• Stephen Price is the senior writer for the Tallahassee Democrat (no relation to the Party) and tends to stick out just a touch when in a scrum of mostly-white political reporters. Last week at a McCain rally, he stuck out so much that a McCain staffer asked him and his legitimate press credential to leave. McCain's staff says it's because he was a state reporter, since, you know, McCain doesn't care that much about his local and state press coverage. [HuffPo, HuffPo]
• By the way, the Swift Boat guys are back and now they've got books! And mass e-mails! And virtually no credibility! [Washington Post]
• Speaking of lacking in credibility, House Republicans are claiming that their protest against House Speaker Pelosi's decision not to bring a drilling bill to the floor is lowering gas prices! [HuffPo]

• In still more barely believable news, apparently the letter that was the only supposed documented link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda is probably a CIA forgery. When do we stop calling the intelligence there "faulty" and start calling it "manufactured"? Was that letter, at least, manufactured in a mobile lab?[Washington Independent]
• But, hey, at least Stephen Price isn't a Japanese reporter trying to cover the Beijing Olympics. In China, they don't "escort" you away from what you're trying to report on, they beat you up and haul you off in violation of China's supposed agreement on press freedoms. But they're really sorry! They promise it won't happen again until at least tomorrow! [Boston Globe]
• And to make us seem more sorry, a U.S. Olympic Committee official reportedly bitched out the four cyclists who arrived in China for the Olympics today wearing the face masks issued to them... by the USOC. What, did Bush get to appoint a bunch of incompetent assholes there, too? [NY Times]

• German researchers have discovered that Victoria Beckham is the descendant of Communist Carl Heinrich Pfänder, who fled to London in 1848 after participating in the failed revolution with Karl Marx. In other news, up is down, lions have lain down with lambs and black is now officially white. [Reuters]
• Bob Novak, by the way, is retiring today to focus on his brain tumor. That's a kind of karmic bullshit. [Editor & Publisher, Media Matters]
• Gasoline prices are dropping, though, just as Obama announces that he thinks we should open up the strategic reserves to lower prices. [LA Times, NY Times]
• In response, the McCain campaign is distributing tire pressure gauges to mock Obama's energy plan. Do they have a dedicated group of fratty morons making up strategy there or something? [Politico]

• Speaking of morons, John McCain told a Democratic party delegate stripped of her seat at the Democratic convention for endorsing McCain that God will reward her in heaven for doing the right thing. Who knew he got the coveted God endorsement? [HuffPo]
• While McCain was busy handing out tchotchkes and blessings from heaven, Obama was planning his own birthday party fundraiser that will rake in $5 million for his campaign and the DNC. That's a lot of tire gauges. [Boston Globe]
• And while they're doing that, mortgage defaults among borrowers with good credit have started to rise, so don't expect the housing crisis to end any time soon. [NY Times]

MEGAN: Just for the record, I thought it important to note at this juncture that I spent 12 Euro this morning on a T-shirt that says "Good Bush, Bad Bush" and features a picture of a woman yanking down her underwear and one of George Bush, but mostly just because it was 12 Euros and a nice heavy T-shirt. I'm hoping to wear it, like, around the Republican convention or something.

And, I have been wondering for the better part of the last week what gas costs here vs. in America between the exchange rate and the liter/gallon conversion and in the last 3 minutes I have calculated it. At today's exchange rate, gas is about $9.36/gallon in Germany (at least in this part of Germany). So, um, I think we've got a long was to go gas-price-wise.

SPENCER: the Germans had better lift their ban on offshore oil drilling then how else will they maybe bring the price of gas down 3 cents in maybe 30-40 years?

MEGAN: I mean, not even Bush fucking believes that shit, he just wants more gas because you know he ain't getting back on a Segway any time soon.

SPENCER: also, you know what's disgusting? Monster Energy Drink. I don't know how people drink this shit, but I have like 15 oz to go and while the Sunk Cost Fallacy doesn't apply to, say, investment strategy or the Iraq war, I feel like it has a certain logic when it comes to morning beverages.

