Moe Lane

…apparently get along well.

I presume that the goal of the New York Times here is to try to get Republicans currently riled at McConnell also riled at Boehner, and vice versa.  Which is their privilege as an unofficial, yet obvious Democratic party house organ; but I fail to see why the obvious truth that the two men have decided to work together is such a surprise.  As Samuel Johnson once noted:

Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

…and God knows that four years of Democratic control of Congress and three of the Presidency have certainly done much to slowly strangle the fiscal life out of the country already.  That the two top Republicans in Congress have decided in response to act like adults and not like spoiled, petulant children is hardly newsworthy, is it?

(pause)

Don’t answer that.

Moe Lane

(Via Hot Air Headlines)

…I grabbed John Ringo’s Citadel: Troy Rising II out of the local library.  Read the previous one; it was good stuff, and so is this.  Basically, John Ringo decided that he liked the hinted-at history of Howard Tayler’s excellent Schlock Mercenary space-opera webcomic enough to use it for an alien-invasion military science fiction series, which in itself is enough to start a self-sustaining Synergistic Crescendo of Awesome.  That it’s also well written alien-invasion military science fiction is merely gravy.

I also grabbed a couple of Charlie Stross books, but that’ll be for next week.
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And it firmly embraces the old folk saying: What goes around, comes around.

This is the first of three new maps (all of which will be coming out of the newly Republican-controlled state legislature):

To give you an idea of the shift (which is already forecasting DOOM for at least three North Carolina Democrats), here’s the old map:

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…with the only thing left keeping him in-country is that they’re keeping his passport*.

If I had a nasty, suspicious mind I’d be publicly wondering what the over/under is on him taking advantage of the Fourth of July weekend travel madness to get out of the country and back to France.  Good thing that I don’t have a nasty, suspicious mind, huh?

Moe Lane

*Short version of why: the accuser’s credibility has been called into question, based on her associates, a call made after the alleged attack, and her apparent misrepresentation of her past history to law enforcement officials.  Note that there’s still physical evidence that nobody’s attempting to deny, and the fact that DSK ran for it.  IOW, not conclusive proof, but the courts more or less had to take this all into account when assessing DSK’s flight risk.

Oh, that awful Scott Walker and his awful union reform law. It’s been devastating; I mean, look at just one school district affected by the Republican-passed law! The Kaukauna School District was already laboring under a $400,000 deficit; now, ‘thanks’ to Scott Walker and the Republican party, they’re now stuck with a $1,500,000 surplus! That means more work for the hiring department! That means that they’re going to have to gut the average class size!  That means that the school district will probably now be able to get away with instituting the hideously unfair program of… merit pay!

Yes, I’m being sarcastic; this is actually great news.  Most of the savings are taking place from teachers facing a slight increase in their contributions to their health care (still well below the average private sector contribution, mind you) and the institution of a modest contribution to their pension funds. They’ve also had their work week bumped up – to forty hours – and they’re up to six out of seven periods teaching a day, instead of five.  Yes, this kind of fiddling was what Big Labor in Wisconsin went to the wall to to prevent.  Well, that and monopoly pricing: (more…)