The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Rush Novel In The Works

Posted on | February 13, 2012 | 11 Comments

by Smitty

Pollstar reports that the new Rush record is going to have a novel backing it:

Science fiction author Kevin J. Anderson recently announced on his website that he will write a novelization of Rush’s upcoming album, Clockwork Angels.
Anderson, who wrote a slew of “Star Wars” books in the 1990s, including his Jedi Academy trilogy as well as the Young Jedi Knights series with author Rebecca Moesta, is working with his longtime friend, Rush drummer Neil Peart on the project.
“For more than twenty years, Neil and I have wanted to collaborate on something MAJOR, a way we could tie together our imaginations, and at last that’s happening,” Anderson wrote.
“I’m writing the novelization of Rush’s forthcoming album, Clockwork Angels, their first new CD in five years. Imagine if someone had written the novel of The Wall, Tommy, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band when those classic albums were released. For Rush fans, Clockwork Angels is that project.”
Anderson said he worked with Peart to “flesh out” the story as well as with artist Hugh Syme whose paintings will fill the CD booklet. The author described the story as a “young man’s quest to follow his dreams” who is “caught between the grandiose forces of order and chaos.”

Excellent. If I may confess, I’ve been enjoying The Boneyard in the car on the commute, and they offered a nice retro piece from Hemispheres today that was almost about how Hope and Change stay the same:

Category: Music, Video

Gabriella Hoffman Axis of Fedora Induction, Plus Odds And Ends

Posted on | February 13, 2012 | 8 Comments

by Smitty

The camera hated the guy on the right, especially in the second photo. Gabriella Hoffman more than makes up for me. You all can call me Quasimodo at your liesure:

Read more

Category: Blogging, Rule 5

Daniel Hannan CPAC12 AECR European Debt Crisis Panel Introduction

Posted on | February 13, 2012 | 3 Comments

by Smitty

I didn’t see any other cameras in the Tyler room for the European Debt Crisis panel. This may be an exclusive. The battery was spent after Daniel, so his intro was all I could capture.

My argument is that if the British don’t make Hannan the Prime Minister really soon, somebody (say, Fox) should make him An Offer He Can’t Refuse to have a show in the U.S.

Update: linked by Tom Lewis.

Category: Europe, Great Britain

Where Credit Is Due

Posted on | February 13, 2012 | 11 Comments

It is always better to be too generous than to risk being regarded as selfish or possessive or, Heaven forbid, thievish.

While following up with people I’d met at CPAC, I had a long conversation with Stella Lohmann, who told me the sad story of the lawsuit over the “Tea Party Patriots” name. Believe it or not, this was the first I’d heard about this ugly feud, as I’ve been rather busy tending to my own business. And when I read an article Stella wrote about the lawsuit last November . . . oh, my.

When I read that, I called a friend who is active in the Tea Party movement, who said, “You should find the articles that Mother Jones did.” So I  found this article, and then I found this article, and this article, and . . . oh, my.

The friend I called explained that most Tea Party activists know about this ugliness but say nothing about it, because they don’t want to call attention to an affair they consider a stain on the reputation of the entire movement.

In the past, however, I have discovered that minding your business can actually be dangerous neglect, as when so many conservative bloggers tried to ignore Charles Johnson’s jihad against Pamela Geller. And considering just what little I’ve read about this “Tea Party Patriots” imbroglio, I would strongly suggest that people stop trying to ignore the problem and start speaking out in an effort to resolve it.

Meanwhile, and on a completely different subject, I want to acknowledge Left Bank of the Charles for his Jan. 27 post, “Newt Gingrich Suffers His Gettysburg in Jacksonville Debate“:

The Civil War raged on for 22 months after Gettysburg. The end in Florida will come when voters go to the polls on Tuesday, January 31. If Newt loses, the Gingrich campaign isn’t over. But I suspect the moment before the debate opened in Jacksonville will be Newt Gingrich’s high water mark.

Bingo. He hit the nail on the head, the day after the debate, and saw what I didn’t recognize at the time. Romney dealt Gingrich a fatal blow in that debate — a blow all the more deadly because there would be a gap of 26 days before the next debate (Feb. 22 in Arizona). Gingrich had flourished in debates, but when he found himself cleverly mousetrapped, suckered into an attack he couldn’t sustain, he suffered a loss of morale that looks to be beyond hope of recovery.

