They CAN be taught!

Personally, I would have thought that any group stupid enough to send in a blockade runner named after a useful idiot who tried to play chicken with a bulldozer would be unteachable, but score one for the human survival reflex:

Israeli naval commandos seized an Irish-owned aid ship [MV Rachel Corrie] headed for Gaza Saturday morning, officials said.

The Israel military said it boarded the ship by sea with the compliance of the crew 35 kilometers (22 miles) off the Gaza coast.

“As far as I know there was no resistance or violence on the boat,” Israel Defense Forces spokeswoman Avital Leibovich told CNN.

The boat was carrying cement, which is on Israel’s prohibited-substances list: Hamas uses the stuff to build bunkers against the day where the Israelis get tired of Gazan terrorists shooting off rockets aimed at Jewish schoolchildren. Which the people who sent the cement know very, very well.  Nonetheless: well done in learning this stimulus: response thing, peace activists! Your educations continue apace: why, if you keep it up and work at it, you might even someday reach the moral plateau currently occupied by cyanobacteria…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Democratic party abandoning Kendrick Meek in FL-SEN?

Looks that way:

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who left the Republican Party to run for Senate as an independent, has hired a top Senate Democrat’s former chief of staff.

In a just-released statement, Crist announced that his media team will be headed by Josh Isay, who used to work for Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Schumer is a member of the Senate’s Democratic leadership team and once headed the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

More details here (H/T: Hot Air). The company is SKDKnickerbocker, and the anonymous Democrat who noted that this wouldn’t be happening without permission from the White House is quite correct: it wouldn’t be. Naturally, this means abandoning Kendrick Meek (interesting fun fact: he supported Hillary Clinton in the primary), but that’s no obstacle for the Democratic party, particularly since Meek is African-American anyway and thus assumed safe to be imposed upon*. Also naturally, you can assume that Crist will promise to caucus with the Democrats; even more naturally, you can assume that he’ll lie about that, too…

Mind you, all of this assumes that Crist can beat Marco Rubio. Click on that link to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Moe Lane Continue reading Democratic party abandoning Kendrick Meek in FL-SEN?

#rsrh Depressing World Cup statistical news.

From Rasmussen:

A new Rasmussen Reports nationwide telephone survey finds that 66% of Adults correctly identify soccer, or football as it’s known outside the United States, as the sport played in the World Cup competition. However, three percent (3%) say it’s all about baseball, and one percent (1%) each think the international teams will be playing tennis, hockey or golf. Twenty-eight percent (28%) are not sure what sport will be played.

66% is far too high – and we really need to get that percentage of the population who think that it’s a golf competition up. It’s absolutely critical for our long-term national security needs; the more people in this country who don’t have a clue what the World Cup is, the fewer people who will get upset when we get our rears kicked by countries like Costa Rica or Ghana.  Dammit, just because it’s a slightly absurd geopolitical safety valve doesn’t mean that it’s not a real one…

Paul McCartney thinks President Bush doesn’t know what a library is*.

(Via Instapundit) Oddly enough, to find a proper response to this particular absurd exercise in Bush-bashing one need go no further than Doonesbury’s Garry Trudeau (in, admittedly, another set of circumstances completely). If I remember properly, it went like this:

I forget. Was he the cute mop head?

He’s certainly not the bright one…

Moe Lane

Continue reading Paul McCartney thinks President Bush doesn’t know what a library is*.

Proposed Medicare Czar likes pretty, pretty pictures.

Witness this map.

It’s called the Dartmouth map, and as the New York Times and Hot Air notes, it was used by the Obama administration to argue that there were existing inefficiencies in the Medicare system that could be trimmed away, thus permitting a scenario where Medicare funding could be cut significantly while not sacrificing care (indeed, the map’s creators argue that it demonstrates that cutting Medicare will improve care). In fact, Sir Donald – that being the guy who loves the British Health Service to, ahem, death – is particularly enamored of this map:

Dr. Donald Berwick, nominated by President Obama to run Medicare, called it the most important research of its kind in the last quarter-century. In March, in response to the Congressional Democrats who would have otherwise withheld their support for the health legislation, the administration made a promise. It said it would ask the Institute of Medicine, a nongovernment advisory group, to consider ways of putting the Dartmouth findings into action by setting payment rates that would punish inefficient hospitals and reward efficient ones.

Just one small problem: it’s not actually a map of inefficient care. Just expensive care. More from the Times: Continue reading Proposed Medicare Czar likes pretty, pretty pictures.

#rsrh Rasmussen: Toomey back up in PA-SEN.

Well, now we know why the Left decided to start freaking out again about Rasmussen.  In-con-ven-i-ent poll re-sults:

Congressman Joe Sestak’s post-primary bounce appears to over, and he now trails Republican rival Pat Toomey by seven points in the U.S. Senate contest in Pennsylvania.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Pennsylvania shows Toomey with 45% support, while Sestak earns 38%. Five percent (5%) prefer another candidate in the race, and 12% are undecided.

Mind you, I’m not suggesting that anything was leaked, or anything. Just that everybody who pays attention to this sort of thing knows full well that Sestak was scheduled to get a post-nomination bounce; and that the bounce would then dissipate for one reason or another.  Nomination bounces often do because the act of being nominated doesn’t automatically change people’s perceptions of a candidate’s flaws, strengths, or opinions; and while increased scrutiny may increase the number of people who take a second look and end up being impressed, it can also increase the number of people who take a second look and end up not being impressed.  Hence, Sestak’s resetting back to his pre-nomination numbers.

Mind you, it’s a lot easier to scream that Rasmussen is flawed.  Quicker than waiting for November, too.

Moe Lane

PS: Toomey.

#rsrh QotD, Iowa DOOMwatch edition.

On Iowa governor Chet Culver’s (D) steadily-… there isn’t a good word, really.  ‘Eroding’ isn’t dynamic enough and English doesn’t really have a word for the process of explosive decompression.  Anyway, Jim Geraghty sums it up:

If Culver’s approval among Republicans goes any lower, it will be easier for PPP to just list the supporters individually than provide a percentage: “Culver’s approval rating has dropped from 4 percent to Floyd.”

But to be fair: Floyd will be like a rock.

Moe Lane

PS: Terry Branstad is apparently the front-runner for that race. Sorry: this one I’m not really checked out on.