Duh of the Day

Lawrence v. Texas, considering her churchiness?

OMFSMWTFBBQ!!!!

I don’t know shit about shinola, but RomeBoy and I managed to come up with a dozen cases between us – most with names, but some without.

The only way that gaffe would have been better is if she was only able to name The People v. Larry Flynt.

@RomeGirl: Or Alien v. Predator.

And even if she didn’t know the formal name, Frederick v. Morse, a.k.a. the “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case out of Alaska – that was only a couple years ago.

@SanFranLefty: Right?! Even I could riff my way through an answer. “Of course, Katie, everything from the end of segregation to a renewed commitment to the second Amendment has come through the Supreme Court – they are the highest court in the land and as such have the power to change the very nature of how we interpret the law” blah blah blah.

Didn’t she watch West Wing? That’s where I get all of my fast-talking Washington jive from. Maybe her prep time in Johnny’s “cabin” should include several seasons of the West Wing.

How about Marbury v. Madison? I mean, the fundamental decision of Supreme Court jurisprudence? I learned about this in my eighth-grade history class, for Christ’s sake.

(Oh, I’m sorry. Judicial review is kind of a touchy subject for Republicans. And if you don’t know about it, it doesn’t exist.)

Not even the blooper reel? Dred Scott? Plessy v. Ferguson? Korematsu? Lochner? (Actually, the GOP kind of likes Lochner. Sorry.) Bowers v. Hardwick? (The GOP also likes Bowers too. Plus: “Hardwick” makes it the bestest case name EVER.)

These are cases that I can recite and give the basic holdings to in about five minutes. You give me a day, and I can build and research a case list to give a fucking undergraduate ConLaw lecture that would actually pass for being good. And Sarah Palin can only think of one damn case? Christ!

Mommy 1.0 Megan has on this morning’s Crappy Hour a great take of Palin’s do-over with McCain at her side which sums it all up:
OMG, did you see it last night? It was terrible! Terrible! Like, it was like she brought her dad with her to the principal’s office and when the questioning got too tough, she let him defend her in a complete bullshit way.

@chicago bureau: Oh, there you go being all eeeeeelyte by quoting those case names. Alien v. Predator, I’m telling you…

@chicago bureau: This is why I can never run for public office. I’d be rattling off ones like Texas v. Johnson and Barnette and Lawrence v. Texas and Tinker and everyone would think I was a flag-burning, Satan-worshipping, sodomite surrender monkey.

@mellbell: Lord knows I am.

@mellbell: The best I’d probably come up with would be Ali vs. Foreman, but I’d make it sound fucking brilliant.

@rptrcub: Do you use some kind of fuel on those polyester flags, or just a high-powered torch?

@RomeGirl: but that show’s full of liberal claptrap!

Hell, even drunk I can still come up with Miranda v. Arizona and Gideon v. Wainwright, but it shows you how much Caribou Barbie would actually give a shit about the rights of the accused.

@Signal to Noise: Don’t you blaspheme about my West Wing. I’ve taken to watching season seven instead of reading about this actual election. I’m happy in fantasy land, let me dream!! (Meaning, let me dream that they make her watch it, and she becomes smart AND a Democrat.)

Whom, I wonder, does she think the Miranda warning is named after? A feisty stripper who got one over on the cops?

“Whom, I wonder, does she think the Miranda warning is named after? A feisty stripper who got one over on the cops?”

Play of the day, RomeGirl.

@RomeGirl: +1

I am Carmen Miranda,
and I’ve come to say,
police warnings have to happen,
in a certain way…

@RomeGirl: Hahaha yess! Your Miranda rights guarantee you cannot be persecuted for wearing outrageous fruit-hats when arrested, right? Because I’ve had some problems with that.

SanFranLefty: Liar. I demand that you produce a tutti-fruti hat immediately, or else I will not believe that you are Carmen Miranda. You too, drinkyclown.

@chicago bureau: Sorry, it’s just too outrageous, it won’t fit on the scanner.

@chicago bureau: Oh, I have photographic proof, my dear.

