Comic convention season comes to Seattle with the Emerald City Con. Here's is just one of several "exclusives" that can be picked up at the Washington State Convention Center.



I'll only be there for Saturday. Gotta save my pennies for the big event in San Diego come July.

Imagine walking into your office each day and having your co-workers start up a chant making your personal political beliefs a source of mockery and ridicule. That is what greeted Ron Silver when he walked onto the set of the now defunct West Wing.

"Often when I walked onto the set of the West Wing some of my colleagues would greet me with a chanting of “Ron, Ron, the neo-con.” It was all done in fun but it had an edge."

Now I've worked with plenty of folks, in a variety of businesses, in all parts of the country. Never once was my politics the thing that defined me.

According to Matthew Modine Liberals are

"BROADMINDED. Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress & tolerant of the ideas of others."

Mocking someone for holding a political viewpoint that differs from you is not what I would desribe as "broadminded", "free from bigotry", "open ... & tolerant of ideas of others." But then I'm not a Liberal.

Maybe this is what the filmmakers had in mind when they were making Iron Man:


It should not surprise anyone, but it seems that, at least the 2nd half of, Iron Man: The Movie takes a Left turn as far as its political theme is concerned. Clearly Jon Favreau, Marvel Pictures and everyone else responsible for the film know their target audience. The Lefty Lemmings that follow comic books are just eating up the movies politics.

Over at Newsarama.com we get this:

"We see Stark's subtle transformation from war profiteer-to-superhero as he comes to grip with the real life tragedies caused by the products of his fertile imagination; he realizes that Stark Industries is just another Halliburton, profiting from others' misery."

Of course, this reviewer goes a bit off track with the next sentence:

"He decides to stop producing weapons, which of course, puts him in conflict with his partner Obadiah Stane (played by Bridges) the personification of the industrial-military complex."

Except for the weapons he wears in his armor, he "decides to stop producing weapons". Oh, well.

And then at ComicBookResources.com there's this lead ballon (to conservatives, that is):

"Stark's statement that his company has “become comfortable with a system of zero accountability” echoes real-world headlines about Blackwater and Haliburton ..."

I will give CBR credit for minimizing whatever political themes jump out, but it is interesting that we've go two comic book website reviews and two references to Haliburton. Hmmm ...

UPDATE: Added the question mark to the post title. I saw the movie on 5/3 and do not agree with these reviews take on the film's politics. The CBR and Newsarama reviews are cases of a couple of Lefties wanting to see something that just is not there.

Don't go snapping pictures in areas of Brooklyn dominated by Muslims. You just might find yourself in some mosque basement, forced to answer questions, while surrounded by ninja looking jihadists.

That was the experience Bos Smith had after he and some friends took some pictures outside the Masjid At-Taqwa in Brooklyn. As in New York. Not some backwater in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, etc., etc., etc. New fricken York!!!

Here's what gets you few hours interrogation in a mosque:



That's it.

What I'm wondering is why this Ali Kareem, "the head of security for Siraj Wahaj’s mosque" according to the story linked above, isn't explaining himself to some of New York's finest men in blue about the illegal detainment he and his crew of karate garbed Islamists engaged in. An, as of today, unsubstantiated anonymous tip about suspected child abuse by some Mormons in Texas, and every law enforcement agency that can muster a few folks and some SUV's are on the scene. Kidnap 3 "kafirs" from the streets of Brooklyn, NY, and hold them prisoner in a mosque and its, "Ho hum ... Nothing to see here."

As the Lefty bumper sticker says:

The 2008 Presidential election is now a battle of mythic proportions, according to the folks at the Daily  Kos.

Perseus had help from the gods.  Does it not feel as if some special hand is guiding Obama on his journey, I mean, as he has said, the utter improbability of it all?

The instructions to not directly look at her, but to look at her reflection in his shield.  What is Obama's shield, in essence?  I propose it is his belief in hope, redemption, and his ability to channel the essential goodness of the American people.  The Perseus myth clearly indicates he should not confront his opponent by face-to-face, tit-for-tat combat.

Of especial significance for me is the star Mirfak, the elbow of Perseus's sword arm.  At some point, he does need to utilize his elbows, and when the moment comes, cut strongly and swiftly.

