Moe Lane

Or, the President embraces his inner Victorian British Imperialist.

“Humanitarian imperialism” is the phrase Mickey’s come up with to describe Whatever The Heck It Is We’re Doing These Days In Eurasia, and it’s a good one.  It’s also one that implies a constant, low-level state of war that goes a good deal beyond the one that we’re in now; and I should make a distinction here between the Bush and the (unstated) Obama Doctrines.  The Bush Doctrine assumed that, under the right conditions, a long-term war could be over: “as they stand up we will stand down,” and all that.  The Obama Doctrine – as described by Mickey – assumes that war will be what he called ‘routinized’ – and accepted, as part of the cost of doing what is pretty explicitly Imperial business.  And by Imperial Mickey explicitly means something very, very Victorian, which is ironic on a variety of levels.

Mickey is practically unique among Democratic pundits for being willing to actually give his honest opinion about things like this:

I’m not sure whether humanitarian imperialism is a good or bad thing. The world might be a distinctly better place overall if the U.N. could overthrow every dictatorship the Security Council could muster a majority to overthrow. But the accompanying  routinization of war is at least troubling, no?

My major (practical) problem with Humanitarian Imperialism?  I trust only about half of our political class to not utterly mess up such a thing from the get-go, and unfortunately it’s not the half that’s currently in charge of the executive branch.  But since my opinion on that is apparently irrelevant for the next two to six years, we might as do it properly.  Now, I know that my readers are mostly conservative and/or Republicans, which means that they can be expected to have at least a nodding familiarity with the classics of Western literature. For those who are neither, well: allow me to acquaint them with who is apparently the true author of Obama’s current “foreign policy.” Take it away, Rudyard Kipling:

Take up the White Man’s burden–
Send forth the best ye breed–
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild–
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child. (more…)

Much as I hate to cast aspersions on anyone  – “Ha!” Again I say, “Ha!” – I have my suspicions about this Weekly Standard article by Mark Hemingway on Media Matters for America, and their utter inability to move the needle on anything.  I mean, I agree that MMfA can’t, well, move the needle on anything - and, speaking as someone who writes for a political site with actual influence on domestic affairs*, I can agree with the following.

It’s actually a badge of honor among most right-leaning reporters and bloggers to have done something that they find risible.

Indeed, it is.  Still, I suspect that Mark’s just mad because the Transcendent Glorious Mind-Lords over there can’t spell his name consistently right.

Unfair?  Only superficially: this is the level of reporting that you get from MMfA, you see.  Notice that this post is not up to RedState’s front page standards, which is why it’s not there right now.

(Via Hot Air Headlines)

Moe Lane

PS: If you’re wondering why people are suddenly name-checking that website, it’s because the Secret Ascended Masters of Space-Time Itself over there got caught declaring a Crusade against Fox News, complete with infiltration squads.  We’re only human, here in the VRWC: if you present us with a rear to give a free kick to, and if you deserve to be kicked, expect a kick sudden kinetic activity…

*Like The Weekly Standard – and most assuredly not like MMfA.

Well, they’re having a visit from the blackshirts now* – and by ‘visit’ I mean ‘violent riots on the streets of London’ -  but the threat is apparently at elevated levels for next month’s Royal Wedding, which is going to draw a bunch of British… how did I put it, once? Ah, yes: “twentysomething unwashed creeps in balaclavas who simultaneously reek of patchouli oil and Rage Against the Machine” … like moths to a flame.  I expect that next month’s headlines over there are going to be at best outraged, and at worst fairly grim – and the amazing bit?  Great Britain’s got cameras everywhere.  They have surveillance cameras on their surveillance cameras – and probably surveillance cameras watching those.  You’d think that this kind of crypto-police state scrutiny would at least actually keep people from, you know, smashing up other people’s property… but apparently not.

Meanwhile, unintentional comedy from the police on their homegrown BUF-wannabes:

“They were using light bulbs filled with ammonia, petrol bombs and smoke flares. Any one of these can kill not just a police officer but a member of the public. These people are willing to resort to this naked violence in front of cameras. It is almost as if they have no fear of judicial process in this country.”

They don’t have any fear of the judicial process in Great Britain.  And why should they?  The only damned thing that they have to really worry about is not having a gun on them when they go on their rampages.

Moe Lane

*All the while being aided and abetted by more mainstream Leftist political parties; gee, where have we heard that before?

And on this, the last and final day of the pledge drive, the last and final reason why to contribute to said drive so that I may acquire an iPad2 for guerrilla video editing:

Because it’s my birthday, and I wants it.

Moe Lane

“Ye Jacobites By Name,” The Corries(Live at the Royal Lyceum Theatre/Sound the Pibroch)

Ironically, when it comes to the post-Glorious Revolution Stuarts my sentiments are generally for the other side. More or less: it was several hundred years ago, after all.  But it’s still a pretty powerful song.

