I can’t resist noting that I predicted on Aug. 24 that Obama was tanking and that Obama’s minions see to it that a big lie about Gov. Sarah Palin usually follows within about 48 to 72 hours any bad news about Obama that is dominating the news shows. Well, the lie was postponed since Ted Kennedy died and coverage about his life and funeral filled the news shows through Sunday, taking the heat off of Obama, despite his excruciating eulogy at Kennedy’s funeral on Saturday.

However, Obama’s poll numbers continued to drop like a rock AND make news, so the Obama Prevarication Predictor clock reset on Monday. And lo! An essay supposedly written by Levi Johnson, father of Bristol Palin’s baby, was published today, 72 hours-ish later, suitably filled with lies about Gov. Palin in an effort to distract the media with their favorite cut of red meat.

However, darn the luck, it’s not working this time. Over at The Other McCain, dear Stacy, father of six children, including a teenage daughter, writes,  “… if that third-rate teenage hockey goon did to my daughter what he did to Sarah Palin’s daughter, he wouldn’t be available for media interviews, unless Vanity Fair covers seances . . . .” Hot Air points out that even MSNBC thinks Levi is lying about Gov. Palin, while Conservatives4Palin provides the fisking and Ace has great color commentary on the plausibility of Levi’s claims: “Sarah Palin Would Often Offhandedly Confirm the Left’s Worst Suspicions About Her to Me, the Self-Declared Redneck Sticking it to Her Daughter.”

I hate to think of what Obama will resort to when lies about Gov. Palin really, really stop working to shift attention from his inadequacies, failures and treacheries to friend and foe.

I regard with horror the naivete and foolishness of feminists and lesbians and gays regarding the menace of Islam because they are the first ones who will lose their liberty and/or lives when Muslims move into a neighborhood. This is not prejudice toward Muslims — they are commanded to kill unbelievers. Women and gays are low-hanging fruit, as it were.

Naomi Wolf is one of this breed of feminist fools. She recently toured Morocco, Jordan and Egypt — where over 95 percent of women have had some sort of genital mutilation — and then published some claptrap about how sexually liberating the chador is and how she can really relate because she went shopping wearing a shalwar kameez, aka Punjabi suit.

Phyllis Chesler, a Jewish woman, who, in her foolish youth, married a Muslim man, moved to his country, was effectively imprisoned by him and managed to escape, has a much more authoritative view of Islam, Muslim sexuality, the burqa, the chador and the hijab. She punksmacks Naomi Wolf here.

However, if you are not familiar with the differences between the shalwar kameez, the chador and the burqa, let me supply some illustrations for Dr. Chesler’s lecture.

The shalwar kameez, or Punjabi suit, is comfortable and flattering to all ages and figures, and available in an array of designs, all sorts of fabrics and price ranges, and a rainbow of colors:

Shalwar kameez or Punjabi suit

Now a chador:

Chador -- from an online supplier (veil not included, one size fits most).

Now a burqa:

Person, probably a woman, wearing a burqa.

Two of these things are not like the other, Naomi. Two of these things are not like the other. Not even a little.

Update, 9/2/09: Dear Little Miss Attila has linked this post and provides her own thoughtful discussion on dressing modestly here.

Update, 9/2/09: Dr. Chesler has a follow-up piece at Pajamas Media today, “Wolf Demands an Apology, Chesler Won’t Back Down” because — what’s a nice way of saying this? — Ms. Wolf can’t use a Web browser well enough to know that when Dr. Chesler linked her piece, it was Wolf herself who persuaded Dr. Chesler’s readers who CAN use Web browsers and DID read it in its entirety that she is a fool AND that she has no practical grasp of what women’s rights are, and no appreciation for the concepts of liberty and freedom, either.

So Ms. Wolf, the place to stand to demand your apology is right in front of a mirror.

And Dr. Chesler — please count this newly conservative lesbian as someone who has your back when you are fighting for equality for women everywhere and sounding the alarm about the menace of Islam.

Update, 9/3/09: Little Miss Attila kindly linked this post here on Sept. 1 and today the unmitigated, clueless GALL of Naomi Wolf’s demand that Dr. Chesler apologize to her has inspired her to provide Wolf with another punksmacking. Kids, these days.

Update, 9/3/09: The following is my favorite comment from the comments following Dr. Chesler’s posts at Pajamas Media schooling Naomi Wolf on the atrocities Muslim women suffer under Islam:

(Author: RSE; I corrected one typo.)

Honestly, the single sentence in Wolf’s original story, “I do not mean to dismiss the many women leaders in the Muslim world who regard veiling as a means of controlling women,” is the only place her piece even obliquely states, in Wolf’s words, that “Muslim women face terrible oppressions.”

