Gotta correct Vodkapundit's drunken math

by Smitty

Vodkapundit uses some Drudgereport links as a launch pad for discussing BHO economic policy, emphasis mine:

Some of us have been warning you about this since before Obama was even sworn in. Look, stimulus spending can’t work, because of one of three things happens:

1. That extra spending means extra taxes which means the whole thing is a wash. (Government spending having some “multiplier” effect unknown to consumer or business spending is a big, fat lie.)
2. That extra spending means extra debt, which drives up interest rates, which chokes off growth.
3. That extra spending means extra money being printed, which means inflation which means any growth is illusory.

It is not a "big, fat lie" in the slightest. You can easily have a coefficient that is < 1. Maybe in a government context, it would be better termed an "inefficient", but that doesn't negate its life, any more than lack of a birthday negates the life of an infant.
The Other McCain--keeping the math real since 31Feb08

Will Blevins/'Publius' Be Dooced?

My first reaction to Ed Whelan's identification of "Publius" as University of South Texas law professor John F. Blevins: They've got a law school at the University of South Texas?

Amazing things you can learn on the Internet!

My second reaction: Is Blevins tenured? If so, why would he insist on anonymity? Professor Glenn Reynolds is not anonymous. Being a tenured professor is like being James Bond, licensed to kill. Firing a tenured professor is nearly impossible. The rare occurrence -- the ousting of the fraudulent Ward Churchill at University of Colorado -- practically requires an act of the state legislature and abuses so flagrant that the dismissal can withstand Supreme Court scrutiny.

So if Blevins is tenured, what are these "variety of private, family, and professional reasons" for his anonymity? If blogging cannot threaten his job security -- and as a tenured professor, Blevins couldn't be fired even if he were arrested for robbing a 7-Eleven -- why would he hide his identity at Obsidian Wings? Dan Riehl sides with Blevins/"Publius":

That a writer at a site like NRO would stoop to outing an anonymous liberal blogger is, hopefully, far more a discredit to Whelan and NRO, than it is trouble for said blogger.

In saying so, Riehl agrees with James Joyner:

Jeopardizing a man’s career and family relationships over something so petty is simply shameful.

Hmmm. Without getting into all that (I'm logging in on the free Wi-Fi at the Krystal in Acworth, Ga., and just about to head out on the 12-hour drive homeward) my question is the extent to which Blevins' arguments for anonymity are plausible. Even if Blevins isn't tenured, it's not as if being a liberal is grounds for termination, even in Texas. And if Blevins were fired for blogging -- "Dooced," as they say -- surely his application would be welcome at the many law schools dominated by liberal faculty.

How, then, can Whelan be accused of "jeopardizing" Blevins' career? When I covered basketball as a sportswriter, and the ref would call a touch-foul, the coach of the penalized team would holler, "Hey, ref, no harm, no foul!"

The "no harm, no foul" principle might apply to this situation. Whelan blogs under his own name and felt that he was being abused by the anonymous "Publius." The fact that "Publius" was relatively obscure -- I'm not into legal blogging, and have seldom read Obsidian Wings -- might make Whelan's "outing" of him seem an overreaction. But I don't presume to judge what is or is not abuse of another. If Blevins is harmed by his "outing," he ought to be able to demonstrate (not merely assert) that harm.

Blogging under your own name in an environment where so many others are anonymous or pseudonymous is difficult. There is a reason comments are moderated here. I must consider the possibility that the vicious anonymous commenter is actually a sock-puppet for one of the many people I've criticized publicly.

An honest flame-war with Rod Dreher or any other of The Republicans Who Really Matter? I can handle that. What I won't tolerate is an anonymous commenter of mysterious motives trying to use my bandwidth to attack me. (Effectively, that is. I have no trouble approving abusive comments so long as they are so self-evidently idiotic as to be unpersuasive.)

There are no comments at the NRO blogs, so the only means others have of arguing with the NRO bloggers is through their own blogs. So Ed Whelan was blogging under his own name and being attacked by the anonymous "Publius," and decided to end his antagonist's anonymity.

This is Whelan's choice and he obviously believes it to be a defensible choice, but heaven forbid any liberal should ever go after Rusty Shackleford's anonymity. Or Smitty's, for that matter.

And all this I say without reference to the specifics of the dispute between Blevins and Whelan. I'm just blogging from the Krystal in Acworth, Ga., and don't have time to play blogosphere ethics cop.

UPDATE: Professor Reynolds weighs in.

UPDATE II: Professor William Jacobson weighs in. There is no truth to the rumor that Reynolds, Jacobson and Donald Douglas are ringleaders of a gang of academics who rob Seven-11s in their spare time.

UPDATE III: A commenter asks if I read Blevins' post in which he said he is not tenured. No, I didn't read Blevins' post. I told you, I'm at a Krystal in Acworth, Ga., and don't have time to read everything. But I'm sure Blevins will be all right. Just invest in a ski mask and practice saying, "Stick 'em up!"

UPDATE IV (Monday a.m.): Now that I'm home and have seen both Blevins' post and Feddie's post at Southern Appeal, I am inclined to believe that Whelan did the wrong thing. However, I also think Blevins is either unnecessarily concerned or disingenuous:

Professionally, I’ve heard that pre-tenure blogging (particularly on politics) can cause problems. . . . I don’t want conservative students to feel uncomfortable before they take a single class based on my posts. So I don’t tell them about this blog. Also, I write and research on telecom policy – and I consider blogging and academic research separate endeavors. . . .
Privately, I don’t write under my own name for family reasons. I'm from a conservative Southern family – and there are certain family members who I’d prefer not to know about this blog (thanks Ed). Also, I have family members who are well known in my home state who have had political jobs with Republicans, and I don’t want my posts to jeopardize anything for them. . . .

What Blevins is confessing here is that he would argue differently, or perhaps not argue at all, if he were arguing under his own name. Bingo. This is at least relevant to Whelan's complaint about being sniped at from the ambuscade of anonymity.

Whelan risks his own reputation every time he pushes the "publish" button, while his anonymous critic risks nothing. I'll have more to say, but will say it elsewhere.

