Is That 44 Geckos in Your Pants, Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

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You can’t make this up:

A German reptile collector has been jailed for 14 weeks and must pay a 5,000 New Zealand dollar ($3,540) fine for plundering New Zealand’s wild gecko and skink populations, a judge has ruled.
Hans Kurt Kubus, 58, is to be deported to Germany as soon as he is released from prison, Judge Colin Doherty ordered Tuesday.
Kubus was caught by wildlife officials at Christchurch International Airport on South Island in December, about to board an overseas flight with 44 geckos and skinks in a hand-sewn package concealed in his underwear.

Lizards. In his pants. Insert Charles Johnson joke here.

(Hat-tip: Dan Collins on Twitter.)

Good News: ‘Ellie Light’ Is a Man

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Bad news: He’s afraid of “right-wing crazies” in California:

Ellie Light, the ubiquitous letter writer whose name appeared in newspapers nationwide praising President Barack Obama, appears to really be a male health care worker from California.
A man who identified himself as Winston Steward, 51, of Frazier Park, Calif., says he made up the name “Ellie Light” to protect himself from criticism and possible physical attacks, and used fake addresses across the country to get local newspapers to publish his letters. . . .
[P]ublic records . . . eventually led to the identity of Steward. Those interviews included several with a woman in Texas who said . . . she is married to Steward, who for now lives in their other home in California but plans to join her in their home near San Antonio.
The woman said her husband was using her name because he was afraid he might be attacked by “right-wing crazies up in Bakersfield,” about 40 miles from their home in a mountain community.

Yeah. Because there’s a big problem with “right-wing crazies” in California terrorizing people who publish pro-Obama letters using their real names and addresses. It happens all the time. As soon as a pro-Obama letter appears in the paper, the Halliburton/Cheney Totenkopf SS Death Squads swoop down and the letter-writer is never heard from again.

The hypothetical scenario that Winston Steward is a gutless phony? We can dismiss that possibility. Only a right-wing crazy conspiracy theorist would imagine such a thing. Allahpundit:

So our unfounded fears of a deeply disturbing Axelrodian astroturf operation have been replaced by . . . an even more deeply disturbing one-man letter-writing campaign by a dude who first impersonates his wife, then denies being married to her. I feel much better now.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

UPDATE: Hey, good stuff from Patterico:

Winston Steward is a Kos Kiddie . . . And the first person he followed on Twitter is the president of a D.C. based public relations firm. An expert on outreach to Hispanic voters . . .

Hmmmm. So this guy wasn’t completely random. There are enough fingerprints here to arouse suspicion, and it will be interesting to watch as more background information is developed. I don’t want to go all ELEVENTY!!1!1!  the way the Left jumped up and down over their Fitzmas fantasies — there is no crime evident here — but it’s possible that this episode could a lot about the Obama administration’s propaganda operations.

Patton: A Real American Hero

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CubaChi on Twitter:

Alright! @MarkLevinShow is playing the Patton music now! You know this is going to be good!

Great taste in music, ma’am!

This is super-cool — Francis Ford Coppola describes how he got fired for writing the Oscar-winning screenplay:

The original theatrical trailer:

Here’s another version of the trailer:

My cousin Mark and I were always big war-movie fans as kids and when we were 11, Mark’s mom (my Aunt Pat) took us to see Patton. She was mortified by the profanity and was quite apologetic to my mother for having inadvertantly exposed us to this. But there was no need to apologize to Mark and me — we loved it!

For all his faults, his arrogance and stubbornness and irascible temper, Patton is a great role model because of his firm faith and single-minded devotion to his profession. He was aristocratic by nature, and didn’t sit around worrying about what some rear-echelon type might think of him. He desired a soldier’s true glory — the prestige of victory — not the sort of “popularity” that is false and transient, gained by fawning sycophancy.

Patton is a one of the most inspiring films in history, a celebration of a uniquely American hero.

Ruh-Roh

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A troubling story from New Orleans:

Alleging a plot to wiretap Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans, the FBI arrested four people Monday, including James O’Keefe, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged the advocacy group’s credibility.
Also arrested were Joseph Basel, Stan Dai and Robert Flanagan, all 24. Flanagan is the son of William Flanagan, who is the acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, the office confirmed. All four were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony.
According to the FBI affidavit, Flanagan and Basel entered the federal building at 500 Poydras Street about 11 a.m. Monday, dressed as telephone company employees, wearing jeans, fluorescent green vests, tool belts, and hard hats . . .

G. Gordon Liddy could have warned them. Let’s hope it’s a bum rap.

Hat-tip to Dan Riehl, who has more background.

UPDATE: Now the top thread at Memeorandum. Michelle Malkin writes:

This is neither a time to joke nor a time to recklessly accuse Democrats/liberals of setting this up — nor a time to whine about media coverage double standards. . . .
They are, of course, presumed innocent until proven guilty.
But for now, let it be a lesson to aspiring young conservatives interested in investigative journalism:
Know your limits. Know the law. Don’t get carried away. And don’t become what you are targeting.

Michelle also has lots more, including the official indictments (PDF).

Thanks, Dennis Prager

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” [I]n 28 years as a talk show host and columnist, I had never heard of Robert Stacy McCain or of Vlaams Belang.”
— Dennis Prager, “An Open Letter to Charles Johnson”

Prager wrote this at David Horowitz’s Front Page Magazine. I’ve written feature profiles about Horowitz’s Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week and the GWU hate-hoax, about the Left’s veneration of Che Guevara, and a column about the Left’s support for murderer Tookie Williams — all of which are available at the Front Page Magazine site.

If Dennis Prager never heard of me, the question is, “Why not?”

Damn, I might as well move to Brussels . . .

AIG Trouble for ‘TurboTax’ Geithner

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There’s blood in the water, and Congress wants answers:

Shares of American International Group Inc. slid Tuesday, a day ahead of a Congressional hearing on bailout money that was given to the troubled insurer.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is scheduled to testify Wednesday before a House committee about funds intended for AIG that were then routed to other banks.
In 2008, the Federal Reserve Board, through Geithner as head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, pledged $85 billion to prop up the ailing insurer.
That was one month after AIG, based in New York, had revealed billions in losses from credit default swaps.

And guess who else testifies tomorrow? SIGTARP:

Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the $700 billion bailout, is set to tell the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday that he has initiated an investigation into whether the New York Fed instructed AIG not to disclose more than a dozen controversial counterparty transactions to the Securities and Exchange Commission. . . .
After the audit was released in November, House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Darrell Issa, R-Calif., asked Barofsky for copies of correspondence between the New York Fed and AIG. But Barofsky told Issa that he couldn’t hand over a copy of the records because the New York Fed told him not to share them. . . . (Emphasis added)

Who told you that Barofsky was the IG to watch? Who told you that Geithner was the Obama administration official most likely to take the fall?