The Old Testament is a bitch

Stay classy, Israel.

This "protest" in Tel Aviv begins with the crowd chanting their hatred for Ahmad Tibi, an Israeli Arab politician and physician . . . and member of the Knesset. In fact, he's deputy speaker of the Israeli legislative body.

"I wanted you to know the next child to get hit is yours. . . . I hate Tibi the Terrorist!" the protesters chant. "Tibi! Dead! Tibi! Dead!"

Then after calling for all Arab Israelis to be stripped of their citizenship, the crowd unveils another pithy chant about the military strike against Gaza:

"There's no school tomorrow. There are no children left there!"

AND THEN you have the ongoing vigilante attacks against Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. . . .

For the life of me, I can't imagine why Palestinians would want to fire rockets at a country where this is just another "slice of life." Funded in large part, by the way, by American tax dollars.

What could go wrong?

IN A LAND where the bloodiest parts of the Old Testament are never forgotten -- and, indeed, are still as new as tomorrow's sunrise -- it's always Mississippi 1959. With Palestinian suicide bombers and rockets and Israeli bombs and missiles.

For all this country's faults and sins, at least the U.S. government never bankrolled the Ku Klux Klan or the Black Panthers. At least not in this country.

Hate is not a family value. Right?

So . . . do you think this might be a case where politically correct types, in a frenzy to wipe out "hate" -- I'm sorry, H8 -- have fostered hate against the "haters" in the name of "love," only to encourage a hate crime?

If that indeed is the case with the shooting today at what some regard as H8 Central, otherwise known as the Family Research Council in Washington, it would be the most unsurprising thing in the world. When you begin to dehumanize the "haters" in the service of what you hold as a righteous crusade of liberation, you not only have just made yourself indistinguishable from your enemy but you also have unleashed a darkness unlimited by ideology.

The darkness doesn't know "rights."

It could care less about "justice."

Diversity? Homogeneity? It's all the same to the abyss.

I WOULD IMAGINE the extent of one's outrage over the events reported by The Associated Press today is largely determined by which side of the culture war you're fighting for. We're Americans, and that's what Americans do these days.

An armed man walked into the Washington headquarters of a conservative Christian lobbying group Wednesday morning and was confronted by a security guard, whom he shot in the arm before the guard and others wrestled him to the ground, authorities said.

The man was taken into custody by the FBI and was being interviewed. Authorities did not identify the man or disclose where he was being interviewed. The guard was taken to a hospital in stable condition.

FBI spokeswoman Jacqueline Maguire said the man got into an altercation with the guard. However, police and FBI officials said it's too early to know the circumstances of the shooting, which occurred around 10:45 a.m. at the headquarters of the Family Research Council, or whether it was connected to the group's activities.

"We don't know enough yet about him ... or mentally what he's thinking," said James McJunkin, assistant director in charge of the FBI's Washington field office.

The Family Research Council confirmed in a statement that the security guard was employed by the group.

"Our first concern is with our colleague who was shot today," the group's president, Tony Perkins, said in a statement.

The Family Research Council advocates conservative positions on social issues and strongly opposes gay marriage and abortion.

DID I MENTION that FRC head Tony Perkins had been strongly supportive of Chick Fil-A and the stance of its president, Dan Cathy, against same-sex marriage?

I wonder what the Buchanan Obama Administration will have to say about ginning up the hate -- sorry again . . . H8 -- to the point where some start to think the final solution is some version of a Final Solution?


NEVER MIND.

America's Caucasian problem

Your average Caucasian American

(Photo//Paul M. Walsh)

Apparently, the United States has a major Caucasian crime problem.

I mean, get a load of these alarming statistics in an opinion piece by MSNBC political analyst Edward Wyckoff Williams, recently reprinted in the Louisiana Weekly, New Orleans' African-American newspaper:

The truth? As the largest racial group, whites commit the majority of crimes in America. In particular, whites are responsible for the vast majority of violent crimes. With respect to aggravated assault, whites led Blacks 2-1 in arrests; in forcible-rape cases, whites led all racial and ethnic groups by more than 2-1. And in larceny theft, whites led Blacks, again, more than 2-1.

