Professor Patty's Lesson of the Day

First it was the VRWC, now it's the RWH
Wingnut Senator Patty Murray (D - Outer Space) is whining about the complaints that arose over her mash note to Osama bin Laden:

Why is Osama bin Laden so popular in some parts of the world?

Perhaps, said Sen. Patty Murray, it's because he and his supporters have spent years building goodwill in poor nations by helping pay for schools, roads and other infrastructure.
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"He's been out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day-care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. We haven't done that," Murray said.

"How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan?"

First, her crew trotted out someone from the always reliable leftwing Institute for Policy Studies to say "Yep, fersure!", although it was kind of weak:

"Mostly he did underwrite - and so did many Arab charities - several fundamentalist Muslim schools throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan that teach a very, very, fundamentalist, right-wing version of Islam that preaches hatred for the West," Swetnam said.

Uh Oh! Another right-wing alert!

And Murray seems blithely unaware that the US taxpayer was the largest provider of foreign aid to Afghanistan even before 9/11:

In February 2001 - seven months before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon - the U.S. Agency for International Development announced an emergency airlift of supplies into Pakistan and Afghanistan.

At the time, the agency noted the U.S. was the largest single donor of assistance to Afghanistan, contributing about $115 million that year to improve health, water, sanitation and nutrition.

As is usually the case, this does not count our subsidy of UN efforts.

Feeling a tad toasty, Murray issued a statement which explained it all as a challenging and thoughtful discussion, called Mr. Humanitarian an "evil terrorist", and whined:

While there are some on the extreme fringes of society who try to exploit fear and uncertainty for political gain, there are many more who understand that the best value of our democracy is the freedom to think and to secure a better future.

Now her spokesdroid, Todd Webster, opines:

"This is being turned into a circus by the right-wing media outlets and fed by right-wing haters."

My, my - right-wing hater. Sound's a tad scary.

Almost as scary as the charitable explanation that a US Senator is completely unaware of the extent of US foreign aid and thinks Osama's terrorist training camps are some sort of humanitarian effort. I could offer an uncharitable explanation too, but don't want to be called a "right-wing hater".

Oh, what the hell!

Sen. Murray apparently suffers from delusions that make her unfit for her office. Her statements are an insult to all victims of Osama bin Laden's terrorist thugs and to all those risking their lives to combat them. The leaders of the Democrat party should step forward and show that they are not the party of appeasement by firmly distancing the party from Murray. And Murray should resign.

What's good for the gander should be good for the goose

Murray Must Resign!

Pass it on.

Mark Steyn alert!
The laugh's on Europe:

I find it easier to be optimistic about the futures of Iraq and Pakistan than, say, Holland or Denmark. What's wrong with the Islamic world is relatively straightforward. With Europe, it's harder to foresee any happy endings. The good news is we won't have to worry about another Hitler or Mussolini because, on present reproductive trends, the Italians and Germans are going to be out of business in a couple of generations. Few people have ever been in less need of lebensraum. Instead, the European Union figures it will require another 50 million immigrants in the next few years just to maintain a big enough working population to fund the lavish social programs its vast retired army of baby boomers expects to enjoy.

The main source of European immigration is Muslim youth from North Africa and the Middle East. Whether these are the chaps to keep Hans and Pierre in the style to which they've become accustomed is a moot point: According to some Scandinavian statistics, 40 percent of those on welfare are immigrants. And, while it's not true that every immigrant on welfare is an Islamic terrorist, it's a good rule of thumb that every Islamic terrorist in Europe has been on welfare, living in radicalized ghetto cultures with nothing to do but sit around the flat plotting the jihad all day. Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammed, who recently held a pro-Osama rally in London, has demanded the imposition of Islamic law in Britain, and at one time called for the assassination of then-Prime Minister John Major. Given that it's Mr. Major's ministry, and now Tony Blair's, that has financially supported Sheikh Omar ever since he arrived 15 years ago, that seems a tad ungrateful.

Ruh oh!
Leigh Strope for the AP writes Proposed regulations would require unions to open books, report more financial detail:

The Bush administration is trying to pry open the books of labor unions to get much more detailed financial information in the annual reports they have to file with the government.

Labor Department officials said Friday they are revamping reporting requirements for the first time in more than 40 years to force the largest unions to specify how much they spend on contract negotiations and administration, organization, strike benefits, general overhead, political activities and lobbying, and to identify those expenses.

Currently, large unions can lump together much of those costs. For example, one form filed with the department said a union spent $62 million on "disbursement of grants to joint projects with state and local affiliates." Another reported $4 million spent on "sundry expenses." Such broad categories make it easy to hide possible embezzlement and mismanagement, labor officials said.

Can you say "slush fund"? I knew you could!

On Thursday, federal investigators raided the homes and offices of three former officials of the Washington Teachers Union in the nation's capital.

They were searching for hundreds of luxury items allegedly bought with more than $2 million in diverted union funds, including a $25,000 mink coat, a $13,000 flat-screen television and a $57,000 Tiffany sterling silver set with 288 pieces.