Rule 5 Sunday

by Smitty

...And so spaketh The Other McCain on the plains of Blog: 'There shall be a Fifth Rule. Of the rules this shall be number five. Betweeneth the fourth and sixth shall it lie.' And he heldeth both arms up and said: 'Everybody loveth a pretty girl'. And there was joy throughout the Nets of Inter and in the Spot of Blog.—A reading from The Book Of Stacy, 2:3

Thus, on the Seventh of June, Anno Margretti 2009, did The Camp of the Saints hand down a lesson to all meretrīcēs blogarum.—Mumblings of the Porch Manqué, 14:9

Rule 5 has never had any sort of exploitative element. While leaning towards the ladies, we take time for gentlemen, too. It's a positive, no-stress review of the human form in the abstract. Erotic interpretation is subjective and left to the reader. Furthermore, we don't typically put the pictures in our roundup, prefering to send traffic to various blog-adelic suspects out there in the webby-nets.
However, Playboor last week violated our refined sense of taste and justice, as you probably know. You can't even find the trash on LiveLeak.com, not that we'd waste time on it. But we will enjoy a special feature before the usual Rule 5 roundup entitled:
10 Conservative Women With Whom We'd Like to Enjoy a Beverage, and What We'd Say

1. Michelle Malkin
   
   It's great to have met you at the DC Tea Party. You're not #1 on the list for nothing. You've endured more abuse than most of the list, with the exception of the curiously-missing-from-this-list Ann Coulter. We've got your back, lady.


2. Megyn Kelly
   
   Lady, you rock. Watching your delivery on Fox, where you don't hesitate to flog Bill O'Reilly about the head and shoulders, is a treat. Remind me not to upset you, for all being on the receiving end of the chewing would nearly be worth it.


3. Mary Katharine Ham
   
   Truly a gift in the humor department. I saw you on Blogger's Row at CPAC. This post is a great excuse to link some Ham Nation.
   
   
   
   
   


4. Amanda Carpenter
   I can't lie. I haven't read your articles in the Washington Times. Or your book. But your presence in the list and the title of the book indicate you're worth talking to. Press on.




5. Elisabeth Hasselbeck
   
   Heaven send you strength, lady, for dealing with the nitwits on The View. My reaction to all that would involve Cousin Smith, Uncle Wesson, and something uspeakable.


6. Dana Perino
   
   How did you do it? I could not have dealt with the Washington press "corpse" without sounding like a cross between Dennis Miller and a bad hangover. You really put the 'C' in classy.


7. Laura Ingraham
   
   I'll confess not to be much of a talk radio listener, but your presence here indicates you're jabbing the proper nerves. Keep it up!


8. Pamela Geller
   
   Atlas Shrugs continues to take the fight to the opposition. Thanks again for your effort in bringing Geert Wilders to DC to speak during CPAC.








9. Michele Bachmann
   
   Thank you for showing more sense and leadership in Congress than my own local piece of work. You'd make a better Speaker than Princess Pelosi by at least an order of magnitude. Hopefully the voters concur and Do The Right Thing.


10. Peggy Noonan
    
    Please, please, please use your bully pulpit properly, and veer away from the foppish centrism. You've the eloquence and the audience to do much good in the struggle to restore the Constitution to relevance.

And now, back to the usual hijinks:

• First prize in the race to get to the Latvian blonde parade (in my Google Reader) went to The Purple Center.
• Jillosophy had a Norma Jean roundup.
• Donald Douglas linked the 10 Hottest Liberal women in politics. Completely comfortable in his masculinity, he posted some Hugh Jackman for the ladies. He also had a post on Sugar Daddy Dating. Includes some ABC video. Possibly I'm too cynical, but it seems semi-obvious to me that this 'service' is targeting dudes with names like 'Spitzer'.
• Wallet Pop had a post about Starbucks Meets Hooters. All about the bean.
• Bob gives us Kari Byron, and seems to mention something about finding erotica in H.R. Giger's work. Bob, we need to talk. No, we don't. Less said, the better. *shudder*
• Dustbury moves us away from Giger and in the direction of chicks with guns, a helpful palate cleanser.
• Iowahawk shows us the rear view of an American classic, and a redhead as well. This may require a Stray Cats moment:

• Carol at No Sheeples Here helped to keep the Carla Bruni photo inbounds. Thanks! She followed that up with some Robert Mitchum
• The Elder of Ziyon posts a picture of a woman in a bikini with a hookah. I had some cherry flavored tobacco once from such a gadget. Once.
• Clearly Nebulous appreciates Angie Harmon.
• Lance says that Monica Bellucci has been in the news. We must trust Lance for both taste and content. Except where metal bikinis are concerned. And dudes with funky fingernails and hairy chests. We'll consult Fausta for those questions. ;)
• Mr. Jeffords contributes some Raquel Welch that we agree is spot on.
• In sporting news, Right of Course continues a tennis tradition.
• The Pirates Cove contributes some retro cheesecake.
• Now, if you've never seen a lovely brunette in heels...with a pitchfork, check the WyBlog for some Garden State action.
• Paco breaks the silver screen tradition, but with an excellent reason.
• Political Castaway remembers D-Day with a look at the contemporary military.
• Dustbury offers some Dolly Parton leg bait, which we gladly take.

Update:
Dan Collins suggests the addition of Liz Stephens of Breitbart TV. ToM counter argument: "We got no counter argument."



Update II:
The Patriot Room contributes General Sideburns McSassafras with a monologue that I may or may not have completely understood.

Please send more links to Smitty. Support conservatives in any way possible, and hit the tip jar.

Flog me gently with a morning star

by Smitty

Speaking of honest FMJRA mistakes, I really didn't pick over my Rule 2 label/folder in Gmail after completing the latest entry. Believe it or not, there was another group of links to be added. And so it came to pass that I was dealt a stinging, well-deserved rebuke by the Camp of the Saints. TCotS has linked us concerning DealerGate, and the Tiller tragedy. He went on to note the contrast between the coverage of Dr. Tiller and Private William Long. A freebie here, but memorable, as was the omtiG line, and the William-the-Conquerors-in-reverse bit, as well.
Special attention was paid to NTCNews both here and here. But the most special attention of all was paid to my inbox, which contained this:
Sometimes there is nothing else to do but say "yep, I tubed it", and get on with life.

---

Oh no...I suddenly have a non-recollection of linking Little Miss Attila. Any music recommendations for the doomed?

Note the commemorative D-Day abstraction

by Smitty

  Google, tired of the usual guns and grunts and tanks and stuff, has instead offered an abstract portrait of a beach, with a lone boatload of heroes coming in. Certainly, the Allies were what we call today a Coalition, and so we're treated to a rainbow color to represent the more than red, white, and blue presence.
  Thanks, Google. You guys are boffo.

Southern By the Grace of God

Kaitlin Beard of the Rome (Ga.) News-Tribune covered my Thursday speech:

You can’t know who you are without first knowing something about your ancestors, a speaker told the Rome chapter of Sons of Confederate Veterans on Thursday night.
Stacy McCain, a former Rome News-Tribune reporter who also worked as an editor for the Washington Times, spoke to the group at the Rome-Floyd County Library. . . . McCain’s topic for the night was “Beyond the Flag: Defending Our Honor in the 21st Century.” He said that it is a sin for people to forget their past.
“A personal connection is what leads to a love of history. That connection makes all the difference in the world,” said McCain. . . .

