Welcome to the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, Susan Estrich.

Getting hate mail for this yet?

Well, it’s still pretty early in the morning.  Plenty of time for your compatriots to address your heresy properly:

Mother Knows Best

The president is “not familiar” with the bill. No one can explain how it will work yet, as Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., told a contentious town meeting. There are various plans, and negotiations are still in the early stages.

But whatever it is, we should be for it.

Am I missing something?

Yes. He won, he knows best, so “shut up.”

Moe Lane

PS: No, actually, this is precisely who you voted for, Susan Estrich.  While you were all the while mocking the people who were telling you differently.  So if you’re annoyed, first be annoyed at yourself for your incredulity, then at the administration for taking advantage of it – and then go back at being annoyed at yourself, rather than bring my side into the summer of your discontent.  Enabling you is no more on our agenda than it is on the President’s.

Crossposted to RedState.

“Lawyers, Guns, & Money,” acoustic.


Lawyers, Guns And Money, Warren Zevon

Not really the same tune, obviously: but it’s an interestingly sparse acoustic version in its own right.

Moe Lane

PS: Incidentally, Lawyers, Guns & Money is also a really good supplement for Unknown Armies, which is a really good urban fantasy roleplaying game.

Climate Change and the White Man’s Burdening.

(H/T: On Park Street) To sum up this Reason article on developing nations and climate change despair:

The Chinese and the Indians have no intention of giving anything but lip service to the quaint religious beliefs of Western climate change fanatics. They have no incentive to, and a powerful incentive not to: they are poor, and they wish to stop being poor, and there is no way to do that and not industrialize. If the aforementioned religious fanatics wish to try to force an economic Crusade upon the Chinese or the Indians in response, it is not entirely obvious that it will not backfire in the fanatics’ collective face.

The White House knows this, but it actually is not very good at making people do things that they don’t want to do, so don’t count on them to bail the country out of this mess.

Continue reading Climate Change and the White Man’s Burdening.

No Joss Whedon for Buffy Movie?

Yes, I’m late to this particular party; and yes, it was Joss Whedon’s own decision… still.  Why precisely do they expect me to go watch it, without the cast OR the director?

Hey, fun game. Which was better: Once More, With Feeling, The Body, or Hush? I mean, obviously it was Once More, With Feeling – but I suppose that I should give other people a chance to justify their choice.

Quinnipiac: Specter/Toomey 45/44. [UPDATED]

[UPDATE]: And if you think those numbers are bad, wait until Specter caves on card check to appease his new owners.  His constituents are purely going to hate that.

Via Hot Air Headlines, Nobody loves a traitor.

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter’s 2010 reelection lead over Republican challenger Pat Toomey has shrunk to a tie with 45 percent for Specter and 44 percent for Toomey, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. And voters say 49 – 40 percent that Sen. Specter does not deserve reelection.

[snip]

Specter, first elected to the Senate as a Republican in 1980 but who switched to the Democratic Party earlier this year, holds a commanding 55 – 23 percent lead over U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak in the race for the Democratic nomination. On the Republican side Toomey buries Peg Luksik 47 – 6 percent.

[snip]

In other trial matchups Specter would defeat Luksik 47 – 40 percent, while Toomey would edge Sestak 39 – 35 percent.

That last bit may be what dooms Sestak’s candidacy… except, of course, that the Democrats are already trying their best to sabotage his (and Maloney’s, over in NY) primary challenge anyway. Meanwhile, the NRSC is backing Toomey, thus avoiding the bloody primary that we were all expecting and dreading before Specter changed sides.

So: thanks for not retiring, Arlen! Make sure that you vote for health care rationing!

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Quote of the day, corpse-eating robot pushback edition.

“We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission,”
– Harry Schoell, CEO of Cyclone Power Technologies

(Via Wired, via Genrewonk)

For those just catching up now, Cyclone Power Technologies is one of the companies working on the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR™), which uses ‘biomass’ for fuel* (it’s also steam-powered, which is an important consideration right there). I’m not sure whether this qualifies as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ publicity: calling your biomass-eating robot ‘EATR’ suggests that you’re prepared to milk whatever you can get for the full effect. And what’s with this ‘green’ nonsense? I mean, come on: EATR burns things for their steam. By definition something like that has a ‘carbon footprint,’ to use the theological term.

Moe Lane

*Which means that it doesn’t do this:

Which is actually a pity.