Tweet of the Day Week Year

Monique Stuart on Twitter:

Google "cheap whore" and my website comes up. So cool! Thanks, Vodka!

Last month, Stephen Green at VodkaPundit examined Bill Clinton's remarks about the politic strategy of passing bad legislation just to say you'd passed something:

There are statesmen, there are politicians, and then there are cheap whores who would sell out their country for a vote.

Ask Senate sellout Ben Nelson about that. Anyway, Monique Stuart concurred with VodkaPundit's sentiments and put "cheap whore" in the headline of her blog post, so that now when you Google "cheap whore" you get her post as the 10th result.

We should fix this. Ben Nelson is a cheap whore. I think other bloggers will agree that there is no cheap whore cheaper than Ben Nelson.

Booze-blogging?

Stephen Green of VodkaPundit is widely hailed as the inventor of drunk-blogging -- i.e., live-blogging an event while under the influence. I had the opportunity during the 2008 Democratic National Convention to actually watch the master at work, and attest that the man can, as the late poet Ronnie Van Zant once said, "drink enough whiskey to float a battleship around."

I've never tried drunk-blogging myself, at least not on purpose, although there may have been occasions -- including Election Night at the Hotel Saranac -- when the deadline pressure required me to self-medicate to counteract the effects of my massive coffee intake.

All of that, however, is prelude to a discussion of booze-blogging, which is blogging about booze. Given that this site is the originator of Rule 5 Sunday -- the weekly babe-blogging roundup -- you might suppose that the natural booze-and-broads pairing would replicate itself on the 'sphere. Yet until this morning, I didn't even know there was such a thing as booze-blogging.

Then I got an e-mail from Doug Winship of the Pegu Blog, who informed me that he found "How to Get a Million Hits" inspirational. Doug wanted to pass along the news that, just as political bloggers are encroaching on the Old Media's turf, so it is that booze-bloggers are exposing booze bias among the snobs:

Unless you spend a lot of time in wine chat rooms, you may have missed the recent controversies involving critic Robert Parker. The short version: Parker's publication, the Wine Advocate, was found to be violating its own strictures against freebies and fraternizing with wine importers, and a contributor he hired gave a high rating to a wine based on a sample that seemed to bear little resemblance to what was available on retail shelves. The back-to-back scandals . . . came to light via several wine Web sites, including Parker's own online discussion board. The Internet angle is actually the most significant aspect of this story, for it underscores how profoundly technology is changing the relationship between wine critics and consumers -- the relationship between you and me.

Personally, I avoid wine just like I avoid whiskey (ever since Jack Daniel and I had a bad night at Ralph and Millie's Christmas party a few years ago). Above all, however, I avoid snobbery.

Beer snobs get on my nerves. It pains me to see these poseurs pestering a bartender in quest of some obscure imported premium ale -- dark as sin, with the flavor and texture of a peat bog -- just so their friends won't see them drinking a Bud.

The Internet revolutionizes everything it touches, from poker to politics to porn. The 'Net has also apparently revolutionized snobbery, enabling status-seekers to go online and find highfalutin stuff with which to impress their peers -- including pricey call girls. But a whore is a whore is a whore, and a beer is a beer is a beer, and all these Veblenian status-displays don't change the basic facts.

Fortunately, Doug Winship appears to strive against such bibulous pretensiousness, although he hasn't gotten down in the gutter with Valu-Rite vodka, the favorite swill of hobo-killers.

You've got to admire the populism of a guy who writes about drinking at Disney World. No cork-sniffing epicurean would admit such a thing, lest he be shunned by sommeliers.

'Who is this gap-toothed weasel and what did he do with Tom Snyder?'

VodkaPundit deconstructs David Letterman. I've always liked Letterman's smart-alecky attitude, and never thought of him as having any particular political orientation. A few years ago, however, Letterman turned harshly against Bush and then became generically anti-Republican.

Sad. But I still like Dave's smart-alecky attitude. And Bush turned a lot of people anti-Republican.

Oh, there is a sense of crisis, all right

by Smitty (h/t Drudge)

Bloomberg writers Goldman and Johnston are a hoot:

President Barack Obama returns to Washington next week in search of one thing that can revive his health-care overhaul: a sense of crisis.

I, for one, feel anxious about four intertwined crises unfolding:

1. The slow-motion Constitutional one, where the power seems to be draining first to DC, then to the Executive.
2. The economic one, where attempts to legislate defiance of economic gravity, and dig out of debt hole, seem perfectly reasonable to the bulk of the lawyer nitwits running the country.
3. The informational one, where media institutions purportedly dedicated to serving the public with something called 'reporting' eschew that in favor of 'narrative'.
4. The diplomatic one, where serial jackassery could lead a war of size to make Iraq/Afghanistan seem a skirmish.
   

The third one is probably the least severe, the fourth the least likely. The first or second will kill us.

Obama must recapture the sense of urgency that led to passage of the economic rescue package in February, analysts said.

Actually, what we need to do is tell the President to talk to the hand.

There should be no legislation reported out of Congress until:

1. Someone figures out the Constitutionality of it, proffering an Amendment via Article V to support the substantial questions.
2. The funding profile is clear. Attempting to make a major change like this in a faltering economy is almost criminally irresponsible.

Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said the administration made unprecedented health-care progress in eight months.

It is inarguably the case that the good POTUS has succeeded in awakening the sleeping giant.

• The further from the center he goes to seek policy, the more stone-cold pissed the American people will become.
• The more intellectually dishonest charges of raaaaacism are leveled, the more pissed the American people become.
• The more our foreign policy looks like a cheering section for banana republic autocrats, the more pissed we become.
• The more we wonder what brave new world awaits us beyond the economic demolition of all we hold dear, the more pissed we become.

You've already got your self-imposed crisis, Rahm.

Pray for peace, everyone. We didn't get here overnight, or without placing excessive trust in our leadership. We also will not restore anything resembling a country with (as a whole) trustworthy leadership and economic stability without significant pain. VodkaPundit's "Never Have So Few Stolen So Much From So Many to Achieve So Little" applies.

Update:
The Reaganite Republican Resistance graciously links.

Pass the Vodka and Marlboro Reds!Keep Your Kids Home on Sept. 8

After I woke up about 2 a.m. this morning, I saw that Smitty had linked a Hot Air post in which Allahpundit declared, "I'm with CJ" and ridiculed VodkaPundit's advice to parents to keep their kids home from school next Tuesday rather than subject them to the Obama Mass Indoctrination.

Hey, Allah hates me and, considering I've been keeping my kids out of public schools for nearly 15 years . . . well, what's the Green Room for, anyway?

I still love to hang out with hoodlums, like VodkaPundit: "The President of the United States --whether an Obama a Bush or a Lincoln -- is not my son's daddy." You tell 'em, Steve! I'm with VodkaPundit!

Read the whole thing. Composing a 3,800-word essay in less than seven hours? Not bad for a hoodlum. Ah, if only Tonya could see me now . . .

UPDATE: School's out for kids in Mrs. Malkin's class:

Thanks to the National Tea Party Coalition, which is one of the sponsors of the Sept. 12 Taxpayer March on D.C. Hey, how's that for a field trip, kids? Just get one of your hoodlum buddies to hot-wire a car . . .

UPDATE II: What Would Ferris Bueller Do?

Russ Smith, Internet Genius

This headline bids fair for a place as Rule 6:

Robert Stacy McCain is very concerned about Andrew Sullivan's circumcised [noun]

Brilliantly combining Rules 2, 4 and 5, with a bit of homophobia thrown in for good measure. NTTAWWT.

Here I labor diligently to ensure that I get more "Established Men" ads in the rotation and -- by turning Rule 2 against me -- the evil mastermind of Splice Today obligates me to use the name "Andrew Sullivan," which automatically triggers the "meet gay singles" ad rotation. (I've reverse-engineered the algorithm.) Heaven knows what the algorithm will produce if I throw in Conor Friedersdorf, but I must consider the trade-off between traffic and click-through.

At any rate, there is nothing on earth that concerns me less than Sully's [noun]. Yet ever since Hannah Rosin brought it up, it seems to be all anyone wants to talk about.

Can we talk about Christina Hendricks, maybe? We now return you to your regularly scheduled VodkaPundit.

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

One blog guessed Stephen Green's lede.

by Smitty

That was Political Castaway:

Here's the story, as it is being reported. Bo was sold to a D.C. resident late last year or early this year. Another dog out of the same litter was sold to Ted Kennedy. Bo was returned to the breeder in March and was sent directly to the Kennedy's dog trainer in Northern Virginia. From there, he is to become the newest White House resident.
Reading between the lines, is it difficult to imagine a typical D.C. power play here? The Kennedys, because they are the Kennedys, saw an opportunity to do a favor for the White House. They arranged for the unnamed third party to "return" his dog to the breeder (itself an unusual occurence short of health concerns for the puppy) so that the Kennedys could become the heroes in locating just the perfect dog for the Obamas.

Given that Vodkapundit's (subscriber only, what are you waiting for?) PJTV segment is called "Hair of the Dog", you had to expect a Bo appearance, and it was worth the wait.
But if the Kennedys masterminded the dog placement, could it have been an allusion to that famous non-quotation of Harry Truman: "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog"?