door.

"Nez, I think we can work together," he said.

"Si, señor," I agreed, looking over at the señorita by the bar. She winked at me, and I saw her hand on her hip, where the outline of a knife showed through. Was it fate? Was it combat? Was it glory? "I think this may be the beginning of a beautiful movimiento. But forgive me un momento. I have left something by the bar."

---

Nezua Limón Xolagrafik-Jonez blogs as The Unapologetic Mexican. Behind the scenes of NLXJ, Señor Herrera is an author and an artist, and while he does not always write satire, it is his secret religion. It is such a worldview that allows him to cohabitate a planet with such people as Pat Buchanan, Bill O'Reilly, John Gibson, Alberto Gonzales, Lou Dobbs, Jim Gilchrist, and George W. Bush without going utterly mad.

-

Rise of the Falafels

Bill O'Reilly finally responded to the "Coolest 8 Year Old in the World" video I've been writing about all week. You can see his response here:



After making a few inquiries to my contacts at Fox, I learned that the piece that aired wasn't the only version of the report. He had created two other versions before deciding to go with the one featuring the Coolest 8 Year Old. Thankfully, my contacts were able to liberate the other cuts from the editing room trashcan. I spliced them together in the video below.



Previous posts on the Bastard Fairies' "The Coolest 8 Year Old In The World Talks About O'Reilly" video:

What the ACLU hath wrought

Loving your neighbor

The war against little brown girls

Tanzman6 is sorry

Helmet tips to TrueBlueCT, John, and Jane.

Watch for me on Lou Dobbs

As you probably have heard by now, the bastards at wizbang didn't select Jesus' General to be a finalist in the Weblog Awards "Best Conservative Blog" category. Instead, they insulted me by making JG a "Best Liberal Blog" finalist along with defeatocratic francoslamunistofascists like Pandagon, Think Progress, Eschaton, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, Shakespeare's Sister, Bring It On!, Hullabaloo, Bitch Ph.D., and Legal Fiction.

I've had enough of this kind of humiliation. First, freedom's enemies tried to marginalize my important conservative message by giving me "Most Humorous Blog" blog awards. Now they're trying to get me put on the Department of Homeland Security's "No Fly List" by calling me a liberal. I have to strike back by getting on the cable news shows. Then, I can prove my conservative bona fides by praising torture and calling for the bombing of the New York Times.

That's why I've asked Nez from The Unapologetic Mexican to guestblog for me tomorrow. If that doesn't get me on Lou Dobbs, nothing will.

Rumors

All I'll say is that one of my mason jars is missing from the cellar and someone shot Sheila the Militia Morale Ewe in the face.

Go easy on the Cheney girl

Laura Bush
First Lady of the United States

Your Ladyship,

I know you must be very disappointed with the Cheney's right now. The news of their unwed daughter's pregnancy will certainly stain your husband's legacy. It is a shame that Dick and Lynne failed to raise their Mary to be as chaste and virtuous as your Jenna and not-Jenna.

Thankfully, there is a positive aspect to Mary's illegitimate pregnancy. We now know with certainty that the rumors of her homosexuality are completely unfounded. As you're probably aware, ladies can't get other ladies pregnant. They don't have "little soldiers."

Heterosexually yours in an OfJoshua approved and biblically acceptable kind of way,

General JC Christian, patriot.

Turncoats in the War on Christmas

It looks like the homosexuals have infiltrated the top leadership positions of Young Conservatives of Texas and blasphemed the Lord by turning Joseph and Mary into Trevor and Larry.

Send their chairman a note and tell him we won't stand silently while he mocks the baby Jesus. Don't forget to place a copy of your email in the comments.



I always knew that song about donning gay apparel had a subversive message.

Helmet tip to Towelroad (who I'm always a little leery of linking to, because the ads might not be work safe in many offices.) It's definitely worth a read though.

Islamolaser eyes

Ann Althouse
Jethro Bodine Professor of Law
University of Wisconsin

Dear Miss Althouse,

While I applaud your attempt to justify the use of sensory deprivation goggles on potential dirty-bomber arson plotter Chechen resistance recruiter Jose Padilla, I wish you had imagined a more comprehensive explanation, one that would have justified the other extreme measures used against this extremely dangerous brown man.

Sure, your blinking-coded-islamunistofascist-terror-plans-to-dentists theory explains the goggles, but what about the years of isolation? Certainly you can't isolate a man if there's a dentist in the room.

