Moe Lane

I got sent this with the laconic comment “Midlife crisis much?”  I wasn’t going to throw up – choice of words not really deliberate – another OWS post, but this one I can’t help but post:

A married mother of four from Florida ditched her family to become part of the raggedy mob in Zuccotti Park — keeping the park clean by day and keeping herself warm at night with the help of a young waiter from Brooklyn.

[snip]

She swears she’s not romantically involved with her new friend.

I’m going to be merciful and not publish this woman’s name. Please don’t do that in comments, either: her kids are going to collectively have a high enough therapist bill as it is.

Moe Lane

Focusing particularly on the voters within audible (and olfactory) range of Zuccotti Park, which is currently the somewhat squalid epicenter for the protesters: I am given to understand that increasing numbers of them are tired of the noise, the disruption of local business and residential life, and, of course, the defecation*.  I am also given to understand that those voters are not really getting any sort of real response to their concerns, mostly because the authorities tacitly accept the notion that a bunch of squatters get to have a say in this discussion:

“We really, really want to be good neighbors. We want to be involved with the community here,” said Tyler Combelic, an “Occupy Wall Street” protester.

Let me just drill down on this: the Occupy Wall Street movement has no right to the term ‘neighbor’ in this context.  The movement does not own any real estate in the area.  It does not rent any real estate in the area.  It certainly does not pay municipal taxes in the area.  Occupy Wall Street protesters are squatters.  The best upgrade to that status that they can hope to achieve would be that of guests.  And for the record: when a host asks a guest to keep it down, the polite – and prudent – guest does not give his or her host an argument about it.  The guest instead keeps it down. (more…)

Late In The Evening, Paul Simon

He’s a hell of a lot happier as a solo artist, I think.  As in ‘more cheerful.’

(Via GameSpy) My wife has the patience of a saint; but I ain’t allowed MMORPGs. More accurately: I’m already in one, and it’s called the American political system.

Still, it’s looking pretty freaking sweet.

Moe Lane

Yeah… I think that somehow DCCC chair Steve Israel didn’t think this one all the way through when he came out in support for the Occupy Wall Street ‘movement.’

Steve Israel Stands With Them.

Note that I am utterly unsympathetic to the argument that the OWS movement is merely not being utterly hostile to any random anti-Semites stopping by.  Personally, I take the position that if your organizational criteria requires you to not show the door to anyone who starts ranting about how the International Zionist conspiracy runs the banking system, then you’re doing it wrong.  It’s nice to see one of the two major political parties agree with me; it astounds me that it’s not both.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

(Via Instapundit)

Billion-Ton Comet May Have Missed Earth by a Few Hundred Kilometers in 1883

A reanalysis of historical observations suggest Earth narrowly avoided an extinction event just over a hundred years ago.

The Peshawar Lancers, for those unfamiliar with the book, is an alternate history novel by SM Stirling where a comet and/or meteor swarm impacted the Northern Hemisphere in 1878; this had the effect of more or less wiping out civilization in Europe and North America, and making the rest of civilization positively Kiplingesque.  It’s a hell of a fun read – particularly if you like Victorian adventure fiction, and/or the Flashman novels* – but an absolute suckfest to live through, of course.

By the way: we aren’t really well equipped to deal with a comet coming right at us.  Just saying, that’s all.

Moe Lane

*OK, OK, I’m trying to figure out how you can like the one, but not the other – but surely there’s somebody out there who has that kind of nuanced taste.

Background: former NPR host Lisa Simone decided to become a spokeswoman for Occupy Washington.  Shocking, I know; and also a violation of NPR’s own code of conduct.  So NPR… fired Lisa Simone.

Shocking, I know.

Now, normally I’d meanly speculate on just why NPR jumped on this, but then I read this sentence:

The official who fired Simeone reportedly did so over the phone and read NPR’s ethics code to her during the call.

Reading out the ethics code to the person that you’re firing over the phone?  Just so that they know how and why the messed up?  That is worth maybe a little forbearance.  Positive reinforcement, and all that.

This video is going around:

(more…)

Senator Jeff Sessions, on why we’re Taxed Enough Already, thanks:

“Washington asking for more tax revenue is like an alcoholic asking for more cash before a trip to the liquor store.”

(more…)

I can tell you at least one key difference between this latest ad by Governor Rick Perry and the latest one from former Governor Mitt Romney…

…Team Perry will probably not have to fall all over itself later today to pull the ad from the Internet. Which was something that Team Romney had to do yesterday with their ad.

For those without video, the Perry ad is called ‘Misleading:’ and it starts off by helpfully defining the term for Mitt Romney. It then proceeds to spend the next minute replaying several times where Romney’s allegedly lived up to the title, starting with Obamacare (with a shout-out to Romney editing his support of it) and ending with Romney’s “I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake: we can’t have illegals” Kinsey gaffe from Tuesday’s debate. In other words: it’s a much better attack ad than the one that Team Romney put out, and then hastily buried, yesterday. (more…)

SERENITY NOW.

With a nice underlying beat to it.

You may want to avoid that for the next couple of days.

Trust me on this.