Seasonal Traffic Suckage Syndrome leads to Shameless Tip-Jar Rattling Disorder

One of the obvious reasons for doing the changeover to the WordPress site during the holidays is that blog traffic sucks this time of year, so time spent on the changeover doesn't really subtract from the overall blog ecology. What's the point of doing a dozen posts on Christmas Day, if nobody's reading it anyway?

For similar reasons, some bloggers don't blog much on weekends -- when blog readership decreases by 30% or more -- but we've never really observed that custom here. Smitty reports that a relative paucity of Rule 2 linkage made for a much shorter FMJRA this week, which is to be expected, although we hope there won't be a similar shortage of babe-blogging for Rule 5 Sunday.

One of the things about Seasonal Traffic Suckage Syndrome (STSS) is not to take it personally. Traffic here is demonstrably down for December -- currently about 160K visits for the month, after four consecutive months of >220K -- but when compared year-to-year, we've gained about 80% over December 2008. And so you have to have a certain amount of perspective when you realize that on Christmas Day we recorded our worst weekday traffic in recent memory.

Because routine headline+link+snark formula blogging would be kind of a waste of time during the holidays, I've taken advantage of the situation to do some long-form stuff. First there was "Don't Fear the People," a retrospective on my coverage of the populist grassroots revival -- the first substantive post at the new site -- and then there was today's post about Washington's Christmas crossing of the Delaware.

Another thing to do during periods of slow traffic is to blog about totally silly stuff, like the Christmas Day arrest of celebrity scumbag Charlie Sheen. Why not? Do you really expect us to constantly monitor Memeorandum for the latest breaking news on the Nigerian terrorist? On a day when we're averaging less than 200 visits an hour?

Let's face it: We could post a completely random photo of an impressively endowed chubby chick -- hey, more to love -- and not get any complaints, because nobody's reading us this weekend anyway. (Folks, don't worry that we're corrupting your kids. If your teenage son got a computer for Christmas, do you really think he'll be cruising political blogs for chubbettes?)

Would a serious political commentator -- say, for example, Dan Collins -- link something so irresponsibly exploitative as a post with photos of random topless fat chicks? Of course he would. Because at least it's fun, and if traffic sucks anyway, you might as well have fun.

However, there are more useful things bloggers can do with the readerless holiday hours when we're afflicted with Seasonal Traffic Suckage Syndrome (STSS). Therefore, while Smitty toils away on the technical geekery of the WordPress changeover, I've been writing thank-you e-mails to the tip-jar hitters.

We're about halfway to our $2,000 goal for the Pasadena trip, which was a double-dog-dare-ya scheme promoted by Dan Collins. As I said at the time, I didn't think I could possibly rattle the tip-jar hard enough to make this trip happen and yet . . .

Well, as of yesterday, 34 people had hit the tip jar for an average of $30 each during December. And today I got a Christmas card from Barbara Espinosa of American Freedom blog, with a gift incentive for the trip. I checked Travelocity and can make a flight to LAX departing next weekend for about $450 if I booked it today.

Mrs. Other McCain is, of course, worried about the bills. If I make this trip, will it clear enough cash to break even and still pay the bills? Does that 1990 photo of Mrs. Other McCain looking hot in her bikini encourage you to ease her mind with an extra $10 or $20? Would you rather see more photos of fat chicks? Is anybody actually reading this?

The point is, I can roll either way: Fat chicks, celebrity scumbags, historical inspiration, or up-to-the minute breaking news about John Kerry and other terrorists. But I don't want to have to choose between (a) paying the bills and (b) going to Pasadena to provide neutral, objective coverage of the Alabama Crimson Tide's spectacular triumph in the BCS Championship.

As I explained to one of the tip-jar hitters in an e-mail exchange, I'm planning to take a look at the tip jar situation Monday before booking my flight, probably departing Jan. 2 or 3. Every little bit will help me convince Mrs. Other McCain that this is a good idea not evidence of incipient psychosis.

Maybe you're feeling that Roll Tide spirit to the tune of $20. Or maybe you just figure it would be worth $10 to read about me racing around Southern California in a rental car, interviewing hawwwtt University of Alabama cheerleaders and buying $7 gin-and-tonics for Little Miss Attila during Happy Hour at one of her favorite L.A. dive bars.

Fear and Loathing in Pasadena could be the wildest scene since I covered the Libertarian Party national convention in Denver last year. Surely the true story of Rose Bowl decadence and debauchery has got to be worth $5 to readers who have nothing better to do this weekend than to read a political blog.

Carol at No Sheeples Here is also an Alabama fan trying to hustle her way to Pasadena, so if you've already hit my tip jar, you should think about throwing Carol some action, too. Besides, if I help her make it Pasadena, maybe I can get her to do a free logo for the new WordPress site -- with or without naked fat chicks. 'Cause I can roll either way . . .

Just hit the tip jar!

Britney and K-Fed, then Jon and Kate, now . . . Ace and Allah splitsville?

Little Miss Attila brings us rumors of the latest celebrity breakup. Before Christmas, Ace of Spades trashed Mitch McConnell as a sellout bastard. Allahpundit responded with a contemptuous sneer.

Next: Ace loads up to .13 on Valu-Rite vodka, gets slapped around like Mrs. Charlie Sheen. Then Allahpundit hires publicist Stan Rosenfield to say, in effect, "that bitch Ace deserved it."

Ace: 'Foam-flecked buffoon' Sullivan doesn't have 'stupid queerbait readers'

Sorry, Ace, I disagree with your walkback. If "queerbait" is a homophobic putdown, it's a putdown that a lot of gay guys employ, generally to describe an ostensibly straight guy who seems . . . well, potentially available.

Like Charlie Crist. Or Rahm Emanuel, so my gay sources tell me. And those same sources say that gay men in Chicago swear there used to be a tall semi-Kenyan guy who was, as we might say, no stranger to the community.

But that stuff is mere gossip, and is not germaine to the question of whether it was fair of you to use "queerbait" to describe Sully's readership. The larger point, I think, is that not all gay people run around looking for excuses to be offended, and are themselves not averse to applying certain pejoratives -- "nelly," "swish" etc. -- to other gay people, especially ones they don't like.

And as for "queerbaits," who doesn't know the type of person described? I just noticed Little Miss Attila referencing a post by Cynthia Yockey about appropriate use of the term "dyke." Well, not all lesbians are dykes, and some women who look or act like dykes are actually straight.

If we didn't all have our insensitivity detectors set on "stun," tiptoeing around in fear of accidentally offending someone, maybe more people would be encouraged to criticize Sullivan's ongoing melodrama -- and the stupid queerbait readers who dig it.

Andrew Sullivan was outed by Michelangelo Signorile and, rather than leading Sully to question the hyper-politicization of sexuality, the experience led him to become SuperGayMan, the caped crusader for same-sex marriage. Sully let himself be trapped in a box, defined by his enemies, taking refuge in a ridiculous more-gay-than-thou stance.

His sexual persona is intrinsic to his politics and vice-versa. You know who he reminds me of? Bill Maher, who hates feminism and Christianity with equal fury because both belief-systems stand opposed to selfish little worms like Bill Maher gettin' some.

So I don't think you should have walked back the "queerbait" putdown, Ace. The rest of your critique of Sully is pure genius.

P.S.: To any readers intrigued by my assertion of familiarity with gay culture: (a) I majored in drama in college, (b) I was once the only straight guy working in the men's wear department of a department store, and (c) I hang out with lots of libertarians. However, (d) my wife and I have been married 20 years with six kids. If I'm overcompensating, I'm doing it right.

P.P.S.: Meredith Baxter gay? That's a big loss for the team. But what about her 15-year marriage to David Birney? Was she just fakin' it? Her inner lesbian straining for release? And why didn't her inner lesbian break free earlier, say about 1982, in a video with Phoebe Cates?

