Bill Whittle has a new PJTV editorial, introducing a new political party: the Piranha Party. I am so in love with this entire idea that I just married it. We eloped and had a beautiful 10-minute honeymoon. It was hot, I tell you.

You know, I’m liking McCain a little better now than I did before because like I said, he finally took his nuts out of the coffin he’s been stowing them in all year. But he’s still not good enough, and the Republican party is not good enough. Obviously I think they’re better than the Democrat party but, hello, that doesn’t really take much.

We do need something different, and it’s no joke. Bill isn’t just kidding around here. He mentioned this to me months ago, how we need a new party whose whole platform is COMMON SENSE FOR PETE’S SAKE. Because we sure as hell aren’t getting any common sense from anybody in office now. Don’t make me laugh.

The whole election has become a surreal freak show; it’s like watching a German game show with dancing monkeys and talking sausages and accordion music and sternly pursed lips. It’s freaking me out!

Piranha Party. Sign me up.

This brings so many questions to my mind. Questions of great import.

Am I an irresponsible dog owner for never having considered whether fleas go up into my dogs’ butts when I bathe them?

Can fleas even survive inside a dog’s butthole? Don’t they need air? Do fleas breathe?

Is Astra Zeneca (from whence the search originated) testing a dog butt vaseline-like substance and using Google for research?

To be capable of applying vaseline to your dog’s butthole, how drunk do you have to be? How high? How numb inside?

Seriously, how would you even live with yourself afterwards?

How did a search term involving vaseline and dog butt end up on my site? I can ASSURE you I’ve never used those words together in my entire life at any time. Until now. And I can’t wait to see what this does to my context-based ads.

Speaking with reporters in Asheville, N.C., where he is studying for Tuesday’s debate, which is to focus on the economy and domestic issues, Obama pointed to recent reports that the McCain camp wanted to get away from economic issues, a topic that polls show benefits the Democrats.

“I was a little surprised over the last couple of days to hear Sen. McCain say, or Sen. McCain’s campaign say, that we want to turn the page on the discussion of the economy and a member of Sen. McCain’s campaign saying today that if we keep talking about the economic crisis we lose,” Obama said.

“I cannot imagine anything more important to talk about than the economic crisis, and the notion that we’d want to brush that aside and engage in the usual political shenanigans and scare tactics that have come to characterize too many political campaigns, I think [that] is not what the American people are looking for,” he said.

All rightee then. McCain’s afraid to talk about economics. Except that he’s not, because he did. At some length.

And it gets better! The article is now gone. But at the same URL is a different story by a different writer. Patterico got screen shots of the original one though.

Meanwhile, SNL did a skit this weekend about the bailout, which was actually shockingly accurate and fair, including implicating George Soros and Democrats in general. But you can’t watch the video of that skit now because it’s gone, gone from YouTube and Hulu and the NBC video page.

Malkin has screenshots and the transcript of the skit, and also a theory: Soros made some phone calls.

It just keeps getting more fun every day.

Also meanwhile, you’re a racist if you think the meltdown had anything to do with the Community Reinvestment Act. Says Barney:

Frank charged that conservatives aim to shift blame for the market meltdown away from Wall Street and toward minority-lending laws like the federal Community Reinvestment Act.

“The bizarre notion that the Community Reinvestment Act . . . somehow is the cause of the whole problem, (conservatives) don’t mind that,” the lawmaker said. “They’re aware that the affordable-housing goals of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (and) the Community Reinvestment Act (aim to help) poor people. And let’s be honest, the fact that some poor people are black doesn’t hurt either from their standpoint.”

Yeah, that’s it. Dipshit.

Oh and from Stanley Kurtz, one more bit about Obama and Ayers and the Democrats’ insistence that Obama didn’t even KNOW anything about Ayers’ radical past:

Obama was perfectly aware of Ayers’ radical views, since he read and publically endorsed, without qualification, Ayers’ book on juvenile crime. That book is quite radical, expressing doubts about whether we ought to have a prison system at all, comparing America to South Africa’s apartheid system, and contemptuously dismissing the idea of the United States as a kind or just country.

That’s actually the least of it but it’s something I hadn’t heard before.

Gotta go learn chemistry now but I’ll leave you with two nuggets that are a little more cheerful. First, CNN - no seriously - actually busts Obama’s hump on the Ayers thing and calls him dishonest. Really. It happened. Anderson Cooper, even.

