Squirming in Their Own Pile of Poo

 More Woes For Democrats This Fall

Western Journalism

"According to the left leaning Brookings Institute, Common Core is turning into a serious problem Democrats will have to deal with during this coming election cycle.

The socialist’s dream program has ignited a growing backlash from furious parents who don’t want their children exposed to Common Core because it is inefficient at best and inappropriately loaded with sexual content at worst. Given that Common Core has been adopted in forty five states, it will be difficult for most of those who have supported it to dodge responsibility for the mess they have created.

"Sizing the situation up, a Brookings spokesman has commented: 

“Those populist candidates are running against the Common Core, and they are going to say Washington is interfering with children’s schooling.”

Speaking in agreement, a right leaning expert said: 

“Common Core opposition is so completely grassroots, and support is so astroturf it is already becoming a primary and general election issue in everything from local school board races to gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races..” 

"The issue is “huge among mothers."

Since it will be difficult for Democrats to separate themselves from the teachers’ unions across the country that are the main proponents of the program, they will get the brunt of the coming backlash. Republicans need only say they have always opposed Common Core, or they now oppose it after seeing what it actually includes. Their Democrat opponents will be forced into either agreeing to tear it down and breaking with teachers’ unions, or continuing to support another program voters have come to hate."

It's Holy Week : Time for the Lefties to Brag About Their Accomplishments

"If you wonder why conservatives seem to carry perpetual  grievances,

it's because they know they have lost."

During my morning venture of forward observing behind enemy lines, I ran across a paragraph from Mother Jones that exemplifies the thoughts of the left and the most of the media this time of year as they ramp up there semi- annual attack on religion:

"Over the last half century, various branches of government have taken plenty of proactive steps to marginalize religion. Prayer in public school has been banned. Creches can no longer be set up in front of city hall. Parochial schools are forbidden from receiving public funds. The Ten Commandments can't be displayed in courtrooms. Catholic hospitals are required to cover contraceptives for their employees. Gay marriage is legal in more than a dozen states and the number is growing rapidly."

Lots to be proud of there; marginalizing  freedom guaranteed by the Constitution. The paragraph was embedded in an article at The Daily Kos-Hole, written by none other than the chief Kos-Hole himself, Markos Moulitsas, who blusters on about the successes of the left:

"Now they are the enemy. And with populism on the rise, why do you think Republicans are afraid to roll out their "solutions" to our problems? It's because they know their views, whether on health care or immigration or pretty much anything else, are out of touch with public opinion....."

"But if you wonder why conservatives seem to carry perpetual grievances, it's because they know they have lost. The entire world around them has left them behind. Heck, they've created an entire alternate media world in which to cocoon themselves. But they know they've lost......"

".....the only question left is how long will it be before our government truly represents the public will. And when that happens, we'll be truly able to ignore the perpetual tempter tantrum from the Right." 

What he says is not just religion, but our entire culture (with the help of the courts, not the voter) has fell into the hands of the left. And as for public opinion, we will see how the cultural revolution the left he believes is won so handily fairs in the next election. 

I believe the left has severely overplayed their hand. The pendulum always swings. There are always differences in the way things shake out. Time, place, and circumstance can alter that swing.

So much for Equality. So much for Progress.

"What I find most wretched about all this is that the more tolerant society becomes, the more desperate the race and gender hustlers become. In their determination to keep their pet victims from escaping the reservation, they spread resentment and division, and deny people an opportunity to be treated as equals. As for those of us who decry the creation of designated victim groups, our stock has steadily fallen over the years. As Thomas Sowell put it: “If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 50 years ago, a liberal 25 years ago, and a racist today.” - Russell Taylor

h/t AD 

Homopocrisy

Homopocrisy - the false profession of desirable or publicly approved qualities, beliefs, or feelings, esp. a pretense of having virtues, moral principles, or beliefs. (The Middle Finger Somewhat Concise Dictionary - Vol.II)

OH..OH wait. I thought you called people who refused.......Oh never mind.  