Labor Department investigations of union financial fraud result in an average of 11 criminal convictions a month, with more than 640 convictions over the past five years.

Those sundry expenses just keep piling up!

But stand by for the whining:

"It is really driven by a political agenda by the Bush administration and by groups that are virulently antiunion and want to impose huge burdens on them," said Laurence Gold, the AFL-CIO's associate general counsel.

It's a huge burden to break out your "sundry expenses"?

But the best part is:

The Labor Department began posting the reports on the Internet for the first time in June. The forms are available to the public and list expenses, revenue and salaries of all union employees. The department also has requested an additional $3.4 million in next year's budget to help strengthen enforcement and investigations of unions.

Kewl! Drop in at the DOL's web site to discover that in 2001, the NEA (warning - 10MB Adobe Acrobat download) spent $69M on "Grants to joint projects w/state and local affiliates". That's about 24% of receipts.

Full moon alert!
The AP stuns with Man Bites Into Bat Burger:

JACKSON, Tenn. - What would you like on your burger? Lettuce? Mayo? Pickles?

Perhaps some bat?

A Lexington teenager faces up to six years behind bars for placing a dead bat on a bun as a joke and giving it to a man who took a bite, thinking it was a burger, police said.

The girl, whose identity is being withheld because she is a juvenile, will be charged with violating a new law that prohibits tampering with someone's food and giving it as a gift, according to Lexington Police Investigator Donna Hetherington.

Well "tampering with someone's food and giving it as a gift" is a tad specific. Do they have a lot of that in Tennessee?

And I guess he didn't get to the Ex-Lax "chocolate chip" cookies.

Meanwhile, in the UK...
They (and the tourists) have apparently never seen limousines before. Jane Kelly of the Evening Standard investigates in Inside London's limos:

Whatever you think about the tackiness of limousines - 35ft emblems of U.S. culture - they are a pleasurable way to entertain your friends on an evening out.
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When we reach sophisticated Hampstead it is obvious we are out of place. In this select area of London, it is surprising that limos like this are even allowed.
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In Westminster, crowds of tourists gather to stare at us as we pause at traffic lights. We can see them, but they can't see us, of course. The front of the vehicle goes through on green, the back scrapes through on red, and we fill up whole yellow box junctions.
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Togetherness is what limos are all about - originally they represented a rather dangerous, downmarket glamour.

Now, for most people, they are about friends, family, comfort and keeping the party together - a wonderful, if expensive, way to sidestep the congestion, toe-treading and transport rage that lurks outside on the litter-strewn streets of Britain today.

Follow the link for the obligatory customer stories. Something about large automobiles seems to bring out the, er, animal in the customers.

'I'd rather do a stag night any day,' the driver Pete Spiteri, 46, tells me later.

'Women always want to molest me, sticking their boobs and bums through the hatch and jiggling them at me. All I can hope is that later, after a few drinks, they'll go to sleep.'

They're everywhere!
From ESPN, George Foreman still sizzles as endorser:

While the 53-year-old Foreman is frequently left off lists of the top endorsers in the sports world, he might actually be the most effective one. For the third straight year, Foreman's signature grills are expected to remain the No. 1 selling housewares item in the United States, and more Foreman-endorsed grills will be sold this year than all brands of coffeemakers combined, said Gary Ragan, vice president of marketing for Salton, the grill's maker. In England, the company is expecting to sell two million grills this year, making it the best-selling electrical appliance in the country's history, Ragan said.

Foreman originally was to receive a percentage of grill sales from his endorsement, but astronomical sales from his "Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machines" prompted Salton to buy Foreman out. Three years ago, the company awarded Foreman with a five-year deal reportedly worth $137.5 million for the worldwide rights to his name and likeness. He made just $20,000 from endorsements during his boxing prime in the 1970s.

Things are looking really bad in Germany!
Reuters astounds with German drinkers face beer shortage. Is it Osama bin Laden, the nefarious Communist Chinese, or Ernst Blofeld? Nope, it's the ecoweenies.

The government is imposing charges on non-reusable containers because it says the percentage of recycled cans and bottles has fallen below a 72 percent minimum target set in 1997.

"We may not have enough beer available to meet the demand in January," Jan Holzweissig, spokesman for the German retailers' association, told Reuters. "A lot of stores are planning to remove beer and other drinks in disposable containers off their shelves next month because of the new rules."

He's bad, he's nationwide!
Well almost, but Steve is dancing naked in the front yard. (Permalinks are universally bloggered today so scroll down to the first entry on 12/20).

This is really exciting. The last time this happened was years ago, when I had a comic strip in development with the syndicate editor who discovered Garfield. He was a great guy, as far as I could tell, but he was just not ready for the Little Tiny mindset. He wanted For Better or for Worse or Marvin, and I felt like Hunter S. Thompson and Joseph Heller were running around in my brain setting fire to the furniture. And I was conservative. When you're conservative, even when you sit on your politics, your work gives off a certain smell which sets off the liberal flight response. This guy was part of the industry, which means "mainstream," which meant "liberal." And even though I never mentioned politics in my work or correspondence, I'm sure he smelled handguns and SDI on my breath.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.