[Bangkok, December 2. Image via Getty]

A Thai nurse holds incense sticks as she offers prayers for the recovery of Thai King Bhumibol Adulayadej, at the Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok on December 2, 2009. Thailand's royal palace announced on November 30, 2009 the postponement of a speech and military parade to mark the birthday of the nation's revered king, who has been hospitalised for two and a half months with a lung infection and fever. King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest reigning monarch who is regarded as a demi-god by many Thais and considered a unifying force in a politically turbulent nation, turns 82 on December 5, 2009. AFP PHOTO/Christophe ARCHAMBAULT (Photo credit should read CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP/Getty Images)

[Vientiane, Laos; December 2. Image via Getty]

A Vietnamese female fan attends a football match between Vietnam and Thailand at the 25th Southeast Asian Games (SEAGAMES) in Vientiane on December 2, 2009. The match ended 1-1. AFP PHOTO (Photo credit should read AFP/AFP/Getty Images)

[Bangkok, December 1. Image via Getty]

A Thai food vendor sells skewers to train passengers in Bangkok on December 1, 2009. Thailand is no longer in a state of deflation after consumer prices rose for the second consecutive month in November, the commerce ministry said. AFP PHOTO/Christophe ARCHAMBAULT (Photo credit should read CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP/Getty Images)

[Bangkok, October 7. Image via Getty]

Member of Thailand's People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) parade during a rally in Bangkok on October 7, 2009. Thousands of royalist Yellow Shirt protesters gathered to commemorate the first anniversary of a violent crackdown on their protests after they stormed the main government compound. Thailand's 'Yellow Shirt' protest movement helped topple premier Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006 and occupied Bangkok's airports in 2008 to oust his allies. AFP PHOTO/PORNCHAI KITTIWONGSAKUL (Photo credit should read PORNCHAI KITTIWONGSAKUL/AFP/Getty Images)

[Bangkok, August 25. Image via Getty]

A Thai woman carries a bunch of home-made sweepers for sale along railway tracks in Bangkok on August 25, 2009. Thailand's economy shrank 4.9 percent year-on-year in the second quarter but is showing signs of recovery from the global slowdown, official figures showed. AFP PHOTO/Christophe ARCHAMBAULT (Photo credit should read CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP/Getty Images)

When National Geographic first ran images of the Padaung, it was anthropological gawking - but the "exotic women" whose collarbones had been depressed from early childhood with heavy brass rings, had at least been photographed on their own turf. Now, as refugees from devastated, war-torn Burma, they're a popular tourist attraction in neighboring Thailand - brought in by entrepreneurs who keep them in an artificial village they're not allowed to leave. And, as the Washington Post's Amit R. Paley found, it's a sad and complex situation.

While many consider this a human rights violation so heinous that more scrupulous travel companies refuse to sponsor tours to their village, others are more pragmatic: for the refugees, some defenders - and, indeed, villagers themselves- claim, it's better than the dangers of Burma, and gives them a chance to make money by selling handicrafts to tourists or charging for photographs. Said the Seattle PI's Denis Gray when he visited their compound a decade ago, "Economically it's a virtually perfect arrangement. Everyone gets a cut — the once impoverished Padaung, Thai businessmen and government tax collectors, even a rebel group that uses the money to finance its war with the military regime in Burma."

Morally, it's far from perfect. Whatever the villagers' feelings about the situation, they're clearly being exploited. Thailand, which has given them asylum, is profiting. And the Tales of Asia blog points out that the practice is actually in violation of UN High Commission for Refugees guidelines, which prohibits putting refugees "on display." While no one whom the Post's Paley spoke to claimed to be ill-treated, the facts are still shocking.

