Author: Moe_Lane

The Vatican’s making life difficult for ‘Angels & Demons?’

Perish the thought:

Director Ron Howard has accused the Vatican of trying to hamper the filming of his new movie, Angels & Demons, starring Tom Hanks.

The movie sequel to author Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code features symbolist Robert Langdon helping to rescue four kidnapped cardinals.

But Howard said the Vatican exerted its influence “through back channels” to prevent filming near certain churches.

You’d almost think that Ron Howard was directing a movie whose central conceit not only attacks one of the key teachings of Christianity*, but does so by ripping off Holy Blood, Holy Grail pretty much wholesale.  Personally, if I was a Vatican official I’d be more offended by the second than the first: Baigent, Leigh, & Lincoln at least weren’t in the ‘mystical bloodline of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene’ business strictly for the cash.

That being said, this is probably part of an attempt to boost sales for The Lost Symbol when it comes out later this year. All just business, in other words.

Moe Lane

*The divinity of Christ, essentially.

Crossposted to RedState.

The New New McCarthyism.

Refusing to trust the lion’s mouth.

(H/t: Hot Air) The more often I reread this open letter by Andrew McCarthy declining the government’s invitation to a round table meeting on detention policy, the more depressed I get:

…in light of public statements by both you and the President, it is dismayingly clear that, under your leadership, the Justice Department takes the position that a lawyer who in good faith offers legal advice to government policy makers—like the government lawyers who offered good faith advice on interrogation policy—may be subject to investigation and prosecution for the content of that advice, in addition to empty but professionally damaging accusations of ethical misconduct. Given that stance, any prudent lawyer would have to hesitate before offering advice to the government.

Beyond that, as elucidated in my writing (including my proposal for a new national security court, which I understand the Task Force has perused), I believe alien enemy combatants should be detained at Guantanamo Bay (or a facility like it) until the conclusion of hostilities. This national defense measure is deeply rooted in the venerable laws of war and was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in the 2004 Hamdi case. Yet, as recently as Wednesday, you asserted that, in your considered judgment, such notions violate America’s “commitment to the rule of law.” Indeed, you elaborated, “Nothing symbolizes our [adminstration’s] new course more than our decision to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay…. President Obama believes, and I strongly agree, that Guantanamo has come to represent a time and an approach that we want to put behind us: a disregard for our centuries-long respect for the rule of law[.]” (Emphasis added.)

Given your policy of conducting ruinous criminal and ethics investigations of lawyers over the advice they offer the government, and your specific position that the wartime detention I would endorse is tantamount to a violation of law, it makes little sense for me to attend the Task Force meeting. After all, my choice would be to remain silent or risk jeopardizing myself.

It’s depressing primarily because I never expected that an administration could so thoroughly muck up what I naively thought was a bedrock concept of our system of government: that there were limits to how hard the game was played. And, yes, this is a game that the White House is playing right now. Badly.

Continue reading The New New McCarthyism.

Obama prepares to start up military tribunals for Gitmo detainees.

(Via Just One Minute) Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia, you know:

U.S. May Revive Guantánamo Military Courts

The Obama administration is moving toward reviving the military commission system for prosecuting Guantánamo detainees, which was a target of critics during the Bush administration, including Mr. Obama himself.

[snip]

When President Obama suspended Guantánamo cases after his inauguration on Jan. 20, many participants said the military commission system appeared dead.

Mind you, other people suggested that the President’s actions back then were possibly just an attempt to give him maneuvering room while he came up with a way to keep the status quo going.  Which leads to an interesting scenario: let us say that the President decides to run military tribunals for Gitmo detainees.  Let us also say that he (with a little help from Congress*) steamrollers over current opposition to those tribunals.  Once those tribunals are done, and the existing detainees are processed… what’s stopping the President from continuing to keep Gitmo operating?  After all, did he not just ‘reform’ it?  It’d certainly be cheaper to keep an existing facility going than to shut it down and create a new one.  Fiscal responsibility is good, right?

