So the VMA's were last night . . .

Yeah, I know . . . I thought MTV didn't show music videos anymore. So how are they having a show to give awards to artist's videos? Shouldn't it be the YouTube Music Awards or something? 'Cause the only place you see music videos is on YouTube or the artist's own websites these days.

I mean, what's the point? Just to kiss Britney's ass again? She's actually the poster child for what's wrong in music these days -- can't sing, can't dance anymore, is such a disaster in her personal life that she has to have a legal guardian at age 28! I'm pretty sure I saw a picture of her holding an award. What was it for? Best video of a out-of-shape lip-syncer sitting in a chair waving her arms around while idiot fans plunk down hundreds of dollars to cheer at her pathetic performance?

Come to think of it, she probably should get an award for having the most gullible fans in music.

But seriously, I think the lead singer for Maroon 5, since they weren't nominated for anything, tweeted a virtual middle finger to MTV over the awards. His point was well taken, MTV is a joke. It's a reality TV network now, so why bother with the charade of giving out music video awards?

*sigh*

Maybe this is why they have the awards show, so manufactured celebrities like Kim Kardashian (who spends oh so much time complaining about the media fixation on her butt, yet always backs her way down the red carpet . . . for no apparent reason) can show up and be photographed:

Rule 5 Sunday -- right to the fargin edge

This week's Rule 5 posting is a selection of Playboy ladies almost giving away the farm, so to speak.

Playboy, as a men's magazine, is in a tough position. Since guys pay for each issue, the publishers feel obligated to give them their money's worth. Which means no wasting time with hinting or teasing imagery, they're going full monty right from the get go.

Problem is, it is usually sexier for a woman to suggest with her look, which is the great dilemma ladies face with their wardrobe -- how tight, how low cut, how short, etc. Of course, as guys, it's a win-win for us, but I do sympathize with the gal's struggles.

That said, what follows is the results of my pouring over thousands of Playboy images to find pictures that are sexy and racy without just slapping you in the face with nudity. It's a lot of heavy lifting, but for the two or three of you that come by regularly . . . it is the least I could do.

*click on the thumbnail for full-sized image*

Rule 5 Sunday suggested by this.

Hat tips:
Jake Finnegan The Daley Gator The Classic Liberal

Late night hotness . . .

'Cause she used to be hot . . . right?

I haven't been calling him "flip-flop" for nothing

I was calling Mitt Romney "flip-flop" back during the '07 Republican primary season when I was a blogger for Mike Huckabee. And it was for good reason -- Mitt's changed his position, or in the political lingo "modified," on pretty much every conservative platform issue from abortion to second amendment rights.

Now comes this doozy:

Back in June of this year, Mitt defiantly claimed “I believe the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that.” Adding “It’s important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may be significant contributors.” Members of his campaign doubled down on those statements saying that Mitt would not back off that position.

Now with Rick Perry in the ascendancy, oh, how things have changed. Or, since we're speaking of 'ole flip-flop here, they've actually stayed the same.

Mittens got dressed down by Senator James Inhofe of Oaklahoma for his p.c. position on anthropogenic global warming. Presidential candidate Romney responded in his typical fashion at a town hall meeting in Lebanon, N.H.:

“Do I think the world’s getting hotter? Yeah, I don’t know that but I think that it is . . . I don’t know if it’s mostly caused by humans.”

Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that he's changed positions here. And this is an example of blatant political cover, much like how Mitt is now couching his promotion of RomneyCare as a 10th amendment thing, hoping to hitch a ride on the current cause de jour amongst conservatives and libertarians.

This is why I'm perplexed by Mitt's coveted position among pundits and commentators on the right. I think I'd rather have a cowboy like Perry running than someone whose position is going to change with every poll or gust of political wind.

If this doesn't break your heart . . .

. . . then you don't have one:

Petty Officer Jon T. Tumilson was one of the Navy SEALs that was killed on Aug 6 by a rpg fired at his helicopter. Tumilson was laid to rest Friday in Rockford, Iowa. The service was attended by an estimated 1500 mourners, including Tumilson's dog, Hawkeye.

