Month: May 2013

PSA: Duck and cover if you see a bright flash.

Seriously.  If you see a bright flash, you are seeing by definition a large energy release.  Large energy releases are quite often accompanied by things flying through the air, typically at high speed. You will typically have a moment or two to get down on the ground before any of things intersect your position.  In other word, be smart, like Yulia Karbysheva:

At School No. 37 in Chel­yabinsk, a quick-thinking substitute teacher, Yulia Karbysheva, got all 44 of her fourth-graders out of harm’s way as the meteor lighted up the sky, the Interfax news agency reported. After the intense bright flash of its explosion, the children rushed to the windows, but before the shock wave could hit, she commanded them to get under their desks.

Karbysheva was showered with glass and debris, but the children were unharmed. With a cut to a tendon in her left hand and a gash on her left thigh, she led her class to safety outdoors. The doctor treating her Saturday at Hospital No. 9 told Interfax she would recover.

Via Instapundit.  I know, I know: 1950s public safety films are often unintentionally hysterical.  They were also produced by people who typically spent between five and eight years of their lives dealing with other people actively trying to kill them with high explosives/shrapnel.  So assume that the producers might actually have known what the heck they were talking about.

The fairly sad conspiracy theorizing of Terry McAuliffe.

Jim Geraghty does a good job deconstructing Terry McAuliffe’s rather nostalgic embrace of the original “October Surprise” conspiracy theory (short version: some people still believe that the Iranians and the Reagan campaign colluded into having the hostages released after the Reagan Inauguration); but I don’t know if logic and reality will work on those people who still cling to the aforementioned theory.  Alas, some people don’t want to hear that Jimmy Carter was feckless, that everybody in the world was contemptuous of him by the end, and that the Iranian regime needed no prodding to humiliate him and the USA for as long as they could do so safely (which is to say, up to about five minutes or so in the Reagan administration).  Carter was simply weak.  It happens.

No excuse for Terry, of course.  Then again, there never was.

Ed Markey: foolish on Benghazi. Foolish on the Boston Marathon bombing, too?

I’d like everybody to pay close attention to this Tweet:

It’s from back in October of 2012, when – as Legal Insurrection very helpfully notes – Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts (D) (now running against Gabriel Gomez in a special election for MA-SEN) was doing his level best to convince the world that there was absolutely no reason at all to believe that the attack in Benghazi that murdered four Americans (including our Ambassador) was due to a preplanned terrorist attack – and that any suggestion that the White House was covering things up was some sort of bizarre theory promulgated by conservatives. That’s October of 2012.  Now let’s go to May of 2013: Continue reading Ed Markey: foolish on Benghazi. Foolish on the Boston Marathon bombing, too?

QotD, Hell Hath No Fury Like A Democrat Encountering A Minority Conservative edition.

The Boston Herald’s Jennifer Braceras, being commendably forthright about what’s about to be directed at MA-SEN candidate Gabriel Gomez:

[Gabriel Gomez is] new to politics, so I’ll be blunt. Democrats may dislike Republicans, but they despise Republican minorities.

…Yup.  And Democrats – more accurately, white, male, Anglo, liberal Democrats – get remarkably little internal pushback from that.  Or perhaps it’s not so remarkable; that word sort of implies that this is somehow a new thing.  Ach, well, professional progressives.  As the philosopher once said: can’t live with them, pass the beer nuts.

(H/T: Instapundit)

PPP: Nancy Pelosi is a horrible, dream-crushing albatross! …I paraphrase.

This is the most important point to note from PPP’s gulping report of a double-digit collapse of Elizabeth Colbert Busch’s chances in SC-01 (Mark Sanford went from -9 to +1 over Busch in two weeks, and the more Republican the likely voter electorate gets in the next two days, the better it looks for Sanford):

If SC-1 voters went to the polls on Tuesday and voted for the candidate they personally liked better, Colbert Busch would be the definite winner. That’s why Sanford’s campaign has tried to shift the focus toward national Democrats who are unpopular in the district, and that’s been a key in helping him to make this race competitive again. Nancy Pelosi has a 24/61 approval rating in SC-1 and although voters don’t like Sanford, they do like him better than Pelosi by a 53/37 margin. President Obama doesn’t fare a whole lot better in the district. His approval is 39/54, and voters say they have a higher opinion of Sanford than him by a 48/44 spread.

Continue reading PPP: Nancy Pelosi is a horrible, dream-crushing albatross! …I paraphrase.

James Carville respects Ted Cruz in public.

James Carville had some nice things to say about Ted Cruz:

“I think he is the most talented and fearless Republican politician I’ve seen in the last 30 years,” Carville asserted emphatically, as the panel discussed Cruz’s reported presidential aspirations. “I further think that he is going to run for president, and he is going to create something.”

That’s not to say Cruz would win, Carville noted, but “this guy has no fear. He just keeps plowing ahead. He is going to be something to watch.”

The ‘no fear’ thing here rings true to me.  I’ve met Ted Cruz on a couple of occasions, and I’ll say this about him: seldom have I met a man in Washington who visibly gives less of a sh*t about what Official Washington thinks of him than the Senator does.  He’s not really in DC to be liked.  I’m not entirely certain that Senator Cruz likes to be in DC at all. Continue reading James Carville respects Ted Cruz in public.

The fascinating homemade Elizabeth Colbert Busch attack video.

So, I was explaining to my wife Yeah, this is about the time in a South Carolina election cycle where you expect this sort of thing to surface; and she interrupted me with a There’s a formally-designated time when you release the campaign mug shots of a candidate?  And I said If you actually have some?  Sure: Sunday night before the election sounds about right.  Because, obviously if they don’t have real photos then they save the fakes for the actual day of the election itself and blizzard the polling stations with them.  Welcome to South Carolina: here’s your accordion.

Anyway, below is a… well, we don’t know what it is, except that it certainly will not be on the airwaves in any way, shape, or form.  If you want to see it distributed, you’re just going to have to do it yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqgxqyzAA6E&feature=player_embedded

A transcript cannot do this justice: suffice it to say that it features Elizabeth Colbert Busch, mugshots, Lizzie Borden, Kermit Gosnell, and Kermit T. Frog.  Watching it will either rekindle your faith in American democracy, or destroy it completely; I see no real middle ground.

(H/T: Gateway Pundit)

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: The terrifying bit: it’ll probably move the needle for Mark Sanford a little.  If only because GOP voters really, really don’t like the way that Kermit Gosnell murdered all those babies (and sometimes, their mothers).