Moe Lane

Two things.

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1). I don’t really care if Kerry slept with an intern or not (consenting adults and all that), and I don’t believe Drudge until I’ve seen verification. That being said, if this is a true story I don’t really care if Kerry gets shellacked for it, either. Let Mrs. Kerry administer her free knee strike … Read more

Gore Jumps the Shark*.

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…unless, of course, there’s been one hell of a taking-out-of-context: Gore Says Bush Betrayed the U.S. by Using 9/11 as a Reason for War in Iraq:

NASHVILLE, Feb. 8 — In a withering critique of the Bush administration, former Vice President Al Gore on Sunday accused the president of betraying the country by using the Sept. 11 attacks as a justification for the invasion of Iraq.

“He betrayed this country!” Mr. Gore shouted into the microphone at a rally of Tennessee Democrats here in a stuffy hotel ballroom. “He played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place.”

Now, I know that we hear stuff like this all the time on the Internet, so we’re all desensitized, but Gore didn’t say this on the Internet. He said it live, and on the record, and apparently happily ignorant of the fact that politicians who accuse sitting Presidents of the next thing to treason had better damned well have some evidence to back them up. He can’t pull a Michael Moore and claim that it was entertainment; he’ll need to give proof of his allegations… or be raw meat for the media. I’m betting on raw meat, myself.

The only question is, who wound him up and set him off? Was this one of our ops or one of theirs? – because God doesn’t love George Bush that much, false rumors of His Republicanism to the contrary…

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Yup, fiddled with layout again.

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Added a sports category, fixed up some of the names, added a link to that penguin-whacking game that everyone was raving about on Tac today*, moved the calendar… that sort of thing. Further suggestions more or less welcome. You guys have had almost three months to get used to the layout; thoughts? Moe *Finally figured … Read more

Interesting Debate over Blog Ethics

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It all started when Zachary Roth of Columbia Journalism Review’s Campaign Desk complained a bit waspishly about how the blogosphere was running exit poll numbers hours before the end of the 02/03 primaries. The phrase ‘journalistic ethics’ was used;

Then Kos sent in his own letter where he points out, fairly gently, that blogs aren’t actually bound by journalistic ethics, because they actually aren’t journalistic entities;

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KERRYPALOOZA!!!!! kerrypalooza Kerrypalooza!

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You know, I wanted to come up with a bunch of nice, balanced pro and con responses to Kerry’s conventional-wisdomed candidacy, but when you go through the Left Side of your blogroll to discover that Wonkette’s pointing out the recent activities of Kerry supporter Bob Torricelli and Matthew Yglesias is dourly hoping that since he … Read more

And then there were [Number under dispute]

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… I dunno, really. Five? Four? Three? Two? One, and everybody else is deluding themselves? Depends on who you ask, I guess. The short version is, Kerry won both VA and TN today: my prediction that he wouldn’t get more delegates than Clark and Edwards combined came true only in the latter and he won … Read more

Quiet, huh?

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Yeah, sorry about that: I was vaguely ill today and von’s busy, busy, busy. Luckily, I’ve finally lined up a guest blogger: Michael N, take a bow. I happen to know Michael from the Outside World (in fact, he’s one of the 125 or so people on this planet who actually knew on sight what … Read more

What the Heck, Let’s Live Dangerously.

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I predict that Kerry is going to win the TN and VA primaries by less than five percentage points tomorrow; in fact, the combined delegates of Clark and Edwards will outnumber him in both primaries. I think that the latest Zogby polls for TN and VA may have messed up Undecided voter allocation. Besides, what’s … Read more

The Circle be Unbroken…

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The search continues for a – not replacement; more like a supplemental – blogger. Von, when you read this, check your email for my short list of candidates. I will not say who the candidates are, yet – only that they are of the Left and civil sorts, with interesting viewpoints to draw from. We’ll … Read more

No, really?

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Sorry, that was my spoken response to the dKos blogger who wrote of the Russert /Bush interview: “My gut tells me that it was an underwhelming performance, but I fear that I’ve lost the ability to objectively assess how Bush will be regarded by the media filter.” So, of course, he asks the dKos readership … Read more

Movies That Must Not Be.

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Not movies that should not be, nor movies that we wish never were: movies that simply cannot be actually real, because otherwise the fabric of reality would begin to unravel and then we’d have nowhere to put our stuff.

