LIVE AT FIVE – 04.05.11

At first I thought Soylent Green had found some steampunk hotness, but then I realized I’d misread the post title (NSFW, as grease is not opaque). Later, he supplied an early Easter Egg Hunt as well.

Three Beers Later, not to be outdone, continued the March Sweater Puppy Madness in not one, but TWO posts, added some Juliana Moreira, and finally, pitted zombies vs. cheerleaders. Whew!

Mind Numbed Robot likewise kept up the March Madness, and was joined by WyBlog, who showcased the RPI cheerleaders.

Elsewhere, POH Diaries spotlighted Evan Rachel Wood and Courtney Cox (both NSFW), while A View from the Beach draws our attention to Asma al-Assad, wife of the Syrian dictator, and the Rio Norte Line offers a portfolio of sci-fi movie actresses (NSFW, maybe). Eye of Polyphemus seems to have his rules confused, but considering he submitted Sofia Vergara, a minor typo is understandable. Nation of Cowards celebrates National Cleavage Day most appropriately with a post on Keeley Hazell, while Maggie’s Notebook submits the slightly more demure (and definitely more musical) Julianne Hough.

The Camp Of The Saints slacks off a wee bit this week, delivering the usual excellent Rule 5 News but only supplementing it with a post apiece on Kate Winslet and Ruth Guerri.

The DaleyGator, on the other hand, kicked out the jams with no less than eight posts -though maybe we should deduct points for Kathy Griffin. Even coverage of the naked corruption in the Dominican Republic won’t suffice to make up for THAT. Still, the Sanaa Lathan slideshow is pretty impressive, to say nothing of Amy Adams, Mary Louise Parker, Vanessa Hudgens, Alicia Machado; and finally, an interesting mix of Marisol Nichols, Shania Twain, and some Asian gals. Yeah, I guess that makes up for the Kathy Griffin.

Dustbury draws our attention to one possible casualty of the AT&T/T-Mobile merger: T-Mobile spokesbabe Carly Foulkes, and panders shamelessly to my tastes by posting MOAR ZOOEY.

Finally, the Jerseynut makes me think better of Sarah Silverman by posting some Rule 5 of the foul-mouthed “comedienne”. She also appears to have her head on straight about anti-semitism, though that’s probably a better subject for another post.

Thanks to all for their Rule 5 links! Bloggers interested in being included in next week’s roundup should send those links to Rule 5 Wombat by midnight, Saturday April 9.

Category: Rule 5

Hey, Obama’s Running for Re-Election!

Posted on | April 4, 2011 | 15 Comments

I’m sure you’re shocked to learn that Barack Obama has decided he wants to be president another four years. What may be most shocking about it is this Obama campaign ad without Obama:

Ed Morrissey noticed the obvious problem:

The Obama 2012 team released its first web ad this morning, but other than a couple of long-distance clips, Obama himself is nowhere to be seen. Equally absent — any hint of issues or claims of accomplishments

The video gets more analysis from Michael Scherer of Time:

Look at the video’s opening montage: A corn-field, a small-town church, a row of middle class homes with the stars and stripes flying on the stoop. These are not the scenes of places where Obama will find most of his voters in 2012. . . .
Obama is telegraphing his target demographics. Just look at the people who speak: A Hispanic woman from Nevada, a white guy from North Carolina, a peach-faced college kid, a white woman from Colorado, a black woman from Michigan. Notice the emphasis on women, who fill in just about every b-roll shot from the video. . . .
The most interesting quote of the video comes from the southern white guy. “I don’t agree with Obama on everything. But I respect him and I trust him.”

The RNC has a video response:

Jerry Wilson explains the basic problem of Obama 2012:

Since as of yet my unicorn has yet to arrive, I’m assuming that Obama won’t be spending any great amount of time running on fulfilled promises from the 2008 campaign. Sarcasm aside, Obama’s greatest obstacle to re-election isn’t whoever ends up the GOP nominee. It’s his own record since taking office. More specifically, the lack thereof.

And hey, I’ve got your Obama re-election slogan:

FOUR MORE YEARS
Because He Hasn’t Totally Fucked Up Everything Yet

Category: Barack Obama, Election 2012

If Your Faith Is Feeling Deflated

Posted on | April 4, 2011 | 3 Comments

by Smitty

A lot of the budget news from places like CA, WI, IL, &c has been really bad of late. Texas offers a good palate cleanser, via the Tatler:

Tonight’s final vote on House Bill 1 tells us House leaders got the message taxpayers have been sending: live within our means! But taxpayers must remain vigilant; the session is far from over, and opportunities for taxing-and-spending mischief abound.

Certainly the budget passed out of the House isn’t perfect, and there are certainly opportunities for cost-savings still to be acted on.

With that said, the House kept spending under control by making tough choices using available dollars, and eschewing calls to tap the rainy day fund.

See, when elected officials retain some amount of respect for the voters, options other than non-sensical spending become possible. Truly amazing, respect: it’s like an abstract form of bacon.

Category: Uncategorized

Conor Friedersdorf: Now Turning the Atlantic into Media Matters Lite?

Posted on | April 4, 2011 | 21 Comments

When Andrew Sullivan jumped ship to The Daily Beast, Conor Friedersdorf stayed behind at the Atlantic, where today he devotes some 1,800 words to Why Rush Limbaugh Is Wrong About Libya. A few sample Conorisms:

His commentary has misled his audience, his prejudices have helped to distract the conservative movement from the stance it ought to be taking, and even his defenders will have a difficult time explaining away his latest buffoonery. . . .
Limbaugh is a man confident that his mistakes will drift off into the ether unnoticed. . . .
[T]he talk radio host isn’t guided in his commentary by any consistent principle, nor does he acknowledge obvious errors in analysis. Instead he blithely misinforms his audience about reality daily.

Well, Conor: Change the station, OK? Nobody is forcing you to listen to Limbaugh. Without attempting a detailed analysis of Rush Limbaugh’s various comments, I’ll say this: The greatest difficulty in criticizing Obama’s policy on Libya is in figuring out exactly what the policy is.

On the one hand, Obama tells us Qaddafi must go. On the other hand, Obama seems unwilling to commit sufficient military resources to drive Qaddafi out. So we are non-fighting a non-war under a U.N. “humanitarian” mandate, with the French leading a NATO coalition of air support for the half-assed Libyan rebels.

There’s something for everybody to hate: The neocon hawks think the policy is too weak. The constitutionalists are angry that Obama committed the U.S. to military action without even bothering to ask Congress. The peaceniks are angry that we’ve taken any military action at all. My main beef — borrowing an insight from Ace of Spades — is that America could “lose” a war we’re not even fighting.

In short, Obama’s policy is a huge joke, and trying to comment on it with a straight face is an enormous challenge. (Sully’s Libya headline today: “Stalemate Watch.”) If Limbaugh’s daily commentary on Libya has been somewhat contradictory — or perhaps just plain wrong at times — so what?

Like I said: If you don’t like it, change the station.

UPDATE: Via Twitter, Conor says: “‘Change the station’ could be a response to any criticism of any commentator.” Indeed, it could. But Rush Limbaugh built the world’s largest radio audience (think about that) as an independent syndicated host. He isn’t employed by a behemoth like NBC or the New York Times. There is no management who can fire him. His continued success depends solely upon his continued “Excellence in Broadcasting.”

An important point: I do not assume that the Limbaugh listener gets all his information from Limbaugh. If Limbaugh is wrong, therefore, his listeners are likely to figure that out for themselves. But Conor obviously thinks that Dittoheads are a bunch of morons who can’t think for themselves — “mind-numbed robots,” t0 borrow Rush’s phrase — and so frets about Limbaugh’s influence.

Linked by That Mr. G. Guy — thanks! — and welcome, Instapundit readers!

Category: Libya, Rush Limbaugh

T-Paw: It’s Going To Take A New Pres.

Posted on | April 4, 2011 | 13 Comments

by Smitty (h/t Tatler)

If the early returns on Althouse’s poll hold steady, people are ready to vote against The WhiOne. The contrast couldn’t be much more stark between BHO and T-Paw. Are we ready for somebody with competence, experience and human warmth, without so much egomania? I’m willing to say yes.

Tim Pawlenty 2012

(This time, I’m cereal)

Update: linked at The Camp of the Saints, with more T-Paw goodness.

Category: Ann Althouse, Barack Obama, Minnesota

Obama’s NCAA Bracket, Revisited

Posted on | April 4, 2011 | 3 Comments

Tonight, UConn meets the Cinderella boys of Butler in the NCAA basketball championship and, with the finalists set, I decided to take a look back at Obama’s brackets.

The first thing to note is how “safe” Obama played it: He picked all four No. 1 regional seeds to make it all the way to the Final Four. In fact, none of the top seeds made it to the Final Four, and Obama’s unwillingness to pick any of the No. 1’s to lose before the semi-finals cost him badly — beginning with No. 8 Butler’s defeat of top-ranked Pitt in their second-round Southeast regional game March 19. He lost a second of his Final Four picks on March 24, when No. 5 Arizona upset top-seeded Duke in a third-round West regional. The next day, March 25, No. 4 Kentucky knocked off No. 1 Ohio State in the third round of the East regionals, leaving Obama with just one remaining hope for the Final Four, Kansas, seeded No. 1 in the Southwest. Alas, the Jayhawks lost to Virginia Commonwealth in the quarterfinals.

Obama’s best region was the West, where he correctly picked the winner in every game in the first two rounds. But again, his success there was not because of any uncanny insight: He merely picked the higher-seeded team in every game, in a region where there were no upsets in the early rounds.

In other regions, Obama did accurately pick a few minor first-round upsets (e.g., No. 12 Richmond over No. 5 Vanderbilt, No. 11 Marquette over No. 6 Xavier), but he missed a bigger upset: No. 13 Morehead State over No. 4 Louisville.

Given the reliability of the Obama Jinx — which inevitably doomed whatever team the president supported in the NFL playoffs — I’m thinking this means that Butler (which Obama picked to lose in the second round) will triumph over Connecticut (which the prez picked to lose in the fourth round). Your mileage may vary.

Exit Question: Does the Obama Jinx apply to the Libyan rebels?

UPDATE: After the ugliest first half in living memory, Butler leads UConn 22-19. So the Obama Jinx appears to be working.

UPDATE II: Strong second half for UConn, which beats Butler and the Obama Jinx, 53-41.

Category: Barack Obama, Sports

Charlie Sheen Fails To Retain Stacy McCain As A Creative Consultant, With Predictable Results

Posted on | April 4, 2011 | 4 Comments

by Smitty

Lots of other blogs are reporting the disaster, but the title hit me when I saw Another Black Conservative. Emphasis mine:

One of the big underpinnings behind Sheen being entertaining is the fact that the man was having a meltdown. For whatever reason, we all love to watch those who reached the top have a spectacular crash to the bottom. Putting on a show and taking it on the road, isn’t exactly crashing to the bottom. To make matters worse, it appears Sheen just did not have enough material for a show.

Hopefully this bomb will speed the end of the Sheen fad.

Or will it? Will the failure to retain Stacy McCain, coupled with abject disaster onstage, compel the GOP to start running Sheen for the 2012 nomination? Let’s face it, kids: the incumbent is setting the bar somewhere around “dive” for November 2012. About the only strategy the GOP can pursue with any hope of scoring a suitable anti-victory is to tunnel under the bar and score a direct hit on the septic tank in the basement.
Sheen is a man who can do that.

Charlie Sheen 2012!

(says the GOP)

Category: Celebrities, GOP, R.S. McCain School of Journalism, Uncategorized

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The Other McCain

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

LIVE AT FIVE – 04.05.11

Rule 5 SundayMonday: Jesus Is The Answer

Hey, Obama’s Running for Re-Election!

If Your Faith Is Feeling Deflated

Conor Friedersdorf: Now Turning the Atlantic into Media Matters Lite?

T-Paw: It’s Going To Take A New Pres.

Tim Pawlenty 2012

Obama’s NCAA Bracket, Revisited

Charlie Sheen Fails To Retain Stacy McCain As A Creative Consultant, With Predictable Results

Charlie Sheen 2012!

THE FULL METAL JACKET REACH-AROUND AWARD

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!

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