Back before Steve Jobs returned to Apple, the company introduced a Magical Gadget that promised to change the way you live.

It, um, didn’t work out.

This time around, instead of handwriting recognition, Apple promised voice recognition — and not just simple commands, but contextual understanding of requests.

It’s the kind of thing that could have gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Or it could become a cultural event.

We don’t have the new iPhone – we’re still on contract with the old one – and we don’t have an emotional stake in Apple products, other than the pleasure of using them. But our introduction to computers involved punchtape and a teletypewriter. Ours may not be the life of someone who lived through the Wright Brothers and the Moon Landing, but we’re starting to understand the feeling.

[via Daring Fireball]

Yes, boys and girls, we all had a good time speculating on the possibilities of taking our beloved Sarah to Broadway: or some simulacrum thereof. Some of you might recall my testiness at the regularity with which the dreaded Happy Villagers kept showing up, discounting my peevishness as professional blague.

The other night, during a Judy Garland retrospective on TCM (live-blogged with Catt), it came to me. Trembling, I rushed to my iMac (thank you, Steve) to access youtube where I found to my horror that, yes…

THERE ALREADY IS A PALIN MUSICAL.

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[The Blaze]

[ Daily Beast Flash video not available. ]

Our guest lyricist is Herman Cain!, performing at the 1991 Omaha Press Club show.

Imagine there’s no pizza
I couldn’t if I tried
Eating only tacos
Or Kentucky Fried
Imagine only burgers
It’s frightening and sad

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Paul Krugman points his readers to this column by Suze Orman, in which the personal finance guru endorses the Occupy Wall Street protesters, and rails against the unfairness of the events that have transpired over the past few years, with major banks and other financial institutions seeing massive bailouts while ordinary Americans have been left out to dry.

One point Orman makes is to note the unfairness of a system in which our youth are graduating from college loaded up with student loan debt, and few if any job prospects to help them repay it. Furthermore, recent legislation makes this debt nearly impossible to discharge in bankruptcy court. It’s no wonder the kids have taken to the streets.

By manner of comment, I would like to repeat something I have said in other venues: when future historians look back at the wreckage that is becoming of the American economy, they will note with sadness our skewed priorities. And they will wonder how it is we ever got to a point where a propective homeowner considerng the purchase of his next McMansion can rest secure in the knowledge that should things go wrong, he can simply turn in his key and walk away from the mortgage suffering no legal ramifications. Whereas, by contrast, a young person looking over a stack of college prospectuses and trying to decide where she wants to pursue higher education faces the very real risk that the massive loans she takes out to pay for college will haunt her for the rest of her life.

Herman Cain!, Saturday:

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain[!] said Saturday that part of his immigration policy would be to build an electrified fence on the country’s border with Mexico that could kill people trying to enter the country illegally.

The remarks, which came at two campaign rallies in Tennessee as part of a barnstorming bus tour across the state, drew loud cheers from crowds of several hundred people at each rally. At the second stop, in Harriman, Tenn., Mr. Cain[!] added that he also would consider using military troops “with real guns and real bullets” on the border to stop illegal immigration.

Herman Cain!, Sunday:

“That’s a joke,” Mr. Cain[!] told the journalist David Gregory during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” where he was asked about the electrified fence. “That’s not a serious plan. I’ve also said America needs to get a sense of humor.”

Trust us, Mr. Cain!, we’re laughing our ass off. The difference between you and Donald Trump is that everyone knew he was a joke.

Remember. remember the 5th of November:

Bank of America is raising its fees. Citibank is raising its fees. Chase destroys lives. What’s a frustrated, checkbook-owning 99 percenter to do? An LA art gallery owner has a suggestion: On November 5, celebrate Bank Transfer Day and ditch your corporate bank.

Didn’t work out so well for this Shittybank customer: