LATimes Blogs Top of the Ticket:

So, is California’s brittle Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer about to become the next Harry Reid? Which is to say, embattled at home.

As [Senate Maj. Leader Harry] Reid worked the wallets of San Francisco on Presidents’ Day to raise money for his endangered seat in Nevada, some stunning new Rasmussen Reports poll out today makes a compelling point:

For the second straight month the three-term senator is unable to break the 50% mark against any potential Republican opponents, the historical measuring mark of vulnerability for an incumbent nine months before an election.

For a Democrat in a Democrat state that gave Barack Obama 61% of its votes in 2008 (and still likes him more than many other places) to be mired in the mid-40’s is a sign of real trouble. This is especially so given the fact that disgruntled voters gave Democrats control of the House, Senate and White House in 2008…

Abboutfuckingoddamntime.

I don’t know which is worse: The votes that seem to be cast according to the absolute direct opposite of my own likings, as if the Senator was spying on me to find out what would tick me off the most; the non-responsiveness from her office, “replying” to my messages with more democrat party talking point boilerplate crap; or the twice-monthly embarrassment from when she says something truly, truly asinine and brings discredit on any & all who might possibly be associated with her. It’s that crazy-cat-lady smell. Just has a way of rubbing off on you after awhile.

Prelutsky nailed it.

Frankly, I don’t know what it is about California, but we seem to have a strange urge to elect really obnoxious women to high office. I’m not bragging, you understand, but no other state, including Maine, even comes close. When it comes to sending left-wing dingbats to Washington, we’re number one. There’s no getting around the fact that the last time anyone saw the likes of Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi, they were stirring a cauldron when the curtain went up on ‘Macbeth’. The three of them are like jackasses who happen to possess the gift of speech. You don’t know if you should condemn them for their stupidity or simply marvel at their ability to form words.

Few things in the news make me happier than dead terrorists. Crispy ones are best, with looks of real horror and agony frozen forever on their dead crispy faces.

Hat tip to Viral Footage, via Linkiest.

Kevin at The Smallest Minority is apparently on a mission to find the perfect statement of what the tea parties are all about.

We applaud the effort, and will do whatever we can to highlight the (many) successes.

Quote of the Day – American Dream Edition

Their (Tea Party supporter) values are pretty much mine. I live in a town in North Alabama where there are plenty of blacks driving Mercedes and living in big houses. Only in America can someone come from a little island and live the dream. I’ve liked it, and that’s what I want for my children. [But] I saw the window closing for my own kids.

— Les Phillip, candidate for Alabama’s fifth congressional district challenging Republican incumbent Parker Griffith, as reported in Glenn Reynolds’ WSJ piece, What I Saw at the Tea Party Convention

“I saw the window closing for my own kids.” Ab-so-freakin’-lutely perfect. Just change that verb to present tense.

Kevin offered us some linkage to humble ol’ us, when we clued him in on Phil’s post. Kevin said much the same thing in a few more words, and seemed to feel Phil’s polished prose put him to shame.

I’m not sure I agree with that. They’re all good words, proud words, nevermind how many of them there are. I’m sure there were some drafts of the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, that were shorter than the final version, but some of the subsequent polishings embiggened the product a little. Shorter isn’t always better.

“Seeing the window closing on my own kids,” however…that is a brilliant summation. That expresses a noble human struggle, one of the oldest ones. It is a primal urge. And a sacred human right. To make things better, or at least try to make things better, for your children.

And this effort is confined to no color, gender or sexual preference.

The Other McCain says ugly women do not have a right to a pretty woman’s job.

Attention, Ugly Women: You Do Not Have the Right to a Job as a Stripper

You might not need to be told this. Obviously, being a stripper is one of those jobs — like NASCAR driver — where good looks are very important. Most ugly women understand this concept, and therefore seek careers as tenured university professors, a field where looks are inconsequential. However, vocational guidance counselors forgot to explain this to Rianne Theriault-Odom:

VAN NUYS – A Tarzana woman was found guilty Thursday of dousing an exotic dancer and single mother with gasoline and setting her on fire last year outside the Tarzana bikini bar Babes N’ Beer.

Rianne Theriault-Odom, 28, who had been rejected as a dancer at the club, faces mandatory life sentences for the guilty verdicts of one count each of aggravated mayhem and torture. The Los Angeles Superior Court jury acquitted her of a third count, attempted murder and the lesser charge of attempted voluntary manslaughter…

During the trial, witnesses said that Theriault-Odom, who had been rejected for a job at Babes N’ Beer, had feuded with Busby and felt disrespected by her.

Theriault-Odom testified that “I felt offended – I felt she was trying to punk me. I had to stand up for myself. That’s the way it is on the streets.”

