• The officially-designated GOP scapegoat for Wardrobe-gate appears to be McCain aide Nicolle Wallace (left), despite the fact that I guarantee she knows how to put together a wardrobe for less than $150,000. Wallace isn't "going to engage" with people until after the campaign, but she knows the score and her memory doesn't even have to be that long. [Think Progress, Politico]
• Speaking of the score, Vanity Fair and the National Security News Service are apparently pursuing reports that McCain killed a guy in a car accident (implication: drunk driving) in 1964 and the Navy is still covering it up. Who knew the October surprise would be about McCain? Karl Rove must really hate him. [Huffington Post]
• Joe The Motherfucking Plumber officially endorsed McCain today, and said that Obama would be the end of Israel. What the fuck does JTMP know about Israel? Joe doesn't know jack, actually, and even Fox News had to admit that. [CBS, Huffington Post]

• Though Palin yesterday refused to be a Maverick and call on convicted felon Senator Ted Stevens to resign, John McCain decided he could. So he did. [NY Times]
• Rachel Maddow's viewership is so far up, she can claim to have beat Larry King in one demo. One demo today, tomorrow...all of them. [TV Newser]
• The Dow, too, finally decided to get up. That'll last until it falls again, then goes up, down, up, down and apparently I need to stop watching so much porn. [Washington Post]
• Florida Governor Charlie Crist decided to get back at McCain for not choosing him as the running mate — or, possibly, do the right thing for the right reasons, stranger things have happened — and extended early voting hours in Florida. Someone's gonna get re-elected. [Politico]

MEGAN: I am sitting here watching CNBC and drinking coffee, which I don't normally do. By the way, the economy: still fucked.

LATOYA: Lucky you — I'm already in the office. I know the economy is still fucked — why do you think I'm here? I think we need to chill for the long haul on this one. It's gonna be a while, new stimulus package or no.

MEGAN: I love, by the way, that John McCain is all like, "Obama just wants to throw money at problems like education and special needs kids!" and in the meantime, he's all Mr. New Spending. And Republicans are shoveling money at the market faster than they shovel bullshit at the American people.

LATOYA: Yeah, some free market this is. I didn't know some people got a string to pull if you fucked up. Looks like Bernake's ProBama.

MEGAN: This is what happens when you tell reporters that the economy isn't your strong suit and the economy goes to shit. Also, insulting your opponent by calling him a Socialist while the government is busy nationalizing entire industries and you're calling for the government to, in effect, buy the mortgage rights to have the country is not good either. Bob Schieffer knows that most Republicans are privately Pro-bama these days, they're just too scared to say. It's just the mouth-breathers who don't actually have to, like, work in the government that are all like JOHN AND SARAH OH MY GOD I LOVE THEM SO.

LATOYA: Details, Megan, Details Is it just me that's hoping for a reverse Bradley effect?

MEGAN: If I prayed, I'd pray for one.

LATOYA: Don't waste your prayer on that. The specter of election '00 still haunts us.

MEGAN: Well, I mean, She's supposedly omnipotent, right?

LATOYA: If this comes down to the Supreme Court, I want everyone on this: protest, prayers, fertility dances. I don't give a damn what you do, do it in the Obama direction.

MEGAN: I'm up for a fertility dance, even if it means I have to be celibate for a month.

LATOYA: Nah, you have to stick with the prayers. We have to counteract the scared evangelicals.

MEGAN: Awww, poor babies, once they've denounced him, called him godless, passed around rumors that he's a Muslim and campaigned against him, they're worried he won't talk to them about their conservative, intolerant social agenda? Color me sad.

LATOYA: It's only unfair when you're losing. I'm just concerned they'll call up the ghost of Jerry Falwell.

MEGAN: Oh, right. I mean, it's his duty to represent all the people in the United States, sort of like it was George Bush's duty.

LATOYA: Define "people". Obviously, some of us who aren't here yet count more than those of us who are here, so maybe they just are counting most of us heathens.

MEGAN: Well, I think that by "people" they mean "those of them that are saved" and so that's anything that's in our uteri, and (white) evangelicals. Other than that, um, oh, wait, I think Bush had Chalabi's back for a while when he went to invade Iraq.

LATOYA: Then again, maybe it isn't the extreme set that we should be worried about. Someone shot a bear cub in the head and dropped some Obama campaign tags over its dead body. Now, there are multiple layers of fucked up in that mix and the story doesn't have many details yet. But that is just sick and disgusting.

MEGAN: Also, I think we need an alibi for Sarah Palin. She was just in North Carolina.

LATOYA: Ha — you can handle that. I'm watching how Obama is leaving the campaign trail to visit his sick grandma. It's the little things that get to me in this election, it really is.

MEGAN: I mean, if they sent her home from the hospital last week, and she's that ill, she's probably in hospice care.

LATOYA: Perhaps. I hope she gets well.

MEGAN: I hope for his sake that he gets there in time, and that he's taking Sasha and Malia.

LATOYA: See, I can't even read a sweet story like that without getting pissed. On one hand you have a family man, someone in a partnership with his wife, a thinking politician, someone who has seen the best and worst of America and wants to serve us anyway...

MEGAN: I mean, his spokesman all but said she's not going to get better. It sucks that she won't get to vote for her grandson. And it probably sucks more that if she votes absentee, some Republican will probably object.

