[Gaza Strip, November 3. Image via Getty]

A Palestinian girl plays with pigeons in front of her family�s destroyed house in the war ravaged Ezz Abed Rabbo district of the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on November 3, 2009. The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas has successfully test-fired a rocket capable of reaching Tel Aviv from the Gaza Strip, a senior Israeli general warned. AFP PHOTO / MOHAMMED ABED (Photo credit should read MOHAMMED ABED/AFP/Getty Images)

[Rafah, October 14. Image via Getty]

The widow and children of Palestinian Yusef Abu Zuhri mourn during his funeral in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on October 14, 2009. Hamas charged that Abu Zuhri, the brother of one of the Palestinian Islamist group's chief spokesmen, was tortured to death in an Egyptian prison, a claim denied by Cairo. Abu Zuhri was arrested in April in the Sinai town of el-Arish following what Egyptian security officials said was a tip-off from members of the rival Fatah party who had fled Gaza when Hamas seized power there in June 2007. AFP PHOTO/SAID KHATIB (Photo credit should read SAID KHATIB/AFP/Getty Images)

[Bethlehem, September 30. Image via Getty]

Palestinian mother of Sana'a Salah holds her daughter's portrait after hearing news of her release on September 30, 2009 in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. Sana'a Salah is among the 20 Palestinian women prisoners Israel will free in return for a video of Gilad Shalit held in Gaza since June 2006, in a breakthrough in nearly three years of indirect talks with Hamas. AFP PHOTO/MUSA AL-SHAER (Photo credit should read MUSA AL-SHAER/AFP/Getty Images)

[Gaza City, September 21. Image via Getty]

A Palestinian girl poses for a picture at a recreational event organized by the radical Islamic movement Hamas in a school in Gaza City on September 21, 2009 during the second day of Eid al-Fitr. The celebration of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, usually starts with an early morning prayer, then a visit to the tombs of loved ones and later a family festive lunch gathering. AFP PHOTO / MARCO LONGARI (Photo credit should read MARCO LONGARI/AFP/Getty Images)

[Assira Shamalyia, West Bank; August 12. Image via Getty]

Palestinian women mourn the death of Hamas movement activist Fadi Hamadneh who died inside a Palestinian Authority (PA) prison two days ago during his funeral in the West Bank village of Assira Shamaliya near Nablus on August 12, 2009. Security officials said Hamadneh 'committed suicide' while Hamas insisted in a statement he died following 'brutal torture.' The 22-year-old member of the Islamist movement was arrested by the PA's intelligence services in June. AFP PHOTO /JAAFAR ASHTIYEH (Photo credit should read JAAFAR ASHTIYEH/AFP/Getty Images)

[Jabalia Refugee Camp, Gaza Strip; July 30. Image via Getty]

Palestinian grooms arrive with young bridesmaids during a mass wedding in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on July 30, 2009. Over 400 couples got married during the event which was sponsored by Hamas. AFP PHOTO/MOHAMMED ABED (Photo credit should read MOHAMMED ABED/AFP/Getty Images)

MOE: Okay so what's going on. I'm feeling especially incompetent today.
MEGAN: Oh, people are voting in West Virginia. Some polls have her ahead by, like 40 points
MEGAN: Wait, I take that back, like, they all have her ahead like that.
MOE: How many delegates? Is this all part of her verisimilitude strategy?
MOE: Logically her candidacy is dead but on a visceral level it seems so obviously winning?
MEGAN: Twenty-eight pledged delegates at stake.
MEGAN: I think that she wants to go out on a high note.

MOE: Okay here's another thing: we just dropped charges against a supposed "20th hijacker" named Mohammed Al-Qahtani whose coerced confession turned out to be less real than Hillary's chances of winning the nom. But I thought Zacarias Moussaoui was the discredited "20th hijacker".... What's the deal with this guy?

MEGAN: I know, I read that and I was totally like, wasn't that the crazy French guy? I love how we convicted that guy when some other prosecutor knew he was just, like, a poseur.
MEGAN: Which is basically was, he's, like, the more attractive, less effective shoe bomber. I recall it coming out that al Qaeda had records where the leaders all laughed at what an idiot he was.
MOE: I love how this new guy has been in Guantanamo for six and a half years! Did he have 20th hijacker overlap with Moussaoui? Moussaoui is still in prison right? He was nuts. And crazy. But not much of a terrorist!
MOE: Oh fuck check this 20th hijacker is just a metaphor
MEGAN: Yeah, good old Zed will be in prison forever.
MEGAN: No, it's not a metaphor, it's a way to keep charging various terrorist guys when we don't have any evidence of what they're really done in order to evoke the American boogeyman and keep American sentiment on the side of continued tribunals. I don't think that's a metaphor by definition.
MOE: I know I always thought that too but look that's what WIKIPEDIA SAYS.
MOE:

The term is somewhat misleading, as there is no evidence that al-Qaeda ever planned to have exactly 20 hijackers. There were many variations of the 9/11 plot, with the number of terrorists fluctuating with available resources and changing circumstances. In the end, there were 19 hijackers: three of the planes were taken over by five members each and the fourth was hijacked by only four people. One plane, United Airlines Flight 93, had fewer hijackers than the rest, thus the idea of a 20th hijacker came to be widely discussed.