In what is one of the most heartbreaking images I've seen in a long time, Hawkeye lays at the foot of his master's casket for the entirety of the funeral service.

How many times we've see the amazing bond between an animal and it's owner. We've all got anecdotes about dogs or cats that sense our most subtle feelings or exhibit a genuine sense of loss when we're gone.

It's that reach beyond flesh and bone, beyond simple organic existence that gives me belief in the divine.

My sincerest sympathies to the family of Petty Officer Tumilson for their loss and thank you Jon, for your service to your country and fellow SEALs.

Movie review -- 2:13

I caught this movie on pay-per-view the other day. I see it was made in 2009 and as a rule I don't pay for flicks that are over a year old, but I don't recall the listing on cable saying '09. But what actually hooked me was the trailer, which was pretty good.

It stars Mark Thompson as a police profiler who has been out on medical leave and returns to the job to be thrown immediately on a serial killer case. Thompson is also the writer, which is usually a red flag for me because it means the movie is probably a vanity project for someone who doesn't deserve a vanity project.

It is telling that even though I only saw the movie last week, I cannot remember a single character's name. And I'm not going to waste my time Imdb'ing the movie to find out.

Anyway, the reason Thompson's character is out on medical has to do with an on the job situation that left a co-worker in danger. His struggles with that have him undergoing a psyche-eval with noted head shrinker Kevin Pollack. Their interactions are fairly amusing -- witty banter, that makes me wonder if Thompson is a comic for his day job.

Thompson isn't actually a bad actor, he pushes what range he has, and is fairly handsome in a scruff-tastic kind of way. His affect with cigarette smoking makes me wonder if he actually smokes. But whatever.

The movie moves along fairly well, though it doesn't make you cling to your seat. A lot of boilerplate dialogue and some of the police/crime scene stuff that rankles me on a regular basis: why is the detective using a disposable Kodak box camera to take pictures at the scene? Why does the detective have to tell the techy to take samples of this or that? Why does the detective have to tell the tech to "clean up" an image on a monitor?

Just one time, I want to see the tech answer, "No, I can't clean it up! Don't you think I would have if I could! Dumbass!!"

There's lots of flashbacks from Thompson's character's childhood and the killer's, interwoven to make it difficult to tell whose you're watching. Pollack's shrink works hard to break through Thompson's cop's wall to find out what happened that caused his suspension and is still giving him problems. A far-fetched hypnosis technique is used that plays a part in the film's resolution. It is one of the two only ludicrous reaches in the movie.

The other being the killer himself. There's a shocking incongruity with the killer and Thompson's cop, that pretty much ruined it for me. Along with a bittersweet touch to an improbable ending that I'm not sure was necessary, but I'm sure that writer Thompson felt it was good for actor Thompson's character. Me the viewer, ehh, not so much.

And for the record, there is a reason for the movie's title and it is explained in the conclusion. I get the feeling that Thompson got to the end of his script and thought, "Oh sh*t, how do I close this thing out?!" It just has a forced feel to me.

There's a lot of recognizable faces in the flick besides Pollack. Jere Burns, Dwight Yoakum, and Teri Polo. Also the guy who plays the police chief, I don't know his name, but he's done a ton of stuff. Like I said, not going to Imdb this, so . . .

All in all, it's not a bad movie, I wouldn't recommend paying extra for it. I'm sure it will be on regular cable channels soon. It won't make my list of default movie choices, but I won't turn it off if there's nothing else on.

And just to make this more palatable, here's some pics from Teri Polo's Playboy shoot 6 years ago. Unexpurgated for your enjoyment, of course:

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Did you find this review helpful? Check out my other reviews for my thoughts on the flicks and the occasional gallery of hotness that accompanies them:

Day of Rage . . . what could go wrong?

So it looks like a bunch of uninformed idiots are planning to set up a tent city in the middle of Wall Street on Sept 17 as a protest against capitalism.