You can read the whole thing. The lovely Miss Beard, a junior at Berry College who is interning this summer at the RN-T, slightly garbled one of my quotes. What I actually said was that when you go to defend the South, you had better be prepared to defend it "down to the last boll weevil on the last cotton patch beside the last tar-paper shack on the last dirt road in Mississippi."

As I told my friends in Rome, it's like the song from "West Side Story":

When you're a Jet,
You're a Jet all the way.
From your first cigarette
To your last dyin' day.

When somebody puts down the South, I'm a Jet all the way. This has had terrible consequences for my reputation and frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. I'd rather be denounced by the Southern Poverty Law Center than to be a coward who apologetically cringes for fear of being called names. Call me what you will, just don't ever call me a scalawag.

This is why I was more amused than outraged by Sonia Sotomayor's "wise Latina" remark. To me, ethnic chauvinism is entirely comprehensible and, in most circumstances, inoffensive. Man is by nature tribal. Edmund Burke's famous observation about the "little platoons" that make up society eloquently expresses how every person's natural loyalty to their own particular group constitutes the mortar that bonds them to the larger society.

If you're Jewish, be a proud Jew, if you're Italian, be a proud Italian, and if you're a Newyorican, be a proud Newyorican. A proud Southerner doesn't mind that at all.

Damned Yankees, Damned Theories
The problem occurs when someone tries to turn their own ethnic pride -- a natural and admirable trait -- into a larger, universalistic theory, as the Damned Yankees have always done.

Where I come from, "damned Yankee" is not considered cursing. In fact, most folks down home count "damnyankee" as one word. I have frequently described the widespread prejudice against the South as boreal supremacy, the belief that everything about the North is superior to everything about the South. Such prejudice against the South is so common that some people don't even notice it, but I do, and I resent the hell out of it.

Confronted with the assumption of Northern superiority, some Southerners will react by attempting to ape Northern ways and adopt characteristically Northern attitudes, and start "putting on airs," as Alabama folks would say. Next thing you know, they're espousing Buddhist economics and shopping at Whole Foods like some kind of effete pansy. But I digress . . .

There is a right way and a wrong way to deal with being the object of prejudice. Michael Steele thinks that Judge Sotomayor's response to prejudice is the wrong kind and, given his own experiences with prejudice, Steele's views certainly deserve consideration.

For the past week, some people labored diligently to convict the judge of "racism." Having experienced the same kind of treatment, I would be inclined to hear Judge Sotomayor testify to the Judiciary Committee before judging her fitness for the Supreme Court. There may be other controversies -- including her judicial decisions -- that would be more relevant than her "Jet all the way" Newyorican pride.

Perhaps Judge Sotomayor's experience of being condemned as a "racist" will enhance her Latina wisdom. It might cause her to re-examine the liberal presumption of inherent "white male privilege" that is the theoretical justification for much of the malicious social engineering practiced in the name of "diversity."

Redneck Privilege?
When I think of my own ancestors -- hard-working people who toiled from dawn to sundown on the red clay hills of Alabama -- I am quite naturally filled with pride. The suggestion that I should be ashamed of my ancestors is an insult I deeply resent. And to suggest that I am the beneficiary of an undeserved "privilege" is another sort of insult.

Certainly I have been less "privileged" than the Ivy League-educated Sotomayor, and any suggestion to the contrary amounts to an assertion of my own inferiority. This is an insult to me, and is compounded by an insult to my intelligence if you deny that you have insulted me.

If you say that the descendant of Puerto Ricans is deserving of a privilege that no descendant of Alabama rednecks could ever deserve, you implicity assert that my ancestors were inferior to Sotomayor's. When I point out the self-evident insult involved, and someone then tells me, "Oh, you don't understand . . ." or otherwise denies the insulting nature of their argument, they have then asserted that their own understanding is superior to mine.

"Don't piss down my back and tell me it's rainin'."
-- The Outlaw Josey Wales

There may be legitimate arguments in favor of having a "wise Latina" on the Supreme Court, but insofar as those arguments deny similar consideration to an Alabamian -- say, someone like Sen. Jeff Sessions -- an entire class of Americans has been thereby disadvantaged by your presumption of their inferiority. No one ever points this out, because the prejudices of boreal supremacy are so universal in elite culture.

Justice Clarence Thomas represents me as well as, if not indeed better than, any of his white associates on the court. From his own experience, Justice Thomas learned that the liberal's claim of "tolerance" and "civility" is a vicious lie -- a lie I discovered through experiences of my own.

It has long been my opinion that, whatever their disagreements and differences, black Americans and white Southerners share the experience of being the objects of prejudice. After years of encountering the patronizing condescension of one's alleged superiors (a certain bowtied fops's insulting contempt has been noted), one's skin grows thick enough that it is no longer a constant struggle to withstand the urge to punch those arrogant bastards right square in their stuck-up noses. If nothing else, one can simply walk out of the room when David Brooks walks in.

Be a Good Jet, Jeff
At some point, however, such insults pile up so high that you feel compelled at least to mention the insult, lest the damned Yankee suppose that you are such a cowardly scalawag as to be insulted with impunity. I consider it beneath my dignity to defend myself against the accusation of "racism" -- not even to point out that some of my best friends are Newyorkican -- since I understand the accusation as an invitation to crawl in abjection before the shrine of boreal supremacy.

Therefore, I hope that Judge Sotomayor will not withdraw her nomination before she's had a full hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and further hope that Senator Sessions will ask her whether she believes a "wise Latina" is inherently superior to a wise Alabamian.

Down home, there is a popular bumper-sticker slogan, "American By Birth, Southern By the Grace of God," and no Southerner should condemn Judge Sotomayor for proclaiming herself "Newyorican By the Grace of God." But if she's trying to insult and disadvantage the people Senator Sessions represents, a matter of honor is involved, and she ought to expect a rumble.

You've got to be a Jet all the way, Senator.

From My Jugular, Regrets Abound

by Smitty

  This week's Full Metal Jacket begins with an apology to those who've been shorted on the Technorati linkbacks. Technorati may have had some server issues. However, the severl of the idiot savant clonebots responsible on my end had to be sacked. Painful explanation below at [1]. We also have a separate Not Tucker Carlson section. [2]
To work.

