• On the heels of reports that Going Rogue confirms there was tension between Sarah Palin and John McCain's aides during the 2008 campaign, Ann Coulter says, "Wow, I hope she pays them back in this book, and I can't wait to read it. No, I mean, McCain — he was the media's favorite Republican. So, any criticism his side made of Palin was instantly printed, and now we finally get the payback. And I'm looking forward to it." • Palin will visit Fort Hood next month as part of her book tour for Going Rogue. She planned the visit before last week's shooting, and a representative from the base called her and said she should still make her planned appearance on December 4. • The British government has proposed a ban on people under the age of 18 using tanning beds to reduce the risk of young people developing skin cancer. It was reported today that in some areas of the U.K. up to half of all girls aged 15-17 are tanning, which doctors say significantly increases the risk of malignant melanoma. • In February, Jen Ivers will become the first female student to participate in the Mr. Yale contest. Ivers prefers to dress as a man, is openly gay, and doesn't identify as a man or a woman. Her residential college overwhelmingly voted for her to represent them, but initially the college rejected her application. Yale claims it was a miscommunication and a rep says, "It'll be really cool and unique to have her compete." • Scientists from the University of California tested the pain threshold of 25 women in various situations and found that they didn't hurt as much when their romantic partner was holding their hand, and experienced even less pain when just looking at his picture. Researchers say the person's picture brings up pleasant thoughts, but when they're actually in the room they may be upset that their partner is worried about them. They recommend patients bring loved ones' pictures to painful procedures. • Jill Berry, president of the Girls' Schools Association, says that schools should tell teenage girls that they don't need to beat themselves up if they decide to take time off from their future careers to raise children. ''They will need to realise that there may be times when they might not want to work, or they might want to take a lesser job because their priorities have changed. It is important that they leave school at 18 with their eyes open," she said. • Kirsty Moore, who became the first woman admitted to Britain's Royal Air Force display team, says she hopes her position will make girls "think that this is something they could be part of and they should go for it." • Caster Semenya says after the international controversy over her gender, "People want to stare at me now. They want to touch me. I'm supposed to be famous but I don't think I like it so much." • Oreo, the dog who was nursed back to health after her owner threw her off the roof of his six-floor Brooklyn apartment building, was killed today by lethal injection. After Oreo's owner was convicted of animal cruelty many people offered to adopt her and pay for her medical care, but the A.S.P.C.A. said she was a danger to the public because she was "unpredictably aggressive." Supporters had requested that the organization delay the euthanization and negotiate the dog's transfer to an animal sanctuary. • No African country has developed a program to give the cervical cancer vaccines to girls, even though 71,000 of the 500,000 who are diagnosed with cervical cancer every year are from Africa, and 78 percent of cases result in death. Professor Lutz Gissman, one of the researchers who discovered the virus said, "If you can persuade [African] girls to get a vaccine shot, the problem will be drastically reduced in the next 10, 20 years." • Police are hunting for a Brazilian blogger they say posted the names of 300 people who are cheating on their partner in the small rural town of Lagoa da Prata on Orkut. "This is not a very nice joke – for people to say that your boyfriend or your husband is a cuckold," says one woman whose boyfriend's name was on the list. "I don't really know what to say to people." • Police arrested a Florida man who repeatedly called 911 and made sexual comments to the dispatcher, asking to come to her house. There's a perfectly reasonable explanation: He told police that he'd run out of cell phone minutes and 911 was the only number he could call. •