And finally, the ‘Cuda handles a heckler (watch to the end):



If that doesn’t - at the very least - make you smile, you should seek therapy immediately or legally change your name to Coldhearted McBastard.

Best part is at the end, where he picks up one of the dogs. Oh. Mah. Gawd.

Redhead Infidel sent me the link last night, and I watched it and cried because for some reason, those dogs remind me of Digger, Peace Be Upon Him. Hell, I woulda cried even if they didn’t remind me of Digger.

And Cassy sent it to me this morning and said she imagined that must have been how Sunny and Maggie reacted when Rupert came home, and I would say yes except for the part about picking them up. I wouldn’t even want to see a healthy 18-year-old football linebacker pick Sunny up, unless he wanted to pop a hernia right out through his testicles.

Dogs have always amazed me, how they remember us. When I was 21 and living with my boyfriend at the time by the name of Carl, we got a puppy who we named Kirby, who was a golden retriever of the highest character and quality; a very good boy. Carl and I broke up and he moved to another state when Kirby was about 18 months old and he took Kirby with him.

Carl and I stayed friends, and about a year later, he came to visit and brought Kirby along. When Kirby saw me, he completely FLIPPED OUT. By which I mean, he squealed, sang, howled, snorfled, and literally peed himself as he swirled around me, licking my hands and face. I felt bad about the peeing-himself part but it was the most awesome thing I’d ever experienced with any animal. He remembered me after all that time, and he loved me.

I don’t give a shit if that’s anthropomorphizing. I know what it felt like, and it felt totally awesome. I think it was at that moment that my lifelong adoration of dogs began. I’d been a cat person until that point and just didn’t really understand the appeal of dogs. I understood it the day Kirby peed himself in glee for me.

Dogs. They’re good people.

He won’t tell the truth about who caused the meltdown, and he won’t bring up legitimate issues about Obama’s “associations.” He won’t let Palin do it, either. They’re letting the race-card players kick their ass and thus we’re all screwed.

Allahpundit quotes an AP article that calls a reference Palin made to Obama’s ties with terrorists a “smear”. The AP article even says:

Whether intended or not by the McCain campaign, portraying Obama as “not like us” is another potential appeal to racism. It suggests that the Hawaiian-born Christian is, at heart, un-American.

Oh for Pete’s sake.

Allahpundit says:

The question isn’t whether they’re “pals,” it’s whether Obama had any objection to working with Ayers until he started running for president and was pressed on the subject. He attended a meet-and-greet at Ayers’s home as a neophyte pol to help launch his career; he served, apparently without a problem, alongside him on nonprofits. Not once, to my knowledge, has he claimed that he didn’t know Ayers’s past during that time. According to Andrew Sullivan, Palin’s refusal to produce medical evidence that Trig emerged from her birth canal and not Bristol’s is relevant as a measure of transparency and accountability. Presumably, then, Obama’s sustained comfort around a degenerate whose chief regret from his mad bomber days is that he didn’t do “more” is relevant as a measure of character, particularly since Ayers wasn’t the first radical with whom The One’s associated. Or have the Obama rules now been updated to absolve him from character questions that any other politician would be asked? Hillary didn’t think so. But she’s a racist too, I guess.

Of course she is; she said mean things about a black man. It’s just not done.

Jeff Goldstein on the same AP article:

Mr Daniel suggests that Americans, when they hear the word “terrorist,” will envision “dark-skinned radical Muslim” — even when the terrorist in question, it was clear from the context, was Ayers himself, and that the word “domestic” was used as a qualifier in Governon Palin’s remarks. Translation: Americans are essentially racist at heart (forcing them to jump to conclusions that context should clearly disabuse them of), not to mention stupid, rendering them unable to make distinctions between individuals, historical contexts, and types of terrorism.

Having turned use of the word “terrorist” into a de facto coded referent to dark-skinned Muslims (owing to the pliability of the tiny reptilian brains of conservatives), Mr Daniel then proceeds to connect Palin’s remarks yesterday to “internet rumors” that, he suggests, are buried deep in the racist hearts of the American people. Which is why the mention of “terrorist” is dangerous to Obama: it could convince Americans to turn their backs on what’s best for the country — Obama! — and instead vote for McCain/Palin out of fear that Obama, once elected, will decree we all follow Sharia law.

– Of course, the only people who seem to believe that do cover art for New York Magazine — or rather, they know that such is what the conservative cartoons they’ve constructed in their own minds believe.

