An optimist would say I'm half-sober (and half-dressed)

For most people, the proper response to mass murder is not to hurl false accusations against someone they don't like. Clinging to and redoubling one's false accusations day after day is also not considered remotely-sane behavior by most.

It's been a week since Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was nearly killed by a pychopath who murdered and wounded several other people. Fortunately for the left, he didn't shout "Allahu Ackbar" before opening fire, so they could finally start jumping to conclusions and making false accusations against large numbers of people. Finally, a criminal who looked like one of *THEM*.

We saw this when the Times Square bomber failed and the Mayor of New York City (among others) raced to be first to blame people who opposed health care reform and/or supported the tea party. We saw this when whatsisname flew his plane into an IRS building. We saw this when a census worker was found hanging from a tree. False accusations of right-wing "hate" and no sense of self-awareness at all when they're proven wrong. Contrast that with their reaction to Faisal Shazad, Abdulmutallab and Major Hassan. When those criminals attempted mass murder, all we heard was that everybody should be wary of jumping to conclusions, it was wrong to condemn large groups of people without the facts.

Sarah Palin used register marks - it's a printing term; comic book fans should know it from original artwork - to designate Democratic seats up for grabs in last fall's election. Somehow, without any evidence whatsoever that the psychopath even knew Sarah Palin existed, this map became the major piece of evidence that she was responsible for the murders.

That's what surprised me, that the attacks have so directly aimed at Palin and specifically because of the electoral map. Yeah, the usual suspects - Rush, Beck, GWB, Fox News - are blamed, but only as an afterthought. That's really the only thing that's caught me off-guard about the media reaction. Browsing a leftist website this afternoon, I read a discussion of "stochastic terrorism", by which Palin et al don't even need to know who the "terrorists" are or who their target will be to have full responsibility for the crimes. They have programmed the mass media to set these lone wolves in action, even from across the globe. (cf Laden, Osama bin)

I can't blame them. Look at how much effort the Beatles had to put into getting Charles Manson to start killing people. JD Salinger had to wait decades before someone was so inspired by "Catcher in the Rye" that he'd shoot somebody over it. If Jodie Foster hadn't been cast in Taxi Driver, John Hinkley Jr. wouldn't have had any direction. Tupac, Biggie and the other gangstas had to write songs about each other to get any gunplay going. But Sarah Palin's managed to get somebody to commit murder on her behalf without any evidence that he even knew she existed.

To put it another way, I bet there's more evidence on his iPod of heavy metal music warping his mind than anything Palin has ever said or done. Besides existing, I mean, because that along is enough for some people to falsely accuse her of murder. From the "Washington Wives" holding congressional hearings about explicit music lyrics to Dr. Frederic "there are pictures within pictures for those who know how to look" Wertham, the rhetoric of 'This is responsible for That' is interchangeable. Even the Wikipedia page on the PRMC has quotes from psychiatrists that heavy metal is mean-spirited and contains the central element of hatred, fitting in exactly with what the left is saying today.

[This also applies to images of the prophet Muhammed, but the left is completely willing to respect religious beliefs at the expense of free speech when it comes to Islam. You'd have to ask them why, but so far they haven't given a reason and I doubt they'll change any time soon.]

Again, they are displaying no self-awareness as they hurl false accusations. No hesitation that they might be wrong, or might be behaving inappropriately, that they may be making themselves look insane. Or that they might be enacting The Boy Who Cried Wolf, and when Sarah Palin actually does come for the sheep, no one will believe them.

For now, everybody not genetically-predisposed to hurl false accusations against someone they don't like at the first opportunity has gotten the latest good look in a long line of good looks at the people are so predisposed. The mask is gone and everybody sees them for what they are: hysterical Nazis.

Hyperbole? I think not. There was a desperate rear-guard attempt at defense when she used the term "blood libel", which is literally accurate and is not exclusively a Jewish term. It has been most often used when Jews were accused of murdering children or poisoning the water and environment - you've seen it in Israel for the last 60 years; hell, you've seen it in previous accusations against Palin - but false accusations are indeed libel, and considering how many people died or came close to it because of the murderer's act, the blood is already there.

First they falsely accused Sarah Palin of murder, and I did not speak up...

"You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" -- Joseph N. Welch

And the sad thing is, no, they really don't. If they did, they would have stopped a long time ago. Sooner or later, entropy will set in as it does with every other form of energy. God only knows when that will happen, or what form the results will take.

I signed back in from leave today. This leave was well-timed, as there's a federal holiday on Monday.

Grabbing the first Youtube clip that comes to mind, here's something purporting to be a history of product placement in movies. Other than a few clips from Fatty Arbuckle and the Marx Brothers, it's mostly modern movies and not really historical at all. They include ET and a great scene from Wayne's World.


And here's one of the hilarious cartoons released by a South Korean studio. I'm really not clear who makes these or why - read: too lazy to check - but this one explains feminism.