Moe Lane

Or is this the very best of this Coupling show?

Via fellow counter-cultural, speaking truth-to-power activist Glenn Reynolds.

[UPDATE]: Welcome, Instapundit readers.

It’s because of this question, and the answers.

17. Can you name one good reason that someone should vote for your opponent?

DEEDS: [Long pause] You know, I can name you a thousand good reasons why they should vote for me. I’m the best-prepared person to be the next governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. … Bob is a guy that I’ve always gotten along with, but I get along with most people. I work hard to get along with people. I don’t agree with Bob on a great deal.

McDONNELL: He’s a good family man. He’s worked hard to represent his district well for 18 years. To me, he’s a good story of somebody living and accessing the American dream. You know, he tells the story about … first guy in his family to go to college with four $20 [bills] in his pocket and now he’s competing for the job held by Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry. To me, that’s a great story. I think there’s a hundred reasons why I’d be a better governor than him, but for the way, and this is his own personal life story, the way he has told it — it obviously happened because of tremendous hard work, tremendous perseverance to be able to get to the level that he is at, and I think that’s very admirable.

Slightly contra Jim Geraghty, it’s not that Bob McDonnell can sincerely compliment his opponent; it’s that Creigh Deeds doesn’t dare.

Moe Lane

PS: Bob McDonnell for Governor. No time to stop now.

Crossposted to RedState.

I just got tipped on this:

(Background: the Speaker of the House is holding a press conference on the Democrats’ health care rationing bill, and shutting out the public. This video shows security confirming that the restrictions comes from the Speaker’s office.)

The utter arrogance of the Democratic party leadership is only matched by their utter ignorance of the realities of modern communication technology.

You can actually buy this, you know.

Really.

And maybe you should… because, remember:

Three out of four, at least, as CA-10 is not mentioned (to be fair, a GOP win there is the dark horse in this particular race).  Short version: Virginia is at how-far-the-rubble-bounces; NJ is too close to call, but the breaks favor Christie; and NY-23 is between the Democratic and the Conservative candidate, with the NRCC contenting itself with publicly whaling on the former*.  His conclusion:

Democrats could win two out of the three races, but only because multicandidate contests might allow Corzine and Owens to sneak through with a minority of the vote. A win is a win, but even if that happens, it’s not great news for Democrats for 2010.

In a sort-of-related aside, may I offer some suggestions?  If you’re a member of the grassroots, stop complaining about the national party from the outside.  If you’re a member of the national party organization, do a better job about being open and forthright about what you’re doing next time.

And, for both groups: life is not fair.

Moe Lane

*Yes, I’ve seen reports otherwise.

Crossposted to RedState.

[UPDATE]: Welcome, Instapundit readers.

I have some suggestions for the New York Times.  When you provide stories like this:

Federal agents on Wednesday fatally shot a man they described as the leader of a violent Sunni Muslim separatist group in Detroit.

The 53-year-old man, Luqman Ameen Abdullah, was killed in one of three raids conducted in and around the city, in which six followers of his were taken into custody.

…there are things that you need to mention.

• If the group that this guy was affiliated with is “a group of mostly African-American converts to Islam, which seeks to establish a separate Sharia-law governed state within the United States,” we need to know that. A story about domestic terrorists is a different story than one about foreign terrorists. It just is.
• Likewise, if Luqman Ameen Abdullah – the leader who got shot – was born with the name “Christopher Thomas,” we need to know that.
• And finally: if the guy is saying things like “Obama is a Kafir. McCain, all the rest of them Kuffars, are Kuffars,” we need to know that.  Especially that first sentence.

Let’s be blunt: the FBI shut down a proto-cell* of radical fringe Black Muslim domestic terrorists – which is something that’s going to please everybody, with the possible exception of CAIR.  And as can be seen from the links, most news organizations are capable of reporting on this in a forthright fashion… but the New York Times takes until the second-to-last paragraph to even hint at it.  Which is problematical; after all, the idea here is for a newspaper to report on what happened.  Not to make its readers have to go out and find out what really happened…

Moe Lane

*They were still at the ‘criminal activities to fund illegal firearms purchasing’ stage.  I’m not going to pretend that I haven’t read of this particular organizational arc before.

PS: Glenn Reynolds wonders why we’re seeing more domestic counter-terrorism operations these days.  At a guess, I think that we got some very good intelligence a few years ago and started up a variety of investigations.  We are now rolling them up because the targets are starting to look like they’re ready to switch from rhetoric to action, now that Big, Scary Bush isn’t in the Oval Office any more…

Crossposted to RedState.

Scarborough Fair/Canticle, Simon And Garfunkel

Soothing.

I hadn’t realized that it was a John Lennon thing.

Moe Lane

PS: Get used to more and more appropriations of the historical counterculture by the Right, by the way. At least, the parts of it that weren’t actually crap to begin with.

Crossposted to RedState.

Because it’s almost Halloween, and because Shadow of the Vampire is a bloody good movie, and because it amuses me to replace Up with it.

Moe Lane

And if you’re wondering: why, yes. I enjoyed every second that I spent making this video. It was fun.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Specifically, the ones written by Alex Leary for the St. Petersburg Times, and which are now showing up on Charlie Crist’s anti-Rubio hit site. Compare a post from said hit site:

…with the original:

Unless Mr. Leary is actually involved with this project, and the St. Petersburg Times, this is an embarrassing failure to understand the Internet. Why? Because of this:

Reproducing other people’s articles and posting them under your own name? Definite no-no. I’m curious to why the Crist campaign thinks that it’s entitled to do this. Perhaps it just thinks that it’s entitled in general?

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Thanks to generous site support, I have the headset/microphone:

Welcome

…so, hopefully, more interviews and whatnot.

Moe Lane

PS: Seriously: a Wii would completely destroy my productivity.  It’d be horrible if somebody were to decide to try to silence me that way…