Criminy!
What on Earth are they putting in the water up there in Maine?

The little girls’ room won’t be just for little girls anymore, if the Maine Human Rights Commission has its way.

The commission is taking heat over a controversial proposal to ban schools from enforcing gender divisions in sports teams, school organizations, bathrooms and locker rooms. It says forcing a student into a particular room or group because of his or her biological gender amounts to discrimination.

BWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!

The issue came to light last year when the commission ruled that, under the Maine Human Rights Act, a school had discriminated against a 12-year-old transgender boy by denying him access to the girls’ bathroom.

Now the commission aims to issue guidelines on how schools should deal with similar situations in the future. It would make Maine the first state to implement such guidelines for schools as young as preschool and nursery — and even some private schools.

OMG! The Left is insane! But “Okie”, you say, “How can you blame this lack of mental acuity on the Left?” Well minafrienda, because they copped to it!

Some school districts and organizations have criticized the commission for making its initial ruling without getting enough input from conservative groups, and then for coming up with proposed guidelines in what some described as closed-door sessions.

“The conservative side was never brought in on the discussion in the first place, if you look at who gave testimony, written testimony, etc., in the beginning,” Rev. Bob Celeste of Harrison told FoxNews.com. “When you only bring one side in, you’re not looking for an honest debate. You’re looking for an agenda.”

Once it came time to vote on the guidelines, the commission again came under fire for not doing enough to inform Mainers of the vote, and for not allowing the public to speak at the hearing where it was held.

So, you have to be some sort of staunch “Conservative” to actually have such a heretical thought that there are real differences between human males and human females? And, if you do have such Cro-Magnon beliefs it’s not worth listening to you? What’s up with that?

Classic Leftist technique of telling the majority of moderate and conservative Americans to just “Sit Down, SHUT UP and Take It Already!” Kinda like how they passed the Health Care Law . . . tyranny-of-the-minority in action!

But hey, lets think this Commissions proposal through — when we let little Jenny and little Johnny go to the bathroom at the same time, or make them share showers in the locker room, or let Big Bruiser (just released from McAlester) go into the little girls room where your sister, wife, niece or aunt is expecting some privacy for their personal business — What could go wrong?

You’re thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’? Exactly!

Do these radical Lefties care what anyone else thinks? Maybe . . . just a little:

John Gause, counsel for the Maine Human Rights Commission, told FoxNews.com that the commission is still in the process of developing guidelines on how the Maine Human Rights Act “applies in the context of sexual orientation in schools and colleges.”

“A date and location for the public comment session will be finalized in the near future,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Of course, they never got back to Fox News with any further info, so on that caring front — maybe not so much.

Regardless of how this plays out, the Maine Human Rights Commission is more than deserving of Okie’s Head Up The Ol’ Wazzoo Award!

I just heard this on the Dennis Prager show and had to put it in my “A Future For Mankind?” section. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Pope Benedict has been censored by the Sapienza University of Rome.

American universities aren’t the only places where politically incorrect speakers are silenced nowadays. This week in Rome, of all places, Pope Benedict XVI found himself censored by scholars, of all people, at one of Europe’s most prestigious universities.

On Tuesday the pontiff canceled a speech scheduled for today at Sapienza University of Rome in the wake of a threat by students and 67 faculty members to disrupt his appearance. The scholars argued that it was inappropriate for a religious figure to speak at their university.

As Dennis remarked, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a welcomed speaker at universities, but the Pope is verboten. When you ask yourself why and get the answer, it’s even weirder.

This pope’s specific sin was a speech he gave nearly 20 years ago in which, they claimed, he indicated support for the 17th-century heresy trial against Galileo. The censoring scholars apparently failed to appreciate the irony that, in preventing the pope from speaking, they were doing to him what the Church once did to Galileo, stifling free speech and intellectual inquiry.

Strange world we live in, strange indeed. As Hugh Hewitt remarks:

This is nuts. The West is threatened by jihadists intent on sending civilization back more than a thousand years, and academics in Rome are gagging one of the West’s most skilled and respected defenders.

