My thoughts on President Trump's speech tonight

Okay, first off -- man that's a lot of spending the Prez is talking about here. Where's all the money going to come from? It was Bush 43's profligate spending that birthed the Tea Party. All these bloggers that yak at #NeverTrump'ers are going to have a tough time waving off the trillions in spending Trump is suggesting.

I didn't agree with one bit of former President Obama's policies or philosophies, but you had to admit that the man could give a good speech. Trump . . . eh, no so much. The script writer did the best job he could, but Trump's just not the guy for that sort of long, structured speech. Perhaps in the future, write a speech that leaves spaces for him to riff out or be himself for a bit, then come back to the prepared remarks. That might make him seem more comfortable. Let's face it, he needs to be his own man, that's why he was elected. Why not let him put his own stamp on his speeches. As long as he maintains some decorum, I don't see the problem with that.

I know Republicans sat on their hands a lot during Obama's speeches, but that was a pissy looking group of Dems in the chamber tonight. And the way they bolted for the door at the speech's conclusion, so much for putting aside petty differences and working together.

How about that Joe Manchin? He was beaming like a new dad when Trump talked about saving coal miner's jobs. Wonder how long before he's persona non grata among Dems after glad handing Trump?

Nice counter punch by Trump by having that Seal's wife in the gallery and refuting news claims about the worthlessness of the mission that cost him his life. I was surprised that Trump didn't say something about Dream'ers though. Reports said he was going to talk about legalization and such during the speech and that would take away a Dem talking point. Guess someone got the wrong draft of the speech.

And how about Melania Trump? Wowzers! Designers that are refusing to clothe her are missing the boat big time. She and Ivanka are pretty damn knockout.

It'll be interesting to read about all this tomorrow. I wonder if any of the commentary will seem like it's of the same speech I just watched?

Kurt Busch wins the 2017 Daytona 500

Congrats to Kurt Busch for winning the 2017 Daytona 500 today. You can see from the pic above that he really had to fight for the win as the race was filled with crashes that took out a number of high profile drivers.

Great work there NASCAR. More on that in a bit.

This is some sweet redemption for Busch as just a few short years ago, he was basically out of work in the racing world. A hot headed asshole, Busch had several very public spats with television announcers, other drivers and pretty much anyone who happened to be in his sightline when he decided to go off. No one doubted his ability behind the wheel, but his personal problems made him pretty much unemployable within the industry.

Then along came Stewart-Haas Racing. Tony Stewart and Gene Haas decided to form their own team. Initially conceived as a three car team, Tony ended up making the hard decision to let his friend Ryan Newman go to allow his best friend Kevin Harvick to escape the hell hole of Richard Childress Racing and join SHR.

While Stewart was laid up with a broken leg, Gene Haas decided he would use his CNC company to sponsor a fourth team and hired Busch personally to drive the car. Busch has flourished at SHR with old time crew chief Tony Gibson and though he has won races with SHR and made the Chase, this is the biggest win for Busch since winning NASCAR's championship in 2004.

With SHR's move to Ford and Robert Yates engines, all four SHR cars qualified in the top of the field, this victory may signal a good year for the still young company.

And now the rest of the story.

Once again, we have a season beginning with NASCAR tweaking things to try and get the racing more racy. Through their maniacally intense efforts to equalize the field, NASCAR has reduced almost every race to a mobile parking lot. It's almost impossible to pass or draft or do anything to keep the action moving. Announcers mentioned that there were only 20 lead changes in last year's 500. Twenty. In a 500 mile race. Does that sound exciting to you? It doesn't to lots of racing fans and they're walking away in droves. So rather than ease up on their tech inspections, they're effing around with the race formats.

I'm not sure, because I haven't looked deeply into it, but it looks like NASCAR will be dividing all the races into sections and allotting points for the top ten cars at the end of each section. I suppose the thinking is that drivers will be less inclined to hang around the back of the pack for most of the race, then try to track advantage their way to the front as the race draws to the end (I'm looking right at you Jimmie Johnson, the guy who is responsible for the playoff format NASCAR currently uses).

