Busted Pervert

Federal agents in Virginia have arrested a man named Charles Rust-Tierney for possessing child pornography. Some of the material this man was viewing consisted of video of young, prepubescent girls screaming and crying as they were tied up and forcibly raped. What sort of man would want to watch this kind of thing?

Well, it turns out that Rust-Tierney is a past president of the Virginia chapter of the ACLU, not that that explains everything. He also coached youth sports in his Arlington neighborhood. In other words, he's a man of some means and accomplishment who could be anyone's neighbor. The fact that he rose to such prominence in the ACLU seems like it should be significant, perhaps because of facts like this:

In the past, Rust-Tierney had argued against restricting Internet access in public libraries in Virginia, writing, "Recognizing that individuals will continue to behave responsibly and appropriately while in the library, the default should be maximum, unrestricted access to the valuable resources of the Internet."

One wonders, in light of Mr. Rust-Tierney's arrest, if the ACLU's commitment to defending the pornography industry isn't at least partly due to self-interest.

Anyway, there's more on this sordid affair at the link and also some discussion on Bill O'Reilley's show, a video clip of which can be accessed at Hot Air.

It turns out that Rust-Tierney's wife is a leader in an organization which has fought to abolish the death penalty. We suspect that after this development she might be having second thoughts.

RLC

Knee-Slapper

More left-wing hilarity comes to our attention courtesy of Yahoo:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New Yorkers got to kick President George W. Bush's butt on Thursday, sort of.

Performance artist Mark McGowan kicked off his bid to crawl for 72 hours across Manhattan dressed as the president, offering the opportunity to kick his backside. The controversial artist from London began his odyssey from New York's Lincoln Centre wearing a rubber George Bush mask, a business suit, knee pads, work gloves and a sign stuck to his cushioned posterior reading simply: "Kick My Ass".

Though few ordinary New Yorkers, other than fellow artists, cameramen and photographers, were present for the launch on a wet workday afternoon, some people gave him a kick.

"It felt real good to kick Bush," said Casmirr Sharp, 52, of New York's Queens borough. "He really deserves more than a kick."

McGowan told Reuters he hopes his performance proves therapeutic to the city's denizens. But he insisted his work was no publicity stunt but art: "It's definitely an art form. A lot of the things I do are a bit silly but they always have a political edge to them."

Ho, ho. Whether it's humor or art those lefties sure are a caution, aren't they? Their sense of the comic is so uproariously sophisticated, so endearing that it makes one want to be a liberal just for the laughs.

RLC

Life of the Cell

Those with a little background in cell biology might find this animation interesting.

Everyone else will find it stunning that so much coordinated, machine-like activity is going on in the tiny cells of our body all the time. How does brute matter produce such complex machinery and exquisite coordination?

RLC