That's why I think you should stop using the blinking-code-at-dentists justification and go with something more plausible like a he-shoots-deadly-Islamolasers-out-of-his-eyes theory. Not only would it explain the goggles and isolation, it'd cover everything else as well: they kept his cell cold so that much of his laser generating energy would be redirected to shivering; they pumped him full of LSD and PCP to disrupt the laser's wavelength cohesion within the gaussian refractory located midway between the cornea and retina (the Limbaugh Effect); stress positions forced Padilla to point his Islamolasers at himself; and if his interrogators needed to act quickly to him from lasing them, they'd threaten to cut him and pour alcohol on his wounds.

I'm sure you could come up with much more, especially if you experimented with the Limbaugh Effect. Maybe there's even a publication opportunity in it for you. You'd be breaking new ground with an article on the use of the laser eyes defense in Fifth and Eighth Amendment cases, but then I suppose the blinking-coded-islamunistofascist-terror-plans-to-dentists defense is a new one as well.

Heterosexually yours in an OfJoshua approved and biblically acceptable kind of way,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

A reading from Orwell's Furniture

From George Orwell's classic novel, Furniture*:

'The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men.' Ben paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil: 'How does one man assert his power over another, Furniture?'

Furniture stared at his manicles, unable to respond, unable to even understand what Ben was asking.

'Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid immoral societies that the liberals imagined. A world of fear and treachery is torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy everything. The sexual instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the elite. There will be no love, except the love of the Owners. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always -- do not forget this, Furniture -- always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever.'

He paused as though he expected Furniture to speak. Furniture tried to shrink back into the surface of the bed again, away from the boot, away from the forcibly administered LSD and the PCP, away from the waterboarding and simulated executions, back into the isolation that had destroyed Jose and given birth to Furniture, the isolation Jose had hated but Furniture now craved. He could not say anything. His heart seemed to be frozen. Ben went on:

'And remember that it is for ever. The face will always be there to be stamped upon. The heretic, the enemy of society, will always be there, so that he can be defeated and humiliated over again. Everything that you have undergone since you have been in our hands -- all that will continue, and worse. The espionage, the betrayals, the arrests, the tortures, the executions, the disappearances will never cease. It will be a world of terror as much as a world of triumph. The more power we acquire, the less we will be tolerant: the weaker the opposition, the tighter the despotism. Our enemies will live for ever. Every day, at every moment, they will be defeated, discredited, ridiculed, spat upon and yet they will always survive. This drama that I have played out with you for almost four years will be played out over and over again generation after generation, always in subtler forms. Always we shall have the enemy here at our mercy, screaming with pain, broken up, contemptible -- and in the end utterly penitent, saved from himself, crawling to our feet of his own accord. That is the world that we are preparing, Furniture. A world of victory after victory, triumph after triumph after triumph: an endless pressing, pressing, pressing upon the nerve of power. You are beginning, I can see, to accept what that world will be like. But in the end you will do more than accept it. You will embrace it.

Orwell's book is titled, Furniture. It has always been called Furniture, and it's always celebrated Our Leader's Glorious Vision of an Ownership Society.

A damning I can get behind

Sheila the militia morale ewe and I are happy to see Cletis finally get what he deserves (hold your cursor over his name.)

Book learnin'

Jane writes:

Please join us this Sunday, December 10, when Jesus' General will host a special edition of the FDL book salon and give his suggestions for stocking stuffer books for the Frenchman in your life. Or your inner Frenchman, whatever the case may be.

She also mentions Cletis--him and his little soldier are a couple of God damned liars, and besides, I was drunk--and Spartan-style wrestling.

Tanzman6 is sorry

Tanzman6, obviously thinking I'm an 8 year old brown girl, writes:

I deserve everything I've gotten from your readers. What I said was stupid, insensitive, and just showed a lack of thought on my part. I apologize for what I said.

Just so everyone's clear about this, I'm a manly white Christian heterosexual man's man who will be another year closer to fifty this week.

The war against little brown girls

Update: Mr. Tanzman6 regrets his post. More later.

Tanzman6
White Christian Patriot

Dear Mr. Tanzman6,

It takes a lot of guts in these politically correct times for a 20 year old man to call an 8 year old Lakota girl a "bitch" and a "Chink," tell her he wished her parents had been killed in Vietnam, and then exhort others to "burn" her, but thank God there are still principled young men like yourself around to do just that.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a graduate of Iona Preparatory School would demonstrate such valor against a blasphemous little brown girl. After all, it is an institution that teaches "young men to be moral, ethical leaders" in the "Catholic tradition."

Is that also where you learned how to "SKULL FUCK...FUCKING FAGGOTS?" I imagine it was a frequent topic at your Right to Life Club and the Peer Ministry* meetings, given the possibility that such an activity might involve condoms.