Given this mathematical truth, would anyone encourage African Americans to begin shooting suspicious white males in their neighborhoods for fear that they’ll be raped, assaulted or murdered? Perhaps George Zimmerman’s defenders should answer that question. If African Americans were to act as irrationally as Zimmerman did, would any rationale suffice to avoid arrest?

(snip)

It seems that the media in general and white American society in particular prefer to focus on crime perpetrated by African Americans because it serves as a way to absolve them from the violence, prejudice and institutionalized discrimination engendered for generations against Blacks. It offers a buffer against responsibility, a way to shift blame and deflect cause and effect. But the truth, and numbers, tell a different story.

NO DOUBT about it, this "mathematical truth" certainly gives one pause.

I cannot conceive of any rationale that possibly could justify arresting any black American who did any damn thing to a dangerous Caucasian, the raw crime numbers being what they are. I mean, when you have a white population 5.74 times as large as the U.S. black population raping and committing larceny TWICE as much as blacks -- hell, getting arrested period twice as much as blacks -- I don't see how the government just doesn't lock up every last damn cracker on the probabilities alone.

Naturally, some people may be scratching their heads at what they see as a crazy and illogical notion, but that's just because their math is racist.

Oh . . . and as Walker Percy once famously wrote, "The center did not hold."

Help! Help! The mobs are being repressed!

Whatever the Trayvon Martin shooting was in February, chances are it wasn't a hate crime.

Whatever the Trayvon Martin killing was that cold and rainy night, it wasn't premeditated. Prosecutors admitted that much by not filing first-degree murder charges against George Zimmerman.

But a lot of things being done in the young "martyr's" name absolutely have been premeditated. And they absolutely were hate crimes.

ONE OF the latest happened Saturday in Mobile, Ala. The story comes from WKRG television there:

According to police, Owens fussed at some kids playing basketball in the middle of Delmar Drive about 8:30 Saturday night. They say the kids left and a group of adults returned, armed with everything but the kitchen sink.

Police tell News 5 the suspects used chairs, pipes and paint cans to beat Owens.

Owens' sister, Ashley Parker, saw the attack. "It was the scariest thing I have ever witnessed." Parker says 20 people, all African American, attacked her brother on the front porch of his home, using "brass buckles, paint cans and anything they could get their hands on."

Police will only say "multiple people" are involved.

What Parker says happened next could make the fallout from the brutal beating even worse. As the attackers walked away, leaving Owen bleeding on the ground, Parker says one of them said "Now that's justice for Trayvon." Trayvon Martin is the unarmed teenager police say was shot and killed February 26 by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida.

BACK IN FLORIDA this past winter, it's probably true that Zimmerman profiled Martin because of his age, gender . . . and race.

Given what's happened since that day in February -- not to mention the daily diet of violent-crime reports on TV and in the newspaper -- why do you think that might have been? It doesn't make profiling any less sad. Nor does it make profiling any less regrettable.

But it sure as hell makes it quite understandable.

In the real world, thugs don't get to complain about brutality. And unjust, violent mobs don't get to whine about injustice. That dog won't hunt.

Justice for Walgreens!

I just love how principled and socially conscious today's young people are, don't you?

When faced with the senseless shooting death of a Miami teenager amid questionable circumstances, these south Florida high-school youth responded by giving the rest of us a much-needed lesson in civics. A lesson in responsibly seeking redress of societal grievances.

They peacefully and respectfully demonstrated in favor of a full and fair investigation of the death of Trayvon Martin, calling for racial harmony and enforcement of the law free of favor or prejudice. Bless their little hearts.

The youth remained orderly, looking straight ahead as they sang hymns while an angry white mob ransacked North Miami Beach Senior High School, pummeling and spitting upon many of the nonviolent teens.

OOPS. My bad. I was watching a web video of Eyes on the Prize while I was checking out the national news, and I got kind of confused.

Note to self: Contemporary TV news reports are never on 16-millimeter back-and-white film. It's all videotape or digital video now . . . and in living color.


THE FOOTAGE from Friday's teenage protest in North Miami Beach is immediately above. Again, my apologies for the mix-up.

No, it seems that during last week's protest, a mob of little barbarian hooligans decided that "justice for Trayvon" entailed ransacking a local Walgreens.

This is because, for one thing, being angry justifies anything in today's culture and, for another, rumor has it that George Zimmerman, the Sanford, Fla., neighborhood-watch guy who shot the youth last month, "liked" the drugstore chain on Facebook once. I think.

Local 10 television news got it straight from the junior lynch mob's mouths:

"I don't think they were doing it, like, to be malicious or whatever. They were just in the moment where they weren't really thinking right because they were so angry," said student Jenny Sincere.

"It showed bad character because that's not what we were out there for," student Eric On-Sang said. "A few just made us look really bad."

Some students admitted Tuesday to being part of the rampage.

"I'm not going to lie. I was one of the people that was pushing in there because I was mad," one student said.

When asked whether the incident may have hurt their cause, student Christopher Paul said, "Yeah, it kind of did, yeah. I was just angry. I don't know what the rest of them were doing. I was just trying to make a point for Trayvon. That's it."

WELL, so long as they were trying to make a point.

Consider it made.

A high-tech lynching

Back in the bad old days, not every victim of a white lynch mob was innocent.

History, rightly, has been no kinder to those who dragged a guilty black man off to the nearest lamp post or tree, put a rope around his neck and hanged him than its unblinking eye has been to those who did the same to an innocent African-American. Justice always has been more about the process -- and fairness -- than it has been about the outcome.

All earthly justice requires is that we do right, play fair and hope for the best. Ultimate justice, we must remember, is not in our hands.

Of course, history also -- unavoidably -- loves irony. That's because people so often forget their own history . . . and its lessons. Fairness is always all about us, not the other guy.

And especially not about The Other guy.

Welcome to the transformation of a movement that started out as a quest for "justice" for Trayvon Martin, a Florida teenager shot to death by a "citizens patrol" volunteer. Now it's just a photo-negative version of an old-time Southern lynch mob.

It probably is no surprise this is happening in a state long noted for its citizens' inability to work and play well with one another.

PERSONALLY, I think the neighborhood-watch guy, George Zimmerman, well might be guilty of something in the shooting of the 17-year-old. That's my judgment based on extremely incomplete information from the national press -- the same information the lynch mob for "justice" is going on. Probably more, actually.

I think the guy probably was a paranoid-type police wannabe who stereotyped a harmless kid because he looked like the unending bad news out of black America, as reported by your local Eyewitness Action NewsCenter team. I think Zimmerman decided he was Dirty Harry, got in way over his head, things got out of hand, the man with handgun panicked . . . and an innocent kid ended up dead.

I think Zimmerman could be convicted of something, but likely not premeditated murder or a "hate crime" -- a term many have thrown around recklessly. I also think, Florida being Florida, that the guy might get off scot-free.

I believe Florida just might burn before all this is over with.

Of course, my opinion is worth exactly what you paid for it. And so are those of the "Justice for Trayvon" protesters.

In our system, the only opinions that are supposed to matter are a judge's and jury's. Right now, "justice" has nothing to do with an arrest. Justice has everything to do with ensuring a full and fair investigation.

Justice likewise has nothing to do with media tripe like the NewsOne (for Black America) blurb convicting Zimmerman of first-degree murder before the man is even arrested for . . . anything. In legal terms, this is what is called "actionable."

In journalism school, this is what we learned not to do if we didn't want to get sued to Kingdom Come. All is fair in love and lynchings, however.

Just like the "Pussy Ass Cracker" shirt now being sold, according to The Smoking Gun. The one with George Zimmerman's face on it.

Then again, if you're already lynching somebody, there's not exactly any point in not being racist about it.

Meet the black boss. Same as the white boss. We'll get fooled again.

Terror by proxy, fulfilled

When moronic "Christian" asshats in the bowels of central Florida do senseless things like this . . .


. . . moronic "Muslim" asshats in the bowels of another failed state -- this one, Afghanistan -- do senseless things like this.

To be clear, the enraged mob in Afghanistan is a terrorist one. People whose descent into madness comes amid the wreckage of a country that long ago descended into madness.

But what we also have to realize is that the terrorist mob in southwestern Asia is nothing more than the proxy of a lunatic pastor in Florida. The unwitting tool of a little band of lunatic, Bible-believin' bumpkins who think unleashing the fires of hell is a fine idea just so long as it's done in the name of Jesus Christ.

