February 2009 – Moe Lane

The truly amusing thing about the Obama vetting process.

It is not that, as Andrew Bolt notes, that the process has been so flawed to date that it’s fair to use the phrase “spivs and chiselers” without exaggerating. Very Commonwealth-y, but not exaggerating.

It is not that, as Gawker’s Owen Thomas notes, that it’s now come out that new chief vetter Gregory Craig’s wife herself apparently hasn’t been paying her business taxes, to the point where there’s now allegedly an investigation going on about that.

(Both links H/T Glenn Reynolds)

It is not even that the first reaction that everybody had – including you! Admit it – to hearing that Gov. Sebelius got the nod for HHS Secretary was “Hm. I wonder whether she’s paid her taxes.”

Nope. The funny part is that this process isn’t going to stop for months. Continue reading The truly amusing thing about the Obama vetting process.

Your dose of cruel lawyer humor for the day.

Over at Word Around the Net there’s some pretty good, true (supposedly) anecdotes from a book called Disorder in the Court: Great Fractured Moments in Courtroom History. Here’s one, just to whet your appetite:

ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

As I said: cruel.

Crossposted at RedState.

Christian Brose: Obama should have thanked Bush for the surge.

Stop bitterly laughing like that. You’ll scare the kids.

(Via Hot Air Headlines) This is in the context of mentioning President Obama’s recent military speech, and in the context of discussing the fairly obvious – to people with functioning neural tissue, at least – points that the President is coasting on Bush’s successful surge strategy; and that our failure to actually have an ambassador to Iraq at the moment is, put simply, dumb. With that out of the way, Brose went on to ask the President to at least note the victories of the previous administration. Brose did not also ask for a magical elixir that would cure cancer, warts, and the galloping staggers, although I’m not sure why. He didn’t stand that much less of chance of getting it (bolding mine):
Continue reading Christian Brose: Obama should have thanked Bush for the surge.

Peter Jackson’s WETA Workshop makes a mermaid.

(Via Fark) Apparently, it takes a little bit more than the usual make-work projects to keep the people of WETA on their game, so they decided to go and make a functional prosthetic mermaid’s tail for a double amputee.

Just to keep their hand in, you understand. After all, it’s going to be two years before The Hobbit comes out.

Moe Lane

PS: Second half of the video here, but language warning. They picked a fairly inappropriate song to use for it, in my opinion.

The progressive movement’s abandonment of human rights, Part 45.

Number made up, but trust me: I could find forty-four more examples, ya, you betcha.

Here’s the thing: I’ve met Michael Barone. I know that he’s smart. Frighteningly so, in fact. And I know that he pays attention to details, in ways that usually startle the living life out of people who aren’t used to it. In other words, this is an aware guy that we’re talking about.

So why the surprise, here?

All of which brings to mind the report of a conservative blogger who watched George W. Bush’s 2005 inaugural speech with a group of liberals. Every time Bush called for spreading freedom and democracy around the world, the crowd guffawed and groaned and jeered. For them, evidently, Bush was a figure of fun, and his calls for democracy and human rights laughable. The same people who decried his supposed authoritarian rule at home had nothing but contempt for his call for freedom and democracy abroad.

Beneath this stated contempt is, I think, something in the nature of secret guilt. Or rather, anger at the notion that Bush had stolen the issues of human rights and democracy from the liberals.

The desire to oppose the Iraq war root and branch, to denounce every aspect of it, imposed a duty to dismiss as laughable Bush’s stated objective — set out eloquently before the decision to take military action as well as after it — of advancing democracy in the Middle East. A duty to side with those, like the National Intelligence Council nominee, who have long held that governance in the style of Saudi Arabia or Syria is the best that can be hoped for in that region, and the best for all concerned. A duty to dismiss with contempt, or simply to ignore, the rather remarkable strides of the Iraqis themselves made after enduring decades of brutal tyranny.

Continue reading The progressive movement’s abandonment of human rights, Part 45.

Muckmaker Shauna Daly returning to DNC.

You may have remembered that Ms. Daly had been placed by the Obama White House last month in its counsel office, despite the fact that she has no actual legal credentials. It was widely assumed – justifiably, in my opinion – that this was due to the fact that she’s quite the political sheet-sniffer, which was apparently what the administration thought that it needed right now.

Apparently the DNC needs her more:
Continue reading Muckmaker Shauna Daly returning to DNC.

Frustatingly, the Da Vinci’s Notebook versions of ‘Internet Porn’…

…available on YouTube are marred by an annoying laugh track, so watch this instead (language warning):

It’s in response to this story, by the way – and you can tell my reaction to it by the links to Avenue Q and Da Vinci’s Notebook.

Moe Lane

Tea Parties using Web 2.0 to organize, expand.

Yes, I used “Web 2.0” to describe something. Sue me.

[UPDATE]: Welcome, Instapundit readers. I do actually have a suggested link for you, this time: a little project that you may or may not find amusing…

Instapundit linked to an article about the Tea Parties, and the tech that they’re using:

Anti-stimulus tea parties light up Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and social media

In the latest example of how user-produced media can capture so-called “massively-shared” events in a way mainstream media can’t, a wave of images, blog posts and videos from a nationwide protest has been washing across the Web. The protests, dubbed “tea parties” by participants, were held Friday in several U.S. cities including Portland and Washington, D.C. as a response to what demonstrators see as unfettered spending and encroaching government as represented by President Obama’s economic recovery plans.

[snip]

Though even a year ago it would’ve been a slow and difficult process to chronicle a widely scattered protest such as this, the online community is now mastering the art of high-speed media sharing, a trend that can unite geographically disparate communities via the Web. Much of the sharing is now facilitated by the fast-growing messaging site Twitter, where today the keyword “teaparty” was one of the most frequently used terms. Users sent out a flurry of updates about attendance, links to photos on Flickr and Photobucket, and videos on YouTube and other sites.

The protests appeared to be rather small and did not attract much coverage in the mainstream new media. But interested observers had a remote window into the activities taking place in cities such as Tulsa, Okla., Austin, Texas, Nashville, Chicago, Lansing, Mich., Houston, Hartford, Conn., and Los Angeles, where a group that gathered this morning on the Santa Monica pier. (This blog reports that, as a part of that action, former “Saturday Night Live” actor Victoria Jackson read the definition of “socialism”).

Continue reading Tea Parties using Web 2.0 to organize, expand.

A roundup of today’s Tea Parties.

“Of what use is a baby?”

Glenn Reynolds has two very large links (here and here [the latter being the main page; the link’s goofed up for some reason]). See also Hot Air, Michelle Malkin, the Repurblican, Gateway Pundit, GayPatriot, Riehl World View, Ace of Spades, and a whole bunch of others for details. The biggest one was in St Louis, with about a thousand on hand; I’m going to guess that they probably broke ten thousand nationwide. Not bad for a movement two weeks old, and made up of a bunch of people who all work for a living.

At least, it’s not bad today. Clearly, now that we’re starting to understand the operating principles, the next wave of these are going to have to kick it up a notch…
Continue reading A roundup of today’s Tea Parties.

Turns out that the DABA thing…

…was a parody after all. For those who don’t remember, DABA was Dating a Banker Anonymous, which purported to be the blog of a bunch of women who were having to deal with the horrors of being involved with men who suddenly weren’t rich. I mentioned it here and here, which is one reason why I’m bringing it up again now; there may be somebody who cares enough to appreciate the correction.

The other reason?
Aretha, of course.

Hey, I put up Donna Summer the last time. Fair’s fair.

Moe Lane

PS: Just in case she ever reads this: madam, my wife loved your hat.

Crossposted to RedState.