Sources say Jamie McCourt is looking for investors to help her buy her husband out. Her lawyer said she's, "disappointed and saddened by her termination. As co-owner of the Dodgers, she will address this and all other issues in the courtroom." • Russian lesbians Irina Shipitko, 32, and Irina Fedotova-Fet, 30, got married today in Toronto after their two requests for a marriage license in Moscow were denied in May. Russia doesn't allow gay marriage, but does honor international unions, so they will try to use other Russian laws to validate their marriage. If they are denied, they plan on filing a complaint with the European Human Rights Commission. • Women and teenagers living on the India-Bangladesh border have been given kits that test for arsenic and information about natural signs of contamination by Kansas State University researchers who are trying to understand why arsenic is seeping into the region's groundwater. "We are targeting the women and children 13 to 15 years old because they are the most available people, more so than the men of the family," says geologist Saugata Datta. "These women are not formally educated, but when it comes to this type of suffering, they have a huge voice and they can really articulate the message very clearly to their neighbors and their own families." • A group of British MPs says men's magazines or "lad mags" with explicit cover images may need to be placed in plastic bags rather than just put on the top shelf to keep children from seeing them. They also suggested that in the future, the magazines could carry a 15+ or 18+ rating system similar to movies. • 97-year-old Roberta Wright McCain, John McCain's mother, has been admitted to a Portuguese hospital after falling in the street last night in Lisbon. She had traveled to Lisbon alone and was found in the street a few hours after checking into her hotel. The hospital released a statement saying she's "in observation, undergoing various medical tests, and in a stable clinical condition." • Though many female marines want to fight on the front lines in Afghanistan, the closest they can get is serving in "female engagement teams." Wearing hijabs under their helmets, they follow infantrymen into villages to talk with Afghan women. • Scientists are debating whether a something unrelated to genetics can be causing obese mothers to program their children to be overweight in the womb. Some research suggests that an obese woman losing weight before pregnancy can make her children less likely to be heavy, even if fat-promoting genes run in the family. However, researchers do not know what biological mechanism could have caused the results, and the medical community is still divided on the issue. • Odds Costume Rentals, which has supplied clothes for TV shows and movies like Law & Order and Road to Perdition for 22 years, filed for bankruptcy this week. Owner Jeanette Oleska says costumes shops can't stay in business because many productions are getting their costumes free from designers and clothing companies looking for promotion. "The people at the top say, ‘We can just get these jeans from the Gap and these sneakers from Nike, and we've got a whole free outfit here. Why do we need to rent anything?'" Oleksa said. • Alice Ramsey, who became the first woman to drive across the country in 1909, will be among the first women inducted into the National Transportation Women's Hall of Fame, which will be housed in the Buffalo Transportation/Pierce-Arrow Museum in New York. • Amelia Earhart's scarf will be flown into space on the shuttle Atlantis by Randy Bresnik, the grandson of her personal photographer. "We are flying Amelia Earhart's favorite scarf that she unfortunately did not take with her on her final mission," said Bresnik "Fortunately, she also decided not to take her photographer with her otherwise I might not be here today." After the space mission in November, the scarf will be placed in the Museum of Women Pilots.

An Ohio man has been charged with a first degree misdemeanor after he allegedly used a law-enforcement computer network to gather information on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber. • North Carolina lawmakers have redefined "life sentence" to mean 80 years. According to the new definition, 20 convicted criminals are now set for release, including several men convicted of raping young girls. • According to a report released by the National Science Foundation, only 33% of people working in science are women. The scarcity of women in science is especially noticeable in the "hard sciences," including the study of radioactive elements. • This photograph, cleverly captioned "Career Choices for Girls According to Videogames" provides a single piece of the puzzle as to why many young girls feel their only options are fashion designer, cheerleader, or professional housekeeper. • John McCain has asked Obama to posthumously pardon black boxer Jack Johnson, who was imprisoned in 1913 for his romantic involvement with a white woman. • As part of an attempt to get male students to be "Renaissance men," Morehouse College in Atlanta has forbidden them from wearing baggy pants, sunglasses, do-rags and clothing "normally worn by women." • Politicians often write books to boost their careers, but Sarah Palin may be a simpler soul. Says onetime Republican spokesman Ron Bonjean, "her goal is to make a whole lot of money." •

• Hailey Glassman says her love affair with Jon Gosselin is filled with laughter, home cooked dinners and romantic games of ping pong, but, "If you had told me a few months ago, I wouldn't have believed you."

