SPENCER: we gonna do this?
MEGAN: See, if you were Moe we would totally be discussing the whole people in Pennsylvania might be kind of racist thing, but I don't know anyone from Latrobe, don't drink Rollg Rock (which isn't even brewed there anymore) and I can't really say for Pennsylvania, so unless you've got thoughts, we might want to just talk about the dude who was stockpiling AK-47s because they would be really valuable when Hillary got elected and banned them.
SPENCER: unfortunately, DC's popular coffee shop Busboys and Poets hosts wi-fi so weak that I can't open any links, so I need you to flesh that story out for me a bit
srsly, this is like dial-up or something
and why would you drink rolling rock? yuengling!
If yuengling ever decided to launch a national ad campaign, it should use 'Jingling Baby' by LL
'it's yueng-a-ling, baby/ go 'head baby...'
MEGAN: Well, I don't really drink beer ever, except for that beer I brought to poker night which I found out I liked when I told a bartender I didn't drink beer and he made me try every single one in the bar, and there were 40.
That was a lot of beer. By the end, I sort of didn't care either way, but I liked that one best.
SPENCER: god, you know what was a great band? Catherine Wheel
MEGAN: Oh, right, the story. Um, people in Latrobe never say they're not going to vote for Obama because he's black but they've got all these other reasons that don't sound legit and it makes themm sound like they won't vote for him because he's black. The best quote is this:

In a place like Latrobe, which the census says is 99 percent white, the race issue is almost an unexplored country that people visit like tourists with a phrase book.

His flat delivery often makes him seem bored with his own stories — as he did Tuesday, when he told a crowd of current students at his alma mater, "Memory often accords our high school years the distinction of being among the happiest of our lives. I remember Episcopal in that light."

Earlier: Ousted Hot Obama Adviser Samantha Power's Advice On Love
Hot Obama Adviser Samantha Power F***s Up Big Time

• Wyoming caucus tomorrow! Obama is expected to win. Because it's the home state of his distant cousin Dick Cheney? Nah, but I thought I'd use this bizarre picture anyway. [AP, Rolling Stone]
  
• I couldn't exactly run another Samantha Power pic. But here she is in the news again, talking about how that whole sixteen month plan is unrealistic and stupid or something that will no doubt be spun 47.5 different ways. [Politico]
  
• Employers cut more jobs in February than they have in five years. What sector was hit the hardest? Ummmmm, all of them! [Yahoo!]
  
• Ooooh, look, a fun ranking of corporate America's fifty biggest single paydays! [Vanity Fair]
  
• Speaking of! Virginia Rep. Tom Davis valiantly came to their recipients' defense today in Congress, because cross-examining the warmhearted captains of industry behind the mortgage crisis is really just like sacrificing virgins. [Wonkette]
  
• Speaking semi- also of! Obama campaign manager David Plouffe wants to see Clinton's tax returns, suggests she try out the photocopying services at Kinko's. [Wash Post]
  
• Marion Jones went to jail. [People]
  
• Michigan Senator Carl Levin thinks everyone should just forget the fuck about his disenfranchised voters already. [CNN]

• OMG Chinese army-trained hackers NO ONE IS SAFE. [CNN]
• Italian adulteresses are now officially allowed to lie about their affairs to protect their reputations. No word on adulterers, but it's apparently a refreshing change of pace for the Court of Cassation, which once issued that a woman could not be raped by definition if she was wearing tight jeans, since the jeans could only be removed with her consent. . [BBC]
• All that time it was the Clinton campaign that wanted to reassure the Canadians about NAFTA, not the Obama campaign! What a silly mix-up. [MSNBC]
• Hey! Remember that time you were almost a Democrat, John McCain. No, not that time, the time when Kerry wanted you for a running mate...Well alright then! [Real Clear Politics]
• "Pillow talk??? Girl, I need to have someone come and clean up all the feathers from our pillow fights!" An excerpt from Dyson v. Dyson, wherein a Clinton supporter marries an Obama supporter. [The Root]
• Belarus is kicking out our ambassador. I know, right? I didn't know that we'd imposed economic sanctions on Belarus, charging that the national gas company is tacitly controlled by its increasingly brutal dictator Alexander Lukashenko either. But like, it sounds pretty plausible, huh? [Wash Post]

But one among us asked of a man she was seeing, "If I had to become a refugee, could I do it with him?" In my friend's case, the guy flunked and was given the boot. But that question, that standard, has remained with me. If you lost your creature comforts, if Katrina struck your neighborhood, who could make you laugh, care for you, remain curious about you and retain your curiosity?

Why Can't We [Nation]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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