Wanker of the day

Actually, wanker for decades. But justice finally caught up today.

The Student Papers story

Here's a little piece of advice: No matter how smart you are or look, no matter how many lives you are going to save with your stellar research, no matter how far and often you travel, if you're an International student in the US, DO NOT FORGET YOUR STUDENT PAPERS WHEN YOU LEAVE THE COUNTRY. I did, just this once, in 2004, and boy, did they do a good job of making sure I never repeated that mistake again...

Here's the story.

This is their first trick - no one says a thing when you leave the US. Not a whimper. Just a "Hello sir, how are you. Have a nice flight." No mention of student papers. so you leave the US, fly by the national airline of some breakaway Soviet republic because they offer you the cheapest tickets even though it means three days of flying and six stops in countries that have landing strips in the middle of meadows. And you finally land wherever you're going. For my story, this was England to meet a soon-to-be-extinguished flame (which we are NOT going to discuss today). Now this whole flame story was burning strong back then, so I had a great three weeks without so much as a thought about the case in the bottom draw of my closet, which is where my student papers were stuck.

At the end of three glorious weeks, I head back to the States. We land, and I walk right up to the people at immigration counters with my passport in hand. I stand in line, looking at the people in front of me, the counters, and America proper in the distance, beyond the glass doors. Sure enough, I get pulled out of the line at random ("Uh, security procedures, sir."), and get sent to another line that also has randomly chosen people. They're all randomly chosen brown men. We're all standing somewhat nervously now, because our line clearly has beefed up security, a couple of not-so-friendly dogs, and their even more not-so-friendly handlers. Plus there was a huge poster of the twin towers burning with the caption "Never to forget". Aware that we were being watched really closely, I ignore the overwhelming urge to scratch my butt, lest they think I've hidden something up there, and try to look like a confident, erudite, yet non-threatening intellectual. I think I ended up looking confidently constipated.

Anyway, one of these officials walks past, giving individual passports a quick look through. Soon its my turn, and I hand mine over. He takes a quick look : "Kedar eh? (he pronounces it something like Kaydaah) Rhymes with Al-Qaida, eh? Haw-haw-haw!" I laugh nervously, but the line inches forward, so he lets me go without any further ado. The poor sod behind me is named Mohammed Iqbal, so that calms my somewhat jangled nerves. Eventually though, its my turn, and I put on my best smile, determined to be friendly as I walk up to this lady. She looks like a pibull that's just lost a close fight.


"Hey there, how are you doing dear?"

"Passport please."

"Uh, OK." And I hand it over.

"Student papers."

"W-what?"

And then she takes her eyes off her desk and looks at me. Right into my eyes. Through my eyes into my brain. And through my brain stem into the depths of my soul. I feel an icy fist take a vice-like hold of my insides.

"Student. Papers."

It takes about a second for my neurons to fire off three quick messages to my brain :

1. She wants your student papers.

2. If you don't have your student papers, you're screwed.

3. Your student papers are in the bottom draw of your closet with your underwear.

and then with the finality of a denial-of-visa stamp :

4. You're screwed.

The cold sweat, nausea and the giant block of ice in the pit of my stomach follow, but I manage to stay standing and stammer out "B-b-but I-I dont have my p-p-papers on me..."

Now I don't know whether she signalled by hand, or pushed a button, or blew a whistle - I was busy witnessing my life flash in front of me. Either way, I was surrounded by blue shirts before you could say Terror Suspect. The one guy is busy whispering to the others, obviously about how my name rhymes with a terrorist organization. I want to shove his baton up his poetic ass, but I realize I'm the one in trouble so I try to keep a brave face on what is a rapidly deteriorating situation.

So they lead me to the "holding area", which really is a euphemism for "Jail cell where we interrogate terror suspects trying to gain entry into and cause harm to the citizens of the United States of America". On my way there I see they've set the dogs on my backpack. Everyone in all the lines is trying to get a better look at the
potential terrorist that the vigilant immigration officials have successfully nabbed. They make me sit in the holding area. It wasn't quite the cement bed and iron bar look that I was expecting; there were a couple of couches and even a potted plant in the corner. Plus a couple of copies of "Immigration handbook for foreign nationals" on a table, just in case I wanted to read what was in store for me. I'm glad there are a bunch of rules, because the cops who had guns looked like they were itching to use them. I pick up the immigration handbook and pretend to read it. The way I saw it, I was going to be sent back to India on a rowboat, forever condemned to live my life in disgrace, forever known as the bright kid who threw away a promising scientific career because he forgot a piece of paper. Either that, or I was going to the Baltimore Supermax correctional facility, sure to become a man-bitch for Bubba. I pray for the rowboat.

Finally two cops come up and start talking to me. They want to know everything about me. I mean everything right from where I was born to what I'd had for lunch. And they do this classic good-cop bad-cop thing. McBride is the pleasant one (he tells me to call him marty). Lopez is the bastard. Each time this guy is yelling about how I can't trick him and how America is such an accommodating country and people like me are screwing it up and making his life miserable his eyeballs are an inch away from mine and he spraying bits of half-eaten doritos all over my face. I'm thinking the sonofabitch or his dad probably jumped a fence to get here, but I try to be as contrite and polite as possible. After a bit he takes a break and he leaves to go to the next room, leaving the door ajar. I'm sure he does this on purpose, because I can CLEARLY see a box of latex gloves and vaseline on the table. And this is where I have to admit, I really, really thought things were going to end badly. Missing papers or not, the possibility of a detention center rendezvous with Lopez and his vaselined glove was not the way I thought I would be welcomed into this country. Marty must've seen my ashen face, because he moves over to block my view and continues his questions about my work. This is where I get a gigantic break - as we chat he mentions his wife was treated for colon cancer at Johns Hopkins. I immediately tell him that my work may some day help find a cure for cancer (it won't, but I was doing all I could to avoid Lopez and his glove). We start chatting about it, and as luck would have it, Marty buys all my crapola, and leaves to talk to Lopez. Both come back, and Lopez grunts "OK, you get your one call". He's clearly disappointed he didn't get to do a cavity check.

The rest, fortunately, was easy if not quick. I called my landlady, an absolutely wonderful lady, and she rummaged though my underwear to get my little case that had my papers. She brought it over to the airport, and three hours later (glove box and vaseline untouched), I stagger out of Baltimore-Washington International airport and head back home. The air never smelled sweeter in the free world...

I couldn't agree... disagree... agree... uh, PATRIOTIC!

This is gold.

Play the eyeballing game - fun!

The eyeballing game is worth playing at least once.

I scored 3.48. My Achilles heel was the "convergence game, where i scored 8.1 once and 9.1 once.

3.30

3.11 !!!


OK, I'm done.

Two causes that I am donating money to

1. After yesterday's chilling interview with Chris Matthews (I wrote about and linked to it), I decided to read up about Congresswoman Bachmann. She's quite a piece of work. I feel very strongly about the political tone recently, with people vilifying Muslims, liberals, socialism and all this inflammatory talk about "Anti-Americans in our midst", and she has basically made a political career of stoking flames of hatred and bigotry amongst people.

This. Has. To. Stop. We can either stand by and watch as words like "Muslim" and "Arab" and "liberal" become synonymous with evil, or we can throw these people out of power. You can help by donating money to Tinklenberg, Bachmann's opponent. (When you're at it, do watch Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama on Meet The Press today. What a statesman.)

2. Speaking of hatred and bigotry, you should read up about CA-prop 8. California Constitutional Amendment Proposition 8, if passed, will allow a state constitutional amendment that will take away the right for same-sex couples to get married in the state of California. This IS a big deal. Of course, there is the first point that all people should have basic rights and be treated equally, no exceptions. Buy also, this is (for the first time in this country, I believe) a constitutional amendment whose sole purpose is to take AWAY a basic right from a section of society. The implications of the legal precedent that this vote will set are deeply disturbing.

