Sen. Patrick Leahy has a speaking role in next Batman movie. I wonder if the ratings description will note “actual politician” among “violence,” “frightening sequences,” and whatever elements make up the movie’s rating.

(San Francisco) Democratic presidential contenders vied with one another to declare defeat in their own campaigns today, in a candidates’ forum sponsored by the non-partisan group Childless Gays for Education.

“I’ve been campaigning for almost eight years now,” said Sen. Hillary Clinton, “and frankly I’m demoralized. The cost has been tremendous, and I see no guarantee of success further down the road. I’ve decided it’s time to admit defeat and go home to New York.”

Sen. Barack Obama did not delay in picking up the theme. “We hear sensational stories about possible devastation to the country under four more years of Republican government. I consider that unlikely. I support the Democratic party and its operatives one-hundred percent, but the best thing we can do for those patriotic men and women is to bring them home before they’re completely brutalized by this inhuman struggle.”

John Edwards retorted, “You guys are behind the curve. I gave up months ago. I began a phased withdrawal of my campaign workers back in March. It’s been clear to me for some time that, with our present national consensus that no fight is worth the trouble unless it can be finished in a few weeks at practically no cost, this campaign is a quagmire and a waste of time. I feel that the best thing I can do for the Democratic Party is to concede to the Republicans right away. And I’m doing that tonight.”

We don’t have annual tomato fights.

Today is the anniversary of the Normandy invasion in 1944.

I was all prepared to do a knee-jerk patriotic post, going on and on about the courage of our fighting forces.

But I’ve been reading lefty blogs and watching network television news lately, and the scales have fallen from my eyes (pardon me while I put the scales back in the bathroom, where they belong). I now see what a horrible crime our participation in World War II was. In fact, I’m at a loss to explain how the enlightened voices of our mainstream media can continue to cover up the horrific crimes of Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and their henchmen. Where are the Cindy Sheehans, the Rosie O’Donnells, the John Murthas of the (so called) Greatest Generation? When will the truth be told?

Today, while archiving old books in the library, I found a small pamphlet tucked into one of them. It’s a contemptible piece of war propaganda published by the USO. I’ll show you a couple pages here; but it actually folds out to six pages, front and back.

Look at the front page:

The first thing that strikes the enlightened reader is the picture of the soldiers. I suppose the fact that one is a sailor, one a soldier and one a marine is supposed to suggest some sense of diversity. Ha! You call that diversity? They’re all white. They’re all male. None of them is visibly disabled. The fact that they’re hugging might suggest that they’re gay, which would be worth something, I suppose, but they’re probably just drunk, celebrating the massacre of innocent civilians somewhere.

You’d almost think that they thought in those days that an army existed for the purpose of fighting wars, rather than for providing educational opportunities to impoverished young people.

Barbarians!

Note also the second quotation under the picture. The word “Jap” is used openly. Do you need further evidence that this was a purely racist war, in which Roosevelt and his striped-pants buddies trumped up the flimsy excuse of a minor misunderstanding at Pearl Harbor, in order to prosecute a genocidal war against Asians, in order to steal their… whatever it was Japan had that they wanted to steal?

Note also that the soldiers are referred to as “men” fully three times, just on this page. No mention at all of the thousands of female soldiers who were fighting and dying all over Europe and the Pacific, whose story has been cruelly suppressed by the male hegemony, even unto this day!

But what really settles the matter is the back page:

Note the names of the two chairmen—Rockefeller and Bush (and yes, Prescott S. Bush was the father of George H. W. Bush, and grandfather of George W. Bush).

What further proof do you need that the whole war was a farce, started by liars purely for oil?

The only thing that’s missing is Halliburton.

But it goes without saying that the lack of any mention of Halliburton is the most definitive proof that the whole thing was their insidious plan.

Thou impertinent hasty-witted whey-face!

[Thou art] already dead. stabbed with a white wench’s black eye, run through the ear with a love song, the very pin of [thy] heart cleft with the blind bow-boy’s butt shaft.

Those poor college students won’t know what they’re missing when confronted with The Shakespearean Insulter

A few days ago, the Maverick Philosopher linked to us in connection with an Andrew Klavan post he wrote, primarily pointing out this article from The Weekly Standard.

So, now I have to confess what’s wrong with me, eh? Well, one man’s weird is another man’s social obligation. I should ask my sister what is truly weird about me. Take for example:

1. I always carry a pocket handkerchief. I’m sure some people think that’s weird.

2. I can’t break the habit of falling asleep while praying, bent double on the floor with the circulation in my legs (and sometimes my arms) cut off.

