Moe Lane

Apparently we’re now taking sides in the Great Circle of Life:

Should we kill barred owls to save the northern spotted owl, and can it work?

The U.S. government, facing ongoing decline in protected spotted owl numbers, wants to try ridding the woods of some of its bigger and more aggressive cousins, the barred owl.

That might mean shooting them, trapping them and moving them out, or some other technique. And if the experiment works, it could be expanded across the Pacific Northwest for years to come.

Via Jules Crittenden.  Do spotted owl tears cure cancer, or something? – because it’s darn certain that neither species vote or pay taxes, and it’s for darn certain that human loggers do both.  And, frankly, I’m not exactly clear on why we need to pick an arbitrary point in time and say that There Shalt Be No Change In The Ecosystem From This Point On.

Besides: if you really want to save the spotted owl, spread the rumor that it’s tasty and/or a tricky game bird.  Nobody preserves critters like hunters’ advocacy groups do.

Moe Lane

*Classical reference.

Crossposted to RedState.

As per Simon Scowl of Deceiver.com, who uses it with malice aforethought against Cubslayer Gore.  The context: Gore claimed that the Climategate emails were ten years old, and the CNN guy called him on it right away, and Gore… said nothing further about it.  Simon Scowl:

His financial and psychological investment in this crap is way too deep for him to acknowledge such, ahem, inconvenient truths. The only way to deal with such a massive blow to his ego is to just bull through it. Pretend it’s not happening. He is, to borrow a phrase, a Climategate denier.

Perfect.

Moe Lane

PS: Having listened to Gore, I’m reminded: dag. Triple-digit IQ people believe in this guy? And how long will the CNN guy last at his job?

Crossposted to RedState.

Well, it’s not like the state voted for the current President anyway. Hell, the often-strained history between West Virginians and national Democrats stretches back to 1863. Still, this is a little… petty… of the Democratic party, isn’t it?

A Pittsburgh-based coal company, CONSOL Energy, will lay off nearly 500 of its West Virginia workers next year and its CEO blames environmentalists dead-set against mountaintop mining who have waged “nuisance” lawsuits for the job loss.

But CONSOL Energy’s political problems are not unique to the mining industry, which has suffered under the Obama Administration. The Environmental Protection Agency is already holding 79 surface mining permits in West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee. The EPA says these permits could violate the Clean Water Act and warrant “enhanced” review. And, agency went even further in October, announcing plans to revoke a permit for the Spruce No. 1 Mine in West Virginia.

Via Dana Loesch (via Instapundit) which also has video of the President casually talking about strangling future coal power generation: I’d also like to note that this should come as no surprise to anybody.  You Were Warned.   Repeatedly.  I Told You So.  Finally,  I’m sure that local Democrats Congressmen Alan Mollohan* and Nick Rahall**, Senator Jay Rockefeller, and Senator Robert Byrd’s staff are all quiveringly eager to explain to their constituents why their own political party is using the federal government to promote a Crusade against the state of West Virginia.

Or perhaps they’re just quivering.

Moe Lane

*Challenger: State Senator Clark Barnes.
**Challenger: Lee Bias.

Crossposted to RedState.

Suggested by an old friend – congratulate him; he’s getting married soon – and while it isn’t actually bad:

Oh Come All Ye Faithful, Twisted Sister

…the band has not aged well.

The band has not aged well at all.

Mpoe Lane

Ah, this glorious new world where we’re no longer casually offending other nations with our actions. From noted British right-wing rag The Guardian:

Barack Obama’s trip to Oslo to pick up his Nobel peace award is in danger of being overshadowed by a row over the cancellation of a series of events normally attended by the prizewinner.

Norwegians are incensed over what they view as his shabby response to the prize by cutting short his visit.

The White House has cancelled many of the events peace prize laureates traditionally submit to, including a dinner with the Norwegian Nobel committee, a press conference, a television interview, appearances at a children’s event promoting peace and a music concert, as well as a visit to an exhibition in his honour at the Nobel peace centre.

I personally didn’t want him to accept the thing in the first place, but if you’re going to take the Nobel Peace Prize, you go and you do the whole experience. Even if parts of it are boring. Even if parts of it are not fun.  Even if parts of it are impositions on your time.

I was about to suggest that the President apparently just wants to be a constitutional monarch, instead – except that the European royal families typically are better at enduring dull ceremonial with good grace than this guy is.  So I’ll just note that we’re stuck with a POTUS that seems to just not want to work for a living.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

If it had sufficient pyrotechnics, of course. Maybe an exploding Mercury. And ninja!

[UPDATE] Welcome, Instapundit readers. And Big Government ones.

He’s retiring (third Democrat from a at-risk district).  It’s a D+0 seat: contra the New York Times, Cook had it as being competitive (Likely Democratic), and that will be almost certainly be upgraded rather quickly.  Baird’s reasoning?  He wants to spend more time with his family.  Judging from the reactions of his colleagues, this sudden desire comes as a bit of a surprise.

Interestingly, the six-term, 53 year old Congressman was not on the NRCC’s target-for-retirement list.  He had three GOP challengers:

David B. Castillo
David William Hedrick (This guy)
Jon David Russell

…and that’s all I know about them.  Well, that and that one of them just got a much improved chance to be the next Congressman from WA-03.

Moe Lane

Via Hot Air Headlines.

No, seriously: what is that? I know that they’re suggesting a malfunctioning missile, but since when to malfunctioning missiles shoot out blue-green rays for minutes at a time?

Seriously weird. On the bright side, at least nobody went blind. Which may be more than one can say about the results of watching that miniseries.

The primary results are in for the Massachusetts special election primary, and it’s Massachusetts AG Martha Coakley for the Democrats; State Senator Scott Brown for the Republicans.  10% turnout; special election on January 19th .

Coakley, of course, is cookie-cutter: as Jim Geraghty put it, the Democratic side was “lefty vs. lefty vs. lefty vs. lefty.”  Scott Brown’s a bit more interesting, given that he’s running on strong opposition to cap-and-trade, and as a fiscal conservative.  His opponent in the primary wanted “a Paris peace conference to negotiate with the Taliban:” enough said.

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[UPDATE]: Welcome, Instapundit readers.

(H/T: Hot Air Headlines) Today’s entry has as its theme How to succeed in insulting the press corps without really trying.

For reporters covering President Obama, there’s only one party in town that matters: The White House Holiday Party. It’s a rare opportunity to walk around parts of the White House and meet the president and first lady. In the past, the highlight of the event has been the chance to get your picture taken with the president in the receiving line.

This year, however, the White House seems to be doing things a little differently. The invites went out late – and didn’t include journalists who have been invited in the past. And those who have been invited seem likely to be denied the traditional receiving-line photo.

There’s a lot of good schadenfreude in the Politico article, if you’re the sort to mock the press corps for this – which I’m actually not inclined to do, in fact.  The reason why I’m not is because of this sentence:

“It’s always been a big deal,” said [Dee Dee] Myers, who served as press secretary to former President Bill Clinton. “It’s exhausting [for the president] but it’s the one time when reporters feel like they’re treated like human beings and not just some guy behind the rope line. It’s the one time they can actually say hello.”

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Says a lot about American culture that they hawked Quartermass and the Pit in this country as Five Million Years to Earth. Admittedly, back then almost nobody in the states had any idea of who Bernard Quatermass was, anyway. Shoot, this is the only one of that series that I’ve seen.

So, it being Wednesday: we say farewell to Groundhog Day and add this one. KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES!

Moe Lane

PS: Yes, it’s Quatermass, not Quartermass.

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!, Dean Martin

Not precisely High Ornate Christmas music, but all right.