This is why everyone hates hipsters

East Pilsen is one of those crappy Chicago neighborhoods that is turning into a hipster/artist area. Of course, the next step is then normal white people moving in and the neighborhood turning less crappy. The hipsters don't like it.

(As an aside, this final step is happening in my hood, Logan Square. Read the comment on our new bar by "abeline_queen" to get a flavor for how they view such nice, normal places. What a bitch. Here is the full text of an e-mail I sent to someone about her comment:

I mean, I know it's a comment section for rating the bar, but her beef isn't with the bar. It's with the very idea of an improving neighborhood. She hated this place before she ever stepped in it, and I doubt she ever did that.

If she thinks it's a Wrigleyville-style bar, she has clearly not been in there and thus is lying by reviewing it. The place is not ever very much fun (for now) because it's all couples going there to eat and then leave. It may as well be a Flat Top Grill.

Finally, how much individuality is there in dive bars and burrito places (of which there is only one of the "all-night" variety, and that's really just a regular Mexican restaurant that happens to be open 24 hours. Believe me, I've looked)? I've been to plenty of those places, too, and they are all the same. Because they suck. The dive bars are full of old people and dopey hipsters and in the burrito places you are lucky if someone can take your order since no one knows English. She must be one of those weird ugly hippie types who used to get made fun of when she was younger and never matured past it like most people do. I can just imagine her walking by the bar thinking how it's full of "frat guys" or some other supposed enemies.

Maybe I need to write a review responding to hers since she's so blatantly dishonest in her review. Overall, she just wants the relative safety of a nicer neighborhood (meaning full of white people) while continuing to reap the supposed benefits of bad ones ("character" and such). You can't have it both ways, sister!)

The latest manifestation is over a polish sausage stand in East Pilsen. I'm not kidding:

"This is a threat, not an opportunity for our neighborhood," says Carlos Chavarria, who owns Kristoffer's Cafe and Bakery on Halsted.

Why does a restaurant that serves up such beloved Chicago fare -- succulent grilled sausage topped with charred onions and sport peppers, a dollop of mustard on a bun -- elicit such a negative reaction?

"Have you been there?" asks Michael Berg, co-owner of EP Theater Company. "I go there for late night food once every two months. It's a place were drunk people who get out of bars at 2 a.m. go to eat and yell at each other. That's not what where looking for here."

Then there's the traffic jams and litter and overflowing Dumpsters, not to mention the rodents, graffiti, prostitution and double-parked cars, Chavarria says.

Huh? It's a sausage stand, not a casino!

This is what happens when you combine the modern nanny-statism of modern Chicago politics and liberalism in general with idiotic hipsters. What about the free market? Does anyone care about that any more?

I will say that the comments at the bottom of the story are really something. They range from the scary:

They should close down all of those Maxwell Street Depot stands. The food is bad for your health. If you ever see how they grill onions, they pour melted lard over a pile of onions on the grill. When they make the sausage putting the onions on top, you can see the bun soaking up the lard. Imagine what lard can do to you. It can cause harding of the arteries and that's bad for your heart. (Really? Who is "they"? You want the government to shut down restaurants because the food might be bad for you?)

...to the accurate:

Uneducated hipster losers are part of Podmajersky's plan for the neighborhood? Wow, that's forward-looking. (Ed: Ha!)Hey Pilsen, this housing/foreclosure crisis pretty much guarantees that you can keep your gangbangers for another 10 years. I feel sorry for the yuppies who paid over 300k prior to the crash for a 2 bed 2 bath.

...and...

Gee, I would bet if the Polish Stand was going to include lattes, frapuchinos, and fries made in duck fat, there would be no protest. (Ed: Double ha!) What a joke. Welcome ot Chicago. The city and citizens who hate businesses.

...to the funny:

i have an idea, why dont we have those people who hate the dog stand idea to have a polish eating contest so they can have a heart attack and die to solve our problems

...and...

Ya I always grab a polish and a trick from the polish stand.

George Clooney Hearts Terrorists

Without further comment, the story first linked to by Andy McCarthy:

George Clooney, already one of Hollywood's leading liberal voices, has embarked on what may be one of his most controversial projects: the story of Osama bin Laden's driver.

Clooney's production company, Smokehouse, has bought the rights to a book about Salim Hamdan, an inmate at Guantánamo Bay who last week was sentenced to jail for his role in helping the al-Qaeda leader. The book, The Challenge, is by journalist Jonathan Mahler and tells the story of Hamdan's capture and trial, defended by a US navy lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift. It has had a big critical success.

