Month: September 2009

Peter Dreier staples one hand to forehead.

Delicacy prevents me from commenting about what the other hand is apparently doing.

(Via Hot Air Headlines) I don’t know what’s funnier about this particular ‘first-they-came’ piece from HuffPo:

  • That the author apparently seriously expects people to believe that ACORN, SEIU, the Apollo Alliance, the Center for American Progress, the Sierra Club, the National Organization of Women, ‘community organizers,’ AFSCME, the National Council of La Raza, the NAACP, the ACLU, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the National Council of Churches, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the AARP, the Teamsters, the Catholic Worker, UNITE HERE, the Immigrant Solidarity Network, the National Education Association, the U.S. Student Association, and/or the American Association of University Professors are not part and parcel of the Democratic Party;
  • Or that the author apparently believes that Big Business, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Lou Dobbs, the Religious Right, the Wall Street Journal, Mitch McConnell, and/or Karl Rove can agree on anything, down to and including what time it is.

It’s like these people want to imagine a boot stomping on their faces – forever.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Outrageously outrageous outrage* of the day: Rush Limbaugh electric car edition.

Rush Limbaugh drives over Al Gore. Twice.

Which is a sign of professionalism, actually.  As Hot Air’s own commenters note, most of us would have spent a considerably longer time running over the Cubslayer’s cardboard cutout. This makes more thematic sense: hit it once, back up and hit it again to make clear that this was deliberate, then go back to the race. And then wait for the gallant defenders of the helpless cutout start up… and never mind that 3/4ths of the complainers have watched Death Race 2000, cheering.

Although it occurs to me that they might not.  After all, they have a clip now of Rush Limbaugh liking an electric car.  Based on past experience, I believe that this earns him an indulgence from the Online Left on anything up to barratry (naval definition).

Moe Lane

PS: I’ll take electric car advocates seriously when they start talking about how it’s a matter of vital national energy security to muzzle the anti-nuclear power fanatics.

*Stolen from Allahpundit.  I think.

Crossposted to RedState.

White House still on track for not closing Gitmo.

They’ve got a deadline coming up, but the Democrats are confident that they can let the clock run out without actually closing the facility that they’ve carefully turned into the symbol of all American governmental evil over the last eight years. It’ll require a tremendous amount of baldfaced lying and epic-level hypocrisy, but the Democrats are up to the challenge. They were born for this.

Still, don’t worry: it’ll still all be Bush’s fault.

White House Counsel Gregory B. Craig, who initially guided the effort to close the prison and who was an advocate of setting the deadline, is no longer in charge of the project, two senior administration officials said this week.

Craig said Thursday that some of his early assumptions were based on miscalculations, in part because Bush administration officials and senior Republicans in Congress had spoken publicly about closing the facility. “I thought there was, in fact, and I may have been wrong, a broad consensus about the importance to our national security objectives to close Guantanamo and how keeping Guantanamo open actually did damage to our national security objectives,” he said.

I wait with baited breath for the day that this administration announces that the stubborn patch of crabgrass on the White House lawn is due to Republican operatives sneaking onto the grounds at night to spread seeds. My best guess? Probably May of 2011. They’ll announce it on a Friday, so as to distract from explaining why they still hadn’t closed Gitmo, repealed DoMA, or ended Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

The aforementioned sestina.

Fun to write – despite my complaints – but you have to be in the SCA to get all the references.  I’m loading this one up so that it’ll pop into existence once the person for whom it’s written has discovered that she’s being elevated to the peerage.

Some folk might think this choice of song
Was oddly chose, and strangely made;
For when it’s used to honor Muse
It’s picked by those who’d sing of love.
The choice, I’d say, is good and right:
I sing of love – love for her beer.

Though beer – yes, even Laurel’s beer –
Might not be seen as worth a song,
It is a truth that that’s not right;
For there is Art in things well-made
And every Art that’s made with love
Is worthy subject of a Muse.

It’s also known that when bards muse,
Our weighty words are borne by beer,
So those who craft the drink we love
Know well their Art did fuel our song;
Although the music we then made
Was sung in keys that were… not right.

Besides: what is the proper, right
And pious way to call the Muse?
When Greeks a pantheon they made
No place was set for Muse of beer.
And so was lost devoted song
That might have praised this brew we love.

So it is luck to find that love
Of goodly beer can fuel a song;
It lets us set the scales a-right,
For though no hops may wreathe a Muse,
We are inspired by goodly beer,
And through its boon our songs are made.

And now, as well, a Laurel-made
This happy day, with all our love.
Not just for cunning skill with beer
Has now her status been made right.
Though long-delayed, we must all muse –
The wait was shorter than the song.

A Peer is made; I think it right.
May she serve muse with hoppy love!
Done is my song.  Where is the beer?

I am not doing a sestina again any time soon.

Medieval verse form. 39 lines. Has to use the same six end words through out, in a pattern like so (reading downward):

1 6 3 5 4 2
2 1 6 3 5 4
3 5 4 2 1 6
4 2 1 6 3 5
5 4 2 1 6 3
6 3 5 4 2 1

So, yes, you have to find a new way to use six different endwords in each stanza.  It ends with a 3-line envoy that uses 5,3,1; or possibly 5(2), 3(4), 1(6). It’s all in iambic, of course: either pentameter or tetrameter.  The technical term for the entire process is ‘one big pain in the ass.’

But it’s in the can.

The Burlington Township S.D. response on the ObamaHymn (Copy-edited.)

I haven’t been paying that much attention to this “Hymn to Obama” thing – but, ye gods and little fishes: surely they can find a Superintendent of Schools with a working grasp of the English language. I couldn’t stop wincing.  And eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore.

Mind you, the explanation is still exceptionally mendacious.  But at least now it’s a lot more grammatical about it.

Moe Lane

September 24, 2009

Dear Burlington Township Families:

Today we became aware of a video that was had been first placed on the Iinternet which has been and later reported in by the media. The video is of a class of students singing a song about President Obama. The activity This took place during Black History Month in 2009, which is recognized each February to as part of our honoring the contributions of African–Americans contributions to our country. Our curriculum studies, honors, and recognizes those all who serve our country. Both tThe recording and distribution of the class activity were unauthorized.

If you have anyone has any further questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me either myself, or Dr. Principal King, Principal of B. Bernice Young School, directly.

Sincerely,

Signature of Dr. Christopher M. Manno

Dr. Christopher M. Manno,
Superintendent of Schools

Crossposted to RedState.

It’s not that the teeth don’t move; it’s that the head doesn’t.

From this week’s UN PR fizzle, this slideshow.

Barack Obama’s amazingly consistent smile from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.

(pause)

Well, that’s certainly one definition of ‘working stiff.’

Thank you, I’m here all week! Try the veal!

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.