I have to wonder, however, why you aren't serving the Lord and Our Leader in Iraq. There are many Iraqi mothers and fathers there to be killed. By avoiding such service, you may be enabling some yet-to-be-born little Navajo girl to blaspheme the Lord and Bill O'Reilly once again.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

*He was a member of both clubs while he attended Iona Prep. My inner Frenchman won't let me link to the source, because he says it would identify Tanzman6's real name. I don't know why that's a problem. Maybe, my IF is worried that it'll help Tanzman6 become the Virginia Republican Party's next senate nominee.

A helmet tip to reader James.

Update: It looks like Tanzman6 may be doing a little googling.

Patriot arrested at airport

I'd like to claim this guy as a member of my militia, but I suspect he's already serving in another one.

From God's own newspaper:

According to the complaint filed Wednesday, McBride was pulled aside for a standard screening procedure after his carry-on bag generated an alarm. During the search McBride reportedly asked a Transportation Security officer, "Are you a homosexual?"

The officer said he was not and called over a lead security officer and a supervisor, according to the complaint. McBride then allegedly asked another male security officer if he was a homosexual. When asked if he was refusing screening, McBride said he would allow a female officer to pat him down but was told that was not an option, the complaint states.

At that point, McBride reportedly told officers that he was not required to comply with the screening and produced a leather case with a bold badge bearing the image of the "Great Seal of the United States" with the inscription "ambassador/diplomat."

A helmet tip to reader Joel.

Gifts for the Frenchmen and Frenchnotmen in your life

Support the people who fight in the Glorious Conservative Christian Cultural Revolution. Please buy your holiday gifts from the General's readers and other friends of the Francosphere.

Books

Most of these books are linked through my Amazon Associates account, but if you'd rather support an independent bookseller, call or email JG commenters SeattleDan and SeattleTammy at Jackson Street Books, (206) 324-7000.

Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus by Rick Perlstein (It's out of print, but you can email him for a copy). I've read it. It's a fantastic book.

Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media by Jeff Cohen (Great book, especially p. 187)

The Lifelong Activist by Hillary Rettig

Over Here: An American Expat in the South of France by Randy Lofficier

Scary: A Book of Horrible Things for Kids by Joaquin Ramon Herrera (Check out his blog too. I love it.)

The Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right by Robert Lanham

Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese American Community by David Neiwert (Other great books by David: Death on the Fourth of July: The Story of a Killing, a Trial, and Hate Crime in America and In God's Country: The Patriot Movement and the Pacific Northwest.)

DVDs

Red State: The Movie

This Divided State

Helping others

Give the gift of life.

Other

Miss Poppy Dixon's gifts for your inner Christianist.

Books written by friends in the Francosphere and friends of the Francosphere

Again, most of these books are linked through my Amazon Associates account, but if you'd rather support an independent bookseller, call or email JG commenters SeattleDan and SeattleTammy at Jackson Street Books, (206) 324-7000.

Crashing the Gate by Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga

The dKos Trollhouse Cookbook by 42 and grndrush

FUBAR by Sam Seder

Hell in a Handbasket" by Tom Tomorrow

Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government--and How We Take It Back by David Sirota

How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok by Glenn Greenwald

Is That a Politician in Your Pocket: Washington on $2 Million a Day by Micah Sifray and Nancy Watzman

Kosmos: You are Here by Steven Darksyde and Mark Sumner

Lapdogs by Eric Boehlert

Sweet Relief: The Marla Ruzicka Story by Jennifer Abrahamson

Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy! by Bob Harris

The Politics of Truth by Joseph Wilson

Wait! Don't Move to Canada: A Stay-and-Fight Strategy to Win Back America by Bill Scher

What's Liberal About the Liberal Arts?: Classroom Politics and "Bias" in Higher Education by Michael Bérubé

CDs

In the Year of Storms, composed by Stirling Newberry

XaoS, composed by Sterling Newberry

DVDs

Offerings by Brave New Films:
Iraq for Sale
Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price
Outfoxed
and more..

If you'd like to be added to this list, please leave a comment.

I'll be damned

I guess my inner Frenchman already has.

A helmet tip to commenter John Lucid.

Paying for Medical Care & Prescription Drugs: Funding Advertisers, Executives, and the Corporate Privileged Class

_{Image © Austin Cline
Original Poster: National Archives
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One of the most important political and social issues in the coming years will likely be the cost of medical care, especially the cost of prescription drugs. Medical care has always been an important issue, of course, but in America today more and more people are requiring drugs and treatment which are getting more and more expensive. This creates a growing constituency for efforts to reduce costs. There is also growing evidence that the current costs of this care are not justified by defensible market factors, which makes it easier for citizens to demand changes. The profits of drug companies are also growing, which gives them lots of disposable money to buy lawmakers.

