MOE: Yo, sorry, I have been working on this freelance piece that is disrupting my normal function. I haven't looked at Drudge in a good 24 hours. I just felt so undernourished I bought a Starbucks Vivanno. WHOA what the fuck???

MEGAN: I know, I saw that! What's even worse is that he was a colleague of the guy the FBI totally thought did it and leaked to the press about and finally had to declare innocent and pay millions of dollars to. Kinda makes you wonder what his motives were, right?

Also, his little escapades contaminated half the building, which he totally tested off-the-record and in secret.

MOE: Yeah, Hatfill. Hatfill, who that Vanity Fair linguist pegged.

MEGAN: Well, the FBI pegged him to everyone.

MOE: Right. My mind is still blown here.

After the government's settlement with Hatfill was announced in late June, Ivins started showing signs of strain, the Times said. It quoted a longtime colleague as saying Ivins was being treated for depression and indicated to a therapist that he was considering suicide. Family members and local police escorted Ivins away from the Army lab, and his access to sensitive areas was curtailed, the colleague told the newspaper. He said Ivins was facing a forced retirement in September.

MEGAN: I dunno, the subtext there is that he did it as much to frame Hatfill as anything else, right? Am I just being too suspicious?

MOE: So the whole thing where IT HAS TO BE HATFILL BECAUSE HE WENT TO SCHOOL NEAR A RHODESIAN TOWN CALLED GREENDALE... apparently not! Do you think he just hated Hatfill? This is seriously the most awesome twist to a seriously awesome story. As you can tell, I am at a loss for words. Will you do the intro today?

MEGAN: Sure. And I'm just going to throw this in there even though no one but me and Charlotte Corday probably care, but the wife of the former Prime Minister of Thailand that the military deposed in a coup whose supporters still run the post-military government was convicted of tax evasion yesterday. But none of their supporters particularly care and that's sort of why it's bad to depose a Democratically elected government in a coup and then go after all the corrupt people because she may have not paid her taxes BUT YOU PUT TANKS IN THE STREETS.

Also, I miss my lobbying days this morning. The one time I went to a Chamber afterparty (with Alex Pareene!), I had to pay my own bar tab but I did share a cab to my neighborhood with some random guy that I thought drunkenly was part of the group and wasn't but he was really hot.

MOE: Um, yeah, I don't know what to say about Thaksin, really, can we stay on task here? The Thai military might have put tanks in the street over THERE, but they also let elephants run free and never even got a cool colonial name like Rhodesia. This guy killed like 6 AMERICANS, MOST OF WHOM WORKED FOR THE POSTAL SERVICE. And rendered every editor in America terrified to open the mail.

MEGAN: And Hill staffers! Don't forget the Daschle intern he poisoned.

MOE: With brothers like these!

The eldest of his two brothers, Thomas Ivins, said he was not surprised by the events that have unfolded. "He buckled under the pressure from the federal government," Thomas Ivins said, adding that FBI agents came to Ohio last year to question him about his brother. "I was questioned by the feds, and I sung like a canary" about Bruce Ivins' personality and tendencies, Thomas Ivins said.
"He had in his mind that he was omnipotent."

Feds before bros I guess. Remember when the Right was telling everyone the anthrax came from IRAQ? Motherfucker.

MEGAN: Well, Ted Kaczynski's brother turned him in, actually. I mean, when your brother is a sociopathic mass murderer, I think it's cool.

C'mon, here's something you'll like: GM lost more money last quarter than Exxon made.

MOE: Here's a news organization that really doesn't deserve any stray spores:

In a nation in which 66% of the voting-age population is overweight and 32% is obese, could Sen. Obama's skinniness be a liability? Despite his visits to waffle houses, ice-cream parlors and greasy-spoon diners around the country, his slim physique just might have some Americans wondering whether he is truly like them.

MEGAN: Oh, God, really? That's what the WSJ has to say? Obama's not fat enough to lead?

Um, sorry, new brief tangent, Daniel Craig is going to play some (hot) bisexual Roman king or something. Is it too much to hope that he'll be shirtless the entire movie?

MEGAN: And, switching gears again, John Rich of country music band Big and Rich penned a new song for John McCain and it sounds sucktastic.