• Glassman explains that she developed feelings for Jon, a family friend, when he visited her parent's home to mulll over the end of his marriage. "He was so strong," Glassman says. "I admired him." When asked what she thinks he likes most about her, she said: "I'm a huge believer in not controlling someone. I'll give my opinion but tell him to do what he wants to do. He said, 'I'm just not used to having an option.' I told him life is about options." [People]
• Kendra Wilkinson says she and husband Hank Baskett have learned an important lesson from Jon And Kate Plus 8. "I feel bad for the kids. If we do have a show, none of that's going to happen...I want to be able to spend quality time with my child and not really give the world too much," says Kendra. [E!]
• Kiefer Sutherland won't be charged for headbutting Jack McCollough in May. The Manhattan D.A. rejected the case because officials decided the incident was too petty to be called criminal conduct. The L.A. City Attorney won't be charging Kiefer for violating his probation from a previous DUI conviction either. [TMZ]
• Stephen Baldwin filed for bankruptcy today. According to court documents he's millions of dollars in debt. [Yahoo]
• A fight broke out during Chace Crawford's birthday outing on Saturday night. His friends started pushing and shoving photographers to get them to stop taking pictures of him in the VIP section and Chace fled his own party to avoid getting caught in the scuffle. [The Daily Express]
• Jackson Browne has settled a lawsuit and received an apology from Senator John McCain and the Republican Party for using his song "Running On Empty" during the presidential campaign. The GOP also pledged not to use any musician's work without permission from now on. [AP]
• More people are coming forward with tales of Mischa Barton's drug use. In a lengthy tale about one drug fueled night in London last year, a source reports, "She told us that she hated Kimberley [Stewart] and Paris Hilton because they had made fun of her after her DUI arrest but that Naomi Campbell had phoned her to offer some support. After some time she went into her purse and took out a bag of marijuana - when she put her purse down I could see traces of white powder inside it... Mischa was a sweet person but she is really foolish as both her drug and alcohol consumption was very open. She didn't seem to be able to control herself and I'm not surprised that it has snow-balled and that she is now in hospital. In my opinion she is going to need a lot of help to fully recover from what I saw that night in London." [Radar Online]
• Jackass star Bam Margera says he wasn't taken to the hospital for a drug overdose, but because he was on a four day drinking binge which he blamed on marital problems. "I may get a divorce ... booze helps," he said. [TMZ]
• In a new interview Ryan O'Neal said of Farrah Fawcett, "She never closed her eyes; her eyes were open for the last three weeks of her life... She was watching us. She didn't speak much, but she watched us. And then, finally, she closed her eyes." [MSNBC]
• The rumors that Jamie Kennedy proposed to Jennifer Love Hewitt last weekend aren't true but according to Jamie, she told him "By this time next year if we're not planning something, then there's a situation." [People]
• Check out these adorable photos of Emma Thompson and her adopted son Tindyebwa Agabe. Six years ago she and her husband adopted Agabe, a former Rwandan child soldier, at the age of 16. Today he graduated from Exeter University with a degree in politics. [The Daily Mail]
• In her first interview since her break down, Susan Boyle said of her rise to stardom, "The impact, like a demolition ball. Anyone who has that kind of impact finds it really hard to get a head around it... I guess I had to get my head around it, but through the guidance of a great team, and they are very good, I was able to see that in perspective and really turn that around a little." [The Sun]
• Susan Boyle will pose for a photoshoot that will appear in the September issue of Harper's Bazaar. [The Mirror]
• Marc Anthony has become a partial owner of the Miami Dophins. "I'm a huge sports fan," he said. "These opportunities don't come around too often. It's quite an honor and a privilege to be able to sit here today saying that I'm a part-owner of an NFL team." Now he and Jennifer Lopez are looking for a home in Miami. [People]
• Kelis skipped today's scheduled court date with estranged husband Nas... because she's in labor. Nas' lawyer says he's in New York for the birth of his baby and is "rushing to the hospital to be with her." [TMZ]
• Debbie Rowe's friend Marc Schaffel says, "At the end of the day, Debbie just wants what's best for the children... Her interest is that the children are going to be taken care of." [People]
• David Duchovney and Tea Leoni are looking less and less estranged these days. They spent Father's Day together with their kids, and David took Tea to the wrap party for Californication this weekend. [People]
• Alicia Silverstone will return to Broadway to reprise her role in Time Stands Still, a play about a photojournalist (who will be played by Laura Linney) recovering from and injury in the Iraq War. [The N.Y. Times]
• Adele, Kelly Clarkson, Leona Lewis, and Miley Cyrus will headline the VH1 Divas Live concert on September 17. [Perez Hilton]
• Jennifer's Body will premiere at the Toronto Film Festival's Midnight Madness program on September 10th. [Variety]
• Harrison Ford will be the guest of honor at the France's Deauville American Film Festival in September. [Variety]
• January Jones is on the cover of Interview's August issue. She says of her Mad Men character Betty Draper, "She is cracked, which is why I love her... I come from a family of very outspoken women. I can't imagine living in a time when you couldn't express what you felt... That's why Betty does what she does. She's imploding to the point where she gets so frustrated that she does something wacky." [People]
• Katherine Heigl says her first day back on the Grey's Anatomy set wasn't that great, explaining, "It was — I'm going to keep saying this because I hope it embarrasses them - a 17-hour day, which I think is cruel and mean." She added, "It was actually kind of really great to be back. All my friends are there and at this point, they're sort of like family, but it was a little weird because [T.R. Knight]'s not there anymore." [People]
• Last week Entourage featured an outdated Knocked Up joke about how Katherine Heigl would never go out with Seth Rogen in real life. Rogen responded: "Yeah, those guys are assholes. I actually ran into Matt … Kevin Dillon in a Starbucks. And he's like 'You know, I've got to kind of apologize because apparently the guy who created our show doesn't like you so much.' And I said 'Well, I have reason to believe because I think [showrunner] Doug Ellin is a moron from all I can understand so it makes sense he doesn't like me.' And I've kind of said some disparaging things about the show. Although in our defense, [producer] Mark Wahlberg called us misogynistic in an interview, so I think they kind of started that … It's on. Luckily I never have and never plan on watching Entourage." [N.Y. Magazine]
• "It is very disheartening that there are so many older men that prey on young performers. The younger you are, the more innocent you are, the more wholesome your image is, the weirder the fans become in terms of older men wanting to corrupt little girls. Even the way the paparazzi stalk the younger artists is very different from following around adults - I find that very disturbing." — Debbie Gibson [The Daily Express]

• Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has decided the best way to lead the country while thousands of people are protesting the fraudulent elections is to tell them to shut up, accept the results or risk a violent crackdown. [MSNBC]

