Tree Huggers Fantasy

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EnviroNazis Strike Again

So now what? Government bureaucracy and regulations have made anything made out of plastic more expensive than it should ordinarily be by at least about half. This has created an artificial incentive to move over to soy-based compounds in the manufacture of such indispensable products as automobile wiring. But that's good for the environment, right?

Well, your average rodent would seem to think so.



Believe it or not, this is a rabbit caught feasting on the soy wiring of a car. This has caused numerous problems in the cars that have the new environmentally friendly wiring, usually ignition problems.

The soy based compound now used mainly in automopbile wiring will undoubtedly soon be a growing replacement for the wiring in your home.

This will be greatly appreciated by not only rabbits, but squirrels, woodchucks, mice, and rats.

Mother Nature. Sometimes you just can't please a bitch.

H/T Moonbattery

Gerber Life-The Cute Kid Contest

Great news. If you have kids, boy or girl, you can enter them in the Gerber Life Cute Kid contest. You could possibly win 25,000 dollars, as well as a chance to get professional representation for your child's budding modeling or acting career. Don't feel you have a shot, the competition is probably too stiff? You never know until you try. The best thing is, this is not just a one shot affair. There is a different contest every month. Go check it out.

But, if you still feel as though your child isn't model quality, or you don't want to invest the money (a slight processing fee), or for whatever reason, you can at least help me out. Yes,The Pagan Temple is proud to announce that we have entered our precious little Dickie in the Gerber Life Cute Kid Contest.



He's actually been listed for three years now, but alas, poor Dickie has not won yet. The judges of the contest have so many entrants from which to choose, but we are confident that eventually our rambunctious, lovable child will one day make a superlative Gerber Baby. So please, head on over to the website and add your voice to ours.

Keep the dream alive.

Where Is Your Mother?

Minnesota Head Start Bans Santa Clause (Hint-The Family Of One Of The Kids Is Muslim)

And if you're guessing from the title that the family in question, recent immigrants from the hell-hole known as Somalia, are offended at the prospect of a visit from the giant elf, you can go to the head of the class. This has been a long cherished tradition, one that most families look forward to and which is great fun for the kids, yet our politically correct system decided to kowtow to the sensitivities of one family.

Perhaps a compromise is in order. Instead of his traditional attire, dress him in flowing white robes and wrap a rag around his head. Instead of saying "Ho, ho, ho" and carrying a big bag of wrapped presents, he can scream "Allahu Akbar" and wave a blood dripped scimitar.

Or, we could actually do the sensible thing-tell them to adjust to our culture or get the fuck out. Now that's a concept.

No Bailout For California

California has been called the Lindsey Lohan of states for good reason. It has lost sight of its potential and now, after living so long on a taxpayer funded binge, its about to crash and burn. The future does not look good, to say the least. When you are surrounded by enablers, and you refuse to take advice from those who could help you and so in effect refuse to help yourself, you can't expect for others to continually rush to your aid. They might want to, but after so long, even the most sympathetic to your cause will either run out of patience, or resources.

Obama himself got taken to the cleaners, but the taxpayers got the bill for 535 million dollars worth of stimulus funds granted to a solar panel manufacturer. They built a new plant but closed their old one and canceled their employees contracts after laying off a large part of their workforce. In other words, this was just another day in sunny California.

In the meantime, the public employees unions, state legislators, and environmentalists who helped all this and more like it to happen keep soaking the state of California to the tune of billions of dollars. The place is in debt for more than twenty billion dollars. Private employers are packing up and leaving in droves, in search of less green pastures in the form of states with friendlier tax and regulatory climates.

Yet, California just doesn't get it. The whole state is screwed up. After all, you can't say much about the politicians when the people keep returning them to office demanding more of the same. It's a basket case. It's so damn bad, if an earthquake sent it into the ocean, that might well be a best case scenario.

Look for California to ask for a bailout in time for the 2012 election, if not this year. In fact, I look for it to become one of the defining issues of the next election.

