Month: June 2014

Quote of the Day, Most Of You Already Thought A Special Prosecutor For The IRS Was Needed… edition.

…but it’s just that Ron “Whitewater” Fournier of the National Journal agrees with you.

If the IRS can’t find the emails, maybe a special prosecutor can.

Mind, he didn’t – and probably still doesn’t – agree with you that the IRS targeting originated with the White House*, but hey, a special prosecutor is just what we need to resolve that question.  Surely we can all – and do, apparently – agree that the important thing here is to figure out just what happened…

Moe Lane

Blessed are the cheesemakers, for they throw things at the FDA…

…and make the regulatory agency behave:

Late on June 11, the Food and Drug Administration, besieged by the outcry over a newly released document suggesting the agency would start banning cheese makers from aging their products on wooden boards, issued a new statement, putting an end to any likelihood that the practice would be banned – at least in the near future.

Come, I will conceal nothing from you: I knew that the FDA was going to walk this back.  Why?  Because, as Mary Katharine Ham noted (not entirely happily): the folks that normally would be all about pushing the regulatory state are also people that would go Full Metal Bugnuts if the feds took away their fancy foreign cheeses.  Because people are always  the most conservative about the things that they like or know the best.  We see it every time.

Rejoice, Citizen! The Paranoia Bundle of Holding is now available for voluntary enjoyment!

The Paranoia Bundle of Holding is one set of RPG PDFs that I will pick up… next week, when the cash flow, well, flows.  For those who don’t know: Paranoia is a RPG about bureaucracy, paranoia (obviously), satire, humor, and tactical nuclear grenades.  It is so notoriously lethal that every player starts with six clones, on the perfectly correct assumption that they’ll be needed to get the character through a single adventure.  It’s hysterical, it’s iconic, and it’s the latest version, which corrected a heck of a lot of problems from the latest vers-

:ZAP!:

:thud:

Citizens are reminded that all rumors of an immediately previous edition of Paranoia are treasonous Communist propaganda, and punishable by summary execution.  The Computer has ensured that the perfection of Paranoia has been steadily improved; please report all rumors of previous editions to Internal Security for investigation and brainscrub.

Have a nice day.

KTSP/SurveyUSA poll in Minnesota shows Mark Dayton, Al Franken having problems.

What a lovely poll that is.

Well, it’s lovely from my point of view, at least.

Gov. Mark Dayton and Sen. Al Franken survived recounts when they won their first elections to the governor’s office and U.S. Senate. According to our latest KSTP/SurveyUSA poll, they might have to sweat our close races again in 2014. Franken clings to a six-point lead over his closest Republican challenger Mike McFadden, 48 percent to 42 percent. The poll has a margin of sampling error of +/- 3.1 percent.

[snip]

Governor Dayton also faces a potentially close re-election bid. He also leads his nearest competitor by just six points. The GOP-endorsed candidate for governor, Jeff Johnson, trails Dayton 46% to 40%.

Continue reading KTSP/SurveyUSA poll in Minnesota shows Mark Dayton, Al Franken having problems.

Tweet of the Day, While We’re Waiting For Barack Obama To Show Up edition.

Barack Obama would up five points in the polls if he’d just show up for things on time, by the way. Anyway:

Ayup.

I challenge you to read this Arizona-07 story without breaking down in helpless laughter.

This Slate article by Dave Weigel starts promisingly:

 On Aug. 26, Democratic voters in Arizona will choose a successor to 7th Congressional District Rep. Ed Pastor. It’s a safe, blue seat, covering the most liberal parts of Phoenix and Glendale. And it’s heavily Hispanic. That’s what led a Republican trickster named Scott Fistler to pay $319 to legally change his name, to “Cesar Chavez,” and attempt to get on the ballot.

…and then proceeds to get even better. So, so much better.  I was howling by paragraph six. Trolling level: CRYSTALLINE PERFECTION.  That’s the best-spent $319 I’ve seen spent in a long, long time.

Via

The Kurds have decided to, ah, ‘stabilize’ Kirkuk.

No doubt purely temporarily, until the situation resolves itself:

Iraqi Kurdish forces say they have taken full control of the northern oil city of Kirkuk as the army flees before an Islamist offensive nearby.

“The whole of Kirkuk has fallen into the hands of peshmerga,” Kurdish spokesman Jabbar Yawar told Reuters. “No Iraq army remains in Kirkuk now.”

Kurdish fighters are seen as a bulwark against Sunni Muslim insurgents.

:Murmuring: Tsk, tsk. Bad future reliable American client state! Bad! No biscuit! Continue reading The Kurds have decided to, ah, ‘stabilize’ Kirkuk.