Hey, this deserves one of the rare Head Up The Wazzoo awards! Congratulations Sapienza University of Rome — hope you are enjoying the aroma up there!

Technorati Tags: Pope Benedict, Sapienza University of Rome, Head Up The Wazzoo

Don’t mean you know you-know-what! Take one 19 year-old MIT student named Star Simpson. (Any of you ever know anyone named “Star” that was normal? Me neither.) This brainiac shows up at Boston’s Logan Airport wearing what she calls art, a circuit board connected to batteries strapped to her chest and with wads of play-Doh in her hands. Let’s see, we’ve got some options here . . . we let this gal go through security and pick up her arriving party, or we hold her at gunpoint until her bomb-art is examined and found fake, or we just shoot her a couple of dozen times — what’s it gonna be?

Simpson was charged with disturbing the peace and possessing a hoax device, and was to be arraigned in East Boston District Court later Friday.

“I’m shocked and appalled that somebody would wear this type of device to an airport,” [State Police Maj. Scott] Pare said.

Simpson was “extremely lucky she followed the instructions or deadly force would have been used,” Pare said. “She’s lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue.”

Lucky doesn’t really describe it. The nit wit’s from Hawaii — that figures. I haven’t given out one of these for quite a while, but for being the dumbest dumbsh_t of the day she deserves it! Now you really are a “Star”, Simpson — a truly deserving recipient of the Head Up The Ol’ Wazzoo Award!

Technorati Tags: Star Simpson, Boston’s Logan Airport, Head Up The Ol’ Wazzoo Award

When The New Republic printed its derisive, anti-military slur featuring war anecdotes by supposed soldier “Scott Thomas”, it more than earned its very own Head Up The Ol’ Wazzoo Award!

You know, the story outlining three events that is designed to make our troops in Iraq look like raving, bloodthirsty maniacs. Dean Barnett has been on this one like white on rice and finds that fact checking by the Left-leaning media goes out the window when the story is this “juicy”. Their “we support the troops” gruel is pretty thin stuff.

SO WHY DOES THIS MATTER? It’s a common trope on the left that they support the troops. Those of us who have read the leftwing blogs and the New York Times editorial page the last four years have found it impossible not to get the sense that even though they purportedly support the troops, they sure do seem to relish every setback the troops incur. Some members of the American left have conjoined every car bomb and every casualty with a tiresome political agenda.

With this piece, you have one of the most respected bastions of liberal opinion bending journalistic rules to publish a story that paints our soldiers as sadistic sociopaths. If TNR had run the story by a single person familiar with the military situation in Iraq prior to publication, that person would have called into question their correspondent’s reporting. And yet a story like this one was apparently too delicious to subject to any intellectual or factual scrutiny.

Barnett even asked TNR’s editor Franklin Foer to come on the Hugh Hewitt Show while he was guest hosting to defend his magazine’s story, but Foer never got back to him as his secretary had promised. Typical — of the Left.

Just to recap if you don’t know what this is about. TNR ran what they call a “Diarist”, “Shock Troops,” that presented three events that the magazine insinuates is not rogue behavior, but actually the norm for our fighters. 1) That a disfigured woman victim of an IED attack is brutally humiliated by the writer and some of his platoon buddies in the chow hall, 2) That while on patrol, his platoon uncovered a Saddam-era mass-grave of children’s remains, which they proceeded to desecrate with one of his buddies actually stealing a child’s skull cap, with hair still attached, which he proceeded to wear under his helmet, and 3) the tale of another private that uses his Bradley to intentionally run over and kill dogs in the villages that they patrol. Disgusting, debased, depraved behavior — if true. The final line of the article is:

Scott Thomas is a pseudonym for a freelance writer and soldier currently serving in Baghdad.

So, the question begged is, did TNR verify this source in any manner, fashion or form? Did Franklin Foer collaborate any of this before releasing to print? According to this statement on his blog, well, not really — but they’ll be gettin’ right on it!

NOTE TO READERS:

Several conservative blogs have raised questions about the Diarist “Shock Troops,” written by a soldier in Iraq using the pseudonym Scott Thomas. Whenever anybody levels serious accusations against a piece published in our magazine, we take those charges seriously. Indeed, we’re in the process of investigating them. I’ve spoken extensively with the author of the piece and have communicated with other soldiers who witnessed the events described in the diarist. Thus far, these conversations have done nothing to undermine–and much to corroborate–the author’s descriptions. I will let you know more after we complete our investigation.

–Franklin Foer

But, as Barnett explains:

Now let me put it to you, Dear Reader: If you were running a magazine and you had a piece sitting on your desk that told outrageous and incendiary stories about our fighting men, would you work to corroborate those stories before you published the piece or afterwards? Most of you would probably say before, which may explain why you’re reading a silly conservative blogger while Franklin Foer sits in the corner office of the one-time in-flight magazine of Air Force One.

To extract another juicy nugget from Foer’s promise to belatedly rake the muck, Foer insists, “Whenever anybody levels serious accusations against a piece published in our magazine, we take those charges seriously.” I don’t doubt it – if the institution that I ran had it professional credibility teetering (again), I would take it seriously. I don’t doubt that Foer took it seriously that I was going to devote most of a national radio broadcast to talking to military people about the potential inaccuracies of his story.

And while Foer may shrug off the story’s critics with the dismissive pejorative “conservative bloggers”, I doubt he so blithely dismissed the critiques of The Weekly Standard and National Review, two serious publications that had serious problems with TNR’s “Diarist”. The only explanation for Foer taking 72 hours to tepidly address a matter that by his own admission he “took seriously” is because he and his staff were unprepared to defend the story when the allegations of its inaccuracies first arose.

Although Foer still will not respond to Barnett’s inquiries, the NYT printed a tiny piece of the puzzle today that tweaked Dean all over again this AM.

Franklin Foer, the editor of The New Republic, will not reveal the author’s identity but says the magazine is investigating the accuracy of his articles. In the late 1990s, under different editors, the magazine fired an associate editor, Stephen Glass, for fabrications.

{…}

The magazine granted anonymity to the writer to keep him from being punished by his military superiors and to allow him to write candidly, Mr. Foer said. He said that he had met the writer and that he knows with “near certainty” that he is, in fact, a soldier.

After this article appeared, Mr. Foer said he was “absolutely certain” that the author is a soldier.

Wonder what made Foer go from “near certainty” to “absolutely certain” that the author is a “soldier”. What Foer still isn’t saying is that he is near, or “absolutely certain” that the author is a soldier stationed in Iraq, that he actually committed and witnessed the alleged despicable acts. However, even if true, the most pathetic angle to this whole mess is the attitude of Foer and Co. at TNR, who aren’t especially shocked at the behaviors portrayed in author’s story. In fact, according to Barnett, Foer alluded to the disgusting acts as mere mild practical jokes in his interview with Howard Kurtz at the Washington Post.

As the criticism mounts, Foer says he sees an ideological agenda.

“A lot of the questions raised by the conservative blogosphere boil down to, would American soldiers be capable of doing things like the things described in the diarist. The practical jokes are exceptionally mild compared to things that have been documented by the U.S. military. Conservative bloggers make a bit of a living denying any bad news that emanates from Iraq.”

And the Leftist journalists all over the MSM “make a bit of a living denying any bad [good] news that emanates from Iraq.” To them, all our fantastic men and women in the armed forces are depraved, maniacal, baby-killers — but hey, they support ‘em!

Uncle Jimbo at Black Five minces no words.

While I breathlessly await the investigation done by The New Republic’s crack staff of military experts, the same ones who bought this BS hook, line & sinker, I think the rest of us have come to a fairly obvious conclusion.

