The Lucky Pot O' Blarney

By Patrick O'Leary Gallagher McCain
Guest Blogger

Now, it happens that sometimes the fellow what runs this blog is mistaken for Irish, but he's actually Scots-Irish -- a damned Orangeman kind of like the scum my IRA buddies in Ulster used to blast into Protestant smithereens back in the day.

McCain's Scottish bog trash ancestors, what the British imperialists fastened like a yoke on the neck of my ancestors, at least had the sense to clear out for America, hirin' out as indentured servants after stealin' a pig or gettin' some scullery wench preggers. Since all we ever asked was for the likes of them to get the hell out of Ireland, we've had the characteristic Irish generosity of spirit to forgive the American Scots-Irish, even if their apostasy from the One True Church means they'll suffer eternal torment in the flames of Perdition.

It's a different thing with the damned Orange in Belfast, like the lecherous imperialist dog who seduced innocent Mary Margaret Gallagher in 1971 and thus became my "father," damn his soul to Hell. So if I'm a semi-literate alcoholic soccer hooligan who's been on the dole since I turned 18, don't blame me, blame Cpl. Edward Angus McCain of the British occupation forces. Fortunately, he was blasted off the face of the planet, along with three of his mates and a half-dozen so-called "innocent bystanders," in a 1973 IRA bombing, so you should feel sorry for me: I'm an orphan.

My late sainted mother, who finally succumbed to cirrhosis in 1998 (for which I blame the British imperialists) raised me to be a proud Irishman, and of nothing is an Irishman so proud as of his ability to sling the blarney. So the fellow what runs this blog, who I suspect of being a very distant kinsman of that damned dog, my father, has asked me to come guest-blog hereabouts tonight in honor of St. Patrick's Day.

Now, you may be thinkin', "Paddy, you're Irish. Shouldn't you be drinking yourself into a coma tonight?" Well, a true drunkard never drinks with amateurs, and every March 17 the pubs of Dublin are overcrowded with silly drunken college girls and fat Yank tourists tryin' to get into the college girls' pants. Back in the day, the IRA would have blown up the likes of them, but what with the EU and all that, the IRA ain't a shadow of itself anymore.

So I'm stayin' home tonight, and the fellow what runs this blog asked me to sling some blarney and tell you to hit his "Luck O' Th' Irish Tip Jar," you bloody Yank bastards. So just keep refreshin' your computer screen, and I'll tell you the three funniest Irish jokes you ever heard. But first, the blogger what runs the place wanted me to tell you to go over to Dan Collins St. Patrick's Day Blog Roundup. Something about a "Rule 2," he says . . .

UPDATE, JOKE 1: Now, this first joke was actually sent to me by Mrs. Other McCain, so if you don't like it, blame her, not me:

An attractive blonde from Cork, Ireland arrived at the casino. She seemed a little intoxicated and bet 20,000 Euros on a single roll of the dice. She said, "I hope you don't mind, but I feel much luckier when I'm completely nude."
With that, she stripped naked, rolled the dice and with an Irish brogue yelled, "Come on, baby, Mama needs new clothes!"
As the dice came to a stop, she jumped up and down and squealed, "YES! YES! I WON, I WON!"
She hugged each of the dealers and then picked up her winnings and her clothes and quickly departed.
The dealers stared at each other dumbfounded. Finally, one of them asked, "What did she roll?"
The other answered, "I don't know. I thought you were watching."

And the moral of the story: Not all Irish are drunks, not all blondes are dumb, but all men . . . are men.

UPDATE, JOKE 2: Well, it's gettin' on into the evenin' now, and I suppose the wee kiddies are either in bed or lookin' at porn with Ross Douthat, which means we can tell a joke that's what one of those French faggots would call "risque."

There was a talent agency in New York City and one day a fellow walks in with two large suitcases and tells the receptionist, "I've got the greatest act you've ever seen, I've got to see the man in charge."

Well, the receptionist starts telling him that the boss is busy and so forth, but the fellow is insistent: "No, lady, you don't understand. I'm telling you, this is going to be the biggest thing you've ever seen, it's going to make me rich and make your boss rich, too. So you better get me in there to see him right away."

His confidence impressed the receptionist, so she showed him to the office of her boss, a man of many years experience. "Whaddya want?" the boss demanded of the fellow with the two big suitcases.

"I've got the greatest act you've ever seen," the fellow said.

"Get outta here! I've seen the greats of show business, kid: Sinatra, Martin and Lewis, Sammy Davis, Elvis, Tom Jones -- seen 'em all! You're not going to impress me!"

The fellow said nothing, but opened up one of his large suitcases and removed a miniature replica of a Steinway grand piano, then took out a matching miniature piano bench. The agent was unimpressed.

"Whaddya think, you idiot, you're gonna impress me with your toy piano?" said the agent, chomping angrily on his cigar. "Get outta here!"

Again the fellow said nothing, merely raised one finger in a gesture as if to signify, "Wait a minute." And then he opened the other suitcase and . . . Out leaped a man! A tiny man, barely one foot tall, dressed in a tiny tuxedo suit!

"Get outta here, kid! A midget act? I seen a million midget acts back when I was a kid on vaudeville! I seen 'em all, I tell ya -- you're not going to impress me with this little midget in his monkey suit!"

But again the fellow said nothing. He merely bowed slightly and, with a sweeping gesture of his hand, signaled the foot-tall man to take his seat at the miniature Steinway. Whereupon, with masterful brilliance, the foot-tall man played Mozart. And then he played Chopin, and Haydn and Liszt, and Beethoven and Tchaikovsky.

For an hour the foot-tall man played that Steinway, and the excellence of his performance was such that the enchanting sound brought agents from nearby offices to come listen, and all the secretaries and receptionist crowded in, as well. By the time the little man stopped playing, there were 30 people packed in by the door of the agent's office, and as the diminuitive virtuoso finished the last perfect note of his final tune, this impromptu audience burst into a sustained ovation, with many cries of "Bravo!"

No one was more impressed than the old boss of the agency, who was still wiping tears from his eyes as the applause ended. He shooed away the crowd and closed the door.

"Kid, I've waited all my life for an act like this! I've seen Jolson! I've seen Bing! I've seen Fred Astaire and the Mills Brothers and Tommy Dorsey! I've seen the best in the biz, but I have never seen anything like this! We're going to be rich, rich, rich! Vegas! Hollywood! TV! Movies! Leno! Oprah! A world tour the likes of which has never been seen in the entire history of show business!

"But you got to tell me something, kiddo. Where the hell did you find this little guy?"

"Well," said the fellow, "you see I was on vacation in Ireland, and one day I was strolling down a path in County Limerick when I thought I heard a voice crying, 'Help! Help!' And when I looked around, I saw this little guy dressed in a green suit, trapped under a tree that had fallen over. The litte guy in the green suit said, 'Help me! I'm trapped! And I'm a leprechaun! If you can get this tree off of me, I'll grant ye any wish ye ask me." So I got the tree off of him, and . . ."

The agent took the cigar out of his mouth and said, "And you asked him for . . . this guy?"

"No, actually the leprechaun was kind of old and a bit deaf," the fellow replied. "And he thought I said I wanted to have a 12-inch pianist . . ."

UPDATE, JOKE 3: Now, it's really late. Surely all the innocent eyes are elsewhere, and I've had a drink or thirteen this evenin', so I'll be tellin' you a truly raunchy one, folks. Fainthearted prudes, read no further. You have been warned!

Many years ago, when David Brooks was just a young lad in his first job at National Review, the sycophantic little twerp talked Bill Buckley into paying him to take a two-week tour of Ireland that was eventually the subject of a column called, "Bobos in Blarneyland: The Path to Irish National Greatness." However, during his tour of the Emerald Isle, there was one amusing incident that never got written up, but I heard about it years later through someone who was there and who later told me the whole thing.

About 2 o'clock one afternoon, Brooks had just finished an interview with an official in Dublin. The interview had run long, and the official hadn't provided anything to eat, so Brooks was quite hungry and went in search of a meal. Entranced by the picturesque architecture of the city, he wandered this way and that down the narrow streets and cobbled alleys, nearly forgetting what he was looking for.

Then he sniffed a whiff of savory Irish stew and looked up to see the sign on a quaint little tavern. The sign had a picture of a rooster and a donkey, and the name of the place was "Ye Cocke and Ye Asse." Chuckling at this display of clever Irish humor, and hungry for that stew, Brooks pushed through the oaken door and into the dimly lit interior of what he took to be a typical local pub.

