The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

USA! USA! USA!

Posted on | July 30, 2012 | 16 Comments

U.S. water polo team members, including Melissa Seidemann (3rd from Left)

I am immune to “Olympic fever.” I covered the Atlanta Olympics in ’96 and, as far as I’m concerned, the whole thing is just a bunch of made-for-TV commercialized hype. However . . .

The United States defeated Hungary 14-13 today in women’s water polo. I happened to glance up at the TV as the victorious Americans climbed out of the pool and I was like: Whoa! Who’s that?

Advanced research skills soon yielded the answer: Melissa Seidemann, six feet tall, 22, a recent graduate of Stanford University, where she twice led the team in scoring. Readers may remember my complaints about the scrawny little girls of Olympic gymnastics.

No such complaints about Melissa Seidemann.

Having alerted my colleague Dan Collins, I declare women’s water polo the Official Olympic Sport for Guys Who Like Full-Grown Women.

Forget all that silly boohooing about Jordyn Wieber not making the gymnastics all-around finals. Big girls don’t cry, and our water polo ladies are going for the gold. Melissa Seidemann is on Twitter, where this is her profile avatar:

Yeah, I know what you guys are thinking: “Lucky dog.”

UPDATE: Bob Belvedere shares my newfound enthusiasm.

UPDATE II: A British columnist finds an honest photographer:

“It’s a three-letter word. It’s not complicated.” David Hoskinson, a photographer who has been covering Olympic events for 20 years, has firm opinions on why women’s beach volleyball is so popular with corporate sponsors. “You know this, you’re a bright girl,” he sniffs. “Sex sells.” . . .
“The appeal is obviously fabulous bodies,” says Hoskinson. “They’re all tall, they’re all athletic, they have hard bodies. Use your imagination.”

Of course, everybody knows this, but you’re not supposed to say it out loud.

Category: Rule 5, Sports

Rule 5 Monday

Posted on | July 30, 2012 | 11 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

For the benefit of those reading Rule 5 compilations for the first time, or who have forgotten since last time: some of the links below are most definitely Not Safe For Work and could contribute to the pollution of your precious bodily fluids.

EBL is back with a bang, or at least with Brigitte Bardot. Also, some Olympics Rule 5, more of the same, ditto, ditto. and one more for the obligatory five. Also also, a reader poll. Fishersville Mike also went with the Olympic theme, while IMNSHO decided to do a portfolio of Comic Con cosplayers instead. Reaganite Republican pays tribute to Megyn Kelly, Laughing Conservative has Peta Todd, and the Rio Norte Line spotlights Bollywood actress and (soon) Playboy Playmate Sherlyn Chopra. WyBlog offers some Tim Tebow for the ladies, and the First Street Journal’s Rule 5 this week: They Left The Makeup At Home. Then there’s Three Beers Later, which examines women with horses and Joan Jett.The POH Diaries, meanwhile, finds a pic of Katy Perry in what appears to be  normal bikini.Randy’s Roundtable takes a  midweek break with Maria Menounos and Anett Griffel, while Dustbury turns its attentions to Helen Mirren and Rachel Sweet.

El Opinador Compulsivo turns road warrior this week, but still delivers with Antonia Misura, Lady of the Lake, and Eye of the Tiger. Proof Positive has Amanda Seyfried, vintage babe Irish McCalla, and men coming out on top in the Sex In Advertising feature. At The Camp of the Saints, it’s Neha Dhupia, The Rule 5 News, Maribel Verdu, and Hot Rod Fashion For Ladies.

A View From The Beach has Mena Suvari, our Olympic swim team doing the “Call Me Maybe” lip-sync thing, some fishing with the wife, the obligatory cave girl post, tree-rats waging war on womens’ volleyball, the “Girl From Ipanema” turning 50, and raccoons raising the flag of war. This blog easily captures the flag for weirdest applications of Rule 5, bar none; please, dear linkers, do not consider this a challenge.

Soylent Green kicks of the week with Jessika as the Monday Motivationer, followed by Giorgia for Tuesday Titillation, Denise Milani’s Tits and Science, Scarlett for Humpday Hawt, a prediction of Olympic Gold, too many P-words surrounding pentathlon, Corsetcare: The Return, Evening Awesome Nakita and AM Awesome Nina.

The Daleygator’s Daley Babes this week were Eri Kamei, Tanisha Marshall, Yui Koike, Katie Holmes, Heather Rene Smith (leading us on a Rule 5 Tour), a salute to Pirates Cove with Bikini Blogging, Shiva Negar, Ashley Ann Vickers, and Ayaka Sayama.

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Links for next week’s Rule 5 Sunday, which may actually get done on Sunday for once, are due to the Rule 5 Wombat mailbox by Saturday, August 4.

Category: Rule 5

Is Anyone Surprised by This News?

Posted on | July 30, 2012 | 17 Comments

Neutral objective journalist George Stephanopoulos must be shocked:

A deputy press secretary for Barack Obama’s reelection campaign married an ABC reporter over the weekend. The ABC reporter, Matthew Jaffe, “covering the 2012 presidential campaign,” according to his biography on the website of ABC News. “For the past year he traveled around the country covering the Republican primary, from the Iowa Straw Poll to the various debates to this year’s primaries and caucuses.”
The deputy press secretary Jaffe married is Katie Hogan. Many members of Obama’s reelection team and the press celebrated the wedding together Saturday.

Really, can anyone tell where the Obama campaign ends and the mainstream media begins? Is there even a line left to blur? Andrew Breitbart called it the “Democrat-Media Complex.” He was right. And when Bernie Goldberg called it A Slobbering Love Affair, it was more than a mere figure of speech.

 

Category: Uncategorized

Memo From the National Affairs Desk: Ninety-Nine Days Until November 6

Posted on | July 30, 2012 | 19 Comments

The Republican National Convention begins Aug. 27, which is now just four weeks away. More importantly, we are now inside the final 100-day window of the 2012 presidential campaign. This is as good time as any to ask, “Where does the race stand?”

Today on Morning Joe — I watch MSNBC so you don’t have to — Chuck Todd got under my skin by asserting that Mitt Romney “lost” June and July by failing to establish his narrative or something. This assertion struck me as preposterous, so I checked the Real Clear Politics average of national polls to examine the trend:

On Feb. 18, while Romney was in the midst of the toughest part of the GOP primary fight, Obama stretched out to his biggest lead of the year, 6.1 points (49.3% to 43.2%). Obama continued to lead Romney by a sizeable margin through the spring campaign: 5.2 points (49.5-44.3) on March 7,  and 5.3 points (48.5-43.2) on April 10, the day Rick Santorum quit the race, effectively ceding the nomination to Romney.

In the aftermath of Santorum’s exit, as might be expected, the race quickly tightened, as GOP-leaning voters rallied to Romney. By May 8, the race was nearly tied: Obama 46.2, Romney 46.0.

Since May, the RCP margin has widened slightly: Obama is at 46.6 and Romney is at 45.0. That’s mainly because the Obama campaign unloaded tens of millions of dollars of negative ads against Romney, an early spending spree that has caused Democrats concern because (a) it is so clearly unsustainable and (b) June FEC numbers showed Romney and the GOP are now strongly out-fundraising Obama and the Democrats.

Thus, the minor gain for Obama in the past two months — moving the RCP average a net 1.4 points in his favor — was a good news/bad news scenario for him: Yes, the barrage of ads raised Romney’s negatives, rallied Democrats and established the predicate for future attacks. However, this success came at a steep cost, and a price that Obama simply can’t afford to keep paying. When the stretch run begins after Labor Day, Obama won’t be able to outspend Romney, certainly not at the 2-to-1 pace of June. Furthermore, once you start digging down in the internals of polls, you see that Obama’s attacks didn’t do much to move independent voters, who still have very negative views about Obama’s handling of the economy — the No. 1 issue, and one that seems to be going from bad to worse for the incumbent.

Everybody understands the basic strategies of each side: Republicans want the election to be a referendum on Obama’s first term, while Democrats want to make the election a choice between the incumbent and the (demonized) Romney.

This referendum-or-choice battle to shape the narrative is really what the 2012 campaign comes down to. So who is winning that battle?

Forget Romney for a minute and look at the president’s numbers in the RCP average: He has steadily drifted downward from nearly 50 percent in February-March to below 47 percent now. These are perilous numbers for an incumbent because (as everybody knows) late-deciding voters tend to break toward the challenger. Having checked the numbers, I sent a few Twitter messages to Chuck Todd:


Now, let me make clear: I like Chuck Todd. He is a solid political reporter and less biased toward Democrats than many other major-media journalists. But to say Romney “lost” June and July? Sorry, Chuck: Doing stenography for David Axelrod isn’t reporting.

The latest Gallup tracking poll has the race a tie, and the latest Rasmussen tracking poll has Romney up by 3 points. If Romney keeps “losing” at this rate, he’ll “lose” all the way to the White House.

UPDATE: Here’s Scott Rasmussen in his latest weekly column:

Regardless of what the economists say, most Americans believe we are in a recession and have been for more than four years. Despite that dismal starting point, just 40 percent think things will get better in five years.
This suggests that underlying perceptions of the economy have taken a darker turn. Back in 2009, most Americans thought the country was experiencing a normal business-cycle recession. It was harsher than most but expected to be a short-term matter. Throughout 2009, a plurality of Americans thought the economy would be better within a year.
Now, a plurality believes it will get worse over the next year, and many Americans are wondering if our nation will ever make it back. Only 14 percent now believe today’s children will be better off than their parents. That’s an all-time low.

Hope of a recovery under Obama is fading. All Romney needs to do is convince voters he would not be worse than Obama, and Mitt wins.

UPDATE II: OK, let’s suppose Chuck Todd wants to shrug off Rasmussen’s analysis. How about Jeff Jones of Gallup?

Creating good jobs, reducing corruption in the federal government, and reducing the federal budget deficit score highest when Americans rate 12 issues as priorities for the next president to address. Americans assign much less importance to increasing taxes on wealthy Americans and dealing with environmental concerns.

Issues that favor Republicans easily outrank issues that favor Democrats. You cannot look at numbers like that and say Romney is losing.

 





 

 

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Category: Barack Obama, Election 2012, Mitt Romney, Polls

‘Knock Three Times On The Ceiling If You Want Woobie. . .’

Posted on | July 30, 2012 | 18 Comments

by Smitty

‘. . .twice on the pipe, if the answer is bloh-owe.’

Mental Recession points to the story of the day, the new Richard Miniter book article in the DC Caller (Google malware alert?) about Verlerie Jarrett canceling the bin Laden raid in an elaborate Tony Orlando and Dawn reference that seems to be escaping a lot of folks.

Not to go too far on a limb defending #OccupyResoluteDesk, but the DC Caller mentions that:

Miniter, a two-time New York Times best-selling author, cites an unnamed source with Joint Special Operations Command who had direct knowledge of the operation and its planning.

Military guys talk a lot of trash (e.g. this post title). Authors like a juicy tidbit to sell books. Maybe it went down like that; maybe it didn’t. Perhaps if the finger pointer was willing to go on record by name, and not point a fickle finger via an author, I might ascribe more weight to it.

Category: Barack Obama

LIVE AT FIVE: 07.30.12

Posted on | July 30, 2012 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
UN Says 200,000 Have Fled Battle In Aleppo

Rebels still in control of Syria's second-largest city?

Outgunned rebels fighting an effective guerrilla war in the streets against loyalists

Romney Raises Campaign Cash In Israel
Notes that Israel’s per capita GDP is eight times that of the Palestinians

Bill Clinton To Take Center Stage At Democratic Convention
No solo speech for Joe Biden



POLITICS
Have Race Relations Improved Under Obama?

Post-racial President?

Poll says people don’t think so. Next question?

Joe Biden Fires Up AFT Conference In Detroit

Governor Patrick To Sign Tribal Casino Compact

Dick Cheney Thinks Palin Veep Pick By McCain Was A Mistake

Massive, Growing Debt Looms Over U.S. Politics

Labor Hopes To Pass Michigan Constitutional Amendment Barring “Right To Work” Laws

GOP Senate Race In Texas Goes Down To The Wire



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
U.S. Oil May Break $100 As Stimulus Drums Beat Louder: NYMEX $90.39, Brent $106.43
European Stocks Rise On Stimulus Hopes
GM Sacks Global Marketing Chief Over Man U Deal
Japan’s Industrial Output Falls As ROK Confidence Sinks
India’s Northern Grid Fails, Eight States Blacked Out
Microsoft Debuts Mice, Keyboards For Windows 8
Alleged iPhone 5 Built From Leaked Parts
Surface To Arrive With Windows 8 On 10/26
Two ROKs Arrested For Data Theft From 8.7 Million Cellphone Customers
New Apple Ads Make Mac Users Look Inept, Foolish
Did “Tony Hawk’s HD” Set The Stage For A Franchise Revival?



SPORTS
Bobby V’s Ejection Sparks Sox Rally

Boston Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine

BoSox manager ejected after prolonged rant at home plate umpire; Sox go on to beat Yankees 3-2

Jimmie Johnson Flawless At Brickyard

Dodgers Complete Sweep Of Giants, 4-0

Greinke Takes Loss In First Start With Angels As Rays Win 2-0

Entire Rockies Defense Has Brain Fart

Reds Post 10th Straight Win

Antron Brown Wins Top Fuel Final In Sonoma

A Bunch Of Stuff Happened At The Olympics, I Guess

Offense Comes Through For Nats In 11th, Capping Wild 11-10 Tilt With Brewers



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Katie & Suri Feed Giraffes At Bronx Zoo

Katie Holmes smiling after dinner date with lawyer

Saturday at the park with Suri

More Than You Ever Wanted To Read About The Kristen Stewart “Cheating Scandal”

Mark-Paul Gosselaar Is Married!

Evelyn Lozada – Stuck With Ochocinco

Brooke Mueller Thanks Charlie Sheen For New Boyfriend

“Modern Family” Cast Reaches Deal To End Salary Standoff

Katy Perry & John Mayer Hooking Up

Dane Cook Apologizes For Massacre Joke



FOREIGNERS
Chinese “Patriotic” Education Draws Protests In Hong Kong
Bolivia Polls Natives On Jungle Highway
Poll: Majority Of Germans Want Greece Out Of The Euro
Dozens Die As Fire Engulfs Overnight Train In India
Romania’s President Survives Impeachment Vote
Norks: We’re Not Changing!
Syrian FM Arrives In Iran As Fighting Continues In Aleppo
Pussy Riot Members Go On Trial In Moscow
UN Rights Envoy Probes Ethnic Clash In Burma
Nork Floods Kill 88, Leave Thousands Homeless



BLOGS & STUFF
Valley Of The Shadow: Governor Romney Does A Mitzvah While The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg Goes Meshuga
WyBlog: The Doctor Won’t See You Now
Gateway Pundit: Israelis Give Romney Standing O As He Announces “It Is Deeply Moving To Be In Jerusalem, The Capitol Of Israel”
Da Tech Guy: Demoralized As Hell, Israel/Wimp Edition
JustOneMinute: What’s Up, Doc?
Lonely Conservative: Wait, Who’s The Wimp In This Election?
Legal Insurrection: Upset Brewing In Texas? PPP Poll Shows Cruz Up Big
NRO Corner: Cruz Has Double-Digit Lead
Conservatives4Palin: Are Dick Cheney And The GOP Establishment Really Interested In Getting Rid Of Obama? Also, Liz Cheney Disagrees With Dad On Palin
Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner: Politicizing The Voting Rights Act Dims Its Luster
AmSpecBlog: Weekend Political Wrapup

Category: Live at Five

Why Is Fauquier County, Virginia, Waging War Against Small Farmers?

Posted on | July 29, 2012 | 30 Comments

Zoning is the closest thing to fascism most Americans will ever know, and it’s remarkable how local governments use zoning laws to limit the rights of the little guy while rewarding the wealthy and well-connected. Big developers who know how to work the system can almost always get whatever they want from zoning boards, while the small property owner is at the mercy of politicians and bureaucrats.

Property rights of small farmers are under assault in Fauquier County, Virginia, where a local farmer has fallen afoul of the Zoning Fascists:

Located on a 70-acre farm near the village of Paris, Virginia, about 50 miles west of Washington, D.C., the Piedmont Agriculture Academy LLC (PAA) has quickly become a fixture in the local community. PAA functions as both an animal-rescue farm and a place where people can buy the many products originating on the property. Some 168 animals have found shelter on the farm, including alpacas, llamas, emus, a miniature horse, and a vast assortment of chickens, goats, ducks, sheep, turkeys, and cows. Dozens of the well-maintained animals are sheered every year, and their fiber is hand-washed and sold as yarn, socks, scarves, gloves, and nest builders. This year, the farmers who founded PAA have planted nearly 2000 tomato plants and 1000 eggplants on the property and have set up an apiary for producing honey.
A tastefully renovated barn serves as the farm’s on-site store, where vegetables, eggs, fresh and dried herbs, honeybee products, soaps, and handspun fibers from the livestock – all produced on the property – are sold to eager customers.
But if the Fauquier County Department of Community Development (DCD) has its way, the farm may soon have to cease operating. In June, the Piedmont Agriculture Academy was served with a “Notice of Zoning Violation” from the DCD.

Basically, Martha Boneta’s attempt to run a small business on her property has been outlawed by a new ordinance that retroactively restricts land use under the business license she received last year.

There is a hearing on the case this Thursday in Warrenton, and the Northern Virginia Tea Party is calling on its members to turn out in force:

1 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 2
10 Hotel Street, Warrenton VA 20187

For more information, contact Rick Buchanan of the Fauquier County Tea Party: [email protected].

Category: Virginia

World’s Youngest Blogger: Feel The Cute

Posted on | July 29, 2012 | 15 Comments

Category: World's Youngest Blogger
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