Scott Thomas is a lying sack of shit. Every unit has a Scott Thomas, the whiny pissant whose brilliance is never recognized and who is always being abused by the chain of command for stuff that’s not his fault. It would be normal to hear folks telling him to STFU and do his damn job.

He then links to a post by JD Johannes, who seems to have a lock on which company “Thomas” is assigned to, if he’s real. I really like what Jimbo proposes:

And as for Scott Thomas, I won’t bother to do more than call you a liar and a remind you that eventually you will brag about this to someone and you will be unmasked. Just keep that in mind as you look over your shoulder for the rest of your miserable life. I sense some old school wall to wall counseling in your future troop.

Heh!

Oh boy! Today we got ourselves a two-fer Head Up The Ol’ Wazzoo Award.

First one goes to New York Democrat Representative Charlie Rangel for his statement on FoxNews Sunday disparaging those that have volunteered for our military services. Video and this quote over at Hot Air:

I want to make it abundantly clear: if there’s anyone who believes that these youngsters want to fight, as the Pentagon and some generals have said, you can just forget about it. No young, bright individual wants to fight just because of a bonus and just because of educational benefits. And most all of them come from communities of very, very high unemployment. If a young fella has an option of having a decent career or joining the army to fight in Iraq, you can bet your life that he would not be in Iraq.

Kinda puts a big exclamation point on the Dems’ feelings about our all-volunteer military, and goes to show that Kerry’s remarks a week before the election were no mere slip of the tongue — instead, it’s a core believe of those on the Left.

Award #2 goes to Andrew Sullivan, whose blog The Daily Dish is rapidly becoming an anti-Mitt Romney smear journal — apparently because of Romney’s strong support for marriage staying a union between a man and a woman. Sullivan seems intent upon dredging up Evangelical distrust of Mormons and nothing is beneath him in regards to that.

Ya don’t get two like these everyday — hope you guys enjoy the aroma up there . . . (db)

Technorati Tags: Charles Rangel, Andrew Sullivan

If this isn’t deserving of Okie’s Head Up The Ol’ Wazzoo Award, I don’t know what would be!

In today’s Los Angeles Times and the New York Times the top story reveals the details of yet another secret U.S. anti-terror program — the use of vast quantities of financial data from SWIFT to track terrorists’ financial transactions world wide. Now that Akmed, Zawahiri and Jafar have the skinny, I have to ask, “Why was it in my public interest to know about this? I’m having a lot of issues with Ann Coulter right now, but maybe she hit it right on the head with her book Treason. What else could you call this expose of a critical intelligence program in a time of war?

The Bush administration had lengthy meetings with representatives of both papers, urging them to keep this program secret — does the LAT & NYT really want another 9/11 chalked up to their reckless irresponsibility? Do they hate Bush and Co. so very much that they are suicidal? Have they no shame? So, what do the big wigs at these poor excuses for cat box liners have to say about their crime? Hey fellas, don’t get a strain patting yourselves on the back! Here’s Bil Keller, NYT executive editor: [h/t: Michelle Malkin]

Bill Keller, the newspaper’s executive editor, said: “We have listened closely to the administration’s arguments for withholding this information, and given them the most serious and respectful consideration. We remain convinced that the administration’s extraordinary access to this vast repository of international financial data, however carefully targeted use of it may be, is a matter of public interest.”

Hugh Hewitt is trying to get Keller on his show today, for a discussion, like that will ever happen! The stated policy of the New York Times is that it is more dangerous for the Bush administration to have access to a “vast repository of international financial data” than it is for the Islamic Jihadists to be moving money around freely to fund that next wave of terror. How else can you read this? One other possibility that I can think of is that the NYT and the Tribune Co., parent of the LAT might have some illegal clandestine international money hiding/laundering scheme going that they are afraid the U.S. Treasury will find out about, or possibly they are funding terror themselves? Wouldn’t be the first time that international finance trumped nationalism, but that’s pretty out there. (It’s kinda like when someone is kidnapped, the first suspect is the spouse — gotta eliminate the obvious first.) My best guess is that these newspaper boys smelled a big scoop and damn the consequences, after all, they are the mighty press! Breitbart details the meeting that the LAT had with the administration and its decision to print the story anyway.

