Author: Moe_Lane

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.

Isn’t Seal bald?

I could have sworn that he was bald.


Crazy

Of course, that was in 1991… yeah, yeah, yeah: I know, that video’s old enough to vote. And also, yeah, everybody dressed like the Daywalker back then. To quote Lileks, it was the way of my people.

So was dressing up young women in a fashion reminiscent of last-minute desperation fetish shopping, apparently: Continue reading Isn’t Seal bald?

Barney Frank (D, MA-04) refuses to answer a question.

The question being, “How much responsibility, if any, do you have for the financial crisis?”

More here, and H/T Instapundit. I hope that the guy wasn’t actually expecting a substantive answer: there’s no way that Rep. Frank is going to admit that his party has been merrily contributing to our current mortgage disaster… and there’s no way that he’s going to give a definitive “no” to that question, either.  When you’ve been in Congress as long as Frank has, you learn to obfuscate, prevaricate, insinuate, and get irate when asked unfortunately pointed questions like that.

But, hey, his constituents and supporters are the types who’ll groove to hearing about right-wing deregulation conspiracies anyway, so I guess that he’s got a pretty good shtick going there.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Carolyn McCarthy (D, NY-04): PMA Porker.

I mention this not so much because she’s unique – she isn’t, especially among Democrats – but because she has her eye on higher office these days.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) has made it clear that she may launch a primary challenge against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), whom McCarthy deems too conservative to represent one of the most liberal states in the country.

But McCarthy may have a problem of her own to clear up before she sets her sights on higher office. McCarthy’s top contributor this cycle is the now-defunct PMA Group.

Via Instapundit. The article goes on to note that McCarthy helped block an ethics probe into PMA’s shenanigans (presumably, the one of the ones initiated by Republican Jeff Flake). Say what you like about now-Senator Gillibrand, but her name is conspicuously absent from this list…

Crossposted to RedState.

G20 Protesters murder man in London. [Bumped: and the cops may have lent a hand.]

[Further UPDATE] I’m guessing that I got linked to by Infowars. Sorry, guys, but no link: I like Jews, you understand.

[UPDATE] And when they pull in the sick buggers that threw the bottles, make sure that none of these guys do the pulling in.

But don’t preen, ye blackshirts.  The cops may have committed manslaughter.  Your fellow-protesters are still on the hook for murder.

Yes, murder.  When you attack people trying to save someone’s life – someone who is dying – you have made a moral choice.  Or in this case, an immoral choice:

Police were attacked as they helped dying man at G20 protests in City

Police officers came under attack while they tried to help a dying man at the G20 protests in the City last night.

The victim was found by a member of the public unconscious in the street near the Bank of England just before 7.30pm yesterday.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said officers arrived on the scene to help and had to move the casualty away for urgent treatment after bottles were thrown at them by protesters.

Continue reading G20 Protesters murder man in London. [Bumped: and the cops may have lent a hand.]

Turnout low in IL-05.

This has been noticed by both Ace and Geraghty (and again, here): turnout’s low in IL-05.  How low?  Rahm Emanuel forgot to vote.  I am not writing this to offer false hope: it’s an incredibly tough district for us to win, and Rosanna Pulido hasn’t exactly gotten her party behind her.  But, oddly enough, neither has Mike Quigley.  He’s heavily favored to win, but he’s gotten virtually no support  – which is odd; you’d think that the Democrats wouldn’t turn their nose up at hyping an easy win, particularly since they’re either 0-for-3 or 0-for-4, depending on how you think NY-20’s going right now.  But this one is being pretty much left up to the candidates.

If I had to guess, I don’t think that establishment Democrats want to lose the seat, per se: they just don’t think that making sure that they don’t lose it is worth the effort.  After all, Emanuel’s going to want to go back to the House some day.  Quigley in that seat will be harder to dislodge than a GOP interloper.

I guess that we’ll see tonight.  In the meantime, if you live in IL-05, go vote.  Either way, you’re probably going to tick off the Illinois Democratic party.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.