Moe Lane

My thanks for their service to all my country’s veterans. Especially the ones reading my blog.

The opening will be in a few moments: we’re scheduled to have a video from RS colleague Ben Howe sometime this morning. I’ll be putting up a copy of it as soon as it becomes available.

Stop by and say hi if you’re here: I’m probably the only person here wearing a Three Wolf Moon shirt.

I’m onsite in Denver for Blogcon 11: have run into a bunch of people that I already know, with more to come; and will be running out soon to schmooze interface with folks. If you’re attending, just as a reminder I’ll be on a panel Saturday about Online Activism. Should be fun.

Also, the haircut that I got today may have been the best damned haircut I’ve ever gotten: not only does it look good, it started with a hot minty towel that nearly put me to sleep and ended with a shoulder rub that removed four hours of strain from the flight to Denver. And for twenty-two bucks*, which is insanely low. The place was Floyd’s 99 Barbershop, Denver CO: I recommend it.

Moe Lane

*Of course I tipped. LIKE A VIKING.

John comes close to enlightenment here wit “Omelas State University” – so heartbreakingly close – but in the end he accepts Ursula K Le Guin’s brilliantly malignant and endlessly corrupting false choice when it comes to The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas: when confronted with evil as the bargain for perfection, the answer is neither to accept the bargain, nor walk away from the bargain.

The answer is to SMITE THE EVIL.

It’s sad: I expected just a shade better from John Scalzi. Just a shade.

Moe Lane

…so I’ll see some of you there, and write at rather more of you from there.

It’s kind of freaky, by the way, to see just how digitalized the airport is. Everybody’s walking around with the equivalent of the combined computer capacity of the USA in the 1950s.

“…would you like to forget about the most?”

This is, by the way, the only right way to handle this kind of situation: admit the screwup, don’t run from it. Whether it works or not is up to the voters, but I will note for the record that at least some of the other candidates are perhaps a little too aware of their own dignity to admit to a mistake…

(Via Reader workingclass artist)

Moe Lane

PS: I voted for wanting to forget about the Department of Education. Although the Marine Mammal Commission was surprisingly tempting.

(Via Instapundit) For those needing background: “F&F” is Operation Fast & Furious, which is an Obama-era operation in which guns were actively allowed to cross over the border (without any attempt to track them) and illegally resold to Mexican narco-terrorists, without the permission (or even the awareness) of the Mexican government. “OWR” is Operation Wide Receiver, which was a Bush-era operation where rather less guns were allowed to cross over the border to be resold to Mexican narco-terrorists; in stark contrast, the government did atttempt to track the guns and did keep the Mexican government in the loop. Despite this, Democratic partisans have attempted to paint these two operations as identical.

This gambit has now been neatly scuppered, thanks to Senator John Cornyn’s (R, TX) getting Attorney General Holder on the record about this, once and for all.

(more…)

In the short-term rather than the long-term, hopefully:

Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi says he will not stand if Italy holds early elections, after promising to resign as soon as urgent budget reforms pass.

Mr Berlusconi’s party wants fresh elections but the opposition wants a national unity government.

Any time he likes.  Or doesn’t like, frankly: the man’s a sleaze.

For those who missed it, Perry flubbed a question on how many agencies he would cut.  How bad?

This bad:

I’m guessing that the Cain people are hopeful, the Romney people are throwing together a Perry attack ad, and the Democrats are looking into ways to push it further.

The bright side?  That statement by Perry is probably the best response that he could make.

Short version: Chief of Staff Richard Daley was brought in, got off on the wrong foot with the debt ceiling thing, watched as the White House decided to do a hard left turn, and lost one too many internal knife fights.  Also: Daley is apparently a lousy Chief of Staff anyway.  Also, reading between the lines, he’s not used to the different rules set in Dizzy City, which inexplicably doesn’t include the Rule Thou shalt not do anything to annoy overmuch anyone with the last name of Daley.  And he talked too much to outsiders, which is probably the worst sin that an Obama flunky can commit in this administration.

Absolutely worst of all: Bob Shrum likes him: which is Kiss of Death, right there.

So, why am I telling you this?  Because the GOP has been particularly internecine lately and I just wanted to remind folks that the Other Side isn’t actually all that much better at this game.  If at all.

Moe Lane

PS: No, really.  They suck at it just as bad; in fact, they think that we’re the scary hyper-competent ones.

Via the indispensable James Taranto, it would appear so:

Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson visited the Occupy DC group in McPherson Square on Monday evening after the group marched on police headquarters and city hall.

In an exclusive interview with The Washington Examiner, he compared the occupy movement to the Civil Rights Era sit-ins.

“All of it is occupying for economic justice. Dr. King’s last act on earth was to come to Washington and to occupy the Mall and put the focus on economic justice,” Jackson said.

As James notes, MLK was actually assassinated in Memphis, TN.  Which Jesse Jackson knows: he was there when it happened.  But I guess that the Occupy movement would rather be told that what they’re doing is much more like the I Have A Dream speech than it’s like a city sanitation strike*.  What’s that?  It’s not really classy to turn political assassinations into partisan political talking points?  Go yell at Jesse Jackson, Sr.: he’s the one that set the precedent here.  (more…)

Which reminds me: I need to get out the Winter 2T and 4T clothing for the kids.

Via @BenHowe.  VOTE FOR HIM, LEST YE BE SMOTE BY THE VERY HEAVENS.

Moe Lane

PS: For the morbidly curious.