Month: January 2012

Actually, Skyrim’s not half bad.

I played Morrowind briefly, back in the day: it didn’t really appeal to me, for some reason – but this is a good deal better.  My wife also feels that the female characters run a good deal more realistically than they do in, say, Dragon Age 2.

I’d say ‘Check it out,’ except that I’m well aware that doing so would be exquisitely pointless of me. Or redundant.

Ongoing score of the debate.

At the first break: Romney & Santorum winning, Newt got hit a couple of times.

At the second break: dammit, Ron Paul got in some good points. And if this is Santorum’s last debate – it probably is – he’s going out well.

Preemptive comment before the third break: we’re going to lead with a First Lady question.  Nobody’s getting out of that one with their soul and/or dignity intact (and, yes, there really is a The Ron Paul Family Cookbook (December 2009)).  Yup, it was painful.

Last question: “…How you are the most electable?” You have got to be kidding me.

Anyway.  Newt got hurt tonight, Romney handled it well, Santorum had a great debate that won’t matter in the slightest, and Paul was the least crazy that I’ve ever heard him.

…Well, I have most excellent readers.

Thanks to one of them I will now get to have my brain taken over by Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.  Given this primary, that’s probably a good thing.

More seriously: if there’s a site out there that you like and appreciate, by all means, toss it a buck or two on occasion.  My cheerfully mercenary attitude towards filthy lucre aside, there’s a bunch of folks out there who kind of need the money for bills and food; and nobody’s exactly funding political bloggers en masse, more’s the pity.  If you can help them out*, well… hey, I’ve got Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim! I’m good for a bit.

(pause)

Well, a little bit.  “Cheerfully mercenary,” remember?

Moe Lane Continue reading …Well, I have most excellent readers.

Hey, Kindle owners, free book! (Perigee, by Patrick Chiles)

Saw this via Instapundit: a guy’s promoting his first book (Perigee, published electronically) by making it free until midnight tonight.  So if you have a Kindle, or the free Kindle for the PC program, you can give it a shot.  Downloading it now: I’ll let you know how it reads.

You know, if this keeps up Amazon.com is going to end up with a decent slice of the genre fiction market.  Which I’m sure doesn’t bother them in the slightest.

#rsrh Governor Bev Perdue (D, NC) CUTS AND RUNS.

That’s the word: no official confirmation yet, but expect a press conference at about 10:30 or so.

By the way, the sound that you are hearing is the sound of a thousand Democratic political operatives glumly scratching North Carolina off of their ‘in-play’ lists.  In 2008 Perdue eked out a 50/47 win over Pat McCrory (who is running again); since then, of course, her poll numbers have plummeted, the GOP has taken control of the state house, and the ludicrous redistricting of 2000 has been repaired by the new state legislature.  In short: Bev Perdue has presided over the wreck of the North Carolina Democratic party version of the Costa Concordia wreck, and now she wants to just get out and take a taxi home.

And she’ll be joined by NC-13’s Brad Miller, who is unsurprisingly admitting today what was already known: to wit, that the duly-elected state legislature has decided that Miller’s overstayed his welcome in Congress and needs to go home now.  As one of my colleagues has privately commented, the DNC at Charlotte is going to be a wake.

Moe Lane

PS: [UPDATE]: Ed Morrissey helpfully reminds us all that Bev Perdue wanted to cancel elections in 2010. Amazing what the Democrats think that they can get away with, isn’t it?

#rsrh Steve Cohen (D, TN-09) suffers karmic redistricting.

In lighter news: it turns out that Steve Cohen of Tennessee just had a lot of bad behavior on his part over the years… rewarded… by the Tennessee legislature.  While the federal redistricting process from Tennessee didn’t look particularly unusual at first glance (the 7R/2D Congressional split after the last election was more or less locked in by the process), it turns out that the state legislature’s new Congressional map removes switches out a bunch of Democratic voters used to Cohen for a bunch of Democratic voters who are not – and that part of the voters being moved include a key voting and fundraising bloc (Memphis Jewish voters) from Cohen’s district.  If you’re wondering why that’s important, it’s because Steve Cohen is a white Democrat who has been representing a majority-minority district since 2007… and every primary election since then has been vicious.  Extremely vicious.  So much so that his likely primary opponent this go-round (Memphis Urban League leader  & school board member Tomeka Hart) is apparently planning to play it a good deal smarter: which is to say, a good deal less race-baiting.  Which, paradoxically – and coupled with the aforementioned switching of voters around – could seriously threaten Cohen this time.

Personally, I think that Steve Cohen deserves to get destroyed in the primary: he’s a nasty man who tells vicious lies about people who saved Jews from the Nazis (no, I haven’t forgotten this one).  It may take ten more years to root him out of that district, but I’ll see the bigot gone at some point, and then I will cheer.  And I applaud the Tennessee state legislature for giving us all some hope that it will happen this year…

Hypocrisy Watch: Obama’s office staff owe $834K in back taxes.

Note the term ‘office’ staff: I’m comfortable in assuming that the general White House staff – the cleaners, cooks, gardeners, handymen, and whatnot – are all careful to make sure that their taxes are paid up.  If only because the President clearly won’t protect them.  Anyway, Andrew Malcolm has the summary: 36 office staff members owe $833,900 in back taxes.  Which, by the way, is only moderately more scandalous on a fiscal level than the fact that, in an economy where everybody else is forced to cut back on jobs, the White House staff has increased to be larger than George W Bush’s, in both personnel and budget terms.

It constantly amazes me – honestly, even after four* years of watching this – how incredibly tin-eared the President is when it comes to this sort of thing.  Considering what we did to this administration over tax evasion in 2009… there should be a large sign above every entry security checkpoint in the White House (angled so that it can be only seen from the inside) saying PAY YOUR TAXES, YOU FOOLS.  And if Barack Obama had the ability to find and keep a competent Chief of Staff, there might have been.  Alas, he does not, and so there is not… and fish rot from the head down. Continue reading Hypocrisy Watch: Obama’s office staff owe $834K in back taxes.

#rsrh Obama meets, and is a schmuck towards, Jan Brewer.

Come, I will conceal nothing from you.  Jan Brewer of Arizona is not… my favorite Republican governor, on paper.  I won’t get into why; if you must have a reason, call it ‘stylistic differences’ and be done with it.

But dang if she’s not able to get under President Barack Obama’s skin like nobody’s business:

[Gov. Jan Brewer] said the president brought up [her new book Scorpions for Breakfast*].

“I thought we probably would’ve talked about the things that were important to him and important to me, helping one another. Our country is upside down. Arizona was upside down. But we have turned it around. I know again that he loves this country and I love this country.”

It was clear from the moment they greeted one another that this would not be a run-of-the-mill encounter between the president and a local official. At one point, she was pointing her finger at him and at another, they were talking at the same time, seemingly over each other.

He appeared to walk away from her while they were still talking, and she confirmed that by saying she didn’t finish her sentence.

More here and here. I have to say, it’s amazing just how awful the President is at being pleasant in somewhat awkward situations. It’s like nobody’s ever taught him how to exhibit basic social graces under adverse conditions… oh, right, that’s because nobody ever did.

Moe Lane

*The full title is Scorpions for Breakfast: My Fight Against Special Interests, Liberal Media, and Cynical Politicos to Secure America’s Border; I give you the title in full in the hopes that it will act as what we in this business call a ‘tell.’