Never mind . . .

Whereas Stacy and I were not bright enough to think of this

by Smitty (h/t Little Miss Attila)

Ace has the details of that whole pesky 'accuracy' problem over at the Daily DogDish.

That mindless 'integrity' thing seems a real disadvantage. When we keep things as accurate as possible, admit fault when it occurs, and seek to spread the credit as much as possible, it really gets in the way of building an air of invincibility.

Stacy, should we consider a bout of cretinism, for purely scientific purposes? It worked for Al Gore, didn't it? Maybe this fetishing of fact is foolishness.

UPDATE: Credit Where Credit Is Due
By Robert Stacy McCain
Last night Aleister at American Glob called me to talk blogging and during the course of our conversation, I mentioned that Ace of Spades and Allahpundit were the two bloggers whom I most strived to emulate when I began blogging.

It's the irreverence toward Big Shots, see? Also, the self-deprecating humor, the running jokes, and the knowing attitude toward the interests of the readership. Beyond the value of the news aggregation and commentary, there is a shtick, so that regular readers feel themselves part of the gang, sharing the inside jokes.

Blogging is by its nature a collaborative effort. No blog is an island, and to pretend that one blogger is omniscient and omnicompetent is a pretense that won't fool anybody who pays attention.

Did I notice Patrick Appel's response to complaints from Sullivan's readers about the guest-blogging situation? Yes, it was briefly noted here Tuesday morning.

Did I give it the Mother Of All Fiskings that Ace has provided? No, I didn't. And considering that he actually beat me to it by three hours or so, thanks to Smitty for giving Ace props for making the most of the motherlode:

Because like a lot of people who never had any particular talent, Sullivan was endlessly promoted far beyond his abilities, and now that he is a "name," he intends to sell the only thing of any value he has -- that name -- and simply pay some hacks intern-level wages to ghost-blog for him while he conducts in-depth examinations of Sarah Palin's upper fallopian tubes.

Among the Daily Dish hacks paid intern-level wages? Conor Friedersdorf. Just sayin' . . .

And just sayin' is, of course, also stolen from Ace. The hacks here are unpaid, not even intern-level wages.

Let's parse that sentence again, Dan

Sometimes the help of friends is not as helpful as they might wish, and Dan Collins is only trying to help:

TimB recently visited comments to once again chide me for linking up Stacy McCain. He and others probably also induced Patterico, whom I respect, to question whether Stacy is a racist based on a statement that people naturally feel revolted by miscegenation.

Which is not actually what I said in 1996, and which (mis)interpretation has been the nub of an enormous, if understandable, misunderstanding.

Go back to yesterday's post, "Your Secret Racist Buddy," in which I made reference to a young woman's discussion of interracial relationships that I had summarized in that 1996 debate -- which, I must again emphasize, was an argument with a white separatist named Dennis Wheeler. That George Kalas, Gary Waltrip, Dana Greenblatt and I were arguing for inclusiveness ought to be your first clue that my remarks weren't aimed at justifying racism.

The young woman referenced in that discussion is a black friend of mine who in 1996 had recently returned to Georgia after living in New York. Asked about the state of race relations, North and South, she said it was about the same in both places, except that there was less acceptance of interracial relationships in the South. And she meant this chiefly in regard to the black community. (Her own father is white, and she had dated many white men.)

Notice that my friend's comment is juxtaposed with a passage from Kent Steffgen's book Bondage of the Free, a right-wing critique of the civil-rights movement published in 1966. In that passage, Steffgen talked about the high degree of residential segregation in New York City -- then as now, dominated by liberal politics -- as evidence that what was being attempted under LBJ's "Great Society" was unlikely to produce real improvements in racial harmony.

My friend had been to New York, so I asked her how things were up there, and her remark about interracial relationships struck me as curious:

Why should attitudes toward dating/marriage between the races be considered a litmus test of racial harmony?

As I explained in a comment at Little Miss Attila's blog, my object in that 1996 e-mail debate was to isolate the white separatist Wheeler (and any of his ideological soulmates) on very narrow grounds. Fully comprehending the subtext of his argument, I didn't want Wheeler to win sympathizers on the basis of such a "litmus test."

In other words, just because someone had personal issues about interracial relationships, there was no need for them to endorse a white separatist political agenda. "The personal is the political" is an identity-politics slogan popularized by feminists, and we see how it not only leads to feminist nonsense, but to racialist nonsense and gay-rights nonsense. Here I was, in 1996, confronted with Dennis Wheeler's argument that all whites must adopt a Politics of Whiteness -- an evident fulfillment of Steffgen's 1966 prophecy:

Americans will be told, in effect, that they must make a choice between their own heritage and prejudice toward Negroes. That is the way the Communists have it rigged. Ten thousand interracial themes will not beat a path to brotherhood but into the moral sewers which, in turn, will open up a market for the advocation of pure race doctrines from coast to coast and border to border for the first time in U.S. history. (Emphasis added.)

Steffgen's reference to "Communists" as instigating agents of such a development strikes us as bizarre in 2009, but that was written in 1966. Steffgen's perceived the likelihood of a Newtonian pendulum-swing reaction in racial politics, with militant advocacy of integration provoking a militant opposition. And who can say that Steffgen was not prophetic in this passage?

A Negro will appear in every advertisement and televised audience scene. The cast of characters in major Hollywood productions will conform to the 'racial balance' requirement of the Federal government.

Anyone who pays attention to the content of media has noticed how the quest for "diversity" leads to a sort of tokenism, so that every detective show and hospital melodrama on TV -- and the commercials, too -- reflects the kind of "racial balance" considerations Steffgen described. The Associated Press, Feb. 15, 2005:

Somewhere there's an America that's full of neighborhoods where black and white kids play softball together, where biracial families e-mail photos online and where Asians and blacks dance in the same nightclub.
That America is on your television.
In the idyllic world of TV commercials, Americans increasingly are living together side by side, regardless of race. The diverse images reflect a trend that has been quietly growing in the advertising industry for years: Racially mixed scenarios -- families, friendships, neighborhoods and party scenes -- are often used as a hip backdrop to sell products. . . .
But critics say such ads gloss over persistent and complicated racial realities. Though the proportion of ethnic minorities in America is growing, experts say, more than superficial interaction between groups is still relatively unusual. Most Americans overwhelmingly live and mingle with people from their own racial background.
Advertising, meanwhile, is creating a "carefully manufactured racial utopia, a narrative of colorblindness" says Charles Gallagher, a sociologist at Georgia State University in Atlanta.
Only about 7 percent of all marriages are interracial, according to Census data. About 80 percent of whites live in neighborhoods in which more than 95 percent of their neighbors also are white, and data show that most Americans have few close friends of another race, Gallagher said.
"The lens through which people learn about other races is absolutely through TV, not through human interaction and contact," he said. "Here, we're getting a lens of racial interaction that is far afield from reality." Ads make it seem that race doesn't matter, when real life would tell you something different, he added.

So there is a signfiicant gap between the media portrayal of race and people's actual lives. And now let's look at that 1996 quote for which I've been relentlessly hounded:

As Steffgen predicted, the media now force interracial images into the public mind and a number of perfectly rational people react to these images with an altogether natural revulsion.

The key here is this: To what stimuli do these "perfectly rational people react"? To the media images!

It is the media's depiction of a "carefully manufactured racial utopia," in Professor Gallagher's phrase, which produces the "revulsion" I described -- repeat, "described," not "advocated" or "endorsed." And from there, I proceeded to describe a hypothetical scenario attempting to draw a line between "racism" (i.e., racial hatred or discrimination) and a mere personal preference:

The white person who does not mind transacting business with a black bank clerk may yet be averse to accepting the clerk as his sister-in-law, and THIS IS NOT RACISM, no matter what Madison Avenue, Hollywood and Washington tell us.

