Rule 5 Sunday

by Smitty

Prepping Rule 5 Sunday rather early this time, as I have a flight to catch this evening. Nevertheless, the faithful readers have provided copious input, for which Rule 5 Sunday is grateful.

• Bob Belvedere starts us off with a crucial message from Betty Page. Nearly as important is a roundup of Star Trek Rule 5-age. Where is the green one?
• Support Your Local Gunfighter has some hockey babes.
• Honesty in Motion features Victoria Silvstedt.
• The House of Eratosthenes followed up the Classic Liberal's Rachael Leigh Cook with some "Common Good" thoughts. Returning to his long-term Alphabet of Pulchritude project, he reaches for Kelly Brook and Leeann Tweeden. From where those bodyguards came is completely unknown.
• The Daley Gator was the first in the queue with linky-love for the Girl in a T-Shirt special edition.
• Yankee Phil is back with more Shakira. Sorry about last week, boss. He also payed homage to the great Katherine Hepburn.
• HotMES has politics and dudes in mind, featuring an Aaron Schock/Jeff Flake comparison.
• Instapundit reveals an interest in...pipe cleaners?
• Troglopundit touts his .040 batting average for the most-searched women on the web. Go ahead and try being a Great Lakes amphibian and beating a .040 average. He celebrates. Then he switches to the "we just haven't settled on the price" discussion.
  Rule 5 Sunday is saddened by the rampant moral decay present in Trogland. Or maybe he's just preparing for Winter.
• Fishersville Mike features Halloween costumed cheerleaders.
• Smash Mouth Politics does a fine job of mingling beautiful ladies and beautiful cars.
• Iowahawk achieves the same effect with more exotic cars and less famous women.
• DC Handgun Info has a post that crosses the Potomac, where it found Christy Turlington. Every post should be so clever.
• American Power reveals a cheeky fixation on Britney. He adds Camilla Belle to the mix.
• McEnroe has a tongue-in cheek cartoon, and a Jean Arthur clip.
• Boom Boom Boom weighs in with a potential threat to the Lingerie Football League.
• Daley Gator has a game show clip for your attention.
• Reboot Congress had a picture of Dana Loesch. Don't let the drop-dead gorgeous looks distract: she's an incredibly smart lady.
• Dustbury plays the Tina Turner card. Excellent choice, sir.
• Point of a Gun features a Liz Phair track. But has Liz ever stepped up to the plate and done a Metallica cover?
• Paco Enterprises features Eleanor Powell, in his classic way.
• Rightofcourse goes coast to coast with Florida and USC cheerleaders.
• Robert Pearson's Chess Blog has some chess chicks and finishes us off. RPCB was featured on the FMJRA and the Rule 5 Sunday, because the posts fit and he admitted to enjoying Czar d'Oz, in a private email. So there.

Please send updates and complaints to Smitty. Stacy handles the praise and the contributions.

NOTE (RSM): Smitty is en route to Ye Merry Olde this week, but promises to keep blogging even if he does have to eat boring boiled food and drive on the left side of the road. Speaking of contributions, however . . .

I'm serious about the need to hire a blog intern to help maximize efficiency around here. This past week -- me out on the road in New York, phoning in reports via Jimmie Bise -- was a perfect example of how having just a little extra help can come in handy.

Among other things, a blog intern would help keep up with the e-mail, phone and Facebook messages, do online promotion, assist with research and do occasional blogging. The pay would be low and erratic, dependent upon tip-jar contributions and other revenue, but the experience would be quite variable.

My home office is about 70 miles north of Washington, D.C., and -- at least for the first week or two -- the intern would need to work here for direct supervision. Once things were running smoothly, however, the work could be done wherever.

When I had Myers the Blog Intern, people made "Kramerica" jokes about the "Seinfeld" episode where Kramer had his own personal intern. All joking aside, however, this would be a real educational opportunity for a young (or not-so-young) conservative who wants to develop blogging skills. So send me an e-mail if you're interested or know someone who might be.

NY23: Credit where credit is due

As Dr. K of pointed out earlier in the comments, he was the first conservative blogger to ask -- on Sept. 30 -- whether Sarah Palin would endorse Doug Hoffman.

Considering that "Palin endorses Hoffman" is now so huge at Memeorandum, Dr. K can take a bow.

BTW, don't be puzzled if the Hoffman campaign doesn't make a big deal out of Palin's endorsement. Because she's been so unfairly demonized by the MSM, Palin's status with independent voters is kind of problematic right now (let's hope Oprah can fix that). So don't expect to see Hoffman TV ads in NY23 shoving the Palin endorsement in voter's faces. The strategic importance of the Palin endorsement is two-fold:

• For Hoffman, it means small-dollar contributions from Palin's legion of grassroots conservative supporters, as well as signaling -- like the endorsements from Dick Armey, Club for Growth, Mark Levin, etc. -- Hoffman's status as the conservative in NY23.
• For Palin, it establishes her political independence, making it clear that she is willing to defy the national GOP leadership to side with grassroots conservatives.

Palin's endorsement would have had more impact -- both for her and for Hoffman -- if she'd have made it last week, when there were fewer than a dozen bloggers on that Oct. 14 ACU conference call that began my involvement in this effort. But let us not make small criticisms of a great woman.

By the time you read this post -- I'm writing this about three hours in advance -- I'll be on the road to Hoffman HQ in Saranac Lake. It was a week ago that I wrote a post with the title, "GOP sells out! NRCC gives '6-figure' donation to RINO Scozzafava? SEND ME TO NEW YORK!

Since we are giving credit where credit is due, I once again wish to thank those readers whose contributions to the Shoe Leather Fund have enabled me to provide exclusive on-the-scene coverage of this campaign. I am also grateful to Smitty and to Jimmie Bise for keeping the blog running during the many hours I've spent on the road the past three days. And I'm grateful to all the bloggers and Tweeps who've helped promote our coverage online. One of these days, I'll find a reliable blog intern to help me make sure that everyone gets a personal thank-you.

Wait a minute. Y'know, now that you mention it, why not make an early start in that direction? If it's been a shortage of blog-o-bucks that's prevented me from actually paying an intern -- Myers the Blog Intern was unpaid, unless you count "getting to hang out with Ann Coulter" as payment -- why not raise money for that?

Some people have called me an "evil genius." But evil is hard work and, as I like to say, I'm too lazy to be evil. So please, won't you give generously to the Blog Intern Fund?

OK, it's 186 miles to Saranac Lake, so it's time to shut down the national desk here in Syracuse and get rolling. By the time you read this, I'll be dodging the New York State Police and their legendary radar speed traps on State Highway 3, somewhere in the vicinity of Harrisville.

But don't worry about me. If those backwoods meth cookers in Kentucky didn't kill me, I think I'll be OK in upstate New York.

HOFFMANIA!