Odd thing about the Fuller Memorandum.

It would seem that The Fuller Memorandum – which is, of course, the latest volume in the Cthulhu-meets-mathematics-meets-spy-fiction series by Charles Stross – is not supposed to be out until July 6th.  But, of course, that doesn’t mean that the book magically pops into our reality on that date: it has to be printed ahead of time, which means that it has a tangible physical existence.

And that means that it has to be shipped to bookstores before the official publication date.

And sometimes they screw up, and put one copy in the relevant genre section.

And sometimes a person is walking through the relevant genre section in that magic golden hour between somebody screwing up, and somebody noticing the screw-up.  On the off chance that something like this could happen.

And sometimes that person notices the book, grabs it without breaking stride, and heads for the register.

And sometimes that person buys the book, and gets away clean.

Not that I’d know anything about that, of course.

Moe Lane

Breitbart: 100K for the Journolist!

I believe that it was Tom Clancy who noted that (back in the Cold War era, at least) the CIA was always prepared to spend real money when purchasing treason. Apparently, would-be agents simply assumed that the decadent capitalist Western spy agency would offer money as a matter of course, and the CIA didn’t argue with them; it wasn’t as if Communist subjects ever had a really good idea of what the actual market value was for the intelligence that they were selling, and the American public at the time wasn’t really inclined to quibble. Or even care. And so we paid, if not top dollar, more than most for useful information.

I mention this because Andrew Breitbart decided to have him some fun:

I’ve had $100,000 burning in my pocket for the last three months and I’d really like to spend it on a worthy cause. So how about this: in the interests of journalistic transparency, and to offer the American public a unique insight in the workings of the Democrat-Media Complex, I’m offering $100,000 for the full “JournoList” archive, source fully protected. Now there’s an offer somebody can’t refuse.

That is, unquestionably, the most diabolically clever thing that I’ve seen all week. And I’m preemptively including the rest of this week, too: this will be hard to top.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Patrick Gaspard’s $37K disclosure form lie.

It’s not the lying, really:

President Barack Obama’s political director failed to disclose that he was slated to receive a nearly $40,000 payout from a large labor union while he was working in the White House.

Patrick Gaspard, who served as the political director for the Service Employees International Union local 1199, received $37,071.46 in “carried over leave and vacation” from the union in 2009, but he did not disclose the agreement to receive the payment on his financial disclosure forms filed with the White House.

Continue reading Patrick Gaspard’s $37K disclosure form lie.

Now THAT’S what I’m talking about.

(Via Bankofkev) It’s never going to show up over here in a format that I can comprehend, but that’s all right. It exists. It will be enjoyed by somebody.

That’s enough.

Moe Lane

PS: Yeah, the trailer quelled my fears. Continue reading Now THAT’S what I’m talking about.

The Dodd-Frank procedural dance.

OK, here’s the situation on the Dodd-Frank financial bill.  The Democrats need 60 to get it over the finish line, and they currently have 58 Democrats in the Senate. They got 60 aye votes on the first version.

  • Senators Feingold (D) and Cantwell (D) both voted against Dodd-Frank last time.
  • Senator Brown (R) voted for the first version, but is being reported now as having switched his vote to ‘no’ over the last-minute addition of new taxes to the final version (H/T: Instapundit).
  • Senator Collins (R) also voted for the first version, and is likewise balking over the new taxes (no commitment).
  • Senator Snowe (R), who also voted for the first version, is sounding iffy on voting for this one, again because of the new taxes.
  • In other words: one switch to no and probably a second.
  • Senator Grassley (R) is about the only remaining potential pickup (he voted for cloture), and he won’t commit to signing off on the final version.
  • And, of course, Senator Byrd died last weekend.

Continue reading The Dodd-Frank procedural dance.

#rsrh Crazed Sex Poodle Does San Diego!

[UPDATE]: I see I’m not the only one who picked this new nickname for Al.

And my, but how the media hungry have fallen.  The newspaper calls this speech to a crowd of HR people a ‘rare public appearance’ for the C.S.P.:

Little has been seen of Gore in the past several weeks since confirmed reports of a split with his wife, Tipper, and after allegations surfaced that a 54-year-old masseuse in Oregon reported Gore made unwanted sexual advances toward her in 2006 and accused him of being “a crazed sex poodle.

“While 10News cameras were ushered out of the Convention Center by members of Gore’s camp prior to his speech…

Bolding mine (and as soon as I remember where I saw this first, I’ll H/T it).  Used to be that the most dangerous place in the world to be was to be between the Cubslayer and a video camera.  But one report of begging to have one’s second chakra released, and all of a sudden Al Gore’s imitating Howard Hughes… yeah, I know:  “All of a sudden?”  I mean to say, he’s more public about it now, if you’ll pardon the irony.  Or is that sarcasm?

Moe Lane.