THE LUNATIC PASTOR, the Rev. Terry Jones, knew exactly what would happen in parts of the Muslim world when word got out that he torched a Koran. He especially knew what would happen in Afghanistan -- where 100,000 American troops are already in the line of fire -- when word got out that he and his Bible-thumpin', Jesus-jumpin' gaggle of grotesque humanity had torched an Islamic holy book March 20.

And Friday, it happened. In Masar-I-Sharif, Afghanistan's Islamic answer to America's lunatic fringe of evangelicalism killed seven United Nations workers in the name of Allah.

They were the business end of the metaphorical, geopolitical gun. Thousands of miles away, in a crappy little church full of crappy little people, Terry Jones pulled the trigger.

The tragedy of Islam is that too many of its adherents believe God is so small that He needs an enraged mob to defend His honor. The tragedy of America is that the constitutional guarantees that safeguard Americans' freedom of conscience render the republic largely defenseless against those whose consciences have been freely deformed into grotesque spectacles demanding mayhem much as a vampire demands blood.

Jones hates Islam because he is convinced it's of the devil. You have to give the devil his due for using such a committed "enemy of Satan" to ensure there will be hell to pay.

The banality -- and stupidity -- of evil

DUUUUUDE! My roomie is sooooo gay!

No, really!

Watch the webcam, dude! He has no idea, man!

Lookit, I'm putting it on the video chat. Dare you to watch. LOL!

I ought to watch this stoned, dude. This is soooooo f***in' FUNNY!

AH . . . THOSE college hijunks, right? Just a little routine fun for a generation brought up on moral relativism and a deluge of Internet porn, right?

This deadly serious Associated Press story out of Rutgers begs to differ:

A college student jumped to his death off a bridge a day after authorities say two classmates surreptitiously recorded him having sex with a man in his dorm room and broadcast it over the Internet.

Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi jumped from the George Washington Bridge last week, said his family's attorney, Paul Mainardi. Police recovered a man's body Wednesday afternoon in the Hudson River just north of the bridge, and authorities were trying to determine if it was Clementi's.

ABC News and The Star-Ledger of Newark reported that Clementi left on his Facebook page on Sept. 22 a note that read: "Jumping off the gw bridge sorry." On Wednesday, his Facebook page was accessible only to friends.

Two Rutgers freshmen have been charged with illegally taping the 18-year-old Clementi having sex and broadcasting the images via an Internet chat program.

Steven Goldstein, chairman of the gay rights group Garden State Equality, said in a statement Wednesday that his group considers Clementi's death a hate crime.

"We are heartbroken over the tragic loss of a young man who, by all accounts, was brilliant, talented and kind," Goldstein said. "And we are sickened that anyone in our society, such as the students allegedly responsible for making the surreptitious video, might consider destroying others' lives as a sport."

It wasn't immediately clear what Clementi's sexual orientation was, and a call asking the family's lawyer about it was not immediately returned Wednesday.

One of the defendants, Dharun Ravi, was Clementi's roommate, Mainardi told The Star-Ledger. The other defendant is Molly Wei. Ravi and Wei could face up to five years in prison if they are convicted.

(snip)

A Twitter account belonging to a Ravi was recently deleted, but in a cached version retained through Google he sent a message on Sept. 19: "Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay."

Two days later, he wrote on Twitter: "Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it's happening again."

GAY-RIGHTS groups will argue this was an affront against the rights and dignity of gays and lesbians everywhere. That is an incomplete -- and self-serving -- take on such monstrous behavior so casually undertaken.

This act of personal destruction, as sophomoric and banal as it was consequential, was an affront against human rights and dignity. If the spied-upon roommate had been an 18-year-old female engaged in heterosexual relations, then had been labeled a slut and made fun of . . . all of it live on the Internet in an amateur attempt at pornographic "reality TV" -- and then had become so distraught she took a flying leap off a high bridge, would the whole situation be any less horrific?

Would the crime be any less heinous?

Should the alleged perps, if convicted, get only three months in prison instead of five years?

I didn't think so.

You know, my greatest fear about this generation is it may be one that's lost its grip on dignity. On very old-fashioned notions such as "propriety" and "modesty."

I fear my generation has raised its children to respect all things (and people) in theory, none in practice. May God have mercy on us all.

Not that we deserve it.

Götterdämmerung, reconsidered

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Oops.

Looks like the "Ground Zero Muslims" can't be threatened, extorted or mau-maued.

