Early night – and a lot of thanks to everybody who helped out with the end-of-quarter fundraising* – so we’ll end with this oddly apropos song.
All She Wants To Do Is Dance
Just saying.
Moe Lane
*Not that people should stop, or anything.
Month: June 2009
The Perfect Storm of Cap and Trade.
So, let’s review.
- Via Little Miss Attila, we see that getting cap-and-trade passed in the Senate is seen as being… problematical.
- Via Instapundit, we see that Al Franken is now officially the junior Senator from Minnesota. That, of course, makes sixty.
- Via Hot Air, we see that the netroots are threatening to go on Crusade against the Democratic party if the Democrats don’t start using their clear mandate to do everything that the progressives want them to do.
- Via Ace of Spades HQ, we see that Gallup is reporting that the public’s perception of the Democratic party have just flipped, with a plurality of the population now thinking that the party is too liberal (for the first time since 1996).
- Via Rasmussen, we see that a plurality of the population doesn’t like this bill (41%) and doesn’t think that it’ll help the economy (42%). That’s a lot of earth traitors.
- And, oh, yes: the GOP flipped the generic Congressional ballot again – although that last will probably bounce back and forth for a while.
Yeah. This is going to be an interesting July.
Moe Lane
Crossposted to RedState.
Bamboo. :Trembling hands: Effing. Bam. Boo.
There are two types of people in the world: people who have never had to deal with bamboo on their property, and lucky people. You can tell the first because their reaction to this (via Instapundit):
Can American Farms Make Bamboo the Next Big Cash Crop?
Could the Mississippi Delta become America’s bamboo belt, the breadbasket of a new class of homegrown structural building components? Earlier this June in Greenville, Miss., a group of engineers, manufacturers, bureaucrats and farmers gathered to discuss how land formerly cultivated for cotton might be converted to produce bamboo on a massive scale. Teragren, the world’s largest bamboo building products manufacturer, has engineered new structural joists made of imported Moso, a bamboo species with the tensile strength of steel. Teragren VP Tom Goodham says a domestic Moso source is the key to renewable structural timber becoming mainstream and affordable: “The whole bamboo building-products category is just on the cusp of critical mass.”
…was probably the same as mine: a slow-motion scream of “NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO” and an instinctive look around for a flamethrower. Trust me. Don’t plant bamboo.
Don’t plant bamboo.
We once had to clean out an old infestation of the stuff, which survived weed killers, herbicides, other chemicals*, machetes, power saws, and plowing up the ground and sowing it with salt. Yes, we actually salted the earth. It didn’t work. We eventually got it under control by hacking away everything above ground level, laying down a tarp, covering it with half a ton of rocks – and then spent the next couple of years hunting down and cutting away every shoot that penetrated the covering. I warned the guy who bought the place from us about the bamboo; I don’t think that he was listening. I don’t know for sure, because I wasn’t about to go back.
Don’t plant bamboo.
Moe Lane
*Which did not include Agent Orange, but only because I didn’t have any.
Also, this movie
[UPDATE]: Vladimir in comments reminds me that this is not the first time that I have fulminated about the Demon Bamboo.
In other news, they released Senator Byrd…
…from the undisclosed hospital where he was being treated:
After several weeks of hospitalization for a staph infection and recurring fevers, Senator Robert C. Byrd has been released and is recuperating at home, his office announced in a statement today.
The West Virginian Democrat, who turns 92 later this year and is the longest-serving senator, will continue to receive physical therapy at home. “I am pleased to be home in anticipation of celebrating our Nation’s birthday with my loving family,” his statement read. “I also thank everyone who sent me their good wishes and prayers.”
As someone noted to me privately: at his age, something like this means the Senator’s either recovered, or he’s dying. Policy differences aside, I hope the former, but a little more than suspect the latter.
Moe Lane
Crossposted to RedState.
They apparently mainstreamed SF conventions a little since I’ve attended them.
Either that, or Australian SF conventions are a bit different than American ones.
Why not? Everything else is.
