Month: November 2011

#rsrh #ows This is what incompetence looks like.

Oh, this is entertaining: remember that video showing the Occupy Colorado Springs people being made to look even more like fools by Gov. Hickenlooper (D, darn it)?  Well, it turned out that the guy who shot the original footage that Verum Serum grabbed-and-edited is an Occupier, and he was not happy that we were all laughing at the superior intellect.  So, he went for a copyright take-down*.

Unfortunately for Mr. Occupier, one of the first things that the VRWC learned when we started up with this activism thing was this: Get a camera.  Get lots of cameras.  Film everything.  And lo! – somebody else was filming this event.

 

I believe that the technical term here is ‘pwn3d.’

Moe Lane

*Suuuuure.  Now they care about private property.  Doesn’t information want to be free, Michael Clifton?

Shame?  Me?  It is to laugh.

#rsrh Barack Obama has lost Tina Brown.

This transcript/video from Newsbusters is fascinating, in its way. Seeing Tina Brown say:

I think that Obama doesn’t like his job, actually. I think that he is genuinely of a professioral disposition in the sense that I think that he’s interested in chewing over the pros and cons, and he doesn’t like, he doesn’t like power and he doesn’t know how to exercise power. And I think knowing how to exercise power is absolutely crucial. He doesn’t understand how to underpin his ideas with the political gritty, granular business of getting it done. And that kind of gap has just widened and widened and widened. And so that every time there is a moment, a window where he can jump in, like something like a Simpson-Bowles as well, he just doesn’t do it. He hangs back at crucial moments when you have to dive through that window.

…was fascinating, mostly because it represents a not-insignificant portion of the liberal establishment quietly washing their hands of the President.  Mind you, it’s also nonsensical in one particular area: of course Barack Obama likes power.  You don’t run for the job for two years unless you like power.  What’s happened here is that Barack Obama is simply a complete incompetent when it comes to exercising power, mostly because he had absolutely no experience in it prior to 2009.  No experience, no particular work ethic, and no external forces willing to give him negative feedback: is it a real surprise, then, that Barack Obama is a miserable failure as President?

Hint: the correct answer is ‘no.’

(Via AoSHQ & Instapundit)

Moe Lane

PS: Ahem. “I told you so.”

#rsrh Republican political activists, please watch this video…

…and take notes.  As Jonah Goldberg notes, this is what democracy looks like:

For those without video: Governor Hickenlooper of Colorado (Democrat, alas) shut up local Occupiers by letting them whine for enough time to annoy the crowd… then put the question of whether the Occupiers should be allowed to continue to a vote.  The crowd, of course, then promptly voted for the Occupiers to shut up, with shouts of “We are the 99%!” made to speed them on their way.

It’s a shame that a Democrat came up with this technique first, but I certainly hope that nobody reading this is so foolish as to disdain a clever technical coup simply because somebody from the Other Side came up with it.

Whither Occupy? (Probably not the ballot box.)

What a shame.

This New York magazine article on the Occupy movement is interesting, and that’s not a euphemism: author John Heilemann is not only aware that the supposedly leaderless movement has plenty of self-appointed (and I’d add, ‘imposed’) leaders to it, but he’s even willing to admit to it in writing.  Heilemann also has some pretty good insights on the Occupy movement, and the Democratic establishment, and how the two are, ah, ‘interacting.’ All in all, it’s about as fair-minded an article as you could hope to get from somebody who is sympathetic to a movement that thinks that the act of defecating on police cars is a valuable addition to public discourse.

And yet: the following bit of advice on what the Occupiers’ long-term goals should be is, well, poor. Continue reading Whither Occupy? (Probably not the ballot box.)

#rsrh Sean Trende buries the lede on the Teixeira/Halpin report…

…sure, he straightforwardly demolishes those two’s latest attempt to resurrect the rapidly-cooling cadaver known as the “Emerging Democratic Majority” (short version: the demographic trend is not automatically the Democrats’ friend).  But Sean unaccountably hides the real news: he’s got a book coming out next month.

I don’t buy political books, but I’ll buy The Lost Majority: Why the Future of Government Is Up for Grabs – and Who Will Take It. Sean Trende was the first guy I can think of who was patiently explaining that: a, the Democrats were likely to lose the House in 2010; and b, passing Obamacare would not save them from that fate. In other words, somebody with a pretty good track record right now.

How to support your local blogger this holiday season.

Well, at least the ones that are affiliates with Amazon.com  (ahem): if you need to do Christmas shopping and you’re doing it through Amazon.com, find a favorite site that has an Amazon.com link up and click through.  It puts a little referral money in your favorite blogger’s pocket and doesn’t cost you any extra.  In fact, if you do it often enough, it might, say, bump up a blogger’s percentage of the take up a half-percentage point or so before the end-of-month reset.

You know.  Just saying.

Moe Lane

PS: This is non-ideological advice, by the way: if you’re a netrooter reading this site out of hatespite, keep in mind that all but the very largest Lefty blogs are practically starved for revenue.