I drove to Baltimore and back on Saturday but thanks to the miracle of Zipcar's gas-dedicated credit card I did not purchase gas
MEGAN: What happened to you drinking coffee? All those "energy" drinks — and especially Red Bull — taste list over processed Mountian Dew to me.

SPENCER: you, my Carolla-wielding friend, are fucked. I like Red Bull

MEGAN: Luckily, I hardly drive my Corolla.

SPENCER: hahahaha one of my friend's status message is "Now I have Toyota Corolla. Just like everybody else."

MEGAN: I mean, I've had it 8 years in December and it's got like 65,000 miles on it, and that includes trips home and all the driving I used to do for work.

SPENCER: I had to stop in a magazine shop to buy a an offensive magazine to get offended at in public and all they had was Monster Energy Drink.

MEGAN: I've just bought fashion magazines to do something with later when I have a scanner, but there's one in which the nipples are airbrushed out just like in America! Anyway, we should probably also talk about the whole Pat Tillman investigation that's going nowhere fast, if only to get to the following quote which I found horrible.

The committee cited one exchange between White House political chief Karl Rove and Ron Fournier, then a political reporter for The Associated Press.
In a chain under the subject line "H-E-R-O," Rove replied to an e-mail from Fournier by saying, "How does our country continue to produce men and women like this?"Fournier replied, "The Lord creates men and women like this all over the world. But only the great and free countries allow them to flourish. Keep up the fight."

MEGAN: The fuck? And now he's head of the AP's Washington Bureau? I guess it just goes to show you can have political opinions and still get to the top of your profession as a journalist or something like that. Maybe as long as they're Republican.

SPENCER: ok, I saw my old boss flag this, but honestly, BFD. Fournier wrote a source-greasing email that didn't say anything particularly offensive. Reporters do this all the time — Rove would call it "strategery"

MEGAN: I just meant the creepy religio-patriotism about it skeeves me. But I'll trust you on that and defend you when your emails come out in 6 years or something for sure.

SPENCER: As to Fournier's political leanings, I remember watching Recount with you — Fournier was the guy who calls Ron Klain on election night to tell Gore not to concede, which is way more partisan than this email to Rove

MEGAN: Omg, you're so right. So he's really just a slimy suck-up like I always was as a lobbyist. Ah, the good old days.

SPENCER: or am I just part of the journalistic problem now by not being offended by it?

MEGAN: We're all part of the problem, right? Do we care to comment on Rove defending ignoring subpoenas or is it par for the course and we're done caring?

SPENCER: I'm actually trying to write a piece about shit like this for a magazine-that-shall-not-be-named, and I want to call it "The Politics of Retribution"

MEGAN: By the way, Der Speigel's website apparently has a timer counting down to the end of the Bush Administration. And if one more person asks me who is going to win, I'm going to say something crazy like "Ralph Nader" and then laugh hysterically and start speaking in tongues. About the subpoenas thing?

SPENCER: see, Rove and the rest of them will only respect coercion and force, but Obama's candidacy/presidency is predicated on hope and all that shit

MEGAN: So they don't know how to react to people being polite to them?

SPENCER: so the piece would be about how he should use the Senate Democrats and Attorney General John Edwards to launch an onslaught of persecution aimed at uncovering the abuses of the last 8 years

MEGAN: Aw, angry Johnny! I miss him and his pretty hair.

SPENCER: like a smart strategy for Obama in Year One would be to order a mass declassification about, like, rendition, torture, the U.S. attorney firings, everything you see covered on TPM

MEGAN: Ooh, that would be awesome. And not just because maybe someone would eventually hire me to dig through all of that shit and write about it.

SPENCER: not only does that bring all of this shit out into the light, it a) distracts the press while Obama launches into his universal health care/Iraq withdrawal agenda and b) it gets the right to lawyer up and cower in fear, constraining it from blocking said agenda and there's more! Implicitly, it acts as a really satisfying fuck-you

MEGAN: But, it does make Ben Ginsburg and his skeevy lawyer ilk a shit ton of money.

