Month: December 2011

#rsrh QotD, Those Danged Republicans Are EVERYWHERE edition.

Allahpundit of Hot Air, upon seeing the unique spin coming from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office over news that Madame-No-Longer-Speaker is thinking of retiring:

Pelosi’s spokesman denies it, calling it “wishful thinking on the part of a right-wing blog” even though the story’s based on a quote from, er, her own daughter.

Orginal story here. Honestly, it’s not entirely unlikely that Nancy Pelosi is just now discovering why most former Speakers resign after their falls from power; Washington DC can be a cruel place. Not that my sympathy is anything except detached, of course, given the amount of debt that this woman has dumped on my kids…

#rsrh Important competence #protip for the VA GOP. [UPDATED]

[UPDATE: A reader has pointed out that the Virginia Board of Elections has since decided that the ninety day requirement applies to the party, not to them. These people are entertaining, no?]

If a state party organization is going to lecture campaigns about how they need to be fully cognizant of its internal rules – while using the excuse that said rules are ‘required’ by Virginian state law – it kind of helps if that organization passes internal rules that are not actually in violation of Virginian state law. Otherwise people might think that said organization was, I don’t know, doing its best to obscure the fact that it’s been mucking about with Virginian state law simply because there’s nobody who can tell it ‘No.’ Continue reading #rsrh Important competence #protip for the VA GOP. [UPDATED]

Also, MoeLane.com should work on your mobiles again.

It was down because we were working on a more mobile-friendly mobile version, and the WAMP WAMP WAMP apparently interfered with the WAMP WAMP WAMP and caused a WAMP WAMP WAMP.

(pause)

Look, I’m just the trained monkey that hits the keys in a particular sequence in order to make content come out. This actual infrastructure stuff involves math: and math is HARD. Anyway, I believe that the quest to provide a new and improved WAMP WAMP WAMP continues…

If you can read….

…this, then I have figured a way around an incredibly annoying problem with the iPad: to wit, that they DO NOT RECOGNIZE cut-and-paste text from Amazon.com. Given that my (modest) revenue stream counts largely on that company, not having access to it while I’m traveling (and relying on the iPad for blogging) can be a bit distressing.

Anyway, they should fix that for the iPad 3. Not that I’m getting one; I figure that I’ll probably be able to swing an iPad 4 if I start saving up for it now…

Oh, by the way, ethanol subsidies are dead.

Details here and here: the short version is that the Senate back in June kicked off opposition to continued ethanol subsidies via a bipartisan amendment: it didn’t pass, but Congress has just let both the ethanol subsidy and a restrictive foreign tariff (on Brazilian sugar-cane ethanol) lapse. Given that the Iowa caucuses will be finished by the time Congress reconvenes – and given that the House of Representatives is currently chock-heavy with people who spit at the very phrase ‘ethanol subsidy’ – getting back either is going to be a problem for the domestic ethanol industry. Mind you, there are still mandates for using ethanol in place, but note again the ending of the tariff; I’m not a businessman, but effectively lowering the price of Brazilian ethanol by 54 cents/gallon while simultaneously effectively raising the price of domestic ethanol by 45 cents/gallon sounds to me like it would at least raise some intriguing alternatives. Continue reading Oh, by the way, ethanol subsidies are dead.

This is all Jonah Goldberg’s fault.

This is absolutely Jonah Goldberg’s fault: he called for the Republican primary to be thrown out and replaced with a musical. Then he started writing Gilbert & Sullivan filks.

Yes. I could not help myself. To the tune of The Policeman’s Song from The Pirates of Penzance:

When a pundit’s not enthused with his enjoyment (his enjoyment)
Of blighting lives to entertain his fans
His capacity for ethical employment (his employment)
Is just as much as any honest man’s.
Our cursing we with difficulty smother
When corrections to the record must be done (must be done)
Yes, take one consideration with another (with another)
And the blogger’s life is not a tranquil one.

When corrections to the record must be done (must be done)
Then the blogger’s life is not a tranquil one.

When a talking-headed rascal’s not repeating (not repeating)
The honeyed poison dripping from his screen,
He likes to schmooze with those that he’s defeating (he’s defeating);
…And access like that makes all of us turn green.
When the panels stop with screaming at each other,
They’ll meet again for drinking and some fun;
Yes, take one consideration with another
And the blogger’s life is not a tranquil one.

Though corrections to the record must be done (must be done)
Yet a blogger’s life is not a social one.

For the record: Jonah’s all right. And he’s not the only one.

Moe Lane

#rsrh Wall Street’s Business as Usual?

Now this, ladies and gentlemen, is a rant.

For a few measly millions, Wall Street not only bought itself a president, but got the start-up firm of B. H. Obama & Co. LLC to throw a cabinet into the deal, too — on remarkably generous terms. President Obama, for a guy prone to delivering prim and smug little homilies denouncing greed, greed, greed — the only of the seven deadly sins that truly offends Democrats (though Mrs. Obama has done some desultory work on gluttony) — is strangely comfortable among the Gordon Gekkos of this world. Shall we have a partial roll call? Beat the drum slowly and call out the names: With unemployment still topping 9 percent, the catastatic world economy teetering on the brink of another, even larger financial catastrophe, and trillion-dollar U.S. deficits as far as the green-shaded eye can see, let’s hear it for Obama’s first National Economic Council director, Lawrence Summers (of hedge-fund giant D. E. Shaw and venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz), who has had some nice paydays courtesy of Lehman Bros., JPMorgan Chase, and Citigroup. Let’s hear it for Citigroup’s Michael Froman, deputy assistant to the president and deputy national-security adviser for international economic affairs, for Hartford Financial’s Neal Wolin, deputy Treasury secretary, for JPMorgan’s William Daley, Obama’s chief of staff, and for his predecessor, Rahm Emanuel of Wasserstein Perella. Let’s hear it for Fannie Mae’s Tom Donilon, national-security adviser. (No, seriously: One of the luminous interstellar geniuses who brought Fannie Mae to its current aphotic state of affairs, upside down to the tune of trillions of dollars, is running national security, and the former director of the White House Military Office, Louis Caldera, was on the board of IndyMac when it finally went toes up — sleep tight, America!) And, lest we forget, let’s have three big, sloppy cheers for economic-transition team leaders Robert Rubin (Goldman Sachs, Citigroup) and folksy tax enthusiast/ghoulish billionaire vulture Warren Buffett.

And it goes on for five more pages.

Continue reading #rsrh Wall Street’s Business as Usual?

I bitterly resent this about Mike Krahulik…

…I will likely NEVER be able to command the amount of professional fear and terror at the sound of my name that Mike can. Read this email thread (via AoSHQ) for an example of this: I suspect that Mike couldn’t believe his luck. After all, with great power comes great responsibility: the man’s not a bully. But if he’s got the opportunity to smack somebody else for bullying, well…

Moe Lane

PS: What? Ah. For the benefit of our non-gamer readers: Mike Krahulik is also known as Gabe of Penny Arcade. Trash-talking him when you’re a maker of luxury video game accessory parts is Not Very Bright.