A heckuva sentence to be compelled to defend, especially when it has been repeatedly plucked out of its context, having originated in a very lengthy argument with a white separatist. Given everything you now know, however, you likely perceive that sentence in a much different light.

What I was telling the readers of that e-mail list-server with the all-caps "THIS IS NOT RACISM" was to reject the guilt-trip that is constantly being laid on them by the agents of political correctness. Believe it or not, even in 2009, America is still a free country and you still have the right to your own opinion -- even unpopular opinions, and even opinions with which I may disagree. (Being opinionated by nature, I have learned to resist the temptation to turn every conversation into an argument.)

The white separatist Dennis Wheeler classifed me as one of those who "adopt a Libertarian view on race," which is fair enough, even though he obviously meant it as a pejorative.

The point is that I am weary -- and was obviously already weary in 1996 -- of the totalitiarian tendencies of political correctness, where ordinary Americans are made fearful of expressing their opinions because Big Brother Is Watching.

It strikes me as ironic that the Internet, which has been hailed as a liberating force of First Amendment freedom, has been hijacked by some people for the purposes of conducting a Star Court inquisition, so that I have been compelled to spend so much time explaining myself.

Now let my accusers explain themselves.

ADDENDUM: Let me add something that should be obvious to those who've followed these arguments going back to Charles Johnson's Sept. 12 attack on me -- I am a diligent student of history, popular culture, and political philosophy.

In 1996, a few months before this debate with Wheeler, I was awarded the George Washington Medal from the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge for a series of columns about the National Standards for U.S. History. Research for that series led me into a study of Marxism, and I sometimes boast that I've read more Marx than have most Marxists.

"How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin."
-- Ronald Reagan

Before I studied communist philosophy, my conception of Marxism was superficial. To me, a Marxist was some old Russian guy in a general's uniform on the reviewing stand during a May Day parade in Red Square, or a bearded crackpot with a megaphone ranting about the bourgeosie, or a Third World guerrila in combat fatigues with an AK-47.

Once I understood the philosophical basis of communism -- dialectical materialism, history as a series of Hegelian conflicts, etc. -- it affected my perception of politics and culture.

There are people who are, we might say, unconscious Marxists. They have been schooled in a particular worldview, taught to view the world through a prism of oppression, exploitation and alienation.

Baptized by immersion in such beliefs (which are nowadays widely promulgated in our educational institutions) these people are incapable of thinking outside the schematic system of categories that has been instilled in their minds. Confronted with a phenomenon that does not fit their schema -- e.g., a poor person who opposes socialism, a lesbian who rejects the dogma of the gay-rights movement -- these people must either ignore the obtrusive phenomenon, rationalize it, or attack and destroy it.

These unconscious Marxists are everywhere, including in the comment fields of conservative blogs. Wise men should not allow such ignorant trolls to go unrebuked.

A woman has the right to change her mind

"I’ve changed my mind. I’ve decided that you can prove a negative, and that Stacy must now prove he is free of racism. Can’t they do that with an MRI these days?"
-- Little Miss Attila

What a zany cut-up, that one. More madcap misadventures in miscegenation!

True fact: One day in the newroom of the Rome (Ga.) News-Tribune, I was making fun of something -- I forget what -- and with an expression of mock horror used the word "miscegenation."

One of our reporters, Marla Edwards (who subsequently went to work at CNN's Web site) looked at me and said, "Wow, I've never heard anybody say that word out loud before."

The word has an interesting etymology, evidently having been coined (from Latin roots) in 1864 as the title of a pamphlet distributed by New York Democrats, who accused the Republican Party of promoting miscegenation. True fact.

And here's another true fact: "Racism" is of 20th-century French origin. (Unlike "collaboration," which the French did not invent, but merely perfected.)

One of the basic assumptions made when somebody goes to accuse a Southerner of racism is that the accused is an ignoramus, to whom the accuser is so intellectually superior that the ensuing argument is going to be a slam-dunk victory for the accuser.

Like I ain't been around this track a time or two, y'see? If anyone ever wants to schedule a panel discussion about stereotypes, just give me a holler. I've been stereotyped from birth.

Since we're dabbling in a bit of linguistics, semantics and other elements of forensic rhetoric here, y'all go take a gander at what Jeff Goldstein has to say in this matter.

(And don't let Attila fool you, boys. You know who she'd rather have beers with.)

The Quaint Ann Althouse

by Smitty (h/t Little Miss Attila)

Ann Althouse hammers Maureen Dowd for inability to differentiate between private citizens (Tiger "How 'bout them" Woods) and civil servants and Desiree Rogers, the White House social secretary, or does she?

Woods had a constitutional right not to talk to the police, and I assume he was well advised by lawyers as he chose not to talk. He had a right to do what he thought was best for himself. The public may be interested in him, and he needs to worry about our loss of respect for him, which would hurt his lucrative career in product endorsement, but he doesn't owe us anything.

Rogers, on the other hand was working for the government, in a position of a public trust, and her refusal to account for herself was quite a different matter. The constitutional provision for executive privilege is not like the individual right against self-incrimination. It's a matter of separation of powers having to do with the ability of the executive branch to function independently. If it is invoked, it should not be Rogers protecting her own interests.

Let's set a few things straight, Ann:

• Tiger's dalliance is ignoble and the fascination is symptomatic of a voyeuristic society. Nothing of lasting value will be gained from it, other than distraction from real issues like Warmaquiddick for the perpetrators.
• Privacy is a notional in the Information Age. Some abstract "right to know" (an odd spelling of "money") will trigger illegalcurious behavior on cue. Ask Joe the Plumber.
• The elite, on either side of the aisle, view the Constitution as seriously as the privacy of anyone creating difficulties for their agenda. Ask Senator Max Baucus.
• The propaganda media are dedicated to sowing confusion in the public mind. Hiding the cretinism of a "civil servant" behind a bogus equivalence with a private citizen is just another service the propaganda media excretesprovides.

Then again, the formidable Ann Althouse probably understands all of this too well, and is merely being ironic.

Sarah-mania!

Today the Most Hated Woman in (Liberal) America begins her book tour in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and I describe the reaction in my latest contribution to The American Spectator:

Monday afternoon, Rush Limbaugh pointed out the most evil, mean-spirited act Sarah Palin has ever committed: She didn't include an index in her new book, Going Rogue.
Elite journalists don't read political books, but instead skim the index to see if their names are mentioned, Limbaugh explained to his national radio audience. Therefore, Palin omitted the index to exact revenge on her tormenters by forcing them to read her book. To her liberal enemies, this was a deed as inhumane as her moose-hunting.
Rush played an audio clip of MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell complaining about "Sarah's index-and-footnote free, score settling campaign memoir." The same network's Andrea Mitchell -- apparently having assigned some flunky to read the whole book -- recited on her show the only page of Going Rogue (p. 397) where Palin mentioned Mitchell. . . .

Read the whole thing. I was late on the deadline because (a) I had an interview with Andrea Shea King, and (b) the whole guilt-by-association thing went viral Monday afternoon.

Little Miss Attila fears Stacy-ism is contagious, like swine flu. The vaccine is available online for $10. But if you think you've already caught the virus, the cure is available for $20. If you're a liberal, however, you'll probably just wait until ObamaCare passes and try to get it for "free."

Hopefully Juan Connects the Dots

by Smitty

Little Miss Attila links Juan Williams with Dr. Hutcherson and Tammy Bruce becoming aware of the bigger evil pattern represented in the NFL attack on Rush Limbaugh.

The will to deny the fascism remains strong, however.

Remember, Juan: It's a cookbook!

OMG! Ashley Herzog has decided to prove once and for all she's a natural blonde!

Photographic proof, IYKWIMAITYD!

Not since Little Miss Attila published those nude photos of Hannah Giles has such a scandal rocked the conservative blogosphere. BTW, both Ace of Spades and Matthew Vadum claim to have seen Little Miss Attila topless at CPAC a couple of years ago, but they're probably just joking.

Speaking of natural blondes, everybody's favorite strawberry blonde, Becky Banks Brindle, will be having her big church wedding to Allen "Big Al" Brindle next weekend in Pittsburgh. Allen is very tall and has incredibly large hands, which probably explains why Becky dragged him to a courthouse in Virginia in December to stake her legal claim to the breathtaking awesomeness for which "Big Al" is legendary.

Now, just to make their mutual satisfaction copacetic with The Man Upstairs, the suspiciously happy couple -- we notice that "Trout Pout" has been smiling rather blissfully since December -- will be doing the formal religious acknowledgement of their blessed union.

In case anyone's been wondering why Becky hasn't been blogging much lately, it's probably because she's been so busy (a) planning her wedding, and (b) serving up hot home-cooked deliciousness to sate her hubby's voracious appetite. Nudge, nudge.

Despite the universal envy which their connubial contentment inspires, we all wish them the best, and expect the first of many large-handed blonde Banks/Brindle babies to make its appearance sometime early next summer. Allen's already refused lucrative offers for video of the conception, but maybe if you guys will hit the tip jar, I'll see if I can talk him into arranging for me to take photos of the delivery. IYKWIMAITYD.

(Trust me, Allen: I'm a happily married father of six. As we say at The McCain Institute, if you've seen one episiotomy, you've seen 'em all. This is about neutral, objective professional journalism.)

LGF's Kilgore Trout attacks Hot Air

Ace of Spades has the details of an attack that I had actually predicted Thursday morning in an e-mail to Michelle Malkin.

My son's first football game is today, and I have other commitments this evening. However, I must first make these two brief notes:

• Irving Kristol, R.I.P. A great man, whose influence will be remembered and debated for many years to come. My condolences and sympathy to his family and many friends.
• A friend just told me that Hannah Giles was "hurt" by my seizing the Hannah Giles bikini Google-bomb last week. But I know how the Left works, and I knew what was coming as soon as Hannah became famous, as did other smart conservatives in the blogosphere. Respectful conservative bloggers now own all the top Google-searche results for those photos and Little Miss Attila has also protected this fine Christian girl against Hannah Giles nude and Hannah Giles sex video.

"Angels unaware," as I said in an update just now. And as I've said so many times, "Just because you don't know what I'm doing, don't assume that I don't know what I'm doing."

God bless you, Hannah. And I hope the God-haters will remember: When old No. 27's son says, "I'm going to beat you today," he's not bragging. It is a statement of fact.

Now I must go to my son's football game. Family tradition . . .

UPDATE 5:15 p.m.: Despite some sloppy execution -- Bear Bryant would have those boys running wind sprints Monday until they were spittin' cotton -- my son's team, Brick Squad, scored a 19-6 victory over the So Icy Boys. My son Bob missed a few tackles, but redeemed himself by sacking the quarterback to end the game.

Even if it's only intramural flag football, the victorious tradition must be maintained as a matter of honor.

UPDATE 6:40 p.m.: File this under Bwaahahahahaha: Hot Air just moved LGF from "War On Terror" to "Left Channels" on their blogroll. Screen-cap that, post it on your blog, link here, and you've got yourself a guaranteed link-back.

UPDATE 6:46 p.m.: Fritz Hannah Giles lingerie is learning at Patterico. BTW, we were with Jeff G. in his feud with Patterico, but let bygones be bygones, as I say to my Yankee wife.

Go Phyllis!

Cynthia Yockey rounds up a brutal punk-smacking that Phyllis Chesler laid on Naomi Wolfe who -- I am not making this up -- defended the burqa as "feminist."

My apologies to Cynthia and Phyllis for not noticing earlier, as I get so wrapped up in my own flame-wars that it's like tunnel vision.

Speaking of flame wars and feminism, Little Miss Attila took womynly offense at Ace of Spades after Ace finally lost patience with LGF's Charles Johnson over the Van Jones controversy. In exasperation, Ace's cri de coeur was: "This is like arguing with a woman of the more irrational sort."

Attila acts outraged, but she knows exactly what Ace is talking about. Any argument between a man and a woman will eventually reach the stage at which the woman's key point is, "You are a bad person for disagreeing with me."

In response, the man's argument becomes, "Why don't you shut your stupid mouth and fix me some biscuits?"

Which was essentially what Ace was saying to Charles.

This Looks Like a Case for . . .Dr. R.S. McCain, OB-GYN

My esteemed medical colleague, Dr. L.M. Attila, points out that in the Age of Hope and Change, when any random Obama delegate can represent herself as a "primary care physician," the overall quality of our nation's health care system may be at risk.

Therefore, because of my concern for the well-being of American women, the McCain Institute for Advanced Vaginology is proud to offer a citizen's handbook for improving gynecological health, Know Your Vajayjay: An Expert Guide to What's Up Down There.

Because vaginal emergencies can strike suddenly and without warning, I would urge every American to order a copy of Know Your Vajayjay immediately. However, understanding that many low-income blog readers may not be able to afford this fine product, the Institute's staff is currently available to answer any questions about the proper vaginal care that commenters or e-mailers might have.

Here is one recent question presented to the McCain Institute's team of vaginal experts:

Dear Dr. McCain,
For many years, my vagina was quite useful to me both personally and professionally. There was widespread interest in my vagina, which I gladly shared with any man who expressed the slightest curiosity, including editors, publishers and other men who could help me in my career as a writer.
Lately, however, I have had increasing difficulty finding anyone to take interest in my vagina, which has become somewhat dry and itchy. According to one man who recently took a brief look, it "reeks" of stale seafood. However, he ran screaming from my apartment before I could ask him more about this problem, and I figure I needed some expert advice. Can you help me?
Maureen D., N.Y., N.Y.

Obviously, an emergency case. The institute staff rushed this woman's desperate message directly to my desk and I quickly sent this reply:

Dear Ms. Dowd,
You seem to be suffering from a condition which, unfortunately, has become increasingly commonplace for women your age. Sometimes referred to as Kathleen Parker Disease, this is known to medical specialists as twatticus nasticus or Bad Nookie Syndrome.
BNS is caused by years of wanton promiscuity, and most often occurs among crack cocaine addicts, truck-stop prostitutes and Women's Studies majors. Symptoms of BNS, which may include delusional admiration for Democratic politicians, often go undetected for years because sufferers tend to inhabit environments (such as elite universities, low-rent motels and major media newsrooms) where these symptoms are considered normal.
Because early-stage BNS does not usually result in noticeable deterioration of vaginal quality, younger sufferers often believe they are immune to the known effects of the disease -- until it is too late. The onset of terminal BNS, clearly indicated in your case, is sudden and irreversible, resulting in the telltale odor you describe. (While your message said nothing about "extreme gaping," most BNS patients are too embarrassed to mention that symptom, which usually begins to manifest itself in the intermediate stages of your disease.)
Unfortunately, despite decades of intense research here at the Institute, we have not yet discovered an effective treatment for BNS, which appears to be incurable once it passes the early stages. Vaginal death inexorably ensues. Attempts at vaginal resuscitation, such as hanging out in waterfront bars during Fleet Week, will prove futile.
However, with the able assistance of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, we have recently received a stimulus grant through the National Institutes of Health that allows us to offer End Of Vaginal Life counseling and Vaginal Hospice to patients such as yourself in the painful last throes of BNS. While we are not yet authorized to advise vaginal euthanasia, clearly there is no point attempting to delay the unavoidable.
Despite the impending death of your vagina, the Institute's educational service will be forwarding some informative materials to your New York office, so that you may warn others to avoid this tragic fate. When you receive your copy of Know Your Vajayjay, please see Chapter 11, "When Nookie Goes Bad: Maureen, You Ignorant Slut."
Here's to your health!
Dr. R.S. McCain, OB-GYN
President, Founder and Research Director
McCain Institute for Advanced Vaginology
Our motto: "Trust Us. We're Experts."