Second, playing on that bigoted caricature of conservatives, Mr Daniel goes on to note that, “whether intended or not by the McCain campaign, portraying Obama as “not like us” is another potential appeal to racism” — though to arrive at that point he’s had first to bracket Palin’s use of “domestic” as a qualifier, ignore her use of the NYT and Chicago as indices to the referent, Mr Ayers, and cast her target audience as ignorant rubes looking for any excuse to allow their latent racism to rear its head.

Pretty much.

Patterico points out how any criticism of Obama is apparently racist, and sums up my feelings exactly (emphasis in the original):

I’m told that McCain advisors are reluctant to argue Democratic responsibility for the mortgage crisis, because they might be accused of being racists.

Wake up, McCain advisors. You are already getting accused of racism for making other perfectly legitimate points. Why on God’s green Earth would you hold back on one of the best arguments you can make because someone might play the race card?

Do you people even want to win?

I really don’t think they do.

Oh and there’s some article out there that I can’t find now that says the McCain camp doesn’t want to try to explain the real reasons for the meltdown because it’s too complicated. Jesus in a hadron collider. IT IS NOT.

Hear me now and believe me later, Obama’s gonna win.

MORE:

Brilliant. The Obama people were on TV this morning spinning like tops and saying that Obama didn’t know about Ayers’ history. Snort. Ed Morrissey:

Ayers was hardly quiet about his life and his aspirations. He wrote a book about it in 2001. Chicago Magazine did a lengthy profile of him at the time, complete with pictures of Ayers standing on an American flag thrown on the ground in an alley. Nevertheless, Obama continued to work with Ayers at the Woods Fund and work together on public events. Either Obama liked what Ayers did, or he’s the most clueless politician to have ever reached the US Senate, and neither commends itself as a recommendation for a presidential candidate.

Sarah Palin attracted considerable outrage from the media for publicly pointing out Obama’s association with Ayers and Dohrn as “palling around with terrorists”. However, she forced the media to finally start covering it, as the CNN clips show, and to put Obama on the defensive over it. As we see here, that defense looks terribly weak.

UPDATE: Oh yeah baby. From Redstate, this is more like it:
(bolding mine):

Senator Obama has accused me of opposing regulation to avert this crisis. I guess he believes if a lie is big enough and repeated often enough it will be believed. But the truth is I was the one who called at the time for tighter restrictions on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that could have helped prevent this crisis from happening in the first place.

Senator Obama was silent on the regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and his Democratic allies in Congress opposed every effort to rein them in. As recently as September of last year he said that subprime loans had been, quote, “a good idea.” Well, Senator Obama, that “good idea” has now plunged this country into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

To hear him talk now, you’d think he’d always opposed the dangerous practices at these institutions. But there is absolutely nothing in his record to suggest he did. He was surely familiar with the people who were creating this problem. The executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have advised him, and he has taken their money for his campaign. He has received more money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than any other senator in history, with the exception of the chairman of the committee overseeing them. Did he ever talk to the executives at Fannie and Freddie about these reckless loans? Did he ever discuss with them the stronger oversight I proposed? If Senator Obama is such a champion of financial regulation, why didn’t he support these regulations that could have prevented this crisis in the first place? He won’t tell you, but you deserve an answer.

My opponent has invited serious questioning by announcing a few weeks ago that he would quote — “take off the gloves.” Since then, whenever I have questioned his policies or his record, he has called me a liar.

Rather than answer his critics, Senator Obama will try to distract you from noticing that he never answers the serious and legitimate questions he has been asked. But let me reply in the plainest terms I know. I don’t need lessons about telling the truth to American people. And were I ever to need any improvement in that regard, I probably wouldn’t seek advice from a Chicago politician.

My opponent’s touchiness every time he is questioned about his record should make us only more concerned. For a guy who’s already authored two memoirs, he’s not exactly an open book. It’s as if somehow the usual rules don’t apply, and where other candidates have to explain themselves and their records, Senator Obama seems to think he is above all that. Whatever the question, whatever the issue, there’s always a back story with Senator Obama. All people want to know is: What has this man ever actually accomplished in government? What does he plan for America? In short: Who is the real Barack Obama? But ask such questions and all you get in response is another barrage of angry insults.

Seriously? Is this real? HOLY SHIT.

UPDATE 2: I hate to abuse my all-caps privileges, but IT’S ABOUT TIME, JOHN McCAIN! SHIT! NO REALLY! THANK YOU!

Maybe too little too late, especially since his entire speech is incredibly RACIST! by virtue of not humping the Democrats like Proper Good Citizens are supposed to do, but still. It’s something.

Via Ace, who might say this is two-ball-dippin’ good times:

Really. Sorry about all the caps. I HAVE ISSUES.

I am glad for this and here’s why. Clarkson says some prickish stuff. I give you a quote from his article in the Sunday Times:

We see this with so many American cars. Dynamically, some of them are pretty good these days. One or two are even a match for what the Chinese are doing. And by and large they are still extremely cheap. But there’s a very good reason for this. They are simply not built to last.

I spent most of my time in America this time in a new Corvette ZR1. It is a fabulous car. Mesmerisingly fast, good looking and amazing value. But after three days the damn thing was beginning to disintegrate. It made me growl with annoyance and despair.

But I think I know the problem. Because America is a new country, the people who live there have no sense of history. And if you have no concept of “the past”, it is extremely difficult to grapple with the idea of “the future”.

If you think a bar established in 1956 is “old” then you will not understand the idea of next week. So why bother building for it?

We see this short-termism in everything from the average American house, which falls over whenever the wind gets up, to the way chief executives are treated. In Japan, you are given 25 years before you are judged on whether you’ve turned the company around. In America, bosses are given two months. And if there’s been no financial about-turn, they are fired.

AIG and Lehman Brothers got caught out because they were being run by people who live only in the here and now. They couldn’t see that it would all come crashing down in the future because there’s no such thing.

I suppose eco-mentalists would use this argument as a stick to beat the pickup driving masses. But how can Hank and Billy-Bob think about the world ending in a thousand years when everything they know, everything they are, began a week last Tuesday?

And this brings me on to the war in Iraq. They went in there, knowing that pretty quickly they could depose Saddam Hussein. But nobody in power stopped for a moment to think about what might happen next. And there you have it. The insurgency problem in Baghdad and the wonky gearlever on the Chrysler Sebring. They are both caused by exactly the same thing.

And the only cure, frankly, is time. Give them 2,000 years and they might just start to understand what I’m on about. Until then, do not buy a Sebring. Do not rent one either. Close your eyes, hum and, hopefully, we can make it go away.

Fascinating. He can’t even write a car review without bringing up America’s warmongling ways, or without a mention of “Hank and Billy-Bob.” OF COURSE. Because that is what America is all about. War and rednecks. Dur!

And I’m always a big fan of the “Americans don’t understand history” argument. I can just see the Europeans who say this patting us on our childish little heads. Assholes. We do understand it and we’re trying like hell to use our knowledge of YOUR history to avoid ending up just like you. By which I mean socialist, unarmed, and with minarets in our cities.

Oh what am I talking about. The world was just pooped out of the universe’s butt last week. Dur! I don’t know about you morons, but in all my years in school and college, we sure never did talk about anything that happened before 1975. Except for all those endless history lessons on all those wars Europeans started with each other for millenia, all the genocide and imperialism and whatnot. I don’t even know where I came up with that last sentence; a European must have told me when I was in Italy for two weeks.

Did you know they have all these, like, buildings there? That were built before 1956? I sure didn’t! I had no “concept” of it! Frankly I didn’t even know anything outside of Texas EXISTED until last year. Imagine my surprise upon learning that my minor in WWII history wasn’t actually a minor in fictional literature. That shit really happened! There are people over thar in them-thar parts!

I’m still “grappling” with it but it’s “extremely difficult.”

Hey! There’s a booger on my chin! Yummmm.

Now if you will pardon me. Ah gots to go gas up the Hummer and visit mah cousins Jethro and Trixie-Lou. Partly ‘cuz there was a storm last night and mah house fell right down all over me so ah’s got no place to stay. Also, we’ve decided that since there ain’t nothin’ happenin’ after next week, what’s the point of all them silly retirement accounts? It’s casino time, baby! Yeeehaw!

Added later: I know who he is and I know he’s an entertainer. I was mocking his attitude back just like he mocked ours. If we’re not to take his hyperbole seriously, why take mine seriously? Criminy.

Although I did change the part where I called him a prick and the reason is, I have to stop doing that, calling people names. It happens to me on other blogs and I do so hate it. Trying to stop being a hypocrite here.

My brother and sister-in-law have these two 7-month-old cats named Frank and Beans, who are FREAKING HUGE. I’m not sure they’re real cats, based on the pictures Linda sent yesterday. I think maybe they have some alien monster gene in them. She says one of them weighs 9 pounds and the other 8.5 pounds. Good lord.