@chicago bureau: @SanFranLefty: @drinkyclown: I’m just sayin’.

Scratch what I said about the West Wing. Homegirl needs to sit down and watch herself some Law & Order. Get Dick Wolf to come out there and advise her. What the fuck else is there to do in Alaska that she hasn’t watched enough L&O to at least sound like an ADA?

drinkyclown & SanFranLefty:

[CB jumping in line, rocking body on time]

OK! I believe you!

@chicago bureau: @RomeGirl: @SanFranLefty:

You guys always make my fucking day, you know that?

@RomeGirl: @SanFranLefty: @drinkyclown: @chicago bureau:

Fabulous comedy pyramid, right there.

@RomeGirl: We’d have been better off if Dick Wolf had hired Talibunny to play an ADA on TV long ago. Just wait until the PG campaign calls Sam Waterston for some “intense sit-down study sessions.”

@SanFranLefty: @drinkyclown: @chicago bureau: Well played. However, Talibunny’s pretty young–she’s more likely to think Miranda rights have to do with not being persecuted for wearing Manolo Blahniks in Manhattan.

@Signal to Noise: And you know what always happens when McCoy takes a young, beautiful, non-lesbian ADA under his wing…

@mellbell: I’d like to think McCoy has better taste than that, but you never know….

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: Awwww.

@Signal to Noise: Oh, she’s straight out of Dick Wolf’s casting files. He loves his bespectacled brunettes. Can’t you just see it? I wonder if he and Fred Thompson sit around and joke about that over drinks. (If I remember correctly, for my own visit with Mr. Wolf a bottle of something or other was deemed a requirement.)

No, wait – she’s Annabeth Schott in sheep’s clothing (West Wingers, holla). But she, sir, is no Ainsley Hayes.

The sidebar was just trying to sell me church management software. What has become of this place?

@blogenfreude: I’m getting Thailand private investigators and Canal +.

@blogenfreude: “Put the fun back in church management” wow they can do anything with computers these days! Wait that kinda implies that managing a church has ever sounded “fun” to anyone.

Atrios has had enough:

Gov. Palin at Monday’s event in Columbus, OH: I do look forward to Thursday night and debating Senator Joe Biden. We are going to talk about those new ideas, new energy for America. I’m looking forward to meet him too. I’ve never met him before. But, I’ve been hearing about his senate speeches since I was in like 2nd grade.

Katie Couric: You made a funny comment, you’ve said you have been listening to Joe Biden’s speeches since you were in second grade.

Gov. Palin: It’s been since like ’72, yah.

Katie Couric: You have a 72-year-old running mate, is that kind of a risky thing to say, insinuating that Joe Biden’s been around awhile?

Gov. Palin: Oh no, it’s nothing negative at all. He’s got a lot of experience and just stating the fact there, that we’ve been hearing his speeches for all these years. So he’s got a tremendous amount of experience and, you know, I’m the new energy, the new face, the new ideas and he’s got the experience based on many many years in the Senate and voters are gonna have a choice there of what it is that they want in these next four years.

@blogenfreude: She is so full of shit. She’s been watching Biden’s speeches since ’72? I would put good money on the odds that she had never heard the name Joe Biden until the Unicorn picked him as his running mate.

@SanFranLefty: She was EIGHT years old in 1972. I don’t think Alaskan broadcast television would have aired speeches from a man from Delaware running for the US Senate unless he was wearing drag when he did it, or, back then, married to a black woman. C-SPAN didn’t start until 1979.

Trivia: Al Gore gave the first speech on C-SPAN.

@rptrcub: Being a republican means never having to say anything even remotely plausible, just lie your pants off and then quickly change the subject when (if) anyone calls you on it.

@drinkyclown: They just have to cry sexism while they work to defeat women’s rights.

@rptrcub:

Phillis Schlafy defends Sarah Palin

It makes my head want to explode.

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: I think this is generally just a head-asplodey time. I haven’t felt so secure in my intelligence and knowledge of the world in a long time. In fact, I should be running for prez, fuck those other guys.

