Moe Lane

Already by about 50 million, which is real money for anybody (except a Democratic legislator, of course).  It’ll likely get worse:

The popular program is being blamed for hurting charities that rely on donations of cars to fund social programs.

Those charities say their donations have fallen up to 12-percent already since “Cash for Clunkers” was implemented.

They fear that as time goes on, their annual donations will drop 25-percent, which amounts to more than 100-million dollars.

See also Reuters.  Below is a list of national charities thus affected (the link has a longer list of state/local ones) : (more…)

No, really.

If you planned to check out a library book, visit a city clinic or have your garbage picked up on Monday, you’re out of luck.

The City of Chicago is basically closed for business on Aug. 17, a reduced-service day in which most city employees are off without pay. City Hall, public libraries, health clinics and most city offices will be closed.

They technically ‘moved’ this reduced-services day from New Year’s Eve, and if somebody wants to believe that they won’t have to have that day be reduced-services – or that there won’t be other reduced-service days added – well. (more…)

[UPDATE] Welcome, Michelle Malkin readers.  More on this topic here.

(Via Hot Air Headlines) I understand that it’s probably legally wise for the White House to assign responsibility for Axelrod’s health care spamming to all those evil, evil advocacy organizations, but really:

“We are implementing measures to make subscribing to emails clearer, including preventing advocacy organizations from signing people up to our lists without their permission when they deliver petition signatures and other messages on individual’s behalf.”

If the petitions were only presented in hardcopy form, somebody had to enter those email addresses into the system. If the organizations in question had provided a digital list of email addresses, somebody had to add them to the White House’s distribution list. If the organizations in question had signed up those email addresses one at a time, somebody on the White House Staff needs to explain why he or she didn’t even set up a please-click-to-confirm-your-registration system.

Somebody with a name.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Despite their ultimately-sincere protestations to the contrary, it’s a well-deserved award: Girl Genius is one of those indispensable webcomics, and doubly indispensable for those of a steampunk or neo-Victorian inclination.  My (few) interactions with Studio Foglio have always been very amiable, as well.  In fact, my only regret on this is that Girl Genius winning meant that Schlock Mercenary did not, and I’d be writing a broadly similar post if Howard Tayler had won and Kaja & Phil Foglio had not.

Again, congratulations.

Moe Lane

PS: Now GO FINISH GURPS GIRL GENIUS, DAMMIT.  We wants it, we does.

Verum Serum wants to know, “Will Obama Really Sellout Liberals and Drop the Public Option?” Off-the-record pushback to the contrary, probably: when it’s been suddenly made clear that your job is to actually convince the American public that the current plan is better than no plan at all, no individual part of a plan is non-negotiable.  The real question is what progressives will do about said sellout.  I predict ‘nothing,’ past the usual whining.  They never do.

And I look forward to writing another post like this when we push the administration into endorsing meaningful tort reform.  Which, as I have noted earlier, is not negotiable.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Won’t you come home, Russ Carnahan?  Won’t you please come home?

My name is Russ Carnahan (D, MO-03), and I’m lost:

(via Dana Loesch. Also note: Ed Martin is running against this guy.)

I was last seen a week or so ago, hiding in a garage after a get-together I threw ended with some people that I invited beating up a guy. I’ve dropped off the face of the earth since then. No Twitter*, no blogging, nothing from work… I’m just gone. Now, I’ve had a bit of a sheltered life, and I’m not used to it when things go bad: so I may in a bad place right now. If you see me, please let Ed Martin (R) know; he thinks that I need to take a break anyway, and he’d like to talk to me about it.

I may be with one or more friends, who are also missing: (more…)

Haven’t I done this one already? Apparently not.

In The Mood, Glenn Miller Orchestra

This week, we leave behind The Breath of God and replace it with Coraline – and I suspect that it’ll be Movie of the Week, too.  I quite enjoyed it.

(via Dana Loesch) …all the way to its logical conclusion. I pretty much agree with the main point of Andrew’s article (‘George W. Bush-by-proxy syndrome‘):  with President Bush’s leaving the public stage, the people that have spent the last eight years irrationally hating and fearing the man have had to cast their nets wider and wider to find a suitable replacement for their urges.  But where he’s wrong is that there’s actually one individual left with which to draw BDS sufferers ire, and in some ways he’s the best choice of all: President Barack Obama. (more…)

I had flip-flopped on seeing it, but enough people commented on it favorably for me to give it a shot.

My general impression?  No Star Trek, but worth seeing in theaters.  Shaky-cam doesn’t particularly bug me, but I don’t think that it was used all that much; and any deeper political message could be safely ignored as being probably about South Africa anyway.  With those two potential deal-breakers out of the way, what was left was a decent flick about alien refugees where we didn’t have to deal with the Numinous Other.  The aliens were alien, and not all that nice; humans, not very nice either; and the lead was basically a schmuck who had to be dragged from being a mere protagonist to hero status.

Matinee it if you’re on a budget, but it’s worth seeing in theaters.

Jane Smiley spends most of a post complaining about how the Democrats have done the political equivalent of first stealing money out of her post, then slapping her around when she caught them at it. Then Ms. Smiley declares that it’s Republicans who are the spouse abusers, all along*. And then Ms. Smiley announces that she’s going to give the Democrats one more chance.

You know, in writing this I went all the way from amused scorn to feeling vaguely depressed about the whole thing. Apparently I’m just too soft-hearted for my own good.

Moe Lane (more…)

Via Vodkapundit, girls in bikinis reading from Star Wars Trilogy . Interestingly, this video had my wife in hysterics, if you define ‘hysterics’ as ‘openly laughed a couple of times.’

I suspect that at least one of the bikini-clad readers has actually watched the trilogy about twenty times. Secret geekdom is one of the tragedies of our time.

Moe Lane

It is not the greatest video ever, by the way: there’s no bacon involved. QED.