Good evening and happy Hump Day all.

Or is that just what they want you to think?

Lego Gun Pron

Okay a lot of the lets-build-X-out-of-Legos projects are at best mildly interesting despite the fact that some guy (and it's always a guy) spent days of his precious pron watching/girl stalking/hobo trapping time putting it together. But in this case it was almost worth the enforced celibacy since Jack Streat managed to build a completely functional Lego version of a Lee-Enfield sniper rifle. The cartridges in the magazine is a nice authentic touch and it's fairly accurate (for a Lego gun). Too bad there aren't any female Lego gun groupies out there.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:53 PM | Comments (707)
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OK, so this is just another reason to link a worthy blog: So what? If you don't read "Just One Minute" regularly, then you should seriously consider doing so. He was one of my Daily Reads back during the Valerie Plaime Payback Tour & the Duke Lacrosse scandal, and he's just as good now as he was then.

What made me link to this article was my mis-reading of the enclosed headline: I thought that "Efforts to REPEL Gulf Oil Spill..." was "Efforts to REPEAL Gulf Oil Spill...".

Well, to be honest, Legislative Repeal of the tragedy would probably have just as much effect on the oil lapping at Louisiana's shoreline as any other idea coming out of the Obama braintrust, so why not give 'er a whirl?

Can we impotently rail against the half-assed response to the spill that should have been our responsibility in the first place? YES. WE. CAN.

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 04:49 PM | Comments (72)
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Oh boy.

epublican Congressional candidate William "Bill" Randall is suggesting that the Obama Administration and BP conspired to intentionally spill oil in the Gulf, resulting in 11 deaths and the worst environmental disaster in the nation's history.

Randall, who has aligned himself with the Tea Party movement, readily admits that he has no evidence that what he says is true. But that is not stopping him from making the claim as he campaigns for in the June 22 GOP runoff to face incumbent Democratic Rep. Brad Miller on the November ballot.

"Now, I'm not necessarily a conspiracy person, but I don't think enough investigation has been done on this," Randall said at a media conference on Tuesday. "Someone needs to be digging into that situation. Personally, and this is purely speculative on my part and not based on any fact, but personally I feel there is a possibility that there was some sort of collusion. I don't know how or why, but in that situation, if you have someone from a company proposing to violate the safety process and the government signing off on it, excuse me, maybe they wanted it to leak.

We are approaching a William F. Buckley moment here.

His opponent, Reeves, will face him later in a run-off; Randall edged out Reeves by 135 votes. I'm endorsing Reeves, site unseen. As nice as it is to have veterans and blacks in the GOP (Randall is both), we are approaching a Conspiracy Singularity here. Vote for Reeves.

Reeves' spokesman asked if Randall believes we didn't land on the Moon, either.

Sell crazy somewhere else; we're all stocked up here.

General Jack T. Ripper for Senate

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Posted by: Ace at 01:39 PM | Comments (679)
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Where do I know this accent from? (Vid at bottom.)

Ah yes. I can't find it on the 'net, but Howard Stern used to play the answering machine message from a NAMBLA chapter president.

Best I can do is link Stern's impression of the guy (Content Warning). The actual guy sounded more like BP dude; Stern's getting his impression mixed up with Gilbert Gotfried's impression Martin Landau's Bela Lugosi.

NAMBLA president was also really into "the small people" too.

Posted by: Ace at 01:09 PM | Comments (73)
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Well, my rule of thumb (if the police don't tell you, they're actually telling you) didn't apply this time.

The man and woman arrived at MacDill Air Force Base as it cleared out for the day. They slowed the sport utility vehicle and showed identification.
In the Honda were six guns, ammunition and military-style clothing. The man, active duty military, reportedly was absent without leave.

But the military security guard didn't know that.

Only the IDs raised a flag. They appeared to be fake, base officials said Tuesday.

Authorities identified the pair who tried to enter the base's Bayshore Boulevard gate about 5 p.m. Monday as Spc. Christopher Paul Kilburn, and Micah Goodier of Palm Beach County.

Kilburn had been stationed with Alpha Company, 1-16th 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan. He was charged with desertion and will be turned over to the Army.

Oh, and remember Amy Bishop? And how current US Representative William Delahunt dropped the ball on that investigation? (PS, good luck tracking down mentions of Delahunt's role in MFM articles.)

U.S. Rep. William Delahunt today stood by his officeÂ’s handling of a 1986 shooting in Braintree...

“The real tragedy here is an opportunity for a psychiatric evaluation of Amy Bishop could have been done,” Delahunt told the Herald today.

She'll be charged for that shotgun murder.

- Amy Bishop has been charged with murder for the 1986 shotgun slaying of her 18-year-old brother in their Braintree home, according to Norfolk District Attorney William R. Keating.

"The grand jury has indicted Amy Bishop for murder in the first degree,'' Keating told reporters today."Here in Massachusetts, we had evidence of a murder. We proceeded with that, as we should have."