"Why do we wear the rings?" said Mamombee, 52, whose neck seemed particularly elongated. "We do it to put on a show for the foreigners and tourists!" I couldn't tell if she was joking...There were no guards around, and it did not look to me as if anyone would physically stop the women from leaving. When I asked how they had arrived at this village, they said a man named U Dee, whom they referred to as "the middleman," first began bringing Padaung to the spot about three years ago. There are now about 50 families there, including some from a tribe known as "the long ears" because they stretch their lower earlobes by wearing enormous rings.Some families said they were paid about $45 a month, while others were given a sack of rice. One orphan girl said she was not paid at all. All the women and girls tried to raise extra money by selling trinkets or charging money to be photographed. The women are not allowed to leave the one-acre village. Groceries and other supplies are brought in by motorcycle every day. "We have to stay with the middleman," Mamombee said. "If I leave, he might call immigration."

The issue of the body modification rings themselves - which many regard as mutilation, imposed on girls when they're too young to object - is controversial anyway, but becomes more so when the suspicion intrudes that the need for tourism may encourage the practice. As Gray explains,

Tourism has, at least for the time being, preserved a custom that had begun to disappear as the Padaung came into contact with the outside world.Traditionally, only Padaung girls born on a Wednesday of a full moon were destined to have their necks fitted with the coils, but now other youngsters are enlisted to meet the tourist demand...Only initial discomfort is reported after the coils are set and as the distance from ear lobe to collar bone lengthens to as much as 10 inches, more than double the average. The only danger posed is if the coils are removed. Suffocation could result since the neck muscles are so weak they cannot support the head.

It may be true that as refugees the Padaung would have limited options. Perhaps, given the choice, many of them would still opt to work the tourist trade; we can't know. But choice is the operative word: without that, it's a poor sort of asylum. And any tourists who thinks they're observing tradition should know they're seeing something far more modern - but at the same time, just as sadly old as commerce and exploitation.

A Village, Or A Zoo? [Washington Post]
The Padaung Longnecks…[TalesofAsia]
Padaung 'Giraffe Women' [Seattle PI]

[Bangkok, August 19. Image via Getty]

A woman walks past a giant anti-human trafficking campaign poster displayed at an Immigration Bureau in Bangkok on August 19, 2009. Human trafficking currently ranks among the world's most thriving criminal activities with an estimated 2.5 million victims 'at any given time,' a United Nations report published in March 2009 said. Messages on the poster read: 'Don't be decevied' and 'You could be victim of human trafficking.' AFP PHOTO/PORNCHAI KITTIWONGSAKUL (Photo credit should read PORNCHAI KITTIWONGSAKUL/AFP/Getty Images)

[Yala, Thailand; August 17. Image via Getty]

Photo taken August 17, 2009 shows Thai Muslim girls as they watch as others perform a traditional fighting technique known as 'Panjaksilat' during celebrations ahead of the upcoming fasting month of Ramadan, in Thailand's southern province of Yala. The Muslim holy month of Ramadan is expected to start on August 21. AFP PHOTO / MUHAMMAD SABRI (Photo credit should read MUHAMMAD SABRI/AFP/Getty Images)

[Bangkok, August 13. Image via Getty]

Thai empolyees of German-founded lingerie maker Triumph International hold placards during a protest in front of the German embassy in Bangkok on August 13, 2009. More than 1,500 Thai empolyees of lingerie maker Triumph International are set to be layed off as part of of a global business restructuring program. AFP PHOTO/PORNCHAI KITTIWONGSAKUL (Photo credit should read PORNCHAI KITTIWONGSAKUL/AFP/Getty Images)

[Bangkok, June 22. Image via Getty]

Thai passengers sit on the benchs after train workers went on strike at Hua Lampong train station in Bangkok on June 22, 2009. State Railway of Thailand (SRT) labour union members went on strike to protest the proposed restructuring of the railway organisation. AFP PHOTO/PORNCHAI KITTIWONGSAKUL (Photo credit should read PORNCHAI KITTIWONGSAKUL/AFP/Getty Images)

[Thai/Myanmar border, June 18. Image via Getty]