Though I'm loathe to admit it, in today's race the plan worked pretty well as the drivers really scrambled at the end of each segment to get points or block others from getting points. Also the crew chiefs had to work out some very different pit strategies to maximize the yellow flags at the end of each segment. Also, we saw what might be some inklings of the first real manufacturers battle since I was a kid as drivers pitted with teammates or other drivers from the same manufacturer.

That wasn't so bad.

What was bad was the block racing that has become so commonplace and is, in my opinion, why NASCAR is playing games with the rules like this. A monster pack of cars roaring around the track at 200 mph, no one can get away from anyone or pass completely, it is a ticking time bomb. And we lost a ton of cars in today's race from accidents that didn't really need to happen. It's bad management on the part of NASCAR.

And I've said this before and I'll say it again -- NASCAR loves the big wrecks. They market them aggressively. In a month, when the field goes to Talledega, you will hear it incessantly -- "We have to worry about the big one" "It's only a matter of time before the big one hits" "Look out for the big one" and on and on. The announcers, the drivers, everyone will hype "The Big One" like it is an inescapable part of the race. It wouldn't be if NASCAR would stop changing the aero package and the engines and allow the mechanics and engineers to evolve the cars to the extent of their abilities.

NASCAR knows it takes an evil miracle for a driver to be seriously hurt in a crash these days. They should be applauded for the vehicle/driver safety developments over the years. But with them being so safe, NASCAR worries less about big pile ups knowing they have YouTube and TV ready clips to use to market their sport. It's a dangerous game they're playing. They lost Dale Jr. for a year due to a concussion and he got in one of the wrecks today. What if the sport's most popular driver had been knocked out for another season? Or permanently? What if he can't recover and get into the Championship Race because of NASCAR's bloodlust for big crashes?

Viewership is down. That's why the rule changes. They keep diluting the product and making it so gimmicky that folks might start looking at it like professional wrestling, and that could be the end of one of the great American institutions. We'll see how the season goes from here. Hopefully I'll be as wrong about this as I was about the Presidential primaries and general election.

So, Ariel Winter wore this

So Ariel Winter turned up at the Vanity Fair & L'Oreal Paris Toast to Young Hollywood in this subtle and demure little number:

I'm assuming this is some sort of big party, meet and greet sort of thing. Maybe dinner and/or cocktails and such. That's a heck of an outfit to be parading around in all night. And man, does she go for the eye make-up.

You do have to give this girl some props, she's proud of that booty. I'd be pulling my hair out if she was my daughter, but if the choice is between Ariel letting it all hang out or Lena Dunham, Ariel's gonna get my vote every time.

Malin Akerman is topless

Apparently, about 14 years ago those purveyors of barely legal soft-core porn clothing catalogs, Abercrombe & Fitch used 24 year old Malin Akerman as the teen-aged looking seductress in one of their layouts. Most of the pics had hairless boys hanging around and all over Malin, so I could only get these two for you. If you're wanting pics of half-naked boys, perhaps try Milo Yiannopoulos's twitter feed or something, I'm not your guy for that.

My thoughts on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. -- LMD

We finished the second part of season 4 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. the LMD storyline. What did I think? Glad you asked.

Some spoilers included here, just so you know

The LMD backstory became the main story after the close of the Ghost Rider sequence (I hear the showrunners refer to these sequences as pods, so . . .). We were initially given the impression that Holden Radcliffe was looking to create avatars of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to work in the field, so that the real agents wouldn't be risking their lives on a day-to-day basis. Seems that wasn't exactly the case.

We know now that Radcliffe was driven to create LMD's out of frustration over his inability to save a woman he loved. After getting a peek at the Darkhold and thus enhancing his knowledge, and working with Fitz, Radcliffe was able to create The Framework -- a virtual world/environment that a human could jack in to and live in indefinitely. And in the case of Holden's lost love, one could live out their life in contentment and peace while their body dies away.

And we also now know that Radcliffe used anyone and everyone to achieve this goal -- S.H.I.E.L.D., the execrable Senator Nadeer (who personally killed her own brother, an inhuman, though he may not be dead as he is re-cocooned at the bottom of the ocean, and if stories about making Prince Namor [the sub mariner] an inhuman, maybe that's where he's headed), the Watchdogs, and this new Russian guy -- The Superior, to get enough tech and resources to develop The Framework and expand it to the point where it might encompass an entire world as opposed to a small confined virtual reality space.