The slaying of Seth Bishop was declared an accident by Norfolk County authorities at the time. But questions were raised about the investigation after Bishop, a college professor, was charged in February in a shooting rampage at the University of Alabama Huntsville. Three of Bishops' colleagues were fatally shot and three wounded in that case.

Keating said an indictment warrant has been lodged with Alabama authorities. He indicated that he would give the Alabama triple murder case priority. Asked if Amy Bishop would ever be tried in Massachusetts for murder, Keating said, "you never know.''

Posted by: Ace at 12:37 PM | Comments (62)
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Awful.

Geraghty has a suggestion:

Every Republican challenger ought to be demanding that their Democrat incumbent opponent pledge in writing that they will not pass an energy bill in a lame-duck session if they are defeated. When the people make their opinion clear, fundamental concepts of accountability and responsibility require that the opinion not be ignored.

I endorse his idea, but I disagree with his conclusion.

Will be a titch harder to ignore, he should write.

Posted by: Ace at 11:38 AM | Comments (209)
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Decisive leadership.

A little something extra: super-liberal Greg Sargent, writing for the WaPo, was goofing on Sarah Palin for saying we should have accepted help from "the Dutch."

Now, that's the way he wrote it -- "the Dutch," in sneer-quotes.

Don't miss Sarah Palin's take: She faults the Obama administration for not soliciting the help of "the Dutch," who are "known for dikes and for cleaning up water and for dealing with spills":

Bwah-hah-hah-ha! "The Dutch!" Have you ever heard something so crazy?

Well, actually, dude, we have. From a "Dutch" "minister," in fact.

What does this mean? It means that Sarah Palin was talking about something he'd never heard before and was using sneer-quotes to indicate what an absurd idea he thought it was.

In other words, he was ignorant, and used his own ignorance against Sarah Palin.

I find that happens a lot with the left. They simply do not hear about this stuff and, as the MFM is mostly liberal, it doesn't publicize such things, and of course they don't read righty sites. So they just remain ignorant of many stories, but then get all arrogant about that.

My other observation is that the WaPo has a superliberal covering the left and another liberal covering the right. Balance.

Obama Uniting the Left and Right: the left pans Obama's address.

Posted by: Ace at 11:35 AM | Comments (53)
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The Corner suggests they just bought on as Obama's new best friends in the cap and tax fight.

More Reaction to Obama Speech: At the LAT Blog (I think this is written by a non-lefty named Andrew Malcolm, who, by the way, seems to be the guy Patterico was defending when he went after Boehlert), and James Pethokoukis.

Both (but particularly Pethokoukis) make the point about Obama pivoting to some kind of long-term policy goal when he has not fixed the immediate crisis.

For a Contrary Opinion... suggesting that BP must be defended to preserve basic rights, see Ben Stein.

I'm not really loving this argument.

Posted by: Ace at 11:14 AM | Comments (87)
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Patterico and Matt Welch are spelling Andrew Breitbart (who stings Boehlert ten times a week).

Donald Douglas sums it up at Right Wing News.

Welch proves that Boehlert is a whiny ninny, and that's great, but, like, come on. That's like proving OJ Simpson had trouble letting go.

Patterico proves he's a liar, which is also kind of obvious, but it sure is nice to see it proven so thoroughly.

Posted by: Ace at 10:32 AM | Comments (73)
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Three views on it.

Keith Hennessey:

Scenario 1 – Imagine that the President proposes new legislation targeted at the problem of engineering safety in deepwater drilling. [lists proposals to make drilling safer.]

...

I believe the legislation in scenario 1 would pass the House and Senate within a week or two, with overwhelming and possibly unanimous bipartisan majorities. The President could quickly unify the country and celebrate a wise bipartisan solution to preventing the recurrence of a painful problem. That would still leave the existing crisis, but the long-term policy issues would be solved.

Scenario 2 – The President pushes for enactment of cap-and-trade legislation which raises the cost of gasoline and diesel fuel, and of power produced from coal and natural gas. He insists that Congress include all the policies from scenario 1 in this bill.

Scenario 2 is a huge gamble. If the President succeeds, it will probably look like the health care fight. It will be a long, vigorous, largely partisan debate, overlaid with regional economic and energy interests. Legislation will become law only after squeaking out a 60th vote to overcome a filibuster.

The President knows he cannot enact cap-and-trade before November without a game changer. He assumes his legislative margin will be (much) smaller next year. He is rolling the dice to see if he can turn this crisis into a legislative opportunity, in what may be his last chance to enact a national carbon price.

...

I think solving our deepwater drilling engineering safety problems is now a top national policy priority. I think our other top domestic policy priority needs to be near-term economic growth. I rank climate change lower on my list of policy problems.

The President could have a quick, clean, bipartisan win on legislation that would eliminate the risk of another spill like this one.

Instead he is rolling the dice again, gambling that he can leverage the problems with drilling for oil in deep water to get legislation that also raises costs for power production. He is also choosing a path that he knows will provoke partisan conflict. Maybe he sees an electoral benefit to having the fight.

...

The PresidentÂ’s War on Fossil Fuels will reinvigorate an intense policy debate on the future of energy and environmental policy in America. He may be successful in bending the Congress to his will, as he did with health care. He may fail.

I prefer another path that is simpler, faster, more unifying, and more targeted at the problem that is in the forefront of our consciousness this summer.

I think it would be good for America to unite and say, “We worked together to prevent that problem in the Gulf from happening again.” It is easy to do so, and I wish the President would choose that path instead.

Liz Mair says Obama's failure to clearly specify he wants cap and trade means it's all but dead:

[T]he real meaning of the speech tonight can, I think, be found when considering these excerpts:

So I am happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party - as long they seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels. Some have suggested raising efficiency standards in our buildings like we did in our cars and trucks. Some believe we should set standards to ensure that more of our electricity comes from wind and solar power. Others wonder why the energy industry only spends a fraction of what the high-tech industry does on research and development - and want to rapidly boost our investments in such research and development.

All of these approaches have merit, and deserve a fear [sic] hearing in the months ahead. But the one approach I will not accept is inaction. The one answer I will not settle for is the idea that this challenge is too big and too difficult to meet.

This has but one translation, and everyone who cares about energy and environmental policy should be paying attention because it's a big 'un: Barack Obama is not wedded to cap-and-trade and is setting things up so that if and when he signs into law something that is not cap-and-trade, nor something even possible to confuse with it, the big story will be "President gets groundbreaking energy bill," and not "President fails to get legislation he's been advocating for four straight years passed."

Both may be right in this sense: Obama may continue supporting cap and trade as he supported the public option, behind the scenes, urging his leftist allies to push on that front, while himself ducking from the debate. (Although in that case Liz Mair is a lot closer to right.)

I think this is like health care in another way. As a commentator noted (Kristen Powers, I think), Obama's chief agenda item last year was fixing the economy. But he decided that was too big a thing to accomplish, so instead changed the subject to a kinda-sorta-related-but-not-really debate over health care legislation.

The real thing he decided he couldn't do, but he wanted some credit on the economic front, so he made up an argument about health care legislation being necessary to get the economy growing again.

He couldn't change facts, but he could change legislation, so that, of course, is what he spent all his energy attempting.

If he'd made fixing the economy his goal, with the implicit suggestion that it is on that issue he should be evaluated, well then, he'd be judged a clear failure for having failed.

Instead, he sneaky-like changed the criteria for evaluating his success. No longer was fixing the economy a presidential-level task; no, the real test of a president was whether he could cobble together enough Congressmen to sign a bill with the words "health care reform" in the title.

People are still hostile to him for that -- but even so, only half the country judges him a failure on that. The other half either judges him a success or has no strong opinion.

Compare that to the case if fixing the economy had been the standard of success -- 90% of the country would judge him a failure. (10% would also judge him a failure but would lie about it if asked.)

The Deepwater Horizon spill is similar. The One Big Thing everyone wants Obama to do is plug the damn hole, skim the oil from the water, and block the advance of the oil to our shorelines.

But he seems to have decided that is something outside his control and so he doesn't want to make that the bar for success.

Instead, he shifts the standard of success to a bunch of things he can achieve... but are trivial.

Getting BP to set up an escrow. Something or other about "green energy." Directing a number of national guardsmen to be ready to do... something or other. Some other horseshit about this other thing.

None of this is actually what the public wants -- we want the hole plugged and the damage contained and mitigated -- but he's decided he can't make that the standard of success, because there's a pretty good chance he'll fail.

So he changes the topic from Plug the damn hole to Pass the damn bill.

Also note Obama can't get into a political argument with the oil spill -- it's, you know, inanimate and all. It's not a "villain" he can demagogue. Because everyone agrees he should stop that spill -- no one is on the other side of the argument -- and his problem is not with politics or arguments or "obstructionist Republicans" but with facts and his own incompetence to change them.

You can't run a poll asking "Who more shares you values -- President Obama, or an inanimate petrochemical disaster?"

No one is stopping him from plugging the damn hole except for circumstances and his lack of ability to change them.

But if he starts pretending that what we really need to do is pass some legislation, he gets into a fight with convenient villains. He shifts the debate from one about his own incompetence into one about Republicans thwarting him.

Cynical, and transparent, but then, that's how he got elected.

Refuse to Engage: One strategy that might work for Republicans is to call Obama out on this cynical strategy, and simply refuse to pass anything or even engage in debate.

A Senator could say, "The only issue right now is plugging that hole and saving our shorelines. Obama wants to distract the country with these other very tangential and not-time-sensitive phony issues. Not only do I not want him to distract the country, but more importantly, I don't want him distracting himself -- I don't want him setting up a media war room where they strategize on how to win the media day. I want him thinking of one thing and one thing only, and that is plugging the damn hole. He already seems too distracted and too disengaged; I'm not going to encourage him to take his eye off the ball still further by playing along with his cynical strategy of distraction."

Posted by: Ace at 09:29 AM | Comments (201)
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