A Karen refugee with two legs missing lights up her pipe next to a sleeping baby under a temporary shelter on the Thai-Myanmar border at the Safe Haven orphanage 136 km north of Mae Sot on June 18, 2009. Around 40 children from an orphanage in Myanmar and around 60 people arrived to the Safe Heaven orphanage 2 weeks ago after they fled Myanmar north eastern Karen state. June 20 is world refugee day, around 42 million uproted people around the world are still waiting to go home. AFP PHOTO / NICOLAS ASFOURI (Photo credit should read NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images)

[Bangkok, June 16. Image via Getty]

A woman cleans the ears of her daughter with a cotton bud in a Bangkok slum on June 16, 2009. Thailand's economy entered recession in the first quarter of this year as growth shrank by a bigger-than-expected 7.1 percent due to tumbling exports, the worst since the 1997 Asian financial crisis. AFP PHOTO / NICOLAS ASFOURI (Photo credit should read NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images)

[Bangkok, June 10. Image via Getty]

A woman plays with a dog at a market in Bangkok on 10 June 2009. AFP PHOTO / NICOLAS ASFOURI (Photo credit should read NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images)

[Bangkok, June 2. Image via Getty]

A woman looks out from a shop in the Chinatown area in Bangkok on June 2, 2009. Thailand's consumer prices fell 3.3 percent year-on-year in May, the fifth consecutive month of decline, the commerce ministry said. AFP PHOTO / NICOLAS ASFOURI (Photo credit should read NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images)

[Yala Province, Thailand, May 18. Image via Getty]

Two muslim girls raise a national flag at their school in Thailand's restive southern Yala province on May 18, 2009. School children across Thailand entered the first day of educational term. More than 3,600 people have been killed and thousands more injured in five years of separatist violence across the three restive provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat. AFP PHOTO / MUHAMMAD SABRI (Photo credit should read MUHAMMAD SABRI/AFP/Getty Images)

[Paris, May 17. Image via Getty]

Children of the French Buddhist community march before the installation of the relics of Buddha Sakyamuni offered by Thailand, at the Great Pagoda (Grande Pagode de Vincennes) in the Vincennes forest, in Paris, on May 17, 2009. The relics were offered by Thailand to the West as predicted by a prophety to symbolize, after 25 centuries, the passover of buddhism from the Orient to the West. The Vincennes Pagoda becomes the 'greatest buddhism center' in France. AFP PHOTO MIGUEL MEDINA (Photo credit should read MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP/Getty Images)

[Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam; May 5. Image via Getty]

A Thai ethnic girl invites visitors to buy a Thai traditional 'pieu' scarf at the entrance to the site of the former French army's stronghold 'Eliane 2' in Dien Bien Phu on May 05, 2009. The northwestern battlefield-turned city is to celebrate on May 07, 2009 the 55th anniversary of Vietnam's victory over France at Dien Bien Phu. AFP PHOTO/HOANG DINH Nam (Photo credit should read HOANG DINH NAM/AFP/Getty Images)

MOE: Okay hi sorry I know I'm terrible. I needed to get coffee and then my computer wouldn't start. Is that you texting me again?

MEGAN: Yes, that was me asking if you were invisible or if it was my computer screwing up and needing to restart. Anna introduced me to this thing this morning, this thing you can do in New York where they DELIVER coffee to you. A man came to her door and gave us lattes. God bless America.

MOE: In any case my computer not working gave me ample time to read the Times on paper and um holy shit Martin Sobell ?! and obviously we need to talk Palin-Gibson but can we first discuss this guy who died this week. Also funny, Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs in the same paper. As pictures of people crying at September 11 ceremonies. Lucian Pye also died, I believe he was a friend of my father's. But yeah Martin K. Tytell, 94, typewriter wizard, the world will miss you. He made a hieroglyphics typewriter for a museum curator. Oh look, he grew up in the LES! And yeah the coffee delivery plan was floated here as well but I think the only place that delivers coffee around is diners and diner coffee actually always manages to make me more tired somehow.

MEGAN: I have to say, this was an awesome line for any obituary:

An error he made on a Burmese typewriter, inserting a character upside down, became a standard, even in Burma.

