Author: Moe_Lane

On reflection, motorcycle flamethrowers are probably…

…not a good idea. Five to seven years for making one is a bit excessive, even by British standards; but I can see where the English might be a bit leery of letting people wander around with flame-based tailgate-prevention devices. We don’t really want Car Wars in real life.

That being said, and as I commented to @eddiebear, if this had happened when Charles II was king the inventor would have gotten an earldom out of it.  Err, assuming that he didn’t get a dukedom for the scooter.

#rsrh In an ideal world, this post would start a duel.

Because in an ideal world a man would rather be killed or die than tolerate being called a would-be Communist apparatchik.

[UPDATE] I just read the letter – also, did you know that the courts have just ruled that “the government has no anti-corruption interest in limiting contributions to an independent expenditure group”?  Translation: a group that wants to simply let people know , say, that Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak aspire to the level of East German rubberstamp apparatchiks can now spend as much money as they like to do so.

Hint, hint.

It seems that Volkskammer Energy Chair Henry Waxman will be investigating various capitalist entities for right-deviationism, sabotage, creeping defeatism, and of course general counter-revolutionary behavior*:

Perhaps that explains why the Administration is now so touchy. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke took to the White House blog to write that while ObamaCare is great for business, “In the last few days, though, we have seen a couple of companies imply that reform will raise costs for them.” In a Thursday interview on CNBC, Mr. Locke said “for them to come out, I think is premature and irresponsible.”

Meanwhile, Henry Waxman and House Democrats announced yesterday that they will haul these companies in for an April 21 hearing because their judgment “appears to conflict with independent analyses, which show that the new law will expand coverage and bring down costs.”

In other words, shoot the messenger. Black-letter financial accounting rules require that corporations immediately restate their earnings to reflect the present value of their long-term health liabilities, including a higher tax burden. Should these companies have played chicken with the Securities and Exchange Commission to avoid this politically inconvenient reality? Democrats don’t like what their bill is doing in the real world, so they now want to intimidate CEOs into keeping quiet.

No doubt the crypto-fascist wreckers on the Wall Street Journal‘s editorial board (and the capitalist running dogs of The National Review) will be the next brought in to answer to Parliamentarian Waxman, and his fellow-agents of the righteous anger of the People.

Moe Lane

PS: Hey, the Democrats can stop acting like this any time that they like.  Then I can stop, too.

*Otherwise known as ‘large companies required to announce large, immediate losses via increased taxation as a direct result of the new health care legislation.’  Why, the nerve of those… those… those capitalist stooges, and their primitive devotion to bourgeois truth and the technical letter of the law!

Crossposted to RedState.

Optimism Watch: Instapundit/Israel/Obama edition.

I like Glenn Reynolds, but I think that he’s wrong here about why the President is mucking about with Israel right now:

I think Obama expects Israel to strike Iran, and wants to put distance between the United States and Israel in advance of that happening. (Perhaps he even thinks that treating Israel rudely will provoke such a response, saving him the trouble of doing anything about Iran himself, and avoiding the risk that things might go wrong if he does). On the most optimistic level, maybe this whole thing is a sham, and the U.S. is really helping Israel strike Iran, with this as distraction.

For three reasons:

  1. He’s a Democrat, and Democrats are not very good at foreign policy.
  2. He’s a Democrat, and Democrats are not very good at foreign policy*.
  3. Even if he wanted to do this, his staff are all Democrats, and Democrats are not very good at foreign policy**.

Come right down to it, if the President was planning to implicitly or explicitly let Israel take care of our Iran problem we’d already know, because somebody in his administration would have leaked a warning to the Iranians via the New York Times.  Which is probably more ‘sedition’ than ‘treason’ – not much of a distinction, admittedly – but still something that any Democratic President has to take into account when trying to formulate a foreign policy at odds with the neocom wing of the Democratic party.

Moe Lane

*To paraphrase a classic: “I know that, technically, that’s only one [reason], but it was such a big one I thought I’d mention it twice.”

**Or three times.

Crossposted to RedState.

Reid’s Nevadan stalking horse up on criminal charges.

Oops.

And so (I suspect) ends the sad, vaguely sordid, and rather bizarre tale of Scott Ashjian. You should have vetted your spoiler candidate better, Harry:

A Nevada asphalt contractor who faces a legal challenge to his Tea Party of Nevada candidacy for U.S. Senate was hit Friday with felony theft and bad check charges in Las Vegas that allege he bounced a $5,000 business check last year.

Scott Ashjian is one of a record 22 candidates, including 12 Republicans, running for the seat held by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is seeking a fifth term.

Bernie Zadrowski, head of the Clark County district attorney’s office bad check unit, said he would seek an arrest warrant Monday in Las Vegas Justice Court. Ashjian could face up to 14 years in state prison if convicted.

Via Hot Air Headlines. The actual Tea Party folks have already been pretty adamant about pointing out that they don’t know this guy, but there’s nothing like a bad-check felony arrest to torpedo an election bid.  Which means that the major Republican candidates can get back to the happy task of determining who is the most conservative of all (and thus worthy of the honor of beating Harry Reid like a drum), and that Harry Reid can get back to creating the tradition that Democratic Senate Majority Leaders always end their terms by losing a re-election bid…

Moe Lane

PS: Of course, there’s always the possibility that the Ashjian thing was really a convoluted cry for help on Reid’s part.  You know, a subconscious wish to fail or something like that.  It’d explain the lack of vetting, at least.

Crossposted to RedState.

‘The Sound of Silence.’


The Sounds Of Silence, Simon And Garfunkel

…Interesting. I like it, but this and their other songs always make me feel like it’s a midwinter noon, with the wind painfully scraping the clouds from the sky. Paul Simon solo, on the other hand, is 8 PM in July somewhere where the sun’s been behind a building long enough to keep the temperature just short of sweltering. And there’s more cold beer, just over there.

Anyway.