• John McCain has decided that since everyone is annoyed at him for lying and being a dick when he's called out on it, he's going to say Obama is lying and being a dick when he's called out on it. That's still lying, John, you're missing the point here. [Gawker]
• He was then promptly called out for lying again, not that he cares. [Swampland]
• And for being all for anti-abortion terrorists and their rights to harass and commit acts of violence against women and reproductive health care providers. Even better? Nancy PfotenhauerPfuckingsucks set him up for it by mistake. [Think Progress]
• He's probably still wondering why Obama is ahead in the national polls, though. [CNN]

• The Dow, unlike Obama's poll numbers, continues to shrink. [Washington Post]
• Katie Couric is annoyed that Sarah Palin is blaming her poor interview on editing. [Politico]
• Lieberman thinks God will propel Sarah Palin to the Presidency. Unfortunately, neither God nor Jesus is an American, so they can't vote. [TNR]
• Last call for voter registration in many states, so check yours here and fucking do it already if you haven't. [Vote411]
• Michelle Bruce, whose second race for City Council was undermined by her opponents' attempts to force her to expose the status of her bits, finally won her lawsuit that she didn't mislead voters by identifying as Michelle. [Wonkette, Brattleboro Reformer]

MEGAN: Hey, so, did you go to or host some awesome debate-watching party as befits a DC denizen? I mostly cracked a bottle of wine, ordered in Thai food and blogged from my sofa bed with Anna on one side of me and her husband snorting on the other every time Palin failed to answer a question.

KAY: Well, my work (the Center for American Progress) hosted a debate watching party for staff, but I opted for one filled with bloggers instead.

MEGAN: So were things broken? Was there lots of shouting? I blog in near-silence, it's very monastic. But I know I'm weird like that.

KAY: There was an abundance of sarcasm. Remember, this is the same group of people that will likely dress up as a combination of comic book characters and political puns for Halloween.

MEGAN: Halloween-wise, I'm still stuck in adolescence when I wasn't allowed to dress as anything sexy and instead found this amazing/horrifying red velveteen Ren-Fairey queen-like bridesmaid's dress for $2.50 and went as Lady Macbeth for like 3 years in a row. The last time I went all out for a costume, I was Madonna, circa "Express Yourself." Anyway, so, the debates. Do you think people noticed when she didn't answer questions and kept talking about oil?

KAY: Well, she also said that she wasn't going to answer the questions:

And I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also.

MEGAN: I know! I can't even really raise my eyebrows, but they went up at that! I was like, can she do that? Can't Gwen Ifill be like, no, you have to answer the question?

KAY: That was the closest thing I've ever seen to a candidate just say "fuck you" to the moderator.

MEGAN: I mean, and if anyone was going to tell Gwen Ifill to go fuck herself, you would have thought it would be Cheney, after she told him to keep it to 30 seconds in 2004 against Edwards when he was trying to defend Halliburton.

KAY: Right, if Cheney can restrain himself and Palin can't that really says something.

MEGAN: But at least when she tells Pat Leahy to go fuck himself, she'll toss her hair, smile, wink at Arlen Specter over his shoulder and saunter off. And the press will think it's cute. She'll have an aide/hype man with her at all times so that when she does it, he can press play on the boom box and she'll walk off to the strains of "Barracuda." Because, otherwise, it would all be for naught.

KAY: Right. But for all that prep work, it appears that Biden still blew her out of the water. I guess the point was that she just didn't look horribly unprepared, only minorly.

MEGAN: Oh, true, although at a couple of points I, too, thought she was arranging her cue cards with talking points because that's the only way some of her answers made sense. I really got the sense that, short of reading talking points off of cue cards and an ability to arrange them in some kind of order, she wasn't able to effectively segue between thoughts/talking points for answers to questions that she didn't have prepared answers for. But even so, the CBS poll didn't show as stark a win for Biden as the CNN one.

KAY: True, it's always hard to say how much stock to put in these assessment polls. It's always hard to say how "uncommitted" the voters they poll are.

MEGAN: I know, I never feel like I'm uncommitted by the summer. I'm usually uncommitted in the primaries, just because I sort of like underdogs and don't have the energy to care that much, but generally speaking, I've done my research by now even when I'm not writing about it for work.

KAY: I'm always astonished when you talk to people and they seem to say, "I don't really know that much about candidate X" as if they are powerless to do anything to solve this problem. It's called the Internet, people! Use it!

MEGAN: I think, though, that some of this stuff is really hard to wade through. Like on health care or taxes, how many people do their own taxes or buy their own health insurance? So you can read a 1 page or a 3 page white paper on either one and it's full of pablum and platitudes and you come away having no idea how those plans will affect you personally. Like, that's why the war differences are a stark contrast. That's why, at least in this case, it's really easy to explain to people why John McCain's health care "plan" sucks. It was actually pretty cool last night to hear Biden shred it both effectively and more or less correctly inside of 45 seconds in a way I felt like real people could understand if they were listening. You very rarely get down to that level of making stuff understandable for real people in politics.

KAY: Oh it's definitely valuable to have people listen to the debates. But there's also tons of analysis on each of the candidates' plans out there. McCain's health care "plan" is a good example. The campaign released it more than a year ago, and it was only until recently that people are starting to realize that he proposes taking insurance premiums out of post-tax dollars instead of pre-tax ones like they are now. And even if he gives you a tax credit on your premiums, because everyone's on the individual market costs would skyrocket within a few years so that the tax credit is virtually useless. This stuff is all out there. I know politics seems intimidating, but there are tons of great resources out there now to keep people informed about this stuff, even if they know nothing about it.

