Best. Whiskey. Ad. Evar.

Good job there, Bobby.

(via American Digest)

And make some cars that people want to buy, while you're at it, too.

Why Sarah Palin gets hated:

She's Sexy.

MEN RULE. This is the "scandal" that let the dogs out. For weeks I've been wrapping my head in wet towels trying to noodle out the reason lefty (and some righty) women hate Palin so very much. Why she seems to unhinge them to such an astonishing degree. The flap over her $150,000 wardrobe budget just cut though all the crap to the truth of it. They hate her because she's sexy.

It really is that simple. It's not that she's managed to have a career, including being elected Governor of Alaska. It's not that she's given birth to five children without wanting an abortion. It's not that she espousestraditional conservative values like pistol-grop shotguns. It's not that she's become a vice presidential candidate without a degree in womanitude from Radcliffe, Smith, Barnard, or Wellesley. It's that she won a beauty contest long ago and could still win one today. It's that in spite of an accent that makes her sound like Herb's wife on WKRP in Cincinnati, she's a 44 year old mother of five who still has it, whatever it is. She's every insecure career woman's nightmare. She has it all -- success, family, a long-term marriage, happiness -- and she's still hotter than Britney Spears for a huge percentage of men in America. That's why they HATE her so very very VERY much.

There's actually alot more to read at Instapunk. Just keep scrolling.

Trolls among us.

In the late 1980s, Internet users adopted the word “troll” to denote someone who intentionally disrupts online communities. Early trolling was relatively innocuous, taking place inside of small, single-topic Usenet groups. The trolls employed what the M.I.T. professor Judith Donath calls a “pseudo-naïve” tactic, asking stupid questions and seeing who would rise to the bait. The game was to find out who would see through this stereotypical newbie behavior, and who would fall for it. As one guide to trolldom puts it, “If you don’t fall for the joke, you get to be in on it.”

Today the Internet is much more than esoteric discussion forums. It is a mass medium for defining who we are to ourselves and to others. Teenagers groom their MySpace profiles as intensely as their hair; escapists clock 50-hour weeks in virtual worlds, accumulating gold for their online avatars. Anyone seeking work or love can expect to be Googled. As our emotional investment in the Internet has grown, the stakes for trolling — for provoking strangers online — have risen. Trolling has evolved from ironic solo skit to vicious group hunt.

The article is disturbing on several levels.

President Batman?

As Grim likes to use movies to instruct and inform on morality, this item caught my eye.

Andrew Klavan, writing in the Wall Street Journal, has a curious interpretation of the new Batman movie "The Dark Knight".

There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.

And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society -- in which people sometimes make the wrong choices -- and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell.

I have not seen the movie, so I can't really comment on Klavan's idea, but any who have, feel free to discuss.

One thing I do note about Batman, as opposed to the other superheroes movies are being made about recently--Superman, Spiderman, the Hulk, the X-men, even Hellboy--is that Batman is still, underneath the costume, just a guy. He has no actual super powers, just some neat toys that help him get things done. I wonder if that makes stories about him more accessible than the others on some level.

Schadenfreudeburg.

Vice Presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards was caught visiting his mistress and secret love child at 2:40 this morning in a Los Angeles hotel by the NATIONAL ENQUIRER.

Yeah, ok, its the National Enquirer. But. Just wow.

"I know it when I see it".

American Digest takes a look at...well...something I am finding hard to describe. I'm no stranger to "unconventional" (a neutral enough a word) notions of conceptual art--I am mostly amused by it and typically mock it unmercifully (you probably don't want to be around me in an art museum, and I and some like minded friends nearly got tossed out of the National Gallery once) mostly because its all been done already and more competently, by people who had much better reasons to be unsatisfied at conventional society than anybody does nowadays.

I can't really add anything to the commentary over at American Digest, other than to concur that yes, there is no bottom, and the abyss is real, and be careful how close you get to the edge.

UPDATE:
American Digest has noted that Yale is announcing the whole thing was a hoax. "Performance Art" if you prefer. Well, for my part, I think that there are easier ways of announcing to the world what a miserable wretch one is, than the method employed by Ms. Shvart.

Bold, new fresh face for change.

I work with some women who have a passing resemblance to Ms. Williams. And believe me, you do not want to be on the receiving end of that look.

Oh, and while we're at it, Penn, (of Penn and Teller; the magicians) says Hillary is toast.

(via American Digest)

The Great Fall of China.

Via Instapundit, this article from the LA Times, in which the World Bank reports that China's economy is smaller than recently thought. About 40% smaller.

"...China, it turns out, isn't a $10-trillion economy on the brink of catching up with the United States. It is a $6-trillion economy, less than half our size. For the foreseeable future, China will have far less money to spend on its military and will face much deeper social and economic problems at home than experts previously believed."

Wow. 4 trillion dollars just went poof. Just wow.

I say call his bluff.

Hell, its not like they don't speak the language, que?

What's with this?

It's like that old Steve Martin routine about Las Vegas. "Wow, Look at the tits!"

That said, it looks like Andrew Sullivan is irritated that some people are assuming that Hillary Clinton will be the next President, and that she might, just might, not pull out of Iraq after all.

I'm afraid I'm going to remember that picture though, long after I forget about the article.

I have to go find some eye-bleach now.

The Truth, can you handle it?

More.

And more.

I thought this was going to turn out worse than it did. As many, I didn't think that the President of Columbia University would say the things that he did. Curious indeed.

(via American Digest)

"So are they all, all honorable men"

This is sort of thing that will turn you into a bolshevik. My contempt knows no bounds at this point.

(via Instapundit)

Crocodile Tears and Conspiracies.

So. Two of the soldiers that co-wrote a New York Times editorial basically saying the war in Iraq was lost, were killed Monday in Iraq in what is described as a vehicle accident.

It was the top item for a while over at memeorandum today.

What I find curious however is that all of the various blogs commenting (at the time--it may have since changed) are all liberal/left wing/progressive/whatever sorts of blogs.

I guess they only really notice when soldiers die when it is those that they agree with.

Further, I took a look at what a couple were saying, and in and among the 'ultimate sacrifice' and 'wives and children left behind' comments, lo and behold, I find that the dead soldiers must have been 'fragged'.

I don't think that anything could more demonstrate the wretched world those people inhabit.

Pretty Boys.

via Instapundit, this look at the weirdness that is the Taliban. (And I suppose, Afghanistan in general).

Fromt that, I guess Kipling was wrong.

That last stanza should read:

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the Taliban come out to bugger what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.

This doesn't look good.

Romney speaks up for sons' decisions

BETTENDORF, Iowa - Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Wednesday defended his five sons' decision not to enlist in the military, saying they're showing their support for the country by "helping me get elected."

My own unvarnished opinion is that the Governor just stepped on his training aid there.