They got neutered last week, lucky guys, and of course, seeing as how these people are Lucas people, there are pictures of the shaved nutless hindquarters. And of course I demotivatorized one of them.

Seriously. That tail is not natural. I think some DNA tests are in order.

They were small once though, and the recently deceased PooPoo would permit them to cuddle with him. He was such a sweet boy.

I’m going to go over to Rick and Linda’s house next weekend and take pictures of Frank and Beans with goofy shit on their heads. I know it’s totally ripping off from Fark.com but I have a hankerin’ to start doing Caturdays on the weekends to cater to that portion of my readership who like the furry little bastards. I’m a giver, all about giving.

I had an IM conversation with Bill Whittle yesterday during which he asked me to participate in something I don’t think I have the chops for, but the simple fact of him asking almost convinces me I must have the chops because he’s no fool. If I decide to do what he’s asking, you’ll hear about it, but until then we can all just indulge in the awesomeness that is the Whittle:

He not only has a new piece up at NRO called Cowboys and Secret Agents, but he’s also doing PajamasTV now and thus you can see him in action. Here’s his latest editorial and it’s about the bailout bill. Short but pure to-the-pointness - my favorite thing. (If my link doesn’t work, it’s also at his blog.)

He’s holding a copy of the Declaration of Independence AND the Constitution there. My dad used to carry one of those around in his pocket at all times, I believe. For those special moments when someone says something stupid about their “Rights!”, it really comes in handy.

I thought Palin did a fantastic job, all things considered. She didn’t bumble or flounder, she didn’t say anything stupid (except mispronouncing that general’s name and the word nuclear), and she wasn’t even remotely intimidated by Biden or Ifill. Well played, ‘Cuda. Well played.

And I also have to admit that I really don’t loathe and fear Biden like I do most Democrat politicians. He’s just so durn likable even when he’s lying. Wait, I guess that means I should loathe and fear him MORE than usual. That thing he said about the cost of Afghanistan versus Iraq, for example? Bitch please. You’re off by 2000%.

Also, I didn’t detect any bullshit from Gwen Ifill, although not everyone agrees.

No time for more commentary; it’s Friday, the day of science lab hell. Just more links.

The Anchoress has a roundup of reactions. FactCheck has checked facts.

You know what’s fascinating? Reading analysis of this thing by “the others.” For example, Bob Shrum:

Tonight she barely kept up…

…With America facing two wars and economic disaster, Americans ask if a candidate is up to the job.

By any rational assessment, Palin wasn’t tonight — and hasn’t been any time she’s not reading a teleprompter.

…At least as important, or more, was that Joe Biden did a superb job.

He cannot possibly be serious. You want to talk about teleprompters, Mr. Obama Voter? Don’t make me laugh.

And the ever-nutty Arianna Huffington:

After watching this debate, I am convinced that if the country somehow has a collective mental meltdown and elects Sarah Palin, she will be even more dangerous than Cheney.

…Throughout the entire 90-minute debate, Palin came across as an over-wound windup doll, sporting a pasted-on-smile expression that never varied, except when she winked. Which she did repeatedly — and pathetically. It was the folksiest appearance since Hee-Haw went off the air.

Just, wow. The different filters people see things through, it’s fascinating.

All right, I gotta go, have fun playing with yourselves. I’ll be titrating an acid with a base to determine the endpoint of neutralization. Don’t be jealous.

Meanwhile, I feel it my duty to distract you from the oncoming freight train of gaffes and mistakes (whether you be a Democrat or a Republican) by posting some oldies but goodies. Such as the time I put a Ritz cracker on Sunny’s face because I sensed it would make her look like a crosseyed psycho. I do this out of love.

And then there was the time, before we adopted Maggie but were dog-sitting her while my parents were on vacation, when she spent roughly 23 hours a day humping Sunny while Old Digger watched and giggled and thought about how payback is SUCH a bitch.

In case you don’t know what I mean by payback, the first year of Sunny’s life with Digger was basically one long episode of this:

And this:

“Normal” bloggers would make an actual post about the debate and offer that as the place for your comments about said debate. I’m unburdened by such conventions and unafraid of chaos, so this is the thread for debate comments.

Frankly, I think all four of those dog pictures will probably end up being a pretty good analysis of the debate. Both Biden and Palin will likely come off just like Sunny in the first pic, and as for the other three, all that remains to be seen is who ends up the humiliated humpee and who the victorious humper.

I told you I’m not Charles Freakin’ Krauthammer. This is Lucas-style political analysis. Deal.