Last week Yemen-born Hamdan, who has already spent seven years in US custody, received a surprisingly light sentence of just five and a half years for being bin Laden's driver in Afghanistan. Prosecutors had billed the case as a key plank in the 'War on Terror', designed to show that terrorists could be dealt with by Guantánamo. They had described Hamdan as a member of bin Laden's inner circle who had knowledge of his terrorist plans...

Clooney is believed to be interested in playing the role of lawyer Swift and the case certainly has all the drama and tension of any fictional legal thriller. Aside from the terrorism and exotic locations, The Challenge describes Swift's battle as a classic case of a crusading 'little guy' winning against the odds.

Don't want to deport illegals?

Don't drive around San Franciso, or you'll probably be gunned down by one of them.

The best is this a-hole's lawyer, who just couldn't stop lying to the press about his client:

Shortly after that, police arrested Ramos, a native of El Salvador and reputed member of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, known as MS-13. Investigators believe he was the gunman, though two other men were seen in the car with him...

Ramos' attorney, Robert Amparan, said his client was not the shooter. "They have the wrong person," he said.

Amparan declined to discuss details of the case, but he denied his client was involved in gang activity and said Ramos entered the country legally. Federal authorities contend Ramos is undocumented.

Sure. How did he avoid deportation? Through the same type of law that we have here in Chicago:

The victims' family learned that Ramos had been arrested at least three times before the shooting and evaded deportation, largely because of San Francisco's sanctuary status.

The policy, adopted in 1989 by the city's elected Board of Supervisors, bars local officials from cooperating with federal authorities in their efforts to deport illegal immigrants.

Despite his history, the city turned him loose only four months ago when he was in the middle of being deported:

Ramos was arrested in late March with another man after police discovered a gun used in a double homicide in the car Ramos was driving.

The district attorney's office decided not to file charges against Ramos, and he was released April 2 even though he was in the process of being deported after his application for legal residence was denied, according to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Not that deportation would matter when this animal could just scurry back across the border. Here's the big finale. Mayor Newsom should be impeached or recalled or whatever they do over there:

"We need to remember always that a death-dealing policy like 'sanctuary' hides behind the false mantle of compassion," Hull said.

Nathan Ballard, a spokesman for San Francisco's mayor, said city officials were wrong to shield undocumented, juvenile felons from federal immigration authorities.

"The sanctuary program was never intended to shield felons," Ballard said. "The policy was inappropriate."

However, Newsom "still supports the worthwhile aims of denying the federal government" assistance in deporting otherwise law-abiding undocumented residents, he said.

"Otherwise law-abiding undocumented residents"? WHAT?!?!?!? That's like saying I'm a swell guy other than all of my liquor store robberies.

Post of the Day

Michelle Malkin has a great one on the blinding insanity held by the left, and rapper Nas in particular, in regards to Fox News Channel. To wit, they want a boycott of FNC due to its supposed racist coverage toward Barack Obama.

Malkin's demolition of their grievances is a beautiful thing.

Loyola kills animals!

That's the healine the animal rights folks want you to read. Here's the reality:

Sloppy work at Loyola University Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine research lab in Maywood led to the deaths of five dogs and seven rabbits, according to an animal-rights group that reviewed 2006-07 federal inspection reports.

Wow. Five dogs and seven rabbits. Is it any wonder no one takes these nutjobs seriously?

Comics: Hands off Obama!

The late-night talk-show hosts have apparently decided that Barack Obama cannot be made fun of in their monologues. The reasons are numerous (or so they say), including that the audience members don't like it and that a bunch of white (guilty liberal) people are uncomfortable making fun of him since he's black. I guess the Obamessiah is beyond criticism.

Then there is this:

Why? The reason cited by most of those involved in the shows is that a fundamental factor is so far missing in Obama: There is no comedic "take" on him, nothing easy to turn to for an easy laugh, like allegations of Bill Clinton's womanizing, or President George W. Bush's goofy bumbling or Al Gore's robotic persona.

"The thing is, he's not buffoonish in any way," said Mike Barry, who started writing political jokes for Johnny Carson's monologues in the waning days of the Johnson administration and has lambasted every presidential candidate since, most recently for Letterman. "He's not a comical figure," Barry said...

