Interesting debate taking place on the Hello Kitty of Blogging, regarding a column Melissa Clouthier put up at Liberty Pundits. It’s about cheerleaders, and I’m trying to keep my comments precise because I don’t know too much about it and I notice the conversation is splintering off in several different directions.

I definitely agree with this, though:

Cheerleading has changed…I know this because I’ve seen these young, tiny girls doing absolutely crazy physical stunts. No mats. No protection. Not nearly enough training. Some of the physical moves are so demanding and risky, I have to look away during games for fear of something bad happening and witnessing it. I’m a chiropractor. Cheerleading is a nonstop cringe-fest from an injury perspective. I feel better watching 200 lb 14 year old brutes hitting each other on the football field. They have pads, at least.

So cheerleading has evolved. It’s a sport, plain and simple. And for whatever reason, girls still love it. And these girls I’ve observed mean business. This is Texas, after all, and Texans take both football and cheerleading serious-like. Kids start at 3 years old. It is a lifelong goal to cheer for the high school team. Yes, it’s a bit warped, but it’s the reality.

And feminists and legislators need to take this new reality seriously. It strikes me as misogynist to be okay with women doing a demanding physical sport which results in the most injuries of any high school sport and it’s not treated with the same safety regulations.
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Anyway, it is completely unacceptable how many girls are harmed by cheerleading..and permanently. This needs to change. Now.

…except for that bit about “it’s a sport plain and simple.” What it is, today, is a hazardous “sport” for the reasons cited…because, as has been explained, it has “evolved” into that.

I have to wonder what happened to the girls like the ones I knew in high school? If they wanted to compete in a sport, they could have tried out for any one of a number of things. Basketball. Tennis. Archery. Track. Cheerleaders were cheerleaders because they wanted to synchronize, as part of a coordinated team. They were physically in tune. They could dance. They weren’t there to absorb blows, deal with pain, show how high they could jump, or anything of the like. So yes, there’s been a change here. Cheer teams competed, someone built a pyramid higher than somebody else, and that’s-all-she-wrote.

I’m not saying this to limit female opportunity. Some people are cut out for coordinating their kicks and hops and swivels, and some people are cut out for competition where they prove themselves better than all the rest. That’s the way people are, and last I checked girls were still people. Wonder what the natural-dancers think about this nowadays, the ones who’d be a natural fit for yesterday’s dance squad, but can’t try out nowadays because they’re not up to any body-abuse. I wonder how their mothers feel about this.

I notice the last few days cheerleaders are in the news. I guess this is that time of year when some girls have just joined the squads after years of planning for such a thing, so it’s on people’s minds. A cheer team up in Connecticut is making news because some among its members are begging for more modest uniforms.

A Tuesday story on Yahoo.com reported that, according to the Connecticut Post and NBC Connecticut, Heidi Medina, the captain of Bridgeport Central High School’s cheerleading squad stood before the Bridgeport Board of Education in her team’s standard uniform, which bares the midriff and uses either small shorts or baggy sweatpants as bottoms, to make a statement that the uniform was inappropriate.

To Medina and the rest of her like-minded squad, I say: “Way to go girls, that’s the spirit.”

To those who might dismiss my opinion as that of some puritanical tyrant, I will be the first to plead “guilty” to ogling the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders and the countless imitations that soon followed.

But none of them were in high school.

Medina and fellow seniors were not only objecting on personal grounds, but also insisted the uniforms do not meet regulations. The 2010-11 National Federation Spirit Rules book, which guides cheerleading competitions in Connecticut and across the country, has a rule, Section 2 Article 6, that states: “When standing at attention, apparel must cover the midriff.”

The cheerleaders reportedly did not see the uniforms before they were ordered.

“It really hurts our self-esteem,” Bridgeport Central senior Ariana Mesaros said in the story. “I am embarrassed to stand up here dressed like this. Is this really how you want Bridgeport to be represented?”

I would have to agree; the cheerleaders I knew in high school wore sweaters and short skirts. Baring the midriff seems, from what I can tell, to be another product of the tournament competition. If she’s under eighteen, we don’t need to be seeing any of that.

Although I do have to say, I’m tuning out when you start talking about “self esteem.” Whose idea was this? What’s gotten better in the world, since our little kid-lings got it into their head that they have to be wonderful & deserving of everything all the time?

And this…

Apart from causing embarrassment, skimpy cheer uniforms may present other very real health risks.

A report on publicnewsservice.org cites a study by Dr. Toni Torres-McGehee of the University of South Carolina. Her research team polled 136 college cheerleaders, and found one-third of them to be at serious risk of developing eating disorders because of what they think their coaches think about their waist size.

…is just silly. It deserves to be dismissed without serious thought. I mean, try and give it some — let’s think it through. Cheerleaders might develop dangerous eating disorders if they’re too concerned of what their coaches think about their waist size. Which means cheerleaders shouldn’t be concerned of what their coaches think about their waists…or any other body part. Which means, since cheerleading is a sport now, none of the other “athletes” should be concerned with their coaches think about their physical development either. We need to shove all this stuff off the table because we don’t want any dangerous eating disorders.

You see where we’re going here — it all comes back to Melissa’s point. Cheerleading is a rough-and-tumble sport now because girls should have a chance to be just as tough as boys…and somehow, cheerleading is the only opportunity they have…not sure how we got there. But, Eating Disorders. Which is code for, it ought to be okay to be a fat, out-of-shape butterball.

Well, news flash: If you want to be injured doing something that requires exertion, your best shot at getting injured is to be out of shape.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of prudishness about bare bellies and so forth…this is, easily, the most entertaining thing I have read all week long. Middle-aged butter-faced goth feminist stiff-arsed Brit, finds herself ensconced in a Hooters restaurant!

This is probably the worst Friday night of my life – and that’s saying something. I’m sat on a high stool at a small table, plasma screens are oozing sports programmes around my head and there is a grubby plastic menu in front of me that is littered with pictures of fast food.

Not a green vegetable in sight, unless you count a deep fried chilli, coated in batter.

There is the thump, thump, thump of awful music in the background, competing with the braying of table upon table of men: young men, old men, students, office workers, football supporters…
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I remember, as a student in the Seventies, interviewing one of the last Playboy bunnies at the club on Park Lane.

I asked the young woman in fishnet tights how it felt to be part of a dying breed.

Peeling off her false eyelashes, she said the world had moved on – women were no longer to be viewed as objects. Fast forward 30 years and, again, I’m talking to a young woman in tights with false eyelashes.
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I imagine this is what a dirty old man deems sexy: semi-exposed breasts and buttocks, but a hint of the schoolgirl, too. There is nothing intimidating about these women, which, I think is the point.

I ask my waitress, Kimberley, who is blonde with a sweet face, whether you have to be beautiful to work here.

‘Oh no,’ she says. ‘We have had really beautiful girls, stunning girls, working here before and they can’t do it. They are too haughty, not friendly enough with the customers and the men feel they are unapproachable, to be honest.’

So: sexy, but not with ideas above her station.

Hah!

No, Liz; accommodating and friendly, with the sex appeal acting as a beacon putting us on notice that the accommodation and friendliness are probably there. Fluffy hair from the years before James Bond was killed off and Barbara Boxer was elected to the U.S. Senate, a tight top and skimpy shorts — and we know she’s probably not going to be a complete bitch. Like, uh…aw, it’s too easy.

Where she works, we probably won’t find people like you.

Does she not feel exposed, knowing all these men are looking at her bottom and cleavage? ‘I feel quite covered up,’ she says. ‘This is no worse than what you see young women wearing here in Nottingham, out shopping or clubbing.’

This is true, but that is their choice. Here, exposing your thighs and cleavage is compulsory.

Uh, no…it is an exchange of labor for wages, undertaken freely as an agreement between establishment and employee.

Kimberley is a marketing graduate. I ask how much she earns. ‘I get the minimum wage,’ she says. ‘But we get to keep our tips.’

Supplementing your income from tips may work in the U.S., which has a culture of tipping. Here, I wonder how she makes ends meet.

Ah. Now we come down to the heart of the matter.

Two nations, one an offshoot of the other. The mother nation shows her love of the bureaucracy that motivated the daughter to sever the ties that bind in the first place, by spending the last thirty years or so jamming it into overdrive. Rules, rules and more rules: “It’s ‘ealth & safety gone mad, mate!”

And the culture of tipping flourishes only in the daughter country, where there remains some love of freedom and liberty. Here, people use money as a communications device; we use it to demonstrate our priorities. To show where we will appreciate good service, and have appreciated it.

It seems back where Parliament actually sat to pass the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts that would give birth to our nation over here, people have the feeling they gave at the office. The culture of tipping looks like a quaint Yankee custom. Service is service, I would guess.

This month sees the nine hundred forty-fourth year come to a close after William The Conqueror defeated Harold at Hastings. Nine and a half centuries of this country. And they just got their first Hooters restaurant. Unbelievable. That’s a good definition of a dysfunctional, backward nation. I’m hard pressed to think of a better one.

The more you read of Liz Jones’ article, the more it becomes apparent that her problem isn’t with bare legs (actually, nylon-covered) or heaving cleavage. Choice versus coercion hasn’t got a lot to do with it either, since she got that essentially backwards and doesn’t seem to care one bit. Nor is it that her precious home turf is being invaded by Hooters. They just got one; one in the entire country.

It is the idea that somewhere, someone can be pleasant to a man. Someone is finding out what he wants, and giving him exactly that, with a big pleasant smile on her face. Making him want to come back.

She’s somewhat disturbed by the over-sexualization and the implication of infidelity. But I think that’s just icing on the cake; she’s just grasping at straws, there, trying to win converts to her side with that talk.

She, like many people, is extraordinarily upset that somewhere, in proximity, is a place where the male can go and find acceptance, even if it’s only as a paying customer. She comes from a world where, even if a man pays and pays and pays, there is something awful about ever showing appreciation for anything he ever did or to even acknowledge that something has been made possible for others because of his contributions.

