April 30, 2011
Good For Ken Cuccinelli
Virginia's Attorney General dumps King & Spalding for dropping its representation of the U.S. House of Representatives in the DOMA fight. Via the Washington Examiner and Hot Air.
April 29, 2011
Gratuitous Nats Posting
Needless to say, I was delighted to watch the Nats hang on last evening, thereby slapping the broom out of the hands of Gary's white-hot Mets. (Actually, the Nats would have won the night before, too, had not Sean Burnett uncharacteristically come unglued in the 9th.)
For those of you who don't follow the Nats, I tell you truly that I am really beginning to feel that it's a different team this year - more aggressive, more together, more stylish and, frankly, just a whole lot more competent. Once Zimm comes back, once our Big Bats heat up just a bit more and once Ian Desmond gets over his bout of erroritis, then stand back: I think we're going to surprise an awful lot of people.
By the way, as long as I'm on the Nats, I might mention that I am really beginning to enjoy the commentary by MASN's new color man, F.P. Santangelo. He clearly knows what he's talking about, and I notice with extreme amusement that he is becoming progressively more comfortable with correcting analysis offered by play-by-play guy Bob Carpenter. He also seems much more capable of expressing opinions on the various ups and downs of the team without going off the deep end like Angry Rob Dibble used to do.
Tonight begins a four game home stand against the Giants, followed by a brutal road trip next week. It's gut check time, gentlemen.
GO, NATS!!
Mona Charen on Marriage and Class
Mona has this over at NR on the benefits of marriage to men, women, and especially children. Early in my career, I spent a fair amount of time in the juvenile and domestic relations district courts of western Virginia representing juvenile offenders. It did not take long to figure out that the most important factor in determining if a kid will wind up in trouble with the law is whether the child was growing up in a household with a single parent. Marriage, or the lack of it, crushed every other factor.
Blonde Detour On a Brunette Highway
We take this brief operational pause for Uma Thurman who turns 41 today:
and Michelle Pfeiffer who is 53:
One could do worse . . .
April 28, 2011
Double Feature, Sound On or Off Division
The LMC Brunette Birthday Series rolls on, this time with Penelope Cruz
and Jessica Alba
Neither could act their way out of a paper bag, but what do we care?
Because blonde is so yesterday.
April 27, 2011
Random Commuter Observations
As suggested by my post yesterday, the advent of spring in Your Nation's Capital has reawakened my loathing for tourons. As regular Camelidophiles know, this has long been a staple of Robbo's fair-weather ranting.
Well, put down your coffee cups and swallow those chunks of coffee cake, because you're about to get a shock: I actually had a pleasant touron experience last evening.
First, let me clarify a thing or two. From the occasional hints in the comments left on my rants about this subject, I get the impression that some of you think I'm something of a.....snob. Well, as a matter of fact, I am, but not in the way you may be thinking. You see, I don't buy into the notion of Dee Cee as some kind of Emerald City, nor do I subscribe to that Blue State sneering about Fly-Over Country knuckle-draggers favored by the likes of the editorial staff of the NY Times and the denizens of the Puffington Host. As far as I'm concerned, anybody is welcomed to come and see the sights, and nobody who happens to live here has any particular legitimate reason to feel superior to such visitors because of their zip code. So that's that.
No, my gripe - consistently stated, I think - is over the lack of basic courtesy that some of these visitors display, mostly in the form of blocking sidewalks and screaming at each other on the metro. It's true that such blockers and screamers usually seem to be busloads of teenagers from Kansas, but they could be anybody - the College of Cardinals, Xenophon's Ten Thousand - and such behavior would still be extremely rude. And it's equally true that although I'm griping about it happening in Dee Cee, this is just because this is where I happen to live and work. It could be anywhere else - Duluth, Samarkand - and if I were hot and tired and trying to get back and forth on my commute it would still irritate the hell out of me.
So you see, I distinguish between "tourists" and "tourons" based on their behavior. I've absolutely nothing against the former, and it's only the latter that fill me with loathing. And as I say, my dislike of tourons is completely practical and personal and has nothing to do with snobbery or elitist expectations.
And now for the good experience. As I shuffled along F Street toward the metro last evening, my weary eyes caught sight of a mob of shiftless yoot in matching t-shirts beginning to pour out of a souvenir store next to Ford's Theatre. "Oh, Jesum Crow," thought I, "here we go. I may even have to tack over a block just to get around them all." However, before the mob congealed into an immovable barrier across the sidewalk, a magnificent woman chaperon, taking her cue no doubt from the Centurion who says goeth, started barking at them, "I want you all up against the wall and I want you there NOW!" Mirabile dictu, up against the wall is exactly where they all went. I sailed right past.
You see? That's all I ask - that people pay attention to where they are and what they're doing, and that they have some care for those around them. Chaperon Lady did so - I almost turned back to shake her by the hand - and all was well. If more tourons acted with her thoughtfulness, why, Robbo would be out of a significant source of blog material.
UPDATE: Evidently, somebody at Pravda on the Potomac has been reading this post. I am Llama. Hear me orgle.
The Hypocrisy of the Left
Via the incomparable Victor Davis Hanson over at National Review. Read it. An Administration that is quick to condemn Israel when it defends itself, worry about the rights of Al-Qaeda, etc., cannot be bothered to condemn the murder of innocent Israelis or defend marriage.
April 26, 2011
Babes of Stargate Universe
Inspired by the announcement we are only two episodes away from the series finale. First up, Ming-Na. Aging very gracefully at 47:
Because blonde is so yesterday.