• We're huge Carol fans here at The Other McCain. No Sheeples Here delights this week, as usual:
  • Check out "America Goes Into Its Slavery Without A Fight As The World Snickers.
  • She features her own Saturday roundup.
  • When the Playboy business broke, she was less than flattering about the author. *snort*. Her follow-up recalled that scene at the cave in The Holy Grail.
  • Postcards From the Apology Tour was a special treat, and received its own FMJRA treatment already.
• Instapundit noted the If Obama's lost Ted Rall post. That post also got some linky-love from Ed Driscoll. Ed also like the Great Budweiser Frog Revival. Jazz Shaw saw the news of the Tiller tragedy here first.
• Lance Burri seems like a brother. He seems to be settling on Sunday for Rule 2 work. He posits a terrifying log discovery: I hope I don’t start getting hits from people searching “Nancy Pelosi nude.” I think I'd rather stare at Bob's Cthulhu tattoo. He wonders aloud why Stacy wasn't reporting from the Latvian blond parade. See, he thought he was going there, but through some strange dyslexia of the ear, 'Latvia' became 'Atlanta'. Could have happened to anyone. Speaking of 'sexylaid', why does he mention Little Miss Attila, then link us? I mean, we're so cheap the price is appalling, but can we legitimately take these clicks? Yes We Can. The Trog linked us en passant in a Monique Stewart/Meghan McCain post. Said he of Monique: "she kinda scares me". Hey, I just report.
• His post following the Tiller murder was detailed and went to nine updates. The BlogProf linked us on a huge roundup of Hatef'gate, and also here. No typos with which to play fun word games this week, though. ;)
• The Daley Gator is on the Saturday roundup team. There was also a substantial Tiller roundup. Finally, he is tracking on omtiG.
• Donald Douglas, our West Coast Meltdown Correspondent, tracked the Tiller shooting, but moved on to more pleasant topics with the latvian blondes, but playing it even-handed, offered a bit of Hugh Jackman along with a truly staggering list of female bloggers. Wow.
• Fisherville Mike liked the Frog work, posting that timeless quote: Never hire a ferret to do a weasel's job.
• Lead and Gold is back in the mix, linking us on the DealerGate story, as well as offering some Midway linkage. He also enjoyed Stacy weighing in on "the problematic value of conservative intellectuals".
• Right of Course linked us in a Sotomayor roundup. This post on the Tiller tragedy had a title tweaking the reaction on the left: "Dr. Tiller dead because O’Reilly wasn’t nice to him." He then summarizes the week deftly:

  Well, so far this week the blogosphere has been dominated by three main stories and the left has managed to use all three to show just how hypocritical they have become.

• Dustbury expanded on the Dr. Utopia theme. He also remembered a bumper sticker: I’M PRO-LIFE. I’M AGAINST SHOOTING DOCTORS.
• The Pirate's Cove linked the Ted Rall post. He also picked up the Tiller reporting. He lamented the end of Offend a Feminist week while he was posting about the Speaking Truth to 115VAC Power representation of the POTUS.
• Speaking of Truth to Power, Carol linked us on Pravda. She also may have had something subliminal going on after the Budweiser Frog compilation, but, in my innocence, it remains ambiguous. She also had some thoughtful words about Tiller.
• Obi's Sister blames the spam on linking to our Carrie Prejean posts. Note to anyone receiving traffic from this site: only your good click-clicks are belong to us. The bad stuff is probably due to the PuffingtonHost or WaterCatPond or something. Obi's famous Jedi Academy mentioned us amidst a good rant about the POTUS.
• Chad at the KURU Lounge has a liesure linkfest called around the moronosphere that seems to snag us quite often. Yes we resemble that! And I hope the opening apology makes up for the tragic omission in previous FMJRAs. And, he's gotten a successful tweet from Julie Banderas, so he's got that goin' for him.
• NiceDeb had a great Dealergate roundup. She hands out a thumping on the Pravda story: "The thing is, the piece was posted 4/27/09, and Nice Deb linked to it on MAY 5, people!" D'oh! And she had a substantial Tiller roundup.
• Paco Enterprises caught up with us on Dealergate and the Battle of Midway.
• The Rude News sprang to RSM's defense on the Tiller killing. RN also responded forcefully to the nasty Playboy piece, but went the extra distance to complement the ladies individually. And RN pointed to Jamie Kirchick Rule Two-ing.
• Another Black Conservative linked NTC news (which Rule Two-age we gratefully pick up here) on the topic of Bonnie Erbe. ABC also quoted Stacy at length on Tiller's killing.
• Moe Lane fell short of welcoming Ted Rall: "let him rot where he is."
• Protein Wisdom's Tiller roundup features an unusally high amount of lefty links, for the strong of stomach. And Dan also weighed in on the Playboy fracas.
• Rumblepak linked the Tiller coverage, and went back to RSM's Don't Blame Me post during a rumination concerning the POTUS.
• Pat in Shreveport is done with school and has a retrospective roundup.
• The Classical Liberal mentions us on a Latvian Blonde post.
• Stop the ACLU linked the Ted Rall post, along with a roundup of TR's 'work', the titles of which were as bad as this recent Playboy nonsense. We also got linkage on the Tiller killing.

---


In the Single Link section...

• Andrew Sullivan tags Stacy (for zero-contact values of 'tag') "about as far right as one can get" on the subject of Tiller.
• Pam Gellar notes a "Headline I Wish I'd Thought Of".
• Infinite Monkeys: 'Conservative infighting is from Mars, liberal infighting is from Venus'
• Crime Scene KC gave linkage on Tiller.
• Borepatch has three bullet points on the Ted Rall post: Absolutely. Spot. On.
• Comments from Left Field links us on Tiller. The post has some bait, but I'll fall short of nibbling.
• The Conservative Political report had a small Cairo speech roundup
• Dad29 hat tips the Casey Jones for President post.
• Director Blue has a categorized link fest, which I've also thought of doing with this mess.
• Dogfight in Bankstown had a Dijongate link.
• Fish Fear Me also dug the Ted Rall title.
• Gateway Pundit picked us up on the Tiller story.
• As did Incertus in a roundup.
• Just Above Sunset quotes Stacy's lament on Tiller amidst a lengthy stream of consciousness about the Right's reaction to pretty much everything. An interesting read.
• Liberalsmash has a mostly unrefined roundup. Palate cleanser.
• Novus2 offers a Twitter roundup on Tiller, as well as a pithy summary.
• Planet Moron laughs at the NYT's Krugman blaming Reagan for the financial crisis. PM blames Wang Chung. While WC is a sufficiently random target, their only real crime is not being Chickenfoot.