The 9/11 Commission concluded that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed intended to have as many as 25 or 26 hijackers for the plot. It was also reported that 14 members of al-Qaeda, in addition to the 19 known hijackers, attempted to enter the United States to participate in the attacks.

MEGAN: But, hey, speaking of terrorists, someone asked Obama about Hamas and Israel. He likes Israel, doesn't like Hamas and has told the Palestinians that waiting to get a President that will be on their side about their damn olive trees is pretty dumb.
MOE: Earthquake update: more than 18,000 people are buried in the city of Mianyang, which is near the city of Jiangou, neither of which I'd ever heard of before. China has a lot of cities though. Looking through the Xinhua pictures yesterday I found a lot of orderly pictures of relief preparedness but none, I don't think, from Mianyang. I also love how CNN gets this eyewitness account from an expatriate "business consultant" in Beijing. He said he was at a hotel and he'd never felt anything like it. Tell that to the city of Mianyang, asshole! 30 seismic tremors seems a bit gratuitous.
MOE: The man, he is a fucking genius:

You know, when I think about the Zionist idea, I think about how my feelings about Israel were shaped as a young man — as a child, in fact. I had a camp counselor when I was in sixth grade who was Jewish-American but who had spent time in Israel, and during the course of this two-week camp he shared with me the idea of returning to a homeland and what that meant for people who had suffered from the Holocaust, and he talked about the idea of preserving a culture when a people had been uprooted with the view of eventually returning home. There was something so powerful and compelling for me, maybe because I was a kid who never entirely felt like he was rooted. That was part of my upbringing, to be traveling and always having a sense of values and culture but wanting a place. So that is my first memory of thinking about Israel.

JG: Go to the kishke question, the gut question: the idea that if Jews know that you love them, then you can say whatever you want about Israel, but if we don't know you — Jim Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski — then everything is suspect. There seems to be in some quarters, in Florida and other places, a sense that you don't feel Jewish worry the way a senator from New York would feel it.

Sometimes I'm attacked in the press for maybe being too deliberative. My staff teases me sometimes about anguishing over moral questions. I think I learned that partly from Jewish thought, that your actions have consequences and that they matter and that we have moral imperatives.

I want to solve the problem, and so my job in being a friend to Israel is partly to hold up a mirror and tell the truth and say if Israel is building settlements without any regard to the effects that this has on the peace process, then we're going to be stuck in the same status quo that we've been stuck in for decades now, and that won't lift that existential dread that David Grossman described in your article.

I want to make sure that the people of Israel, when they kiss their kids and put them on that bus, feel at least no more existential dread than any parent does whenever their kids leave their sight.

So that then becomes the question: is settlement policy conducive to relieving that over the long term, or is it just making the situation worse?

MEGAN: I think, like Angela, we're ignoring his significance to the region. Think he'll call us out, too?
MEGAN: I speak German, I must be a descendant of Hitler, too. And you're Slavic and stuff, I'll bet you're descended from bad people, too. Chavez alone is clean of bad historical associations and speaks for all the peoples in all the countries in Latin America.
MOE: That is just the thing, I'm always concerned my life isn't masochistic enough for how it will eventually be, but when I am as miserable as I intend to be later on in life after the revolution and the famine and the war and the ice caps etc. etc. come I will be too cold and unmotivated to go ahead with the suicide. I should actually just move to Israel right now I think. The weather is so nice.
MOE: No, Chavez is one of us. Look, he too anticipates the consequences of his actions. Like the Jews!

"Maybe I'll say something to her and she'll get mad and say 'why don't you shut up?"' he said, referencing Spanish King Juan Carlos' 2007 admonition of the loquacious Chavez that touched off a bilateral dispute with Spain.