This gets back to the cheerleading issue, because the feminists seem to be confused about it. As Ace points out, they don’t like cheerleaders for the same reason Liz Jones doesn’t like Hooters — has too much to do with pleasing males, and nobody deserves to be pleased except females. But at the same time, they want to drive this recent effort to make cheerleading into more of an “ass kicking” sport. It is predominantly female, and females should kick ass; that’s what feminism is all about.

So we’re left with a whole lot of contention and disagreement precisely where someone was supposed to be toiling away at bringing harmony. The thing about bare female flesh is most confused of all; at one time, it is a banner of independence, then in a flash it’s suddenly causing eating disorders and is a symbol of male-on-female oppression, because someone’s doing something to make the men happy or something…and…

…wham. The womens’ “liberation” movement turns into the Taliban. All good looking women must wear pant suits, or else the men might get the idea that the women don’t want to make them perpetually unhappy. And who knows where that might lead? If a woman somewhere makes a man happy, then before you know it, women all over the place will start making men happy…and then the two sexes might actually get along with each other! Ick!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The skimpy outfit and the heaving boobs, are about as important a motivating factor to drag me into Hooters as the hot wings. Which means, they’re not that important, since as anyone who’s been in a Hooters knows, their hot wings are overpriced and rather blah. Besides, I’m at the age now where those girls could easily be my daughters.

I get excited going there because I know I’m not going to find people like Liz Jones, or anybody who even remotely resembles her. The whole sick culture of “men are workhorses and paychecks and nothing else” melts away when I walk through the front door.

Kind of like winning the Battle of Yorktown all over again…and while I watch the redcoats in full retreat, a young girl in skimpy clothes walks up with a plate of hot food and a pitcher of cold beer. What could be better than that?

At the Grand Sierra in Reno, that is…

There are some bits of you that may freely flap around in the desert breeze poolside, which should be covered up once you re-enter the world of “really walking around in public.” There is swimwear you can pair up with a tee shirt for this purpose, and then there is your chosen attire. They’re different. Good heavens. Do your parents know you do this?

I looked about five or six more times to make sure you really were offensive.

Now, if you can guarantee me everyone who emulates your fashion statement has an ass like yours, this is a completely different conversation. But I’ve passed through Reno quite a few times by now, and there are some legitimate concerns. As one of my friends over on the Hello Kitty of Bloggin’ says, “Nudity and Karaoke both have the same problem…it always seems to be the wrong people.”

Good to see some rules have exceptions though.

Ten designs. The Frisky.

Yes, weak eyes do not always mean a strong mind. But if you’re shipwrecked with a hundred four-eyed women, you’ll probably see an average I.Q. much higher than you’d find in a hundred women who require no such adornment…and you’ll probably not want to be rescued too quickly.

Cassy wants to know: “Why should we celebrate morbid obesity?” She has some consistently good points to make at her place and she makes them well, but this one is even better than usual.

Should someone who is obese hate their body? Well, no. Hate is an awfully strong word. But the way this show presents obesity as just another lifestyle choice, one that’s perfectly fine to make, is wrong. And it’s especially wrong considering the show is about teenagers, and directed towards teenagers.
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This acceptance and glamorization of obesity reminds me of how Hollywood used to glamorize cigarettes. Today, of course, smoking is commonly known to be dangerous. People still do it, but it isn’t looked at in a positive light. And while in our greater society fat people are still looked down upon, there is certainly a movement to be more accepting of fat. Does that really help people, or does it just send them down a more comfortable path to an early death?

What I think is sad about this, is that the reactionary movement is against messages being sent through a starlet’s skinny body. So how is the trend upset? By sending a contrary message through another starlet’s blubbery body. The lady’s feminine form cannot ever be separated from the story that is being told, so if it can’t, then why bother with the protest? Why upset an apple cart if you aren’t really going to upset it?

These poor girls have everybody fighting over who gets to instill the proper ideal in their tender li’l heads about how a woman’s body is supposed to look. That can only mean one thing: The parents aren’t taking charge of this…or at least they’re perceived as not taking charge of this.

Maybe I’m oversimplifying this; I have one son and no daughters. But it seems to me — you teach the rug-rats how to eat, you teach ’em how to go running in the morning. And okay then. Now if they’re feeling thin and malnourished they’ll know how to eat, if they’re feeling chunky they’ll know how to go running. Problem solved. Yes, I’m serious. Morbid obesity becomes a threat to long-term health when it’s made into a lifestyle 24x7x365, and it’s made into a lifestyle that way when people don’t know anything different. Habits instilled in childhood, for good or for ill, have a massive influence on this process.

I attached the following comment, you can judge for yourself whether my wisdom is up to par with Cassy’s. Bearing in mind she can edit things after the fact over there, and I cannot:

In the days of Skinny-Elvis — the customer whose ego you wanted to inflate, was not a shrew with latent Daddy-issues or a mouthy little kid, but a straight white man aged 35. James Bond was permanently 35. Superman looked like a boxer or a wrestler, and you just [k]new he had muscles but nobody bothered to pencil ‘em in. It was a man’s world.

