Moe Lane

The can has been kicked for another year.

Lawmakers on Friday sent Gov. Jerry Brown a compromise bill that delays California’s effort to force online retailers such as Amazon.com to collect the state’s sales taxes while retailers lobby Congress for national rules governing online sales taxes.

Essentially, California legislators passed a bill earlier this year that ‘exploited’ a loophole in federal case law that would have required Amazon.com (and others) to collect sales tax on purchases made by California residents.  Amazon.com (and others) promptly ended the affiliate program that provided the loophole.  California legislators blinked with surprise, because apparently they completely missed noticing that Amazon.com always does this (except in New York, where they’re fighting the law in court).  Shockingly, California legislators have now apparently gotten a rush of oxygen to the brain and delayed ‘implementation’ of the tax until September of 2012; this time is supposedly to allow Amazon.com and other online retailers to petition Congress to straighten out national sales tax guidelines (something that Amazon.com has been pushing for, actually). Assuming that Governor Brown signs off on this – and, given that the original bill has pretty conclusively been already shown to be wildly if not insanely optimistic in its estimated revenue*, he’d have to be extremely dumb not to** – Amazon.com will turn its affiliate program back on. (more…)

If this (via @BenHowe) takes off, we’re going to see more functionality in our Apple platforms:

Adobe yesterday announced the release of Flash Media Server 4.5 and Flash Access 3.0, updated tools to allow publishers to host streaming Flash video content.

[snip]

Consequently, as media publishers begin to adopt the new Adobe software, they will be able to easily deliver HTML5-compatible content to mobile devices alongside the traditional Flash Player content. Because the feature utilizes video streaming technology rather than running the Flash content directly on the device, it does not yet support interactive Flash content such as games and banner ads, but the ability to access streaming Flash video on iOS devices will certainly be a welcome addition for many users.

I understand that people may not want the games/banner ads – and that there are issues with touchscreen-compatibility anyway – but having Flash-animated video on my iPad will be welcome.

Moe Lane

PS: Now give me more camera codecs, tanjit.

No biscuit:

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis says Mayor Rahm Emanuel “exploded” at her during a conversation in his office about his signature longer-school-day effort, pointing his finger at her, yelling and telling her, “F— you, Lewis.”

“I just want to call it immense disrespect for me and the Chicago Teachers Union,’’ Lewis told the Chicago Sun-Times Friday. “I didn’t appreciate the way he talked to me.”

Are you all ripped up inside about this?  I mean, I am all ripped up inside about this.  I bet you that whoever put this up at Hot Air Headlines is just as ripped up inside about this as I am, too.  I mean, how dare the Mayor suggest that teachers work an extra ninety minutes a day, with a mere 2% pay increase to cover it!  After all, the starting salary is only $50,557/year… OK, so it’s actually $50,577/38.6 weeks, at 6.25 hours/day.  Or $42/hour.  Admittedly, the new arrangement is a hit in salary: more gross, but per/hour goes down to $34.50, assuming that I did the math right – but Chicago is looking at a 635.7 million budget deficit this year.  The well is, as they say, dry.

And I think that the public sector union folks had better start realizing that.  Because, past history aside, when it comes to Rahm Emanuel (or any other Democratic elected offiical) explicitly telling a Big Labor bigwig “F— you” I for one will not be rooting for injuries.  I’d rather that a Republican was doing it, of course, but I’ll take what I can get.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

I’m keeping the dosage at the bare minimum recommended – I figure that if I need to tweak my dosage, my body will let me know – but this stuff is an opioid*, so there’s the chance for altered stages of consciousness.

So: is the below really as weird as it looks?

I mean, it is an Old Spice commercial.

Moe Lane

*How this is different from an opiate is not immediately clear.  Still, Wikipedia is never wrong, right?

Background: As all of you know, it’s not a true critical Obama speech without at least one howler of a historical error in it somewhere, and last Thursday’s was a beauty of one: did you know Lincoln founded the Republican party?  Of course you didn’t know that: after all, you’re almost certainly better-versed in actual American history than the Harvard-educated n-dimensional genius who is currently President.  And, no, this wasn’t the speechwriter’s fault this time: that Lincoln bit wasn’t in the original.  Hence the kerfluffle: as The American Thinker noted, PBS used the original embargoed speech transcript, while the New York Times used the actual speech itself to generate its transcript.  All of which is not really all that newsworthy… except that apparently people are trying to point this little detail out to PBS, and PBS is refusing to either change its transcript to reflect objective reality, or even publish the calls for correction.