(I am not going to get into a detailed treatise on sexuality because other people have written eloquently and forcefully on the subject; google it up)

If you feel that this fight is worth supporting (and I certainly hope you do), donate money here, and help defeat the proposition.

McCarthy all over again

You guys may have heard of this. This is a congresswoman from Minnesota who truly thinks that Liberals = Far-leftist = Anti-American. This is Joe McCarthy all over again, except of course "communism" has been replaced with "Anti-American". She actually wants journalists to investigate members of congress to determine whether they harbor anti-American feelings. This is truly sickening. The equating of critiquing the government with Anti-Americanism is laying the foundation for fascism in this country.

Make them do to her what they did to McCarthy. Sign the petition calling for her censure. (Also look at the page for Katrina Vanden Heuvel's immediate reaction. I love the woman)

Weekend Musings

So I went to another little dinner party. What with my wounded condition and graduate school mentality, any offer of attention and free food is accepted gratefully. A few things happened:

1. For some reason, I told them that I was Jewish. Now, ordinary people who pull a little stunt like this would stop after a minute at the most and admit that they were bullshitting. Not me. I ran with it for the ENTIRE evening. Adding little embellishments all the while - we were liberal, but my Rabbi uncle was going to be a little pissed that I was imbibing on the Sabbath during Sukkot, I came from a little community that split from one of the original tribes, and so on. You can get away with murder when you're in the company of polite people, because these people are either incredibly credulous, or too polite to voice reservations with whatever you just pulled out of you ass.

Of course once they read this, they're never going to talk to me again.

I don't why I do this. Honestly. There was another one of those polite parties last month, and I had everyone believe I was born of illegal Mexican immigrants and my name was Jesus (Hey-soos of course); they're going to be pissed too. Again, why you ask. I don't know. But it fills me with a strange suffuse warmth.

2. One day after I write my hate piece about small dogs, I meet one. A miniature poodle. He also smelled like a stable that hadn't been cleaned out in a month. However, this guy was 12 years old and blind as a bat (he actually walked into my leg before I could sneak in a kick to his face). Now that's just too much, even for me. You just can't hate someone that close to death. So I didn't do him any physical harm. I just laughed when he walked into pieces of furniture.

3. I also was talking to the dude that did all the cooking last night. He biked from Maastricht to Brussels in 8 hours, and seemed proud of his long distance cycling abilities. I didn't tell him that I used to bike too, until I read this. (And of course, until I nearly got run over in Baltimore). I'm sure he's blogging today about how everyone believed his long distance biking stories. Or maybe he doesn't lie like I do, and those stories were true.

More Physical issues

Now I have a cold too. Its a viral infection that's making my hips feel like they're going to fall off. What with the 2 grams of antibiotics that I'm having to down everyday on account of the gaping hole in my foot, I also have absolutely no intestinal flora left over. which means that I'm leaking water from multiple orifices, and it ain't purdy. My mum blames an unholy trinity of astrological forces for feeding off of each other's malevolence and putting me through this misery:

1. Saturn for transiting through my 11th, 12th and 1st houses for the ill-health.
2. Sun ruling all my houses for my singledom (she doesn't think me being a jackass has anything to do with it).
3. Scorpio - its that time of the year - for the financial issues (That piddly sum that I chose to put into the stock market? Gone.)

It could be that a star, a planet and carnivorous arthropods are indeed plotting to make my life painful. Or it could be that I should watch where I walk, stop hanging out with sick people, and try to remember to shave when I go out and meet women.

This is a dog named Lexus. I hate Lexus.

Some of you already know that I have a pretty low level of tolerance for all animals. In fact the reason I'm vegetarian is that I dislike animals enough that I don't want them anywhere close to my intestinal tract. Now, I don't hate all animals equally. I only have moderate hatred for cats, or even intelligent dogs, as long as someone else owns them, and they don't mess with me. But no animal has incurred my wrath more than Lexus, a dog that my roommate has had the accursed role of sitting while its real owner is having crazy uninterrupted sex with her new boyfriend in the Bahamas or something like that.

