Moe Lane

Known and Unknown: A Memoir is, obviously, the new book coming out next month by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.  Apropos of nothing in particular, the title made my (much less political) wife laugh in appreciation of its wittiness – or cheekiness – which gives me some hope that the text will be as good.  It certainly will make the Usual Suspects start screaming…

And thus, The Arrival… departs.

The absolutely horrible part of this quote (via @amandacarpenter)?

“They need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers,” said the Democrat. “Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and anti-government people.”

It’s that Jonathan Martin, Ben Smith, and/or Alexander Smith got this quote… and did not immediately tell this anonymous hero off.  I understand the concepts of ‘off the record’ and ‘protecting sources:’ would that our reporting class understood the concept of ‘refusing to associate with lying scumbags.’

…when people like Pejman Yousefzadeh and I can no longer feel outrage and anger at the contemptible and despicable rhetoric of the Online Left in response to outrages.  A day where the rampant hypocrisy that their pet bloggers and pundits routinely show stops surprising us with its power to offend.  A day where we throw up our hands in despair and allow their (and their allies’) appalling willingness to use dead children to claim a nonexistent manhood to occur without comment.  A day where we are just too weary of the sickness festering in the heads of the Netroots to care about their latest successful effort to reach a lower ground.

But it is not this day.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Please, God, let it be a guy in a rubber suit.  IOW: please don’t let it suck.

Via AoSHQ Headlines.

Arizona, in fact, has a gas chamber.

I’ve been away from the keyboard for a few hours, so I haven’t been updating this post (my continued prayers for Congresswoman Giffords and the other victims).   I see that one of the dead is a nine year old girl… and I am perfectly fine with executing people who murder nine year old girls.

And I do not care if you are not.

Because William Jacobson successfully predicted Media Matters’ hypocrisy on the Tuscon attack months before it actually occurred.  I doubt that George Soros reads me, but if he does: George, you’re wasting your money on those guys.  They’re as predictable as the sunrise and a whole lot less aesthetically pleasing.

Via Instapundit.

The next time one of ‘em wants to whine and moan to you about all those awful right-wingers out there and their literal belief in Genesis, look ‘em in the eye and say “Young-Earth Creationism doesn’t kill kids*.”

Doctor Andrew Wakefield – anti-vaccination nut – killed kids.  And elements of the progressive and radical Left ate that stuff up with a spoon.  Which they will now pretend to have never done.  So I don’t think that I’m particularly obliged to listen to the smug sneers of anybody who doesn’t want to face that particular unfortunate truth…

Moe Lane

*At some point during this post I’m expected to issue a pro forma disavowing of Genesis literalism, thus showing that I’m hip to the culture or something.  You know something?  Forget that: Young-Earth Creationists don’t put my kids at risk.  I’ll worry about their religious beliefs when they start impacting on my actual daily life, thanks.

…by the US Secret Service.  Sorry to tell people that, and this anecdote sent to Power Line illustrates that it’s not unusual:

As absurd as the story sounds (and it IS absurd), as a matter of policy, the Service investigates ALL statements that could be even remotely construed as a threat to one of their protectees. This same thing would have happened if Bush were still in the White House. In fact, it did, numerous times. On one occasion in 2005, the Service briefly questioned the great John Cleese after Cleese cracked a joke in a magazine interview about climbing a tower with a rifle to get the president. A buddy of mine — a huge Monte Python fan — was mortified to be given the task of confirming that, no, Mr. Cleese did not really intend to shoot the President. He felt just as stupid as I’m sure the agents interviewing Volkmann did.

Questioning Cleese was just as ridiculous as sending agents to question the UFC fighter. However, neither case reflected on the sitting president, because in neither case was the White House even consulted. The agents were simply following USSS policy.

People like Sara Jane Moore (the would-be Ford assassin that nobody really remembers) or John Hinckley (the would-be Reagan assassin) don’t have signs on their foreheads that say “HI! I PLAN TO ASSASSINATE THE PRESIDENT AS SOON AS HE’S WITHIN PISTOL RANGE!”  Their respective attempts made their previous behavior retroactively foreboding, but the world is full of somewhat disquieting people who give off major creep vibes who never actually do anything.  And the lone gunman is the classic security person’s nightmare.

All of which would be cold comfort to the USSS member who has to explain why the President got shot on the USSS’s watch; which is why they investigate even the John Cleeses* and the Jacob Volkmanns.  They’ve been taught to do that by every lunatic or ideologue in American history who has assassinated a President, or tried to.  Of which we have had… a somewhat alarming number, really. (more…)

Sympathy For The Devil, The Rolling Stones

Haven’t heard it in a while, that’s all.

So, I have a Wii.  I also have a Hannspree HF-207HPB – LCD display – TFT – 20.  What the heck do I need to connect the one with the other without mucking up my 1600 x 900 screen resolution? – Which screen resolution I am happy with, because it does not make me nauseous.

The goal here, by the way, is to use the Wii to access Netflix so that I can watch movies directly on my monitor.  And, you know, maybe use the damn Wii more.  Or at all.

While the exceptionally sad and silly nature of the organized antiwar movement is of course obvious to anyone with a functional notochord, it’s not as common to see their favorite political pornographers sink to their level.  After all, said pornographers are self-aware parasites – and as such are almost required to be smarter than their victims.  But every so often you encounter one who forgets the first rule of the successful drug dealer: Don’t sample your own merchandise – and they get hooked.

(more…)

What’s stopping the House from attaching a copy of said repeal as an amendment to every bill that it passes until the Senate Majority Leader figures out that his power to unilaterally define acceptable legislation has hard, practical limits?

As I said, rhetorical question: the correct answer is ‘Nothing.’