Aida, Holden's original LMD was a replica of this lost love, and once she read the Darkhold, to build the interdimensional device that saved everyone in the first pod this season, now has her own agenda. Self aware and also aware of the fact of who she was modeled on and why, wants desperately to become fully human with the full range of human emotions.

I was thinking they were going to once again use the Asimov/I Robot scenario where the robots built to save humanity realize they can only do so by ruling humanity for its own sake, but it doesn't look like that's where they're going here. Though we do have Aida slitting Holden's wrists at the end of the episode and trapping his mind within The Framework so he doesn't interfere with her plans.

The final episode of this pod ends with Coulson, Mack, May and Fitz locked in The Framework without their knowledge. Daisy and Jemma (I think I've been spelling that Gemma all along 'cause that's how Brits always seem to spell it, but looks like I was wrong) are both injured from their escape from the LMD's of those four already mentioned and the next pod of the season will have them trying to break the rest of their folks out of The Framework.

Interviews with cast members and showrunners indicate that some early show (like season one) characters may return as one showrunner said there would be a nod to those who have stayed loyal to the show from the beginning. We saw in the final sequence that Ward may also return, possibly as Daisy's boyfriend in The Framework world that had been designed for her.

Chloe Bennet said in an interview that they would be exploring some current pop culture stuff in their own way in this final pod also. Not sure what she might be referring to as so much is churning in the world right now. We'll have to see.

I have to once again give props to MARVEL for the effort they're putting into this show. The production values are exceptional and the move to 10:00 pm has given them the ability to be a bit darker with everything they do. The fight sequence between Daisy and LMD Mace was awesome -- high energy and well choreographed with seamless integration of the stunt doubles into the sequence. The battle between Jemma and LMD Fitz was dark and scary and bloody. And the reunion between Daisy and Jemma as each agent, bleeding and battered, was trying to decide if the other was an LMD, was moving and touching. Excellent acting there.

And the sets and special effects are just the right amount and look theatrical quality as opposed to some of the other superhero stuff on television that looks more like a SyFy channel movie of the week. MARVEL has put their money where their mouth is with this show and allowed it to become a stand alone entity within the MARVEL universe. Bully for them for allowing this to happen.

I'm also pleased that they keep showing more of what Daisy "Quake" can do as the season wears on. In her climactic fight with LMD Mace and LMD Coulson, she showed more of her abilities as she created a quake-bomb thingy to destroy both of them. Daisy is one of the most powerful characters in the MARVEL universe. I'm glad they're growing her, but worried that they're taking so long with it. No telling how long any show will last on television. I'd hate to see this show run its course without her becoming the force she is in the comics.

In spite of that little complaint, the writing has kept the show fresh all year long with twists and turns that surprised without seeming forced or ridiculous. It's enough that I look forward to each episode and dvr it so I don't miss it. They're taking a six week hiatus before the next pod returns. Rumors have it that perhaps the early series character returning is Graviton, a nerdy scientist Dr. Franklin Hall who tries to disable a gravity manipulation device and gets sucked into it instead. I'm supposing that he gets out and becomes this supervillain type.

Daisy and Jemma are jacked in to The Framework. Daisy awakes to find she may/ may not be a S.H.I.E.L.D agent and her boyfriend is/may be Ward. We see Coulson is a schoolteacher starting a course section on "Inhumans, why we fear them," Mack is living a quiet home life with what may be the daughter who died years ago, May is in the Triskellion, now Hydra headquarters, and Fitz is climbing out of an expensive vehicle with his own security guards at the ready and reaches in for the hand of a woman we don't see. And finally we see a headstone at a graveyard with Simmons name on it, even though we're told Daisy was able to find the Framework avatar of herself and Jemma within the system.

It's a good cliffhanger scenario. If you haven't been watching and it's in syndication where you are or On Demand with your cable service, I recommend giving it a try. It's not Shakespeare, but they're doing some good work here for broadcast television. I'm looking forward to the completion and resolution of this season.