We ask our readers to give generously and help advance the institute's mission of vaginal health. Anyone ordering a copy of Know Your Vajayjay should be advised that because of overwhelming demand, the Institute is currently experiencing shipping delays which might, like the death of Ms. Dowd's vagina, prove to be permanent.

Our experts are now waiting to answer your vaginal questions.

UPDATE: We are grateful for the referrals from Dr. Mike's Fisherville Clinic and from our Florida affliliate, Dr. Gator's Home For Unwed Hotties. Also, we have a referral from one of our moronic associates at the Ace Of Spades Center For Vaginal Research. Dr. O'Spades has pioneered the development of Valu-Rite Vodka therapy for BNS sufferers.

Meanwhile, a question from commenter "Jeff S.":

Have you heard from Kathy Griffin as yet, Dr. McCain? I heard something about her getting "...a bruise in a naughty place" after the "Teen Choice Awards", in cooperation with Levi Johnston. Or are we seeing the terminal stages of BNS?

Thank you for your question, Jeff. While Ms. Griffin is clearly at risk for BNS, it is unlikely she is yet past the intermediate stage and may be employing an avoidance strategy commonly employed by less-attractive BNS cases. Having exhausted the supply of genuinely desperate heterosexual men, women like Ms. Griffin sometimes avoid vaginal death by associating primarily with homosexual men.

Despite allegations that Mr. Johnston has previously participated in acts of heterosexuality, his recent emergence as "Ricky Hollywood" reveals what "a total closet-case he's always been," according to sources in Wasilla, Alaska.

So while we are not yet prepared to offer a prognosis for Ms. Griffin, it is clear that Mr. Johnston may be suffering from spreadicus glutteus maximus, commonly known as Raging Faggotosis. However, for further information on this disorder, we advise you to contact the Gaping Anus Foundation.

Remember to give generously to support our research.

UPDATE II: We welcome students from Nurse O. B. Sister's Peach Cleft Clinic. Nurse Sister practices in Lithia Springs, Georgia, where I did my earliest research into vaginal health.

Everybody's in Atlanta, why not me?

First it was Little Miss Attila, and now Moe Lane announces his departure to my hometown for this weekend's big Red State Gathering, where the attendees will celebrate the absence of the conspicuously uninvited Native Son.

Last weekend, after I described my trip to Richmond for Liberty 101 -- the Virginia Tea Party Patriots are wonderful people -- I got a worried e-mail from Ben Marchi, Virginia state director of Americans For Prosperity, as a result of these paragraphs:

Of course, my feelings were still sore that AFP's Erik Telford insulted me by leaving me out of next month's RightOnline National Conference in Pittsburgh with Michelle Malkin. When I mentioned Erik's name, Ben reminded me that Telford recently made No. 2 on Keith Olbermann's "Worst Person in the World" list. As usual, Olbermann gets the facts wrong -- Telford's No. 1.
That surge of registrations for RightOnline the past two days was caused by my friends signing up for a seminar Telford left off the Pittsburgh conference agenda: "I've Got T-Shirts Older Than You, Punk: Stacy McCain Explains Why He Just Beat the Crap Out of Erik Telford in the Sheraton Lobby." But I digress . . .

So I sent an e-mail back to Ben and explained that I wasn't really angry at Telford. He's a nice kid and I was only joking about the beating.

Well, probably joking. It's been years since I've risked an assault charge by giving some ungrateful punk the thrashing he so richly deserved, but just because I've become a top Hayekian public intellectual -- the pinnacle of journalistic respectability -- doesn't mean my enemies should feel they can grossly insult me without fearing the violent consequences.

These kids, they don't know from Gonzo. Back in the day, when Hunter S. Thompson was living the precarious and poverty-stricken freelancer's life, it became his habit to respond to rejection notices and unfruitful job applications with outrageous letters full of hyperbolic denunciations and threats.

People who actually knew Thompson understood that these letters were, for the most part, just writing exercises. A writer improves his craft by constant practice, and if you have just been denied the opportunity to get paid for your craft, why not exercise the rejected skill at the expense of the philistine wretch who failed to recognize your genius?

Long after he became famously successful -- genius must ultimately have its reward -- Thompson never forgot the experience of poverty and obscurity. For example, one reason he took such great delight in becoming a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner in the 1980s was that, 25 years earlier, his application for a reporting job at the rival Chronicle had been rejected. And then there was this 1972 love-note to a good buddy of his:

"Dear John . . .
"You skunk-sucking bastard . . ."
-- Hunter S. Thompson, letter to John Chancellor of NBC News, Sept. 11, 1972, reprinted in Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72

Thompson's unpredictable sense of humor made him a constant source of carnival amusement for his friends. So as Moe and Attila relax and enjoy their cocktails Saturday evening at the Red State Gathering, they should not dismiss the possibility that their conviviality will be disturbed by a sudden Gonzo episode:

"Sweetheart, give me a cold Corona, with lime," I told the redhead behind the bar, loud enough to be heard by Miss Attila, sitting at a table in the corner with Moe Lane. As usual, Attila was zonked on gin and entirely oblivious. But Moe glanced over and froze with the shock of recognition. I nodded at him and smiled, tossed a $10 on the bar -- the redhead was cute and the service was prompt -- grabbed my Corona and strolled casually to their table.
Strolling casually was difficult, considering I was jacked up on no fewer than six cups of truck-stop coffee I'd consumed on my 700-mile drive from Hagerstown. I'd made it in just a shade over 14 hours, although I could have done it in less than 11, if I hadn't been forced to exit I-81 south of Bristol to elude the Tennessee state trooper who blue-lighted me when I flew past him at 110 mph.
With my thorough knowledge of the region's back roads and a half-mile head-start -- the trooper must have been a rookie and was just a tad slow on the jump -- I knew he'd never overtake me. But like the moonshiners used to say, you can't outrun the Motorola, so I'd been forced to park the rented Mustang for half an hour behind a Pentacostal church near Walnut Hill while half the law-enforcement personnel in Sullivan County raced back and forth on the Blountville Highway trying to find me. I sat there on the front steps of the church, reading that morning's New York Times, smoking Camel Lights and enjoying the show until I was sure they'd called off the pursuit.
Given that the trooper had never gotten close enough to see my tags, I was reasonably safe from further harassment, but now there was a BOLO for the Mustang, so I had to wind my way through backroads until I picked up I-26, then cut back over to I-81 and kept it cool all the way through Knoxville before opening it up again once I made it on I-75.
So it was nearly 8 p.m. when I handed the keys to the valet in front of the Grand Hyatt, grabbed my satchel and tried to be inconspicuous as I pushed through the side door and crossed the lobby to the men's room.
Quickly washing, shaving and brushing my teeth, I changed clothes and looked as sharp as a CEO when I re-entered the lobby and approached the concierge, handing him the satchel containing my toiletry kit, washcloth and dirty laundry.
"No problem, sir," he said, handing me a ticket in exchange for a $5 tip.
"You're a gentleman and a scholar, Reginald," I replied, with the manic sincerity of a man who'd had nine hours sleep in the past three days, including a fitful 90-minute nap in the front seat of the Mustang in a truckstop parking lot near Adairsville.
Moe Lane knew none of this, of course, and my stroll across the Hyatt bar was supremely casual.
"Stacy!" he said. "What the . . I mean, what's with the tux?"
Attila stared glassy-eyed, predictably having skipped dinner to start in on the gin at five o'clock. She seemed to be trying to form the words of a greeting, but I just smiled, took a big swig of the Corona and pulled up a chair.
"Oh, my buddy Phil Kent invited me to a state GOP fund-raiser, and I thought I'd swing by over here and see how things were going."
"Stacy!" said Attila at last, putting her hand on my wrist.
"Sweetheart, how are ya?" I said, but she was too far gone to comprehend even this simple pleasantry, much less formulate an answer.
"Stacy!" she repeated, but then was distracted when the waiter walked past our table. She grabbed him and thrust her empty glass at him, demanding more gin. I turned my attention to Moe.
"Hey, good to see ya, man. Where's Mr. Erickson?" I said, taking another long drink from the Corona and trying to be as nonchalant as possible.
"Oh, he's still finishing up at the reception. I'm sure he'll be here in 10 minutes."
Still nonchalant, I shook my head and finished the Corona with another long gulp. "Too bad. Can't stick around. I've got to run back over to Phil's party. But maybe I can drop in and say howdy to Erick on my way out. Where's the reception?"
Moe told me the name of the ballroom and I nodded as he told me which floor it was on.
"Thanks, buddy," I said, then reached inside my jacket and pulled out the souvenir Bowie knife I'd bought for $30 at that Adairsville truck stop. Now my eyes gleamed crazily as I briefly brandished the seven-inch blade. "I've got some old business to settle with Mr. Erickson tonight . . ."
With that, I stood up and, holding the knife down beside my leg as if to conceal it, walked quickly toward the side door, glancing back just once to see Moe frantically typing a text-message into his Blackberry. Perfect.
Ditching the knife in the nearest trash can -- definitely $30 of fun -- I headed up the corridor to the pay phones, dropped in some change and made a quick call. After hanging up, I went around the corner, down the hall and turned left, back into the lobby. The concierge spotted me as I strode cheerfully toward him, holding the ticket for my satchel. He took the ticket and handed me the bag with a smiling "thank you, sir."
When I walked out the door, Phil's car was waiting. I threw the satchel in the back seat, climbed in and closed the door.
"Stace, old buddy, how's it going?" Phil said. "It's been a while."
"Yeah, too long, Phil. But you know how it is -- busy, busy, busy."
He wheeled the car through the driveway, but stopped when he heard the sirens of the Atlanta P.D. cars that came screaming down Peachtree Street toward us.
"Wow? What's that?" Phil said.
"Ah, some drunk woman was getting rowdy in the bar. She started talking a lot of crazy stuff about a knife. I guess somebody finally called the cops."
"Yeah, that happens a lot around here," Phil said, turning onto Peachtree after the cop cars had roared past.
"Yeah, I said. "It happens . . ."

Merely another hypothetical scenario, you see. No way I would actually do something that crazy. Even if I had time to drive to Atlanta this weekend, the gas alone would chew up the commission check that just came in the mail this morning, and my wife wants to make the overdue car payment with that. On the other hand, if a couple dozen readers were to hit the tip jar today . . .

Well, I probably still wouldn't drive to Atlanta just for the fun of startling Moe and Attila by my unexpected arrival, but isn't it important for them to think I could?

(Erick: No need to pay me for promoting the Red State Gathering. It's entirely my pleasure, you skunk-sucking bastard.)

UPDATE: Thanks to Steve Givler for playing the Grammar Nazi in the comments. "Strode" is just one of those irregular past-tenses that sounds so weird that it doesn't occur to the ear naturally, and I tend to write by ear, having paid only enough attention in freshman comp class to slide through with a B. Nothing against English majors or Advanced Grammar classes, you understand. Some of my best friends were English majors. NTTAWWT.

Afterbirther

by Smitty

This is not a post, directly, about events that may or may not have occurred in Hawaii some decades past. Keep in mind that you have the POTUS sworn in by the Chief Justice, and a unanimous resolution in the House supporting him. That makes three branches of the federal government telling you that's just the way it is.

The left-handed amusement I'm feeling is that, for all a sizable chunk of people are exercised about this point, no one is raising the same level of concern about the Social Security Act that they are about health care and the birther stuff.

While it's 74 years long in the tooth next month, its blatant 10th Amendment violation stands as the hugest, longest lasting political WTF in contemporary US history. This is the best example I can think of conforming to the ancient observation:

Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.--Matt 23:24

(For you non Bible-geeks: they would pour wine through a mesh into the cup, just in case it carried any divers.)

'Unseemly obsession'?

Little Miss Attila accuses me of some sort of Freudian complex involving the SiteMeter. Perhaps the Blogospheric Neologian can coin a term for this.

Look, Attila: The writer is ultimately less important than the reader. If it weren't for readers, no one would bother writing. So the writer who seeks a larger readership cannot be presumed to be engaging in mere self-aggrandizement. Given that there is no TV network, publisher, agent, think tank, advocacy group or political party willing to spend a dime promoting my work to the wider world, the DIY-hype approach is the only alternative to the extreme traffic suckage that leads to blog-death.

Growth or entropy, take your pick. If folks in the newspaper industry had been more attuned to giving their readers something worth reading -- something interesting and occasionally surprising -- maybe I'd still be getting paid a full-time salary to fill reams of newsprint. Instead, the industry surrendered its fate to high-priced consultants and know-it-all ASNE panelists, so even if I were interested in a return to the dead-tree racket, why rush to be the last passenger aboard the Lusitania?

So I'm flinging pixels across the 'sphere and, as Chris Muir recently reminded me, trying to have fun.

If you're not having fun, you'll burn out. And if you take this politics crap too seriously, it'll drive you nuts. While I've been certifiably nuts ever since that unfortunate 1979 incident involving psilocybin mushroom tea and Bolivian flake cocaine -- Just Say No, kids -- maintaining a simulacrum of sanity requires that I occasionally get my Gonzo on.

So I indulge in little inside jokes and, as a great philosopher once said, the issue here is not whether we broke a few rules, or took a few liberties with our female party guests.

We did. Or at least Professor Douglas did.

Well, you can do what you want to Donald Douglas, but we're not going to sit here while you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!

OK, that brings us around to Cassandra, who offers a splendid opportunity for double entendre that I'll uncharacteristically resist. Instead, I'll take up the comment she left in Monday's post:

Stacy, if you want to argue with something I actually said, knock yourself out :p I'll be more than happy to debate you on the merits.
But knocking down straw men doesn't answer the mail. Kurtz didn't link to the live video (repeatedly, just in case someone still hadn't seen it), nor did he equate taking advantage of a crime committed against an innocent woman as part and parcel of "heterosexual male-dom."

Exploitation is exploitation, ma'am, and your defense of Howard Kurtz approaches the event horizon of that philosophical black hole known as moral relativism. (As Stephen Hawking theorized, when one approaches such a point, time slows down and the force of gravity nears the infinite, which is probably neither here nor there so far as it concerns Erin Andrews, although it would have been a mind-blowing concept to ponder back in 1979.)

In my very first mention of the aforesaid Google-bomb, I tried to employ gentle humor to dissuade the Professor from further pursuing this unfortunate meme. When it quickly became apparent, however, that (a) the MSM were all over it and (b) other bloggers were weighing in on the Professor's ethics, I felt obliged to address the topic more directly:

Like Dan Riehl and Don Surber, I had no clue who Erin Andrews is before this incident. I feel wrong even blogging about it, and I'm notoriously shameless when it comes to traffic enhancement.

Generally, however, it seemed to me that Donald had gotten himself into a fix where friendly persuasion would achieve better results than a fire-and-brimstone sermon. Even geniuses sometimes make mistakes and, while the professor clearly crossed the event horizon, one can hardly argue that his Icarus-like adventure was entirely fruitless.

Given that I was nearing deadline on a 3,000-word feature about IG-Gate for the September print issue of the American Spectator (subscribe now to the only dead-tree publication that still matters), even while new developments were popping up left and right, not even Hawking's time-warp theory could possibly provide me enough time to read everything that everyone wrote about this controversy.

Like a sophomore slugging Red Bull as he furiously crams for a test he'd forgotten was this Wednesday, or a hurried tourist rushing through the Louvre ("Oh, look, Seurat!") during a two-hour tour-bus stop, all I could do was to conjure a rough gestalt impression of what the hell was going on.

Therefore, Ms. Cassandra, please excuse my failure to engage what Conor Friedersdorf would call your "substantive criticisms." Between one thing and another -- reporting IG-Gate, bashing David Brooks, pushing the Best. Book. Evah! -- maybe I'm a tad overextended lately. Hell's bells, I've barely had time to deride the "sucker's rally" on Wall Street!

Speaking of Wall Street, my recent return to biz-blogging means that I now tune my home-office TV to CNBC while working. Tuesday night, while I was writing this (for posting Wednesday morning, when I'll be getting ready for another shoe-leather trip to Capitol Hill), CNBC presented an hour-long special report:"PORN: Business of Pleasure":

It was once too taboo to talk about, but not anymore. In the new CNBC original production "Porn: Business of Pleasure" nothing is off limits when it comes to the controversial multi-billion dollar industry . . .
CNBC, First in Business Worldwide, takes an unprecedented behind-the-scenes look inside the multibillion pornography business . . .

Time slows down, gravity nears the infinite . . .

'That's Just the Rule 5 Way It Is!'

Little Miss Attila encounters the original inspiration for the Paul Anka Integrity Kick:

Seeing that was like watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time . . .

Indeed, and with Goldsteinesque appreciation for intentionality, I feel obligated to provide some (unfortunately necessary) clarification on the origins and purpose of Rule 5.

Donald Douglas is a good guy, and the blogospheric round-robin consensus that he pushed the rule beyond its reasonable limit does not diminish his good-guy status. One of the things about "edgy" humor is that you never know where the edge actually is until you've gone over it. Certainly, I cannot cast the first stone.

'Pork Marlene Desmond?'
The sociological purpose of an inside joke is as a signifier of membership, an acknowledgment of shared experience. When I was at the Rome News-Tribune, there was a group of us guys in the newsroom who were all fans of Animal House and Blazing Saddles.

So when special-projects editor Pierre Rene-Noth issued an editorial memo to the newsroom, business editor John Willis would say, "Now what'll that a**hole think of next?" To which the only response was, "Somebody's gotta go back and get a s***load of dimes!"

Or, if you drew one of those short-straw assignments, city editor Mike Colombo would say, "You f***ed up -- you trusted us!" Such a reference might lead to an extended riff-fest: "Will that work?" "Hey, it's gotta work better than the truth."

The whole point of this silly riffing was to humorously reassure each other that we were all sharing the same miserable fate ("Mongo only pawn in game of life.") and thus maintain some some semblance of esprit d'corps among the wretches pulling the oars on this galley.

After I moved to Washington, I was mortified to discover that, in the newsroom of The Washington Times, the appropriate signifiers on the national desk were Caddyshack and Seinfeld, so that (a) I didn't always get their in-jokes, and (b) my own accustomed in-jokes did not elicit the appropriate chuckles of recognition.

To make matters worse, over the course of the next decade, turnover in the staff meant that we increasingly had younger staffers for whom all such references were as opaque as the Dead Sea Scrolls. (On the upside, however, your average 20-something's shortage of cultural referents means an old guy can recycle ancient vaudeville gags and be considered inventively witty: "If I could walk that way, I wouldn't need the talcum powder!")

Pirate's Cove and the Zero Hour
As I've explained before, but perhaps should explain again, the credit (or blame) for inspiring Rule 5 is split three ways:

• A back-and-forth Christina Hendricks riff with Stephen Green of VodkaPundit in the gloomy weeks following the 2008 election, when political blog traffic plummeted precipitously.
• Five days a week, Conservative Grapevine includes links to bikini babes at the end of its news aggregation and -- as John Hawkins has pointed out -- the bikini links consistently get more clicks than all the rest.
• Every Sunday, William Teach at Pirate's Cove does Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup, an aggregation post featuring classic pinup art.

Back in the day -- and remember, my first month of full-time blogging here (March 2008) I had a grand total of 6,000 visitors -- involved repeated encounters with that awful moment experienced by every newbie blogger, The Zero Hour: You toil into the night to create what you think is the most brilliant post ever, e-mail the link to several bloggers (Rule 1), go to bed, wake up at 5 a.m., log on expecting your SiteMeter to be spiking off the charts and . . . nothing. Your most recent hourly traffic was a big, fat zero.

OK, you could buy a "secrets of blogging" book (Secret Tip No. 1: Be A Cute Chick) or sign up for a class on how to enhance your blog traffic. Or you could stick your head in the oven and end it all.

If neither of those options is appealing, however, there's the DIY method: Obsessively study the craft, apply what you learn, and resourcefully bootstrap your own trial-and-error solution to the ubiquitous blogger problem of traffic suckage.

Also, listen to your wife. After about my third or fourth Instalanche, my wife said, "Let me guess: Was it one of your smart-ass comments?" Well . . . yeah, it was. My wife said, "See? You should be funny. You're good at that."

At any rate, there were some Sundays in the early going when, if it hadn't been for inclusion in the Pirate's Cove aggregation, I wouldn't have had 100 visits for the whole day. So when it came time to celebrate our first million hits, to have omitted Rule 5 would have been an act of negligence and ingratitude. You've got to give something back, see?

'Land-Snatching . . . See: Snatch'

Hedley Lamarr: My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.
Taggart: Golldarn it, Mr. Lamarr, you use your tongue prettier than a $20 whore.

And so we behold Donald Douglas and the "Erin Andrews nude" Google-bomb, still pounding it as relentlessly as Andrew Sullivan in the back row of the cineplex during a Patrick Swayze film festival.

When we crossed the 2 million threshold, I used the occasion to suggest that maybe it was time to "step away from the peephole," but Donald keeps milking it like Andrew Sul . . . Never mind. Supply your own disturbing mental image. I refuse to take responsibility for the emergency brain-bleach shortage that would result if I completed that sentence.

My point is that now Cassandra of Villainous Company is becoming so offended, she's threatening to remove her sexy garter-flashing pinup art -- and we can't let that happen. Like some sort of well-intentioned mad scientist, I've created a monster (Frankencheesecake?) and now the villagers are storming the castle with pitchforks and torches.

What's weird is that Professor Douglas is now able to provide Erin Andrews nude citations from the Hartford Courant and Howard Kurtz. It's one of those viral memes that is unlikely to stop spreading anywhere this side of the Wall Street Journal or the Christian Science Monitor.

How can we lure Donald out of the swirling vortex -- a torrent, one might say -- of Erin Andrews nude?

'We Have to Go All Out'

Otter: I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part.
Bluto: And we're just the guys to do it.

Fighting fire with fire, and inspired by the success of National Offend A Feminist Week, I hereby declare July 27-Aug. 2 to be International Rule 5 BikiniFest Week. (Smitty: "Now what'll that a**hole think of next?")