Women and cars have been morphed over the last 55 years exactly the same way. If a Thunderbird hit you, your body would inflict about as much damage on the car as it would on a freight locomotive: None. You’d be barely recognizable after scraping up against the T-Bird, just like up against the locomotive. It was a big beautiful boat, mostly steel. If you loaded it onto a truck, the leaf springs sank down toward the pavement in acquiescence.

Cars were manufactured and sold and bought to please men.

Women and girls were dressed up in skimpy clothes with their flesh displayed to please men.

Nowadays, cars are tin and plastic things. You get hit by one of these, and you’ll probably fare much better than the car. This after men have been culturally told to go take a long walk off a short pier. It is a natural consequence of that. Nobody denies this.

Women have a body shape I described on Friday night as “a broomstick upturned with two water balloons dangling from the handle.” Yes you’re damn right it’s unhealthy…

Here’s what cheese[s] me off. While everyone is ready to admit cars are being built in an anti-man mold — and isn’t that just so progressive and wonderful — the female body figure that’s ninety pounds soaking wet is all our fault. It is precisely the same pattern of miniaturization, but the one with a woman’s body shape is more craven and cowardly because the entire male sex has to be used as a scapegoat for it.

But most of the men I know, aren’t any more fond of the less-hefty less-curvy less-substantial female physique, than we are of the planned-obsolete gossamer Fisher-Price “bench press it” econo-box automobile. Both of these things were done contrary to our wishes, but we’re being blamed for one of them.

You know why my eyes are bulging out in this photo? Know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking “Holy mackerel, I’d better not bump this girl up against anything or she’ll probably break!”

Females nowadays are lovely, especially the ones who are too young for me, but most of ‘em need to eat a sammrich or two.

Filed under “Latest celebrity news and gossip“:

Elisabeth Hasselbeck tearfully apologized to “Dancing With the Stars” contender Erin Andrews for essentially making light of her stalker when she criticized Andrews’ skimpy dancing outfits on Tuesday’s episode of “The View.” (People.com has the video.)

“In light of what happened . . . and as inexcusable as it was for that horrific guy to go in and try to peep on her in her hotel room . . . I mean, in some way if I [was] him,” Hasselbeck said, “I [would be] like, ‘Man! I just could’ve waited 12 weeks and seen this — a little bit less — without the prison time!’” (The stalker, who released nude footage of Andrews on the Internet, is serving a 30-month sentence.) Yeah, that’s just one step up from the old “She was asking for it!”

Andrews told Access Hollywood that she cried when she heard Hasselbeck’s comments (Andrews’ dancing partner, Maksim Chmerkovskiy, called Hasselbeck “stupid” and “jealous,” Usmagazine.com reports).

Hasselbeck says she felt terrible about the remark and called Andrews to apologize. She extended another apology on the show.

They both need to apologize to women everywhere, for reinforcing tired stereotypes about females. In fact I think they reinforced every single one, as if working from a checklist. Lessee…there’s the one that they’re all drama whores, constantly seeking attention by showing off their bodies, then getting catty with each other for doing so. Actually, for doing anything at all that manages to capture male attention whether it has to do with showing skin or not. That they are brought up from infancy to apologize for doing things they fully intend to do all over again, even in mid-apology. That they cry at the drop of a hat because they are accustomed to getting out of a tight spot by crying, and they’ve been raised from infancy to do that, as well.

That they live in surreal, otherworldly cloisters filled with plaid and paisley, stylish coffee mugs, vacuum cleaner covers that look like field mice, and layers and layers of pillows and stuffed animals on the bed. That, as a result of this, they are far more concerned with nurturing relationships than with recognizing reality, or responding to it in a consistent, logical, productive way.

In short, between the two of them — in fact, Elisabeth managed to do this all by herself — they managed to hit every single one of the classics except “drives like shit.”

After forty-five years of liberation, how can we finally, FINALLY bring to the fairer sex the respect, dignity and stature in our modern society that they deserve? How do we raise newer generations of females into rich, productive, rewarding lives, in which they can find love and respect, and role-model productively for the ones who will come even later? By forcing companies to put more of them in executive positions even though there may be men who are better qualified? By forcing colleges to recruit more female students into hard sciences, even though there may be male students who are more promising? Nay, I say. The answer is obvious, in fact it is right in front of our eyes: Cancel The View. Cancel it, immediately, along with anything like it. Everything that places female weakness on a pedestal and demonstrates its value in drawing preening, fawning, obsequious attention from the flaccid brains…for the sake of the respect that is due our mothers sisters and daughters…cancel, cancel, cancel. Dig up every single acre, every single wretched weed, pull out every bit of root and sow rock salt deep into the soil.

Let women take their weak, sobbing, bitching whelps someplace dark, private, concealed from the eyes of the public, so they can beat some old-fashioned strength into ’em. That’s what we men do with our wimps, nerds, pussies and dorks and it’s worked well for thousands of years. That is how we learn to cope. I’m told women are even better at picking on their own than we are. Hasselbeck has demonstrated it’s high time this was put to the test.