Lexus is an Italian Greyhound. Of all the breeds of dog, the Italian Greyhound is probably the most wretched. There are dogs that come close, like chihuahuas or miniature poodles (of course the case may be made that I hate the owners more than the dog, which may be partially true). But they don't match up to Italian Greyhound. And even within this breed, Lexus is in a league of its own. There are multiple reasons why I have pure undiluted hatred in my heart for this dog, not all of which are its own fault. For ease of comprehension of what landed Lexus at the absolute top of my shit list, I have divided my list into three parts - unfortunate selective breeding, crappy training, and other:

A. Unfortunate selective breeding

You know that no God in his/her right mind would create something so ghastly. A bunch of twisted freaks, for their own sadistic amusement kept breeding Lexus' forefathers with her foremothers in one crazy canine incest-fest after another until we got this monstrosity.

1. Lexus has spindly-ass legs. They are like little swizzle sticks that move stiffly and with no coordination, resulting in the weirdest dog gait I have seen. It also bounces up and down without its legs bending at all. This is not intriguing; it is downright vomitous. I have to often bite my hand to prevent myself from grabbing any one of its legs and snapping it in two. And then twisting the broken half free and shoving it up its ass.

2. Lexus has no body fat. Which makes its torso as ugly as its feet, but also makes the damn thing shiver when the temperature goes below 72 degrees. It quakes visibly.

3a. It has a really small head. Which fits neatly into my palm, making it a perfect object to test my ability to crush things in my palm. Also, as a result of 3a, we have
3b. The eyes of this dog don't fit well into its sockets, and protrude out by an alarming (and needless to say, extremely visually disturbing) 1/2 inch. Which is like a bonus for my skull crushing game: As you squeeze the brains out of this dog, when do the eyeballs pop out?

4. They don't bark - they yip. Very often. At nothing in particular. I'm sure the dog keeps noticing stuff that excites its walnut-sized brain, but this can be extraordinarily annoying when it notices exciting sruff at 3 am and I'm trying to catch some sleep before work.

5. They are on a constant caffeine-like high. Combine this with points 1 and 4, and it means that you get a constantly hyperactive jumping and yipping little piece of shit. It also means that you have to focus hard to make sure that well-aimed kick actually lands on its ugly face.

B. Crappy training

Now, not only does Lexus start off at a huge evolutionary disadvantage, it also has the misfortune of being owned by a completely irresponsible and mentally and emotionally deficient individual. This may well be extrapolated to all people who won such fucked up freaks of the inbred animal kingdom; they are usually vain, insecure, intellectually deficient and emotional trainwrecks. And for some reason, people with this exquisite combination of god-awful personality traits tend to get dogs like Lexus.

1. Lexus hasn't been potty trained. Not only did this dog test the limits of my gag refles with its mere presence in my house, but it also took a giant dump in the middle of my room (with all its deficiencies, if you took a look at that dookie, you'd realize that the only thing that works - and it works like a mother in its stunted body - is its digestive tract). Now, if you ask your friend to dog-sit your dumb mutt, the least you can do is make sure that the stupid thing doesn't take a shit on your friends' roommates floor.

2. The dog tends to wander while in the process of peeing. I don't know how it does it, but it does. And so now we have streaks of fluorescent yellow dog pee all over our floors. In all rooms. So, when you're teaching fido not to take a shit in your friends house, please also teach it not to pee while walking on its spider legs.

3. The thing is an aggressive sonofabitch when you're eating. It doesn't beg by looking at you longingly, it actually jumps right at our elbow, trying to snag scraps of food from the table. So if you have to eat you actually have to physically block it from getting its sloppy snout into your food. One little advantage is that you do get to elbow it in the face, something which fills me with immense happiness.

4. It scavenges bits of food from the floor and trashcan. I'm sure it also drinks from the toilet bowl, even though I haven't caught it doing so. I hope it licks its owners face all over with its filthy tongue that's been everywhere.