We'll have a daily contest, recognizing the best of each day's entries, and culminate next Sunday by awarding the 2009 Rule 5 BikiniFest Week Grand Prize. Here are the rules:

• PG-13. You'll be disqualified for prizes if you go too far, so use your best judgment, guys. Generally speaking, anything more revealing than the sexy bikini picture of Mrs. Other McCain risks disqualification. Smitty will be the final arbiter of this rule, although I may be available for consultation on particularly difficult cases.
• Bikinis preferred, but not mandatory. Glamour/lingerie photos will also be considered. Mrs. Other McCain has never minded me looking at the Victoria's Secret catalog, so long as I buy her something nice and lacy for Christmas. However, keep in mind the "PG-13" rule. Of the 15 photos in this Miranda Kerr Victoria's Secret pictorial, the three topless photos would probably risk disqualification. However, Smitty is the final arbiter.
• Sorry, ladies: No beefcake. Given that the whole point of this exercise is to tempt Professor Douglas away from his traffic-hungry Erin Andrews frenzy, photos of studly bare-chested macho dudes (NTTAWWT) will be ineligible for prizes, although Smitty may decide to link those posts anyway.
• No minors. Anyone posting bikini photos of Miley Cyrus or Selena Gomez will be immediately disqualified. Ex-jailbait princesses -- Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, etc. -- are eligible, but only if the photos were indisputably taken after the subjects turned 18, you sick freak, you.
• No Erin Andrews. Speaking of sick freaks, whoever drilled that peephole and recorded that video needs to be strung up by his scrotum and repeatedly cattle-prodded where it hurts the most. No criminal voyeurism, no bondage, no whips, no chains, no handcuffs, dog-collars or nipple-clips -- do we need to go ahead and specifically rule out bestiality and necrophilia, or is the general idea clear? We want healthy, wholesome cheesecake of the kind that any red-blooded truck mechanic would be pleased to see rendered as art in a Gil Elvgren classic pinup calendar. Again, Smitty is the final arbiter.

So there you have it: Thanks to Dr. Douglas and this disgusting peephole video, bloggers now have a perfect excuse to post babelicious bikini pics every day of the week. Just post the babes and e-mail your links to Smitty. In addition to reciprocal linkage, winners will be eligible for the the prize of one beer, if you should ever happen to catch me in a bar with money in my pocket -- and good luck with that.

Will this crazy scheme work? If it doesn't, we may have to send SWAT units and the hostage negotiation team to try to talk Dr. Douglas away from Erin Andrews nude.

The amazing coincidence here is that International Rule 5 BikiniFest Week just happens to occur during the nadir of the mid-summer doldrums, when our blog traffic would otherwise suck worse than Andrew Sul . . . oh, you don't really expect me to finish that sentence, do you? Hit the tip jar, or I just might, and in such a way that you'll never get enough brain-bleach to erase that mental image.

Thank you, Bush 41!

Oh, sweet mother of ironies:

First Lady Michelle Obama is kicking off a White House push to underscore the importance of volunteerism in San Francisco on Monday -- a move that will have political figures here elbowing each other to get in the frame with her.
But step aside, folks, it's California First Lady Maria Shriver who snags that honor before all. . . .

(Editor's note: Remember how all those celebrities in California strove to "get in the frame with" Laura Bush? . . . Hello? Is this thing on?)

Then, Michelle Obama delivers the keynote at Moscone Center, before the 2009 National Conference on Volunteering and Service. That meeting, hosted by the Corporation for National and Community Service and the Points of Light Institute . . .

Ah, the "thousand points of light" hailed by President George H.W. Bush as he celebrated that "kinder, gentler America" which he handed on a silver platter to Bill Clinton four years later and which his son delivered, gift-wrapped with a festive bow of "compassionate conservatism," to the Obamas. (Read My Lips: No More Bushes!)

Michelle Malkin links this S.F. Chronicle story to point to an angle that interests me very much:

Guess where the First Lady will be on Monday?
Why, she’ll be delivering the keynote address at the 2009 National Conference on Volunteering and Service in San Francisco.
And who is co-sponsoring the conference?
Why, the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS)!
Yes, that’s the same CNCS that is the parent organization of AmeriCorps.
It’s the same CNCS that last year suspended Sacramento mayor/Obama crony Kevin Johnson from receiving federal funds after then-inspector general Gerald Walpin blew the whistle on massive fraud and abuse of AmeriCorps dollars for personal and political gain. . . .

If you haven't read the whole thing (including The Other Michelle's California itinerary), then most certainly you should read the whole thing. However . . .

When you come back from reading the whole thing, let's talk about something very important: The reason Barack Obama is president is because the people in charge of the Republican Party are stupid. And I'm not talking about SAT scores. I'm talking about the kind of stupid that thinks:

• Republicans can win by trying to beat liberals at the "compassion"/"social justice" schtick;
• Republicans can create government programs that won't be taken over and subverted to expand the Democratic Party the next time Democrats win an election; and
• Republicans who think it's a good idea to nominate a short, bald, grumpy 72-year-old for president.

Perhaps you fall into one of those three categories, in which case, you should never look into a mirror without seeing a face blushed with shame for having elected Obama president. Had the Republican Party stuck to its knitting, The Other Michelle would not be first lady, but because of "compassion" and Crazy Cousin John . . . On Super Tuesday 2008, somebody wrote this:

McCain is not a conservative, he will lose in November . . .

And the same person wrote this:

John McCain lost the election Sept. 24 and Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States. Nothing that is likely to happen between now and Nov. 4 can change this outcome.

Really, shouldn't being right count for something?

But it doesn't count for . . . well, it doesn't count for much. Why is this? Because the stupid people who run the GOP (are you listening, John Cornyn?) invariably heed the voices of The Republicans Who Really Matter.

Someone recently called attention to the fact that a certain writer is "enthralled with the leftosphere's 'association with academia,'" like Professor Glenn Reynolds is chopped liver and Professor William Jacobson is a side order of fries. Attention was called to this backhanded insult to conservative academic bloggers by the pickle on the lunch plate, Professor Donald Douglas, observing that the bearer of insults "argues like a lefty." Gee, ya think so?

Some of you might have noticed that there was actual news today, while some of us were distracted by other matters. I'm tired of being distracted. Remind me one of these days to write an essay entitled, "Exhaustion Has Consequences." Think Small.

BTW, I just had to borrow Ed's troll-hammer and delete a couple of comments on a thread. Use your own bandwidth, Anonymous. You've abused my hospitality once too often. Also, sensei Moe Lane points out that he's got some practical tips on blogging to offer.

There is a saying revered among the sensei: Thou shalt not suffer a troll to waste thy bandwidth. Few are the sensei, and many are their sayings.

Anything else? Yes. Little Miss Attila. More sensei wisdom: When in doubt, link Little Miss Attila.

UPDATE: Daley Gator is praying for me. TrogloPundit is moved to pity. Trog, you know who you should pity? The Wisconsinian with whom you partied in Minneapolis last August.

When I was driving down to D.C. on Thursday, I was so furious I was ready to dismantle that boy. Fortunately, I restrained my wrath, and he bought me a cup of coffee. Then I spotted a sign next to an elevator that directed me to the office to which your friend should have taken me immediately upon my arrival.

The most valuable qualities in journalism are aggression and resourcefulness. When other reporters are eating your lunch and your sources aren't answering their phones, you get angry. You are being paid to get the story, and if you aren't getting the story, you're cheating your employer out of a paycheck.

Faced with the alternative of becoming a worthless laughingstock, you get in your car and start driving with one idea in mind: Finding that son of a bitch who stands between you and your story.

Well, Trog, on Thursday, your buddy was that son of a bitch. Ask Mrs. Other McCain what kind of mad Celtic fury had gripped my soul when I left the house that afternoon. Ask Rick Moran what sort of bloody imprecations I was shouting into my cell-phone as I blazed down the freeway at 90 mph en route to what, for all I knew at the time, was going to be a fruitless run-around by the son of a bitch who wasn't returning my calls.

Trust me. I was going to leave Washington with the story, or else I was going to become the story. Maybe the story was going to be my obituary, but . . .

Anyway, when I have to drive 70 miles, pay $9 to park and walk three blocks because you didn't answer your phone, don't expect me to be in a pleasant mood when I arrive. And I'm prepared to make that trip again, if necessary.