avast! ye evildoers ~ ~ pclef.net

SEASON'S END

...a bandwagon I'm happy to jump on...

the Yanks were eliminated weeks ago; the Mets blew it (as usual) yesterday...so what am I to do, erstwhile baseball hopeful?

Easy. I'm rooting for the Cubs. I can't root for the Sox, sorry. In a reciprocal situation, I wouldn't want them rooting for me, and I wouldn't tarnish any victory they achieved with my own temporary begrudging support. And there have been quite enough championships in the city of Boston lately, dontcha think?

No, I'm rooting for the Cubs of the city of Chicago. City of broad shoulders. The Windy City. It's a great town, a great sports town, and Wrigley Field has waited long enough for a trophy to be brought home. It would be great if this happened while Ernie Banks was still alive...

And hey, their manager is a former NY Yankee. Go Sweet Lou!

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GOODNIGHT FAST EDDIE

Back when I lived on E. 14th St., I was a regular at Julian's Pool Hall. It was a good deal--a flat cover charge, a soda machine that dispensed $2 cans of bud, and a room full of great old slate-top tables. and you could smoke, which is one of the things that makes pool worth playing. But mainly I just loved playing there because I knew that this was where they shot "The Hustler" and therefore this was where Fast Eddie Felson played, where he beat Minnesota Fats (played by the Great One, Jackie Gleason) and outfoxed George C. Scott.

Julian's is gone now. And so, too, is Fast Eddie.

Paul Newman was a great actor, but he was an even greater citizen. I admired him a lot.

Paul Newman
1928 - 2008

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BEST PUNCH OF THE FIGHT

I know I'm in the tank, but I thought that based on appearance alone, which is half the battle on broadcast TV, Obama looked crisp, confident and capable, while McCain looked like a bitter, angry old man, bewildered and irritated...

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TONIGHT

I, Too, Sing America
by Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

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THE GREAT SCHLEP

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

definitely NSFW!!!!
(but funny)

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HERE COMES THE BRAIN TRUST

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SHE BELIEVES IN WITCHES

witches? witches. witchcraft. that's her mission. listen to her pastor: transformation. convert the world to her religion. brainwash children. and she's not only in the church, she's on the video!

but mainly let's just focus on this fact: a person in the 21st century who believes in the existence of witchcraft and wants to be president of the united states.

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THE LATEST IN SHINY

...now I want a full-size one...why? because it's red...

I'll admit it straight--I wanted the "hello kitty" strat that fender came out with a few years ago. and not exactly 100% because my 5-year old daughter saw one in a musician's friend catalog and expressed her own desire to get one. pink, kitchy, it's one of the cooler cheapo guitars of the past decade. well, my frugal nature (heh) kept me in check (or maybe it was mrs. stratcat's flat no)--after all, when does it end? with the hello kitty strap? the hello kitty picks? the hello kitty gig bag? hell if there were a hello kitty amp I'd have to get that too.

so I held off, and in our local online classifieds I spotted a fender/squier mini strat in the used section. so, at 1/5 of the cost of a new hello kitty strat I got my little girl a miniature red stratocaster which I think looks all kinds of cool...hey it's a red strat, what's not to love? on a little redheaded girl wearing pink and flashing a sassy smile, well you can have your hello kitty....the rock pose pics alone were worth every one of the very few pennies I expended...and a hello kitty strap is (naturally) on the way...

...sansamps rock, sure, but did you know they also can swing?...

I have always loved sansamps, and the tech 21 company in general. they were into direct recording and "modeling" before it became popular and digital and ready-made. I've owned a sansamp classic (foolishly given away in a flush of ill-considered generosity) the little 10W practice amp, and I recently acquired one of their new "character series" pedals--the "blonde," whose mission is to provide fender combo-type tones that range from a crunchy 50s tweed to a clean 60s blackface and/or 70s silverface. I haven't really run it through all the various tones because my needs from it are simple--a nice fat clean blackface-type tone for use with solid state amps. frankly, I doubt I'd have much need for it if I was running into one of my tube amps. that would be redundant. but with my henriksen combo (at the moment at the repair shop--but that's another story) I hope that it will provide the missing ingredient that tube amp types talk about and solid state polytone types claim not to miss--the smooth saturation and compression that fender combos are known for. along with something the either/or people don't have--the option to switch between these two types of tones.

right now I'm running it in my pedalboard, after the comp and trem and overdrive and before the delay and boost and reverb, into a tech 21 60W power engine--a powered cab with a flat eq and no real personality of its own. in this context the blonde pedal acts as the preamp. and I've got to say, with this setup I really am not missing the henriksen very much. it's a great-sounding pedal that is very quiet. I'm a big believer that if you forgo the tubes, you ought to at least be rewarded with a near-silent signal path. and that's been the vibe so far. a very enjoyable rig. good to know I've got this option in case the henriksen ever fizzles out on me again. and I'm also thinking of the pedal as tone insurance--since I'm playing more jazz lately there will most likely be times in the future when I show up to a studio or some unknown situation where I'm given a roland jazz chorus or some other such drab-sounding amplification. with the blonde pedal in my gig bag at least I'll know I can dial in a little bit of personality when the situation warrants it...it's still the honeymoon phase but so far me likey.......

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YANKEES WIN!

I wish I'd been there...

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TODAY'S HISTORY LESSON

remember the keating five? ... the parallel to the current crisis is unavoidable... and rather amazing that McCain has been granted anything approaching credibiliity or respect in the years since...the fact is, that if you take away his experience in Vietnam, he appears as nothing more than another right-wing bag man...

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POEM FOR A FRIDAY

Church Going

Once I am sure there's nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence.

Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new -
Cleaned, or restored? Someone would know: I don't.
Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce
'Here endeth' much more loudly than I'd meant.
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches will fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Or, after dark, will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?
Power of some sort will go on
In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;
But superstition, like belief, must die,
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,

A shape less recognisable each week,
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last, the very last, to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,
Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff
Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative,

Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation - marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these - for which was built
This special shell? For, though I've no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognized, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.

--Philip Larkin

CNN (WHO KNEW?) SETS THE RECORD STRAIGHT

conclusion: not enough truthiness.

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YOU'RE SO WHITE YOUR VP NOMINEE GOT THE WORD 'PALE' IN HER NAME

a much-needed laugh...

Black Comic Introduces McCain
by Jonathan Bines | September 9, 2008

This article was published in the September 15, 2008, edition of The New York Observer.

What up, RNC!

Ladies and gentlemen, the next President of the United States of America, John McCain!

DENIED COMMUNION FOR ENDORSING OBAMA

a fascinating read....to my catholic family and friends, do read this before getting annoyed at me...I'm sure this is the exception to the rule, but on the other hand, great wrongs often start small...in my opinion this particular parish should lose its tax-free status...

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NICE TO SEE THE HOMETOWN CROWD SO ENTHUSIASTIC

this surely looks like a whole lot of people. according to reports I've read, it was over 1400 people, one of the largest, if not THE largest political rally in the history of the state--the "Alaska Women Reject Palin" rally in Anchorage...

I remain hopeful. and determined.

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THE THIRD WAVE

I don't happen to believe in God myself but I believe in everyone's right to define and/or (if they choose) worship that conceptual entity in their own way, in this great country of ours. But by the same token, I am equally grateful for the separation of church and state, which keeps various sorts of power-wielding demogoguery out of the corridors of power. And I'm also free to vote for whomever I want, for whatever reason. Here's one reason why I think a vote for McCain/Palin is an insane choice:

CLICK HERE TO SEE VIDEO
MORE HERE

I'd embed it, but unfortunately youtube took this off its server. I have no idea how long it will remain available so please watch it soon. It might change the way you assess Sarah Palin, and I think will raise questions--if you would feel at all comfortable with the sorts of folks in this video having access to the power vested in the White House. How would they approach muslim and jewish and hindu and other countries when they believe that they are the chosen ones to bring Jesus to all nations? Would you want a Masters Commission graduate to have access to the nuclear codes? This frightens me more than Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld ever did.

Jesus or no Jesus, she is beyond uninformed--she is dangerous.

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MORE LYING LIARS AND THE LIES THEY TELL

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TOP THIS MCCAIN

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JOHN MCCAIN IS A LIAR

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A COUNTERMEASURE

To the Oracle at Delphi
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Great Oracle, why are you staring at me,
do I baffle you, do I make you despair?
I, Americus, the American,
wrought from the dark in my mother long ago,
from the dark of ancient Europa--
Why are you staring at me now
in the dusk of our civilization--
Why are you staring at me
as if I were America itself
the new Empire
vaster than any in ancient days
with its electronic highways
carrying its corporate monoculture
around the world
And English the Latin of our days--

Great Oracle, sleeping through the centuries,
Awaken now at last
And tell us how to save us from ourselves
and how to survive our own rulers
who would make a plutocracy of our democracy
in the Great Divide
between the rich and the poor
in whom Walt Whitman heard America singing

O long-silent Sybil,
you of the winged dreams,
Speak out from your temple of light
as the serious constellations
with Greek names
still stare down on us
as a lighthouse moves its megaphone
over the sea
Speak out and shine upon us
the sea-light of Greece
the diamond light of Greece

Far-seeing Sybil, forever hidden,
Come out of your cave at last
And speak to us in the poet's voice
the voice of the fourth person singular
the voice of the inscrutable future
the voice of the people mixed
with a wild soft laughter--
And give us new dreams to dream,
Give us new myths to live by!

Read at Delphi, Greece, on March 21, 2001 at the UNESCO World Poetry Day

IN MEMORIAM

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QUESTIONS FROM ALASKA

From today's Anchorage Daily News, suggested questions for Charlie Gibson to ask Sarah Palin:

Here are some of the questions Palin should be answering, for Alaskans and the rest of the country:

• You present yourself as a Republican maverick who took on your own party's corrupt political establishment. In November's election, your party is running an indicted U.S. Senator, Ted Stevens, who is awaiting trial on charges he accepted more than $250,000 of unreported gifts from the state's most powerful lobbyist. Will you vote for his opponent? Will you urge Alaskans to help you change Washington and vote him out of office? If not, why not?

• Sen. Ted Stevens' trial is still pending; he has declined to say whether he would accept a pardon from President Bush before Bush leaves office in January. Do Alaska voters deserve an answer to that question before they cast their vote for or against Stevens in November? What is your position on a president pardoning a public official before a jury has ruled on guilt or innocence?

• Alaska Congressman Don Young appears to have won his Republican primary, even though you endorsed his opponent. Will you vote for your fellow Republican Don Young, who has spent over $1 million on legal fees without telling his constituents what sort of legal trouble he is in?

• Why have you reneged on your earlier pledge to cooperate with the Alaska Legislature's investigation into Troopergate?

• In spring of 2004, the Daily News reported that you cited family considerations in deciding not to try for the U.S. Senate: "How could I be the team mom if I was a U.S. senator?" What was different this time as you decided to run for vice president?

• As governor of Alaska, you have not pushed for laws or regulations that put your personal views on abortion, same-sex marriage and creationism into public policy. As vice president, will you push to outlaw abortion, restrict same-sex marriage and require the teaching of creationism?

• If you were a fully qualified vice-presidential candidate from the get-go, why did you wait more than 10 days to face reporters?

• McCain spokesman Rick Davis told Fox News the media didn't show you enough "deference." How much deference do you expect to get from Vladimir Putin or Hugo Chavez?