The place was nearly empty, so Brooks walked up to have a seat at the bar. He was pleased to be cheerfully greeted by the barkeep, a merry fellow with a twinkle of mischief in his green Irish eyes. The bartender offered him a menu, but Brooks waved him off: "I want some of that Irish stew -- I could smell it cooking from out in the street, and decided I simply must have some of it. And please bring me a pint of your excellent stout ale, which I've read so much about in the most recent issue of . . ."

Brooks chattered on happily as the barkeep poured a pint of ale and ladled up a bowl of stew. Having served his talkative American customer, the barkeeper smiled with a twinkle in his merry green eyes and excused himself, saying he had to attend to matters in the kitchen. Brooks lapped up his stew eagerly, in between long sips of the stout ale, thinking to himself what fantastic luck it was that he had found this authentic local pub, far from the main thoroughfares haunted by all those tacky lowbrow middle-class tourist swine from Cleveland and such places.

In this happy state of contentment, he had just finished the last tasty morsel of his stew and was about to finish his ale when one of the locals walked up and sat down beside him. "Hey, mate, what's your name?" said the young fellow in what Brooks instantly recognized as an authentic Irish brogue.

"Brooks! David Brooks," he answered, shaking hands with the friendly young Irish lad. "I'm a journalist for National Review, and William F. Buckley Jr. commissioned me to come investigate conditions here in your quaint little country, and I just finished an interview at the ministry downtown with . . ."

Brooks prattled on, pleased to see that he was making quite an impression on the young fellow, who smiled with a twinkle in his eyes that Brooks was now learning to appreciate as authentic Irish merriment. Finally, however, Brooks was forced to pause to take a breath, and reached for his glass to drink down the last hearty sip of his stout ale.

"Paddy!" the young local called out, and the barkeep emerged from the kitchen. "Paddy, give this man another stout, and bring me one, too. Put it on my tab and, while you're at it, bring us two shots of the best whiskey in the house. This man is none other than the famous journalist, David Brooks of National Review, and we need to welcome him with the proper Dublin hospitality!"

So the barkeep brought the drinks, and conversation ensued. By the time Brooks had finished telling the merry young local fellow everything about himself, and his trip, and all that he had learned about Ireland during his visit, they'd gone through three rounds. At last, Brooks asked his generous young friend, "And what about you? What do you do?"

"Do?" said the local lad, signaling Paddy the barkeep to bring another 'round. "I don't really do anything. Y'see, Yank, I'm a leprechaun."

Brooks laughed merrily. "Oh, hahaha, I guess I should have been prepared for your notorious Irish humor . . ."

"Humor?" said the young Dubliner. "But I'm not joking at all, mate. That's just like a Yank, I guess. You watch your cartoons and read your storybooks, and I suppose you think all leprechauns are old midgets in green suits with white beards, running around amongst the clovers and such."

More conversation ensued and more stout and fine Irish whiskey were consumed, as Brooks applied his journalistic prowess to interviewing this young fellow. By the time the local lad excused himself to use the men's room, he'd quite nearly convinced the man from National Review that he was, indeed, a leprechaun.

Or maybe it was the whiskey, Brooks thought to himself. It was almost 5 o'clock now, and he'd lost track. Had he had five rounds? Six? Seven?

"Paddy," said Brooks, motioning for the barkeep. "Can you believe this guy? He's trying to tell me he's a leprechaun!"

"Oh, it's true, mate!" the barkeep answered. "Everybody knows it around here. This place is quite popular with the leprechauns. Did you ask him about his pot of gold and his magical powers? He's quite impressive. He's granted people wishes before, and he seemed to take quite a liking to you."

Instantly, Brooks knew that he must act on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He walked toward the lavatory with a stride that was, if not altogether steady, certainly determined and purposeful. He pushed through the door into the men's room to find the young Dublin lad washing his hands.

"All right, if you're a leprechaun, I'd like you to grant me a wish: I want to be the most famous and successful journalist in history, with my own column in the New York Times!"

Drying his hands now, the leprechaun smiled with a merry twinkle in his eye. "Oh, I'd simply love to, David. But that's not how it works. You see, I've been buying all the drinks, haven't I?"

Brooks nodded, somewhat puzzled.

"Well," the young leprechaun answered, "the way our magic operates, we can only grant wishes for those people who have done us some special favor."

"Oh, anything! Anything you ask, just name it and I'll do it, because I want to be the most famous and successful journalist in history!" Brooks said eagerly.

"Oh, you will indeed," answered the leprechaun, with authentic mischief twinkling in his merry Irish eyes as he unzipped his trousers and displayed something that, while not particularly large, was certainly most splendidly aroused. Brooks gazed at it with spellbound amazement.

"What . . .? Why . . .?" the American journalist for once found himself at a loss for words, until he forced his gaze upward from the object of his fascination to stare incomprehensibly into the leprechaun's twinkling eyes. "Do you mean . . .? You want me to . . .?"

"It's me magic shillaleigh, man!" answered the leprechaun, with an authentic Irish laugh. "And if you kiss it just the way I like it, the next thing you know, you'll be a world-famous journalist with your own column in the New York Times!"

No further encouragement was necessary. Brooks then performed feats of such passionate devotion as no other journalist in the world could rival, until the Irish magic was drained entirely from the shillaleigh, whereupon the leprechaun zipped up his trousers and walked toward the door of the men's room.

"Wait a minute!" said Brooks, rising from his knees. "What about my wish? Aren't you going to grant me my wish?"

"Wish?" said the leprechaun, the twinkle in his eye now almost blinding in its authentic Irish charm. He turned and extended his hand, which Brooks grasped in a firm handshake.

"Sullivan -- Andrew Sullivan's the name. And don't tell me you Yanks still believe all that silly stuff about leprechauns!"

* * * * *

Well, that's enough for one night's work, eh? I'd like to thank me mate Smitty for recommending me for this job. What with the recession and all, a fellow's got to make a few extra wherever he can get it nowadays, so long as nobody don't tell the blighters down at the relief office about it.

There was something else I was supposed to do, but I wrote me notes down on a cocktail napkin. Then when I got a bit ill and parkered all over me shoes, I went to wipe the frum off and must've grabbed the wrong napkin . . . Must not have been that important, I suppose. But y'ought to hit a bloke's tip jar, and . . .

Heh. Now I remember what it was!

Cthulhu!

-- Paddy

It's David Brooks Fisking Day Again!

Elegant falsehood:

It has been odd, over the past six months, not to have the gospel of success as part of the normal background music of life. You go about your day, taking in the news and the new movies, books and songs, and only gradually do you become aware that there is an absence. There are no aspirational stories of rags-to-riches success floating around. There are no new how-to-get-rich enthusiasms. There are few magazine covers breathlessly telling readers that some new possibility -- biotechnology, nanotechnology -- is about to change everything. That part of American culture that stokes ambition and encourages risk has gone silent.

The clever trick of this paragraph is the invisible poisonous gas of the second-person plural: "You go about your day . . ." Which is to say, he goes about his day in such a manner. The rhetorical "you" posited by David Brooks in fact means, "people like us." The reader is invited to imagine himself a member of the Brooksian intellectual class whose chief activities consist of "taking in the news and the new movies, books and songs."

Brooks's "you" might include Kathleen Parker or Meghan McCain or any number of other influential, respectable and sophisticated people who occupy those comfortable sinecures where nobody has to hustle for a dollar. But the Brooksian "you" does not encompass Wally Onakoya, driving Fairway Cab No. 1 nights and weekends, paying for his daughter's college tuition. His "you" does not include my older brother, the truck driver. "You" are not my wife, the school cafeteria lady. "You" are not Frequent Commenter Smitty, ex-Navy IT geek slammin' the Cthulhu-fu just for fun.

The actual "you" -- the Ordinary American -- still works as hard as ever in hope of success, still gets up every morning thinking of some new way to make life better for you and your family. You are all right with me, but quite frankly, you don't care any more for my opinion than you care for David Brooks's opinion. The Ordinary American lives his life in the real world, where "image" is not everything, where no one is impressed by the intellectual's ability to write elegant nonsense, where a Harvard diploma and $1.29 will get you a medium regular coffee at Sheetz.

David Brooks thinks you are too stupid to see through his clever little word games, the signifying jive of the privileged elite. But he's not actually talking to you, he's talking to The Republicans Who Really Matter, a private club that you will never be invited to join.

David Brooks gets paid $300,000 a year to tell the snobs what they want to hear: Ignore those barbarians, those hell-raisers and holy rollers. Don't worry about the "revolt of the kulaks" and those silly Tea Party protesters.

