Month: October 2010

Silent Star Wars.

Normally I wouldn’t post this, although it’s quite good:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOjzLggAKis&feature=player_embedded

…because normally I wouldn’t have anything to add to this. However, when I tracked down the creators of it I was shocked to discover that I actually comprehended large sections of the text, even thought it was in French. This astounds me: I have always considered myself to be awful at foreign languages, to the point where I seriously wondered whether there might be actual burned-out circuits in my head, or something. Apparently, three years of Latin and one semester of Spanish had more effect than I thought.

Still can’t speak any foreign language to any extent worth a tinker’s dam, of course.

Moe Lane

Boehner bar the door.

Cute bit of political theater, here.  The short version is, House Minority Leader John Boehner brought the GOP caucus together and shook ’em until three million dollars fell out; coupled with the million that he’s donating from his own campaign funds, that’s four million that’s going to the NRCC, just in time for the fall election cycle.  That should fund a bunch of races.

I’m noting this for a few reasons.

  • First: it amuses me.
  • Second: it’s interesting that they were able to get to three million in about thirty-five minutes; that was obviously set up ahead of time, but it’s still nice to see.
  • Third: contrast to the DCCC’s recent curious worries in getting outstanding dues out of its own members.
  • Fourth: admittedly, the reason for the difference between the second and the third points is that more than one-third of the House Democratic caucus have competitive races this year, while barely one-tenth of the House Republican caucus does.  And that those numbers are getting worse for the Democrats for the last two years.
  • Fifth: did I mention that I find this amusing?

It’s odd to think of the Democrats being short of cash at this point in the game, but they are, aren’t they?  They don’t have enough to protect everybody, and if they guess wrong, they waste what they have.  Heck of a thing to have to worry about, no?

Moe Lane (crosspost)

British environmentalists: murder children for a Greener tomorrow!

“Good God.  It’s like running ads for the Holocaust.”

That was one of my colleagues’ reaction when he saw this “No Pressure” video put out by British environmentalists, which is… hideous. As in, ‘they started by blowing up two children in a crowded classroom for not wanting to bike to school’ hideous. As in, ‘they splattered the other children with blood and viscera’ hideous. As in, ‘the Greenies themselves are reportedly hunting down and erasing all examples of this video on Youtube’ hideous.

None of the above is figurative, by the way. Put another way: DO NOT WATCH THIS ACTUAL, REAL, NON-SATIRICAL COMMERCIAL AT WORK.

H/T: Hot Air Headlines, but I don’t know if they want the credit for that. This was some pretty vile… stuff.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

#rsrh Rahm Emanuel ‘not eligible’ (finger-quotes) for Chicago mayor’s race.

I’m putting up the finger-quotes because, well, he’s eligible.  I know that this Burt Odelson fellow – who I don’t know anything about, pro or con – is stating that Rahm Emanuel is ineligible on residency requirements (H/T: Hot Air Headlines).  More details here: the short version is that Emanuel’s house has been rented out, the renters don’t want to leave, so even though Emanuel’s registered to vote and has his car registered to that address he apparently doesn’t meet the residency rules.

How do I put this gently?  The odds of this being used to successfully challenge Rahm Emanuel’s candidacy are not somewhere between “slim” and “none.”   It would be more like somewhere between “none” and “you should be smacked in the face with a halibut for wasting people’s time by suggesting this*.”  It’s fodder for the primary, which he’ll almost certainly win; and it’ll be fodder for the general election.  But I can’t imagine Chicago voters getting too upset about it.

Moe Lane

*Admittedly, a mouthful, even if you don’t swallow any of the halibut.

In which I question the Founding Fathers.

Having just watched the DC area freak out yet again over a heavy rainstorm, I am forced to comment: yes, yes, it was important to have the capital city be built from scratch, and in roughly the center of what was then the settled portion of the USA.

But did it have to be in the middle of a freaking swamp?

#rsrh Is Slate memory-holing responses it doesn’t like?

A few days ago I was mean to Slate.com by not only suggesting that the answer to their survey question “If you’re a Democratic voter, what do you hear when the president says, “Buck up”?” should be “It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again;” I passively-aggressively suggested that other people should join in.  Judging from comments, a couple of people felt like this was a fine idea – but as Constant Reader Demosthenes notes here, none of those responses seem to have made it through.  Including, I should add, mine (which I had done from memory, and so had not gotten quite right).

Let me be clear: if the number of people who submitted “It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again” broke double digits I’ll be shocked.  But there were some; and I can’t imagine why it wasn’t at least mentioned.  After all, it’s just as true as “f*ck off” (without the asterisk), which was a very popular cross-spectrum choice.

Very odd.  Kind of funny, though.

Moe Lane

PS: This is about the level of caring that I plan to expend on this, by the way.