SPENCER: like, "Oh, you want U.S. persons communications' deemed merely 'relevant' to 'foreign intelligence information' wiretapped under a blanket warrant? Cool! Well, Mr. Feith, every time you call Ahmed Chalabi, I'mma be on the other line"

MEGAN: Oh, Dougie Feith! It'll be like all our favorite criminals seated on big panels. It'll be the left-wing McCarthyism. We'll get our own Fred Thompson.Except for he's Watergate, but you know what I mean.

SPENCER: or: "Oh, you want to be able to put a black bag over a motherfucker's head, google him, strap him up in the belly of a C-130 and drop him off into the middle of nowhere? You got it, Mr. Rumsfeld! One minute you're at your Kalorama crib complaining to Joyce about why she can't love you longtime like Midge Decter and the next you're dropped off on the side of the road in Spain, where Judge Baltasar Garzon has an indictment out for you for war crimes. Send me a postcard from the Hague!"

MEGAN: Well, hopefully you know what I mean, because I don't really, but in another interesting German story, I once worked at a language lab in college and got her hear the testimony of Bertold Brecht before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and he wrapped all them bitches up in knots, drove out to Dulles and hopped a plane to East Berlin. Where would Feith go?

SPENCER: speaking of Feith, he's going to be testifying to a House Judiciary panel at 10 about his role in authorizing torture which is why I can't stay crappying with you much longer

MEGAN: Totally cool, are you blogging it for Windy?

SPENCER: yeah

MEGAN: Are they going to ask him about the Beaver memo?

SPENCER: I believe they will! Mr. Feith, how familiar are you with a certain 2002 Beaver communication...?

MEGAN: So many double entendres, so little time.

SPENCER: Congressman, I can safely say no Beaver has ever talked to me, and if one did, I would not listen.

MEGAN: Mr Feith, are you saying you have no familiarity with anything Beaver related?

SPENCER: christ this Monster shit is DISGUSTING and it's making my chest hurt

MEGAN: Um, then, I think you should stop drinking it, your $1.75 be damned.

• Because I can't resist a shout-out to the Bostonians among you, Big Papi (aka, David Ortiz, aka Red Sox number 34) became an American citizen today. [Boston Globe]
• In the citizenship travails of the less famous, Bullard High School valedictorian (and illegal immigrant) Arthur Mkoyan's deportation to Armenia has been delayed due to the introduction of a bill by Senator Diane Feinstein to make the whole family legal. Unfortunately, of the 236 bills like this introduced since 2005, only 4 passed. [CNN]
• Speaking of legal crap in California, a judge had a personal website that contained a bunch of porn that you had to monkey around in the root directory to access and now everyone is aghast that an old dude likes porn. [LA Times]
• Speaking of messing with computers, apparently China is hacking the computers of Congressional staff that work on China issues and one belonging to the Secretary of Commerce, possibly since 2006. [LA Times]

• As if you didn't know, gas prices aren't coming down any time soon. [HuffPo]
• Because of all those floods in the Midwest, neither are corn prices. [NY Times, Washington Post]
• But Obama VP-vetter Jim Johnson's going down, and not in the sexy Tom Colicchio way. [Wall Street Journal, Moe]
• And you know what else might be going down, if some people have their way? An unfettered First Amendment. I'd be more outraged, but we've already lost part of that search-and-seizure one, but, hey, check out the gun one! That one's still going strong. [NY Times]
• I was gonna look for something about wine doing a body good, but I'm not sure I can talk about that anymore. It might not be totally accurate and who knows how someone will choose to interpret the First Amendment after they read the last article. So, wine might or might not be good for me, but it'll definitely get me drunk if I drink enough. That's accurate.

MEGAN: Dude, you know what sucks? Being unable to set your cell phone alarm because you're too drunk to use the buttons properly but your power is out.
MOE: So how bout that Jezebel meet-up???
MEGAN: But if I need to wake up at 6:30 tonight, I'm totally set.
MEGAN: I had fun! I'm pretty sure I did anyway. The pictures look like I did.