MOE: So instead I went to Starbucks and got their little Good Magazine pamphlet on carbon emissions.

MEGAN: Ah, carbon emissions. Plant more trees! Also, did you know the wackiest carbon emissions reduction plan ever? Injecting it into the holes we leave when we suck all the oil out of somewhere. Also, potentially carbonating the ocean.

MEGAN: So, Sarah Palin: hawkist, or hawk-est?

MOE: Can we talk for a minute about the wackiest reason ever for getting rid of a prime minister? What, did he give the studio audience salmonella poisoning? Is there Youtube footage of this? I don't want to sound uh gratuitously Eurocentric here, but just reading about Thai political events over the past few years has been confusing. In my defense, a political scientist quoted in Mydan's news analysis today calls it "a very weird situation" where "a reactionary movement is mobilizing people by using conservative ideology mixed with leftist language." Although you probably could describe Mitt Romney's RNC speech the same way.

MEGAN: I think getting rid of a head of state for taking an illegal payment is slightly less wacky that trying to get rid of one for lying about getting a blow job or 10, but that might just be me. But, yes, Thai politics are a bit confusing right now. I mean, I think they went from being a really poor country to being a relatively wealthy one fairly quickly, then there was the Asian financial crisis, major reforms, they got wealthy again but, as in every country that gets rich quick (see: Russia) there evolved rather quickly a bunch of oligarchs that sought to consolidate political and economic power. Plus then you get the whole struggle with former ideals and ideology, the struggle among various elites to get power (see: last year's coup) and mix it all up with a PM no one wanted to replace the one everyone voted for but the military deposed and add in a little illegal payment that looks like graft in the midst of a growing political crisis and you have: Thai politics. Not as tasty as Thai iced tea, but close.

MOE: Yeah but I think there is a difference between taking payments from like, some shadowy corporate interests with designs on controlling the Thai water supply or some shit and TAKING HARD EARNED MONEY FOR APPEARING ON A COOKING SHOW. I don't even watch cooking shows, but my parents are hugely into the Food Network and dude that is some stressful ass shit. And yeah Thailand never got that rich to begin with, it was never a "tiger" or anything although I believe that's the name of their beer, and its financial crisis was more of a currency crisis. You also have the matter of them never being colonized, and the sex industry, and I think a fair amount of anti-Cambodian nationalism.

MEGAN: Well, no one is as rich as us, but it is, I believe, the wealthiest nation in SE Asia that isn't Singapore.

MOE: Nah pretty sure Malaysia's better off? They def have a more diversified economy.

MEGAN: But Paul Newman hates them and their palm oil-y ways...

MOE: And a more autocratic government imbued in "Asian Values" ANYHOW, I mean, I was there for the financial crisis thing, which thank god was not like the Russian situation, namely because the Asian countries planned their economies a lot better than the Soviets.

MEGAN: Malaysia has a larger per capita GDP, but Thailand has almost twice the GDP of Malaysia. And a lower unemployment rate.

MOE: Dude. You are being annoying now.
Fine! Go to Thailland! Find easy unemployment AS A WHORE if you want!

MEGAN: Anyway, the SE Asian financial crisis was also better because they didn't have a former employer of mine illegally helping the mob move millions of dollars in hard currency offshore in the middle of it like Russia did.

MOE: Also, your argument — fine, Malaysians are way better off, but Thailand has the bigger economy ON THE WHOLE and OOH OOOOH a lower unemployment rate because people are willing to work for 50 cents an hour or whatever — that is one of those retarded Republican talking points that makes no sense.

MEGAN: Actually, when you're referring to the overall wealth of a country, I think it's an important point, and especially since I just pointed out several points ago that there is a large consolidation of wealth in the hands of a few leading to the current political crisis, I hardly think you can call me retarded or Republican.

