Blair’s Law in action at the G20.

Blair’s Law™ – The ongoing process by which the world’s multiple idiocies are becoming one giant, useless force.

…and it’s in full view at the G20 protests in London, where we get this report from The New Ledger’s Roger Bate about the eclectic nature of the protesters.  Because it’s an antiglobo affair, it is of course dominated by the usual Communist and Israel-hating groups – the latter needing somewhere to go, now that the antiwar movement’s lost losing the war – and Bate suggests that the global warming cause may end up being added to the mix.  To which I reply: if only.  That’d be the fastist way to discredit the whole movement.  Still, the dupes-fools-and-knaves contingent is in full force at London, and they think that they smell blood, so they’re energized.

As long as they stay energized over there.  Faux-populist movements are annoying at best, and kind of intolerable at worst.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Chris Matthews, Howard Fineman sexualize their digs at Gov. Palin.

It’s not surprising that Matthews isn’t visible in this clip. He’s the sort who’ll hide his face during an attack:

…and unlike Ed Morrissey I don’t assume class from anybody at Newsweek until proven otherwise – which is a working methodology that has been completely justified by Howard Fineman’s example. But if you disagree that Fineman’s not reachable, well, his email’s webeditors@newsweek.com and the main number for Newsweek in NYC is 212-445-4000. Don’t let them give you the 800 number: those people just handle magazine subscriptions.

Sorry, folks, but this is part of the price of being a more activist party. You have to be, well, active. That means, among other things, emailing and calling about offensive stuff, instead of just stewing about them.

Moe Lane

PS: For any Democratic women reading this: do yourself a favor, and run this past your male Democratic friends and loved ones without revealing your own opinion on the subject. The ones who laugh are the ones who’ll talk about you, or go around you, behind your back.

Hey, I’m just the messenger.

Crossposted to RedState.

Governor Kaine signs law permitting “Choose Life” license plates.

Via Riehl World View:

DNC chair infuriates abortion backers

Tim Kaine, the Virginia governor and President Barack Obama’s hand-picked choice as the head of the Democratic National Committee, infuriated abortion-rights groups Monday by signing legislation that gives abortion foes a long-sought victory.

Kaine brushed off intense lobbying by abortion rights supporters in Richmond to sign a bill that allows Virginia motorists to advertise their anti-abortion views by sporting “Choose Life” specialty license plates.

Infuriated. How… brittle of them.

Crossposted to RedState.

Strange New Respect for Keith Olbermann.

Who knew that a cow college grad could be so biting?

Well… OK, most of the country knows that cow college grads (sayeth the state school grad) can be so biting. But if it’s true that Keith Olbermann called the President “Cal Worthington Obama” in response to the President’s gentler touch towards Wall Street in comparison to the auto industry* (via Hot Air Headlines), well. I will have to raise my opinion of Olbermann’s potential wit. Or at least the wit of his writers.

Anyway, Greg Pollowitz also included this video of Cal Worthington’s greatest hits:

I personally managed to stay on my chair and not howling with laughter up to about the bear.

Moe Lane

*Mind you, Greg Pollowitz reported that Olbermann’s more worried about the poor UAW than those awful auto executives.

Crossposted to RedState.

Looking for someone to read (Peter Hamilton)

(Today’s author: Peter Hamilton)

I’m currently going through The Temporal Void (second book in his Void Trilogy), so I thought that I should mention his works generally.  Peter Hamilton’s one of the more interesting science fiction authors out there: while his work is definitely part of the ‘hard space opera’ tradition, he’s also ready to play with some quite heretical tropes – at least, heretical for hard SF.

Case in point: his Night’s Dawn Trilogy explores the reaction of an interstellar civilization to empirical proof of the existence of an afterlife, particularly when its inhabitants start escaping from it en masse.  His Mindstar trilogy (based in a globally-warmed, post-Communist, future Great Britain) is likewise ostensibly one genre (cyberpunk), but one that has been modified heavily in order to make it plausible that anybody would actually live in it voluntarily.  And the trilogy that I’m reading now is a sequel to the two-book series Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained, which rather sneakily inserts elves into a classic alien war scenario without anyone quite noticing until it was over and done with.

They’re big, fat books, and quite fun. Check them all out.

WSJ calls SEIU on EFCA lie.

It’s the usual trick of taking the first half of a sentence and presenting it as a complete statement. In this case, this turns “The bill doesn’t remove the secret-ballot option from the National Labor Relations Act but in practice makes it a dead letter” into “The bill doesn’t remove the secret-ballot option from the National Labor Relations Act;” Rep George Miller (D, CA-07) and SEIU are now using the truncated quote to pretend that the Wall Street Journal is on their side of the secret ballot question.

You can tell how amused the WSJ is on this by their editorial title (“George Miller Loves Us – Too bad he and Big Labor can’t read”): you can probably also use it to tell how desperate Miller/SEIU are, too. After all, as it stands they don’t even have Sen. Feinstein (D, CA) firmly on-board… which is interesting, no?

Crossposted to RedState.

I believe that the technical term for this would be “ghetto.”

Or, if you’re a Jerry Pournelle fan – and why aren’t you? – a “Welfare Island.” Via AoSHQ:

Brazil builds walls around Rio de Janeiro slums

RIO DE JANEIRO, March 28 (Reuters) – The government of Rio de Janeiro is building concrete walls to prevent sprawling slums from spreading farther into the picturesque hills of this world-famous tourist destination, an official said on Saturday.

This should end well.

Moe Lane

PS: Not that the President of Brazil’s planning to listen to a white guy with blue eyes. Didn’t you hear? I’m one of the people responsible for the current economic crisis.

Um… sorry about that?

Crossposted to RedState.