---

I found these pics of Chloe Bennet in some magazine called Bella. Chloe's been a bit frustrating in her glamour appearances to date, but these aren't too bad. But what caught my eye was a subtitle and a quote from Bennet in the accompanying text. The subtitle reads "From Chinese popstar to Hollywood Superhero" and the quote "I'm honored to be the first ethnic superhero." When I saw that I was like . . . okay, wait . . . what? But after checking her wiki page, I see that Chloe's father is Chinese and her mom is SoCal. Huh. I suppose that explains why they kept saying during the show that sightings of Chloe's character Quake always talked about her being a petite Asian girl. Hmmmm... Sort of wonder how Ming na Wen likes Chloe getting the ethnic cred on the show, but . . .

Jennifer Connelly is in a bikini

Actress Jennifer Connelly is down in St. Barth's on vacation with her family and doing the requisite frolicking in the surf:

At 47 years old and the mother of one with husband Paul Bettany, Jennifer is looking very good here. I took a peek at her Imdb page just to see how busy she's been and that's an impressive amount of work she's turned out in her career. Steadily working in movies and television and staying out of the tabloids for stupid behavior, she shows you can have a solid, respectable career in Hollywood, have a happy family life, and maintain your appearance without pouring thousands into disfiguring plastic surgery. She's a good example for younger ladies in the industry.

Also of note, and I'm looking right at you Anna Kendrick, Connelly didn't hide away from the fact that she was quite the hotty in her early days, and didn't shy away from roles that showed off her hotness. She's a respected actress today, and no one is dismissing her because of work she did when she was young. And like Helen Mirren, her beauty in her youth has been immortalized on film. You're only young once, might want to take advantage of that while you can. just sayin'

My thoughts from the Ghost in the Shell trailer

I've mentioned in several posts about my apprehension over this live action version of one of my favorite bits of anime. I wasn't pleased with the casting of Scarlett Johansson as the Major, simply because I don't think we need her in every single movie about a stoic female type -- Avengers/Natasha Rominoff, Under the Skin, Lucy, etc.

I've also mentioned how I'm concerned about the basic plot of this movie. The original anime was about an AI program that had amassed enough data to become sentient, sort of like Skynet or if you really want to go back to a great flick -- Colossus: The Forbin Project (that's some great stuff right there, watch it if you haven't seen it).

It appears they're taking a bit of that for this live-action version and trying to build in some back story for the Major. Will it work? I don't know, I'm sort of torn here. Part of what I like about these animes is their talkiness. I know it can be a pace killer at times, but that's part of the fun. For me at least.

The movie makers are trying to pull in bits from the anime, as in particular scenes and props -- the suitcase gun, the scene of an android body floating upwards in the skin generation pool, the Major sitting by the window, the opening sequence (which I've referenced before), etc. We get a look at the automated tank that the Major fights toward the end of the anime. That looked pretty cool. I wonder if they'll show the scene where the tank shoots at the Major and the spray of rounds tracks down along an engraving of a species tree. A nice touch, that.

I'm initially disappointed in Bato, the Major's partner. In the anime, part of his cybernetic upgrade are his eyes. In the live-action, they apparently switch from implants to regular eyes as needed. I can only imagine that the producers thought they could get more emotion for the scenes from real eyes. But that's part of the point of the anime -- as Bato points out to Togusa at one point, he (Togusa) is the only one in Section 9 that doesn't need regular maintenance on his body as he has only minimal implants (the back of the neck stuff that allows communication and cool stuff like auto drive for cars and such).

The movie looks lush and CGI heavy. I hope it does well. I guess I'll see it in theaters. I want it to be good because of my feelings about the original, but man, I'm on the edge about this one.

Cynthia Barnett likes "post-truth" when it suits her political agenda

I'm sure Cynthia Barnett is a nice person. And I'm sure she means well and is concerned about our environment, as we all should be. But writing in this Sunday's Perspective section of the Tampa Bay Times, she employs some logical legerdemain and other trickeries to push her climate scientology and politics.

Ms. Barnett opens up her article with a brief history of the mass migration west of American settlers and the disaster of the Dust Bowl era. She's entirely right about this mess -- there was a period of wildly above normal rains in a typically arid part of this country that caused it to become temptingly lush. But after farmers and families moved everything they had to the region, the dry years returned and everything went to hell.

