Month: February 2014

So I hear that Wendy Davis is trying to pander on guns now.

“Open carry,” no less.

 

I happen to agree with RB Pundit, but I just wanted to make sure that anybody who hates guns who sent this woman money understands the nature of the message that they’re now funding. Particularly since the woman is still going to lose. Which means that… all of the money that she raised will end up just helping the pro-gun rights side, in the form of “Even the liberal Wendy Davis supported open carry…”

PETA caught giving nasty agitprop to kids, and then lies about it.

(Via Hot Air) PETA being nasty:

Parents say they are considering taking PETA to court over an innocent-looking comic handed out to children at Calabash Elementary School in Woodland Hills that contained graphic images of mutilated cows, CBS Los Angeles reports.

[snip]

The pamphlet appeared to be a cartoon comic and was titled “A Cow’s Life,” but the images inside were horrifying, parents said.

PETA being dumb:

Katie Arth of PETA says that it may have all just been an innocent mix up.

“PETA creates material for kids and for adults,” Arth said. “And it looks like there was just a mistake and our volunteers put the materials together to get them out quicker.”

Oh, really? Continue reading PETA caught giving nasty agitprop to kids, and then lies about it.

Hillary Clinton shows Congressional Democrats that revenge is a dish best served cold.

No, seriously.

The Democratic Party’s biggest Super PAC, recently retooled as an early pro-Hillary Clinton effort, will sit out the midterm elections this year.

A spokesman with the group, Priorities USA Action, confirmed to BuzzFeed on Wednesday night that it would not be involved in House or Senate campaigns.

“House Majority PAC and Majority PAC are doing everything right and making a real difference. We fully support their efforts,” said the spokesman, Peter Kauffmann, referring to the main groups supporting Democratic congressional candidates.

Continue reading Hillary Clinton shows Congressional Democrats that revenge is a dish best served cold.

An exciting new front in MoeLane.com’s attempts to leech money out of the Internet!

I have set up a Patreon account: MoeLane. Essentially, it’s a micropayment system (either monthly or one-time) designed for smaller content producers.  Apparently this site of mine here arguably counts, as I am a quote-unquote ‘creator.’

Even if you don’t want to do this, if you have friends who are artists, musicians, writers, and/or do anything else that involves creating original content and putting it on the Internet you may want to let them know about this service.  Patreon takes out a small (less than 10%) percent of the money that gets collected, in order to handle credit card processing (and stay in business); this does not seem particularly onerous to me, and the whole process is pretty much fire-and-forget.  Check it out.

*Trust* David Plouffe, Democrats. He is all-knowing, and always right.

And he has some excellent advice for Democrats worried about the 2014 elections:

If GOP challengers want to run ads criticizing the recovery act as wasteful, Democratic candidates should lift up the police officers, teachers and construction workers in their state or district, those who are protecting our communities, teaching our children and repairing our roads thanks to the Democrats’ leadership. Highlight the small-business owners who have kept their doors open through projects funded by the act.

The recovery act has been stigmatized. We need to paint the real picture, in human terms, of what it meant in 2010. In future elections, it will be clear to all that instead of another Great Depression, Democrats broke the back of the recession with not a single Republican vote in the House. In the long run, this will haunt Republicans, especially since they made the mess. Continue reading *Trust* David Plouffe, Democrats. He is all-knowing, and always right.

The New York Times achieves Anagnorisis on #obamacare.

Don’t know that word? The invaluable RPG Trail of Cthulhu defines it in this case as “the moment that the main character pieces together the nature of the Mythos and goes to pieces:” basically, what happens is that your unlucky protagonist has an insight that allows him and her to understand the true nature of the universe. And the sudden understanding inevitably leads to madness.

So let us thus discuss the New York Times.

Freeing Workers From the Insurance Trap

The Congressional Budget Office estimated on Tuesday that the Affordable Care Act will reduce the number of full-time workers by 2.5 million over the next decade. That is mostly a good thing, a liberating result of the law.

Continue reading The New York Times achieves Anagnorisis on #obamacare.

Sandra Fluke smacked back into place wrt Henry Waxman’s seat.

That would be my guess, at least.

Democratic attorney and activist Sandra Fluke has decided against running for retiring Rep. Henry A. Waxman’s congressional seat, instead planning a bid for the state Senate.

[snip]

Fluke said she plans to run for the state Senate seat currently held by Ted Lieu, who is running for Waxman’s congressional seat.

But it was almost certainly foolish of her to think that the (mostly male) people who have been waiting to move into Waxman’s seat were going to let any parvenu useful idiot just cut ahead in line.  Not that Fluke is likely to win that Senate seat, either – but it’s a much more realistic seat for her to reach for, and fail to grasp.

Via Jonah Goldberg.

 

The score: Trader Joe’s 0, Portland Community Organizers -1.

I saw this yesterday, but forgot to write something about it until Glenn Reynolds reminded me.  Short version: Trader Joe’s wanted to put up a store on some vacant lots in Northeast Portland.  The people who lived there were largely happy about this; the Portland African-American Leadership Forum (whose membership apparently mostly does not live there) was not.  The PAALF hassled Trader Joe’s about this until the chain threw up its hands and said Fine. We can take a hint and dropped its development plans. This left the PAALF holding a press conference in an empty lot, trying to explain to a bunch of aggravated locals about why the sudden loss of a job-producing anchor tenant wasn’t the worst thing in the world.  When the PAALF wasn’t demanding pet projects that nobody was particularly stepping up to fund.

Ah, community organizers. Continue reading The score: Trader Joe’s 0, Portland Community Organizers -1.

Yeah, @Cracked photoplasty series are not always reliable reporting.

It’s not that I have anything against ridiculous examples of bureaucracy in action; it’s just that some of these aren’t actually ridiculous. Case in point:

241419_v1

There’s a reason why they ask non-immigrants applying for visas if they’re involved in espionage, sabotage, terrorist activities, genocide, and/or are Nazis on the run. You see, people who do such things are quite often on the run from them, and/or covering their activities up.  When either situation comes to light unexpectedly it’s very helpful for the government to be able to have a piece of paper that proved that the suddenly-unwelcome visitor has clearly lied about his/her activities. The alternative would be to do extensive background checks on everybody who wants to enter the country on a visit: that either takes time, or giving the NSA about twenty times its current budget. I wonder how many people over at Cracked.com want either of those things to happen… Continue reading Yeah, @Cracked photoplasty series are not always reliable reporting.