LIVE: From Labor Conference

UNIVERSITY CLUB, Washington, D.C.

Two hours ago, Grover Norquist broke the news to a labor-relations conference here that Sen. Arlen Specter (R-INO) will oppose EFCA ("Card Check") in the Senate, which almost certainly dooms that vicious legislation to defeat.

I was scooped on this story by Dave Weigel and Phil Klein, because I had to go pay the water bill this morning. And now I have to go move my car from the $1 an hour spot before it gets towed. This conference is sponsored by Capital Research Center, and I could have been here earlier but . . .

HTTJYUB, as Gunnery Sgt. Hartman explains.

UPDATE: One of the speakers here today was Rep. Ernest Istook (R-OK) representing Save Our Secret Ballot. Just got a press release from SOS Ballot:

"Of course we are pleased that Sen. Specter listened to his constituents and has decided to not support cloture or card check. Card check may be dead in this Congress, but we still must push ahead at the state level to effectively kill the idea permanently. Other Senators should take note that Sen. Specter specifically addressed the issue of the cloture vote. Senators who say they're voting for cloture but not necessarily supporting the bill are playing a cynical game to fool voters."
-- Tim Mooney, national coordinator,
Save Our Secret Ballot

Specter is perhaps the most notorious congressional crapweasel ever to put an "R" beside his name -- and that's saying a lot.

UPDATE II: (phone report via Smitty) Having laid waste to the buffet, the McCain tsunami rolled forth in search of intermediate conquest. The ultimate goal, as always, being the karaoke bar, and the demolition of all things tasteful.

UPDATE III:
Cynthia seems surprised by the entire concept:

Did I miss a meeting? I know I’m brand new as a fiscal conservative, but I really thought the secret ballot was one of the few things that almost everyone in the U.S. supported. When did the secret ballot pass from being the cornerstone of our democratic republic to being anathema to our future because it stops labor union thugs from forcing people to join labor unions? DIS-EMPOWERING THUGS IS WHAT THE SECRET BALLOT IS SUPPOSED TO DO!!!

C'mon, lady: why settle for a Faustian bargain when there's a Cthulhuian one to be had?

It's David Brooks fisking day!

"What I Did On My Free Trip to Afganistan":

Wardak Province, Afghanistan
You drive up to the forward operating base in Wardak Province in an armored Humvee, with the machine-gunner sticking up through the roof and his butt swinging on a little perch just by your head. Outside there's a scraggly downtown, with ragamuffin Afghan children, almost no old people (the median life expectancy is 45) and dust everywhere. The dust of Afghanistan piles up in front of the storefronts and covers the ruins of the buildings destroyed during the Soviet period, or during the civil war or during some lost conflict from centuries past.

The second-person pronouns ("you," "your") are wrong. You are not in Afghanistan, he is. But such quibbles aside, Brooks's ability as a reporter -- his ability to describe -- have never been in dispute. One could complain about the "scraggly" and "ragamuffin," but the genuine objection to Brooksianism involves his opinions, which are invariably wrong. So let's cut to the chase and quote his concluding paragraph:

When you put more boots on the ground, you not only augment your army’s firing power, you give it the capacity to experiment. A few years ago, the good guys had only vague ideas about how to win this war. Now they’re much smarter.

Which, coming from David Brooks, can only mean that the situation in Afghanistan is rapidly descending into chaos and disaster. Give generously today!

P.S.: I've got some reporting of my own to do today, so Frequent Commenter Smitty is in charge.

Obama at 50-50

Jules Crittenden had this as a blog exclusive last night: New Zogby poll has the job approval numbers for Obama at 50 percent. See commentary by Jeff Goldstein, Pam Geller and Moe Lane.

This has got to scare Democrats to death, because the whole point of hitching their wagons to Obama's star was that Obama was popular. In fact, one might say that Plouffe, Axelroad & Company developed a formula in which "popular" was an acceptable synonym for "successful." But the gross incompetence of the Obama administration can't be solved by P.R. gimmicks. Five weeks ago, when the polls were looking good for Obama, I said:

Idiots. Economics is not public relations. Don't you people understand that it doesn't matter how "popular" you and your policies are, if what you are doing is the wrong thing to do? And that it doesn't matter how clever and persuasive your arguments are, if your policies bring disaster?

In three words: It Won't Work. Or, in more words . . .

UPDATE: Hot Air's Ed Morrissey reminds us that Rasmussen has been showing steady declines in Obama's approval numbers.

PREVIOUSLY:

• 3/23: 'Sheesh, the guy is Jimmy Carter . . .'
• 3/17: From Hope to Hopeless in 8 Weeks
• 3/13: 'Increasingly significant doubts'
• 3/4: Random freaking adults, again
• 2/15: Popularity vs. reality

P.S.: Be sure to check out MELTDOWN, Professor Thomas Wood's new bestseller about the financial crash and why Obamanomics won't work.

'An Unprincipled Republican Is A Liberal By Default'

By Smitty
More Zo goodness. Roger L. Simon doesn't really exude sufficient self-righteousness to make a convincing G-man, but the part is a small one. Cha-check it out. And subscribe to PJTV. It's the second most important thing you can do, after helping put RSM's kids through college.

Hey, wait: It's not Tuesday yet!

At American Thinker, Lee Cary adds some fiskiliciousness to the heaping piles of epithets I've piled on David Brooks's pointy little head:

Mr. Brook's meandering, intellectual confliction displays the underlying condition of some high-profile "moderate conservative" journalists. Theirs is an exercise in political punditry based on narcissistic omphaloskepsis (i.e., self-adoring navel gazing).

Thanks for contributing the extra helping of contempt that the useless idiot deserves, Mr. Cary, but nobody has hated David Brooks longer or more thoroughly than I have.

Folks, accept no substitutes! Give generously NOW to the original David Brooks Fisking Fund, because a slime is a terrible thing waste.

And the bad news is . . .

. . . there is no good news:

American consumers still have debt coming out of their ears, and they’ll be working it off for years. House prices are still falling. Retirement savings have been crushed. Americans need to increase their savings rate from today’s 5% (a vast improvement from the 0% rate of two years ago) to the 10% long-term average. Consumers don’t have room to take on more debt, even if the banks are willing to give it to them.

Via Hot Air, where the one-day "Geithnermania" bounce is examined from several points of view. My own point of view is that last week's Fed buy-up of Treasury notes represents the fateful step into the fiscal/monetary abyss of Weimar America. We are so f****d now that the only question is what kind of financial rubble we will find most useful in rebuilding the shattered wreck of an economy that will be left desolated by the remorselessly descending spiral of inflation/stagnation that now begins in earnest.

How bad will it get? Nobody knows. A friend of mine remarked to me last week . . . well, I won't repeat it. Bad. Very bad.

