NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

NERDCORE!

This is pure, straight-up alpha-nerd here. Witness...The Game Room (full details on its construction here).



On another tip, I found a great little website called Mavericks: The Blathering, chronicling this arduous campaign in the form of Magic cards. Examples:








Check the site for more....awesome.

The Rats Putting on Life Jackets...

Oh the sweet irony - the clash of social conservatives and classical conservatives within the GOP has now struck the very heart of their party. Apparently, internecine strife within the McCain-Palin campaign is starting to tear things apart, as Palin moves to protect herself for a run in 2012 or to "become the future leader of the party." Though we think of this election as about the future of the country, I think that course is set to play out pretty much on time thanks to Herr Bush - on the other hand, we certainly are witnessing a crisis within the Republican Party about its future as well. Perhaps a fracture may be the result...perhaps something else. Will the lunatics come to run the asylum?

I Called It

Rarely do I brag about my political prowess, or aptitude at predeliction - I'm generally a student of news after it's already passed me by. But in this case, I'm feeling a certain sort of glee that my long-winded theory about the implosion of the Republican blok actually has some traction. Other folks are seeing things in the same light, such as in this interesting article from The New Republic or this dissention by the Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan. Hell, even Charles Freid, super-conservative Soliciter General to Reagan, voted for Obama and had his name pulled from McCain campaign literature.

The New Republic's take on the situation is one I agree with most: the rift developing shows a dangerous sign for the Republican party in that dissention is towards the President or VP candidate on the ticket rather than both:

Conservatives are at each other's throats, and here's what's revealing about how divided they are: The critics of John McCain and the critics of Sarah Palin represent entirely different camps...what we see here is a deep split between parts of the conservative elite and much of the rank and file.

Perhaps we are seeing the formation of a motley alliance of the traditional "conservative elite" and Democrats in a "flight to quality." Maybe this is the natural result of the conservative movement's exploitation of populist/social conservatives to garner votes, as TNR points out:

For years, many of the elite conservatives were happy to harvest the votes of devout Christians and gun owners by waging a phony class war against "liberal elitists" and "leftist intellectuals." Suddenly, the conservative writers are discovering that the very anti-intellectualism their side courted and encouraged has begun to consume their movement.

Hmm. Sounds like one of our favorite amateur pundits, doesn't it? I like The Daily Show's take, myself:

Quote of the Day

"I look at these people and can't quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention? To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. "Can I interest you in the chicken?" she asks. "Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it? To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked."

- Author David Sedaris, on undecided voters

The Dangers of Brand Mismanagement

For your consideration - a fascinating story from the New York Times Magazine on the marketing of McCain and the struggle for narrative. Damn fine reading for those of you who create, write, or sell for a living.

Player Hatin' at its Finest

Now that this election cycle's starting to look like a tidal wave against the GOP due to McCain's failure to shore up support in battleground states (a bad thing for America, IMO, if one party runs everything...they'll inevitably overextend themselves and there are no checks on the dogma/revenge to be exacted), the desperation of the Republicans is being nakedly bared. According to top Repubs, liberals hate real Americans and the (generally blue) cities aren't pro-America or even better - if you're liberal, you're automatically anti-American:



Yes, silly season has turned into naked aggression and fearmongering in America, with screams of socialist, communist, and marxist being applied to anything blue. But I pray this time it will not work. I believe in a 2 party system, in checks and balances, but I also believe that disagreement is, at its heart, one of the most American parts of this nation's civic discourse and that the time has come for the Republicans to lose their grasp on power should the people so will it.

I pray this time we won't be fooled, bullied, cajoled or tricked into voting with our fearful lizard brains, or the apathetic-couch-potato brain, or the McCarthyist-conservative-reactionary-vote-with-your-Bible brain, but with the brain of reasonable Americans living in THIS world, seeking change and an opportunity to turn the direction of our country at one of those precious, few-in-a-lifetime moments when we can actually influence its direction.

There's still a chance this will somehow work, that we will as a people be tricked into believing that change can't happen or mistake the viciousness of the rumors for veracity. In that case, maybe America deserves what it gets, and we may be watching the beginning of something much bigger and much scarier than just this election. 75% of people believe the country's going in the wrong direction - if we somehow commit to going in the wrong direction, or even the SAME direction, how long do you think it will take for those 75% to release their majority? How many more do you think would be willing to take action to correct it, outside the political process? Maybe Jefferson will finally see his dream realized, and a revolution (velvet or otherwise) will ripple through the structures of our society. I don't want that, but if we have leaders who implicitly label the functions of democracy socialism while using the fascism of terror and financial dominance, what choice do we have?