LATOYA: Sigh. Moving on. Oh, did you hear? We apparently hate real Americans. Because obviously, we are fake Americans. This isn't news to me — we talk about how PoC are marginalized in America all day every day at my spot — but I thought you would want to know.

MEGAN: Well, that's good to know, at least. If I'm disenfranchised at the polls in two weeks, at least I'll know why. So, am I to assume there's a new God test for citizenship? Do I have to swear fealty to a particular brand of God to vote? Are they going to make me submit to a lie detector to make sure I really believe in God?

LATOYA: Oh, it gets better:

Warming up a crowd in North Carolina Saturday, Republican Rep. Robin Hayes offered the diagnosis that “liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God.”

His remarks came shortly after he had said he would “make sure we don’t say something stupid, make sure we don’t say something we don’t mean.”

Hayes had followed Rep. Patrick McHenry, also a North Carolina Republican, who laid out the choice between McCain and Obama.

“It’s like black and white,” yelled someone from the crowd.

You just can't make this shit up. You really can't.

MEGAN: I love how that shit is a) not stupid and b) not something he doesn't mean. Really, can we just pick somewhere for them all to go on November 6th?

LATOYA: Mars?

MEGAN: Perfect! And since it takes 3 years to get there, they won't be back until 2014. I think that's a good plan.

LATOYA: We should tell them real Americans set up camp on Mars.

MEGAN: No, we should tell them that God has called them to journey there, just like God called Moses to lead the Jews out of Egypt. Charlton Heston already left! Outer space is the new desert.

LATOYA: It so is. Mars is red, the Red Sea — we could totally sell this. This is shaping up to be a tough week for McCain. He's running out of cash (down to $47 million!) and he's breaking up with Colin Powell.

MEGAN: I'm actually surprised he has $47 million left when he only had $84 to start. But, then I read about Meg Whitman giving almost $100,000 despite donation "limits" that McCain's supposed campaign finance reform put into place and I'm not that surprised anymore.

LATOYA: I would say something about saving and fiscal responsibility, but it just looks like creative loopholing. I find it interesting that McCain is shocked Colin Powell didn't call.

MEGAN: I mean, why does no one but me point out that McCain wrote the loopholes?

LATOYA: Makes sense though. That's how he knows what to use. I'm still on the McCain/Powell break up. Maybe Powell didn't feel like being called Judas. That title was already flexed on Gov. Richardson. Or maybe Sarah drove a rift in their relationship. Hmmm...

MEGAN: Given how leaky McCain's organization is — as evidenced by no less than 3 staffers telling CNN they're giving up on Colorado — I'm not totally surprised. Plus, when do you think the last time was that McCain called him up? With all the whispers for weeks that Powell was thinking about breaking it off, why wouldn't John call him and be like, Colin, baby, I'm sorry, I've been really busy, let me buy you a drink when this is all over...? Especially since they weren't in an exclusive relationship.

LATOYA: Does Colin Powell have a Facebook page? Maybe John should have checked their status. Telephone is so pre-2000. Maybe Colin sent him a "TTYL" and he just stopped paying attention. I guess after 25 years, the thrill is gone. It's the end of a bromance. We should send him a CD. Or at least email Meghan McCain, have her post "How Come You Don't Call Me" in his honor

MEGAN: Powell's all about "You Don't Own Me."

LATOYA: LOL — "Don't tell me what to say!"

MEGAN: "Don't say I can't go with other boys!"

LATOYA: "Just let me be myself...that's all I ask of you!"

MEGAN: In my head, Colin Powell is, crying, singing this into his hairbrush like Bridget Jones, slightly drunk.

LATOYA: "I'm free — and I love to be free!" See, now that's going to be stuck in my head all day!

MEGAN: I'm a terrible person, I apologize.

Jackson claimed the right to say this about Obama because he's a "a neighbor or, better still, a member of the family" since Jackson's son, Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., is a strong supporter of Obama's. In fact, he's such a strong supporter that — for the second time this year — he's had to issue a statement slamming his increasingly erratic father. Obama and Congressman Jackson issued statements taking issue with Reverend Jackson's completely false characterization of Obama's positions on Israel, and the good Reverend was forced to admit that he's had nary a conversation with Obama on the subject in his life.

This is, of course, not the first time Jackson's fucked up when it comes to Obama. The first time, during the primaries, he accused Obama of "acting white" for not being out there enough talking about the Jena 6, a comment he later denied. He was later caught on tape saying "I wanna cut his nuts off" for "telling n*****s how to behave" after Obama spoke about absentee fathers in the African-American community. Of course, Jackson might be just a little sensitive about the subject of absentee fathers, given that he practically stopped visiting the child he had with his mistress in her second year of life, preferring to make sure she was financially supported and had her privacy. So, actually, making anti-Semitic, anti-Israel policy statements while claiming to be speaking on behalf of a candidate he has publicly desired to castrate might be par for the course for the Reverend Jackson this year.

Is he jealous that Obama might rise to the pinnacle of political power that he himself failed to achieve? Or is he just losing his marbles? Or can Sarah Palin's wink do something to a man up close that, thankfully, it can't do over a television feed? Jeebus only knows, but Congressman Jackson needs to get his dad to shut the fuck up already.

