Author: Moe_Lane

Umm… didn’t most of them die?

Well, except Boromir Faramir (thanks, AoSHQ), of course. Via @phxgonline:

‘300’ Sequel Officially in the Works
Legendary Pictures, the production company behind the 2007 blockbuster 300, has confirmed the inevitable: Development of a sequel is underway.

Well, maybe they’re all in Tartarus or something, and the 300 have to break out and march back across Hell to the upper world in order to save the Athenians’ bacon at Marathon. Sort of Anabasis meets Doom.

(pause)

Yeah, actually, that does sound pretty cool.

Moe Lane

Iowahawk re-announces his nuclear status.

(H/T: Cynthia Yockey*)  Iowahawk has brought back something from the archives:

Announcement of Glorious Nuclear Achievement to Gangster Stooges of Blogosphere
In the back yard of scientific researchings behind the Great Storage Shed of the People, Iowahawk scientists successfully conducted above-ground nuclear missile test explosions under secure and many malt liquor conditions on early hours of October 10, 2006 April 6, 2009, at a stirring time when alarm clocks of the neighborhood have yet to clangle. To the impotent yappings of the neighboring gangster devils, Iowahawk responds: howl away, bourgeois traitors of Lakewood Mobile Home Court! Your pitious lamentations and cowardly 911-callings will never stop Iowahawk from the great leap forward into great and powerful prosperity, using his mighty quiver of nuclear-tipped cherry bombs and fully-fissionable bottle rockets for peaceful unity purposes!

Continue reading Iowahawk re-announces his nuclear status.

No stop at Normandy.

RS’s Mark Impomeni lets us know that we’re snubbing the French for a change:

Reports out of London indicate that President Barack Obama declined an inviation from French President Nicholas Sarkozy to visit Normandy’s Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-mer on his way to Strasbourg for the NATO summit last week. The Daily Telegraph reports that White House officials travelled to France last month to discuss the visit with their counterparts on Sarkozy’s staff. But one American official familiar with the negotiations said that President Obama never had any intention of making the stop over.

The Telegraph also indicates that the French claims that Obama will be in Normandy for the 65th anniversary of D-Day have not been corroborated by the White House.

[rubbing head with hands] Continue reading No stop at Normandy.

How *is* that ‘Digital Libertarians for Obama’ thing working out for people?

(Via Instapundit) I don’t know off the top of my head whether Cory Doctorow actually drank that particular Kool-Aid, but there’s an astounding amount of whining and denial taking place in the comment section to his critical post about Obama and wiretapping.  Between the “the Master loves us and would never betray us” contingent and the “they’re all pawns of the establishment!” contingent, there’s endless opportunities for schadenfreude.  Which we should restrain ourselves from indulging in too deeply… for quite cynical, pragmatic reasons, such as “some of these people can be encouraged to vote their class interests.”  Which is to say, Republican: because right now the dig-libs are going to get a much better level of pandering from us than they’re going to get from the Democrats.  The latter isn’t even bothering with lip service at this point.

Yes, that means “selling out.”  As Michael Flynn once noted, that means the same thing as “growing up.”

Moe Lane

PS: Besides, the way things are right now if the dig-libs decided to infiltrate county and state GOP organizations they wouldn’t just get away with it.  The existing power structure would give them all free sodas.

Crossposted to RedState.

The Cuban situation about to get depressingly worse?

It can always get worse.

If you saw the CBC members’ visit to the Castro regime and winced (I’m sorry, but I can’t describe what happened there without using the word ‘slobbering’), I’m afraid that I have bad news for you: there may be more provocations to follow. Via Kausfiles, a reminder about how this regime operates:

…whenever it looked as if Cuba was on the path to rejoining the world, Mr. Castro has done something to derail its progress. Recall that he relentlessly battled Mikhail Gorbachev over perestroika and glasnost. Mr. Castro warned that these changes would be the Soviet Union’s downfall — evidently missing the point. In a new, flattering documentary about Cuba’s leader by Oliver Stone, ”Comandante,” Mr. Castro dismisses Mr. Gorbachev as a man ”who destroyed his country.”