He stayed strong, stayed extra long til they let all the other boys out. Now we've got a real man with an American plan, we're going to put him in the big White House.

MOE: Okay, that Times story reminds me of a thing that I think about earnings stories which is that they should just all come with little graphics so you know exactly what they're talking about. Like, I don't think that story lists a revenue figure for the quarter, though here

The company lost $4.4 billion in North America in the period, and its revenues dropped 33 percent, from $29.7 billion to $19.8 billion. That compared with a profit of $92 million in the quarter a year ago.

it looks like they list a North American revenue figure. I'm not sure. Anyway, the point is, net profit figures exist mostly to win the sympathies of the IRS and thus, when you see that one company's "losses" exceed another company's earnings, you kind of have to look a little closer at like how $83 billion in OIL earnings became $11 billion on profits. And that's where you learn that EXXON actually also lost money in the united states, due to the same commodity prices that earned it so much in its "upstream" exploration business. Which is to say, I throw up my hands. I'm still smarting from this Ivins dude.
"Why isn't this story the lead story in every newscast in America?" that blonde Fox anchor just asked.
GUESS WHAT IS.

MEGAN: Barack Obama "playing the race card"? Charlie Rangel not getting censured for doing shady shit? The Pakistani government cooperating in bombing the Indian embassy in Kabul? Oh, wait, hahaha, yeah, Americans don't give a shit about that.

McCain being senile? Rielle Hunter's baby's birth certificate not listing a father because under California law if there's not a husband she needs the father to sign a bunch of legal paperwork agreeing that he is?

MOE: Oh Jesus. That's what you get for not sufficiently appreciating Musharraf? Or what?

The government officials were guarded in describing the new evidence and would not say specifically what kind of assistance the ISI officers provided to the militants. They said that the ISI officers had not been renegades, indicating that their actions might have been authorized by superiors.
“It confirmed some suspicions that I think were widely held,” one State Department official with knowledge of Afghanistan issues said of the intercepted communications. “It was sort of this ‘aha’ moment. There was a sense that there was finally direct proof.”

MEGAN: Or it was in the works before Uncle Pervy left? Who knows. I thought when India and Pakistan both got nukes they were done being mad at each other.

But what, is the Fox News girl sad isn't the lead story? Inquiring minds want to know...

MOE: What do you think it is really direct proof of? Like, direct proof the universe is completely fucked? Direct proof civil liberties are overrated?

Oh, and the story was this a-ha moment Lots of a-ha moments today!

MEGAN: Oh, for Chrissakes. We've become so fat and so lazy that we want a pill to make it all better? Like, we'll spend untold millions of dollars researching and then paying for a pharmaceutical product to prevent having to go for a freaking walk?

MOE: But think of the countless BLOGGER LIVES IT WILL SAVE.

MEGAN: Until they discover the side effect that using it in conjunction with Movable Type causes seizures and brain damage, not that that's not already a side effect of Movable Type.

Hey, so, like, wanna address the elephant in the virtual room? Because I won't get to say it other than in the comment threads and shit, but I'm going to miss doing this with you. It was fun even when I was hungover and depressed and it and you were the reasons I got out of bed in the mornings the weeks after I got fired from Wonkette. Well, I mean, woke up anyway. I wrote a lot of them from bed.

MOE: Uhhhhh I don't do goodbyes very well. And somehow I don't think this will be the last time I'm on the Crappy Hour. I actually have a lot of ideas for how you should improve it in my absence that I'm going to write you a memo about. But yeah, like, I learned a lot of stuff doing this! Like how having a hangover doesn't always help one's writing! And how much I hate memes. Also, we are going to get that Bloggingheads ripoff idea worked out if I have to send you a fancy camera. That will be soooooo fun.

MEGAN: Yeah, I sort of suck at goodbyes, too, and I'm glad to hear you're not completely opposed to the idea of doing this again because, well, I mean, it's kinda weird contemplating doing it without you ever. Also, my dad mostly fixed my other computer with which my camera is more compatible, so I think that's totally do-able. And I look forward to your memo, which I will proceed to get stinking drunk in your honor before I read.

