Full Metal Saturday: Ann Althouse

Well, I don't know if this will meet Jules Crittenden's criteria, but Ann Althouse is our featured lovely for this week's "Full Metal Roundup."

Or should I say our featured voracious vixen hottie for the week?

Althouse's whirlwind blogging romance is covered in today's New York Times, "Commoner Captures Princess, Blog Version":

Ann Althouse, 58, is a law professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison who blogs about politics, law and cultural whatnots in a sharp, occasionally ribald tone. She admires Rush Limbaugh, voted for George Bush in ’04 and Barack Obama in ’08. She attracts derision and applause from 500,000 monthly visitors.

The jeers [from Althouse's critics] spiked ever since the March 22 announcement on her blog that this divorced mother of two adult sons, stalwartly single for more than 20 years, is engaged to a commenter known simply as “Meade.” Except for her closest readers, the blogosphere was taken by surprise.

“Does she know the guy?” sniggered Mickey Kaus, the Slate blogger, in a bloggingheads.tv interview.

In a phone interview, Ms. Althouse shot back, “If a male blogger found women to consort with by going into his comments, I think he’d be congratulated.”

The tale of Meade and Ms. Althouse is a cross between the studiedness of a Victorian epistolary courtship —a modern-day Robert Browning googling his dear Elizabeth Barrett — and the wackiness of 21st-century life online. The Althouse commentariat would log into the virtual local pub of the blog, gossiping and fantasizing about their queen’s offline love life, and even egging the couple on. When the announcement finally came, the commentariat cheered, bursting with hometown pride that a humble, anonymous son of the Internet could win the hand of the blogger.

Until now, Meade liked his online anonymity just fine. But at his fiancée’s urging, he agreed to be unmasked here. He is Laurence Meade, 55, divorced, father of a college student and a garden designer and caretaker for a Cincinnati estate.

There's a picture of Meade at the piece. He looks like a nice man, and I know he's a pithy commenter! But online love involves security clearances, so take note of Meade's assurances to Althouse upon asking her out: "... he offered his Social Security number, in case she wanted to run a criminal check ... "

Read the whole thing, here (via Memeorandum).

Now, while most people can't resist a good love story, let's not forget the Full Metal Saturday Reach Around!

My friend Carol at No Sheeples Here was a little reluctant to put up a "Rule 5" post, but she came through with a winner! And to futher demonstrate that women love posting Rule 5 hotness, Vanessa, my former student, has posted some Daniel Craig beefcake. But don't miss Monique Stuart's phenomenal entry with Catherine Zeta Jones! And just to throw out a related link, Monique's entry got a big thumbs up from Ennuipundit in the comments.

And just to indicate that breast-blogging shows up where you least expect it, note how Jawa Report posts a photo of Yasmin Fastok Bakri Mohammad, who is probably off the hotness scale for my regular "Rule 5" entries!

Lance Burri's always good for some smooth weekend blogging, for example, in "I don’t know who’s been finding The Trog by googling “socialist troglodyte...”."

Now, I don't see a weekend roundup at Pundette's, but head over there anyway for some great blogging. And make that a double with William Jacobson's Legal Insurrection. Dave at Point of a Gun is worth a look as well.

And I conclude with the obligatory link to Glenn Reynolds.

More later ...

Photo Credit: New York Times.

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UPDATE: Fausta e-mails, "Love the FMJ roundups!"

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UPDATE II: Who knew? Today is "Internatioanal Pillow Fight Day," and hotties like it.