Stop worshiping indecision, weakness, attention-whoring and jealousy. Pummel it instead. Stigmatize it. Disgrace it. Make it embarrassing. Do to it, precisely what Hasselbeck tried to do, and failed to do, to the skimpy costumes.

We’ve reached the end. Now what? Do we wrap back around to the beginning?

Of course we do. Can’t leave that dangling. Zooey Deschanel goes up against the skinny blond chick who started the whole thing, AnnaLynne McCord.

Hmmm…adorable hot pink ruffly dental floss bikini…versus blue shorts and argyle knee socks. Sun bunny meets preppy. A pair of beautiful thighs versus an entire gorgeous body.

Douglas Adams versus Aaron Spelling. A story with a manic-depressive robot versus some daytime soap for babies with a couple of James Dean wannabes. Hmmmm.

I think Zooey nails this one. Sorry AnnaLynne. It’s Zooey, so she’s two-fer-two in this contest now, having trounced Yasmine Bleeth last week.

Is that an elite crowd? Let’s see…who else comes out of this two-fer-two?

Xenia Seeberg beat Willa Ford on February 19 and Yasmine Bleeth on March 6.

Raquel Welch beat Pamela Hensley on 11/26/09 and Scarlett Johansson on 12/3/09.

Marisa Miller beat Leann Tweeden on 10/29/09 and Nadine Velasquez on 11/6/09.

Izabella Scorupco beat Holly Weber on 10/2/09 and Jessica Biel on 10/9/09.

Famke Janssen beat Erica Durance on 9/10/09 and Gemma Atkinson on 9/19/09.

Beyonce Knowles beat AnnaLynne McCord when we started this thing on 8/7/09 and took care of Carly Zucker on 8/20/09.

That makes seven. And because Carly is so gorgeous and we said at the time we felt bad about the whole thing, you know I think she deserves an honorable mention. That brings it up to eight.

Perfect for a tournament.

As the busy weekend permits, we shall have to affix some dates to this puppy.

Wonder who’s gonna come out on top.

Xenia Seeberg beat Willa Ford, at least in my book and only just barely. Now she goes up against the other adjacent letter in the alphabet, aptly represented by alcoholic Baywatch beauty cokehead Yasmine Bleeth. Who to pick, who to pick…

Well, I’m still a little bit miffed that Xenia chopped her locks. And raw-beauty wise, this match-up looks like something of a draw, or at least a photo-finish, just like the last one. It comes down to something else. And this is rather interesting:

I don’t know either one of these women personally, but we seem to have here a case of a fairly normal actress playing a half-lizard tweaker weirdo alien chick, running up against a manic-depressive tweaker addictive-personality type who’s famous for playing a fairly normal person on teevee.

Which I should qualify: I know next to nothing about Baywatch, maybe Yasmine’s character isn’t that normal. And Xenia does sing for a rock band.

But ultimately, being a tweaker weirdo is somewhat sexy in fiction, and not appealing at all in real life. So the one from the weird British sci-fi Dr.-Who-Wannabe show takes the prize. Xenia is a two-fer-two, after going up against some formidable competition on both fronts.

Click pic for more. Some images may be considered NSFW. Also, headphones are advised for the obnoxious auto-play commercials in the image viewer…which can be muted…but still, you guys are dicks. Cool pictures though.

Hat tip to Linkiest.

Hat tip to John Hawkins by way of his Linkiest site.

Yay, Manofest.

Were there some other girls in these pages? I didn’t notice.

Some images and language NSFW.

With a grateful hat tip to Buck, and no I didn’t see anything like that. Commute must be too short.

Before all the serious stuff starts with tomorrow’s election in Massachusetts…a little bit of fun, with the most poorly-defined super-hero, or heroine, ever. Whoever’s making the movie, you should come up with some solid answers to these before finalizing the script…

