Moe Lane

Deep. Fried.  Coca. Cola.

But it says “on a stick” in the poll!  It’s got to be on a stick!

(Via This is Why You’re Fat, via Hot Air Headlines, where it got the coveted “Dude” designation).

“‘To cowardice,’ he said, and flung the empty glass against the back wall of the fireplace with a savageness I had never seen in him before.”

The quote is from Spider Robinson’s short story “Unnatural Causes” (found in his first Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon story collection, known as, well, Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon), and we’ll be revisiting it in a moment.  But first: pro-torture pro-Obama bloggers Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Sullivan have decided that they are very unhappy about Obama’s decision to maintain the Bush administration’s policy of “asserting a broad “state secrets” privilege to shield from disclosure information related to the CIA’s rendition program.” You may find a link to Greenwald’s table-pounding via Glenn Reynolds, and one to Sullivan’s via Ace of Spades: no offense to either Glenn or Ace, but I’d rather not track the filth that they linked to directly into my nice, clean website.

And it is filth, because if you look at either pro-torture pro-Obama blogger, you’ll see that neither has done anything except pound on the table. And they won’t, either. Their outrage is rather finely tuned. (more…)

[UPDATE] Since Jim Treacher in comments here asked: “Then what are you worried about,” Chuck?

61/36, with Collins, Snowe, & Specter voting for cloture (Gregg is sitting this one out and Coleman can’t participate in this Congress yet). In other words, the Democratic Party now owns an 800 billion dollar debt plan.

They’re welcome to it, in fact.

So can we get to the final vote and the signing, already? We have midterm elections to plan for.

Moe Lane

Crossposted at RedState.

Not every day. Not very often. Maybe not even twice.

…But if you put that in front of me, and just waited, I’d eventually pop it open and take a swig. Just to see how it tasted. And I wouldn’t wait too long, either; although that might just be because it might get warm, otherwise.

Come on. It’s got bacon in it.

Via PhxG.

That’s why this story. Because I enjoy doing this sort of thing to my readers. (more…)

As you may remember, I participated in a conference call with Doug Feith about this book last week. Given the recent changes/non-changes in strategy wrt the GWOT, a fresh look at War and Decision
in light of them seems appropriate; I’ll put something up on it when I’m done.

Crossposted to RedState.

…any which way (see also here, here, and here). That’s without a “stimulus”: with one, we’re going to see short-term gains at the expense of long-term growth.  You can argue that this might not be a bad thing, overall; but if we’re not actually going to need the Obama-Reid-Pelosi debt bill to get out of this recession then the biggest argument against passing it right now just went away.  There is no consensus that urgent action is needed: as Rasmussen notes, while Democrats are following the President on this, Republicans are not… and independents are significantly in agreement with the GOP.  A plurality of voters oppose this thing.  Half the population thinks that we’re at risk at making things worse if it passes.  It’s not actually settled that this is emergency legislation, in other words – which means by the White House’s own rule (which is well on the way to having a history of being routinely broken anyway) we should legitimately expect a five day waiting period to assess the bill anyway.  But none of that is scheduled.  Why?

Yes, that’s a rhetorical question.

If you haven’t read it yet, read it here.

Yup. Threatening a kid for having fake gun-shaped items used for rifle drills. Fascinating how these people think, huh?

The principal for Cherokee Trail High School is Brooke Gregory. S/he could very well be not yet fully aware of this situation: give him/her a call at 720-886-1904 and politely inquire.

The Superintendent for the Cherry Creek School System is Marie Chesley, and she would no doubt like this problem to go away. You can reach her at 303-773-1184 – just to make sure, though.

The Congressman for CO-07 is Ed Perlmutter (D). Call him up at 202-225-2645 and ask him if he supports the expulsion of students trying to do rifle drills. If you live in the District, his number there is 303.274.7944.

Mark Udall (D) is the senior Senator for Colorado. Call him at 202-224-5941 (877-768-3255 if you’re from Colorado) and ask him the same question, assuming that you can get through from all the people screaming about how we’re about to pass a trillion dollar debt bill. On the other hand, they’d probably be ecstatic to have something less minefield-like to work on, at this point.

Michael F. Bennet (D) is the junior Senator for Colorado. Call him at 202-224-5852; if/when you get through, be sure to ask whether he would have sanctioned this when he was running the Denver school system.

…And that’s all that I can think of, under the circumstances.

Crossposted at RedState.

…What? No, both sides of it, actually. Anyway.  Codemaster‘s  Overlord: Dark Legends. Coming out in June for the Wii. Are people pumped for this? I have to admit, I’m seriously contemplating buying its predecessor solely on the strength of the author of the storyline; she’s a British author named Rhianna Pratchett.

Yup.

So, anybody who’s played these games: are they worth picking up?

Moe Lane

Here we go again…

I read with some interest (via the Corner’s Mark Hemingway) the report that Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel never paid rent on his five year stay with Congresswoman DeLauro, who just happens to be married to a pollster…

The White House chief of staff said this week that he did not pay rent during the five years he bunked at the Capitol Hill home of Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn). But that raises questions whether Emanuel reported the rent-free lodging to Congress, since DeLauro is married to pollster Stan Greenberg. And will either of the parties report what could be “imputed income” to the IRS? Reps for Emanuel and DeLauro argue that House Ethics rules allow “hospitality between colleagues.”

…who also just happens to be the Chairman of a polling company that had Rep. Emanuel and the DCCC as clients.  As you can see, they’re claiming that this wasn’t a commerical transaction at all – and thus not taxable, which is suddenly a burning issue among Obama staffers.  You can believe as much of that as you like, of course: for my own part, I take this as an indication that maybe John Edwards was right all along.  Maybe there really are two Americas: there’s the America where people pay their taxes and disclose their income without engaging in undue shenanigans, and then there’s the America that Democratic politicians live in.  Speaking as someone who lives in the first America, let me make the denizens of the second one aware of something: we tolerate this sort of thing only when times are good.

Times are not good.

Moe Lane

PS: Please, by all means: try the “but it was technically legal!” defense.  That always works so well with people who don’t have a Congressman’s influence and pull.

Crossposted at RedState.

Constant Reader matt reminds me of this:

…which caused my wife and I to collapse in laughter the first time we saw it.

…the “exotic monster pet” stage of development? Excellent. Although why he only wants one face-slapping, Greenpeace-eating, narcotrafficante-disrupting giant Colombian snake is beyond me completely. I know that Rumsfeld is letting Cheney crash at his place until the new digs are ready: possibly he doesn’t have the room?

Moe Lane

PS: VIPER FANG!