• Most of his people are concerned that his speech will embolden Iran's Basij militias, who operate in plainclothes to foment unrest and have a habit of beating and killing people simply because they can. [Washington Post]
• Meanwhile, we're boosting our defenses around Hawai'i, since Kim Jong Il has threatened it with a missile strike. [Associated Press]
• China is officially denying that its leadership met with Kim Jong Il's son and successor, Kim Jong Un, two weeks ago. You probably should take that piece of propaganda with a very large, ragged grain of salt. [UPI]
• Back in the States, Obama is more popular than Clinton or Dubya were at this point in their Presidencies. [Matthew Yglesias]
• The husband of the woman who was sexing John Ensign while he was separated went on to have a pretty lucrative career with companies close to the GOP Senator. [Politico]
• Ensign is denying he came forward because of a blackmail plot; he's not saying he just wanted to beat his former staff to the media punch. Also, when he reconciled with his wife, he fired his mistress and paid her severance out of his own pocket. [Las Vegas Sun]
• Crazy fucking conservative Michael Savage said, "The white Christian heterosexual married male is the epitome of everything right with America." The family of the guard, Stephen Johns, gunned down at the Holocaust Museum and George Tiller's family — just for starters — might disagree. [Media Matters]
• Stephen Johns' funeral is being held today. The Museum is being closed to allow all employees to attend, and they've set up a fund for his family. [Washington Post]
• The Supreme Court has ruled that there is no Constitutional right to post-conviction DNA testing. Apparently, "justice" is not about truth. Big surprise. [LA Times]
• The Court also issued a ruling throwing out an established age discrimination law, making it harder for anyone to ever prove ever again that they were dismissed or demoted as a result. [LA Times]
• Finally, the blogosphere is a-buzz that Sarah Palin follows John McCain on Twitter but McCain doesn't follow her back...as if their accounts weren't set up and maintained by their staff. [Mother Jones]

Rush's response here.

• Wanda Sykes' White House Correspondents' Dinner performance was pretty funny , but some conservatives, including Meghan McCain, aren't laughing because they're too busy feigning outrage for the cameras. [C-SPAN, ABC News, NY Daily News]

• Dick Cheney continues to hone his own special brand of performance art; now he's claiming that Colin Powell is less worthy of attention than Rush Limbaugh and the U.S. should just keep on torturing people. [Associated Press]
• Nancy Pelosi continues to deny that she knew a thing about waterboarding, let alone signed off on it, but it turns out her top aide was specifically briefed on it before she signed off on a letter to the CIA opposing it. [Politico, Washington Post]
• Obama's going to have a meeting today where health insurance companies will totally promise to raise your rates by 1.5% less next year. For most people, this means they'll be jacking up their prices by 4 times the rate of inflation rather than 5, co congratufuckinglations. [Associated Press]
• John Edwards' staffers say now that they planned to sabotage his campaign if he looked to be winning the primaries. [ABC News]
• Joe Biden's a busy guy, having now added advising Obama on potential Supreme Court nominees to his resume. [Washington Post]
• Defense Secretary Robert Gates' plan to shift 10 percent of military spending to items our troops currently need to protect their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan is facing opposition from Republicans who want to make sure that whatever soldiers survive our current wars without armored vehicles and medical transport helicopters have big tanks and airplanes with which to invade China and Russia. [NY Times]
• John McCain believes that the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy is working just fine at weeding out the dreaded gays from its ranks. Who needs a cunning linguist in the military, anyway? [ThinkProgress]
• No one knows where in the world Osama bin Laden or Carmen Sandiego can be found. (Carmen's probably easier to find). [Associated Press]

Solomon seemed slightly amazed that O'Connor is attempting at her advanced age to use the Internet (better that Solomon not find out O'Connor knows about Jon Stewart), then asked her to sell out a variety of Republicans from Tom Delay to Bill Frist to John McCain to George Bush to Harriet Miers. When asked about being considered too liberal for a Reagan nominee, O'Connor seemed to show her annoyance.

Look, that's your spiel, not mine.

Solomon didn't exactly take the hint, but she did move on to ask O'Connor about her husband — who is ill with Alzheimers — and his reported nursing-home girlfriend. O'Connor responded that, as Solomon surmised, she didn't mind that her terminally-ill husband was holding hands with terminally-ill women because they kept him company and brought him some happiness.

That established, Solomon returned to the questions about Republicans that O'Connor had gracefully tried to avoid. Asking her for whom she voted in the last election was, however, the last straw.

Come on, is this about my Web site?

And, since the interview was, indeed, supposed to be about O'Connor's work to help teachers and students get more educated on the third branch of our system of government, Solomon responded:

O.K., go ahead, put in a plug.

Uh, gee, thanks.

She then wanted to know if O'Connor considers herself a feminist. Despite having worked during her time in the Arizona legislature to overturn laws that discriminated against women, O'Connor refused to self-identify as a feminist, saying:

I care very much about women and their progress. I didn't go march in the streets...

Oh, now I'm sad.