The O Jesse Knows [NY Post]
Obama Responds To Report On Jackson Comments [Washington Post]

Related: Report: Jesse Jackson Says Barack Obama 'Acting White' In Case Of Six Blacks Accused In Assault Case [Fox News]
Jesse Jackson On Obama: 'Wanna Cut His Nuts Off" [YouTube]
Breaking: What Else Jesse Jackson Said On That FNC Tape [TV Newser]
Mother Wants Jesse Jackson To 'Be A Father' To Illegitimate Child [CNN]

MEGAN: Good morning! Was your Saturday night as "opulent" as McCain's? I mean, I know eating on the road sucks, but it doesn't seem like he had to come all the way back to D.C. after the debates to eat at a good hotel restaurant.

KAY: I know. This sort of puts Obama's claim about a Katrina-like response. I think what Obama meant was McCain's Katrina response. You know, when he and Bush were having a birthday party.

MEGAN: "Let them eat cake?" Oh, wait, that was Barbara Bush, never mind. I also love that he flew all the way back here after the debate to hang out in his Congressional office and call people, but that he couldn't be bothered to walk down to the Senate floor to vote on a spending bill that contained earmarks. I think he really has turned into a complete wuss. He didn't want to be seen voting for earmarks, nor voting against a spending bill that contained offshore drilling provisions, so he just went to dinner 5 minutes away.

KAY: Seems like a good use of time. Maybe he played some craps while he was at it —with the $700 billion bailout money.

MEGAN: I mean, who doesn't like a good Indian casino? Not McCain, that's for sure. Although, I'm just putting this out there, I haven't been in a casino yet, Indian or otherwise, that didn't make me grind my teeth. I don't think an alcoholic beverage should cost me $8 in the middle of nowhere in Connecticut.

KAY: Yeah, casinos tend to be filled with a lot of sad old people. I guess that includes McCain.

MEGAN: A lot of sad old people that aren't nearly drunk enough to be entertaining because they can't afford $6 beers and quarter slots at the same time. Sorry, I digress. I really, really hate casinos.

KAY: Don't worry, me too. In any case, we should probably say something about how McCain's debate performance on Friday was a big FAIL.

MEGAN: Oh, yeah, there's all kinds of evidence that he didn't play well with the crowds. I personally think it was because most Americans tuned out — figuratively or literally — once the discussion turned to foreign policy, so that most of them missed the preconditions/preparation debacle.

KAY: Well, it's easy to misspeak. McCain said we were at an "existential" crisis with Iran. I'm not even sure what that means. Did he just take freshman philosophy?

MEGAN: I know, I thought the same thing! But then I realized that he just meant that he thought Iran would be a threat to the existence of Israel, i.e., nuke it, and I wondered why the McCain camp is so obsessed with nuclear war and yet its Vice Presidential candidate can't correctly identify the purpose of the Bush Doctrine, which is to allow us to nuke people without provocation.

KAY: Well, if we're going to put nuclear war on the table we want to make sure we have at least one person "a heartbeat away" who has no clue about foreign policy

MEGAN: I mean, right? Palin's so bad even McCain's staffers are telling reporters that she's "clueless". And Jack Cafferty — no bastion of liberalism — had this to say:

"If John McCain wins this woman will be one 72-year-old's heartbeat away from being President of the United States. And if that doesn't scare the hell out of you, it should."

KAY: I know, even the right isn't so sure about her anymore. But at least we have Tina Fey to make us laugh. The thing is, those sketches are getting less funny the more true they are. I feel like this sketch was eerily similar to Palin's actual answer about the bailout.

MEGAN: I really thought some of what Tina Fey said early on was a direct quote, but I'd been drinking for 11 and a half hours at that point. I did find it uproariously funny.

KAY: It's always prudent to drink for 11 and a half hours.

MEGAN: It was a wedding! I was less amused at the part where she agreed with Obama on Pakistan and then McCain retracted it for her, though. Well, that and that she went to Geno's instead of Pat's. Geno's is the cheesesteak place with the signs requiring that you order in English.

KAY: Don't worry, I think the "October surprise" this year is going to be Bristol's wedding.

MEGAN: Well, it can't be that much of a surprise if we're already talking about it. Also, the thought of Steve Schmidt and Rick Davis dreamily talking about how marrying off Bristol Palin on her 18th birthday (it is a Saturday, after all!) is sort of incredibly creepy. Especially as a way to have the first-ever pre-election wedding in history. That's just, like, ewww.

KAY: So ewww. Well, we all know that you're not a real woman until you're married, right?

MEGAN: Well, you become a woman when you start bleeding out your cooch but only a real woman when you lock a man down to it for life or until the inevitable, painful and public divorce. I'm so glad that I'm not a girl and not yet a woman. And yes, I did just make a Britney reference. Seemed appropriate.

KAY: So appropriate.

In addition to the refusal to print Livni's photographs, the politician is the subject of many of the same verbal slings and arrows that Hillary Clinton struggled with. One newspaper columnist dismissed Livni as "the prettiest girl in kindergarten," while another mocked her for "lacking balls," Newsweek reports. However, if Livni is elected, all three branches of Israeli government will be led by women, as Dalia Itzik is the speaker of the Parliament and Dorit Beinisch is head of the supreme court.

Israel is not the only country where female politicians face certain kinds of institutionalized sexism. There's a minor controversy in Australia because some elite clubs like the Athenaeum Club in Melbourne — the Australian equivalent of the Bohemian Grove — are refusing to issue invitations to prominent women in politics, specifically newly elected Governor General of Australia Quentin Bryce. Businesswoman Caecilia Potter, whose husband recently quit the Athenaeum Club because it would not go co-ed, tells the Times of London, "These clubs are a refuge for a certain type of man…The fact that they pride themselves on being a place where top business people and politicians can network, and then refuse to allow the Governor General membership because she's a woman puts it all into stark perspective."

