Moe Lane

I’ve noticed this myself:

The viciousness of online discourse has been pondered from many perspectives, but it really comes down to the fact that people think they can say anything they want and never get their asses kicked for it.

Shoot, there are people who’d tell me that this is my business plan.  Although probably not to my face, which is sort of the point*.

Moe Lane

*One of the fascinating things about the years 2001-2009 was watching a bunch of putatively intelligent people never quite work out that if the American government was as bad as they were claiming those people would not be allowed to publicly complain about it.  An observation that is probably still applicable today, alas.

Doom!

DOOM!

DOOM!

DOOM!

DOOM!

DOOM!

DOOM!

Crossposted to RedState.

Regarding the alleged threat to close Nebraska’s military bases if Nelson doesn’t play ball on health care rationing, John Noonan spells it out for this administration (and other uninformed Democrats):

Offutt Air Force Base is one of the nation’s most critical command and control nodes, second to only to the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon. The base’s hardened facilities, designed to withstand a nuclear blast, are so optimized to support leadership during a national emergency that Offutt’s underground command bunker was President Bush’s command center of choice during the 9/11 attacks. It also serves a direct link between President Obama and the nation’s nuclear forces, as Offutt houses the nation’s Primary Alerting System, satellite and radio transmitter/receivers used in nuclear command and control functions, and our fleet of airborne command centers, which are designed to ensure the continuation of civilian and military leadership after a national disaster or military attack.

Unfortunately, these days the national Democratic party simply doesn’t think in terms of natsec as being independent from domestic politics.  It makes perfect sense for them to threaten a criticial military base with closure; from their point of view, the only reason that the base exists where it is and as it does is to generate regional jobs and industries.  Surely the military can handle having the base’s particular functions upended on a moment’s notice and transferred somewhere else.  Which, in fact, the military can.  At some expense; and which cost I understand that military personnel typically resent, when it’s not done for good reason.

I suggest that passing a health care rationing bill is not a good reason.

News that he was gone (Via Fausta) turns out to have been premature:

Fears over the whereabouts of the Lockerbie bomber have been put to rest after British officials spoke to him at his home in Tripoli.

Local authority staff from the East Renfrewshire Council had been concerned after attempts to contact Abdel Baset al-Megrahi failed yesterday.

… but I’d still like to point out that the murderous scumbag is supposed to be dead by now. His ‘three months to live‘ expired a month ago, and while I’m not the sort to wish a terminal illness on anyone I can’t help but notice that this guy is apparently pretty spry for somebody supposedly in the last stages of prostate cancer.  Funny how that happens, yes?

Moe Lane

(H/T: Instapundit) Very cognizant of the plight of the working class:

…the notoriously chatty New York Democrat referred to a flight attendant as a “b[*]tch” after she ordered him to turn off his phone before takeoff.

Schumer and his seatmate, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), were chatting on their phones before takeoff when an announcement indicated that it was time to turn off the phones.

[snip]

“The senator made an off-the-cuff comment under his breath that he shouldn’t have made, and he regrets it,” Schumer spokesman Brian Fallon told Shenanigans.

Just not enough to do so himself. Then again, the flight attendant was merely a woman who wakes up every day wondering Is today the day that they try to use my workspace as a bomb again? – and it’s an open question, of course, which half of that description is more instinctively scorned by Senator Chuck Schumer (D, NY).  And if you think I’m being unfair… well.  I suppose that if you’re likewise in the habit of muttering gender-based epithets to your female coworkers, you might have a different opinion than mine…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

“Hula Hoop,” Alvin and the Chipmunks

Let us just say that, growing up, Christmas was not the most solemn of holidays for my family.

I don’t know what I want for Christmas.

[UPDATE] Or I could be an idiot, myself.  The theory has been advanced, from time to time.  Via Matt in comments.

…will be brought to you by the BBC.  While reporting the welcome news that we’re getting better and better at detecting extrasolar planets, this gem made it past the editors:

The scientists saw evidence of three of these “low-mass planets” orbiting a star called 61 Virginis, which is just 28 light-years from Earth and is visible with the naked eye in the constellation of Virgo.

The smallest of the three was five times the mass of Earth, and orbited the star once every four days.

Every four days. I’ll leave the actual math on that one to somebody who is capable of doing it, but that’s not an orbit: that’s a centrifuge.  To give you an idea: Mercury (the planet with the shortest year in our solar system) needs 88 days to orbit the sun, and that’s at .46 AU. I’m trying to imagine the sweet spot of a planet larger than Earth being able to spin around a star that quickly, and I’m failing.

Put another way: when an English major can see the oddity in your reporting right away, you might be having a problem with your reporting.

Moe Lane

Well, I thought that it was worth doing.

Even if nobody else does.  Besides, I need the practice.

Apologies to Caleb Howe for sucking him into this, which got indirectly inspired by this.

RIGHT AWAY.

They said some things that could be taken, if you squinted really hard and tilted your head, as being mildly complimentary towards George W Bush.

Why, they even called him smart.

Crossposted to RedState.

It’s a bad time to be an incumbent Democrat:

Like many Democrats nationwide these days, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter who was easily elected in 2006 finds himself trailing his chief Republican opponent in a potential 2010 match-up.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state shows former GOP Congressman Scott McInnis ahead of Ritter 48% to 40%. Four percent (4%) like some other candidate, and seven percent (7%) are undecided.

This is down from McInnis/Ritter 44/39 in September, and can’t really be blamed on the health care rationing bill, although it’s entirely possible that the Democrats’ recent decision to shut down the coal industry is a factor here.  What makes this fascinating to watch is that Bill Ritter was a 2006 Golden Child; even in 2008 he was popular.  Right now Colorado Democrats should be giving serious consideration to trying to replace him in the primary.

Won’t happen, of course.

Moe Lane

PS: Scott McInnis’ website is here.

Crossposted to RedState.