Bow Ye Infidels To The Goddess Of Chocolate

We're running out of chocolate, for a variety of reasons. It is hard to grow and harvest, and the few farmers who do grow it, mostly in Africa, can do better for themselves with other crops, or in other fields of endeavor outside farming all together. That means that as less chocolate is produced, a growing population might well be faced with the prospect of synthetically produced chocolates, or carob substitutes, or ever increasing expense for the real deal. And if things do get to the point where you'll be paying twenty dollars or more for a Tootsie Roll, you can bet somebody will try to form the OPEC of chocolate. Hell, a Hershey Bar would become a trading commodity, a staple of the futures market.

But there might be help on the horizon. Since scientists have recently cracked the chocolate genome, hell I might be able to grow the shit right here in Kentucky some day.

Yep, good old Kentucky chocolate. Nothing better.

Parents Teach Your Children

How can you be sure you can send your children to a university that doesn't tolerate the viewpoints of the rabid right? After all, as a leftist, you want to be sure your children are taught the same values that you hold dear. You know in your heart of hearts the government has an obligation to make sure that everyone is equal and that every one adheres to the progressive doctrine of tolerance and diversity. After all, such values are the hallmarks of a civilized society, and it is the proper place of educators to pave the way by reinforcing in your children these progressive values by which you live your life and by which you have raised them.

Well, you need fear no more. If someone attempts to oppose the progressive agenda at your child's university, they can be banned, or maybe even prosecuted, for bullying.

It might seem harsh and unfair to some, but after all, we have to first and foremost make sure our universities maintain a healthy learning environment, where our children are free from the unscrupulous manipulation of those who would indoctrinate them against our most precious and heart-felt values.

Conservatives love America as it was in the past, despite its imperfections, and even love it for what it is now. Progressives see this as maudlin sentimentality and backward thinking. Progressives are more forward thinking and visionary. They love America for what it can be, once they succeed in remaking it in their image.

In other words, they love an America that has never existed.

And hopefully never will.

Healthy Choices

Obama looks poised to ruin the next holiday season, if n0t this one, by signing a bill into law that would severely limit school bake sales, or more specifically what kinds of foods can be sold at them. This is an initiative promoted by First Lady Michelle Obama to encourage healthier food "choices" on behalf of the nation's children.

Just how close is the First Lady to Bill Clinton anyway? After all, this is one of his pet projects. Well, him and Rachael Raye. Bill Clinton, Rachael Raye, Michelle Obama, and I think Mrs. Dennis Kucinich was brought in as a part of the deal President Obama made with Kucinich in return for his support for the Health Care Bill.

That's one hell of a cabal. The eating choices of schoolchildren determined by people who probably shouldn't be allowed within one mile of a school.

The Awful Truth

Whips And Chains (And Fuzzy Pink Handcuffs)

Andrew Breitbart might be on to a good idea here. Since the repeal of DADT, we now have the opportunity to utilize what might be our greatest possible weapon against Islamic radicals, such as Al Queda and the Taliban-homosexuals.

There is no single group of people who are more anti-gay than fundamentalist Muslims, which unfortunately seem to make up the majority of the religion's adherents, regardless of whether or not most of them can be legitimately classified as terrorists or terrorist sympathizers (although they are most certainly at the very least enablers).

This article from Der Spiegel relates just how bad homosexuals have it in Iraq. Oftentimes their genitals are cut off and their anuses stuffed with glue. And here is another post that relates how they are openly executed for the "crime" of homosexuality.

The most insane part of it is homosexuality between adult men and prepubescent boys is deemed acceptable. And even a man who dominates another man sexually is safe. It is only the passive partner who is deemed guilty of "effeminacy" and thus subject to a potential death sentence.

We may be on to something here. When some Islamic radical leader is captured, have him interrogated by two gays. One can be the "good cop", the other one the "bad cop". The bastard will probably spew out everything he knows before either one has to lay a hand on him.

Of course, liberals will object because that would be tantamount to "torture".

