Actually, Vic, I like the new Cadillac ads. Several years into a very positive design trend for American cars, classics like Mustang and Cadillac are finally rediscovering their inner hot rod. (By the way, have you seen the new Mustang? Wowzers! But I don’t go for that corny Steve McQueen cut-and-past job of a commercial they’re rolling. Such gimmicks are unworthy.)

As for the music, it makes sense to return to the rock and roll that thrilled today’s potential buyers as young men. I don’t think the guys who lusted as teenagers for Shelby G.T.s and Mach Is were listening to much folk music. Besides, what kind of music does Scorcese have playing in Goodfellas as the camera rises on the grill of Frankie Carbone’s pink Cadillac? It ain’t jazz, bep.

Your real problem is this: You think Led Zeppelin is cool, but Cadillacs are not. I used to think the same way, being also from a neighborhood where if you drove a Cadillac, you were almost certainly what we’d call a tough guy. But when I look at the new V series, all I see is a beautiful car.

Funny, I didn’t realize Cadillac’s new motto is “Silence the Sterotypes.” Perfect.

While this shot is glancing, it betrays a sense–for the first time, really–that this Kaus-Sullivan fight may be the real deal. Kaus writes: “Andrew Sullivan goes on vacation and his blog gets better! . . .”

Don’t forget: Truth is no defense against charges of stoking a feud. If you are, like me, a great admirer of these two blog-heroes, it’s hard to think of anything which could be more satisfying. A real, lasting Kaus-Sullivan grudge-match? It’s like Christmas! [What’s with all the exclamation marks–do you need more quality time with Strunk and White? –ed The payoffs on this blog are buried so deep that you need to parse the punctuation to find them all.]

If you like to while away the hours at work looking at movie trailers, check out this new one for Sin City.

Who knows whether or not the film will be any good (Frank Miller, of Dark Knight fame is co-directing), but as a stand-alone trailer, this is one of the best I’ve seen in a very long time.

I’ve been waiting for this Jeff Rosen piece on blogging for a long time. Pure genius, all the way through. Don’t miss it.

Is it a small thing that Donald Rumsfeld has been using an autopen to sign letters of condolence, instead of signing them by hand? Yes.

Does it really matter to families who have lost someone? Probably not.

But is it a revealing insight into our secretary of Defense? You bet.

It goes without saying that if this story had come out about a Democratic president’s SecDef, the Republican end of the blogosphere would be purple with indignation, and rightly so. As it is, I’ve seen only a handful of cross words, from a pair of posters on a Lucianne.com thread and a few lonely voices at FreeRepublic. No mention whatsoever of the story at the Corner.

While it would have been impractical for the SecDef to sign condolence letters during World War II, the Iraq War is a low-grade enough conflict that it wouldn’t take more than 5 or 10 seconds of Rumsfeld’s time every day to put down his John Hancock.

Signing these letters wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t bring back the dead. It wouldn’t salve a family’s grief. It wouldn’t help win the war.

But it would be the right thing to do. And conservatives are supposed to care about that sort of thing.

My fellow Galley Slave David Skinner has written a charming Casual in this week’s Weekly Standard about his love for television commercials and, conversely, his distaste for shows like CSI. (But is he referring to CSI: Miami, CSI: Las Vegas, CSI: New York, or CSI: Punxsutawney?) I am partially with David in that there certainly are entertaining commercials such as for Volkswagen, which he mentions, and almost anything produced by ESPN. I also enjoyed those NFL/United Way ads putting supersized players in unconventional situations. (And yes, I am fully aware of the financial turmoil besetting the United Way. Nevertheless, you can’t help but laugh when former Dolphins receiver O.J. McDuffie finds himself conned by a 6-year-old during a Pokemon card trade.)

On the other hand, of late, the number of wholly obnoxious on-air ads vastly exceeds the number of amusing ones–for every Volkswagen commercial there are at least ten truly annoying Capital One “What’s in your wallet?” promos featuring barbarians, Vikings, snow monsters, barbarian Vikings, barbarian snow monsters, and barbarian Viking snow monsters. And remember when you loved Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll”? Now, if you hear it, you half-expect a Cadillac Escalade to come roaring through, leaving behind it a trail of flames and scorched earth.

Consider it a minor dissent.

A lot of smart people have been picking Oral Roberts to be a Sweet Sixteen team this year. So it’s no shame that the mighty Hoyas lost a squeaker to them last night. You can already tell that this Thompson kid is going to work out just fine.

What rocks!?!

It’s not just Sprint, who’s doing good deeds with phone cards. Howard Dean’s Democracy for America has also just made a large donation. Good for them!