Jimmy Kimmel, the host of the ABC late-night talk show "Jimmy Kimmel Live," said of Obama, "There's a weird reverse racism going on. You can't joke about him because he's half-white. It's silly. I think it's more a problem because he's so polished, he doesn't seem to have any flaws."

What?

Oh dear, people have lost their minds about this guy. Here's some easy stuff that's non-political: he's inexperienced, and there is also the way his followers swoon over his every utterance. That's not too controversial, I would think, even to Obama supporters. I could come up with lots more that many people wouldn't agree with, but then I've never agreed with the cartoonish depiction of our current president, not that it ever stopped these guys from continuing that.

The worst part is this:

But Barry said, "I think some of us were maybe too quick to caricature Al Gore and John Kerry and there's maybe some reluctance to do the same thing to him."

Wow. I mean, wow. I can't believe he actually came out and said it. He gets honesty points, at least, for admitting that he doesn't want to doom his favored candidate. After all, he didn't mention how much these writers screwed over Bob Dole in 1996, did he?

D-Bag of the holiday weekend

I knew I wouldn't have to search too hard for a post today. These things just fall to me. Here is the winner of my D-Bag of the Week award:

Put the fireworks in storage.

Cancel the parade.

Tuck the soaring speeches in a drawer for another time.

This year, America doesn't deserve to celebrate its birthday. This Fourth of July should be a day of quiet and atonement.

He deserves a punch in the baby-maker. And by that, I mean his ovaries.

Speaking of D-Bags, here is a fun website I found researching this post.

PETA is fun

The animal rights goofs are starting to target celebrities who eat meat:

Alistair Currie, a spokesman for Peta, said: "Jessica Simpson might have a right to wear what she wants, but she doesn't have a right to eat what she wants – eating meat is about suffering and death. Some people feel like they are standing up against a tide of political correctness when they make a statement like this – what she is really doing is standing up for the status quo."

The animal rights group doctored a photo of Ms Simpson to read "Only Stupid Girls Eat Meat", and listed "five reasons only stupid girls eat meat".

When they've gone after fur-wearers in the past, most people didn't care much because fur is a luxury that they don't personally own. The problem here is that just about everybody eats meat, and a large chunk of those that don't aren't against it for these silly reasons. I'd predict a backlash if not for the fact that everyone laughs at PETA anyway. They just haven't picked up on it yet.

Response to MoveOn.org

MoveOn.org, a big left-wing group, put out a fairly pathetic ad recently that they have been showing on TV and whatnot. You should watch it if you haven't, but set aside for a moment the breathtaking dishonesty they have by asserting that McCain wants our military in Iraq for 100 years.

The sad thing is the contining infantilization of of the members of our military. Anti-war types constatntly talk about how "our children are dying", or some such nonsense. In truth, everyone who joins the military is an adult who does so on his or her own free will. To call them "children" or something like that seems very insulting to me (I can't speak for any soldier, since I have never been one).

(A similar theme is when these left-wingers like Michael Moore go around asking supporters if they would "send their children" to Iraq. Um, no one can force his or her adult child to do anything, let alone join the military.)

Anyway, a now-retired Navy guy wrote a long and thoughtful e-mail in response to the ad, and the whole thing is very good. Here are my favorite parts:

You see, service to your country isn't something that fits into every heart very easily because it involves sacrifice, and unfortunately, to so many people today, sacrifice is just a word, but to the men and women in uniform, it means honor, courage, and commitment. Those are words that can't just be thrown around because to live up to them requires genuine integrity and honesty, and all of these things I just mentioned are the values associated with wearing the uniform of any branch of service and they are not something taken lightly. When you commit to the uniform, you commit to the country. So, please, forgive me if I sound a little proud of my service to our country.

...

I see the same values and appreciation and gratitude in the faces of the men and women who journey to our nation’s capital everyday to witness the monuments that have been erected in honor of their service--I've seen them cry, sob tears of joy, relief, and sorrow as they recount days gone by, memories of a time they spent proudly serving America.

Their mothers, wives, girlfriends, and family didn't want them to go either, but America called and they responded, because that is what Americans do.

House Democrats want to nationalize an industry

They are not only adamantly opposed to off-shore drilling for oil, but now House Democrats want the federal government to take over oil refineries. Government bureaucrats obviously know best how much oil should be refined and not the market.

I guess basic knowledge of economics isn't necessary to most voters to be in Congress.

Smelly, lazy hippies pour poop on cops

Not a joke. Michelle Malkin has the roundup on the insanity in Berkeley that the university has allowed to fester for 18 months. These dumb hippies need a serious ass-kicking.

