The Other McCain

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

Yemen: This Is Not Good News

Posted on | March 28, 2011 | 5 Comments

Associated Press:

Islamic militants seized control of a weapons factory, a strategic mountain and a nearby town in the southern Yemen province of Abyan Sunday, said a witness and security officials, as a political stalemate in the capital causes security to unravel around the country.

Of course, if you are concerned by such developments, this is just proof that you’re an Islamaphobic bigot. You know, like Herman Cain.

Category: Yemen

Herman Cain Refuses to Be Intimidated by Political Correctness

Posted on | March 28, 2011 | 27 Comments

When Think Progress accuses him of “bigotry,” you know that’s got to help him in the GOP primaries:

There is this creeping attempt, there is this attempt to gradually ease Sharia law and the Muslim faith into our government. It does not belong in our government. This is what happened in Europe. And little by little, to try and be politically correct, they made this little change, they made this little change. And now they’ve got a social problem that they don’t know what to do with hardly.

A statement that has the virtue of being absolutely true. I’m sure Mark Steyn, Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, Melanie Phillips and many others who have written about the Islamicization of Europe will applaud Cain’s courage in describing the problem so forthrightly.

UPDATE: The Underground Conservative:

When we have a circuit judge in Florida announcing that he will rule on a case using sharia law rather than state law or the U.S. Constitution, we have a problem.

All the more reason to join the grassroots online army at Citizens for Cain.

Category: Election 2012, Herman Cain, Islam

LIVE AT FIVE – 03.28.11

Posted on | March 28, 2011 | Comments Off on LIVE AT FIVE – 03.28.11

TOP NEWS
Libyan Rebels Capture Key Oil Towns

Libyan rebels celebrate outside El Agheila

NATO air strikes pave the way for rebel advance

The Last Ba’ath Regime Under Siege
Syria protests continue despite Bashar Assad’s promise to repeal emergency law

Japan Says High Radiation Levels From Partial Meltdown After Quake
Fuel rods in Unit #2 apparently melted, released radiation into water

 
POLITICS
Groups Target State Immigration Bills

Protesters demonstrate against Arizona-style immigration bill in Georgia

NAACP, MALDEF, other groups practice domestic lawfare

Fresh Controversy In Wisconsin Union Bill Fight

Cuomo Announces Deal With Legislative Leaders On Budget
Fiscal Showdown Looms In Washington

Biden Aide Apologizes To Reporter Confined To Closet During Fundraiser

GOP’s Message In Dispute At Iowa Forum
THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Wal-mart Asks Supremes To Deny Class-Action Suit BY Female Workers
Asia Currencies Snap Two-Day Rise On Japan Radiation Risk
Caterpillar Urges Illinois To Roll Back Tax Increases
Firefox 4 Sets Unofficial Download Record
Nintendo Taking 3-D Gaming To Mass Market
Google Delays Honeycomb OS Delivery To Open Source
SPORTS
VCU Shocks #1 Seed Kansas, Earns Trip To Final Four

Juvonte Reddic and his fellow Rams celebrate their upset victory over the Kansas Jayhawks

Morris twin shoots off mouth and Rams show him what that hole is for, 71-61

Kentucky’s The Favorite To Win It All

Final Four Party Crashers Shake Up The Establishment

Bruins Clinch Playoff Spot With 2-1 Win Over Flyers

Harvick Edges Johnson With Last Turn Pass To Win At Fontana

Penguins Win Fourth Straight OT Game
FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Zack Snyder Casts Amy Adams As Lois Lane In “Superman” Reboot

Three-time Oscar nominee gets nod to play girl reporter

“For us it was a big thing and obviously a really important role. We did a lot of auditioning but we had this meeting with Amy Adams and after that I just felt she was perfect for it.”

Britney Hits The Stage In Vegas

Reese Witherspoon Marries For Second Time

DJ Megatron Shot In Staten Island; BET Star Pronounced Dead Sunday
Mariah Carey Home From Hospital After Early Contractions

Lindsay Lohan Could Dodge Probation Bullet

Rebecca Black Gets Career Boost From Ryan Seacrest

Mila Kunis Set For “Wizard Of Oz” Prequel

“Wimpy Kid” Tops Box Office With $24.4 Million; “Sucker Punch” Right Behind At $19 Million
FOREIGNERS
NATO Takes Complete Control Of Libya Operations
Strong Quake Prompts Tsunami Warning For Japan Disaster Zone
Regional Vote Slams Sarkozy; Socialists, National Front Gain
Zimbabwe Tensions Rise Before Regional Meeting
BLOGS & STUFF
Gateway Pundit: Smart Power – Clinton Says No Syrian Intervention Since Assad Is A Reformer
Protein Wisdom: MSM Reporter Confined To Closet; MSM Yawns
Tim Blair: Even Hamas Won An Election
iOwnTheWorld.com: Stink Progress Interviews Herman Cain
Power Line: The Calculus Of Consent

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Category: Live at Five

OK, Here’s an Article You Must Read

Posted on | March 27, 2011 | 8 Comments

Matthew Continetti of The Weekly Standard explains (a) who the Koch brothers actually are, and (b) why the Left is going so batshit crazy about the Koch brothers.

Go read the whole thing. Now.

It’s long, so it may help if you print it out, which is what I did.

Now go read the thing, like I said.

Category: Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy

Definition of ‘Misogynist’

Posted on | March 27, 2011 | 29 Comments

A guy who thinks feminists are funny when they’re angry.

And of course, they’re always angry, aren’t they? “Dilbert” cartoonist Scott Adams mocked them for fun:

This weekend the top twitter meme in the solar system, at least for a few hours, involved Feminist blogs calling me an ignorant, misogynist asshole.

Adams explains that what seemed to be an over-the-top putdown of women on his blog was, in fact, a satire of the thinking of the so-called “men’s rights movement.” What he accidentally proved — as if we needed more proof — is the well-known fact that feminists can’t take a joke. The joke they couldn’t take was this:

The reality is that women are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently. It’s just easier this way for everyone. You don’t argue with a four-year old about why he shouldn’t eat candy for dinner. You don’t punch a mentally handicapped guy even if he punches you first. And you don’t argue when a women tells you she’s only making 80 cents to your dollar. It’s the path of least resistance. You save your energy for more important battles.

This paragraph, as such, is offensive. But when you consider that it was part of a post in which Adams addressed himself to the “men’s rights movement” — making it clear that he has no interest in joining their disgruntled Beta-male drum-circle whinefest — perhaps you can begin to see that the joke is not actually at the expense of women. Read more

Category: Feminism, humor

Rule 5 Sunday – Under My Wheels

Posted on | March 27, 2011 | 14 Comments

Mr. G kicks off this week’s Rule 5 roundup with the obligatory sweater puppies, this time from Clemson, and follows it up with some from Duke. Also contributing to the collegiate enthusiasm is Mind Numbed Robot, with a fine assortment of da puppies, some of them actually in sweaters. Three Beers Later closes out the subject for this week with some Bruins cheerleaders of extraordinary fineness.

Fishersville Mike notes the arrival of the UFL in Virginia with a pic of the Destroyers’ dance team director, which is nice, but not really in the same league as this Juliana Moreira video linked by Three Beers Later.

Oddly, the POH Diaries and Maggie’s Notebook were the only folks who submitted some Liz Taylor Rule 5 this week. Maggie’s also favors us with a nice spread of Bond Girl Olga Kurilenko with some bonus beefcake for the ladies.

The ever-reliable Soylent Green serves up some NSFW Andi Muise For Alpha Proxima Day. And, of course, we have the obligatory (and, of course, NSFW) weekly underwear review.

Having decamped to Scotland, the Rio Norte Line sticks to his theme of babes from the UK with some Kelly Brook pix. Eye of Polyphemus, on the other hand, strengthens my interest in Sucker Punch with this Vanessa Hudgens pic. Continuing in this cinematic vein, Nation of Cowards presents a comparison of Adrienne Palicki in the new Wonder Woman costume with Lynda Carter in the old one, including a bonus assortment of Palicki photos.

Proof Positive contributes a tasteful examination of Sarah Chalke and Cathy Lee Crosby as Vintage Babe of the Week.

Dustbury observes Reese Witherspoon’s 35th birthday and also provides us with some Zooey Deschanel wallpaper from Your Highness.

The Jerseynut draws our attention to the brave and beautiful Pakistani actress Veena Malik, who ripped a mullah and his talk-show host enabler new ones this week. He also collects a nice assortment of Malik photos in this post.

The DaleyGator helps us finish strong this week with a slideshow of Siobhan Parekh, a bikini girls video, some Natasha Yi videos, and wraps up with some most impressive Rule 5 linkagery of his own.

The Camp of the Saints begins the endgame here with an excellent post on Marika Fruscio, with bonus quote from Camille Paglia! He then favors us with still pix of Juliana Moreira, a look back at Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman, Rule 5 linkagery starting with Eva Mendes, congratulations on ToM’s six millionth hit featuring Rule 5 Poster Gal Christina Hendricks, and finally, a restorative pair of Alyssa Milano pix.

Thanks to all for their contributions! Links for next Sunday’s Rule 5 collection should be sent to Rule 5 Wombat.

Category: Rule 5

Ace Miffed At Portman For Doing What She Does?

Posted on | March 27, 2011 | 6 Comments

by Smitty

I’m afraid I don’t grasp the nature of the criticism of Natalie Portman, whose Black Swan flick I still haven’t seen. Come to think of it, my only knowledge of the lady is that the Slashdot crowd fantasizes about her petrified, naked, and covered in hot grits.
So what if she was also acting at the time she accepted the award for Black Swan, and may or may not have personally performed some of the scenes herself. Doesn’t the Oscar performance itself become a meta-component of the movie?
In this classic scene, the immortal Bea Arthur explains to a Stand-up Philosopher (which calling informs thespians, bloggers and politicians alike) on the nature of the game in a tough economy:
If we want acting to conform to any sort of standard, we need to re-emphasize the stage tradition, and reward actual talent.
Portman may be the Hollyweird equivalent of AutoTune, but that is what we’ve sought.

Category: Ace of Spades, Celebrities

New York Times Sends an 11-Year-Old Girl to Interview the Jonas Brothers

Posted on | March 27, 2011 | 19 Comments

Or the equivalent thereof: Shridar Pappu’s profile feature on “Washington’s New Brat Pack” pulses with so much fanzine breathlessness you might think it was February 1964 and the Beatles had just landed in New York:

In only a few years, these young men and others like them have become part of the journalistic establishment in Washington. Once they lived in groups in squalid homes and stayed out late, reading comic books in between posts as more seasoned reporters slogged their way through traditional publications like “The Hill” and “Roll Call.” Now the members of this “Juicebox Mafia,” as they were first called by Eli Lake of The Washington Times, in a reference to youth, have become destination reading for — and respected by — the city’s power elite. . . .
On Friday evenings it’s not uncommon to spot them at rock places like Black Cat or the 9:30 Club, or . . . in grungy enclaves like the American Ice Company. . . .
But they’ve also rerouted the aspirations of young journalists here, for whom a job in print media was once the holy grail. . . .

Pappu’s wet-your-pants hyperventilating enthusiasm about The Next Big Thing(s) in Journalism is rather difficult to reconcile with the February Meme o’ the Month, The Death of Blogging.

Less than five weeks after we were told that the cool kids are doing that Twitter thing, we are now told that these particular 20-something blogger/journalists are Woodward, Bernstein and Justin Bieber all rolled into one gigantic influential wad of pure awesome.

Amanda Marcotte — whose “godbag christofascists” 15 minutes of fame as The Next Big Thing ended even before anybody ever heard of Rielle Hunter — is appropriately bitter:

Hey, NY Times, 2006 is calling.
They want their narrative back.

Ms. Marcotte notes that “all the members of this curious tribe of bloggers-turned-professional have penises. And they’re remarkably pale of skin tone.” But of course, beyond their white maleness, it is the fetishistic obsession with youth — What All the Cool Kids Are Reading! — which provides the justifying rationale for Pappu’s story.

Frances Martel of Mediaite sees the rise of the Juiceboxers as showing “just how quickly a young consumer of media can become a young producer of media on the web, and how those young producers of media can quickly find themselves shifting roles from proteges to role models.”

Which is to say, the cycle time between being this year’s New Pop Sensation and next year’s Golden Oldies Classic has been accelerated, if only because the MSM editors in charge of assigning these trendspotting pieces are (a) so completely clueless as to what the hell anyone actually wants to read about, and (b) increasingly desperate to attract the younger readers who their consultants tell them are the Key To The Future.

So some editor at the New York Times assigns an article on the Young Kids Who Write What the Young Kids Read and — just like last month’s “Blogs Are So 2003″ idiocy — we get a brief glimpse into the self-obsessive insecurities that rack the minds of the fools presiding over the Decline and Fall of the Sulzberger Empire. (Has Bill Keller resigned yet? Because I’ve got $20 that says he’s gone before May 1.)

What the MSM Emperors With No Clothes can’t grasp is that their obsession with youth — New! Improved! Kid-tastic! — is symptomatic of their fatal disease. Go down the list of the New Media carnivores feasting while the Old Media sinks into the tar pit, and it’s not a bunch of fresh-out-of-college punks:

  • The biggest thing in cable news? Fox, where the No. 1 primetime show is anchored by a 61-year-old guy who used to do Inside Edition.
  • The biggest thing on the Internet? The Drudge Report, run by a 44-year-old guy who got his media training from reading the morning papers while working the third shift at 7-Eleven.
  • The biggest thing on the radio? Rush Limbaugh, 60-year-old former p.r. guy for the Kansas City Royals.

We could run down the list much further than that, of course — e.g., 57-year-old Tina Brown recently hired 57-year-old Howard Kurtz at the Daily Beast — but the point is still the same: Whatever is killing the Old Media, it’s not because their New Media competitors are all Pretty Young Things providing readers with New! Improved! Kid-tastic! coverage.

The desperation with which the New York Times has recently flailed around in search of The Next Big Thing — “It’s Facebook!” No? “It’s Twitter!” No? “It’s Bloggers!” — betrays the encroaching sense among courtiers inside the castle that the king has lost control of the situation on the other side of the moat, where the peasants live.

And they are now haunted by an eerie sound: A distinct low rumbling noise, as if in the far distance there were many millions of boots treading steadily toward them, marching like an Army of Davids.

UPDATE: A belated hat-tip to Donald Douglas at American Power. Donald had Tweeted me the link to his post on Saturday, and I clicked through to the NYT article from there. But, by the time I sat down to write Sunday, I was just looking at the NYT article and had forgotten where I’d gotten it from.

Also: The dog ate my homework.

Category: Brian Beutler, Dave Weigel, Ezra Klein, How This Here Internet Thingy Works, Journalism, Matthew Yglesias, New York Times
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