MOE: And yeah, Spencer? You should try to enlist Mike Madden of Salon some mornings. Pressler owes us an IM or too. I mean shit, I could do it once a week. But I like the ones where there's a focus, like OIL or PEDOPHILE FUNDAMENTALIST MORMONS or ANDY SAMBERG AND HIS $300 MILLION ALBANIAN AMMUNITIONS whatever. Or, like that one day when we were all set to join the Iranian resistance! Or that charming KBR gang rape story! So much, so much we have been through together.

MEGAN: Shh, Spencer will be hurt when he finds out that we're thinking about opening ourselves up to other men! But, um, yeah, I'm got some ideas in that regard, too, I mean, I'm rarely a one-man woman, intellectually speaking. I have been a one-woman woman for a bit, now, though, except for that one time with Sinister Rouge but she tempted me so! But the ones where we stayed with one topic were pretty cool.

MOE: Yeah I think I'd like to do a one-topic one every so often. Maybe once a week! And commenters can decide the topic! We can poll them! And challenge them to present us with appropriate reading materials so we don't have to do all the work! Hahaha remember when I wanted to poll them as to which job I should take? Good times. I was going to try and find "I Hate You, I Love You" by the Dead Milkmen to express my commenter gratitude but I can't so you'll have to make do with this. God if the Dead Milkmen would write a song about Alycia Lane that would be like our anthem. The dead milkmen and Santogold.

I miss Philly.

MOE: Okay, first of all, re the companies chosen for those coveted Iraq oil contracts of course they did, some people are complete idiots, Paul Krugman thinks Obama needs to be more like Reagan than Clinton…so what's Obama doing here??



MEGAN: On the first story, gotta love this quote:

The advisers — who, along with the diplomatic official, spoke on condition of anonymity — say that their involvement was only to help an understaffed Iraqi ministry with technical and legal details of the contracts and that they in no way helped choose which companies got the deals.

I mean, does anyone actually believe that?



MOE: Also I don't know if you've been reading about this book but it's been eliciting some really surprising rarely-articulated viewpoints from pundits such as:

The people who fund and run the GOP are simply too committed to the idea of cutting taxes for affluent people and reducing government spending… In fact, even saying the GOP estabilshment is "committed" to these things understates the grip of economic libertarianism over the party. It suggests a worldview that's the product of some reflection, when in fact the economic libertarianism of big GOP donors is mostly an expression of their self-interest

And in case you didn't catch what he was trying to say there:

—i.e., they want to keep their own taxes low.

MEGAN: As for McCain's record, not to bash on John Aravosis whose work I normally like, but Jeffrey Klein did that story way better, like two weeks ago without going into the gutter at all.



Well, the problem with Noam Scheiber's analysis in that review is that he repeats the claptrap that the GOP is ostensibly committed to reducing government spending, which is utter bullshit.

Let's bust that myth people. They are committed to saying they want to reduce government spending, and committed to spending more of it in ways that appeal to them ideologically (i.e., defense, abstinence education, marriage-promotion) or appeal to their constituents (i.e., earmarks)

MOE: Okay here's the thing:

The authors say they blew their chances to capitalize on their opening to these voters “by confusing being pro-market with being pro-business, by failing to distinguish between spending that fosters dependency and spending that fosters independence and upward mobility, and by shrinking from the admittedly difficult task of reforming the welfare state so that it serves the interests of the working class rather than the affluent.”

To "distinguish between spending that fosters dependency and spending that fosters independence and upward mobility" is, as near as I can figure, the opposite of "pro-market."

MEGAN: Yes, I would agree with that completely. Of course, apparently, "spending that fosters independence and upward mobility is — surprise! — serendipitously spending on things like marriage promotion and putting more black people in jail and abstinence education!

Douthat and Salam say to the contrary that the social issues are a major part of working-class insecurity. “Safe streets, successful marriages, cultural solidarity and vibrant religious and civic institutions make working-class Americans more likely to be wealthy, healthy and upwardly mobile. Public disorder, family disintegration, cultural fragmentation and civic and religious disaffection, on the other hand, breed downward mobility and financial strain — which in turn breeds further social dislocation, in a vicious cycle that threatens to transform a working class into an underclass."

Great, so, the government is now going to be able to solve the problems of family disintegration by.... making divorce harder? Making marriage necessary for all pregnant women? They're going to solve religious disaffection by... making religion mandatory? And, God knows the Democrats love them some public disorder. Yum, goes perfectly in my coffee.

