Moe Lane

The alternative is ‘deliberately inflammatory in a very literal sense because they want to see Tennessee burn.’  Which is a bit of a mouthful.

Based on their latest email blast, the Tennessee Democratic Party seems to have a problem understanding what “fascism” is, not to mention “terrorism.”  Apparently, Tennessee Democratic chair Chip Forrester and House Democratic chair Mike Turner seem to think that these terms are appropriate for describing several reform bills currently being considered by the Tennessee legislature.  Presumably they mean HB 2012 and HB 0130; the first is a tenure reform bill that introduces merit into the tenure process and the second is a collective bargaining reform bill that removes the Tennessee Education Association’s privileged status as the only permissible agent for bargaining with school boards.

Or perhaps Forrester and Turner don’t mean those bills, given that neither actually does anything like set up a system for mass murder of inconvenient minorities, create a totalitarian state that controls every aspect of life, and/or start aggressive wars of conquest.  It’s a bit of a puzzler – unless you assume that this is just a cynical ploy to get money, which is a notion that Jim Geraghty is cynically suggesting and I am just as cynically endorsing.

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That’s the message of this Daily Beast article – apparently Brooks feels estranged from it all – but there’s another, hidden message: no-one on the Daily Beast knows any conservatives professionally. Seriously, take a gander at this passage:

“What’s interesting about David is the part that’s not on the right or the left,” says the liberal author Paul Berman. “He’s a social critic, with a talent for wry, fond criticism of the American bourgeoisie.” But he lacks “a kind of indignation,” Berman notes. He’s insufficiently shrill for Fox News, talk radio, and the conservative welfare state promoted by Washington think tanks—what the writer Andrew Sullivan refers to as “the financial-industrial complex.”

Sullivan goes on to blather about the Iraq liberation, but contemplate this: the best that the Daily Beast could do to find a balanced assessment of Brook’s philosophy was a liberal interventionist hawk and a brain-addled conspiracy theorist.  Don’t get me wrong: Berman’s sound on the essentially fascist nature of radical Islamist philosophy, and the guy did do his part on getting Michael Moore placed on a career path of making ineffective left-wing propaganda.  But surely the Daily Beast could have called up somebody who might have bothered to explain what their problem was with Brooks as a conservative, from the conservative point of view*?

Yes.  I am quite the comedian.

Moe Lane

*It’s very simple: Brooks is a tireless defender of conservative principles.  Right up to the point where the hostess of the dinner party he’s attending looks like she’s about to raise an eyebrow.

And it is cynical, in a fundamental way: the New York Times recognizes the need for getting public sector unions under control… in New York (where it will affect the New York Times).  Wisconsin can apparently take a short walk off a long pier, for all that the Old Grey Lady cares.  This is, by the way, a major reason why institutions of the Left are mistrusted by agents of the Right: the former goes out of the way to slander, libel, and dismiss the motivations and actions of the latter even when they agree with them.

And… that’s it, frankly.  Personally, I don’t see why New York gets to have its governor smack back an out-of-control public sector union crisis while Wisconsin can’t, but then I’m not precisely the audience demographic that the New York Times is trying to reach.  Which is a mistake on its part, but never mind that right now.

Moe Lane

(H/T: Instapundit)

…just not in the mood.  Besides, I have to go get groceries soon.

To get the taste of that… other video out of the mouth.

Free Fallin’, Tom Petty

Had to clean up some stuff, and realized that it's been four months or so. OK, OK, have a map of a game that I'm thinking of running: Yeah, not the most exciting thing in the world, but content is...

…dunno why it broke, but it’s fixed. You can find it here. I don’t push it – although you’re more than encouraged to toss some money in the side link there, where it will go to reimburse Neil for monthly site costs – but I don’t turn down free cash, either.

Meanwhile, here’s the Rango trailer.  This movie is apparently so good people are wondering why Pixar didn’t make it.

Had to clean up some stuff, and realized that it's been four months or so. OK, OK, have a map of a game that I'm thinking of running: Yeah, not the most exciting thing in the world, but content is...

Not exactly: the Politico reports that, in wake of forty-two Senators sending a letter indicating that Sir Donald Berwick is simply unacceptable for the job of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) head*, Senate Democrats have made an answer to that by… giving up trying to get Berwick nominated.  There’ll be no fight, no confirmation hearing, no standing on what the Democrats consider ‘principle.’  They’ll just let him keep going until later in 2011.  I’m not fully checked out on the minutiae of recess appointments, but presumably the President can make another recess appointment for Berwick during the next time that the Senate is in recess for long enough.

But that’s not really the point; the point is that it’s clear that one thing is true in the 112th Congress that was also true in the 111th.  To wit: Democrats won’t fight.  Oh, sure, when they have the votes they’re the toughest guys in the room, and will be happy to walk all over you: witness that ludicrous strutting over passage of Obamacare back in 2009.  But the second that they don’t have a sure thing, Democratic politicians cave (see the defeat of the Obama tax hikes during the lame duck session).  They cave – or, as we’re seeing in the states, Democratic politicians run away.  Because Democratic politicians are cowards, from top to bottom.  And here’s the fun part: we know it.  Which is why those forty-two Senators sent the letter.  Which is why Senate Democrats caved on the cuts in the current CR.  Which is why they’ll break later on the budget.  They just don’t know how to be brave and fight for their beliefs**.

Poor things. (more…)

The goggles do nothing!

For the rest of you:

I’m sorry.

I’m so terribly, terribly sorry.

Moe Lane

…Gaming shelf. Heh.  Try gaming bookcases: between my gaming books and my wife’s, the living room is a homage to the 20′ by 20′ room with an orc and a chest.

Anyway, just got my copy of GURPS Low-Tech, thus bringing me fully up to date on the actual print runs of 4th ed.  Really, at some point I should run a game in this system (the problem is that I can think in 3rd ed, but not quite in 4th ed)…

Reason’s Tim Cavanaugh (H/T: Instapundit), on the entire ‘Let’s revisit the Seventies!’ malaise thing – and its solution:

…belated interest in the 1980s at least suggests Americans are interested in innovation rather than repetition as a way out of the current jam. The first time around, stagflation was defeated by a combination of tight monetary policy, deregulation, market competition, and supply-side tax policy. What will it take to get America moving this time?

Is this a trick question?  Making sure that the current head of the executive branch – who is, after all, the guy who hired all of the congenital screw-ups that are currently trying to rev the economy while the car’s in neutral and the parking brake’s engaged – doesn’t get re-elected sounds like an obvious first step.  It should have been obvious even to Reason.com, although I concede that from their point of view the choice between the GOP and the Democrats isn’t as clear as it is to me (and, apparently, the Dow).  Trust me: I’m not happy between ‘bad’ and ‘worse’ – although these days it’s more of a choice between ‘They CAN be taught!’ and ‘Living definition of insanity’…

Moe Lane