The Other McCain

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

Dr. Wolf Thinks That Meghan McCain’s Malapropism Means She’s Clueless

Posted on | January 9, 2012 | 4 Comments

by Smitty

Maybe she should drink a little less Santeria while practicing sangria:
On the other hand, if President Obama listened to her sage advice, it might help that bad encomium that Bush left him and stuff.

via The Wolf Files

Category: Blogging

‘Gentleman’ Jim Moran: “Naaah, VA-8 Residents Don’t Need A Vote”

Posted on | January 9, 2012 | 12 Comments

by Smitty

The World's Youngest Blogger uses peas to offer a conceptual impression of Jim Moran's public statement on merging NOVA with DC.

Via Patrick Murray, we have this tidbit about ‘Gentleman’ Jim, always looking out for Virginianshimself:

Jim Moran said Northern Virginia was more reflective of the D.C. metro area than the rest of the state.
“We’d all be better off if they took the Virginia and Maryland suburbs and made them part of the district,” he said. “But that’s not going to happen, so we’re dependent on what happens in Richmond.”

So, thanks, Jim. In a twisted sense, Moran is arguably correct: VA-8 residents could be better off grouped in a place entirely without Congressional representation than with Moran providing serial embarrassment. The ironic historical angle on this is that Alexandria, Virginia actually was a part of the District until 1847.

I’ve got a splendid idea: let’s give Jim Moran to the District, and remove a sad little stain from the fabric of Virginia.

Patrick Murray for Congress

Previous/More Antics:

Category: Democrats, Jim Moran, Patrick Murray, Virginia, World's Youngest Blogger

LIVE AT FIVE – 01.09.12

Posted on | January 9, 2012 | 4 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Giffords Draws Cheers At Tucson Vigil

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and husband Mark Kelly

Leads mourners in Pledge at beginning of memorial

Rivals Turn Up Heat On Romney
Home field advantage enough to keep Mitt first in New Hampshire? Other candidates focusing their attacks on former Massachusetts governor

Malayan Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim Acquitted Of Sodomy Charges
Judge throws out government’s DNA evidence in surprising end to trial



POLITICS
Supreme Court To Hear Texas Redistricting Case

The Texas State Capitol in Austin

Did Federal judges go too far in drawing their own Congressional redistricting map after rejecting Texas’ plans?

2nd Division Soldiers On Lockdown At Ft. Lewis

Gingrich Catches Romney In Lie

Six Arrested In Weakly Attended Oakland Anti-Police March

Is South Carolina Perry’s Alamo?

Florida Lawmakers Open Session Facing $2 Billion Shortfall



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
At CES, Ultrabooks Take Aim At Apple
Earnings Growth Falters For S&P 500
Unemployment Scars Likely To Last For Years
European Stocks Climb Ahead Of Meeting
Asian Stocks Down As Debt Jitters Trump U.S. Jobs Data
Oil Hovers Below $102 Ahead Of European Meeting
The Critics Rave…For Microsoft?
Israel Vows To Retaliate After Citizens’ Credit Cards Hacked
Dodge Dart Joining Compact Car Race



SPORTS
Tebow Rules In OT, Too: Broncos 29, Steelers 33

Denver QB Tim Tebow celebrates after wild-card win

Tebow doesn’t just pull the trigger, he pulls upset with 80-yard TD pass in overtime

Falcons Flop Again In Playoffs (Video)

LSU-Bama Caps Crazy Weekend In Big Easy


Red Wings Win In OT; Blackhawks Lose 4th Straight

Full-Court Press: Thunder Become First To Win Three Games In Three Days

Peers Say Larkin Has Hall Of Fame Credentials

Akram Fears 0-4 Test For India Down Under



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Beyonce Gives Birth To Blue Ivy Carter At Lenox Hill Hospital

Beyonce at the Video Music Awards last year

Rents out fourth floor of hospital for private delivery

A Message From Hillary And Chris Tyrrell Of Lady Antebellum

Brad Pitt Injures His Knee

Dark Roles Leave Charlize Theron Feeling A Little Blue

Scarlett Johansson Puts Mom In “Out” House

Katy Perry’s Heart Is “Happy Again”


George Clooney To Direct, Star In “Monuments Men” About Stolen Nazi Art

Fox Says No “Glee” Spinoff

Stars Of “In Living Color” Then And Now



FOREIGNERS
Iran Begins Enriching Uranium At Underground Complex Near Qom
Ahamdinejad Woos Chavez-Led Allies On Latin American Tour
Arab League to Increase Syria Monitors
Aussie Woman Survives Terrifying Fall As Bungee Snaps
Nigeria On Strike Over Rising Fuel Costs
On Uneasy ANC Centenary, A Call For Cleansing
Millions Defy Terror Threat To March In Manila Religious Procession
U.S. Expels Venezuela’s Consul In Miami



BLOGS & STUFF
Gateway Pundit: ABC’s Stephanopoulos Big Loser At NH Debate
Verum Serum: White House Covered Up 2009 Halloween Bash Hosted By Tim Burton, Johnny Depp
Ed Driscoll: “Somebody’s Going Down Tonight, But It Ain’t Going To Be Jobs, Sweetheart” (Video)
Powerline: Meet The Stress
Weasel Zippers: Kiss Of Death – Pelosi Endorses Ron Paul
Just One Minute: NYT On Obama’s Recess Appointments – Republicans Made Him Do It
Jihad Watch: Iranian Cleric Calls Facebook “Un-Islamic”, Membership “A Sin”
Zilla Of The Resistance: Welcome To The First Annual Zilla Awards!


SOTD: Big Time

Category: Live at Five

Rule 5 Sunday: Oshiete Koi wa Happiness?

Posted on | January 8, 2012 | 9 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


This week the first blogger out of the inbox is The Rio Norte Line, who has a low opinion of Michael Bay but not Bay’s “friend” Lauren Stoner. Next up, the POH Diaries with Demi Moore, and Randy’s Roundtable with Mayra Suarez and Lindsay Ellingson. Laughing Conservative checks in with Aimee Teagarden and a video for a product that really sucks.


El Opinador Compulsivo returns with a tribute to one of Bob Dylan’s most famous songs, Cindy Crawford, Jolene Blalock , Sylvie Meis, Jessica Burciaga, and some random totty for your edification.


Fishersville Mike draws our attention to the People’s Choice, Kaley Cuoco, while the Eye of Polyphemus falls on Justin Buble’s missus, Luisana Lopilato. Reaganite Republican brings us curves of wonder from Down Under, while Three Beers Later brings us the Worst Audrey Hepburn Impersonation Ever. Me, I think I could live with it. Jake Finnegan’s Burkalesque Babe this week is Morgan Fairchild, daringly pictured with EXPOSED ANKLES. Dutsbury hits a triple this week with Danica McKellar, British MP Louise Mensch, and Paris Hilton not looking quite herself. That Mr. G. Guy has some adventures in Florida worth your time, while WyBlog finds some 5,000 year old Rule 5 goodness to celebrate Troglopundit’s 5,000th post.


Moving right along, Proof Positive has Claudia Bassols, Elsa Martinelli, the obligatory 49ers cheerleader, and a Sex In Advertising video.


A View From The Beach kicks off with Adriana Lima, Stephen Hawking on women (better than it sounds, trust me on this), Katy Perry video #1 and #2, Angelina Jolie Reproduced, and some pinups to commemorate the New Year.


Soylent Green also wishes us a happy new year in the appropriate manner, and brings Kymberly Herrin in as the Monday Motivationer. Then it’s back to work, but Titillation Tuesday brings Colleen Shannon, then Nelli Hunter for Hump Day, some corset dishevelment for Friday, something about the EU, and some Spassfabrik for the Orthodox Christmas last Friday. Now that’s what I call the ecumenical spirit!


The DaleyGator’s DaleyBabes this week begin with Megumi Ozawa, leading into Asian Babe Friday, and on to Nikita Esco, Holly Brisley, Rachel Bilson, Adree Desanti and Natalie Gulbis.


Thanks to all for your linkagery! Links for next week’s Rule 5 Sunday are due in to the Rule 5 Wombat mailbox by Saturday, January 14.

Category: Rule 5

‘I Knew Him, Horatio’

Posted on | January 8, 2012 | 11 Comments

HOLLIS, N.H.
Hamlet’s line about the late Yorick came to mind when I heard that former Washington Times editorial page editor Tony Blankley had died at age 63.

He was, among many other things, a splendid peacock in his wardrobe, giving no heed to those in Washington who suppose that influential men should limit their suits to dull grays and somber blues. I would often be out in front of the office having a cigarette break when Blankley arrived for work or returned from an event downtown, and we would sometimes have brief, lively discussions of policy or political issues.

Blankley became, for a few years, the most visible public face of the newspaper. When I would go to a conservative gathering and people would inquire where I worked, my reply that I worked at the Times would often elicit the response, “Oh, The Washington Times! I love Tony Blankley!”

He will be missed. R.I.P.

Category: Journalism

Yet Another Attempt At Postmodern Materialistic Reductionism

Posted on | January 8, 2012 | 28 Comments

by Smitty

That the scientific method is a great tool isn’t much in doubt. Where we run into challenge is when someone assumes the current scope of that tool’s descriptive power can encompass reality.
Jerry Coyne offers yet another purely materialistic, neurological argument for Free Will being something more of a Chemically Constrained Will, concluding, emphasis mine:

There’s not much downside to abandoning the notion of free will. It’s impossible, anyway, to act as though we don’t have it: you’ll pretend to choose your New Year’s resolutions, and the laws of physics will determine whether you keep them. And there are two upsides. The first is realizing the great wonder and mystery of our evolved brains, and contemplating the notion that things like consciousness, free choice, and even the idea of “me” are but convincing illusions fashioned by natural selection. Further, by losing free will we gain empathy, for we realize that in the end all of us, whether Bernie Madoffs or Nelson Mandelas, are victims of circumstance — of the genes we’re bequeathed and the environments we encounter. With that under our belts, we can go about building a kinder world.
Jerry A. Coyne is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at The University of Chicago. His latest book is Why Evolution is True, and his website is http://www.whyevolutionistrue.com.

I find the first bolded point laughable. If life is reduced to variations on the theme of the periodic table of elements, what is this ‘great wonder’ nonsense? In other words, if you have no soul, you have no context in which to evaluate ‘great wonder’, and should just await the drab dust of your existence to rejoin the rest of the dust.

The second point is also absurd. How, if we have reduced existence to pure materialism (i.e. atoms and neurons, not bling) do we feel anything like human empathy? Should not humanity also be reduced to 6 billion-plus relatively hairless monkeys, and we just set about reliving Quest for Fire? Why is that not the ‘logical’ conclusion of Coyne’s drivel, if, indeed, we are permitted logic still.

And finally, Coyne: your book and web site are a joke. When you have a re-produceable experiment going from the periodic table of elements to replicating life, the Theory of Evolution will be more than a plausible sounding bucket of silly putty. No, I’m not explicitly endorsing Intelligent Design or a 144-hour Creation roll-out here, either–frankly, I don’t care much about the unknowable origins of the universe.

What I do reject is these lousy Arguments From Authority from people who, when all the layers are removed from the onion, have nothing. Yet you insist on polluting our culture with your Postmodern drivel. Get bent.

via Eternity Matters

Category: Culture

Romney Displaying A Barackian Level Of Contempt For The American People

Posted on | January 8, 2012 | 21 Comments

by Smitty

“Pious Baloney”, indeed. Newt speaks truth to wax figure:Really, Mitt: if there’s one thing that the American people appreciate, it is candor. Barack did a fantastic job of feigning it it ’08. The respect for American authenticity allowed John McCain to drop his war record on a bus for a tour of America and take a hefty, if unsatisfactory, chunk of the vote. Joe the Plumber exposing Obama’s Marxist authenticity might have given us a solid political debate, if not for the mainstream media’s prodigious efforts to support a Commie. But enough dwelling in the past.

Your every measured utterance, Mitt, no matter how polished and focus-group approved, smacks of a guy so inauthentic as to not remember who he was, prior to mapping out the path to the Presidency. Got any hobbies, man? Anything purely creative, and unrelated to politics? Anything? Because your attempt at depicting a blow-dried Cincinnatus are precisely why you can’t push past 25%.

via American Power

Category: Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Republicans

You Say ‘Ignoring’, I Say ‘Fomenting’

Posted on | January 8, 2012 | 10 Comments

by Smitty

This was the reply of the evening:

Part of the awakening that must continue in the U.S. is the realization that anti-Christian bigotry is exceeded only by anti-Semitic bigotry (my opinion).

You can find a distinction, in that anti-Christian bigotry denigrates a religion, whereas anti-Semitic bigotry is more ethnic in nature. Whatever. My point is that the plurality of the country that lays some claim to Christianity needs to follow Newt’s example and calmly rebuke this idiocy wherever followers of the Progressive Faith put it forward.

Many of us still understand what the symbol ‘marriage’ means. We reject every aspect of the Postmodern, reprobate mind that seeks to make ‘marriage’ as perverse as they are. May God have mercy on the Progressives, and introduce them to wisdom.

via Legal Insurrection

Category: Culture
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