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So help me Jeebus, I was going to try to FJM this but…I just…can't. Hopefully by the time you get to the end you will understand why.

First, nothing that greets the reader with this is going to be good. I dare you to click to enlarge it.

Yes, apparently World Nut Daily now brings us the unfiltered, unedited thoughts of former bad comedienne and current bloated corpse Victoria Jackson. Ordinarily I'd go with excerpts but I wouldn't want you to miss any of the good parts.

Frankly, I'm afraid to say anything about Muslims. Why? Because they kill people.

Maybe that's why the liberals kiss up to them – fear. I can't wait to see Katie Couric do a story on the new Muslim women's magazine al-Qaida just put out!

Katie: Why, look at this! "Al Shamikha." It means "The Majestic Woman"! What a lovely magazine!

Veiled Woman (only eyes showing): Yes, this is our new magazine.

Katie: It's so beautiful! And glossy! And the articles are so relevant! Here's a beauty tip! Stay indoors and veiled at all times. Your skin will look like baby skin! Oh! I should try that! I have all these freckles!

Veiled Woman: Yes. Our ways should be everyone's ways.

Katie: Oh! And, look! How to raise a suicide bomber! I could use that! I've never thought of … well, too bad my girls are already grown! Maybe I can use this on my grandchildren! Thank you so much! You are so beautiful!

Veiled Woman: Allahu Akbar!

Katie: I've heard that before! Wasn't it Fort Hood?! Oh, we must go to a commercial! Be right back after this word from Coppertone Sunscreen, the skin care for pre-Muslims!

Why do liberals embrace Shariah law even though "beheading your wife" seems to go against the feminist movement's mantra? Why do liberals embrace Islam knowing it frowns on homosexuality?

Because they have the same goals. Progressives, communists, liberals, globalists and Muslims want to destroy America. When that goal is reached, they will fight for top billing. It will be bloody.

A jaw-dropping expose on the six-month undercover operation that revealed the true terror-supporting nature of CAIR: "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America."

The whole Middle East conflict began back in the Old Testament. Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. They are still fighting over who gets the "birthright." Genesis 16:12 says Ishmael will be a "wild man." I try to stay away from violence, and I wouldn't even be thinking about Islam except that they keep jumping in front of my face. No one talked about Islam when I grew up. How did they all suddenly appear in America?

My friend was a flight attendant in the Middle East in the '80s. Isn't that when we started giving them a lot of money for oil? She told me that the Arabs on her flights were suddenly covered with money and didn't know what to do with it; they gave the flight attendants Rolexes for tips; they were doing cocaine in the back with hookers. I guess they were "backslidden" Muslims. That's a Baptist word for someone temporarily not obeying the rules of their faith. And speaking of Baptists … why can't the "good, peaceful Muslims" denounce the actions of the "bad, violent" Muslims? I'm Baptist, and I denounce the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church. They are not living the way Jesus taught – but the opposite. Maybe, just maybe the "good" Muslims approve of what the "bad" Muslims are doing! Maybe they are celebrating it, funding it and cheering them on.

After the murder of a Jewish settler, his wife and his children in their Itamar home, Palestinians all over Gaza and the West Bank celebrated with street parties, passing out candy and sweets. It's not just "terrorists" who celebrate the bloody death of Jews.

A congressional committee met last week to discuss the radicalization of Muslims. My friend Jim says, "What's responsible for radicalizing the Muslims?! The Quran!"

This website says that whole "kill the infidel" thing, Sura 9:5, is misquoted, taken out of context. Really? Then why do the Muslim murderers shout "Allahu Akbar!" before they kill people? Go here to see what the Quran really says.

This whole thing is ridiculous. The liberal media praises Imam Rauf, who has terrorist ties, while it attacks patriot Pamela Geller for standing up and saying, "Don't build a victory mosque on the very spot Muslims killed 3,000 innocent Americans!" You must see her movie, "The Ground Zero Mosque: The Second Wave of 911 Attacks."

The Muslims want to tear down the Statue of Liberty! It's an "idol."

The Muslims don't want their "hijab" searched at the TSA. They are "modest." They've been advised to refuse the "pat down" and the "naked scan" and pat themselves down! Napolitano hasn't yet decided what to do. Heaven forbid they be treated like the rest of us! This is ridiculous! How many bombs do you think you can hide under one of those big, black sheets?

The Muslims are exempt from Obamacare because of dhimmitude. Muslims consider insurance "gambling."