MEGAN: I mean, I wrote about it months ago in order to contrast Hillary's plan with Obama's and then I stuck McCain's plan in there for good measure. And I can tell you, that tax credit thing is vintage Douglas Holtz-Eakin (i.e., from McCain's tax guy, NOT his health care guy) because most conservative economists think the problem with the health care system is the fact that your employers gives you health insurance and so it's not a perfect market-based system. And, in their mind, if you bought your own health care rather than being part of your employer's risk pool, you would be more frugal with your health care choices and the market would operate better. OF COURSE they forget that it means that lots of people would go without health insurance, be unable or unwilling to pay and foolishly avoid the doctor for too long, driving up health care costs (since preventative care and early treatment are less expensive than catastrophic care), but, after all, they're just economists. It works on paper, right? And that's what America needs right now, better economic models.

KAY: It's so true. We should just forget about doctors and just send people to economists when they're sick. That'll fix the problem, right?

MEGAN: Well, if we're all contagious, it'll probably solve the problem with economists, anyway.

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.

SPENCER: So should we go forward with Crappy Hour or can you tell Anna that the seriousness of the financial crisis merits a suspension of the feature?

MEGAN: Oh, sure, I mean, you and I really need to get up in the Hill this morning and involve ourselves in negotiations for the bailout package that we've been heretofore uninvolved in, because our presence and our presence alone will resolve the 3 days of negotiations. It'll just take a few days. She'll understand. It's a crisis after all. And totally unlike the mortgage crisis that spawned legislation that we ignored a couple of months ago. This one is important.

SPENCER: Country First, goddammit.

MEGAN: This is not a time for partisan politics!

SPENCER: I think in 42 days, we're going to look back on this as the day McCain lost the election. A more massively unforced error I cannot imagine.

MEGAN: I guess it depends on whether you're Steve Schmidt and think that debating Obama on Friday (or having Palin debate Biden next week) would be a bigger error.

SPENCER: While I was watching Bush's speech last night, a whole other dimension of error occurred to me: why does it benefit McCain to go meet with the least popular president in history, the one whose legacy McCain has to distance himself from?

MEGAN: The only thing I can think is what some Republipundit said last night, which is that it forces Obama to interact positively with Bush, inoculating McCain to a degree, and it might allow McCain to call a shitty bailout bill a "Bush-Obama" bill. If that's the actual thinking — if there is actual thinking involved in this decision — then kudos.

SPENCER: No, that doesn't match the timeline. Remember, at 8:30 a.m. yesterday, Obama called McCain and proposed a joint statement. McCain responded affirmatively around 2ish, and then an hour later announced this no-debate stunt. The likeliest explanation is that McCain huddled with Davis and Schmidt and thought about how to throw the ball further downfield. But here they miscalculated almost completely: SurveyUSA found only 10 percent think the debate should be put off.

MEGAN: Well, at least Schmidt and Davis managed to find some people in the tank for them.

SPENCER: I guess the Bush thing could have been trying to bind Obama, but he can't turn down a presidential invite, and could just as easily put out a release as tepid as... the joint statement he did with McCain.

MEGAN: According to Obama, though, McCain brought it up at the 2:30 conference call and Obama said, let's have our people discuss it when they're talking about the joint statement. So it was on McCain's mind before. But, yeah, they were in the midst of negotiating that statement when McCain made his announcement. So, it's unsurprising that the statement is tepid.

SPENCER: Meanwhile McCain looks like a complete pussy. He's too chickenshit to debate Obama — dude, al-Qaeda bombed the fucking USS Cole in October 2000 and Bush and Gore still debated! — and now looks like a supplicant to Bush. One unforced error on top of another.

MEGAN: Oooh, nice catch on the USS Cole. Also, I'd like to point out the absurdity of the idea that Congress will be negotiating this at 9:00 on Friday night.

SPENCER: Here's another unforced error! If you're suspending the campaign, don't send out talking points on suspending the campaign! Sorry to make you open a PDF.

MEGAN: I love how we can fix the economy by the time the markets open on Monday with legislation. Presto-chango! It's fixed!

SPENCER: We don't even really need to comment on the transparent foolishness of this stunt. Within 30 minutes the bigfoot journalists on secret listservs I'm on digested it and became immediately appalled. It's a waste of time to even treat the idea seriously.

MEGAN: Dude, I started laughing hysterically when I heard. Like, it might have been the 3 cups of coffee, but I was wiping away tears listening to it, I was laughing that hard.

SPENCER: The only right-wing journalists still shilling for this are at the Weekly Standard. Even NRO readers aren't buying the dog food. Look at what Bill Kristol wrote:

As for the question of Friday night's debate, which some in the media seem to think more important than saving the financial system—if the negotiations are still going on in D.C., McCain should offer to send Palin to debate Obama! Or he can take a break from the meetings, fly down at the last minute himself, and turn a boring foreign policy debate, in which he and Obama would repeat well-rehearsed arguments, into a discussion about leadership and decisiveness. And if the negotiations are clearly on a path to success, then McCain can say he can now afford to leave D.C., fly down, and the debate would become a victory lap for McCain.

I read that and thought of the scene in Boogie Nights when a coked-out Dirk Diggler tries desperately to get erect, tears rolling down his face, talking to his cock like "come on... come on..."

MEGAN: Um, I can't believe you just made me think about Bill Kristol's cock just there. I love this part, though, Country First my ass.

Of course his motives were partly election-related. But "the interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place."

McCain is America! America is McCain! What's right for him is right for everyone! Quick, everyone swap spouses! Call your wife a cunt!