Facebook Bombin'

My Dream Campaign

Back about 6 months ago, when everyone was promising not to run negative campaigns, still high off their primary victories, many speculated that an Obama/McCain battle would be gentlemanly, issue-based, and not leave anyone feeling the loser. Well, we can see how that turned out, BUT it's worth noting neither of these men are just candidates - they're actually funny and can be civil. If we handled the election by celebrity roast, this is what a debate might look like:





I tellya, if this was the case, I think I'd be worried about Obama's prospects...not bad, but he obviously could benefit from a warm-up act.

My New Favorite Website

Check it every day until Nov. 4!

http://www.palinaspresident.us/

Blame

Considering the suffering that's been inflicted on the McCain-Palin ticket by the crumpling of Wall Street, and today's stock market nosedive ahead of the debates, I'm waiting for them to start blaming their campaign's woes on "broker bias" or "gotcha economics."

The Difference

Following up on my earlier post about the rift between conservative and populist Republicans, and why it has come to be this way - I found this video which captures the very essence of that arguement.



On one side, you have a discussion of the virtues of saying "We can be better," and on the other, "We shall not apologize for being Americans." But the thing Palin misses, that maybe that entire movement misses, is that we are not infallible, that humility is a virtue and by being arrogant will we contribute to our own downfall. No one suggests we apologize for our existence - only that we clean up our mess and play nicely with others. That is our calling as Americans - to be better than we are.

The Search for an Excuse

To all those who insist on referring to Obama by his first name, I refer to you this website.

To those asking if he is an Arab, let me remind you - that is racism. How, exactly, is this relevant to you as a voter? Does it change the content of his character? Or is it an excuse to not vote based on your prejudice.

It is tremendously disappointing to see the McCain campaign complicit in this sort of behavior. They may not be directly condoning it, and McCain may pay lip service, there is no doubt they seek to tap a vein of populist fear and complete their journey to the Dark Side of Bush and Cheney's political terror tactics. The comparison by Georgia's governor of this campaigns actions with those of George Wallace are indeed walking in a mine field, but they are also fair in a sense - drumming up senseless, racially-based fear is not only reprehensible, it is decidedly un-American (one of the very few things I would label as such), for it undermines and ignores the very core of our nation's principles - excellence, diversity, and a belief in equality.

That's the America I believe in. I think that America could be in danger.

Banking and You

To celebrate a sub-150 point market loss for the weekend (and a narrow dodge of sub-8000 in the DOW...phew, only 40% down off last year!!1!), I bring you a brief history of banking in the US and the WSJ's thoughts on new panics precipitated by opaqueness in the Treasury. The first article is particularly relevant, considering the US has now decided to place stakes in many troubled banks - a very "Hamiltonian" move indeed.

The Anti-Intellectual Crusade

In this election, I have seen a number of my Republian friends turn their back on the Republican ticket, with a few even switching to Obama, because they felt the direction of the party no longer shared their values. For those of us in the middle-left-leaning Dem wing, I say "Huh? Isn't the Republican 'values' voter the definition of conservative?" In my research and thinking about it, though, I'm not convinced it is. In fact, I think they are indication of a trend, a growing rift in the Republican party between traditional conservatives and populists. As a kid who grew up in "thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican" and Contract with America eras of government, this has intrigued about where this rift comes from.

There's no denying that a rift is there, in my opinion, most recently and tangibly illustrated with the stutter-step nature of the McCain campaign. It seems McCain, who has long struggled ingratiate himself with the conservative branch despite his fiscal conservatism on earmarks, has abandoned these principles and switched to this emergent (and often "anti-") populist branch, with Palin pick, sudden introduction of plans to buy up all the bad mortgage debt and incorporate it into the government, etc. It's a weird and strange play, and it's created a Janus-like figure of the campaign. It's a radical departure from the early 90's where the definition of Republican was 'united front' to the words of that great statesman, Mayor Quimby: "If that is the way the winds are blowing, let no one say I do not also blow."