The thing is being organized by former members of SEIU and a few nuts from ACORN (pun intended). It's a pity these assholes didn't put this much effort into their school work or maybe they'd have some idea how things get done in this country. Where do they think the money comes from to start up the businesses that build their houses? Or their cars? Or creates the clothing they are wearing or the food they eat?

Do these fools think people just happen to save up a quarter of a million dollars to start up a business? How long would it take you to save up that kind of money? Can any of these assclowns just go into a car dealership and plunk down the cash to buy a car? Even a used one? Where do they think financing comes from?

How stupid can you be?!

And I'm loving the imagery on the placard. Yeah, that doesn't smack of Communism at all. All the red, and the hammer and sickle, and the gold stars . . . yeah nothing Communist there at all.

And the exquisite stupidity of calling their protest a Day of Rage. Now I'm sure no one's gonna take that wrong! None of those socialist peace mongers that beat down black conservatives and trashed the National Mall at Jon Stewart's faux-rally. Yeah, there's never any evidence of SEIU thugs beating conservatives or pushing reporters around. No, calling it a "Day of Rage" won't incite any of these brain dead lemmings to be in an antagonistic frame of mind.

But me and my fellow fiscal conservatives who meet and rally peacefully and don't defile the areas where we assemble -- according to the President and his chief of Homeland Security, we are the terrorists! The President says that members of Congress who have tried to stave off our financial armageddon want the country to fail! The Vice-President refers to us as terrorists!

But when these idiots descend on Wall Street in a month and it devolves into anarchy, as it surely will, the mainstream media and the socialist Democrats, including the President, will end up excusing their behaviour and find a way to blame it on fiscal conservatives.

Real terrorism will get a pass, but pride in your country and hope for it's future will get you a scarlet letter T from this administration and it's water carriers in the media.

The circular firing squad blazes away

Well, Rick Perry's been in the race what, a week now? And I don't think I've come across one conservative political blog that isn't savaging every aspect of this guy. The Gardasil thing is an example of his nanny-state leanings, or his crony capitalism, or inflated sense of self importance, blah, blah, blah.
He's too direct and confrontational, he's not a man-scaped metrosexual, he's this, he's that.

Meanwhile, Michele Bachmann is a diva, or she's unqualified or gaffe prone or House members don't get into the White House, or her husband is a closetted homosexual hypocrite, etc.

And down the line they go. Every single candidate is destroyed by innuendo, suspicion -- Dan Riehl is suggesting Perry is planting questioners in his audience to tee things up for him (without a shred of evidence, btw), and the ever popular lefty tactic of assuming what a candidate is thinking or means to say without having any facts to back them up.

Annointed front runner Mitt Romney is gently locked away in a velvet vault, protected from every legitimate question about his horrible record. Any who presume to question his lofty status as standard bearer for the conservative cause is bludgeoned with the "Romney's the front runner" stick until they slink away duly cowed.

Michelle Malkin solemnly intones that we're thoroughly vetting our candidate for this election. No honey, you're destroying the field, chasing away good people who not only would be able to win this election, but would be good leaders for this country. In their zeal to promote a picture perfect, blemish free candidate to be the nominee, these self appointed guardians of conservatism have forgotten the cautionary tale of Scott Brown.

Supported by the Tea Party, Republican Brown won Ted Kennedy's old seat in the Senate. The shock and awe set in when conservatives found they had put into office a shrieking liberal who just happened to have an R for his party affiliation. Kind of like Bloomberg in New York, he's no conservative, he just needed a party to run under. Same with Brown.

And now all these conservative geniuses who are protecting Mitt "I couldn't beat John McCain or Mike Huckabee in the primaries" Romney, are looking right past his abysmal record as a conservative while they destroy every other candidate running because they're not "ideal conservatives." RomneyCare is hemmoraging billions in Massachusetts, he's flip-flopped on every single conservative issue, he's a devout AGW enthusiast, and on and on. But don't you dare question his record dammit, he's the front runner!

