Welcome to Today's Edition of Big Boob Friday

Here's some quick Rule 5 for my longtime, loyal Rule 5 readers.

At the Hostages, "Big Boob Friday – Ummmm….. Yeah… Soooo…"

Also, from Dana Pico, "Rule 5 Blogging: Pulling the Trigger."

And at Pirate's Cove, "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup," and "If All You See……is evil leather which comes from cows which put out evil greenhouse gases and produce evil meat, you might just be a Warmist."

More, from 90 Miles From Tyranny, "Hot Pick of the Late Night."

At Egotastic!, "Lindsey Pelas and Brittny Gastineau Cleavy Clubbing in L.A."

Plus, some bonus India Reynolds for you, via Alison Webster on Twitter:

Its @indiareynolds_ on https://t.co/rTXAI2iF67 today hmu @charlietoons shot in tenerife. Leave a comment on our page pic.twitter.com/e60EhScQkb

— Alison Webster (@alisonvwebster) April 13, 2016

Trump Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski Won't Apologize to Michelle Fields (VIDEO)

This is the first I've ever seen or heard Mr. Lewandowski. I've seen pictures of him, but I've never seen in an interview.

He seems like a perfectly reasonable man.

Here's the report at WSJ, "Trump Campaign Manager Declines to Apologize to Reporter."

Sunday Cartoons

Also, at Theo Spark's, "Cartoon Roundup..."



Cartoon Credit: Branco Cartoons, "Northeast Record Cold."

The Dead End of Critical Theory and Political Correctness (VIDEO)

I'm a 6' 5'' Chinese woman.

Really. I can be anything I want to be, as long as I'm not hurting anyone else.

Well, what if you are hurting someone else? Shut up. It's not your place to judge another human being.

From Blazing Cat Fur, "How Dumb Are Today’s College Students?"

ADDED: Also at the Other McCain, "‘Gender’ Madness: How Far It’s Gone."

'Bernie Is My Comrade'

Well, the Bernie bros don't like it, but I think it's pretty hilarious.

At BuzzFeed, via Memeorandum, "Sanders Lawyers Do Not Like These “Bernie Is My Comrade” T-Shirts One Bit."

And Althouse has the graphic, "'I was surprised Bernie’s campaign would have done that. He didn’t seem to be the type of candidate, the type of guy, who would do something like this'..."

BuzzFeed's New 'Dude a Day' Newsletter Features Guys Who Look Exclusively Homosexual

I don't know?

I guess for the ultra hip BuzzFeed readership, to be a hot guy nowadays means being homosexual.

How lame.

Here, "So, BuzzFeed Has a Newsletter About Hot Guys Now."

How about a guy like Jason Statham? He's not gay right? He's engaged to Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.

Or Daniel Craig? He's married to Rachel Weisz.

So no, you don't have to be homo to be hot. Please make a note of it.

Schlage Connect Touchscreen Deadbolts

Save up to 60%, at Amazon, Schlage Connect Camelot Touchscreen Deadbolt with Built-In Alarm, Satin Nickel, BE469 CAM 619.

More, Save on Schlage Connect Touchscreen Deadbolts.

Also, from David Weinberger, Too Big to Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren't the Facts.

BONUS: From Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher: At Her Zenith: In London, Washington and Moscow.

Behind the Scenes at Selena Gomez's Photo Shoot (VIDEO)

I don't know?

She still seems like a kid to me, but then, GQ's not the highbrow men's fashion mag that it used to be.

Watch, "GQ goes on set with Selena Gomez, the star of this month's issue."

Plus, at the magazine, "The Emancipation of Selena Gomez."

Supreme Court to Hear Arguments in Obama's Illegal Alien DREAM Programs

Obama's unconstitutional immigration grab is at the Court on Monday.

At LAT, "In last big test of Obama era, Supreme Court to take up immigration policy":

The Supreme Court's last great case of the Obama era comes before the justices Monday when the administration's lawyers defend his plan to offer work permits to as many as 4 million immigrants who have been living here illegally for years.

