Happy Monday.

On 60 Minutes last night, the President characterized the death of an ambassador, the sacking of a consulate, the storming of three embassies, and the burning of countless American flags as mere "bumps in the road" in the Middle East.

The President's remark is noteworthy not merely because he uses a euphemism for inconvenience to refer to the horrifying situation he partially bears responsibility for, but because he identified a shocking root cause for the problem:

But I was pretty certain and continue to be pretty certain that there are going to be bumps in the road because — you know, in a lot of these places — the one organizing principle — has been Islam.

When a Republican points to the problem of Islam, liberals gasp and mutter about bigotry and racism. I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for similar condemnation of the President.

Ohio is described as "under siege" by the presidential campaigns.

Oh, I've been meaning to share these two Kickstarter projects for about a week. Kickstarter, if you don't know, is a means for entrepreneurs to raise smallish sums of money for a business venture, say a film, book, comic, game, etc. They cutely call it "crowd funding." Folks should know that when you back a project, unless it meets its minimum goal, it won't get made. Here's how it works.

Anyway, the first project is Amelia Hamilton's second book, Ten Steps to Freedom: A Little Patriot's Guide to the American Revolution. Amelia previously wrote One Nation Under God: A Book for Little Patriots. She got some fairly amusing hate mail over that, as recounted in this video by sometime-guestblogger Ben Howe.

The second project is a Christmas-themed card game from Gamesmith called 12 Days. Yeah, Christmas is coming. Dang.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:52 AM | Comments (267)
Post contains 304 words, total size 2 kb.

Okay here's my last minute hasty 22%-assed mostly duct-taped together ONT. 

What 3 Weeks of 'Gaffes' Have Done to the Romney Campaign

And note that this is just Gallup's registered voters - likely voters are probably trending even more for Romney.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:25 PM | Comments (583)
Post contains 531 words, total size 6 kb.

A cast of thousands blog here and no one has gotten around to even posting an open thread in nearly seven hours?

That's the Ace of Spades HQ quality you know and love.

Added: Necessary even...[DiT]

Posted by: DrewM at 03:44 PM | Comments (464)
Post contains 52 words, total size 1 kb.

Good Afternoon/Evening Moron Horde!

I want to thank Ace. Ben for posting it on the sidebar, and every other M&M that re-tweeted the fundraiser for Sean "Vile Rat" Smith's Widow and small children. The fundraising goal has almost been reached (erm they moved it to 150k), so if you have 5, 10, whatever bucks kick it to help out his family. Link I love this community.

More below the fold. more...

Posted by: Gang of Gaming Morons! at 08:51 AM | Comments (81)
Post contains 1202 words, total size 7 kb.

Morning morons. Don't forget your picks if you're pickin.

Tampa Bay never disappoints, do they?

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 08:05 AM | Comments (585)
Post contains 23 words, total size 1 kb.

Good morning morons and moronettes and welcome to the too-wonderful-for-words Sunday Morning Book Thread. Now with tumblin' tumbleweeds.

Louis L'Amour

So here I am, in the latter half of my life, with middle age fast dwindling behind me in the rear-view mirror, an avid reader since boyhood, and I have never once read a book by Louis L'Amour. Sad, but true. "Oh, he's just one of those western writers", I used to think. I never was a big fan of westerns, anyway I always found other things to read.

My loss.

According to wikipedia, L'Amour led a varied and interesting life:

Louis Dearborn LaMoore was born in Jamestown, North Dakota, in 1908, the seventh child of Dr. Louis Charles LaMoore and Emily Dearborn LaMoore. He was of French ancestry through his father and Irish through his mother. Dr. LaMoore was a large-animal veterinarian, local politician and farm-equipment broker who had arrived in Dakota Territory in 1882.

Although the area around Jamestown was mostly farm land, cowboys and livestock often traveled through Jamestown on their way to or from ranches in Montana and the markets to the east. L'Amour played "Cowboys and Indians" in the family barn, which served as his father's veterinary hospital, and spent much of his free time at the local library reading, particularly G. A. Henty, a British author of historical boys' novels during the late nineteenth century. L'Amour once said, "[Henty's works] enabled me to go into school with a great deal of knowledge that even my teachers didn't have about wars and politics."