1. How long is her golden lasso, anyway? And its tensile strength?
2. Can she fly?
3. If she can, then what’s up with that invisible jet?
4. If she really does have a damn invisible jet, when she climbs into it, can people still see her?
5. What if she tries to deflect a bullet and she misses? Can it break her skin then? Why bother then?
6. Does the bullet have to be subsonic in order for her to deflect it?
7. How strong is she? Is she something like five healthy women, or is she on a “planet-hurling Superman” scale?
8. Can she breathe in outer space?
9. If she can’t, can she survive in outer space with just an air supply, wearing that skimpy costume?
10. Speaking of the skimpy costume, can she really change her clothes by twirling around?
11. Is it a super-duper secret that she’s really Diana Prince?
12. If it is, then is it general knowledge within the Justice League or Justice Society?
13. Is she really 2500 years old?
14. Is she a virgin?
15. What’s her preference, anyway? Is she bi? Asex? Les? Hetero, but keeping herself chaste for someone?
16. Does she know lots of different languages?
17. Can she solve complex mathematical equations and problems involving physics?
18. Can she talk to animals?
19. Is she pro-choice? If so, how does she feel about partial-birth abortion? What if the “fetus” happens to be female?
20. Is her mother still alive?
21. Is she made out of something that resembles human flesh?
22. If so, does she ever tire out?
23. How about speed? Is she in the same class as The Flash?
24. If not, then is she at least a little quicker than a slightly-above-average normal woman?
25. Was she fighting Nazis in World War II?
26. If so, then is she fighting crime contemporarily (now)?
27. If yes to the above two, then has she been granted some kind of immortality? How much? Does she even know?
28. I read that she can withstand extreme temperatures. So she can go hiking on Mt. Everest in that teensy thing?
29. How about overheating? Can she burn? What if she gets dumped in that vat of steel that killed the Terminator?
30. What’s it like to be forced to tell the truth with that lasso? Is it agonizing? Because that would be really cool.
31. What exactly is Diana Prince’s job?
32. Can she go a very long time without sleep?
33. How high can she jump?
34. Does she really lose all her powers when she’s bound by a man?
35. If that’s the case, what happens when she’s bound by a woman?
36. What’s it called exactly? “Themiscyra,” “Lesbos” or “Paradise Island”?
37. Is it true she never left the place before her mother sent her to “Man’s World”?
38. If that be the case, then how’d she meet Alexander the Great? Julius Caesar? Hercules? All them guys?
39. Was she originally made of clay? Is that why she can wear short-shorts in outer space? Does she perspire?
40. Is she wearing Diana Prince’s makeup when she goes out fighting crime? Does she touch-it-up again when she’s done?
41. (Question #41 is redacted, being a real man I just don’t want to get into this stuff)
42. Are they real?
43. What exactly holds up that bustier?
44. Can her bracelets deflect a .44? A Desert Eagle .50? Artillery shell? RPG?
45. Does she have super-hearing? Telescopic vision? Can she listen to a man’s footsteps and tell what his eye color is?
46. Do her boots have high heels? If so, how fast can she run?
47. Now for the important stuff: Bare legs or hose?
48. Does she eat real food? Can she go a long time without eating? Does she have a normal heartbeat?
49. Does she retain her beauty-queen physique if she wolfs down ten six-dollar burgers at Carl’s Jr.?
50. Does she carry any money with her? Where exactly?

Some brave soul has made a list of ten, which is always a daunting prospect because any name left off of it is an instant “epic fail.”

And, this one is indeed missing some. Like Kari Byron for example. Morgan Webb. Olivia Munn. Still & all, it’s a good starting point; Mila Kunis is certainly easy on the eyes.

Kate Beckinsale is an interesting item to have on here. Never really thought of her as a sexy-nerd type, she’s more of a glamor-queen. She’s made now, what, two movies about angst-ridden, leather-wearing, ultra-hip vampires? This makes a girl a sexy-nerd…ah, I think we’re having an Inigo Montoya moment.

Besides, I don’t think too highly of the angst-ridden leather-wearing vampire genre. About time for that one to retire, methinks. It’s Item #9 on my own list of things I never want to see in movies again.

Others on the list, of which I’ve never heard…well…most of ’em. I’m gettin’ old, I s’pose. That’s it for my reactions. FARK reactions are here.

Blogger friend Buck is placed in a position in which he must ponder the benefits of the more rugged sex flashing gam, with the nylon adornment more traditionally festooned to our leggy sisters.

He does not ponder long, and his reception is about as cold as ours.

The champion “astute observation” over there has to be the third one:

That model looks as unhappy as those cats you see on the web who are “dressed up”.

Let us get this one thing straight once and for all. Regardless of which way you swing, the Good Lord designed us so that there is a certain persuasion that is built to use the lower limb as an accessory of casual aesthetic pleasure for the viewer.

And it isn’t us dudes. It isn’t going to happen — we just don’t look this good, and aren’t going to look this good, to anyone:

This is one of those things that should be left unsaid, and in a sane universe, could be left unsaid. But things are spiraling out of control, and now someone needs to jot down the obvious, in the hopes that those who need to see it somewhere, will see it somewhere.

Male legs are tools, period. They lift our butts off the ground, they kick the butts of other men, they step on the gas brake and clutch — goddamn right there’s a clutch — they step on imaginary brakes on those rare occasions when she’s doing the driving. And you’re goddamn right that’s rare. They swing our feet upward so we can drop them on the coffee table where we shouldn’t be putting them. They carry things, they destroy things, they have been molded and shaped by tens of thousands of years of evolution during which time we were hunting. They get things done.

They are not put on the planet for the purpose of being viewed. Women do not appreciate this quite as much as we appreciate theirs…which is to say, it doesn’t have that day-brightening effect on them if they catch a glimpse. So know that, but if you must reveal your big knobby man-knees to the fresh air & sunshine, maybe that’s by way of big baggy clown-shorts, maybe it’s “tennis whites,” maybe even an extra-extra manly-looking kilt enters the equation…but mark this…hose does not & should not have anything to do with it. At. All. It’s not our bag.

There. Now ya know. Let us all forget you ever had to be told.

Speaking of kilts. Here is some wisdom: They are like diaper bags. You can keep your man-card if, and only if 1) you have some non-negotiable reason to be appearing in public with the damn thing, and 2) it is manlied-up, manlied-up, and manlied-up some more. No birds, no flowers, no “Hello Kitty” artwork, and for color you can have brown, gray or black. Possibly camouflage green. Even adhering to all the above rules, it’s thin ice.

That’s just your old-school, “respect the women by letting them keep their stuff” tradition. It’s served us well.

Update: In addition to brown gray black and camo-green, let’s add all the clan colors. Provided they’re real clan colors. Good suggestions from wise men in New Mexico that just might keep a blogger from swallowing his own teeth Tiger Woods style, if the wrong True Scotsman runs across my careless words.

Scarlett Johanssen, starlet of Lost in Translation, The Black Dahlia, and The Spongebob Squarepants Movie. Loser of last week’s duel going head-to-head against Raquel Welch, in which hardly anyone could’ve fared any better.

Torrey DeVitto, of I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer. It’s a red-dress face-off.

Scarlett, here decked out in the “Get Milked By Isaac” number…brings it and clears it. We have a winner.

But Torrey is no slouch. We’ll just see how she does next week.

Pamela Hensley, back in the day, from the pilot movie for Buck Rogers and the 25th Century. Which she made into a much more worthy investment of prime-time viewing all by herself.

Screen legend Raquel Welch, also back in the day. Although the lady has always aged like fine brandy.

We’re skipping Q. If it isn’t important enough for the telephone keypad, why should it be worth our time. And so the two icons from antiquity go at it, head-to-head. Who wins?

Mmmm…I think Raquel snags this one, guys. You should really watch Bedazzled if you’re wondering why.

Nadine Velasquez, who was trumped in last week’s contest with Marisa Miller.

Olivia Munn, from G4’s Attack of the Show.

Nadine is quite the feast for the eyes, and surely she deserves to win this time around does she not?

Well perhaps it’s that the sample picture of Olivia is of her legendary Princess Leia outfit. But that’s life.

Ms. Munn wins.

Okay my first impressions are always right…so lessee. I sign up for your information service, and from that point on when cute girls win bets with me, they’re the ones who take off their clothes.

Subliminal messages: Ad man’s best friend for going on a century now.

For the record, it’s supposed to get you all curious about this service…you might’ve missed that.

Update: That’d be a lovely lady by the name of Elizabeth Bogush, of SCRUBS and ER fame. I’m beginning to understand blogger friend Phil’s occasional and reluctant fascination with Maureen Dowd and other redheads.

Somewhere I’ve got a master-list of film and teevee moments that were perhaps supposed to be scripted by one from among us masculine types, but for reasons only an observer of the male persuasion can truly understand — clearly were not. I don’t remember where I put that list…I remember I had carefully saved off the top slot for that scene in Disclosure in which Demi Moore provides oral pleasure to Michael Douglas while he yells “no, no, no, no” begging her to stop. Yeah……..it don’t quite work that way.

This commercial goes into the list, I think.

It’s rather stupid when you think about it. The girl who lost her clothes was not a “stakeholder” in the bet. Among the fellas, if you make a bet and the bet has to do with wearing some woman’s clothes should you end up on the losing side, the fear is that you will be the center of attention when you’re wearing them. Center of attention amongst your buddies, that is.

And that isn’t happening here. No way, no how.

But on the other hand, it’s got me pretty danged interested in that service, and that’s the point.

From GunGirls.com.

Much more here at Nation of Cowards, linked from Classic Liberal.

Okay, we’ve gratified the horny females with flashy-pictures of my Adonis-like physique plenty enough. Time to return to our roots.

Can’t remember where I read this. Someone was describing what was going on in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, for the benefit of those to whom this is ancient history…and if you’re old enough to recall those bygone days like me, there are more young people like this than you’d care to admit.

Anyway, wherever I was reading it, they had such a delicate way of phrasing the following:

Miniskirts the size of cocktail napkins became stylish because the feminists wanted to piss off their dads. And so the ladies cavorted around in these bits of fabric leaving very little to the imagination from the waistline down…and then just as I was about to become old enough to appreciate all this…the feminists said to themselves “Hey, men are finding this enjoyable, better put a stop to it like now.” They had some word to describe this like “submissive” or something. And so, on cue, the oh-so-independent-minded ladies took their orders dutifully from the feminist field marshals and started covering up. So the lads my age had to make do with ogling Daisy Duke and Princess Ardala. Hey, thanks a ton.

But that sums it up. They flashed thigh to honk off daddy — started bumping uglies indiscriminately with whatever bloke came along to elevate the old man’s blood pressure some more. Then they figured out the blokes were men too, and had to be dealt with. So the Prime Directive of Postmodern Feminism was born, namely: Wherever there is something male with a smile on its face, there lies an unfinished task. Change something. And so it continues…today. Meanwhile, hemlines went up and then the hemlines went down.

Well done, ladies. Like, duh.

As all this was going on, the vinyl album industry figured out right-quick how the toast was buttered. And the result was & is hundreds and hundreds of items of historical artwork featuring one of the best parts of the female anatomy.

Women in shorts.

Women in miniskirts.