New York Daily News

"New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez needs a new hairdresser — or a new stance on gay marriage. Martinez was recently dropped by her hair stylist, Antonio Darden, who is gay.

Darden told a local news station that he cut the governor’s hair three times, but won’t do it again as long as she continues to oppose gay marriage. “The governor’s aides called not too long ago, wanting another appointment to come in,” he told KOB-TV. “Because of her stances and her views on this, I told her aides no. They called the next day, asking if I’d changed my mind about taking the governor in and I said no.”

Martinez has said she believes marriage should be between a man and woman. Darden, a popular stylist in Santa Fe and the owner of Antonio’s Hair Studio, has been with his partner for 15 years.

“It’s just equality, dignity for everyone,” he said. “Everybody should be allowed the right to be together.” 

 Gay marriage is not recognized in New Mexico."

It's not about "Choice" or "Life" in General

Just as there will always be people who disagree over the historical importance of the BLT sandwich, there will always be a war between those who believe human life, in its most precious and innocent form, is expendable for the sake of self-convenience and those who believe that if there is one thing society has an obligation to defend, it is the life of the unborn.

People opposed to abortion should not refer to the other side as “pro-choice” or “anti-life.” The first plays into the hand of the opposition and the second is propagandistic (or at least it sounds that way). Likewise, we should never refer to ourselves as “pro-life” (again, it sounds propagandistic) or “anti-choice” (because we actually support choice in more areas than liberals do, just not when it comes to the choice of committing acts of barbarism against future generations before they even take their first breath).

Let’s keep it simple: We are anti-abortion. The matter being fought is abortion, not “choice” and not “life” in general, but abortion. Are “pro-lifers” not also usually supportive of the death penalty? Right, so we’re anti-abortion, and we should not be ashamed of that label.

We can not stop the gay agenda, at least not in it's present  incarnation. They are visible, with legions of screaming effeminates and cross dressing banshees. The intimidated media and large business have rolled over to them. 

But we must continue to stand up for the innocence, the unborn. 

Not Quite What They Expected.....From Us Or Them

Duck Dynasty is not the show that A&E wanted,
it is the show that got away from them.

In a sense Duck Dynasty is a modern day Beverly Hillbillies. Those Hillbillies had lots of money too, a love of family, and exotic tastes in food – eating possum and gizzards and all sorts of things that we regularly see the Ducks cooking – such as squirrel and frogs. The Hillbillies series started out mocking the family that called their luxury swimming pool a “cement pond” and outsmarted by simple technologies such as phones. America however wound up falling in love with the Beverly Hillbillies and especially with the tough and zany Granny. Soon enough the joke backfired as the series converted the mockers into fans and the jokes increasingly came at the expense of the city slickers.

Duck Dynasty has Beverly Hillbillies backfire written all over it:

"It seems what the producers intended and what A&E envisioned with the show is much different than the show that they ended up with, but they didn't do anything about it because it was so wildly popular and so wildly profitable. But even with all the money, they have never really been comfortable with what happened.

 The whole idea of the show was to parade these nouveau riche Christian hillbillies around so that we could laugh at them. "Look at them," we were supposed to say. "Look how backward they are! Look what they believe! Can you believe they really live this way and believe this stuff? See how they don't fit in? HAHAHA"  

 When the producers saw the way the show was shaping up, different than they envisioned it, they tried to change course. They tried to get the Robertson's to tone down their Christianity, but to their eternal credit they refused. They tried to add fake cussin' to the show by inserting bleeps where no cussword was uttered. At best, they wanted to make the Robertson's look like crass buffoons. At worst they wanted them to look like hypocrites.

 They desperately wanted us to laugh at the Robertsons. Instead, we loved them."