MEGAN: Dude, Bill Clinton cussed out James Clyburn on the night of the South Carolina primary.
MOE: It was crap weather here and a crap night and is there anything in the papers? Because nothing is really as compelling as this personal email I am writing. Hillary is going to concede, that's the big story, and the WSJ says something like "if Barack Obama can't stand up to Bill and Hillary Clinton, how can he stand up to Ahmadinejad?" Which is rather bizarre logic but I think there may be some utility in posing the question as to whether Barack Obama is TOO COOL for school/under pressure/etc.
MEGAN: That's a really interesting question. If he bows to their pressure to put her on the ticket, is he always going to bend to their pressure? Do we want Gumby? I had never thought about it that way.

MEGAN: Ok, so, we could talk about the massive child porn arrest in Australia. WTF is up with men wacking off to pictures of abuse?
MEGAN: Or the massive protests over a 10% rise in fuel prices in India which is like, 10%? We're up to $4 a gallon over here and people are sort of like, hey, whatevs

MEGAN: Or we could talk about the arrest in Uganda of 3 gay rights activists just because.
MOE: Ack! You got me. Okay, look, I am chatting someone else! And it's going marvelously!! The sex could be better but…So! We probably should take up gas prices at some point. Regarding Clyburn's session with Clinton… I'm not sure what to say! What, no transcript? No specific words? He'll write about it…soon? How soon is now??

MEGAN: I totally like hearing stories of other people swearing! It's ok, I'm actually totally IMing with someone else, too, and I'm talking about sex, but not about doing it with her. I'm sorry I'm IM cheating on you, but I always felt like you and I had an open IM relationship.
MEGAN: Oh, gas prices suck. It's good I don't drive me car that much. The end.

MOE: No, there is more to it than that. According to our commenters. Some of whom blame the oil futures markets? One of whom works for a newsletter that advises clients on distressed debt to buy? Oil futures are good for guys like Southwest Airlines. But maybe bad for customers? Unless we're served by Southwest? Which you are, albeit via BWI.
MEGAN: It's the only remotely reasonably priced way to fly to Albany, now that Independence Air'(RIP) has gone out of business and the major airlines have more than doubled their prices on the route and eliminated most direct flights. I mean, even with $4 a gallon gas, it's cheaper to drive home, it just sucks because it takes 7 hours each way.

MEGAN: And I don't think it's just traders, but that's just me. We're not even close to what prices are in Europe.
MOE: I used to love LUV (that's their ticker symbol!) when I lived in Hell-Ay. They also served Philly. Anyway, I should go investigate the comments. But was there something else we should talk about? I guess that Barack Obama needs to decide whether he's making Hillary the VP, and is that seriously something you think he would do????

MOE: Also I've been trying to locate audio of Howard Stern talking about Pfleger, which is apparently epic.
MOE: God, what the fuck Don it's like a 200 megabyte file

MEGAN: I mean, I don't really understand why she would do it.
MOE: Here's a question: don't you feel like, two people talking in a still room versus, you know, an Arcade Fire album — the latter should occupy more bytes per minute?

MOE: She would do it because…I dunno, did you read that Gary Hart piece? I think she would do it just to have something. She's all caught up in this thing. She has to achieve… something. There's a dude analogy in there, somewhere.
MEGAN: Like, why would she cede the Senate seat for potentially 8 years serving a President? To run again? Which she could do anyway? I mean, I know Bill is an executive branch man, but I thought that her 7 years in the Senate would've instilled in her some leg branch love. Sigh.

MOE: Also it would be potentially eight years of complete fucking hell for Obama.
MOE: Is he a masochist? Some of those chapters on community organizing in Chicago read that way, but I really don't think so.
MEGAN: Well, who among us doesn't have a masochistic streak, really?
MOE: Hahaha I don't. BECAUSE I DON'T FEEL PAIN
MEGAN: Oh, bish, pls.
MOE: Happy Thursday.
MOE: And speaking of pain, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed…probably doesn't feel your pain.
MEGAN: I dunno, he looks pretty fucking hung over to me.

MOE: Dude this is interesting: when did newspapers start contextualizing 9/11:

The men are alleged to be at the heart of the terror conspiracy that shook America to its core on Sept. 11, 2001 — unprecedented attacks that fixed al Qaeda as the nation's chief worldwide enemy.

MEGAN: Gosh, that only took 7 years. But, don't worry. The Newseum has a whole disaster porny section, complete with a WTC girder, to remind us all how it stands alone without context.
MOE: Okay, so re Obama Gumbyism or whatever. Here is the WSJ op-ed page, to which I'm sure he's playing close attention.