This new al-Qaida magazine for women has beauty tips and suicide-bomber tips! Gimme a break! That is as ridiculous as two men kissing on the mouth! And I don't care what is politically correct. Everyone knows that two men on a wedding cake is a comedy skit, not an "alternate lifestyle"! There I said it! Ridiculous!

Did you see "Glee" this week? Sickening! And, besides shoving the gay thing down our throats, they made a mockery of Christians – again! I wonder what their agenda is? Hey, producers of "Glee" – what's your agenda? One-way tolerance?

Truth has no agenda. – Glenn Beck

Reading the news (the facts, not the liberal media lies) online these days is like watching a comedy horror film. Oh, and speaking of cartoons, my hand keeps trying to draw one, but I keep slapping it! I am afraid of those people!

And, one more thing, how come it's OK for everyone to take my God's name in vain and use it as a curse word, but you can't say a word about their guy?! Not fair! It's our country – live by our rules! Ridiculous!

Lastly, Adul Gheit said he had a one-on-one meeting with Obama, where the U.S. president told him that he was still a Muslim, the son of a Muslim father, the stepson of Muslim stepfather, that his half brothers in Kenya are Muslims, and that he was sympathetic toward the Muslim agenda.

Now, whether or not that is true doesn't matter. Though "O" says "57 states" and bows to Arabs, and prays with them (to Allah) while nixing our National Day of Prayer (to God), and though "O" leaves out the words "by our Creator," etc., I personally think he's a secular humanist … with a Muslim background.

But, that doesn't matter. The fact is we are in a war with no name, fighting an enemy that lives on our soil now, next door to us. Not only are they plotting our demise, but laughing at our stupidity, mocking our open arms and freedom, demanding rights above our own and soon the transformation of our churches and synagogues into mosques. President Obama is not helping us. He's helping them.

The American Center for Law and Justice is on our side. This week they delivered oral arguments in the New York State Supreme Court to stop the building of the Ground Zero Victory Mosque. Help the ACLJ help us.

Is your liquefied brain running out of your ears yet? It's cute that she explicitly stated "Now, whether or not that is true doesn't matter." at one point, as that idea is implicit in everything Victoria Jackson has ever said, written, or thought.

On Friday and Saturday the United States engaged in yet another round of essentially the only thing we're good at anymore in international affairs: pulverizing a hot, sandy, minimally developed country with a barrage of high-tech firepower launched from hundreds of miles away. It comes from over the horizon and by the time you know it's there, it's already too late. Since Gulf War I, American foreign policy has been built around the ability to launch precision airstrikes and missile attacks at a moment's notice, combining the two characteristics so politically desirable these days: maximum destruction and minimum losses. Air strikes and distant missile launches expose American servicepeople to very little risk, so anything that can be accomplished with no (American) body count…well, if you were President, why wouldn't you do it?

The cruise missile is what really makes this possible, and none are more advanced than the Tomahawk. With a 1,250+ mile range, the missile goes from the decks of a U.S. Navy ship to a faraway target in about an hour. Just fire it and forget about it. Neat toy, if you're into that sort of thing. And boy are we into it.

Over the weekend the U.S. contributed to the U.N. declared suppression of Libyan air power with, among other things, 124 Tomahawk missiles. In 2011 dollars the unit replacement cost is about $750,000. Apiece. So in the span of a few hours and for reasons that very few non-AEI employed Americans would find compelling, Uncle Sam just spent $93 million dollars.

That doesn't count the thousands of gallons of aviation fuel and other ordnance dropped on Libya, the cost of repositioning assets, the $1.02 billion B-2 bombers used for daytime strikes, and so on. Even if American involvement in the conflict is brief, there is little doubt that the total monetary cost of our military action will approach or even exceed a quarter of a billion dollars. As usual, this money gets spent without thirty seconds of debate in Congress and with nothing but glee from the voting public. Hoo boy, can't wait until the Wings Over Libya on the Military Channel brings us the nose camera footage.

But teachers sure do make a lot of money, amirite? Maybe we should spend another week on that $60 million NPR got last year.

I have no idea if "Ludditry" is a word, but I'm not sure how else to describe 365 Days of A. A man drives a 1930 Ford Model A for an entire year, including through a Michigan winter. It's pointless, of course, yet a very interesting look at how far technology has brought us in a relatively short time.