The victim, Roberta Dos Santos Busby is – or at least prior to this crime was – an attractive woman. Theriault-Odom is ugly. And therefore, when Theriault-Odom didn’t get a stripper job, she blamed Busby.

That may not make sense to you, but I’m sure Robert Reich or Paul Krugman could explain it. As every liberal knows, poor people are poor because rich people have all the money.

Theriault-Odom was just applying Liberal Logic^TM to her own situation: Ugly women are ugly because beautiful women are monopolizing all the good looks.

There is legal precedent for Theriault-Odom’s belief. About 30 years ago, during the Carter administration, feminists noticed that airline flight attendants — who were called “stewardesses” back then – tended to be young, attractive and cheerful.

This was clearly unfair, so there was a federal civil-rights lawsuit and now all U.S. airline flight attendants are either ill-tempered, middle-aged, homely women or snarky unhelpful gay men.

However, during the Reagan years, Ed Meese put a stop to such shenanigans before the courts could apply that social-justice principle to the strip-club industry, which is why most strippers don’t look like Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg or Andrew Sullivan.

Yet.

God help us if the Rianne Theriault-Odoms of the world unite for a class-action lawsuit now. There can be no doubt which side of that issue Sonia Sotomayor would be on.

I’m just sayin’…

Blame the liberals? Rightly so, I say.

It’s supposed to be all about making sure everyone’s treated right. It ends up being about forming a criticism-proof umbrella weatherproofed with the epoxy of irrational populism, extending it over all kinds and types of violations of genuine God-given human rights…like not being burned alive, as one of the basics…and then deliberating to see what atrocities could & should be hauled under that umbrella.

There’s a scene in Atlas Shrugged in which Henry Rearden acts as his own defense at trial, and completely stymies the judges as well as the system itself — simply by cornering them and making them admit to what they are doing, rather than conveniently pretending to be doing something else. It may be a little bit of a stretch, but I think that fits this. The trial is not about all of mankind being treated equitably and each individual enjoying an avenue of redress of grievances. It cannot be about a civilized society, and what it takes to make one go. It must, of necessity, disintegrate into a deliberation about the conditions under which we do not want a civilized society anymore. About when and if barbaric behavior becomes okay.

Because of a person’s feeeeeeeelings.

I’m sure the jury will be availed of all the expert testimony from mental health professionals about what might have temporarily legitimized this brutal assault. These days, that is just a given. I would hope they also hear from some burn victims, and their doctors. I hope the jury is told about how incredibly agonizing it must be to have burning gasoline sizzling away against your skin, destroying it layer by layer. I hope they hear from some victims who were conscious during their injuries, trying to put the fire out, and failing to. Ever see gasoline burn?

Hang the bitch. Yeah, I mean it. She doesn’t possess sufficient recognition of the implied social code that exists among us, to co-exist safely with others. That’s my litmus test. Scaffold in the town square, re-create that scene from the pilot episode of Deadwood, and when it’s over you can line up to congratulate me on my incredible left-wing liberal compassion. Because a middle-of-the-road solution, in my book, is she goes out by the same means she deployed to deal with others.

Hey, that’s not right wing crazy talk. That’s ultra-lib anarchist cartoon guy Ted Rall!

Every time it counts, Obama doesn’t have a clue. Consider, for example, the $700 billion TARP bailout.

The CEOs of Bank of America, Citibank, AIG, Goldman Sachs and several other giant corporations came to the Administration early in their term, wailing that (a) they would go out of business unless the feds bailed them out and (b) they would take a chunk of the economy with them, what with them being “too big to fail” and all.

Put yourself in Obama’s position. I would have replied Tony Soprano-style: “OK, fellows, I’ll help you out. I’ll save your stupid asses. In return, the Treasury will take your next 10 years of profits. Your shareholders get squat. No bonuses. Your execs stay until we say they can quit, for $50,000 a year. If they don’t like it, we prosecute them for fraud or unpaid parking tickets or terrorism, whatever, we’ll come up with something. If you don’t pay a decent return, we nationalize you.”

“After all, if you’re too big to fail, maybe you need to become part of the government.”

Obama held all the cards. But he was stupid. And he was corrupt. But more stupid than corrupt. And so, after AIG and Goldman used taxpayer bailout funds to redecorate their offices and pay extravagant bonuses to the corporate turds who ruined their companies in the first place, Obama was surprised. How could he be dismayed at “reports of massive profits and obscene bonuses at some of the very firms who owe their continued existence to the American people”? He let them get away with it.

You can hardly blame greedheads for taking money when you give it to them, no strings attached. But that’s what he’s doing…

Hat tip to fellow Right Wing News contributor William Teach.

Cincinnati.com:

Don’t call her the Crazy Cat Lady.

Tonya Parrish is a victim of domestic abuse. She has the cats – lots of them – to prove it.

The animals were unwanted gifts from her husband, Ed Mitcheff. He took in strays and never let them go.

Parrish met Mitcheff online. The self-proclaimed preacher from Chicago is a poster child for avoiding Internet romance.

“Ed put me through four years of hell,” Parrish said. He kicked her. He threatened to kill her. He spied on her phone calls. He alienated her from family and friends. He brought hoards of cats into her home and her life.

Now, he’s gone. Mitcheff died from a drug overdose July 4. Seven months after his death, however, Parrish must clean up the mess caused by a house-full of cats.

How many cats? Dozens and dozens. There were so many, in fact, public health officials lost track when they tried to count them.

“I’m so embarrassed by this,” said the 43-year-old graphic artist whose favorite subjects to paint – in a style where cubism meets cave painting – are horses, not cats. “I’m so ashamed.”

Parrish stood on her front porch. Behind her, six cats perched on her living room’s windowsill. Their eyes peered through the picture window as their tails slowly waved like fury, headless cobras.
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It was feline-based psychological abuse.

“He used those cats as a weapon,” said Kendall Fisher, executive director of Women Helping Women, an oasis for abuse victims. “He used them to control, to isolate her. Isolation is one form of abuse.”

Probably a good time to load this clip up one more time. Just, y’know, to see if it has the same punch that it had eight months ago.

Punch a robot, in the face…

Related: Gerard says the former Governor of Alaska has set the catchphrase of the decade: “How’s That Hope and Change Workin’ Out?”

For when your fragile male ego cannot handle admitting that some repair job is too much for you to handle. It’s Capable Woman!

Wonder if she can manage to fly out to 1600 Pennsylvania sometime…say, at 3 in the morning? When the phone’s ringing?

Bloomberg:

“Washington doesn’t get it.”

That generic statement is tripping off the tongues of populists and Tea Partiers, business groups and bankers alike. In short, the public is peeved at the politicians.

I heard it this week from William Dunkelberg, chief economist of the National Federation of Independent Business, who used his group’s latest survey to opine on Washington’s deaf ear for helping small business.

The president and Congress “pay lip service to the fact that small business generates half of private-sector GDP and employs 60 percent or more of private-sector workers,” Dunkelberg says. As far as Washington’s efforts to help this sector of the economy, “instead of stimulus, give consumers a tax cut,” he says.

If Obama was a conciliatory force ushering us into a post-partisan age of beltway harmony, He’d do the one smart thing that might possibly appeal to everyone: Push a genuine tax cut and call it a stimulus.

Die-hard liberals would come out of the woodwork to give form and voice to Item #7 on the list of things that give clueless idiot dipshits away,

Speaking of a tax cut as something that “costs” money.

…with their theatrical outrage that President Obama is “spending” this money on a tax cut, like some kind of a Republian. And Obama would say to them “yes, I’m spending money, it’s My new stimulus plan. For far too long we have thought of stimulus as something that has to go through Washington, and now we must reject the false choice…” and sprinkle all kinds of other Obama Speech Bingo tidbits in there.

The point is, it would help us and it would help Him.

But He won’t do it. Apparently, we cannot become this Utopia in which everyone is equal, until we have a relatively small crowd of people pulling the strings on the daily miseries and fortunes of a much larger crowd of people. And so the money has to flow in one direction, and then — based on certain conditions — maybe flow back again. Once you elect democrats, it’s got to work that way. A non-negotiable item.

It starts out as one military WAG critiquing the actions of another…one who figured out the chosen life was not for her, and then wrote those two most deplorable things, a Dear John letter and a kiss-and-tell.

Meet Courtney Cook, an extraordinarily shallow and callous woman.

I can chart the entire history of my first marriage along the lines of U.S. military engagements. I fell in love with my ex-husband in no small part because he was a soldier. He was a Dartmouth senior on a ROTC scholarship, and his heroes were George Patton and Ulysses S. Grant. He could use words like “valor” and “courage” without irony. I liked the way he carried himself — taller it seemed, and with honor.

So they fell in love, got pregnant, and then got married. Her then-husband was activated due to Operation Desert Shield. Long story short, she ended up not having a clue what she was getting into and wanted to leave her husband because she couldn’t handle the separation.

Now, I know firsthand how difficult a relationship in the military is. I don’t begrudge someone who acknowledges that they can’t handle it. It takes a special kind of person to be able to endure this lifestyle. Camp Lejeune is full of women who make it through with grace, dignity, and class — and women who just couldn’t do it. There’s no shame in admitting that you just can’t handle it…

We’re going to take this bit by bit, because the entire article is long and doesn’t need to be excerpted. So with that, away we go…

As Cassy points out, it is a tough, tough life. And I’m really in no position to comment on it from any angle. BUT — Ms. Cook’s epistle seems to nudge up against the line, and maybe cross it, that forms the perimeter around guidance for the unproductive, narcissistic and self-absorbed to get all their things at the expense of those who are equipped with, and ultimately burdened by, the sense of dedication and duty that they themselves lack.

