The DREAMM for TOMMORROW Edition OTB Caption ContestTM is now over.

Time for Monday OTB Caption ContestTM > (AP Photo/Diether Endlicher) Winners will be announced Thursday PM

Garance Franke-Ruta assures us that, media swooning notwithstanding, Fred Thompson is not a sexually appealing man. I’ll defer to her greater expertise in the field, especially since I already had my suspicions. I’m with her, too, in thinking that “you smell the English leather on this guy” is at best a backhanded compliment. As to [...]

Blackfive’s Matt Burden reminds me that today is National Airborne Day. So far as I’m aware, no one gets the day off for this and no presents are exchanged. Feel free to hug your favorite paratrooper, though, or buy him a beer. The latter is by far the preferred option.

While John Podhoretz, Steve Bainbridge and I have proclaimed the Iowa Straw poll meaningless, apparently former Wisconsin governor and HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson didn’t get the memo. He’s dropped out after coming in sixth. Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson said Sunday he is dropping out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination after finishing [...]

This news is a couple of months old, but I stumbled across it and still think that it’s worth noting. Apparently, the National Health Service in England is considering a plan to bump patients of surgery waiting lists if they refuse to quit smoking one month prior to surgery. SMOKERS are to be asked to [...]

Drudge has a headline Edwards bikes with Lance Armstrong: ‘The biggest problem is my butt hurts.’ This is an occasion where context is necessary, and as a multi-year veteran of the annual craziness of crossing the non-flat state of Iowa (AKA northern end of the Ozarks, and this year is relatively flat) on a bicycle [...]

Tennessee now requires everyone to show an ID card to buy beer. Comer Wilson hasn’t had to show his ID to buy beer in a while. Maybe it’s the 66-year-old man’s long white beard. Starting Sunday, gray hair won’t be good enough. Wilson and everyone else will be required to show identification before buying beer [...]

The word “hero” is getting attached to many things since 2001. Sometimes it isn’t just doing something as an individual, it is being the one making the decisions affecting the lives of 50 or 100 men, as well as oneself. That is what true leadership is. Rear Adm. Eugene B. Fluckey, one of the greatest [...]

Citizens need to pay more out-of-pocket. Doctor’s need to alter their behavior. Could add $88.7 billion to the budget deficit by 2020. Use three times as many anti-biotics as the Germans. Health spending nearing 9% of GDP. Projected health care deficit $14.7 billion. Is this for the U.S.? No, it is a description of the [...]

The Pimp My Grill Edition OTB Caption ContestTM is now over.

“Brewers Won’t Enact Clubhouse Beer Ban.” Who could have seen that coming? In fairness to the team named after Milwaukee’s most famous product and whose stadium is sponsored by Miller Brewing Company, they have long since “ended the practice of its lederhosen-clad mascot, Bernie Brewer, descending a giant slide into an oversized mug of beer [...]

Dave Schuler, who occasionally contributes here and at Dean’s World in addition to maintaining his own site, laments a trend he’s seeing among his favorite blogs: Brilliant bloggers who posted once a day, maybe two or three times a week, are linking arms as associate bloggers on blogs with larger readerships. They’re still posting once [...]

For an increasing number of companies, printed resumes are obsolete and the dreaded job interview may soon follow. Remember eight-track tapes? Polyester leisure suits? Beer-can openers? The printed resume – long the standard way to apply for a white-collar job – may soon join those once-ubiquitous products in history’s dustbin. [...] In some cases, resumes [...]

Sales of Guinness are plummeting in its native Ireland, as wealthier consumers are sipping Chardonnay and cider. “You’ll still sell Guinness, but you’ll sell the likes of wheat beers, beers from the Czech Republic, beers from Poland,” said Eddy Martin, who runs the Bailey Bar. “Beer sales are declining while the amount of wine is [...]

I certainly wasn’t particularly surprised to hear that a large majority of Americans want universal health care: A majority of Americans say the federal government should guarantee health insurance to every American, especially children, and are willing to pay higher taxes to do it, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll. While the [...]

The heir to the UK’s constitutional monarchy would like to ban the world’s most popular restaurant. The Prince of Wales hit out at McDonald’s yesterday, suggesting that banning the US chain was the “key” to children eating more healthily. His controversial comment provoked an immediate reaction from the fast-food company, which called the words “disappointing” [...]

Mark Kleiman outlines a “Better drug policy in nineteen easy steps” on his blog and fleshes them out considerably in the cover story of this month’s The National Interest. He promises “something … to offend almost everybody.” His focus on alcohol abuse as part and parcel of the drug problem is spot-on: And alcohol is [...]

Four percent of the nation’s hop harvest went up in smoke, rather than into beer yesterday as the S.S. Steiner warehouse in Yakima burned. If this were oil, we could expect a massive price increase of hop-using products (um, mostly beer, rejected stuff goes into soaps and such). Even worse, hops aren’t exactly fungible as [...]

The Vonage MLB Edition OTB Caption ContestTM is now over.

Today’s NYT has a poignant story about comedian-magician-actor Harry Anderson’s decision to leave New Orleans. In the weeks after the storm, even before the power was back, Mr. Anderson opened his club for what he called French Quarter Town Hall meetings. The weekly gatherings, which at first offered little more than camaraderie by candlelight and [...]

John Mark Karr, who is continually referred to as “JonBenet Ramsey murder suspect” despite having voluntarily confessed to the crime, was treated like a king on his flight home from Thailand. Legal experts have mixed reviews. Authorities probably had a very good reason for allowing JonBenet Ramsey murder suspect John Mark Karr to live it [...]

The Washington Post continues its long series of articles slamming Virginia Republican George Allen. The front page of today’s Metro section (B1) continue a hit piece by White House correspondent Mike Allen (presumably, no relation) who began his reporting career covering his namesake’s 1993 campaign for governor. Entitled, “A Tale of Two Pols,” it draws [...]

Coffee is good for you, according to mounting scientific evidence. Coffee is not usually thought of as health food, but a number of recent studies suggest that it can be a highly beneficial drink. Researchers have found strong evidence that coffee reduces the risk of several serious ailments, including diabetes, heart disease and cirrhosis of [...]

CNN BREAKING: Mystery writer Mickey Spillane has died at 88 at his home in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina. Mickey Spillane, the macho mystery writer who wowed millions of readers with the shoot-’em-up sex and violence of gumshoe Mike Hammer, died Tuesday. He was 88. Spillane’s death was confirmed by Brad Stephens of Goldfinch Funeral Home [...]

Dahlia Lithwick has an excellent piece on the potential dangers of applying current conspiracy laws to terrorism. The question she poses is this: When does arresting people who are “planning” attacks, but have no capability to actually make it happen, cross the line from conspiracy to thoughtcrime? This shift—toward disrupting attacks long before the explosives [...]

Good news for most of us, as recent scientific studies have concluded that coffee, beer, and pizza help cure cancer. As with most academics, Steven Taylor is a dedicated coffee drinker. Indeed, when he and I were colleagues, we brewed and consumed a minimum of two pots a day, usually of some African blend but [...]

Through the science of biblical numerology, Professor Chaos explains why beer is divine.

When I saw the headline “Fears for the worst as 10,000 Spitfires head for Germany” at the London Telegraph (via Memeorandum) I was rather puzzled. Was this some strange precursor to a war with Iran? Didn’t the Spitfire go out of service half a century ago? And does the RAF have 10,000 fighter planes in [...]

Rwandan president Paul Kagame says the popular film “Hotel Rwanda” was a propaganda piece that got little right. “Hotel Rwanda” stars Don Cheadle as Paul Rusesabagina, the manager of a luxury hotel in the Rwandan capital Kigali who uses his position to help save more than 1,200 Tutsi refugees. Kagame said the movie’s portrayal of [...]

Well, she LOOKED 21 anyway, maybe older, and what’s more the clerk at the small store in this Coos County [Oregon] town says he was much distracted by what he called the young lady’s scanty attire. So distracted, he said, that he didn’t see the “Minor until 2007″ stamped on her driver’s license. She got [...]

A recent spate of muggings on the National Capital Mall has spurned public outcry and a page 1 story in today’s WaPo. The green expanse of the Mall evokes many emotions, but wariness has never been one of them. Over the years, the lack of crime has created an aura of safety that allows joggers [...]

Alex Pareene, a writer for Gawker Media’s “Wonkette” blog, has belatedly discovered that Michelle Malkin has a video blog (the rest of us knew about a month ago). This occasions a rather vulgar self-dialogue with the punch line “[D]oes she do the thing with the ping-pong balls?” Whether, as Malkin believes, this is racist humor [...]

Jeff Harrell points to the an image from Apple Computers’ new ad campaign: He and I have the same immediate reaction: Two gay guys holding hands. He reads some age issues into it that wouldn’t otherwise have occured to me. His friend in the advertising industry thinks he’s reading too much into it. I don’t [...]

Sheryl Gay Stolberg has an interesting profile of George Allen who, like Hillary Clinton, is simultaneously running for re-election to the Senate in November and eyeing the White House in 2008. Unlike Mrs. Clinton, he actually has an opponent this year. George Allen makes little secret that he is bored with life in the Senate. [...]

The Wearing Your Heart on Your Sleeve Boob Edition OTB Caption ContestTM is now over.

Dr. Demarche, guesting at Austin Bay’s blog, takes issue with my recent post on senior diplomats undermining their agency’s credibility by going public with views contrary to national public policy. In particular, he takes exception to my comment, “State has earned a reputation as left-leaning and willing to actively undermine administration policies it disagrees with.” [...]

Glenn Reynolds has an interesting look at the shopworn subject in a piece at TCS Daily. People are making a living, or a decent chunk of one, by blogging. Some are warbloggers in the Middle East, like Michael Totten, who blogs from Beirut, with occasional sidetrips to Egypt, Turkey, and Iraq, or Michael Yon, who [...]

Vice President Cheney finally spoke publically about his weekend shooting incident. Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday accepted full blame for shooting a fellow hunter and defended his decision to not publicly disclose the accident until the following day. He called it “one of the worst days of my life.” “I’m the guy who pulled [...]

The “Uff-Dah, We’re out of Lutefisk” Edition OTB Caption ContestTM is now over.

While I’m nominally rooting for the Seahawks (I’m an NFC guy and Shaun Alexander is an Alabama alum), the real story in the Super Bowl for those whose team didn’t make it is the commercials. I’ll give my take on them as I see them.

Kate McMillan has been too busy with her own site to write much about the Canadian election at OTB and I’m insufficiently knowledgable or interested on the topic to do much myself. For those starving for blog coverage, I suggest these links: Ed Morrissey, who has become the premier Canada blogger even though he’s an [...]

Via Ace, I see that some Sheridan, Wyoming cowboys don’t cotton to Brokeback Mountain. The thought of gay cowboys, eating pudding or otherwise, sickens them. JIM-BOB ZIMMERSCHIED is not a happy cowboy. “They’ve gone and killed John Wayne with this movie,” he says angrily, beer in hand. “I’ve been doing this job all my life [...]

Mary Katharine Ham points to the interesting story of one red paperclip. It’s a weblog chronicling the adventures of Kyle MacDonald, an enterprising fellow from Montreal who is attempting to parlay one red paperclip into a house through a series of trades. The first such trade took place on July 15: This morning Rawnie and [...]

Former Major League closer Jeff Reardon has been charged with armed robbery. Jeff Reardon, one of the top relief pitchers in history, blamed medication for depression after his arrest for a jewelry store robbery. Police said Tuesday that the 50-year-old Reardon, retired since 1994 and sixth in career saves, walked into Hamilton Jewelers at the [...]

Joe Heim discusses the socially awkward topic of tipping, a stock story this time of year, in tomorrow’s Washington Post. Gratuities 101 (M07) Tipping is one of life’s great mysteries. Like love and religion, it can be a source of endless befuddlement and deep philosophical pondering. Oh, all right, it’s nothing like love or religion. [...]

Retail giant Costco is suing to overturn Washington state’s laws which keep the price of wine and beer artificially high. Costco Sues for Right to Buy Wine, Beer (AP) Costco Wholesale Corp. is known for selling stuff cheaply, and a lot of it. But the company says it can’t sell beer and wine cheaply enough [...]

Buried on page A19 of the Washington Post we find Belgian police raided homes in four cities Wednesday and detained 14 people suspected of involvement in a terrorist network that sent fighters to Iraq, including a Belgian woman reported to have carried out a suicide bombing in Baghdad…. More than 200 police officers took part [...]

Congressman John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat on the defense appropriatios subcommittee, has called for the immediate pullout of troops from Iraq. Since Congressman say stupid things on a regular basis, I ignored the story even after several e-mailed press releases. Still, given his prominence, this is a noteworthy story. Hawkish Democrat Calls for Iraq Pullout [...]

Two Carolina Panthers cheerleaders were arrested Sunday after having sex in a bar restroom and starting a fight. Bar patrons say NFL cheerleaders had sex in bathroom (AJC) Cat fight: Panthers cheerleaders arrested in bar sex incident (SI) AP – Two Carolina Panthers cheerleaders were arrested after a bar dispute that broke out early Sunday [...]