• Politics and Critical Thinking offers a play-by-play on the Levin flareup, and says some nice things about Stacy.
• Bill Kristol's Brain (Or, a blog about nothing) revoked our First Amendment rights concerning Tiller. Thanks.
• The Rhetorican wonders if the Ted Rall dissent could lead to an Olbermann Short Circuit. I'm curious when Keith ever had a long circuit.
• Scared Monkeys had more in the same vein on Ted Rall
• The Socratic Gadfly disputes Ted Rall's Democratic bona fides.
• Steynian links us in a roundup the size of which shames this one.
• Tarpon notes that Ted Rall was a cartoonist.
• The Western Experience linked us on Tiller.
• Wizbang Blog alson had Tiller linkage.
• All Amerrican Blogger picked up the RFC Radio appearance by Stacy.
• The American Conservative characterizes us as "alternative right". Sorry the whole pulse thing is too daring for ya, boss.
• I respectfully disagree with Kathy Shaidle's diagnosis: "Tiller's murder sets back pro-life movement twenty years". The killing was false, brutal, evil, and wrong. However, the unconscionable actions of one no more set back the life movement than, say Senator McCain sets back conservative principles by being a centrist squish. Life is life, and conservativism is common sense. And may the Almighty have mercy on Dr. Tiller.
• More thoughts in on Tiller at Hyscience.
• Still more at Islam is War.
• Back to Sotomayor, there is an interesting rebuttal of conservative hypocrisy at The National Center.
• The South Texan commiserates on intellectual idiots.
• Jimmie at The Sundries Shack, NTCNews collaborator and stellar fellow, followed the Tiller case and Left reactions.
• The un-Liberaled Woman linked us on Howard Dean.
• Zoominac had a GM Bankruptcy roundup and thoughts.

[1] The python pulls the HTML and saves the good parts to tab-delimited file which I bring in to Excel to save as .xslx which imports more nicely into Access and then goes through a two-phase SQL query with some VBA juicing to polish the output into a flat dump which I then pour into an Emacs session for the real writing. If that sounds like "Rube Goldberg and a Cast of Clonebots Do IT" to you, you're absolutely right. There was a piece of date criteria in one of the two SQL stages that was rejecting anything more than four days old. IT rule one is that it's always someone else's fault, even though IT rule two says that it's your own better than half the time. Regret all inconvenience.

[2]Special Not Tucker Carlson review:
Number two on Steven Green's Week in Blogs:

• Carol dressed one of those cute little sheep in a bowtie, which I'm certain was not a 'cheater', since she knows how seriously I take these matters.
• Ed Driscoll welcomed NTCNews like an old friend.
• Lance picked up the aggregatin' like a mofo line.
• Fisherville Mike had some thoughts about "the Daily Caller". He offered a further review here once NTC news was open for business.
• Lead and Gold sounds somewhat territorial about the task of busting Tucker Carlson's chops. We would like to propose a timeshare arrangement, and I do admit to a bowtie fetish predating knowledge of the bloke.
• Obi's Sister greeted the arrival of NTC News.
• Moe Lane liked it, and had suggestions.

That's the rap. Please send corrections, updates, and suggestions to Smitty, hit the tip jar, and pray for peace.

Update:
Before there is an explosion on the West Coast, we did have linkage this last week from Little Miss Attila on Playboygate. There must be more. Minor state of panic. Where are the URLs?

Aw, Lighten Up Dennis

by Smitty

  Dennis the Peasant throws a wet blanket on Roger Simon's comedy efforts, bashing both the 'Zo and Steven Crowder.
  Look, I'm not accusing any of the right-of-center people doing comedy, not NewsBusted, not ScrappleFace, not even Day by Day of always being funny. None of these guys are The Monty Python, but is an acorn an oak? I'll vote in favor of good taste over the nausea of Stewart and Colbert any day.
  Thanks for fighting the good fight, Roger.

I'm not sure this was part of the narrative

by Smitty (h/t Instapundit)

The Weekly Standard reports:

Senator Lamar Alexander introduced the "Auto Stock for Every Taxpayer Act" today, which would "require the Treasury to distribute to individual taxpayers all its stock in General Motors (GM) and Chrysler within one year following the emergence of the companies from bankruptcy proceedings.”

I see a few problems with this:

• The Treasury Department stole those shares fair and square. Loss of the asset could have deleterious effects on various graft, kickback, and corruption schemes. Distributing shares has not been deemed The Right Thing to Do.
• If people have something to lose, they may cease to vote as if they've nothing to lose. Thus, this is a violation of the 'total enslavement' doctrine.
• Some of the lumpentproletariat may even figure out the game, and become harder to manipulate. Heaven forbid, they may even become as educated as someone who went to Yale or Havard, given enough generations. This would not do.
• Lamar Alexander is a Republican, and thus cannot be permitted to diminish the glow of The One.
• He Who Must Not Be Named would be displeased.

Sign the ACORN petition

by Smitty (h/t Malkin)

The petition

Since 1994, ACORN has received more than $53 million in direct federal funding. And, over the years, ACORN and its employees have also been the subject of investigations, indictments, and consent decrees in states all across the nation for election-related activities that run afoul of the law.

It goes on further. Please consider signing.

EXCLUSIVE at 5 p.m. EDT! OnlineInterview With Notorious Blogger

Yes, that's right, at 5 p.m. Eastern, All-American Blogger Duane Lester will broadcast his exclusive RFC Radio interview with me! And we will talk about . . . Carrie Prejean NUDE and other secrets of super-cool bloggers. Listen here, and join the RFC chatroom here.

I'm as giddy as a 14-year-old girl an MSNBC reporter who's just been French-kissed by gotten a "no comment" from Nick Jonas Robert Gibbs.

Update by Smitty, deliverin' the goods:
RSM part 1 (mp3)
RSM part 2 (mp3)

Kudos to RFC Radio for their support. Now, either hit the tip jar, or pick up RSM as he hitchhikes back north.

Shocker: Men and woman are different!

If you're one of those pea-brains who thinks that male/female differences are entirely the result of a misogynistic patriarchal culture, read about the man who went through menopause:

I was in the middle of treatment for an aggressive case of prostate cancer last winter, and it included a six-month course of hormone therapy. My Lupron shots suppressed testosterone, which is the fuel for prostate cancer.
When your testosterone is being throttled, there are bound to be side effects. So, with the help of Lupron, I spent a few months aboard the Good Ship Menopause with all the physical baggage that entails. . . .

Read the whole thing, and show it to any feminist moron who is so stupid as not to understand that the fundamental differences between men and women are biological, permanent, and relevant.

Progress Is the Root of All Evil(I'm in Atlanta this weekend)

Here in my Georgia hometown, I'm staying on the fourth floor of a Comfort Inn hotel, which sits on the property that was once the farm where my childhood friend Scott Umphrey lived.

