Moe Lane

Wait.  What?

Mitt Romney will skip a key early test for Republican presidential candidates by forgoing the Iowa straw poll in mid-August, a decision that could recast the contest in the nation’s first presidential nominating state.

This is roughly like competing at the Olympics, only you’ve just publicly announced that you’ll be blowing off the opening ceremonies.  The Ames straw poll is when the GOP Presidential primaries start: you don’t have to win it to get the nomination, but it’s… the Ames straw poll.  Weird.

Moe Lane

PS: You know who this helps?  Mitt Romney Tim Pawlenty: this is just the latest break that the former governor of Minnesota has gotten in this contest.  Although if Rick Perry changes his mind about staying out of the race…

Ahem. “It’s all because of the oil.”

Ed Morrissey and Fausta are both not getting why the President is taking the side of Argentina (thus sharing a podium with that noted beacon of freedom, tolerance, and capitalism known as Venezuela) in its perennial attempts to get the United Kingdom to give up the Falkland Islands. It’s not just that we’re signed on to the OAS declaration demanding that the British negotiate on the question of giving up territory that doesn’t want to be given up; we’re even endorsing Argentina’s blustering insistence on calling the islands by the prior name.  All in all, this is a fairly significant change: the question is, why?

The answer is in two parts, both of them easy to grasp: first, President Obama doesn’t particularly like the British.  It’s largely a racial thing, alas: the President’s grandfather had personal issues with the British colonial government, and the President has never really forgiven them for it*.  Second, and probably more importantly (for Obama, at least**): Argentina will probably offer the President a better deal for the Falklands’ resources.  And before you say “What, sheep?” …nope.  Oil.  It’s confirmed now that there’s oil there.

See?  Easy to understand: President Obama hates one side, and the other side will be happy to kiss up to to the President in exchange for the opportunity to get a hold of several billion dollars’ worth of oil revenue.  If you have the kind of mind that the President does, it’s practically a no-brainer… which I suppose could also describe my reaction to this, if not in the way that the term is usually used… (more…)

There is a sentence missing from this story:

Police say a man was carrying a dead weasel when he burst into a Hoquiam apartment and assaulted a man.

The victim asked, “Why are you carrying a weasel?” Police said the attacker said, “It’s not a weasel, it’s a martin,” then punched him in the nose and fled.

And it’s not “A martin is a member of the weasel family.” That’s the last line, and what made me agree with the person who emailed me the link that, yes, this is the sort of story that MoeLane.com covers. No, the missing line is “Alcohol may have been involved.” At least, I pray that it is: the alternative implies that there are sober people out there are having more interesting lives than I am.

Moe Lane

PS: Marten: martins are birds.  Yeah, like I knew that before somebody else pointed that out to me.

In the endorsement wars, we have one formal one, and one all-but-one. Both were probably about equally welcome to Pawlenty.

The formal one was Republican Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina: it’s notable both for the person (Rep. Wilson is rather well-liked in conservative circles for pointing out for the record that President Obama is a liar) and the location (South Carolina is an early primary state).  I don’t know if Pawlenty expects to win Iowa or not – there’s currently a good bit of discussion over just how important ethanol is to Iowans – but he certainly needs to win either New Hampshire, South Carolina, or both.  Depending on which politicians show up to the RedState Gathering in August, I may have some interesting answers as to what they think Pawlenty’s chances are in that state.  I’m certainly going to be asking the Governor herself that. (more…)

Megan McArdle, on GUESS WHO*?

Call me old-fashioned, but I think that social sanction can be very helpful in assisting us in doing important but difficult things.  Marriage is stronger if people who find out that their friends are cheating don’t say, “Awesome, is he hot?” but “How could you do that to Jason?” Marriage is stronger if people who cheat are viewed with slight revulsion, and so are the (knowing) people who they cheat with.  Marriage is stronger when people who decide not to care for seriously ill spouses are met with an incredulous “What the hell is wrong with you?”, not “Yeah, I couldn’t handle that either.”  Of course it would be nicer if we didn’t need this sort of help.  But we are a flawed species.

[snip]

I’m not saying that we should spend weeks and months torturing the guy–that’s up to his wife, if she wants to.  But I don’t think that the media should have hushed up something that was, um, very public . . . or that it’s somehow out of bounds to say that, unless she was really enthusiastically supporting his desire to text photos of his body parts all across our fair land, this was a really remarkably sh[*]tty thing to do to his wife.

(more…)

There is an interesting thing about the Wisconsin recall process.  Essentially, if you read the document regulating it you will discover that the designation of a particular date for a recall election assumes that there was no primary; if there is a primary, it occurs on that date, with the general election taking place a month afterward.  Also of note… political parties do not have veto power over who can participate in a recall primary.  The restrictions are that the candidate be a non-felon voter and resident of Wisconsin who presents a valid petition with at least 400 signatures; said signatures have to be themselves registered voters of the district in which the candidate is running.  The kicker?  None of these people have to belong to the political party in question.

I hope that you can see where this is going. (more…)

Sultans Of Swing, Dire Straits

Good driving music.

Never forget: if you are a Republican, than this man hates you…

…he routinely lies about you and your motivations; and he wishes you to die in a fire.  Obviously, you don’t have to respond in kind; in fact, I would recommend that you purge yourself of any hate that you might still harbor towards Anthony Weiner.  You can even feel pity.

But he chose his path.

It’s always fascinating to see how non-political people treat Twitter.  There are people out there who don’t use it as a trusted-source to trusted-source communications network that can’t be jammed by one’s enemies*?

Weird.

Via @keder.

Moe Lane

PS: By the way… damn straight it’s not rude to ignore a Tweet sent at you.  Particularly when it’s sent by one of those aforementioned would-be jammers.

*God knows the Online Left keeps trying; unfortunately, they’re critically hampered by their hierarchical, top-down worldview.  In retrospect, the slow gelding of the Left-blogosphere by the Democratic establishment was probably not to benefit of either, if only because it is worse than useless to even try to impose groupthink on what is rapidly becoming a true Cloud.

…on some arguably tough questions asked by 11th Circuit judges towards the government with regard to the appeal of the Florida Obamacare decision, and comes up with… what you usually get when you read tea leaves, frankly. Which is to say, the opinion that you had in the first place.  That’s not a knock on Ace; it’s a knock on reading tea leaves.

Anyway, we’re just marking time until the Supreme Court decision.

Moe Lane

Here’s your accordion.

From DC [Summer] Interns:

I walked into a men’s room in a House office building, and standing in the middle of the bathroom is an intern, slowly and very deliberately stroking his hair.

The blogger went on to predict that the kid will be in Congress in twenty years; my only quibble with that assessment is that it’s necessarily linked to said kid’s birthday.  But: yes.  Oh, yes, this is a subtle tell of the future professional politician.

Ah, Washington DC. To quote Jerry Pournelle: “I Have Truly Found Paradise.”

Moe lane

Just got sent this cheeky little web ad from American Crossroads.

Cheerfully obnoxious, and it scans!  Maybe the VRWC is figuring out this new media thing after all.