Moe Lane

Oh, how I will get yelled at for this.

[UPDATE]: Welcome, Instapundit readers. You may find this lighter fare on vamprirism studies amusing.

I understand that the PMA thing requires a distraction; but this?

In each case, Alexandria demonstrated the kind of courage and patriotism that can be traced to the city’s roots as the home town of George Washington and Robert E. Lee.

“Courage” I will grant for General Lee, readily enough. I even think that he did what he thought was the right thing. However, speaking as someone whose home states contributed the 69th New York Infantry, the 1st New Jersey Brigade, and the 9th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry to the Army of the Potomac… I feel that we should reserve the designation of “patriotism” for those individuals who, generally speaking, do not enter into armed rebellion against the duly constituted government of the United States of America.

Although I must admit: it almost obscures the fact that the man has just volunteered his Congressional District to hold a bunch of vicious terrorists indefinitely. As I said before, that’s one heck of a distraction.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Unsurprising – African-American Republicans (or, in this case, Republican-endorsed*) are open season for Beltway progressives; female African-American ones, moreso – but depressing.  Fortunately, Jim Geraghty is better at research than your average shrieker, so if one starts babbling about the Hatch Act you can quote this section of the relevant federal code at them. You can also follow that with a loud observation or two about how attacking minority conservatives seems to be a priority for some people, but that’s just me being a vocal advocate for negative reinforcement.

Moe Lane

*Seriously, read the federal code at the second link before you beclown yourself.

Crossposted to RedState.

• Constant Reader Matt has reviewed the new Star Trek movie on his new blog Hawk’s plateau.Personally, I liked the Cloverfield shaky-cam, but tastes differ.
• GayPatriotWest has likewise reviewed the Star Trek movie.
• Josh Trevino went a little… expansive on Twitter about how he felt about the Star Trek movie.  But he never said whether it was better than Wrath of Khan.
• And Neptunus Lex commemorates today as being the anniversary of the first airplane ordered for naval aviation.  Just to throw that curve ball in there.
• Also, Age of Sail is taking suggestions.  Well, suggestions involving Napoleonic-era naval stuff, which I know is not exactly a completely alien subject for a lot of people reading this blog.

Moe Lane

PS: [Nah, I won't mention it after all. It should be its own post, anyway.]

PPS: You know that you want this.

This one has a certain appeal to it:

And I have this Albrecht Durer print up on my living room wall:

…but it’s probably too busy.

Anybody have an opinion?

Moe Lane

You’d watch this.

Admit it.

My Little Pony.

Personally, I think that Allahpundit’s being too disapproving of this sort of thing. Hollywood makes movies like what this one is satirizing because people want to see them. A lot. And while they may pay for movies that Hollywood wants to make and nobody wants to watch, they also pay for movies that not enough people want to watch. I mean, I liked Bottle Shock; but no way was that movie coming out if Hollywood couldn’t pay the bills.

Just saying.

It’s called Dead Frontier, it’s in beta right now, and I have just ran away from it like it was an Infected coming after me.  I know Computer Games That Will Eat My Time (and, possibly, my brain) when I see them.

More details on this game here.

I said, ‘dumber than soap’ once*.  I stand by that statement.

(Via Hot Air Headlines) John Feehery, in the process of pointing out five reasons why we’re not dead yet as a party, noted this little comment by our illustrious Speaker of the House:

“It is important for us to have a strong Republican Party,” Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi tauntingly told a press conference on April 23. “And I hope that the next generation will take back the Republican Party for the Grand Old Party that it used to be.”

Well, since we’re discussing our hopes, Speaker, I have one of my own. I hope, someday, to have someone in your current job who can keep his or her story straight.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted Friday that she was briefed only once about the “enhanced” interrogation techniques being used on terrorism suspects and that she was assured by lawyers with the CIA and the Department of Justice that the methods were legal.

Pelosi issued a statement after CIA records released this week showed that Pelosi was briefed in September 2002 on the interrogation methods. The briefings memo appeared to contradict the speaker’s claims that she was never told that waterboarding or other enhanced interrogation methods were being used.

“We were not — I repeat — were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used,” Pelosi said on April 23.

The emphasis seems to be on “were used,” even though she conceded in a statement released Friday that she was told they would be used.

Speaker Pelosi, you hold the position once held by Joe Cannon, Henry Clay, Nicolas Longworth, Tip O’Neill, and Sam Rayburn. They were not all good people, all of them; but they were all effective, and they were none of them prone to panic in a tricky situation.

You do not measure up.

Moe Lane

*See here. And, of course, here.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Here. Watch some Cheap Trick while I do that.

Surrender, Cheap Trick

No, I don’t plan to write all of them in the next hour.

Hi, Activist Left.

[Further UPDATE]: Welcome, Instapundit readers. Umm. I dunno. Zombie MMORPG, maybe?

[UPDATE] You’d think that they thought that none of this would ever come out.

—–

Pelosi knew about the waterboarding.

She knew all along.

According to the memo the very first briefing listed is 9/4/02 with then Rep. Porter Goss & Pelosi.  The summary of the briefing says:

“Briefing on EITs including use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah, background on authorities, and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed.”

This directly contradicts Pelosi’s story, that “we were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used.“

And here’s the important thing: we knew this already, and so did you.  You’ve been lying to the American people about this for six or so years solely because that way you could maybe stop the screaming that was going on in your own head.  It didn’t work, but then, it never was going to: you really shouldn’t have tried it in the first place. (more…)

Dan Collins and David Thompson have more about that eye-rolling bad review of Star Trek that I… well, rolled my eyes over. David went on to mention “In the Pale Moonlight” of Star Trek: DS9; the clip that he’s thinking of is good enough that I’m reproducing it below.  It’s no accident that this is one of the most memorable events from the series. Or that it’s also one of the most contrary-to-stereotypical ones, either.

Would that there had been more of them.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Via @stevedillard, this is indeed a very good ad.

I didn’t know the answer until the end.

Crossposted to RedState.

Anyone doing a yard sale, please first read and understand the manual that has been thoughtfully provided for you by the Consumer Product Safety Commission to inform you of what you may or may not resell. Please remember that you are explicitly required to follow these regulations, that it is your responsibility to follow every relevant government regulation involved in this, and that ignorance of the law is not an excuse.  You may not get caught – but then again, maybe you will.

Via Reason, via Instapundit.  To me, the most frustrating thing about this manual is that it actually has a good deal of useful product safety information in it; stuff that consumers should know about.  If the government had just left it at that… but that would require trusting the markets, and the only entity less willing  to do that than the (Democrat-controlled) 110th Congress is the (even more Democrat-controlled) 111th one.

Much obliged, Speaker Pelosi.  Some of us can’t buy new for our kids, you know.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

[UPDATE]: Fausta makes this a lot more elemental: this affects people’s moms.