MOE: But we have to go back to Palin now. I think I understand their strategy with her. It's like, "Hey, while we're resurrecting thoroughly discredited ideas and unfounded arguments over here, why not bring back the singlemost pointlessly destructive of the past eight years, just see if we can polish off that old TURD? So to speak???"

MEGAN: So, can we now stop talking about how important foreign policy experience is in a national candidate?
God, I crack myself up.
Between that line and her complete lack of any knowledge of what the Bush Doctrine is — you know, the single most important foreign policy reversal of this Administration and of the last 50 years in which Bush reversed every single President that preceded him in the nuclear age and reserved the right to pre-emptively hit another country with nuclear fucking weapons — I was like, wow, what did she think they were going to talk about? Also, I love that McCain this week was all like, Obama is unsafe for America because he'll go after terrorists in Pakistan! And then Bush signs an order authorizing it and Palin agrees with Obama and I sort of drunkenly munched my doughnut and laughed at the TV while watching it last night.

MOE: Dude DIDN'T THAT TAKE SOME HUBRIS? I want that on a shirt, fuck. Charlie Gibson I love you. I wonder if she knows the meaning of the word?

MEGAN: She seemed to, since that was a question she actually managed to answer, sort of. More so than the Bush doctrine one, anyway.

MOE: Jesus Christ can we stop using words like "fret" already? I'm not fretting.

MEGAN: I don't even play guitar!

MOE: You know what is interesting, reading this interview? I feel like I sometimes err on the side of chalking up most Republican gaffes and idiocy re foreign policy to a kind of purposeful vagueness that buys them the license to invade whatever they want. But it should not be so hard to brief Sarah Palin. How could she come off so blindsided? How difficult is it, really, to grasp basic foreign policy? Why are so few politicians capable of giving a more accurate assessment in a television interview than i could? And I think to be honest, maybe it is tough for Sarah Palin to grasp. Maybe she just doesn't absorb information about Sunnis and Shiites and Iran and Pakistan the way, you know, Barack Obama would. It isn't that hard! And yet, it's not like this shit gets taught in our schools, and that probably includes the communications curriculum at all six of Sarah Palin's colleges.

MEGAN: My concern, though, is that it makes her just enough of a "regular" American that it'll make regular Americans want to have a beer with her and mock us elitist Americans' obsession with little things like the Bush doctrine and how starting an actual war with Russia might be bad. And that's sort of what got George Bush elected. Twice.

MOE: Hey we can sort of start now if you want, though I'm still mostly reading through stuff. I just bought some beer because I think I'm the soberest person in Philadelphia right now. (The Eagles won a REALLY CLOSE game with the Rams today.) But here's something fun:

Mr. Rove said Mr. Schmidt’s increased authority — which came about after what amounted to a coup by Mr. Schmidt and other McCain aides with ties to the 2004 campaign, that gave him equal status with the campaign manager, Rick Davis — has been the best thing to have happened to Mr. McCain.

Oh God, Karl Rove. How do you do it, Karl Rove? You secure the election of a president so incompetent and widely loathed he decimates your party, then you leave the business for the media. Once in the media you commence bashing the media. You bash the media for asking questions about — not reporting, just asking around about — a rumor.

MEGAN: I am well on my way to non-Eagles-related drunkenness and I still cannot believe Steve Schmidt. Or Karl Rove. Like, seriously, did we watch the same speech? Only I thought it totally bombed and I talked to a shit load of Republicans at the wake today and people thought it fucking killed.

MOE: The sordid details of which are clearly, creepily reminiscent of the (much more easily refutable) rumor you disseminated to nastily defeat your boss's rival in the 2000 Republican primaries. And eight years later, said rival's distance from your old boss being the single-most compelling trait for Republicans to safely rally around, your old cronies take over his campaign, choosing a running mate whose most salient characteristic besides her nice bod is that she was the only member of the shortlist with a dearth of accomplishments deeper than that of your old boss in 2000, and then exploit the scurrilousness of said (much less obviously mendacious) rumor about said running mate's "personal" life to smear the "media"… (And who is paying for this? The media. "I'm not in the media, I'm around the media" is I believe how Rove put it…)

MEGAN: I wonder, honestly, if Rove even takes himself seriously at this point. I mean, the Palin Blake Slate is one of the reasons she was chosen.