Israel’s Glass Ceiling [Newsweek]
Israel's Pious Jewish Press Shuns Images Of Livni [Reuters]
Queen's Female Envoy In Australia Shunned By Elite Clubs [Times of London]

Earlier: Foreign Minister Is In Position To Be Israel's First Female PM In 34 Years

• Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Chair Bernanke were on the Hill today, metaphorical hats in hands, asking for gobs of money and the ability to spend it with no oversight. Unlike what Sarah Palin actually said about the Bridge To Nowhere, Congress told them, "No thanks." [Washington Post]
• Dick Cheney tried his hand at asking nicely, but House Republicans, knowing Cheney well, told him to go fuck himself. A couple of them then fist-bumped Pat Leahy on the way out of the meeting. [Politico]
• Ahmadinejad doesn't care who we elect because he plans to keep building his nukes regardless. [CNN]
• The Supreme Court issued a stay of execution for a Georgia man convicted of killing a police office on the sole basis of eyewitness testimony since recanted. Scalia, Alito and Roberts must have taken a really long lunch today. [CNN]

• Rachel Maddow is kicking Larry King's wrinkly old-man ass. [Huffington Post]
• Even Fox News thinks it's "unprecedented" that McCain and Palin aren't allowing reporters to even shout questions at them. No, really. They're pissed too. [Huffington Post]
• But it's totally in line with other potential McCain Administration policies, like not talking to Israel, Syrian or the Palestinians about that whole peace-process thing. That bores Johnny. [JTA]
• Rush Limbaugh: more of a fucked-up racist piece of shit than you thought. [Think Progress]
• And, finally, some men's delusions know no bounds. [Politico]

(In case you're wondering, some of the countries with female presidents or prime ministers currently leading are Ireland, New Zealand, Finland, The Philippines, Mozambique, Germany, Liberia, Chile, India and Haiti.)

In any case, Rwanda is making big news since, as of its elections on September 15, the majority of the seats in its Parliament (44 of 80) will be held by women. According to a report in The Economist: "That level of representation—once seldom seen outside Scandinavia—has less to do with an upsurge in feminist thinking than with a law passed in 2003 that guaranteed women 30% of the seats. The aim was to break up 'old boy' networks and help the country make a new start in its first elections since the 1994 genocide."

The UN suggests that even though there are women in politics, they're still lacking in leadership positions. A Latin American study showed that while 47 percent of party members in Paraguay were women, they held just 19 percent of leadership positions. Some of this is sure to be covered in a documentary airing tonight on PBS, titled Women, Power and Politics.

As for the United States of America, where a woman stands in the harbor of New York, welcoming the tired and poor? How many years do you think it will take before we have a woman leading here?

U.N. Study Finds More Women in Politics [NY Times]
Women Rising [Economist]
Cracking the Glass Ceiling, in Rwanda and Elsewhere [NY Times]
Related: Current Female World Leader Count [Filibuster Cartoons]
Earlier: Foreign Minister Is In Position To Be Israel's First Female PM In 34 Years

Livni could run up against trouble from certain factions of the Knesset, specifically the Shas party, because it advocates a hard-line stance against Palestine, and also wants even more child welfare because of that group's large families, the IHT notes. Livni is against an increase in child welfare allowances.

The BBC reports that Livni is much less hawkish than her primary rival, Shaul Mofaz, and has a strong foreign relations background — something that could aid her in potential peace talks with Palestinians. However, according to Al Jazeera, Palestinians are not confident that Livni's leadership would create a positive change for them. "They're all war criminals," a Palestinian woman tells Al Jazeera of the potential Israeli PMs.

Livni Wins Israel Party Primary [BBC]
Q&A: Israeli Leadership Change [BBC]
Israeli Foreign Minister In Position To Become Prime Minister [IHT]
Video: Palestinians Despondent As Israeli Polls Near [YouTube via Al Jazeera]

• MTV promotes "green" campaigns like Switch, but when it comes to the actual production of their shows, the network is very unfriendly towards the environment. • Researchers have found that 90 minutes sitting on a heated car seat can lead to an increased scrotal temperature in men, which may hurt a man's sperm quality. • A Kentucky Court of Appeals has ruled against lesbian couples adopting children as though they are stepparents. • A new website that provides syphilis information to gay men — as well as a referral letter for syphilis testing and a 1-week wait for the tested men to retrieve their results online — shows promise in promoting testing among gay men. • Rachel Bird and Gideon Codding of California refused to complete marriage forms in their state because they wanted to be referred to as "bride" and "groom" on the forms and not by the new gender-neutral terms. • A new study claims that only 3% of Australians have cheated on their loved ones last year, but researchers claim the results would be "radically different" if they measured cheating over a longer time period. • Betty Constable, Princeton's first women's squash coach and a squash pioneer in the United States, died on September 9 at the age of 83. • A British woman has sworn off having children after she recently gave birth to a baby weighing 13 pounds, 4 ounces (the weight of a 6 month old) and had given birth to three previous children who weighed more than 10 pounds at birth. • A new study has found that estrogen creams do not help reduce wrinkles on areas of skin that experience sun exposure (i.e., the face, hands, and neck). • The federal government is considering making Gardasil vaccination mandatory for female immigrants who are seeking U.S. citizenship. • Meanwhile, the FDA has updated the label for Gardasil, saying the vaccine protects against cancers of the vagina and vulva. • Margaret Hoelzer, a U.S. swimmer who won 3 medals at the Beijing Olympics, opens up about being sexually abused by a friend's father when she was 5 years old. •

[Image via JSoul.]

• Some anonymous collector just bought this Monet for $80.4 million from the kids of some famous collectors from Columbus, Indiana. No really, I thought it was a mistake too, but there really is a Columbus, Indiana, and before they died the couple who amassed this insane art collection were like the hipster royal family there. [NYT]
• A Druze border policeman killed himself in Israel while Sarkozy was watching and the family is asking that his name not be released, but like, I kind of think it's a little late for that. [Haaretz]
• I'm not saying we should adopt all Afghanistan's policies but $100 million just from taxing shit most countries pay hundreds of billions criminalizing sounds pretty tempting…[BBC
• Obama is polling creepily well right now, which makes me nervous, but can you blame the voters when McCain is out there straight-talking about how his offshore drilling ideas are kind of cheap psychological tricks? [MSNBC]

• Okay, if you haven't figured it out yet, Anne Hathaway's boyfriend Rafaello Follieri hired priests, bought robes, fabricated "engineering plans" and bribed low-level Vatican tourism officials — along with some sort of Italian journalist — to make people think he was the chief financial officer of the Vatican, endowed with the unique privilege of selling off Catholic Church properties all over the world, only all of that was a complete load of shit and he knew essentially no one, and the fraud is kind of awe-inspiringly brazen, and thankfully New York decided to digest its juicy bits. [NY Mag]
• You know what, Nancy Pelosi? Amen. [Chicago Sun-Times]
• If all the world's millionaires lived in a single city it would have almost two million more people than New York and no fucking clue where to get its nails done. [Yahoo]
• "I don't go out as much as I used to. Instead of going to a bar I'll stay home and get a six-pack."A story on the dismal consumer sentiment numbers out today hits home to the blogger drinking a $3 22 ounce Sierra Nevada. [WSJ]
• Florida is trying to cut down on carbs. [Wash Post
  
  

He is, in other words, a terrible billionaire asshole.

Testimony in the Suen case proposes an answer to a subject of enduring conjecture in Las Vegas: how Las Vegas Sands triumphed over Strip rivals—such as MGM Mirage and, in a joint venture, Park Place Entertainment and Mandalay Bay Resort—that were also seeking a Macao license. At the time, Las Vegas Sands was smaller and financially weaker.
In July, 2001, after arriving in Beijing, Adelson and Weidner saw Olympic banners flying along the streets. They soon learned that the country was waiting to find out whether it would be selected as the site for the 2008 Summer Games. In addition to seeing the Vice-Premier, Adelson and Weidner met with the mayor of Beijing, who asked Adelson for help with a matter pending in the U.S. House of Representatives, which he believed was threatening China’s chance to host the Olympics. (In the United States, China was widely perceived as the frontrunner, and it is not clear that Congress’s position would have had any impact on its chances.) Adelson said in court that he immediately made calls on his cell phone to Republican friends in Congress—including Tom DeLay, then the majority whip—who had received generous support from Adelson. DeLay told him that there was indeed a resolution pending about China and the Olympics. (Representative Tom Lantos, then the highest-ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, had introduced a resolution opposing China’s Olympic bid, saying, “China’s abominable human rights record violates the spirit of the games and should disqualify Beijing from consideration.”)
Weidner, in his deposition, described the relationship between DeLay—“a very religious guy”—and Adelson. “The link between Sheldon Adelson and right-wing religious Christians is the commonality of a strong Israel,” he said. “So it just happens to be Sheldon has taken Tom DeLay to Israel and he’s a friend.” DeLay told Adelson that he supported the resolution because of his concern about China’s record on human rights but added that he would be discussing the legislative agenda shortly. “Sheldon folds his cell phone up and says to the mayor of Beijing, ‘I’m going to do my best,’ ” Weidner said. “About three hours later DeLay calls and he tells Sheldon, ‘You’re in luck,’ ” he continued, “ ‘because we’ve got a military-spending bill. . . . We’re not going to be able to move the bill, so you tell your mayor that he can be assured that this bill will never see the light of day.’ So Sheldon goes and he goes to the mayor and he says, ‘The bill will never see the light of day, Mr. Mayor. Don’t worry about it.’ ”

Yeah, guess: 1. What bill didn't see the light of day 2. Whose designs on the Olympics were sealed within the next three 3. Whose designs on Asian casino domination would as a result over the next few years in him multiplying his already multibillion dollar net worth some fourteen times…

Anyhow, Sheldon was never interested in politics until he started hanging out with George H. W. Bush's brother William and learned Republicans support cutting taxes for the wealthy and "switched immediately." And he was never interested in Israel until he started going out with this Israeli drug addiction expert named Miriam, which is interesting because he might have just as easily become interested in drug addiction, which apparently took the life of his son Mitchell, but Sheldon didn't really give a shit about Mitchell or any of his other sons, who sued him a few years back charging that he'd tricked them into selling him back their shares in his company for less than what they'd been worth. (Sheldon even sued them to recoup deposition costs!) But anyway, Israel. It's sort of like the family he never disowned, and he thinks Jews need to have "lots and lots of sex" so their population eventually just overwhelms everyone else. Here's Sheldon at a Los Angeles event featuring Steve Emerson, who if you've heard of, you probably thought was pretty much as hardline as it gets. Not so!

After Emerson’s presentation, Pooya Dayanim, a Jewish-Iranian democracy activist based in Los Angeles, chatted with Adelson. Recalling their conversation, Dayanim observed that Adelson was dismissive of Reza Pahlevi, the son of the former Shah, who had participated in the Prague conference, because, Adelson said, “he doesn’t want to attack Iran.” According to Dayanim, Adelson referred to another Iranian dissident at the conference, Amir Abbas Fakhravar, whom he said he would like to support, saying, “I like Fakhravar because he says that, if we attack, the Iranian people will be ecstatic.” Dayanim said that when he disputed that assumption Adelson responded, “I really don’t care what happens to Iran. I am for Israel.”

He sure is! And he spends at a hundred million dollars or so proving it throughout the piece, culminating in a sixtieth birthday party for which one local columnist was not entirely grateful:

“I saw a gambling tycoon from Las Vegas who bought my country’s birthday with three million dollars. I thought with sorrow: Is the country worth so very little? Were the champagne, wine and sushi that were given out for free in the lobby—breaking convention for such events—worth the humiliation?”

And with that, I could sort of use a drink. But the whole story's up on the site if you need to get in the mood!

The Brass Ring

MEGAN: Hey, there, how is London-Town.

MOE: Hey I just wrote something about being here. It is dumb. Mostly it has that European problem where nothing is open when you want it to be open because you have insomnia or your period or whatever
MOE: In my case, both.
MOE: They are really really really into the environment here.
MEGAN: Does that mean no tampons or something?
MEGAN: Also, yes, I hate stupid laws in Europe where everything closes down and nothing is open on Sundays and crap.

MOE: No I mean, apparently there are organic tampons or whatever. No what it means is just that it seems to be all you read about, or like, I'm at this pub, and it's a stupid pub, like it seems very chain-y and airport-y, like the British version of ... what's a chain pub? Elephant & Castle or something. Only, you know, really stunningly horrible food, like you hear about. Anyway apparently the fish and chips are made with SUSTAINABLE COD. Like, good grief. And yeah I'm sure that makes sense. And I hate those laws too. I like the laws that say you can't have as many sales as you can in America, because I think price differentiation run amok is a big problem there, but there should be a law here that SOMETHING in every neighborhood should be open 24 hours, just to keep transplanted Americans sane.
MOE: Did you ever see that abortion movie? 4 Months 3 Weeks 2 Days?
MEGAN: No, I'm bad about seeing movies. I go through spurts where I see a bunch and then I go without for a really long time. It was around in my chaste period, so to speak. Also, I hate chain pubs and try not to go to chain restaurants, but, um, the homemade potato chips at Elephant and Castle have called to me, I won't deny.
MOE: It's about Romania and it's supposedly very depressing, even though I didn't really find it that depressing, except to the extent that the protagonist's boyfriend shared that very common boyfriend problem where he is totally clueless and that was depressing, but really the most depressing part was just how DARK EVERYTHING WAS and how night is dark and eerie in Europe in a lot of places.
MEGAN: I think that's more of a film meme than a reality. I never found Germany particularly eerie at night.
MOE: Yeah I'm trying to think of the name of the Irish pub chain in Philly at 15th and Locust or thereabouts. I can't believe I can't remember the name of this place. God I shouldn't have had white wine. And I found Vienna dark. Not eerie, just lifeless.
MOE: And then there's all those places with their communism etc. etc.

MEGAN: I believe you are thinking of Fado. There's one in DC, too, by the Verizon Center.
MOE: I'm intrigued by Frank Rich's use of an emoticon in his headline. Ah yes! Fado. God the food there is some fucking masterful cuisine compared to the meal I just had.
MEGAN: Oh, Frank Rich, angry women do not use emoticons.

MOE: ok so…what I was going to say before my fucking Wi-fi which I paid ten pounds for crapped out is that I guess we should discuss McCain's War College thesis.
MOE: Also: Condi chastising Israelis for all their ugly settlements, which is the topic of a new and good-sounding book called Palestinean Walks …and speaking of which a Palestinian birthday party was ruined by some Israeli soldiers recently and so there's that.

MEGAN: Ah, ok, well, so, John McCain's thesis. I read the whole thing. It's kind of interesting on its face, but the fact that he doesn't acknowledge in it having been one of the tortured men about which he's talking makes its central conceit a bit, um, torturous.
MOE: HA. You read the whole thesis? Seriously?
MEGAN: Yes. I, um, didn't have much to do yesterday.
MEGAN: It was interesting, it's basically trying to get at a manner for training troops to survive being POWs. The New York Times piece you linked to points out some factual inaccuracies, the most egregious of which is that McCain thinks that the men that "broke" the easiest were the ones that joined the war after the country turned against it but he's not correct on his timing.
MOE: Also, oh god, there's Obama's Fathers Day speech on absentee dads, and one noted absentee dad being Tim Russert, who like I told you yesterday reminds me of my own dad, ABSENT the ridiculous tie which is his signature. I thought Pareene's obit was sweet, but moving back to my dad he actually attended the War College, and moving back to the War College that is where John McCain wrote this thing
9:25 AM
MEGAN: Oh, God, Russert, dude, on MTP yesterday, Carville and Matalin and Brokaw were crying, and then his producer started and they had to run the tribute video two minutes early because no one could hold it together any longer.
MOE: Oh man, that is so fucking sad. Is there a clip?
MEGAN: Here's the end, as he struggled to keep it really together, but he literally broke down a little earlier.
9:30 AM
MOE: Oh god I can't watch that. I'm already dehydrated. Jesus.
MEGAN: The whole thing was really, really sad. Anyway, so, John McCain's thesis. Less sad than that.
MOE: Yeah I'm amusing myself now with stop sitting in the house watching SportsCenter and “Don’t get carried away with that eighth-grade graduation." Yeah, don't pat yourself on the back till your super sweet 16.
MEGAN: I mean, I think McCain has an interesting point about the need for better training, I think it's absolutely prescient when it comes to the idea that there were around 550 POWs and that the public's outcry about that small number of people allowed the North Vietnamese to hijack peace negotiations and the like.
MOE: Yeah, that was a very good point I hadn't considered as much, because I never even really knew the number. What was the breakdown between resisters and "collaborators"?
MEGAN: Many more resisters than collaborators.
9:40 AM
MEGAN: But my most favorite part, buried in the text, is this:

Many ex-POWs have stated that due to the length and divisiveness of the Vietnam conflict, if the policy of the North Vietnamese towards the captured Americans had been of strict adherence to the Geneva Convention the North Vietnamese might have returned a group of men who would have been grateful and sympathetic to their problems in that part of the world. Instead, a dedicated group of anti-communists have emerged from that ordeal.

But maybe I'm just influenced by the whole Gitmo ruling last week.
MEGAN: I guess, however, that the intervening years have changed John's mind.

"These are people who are not citizens; they do not and never have been given the rights that citizens of this country have," McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said at a town hall meeting in Pemberton, New Jersey, yesterday. "There are some bad people down there."

MOE: Yeah that's what I'm reading now. So he doesn't think they should be tortured, because he was tortured, but the Gitmo ruling was "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country" because he…doesn't love democracy so much he wants to extend its rights to terror suspects…? What blows my mind about this shit is that the guys in Guantanamo are such a collection of clueless moderate bystandery wrong-place-wrong-time types. And which commenter pointed out OBL's driver's sixth grade education, not to bring it back to Obama's speech… anyway… it's just like, has he looked at the charges against these guys? I mean, McCain is a senator, he probably has access to the ACTUAL evidence against these guys.
MOE: He like knows how shit it is.
MOE: Oh also in the wake of massive protests the Saudis have finally agreed to produce more oil but they're telling Europe to lower their gas taxes. Which I guess have something to do with the $40 cab ride I took back to my hotel yesterday? Anyway, not bitter here. But anyway economists think if it weren't for speculators and the natural inclination of markets to hyperbolize these things oil would be $80 to $100 a barrel but what can you do.
MEGAN: Or he doesn't care because he's running for President and the far right hates the ruling so why not compromise his supposed principles yet again and say what he's supposed to say?
MEGAN: I love how the Saudis are all like, lower your taxes but you know they ain't lowering the royalties they get (aka, taxes) from foreign oil companies. Mmmm, hypocrisy smells soooo carbon-y.
MOE: Issue 1. But why? The only way he can win is by appealing to moderates who probably believe on some level this terror war thing was, as Frank Fukuyama pointed out, a bad idea, right? Or do feminists want Supreme Court Justices to the right of John Roberts? (Who btw did not take part in the case I guess?) (anyway) I have a headache and I need to post this.

• George W. Bush is in Israel right now where he equated Obama with Hitler over his suggestion that he meet with Ahmadinejad. I guess in Israel they have to smile when he talks but Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik doesn't look like her heart is in it. [Wash Post]
  
• Joe Biden and most Democrats not named Joseph Lieberman rejected and denounced Bush's "bullshit"/"malarkey." [Politico]
  
• Oh wait, but the Bushes were actually great friends with the Nazis. So maybe he meant the Hitler thing as a compliment? [Guardian]
  
• (Dear Jews: Just remember, no one forgets what they learned at summer camp!)

• And what does the presumptive nominee of the political party equivalent of bad dog food have to say about the idiotic musings of the ignorant shit who not only most likely laid waste his own chances of being elected president but also did more in eight years to undermine democracy, world peace and stability than anyone who had ever held the office? Yeah, John McCain, you are an asshole. [Wonkette]
• "If the fear of Baghdad and Falluja is what keeps foreign powers from saving huge numbers of Burmese from their own government's callousness, that will be one more tragic consequence of the Iraq war." [New Yorker]
• I've been meaning to compile some fave Moments In Schlafly in honor of the honorary degree she's receiving tomorrow so...you know where to tip me. [TNR]

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.

• After last night's fellatio-esque interview of John McCain, reporters ask Jon Stewart if he's a real journalist and if he should've tried harder to ask a real question. No, and yes. [Comedy Central, Time, Rolling Stone]
  
• No one really cares, though, because Hillary might not actually stay in the race until August. [NY Times]
  
• And there is one economist who agrees with her gas tax plan, but only because this example of blatant electoral pandering is the method of blatant electoral pandering likely to do the least harm of all the harmful ways to blatantly pander to the electorate. [NY Times]
  
• Oh, and some New York Congressman got his mistress pregnant three years ago and has a secret love child and is a drunk driver. Even married Republicans lose when it comes to abstinence-only education. [NY Times]

• That pedophile Interpol was searching for? He was a store Santa from Jersey and found fucking little kids "euphoric." Gross. [Associated Press]
• And some people still buy that shit about Obama being a Muslim. [Wired]
• And some dude used to drug and rape women at his office parties, but the law firm he worked at didn't sack him for it or warn anyone even after 2 women got drugged and reported it. Dudes, don't lawyers know not to fuck with lawyers? [Boston Globe]
• Mark Penn is so dumb that he didn't know about proportional representation in the primaries when Hillary hired him, but she'll still have to pay him the $10 million or so she owes him. Asshole. [HuffPo]
• And, for my girl/fellow alum SarahMC, check out the disaster porn of a mega car crash in Allston right by the Shaws on Comm Ave. [Boston Globe]
• Speaking of disasters, Burma is still fucked. [NY Times]
• And the Prime Minister of Israel has likely been taking bribes from foreigners. [Washington Times]
• God I need a fucking drink.

• "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: Okay, so here's a dumb question. When North Korean scientists visit Damascus to give them tips on the whole plutonium thing, what language do they use? There are probably a hundred different little cultural misunderstandings on those surveillance tapes that would make for an amusing screwball comedy.

MEGAN: Wanna bet they use English? The official language of nuclear proliferators since 1945!
MOE: Do you think they'd make it that easy on the spies? What if they used Latin?
MEGAN: Then the Pope would have to translate for us! He's into non-proliferation, since the only things he wants to see proliferate are Catholic babies.
MEGAN: Pig Latin, though, that might be hard.
MOE: Okay so maybe I should explain to readers that you are in my house and we are looking at the New York Post and trying to figure out whether we care about the Spitzer hooker scandal. I'm going with "no."

MEGAN: Yeah, I mean, without more details then liked to incorporate sex toys, I don't really care enough to speculate.
MOE: I don't even get what the story is other than his "fondness for hookers" was "corroborated" by a second hooker. Haven't we gotten this story corroborated by like 29 hookers at this point? Aren't we pretty much secure in the knowledge that Eliot Spitzer fucked whores? Yes.
MEGAN: I mean, but maybe he liked big dildoes shoved up his ass. Maybe, like most men, he liked to watch them masturbate? I dunno, I guess we just all like to watch something, and somehow people think hearing more about Eliot Spitzer nekkid and fucking is salacious.
MOE: I am sooooo over it it is like the porn you used to love that never does the trick anymore and you just can't get back the magic, no matter how desperate and/or drunk, except it involves Eliot Spitzer so ICK.
MOE: So I wanted to spend the day talking about Israel actually.
MEGAN: I mean, it's slightly less gross than a Normal Mailer sex memoir, but either's a bonerkiller.
MEGAN: Oh, ok. Israel. Um, I hear it's nice and wedding dresses are expensive there.
MOE: And the secret agreement they apparently had with Bush, on the basis of a letter Bush sent Sharon in 2004. I think the letter said something like "well you are there, and uh, you have nukes, so...what about we pretend we never had this conversation? Look, I already forgot!"
MEGAN: This doesn't surprise me, somehow.
MOE: Colin Powell emailed the Post saying he never saw the letter.

MOE: Also, I love this idea:
MOE:

Weissglas said that in 2005, when Sharon was poised to remove settlers from Gaza, the Bush administration made a secret agreement — not disclosed to the Palestinians — that Israel could add homes in settlements it expected to keep, as long as the construction was dictated by market demand, not subsidies.

MOE: Oooh that's a good thought: also, where can I buy some distressed collateralized debt obligation containing some of the securities backed by Gaza mortgages now that we have this news? Kidding, I guess it's still a kind of a shady investment, huh. Better to invest in the kid supplying ammo to the Afghan counterinsurgency, no duh. But yeah, seriously, this isn't about Gaza, it was about other settlements I think? To sweeten the whole "get out of Gaza" deal? Don't you wish reparations would work on these guys? Come back to America, folks! We've got your housing!
MEGAN: But you can't grow olive trees pretty much anywhere but California... luckily, Stockton has a ton of foreclosures.
MOE: Between Condi and Colin Powell and Bush and the ambassador to Israel and Jimmy Carter it sure seems like America is the land of numerous conflicting Israel policies you know?
MEGAN: Wait, we're supposed to have one Israel policy? Other than "support at all costs regardless"?
MOE: Wouldn't it be cool if Obama gave a sort of "race speech," only in Jerusalem? Too bad he doesn't have any Jews in his family to "throw under the bus" for a good cause, so to speak. Oh wait, he probably does.
MOE: Still, it's kind of complicated once you go over there and realize there is really no basic uniting "all men created equal" business.
MEGAN: Not that such shit works here either.
MOE: Yeah but when you say such a thing in a speech it doesn't sound like you're necessarily on Ecstasy. Which by the way the Israelis control the trade of. (WHY DON'T THEY USE IT.)
MEGAN: Wait, so ecstasy is made in Israel? Did you know we have a free trade agreement with them?
MOE: No actually I didn't know that. It never occurred to me actually. I don't spend nearly enough time thinking about trade negotiations. When's that date back to? What's their big export, besides Dead Sea salt scrubs and such? I'm such a dumbass.
MEGAN: It's more than 20 years old, actually!
MOE: I think I noticed that the Dead Sea salt scrubs were not really any cheaper over there than they are here but then I figured that QVC was a much bigger purchaser of such things than the Massadah Duty Free Shop and attributed it to that.
MEGAN: I could use a good salt scrub right now, actually.
MOE: There's some in the shower!
MEGAN: Hooray! I need one of those too.