Questions for Sandra Day O'Connor: Case Closed [New York Times Magazine, available online tomorrow]

Related: Our Courts
Love Sandra Day O'Connor, Hate Ourselves [Wonkette]

Earlier: Sandra Day O'Connor Schools Jon Stewart

Conservative talking-head Laura Ingraham, lacking the rhetorical skills or intelligence of Ann Coulter, responded to criticisms that far-right talking assholes like herself aren't helping attract new voters to the GOP by calling Meghan McCain fat. [Think Progress]

Meghan's dad, meanwhile, announced his intention to vote against the confirmation of David Hayes to some sort of Deputy Undersecretary of Whogivesashit in the Department of the Interior because Hayes once said mean things about Ronnie Reagan being a good enough actor to pull off his faux-Western image. [The Economist]

While McCain was getting up in arms about old news, Nancy Pelosi was actually talking about the present day, saying that a new stimulus plan isn't in the offing until we all see what the $787 billion stimulus package passed last month actually does for the country. Economics professors around America smacked their heads and said, "See, this is why we always say fiscal policy doesn't create short-term economic solutions," while "economists" continued to bitch that we need a second stimulus. [Washington Post]

Chinese premier Win Jiabao is more than a little concerned about America's monetary policy and is asking President Obama for assurances that the Chinese $1 trillion investment in U.S. Treasury bonds will maintain its value. For those not versed in financial-speak, the dude to whom we owe $1 trillion wants to know he's gonna get his fucking money. [NY Times]

Like usual, Obama's got his hands full. This week, he gets to decide whether to tacitly uphold President Clinton's Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal benefits to even legally-married gay couples, and thus defy a California court ruling against it, or whether to somehow uphold the court ruling and piss off the people he supposedly needs to cooperate with to get his budget passed. Fun times. [MSNBC]

In January, the military discharged 11 service members for violating the military ban on being gay. It's just one more brick in Congresswoman Elle Tauscher's wall to get the damn thing repealed. [Think Progress]

Former Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave — best known for sponsoring amendments against abortion and same sex marriage — is starting an organization dedicated to ousting Congress members whose views on abortion rights are "out of sync" with their districts. [Politico]

And, finally, Joe Lieberman is back and flirting with the Democrats these days, now that he's realizing how much he wants to be re-elected. He totally swears there are Dems trying to convince him to come back to the fold in time to win his next election. Totally. [The Hill]

(Click on any image to begin gallery)

• Gene Robinson, the gay Episcopal bishop, delivered a four-minute invocation at the Mall on Sunday. Although HBO had exclusive rights to broadcast the invocation it did not make it to air. [Politico]

• Thoroughly reliable source and garbage PUMA blogger Perez Hilton says that Robinson's invocation didn't air because Obama's people told HBO not to air it. [Perez Hilton]
• HBO says that the invocation did not air because of a "planning error." The Inaugural concert began its live broadcast at 2:30pm (ET) and Robinson's invocation started at 2:20pm (ET). The invocation will air in repeats and will stream on HBO.com. [Deadline Hollywood]
• Meanwhile, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 61% of people surveyed said they back Rick Warren as the inaugural invocation pick. [Washington Post]
• Dick Cheney pulled a muscle in his back yesterday while moving boxes into his new house. He will be attending Obama's inauguration in a wheelchair. [Reuters]
• Meanwhile, on Monday a federal judge lifted an injunction requiring preservation of Dick Cheney's records because she said she expected Cheney to preserve them himself. The injunction was put in place when a group of government watchdogs and historians claimed that Cheney might destroy some of his records. [UPI]
• Blogette Meghan McCain got an exclusive interview with her mother for The Daily Beast. Cindy said that although she "is not bitter" she did think there was a strong bias in the media against her husband, John McCain. [Wonkette, Poynter]
• Last night Obama held a dinner honoring McCain whom he called an American hero and whose bipartisanship he hopes to follow. [MSNBC, The Page]
• McCain has told Fox News that Palin could someday be President. [The Page]
• An effigy of Sarah Palin with a noose around her neck was taken off of eBay on Sunday. This is the same effigy that was protested by the Mayor of West Hollywood when it was hung outside of a West Hollywood home of a professional window dresser and his partner before the election. [UPI]
• George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, died peacefully in his sleep last night. He was 62. [The Onion]
• Nancy Pelosi went on Fox News to say that she wants Obama to extend the Bush tax cuts (for families earning more than $250,000) when they expire in 2010. [Politico]
• Adorable child-reporter Damon Weaver is still looking to lock down a one-on-one with Obama as he covers the inauguration today. [NPR]
• Ha ha: Bush has decided to not pardon Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, for his 2007 conviction in the CIA leak case. [Newsweek]
• Sources say that Obama may quickly issue an executive order to reverse a Bush abortion policy (commonly called "the Mexico City policy") that prohibited funding for international family planning groups that provided, promoted or provided information about abortion services. [CNN]
• Bill Ayers has been denied entry into Canada because of a 1969 conviction during an anti-war demonstration. [MSNBC]
• Oh yeah: in keeping with tradition, Bush left a note for Obama . [MSNBC]

• Governor Rod Blagojevich rammed his head more throughly up his ass and found someone to join him: former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris, who is Blago's new appointment to Barack Obama's Senate seat. [Washington Post]

• But the current Secretary of State Jesse White would have to certify the Burris appointment, which he's reportedly saying he won't do, which is good because there's basically maybe no other way to stop Burris from heading to the Senate.. [Politico]
• Obama ain't happy. [Politico]
• Neither are Senate Democrats in general, who plan to move to block the appointment however they can even if, like most things the Senate Democrats have done in the last decade, it is ultimately ineffective and all for show. [CNN]
• Political analysts all breathed a sigh of relief that they could finally stop talking about Gaza. [BBC News]
• That includes Joe Scarborough, who got the shit kicked out of him by co-host Mika Brzezinski's dad Zbigniew Brzezinski on the issue this morning. [Huffington Post]
• The Clintons will be watching the ball drop in Times Square, which basically just proves they aren't real New Yorkers. [Associated Press]
• Vicki Iseman, who the New York Times totally implied in a long article was fucking John McCain without any evidence is suing the shit out of everyone involved. [Wall Street Journal]
• Franken's up in the Minnesota recount by about the margin Nate Silver said he would be back in the day, so Franken will totally be seated as Senator before he has to run for re-election. Probably. [Huffington Post]

• ... [wipes drool]
• Barack Obama is on vacation with his family in Kailua, Hawai'i this week. [Huffington Post]

• Bowlers are peeved that he might turn the White House bowling alley into a basketball court. [Wall Street Journal]
• He produced a web video announcing the people that will be running science policy for his Administration and not one of them believes in creationism. [Washington Post]
• And Joe Biden is going to head up the White House Task Force On Working Families, but stop calling him a "Czar" of something because he is the Vice fucking President and the Obamites have famously put a kibosh on calling anyone a Czar anyway. [CNN]
• Current Vice President Cheney has trouble understand that rap music stuff and would like those kids to get the hell off his lawn. [Think Progress]
• Sarah Palin blames John McCain's advisers for pretty much everything. [Huffington Post]
• Hillary Clinton just forgave her $13 million campaign loan, but still owes Mark Penn more than $5 million (and a host of other vendors about $1 million). [New York Times]
• Toyota is about to report its first operating loss in 70 years, despite all that talk of so-called union benefits being the problem that is plaguing the U.S. auto industry. The auto bailout will nonetheless proceed apace, including the part where they reduce wages and benefits of GM and Chrysler workers. [MSNBC]

LATOYA: Where do you want to start this morning? We've got a piping hot plate of hot mess to go through.

MEGAN: Well, being as this is a women's blog, we should do something woman-y, and I nominate the news that the McCain campaign spent $110,000 on hair and make-up for Sarah Palin in 10 weeks and $180,000 on clothing and accessories for the Palin clan — which is $30,000 more than initially reported.

LATOYA: Oh, I forgot to tell you.

MEGAN: That, by the way, means they spent more on hair and make-up and clothing and accessories than my condo is worth.

LATOYA: I have personally instituted a ban on discussing anything to do with Palin. As far as I am concerned, she is irrelevant. If she manages a resurrection and comes back to haunt us in 2012, so be it.

MEGAN: What are you going to do when she opens up an exploratory committee in 2010?

LATOYA: But until then, I'd love to see her fade into obscurity. She should be remembered, fondly, like Ross Perot.

MEGAN: Ok, but can we discuss that kind of money?

LATOYA: Thanks for the memories of shout outs at VP debates, but you need to mosey along now. Take your folksy ways and return to the ice cave. I mean, we can discuss the money. But somehow, I can't muster up indignant outrage.

MEGAN: Like, I will guarantee that there's no way on God's green earth that I have spent $110,000 on hair and make-up in my lifetime, even though I've been highlighting my hair for about 6 years.

LATOYA: Maybe if I had bought that whole "salt of the earth, of the white people, heartland of real America" tripe they were selling. Homegirl was just an opportunist. Cindy McCain was rocking nice clothes — why shouldn't she?

MEGAN: Totally. Look, if RNC donors want to give me $180,000 in clothes, I will totally run for office as a Republican. They can even call me A Maverick over and over again because of my support of reproductive choice.

LATOYA: And it's obvious they had the money. If the first card maxed out and they let her keep going, I say get what you get. Credit Cards come with limits.

MEGAN: But Republican money never ends!

LATOYA: That's why they're Republicans. They're supposed to have money, want to keep money, spend their money the way they want, and tell the gov't to mind their damn business. That's what I expect from Republicans. It's comforting that way.

MEGAN: Yeah, I get that. So, moving on, want to talk about NOW and the Feminist Majority Foundation going metaphorical balls to the wall to promote Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy for Clinton's Senate seat?

LATOYA: Why not? Obviously, the dice are lucky.