Specifically, Tron: The Original Classic (Special Edition) – because Hollywood is more than happy to take advantage of your nostalgia.  Which explains the remake, I guess.

And so, adieu to Coneheads. I’ll spare you the sound effects.

Note: I wrote ‘cynical,’ not ‘inaccurate.’  It’s cynical because it admits something that most people don’t want to admit in public: if your party controls the redistricting process in your state and your state is due to either lose or gain a seat, you are going to enjoy seeing what happens to the other party’s legislators in 2012.  To summarize Cook’s current findings: they forecast a current net loss of one seat for the Democrats from redistricting, mostly because the Democratic-controlled Illinois (-1 seat overall) state legislature has every intention of hosing an estimated four Republican Congressmen; but the Republican-controlled state legislatures of Georgia (+1 seat) and North Carolina (no change) are going to do precisely the same thing to Democratic Congressmen, so it all works out*.

As you might have guessed, the news that Illinois is apparently planning to rewrite the 2010 election results to eliminate all those pesky Republican freshmen is making me less than incensed that Georgia (and probably Utah) seem inclined to reinforce the lesson embodied in said election; personally, I’m just grateful that we took control of enough state legislatures to keep the Democrats from pulling more Illinois/Wisconsin shenanigans…

Moe Lane

*To be fair, North Carolina’s existing Democratic-designed gerrymandering is epic, and is the stuff of legends among political mavens.

Apparently Natalie Portman isn’t actually a world-class ballerina, after all: the studio apparently (there’s that word again) used CGI to put her head on an actual ballerina’s body for the movie Black Swan and didn’t really tell anybody.  And this apparently is ticking off the ballerina in question*, given that Natalie apparently won the Oscar in part for being such a great ballerina and such…

Yeah, that’s a lot of the use of the term ‘apparently.’   Gimme a break: I’m still trying to figure out just how much I really care.  I know that I’m supposed to care about this movie, because it features [the examination of obsession and delusion on the human psyche]/[celebrity lesbian scenes]… but, really, it’s Hollywood.  The entertainment is going to be in watching the public meltdowns.

Moe Lane

PS: I posted about this because it’s a slow Sunday afternoon.

*Sarah Lane.  No relation… I think.

It was March 15th. EATAPETA Day is, of course, “Eat A Tasty Animal for PETA Day:” it’s when you go out and consume animal flesh solely because doing so infuriates the anti-human lunatics at that anti-human lunatic asylum*.

Oh, well, I undoubtedly consumed animal flesh that day anyway. Also:

Moe Lane

*Vegetarians and vegans who likewise despise PETA – and a lot of them do – are traditionally allowed to substitute something with BBQ sauce and eat that.  The symbolism is the important thing.

This is all very symbolic: Orlando Sentinel reporter Scott Powers was assigned to cover a fundraiser for Senator Bill Nelson (D, FL) that was being thrown by local real estate bigwig Alan Ginsburg.  The fundraiser featured Vice President Joe Biden (D), whose staff promptly tossed Powers into a closet and refused to let him out except for the actual speeches [themselves].  This… is problematical, particularly since Biden’s been beating the transparency drum lately; well, more accurately the words on the paper in front of him are telling Biden to beat the transparency drum, and that’s just what Joe Biden is going to do, yes indeed.  Fortunately for Biden, Nelson, & Ginsburg, neither Powers nor the Orlando Sentinel seem inclined to see whether all of this qualifies as ‘kidnapping’ under Florida law.

I know that people will find this story funny on first read, and superficially it is.  But there’s a problem here, and it exists on a somewhat deeper level than the assault on the dignity of a member of the Fourth Estate.  You see, who told Biden’s staff that they had the right to sequester a reporter in another man’s home? It certainly wasn’t Alan Ginsburg who signed off on it: as the article linked to above reports, Ginsburg fell all over himself to apologize to Powers once the former heard what had happened to the latter.  As well he should have: Alan Ginsburg’s intent with this fundraiser was to maintain good relations with a sitting US Senator and generally build links, not get swept up into a dispute that threatens to sour his existing relationship with a local paper, at absolute best.  Ginsburg is thanking God right now that the Orlando Sentinel isn’t threatening a lawsuit; and I’m not a lawyer, but it looks like there would have been at least a civil case there.   In other words, Ginsburg mostly dodged the bullet that Biden fired. (more…)

Tomorrow’s the last day for the iPad2 guerrilla video pledge drive, and without being mawkish about it or anything: thanks to everybody who contributed – or who will contribute, of course. It being Sunday or anything, no hard sell. Just the lolcat:

Because it always comes back to the lolcats. You CANNOT ESCAPE the lolcats.

Moe Lane

“Windmills,” Tommy Makem & Liam Clancy

This, too, is counter-culture.