Push Positive

Amazing.

At Telegraph UK, "Lara Stone gets upfront for Calvin Klein."

Theo's Tuesday Hotties

What a roundup.

See, "Tuesday Totty...", and "Bonus Babe..."

Plus, "Bedtime Totty..."

Cathy McMorris Rodgers Speaks to the Republican National Convention

I missed this earlier, and folks know she's one of my very favorite Republicans:

And ICYMI, at Michelle's, "RNC recap in living color: The speeches and stories Obama wants to whitewash."

Classic Democrat Convention Video: 'Government Is the Only Thing We All Belong To...'

You can't make this stuff up, via BuzzFeed.

I'll bet Alexis de Tocqueville is rolling in his grave. Sheesh.

Michelle has more, "Creepy video: DNC propaganda clip asserts that “we” all “belong to” govt; Mitt Romney responds" (via Memeorandum).

'Obama Is Trying to Force Gay Marriage On This Country'

Actually, it's the depraved homosexual left's that's shoving gay marriage down our throats, but Obama swallows, so there you go:

And see Politicker, "Gary Bauer’s Anti-Same Sex Marriage Super PAC Campaign Against Obama is Just Getting Started." (At Memeorandum.)

Labor Day Weekend in Las Vegas

We got back from Vegas late last night. I didn't take many pictures, although my son took this one on his iPhone 4:

We stayed at the MGM Grand. At right is the walk-bridge over to New York New York, and at left is Excalibur. It was a great trip, although I never made over to the Marquee Nightclub. Maybe next time.

More later...

'Garden & Gun' Back From the Brink

A very interesting report, at the New York Times, "Garden & Gun Claws Its Way Back From the Brink":

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Among the many magazines that were battered by the recession, few survived such a precarious financial state as Garden & Gun.

In 2009, the two-year-old Southern lifestyle magazine lost financial support from its first publisher. Its employees, many of whom had relocated from New York City to work here, were left with dwindling buyout packages and the promise of freelance pay. Real estate developers could no longer afford to buy advertisements, and some new prospects said they would not give a cent to the magazine until the owners took “gun” out of its title.

David DiBenedetto, the editor in chief, recalled that when the magazine’s color printer broke, the staff did not have the money to replace it for two months. They had to print out proofs at a nearby Kinko’s.

“You didn’t know if you would be there the next week,” Mr. DiBenedetto said as he picked over a lunch of peach soup, fried green tomatoes and catfish at Charleston’s Husk restaurant. He and his wife moved here from New York so he could work at Garden & Gun. “You just didn’t know if the lights would be on.”

It did not help that Garden & Gun’s spare layouts and meandering prose differed radically from the shorter, flashier articles many magazines were moving toward to compete with Facebook and Twitter.

But now, its provocative name and contrarian approach seem to be paying off in a struggling magazine industry. The bimonthly won a 2011 American Society of Magazine Editors award for general excellence, and its editors have a three-book deal with HarperCollins to publish a Southern guide, a collection of dog columns and a cookbook.

With advertisers like Audi, Le Creuset and Brooks Brothers on board, the magazine’s owners forecast that it could be profitable for the first time this year. While circulation is slipping across the magazine industry, Garden & Gun’s circulation grew to 237,837 subscribers in December 2011 from 210,172 the year before, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The magazine, based out of a 200-year-old former pharmacy on Charleston’s historic King Street, was founded as what Jessica Hundhausen Derrick, its vice president and brand development director, described as “a love song to the South.”

It included articles about backyard gin makers, woodworkers crafting chairs from whiskey barrels, and Southern produce like Georgia rattlesnake watermelon. Among the lighter pieces by authors like Roy Blount Jr., there were richly detailed articles like the one from a lifelong friend of Eudora Welty describing how the author feared that if her dead mother saw her cook, “she’d weep with shame.”

And to feed advertisers’ anxieties, nearly every issue featured unapologetic articles in praise of hunting. There were essays on quail hunts, hunting clubs and hunting dogs, often written with an emphasis on land preservation and basking in sumptuous photo spreads to rival Vogue or National Geographic.

But the magazine has also taken a very modern approach to publishing. It began the Garden & Gun Club, which offers subscribers retail discounts and access to private concerts and talks. So far, 3,000 subscribers are paying $35 to $500 a year for one of three membership levels.

The magazine is holding 30 events this year, including a “Lowcountry Field Feast” in South Carolina, a golf event in Georgia and a New Orleans beer festival this fall. It also sells its own merchandise, like a limited-edition Garden & Gun hunting tie and, for the coming holidays, a Le Creuset dish in gunmetal gray.

These kinds of initiatives depend heavily on loyal readers, which Garden & Gun has in abundance. Subscribers knock on the door daily to introduce themselves. Readers write in about how they tested the Southern road trips and dive bars the magazine recommended. One reader even threatened to hunt down the editors and shoot them if they stopped publishing — which the editors emphasize was in jest.

Continue reading.

And checking over at the magazine, "Redefining the Southern Belle."

Hmm. A worthy addition to the reading list.

Rough Patch Ahead for the EU

A number of reports over the weekend indicated a big week ahead for the European Union.

The Astute Bloggers was on the case, "U.S. COMPANIES PREPARED FOR GREECE'S EXIT FROM THE EURO."

And at the Wall Street Journal, "Euro Bond Markets Brace for a Stormy September":

Bonds issued by financially frail European countries have largely been on their best behavior in August, but several events in the next two weeks could awaken markets from their summer slumber.

The European Central Bank's governing council meets Thursday, and investors will eye the news conference that follows for details on the size and design of the central bank's proposed bond-purchase program.

Bond sales by some euro-zone countries are set to resume after a break last month, with Spain selling shorter-dated bonds only a few hours before the central-bank meeting.

A decision by the German Constitutional Court on the legality of the euro-zone's permanent rescue fund and parliamentary elections in the Netherlands, both on Sept. 12, will also fight for the attention of market participants. The outcome of the Dutch election remains highly uncertain at a time when investors are looking to politicians for decisive action.

Last, and most important, euro-zone finance ministers will meet Sept. 14. Following the meeting, Spain could well become the fourth country in the euro zone to seek assistance from its neighbors.

All these events are interlinked to some degree, which means that efforts to deal meaningfully with the crisis could still face hurdles.

Continue reading.

And at Der Spiegel, "Euro Crisis Starts to Bite: German Export Orders Fell Sharply in August."

More at The Economist, "As Greece fights to stay in the euro, Spain moves closer to a bail-out," and "Charlemagne: Don’t expect the European Central Bank single-handedly to save the euro."

The Grim Determination of the Charlotte Democrats

At the Wall Street Journal, "The Charlotte Democrats":

The Democrats gathering in Charlotte this week are united behind President Obama but more than a little nervous about their November prospects. The thrill of 2008 is gone, replaced by an almost grim determination. The party of hope and change has become the party of grind-it-out, slug-it-out, and hope to win as less awful than Mitt Romney.

This isn't the way it was supposed to be. The Obama Presidency was going to usher in a new era of long-term Democratic dominance, and the circumstances to make it happen were on their side. Democrats took power in a recession they could pin on Republicans, knowing they could take credit for the inevitable economic recovery and ride that to re-election. Young people went for them 2 to 1 and might have been loyal for decades. It all might have worked had they made the economy their priority.

But this misjudges the modern Democratic Party. Four years ago in Denver, we wrote that the country deserved to know that the Democrats who would really be running the country in 2009 would be named Henry Waxman, John Dingell, John Conyers, David Obey, George Miller, Barney Frank and James Oberstar. Those were—and mostly still are—the liberal barons of the House.

They weren't about to let a crisis go to waste, and so they went about using their accidentally large majorities to drive through a generation of pent-up liberal legislation. Mr. Obama famously let them write the stimulus and health-care bills. Republicans were helpless to stop them for two years. Liberals got nearly everything they wanted—which is what may be their ultimate undoing.

Democrats of the Obama era are united by cultural liberalism, but above all else they agree on the goal of expanding the reach of government. The Democratic Leadership Council, the centrist idea shop of the Clinton years, is moribund. The vanguard of ideas for the Obama White House is the Center for American Progress, which churns out proposals for government to mediate every sphere of economic life...

That is exactly right.

And this story again shows the scale of lies Democrats are willing to tell. See Politico, for example, "Antonio Villaraigosa: Obama continues Clinton tradition."

In any case, there's still more at WSJ. Today's Democrats aren't Clintonesque. They're an extreme left-wing party that bears little resemblance to the party of the Clinton years.

More later...

Kathy Shaidle Talks Pop Culture in Menzoid's Man Cave

Via Blazing Cat Fur:

Michael Clarke Duncan, 1957-2012

I was shocked to see this obituary, at the Wall Street Journal, "Actor Michael Clarke Duncan Dead at 54." He was so young and full of life.

Democrat Thugs

Gaius reports, at Blue Crab Boulevard, "The Haters."

There’s a choice this election, alright. Which side are you on? If you’re on the side that fantasizes about knocking an 82 year old man off a stage for laughing at your leader, you might want to examine your soul.

#EmptyChairDay

Stormbringer has it, "EMPTY CHAIR MONDAY."

And at Michelle's, "Monday is National Empty Chair Day; Updated with photos," and "National Empty Chair Day photo album, part II."

Plus, check the overwhelming response at Legal Insurrection, "National Empty Chair Day (photos from around country)." Also, "National Empty Chair Day Photos, Part 2," and "National Empty Chair Day Photos, Part 3." (Via Memeorandum.)

More at The Other McCain and Memeorandum.

Don't Count On the So-Called 'Post-Convention Bounce'

Folks are speculating on the size and impact of the "bounce" coming out of the GOP convention in Tampa.

For example, Frank Newport has this, at Gallup, "No Signs of GOP Convention Bounce Yet" (via Memeorandum). And from wonderboy Nate Silver, at New York Times, "Sept. 2: Split Verdict in Polls on Romney Convention Bounce."

But while getting a big bounce would be nice, the fact is such polling surges are rare.

See Dante Chinni, at the Wall Street Journal, "Politics Counts: Don’t Read Too Much Into the Bounce":

With one convention down and one to go, the great game of bounce analysis is afoot. Over the next few days and weeks the media will scour polls to try to figure who “won” the political convention battle.

The better question may be how much it all matters in the end.

Conventions are important events in presidential campaigns. They provide each of the two major parties the chance to have the media largely to themselves and lay out their beliefs, as they see them, to the public. And they give the major candidates at least one night where can have an hour or so to speak directly to the American people in a presidential setting – or at least a semi-presidential setting, an arena filled with supporters cheering him on.

And, as we noted on Thursday in this space, when you get inside the numbers using the geographic/demographic Patchwork Nation breakdown of counties, there are some post-convention trends worth watching. In the coming weeks one critical question is whether GOP nominee Mitt Romney can win over voters in Republican-leaning communities like the small-town Service Worker Centers (in red on the map below) and the aging Emptying Nests (in light green). Mr. Romney will need them in November.

But in the end, the conventions are moments that pass. And even though they have migrated closer to the fall in recent years, they still are far enough away from Election Day to allow for plenty of change afterward, particularly in the modern media environment.

Remember the excitement that followed former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s speech in St. Paul in 2008? It seemed like ancient history by October.

So what’s in the bounce? It can depend a lot on the year and the campaign, but on the whole, the answer is usually less than meets the eye.

On average, Gallup says the typical post-convention bounce is worth about five percentage points. There have been notable exceptions, such as former President Bill Clinton’s 16-point bump after the Democratic convention in 1992, though as most everyone points out, that also followed independent candidate R. Ross Perot dropping out of the race. And in 2004, Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry got a negative bounce after his convention, a net drop of one point.

But more important than any post-convention bounce is a candidate’s ability to maintain or even grow whatever advantage they get out of their week of being front-and-center in the media. And using that measuring stick, the much-discussed bounce seems a bit over rated as recent examples show.

More at the link.

Democrat National Convention Set to Nominate First Flaming Buttfreak Candidate for the Presidency

The barebacking convention is getting fired up! (They're actually re-nominating the flaming faggy president, since Baracky didn't come out until his first administration.)

At Hillbuzz, "Is Barack Obama Gay?"

And more:

 * "Where Barry Met Larry: a grassroots campaign to historically mark Obama’s gay hot spots in Chicago."

* "Where Barry Met Larry Part 2: the grassroots campaign to historically mark Barack Obama’s visit to the Comfort Inn of Gurnee, IL (where he had sex with Larry Sinclair)."

* "Where Barry Met Larry, Part 3: grassroots campaign to historically mark the Gurnee, Illinois Comfort Inn."

* "Where Barry Met Larry – Part 4: will Dahleen Glanton and Chicago Tribune assist grassroots campaign for Obama-Sinclair historic marker?"

Image Credit: Zimbio/The Globe.

Outraged Michelle Obama is masterminding an elaborate cover-up to prevent a new gay scandal from tarnishing the President, sources tell the Globe in a sensational world exclusive. The furious first Lady has made it her mission to silence author Larry Sinclair, who has written a book called Barack Obama & Larry Sinclair: Cocaine, sex, Lies, Murder, insiders reveal In the work, Sinclair, 47, details the sordid fling he claims to have had with Barack Obama in 1999. He also accuses the President of abusing cocaine on at least two occasions. “The people in the background of the Obama Administration have done everything in their power to stop my book,” Sinclair tells Globe.

Democrat Abortion Extremists Reside Way Outside the American Mainstream

Following-up on Newt Gingrich's comments on Democrat Party abortion extremism, here's the editorial from the Augusta Chronicle, "Abortion, in the extreme: A look at the facts shows which party is more out of the mainstream":

Democrats have tried to make abortion an issue in this election, and may in their convention this week.

They think the majority of Americans are pro-choice. They think they can paint Republicans as “extreme” for being pro-life. They apparently think Barack Obama is the very picture of moderation on abortion.

Hmm.

Of course, the truth is not quite as convenient as all that.

For one thing, in the latest Gallup poll on the issue, pro-lifers outnumber pro-choicers 50 to 41 percent. And 86 percent of Americans believe abortion should be illegal in the third trimester.

In contrast, many Democrats not only support abortion as Anytime Birth Control – a Get Out of Responsibility Free Card – but partial-birth abortion as well. Partial-birth abortion is an especially late-term procedure in which the baby is delivered up to the head, whereupon the “doctor” proceeds to then suck the brains out of the baby. So, exactly who is extreme on abortion again?

And guess what: President Obama is even more extreme in favoring abortion than that – despite the fact that most African-Americans oppose it and despite the fact that abortion takes a disproportionate toll on the black population: Nationwide, 35 percent of abortion victims are black, while in big cities the rate is much higher. Even that isn’t enough for this president.

While a member of the Illinois state Senate, Mr. Obama actually opposed a bill that would protect babies who are accidentally born through botched abortions.

The so-called “Born-Alive Infant Protection Act” requires that medical care and sustenance be given to such babies, who are, after all, still human beings and continue to draw breath despite the abortionist’s best efforts.

A little-known horror story is that some such children have simply been left to die. Obama claimed in 2008 that he opposed the Illinois bill, which mirrored a federal law, because it didn’t contain a clause expressly protecting the right to an abortion. That claim appears to be false, with reports indicating the Illinois bill, like the federal law, did contain such a clause.

Not even the most virulent pro-abortion organizations opposed the Born Alive bill. But Barack Obama did.

These are unpleasant facts, requiring the most disturbing descriptions, which we take no pleasure in addressing. But we didn’t bring it up. Abortion has been brought up by extremists in the Democratic Party, who believe abortion is every bit the sacrament that they always claimed men would declare it to be if they could get pregnant...

That's a devastating editorial, so brutally true, leftists can't even face these facts.

Continue reading.

And ICYMI, "Sandra Fluke Outed As Complete Tool of Corrupt Democrat Party Infanticide Industry."

RELATED: "VIDEO: Senator Infanticide Said He Was 'Pro-Choice' on Third-Trimester Abortions in 2003," and "Democrat National Convention Shaping Up as Unprecedented Celebration of Infanticide."

IMAGE CREDIT: The People's Cube, "The DNC Freakshow."

The Democrats Descend on Charlotte, North Carolina

The Los Angeles Times suggest the party is more unified than in any time in decades, "After decades of fighting, Democrats show unified front":

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — There is something unusual about the gathering of Democrats in this steamy Southern city, something that may be more significant than just about anything said or done once the convention starts Tuesday.

It's the sense of harmony.

The famously fractious party that tore itself apart in the 1960s and 1970s over civil rights and the Vietnam War, that lost a series of blowout presidential elections in the 1980s and painfully reinvented itself in the 1990s, faces little of the infighting or self-doubt that for decades seemed as much a part of being a Democrat as worshiping FDR or watching the South, a former party bastion, inexorably slip away.

It is not as though President Obama is a shoo-in come November. Democratic strategists believe the election will be hard-fought to the end with, at best, a slight tilt toward the incumbent, thanks to shifting demographics and a narrowly favorable electoral map.

But the party is unified to a rare degree: behind the president and against GOP nominee Mitt Romney and his fellow Republicans, to be sure.

Right.

Unified, behind the socialist president and against a GOP nominee who'll restore America to its traditional foundations --- and not a moment too soon.

RTWT at the top link.

And also at the New York Times, "A New Guide to the Democratic Herd."

RELATED: At Legal Insurrection, "National Empty Chair Day (photos from around country)."

IMAGE CREDIT: Theo Spark.

Leiby Kletzky Killer Gets 40-to-Life Upon Conviction

From Howard Portnoy, at Hot Air, "Killer who butchered 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky gets 40 years to life":

The crime was so unimaginably gruesome — an 8-year-old walking home from day camp is abducted by a stranger, then murdered and dismembered — that the child’s parents were too devastated to attend his funeral. That was last summer. Now a year later, the man responsible for depriving young Leiby Kletzky of a life and future has learned his own fate.

The New York Post's story is here, "Levi Aron sentenced to 40 years to life for murder of Orthodox Jewish boy Leiby Kletzky."

I was deeply disturbed by this murder. My previous coverage is here.

Big-Game Hunter Melissa Bachman Cut From National Geographic's 'Ultimate Survivor Alaska' After Environmental Fascists Mount Boycott at Change.org

This is exactly what William Jacobson has been warning against, the ever-increasing progressive campaign to censor and silence conservative activity and opinion, anything that deviates from the accepted narrative of contemporary left-wing fascism. At the New York Times, "National Geographic Takes Hunter Off TV Show":

The National Geographic Channel said on Friday that Melissa Bachman, an animal hunter who writes for a blog called “Hardcore Huntress,” will no longer be a participant in the coming reality series “Ultimate Survivor Alaska,” after an online petition protesting her involvement received more than 13,000 signatures in less than 24 hours. According to the Hollywood Reporter’s Web site the petition posted on Change.org by Tim Martell, a Florida resident, called for a boycott of National Geographic and stated that the cable channel had abandoned its “traditional stance of conservation and protection” by working with Ms. Bachman, who also has her own Web site that contains hunting videos, tips and a photographic trophy room. “The National Geographic Channel has carefully considered the public discussion of our series on surviving the wilds of Alaska currently in production and premiering sometime next year,” the cable channel said in a statement.

Boy, National Geographic caved in seconds flat. That's probably a record. Whoo hoo!

There's more at the link.

And at Hollywood Reporter, "National Geographic Channel Drops Survivalist Over Animal Rights Complaints."

Folks better wake up, alright.

Marquee Nightclub

It's in las Vegas.

Seth Stevenson reports, "The Starbucks of Nightclubs."