And so I want to give credit to Left Bank of the Charles for seeing what I didn’t see, and for having the graciousness to point out my previous neglect in the comments of the preceding post. It would be less than courteous if, having chided others for their neglect of my work, I did not extend recognition when I was similarly guilty of neglect.

Courtesy is the essence of diplomacy, you see. And there is still an island nation in the South Pacific in need of my diplomatic skills.

Category: Newt Gingrich, Tea Party, Vanuatu

Santorum Resurgent (But Nobody Loves the Future U.S. Ambassador to Vanuatu)

Posted on | February 13, 2012 | 28 Comments

After working on a long (and still unpublished) draft post this morning, I checked Memeorandum and saw these headlines:

Santorum’s Turn
— National Review

Santorum moves ahead in Michigan
— Public Policy Polling

Gingrich Money Hunt Faces Obstacles
— New York Times

All of which stories were published after I sent my column to The American Spectator last night and yet — if we judge by the Memeorandum aggregation — no bloggers are linking my column, which prefigures everything that these other stories are all about.

That’s what happens to writers whom Tabitha Hale decides are “Not Good Enough for BlogCon,” you see: No matter what you do, everybody ignores it, because they know that everything you do completely sucks. Your friends are embarrassed to be associated with you, and next thing you know, you have no friends at all. Hell, even I am ashamed to link my column now:

Several reporters, photographers, and TV camera crews were crowded into a small conference room Friday afternoon at the Marriott Wardman Park hotel in Washington. Hundreds of people were lined up outside the room, waiting to enter the “Rick Santorum Meet & Greet” which the program of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) listed as scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. The appointed time slipped past and, like the crowd waiting in line, some in the media gang inside the room began to grow impatient at the delayed arrival of the candidate, who had given a well-received speech that morning in the hotel’s main ballroom.
“We’re a long way from Iowa,” I remarked to Santorum spokesman Hogan Gidley, recalling how few reporters had covered the underdog candidate during the long months he spent crisscrossing the Hawkeye State and speaking to small groups of Republican voters. A mere two months earlier, in mid-December, Santorum had been sixth in the Real Clear Politics average of Iowa polls, with less than six percent. He had somehow miraculously surged to a win in Iowa, then endured a month of disappointing finishes in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida and Nevada, Now, fresh from triple victories last Tuesday in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri, the former Pennsylvania senator was riding a wave of momentum, attracting the kind of crowds (and swarming media coverage) that follow a bona fide presidential contender. . . .

Whatever you do, don’t read the whole thing, because I suck.

(Yes, I understand that my feelings of worthlessness may be symptomatic of Post-CPAC Syndrome, a type of depression resulting from the realization that it’s another 36o days until the next one.)

Update (Smitty): can we exert enough peer pressure to get Belvedere to come down with Da Tech Guy next year?

Category: American Spectator, CPAC, Election 2012, Rick Santorum

Van Jones Is Anti-American

Posted on | February 13, 2012 | 15 Comments

by Smitty

Since the Commie creep is tired of being called anti-American, this blog feels a patriotic duty to add to his exhaustion.

To the cheers of the grassroots activists, Jones endorsed a “millionaires’ tax” as a means of firing up younger voters in the 2012 election, saying “that will get their attention.”

Get bent, you anti-American, Marxist creep.

via Althouse

Update: linked at Daily Pundit and Katy Pundit.

Update II: also linked at That Mr. G Guy.

Category: Democrats

The Madness of David Brock

Posted on | February 13, 2012 | 59 Comments

Fascinating article about Media Matters:

David Brock was smoking a cigarette on the roof of his Washington, D.C. office one day in the late fall of 2010 when his assistant and two bodyguards suddenly appeared and whisked him and his colleague Eric Burns down the stairs.
Brock, the head of the liberal nonprofit Media Matters for America, had told friends and co-workers that he feared he was in imminent danger from right-wing assassins and needed a security team to keep him safe.
The threat he faced while smoking on his roof? “Snipers,” a former co-worker recalled.
“He had more security than a Third World dictator,” one employee said, explaining that Brock’s bodyguards would rarely leave his side, even accompanying him to his home in an affluent Washington neighborhood each night where they “stood post” to protect him. “What movement leader has a detail?” asked someone who saw it.
Extensive interviews with a number of Brock’s current and former colleagues at Media Matters, as well as with leaders from across the spectrum of Democratic politics, reveal an organization roiled by its leader’s volatile and erratic behavior and struggles with mental illness, and an office where Brock’s executive assistant carried a handgun to public events in order to defend his boss from unseen threats. . . .