I was fascinated by another sentence in in Wolf’s piece. In her paragraph beginning, “Ideological battles are often waged with women’s bodies as their emblems, and Western Islamophobia is no exception,” Wolf writes, “When Americans were being prepared for the invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban were demonised for female genital mutilation, forced wearing of the burka, refusal to educate women and girls, forced arranged child marriage, daughter- and wife-beating, and honor killings.” Ooops, sorry, that’s not what she wrote. Wolf wrote, “When Americans were being prepared for the invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban were demonised for denying cosmetics and hair colour to women.” If ever there were an epitaph for Western academic feminism, that is it.

One of my commenters from Australia quoted Helen Reddy’s song, “I am woman,” and it occurred to me that most younger readers here might not recognize the allusion, so I went hunting on YouTube for it. I just watched it and I’m sitting here with tears running down my cheeks. It deserves its own post.

H/T Michelle Malkin

The Economist endorsed Obama for president and now is having buyers’ remorse, apparently in the hope of salvaging some of its credibility given the all-consuming, prosperity-sucking black hole socialist coup Obama’s presidency has turned out to be in just two months.

Ed Morrissey blasts their tardy admission of misgivings at Hot Air here.

To those of us who saw this coming before the election, Morrissey’s post is a delicious vindication and balm to the soul. Except for the part about the U.S. is still going down the economic drain and coming under Obama’s totalitarian regime. That still sucks.

I only have one point to add, which is that given the Obama administration knew about the A.I.G. bonuses and any idiot could predict the fury they would cause, I think the intention behind giving the bonuses was to use them to enrage the public. Why? Because it is Rule 12 of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals to foment rage by giving your target a specific face. Obama’s just going by the book.

What did Obama get out of fomenting the public’s rage? He was able to direct public hatred and destructive impulses against capitalism itself, against the successful and wealthy and against financial institutions. The purpose of this ginned up rage was to create a crisis to lay the groundwork for another power grab by Obama, who wants to expand the executive branch’s authority beyond the ability to take over banks in particular circumstances to a range of other financial institutions as well.

I found a convenient list of Alinsky’s rules here:

RULE 1: “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood. (These are two things of which there is a plentiful supply. Government and corporations always have a difficult time appealing to people, and usually do so almost exclusively with economic arguments.)

RULE 2: “Never go outside the expertise of your people.” It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone. (Organizations under attack wonder why radicals don’t address the “real” issues. This is why. They avoid things with which they have no knowledge.)

RULE 3: “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)

RULE 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules. (This is a serious rule. The besieged entity’s very credibility and reputation is at stake, because if activists catch it lying or not living up to its commitments, they can continue to chip away at the damage.)

RULE 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. (Pretty crude, rude and mean, huh? They want to create anger and fear.)

RULE 6: “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones. (Radical activists, in this sense, are no different that any other human being. We all avoid “un-fun” activities, and but we revel at and enjoy the ones that work and bring results.)

RULE 7: “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” Don’t become old news. (Even radical activists get bored. So to keep them excited and involved, organizers are constantly coming up with new tactics.)

RULE 8: “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new. (Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, regroup, recover and re-strategize.)

RULE 9: “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist. (Perception is reality. Large organizations always prepare a worst-case scenario, something that may be furthest from the activists’ minds. The upshot is that the organization will expend enormous time and energy, creating in its own collective mind the direst of conclusions. The possibilities can easily poison the mind and result in demoralization.)

RULE 10: “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.” Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog. (Unions used this tactic. Peaceful [albeit loud] demonstrations during the heyday of unions in the early to mid-20th Century incurred management’s wrath, often in the form of violence that eventually brought public sympathy to their side.)

RULE 11: “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.” Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem. (Old saw: If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Activist organizations have an agenda, and their strategy is to hold a place at the table, to be given a forum to wield their power. So, they have to have a compromise solution.)

RULE 12: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)

Monique Stuart at HotMES is on about de-criminalizing recreational drugs today, as a follow-up to Obama’s town hall meeting, which I would leave alone although I disagree. But because she based her argument on conflating pharmaceutical drugs, aka medicines, defined as “any substance intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease,” with recreational chemicals that frequently have addiction as a side effect, I must administer unto her the first fisking and punk smacking of my blog.

The indented material is Monique’s.

I’m sorry that Mexico is having experiencing problems related to drugs. And, I’m sorry America has its own drug-related problems to deal with. But, drugs aren’t the problem; they are a symptom of the problem.

1. The drugs are a symptom? Could this symptom be cured by, say, penicillin?

We pretend to be a culture that is against drugs, yet we are not. We have a “War on Drugs,” as new drugs are advertised every day. At some point, our government made the decision that some drugs were acceptable and others were not. This is where the problem lies.

