Moe Lane

He sets the scene thusly:

Imagine sitting in Washington’s Verizon Center, listening blissfully to Carole King and James Taylor, thanks to a fast-thinking friend who managed to score four floor seats. For 50-somethings, it’s a nice place to be. Then, as the concert is winding down, four pages of poll tables of a just-released survey pop up in your BlackBerry. They are jaw-dropping numbers, not inconsistent with what you had been thinking — if anything more a confirmation of it. But the dramatic nature of the numbers brings the real world of politics crashing through what had been a most mellow evening.

…although I’m not entirely certain why the evening should be spoiled in the first place. It’s excellent news. (more…)

That’s usually a four and a half, five hour drive.

It was not a five hour drive.

I expect that I will have a drink, once the kids have sufficiently unwound enough to sleep.

…I’d have signed off already, under the steadily-increasing in intensity gaze of my wife, but the BLS report was up and I wanted to hit on it briefly before I started packing the car.  Posting is going to be… darned if I know.

Happy Fourth of July, everyone.  Unless you hate the holiday on a philosophical level; in which case, póg mo thóin, Commie.

UNEXPECTEDLY!

Total nonfarm payroll employment declined by 125,000 in June, and the unemployment rate edged down to 9.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The decline in payroll employment reflected a decrease (-225,000) in the number of temporary employees working on Census 2010. Private-sector payroll employment edged up by 83,000.

Note, of course, that May’s job report was equally stalled-out; the 431,000 jobs that were ‘gained’ that month were also Census workers. We’re just at the end of that particular necessary, but strictly limited, exercise in government spending.

So, how is that Keynesian economics thing working out for people, anyway? – Because where I’m sitting it seems to be roughly equivalent right now to revving the engine when the car’s set to neutral.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

…just crass commercialism not benefiting me directly, for a change.

Anyway. This car ad amuses me greatly:

Hey, if they had had it they would have used it. And now all the SCAdians are scowling at me for using that line…

A Complicated Song, “Weird Al” Yankovic

The reviewers were, as I remember, mostly in agreement that this was better than the original.

I would like to note for the record that I am so stoked for this:

“This” being the movie adaptation of HP Lovecraft’s The Whisperer In Darkness. The same people who did The Call of Cthulhu a couple of years ago; you may remember that I watched and enjoyed that one a good deal. I expect that I will enjoy this one possibly a bit more, if only because I prefer talkies to silent pictures.

Via Treacher, we have two competing concepts.

this is barbarism. This is the dream of the anti-globalization fanatics: to be “free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and reveling in joy.”

And this is civilization.  Because if their parents won’t teach them, and their peers won’t teach them, and certainly their teachers won’t teach them, then apparently we’re counting on random passerby to teach the Hard Left to stop acting like deranged Lovecraft cultists.  Which we can do; but I suspect that the recipients of this particular form of remedial education won’t enjoy it much.

Moe Lane

Charles was interviewed generally last year here at RedState: he’s now officially running to overturn Steny Hoyer in MD-05, and he’s pretty determined about it:

Charles’ site is here.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Bill won his primary, and he’s up against Chet Edwards, who is having a dickens of a time trying to figure out the safest position on energy policy these days. Bill was happy to be forthright about his own positions:

Bill’s site is here.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

He’s one of the two Republican candidates for Governor in Wisconsin (both are currently leading the Democrat in general matchups), and Mark took a moment to talk with us:

Mark’s site is here.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

The falling-out – and fallout – between Research 2000 and the Daily Kos has been entertaining, and promises to be much so in the future.   The counter-suing has already begun (by the way; every lawyer I know is goggle-eyed at the way that Moulitsas’ attorney has set himself and his client up for a defamation lawsuit, completely independent of the fraud lawsuit), and both sides seem determined to make me cheerfully root for injuries, so this is going to be fun.

But there is a serious question: what do we do about the polls out there now?

DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas is asking poll-trackers to remove from their sites what he calls the “bunk” Research 2000 polls he once sponsored, after he expressed doubt on the accuracy of the company’s numbers. And if poll-trackers comply, some Republicans could see a bump in their poll averages on those sites.

(more…)