Scott used to get up early in the morning before school and feed the horses. Our Boy Scout troop camped here. Skyview Drive was a dirt road for most of its length and Thornton Road was only two lanes.

Now, it's a Comfort Inn, a Shoney's, a Burger King, et cetera. Sing it, General Bullmoose:

Progress is the root of all evil.
Progress is the cause of it all. . . .
Bring back the good old days!

BTW, I'll be in the Atlanta area through Saturday. If anybody's up for a StacyPalooza, we'll convene at 4 p.m. Friday afternoon at an undisclosed restaurant in Buckhead. My good buddy Phil Kent -- the Jedi master who mentored me in advanced schmooze methodology -- has yet to name the location.

Saturday evening has yet to be planned. If you are a reader in the Atlanta area, e-mail Smitty, who is in telephone communication with me and can provide location information.

Obama's Egyptian rhetoric . . .

. . . devastatingly analyzed by Professor William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection.

More on the president's Cairo speech at NTCNews.com.

No Sheeples Here scores!

by Smitty

Do check out this link. The photoshop goddess at NSH scores again with the POTUS in a keffiyah, juxtaposed with the Sphinx.
It's "I'm the man, the ass" meets Ozymandias. It's "I won" meets

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Things beyond my ken

by Smitty

  How does the imagining left, especially the feminists, force western manhood to wear a hairshirt, while maintaining relative silence over what goes on in Muslim countries? Is it a "simple" case of displacement?
  Larry Johnson is unforgiving on the point: Yo Bitches, Wear that Hijab.
  Larry is less than fair. For that kind of a blog-drubbing, he owes the POTUS an alternative text on the topic. Getting the issue raised at all is something of a win. I liked the allusion to the list of countries that have elected female leaders. Nice oblique slap at the rest who've either had the same clowns in power for decades, or don't even bother with them thar newfangled "ee-leck-shun" thingies. I doubt there is much cure for such cultures, other than a couple hundred years.
  As a thought experiment, would we gain anything if we could give the feminists to these "retro" dudes for some "western male appreciation training"?

Colbert editing Newsweek

by Smitty (h/t Rhetorican)

  I can nearly get into the idea of Stephen Colbert editing Newsweak. As much as I enjoyed his wonderfully titled I Am America (And So Can You!), I look forward to not reading this with added pleasure.
While I don't advocate wanton cruelty to people, saying "Newsweak, I hope you die in a fire" types quite comfortably.

Midway Day roundup

by Smitty

  Today I enjoyed a humbling privilege: attending the 67th anniversary of the Battle of Midway ceremony.
  The Navy Memorial was packed with sailors in summer white. More sailors stood outside the fountains. The memorial itself, a bluejacket surveying a circular representation of the world, has the neat feature of letting any spot be celebrated. The clouds, of course, waited until the handful of living veterans were seated before dropping any tears. The Chief of Naval Operations laid a wreath in the Pacific at that fateful island's location.
  The CNO quoted Ensign William R. Evans Jr. Some background:

Ensign William R. Evans Jr. was an Indianapolis native. He was a pilot of one of the 15 TBD-1 Devastator Torpedo planes of torpedo squadron 8 from the U.S.S. Hornet during the Battle of Midway on June 4th 1942. All 15 of these planes were shot down by the Japanese Zero CAP fighters. 29 of the 30 crewmen including Ensign Evans were killed. The sole survivor was Ensign George Gay.

  With that background, grasp what this hero Evans wrote:

"Many of my friends are now dead. To a man, each died with a nonchalance that each would have denied as courage. They simply called it lack of fear. If anything great or good is born of this war, it should not be valued in the colonies we may win nor in the pages historians will attempt to write, but rather in the youth of our country, who never trained for war; rather almost never believed in war, but who have, from some hidden source, brought forth a gallantry which is homespun, it is so real.
When you hear others saying harsh things about American youth, do all in your power to help others keep faith with those who gave so much. Tell them that out here, between a spaceless sea and sky, American youth has found itself and given itself so that, at home the spark may catch. There is much I cannot say, which should be said before it is too late. It is my fear that national inertia will cancel the gains made won at such a price. My luck can't last much longer, but the flame goes on and on."

  In these days, that penultimate sentence is chilling: "It is my fear that national inertia will cancel the gains made won at such a price."
  For Evan's sake, let that not be so. A roundup of squid blogs:

• USNI blog. Great quotation of the CINCPAC Operational Order to TF 17 Commander. Those things are bearish to write, after the "define the universe; be concise, yet complete" fashion.
• Information Dissemination: "The battle of Midway is our nations Trafalgar."
• USS Gonzolaz. Shout out to my NWC classmate.

Additionally, DrewM at Ace of Spades has thoughts.

Don't worry, Fausta

by Smitty

After reviewing the POTUS's Egypt speech, Fausta was concerned about one missing point that I'd like to clear up:

Details on closing Gitmo “by early next year.” Surely Pres. Obama realizes that it’s not enough to say “I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year.” Where will those terrorists be sent? What will be the international reaction?

Gitmo will close on 01Jan10. Simultaneously, hope and change will birth a new facility, omtiG. This will underscore BHO's intent to do the opposite of his predecessor in foreign policy.

Greetings from Georgia!

Ah, back in God's country again! If you've been wondering why I haven't blogged in the past 14 hours, it's because Junior and I were rolling down the road to Rome, Ga. I'm typing this from the home of Pierre-Rene Noth, whom I recently described as my "Menshevik editor."

Pierre's so far left, he's almost right. He's the intellectual proletariat of journalism, which means that he's a victim of the greedy bourgeois -- or, as it's pronounced in Georgia, "Burgett," as in Burgett Mooney III, publisher of the Rome News-Tribune.

Burgett is a splendid example of a greedy capitalist, which is why the Rome News-Tribune is still in business, while other papers are going bankrupt all over the place. Alas, Schumpeterian "creative destruction" required that my dear friend Pierre was offered "semi-retirement" at age 72.

Oh, the social injustice of it all! I keep telling Pierre that this is the opportunity of a lifetime, that all he needs to do is to read The Rules and become a Big Bad Blog Daddy like me -- if I can be Not Tucker Carlson, why can't he be Not Maureen Dowd?

Journalists of the World, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your salaries, benefits and bosses!

Oh, and if you're wondering why I'm in Rome tonight, I'll be talking to some old friends. Shhh! Don't tell my new friends about this. But do tell Kathy Shaidle. My old friends would love Kathy in Georgia, and if she ever gets exiled from Canada, she'd be welcomed as a refugee down here. (Pierre's a refugee from Milwaukee, which is far too close to Canada for my taste.)