Run For Your Life

Best. Beatles. Cover. Evah! Not only that, this is better than the original. This guy is a frakin' genius.

Scenes FromThe Walking Dead

Above is a panel from the graphic novel The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman, which is now a series on AMC and recently concluded its first season. I only caught the last two episodes of The Walking Dead, so missed the first four episodes. This is from the first episode.



This is the so-called "Bicycle Girl" scene, also from the first episode. If you have to meet a zombie, it should always be one with no legs. That scene alternates with one of a man in his home with his son, waiting for the opportunity to kill his now zombie wife. He has no trouble shooting the myriads of others that come into range of his rife, but when his wife comes into view, he can't seem to do it.



It's too bad this season only had six episodes, but in a way, its good. Its a sign that AMC probably wanted to invest heavily into top notch production values, but couldn't see their way clear to invest in more than six of them. Now that the series has proven to be a big hit, there will probably be more episodes next season, which unfortunately won't be until late next year, I think October.

When they return, I hope they put more emphasis on the zombie menace like they did in these two segments. In the last two episodes, which are the only ones I saw, they were more focused on the human survivors. This is understandable to a point, but the zombie action was still too sparse from my taste.

It was explained as some kind of virus that killed the personality of the original person, leaving them brain dead except for the brain stem, leaving them in effect more animal than human, dead but reanimated and acting solely out of pure instinct, with a ravenous hunger for living flesh.

That doesn't quite square with the little girl zombie in the first segment stooping to pick up her teddy bear, which would seem to hint some retention of prior human attachments. Oh well, dramatic license and all.

There's so many directions this thing can go. What if a woman gave birth to a dead baby, or it died in her arms while she slept and started gnawing on her? For that matter, what if it died in her womb?

How about a human-zombie love affair? It should definitely be living male human to zombie female. Sepsis as a sexually transmitted disease would just be wrong on every level.

I'm kidding, of course. Here's a run-down of the first episode.

And here is a review of the graphic novell on which the series is based.

And I just have to include this video by Kirby Krackle, called Zombie Apocalypse.

Austrian Man Fined For Yodeling (Hint-He Has Muslim Neighbors)

This is hard to believe, but a jury in Austria just found a man guilty of insulting the religion of his Islamic neighbors-by yodeling. They fined him 700 Euros, for yodeling while he was mowing his yard. He claimed the thought that he might have been insulting his neighbors never crossed his mind. He was just yodeling while mowing because he was in a good mood.

So in what way can yodeling be interpreted as an insult to Islam? Well, the Austrian's Muslim neighbors thought he was making fun of the Islamic call to prayer.

So, let's look at it. Here's an Austrian woman named Ernestine yodeling in a song-



And now, here's the Muslim call to prayer in Istanbul-



Yeah, come to think of it, there is a similarity, but I think its off the charts insane to fine an Austrian citizen, in Austria, for doing something Austrians have been doing for centuries, by deciding the man was obviously indulging in an old Austrian tradition to be provocative towards members of a group that have just recently moved to their country and gone out of their way to be obnoxious assholes, pretty much like these clowns do everywhere they go.

But hey, that's just me.

Must Be Santa

Any old hippy from the 1960's will tell you, half the fun of listening to a Bob Dylan song was wondering just what he was really saying. What was the hidden meaning behind those cryptic lyrics?

Well now, thankfully, Bob has taken the fun to a whole new level for the YouTube generation. In this video, something inexplicable happens that seems out of place to the general setting and mood of the song.

Now all those old hippies can gather at the local Starbucks and expound, theorize, and philosophize as to "what was Bob saying here?"

Or you can just enjoy the video.



