Friday Night Babe

Tonight's FNB* is Denise Richards!

(*a.k.a. Rule Five Friday)

Quote du jour

I love the fact that Venezuela is running out of toilet paper. This is a great socialist tradition. Forget Margaret Thatcher's axiom about the trouble with socialism being that eventually you run out of someone else's money. The problem with socialism is that they promise you a kingdom of heaven on earth but can't even deliver the t.p.

-Jonah Goldberg

Vintage Babe of the Week

Tonight's Vintage Babe* is Linda Christian !
(*a.k.a. Rule Five Thursday)












Like fine wines, the ladies improve with age!

Quote du jour

O'Sullivan's Law: Any institution that is not explicitly right-wing becomes left-wing over time.

-John O'Sullivan

Medal of Honor

First Lieutenant Walter Joseph Marm, Jr.

Citation:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty. As a platoon leader in the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), 1st Lt. Marm demonstrated indomitable courage during a combat operation. His company was moving through the valley to relieve a friendly unit surrounded by an enemy force of estimated regimental size. 1st Lt. Marm led his platoon through withering fire until they were finally forced to take cover. Realizing that his platoon could not hold very long, and seeing four enemy soldiers moving into his position, he moved quickly under heavy fire and annihilated all 4. Then, seeing that his platoon was receiving intense fire from a concealed machinegun, he deliberately exposed himself to draw its fire. Thus locating its position, he attempted to destroy it with an antitank weapon. Although he inflicted casualties, the weapon did not silence the enemy fire. Quickly, disregarding the intense fire directed on him and his platoon, he charged 30 meters across open ground, and hurled grenades into the enemy position, killing some of the 8 insurgents manning it. Although severely wounded, when his grenades were expended, armed with only a rifle, he continued the momentum of his assault on the position and killed the remainder of the enemy. 1st Lt. Marm's selfless actions reduced the fire on his platoon, broke the enemy assault, and rallied his unit to continue toward the accomplishment of this mission. 1st Lt. Marm's gallantry on the battlefield and his extraordinary intrepidity at the risk of his life are in the highest traditions of the U.S. Army and reflect great credit upon himself and the Armed Forces of his country.

1st Lt. Marm: We humbly salute you and thank you for your service.



Hat tip Home of Heroes

There are seventy nine living MoH recipients today. Their names and their stories should not be forgotten. My mission is to honor one of those heroes here each week, and salute them for their courage and sacrifice. In the words of John Fitzgerald Kennedy:

“A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces, but also by the men it honors; the men it remembers.”

Quote du jour

"Just because there are conspiracy kooks around, doesn't mean there are no conspiracies!"

-Proof

Sex in Advertising

For all you connoisseurs of advertising...


I may not be sure exactly what she's selling, but, I'm pretty sure I'm in the market!

Hitler is in the Eye of the Beholder

Does the tea kettle in the billboard above motivate you to, say, sprecht Deutsch? Purchase a brown shirt?? Invade Poland??? Apparently some southern Californians are taking a real world Rorschach test and this is what they see.



Maybe if Hitler was made by Fisher Price...in a dress!

Quote du jour

"I have had some of the pro-gun lobbyists on here saying to me, the reason that we have to be armed is because of tyranny from our own government. I have always laughed at them. I have always said don't be ridiculous, your own government won't turn itself on you. But actually when you look at this, it has nothing to do with guns, it is vaguely tyrannical behavior by the American government. I think that what the IRS did is bordering on tyrannical behavior. I think that what the Department of Justice to the AP bordering on tyrannical behavior."

-Piers Morgan

When the Left loses Piers Morgan...

Star Trek - Into Darkness, a Movie Review

I went to see Star Trek - Into Darkness this afternoon. Before I get into any of the particulars of the movie, keep in mind that this is a "reboot" of the franchise. An updated 23rd century for 21st. century audiences. What the comic books might call a "re-imagining".

The first venture into the re-imagining, of necessity had to introduce you to old characters with new faces: Bones didn't look like Bones, Sulu didn't look like Sulu, Uhura looked more like one you'd want to jump their bones, (which I understand Gene Roddenberry did on at least one occasion in the original. But, I digress!)

The first venture also set up the notion that the universe and the stories told might differ from the "originals". This was accomplished by having an old, creaky antique Spock* travel through time and muck things up a bit, changing the entire space/time continuum. Oops! Spoiler alert! (I'm kidding! If you haven't seen the first one by now, I sincerely doubt you care all that much.)

So, Into Darkness, the Alice Eve lingerie review (no, just kidding again! I'm a kidder!) starts with a vignette on some strange new world, accompanied with yet another debate about the value of the Prime Directive. Honestly, if this thing is their "Prime" Directive, you'd think they'd be better versed on it and monitoring who was actually, you know, breaking it. This leads to some conflict between Kirk and Spock which marginally provides some character development, but not much.

There's a mysterious stranger in town, and with just a couple of minor subplots, the movie takes off in earnest. (And, no, not Ernest Goes to Starfleet Academy!) There are gunfights and chase scenes and more gunfights and space battles, and the special effects are simply superb. The sci-fi geek in you might want to see this for just the special effects alone, not so much in that your jaw drops and you say, "Look at that!", but they help to move the story along, without looking cheesy or being obvious green screens.

I'm going to try to hit the high points all at once and save my complaints along with the spoilers, which are tucked away on the next page. The movie is a little over two hours, but it doesn't feel that long. The action sequences move the story along. The movie is well scripted, for the most part. I can tell you there is a nice homage to Star Trek II in this one (more about that in the spoilers!)

The movie recycles or "re-imagines" a number of characters from the Star Trek canon. Dr. Carol Marcus, the scientist in Wrath of Khan, mother of Kirk's son is here. And the underwear shot is literally so short that if you blink, you could miss it. (That's why they invented the 'pause' on your Blu-ray player!) but, this is a whole new universe where Uhura dates Spock and old Spock bruises the space/time continuum, so there's no guarantee that they'll hook up in this one.

The mystery stranger turns out to be an old familiar (I almost said "face") character. His face too, is unfamiliar to most Trekkers. I won't tell you up front who this is, but I had figured it out before I went to the theater. In fact, if you just thought about it a while, you could too. If not, maybe you're in need of a vacation...in France...maybe Cannes???

Knowing this "spoiler" did not detract from the movie, other than just waiting to see if it was confirmed. You'll get over it. I went back and forth a few times before deciding to see the movie. I'd heard both good and bad reviews, decided I needed/ wanted to see for myself.

I liked it. There was some tension trying to reconcile this as a stand alone effort and yet for those of us familiar with TOS, the comparisons cannot be helped. I would expect younger viewers not steeped in the lore of Roddenberry to enjoy it much more than the rest of us. But, it is as they say, a great summer popcorn movie. The new ensemble of players work well together. There's something there for the purist and newbie alike. See it, enjoy it, and then come back and see if you don't agree with some of my gripes. If you click on the spoilers, don't blame me! Overall, three out of five stars.

*Not enough pancake, spackle or concealer in the galaxy to show him otherwise.
For the real spoilers and gripes, or to make a comment, go here:

Quote du jour

Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical.

-Blaise Pascal

NTSB: I-5 Bridge Collapse is Wake-up Call for Entire Country

NTSB says Washington state bridge collapse is wake-up call for entire country

The collapse of an Interstate highway bridge in northern Washington state is a wake-up call for the entire nation, the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board says. Investigators need to find out what happened at the I-5 span 60 miles north of Seattle and if it could be repeated at similar bridges around the country, Debbie Hersman said Saturday.

"This is a really significant event and we need to learn from it, not just in Washington but around the country," Hersman said after taking a boat ride on the Skagit River below the dramatic scene where a truck bumped against the steel framework, collapsing the bridge and sending two vehicles and three people falling into the chilly water. "At the end of the day it's about preventing an accident like this," she said.

As Yogi Berra once said, "It's Déjà vu all over again!". Doesn't this seem familiar somehow? Return with me to 2011. President Barack Hussein Obama:

"According to the Republican budget that was passed, for example, we would have to eliminate transportation funding by a third. We’d have to cut transporting funding by a third. You remember when that bridge in Minnesota collapsed with all those people on it? And there was a big hue and cry: How can this happen in America? Well, the National Society of Engineers, they’ve looked around and they give us a 'D' when it comes to infrastructure. Our roads, our bridges, our sewer systems are all deteriorating."