2. We do not as a culture have contradictory attitudes towards drugs because, as a culture, most of us are able to tell the difference between drugs that have the purpose of curing a disease, slowing its progress or alleviating a symptom. Legal drugs do one or all of those three things. That is why we, through our government, aka our elected representatives, have decided that these drugs, aka medicines, are acceptable.

Illegal drugs are taken recreationally. They are not necessary. The ones that are highly addictive are extremely dangerous and change the behavior of the people taking them for the worse. That is why we have decided they are unacceptable.

It’s one big contradiction. Either we’re against drugs, or were for them. Make up your mind. Heroin isn’t acceptable, but clinics hand out methadone, while doctors prescribe Oxycontin (which makes you feel like you’re on heroin from what I’ve been told).

3. Do read up on logic and “false choice” and the “straw man,” which are the names of the devices that you use above.

We do not have to be either for drugs, or against them. It is totally legitimate to pick and choose.

So we are not being at all capricious or contradictory at all when we legalize antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, hormone replacement therapies, chemotherapies, pain medications and a host of other pharmaceuticals that have targeted and legitimate purposes.

Neither is it capricious or contradictory to ban drugs that are recreational and highly addictive. An addiction may be triggered in some people with one dose. The addiction dramatically changes the behavior of that person for the worse. It is worthwhile for society to make and enforce laws to guard against this.

The reason it’s a contradiction is because drugs aren’t inherently bad, just as guns aren’t inherently bad. It’s how people choose to use them. To be quite honest, I don’t see the difference between someone who smokes a joint at the end of the day versus the person who is having a couple martini’s. In fact, one could argue, the former is preferable to the latter.

4. Beg to differ. Crack is inherently bad because it is addictive. Ditto for heroin. The addiction by definition removes the ability of people to choose whether or how to use them.

Why aren’t all drugs, legal, though? Whether prescribed or proscribed, all drugs are the same: most offer some benefit when taken in moderation. As of the year 2000, the “War on Drugs” was estimated to cost over $40 billion, annually. I’m sure it’s costing much more, now.

Legalizing drugs would put the Mexican drug gangs out of business a lot quicker and a lot more effectively than anything our two governments can come up with. Put that at the top of you checklist and you should be done.

5. No, it would legitimize the fortunes of the drug lords, so they would stop doing their legitimate money-laundering businesses like the New York Times — a big chunk of which is now owned by a Mexican “real estate developer” — although I bet now that it’s his PR puppet it is not technically money-laundering but a legitimate business expense, so bad example — and they still would not be willing to pay taxes to support water treatment plants, sewage treatment plants, electricity, schools, roads and hospitals for all citizens of Mexico.

(It also is worth noting that Mexico is an oil-rich country that certainly could afford to do these things for its people if its people ever really wanted these things to happen.)

Obama mocked his online audience in his “town hall meeting” yesterday—to the laughter of the elitist DC crowd that surrounded him in the room—for asking about legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana.

You’re right, Mr. President, it may not remedy our economic woes, but why can’t this be taken into consideration? I believe it’s a serious question, with serious implications, and should be seriously addressed. You are not a comedian, Mr. President. Stop trying to be funny!

I don’t smoke pot or do any other illegal drugs. I don’t take many legal drugs, either. Maybe some Tylenol, here and there. Lately, I have been hitting up the Sudafed (I have some cold that I have named The Illness that won’t seem to go away). But, what’s the difference between the person who pops some Xanax for their anxiety and the person who takes a hit from the bong?

All legal drugs are achieving some goal that could be achieved by an illegal drug, they’re just doing it synthetically instead of naturally. Where do you think the drug companies came up with the idea in the first place? Mexico wouldn’t be having the issues it is, and neither would America, if drugs became legal. People are going to use drugs and some of those people will abuse drugs. The legality of the drugs doesn’t matter.

6.First, Obama mocks people because he is a narcissist and that is what they do to people who have shamed them. Obama does not have a sense of humor.

Second, WTF??? Aspirin might come from willow bark and digoxin from foxglove and penicillin and the -mycin antibiotics from fungi, but I’d love to have your source for where baclofen, carbamazepine, phenytoin, Avonex, and metoprolol — just for starters — came from in the wild.

Or do you think that ALL drugs are really some form of opioid?

Could you REALLY not have have bothered to read up on countries that HAVE decriminalized recreational drugs? Try reading this, as a sample. Decriminalizing recreational drugs has multiplied problems, not mitigated them.

Addendum: This issue has a face for me — my brother’s best friend, who died this time last year of liver failure due to 30-plus years of taking methadone, the treatment for his heroin addiction. He was so big and strong in his youth I thought nothing could ever beat him. We all miss him so.