Stacy McCain’s Rule 5 standard, Christina Hendricks — who plays bombshell secretary Joan Holloway on Mad Men — makes the following disclosure in the August 2009 Redbook magazine:

We have to ask: Are you a natural redhead?

I’m a natural blonde. I’ve been dyeing it red for more than 20 years. I’ve always felt like I was a natural redhead — like I was an imposter as a blonde.

Can’t see it. At all.

She looks absolutely stunning in the photos, but those small internet pics don’t do her justice. I know because my wife, a huge Mad Men fan, was kind enough to tear out the Redbook pages for me before she threw the magazine out. Ain’t my wife a peach?

UPDATE (7/22/09): Stacy McCain links from a post at Taki’s Magazine, giving me a Chris Matthews-like thrill from the resulting traffic spike, which illustrates a successful application of Rule 1: Shameless blogwhoring.

I emailed McCain a link to this post last night. And I didn’t even have to ask for a link. It pays to know a man’s weaknesses.

Thanks, Stacy!

UPDATE #2 (7/22/09): And thanks again! McCain links from his blog, too. Traffic spike grows larger. Thrills up both legs now:

(FYI, the smaller spike is from the last Rule 5 Sunday.)

UPDATE #3 (7/23/09): This is getting really, really fun. I thought yesterday’s traffic was good, but today’s is through the roof. I think the Wordpress line graph illustrates it better than the Sitemeter bar graph:

I am running out of appendages for thrills to run up. Thanks again, Stacy!

Now, if I can just write something clever that makes people want to stick around . . .