Administration officials were concerned that news reports of the program would diminish its effectiveness and could harm overall national security.

“It’s a tough call; it was not a decision made lightly,” said Doyle McManus, the Los Angeles Times’ Washington bureau chief. “The key issue here is whether the government has shown that there are adequate safeguards in these programs to give American citizens confidence that information that should remain private is being protected.”

Treasury Department officials spent 90 minutes Thursday meeting with the newspaper’s reporters, stressing the legality of the program and urging the paper to not publish a story on the program, McManus said in a telephone interview.

“They were quite vigorous, they were quite energetic. They made a very strong case,” he said.

“They made a very strong case”, just not strong enough. Never strong enough, huh guys? I can just imagine one of these jokers, with an Al Qaeda gun barrel stuck down their throats, with their last thoughts being, “damn, but I swear I still believe it was in the Public Interest!” I’m certainly not the only one upset about this. Michell Malkin is posting a whole slew of letters to the NYT, which even she admits that the paper’s editors most likely will never bother to read.

They can buy ink by the barrel, but we can fight back now with bandwidth by the terrabyte. I’m getting inundated with furious readers’ letters to the Times, most of which the editors won’t bother to read or publish–since they’re not in, you know, the “public (Pulitzer) interest.” So I’m reprinting a representative sample here and I’ll keep adding to it. Don’t forget that it’s both the NYTimes and the LATimes that blew off security concerns in favor of blowing the cover of the terrorist finance tracking program.

See Michelle’s post for NYT contact info, you can contact our local rag-o’-righteousness here.

And then there’s Patterico, who’s also having an Ann Coulter moment:

I am biting down on my rage right now. I’ll resist the temptation to say Ann Coulter was right about where Timothy McVeigh should have gone with his truck bomb. I’ll say only this: it’s becoming increasingly clear to me that the people at the New York Times are not just biased media folks whose antics can be laughed off. They are actually dangerous.
(…)
The article is likely to do far more than “jeopardize [the program’s] effectiveness.” It’s clear to me that the publication of the article will shut it down entirely. The article says that, in 2003, officials of the banking cooperative “were discussing pulling out because of their concerns about legal and financial risks if the program were revealed, one government official said.” But our top officials did a “full-court press” and promised to institute even tighter controls, which had apparently been quite successful.
(…)
As I said, these people are dangerous. I think it’s time to open an investigation into these leaks. Our war on terror is being eviscerated by the New York Times, in cooperation with shadowy figures inside the government with mysterious agendas that lead them to disclose highly sensitive information regarding legal programs that have proved critical to our efforts to stop the killing of innocents.

Heads need to roll over this.
(…)
Get an independent prosecutor. Now.

If only! And, just for the record, still no mention in the LAT of the report released yesterday by Senator Santorum bringing to light the 500 canisters of WMD found in Iraq. Old? Yes — degraded? Yes — still dangerous to our troops and of possible use to terrorists in a mass-killing attack? YES! But hey, that’s not news — outing a successful classified program to track the crucial money supply of said terrorists, making it irrelevant or just outright killing it in the process — now that’s some news, baby.

Ann is right — this is TREASON! The leakers need to go to the pokey, for life! The papers need to be sued into bankruptcy. Those that made the decision to print these stories need to join the leakers. We are at war. This is reprehensible. The responsibility for the next terrorist attack on U.S. soil is on them. That will be careless disregard — minimum 25 to life! Or worse, if lives are lost it would be conspiracy to commit premeditated murder. Play time is over! (db)

[Update: The Truth Laid Bear has a special section tracking the Blogosphere's reaction to this story.]

Technorati Tags: New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Bill Keller, SWIFT, Michelle Malkin, Patterico, The Truth Laid Bear