Moe Lane

Credit where credit’s due: this is a quite good NRSC ad.

(H/T: Hot Air) Yes, yes, you’re mad at them. It’s still a quite good online ad.

Crossposted to RedState.

Everything.

But a Democratic leadership aide who sat in on an administration briefing Tuesday said that while Obama will offer support Wednesday for a public option, the president will not insist on it.

“He’s going to say it’s the best tool for reducing costs,” the aide said. “I think he’s going to be a bit noncommittal.”

(Via Instapundit) If I was still a Democrat, I’d be praying right now that this is just some massive head fake, and that the President was going to show up to the speech tonight with an actual bill.  Because the one thing that nobody wants from President Obama right now is for him to be ‘a bit noncommittal.’

Crossposted to RedState.

I’m guessing, at least.

LOS ANGELES (Sept. — Four firefighters escaped injury Tuesday after their fire engine sunk into a large hole caused by a burst water main in the San Fernando Valley.

I’m pretty sure that the driver of that fire truck will never be allowed to drive the fire truck again.  Ever.

Moe Lane

Jesse Walker’s post on the subject is good (via Ed Driscoll*) – his gist is that the Crazy Tree is not linked to any particular people or group, even the ones that you don’t like – but it’s incomplete.  Here’s the Sixth Law of the Crazy Tree: The fruits that you gather from the Crazy Tree are much worse than the ones that I gather. We just saw this Law play out in the Left-sphere, as people tried – and failed – to explain why it was no big deal that an administration official endorsed a malignant conspiracy theory about 9/11.  It failed largely because nobody on the Left wanted to say “Well, our nuts are harmless, so we don’t worry about them.”

This is not to say that all conspiracy theories are equally harmless, of course.  For example, nobody worries about the folks who believe that the Apollo moon landings were faked, and for good reason: they generally don’t do anything except get punched by Buzz Aldrin**.  But it does remain true that it’s always the Other Guy’s fringe who looms larger when doing the subjective threat analysis.

Moe Lane

*Apropos of nothing – say what you like about Rush Limbaugh, but “flat-shoed bird-brained idiot” is probably going to be the best description of Robert Gibbs that you’re likely to read today.

**You’d think that would stop being funny.

Crossposted to RedState.

[UPDATE]: Welcome, Instapundit readers.

Former governor and VP candidate Sarah Palin wrote a pretty good op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on the health care situation – one where she points out, repeatedly, that we’re being asked to blindly fund a government program that will affect every aspect of our life and will not save us money in either the short or long term.  As Ace of Spades notes, this is not going to cover new ground for the people already intimately familiar with the debate – but for those who aren’t, it will give a good idea of conservative objections to Obamacare, not to mention providing the alternatives that the Democrats are pretending that the Republicans aren’t providing.  All in all, useful and timely.

And, as an added, special bonus, it includes the written equivalent of a smack on the nose:

Now look at one way Mr. Obama wants to eliminate inefficiency and waste: He’s asked Congress to create an Independent Medicare Advisory Council—an unelected, largely unaccountable group of experts charged with containing Medicare costs. In an interview with the New York Times in April, the president suggested that such a group, working outside of “normal political channels,” should guide decisions regarding that “huge driver of cost . . . the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives . . . .”

Given such statements, is it any wonder that many of the sick and elderly are concerned that the Democrats’ proposals will ultimately lead to rationing of their health care by—dare I say it—death panels? Establishment voices dismissed that phrase, but it rang true for many Americans. Working through “normal political channels,” they made themselves heard, and as a result Congress will likely reject a wrong-headed proposal to authorize end-of-life counseling in this cost-cutting context. But the fact remains that the Democrats’ proposals would still empower unelected bureaucrats to make decisions affecting life or death health-care matters. Such government overreaching is what we’ve come to expect from this administration.

(more…)

“It’s all about the Pentiums,” Weird Al Yankovic

Ah. Nerdcore.

…is going to be on September 19th.  The official site – for a given value of ‘official’ – is here; it is of course a fine old Internet tradition, and one that will be celebrated both here and on RedState.