Watching Phil Robertson shoot, disembowel and skin  various animals then watch Mrs. Kay cook clearly discernible squirrels and ducks and otherwise engage in a cuisine that is foreign to us is part of the Ducks “charm”. You don’t have to enjoy the cooking to appreciate the lifestyle and love the Robertsons enjoy. You don’t have to agree with the religious opinions or even like all the cast members to enjoy the company of the Duck Dynasty crew and family.

As with the Beverly Hillbillies the Duck Dynasty is all about family. This family has had trial by fire. The patriarch Phil was a drunk and all around nogoodnik who abandoned his family and caused all sorts of trouble for himself and those that loved him. Eventually Phil, because of the love and persistence of his wife, corrected course. Today, it is clear that the family not only loves but respects Phil.

When a lizard escapes in the company warehouse, it is Phil that is called. When business pressures build up after a large order that cannot be fulfilled due to lack of workers it is Kay that comes though by organizing family and friends to the rescue. At every turn, in every situation, the parents are looked up to and respected. It is something shocking to see because that is a long gone narrative on American TV.

American TV today tells only one story when it comes to family: the kids are smart and the parents are idiots. That story is told in every entertainment show, movies (ever see Home Alone?), and commercials. The parents are dopes unable to function without the wise guiding hands of the children.

And that notion even reached into 2008 presidential politics, as Barack Obama’s campaign organized the young to lecture their elders on the wisdom of electing Barack Obama.

Chicks Dig Environmentalist

I wonder if Al Gore will attend the wedding?

Charles Manson, the most notorious killer of the twentieth century, has found himself a lovely young lady who is super-excited to marry him. Rolling Stone has an in-depth feature on Manson coming out in their next issue and Wednesday they dropped the surprising news of Charlie’s engagement. Here he is sporting a new Miley Cyrus haircut with his bride-to-be:

The young woman is simply named Star, a name Manson gave her. Now 25, she started following Manson’s writing at 19 and moved to be near his prison in 2007. She was initially drawn to his pro-environmental writing, and has recently carved an X into her forehead in apparent solidarity with Charlie’s own swastika marking.

“I’ll tell you straight up, Charlie and I are going to get married,” she tells Rolling Stone. “When that will be, we don’t know. But I take it very seriously. Charlie is my husband. Charlie told me to tell you this,” she continues. “We haven’t told anybody about that.”

Charlie himself seems to be having cold feet. “Oh that,” he says he says of the pressure for marriage like a typical guy. “That’s a bunch of garbage. You know that, man. That’s trash. We’re just playing that for public consumption.”

What public consumption he means isn’t exactly clear, since the couple probably won’t be registering anywhere. At any rate, married or no, the probably won’t get any conjugal visits because as Star explains, “California lifers no longer get them.”

Time for a national discussion on race? Yeah Right.

Pendark

"We have spent the last 70 years trying to heal race relations in this country. There will be no advance in a dialog on race and race relations in this country until people of ANY color or race STOP MAKING THAT THE ONLY VALUE THEY HAVE TO THEIR COUNTRY!

Not until you stop accepting the lie of the media and realize that you have all been purposely divided and made to hate each other by a government that wants you busy fighting each other so that you cannot oppose the taking of your liberty; will the race divide EVER be healed.

Not until blacks stop accepting the lie that they are nothing and can be nothing because of the “great white oppressors," and realize that they have been sold a bill of goods that totally reverses the dream of Martin Luther King; so that they can be kept voting for the people doing it to them: can this issue ever advance.

The current administration, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton have taken you back 70 years just as the feminists of this country have set back the cause of women. But still you drink the Democrat Koolaid.

That is neither my fault, nor the fault of any white person in this country "- R. M. Bateman

Does Diversity Rock or What!

Man Meets Man, Men Become Women, Women Beat Up Women Who Want To Be Men

This is one of the few times Diogenes has needed both a calculator and the Urban Dictionary to figure out what the hell an article was about:

"In what has been described as a “horrifying” incident two women were attacked by a group of men who identified themselves as “transgender women” at the Portland State University “Law and Disorder Conference” which billed itself as a “provocative space for comparative critical dialogue between activists, revolutionaries, educators, artists, musicians, scholars, dancers, actors and writers”.

