Why is this thing not over? I mean, really?! Why? Is it a Black thing? Is it a Smart thing?

Why is it not over?

Good morning, everyone! I sure hope pj wakes up and replaces this.

Oh boy, the night we’ve all been waiting for since, um, last Thursday: Obama/McCain Debate #2. This one’s a “Town Hall” style debate, and I’m sure they’ve sanitized all the audience members and their questions. Still, there’s always the hope that McCain will flip out and his head will explode. Or at least drop a few f-bombs or something. The Chat Room is already open for those of you who want to get an early start. Otherwise, see y’all around 9:00 Eastern time tonight.

So, looks like the Obama campaign is about to launch a little push back.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Monday is launching a multimedia campaign to draw attention to the involvement of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the “Keating Five” savings-and-loan scandal of 1989-91, which blemished McCain’s public image and set him on his course as a self-styled reformer.

Pushing back against what it calls McCain’s “guilt-by-association” tactics, the Obama campaign overnight began e-mailing millions of supporters a link to a website, KeatingEconomics.com, which will have a 13-minute documentary on the scandal beginning at noon Eastern time on Monday.

I don’t know if this is a good idea or not. Not because it isn’t relevant to what’s going on these days, but because it may be a little too complication for “Joe Sixpack” to understand. You have to admit, “Obama hangs with terrorists” is a much simpler concept to grasp (and anybody with a brain already knows that McCain/Palin is a disaster of biblical proportions – so to speak – in the making).

To try and explain it all to the unwashed masses, the campaign has a website – KeatingEconomics.com – which will have a 13-minute documentary on the scandal beginning at noon Eastern time today.

Here’s a preview:

OK, just a quickie today, ‘cuz I’m getting pretty sick of these people.

On Press the Meat, Democrat Paul Begala, Republican Mike Murphy and asswipe Chuck Todd blather on as if they actually know anything (Begala is kinda funny sometimes, though, I’ll give him credit for that). Then some more blathering with David Gregory, Gwen Ifill, Peggy :yuck: Noonan, and David Yepsen.

At Faze the Nation, it’s Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, DINO Dianne Feinstein, asshole repiglican Roy Blunt, New Mexico twit Heather Wilson, and the ever-annoying douche bag form the NY Times, David Brooks (why is it that know-it-alls never seem to know much).

On Fux News Sunday Weaselface Wallace will try to out-weasel Traitor Joe Lieberman, Claire McCaskill will be on as well, and then it’s the Pillsbury Dough Nazi, Karl Rove. Plus the usual fuxheads, of course, and Brooks Jackson, director of Factcheck.org.

At the Goebbels network, George Snufalufagus has PA Governor Ed Rendell, MN Governor Tim “bridges? We don’t need no stinkin’ bridges” Pawlenty, Florida republican asshole Senator Mel Martinez), and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown. Then, on the “Roundtable,” it’s Time’s Karen Tumulty, The Nation’s Katrina Vanden Heuvel, WSJ putz, Gerald Seib, and George :jerk: Will join George to debate the week’s politics.

I don’t know who’s comign up on CNN’s Lame Emission, and I don’t really care.

Later, on 60 Minutes, SU alum (take a drink, Vernon) Steve Kroft looks at some of the arcane Wall Street financial instruments that have magnified the economic crisis. Scott Pelley talks to the officer who led the army’s Delta Force mission to kill Osama bin Laden after 9/11, who reveals what really happened in Tora Bora, Afghanistan. And Lesley Stahl reports on the race to develop and produce a viable electric car. Supposedly.

Have a good one everybody.

Not much going on around here today. Mercifully, SU has a bye week, so I won’t have to suffer through another loss. I do need to get the grass cut, though – probably for the last time this season. It’s getting a little chilly around here lately, which is fine by me. I reckon I need to get the pellet stove ready for operation, though we don’t have a heck of a lot of pellets left over from last year, and missed out on several chances to get good deals from our supplier. The thought of hauling 4 or 6 thousand pounds of pellets from the garage to the basement doesn’t really seem all that appealing to me right now anyway.

All this Wall St. stuff and state budget cuts are screwing up my plans to transfer to a different job. They’ve gone from a 120-day lag in hiring to an outright freeze as our campus has just been handed another $5.5 million in cuts to absorb. Even though I’m just looking for a lateral move, I’m stuck at where I am for the foreseeable future. I guess I need to shine up the old resume and put some energy into a new direction.

