The Other McCain

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

LIVE AT FIVE – 04.16.12

Posted on | April 16, 2012 | 4 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Kabul Siege Ends After Afghan Army Storms Tower Block

Afghan soldiers wipe out last of jihadi attackers

Construction site battle ends weekend attack on embassies

Mitt Romney Outraises Obama In Michigan
Also, President’s lead in polls shrinking


Midwest’s Midnight Tornado Kills 5
Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin: Remarkable more weren’t killed



POLITICS
TurboTax Timmy: Romney’s Statements On Women “Misleading And Ridiculous”

Tax evader Timothy Geithner, currently Treasury Secretary

Romney “right but meaningless” on womens’ job numbers, claims deadbeat

TSA Tests New Check-in System

Obama’s “Buffett Rule” Impact On Taxes & Jobs

Four Congressional Hearings Scheduled This Week On GSA Scandals

NC Dems’ Executive Director Resigns, Denies Sexual Harassment Charges

NY Congressman Ed Towns Reverses Himself, Decides To Retire

Not Dead Yet – Tea Party Activists Still Working At Grassroots



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Brent Falls Below $120 On PRC Data, Euro Worries
NYMEX Crude Falls To $102 After Iran Nuke Talks
Asian Shares Drop; Spain Woes Overshadow PRC Yuan Move
Euro Drops Below $1.30 As Spain Worries Mount
Last Minute Tax Tips For Those Waiting Until April 17
KPN Weighs Strategic Options For Belgian Mobile Phone Biz
Web Freedom Faces Greatest Threat Ever, Says Google’s Brin
No Summer Of Love For Gasoline Prices
Oracle v. Google: What’s At Stake
FCC Fines Google Over Street View
Roku Launches In Canada
Netflix CEO Hits Comcast On Net Neutrality, Data Caps
Facebook Acquires Team Behind Customer-Loyalty App Tagtile
One In Five American Adults Doesn’t Use The Internet



SPORTS
A Bloody Good Win For Flyers

The Pens' Sidney Crosby shoves his glove in the face of Flyer Brayden Schenn during yesterday's third-period brawl

Flyers up 3-0 on Penguins after fight-filled 8-4 win; is a sweep imminent?

MLB Players All Wear #42 In Salute To Jackie Robinson

Kobe Who? Lakers Beat Mavs 112-108 In OT For Season Sweep

Anthony Has Big Day, Knicks Burned By Heat Anyway

Feds Bulk Up To Retry Clemens On Perjury Charges

Quick Shines As Kings Push Canucks To Brink

Reds Avoid Sweep, Beat Nationals 8-5 In 11th



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Lady Antebellum’s Dave Haywood Gets Hitched

Dave Haywood and Kelli Cashiola

Last single member of country band ties the knot

Jason Segel Explains Why He’s Not Writing “The Muppets” Sequel

Dame Maggie Poised To End Acid Reign At Downton Abbey After Third Season

Mitt Romney Offered SNL Hosting Spot?

Coma Vigil For Bee Gees’ Robin Gibb

Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis Dating



Amanda Bynes Still Partying, Refuses To Go To Rehab

Courtney Love Apologizes To Daughter Frances Bean

Ben Affleck, Justin Timberlake To Star In “Runner, Runner”

Ryan O’Neal Diagnosed With Prostate Cancer



FOREIGNERS
Lord Ahmed Suspended By Labour Party After Offering $16 Million Bounty On Obama, W
Norway Killer Breivik Refuses To Recognize Court
100th Anniversary Of Titanic’s Sinking Commemorated With Prayers, Wreaths, Songs
Afghan Interior Minister: Pak-Based Haqqani Network Behind Weekend Attacks
UN Truce Monitors Arrive In Syria As Shelling Continues
Israel Moves To Thwart Pro-Palestinian “Flytilla”; 45 Held At Ben-Gurion Airport For Deportation
Twist And Shout, Kim Style
Regional Summit’s Future In Doubt Without Cuba
PRC State Media: Purge Of Bo Xilai “Great Fortune” For China