MOE: The thing that is so dreamy about talking about this stuff as a failure to distinguish between the different kinds of "spending" is that it really cuts to the heart of the issue that, as some guy points out on today's WSJ edit page OF ALL PLACES…numbers lie!

MEGAN: Whoa, seriously, someone spiked the coffee with LSD at the WSJ this weekend:

there is no such thing as "the economy."

MOE: The first Harper's reading last month said this a lot better, but I'm not sure where it is online. Maybe I'll just screengrab it here.

Dammit, it doesn't want to let me, oh well.

MEGAN: Although, back to the intersection of economics and politics, I spent hours yesterday obsessed with the implications of this chart. Which goes with this article but the article's less interesting and not just because I like pretty pictures.

MOE: Oh here it is. Anyway we forgot to discuss < a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aftgJ3S0euEQ&refer=home">Steven Hatfill, whose name is not Mohammed and therefore actually got some money out of his whole post-9/11 harassment, or we never did, because that happened on Friday and I was too tired out from Dimitri the Lover to do a proper news roundup, but hahaha he did well for himself. And Mallaby who I generally love has something on oil and speculation and whatnot.

And now I have to try to get on the internet bus

BRB as they say.

9 minutes

MOE: And I'm back! On the bus. But I'm still using the free Dupont wifi signal so I'm not sure if that's sustainable.

MEGAN: I think it kicks in on the bus pretty soon, but we can totally hurry up.

Anyway, what's fascinating about the chart I sent is about the redistribution of wealth in this country, from the Midwest to the Coasts (by and large) and the weirdness that Alaska and Hawai'i were two of the richest 12 states in 1976.

And about how the richest states — and by and large, the richest people — are increasingly turning to the Democratic party. Fucking elitists.

—-—-—16 minutes—-—

MOE: Hey

Do you read me?

MEGAN: Yup

MOE: The wifi server is allegedly just getting reactivated

So I'm on bberry.

Anna is going to kill me but. If this works it isn't a bad thing. Free wifi in DuPont is good!

MEGAN: No problem! I got grabbed coffee and a yogurt and plugged my computer back in as I was previously sitting on the front porch watching my neighbor playing with his baby and the cats of the 'hood stare at me

Anyway, the wifi bus worked fine for me the one round trip I took it. I, um, spent most of the time IM'ing with people.

MOE: So Cass Sunstein co authors an oped in the Wash Post... Cass sunstein is the Obama policy adviser yes? It doesn't mention that. But anyway it is about the death penalty. I wanted to bring up Juan Williams admirably

MEGAN: Juan Williams?

Also, Cass Sunstein, I'm not sure if he's an adviser but he's definitely a fan

MOE: Frustrated performance on fox news Sunday re the supreme courts striking down the gun ban

MEGAN: Sadly, I have no cable but I will find a clip.

I mean, my parents have no cable because my mother doesn't believe in it.

MOE: Maybe I can find a clip. What he lacked in eloquence he made up for in abject what the fuckitide

My dad and I talked about whether murder is the worst crime. He believes in the death penalty for people who cut off peoples legs and gouge their eyes out and such.

MEGAN: On the other hand, I think blind people and amputees would probably disagree, right?

MOE: If I can't get wifi on this bus I'm going to make them drop me off on the side of the 295

MEGAN: As though there's wifi along 295?

MOE: Well if you had your arms and legs cut off and your eyes gouged out by some crazy child rapist you might feel like giving that guy the lethal injection, I dunno,

MEGAN: But is it worse than murder? Would I rather be dead than mutilated? I guess I already made the decision a long time ago that I'd rather be a living sexual assault victim than a dead one. So I guess that makes murder worse.

It's kind of a subjective question

MOE: Yeah anyway sunstein mostly discusses the evidence or lack thereof for and against the concept that the death penalty is a deterrent which is sort of the same question...

MEGAN: For the death penalty to be a deterrent, people would have to believe sincerely that the likelihood is that they will get caught.

MEGAN: Most people aren't weighing the consequences of their actions or thinking that far ahead, frankly.

MOE: I wonder what the penalty for advertising internet access on your bus service and failing to deliver is...

MEGAN: Ok, that's totally a capital offense.



MOE: Lol I just passed the capitol.