I’m getting a little old for this shit, though, so I think I start out with the more modest goal of getting the grass cut, and see how it goes from there.

Have a good Saturday.

I haven’t looked at the post-debate reviews yet, but I have to say that last night was a lot like the first Obama/McCain debate. For what Palin is, she did very well. But there’s really nothing there, and we saw a big piece of dryer lint next to a guy who obviously knows a lot of stuff, and who isn’t a lightweight loser. A clear choice, IMHO. Plus Biden did a good job of kicking the crap out of McCain while more or less politely treating Palin as the insignificant pile of moose droppings that she is.

Mostly, though, last night doesn’t matter. Nobody did anything stupid – let alone noteworthy – and in a day nobody will remember any of it as we focus our attention to the second Prez debate. For which, of course, we’ll have a chat set up to get us all through.

Now, let’s get this week over with already.

Tonight is the one and only VP debate, between Caribou Barbie Palin and Joey “the lip” Biden. My prediction is that Palin can be as snotty and ignorant as she wants, and nobody (especially Biden) will be able to say anything less about (or to) her than the highest of praise, or they’ll be labeled as big old sexist meanies. Biden, of course, is fair game.

Should be a frustrating evening, which is why you shouldn’t watch alone. To that end, the Veep Debate Chat Room will be open for the festivities, because none of us should be alone for this stuff. In fact, if you want to get an early start, the chat is already up and running. So, be there, or be square, and feel free to invite your friends.

The debate starts at 9:00 PM EDT (too late on a school night, IMHO).

See ya’ll later.

Welcome to October! Happy New Year and post season for all of you baseball fans.

The playoffs will look a little different with some new teams involved and the possibility of an all Chicago or an all LA region World Series in the offing. Fortunately, the demise of the Twins has spared us the specter of an all dome Fall Classic and we could have a match up in two of the greatest old yards in the game, Wrigley Field and Fenway Park. Since there are no NY teams involved the coverage in the media might be akin to that of a third party candidate running for president.

A rebirth today with the debut of the new, shiny Maron v. Seder on line brought to you by Air America five days a week with Marc on the road until the election. From what we have been seeing in the teaser videos, it looks like the show should be a lot different in content and format from what we have been seeing. I don’t think they would need Brendan McDonald to launch the same old SammyCam version.

Just in time for Thursday night’s veep debate which could offer endless possibilities for ridicule and distractions for the rest of the campaign. My guess is the BlogFather might crank up another chat tomorrow night. In these crazy last 5 weeks before the election it will be great to have Marc and Sam weighing in on the happenings of the day on a regular basis.

Tune in today at mvslive.com 3 PM Eastern, Noon Pacific and see the premiere episode. Hopefully some of the dedicated archivists will be capturing the program until it is certain that AAR can reliably deliver audio and video podcasts.

Good luck to Marc and Sam in the new venture!

Well, the Bush years have come full circle, with the Dow now lower when it opens this morning than it was in 2001 when King George Jr. took over. I haven’t looked at my retirement stuff in quite a while, and I’m not about to start now. There just aint enough lipstick for this pig.

Looks like the rich folks are licking their chops at the thought of getting a piece of the bailout pie.

Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.

Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages.
[…]
Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury’s proposal to buy up bad assets of financial institutions.

So, get prepared to dig deep folks. If you think this will stop at a measly $700 billion, you’re nuts. We can’t afford healthcare in this country. We can’t afford to fix the roads. We have to close hospitals, and we sure as hell aren’t going to “throw money away” on public (read, “godless”) education. But we can sure as hell mortgage away your kids’ and grandkids’ (and their kids’) future to help out the same rich people who are taking away your homes and tossing all your shit to the curb.

And the best part it, the CEOs and executives of these investment firms get to keep making millions of dollars a year in salary, sparing them the trauma of counting their cars, yachts, and mansions, and selling a couple of them. And if you’re heartless enough to think that your tax dollars shouldn’t be going to preserve the lifestyles of the rich and famous, well, you’re just engaging in class warfare. So get over it!

Hell, it’s worth it. Right?