MOE: Nah, he can't possibly. I actually find him more amusing than offensive at this point. Although maybe that's just because I read Safire today.

MEGAN: I did not read Safire today. I honestly feel like reading columnists is like a job that I don't get paid enough to do.

MOE: Don't let it hurt your teeth too much.

MEGAN: Honestly, at the point at which he says that Broder was the only fair pundit in attendance that night, it's hard to gag while I'm laughing so fucking hard.

MOE: And in shades of Friday's "Wow, I can't believe I'm going to calm myself down by talking about Bill O'Reilly," I entreat you to calm yourself down, after taking a gander over there, with the soothing relative sanity being preached by Chuck Krauthammer.

MEGAN: Oh, wait, he said something true:

The McCain acceptance speech reads better than it was read.

Oh, wait, here he's back to teabagging McCain:

That called for McCain to set aside his longtime reluctance to recount publicly his wartime suffering.

Ummmm, you know, except for his FUCKING MEMOIRS.

MOE: Oh shit, I am starting to find Palin so relatable though! Back in Wasilla they used to call her base of support the Liquor Cabinet.

MEGAN: Man, I would totally vote for the Liquor Cabinet.

MOE: Oh dear, and here her ex-brother in law admits he used a Taser on his 10-year-old son.

MEGAN: Ugh, that is super lame. Also, did you notice that after her announcement, she took her bouffant-y twist out? One of my reporter friends was like, she wears it like that to seem taller, she's gonna have to take it out for the campaign, McCain isn't tall enough.

MOE: Oh God Janice Min Janice Minnnn I'm boycotting you now:

“She out Obama’ed Obama with her speech,” said Janice Min, the editor of Us Weekly, who said the criticism of its coverage would pass soon enough. “She came on like a supermom who is not going to take a lot of guff from anyone. The way media works now, it is impossible to separate the personal from the political, and I think her role as a celebrity — how she does on that level — could have a significant effect on the election.”

Yeah I noticed it; I believe they decreed it to be Hepburn-esque in the New York Post. Here, exhibit five.

MEGAN: I didn't tell you! David Carr interviewed me for that piece at the Vanity Fair-Google party... and didn't use my quote. But it might be because I was drinking enough that Ana Marie Cox was like... um, what are you drinking? Because I was sort of lapping her on her alcohol acquisition. That's not the best sign, probably. Ok, I've found my first reason to be actively and yet completely unreasonably against Sarah Palin, other than the whole anti-choice thing: the use of multiple exclamation points:

"New administration finally allows new input, fresh ideas and ENERGY to work with the public to shape this city!!!"

MOE: Ok and I've found my first reason to reconsider my general assertion that the media hasn't been overstepping:

And yet, you get the feeling that at the end of the day, she could shake out that lustrous mane (longer than any other major female U.S. political figure's) and get it on with her man. She wears skirts that are quite form-fitting and often goes without stockings. As ZZ Top might say, she's got legs, and she knows how to use 'em. When Sen. John McCain introduced her at an Aug. 29 campaign rally in Dayton, Ohio, she was wearing open-toed red patent leather shoes.

That is the resident fashion critic at the LA Times.

MEGAN: Um, fucking gross. Also, I have peep toed pumps, that obviously means I'm a fucking whore.

MOE: Well you're obviously a fucking whore. But so am I and I have three pairs of shoes, everyone knows that.

But, oh my God and she is totally the Britney Spears of MILFs.

Palin held her baby in her arms as the warden drove a short distance around the facility, said corrections director Joe Schmidt, who sat next to Palin. A few days later, the governor got a warning from her public safety commissioner that someone had complained that she did not strap Trig into a car seat for the ride.

