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This phrase occurs in an article about the bizarre science-fiction cult that my friend Jamie Kirchick published last month:

The broad contours of Scientology’s inception are well-known: In 1950, the pulp sci-fi writer L. Ron Hubbard published a self-help book called Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, which humbly claimed itself to be “a milestone for Man comparable to his discovery of fire and superior to his inventions of the wheel and the arch.” . . .
In 1952, Hubbard decided to merge his bunk scientific claims with his science fiction and market the mixture as a religion. He called it Scientology, or, “the science of knowing how to know answers.” According to Church defectors, and now infamous thanks to South Park, Scientology’s theology is essentially a discarded Hubbard novel. Human beings are the composition of spirits (“thetans”) cast off from the bodies of space aliens detonated 75 million years ago in volcanoes on the planet Teegeeack (also known as Earth) by a galactic warrior named Xenu. Man’s problems today are attributable to “engrams,” or the mental memory of painful experiences caused by the presence of thetans on our humanly bodies, which one can get rid of only through a process of spiritual “auditing,” a sort of counseling session performed on a low-rent lie-detector machine called an “E-Meter.” Those who join Scientology often end up spending vast sums on auditing and other Church gimmicks, leading detractors to characterize Scientology as a pyramid scheme in which members pay ever-vaster sums of money to ascend the Church’s “Operating Thetan levels.” A typical story involves the grief-stricken, 73-year-old widow who took on a $45,000 mortgage to pay for auditing after Scientologists preyed upon her following the death of her husband. . . .

Read the whole thing. It’s hard to believe anyone with an IQ above room temperature could be suckered into believing the nonsense promulgated by Scientology — but then again, is it really more absurd than the beliefs of the Democrat Party?

This is a slight paraphrase of how the obnoxious a–hole justifies his bullying of a Chick-fil-A employee at a drive-through window:

Adam Smith berates a Chick-fil-A employee, got fired, and now has released a new video apologizing to Rachel, who was his drive-thru victim. He goes on about how she handled his rant with grace, patience, and apologizes for his actions. He wishes her the best of luck in her future endeavors.
Then…he explains why he went to Chcik-fil-A and went on a rampage. He says his “main goal of supporting the gay community outweighed the collateral damage that Rachel became” and admits that he only saw her in that aspect. He then details how we need to stop “rationalizing our destructive actions this way … we need to start seeing people as people.” He admits he failed his own test.

Watch the video at Legal Insurrection. Keep in mind that Smith only had this remorseful response after he shot video of himself hectoring Rachel and took the time to upload that video to YouTube, evidently expecting to bask in the admiring applause of his fellow liberals. It was only when the self-righteous bully failed to gain the anticipated admiration — and indeed, became an instant symbol of the bullying intolerance of the anti-Chick-fil-A boycotters — that Smith experienced remorse.

Smith first attempted to delete the video, only to discover the lack of an “unpublish” function on the Internet. After he was fired from his job, he now retroactively avows his “main goal of supporting the gay community,” as if this explains why a corporate executive with an MBA thought it would be a good idea to post a video of himself heckling a poor woman working at a fast-food drive through window.

Andy at AOSHQ says, “When something billed as an apology has a 7+ minute run time, you’re doing it wrong.”

Apologies for the Godwin’s Law violation in the headline, but the collateral damage to Adam Smith’s reputation was outweighed by my main goal of supporting the fast-food community.

 

Ed Morrissey calls it “despicable and grossly irresponsible,” while Jeff Goldstein predicts there will be a harsh backlash against Reid’s tactics:

The arrogance of power can be truly astonishing to watch. Harry Reid hasn’t passed a budget in nearly four years, and has obstructed every meaningful effort to reduce the out-of-control federal deficit. For Reid — a man who has notoriously benefitted from corrupt land deals in his home state of Nevada — to be lecturing Mitt Romney on financial propriety is every bit as outrageous as Obama’s “you didn’t build that.”

UPDATE: People are wondering why I haven’t said anything about the “Harry Reid pederasty” scandal. A month or so ago, a person who had blogged at Ace of Spades HQ called my office and said, “Harry Reid is the Jerry Sandusky of Nevada!”

Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain. But I mean, gee whiz, that is a story you should be writing.