And now it seems that Nuts for Jesus down in Florida may be reverting to Plan A in their "terror by proxy" scheme -- provoke overseas Islamic radicals into full-blown Götterdämmerung. What a no-lose scheme this constitutionally protected terror by proxy be!

HERE IS the latest, from MSNBC:

The Florida pastor whose plan to burn Qurans on Sept. 11 generated worldwide outrage among Muslims and pressure by the U.S. government to relent said late Thursday that he might not call off the protest after all.

Pastor Terry Jones told NBC News that "we are a little back to square one" after a supposed deal involving a proposed Islamic cultural center in New York evaporated.

At a press conference Thursday afternoon, Jones had said he was canceling the Quran burning because a Muslim imam had assured him that the proposed Islamic center could be moved away from the World Trade Center site in return.

But the imam proposing to build the Islamic center near the World Trade Center denied that a deal had been struck to move the project.

"I am glad that Pastor Jones has decided not to burn any Qurans," Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf said in a statement. "However, I have not spoken to Pastor Jones or Imam Musri (of Florida). I am surprised by their announcement. We are not going to toy with our religion or any other. Nor are we going to barter. We are here to extend our hands to build peace and harmony."

After that statement, Jones said the Quran burning had only been suspended.

"Given what we are now hearing, we are forced to rethink our decision," Jones said. "So as of right now, we are not canceling the event, but we are suspending it."

Jones wouldn't say if the church would burn Qurans but said "I'm praying" to decide what to do next.

At Jones' first press conference, he appeared with Imam Muhammad Musri of the Islamic Society of Central Florida and said that Musri had told him that the mosque would be moved.

MARK MY WORDS, the whole world -- particularly nuts all across these formerly-United States -- are watching this play out . . . and many of them are way smarter than a bunch of self-important, hateful bumpkins down in the swamps of Florida.

When they take the concept of terror by proxy and run with it, it will end with concrete strictures placed on our rights as Americans if, of course, by that time there are any Americans left to crack down upon.

As I said before, John Adams was right:

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

WHAT THE late president didn't see coming was it being the "religious" who'd help so much in bringing the whole thing down. The 9/11 hijackers were "religious." Fred Phelps' "God Hates Fags" cultists from Kansas are "religious," as are the asshats in Gainesville.

The world is filled with "religious" people. Everybody thinks God is on his side.

What's in much shorter supply are those who humbly seek to be on God's side. There's a difference, one that John Adams seemingly didn't take into account.

And that's what's going to be the end of us all.


UPDATE: Nuts of a feather burn sacred texts together.

Yes, the "God Hates Fags" contingent has weighed in. And they're stocking up on matches, reports the Ocala Star-Banner:

Westboro Baptist Church, the small Topeka, Kan., church that pickets funerals of American soldiers to spread its message that God is punishing the country for being tolerant of homosexuals, has vowed to hold a Quran burning if Gainesville's Dove World Outreach Center calls its off."

WBC burned the Koran once – and if you sissy brats of Doomed america bully Terry Jones and the Dove World Outreach Center until they change their plans to burn that blasphemous tripe called the Koran, then WBC will burn it (again), to clearly show you some things," the church announced in a news release this week.

Terror by proxy

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The terrorists may have won today.

And I'm not talking about al Qaida, Hamas or the Taliban.

This terrorist group is a small one -- a band of fewer than half a hundred Pentecostal (or evangelical . . . or whatever they consider themselves) extremists in Gainesville, Fla., hell-bent on propagating an ideology of hatred and mayhem. Yet, the Dove World Outreach Center has shown itself adept at using a novel tactic, terror by proxy, to bring a superpower to its knees and -- perhaps -- force the "Ground Zero Mosque" far away from Ground Zero in New York City.

MSNBC has some breaking details:

The pastor planning to burn Qurans on the Sept. 11 anniversary said Thursday that he had called off the event after being given assurances that the Muslim group seeking to build an Islamic center near the World Trade Center site would move the project.

"We would consider that a sign from God," the Rev. Terry Jones told reporters.

But sources close to the imam behind the New York mosque denied any deal had been struck.

And Sharif Al-Gamal, owner of the building where the mosque and cultural center would be housed, told NBC News that there had had no discussions with Jones.