Or consider what happened in 1996, after the Clinton administration and Cuba had settled on migration and drug interdiction accords. Mr. Castro (after months of warnings) shot down two planes operated by the exile group Brothers to the Rescue, killing four people. The result was the signing of the Helms-Burton Act, which tightened the embargo. Did Mr. Castro know that Congress would react this way? Of course he did.

Continue reading The Cuban situation about to get depressingly worse?

One week until the April 15th Tax Day Tea Parties.

Welcome to activism.  Yes, we know, it is probably your first time.

If you haven’t picked one yet, pick one. I’ll be at the DC affair. Erick and Jeff E of RedState are helping set up Macon’s.  Take a couple of hours off, find a gathering that’s close, and go. If you never go to these things – but you’re also kind of mad at the way the government is throwing away your money – well, that’s sort of the point of you going.

And remember:

“First they ignore you…
…then they ridicule you…
…then they fight you…
…then you win.”
– M . Gandhi

Continue reading One week until the April 15th Tax Day Tea Parties.

Our critical Mad Science gap.

Now, as I have noted elsewhere I am giving a somewhat jaundiced eye towards our upcoming defense cuts, if only because I’m missing why we’re cutting from the military when we’re spending like drunken bureaucrats just about everywhere else. That does imply that I can be reasoned with on the need for any one particular program. Maybe.

BUT THIS IS AN OUTRAGE:

GATES PULLS PLUG ON DEFENSE SPENDING

WASHINGTON, DC – The Government has been forced to pull back on defense spending. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is pulling funding on F22 and Area 51, which is expected to close within the month. At a press conference on Monday Robert Gates announced his new plan to shift resources from costly weapons systems to the ground campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan

Area 51 is a top secret government installation in southern Nevada. It first gained recognition as a secret government testing site in the 1950’s. Since then it is believed to be where the government tests new and alien technologies. Most of the new and alien technology Secretary Gates is cutting is expected to be in Area 51.

Most of the absolutely critical advances in American technology – lasers, fuel cells, microprocessors, Cheez Wiz – have been generated via Area 51. The salvaged entertainment system from the crashed Roswell saucer alone has justified the entire program, although I will admit that the 8-track tape thing didn’t work out as well as was hoped.  Still, this is an absolutely critical military facility, with endless opportunities for industrial and scientific advancement; we cannot let little trivialities like “telekinetic implosions,” “rips in the space-time continuum,” or “involuntary accelerated mass mutations” obscure the valuable work being done there.

So keep Area 51 open, Secretary Gates.  Do not force me to unleash my minions upon the land.

Moe Lane

John Dickerson nuances his explanation of Obama’s nuance.

It is all very meta.

He knows that you can’t just say – unlike, say, Jake Tapper – that the President likes to play with straw men, so he’ll sort of sidle up to it:

The Careful Exaggerator… balances his rhetoric… study in nuance… practically grisaille… nuance-free exaggerator… exaggerates to free himself from the demands of the news cycle… hopes to do though this exaggerated description… plays Aunt Sally… doesn’t mischaracterize, exactly, but he exaggerates… intended to make his opponents look foolish… offered another cartoonish view… probably exaggerates no more than a typical politician….

While Dickerson probably could have used the services of an online thesaurus (by the way, I’m not buying that he knew ‘grisaille*’ right off of the bat, unless of course he was an art minor or something), his point can be eventually determined if you step back far enough: the President plays fast and loose with the truth in order to get his way, or just out of trouble. Of course, Dickerson would be absolutely insane to just write that, given that, say, the aforementioned Tapper gets screamed at by every unhinged member of the Online Left whenever he actually does his job: Slate lives or dies with online clicks, ABC News doesn’t. Unfortunately, Dickerson is also stuck with having to deal with the central paradox in all of this:

Continue reading John Dickerson nuances his explanation of Obama’s nuance.