'Wingnut hysteria!'

Right. A Nigerian jihadist tries to blow up a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day, but if you think al-Qaeda was involved, you're a creationist neo-fascist ultra-nationalist nirther. (Safe non-LGF link.)

And we're the kooks, you understand. Me, you, Pamela Geller, Dan Collins, Mike Hendrix, Robert Spencer -- just a bunch of extremist wingnuts.

(Via Memeorandum.)

'Redhead Roundup'

You know that Lincoln City, Oregon, has got their "targeted marketing" program down to a science when I get an e-mail from the city's Visitor and Convention Bureau informing me that they will host a "Redhead Roundup" Feb. 5-15.

I talked to Nichole Le Sage of the Visitor and Convention Bureau, who explained that "Redhead Roundup" used to be a major annual event in Lincoln City, bringing as many as 60,000 visitors, and now they're bringing it back.

Among other things, they'll have "favorite redheaded celebrity" contest. I'd probably vote for Molly Ringwald, which is not to take anything away from Ann Margaret.

While I'm currently rattling the tip-jar for the Pasadena trip, I'd be willing to consider going to Oregon for "Redhead Roundup," but only on condition that the lovely brunette Mrs. Other McCain got to make the trip, too.

This is a mission too dangerous to do alone. Me? In a town full of redheads? That would be like sending serious conservative commentator Dan Collins to a gathering of cute chubbettes.

UPDATE: Here are front and back of the "Redhead Roundup" promotional postcard sent out by the Lincoln City Visitor and Conventions Bureau:

UPDATE II: Aleister at American Glob calls my attention to a site about Roodharigen, "Redhead Day" in the Dutch city of Breda:

Roodharigen: It's like Mardi Gras for the melanin-deficient!

Seasonal Traffic Suckage Syndrome leads to Shameless Tip-Jar Rattling Disorder

One of the obvious reasons for doing the changeover to the WordPress site during the holidays is that blog traffic sucks this time of year, so time spent on the changeover doesn't really subtract from the overall blog ecology. What's the point of doing a dozen posts on Christmas Day, if nobody's reading it anyway?

For similar reasons, some bloggers don't blog much on weekends -- when blog readership decreases by 30% or more -- but we've never really observed that custom here. Smitty reports that a relative paucity of Rule 2 linkage made for a much shorter FMJRA this week, which is to be expected, although we hope there won't be a similar shortage of babe-blogging for Rule 5 Sunday.

One of the things about Seasonal Traffic Suckage Syndrome (STSS) is not to take it personally. Traffic here is demonstrably down for December -- currently about 160K visits for the month, after four consecutive months of >220K -- but when compared year-to-year, we've gained about 80% over December 2008. And so you have to have a certain amount of perspective when you realize that on Christmas Day we recorded our worst weekday traffic in recent memory.

Because routine headline+link+snark formula blogging would be kind of a waste of time during the holidays, I've taken advantage of the situation to do some long-form stuff. First there was "Don't Fear the People," a retrospective on my coverage of the populist grassroots revival -- the first substantive post at the new site -- and then there was today's post about Washington's Christmas crossing of the Delaware.

Another thing to do during periods of slow traffic is to blog about totally silly stuff, like the Christmas Day arrest of celebrity scumbag Charlie Sheen. Why not? Do you really expect us to constantly monitor Memeorandum for the latest breaking news on the Nigerian terrorist? On a day when we're averaging less than 200 visits an hour?

Let's face it: We could post a completely random photo of an impressively endowed chubby chick -- hey, more to love -- and not get any complaints, because nobody's reading us this weekend anyway. (Folks, don't worry that we're corrupting your kids. If your teenage son got a computer for Christmas, do you really think he'll be cruising political blogs for chubbettes?)

Would a serious political commentator -- say, for example, Dan Collins -- link something so irresponsibly exploitative as a post with photos of random topless fat chicks? Of course he would. Because at least it's fun, and if traffic sucks anyway, you might as well have fun.

However, there are more useful things bloggers can do with the readerless holiday hours when we're afflicted with Seasonal Traffic Suckage Syndrome (STSS). Therefore, while Smitty toils away on the technical geekery of the WordPress changeover, I've been writing thank-you e-mails to the tip-jar hitters.

We're about halfway to our $2,000 goal for the Pasadena trip, which was a double-dog-dare-ya scheme promoted by Dan Collins. As I said at the time, I didn't think I could possibly rattle the tip-jar hard enough to make this trip happen and yet . . .

Well, as of yesterday, 34 people had hit the tip jar for an average of $30 each during December. And today I got a Christmas card from Barbara Espinosa of American Freedom blog, with a gift incentive for the trip. I checked Travelocity and can make a flight to LAX departing next weekend for about $450 if I booked it today.

Mrs. Other McCain is, of course, worried about the bills. If I make this trip, will it clear enough cash to break even and still pay the bills? Does that 1990 photo of Mrs. Other McCain looking hot in her bikini encourage you to ease her mind with an extra $10 or $20? Would you rather see more photos of fat chicks? Is anybody actually reading this?

The point is, I can roll either way: Fat chicks, celebrity scumbags, historical inspiration, or up-to-the minute breaking news about John Kerry and other terrorists. But I don't want to have to choose between (a) paying the bills and (b) going to Pasadena to provide neutral, objective coverage of the Alabama Crimson Tide's spectacular triumph in the BCS Championship.

As I explained to one of the tip-jar hitters in an e-mail exchange, I'm planning to take a look at the tip jar situation Monday before booking my flight, probably departing Jan. 2 or 3. Every little bit will help me convince Mrs. Other McCain that this is a good idea not evidence of incipient psychosis.

Maybe you're feeling that Roll Tide spirit to the tune of $20. Or maybe you just figure it would be worth $10 to read about me racing around Southern California in a rental car, interviewing hawwwtt University of Alabama cheerleaders and buying $7 gin-and-tonics for Little Miss Attila during Happy Hour at one of her favorite L.A. dive bars.

Fear and Loathing in Pasadena could be the wildest scene since I covered the Libertarian Party national convention in Denver last year. Surely the true story of Rose Bowl decadence and debauchery has got to be worth $5 to readers who have nothing better to do this weekend than to read a political blog.

Carol at No Sheeples Here is also an Alabama fan trying to hustle her way to Pasadena, so if you've already hit my tip jar, you should think about throwing Carol some action, too. Besides, if I help her make it Pasadena, maybe I can get her to do a free logo for the new WordPress site -- with or without naked fat chicks. 'Cause I can roll either way . . .

Just hit the tip jar!

Cultural intolerance

Dan Collins on Tiger Woods:

Americans have little understanding or tolerance for the Cablinasians in their midst, instead preferring to attempt to impose their values upon this minority. Who is to say that in Cablinasian society it is considered bad form to prefer buxom blondes, or to enjoy threesomes behind one’s wife’s back, fueled by booze, Ambien and Cialis? . . .

Help fight Cablinasianphobia! (If you don't click that link, you're a hater!)

Dan Collins' blog has moved

Piece Of Work In Progress in a new WordPress format. He's got an open thread where you can say hello, so please go join the discussion.

Dan's good people even if, like me, he's far too insignificant, obscure and marginal to be invited to Right Online.

The Chopped Liver Coalition!

Lieberman, Collins, Grassley express 'serious concern' about ITC's IG

Scored a minor scoop today from Capitol Hill:

Three senators, including Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, have sent a letter to Shara L. Aranoff, chairwoman of the International Trade Commission, expressing "serious concerns" about the contractual terms under which the ITC's inspector general is hired.
The letter, signed by Lieberman, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine -- the committee's ranking Republican -- and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), complained of the ITC's unusual practice of hiring the agency's IG under a six-month contract, which the senators suggest may undermine the watchdog's independence.

Read the whole thing. What is significant is that this is the first evidence that Lieberman's committee is willing to cooperate with Grassley, who has been bulldogging IG-Gate for nearly two months.

Dan, come back! We love you, man!

A universally acknowledged genius of the blogosphere, Dan Collins of POWIP seems to be having an existential crisis of some sort.

Trust me, Dan, we've all been through this. We're here to help.

As the founder of Chopped Liver Anonymous -- the mutual support group for bloggers who didn't get invited to speak at next month's RightOnline conference in Pittsburgh -- I can assure you, healing begins once we admit the truth: Our blogging sucks.

How bad does it suck? Like Andrew Sullivan at the annual Provincetown BearFest.

Just try to stay strong, Dan. Just because the clueless greedheads who fund the Republican Party are throwing bushels of cash at Tucker Carlson, just because Erik Telford is jealous of your righteous blog-fu, doesn't mean you are a total waste of pixels like Freddie de Boer.

Why, look at me: Even though I got viciously dissed by Erik Telford, they love me in Virginia, and I'll be speaking Saturday at the Liberty 101 conference in Richmond.

So there is hope, you see, once you confront and confess your utter blog suckage.

Dan Collins is a genius

"He's just the latest in a raft of wannabe spokespeople for a new, anodyne conservatism, containing a small quantity of witch-hazel as a largely inactive active ingredient meant to soothe the hemorrhoids of the left."

Damn, that's good. Told you: The man is a genius.

He's no Tucker Carlson, but . . .

. . . Dan Collins has managed to figure out Blogspot sufficiently well to create Piece of Work in Progress, his own independent blog, where he can link us as often as he wants (which had better be every freaking day).

Was Dan's parting with Protein Wisdom amicable? Or was it one of those some-bastard's-gonna-get-his-car-keyed situations that make sensible men think twice before dating any woman who lives in a trailer park? Down home, we never heard of a "friendly divorce." No divorce in Georgia is final until somebody's in the emergency room or under a restraining order.

Inquiring minds don't want to know. Why not? Because Jeff Goldstein might lay some mind-blowing intentionality on you, and that could take years of therapy to overcome, like when you were nine years old and walked in on Aunt Nelda and Uncle Bert in flagrante delicto. So we'll just let bygones be bygones and tiptoe around like Senator Ensign's press secretary . . .

WTF? Where did that bizarre gonzo tangent come from? Never mind. The point is, Dan's blogging at POWIP now, which means I'm going to have to update that eternally out-of-date blogroll again. Thanks a lot, Dan. Maybe by Tuesday . . .

Rave reviews from Jules Crittenden, and we endorse homeboy Kim Crawford's excellent suggestion:

I strongly urge you to go leave an inappropriate comment. Something David Brooks or Andrew Sullivan would say. Or, alternatively, I feel the use of the word "cooter" in polite discourse is becoming a lost art.

The word "poontang" has also sadly fallen into disuse, although who knows what tomorrow may bring?

DAN COLLINS IS RIGHT!

A brilliant point, expressed concisely:

[C]onsider the Bristol Palin story, that she and Levi whatsisface have called off their engagement. That breaks on the same day that it's reported that John Edwards has reared his silky little head to lecture the nation on poverty at Brown University. One of these babies has a father and was born to a teen out of wedlock. The other one doesn't, and was born to a crazy lady hired to film the candidate (rather than boink him) as he jetted from campaign event to campaign event while his wife's cancer was in remission. I don’t want to belabor the point, but one of these pairs of biological parents screwed the pooch more bigtime than the other.

Dan is an educator, and when he aims to teach a lesson, he whomps the mule in the head. I unjustly trashed Bristol Palin yesterday, and heard many arguments to the contrary, but Brother Dan knows how to whomp a mule in a loving, Christian manner.

Therefore I acknowledge my injustice to Bristol, and hope only good things for her henceforth, that she may walk in the ways of righteousness in the blessings of the Lord. And to the brilliant Dan Collins, a tip of the hat for his educational excellence. One a mule gets smart, he only needs to see the stick.

UPDATE: Conservatives4Palin:

His writing is so good that I would probably still read and link him even if I loathed him.

Yeah, my sister-in-law Ericka says the same thing. After 23 years in the news business, and 20 years of marriage to Ericka's much-sexier older sister, there are two things I'm very good at. One of them is saying, "Yes, dear." Because there's a drawer full of knives in the kitchen, and I've got to sleep sometime.

Fellows, if you want to succeed in life, the trick is to marry a mean sexy woman.

UPDATE II: Speaking of my sexy wife, here's a photo of her when she was 27, and already a mom:

If you'll click that picture, you'll see a picture of Mrs. Other McCain when she was a smokin'-hot 25, in the hot lingerie I bought her for Christmas.

As a home-schooling dad, I'm an educator, too. For the benefit of you newbies, that's a variation of blogospheric method called a "Rick Roll." Pay attention, this will be on the final.