• You have said victory is in sight in Iraq. In July 2007, when you visited Kuwait, you said, "I'm not going to judge the surge." In the March 2007 issue of Alaska Business Monthly, you were asked about the surge and quoted saying:

"I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq. . . . While I support our president, Condoleezza Rice and the administration, I want to know that we have an exit plan in place."

Define "victory" in Iraq? What is the exit plan?

CAN'T TELL THE DIFFERENCE?

If the mainstream media (MSNBC, FOX, CNN) get a ratings boost from the Obama/McCain race tightening, then why would they EVER report that Obama (or McCain, if it came to that) is significantly ahead? My point: why continue to report on national polls when there are about four or five battleground states that actually make all the difference? why factor in my home state of New Jersey when it is a lock for Obama, or any state where McCain has an insurmountable lead? And for that matter, why give Sarah Palin so much coverage, even when she refuses to give press interviews? Very simple: because it helps maintain the impression that this race is neck and neck, that it is closer than it actually might be in reality. The MSM learned a big lesson in the Bush-Gore election--close elections sell ads! Why else invent "red state/blue state" if not to maintain this idea that one lives in a state defined by only one political party, regardless of percentages? Why no purple states? Keep this in mind when next you hear unvetted polling numbers, or pundits talking about "poll of polls"...it may be true, but it's just as likely to be untrue. Research can be cooked just as easily as evidence of WMDs... I know. It's my job.

Look--the punditocracy's entire value proposition is that they know more than you (which is why they behave in rehearsed, scripted ways--note how many times they say "look" to preface a comment...). But most of the time, if you pay attention to news reports and listen to what the candidates are actually saying, you don't need them. Do we really need them ratcheting up this nonsense about the phrase "lipstick on a pig?" Any sensible person can understand the intent of the comment, in context, and I stipulate that without the echo chamber of the MSM, the episode would be of little import. But then there's be no drama, no "outrage" and yes, no viewers to tune in and watch the histrionics.

So, go ahead, tune in, but please don't confuse this programming with anything related to journalism.

...

In other news: the Dalai Lama's brother died the other day...

Don't worry, he'll be back any minute now...

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WHERE IS SARAH BARRACUDA?

Swathed in a cocooned crash course classroom, learning (for the first time) about national issues 2008, it would appear...(they say her peerless ability to gaze across the wide expanse of the Bering Strait has provided her with all the foreign policy expertise she's going to need...good to know...)

as usual, Frank Rich nails it....

money quote:

She didn’t say “no thanks” to the “Bridge to Nowhere” until after Congress had already abandoned it but given Alaska a blank check for $223 million in taxpayers’ money anyway. Far from rejecting federal pork, she hired lobbyists to secure her town a disproportionate share of earmarks ($1,000 per resident in 2002, 20 times the per capita average in other states). Though McCain claimed “she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities,” she has never issued a single command as head of the Alaska National Guard. As for her “executive experience” as mayor, she told her hometown paper in Wasilla, Alaska, in 1996, the year of her election: “It’s not rocket science. It’s $6 million and 53 employees.” Her much-advertised crusade against officials abusing their office is now compromised by a bipartisan ethics investigation into charges that she did the same.

How long before we learn she never shot a moose?

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A REBUTTAL

Facing It
by Yusef Komunyakaa

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't,
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way--the stone lets me go.
I turn that way--I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman's trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

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GAME SET AND MATCH

...this made my day...

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FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING

for the very first time, and perhaps the very last, I find myself in general agreement with a viewpoint of Dr. Laura Schlesinger:

"I'm stunned - couldn't the Republican Party find one competent female with adult children to run for Vice President with McCain? I realize his advisors probably didn't want a "mature" woman, as the Democrats keep harping on his age. But really, what kind of role model is a woman whose fifth child was recently born with a serious issue, Down Syndrome, and then goes back to the job of Governor within days of the birth?

