Category: Uncategorized

2nd NC redistricting map more pointed than 1st one.

When the first North Carolina redistricting map came out at the beginning of July,  Democrats of course bawled like stuck calves.  Speaking objectively, this wasn’t a surprise: the way that it was set up, it put four Democratic Congressmen – Larry Kissell, Mike McIntyre, Brad Miller, & Heath Shuler – at a serious disadvantage in the 2012 elections.  Put simply, the map threatened to flip NC from 6/7 GOP/DEM to 8/5 GOP/DEM, or even 10/3. If you examine the previous map, you’ll understand why such a dramatic shift; the Democrats went notoriously overboard in gerrymandering in 2000, when they controlled the process.  In short, we had a humdinger of a karmic adjustment going on in North Carolina.

But then something interesting happened: Rep. GK Butterfield (D, NC-01) started complaining.  Rep. Butterfield is a beneficiary (along with Rep. Mel Watts of NC-12) of the racial gerrymandering system set up in response to the Voting Rights Act; and he made some rather pointed objections to the first map, arguing that it ‘disenfranchised’ some of his former constituents by moving them into majority-white districts.  North Carolinan Republicans thought about it – and must have decided that they agreed, because they went into the maps again and redrew both Butterfield’s and Watt’s districts to make them more in line with the VRA’s perceived guidelines.

Of course, that meant that they had to… make some unavoidable choices: Continue reading 2nd NC redistricting map more pointed than 1st one.

Awesome Watch: “They Might Be Giants covers Chumbawamba.”

For the Onion AV Club, which got to provide the backup vocals.


They Might Be Giants covers Chumbawamba

The only way that this could have been improved would have been for John Flansburgh to have worn an Iron Man suit… no, no, that would have caused the Singularity, and I can’t have the Singularity happen before I do laundry.

Via Nodwick.
Continue reading Awesome Watch: “They Might Be Giants covers Chumbawamba.”

George Stephanopoulos thinks Ben Franklin isn’t a Founding Father?

Via Instapundit, Jeffrey Lord is having fun lecturing George Stephanopoulos by mentioning Founding Fathers who opposed slavery, contra Stephanopoulos’ rather ignorant statement here to Rep. Michele Bachmann:

For example earlier this year you said that the Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence worked tirelessly to end slavery. Now with respect Congresswoman, that’s just not true.

We can go ’round and ’round about whether John Quincy Adams counts – I personally would have him count as one, or at least not quibble overmuch over it – but let’s talk about some non-Virginians, shall we?

  • Benjamin Franklin. If Ben Franklin isn’t a Founding Father, then the term is meaningless anyway. Long sympathetic to abolitionist views, he spent the last years of his life (and the first years of the public) as an open advocate for abolition and integration.
  • John Adams. Also on every list of Founding Fathers that there are. Balance his reluctance to push for too-public a dispute over slavery with his writing the Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts portion of the Massachusetts Constitution.
  • John Jay. Likewise on the lists (also, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court). Despite being a slaveowner himself, Jay pushed for abolition and manumission in New York for over twenty years; he finally succeeded in passing manumission legislation as Governor.

Continue reading George Stephanopoulos thinks Ben Franklin isn’t a Founding Father?

…Well, the iPad’s nice for Netflix.

But as a tool for fast and easy video editing/publishing?  Well, it’d be nice if iMovies would remove the thumb from its electronic tuchis long enough to explain exactly WHAT KIND OF VIDEO FILES AND CAMERAS IT WILL DEIGN TO RECOGNIZE.  I don’t know: possibly I’m just spoiled by using real computers all the time, but I take the quaint attitude that you’re not supposed to just guess what cameras will work with a given piece of software.  For that matter, I also apparently have this strange, non-Apple notion in my noggin that enabling your software to work with non-Apple blessed formats makes the software more valuable.

Dammit, if I had known that this particular brand of tablet was going to be like this, I would have gotten one that doesn’t try to force you to buy an iPhone.  Which are about to get locked out of the guerrilla recording game anyway; I can think of at least twenty national governments who would happily acquire and use technology that would automatically disrupts iPhone video and photo recording.  Including our current Presidential administration*, most likely.

Grr.  Arrgh.

Moe Lane

*That would be the Democratic one, for the benefit of future researchers.

Moe Lane

Good Thad was on the House floor this morning.

I like Rep Thaddeus Cotter (R, MI): I truly do.  But there’s Good Thad, and then there’s Bad Thad; and sometimes you don’t know which one that you’re going to have show up.

Here’s Good Thad, talking this morning about Led Zeppelin and the Democrats’ decision to shut down the government in order to keep trying to subsidize abortion providers with your tax money*.  Don’t worry: he ties the two together.

Via @diggerbii.

Moe Lane

*Subsidizing the troops, on the other hand, is a completely different story.