This Is Almost Heaven

when it comes to writing, that is.

On the Web’s amazing how-to sites, I am studying bar tricks. I should be learning, once and for all, how to do CPR, but all I really want to know is how to mix a Singapore Sling, palm a card and tongue-knot the stem of a maraschino cherry.

Barbie

Barbie Fishing Pole hooks record Catfish!

Okay, you know there are two reasons you will never see this headline again. One is that it will never happen again. Two is that if it does, it's no  longer news.

The Daily Show

welcomes the Democrats to Minnesota. You know the convention starts Monday, right? And Joe Biden is the veep nominee. Okay, I figured you'd heard.

Ladies and Gentlemen

I give you the ineffable Gail Collins.

The idea that humankind has gone to extraordinary effort and expense to construct a black-hole-making machine shouldn’t be all that startling. This is the same humankind that went out of its way to invent nuclear warheads, S.U.V.’s and deep-fried Twinkies-on-a-stick. There is nothing we enjoy more than sealing our own doom in the most creative ways possible.

That Was Quick

Free Obama/Biden sticker.

Joe!

All the great Biden clips in one place.

Clips, Clips and...wait for it...More Clips

I've looked at a bunch of Biden clips today, and most are pretty good.
But this is the best, even though you have to wait about four minutes wading through the context.
Just plain Joe.

Joe: Attack Dog

6 1/2 minutes

Joe!

According to those who know more than I, this is all you need to read about Biden.

Tidbit:

Here, in tiny Corning, he stands at a chalkboard at a public library and painstakingly explains to a crowd of 20 wedged into orange plastic chairs how to achieve stability in Iraq, as well as peace in the Middle East, as if there's an adult education course in statecraft.

Joe!

Biden.

Cindy McCain

Probably more than you want to know.

It's Like 'Cheeburger' Said

All the good ones are taken, gay, psychotically inventing fictional Nigerian scam alter egos that predict suicide while calling you a cunt, or married to Elizabeth Edwards.

Liddy!

Oh, dear, Dole has to do it herself? That's a darn shame, because she proved to be such an incompetent fundraiser and strategist as NRSC chair in 2006, that the Republicans lost six of seven competitive Senate races that year.

It's Bayh!

Nah, I don't know shit. FYI.

FLASH: Fri Aug 22 2008 17:52:03 ET /// KMBC's Micheal Mahoney reports a company in Kansas City, which specializes in political literature, has been printing Obama-Bayh material... MORE... Gill Studios, would not confirm information about the material. They would not deny it either. At least three sources close to the plant's operations reported the Obama-Bayh material was being produced. The company is in the Obama FEC reports for previous work...

Oil. Water. Dirt?

"It must be one of the greatest wastes of human labor in history," Smil says. "Tens of millions of people forced to work night and day on projects that a child could have seen were a terrible stupidity. Cutting down trees and planting grain on steep slopes—how could that be a good idea?"

Democratic Convention

Bloggers seem to like the set. So, as usual, I pass it along. You know it starts Monday, right?

The POW Card

Somebody at Daily Kos posted it, somebody at TPM cited it and, ever faithful of reading things so you don't have to, merely pass it along like the lapdog I am.

Count 'Em

Somebody put this on YouTube and somebody at Andrew Sullivan found it and I finally got around to spotting it and so...

Al Franken

of Saturday Night Live fame, has finally outpolled the Republican incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota. And as one TPM commenter says, you know things are bad when Stewart Smalley is beating you in August.

Obama's Veep

pick will be Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer. That's according to "some people say" at TPM. I actually have no opinion. Remember, I've been gone for three days. After watching this, though, I can say I would definitely marry him. But refuse to live on the ranch, of course.

'Country Club Economics'

Been gone a couple days longer than expected. Came home to this. Good on!

Obama's V.P.

I like this one best.

For Joe Biden:

OH MY GOD! I can't believe he chose Joe Biden! Every one knows that no Democratic candidate has ever won the Presidency with a Vice President whose state fossil is Belemnite and who can be counted on to say something so stupid that even Homer Simpson would know to keep his mouth shut! We're doomed!

Here's the rest.http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/18/17416/1769/573/569982

Gotta Love the BBC

their tartly witty "the Georgian president chews over his next move" while their video shows Saarkashvili doing his Jerry Lewis impression.
Funny thing is, the original BBC video is "disabled upon request" so only copies are now on YouTube. I wonder how long those will stay up. And who requested it? Have they committed Misha yet? He can't resign today, Musharraf beat him to it. Maybe tomorrow.

Moment of Conception

Since the point at which a fertilized human egg becomes "human"  has become a talking point for anti-abortion types following Obama's answer ("above my pay grade ") at the faith forum Saturday night, Andrew Sullivan felt it necessary to remind us all just what the biological facts are. Quoting Steven Pinker's book Blank Slate:

"Just as a microscope reveals that a straight edge is really ragged, research on human reproduction shows that the 'moment of conception' is not a moment at all. Sometimes several sperm penetrate the outer membrane of the egg, and it takes time for the egg to eject the extra chromosomes ... Even when a single sperm enters, its genes remain separate from those of the egg for a day or more, and it takes yet another day or so for the newly merged genome to control the cell. So the 'moment' of conception is in fact a span of twenty-four to forty-eight hours."

Cancel All Plans

to watch the Sunday political shows forever.
Just read Jason Linkins at Huffpo, he watches them so you don't have to.
Here's a taste:

FOX NEWS SUNDAY
Russia v. Georgia, here dubbed the most "serious conflict in the West since the fall of the Soviet Union," as if the war in the Balkans didn't happen. I mean, honest, I think it's serious, like a girlfriend in a coma, but people, in a world, Kosovo. Srebrenica. Okay?
Condoleezza Rice has been to the region, warming up the local players for the one two punch of Ultimate Power that is Lindsay Graham and Joe Lieberman, and she says that Russia is not honoring the cease fire, and they are still occupying cities, and maintaining a presence on the "East-West Highway" - which is the name of a thoroughfare up in Maryland here, and I get a slight "WOLVERINES!" twinge whenever I hear Russia is occupying it.

Will The Real John McCain

please stand up?
Not if your friendly neighborhood media can help it (or him), but Frank Rich tries.

What is widely known is the skin-deep, out-of-date McCain image. As this fairy tale has it, the hero who survived the Hanoi Hilton has stood up as rebelliously in Washington as he did to his Vietnamese captors. He strenuously opposed the execution of the Iraq war; he slammed the president’s response to Katrina; he fought the “agents of intolerance” of the religious right; he crusaded against the G.O.P. House leader Tom DeLay, the criminal lobbyist Jack Abramoff and their coterie of influence-peddlers.

With the exception of McCain’s imprisonment in Vietnam, every aspect of this profile in courage is inaccurate or defunct.