Last weekend, my little Illinois town celebrated it’s “Founders Days,” featuring a parade, fireworks, flea market, and of course, a carnival.

One of my favorite carnival games is the target shooting game with ducks all lined up in a row. The object being to knock down as many ducks as possible in a set period of time. As a kid, those guns were pellet guns and each time you hit a target there was a satisfying thwack as the hapless duck was plunked and went down for the count. Of course, today they use lasers instead of pellets which casts suspicion on whether or not they’re rigging the game to keep the contestant from winning the nicer prizes.

That said, I miss that thwack. There must be an atavistic response programmed in the human brain that releases massive amounts of endorphins when the target goes down after a hit. I can imagine Paleolithic man casting a spear and getting enormous satisfaction out of the sound made when the point penetrates the heart of his prey. Thousands of years of evolution haven’t dimmed that enjoyment. Just look at the ducks we’ve lined up for you in this week’s Carnival.

We’ve got the easy targets like Jane Fonda, Jimmy Carter, Howard Dean, and the usual suspects. But then we’ve got those third level targets who are much harder to hit like network TV executives, Harvard Regency Board member Conrad Harper, and former London Times editor Simon Jenkins. Extra points should be awarded to those posters who go above and beyond to seek out the truly clueless.

With that in mind, here’s this week’s edition of thwacked ducks.

At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.
(Aldous Huxley)
Hey Aldo! I see you’ve met Howard Dean.
(Me)

Blogeditrix (wouldn’t you love to see her in a black patent leather one piece?) and world traveler Pamela of Atlas Shrugs is back from Paris just in time to tell us about the cluebats at the EU falling all over each other, lining up to sell the radioactive mullahs nuclear fuel. Here’s some gasoline…how about a match.

Giacomo from Joust the Facts has some lefty reactions to the recess appointment of John Bolton. They seem a might upset. Sometimes I think Bush does stuff like this to watch the moonbats as their heads explode.

Hypnyx at Global Democratic Revolution takes on perhaps the most clueless group of Republicans around; my own Illinois State Republican Party who, not content with picking a Senate candidate (Alan Keyes) who lost by nearly 50 points to Barak Obama, now offer a bounty for anyone with info that will convict Chicago Mayor Richard Daley of a crime…in Chicago…on this planet. Not. A. Chance.

Tom Bowler at Libertarian Leanings has some interesting information about Air America. Not only do they rob from the poor to finance their broadcasts, they also have a “Camp Air America” – a liberal “Madrassa” as Tom calls it.

My old buddy Pat at Brainsters has Part #55 of his series of posts fisking the “Reality Based Community.” This one has the moonbats tying in an “impeachment march” with the massive anti-war demonstration set for September 24 in Washington. Wishful thinking is their strong suit.

Raven at And Rightly So says that Jimmy Carter embarrasses her. Since the lovely and talented blogger is not known as the shy and retiring type, the grinning goober must have done something really clueless – like diss the US on foreign soil.

Beth at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy hates hippies. I’m not surprised. The mentally challenged moonbats at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have now compared human beings keeping animals to slavery. Maybe they’ll be able to find a chicken who can give the Gettysburg Address.

More great stuff from Mr. Right at The Right Place. Anyone for an Air America telethon? Maybe Al Gore will lend a hand as Mr. Right suggests?

The Logical Meme has an excellent post on Pakistani immigration to Great Britain. “Islam, like Marxism, provides a convenient rationale to the most dysfunctional cultures of the world.” Amen.

Is there anything more despicable than Cafepress selling “Kill Bush” merchandise? Cao at Cao’s Blog (pronounced “Key”) doesn’t think so. Who’s worse? The people who sell it or the people who buy it?

Philomathean writes about the trouble Harvard President Larry Summers is in with various moonbats on campus, including Conrad Harper, the only black member of the Harvard Board of Regents.

The People’s Republic of Seabrook has a few well deserved unkind words for ex-Cubs current Astros broadcaster Milo Hamilton. Baseball is the simplest of games. Why do people want to complicate it so?

Charleston Daily Mail columnist Don Surber has the inside scoop on the new ABC drama “Hail to the Chief.” Evidently the movie industry isn’t the only part of Hollywood that recycles ideas from time to time.

Searchlight Crusade has some well chosen words for the Washington Post and their apparent opposition to a media exemption for bloggers who they say “want it both ways.” “As opposed to traditional media people, who are never activist, never donate to partisan causes, and never, ever encourage others to do so?” Uh-Huh.

Josh Cohen is mad at the MSM for forgetting that the Russians also have a space program and a good one. Where would we have been if the Russkies hadn’t stepped in and saved our bacon by resupplying that boondoggle of a space station we’ve got up there?

Harvey at Bad Example has an open Letter to Jane Fonda. It’s not pretty.

Howard Dean is in the news again and Van Helsing has captured the creature and has him caged in his castle in Transylvania. Funny that he only drinks the blood of Republicans…

Mean ‘ole Meany is being really, really mean to the Splodeydopes again. This time, he responds to an email from a moonbat who wants to secede and set up a country made up of blue states. Meany shows her the error of her ways.

Mark Coffey’s Weekly Jackass is Simon Jenkins, former editor of the London Times and, as Mark refers to him, a “useful idiot” in the war on terror. The fact that he appears regularly on Arianna Huffington’s blog should tell you all you need to know about what kind of an “idiot” he is.

Going to the Mat has a post wrestling Senator Chris Dodd to the mat for his total cluelessness of the US Constitution. I’d have to say the match goes to Matt in three falls.

Jay at Stop the ACLU informs us that the group wants to get rid of tax exempt status for churches. What’s next? Banning hot dogs? Passing a law against apple pie?

Tony at More than Loans has a suggestion regarding Jimmy Carter: “Will someone please give this guy a hammer or something shiny to look at to keep him occupied?” And a bib for the drool.

GM Roper has a great article on the cluelessness of the left in general but also the rest of us when it comes to fighting the War on Terror. “Words mean things” says GM. Too bad most of the moonbats try to make words mean something other than what is said.

Ogre thinks that the American people are pretty dense when taken as a group. I actually agree with that to a certain extent. The problem is that the evidence comes from polls which can also show how really clueless pollsters are just by the way they frame a question.

Duncan Avatar at Parrot Check wants the USS Iowa to come to Texas since the anti-military moonbats in San Francisco won’t have her.

The Maryhunter points us to a superb fisking of Arianna Huffington and her cluelessness of ancient history. TMH has a suggestion for why the crone got it so wrong: She ” may have been a little too distracted thinking about the next private plane flight she could beg off of one of her jet-setting friends to have researched a bold claim she made.”

Finally, here’s a little ditty I did on the New York Times calling people who want to see the 9/11 memorial remain about that day’s events and not be made into an anti-American love fest “un-American.”