Jones insisted, however, that he had spoken to the imam, and "I have his word that he will move the mosque to a different location."

Jones also said he would travel to New York on Saturday to meet with officials of the mosque project.

President Barack Obama earlier implored Jones to call off his Quran-burning "stunt," saying it would jeopardize U.S. troops abroad.

Obama told ABC's "Good Morning America" in an interview aired Thursday that he hopes the Jones listens to "those better angels."

"If he's listening, I hope he understands that what he's proposing to do is completely contrary to our values as Americans," the president said. "That this country has been built on the notion of freedom and religious tolerance."

"And as a very practical matter, I just want him to understand that this stunt that he is talking about pulling could greatly endanger our young men and women who are in uniform," Obama said.

Jones, leader of a small church with about 30 members in Gainesville, is planning to burn copies of the Islamic holy book on Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Look, this is a recruitment bonanza for al-Qaida," Obama said of the planned burning. "You could have serious violence in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan." The president also said Jones' plan, if carried out, could serve as an incentive for terrorist-minded individuals "to blow themselves up" to kill others.

Jones had said that a call from the Pentagon, State Department or White House might make him reconsider his plan.

On Thursday, Jones said Pentagon chief Robert Gates had called him to urge he back off.

Obama has gotten caught up in the burgeoning controversy surrounding the practice of Islam in America, saying at one point that he believed that Muslims had a right to build a mosque near the site of the Sept. 11 terror attacks in New York City.

Earlier, several members of his administration, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, had denounced the Quran-burning plan.

IT REALLY doesn't matter now whether the New York mosque moves, as Jones contends it will, or whether nothing happens, as the mosque sources insist. The die has been cast, and the strange bedfellows of Christian extremism and Muslim extremism have been united in a symbiotic relationship that serves to get each what it wants -- at the expense of us all.

And it's all perfectly legal and, in the Gainesville case, apparently protected by the First Amendment. As John Adams said more than two centuries ago, "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

Little did Adams know that -- at least in this case -- the immoral and irreligious people who threaten to extort the rest of us to Kingdom Come would do so in the name of God, in a "terror by proxy" arrangement.

Here's how it works: You threaten to do something as outlandish -- and constitutionally protected -- as burning a bunch of Qurans, knowing full well how egregious and offensive the act is and what it will provoke extremists on the Muslim side to do to Americans. And you think, "Well, that's good. The homo-loving, socialist, Godless liberals deserve whatever happens to them."

And being something of a death-dealer and death-lover yourself, you figure that if you get martyred in the process . . . you're a martyr! That's worth at least 7,500 bonus points in the heavenly sweepstakes.

On the other hand, if the heat gets a little too hot in the run-up to Götterdämmerung, you still holding lots of high cards. You still have the ability to extort something pretty good out of everybody.

You can crack the "Ground Zero mosque" more thoroughly than Humpty Dumpty after he fell off that wall. And all Glenn Beck's horses' asses and all Fox News' men . . . will be eating your dust.

If that doesn't work out, there's always Plan A. And we know it.

And every nutwagon in America is copying down the winning game plan.

No more waterboarding, but fire next time

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The problem with a democratic republic such as ours is that it too often has damned little ability to defend itself from its baser instincts -- or its baser idiots.

Enter the Rev. Terry Jones of Gainesville, Fla., noted hater of "homos" and Allah alike.

Jones hates Allah, and Islam, so much that he intends -- the consequences be damned -- to burn a whole heapin' helpin' of Qurans outside his flaky Church of Who We Hatin' Now, otherwise known as the Dove World Outreach Center. And because God, to Whom he has an exclusive communications line, has "told" him to flick his Bic, the good bad reverend will not be dissuaded.

Not by the president. Not by the attorney general. Not by the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, whose men stand to pay the price for an idiot Elmer Gantry's "freedom of speech."

NO . . . the redneck revile-alist is hellbent on throwing the "word of the devil" into the inferno, reports MSNBC. What's wrong with that notion?

Religious leaders who met with Holder for nearly an hour Tuesday to discuss recent attacks on Muslims and mosques around the United States said those were his words on the plan by the Rev. Terry Jones of Gainesville, Fla.

The meeting was closed to reporters, but a Justice Department official who was present confirmed that Holder said that the plan to burn copies of the Quran was idiotic.