The women were attacked in a coordinated assault as they sat at a table which sold feminist books and literature. The men destroyed the books and marked up the table display with permanent markers. One of the women was also marked up by the men. Predominantly male conference onlookers by all reports allowed the attack to take place, watching in stunned silence. Two males affiliated with the same group as the feminists - Deep Green Resistance - were also in attendance and the “trans women” threw a projectile at the head of one of them.

According to reports, the transgender males or “trans women” took issue with the feminist content in the Deep Green Resistance materials. Specifically, a portion of the materials reflected the feminist position that social roles based on sex are undesirable and harmful to women........"

Now Diogenes is just a little confused as to what happened.

Notice the highlit part of the article that says the “predominantly male onlookers allowed the attack to take place.” Keep in mind that’s assuming that the male onlookers were actually male.” Diogenes would not rush to judgement on that lest I be taken as a BLTaphobe.

Also, even if the males were actually male, which they probably might or could have possibly been or not, why in the world would the onlookers defend feminists against their transgender attackers? That could, or may not possibly so or possibly not, be construed as a sexual hate crime against an oppressed group.

Best leave all the bitches alone and let them slap each other senseless until small trickles of blood drip from their collective noses.

The end.

Raising a Future Low Information Voter........

Pentagon Celebrates Gays in the Military: They're Just Fabulous!

The Washington Times  - "The Pentagon on Tuesday toasted gays in the military, with a top adviser to President Obama declaring the country is “safer” now that they may serve openly in the ranks.

“Because we repealed ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ our military … is stronger and our country is safer, more equal and more just,” said Valerie Jarrett, the keynote speaker at the Pentagon’s gay pride celebration. It was the Defense Department second annual gay pride gathering since September 2011, when Mr. Obama signed the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” a ban on gays serving openly in the military implemented during the Clinton administration."

The 7th Gay Airborne held their first annual 'Rue Paul Fabulous Fashion Purse'

400m relay near the Pentagon Auditorium.

This year’s 35-minute gathering in the Pentagon auditorium was more low-key and shorter than last year’s event, which featured a gay Marine officer, an Air Force lawyer and a lesbian West Point graduate. Wednesday’s speakers were assembled by a new group, DOD Pride, and featured three senior officials, topped by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

“We’re very proud of everything the gay and lesbian community have contributed and continue to contribute,” Mr. Hagel said. “With their service, we are moving closer to fulfilling the country’s founding vision that all of us are created equal.”

Sgt. Jay Asbee and Lt. Lee Genes of the 4th Mountain Rump Ranger Division 
observe a group of hunky British commando's returning from patrol
near Abdulville Afganistan,  hoping for some action themselves soon

 

"Eric Fanning, the Air Force undersecretary and acting Air Force secretary, noted that two years ago gays could not serve openly. Now, a secretary of defense was speaking at a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender celebration."

Navy Corpsman David Filmee and his transgender partner, seaman Danni Gripp

shoot off the submarine tender tugboat, USS Barney Frank

"Ms. Jarrett told of meeting gay service members at the White House, including a Marine Corps captain.“When he deploys in August, he’ll be taking his husband with him,” she said.
Army Reserve Brig. Gen. Tammy Smith, the first openly gay general officer, stood in the audience with her partner, to a round of applause. “Stand up. Come on,” Ms. Jarrett said. “Whoo. Whoo.”

Ms. Jarrett, one of Mr. Obama’s closest confidantes, called the repeal of the gay ban “one of the most significant civil rights accomplishments of the president's career.”

Your Tax Dollars in Action.....