And lastly, let us not forget that the comet is BLUE.

So let us have hope, the gods are on our side, and the Hero will prevail. [emphasis added]

Thanks to NRO's Jonah Goldberg for highlighting this amazing bit of lunacy. The Left has utterly lost its mind during this election cycle. God save us when they lose in November, and I am more and more believing that they will lose. People are generally not that happy when their gods are slain.

I highly doubt that New York Magazine is a seething hotbed of Intelligent Design supporters. So it made me pause when, as I browsed this articled linked by National Review's Jonah Goldberg, I found the following diagram:


Anything happen to catch your eye? Don't see it? Let me help you:

"... a three step guide to reactivate the machines at the ends of your legs ... Your toes are designed to give you  a powerful push forward - sending you striding smoothly into the next step."

Our toes are part of a designed machine? But I thought suggesting something was designed necessarily meant that there must be a designer and that this kind of talk was strictly the stuff of theology.

Someone should let the New York Magazine editors know that their writers are surreptitiously slipping this loose theological talk into what some might consider a "scientific" article.

Maybe New York Magazine has some closet ID folks on its staff.

Is nothing sacred at Time Magazine? While American soldiers are fighting and dying to protect us from Islamo-Nazi fanatics, Time chose the man who wants to resurrect the bad old days of the Soviet Union and international Communism.

Now Time's editors are trying to use the brave Marines of Iwo Jima in a "War" against global warming.



Don't send the Marines to fight and kill these guys:



Instead, according the Left, we need to send them off to pull soccer moms out of these:

I was browsing the fantastical images of Les Edwards and came across this image he did for a CD by the band Prodigy.



If ever there was an image that so accurately represented the Liberal World-view this is it.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer displays its Left-wing bias with headlines regarding the Dalia Lama's visit to Seattle and Pope Benedict XVI's East Coast visit.

Dalai Lama: Dalai Lama conference ends with call for 'compassionate action'

Pope Benedict XVI: Pope says he is 'deeply ashamed' of clergy abuse scandal

Bias at the Seattle P-I? Naahh. 'Nuff said.

I wonder what Senate Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid clings to:

Does Harry Reid think the protracted nomination fight between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will harm the party?
"It makes me bitter," he [said].

At least he has a sense of humor.

Muslims are not afraid to declare that they are engaged in a religious war against all infidels. So how come we in the West are afraid to admit that, in fact, we are at war with Islam?

"Allah has chosen you for Himself and for His religion," al-Astal preached, "so that you will serve as the engine pulling this nation to the phase of succession, security and consolidation of power, and even to conquests through da'wa and military conquests of the capitals of the entire world.

"Very soon, Allah willing, Rome will be conquered, just like Constantinople was, as was prophesized by our prophet Muhammad," [Yunis al-Astal, "a prominent Muslim cleric and Hamas member of the Palestinian parliament", said].

Perhaps that should be our position unless and until we see Muslims protest these kinds of comments in, at least, the same number as they  protest what are perceived as "insults" to Islam.

Instead there is nothing but silence from the Islamic world when these kinds of comments come out. And I'm supposed to believe that Islam is the "religion of peace"? I don't think so.

And if that means lying to make a point, then so be it. Paul Krugman admits as much in his latest Democrat Times of New York commentary, reprinted in Seattle's Democrat Anti-Intelligencer.

The Times, in an actual bit of news reporting, made it clear that Hillary Clinton was continually repeating a story, about a woman who died for lack of health insurance, for which there was no basis in fact.

The woman, Trina Bachtel, did die last August, two weeks after her baby boy was stillborn at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio. But hospital administrators said Friday that Ms. Bachtel was under the care of an obstetrics practice affiliated with the hospital, that she was never refused treatment and that she was, in fact, insured.

For uber-Leftist Paul Krugman facts matter little if it helps creates the Leftist vision America; "... while some of the details were slightly off, the essentials of her story were correct." In fact, the only fact that was correct was the tragedy of Ms. Bachtel's and her baby boy's death. Everything else was false. Mr. Krugman makes it clear that that matters little when there are more important things at stake, like Socialized Health Care:

And even more important, Clinton was making a valid point about the state of health care in America.