BLOGS & STUFF
American Power: Kim Novak Says She’s Bipolar; Branded As Difficult
An Ex-Con’s View: On The Duplicitous Nature Of Islam
Israel Matzav: Moment Of Truth Is Near?
Power Line: Bill Maher, The Gift That Keeps On Giving
Don Surber: It’s Not The Hookers, It’s The Secret Service
Gateway Pundit: Obama’s Real Agenda In Colombia? Scouting Out Future Vacation Spots
Clayton Cramer: I’m Sure He’s Trying To Be Cute
Belmont Club: Burdened By Success
Jammie Wearing Fools: Tax Cheat Timmy Attacks Romney
Don Sensing: The Downside Of Cohabitation
NewsBusters: SNL Writer Claims Hannity “Dumbest Person Ever Paid To Speak On Television
Weasel Zippers: Dick Cheney Says Obama “An Unmitigated Disaster” For America
Charles Stross: What Amazon’s EBook Strategy Means

Category: Live at Five

First in War, First in Peace, First on the List of Britain’s All-Time Enemies

Posted on | April 15, 2012 | 22 Comments

The Brits acknowledge George Washington’s greatness:

Our nation’s first president, who led the 13 colonies in the Revolution against England’s tyrannical rule, was picked by a wide margin in a National Army Museum in London poll as the greatest foe ever faced by Britain.
Washington delivered one of “the most jarring defeat(s)” ever inflicted upon the British Empire at the time, said author and historian Stephen Brumwell, according to London’s Telegraph.
“He was a worthy opponent,” he said.
Washington was selected among five other finalists, who were picked during an online poll that received at least 8,000 votes. The four other potential British foils were Ireland’s Michael Collins, France’s Napoleon Bonaparte, Germany’s Erwin Rommel, and Turkey’s Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Each commander had to actually lead an army in the field of battle against British troops — excluding political enemies such as Adolf Hitler — and had to have faced England during the 17th century or later, according to the National Army Museum.

So that leaves out William the Conqueror and William Wallace, as well as Aulus Plautius, Vespasian, Suetonius, Tacitus, and other Romans.

(Hat-tip: Amanda Read on Twitter.)

Category: Great Britain, History

#ObamaBookTitles

Posted on | April 15, 2012 | 11 Comments

by Smitty

Twitchy was so gracious as to pick up a few dozen great riffs, including some of my snarky-snark.

As you might expect, it puts the ‘B’ in brutal. The Left has completely abandoned trying to get a word in edgewise. Mostly because they have precious little to say. Can Twitter help restore serious government to the United States? If these riff-fests have any impact, the answer may be yes.

Click the tweet to see my full snarky input .

Category: Barack Obama

Warning: No Betas Need Apply

Posted on | April 15, 2012 | 20 Comments

At CPAC 2012, Gabby and Christine were digging the manly men.

Is Gabby Hoffman the world’s hottest young blogger, or what? Her essay on manliness was not only linked here, but was also linked in the AOSHQ Overnight Thread and even got the coveted Instalanche.

Bloggers young and old must envy such precocious success. How many college students — Gabby is a senior at UC-San Diego — have ever gotten that kind of traffic? Some bloggers may say to themselves, “Well, of course — she’s a blonde. Everybody knows blondes get more traffic. Just look at Ann Althouse, for crying out loud.”

Au contraire, my friends! Because if you’ll take another look at that photo, you may notice Gabby’s brunette colleague Christine Rousselle. They’re both contributors to The College Conservative and, believe it or not, Gabby’s recent success pales by comparison to the viral sensation Christine created with her column last year:

A Scarborough native whose column about the welfare abuses she says she witnessed as a cashier at Walmart said she’s received five marriage proposals since the piece went viral online. And she has a follow-up column in the works to respond to those who didn’t like her original post.
Christine Rousselle, a 2009 Scarborough High School graduate and a current junior at Providence College in Rhode Island, wrote about her experiences working as a teenager at the Scarborough Walmart in a column that was published Tuesday on the website The College Conservative.
She wrote about customers at the store using government subsidies to buy toys, candy and jewelry, as well as a hot dog stand operator who she says supplied his business using food stamps.
The column has skyrocketed past 400,000 views since it was posted early Tuesday morning and began to get passed around by readers using social networking websites.
Rousselle told the Bangor Daily News Thursday afternoon most of the response has been positive.
“I’ve actually gotten five marriage proposals from this,” Rousselle, 20, said. “Or at least five. I haven’t checked the comments yet today. I’m floored by all of this.”

Who says blondes get more traffic, huh? Read Christine’s column here. You can follow her on Twitter and also follow her friend Gabby on Twitter. As for marriage proposals, my advice would be:

  1. Be a manly man; and
  2. Cut to the chase.

Some guys try to do that wimpy passive-aggressive thing, trying to conceal the seriousness of their interest by pretending they aren’t really filled with overwhelming desire for the woman of their dreams. This never works. Chicks spot that kind of phony “kinda maybe interested” game for what it is: Cowardice, concealing a fear of rejection.

If you’re going to make a move, make it, and don’t try to hide your interest. If she turns you down, so what? There are three billion women on this planet, and if this particular chick doesn’t appreciate your superior qualities, that leaves 2,999,999,999 other possibilites.

No need to play silly games like a schoolboy. Be up-front about it, and have the confidence to display a sense of humor about the ultimate absurdity of our civilized mating rituals. If it were up to your inner savage, the transaction would be simple: “Me, Tarzan. You, Jane.” Society might require you to be less direct about your purposes, but if a chick really digs you, there’s no need to waste much time finding out for sure.

You can ask Mrs. Other McCain about this: I was no rookie rider in the Rodeo of Love, and as soon as I laid eyes on her, my intentions were obvious. I was Pepe Le Pew  and she was that pretty black cat with the white stripe accidentally painted on her back.

Twenty-four years and six children later . . .

Honesty is the best policy, and it’s also a great time-saver. If you’re instantly smitten with a girl — if you’ve got that feeling she might just be The One — there’s no point wasting time with a bunch of rigamarole: Make your move, and if she shoots you down, move on. No hard feelings on your part. You’ve got two tickets to Paradise, and if she doesn’t want to take the ride, some other girl is going to get lucky.

Smart girls dig manly men, and vice-versa.

Blonde, brunette or redhead? A matter of taste. But manly men are not afraid to admit it: We dig a chick with a big brain.

Also, it helps if she makes good biscuits.

One final word to you manly young fellows throbbing with desire for these ladies: Don’t forget to wear your fedora.

UPDATE: Nothing is more predictable: Gabby thought the photo originally posted — the one I took at CPAC — was not entirely flattering, so she asked me to substitute a photo (taken by John Hawkins) she liked better. In all my years of taking photos, I’ve never had a guy say to me, “Oh, don’t post that one — I look hideous!”

UPDATE II: Christine got covered with hate by the feminist blog Jezebel. A woman denounced by feminists? Now that’s sexy!

If she ever gets her own Media Matters file, she’ll be so irresistible, she’ll need bodyguards.

Update (Smitty): welcome, Instapundit readers!

Category: Blogging

Clarifying Friday’s Trayvon Martin Post

Posted on | April 15, 2012 | 22 Comments

by Smitty

On Friday I posted, pertinent to the charging instrument in the case of George Zimmerman “If The Strategy Was Always Propaganda, Why Is A Charging Instrument That Sounds Like The Squawk Of A Sexually Aroused Gas Mask A Surprise?”
Once again, this time with emphasis:

Law is based upon reason, and a reasonable person sees through the farce at work, as the truly sad death of a little boy is molded, claylike, into something completely different. The judge is going to apply reason, and reject this, and the Left is going to cry foul. And there will be an appeal. And it will fail upward, rolling up to the SCOTUS, if possible.

Referring to a teenager as a ‘little boy’ is a bit off, I admit. A bit more editing would have substituted ‘young man’. But the point here is that there are two threads afoot:

  1. the sad demise of Trayvon Martin, whom George Martin killed, and
  2. the disgusting, propaganda-driven spectacle to which I was reacting in the post.

Blind to point #2, the concern trolls come out:

Zimmerman isn’t charged with “raaaaacism” and he isn’t charged with Crimes Against Obama. He’s charged with second degree murder because he shot and killed somebody. As it turns out, Bill Ayers isn’t the governor of Florida and Saul Alinsky isn’t the prosecutor—Florida’s Republican Governor, Rick Scott appointed Angela Corey to investigate the case.
From the available evidence, the conservative movement these days is little more than a tribe and the important issue in any public dispute is who is Us and who is Them. Smitty and his fellow rightwingers seem to have decided that George Zimmerman is one of Us.

The question thus moves to whether Clark Stooksbury is oblivious to the Orwellian assault on Western Civilization being undertaken by the Progressives. Or maybe the President’s personal involvement, “If I’d had a son. . .”, and the presence of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, to the detriment of justice for the case, is just beanbag. Also, I have yet to hear anybody attempt to claim that GZ is one of ‘us’. Though perhaps a trip through the belly of the Progressive Cthulhu will help clarify matters.

Thanks, Clark, for the prompt to clarify a post which, admittedly, could have been stronger the first go-round.

Update: via Fishersville Mike, here are myths surrounding the case.

Category: Florida, Racism

Turbo-Tax Tim Does 3 Sunday Shows UPDATE: Geithner Praises Obama’s ‘Incredibly Effective’ Economic Policies

Posted on | April 15, 2012 | 17 Comments

The Treasury Secretary is ubiquitous on Tax Day:

  • ABC This Week: Timothy Geithner.
  • NBC Meet the Press: Timothy Geithner; Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.; Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.
  • CBS Face the Nation: Timothy Geithner; Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
  • CNN State of the Union: Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee; Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash.
  • Fox News Sunday: Ed Gillespie, adviser to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney; David Axelrod, adviser to President Obama’s re-election campaign.

UPDATE: Kool-Aid? Anybody want some Kool-Aid?

President Obama’s economic policies “were incredibly effective,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Sunday, crediting the president with having prevented a depression.
While admitting it is “still a very tough economy out there,” Geithner said the administration is “making a lot of progress” and said “the broad indicators are pretty encouraging.”
Interviewed on ABC’s This Week, Geithner was asked by host George Stephanopoulos about the gloomy forecasts from economists such as New York University professor Nouriel Roubini, who called the current recovery “anemic, subpar, below trend, below potential.”
Geithner suggested Obama could not be blamed for that, saying “if he’d had more support from his opponents in Congress, then we could have got more things passed that would have put more people back to work more quickly.” . . .

Read the whole thing at The American Spectator, which I hope citizen-journalists will study as a lesson in Neutral Objective Journalism. One of the basic jobs of a D.C. political reporter is the Sunday show round-up: What did the “newsmakers” (government officials, party leaders, candidates, etc.) say on the Sunday shows?

If you can do nothing else from the comfort of home, you can always report What People Say on TV. The key to doing that effectively, however, is to write it as straight news: “Joe Friday, Just-the-Facts-Ma’am” is a style that anyone can learn by study and practice. Repress your bloggerly temptation to snark it up, resist any urge you might have toward sensationalism, and just tell it straight. Identify the key quotes and facts and assemble them into the kind of basic reporting that wire services do.

When doing a Sunday show roundup, you generally want to work pretty quick: If your version isn’t online by noon or 1 p.m. Eastern, you might as well not bother. But on other occasions and with other kinds of What People Say on TV stories, you may have time — if you think nobody else saw the significance of the interview, news story or C-SPAN segment you saw — to fill in the background from other sources.

Some may ask, “Where’s the value-added? Anybody can see what people say on TV. Why should I do my own version of the story? Why not just link the Associated Press or Politico story and add my own caustic ideological sarcasm?” I reply that the way other sources assemble the quotes and facts — the way they do Neutral Objective Journalism — inevitably introduces a certain angle or bias to the story.

You will discover, if you try your hand at writing the What People Say on TV story, that there is no such thing as neutrality, no matter how straightforward and factual your account may be. Other than transcripts, every news story on a subject of political controversy (and what Tim Geithner said Sunday was obviously such a case) includes elements of selection and emphasis that amount to a slant. Read more

Category: ABC, Barack Obama, CBS, Economics, Election 2012, Mitt Romney, Neutral Objective Journalism, R.S. McCain School of Journalism, Timothy Geithner

FMJRA 2.0: Social Meltdown

Posted on | April 15, 2012 | 5 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

A million thanks to Smitty for picking up the slack last week while I was being scourged by the Swedish Death Flu I acquired in Minnesota while visiting my son and 4,998 other anime fans…

SANTORUM DROPS OUT

Ashley Judd, Victim of the War on Women

Feminism, Careerism, Lesbianism

Use ‘Derbyshire’ as a Verb

Profiles in Narcissism: Charles Johnson Blinded by His Own Self-Righteousness

They Told Me If I Voted For McCain, ‘White Folks’ Would ‘Keep’ Charter Schools For Themselves!

Does The ‘NBC Editor’ Really Exist?

Rich Lowry’s Editorial Impotence?

FMJRA 2.0: Some Other Time

The Con Science Of A Liberal

Predictable: Gingrich Admits He Owes More Than $4 Million Campaign Debt

Rule 5 Sunday: Lobo Town

North Dakota GOP Screws Over Santorum

LIVE AT FIVE – 04.09.12

The Science Is Settled!

This Would Only Matter If It Was, Say, A Ron Paul Campaign Office

In Case You Haven’t Noticed Yet, Everybody Recently Went Crazy

LIVE AT FIVE – 04.10.12

Do We Now Know Why Media Matters Dumped M.J. Rosenberg?

Derbyshire, Goldstein and Lowry

Dean Clancy At FreedomWorks Didn’t Get The Memo

Most Evil Human Being In Known Universe Speaks, Sounds Semi-Sensible

‘Most Beautiful Woman in Canada’ Is …

Our Double-Secret Strategy To Ensure GOP Triumph

LIVE AT FIVE – 04.11.12

Memo From the National Affairs Desk: Foreboding Gloom Pervades Vanuatu

Let’s Try To Help Hah-vuhd Further Beclown Itself

LIVE AT FIVE – 04.12.12

The Fox Factor: Newt, Sarah, Mitt, Rick, Bias and ‘The Mother of All Spin-Jobs’

Maslow And The Conversation On Race

No, Whoopi, Rosen Said Precisely What She Was To Say

LIVE AT FIVE – 04.13.12

GOOD NEWS!

Lena Dunham, Sandra Fluke, Joy McCann

Warning: Brain-Bleach Shortage!

Helping Instapundit See The Sense In What We’re Doing Right Now

Top linkers this week:

  1. The Guy Who Named The Blogosphere (14)
  2. The Lonely Conservative (8)
  3. Don Surber (7)
  4. (tied) The Camp Of The Saints and DaleyGator (6)

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Deadline for next week’s FMJRA will be Friday, April 20.

Category: FMJRA Award

Another Starlet in ‘Downward Spiral’

Posted on | April 15, 2012 | 12 Comments

The former star of All That and The Amanda Show is alleged to be the latest victim of Britney/Lindsay Syndrome:

Amanda Bynes isn’t letting her recent DUI arrest slow her down. The former Nickelodeon star hit both the Chateau Marmont and the hip nightclub Greystone Manor Thursday night, despite pleadings from some around her to go into rehab.
“Amanda has been in a downward spiral for the last six months. Even though her dad publicly said she doesn’t drink, he knows she has a problem. It’s truly sad to witness. Amanda has been told she must go to rehab, but she is refusing,” a source close to Bynes tells RadarOnline.com exclusively.

She sidewiped a cop car at 3 a.m., which is pretty bad, but does every 20-something who gets a DUI have to go to rehab? Or does this rule only apply to Hollywood starlets?

Amanda’s larger problem is that her career is in the tank: She hasn’t been in a movie since the 2010 teen comedy Easy A and, at 26, she’s past the age to be playing schoolgirls, but still too young to be writing feminist rants about being objectified by the effin’ patriarchy.

Category: Celebrities
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