Uncategorized – Page 79

To quote the original: “Fire glass produces more heat than real wood, and also is environmentally friendly. There is no smoke, it’s odorless and doesn’t produce ash. You are able to stay toasty warm without cutting down trees and the specially formulated glass crystals give off no toxic deposit.

Main Benefit: That shit looks like sorcery.”

Report: Syrian chemical weapons appearing in Hezbollah caches.

(H/T: Instapundit) I am back-and-forth on how seriously to take this particular story:

Two days after a mysterious explosion at a Hezbollah weapons depot in southern Lebanon, the Kuwaiti website Al Jarida is reporting that Israel bombed the site because Syria had transferred missiles there that were capable of being equipped with chemical warheads. The missiles had been moved into Lebanon from Syria in the last several months and were being held inside warehouses owned by farmers in the area.

The report also claimed that Hezbollah has many additional warehouses across Lebanon that are used for the same purpose. In October another weapons storage facility in the town of Baalbek was destroyed after an explosion. The AFP said that four Syrians were killed in the blast.

…given that I’m not familiar with either the website in question, or the site that it’s drawing its story from. On the other hand, reports that Syria is using Hezbollah as a storage facility for its weapons of mass destruction have been circulating for years. Haaretz reported something similar happening in 2009; the Washington Post, of course, had a column on the subject a couple of days ago. On the gripping hand, if I was running the Syrian regime right now I’d want to have my WMD stockpiles under the control of somebody reliable… and when you’re dealing with a civil war, ‘somebody reliable’ often means ‘somebody you’re paying.’ So it’s not really surprising that the Assad regime would move its nasty stuff to someone who’d hold onto until it was needed – and maybe supply a little WMD blackmail against the West on the side, if that was needed.

Continue reading Report: Syrian chemical weapons appearing in Hezbollah caches.

Calfornia Democrats about to get their equivalent of the 111th Congress.

I do not see how this could possibly end badly for the state of California: “With a Supermajority, California Democrats Begin to Make Plans”

The Democratic Party has controlled the California Legislature for a nearly unbroken stretch of 42 years. Yet control goes only so far: it takes two-thirds of the Legislature to enact a host of important legislation in this state, meaning that even the diminished Republican Party has been able to easily frustrate Democratic ambitions.

But with a swell of electoral victories in November, the Democratic Party has now crossed that boundary and controls two-thirds of both the Senate and the Assembly, giving it the kind of unfettered power that no party has had here for 80 years.

Continue reading Calfornia Democrats about to get their equivalent of the 111th Congress.

“The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas To You).”

The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas To You), Nat King Cole

Republicans retain control of New York State Senate!

Sort of.

How did I ever miss this? From the National Journal:

After weeks in which control of the New York state Senate was uncertain, the group of breakaway Democratic senators has struck a deal with Republicans to share control, the groups announced Tuesday.

The agreement means that the Independent Democratic Caucus will have formal recognition as a permanent third conference in the state Senate. Dean Skelos, the GOP Conference leader, and Sen. Jeffrey Klein, the IDC leader, will share “joint and equal authority.” The title temporary president will alternate between the two men every two weeks.

Continue reading Republicans retain control of New York State Senate!

Michigan to be scene of the Right-to-Work War of 2013?

It’s an interesting situation up there in Michigan: as the Detroit News rather sourly notes, the Republicans control the legislature and the governorship, while the extremely-Big Labor-friendly Proposal 2 went down in flames (58/42, not that the Detroit News wanted to mention that statistic). This opens up the possibility of right-to-work legislation being introduced in either the current or the next state legislative turn; it also opens up the virtual certainty of a Big Labor response that will make the Wisconsin recall meltdown look like… well, I was going to write ‘a petulant, foot-stamping, and ultimately impotent temper tantrum conducted by spoiled brats with no conception of how the world really works,’ except that that was what the Wisconsin recall meltdown really was. Anyway, it’ll be worse in Michigan. To the point where things may start actually be set on fire.

But does it matter? …Maybe not. Consider the chart below:

State	Sen	House	Cong
MI	N/A	-4	0
OH	0	1	0
WI	3	2	0

Continue reading Michigan to be scene of the Right-to-Work War of 2013?