Month: August 2009

Movie of the Week: Call of Cthulhu.

It being Wednesday, we say goodbye to Coraline as Movie of the Week. A judicious amount of luck, patience, and willingness to give a new Amazon bookseller a shot allowed me to acquire Thomas Harlan’s Land of the Dead at enough of a discount for me to actually afford it, so we’ll celebrate the occasion by declaring The Call of Cthulhu to replace it.

Yeah, Harlan’s writing Mythos books. I’m also starting to suspect that so is Charlie Stross, with his Merchant Princes series.

The Washington Post discovers fiscal responsibility.

The Washington Post, alas, gets this editorial wrong in the very first sentence:

NO ONE LIKES to be the bearer of bad news — especially when it could threaten your multibillion-dollar health-care reform bill.

Come, I will conceal nothing from you: considering the amount of time that the Right’s bloggers, pundits, and legislators have spent explaining why the Democrats in Congress needed to institute a Stop spending money we don’t have, you idiots policy, well.  We do live here, too, so our liking is hardly unalloyed – but we did say that this wasn’t going to work*.  Moving on:

And so the Obama administration did not exactly rush to publish yesterday’s required mid-session update to its federal budget estimates of last February. Still, once the numbers finally emerged in the dog days of August, they retained the power to stun: Instead of a cumulative $7.1 trillion deficit over the next decade, the White House now projects a $9 trillion deficit. These figures imply average annual budget deficits greater than 4 percent of gross domestic product through fiscal 2019, a rate of debt accumulation faster than projected GDP growth. This is not a sustainable fiscal path.

Continue reading The Washington Post discovers fiscal responsibility.

Irony: Democrat begs for civility while attacking Republicans.

Double irony: the author called the piece “Their Own Worst Enemy.”  In a world where 58% of the population wants the Democrats to abandon their policy of freezing out the GOP on health care, Dan Gerstein writes an article with sidelong sneers like these:

…against the exaggerations and fabrications (which, no doubt, have been manifold and damaging)…

…But much as the Republicans have gamed the issue…

…listen to what the non-screaming skeptics are saying…

…is as much a canard as Palin’s phony claims about death panels…

…call it Bush’s revenge…

…so much of what has come out of Congress is every bit as partisan and one-sided as the last eight years…

…the main change has been to go from one extreme to the other…

…yes, they [Republicans] are being opportunists and obstructionists…

Triple irony: Gerstein will undoubtedly not understand why his ever-so-civil outreach will be unfavorably received by the opportunistic, obstructionist, extremist, Palin-loving, canard-screaming game-playing partisans that he’s trying to oppose.

Own worst enemy, indeed.

Moe Lane

PS: Yes, I’m often rude about my ideological opponents.  I’m also not trying to get anything from them, either.

Crossposted to RedState.

Rasmussen: 24% of voters want Democrats to go it alone.

You can say a lot of things about this Rasmussen poll on health care rationing (and, if you’re a Democratic politician, most of them will probably be scatalogical):

If Democrats agree on a health care reform bill that is opposed by all Republicans in Congress, 24% of voters nationwide say the Democrats should pass that bill.

But a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 58% believe the Democrats should change the bill to win support from “a reasonable number of Republicans.” Nineteen percent (19%) are not sure what congressional Democrats should do.

…but here’s one thought that might escape notice: remember how, last year, there was a lot of confusion about which party was actually running Congress? Well, I think that we can safely assume that this is no longer an issue for the Republican party.  Which is funny, because trying to figure out how to make that fact of life clearer was a big problem for us last year…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

I suggest a radio collar.

It’s the only way to be sure.

Bolingbrook hiker rescued in Alaska — again — after journey into wild

[snip]

“If police see me (hiking) in the woods, they’re going to arrest me,” a rueful [Don] Carroll said during a cell phone interview Tuesday.

It was the second time this summer that Carroll had to be rescued. He got lost in June after climbing Mount Healy in Denali National Park.

“The chief ranger said he’s not going to come looking for me anymore,” Carroll said.

I don’t begrudge money to park rangers and/or rescue programs, but when you get lost in the woods for the second time through lack of planning you are, indeed, what @eddiebear said.  Hence the radio collar: because I don’t think that you can quite count on this kid to bring a GPS unit the next time he goes outside…

Moe Lane

My only (hopefully) comment on Kennedy’s death.

My father – who was a Boston Irish Catholic, union Democrat – once threw Teddy Kennedy out of a bar.  Not the absolute highlight to what was an adventurous and full life for Dad, but a memory that he would take out and admire, from time to time.  And probably embellish, as the years went on, but that happens with oral traditions.

Ouch, Glenn.

That is precisely the sort of one-sentence, mass review that Thomas Friedman – or any other author – never wants to see while eating his cornflakes.

Have I no shame?

What’s ‘shame’?

Moe Lane

PS: See how nice I was by not commenting on the underlying story?

Reward me for it.

Well, I guess that Wednesday is Demanding Day, here at Chez Moe Lane. At least until the coffee finishes brewing.