Moe Lane

(Via @CalebHowe) He thinks that he can do it; and, really, this is the other thing that the internet is for*.  If you can’t actually draw… well, you can go here; it’s a useful skill to have, I’m sure.

Anyway, here’s my (evil) giraffe.

Excuse me, but I was an English major; so why don’t you go sit down, make yourself comfortable, and have a nice cup of STFU?

[UPDATE] As God is my witness, my son immediately and without encouragement improved this picture so that the evil giraffe has now fallen into the volcano lair’s lava:

Thus ends the career of a promising themed supervillian, over before it even truly began.

Moe Lane (more…)

…as found here: he’s the guy that did this pre-surge interview in 2007 for Salon where he breezily declared that:

• “The U.S. is failing miserably at containing the spread of al-Qaida.”
• “The idea of Western-style democracy in Iraq doesn’t appeal to anyone.”
• “I don’t think any number of new troops is going to help unless we’re going to station troops on every single corner of every single street in every single city in Iraq.”

Yeah, I know: oops. (more…)

Works for me, too.

At least, that’s what Instapundit is reporting that these Iranian folks are chanting:

More here, here, here, and here – and note, of course, that Mirhossein Mousavi is no prize himself. None the less, the Iranians deserve a better government than the one that they’ve been saddled with.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Wasn’t there a questionnaire to weed these sorts out?

Hey, if it had been a Republican staffer blithely assuming that ‘bending over’ was acceptable discourse in official negotiations we’d be seeing the pyre being built on the Capitol steps right now. We can have people dial back the outrage over what is said or written, or make to penalties for it apply equally to everybody; I’d personally prefer the former, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let the double standard pass unremarked.

Anyway, the revealed bit is at the end of this:

(See also MsUnderestimated & Hot Air)

Admittedly, I’m not bothering to do much with the ‘terrorist’ remark except to note it: that’s just the usual fearmongering and character assassination – and, honestly, by now I’m kind of used to it happening. This other bit, however… well. They’re usually quieter about that sort of thing.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

If you laughed at this, congratulations: you may be a NMD.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course.  Ahem.

Moe Lane, NMD

A government entity with:

• Hours of operation designed to suit it, not its erstwhile customers;
• Limitations on when services will and will not be offered, seemingly picked at random;
• A remarkably flexible definition of ‘full service’;
• And an institutionalized disinterest in mentioning any of this to people who call ahead to avoid problems.

Just what I need for my daily life – and, really, I need even more of it!  In fact, I cannot wait until I have to depend on the government to make sure that my next emergency dentist’s visit goes smoothly.

Cannot. Wait.

Moe Lane

DEVO – Whip It

Whip It, Devo

(pause)

Well, it seemed to make sense at the time. Was that particular vibe noticed back then… apparently, yes: yes, it was.

Penny Arcade can stop asking what people want. If they have an idea like this ready to go:

The second concept is Automata, nineteen-twenties crime fiction which unfolds in a time where “machine intellect” has been outlawed. It wasn’t always, certainly, and the problem of what to do with the existing “stock” of fully sentient, mechanical citizens endures. Detective Regal and his stenophone Carl Swangee traverse the margin where these worlds overlap.

…then they can just get on with it, and they can save the third one for later. Don’t get me wrong; Lookouts looks like it’d be fun. But to hell with fun; I want mechanical men noir, dammit.

Moe Lane

PS: Let me put it this way: I would buy this.

[UPDATE] Welcome, Instapundit readers.

Like Glenn Reynolds, I thought that I’d at least like Obama’s position on gay issues, too.  It’s just that I more or less stopped doing that when I saw the exit polls for Proposition 8.

Crossposted to RedState.

Heckuva job there, Barry.

You know, it’s not the fact that we’re apparently on the verge of toppling another foreign government that bemuses me, per se; toppling foreign governments is one of those things that the United States of America simply does, as a byproduct of our very existence. Whether or not that’s an inherently good thing is going to be a matter of some debate – particularly if you’re somebody who’s never lived under one or another of the unpleasant regimes that we’ve absentmindedly obliterated, over the years*. So I’m not particularly startled at the thought that it may be about to happen again.

Still. Bermuda?

Crockwell tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD that Bermudians are very concerned about the potential threat the Uighurs pose to the security and economy of Bermuda, and are outraged by the secretive and unilateral manner in which Bermuda premier Dr. Ewart Brown decided to accept the detainees.

“There’s a great deal of anxiety right now,” says Crockwell. “We have not received any information at all in terms of who these individuals are.”

“We hear reports that they have been associated with al Qaeda … that they were trained in terrorist camps,” as well as reports that the men are innocent. “So we don’t know” how much a security risk the former detainees pose. Crockwell says that the Bermudian people and members of parliament don’t know where the Uighurs are now being housed by the government.

“We think the premier, who made a unilateral decision, has put this country at risk. We believe that when there’s uncertainty we have to err on the side of caution,” Crockwell adds. Crockwell’s United Bermuda Party has already moved a motion of no confidence against Brown to remove him as the leader of parliament. He says that a “member of the backbench has stated not even the cabinet was informed of this decision,” which Crockwell described as a “unilateral autocratic decision made by one man who has created a national crisis for the island of Bermuda.”

(more…)

I haven’t found a better description of this particular four-month-delayed boondoggle than this:

The FCC has spent too much money (from their expansive “lowest common denominator” budget that is funded by you and me) on people who can’t or won’t find the time to get a converter box, and this “problem” could have been solved cheaply by utilizing scientific principle that is “The Couch Potato Law of Motion”: An object at rest will remain at rest until it no longer gets television reception.

Still, do yourself a favor: when you run out to buy one of these when you realize that, yeah, really, they’re not going to delay this conversion again – go get one of these, too. The regular antennas don’t work a darn.

Crossposted to RedState.

“It also has a… CD-ROM player.”

I shouldn’t mock; it’s not nice.  On the other hand, fifteen or twenty years from they’re going to be mocking our earnest prognostications about the future, so I might as well.  On the gripping hand, this video does remind me that I still need to pick up Where’s My Jetpack?: A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future that Never Arrived…