How much do I get paid to point out the fact that David Brooks is so full of crap his eyes are brown? That depends on you. If 150,000 people hit my tip jar with $20 this year, I'll be even with Brooks. But I'll never stop punk-smacking his smirky little face. Every Tuesday until the Brooksian delusion is vanquished, the punk-smacking will continue. So hit the tip jar, you cheapskate bastards.

Adam P. DuPont, Thuggin' for Hope

A vicious "progressive" Internet menace has been exposed:

Adam P. DuPont, now of Northampton Mass, is "tas." "tas" is Adam P. DuPont, 30 as of March 2009. A part-time waiter, a long-time student, and a full-time internet thug whose political output consists almost entirely of foul-mouthed attacks on "wingnuts," many of them no more important than ordinary bloggers -- at least two of whom have had to deal with real-life threats resulting from Adam P. DuPont's preferred brand of online activity.

Welcome to the innertoobs, douchebag troll.

UPDATE 3/23: Linked by Dan Collins at PW Pub.

From Hope to Hopeless in 8 Weeks

The inevitable result of arrogance and incompetence, hiding behind a ferocious facade of lies, descends upon 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue:

This administration treats legitimate opposition as traitorous revolt. The politics of personal destruction are back, big time. There is a deliberateness to the seemingly disconnected attacks, with the media and legislators taking cues from the White House war room.
But this chaos cannot endure. It may work for short periods of time, or to get a specific bill passed, but it reflects an administration that has lost its ability to motivate people through a positive message.

In less than two months, Team O has squandered the enormous political capital produced by the personal popularity of its candidate. Team O has collaborated with the Pelosi/Reid axis of corruption, pandered to union goons and the abortion lobby, insulted our nation's allies and aided her enemies, aggressively pursued neo-Keynesian economic nonsense (It Won't Work) and attempted to distract attention by orchestrating attack-machine efforts against its critics.

Now Obama desperately struggles to avoid becoming known as The Only President Worse Than Jimmy Carter. Way to go, Rahm!

UPDATE: Referencing the AIG debacle that Obama is trying to scapegoat on others, Dan Riehl writes:

Two months in and Obama has helped tank the stock market with pessimism only to help him pass a political agenda in the form of stimulus package. His latest blurt seems to have been counter-productive to his stated economic goals. But hopefully Obama feels better for having gotten his rage on.
How far in over his head does he have to get before he starts wearing water-wings?

Just when you think they can't get any worse, they do. An electoral triumph for the Democrats becomes a governmental disaster for the nation, and the scary thing is that they keep piling error on top of blunder on top of hubris with such relentless fuckuppery that no nadir to the abyss is in sight.

Two new Facebook friends

Norma McCorvey just friended me on Facebook!

Also, I was re-friended by my lovely bride, Mrs. Other McCain. She got mad at me after CPAC and unfriended me, and now she's friended me again. My semi-permanent residence in the McCain family doghouse is entirely my own fault, because I'm a stupid thoughtless shmuck.

Frankly, I spend too much time blogging and the tip jar contributions aren't exactly rolling in this week. A nice guy sent me $5 after being referred by Chris Muir. In expressing my gratitude via e-mail, I explained to the the tip-jar hitter that if I can get 599,999 more of you guys to kick in $5, I'll be even with David Brooks (and it's Tuesday again, Dave). Some people have very generously given as much as $100(!), but whether it's $5 or $100, every penny is appreciated with prayerful gratitude.

However, the vast majority of readers have decided on a contribution of $0.00.

Nothing can so demoralize a greedy right-wing capitalist blogger as this mute evidence that his contributions to the 'sphere are considered worthless. When I walked away from the newspaper business to become a freelance writer and independent blogger, I never thought I'd get a million hits in less than a year -- but I was sure going to try my damnedest. Yet I'm beginning to understand why longtimers sometimes gets so frustrated with blogging.

Get as much traffic as you will, it's doggone hard to monetize content value on the Internet, and it keeps getting harder all the time. A few years ago, while I was still working for The Man and forbidden to blog, the once wide-open BlogAds Network became an exclusive "members only" clique where you had to have a member's sponsorship to join. Since everybody hates me, I'm not invited. OK, fine, I'll do the A*d*s*e*n*s*e thing, even though the pay-per-impression rate is much lower.

Well, there are conservative think tanks and foundations and political operations that expend vast amounts of money on "online activism," and you might think some of those big wheels would throw a guy a grant, an ad, or a consulting contract. But everybody hates me, so other people get that money, while I consult newbie bloggers for $50 or $100 a pop. (The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy offers lots of "fellowship" programs for Promising Young Conservatives; there is not a dime available for Middle-Aged Ex-Democrat Journalists Who Have to Work For a Living.)

OK, fine. I'm a greedy capitalist blogger, and those lazy 501(c) non-profit assholes can choke on their damned fellowships: I Write For Money. So if I have to crawl to editors asking for freelance assignments -- no editor ever solicits me for work, because everybody hates me and some young Harvard-educated know-it-all is always available for any really important assignment -- and if I have to shake the tip jar like an epileptic craps player trying to roll 11 in Vegas, that's what I'll do. I will humliate and debase myself and beg for money. To quote the Temptations, "Ain't too proud to beg, sweet mama."

Monday night, I conducted a karaoke seminar in Alexandria, Virginia, with Frequent Commenter Smitty in attendance. Let Smitty testify to the quality of the performance. When I started playing guitar at 16, I used to take my ax down to the flea market on Bankhead Highway in Lithia Springs, Ga., and perform for passersby to draw customers to my best friend's booth, with a cigar-box tip jar to allow patrons to show their appreciation. That's show bidness at its raw essence, people, and I guarantee you that kind of gig teaches a lot more about "viral promotion" than will ever be known by a lot of these Online Snake-Oil Hustlers who get fat contracts from the Republican Party.

(Contemplate the Parable of the Doubting Padwans of Fu. And ask yourself, "Why a parable?")

Last night, I was talking with my old friend Tito Perdue, who assured me that there is no justice in the world, and that any writer of ability, who has any sense of honor or any principle of personal integrity, is therefore doomed to poverty and obscurity. If you don't suck up to the Establishment and parrot the Conventional Wisdom, Tito assured me, you will be marked as dangerous, ostracized, and forced into a penurious, peripheral existence.

Maybe Tito is right. But I argued back at him, citing the evidence that we see all around us of the mighty being brought low (Citibank shares trading for less than an ATM fee), and the humble being lifted up (Joe the Plumber). Tito is a man of tremendous erudition and culture but, alas, is a disbelieving pagan. By contrast, I'm a barbaric hillbilly holy roller, and I told Tito that I have faith that indeed there is justice in the universe, and . . . Well, an old song says it best:

Here I raise my ebenezer;
Hither by thy grace I've come.

Has God brought me this far -- rescued me and instructed me, blessed me and chastised me -- only to abandon me to shameful destruction now? If he did, could I complain? We are but sinners in the hands of an angry God.

Yet I know this: God still works old-fashioned miracles, if you've got old-fashioned faith. And if I'm getting a little nervous about the tip jar, this is a fear that testifies only to the weakness of my faith. By the time I post this and check my e-mail again, there may be another contribution, just to chastise my doubt. But if it's still $0.00, still I will believe.

Update: by Smitty
The bar had beer on tap and in bootles, which meant it was almost too gucci for my taste.
I was timely; RSM, fashionable. HotMES was fashionable in another sense. The blog chit-chat was fun, but the action began when Stacy "cut" in on an abandoned karaoke slot and blew the lid off of

As he returned to the table, I leaned over to HotMES and said "What's amazing is that this is the first time he's ever done that song." I earned a saucy wink from RSM for my trouble. My estimate may have been low.
He danced wildly (but tastefully, always tastefully) with some of the other patrons.
As he was holding forth on the following DAC, a lady leaned over and asked: "Is he always like this?"

"Yeah," I replied "but he's got a heart of gold."

Hammer, nail, head

"Plain and simple, the Democrats are buying their votes, with policies that only harm the communities whose votes they are buying. Once again, we let the Democrats frame the issues to make it sound like our policies, or our objections to theirs, are selfish and designed to protect the rich. Unfortunately, too many of our spokespeople get caught up defending themselves against wild accusations rather than just exposing the truth about the harmful results of these sound-good Democrat policies."

Attention, D.C. New Media: OPEN BAR!

We know that left-wing New Media types have their own half-vast conspiracy. The great thing about the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy is that we're capitalists, so instead of a list-server, our conspiracies are plotted at cool parties with catered buffets, free booze and attractive women.

If you are a blogger or other conservative New Media activist, there will be an invitation-only OPEN BAR party this Wednesday evening (3/18) in D.C., hosted by a major free-market organization. Two bold-face name Famous Conservative Personalities will host the event, and I have been asked to help spread the word about this important event to all you boozehead moochers bloggers and random hotties New Media activists.

If you haven't yet gotten the invitation, please e-mail me or Frequent Commenter Smitty for details.

UPDATE: The sponsor of the event has asked that I give a link to their site: Americans for Limited Government. I didn't know if they wanted the whole freaking Internet to know they were throwing an OPEN BAR PARTY, and thus be swamped with e-mails from blog readers begging for an invite to get the free booze, buffet, et cetera, so I didn't name them initially.

Video: Tara Wheeler will shave bald

Beauty and the baldness (via Clearly Nebulous):

And the Washington Post reports why Miss Virginia is willing to shave her head as bald as Smitty's:

The latest look in the pageant business: a bald beauty queen.
It required permission from both the Miss America Organization and state pageant officials, but Miss Virginia 2008 Tara Wheeler will shave her head next month if she generates enough money for pediatric cancer research.
"If I raise $500,000, I am allowed to be a bald Miss Virginia," Wheeler told us yesterday. . . .
The 24-year-old military brat/journalism major came up with the idea two months ago when she was invited to an event for St. Baldrick's Foundation, a charity for kids' cancer research. The fundraising gimmick? Participants set donation goals and, if they meet them, shave their heads.
Wheeler thought to herself, "I could do that." No shrinking violet, she was starting goalie for the women's ice hockey team at Penn State, which she attended on an Air Force ROTC scholarship. In college, she also began volunteering in charity dance marathons, and is an ambassador for the Children's Miracle Network. She was crowned Miss Virginia in June, and has been visiting cancer patients in hospitals ever since.
One thing that bugged her were the little girls who were teased about losing their hair. Wouldn't it be cool if she were bald, too? "Imagine how those little girls will feel when they get a visit from Miss Virginia and she pulls off her wig?" Wheeler says in a YouTube video.

So if you want to see Tara with the cueball look, go to her St. Baldrick's site and give now!

UPDATE: Shaving it for charity catches on!

Troglopundit Having Too Much Fun

by Smitty

The Bloviating Troglopundit of Baraboo seems fascinated with the whole Meghan/Laura/Elizabeth menage-a-twits. Which prompted the contribution of a classic, adaptable jape in the comments.
It wasn't my all time favorite, though.
Disclaimer: this post is driven by the sad follicle jealously of a balding man, not any particular flavor of mysoginy.

There Must Be a Joke in Here Somewhere

by Smitty

I got the Jesus could build a cabinet joke. Carpenter builds cabinets, POTUS having a spot of trouble. Here comes this tidbit about OJ Simpson being short a few quid.

Barrett Prody, the brother of Simpson's former girlfriend, has created a nonprofit corporation and an Internet Web site, the Society Against Legal Injustice Inc., to raise money for Simpson.

I'm thinking about campaign web sites, cabinetry, gloves, but it's all a blank. Somebody help me connect the dots.

Why Does Instapundit Hate Virginia?

by Smitty

Here he goes with another Murtha is a crook post, which we all understand. But The Fine Article also points out (emphasis mine) that

John Murtha [D-PA], James Moran [D-NJ(sic)*], and Pete Viclosky [D-IN] all figured prominently, but the report showed a wide range of behaviors by politicians in both parties.

Look, when one screws up, one should air the laundry. It's good for the soul. Others may learn vicariously not to repeat your (in this case, voting) errors. So, Instapundit, please help VA-8 to understand where we went wrong, what we did to offend, and how we can overcome your disdain in our efforts to get equal airtime for our local nitwit. Help us be rid of this peripatetic pettifogger:

*Just how does one screw that up?

'The Lady Doth Protest Too Much, Methinks'

by Smitty

Billy Wharton served a jolly steamer disclaimer in the Sunday Washington Post. He spends a few paragraphs being amazed at having wandered in obscurity these years, only to be a celebrity once the question was raised during the campaign last year: Is BHO a, you know, [whisper]Socialist? He then attempts to proffer objections to the label being applied to the POTUS:

The funny thing is, of course, that socialists know that Barack Obama is not one of us. Not only is he not a socialist, he may in fact not even be a liberal. Socialists understand him more as a hedge-fund Democrat -- one of a generation of neoliberal politicians firmly committed to free-market policies.

OK, I can buy "meat puppet of the plutocrats".

The first clear indication that Obama is not, in fact, a socialist, is the way his administration is avoiding structural changes to the financial system. Nationalization is simply not in the playbook of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and his team. They favor costly, temporary measures that can easily be dismantled should the economy stabilize. Socialists support nationalization and see it as a means of creating a banking system that acts like a highly regulated public utility. The banks would then cease to be sinkholes for public funds or financial versions of casinos and would become essential to reenergizing productive sectors of the economy.

So, you'd support more authority for the likes of Franks and Dodd? What could possibly go wrong?

The same holds true for health care. A national health insurance system as embodied in the single-payer health plan reintroduced in legislation this year by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), makes perfect sense to us. That bill would provide comprehensive coverage, offer a full range of choice of doctors and services and eliminate the primary cause of personal bankruptcy -- health-care bills. Obama's plan would do the opposite. By mandating that every person be insured, ObamaCare would give private health insurance companies license to systematically underinsure policyholders while cashing in on the moral currency of universal coverage. If Obama is a socialist, then on health care, he's doing a fairly good job of concealing it.

Yeah, because the Romney plan was such a big win for Mass., right? Your national health insurance system promises to be as smashing a success as Fannie and Freddie. If only it focused on smashing your utopian visions, sir.

Issues of war and peace further weaken the commander in chief's socialist credentials. Obama announced that all U.S. combat brigades will be removed from Iraq by August 2010, but he still intends to leave as many as 50,000 troops in Iraq and wishes to expand the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. A socialist foreign policy would call for the immediate removal of all troops. It would seek to follow the proposal made recently by an Afghan parliamentarian, which called for the United States to send 30,000 scholars or engineers instead of more fighting forces.

So you seem to imply that socialism has pacifistic overtones by definition. When did that change from the last century? National Socialist Workers Party, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics...

So, other than saying that BHO doesn't agree with you, Mr. Wharton, you don't say much. In fairness, this was a brief newspaper treatment where you're simply trying to establish a gap between some convenient definition of Socialism and the POTUS. I get that. You just keep those little pom-poms protesting vigorously, Lady.

Being notorious is not the same as . . .

. . . being famous, but it's better than being anonymous:

Thanks, Chris Muir, and in case anyone in the blogosphere hasn't yet seen the notorious 1990 Speedo:

Photo by Mrs. Other McCain, who is not Irish, but is a saint you should celebrate by hitting the tip jar.

Newbie acoylytes of righteous blog-fu might enjoy "How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog in Less Than a Year" (this would qualify as 5C), also "The Parable of the Doubting Padwan of Fu," and "How to Hate Feminism (As You Must)."

Uh . . . I've noticed lately the G*o*o*g*l*e A*d*s are rotating in a lot of "Find Sexy Gay Singles" stuff. Irony? Accident? Remember: Life is like a box of chocolates . . .

Little Miss Attila didn't become She Who Must Be Linked because she didn't know how to sling snark:

But, um . . . you might want to swap out those stripes for a solid next time you’re Speedo-shopping.

Did I mention that my college minor was art? And that I am therefore schooled in perspective? ("Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear.") But don't worry, I'm 20 years past my Speedo prime. Mostly I wander around the house nowadays in boxers and black socks.

Moe Lane says Red State has never gotten a Day-by-Day. Erick Erickson in a Speedo?

WOLVERINES!

Fisk me harder, you savage beast!

"My throat was dry from too much vodka, and her breasts, spilling out of pink pajamas, threatened my ability to. I was supposed to be excited, but I was bored and somewhat disgusted with myself, with her, with the whole business... and then whatever residual enthusiasm I felt for the venture dissipated, with shocking speed, as she nibbled at my ear and whispered -- 'You know, I'm on the pill...' "

(Cynthia Yockey informs me that Lenten vows don't forbid mere quotations. Andy recoils in reflexive gynophobia. And make sure you have plenty of brain bleach handy before you confront Dan Collins and the Mental Imagery From Hell.)

Everybody Was Blog-Fu Fighting

(Or: Parable of the Doubting Padwan of Fu.)

