They really wish he would just go away.

I don't mean to be dogging on the guy, he obviously has issues. I'm rather dogging on the process that made Alvin Greene the Democrat candidate for Senator from South Carolina, to face Jim DeMint in the general in November.

The official set of instructions from the MFM appear to be "run him into the ground to make him leave". So they're dogging him, not me.

I just don't see this as subterfuge, or sinister. Clumsy, that I see. Very, very clumsy. As mentioned earlier, I just had no expectations that SC politics this year would be this interesting.

Vid tip via Rosetta at H2

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 03:45 PM | Comments (250)
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Remember her?

Lifelong Democrat/Green not a fan of Obama, and open to a GOP Congress.

Singer Sophie B. Hawkins told The Hill on Thursday that "America's being thrown under the bus" by President Barack Obama as he presses forward with his agenda and comes under criticism for his response to the Gulf oil spill.

...

The singer campaigned on the trail with Hillary Rodham Clinton during her presidential campaign, and told The Hil that she "never believed in [Obama's] philosophy" -- which she said runs contrary to her beliefs in "smaller government, smart government, flexible government."

"I think the writing was on the wall," Hawkins said. "I honestly couldn't believe so many people were into him."

She describes herself as a centrist who's identified with the Democratic and Green parties, but said even though she's never been Republican she wouldn't cross that vote off the list if the right leader came along.

In fact, she's open to a Republican Congress.

"I want the Congress that really is going to listen to the people," she said. "I really don't care what party it is anymore."

Hawkins said she attended a Tea Party rally in Santa Monica, Calif., that was "mostly all Democrats."

There are more derogatory quotes from the singer in the article, but I can't quote it all.

Posted by: Ace at 12:13 PM | Comments (396)
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[UPDATE: I meant this post as kind of a joke, by the way. You can treat it as an open thread if you want until Ace or one of the other cob-loggers regains consciousness from their weekend bacchanals.]

I think the time has come, friends, to start planning for a day when our Federal Reserve Notes no longer have quite the purchasing power we've become used to. Whatever a bottle of Val-U-Rite Premium Vodka costs in dollars now, the price is sure to skyrocket in years to come. So it behooves us all to ensure a certain amount of monetary stability in the Moron Nation.

More after the jump. more...

Posted by: Monty at 12:01 PM | Comments (78)
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President Obama is asking for $50 Billion to distribute to state and local governments to avoid public-sector employee layoffs. (And for "public-sector employees", you can read "SEIU and Teacher's Unions".) The GOP is sure to oppose it, but may not be able to stop a concerted Democratic push.

Bailing out the states (especially California) is going to take a lot more than a piddling $50 billion, of course. The first tranche is simply to establish precedent. The doors would then be thrown open to (potentially) a trillion dollars or more of taxpayer money -- TARP II would be a slush-fund for the various states who find themselves embarrassed for funds. At that point any pretense of federalism would be well and truly gone.

California's travails are well-known (I certainly harp on them enough on this site). But New York is almost as bad a shape; state officials are threatening to issue IOUs in place of cash for tax refunds. Many states in the so-called "Rust Belt" -- particularly Michigan and Pennsylvania -- are mired in financial misery as well. But the important thing to remember is that these dire financial situations are mainly of the states' own making: they overspent in good times, and made overgenerous promises to their employees without thinking of the impact those promises would have when the economy turned south.

And there is the fact that, at all levels, government is just too damned big. The supply of government workers far exceeds the demand, but we are discovering the Iron Law of the public-sector worker: Thou Shalt Not Lose Thy Job. Let the taxpaying proles break off a few more dollars per month in some tax or other; better that than a second assistant to the inspector for drainage culverts have to find a job in the private sector or fund his own pension.

We supposedly have a government of by people, by the people, and for the people. If Obama has his way, the average citizen will be bound into indentured servitude to support legions of overpaid government workers whose main utility to the State is a reliable Democratic vote come election day.

The overgenerous promises made to public-sector employees (especially unionized public-sector employees) is an outrage that still lies somewhat outside the periphery of American consciousness (except in California, where it is on stage, front and center). But now these unsustainable payoffs are going to be added to the citizens of other states in the form of taxes and additional debt to be added to the crushing mountain we already labor under. It is a grossly unjust situation, but I've come to expect no less from such a tool of the Unions as President Barack Obama.

I've often said that the opening conflict of the second American Civil War is going to be between the public sector and the private sector. The battles will remain primarily rhetorical and political, I think, but emotions are running higher now than I've ever seen them. This metastasizing of the Federal government cannot be allowed to continue unchecked, or it will be the ruin of us all.