@IanJ: Oh jeez, I know, it’s how I feel most days, especially when riding the bus, like Hello, I’M supposed to be the fuck-up here, if I’m the competent reasonable one we are all in a world of trouble.

@SanFranLefty: I think she said that so that it would sound like she said that Biden was 72, like McCain, to make her “we’re equal on youth v. experience” make a tenuous amount of sense.

Of course it doesn’t, since Biden is 66 and Obama was a law professor who can probably think up, you know, at least one other case besides Roe v. Wade.

My head asploded like Bud Dwyers’s yesterday. I no longer care.

rptrcub: But, of course, Obama was knee-deep in the Weather Underground when he was eight, so why couldn’t Palin be watching Plugz with wonder when she was eight?

(Writing that sentence almost made my head explode. Almost. One more piece of bullshit enters my ears and it’s “so long” to my gray matter.)

@BRB: Just to add to that: McCain is so old that even added together, their combined age (116) is greater than Obama/Biden (113) – and Obama is older than Palin and Biden is younger than McCain. This just isn’t a route she should go down.

@chicago bureau:

“…what’s the gas mask for?”
“It’s in case the fishes tear-gas me!”
“Fascists, dear”

@RomeGirl: the thought of Wolf and the Senatorial Voice sitting down and talking about the asses on Jill Hennessy, Carey Lowell, Angie Harmon, Annie Parisse, and whomever the latest Female Sidekick ADA is creeps me out just a little.

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: Akismet preys on the weak.

@nojo:

Curses!

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: You just made my day. All hail Bloom County!

@nojo: Ok, I’m not going crazy. I saw the post, then it went away when I refreshed. I thought it might be Akismet, but I couldn’t imagine why it would flag a series of quotes. Maybe Akismet just hates Berke Breathed.

@IanJ: Aaaaaaackismet!

It’s being very fussy — usually you could count on it belching up a link, but I am seeing more text-only flags than I used to. We’ll see whether it settles in after another week.

Or I could just unplug it. Since the site allows posts from Registered Commenters only, Akismet may be more than we need, and more trouble than it’s worth. (It also blocks nasty trackback links in the comments, but I think I turned those off.)

Okay, safeties off. Let’s see what happens.

Buy your Viagra here!

@IanJ: Could I get some Ray Bans with my Viagra? I like to look cool and be potent when I’m working on my fun church-management software.

@nojo:

Stiffies for Jeebus!

@flippin eck:

Pear pimples for hairy fishnuts!

@nojo: Not only can you get some Ray-Bans, I have Rolexes, larger breasts, Paris Hilton’s panty-shots, sales leads, 3.85% mortgages, and US$4,300,000 (FOUR POINT THREE MILLION US DOLLARS) I’d like to pass through your bank account for a 40% commission.

@IanJ: you got me with “I have..larger breasts”

@nabisco: It’s true. Nearly anything for a sale.

@Prommie: Bud Dwyers. Jesus, remember that? I do, because was home and saw it live – it was some kind of school holiday. Damn.

@rptrcub: Gave the first speech? Dude, Al Gore INVENTED C-SPAN. It was the forerunner to the Internets.

@RomeGirl: I SAW IT LIVE TOO! Manila envelope…

@nabisco: I prefer Chinese made flags left to marinate over night in a vat or kerosene.

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: my head has asploded multiple times today.

@chicago bureau: because she should have been killing mooses like any good Alaskan girl should.

OMG, did you see the pics of her practicing for the debate outside “where she feels more comfortable”? WTF???

“of” is the word I meant. Sorry, while off work I am stuck on an iPod touch at a wifi hotspot until Comcast fixes the Internets at home. Which will be Saturday. So, live blogging the veep debate will be interesting.

Maybe this bit from tonight’s Couric/Palin show can help explain her ignorance:

when Couric asked her what books, newspapers or magazines she’s read to get a better world view.

Palin: I’ve read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.

Couric: What, specifically?

Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.

Couric: Can you name a few?

Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn’t a foreign country, where it’s kind of suggested, “Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?” Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.

She’s actually less well read than W. Jesus wept.

@Mistress Cynica: at least HIS handlers told him to say that he read Camus.

