"Alt-conservative"* publisher's purse dog pees on American Sniper for the team

By the way, "alt-conservatism" is the ideological equivalent of hermaphrodism or transgenderism, the gambit that some creature somewhere - a marmot, a penguin - will still be available to date you on Saturday night. Or, as in the case of this and TAC, that at least someone will buy your product.

Anyway, go here for the golden shower. If you don't already know who Chris Kyle is, educate yourself.

As usual, there is a wrapper and a payload.

The wrapper is two "niggling" gripes about the movie: an insufficiently realistic baby and a scene where it appears to be daylight in two distantly separated places simultaneously. The latter of these "goofs" as they are commonly known in IMDB leads to the payload:

If a filmmaker takes that kind of liberty with astronomy, one wonders what other details he has twisted.

Taking that kind of liberty with astronomy. Positively Ptolemaic. Best we flee while we still can.

Well, wonder no more, marmot. Skip the movie and instead either read "Peter [giving] it a B+ over on FrontRow", or better yet, read a story about "strange lies" Chris Kyle allegedly told someone. Alas, no Page 3 girl, penguin.

This is what Chris Kyle's heroic life and tragic murder are to alt-conservatives: product, in this case lipstick for a chihuahua, at best.

Give the purse dog a call, marmots and penguins; he's obviously lonely.

UPDATE (as they say): Contra pursedog (r), Paul Rieckhoff.

"Open up; Everything's waiting for you"

The live versions were of such low quality, so here's the studio version. Kicks.

I was going to post Stay With Me by Faces for F but I'd already posted that at least once. Then I thought about a Peter Frampton tune, but that was a little bit poppy for my mood. So it had to be Fleetwood Mac; I think that's where the initials "FM" come from. Or it should have.

"The ends do not justify the means"

Not sure I agree with everything in Mr. Abdul-Jabar's article about MLK, but this part is spot-on:

He [MLK] would have also been disturbed by the violence and rioting that has occurred during these protests. We must remember that Dr. King’s cause was not just equality for all people, but achieving that equality through nonviolence. The ends do not justify the means; the means and the ends are the same. Violence insults his legacy. To him, anything won through force is not won at all — it is loss. He wanted equality achieved through love because he wanted to win over his enemies, not defeat them. As he said: “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.” His goal was to cleanse the community, not to cleave it.

Amen to that.

"We will never be here again."

Political Correctness is not correct; Muhammad was not a prophet

Dennis Prager has mentioned this on his show many times, and I'm glad it is in print now. Catholics like Ross Douthat have been saying and writing "The Prophet Muhammad" for years now, and it was irksome for me to hear Michael Medved, who is Jewish, refer to the founder of Islam as a prophet the other day. Excerpt:

When Jesus is mentioned, the media never refer to him as "Christ, the Lord" or as "the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." Just "Jesus." In fact, "A.D." ("anno Domini" -- "year of our Lord") has been completely dropped by the very academics and media who always write "The Prophet Muhammad."

When the media discuss Joseph Smith, the founding prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormon Church), they don't refer to him as "the Prophet Joseph Smith." Why not? Is there a single difference between his title and roles in Mormonism and Muhammad's in Islam?

And Jews refer to Moses as "Moshe Rabbeinu," Moses our Teacher. Why don't the media?

This was not the case in the past. When I studied Islam and Arabic in college, professors referred to the founder of Islam as "Muhammad." And virtually none of the great biographies of Muhammad -- even among those recommended on Muslim websites -- have the words "the Prophet Muhammad" in their title.

There is only one possible reason and that is Political Correctness -- Western elites bending over backwards on behalf of Muslims and Islam in ways they never would for another religion.

The reason that Islam gets special treatment is that Islam breeds fear of one kind or another in anyone treating with it. It is a religion almost entirely spread by the sword since it doesn't really offer anything different than other religions to anyone without a penchant for superiority or violence. To those brought up in the religion there is a fear of leaving, to those outside the religion... well, need we said anything more than no-go zones?

Daphne now lives in Boca Raton...

"...with her third husband, a retired orthopedic surgeon." Of course she does! Hilarious. Dan Meth scores again with this "Where are they now" bit for the "cast" of Scooby Doo.

"A divider and an obstructionist"

Yep, that describes President Barack "I'm going to veto your first bill" Obama. Excerpt:

Obama has the ability to rhetorically present both sides of every issue. But he also has a habit of ultimately coming down on the left side. He's a liberal at heart. But there's more to it than that. Obama fans are loathe to admit it, but the president can be a divider, and an obstructionist.

If Obama were really concerned about bridging the gap, he wouldn't reflexively promise to veto the first piece of legislation presented to him by this new Congress. Doing so doesn't exactly demonstrate that he heard the message voters sent him in November when, yes, his policies were on the ballot, and yes, they were rejected. But perhaps more importantly, passing Keystone would be a gesture of goodwill to a new Congress. It might actually restore some small modicum of hope in the American people that their government can get something done — that we aren't predestined to suffer gridlock and obstructionism. And heck, half his party already wants Keystone, anyway.

Je suis

For those times you want to be sure your moral courage covers every clickable possibility.