Moe Lane

Last night, while most of you were sleeping, the Democratic Party took a long step forward towards passing their health care rationing bill. The details are arcane Senatorial procedure, but two things must be taken away from it:

1. No Republican Senator – no Republican Senator; not even the ones typically called ‘RiNOs*’ – voted to ration your health care and make you a criminal for not wanting insurance.
2. Every Democratic Senator – every Democratic Senator; even the ones thought ‘reasonable’ or ‘bipartisan’ – voted to ration your health care and make you a criminal for not wanting insurance.

This is the way that it is. If you disapprove, well, the following Senators cast the 60th vote for health care rationing and criminalizing lack of insurance:

Evan Bayh
Michael Bennet
Barbara Boxer
Christopher Dodd
Byron Dorgan
Russ Feingold
Kirsten Gillibrand
Daniel Inouye
Patrick Leahy
Blanche Lincoln
Barbara Mikulski
Patty Murray
Harry Reid
Chuck Schumer
Arlen Specter
Ron Wyden

…so feel free to make your disapproval known unto them, from now until November.

Moe Lane

*A term that has pretty much devolved into ‘Republicans who I don’t like’ at this point.

Crossposted to RedState.

This is surreal:

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, Jackson 5

Actually, it’s kind of Cthulhoid. What the hell did they do to that kid?

Some might find Zodiac by Neal Stephenson to be an interesting choice for Book of the Week – it’s about heroic eco-activists – but it’s a good book, and a more pragmatic one than what one might be perhaps predisposed to assume. At any rate, it’s also my blog and if I want to flog a particular book, I shall. Neener.

And so we say goodbye to Leviathan, which is good – although I hadn’t realized at the time that it was also Young Adult. Not that I mind, given that it’s also steam/biopunk.

Seriously.

“Perhaps it is the spirit of the season, but my empathy receptors are in overdrive for poor Barack Obama.“

Mine aren’t, and I don’t care if you’re Left, Right, Center, or beyond Pluto – neither should yours. Nobody used the Orbital Mind Control Lasers on Barack Obama to make him start actually believing the agitprop that his campaign staff was ladling out; he chose to do that all on his own. So he can deal with the consequences of that poor life choice. Everybody else has to, after all.

Crossposted to RedState.

Words cannot express my pride.

H/T: PJTV’s The Week in Blogs.

Moe Lane (more…)

It’s that time again.  Short version: the RNC & NRSC beat out their Democratic counterparts – which is odd, considering that they’re the groups giving the Republican base the most aggravation; the NRCC pulled in less than the DCCC; the Democrats have a pretty good COH advantage (although the RNC spent a bunch of money in November); and the Democrats apparently aren’t planning to retire their debt.

(more…)

Admittedly, it’s in the context of explaining why progressives need to take a bite of this surprisingly tasty, solid B+ health care rationing sandwich*, but actual semantic content is actual semantic content:

“I share the frustration of other progressives that the Senate bill does not include a public option.”

Especially when it’s sitting out there, all alone like that.  But you saw it here first: Joe Biden’s a progressive.  I wonder whether this means that moving forward the Vice President’s going to more forcefully oppose FISA, rendition, keeping Gitmo open, DADT, opposition to same-sex marriage, Iraq, Afghanistan, and so on**.  I mean, the thought that he would be – merciful Heaven forbid! – lying to progressives would be awful***…

Moe Lane (more…)

That’s what the Telegraph thinks, at least. Hard to say whether the British paper’s distance from the situation help or hurts its judgment, but they’ve found an interesting poll:

A recent poll by the Clarus Research Group found that Hillary Clinton had a 75 per cent approval rating compared to 51 per cent for the man who defeated her in their epic battle for the Democratic nomination.

[snip]

The woman who was one of the most polarising figures in American politics now has a glowing 65 per cent approval rating among Independents and healthy 57 per cent among Republicans.

Even sworn enemies on the Right marvelled at her toughness in refusing to concede to Obama until the bitter end in the summer of 2008 and now view her as more hawkish than the president.

(Poll here: H/T Hot Air Headlines.) Just off the top of my head: being ‘more hawkish than the president’ isn’t exactly hard, and while the VRWC is sympathetic towards the way that her primary opponent’s campaign apparatus used a largely gender-based attack strategy against her last year I predict that said sympathy will evaporate like dew in August if she ever becomes the Democratic nominee for President*.  That may not matter, given that a 65% approval rating among independent voters (almost double that of her boss) is enough to make any thoughtful politician stop with her coffee cup halfway to her lips.

Lastly: man, aside from SecState Clinton and Bush appointee SecDef Gates, those are wretched numbers for independent voters across the board.  Although VP Biden’s are arguably just ‘awful.’

Moe Lane

*Nothing personal, Madame Secretary.  Strictly business.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Dizzy City, of course: three flakes on the ground and this town goes bugf*ck nuts.

A plainclothes police detective allegedly pulled his gun out and waved it at a large group of people in a snowball fight at the corner of 14th and U Saturday afternoon.

The incident began when a plain-clothes detective approached the crowd of people throwing snowballs and got into a verbal altercation with members of the crowd, according to police.

A uniformed officer responded to the scene after getting calls about a man with a gun. The uniformed officer pulled out his weapon as he approached the plain-clothes detective. As soon as the detective identified himself the uniformed officer put his gun back in the holster, police said.

(H/T Drudge) Video at the link, and the guy should have kept his mouth shut. Sucks to get hit with an unexpected snowball when you’re not wearing a hat, and it’s not cool to do it to a cop in uniform*, but plainclothes get to take the same chances as the rest of us.

That being said, if they threw an iceball at him…

Moe Lane

*Dunno why. Just is.

Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, Gene Autry

I dunno why this one, and not the Burl Ives.

…about a possible Thundercats movie (see here for representative sample).  Far be it from me to stop a good geekrant, but did any heterosexual teenage male watch that show for any other reason than Cheetara?

Or is Western society still taking the tacit position that We Don’t Speak Of That?

Moe Lane (more…)

(H/T: Fark Geek) The title is all that’s necessary, I think:

Alcoholic monkeys in the Caribbean mimic human drinking habits

…OK, and the video:

Mostly because somebody out there has a job that lets them go to Caribbean islands to film drunken monkeys. That lucky so-and-so probably even had a budget.  Why was I not told by my high school guidance counselor that jobs like this existed?  It would have given me something to aim for.

Moe Lane