Month: May 2011

MAJOR Democratic donor Haim Saban breaks with Barack Obama.

I understand that the White House is now spending my tax money to fund a hack whose explicit job description is to troll important sites on the Internet – including RedState – in order to do instant push-back on various posts. I suggest that said hack cease doing that for a moment, and instead call somebody higher up the food chain right now and let them know that President Barack Obama has a problem.

A real problem.

One of the most important Democratic donors in the past two decades, whose generous contributions helped pay for the DNC headquarters in Washington, D.C., has indicated that he will not contribute to President Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012, because of the administration’s stance on Israel.

[snip]

“President Obama has raised so much money and will raise so much money through the Internet, more than anybody before him. And he frankly doesn’t, I believe, need any of my donations,” said [Haim] Saban.

Continue reading MAJOR Democratic donor Haim Saban breaks with Barack Obama.

#rsrh This Ed Schultz suspension story reminds me… (NSFW)

…of a tale from one of Spider Robinson‘s Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon stories.  It was told by one of the regulars, who had a bad habit of playing tasteless practical jokes (and we’ll tell the rest of this after the fold)… Continue reading #rsrh This Ed Schultz suspension story reminds me… (NSFW)

#rsrh Summing up @jimgeraghty ‘s summing up…

…of Dana Millbank’s article about his Israeli au pair*…

…You know, I can’t remember what I was going to say about Jim Geraghty’s post, past “Jim’s right.”  Probably something along the lines of noting that President Obama’s Jerusalem gaffe was sufficiently egregious that it’s got the head of the DNC whining about how Republicans shouldn’t take advantage of it.  Free hint, Debbie: if you don’t want to deal with the President making ignorant policy statements, then don’t let him make any.  Or quit your job; because we of the VRWC are neither required nor inclined to show mercy to a political opponent simply because he’s a bit of a bumbler with no real feel for his position.

Moe Lane

*Which I am not going to mock; I wouldn’t mind a live-in domestic assistant myself if we had the money and/or room for it, and if you’re going to have one then it makes perfect sense to have one that can field-strip a M-16.

Today is the 50th anniversary of JFK’s moon speech.

With this speech, the USA effectively abandoned any plan to return to the pre-Sputnik paradigm of an orderly and systematic exploration and exploitation of outer space; and confirmed that all of our space infrastructure development would be for specific, one-off Grand Projects instead of for generic, multi-purpose use.  And, oh, yes, that we’d get to the Moon without actually making sure that we would find it easier to go back a second time.

It’s enough to make me wish for a time machine, except that: I don’t speak Russian; couldn’t find Baikonur on a map; and don’t know how to operate a surface-to-air missile anyway.  Still, if that damned beeping ball Sputnik had blown up on the pad in 1957 then maybe JFK wouldn’t have mucked up the American manned space program* so thoroughly in 1961…

(Full disclosure: my wife works in a space-related field.)

Moe Lane

*Which is rapidly becoming the former American manned space program.

I offer a #6 to this list of advice…

…to humanities grad students looking to join academia (short version: either suffer with dignity, cull your herd, or join the Army*):

6. Marry well.  I was an English major in undergrad, and my grad school experience ended… poorly.  Today, I am a respected national political blogger with no outstanding student loans and a bright future!  And do you know why?

BECAUSE I WAS SMART ENOUGH TO MARRY AN ENGINEER, that’s why.

If you can’t manage that, well, electricians apparently make insane amounts of money.  Your English or sociology or interdisciplinary studies** degree won’t help you there; but then, it won’t help you anywhere else, either.

Via Instapundit.

Moe Lane

*The Army’s probably your best bet; aside from everything else, if you’re actually smart they’ll be pretty good about sending you back to school so that you can learn something useful.

**Translation for future generations: this term is semantically equivalent to ‘chronic academic masturbation.’

The Navy versus the Mouse: ‘SEAL Team 6’ trademark battle.

Executive summary: several days after a Navy SEAL team excised Osama bin Laden, the Disney Corporation applied to trademark the term “SEAL Team 6,” on the grounds that there’s money in it it’s an integral and necessary part of the Disney gestalt.  The Navy is… not happy about this, and is pursuing the matter because there’s money in it they wish to keep their personnel from being exploited.  Now, there’s some argument whether or not Disney’s first-come, first-served tactic will prevail against the Navy’s they-actually-have-Navy-SEALs defense; but let us assume for the moment that it is in fact legal for the Mouse to keep the trademark.

But, hey!  Do you know what else would be legal?  Why, repealing the Mickey Mouse Protection Act*, which is currently keeping quite a lot of Disney’s material out of the public domain until at least 2019.  Or just letting that act expire: I’m pretty sure that the Republic can survive having “Steamboat Willie” freely available for public use, and I’m absolutely sure that I could care less if a mega-corporation is inconvenienced by that, considering that said corporation is also willing to try to exclusively profit from everyday Americans’ deep, heartfelt respect for the sacrifices made by our armed forces.

Continue reading The Navy versus the Mouse: ‘SEAL Team 6’ trademark battle.

#rsrh Either Matt Bai is feeling ill…

…or I am.  This makes sense.

…the best presidential candidates don’t start out as fully formed national figures, like a Bob Dole or a Bill Bradley. They evolve to meet the moment by listening to voters in depressing banquet halls and cramped living rooms. They sharpen arguments through endless repetition and find their voices when no one in the press is really listening. They meet adversity and keep on going, because they just can’t imagine living in a world where they haven’t proved the rest of us wrong.

Chances are that one of the candidates you see now is going to look a lot more presidential a year from now than he does today. Republicans shouldn’t underestimate the power of that transformation — and neither should the man they’re trying to unseat.

Oh, there’s the usual condescending from the Left* here, but the core concept is sound.  You’ve got some people hungry for the j0b itself here; which is a refreshing change from 2008, when the guy who won turned out to be simply hungry for the nomination.  At least, that’s how it feels to me now, three years later.

Moe Lane

Continue reading #rsrh Either Matt Bai is feeling ill…

#rsrh A random Witcher monster observation.

The Bloedzuiger‘s habit of releasing a toxic cloud of acid upon demise that not only wounds the Witcher, but every other monster within range, is not a particularly strong Darwinian survival tactic – particularly since it will wound other Bloedzuigers.  You’d think that these things would be able to handle their own stomach reagents.

Also: The Witcher is fun, but it’s also kind of messed up in the head in some ways.  How’s the sequel? – Not that I’m probably not going to buy it anyway.