"It was hard for me to believe that you were entirely serious about that socialist question," said Barack Obama, quoted by Clever S. Logan, who also quotes Adam Smith as she returns to the blogosphere today. She took a 5-day hiatus after her first Instalanche, meditating and seeking God's judgment whether her blog-fu was altogether righteous, and now comes back with the basic economics of Caveman Craigslist.

Monique Stuart, meanwhile, has been slamming the Old School blog-fu like whiskey shots at a Reason magazine open bar. She got her first Red State-o-Lanche yesterday, and is getting lots of good Rule 2 from American Power. I keep reminding her that Jammie Wearing Fool blogged six months before he got his first Instalanche. Be patient, young padwan. Grow strong in the Force. Righteous let your blog-fu be, and righteous your reward shall be.

Recently, I have been impressed with the fine blogging at Pundit & Pundette, whence the Rule 2's are coming frequently enough that I'm beginning to suspect that Pundette may be harboring a blog-crush. It's OK, Pundette; my unrequited admiration for Dr. Helen is a notorious scandal around the 'sphere. But your blog-fu is also righteous, and you may be just days -- even mere hours -- from the Promised 'Lancheland. And tell Mr. Pundette not to be so suspicious; just because you're trying to make him jealous doesn't mean there's actually anything to worry about. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

Now, the good husband's trick of acting like he's All That in order to make his wife unjustly suspicious is practiced to perfection by The Original Alabama Poonhound, Stephen Gordon of Liberty Papers. The 'Hound is a lot like me: If you ever meet his wife, you know the secret of his success. The other day I called him to talk about plans for the Alabama Tea Party, and Gordo was painting the porch, part of his honey-do list. The 'Hound also has the righteous blog-fu, having gotten both the Instalanche and the Malkinlanche (and every other 'Lanche worth having) for his "Going Galt" roundup.

Life is like a box of chocolates, says Cynthia Yockey, whom I still owe an apology. Yet acting on the principle of turning the other cheek and praying for them who persecute you, Miss Yockey continues to minister in mercy, helping me keep my Lenten vow. (I am defiantly Protestant, and the Catholic friend who talked me into this idiotic stunt is chuckling with evil papist schadenfreude at the multitude of my ironic sufferings.) Sister Cynthia is numbered among the 'Lanche-worthy, and with porn-worthy rackage dealeth she the mighty blog-fu: WOLVERINES!

Jimmie Bise Jr. of Sundries Shack is working on his blog-fu black belt, and is also a man who appreciates fine art and culture. He salutes Ron Silver, a man whose film-fu was legend. Blessings, Jimmie. Go forth and blog thou.

Dan Riehl has been dealing 'fu since Old School was new, and his fierce independence produces a meaningful engagement with Professor Douglas.

Speaking of Old School, there are ancient masters who whisper reverently of the lost art known as Moe Fu. Let the newbie initiates study the ways of sensei Master Moe Lane. How do you think he does it? What makes his 'fu so good?

To be Old School in New Media, the acolyte needs to heed the Neologian of the Blogosphere, whose study of the New Word has made him also 'Lancheworthy. And one there is, of the Tribe of Troglodytes, who yet shall be uplifted in the 'fu, for he hath seen with his own eye the reward of Rule 2. Ed of Blue Hat and Stephen the Green link ye therefore also, as must too Fausta, David and Michael be linked.

Now, as any member of the High Learned Council of Righteous Fu-Meisters could tell you -- if they weren't sworn to a sacred oath of secrecy -- there is a Hunnish wench named Attila, also known as She Who Must Be Linked. This Hun girl, endowed with massive blog-fu, is something like the household goddess of the Ninja 'Sphere Temple Cult, whom the reverent newbies ritualistically link before going into combat in quest of the 'Lanche. If your SiteMeter is sagging, my young padwans, always ask yourself, "Have I linked Little Miss Attila lately?"

Be sure, ye Acolytes of 'Fu, that the wise and learned masters check their SiteMeters and Technoratis, to see whence cometh their traffic. Acolytes must observe and emulate the masters. Michelle Malkin and Insty are not blind; Allah and Ace and Rusty and Jeff observe with Argus-eyed vigilance the young padwans, seeking out the promising practicioners of 'fu. The Rule 3 is the All-Seeing Algorithm of 'Fu. And the Grapevine and Erick the Red watcheth also.

"All these things have we done," answered the padwans. "Yet still our SiteMeters surge not. What more shall we do to acquire the righteous 'fu?" Therefore answered he them . . .

"Have you hit the tip jar lately?" said he, and they were sore astonished at his teaching. For the ways of 'fu are righteous, and ye have been told that a curse rests upon those ungrateful wretches who read the blogs without tipping, always taking and never giving. How much more then shall be accursed ye ungrateful Acolytes of 'Fu who, having been given the Rules by grace, hit not the tip jar? Dost thou not know that there are a wife and six children who depend for their daily bread upon the 'Fu? Yea even there are creditors and utilities companies and a 2004 KIA Optima to be considered. Verily soon cometh also the day when all must render unto Caesar.

Then one among them said, "But master, I hit the tip jar, and have given ye many Rule 2s. How then is my 'fu yet unrighteous?" Answered he: "Hast thou not friends and family? And hast thou asked them also to hit the tip jar? Hast thou cast forth -emails to seek for tip-jar hitters, that the 'fu may go forth to teach all who blog in righteousness?"

Tears of repentance and joy streamed forth from the eyes of The Doubting Padwan, who hit the tip jar in full measure, and went forth to proclaim the word: "It's For the Children! All UR Links R Belong to Us!"

And all the congregation said, "Amen!"

Obama's new tactic

Be John McCain:

The administration's reaction to any new economic news thus far seems to come from a list of four options:

• 1) Panic.
• 2) Spend a few hundred billion dollars.
• 3) Blame Rush Limbaugh.
• 4) Blame George Bush.

Go read every righteous word of it, and be sure to hit Jimmie's tip jar, you ungrateful sons of bitches.

Post-Iowahawk Day blues

I've been feeling kind of depressed the past couple of days, and couldn't figure out why. Then I realized that it's like after Christmas. I'm experiencing the inevitable letdown after weeks of anticipation for National Iowahawk Day.

Obviously, I'll need to get plenty of bed rest and nutrition to recover my good cheer. Maybe I can call in sick and hire guestblogger Brooks Rossington Frumdreher III to fill in for a bit.

Hit the tip jar. Mr. Frumdreher may be a worthless RINO sellout, but he doesn't sell out cheap.

Left declares victory in Culture War

Frank Rich suggests that the bad economy means the GOP will never again be able to gain traction with cultural conservatism. My rejoinder at AmSpecBlog:

Rich is certainly correct that, with Citibank trading for less than the cost of an ATM fee, the primary "value" voters are interested in now is the value of their 401Ks.
If there is any encouragement for traditionalists it is this: Just as there is little public appetite for conservative alarums over cultural issues, neither is there any appetite for liberal alarums. If the Obama administration makes a point of pushing liberal social policies, a backlash is possible, recession or no recession.

Please go read the whole thing. And hit the tip jar, because it's almost Tuesday again.

Belated Homage

by Smitty

Slightly tardy in catching up on the Google Reader, I missed the Fighting Freddy post until very late on 15Mar. Disclosure: I was a classmate of the post author in a Naval War College class.
The referenced action occurred 15 March 1967. Pray destiny never put me in such a position as Army First Lieutenant Ruppert Sargent, but, if that be destiny, may I acquit myself as bravely.

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. While leading a platoon of Company B, 1st Lt. Sargent was investigating a reported Viet Cong meeting house and weapons cache. A tunnel entrance which 1st Lt. Sargent observed was booby trapped. He tried to destroy the booby trap and blow the cover from the tunnel using hand grenades, but this attempt was not successful. He and his demolition man moved in to destroy the booby trap and cover which flushed a Viet Cong soldier from the tunnel, who was immediately killed by the nearby platoon sergeant. 1st Lt. Sargent, the platoon sergeant, and a forward observer moved toward the tunnel entrance. As they approached, another Viet Cong emerged and threw 2 hand grenades that landed in the midst of the group. 1st Lt. Sargent fired 3 shots at the enemy then turned and unhesitatingly threw himself over the 2 grenades. He was mortally wounded, and his 2 companions were lightly wounded when the grenades exploded. By his courageous and selfless act of exceptional heroism, he saved the lives of the platoon sergeant and forward observer and prevented the injury or death of several other nearby comrades. 1st Lt. Sargent's actions were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military services and reflect great credit upon himself and the U.S. Army.

Request all readers spam me into oblivion with such stories. What should conservatives conserve? Among other things, timeless values of service to the country and Constitution.

'McCain's right, of course . . .'

". . . and the Brookses and Meghan McCains of the party might as well join up with the Democrats, for if we adopt the 'moderate' programs these folks are pushing, we might as well have a one-party Democratic state."
-- Donald Douglas, on "Core Values Conservatism," agreeing with me and Charles Murray (I think)

Professor Douglas is taking issue with Ross Douthat's critique of Murray's Thursday lecture at the American Enterprise Institute (yet another event to which I was not invited).

Not being a member of the intellectual leisure class -- hit the tip jar, people -- I have no time for fucking around with the fine points on this one, nor is there any need for that. We need not agree on the ideal size of government in order to agree on three major points:

• Government is too big. It's too expensive, too powerful, and too meddlesome. Even if we could get this much government at half the price, it's still more government than is good for us.
• Bush and Republicans were wrong to expand government. No Child Left Behind and Medicare Part D were giant steps in the wrong direction which, by blurring partisan distinctions, made it more difficult for the GOP to present itself as the party of limited government.
• Democrats want government to be even bigger. Government can never be too big, too expensive, too wasteful or too intrusive to satisfy The Evil Coalition of Liars and Fools.

You need not agree with Grover Norquist on the desireability of shrinking the federal government until it's small enough to drown in the bathtub. With government as big as it is now and rapidly growing much bigger, the current situation creates a clear line of demarcation. You are either a small-government conservative or you are not a conservative, period.

Murray, Douthat and the Professor are welcome to engage in a three-way intellectual Jello-wrestling match over the fine points of philosophy or policy on all this. As politics, however, the choice is clear: The Republican Party can either (a) try to reclaim its limited-government credibility by going all-in against Obama's neo-Keynesian economic plan, or (b) employ the approach favored by The Republicans Who Really Matter by nitpicking the small change.

My hunch is that (b) is a one-way non-stop ticket to Republican irrelevance. Jennifer Rubin is right: The opposition party must oppose. This is that 4 a.m. call, and if my answer lacks nuance and sophistication, it at least has the merit of simplicity: WOLVERINES!

UPDATE: Not directly related, but one of The Republicans Who Really Matters weighs in:

Drive-by pundits . . . are non-journalists who have been demonizing the media for the past 20 years or so and who blame the current news crisis on bias.

Fuck you, Kathleen Parker. I started out in the news business making $4.50 an hour in 1986, and I'll take no lectures from the overprivileged likes of you. What journalism has become is a disgrace, and the unwillingness of people in the news business to say "fuck you" to useless idiots like you is one of the reasons why. (H/T: Tim Graham.)

UPDATE II: Kevin Williamson weighs in with a more thorough fisking of Parker's column, as opposed to my outraged punk-smacking. The outrage is that someone who has for so long been a mere opinion columnist -- as opposed to working in the actual news end of the operation -- should be lecturing anyone about what's wrong with the news business.

"Newspaper columnist" used to be a gig that you had to work a long time in the news business to get. The late, great Lewis Grizzard, for example, started out as a brilliant young sports reporter, and nonetheless was past 30 -- and had already served as executive sports editor of the Chicago Tribune -- before he became a columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1977.

Then in the 1980s and '90s, as cable news and USA Today started encroaching on the turf of the metropolitan dailies, there was this big push for "diversity" and "youth," the chief result of which was a lot of Clever Girl Columnists wasting newsprint. (Hello, Rheta Grimsley Johnson! Hello, Maureen Dowd!)

Kathleen Parker was one of the better Clever Girl Columnists who got the affirmative-action leg up in that manner. But she succumbed to the Elite Media Syndrome of thinking that working in the news business makes you somehow superior to the guy who drops 50 cents in the newsbox, and her insufferable elitism is an apt metaphor for what went wrong with the business.

It's still possible to make a profit on a newspaper, but to do it, you've got to have a small staff of people who work their butts off. You've got to have do-everything staffers, rather than having specialists who won't lift a finger to help outside their job description. And one of the luxuries that profitable newspapers can no longer afford is the overpaid op-ed columnist who never gets her shoes dirty.

Good-bye to bad rubbish.

11-Year-Old Girl Self-Porn

More proof that insanity is the new normal:

A Kentucky man is accused of persuading an 11-year-old Humble (Ky.) girl to send him nude photos of herself while the pair played video games online.
Anthony Scott O'Shea, 24, of Somerset, Ky., has been charged with promotion of child pornography, online solicitation of a minor and sexual performance of a child. He will soon be transferred to Houston, said Sgt. Gary Spurger of the Harris County Precinct 4 Constable's Office. The girl sent the man photos over the course of several weeks as they played games online with their PlayStation 3 consoles in December, Spurger said.

Maybe the New York Times' new porn expert needs to research this angle.

The news tip was sent to me by Frequent Commenter Smitty, just after I saw a Twitter from John Hawkins seeking evidence that "insanity is the new normal." I told Hawkins to remember to quote Hunter S. Thompson: "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." And then I noticed that Smitty had reminded me of a Saturday post, "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Downloads," which referenced Hawkins' post on an 18-year-old girl who committed suicide after her ex-boyfriend made public the nude photos she had sent him.

So this is obviously the evidence Hawkins was looking for.

UPDATE: More evidence from Texas:

KELLER — A Keller man has been jailed on child pornography charges.
Federal agents say they found illegal material at Bryan Dickson's home on Wednesday. The convicted sex offender told agents he had been viewing it online since 2006.
In 1988, Dickson was convicted in New Jersey of sexual assault of a child. But his name did not appear on any list of registered sex offenders.
Ever since he moved into his Keller home a year ago, neighbors say they had their suspicions about him. "We just kind of stayed away," said one.
Their fears were confirmed on Wednesday when federal agents arrested the 46-year-old for child pornography. . . .
But what really angers parents is the 1988 child sex assault conviction in New Jersey. Yet the Keller man was not listed in the New Jersey or Texas sex offender registries.
That infuriates neighbors who had tried checking up on him. "When you talked to him, you got bad vibes," one neighbor said. "We thought maybe it wouldn't hurt to check; didn't find anything; just thought we were being overly paranoid."
In Texas, sex offenders who served their time before 1997 aren't required to register, which may explain why Dickson lived next to a high school and was able to get jobs at family-friendly places like the Dallas Zoo and Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine.

Reassuring, isn't it?

Ross Douthat, porn expert?

"Forget 'normalizing homosexuality' -- something the Right has been worrying over since the advent of gay liberation. Today, the Internet and DirecTV are normalizing everything, from group sex to bestiality to darker things that decency forbids mentioning. And as for pedophilia -- why, any erotic website worth its salt promises links to images of the 'barely legal,' 'young teen sluts,' and all the rest. Today, Nabokov's Humbert would need not be a tragic figure; instead, he could have spent his years ensconced in front of a glowing computer screen, with a thousand Lolitas for his delectation."

* * *

"Over the past three decades, the VCR, on-demand cable service, and the Internet have completely overhauled the ways in which people interact with porn. Innovation has piled on innovation, making modern pornography a more immediate, visceral, and personalized experience. Nothing in the long history of erotica compares with the way millions of Americans experience porn today, and our moral intuitions are struggling to catch up."

* * * *

A Catholic friend advises me that Lenten vows are not enforced on Sunday. Or, as we call it around here, Rule 5 Sunday.

Michelle Malkin brings the Mother Of All Punk-Smackings down on BBW Meghan

Just go read every brutal word of it. Michelle Malkin reminds me of my wife in this sense: You never want her mad at you.

Others have taken their turns punk-smacking Meghan: Jimmie Duncan, Donald Douglas, Monique Stuart and me. But just consider that Saturday night, while Meghan was doing whatever she was doing -- hanging out with The Republicans Who Really Matter, perhaps -- Malkin was at home, writing up that brutal punk-smacking, which Meghan didn't even know was coming.

Pity the fool. That Rule 4's gonna leave a mark on her chubby caboose.

UPDATE: Dan Riehl notes that Meghan's got a fat head: Cellulite of the mind! And from Paleo Pat: "Memo to Meghan McCain: You don’t speak for me, bitch"

UPDATE II: Welcome Pandagon readers! Perhaps you will also enjoy my recent 2,400-word treatise, "How to Hate Feminism (As You Must)."

UPDATE III: The chubby caboose gets kicked by Kyle Smith in his latest New York Post column, with a Kathy Shaidle assist helping Ed Driscoll to declare: "I Never Sold Out Because Nobody Asked Me."

UPDATE IV: Mike at Cold Fury deems Kyle Smith's column "some of the tastiest snark ever," while Don Surber of the Charleston (W.Va.) Daily Mail calls it "a terrific little column." (Don't worry, Don. I'm sure Tina Brown will be in touch with you any day now.)

UPDATE V: Conservatives4Palin:

A few days ago, I got another SPAM email from Sen. McCain's PAC asking for money. My reply was short and simple, "Dear Sen. McCain, every time your daughter shows up on television shooting her mouth off about things she knows nothing of, I donate to SarahPAC. I don't have any time or money left for you."

Give to SarahPAC. Or hit my tip jar. Either way, it's a good cause. It's almost Tuesday, you know. As I recently explained to a Texan who hit the tip jar for $10: "Another 29,999 like that, and I'll be even with David Brooks."

A 2010 Commencement Address to Watch

by Smitty

Gateway Pundit offers some breadcrumbs that lead to The Weekly Standard. Juicy tidbits:

Petraeus will also be addressing the commissioning ceremonies for Harvard and MIT ROTC. THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned that General Petraeus is planning on delivering the commencement address at the University of Iowa in 2010. Hmmm.

It seems like the POTUS and VP need to have a good balance of domestic/foreign policy chops. Palin/Petraeus 2012, anyone?

Besides the speech itself, the other interesting thing will be watching the Frum/Douthat/Brooks Axis of Wobbly try to explain that the classical American values which a Petraeus will likely espouse are somehow passed into history. Trade courage for nuance, freedom of action for the warm arms of the state, the traditions that made you strong for some nebulous abstraction.

Even if the schedule changes in the next year, and Petraeus doesn't actually make this speech, the good General has already made my day.

NOTE (RSM): Full disclosure: Smitty's a Navy veteran. To anyone complaining of anti-Army bias in this post, I say, "Ethics, schmethics"!

Ethics, schmethics!

Michael Rubin at National Review:

Many think-tanks, especially those on the left, have taken journalists as fellows. It is a strategy that works to promote and publicize products when the journalists fail to disclose their financial ties to the organization. Case in point: The Politico's David S. Cloud, who for a year, was a "writer in residence" at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). In fully a quarter of all his subsequent stories, he cites CNAS reports -- without acknowledging his links to the organization.

(H/T: Instapundit.) This kind of hand-wringing over potential conflicts of interest in journalism is a Washington game of "gotcha" I don't like to play. If David Cloud cites a CNAS analysis by Dennis Ross, that is wrong because . . .?

What counts in the news business is getting the facts right and getting the story first. Everything else is incidental. A scoop is a scoop is a scoop, and if Ross has been plying Cloud with free whiskey (or vice-versa) this becomes the subject of complaint only if Cloud's story is inaccurate. If Cloud's editors don't mind him knocking down the single malts with his sources, why should we?

CNAS is a Democrat/liberal operation. Rubin apparently means to suggest that Cloud's reporting has been slanted because the erstwhile CNAS affiliation reveals that Cloud is a liberal journalist -- shock and horrror! Absent any assertion of inaccuracy or distortion in Cloud's articles, the likelihood that his political leanings are left of Lenin doesn't really distinguish him from the D.C. herd.

Some of our uptight media-critic types need to read Bob Novak's The Prince of Darkness. Novak routinely wined and dined with his sources, and if he had spent all his time worrying about the appearance of impropriety over who paid the tab, how many fewer scoops would he have gotten?

If reporters would concern themselves more with reporting facts accurately, the question of who's paying their bar tabs would be moot.

Not difficult for me, but . . .

"Do you know what I have discovered is the most difficult (and yes, again, humbling) thing? To stand still and allow someone to compliment you; to give someone the chance to say what they want to say, when it makes you very uncomfortable to hear it."

Smoke up, it's for the children!

"You will always have one more cigarette, whether it's at a funeral, or at the bar. You never truly quit, there will always be another cigarette, another drag. President Obama gets that. He's a Marlboro Man, the only reason I have left to like him. What I don't like, though, is that he has placed the burden of middle-class children's healthcare upon my shoulders. Can someone, anyone, please, explain to me why I should be responsible for the healthcare of middle-class children just because I smoke? I'm not really getting the connection."

Lesbian war cry: "WOLVERINES!"

Conservative lesbian Cynthia Yockey declares herself part of the guerrilla resistance. One of the amazing things about Obamaism is how it has clarified allegiances so starkly. You are either a butt boy for The One, or else you will inevitably find yourself in the wilderness bunker with all the other outlaws whose names appear on Patriot Rock.

Jed Eckert: Well, who is on our side?
Col. Andy Tanner: Six hundred million screaming Chinamen.
Darryl Bates: Last I heard, there were a billion screaming Chinamen.
Col. Andy Tanner: There were.

The oft-repeated saying "9/11 changed everything," is not literally true. Yet if 9/11 didn't really change everything, it definitely changed some things, and the rise of the Pelosi/Reid/Obama hegemon has changed a few more. As I recently told my friend Tito Perdue, the past few years have been like watching a geological upheaval, as political alliances shift like tectonic plates.

You're either with the Evil Coalition of Liars and Fools, or you're against them , and if you're against them, let me hear you scream: WOLVERINES!

(The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. However, the Apocalypse Will Be Blogged.)

A few years ago, Phyllis Chesler sent me her book The Death of Feminism, and when I got home with it and started reading, I was shocked to see her citing Jean Raspail's notorious novel, The Camp of the Saints. (That passage is substantially excerpted in an online essay at her Web site.)

For years, Raspail's 1973 French novel enjoyed a sort of samizdat cult following among critics of multiculturalism and opponents of open-borders immigration policy (which would be more properly termed a non-policy, but let us not digress.) Raspail himself has said that Le Camp Des Saints could not be published in France today because of the "human rights" nonsense that is slowly strangling free speech in Europe (and Canada). And the book's reputation as a hateful expression of xenophobic nativism makes it one of those Books You're Not Supposed to Read.

Thus, I was startled to see Chesler, a liberal feminist all her life, citing Raspail's book as prophetic. Yet Chesler had been able to see past the superficial text of the novel to comprehend its deeper significance as a metaphor for the demoralization of the West. In this sense, Raspail was describing the same larger phenomenon that Shelby Steele describes in White Guilt, that Pat Buchanan describes in The Death of the West, that Michelle Malkin describes in Invasion, that Thomas Sowell describes in The Vision of the Anointed, and that Peter Brimelow describes in Alien Nation.

These are all very different writers, with different interests, different aims, and different philosophies. However, they all share the fundamental understanding that liberalism is a soul-destroying disease, a sort of intellectual anti-virus that exposes its host to destruction by weakening the individual cells of the national immune system. To the extent that your mind is cluttered with the glittering generalities of modern liberalism -- "social justice," etc. -- you will be unable to resist and will inevitably succumb to the agonizing spiritual death that beckons at the end of that road.

In war, few things are more important to an army than morale. And it breaks my heart to see the discouragement and demoralization when the enemy is seemingly triumphant and when all the glory and honor of this world accrues to so-called "conservatives" who do everything in their power to undermine actual conservatism, while genuine conservatives are fighting their hearts out in obscurity. Dan Riehl:

I'm mostly sick of it and hard-pressed to find good reason for good conservatives not to simply go off the grid. If the day ever comes for conservatives to have a serious voice again, I'm unconvinced it will be through the GOP and I know for a fact, it'll never be through the New York Times.

(H/T: Cold Fury.) To quote Jed Eckert again: "Let it turn." Let them choke on their ill-gotten gains. Let them have their 30 pieces of silver. Let your rage and resentment toward them turn to something useful: The savage fury of the warrior.

Resolve to fight that much harder. Train your mind so that when you are not fighting, your constant object of contemplation is how to fight smarter. Excuse the martial metaphors, but a War of Ideas is a war nonetheless.

When you're in a fight, the only things that really matter are the fight itself, your own willingness to fight like hell, and knowing who's on your side. (IFF: Identity Friend or Foe.) Those who join up with The Republicans Who Really Matter like Coddy Voorhees and Brooksie Frumdreher are de facto allies of the Evil Coalition of Liars and Fools. You who live on scanty cold rations, huddled in the wilderness, short on supplies and wondering how much longer you can hold out -- you, the soldiers in this Army of Davids, will one day proudly recall that you served with heroes in the Camp of the Saints.

Courageous new recruits like Cynthia Yockey are coming into camp every day. Whatever their histories, whatever their reasons for hating the Evil Coalition of Liars and Fools, their willingness to join a seemingly hopeless cause in combat against an evidently invulnerable opponent tells us that they are real fighters. These recruits need training and leadership. As this army grows stronger, we know that victory awaits us, but we don't need to wait for Election Day to cheer.

Every time another soldier joins the ranks, this is a victory in its own right and should inspire the troops to scream out the battle cry: WOLVERINES!

UPDATE: Linked as "Quote of the Day" by Ed Driscoll.

What's killing Russia?

Russia has been described as "sliding into a demographic abyss":

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian fertility rate plummeted from 2.19 children per woman in 1986 to 1987 to 1.17 in 1999. In 2001, the fertility rate was 1.25 in Russia.

This is unsustainable, and a big part of the explanation is that Russia has long relied on abortion as a primary form of birth control. The Bolsheviks had pro-abortion views nearly as extreme as NARAL and the liquidation of Christianity under Soviet rule meant that there was no political, moral or cultural opposition to the practice. Abortion-on-demand thus became deeply engrained in the medical and social traditions of the nation, a Culture of Death that has outlived the regime that spawned it.

A new documentary, Killing Girls, chronicles the brutal reality of this, as St. Blogustine explains:

The film follows three teenage girls in Russia from the time they enter the abortion clinic until after they leave, delving into their circumstances for being pregnant, their reasons for having late-term, labor induced abortions, and the state of moral decay in today's Russia that would result in such an alarming trend (80% of today's Russian women have between 2 and 10 abortions in their lifetimes).

Here's the trailer for the film:

Eutopia. Eusocial. Europe.

by Smitty

Ross, I love you nearly as much as I love your ivory tower. Let's have some fun with The Case For Small Government:

At bottom, I think the argument suffers from a problem that's common to both sides in the debates over the desirability of European-style social democracy - namely, the hope that what's ultimately a philosophical and moral controversy can have a tidy empirical resolution.

Is the Decline and Fall of Europe insufficient for you? Are shenanigans like the Treaty of Lisbon not a good enough indicator? Do you read The Brussels Journal? My wife is German. Maybe I am too lost in anecdotal evidence that the likelihood of success of "European-style social democracy" in the US has been captured here: It Won't Work. Uless you're eusocial.

In both cases, there's an unwarranted hope that the right facts and figures can settle a debate that ultimately depends on the philosophical assumptions that you bring to it.

Hogwash. Facts matter. As does history. If the foundation of your eutopian la-la land rests upon demonstrably bogus assertions about your demographics, WTF good is it? Unless you're taking a foppish deconstructionist route, that is. Then you can just "feel" something.

I would just deny that they can come close to settling, in any meaningful sense, the debate over how big the American welfare state should be overall, and whether we should copy Western Europe or disdain it.

And why should you? Recall, These United States are still 50 in number. If you have any sort of bully pulpit from your lofty heights, you should argue the Constitution, and the right of states to be as "Massachusetts" as they wanna be, without taking the whole country down roads that historically lead to swamps.

That's because both the American and the European models of government are successful in purely practical terms, to the extent that purely practical terms exist - which is to say, both models have provided, over an extended period of time, levels of prosperity and stability unparalleled in human history.

PAX ROMANA, anyone? Or are you taking the condescending view that history began in 1636, with the founding of Hah-vuhd?

(Yes, the stresses that Islamic immigration and demographic decline are imposing on Europe are real and serious - but I think it's too soon to say, with Murray and many on the Right, that "the European model can't continue to work much longer," full stop. The end of history may be more resilient than we think!)

Don't look at reality too long, buddy: someone might steal your lenses. No, you're right: Geert's just paranoid and stuff.

And as long as this remains the case, where you come out on the debates over whether we should prefer the continent's sturdier safety nets to America's lower unemployment and higher growth rates (or the continent's more equible provision of health care to America's lead in health-care innovation, or what-have-you) will ultimately boil down to values as much as it will to what the numbers say.

Back to my European in-laws: that "sturdier safety net" has little empirical meaning. Then again, I'm only talking to a small sample, so you could be right. Not that I seriously think so, just that sounding too certain is rather tacky. Oh, and the wife works in pharma, and is unenthusiastic about the "lead in health-care innovation" you're touting here. I wouldn't play a straight libertarian hand, but I would say "less is more" when it comes to regulation. Each new law is another bandage on the patient. Governments rarely, if ever, cut away any of the old stuff. Result: mummy. But we'll just have to crash the system and then see what you dreamers can do to continue blaming Bush rather than analyze anything.

How much do you prize equality and ease of life? The more you do, the more you'll favor a European approach to the relationship between state and society. How much do you prize voluntarism, entrepreneurship, and the value of lives oriented around service to one's family, and to God?

Oh, step up to the plate and just admit it: in Socialism, the state is God. At some point, however, even the biggest Einstein must tire of the failures of idolizing the state.

Eutopia. Eusocial. Europe. You go, dude. There.

Rule 5 Sunday

Yes, once again, it is time for our weekly celebration of that most beloved dictum of "How to Get a Million Hits On Your Blog," Rule 5!

Special thematic art is Bouguereau's "Nymphs and Satyr," because that one fleshy nymph at the right of this famous neoclassical painting kind of reminds me of BBW Meghan McCain.

Poor pitiful Meghan! She's struggled with body-image issues. Isn't that tragic? Don't you feel sorry for her? Because I know I spend all my time feeling sorry for the spoiled-brat children of wealthy and influential people.

Don't worry, Meg. It's all good. More to love, sugar. Somewhere out there is a guy just dying to meet a rich girl with low self-esteem and cellulite on her butt. So go ahead, eat another quart of Hagen-Daas and stop worrying about your body-image issues. It's all in your mind, Meghan. You're beautiful on the inside. And that's what really counts, right?

Now, on to happier topics:

• At his Point of a Gun blog, frequent commenter Dave C has a real beauty.
• At Sundries Shack, Jimmie Bise goes out of his way to give you Christina Hendricks on a flimsy pretext. Bonus points for difficulty, Jimmie.
• Moe Lane offers a Bollywood-style video of belly-dancer chicks shaking it for . . . an Israeli weapons manufacturer? It makes no sense at all, but it's worth a look.
• Cassie Fiano ponders research showing that, during economic recessions, men prefer more full-figured gals. (Hang in there, Meghan! And enjoy the Hagen-Daas.)
• Sunday is always "Patriotic Pinup" day at Pirate's Cove.
• If you haven't heard of Denyce Graves, then roll it back a couple months for a bit of Pundit & Pundette. They speculate that Denyce's sin of having performed at a Bush inauguration held her back. Many Other Mischievous Options Might Obtain. The video at the end of the post is well worth your time.
• The Elder of Ziyon, while by no means a dirty old man, does demonstrate a healthy appreciation for aesthetics here.
• It initially appeared that Pat in Shreveport had hacked Stacy's vacation photo album, but the security emergency turned out to be some "Matthew McConaughey" bloke. This is included to remind all of us guys to aspire to a physique as robust as Stacy's. To the gym with you!
• The Wyblog takes us away from Y chromosomes to our regular programming with some Salma Hayek appreciation. Is she as lovely as Friedrich's thought is powerful? Does that comparison even work?
• Late entry from Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room: "Top 10 Hottest College Basketball Cheerleaders." (Bonus points for the timely theme. How about next Sunday, "The Top 10 Irish Hotties"?)
• We also not some Shannen Doherty from the Troglopundit, who also raises the Laura Ingraham flag before going for a Michelle Malkin trifecta, and then falling just short. Rule 5 has a Photoshop Is ++Ungood clause. Our aesthetic sensibility hinges upon appreciation of the Creator's handiwork.

We'll update later as other bloggers post their Rule 5 contributions and e-mail the URLs to Smitty. In the meantime, here's something we have never done before. But don't worry: It's art. More by the great 19th-century neoclassical master, William Adolphe Bourguereau:

You can order prints of that painting from the Art Renewal Center, which has also recently published the Catalog Raisonne of Bouguereau's work, with more than 250 color images and including "information on all of William Bouguereau's 826 known paintings, as well as the entire 600 page biography written by Damien Bartoli, along with an introduction by Fred Ross, ARC Chairman and President of the Bouguereau Committee." Price $370. (Hey, rich people read blogs, too, right?)

Even if you're not rolling in cash, the Art Renewal Center site has lots of interesting stuff for free, including a whole section on the magnificent Bouguereau, a/k/a The Greatest Artist You've Probably Never Heard Of.

It's Sunday, and you probably need to be feeling guilty just about now, so here is Bouguereau's Flagellation of Christ: