Moe Lane

9 of Hearts

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One of the pleasures of having a group blog is that you get invites to everybody’s sandbox; in this case, Politboro Diktat’s DemCom Deck of Cards for Operation Bloggi Freedom. The cards themselves link to various sites, ranging from the warm-n-fuzzy and inconsequential (Yo*.) to the powerful and/or controversial (and one or two that just … Read more

Why we – well, I – read my Referrer logs

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Because we – well, I – like to see who visits us, and whether it’s because of an actual blogrolling or just a TypePad Recently Updated Weblogs link. The visit from My Favorite Headache was a case of the latter – but I found this particular entry amusing, so what the heck.

It May Come Up…

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…the special election in Kentucky, that is. Ben Chandler (D) vs. Alice Forgy Kerr (R). Interestingly, whoever wins this seat is going to have to run again in November, which makes things complicated: there’s already one Republican jockeying for position* in case the current candidate loses the special election. As Chandler is the former State … Read more

Super Bowl Prediction

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Right, that’s going on today. I predict that, no matter who wins, there will be at least ten bloggers who will attempt to somehow tie the final score to Kerry vs Edwards, by any means necessary. That’s pretty much the beginning and end of it all for me, although the commercials are usually good. UPDATE: … Read more

That makes Twelve…

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I got sent this link by another blogger (who I suspect may want to remain nameless*): ‘LORD OF THE RINGS’ WINS DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION: In naming the hugely profitable “Rings” sequel as its nominee, the Democratic Party broke with a longstanding tradition of nominating a human to head its ticket, with the exception of the year … Read more

For a Given Value of “Better”.

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In somewhat better news, it would seem that the crisis referenced here over the disallowing of reformist Iranian parliament members may not be over, after all: 117 Iranian lawmakers resign. Of interest is this: Next week, [Parliament speaker Mehdi] Karroubi said each of the lawmakers will address parliament, explaining why he has resigned. Then, the … Read more

Perspective.

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I had logged online to ask the universe just why Kid Rock was given permission to cover “Feel Like Making Love” (it takes a while before I get this sort of news these days), but I saw this instead, which pretty much puts my original plan into its proper (in)significance: Suicide Bombers Kill at Least … Read more

The Long Anticipated Oscar Post

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I thought that it’d be nice for the Oscar people to see precisely how the geekvote is liable to see their current slate. Well, at least how one member of the geekvote is liable to see their current slate. You know the drill.

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Geras hears some thumping noises…

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I assume that by now everybody here has read Paul Berman’s Dissent piece. Norm Geras (who is a Marxist himself, and one who agrees with Berman) decided to discuss the article past a simple me-too: after summarizing Berman’s six thumped reasons and adding a seventh, non-thumped one, he asks: “Does any of these reasons have … Read more

Yes, but what is it in miles?

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This little Powers of Ten applet seems pretty cool, but I bet that it’d be cooler if I had DSL (and thus could load it faster). Woe is me that I do not… (Via Instapundit)

February 2nd 3rd Primaries

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Scarily, I more or less got the last batch correct, so the heat’s on for me to get the next batch horrifically wrong. Good thing I’m so bad at this.

UPDATE: So bad, in fact, that I got the date wrong. Must have thought that January had 32 days, or something.

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Spreading the Linky Goodness

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Sebastian Holsclaw was apparently feeling masochistic today, because he was inciting people to comment on this statement: My conjecture is: The United States cannot expect to successfully emulate the policies of the more socialistic European countries even if it found the political will to attempt it. This is because the socialistic European countries are free … Read more

New Blogger

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Recent poster Opus over at Tacitus has started her own blog. She’s certainly on the Left side of the spectrum, but she likes Dave Barry and I’ve seen worse scansion coming from the Left*, so what the heck. No such thing as bad publicity, right? UPDATE: Sheesh, on review it would seem that I’m either … Read more

Top Ten.

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The Commissar has come up with a very interesting set of rules for blogging; I dunno if I agree with all of them, but I’m going to follow Rule #1 right now and merely set up a couple of open threads. Moe

What an odd story.

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Well, the new Iraqi paper al-Mada (whose editor, one Fakhri Karim, comes from a Marxist background and was pro-liberation of Iraq. A year ago I would have said that was a contradiction in terms, but then a year ago I wasn’t really aware of SIAW or Norm Geras)… right, the paper in question has apparently … Read more

Shooting the wounded?

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Poster Fredrik Nyman provided us* with a link to a TCS column by John Ellis called Shooting the Wounded, which gives some suggestions on how Kerry should run the next stage of his campaign. In short, Ellis advocates a strategy first formulated by Lee Atwater (whose name has much the same effect on Democrats as Nathan Bedford Forrest’s did on whatever Union army was facing him at the time, and not for completely dissimilar reasons**):

The turning point of the 1988 Republican presidential nomination campaign came just after the New Hampshire primary, where then-Vice President George H.W. Bush had bounced back from a humiliating third-place finish in Iowa to defeat Sen. Bob Dole by 9 percentage points. In the days that followed, a debate raged within the Bush campaign about how to allocate its remaining resources. Campaign strategist Lee Atwater argued that the only thing to do was dump everything into South Carolina and the Super Tuesday states that followed three days later. “Shoot the wounded,” said Atwater at the time, “that’s my view.”

Atwater’s view prevailed. The Bush campaign buried South Carolina and the Super Tuesday states under an avalanche of money, organizational muscle, surrogates and media advertisements. When the votes were counted, Bush had run the table, sweeping all but the states of Washington and Missouri, and the race was over.

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‘Tolkienista’?

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In the Small World category, Amygdala was nice enough to link to something that my Person To Contact In Case of Emergency wrote (and I later linked to here). It got a good number of hits in the last week, and she never figured out why. Just one of those things, I guess.

