Moe Lane

This just keeps getting better and better for the Virginia GOP, doesn’t it? Via Ballot Access News, first we get the Attorney General for Virginia pointing out that the requirements for ballot access are far too restrictive:

I would throw out for consideration that we should lower our requirements to 100 legitimate signatures per congressional district.

Let’s face it, absent a serious write-in challenge from some other candidate, Virginia won’t be nearly as ‘fought over’ as it should be in the midst of such a wide open nomination contest. Our own laws have reduced our relevance. Sad.

…and suggesting that a write-in ballot is possible. Which, as a lot of people with perhaps vested interests in there not being any more candidates on the ballot would tell you, is: a, impossible; and b, so mind-bogglingly obviously impossible that anybody who suggests that such a thing would be possible would be as dumb as Newt Gingrich.  Of course, some of the people who are most pushing the ‘dumb as Newt Gingrich’ bit are perhaps not entirely clear about Gingrich’s actual position:

“And we hope to launch a write-in campaign. We’re getting an amazing number of people who … believe Virginians ought to have the right to choose and shouldn’t be restricted to two people.”

When a reporter noted that state law prohibits write-in votes in Virginia primaries, Gingrich said: “There’s time for them to change it. If something’s wrong, they ought to fix it.”

(more…)

Three million in the bank and internal polling that showed him ahead was apparently not enough to keep Ben Nelson from announcing his retirement from the Senate; what makes this particularly entertaining is that the DSCC has already apparently dumped a million bucks on this race.  Hey, do you know which Democratic Senators up for re-election in 2012 could have used that money?

ALL OF THEM.

Moe Lane

PS: I am particularly thrilled by the fact that after January of 2013  I will no longer have to try to tell this guy apart from the other Senator Nelson.  Of course, the question may have been moot anyway…

Well, Ed Morrissey has always been the reasonable one.

Whenever people ask me whether I will run for public office, I always respond half-jokingly that if I wanted a career in electoral politics, I wouldn’t have spent the last eight-plus years writing down my every thought on politics and policy.

The things that I have written, on the other hand, would cause me to crater so heavily in any political run that it’d probably cause a slight wobble in Earth’s orbit. But I have learned to accept this: as the philosopher said, A man’s got to know his limitations.

Moe Lane

…so.  A Boba Fett poster that’s, like, 70% off or something.

Odd that this character has such a fan following.

…posting light.

[UPDATE: Or maybe not.  That was an astounding amount of upchuck that my youngest just did.]

Radio Ga Ga, Queen

Oh, right.  Subtext.

No markup on those.

Link.

It’s… weird.  I know that Randall Munroe visibly does not care if you hotlink – he invites you to do that, in fact – but it still feels somehow icky to do it.

Here’s your science for the day:

A mysterious bony growth found in elephants’ feet is actually a sixth “toe”, scientists report.

For more than 300 years, the structure has puzzled researchers, but this study suggests that it helps to support elephants’ colossal weight.

Fossils reveal that this “pre-digit” evolved about 40 million years ago, at a point when early elephants became larger and more land-based.

That’s it; I just thought that you should know.

Moe Lane

On the one hand, these people need to be mocked for ‘suffering’ from what have been accurately described as ‘First World problems.’

On the other hand, I think that some of these people are ‘suffering’ in a deliberately ironic way, in the justified hope that a little fake whining can often bring in the real whiners, too.

On the gripping hand, I already have an iPad 2*, so I can take a detached view on this sort of thing anyway.

Moe Lane

PS: Here.  The Salvation Army.  They help people with real problems.

(more…)

It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest – and neither does the news that Lautenberg came out of the blue and nominated Sen. Schumer’s brother-in-law Kevin McNulty for a federal judgeship.  The ironic bit is that there’s nothing really wrong about giving McNulty a federal judgeship (well, no more than there would be for any other Democrat): the man was an assistant US Attorney when younger and people aren’t objecting to him on principle.  But the timing and suddenness of it all is raising eyebrows.

Personally, my first guess would be that somebody in Lautenberg’s staff realized that they’re working for an 86 year old Senator in frail health, and that after November of 2012 there’s likely to be a sudden glut in the supply of Democratic Senate staffers for the job market.  So best to shore that re-election now and hope the old guy lasts long enough for the economy to pick up again, right?

…What?  Everybody else was being cynical about this.

(Via Hot Air Headlines)

If I snapped at anybody yesterday, it was probably because I was putting toys together for two small children, one of which has just really gotten what this Christmas thing is all about – and who has apparently developed a sudden phobia of talking dolls, although that may have been the homemade chocolate chip cookies talking.  Now I understand why I associate certain cuss words with Christmas; my father apparently liked to save the worst ones for special occasions.

So.  Sorry?

Background: she’s reacting badly to this story about an atheist schmuck named Damon Vix who gamed a Santa Monica town lottery for spaces for holiday decoration.  Said schmuck ended up with more than half the spaces, which he then proceeded to leave blank except for a sign insulting religions.

Heather asks:

Does every public dissent from faith, my own included, inevitably come off as equally unpleasant?

My answer is: No, but it’s only because believers make a good-faith effort to try to remember that not every atheist is like Damon Vix.  Which is a courtesy that people like Vix notoriously do not extend to believers.  Which is not really fair to Heather Mac Donald, but then so is Vix’s charming little exercise in applied schmuckery.

Exit question: anyone reading this willing to bet that going up to Damon Vix and casually saying the phrase “War on Christmas” would not guarantee you a twenty minute, utterly dead to irony, tirade on the topic?

(Link via… I’m not sure, actually.)

Moe Lane

PS: Note that I’m personalizing this most cruelly; that’s because I know that I have atheist/agnostic readers who would themselves like to smack people like Vix in the face with a halibut.