All entries to this – well, not contest – must thus be of ‘films’ that appear to have some evidence of existing for some inexplicable reason. Please note the title, why it Must Not Be and a plausible reason that explains away the aforementioned evidence for existence. For example:

Batman and Robin. This ‘film’ purports to have starred big names in it, but I ask you: would George Clooney have donned an anatomically correct Batsuit? Would Alicia Silverstone have? Don’t you think that Governor Schwartzenegger would have had more dignity – or have been able to have been elected with this on his resume? No, sorry, it was an Internet hoax gone terribly, horribly wrong – much like this Watchmen poster* – and those involved should apologize for it.

Star Trek V: THERE WAS NO FIFTH MOVIE. Paramount and the Roddenberry estate have disavowed any knowledge of a fifth Star Trek film, especially one that purported to claim that Spock had an older brother or that ‘God’ is trapped in an energy bubble somewhere in the galaxy. There was a mistake made with a sloppy graphic artist (who has since been sacked) designing posters for Star Trek VI: he left out the “I” and before it could be caught the posters were all over the world. There was no fifth film: you’re suffering from implanted memories. Of course, at least you aren’t believing that Satan-worshipping aliens abducted you as a child and took you to Faerie…

Highlander: There Can Be Only One, So There Was Only One. Simple and straightforward. Rumors of sequels? Distorted memories of the later television series being shown in two hour blocks on Saturday afternoons. Happens all the time.

Starship Troopers: While the idea of a Gestapo Doogie Howser does admittedly have a special appeal, if Verhoeven had dared make a movie anything remotely like the rumors he would have been messily assassinated by now by an angry mob of Heinlein fans. He’s still alive, right? So therefore he didn’t do it and the ‘script’ that’s circulating around is merely a (well-deserved) smear campaign against the director…

You get the drift.

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A pack, not a herd.

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Thanks to Amygdala and Kesher Talk I’ve been made aware of a blogger named Dr. Dot’s violent encounter with proxy anti-Semitism, not to mention the aftermath. Those two have already covered most of the details (and I just deleted about three paragraphs that can essentially be boiled down to Don’t Do This If You Don’t Enjoy Being Gleefully Stomped By Everybody Within Line of Sight), but what the heck: we note the story all the same.

Including the fact that political affiliation becomes irrelevant in this country in these sorts of situations. I am confident that no regular reader of this blog would have walked away from the incident described by Dr. Dot*, and given the range of political opinion that shows up around here, well…

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Believe it or not, we’ve got BUTTON Capacity!

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… because TypePad finally deigned to provide us with a user’s manual. Yes, kids, we’ve been using the suit without the helpful alien book, and so I’ve been making it up as I went along. But now… now we can have buttons, and amusing little hotlinks, and links to charities, and oh, all sorts of wonderful things!

I can’t believe it, myself. I’m so happy about this, I’m walking on air…

Moe

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Fafblog now has comments, God Help Us All…

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…and an insight into the Patrick Stewart space comment that I wish that I had had first. Of course, that particular sensation is probably why von and I link so often to Fafblog, huh? Moe PS: I still think that what Lileks said about Stewart was funny. So it goes.

Apocalypse Not Called Off For Context…

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A while back I posted some commentary about a speech Clinton made at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum. Nathan Hamm came across a copy of the speech. Nathan’s commentary is favorable: he called it a good speech (I suspect that he would call it a ‘damn good speech’ if asked), and after reading it, I agree. … Read more

More Primary Guesses

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… better get these in before the polls close, eh?

Michigan: this seems to be the one everybody’s paying attention to: I’m going to agree with Zogby that Kerry’s probably going to win this one… but that 23% Undecided is sending off warning bells in my head. If those votes go either to Dean or Edwards, watch for stories about Kerry’s stumbling; if they divide, then Kerry’s win in MI will be like most of his wins so far: a true win, but not enough of one to increase his lead.

Washington: Kerry, again – but I suspect that Dean is going to do easily well enough in the caucus to pick up delegates. No three way split.

Maine: Kerry. Dean will probably scrounge a delegate or two. No three way split. This is all purely a guess.

Overall: Kerry should do well for himself, objectively speaking – but if it isn’t enough of a blowout for the media it’ll be reported as a stumble. Dean is going to be the designated conversation piece. Edwards and Clark might as well gear up for TN and VA, because they’re not particularly relevant in these three primaries*.

Moe

*And that’s my really go-out-on-a-limb prediction for today.

UPDATE: Below.

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The Commissar hates these sorts of posts…

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… you know, the Sorry For the Light Blogging posts. However, in this case I’m semi-indifferent, what with the several beers, half a bottle of wine and – most importantly – the sheer sense of blinding relief that’s been present ever since we found out that my girlfriend’s biopsy came back negative for liver cancer. … Read more

Kerry Survey

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Now that Kerry is the frontrunner, I thought that I’d open up the floor and get a few reactions to a few questions that I’ve been curious about: 1). Kerry seems to have managed to avoid major negative attacks to this point in the real campaign season. Do people think that this is due to … Read more

This is one of those Quantum things.

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Either Josh Marshall’s tip is either correct, which would suggest that indictments will probably be announced tomorrow… or it’s not and there won’t be. If the former, that Russert interview von noted takes on an interesting significance; if the latter, people are going to point and laugh at Marshall for taking Richard Sale seriously (probably … Read more

I admit to being a bit conflicted.

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…you see, The Department of Louise has a post up about a possible further delay in the 9/11 report until after the election. While I’m pretty sure that Opus herself isn’t grinding an axe on this one – she just wants the facts on what the Hell happened – it’s one of those situations where … Read more

And Now, an Important Issue

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Much as I loathe to contradict the worthy and refined Fafnir, I feel that I cannot let this statement of his (found in comments below):

Our last ninja president was Grover Cleveland I believe.

be unchallenged.

While all know that Ninja are not precisely over-represented among our Presidents, it is certainly untrue that there has not been one for over a hundred years. As Reader Michael N. has noted*, rumors of FDR’s ninjahood are legion; what is less well known was that the period between 1920 and 1945 were the Two Decades of the Ninja, starting with Warren Harding’s and Herbert Hoover’s epic battle for the White House** and ending with FDR’s reluctant break*** with the traditions of the First Ninja**** to save Western Civilization itself.

But I speak too much, too soon. I will simply say: contemplate Mount Rushmore, the curiously unsatisfying public reason why Alexander Hamilton remains on the ten dollar bill, and why the Whigs are never discussed in any political science textbook printed in a state whose name ends in a vowel, and soon, perhaps, you will understand.

Perhaps.

Moe

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Bad Primary Analyses

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Been holding this one back until the numbers were clearer. BTW, I did manage to get the winners of SC and OK right, guessed very badly wrong on DE, sorta badly about Dean in general (he came pretty close in AZ to picking up delegates, but not quite, and didn’t do nearly well enough in NM) and more or less called it about Edwards and second place. IOW, ehh.

Now, according to my I-don’t-think-I-screwed-anything-up numbers, and assuming that the statewide pledged delegates go the way of the rest, the delegate breakdown went like this (as 12:14 AM, February 4, 2004):

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Hey, Joe, Whaddya Know…

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The Ninja has withdrawn from the race. You gave it a good shot, Joe. I would also like to take this opportunity to formally endorse George W Bush for re-election as President of the United States of America. While I do not endorse much of Bush’s domestic policy, the sole candidate on the Democratic slate … Read more

Interesting Pair of articles that touch on the First Lady

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This one, from OpinionJournal, talks about her largely-unnoticed work with the NEA … and this one from the Boston.com (via Andrew Sullivan) brings up a certain work by Tony Kushner that reminds me why just so many of my fellow conservatives loathe modern artists* in the first place. For what it’s worth, $20M in increased … Read more

While waiting for results…

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… of the primaries, here’s a Scrappleface article with a certain bite to it: Bush Backs Probe of Probes of WMD Probe. “Accountability is everything in a democratic republic,” said an unnamed senior White House official. “The CIA got much of its WMD intel from U.N. inspection teams that they couldn’t trust. The House, the … Read more

Happy News and Proxy Blegging

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Armed Liberal over at Winds of Change is getting married. He’s also trying to raise enough cash to get one of his cobloggers to his wedding, which is at least a switch from the standard “I need a laptop” craze. For that matter, Gary Farber could probably still use a shout-out or two, too – … Read more

Don’t be cruel…

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Thanks to the suddenly-ubiquitous Wonkette* it has been revealed that John Kerry was apparently once a bass player for a garage band, not to mention Norwegian:

From the liner notes, you might think Electramania [the high school band Kerry was in] was about to sweep the nation.

“All in all, the listener should find little more to be desired from this recording,” someone named P.W. Johnson wrote, before introducing each member of the band. Kerry, whose father was a career diplomat then stationed in the Netherlands, is described as “a resident of Oslo, Norway, and the producer of pulsating rhythm that lends tremendous force to all the numbers.”

So what does it sound like? Let’s put it this way: Kerry shouldn’t run on this record. Then again, he shouldn’t run from it, either.

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