Once again, lawyers for Republican leaders from Congress and the states will be challenging the actions of the Democratic president. And as with past battles over healthcare and same-sex marriage, Obama administration lawyers will need to win over at least one of the court's more conservative justices.

If the justices split 4 to 4 — a possibility since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia — the tie vote would keep in place a Texas judge's order that has blocked President Obama's deportation relief plan from taking effect.

At issue is whether the president has the power to extend a "temporary reprieve" from the threat of deportation and a work permit to immigrant parents of U.S. citizens or lawful residents. More than one-fourth of those who stand to benefit live in California, according to immigration experts.

The two sides disagree not only on what is the right outcome, but on what the case is about. One side sees a great constitutional clash over the rule of law in a democracy, while the other sees a narrow regulatory dispute.

The Republicans, in written briefs, portray Obama's order as a profound threat to the constitutional system. If the president can defy Congress and change the law on his own, the nation has abandoned "a bedrock constitutional principle," they say.

This "would be one of the largest changes in immigration policy in the nation's history," say lawyers for Texas and 25 other Republican-led states. They note that the president's action arose after Congress refused to change the law in line with his wishes, so the order rests on "an unprecedented, sweeping assertion of executive power," they say.

The House Republicans joined the case on the side of Texas, and if anything, raised the stakes even higher. They described Obama's immigration order as "the most aggressive of executive power claims" and a threat to "the separation of powers that underpins our very constitutional structure."

Meanwhile, U.S. Solicitor Gen. Donald Verrilli Jr., the administration's top lawyer, sought to play down the significance of Obama's order and defuse the constitutional clash. He said the immigrants who qualify would be offered a temporary relief from deportation that does not "confer any form of legal status." He cited instances in which Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush gave similar relief to large groups of immigrants who were fleeing wars or despotic regimes.

U.C. Davis Spent at Least $175,000 to Scrub Bad Pepper-Spray Reputation from the Web (VIDEO)

This story's a crack-up, heh.

The chancellor, espcially, Linda Katehi, is a terrible horrible bad person.

Students continue to call for her resignation, at the KCRA video below.

At the Sacramento Bee, "UC Davis spent thousands to scrub pepper-spray references from Internet":

UC Davis contracted with consultants for at least $175,000 to scrub the Internet of negative online postings following the November 2011 pepper-spraying of students and to improve the reputations of both the university and Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, newly released documents show.

The payments were made as the university was trying to boost its image online and were among several contracts issued following the pepper-spray incident.

Some payments were made in hopes of improving the results computer users obtained when searching for information about the university or Katehi, results that one consultant labeled “venomous rhetoric about UC Davis and the chancellor.”

Others sought to improve the school’s use of social media and to devise a new plan for the UC Davis strategic communications office, which has seen its budget rise substantially since Katehi took the chancellor’s post in 2009. Figures released by UC Davis show the strategic communications budget increased from $2.93 million in 2009 to $5.47 million in 2015.

“We have worked to ensure that the reputation of the university, which the chancellor leads, is fairly portrayed,” said UC Davis spokeswoman Dana Topousis. “We wanted to promote and advance the important teaching, research and public service done by our students, faculty and staff, which is the core mission of our university.”

Money to pay the consultants came from the communications department budget, Topousis said.

*****

IT IS ONE MORE EXAMPLE OF HOW OUT OF TOUCH THE LEADERSHIP AT UC DAVIS IS WHEN IT COMES TO THEIR PUBLIC PERSPECTIVE...

*****

Well, that's for sure.

More at that top link.

Has the Common Application Distorted Elite College Admissions?

I love the Common App.

I wrote a couple of recommendations for students this semester, uploaded them to the Common App, and that was it. Easy as pie.

But see the New York Times, "Common Application Saturates the College Admissions Market, Critics Say":

As the news rippled across the web last week that a Long Island student had won admission to all eight Ivy League universities, thousands of people reacted with messages of praise.

