Month: January 2010

What Hath Breitbart Wrought?

This sentence from the latest PPP Brown/Coakley poll jumped out at me:

Overall 25% of voters in the state think ACORN will mess with the Senate election while 38% don’t and 37% are unsure.

Tom Jensen’s been making a good-faith (and I think, largely successful) effort to keep his own political bias out of his firm’s polling, so I don’t blame him for not pointing out that this means that almost 2/3rds of the population of Massachusetts is willing to believe that ACORN could be planning election fraud.  In Massachusetts.

Mr. Breitbart, take a bow.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Calibration check on Brown/Coakley.

You’re at the MLK Day Breakfast in Boston and the two candidates for Senate are talking.

  • One candidate uses the opportunity to make a stump speech.
  • The other candidate – who did not – later criticizes the first one as being ‘inappropriate.’
  • One candidate ‘received polite, seated applause’ but enjoyed a ‘tepid reception at a stronghold of Democratic politics.’
  • The other is ‘received warmly, shaking hands and taking pictures with well-wishers during pauses in the morning’s event.’

Quick: which one is the Democratic candidate, and which other is the Republican one?

Yes, indeed, we live in interesting times.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

My thanks to E.J. Dionne, Jr.

Specifically, my thanks to him for writing this article, which starts with an alleged 2008 conversation that he had with two ‘Republican’ financial experts:

…one offered a dire and uncannily accurate forecast. He explained why banks would blow up, investments would crash and the federal government would have to spend “at least $300 billion” to bail out financial institutions.

The other financial expert listened closely, took a sip from his drink, and smiled. “This,” he said, “would seem like an excellent time for the Democrats to take power.”

I agree: it was an excellent time. After all, it’s their fault that we’re in this mess in the first place. Remember Burning Down the House? – because it’s an excellent time to revisit it, too. It’s a bit long; but think of it as a tutorial for helping you learn to deprogram some of your mugged-by-reality colleagues and friends.

It didn’t resonate in the 2008 election cycle… but, hey: it’s 2010 now. You better off now than you were in 2006?

Moe Lane

PS: Dionne’s valiant attempt to pretend that nothing negative about the current economy – nothing at all – should be laid at the feet of the current ruling party has been both duly noted and mocked.

Crossposted to RedState.

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia…

(Via @CalebHowe) What did you do in a previous lifetime to deserve this, AG Coakley?  Drive a bus full of kittens and baby harp seals off a cliff?

…then you know we have a lot of digging to do, but some work needs to be done and this president’s in the process of doing it and we need to get Marcia Coakley to help him to do that.”

(Curiously, [Rep Patrick] Kennedy [D, RI] mentioned Coakley repeatedly during his remarks to reporters, each time referring to her as “Marcia,” not “Martha.”)

‘Curiously?’  I can think of at least three reasons why it wouldn’t be, and one of them doesn’t even imply a substance abuse problem on Kennedy’s part.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

I am back from Daybreakers.

[UPDATE]: Like Jimmie, Those Who Hunt the Night would make for a good flick.

Assessment: not half bad. It had a 1950s Atomic Horror-style cheerful disregard for basic science – essentially, it waved its hands and chanted ‘classic vampirism is an infectious disease, and never mind all the supernatural elements’ three times while turning widdershins – but that was OK: it’s a horror flick with an action-movie flavor, not District 9.  The costumers did a nice job, as did the people in charge of thinking up all the little details of a world run by vampires for vampires.  Gory as all get-out, but it’s a vampire flick, so, well.

Also: expect sequels if this movie makes enough money.  Actually, the concept would make for a decent weekly television series…

Quote of the Day, Jules Crittenden edition.

Harsh:

Kristol at the Weekly Standard wonders whether [President Obama will] take the high road, and repudiate his party’s rape smear, or let it stand. Judging by his lack of interest in repudiating racism smears except in the mildest and lowest profile terms possible, I’ve gotta go with let it stand. Because Obama of all people understands this isn’t about Scott Brown, it isn’t about Martha Coakley, it isn’t about the Democratic Party, it definitely isn’t about fair play or the people of Massachusetts, and it really isn’t even about health care, either. It’s about him.

…but then, this is the world that we all live in now.

Crossposted to RedState.

Word of the day: ‘Anatine.’

It means ‘like or of a duck.’  This is the result of a discussion between my wife, myself, and the newborn:  we needed to work out what was a more highfalutin word for ‘ducklike’ –

Because ‘Defeat him, my ducklike minions!’ doesn’t have the right sound to it, of course.  This was a conversation between me and my wife, remember?

– and so, we had to reverse-engineer on the spot back from the Latin word for duck (anatis, which we looked up).  As ‘ursus’ (bear) becomes ‘ursine’ (bearlike) and ‘leo’ (lion) becomes ‘leonine’ (lionlike), we assumed that ‘anatis’ would become ‘anatine’ – and lo!  It did.  And if you don’t like it, I shall unlease my new anatine minions upon you.

See?  Much superior.

Moe Lane

PS: ‘Crustacean minions’ is already sufficiently awesome that I don’t really need to come up with an alternative, but I appreciate your input.