Author: Moe_Lane

Rod Blagojevich hath a website.

This, I think, deserves Ace of Spade HQ‘s Flaming Skull:

flaming_skull1

Rod Blagojevich, the disgraced and displaced former governor of Illinois, now has a website where he continues his fight for “ordinary people,” the Associated Press reports.

He has a website, a… radio talk show (WLS-890 AM, although he’s not on the schedule yet), a book (The Governor*) – and he’s available for public speaking gigs!  Universities especially: you could book him for your next commencement ceremony.

Oh.  Sorry about the “book him” thing, Rod…

Moe Lane

*“We follow the governor as he is awakened early one morning –his young daughter sleeping peacefully beside him – and unceremoniously arrested by FBI agents without knowing the charges being brought against him. We see the harsh glare of the spotlight, the media whirlwind already staking out his home and family, rushing to judgment before even the governor himself knew what crimes he’d been accused of committing. We follow him through the maze of political conspiracies that threaten to unseat and impeach the governor of the fifth largest state in the U.S. –forces brought to light by the ambition of an attorney general and the greed of her Democratic State Party Chairman father –as well as the zeal of a federal prosecutor and the manipulations of a disloyal lieutenant governor.”

There probably will not be a dull word in this one. Maybe ten truthful ones, but no dull ones.

Crossposted to RedState.

RedState Gathering – Ted Cruz.

This interview is from last week’s RedState gathering. Ted Cruz is the guy running for Texas Attorney General – and as you can see, he’s pretty serious about this race. He’s also pretty serious about using the new social media to get his message out:

I think that I have maybe one more of these interviews left: you should check out Dave_in_Fla’s blog at RedState for the speeches themselves, as he was kind enough to do a proper taping of Saturday – and without us asking. We’re lucky in our readers over there.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

I’d say “Putin the Barbarian”…

…except that Russians get damned touchy about even the suggestion that they’re not as civilized as everybody else; and I while I don’t know whether they’re checked out on the Conan movies, I do know that somebody just smashed Facebook and Twitter to take down one Georgian.  So I’ll just restrain myself to one comment about this picture:

ptb

Not bad; but you forgot the greatsword slung behind one shoulder, Vladimir.

Crossposted to RedState.

Gresham’s Law II: THE REVENGE.

The first line says it all:

“Small businesses that received $682 million in IOUs from the state say California expects them to pay taxes on the worthless scraps of paper, but refuses to accept its own IOUs to pay debts or taxes.”

So a bunch of them are suing the state government.  The lead plaintiff in this one is a shirt manufacturer who got paid scrip for a product she provided… which she can’t use to pay the taxes on the sale. Which is interesting, because something like this happened to me in a dream, once.  And then the burning llama in an asbestos night-shirt surfaced from the pool of liquid nitrogen and told me that I had been chosen to lead the forces of Goodness against Kenny G*.

In other words, put me down for finding this ‘breathtakingly stupid,’ too.

Moe Lane

*No, I don’t have anything in particular against Kenny G.  Somebody has to do it, and at least he doesn’t destroy hotel rooms while on tour.

Crossposted to RedState.

GM’s environmental quid pro quo.

(H/T: Instapundit) I am honestly surprised to find that there are people surprised by this.

Among those clamoring for attention and payouts from Motors Liquidation Co., the company that assumed General Motors’ unwanted assets after its Chapter 11 filing, are the environmental and economic redevelopment departments of state governments. According to reports, when GM exited bankruptcy, its polluted factory and land sites were consumed by the Motor Liquidation, allowing the automaker to avoid the responsibility of cleaning up its mess, and state leaders fear there won’t be any money to clean the locations.

After all, this was the original point of the exercise.  GM was an unsustainable, debt-ridden mess; the government takeover and bankruptcy was designed to let it cut out the most diseased portions of its operations and reorganize as something more… ‘untainted,’ as it were.  Or possibly even just ‘less tainted.’  That this ends up with individual state governments left holding the bag on the cleanup* is either an unintended consequence, or just a previously-obscure detail, of the bailout/bankruptcy; it all depends on whether you see the administration as a collection of dangerous idiots, or as a collection of dangerous idiots.  A federal bailout of the state governments’ obligations to clean up a private industry’s ecological mess would certainly be a useful weapon in the federal government’s ongoing quest for ever-more power and oversight.

On the other hand, the White House can’t even spell “Barack Obama” reliably on official state documents, so it’s entirely possible that they stuck already-struggling states with the cleanup bill by the sheerest accident. Continue reading GM’s environmental quid pro quo.

Iron Man 2 footage… ‘leaked?’

I say ‘leaked’ because the director doesn’t seem to care too much. Personally, I can’t really watch it; too jumpy and bootleg for my tastes. AoSHQ has the video up, if you want to watch.

You probably do. It has Samuel L MFing Jackson in it*.

Moe Lane

*When I went to go see Iron Man in theaters, I stayed until the end – and got a family to sit down and wait with me. Made their day when they saw the reveal; making their day made mine.