You can read the whole thing, and then consider how strange it is that someone with a clearly warped personality has such enormous influence:

Media Matters has perhaps achieved more influence simply by putting its talking  points into the willing hands of liberal journalists. “In ‘08 it became pretty  apparent MSNBC was going left,” says one source. “They were using our research  to write their stories. They were eager to use our stuff.” Media Matters staff  had the direct line of MSNBC president Phil Griffin, and used it. Griffin took  their calls.

Did I say “enormous influence“?

According to visitor logs, on June 16, 2010, Brock and then-Media Matters  president Eric Burns traveled to the White House for a meeting with Valerie  Jarrett, arguably the president’s closest adviser. Recently departed Obama  communications director Anita Dunn returned to the White House for the meeting  as well.

And did I say “clearly warped personality“?

During a 2008 meeting of the left-wing umbrella group Democracy Alliance  outside San Diego, Brock’s unusual behavior drew considerable attention.  According to a fellow attendee, “David completely lost his s–t. He started  getting incredibly aggressive. He alienated important people in the progressive  movement, like John Podesta [of the Center for American Progress] and Anna  Burger [of the Service Employees International Union]. Lots of drama. There were  a lot of conversations about David’s mental health.”
Two years later, at another Democracy Alliance meeting shortly after the 2010  election, Brock behaved in a way one prominent liberal who was there described  as “erratic, unstable and disturbing.” Brock’s aggression, this person said, was “hard to ignore and noticed by a number of people,” generating “quite a bit of  concern” about his condition. . . .
Last spring, some at Media Matters headquarters and in other parts of the progressive world were caught off guard by an interview Brock gave to Ben Smith at Politico, in which he promised to wage “guerrilla warfare and sabotage” against Fox News. “It was insane,” says a coworker. “David was totally manic at the time. We were all shocked.”

The story goes on and on and, beyond the specific revelations about MMFA in the Daily Caller article, there is a larger and more general scandal about liberal non-profit organizations like MMFA: The enormous gap in pay, prestige and privilege between the executives and the peons who actually do the work. David Brock and the other bosses at such operations not only collect six-figure salaries, but also certainly monopolize the perks that go with the job, including expense-paid travel to various conferences and meetings in resort locales where they “work” a little and relax a lot.

Ask anyone who’s spent much time in the D.C. non-profit world, and you’ll hear astonishing tales of the luxurious lifestyles of the 501(c) executive class, a lifestyle made possible by the work done by dozens of low-paid staffers. This is equally true, I should point out, of certain conservative non-profits — we need not name names — but such stuff is especially obnoxious when observed at liberal groups, which are ostentatiously devoted to left-wing notions of equality and social justice.

The poor underpaid slobs who toil inside a racket like MMFA tend to rationalize their work on the basis of “advancing the cause,” and perhaps also with the idea that one day they might get a shot at joining the non-profit political executive class. But the smarter ones eventually wise up to the racket and seek employment in the world of greedy capitalism, where one’s day-to-day work might not advance any glorious “cause,” but at least the unequal transactions aren’t dressed up in a lot of idealistic nonsense.

Congratulations to Tucker Carlson, Alex Pappas and the other underpaid slobs at The Daily Caller who put together this overdue exposé.

UPDATE: Richard McEnroe suspects that we have attracted trolls of the agent provocateur type, who are posting anti-homosexual statements in the comments in a stealthy effort to elicit derogatory reactions from other commenters, thus to “prove” that anyone who doesn’t like MMFA is a right-wing bigot. Whether or not McEnroe’s suspicion is justfied, I don’t claim to know, but consider yourself warned.