Conservative pundits have also noticed this rift, starting with the introduction of Sarah Palin to the scene - a bona fide celebrity of the populist Republican block. After all, she's a hockey mom/pit bull, folksy, shoots from the hip with some fine attack politics, and has an unnerving talent for deflecting questions that go off her talking points. Just like one sitting President of the United States. No one can deny her political talent in a time of waxing populist realpolitik, but many conservatives like George Will were direly concerned about her experience from the beginning and now firmly convinced of it. David Brooks, noted and highly eloquent conservative editor of the Atlantic Monthly, recently called her a representation "of a fatal cancer to the Republican Party." Brooks and Will are just a few conservative voices whom I respect (if not agree with) that caused my ears to twig up at the idea of this growing gap.

So how to define the conservative and populist sides of this rift? Another Brooks article, "Experience Matters," lays out this idea in a nutshell (where was my tinfoil hat?):

Conservatism was once a frankly elitist movement. Conservatives stood against radical egalitarianism and the destruction of rigorous standards. They stood up for classical education, hard-earned knowledge, experience and prudence. Wisdom was acquired through immersion in the best that has been thought and said.

But, especially in America, there has always been a separate, populist, strain. For those in this school, book knowledge is suspect but practical knowledge is respected. The city is corrupting and the universities are kindergartens for overeducated fools.

The elitists favor sophistication, but the common-sense folk favor simplicity. The elitists favor deliberation, but the populists favor instinct.

This populist tendency produced the term-limits movement based on the belief that time in government destroys character but contact with grass-roots America gives one grounding in real life. And now it has produced Sarah Palin.

With the Bush administration, we have seen the rise of populist Republican politics. He out-good-ol-boyed Gore, by far the more qualified candidate, to the presidency. Gone was the culture of "no" championed by guys like Reagan, Gingrich, and even Ron Paul, replaced with Bush's "compassionate conservativism." While that sounded nice - because, hey, those conservatives were mean! - people quickly found out there was very little compassion there - just an administration licking its lips at a giant surplus of money and a guy who the president once defined as "the guy who tried to kill my dad" firmly in its crosshairs.

In the Brooks "cancer" quote, he had this to say:

When I first started in journalism, I worked at the National Review for Bill Buckley. And Buckley famously said he'd rather be ruled by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty. But he didn't think those were the only two options. He thought it was important to have people on the conservative side who celebrated ideas, who celebrated learning. And his whole life was based on that, and that was also true for a lot of the other conservatives in the Reagan era. Reagan had an immense faith in the power of ideas. But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices. I think President Bush has those prejudices.

People say the "thing" about Bush was, he was a guy you'd want to have a beer with - and in time people probably will again. Palin wins the same allocades - "she's one of us," her campaign says, she's a hockey mom, a rockstar, a "Joe Sixpack" as she'd say (as if they Joe Sixpacks out there wouldn't be something a shade of insulted, and maybe they aren't if they're populist Republicans). She's a moose-hunter, a gun owner, she's got a Yooper accent, 5 kids, a preggers teenage daughter, and no farkin' clue what the Bush Doctrine is (just like the president). She is specifically against Roe v. Wade, believes Alaska will be a shelter state during the Second Coming, a Pentecostal evangelical Christian, and believes being able to see Russia or share airspace with Putin's flyovers means she knows something about foreign relations. That, apparently, has been enough to get her a bigger and stronger base of supporters than the presidential candidate she's running with.

Nowhere in that bio is an idea of her ideas; nowhere is an examination of where she stands on political issues; and nowhere does she try to illuminate them. Because, ultimately, it seems populism mean social issues, character, and personality - not politics. This is how she can have the gall to lead the recent charge of "Who is Barack Obama" when she herself has been on the national stage less than 6 weeks.

In the Roger Cohen's op-ed piece "Palin's American Exception," he outlines what in my opinion defines Palin's populist Republican appeal in a nutshell.

Palin’s American Exception
By ROGER COHEN
Published: September 25, 2008

Sarah Palin loves the word “exceptional.” At a rally in Nevada the other day, the Republican vice-presidential candidate said: “We are an exceptional nation.” Then she declared: “America is an exceptional country.” In case anyone missed that, she added: “You are all exceptional Americans.”

I have to hand it to Palin, she may be onto something in her batty way: the election is very much about American exceptionalism.

This is the idea, around since the founding fathers, and elaborated on by Alexis de Tocqueville, that the United States is a nation unlike any other with a special mission to build the “city upon a hill” that will serve as liberty’s beacon for mankind.