Breaking Radio Silence
Greetings, Llamaphiles (or is that Llamaphiliacs?), and a big ol' Yip! to the LMC for holding down the fort while Robbo was on break. So what better way to get back into the swing of things than a few Random Commuter Observations (TM)?
-- Gas hit 4 bucks a gallon at the Orgle Manor station this past week. I notice a curious absence of mention of such prices on the NPR news briefs. I say "curious" because the last time it got this expensive, NPR made a near fetish of the matter. Were I a cynic, I might suggest an agenda at work.
--Also this week, Mother Nature stopped messing about with early spring and went straight into early summah. Personally, I blame Al Gore. This is the time of year when, on my commuter walk, I start sacrificing speed for shade.
--Speaking of such things, we are also now into the time of year when bright sun and flimsier clothing can produce some seriously unfortunate back-lighting issues. Just sayin'.
--Hooray for the Caps doing so well in the playoffs, but when they have a home game it makes my walk to the Metro pretty durn difficult.
--And speaking of that, can I whine about tourons? Huh? Pleeease? Just a little?
April 23, 2011
"Shooting at heads and chests"
that would be Bashir Assad's forces in Syria, the most ruthless M.D. in the world, and the same guy SWMNBN told us was a "reformer."
Via CNN and Hot Air.
There was considerable ink spilled in the runup to the 2008 election and in the immediate aftermath on the subject of "smart power" about how the progressives would be so much more astute on foreign policy once Bush 43 and Dick Cheney left. It has proven to be not so smart.
April 22, 2011
Vacuous in Wisconsin
Ms. Kloppenberg claimed victory when the unofficial count put her 200 ahead and now cannot seem to concede defeat when the official count puts her 7000 behind. Via Hot Air.
NR and Hot Air observed how this race dropped off the MSM media once it became apparent the Republican incumbent was going to win.
April 20, 2011
Words of Wisdom from "Dirty Harry"
"There is nothing wrong with shooting . . .
so long as the right people get shot."
Magnum Force
April 19, 2011
Brunette Birthday Series Rolls On
Today marks the 43rd birthday of Ashley Judd:
Because we focus on what is important in these uncertain times.
April 18, 2011
"Quell the Storm and Ride the Thunder"
Today's inspiration comes from Theodore Roosevelt:
Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to develop into fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a workaday world. Among the free peoples who govern themselves there is but a small field of usefulness open for the men of cloistered life who shrink from contact with their fellows. Still less room is there for those who deride of slight what is done by those who actually bear the brunt of the day; nor yet for those others who always profess that they would like to take action, if only the conditions of life were not exactly what they actually are. The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he be a cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder. Well for these men if they succeed; well also, though not so well, if they fail, given only that they have nobly ventured, and have put forth all their heart and strength. It is war-worn Hotspur, spent with hard fighting, he of the many errors and valiant end, over whose memory we love to linger, not over the memory of the young lord who “but for the vile guns would have been a valiant soldier.”
April 13, 2011
Light Posting Alert
Even less than as of late--trip to Metro-Lex to catch half of a law school reunion and then on to Charlotte for three days of Army stuff.
April 11, 2011
LMC Birthday Series
Rolls on with everyone's favorite Cylon, Tricia Helfer, who hits 37:
Because we care.
UPDATE: Since a faithful reader brought up the subject of favorite toasters, here again is one of our favs:
Generational Mis-identification
A high school classmate described herself on Facebook as a "child of the Sixties." A better description for a member of the high school class of 1981 might be a "child in the Sixties" and part of the Seventies as well.
April 10, 2011
Caterwauling over Medicare And I Feel Fine
"Your undocumented alien" Mark Steyn, has this piece at NR on the caterwauling from the Left over "ending Medicare as we know it."
A little R.E.M. seems appropo:
April 08, 2011
Gratuitous Nats Posting
I'm still not here. But as long as I was checking to make sure I still remembered my Llama Club password, I just wanted to mention that the Nats roll into Noo Yawk for their opening series against the Mets this afternoon and if they play like they did last night, Gary's team is doomed. DOOOOOMED!
GO, NATS!!
April 07, 2011
April 06, 2011
Pajiba's Helen Hunt Career Assessment
Is here to keep you going until Steve-O returns with the Definitive Post On All Things Helen Hunt.
We will always remember her in her role as Jo--
Yips! from Robbo: I'm still not here, but I just wanted to point out that I believe we originally coined the word "orgle-icious" just for Jo Harding. Mmmm, mmmm.
April 02, 2011
Tripped Across This Photo of Robbo and a LLama-ette
A chip off the ol' block.
We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.
LMC Movie Review
Last night's feature was Natalie Portman's latest. Review in two words: weird flick.
.
Glad we saw it on Netflix rather than emptying a clip on a babysitter, dinner, and a movie.
April 01, 2011
"Haul down the colors and secure the last watch"
Ship commissionings are a big deal in a Navy town as are de-commissioning when a ship is retired and removed from the active fleet. USS Nassau (LHA-4) hung up the cleats yesterday after 31 years of service. Via the local fishwrapper.
This from the Navy Hymn seems appropo:
" . . . When at last her course is run,
Her work for God and country done,
Of all the souls that in her have sailed,
Let not one life in Thee have failed,
But hear in heaven our sailors cry,
And grant eternal life on high!"
Fair winds and following seas to that big grey lady, her crew, past and present, and to all the Marines who embarked upon her.
Image courtesy of the lovely and talented 