Palin dismissed the complaint as petty, and the commissioner, whom she appointed, took no formal action. But the incident shows the degree to which family and politics are bound together in Palin's career.

MEGAN: Yes, I mean, shoes do not equal whore, like, wtf is the LA Times fashion critic talking about?

MOE: Um, is that really what "the incident shows" Washington Post?? Or does the incident show that SARAH PALIN IS A TERRIBLE MOTHER WHO NOT FOR NO REASON AT ALL LEAKED AMNIOTIC FLUID ALL OVER THAT PLANE (or whatever.)

MEGAN: Ok, well, that doesn't say back seat or front seat, plus it doesn't mention whether she was breast feeding or not. I dunno, I got kicked out of a bar for being there with a pregnant friend who was like I JUST WANTED ONE GLASS OF WINE. Also, my vagina leaks a lot, particularly when I'm ovulating. I'm like sloppy, annoyingly wet.

MOE: Ugh that is so annoying. Didn't they read the story about how you can actually binge drink during pregnancy so long as you only do it a few times a month or so?

MEGAN: I don't know, they were complete assholic assholes about it.

MOE: OOOOOOH maybe you are just female ejaculating all the time like those women in those other stories who have orgasms all the time and have to strap miniature vibrators to their underwear just to get through the day????

MEGAN: Nah, when I was a teenager, I went to my doctor and she said it was normal. Like, it's my body being like IMPREGNATE ME!! But, fuck that bitch, I have an IUD.
Anyway, so if she got 600 votes in her first election and 900 in her second, then despite what Mitt Romney said, she didn't get as many votes in two elections as Joe Biden got in Iowa.

MOE: Hahaha oh Mitt Romney, please watch him now in this clip I made of that speech — well actually I had Nick McGlynn make it, thank you Nick — but I sat through the speech for the purpose of conveying in 42 seconds how insane it was. And I was pretty sure that crap about Biden getting fewer votes was, in Noonan parlance, "bullshit" but thanks for that.

MEGAN: I heard that and I was like... yeah, there's no way that's true. I used up 90 percent of my internet connection Wednesday night proving it.

MOE: Yeah, the thing that sucks about these Republicans is that they don't care if you fact-check them. I really wish Plouffe or whoever could just get up and say something equally outrageous and blasphemous like…hold on…like how about, "Sarah Palin ran a town that is smaller than many high schools!" Oh wait, that's true, hm, or like, what about "Sarah Palin's fiscally conservative policies managed to sink that tiny little town into enough debt to buy a brand-new Prius for every household in it TOO BAD HER HUSBAND IS THE TOOL OF ALL THOSE STUPID OIL COMPANIES." Ughhhhhh but that would also be true I think!

MEGAN: Oh, shit, another convention story I meant to mention: I met David Gregory in a Starbucks. He's replacing Matthews and Olbermann as anchors. Only, back at Wonkette (now erased in this server migration), I posted this video of him dancing to Mary J. and my friend Eric Brewer tracked him to a video of Obama dancing on Ellen and he had a poll about who was better and Gregory won. So, I was like, hey, so, like, I did this video of you and Obama dancing and he was like, oh, I totally saw that. And then I blushed and got totally awkies.

MOE: Well in lieu of lending credence to the scurrilous rumor I heard about Palin's heroic son in the Army I am going to ask you if you read today's Filkins piece in the Times Magazine about how Pakistan has turned into the Minneapolis of the Terrorist Convention and part of that is flaky Benazir Bhutto's fault for thinking it was a good idea to arm the mujahadeen back when we also thought that was a good idea, oh and did we mention history and that repeating itself thing, as comforting as it is to know that people make the same stupid mistakes and repeat all the same fuckups even in places where the average citizen doesn't consume a metric tonne of alcohol every month, it is not very comforting at all actually. Here it is. Obama was good on this issue the other night with O'Reilly, incidentally, not that O'Reilly had any idea.