And I do have some experience with that part of it. As is to be expected from anyone who was fleeced in this manner, through his own sense of obligation and decency, I find the word “deplorable” fails to condemn it with a sufficient level of severity. No adjective does.

It’s sad, because there are many people out there who hold the same contempt for the military in their hearts. These men and women put their lives on the line, and yet they unfortunately are treated so low by so many. And only on a liberal website like Salon would this be featured.

This article is despicable because it’s really a how-to manual of how to ruin a soldier’s life, not just how to leave him. But for someone so self-absorbed, what does it really matter if she leaves a soldier’s heart shattered in her selfish, cowardly wake?

In the military and outside of it, I’m afraid we’ve entered an era in which, if a man is married, he really can’t make sure he’s sufficiently intact to attend to his day-to-day commitments as a professional and as a father until & unless he has some say about who is wife is allowed to talk to, and what she reads. That seems pretty harsh — but come on. Articles in Salon about how to leave your husband with a minimum of fuss and bother? Let him, and the kids, just pick up the pieces? Not How to get out of an abusive relationship. Not How to find a place to stay. Not How to get a good lawyer to make sure you don’t get screwed. But instead…How to sucker everyone else into doing all the hard stuff so you don’t have to. Including the kids.

This is why we have the “Family” item in My 42 Definitions of a Strong Society, because of brittle bitches like this:

26. Family first. Nobody who lives in a household ever tolerates disparaging comments about anybody else who lives in that household.

If a fella has a best-bud who thinks divorce is cool…then, once he’s a husband, he has an obligation not to talk to that guy anymore. Yeah, I mean it, and the same goes for the ladies. Once you’re married there’s no room for you to be sticking your nose into articles “guiding” you on how to go through an easy divorce. That’s just sick. Unless you absolutely, positively need that kind of help because things have deteriorated past some point of no return.

But, of course, these articles and books and podcasts and what-not have not been confining themselves to that turf, have they. Not by a long shot. Since that first wave of coffee-table feminist books clear back in the 1960’s, there has been a distinct flavoring of “any divorce that might possibly happen, we want it to happen” about them.

We cannot pass laws against this, I don’t think. We need a firm stigma against it. And we need it stat. Offering up quick and easy step-by-step instructions, for the Self-Entitlement 301.81 crowd to meet all their goals at the expense of everyone else, needs to be about as approved as offering step-by-step instructions for a thirteen-year-old to build a nuclear bomb in his bedroom.

Or putting a white hood over your head and burning a cross.

We need to trample this right down into the dirt. We’ve tolerated it for too long.

AOL Weird News:

All babies are beautiful, except maybe this one. Thank goodness this is not a living infant. It’s a silicon and fiberglass sculpture by Australian artist Ron Mueck. It went on display at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, on Jan. 31. This work is called “A Girl.”

More on Mr. Mueck here.

Selected works

* Dead Dad (1996–97), silicone, acrylic paint and human hair – a 2/3rds life-size sculpture of Mueck’s father lying on his back, naked – Saatchi Collection
* Pinocchio (1996), mixed media – standing boy, perhaps 5 years of age, wearing only underpants. Saatchi Collection
* Angel (1997), mixed media – a 1/3 scale boy seated on a tall stool, in a brooding pose looking down, sprouting wings made of real goose feathers – Saatchi Collection
* Ghost (1998), mixed media – 2 metres tall (3/2 scale?) adolescent girl, in swimming costume, leaning against a wall, face averted – Tate Gallery
* Boy (2000), fibreglass, resin, silicone – a 5 metre tall sculpture of a boy, crouching. First shown in the UK Millennium Dome exhibition. It is now owned by the art museum ARoS in the city of Aarhus, Denmark, who use it as a trademark piece.
* Man in Blankets (2000), mixed media – 1/2 scale – elderly naked man almost completely enveloped in blankets, which form a kind of cocoon.

Yeah…just let your mind wander, see if you can fill in those visual details.

And it features two case studies, of public figures who frequently make speeches and rely on written memory assists when they do so. Two of them…just guess who they are.

An inconvenient truth.

During an interview on MSNBC Thursday morning, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs defended the Obama administration’s handling of Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Gibbs argued that the administration was right to treat Abdulmutallab as a criminal defendant, instead of as an enemy combatant. “Just because you make somebody an enemy combatant [it] doesn’t make them talk,” Gibbs argued. He then pointed to an example from the Bush years to supposedly support his point.

“Jose Padilla was made an enemy combatant so that we could get him to talk,” Gibbs said. “And guess what happened when we made him an enemy combatant, he didn’t talk. He did talk when he was transferred back into a civilian court.”

President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, made the same point on Tuesday in an op-ed for USA Today. Brennan argued: “Terrorists such as Jose Padilla and Saleh al-Mari did not cooperate when transferred to military custody, which can harden one’s determination to resist cooperation.”

Brennan and Gibbs are wrong. In fact, Jose Padilla only started cooperating once he was transferred into the military’s custody and interrogated.
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On June 1, 2004, the Defense Department released a memo summarizing what was known about Padilla both before and after he was transferred into the military’s custody. The second page of the memo contains two paragraphs concerning what authorities had learned about Padilla up until June 9, 2002, the day he was transferred into the military’s custody. As the aforementioned press accounts make clear, authorities had garnered no information from Padilla himself. The DoD cited “intelligence information” and “our information” but no admissions by Padilla. Nearly all of the information on Padilla up until that point came from other al Qaeda detainees and sources.

The memo then reads: “Since that time [June 9, 2002], additional and more detailed intelligence information about Jose Padilla has been developed and made available in unclassified form.”

That additional information includes several pages of unclassified intelligence, including a number of admissions by Padilla, which were corroborated by other detainees.
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Here we reach the critical distinction between collecting evidence for a prosecution and collecting intelligence for fighting a war. We know that Padilla was here in May 2002 to carry out al Qaeda’s bidding. Padilla and multiple other al Qaeda detainees have confirmed Padilla’s role. But while Padilla was in the FBI’s custody for one month, we did not learn anything at all about Padilla’s plotting from the terrorist himself. Authorities did not complete the puzzle until he was interrogated in the military’s custody.

But by all means, keep on chattering away about people writing things on their hands. That’s what really matters, right?

Thomas Sowell is quoted in The Smallest Minority, hat tip once again to Gerard. Now there’s a triumvirate of terrifical-ness…you already know this is going to be good.

Peter Robinson: If you had a sentence or two to say to the Cabinet assembled around President Obama, and this cabinet holds glittering degrees from one impressive institution after another, if you could beseech them to conduct themselves in one particular way between now and the time they leave office, what would you say?

Thomas Sowell: Actually, I would say only one word: Goodbye. Because I know there’s no point talking to them.

Schwing!

Thing I Know #183. When an education has given you the ability to dismiss ideas more quickly, it’s not really an education.

Thing I Know #263. The one thing that’s wrong with higher education that nobody ever seems to want to discuss, is that it is valued through something called “prestige.” Get this prestigious diploma. Get that prestigious degree. Attend a prestigious university. My alma mater is more prestigious than yours. Trouble is that genuine learning has very, very little to do with prestige. It is, arguably, the exact opposite.

So there’s this poll out now that tells us a certain unelected, unappointed private American citizen is suffering from a dwindling approval rating, and it’s also telling us that the “tea party” movement is on a similar downslide popularity-wise.

The new poll shows Republicans divided about the tea party movement, which threatens to cause a rift in the lead-up to November’s midterm elections. Two-thirds of those calling themselves “strong Republicans” view the movement favorably, compared with 33 percent among “not very strong Republicans.”

Overall opinion is about evenly split, with 35 percent of all Americans holding favorable views of the movement and 40 percent unfavorable ones. A quarter expressed no opinion. Nearly six in 10 Democrats have unfavorable views, while independents are split, 39 percent positive and 40 percent negative.

One thing that might be fair to notice about the tea party movement, but somehow didn’t make it into the official analysis: If you took a poll among those who identify with it, however many or few they may be, about whether they’re happy with the direction the government is taking lately — the results of that poll would be more-or-less on par with the country as a whole. That may not be good news for President Obama, but it would cut to the heart of the matter of whether the movement speaks with legitimacy on behalf of a meaningful cross-section of the country.

Is that the relevant question?

Well, our Vice-President certainly seems to think it is, and I agree with him about that.

Be that as it may, it seems to me with all these desperate sound bites flying around about the tea-party movement, sound bites clearly meant to dissuade us from lending any support to it, real or perceived — there is slippage taking place with the comprehension of what exactly it is. It is not a “revolution,” per se. If it were that, it might be a legitimate exercise to take a poll and see what it’s favorability ratings are, rather than a stunningly useless waste of energy, time and ink. It would be a good point to say, Look at this! Back here 55% supported it, and now 37% support it. The revolution’s running out of steam! Back to the drawing board, you revolutionaries!

Well here’s a news flash: Our new administration, barely into its second year, is the revolution. Remember that?

The tea party is the Heywaitaminnit for that revolution. The let’s-revisit. The back-up-the-truck.

In fact, the revolution that is really connected to the tea party movement, assuming that any one revolution at all anywhere ever has been, is the one that took place in 1776. The tea party is not a revolution taking place in the here-and-now; it is a point. It is a reminder that, if you really do wish to plow ahead with this dependency-oriented “single-payer health care” scheme, then the stated goals from 234 years ago are in need of serious re-alignment if not outright banishment.

You’ve probably figured out from this that I think it’s fair to conduct a poll on the Obama administration, and blast some headlines trumpeting the fact that its decrease in popularity is nothing short of historical. And also, somehow, that I think it’s silly and irrelevant to do the same with the tea party movement.

Why yes. That is precisely what I mean to say. One’s reasonable, the other is not.

Joe Biden’s boss represents a revolution that simply hasn’t panned out. Its impetus has been exhausted and at this point it is nothing more than a mistake from our past. Now, if the counter-revolutionary movement is also losing popularity at the same time that the 2008 revolution itself is losing popularity, that can only mean Americans are getting tired of the conversation.

Is my point still not quite clear? Let’s use an analogy. A telemarketer breaks the Do-Not-Call law and calls you Monday night, at dinnertime. You, with a gleam in your eye, hang up on the telemarketer, and if feels so GOOOD!. The telemarketer calls back Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Each night your final sign-off is worded a little bit more creatively, and your slamming of the phone onto whatever is a little bit more forceful. By Friday night you’re ready to reach through the phone and rip out the guy’s vocal cords, and who can blame you? You’re probably ready to buy a new phone, as well.

Polling the popularity, or lack thereof, of the tea party movement — the “Hold Up There, Barack” movement — is like pointing out that hanging up on the guy on Friday night, somehow isn’t quite as fun as it was on Monday. It’s just as silly as that. Silly and irrelevant. The answer is still no, isn’t it? And the likelihood that this might become a yes, is a tad on the low side, right? Okay then. In both situations, that’s all that really matters.

So last month I decided that Victoria Silvstedt did not quite measure up to the Bollywood actress Urmila Matondkar. And the nobodies who don’t read my blog, flooded me with e-mails and comments that I was crazy because Silvstedt was just all that and a bag of chips. Mmmm…well, life would be boring if we agreed on everything, huh. I just can’t get past the porn-star look. Vicky just looks too porny.

So I’ve been trying to come up with a W.

I gave Whitney Port a look-see. Looked her over, again and again. And I thought I found the contender for maybe a few minutes there…but in the end, Whitney’s just too pale, thin, young and stick-like. I’d probably have to say Vicky would win. And I didn’t want that, because Vicky’s all rode-hard-and-put-away-wet and stuff.

And that’s why we’re late, it’s our own indecision. The primary elections in the State of W, they’ve been putting a drag on things.

So here we go.

Victoria Silvstedt, and from the new Friday the Thirteenth remake, Willa Ford.

Oh me, oh my, what a decision. Ah well. Victoria loses two times in a row. Advantage Willa.

Got an offline from blogsister Daphne who seeks to commiserate with me about the ongoing pussification of men vis a vis this year’s Super Bowl commercial. We-ll…here’s how the entire day went.

Coffee.

Breakfast.

Compare notes on homework the kid’s supposed to do.

Half-assed effort unloading the dishwasher.

Nap.

Change light bulb in bathroom.

Clean off beer bottles from the outdoor balcony table.

Walk to Starbuck’s to get Sunday paper.

Laundry.

Haircut.

Watch re-runs of Tales From the Dark Side with girlfriend.

Watch re-runs of X-Files with girlfriend.

You can read between the lines…yeah…I don’t give two shits about football.

But we here are very concerned about the ongoing vaginization of America. And we know every year’s serving-up of Super Bowl commercials tells us something new. And from our blogsister’s warning, it would seem the something-new this year is not terribly good. So what’s the worst you’ve seen?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Hehehe…this still makes me giggle. Very cool.

With a grateful hat tip to blogger friend Buck.

There’s a little bit of a thing going on with the lefty bloggers noticing some scribbling on Sarah Palin’s left hand. Actually it’s more than a thing. It has bounced way up to the tippy-top of the scrolling Memeorandum page. So for today, at least, it is a really big deal.

I’m trying really hard to figure out why certain left-wing blogs are treating this picture of Sarah Palin reading notes off her hand as some kind of major coup. The notes she had written are “Energy,” “[illegible],” Taxes,” and “Lift America’s spirits.” That’s some cheat sheet.

I get that it’s a sort of “turnabout is fair play” from the set that must be very annoyed by now at all the prompter jokes. But it misses the point of why the prompter jokes have caught on. A prompter feeds your remarks to you word for word. The idea that you would need such a device to talk to a room full of sixth graders or a meeting of your own staff is funny.
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UPDATE II: A reader writes:

Hi Mr. Spruiell,

I think the “illegible” part you referred to in your post, as best I can tell, originally said “Corpsman.”

Ha!

Yeah, that last is a reference to this. That’s kind of a real big deal at the moment too. At least, if you are a corpsman, or if you know a corpsman…hard to see how it can be a bigger deal.

I could maybe be sold on the point that scribbling notes on your palm comes off as being a little…rustic…but then again, I don’t have five children, plus a brand-new grandson and a dipshit for an almost-son-in-law, nor have I ever governed an entire state, let alone our nation’s largest.

Be that as it may, as Mr. Spruiell notes above, anyone who tries to make a scandal (or accept one) out of this is missing a point, and rather embarrassingly.

I’m thinking back on my own experiences — when do I not feel quite up to trusting my own memory? When is it that I feel this need to jot down a list on whatever is handy?

Ah…well, when I’m designing an application. Or writing the code. Or debugging someone else’s code. Or…going shopping. Or figuring out what homework my son should have done, when he says he’s done. Remembering to drop off my girlfriend’s shirts at the cleaners, or pick them up again.

Remembering to cover all the bases — in whatever.

See the pattern? Delivering on useful things that help people.

Now if these liberal nitwits want to take this ball and run with it, thereby further substantiating the idea that they’re managing lives chock full of omphaloskepsis — never doing a goddamn thing to help anyone else from one week to the next…and this is what leads to their obsessive-compulsive demands for wealth redistribution in our public policy to promulgate the charity they cannot be bothered to show in their own spheres of influence — they should go right on ahead.

All things considered, if I were a hardcore Bush-bashing pinko-commie hippy-dippy liberal, what with the “corpseman” thing going on and all, I’d just leave it alone. But hey. That’s just me.

Hannah Giles smacks down Bob Beckel gloriously. Bob, you’d better just pull back.

A Republican, socially conservative or not, would never survive such drama. The irresistible tale of a greedy hooker and her Muslim pimp would forever resurface anytime the man entered the spotlight or made a major decision. The media would call into question his judgment, based on past events, and relentlessly attempt to taint his public image. But off Beckel goes, free as a bird.

Hat tip to fellow Right Wing News contributor Lori Ziganto.

Did someone forget to tell Valerie Plame?

Okay, it’s like this…

…if it’s just me leaving a message for Joan of Argghh! to the effect of “I demand to know where I can get ahold of that shirt,” with pretty-please, thankyews, et al, it’s almost a given that nothing will come of it.

Maybe some of you can help me out.

Gotta have it.

The science is settled.

Because hey, I’m willing to keep an open mind on it. The innerwebs are a great big place, and if you should happen to come across something you think is more suitable, you’re more than welcome to drop a link in the comments below.

But I don’t think you will.

Phil starts out trying to figure out of His Holiness is a “socialist” or not…and by the time he’s done, he’s stated the case beautifully.

This, folks, is what it’s all about. Seriously, someone should get up at the next assembly and read it top to bottom. Well, you know…picking it up right after the part where he’s done talking about us. But this captures it. Captures it well.

Blogsister Daphne thinks there is something regal about me.

She also thinks something else…

Not gonna work darlin’ man. You don’t have an evil bone in your body, Morgan.

Oh, dear. Well…if the compliment is proven wrong (to say nothing of woefully outvoted), can I still accept it? She seems to think I’ll just be waltzing past St. Peter’s desk barely slowing down enough for a high-five. Somehow I think the conversation might be a tad more complicated than that.

Can’t be that squeaky clean. I have facial hair after all.

Oh…my…dear…fucking…God.

I’m just gonna — you know what? That’s it. I can’t think of anything to say. Nothing to add.

After umptyfratz decades nobody can figure out why there’s still any racial tension. But they know I have to pay for the problem and the solutions…they know that much. Just can’t figure out why it still lingers on.

Enema with crushed glass is too good for ’em. Fucking assholes.

Hat tip to News Real Blog, via Gerard.

Update: Jammie Wearing Fool figured out what to say about it (hat tip to Michelle):

Could you imagine the media meltdown if Fox did something so stupid?

Yup. Whoomp there it is.

This needs more attention. Just for starters, if the Republican party is really afraid of a splintering effect in American politics and a re-triangulation like what happened in the 1850’s that will bury it forever…and that’s a real possibility…it makes sense for the bosses to start talking about what they bring to the table as an organized party.

It’s also just plain interesting. The Senate is designed, through the writing in the Constitution itself, to be “won” through increments. That probably made more sense before the senators were popularly elected, and before partisan politics took hold. But it still makes sense: Lower chamber can go any which way every two years, the upper chamber has more inertia to it.

Just imagine the message delivered if the GOP overcomes that? Forty-one seats to fifty-one, in a single election? I still see it as comically improbable. But winning the Senate is a numbers game…and when one studies the numbers, one sees the possibility does exist.

The money I’ve already placed on it, is on the lower chamber. And I’m ready to spend it right now. San Fran Nan has exhausted her opportunity. She’s as popular as Gonorrhea.

…for Chris Matthews? Keith Olbermann? Joe Biden? Or maybe…ew, I don’t know if I wanna say that.

It really wouldn’t take too much human intellect to respond to constituents’ letters the way my two dimwit hippy female senators do. Maybe the scene is captured from their office, and the “staff” is busily matching up subject matters to the letters so the boilerplate can be sent back. Could be a bunch of liberal bloggers bitching away about how stupid Sarah Palin is. Or…or…or…

The mind fairly explodes with ideas. Maybe we should have a caption contest.

Hat tip to Trip. Great stuff. I can see right now it’ll come in handy.

I came up with an idea for a regular (or not) award of the Sickest Commercial I’ve Watched Or Heard Lately…or SCIWOHL. I had two inspirations for this, and unfortunately the GooglGodz are frowning upon my efforts to locate video or audio of either one. But they’re both sick.

And no, that one about the woman saying a product was “so simple even my husband can use it!” didn’t make the cut. Generic abuse heaped upon the time-honored Doofus Dad is just too humdrum and mundane by this point. Haven’t got time to do a search on that. Haven’t even got time to try to recall what the product was.

No, the first thing was a bank card commercial. Daughter calls her daddy on the flip-phone to tell him she’s at the mall. But don’t worry, she stole his debit card out of his wallet! A few minutes later, daddy gets a phone call from an automated computer lady telling him a transaction in an amount exceeding twenty dollars was made against his checking account. He goes on line and gets darling on the flip-phone, and asks her what she bought at…uh…”Teen Hottie?” Oh, don’t worry daddykins! I saw a bunch of my friends wearing that crap at the food court so I took it back. T.H. is so yesterday!.

Where to begin. Let’s start with the obvious.

First of all, if she’s too young to get her own goddamn bank card, she’s too young to go wearing “hottie” things and then telling daddy all about it. Who the hell is this guy, Hulk Hogan? This is sick. Second problem: I get that, if you receive your alerts you can lengthen her leash a little bit, let her make some decisions for herself. This is to be applauded. Or it would. But — if that’s what it’s all about, why give her a debit card? What happened to a strict limit, in the form of a cash allowance? What’s this product all about, anyway. Princess just shouldn’t have to worry about spending limits? If it’s over $20 the poppa is gonna rag all over her, and that’s what she has to worry about?

That’s no limit. You’re not going to buy anything at a mall for less than $20. If everything goes over the line, then nothing does.

Third problem: Exactly what bullet is being dodged, here? The commercial does not say. Daddy knew Princess was traipsing off to the mall with his borrowed debit card…Princess picked up something for more than $20 that made her look like a trollop. Daddy made an inquiry and it turned out the item had already been returned. The marketing department, it seems, is being deliberately vague. The problem was that Princess was overly materialistic? The product failed to solve that problem. Princess wants to dress like a tart? The product doesn’t solve that either. Everything that makes your daughter look like a hooker costs more than twenty — NOT TRUE. Belly-button studs, for example. Four bucks and change maybe.

Fourth problem: The daughter is, of course, doomed to a life of unhappiness as are so many adults. She bought her item (it’s never specified what the damn thing was) at Teen Hottie…and I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts she got it “because all the kids are wearing it.” She returns it the instant she finds out everybody’s wearing it. She’s suffering the classic confusion of wanting to be better than anybody else while she’s trying to be identical to everyone else. Can’t be done.

It’s just sick. Period.

The other entry is from the 2010 Census. Little girl asks her mommy what the census is about, and momma gives her this big ol’ speech about how this is the only way they can make it known to Washington that they’re out here, needing their goods and supplies, that they have needs — and get what’s theirs. Get their fair share.

Pure communism. That used to be an evil thing, remember that?

Besides of which, there isn’t a dad mentioned anywhere. Come to think of it, ditto for the other situation involving the pervert, his tarted-up daughter, and any kind of mom. Where’s she?

Believe it or not, I think the Census ad offends me more. The idea that we’re all just out here in the wild frontier…suckling away at a Washington momma-piggy’s teats, fighting over each other for the sustenance. Have to tell our Washington overlords that our tummies are empty, so they can use their infinite wisdom to figure out whether it’s time to raise taxes on the evil rich people again.

What the hell is this? Castro’s Cuba?

Hope I don’t hear of any sick commercials like these ever again. I hope that, but I don’t have too much faith about it.