My father-in-law took pictures of me and my eldest proving this: hopefully the maniacal grin got captured. You can get a surprising amount of velocity out of a lawnmower engine: who knew?
I love the smell of hydrocarbon products burned in an internal combustion engine in the morning: smells like victory.
Vacation ends tomorrow.
Moe Lane Continue reading In less confrontational news: Elvis IS in go-karts*.
George W Bush, on his recent visit/aid work (in this particlar case, in Zambia):
“I hope you don’t see much of it because I don’t want to be in the news. In other words, I believe that quiet service is the best kind of service,” he said.
We will now pause while somebody bitches and moans about Bush nominating John Roberts as Chief Justice. I figure that I might as well preemptively bring it up, particularly since having to wade through all of said bitching and moaning was probably the triggering mechanism for this mini-vacation in the first place*. Anyway: via Althouse.
Moe Lane
Continue reading #rsrh QotD, I’ve Missed Him Since 01/20/2009, Actually edition.
Putting together a Vatican Guard versus Ogrethulhu match-up, and I’ve just primered my Popemobile Fencer, so it’s time to order another set. Go with the Luftpanzer Company, because, well, GEVs? Or go with Battlesuit Battalions, because, well, armored priests in battlesuits?
Tough call.
Moe Lane Continue reading Tough call on the next OGRE miniature purchase.
John Tierney wants people to know that none of it is his fault. With ‘it’ being a wide-ranging noun:
Continue reading John Tierney (D, MA-06): Illegal Gambling Crook, or Pathetic Dupe?
That Q&A was too good to pass up, and the QotD was decent for relieving spleen, but I need more relaxation time.
I’m pointing this one out solely because I’ve seen four or five or so movies on this list – and, yeah, I liked all of them. Although Idiocracy wasn’t quite as good as its buzz gives it credit for. But The Ref more than makes up for it: it’s a family holiday favorite…
I was on a conference call today with Governor Bobby Jindal and former Governor Tim Pawlenty; they are both currently on a bus tour of Pennsylvania and Ohio for the benefit of the Romney campaign. We had an opportunity to ask questions; and, seeing as these two states are both Republican-controlled (due at least in part to the 2010 backlash against Obamacare), I asked Governor Jindal about whether he had some advice to the state governments about signing up for the proposed expansion of Medicaid, now that it would be voluntary on the states’ part.
Governor Jindal’s advice was, essentially: don’t. Audio below:
To summarize the Governor’s response – and with the caveat that Jindal doesn’t actually want to tell other states what to do – Louisiana will not signing on to the Medicaid expansion, for three reasons:
Continue reading RS Q&A: Gov. Bobby Jindal, on the Medicaid expansion.
George Lakoff, while in the process of still trying to peddle his ‘framing’ nonsense, came up with this rather puerile try-to-define-the-terms exercise:
The basic idea behind democracy in America is the idea that citizens care about each other; that they act socially as well as individually to cash out that care, and they try to do as well as they can in doing that both for themselves and for others.
NO, you inept fool of a propagandist. The basic idea behind democracy in America is the idea that it is possible to create a political framework where various groups, movements, and individuals can contribute to a shared debate on how to best determine a policy response to events; and that said response will be considered legitimate by everybody, including the people that lost the debate. Whether people ‘care’ for each other is immaterial: they can despise each other all that they like, just as long as nobody is writing up a proscription list.
Of course, taking this position raises a hell of a lot of awkward questions about why the Democratic party decided to ram the ‘stimulus’ and Obamacare down our throats. Not to mention their utter refusal to even pass a budget. Which is why Lakoff is trying to redefine the rhetorical rules of the game.
Moe Lane
(No, not back.)
That power failure last weekend has pretty much wrecked my equilibrium, and I’m not going to get it back without frankly blowing this gig off for the next couple of days. I got an interview to put up tonight sometime, and after that I’m just going to not bother for a day or two.
