Moe Lane

Yup. Her.

Glenn Reynolds can’t for the life of him figure out why this hasn’t been seized on by the media: personally, I think that it’s because they can’t handle the sanity-erasing implications of it all. No, really, the entire point of cosmic terror is in the sudden awareness of – and inability to handle – something that should not be…

Christopher Stasheff once said of this ballad that it was the one a wise minstrel performed when he was called in to distract his patrons from an unfortunate dispute, on the principle that whatever had happened, it was unlikely to have been worse than the plot.

Matty Groves, Joan Baez

Yes, I know that there’s half a dozen reasons why Chris Stasheff was spouting off nonsense there. And?

Moe Lane

PS: It’s a murder ballad. They all incorporate poor lifestyle decisions on the part of their participants. And this isn’t even the version with the typical ending.

(Via Politico & Hot Air Headlines) That’s the question that Patients United Now would like asked of every Representative over the August break:

I heartily endorse the notion, with a couple of suggestions:

• Bring a video camera. If you don’t have one, this one looks cheap enough.
• Bring a friend to hold the video camera while you talk.
• Walk right up to your representative, identify yourself clearly, loudly, and politely, make sure that you say the magic words “…and I live in your district…,” and ask him or her whether they read the ‘health care bill’ in full before they voted on it.
• Remember: this question has a yes or no answer.
• You are not required to accept anything else than yes or no.
• You are not required to participate in an argument on the merits of health care.
• You are not required to tolerate their attempts to change the subject.
• You are not required to not make this politely, yet firmly clear to your legislator.
• This is why you need the second person, so that you can concentrate on the matter at hand and let him or her worry about camera angles and whatnot.

And, lastly:

• If they actually wimp out and recess before voting on the bill, change the question to “Will you read the ‘health care’ bill in full before you vote on it, etc, etc?”  Again, it’s a yes or no question – and for this one, if they give you an attitude you may smile sweetly and remind your legislator of the nortorious fact that nobody in the Democratic Party read the stimulus and/or cap and trade before they voted for it.

Hope this helps.  Have fun!

Moe Lane

PS: Do this all politely.  Let the Left scream and rant; you’re there to get your legislator on the record.  And if they refuse to do that, well, that’s worth uploading to a video sharing site right there.

Crossposted to RedState.

Even in death, he bestows gifts unto the media.

[UPDATE]: I have decided that it would be cruel to pursue this thought further.  Even if it does sound like something out of a typical RPG campaign.

No surprise, either.

Via Connie Hair of Human Events comes a report that the Democratic party has yet again decided that their Congressional majority allows them to interfere with Republican constituent communications. To summarize the situation: there is a bipartisan committee called the Franking Commission that effectively regulates what can and can’t go out officially. This oversight is not supposed to be partisan – Jazz Shaw, who is not a conservative, remembers that it wasn’t during the Iraqi liberation – but apparently the Democrats are sufficiently worried about their health care rationing program to ignore that little detail.

They have decided to not only block that existing chart – yes, this one – on the health care rationing bill; they’re now dictating to Rep John Carter of Mars Texas what language he may or may not use in his electronic town meetings.  Apparently the mere utterance of  of the phrase ‘government-run health care’ is enough to frighten Democrats; would that they were as alarmed at the reality. (more…)

I just can’t get behind Glenn Reynold’s assertion that The Dracula Tape deserves to be called “the single best vampire book.” I was tempted to give him a pass, given that Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula (which – barely – edges out Saberhagen’s very good book) is part of a series – but then, so is Saberhagen’s.  Newman’s knowledge of Stoker’s book easily matches Saberhagen’s, and the former’s grasp of the genre easily overshadows Saberhagen’s.  While I readily admit that Saberhagen showed a real flair at creating a book that completely subverts the original text without contradicting the actual words, the outer world of Newman’s work is simply better fleshed-out, and somehow more real.

And then there’s all of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s stuff, which is certainly literary enough to suit the folks that aren’t all that into the messy mechanics of it all.

If you think that this is a bit long at 3:30, well, it has to be: they need a big hunk of time to let the names of all the ‘conservative’ Democrats currently unsure if they want to follow the President over the cliff of health care rationing. Via Hot Air:

Rep Price’s message was simple, as all good messages should be: this is the Democrats’ bill, and they can pass it any time that they want to. The truth is, of course, that many of the Democrats don’t actually want to – and never mind what Rahm Emanuel is sort-of-kind-of-not-really claiming about how it should clear the House next week. I will not pretend that their motives are pure, of course: most of them merely wish to keep their jobs and sinecures and junkets secure. Plus, of course, they’re raking in the money now from affected industries… which is of course their privilege, but I do have to wonder whether they’ll be taking money from the DCCC, too.

Actually, I don’t wonder. They will. And the progressives will complain, fulminate, and ultimately sit still for it, because that’s what they do.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Forty-nine percent.

You ain’t so tough, Barack Obama.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. Beating you is going to be tough for us to do. You have the executive branch of government – and nominally, the legislative as well. We have over a year to go before the 2010 elections, and things will improve for you and your party. So we will have to work for our wins.

But you’re not a machine. You’re a man*.

And you ain’t so tough.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

*Classical reference.

Via Reason Hit & Run (and Instapundit), a (rare) definitive statement from this administration:

“Legalization is not in the president’s vocabulary, and it’s not in mine,” he said.

Kerlikowske said he can understand why legislators are talking about taxing marijuana cultivation to help cash-strapped government agencies in California. But the federal government views marijuana as a harmful and addictive drug, he said.

“Marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit,” Kerlikowske said in downtown Fresno while discussing Operation SOS—Save Our Sierra—a multiagency effort to eradicate marijuana in eastern Fresno County.

I hate to be mean-spirited about this, but the man picked Joe “RAVE Act” Biden to be his running mate. Why would any person expect this administration to be anything but more of the same on the War on Some Drugs?

Moe Lane (more…)

Although even Rasmussen has to say “It’s California.”

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that Boxer attracts 45% of the statewide vote while Fiorina, her best-known possible Republican challenger, earns 41%. Seven percent (7%) say they’d vote for some other candidate, and seven percent (7%) are undecided.

In March, Boxer led Fiorina by nine, 47% to 38%.

Any incumbent who polls below 50% early in a campaign is considered potentially vulnerable. However, a Democrat running in a heavily Democratic state like California is often able to overcome weak poll numbers.

Which is very true: but it’s also Barbara Boxer. This is not a very good period of time to be reflexively supporting more taxes, less energy, and the imposition of health care rationing – and, given some of the topline results to this survey (MoE is 4.5%, by the way), you have to wonder how ‘heavily Democratic’ it is these days. On first reading, the results read as being more anti-incumbent than anything else: Fiorina isn’t even formally in the race yet, although these numbers are certainly encouraging enough. Chuck Devore (who is in the race) is probably finding them encouraging, too; people in California just aren’t happy with the status quo right now – and contra Rasmussen, you shouldn’t ignore sub-50 ratings if you’re a politician who wants to keep her job.

I’d assume that Senator Boxer is taking that into consideration, except, well.

Crossposted to RedState.

You were warned.

Amazon.com

Via @MelissaTweets.

Moe Lane

PS: ‘Cheesy’ does not necessarily mean ‘bad.’ Or ‘not actually awesome.’

I think that it’s really about vampires.

I Don’t Want To Wait, Paula Cole

Yes, that would mean that Dawson’s Creek was also about vampires.

(pause)

And?