5. It doesn't answer to anything. I finally gave up yelling "Lexus" a few days back, and had to start growling, barking and snapping at the thing. You can't make the dog intelligent, so you have to lower yourself to its pathetic level of intelligence. After a couple of days of this, I think it has finally cottoned on the fact that I may have less than warm feelings for it.

C. Other

1. Lexus is ugly. The entire breed is ugly, for sure, but this one is exceptional. The dog on the Wikipedia page looks acceptable. This one is the canine equivalent of a cross between Steven Tyler and a cracked out Amy Winehouse.

2. Lexus is stupid. There's only so much brain you can fit in that small skull, but as far as the intelligence curves for Italian Greyhounds go, this one is way, waaay on the left. The dog runs and actually retrieves random stuff when you fake throwing something. Plus one look at its face (go ahead, take a look at the pic that I have helpfully attached), and you know there are just empty cans rattling behind those vacant and bulbous - and weirdly fluorescent) eyes.

And finally

3. Lexus is very affectionate and has NO memory. I've kicked it, poured water on it, rubbed its face in its own feces, chased it around the house while making angry mad dog sounds, and it still tries to play with me (It is somewhat scared of my dog avatar). You may think this is endearing, but all it does is make me think of more ways to kill it in the most painful way possible. I have a long list, but that list is mine, and mine alone.

Unfortunately, I can't actually kill the thing, because my roommate's friend may get mad, though really, she ought to be thankful. So I write instead, in the hope that somehow this form of catharsis will make me feel better about the smell of Lexus' dog shit emanating from my carpet. Maybe it'll work.

Maybe.

I keep bumping into convicts - whats up with that?

So I went to the foot surgeon today. Turns out I also have a fractured toe. (That tree stump sure did a number on me). Nothing to worry about though; its just something that I have to keep clean. And no soccer for the next 3-4 weeks. No stitches - apparently it will heal itself by this time, and all I have to do is make sure that it doesn't get infected. I got a tetanus shot as well.

Here's the tree stump that did the damage. (scroll down for the convict story)



But the interesting thing is that as I'm waiting for the doctor to show up, in walk two prisoners leg and arm shackles, surrounded by armed sheriffs. Funnily, this wasn't my first encounter with jailbirds. There was this one time a few months back, when I was on I-95, taking a bathroom break at a rest stop when the exact same thing
happens. Let me tell you, when you have convicted felons in shackles, all 6'8" and 300 pounds, tattoos and grills, peeing in a tray on either side of you, that makes peeing quite a challenge. Its a delicate balance - you have to unclench your abdominal muscles enough to pee, but not to shit yourself. you don't want to make eye contact, but you don't want to appear fearful. You don't want to have a wide stance and appear too comfortable, but you also don't want to stand at attention. Plus of course, after having watched a couple seasons of 24, you're just waiting for them to whip out a prison made knife of some sort out of their ass and gouge your eyeballs out as they make a desperate attempt to flee.

All of which was racing through my mind as I unzipped my fly. Sure enough, all I could manage was an unsteady trickle. Both cons snicker on either side of me as they unleash a torrent. I start whistling to drown out the metallic drumming of urine on tray, but by this time the damage is done and the guys are beside themselves, laughing at my, uh, piss-poor performance. I continue to stare stoically at the wall for some more time, zip up prematurely in the hurry to end my misery, and get the hell out of there.

None of this happened today. I looked at the shackled cons in the eye, said "Hey, whats up guys" and went right back to filling up my insurance forms, like a man's man would do.

And since you don't believe me, here's a pic. Its from my crappy phone, hence the lousy quality. Plus I didn't want to jump in front of them and ask them to say cheese, man's man or otherwise. So I hid behind my door and stuck my arm out and took the (somewhat hasty) pic.

My courage knows no limits.

Wanker of the day (sorry Atrios)

Sean Hannity.

he is a wanker and constantly fluffs his man, McCain. But this is ridiculous. On his show today, he had Meghan McCain, and puts up an old Obama ad (the one where they poke fun at the fact that McCain has admitted that he doesn't know how to use a computer). And the he berates Obama for having made fun of McCain, adding: "Lets see you fly a fighter plane, Obama!", since, clearly, flying a fighter plane is an absolute prerequisite for becoming Commander-in-Chief.

And then he adds: "Well, Meghan, your dad can't use a computer because of the wounds he sustained as a prisoner of war in Vietnam."

WHAATTT??? YOU... YOU... (my mum reads this blog, so alas, there's only so much I can say). Beyond belief. I'll try to embed the clip if I get it.

Here is the transcript of the whole exchange (h/t aselya)

My foot's all torn up

So I had an accident today. I was heading down to Carder rock to do some climbing today with my buddies; I was wearing sandals to I could slip in and out of my climbing shoes quickly. Well, as we were heading down the trail, I was regaling the group with some story, and I tripped. I somehow stepped awkwardly onto a little sharp tree stump, and it tore the crap out of my toe. Funnily, it didn't hurt too much, and didn't bleed all that much either. Until I took a look at it. I could see bone.

Yeah, didn't feel too good.

Anyways, Darren took me to a local ER (more about the hospital later), where this extremely attractive doctor and nurse pair did the following:

1. Looked at my wound.



2. Cleaned the crap out the wound.



3. Injected me with a gigantic dose of lidocaine.



4. And then proceeded to actually pick out bits of tree stump (organic debris is what they called it) from the wound.



5. The wound is now clean.



They then bandaged it up, gave me a boot and crutches. And some antibiotics (hello diarrhea) and ibuprofen for good measure. The thing is too big to stitch up, so I get to go to a foot surgeon next week where he'll probably do something to it. I'll keep you posted. I'm doing well though.

6. Happy ending. Or not...




Sorry I don't have photos of the pretty doc and nurse. Darren was clearly way more interested in the bloody foot.

As you sow...

This is exactly what happens when you sow the seeds of hatred and distrust for personal gain. People are generally pretty stupid. Many are ignorant and directionless. They are easily led. Add to this a sense of helplessness and frustration, and you have your average republican voter in 2008. Now, if you play to the worst in these people, if you play to their innermost fears, this is exactly what you get. An ugly mixture of racism, xenophobia, and of course, homophobia. So of course Obama is the butt-fucking arab terrorist who has been sent by the devil to destroy America. McCain and his cronies had a deliberate strategy in mind when they started asking pointed questions like "Who is Obama, really?", and attempted to tie him with Ayers (hint, hint: terrorist) and Rezko (hint, hint: crook) and Wright (hint, hint: radical white hater) repeatedly. And people, like sheep, responded.

I'm sure you're happy now, asshole. Good luck trying to bottle these negative emotions back up.

XDR-TB by James Nachtwey

Heh!? HEH!?? HHENNHH!?!?!?

Here's gramps all excited on stage...

I think I'm dying

I just realized today what a good thing it is that bleach smells the way it does. Now, some genius (at Pfizer I think) decided to make an equally noxious disinfectant called Roccal - that kills at least 23 different types of microbe, they proudly proclaim - which smells like, uh, Roccal. It doesn't quite smell like roses, but the point is, it doesn't feel god-awful as you BREATHE IN LUNGFULS of the shit.

I used it today in a closed room today. Didn't smell anything except for the mild aroma of Roccal. So I continue to do my work, and then it starts feeling as if some one's scratching the insides of my lungs. First its a gentle itchy feeling, and then it's Oh-Jesus-my-lungs-are-on-fire. I mean, this thing very soon felt like it was liquifying my lungs from the inside out. It sucked big time. My pleural cavity feels like its been through a meat grinder. I'm somewhat better now, but I can't help thinking I've shaved off a good ten years off of my life.

Yeah, moral of the story: Don't stick around too long when you're disinfecting something in a closed room.

They've let loose a mob...

Best way to disguise the truth: Exhibit A - The Misleading Title

Nerds rejoice: Braininess boosts likelihood of sex

Women Proved to Be Decent Judges of Intelligence, Study Says

Lonely men ought to flaunt their copies of New Scientist. Women looking for both one-night stands and long-term relationships go for geniuses over dumb jocks, according to a new study of hundreds of university students.

Great, you think. Until you actually read the entire article. Turns out that

... But some things never change. Looks were still a much more powerful predictor of sex appeal than brains. "Women are still going for the hunk," Prokosch says. "If you had an option to pick from five different people, you would pick the most attractive one."

Sigh. Hello hand.

Piss off a Windows user in 30 seconds

Gallo just got bitch slapped

Big news - The 2008 Nobel Prize for medicine has been awarded to Luc Montagnier and Barre-Sinoussi for their discovery of HIV (or as they called it back then, LAV). The committee didn't even mention Robert Gallo during the citation.

For those of you interested in some of the history of the discovery of HIV, here is a nice little account of the race to find the virus that caused AIDS, and the controversy that ensued; here is another. The fracas soured diplomatic relations between the US and France for a while. (Well, not that the two countries have been the best of buddies ever, but still...)

Two things:
1. I'm glad that the scientific community went this way; despite all the hype, the French group *did* isolate and characterize the virus first.
2. Gallo was a dick about it. If you came in second dude, no amount of shouting will make you first.

Sarah's performance yesterday

I don't know if you watched the show yesterday, but to me, it looked as if she treated the debate for the Vice-Presidency of the United States like a 2008 Ms Alaska Q&A session. There are a few really basic rules that you should follow if you're on stage auditioning for a job that is (sorry about the cliche) a heart beat away from the most powerful job in the world:

1. Don't address the TV, address the person who asked you the question.
2. And when you're at it, try to answer the question. So if you're asked about the mortgage crisis, don't talk about Afghanistan or tax breaks. Talk about the damn mortgage crisis.
3. Don't repeat phrases every 5 minutes. When viewers hear the exact same phrase more than 3 times (remember "the greed and corruption in Wall Street", "team of Mavericks"?), they understand that you've been crash-coached.
3a. Avoid already used phrases. So "there you go again" and "say it ain't so" isn't going to cut it.
4. Show your opponent some respect. If he chokes up when he talks about his wife and child dying in a car crash, at least pretend to commiserate. Don't start off about "team of Mavericks" again.
5. Don't give a cheer out to some third grader in Wasilla Elementary. It trivializes the event.

6. And finally, do not wink at/flirt with me. It pisses me off. I'm sure you gave a lot of old men chubbies with that shit. But most people are trying to find out how you will lead the country if McCain kicks the bucket. So as much as you would want to feature in their wet dreams, stick to policy and your ideas of getting us out of this mess - if you have any. Pretty please, sugar on top.

Here's how the debate went, in 10 short minutes. (I need to start embedding stuff instead of linking up.)

They found Steve Fossett's plane

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, California. There isn't much left of it.They haven't seen him, and he's been presumed dead for more than half a year.

I don't want to sound too blase about all this, but if I was a billionaire, I think I'd buy me a big-ass TV, a super-comfy couch, and hire someone to do the dishes. I'd leave all the crazy adventure stuff to the young 'uns.

Racists are so damn stupid...

I mean, really. If you can't spell a six letter word right, dude...

(He also gets Sarah's last name wrong)

Obama vs. McCain - Science Advisors

This from last week's Nature magazine. A quick scan will tell you how the candidates think. Obama has Harold Varmus, who is a Nobel Laureate and was head of the National Institues of Health, and a bunch of, well, scientists. The list also includes two other Nobel laureates - Bob Horvitz (MIT) and Peter Agre (Hopkins). McCain has a bunch of old hands from government, and corporate heads. Including our friend Carly Fiorina who walked away with $42 million after bringing HP to its knees and was McCains very public on-TV supporter until this.

Plus of course, McCain will have Sarah Palin by his side, who has this to say about Evolution vs. Intelligent design.

Good times.

update: More of Sarah Palin's views on all this + abortion + the gay in her interview with Katie Couric. Watch her talk about how she "didn't make the choice to be gay" (towards the end of the clip).
(h/t pushupdad)