WHEN PUNDITS ATTACK!!!!!

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This is like, freaky. First Al Franken went head to head with a LaRouche supporter; now Bob Novak is shoving around hecklers. Where will the madness end? Are those wild rumors of a crossover between Network and Rollerball being greenlighted actually true? Will pundits restart the Code Duello, and if so, can we watch and … Read more

Charming.

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This is not a ‘how dare they call X a Nazi’ post: I got my recommended daily allowance of Nazi posts this afternoon, and there’s a part of me that actually doesn’t care all that much in this particular case* about the poor victim’s feelings, possibly because she’s shown no particular interest in sparing the feelings of anybody else. Yes, yes, I’m not a Buddha.

Still, completely aside from the Godwinization, I will still note that if dKos’ ad policy is such that ads from the New Republic are to be disdained while those from Agitproperties.com, a company whose merchandising motto is “Educating America’s Moron Majority since 2002” are permitted… well, I guess he didn’t want to go all that mainstream anyway.

Moe

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Guess Who Got Sucked into Civ III Tonight?

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Yup, that’s right. So much for fanatical bloggers bringing you the finest in political entertainment, huh? (looking around quickly) Here: it’s the latest Dave Barry article about Edwards and bowling. Why did I pick this? Umm… it was on the Post-It note… lemme read…. right, because of this: As the crowd dispersed, I overheard this … Read more

Yet another poll

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Thanks to A Small Victory we have another political poll: President Match from AOL/Time. I’m sure that it will surprise none of you that Bush came in first and Lieberman in second… (static) Whaddya mean, it’s biased towards Democratic centrists? Shenanigans! I call shenanigans! (Matthew noted this one first) UPDATE: Well, that was a disturbing … Read more

The Kay Interview. I’m not in a clever title mood.

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The Independent and Reuters both wrote articles about a recent David Kay interview. Guest poster Trickster over at Tacitus mostly contents himself with quoting the relevant sections of the Independent article (the discussion thread isn’t too bad, all things considered): the Marxists over at Socialism in a Time of Waiting are considerably more willing to … Read more

Protesters Protest… Waaaaaay Over There…

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In a bit of a shock to those of us who normally visualize Davos to just be that thing full of genial Lefties and Bill Clinton that Jay Nordlinger goes to every year, it’s been revealed that the event’s apparently somewhat of an abomination to the anti-globalization crowd. Go figure: CHUR, Switzerland – Around 2,000 … Read more

The Matter of Kerry

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So, according to this Newsweek poll (via Tac) he’s not only far ahead of the Democratic pack, but polling ahead of Bush*… and according to Zogby (via Kos) Dean’s coming back, fast, in New Hampshire. Newsweek has Edwards coming in second; from Zogby’s point of view, he’s drifting. And, of course, the NH results are … Read more

OK, This Helpful Advice you can ignore…

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… because as a general rule of thumb I’m somewhat leery of political advice where the bullet points all alliterate. Four E’s, indeed: I’m surprised that the Wall Street Journal neglected to mention that this is all a rehash of concepts from Welch’s management book (a genre that somehow manages to annoy me even more … Read more

Wow.

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Katherine’s Maher Arar posts are being linked to by the Christian Science Monitor’s Terrorism & Security daily update. (pause) I’m sorry if this is actually prosaic or something, but I’m new at this, so I at least am going to continue to think that it’s really, really cool that this happened. Katherine rules…

Weekend NH Primary Thread

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These are my predictions for the Tuesday primary. Please bear in mind that I frankly am incredibly bad at this sort of thing, which should provide some amusement later. Wesley Clark: Either him or Edwards makes the cut; if him, distant third. Advances to next round either way. Howard Dean: Makes the cut; no lower … Read more

Ribs and the Economy

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Reading this transcript/press-kebob made me grin, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Call it simplistic, call it arrogant, heck, call it insane if you like – I won’t agree with you, but people have a right to their opinions. And I’ll say it again – people underestimate the political skills of this President at … Read more

I wonder.

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There were rumors floating around* today to the effect that Osama bin Laden had been captured: think that it might have been based on this story?

Captured Insurgent Said Linked to al-Qaida
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON – U.S. forces in Iraq (news – web sites) captured a leader of the insurgency who is believed to be a close associate of Abu Musab Zarqawi, described by some as a key link between the al-Qaida terrorist network and toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (news – web sites), a senior American official said Friday.

U.S. troops captured Husam al-Yemeni last Thursday, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. He is described by U.S. officials as the leader of an insurgency cell in Fallujah, west of Baghdad.

The official said al-Yemeni is the highest-level member of Ansar al-Islam captured so far. That is a group comprising mainly ethnic Kurds from northern Iraq with alleged al-Qaida ties.

Alas, there’s no confirmation, and I just tossed off a mini-lecture in comments about not taking seriously anonymous sources, so take the elements of this particular story with heavy grains of salt – but even if false you can see how this might have morphed further into a OBL capture rumor, so there you go.

Moe

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Technorati Beta Test

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Outside The Beltway has provided a link to the Beta version of Technorati, which I for one was happy to see because it allows me to track down a couple more blogs for the Backscratch list. Remember, we link to those who link to us, and we have a special category* for the blogs of … Read more

Drunk With Power…

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… and stolen lifeforce forcibly ripped from the bloody chest of the Howard Dean campaign, the vicious predator of the news magazine world known as Tee’N-Ahrrr stalks its next victim: Senator John Kerry. (pause) Sorry: had to pump that story up somehow: it’s apparently now subscriber-only (which reminds me: how is dKos’ crusade against TNR … Read more