PREVIOUSLY:

• Aug. 2: Harry Reid’s Financial McCarthyism: ‘I Don’t Think the Burden Should Be on Me’
• Aug. 1: … And the Pulitzer Prize for Recycling Second-Hand Rumors From HuffPo …
• July 24:  Axelrod’s Nixonian Manipulations: Tax Flap Is About Mitt’s Mormon Millions

Neutral objective journalist George Stephanopoulos must be shocked:

A deputy press secretary for Barack Obama’s reelection campaign married an ABC reporter over the weekend. The ABC reporter, Matthew Jaffe, “covering the 2012 presidential campaign,” according to his biography on the website of ABC News. “For the past year he traveled around the country covering the Republican primary, from the Iowa Straw Poll to the various debates to this year’s primaries and caucuses.”
The deputy press secretary Jaffe married is Katie Hogan. Many members of Obama’s reelection team and the press celebrated the wedding together Saturday.

Really, can anyone tell where the Obama campaign ends and the mainstream media begins? Is there even a line left to blur? Andrew Breitbart called it the “Democrat-Media Complex.” He was right. And when Bernie Goldberg called it A Slobbering Love Affair, it was more than a mere figure of speech.

 

by Smitty

Admittedly, newspapers are headed down the extinction trail on our current national course, along with liberty. So in that sense, why not hand over the Federal Reserve to a boob like Kruge?”

[Quantitative Easing] is very uncertain in its effect, but the [Federal Reserve] should be doing more of that.”

For something relatively more credible than Krugman and the Federal Reserve, how about nominating KISS (in full costume of course) to manage U.S. monetary policy?

Via American Glob ad Weasel Zippers.

Update: linked at Daley Gator, who would at least entertain the question of landscaping work by Krugman.

The state that once gave America such powerful Democrats as Harry Truman and Dick Gephardt is now turning deep, deep Republican red:

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) trails all three of her potential Republican rivals, according to a new survey conducted for two Missouri news outlets, cementing her status as this cycle’s most vulnerable incumbent.
Businessman John Brunner (R) holds the largest advantage over McCaskill, leading by a 52 perent to 41 percent margin. Former state Treasurer Sarah Steelman (R) leads by a 49 percent to 41 percent margin. And Rep. Todd Akin (R) leads by a 49 percent to 44 percent margin.
McCaskill’s big problems come among independent voters. She scores just 40 percent among independents against Akin, and she’s mired in the mid-30s when she’s matched up with Brunner and Steelman.

Doug Powers points out that Romney leads Obama by nine points in Missouri. In 2008, Obama came within 4,000 votes of winning Missouri.

So if Obama is running eight points behind his 2008 margin in Missouri, what are his chances of carrying other Midwest states like Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin and Iowa? Not too good, I’d guess.

(Hat-tip: Memeorandum.)

The World’s Worst Excuse for a Daily Newspaper today published an editorial of unimaginable wretchedness, comparing Republicans to Stalin — yes, Stalin — for their opposition to ObamaCare.

Republicans, according to this perverse analogy, are the moral equivalent of a genocidal mass murderer because a study by the New England Journal of Medicine found that a certain number of non-insured people would die if ObamaCare isn’t fully implemented:

So you’re OK with people suffering needlessly? And you’re OK with killing 17,000 people a year? Because if you are, admit it. Don’t hide behind “we can’t afford it.”

Voting against ObamaCare is therefore — according to the vicious dimwits who write editorials at The World’s Worst Excuse for a Daily Newspaper — the same thing as the Ukrainian terror-famine and the systematic liquidation of the kulaks.

Dan Riehl believes he has identified the author of this unsigned editorial, but in checking the staff listings, I don’t see that guy’s name.

At any rate, you can call 314-340-8000 and let the editors of The World’s Worst Excuse for a Daily Newspaper know that you don’t like being compared to a mass-murdering dictator.

(Hat-tip: Gateway Pundit.)

UPDATE: Apologies to Dan Riehl who, as usual, was right: Tony Messenger is indeed editorial page editor of the Post-Disgrace.

UPDATE II (Smitty): welcome, Instpundit readers!

by Smitty

RT @DeliciousJoe: “You might be an idiot if you think the road built your business, and not the other way around”- Rand Paul #FreePac #tcot

— John Hayward (@Doc_0) July 27, 2012

So much of our current political challenge seems to be overcoming the cart-horse reversal that is Progressivism:
People aren’t necessarily that stupid; we’ve just been giving the benefit of the doubt to these self-proclaimed ‘experts’ for too long.