MEGAN: The king? Oh, yeah, it was sort of awesome.
MOE: I thought it had touched off a ringtone.
MEGAN: The techno remixes, though? Even fucking better.
MOE: Did it ever occur to you we could blog all day about the news and NEVER RUN OUT OF NEW LINKS and update it CONSTANTLY AND CONTINUOUSLY and some people would ACTUALLY READ IT but at the end of the day none of it would matter???
MEGAN: Aren't I the one that just said that life is a suicidal act?
MOE: Speaking in that realm Obama leads the non-race to amass unsolicited campaign songs!
MOE: Dude I want to hear the "Jamaican reggae tribute"

MEGAN: Um, I'm not sure you do.
MOE: And also in the realm of unsolicited Obama tributes is this thing a Time Inc. creation? Oh, or does Hillary have a superhero too because duh it is an easy pun?
MEGAN: At this point, wouldn't she be, like, a villain? Spoiler, etc?
MOE: Oh man this is so fucking cheesy.
MEGAN: Yes, I hereby apologizing for assaulting the ears of anyone who clicked through.
MOE: Readers: Porque no te callas is a much better audio accompaniment.
MEGAN: Or Barack O'Bollywood.

• "They're not listening to me because they're out of touch with reality and the Republican Party. We are the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan and this kind of campaigning is unacceptable. I've done everything that I can to repudiate and to see that this kind of campaigning does not continue." That's the seventysomething presumptive nominee for the Republican presidential candidate, who may just be sufficiently out of touch with the party of Strom Thurmond, Tom DeLay and Dick Cheney to win the election, on the not-so-subtle Obama attack ad you can watch after the jump. [Reuters]
  
• And you fucking know what? We'll be bombing Iran and the hedge funds will have figured out how to directly short-sell human life but at least we will have a president who wants to put an end to this shit. [WSJ]
  
• Here's an inspiring story for those of you who have ever been fired and worry you'll never get another job in this economy (what with consumer confidence at a 26-year-low) because you have a criminal record and/or lost your last company $7 billion or something like that: Jerome Kerviel got a job! [WSJ]

• I am really glad they finally found some tool to tell the Wall Street Journal reading masses to start stockpiling food as an investment strategy because you could be sentenced to life in prison for doing that same thing in the Philippines, but we believe in Freedom in America, and I don't know about you but I am proud of my country. [WSJ]
  
• Dan Gillerman, the Israeli Ambassador to the UN, called Jimmy Carter a "bigot," which sort of reminds me of Geraldine Ferraro said she was a victim of racism but okay. [AP]
  
• T.G.I.Peggy! "America is in line at the airport. America has its shoes off, is carrying a rubberized bin, is going through a magnetometer. America is worried there is fungus on the floor after a million stockinged feet have walked on it. But America knows not to ask. America is guilty until proved innocent, and no one wants to draw undue attention. America left its ticket and passport in the jacket in the bin in the X-ray machine, and is admonished. America is embarrassed to have put one one-ounce moisturizer too many in the see-through bag. America is irritated that the TSA agent removed its mascara, opened it, put it to her nose, and smelled it." Anyway, Peggy Noonan took a long (strange!) trip across the country and gave a ton of anti-Bush speeches to crowds in conservative spider holes such as Lubbock, Texas so we could be safe in the knowledge that there is not a single person is left in America who approves of the guy. Why fucking everyone on the internet can't write in a style so ideally suited to multiple drinks on Fridays is why we need to elect Barack Obama I guess [WSJ]

MOE: Thomas Frank: What exactly is he doing on the WSJ op-ed page? Does Rupert Murdoch have a soft spot for his eviscerations of late capitalism or is he friends with Peggy Noonan? Anyway, I want to have his babies etc. A long time ago I was dating a dude who not only remembered Valentine's Day, he bought me Commodify Your Dissent as a present. He is now married. (Let it be a lesson!) Anyway as presents go it was nice to see Thomas Frank in the papers and Bob Novak glowering in the corner.
MEGAN: Really, really working, If I'm ignoring you, it's because you're not talking about work and thus I am ignoring you.
MOE: Why is Novak always number one on the "Most Viewed List"?
MEGAN: I think Bob Novak lacks the ability to do anything but glower.
MOE: No dude he rules the most emailed list!
MEGAN: I think he hires those Chinese services that will click over and over to drive up your page views. They're really cheap, apparently.
MOE: Hey can you explain to me what Jimmy Carter is doing with Hamas?
MOE: I mean, I guess he is trying to broker some sort of piece but I haven't been able to click any of the links, mostly because of laziness.
MEGAN: Trying to maintain a sense of political relevancy? Fucking with Bush? Helping McCain win the election? Umm, overestimating his own diplomatic prowess?
MOE: Rick Santorum is on Fox News incidentally.
MOE: Warning America that Barack Obama is not a uniter.
MEGAN: Charlie Wilson was on MSNBC.
MEGAN: Like, the real guy, not Tom Hanks. But Rick Santorum is smarmy.
MOE: WHOA holy shit.
MEGAN: Also, I guarantee he's got dentures. And I would not hit that.
MOE: I just scrolled down on the Thomas Frank thing.

He will begin a weekly column each Wednesday in the Journal on May 14.

MEGAN: Wait, so, like, he'll have a weekly column starting in a month? I don't understand newspapers really.
MEGAN: Also, it is apparently a Tom Petty morning on MSBNC.
MOE: Yeah I guess but Thomas Frank? In the Wall Street Journal? Fuck...
MEGAN: Well, it makes more since then Bill "The Joker" Kristol in the motherfucking New York Times/
MOE: Ooooh, quick quiz! How many times since he won the nomination has John McCain been photographed wearing a flag pin on his lapel?

MOE: No takers?
MEGAN: But he doesn't have to because he's a war hero! And he's not a Muslim! And his middle name isn't Hussein! And he's not a Democrat, which means he is, by his very political affiliation, a patriot (if not a nationalist). Being a Republican is like having the American flag tattooed on your soul which is singing along to Proud to Be An American while your heart beats a military tattoo.
MOE: And being Barack Obama is a kitchen sink full of Yellow Peril!

MEGAN: Ooh! Ooh! Did you see? One of her foreign policy advisors, Richard Baum (who I'm gonna guess your dad intellectually opposes) resigned from Clinton's campaign because of her China-bashing?
MOE: Do you understand the subtle subliminal message Obama was trying to summon when he used that esoteric kitchen sink metapor? Because I think all the elitism made it fly over my head
MOE: Yeah Dad? I dare you to economically oppose this:

"Our reasoning was that while China certainly bears a share of responsibility for these (and other) problems, much (if not most) of the blame, at least on the economic issues, lies elsewhere," Baum wrote in an e-mail. He attributed the problems, at least in part, to America's high level of consumption, deficit spending and selective trade protectionism.

On the question of human rights, Baum said he and others in the advisory group believe the Chinese leaders respond better to persistent advice than "self-righteous finger-pointing aimed at publicly shaming and humiliating them."

MOE: So wait, the Pope...the spin seems to be that he's made all those pedophiles the centerpiece of a PR coup! But is it "just words" so to speak?

Anne Barrett Doyle, a founder of BishopAccountability.org, an online archive of the scandal, said that by condemning only pedophiles and not those who kept them in ministry, "it was a signal to us he will take no action. He came here to achieve a public-relations triumph and he did it."

MEGAN: Actually, that's what totally struck me about everything he said about the pervs. Unless I missed it, and I'll admit that I sort of stopped paying that much attention at some point, I didn't hear him say anything about the pedo-enablers, which were as much a part of the problem as everything. The fact that the Catholics has pervs among their ranks? Forgivable, presumably. The fact that Church leaders decided to fight the slow decline of men entering the priesthood (with the exception of my grad school friend Marcos, which, congrats!) by keeping pervs in the priesthood and moving them around every time they get caught molesting yet another young kid is the problem that strikes at the heart of the Church's relationship with the faithful, IMHO.
MEGAN: It's just another example of the kind of hypocritical, bad-stuff-enabling blind, overly-hierarchical patriarchy that drove me from the Church in the first place.
MOE: Why am I seeing so few quotes from the pope himself? What does he sound like? What did he say actually? Am I the only one who did not know Frank Bruni is a foremost chronicler of the abuse scandal?

MEGAN: I did not know that about Frank Bruni. I mean, I didn't hear a ton of him talking (I skipped listening to the Mass, obviously) but he has a very, very soft voice. Kind of high-pitched. German-mixed-with-Italian accent. Not a great public speaking voice, but perhaps he's more forceful-sounding in German or Italian.
MEGAN: And on the abuse, he said something along the lines of "it was really bad" and then he prayed with the survivors that stayed Catholic and met with him!
MOE: Why is it news that Obama thinks McCain would be better than Bush? Isn't that sort of like saying McCain knows more about foreign policy than Spencer Pratt?

MEGAN: Because, apparently, you can't acknowledge that some people in the other party are better than others or something.
MOE: Ugh did you read anything in the Times magazine? I just remembered it was the green issue. I am pretty sure green issues would do better if they made them some more synthetic color like neon orange. But anyway, the nation's railways are apparently expanding for the first time in ever. No way, right?! But it turns out their fuel efficiency for freight is 3x better than that of an 18-wheeler.
MEGAN: That's what the CSX commercial tells me, anyway.
MOE: Oh my god and file this under CNN reporters you could actually totally see walking through Central Park in a crystal meth haze.
MEGAN: I am sooooo sad about Richard Quest. Meth is bad, people, bad! Its use is correlated in the LGBT community with a rise in the incidences of STIs including HIV.
MEGAN: Also, it's nasty on the teeth. Oh, Richard. Please don't! Who else will I get my breathless Royals coverage from?
MOE: Well aren't we just all PSA today. Yeah, an increase in dumb behavior results in an increase in things that you get from engaging in dumb behavior. And yeah, if your teeth weren't British before...speaking of I have a case of Adderall mouth I should attend to.