MEGAN: I keep meaning to watch the O'Reilly shit, but my parents don't have cable. Anyways, anyone who elects Zadari deserves what they get, sort of like how I feel the overwhelming majority of people who either voted in GWB for a second term or — more likely — didn't fucking bother to vote better not now be bitching about their adjustable rate mortgage, I tell you what. Even people in Pakistan know he's a Thaksin-level corrupt asshat — and they probably have some idea who the fuck Thaksin is, too. Also, I object to the assertion that I consume a metric tonne of alcohol a month. That's why I mostly drink wine and hard liquor, to keep the tonnage down.

MOE: Oh god yeah Thailand, we could discuss that too, and Freddie and Fannie, THE NIGHT COULD LAST FOREVER. But what's hot right now? I thought the Times magazine story by Frum on Republicans and income inequality was interesting, if namely for its incongruity following a week during which the proverbial Bullshit, as Janice Min so eloquently pointed out, triumphed so decisively over Shit That Actually Matters.

MEGAN: Wait, income inequality? Get yourself some fucking bootstraps, yo. Does anyone even fucking know what bootstraps are?

MOE: Whoa, the origins of all the Palin kid names! Turns out that taken together they all come together to mean "CANNY ATTEMPTS TO DEFLECT OBVIOUS CORPORATE BEHOLDENNESS BY INGRATIATING SELVES TO NATURE FETISHIZING IDIOCRACY" or just "FLAGRANT POLITICKING RIGHT FROM THE START." Fuck I somehow didn't realize Sarah Palin married Todd because she was knocked up. That is so rouge cou.

MEGAN: I mean, it's like a month, tops that they knew. Chances are, like other super-Catholic friends of mine, they boned a little early and found out a couple weeks after the wedding regardless.

MOE: Nah nah Track was born eight months after they eloped "to save money." I dunno, it's funny. God, who gets pregnant the first time they have sex? Well, I have a friend whose parents did, but how crazy. Oh man it's getting late though I guess. And there's still so much! Damn the weekend for being over.

MEGAN: Well, luckily, I opened a magnum of wine! I got plenty of time!

MOE: Ok i'm getting another beer. Dogfish 90 minute IPA, not that they're sponsoring me. Not that i would LET THEM.

MEGAN: I've got a Yellowtail Cabernet. I am not going to pretend if a winery wanted to sponsor my blogging I would deny them the opportunity, but I would rather it be something non-corporate like Guglielmo or Hecker Pass, two of my favorite family wineries.

MOE: Ugh are we too far-gone — and too far down on the moral authority pay grade — to weigh in on Biden's belief that life begins at conception? Because personally I am inclined to say "well sure it does, so what" but you all know how paranoid I am about seeming "flip."

MEGAN: I mean, Biden's a Catholic, that's the party line, right? I just don't buy that. I don't believe it in the slightest. I'm not sure I believe in a soul. Potential life? Ok, maybe, but all evidence is that plenty of potential lives are ejected regularly from women's bodies. I just... I just don't buy that a zygote is A Life.

MOE: Right, well the "soul" is a different matter. As I think we might have discussed before, there's a genuine debate within the believers in souls as to how a soul could be formed at conception, then split into two separate souls two weeks later. Anyway "Life" …bacteria is life. Now human life is more important than animal life, but ughhhh if embryo life or fetus life was as precious as regular fully formed human life you would think there would be a huge public health campaign to finally put an end to the mysterious plague that silently kills as many as one in four humans before they even have the chance to get heartbeats! But there is not. And now I am tired.

MEGAN: My sister's fiancé was just asking when I was going to bed. I could stop drinking and try that out.

MOE: Yeah this is the longest Crappy Hour ever already I think. I've been drinking really slow and am still tired and I think that is a sign.

MEGAN: Ok, so, I'll check you at an abortion-esque ungodly hour on Tuesday.

MOE: Oh, but that David Gregory story was awesome.

MEGAN: There's nothing like embarrassing oneself in a Starbucks full of Republicans to make embarrassing oneself on the Internet seem totes minor.