Month: April 2009

Iowahawk announces winner of the 2009 Earth Week Virtual Cruise-In.

It was a tie for me between the B-17 and the Spitfire – I’m a sentimentalist – but in the end, it was Iowahawk’s contest, and his criteria:

Yet, neither of those yardsticks captures the true spirit of the Cruise, which is really about attitude. It’s that menacing glimmer that warns Gaia: my pimp hand is strong. The sassy insouciance that invites the moralist biddies and prim religious scolds of the green movement to Kiss. My. Ass.

…makes it impossible to quibble with his choice of 2009 Iowahawk Earth Week Virtual Cruise-In Grand Champion Carbonator. It’s a well-deserved honor.

Well-deserved.

Crossposted to RedState.

Al Gore makes a lot of money off of global warming.

A lot of money. As in, his net worth has increased fifty-fold, and that’s not a typo. Gateway Pundit revisits some commentary by Pro Patria about Al Gore’s relationship with Big Green (a good name, that):

So just what has Al Gore gained from his Big Green escapades? According to public disclosure information, Gore was worth somewhere between $1 million and $2 million in 2000. Not quite eight years later, Gore is estimated to be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 million. While I ordinarily would applaud such financial gains from such a short period of time, I can’t help but to question just how it happened. When you look out at what Al Gore has done, it’s evident that he figured out on a way to capitalize on the creation of Big Green while becoming the official doomsday prophet that has helped to build Big Green into the monetary powerhouse that it has become.

That post is from 2007, and the number it mentions was also reported here and here (neither unsympathetically, which is the reason why they were chosen): Gateway Pundit is bringing it up again because Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) had some pointed questions to Mister Gore on his business relationships. Human Events had ten more, all of which should be asked by his supporters themselves, and none of which will be. Note that Blackburn did ask some of these questions; also note that Gore evaded them, complete with that patented “the fools denied my greatness! But I’ll show them! I’ll show them ALL!” smirk that he reserves for situations like this. I have to admit; if this is Gore’s revenge scenario for America it’s going well.
Continue reading Al Gore makes a lot of money off of global warming.

The Georgia Guidestones: a challenge.

To continue in my RPG-themed mood from earlier: if you are a gamemaster and you find that you cannot turn this story into fodder for your next urban fantasy / secret magic / time travel / modern horror / conspiracy campaign, just go ahead and turn in your GM screen now and slink off in shame.

SHAME!

HT: Instapundit.

Moe Lane

PS: What? Oh, it’s clearly the work of secret Japanese zaibatsu who have deciphered the secrets of the ancient Mayans sufficiently well enough to ‘predict’ the next disastrous solar flare in 2012: the languages are all from countries on the Pacific and Indian Ocean Rims, which will be the areas least affected by the flares. In the aftermath, the megacorporations will reveal themselves to the shattered people of the world, and take their rightful place as head of the rebuilding efforts. And if you’re wondering how the zaibatsu know how the flares will happen to go off in time to save these specific areas… well, it turns out that the Mayans had actually worked out a way to set off a solar flare (ancient astronauts, don’t you know*). So the zaibatsu aren’t so much going to ‘predict’ as they are ’cause.’ I’m sorry? Yes, of course there’s a volcano lair. Or maybe the caldera under Yellowstone. More topical. See how easy that is?

*“Aren’t those supposed to be Incans?” “Shut up.”

PPS: Enjoyed that?  Never want to see me do it again?  I take suggestions either way:

Book of the week, plus upcoming books.

And so we remove The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress and replace it with the John Adams biography. But I also want to note that the following three books will be coming out very soon:

…and I’m looking forward to all three.

I finally watched Gamers 2: Dorkness Rising…

One of the people from the Sunday game brought it over, in lieu of us having an actual roleplaying game session tonight; and, yeah, it’s both a perfect representation of how people really roleplay, and why we really roleplay*. Well worth the time to watch.

You shall see no apologies for the ways of my people here; but if you want to figure us out – or you just miss the clatter of dice – check this one out.

Moe Lane

*Because it’s fun, that’s why.

Ten steps for fixing Massachusetts.

They’re all good ones, but #4 resonates:

No. 4: This one is for the Republican party: Run candidates in every legislative district, even if you have to put up the lame and the halt. That was how Tip O’Neill did it in the 1940s – he’d field Democrats in even the most Republican districts, getting the challenger’s name out and waiting for the GOP incumbent to retire or move on, at which point the Democrat would have more name recognition than the new Republican. Every cycle, Tip’s Dems picked off a few more GOP seats. The Democrats finally took over the Massachusetts House in 1946, and haven’t looked back. The other plus: Whenever a summer scandal breaks (think OUI, think young girlfriend working for lobbyist, think money-laundering scheme), the Republicans would already have a candidate in place to take advantage of the anti-incumbent vote.

#4, in fact, has resonance outside of Massachusetts. Frankly, that’s one of the reasons that we won LA-02: if we hadn’t had keeping running candidates there we would have never been able to take advantage of Jefferson’s weakness. Make ’em work for it, and wait patiently for our chance to take the shot. I also like Jules Crittenden’s #11/#1: having these people work part-time appeals on general principles. The less time that they’re there, the less opportunities to spend money they’ll have.

Moe Lane

This would be the point where people tell me that Massachusetts is impossible to reform, impossible to repair, and impossible to flip. So we shouldn’t even think about trying, because we don’t have a chance in heck of doing anything useful.

Funny: that’s what they said about Louisiana.

Crossposted to RedState.

Everybody in the SCA has had this forwarded to them by now.

I forget where I saw this, but it made me wince:

Man attacks cops with medieval battle ax

PANAMA CITY BEACH, FL — Authorities say a Panama City Beach motel guest tried to scare off deputies with a medieval battle ax, a knife and a long sword.

The Bay County Sheriff’s Office reports that deputies responded to the Sting Ray Motel Tuesday morning after management called 911 to complain that a guest was acting strange.

When a deputy stepped out of his patrol car, officials say 33-year-old Terrence Croskery threw a battle ax and then a 6-inch knife through the window of the motel room.

One of the few nice things about the current dispute over the extent of Second Amendment rights in this country is that everybody’s so busy arguing over guns that almost nobody talks about swords, axes, maces, crossbows, bows, and glaive glaive glaive guisiarme glaives*. And those of us that might have such things on the walls, or in our closets, are very happy about that state of affairs; so stories like this don’t help. “Hand-powered” doesn’t mean “free to wave it at policemen,” kids…

Moe Lane

*Classical reference.

Supposedly, some sadists decide to seek a medical career.

Medical field can be draw for sickos who like to hurt, shrink says (Via Fark). If you look at the article, you’ll see that it’s actually not really offering compelling evidence for that; it’s mostly suggesting a reason why the quote-unquote “Craigslist killer” is the way that he is, assuming that the guy that they’re calling the “Craiglist killer” is actually the “Craigslist killer.” I’m a little startled that Fark covered this with an Obvious tag, in fact: as the guy’s own book would book, this isn’t really News.

Then again, being able to replay the song below features largely in my decision to write about this, so there’s that.


Little Shop of Horrors