MOE: Tomorrow's the primary. I think I'm voting in it. There's supposedly all sorts of horrible negative ads. Have you seen any of them?
MEGAN: You should totally vote in it. Are you going to Philly for it? Did you know I'm there covering it for Glamocracy?
MOE: Peggy Noonan thinks Hillary is finished and her campaign is officially in the red. Peggy loved a speech she gave but thinks she needs four more years to overcome the whole pants thign.

She'll need more than four years to shake off the impression she made in 2008. And this is how you'll know she's making another bid for the presidency. She will wear skirts. Gone will be the pantsuits that made her look like a small blond man with breasts. It's the new me, I wear skirts! Her first impulse is to think cosmetically. A long and weary life in politics has left her thinking this is the way to think.

MEGAN: I try not to watch political ads because I kill enough brain cells with drinking.
MOE: The Bush twins are apparently going to be at the 92nd St. Y tomorrow night, so I might come back up.
MEGAN: She looks like a small blonde man with breasts? Peggy, please.
MOE: I dunno

MOE: I kind of love how carried away she gets:

The other is elitism, a charge that clearly grates on him and unnerves his wife, who has a great deal that would be attractive in a first lady (intelligence, accomplishment, beauty) but lacks placidity, which is, actually, necessary. All first ladies, first spouses, should be like Denis Thatcher, slightly dazed, mildly inscrutable, utterly supportive. It is the only job in the world where "seems slightly drugged" is a positive job qualification.

MEGAN: Well, if you came down tonight, we could Crap on Philly tomorrow morning and you could be back in time for the Bush twins.
MOE: Hahaha you want to come to my polling place?
MEGAN: Wow, so Nooner's a Laura Bush fan? I prefer my political wives be actual humans.
MEGAN: That would be hilarious! Where's your polling place? I could take pictures of Democracy In Action!
MOE: It's at 12th and Federal, a South Philadelphia social club with a name that translates to "Home of the Crazy" I think...um...and speaking of, is all they're talking about on the non-Fox News the Weather Underground?
MEGAN: Sixties radicals play big with the still-think-we-coulda-won-Vietnam Fox News viewership. Pat Buchanan is yelling on MSNBC.
MOE: About the weather?
MOE: Michael Moore just endorsed.

I haven't spoken publicly 'til now as to who I would vote for, primarily for two reasons: 1) Who cares?; and 2) I (and most people I know) don't give a rat's ass whose name is on the ballot in November, as long as there's a picture of JFK and FDR riding a donkey at the top of the ballot, and the word "Democratic" next to the candidate's name.
Seriously, I know so many people who don't care if the name under the Big "D" is Dancer, Prancer, Clinton or Blitzen. It can be Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Barry Obama or the Dalai Lama.

MEGAN: So, do you love how you're the official go-to CH sub now? We keep thinking we ought to get a girl or something, but you're too easy.
SPENCER: it's true
you just pass me around
MEGAN: Does that make us really intellectually whore-y? Or just you?
SPENCER: wtf? i thought jezebel was against slut-shaming!
i'm gathering up my clothes and running out of this sorority house
my mascara all fucked up
i'm seeking the safe space of feministing
MEGAN:: Hey, you know, we all only fuck with other people about stuff we do ourselves and feel guilty about.
But I want my mascara back, even if it isn't waterproof.
Anyway, so, we could talk about everyone fucking on the campaign trail.
SPENCER: speaking of Feministing, can you believe that the New Yorker quoted a post Ann wrote and changed her name to "One Blogger"?
oh you want to talk to that about the NEWS
MEGAN: Oh, well, you know, it is supposed to sort of be like that. But, yeah, let's shame the New Yorker because that was a shit move.
(Says the girl who got quoted by them but not by name once already.)
SPENCER: yeah, what's next? the New Yorker hiring a snitch bitch as its Washington correspondent?
ok so: that WSJ story
MEGAN: Yeah, I just liked the story because it made us political DC types look like we actually manage to connect with one another on a human/physical level.
SPENCER: you didn't think it was ridiculous? do people not figure out that campaigns are staffed by 20-somethings, who work in a pressure cooker, for months on end, with limited contact with the outside world, and trained to think that anyone they don't work with is the enemy... and that in that environment... PEOPLE HAVE SEX WITH EACH OTHER
MEGAN: Yeah, I mean, I think you and I know that but most people see Howard Wolfson on TV in that motherfucking Norwegian sweater and think we're all nerdy and never get laid.
SPENCER: this, however, is inappropriate:

Sandra Sobieraj, Washington bureau chief for People magazine, married Frank Westfall, a Secret Service bomb technician who protected the vice president while she was covering the Gore campaign.

MEGAN: So, apparently we missed the memo yesterday? It was officially name calling day! We should spend the rest of Crappy Hour hurling invective at one another and other people in honor of the holiday, IMHO.
I mean, I don't really see any other reason to invoke Ken Starr or call one's opponent a monster.
Also, according to one of the news stations yesterday, Ickes and Penn got into it this week and devolved down to "Fuck you!" and "No, fuck you!"
MOE: I love that Samantha Power — declared the "smartest woman in America" last month by Marie Claire — gave that interview to the New Scotsman. Ummm what?
I also like how she says "We fucked up in Ohio."
MEGAN: And than is all "Oh, by the way, the headline making thing I just said is, like, totes off the record even though I said nothing would be." Like, was she drunk?
MOE: She sounds drunk. But also: "monster"... okay ... I mean, there's like "created a monster" and "monster trucks" and "cookie monster" and they all kind of have different connotations. Ughhhh but what do I know.
I kind of want Samantha Power for prez now.
MEGAN: Um, also this little gem: "You just look at [Clinton] and think, 'Ergh'."
I'm not saying I don't want to go get drunk with her because, frankly, if that's what she says to reporters sober, well, drinks are fucking on me and let's go somewhere that they'll make 'em strong and keep 'em coming.
But congrats to Obama's ENTIRE foreign policy shop for keeping your guy in the news in a bad way! You did in one week waht Clinton couldn't do in 3 months, and that's tar him!
Ok, well, fine Foolsbee [sic] is econ, but you know what I mean.
MOE: Well I guess this takes away from the whole "disciplined campaign" thing...but...Ken Starr? Ken fucking Starr? Not that I want anyone seeing my tax returns. In fact, I am going to change the subject how bout.
And now how about I call everyone's attention to this somewhat puzzling comment of yesterday regarding Hillary's assertion that she had felt the presence of the Holy Spirit. It's about Smurfette.
MEGAN: Things I thought when tracking back to the Holy Spirit article: OMG, Christian Broadcasting Network? Wait, They have a "senior" national news correspondent? Wait, this article isn't negative? Wow, the right really does want her to win the nomination. OMG, head exploding
Also someone has spent waaaay too much time thinking about the Smurfs.

es
MOE: Um, okay, topic switch. Back to Pennsylvania. Hillary has Governor Ed Rendell on her side, former mayor of Philadelphia, crusty lecherous fat gregarious machine politician known for busting unions and trying to get with writer Lisa De Paulo. His son is an Evangelical Christian, which is weird since he's a Jew, but whatev. Anyway, Anna sent me this story about how Pennsylvania could tip for Obama and I just don't see it. it's just...nah. People take orders from their block captains there, you know? Obama is fucked in Pennsylvania. I'm pretty sure. Fuck, I could be wrong. But you know.
MEGAN: Pennsylvania's a pretty machine state. Of course, the unions screwed the pooch in 04 where they split their own fucking ticket and backed both Arlen Specter and John Kerry, but whatevs.
MOE: Oh look fun, the Economist has turned it into a contest of wine drinkers vs. beer drinkers. I should take this opportunity to point out that Pennsylvania is a very good place to buy wine, as long as you do so before 9 pm., because the state is the largest purchaser of wine in the country, making it like the Wal Mart of decent wines. Props to the antiquated liquor laws; I never appreciated you till I saw Louisiana.
Arlen Specter is the machine. Ed Rendell is the machine. Comcast, the airport, a few law firms, the insurance company...they're all in this together, and none of them are particularly ideological, but if there's one thing they're not big on it's, you know, CHANGE.
MEGAN: Side note: fuck you, Comcast!
Ugh, Pennsylvania politics sound fun, and vaguely mobbed up.
MOE: You know what's also big in Pennsylvania, no surprise? ANARCHISTS. People say "change" and you think "oh those nasty dirty rotten crust punks squatting in the crack den? We thought that place was bad when it was a crack den..." And speaking of anarchists, they took credit for yesterday's terror attack on Times Square by sending postcards to Congress saying "We did it!" whereas Hamas, in stating it didn't bomb that Israeli school, just sent a text message. "We bless this operation. It will not be the last." Just notes on evildoer etiquette.
MEGAN: Except now they're saying that that LA-based anarchist/weird dude is not involved, he's just crazy and a bad writer.
MOE: Ah, so the lesson is, if you want people to take you seriously, just send a text message.
MEGAN: Unless you're dumping the person.
MOE: By the way, the Hamas text message...was that like, a group text message i.e. "karaoke sing sing 11 p.m. come out BYO!!!!" or an individual text message sent to the New York Times??
MEGAN: Dude, why does Hamas have the cell numbers of people for the NYT? Also, I'm guessing it's a blast text.
It's like, is there some terrorist Pr guy who walks around Gaza with a cell full of journalist numbers so he can text message everyone when they bomb stuff or kill people?
if that's the case, btw, I'm pretty sure there world is fucked.
MOE: P.S. did you hear about
>this story in Vanity Fair blaming Bush Condi et al for a botched coup that led to the Hamas takeover of Gaza?
Think on that for a second. I have to brew coffee before I like die or something.
MEGAN: Wow, for an Administration filled with neocons, they certainly didn't learn any lessons from previous Cold War Administrations about how to run a motherfucking coup in a small country in order to install friendly regimes.
Oh, wait, whoops, sorry, they've actually always sucks at it. My bad.

MOE: Apparently even "avowed neocons" were mad about it which is why Cheney's chief Middle East adviser resigned. But yeah, I mean, reading it you're just sort of struck with, wow, Bush was in a big hurry to do SOMETHING with Israel and Palestine...why exactly? Just bored?

"Everyone was against the elections," Dahlan says. Everyone except Bush. "Bush decided, 'I need an election. I want elections in the Palestinian Authority.' Everyone is following him in the American administration, and everyone is nagging Abbas, telling him, 'The president wants elections.' Fine. For what purpose?

"Everyone blamed everyone else," says an official with the Department of Defense. "We sat there in the Pentagon and said, 'Who the fuck recommended this?' "

MEGAN: I want to say that, in Boeing's case, it was bolts or rivets or something
Yeah, I vaguely recall being in anti-counterfeiting meetings with a really lovely Boeing lobbyist and hearing her talk abut that.
MOE: Oh, look, here's a story on airplane parts. Frank Ahrens, didn't he used to cover...something inconsequential I actually used to read about? Music maybe? Good going on the aerospace beat Frank!
MEGAN: OMG, quality control

During a visit to one parts supplier, the inspector general's office observed an employee who "used a piece of paper, scotch-taped to the work surface, as a measuring device for a length of wire on an oil and fuel pressure transmitter."

Related: A League Of Her Own [Men's Vogue]

MOE: So a wall fell in the Middle East and after seven months of isolation the starving prisoners of Gaza came streaming joyously out to feast on chocolate and coke and television sets. Here's a question: who actually busted the wall in the first place? And the other question: now what?
MEGAN: I thought tearing down walls to enjoy the fruits of capitalism was so 1990, but it's back!
MOE: Oh man and some Egyptian money changers are psYYched: "As the Egyptian money changers scrambled through the gate in the wire fence on their side of the border, their pockets stuffed with bank notes, the exchange rate in the micro-market of northern Sinai rose from seven Israeli agorot to one shekel for an Egyptian pound"
MEGAN: Part of me really, really wants us to take the the hint when it comes to the stupid Mexican wall, but I know we're not that smart.
Actually, on the news the other night, they showed this enormous group of women pushing back the Egyptian troops at the border. It was really cool. Like, the Palestinian women were just like, fuck it, we want some damn food and medicine, and they basically overran the troops. It was kind of awesome.
MOE: Hahahaha if only all the Mexicans wanted was to come over and BUY STUFF?
As opposed to coming over and making our stuff cheaper.
MEGAN: Well, in El Paso/Juarez, they totally do come over and buy stuff. One of my classmates from grad school was from there and there's a ton of traffic to come here and shop.
MOE: Here's what I don't get: if you had family in Egypt, like many of these people seem to, wouldn't you, like, just say fuck it I'm staying?
I guess the Palestinians are used to THAT cycle.
They're sort of like the Jews, in that way...
MEGAN: I think that's the fundamental reason that immigration is a good thing, actually. It takes a lot of momentum and courage and entrepreneurship to leave almost everything you own and your family and move to another country.
Like, it cracks me up that some people who may have never left the town/village/area they grew up in think that every single person in Latin America would move here because life is better.
Because, really, to a degree, we get the exact people we should want, and everyone else stays home.
MOE: That's a good point. It cracks ME up that people who may have never left the town/village/whatever they grew up in think they actually deserve to be here versus someone who knows what real hardship is like etc. etc. Because, you know, a lot of people have never had the luxury of making the choice to stay whereever the fuck they are. Communist countries were constantly relocating people to break up old loyalties and allegiances and families etc. No one is as provincial as we are in a lot of ways. If anything is keeping them in their crappy standards of living, it's probably a difference in values — the willingness to endure some sort of poverty because other aspects of life are richer. But I dunno, now I'm thinking too hard. Good thing I'm no longer nauseus
9:23 AM Anyway we're sort of losing the point, which is that this is making Israel look really bad and the Israelis are pissed.
MEGAN: Well, you know, if they hadn't decided to blockade Gaza to essentially try to starve out Hamas they might not look so bad. But, really, much of the world hasn't cared what Israel does except insofar as the Arab League likes to score political points by pushing these resolutions.
It was the Egyptian army trying to keep them in, after all.
MOE: Right, and then the militants destroyed the wall? and then the Egyptians were like, "come in, as long as you leave your guns at home." And I guess they complied because it was pretty peaceful.
MEGAN: Well, it was that or shoot them all in front of all the cameras that showed up, so, yay Egypt for making a smart decision even if it probably wasn't esactly motivated by humanitarianism.
MOE: And yay for the Palestinians getting their cement and fuel and coca cola!
MEGAN: I could use a Diet Coke myself.