SPENCER: I call Kim Kagan. I will sex her up like Color Me Badd.

MEGAN: Will you give her your dick in a boxx?

SPENCER: Ohhh, maybe Noemie Emery. I hear she crazy. Like, files-her-pieces-on-legal-legal-paper crazy.

MEGAN: Oh, her poor interns.

SPENCER: Should probably record a take-off on a Biggie song. "Dreams (Of Fucking A Right-Wing Bitch)." Noemie, I'm just playing! ... I'm saying!

MEGAN: Man, I think we could totally make a YouTube video out of that.

SPENCER: Back to McCain. (Yo, Meghan, don't take me seriously girl. I know you're reading. Don't mind what I say about your dad. Hit me up. 281-330-8004. My girlfriend doesn't have to know.)

MEGAN: Hey, look, Cynthia McKinney, Bob Barr and Ralph Nader are offering their services. I think that should be McCain's punishment if he bails on Friday. He should have to debate them, and Obama gets a night to himself.

SPENCER: How does McCain dig himself out of this? The debate is clearly going to happen tomorrow.

MEGAN: If it doesn't, he's cost the taxpayers of Mississippi $5 million for his little stunt. Oh, how do you like your low-spending Republicans now, Red State Mississippi? At least Obama gives a shit about how he spends your money.

SPENCER: He's going to have to slink down to Mississippi, backtracking on all this, an object of total ridicule for Obama. And McCain's temper cannot handle ridicule.

MEGAN: Yeah, I don't think him showing up tomorrow is going to be some big victory lap around Ole Miss, Bill Kristol's masturbatory epistles aside.

SPENCER: I'm kind of expecting Nancy Phflorfhfthflhflfhthloger to put out a statement about how McCain spent FIVE AND A HALF YEARS not being able to debate anyone.

MEGAN: He was just doing what he always does! Like with the Surge, he was doing what he thought was right, electoral consequences be damned!! Nancy Pfuckingsucks actually said that yesterday.

SPENCER: No! She did????

MEGAN: Yes, I heard it on MSNBC, but I was already laughing so hard I couldn't laugh any harder.

SPENCER: Republican pollster Scott Rasmussen has Obama up two points in... North Carolina. End times! This guy is fucked. He just lost the election. McCain better pray for a terrorist attack or some shit.

MEGAN: I think he already masturbates to that. I don't think you can pray one-handed.

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

Keira Knightley Eyes 'Damned' [Hollywood Reporter]

Earlier: Poll: Who Should Play Isadora Wing In The Movie Version Of Fear Of Flying?

MEGAN: Hey, Spencer, want to talk about sexism for a minute? Because I think the McCain campaign just about got tired of it.

SPENCER: First of all, don't type so loud.

MEGAN: What kind of drinking did you end up doing last night?

SPENCER: I went to Townhouse after leaving Solly's, but by the time I got to Townhouse I was pretty much ready to call it a night. Anyhow. Second of all, you think Campbell Brown is going somewhere else with this, but no!

MEGAN: FREE SARAH PALIN!! I love how Campbell Brown led off with, excuse me while I pull an Olbermann and rant, it's kind of completely awesome. If only she sounded angrier, though. I like my outrage to sound more outraged.

SPENCER: Did you say you want outrage? Outrage this morning?

MEGAN: Why, yes, I feel like I need to get my day started with something and I haven't started brewing coffee...

SPENCER: Then feast on the wellspring of all outrage: the greatest op-ed ever penned. Barbara Ehrenreich in the New York Times paints her fingernails black, turns on Cradle Of Filth and unleashes an argument the country is absolutely unprepared to accept.

GREED — and its crafty sibling, speculation — are the designated culprits for the financial crisis. But another, much admired, habit of mind should get its share of the blame: the delusional optimism of mainstream, all-American, positive thinking.

Wait, what did you say?

The tomes in airport bookstores’ business sections warn against “negativity” and advise the reader to be at all times upbeat, optimistic, brimming with confidence. It’s a message companies relentlessly reinforced — treating their white-collar employees to manic motivational speakers and revival-like motivational events, while sending the top guys off to exotic locales to get pumped by the likes of Tony Robbins and other success gurus. Those who failed to get with the program would be subjected to personal “coaching” or shown the door. The once-sober finance industry was not immune.

I think my dick is hard.

MEGAN: It's too early for me to comment on your erections, so I'll simply say that I love that she's basically like, everyone on Wall Street was a delusional asshole!

SPENCER: Oh but it runs so much deeper than that. The locus for the crisis is within the soul of America. You see, you did this, in a sense: you fell for a comforting delusion, you weak-willed sucker, and you let yourself be exploited — she's saying this in the fucking New York Times! — and now look at yourself.

MEGAN: God doesn't really love you! The universe will never be stacked in your favor!

SPENCER: She goes sooooo far in this direction. By the end of the piece she finds it in her heart to praise the Puritans

Americans did not start out as deluded optimists. The original ethos, at least of white Protestant settlers and their descendants, was a grim Calvinism that offered wealth only through hard work and savings, and even then made no promises at all. You might work hard and still fail; you certainly wouldn’t get anywhere by adjusting your attitude or dreamily “visualizing” success.

MEGAN: If I remember correct, success was actually the only sign that God didn't actually hate you and you might not be going to hell after all.

SPENCER: Here, some would object that Ehrenreich has now hit the bedrock of absurdity. But FUCK THAT. If ever there was a time for some overcorrective excess, it has to be when Henry Paulson pulls a $700 billion figure out of thin air and says the part of his plan that reads "no oversight" really indicates that he "wants oversight."