And the Federal Government and newspapers of the day -- late 1800's to early 1900's, with a vested interest in expanding the railroads and supporting the westward growth of the nation did their best "nothing to see here, move along" routine. Something we've seen throughout history in the world, when citizens of any nation or state have no access to news except that which is provided for them by agenda controlled entities.

Ms. Barnett naturally uses this scenario to try and stoke fears over the confirmation of Rex Tillerson (former Exxon/Mobil CEO) as Secretary of State and Scott Pruitt as head of the EPA as both of these men have been public in their skepticism of the notion of man-caused climate change.

Ms. Barnett makes a deliberate point of noting that the Oxford English Dictionary declared that the word "post-truth" was its word of the year. Defining it as "relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief."

Interesting that she should make such a big point about that since Ms. Barnett immediately afterwards shows her true political agenda by declaring that 2016 was the hottest year on record, the third consecutive record-breaking year.

As anyone with a computer and internet access can find for themselves, these so-called record breaking temperatures are increases of .01 and .02 degrees Centigrade. Amounts that are so tiny, they cannot actually be determined with any measure of accuracy as the plus/minus or margin of error in these measurements is one tenth of a degree. And as I have noted many times in the past, these measurements are from wildly inaccurate land based measurement systems with corrupted software, not remote satellite sensors which are considered the more accurate method and which show no warming for nearly two decades now.

But rolling with her own "post-truthiness" Ms. Barnett continues with provable falsehoods about rising ocean levels, rising ocean temperatures and rising sea acidity. She desperately implores readers of her article to avoid Breitbart News in the US and the Daily Mail in Britain as she claims they spread science denial and put the most vulnerable at risk. And in this shows that she is just another of the lefty masses who cannot accept that Hillary lost the election.

She is right about one thing though -- by railing against government controlled media, or in fact any agenda controlled media, she makes the point I've been making all along about the climate change hysteria. Anyone can find the truth about global warming, droughts, floods, or any extreme weather event and whether they are increasing or decreasing or just going along as they have for millennia by digging out the data for yourself. We literally have more data/knowledge at our fingertips than any time in human existence.

Don't take Ms. Barnett's word for anything. She has a political agenda. Heck, don't take my word for it either. Go look for yourself. But pay attention to who you're getting your facts from, they often have agendas too. You have to be a discerning consumer of information these days.

And one last thing -- Ms. Barnett is not a scientist. She's a journalist with a degree in journalism not science. She may be well intentioned, but like those she lashes out at in her article, she has an agenda to push and she doesn't hesitate to spread non-truths to drive that agenda along.

Btw, just in case Ms. Barnett happens across this post, here's a little happy place she can go to think about what might have been.

Rule 5 Monday -- Playboy is woke

Apparently the folks at Playboy finally realized what mothers, wives and girlfriends have known for nearly 60 years -- no one's buying that magazine for the articles! After a year of slumping sales brought on by the poorly thought out decision to eschew the bewbs, Playboy has decided to "rediscover" itself and go back to showing more skin than Ladies Home Journal.

I doubt we'll ever be able to go back to those innocent halcyon days of breathlessly awaiting the pictorial from some famous gal who declared she will finally bare all in the magazine, but it'll be fun to have them back nonetheless. Below are some of the ladies from days gone by who delighted the guys by giving us a peek at their unexpurgated beauty. Enjoy!

*click on the thumbnails for full-sized images*

Rule 5 Sunday suggested by this.

Hat tips:
Jake Finnegan
The Daley Gator
The Classic Liberal
Say Anything Blog
Proof Positive
American Power
Reaganite Republican
Goodstuff's Cyber World

Heidi Montag is still around

And in a bikini too:

We haven't seen the beta version of Courtney Stodden in some time. After her critically panned appearance in Playboy some years back, she and her oddball husband Spencer Pratt seemed to fall off the radar. I think they might have done one of those celeb/reality things at one point. And I think I remember (and even posted about here) pics of Heidi popping out of a cake for Spencer's birthday. But Heidi's mostly been MIA for some time now, until these hi-res pics of her at a pool in London popped up online:

I thought at first they might have been actual candids since she sort of had the sad face going on. Then I saw this pair of pics, and it was like . . . what was I thinking candids . . . heh

I always thought Heidi was legitimately pretty. I was disappointed that she got a boob job and what looks to be butt implants/injections, but at least she did it to a reasonable degree without lapsing into comic book proportions.

This is a fairly daring set of pictures for her. That suit is fairly translucent, and clingy and not absurdly oversized to cover her up. She sort of looks like she doesn't want to be doing these pics, but maybe that's just a put on face. I mean, she did start out as an actress after all. If she's coming back into the public view, it'll be fun to see if time has brought some sense of moderation and intelligence to her famewhore routine. She's really attractive, I certainly wouldn't complain about seeing more of her. IYKWIMAITTYD

Today in climate scientology

Did you catch this in the news? Probably not if you rely on any of the biased left-wing news sources that dominate print and broadcast media.

Over the weekend, news broke that Dr. John Bates, the former principal scientist at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. blew the whistle on NOAA over their 2015 report utilizing the "Karl report" to show that the planet was warming faster than expected and that there was no "pause" in warming. NOAA's report was perfectly timed to coincide with President Obama and the highly touted summit in Paris for the Climate Treaty he illegally signed.

Problem is, the Karl study was fatally flawed (like the bogus 97% consensus study, like Mann's hockey stick graph, like any claim out of Al Gore's mouth, etc.). NOAA arbitrarily doubled historical sea temps, ignoring contrary evidence from ARGO sea buoys and satellites, largely considered the more accurate way to measure sea temps. They then utilized a land temp data set created by what NOAA now claims was "alpha" version software that was loaded with devastating bugs that rendered the data output unreliable and unverifiable.

This is all coming out because Texas Rep. Lamar Smith, via the House Republicans on the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, had subpoenaed NOAA in 2015 to get the records relating to the Karl Study.

Not surprisingly, NOAA claims that the data and records regarding the methodology for producing the study's claims were never properly archived. Which means they memory-holed them. Like the East Anglia debacle all those years ago. Caught in a provable lie, NOAA just shredded the evidence.

That seems perfectly in keeping with how the entire scam of man-caused climate change has been operating from the first hysterical and totally debunked IPCC report way back when.

These people lie, they fabricate data and reverse engineer studies to fit their claims. They ignore any historical data that contradicts their preferred conclusion on climate change and just threaten and insult and try to silence anyone who dares to challenge their hysterical adherence to the religion of man-caused climate change.

And lefties call conservatives anti science.

pathetic

Mad props to Dr. Bates for having the testicular fortitude to blow the whistle on this scam. And the same for Rep. Smith. He was roundly mocked back in 2015 for looking into the study and subpoenaing NOAA scientists, who at the time refused to turn over anything to the committee. But he hung in there. It's things like this that restore my faith in government just a tad.

Btw, refusing a congressional subpoena, isn't that a jail-able offense? Why aren't these asshats in the slammer? Also, not un-coincidentally, Dr. Tom Karl, author of the fraudulent study has left NOAA.

Gee, there's a shocker, eh?

Oh well, it's another blow to this fake science scam. Maybe folks will begin to open their eyes one day. Hopefully sooner than later.

---

Also over the weekend, somnambulant songstress Lana del Rey was spotted out and about, looking remarkably bustier than usual. Has she had some work done? She's always gone in for the lip injections to get those duck lips everyone seems to think are so desirable (me: no). Who can say. I'm sure my old Lana troll will be happy I posted these if he still comes around:

So congrats to the Patriots for winning the Super Bowl

The Patriots 34-28 overtime victory against the Falcons will probably go down as the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history.

I mean, it already is, but I'll be surprised if anyone pulls that off again in my lifetime -- 31 unanswered points to come from behind and win in o/t . . . amazing. People like to hate on the Pats and Bill Belichick, but you can't deny what they've managed during his time there. Five Super Bowls, Brady has four Super Bowl MVP awards (he threw for over 400 yds in the game tonight!) . . . sportscasters and columnists love to count Belichick down when he loses players to trades or injury, and yet he keeps putting these juggernaut teams together year after year.

I can't remember the last time there was a season when folks weren't looking at New England to be in the playoffs.

The deflategate business was bullsh*t and Roger Goodell acted like a petulant jerk in suspending Brady even though there was no evidence of wrongdoing, just a lot of hatred of his success and side-eye suspicions -- they're so good . . . they must be cheating, we just haven't caught them yet.

I'm no huge fan of the Pats, even though I root for the Red Sox in baseball, but I've always liked Belichick's attitude towards coaching -- another team or the league f*cks with him, and he just puts the peddle to the metal and tries to hang 50 points on everyone they play. It was sweet redemption to force Goodell to hand the Lombardi Trophy to Robert Kraft after the game.

Loved the boos for Goodell too. Chased him right off stage.

I ignored most of the commercials, so I don't have much to comment about them. Already knew about Audi's stupid pay inequality thing, and they've already been beaten up online for their hypocrisy and stupidity over it. The 84 Lumber thing was pretty over the top. Glad they cut that off so we didn't have to endure their support of illegal immigration.

The halftime show was pretty excellent I thought. I loved the bit with the drones, that was very cool. And Lady Gaga showed just how savvy a recording star she is. Most of her music celebrates diversity without being overtly pushy about it. So she could play her stuff and not come off like Beyoncé celebrating Black Panthers or some such.

I saw a concert with Gaga on HBO a few years back. She was relatively new in the business and I was impressed with her stage demeanor, I think I even wrote about it here. She's got a presence on stage that is far beyond what she should have so early in her career. And she showed it tonight. No ridiculous dance sequences that stopped her from singing live. She seemed to basically be reprising her usual concert show, with some embellishments.

Oh yeah, one other thing. Big ups for Gaga for daring to show her untoned body the way she did in the final segment of her performance. Gaga's always been unreserved about her body during her shows, and bully to her for having the courage to show herself off like that. She did more for the stop body shaming movement in a couple of minutes live, than disgusting talentless hack Lena Dunham has the last handful of years as she has forced the world to endure her petulant in-your-face vulgarity in the name of openness. Bravo.

And I have to laugh at conservative buffoons like Taylor Millard over at HotAir, who couldn't spit out a post fast enough prior to the game talking about how he was sure Lady Gaga was going to lecture everyone from the stage. Way to over-react dumbass. Who looks stupid now?

Lady Gaga gets to own one of the best Super Bowl halftime shows in recent memory -- good performance, no scandal, universally positively received, and Millard and anyone who took his click bait article to heart will be digging around on YouTube to catch what the rest of us got to see live.

So congrats to the Pats on their fifth Super Bowl. Congrats to Tom Brady who gets revenge on Goodell, wins his fifth Super Bowl + fourth Super Bowl MVP + he gets to go home with a super model and celebrate. Talent, good looks, lots of money . . . it is easy to hate on him, but he earned this win. Once he got it going, he was an effin' machine back there. Hard to argue with the results.

Rule 5 Sunday -- brought to you by the letter H

Boy it's been ages since I did the alphabet thing for a Rule 5 post, and like an idiot, I dug through all the old posts to find the last one rather than simply checking the uploads to see where I had stopped. Sucks gettin' old man.

Anyway, we've got some beauties here all celebrating their "H" names -- got a couple of Heathers, a couple of Hannah's, a Haley and a Hailey, a Halle, Helena, Helga and a Holly. Enjoy.

*click on the thumbnails for full-sized images*

Rule 5 Sunday suggested by this.

Hat tips:
Jake Finnegan
The Daley Gator
The Classic Liberal
Say Anything Blog
Proof Positive
American Power
Reaganite Republican
Goodstuff's Cyber World

Sorry Robert Reich, it wasn't conservatives staging the Berkeley riots

Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich demonstrated his lefty bonafides on CNN the other night when he stated that he had heard reliable rumors that the masked mob that trashed Berkeley and assaulted Trump supporters was actually a group of Republican operatives trying to make the left look bad.

Ummmm . . . yeah, about that . . .

The Daily Caller is reporting that a group called Refuse Facism is behind the rioting.