"We don’t even have a serious high-speed rail infrastructure in this country," Obama continued. "Our broadband lines are slower than places like South Korea. Well, so what, we cut transportation by another third, and what’s going to happen to America? We’re just going to have potholes everywhere? We’re just going to have bridges collapsing everywhere?"

And, of course, this was after the trillion dollars added to the budget in 2009 to shore up our infrastructure with those "shovel ready jobs" he admitted later weren't quite so "shovel ready", and an additional trillion dollars a year in the baseline budget for 2010 and 2011.

So, let's get the timeline straight:

*2007: A bridge collapses in Minnesota, which Obama blames on lack of federal spending. (Had he bothered to read the NTSB's report, he might have informed himself better.)

“The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was the inadequate load capacity, due to a design error,” the NTSB states in its 2008 report on the incident.

In fact, the NTSB reported that on the day of the collapse, the bridge was in the process of being refurbished, further contradicting Obama’s claim that the collapse was evidence of a lack of infrastructure spending. “On the day of the collapse, roadway work was underway on the I35W bridge, and four of the eight travel lanes (two outside lanes northbound and two inside lanes southbound) were closed to traffic,” reads the NTSB report.

* 2008: Candidate Barack Obama, Toledo OH:

"We'll create 2 million jobs by rebuilding our crumbling roads, schools and bridges."

(Raise your hand if you remember Obama creating 2 million jobs.)

*2009: A trillion dollar stimulus is implemented, presumably to rebuild crumbling roads, schools and bridges.

*2010: Because of Baseline budgeting, the trillion dollars spent as "stimulus" in 2009 now becomes a part of the federal budget baseline. That means in every year that Obama has been in office, he has had an addition trillion dollars a yar to spend along with the trillions in debt he's racked up.

*2011: Another additional trillion dollars. Obama says we have to spend more to prevent crumbling bridges.


*2012: Another additional trillion dollars


*2013: Another additional trillion dollars

Five trillion additional dollars above what the Bush administration had to spend, plus trillions more in deficit spending, and now, Sacré Bleu! We need to wake up to the fact that our bridges are in need of repair! Where has this administration been for the last five years?

May I make a modest suggestion? We hire George Hussein Onyango Obama, the fellow who's living in a hut for less than twenty dollars a year, to inspect and repair all our bridges. We could maybe double his salary and throw in Obamacare. He could go around the country with a big wrench and tighten all the loose bolts he finds.

Some might say that he isn't competent to do the job. Well, that hasn't stopped his brother!

Cross posted at LCR.

Sex in the 23rd. Century City

You may have heard that there was a mild kerfluffle regarding the lovely Ms. Alice Eve appearing briefly in her briefs, er, unmentionables, in the latest Star Trek movie. Certain members of the perpetually offended crowd, were shocked, shocked!! And found this to be "misogynistic".

A short scene in the blockbuster that features a semi nude Alice Eve has caused such furor that the film's producer has publicly apologized for it. Damon Lindelof used his Twitter account to say sorry for the clip which has been deemed 'misogynistic' and unnecessary by some viewers. He posted: 'I copped to the fact that we should have done a better job of not being gratuitous in our representation of a barely clothed actress.'

The troublesome scene sees Eve's character Dr Carol Marcus get undressed out of her work clothes in front of Captain Kirk, played by Chris Pine. The rather racy shot, which was also heavily featured in the trailer for the film, has been questioned for its surplus nature.

Poppycock! One of the long standing themes of modern science fiction, or at least the fervent hope of many science fiction writers, is that, sometime in the future, people will have 'evolved' beyond their Victorian and Puritanical ideas about sex and nudity, and there will be a much more open acceptance of free love, sex and rock and roll. (Well, two out of three, anyway!)

Even in the Star Trek franchise, this has historically been the case. In Star Trek, the Next Generation (TNG), Counselor Troi's mother, Lwaxana Troi, would supposedly wander around her quarters nude and according to the storyline, was married in the nude.

Mercifully, the nudity was only implied with "tasteful" camera angles, since Majel Barrett was not the same woman she was when the TOS pilot was made.


In the series "Enterprise", it was not unusual to have co-ed naked decontamination procedures, or maybe its Vulcan science officer was just a little bit of a slut?


Orion slave girls were green and scantily clad, female Yeomen wore miniskirts and the ship's counselor wore low cut tops(and possibly a push up bra).


In one of the early scenes of Robocop, there is a glimpse of coed nudity in the police locker room. In the execrable movie Starship Troopers, (made from the excellent book of the same name), the same conditions existed for troopers of both sexes. In Firefly, the most reputable person on board was, so to speak, a member of the oldest profession.


So, the idea that having a female in her underwear, in a Hollywood movie aimed at a primarily young male demographic, is somehow particularly misogynistic and therefore necessitates an apology is, you should excuse the expression...illogical!

Now, if you'll excuse me? I'll be in my bunk!

Quote du jour

The modern world is too frightened of tyrants to denounce them as tyrants, and too slavish to say much about slavery.

-G.K. Chesterton

Proglodyte Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: Republicans Are To Blame For IRS Tea Party Scandal

I'd heard this meme several times, that the Cincinnati office was soooooooooo overwhelmed, that "mistakes were made"! And I'm picking on RFK Jr. not because he may be the dimmest bulb on the Kennedy family tree, but because, thanks to the journalistic efforts of the Puffington Host, we have both video and a transcript of him saying stupid things.

Originally, I was going to make some snide crack, bout how if it wasn't for his father's name, he'd be taking tolls in a booth alongside a turnpike somewhere along the Eastern Seaboard. We'll come back to that in a minute.

Bobby Junior blames the Republicans for the IRS scandal. It was those wascally Wepubwiccans who allowed Obama's sequester to remain in place, and that slashed funding for everybody. Well, it slashed it down to what they spent the year before and a little bit more. It is painfully obvious that you cannot expect a Democrat administration to run a department at the same funding level as the year before without draconian cuts, now, can you?

And it wasn't just the sequester! No, no! These cuts went all the way back to BUSH!!! (Anyone know if Bush Derangement Syndrome is covered under Obamacare?) And so obviously, because of cutbacks, they were understaffed and overwhelmed with 60,000 applications for tax exempt status.

And because of a lack of training, these poor rubes in Cincinnati hadn't a clue as to how to deal with these 501c4 applications (even though they apparently didn't have the same lack of training problems in processing the same sort of requests from left of center groups.) And so, we are supposed to believe, that this required that they ask many, many more questions of groups with "Tea Party" or "Patriot" in their names. Personal questions, invasive questions...hundreds more questions than asked of liberal groups, along with requests for more and more documentation. Now, if the reason for the scandal were the lack of manpower, caused by wascally Wepubwiccans, can we get someone with a higher candle power intellect than RFK II to tell us what the results would be?

Let's go back to our toll booth for a minute. Let's say that the Peter Principle advanced RFK II to the point where he is the chief toll taker in his booth. And there's a long line backing up at his booth. The toll is fifty cents. The woman in the first car with a "Don't tread on me" sticker in the window hands him two quarters. "I'm sorry, ma'am", says RFK II, "we can't accept quarters, we need five dimes". So the woman rummages around in her purse, finds five dimes and hands them to him. "I'm sorry, ma'am. That rule only applies after nine o'clock. We'll need ten nickels for the toll this morning."

Again, if we have someone smarter than RFK II around here, that is to say, someone who can tie his own shoes, would making more difficult requests on certain individuals in a toll booth or a federal government office tend to increase or decrease your workload? If the problem is too much workload for the people you have, why wouldn't you ask fewer questions, or at least the same number of questions from every individual applicant? And if you ask for additional, unnecessary documentation from any of the individual applicants, that delay means at some point you have to process the same request again (and again, and again - for months, sometimes years!), that is not the logical response of anyone who has too much work.

As a general rule, on their own, people would tend to look for shortcuts, ways to shorten the process, not lengthen it. Someone with an ideological bent was targeting these groups for political purposes. The thought of using the IRS as your own personal attack dog used to at least publicly horrify liberals like Bobby Kennedy. What the Left did at the IRS is inexcusable. That the proglodytes have to grasp at straws for any defense of it, is not surprising.

The video of RFK's mind drool is at Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: Republicans To Blame For IRS Tea Party Scandal

Cross posted at LCR.

Connections 2- James Burke: "Getting it Together"

Best of the Web*

*…that I’ve seen all week!
Political/SocioEconomic


The Real Voter Suppression of 2012 -John Fund

Former Homeland Security Assistant: ‘Obama Slashed Budget For Domestic Bombing Prevention By 45 Per Cent’

Benghazi’s Smoking Guns

Obama’s Second-Term Embarrassments -“Hope and change” is looking more like '73 Nixon White House -Victor Davis Hanson

Mark Steyn: Everything now is a tax issue

This Week’s Reasons to Repeal Obamacare


Anti-Fraud Group 'True the Vote' Harassed NOT JUST by IRS, but FBI, OSHA... then ATF!

Obama: Serial Liar



The Stingers of Benghazi


Mission Not Accomplished: Obama ends the war on terrorism

Dan 'Pinocchio' Pfeiffer

Videos

Lou Dobbs: Obama Is a Liar, “He Lies Through His Teeth”

Woodward: 'I Would Not Dismiss Benghazi,' Similar to Watergate

Benghazi as Lazarus, Back from the Dead -Roger Kimball


Krauthammer On IRS Chief Testimony: How Stupid Do You Think We Are?


Krauthammer's Take: Holder's ‘Days Have to Be Numbered’

Season Finale Acting School By @yesnicksearcy -NSFW language


Al Franken And Chuck Schumer Flee When Asked About IRS Scandal

If I Win The #Lottery, This Is Going In My Garage


Culture


In Memoriam


Hicks' Lawyer: NBC Spiked Client's Voting Preferences

Solar Panels Catch Fire on High School Roof – Black Plume Seen for Miles


Marine, dog reunited in surprise ceremony

Photoshops/Cartoons/Graphics
Cartoon of the Day – NRO Home page

Jim Carrey Golden Oldie

Obama Scandal Bracket

JUST FOR FUN....

Rule Five Roundup:
(While all Rule Five posts may be NSFW, I generally only flag the ones that are certainly NSFW)

90 Miles From Tyranny - Rule Five Late night ladies, Girls with guns, girls with guns


American Perspective –Girls and guns

American Power-
Sabine Jemeljanova Bikini Crew , Miranda Kerr Wardrobe Malfunction in Miami

A View From the Beach - An Illustrated History of Clothing

A trainwreck Rule Five -Dangerous Curves ahead

By Other Means - (Be) Cosplay

Camp of the Saints - Saturday Cheesecake

The Daley Gator – Daley Babes - Jordanna Brewster, Fernanda Lopez

Daily Mail – Tamra Barney shows off cleavage in plunging wedding gown for new reality show


Fishnet Friday

Dustbury – Pretty Girl scientists, Lynda Carter

Eye of Polyphemus – Kelli Hutchinson , Stephanie Cayo , Lynda Carter

Friday Night Babe – Ashley Greene

Emily Proctor's boobs (plus more good stuff than a blog post is usually allowed to hold!)

The Right Way -Friday Babe

Hookers and Booze

Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World – Friday Pinup

Your Good Morning Girl

Sweater Puppies

Pirates Cove - Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup, If All You See…, If All You See…

pitsnipesgripes – Kim Kardashian & friend

PostalDog - Miley Cyrus

Randy’s Roundtable – Thursday Nite Tart

Reaganite Republican – Miss Honduras

Rio Norte Line – Boobies

Sex in Advertising

The Classic Liberal – Rule 5 – Leslie Bibb

The Feral Irishman – Behind the Curve

The Last Tradition – Gio Ott

Theo Spark –Bedtime Toddy , Bonus Babe, Thursday Toddy, , A Lazy Day In Bed With Megan -video

The Other McCain- Rule 5 Monday

Vintage Babe of the Week – Blythe Danner

Rule 5 Woodsterman Style : Golf game, Fourth Blogiversary (with babes)




Use the comments as an open thread on any of these topics. Please send links of news, commentary, choice humor or Rule Fivage to:
Proof.Positive@Hotmail.com

Quote du jour

Drew Ryun applied (to the IRS) for permanent nonprofit status for a group called "Media Trackers" in July 2011. Fifteen months later, he'd heard nothing. So he applied again under the eco-friendly name of "Greenhouse Solutions," and was approved in three weeks.

-Mark Steyn

Political Cartoon du jour

If you don't visit the John Cox Art website, you're missing out on some pretty keen stuff. It's not just political cartoons. Sometimes he does art just for art's sake. (What a hippie!) But, it's all really good. Check it out!


Lerner's Permit

Friday Night Babe

Tonight's FNB* is Ashley Greene !

(*a.k.a. Rule Five Friday)

Fast, Furious and Federally Funded

Our homage to Shepard Fairey continues. See also here, here , here, here and here.

Quote du jour

The earlier story better fit Obama’s modus operandi, which is to disappear in times of crisis. His brief legislative career was about voting “present” because he prefers to be absent when accountability knocks. . . . He is not a commander-in-chief for the battle but the armchair general of the postmortem.

-Roger Kimball

Barack's Brazen Benghazi Blunder

Our homage to Fairey continues. See also here, here and here.

Vintage Babe of the Week

Tonight's Vintage Babe* is Blythe Danner!
(*a.k.a. Rule Five Thursday)











Like fine wines, the ladies improve with age!

Obama Has the Tools

Jay Carney, Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder and Susan Rice come to mind!

Chicago, For Example, Has Some of the Strictest Gun Laws in the Land

More Fairey mockery here and here.

When Blunderbusses are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Blunderbusses

In keeping with our mocking of Shepard Fairey...

Quote du jour

The president went on to complain that we “dishonor” the American officials who were killed by “extremists” (i.e., jihadists) “when we turn things like this into a political circus.” Well no, we dishonor them when we fail to get a full accounting of the events and decisions that resulted in their killing — things like exactly what the president was doing, minute by minute, during the many hours that Americans in Benghazi were under siege, and what actions — if any — he took to come to their rescue.

-Andrew C. McCarthy

Medal of Honor

Sergeant Allen James Lynch

Citation:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Sgt. Lynch (then Sp4c.) distinguished himself while serving as a radio telephone operator with Company D. While serving in the forward element on an operation near the village of My An, his unit became heavily engaged with a numerically superior enemy force. Quickly and accurately assessing the situation, Sgt. Lynch provided his commander with information which subsequently proved essential to the unit's successful actions. Observing 3 wounded comrades Lying exposed to enemy fire, Sgt. Lynch dashed across 50 meters of open ground through a withering hail of enemy fire to administer aid. Reconnoitering a nearby trench for a covered position to protect the wounded from intense hostile fire, he killed 2 enemy soldiers at point blank range. With the trench cleared, he unhesitatingly returned to the fire-swept area 3 times to carry the wounded men to safety. When his company was forced to withdraw by the superior firepower of the enemy, Sgt. Lynch remained to aid his comrades at the risk of his life rather than abandon them. Alone, he defended his isolated position for 2 hours against the advancing enemy. Using only his rifle and a grenade, he stopped them just short of his trench, killing 5. Again, disregarding his safety in the face of withering hostile fire, he crossed 70 meters of exposed terrain 5 times to carry his wounded comrades to a more secure area. Once he had assured their comfort and safety, Sgt. Lynch located the counterattacking friendly company to assist in directing the attack and evacuating the 3 casualties. His gallantry at the risk of his life is in the highest traditions of the military service, Sgt. Lynch has reflected great credit on himself, the 12th Cavalry, and the U.S. Army.

Sgt. Lynch: We humbly salute you and thank you for your service.



Hat tip Home of Heroes

There are fewer than a hundred living MoH recipients today. Their names and their stories should not be forgotten. My mission is to honor one of those heroes here each week, and salute them for their courage and sacrifice. In the words of John Fitzgerald Kennedy:

“A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces, but also by the men it honors; the men it remembers.”