After a series of bank failures devastated the economy of the upper Midwest, Dr. LaMoore and Emily took to the road. Removing Louis and his adopted brother John from school, they headed south in the winter of 1923. Over the next seven or eight years, they skinned cattle in west Texas, baled hay in the Pecos Valley of New Mexico, worked in the mines of Arizona, California and Nevada, and in the saw mills and lumber camps of the Pacific Northwest. It was in colorful places like these that Louis met a wide variety of people, upon whom he later modeled the characters in his novels, many of them actual Old West personalities who had survived into the nineteen-twenties and -thirties.

Making his way as a mine assessment worker, professional boxer and merchant seaman, Louis traveled the country and the world, sometimes with his family, sometimes not. He visited all of the western states plus England, Japan, China, Borneo, the Dutch East Indies, Arabia, Egypt, and Panama, finally moving with his parents to Oklahoma in the early 1930s. There, he changed his name to Louis LÂ’Amour and settled down to try to make something of himself as a writer.

And this doesn't include his military service and his time spend in the merchant marine, both of which came later. That's quite a life.

L'Amour obviously was a real man. In order to do all the things he did, you would have to have almost as much testosterone as Rachel Maddow.

Also, his life was a very American life. I think when immigrants come to thie country, this is exactly the sort of thing they're looking for. Freedom to make your own way, freedom to excel, freedom to find your own place. They don't come here so Nanny Bloomberg can tell them how big a soft drink they're allowed to buy.

But, I digress.

Of course, it never crossed my tiny little mind that anyone with a life like Louis L'Amour's might have some interesting stories to tell.

So a few days ago, I talked to a friend of mine who owns every book LL ever wrote, and asked him for some recommendations. He basically said "all of them" and I had trouble getting him to narrow it down, but I finally forced him to cough up The Quick and The Dead and Sackett's Land as well as the several sequels in the Sackett series (is that great alliteration, or what?).

He also mentioned two that aren't westerns, The Walking Drum, set in 11th-century Europe, and Last of the Breed, a modern thriller. I started with Breed, and I have to say I'm very impressed. A very good story, interesting characters, and great action. Mrs. Muse checked out the audio-book version from the library and so we're reading it together.

I will probably start the Sackett series next.

more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:00 AM | Comments (176)
Post contains 956 words, total size 6 kb.

Don't fret. Dave'll be along with a sharp-elbowed cheerleader directly.

Posted by: andy at 03:34 AM | Comments (338)
Post contains 18 words, total size 1 kb.

Well, it is official. As of 10:49 EST, summer ended and fall began. That's all I got for tonight. more...

Posted by: CDR M at 06:08 PM | Comments (752)
Post contains 553 words, total size 5 kb.

Obama was in Wisconsin today fundraising and campaigning. He came one golf round short of hitting for the cycle.

The Obama campaign is embracing debate over President Obama’s comments this week about changing Washington from the outside, saying the strategy has been “a hallmark of the president’s leadership style” while criticizing rival Mitt Romney for suggesting he could affect change on his own.

“This is a fundamental difference in how they would govern,” Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters today aboard Air Force One. “Mitt Romney seems to believe he can wave a magic wand and tell people what to do within the walls of Washington, and that that’s going to make change happen in this country.”

Next up, he offered this pathetic excuse for his unmitigated disaster of a Presidency:

President Barack Obama says change takes more than one term in the White House, more than one president and more than one party.

His message to thousands of cheering supporters at a rally in Milwaukee was a rebuke to rival Mitt Romney, who claims ObamaÂ’s policies have failed to turn the economy around.

He certainly won't hold himself accountable. Again, the balls.

Posted by: JohnE. at 04:36 PM | Comments (227)
Post contains 236 words, total size 2 kb.

'Go Rogue'

She gets some good snark in:

"It is nothing short of appalling that President Obama couldn't even remember how much our national debt is during his interview with David Letterman the other night. Even my 10-year-old daughter knows that it's $16 trillion, and unlike Obama, she's not responsible for adding trillions to it.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 01:21 PM | Comments (406)
Post contains 65 words, total size 1 kb.