MEGAN: Which is very 1984 of him.

SPENCER: I think I scrawled this op-ed in Sharpie on my desk at homeroom.

MEGAN: I skipped homeroom for 3 or 4 years in high school. And I never got caught, because I was too "good" to be doing that.

SPENCER: I got suspended. My mom had to take a day off from work and hear from a guidance counselor how I was at risk of joining a cult. But look at me now, asshole.

MEGAN: Yeah, here I am 15 years later and I am still chronically tardy. But at least I don't give a shit about motivational speakers, so I'm not completely deluded.

SPENCER: What to make of Ehrenreich's final graf?

When it comes to how we think, “negative” is not the only alternative to “positive.” As the case histories of depressives show, consistent pessimism can be just as baseless and deluded as its opposite. The alternative to both is realism — seeing the risks, having the courage to bear bad news and being prepared for famine as well as plenty. We ought to give it a try.

This is clearly a cop-out. She spent the previous 700 words arguing that pessimism is realism. I'll bet her editor put this in there, they fought about it for hours, and then she decided that she didn't actually care because God doesn't care.

MEGAN: Well, realism is pessimism to non-pessimists. Pessimists think nihilism is pessimism.

SPENCER: Meanwhile nihilists are beyond such concepts, much as they are beyond your lying, timid morality.

MEGAN: Well, I'm guessing she's no big fan of the Hope campaign.

SPENCER: HAHAHAHAHA yeah Ehrenreich totally isn't voting for Obama. Not that it appears he needs her anymore.

Turmoil in the financial industry and growing pessimism about the economy have altered the shape of the presidential race, giving Democratic nominee Barack Obama the first clear lead of the general-election campaign over Republican John McCain, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News national poll.

MEGAN: I think the country is no longer filled with optimists anyway:

Just 9 percent of those surveyed rated the economy as good or excellent, the first time that number has been in single digits since the days just before the 1992 election. Just 14 percent said the country is heading in the right direction, equaling the record low on that question in polls dating back to 1973.

SPENCER: Next up: America rejects God. Storm heaven; and unleash hell!

• Good news first: Obama is up in the polls in Pennsylvania and Iowa and tied in Minnesota and Nevada. Also, most people blame Republicans for the current economy crisis. Unfortunately, he's pulling staff from North Dakota, Georgia, Idaho and Alaska. That can't be good. [CNN, CNN, CNN]
• A new poll shows that, since putting Palin on the ticket, McCain now polls evenly with Obama on the question of who understands women and what's important to us. Obama used to have a 34 point lead. [Politico]
• Obama's got a new ad in which he (rightly) accused McCain's health care plan of being a massive program of deregulation, sort of like how McCain used to love the deregulation of financial markets, too. That the kind of change even an NRA member might fear more than an ammo tax these days. [Huffington Post]

• Speaking of, the NRA has started running ads against Obama saying that he wants to tax guns and ammo. That's all they got? Taxes? No more "cold dead hands" now that Charlton Heston's hands are cold and dead? [Marc Ambinder]
• John McCain's Brazilian mistress is out there talking about him. She thinks he's still cute. We think visualizing John McCain boning is our new weight-loss plan. [Daily Mail]
• Biden's having trouble prepping for her debates because —as we've pointed out — Palin's record is so fucking thin he's basically just prepping to debate McCain. Aw, Joe, it's ok, she doesn't much know what she thinks on a lot of issues either. [Politico]
• In a completely undeserved casualty of the liberal hatred of Sarah Palin, sales of the Chilean winery Palin's Syrahs have bottomed out in San Francisco. Good wineries should not be made to suffer! [Politico]
• Unsurprisingly, George Bush doesn't think CEOs should be financially penalized for running our country's financial system into the ground. But this was the same guy who thought giving the Secretary of the Treasury unlimited powers without judicial oversight was a good idea, so what the fuck does he know? [Think Progress, Huffington Post]

SPENCER: So I come home from one of the most economically deprived areas on the planet, one that's already experiencing a high tide of war-derived violence, where official corruption makes everything worse, only to discover that the financial sector has issued a suicide note and submitted itself to the unaccountable will the most corrupt and incompetent government in recent memory. Why didn't you just tell me I should have stayed in Afghanistan? I had to pay bribes upon bribes to dudes in Kabul and I didn't get bailed out from that, either.

MEGAN: What? The de facto nationalization of our financial services sector wasn't a good homecoming? How about the fact that the Bush Administration has snuck in this little clause about how Paulson's actions in terms of ever bailing anything out or, say, nationalizing anything else that may or may not need it are completely not subject to judicial review? As though we haven't had enough of what the Bush Administration thinks shouldn't be subject to judicial review... But, it'll be okay because Nancy swears they won't roll over this time, the way the Dems did on offshore drilling while you were gone and on FISA before you left.

SPENCER: Also I understand the Afghanistan war sooooo much better than I do the financial crisis, and when you & Moe tried to explain the meltdown to me at her birthday party I ended up even more confused, so HELP. Is all my money gone?

MEGAN: Possibly. I checked my stock portfolio last night for the first time since August and then broke into the tequila. The problem isn't whether your money is gone, it's that if you have in in a 401k or an IRA, you can't get it out without losing 30% more of what's left.

SPENCER: Yeah, I saw that my old halfway-home the Center for American Progress is against the Paulson plan, as liberals appear to have emerged from the weekend shellshock with skepticism that may or may not prove impotent

MEGAN: I'm going with... it'll prove impotent, like all their other so-called outrage. Congress kvetching about abuse of executive authority is like poor people kvetching about taxing the rich: they don't like it when it applied to them, but they all secretly think they'll be in the catbird seat one day.