Moe Lane
PS: Nah, she’s right: basic ethnic similarities aside, she doesn’t look all that much like Boomer
Why you should be taking advantage of this NRCC offer.
Let’s start with the NRCC’s incentive program for last-minute 2Q donations that they announced yesterday:
Every dollar you give through tomorrow, June 30th, will be quadrupled. So if you give $5, we’ll make it $20. If you can afford $25, we’ll make it $100.
That’s four times the impact of a normal contribution, and it will be put to immediate use replacing Pelosi’s puppets in Congress with principled, conservative Republicans.
At this point, somebody has reflexively started a very long comment on why this offer should be ignored. While he’s writing it, let me explain why you shouldn’t. Continue reading Why you should be taking advantage of this NRCC offer.
My own, personal 2Q fundraising deadline.
Sounds pretentious, yup – but what the heck. Today’s the last day of the second quarter, and the RS Gathering (July 31 – August 1) is rapidly beginning to loom. I’m about 1/3rd of the way there to being able to pay for the hotel and airline fare, so feel free to hit the tip jar:
What? Alas, no, very few of us in the VRWC get paid for doing this stuff. My job is being a stay-at-home dad; rewarding work, but not particularly subsidized. so… no travel budget, no expense account, everything’s pretty much out-of-pocket. [Shrug] Such is life.
Moe Lane
What the Brevity Act tells us about public moods.
Seeing this proposed 28th Amendment to the Constitution from Big Hollywood (H/T: Instapundit):
No law, bill, resolution or any act of Congress shall exceed 2000 words, including all footnotes, amendments and signatures. Congress shall not vote on any item longer than that. Each item requiring a vote shall be read aloud in its entirety in session to a majority of members. Those not in attendance may not vote on the item.
…I’m reminded of this bit from Robert Heinlein’s Expanded Universe
“It permits a citizen to challenge the Constitutionality of any law or regulation, Federal or any lesser authority, on the grounds that it is ambivalent, equivocal, or cannot be understood by a person of average intelligence. Paragraph two defines ‘average intelligence.’ Paragraph three defines and limits the tests that may be used to test the challenged law. The fourth paragraph excludes law students, law school graduates, lawyers, judges, and uncertified j.p.’s from being test subjects.”
Fascinating to contemplate, no? Also, exceptionally unlikely to happen any time soon. But that’s not precisely the point. The point is that when people start talking about changing the Constitution like this, what they’re really saying is “I’m getting sick and tired of the idiots running things right now.”
Let those in power with eyes to see not see this, and not understand – for they are not of my political party.
Moe Lane
PS: I don’t know: how many people like Bob Gale are out there? Guess we’ll just find out, huh?
Crossposted to RedState.
Robert Gibbs and the Carpetbag Steak.
Sort of like a point/counterpoint.
Palate cleanser, as Allahpundit likes to say.
It’s bad when the White House press pool can’t keep a straight face.
Anyway, you’ll need a palate cleanser in order to properly appreciate this recipe for carpetbag steak (via @EdDriscoll). I don’t even really like oysters, and this sounds tasty.
Moe Lane
Crossposted to RedState.
Paul Krugman: 40% of America currently traitors.
(Via Sister Toldjah) We should never have let Paul Krugman fester behind that TimesSelect subscriber wall. It broke something inside of him:
But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases.
And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.
Now, I’m not one who would normally get into a man’s religious beliefs, but any faith that requires you to anathematize what was at last count 40% of the population* as ‘traitors to the planet’ seems to be a very silly faith for a pundit to have, or at least espouse openly. For extra irony? I’ll bet you that if and when Krugman gets muttering drunk, one of his favorite topics of slurred discussion is probably a tirade on the subject of the perfidy of fundamentalist Christians.
Moe Lane
PS: Sister Toldjah has more at the link on the topics on the peculiarities of Krugman’s faith, the sudden permissibility of defining dissent as treason, and this administration’s own War on Science. No reason to reproduce her work. Continue reading Paul Krugman: 40% of America currently traitors.