Category: Media Bias

LIVE AT FIVEEIGHT – 02.13.11

Posted on | February 13, 2012 | 16 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

TOP NEWS
THE PRESIDENT’S NEW BUDGET

President Obama

Budget allegedly cuts $4 billion over ten years
GOP skeptical about tax hikes

Russia Says Syria Ceasefire Needed Before Peacekeeping Mission
Lavrov blames rebels for continued fighting

Greeks Pass Sweeping Austerity Budget
Predictably, riots ensue



POLITICS
Santorum Plans Aggressive Strategy Against Romney

Mitt Romney at CPAC

Tweaks Romney (“You reach a point where desperate people do desperate things”), ignores Gingrich and Paul; plans to go big in Arizona, Michigan

NJ Senate To Vote On Gay Marriage Bill


Ron Paul Backer A.J. Spiker Elected Head Of Iowa GOP


Judges: Texas Should Fix Maps To Keep Primary In April

Candidate Struggle With Indiana Ballot

Palin Blows Doors Off CPAC With Speech Targeting Obama

Inside Media Matters



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
U.S. Stock Futures Higher, Buoyed By Greece
PRC Economy Shows Strain As Policy Shift Eyed
Gold, Silver Surrender Gains; Crude Oil Rising
Italy Meets Target As Borrowing Costs Decline
Japan’s GDP Shrinks More Than Estimated As Exports Slump
Boeing Exec: Growing Airline Market Can Accommodate More Aircraft Manufacturers
Google TV YouTube App Refreshed For Better Smart TV
Windows 8 On Tablets: What We Know So Far
Google Suspends Wallet Prepaid Cards
Iran Clamps Down On Internet



SPORTS
Red Wings Match NHL Record With 20th Straight Home Win

Detroit's Johan Franzen scores on the Flyers' Sergei Bobrovsky

Detroit beats Flyers 4-3

“Linsanity” Goes Global

Rondo’s Triple-Double Carries Celtics Past Bulls

John Force Gets Holeshot Win At NHRA Winternationals



Heat Control The Inside In Blowout Of Hawks

Corey Perry Leads Ducks Past Hapless Blue Jackets

#12 Hoyas Thrash St. John’s, 71-61

Cricket Fun But Challenging, Say Bollywood Actors

Nationals Aiming To Have Two Farm Teams In Virginia?



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Whitney Houston A Huge Presence At A Long Ceremony

Thanks for nothing, Hollywood.

Water found in Whitney Houston’s lungs
Daughter Bobbi hospitalized after breakdown

Katy Perry Bashes Russell Brand With New Song At Grammys

Sex Tales True, Gore Vidal Says

Disney’s “Maleficent” Next Up For Angelina Jolie

Lions Gate Will Do Sixth “Twilight” Movie If Meyer Writes Another Book

Russell Crowe In Talks To Join DiCaprio’s “Harker”

This Knicks Fan’s Sign Presented Without Comment



FOREIGNERS
Greek PM To Reshuffle Cabinet After Dissenters Resign
Israeli Embassies Targeted In Georgia, India
Pakistan Political Crisis Deepens As Court Indicts Prime Minister
Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport Evacuated Due To Bomb Threat
Radical Supporters Missing At Accused Bali Bomb Maker’s Hearing
Fuel Removal Begins On Grounded Cruise Ship



BLOGS & STUFF
DC Fishbowl: Daily Caller Finds Media Matters In Bed With White House, MSNBC, Lamestream Media Scribes; Also, Sex, Drugs, Guns And The Paranoia Of David Brock
Modicum Of Insanity: #OccupyCPAC Stooge Interviewed On Abortion (Video)
AmSpecBlog: Weekend Political Wrapup
Powerline: Cronyism 101
Weasel Zippers: Occupy Oakland Burns The Flag For Third Consecutive Week
Jihad Watch: It Begins – Maldives Muslims Smash Buddhist Statues In National Museum
Tyler Cowen: Break Up The Banks? Here’s An Alternative
JustOneMinute: I Guess I’m Still Stuck On Stupid
iOwnTheWorld.com: I Would Love To Debate These NYT Clowns
WyBlog: Bishops Weigh In – Obama’s “Compromise” Unacceptable
Zilla Of The Resistance: Rest In Peace, Whitney Houston

Category: Live at Five
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