The phrase "company town" is loosely applied to any locale dominated by a single employer. But real company towns – the kind built, managed, and subject to the paternalistic control of private enterprise – have been an important part of American economic history. From Gary, IN (U.S. Steel) to Pullman, IL (now part of Chicago) to Hershey, PA to Alcoa, TN to the hundreds of textile mill towns of the South and coal mining towns throughout Appalachia, municipalities founded without incorporation or elected government are more numerous than many Americans realize. To live in these places meant to depend entirely on the munificence of one's corporate nobleman for the services one usually gets from local government. It usually meant getting paid in company scrip usable that limited one's economic transactions to company-owned banks, stores, and so on. Some company towns, notably Hershey, PA, were considered relatively swell places to live. Most, as in the case of Appalachian coal company towns, were efficient means of brutal exploitation and debt peonage.

Michigan's widely reported 'Financial Martial Law' bill, soon to be signed into law by teabagging mannequin Rick Snyder, is portrayed by leftists as another salvo in the ongoing Republican war against teachers and public sector unions. I find that conclusion overly linear and too simplistic. This legislation – which allows the Governor to declare financial emergencies and appoint individuals or corporations to serve as city managers with the power to dissolve local elected councils and nullify employment contracts for public servants – is the first step in an effort to do away with municipal and local government altogether in favor of quite literally having private enterprises replacing government and contracting out its functions to the lowest bidder. How beautiful it will be: Wackenhut cops and local jails, Waste Management goons collecting trash, utilities sold off to Aqua America and Exelon, tax assessments mailed to homeowners from a financial services boiler room in Bangalore, and municipal employees of all types fired and replaced by temps from Manpower, Inc.

Gives a new and literal meaning to the phrase "company town," doesn't it? And the kicker is that the Governor is empowered to pay the new city managers any amount he sees fit before turning over total control so that they may further profit from a variety of harebrained privatization schemes.

This legislation speaks to the ideas that have kept right-wingers' hearts aflutter since the early Reagan years. It's not removing government from the private sector; it's replacing government with the private sector. For-profit education corporations running the schools. Private military/security outfits as cops. Subscription-only fire protection and ambulance service. City property auctioned off to developers (with zoning laws created ad hoc by unelected city managers; sure, you can bury nuclear waste here!) No pesky citizens, city councils, or local laws to get in the way. Corporate owner-governments that can charge you whatever they're bold enough to charge for services and utilities. And there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it. Your government will be a board of directors in some office park in Arlington, VA.

What a beautiful vision. It's like watching the Koch brothers masturbate.

CNN's Jack Cafferty asks the kind of question that only media people could ask in the wake of a human tragedy. Or during a human tragedy in progress. Why is there no looting in Japan? Despite the poor timing this question is worth asking, especially given that Americans and their media will almost certainly arrive at a horribly incorrect answer.

The scale of the disaster in Japan is unprecedented – they have basically been through most of the events of the apocalypse and, factoring in the radiation, the origin story for both Mothra and Godzilla. Yet there is no looting. Haiti had looting. So did New Orleans. And Chile. And Great Britain during the floods. And New York during the blackouts. Hell, Montreal got looted after Les Habitants made it to the Eastern Conference finals last year. Cairo was "engulfed in looting" during Mubarak's decline. Baghdad was badly looted (including archaeological artifacts from the national museum) when the Hussein regime collapsed. Tokyo? Osaka? Sendai? Either there is no looting or the media for some reason chooses not to report it.

The answer to this puzzle, as Cafferty's viewers illustrate, revolve around vague differences in "culture" and western stereotypes about Asians (zen-like calm, efficiency, ability to endure hardships, excellent math skills, and so on). Some of the answers are reflective of people clinging to 1910s-era theories of racial hierarchies, as I'm sure a disturbingly large number of Americans do. Maybe loosely defined cultural differences are the answer.

Maybe not. Looting (or doing anything, for that matter) is pretty difficult after a tsunami. Note that there was little looting in Indonesia in 2004. But the most persuasive answers are…political. The Japanese government is by all accounts remarkably well organized and prepared to respond to this kind of disaster. All of the failures in New Orleans, by comparison, have their origins in the crooked, incompetent crony politics of the local government and the non-existent Federal response. Japan is among the many non-American nations that recognize that government is not inherently useless and evil. If government takes its responsibilities seriously (which requires the preliminary step of recognizing that responding to an unthinkably large natural disaster is a government responsibility) it is possible to see that the animal-level needs of its people are met. Japan does have the advantage of being a small, dense country, but nonetheless its public sector has managed to shelter, feed, and rescue itself admirably. Why? Because its government is not devoted to the idea that government should be abolished.