MOE: Now should we talk about...
The Administration's 935 Separate Falsehoods That Led Us Into An Unending Trillion Dollar Quagmire?
or...

Romney Leading All Candidates When It Comes To 'Ill Will'

MEGAN: I'll just say: no one appears to hate Romney because they know him, just because he's got money and ran commercials? Seems kind of dickish to me on everyone's part.
MOE: I dunno, I hate Romney, and it's not because he's clogging up my cable with his campaign messages. But that just reminded me, you know along the "candidates who inspire irrational hate" line of things...
It's our boy Robert Morrow!!!
MEGAN: Ha!
I almost miss his crazy ass emails!
MOE: He of the HILLARY IS A RACIST CLASSIST LESBIAN WHO IS HAVING LESBIAN SEX WITH FELLOW LESBIAN MUSLIM LESBIAN HUMA ABEDIN.
etc. etc.
MEGAN: Also, she fucked Vince Foster and a bunch of other dudes and probs killed them because she is a literal man-eater.
MOE: BUT SHE GETS NO ENJOYMENT. BECAUSE SHE IS A LESBIAN. A COLD, CALCULATING LESBIAN WHO FUCKS MEN FOR SPORT AND TURNS THEM INTO HER SLAVE BOYS AND WHEN THEY MISBEHAVE SHE CHAINS THEM TO HER RADIATOR AND PUMPS TOOTHPASTE UP THEIR ASSES AND/OR MAKES THEM FAKE THEIR OWN SUICIDES...
Sorry, that was some phone sex shit right there actually.
I was never good at "domination" calls.
And Robert Morrow is not that clever.
But it did just occur to me that, if Hillary were anything like the woman Robert Morrow seems to think she is,
She would be a superhero.
She would never lose ever.
She would be awesome.
MEGAN: Hey, he's a Paultard. Figures.
If she was a super hero, would she get to have a cape?
MOE: Yeah she would be more jumpsuit than pantsuit I think.
Anyway, I unfortch think I have to wrap up and put this shizz online. But Robert Morrow ...some day we will go hang out with him. He's based in Austin; we could drop in on Linklater!

• There's a Simpsons character-generator available on the website to promote the Simpsons movie (out in just 4 weeks!). This is what we think Jezebel would look like. [SimpsonsMovie]
  
• Danny DeVito is to receive the 42nd Karloby Vary International Film Festivals's special award for outstanding creative achievement. We hope he stays away from the Limoncello the night before accepting, or he's going to take "creative achievement" to a whole other level. [USA Today]
  
• Barbra Streisand was honored by the French government today, a development we assume will make Republicans hate her even more than they do. [BBC]
  
• Despite a thwarted terrorist bombing in London today, the U.S. terrorist threat color code has not changed. Which we think means we're still at the, "Fear for your lives!" level that the Bush administration like to maintain as standard operating procedure. [CNN]
  
• Aw, little Harry Potter! Scared to kiss girls! Our inappropriate crush on him grows. [CNN]

• Lady Bird Johnson, our best named First Lady ever, has returned home from hospital the hospital. [CNN]
• A Hamas-run Palestinian children's program ran a segment today in which a Mickey Mouse character preaching islam was beaten to death by Israelis, referred to on the program as "the killers of children." We do not think this is a great move towards peaceful negotiations on either side. [Yahoo]
• Ice-T and his wife are getting a reality show and we're super stoked. Seriously. [ABC News]
• Five U.S. soldiers killed on Thursday. [CNN]