Month: March 2009

Reason TV: ‘Barack W. Bush.’

If only.

While the foreign affairs part of this video is largely true, I have to disagree with it on two key points:

First off, the Obama administration has not “stopped torture.” They’ve started it back up again, only they’re going to be handing the job over to countries, in an essentially deniable fashion.  And go read up on counter-terror operations conducted by, say, the French if you think that restricting rendition to Western European nations will prevent that from happening.  Hint to the naive: the rest of the world is significantly nastier than we are.  That’s why many of your ancestors moved here in the first place.  And why almost none of them moved back.

Second, Obama doesn’t really have to try too hard to placate his antiwar base: they’re actually fairly indifferent to this issue, given the way that they’re barely exercised about Obama doing much the same thing as his predecessor.  He does have to work a little to make his policies look sufficiently different enough from Bush’s, though – which provides a reasonably similar result, which is why I guess that Reason came to that conclusion.

Moe Lane

PS: I’ll believe that Gitmo’s getting closed down when I see it actually happening.

Crossposted to RedState.

Recap of the NY-20 race.

  1. Scott Murphy (D) is ahead by 65 votes. Nobody’s calling this race just yet.
  2. There are somewhere between six and ten thousand absentee ballots that need to be counted.
  3. They’re not being counted tonight. They’re not being counted for another week. (Via AoSHQ) You see, we do, in fact, actually learn from our mistakes.
  4. The deadline for overseas absentee ballots is actually April 13th.
  5. All that being said, just because we haven’t lost yet doesn’t mean that we’ve won, either. Don’t assume that the absentee ballots are going to flip this race dramatically.
  6. If you still have nervous energy to work off, Rosanna Pulido (the candidate for IL-05) would love your help.

I believe that covers it. So everybody have a bite to eat, or something.

Crossposted to RedState.

Working their way up to killing swine: PETA in VA.

Yup. PETA’s killing pets again.

PETA’s Dirty Secret

From July 1998 through December 2008, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) killed over 25,112 dogs, cats, and other “companion animals.” That’s more than five defenseless creatures every day. PETA has a walk-in freezer to store the dead bodies, and contracts with a Virginia Beach company to cremate them.

You can see more at the site PETA Kills Animals, which is one of those sites that really, really bothers a certain sort of person. Like, say, the sort of person who doesn’t want to hear just how tasty my BACON and pineapple pizza was at lunch, or how I’m looking forward to taking some CHICKEN tomorrow and cooking it up for dinner.  Of course, that sort of person will almost certainly assume that I’m just saying all of that because I’m a shill for animal exploiters, or something.

Actually, no: to exceptionally misquote Scarface I’ll boot to the head PETA for free.  Although if Omaha Steaks wants to send over these babies in consideration for my trouble I’m not going to get bent out of shape about it.

The difference between ‘libertarian’ and ‘liberal,’ courtesy of Harry Reid.

Taxation is completely voluntary in America. Harry Reid says so.

[Libertarian]: “Voluntary taxation” = You can choose whether or not to participate in the tax system.

[Liberal]: “Voluntary taxation” = You calculate and send in your taxes, instead of your employer. And, oh, yes, you don’t have to pay taxes on a house if you don’t want to own one.

Watching an example of the former explain the definition to an example of the latter – and watching the liberal completely reject the definition without even remotely understanding it – in the following video will no doubt amuse you. Or make you want to throw a brick through the screen. Or both.


Continue reading The difference between ‘libertarian’ and ‘liberal,’ courtesy of Harry Reid.

Me on Blogtalk Radio, 03/31/2009.

I did another podcast with Fausta again today: I personally think that I was babbling at the end (the kid decided to be up all night, so perforce so was I), so there’s that’s going to be entertaining. We talked a bit about Dodd, the inability of this administration to even run an Easter Egg roll, and why I’m responsible for the current economic crisis. Click on this link if you can’t see the Blogtalk radio box. Continue reading Me on Blogtalk Radio, 03/31/2009.

I want one.

See, this is why we invented engineering. To have stuff like this:

MARCH 31–In a law enforcement first, Ohio cops this month arrested a man for drunk driving on a motorized bar stool. That’s right, a motorized bar stool, which can be seen below in a police evidence photo.

0331091stool1

In fact, this is not just why we have engineering: this is why we have America. Seriously.

(Thanks to Dan Riehl, who has unaccountably not put anything up about this yet.)

Blair’s Law in action at the G20.

Blair’s Law™ – The ongoing process by which the world’s multiple idiocies are becoming one giant, useless force.

…and it’s in full view at the G20 protests in London, where we get this report from The New Ledger’s Roger Bate about the eclectic nature of the protesters.  Because it’s an antiglobo affair, it is of course dominated by the usual Communist and Israel-hating groups – the latter needing somewhere to go, now that the antiwar movement’s lost losing the war – and Bate suggests that the global warming cause may end up being added to the mix.  To which I reply: if only.  That’d be the fastist way to discredit the whole movement.  Still, the dupes-fools-and-knaves contingent is in full force at London, and they think that they smell blood, so they’re energized.

As long as they stay energized over there.  Faux-populist movements are annoying at best, and kind of intolerable at worst.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Chris Matthews, Howard Fineman sexualize their digs at Gov. Palin.

It’s not surprising that Matthews isn’t visible in this clip. He’s the sort who’ll hide his face during an attack:

…and unlike Ed Morrissey I don’t assume class from anybody at Newsweek until proven otherwise – which is a working methodology that has been completely justified by Howard Fineman’s example. But if you disagree that Fineman’s not reachable, well, his email’s webeditors@newsweek.com and the main number for Newsweek in NYC is 212-445-4000. Don’t let them give you the 800 number: those people just handle magazine subscriptions.

Sorry, folks, but this is part of the price of being a more activist party. You have to be, well, active. That means, among other things, emailing and calling about offensive stuff, instead of just stewing about them.

Moe Lane

PS: For any Democratic women reading this: do yourself a favor, and run this past your male Democratic friends and loved ones without revealing your own opinion on the subject. The ones who laugh are the ones who’ll talk about you, or go around you, behind your back.

Hey, I’m just the messenger.

Crossposted to RedState.