Beyond that, Japan hasn't build its entire society on the principle of every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost. Their idea of disaster preparedness is not hoarding enough bullets to shoot their neighbors who run out of food. When America has a natural disaster, the private sector immediately focuses on profiteering and jacking up prices. In Japan the prices are lowered and in some cases basic necessities are even given away gratis. Japanese are more willing to look out for and help one another because unlike the U.S., their social dynamics focus on group harmony (critics say "conformity") rather than constant reminders that You are responsible for yourself and no one else. If your neighbor needs help, the American response is to lecture him about failing to better prepare himself for the crisis.

That, and Japan hasn't created a massive, impoverished underclass that interacts with government primarily at the end of a police baton.

This discussion unavoidably paints with a broad brush. Lots of Americans helped one another during Katrina and lots of Japanese are probably assholes who don't care about others. Japanese culture also has flaws that should not be painted over, particularly the collective willingness to shame individuals into conformity and occasionally work one another to death. But there is no denying the differences at the heart of Cafferty's ill-timed observation. There is no looting in Japan for a variety of reasons – cultural, social, practical, and especially political. If half of Sendai's police abandoned the city as the sad excuses for cops did in New Orleans, maybe there would be looting. If there was no plan in place to rapidly rescue, feed, and house people in flooded areas, maybe there would be looting. If people were encouraged to see one another as The Enemy and to see government emergency planning services as a conspiracy to round people up in detention camps, maybe there would be looting. If Japan socially and politically abandoned the idea that there can ever be a collective solution to anything, maybe there would be looting.

Oh, and Japan does not have many black people. The media do not count anything as "looting" unless black people do it.

Unfortunately the long post will have to wait for Wednesday (it's laden with arcane historical references and thus totally worth it) but for now, please note this comment from Larry "I might run for the Senate" Kudlow on CNBC regarding the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake / tsunami / volcano / meltdown / apocalypse:

In these tough economic times, isn’t it nice to know that calamitous natural disasters needn't have an adverse affect on your investment portfolio? After the 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Japan failed to induce a market nosedive, CNBC’s Larry Kudlow expressed his relief in terms that seemed to appall even his fellow cheerleaders for capitalism: “The human toll here,” he declared, “looks to be much worse than the economic toll and we can be grateful for that.”

Kudlow issued a perfunctory apology, stating that he "flubbed" the line he intended to say. That is possible. It is also possible that this reflects how people of his political-economic mindset see the world. The only relevant cost in any transaction is the financial one. Whether 10,000 people die (or get laid off, or lose access to health insurance, or work 60 hour weeks and still fail to make ends meet) is not the Market's concern. Nor should it be your concern, savvy investor.

Monday night was a long, successful night of stand-up. Tuesday's post is coming, but it will be a little later than usual. Check back around noon at the latest. Promise.

At the height of the nuclear war scare in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, American and Soviet military planners engaged in a spate of "civil defense" planning. This hole-digging mentality, parodied most famously in Dr. Strangelove (and possibly the best, most incisive episode of The Twilight Zone), meant digging nuclear fallout shelters and creating structures capable of surviving the blast of a nuclear warhead. Civil defense planners found that it is possible to design a structure at a reasonable cost to survive a nuclear explosion on the order of one megaton. To withstand a larger explosion, the design rapidly became prohibitively expensive. NORAD's famous Cheyenne Mountain complex, for example, can withstand a five to seven megaton blast within a 2 mile radius. And that thing is dug into a goddamn mountain. The moral of the story, of course, is that no matter how much "defense" the Americans or Soviets built, all the other side had to do was build a bigger bomb. Five to seven megatons? Great; hey NORAD, here's our 10 megaton warhead.

So safety can be engineered up to a certain point, beyond which additional safety is theoretically possible but economically impractical. The result is that almost any system (excepting those that are fail-safe or passively safe) is vulnerable to an adverse event that is either unforeseeable or highly unlikely. The World Trade Center was designed to withstand a hit from a 707, but not fully fueled 767s. New Orleans was engineered to survive a glancing hit from a Category 3 hurricane, but not the accompanying storm surge. The Banqiao Dam was designed to withstand a 1-in-1000 years flood, not the 1-in-2000 years flood that breached it in 1975. Your car's frame, restraints, and airbags are designed to protect you in a normal highway accident, but not if you drive head-on into a concrete pillar at 100 mph. History tells us that you can plan for a lot but it is neither possible or economically feasible to plan for everything even with the best intentions.

Fast forward to today and note what is happening in Fukushima at the nuclear facility. The reactors were designed to withstand an earthquake, but not an 8.9 earthquake followed by a tsunami. It would be easy enough to write this off as an unforeseeable event for which no reasonable enterprise could prepare. A disaster of this scale certainly supports that logic. Unfortunately, if we look more closely we see that a chain of human and engineering mistakes undermine the attempts to make nuclear power safe.