Tsarnaev family received over $100,000 in taxpayer funded welfare benefits

Boston Herald

"The Tsarnaev family, including the suspected terrorists and their parents, benefited from more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance — a bonanza ranging from cash and food stamps to Section 8 housing from 2002 to 2012, the Herald has learned.

“The breadth of the benefits the family was receiving was stunning,” said a person with knowledge of documents handed over to a legislative committee today.

The state has handed over more than 500 documents to the 11-member House Post Audit and Oversight Committee, which today met for the first time and plans to call in officials from the Department of Transitional Assistance to testify."..... MORE

[SNIP] 

Until last September, the entire family was non-citizens, at least two of them were on terror watch lists, one of them had been arrested for assault, and one of them had a warrant out for her arrest for shoplifting. And they still managed to get welfare checks!

The next time you hear a liberal argue that we don’t need welfare reform or tighter immigration , link them to this article.

Dr. Lecter, You Have a Call on Line One

This week, President Obama announced a major scientific initiative that would lead us into the next great frontier: The “BRAIN” Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies). This initiative, the details of which are scarce and not yet fleshed out according to Francis S. Collins, Director of the National Institute of Health, has a price tag of $100m. It’s being sold not just as an advancement in the fields of science and medicine, but one that will, you guessed it, stimulate the economy and create jobs. One can only guess the true motivation behind the BRAIN initiative; in fact, heads of two leading neurological research organizations have called into question the goals and intentions underlying the President's proposal.

Dr. Susan Fitzpatrick of the James S. McDonnell Foundation, a leading funding source for neuroscientific research, characterized her reaction to the announcement as one of “befuddlement,” largely because she’s “not quite sure what the initiative is.” Likewise, Dr. David Hovda of the Brain Injury Research Center at UCLA said, “This sounds more like a PR splash,” promising more than it will be able to deliver, than anything of real substance.

Again, because the details of the proposal have not yet been released – and the current leaders in the neuroscience research fields haven’t been consulted on this initiative at all – one can only speculate on the objectives of the research. Left with no details on the proposal, and understanding that Congress will have to approve the funding before we can learn the details of the plan,  some may see it as just one more step Obama is taking to move us closer to the dystopian worlds of popular film and literature, where maybe the next “great” frontier will include Thought Police.

Then again, maybe the democrats just need more research on the brains of union goons and low information voters in order to encourage more.

_________________________

The Saddest Result of Our “Progressive Society"

Pendark

"Between the Zero Tolerance Nazis who jump at the chance to punish a child for even remotely pretending to play “Cops and Robbers;” and the vile excuses for “progressive and open minded thinkers,” who demonize the fetus as a burden then make sexual objects out of any child over the age of five: We have destroyed all vestige of childlike innocence.

 We drug them up to shut them up; simultaneously taking away their natural instincts because we would rather wrap them in the rainbow colored chains of political correctness than “subject them to imposed gender roles.”

 Then, we have the gall to wonder why they are stabbing each other for shoes, shooting toddlers in prams, screaming hatefully at all adults in public and cutting themselves secretly. We did this to them."

An Undecided Diogenes Reader Attempts a Decision on Voting

Undecided Lars Abdul Mendoza III

Like many Americans, I have had a difficult time deciding which candidate to support in the  Presidential election. In my view, both candidates bring little to the table and are members of political parties that have contributed to the country’s current sad state of affairs.

Some thought Obama the Jesus we never asked for, even if he was a Kenyan, socialist, abortion loving Baptist Muslim communist. Hell, Jesus was a liberal anyway. And Romney strapped a horse to the roof of his dog’s tax returns. Who does that? 