I am haunted by the family pictures of the Palins during political photo-ops, showing the eldest daughter, now pregnant with her own child, cuddling the family's newborn. When Mom and Dad both work full-time (no matter how many folks get involved with the children), it becomes a somewhat chaotic situation. Certainly, if a child becomes ill and is rushed to the hospital, and you're on the hotline with both Israel and Iran as nuclear tempers are flaring, where's your attention going to be? Where should your attention be? Well, once you put your hand on the Bible and make that oath, your attention has to be with the government of the United States of America."

I would only add, as the father of a five-year old girl--if, in 12 years she comes home and tells me that she is pregnant, I will hug her and love her and support her. But I will also consider myself a failure as a parent, and would NEVER consider this a qualification to run for public office. I would certainly not consider it a point of pride. Not at age 17. But then again, I put a very high value on education.

The passing around of that poor oblivious baby last night was outrageous. (which is it--a public family held up to scrutiny, or a private family that wants the media to leave them alone?) Cindy McCain, holding the downs syndrome baby. Daddy putting down the downs syndrome baby so he could wave to the adoring crowd. Little Piper with her Shirley Temple face holding her baby brother, the uncomprehending imbecile. If this were a novel re-enacted his name would not be Trig--it would be Quasimodo. (and perhaps Track would be--after this fifth tour--Paul Bäumer?) The poor child will have enough challenges to deal with in his life. Becoming a crucial pawn for his mother's relentless ambition need not be one of them. It was disgraceful. Yet those dopes in St. Paul ate it right up (as, I fear, many dopes around the country will as well)...

..and I don't mean to offer helpful advice to the opposition, but if McCain wanted a competent woman (and with "executive" experience) what was wrong with Carly Fiorina? apparently she's on board already. and are we all supposed to magically know what a "hockey mom" is? I fear we are going to be forced to find out.

hey if this doesn't work out, Sarah Barracuda definitely has a future in daytime talk...

...................................................................................

CHECK THE FACTS:

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate."

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.

Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.

He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.

THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state — by population.

MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.

THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."

THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.

source: Yahoo! News

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THE HITS KEEP COMING

...aren't the readers of these supermarket thought-destroyers supposed to be the one's she's going to pull in? then what are they going to do about those headlines?...

...vote yummy!...

I haven't had this much fun since Dan Quayle's pizza delivery got sent to my house by accident...

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LADIES AND GENTLEMEN THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE FOR VICE PRES......RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!

...I think I'll just let you write your own caption...

(in honor of the late great Don LaFontaine)

"...in a world, where unhinged republicans wage holy war against the poor, the dark-skinned, the homosexuals, the immigrants, and the French, they've got one last secret weapon to unleash, and she's taking no prisoners....this fall, Sarah Palin is....CRAZY JESUS LADY..."

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LADIES AND GENTLEMEN THE GREAT JERRY REED

...how many people could upstage chet on guitar?...

...wow...

if you spend any time trying to learn the style of chet atkins (or merle travis), you eventually find yourself slamming into the immensity of the talent of jerry reed, who was definitely more well known as the redneck sidekick on "smokey and the bandit" but to anyone who knows guitar playing, his aw shucks good old boy act was a thin disguise for a very formidable guitar talent. he was a virtuoso who'd probably rather be fishing or playing golf, but what he did was absolutely staggering, especially when you consider that he rarely revisited what he'd played, claiming that he'd already done that...he was a true innovator of the instrument, a natural entertainer, and an epitome of what is possible in the now-disgraced genre of country music--and did any performer ever exude more fun?...GODDAMN that's a gui-tar man!!!

Jerry Reed
1937-2008

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BUSH'S AMERICA = MCCAIN'S AMERICA

behold the treatment of a 20-year career journalist by the St. Paul riot squad. ask yourself: was this woman rioting? she was charged with "conspiracy to riot"...looked to me like she was just trying to ask a question, which is to say, doing her job...

I wonder how this sort of thing balances with the crass woman voter grab that sarah palin is supposed to represent...

...