Two caveats. First, I am a fan of nuclear power, at least in comparison to coal- and gas-burning generation. Most liberals are reflexively against it (more on that in a moment). Second, I'm not a certified expert on this topic, but merely someone who has done a lot of reading. If at any point I misrepresent something feel free to correct me.

Boiling Water Reactors (BWR) like Fukushima are an obsolete technology from the late 1960s. BWRs, like any other nuclear reactor that relies on a supply of pumped coolants to prevent overheating, are inherently dangerous. Recent events illustrate this. Fukushima has backup generators to provide power to the cooling supply in the event of a grid failure, but…what happens if the backup generators are also damaged? That is the question no one asks during planning. It is the equivalent of "What happens if the Russkies build a bigger bomb?" The answer is always "Well, then I guess we're fucked." Someone translate that into Japanese, please.

Fukushima is better designed than Chernobyl (which was the RMBK-type reactor that was so dangerous Brezhnev couldn't even give them away to Third World countries) in that its defense-in-depth is stronger. What they share in common is two alarming design flaws. First, control rods have to be inserted mechanically from the bottom, which is not possible when power fails. Were they lowered in from above, gravity could do the work even in the absence of power. Second, the reactor continues to produce an incredible amount of heat after it has shut down. The reactors in Fukushima were long ago shut down, yet they continue to require extensive cooling to keep them subcritical. Modern nuclear technology does not replicate these flaws and thus, in my opinion, is a viable alternative to fossil fuel power. However, 99% of the operational reactors were built in the 1970s and feature the inherent limitations of that outdated technology.

The last step in any catastrophe is almost always human error. In Fukushima – again, this is my moderately informed opinion rather than fact – the people in charge attempted to save the economic value of the reactors rather than immediately recognizing the magnitude of the crisis and initiating their last-ditch safety measure: flooding the reactors with boron carbide and seawater, which would cool but also destroy them for good. They attempted less extreme measures – running the normal cooling systems on battery power, etc. – so that the reactors could be used to produce power again in the future. Accordingly, by the time they initiated the last resort plan involving seawater the reactors were already too hot, partially melted (as evidenced by airborne cesium), and beyond the point at which they could be cooled without adverse consequences if at all. It was, in a word, shocking to hear that 24 hours after the quake the Japanese authorities had yet to flood the reactors; the consequences are now apparent and will be increasingly so in the coming days.

Aside from the immediate tragedy – workers and residents exposed to radiation, thousands of gallons of radioactive liquid waste produced, etc. – the saddest thing about this is that it takes nuclear power off the table for a few decades much as Three Mile Island and Chernobyl did in the 1980s. It can be safe, but not with archaic 1960s technology that is fail-deadly and full of design flaws. Reactors operate here in the U.S. and around the world with very small margins of error. They are dangerous, and their "safe" operation depends on the assumption that nothing will happen to the reactor beyond what it is engineered to withstand. The more problems emerge from old Generation II designs, the lower the odds that advanced, passively safe, low-waste Gen IV reactors will ever go on line.

Its frequent appearances on my Facebook feed over the past week has reminded me of an unavoidable fact about Wisconsin, a state I ordinarily love: the Wisconsin flag is an abomination.

This shitshow violates every one of the basic principles of vexillology, not to mention taste and common sense. Yes, there are principles of vexillology (the design and academic study of flags) thanks to the wonderful dorks at the North American Vexillogical Association. It offers a helpful publication entitled Good Flag, Bad Flag that I stumbled upon many years ago while attempting to design a logo for a student organization. Note how many of these principles Wisconsin disregarded:

1. Keep it simple
2. Use meaningful symbolism
3. Use 2 or 3 colors
4. No lettering or seals
5. Be distinctive

This is the sort of thing one never contemplates but when it is explained it makes perfect sense. Then again, one doesn't necessarily need a theoretical explanation to pick a crappy flag out of a lineup as this study of city flags proves. See if you can find the terrible one!

Come on, Milwaukee. If you're going for camp, why not Alice Cooper saying "It's Algonquin for…'the good land'." Washington D.C. and Chicago keep things simple and accordingly have flags that kick considerably more ass. Aside from my native fondness for Chicago's design, I'd say that these are my two favorite flags:

The first one is New Mexico, of course. How about you? Feel free to share some particularly excellent or appalling designs you've encountered over the years. I'll award a cash prize to the first person who can find a flag uglier than Louisiana's. Nice pelican, losers.