Refuse Facism is organized and sponsored by The Alliance for Global Justice out of Tucson, AZ. AFGj supported RF to the tune of $2.2mil in 2016 and boasts as a founding "initiator" Princeton prof Cornell West. If you've watched FOX over the last few years, you've seen the crazy-haired West on there spouting ridiculous left-wing lies and propaganda at every instance.

Refuse Facism has a website I won't link to here, but they released a statement on the site that said their actions to shut down the gay conservative immigrant's scheduled appearance as "righteous." Going on to deliver some Orwellian redefining of words saying that vandalism and arson aren't "violence:"

"Dismantling police fences is not violent. And to compare preventing someone like that from speaking to the real-world violence that they perpetuate everyday is ludicrous . . ."

Well, in my college educated world, pepper-spraying a young lady while she talks to a reporter is violent. Beating people badly enough to leave blood puddles on the sidewalk is violent. Arson, defined as "the willful or malicious burning of property" is violent.

Only in the twisted world of these malignant lefties is what happened in Berkeley not violence.

By the way, want to know who all donates to AFGj? Here's a partial list, thanks to the IRS (one thing they're good for anyway):

The Tides Foundation, a George Soros funded organization -- $50,000
The City of Tucson -- $10,000
United Steel Workers -- $5,000

And these charities that are associated with the named companies:
Patagonia.org -- $40,000
Ben & Jerry Foundation -- $20,000
Lush Cosmetic -- $43,950

And this delightful little tidbit;
The New World Foundation, which was formerly chaired by Hillary Clinton in the 80's -- $52,000

Now I'm posting about this after finding this information on news/website. Is it true? I'll take it at face value for now. It should be vetted intensely. Problem with everyone relying on Facebook and the internet to coordinate these sorts of events is that they're leaving a digital paper trail, so to speak. It's almost impossible to memory hole stuff anymore. Dedicated investigators can dig out pretty much anything. But if it's true?

I stopped buying Ben & Jerry's ice cream after I heard they publically/financially support the Black Lives Matter crowd and didn't blink in the face of their cop-killing rhetoric. Bloggers online have been railing about George Soros and his behind-the-scenes machinations to destabilize this country, our currency and our democracy for years. Other bloggers have repeatedly posted about the cooperation between many U.S. labor unions and various communist groups (btw, the groups themselves call themselves communist, it's not my hyperbole) in the country. At some point, this has to get national attention that cannot be brushed under the carpet.

FOX News should disconnect from Cornell West in the most public of ways. Bring his anarchist behavior to the public at large at every turn.

And here is where the political outsider-ness of President Trump may come into play. If this can be airtightly confirmed, he ought to tweet and speak about this emphatically. Because if the President brings this into the light of day, the left-wing media will not be able to ignore it. If they choose to try and sympathize or rationalize Refuse Facism's behavior and insulate the companies and people that support them, the media's own bias will be more evident to those who keep trying to pretend that no such bias exists.

This week in celeb images

A little roundup of various celeb images that caught my eye this week, presented in alphabetical order to make my life easier:

First up is 43 year old Kate Moss in W Magazine. I've never been a huge fan of Moss, often finding her "look" to be off-putting. But like many true models, she can look amazing under the right circumstances, this pic being one of them. Also, she's only 43?! Seems like she's been around for so much longer than that.

Next is Kendall Jenner showing off her heroine-chic anti-Kardashian scrawniness in a shoot for Love Magazine (those purveyors of the exhausting advent video calendar each year). Kendall and Kylie are two opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to body types. Kylie with her surgical addiction trying to look like Khloe and Kim, and Kendall working hard to look almost anorexic. What a family.

Next is 51 year old Elizabeth Hurley who continues to astonish me with how much better she keeps looking with each passing year. I mean truly, she looks hotter now than she did when she was in her twenties. How wild. (fyi, I had these pics tagged as liz hurley so that's why they're here rather than at the top of the post)

And lastly Mariah Carey desperately trying to rehab her image after the New Year's Eve debacle is pumping out selfies like a mad woman. This one in the gym . . . are we supposed to think this is her workout outfit? Probably not, but then why not put on "actual" work out clothes and take some pics? It's the funny mindset that goes with self promotion I guess.