SPENCER: And you know what, fuck it — I hate retreating to meta-points and cliches to mask the fact that I don't know what I'm talking about, so let me say that I don't know what the fuck is going on and math is hard and please explain this to me. I miss Afghanistan

MEGAN: Except for the Howitzers, I assume.

SPENCER: Are you kidding me? The choice is between the Howitzers firing or the base where you're trying to enjoy some Chicken a la KBR getting rocketed from a nearby mountain ridge. Howitzers produce the most comforting sound since whale songs.

MEGAN: The best thing to know about finance is to read the fine print. Your checking account is fine. If you have a savings account, that's fine too. The government has decided to pull a fast one and insure your money market, if you have one — or if any of your 401K or IRA money is invested in one. Whatever has been invested in the stock market, in your case, probably via mutual funds in your 401K is volatile. But it's ok, because you can't withdraw it for another 35 years anyway. So, the best you can do is either suck up your losses and keep your money there, or decide that you can't suck up any more and transfer it into money markets temporarily under the auspices of your 401K.

SPENCER: I have a money market account — is that fucked? Also, and I know how stupid this makes me sound, but is my, uh, PayPal account OK? MEN SHOULD NOT MONKEY AROUND WITH FINANCE. Like Raekwon said, I should've stayed in JobCorps.

MEGAN: Well, it's not fucked because the government decided to insure it last week. So, it's fucked a little because everything is fucked but it's not gone. And your PayPal has nothing to do with nothing, so that's fine.

SPENCER: So if I have, say, my savings in a money market account, that is — really, really really dumb it down for me, Megan — good or bad? Like should I stop IMing and go to the bank right now?

MEGAN: The government decided last week that they will insure your deposits in it the same way your savings account is insured, more or less. But, partly, it depends on what financial institution you have it invested in and how much money you might or might not have lost. So, if you've lost a bunch, I might leave it in and see if you can recoup. If you haven't, I would take it out and stick it in an ING savings account. If you don't need access to it, put it in a CD with a bank. (CD= Certificate of Deposit, it's a long-term savings account with higher interest rates depending on how long you agree not to ask for it back)

-14 minutes-

SPENCER: AND NOW THE FUCKING INTERNET IS BALKING ON ME! After all I've done for it.

MEGAN: The Internet is a cruel mistress.

SPENCER: I've supported the internet for its entire career. Sorry, what were you saying?

MEGAN: I was telling you, basically, that without knowing your exact financial situation I can't tell you exactly what to do but that you're not nearly as fucked as I am.

SPENCER: oh JESUS really? Am I picking up your tab at the meetup tomorrow?

MEGAN: No, it's fine, I wasn't using the stock market as a checking account or anything, so my short- and medium-term investments are all in protected places. But my long-term stuff is all in high-risk as my financial adviser recommended, so my 401K is looking pretty ragged and my stock is down 10 points which really hurt seeing that last night but I'll be fine. Oh, and I can pretty much never sell my condo, but other than that I'm fine. Excuse me, though, if I cry a little in my tequila shots tomorrow. .

SPENCER: Tears in tequila act like salt on the rim of the glass. See, the bright side! I have a friend who just bought a condo in this market, and I have no idea what he was thinking.

MEGAN: Probably that interest rates are crazy low and stuff is being sold off at fire-sale rates.

SPENCER: I don't know what it says about me that I am somehow more nervous about this than I was accompanying a midnight dismounted patrol on a dirt field that the metal detectors told us was full of IEDs. And speaking of things to worry about, the AP is saying racism is costing Obama 6 points in the polls" but Nate Silver, the breakthrough blogger of the 2008 elections says it's bullshit and Rikyrah from J&JP says the AP's motivations are suspect anyway, so what do you think?

MEGAN: Well, from a statistical analysis perspective, I think that it's really hard to tell the impact of race like that without relying on crazy hypotheticals that aren't particularly predictive.

SPENCER: This part of Nate's analysis wasn't particularly comforting:

even if it is true that Barack Obama's race puts him at something like a 6-point disadvantage with the population as a whole, the margin is probably more like 4-5 points among likely voters.

Oh, well then!

MEGAN: Well, I mean, that could be true or not. In any given election 40-60% of voters don't turn out at all, and voter turnout is correlated to education and economic levels. But, also, statistics are not a predictor of future behavior.

SPENCER: Here's an explanation of the AP's methodology that I still am not equipped to evaluate. Jesus, I'm batting .1000 today, aren't I? Too dumb to discuss the topics we ourselves chose to discuss. I should have stayed in Afghanistan.

MEGAN: Nah, isn't this why you have me around? And I'm not in Afghanistan. I mean, one thing that really stuck out in that methodological analysis is that the people polled had to have landlines even though the surveys were internet-based.

SPENCER: True on both counts. I wouldn't be able to participate even. Who has a landline? I think even my mom is getting rid of hers, and she screens her calls like a champion. So the AP racepoll is a tangle of faulty math and sophistry, then?

MEGAN: I think it is. The problem with statistics is the one cited in one of my favorite college courses, Microsociology. Statistically speaking, 1 in 5 African-American men will be imprisoned. What does that say about any given black man? Absolutely nothing. It's not a predictor of behavior. It's a statistic, and that itself is a snapshot in time of a status, not a behavior.

SPENCER: You need to team up with Mark Penn to write Microsociology: The Book. What does this poll say about snipers and the race vote, I wonder. methodologies inspire as little confidence as McCain has in Palin's debating skills:

At the insistence of the McCain campaign, the Oct. 2 debate between the Republican nominee for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin, and her Democratic rival, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., will have shorter question-and-answer segments than those for the presidential nominees, the advisers said. There will also be much less opportunity for free-wheeling, direct exchanges between the running mates.
McCain advisers said they had been concerned that a loose format could leave Ms. Palin, a relatively inexperienced debater, at a disadvantage and largely on the defensive.

NONE DARE CALL IT SEXISM.

MEGAN: Well, see, she just needs more "education and training" and then she can close the debate gap just like McCain proposes closing the wage gap. It's just too bad she can't get that in time to make a difference, sort of like American women as a whole can't. But they're still not going to support the Ledbetter Act, that is too much of a burden for businesses to swallow, paying women equally for the work that they do.

SPENCER: Speaking of Lilly Ledbetter, Christy notes that Obama is FINALLY using her in an ad. Also about the debates: Don't you think it's odd that the press believes the debates to be important, even though there's basically no evidence since at least Carter-Reagan 1980 that they've ever played a leading role in deciding an election?

MEGAN: I think it's one last opportunity for a spectacular fuck-up is why.

SPENCER: You can't win an election based on the debates — Kerry kicked Bush's ass in all three, remember, in 2004 — and I wonder if you can even lose an election through debate-ineptitude, which is clearly the McCain camp's worry. Yeah, I'm not convinced that's even true. Remember "you forgot Poland" and "wanna buy some wood"? I didn't think so. The only thing I remember from the VP debate last year is that Cheney lied about never meeting Edwards in the Senate and — oh yeah and that Cheney's daughter is what you people call a Lezebel.

MEGAN: I guess you're right, but I still think the interest lies in hoping that one of them flames out spectacularly. Plus, I'll repeat something smart I said this weekend: Biden, in particular, needs to go back and watch old tapes, and I'm not talking of VP debates. He needs to go check out Clinton-Lazio from 2000 and the Democratic Massachusetts gubernatorial debates featuring Shannon O'Brian to see what not to do when debating a woman.

SPENCER: Yes, right you are. You found the evidence refuting my point: Lazio lost his Senate race in 2000 by appearing to physically threaten HRC. If Crappy Hour were a debate, it's clear you won all three rounds this morning I could be an asshole and contend that Senate races are different than presidential races, but I'd like to set an example for John McCain and graciously concede when I've been beaten. I really miss Afghanistan.

MEGAN: Well, but I listened to whale songs instead of Howitzers for 2 weeks. And you risked life and limb to report important stuff from Afghanistan. So, I think we're at least even.

SPENCER: Okay, I'm going to the bank now to see that I still have money. I may IM you in a panic after lunch.

SPENCER: My God... As of now, ladies, I am in control here, in Crappy Hour, pending the return of Moe Tkacik. If something came up, I would check with Megan, of course.

MEGAN: It would help if I weren't sitting right here, and if you had access to the publishing system...

SPENCER: Curses... and so ends the coup.

MEGAN: Foiled again! If it wasn't for you nosy kids...

SPENCER: So hi from the back seat of my friends Michael and Dafna's Volkswagen Rabbit, careening south on 95, nearing the Susquehanna.

MEGAN: Yes, enough Scooby Doo references, this is totally a place for adults to talk about adult things. Like Paris Hilton.

SPENCER: John McCain is, at this point, the mother of all ironies: Kathy Hilton complaining about "a complete waste of the country's time and attention at the very moment when millions of people are losing their homes and their jobs." Kathy, your family could hire them all; you could house all the Katrina victims who still need housing.

MEGAN: On the other hand, you think someone in McCain's ad department could've called over to the fundraising department and said, hey, um, are these prominent Hollywood Republican friends of his donors? Or gone to Open Secrets.

SPENCER: Notice how the woman in the Times' photo is named Laura Hilton
yeah, really — Rick Davis needs that $4,600 pretty badly! Also, how could you not think about the consequences of pointing out that your candidate is funded by Paris Hilton's family?

MEGAN: They were probably too busy trying to fit as many Antichrist references in thirty seconds as possible without tipping off the non-Rapture contingent.

SPENCER: OK, please explain this to your Jewboy interlocutor
it seems pretty disgusting — every quote is out of context, for instance — but I am surely missing a ton of scriptural dogwhistles.

MEGAN: Okay, so, there's this thing called The Rapture. You're excluded. Apparently, all the "good" Christian evangelicals of the world (so, I'm excluded, too) will be brought directly to God as soon as the Antichrist takes over the world. Someone, somewhere decided Obama is the Antichrist, aka, the harbinger of the Rapture.

SPENCER: Ahhhhh see, and in the Left Behind series, the Antichrist is a Romanian. How diabolical of Obama! We always knew the Devil would have a smooth tongue.

MEGAN: So, technically my understanding is that evangelicals should actually, like, exalt his candidacy and vote for him because the Rapture is a good thing, but I'm sure I'm missing something like their actual belief that they themselves will be Raptured because God knows what they're doing behind closed doors (but, in one case at least, it involved two wetsuits, a butt dildo and auto-erotic asphyxia). But, yes, "The One" is actually "The Antichrist" and not the Messiah. Or the Highlander, for that matter. I wonder whatever happened to that guy.

Oh, nothing, never mind.

SPENCER: Now, if McCain wanted to say that Obama is the Devil he wouldn't just use the booming-voice narrator and the churchy (to my ignorant ears) guitar music in the background, he'd hire the guy who narrate the last track on Integrity's Humanity Is The Devil album.

MEGAN: But, see, the Antichrist isn't the devil exactly. It's different somehow. This is where the fundies lose me too.