Look: The Geithner bounce caused Citigroup to close over $3, but for most of the past few weeks, you could buy a share of Citigroup for less than the fee you pay every time you use your ATM card. And my hunch, although only a hunch, is that Citigroup will be down around $2 again by next week. (Richard Bernstein: SELL!)

What's going on? Let Alex Knapp and Andrew Sullivan encourage others to sneer at the "Going Galt" phenomenon, but the simple facts are (a) we entered 2009 facing a severe capital shortage, (b) the Obama administration's moves seem calculated to scare capital to death, and (c) without capital, capitalism doesn't work. (Of course, without capital, socialism doesn't work either, but I don't have time to explain that right now.)

More than a month ago, when the Dow had just dipped under 8,000, I noted that UC-Irvine Professor of Economics and Public Policy Peter Navarro was predicting the DJIA to fall to 6,000. It closed Monday at 7,775.86, which means . . .? If you're in a position to short the financials, do it. But that's just an economics professor talking. What does he know?

What Sully and the other economic ignorati don't seem to see is how Obamanomics is leading us into the deadly fiscal/monetary pincers:

• There is a market for debt. At any given time, there is a finite amount of capital liquidity in the world. When the U.S. government goes on a massive deficit spending spree, this represents . . .? Increased demand for capital via the debt (bond) market. Very good, class. But the increased capital demand created by Uncle Sam's deficit spree results in greater scarcity of capital for other purposes, including investment in private industry (stocks). And as Uncle Sam's demand is piled onto his already ginormous stack of unpaid debt, the natural workings of the debt market would cause interest rates to rise, but . . .
• The Fed is rigging the game. By ginning up phantom dollars to purchase Uncle Sam's debt, Bernanke is engaged in legalized counterfeiting. The inflationary effect is not immediately reflected in consumer prices because we're in a deflationary cycle where nobody's buying anything anyway. The effect of Bernanke's phantom-dollar swindle, therefore, is to devalue investment dollars. Even if your 401K got a miniscule bounce Monday, your real net worth has been diminished by Bernanke's devaluing of the dollar. And finally . . .
• Unfunded liabilities are coming due. The first Baby Boomers, born in 1946, will begin turning 65 in 2011 -- just 21 months from now -- and Uncle Sam's got no legit way to meet the senior-citizen entitlement obligations that will continue to escalate through 2029. With no legit means to meet the looming entitlement crisis, Uncle Sam will therefore resort to illegitimate ways (including still more inflation) to swindle the old folks out of what they've been promised.

"The fundamentals suck," Michelle Malkin said last September, and no rational person with a minimal understanding of basic economics could disagree that the sucking has only become louder since then. We are looking at an ill-designed house of cards on top of a Ponzi scheme erected over the San Andreas Fault. The question is not whether disaster will result, but when.

When that disaster finally hits -- when capital freaks the hell out and the bond market goes sideways -- the lone sanctuary of sanity and calm will be Galt's Gulch.

People who are seriously talking about "Going Galt" are not parroting partisan political rhetoric. They are not engaged in a symbolic "protest" tantrum. They are talking about doing what savvy, affluent people have been doing for many months: Attempting to put their economic assets beyond the reach of government policy.

For people who don't have seven-figure bank accounts, their primary asset is their earning ability. Ergo, the fellow with a day job at JiffyLube or Aamco is putting in fewer hours there, and more hours working at home as a "shade-tree mechanic," doing simple repairs on a cash basis for his friends and neighbors. (Call this the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" economy.) And that's a smart investment of time for many workers, since there are millions of Americans now working full-time jobs who will be unemployed a year from now.

Go with what you know. Invest in yourself. You have skills that have real dollar value. If you're looking at a 401K or mutual fund that's worth 40% of what it was worth at Christmas 2005, ask yourself what you could do with what you've got left. Think of the long-term picture.

If Professor Navarro is right about the Dow eventually falling to 6,000 -- and frankly, I think he's probably being too optimistic -- then the DJIA is currently almost 30% above where it will be when it hits bottom. What would the tax penalty be if you zeroed out your 401K? Less than 30%? And considering the inflationary effects of the Bernanke/Geithner strategy, what would be the real value of that 70% you'd have left in your 401K when the market finally bottoms out? So if you cashed out and bought gold now . . .

Well, I'm not an economics professor or a financial advisor, so pay no attention to the mere speculative hypotheticals of a damn blogger. But if what I'm saying makes more sense to you than what you're hearing on CNN or reading in the Wall Street Journal, please listen to our good friend, Gunnery Sgt. Hartman.

UPDATE: Dan Riehl is of a similar attitude, while Mary Katharine Ham discusses the idiotic details of the latest idiocy from the Idiot-in-Chief and his idiot henchmen. This ongoing Carnival of Idiocy in D.C. is starting to remind me of that scene in "Blazing Saddles" where Mel Brooks as Gov. LePetomaine says, "I didn't get a 'harumph' out of that guy!"

UPDATE II: Professor William Jacobson and Professor Donald Douglas both have more. Hmmm. When will Professor Cthulhu weigh in on this meme?

UPDATE III: Welcome, Instapundit readers! (See: Rule 1.) Please remember that it's almost Our Favorite Day of the Week.

P.S.: Be sure to check out MELTDOWN, Professor Thomas Wood's new bestseller about the financial crash and why Obamanomics won't work.

How to Speak to an Obamanoid . . .

. . . if you must:

"Hopefully, we can make an impact," said Ms. Kenkare, as she approached a house armed with a stack of pledges and the aim of helping Mr. Obama win the votes he needs to pass his record $3.6 trillion budget.
In what's shaping up to be a different kind of permanent campaign than is usually waged by Washington's political consultants, thousands of volunteers across the country took to the streets over the weekend at Obama's behest. They knocked on doors, stood in front of stores to collect signatures, and urged their neighbors to call their congressman.
With this canvassing operation, the Obama administration is taking traditional presidential strategies for building public support to a whole new level.

(Via Memorandum.) Now, we have previously discussed what to do if you are called by a Democratic fund-raiser. You are urged to study that method, and apply it rigorously if an Obamanoid shows up at your front door. However, since there seem to be some blog readers too stupid to know when to hit a man's tip jar, let me make explicit how to deal with this situation:

• Be welcoming and friendly. "Oh, I'm so glad you came by!" Invite them in, ask them to have a seat. Be the gracious host and offer them snacks and beverages. Assure them that you will do anything to help Obama.
• Remember your Prime Objectives. Your objectives are (a) to waste the maximum amount of the Obamanoid volunteer's time, and (b) to ensure that, when they eventually leave, they are as demoralized as possible. Only by intense concentration on these twin objectives can you be fully successful.
• Assure them that you are a loyal Democrat who voted for Obama. The fact that your address is on their clipboard list means that somehow, somewhere along the line, you clicked a link or signed up for something that makes them think you're one of them. Do nothing to spoil this valuable illusion.
• Express extreme disappointment with the president's disastrous beginning in office. You are disappointed -- nay, you are heartbroken beyond words -- by Obama's failure to fulfill his campaign promises of balancing the budget, cutting taxes, etc. You sincerely admire Obama, but are certain that there must be some bad advisors at the White House, or some evil influences among congressional Democrats, who have led Your Dear Leader astray. (Bonus points for you ladies if you can actually work yourself into a crying jag.)
• Draw them out. When you mourn that Obama is destroying the Democratic Party (and remind them again that you have devoted your life to being a loyal Democrat, of course) the Obamanoids will protest to the contrary. Let them talk. Hear them out. Waste their time. Engage them. "Let me get you some more sweet tea, dear . . ." And then find some new angle of attack.
• Be specific. Try to point out specific instances of Obama policies that will hurt women, minorities, the elderly, gays, etc. If you've got an elderly relative who's had his retirement savings wiped out by the market decline, make sure you blame Obama for that, and don't let the clipboard carriers persuade you that it's all Bush's fault.
• Know where to put the knife. Nothing, absolutely nothing, will guarantee a long rant from an Obamanoid as much as when you compare Obama to George W. Bush. "I can't believe it! I've been a Democrat all my life, and I never thought I'd live to see a Democrat president doing this to decent, hard-working Democrats like me. He's ruining my life! It's like he's a closet Republican or something. He's just like that damn George Bush!"
• Save your best for last. When, after you have wasted as much of his time as possible, the Obamanoid finally looks at his watch and says he must leave, be apologetic. "I'm sorry if I've been a little negative." Try to get the Obamanoid's contact information, "just in case I need to talk to you again." And as you walk them to the door, express regret that they are being "forced to work for those damned bastards" who have backstabbed Obama and are destroying the Democratic Party that you have supported your entire life. And then . . .

"Uh, by the way, dearie . . . how much are the Democrats paying you to do this? . . . Volunteer? You mean you're doing this for nothing? When that idiot Tim Geithner is giving all those billions of dollars to those greedy Republican bankers and Wall Street fat cats? Oh, how can they do this to a loyal Democrat like you? Those heartless sellout bastards."

Good luck and Godspeed.

UPDATE: Linked at NewsAlert. Linked by Paco.

Gay 'tolerance': Transgenders violently attacked by lesbians at DC bar

No, this is not an Onion satire. It's news so bizarrely real you couldn't possibly make it up:

When Mitch Graffeo entered Dupont's Fab Lounge shortly before closing on Feb. 28, he hadn't been to a lesbian club in more than a decade. Graffeo, 40, was only stopping in to pick up a friend, 29-year-old Jamie, at the conclusion of the gay bar’s weekly lesbian night. Graffeo and Jamie, both transgender men, were two of only a handful of men in a club full of women.

(OK, just to clarify the nomenclature a bit here: Mitch and Jamie were both born women, and are at different stages of the hormones-and-surgery business of female-to-male sex change treatment.)

As the lights went up [at closing time], a group of women took a sudden interest in Jamie. Slim and boyish, Jamie had only recently begun to transition from female to male, and they wanted to know what he was.
Graffeo watched the women surround Jamie. "They were grabbing him, saying, 'What are you, a boy or a girl?'" Graffeo says. "They were very interested and excited, grabbing his crotch and his chest," says Graffeo. When Jamie asked the women to leave him alone, they closed in tight around him. Jamie "wiggled his way out," and the two men funneled toward the door with the rest of the last-call crowd.
Once outside, one of the women refused to let her curiosity subside. "She jumped on his back a bit and put him in a headlock," says Graffeo. Then, she reopened the line of questioning. "She was saying, 'What are you, come on, tell me, what the f---,'" Graffeo says. Jamie wiggled out again. The woman persisted.
When Graffeo stepped between them, the woman "tried to punch around" him. Graffeo pulled out his cell phone and announced he was calling the police. The woman grabbed the phone from his hand and used it to pound Graffeo in the head and neck. "She said, 'You're not calling anybody,'" Graffeo says. Meanwhile, "a second gal was just pummeling Jamie, hitting him on his head, his neck, his arms." Soon, a car pulled up, and the women jumped inside. Jamie was left with bruises and a concussion. A week later, "he's still purple," says Graffeo. "He's not black and blue, he's purple all over."

Kinda rainbow, you might say. Now, if you insensitive morons ever stop laughing long enough, you might want to read the rest of the story, which includes a rather delicate and ponderous discussion of gay-on-gay violence, a problem more widespread than the Poofter PR brigades in the MSM would like to admit.

Political correctness demands that gay people can only be betrayed in the news media as either (a) heroic role models, courageously living their lives on their own terms, or (b) martyred victims, suffering hateful abuse at the hands of cretinous homophobic Christofascist Republicans.

An examination of the circumstances surrounding the murder of Matthew Shepard doesn't support that reading. Shepard was a dweeby rich college kid rolled by a couple of petty hoodlums who almost certainly never heard of James Dobson. But if you try to argue with the MSM-approved "Martyrdom of Saint Matthew" narrative, it only proves that you're a cretinous homophobic Christofascist Republican. So most people don't bother to argue.

Even further unsubstantiated by evidence is the MSM-approved notion of the "gay community" as one big happy Sister Sledge "We Are Family" singalong, where the leather daddies and the flannel-shirted bulldykes and the glitter-encrusted drag queens all rejoice in celebration of their shared gayness. Complete hogwash.

When you've got a couple of gals so butch they're willing to inject testosterone and undergo mastectomies to pass as men, and yet they cannot visit a lesbian bar for fear they'll be beaten up -- well, in light of such an incident, I think the absurdity of "We Are Family" solidarity is adequately demonstrated.

And if you think these two F2Ms "transmen" got it bad, just imagine the riot that would have ensued if a couple of male-to-female trannygirls should try to pass themselves off as actual women in a lesbian bar.

So, just as we can sneer at the ideological nonsense of feminism (Equality Is For Ugly Losers), we can also chortle derisively at the homosupremacist propaganda that would have us believe gay people enjoy a monopoly on enlightened tolerance.

Motivational Videos for Ungrateful B*stards Who Don't Hit the F***ing Tip Jar

By Gunnery Sgt. Hartman
Guest Blogger

You sorry, no-good, worthless maggots don't deserve this man's good blogging. Sitting in your pathetic little cubicle, getting paid thousands of dollars a month by The Man, wasting time and money bored-at-the-office reading blogs -- and you don't even have the g--d--- common courtesy to hit a man's tip jar?

You disgust me! You're lucky I don't jump out of this computer screen, tear off your head and s--- down your neck! Now turn up the sound and click the video, maggot!

Obama to Eufala, Alabama: F--- You!