Compare and contrast

Good questions! Reminds me a recent flood...

Where are all of the Hollywood celebrities holding telethons asking for help in restoring Iowa and helping the folks affected by the floods?

Where is all the media asking the tough questions about why the federal government hasn't solved the problem? Asking where the FEMA trucks (and trailers) are?

Why isn't the Federal Government relocating Iowa people to free hotels in Chicago?

When will Spike Lee say that the Federal Government blew up the levees that failed in Des Moines?

Where are Sean Penn and the Dixie Chicks?

Where are all the looters stealing high-end tennis shoes and big screen television sets?

When will we hear Governor Chet Culver say that he wants to rebuild a "vanilla" Iowa, because that's the way God wants it?

Where is the hysterical 24/7 media coverage complete with reports of cannibalism?

Where are the people declaring that George Bush hates white, rural people?

How come in 2 weeks, you will never hear about the Iowa flooding ever again?

The reasons behind our high gas prices

Greedy oil companies, as to many Democratic Senators think? Not at all, according to John Hinderaker's analysis over at Powerline.

I recommend reading the whole thing if you think the oil companies are behind gas prices. Among many other reasons:

Another theme of the day's testimony was that, if anyone is "gouging" consumers through the high price of gasoline, it is federal and state governments, not American oil companies. On the average, 15% percent of the cost of gasoline at the pump goes for taxes, while only 4% represents oil company profits. These figures were repeated several times, but, strangely, not a single Democratic Senator proposed relieving consumers' anxieties about gas prices by reducing taxes.

Not that anyone who follows politics closely would be surprised that liberal Democrats are most concerned with having lots of money coming into the government through taxes.

Another big point was raised by John Hofmeister of Shell:

Meanwhile, in the United States, access to our own oil and gas resources has been limited for the last 30 years, prohibiting companies such as Shell from exploring and developing resources for the benefit of the American people.

Senator Sessions, I agree, it is not a free market.

According to the Department of the Interior, 62 percent of all on-shore federal lands are off limits to oil and gas developments, with restrictions applying to 92 percent of all federal lands. We have an outer continental shelf moratorium on the Atlantic Ocean, an outer continental shelf moratorium on the Pacific Ocean, an outer continental shelf moratorium on the eastern Gulf of Mexico, congressional bans on on-shore oil and gas activities in specific areas of the Rockies and Alaska, and even a congressional ban on doing an analysis of the resource potential for oil and gas in the Atlantic, Pacific and eastern Gulf of Mexico.

Finally, it's important to keep in mind that most Democrats, because they are beholden to the environmentalist left, want high gas prices as means of both punishing our economy (and those people especially who use lots of petroleum personally, like SUV drivers) and weaning the world off of petroleum-based fuel sources. That's an understandable enough position (not that I agree with it), but the Washington Democrats who agree with it don't have the courage to actually come out and say it. Instead, they do the one thing that accomplishes nothing toward reducing gas prices (berating oil executives on the Hill) and push for something that would make prices even HIGHER (a windfall profits tax) by discouraging investment in new technologies and exploration.

Again, I encourage anyone with the interest in this topic to read the whole thing.

Of course, it wouldn't be something I disagree with if John McCain didn't get involved (scroll down to see his part):

“Um, I don’t like obscene profits being made anywhere–and I’d be glad to look not just at the windfall profits tax–that’s not what bothers me–but we should look at any incentives that we are giving to people, that or industries or corporations that are distorting the market.”

A small step towards sanity for the Chicago City Council

As much as I like to hammer on the nanny-staters in the Chicago City Council, I should give them credit when they deserve it. Yesterday they repealed the city's ban on foie gras, which is some kind of fancy food, being served in restaurants. You could still always buy it at the store and cook it home. I had never heard of it before the ban (as I imagine is the case with most Chicagoans), but for some reason Alderman Joe Moore thought it was important enough to pass the ban a couple of years ago. That, of course, made our city a laughingstock. I mean, it's FOOD.

Apparently there were some protocols that were violated to get the repeal through, but I don't care. The right thing was done, and it's not like the city council is known for staunch constitutional principles. What I do know is that Moore is PISSED:

When Moore tried to debate the merits, Daley ruled that the measure was not debatable. He ordered the clerk to call the roll and to continue, even as Moore shouted for the right to be heard.