I'm not really joking when I say we're doomed, people. Unless we wake up; unless we slap down the lying, thieving, incompetent political class; unless we shrink the governmental Leviathan; unless we get our financial houses in order -- we could lose it all.

Posted by: Monty at 04:46 AM | Comments (485)
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Difficulty: No Twilight or Harry Potter books.

When I was in college, I made it a point to read only "the classics" and expunge modern popular fiction from my sight. But alas, the cravings inevitably returned: horror novels, thrillers, sci-fi, even westerns. I took a special pleasure in sitting out on the grassy quad on a warm autumn day and blowing through some cheap paperback in a couple of hours.

Several of these "guilty pleasure" books still remain in my memory -- more than many of the so-called "classics" did, truth to tell. Clive Barker's Books of Blood is one. Peter Straub's Koko is another. But probably the most embarassing one, the one that wild horses would not have dragged out of me in my Modern American Lit class, was Alan's Moore's comic book The Watchmen. (This was before "graphic novels" had gained a patina of legitimacy; back then, it was just a thick comic book.) Moore's story actually struck me as being more fundamentally literature than many of the so-called "serious" novels I was reading at the time. I still have my original copy of The Watchmen; the turgid opuses by Updike and Mailer have fallen away. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns was another such revelation -- it rescued poor Bats from his long exile in Super Friends and 60's-era Adam West silliness. That comic book made Batman a badass again. (How badass? Badass enough to beat the shit out of frigging Superman, that's how badass.)

I worry much less about my reading tastes these days; I read whatever catches my fancy. I went through a period not long ago when I was reading bodice-ripper romances like this one (hilarious, I must say, though probably unintentionally so). I have an interest in medieval history, and much of the fiction dealing with this period is in the romance genre. Thrillers are my current interest: I'm working my way through the "Pendergast" novels of Lincoln Preston and Douglas Child.

So come on, Morons. I've fessed up my embarassing reading habits. What's your guilty pleasure?

Posted by: Monty at 04:05 AM | Comments (241)
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Hello, hello all M&Ms. The ONT is now OPEN.

10 Different Versions of the Star Wars Imperial March

Too bad the Empire is evil cause they have by far the best musical theme. It practically make you want to don white battle armor and go destroy some rebel planets. And oh yeah also check the covers on the auxiliary thermal exhaust ports. This is my fave version:

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:51 PM | Comments (779)
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How many of you are old enough to remember when you thought "he's insane"?

On June 12, 1987 I was 27 years old. And I thought Reagan was bonkers, with this speech.

"To those listening throughout Eastern Europe...behind me stands a wall."

Some of you, and it ain't no crime, do not remember this wall. It was just something that happened before you.

It was completely a part of my young life. It was a division of power and influence in the world, it was incontrovertible, it was absolute.

There was no overcoming this. We were destined to push our shoulders against the despair of communism, for the rest of our lives, because it could not be defeated.

We were wrong. I was wrong. Because we underestimated the power of the human spirit, that desires liberty, that is willing to cast off oppression at the risk of life itself. To risk everything, to live a life unencumbered by despots.

We should celebrate this, today. It's as good a day as any.

Listen to the words again, at 12:05. "Tear down this wall".

Tear it down, they did.

UPDATED: Andy sends along this photo from the Reagan library.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 03:56 PM | Comments (350)
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Mighta launched a few Hellfires this weekend. Because we love you tooo much baby.

Don't have suspicious minds.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 01:40 PM | Comments (71)
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It seemed pretty obvious to everyone in 2000 who bothered to think about it that electronic voting machines would be less, not more, reliable than traditional paper-ballot machines.

But of course we all had to "do something," because Gore lost, and we know that can't be right.

So we did what we always do: We spent a lot of money to make things worse.

Quoting Politico:

In Lancaster County, Rawl won absentee ballots over Greene by a staggering 84 percent to 16 percent margin; but Greene easily led among Election Day voters by 17 percentage points.

In Spartanburg County, Ludwig said there are 25 precincts in which Greene received more votes than were actually cast and 50 other precincts where votes appeared to be missing from the final count.

"In only two of 88 precincts, do the number of votes Greene got plus the number we got equal the total cast," Ludwig said.

Thanks to MacRadDoc, who affirms it's true that SC uses electronic voting machines.

Posted by: Ace at 12:45 PM | Comments (150)
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I really should have known better to tangle with Captain Queeg. Just because now I have to do this post.

This is my own fault. Johnson didn't attack me, he attacked Allah, and Allah's a big boy, and can take care of this stuff himself. So I volunteered to get into the drama; I didn't have to, and that's on me.

Having entered the drama -- my fault again! -- I guess I now have to further it.

But at least I'll put it under the jump.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:27 PM | Comments (440)
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