MEGAN: Because I don't like the idea that a woman's seat ought to be filled by a woman, but McCarthy does have an established record on women's rights issues and is generally cool. But, mostly, I wish to continue pressing the point that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is an unmitigated casual racist not deserving of elected office but certainly not deserving of an appointment to a lifetime Senate seat by David Paterson, the state's first African-American governor.

LATOYA: Hmm, well, I am not so sure about Cuomo. Then again, I'm only thinking about his record at HUD.

MEGAN: Well, then, there's a question. If you have a good record of doing decent things for the community as a whole while tossing around the phrase "shucking and jiving" in reference to an African-American candidate for the Presidency, followed by a steadfast insistence that it is actually not a racist term after the world notices that you said it, what should a politically active person do? Because I choose to call him a racist and think that he should go fuck himself.

LATOYA: Oh, I wasn't sure about the appointment, not your comment on casual racism. I think his HUD record proves he doesn't care about black people.

MEGAN: Then, yeah, fuck that guy.

LATOYA: But back to the original point, I understand what you're saying about not wanting to do this tit for tat seating thing. But I can understand where NOW is coming from, especially with the whispers of sexism around this bailout committee.

Frank credited the current resistance to doing more about foreclosures to ruffled male feathers. “I think part of the problem now is that, to be honest, Shelia Bair has annoyed the Old Boys Club.” He likened the situation to several regulators “up in the treehouse with a ‘No Girls Allowed’ sign.”

MEGAN: I know! I could not believe that shit when I heard it from Moe. I was like, wait, the new Democratic Treasury Secretary is mad about the (technically independent) FDIC chair telling Bush to go fuck himself while she's trying to save Real Americans?

LATOYA: Pretty much. Just call it the "Fuck that bitch" doctrine. She is showing people up so she has got to go.

MEGAN: Also, I think saying that she has to go is akin to when McCain said he would fire Chris Cox at the SEC. I mean, it's their fucking government, you think they could learn who is supposed to be independent — and therefore given a term — and who is supposed to be a sycophant. Tim Geithner either needs to say a bunch more stupid shit so Obama withdraws his name, or get his head screwed on straight. Yo, Tim, you can throw all the money you want at Wall Street and get them to lower interest rates, but if no one has a fucking house in 2 years, the economy is still going to be fucked, and that's what Sheila Bair is trying to prevent, you dumb cunt.

LATOYA: I think prevention is a dirty word to some people. Kind of reminds them of socialism.

MEGAN: But the Republicans promised that we were electing a dirty socialist! They promised!

LATOYA: The Republicans are promising a lot of stuff, but one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing. Like this rift between the religious right and the ...um...regular right.

MEGAN: This part is kind of awesome.

Ponnuru acknowledges that social conservatives “could present themselves more attractively,” and “pick their spokesmen more wisely.”

No, asshole, at the end of the day, you're still advocating for a fucking theocracy and I am gonna notice no matter how much you pay for Sarah Palin's stylists.

LATOYA: She even used the term Oogedy-Boodgey.

First, to the origins. “Oogedy-boogedy” was bequeathed to me several years ago by my dear, departed friend, political cartoonist Doug Marlette. We were doubtless talking about our shared Southern heritage, about which one does not speak long without mentioning religion.

And, you betcha, oogedy-boogedy.

Marlette, whose childhood was spent among Pentecostals, Baptists, and other passionate believers, had religion in his bones and forgot more scripture than most preachers can recall on a given Sunday. He also won a Pulitzer Prize for his lampooning of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker (peace be upon them) and their “PTL Club.”

If Jim and Tammy Faye put you in mind of oogedy-boogedy, you’re getting warm.

Now, I'm going to be saying Oogedy Boogedy all day.

MEGAN: And, Republican dudes, if you can't figure out what it means, I don't think you get to call me an Un-Real American anymore.

LATOYA: Rick Warren, talking about capping foreign leaders because the bible says so? Oogedy Boogedy!

MEGAN: Also, how is the world not fucking scared of that shit? Spencer said it best: if it was a Muslim preacher saying on national TV abroad that the Koran says they need to suicide bomb us, we would be flipping the fuck out. But a white guy? No, that's cool.

LATOYA: Selective memory. Side effect of the oogedy boogedy.

MEGAN: So, is the oogedy-boogedy something you catch from the Bible, or from other Jeebus-freaks?

LATOYA: Apparently, the bible is OK. It's the freak part that leads to the oogedy boogedy. There have been other strange happenings as well, outside of religion. Like Michelle Malkin talking sense.

MEGAN: Michelle Malkin has been talking some sense on and off again all year and it is sort of freaking me the fuck out in general.

LATOYA: She's done this a couple times before. I'm always kind of shocked, because I can't reconcile a sensible column with the author of "In Defense of Internment." I don't know whether to read or avoid. On her worst days, she makes me want to put my eyes out, Oedipus style, so I do not have to see what senselessness has wrought. But on other days, I wonder if I should move her and Kathleen Parker into regular rotation.