They vote Republican anyway, so screw those inbred banjo-picking moonshine-swilling hillbillies:

At a time when the federal government is spending billions of stimulus dollars to stem the tide of U.S. layoffs, should that same government put even more Americans out of work by buying cheaper foreign products?
In this case, Chinese condoms. . . .
In a move expected to cost 300 American jobs, the government is switching to cheaper off-shore condoms, including some made in China.
"Of course, we considered how many U.S. jobs would be affected by this move,” said a USAID official who spoke on the condition that he would not be named. But he said the reasons for the change included lower prices (2 cents versus more than 5 cents for U.S.-made condoms) and the fact that Congress dropped "buy American language" in a recent appropriations bill.
Besides, he said, the sole U.S. supplier -- an Alabama company called Alatech -- had previous delivery problems under the program. . . .
Fannie Thomas, who has been making AIDS-preventing condoms in southeastern Alabama for nearly 40 years in the small town of Eufaula.
"We pay taxes down here, too, and with all this stimulus money going to save jobs, it seems to me like they (the U.S. government) should share this contract so they can save jobs here in America," Thomas said. . . .
In fact, the government is close to accepting condoms from two offshore companies: Unidus Corp., which makes condoms in South Korea, and Qingdao Double Butterfly Group, which makes them in China.

How you like that, Alabama? See what you get for voting Republican, you pellegra-and-hookworm-infested crackers? Congratulations! You've been shafted by Hope. And they didn't even have the common courtesy to give you a reach-around.

(H/T: Memeorandum; see also Reason Hit & Run and the show-tune-quoting Instapundit.)

UPDATE: "Not quite shovel-ready," if you know what I mean, and I think you do. Nudge-nudge.

New book: MELTDOWN

Got an e-mail from Human Events with a special promotion of Profesor Thomas Woods's new book: Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse. From the e-mail:

President Obama rammed through his new stimulus bill, warning of an irreversible recession if Congress failed to act.
But bestselling author Thomas E. Woods Jr. warns that Obama's "stimulus package" will do far more damage to our economy than even the Republicans in Congress realize.
In his New York Times bestseller, Meltdown, Woods shows how this new bailout (just like last year's bailout) will quickly drive our nation deeper into recession.

See? Another example of why I can't score the big bucks as a writer. I made the mistake of boiling it down to three words: It Won't Work.

Of course, for those of you who haven't studied economics enough to know why it won't work (hello, President Obama!) Professor Woods will certainly give you your money's worth. He is also the author of the huge bestseller, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Amerian History.

'Would you like to live naked . . .'

My blog-fu efficiency is being cramped by e-mail inbox overload. You have no idea the crap I get:

Was winter good for you? If not, please read on.
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It is easy.
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Please visit cambiumbene.com to find out more. You can acquire a substantial plot of land for less than the price of a car, where you can build your own eco-friendly lodge in this beautiful protected domain, where the wearing of clothes is not required, all year round. With central facilities at your disposal, such as restaurant, shop, clinics, library, theatre, sports facilities, miles of gorgeous countryside, meditation spaces, pools and more, could this be the place to honour your real values?
Opportunities abound to work, live, learn, teach or just holiday in our huge unique environment. If the fruits of materialism and capitalism are not rewarding you, or if you’ve simply had enough of cold winters, consider Cambium. We’re not dogmatic and have no axe to grind. We seek to provide a catalyst for enlightenment, fun and happiness, at one with our origins deep in Nature.
If you do visit the web site, and I hope you do, (you have nothing to loose) please use the home page to request our free document to find out more about Cambium. You have everything to gain.
Love and peace
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If a naturist holiday appeals to you, please consider this message from our friends at Castaways Travel.
Castaways is announcing its next nude cruise....in France, 2010 from July 25 to August 1, 2010. See all the details at about this luxury river cruise on the Viking NEPTUNE [let's skip the URL] The voyage is adults only and ......clothing optional as parts of the cruise will be docked at certain ports of call.

Also, apparently by signing up for Facebook, I automatically qualify for solicitations like these:

"Are YOU Interested?"
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These people recently said they like YOU:
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"Click YES on me!"
VIEW MY PROFILE SEND ME A WINK SEND ME A GIFT
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"Click YES on me!"
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Riiiiiiiight. I'm a married father of six, and don't plan to become a divorced father of six, although sometimes my wife threatens that she might decide to become the widowed mother of six (and any jury would rule it justifiable homicide). However, if I were disposed to risk my wife's violent vengeance by indulging in hanky-panky, the last place I'd look for the opportunity is at some ridiculous online matchmaking site. So, as much as I hate to disappoint "Jihad," "Mohammed," "Erik" and all those other people who are so eager to meet me . . .

NO, I AM NOT INTERESTED!

Quick note on site traffic

Just making a quick note mainly for my own purposes: Late on Feb. 13, we passed 1 million cumulative visits. About 2 a.m. today, we passed 1.2 million, meaning it took about 37 days to add 1/5th of our second million. If that pace of traffic can be maintained for another 148 days, then . . . well, a goal of 2 million by Labor Day would seem reasonable, eh?

(Quick, Smitty -- more Cthulhu!)

But in the wee A.M. hours (when I'm writing this, for later publication), traffic slows down for political blogging, and the SiteMeter tells you very interesting things about what keyword combinations the freaks are Googling for.

(Quick, Smitty -- more Miley Cyrus!)

Hey, what the heck, some celebrity gossip:

• Ashton Kutcher sends a Demi Moore bikini photo via Twitter.
• Alex Rodriguez reportedly used the same call-girl service that Eliot Spitzer used.
• Rumors that Lee Ann Rimes' new hubby is gay.

Totally random. But at 3 a.m. sometime months or even years from now, when a freak is Googling "miley+cyrus+hooker+bikini+gay+photo," I'll get that random Google hit. And hits is hits, beyotches.

No, Mr. Colmes: It Really Does Bite

by Smitty
Alan Colmes remains a partisan re-arranger of deckchairs on a colossal metaphor:

Even now, Obama is being accused by conservatives of talking down the economy, and fear-mongering when he is doing exactly the opposite. And when he expresses optimism, he’s criticized for that, too.

Could it be that there is an increasing perception/gnawing sensation the POTUS is fiddling while Rome burns? Sure, the crisis wasn't built overnight, and has been caused and analyzed by people with more combined degrees than a magnetic compass. But for those of us simpletons, here are just a couple of pictures for discussion:

Source: Perot Charts

The federal budget is increasingly spoken for. A quick regression across those charts tells me that if you haven't told me the plan to de-fang the Federal government, you haven't told me much. Oh, you want to increase the depth of the Fed's bite? Are you out of your copulating mind, sir?

Then there is household debt, really close to the GDP. This is not a partisan problem. After partying like a rock star, there will be a hangover.

Source: Fabius Maximus

Somewhere in between fear mongering and pollyanna is the stoic assumption of responsibility that's required. But that would be a conservative response, and we'll thus have to wade through a few more years of sewer pipe to get there. Alan, you earn your bread cheerleading for the wrong side. Ponder the Constitution and repent.

