I don't know how this managed to get by the editorial staff at the Statesman, but somehow they've inadvertently let a bit of common sense find its way into the Letters to the Editor:
People seem to have difficulty understanding the different approaches the Bush administration is taking on North Korea and Iraq. Think in terms of automobile accidents:
North Korea is an accident that already has happened, thanks to the incompetence of the Clinton administration.
Iraq is an automobile accident that is about to happen, thanks to the previous Bush administration's adherence to the wishes of the United Nations. We should have ignored the United Nations, taken Baghdad and eliminated Saddam Hussein.
A different response is required to an accident that has already happened and one that is about to happen. If we listen to the United Nations this time, like we did during Desert Storm, Iraq will acquire nuclear weapons. Then it will be too late to take preventative action. The accident will have already happened.
Men were again the big winners in the Super Bowl ad extravaganza—many more men than women were employed to act in the commercials, and much of the content of the ads was directed at the male viewer.
Why does the phrase "hypocritical self-righteous bitch" keep popping into my head? Hmmm....
One of the "monitors" NOW recruited to check out SuperBowl ads had the following to say: "Even the somewhat funny ads were at the expense of women—as if we're stupid and can by used and walked over." Ummm, doesn't the mindless drivel of the NOW gals, perpetuate that idea a wee bit more than some beer ads? I could go on and on about these man-hating lunatics, so I will just randomly select a few of the comments I find most amusing, in no particular order:
"Almost every monitor expressed disgust with the Anheuser-Busch ads, noting how much better overall the Super Bowl commercials would have been without them. "
"All the 'watchers' in my front room agreed that Budweiser should NEVER be purchased by any self-respecting woman."
And from the Best Ads (Top 15) section:
#4: FedEx — "Cast Away" spoof
"Good to see a woman be on top of things, showing the man that he should have been smart enough to open the package."
What a twisted take on a commercial.
#14: Chrysler — Celine Dion
"Although she is a superstar, I thought it was positive to show a woman driving down the road, by herself, singing ... I thought it showed independence and joy. I would like to see the 'average' woman driving in that ad, though."
"Nice to see a fully-clothed woman driving the car instead of an almost naked one draped over it."
So if Ms. Dion was fat, unattractive, and unsuccessful, the ad would have been perfect?
The comments on the worst ads are even better. Any reservations I once had about drinking Anheuser-Busch products have now vanished. If these nutcases hate them that much, that's gotta be a good thing.
To dispel the notion that I'm some type of feminazi that regularly checks in at the NOW Foundation website, I must reveal my source. I was led to this article by the wise and venerable James Taranto of Best of the Web Fame:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110003006 (Last item, entitled"NOW They Tell Us")
I know it is cold-hearted and possibly even in bad taste to say that the father of a recently killed child is an assclown, but Tom Malzbender is seriously demented.
"Tom Malzbender can forgive the Palo Alto teenager who allegedly struck and killed his 6-year-old daughter and injured another girl before his eyes, then drove off.
What Malzbender can't forgive are the two motorists behind the hit-and-run driver Tuesday morning, the ones he watched drive past two bloody, injured girls by the side of a narrow road near his house."
Okay, while stopping to help might have been the "Good Samaritan" thing to do, these people were under no obligation to stop. Mr. Malzbender was obviously right there at the scene, so these passing motorists had reason to believe the injured girls were being cared for. But even assuming that these two people just kept driving past with hostile indifference, why are they less deserving of Tom Malzbender's forgiveness than the person who HIT and KILLED his daughter, AND kept driving past? I think this dude has a sick, sick worldview and probably needed professional help long before his daughter was killed. If the two innocent motorists should have stopped to help, why wouldn't the same courtesy be expected of the person who caused the incident to begin with? And was this dude sitting there WATCHING these kids? The whole point of watching your kids is so they DON'T GET HIT BY CARS. So if this poor girl was safely out of the road, then she was hit because of recklessness or inattentiveness on the part of the teenage driver. (The fact that said teenager kept driving after hitting not one but two small children makes a strong case for this.) I think it is nauseating that this man is blaming a tragedy caused either by inept parenting or reckless driving on two people who had nothing to do with either.
Here ends my cold-hearted bashing of a grieving father.
Although I typically provide a link to a story, then expound on the contents thereof, today I am giving a simple assigment, in the interest of brevity. Go to Google or any other search engine of your choosing and do a search for some permutation of "human shield" as related to Iraq.
Now that that's out of the way, I will say some things that are crystal clear and in need of no qualification. "Human shields" are [stupid, foolish, hateful, misguided, terrorists, USEFUL IDIOTS]. I realize we're talking about a debateably diverse group of individual human beings, so there will be differences among them. Some will be outright supporters of terrorism. Some will be more foolish than stupid, more stupid than hateful, more hateful than misguided, more misguided than foolish, or more terroristic than stupid, etc. All are useful idiots. However, for some of these shields, their usefulness may be limited to that provided by their idiocy and that which is beneficial to their hero, Mr. Hussein. So some may be utterly useless, except for this one purpose. Has it not occurred to these prospective members of MENSA that if the U.S. was the evil warmongering nation they say it is, that human shields would present no obstacle whatsoever? While it may be true that a few of these shields have considered this, it's safe to say that most have not. They're going to Iraq to be assholes, pure and simple. But if there are among them ANY who believe that human shields stop wars, end human suffering, etc., then these assclowns and anyone who shares their view, should pause for a moment to consider why they haven't served humanity in any of the other wars going on around the world. If they genuinely believe that placing human shields somewhere will stop fighting in that locale, then it's pretty damn shitty of them to not be getting on the ball and doing some serious shielding.
1:30 PM