At face value, I simply can’t distinguish between the two. With this in mind, I have instead come up with a formula to help aid in my decision, and hopefully yours. Using complex mathematic algorithms and advanced scientific theories, it is possible for a voter to make an informed, confident choice when deciding who to support for president by simply applying a point system to each candidate. Following are an example of my system:

Has experience running various businesses: +1 Romney
Liquidated many of those businesses: -1 Romney

Looks athletic enough to run a marathon +1 Obama
…but smokes: -1 Obama

Mormons believe some weird-ass stuff: – 1 Romney
The Broadway show “Book of Mormon” won nine Tony awards: +1 Romney

Is a big fan of Chicago sports: +1 Obama
…but his favorite team is the White Sox: -1 Obama

Appreciates a good beer: +1 Obama
Doesn’t drink…ever: -2 Romney

The last four years: -1 Obama
The eight years before that: -1 Romney

His presidency broke through long-standing racial barriers: +1 Obama

Has endorsements of Hugo Chavez, Vladimir Putin, Cher 
and most of the mainstream media: -3 Obama

 Endorsed by Donald Trump: -2 Romney

Joe Biden: -3 Obama

So, tallying up the up the points leaves us at:

-5 Romney, -5 Obama…a tie. DAMN!

_______________________________________________

The History Revisionist are at it Again

Now they claim the Founder of the Boy Scouts was Gay

NYT's OP-ED 

"With more and more American institutions becoming inclusive and even openly gay-friendly, the Boy Scouts of America has just reaffirmed its unregenerate straights-only status: a special committee, formed in 2010, recently announced the organization's intention of sticking with the 2000 Supreme Court decision that it is within its constitutional rights to exclude gays from leadership roles. All this is richly ironic in view of the fact that the founder of the Boy Scouts, Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell (raised to the peerage as Lord Baden-Powell) was in probability a gay man himself — though closeted, of course, considering the circumstances." 

"A Victorian military hero who skyrocketed to fame after his valiant defense of the besieged city of Mafeking during the Second Boer War, Baden-Powell was one of the British Empire’s most adulated soldiers, looked to as the very model of muscular Christianity. Baden-Powell, the author of the hugely popular and influential “Scouting for Boys” (1908), inspired a national cult of manliness even as he entertained serious worry about his own sexuality....."

[SNIP]

History is being cherry picked for every hero, intellectual , creative mind or hand in history with an unusual marriage arrangement, that bore no children or remained unmarried, sometime with a close public confidant, and turned into a Rump Ranger Icon by revisionist with scant proof or no evidence at all. Perhaps these people were just smarter than we are.
Who shall it be next?

Keep reading if you can

___________________________________________

Diogenes' Man on the Street

Middle Finger News Asks:

Will Hillary Replace Joe Biden for the 2012 Election?

 

"Absolutely. I do think Obama should replace Biden with Clinton. It can only help his re-election. And if Joe Biden is looking for work, I have use for a guy who can disparage half the population in a single sentence".

Brad Nittwith - Internal Revenue Service

 "No, I don't think Biden should be replaced! Preezy Obama and Joe Biden have done a great job with the economy. Hell, back in 2007 even a King didn't have the luxury of a Vodka and Red Bull mix."
Belinda Twittel - Wal-mart Cashier

"Yes! It's about time we have a woman of Hillary's caliber in high power in this country. After all, she's single handedly brought peace to the Middle East! Suck on that Condie Rice!" 
Shelia Lovett Bigg - Public School Educator

"Means nothing to Faruk! All America is but imperialist infidel running dog jackals that will ultimately feel the sting of Allah's wrath .....Praise Be to Allah!"
Faruk Al Squworme - Taxi Driver

"You axing  Laquita? I don't know how to vote.... but if I did I'd sure nuff vote for Barack cause all the free sh*t  he gets me and my babies wiff my EBT card!.... know what I'm sayin....free cell phones and rolling papers for Dontrell.  Barack gets my 16 year old free sh*t for her two babies too!"
 Laquita Jones - Homemaker

"Get off my sidewalk you #%*+&@+ hate filled ringwing nut!"
Holota Wadsworth - Women's Reproductive Health Center Director

"Yeah. Hillary is a great Idea. Biden is the ultimate Washington insider. Obama should have picked somebody who knows absolutely nothing about politics. It might be good for Obama seeing that the people voting in the next election are going to be angry, intolerant white people. You would have to be a fool to miss a chance to vote for a beautiful smart lady like Hillary?"
Pat - Famous  Daily Kos Basement Blogger  

"Hillary for Biden? I think it's a great idea! And I really like the idea of a do-over election thing because I totally blew my first vote on Stephen Colbert last time.  I've purposely avoided upward mobility and social progress so I can benefit from all the free money I get from my trust fund."
Lance Farnsworth III - Occupy Wall Street Organizer

"Get out of my way you little worm..... 
 I said get out of my face!"
Some Angry White Guy

_____________________________________________

Nothing better than a Frappuccino at a Funeral

Coffins & Coffee: Starbucks to Open Inside Funeral Home

EASLEY, SC --Those grieving the dearly departed at Robinson Funeral Home in Easley will soon have a little something extra to soothe the pain: a cup of Starbucks' joe.

The fourth-generation funeral home and crematory is adding a new section to its existing facilities which includes business offices, a chapel, and a special wing aptly named "Coffee Corner," where soon a Starbucks will open.

The owner, Chris Robinson, explains how coffee has always been part of the family business, saying his great-grandfather started the funeral home inside a main street general store, where people would gather and drink coffee.

Robinson, who's a bit worried people will get the wrong idea about the coffee shop, says it's simply one more service for people to choose, but one that's certainly not mandatory.

"You walk in the front, and it's off to the side," Robinson said. "It's not like it's right up front."

Robinson has hired staff to run the Starbucks franchise which will be open to the public, not just to those attending services.

Starbucks will install equipment and menus at the end of July, and Robinson expects the shop to open sometime in August.

[Snip] 

I wonder if it will come with the usual Starbucks loud annoying music and perverts on their laptops using the free Wi-Fi?? 

________________________________________________________________ 

A Brief History of Useful Idiots

Diogenes - 7/5

The phenomenon of intelligent people saying stupid things about tyrants is a constant of 20th century history and continues unabated into the 21st.

Take Mussolini for instance. You might think he was just a blustering fool in a fez, but once upon a time many people took him very seriously. I learned once from my history teacher that Churchill had spoken approvingly of the black shirts in the 1920s. This week I was reading a biography of the first Fascist and learned that Winston was not alone. Franklin Roosevelt praised the Italian dictator as a gentleman; Chiang Kai-shek asked for a signed photograph; and even Gandhi (yes lovely, non-violent, vegetable-munching Gandhi) described him as the “Savior of Italy.” Hmmmm. That’ll be the guy who let his soldiers use live Ethiopians for target practice and ended his political career shipping Jews to Hitler for extermination? All right then!

The USSR under Stalin is a Klondike of intellectual embarrassment and/or mendacity, ranging from the reporting of Walter Duranty, the Pulitzer Prize Winner who defended Stalin’s show trials and denied the Ukrainian famine, to the bumptious witterings of George Bernard Shaw who in 1932 declared (as millions were starving) that reports of a famine in the USSR were “nonsense.” How did he know? “I have never eaten as well as during my trip to the Soviet Union.”

It was Lenin who first identified the genus of Western intellectual known as “the useful idiot,” but it was Stalin who showed how incredibly easy it was to seduce them: a free holiday, dinner, a little flattery and wa-hey- the knickers are off! But then Stalin died, the USSR became much less violent and the useful idiots lost interest.

Searching for a new utopia, many pinned their hopes on revolutionary Cuba, where a bearded mega-bore named Fidel Castro was in the process of transforming a corrupt satellite of America into a corrupt satellite of the USSR, even poorer and less free than before. Like Papa Joe, Fidel knew how to flatter and soon he had the likes of Picasso, Norman Mailer and Susan Sontag (“the Cuban revolution is astonishingly free of repression”) eating out of his palm. My favorite Castro quote comes from Abbie Hoffman, a justly forgotten 60s radical bed-wetter who compared Castro to… well, read for yourself:

“Fidel sits on the side of a tank rumbling into Havana on New Year’s Day… girls throw flowers at the tank and rush to tug playfully at this black beard. He laughs joyously and pinches a few rumps. .. He is like a mighty penis coming to life, and when he is tall and straight, the crowd immediately is transformed.”