Let us keep Barak Obama, the man, in our prayers. There are already enough "banana republic" effects occurring, without venturing into the darker, unspeakable ones. As for the Obama Administration's policies ... let the Tea Parties roll!

Rachel Lucas on dealing with a socialist broadband Internet monopoly

"Someone, who I shall never name because they are close to me and I love them, told me a few weeks before we moved here [to the U.K.] that 'there are good things about socialism, you know.' I would like for that person to now come here and have to do a job that depended on the national monopoly of a totally incompetent entity. I would like that a whole lot. I think it would change her mind."

'Sheesh, the guy is Jimmy Carter . . .'

"This began, I'd argue, from the first moment. He punted on the inaugural. Everybody ran around like crazy trying to praise it because if Barack Obama couldn't give a speech then what?"
-- Michael Wolff, New York Magazine

(H/T: Mark Steyn via Pundette.) Conservatives are understandably schadenfreudelicious that liberals have belatedly begun to recognize that Hope is no substitute for either experience or competence. So excuse me while I harsh your mellow, as Mike would say.

Who is to blame for the Obama administration? Republicans.

Karl Rove was right when he said, circa 2002-04, that America was on the brink of a potential "Permanent Republican Majority." It took a thousand Republican mistakes to fumble away that advantage, to allow the Democrats to recapture Congress in '06 and then elect this hubristic Harvard-educated idiot to the White House.

Just as Watergate and the politically tone-deaf incompetence of Gerald Ford gave us the first Jimmy Carter, and just as the ham-handedness of Bush 41 gave us Bill Clinton, so the blunders of Bush 43 and the disastrous Maverick candidacy gave us the Obama debacle.

At some point, Republicans are going to have to wise up, take a good hard look at the internal sources of their woes, and begin to hold people responsibility for the kind of unforced policy errors and clueless political fuckuperry that resulted in Obama getting 53% of the popular vote and 365 Electoral College votes. He is the Democrat that incompetent Republicans put in the White House, just as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are the Democrats that incompetent Republicans put in charge of the House and Senate.

Schaden me no freudes, my Republican friends. Get to work figuring out how to beat the Evil Coalition of Liars and Fools, and crush them so badly they can't possibly come back again to destroy America's freedom and prosperity.

Judge ACORN: Obama's 1st nominee

(BUMPED; UPDATE BELOW) Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

The Capital Research Center's Matthew Vadum reports that President Obama's first appointment to the federal bench carries an oversized piece of baggage. U.S. District Judge David F. Hamilton of Indiana, nominated to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, worked as a fundraiser for the liberal activist group ACORN, now being scrutinized on myriad voter registration fraud allegations. The Judicial Confirmation Network calls Judge Hamilton "an ACLU liberal." That's evident in Hamilton's 2005 ruling, overturned on appeal, that barred prayers that mention Jesus Christ to open daily sessions of the Indiana House of Representatives. Next!

Read Vadum's article at The American Spectator. His investigative reporting prompted a group of prominent conservatives, led by former Attorney General Ed Meese, to issue a denunciation of the Hamilton nomination:

President Obama's nomination of David Hamilton to the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit represents a choice based on the merits of political ideology instead of competence and impartiality. Hamilton, Obama's first judicial nominee, has none of the judicial expertise or experience required, but all of the ties to left-wing special interest groups and a record of activist rulings reflecting his personal views that only a liberal ideologue could hope for.

Oh, Michelle . . .

UPDATE: Moe Lane marvels that Obama didn't save the Hamilton pick for a SCOTUS seat. Moe also notes that Feddie is rolling his eyes at the claim (by CNN, inter alia) that Hamilton is a "moderate." Feddie links to a story at LifeNews.com about Hamilton's radical pro-abortion views.

Meanwhile, But As For Me links my AmSpecBlog post, and Memeorandum creates a thread.

UPDATE NOON 3/23: Welcome Michelle Malkin readers! Woe unto the Republican senator who approves of the Hamilton nomination. We might turn his worthless hide over to Gunnery Sgt. Hartman.

Linked by Obi's Sister. And Teh Resistance says:

Leftists know that decent people would never support their agenda if they knew the truth about it. So they have no choice but to lie, lie, lie . . .

Yeah. Somebody should write a book about that . . .

UPDATE 4:30 p.m. 3/23: A new Memeorandum thread as the blogs on JournoList are trying to knock down this meme: Salon, Right Wing Watch and Steve Benen join in on the Jedi mind trick: "These are not the droids you're looking for . . . move along." Their objective, of course, is to make sure that Associated Press, Washington Post and NY Times don't ever include "Steve Hamilton" and "ACORN" in the same story: "How dare you repeat such a right-wing noise machine smear against this respected moderate jurist!"

UPDATE 7 p.m. 3/23: "The president finally shows some loyalty."

Romantic renegades

"Why do women love Bad Boys? Why do 'nice guys finish last' with the ladies, while no woman can resist the charm of a 'black-hearted varmint' like Rhett Butler? . . . What if, beneath the rugged veneer of the proud renegade, a woman espies something more tender, honest and decent than is apparent to those who judge superficially? Well, then, if she can win his love, she will have gotten herself a genuine romantic bargain. And, as you know, no woman can resist a bargain."

* * * *

You might also enjoy Wythywindle's "Athens & Jerusalem" analysis of my critique of feminism and Washington culture. His analysis is couched in terms of classical philosophy and literature. My critique is mostly based on long years of observation and experience. So if I am making points that in some way resemble the arguments of, inter alia, Erasmus, Mary Wollstonecraft, Jurgen Habermas and Harvey Mansfield -- well, we are all observers of the same phenomena, and therefore our descriptions will be similar. But I can't say with surety that I've read anything by any of those writers, except perhaps Mansfield.

Also, Wythywindle says I "distinguish . . . male predilections for reason with female predilections for emotion." Not exactly. I do not insist that men are "reasonable," or logical, or empirical, or any such thing. I just mean they don't sit around talking about their feelings about relationships the way women do. It is the obsession with the emotional content of personal relationships (who likes who, who hates who, who snubbed who, etc.) that I find remarkably distinctive in women's routine conversation.

I have argued (er, somewhere) that the typical girls-on-the-third-grade-playground cattiness -- the tendency of girls to form cliques, and to tally up perceived slights to themselves and their friends, etc. -- exists in large measure because girls seldom resort to violence to resolve disputes. If a boy tried that routine ("Oh, you can't be her friend and be my friend, too, because blah, blah, blah . . .") over on the boys' side of the playground, he'd pretty soon get punched in the nose.

If a boy gets his feelings hurt that way, he'll either sulk until he gets over it, or else he'll get violent with the person who hurt his feelings. And here, the Alpha-male factor comes into play: The bigger, stronger, rowdier boys on the playground tend to dominate by the threat (implied or expressed) of violence. Ergo, the big tough boys don't have to worry about any lesser boy saying anything hurtful to them, because that would result in a pounding for the lesser boy.

Boy-culture is therefore naturally hierarchical, with status based largely on physical prowess and perceived toughness, in a way that girl-culture never is. To the extent that queen bee of the third-grade playground is dominant, she is dominant because she is pretty and nice. But in general, the absence of the threat of violence means that girl-culture is more naturally egalitarian.

The importance of niceness in girl-culture status hierarchies is seldom mentioned by those who speak of sex differences, although it has been studied somewhat by developmental psychologists. But niceness is not always nice. It coexists with, and is inextricably bound up in, the cattiness and bickering that typifies girl-culture.

At any rate, these fundamental differences in boy-culture and girl-culture are reflected in the characteristic attitudes and behaviors of adult men and women. Understanding the nature of status within girl-culture is therefore key to the man who desires the esteem of women. But that's a lot more complex subject than I feel like exploring just now.

How to Get a Million Hits: Menu-ized

Introduction
1. Shameless Blogwhoring
2. The Full Metal Jacket Reach-Around
3. Memeorandum
4. Make Some Enemies
5. Christina Hendricks
Updates & Addendum
(Originally published 2/15/08; this menu-ized version created by Frequent Commenter Smitty.)

Introduction
Having promised an appropriate celebration of passing the 1-million-visitors Site Meter threshold Friday (Feb. 13, 2008), I will do so by sharing the secret of my success. It's the Underpants Gnome Theory of Blogging:

• Phase 1: Get a Blogspot account.
• Phase 2: ?
• Phase 3: One million visitors!

Obviously, the key here is Phase 2, which has been exceptionally disorganized. Some guys work smart. Some guys work hard. Some guys are just incredibly lucky.

The perceptive blog consumer will notice that posts here don't have all those little thingies (Digg, etc.) the way some other blogs do. This is not because I disdain such methods of traffic enhancement, but because I'm such a primitive Unfrozen Caveman Blogger I can't figure that stuff out. It's the same reason I'm still on a Blogspot platform, rather than switching to a custom-designed Wordpress format. Blogspot is so simple that even I can figure it out, and if they'd just offer a few more templates -- hey, guys, how about a template with variable-width sidebars on both sides? -- I might be able to fake that custom-designed elegance, too. I understand basic HTML, but Javascript no can do, and I'm too cheap to shell out the bucks for geek services.

Lacking advanced, sophisticated technological gee-whizzery, I have been forced to employ astonishingly crude Web 0.1 methods of traffic-enhancement, namely:

• Write stuff people might want to read; and
• Compulsively e-mail my posts to bloggers who might possibly consider linking me.

Astonishingly crude, but also surprisingly effective. And so we come to Rule 1, the Prime Directive so to speak:

• 1. Shameless Blogwhoring.

[top]
I'm amazed that Instapundit, Michelle Malkin, Ace of Spades and the Hot Air crew haven't declared a fatwa against me for the way I relentlessly fill their inboxes with blogwhoring e-mails like Arnold Horshack trying to get Mr. Kotter's attention: "Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!"

However, the smart newcomer to the 'sphere doesn't just suck up to big-traffic bloggers who can throw him major traffic (although he does that with a single-minded fanaticism), he also sucks up sideways and downward, to bloggers who might not be able to throw 10,000 hits a day, but who are nonetheless valued contributors to the blogging community.

Little Miss Attila is my favorite example of the "valued contributors" category. Her best recent month was 24K visits in October, but she's been around the 'sphere a long time, is much beloved, and it is bad kharma not to link her. Every so often, while on the hunt for good stuff to blog about, I'll go over to LMA, find something good she's blogging about and link it. Why? Because, among various non-kharmic reasons, she has done the same for me, which brings me to Rule 2:

• 2. The Full Metal Jacket Reach-Around

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Maybe you're not a fan of Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, and I'm not saying you should be. But the psychotic drill sergeant gives a notorious rant in which he colorfully expresses an important life principle: When someone does you a favor, find an opportunity to return the kindness.

Reciprocal linkage is the essential lubricant that makes the blogosphere purr with contentment. If somebody's throwing you traffic, you should either (a) give them a link-back update, or at a minimum (b) keep them in mind for future linkage. Because you don't want to end up on the wrong end of a kharmic unbalance in the 'sphere, where you're always taking and never giving.

Every beginning blogger confronts the Zero Hour. You've been blogging steadily for a week or two, sending around e-mails, trackbacking where you can, trying to develop some kind of regular traffic. And then, late one night, you think you might have finally composed your first Instalanche-worthy post and you e-mail it to Glenn Reynolds. You go to bed like a 7-year-old kid on Christmas Eve, then wake up at 4 a.m. and check your Site Meter to discover that your latest hourly traffic is . . . ZERO.

At which point, you want to swallow a handful of sedatives, wash it down with a quart of bleach, slit your wrists and stick your head in the oven. You are a complete and utter failure.

I've never forgotten the Zero Hour, and if I've become slightly less conscientious about reciprocal linkage since then, God forgive me, but I do try. In the midst of a traffic upswing, not all linkage is noticeable on Site Meter, so I check Technorati, which shows linkage regardless of traffic level. And thank you Dad29, thank you Joe Kristan, thank you, Andrea Shea King, thank you Jimmie Bise, thank you William Teach. Damn my lazy thoughtlessness, but please don't doubt my gratitude.

Now that we've scratched the surface of technique, let's address the tricky little subject of content with Rule 3:

• 3. Memeorandum

[top]
Did somebody say "lazy thoughtlessness"? The easiest place to find blog fodder is Memeorandum, which has an algorithmic formula that automatically updates to tell you what the hot topics are in the 'sphere.

I especially like their "Featured Posts," sort of a random grab-bag of stuff that will occasionally feature some lefty shooting off his mouth in pure idiotic moonbat mode. Grab that sucker by the neck and give him the Mother Of All Fiskings, with enough vitriolic ad hominem to make sure he never forgets it. Because buddy, the lefties will turn right around and do it to you if you ever rate "Featured Post" status, and there's nothing like a vicious flame war to earn your spurs in the 'sphere. Which brings me to Rule 4:

• 4. Make Some Enemies

[top]
We'll have none of your "bipartian civility" around here, you sissy weaklings. This here is the Intertoobs, and we're As Nasty As We Wanna Be. The fact that The Moderate Voice has turned into a reliable vessel for DNC talking points should tell you all you need to know about the fate of bipartisanship in the blogosphere.

At the same time, however, don't confuse cyber-venom with real-world hate. Maybe Ace of Spades really would like to go upside Andrew Sullivan's head with a baseball bat, I don't know. But at some point you understand it's just blogging about politics, and you start wondering if maybe it shares a certain spectator-friendly quality with pro wrestling. For all we know, Ace is spending weekends at Sully's beach shack in Provincetown. (Next on Blogging Heads TV: Can "Bears" and Ewoks Be "Just Friends"?)

Some readers might remember when I first kicked Conor Friedersdorf in the knee for "insufficient cynicism." Conor is, in real life, a nice guy. But he's also (a) young, and (b) as earnest as John Boy Walton. So I got into a habit, when he was at Culture11, of kicking him in the knee with some regularity. It's the Fraternity Initiation Principle: Pledges must be abused by their elders, and learn to be properly respectful, or else one day the ambitious little monsters will strangle us in our sleep. (Cf., my suggestion that George Freaking Will should be air-dropped on Jalalabad from a C-130.)

A couple days ago, hunting around for a reason to link my friend Russ Smith's SpliceToday, I happened upon a column by Russ's young minion, Andrew Sargus Klein, offering a particularly insipid argument for federal arts funding. Now, having been born and raised a Democrat, and arguably having never outgrown my obnoxious youthful arrogance, I can actually relate to Klein's insipid argument. Stupid is as stupid does, and when I was 25, I might well have written something equally stupid. But the boy will never outgrow his stupidity unless he gets whomped on the head some.

Easy as it would have been to ignore Klein, I hit upon the delightfully fun idea of laying into him in Arkansas knife-fight mode: If you're going to cut a man, eviscerate him. So I quickly composed a hyperbolic ad hominem rant, with the thoughtfully civil title, "Andrew Sargus Klein is an arrogant elitist douchebag." I forward-dated the post for Friday morning, and sent Russ an e-mail to the effect of, "Hey, hope you don't mind me abusing your office help a little bit. Nothing like a flame-war to build traffic. Don't let on to Klein that I'm just funnin' around with him."

I'd hoped to bait Klein himself into a response. However, before that could happen -- as if intent on illustrating how to make a fool out of yourself by taking this stuff too seriously -- one of Klein's friends offered up a comment:

Andrew Klein may be arrogant and elitist but he could craft logical arguments around your bumbling hypocrisy all day and night.

Of course I never bother "craft[ing] logical arguments," sweetheart. It's a freaking blog. If you want logic, subscribe to a magazine or buy a book. Pardon my double-entendre, Lola Wakefield, but people come here for the cheesecake. Logical arguments are a dime a dozen on the Internet, but sexy hotness . . . well, that reminds me of Rule 5:

• 5. Christina Hendricks

[top]
Or Anne Hathaway or Natalie Portman or Sarah Palin bikini pics. Rule 5 actually combines four separate principles of blogospheric success:

• A. Everybody loves a pretty girl -- It's not just guys who enjoy staring at pictures of hotties. If you've ever picked up Cosmo or Glamour, you realize that chicks enjoy looking at pretty girls, too. (NTTAWWT.) Maybe it's the vicious catty she-thinks-she's-all-that factor, or the schadenfreude of watching a human trainwreck like Britney Spears, but no one can argue that celebrity babes generate traffic. Over at Conservative Grapevine, the most popular links are always the bikini pictures. And try as I might to make "logical arguments" for tax cuts, wouldn't you rather watch Michelle Lee Muccio make those arguments?
• B. Mind the MEGO factor -- All politics all the time gets boring after a while. Observant readers will notice that the headlines at Hot Air often feature silly celebrity tabloid stuff and News Of The Weird. Even a stone political junkie cannot subsist on a 24/7 diet of politics. The occasional joke, the occasional hot babe, the occasional joke about a hot babe -- it's a safety valve to make sure we don't become humorless right-wing clones of those Democratic Underground moonbats.
• C. Sex sells -- Back when I was blogging to promote Donkey Cons (BUY TWO!), I accidentally discovered something via SiteMeter: Because the subtitle of the book is "Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party," we were getting traffic from people Googling "donkey+sex." You'd be surprised at the keyword combinations that bring traffic to a political blogger who understands this. Human nature being what it is, the lowest common denominator is always there, even if it's sublimated or reverse-projected as puritanical indignation, which brings us to . . .
• D. Feminism sucks -- You can never go wrong in the blogosphere by having a laugh at the expense of feminists. All sane people hate feminism, and no one hates feminism more than smart, successful, independent women who've made it on their own without all that idiotic "Sisterhood Is Powerful" groupthink crap. And if you are one of those fanatical weirdos who takes that Women's Studies stuff so seriously that you're offended by Stephen Green's sexist objectification of Christina Hendricks and her mighty bosom -- well, sweetheart, to paraphrase Rhett Butler: "You should be offended, and often, and by someone who knows how."

So, there you have it: Five Rules For Getting a Million Hits On Your Blog. There are probably another two dozen rules, but I'm too lazy to think of what they are right now. And to be honest, if it weren't for that old picture of me in a Speedo, I'd probably still be 20,000 hits shy of the million mark. Some of us are just . . . blessed with exceptional modesty. And some guys get the steak knives.

Updates:
[top]
Probably special mention should be made of Kathy "Five Feet of Fury" Shaidle, who never heard of a fair fight. She's one of those people you don't want angry at you. A ninja blackbelt in Rule 4, when she goes at an antagonist, it's a knee in your groin and an elbow in your eye. However, she also keeps the customers satisfied with some naughty pinup hotness. (Rule 5!) That rare creature: A Canadian we like.

UPDATE II: Linked at Conservative Grapevine.

ADDENDUM 3/22: Maybe Rule 6 should be: "Get a cool co-blogger like Frequent Commenter Smitty," who created this menu-ized version of the The Rules (originally published 2/15/09).

I would also advise newbies to contemplate "The Parable of the Doubting Padwan of Fu." This is a reference to blog-fu, a term I first saw employed by Moe Lane to describe superior blogging ability. If you are someone who is new to the blogosphere, it is important to strive to emulate the acknowledged masters of blog-fu, people who started blogging waaaaay back when.

UPDATE 3/23: Linked by VodkaPundit, acknowledged master of drunkblogging.

Also see: Blog habits and the need for speed.

An Olbermann Quiz

by Smitty

Clip A:

Clip B:
Without inspecting the URL, which one was a Saturday Night Live parody, and which was the real McJackass? I know, you said the parody was B. SNL really has gone downhill in the last few years, no? Can't even tell the difference between a website and a human being. Lorne Michaels may need to retire.
via HuffPo.

Baghdad Bob: Timeless Classic

by Smitty

Props to Instapundit reader Dark Eden.
If we can't have a King Arthur revival to restore chivalry, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf will have to suffice.
This is a handy pretext to link a classic site.
There may be something more to all this, however. Consider the recent Debt Star sightings:
And now ponder this tidbit:Coincidence?

Oh, this is good . . .

Red Eye's Andy Levy on David Frum:

I'd seen the Kathy Shaidle post, but hadn't actually played the video until I saw it linked by Paco.

Perhaps this would be a good occasion to explain why I have been reluctant to go all Rule 4 on David Frum, despite his anti-Rush cover story in Newsweek and his infamous "Unpatriotic Conservatives" National Review cover, which included Robert Novak, Pat Buchanan and other worthies in a vicious "anti-Semite" smear worthy of Ezra Klein.