@rptrcub: Can you imagine how long it took to teach him not to say “KAY-muss”?

@Mistress Cynica: I read somewhere (can’t remember where – one of the lefty sites) that she said a while back (pre-Veep candidate) in an interview that one of her favorite writers who has really influenced her life is a guy who is a columnist for Runners’ World magazine because he was just so inspiring. I cannot make that shit up, and the splattering noise I just heard was Chicago Bureau’s brain asploding for the final time.

Silly me, I’d say something like Jane Austen, John Irving, Victor Hugo, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, or Shakespeare. I’m such a fucking elitist.

And on that note, I’m going home to make myself a martini.

@SanFranLefty:
“Palin: I’ve read most of them,”
See, the only books she knows about are the books of the bible, and she’s read most of them. Y’know, the jesusy bits towards the end and whichever part of the old testament hates gheys.

@Mistress Cynica:
Ouch. She’s less well read than I was when I was 10. I read the local paper and Time/Newsweek (comprehension not so much) not to mention Dr Seuss.

Authors that influenced my life:
Steinbeck
Hemmingway
Maughm
A Conan Doyle
Asimov
Clarke
Sagan (non fiction)
Historian Allistar Horne
John Keegan

@RomeGirl: There was a slime encrusted local bar in Camden I used to hang out in, it had a mens entrance and a ladies entrance, the building was held up by accumulated grime, and they had the Philadelphia Daily News cover tacked up behind the bar, a picture of Dwyer with the gun in his mouth. Hmmm, maybe more politicians should do that.

@Mistress Cynica: Holy fuck, she did not really say that? Oh My God, thats worse than Bush saying his favorite philosopher was Jesus, by a factor of ten. She could not name an author or publication or book, and had the fucking amazing cockiness to think she could bluster through it with a “we’re not idiots in Alaska” diversion? Thats worse than a bad salesman. She’s been dealing with rubes all her life, I think, the problem is not maybe that she’s a moron, she seems to have more native intelligence than Bush, her problem is that she has spent her life surrounded by people dumber than she is they fell for her cheap salesmans diversisons and word-torrents, she has no clue that those cheap antics may work out in the sticks, but she’s in Capital City now.

She really is going to crash and burn in this debate. Overconfidence kills people on the witness stand.

OK, ten bucks says that during the debate, somewhere, appropo of nothing, she will somehow drop the names of 4 or 5 heavy books she has been told to claim that she read. Mark my words, this will happen.

@Promnight:
How about make it interesting? Like guess what books.

@ManchuCandidate: Thats good, definitely, I’m gonna say she mentions the Federalist Papers somewhere. Maybe a biography of Reagan.

But here is something we have to do: if and when she mentions a book or author, its an automatic drain whatever drink you are drinking.

@Promnight:
I’m pretty sure she’ll name drop the bible.

I’ll shotgun a beer if she mentions Sun Tzu or Machiavelli’s The Prince.

Okay — name your favorite book. I’ll start: The Sound and the Fury.

Now name one Palin will claim to have read. I’ll take the easiest: The Bible. King James version, of course. No NIV for her!

@ManchuCandidate: Damn you and your fastness!

@Mistress Cynica: I’ve heard of “Kyuss”, but “KAY-mus”? Are they black metal, grindcore or what? Even as a regular “Revolver” magazine reader, they have escaped my notice.

/googles furiously

In the mean time, please enjoy “Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette”

@Promnight: Naw, no Federalist Papers for her. My bet is on de Tocqueville for her street cred.

@JNOV:
East of Eden.

What kind of politician would she be if she didn’t read the Prince? I mean besides the moron she is now.

Personally, I normally wouldn’t enjoy mocking someone who isn’t well read, but I really hate it when they’re phonies about it. I’d rather they admit their own ignorance than pretend to be something they’re not. If Palin had a lick of sense or humility she would have turned PG’s offer down.

@redmanlaw: You’re gonna give Nabisco the nicotine twitches.

@ManchuCandidate: I agree. Had I stayed in a Friends’ school, I’d be well read, and I wish I knew so much more than I do. But you know what? I can do something about it — they’re still printing books, much to Talibunny’s dismay. Which reminds me: I’d better finish learning about Anais Nin while it’s still legal.

This one is still boggling my mind, first she said she reads “most of them,” then says she reads “all of them.” Its like a clueless dude on a date trying to claim he’s interested in whatever the chick is into. “I love the existentialists, have you read any of them? Which one is your faavorite?” “Oh, I have read all of them, its so hard to single out one.”

Ignorance is common, its all around, ignorance doesn’t make my head asplode, its her clueless belief that she thinks she can bluster through the question, she is so convinced she can doubletalk her way out of it, and the fact that she is failing so miserably, its her complete obliviousness of the fact that its not working that boggles the mind, sets of the detonators, makes the brain asplode yet again. Every time I think of it. Bad used car salesman level of rhetoric she has going on and she thinks its brilliance.

KaBOOM.

Damn, gotta wipe brains off the keyboard again.

I wish nojo would let me post pictures, but this is worth a laugh.

@JNOV:
Heh.

@Promnight:
Exactly!

KaBOOM. Damnit. This is surreal. Really, this cannot be happening.

@JNOV: Well, at least the missile defense system could probably hit that giant Putiin head.

@JNOV: bwaha that is awesome! I think Nojo is wise though, with pictures this place would be so NSFW my work machine would explode like poor Prommy’s head.

@Promnight: Oh, but it is. And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I blame the people who vetted this dumbass and dumbass George Bush. It’s like they think our president only serves in a ceremonial capacity, and we have a PM or something. Cheney is not PM, goddammit! It’s that whole, “Oh, as long as the president has smart people advising him or her, all is well, cuz the president doesn’t make decisions on his or her own anyway. They always consult. blah blah blah…”

BULLSHIT! If the president lacks critical thinking skills, how will s/he know how to weigh the advice s/he receives? I want a smart smart president. I’d rather have analysis paralysis than by-the-seat-of-your-pants decision making. Is that too much to ask? My head hasn’t aspolded yet, but I’m getting close.

ADD: Anyone hear about the new book about Cheney and his power in the WH? I heard about it on NPR, but I missed the title.

Have you seen the motherfucking video clip? Holy fuck. It is short and totally worth it.

Crooks & Liars

Also, C&L mentioned Stinque today.

@Promnight: LOLS!

@drinkyclown: Yeah, esp with you linking to hot Filipinos in the shower!

@JNOV: Heh heh yeah, I didn’t mention I’d be mostly to blame for that, but still!

@homofascist: Its the clip that keeps making my head asplode. Its her pathological cocksureness, its her perky cluelessness as to how she comes across.

I think there may be a factor of her being star-struck, this is Katie Couric, she desperately wants to please Katie, I think.

There will be a black woman moderating the debate, no? Watch for clues as to her racism, I bet she will be much more combative, you’ll see a bit of that “who does this black bitch think she’s talking too” that is not there with Katie. Just watch, is all I’m saying, I could be wrong.

@homofascist: JNOVJr’s is ranting and his head is exploding.

@Promnight: Oh, what is her name? From PBS? I’m ashamed I don’t know her name.

@drinkyclown: I know, right? Is the hair still blue? JNOVJr’s fire engine red dreds have faded to blond, but we’re afraid that if I dye them back, he’ll lose his job at the convenience store. He needs to get his ass back in college where he can freak and geek all he wants.

@homofascist: Nojo and I have been blogwhoring like crazy … thankfully Finnegan listens.

Gwen Ifill! Gwen Ifill!

@JNOV: Twitter has an election rolling tweet list. I got mega hits for the Philly Palin Protest video (still #1 Google search result, y’all!) by tweeting about Palin and putting in my URL. I know you guys know way more about blogging than I do, but if you want, I’ll direct people your way via Twitter.

@rptrcub: You don’t want to hear her say Al-bert Camm-us.

Then again, maybe you do.

@JNOV: Definitely steer folks our way if the mood strikes. We can’t be the only thirty intelligently acerbic people left in the country.

