Moe Lane

…if you’re following the health care debacle, you don’t need a link to know that the pro-choice wing-and-three-quarters of the Democratic party is screaming bloody murder about Pelosi’s latest reversal; and if you’re not, you want me to SHUT UP ABOUT HEALTH CARE.

Fine. Here’s a video of what was possibly the only pet hippo in existence.

If the hippo ended up eating its human owners, don’t tell me.

Moe Lane

PS: Yes, I know that hippos are herbivores.

Guess how old that Happy Meal is in that photo:

It’s a year old – and that’s not an accident, either. Somebody went to school to learn how to produce that feat of culinary engineering.

Moe Lane

[UPDATE] Welcome, Instapundit readers.

Explicitly.  From a Thursday memo on the subject:

We cannot emphasize enough: do not allow yourself (or your boss) to get into a discussion of the details of CBO scores and textual narrative.  Instead, focus only on the deficit reductions and number of Americans covered.

Emphasis theirs, not mine.  Also:

The inclusion of a full SGR ['sustainable growth rate' - ML] repeal would undermine reform’s budget neutrality.  So, again, do not allow yourself (or your boss) to get into a discussion of the details of CBO scores and textual narrative.  Instead, focus only on the deficit reductions and number of Americans covered.

As most health staff knows, Leadership and the White House are working with the AMA to rally physicians support for a full SGR repeal later this spring.  However, both health and communications staff should understand we do not want that policy discussion discussed at this time…

I’d ask what they were so afraid of, but I already know the answer – and so do you.

Moe Lane

PS: Obviously, there’s no need to accommodate them in their desire to avoid this issue.

Crossposted to RedState.

House Democrats want a letter?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

They need hostages. Complete with those plastic explosive necklaces from The Running Man
.

Via Hot Air Headlines – and I have to say: that feature that MSNBC has where you can cut the embed clip to suit is pretty cool.

(Who is, by the way, about halfway through the process of Learning Her Lesson):

Q. “I wonder at what point the administration will realize it wasn’t worth it—worth the discord, worth the diminution in popularity and prestige, worth the deepening of the great divide.“

A. Election Night, 2012.

Assuming that the President even runs for re-election.  I know, I know, that sounds silly: after all, the Democrats still think that they can pull out the votes on health care rationing.  But the job situation sucks, frankly; and it’s not going to stop sucking any time soon; and jobs creation is not even the next thing on the legislative horizon.  And I don’t think that the man even likes being President.  And not in that good way, either.

Well, we’ll see.

Moe Lane

…alas, many hopeful Internet projects fail of their promise.  While it lived, though, it produced this:

Julius: Your pardon; did I break thy concentration?
        Continue! Ah, but now thy tongue is still.
        Allow me, then, to offer a retort.
        Describe Marsellus Wallace to me, pray.
Brett:  What?
Julius: What country dost thou hail from?
Brett:  What?
Julius: Thou sayest thou dost hail from distant What!
        I know but naught of thy strange country What.
        What language speak they in the land of What?
Brett:  What?
Julius: English, base knave, dost thou speak it?
Brett:  Aye!
Julius: Then hearken to my words and answer them!
        Describe to me Marsellus Wallace!
Brett:  What?
(JULIUS presses his knife to BRETT's throat)
Julius: Speak 'What' again! Thou cur, cry 'What' again!
        I dare thee utter 'What' again but once!
        I dare thee twice and spit upon thy name!
        Now, paint for me a portraiture in words,
        If thou hast any in thy head but 'What',
        Of Marsellus Wallace!
...

…so it did not utterly fail. (more…)

If so, here’s your bit of you’ll-wish-you-had-done-this-in-January advice for the day: take some time off from running over a cliff for the greater glory of your party’s leadership and publicly react to the President’s latest move against an  ally. (H/T: Instapundit)

The United States has diverted a shipment of bunker-busters designated for Israel.

Officials said the U.S. military was ordered to divert a shipment of smart bunker-buster bombs from Israel to a military base in Diego Garcia. They said the shipment of 387 smart munitions had been slated to join pre-positioned U.S. military equipment in Israel Air Force bases.

“This was a political decision,” an official said.

I would further suggest that said reaction include the word ‘idiot,’ but I suppose that’s just a little too much to expect in the way of political courage.  At least, from Democratic legislators.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Cult Of Personality, Living Colour

I am, of course, worried that a segment of my readers will watch the video and wonder where Jim Carrey is.

Even the video game rant that I had scheduled for this slot turned out to be lame.

So it goes.

The trick to this is to sing it in the standard “head slightly tilted, voice slightly off-key, smile slightly unnerving and eyes staring at somebody’s left cheek” fashion.

This is the bill that never ends
Yes it goes on and on my friend.
Some people tried pushing it
Not knowing what it was
And they’ll continue pushing it
Forever just because… (more…)

Here. Have some Cracked: The 5 Most Half-Assed Scams That Were Shockingly Successful.

A few years ago, criminals targeted a large grocery corporation based in Minnesota called SuperValu. They own some of the biggest super market chains in the country, and like all corporations, the dollar is their bottom line. They very tightly monitor every cent that flows in and out of, ah, just kidding! They hurl that shit at anything that moves until it goes away.

See, while the criminal’s plan was to steal millions of dollars from the company–possibly by robbing the company’s armored cars, hacking into the company’s bank accounts or breaking into the company’s headquarters and looting the vault–the options, as you can see, are not easy ones. So they just sent an email to SuperValu asking them to send the money instead; which they did. To the tune of more than $10 million.

No, nothing political in this article. If they had, they wouldn’t have been able to hold it down to five. Or fifty. Or five thousand, probably.

[UPDATE]: That ain’t rain, Glenn.

‘…but for NASA?’

Most interesting rumor from the Hill yesterday: Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) who announced his retirement from Congress has been promised the job of NASA administrator in exchange for his vote, and Rep. John Tanner (D-Tenn.), another retiring Democrat, has been promised an appointment as U.S. Ambassador to NATO in exchange for his vote.

(Via Transterrestrial Musings, via Instapundit.)  The man does realize that this simply means that he gets to be the one holding the knife when the Democrats kill the manned space program once and for all, yes?

Moe Lane

PS: This is not a threat.

This is a promise. And Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) doesn’t give a tinker’s dam whether you like it or not.