Then there was Castro’s pal, Wee Ernie Guevara, a totalitarian loon who praised Mao, invaded the Congo and died in Bolivia after attempting to inspire revolution among people he knew nothing about. Jean-Paul Sartre declared him “the most complete human being of our age.”

Speaking of Mao, he had his celebrity admirers, too. In 1973, Shirley MacLaine, who was very good in The Apartment with Jack Lemmon, went on a tour of some Potemkin villages in China and wrote a glowing report afterwards. She was especially approving of the absence of advertising billboards, and the general atmosphere of calm which left her feeling “serene.” She never thought that perhaps China was quiet because 60 million people had just been murdered and everyone was very, very scared. Mao was a big hit among 60s students and one of his erstwhile fanboys, Jose Manuel Barroso, is today president of the European Commission.

But Mao and Castro weren’t the only totalitarian despots considered groovy in the 60s and 70s. Eldridge Cleaver, a prominent Black Panther leader, declared that while America was a hell-hole of oppression, North Korea under Kim Il-sung was the best place in the world. In the run up to the Iranian revolution, Michel Foucault, a Frenchman, paid several visits to Iran and later praised the “political spirituality” of the Ayatollah Khomeini who, given the chance, would have had him executed for his homosexuality.

And so on, and so on. These days, it’s not quite as bad though I hear Hitler has his fans in the Middle East and Hollywood morons, inspired by 60s nostalgia, still show up in Cuba from time to time. But it’s hard to find the pure strain of tyrant admiration, though for a while I was fascinated by a blog entitled Reflections on the Ruhnama, written by “Steve from Wisconsin” who apparently took at face value all the gibberish the deceased Turkmen tyrant Saparmurat Niyazov had scrawled with a colored crayon in his notorious book.

Maybe it has something to do with the loss of religious faith. You know, these intellectuals no longer believe in paradise, so they project their yearning for redemption onto some exotic place, then climb through the wardrobe of their imaginations and emerge in magical lands governed by wise talking lions. Yes, I like that, though surely vanity also comes into it. It pleases certain intellectuals to adopt counter-intuitive positions, believing it gives them “depth” and “sophistication.” And thus clever people are often the easiest to fool.

And what about today.....Just look around.

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The Lost Fossils of Charles Darwin

LONDON – British scientists have found scores of fossils the great evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin and his peers collected but that had been lost for more than 150 years. Dr. Howard Falcon-Lang, a paleontologist at Royal Holloway, University of London, said Tuesday that he stumbled upon the glass slides containing the fossils in an old wooden cabinet that had been shoved in a "gloomy corner" of the massive, drafty British Geological Survey.

The first slide pulled out of the dusty corner at the British Geological Survey turned out to be one of the specimens collected by Darwin during his famous expedition on the HMS Beagle, which changed the young Cambridge graduate's career and laid the foundation for his subsequent work on evolution."It took me a while just to convince myself that it was Darwin's signature on the slide," the paleontologist said, adding he soon realized it was a "quite important and overlooked" specimen. The slides -- "stunning works of art," according to Falcon-Lang -- contain bits of fossil wood and plants ground into thin sheets and affixed to glass in order to be studied under microscopes. Some of the slides are half a foot long (15 centimeters), "great big chunks of glass," Falcon-Lang said.

"How these things got overlooked for so long is a bit of a mystery itself," he mused, speculating that perhaps it was because Darwin was not widely known in 1846 so the collection might not have been given "the proper curatorial care.".....Read More

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