Author: Moe_Lane

#rsrh Neutral media outlets! And unicorns!

Ben Smith almost – almost! – gets it right in his exasperated reaction to that exasperatingly bad Vanity Fair hit piece about THAT WOMAN.  Ben does recognize that there’s an astounding amount of bad and/or thinly sourced material written about former Governor Palin – the example he gave was of a reporter who criticized the Palin family for their treatment of Trig Palin at an event, even though Trig wasn’t actually there in the first place – but there’s one big, bad, paradigm-shifting assumption that he makes that fatally undermines his piece.  To wit:

Palin almost never talks to neutral media outlets…

We have “neutral media outlets?” Since when?

Three things I have learned from Mass Effect 2.

In no particular order:

  1. I cannot shoot worth a damn.  Good thing that I’m playing an Adept, because she sucks at actually hitting anything with a gun.
  2. I hate those matching hack/bypass minigames, and am totally ready to get a hack or bypass that eliminates them from the game.
  3. I have been spoiled by the DLC interface for Dragon Age: Origins.  I know that I have DLC available for Mass Effect 2; I just can’t figure out where to find it.

Yes, I’m playing the game and otherwise having fun.  Still…

The last (probably) pre-Labor Day Cook rankings.

House.
Senate.
Governorships.

If you don’t feel like clicking through the links, allow me to summarize: ten more House seats shifted in the GOP’s favor, and so did three Senate seats, and so did four Governor’s races. Only one of them (WY-GOV) is now off the actual board, but Cook is now projecting a net +6 to +8 GOP in the Governors’ races, a net +7 to +9 GOP in the Senate, and at least a net +35 GOP in the House. The House is particularly of interest, as there are currently forty-five Toss-Up races listed by Cook right now, and only three of them are Republican seats.

Couple this with the latest set of regional race polls from Republican-leaning American Action Forum, and the truly atrocious (for the other side) enthusiasm gap that Democrat-leaning Public Policy Polling is finding, and Larry Sabato’s needed-to-slam-a-shot of whiskey-first prediction of a lost House and Senate on the edge, and you get… a lot of people blankly staring at their scratch papers or computer screens and thinking This can’t be right. I must have subtracted where I should have added, or something. Or maybe I made an assumption that I shouldn’t have. Things can’t be this bad for the Democratic party. Continue reading The last (probably) pre-Labor Day Cook rankings.

Rick Scott (R CAND, FL-GOV) picks Jennifer Carroll for Lt. Gov spot.

It’s a good choice on a variety of levels: Jennifer is a small businesswoman, twenty-year military veteran, state legislator, NRA member, Jeb Bush appointee… and, possibly most importantly, a Bill McCollum supporter. Jennifer was actually on Crist’s short list for a Senate appointment last year; for that matter, she was apparently even considered for the Lt. Gov position four years ago; all of which should help in the awkwardness that is the Senate and Governor’s races in Florida.  On the issues: conservative, with what appears to be on first glance no major problems.  She’s a great balance for Rick Scott, in other words, and a definite asset to the ticket.

Needless to say, the Kendrick Meek campaign despises her. and is trying to use Gov. Crist’s approval of her to shore up Meek’s liberal base in the FL-SEN election.  Alas, that’s a tactic that might work – among progressives, at least – for a very depressing reason…

Moe Lane

#rsrh James Lee, Coyote.

Because, of course, the netroots aren’t having a bad enough day with this loser.

James Lee, the bomb-laden gunman who was killed by police in the lobby of the Discovery Channel, was once convicted and imprisoned for smuggling illegal immigrants into the country from Mexico.

They should, of course, count their blessings that this fellow didn’t actually get anyone killed – either with his guns, or his IEDs.

#rsrh QotD, Glenn Reynolds edition.

And he’s gone Full Metal Blunt on this one; not that I mind.

In fact, if you look at a Marxist Utopia — say, Cuba — what you’ll see is basically a plantation. At the top, you’ve got the Massa and his family — Fidel, Raul, et al. — followed by various layers of overseers — the Communist Party apparat, the secret police — and House Negroes — e.g., the state-controlled media — all living off the surplus labor of the Field Negroes, whose produce is disposed of not according to their own desires (that would be capitalism!) but according to their betters’. This, we’re told, is for the best, since they aren’t smart enough to make their own decisions anyway, and the Massa looks after them with food, housing, and health care. Slaveholders even defended their system as more humane and less exploitative than atomistic capitalism, conveniently ignoring the role of the lash, just as apologists for Marxism conveniently ignore the role of the gulag.

Because he’s talking about Commies, after all: and Commies Aren’t Cool.

Spam: You’re doing it wrong.

Here’s a tip for spammers: if I’m not approving five hundred identical comments (linking back to sex toy sites) that are trying to butter me up by telling me that I have the greatest blog since Jesus Christ’s, then it’s highly unlikely that I’m going to approve five hundred identical comments (linking back to sex toy sites) that tell me that my blog sucks and that I should die in a fire.

Seriously? This works?