Moe Lane

Just got sent this via email:

Dag.  Say what you like about the modern era, but we have the best damned toys in the history of ever.

There’s a lot that can be said about this article about how stimulus funds were spent to buy Omahan teachers all copies of a book that effectively argues that Everything’s The Fault Of Dead White Guys*, but little that is new, entertaining, or not exasperated at the fundamental insecurity that lurks in the hearts of your average guilty-minded cultural diversity worshiper. So I’ll just have a laugh at this:

Asked last week if she believes white privilege exists in Omaha, [School Board President Sandra] Jensen said: “That depends on the cultural lens that one looks through.”

Translation: Yes, I do believe that, but I’m too chicken[expletive deleted] to say so. I mean, come on. I’m surrounded by Nebraskans, here!

Or something to that effect.
Moe Lane

*Please, by all means.  Complain about my flippant categorization of what was one of the silliest religions to have cropped up in the Twentieth Century.  Link to me… hold up:

OK, now link to me.

Long story.

Anyway, there’s just something about fiddle music.  Although having it be partially played (and played well) by a good-looking woman certainly never hurts.

Klezmer Medley (feat. Bogdan Djukic), Bowfire

I’m starting to think that the current Republican opposition to Ford’s formal appointment as ambassador to Syria, while valid in general – we’re actually not well-advised to play Albright-style kissy-face games with rogue states – may be counterproductive in this specific case.  Then again, the general principle doesn’t apply here, does it? After all,  Ambassador Ford is not exactly playing nice with the Assad regime; he’s instead telling them things that they don’t like to hear.  Like, for example, the truth:

…how ironic that the Syrian Government lets an anti-U.S. demonstration proceed freely while their security thugs beat down olive branch-carrying peaceful protesters elsewhere.The people in Hama have been demonstrating peacefully for weeks. Yes, there is a general strike, but what caused it? The government security measures that killed protesters in Hama. In addition, the government began arresting people at night and without any kind of judicial warrant. Assad had promised in his last speech that there would be no more arrests without judicial process. Families in Hama told me of repeated cases where this was not the reality.

(more…)

I note that friend and RedState colleague Dan McLaughlin has noted Moonbeam Brown’s minion’s response to the suggestion by certain South Californians (as opposed to Southern Californians, if you get that distinction) that they’re tired of dealing with the dysfunctional state government in Sacramento:

“If you want to live in a Republican state with very conservative right-wing laws, then there’s a place called Arizona,” Brown spokesman Gil Duran said.

Just some minor points about that.  Riffing off of Dan’s points about California: (more…)

The fellow is planning to run for Congress again.  Alan Grayson is, of course, the frothing lunatic who was elected to FL-08 in 2008… and then promptly lost his first re-election in 2010, mostly because he was, well, a frothing lunatic who called his opponent (one Daniel Webster*) a member of the Taliban and made up stuff about Webster at a level not usually seen outside of a special Mighty Morphin Power Rangers episode about corrupt politicians… assuming such an episode was ever made.  And I kind of hope that one was; Grayson was and is certainly oily enough to be a live-action cartoon villain.

Mind you, Grayson may not be actually in FL-08 when this is over – or Rep. Webster may not be, for that matter.  The Florida legislature is in the process of redistricting the state to reflect their picking up two seats in Congress, and they’re not really keen about outsiders interfering in the process.  This is partially due to state legislators’ fairly standard reluctance to not let what will already be a fraught situation be made worse by rampaging incumbents; but it’s also partially due to the so-called “Fair Districts” constitutional amendments that passed last year.  Those amendments were designed to reform the redistricting process, and in the long run they may even actually do that.  But in the short run they promise to touch off what could be an epic battle in the courts over whether said amendments should take precedence over the racial gerrymandering guidelines set up by the Voting Rights Act.

(more…)

…live over here; and this song comes on while he’s drawing.

Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand, Primitive Radio Gods

It’s pretty good.  How’s the band generally?

Here is a free hint to all appointed members of the Obama administration: if Syrian ‘loyalists’ follow up today’s attack against the US Embassy in Damascus:

Protesters loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad briefly broke into the US embassy in Damascus on Monday and security guards used live ammunition to prevent them storming the French embassy, diplomats said.

…by actually seizing the embassy?  If that happens, start updating your resumes.  And don’t bother with sending them along to Democratic House Members (and any Democratic Senator up for re-election in 2012): we’ll be throwing them out of office, too.

Fair warning.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: I’d like to know what the rules of engagement are for our embassy guards in Damascus, too.

Today in the Wall Street Journal we have a fairly caustic editorial about the EPA and its determination to make the city of New York pay for a 1.6 billion dollar cover for a Yonkers water reservoir, whether NYC wants to or not.  Which the city of NYC does not want to do, partially because they don’t have the money, and partially because the specific problem that the EPA is demanding that NYC address isn’t actually a problem for the reservoir.  And what is this specific problem?

Why, it’s the scourge of cryptosporidium (or ‘crypto’), of course.

Cryptosporidium.

Cryptosporidium. (more…)

Six year old kid, going to Disneyland…

No, not that six-year-old: another one.

And no, not this six-year-old, either. She’s just on a no-fly list.

Hold on… nope, not this six-year-old! She doesn’t count, because she was actually three!

(more…)

The President can’t get it through his thick head that people out there simply DO NOT WANT the government to get to turn even more money into policy excrement, the media (well, Gawker) is trying to out CIA agents involved in excising Osama bin Laden, and the Democratic party continues to get away with eliminating the African-American middle class*.

I wish I had a prior save point.

Moe Lane

*Please note, for the record, that the demographic most likely to complain about that statement will be: white, hardcore progressive bloggers who routinely avoid any and all unscripted contact with actual African-Americans.  You know, the sort of people who can effortlessly punctuate an unsolicited lecture about the need for tolerance with an instinctive reach over to lock their car doors at the first sight of a random African-American male.  At least, that’s what they did before the advent of power locks; presumably they now just hit the car dashboard and just never stop talking.