First off, relax. The movie is old.
Anyway, the quote is below the fold, when the author more or less lost it when having to review said Gor movie. It’s below the fold because the language is just a bit rough… but it’s beauty, in his way. And, speaking as a political blogger… well. We all have our little crosses to bear. Continue reading QotD, Cracked’s Gor Movie Review Edition. (NSFW)
…in order to pursue an exciting career as left center on Hollywood Squares – actually, is that program even still on? No, just kidding: outgoing White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is going to have some nebulous job defending whatever dumb idea the President comes up with that day, just like before – only now Gibbs will be doing it in places where people can actually interrupt him when he says something particularly egregious. In other words, he’s still going to be a dolt, but one who won’t get the same deference that Gibbs is used to getting, thanks to his (soon-to-be-former) position of trust and authority. Something to look forward to*: in the meantime, here’s all the send-off the fellow needs.
A replacement has yet to be announced: but the front runner is probably Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton, who likes to mock crippled war veterans and former POWs. So, really, an appeal to the Democratic activist base there.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
*Also: outside of our somewhat specialized arena, few people know who Gibbs is, and less care. We probably all need to remember that.
So… William Daley didn’t like Obamacare, didn’t like Dodd-Frank, and he’s heavily pro-NAFTA and pro-business.
I think that I may agree with Jen Rubin: maybe he’d like a job as a Republican President’s Chief of Staff? There may be a job opening in 2013*. That he’s even being considered in the job in the first place by a Democrat is a pretty powerful hint about how we’re doing right now. Remember: it’s not what the politicians say, it’s what they do. And right now it looks like what at least one Democratic politician is doing right now is trying to keep from breaking out in fear-sweats.
Moe Lane
*Snark aside, the abortion issue would probably sink that; Daley’s been a little too public on that subject.
Via Instapundit… there are people who actually find this movie from the 1950s funny, and not in a good way.
Umm… it’s not. It’s practical advice geared to kids in order to try to minimize flash burns and cuts from a nuclear blast. That people find it amusing is an indictment of our time period, not theirs.
Moe Lane
PS: Fallout is most dangerous when ingested, breathed in, and/or in direct contact with the skin. If, God forbid, you are ever in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion, cover yourself up as much as possible. I mention this because a lot of people, judging from YouTube, seem to be getting their information on nuclear explosions from video games.
Damned if I know why, but this is the right song for tomorrow’s festivities.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axb2sHpGwHQ
“Come Together,” Abbey Road (Remastered)
[UPDATE] Welcome, Instapundit readers: also, to quote a (Democratic) friend of mine, when it comes to whether it’s stupid-or-evil to quote Stalin… embrace the healing power of ‘and,’ my brothers and sisters.
…pretty much by definition. Communism is by its nature an international movement that rejects the fostering and nurturing of individual national identities in favor of some nebulous transnational ‘class’ struggle: there is no place in the orthodox version of the faith for anything less than eventual world revolution. Although I suppose that you could decide that only a particular racial/ethnic/political group deserved the dubious benefits of Marxism-Leninism: thus creating a sort of national socialism…
…Oh. Right. Commies hate being reminded of that little detail of 20th Century history. Anyway, here’s the video of the Russians looking at Communism in NYC; I admit some admiration at the sight (or more accurately, non-sound) of the cameramen not breaking down in helpless laughter throughout.
Moe Lane
PS: Marxism is intellectualism for stupid people – and, believe me: if you’ve got books by Stalin in your library and you’re using those books to look for ideas… yes, you are a stupid person.
Glenn Reynolds has a very good, very timely article on the subject* that depresses me utterly. Not just because of the subject matter, which is gruesome, but necessary to contemplate. What’s depressing is that I grew up in the tail end of the Cold War, and I remember well drawing overlapping circles on a map of the tri-State area and concluding that there wasn’t a chance in Hell that I could get far enough from the primary blast zones if the balloon ever went up**. I did not mind in the slightest when history appeared to end in 1991.
But history doesn’t end, dammit. And we need to address our lack of a Civil Defense program.
Moe Lane
*The very short version? Unless you’re in the “instant kill” zone of a nuke, if one goes off near you it is a very good idea to duck when you see the flash (thus making you less of a target for the wave of infrared radiation and blast wave of pulverized solid materials that will follow), find cover (thus increasing your changes of surviving the shock waves) and seek shelter-in-place (thus not only avoiding fallout, which is going be highly dangerous; it also will help minimize the confusion and panic that will come in the aftermath of a nuclear strike). The Obama administration is not being goofy by drawing from the 1950s Civil Defense programs; those programs were based on examinations of the aftermath of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, and the conclusions make sense.
**Fort Monmouth. Had the 513th Military Intelligence Brigade at the time. Worth a bomb. Ten miles from my house.
From Joshua Green’s otherwise enjoyably-peeved article (“Strict Obstructionist*”) on Mitch McConnell:
Nobody anticipated the Republican swing only two years later…
That’s a damned lie. The entire party has been planning a “Republican swing” since roughly two seconds after we heard the President tell us “I won.” And Senator McConnell – who I still have some fondness for as a politician – had damned little to do with leading the charge.
I swear to God, these people are desperate to find a Republican leader to attack, once and for all. Can they freaking wait until the primaries are over, at least?
Via Ben Smith.
Moe Lane
Just what every European household needs: heat balls. A German businessman has decided to start marketing the items as ‘small heating devices’ for households requiring additional warmth. Apparently, there’s a perceived need for that in Europe.
Anyway… very ingenious things, heat balls: they work by converting electricity into heat energy, with an impressive 95% efficiency, which makes them perfect for warming specific spots in the house. They’re also absurdly simple to make: glass, tungsten, some argon to keep the device stable – it’s all very cheap to make, particularly since it’s all off-the-shelf technology. Best of all: heat balls fit in a standard lamp socket, which means that you won’t need any kind of special equipment to use them! They’re not perfect, though: the extremely small amount of energy wasted by a heat ball ends up generating photons, which means that you don’t want to look at a heat ball directly. But even that can be mitigated by using exterior shades. Really, on balance it’s a great little device: as Instapundit (H/T) notes, very green.
What’s that? I’ve just described the incandescent light bulb?
Don’t be absurd: the European Union banned those, remember? This is just a heat generator; that’s how it’s marketed, and that’s how it’s being sold. If somebody plugs one in just to generate light, well, that’s hardly the seller’s fault, is it?
Moe Lane (crosspost)
PS: Californians, take note. Heck, Americans in general after 2012.
PPS: Here’s the English-language site. Note that the EU is being called out for its anti-environmental stance on the Heat Ball, by the way.
I think that Daniel Foster over at NRO has a good point, here: a credible threat along those lines is going to force the Democrats to make a lot of concessions. I also think that the tenor of his comments section suggest that ‘credible threat’ is the compromise solution: there is a definite movement out there that embraces a point-blank opposition*. So, Democrats: you can deal with Senator Lindsey Graham; or you can deal with the people who think that Senator Graham is too squishy for words.
Which do you prefer?
Moe Lane Continue reading #rsrh Playing Chicken with the Debt Ceiling.