@Promnight: I WORSHIP Gwen Ifill. I admit that I am such a PBS nerd. She is the bomb.
@homofascist: Already in C&L? Wow.

@nojo: I did — I wrote something like “Sarah Palin, Talibunny, Duh of the Day” and gave Stinque’s address. I’d be interested to see if there are any Twitter referrals.

@SanFranLefty: I don’t know why I stopped watching Bill Moyers’ show, but I liked seeing her on it. I don’t think Farai Chideya has a teevee show, so Gwen might be the only African-American woman on the national tevee news.

To heap irony upon irony, it’s Banned Book Week. And if the book she name drops is “Pastor, I’m Gay” I’ll drain my bottle of wine.

@JNOV: Sense & Sensibility, closely followed by The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Speaking of blogwhoring, I wondered if HF should put something up on the HFA site directing any Cynics wandering in the wilderness to Le Stinque.

@JNOV: I need to dye my hair, it is twenty shades of faded crap.

@Promnight: I wonder if she’ll look at her, or if she’ll keep her eyes fixed on Biden. Or maybe in the vacant middle distance, reading off the Great Teleprompter In The Sky? Or winking at the camera between surreptitious peeks at the notes scrawled across her palms?

@drinkyclown: HAHAHAHAHA! Love your friend’s expression!

@BRB: I’m going to be looking for an ear piece.

ADD: I really really want rock band, but I have to beat Ninja Gaiden first. And I don’t think I can beat it. I got my kid Spore for his b-day, so I might play that for a while. According to Jr., creationists were protesting Spore b/c your character eveolves.

@BRB: After all her obfuscation quoted above by Cynica, I’m not even sure she can read. She’ll have a little earbud so they can just feed her lines, right? Maybe they’ll just fake an assassination attempt to get her out of it.

@JNOV: jinx! and yeah, I love that pic, I look horrified for some reason.

Ooh, C&L just reminded me that she majored in journalism. With an emphasis on broadcasting. You couldn’t make this shit up. SNL doesn’t even need writers.

@drinkyclown: Jinx, man.

Mistress Cynica: She was reporting on sports in Alaska back in the day. The biggest thing in Alaska sports are (a) college hockey, (b) those college basketball tournaments around Thanksgiving, and (c) high school sports. And not even very much in the way of football, seeing as the outdoors gets somewhat inhospitable starting in Octoberish — mostly basketball and hockey. No major league teams travelling outside of the state or anything, reading a lot of wires and talking to high school coaches phoning in scores.

So she basically didn’t have to do any sort of research about stuff outside of Alaska. Form holds.

@drinkyclown: You’re just concentrating on the beat!

Night!

@JNOV: Uh-oh double jinx, I think we just crossed streams there.

@drinkyclown: And again! Trixes intertubes.

@Mistress Cynica: Happy to do so. I could in theory send an email to the HFA as well, although a lot of those folks we haven’t heard from in a LONG time and I certainly don’t want to spam.

@Mistress Cynica: OMFFSM, Sense and Sensibility is my favorite book of all time. And I heart the Emma Thompson movie adaptation.

@drinkyclown: She’ll totally have an earbud like Shrub in ’04.

@nojo: We can’t be the only thirty intelligently acerbic people left in the country.

Yessss….we…can…(be).

If I get the scanner to work this weekend, I’ll scan a late ’80s picture of me dressed up as Carmen Miranda for CB’s benefit.

@Mistress Cynica: Come work in SF and you’ll have health insurance, at least until the Supreme Court overturns the 9th Circuit:
Appeals Court Upholds SF Health Insurance Law

@JNOV: Angler, non? The guy wrote a four-part series for WaPo which became the basis of the book.

Caribou Barbie reading list:

“None Dare Call It Treason”
“Left Behind”
The works of Jack Chick
http://christiannymphos.wordpress.com/

Oh, hey there, sorry, but did y’all just hear a high pitched screech coming out of the 415 area code? That was just Mr. SFL. Apologies for the disruption. Apparently he read an article about how Talibunny thinks early man and dinosaurs existed at the same time. Nothing sadder than hearing a scientist scream like a little girl (no offense to little girls).

