Moe Lane

Via Ed Morrissey, witness her full and total awareness of the cap-and-trade monstrosity that her political party is threatening to unleash upon the world:

“I’ve read major portions of it, absolutely.”

You know, this is one of those times that I almost feel sorry for hyper-partisan Democrats. Can you imagine having to go through life having to pretend that this administration has any idea what it’s doing?

Moe Lane

PS: Actually, I would accept the “The executive branch hasn’t had an opportunity to read what the legislative branch has cobbled together yet…” excuse. Assuming, of course, that it’s immediately followed by “…which is why the President’s going to veto the bill and send it back to the House so that they can do a competent job this time.”

Until then… well. I voted for the other guy.

Crossposted to RedState.

It’s official: I’m doomed. Hit the tip jar so that I can flee to Argentin… well, that joke isn’t going to be funny any more for the GOP, is it? So hit the tip jar so that I can flee to Atlanta for the RS Gathering.

Nobody said anything to me about it, but apparently it is.

Cornelius’s perfect comment after the break. (more…)

(Via AoSHQ) It has been declared a holiday, and for good reason. They’re getting their country… well, ‘back’ is the wrong word; under the Baathists it was never really ‘theirs’ to begin with. But they do take responsibility for their cities and towns now.

Iraqis Celebrate Day of National Sovereignty Marking US Troop Pullback

Iraqis are staging a national celebration to mark the impending June 30th withdrawal of U.S. troops from most cities, towns and villages. Celebrations in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, include music, dance and poetry.

I think that this is a nicely iconic image:

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

I watched about half of it, all the while muttering You could have at least referenced “The Marching Morons,” until I more or less lost interest.  I think that this comic has helped me understand why.

It’s because the movie was smugly smoking crack, that’s why.  And, absent the social insight, well… Idiocracy just ain’t all that as a film.

Moe Lane

PS: xkcd is indirectly referencing something called the “Flynn Effect,” which basically indicates that average IQ scores have been going up since we started using IQ tests.  For some reason, the most obvious answer as to why – better infant and child nutrition worldwide means less brain damage – is being resisted by some; ach, well, it’s not like this is my field of study anyway, so I have no skin in the game.

Randy Milholland of Something Positive is right: this game is fun.  And it’s a little trickier to master than it looks on first glance.  Admittedly, it’s off of Lifetime – hence the very sarcastic nature of the webcomic in question – but I don’t think that he had to be ashamed of liking it.

Just saying.

I should probably take it easy today: we just crammed a month’s worth of tabloid news into a week, and it’s maybe taking its toll.

But imagine how the Weekly World News must be feeling right now.  They’re in serious danger of drowning in their stock-in-trade: no respectable online tabloid should have to cover Michael Jackson’s funeral AND Mark Sanford’s Sasquatch lover AND Ahmedinejad moonwalking at the same time. There’s just not enough space on one front page.

Like RS’s Erick Erickson and TNR’s Ironman, I instinctively shy from a boycott of the NRCC because they had eight members out of one hundred and seventy eight who flunked a test vote.  Some of the names on that list hurt to see, and a couple are exercises in teeth-grinding; but perfect is the enemy of the good, and Congressional Republicans have done a good job in using our lopsidedly minority status to the best effect possible.  Nobody’s pretending that this was passed with bipartisan support.  Nobody’s even trying.  That’s better news for next year’s elections than what I was frankly expecting, back in December 2008.

That being said: this was a test vote, and these eight represent eight ‘Blue Dogs’ that could safely vote No on this bill and keep pretending to their constituents that they believe in fiscal responsibility, and there needs to be some sort of response to that.

I have a modest suggestion along those lines, and his name is Anh “Joseph” Cao (LA-02). (more…)

Let’s take it easy for the rest of the night; it is Sunday, after all.

One, U2

Moe Lane

PS: That being said, if you feel like hitting the tip jar I won’t tell you no.

[UPDATE]: Welcome, Instapundit readers – but really, this story’s been covered by Fausta better than by myself.

(Background here)

They had a court order.  Fausta updated:

1:50PM
Indeed, Honduras’ La Prensa states that (My translation: If you use this, please credit me and link to this post)

An official statement of the Supreme Court of Justice explained that the Armed Forces acted under lawful grounds when detaining the President of the Republic, and by decommissioning the materials to be used on the illegal poll which aimed to bring forth Executive Power against a judicial order.Other sources verified that the president of the Congress, Roberto Micheletti, will assume the presidency of the republic in a few hours.
…
Honduran president Manuel Zelaya was detained this morning by the military in compliance with an order of the courts of law.

Meanwhile, the foreign policy experts over at State and the White House* have gone into, bluntly, full Ugly American mode: they’re currently declining to recognize the right of the Hondurans to remove their own head of state on constitutional grounds. Apparently, when it’s a choice between a chief executive on the one hand and said chief executive’s country’s judiciary, legislature, military, and own political party on the other… well, it all apparently depends on what Hugo Chavez thinks.

Let’s just hope that they don’t ask Chavez what he thinks about the Jews.

Moe Lane

PS: Let me expand on that just a little.  I don’t think that this administration is slavishly following Chavez’s lead: I think that they care so little about South American affairs that accommodating their stance to that of a darling of the radical Left seems to them to be a no-brainer.  If the White House is worried about getting the answer to this wrong, it’s not immediately obvious.

*H/T: Gateway Pundit, Hot Air.

Crossposted to RedState.

In one of my odder switches, I’m replacing You Can Do Anything, Daddy with The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross. From robot gorilla pirates from Mars to Cthulhu meets Bond meets the British civil service meets computer culture.

That’s a lot of meeting there, really.

[UPDATE] Crisis averted. Whew!

By two points or dots, or whatever the terminology would be. This is unfortunate, not to mention a violation of the secret provisions of several international treaties: the sport of soccer exists of course for the sole purpose of giving the rest of the world something to feel superior to when it comes to the United States. Beating Brazil at the Worl…

What do you mean, the “Confederation Cup”? They have other competitions besides the World Cup? And we’re stuck with going to them? Who ordered that?

…anyway, obviously this is dangerously close to being a problem at the level of ‘diplomatic incident’ – so I apologize in advance if we win.

Moe Lane