Hundreds and hundreds of each. And it’s not like there’s a great deal of other redeeming cultural value from the era. Womens’ bare legs…muscle cars…Saturday Night Live’s first season…Star Trek. Lots of other stuff was & is worth watching from time, but the rest is all cheesy. Anyway. The artwork is there. Have a happy Friday.

We’re late on this one, because it was tough to find anyone who could go up against the lovely Famke Janssen. Adding to the challenge was the fact that there are so very few supermodels, actresses or WAGs whose first names begin with G.

But then we found lingerie model Gemma Atkinson. And her…uh…face…is plenty appealing for the task of competing, at least.

Yup. That’s right, I picked out Gemma because of her beautiful face. Doesn’t she have a pleasant looking face?

Not pleasing enough, I’m afraid. Famke prevails yet again.

While keeping most of her clothes on. Who knew?

I’m sick to death of talking about health care. Time to get back to the alphabet-tournament:

Erica Durance, flush with victory after smacking down Daniella Sarahyba last week, today is confronted by Famke Janssen. Finding a bikini-picture of Famke, while it can be done, is no easy task. Rather like finding an example of President Obama making government smaller. So surely Erica will just press on through will she not? Like a hot knife through butter?

Can an actress who despises her own size eleven feet, who’s constantly prancing around fully clothed, possibly compete with the goddess who brought a whole new layer of sexy to the ages-old icon of Lois Lane?

Can she compete with the curves of a WB temptress? On my desktop?

Hell yeah, I say. Compete — and win. It’s the face. I’m a sucker for one that’s well-put-together.

D, as in Daniella Sarahyba; and E as in the legendary Erica Durance, who left “Smallville” viewers gasping for breath and wondering, briefly, if it wasn’t a horrible casting decision to make the latest Lois Lane so incredibly hot-looking. But, ultimately, not caring about that question as much as they thought they did.

At first glance, it seems Daniella enjoys a slight edge in the “this is what a woman’s body should look like” department. But it’s 2009, and the hot girls are all skinny, which is something of a shame. As readers have previously pointed out, Daniella’s just as rail-thin as any of ’em — and while I disagree with those readers about who looks better than who, they’re right as rain in matters of shape and form.

Both girls could use a cheeseburger and a milkshake. But they both offer a certain inner beauty, a style, a panache. Daniella’s cursory superiority in this contest, I’m sorry to say, is an illusion. It’s all in the hat. The darker tan is due to the lighting. The “tiebreaker” comes down to the girl-next-door look; Daniella has plenty of this, and it’s good, but what Erica has is just a bit more & better.

Advantage Erica. Your mileage may vary, as the saying goes.

This last Thursday I put Carly Zucker and Daniella Sarahyba up together, and proclaimed that Daniella comes out on top. The majority viewpoint came out against me, overwhelmingly. And it made some good points, like: Daniella is lacking in flesh, most noticeably in the chest area, a region in which Carly seems to trounce her by two inches and perhaps more.

In spite of the compelling bodies of evidence on both sides of this little debate, this is, as I pointed out, a facial thing. Daniella has a face that makes a grown man weak in the knees. Carly, not quite so much. She looks very well put together when she goes out to the games played by her husband, “footballer” Joe Cole. Yes, her physique is slightly curvier…although on the planet from which I come, both ladies are somewhat anorexic for my tastes.

But there’s something about Carly’s face that brings a weakness to this tough, tough match-up in just the crucial spot. Her lips are a little funny. Kinda Shari-Lewis like. It doesn’t make for an unpleasant-looking face by any means. But it can’t compete with Daniella’s. Daniella is going to age wonderfully, and become one of those MILFs retaining all or most of the sizzle, doe-eyed look and all, well into her sixties; Carly, not quite so much.

A review of a broader portfolio reinforces this, and as frosting on the cake, reveals that Daniella has much more to bring to the curve-battle than what was perhaps previously thought.

Your mileage may vary, as they say.

Click for larger.

A week ago, legendary “football wag” Carly Zucker lost out to the goddess-like Beyonce Knowles — as all ordinary mortal women must. Today she has an opportunity to emerge victorious against the next letter in the alphabet, aptly represented by Daniella Sarahyba.

And my verdict is…

Carly. You are absolutely stunning…far more radiant and pleasing to the eye than most…and it is unfair you should be a two-time loser in this little tournament of ours. But sweetie, it’s shaking out that way. Not your fault. Doesn’t say anything bad against you at all, really. Just a bad place to be filling out in the alphabet.

The fact is, you cannot compete with Daniella. She’s amazing. You’re amazing. She’s just slightly moreso.

I’ll say this much for you though. I predict that by the time this whole thing is wrapped up, if I round up all the two-time losers, you’re going to be way up toward the top of that stack, and you’ll probably beat a lot of the one-time losers as well. I’m pretty sure of this.

But for today, you’re still a two-time loser. Daniella is warm, Daniella is personable, Daniella is the down-home girl-next-door. The girl-next-door who takes your breath away when you look at her, as if you were just hit in the gut with a sledgehammer like that guy in King of the Ants. Beyonce could beat Daniella. You, I’m sorry to say, cannot.

Well, that’s a relief.