May 2011 – Page 20

Meet the sand dune lizard.

Cute little guy, isn’t he?

Well, for a lizard. He’s also known as the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard; this endearing little critter is native to the American Southwest. Specifically, eastern New Mexico and West Texas. This is what the lizard’s preferred habitat looks like:

Notice what’s missing? Oil derricks. You see, the favored habitat of the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard also happens to be a favored habitat of the Domestic Production Crude Oil Rig: the US Fish and Wildlife Service plans to declare the former to be an endangered species, and you know just how this story ends, right? Continue reading Meet the sand dune lizard.

#rsrh Iconic. Australian, but iconic.

Tim Blair found one heck of a contrast:

Speaking as somebody who is firmly in the ‘we’ camp, it’s interesting how attitudes can… subconsciously sneak into a narrative, yes?

Via Instapundit.

Moe Lane

“Fortunate Son.”

Fortunate Son, Creedence Clearwater Revival

Let’s use that video I did in 2009, simply because it amuses me to do so. Not least because there’s an awful lot of Democrats in it who inexplicably aren’t in Congress anymore…

#rsrh Conservatives win majority in Canada.

Apparently Canada has this thing where you don’t actually get told how many seats flipped nationwide, but the word is that current Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party of Canada will have an outright majority, which is not something that can be counted on in parliamentary proceedings.

Entertainingly, this election came about because the opposition parties forced a no-confidence vote. Oops?

Moe Lane

PS: Yes, I know that ‘Conservative’ in Canada means something a bit different up there than it does down here. Still a neighbor and a major trading partner, eh? Worth reporting on, and all that.

#rsrh John Ensign’s last day is tomorrow.

…You know, I was going to throw down the snark on this one, but forget it. I’m glad that he feels bad about the adultery and the possible cover-up and everything – especially since he was one of the guys going after other Senators for ethically iffy behavior, too. I hope Ensign learns the right lessons from this.

One of which would be, Stay out of politics from now on.

Moe Lane

#rsrh QotD, Remember the Important Stuff edition.

From Michael Yon (H/T Instapundit):

Six years ago today, an apparent al Qaeda suicide bomber killed a little girl named Farah. Maybe it was in the name of justice that Osama bin Laden’s dead body was dumped anonymously at sea on the same day, on the anniversary of Farah’s loss.

Indeed.

#rsrh Now I have an iPad2. #p2

HO HO HO.

Hey, the doorbell just rang. What could it be?

Could it be? Could it be?

It is, it is! It’s my pledge drive iPad2! A day early, too.

Again, I’d like to thank everyone involved for said pledge drive: but there’s one person in particular that deserves special attention…

Continue reading #rsrh Now I have an iPad2. #p2

Daily Caller: was Yucca Mountain shutdown lawful?

The DC has the scoop*: Congress is now investigating whether the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) actually had the authority to unilaterally shut down the Yucca Mountain nuclear storage facility without Congressional authorization, given that Yucca Mountain was authorized under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. Furthermore, there are now serious questions about whether the NRC’s leadership – and, by extension, the Obama administration – is ignoring the actual science of the situation in favor of petty and crasss partisan politics.

This is the key paragraph, I think: it describes the background to the sudden quashing in November 2010 of a safety report on the facility.

Dr. Janet Kotra, the deputy office director responsible for drafting the [Yucca Mountain] safety evaluation, known as the Safety Evaluation Report (SER), wrote in an internal memo that [NRC Chair {and Reid crony} Gregory] Jaczko unilaterally instructed his staff to “move to orderly closure of NRC’s Yucca Mountain program.” This is despite the fact the Nuclear Waste Policy Act remains in effect and the full commission has yet to rule on whether the Department of Energy can legally withdraw the license application.

Continue reading Daily Caller: was Yucca Mountain shutdown lawful?

Good post here from Academic Elephant…

…over what the whole thing means. Read it. Personally, I’m just going to put up two things about Osama bin Laden, and then hopefully go back to my life:

First: This is going around the VRWC, mostly because we don’t care who you are, it’s as funny as hell:

…Yeah. Nothing personal, Donald, but that was what the folks in the carny trade call a ‘blow-off.’ I don’t think that you’re going to be able to trump that one.

Continue reading Good post here from Academic Elephant…

#rsrh We are a gentle people. (Language warning)

[UPDATE]: The original is down, but thanks to RCP it’s been replaced with another video of the proceedings.

Truly. We have a world hegemony, yes – but compare our hegemony to that of Assyria’s, Rome’s, Europe’s, or even England’s, and it is a profoundly light one. We have our country, and it’s quite large enough for any reasonable people, and so we’re out of the habit of directly acquiring any spare bits of real estate that may be lying around unattended. Honestly, the only reason that we even retain a hegemony that we don’t particularly want is that there’s nobody else out there that we quite trust enough to do the job as well as we do. And here is the proof of the pudding: when things turn bad, people instinctively run towards the American soldiers on the scene. That’s because the entire world has internalized the notion by now that what the USA truly excels at is killing monsters. In short, we really are the good guys.

Fuck with us, though…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-GTUyUNVjE

…and you won’t go home in a box. Not when there’s a perfectly good ocean, right there.

Moe Lane