Moe Lane

I’m always cheered up to find out that stuff like this exists.

That’s an O’Carolan (17/18th century harpist) tune, by the way.  And I have no idea who these people are. “SHEENA,” apparently.  But that’s OK.

I’m gonna miss it.

That a philosophy major is arrogantly blaming a local drought on climate change (if the kid aging wunderkind had done some research, he’d know that droughts have been recorded in Texas as occurring on a regular basis for roughly five hundred years*); or that ThinkProgress can’t afford editors?

“Dialectic,” Yglesias.  Dialectic. Not that I take seriously the half-witticisms* of Trotsky, who was of course a secular prophet of the single most blood-soaked failed economic/political philosophy in recorded history, but since Ygelsias’ website apparently does take said prophet seriously then you’d think that they’d show more respect.

Moe Lane

PS: Yglesisas gets extra points for the anthropomorphizing, by the way: apparently Governor Perry’s problem in the Left’s eyes was that he likes praying to the wrong God.

*For the benefit of progressives and other historical illiterates: that means that they predate the Industrial Revolution.  By a lot.

**Honestly, the man probably gained a bit of intelligence for a moment, thanks to the ice pick: by all accounts, the hole probably gave parts of Trotsky’s brain access to the first oxygen that they had had in years.

What?  Disrespect?  Huh.  As I understand the rules of Trotsky’s own religion, he’s in no position to care if I’m being mean to him.

…and set up the bank shot in 2016 for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, apparently:

The Obama administration has decided to drop the number of U.S. troops in Iraq at the end of the year down to 3,000, marking a major downgrade in force strength, multiple sources familiar with the inner workings and decisions on U.S. troop movements in Iraq told Fox News.

[snip]

This shift is seen by various people as a cost-saving measure and a political measure. The only administration official fighting for at least 10,000 forces to stay in Iraq at the end of the year was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, sources said. But she has lost the battle.

No, I don’t actually think that this scenario is actually what’s unfolding: nobody in the administration’s brave enough to try it.  But, speaking cynically, this would work as a long term strategy.  Accept that the election’s lost, set up a disaster for the Republican President to inherit and take the blame for, and put the one brave truth-teller in position to come over in 2016 and save the day.  It’s not optimal, but then it’s going to take a couple of years for the Democrats to fix everything that Obama’s done to their party.  They might as well sabotage things for the GOP in the meantime.
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The Gormogons, on White House Press Secretary Jay Carney’s coming crackup:

Carney must realize that this point that he is walking a plank. He knows the press is better informed than he is, and that any good, solid statement he makes will be contradicted within the hour by someone else in the White House. One of these days—and trust the Czar on matters like this—Carney is simply going to show up to a press conference in a sweatshirt, three or four beers in him, and just shrug off every question with “What the hell do I care?”

My sympathy is zero, by the way.  He voluntarily took that job, after all.

Moe Lane

To answer Jazz Shaw’s question of what reason there might be to resurrect some of these species: I assume that mammoth meat is tasty.  Certainly our ancestors thought so, given that they hunted the species to extinction.  Mammoth, moa, dodo, passenger pigeon… the list, as they say, goes on.  As for the Tasmanian tiger… well, fur rugs are nice.

Oh, stop wincing.  If minks didn’t produce such nice fur we’d have destroyed that vicious little species centuries ago.  Besides, I don’t apologize that my species is the apex predator of the planetary food chain; humanity went to considerable trouble to get to this point, and – speaking as a human – that’s just fine by me.  If other species want to make an issue of it, they’re welcome to demonstrate an ability to do calculus any time that they like.

Yeah, I can’t see how this will end badly:

Villagers and veteran hunters have captured a one-ton saltwater crocodile which they plan to make the star of a planned ecotourism park in a southern Philippine town, an official said Monday.

Let’s go down the list, shall we? (more…)

Via Instapundit comes this piece by Joel Kotkin narrating how the state of California is slowly but determinedly collapsing.  Indeed, the method that its political masters is using to effect said collapse is almost laudable, as it replicates every aspect of the traditional disaster scenario of California sinking into the sea, without actually having the earthquake.  It’s sort of like a neutron strike, in other words: it’s mostly affecting people and not the precious natural resources that a later, wiser* generation will be able to resume exploiting properly.

Oh, I’m sorry: am I not feeling their pain?  Guess what: take a look at the roster. (more…)

Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door, Guns N’ Roses

Don’t be a h8r.

Just to make it clear precisely what we’re talking about, here: it’s not good.  25,000 acres burned so far, and the state is apparently as dry as a bone right now, thanks to a drought.  Let me show you the extent of the problem:

That picture is taken from Weather Underground’s WunderMap (as of roughly 10 PM EDT, September 5, 2011*).  The red flames represent fires, obviously: the dark smudges represent smoke cover.  Just in case the picture isn’t loading for you on your particular platform, let me sum it up for you: A LARGE PORTION OF CENTRAL AND EAST TEXAS IS ON FIRE RIGHT NOW.

I understand that there are people trying to politicize this situation, for their own purposes. I invite all of them to shut up and instead do something useful, like send their readers or listeners over to the American Red Cross.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*Another map can be found here, courtesy of @bdomenech.

BECAUSE IT IS HIDEOUS. GLORIOUSLY, GLORIOUSLY HIDEOUS.

STAN LEE HIMSELF AGREES WITH ME.

VIA CRACKED.

Jonathan Chait really, really, really wants liberals to not notice that President Obama is no George W Bush.  How much does he want it?  He wants it badly enough to jettison the entire idea of the Imperial Presidency (don’t worry: Chait and the rest will start grousing about it again on, say, January 20, 2013).  Nope, it’s not Barry Obama’s fault that he couldn’t spin insanely lopsided Congressional majority straw into policy gold, because of… separation of powers:

The most common hallmark of the left’s magical thinking is a failure to recognize that Congress is a separate, coequal branch of government consisting of members whose goals may differ from the president’s. Congressional Republicans pursued a strategy of denying Obama support for any major element of his agenda, on the correct assumption that this would make it less popular and help the party win the 2010 elections. Only for roughly four months during Obama’s term did Democrats have the 60 Senate votes they needed to overcome a filibuster.

[snip]

That kind of analysis, however, just feels wrong to liberals, who remember Bush steamrolling his agenda through Congress with no such complaints about obstructionism. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald recently invoked “the panoply of domestic legislation — including Bush tax cuts, No Child Left Behind and the Medicare Part D prescription drug entitlement — that Bush pushed through Congress in his first term.”

First term.

Hee.

Let’s talk about Bush’s second term, instead. Actually, let’s talk about the second half of Bush’s second term. (more…)