Thanks for another great week at First Read.

It is almost time for the Friday happy hour at the DDI and a drink or two.

OMG! A bronzed Andy, very funny!

Sad news to end the week as Beastie Boys co-founder Adam Yauch (aka MCA) has lost his battle with cancer. I can still remember my older sister buying the "License to Ill" tape (yes, tape) back in the late 80's. My mom said I was too young to listen to it...so of course, I listened to it anyway. So throw some Beastie Boys on the old jukebox tonight. :-)

(BTW...Domenico and Andrew...you guys continue to crack me up with your comedy bits at the end of these videos. Keep it up!!)

Have a great weekend everyone!!

Happy Friday everyone. We've had a fun time on First Read; thanks to our excellent hosts for giving us things to talk about and a place to do it.

We were reminded that Osama bin Laden is dead and GM is alive (Romney and the GOPers just hate that). President Obama surprised our troops in Afghanistan and they were thrilled to see him. Newt Gingrich finally quit after promising he would for a couple weeks--the longest candidate goodbye yet. Mitt Romney keeps trying to tell voters he knows foreign policy but he and his staff stepped into a pile of manure of their own making twice this week.

115,000 private sector jobs were created in April. The media insists on interjecting negative to it but 115,000 new jobs means 115,000 people who were employed now are. Mitt Romney moved the goal posts when he realized the unemployment rate is going down by saying that anything above 4% is unacceptable; seeing good things happen for President Obama requires changing the rules, you betcha.

We have a dual celebration this week at the Dew Drop Inn. We're celebrating Cinco de Mayo with margaritas, Tequila Gold, and some fine Mexican food to feast on.

If that's not to your liking, the Kentucky Derby is tomorrow. In honor of that, the Dew Drop has lots of Red Roses for atmosphere, and the barkeep is serving Mint Juleps on the house. There'll be the usual rendition of My Old Kentucky Home.

Oh, and Independent Redneck, who had to cut out early today, wanted to remind everyone that it's Star Wars Day just in case anyone wants to get out their Princess Leia or Luke Skywalker get up. The Darth Vader one is still over at Cheney's undisclosed location but we've got the lightswords and Han Solo is taking care of the yahoos over at the Star Wars Bar side of the room.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

On the lighter side, I am giving VP Biden a "C'mon Man!" for his party foul. According to ABC News, while attending a Cinco de Mayo celebration, he made a toast with a glass of water!!!!!????? Somebody get the veep a margarita...stat!!! :-)

Speaking of "tan man", did anyone else catch the story of the woman in New Jersey facing charges of child endangerment because when a teacher asked about a burn on her 5-year-old daughter the child answered that she got it when her mom took her into the tanning booth?

Look, I know the real story is the child but, seriously, did you see this woman? Her skin tone resembles color of a breakfast sausage!

At what point does this woman look at herself in the mirror and think, "Damn, I Look Awesome"???

Grimey, That was too funny. Everyone have a great weekend.

Okay, it's Friday afternoon and time to announce this week's winners in the DDI's "Mitt Mania" essay contest, wherein each week FR posters get to tell the world why they so enthusiastically support Mitt Romney, what qualities they most admire in him, and why everyone in America should be jumping on the Mitt-wagon. There were lots of great entries again this week, but the judges have narrowed it down to the following nominees:

UAW Pleeeeeeeease: For "Obozo just needs to stop encouraging people to stop living off government checks and go get those jobs"

End the Nightmare 11/6/12: For "You think when Obama goes to a dog park it's like us looking at a tank for of lobsters?"

(Note: Points deducted, however, for neglecting to footnote that this was a direct quote from Jimmy Kimmel at the White House Correspondents dinner two days before. I know the rules state that if you can't think of anything good to say about Mitt Romney, you're free to make something up about President Obama, but you still have to make up your OWN stuff!)

White Collar Auto: For "If Obama had hit the half court shot that Brown hit, NBC would have a done an hour long special about it."

Damage123: For "I could have sworn that I read somewhere that Hilary Rosen is a
lesbian? Is this true? If so, WTF is she doing going on TV and talking about "women's issues"? " (Please, people, let's not break it to Damage that lesbians are women, too, OK?)

A 97-way tie for everyone who jumped on this weeks "breaking news" and posted a comment about there being composite characters in President Obama's book "Dreams From My Father" - this, of course, despite the fact that anyone who actually READ the book 17 years ago would also have read "For the sake of compression, some of the characters that appear are composites of people I've known, and some events appear out of precise chronology"- Yep, it was right there in black and white on page vii of the Introduction all along. To everyone who fell for this one - even after seeing the dog eating story debunked last week - well, keep trying - you'll get one right eventually!

But this week's grand prize winner is.....(drum roll please!)

Bob Numbers in Virginia: For his Elizabeth Warren comment "Liberal shill media like MSNBC and the Boston Globe may ignore this story, but it has legs....er, moccasins.."

Not only did Bob throw in a racial sterotype about Native American footwear, but he did so while accusing First Read of ignoring a story that had not only already appeared on FR 9 hours earlier that same day, but that he himself had posted the first comment on! Wow, if that doesn't get people to vote for Mitt Romney, I don't know what will! Congratulations, Bob, and to all this week's other posters - better luck next week. Mitt Mania is rockin'!

Heh heh heh...