You may not have heard of Eric S. Raymond

by Smitty

  But his style is spot-on. Emphasis mine:

  Occasionally people will show up on the channel looking for project-related help. Some of them become semi-regulars on the channel because they’re often working technical problems for which the project is part of the solution. One of these guys hopped on the channel last night while we happened to be in the middle of a firearms digression, listened for a bit, and then started to spout.

  “Why do you guys think you need firearms?” “Criminals will just take them from you and use them against you.” “They’re useless for anything but killing.” “You can’t seriously think they’re a deterrent against overreaching governments, the cops will just come for you you first.” And on and on and on, the same factually and historically ignorant babble civilian firearms owners are wearily used to hearing - as if civilian firearms had not been culturally and politically decisive in hundreds of struggles for freedom, from the American Revolution clear down to short-stopping Communist counter-coups in Russia and the Baltic States as recently as the 1990s.

  I listened to the others on the channel offer polite, reasoned, factually correct counterarguments to this guy, and get nowhere. And suddenly…suddenly, I understood why. It was because the beliefs the ignoramus was spouting were only surface structure; refuting them one-by-one could do no good without directly confronting the substructure, the emotional underpinnings that made ignoramus unable to consider or evaluate counter-evidence.

  The need, here, was to undermine that substructure. And I saw the way to do it. This is what I said:

  “You speak, but I hear only the bleating of a sheep. Your fear gives power to your enemies.”

  Ignoramus typed another sentence of historical ignorance. My reply was “Baa! Baa! Baaaaa!”

  And another. My reply was more sheep noises, more deliberate mockery. And you know what? A few rounds of this actually worked. Ignoramus protested that he wasn’t a sheep. At which point I asked him “Then why are you disarmed?”

  *CRACK*

  The conversation afterwards was completely different, and ended up with ignoramus speculating about meeting with one of our regulars in his area to do things with firearms.

  I learned a valuable lesson last night. I’m not normally a fan of mockery and attacks on a man’s character over reasoned argument. But when the real issue is in fact the man’s character - specifically, when the issue is where he fits in terms of Dave Grossman’s seminal essay on sheep, wolves and sheepdogs - then that’s the level on which the argument has to be conducted.

US Foreign policy applications are left as an exercise for the reader.

Scenes from the Bradley Prizes

Exclusive coverage? Got that. Phoned in a report to Jimmie Bise manning the NTCNews desk.

So once the scoop was online, it was time to go hang out with Vast Right Wing Conspiracy and eat free food at the reception, aided by son Bob.

Me and Karl Rove, we're like this.

One of these guys has $250,000 and nice teeth.

Morton Blackwell of the Leadership Institute, Michael Grebe of the Bradley Foundation, and conservative fundraising genius Richard Viguerie.

Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness could not resist son Bob's (hereditary) charm.

Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Spencer Abraham, who used to be Ann Coulter's boss. Abraham told us the story about the time Ann attended the Michigan Farm Bureau reception wearing a mini-skirt and a full-length mink coat.

Spencer Abraham and investigative reporter Matt Vadum with . . . oh, I'm bad with names.

Son Bob applies the (hereditary) McCain charm to the amazing Miss Helen Rittelmayer, a Yalie.

Chuckle of the day

by Smitty

  Shannon over at Chicago Boyz expands on a comment to a post defending Milton Friedman over at Reason that skewers the left amusingly.

  The left doesn’t actually have an developed system of thought regarding the economy. They can’t actually explain why the real world political process will systematically make better decisions than the free-market. Instead, they simply point to any reversals in the real economy, regardless of cause, and then assert that in their imaginations, leftist politicians could have done better.
  It’s hard to argue against people’s imagination. You end up with a discussion much like two D&D geeks arguing over whether a dwarf with a +10 axe could take an Elf with a vorpal sword.

  The Chicago Boyz post goes on to wonder aloud about the left trying to imagine its way to “alternative energy.”
  The conclusion is that the dwarf could take the elf, and I've got 20 gold pieces to back that assertion.

Dibs on 'Allah hates me' Google-bomb

Allah hates me. Why? Because I'm not a Cool Kid:

Why have I never been cool? Because cool people, by definition, are never enthusiastic. “Cool” is the antithesis of such words as cheerful, energetic, optimistic. All the Cool Kids wear black, quote Nietzsche, and stare blankly at the world muttering darkly cynical aphorisms that no one outside their clique can hope to fathom.
My career as a Cool Kid peaked one Friday afternoon in April 1977 . . .

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Brother Dave cites Terry Pratchett:

The monastery of the Monks of Cool is found in a laid back valley in the lower Ramtop mountains. They are a reserved and secretive sect and believe that only through ultimate coolness can the universe be comprehended, that black goes with everything, and that chrome will never truly go out of style. To become a fully accepted Monk, a novice is given the following test. Several outfits are laid out in front of him and the tester asks, "Yo, my son, which of these outfits is the most stylish thing to wear?" The correct answer is "Hey, whatever I select."

Righteous, brother. You're cool. And I mean that in an utterly unironic way, too.

Tiananmen forgotten?

The Chinese are buying Hummer. They can make their own tanks . . .
20th Anniversary of Tiananmen Massacre, American Parallels

'Hate-F***Gate': Fire Them All

Over at NTCNews, we have a daily editorial called "300 Words Or Less," the idea being to address a timely topic in the specified length. Today's entry addresses the media scandal known as "HateF***Gate":

Obscene insults and raw hatred are not new in the online world. What made Guy Cimbalo's article about "hate-f***" fantasies so shocking was that it was published by Playboy.
Did no one in the editorial process at Playboy.com think twice before hitting the "publish" button on an article that said of Rep. Michelle Bachmann, "Chemical castration has begun to look appealing"?
Cimbalo's article required someone to build multiple Web pages, someone to find, crop and embed photos, someone to write headlines and captions -- hours of paid labor during which various editors had the chance to say, "Hey, wait a minute. Maybe this isn't a good idea." . . .

Please read the whole thing. We hope that our blogger friends will find NTCNews a useful resource, It's a work in progress, so have patience if you haven't been blogrolled yet.

Frequent Commenter Smitty (who has been known to wear bowties, alas) and Jimmie Bise Jr. of Sundries Shack are my partners in this latest insane project. Of the site's inspiration, Jimmie says:

Tucker made a big mistake in calling out the HuffPo before his site was anywhere close to being live. Three weeks is an eternity in the blogosphere and, by the time his site finally does make it to the masses, all the buzz will be gone.