Holder also told the group no one should have to live and pray in fear and that he planned to address the issue publicly soon, the meeting participants said. He also reiterated a commitment to aggressively prosecute hate crimes, they said.

The Justice official, who requested anonymity because the meeting was private, also said Holder was quoting Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, when he used the word dangerous.

Petraeus warned Tuesday in an e-mail to The Associated Press that "images of the burning of a Quran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan — and around the world — to inflame public opinion and incite violence." It was a rare example of a military commander taking a position on a domestic political matter.

But Jones insisted he would go ahead with his plans, despite the criticism Petraeus, the White House and the State Department, as well as a host of religious leaders.

Jones, known for posting signs proclaiming that Islam is the devil's religion, says the Constitution gives him the right to publicly set fire to the book that Muslims consider the word of God.

Jones said he is also concerned but is "wondering, 'When do we stop?'" He refused to cancel the protest set for Saturday at his Dove World Outreach Center, which espouses an anti-Islam philosophy.

"How much do we back down? How many times do we back down?" Jones told the AP. "Instead of us backing down, maybe it's to time to stand up. Maybe it's time to send a message to radical Islam that we will not tolerate their behavior."

OF COURSE, it's a free country, and a madman minister can preach what he wants about Islam. He can call the mayor of Gainesville a "homo," as does a sign outside his church.

It's all due to this little thing we have called the First Amendment.

The First Amendment, however, does not speak to what happens to folks who build bonfires without a city burn permit. The constitution does not cover, as far as I know, the aggressive fighting of illegal -- and potentially catastrophic . . . look what happened in Detroit on Tuesday -- open fires within city limits.

That people do think the First Amendment gives you the right to burn whatever the hell you want whenever the hell you want wherever the hell you want is due to milquetoasty fops like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. In the MSNBC story, Bloomberg goes all wobbly on us:

In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the minister's plan to burn the Muslim holy book on Sept. 11 is "distasteful" but added the minister has a right to do it. "We can't say that we're going to apply the First Amendment to only those cases where we are in agreement," he said.

BULL. Let's see what the NYPD would do to some evangelical nutcase who lit a great big bonfire of Qurans in the middle of Times Square. I could be underestimating the open-mindedness, civility and tolerance of public disorder on the part of New York's finest, but I'm guessing that ass would be kicked, fire would be extinguished . . . and no one would be mentioning anything about the Bill of Rights.

Besides, I find it hard to believe that in the Deep South -- where half a century ago authorities demonstrated to the world their mastery of the fire hose in quenching peaceful, non-permitted civil-rights protests -- officials are suddenly stymied in figuring out the best use of municipal fire departments in response to blatantly illegal bonfires set by dementoids.

Particularly ones that threaten to set the whole world alight.

It's quite simple. This is America. We don't burn books.

Tolerance and diversity on the march

When an angry mob attacks a grandma, rips a cross out of her hands and stomps it to splinters, then sets upon her and the TV crew trying to interview her. . . . Well, I don't know about you, but in contemporary parlance, I think that's called a "hate crime."


HAT TIP: Catholic and Enjoying It.

Rethinking Margaret Sanger

You watch news stories like this one, and you start thinking that Margaret Sanger happened for a reason.

THE STORY ABOVE, as reported by Heath Allen of Channel 6 in New Orleans, is the horrific tale of an infant -- born to a family of rustics in the piney woods of Louisiana -- who was beaten, drugged and burned, yet none of her Deliverance-cast kinfolk professes to know what the hell happened to her.

Except grampaw. He knows what happened.

"Some crazed maniac done this to my grandbaby," he tells Allen.

Do you think?

Anyway, I watched this story, and it occurred to me this just drives home a point we all need to remember -- great evil often is a response to great horror. Margaret Sanger saw how the poor, the swarthy and the "colored" lived back in the day, and she thought, probably, a couple of things.

One, they'd be better off dead.

Two, we'd be better off if they were dead. Or at least if they didn't breed.

Trouble is, genocide is a murderously bad solution for intractable economic and social maladies. The dignity of you deny and the life you take of "The Other" today surely will be your own tomorrow, for you're some other's Other.

So, what solutions do we have to sociological deviance like what we see in the video above? Short of Planned Parenthood-style eugenics and abortion, that is?