3. For all the joking I do about beer, the closest I’ve come to drinking one is a sip of someone else’s O’Doul’s.

4. Despite #3, I confess I have consumed almost an entire bottle of Cognac on my own. Over several months, but still without any help from the sweet wife, who avoids alcoholic and caffeinated beverages like stagnant pond water.

5. From memory, I can sing a few songs from the American War of Independence.

Tags: I’d like to see Blestwithsons and Lintefiniel take this up, if they haven’t already.

Andrew Klavan has this essay up over at City Journal today.

That high-pitched noise you hear in the distance is me, screaming, “I wish I’d written that!”

Michael at The Euphemist has come out of hibernation long enough to tag Phil and me with a “Six Weird Things About Me” meme.

Now there’s a challenge.

If he’d asked for six normal things about me, I might have had some trouble.

OK, where do we start?

I have heterochromia iridis. This is not a rare, debilitating genetic disease. It’s the condition where a person has bi-colored eyes. A famous instance is the rocker David Bowie, who has one blue eye and one brown. My H. I. comes in a different form, where the two colors are mixed in the eyes, in a pinto pony combination of brown and gray (or blue, depending on the light and who’s looking).

I like folk music.

I don’t like cheese of any kind, except in pizza.

I actually much preferred the second Conan movie to the first one.

I have no good memories associated with any sport (except for live steel combat).

I can read Norwegian in the old, Gothic Fraktur typeface.

I shall now take my hat and cane and go.

OK, this is getting ridiculous.

I’m supposed to believe in Global Warming, according to the Great and the Wise.

It’s April 10.

We got about three inches of snow last night and today.

The cognitive dissonance has become too great. I need a new paradigm.

And I have one. I’ve done serious thinking today (I work in a library, and the psychic emanations from all the wisdom that surrounds me marinate my highly sensitive soul). I’ve considered the situation, and I know what’s going on.

What are my credentials, you ask? Ha! I know as much about it as Rosie O’Donnell! And I’m almost as fat!

I offer Walker’s Theory of Global Cooling.

When you’re introducing a new paradigm (or theory, or hobbyhorse) of course, there’s one thing you absolutely need in order to enjoy real credibility. I’ve studied the discussion closely, as it has gone on to date, and it’s clear that a theorist really needs one thing to be taken seriously in our day.

You need a conspiracy theory.

So I’ll start with the C.T.

Every conspiracy theory needs a Hidden Hand, a secret cabal manipulating events for its own benefit. I have selected one.

The Jews are already taken. All the crackpots are ranting about the hidden hand of the Jews. I’ve got to be more creative than that.

I’ll go to the Number Two most popular Hidden Hand, the one they use in Hollywood all the time.

Neo-Nazis.

Yes, Global Cooling is the work of an international cabal of neo-Nazis.

If you’re old, like me, you remember the 1970’s, and how all the scientists back then were warning us about the new Ice Age that was right around the corner. Any day glaciers would advance to cover most of Canada, and snow would fall in Mexico.

Why did the alarmists change their boogeyman?

I believe it happened because scientists realized, to their horror and surprise, that global cooling was actually happening. What they’d intended as a fictional lever with which to pry research money out of the government turned out to be an actual danger.

Enter the neo-Nazis.

The neo-Nazis are still angry about how World War II ended. Ever since 1945, the Nazis and their heirs have been furious at Europe and America. “We offered you greatness, and you refused it!” they mutter. “If you want to decline, we’ll help you decline.”

Global Cooling is their method. Through massive bribery of the world’s scientists (with money provided by their anti-Semitic allies, the Arab oil states) they suborned the scientific community into promoting the entirely imaginary theory of Global Warming.

Meanwhile, the weather gets colder and colder, so we have snowstorms in April. The demand for oil increases, enriching the Arab allies, making more money available for bribes.

Soon it will be too late. Soon most of Europe and the United States will experience arctic conditions. Equatorial areas (where the Arabs live) will become temperate. Everyone will want to move there. There will be massive social upheaval, wars caused by food and fuel shortages, and the neo-Nazis and their allies will have the market cornered on those resources.

It’s almost too late, friends! You must demonstrate! You must riot in the streets! You must call scoffers bad names and throw ice cubes at them! Only through unrestrained international chaos and upheaval will we be able to make our voices heard!

(By the way, that part is up to you. I came up with the theory. My work is done.)