I won't tell you which one of my partners described the Underpants Gnome business plan of NTCNews:

1. Post a metric ass-load of brief news pointers.
2. ? ? ? ?
3. Profit!

Don't try this at home kids. These men are professional bloggers. We're already showing up occasionally in the Memeorandum feed and being linked by Fisherville Mike, So It Goes In Shreveport and No Sheeples Here, among others.

If you want to be a guest contributor to the "300 Words or Less" series, please e-mail Smitty or e-mail Jimmie. Remember (a) the subject must be timely, (b) it must include linkage to articles and blogs about the topic, (c) your entry will be competing for publication against other offerings, and (d) it must be 300 words or less, including the title and you signature. (Try composing it as a Word document, which automatically counts the words.)

As payment for your contribution, you'll have your choice of three lucrative options:

• 100% of the cash value of the traffic generated by your entry, not to exceed $1 (one U.S. dollar);
• Reciprocral linkage to your blog at The Other McCain and NTCNews.com; or
• One cold beverage, if you are ever able to catch me, Smitty or Jimmie in a bar with cash in our pockets. (Good luck.)

What a deal, huh? At any rate, even if you don't decide to take us up on this offer, we invite you to visit NTCNews, where we strive to prove daily that you have to be a rich preppy to aggregate the news.

And please hit the tip jar, so I can afford to buy one of those spiffy bowties like all the smart pundits wear.

UPDATE: Smart pundits? Dan Collins:

Stacy McCain is quite right . . .

And speaking of inspiration, I owe a lot to Protein Wisdom for their slogan: "Because not just anybody can summarize the news." Ironic implications, you see.

Tucker Carlson seems to believe that you have to be a rich famous TV pundit to summarize the news. I hate that kind of stuck-up attitude. A little story:

At CPAC 2006, I was engaged in my usual CPAC activity -- schmoozing like a mofo -- when I decided to take a smoke break. So I go outside, light up, and start talking to this guy with a beard who was puffing Marlboro Reds.

He looked familiar. Kind of like . . . an Ewok.

At that point in time, I had very little idea of just how big Ace of Spades was in the blogsophere, and didn't know the guy from Adam's housecat.

Which is the point. You can be huge in the blogosphere and yet be an obscure nobody compared to the famous TV pundits. And that's OK, but the problem is when the famous TV pundits get the idea that you actually are nobody.

In Tucker Carlson's mind, Ace of Spades and Jeff Goldstein are zilch compared to the 26-year-old assistant producer at Fox News, because the 26-year-old can schedule him on TV -- so we all can admire Tucker's wisdom and good looks -- and Ace and Jeff can't do that.

Yeah, well, Ace and Jeff are all right with me. You know who else is all right with me? Carol at No Sheeples Here. Because she lets me steal her cool Photoshops:

UPDATE II: Speaking of obscure people I met at CPAC 2006, Little Miss Attila says, "Fire them all? Works for me."

OK, let's talk obscurity and fame. All acolytes of The Rules (or, as Jimmie calls them, "The Million Hit Squad") know Little Miss Attila as She Who Must Be Linked, the Kharma Queen of the Blogosphere. She's like the blog-fu temple goddess. If your traffic is sucking, just ask yourself, "When was the last time I linked Little Miss Attila?"

Two days after I met Attila at CPAC 2006, Ann Coulter gave the speech destined to be known to history as The Raghead Heard 'Round the World. And somebody on Bloggers Row decided to circulate a petition denouncing Ann. (Which even Ace signed, having succumbed to the fever of civic-virtue Joiny McJoinerism that was apparently pandemic on Bloggers Row that year.)

Well, I'm sort of Coulter Fanboy No. 1. Don't judge me.

Having done a stint as a humor columnist for The Rome News-Tribune -- after Lewis Grizzard died, my Menshevik editor, Pierre Rene-Noth, decided I should try my hand at the Bubba McGrits schtick -- I know how hard it is to be consistently funny.

If a columnist can give three good laughs in 700 words, that's success. Four good laughs per column, that's national syndication. Five laughs in a column and you are a newsprint Vishnu: I Am Become Death, Destroyer of Worlds.

Coulter is funny, and if you've never tried to be funny in print, you've got no idea how hard that is. It's like stand-up comedy. Next time you're watching some brick-wall third-stringer doing a routine on cable TV and thinking to yourself, "Ah, he's not so funny. Anybody could do that," how's about you take a stroll down to the next open-mike night and try it yourself, asshole.

So I leapt to Coulter's defense after the "raghead" comment, and one of the people I leapt on -- figuratively, no matter what any gossip tries to tell you -- was Little Miss Attila. She had put up a post slamming Ann and so, with all the vitriolic ad hominem I could muster, I told Attila to get herself a nice hot cup of STFU. Hulk Hogan never slammed Andre the Giant so hard. Meghan McCain never slammed tequila shots so hard. Matt Sanchez never . . .

I regret slamming Attila like that. But it's out there somewhere on the Internet, and you can't retrieve those pixels once you hit the "publish post" button. But Attila has forgiven me, and this is one of the reasons (certainly not the only reason) she's the Kharma Queen of the 'Sphere.

One of these days, Attila will write a post called "Ann Coulter Is Da Bomb," admitting that her 2006 anti-Ann posts were wrong. At which point, she'll begin knocking down Instalanches like she knocks down vodka martinis. And then we'll all be grateful we're on her blogroll.

Er . . . not that we weren't already grateful.

Thank you, Jamie Kirchick

The Religious Right Didn't Kill George Tiller

Jamie is gay. Jamie is a Democrat. But Jamie isn't one of those crazy dingbat leftists who revel in comparing "Christianists" to al-Qaeda.

Thanks, Jamie. You are owed beers.

John Hawkins, take that back!

John Hawkins lists the 10 Hottest Liberal Women in Politics, with Kirsten Powers at No. 1, an insult to my girl, Chelsea Clinton, who ranked a mere fourth.

This derogation of Chelsea was compounded by his ranking Jessica Valenti (!) as No. 2.

Look, John, I've met Chelsea Clinton. Chelsea Clinton told me my sons were "cute." She even signed an autograph for them! And . . . well, does the phrase "much back" mean anything to you? (Me and Sir Mix-a-Lot like it like that.)

I'm not going to argue much about Kirsten Powers, even though I've met Kirsten. She's pretty, but not . . . well, she's nowhere near as alluring as Chelsea. (Such eyes! Such a smile! And a lovely complexion, too.) But I suppose if you go for that fake-blonde thing, and you are near-sighted, you might prefer Kirsten to Chelsea.

De gustibus non disputam. But . . . Jessica Freaking Valenti? Oh, John, don't say that. Don't ever say that.