I suspect it involves an army of teachers, preachers and social workers -- a solution we like to give lip service but rarely try to implement in any serious manner.

Lord have mercy on that little child. And may whoever harmed that baby rot in jail forever and ever, amen.

Omaha Goddam

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

This is a show tune
But the show hasn't been written for it, yet

Hound dogs on my trail
School children sitting in jail
Black cat cross my path
I think every day's gonna be my last

Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time
I don't belong here
I don't belong there
I've even stopped believing in prayer

BACK IN 1964, jazz great Nina Simone recorded a scathing indictment of the state of "all men were created equal" in these United States, premised on the reality then that things were bad lots of places, worse yet in Alabama, and in Mississippi . . . goddam!

WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT -- for all my city's present-day, all-American problems involving issues of race and class -- that some 19-year-old, liquored-up punk, new to the big city from the hinterlands of South Dakota, would cause people to think "Omaha . . . goddam!" But that's the tragic tale in today's Omaha World-Herald, with the county attorney saying the drunk punk had something terrible in common with the worst Kluxer monsters from Mississippi, 1964:

Kyle Bormann dressed in camouflage, hoisted his hunting rifle and homed in on Brittany Williams for one reason, Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said today.

The color of her skin.

Kleine said today that Bormann's own words — and the circumstances of the shooting — point to the Jan. 20 slaying of Williams, a 21-year-old black woman and pre-nursing student, as being race-based.

In formally charging Bormann this morning with first-degree murder and weapon use, Kleine filed notice of his intent to offer an aggravating circumstance that could lead to the death penalty.

The alleged aggravator: that Bormann's choosing of Williams "manifested exceptional depravity by ordinary standards of morality and intelligence."

"This was no accident," Kleine said. "When something senseless like this happens, you have to ask yourself, 'What is it that made this person do this?' That (explanation) comes right out of his mouth."

Bormann's attorney, John J. Kohl, has said he isn't aware of any evidence that suggests his client was racist or racially motivated.

Prosecutors say Bormann, 19, admitted to parking his car about 100 yards away and shooting Williams as she waited in the drive-through lane of the Kentucky Fried Chicken/Long John Silver's restaurant, 7601 N. 30th St. The restaurant is two miles down 30th Street from Bormann's father's Ponca Hills house.

When Bormann was arrested shortly after the shooting, Kleine said, the first words that came out of Bormann's mouth referred to black people.

Bormann, who had been drinking, mentioned being upset with the officiating in the New York Giants-Green Bay Packers NFC Championship game, Kleine said.

Bormann said something about the officiating favoring the black players, Kleine said.

In a later interview at Central Police Headquarters, Bormann also described being "pissed" at black people but gave no specifics, Kleine said.

Kleine acknowledged that some of Bormann's comments in the interview were contradictory.

At times, Kleine said, Bormann denied being racist or shooting Williams based on her race.

And several minutes after admitting to the shooting, he denied having shot her at all, Kleine said.

He said the avid hunter also described himself as a good shot.

(snip)

"We cannot and will not tolerate or ignore the evil of racial prejudice," Kleine said in prepared remarks. "We will honor Brittany Williams' life and the lives of all victims of violent crime by seeking justice and doing everything within our power to prevent these acts of violence borne of these disturbing and unimaginable thoughts."

Morris, Williams' friend, noted that Williams was killed on the night before Martin Luther King Day. Morris, Williams and other members of Alpha Kappa Alpha, a mostly African-American sorority, had planned to observe the holiday by volunteering to paint at a local nonprofit organization.

"All I can say is Brittany's family is grieving," Morris said. "This is going to make it more painful again, to think that their baby was killed because she was black."

HOW MANY have marched, have sat in, have been set upon by police dogs and fire hoses? How many have been jailed and beaten?

In the decades-long fight against hatred, segregation and racism in America, how many have been martyred in the hope that what happened to Brittany Williams in Omaha last week would be banished from our national makeup forever? But, according to the local prosecutor, it hasn't.

Not here, at least. And probably not anywhere else, either.

Now, a 21-year-old woman -- one with her whole bright future ahead of her -- has been added to the hallowed roster of America's civil-rights martyrs. And all she wanted was some KFC.

The struggle continues. May God's mercy be upon us all.