MEGAN: Is it terribly condescending to think that Malkin grew up a little? That after wallowing around in all that scary, informed-only-by-fear filth she sort of looked around at her compatriots, commenters and ass-kissers and thought to herself, damn, these people are crazy?

LATOYA: Then again, we both now she is one "banana cream pie"column (that link is NSFW) away from being in they "why did I ever think we could hang" category. And speaking of even more crazy shit — do you know they are trying to challenge Obama's citizenship?

MEGAN: I am hoping the problem is not just that other wannabe columnists have not decided to out-Malkin Malkin by being crazier, thus making her seem less insane in the process. Yeah, dude, that is some crazytown fucking shit. There are suits claiming the birth certificate is fake, and others claiming that because his father wasn't American, he doesn't qualify.

LATOYA: Remember that Colbert Report segment on Obama going to this crazy foreign nation of Hawaii? Yeah, someone must have forgotten the Colbert Report isn't real news.

MEGAN: Dude! If only! Actually, they are claiming that his mother actually gave birth to him in Kenya but faked that it happened in Hawai'i.

LATOYA: I mean, damn, the birth certificate is online. Hawaii published a column announcing it. WTF?

MEGAN: In this alterna-universe, claiming Hawai'i doesn't count is actually less cray-cray than what they are really claiming. They claim that all that stuff has been faked, as though he's an actual Manchurian candidate.

LATOYA: Oh wait, are you talking about that guy who is suing "the "Peoples Association of Human, Animals Conceived God/s and Religions, John McCain (and) USA Govt." The plaintiff previously sought to sue Wikipedia and "All News Media." Or is he just some fresh crazy? And Clarence Thomas picked up this lawsuit, to presumably dismiss it, which is making blogger like Karynthia get pissed off for having to defend him.

MEGAN: Dude, Alan Keyes filed one of the lawsuits. There are multiple strains of crazy at work.

LATOYA: I expected that. Do you want to talk about terrorism crazy now, or international government crazy?

MEGAN: Oh, it's so hard to decide. I was going to say that we should read what the nanny of the Jewish toddler said about rescuing him because it's sort of awesome in a We-Are-The-World kind of way that transcends race, but we can stick with crazy.

"First thing is that a baby is very important for me and this baby is something very precious to me and that's what made me just not think anything — just pick up the baby and run," Samuel said.

"When I hear gunshot, it's not one or 20. It's like a hundred gunshots," she added. "Even I'm a mother of two children so I just pick up the baby and run. Does anyone think of dying at the moment when there's a small, precious baby?"

LATOYA: I applaud that woman. I am also giving a half-hearted applause to Condi for calling out Mugabe and his general douchbagginess toward his people. The applause is half hearted because we only selectively seek to remove dictators that are screwing with us. Or, rather, standing in the way of something we want.

MEGAN: Right, although, if we're giving Condi a golf clap, we probably have to shout out Raila Odinga, the Kenyan PM, who sorta beat her to the punch on that.

LATOYA: He gets full applause.

MEGAN: I mean, Odinga even beat South African President Kgalema Motlanthe, who probably could have done it as his first act in office or something.

LATOYA: Meanwhile, our neighbors to the South have crazy drug war drama and our neighbors to the North have crazy Parliament drama. Is it just me, or are global current events starting to read like The Days of Our Lives?

MEGAN: OMG, Latoya, seriously, I used to watch Days of Our Lives sort of obsessively. And by sort of obsessively, I mean, once upon a time I stood in line at the mall to get an autography from and picture with Matthew Ashford. That I still have.

LATOYA: And your verdict is?

MEGAN: Days of Our Lives once featured a plot line in which Marlena, possessed by the actual devil wreaked havoc on Salem. I think it's a valid comparison to world events.

LATOYA: Hahahahahahahha — true! I'm about to go get some breakfast (Mocha Hut!) but I did want to leave with this gem. The ignored truth about Iraq is contained in an old ass booklet.

Republished in 2008 by Dark Horse Publications, the tiny booklet for troops heading to protect the Persian Gulf’s oilfields and supply routes is a pronunciation, cultural and religious survival manual whose wisdom applies to Iraq (i-RAHK) during the era of the Toyota pickup truck and Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as much as to the age of the camel and the Luftwaffe.

“Show respect to all older persons,” writes the anonymous author.

“American success or failure in Iraq may well depend on whether the Iraqis (as the people are called) like American soldiers or not. It may not be quite that simple. But then again it could.”

MEGAN: Sigh.

LATOYA: The book is so old that Muslim is still spelled Moslem and Israel doesn't exist yet (while Iran is a footnote) and yet, the advice is still kind of pertinent.

MEGAN:

“You aren’t going to Iraq to change the Iraqis. Just the opposite.”

LATOYA: Alright — I am out. Pumpkin chai and salmon cake on a bagel, here I come. Thanks, Megan for a fun week, and thanks Jezzies, for the fun conversations. (And pics! Loved that!)