Moe Lane

(Via AoSHQ Headlines) Much as I appreciate the forcible insertion of scientific rigor into the left-wing religious fanaticism that is the Greenie movement, I found it somewhat superfluous to actually test whether a Mickey Dee’s hamburger molders at the same rate as regular burgers (the answer is, yes).  If they had, say, simply asked an employee (current or former*) of the Scotsman he or she would have readily told them that, yes, all this stuff decays.  That’s why every restaurant has a freezer and refrigerator; why stock is fanatically rotated and monitored; and why there are several deliveries per week instead of one large one.

Trust me, if the Golden Arches had the ability to keep the product from going bad at room temperature indefinitely they would take full advantage of it.  Keeping things cold costs money.

Moe Lane

*Hi.

Or, as Howard Tayler put it:

Bad stuff had barely started happening to the cast when I realized that I liked exactly none of the characters. This made the movie much more enjoyable, because I took a certain perverse satisfaction in each of their gruesome deaths. And maybe that’s what the filmmakers intended the viewing experience to be like. At any rate, the movie clears my threshold of regret by exactly one slot, and comes in at #29 for the year. The performances were competent, the effects seamless, and Los Angeles needed a good culling.

On the other hand, “Battle: Los Angeles” looks totally sweet.

So we’re good.

(Via RCP)

Wow.

I just can’t get past this Salon post’s title: “Obama’s toughest task: Make us believe again.”  The utter passivity and refusal to face responsibility is… breathtakingly typical of Salon, really.  If I wanted to write an article that screamed to the world I am a liberal Democrat who cannot be trusted to tie my own shoes without a government watchdog program it’d look a lot like this post: you see, according to the author the problem here is apparently we’re just not worthy of The One’s perfect neo-Hegelian vision.  Which is admittedly a nicer way to put it than “the President doesn’t know the first thing about how to govern.”  Not more accurate, but nicer.

Or perhaps there’s a simpler answer: the author has some intellectual turf to defend.  From the article (bolding mine): (more…)

Oh, Davey.  I know that it’s all mean and stuff that his man-god is going to have to run as a mere mortal in ’12, but that doesn’t excuse amateur tactics on David Axelrod’s part, right?  If he wants the line-item veto so badly in order to combat all that nasty pork that the President supposedly doesn’t want to approve, then Obama should dust off H.R.4890, have it resubmitted to the House, and tell the Senate to pass it this time.  The Democrats have huge majorities in Congress -

- at least, for the next two months -

…so they’d have plenty of time to get the bill passed.  They could do it in a week.  If they really wanted to; which they don’t, which is why they’re trying to foist this off on Republicans.  Of course, as Ed Morrissey notes, this is all really about how President Obama is panicking over the thought of us getting our hands on the budget that the Democrats were too gutless to pass in an election year.  Much better to get one last session at the trough before the grownups take charge in January.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

I have to admit, I’m of two minds on this.  On the one hand, the guy is as guilty as sin.  On the other hand, I don’t respect an ethics panel created under the 111th Congress and chaired by Zoe Lofgren, either.  Something about how oversight in the former has been made a mockery of by the political party that would assign the latter to what should have been a serious ethics investigation.  It’s hard to take this any more seriously than Charlie Rangel does, particularly since everybody knows that the Democrats won’t expel him from the House even after they find him guilty.

More here.

Because I’ve been meaning to watch Scott Pilgrim vs. the World since it came out, and this is probably my best chance, that’s why.

So far, the 8-bit Universal theme music appeals.

One, U2

Dag, but tobacco had its uses.

…No, I’m perfectly serious.  We have had to deal with two [expletive deleted] years of this administration’s clueless posturing on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: more, if you count the clueless posturing that took place before the election.  And after those two-plus years we are now being told that the plan for KSM is that he… be detained indefinitely.  No civilian trial.  No military commission.  Just keep him imprisoned until he drops dead of old age, apparently.

Gee, kids: are we finding out that national security is HARD?