NM Family Values:
“Dumb Ass Crack Head Drug Dealers Give Toddler Beer in Front of Undercover Cops”

Bust delays move to Wasilla.

@SanFranLefty: How else can you explain Raptor Jesus?

We lost the “favorite books” thread, but I wanted to throw in my pick: The Enormous Room, by ee cummings. Prose, it’s the story of his experience in a French POW camp in WWI. It’s a great read, but keep an open mind while reading, it’s not any more a traditional war story than he is a traditional poet.

EDIT: Wait, what? No <u> tag?!

@SanFranLefty: Nothing sadder than hearing a scientist scream like a little girl (no offense to little girls).

Sexism, ageism and elitism in a single sentence. But you’re from San Francisco, so it figures.

Srsly: I want Gwen Ifill to drop this, Bernie Shaw style, at the debate on Thursday. As in: “Gov. Palin? How old is the earth?” Simple, to the point, devastating.

FWIW, my all-time fave is Jane Eyre. Despite the dramatic plotpoints (master seducing the governesss! crazy first wives locked away in the attic!) it has beautiful prose and one of the savvyest, strongest heroines in English literature.

As to Palin’s reading list, I say Chicken Soup for the Chrisitan Soul and Reader’s Digest (just Drama in Real Life and Life in These United States)!

@SanFranLefty: I knew we were sisters! Emma is a genius, and her adaptation was brilliant.
And how had you managed to keep that info from poor Mr SFL until last night?

@JNOV: It happens every Sunday when I watch Mad Men.

@JNOV: “Angler”, his SS name. It looks like an awesome read, even the jacket blurbs are scary.

She’ll name check something inspirational (maybe that Last Lecture guy), something religious (“well, obviously the Bible is the best book evah!”) and something “Joe Six Pack” (“Field and Stream”). What baffles me the most is why she didn’t remind Couric that they have the interwebs up in Alaska. Does she not use the googles?

@SanFranLefty: @Mistress Cynica: Her divorce from Kenneth Branagh was the only celebrity split-up that ever made me sad and disallusioned. I love her Sense and Sensibility adaption too, but I have to resist the temptation to yell at the screen, “Don’t sleep with Willoughby!”

@nabisco: Mad Men does it to me, too. And I gave up (gave in) last week. Already I’m sick of smoking, so I’ll be back on the gum in a week or two, I estimate.

Keep it coming with your books. I’m making a reading list. Non-fiction will be next. I feel like I’ve jumped on some bandwagon, but I am still in love with The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and my copy is making the rounds with my friends.

@mellbell: Oui
@nabisco: Yo!

Thanks to you both — I’ll put that on my wish list.

@JNOV: 2mg 0r 4mg? I keep a stash of the 2megs handy for “moments”. We can all share a few sticks election eve as the returns come in.

I’m reading this right now to fill my non-fiction needs. Slightly outdated, but the section on Georgia has been useful of late. Latest issue of Granta on the bedside as well.

@nabisco: Georgia as one of the world’s most dangerous places? Whatevs. I guess there was a time shortly after USSR break-up when a few Western businessmen were being kidnapped in Tbilisi, but now the biggest danger is the horrible, horrible hangover you can get from pounding full glasses of wine in one go, which is their preferred method for getting trashed.

@flippin eck: Self-inflicted head wounds. Ever hear of the JFK memorial hangover? Feels like half your head’s been blown away.

/flees to work

@nabisco: 4 mg BABY!

Did anyone get in touch with Endy?

@nabisco: I might be so freaked out that I’m outside smoking and having you holler the returns out the window. No, hopefully I’ll be smoke free by then.

@JNOV: 30 months off the sticks, but nary a day goes by….so if Barry goes down, the first pack of M’boro reds on me!

@flippin eck: The focus is more on the Ossetias, but Pelton has a way to dish one liners about pretty much every place he travels to that are wholly unflattering, and he correctly identified Georgia as a place of “unfinished business” on the part of the Rooskies – not that this was much of a stretch back in 06.