Moe Lane

At least, that’s how it looks from this Politico article.  It’s at the point where Snowe is openly feuding with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (much to the pleased bemusement of Senate Republicans):

It started in 2009, when Snowe lamented being shut out of Democratic negotiations over the health care bill, continued as Reid bashed her in a 2010 magazine interview and culminated in recent weeks when the two engaged in a rare public spat on the Senate floor.

The two sparred over a noncontroversial small-business reauthorization bill, with Reid accusing Snowe of “killing” the bill and Snowe saying Reid reneged on a promise to bring up her amendment.

(more…)

…thanks to Illinois Combine.

The Illinois Combine, for those unfamiliar with the term of art, refers to an unfortunate reality in Illinois politics: to wit, Illinois is not precisely a two-party state.  There is a Republican Party of Illinois, and there is a Democratic Party of Illinois – but the party bosses of both more or less ignore everybody else and run the state to suit themselves.

Case in point: the Illinois DREAM Act.  This law sets up a private* college scholarship fund for illegal aliens – which, speaking as a pro-amnesty squish, is a bad idea.  Not because kids who were brought here illegally shouldn’t get an education (although many of the people currently going ecstatic over the bill will happily accuse their opponents of thinking precisely that); but because rewarding behavior encourages it, and official scholarship funds for illegal immigrants rewards the original illegal immigration**.  And it’s not even as bad a bill as it could have been: an earlier version of the bill included handing out driver’s certificates – or, as we in the political business like to call ‘em, ‘pre-made voter fraud coupons.***’ (more…)

I have a very quick question for Sen Chuck Schumer regarding his desire to create a list of people who are not allowed to go on Amtrak… no, really: the Senator from NY apparently got a little scared by reports that al-Qaeda was thinking about debating about targeting American rail lines.  There’s no real indication that there’s an active terrorist plot to do that – not malignantly sexy enough, apparently – but, well, Democratic politicians panic easily.

Anyway, let’s set the scenario: I am in the Newark-Penn Station train station located in New Jersey.  I wish to take an Amtrak train to the Trenton, New Jersey train station*. Please note that both locations are fully within the confines of one state: please also note that Amtrak tickets may be purchased with cash, which traditionally does not require providing ID.  So here’s my question: under what authority is Congress allowed to either restrict or regulate my intrastate transportation? Please be specific, including the underlying Constitutional clause.

No, I’m being perfectly serious.  Do-not-fly lists cover international flights, not national ones; if the need to regulate the latter ever came up, you could possibly stretch the Commerce Clause to fit (we do it for everything else involving interstate activities, apparently).  But even then, the default domestic flight crosses state lines, except in the very largest states; Amtrak provides services to people who travel inside states, and I’d like to know precisely where the federal government would derive its authority to regulate such activity.  (more…)

This was on the radio as I went to the supermarket this morning.

These days, they cut out the middle and the end.

Bastards.

Whole Lotta Love, Led Zeppelin

In lighter news, the German media has discovered the super-secret insignia of the team that took down Osama bin Laden!

…or perhaps not.

Via RedState reader donnybrooke, who managed to render me momentarily speechless with this one. Kai donnybrooke.

Legal Insurrection tipped me to this one: apparently, ThinkProgress (link available via Legal Insurrection) got itself in a bit of a tizzy over a story in the Mexican press that one of the Navy SEALs that killed Osama bin Laden was the son of Mexican immigrants, which apparently means (according to TP) that we need to pass the DREAM Act* and that the military is by the way keeping Latinos down.  Now, let’s establish something right off of the bat; I don’t know who was on that SEAL team, and it would not surprise me in the slightest to hear that one or more of them were of Latino ancestry.  Or any other ancestry, frankly.  That’s not the point: the point is that when you’re a hardcore partisan ideologue using a story for agitprop, you should probably check the story first to make sure that you don’t get burned.

ThinkProgress did not check the story first.

Quick: read this sentence (from the original Mexican newspaper article that sent TP into a tizzy) and tell me what’s wrong with it.  It’s OK if you don’t speak Spanish: neither do I, really – and I still can pick out the howler, so you should be able to, too.

El soldado Rubén Mejía, nacido en este país y de padres guanajuatenses, ha sido ascendido a sargento por el operativo en que un equipo enfrentó y dio muerte a Bin Laden.

“Sargento.”

(more…)

Like Eugene Volokh and (I’m guessing) Ed Driscoll, I appreciate this scene (Yamamoto’s death*) from Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon.  In fact, I do not actually think that it is possible to enjoy Cryptonomicon without also appreciating this scene.

At least, it’d be hard, and possibly perverse.

Moe Lane

(more…)

Got this bit of news in email this morning about Mass Effect 3:

We have received new release date information related to your pre-ordered video game in the order you placed on March 04 2011 (Order#XXX). The release date for the video game listed below has been changed by the publisher, and we want to provide you with a new delivery estimate based on the new release date:

“Mass Effect 3″
Release date: March 31 2012
Estimated arrival date: April 03 2012

My reasonable, not at all overwrought reaction after the fold: (more…)

This rather whiny complaint by al-Qaeda that we aren’t playing fair with the fantasy ideologist scumbags reminds me of an exchange that I’ve seen in a number of books, movies, and whatnot:

Person 1: If you’re such a great fighter, why don’t you fight me?

Person 2: If you’re such a great fighter, why don’t you make me?

Or, put another way: I find it very easy to bear up under the disapproval of people who think that piloting a bomb into a civilian location is a valid military tactic.  Particularly when the disapproval is specifically about how we’re killing them anyway.

Moe Lane (more…)

If I lived in Canada, that is.

Yeah.  Big shocker, that.  Anyway, that poll works until the end of the month; fair warning, though.  Based on the questions, Canadian politics are apparently fairly monotonous to anybody to the Right of Joe Lieberman.

Via  A Softer World.

Get Rhythm, Johnny Cash

Great summer morning driving music.

…is finally on YouTube?

Apparently.  And Stephen Green was in rare form this week; check it out.  And check out his other stuff, too.