SPENCER: Another tin ear for McCain! White dudes will vote for the Highlander.

MEGAN: Yes, totally, Obama needs to start going to cons.

SPENCER: The Antichrist is the Devil's handmaiden or something? Whoa, Baltimore tunnel.

MEGAN: Obama is sucking the devils dick!

SPENCER: I may lose connectivity.

MEGAN: That's cool, I'll wait the whole 3 minutes.

SPENCER: So the Devil is Larry Sinclair, then you know, speaking of things white people like: Barack Obama.

MEGAN: I believe the deal is that the whole thing is pre-ordained anyway, so it's not like Good and Evil, but it's all God's plan or some shit. He is pretty! He's going on vacation to Hawai'i soon, so there will be new topless pictures for us!

SPENCER: My ex-boss has this great catch in today's WaPo story:

Obama's advantage is attributable largely to overwhelming support from two traditional Democratic constituencies: African Americans and Hispanics. But even among white workers — a group of voters that has been targeted by both parties as a key to victory in November — Obama leads McCain by 10 percentage points, 47 percent to 37 percent, and has the advantage as the more empathetic candidate.

So my Q to you: is there any demographic group that can decide the election that McCain leads among?

MEGAN: What I like is that those people don't think either candidate will make a bit of difference in their day-to-day lives! And people say they're not smart. I think he does better among rich old white people. That's, like, Florida.

SPENCER: But this is a GOP goldmine demographic that knows everything about McCain and nearly nothing about Obama, and they're going for Obama hard. That should be a nice campaign palliative now that I'm reading that Obama's lead is gone in the Gallup poll.

MEGAN: And McCain is now vetting Eric Cantor for the Jewish vote and to keep Virginia red. Obama's up in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, though.

SPENCER: That right there is a testimonial to the antipathy of the Tribespeople to the GOP. I think Eric Cantor was the nasally kid who ratted me out to the teacher for feeling up a classmate of mine at East Midwood Jewish Center.

MEGAN: By the way, when we were at dinner with Erica at Zengo that time and I was like, dammit, who is that guy? That guy was Eric Cantor.

SPENCER: Was Joe Lieberman not charismatic enough? Oh right, I forgot: We don't like that asshole, either.

Shit, really? That was why our dinner took for-fucking-ever? I'm going to get J Street to destroy him.

MEGAN: Yes, yes it was. Another reason not to like him. Amusingly, McCain operatives, I mistook him for someone that works for Blunt because I've never seen him do anything but toady up to Blunt. And because he looks 15.

SPENCER: Speaking of blunt, as in unsubtle, and FUCKING IDIOTIC, an Obama ad more annoying than the Encyclopedia Britannica ad with that longhair douche. You know what a campaign getting attacked for elitism needs? More Gwyneth Paltrow.

MEGAN: Also, she's the worst actor in the whole fucking commercial. It's like she thinks she's talking to learning disabled children.

SPENCER: Right, I keep expecting her to tell me that my 50-cent donation will make all the difference to Aspergers' sufferers.

MEGAN: I mean, these are Americans who actually bothered learning to speak another language. Except for her, I mean, she's just in London.

SPENCER: And who approved the two assholes who are like "I'll be voting from Paris!" "Me too!"?

MEGAN: Someone in London, probably.

SPENCER: "...and I'll be eating arugula out of my gay husband's butt on a bed of shredded Bibles! We're just in the next Arrondisement!"

MEGAN: Speaking of arugula, Honest Tea is the new arugula, and that's just unfair because Honest Tea rocks. Just because McCain is from Arizona doesn't mean the rest of us should be forced to drink that swill.

SPENCER: We part company: Arizona ice tea got me through junior high, along with Snapples and Quarterwater.

MEGAN: And now that you're not 12, which would you rather drink?

SPENCER: What kind of elitist would rather drink ice tea that doesn't come from a powder?

MEGAN: Or lettuce that isn't iceberg?

SPENCER: Women of loose morals like yourself, clearly.

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• Barack Obama rejected/denounced his old friend Jeremiah Wright on television today on the advice of certain wise commenters and also prominent columnists and locking in a critical majority of my family members. Watching it was less fun than watching him shake the dirt off his shoulder but as Jigga would say "so necessary." [Wonkette]
  
• So the question remains: why the fuck did Jeremiah Wright give all those damaging, yammering unyielding undermining speeches? Newt Gingrich thinks he's just jealous. [ABC News]
  
• Though maybe he was just testing God? [Chicago Tribune]
  
• And Barack Obama finally de-friended him...only after consulting some cynical pollsters? Take it from a Republican. [JohnLocke.org]
  
• An African-American studies professor from a long line of Mormons wishes Mitt Romney was around so everyone else could be reminded how tame black liberation theology is next to some of the fun ideas Joseph Smith had. [TheRoot]

• There are a ton of conflicting poll numbers I could treat you with today but I'm going with the one discussed in this story because I'm sick of clicking on new windows and it concerns Indiana and because I'm biased, so kill me. [Indy Star]
• And here, anyone offended by my bias... [SayNoToCrack]
• Awkward segue alert! A teen FLDS member just gave birth to another inbred child of what was probably at the very least statutory rape, if the mother had any idea of her actual age. [AP]
• WHICH five IMF members did not vote in favor of giving more voting rights to developing countries? No really, which? [WSJ]

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Rocky
"My dog, Rocky, needs a major makeover because I'm not exactly sure
what his face looks like anymore. [This picture is of him] beating up the cat and, as you might notice, they blend into one gigantic black fluff ball. He's the lighter-colored and bigger one. Please make it so that I'll be able to seperate my dog from my cat. His long black hair also hides seaweed and sand and dirt quite well until he can get under my blankets and shake the filth off."

Coconut
"I am nominating my pup Coconut, he's a 2 year old Pomeranian! This little fuzzywump really need a good grooming! Besides his massive amount of frizzy fur, his little nails need a cuttin', he looks a lot more delightful with a haircut. Plus, I won't have to keep giving him "big plastic cup" showers in the tub after every time he leaves his tootie rolls for me to pick up. (he leaves a reminder behind) Plus, he
would love to meet and show off his dance moves to you guys..."

Sparky
"Sparky is a 7 year old adopted beagle/dachshund rescue from the BARC Shelter in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Like any other hipster dog he enjoys striped sweaters, tofu and Rufus Wainwright. Sparky is continually ridiculed by his owner's friends because of his funky crooked tail (which may have been broken pre-adoption and sticks out at a weird angle resembling a man's genitalia), freakishly long torso and heinous bad breath. He would truly enjoy a day of pampering — and he hasn't peed on the floor in a while, so he deserves it. What Sparky lacks in looks he certainly makes up in personality. He's feisty, opinionated, playful and loves to sleep all day long. In the attached picture, Avon perfume had just been sprayed and Sparky reacted appropriately. He told me later he much prefers anything by Chanel."

Bob
"I'm attaching a particularly gnarly photograph of my dog, Bob. He's a four-year-old Yorkie/Daschund mix with a bad case of skin allergies and an ever-present funk that permeates my bedroom. I'd say this picture showcases him at his worst, but a friend of mine claims he looks just like Heather from the first season of Rock of Love. He can look pretty good with the proper treatment, but ever since my best friend quit her grooming job 2 years ago to become a nurse, it's all gone downhill."

Oslo
"This is my dog Oslo. She is 8 years old. Why yes, those ARE frozen lines of drool hanging from her mouth. It was 25 degrees out when the shot was taken, so imagine what the drool is like when the weather is actually hot in Chicago. It hangs from her mouth, it drips down to the fur on her chest, it smells like sin. All day. Every day. You can see how long her hair is... It gets tangled and matted, and it's near-impossible to comb through. She's a whole lotta lady to groom. It requires the skill of a trained professional. It also requires someone who has no sense of smell."

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But apparently the "holidate" is all the rage. Fairmont, a luxury chain of hotels, has packages designed for new couples — including "icebreaker" specials. Nothing says "I'd like to get to know you better" like a quick trip to the Caribbean! Here's the thing: Traveling is tricky business. Traffic sucks, gas is expensive, airports are hellish, hotel rooms can be cramped. Yeah, yeah, I know, you love adventure! And you love your new guy! Trust: A missed connecting flight or a wrong turn on a thruway can bring out the beast, turning your dream man into a nightmare. And that's just getting there. Wait until you're both tired and sunburned with morning breath and diarrhea and someone's disgusting bathroom habits and inability to read a map surface. No, seriously: Going away with a dude is totally romantic. Or at least, it can be. But is it a good idea to travel with someone you've been dating for six weeks? Are you asking for trouble? Is it an expensive "road test"? And how long should you be dating someone before you "holidate" together? (Not an overnight tip, not a weekend trip. A long weekend trip, a few hundred miles out of town. Three nights, minimum.)

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Giving New Relationships The Road Test [LA Times]

And I don't necessarily mean "frequented prostitutes" while the two of you were together. I think for most people, being cheated on with a prostitute would be serious cause for relationship reevaluation. I dated one dude who admitted to frequenting hookers when he lived in Ecuador, and I must admit, it made me think twice about getting in a serious relationship with him. But that was just me; have your say in the poll below and/or in the comments.

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The Sun has a video of "duh" tips on how to ask your man to propose: Be sure he'll say yes by finding out how he feels about marriage; judge his character: "Some men may take proposal as the ultimate assault on their masculinity"; choose somewhere special; instead of a ring, give him a well-thought out gift; "be brave." All well and good in theory. But it's just one of those things! Even the most girl-power girl could find it romantic to see her man on one knee. Still. If we're modern women with partner-in-crime relationships built on equality, why shouldn't a woman do the proposing? Would you do it?

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What Happens When The Woman Proposes [Times]
Wedded To Old Times [Guardian]
Leap Proposal Tips For Girls [The Sun]

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Lindsay As Marilyn [New York Magazine]

Earlier: Nipple Alert!

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Rachel Ray Doesn't Like Dunkin Donuts Coffee Any More Than We Do [New York Megazine]

Charlie says many heavy drinkers, especially those who grew up around alcoholics, set a private benchmark in their denial. "They say to themselves, 'As long as I'm not making a fool of myself in a bar, or drinking in the morning, or as long as I'm still showing up for work, then I'm not an alcoholic.'" You know you've hit bottom, he adds, "when your behavior spirals downward faster than you can lower your standards."

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Are You An Alcoholic? [WSJ]
Don't read this then. [News.com.au]
Image via BoozeMovies

"This time around, 'I just had to feel it on my skin,' he said, sounding primal.

His wife rolled her eyes.

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A Man's New Best Friend: Diamonds And Pearls [WSJ]

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Bald Toxic Shock Girl's Misery Turns To Joy After Winning Three Year Modelling Contract [Daily Mail]
Toxic Shock Syndrome [Kids Health]
Toxic Shock Syndrome [Mayo Clinic]

Welcome to the Urine Nation poll!

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Japanese Wives Scent Victory In Battle Of The Loo [Guardian]
Earlier: The Shenis, Or, What Happens When Girls Pee Standing Up