And what would any critics plan to do about it, anyway?

Vote Republican?

Moe Lane

PS: Jim Geraghty: “All Barack Obama Statements Come With an Expiration Date. All Of Them.”

*Not to mention his Old and New Media lapdogs, many of whom would reveal themselves in the course of said steamrolling.

Crossposted to RedState.

‘If this guy had a different last name…’

It’s a significant point that I don’t actually have to tell conservative/Republican readers who GayPatriot is talking about: they would guess from the title alone that the subject is Jeb Bush. There are a lot of people out there who think that the wrong Bush ran in 2000*.

Personally, I’m not one of them – more accurately, when it came to the GWOT I’d rather keep GWB than all of the other possibilities** – but I also suspect that it doesn’t particularly matter, anyway: 2012 is probably too soon for the Bush name to be ‘rehabilitated’ in the public arena***, 2016 will be contentious either way, and the man will be 67 in 2020. For that matter, it’s not entirely wrong to be concerned that any one family should keep getting access to the Presidency: in 2008 we were facing a situation where the name ‘Bush’ or ‘Clinton’ had appeared on a winning party ticket seven times in a row, and up until Obama won the nomination it was threatening to be eight.

Well, there’s always the Senate in 2012. Going for Nelson’s seat should provide a good deal of panic, fear, inchoate rage, and general nastiness from the Online Left: so that’s something to look forward to.

Moe Lane

Continue reading ‘If this guy had a different last name…’

Condi Rice versus Random Antiwar Guy #555443.

The best part?  When she took pity, and gave him the answer.

And objectively speaking, the refs should have stopped the fight about halfway through. Not that either I or Brutally Honest would have thanked them for that: this was just too choice for words.

If you’re wondering who won this exchange, either you haven’t watched it yet or you’re not willing to admit the answer. When the room shuts up to listen to one person over another; when that person demonstrates on two separate occasions that she’s infinitely more knowledgeable on the subject than the person she’s ‘debating;’ and when that person brushes off her aide in order to rip a few more strips of flesh… well. Don’t go up against the varsity team if you’re not ready to play.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

The Insidious Snuggie Conspiracy claims another victim.

Save yourself: it’s too late for me.

snuggie

…OK, actually it was a gag gift, as per a tradition of my in-laws: every year they come up with a white elephant of a gift that gets foisted off on somebody at random, this year it was the Snuggie, and this year I was the one who got stuck. Little do they fully appreciate that this means that I pick next year’s gag gift.

Moo hoo bwah hah.

Arlen Specter desecrates Jack Kemp’s corpse.

I guess that Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) really is happier in his new party:

Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Democrat, said part of the reason he left the Republican Party last week was disillusionment with its healthcare priorities, and suggested that had the Republicans taken a more moderate track, Jack Kemp may have won his battle with cancer.

…because he’s certainly picked up from them the trick of using safely dead people to push a partisan talking point. Jack Kemp isn’t even buried yet; and he had nothing to do with the current political situation, you disgusting piece of partisan slime. I don’t expect truly civilized behavior from you anymore, but I did foolishly think that you could be trusted to show more delicacy than a hyena at the passing of a former friend.

Yes, ‘former’ friend. I have liberal friends; if one of them should die before me, I won’t be using his or her death to push the GOP’s agenda. That’s because I’m a decent human being, and you’re not.

In short: thanks for leaving my party. Don’t ever come back.

Moe Lane Continue reading Arlen Specter desecrates Jack Kemp’s corpse.

As rants on education go, this is pretty epic.

Complete with harsh language and badly-drawn heads. (Via The Smallest Minority)

I’d laugh more, except that I’m going to be staring this problem straight in the face in a few more years. And, bluntly? The only thing more annoying than the fact that the public school system is being run into the ground – using my tax money – is that the people running it into the ground have powerful partisan political patrons.

Crossposted to RedState.