I saw this story on Red Eye the other night about two boys being prosecuted for butt-slapping, but apparently it was so ridiculous that I blew a gasket and couldn’t offer up any commentary. Thankfully, the ever insightful Mark Steyn was able to identify the underlying social ills this case brings up.

He is right on the mark when he declares that our society has lost all sense of proportion. We get hysterical over the kind of adolescent behavior children have engaged in since the beginning of civilization, but we do absolutely nothing about a former National Security Adviser pilfering classified documents. We charge people with hate-crime felonies for placing a book in a toilet, but refuse to condemn the thuggish intimidation tactics routinely used by jihadist front groups and Islamist apologists. Is there no sanity left in this nation?

Oh, and just to put the final nail in the coffin holding our common sense, we’re now suing criminals instead of, you know, using the rule of law the way it was intended (arrest -> presumption of innocence -> trial -> etc.).

Nice.

The Sheehan Salute, a.k.a. The Hawaiian Good Luck Sign

Other great moments in middle finger history:

Soldiers signaling duress.

Hat Tip: Atlas Shrugs

UPDATE: Check out the last video from the Atlas Shrugs page. Oh the irony, momma moonbat/communist tool giving a defeat rally in front of a Vietnamese restaurant - whose owners likely fled here to avoid the aftermath of our withdrawal from S.E. Asia.

Didn’t she retire or something?

Yet another example.

You know the economy is good when workers are so busy that their unions have to hire temps to walk the picket line for them.

The picketers marching in a circle in front of a downtown Washington office building chanting about low wages do not seem fully focused on their message.

Many have arrived with large suitcases or bags holding their belongings, which they keep in sight. Several are smoking cigarettes. One works a crossword puzzle. Another bangs a tambourine, while several drum on large white buckets. Some of the men walking the line call out to passing women, “Hey, baby.” A few picketers gyrate and dance while chanting: “What do we want? Fair wages. When do we want them? Now.”

Although their placards identify the picketers as being with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters, they are not union members.

They’re hired feet, or, as the union calls them, temporary workers, paid $8 an hour to picket. Many were recruited from homeless shelters or transitional houses. Several have recently been released from prison. Others are between jobs.

Sort of makes you wonder how concerned they really are about unfair wages. Remember in the old days when workers actually had legitimate gripes, how they actually showed up to demonstrations? Not anymore. Now, when the union masters want to renegotiate (and take their cut, of course), they’ll just find someone less comfortably employed than themselves to do the picketing - and won’t pay them squat for it. A union spokesman calls it a “shift in paradigm,” as though this practice is revolutionizing picketing, and that it amounts to some sort of progress. If anything, this dispassionate attitude towards collective bargaining only lends further credibility to the suggestion that today’s unions are not out to get what’s fair, but to get what’s possible. In short, they’re greedy.

“Low wages” my potonkas. The MARCC even acknowledge on their website how good they have it, stating they “receive some of the best wages and benefits in the industry.” Clearly that calls for 8 picket lines a day!

It’s also disheartening to see that the union is fleecing so much money out of the laborers and employers both that it can afford these “hired feet” to do the grunt work for them. Like those dollars wouldn’t better serve the workers either in their pockets, or reinvested in the business by the employer.

There’s a lot to be learned from our new Democratic overloads. Specifically, they’re giving us a veritable how-to lesson in losing to global jihad. Let’s review what they’ve taught us.

How to lose to Global Jihad:

Step-one: Deny that there is any war at all. It’s impossible to win, but very possible to lose, what you don’t believe exists. Should you come across an opponent adept enough to bring up the reality that there is in fact a war, proceed to step two.

Step-Two: Assert that we are to blame for the war. This serves little purpose by itself, but a feeling of guilt will make the public more susceptible to the other tactics of defeat, so proceed to step three.

Step-Three: Insist, at every stage, that we are losing. Reality has little bearing here. Learn the lessons of Tet and recognize that even a tactical victory can be spun as a lose given the proper motivation for defeat. And since you’ve already declared the effort as lost, you might as well help make it a reality, so proceed to step four.

Step-Four: Obstruct any and every attempt to achieve victory.

Need any more be said?

Nothing gets to liberals so much as freedom. People living life as they please without first getting the permission of busy-body government officials just gets their blood boiling. Filled with descriptors dripping with scorn, TIME documents how Colorado liberals struggle to deal with a growing scourge: nice homes.

As bloated homes and McMansions continue to sprout up across the country, Boulder, Colorado, may have come up with a lucrative approach to contain what detractors call the plague of Garage Mahals and Big-Hair Houses. At a July 10 meeting, where more than 70 citizens spoke, Boulder county commissioners preliminarily approved a system of development rights transfers that would extract mega-bucks from builders of mega-homes.

Not satisfied merely loading the first paragraph with childish scorn, the rest of the article is full of hysteric attempts at insulting nice houses, which comes across about as well as trying to insult someone for being too smart. The author, apparently still disheartened by the fall of the Soviet Union, then praises Boulder’s assault on freedom as an “elegant and egalitarian” solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

A new site is now online which I feel will quickly become an indispensable resource for combating mainstream media bias.

MediaMythBusters.com

The U.N. is warning us that it can’t afford to feed the world.

May be true. But more importantly, I say, we can’t afford to let them even try.

We all know Confucius’ fortune cookie wisdom of self-reliance: “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.” The UN, like any self-serving socialist organization, understands that there is a secret third part to this anecdote: “Promise an endless supply of fish and men will depend on you for food, thus you gain power over them.” There’s your blue-print for gaining power through the nanny-state. Or in the case of the U.N., redistribution on a global scale. And when the providers fail to live up to their promise - which is inevitably the case - it’s a blue-print for suffering and strife.

Rising prices for food have led the United Nations programme fighting famine in Africa and other regions to warn that it can no longer afford to feed the 90m people it has helped for each of the past five years on its budget.

The World Food Programme feeds people in countries including Chad, Uganda and Ethiopia, but reaches a fraction of the 850m people it estimates suffers from hunger. It spent about $600m buying food in 2006. So far, the WFP has not cut its reach because of high commodities prices, but now says it could be forced to do so unless donor countries provide extra funds.

And what’s causing the budget straining price increases?

You guessed it, global warming. Or more accurately, the hoax that is anthropogenic global warming.

She said policymakers were becoming more concerned about the impact of biofuel demand on food prices and how the world would continue to feed its expanding population.

The warning could re-ignite the debate on food versus fuel amid concerns biofuel production will sustain food inflation and hit the world?s poorest people.

The WFP said its purchasing costs had risen ?almost 50 per cent in the last five years?. The UN organisation said the price it pays for maize had risen up to 120 per cent in the past sixth months in some countries.

Biofuel demand is soaking up grain production as is rising consumption in emerging countries for animal feed.

?We face the tightest agriculture markets in decades and, in same cases, on record,? Ms Sheeran said. Global wheat stocks have fallen to the lowest level in 25 years, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

Ms Sheeran added: ?We are no longer in a surplus world.?

The biofuel craze driving up food prices is the result of global warming fear mongering. Biofuels are “environmentally superior” and therefore less offensive to the Gaea spirit. It’s seems the third-world is in for a bumpy century. If global warming is “allowed” to happen they’ll either drown in the rising seas, be engulfed by the spreading deserts, washed away in the drenching monsoons or withered by the widespread droughts. In the meantime, however, in order to prevent these catastrophes, we will literally burn much of the planet’s food supply.

Ironically, the solution to the problem might be some genuine global warming. Longer growing seasons worldwide would mean the planet could support a much larger human population.

Although, Shrillary might have an alternative solution of her own.

Even before Hillary finishes her second term as President, her advisors would have American taxpayers pay a fixed 0.7 percent of our Gross National Income toward global funding of the United Nations? Millennium Development Goals. This means that the United States alone would have to pay nearly $140 billion per year for development assistance, to be administered by the United Nations.

In case you are wondering where the funding of this massive increase in foreign aid will come from, Hillary Clinton?s advisors have an answer - a new carbon tax. The Center for American Progress? tax ?expert? recommended this tax as one alternative to raise as much as $100 billion dollars a year in new ?green? revenue. He wrote that ?[W]hat Congress has to realize is that we need more ?good? taxes and fewer ?bad? taxes.

Except in the minds of those hardcore income redistributionists who think they know better how to spend our money than we do ourselves, how can any tax be described as ?good??

The lefts favorite permanent victim class, the so-called palestinians, are continuing their campaign of pushing hatred and radicalism on children.

First, there was Jihad Mickey.

But in a dramatic broadcast, the Palestinian hate-mongers had Jihad Mickey killed off by an evil Jew.

The little girl “anchor” of this children’s show of Islamist propaganda declared solemnly:

Yes, my dear children, we have lost our dearest friend, Farfour. Farfour was martyerd while defending his land, the land of his father and forefathers. He was martyred at the hand of the criminals, the murderes, the murderes of innocent children, who killed Iman Hijo, Muhammad Al-Dura, and many others.

Ah yes, these people can be reasoned with.

Anyway, with Jihad Mickey lost, who’s a budding terrorist to look up to? Fear not, terror tykes, there’s a barbarous bumble bee ready to lead you into death for Allah! Narhoul, who claims to be the cousin of the late Farfour, promises to follow in his predecessors path by “[taking] revenge upon the enemies of Allah, the killer of the prophets and of the innocent children. . .”