Assuming this is true… oh, my.  Screening comments.  Tsk, tsk, tsk… what’s that?  “You do that all the time, Moe?”  Well, yes.  Cheerfully, in fact.  But that’s because I know how to do it properly.  Direct-to-spam protocols for querulous whines, bitter profanity, and inchoate-rage-presented-as-dispassionate-truth-telling is one thing; but, really.  I watched the speech.  Here, you can  watch the relevant part of the speech, too:

PBS mucked up.  There’s actually nothing really wrong with providing a copy of an embargoed speech the moment it’s no longer embargoed; and a simple Update: the transcript has been corrected to reflect changes made to it in the delivery would have been a reasonable thing to do.  All that they’re doing with this strategy is to take partial ownership of President Obama’s ignorant gaffe.

Via Instapundit.

Moe Lane

But before we start talking about implications, let’s review the situations.

• NY-09. This D+5 seat was vacated by Anthony Weiner after pictures surfaced… and I don’t need to end that sentence: it’s never good for a politician’s career when the phrase ‘pictures surfaced’ is used to describe his or her situation. The race thus is between Republican Bob Turner and Democrat David Weprin… and Democrats are even now going frantic. They’re going frantic because an independent pollster now shows Turner in the lead (which has been consistent with other polling trends); they’re going frantic because Tuner has picked up several key endorsements from prominent New York Democrats (over Weprin’s – really, President Obama’s – Israel policy); and they’re going frantic because the entire Weprin campaign effort seems to be infected with incompetence, starting at the local level* and working all the way up to the DCCC itself. The Democrats have dumped half a million dollars in this race, and are right now grimly contemplating the possibility that this half a million is buying them bupkis.
• NV-02. Meanwhile, this R+5 district is increasingly looking like a retention for the GOP. Dean Heller vacated the seat after being tapped to become Senator John Ensign’s replacement (Ensign, as you probably remember – and you probably were happy to forget – left office under what we shall charitably call ‘under a cloud’); Republican Mark Amodei will be facing Democrat Kate Marshall. The DCCC has essentially written this district off, at this point: their primary strategy, if you’ll pardon the pun, was to get Democratic Secretary of State Ross Miller (elections have consequences, people) to sign off on a winner-take-all election (which would have splintered the Republican vote), only to be told no by the courts. Since then, Marshall hasn’t been able to make anything stick – including linking Amodei with Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform plan – and Amodei is favored to win. Incidentally, the Right has put about 750K into this race, including about $500K from the NRCC.

(more…)

[UPDATE]: Welcome, Instapundit readers.

I must confess something to all of you.

The expressions of warmth and support from my readers (and my colleagues at RedState, and my friends generally) were a great comfort to me this afternoon.  Having your gallbladder removed is often an outpatient procedure, which essentially means that you can be sent home to feel bloated, nauseous, and generally miserable in the privacy of your own bed instead of at the hospital; which is actually not a bad thing.  Particularly when you have access to the warm regards (and bad jokes*) of people who care enough to offer some comfort.  Can’t put enough emphasis on that: stuff like that is meaningful on a personal level.

However, what tells me that I’m doing my job is the hate mail – and, bless his heart, somebody stepped up to the plate today:

(more…)

…for given values of fun. No complications, but I’m going to have a little rest now.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

…then that means that I am undergoing gall bladder surgery.  I foresee no complications, but you never know with general anesthesia.  If I fall, avenge me.

…No, I’m not sure against whom you would be avenging me.  Pick somebody bad, I guess.  Don’t waste it on a guy doing wire fraud, or anything like that. Seriously, I figure that I’ll just be on my butt for a week. Feel free to fund my e-book and PDF publishing habits during that time:

Moe Lane (more…)

The stupid Kindle broke AGAIN!

I swear, every time I have to go to the hospital for my gallbladder…

Moe Lane

PS: Easy to replace, of course; and I have the Kindle software for my iPad 2. Still. There’s something about a Kindle that doesn’t love a gall bladder.

Particularly the Berlin Wall.  I didn’t know about this, ah, unique story of voting with one’s feet.  For a given value of ‘feet.’

In December 1961, a 27-year-old train engine driver named Harry Deterling piloted what he dubbed “the last train to freedom” across the border. Instead of slowing down his passenger train as it approached the fortifications, Deterling throttled it up to full speed and ripped through the wall.

The train skidded to a stop in West Berlin’s Spandau borough, allowing Deterling, seven members of his family, and 16 other people aboard the train to remain in the West. The train’s engineer and six other passengers chose to return to East Germany.

You have to wonder whether any of those people were thinking at the time, Mein Gott, if only the driver would just ram through the verdammt thing we could be free… hold on, we’re not slowing down.  I have no way of knowing; but I figure that if I was stuck in a dirty Commie hellhole (yeah, redundant, I know) I’d be looking for escape routes all the time myself, if only to keep from going insane from the existential despair of being stuck in a dirty Commie hellhole.  Sort of like always having a zombie plan, only for real.

That’s it.  I just wanted to get one last shot of Commie-bashing in before I go under the knife tomorrow.  Not that I expect any complications, but you never know with general anesthesia.

Moe Lane

Happy Birthday, Dear Star Trek:

Happy Birthday to you.

Moe Lane

PS:

Also: