Month: December 2010

OK, this Hollywood Ninja thing…

…that Assassin’s Creed 2 seems to be grooving off of – seriously, look at the costume:

…anyway, since apparently this costume is now MAKING IT EASIER FOR THE GUARDS TO NOTICE ME it’d be really, really helpful if I could take the damned thing off and replace it with, I don’t know, CLOTHES THAT DO NOT SCREAM OUT “HI. I’M THE GUY THAT HAD TO RUN FROM THE EXECUTION OF MY FAMILY THIS MORNING AND JUMP INTO THE RIVER TO ESCAPE.”

I also want to take the player’s guide and use it to beat the people who wrote the player’s guide. I spent twenty bucks to have a handy cheat sheet for the PC keyboard commands. Don’t tell me “Buy an XBox controller” and expect that to be an answer.

Moe Lane

PS: I did enjoy swaggering around Florence like a… heh, like a Renaissance Italian noble scion with a certain grand indifference for propriety. And the architecture and costumes look pretty good.

Potemkin Villages of Democratic faith.

This New Republic article on the Democrats’ abrupt loss of religious voters suffers from a fatal flaw: it’s all ‘how,’ and no ‘why.’  Despite the slightly breathless tone of the author, the ‘how’ is both obvious and not particularly surprising: from 2004 to 2008 the Democrats actively went out and told voters that liberalism and religious belief complemented each other.  The Democratic party spent a good deal of money and resources on that message, and it paid off in 2006 and 2008.  Since that point, the Democrats have effectively stopped their religious outreach except among African-American voters – and their support among religious voters has effectively cratered.  That’s the ‘how.’

‘Why’ is more interesting, though.  It is significant that liberal religious outreach requires constant funding and attention to get anywhere among American voters; it at least implies that the entire thing is a highly artificial construct that is not capable of independent, organic growth.  It is also significant that the organizational structure of the Democratic party was apparently deeply institutionally hostile to the continued development of this particular special-interest group (religious progressives): the entire edifice apparently depended on no more than half a dozen people keeping fairly specific jobs in the party hierarchy, and when they went elsewhere, nobody was permitted to really take their places.  Take those two points together and it is not unreasonable to conclude that there is something in either the Democratic party’s organizational structure or its ideology that is at best indifferent, and at worst actively hostile, to religious sentiment; and, given that the predominant element in both is liberalism, it does not seem unreasonable to conclude that perhaps it and religious sentiment do not complement each other.

There is some evidence in favor of this statement.  At least, on the street level – which is where the work’s being done.  Or, in this case, where the work isn’t being done; and is fact instead being curb-stomped.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

You’d play this.

(Via Hot Air Headlines) At least, those of you who play video games would play this.

Don’t try to lie about it, either.

Moe Lane

PS: I’m pretty sure that it’s not real.  Which is a pity: I need a new waiting-for-Dragon Age 2 game, now that I’ve done my third run-through of KOTOR 2 and have decided that I have no interest in a Dark Side run.

#rsrh Shocker: Keith Olbermann a petulant man-child.

I just got sent a link to this Salon article about how Keith Olbermann threw a fit – and please note that while I am not claiming that foaming at the mouth and loss of motor skills/bowel control was involved, neither would I be surprised if it occurred – over the way that people reacted to his reaction to the entire Julian Assange rape allegations thing.  Apparently he quit Twitter in a huff – which is a weird thing to write about a supposedly adult man, but what the heck.

Moving away from the Assange issue itself, what strikes me about this article is the way that the author presents her conclusion that Keith Olbermann is inherently childish, elitist, and untrustworthy almost as if this was not already known about the man.  I assume that this is because said conclusion was a genuine revelation to said author; which suggests to me that the Left really needs to get out more.

Moe Lane

PS: Oh, Keith?

Moo.

5 (or 6) Democrats kill DREAM Act in Senate.

Which is fine by me – but before the Left starts screaming, maybe they should talk to their own side. The final cloture vote was 55 to 41, with the following Democratic Senators voting against the DREAM Act:

Mark Pryor
Jon Tester
Max Baucus
Kay Hagan
Ben Nelson

Where I come from, 55 + 5 = 60, or enough to pass a cloture vote.  Three Republicans voted for cloture, so there was enough of a margin for Democrats.  Guess Harry Reid didn’t want this bill badly enough…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Hot Air says add Joe Manchin to the list.

…Crud. [UPDATED]

I had to pull the post that was here originally: it turns out that it was based on an article that relied on the illegal dissemination of material declared classified by the US government (the article was from a foreign paper, which gives them some cover).  That’s the annoying thing about Wikileaks and other anti-American organizations; they taint everything that they touch.

Moe Lane

PS: Shoot, I don’t even feel comfortable offering hints.

[Update]: On the other hand, if the person involved is claiming that Wikileaks is publishing faked classified material, well…