When Frum first published How We Got Here, the best history of the 1970s ever written, I attended an American Enterprise Institute book event where Frum spoke, did a feature story about him and his book in The Washington Times. I'd already read his 1995 book, Dead Right, and so was familiar with him. I was also familiar with his wife, Danielle Crittenden, whose 1998 book, What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us, is a fascinating and eminently readable indictment of the feminist/careerist worldview.

Which is to say, my acquaintance with Frum goes back to the days before he became a Bush administration speechwriter. I know him to be capable of good work, and his subsequent excursions into RINO-land have been a disappointment.

However, I would contrast Frum's errors to the case of David Brooks, who has in recent years only confirmed what shrewd observers have known ever since his 1997 "National Greatness" cover story in The Weekly Standard: That Brooks is an un-conservative, or better yet, an anti-conservative, whose every instinct and impulse is in opposition to the philosophical tradition of Edmund Burke, Richard Weaver, Friedrich Hayek, Russell Kirk, et al.

Furthermore, from Matthew Scully's 2007 Atlantic Monthly article about the inner workings of the Bush speechwriting shop, I have deep sympathy for Frum -- a successful journalist and author long before he signed up with the Bushies -- having had to toil anonymously in an operation run by that towering monument of uselessness, Michael Gerson. (See, "Separated at birth?")

Like Luke Skywalker insisting that there is still some spark of good in Darth Vader, I choose to believe that Frum's grievous errors do not mean that he is as evil as Brooks or as useless as Gerson. Indeed, his New Majority Web site has offered publishing opportunities for some young conservatives of my acquaintance, including Tom Qualtere and Joe Marier. Thus it cannot be said that Frum does not continue to do good, despite his manifestations of RINOcity.

What I wish Frum would consider is that, by so assiduously aligning himself with the elite Establishment -- "The Republicans Who Really Matter," as one of our guestbloggers dubbed them -- he undermines his potential for influence among the grassroots conservative activists who remain the heart and soul of the Republican Party.

When you're a jet, you're a jet all the way. Allying yourself with the grassroots won't get you funding from foundations and deep-pocket RINO donors, it won't get your a cover story in Newsweek, but being a well-paid backstabbing Brooksian crapweasel is really not the kind of thing you want in the first paragraph of your obituary.

A wise man lives as if life is short and tomorrow is not promised. Thus, I would do a dishonor to my children if I accursed the family name by becoming a vile creature like David Gergen who, if he were run over by a bus today, would deserve no notice from conservatives except, "Good riddance." Let us pray that David Frum grows wise, considers his errors, and amends his ways.

Louis C. K. on Conan

by Smitty

Comedian Lous C. K. on Conan O'brien. I'd never heard of the fellow, but he does the "modern people are decadent" shtick nicely.

Quite an old riff. Do a search on "I mean such things as these" in that Plato dialogue.

Hat Tip: Mac Beach

MSNBC omits facts on AIG protests

Turned on MSNBC this morning and watched Alex Witt anchor a story about the protests at the homes of AIG executives (which turned out to be a pathetic farce, with more media than protesters).

What struck me was that Witt never mentioned who organized the protests. In fact, the organizers were The Connecticut Working Families Party, an ACORN front group. An uniformed MSNBC viewer would not have learned that from Alex Witt, who said nothing -- zero, zilch, nada -- about who organized the protests.

How many other news organizations reported the anti-AIG protests without reporting who the organizers were? And how many people understand the propaganda purpose of this omission? To explain briefly: The point of the protests is to make AIG execs the scapegoats for the idiocies of the bailout bill that ACORN's Democratic allies supported. Blaming the AIG execs takes the heat off the politicians. But in order to convey that propaganda message effectively, media must pretend that there is no political ulterior motive to the protest, and thus no politically-connected organizing force behind it. To have mentioned CWFP or ACORN -- and especially to have identifed those as left-wing groups allied with Democrats -- would have destroyed the propaganda value of the story.

Meanhile, as scads of media turned out to cover one busload of anti-AIG protesters in Connecticut, some 300 turned out for a Tea Party demonstration in Ridgefield, Conn., that the major media ignored, just as they are trying to ignore the Tea Party movement nationwide. Try this: Switch off Fox News sometime and turn on NBC, ABC, CBS or CNN to see how much coverage they're devoting to the Tea Party protests. The answer is, almost zero.

It's almost as if there were a list or something . . .

UPDATE: Gahrie's Grumbles also notes the glaring disparity of coverage between the AIG protests and the Tea Party movement. (Full disclosure: Gahrie is a first-time Rule 5 Sunday participant, which is a different kind of list.)

MOS V

By Smitty
Rule 5 Sunday, is all about finding that intersection of erudition and loveliness. MOS V in the title is not "Method Of Service," you ground pounders. We'll kick off this week's festivities (being careful with the "ities," lest an extra "t" creep in there subliminally) with a lesson from Hot For Words.

• Regular link source American Power Blog has some Code Pinko video. You be the judge.
• More legit Rule 5 from American Power.
• TrogloPundit is a sick, sick puppy.
• The classy action last week with 19th-century artwork by William Bouguereau was a big hit with Mrs. Other McCain, so cast your (aesthetically sensitive) eyes on The Birth of Venus. The original painting is nearly 10 feet tall by 7 feet wide. Also check out the Abduction of Psyche, a detail of which is here:

• Speaking of classic art, every Sunday is Patriotic Pin-Up Day at Pirate's Cove.
• Speaking of patriotism, the WyBlog celebrates Rule 5 and Amendment 2 simultaneously.
• At the Point of a Gun, which sounds tense, offers up some great bunny action.
• The commitment to retro pinups at Paco Enterprises is equally appreciated.
• Gahrie's Grumbles suggests The Nolan Sisters, whom I don't remember, but I will avoid abusing him if he doesn't rib me about Pat Benatar.
• Brazilian bikini beauties banned in New Jersey? (Doug Mataconis stands up for your right to depilation, ladies!)
• Shreveport, after considering the notorious one, opted for Dennis Quaid instead. In any case, lads, it's to the gym with us to keep everything from going pear shaped.
• Kirbside answers Gahrie with lingerie hotness, but Kirb needs to be more attentive to The Rules. First, Rule 5 Sunday entries must link here -- either to The Rules, or to Full Metal Jacket Saturday, or to the Rule 5 Sunday roundup. Second, you must install Technorati on your blog, since this is the tool we use for all Rule 2 action. Let your blog-fu be righteous, o ye padwans!
• More proof of the power of Rule 5: Donald Douglas gets 'Lanched for Blake Lively hotness. And we shall say nothing about who suggested this shot of Britney Spears showing signs of incipient MILF-hood:

Blow up my inbox with "Rule 5" in the title somewhere, for easy management.