H/T Maggie's Farm

Victory And Defeat

Ed Schulz on his execrable MSNBC program The Ed Show has taken to excoriating John Boehner, the Republican House Majority Leader soon to become Speaker of The House of Representatives, for his propensity to cry, notably during discussions of The American Dream. Schulz blames Boehner and the Republicans for the country's problems and for "throwing working families under the bus" even going so far as to say his crying during a recent Barbara Walter's interview is a sign of a guilty conscience. Walter's co-host on The View like to infer that Boehner is just emotionally unstable. And of course liberal Democrats fall in line behind this rhetoric, and excuse it on the grounds that conservatives would be worse if Obama or Pelosi were to break down in tears. Some even point out how conservatives were cruelly derisive of Hillary Clinton when she broke down and cried following her loss in the Iowa caucus during her 2008 run for the Democratic nomination.

I would like to point out a major difference between Hillary and John Boehner which should be mind-numbingly obvious to any with the brains of Ray Bolger's Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz.

Boehner cried when his party, not just him, made their biggest electoral gains in several decades.

Hillary Clinton cried when she lost. When she lost her first caucus.

When that happened, Hillary Clinton lost the first important test of her candidacy during a primary season, prior to which she had been hailed for about two years as the all-but presumptive Democratic Party nominee for President in 2008. It was but the first of a series of long, hard fought primary season contests that she would lose, leading to her ultimate defeat and the corresponding ascension of Obama as Democratic nominee. Hillary had to know that her first defeat in Iowa was but a portent, an ominous foreshadowing of what promised to be a long, hard fought and bruising primary campaign season, one in which she was no longer assured of the victory she had come to feel was hers for merely the asking.

When it looked as though she might also fall to defeat in New Hampshire, it was too much for her. For a few brief seconds, she lost her composure, the steely, hard resolve for which she was noted, and she was overcome with a sense of emotional insecurity that actually revealed her to be more human than many might have suspected. Ironically, it actually helped her. She ended up winning the New Hampshire primary, and went on to score other victories. But in the end, she lost, as she feared she might that night two years ago when she broke down for just a few brief seconds, and lost her composure.

But her tears, despite her stated anxiety about those things she feared she would never accomplish, seem based on disappointment at the loss of the opportunity to extend the Clinton legacy of power and influence through yet a third presidential term.

Contrast this to John Boehner, whose tears were not tears of disappointment in the face of a crushing defeat, but instead were tears of gratitude and humility in the face of an overwhelming sense of responsibility entrusted by the American people not just in him, but in the party of which he is a leader. John Boehner came up the hard way, through hard work and dedication, working at menial labor jobs and rising from there to become a successful, even a wealthy businessman. He doesn't just trust and have faith in the American Dream. He has lived the American Dream. He has experienced it first hand, and knows what it can do for a person who puts enough of his blood, sweat, and tears into pursuing it. He also knows there is always the possibility of failure. He wants government to not interfere with it. Unfortunately, John Boehner knows that the government, thanks to a series of ill-advised policies, many implemented in some cases with the best of intentions, has for far too many people made the American Dream measurably harder to achieve. In some cases, it has outright crushed that dream.

John Boehner knows full well that he has the power to do one of two things. As House Majority Speaker, he can be a major influence towards restoring the American Dream to its former level of greater attainment by those with the potential to strive for success. Or, he can accede to policies that will continue to strangle that potential for greater and increased success for greater numbers of people. That has got to be an awesome responsibility, an awesome weight to hoist upon ones shoulders. He knows it is going to be hard. He knows it is going to be one set of long, hard battles after another, with some failures, and maybe few victories.

But you see, John Boehner will fight those battles to the end, and he will do it with all the strength he can muster. Because John Boehner, unlike Hillary Clinton, is not just fighting for his own sense of entitlement, of self=aggrandizement, for ever greater personal power and influence.

No, John Boehner is fighting for something greater, much greater than himself, or for that matter, much greater than the Republican or Democratic Parties.

He is fighting to keep the Dream alive, and he knows its life might well depend on what he does. Or maybe on what he doesn't do, as Speaker of the House of Representatives.

If he breaks down and cries from time to time from being overcome with the emotion inherent in such an awesome responsibility, I can not only forgive it, I can appreciate it.

At least I know he gives a damn.