No, really.  It’s one of our favorites over there, in fact.

Moe “Barnacle Brain Jack” Lane

PS: A quick primer:

For real. One of the 10 Coolest Lego Creations, and yeah, that qualifies:

I nearly wrote that as “for reals.”  My shame is great.

Moe Lane

PS: LEGO! Buy something, willya?  I just had to return a donation to somebody who apparently thought that I was Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas.

…has either an exclamation point or a question mark, clearly it was a somewhat intense day.

Well, it’s going to be a really, really intense week, so that’s not unexpected.  So watch Tim Hawkins sing things that… no, these are not to be sung.  Or said.

Or thought.

Via… somebody.  Didn’t keep the link handy, sorry.

Just in case: that’s RedState dot COM, Keith.  Have you noticed that nobody in the media ever updates their links?

Here’s the (very entertaining) timeline:

• Thursday, September 3rd, 11:18 PM: Glenn Beck calls for his Twitter followers to send him information on “CASS SUNSTEIN, MARK LLOYD AND CAROL BROWNER” (all caps in the original, which is honestly a bit much).
• Friday, September 4th, 3:36 PM: Dave Weigel reports on all of this.
• Sunday, September 6th, 12:05 AM: It becoming clear that Van Jones is a crazy 9/11 Troofer and a generally not-particularly-mainstream fellow, he resigns as Green Jobs Czar (via AoSHQ).
• Sunday, September 6th, 10:14 AM: Keith Olbermann declares a Crusade against Glenn Beck (via Verum Serum).  This is to be an epic war of battle between Olbermann and Beck, yadda yadda.
• Tuesday, September 8th, 8:21 AM: Media Decoder hesitantly points out that media-on-media wars may not be the smartest things in the world; and is treated to a righteous, stylized response from Olbermann himself.
• Tuesday, September 8th, 8:22 AM to 9:46 AM (time indeterminate): Somebody in either MSNBC or GE notices that Olbermann is calling for a Crusade.
• Tuesday, September 8th, 9:47 AM: Olbermann calls off the Crusade (via Newsbusters & Instapundit).

There is, of course, no evidence whatsoever that GE sent Olbermann was off to bed without his binky.  Personally, I’d have enforced a timeout and Olbermann being made to write out ten things that he liked about Glenn Beck, but that’s just because I’m a dad now.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

I was looking for a palate cleanser, I swear.  Something nice and non-political.  Relaxing.  But Fark Geek had to spoil it for me:

Libya paid doctors who said Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al Megrahi had three months to live

The Libyan government paid British doctors for medical advice which could have helped bring about the release of the Lockerbie bomber.

Cancer specialist Karol Sikora and two others received £100 an hour to consider how long they believed Abdelbaset Al Megrahi had to live.

Professor Sikora admitted yesterday that although he initially thought Megrahi could live for as long as 18 months, he was ‘encouraged’ to conclude he would die from prostate cancer within three months.

This is important as it is the amount of time under which Scottish law allows someone to be freed on compassionate grounds.

I don’t know why I’m surprised at this – anymore that I was surprised that the administration was fully kept up to date on the terrorist’s release (although Allahpundit’s reaction is more or less mine on that).  But I am.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

The Democrats may simply have to accept the fact that they no longer can automatically count on the trust of the American people on any topic.

Seven out of ten, and one tie.  The good news for the Democrats is that they made some decent recoveries from August’s numbers; the bad news is that August was really bad for them, so they’re still trying to make up ground.  The most important/topical number there – health care – is probably their brightest spot, but being equally trusted on an issue when you’ve spent the last few years being clearly trusted is not the most welcome news in the world.  Particularly when ‘trusting the Democrat’ does not exclude ‘trusting the Democrat to vote the Republican position.’

Moving on: nice to see that the Government Ethics numbers are starting to consistently reflect objective reality, not to mention the Economy ones.  I’m interested how much of that is reflected by cap-and-trade – and how bringing that issue back will affect the Taxes question.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.