"If it can happen to me, tomorrow it could happen to you," Moore warned his colleagues.

"Thank you, Ald. Joe ‘Foie Gras’ Moore," Daley said.

After the show of force, Moore denounced the mayor as a dictator and Wednesday’s meeting as a new low.

"Even in the ugliest days of one-man rule, members of the City Council still had the opportunity to ... state their case. For the mayor to fail to recognize me to debate the merits of this issue was the height of arrogance," Moore said.

"The city had placed its mark as a city of compassion, a city that was standing up against [animal] cruelty and it’s taken a giant step backward. But, it’s also taken a giant step backward in ... good old fashioned democracy. ... There was no reason that this issue had to be ramrodded through today," Moore said.

The animal rights crankss are also unhappy, but that just tells me that this was the right thing to do:

Julie Janovsky, a spokesperson for the animal protection group Farm Sanctuary, argued that the foie gras ban had "massive public support" and that the City Council’s repeal "effectively endorsed animal cruelty."

"Chicagoans were proud to live in a city that took a stand for humanity. To reverse a compassionate and admirable decision under pressure from political bullies and special interests shows a cowardly brand of cynicism unlike any we have seen in our efforts to give voice to the most vulnerable beings in society -- animals raised for food," Janovsky said.

Yeah, that's exactly what this repeal did did. Next thing you know they will pass a resolution praising Michael Vick. And a goose or duck is not quite the most vulnerable being in our society (how about babies?), since many of them are killed anyway for food.

I've never eaten it before, but now I want to have some the next time I'm in a fancy joint just to shove it up these animal rights dorks' asses.

You knew this was coming

Since illegal aliens who want citizenship, despite breaking numerous laws such as crossing the border without authorization and Social Security fraud, like to march for it on the biggest communist "holiday" of them all, let's check in on yesterday's events.

Apparently turnout was way down. I guess illegals are too stupid to realize that there actually won't be ICE agents there loading them into busses and shipping them back to Mexico or wherever they came from:

Some said participation likely was lower because many immigrants increasingly fear deportation.

Margot Veranes, a volunteer organizer in Tucson, Ariz., - where 12,000 took to the streets last year but early estimates Thursday put the crowd at about 500 - blamed the turnout on aggressive enforcement by Border Patrol and police.

This line from the AP's story struck me as funny:

"We're marching to end the raids and the deportations, but we're also marching for health care and education and good jobs," she said.

So people with no right to even be in this country are marching for health care and education (meaning, of course, stuff paid for by you and me), along with "good jobs"? How is an uneducated peasant from a third world country going to hold down a "good job"?

Then there is this, from a kid who probably hasn't mastered the fundamentals of his courses just yet, but has an EXCUSED ABSENCE from school:

Seventh-grader Vicente Campos of Milwaukee was granted an excused absence from school to attend the march. He said he was concerned by stories of immigration officials separating parents and children.

That last line is the newest refrain we hear from the illegals and their left-wing advocates in general, that we are "'separating families" by enforcing our laws. How, you ask? Well, the parents are illegal but the kids are American due to their parents using them as anchor babies. So the parents get shipped back to their home country. Of course, there is nothing stopping them from taking their kids with them, so in fact the parents are voluntarily separating themselves from their kids. Should we stop enforcing our other criminal laws that send parents to prison because it "separates familes"?

My own experience on the day came when I looked out the window of my office and saw some kids walking around. Two of them were draped in Mexican flags and one in a US flag.

Three points. First, if they want to convince Americans to come to their point of view on the topic, wearing a MEXICAN flag is not going to do it. All it shows is that they have dual (or singular, as I tend to think) loyalties and they do NOT consider themselves American first.

Second, these kind of protests, especially on (Commie) May Day, are quite common in the third world countires of Latin America. They are not common here, and we generally just get pissed off when a group of people goes around demanding a bunch of free stuff, including citizenship.

Finally, I was immediately struck by the disrespect of our flag by the little bastard who was using it as a cape. He may as well have set it on fire (hopefully he'd still be wearing it). Here is the relevent part of the US Flag Code:

§176. Respect for flag

No disrespect should be shown to the flag of the United States of America; the flag should not be dipped to any person or thing. Regimental colors, State flags, and organization or institutional flags are to be dipped as a mark of honor...

(d) The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery...

(j) No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform.

But hey, it's not like a little shit like him, unmoored in our traditions and respect for this country, would know that. After all, his parents probably just snuck across the border for a better job!