Month: May 2009

North Korean nuclear test successful?

Well, they’re claiming that it was, and there’s evidence that it happened in the form of an earthquake,so that’s how everyone is betting.  Japan is calling for an emergency UNSC meeting; South Korea, dealing simultaneously with this and the suddenly-more-murky suicide of its former President, is doing the same.  The White House hasn’t put up the President’s official statement on this yet, but you can read it here – it differs from the White House statement in 2006 most notably in its unconscious reliance on the UNSC to resolve this situation.  Also missing is any indication that the President has personally consulted with our allies in the region, but no doubt he’ll address that when he holds a press conference this morning on the North Korean crisis.  Note that I am merely assuming at this point that there will be one, and that it will take place before noon.

Meanwhile, John Bolton predicted that this test was going to happen last week; he also noted last week that the administration wasn’t taking the possibility of a second test all that seriously.  Compare the White House statements from today and 2006 again and ask yourself, Which one sounds like it was written by people taken by surprise? Also ask yourself, Is Bolton right when he suggests that not taking even a soft line on this will merely encourage North Korea – and Iran – to proceed?

Please also note that we are in a situation where two of the biggest current, active, and intractable threats to world peace are rogue nations simultaneously pursuing nuclear weapons and missile technology.  Successful creation of both will put at immediate risk our regional allies; allies that we have spent a lifetime cultivating; and who are genuinely alarmed at the activities of their neighbors.  And in both cases, the enemies of said rogue nations were picked for essentially irrational reasons, meaning that normal rules of deterrence may or may not work.

Meanwhile, President Obama wants to gut missile defense programs*.

Um, no.  That’s stupid.

Moe Lane

*Via FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog, via Michelle Malkin.

Crossposted to RedState.

Lileks watches ‘100 Mysteries’ so we don’t have to.

Many of them… well, many of them are awful. Lileks’ reviews of them are not. The links are messed up in places, so just back-click when you’re done with one and go to the next one.

Note: he’s about 1/3rd through, and has found about four or five or so so far that are worth watching. Which is about three or four more than what I personally expected.

The Democratic Virginia primary continues to not surprise.

(Via Jen Rubin) With two weeks left in the Virginia Democratic primary, the failed DNC chairman from New York is still ahead of both the corrupt brother of an anti-Semite and the guy who keeps hitting people with his car (thanks, Jim Geraghty), but the guy with the car is coming up fast:

Raleigh, N.C. – The only candidate who has moved forward in the last two and a half weeks in the Virginia Democratic contest for Governor is Creigh Deeds, but Terry McAuliffe continues to hold a solid overall lead.
McAuliffe is at 29%, followed by Brian Moran and Deeds tied at 20%. PPP’s most recent previous poll had McAuliffe at 30%, Moran at 20%, and Deeds with 14%.

Meanwhile, the brother to the anti-Semite and the guy with the car are both going after the failed DNC chair, presumably because they’re worried that Bob McDonnell may not have been keeping proper notes, or something. Continue reading The Democratic Virginia primary continues to not surprise.

So, I guess that I have to go see Terminator Salvation.

Come, I will hide nothing from you: I never saw Terminator 3, because it looked really stupid. Apparently, everyone else agreed – including Cracked.com, which displays its baffled love for all things Terminator-y with these sentences:

For a quick idea of the [Sarah Connor] Chronicles timeline, imagine every single Doctor Who, drunk, on pogo sticks. And half of them are killer robots. And please convince someone to make that movie.

Also included there is a timeline of the Terminator franchise (absent the Sarah Connor Chronicles); for more in that vein, complete with extra pound-your-head-against-the-wall action, see here.

Moe Lane

‘Shatnerquake.’

Via Glenn Reynolds.

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Shatnerquake

From the product description:

William Shatner? William Shatner. WILLIAM SHATNER!!! It’s the first ShatnerCon with William Shatner as the guest of honor! But after a failed terrorist attack by Campbellians, a crazy terrorist cult that worships Bruce Campbell, all of the characters ever played by William Shatner are suddenly sucked into our world. Their mission: hunt down and destroy the real William Shatner.

[pause]

I roll to disbelieve.

Moe Lane

PS: Of course it’s the goram Book of the Week.

Gov. Pawlenty Mousetraps the DFL.

Made it look pretty easy, too.

See, this is how you do it.

Governor Pawlenty has been stuck with a Democratic-controlled legislature that in more or less stereotypical fashion has been ignoring the fact that we’re in the middle of a very nasty recession; they’ve been trying to boost both taxes and spending, and Pawlenty kept telling them ‘no.’ So, the state legislature attempted to, as Kimberly Strassell put it, ‘run out the clock’ and put the governor in a position where he’d have to call a special session to get a spending bill that he wouldn’t be able to veto.

Alas for the Democrats: live by legislative maneuverings, die by them.

Upon receiving the last spending bill, [Pawlenty] announced that he would exercise the power of “unallotment,” which has been on the books since 1939 and which has been used four times. Under it, the governor is allowed to “unallot” (take away) any state spending for which there is no money to pay. Panicked, the DFL passed tax legislation to cover its blowout spending bills, 10 minutes before the session’s end. Too late. The governor said he’d veto the bill and would not be calling back the legislature to do any more mischief.

Mr. Pawlenty is now free to strip $2.7 billion from state spending to balance the budget. Tax hikes are dead.

(See also Hot Air.)

The Democrats are making the usual fake-populist sounds about blaming the governor for any cuts in spending – which would be a lot more impressive a threat if it wasn’t as inevitable as the sunrise – and the governor is remarkably and pleasantly uninterested in worrying about whether the Other Side is whining about him. What’s more important from Pawlenty’s point of view is that he now has the ability to not only halt spending in Minnesota, but reverse it. And he’s apparently willing to let the voters in Minnesota decide whether doing so was the right call.

Works for me. Good job, Governor Pawlenty.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Be grateful the RNC didn’t call her ‘Miss Moneyspendy.’

Although I plan to email them about that.

Nothing much happened yesterday, huh? Aside from a lot of people yelling over this rather innocuous ad, apparently:

Allahpundit and Legal Insurrection I’ll forgive: they’re merely offering tactical advice, not taking seriously Lefty faux-outrage currently being cataloged (along with other reactions) by The Other McCain, Little Miss Attila, Protein Wisdom, & The Sundries Shack. Personally, I’ll start taking said Left-outrage more seriously when they start reacting to attempted media rapes of conservative female public figures in any way besides helping to pin the victim’s shoulders to the table.

Oops, did I just type that out? I guess that means that a bunch of online would-be pundits who stood up and cheered when their side beat feminism to death with a tire iron as part of their winning Presidential election strategy won’t like me any more, then.

Gee.
Darn.
Shucks.

Moe Lane

PS: If you don’t like the way that we mock the Speaker of the House for being not only a liar, but a stupid liar, here’s a thought: replace her with someone who isn’t a stupid liar.

Crossposted to RedState.

Latest spambot trick*: reproducing comments…

…already made (and in this site’s case, approved) but with a different link to the homepage. Plus, added text at the end of a complimentary nature. I guess that the assumption is that the webmaster will either ignore it, overlook it, or assume that the comment didn’t go through the first time.

Fascinating, the things that people will do to sell various pharmaceuticals. Particularly one specific type; which for the life of me I can’t understand why it would need any advertising at all…

*Well, it’s the latest trick to me.