... It was particularly sad to see a number of Obama supporters ... join enthusiastically in the catcalls against Clinton's good-faith effort to put a human face on the cruelty and injustice of the American health care system.

... politics is supposed to be about more than cheering your team and jeering the other side. It's supposed to be about changing the country for the better.

When hard core Leftists embrace lying as a means to "changing the country for the better", be afraid. Be very afraid.

Sen. B. H. Obama's has recently stated that the federal government has effectively abandoned Pennsylvanian's and left them with no prospects, such that "they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Many in the punditocracy are declaring this as just another example of Sen. Barry's elitism. I find I am persuaded by Roger Kimball's simultaneous defense of elitism and clarifying attack on Obama.

That some people are elite and some are not is an uncomfortable fact of life that many, on both the Left and Right, would like to ignore. Kimball quotes William Henry's book, titled In Defense of Elitism,

the simple fact that some people are better than others—smarter, harder working, more learned, more productive, harder to replace. Some ideas are better than others, some values more enduring, some works of art more universal. Some cultures, thought we dare not say it, are more accomplished than others and therefore more worthy of study. Every corner of the human race may have something to contribute. That does not mean that all contributions are equal… . It is scarcely the same thing to put a man on the moon as to put a bone in your nose.

If anyone should understand this it is conservatives.

Kimball then makes clear why Obama's comments and subsequent denial that he meant exactly what he said were so odious. It is not because they are the elitist utterings.

It was smug; it was self-righteous; it was blinkered, bigoted, emotionally impoverished, and otherwise odious; it but it was not in any normal sense of the word “elitist.”

[Sen. Obama] regarded most Americans as bitter, small-town, gun-toting, God-fearing, xenophobic, unemployed isolationists who needed help. That is bad enough. Even worse, however, is the disgusting pretense that he actually meant something more emollient. Most of us have gotten used to being treated with contempt by politicians. But Obama has upped the ante. It isn’t pleasant. But it is, at any rate, useful to know just how stupid he thinks we are. I for one will not forget it.

And neither shall I.

I am wondering why no one, not even talk radio, is at least pointing out what I think are troubling connections between Democrat opposition to the Free Trade agreement with Columbia and recent discovery of Democrat operatives exchanging letters with Columbian terrorist group FARC, assuring FARC that there would be information exchanges in Washington DC that would benefit FARC.

The only main stream media reporting I’ve found on this is in a Wall Street Journal editorial: 

There have been several blog commentaries on this subject. Gateway Pundit is one of several blog that has discussed this issue.

Would there be as much media silence on this if the tables were turned and instead we discovered someone connected with Republicans were having communication with a Venezuelan terrorist group that was working to undermine the Chavez regime? I have a strong suspicion that that storyline would be a front page New York Times story … for many days. Especially if a Republican controlled Congress killed a free trade agreement with Venezuela.

We all know about Mark Steyn's current battles with the absurdly named Canadian Human Rights Commission. Now I've learned that Mark Steyn is not their only target. Now some well known conservative bloggers are in the sites CHRC's gunsites.

...[S]ome Canadian conservative bloggers are being sued by the fellow who Mark Steyn has called "Canada's most sensitive man" -- serial "human rights" complainant Richard Warman.

The suit names:

• Ezra Levant (famous for the YouTube video of his confrontation with the Canadian Human Rights tribunal after he published the "Mohammed Cartoons")

• FreeDominion.ca (Canada's answer to FreeRepublic.com)

• Kate McMillan of SmallDeadAnimals.com

• Jonathan Kay of the National Post newspaper and its in-house blog

• and me, Kathy Shaidle of FiveFeetOfFury.com

More details at my blog, FiveFeetOfFury.

Richard Warman used to work for the notorious Human Rights Commission, which runs the "kangaroo courts" who've recently charged Mark Steyn with "flagrant Islamophobia".

Richard Warman has brought almost half these cases single-handledly, trying to get websites he doesn't like shut down.

He's also sued libraries for carrying books he doesn't approve of.

PLUS Richard Warman wants to ban international websites he doesn't like from being seen by Canadians.

I'm beginning to worry less and less about Mexico and more and more about the Liberal Fascist threat North of America's borders.