MOE:

There are many experienced Democrats who would make suitable running mates, and for the purposes of governing Mr. Obama needs to pick someone he can work with. Above all, he can't appear to bend to ultimatums from the House of Clinton. This is a test of Mr. Obama's political judgment and toughness. If he can't stand up to Hillary and Bill Clinton, forget about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

MEGAN: Oh, that stupid co-Presidency tripe again.
MOE: Of course, on Page 1 of the newspaper itself it says nah, you know what? Barry can stand up to her just fine.
MEGAN: I guess that's why he's ramped up his search efforts...
MOE: Oh, and he lost his Hamas endorsement.

MOE: Is that what Joe Lieberman is mad about? I'm confused.
MEGAN: Joe Lieberman is mad about Obama being a wimp on Iran or something? Apparently, he's backing McCain, didja know? Despite the fact that McCain's lobbyist dude lobbied for Iran. I guess that's ok, it's not like he'd sit down with A'jad.

MOE: Whoa did you read that Times piece on how Obama makes people feel about race, which we've sort of…forgotten about amid all the concession drama? At least, we've forgotten about it, in the "we've forgotten to mention it in the past half-hour" sense?

For example, Ward Connerly, a conservative anti-affirmative-action crusader and chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute, watched a replay of the announcement of Mr. Obama’s victory on Fox News early Wednesday “and I choked up,” he said. “He did it by his own achievement. Nobody gave it to him.”
MOE:

MOE: And then Ward Connerly goes on to say he hopes Obama ends affirmative action.
MEGAN: Right, well, it's totes no longer necessary.
MOE: And it goes on to note that all those people in Harlem who voted for Hillary are pretty stoked nonetheless.
MEGAN: Well, good to know that there are some Hillary supporters nonetheless excited for Obama.
MOE: in the immortal words of Jeremiah Wright: WINK WINK NUDGE NUDGE

MOE: Stuff like skankgate is why I wake up in the morning anymore.
MEGAN: Away
MOE: Oh god, a Bush news conference at 10:30, does he have to keep giving those?
MEGAN: I love that now that he doesn't have to be re-elected he's totally cool with talking to the press.
MOE: And the press is like, "meh you?" Nice job on Deal or no Deal..
MEGAN: Also, they have some new guy on FoxNews who is their go-to guy for talking about Wright who I hate because he's just so annoying and stupid and I think I agree with you about morning shows. But skanky is a funny word if you've never heard it.
MEGAN: Was he subordinate to the banker on DoND? Because that's be a hilarious subtext.
MOE: Speaking of which I totally checked the comments late yesterday and there was one about Mauritania retaining a slave class, which totally reminded me of China also having a slave class, which made me feel a lot better about my current situation.
MEGAN: Why cabbages in that article, I wonder?
MOE:

The newspaper said 76 children from the same county, Liangshan, had been missing since the Chinese Lunar Year festival in February, 42 of whom had already left the region to work.
"The youngest kids found in the child labor market were only seven and nine years old," it said.

The pastor who was thrust upon the public consciousness as a caricature of the angry black man emerged after an exhaustive series of performances as a more familiar television persona: a voluble, vain and erudite entertainer, a born televangelist who quotes Ralph Ellison as well as the Bible and mixes highfalutin academic trope with salty street talk.

"When we have a billion people, you said we were destroying the planet./ When we tried limiting our numbers, you said it is human rights abuse," reads a poem posted on the Internet by "a silent, silent Chinese" and cited by some students as an accurate expression of their feelings. "When we were poor, you thought we were dogs./ When we loan you cash, you blame us for your debts./ When we build our industries, you called us polluters./ When we sell you goods, you blame us for global warming."

Shell, the world's second-largest, nongovernment-controlled oil company by market capitalization after Exxon Mobil Corp., posted a 56% increase in first-quarter revenue to $114.3 billion from $73.48 billion in the year-earlier period. The quarterly revenue is close to the gross domestic product of the Arab world's most populous country, Egypt, of $127.9 billion for 2007.