Moe Lane

Apparently, yes.

Richard Winger over at Ballot Access News has an EXTREMELY interesting post (link via here) on the mess that the Virginia Republican party has found itself in over… access to the ballot in Virginia. For those coming in late, background here and here: the very short version is that the VA GOP only certified Mitt Romney and Ron Paul for its primary ballot.  Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich both had too many signatures tossed; Jon Huntsman, Rick Santorum, and Michele Bachmann didn’t even try.  Of the seven candidates, one (Romney) had more than enough signatures (15K) to bypass the verification process entirely.  All of this has caused a lot of agitation among Republicans following the primary process, of course; and not just from people who disapprove of what the VA GOP has done.  There has been a good deal of defending of the outcome; and one argument heavily used in this defense has been that the campaigns all knew the rules and that previous Republican campaigns were able to get on the ballot, so clearly a competent current Republican campaign should have done so.

One small problem with that: as Winger argues, the rules were allegedly drastically changed.  In November of this year. (more…)

This kind of exists in the Star Wars universe.

Swear to God.

I’m drinking various beverages and chilling.  Go ye and do the same.

Walter Russell Mead, on our British cousins:

One of the central dynamics that made Britain great for so long still seems to be working.  Financial and economic crises recur in healthy capitalist economies.  When these crises come, some countries that have only reluctantly embraced a capitalist system (and usually done so poorly and half heartedly), see the crisis as proof that capitalism is a flop, and lurch toward “alternative models” that generally lead to stagnation and the capture of the state by rent-seeking elites spouting empty populist slogans.  Think Argentina.  Think Greece.

Think the Obama administration… sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt.

Britain is one of the countries that historically responds to crises of capitalism by doubling down: seeking reforms that make capitalism work more effectively rather than trying to hobble and block it.

Hmm.  Maybe I did mean to interrupt.

Via Instapundit.

So, this is why I should be waiting to pick up web page. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim until it’s been patched a bit more, right?

…although there’s a part of me that hopes that they don’t patch that particular bug as much as they give it an entertaining sound effect.

And God bless us, every one.  Particularly packaging engineers.  I’m shocked at how easy it is to get the toys out of their boxes these days.  It’s downright magical, in fact.

Well, maybe alchemical.

You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch, Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas & Horton Hears A Who!

I normally wouldn’t do this one, but my wife looked me in the eye this morning and said “The Grinch is clearly supposed to be analogous to Grendel; therefore, How the Grinch Stole Christmas can be seen as a symbolic representation of the final conquest and conversion of pagan belief structures by Christianity.”

So, yeah, after that I pretty much had to put this up.

Does it feel like Christmas to you?  It feels like Christmas to me:

With the holiday weekend under way, Las Vegas copyright lawsuit filer Righthaven LLC appeared to remain in danger Friday of seeing its intellectual property auctioned off.

We have been able to acquire video of the proceedings:

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They’ve got these people running around and ticking off the other 75% of the GOP electorate:

Background post here: amazingly, somebody actually thought that the above was an appropriate response to a helpful suggestion*.  What it really was, of course, was an invitation for me to set up a direct-to-spam and an excuse to put up the PayPal button:

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Christmas penguins.

In Elmwood Park, thefts were reported Dec. 15 from the 2200 block of 75th Court and the 2300 block of 75th Avenue, according to police. In the former, someone took Christmas decorations that made up a nativity scene from the front yard of a home, and in the latter someone took two Christmas penguins from the front yard of a home.

(Via Drudge) I don’t know whether to be appalled at the robbery, applaud it on aesthetic grounds, or go get my own.

I mean: these versions at least apparently GLOW IN THE DARK. Not that I know that these were the penguins that got stolen.

Because there’s just so long I can spend trying to explain to people that arguments that they like are not arguments that everybody else likes.

Anyway… via @seanhackbarth comes this report of the beer of the gods, apparently.

One of the best beers in the world has arrived in Seattle, and it’s about to be tapped. Beer geeks are probably hyperventilating now. Some will likely — cough, cough — call in sick so they can stand in line and wait for the bar to open.

You haven’t heard about this? That’s because most bars won’t let on that they have this cult beer, Pliny the Younger, from Russian River Brewing Co.

[snip]

Pliny sold on Craigslist and eBay for about $150 per growler (about 4 pints).

At $37.50 a pint, it had better be.

And it is a meltdown.

For those coming in late, let me summarize*: both Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry have been excluded from the Virginia Republican primary by the Virginia GOP. This has placed the VA GOP in an awkward situation, given that: they have excluded the current national and Virginian front-runner from their own ballot; have currently no write-in option on the ballot; do have an open primary that anyone can vote in; and generally have created an environment peculiarly suited for conspiracy theories involving Mitt Romney (and ones that won’t contain the word ‘Mormon’ anywhere in their description, by the way). The current defenses to all of this are “rules are rules” and “any campaign that couldn’t follow them are by definition poor campaigns:” I will leave it to the individual reader to decide just how either argument will play in, say, Peoria; I am frankly of the opinion that the above defenses are well-suited towards reassuring Romney and/or Paul voters – and will do very little to persuade the other 60-65% or so of likely Republican primary voters.

But since I’m telling Mitt Romney what won’t help his situation, it kind of behooves me to tell him what might.

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