But exceptionalism has taken an ugly twist of late. It’s become the angry refuge of the America that wants to deny the real state of the world.

From an inspirational notion, however flawed in execution, that has buttressed the global spread of liberty, American exceptionalism has morphed into the fortress of those who see themselves threatened by “one-worlders” (read Barack Obama) and who believe it’s more important to know how to dress moose than find Mumbai.

That’s Palinism, a philosophy delivered without a passport and with a view (on a clear day) of Russia.

Behind Palinism lies anger. It’s been growing as America’s relative decline has become more manifest in falling incomes, imploding markets, massive debt and rising new centers of wealth and power from Shanghai to Dubai.

The damn-the-world, God-chose-us rage of that America has sharpened as U.S. exceptionalism has become harder to square with the 21st-century world’s interconnectedness. How exceptional can you be when every major problem you face, from terrorism to nuclear proliferation to gas prices, requires joint action?

Very exceptional, insists Palin, and so does John McCain by choosing her. (He has said: “I do believe in American exceptionalism. We are the only nation I know that really is deeply concerned about adhering to the principle that all of us are created equal.”)

America is distinct. Its habits and attitudes with respect to religion, patriotism, voting and the death penalty, for example, differ from much of the rest of the developed world. It is more ideological than other countries, believing still in its manifest destiny. At its noblest, it inspires still.

But, let’s face it, from Baghdad to Bear Stearns the last eight years have been a lesson in the price of exceptionalism run amok.

To persist with a philosophy grounded in America’s separateness, rather than its connectedness, would be devastating at a time when the country faces two wars, a financial collapse unseen since 1929, commodity inflation, a huge transfer of resources to the Middle East, and the imperative to develop new sources of energy.

Enough is enough.

The basic shift from the cold war to the new world is from MAD (mutual assured destruction) to MAC (mutual assured connectedness). Technology trumps politics. Still, Bush and Cheney have demonstrated that politics still matter.

Which brings us to the first debate — still scheduled for Friday — between Obama and McCain on foreign policy. It will pit the former’s universalism against the latter’s exceptionalism.

I’m going to try to make this simple. On the Democratic side you have a guy whose campaign has been based on the Internet, who believes America may have something to learn from other countries (like universal health care) and who’s unafraid in 2008 to say he’s a “proud citizen of the United States and a fellow citizen of the world.”

On the Republican side, you have a guy who, in 2008, is just discovering the Net and Google and whose No. 2 is a woman who got a passport last year and believes she understands Russia because Alaska is closer to Siberia than Alabama.

If I were Obama, I’d put it this way: “Senator McCain, the world you claim to understand is the world of yesterday. A new century demands new thinking. Our country cannot be made fundamentally secure by a man who thought our economy was fundamentally sound.”

American exceptionalism, taken to extremes, leaves you without the allies you need (Iraq), without the influence you want (Iran) and without any notion of risk (Wall Street). The only exceptionalism that resonates, as Obama put it to me last year, is one “based on our Constitution, our principles, our values and our ideals.”

In a superb recent piece on the declining global influence of the Supreme Court, my colleague Adam Liptak quoted an article by Steven Calabresi, a law professor at Northwestern: “Like it or not, Americans really are a special people with a special ideology that sets us apart from all other peoples.”

Palinism has its intellectual roots. But it’s dangerous for a country in need of realism not rage. I’m sure Henry Kissinger tried to instill Realpolitik in the governor of Alaska this week, but the angry exceptionalism that is Palinism is not in the reason game.

That idea of exceptionalism, that America is great because its America, is a core nugget of where populist Republican thought and both conservative and Democratic thought divide, I think. Populists, like Bush, think that taking away rights is OK if it will "make us safe." In the world of big-daddy government, which conservatives so rail against, populists seem to be the true believers (even more so than Dems!) - from a populist Republican government, we've earned ourselves the bailout plan, the Patriot Act, the war against terror, the TSA lockdown, No Child Left Behind, and many many other programs with the very specific intention of protecting us from ourselves. They are the Republicans of the culture wars, fighting against a godlessness in America. Populists push for teaching creationism as equal to evolution as a theory in schools; populists push for mandatory Pledge of Allegiance participation; populists believe English should be the official language of the United States; populists believe "illegals" need to be thrown across the border. Because this is America, and goddamnit, it's exceptional - there's no better , no smarter or more beautiful place. How could it ever be wrong?

