Month: November 2009

Bill Sparkman’s death a suicide?

Via Hot Air, a report that the Bill Sparkman investigation may be taking an unexpected turn:

Investigators probing the death of a Kentucky census worker found hanging from a tree with the word “fed” scrawled on his chest increasingly doubt he was killed because of his government job and are pursuing the possibility he committed suicide, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press.

Two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case, said no final conclusions have been made in the case. In recent weeks, however, investigators have grown more skeptical that 51-year-old Bill Sparkman died at the hands of someone angry at the federal government.

Obviously, the most important thing to find out here is the truth.  I admit to a little concern here: if investigators are not finding evidence of a political motivation for the killing, it doesn’t necessarily follow that Sparkman wasn’t murdered.  The circumstances of the man’s death always seemed at least a little ritualized; I’m hoping that the investigators are being very careful about not prematurely coming to a conclusion.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

At least the horse was legal.

Yes, I went there*.

CONWAY, S.C. – A South Carolina man caught on video having sex with a horse was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison after pleading guilty for the second time in two years to abusing the creature.

[snip]

[Rodell] Vereen was arrested in July after Barbara Kenley caught him entering the barn at Lazy B Stables in Longs, about 20 miles northeast of Myrtle Beach. She had been staking out the stable for more than a week after setting up a surveillance camera and videotaping Vereen’s assault on her 21-year-old horse named Sugar.

Be grateful: I was originally going to sardonically note the difference between ‘buggery’ and ‘bestiality,’ except that apparently the former can be used in a legal context to refer to acts usually associated with the latter. I am proud to note that I did not know this before I saw the link via AoSHQ Headlines…

Moe Lane

*Joke shamelessly stolen from Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask)

Sen Roland Burris (D-IL) advocates death penalty for non-insured!

…alternatively, he’s just dumber than soap.  From a CNS interview (H/T: Instapundit):

CNSNews.com: “So, in general, if a person doesn’t want health insurance, do you think they should be required by the government to actually have to get it?”

Senator Burris: “Under state law, we have every one required to have automobile insurance. Now, think about that.

Sure, let’s. You see, ‘under state law’ people are not actually required to have automobile insurance: people are required to have automobile insurance if they want to own a car.  So, either this is not a good analogy – which means that Senator Roland Burris is dumber than soap – or it is a good analogy; which would mean that he thinks that people should be required to have insurance if they want to stay alive.  Heaven forbid that I suggest that any sitting Senator could possibly be about as sharp as a sack of wet mice, so I am forced to assume that he’s ready to have the willfully non-insured executed for their crimes.

Also: the Preamble to the Constitution contains the enumerated right for Congress to mandate that people buy health insurance!  Except that it’s only visible to people using those special glasses that Ben Franklin made…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Roy Edroso’s trolling? Possibly not.

Contra Don Surber & Glenn Reynolds, every time I’ve seen one of Edroso’s posts break out of the cocoon it’s been because he’s made an elementary and mockable research error*.  On the other hand, that might be just his particular method of getting hitcount.  On the gripping hand, the Village Voice obviously doesn’t care, so why should we?

Is this worth putting on RedState?  Nah, probably not.

Moe Lane

*I’d say that it was a badge of honor, except that it’s not like we’re talking A-List here.  Even by the Online Left’s more… flexible… standards.

Subtract out the ‘massive amounts of self-loathing’…

…at least, for the right-side*; and also subtract the ‘drinking too much**.’ So that leaves ‘horrible sleep habits‘ as being part of the ‘political blogging lifestyle,’ too.  I’d also note that Total Immersion In The Snark is also a trait that political bloggers and webcartoonists share, but then: that’s true for Internet denizens in general…

Moe Lane

*We’re actually quite chipper, over here. Not least because it absolutely infuriates some of our perpetually pinched-face analogues on the Other Side. They’re not happy (and never will be), so they’re kind of ticked that we aren’t even more miserable.

**Dammit. Ach, well, it’s not like I’m 25 anymore. Or even 35.

Politico compares Obama to Bush.

Or, the bloom is off the rose.

So, Axelrod’s trying his best to convince people that the fact that independent voters in two states won by Obama broke heavily for the Republican gubernatorial candidates is much less important than a three-point win in a district where conservatives made it clear that they’d rather lose than not be listened to by GOP party leadership.  His best is actually not all that great, given that he’s suggesting (of all things) that candidates next year embrace the President – just like Bill Owens did!  Yes, and just like Jon Corzine did, and just like Creigh Deeds did; so this was sufficiently eyebrow-raising that the Politico was nigh-forced to editorialize:

The cheerful public line from the White House carried an echo of Obama’s immediate predecessor, George W. Bush, another president whose political operation reported sunny skies no matter the weather.

It’s bad when they compare you to Bush.  Although it’s also unfair: the previous administration did things.  This one just whines about how hard it is to do them.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

CBO scores the GOP health plan.

Here’s the main takeaways from the CBO analysis:

  • The total cost to the taxpayer would be 61 billion (as Hot Air notes, this is opposed to the 1.2 trillion of taxpayer money that the Democrats want to spend).
  • The plan will essentially keep the total percentage of insured individuals at around the current percentage of 83% (The Democrat’s main selling point on their version is that it will insure 96% of the population – including illegal immigrants).
  • Premium rates would decrease across the board.
  • The plan assumes tort reform, no government-option health care, and the ability to buy insurance across state lines.

In other words, there is no way whatsoever that the Democratic party in Congress is going to support this plan: it clashes horribly with the current ruling party’s shrill insistence that we are in a dire crisis with regard to health care, which just happens to require a solution that will eventually result in no private insurance and a state-run health care system.  It also directly affects the economic well-being of trial lawyers, which will hurt that group’s ability to make political contributions, which will hurt the Democratic party.  So, expect to see much made of the fact that the GOP plan will not expand coverage, and a good deal of pounding the table and shouting about deficit reductions.  Expect to not see much made of the fact that this plan will mostly leave people – and their bank accounts – alone about their health care decisions…

Moe Lane

PS: Twelve hour online GOP health care forum starts at 1 PM.

PPS: You should be up to page 1,062 on the Democrats’ health care rationing bill by now.

Crossposted to RedState.