But when Peter Kang, a high school senior in Chantilly, Va., saw a New York Times article last week about the student, Augusta Uwamanzu-Nna, on his Facebook feed, he grumbled.

“This is exactly what is driving down college acceptance rates and making university that much harder to get into,” he wrote on the site, setting off a lively discussion in the comment thread.

The crux of Mr. Kang’s complaint, one shared by many other students, is that he and his peers are applying to too many colleges, driving down admission rates and elevating the prestige of selective universities, which leads more students to apply.

“It just seems like a vicious cycle,” Mr. Kang, 17, said in an interview.

Admissions experts say Mr. Kang has a point.

Mr. Kang blamed the Common Application, the standardized form that has risen in popularity and is now accepted by more than 600 colleges, including all the Ivy League universities. The ease of using the form has led many students to decide almost on a whim to add one, two or even 10 more universities to their list.

Mr. Kang admitted that he, too, chose to “blast send” his applications. He felt as if he had to. “I was one of those people that took advantage of the system,” he said.

He applied to 21 colleges, all but two through the Common Application, and won acceptance to six. All the Ivy League campuses to which he applied rejected him.

The experience left him deflated, though despite his critique, he said he was happy for Ms. Uwamanzu-Nna (pronounced oo-wah-man-ZOO-nah), a child of Nigerian immigrants.

“She did the same exact thing I did and she got the results, but I can’t be mad at someone trying to improve their odds,” he said. “It’s so much easier to apply and there’s so much pressure to apply.”

Admissions experts point to a trend called application inflation. Students are sending off more applications than ever. In 1990, just 9 percent of students applied to seven or more schools, according to the National Association for College Admission Counseling. By 2013, that group had grown to 32 percent.

Keep reading.

Delta Pumping to Southern California Restricted Despite Rainy Winter

Following-up from yesterday, "Despite El Niño Rains, the Feds Keep Favoring Fish over Farmers."

At the Sacramento Bee:

For the first time in five years, Northern California’s rivers are roaring and its reservoirs are filled almost to the brim.

But you’d hardly know it, based on how quiet it’s been at the two giant pumping stations at the south end of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The pumps deliver Sacramento Valley water to 19 million Southern Californians and millions of acres of farmland in the San Joaquin Valley.

While precipitation has been roughly four times heavier than a year ago, the Delta pumps have produced just a 35 percent increase in water shipments. For every gallon that’s been pumped to south-of-Delta water agencies since Jan. 1, 3 1/2 gallons have been allowed to flow out to sea. Pumping activity has decreased considerably the past three weeks, to the rising irritation of south state contractors.

The reason lies in a combination of poor timing, the drought-ravaged status of several endangered species of Delta fish, a suite of environmental laws and regulations that govern the pumps – and the complexities of the Delta’s intricate network of river channels, canals and sloughs. As regulators have taken extraordinary steps to protect nearly extinct fish species, their decisions to restrict pumping have become another flash point in California’s water wars – one that shows the easing of the drought doesn’t calm the fighting over how water gets allocated.

Congress has weighed in, with House Republicans and California’s senior Democratic senator pushing for more pumping. In Sacramento, federal and state bureaucracies are butting heads in response to competing demands on the Delta’s water.

On one side are the California Department of Water Resources, which operates the State Water Project, and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which runs the federal government’s Central Valley Project. These agencies oversee the state’s vast network of dams, pumps and canals, and they are under pressure from their south-of-Delta customers to help replenish groundwater reserves and south state reservoirs that have shrunk after four years of drought.

On the other side are two federal agencies responsible for safeguarding Delta fish protected by the Endangered Species Act: the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service. Court rulings empower the agencies to govern Delta water flows, which often translate into pumping limits to keep fish from being harmed.

