Moe Lane

Thomas Sowell has an article out today about the latest incidence of mission creep from the EPA.  To summarize: the EPA has wide discretion when it comes to oil spills.  Milk contains oil.  Therefore, the EPA has wide discretion over milk spills, too – which includes requiring ‘emergency plans’ and ‘first responders’ and ‘extra storage tanks’ from dairy farmers in order to handle such life- and civilization-threatening events as milk getting spilled*.  And, no, this is not an exaggeration: Cato reported on this back in June.  This is happening.

Now, Hot Air and Ace of Spades both waxed wroth on this, in their individual ways – but I asked myself, Self?  How can I make this work for us? And lo! – the answer was easy.

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I mean, anybody can crash a car.

But to get this result requires a goram artist behind the wheel.

No Surrender, Bruce Springsteen

Let’s go over this one. More. Time.

This is not 2004. Politicians may no longer assume that they can oppose, say, an individual mandate in one election cycle, then support the individual mandate in the next election cycle, then complain when a court rules against the individual mandate using the same argument that the politician did originally – and not have anybody notice any of this. Politicians may change their minds, too be sure. Nothing wrong with that; people change their minds all the time. But it’s expected that they note when they have changed their minds, and why. (more…)

Allahpundit, on Chuckie Schumer:

In one corner: An obnoxious camera whore who represents everything that’s wrong with America. In the other corner: Snooki. Which one of them is capable of naming all three branches of government? Trick question, my friends — probably neither is.

Actually, if I had to choose between the two I’d go with Snooki. I’ve never watched the show, but… OK, I’ll admit it: it’s because I think that Chuckie Schumer is ten pounds of [expletive deleted] in a five-pound bag.

Ten pounds of smug [expletive deleted].

Moe Lane

PS: Shame? What is this ‘shame’ thing that you speak of?

(H/T: Say Anything) having St. Louis for the 2012 Democratic convention, on the rationale that having the convention in Missouri would be the equivalent of painting a big electoral target on her back for all those awful, awful Tea Partiers. Which is… interesting. First off, I’m pretty sure that Missouri Republicans – which had a decent-to-good run last year (cemented control of the state legislature, held off Caranhan in the Senate, kicked Ike Skelton to the curb) don’t really need the excuse of a national convention to focus their attention on Senator McCaskill.

Second, at last look Sen. McCaskill is looking at an average 43.2%/46% approval/disapproval rating right now… which is, well, awful.  But it’s still better than Gov. Perdue’s, which is currently at 36.6%/47.2%.  For that matter, North Carolina Republicans are cheerfully aware that all they need is a win in 2012 to take full control of the state government (they flipped control of the state legislature in 2010): so if McCaskill’s (alleged) argument that the DNC’s a lightning rod is correct, shouldn’t she have taken the hit for Team Jackass?  After all, Jay Nixon’s popular enough, and that’ll probably be a help for McCaskell next year…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

[UPDATE] Annnnnnnnnd it keeps crashing.

Hey, I got to have something to tide me over until Dragon Age 2 comes out.

Also: any of the other games in this package any good?

“…The pundits turn their bleary eyes to you:”

“Woo. Woo. Woo.”

I’m going to agree with Jen Rubin, here: the Left was not prepared to have a judge rule that Obamacare as a whole was unconstitutional.  That courts were starting to conclude that the individual mandate was unconstitutional was something that people on the Other Side were beginning to get their heads around; that the whole thing thus had to be thrown out is still Here Be Dragons territory for that crowd.  And that it was because the administration misplayed its hand by arguing too forcefully that the individual mandate was the keystone to the whole thing?  Priceless.

Meanwhile, let me join the rest of the blogosphere by admitting that from this point on it all comes down to what Justice Kennedy has for breakfast the morning the Supreme Court decides this one, and whether he liked it or not.  Ach, well: it still beats, say, Egypt’s current method of resolving domestic political disputes.

Moe Lane

RedState (among other sites) is going to be hammering this one a bit more (life issues aren’t my main patch, so I defer to my colleagues over there who do focus on such things)… but I have to say: this video is appalling on multiple levels.

I mean, where do I start? (more…)

This story got very quickly overshadowed by world events, but last week police arrested a man allegedly planning to blow up a Dearborn, Michigan mosque with ‘high-end fireworks‘*.  Needless to say, the Usual Suspects lined up to try the entire “right-wing violent nut inspired by [INSERT NAME HERE]” gambit – because Obama’s Tucson Speech apparently only applies to other people, not Think Progress and/or Talking Points Memo** – only to just now discover that the alleged attacker is… well, you make the call.

• The accused was arrested and convicted in Vermont in 2004 for threatening George W Bush (as well as bomb threats against a VA facility), made an insanity plea because of various mental disorders, was released in 2005 from a Massachusetts facility because he was “cured,” and apparently started showing signs of going around the bend again in the last few months.
• The accused has also claimed to be a convert to Islam – which is not a sign of mental illness; but the public, ‘rambling’ claims seem to have predated his allegedly going around the bend in both events.
• And there’s a substance abuse problem there: pot smoking (which got him thrown out of a VFW post, although the racial epithets probably helped there) and booze (yes, it’s odd for a convert to Islam to go drinking in bars).

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