Moe Lane

Pejman Yousefzadeh is cruel, as befits someone as high up in the International Neo-Zionist Conspiracy as he.  When confronted with Andrew Sullivan going into an ecstatic frenzy over what was more or less a pedestrian and prosaic statement by the President, it was not enough for him to merely mock the conspiracy theorist.  No, Pejman had to go back in time, using strange and forbidden Neo-Zionist temporal secrets, and change the speech so that when Sullivan wrote*

Did you notice how many times he invoked the word “justice” in his message? That’s the word that will resonate most deeply with the Iranian resistance.

…Pejman could (devastatingly) reply “Once.”  Personally, I would have just used my super-powerful Jew Beams to cloud Sullivan’s mind into thinking that singing “Henry The VIII, I Am” over and over again was a smart way to pass the time, the next time he was on television: but then I’m just too nice sometimes.  Which is probably why they won’t let me actually have the beams yet.  Well, that and the entire Boston Irish heritage thing. (more…)

I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles), The Proclaimers

Mostly for this, really.

Well, it was that kind of day.

Moe Lane

PS: I’m not sufficiently known to justify Joey Comeau sucking up to me by sending me a copy of Overqualified, but I’ve seen the stuff that it’s based off of, and it’s surreal.

:Looking, primarily, at CBS’s priorities with regard to the ice cream story*. Not to mention Knoller’s reaction to the horrified reaction on Twitter:

:pausing:

To Hell with it and Knoller: I’m going to go find a drink.

Moe Lane

*Frankly, they’re the ones that should be getting lambasted most right now on this.

Crossposted to RedState.

Now this is a clever idea: Dracula Feed is posting every day of Bram Stoker’s Dracula on the day that it actually happened in the book.  Said author can get away with that because a), the book is written in an epistolary style (i.e., it was written out in the form of collected letters and statements*); and b), the book is public domain.

Should be fun. Also: I recommend, if you haven’t read them already, Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula and Fred Saberhagen’s The Dracula Tape, both of which work with the existing Stoker novel in new and interesting ways. I’d say ‘transgressive,’ but one would mock me, and the other would come back from the grave to beat me senseless.

Moe Lane

*Which was, if I’m remembering either my English Lit classes or Stephen King correctly, was considered slightly archaic when Stoker wrote the novel.

Somewhat ironically, given this passage from this The Other McCain article:

Wise men may observe that sensei Moe Lane has never published a book called Secrets of the Blog-Fu Temple Cult. Nor will he ever, not even posthumously. Hell’s bells, if I had an infallible formula for political success (please note the hypothetical), I’d be afraid even to write it on a cocktail napkin, for fear it might accidentally be published and deprive me of future opportunities for free lunches.

…but I actually am putting together some thoughts on the topic of the practical aspects of blogging: I’ve been doing it since 2003 or thereabouts, after all (mostly on RedState, of course). I was planning to give a brief talk on the subject at August’s RS gathering, in fact – which I don’t think is too much of a security risk, given that you have to pay to get in.  That is, assuming that I can get the money together to go…

Hint, hint.

Crossposted to RedState.

Not that it wasn’t impolite of her.

…Although you have to wonder if there was an error in translation there. Or whether it was faked, of course – although the guy did look like he blacked out there.

Turning to domestic news for the moment (and as a distraction from my worries, frankly), I see via @mkhammer that a value-added tax is on the Democrats’ horizon, the better to pay for free health care*:

Unlike a sales tax that applies only to the point of purchase, a VAT taxes the value added at each stage of production. Thus, if the VAT rate is 5% and a producer of raw materials, a manufacturer and a retailer each add $1.00 of value to a product, then each owes the government five cents.

A source close to the Ways and Means Committee said House Democrats may be considering a VAT of 1% to 1.5%. That could raise $70 billion-$105 billion annually, based on calculations from a Con gressional Research Service report.

[snip]

A VAT would be a major headache for President Obama, who has consistently pledged not to raise taxes on 95% of Americans. Republicans are sure to portray a VAT as a violation of his vow.

Well… yes. That would be because it is a violation of his vow.  It’s hardly the GOP’s fault if the President’s electoral strategy wrote checks that his governing methodology can’t cash… yes, yes, Top Gun put it better, but then Top Gun had the advantage of F-14 / MiG dogfights.  At any rate, there’s no earthly reason why we should avoid bringing up a broken promise just because nobody believed it anyway; if this administration wants to avoid facing the consequences of its rhetoric, it is perfectly welcome to take more care in the crafting of it.

Moe Lane

*There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. And that’s a book that I heartily recommend, by the way.

Crossposted to RedState.

It’s not just us who listen to our broadcasts, you know.

President Obama argued yesterday that there is little difference between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi on policies critical to the U.S.

“It’s important to understand that although there is amazing ferment taking place in Iran, that the difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as has been advertised,” the president told CNBC.

Via @allahpundit.

(more…)

This is promising to become a thoroughly rotten day in international affairs. See also. And here, of course.

At this point, I got nothing to suggest. Except prayer, of course.

Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are, Meat Loaf

1993. It was not a time for subtlety in our music videos.

Yup, it’s that time again.  Short version: the DNC beat the RNC last month, thanks to a Presidential fundraiser; but the NRSC actually raised more money last month than the DSCC; and the DCCC raised only about 200K more than the NRCC.  While the cash-on-hand edge for the GOP is less than it was last month’s, it’s because the Democrats are still not retiring their debt, which is 4x the GOP’s.

(more…)