“This year we saw the fishery agencies, particularly the Fish and Wildlife Service, make more conservative calls,” said Mark Cowin, director of the Department of Water Resources. “My sense is they felt compelled to take every conservative action they could ... to try to prevent extinction.” He said his agency has engaged in “spirited conversations” with the fisheries agencies about their determinations this year.

Many of the water agencies that depend on the Delta pumps say the restrictions are based on faulty science and harming the economy.

“The state will never recover from this water shortage, if they keep operating (the pumps) the way they have been this first three months of the year,” said Johnny Amaral, deputy general manager for Westlands Water District, an influential San Joaquin Valley farm-water contractor. Westlands has been told to expect just a 5 percent water allocation this year from the Central Valley Project.

Keep reading.

Russian SU-24 Attack Aircraft Buzz U.S. Navy Destroyer Donald Cook in Baltic Sea (VIDEO)

At the Military Times, "Russian attack aircraft just flew within 30 feet of a U.S. Navy ship."

Also at the Navy Times, "This is why the Navy didn't shoot down Russian jets."

And watch, via Russia Today (who else?):

Bernie Sanders Supporter Attacks Hillary Clinton as 'Corporate Democratic Whore' at New York's Washington Square Park

Nasty primary they're having over there on the Democrat side, heh.

At LAT, "A Sanders supporter's 'Democratic whores' insult just exposed the party's risk of splitting":

A Sanders supporter's 'Democratic whores' insult just exposed the party's risk of splitting https://t.co/vM9Id7cXZw

— L.A. Times Politics (@latimespolitics) April 14, 2016

A supporter's inflammatory rhetoric at a massive rally for Bernie Sanders on Wednesday — capped by a reference to Hillary Clinton as being among "corporate Democratic whores" beholden to the pharmaceutical industry — underscored the concerns of some Democratic leaders about unifying the party heading into the general election.

Dr. Paul Song, a Santa Monica radiation oncologist and leader of a major California progressive group called the Courage Campaign, was one of the first speakers at Sanders' evening rally in New York's Washington Square Park. He used his remarks to rail against what he called "an immoral and unjust healthcare system" even after some improvements through President Obama's Affordable Care Act.

"Please do not believe ... that our healthcare system is OK," he pleaded with the crowd, which the Sanders campaign said numbered more than 27,000. "Please do not believe that we only need minor tweaks."

Song praised Sanders as the only candidate who recognized healthcare as a human right and support for universal healthcare, before he turned his attention to Clinton.

First, he said he respected Clinton and her husband and noted they had helped his family -- President Clinton traveled to North Korea to secure the release of his sister-in-law, Laura Ling, a journalist who was detained there. But Song said he could only support a candidate who "will help every single family in the United States."

"Secretary Clinton has said Medicare-for-all will never happen," he said. "Well, I agree with Secretary Clinton that Medicare-for-all will never happen if we have a president who never aspires for something greater than the status quo. Medicare-for-all will never happen if we continue to elect corporate Democratic whores who are beholden to Big Pharma and the private insurance industry instead of us."

Clinton's campaign pounced on the comment, calling on Sanders to disavow it. Sanders' campaign did so on his Twitter account Thursday morning, calling the comment "inappropriate and insensitive."

"There's no room for language like that in our political discourse," the post reads...

And notice the Bernie Guevara t-shirt on that Sanders supporter. Just wow.

Amber Lee's Warm but Gusty Forecast

It's was pretty much perfect weather today. I imagine you'd have some beautiful offshore surf conditions down at the beach.

I was chillin' at home though. I'm beat from the work week, and I've got grading this weekend (and through the next month or so each weekend).

In any case, here's the lovely Ms. Lee, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Donald Trump Can Lock-Up the Republican Nomination

At AP, "HOW TRUMP CAN LOCK UP GOP NOMINATION BEFORE THE CONVENTION" (via Memeorandum):

WASHINGTON (AP) -- To all the political junkies yearning for a contested Republican convention this summer: not so fast.

It's still possible for Donald Trump to clinch the nomination by the end of the primaries on June 7. His path is narrow and perilous. But it's plausible and starts with a big victory Tuesday in his home state New York primary.

Trump is the only candidate with a realistic chance of reaching the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination before the July convention in Cleveland. His rivals, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, can only hope to stop him.

If Cruz and Kasich are successful, politicos across the country will have the summer of their dreams - a convention with an uncertain outcome. But Trump can put an end to those dreams, and he can do it without any of the 150 or so delegates who will go to the convention free to support the candidate of their choice.

What comes next isn't a prediction, but rather, a way in which Trump could win the nomination outright on June 7.

To be sure, Trump will have to start doing a lot better than he has so far. He gets that chance starting Tuesday, beginning the day with 744 delegates...

Well, we'll see. We'll see.

More.

Kate Bock Outtakes from Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2016 Shoot in Malta (VIDEO)

Following-up from previously, "Kate Bock Exclusive Behind-the-Scenes Sport Illustrated Swimsuit Video 2016."

Courtney Taylor for Playboy (VIDEO)

Watch, "Perfect Girl Next Door Courtney Tailor Talks About Hiding Playboys in Bed and More."

Despite El Niño Rains, the Feds Keep Favoring Fish over Farmers

From Allysia Finley, at WSJ, "California's Water Injustice":

El Niño has doused northern California, but farmers in the state’s Central Valley won’t see much benefit. The Obama Administration is again indulging its progressive friends at the expense of low-income communities.

The Bureau of Reclamation recently announced that Central Valley Project agricultural water contractors south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta would receive a mere 5% of their contractual allocation this year despite brimming reservoirs in the North. Lake Shasta is at 90% capacity, and billions of gallons of water were released from Lake Folsom this winter to avert flooding.

Meantime, wildlife refuges and farmers north of the Delta—those in Democratic Reps. Jerry McNerney and John Garamendi’s districts—will get 100% of the water they’re owed. The liberal gentry in the Bay Area, which pipes its pristine water directly from Hetch Hetchy reservoir, also won’t be affected by this government water rationing. Federal biological opinions limit Delta water pumps to a third of capacity to protect endangered smelt and salmon, which can get sucked into the machines. Despite these restrictions, fish populations continue to decline.

The Fish and Wildlife Service acknowledged last year that “existing regulatory mechanisms have not proven adequate” to halt the smelt’s decline and that “we are unable to determine with certainty which threats or combinations of threats are directly responsible.” The bigger culprits appear to be invasive species, Delta farm fertilizer, Sacramento effluence, the drought and, perhaps, natural selection.

The Obama Administration is nonetheless doubling down on a failed policy. Amid this winter’s storms, Delta water regulators reduced water pumping to protect putatively vulnerable larval and juvenile smelt. Three adult smelt—and no juveniles or larvae—have been killed by the pumps this year....

House Republicans and [California Democrat] Senator [Dianne] Feinstein have backed legislation to give federal agencies discretion to increase pumping during heavy storm flows. Ms. Feinstein last month told the Sacramento Bee that Mr. Obama hasn’t engaged. The unavoidable conclusion is that the President and his green patrons care more about protecting fish larvae than the poor.

Keep reading.

Deal of the Day: TCP LED A19 60W Equivalent Daylight (5000K) Bulbs

Nice bulbs.

At Amazon, TCP LA1050KND6 LED A19 - 60 Watt Equivalent Daylight (5000K) Light Bulb - 6 Pack.

Plus, TP-LINK Wi-Fi Smart Plug, Works with Amazon Echo, Turn On/Off Your Electronics From Anywhere (HS100).

More, Etekcity 11lb/5kg Digital Kitchen Food Scale, Stainless Steel, Alarm Timer & Temperature Sensor.

Also, from Diana West, The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization.

And from Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy.

BONUS: Kim R. Holmes, The Closing of the Liberal Mind: How Groupthink and Intolerance Define the Left.