Moe Lane

…but I shall not.

If you’re wondering who David Sirota is, good: that means that the universe is still working properly.  Specifically, he’s a HuffPo yammerhead with a book out* whose thesis is apparently that the Eighties sucked in terms of pop culture… which is true, but only if you accept that the Oughts, Teens, Twenties, Thirties, Forties, Fifties, Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, Nineties, and Double-Oughts also sucked in terms of pop culture.  Which they did – while simultaneously being absolutely brilliant in terms of pop culture.  Pop culture is like that, which is why people like to write about it.

However, Sirota also took the time to specifically whine about Back to the Future, The A-Team, and Ghostbusters, and how they’re (among other works from that time period) are counteracting the existing liberal narrative.  Which is both: why Mr. T must pity David Sirota; and a searing indictment of the existing liberal narrative, or at least the people who write about its influence in pop culture.  I’m not sure which, and I don’t much care – honestly, a large part of this post is for the Amazon.com links.  I mean, seriously: did you look at the A-Team one?  Ninety bucks for the complete series… and it comes in a van**!

Moe Lane

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Glenn Reynolds, on whether the post-tsunami nuclear reactor problems in Japan will affect nuclear power development (such as it is) in the USA:

[T]his is a good argument for the several newer, inherently-safe nuclear designs. The good news: General Electric, which is joined at the hip to the Obama Administration, is big in the nuclear business. So corruption and interest may do the work that should be done by sound policy here…

Well, you go to establish energy independence with the President that you have, not the President that you want.

Media Matters only goes after people that they worry about.  Really, it’s a good thing to have your ankles gummed by one of Soros’ attack chihuahuas: it shows that you’re making an impact on the Other Side’s thinking.  Such as it is.

True awesomeness, though, is having your own tag over there: they only reserve that for the players.  Ahem*.

Moe Lane

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That’s not a compliment, by the way.

Michael Totten reminds us that if Qaddafi wins in Libya after all, it’s not without precedent.  Specifically, the precedent of Saddam Hussein, post-Gulf War I.  Back then we were all “wouldn’t it be great if the dictator fell?”, too- and back then we pretty much sat around and did nothing printable while the dictator went around smashing the opposition back down into the ground*.  Which is what is happening now in Libya, apparently: the rebellion is reportedly collapsing in slow motion. It would seem that while pious words and firm rhetoric is of course all very useful and wonderful and everything, they’re not particularly effective at piercing tank armor and/or providing artillery support… which is something that the people fighting Qaddafi need rather more of right now.  You want to see what happens when we’re not the world’s policeman?  Here you go.

And if that doesn’t bother you on its own hook – after all, worrying about dead foreigners is so… neoconservative, isn’t it? – consider this: both Qaddafi and his regime have only ever responded to the stick.  After 2003, both were deathly afraid of what America and the West would do to them; I suspect that after this is all over neither will much care.  Which is… bad.

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I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles), The Proclaimers

This could be used for something.  I’m sure of it.

…but that’s probably hubris.

Nonetheless: any post on the Internet that mocks a person’s or group’s individual and/or collective intelligence will have at least one obvious spelling or grammatical error present in the first published draft.  I think that this is because people who see other people (whom they don’t like) make howlers will often fall all over themselves in the rush to post their sarcastic mockery.

Latest example: “New Hamshire.”

Via Instapundit.

I was sympathetic to Peggy going into this more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger evisceration by Victoria Coates over the former’s reaction to Donald Rumsfeld’s Known and Unknown – my major problem with Noonan’s stuff was that the shtick of “Let us lose ourselves in memories of those wonderful, lost days of Reaganus Augustus as the barbarians pour over the wall” – but not particularly sympathetic after reading it.  There is something sad and embarrassing about seeing Noonan be upset that her historical narrative – and Bob Woodward’s, which is not actually a threat to Noonan’s – does not measure up to Donald Rumsfeld’s thoroughly documented and referenced account of the same time period.  Sad, embarrassing, and more than a little unpleasant.

Then, Victoria’s a friend of mine, so what do I know?

Via Pejman Yousefzadeh.

From his review of the iPad 2:

The front and rear video cameras on the iPad 2 (which appear to match those on the iPhone 4) are supported by FaceTime, Photo Booth, and the on-iPad port of iMovie. (Yes, it’s a lightweight 720p video shooting and editing platform — all in one.) There’s an HDMI-out dongle, so you can mirror the iPad’s screen on an HD television — potentially very useful for presentations and guerilla media production. You probably wouldn’t want to film and edit a serious video using the iPad’s built-in camera, but the SD-card reader should let you work with an HD camcorder. If iMovie on iPad is as good as iMovie on OSX, this is going to revolutionize video blogging.

Dammit, I’ve managed to go quite a long amount of time without really needing to join the Cult of Jobs.  But if I can shave off as much time between filming and publishing as this article implies… dag.  Guerrilla media production, indeed; this could be very handy for Miami next year…

OK, admittedly this guy survived, because otherwise they wouldn’t have had the video:

…but, generally speaking? When you’re on land that was reclaimed from a bay, there’s just been one of the most powerful earthquakes in recent memory, and you are watching WATER SURGE UP FROM THE CRACKS IN THE GROUND THAT ARE FORMING AND GROWING BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES…

Run.

Moe Lane

PS: Admittedly, the good Lord does look out for fools, drunks, and Americans, so that guy had that last at least going for him. But a wise man does not taunt the Almighty by flaunting such things.

Apparently, Crowley – who until quite recently was a State Department guy – was too-publicly critical over the Pentagon’s treatment of Bradley Manning, who is of course locked up and awaiting trial on numerous espionage and breach of security charges.  This will no doubt enrage the Online Left, who has championed Manning’s cause ever since an unfortunate wisecrack of Manning’s regarding how easy it’d be for him to commit suicide while in jail resulted in Manning being put under a Prevention of Injury order and being required to sleep naked until a couple of days ago.  They’re all quite upset about this over on the Left side of the ‘sphere, really*.

I could make a comment that perhaps the Online Left should be more worried about the Afghans that Manning put at risk, but I’m not sure that enough of what we will charitably call the Online Left’s “leading lights”  really get that Afghans are actually people.

Moe Lane (more…)

I had and have no stake in any confrontation between the Bears and the Packers, but a bet is a bet, Governor Quinn.  You bet Governor Walker of Wisconsin that the Bears would win the NFC Championship.  You lost that bet.  Accordingly, your soup kitchen volunteer shift awaits.  So stop looking nervously at various union bosses and pay up.

Because if you don’t, you’ll never get to make another media-friendly friendly wager without your welching on this one being brought up.

Moe Lane (crosspost) (more…)

Set those clocks ahead, folks.

Too Much Time On My Hands, Styx