WE GIVE THEM MONEY, BUT ARE THEY GRATEFUL?/NO, THEY'RE SPITEFUL AND THEY'RE HATEFUL. Since they're supposed to like Germany and France now that Merkel and Sarkozy are in, conservatives have of late been short of allies to yell at. Luckily Scott Kirwin's wife ran into a New Zealand girl who clued her to the astonishing news that a lot of foreigners don't like the United States. This gives Mr. Kirwin, a contributor to the Dean Esmay site, a new spot on the map at which to throw his verbal darts.

First he calls the girl a "trollop" and threatens, "Perhaps a little American Isolationism - our default state - is called for." He may have reflected that his threat would bear more weight if he cited his diplomatic credentials, because he updates to brag on his mad inferior-people skillz:

I am currently exposed to people from all over the world at my job. I work with two people from Beijing China. Even though I am fuming about what's happening in Burma and Darfur, and haven't forgotten the fear that Chinese students at my university felt after the Tiananmen Square massacre, I don't bring up these topics with them - nor do I mention the continuing oppression of Falun Gong. This is partly because of working together, but I also don't hold them responsible for any particular action of their government.

Maybe it's just that he's had more practice suppressing his rage at the Chinese, because shortly thereafter Kirwin denounces New Zealand, saying that its people hate the United States because they are a tiny and jealous country that "has spent most of its time since independence under European-style socialist governments." In one poetic flight, he muses on the vulnerability of the kiwi to predators:

For millions of years the kiwi thrived in its isolation. However today it is endangered by introduced predators including stoats, dogs, cats, weasels - and just about anything else that is fast enough to catch it. Only human intervention has saved the flightless bird from extinction.

He compares this to New Zealand's vulnerability to Muslim terrorists, announcing in bold type that "The weasel is a greater threat to the kiwi than to the eagle."

I'm guessing the dog would be government-run health care, the cat gangsta rap, and the stoat a player to be named later.

As for the weasel, it has, at least in its metaphoric form. been very little seen in New Zealand. No matter: the threat of terrorist attack against a disagreeable ally is not meant to sway the ally, but to provide a comforting revenge fantasy to enraged wingnuts. At least Randy Newman was honest enough to cut out the middleman.