Day: June 20, 2009

:Looking at the ice cream story:

:Looking, primarily, at CBS’s priorities with regard to the ice cream story*. Not to mention Knoller’s reaction to the horrified reaction on Twitter:

:pausing:

To Hell with it and Knoller: I’m going to go find a drink.

Moe Lane

*Frankly, they’re the ones that should be getting lambasted most right now on this.

Crossposted to RedState.

The Real-Time Dracula.

Now this is a clever idea: Dracula Feed is posting every day of Bram Stoker’s Dracula on the day that it actually happened in the book.  Said author can get away with that because a), the book is written in an epistolary style (i.e., it was written out in the form of collected letters and statements*); and b), the book is public domain.

Should be fun. Also: I recommend, if you haven’t read them already, Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula and Fred Saberhagen’s The Dracula Tape, both of which work with the existing Stoker novel in new and interesting ways. I’d say ‘transgressive,’ but one would mock me, and the other would come back from the grave to beat me senseless.

Moe Lane

*Which was, if I’m remembering either my English Lit classes or Stephen King correctly, was considered slightly archaic when Stoker wrote the novel.

‘Secrets of the Blog-Fu Temple Cult.’

Somewhat ironically, given this passage from this The Other McCain article:

Wise men may observe that sensei Moe Lane has never published a book called Secrets of the Blog-Fu Temple Cult. Nor will he ever, not even posthumously. Hell’s bells, if I had an infallible formula for political success (please note the hypothetical), I’d be afraid even to write it on a cocktail napkin, for fear it might accidentally be published and deprive me of future opportunities for free lunches.

…but I actually am putting together some thoughts on the topic of the practical aspects of blogging: I’ve been doing it since 2003 or thereabouts, after all (mostly on RedState, of course). I was planning to give a brief talk on the subject at August’s RS gathering, in fact – which I don’t think is too much of a security risk, given that you have to pay to get in.  That is, assuming that I can get the money together to go…

Hint, hint.

Moe Lane
PS:  If the talk works out, I may try to reprise it for RootsHQ.

Crossposted to RedState.

Here comes a VAT for health care?

Turning to domestic news for the moment (and as a distraction from my worries, frankly), I see via @mkhammer that a value-added tax is on the Democrats’ horizon, the better to pay for free health care*:

Unlike a sales tax that applies only to the point of purchase, a VAT taxes the value added at each stage of production. Thus, if the VAT rate is 5% and a producer of raw materials, a manufacturer and a retailer each add $1.00 of value to a product, then each owes the government five cents.

A source close to the Ways and Means Committee said House Democrats may be considering a VAT of 1% to 1.5%. That could raise $70 billion-$105 billion annually, based on calculations from a Con gressional Research Service report.

[snip]

A VAT would be a major headache for President Obama, who has consistently pledged not to raise taxes on 95% of Americans. Republicans are sure to portray a VAT as a violation of his vow.

Well… yes. That would be because it is a violation of his vow.  It’s hardly the GOP’s fault if the President’s electoral strategy wrote checks that his governing methodology can’t cash… yes, yes, Top Gun put it better, but then Top Gun had the advantage of F-14 / MiG dogfights.  At any rate, there’s no earthly reason why we should avoid bringing up a broken promise just because nobody believed it anyway; if this administration wants to avoid facing the consequences of its rhetoric, it is perfectly welcome to take more care in the crafting of it.

Moe Lane

*There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. And that’s a book that I heartily recommend, by the way.

Crossposted to RedState.

‘Don’t tell me words don’t matter.’ #iranelection

It’s not just us who listen to our broadcasts, you know.

President Obama argued yesterday that there is little difference between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi on policies critical to the U.S.

“It’s important to understand that although there is amazing ferment taking place in Iran, that the difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as has been advertised,” the president told CNBC.

Via @allahpundit.


Continue reading ‘Don’t tell me words don’t matter.’ #iranelection