Sadly, when this self immolation is done, the only two candidates left standing on the right will be Mittens and crazy Ron Paul. And all these self-righteous bloggers and political pundits that did the Democrat's bidding by destroying legitimate candidates will post "told ya so" epitaths after Obama wins re-election, and sit pining for their dream candidate to ride over the hill on his/her gleaming white stallion. While the country spins into a financial abyss.

And it could have been avoided with a little something I like to call teamwork.

Underworld: Awakening movie trailer

Here's the first trailer for next year's re-boot/continuation of the Kate Beckinsale in tight leather francise:

Selene's been in stasis for 12 years and wakes to find the world has changed -- humans are now hunting vampires and werewolves. Lot's of cool stunts, Kate looks hot, there's a new director for this go around, so it's kind of a new take on things, hence the re-boot comment.

Of course, it'll be in 3-D, 'cause what isn't anymore? So expect lots of gimmicky stuff flying at you. But I'm hoping for another cool chapter in this series. I wasn't as disappointed as some purists with the first sequel. And my only real complaint with the pre-quel was that they didn't put the smokin' Rhona Mitra into some outfits that were a little sexier.

So we'll see.

Update:
By the way, here's a pic of Kate in costume on set of the movie. In recent interviews she was stressing about pouring herself back into the leather and corset thingy figuring five years removed from the character might have padded her figure a bit. Yeah, no worries there:

Late night hotness . . .

Yeah, I hate it when my jeans do that too . . .

Here's what to do with Jared Cano

This is a picture of Jared Cano sobbing like a b*tch at his arraignment today in Federal Court here in Tampa:

In case you haven't heard of this case, little Jared here got expelled from a Tampa high school and decided to get even. He planned to blow up the school and kill a bunch of his fellow students to sate his righteous indignation.

According to local law enforcement, a manifesto (yeah, everybody's got one now) posted online states that he was specifically targetting two teachers and hoped to rack up more casualties than the Columbine massacre.

Little sack of sh*t wanted to kill dozens of children because he got expelled, and he's crying like a baby because he got caught and is going to jail?!

Swinging off the end of some 400lb hairy killer's penis in the Federal Penitentiary for the next twenty years isn't enough punishment for this little douchebag! I say ship the little f*cker off to Iraq, give him a pair of heavy shoes, and make him run in front of convoys to check for IED's!

Worst part of all this is that some bleeding heart liberal is going to blame everyone else except this little psycho for what he was planning to do and he'll end up living off our taxes in a rest home stacking blocks and coloring pictures until some idiot psychiatrist decides to rubber stamp his return to society.

I hope someone's waiting for him when he gets out.

Taylor Swift channels Marilyn Monroe . . . again?

So at the Teen Choice Awards just recently, ridiculously innocent Taylor Swift did the classic Seven Year Itch pose on the red carpet:

And everyone's going on about how cute and adorable and so on. 'Cause it's Taylor Swift for pete's sake. Then the other night she's in concert, and:

Uh huh. Twice now? I'll admit I don't follow country music much nor would I recognize a song by Taylor on the radio if I heard it. So maybe this is a prop for a song or something? I mean, the exquisite fortune of wearing flesh colored granny panties and then having your skirt blow up and act all nonchalant about it? I'm guessing deliberate here.

So is virginal cutie Taylor trying to catch up to "the other Taylor"? 'Cause she's gonna have to up her game substantially for that. Although, Taylor Momsen showed up at Lolapalooza and performed practically in a suit and tie compared to her usual outfits:

Frankly, I've got no idea what's going on in the world. I know I pounded a bottle of Absinthe last night for my birthday, so maybe I'm still hallucinating, or I woke up in BizarroWorld or something. Things just seem so topsy-turvy now.

I've got a headache . . .

Do you know who's in charge of OPEC?

Right now it is Rostam Ghasemi, who is the head of Iran's petroleum and energy departments.

As you're probably aware, the price of crude oil is one factor, a pretty big one, in the price we pay at the pump. And though the Saudis are generally friendly to us, obviously, the Iranians are not. And with support of Venezuala on the OPEC board, I would expect Ghasemi to do everything in his power to push the price of crude oil higher.

Currently crude is trading around $86 per barrel. The Saudis prefer crude to trade in the $90 - $100 range. But Iran needs crude to go for around $150 per barrel to begin to profit from their sales through the cartel.

If you're paying $4 per gallon now, a 67% increase in the price of crude would jump your gas to almost $7 per gallon. Remember how it was when gas hit $6 per gallon a while back? And don't for a minute think that is not exactly the type of calamity Iran and Venezuala want again in this country.

Struggling with crushing debt and unemployment, then coupled with a huge spike in fuel prices, it could put this country in a tailspin of unimagined consequence. And do not forget, crude oil prices effect more than just gasoline. Petroleum products are in every aspect of our lives, from plastics to Preparation H -- it is the magic of the substance, the myriad of uses that haters often forget about in their preachy, faux ecological whinings.

We have oil reserves under the ocean all around this country, not to mention in remote areas of Alaska. We have oil shale and coal sands between us and Canada that when coal-to-liquid technology is applied, would supply us with synthetic crude in quantities that dwarf what Saudi Arabia has in extracted crude, and at a fraction of the price.

And we have an administration in this country, so feckless and intent on socialist re-imagining of our society, that they handcuff and demonize the very industries that could get us out of this very dangerous situation. And those industries provide jobs, thousands of tax-paying jobs.

Remember that as this election winds up.

So, it's my birthday . . .

. . . and not a lot going on.

The Red Sox lost last night as poor Wake is stuck on 199 wins. If ever anyone deserved 200 wins in baseball, it's Wakefield. Sooner or later the guys have to pull one out for him.

The Bucs won a meaningless pre-season game. Local sportwriters are already making their reservations for the Super Bowl. These dudes pick the funniest times to staple the rose colored glasses to their faces.

I see where a L.A. Times writer ranked baseball team city fans and Tampa/St. Pete came in last. heh Guy mentions how the team was giving away tickets during the World Series playoffs trying to fill the stands. He's right. Locals simply do not support this team. Btw, best fans -- Boston. double heh

California has a law waiting to be voted in that will make it illegal for hotels not to use fitted sheets on their beds. Yeah. Flat sheets will be illegal. Seriously. State's in a hole, financially, about as deep as the entire country, and this is what they're concerned about? No wonder they voted Governor Moonbeam back into office.

Rick Perry has already shown more political chops that the supposed front-runner Mitt "flip-flop" Romney, as Perry has skillfully fallen on his sword for legislation he tried to pass in Texas re the HPV innoculation. Perry wanted to make the vaccination manditory with an opt-out, but was smacked down by the legislature. He says now he should have made the program an opt-in, pointing out that he got too far in front of everyone on the subject of teen cancer. The few blemishes Perry has in eleven years as governor, if he handles his responses as deftly on the rest of them as he has here, he'll blow past Mittens in short order.

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And since I know that no one wants to see a picture of me on my birthday, here's someone else who shares the day -- Natasha Henstridge:

Rule 5 Sunday -- Leighton Meester

This Sunday's Rule 5 beauty is Leighton Meester.

Now I don't watch Gossip Girl, though with the likes of Leighton, Blake Lively, and until recently, Taylor Momsen, I'm sure it was a leggy eyeful of television programming.

I find Leighton cute and sexy in that girl-next-door kind of way, but as seen in these Esquire Magazine pics, she does a really good job of getting her smolder on.

Plus she's apparently pretty hardcore as I read recently that she's suing her own mother for taking the money Leighton was sending home to help with her disabled brother and blowing it on cosmetic surgery and other frivolous expenses.

Hot, sexy, kicks ass, looks after her little brother . . . what's not to like?

*click on the thumbnail for full-sized images*

Rule 5 Sunday suggested by this.

Hat tips:
The Classic Liberal
Jake Finnegan
The Daley Gator