Month: February 2013

Mexican narco-terrorists vs. Mexican vigilantes.

Via Instapundit, this is not particularly good news:

AYUTLA, Mexico—Masked men, rifles slung over their shoulders, stand guard on a lonely rural road, checking IDs and questioning travelers. They wear no uniforms, flash no badges, but they are the law here now.

A dozen villages in the area have risen up in armed revolt against local drug traffickers that have terrorized the region and a government that residents say is incapable of protecting them from organized crime.

The villages in the hilly southern Mexican state of Guerrero now forbid the Mexican army and state and federal police from entering. Ragtag militias carrying a motley arsenal of machetes, old hunting rifles and the occasional AR-15 semiautomatic rifle control the towns. Strangers aren’t allowed entry. There is a 10 p.m. curfew. More than 50 prisoners, accused of being in drug gangs, sit in makeshift jails. Their fates hinge on public trials that began Thursday when the accused were arraigned before villagers, who will act as judge and jury.

Continue reading Mexican narco-terrorists vs. Mexican vigilantes.

So, when we invade Antigua in 2014…

…and topple the government there, here’s the actual reason.

On January 28, 2013, the Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) authorized the small, Caribbean country of Antigua and Barbuda (Antigua) to suspend its obligations regarding American intellectual property rights. As a result, the Government of Antigua and Barbuda will be able to authorize the sale of products of innocent holders of copyrights, trademarks and other important intellectual property rights, free of those legal protections. Unfortunately, the Office of the United States Trade Representative is already accusing us of being “pirates” and “thieves” of intellectual property and of acting contrary to International law.

This is not the case.

Continue reading So, when we invade Antigua in 2014…

This commercial entertained me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=trueview-instream&v=oPNr0_6MnDo

Not least because I find that seeing Sympathy For The Devil being used to sell cars is a bizarre pick-me-up.  By all rights it shouldn’t – I mean, I love the song, and I don’t much care about fancy cars – but capitalism, so there.  Also, the people who put this commercial together were clearly having such a good time doing it that it seems churlish to tut-tut.

“IT’S GROUNDHOG DAY!”

I am reminded…

…that I love Groundhog Day as much as Jonah Goldberg does, and for largely the same reasons, and that if you haven’t seen it yet you probably should and it’s unlikely that I’m going to write anything this morning that will be more entertaining and/or thoughtful.  So go watch it.

Moe Lane

PS: That movie really should have gotten a crate full of Oscars.  And Hollywood wonders why we look at it funny…

Is this what Witcher 3 is going to look like?

witcher-3

Mayyyyybe:

CD Projekt RED announced today that they have a new version of their REDengine. Unsurprisingly titled REDengine3, the press release describes it as being created for, “RPGs set in vast, open worlds with improved tools for spanning truly non-linear stories that are based on real player choices and consequences.” Our colleagues over at RockPaperShotgun took this as an insinuation that this will be what’s powering the as-yet unannounced Witcher 3, and that makes a whole lot of sense given that description. CD Projekt has hinted at a possible Witcher 3 reveal in recent weeks.

For those who don’t know, The Witcher was one of the better computer RPGs to come out in the last decade, not least because it had an authentically Middle European late medieval vibe to it AND was largely disinterested in sanitizing the time period.  The sequel (The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings) had better visuals and more soft-core nudity, but the game mechanics were (in my opinion) not as good.  Still, a lot of people have been waiting for that sequel, and this might be an example of what we’ll be seeing.

Well, what we’ll be seeing if our PC gaming rigs can handle the strain.  I might have to Xbox this one.

Somebody should research why people fall for obviously-fake parody news stories.

It’d be useful if we could figure out why, and maybe set up some kind of counter-programming.  Because, seriously: people simply DO NOT, say, refuse to go onto airplanes anymore because the pilot is black.  If you’re the kind of person who uncritically believes that sort of thing about the Left, you’re at best a goofball.

Moe Lane Continue reading Somebody should research why people fall for obviously-fake parody news stories.

Good day, Senator Thad Cochran. You are up for re-election in 2014.

You are from a state (Mississippi) that is exceptionally safe for the GOP, no matter who is running. And clearly, yesterday’s epic failure by Chuck Hagel to sell himself to skeptical Senators – or, indeed, Hagel’s epic failure to avoid embarrassing his new Democratic masters – has already made you decide to reassess your support of him for Secretary of Defense.  So no doubt this post is unnecessary.

No doubt.

Moe Lane

PS: The grassroots Republican base is developing a taste for primary challenges in the Senate.  It’s also getting fairly proficient in carrying those off.  So nobody assume that Cochran is bulletproof – particularly since every GOP partisan in the country will, by the end of the week, have seen Ted Cruz’s evisceration of Chuck Hagel.

Huh. I guess Scott Brown’s running for Governor of MA next year.

I am legitimately surprised…

Former Sen. Scott P. Brown, the Massachusetts Republican unseated by Democrat Elizabeth Warren in 2012, announced Friday he will not run in the Senate special election to fill the seat held by Sen. John Kerry.

“Over these past few weeks I have given serious thought about the possibility of running again, as events have created another vacancy requiring another special election. I have received a lot of encouragement from friends and supporters to become a candidate, and my competitive instincts were leading in the same direction,” he said in a statement.

“Even so, I was not at all certain that a third Senate campaign in less than four years, and the prospect of returning to a Congress even more partisan than the one I left, was really the best way for me to continue in public service at this time. And I know it’s not the only way for me to advance the ideals and causes that matter most to me,” he said.

Continue reading Huh. I guess Scott Brown’s running for Governor of MA next year.