But conservatives by their very inclination, think we can always do better - otherwise they wouldn't be railing against government powers, against overspending and intrusion on liberties. True conservatives, as I understand them, cannot accept the invasion of privacy introduced by the Patriot Act (even if they think the treatment of 'war criminals' or violating the Geneva Conventions is OK), because they are constitutionalists. Though conservatives may be far more firm than liberals in their worldview of how things should be done, the fact is both sides think this nation is a work in progress. I mean, look at the bailout plan reaction - the "left" and the "right" both railed against the middle for upending the free market and saving corporations who were irresponsible - the left thought it just desserts for companies gambling with regular folks' futures, the right thought we must let the market run its course, for good or ill. McCain's ludicrous plan to buy up mortgage debt, not at the "haircut" rate as laid out in the bailout bill (where the gov't would buy at market value, and the lender would take the hit) but at 100% of the sale value, has made strange bedfellows of the Obama campaign and many conservative pundits ahead of the election.

This fracturing alliance of the Republican Party has torn the McCain campaign down the center, as it first strove to prove itself worthy of conservative support all the way up to the convention, then turned on a dime, co-opting Obama's change message, bringing on Palin, and transforming an "experience" ticket to a "character" ticket - in short, from a conservative campaign to a populist campaign. In doing so, he has turned off many amongst is base, even as he grew other parts, and in turn lit a fire beneath the Democrats who were still torn over the bitter struggle between Clinton and Obama. The culture wars are very much fresh in the minds of this country, and re-igniting them was the worst thing IMO McCain could have done, for the populist Republicans are by their very definition the enemy of liberals (and even moderates) of all stripes. All this move to populism has served for the campaign has been to polarize the election, to push the undecided voter to one side or the other more firmly when they are so critical to win, to make moderate Democrats who were on the fence choose their side firmly, to lose his credibility as a bipartisan negotiator, and the only improvement has been in screaming, angry, and sometimes frothing supporters at rallies. I hope McCain's finding that worthwhile.

I do find myself smiling at the thought, though - wouldn't it be ironic if the reason McCain loses in November is because he chose a side that manages to stand against the core principles of both Republicans and Democrats? If he was defeated by conservatives unconvinced in his judgement and liberals distrustful of his policies? If he lost to "that one" based on the fact that for all his experience, all his depth of knowledge, he chose to ally with the mob and lost on the basis of good politics?

EDIT: More on the tradition of anti-intellectualism in campaigns and why Obama seems to have dodged that particular bullet so far.

ZOMG

Don't let people like this decide our future:

A Weepingly Funny Double Standard

McCain sets the Ayers attacks in the context of a question of honesty into full steam. You lying sonofabitch - shall we got to the tape?

In his strongest personal criticism since his faltering campaign began casting Obama as an unknown and unacceptable candidate, McCain told supporters that Obama had not been truthful in describing his relationship with former radical William Ayers. The Arizona senator also said Obama himself has "a clear radical, far-left pro-abortion record."

Then

"Look, we don't care about an old, washed-up terrorist and his wife," McCain said. "That's not the point here."

Then

"Barack Obama and domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. Friends. They've worked together for years," the ad says. The ad also claimed that one of the nonprofits on which Obama and Ayers worked was a radical education foundation.

Then

"Are Americans having an opportunity to ask all the questions and are we receiving straight answers from our opponent?" Palin asked. The crowd shouted, "No!"

Then

McCain also repeated the false claim that Palin opposed the so-called Bridge to Nowhere, for which she campaigned in her race for governor and accepted federal money to build. When the project drew national scorn as an example of wasteful spending, Congress withdrew its support for the bridge but Alaska kept the money for other projects.

Who has the honesty issue? Who is now relying very heavily on distortions or outright falsehoods to tear his opponent down? Who is trying to use sleight of hand to steal the presidency? Whose articulation of fixing the economy is "I know how to fix it?"

EDIT: Even better - the McCain campaign clears Sarah Palin of all wrongdoing in Troopergate! PHEW! That's a load off.

...

Seriously, WTF are these people on?!?!