Sarah Palin's Alaska

I finally got around to watching a few episodes of Sarah Palin's Alaska the other night, and to tell you the truth its hard for me to fault Kate Goslin's performance for her guest-starring stint on the show. If you have never watched the show and decide to give it a shot, let me give you some good advice. You are going to want to make sure you are as close as possible to a soft, comfortable bed with the thickest, warmest blanket you can find.

Not because the show is so boring it will put you to sleep. Far from it. No, its because by the time you get through one episode you will be fucking exhausted just from watching it. And cold.

I have always imagined Alaska to be a land of scenic beauty and wonder, one of the last great nature refuge's on earth. And I'm sure it is, but you might not notice that from this series. Here, Alaska seems like a lonely, cold, and desolate place.

In one episode, Sarah and family visit a woman who lives in a large trailer way off somewhere in a secluded area, more than one hundred miles from her nearest neighbors. She related how one night when out foraging she was attacked by a bear which grabbed her by the head and dragged her off. As the Palin's felt her head and remarked on the evidenced left by the bear's crushing jaw, she related how she later sewed her head up by herself. Something's missing here, I thought. How did she get away from the bear? I never heard her explain, but I might have missed it running for the aspirin.

The main thing to remember about this show is-these people. Never. Stop. It's sunup to sundown activity. In an earlier episode, they went fishing, not with rod and reel, but to check their salmon nets. After one dry run, they went back the next day and took in a hefty haul. I shivered every time Todd or his partner reached into that frigid water to pull that thing in.

Todd is trying to train son Track to take over the family fishing business, but unfortunately, the Palin's son has-during his sojourn in Iraq-grown soft and lazy. He and his buddy neglected to clean up the tool shed, which they left in the biggest mess you could possible imagine. They were roused out of their sleep by little sister Piper some time after Todd and Sarah discovered the transgression and, sure enough, took it on themselves to clean up.

"No, please don't", I moaned to myself. "Please, take it easy. I can't take anymore."

But they just kept on. Not just Sarah and Todd, but the whole family. In that same episode, the middle girl, Willow, was up to her elbows in fish blood helping some of the other extended family members prepare dinner. And this, by the way, was on her birthday.

Her sweet sixteen birthday.

All of them were there, and all of them were working, constantly. This might sound like a put down, but its not. If anything, this show is proof positive that these people are the real deal. If Sarah becomes President, don't worry about her not being up for the job, or taking too many vacations. I seriously wonder if any of them even know what the word vacation means, in addition to other words, such as rest, relax, etc.

I am not exaggerating when I say that if I could go back in time one hundred years or so and tell the story of one of these programs around a campfire, by the time I was finished somebody would say "okay its my turn. Once there was this giant lumberjack with a big blue ox."

There are two different fallacies regarding Sarah Palin. One group thinks of her in negative terms, that she's a hick, or an opportunist, or that she's inexperienced and unqualified for high public office. One recent example of this is Aaron Sorkin, who recently penned a rant for the Huffington Post in which he criticized Sarah's apparent delight in killing animals, even though he admitted he himself was a meat eater. Apparently he thinks people that produce meat for supermarkets and restaurants wait until the animal dies of old age.

More to the point, these kinds of people are typical of the elitist, snobbish buffoons who like to portray themselves as the pillars of society. They know in reality that their lifestyle requires the hard work and sacrifice of other, and even the shedding of blood in some instances. They just don't want to have to know about it in detail, and in fact, they have a visceral reaction to the very people their very lives depend on. They want to pretend that they are too civilized, above all that, while people who live the life of the Palins are to their way of thinking too common, too crude, to regard seriously as their equals, when the fact of the matter is, people like the Palins are their superiors in every way that matters.

But there is another group of people who are just as deluded, and that is the people who think Palin is "just like us". Okay, in the sense that there are certain intrinsic values she might share, yes. But believe me, there is nothing ordinary or average about Sarah Palin.

The last thing I saw before I stopped watching was Sarah and an older in-law waiting to kill a caribou once it got in range, until it stopped and seemed to stare in their direction. "Something's wrong", whispered the older man.

Yeah, I think I know what that something was. That caribou stopped in his tracks and was thinking "Oh fucking dammit, I see a Palin at seven o'clock!"

I never saw how that turned out either. By that time my bones were so cold and sore, and I was so exhausted, I had to crawl off to bed.

Meow

No sooner do I get hooked on the new AMC zombie program The Walking Dead than the first season comes to an abrupt end, after only six episodes. Now I find myself in need of a zombie fix. Okay then-

Don't Ask, Don't Tell-Don't Tread!

Now that West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin has managed to derail the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, joining a filibuster with 39 Republicans, its probably a pretty safe bet the law won't be repealed for at least another two years. Manchin explained that he was not sure where his West Virginia constituents stand on the subject. I think he might have been kidding.

For my own part, I'm mixed on the subject, but Ann Coulter makes a great point when she decries the recent Pentagon poll as pretty meaningless as a gauge of military attitudes. That poll was skewed by the presence of non-military, non-combat related civilian branches and employees of the Pentagon. The actual military branches which would be most affected are dead set against repeal. This is especially true of the Marines, and it is a predominant attitude throughout the ranks. Asking the opinion of the Pentagon would be about as relevant as a poll of the members of Cirque du Soleil on this subject.

The military is politicized enough as it is. Democrats especially love to turn the military and its soldiers into political footballs, crying to the heavens about how they love and respect our men and women in uniform, yet insisting they go way beyond the call of duty to save civilian lives even at greater risk to their own, imposing unrealistic and outrageously strict codes of conduct against the most savage and barbaric of foes, and in myriad other ways limiting their success if not outright derailing it. They then use that lack of success as a political stick with which to whack Republicans up the side of the head. In the meantime, the bloody carcasses of our military casualties becomes a red meat they throw to their leftist base.

That is why we have not yet won in Afghanistan, and probably will not, and that is also why it took so long to achieve real progress in Iraq. I would personally discourage any young man or woman, especially a member of my family, from serving in any branch of the military. As a member of the armed forces you get unbounded respect from most of the general public, but you get next to none from the people who send you into harms way. This is especially true of the ones that have a "d" after their names.

The policy of Don't Ask Don't Tell is just another distraction from what is the real issue. Gays themselves are just another kind of cannon fodder to the Democratic Party, just another group of pawns the Democrats try to manipulate as cynically and as cravenly as the establishment Republicans try to manipulate Christian conservatives.

The real issue isn't should gays be allowed to serve openly in the military. The real issue is why would they want to serve openly or otherwise. The real issue is, why the hell would anybody want to?

I favor making the military a fourth co-equal branch of government myself, but that's a post for another day. For now I'll just suffice it to say they should have their own policies regarding who they allow to serve and under what conditions, and the civilian branch, the Pentagon and even the President and Congress should butt the hell out of it. They've done enough damage to our armed forces as it is, to say nothing of the psychological and physical damage to individual members of the military. They have served their country honorably at great sacrifice of life and limb. In some cases they will never recover from the mental and emotional turmoil to which they have been subjected, not only by foreign enemies but by mostly Democrat politicians who in some cases have enabled if not outright engineered their difficulties for political purposes, with tragic consequences.

For those same Democrats to then use the despair and tragedy they have wreaked upon our soldiers as a political issue and an excuse to even further oppose their missions while claiming out of the other side of their mouths that they only have their welfare and best interests in mind goes beyond the realm of insult. It's pure, unadulterated treason under the hypocritical guise of building a better, more just society and world. Its about time they were called on their bullshit, not allowed to hijack the legitimate interests of yet another poorly represented, leftist hijacked interest group as merely another political vehicle.

The military especially should be viewed as a sacred institution, something we depend on to secure the blessings of liberty and use respectfully only when deemed necessary with our full and wholehearted support. It should have a special places in our hearts and prayers, put on a very special pedestal, a place of honor. It should never be cynically manipulated for political gain by the likes of the craven politicians of both parties who have poisoned and perverted this nation's values.