The main reason for the growing demand for medical care and prescription drugs is pretty clear: America is getting older and most serious diseases affect older Americans. A further reason, not always consciously recognized right away, is how the pharmaceutical industry is getting better at developing new drugs to treat various conditions. There are lots of important drugs and treatments available to day that weren’t available a couple of decades ago. Even if the costs of these treatments were half of what they are now, the overall costs would still be higher. We can’t have new and better treatments for difficult conditions without expecting to pay more in the long run.

At the same time, however, not all of the increased costs are justified by defensible market factors. Pharmaceutical companies run lots of ads claiming that drug prices today pay for the research for the next generation of drugs, but that’s tough to swallow when the marketing and advertising budgets for these companies are higher than their R&D budgets. I think most people would be willing to pay more to fund further research if these companies spent more on research than on trying to sell us stuff.

Speaking of which, it’s debatable whether so much advertising of prescription drugs should be allowed. It’s good for people to know their options, but there is evidence that people who demand a particular drug will often get it whether they need it or not. Marketing to physicians is even worse because it can cause them to prescribe a drugs for reasons other than the patient’s best interest — and even without the physician realizing it. Advertisements created by marketing departments simply don’t qualify as the sort of “information” that creates an informed and educated consumer.

Thus we have pharmaceutical companies flush with money which they can “donate” to politicians who coincidentally write laws which favor those same companies, protecting or increasing their profits. All that money has to come from somewhere, though, and it’s not just out of the pockets of patients who can’t really afford to keep paying so much. Companies which offer health insurance are paying, too — and they growing frustrated over this. As their costs increase, so does their willingness to consider alternative ways of delivering health care. We may be getting to the point where there is major corporate support for some form of “socialized” medicine.

All of this should come together to create very serious political conflicts: will lawmakers respond to the demands of voters and more than a few corporations, or will they respond to the campaign “donations” of major pharmaceutical companies? Thus far trends have favored the latter, but that may change — and the weight of corporations tired of shouldering the increasing costs of health insurance may have more than a little to do with this. It would be unfortunate, though, if the only way to achieve justice for the people is if it’s in the economic interests of large companies. Should that be the case, it won’t be so much a victory for the people as it will be a sign of the extent to which that the people have been bought and paid for by corporate America.

Hanukkah Harry has a glowstick with Santa's name on it

Roger Ailes
Fox News Channel

Dear Mr. Ailes,

Fox News Channel has always been one of our most important assets in the War on Christmas. Heck, I'd wager that without Bill O'Reilly and John Gibson's valiant efforts, Hanukkah Harry would be sodomizing Santa with a dreidel, Gitmo style, in a Macey's display window right now.

Still. I have to wonder if Fox has what it takes to do it again. After all, your ratings aren't what they were a year ago. Your biggest star, Bill O'Reilly, is down 19 points since last Christmas. That doesn't bode well for our war effort. It's time to shake things up a bit.

You need to bring in someone new, someone more exciting than O'Reilly or Gibson. He'll need to be someone who's experienced the kind of brutal warfare were facing this yuletide season. I think I know the perfect man for the job, Dr. Peter Hammond of Frontline Ministries. Not only is he a Fox kind of guy--his ministry was funded by South African intelligence back in the good old days when that nation practiced the traditional confederate values so favored by our own beloved Republican Party--but he also has experience fighting the War on Halloween:

Controversial Christian evangelist Peter Hammond confirmed on Wednesday that he has been charged with assault following what he said was a Halloween "accident" with a paintball gun.

...He said his family -- he has a wife and four children -- do not approve of Halloween, which they see as an "occult holiday celebrating human sacrifice, witches and goblins".

His children had wanted to do a "counter-Halloween", and he had agreed to drive two of them around to "do paintballing" on trick-or-treating youngsters on October 31.

...He said his 10-year-old son initially paintballed some youngsters who appeared to have just strewn rubbish across the road as a Halloween prank, shooting low and from a distance, and then called out to another child, asking whether he was a trick-or-treater.

The boy came over to the car, saw the paintball gun, swore at Hammond's son and tried to pull it out of his hands.

The gun went off, and Hammond drove away.

I'm thinking we team Hammond up with Bill O'Reilly and send them hunting for store clerks who greet them with a "Happy Holidays" rather than a "Merry Christmas." When they find one, O'Reilly could work him over with his Terrible Falafel of Everlasting Shame while Hammond pastes him with red and green paintballs.

That, my friend, would be must see TV.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

Sundays with an Atheist?

Austin Cline usually has a post in the pipeline by now, but I don't see one yet. If he shows up, please remember why I invited him to post here. We're looking for clues he may drop about his location, so we can hunt him down and beat his atheist ass.