Now, I don’t have a problem with indefinitely detaining the terrorist who murdered Daniel Pearl.  But the White House doesn’t get off of the hook for this one.  If they don’t have a clue – which they clearly don’t – and so need to crib off of the Bush years to get a GWOT* strategy up and running, then they should call in Liz Cheney for NSA.  She’s got the right background; the right connections to all those grown-ups that this administration has been slandering, libeling, and generally maligning over the years; and, most importantly, putting her in the job will be a tacit admission of past error on the Democrats’ part.  I don’t ever expect an open admission of past error; the Establishment Left is notably ungracious about being wrong, and I don’t have the energy to collectively beat into their heads the sense of propriety that they should have learned from their parents.

But we can certainly make them act like adults.

Moe Lane (crosspost) (more…)

I get sent the most interesting things, sometimes.  Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta is at least two sites’ “Badass of the Week,” due to the fact that this Tuesday President Obama gets to do what must be one of the most satisfying things that a President can do: giving the Medal of Honor to a living recipient.

ACTION FROM WHICH THE MEDAL OF HONOR WAS EARNED:

Then-Specialist Salvatore A. Giunta distinguished himself by acts of gallantry at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as a rifle team leader with Company B, 2d Battalion (Airborne), 503d Infantry Regiment during combat operations against an armed enemy in the Korengal Valley, Afghanistan on October 25, 2007.

When an insurgent force ambush split Specialist Giunta’s squad into two groups, he exposed himself to enemy fire to pull a comrade back to cover. Later, while engaging the enemy and attempting to link up with the rest of his squad, Specialist Giunta noticed two insurgents carrying away a fellow soldier. He immediately engaged the enemy, killing one and wounding the other, and provided medical aid to his wounded comrade while the rest of his squad caught up and provided security.  His courage and leadership while under extreme enemy fire were integral to his platoon’s ability defeat an enemy ambush and recover a fellow American paratrooper from enemy hands.

We are lucky to have people like this serving us.

Moe Lane

I have a quibble with one word in this passage by Toby Harnden on the comparison of Obama to Bush, mostly to the former’s disfavor:

Obama responds “graciously” in a phone call, spoke with a “calm demeanour” during the financial crisis and “stood up to critics” by ordering a troop surge in Afghanistan. [Bush] seems genuinely affected by the election of the first black president of the United States.

Bush must know, however, that his steadfast refusal to make any comment at all about Obama’s presidency stands in stark contrast to the derision he has received from his successor. He is self-aware enough to realise that his pithy, confident interview answers are sharply different from Obama’s wordy circumlocutions.

…and that’s the word ‘enough.’  Many people forget that former former President Bush did serve as Governor of Texas; they don’t play all that dirty in that state, but they do play for keeps.  For that matter, the 2004 election would have given Bush plenty of experience in letting someone in love with the sound of their own voice just keep on talking.  I should note, though, that I believe that Bush is sincere when he repeatedly says that he doesn’t want to make President Obama’s life harder.  It’s just that I think that he is not exactly heartbroken to know that this forbearance is paying dividends; after all, isn’t virtue supposed to be its own reward?

…or something like that, anyway.

Moe Lane

Few movie series raise such organized ire as the Terminator movies, and I think that I have a handle on why.  It’s an expectations thing.

• The Terminator? Great horror flick.  Great horror flick.  Science fiction flavored, of course: but they had a classic horror scenario and Schwarzenegger made for an iconic Monster.  So far, so good.
• Which meant that when Terminator 2 – Judgment Day came out, everybody was wearily certain that it was going to suck.  Sequels often do, when it comes to horror flicks; all the really good stuff was used in the first movie.  However, Cameron decided to do a more straightforward action film and spend insane amounts of money on the latest special effects; in other words, It Did Not Suck.
• Expectations were thus raised even higher… and the next two flicks were, well, meh.

It’s the ‘meh’ that causes the most drama on the Internet, methinks.

Don’t fuck with librarians.