Author: Moe_Lane

Pope makes firm statement to Pelosi on abortion.

I’m going to put up the full text of the Vatican’s statement about Nancy Pelosi’s visit with the Pope, because I suspect that they want this put out there:

Following the General Audience the Holy Father briefly greeted Mrs Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the United States House of Representatives, together with her entourage.

His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development.”

Continue reading Pope makes firm statement to Pelosi on abortion.

Will Obama remain a cynic?

Free Frank Warner is hopeful that President Obama’s days as one are numbered:

As the cynic, Obama could argue that Saddam Hussein was just another ruler, and that it was better to leave him alone. As president, he’ll find that the democracies are infinitely more cooperative and less dangerous than dictatorships, and that nine-tenths of the world’s deaths from war, famine and genocide are due to the abuses of despotic regimes. Continue reading Will Obama remain a cynic?

Not Watching the Watchmen over on RedState.

Warner Todd Huston, my colleague over at RedState, has written something on Alan Moore‘s Watchmen comic series: the fact that it’s titled “Unheroic Superheroes, Watch out for the Watchmen” suggests that he’s not likely to be going to go see the film, to put it mildly (he’s gone into more detail here, although I haven’t read it yet). Continue reading Not Watching the Watchmen over on RedState.

New York Post: Rahm Emanuel Freddie Mac board member during fraud years.

[UPDATE]: Welcome, Instapundit readers.

Funny how this sort of thing takes forever to make the papers. From Dick Morris and Eileen McGann:

RAHM’S ‘RENT’ IS JUST THE TIP OF ETHICS ICEBERG

[snip]

Consider: Emanuel served on the Freddie Mac board of directors during the time that the government-backed lender lied about its earnings, a leading contributor to the current economic meltdown.

The Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight Agency later singled out the Freddie Mac board as contributing to the fraud in 2000 and 2001 for “failing in its duty to follow up on matters brought to its attention.” In other words, board members ignored the red flags waving in their faces.

The SEC later fined Freddie $50 million for its deliberate fraud in 2000, 2001 and 2002.

Meanwhile, Emanuel was paid more than $260,000 for his Freddie “service.” Plus, after he resigned from the board to run for Congress in 2002, the troubled agency’s PAC gave his campaign $25,000 – its largest single gift to a House candidate.

That’s what friends are for, isn’t it?

Continue reading New York Post: Rahm Emanuel Freddie Mac board member during fraud years.

Chicago Tribune futilely calls for Burris’ resignation.

(Via Hot Air Headlines) It’s a lovely thought, but it won’t happen. If either state or Senate Democrats cared enough about the humiliation that they were putting the people of Illinois through with this sorry mess, they would have changed the law to permit a special election in the first place. But that wasn’t important. Keeping the seat in the hands of one political party?  That was important.

Heck of a thing when the most laudable motivation energizing any Democratic Party player in this affair is coming from the impeached former Governor of Illinois; even worse, the motivation is “stark, bloody-minded revenge.” Oh, Rod Blagojevich: why could you not have chosen to use your powers for good?

Crossposted to RedState.

And now, a tiger hugging a man.

tigerhug Provided via Cracked.com, solely for the purpose of allowing you to reset your brain and attitude for the evening and let you get your pulse down a couple of beats.

All that being said, though: bacon salt.. Bacon salt will make you happy. At least, it will make you happy if you also have mashed potatoes. And why don’t you have mashed potatoes, anyway? They’re not hard to make: scrub a potato down, cut it into quarters, dump it into boiling water, come back in a half hour, drain, add a little real milk, a little real butter, and, well, mash them up until it looks right. Then add the bacon salt and more butter.

Simple, really.

Moe Lane

A plethora of Trail of Cthulhu / Esoterrorist resources.

Although I should probably come up with something more squamous than “plethora.”

Anyway: I think that I’ve previously mentioned Trail of Cthulhu, which is Ken Hite’s exceptionally good sourcebook for 1930’s-style Cthulhu Mythos roleplaying (the default time period is actually the 1920s, which is of course a completely different style from a roleplaying standard) for the GUMSHOE system, which is an attempt to create a roleplaying game that is actually designed to accommodate mysteries and investigation.  It’s the same game engine that’s used by Robin Laws’ The Esoterrorists, which more of a modern occult-horror investigation/repression game.

Good gaming stuff, in other words – and Steve Jackson Games is selling supplements for both Trail of Cthulhu and The Esoterrorists as part of their PDF publishing service. Significant savings over the dead-tree version, instantly accessible, good stuff with which to get your geek on – a nice deal all around.  Check them out

US negotiating to reoccupy Uzbek air base?

You know, Uzbekistan. Where they BOIL PEOPLE ALIVE.

Not being content to embrace and expand a program of deniable third-party torture as a viable counter-terrorism tool, the Obama administration has apparently decided to try to mend relations with the nation of Uzbekistan (H/T: Instapundit):

Sources: US considers Uzbekistan as backup base

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is considering resuming military cooperation with hardline Uzbekistan as a potential backup plan given the uncertain future of a nearby air base that is a main artery for troops and supplies for the widening Afghanistan war, U.S. officials said Thursday.

Defense officials say they are examining options for supply routes through a semicircle of nations from Central Asia to the Persian Gulf that could be used in place of a strategic air base in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan.

This is, of course, in response to said air base being closed in response to Russian ‘encouragement’… which is in itself in response to the election of a new President of the United States. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, here. Continue reading US negotiating to reoccupy Uzbek air base?