"That One" and Knife Fights

So as my disgust grows with the tone of the campaigns as we enter the home stretch -and blessed relief! - I did not watch the full debates last night. I have, however, seen McCain's snarky reference to "that one" as he was talking about energy, IIRC. What struck me about it was not, what some folks seem to have jumped, implicit racism, but the attitude "that one" conveys. It's contempt, which we've seen from 2 debates now (though not as nakedly as in the first debate where McCain wouldn't make eye contact or even look at Obama). Contempt of what? Contempt of the younger, handsomer, more charismatic candidate? Contempt of a better debater, someone who's more comfortable in the limelight? Genunine contempt of Obama as vapid celebrity, who's duping the American people into voting for him? Contempt of the fact he's actually losing to this guy?

It's that last one that's the biggest problem for McCain, I think. Not only does it make him look like a sore loser, it makes him look like he deserves the presidency. McCain's taken a lot of lessons away from the Clinton campaign, but that's not one he wants to follow - appearing as if he's entitled, that he was robbed of the presidency by George W. Bush (and he may well have been - he probably would have creamed Gore in 2000) and now he's due, is ballot-box poison nowadays. Many folks, myself included, were very put off by Hillary's none-too-nuanced declarations of early victory before the first primaries even happened, and I firmly believe that drives many voters, especially the critical independants, towards the other guy. As a nation, we've made our mistake of engaging in dynasty politics, and the Democratic base IMO rejected that this election cycle. There are many people who feel we must still elect our leaders rather than name them or pass the torch.

If he's going to save his very-sick looking campaign - and I'm starting to wonder if this isn't about 2 weeks from over now - he's going to have to do the thing he and Palin have been so reluctant to do; provide a reason why people should vote for them. Obama seems to be putting forward policies - some solid, some vague - and McCain beats the war drum. In the factcheck realm, McCain's anti-Obama ads are getting more and more stretched (down the absolutely abhorent "palling around with terrorists" comments from this weekend) while Obama is nailing him on things he actually did on a far higher frequency. There is no opportunity to "change the dialogue away from the economy" - it's time to lay out some kind of plan beyond 'vote character' or 'better me than the other guy.' That WILL NOT WORK.

But before anyone gets hopeful abou the prospects of an easy Dem win this year, I point you to perhaps the finest quote of the cycle:

"In the last 5 days, it always comes down to a knife fight in a telephone booth."
-- CHRIS LEHANE, a Democratic political consultant, on his expectations for the campaign stretch run

(Thanks, TIME!)

Remember that. And for God's sake, VOTE!

You Can't Deny It

No matter your political bent...

The Flaws of the Gospel of Greed Exposed

When I'm not an amateur left-of-center pundit, I tend to be an amateur sociologist, particularly in the realm of religion (all thanks to the great Menno Froese, my collegiate mentor, friend and fellow son of the working-class intellectual set). I've spent a lot of time fiddling with theories on the intersection of marketing and religion, work and religion, and wealth and religion (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism remains one of the most influential books of my adult life). My thesis was on marketing techniques used by televangelists and ended turning out an A in my course where I was seriously struggling following the death of my grandmother. I actually use this stuff in game design (no, I'm not kidding).

So I like the study of religion and the relation to American life. One of the uniquely aspects of American faith is the splinter Protestant beliefs, and of those the most disgusting/scary is the Prosperity Gospel. If you don't know what I'm talking about, flash back to the late 80's and the many scandals that arose with televangelists, who preached 'planting the seed' within a ministry to reap 'great rewards,' often financial, because, what kind of God would leave his faithful destitute? Well, there's an enlightening article that discusses how this ideology may have encouraged poorer parishoners to enter into predatory mortgages.

A lesson to the naive - God may want you to be well, but he also doesn't want you to be stupid.

Purile and Hilarious

A local radio station currently runs a radio drama called George Bush - Boy President. While it's juvenile and silly, this episode is pretty damn funny.

Steven Colbert is a Genius

There are no words for how utterly clever and true this clip is. No words, other than this is the best political send-up I've seen this campaign.



"Remember, when you vote for a candidate, you're actually voting for every stance they've ever held. So slow down, Ashley - you've just met this guy. Don't so something you'll regret....FOREVER."

A Good Day for Video Punditry

Sadly, I missed the VP debates tonight to work on Crafty/job interview stuff, but in a time of great screeching and outrageous pundityr, I did catch some truly great videos:

First, a wonderful articulation of positions by an Obama foreign policy advisor:



Second, something that I feel is a very rare, honest, and candid moment on the campaign trail. Though I still sometimes wish Bill Richardson had been the VP choice, this is a solid mark in the Biden column: