Cutest picture ever

baby and her monkey friend

 

 

Baby and her monkey friend 2: Tea Party

Why the bailout is failing

Sen. Chris Dodd said on Thursday that $700 billion bailout is failing to address the credit crunch because it is failing to prevent foreclosures, the root cause of the crisis. Banks and other recipients of the aid package are refusing to lend to homeowners. In effect, this is another example of the failure of trickle down economics.

They gave our tax dollars to the uber-wealthy hoping to induce lending, but the Treasury used weak language and failed to stipulate that banks must lend. So instead of freeing up the credit market and helping out homeowners, banks are just hoarding our money.

Dodd attacked Henry Paulson for “denying the underlying problem” of foreclosures. “Until we solve the foreclosure problem, we will not have any hope of solving larger economic problems,” he said. “It is still confounding to me why the secretary of the Treasury hasn’t dealt with this.” [The Hill]

No shit, Dodd.

Obama and otherness

I’m too cheap to turn the heat up. Gas prices are high. I’m trusting the oatmeal to warm me. I’m glad I bought the tea kettle yesterday. It was $25.

In the latest issue of the New Yorker, James Wood did a close reading of Obama’s victory speech. It’s a good article. When I heard the speech, I sensed the gravity but overlooked many of the allusions to Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. I’m astonished.

Ever since I was in high school, I have wished I could write as like they do in the New Yorker. Who? Perhaps, Wood, a renowned literary critic. Or maybe Hendrik Hertzberg, the magazine’s main political contributer. He wrote the introductory comment on Obama’s victory as a critique of the Times and the conception of race. Hertzberg, a former Carter speech writer, said of Obama’s “exoticism:”

But it was a shield as well as a vulnerability. It set him apart from the stereotypes of racial prejudice. It broadened rather than narrowed his “otherness.”

It’s rare to see the term “otherness” in print outside of academic texts. But does his argument hold? Can an otherness become so broad that it escapes the grasp of oppressions? I doubt it. Obama is exceptional.

I still appreciate Hertzberg’s writing style.

Who is to blame for Prop 8?

California’s Proposition 8 passed and banned same sex marriage in the state. Now, a lot of people are looking at the exit polls and pointing fingers. John Stewart on the Daily Show called it ironic that as the nation elects its first black president, a majority of black voters favored the ban on gay marriage: “If you like your injustice tinged with a little irony, 69 percent of African Americans supported Proposition 8.”

Why is the burden on African Americans? Why are they blamed for Prop 8 passing when they were only 10 percent of the electorate? And where was the outreach to them and Latinos by Prop 8 opponents?

The oppressed now become the oppressor, Stewart? What the fuck. You think there are no queer black folks who want to get married in California? They must have missed that memo.

Fuck your racist assumptions, Stewart.

A majority of white men favored the ban, too, and they’re 31 percent of the electorate. And a whooping 65 percent of white Protestants voted for the ban, and they were 29 percent of the electorate.

The biggest deciding factor is religion. Obviously.

Vote by Religion
Protestant (43%) – 65% for the ban – 35% against
Catholic (30%) – 64% for the ban – 36% against
Jewish (5%) – N/A for the ban – N/A against
Other (6%) – N/A for the ban – N/A against
None (16%) – 10% for the ban – 90% against

Don’t forget it was the Mormons who bankrolled the pro-Prop 8 effort.

But it’s easier for white liberals to blame the minority than to blame the right-wing religious establishment.

Of course, not all churches are opposed to gay marriage. Several welcome gay couples. It’s sad, however, that many more oppose equal rights.

Comparison of electoral and popular votes

Popular and electoral vote margins, U.S. Presidential Elections

Popular and electoral votes, U.S. Presidential Elections

Popular and electoral vote margins, U.S. Presidential Elections since 1960

Hope

From Newsweek’s Secrets of the 2008 Campaign:

• [Barack Obama] resented the pressure he felt to declare, as he put it to NEWSWEEK, that you “want to bomb the hell out of someone” to show toughness on terrorism.
• So when Brian Williams is asking me about what’s a personal thing that you’ve done [that's green], and I say, you know, ‘Well, I planted a bunch of trees.’ And he says, ‘I’m talking about personal.’ What I’m thinking in my head is, ‘Well, the truth is, Brian, we can’t solve global warming because I fucking changed light bulbs in my house. It’s because of something collective’.”
• As a community organizer in Chicago in the ’80s, Obama had been influenced by the teachings of Saul Alinsky, a radical with a realist bent who once wrote, “Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people.”  Obama knew he had a knack for finding non-threatening ways to make people accept change—to begin with, his own skin color.

Bizarre:

• John McCain says his all-time favorite [movie] is “Viva Zapata!”, a little-remembered, highly romanticized 1952 Marlon Brando biopic. 

wtf Nader

Ralph Nader’s latest campaign ad is titled “Obama’s nuts.” It chronicles a supposed Obama supporter, wearing a Nader shirt, in search of Obama’s nuts. [Politico]

Of course, nuts means “a representation of Barack Obama’s courage and willingness to act.” Masculinist language. People who aren’t men of course have no courage to act.

I appreciate calling Obama out on shit like not supporting universal health care or addressing racist social structures, but damn. Nader, does it have to be in such gendered fucked up terms? And to pull out Rev. Jesse Jackson’s statement without clarifying what prompted his frustration?

Nader also is a white guy who decided to run on an independent platform after the Green Party nominated Cynthia McKinney, a black woman. She’s way better than Nader any day. I don’t know why anyone would support Nader over her.

Sarah Palin got punked

Holy shit! Sarah Palin just got punked by Canadian pranksters the Masked Avengers. She thought she was taking a call from French president Nicolas Sarkozy. [Associated Press]

Listen to it:

And I thought Bush was an idiot. Damn, just damn.

Here’s a transcript.

Vote Tuesday and get free stuff

• Free Krispy Kreme donuts.



• Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.



• Free cup of joe — from Starbucks or 7-11

Long lines disenfranchise Atlanta

Yesterday, the last day of early voting in Georgia, people waited in lines for a whopping 10 hours to cast their ballot in Atlanta.

more about “Long lines disenfranchise Atlanta“, posted with vodpod

• More than one-third of Georgia has already voted.
• Long lines hurt employers, too.
• Meanwhile, the NAACP is suing Virginia to get more voting machines at polling places serving people of color or to extend voting hours.

People are committed and determined not to be disenfranchised. But I wonder how many people turned away opting not to vote because of the lines. Probably many.

Honestly, I can’t say that I would wait in that line. But then again, I live in Washington, D.C., which has always gone democrat in the presidential election. I think my vote matters more for local elections. Support D.C. Statehood Green Party candidates.

D.C. still doesn’t have a vote in Congress perhaps because it always goes democrat but also because it is a majority black. Oh, the legacies. By 2014, however, the city’s black residents will make up less than half of the population.

I wonder if it will finally get a vote in Congress then. Our elected leaders are fine with disenfranchising black folks, apparently, but if demographic change allows D.C. to get rights, it would only highlight the blatantly racist system. And what a terrible slap in the face it would be to folks pushed out of their homes by gentrification. “Oh, now the city gets a vote when it’s full of the white people.” Bull shit. I’m all for D.C. voting rights — but we need them now!

Are you drinking the Kool-Aid?

• More democracy means victory for Barack Obama, so say Florida Republicans. The governor extended early voting hours from eight hours to 12 hours to allow more people to vote. 
• Right-wingers love to argue that folks who support Obama are drinking his Kool-Aid. Would they so frequently use this term about a white candidate? I know the term goes back to a mass Christian cult suicide, but you don’t hear people saying Palin aficionados are drinking her Kool-Aid. It must be her milkshake. 
• It was cold and rainy in Washington, D.C., today, so this short video is appropriate.

McCain’s brother called 911 to complain about traffic

Nasty tempers must run in the family.

Alexandria resident Joe McCain, brother of John McCain, was driving home from a campaign event in Philadelphia when he got stuck in traffic on Saturday.

“It was some sort of bridge test, ’cause like a good boy, I tuned into WTOP like everybody is supposed to do,” McCain says. “When it got to be about 30 to 35 minutes, that’s when I got very frustrated.”

So McCain dialed 911 to try and “figure out exactly what was going on.”

Operator: 911, state your emergency.

Joe McCain: Well, it’s not an emergency, but do you know why on one side at the damn drawbridge of 95 traffic is stopped for 15 minutes and yet traffic’s coming the other way?

Operator: Sir, are you calling 911 to complain about traffic?

Joe McCain: Fuck you

After dialing 911, McCain called Alexandria Police to ask them about the traffic on the bridge, calling the situation an “absurdity.”

Alexandria Police: Did you just call 911 in reference to this? 911 is used for emergencies only, not because you’re just sitting in traffic.

Joe McCain: This isn’t traffic. This is a pretty serious malfunction…. Do we just sit here indefinitely while this bridge malfunctions?

Alexandria Police: Honestly sir, we have no control over the bridge…maybe you can contact VDOT or the Maryland Department of Transportation.

While McCain was on the phone with the police, the 911 operator called the caller back and received this message: “Hi this is Joe McCain I can’t take this message now because I’m involved in a very important family political project…”

The operator then called the number back and left a message for Joe about how it is illegal to use a 911 number for anything other than emergencies.

An outraged Joe called the operator back to complain about being read the riot act about unnecessarily calling 911 and got read the riot act again.

NYT endorses …

Obama. Shocking, or not.

EDITORIAL
Barack Obama for President

Published: October 23, 2008

Hyperbole is the currency of presidential campaigns, but this year the nation’s future truly hangs in the balance.

The United States is battered and drifting after eight years of President Bush’s failed leadership. He is saddling his successor with two wars, a scarred global image and a government systematically stripped of its ability to protect and help its citizens — whether they are fleeing a hurricane’s floodwaters, searching for affordable health care or struggling to hold on to their homes, jobs, savings and pensions in the midst of a financial crisis that was foretold and preventable.

As tough as the times are, the selection of a new president is easy. After nearly two years of a grueling and ugly campaign, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has proved that he is the right choice to be the 44th president of the United States.
…
The nation’s problems are simply too grave to be reduced to slashing “robo-calls” and negative ads. This country needs sensible leadership, compassionate leadership, honest leadership and strong leadership. Barack Obama has shown that he has all of those qualities. [New York Times]

The harassment of African American Obama supporters

It keeps getting worse. Mobs harassing people at the polls, and at their homes.

An African American man found his Obama yard sign replaced with a confederate flag. In Chesterfield County, Va., Leroy C. McLaughlin received a phone call from a family member while he was cooking dinner after work on Friday night. Someone had stolen his Obama yard sign and replaced it with a confederate flag, a symbol of racial oppression.

McLaughlin, a 78-year-old Baptist minister and Army veteran, who had lived to see the day when an African American won a major party’s nomination, replaced the stolen sign with one that had the same message: “Vote for Change, November 4th.”

And the harassment continues. Honking and hollering night and day. A reporter witnessed this first hand. In the 15 minutes that a reporter inspected the new sign, a small car sped back and forth past McLaughlin’s house three times, beeping the horn and appearing to shout “No change.”

How did McLaughlin respond? “I’ve been praying for them, because we’re all going to be charged with what we do,” he said. “It’s sad that we’ve grown and we want to keep fighting with something and can’t be peaceful and thankful.”

Wow. As Andrew Sullivan said, “A battle between hope and fear.”

Dead bear cub adorned with Obama campaign signs

Hear about the dead bear cub adorned with Obama campaign signs on the campus of Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, N.C.?

Western Carolina students say that it wasn’t a planned action but an disgusting prank. Their story sounds plausible:

According to interviews conducted so far, some students camping in a forested area off campus stumbled across the body of the bear while searching for firewood late Saturday night, Oct. 18. The students put the bear, which had been shot, in the back of a pick-up truck and continued their camping trip. Those students arrived at a social gathering at The Summit, an off-campus residential complex, on Sunday night, Oct. 19, with the bear in the back of the truck, and struck up a conversation with other individuals about what to do with the animal. One of the students suggested placing it at the base of the Catamount statue at the main entrance of campus. En route to campus, the students took random political signs to put over the bear’s head in an effort to cover the head wound and prevent blood from spilling into the bed of the truck. The students dumped the bear into the center of the roundabout at the entrance to campus at about 2:40 a.m. Monday, and returned to their apartment.

It sounds like the typical frat boys or jocks. I believe that the students didn’t kill the bear cub just to send a violent message to Obama supporters.

But I do NOT believe that they chose “random political signs.” I think they intentionally selected the Obama campaign signs. This is rural western North Carolina, people, and not the hippy Asheville area. I bet they thought it was funny. But it’s vile.

Western Carolina University is 90 percent white; Cullowhee is 89 percent white. And undoubtedly, it was a dead black bear cub. The racist undertones of this “prank” cannot be ignored.

Any way, it’s good that the students didn’t go out and kill a baby bear to scare people who support Obama. Nevertheless, they did intentionally cover the dead bear cub with Obama signs, which does send a scary message to Obama supporters. That is to say, the students acted despicably.

White McCain supporters heckle people of color voting early

A crowd of mostly white McCain supporters heckled mostly black voters at an early voting polling place in Fayetteville, N.C. The mob shouted “terrorist” and other verbal assaults. They tried to scare people away, to disenfranchise them. Oh, the legacies of the South. This is disgusting and shameful.

Watch it here:

For a happy voting experience, here’s a story from Atlanta, Ga., where 106-year-old Ann Nixon Cooper cast her early ballot for Barack Obama. Cooper remembers a time not too long ago when she was barred from voting because of her race. Now she hopes to see the day that Obama is elected as the nation’s first black president.

“I ain’t got time to die,” Cooper said with a smile. “Even if he didn’t win, I was happy for him just to be nominated. The first black president — isn’t that something, at 106 years old?”

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin greeted Cooper at the polling place. “I thought that I would accompany her today to support her, but also to say to all people that this is a choice we have,” Franklin said. “As all Americans, we should cherish the right to vote and take every opportunity we have to vote our opinions. She is an inspiration to me personally, but she is also quite an inspiration to all Atlanta.”

Cindy McCain has lost a lot of weight

She seems to be withering away.

1998

1999

2000

2004

2008

She’s also injured a lot:

Obama beats McCain in editorial endorsements

Obama now leads in editorial endorsements by 104 to 28 by my count, with Obama picking up at least 17 papers that endorsed Bush in 2004. 

BARACK OBAMA

ALABAMA
Tuscaloosa News (K)

ARKANSAS
Arkansas Times (K): 34,000

CALIFORNIA
The Argus (Fremont) (K): 26,749
Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek) (K): 183,086
Daily Breeze (Torrance) 
Daily Review (Hayward) (K): 30,704
The Fresno Bee (K): 150,334
La Opinion (Los Angeles) (K): 114,892
Los Angeles Daily News
Los Angeles Times (N/A): 773,884
Marin Independent-Journal (K)
The Modesto Bee (K): 78,001
The Monterey County Herald (K): 28,933
Oakland Tribune (K): 96,535
Pasadena Star-News (B)
The (Stockton) Record (B): 57,486
The Sacramento Bee (K): 288,755
San Bernardino Sun (B): 54,315
San Francisco Chronicle (K): 370,345
San Joaquin Herald
San Jose Mercury News (K): 234,772
San Mateo County Times (K): 25,982
Santa Cruz Sentinel (K): 23,290
Stockton Record (B)
Tri-Valley Herald (B): 29,759

SF Chronicle for Obama

No surprise here, San Francisco Chronicle is among the ranks of major papers endorsing Obama:

THE CHRONICLE RECOMMENDS: Barack Obama for president
Why Obama is the choice
The Illinois senator has shown beyond a doubt that he is the one to lead the nation in troubled times.

Friday, October 17, 2008

The stakes were extraordinarily high even before our economy began to spasm and hurtle toward the abyss.

From the start of the campaign, Americans were confronted with profound policy choices about how and when to extricate this nation from a war it initiated, how to temper a looming recession, and whether to continue Bush administration policies that had widened the gap between rich and poor, eroded individual liberties, strengthened presidential power, shifted the Supreme Court to the right, weakened relations with our allies, and delayed action necessary to slow the warming of the planet.

Then, suddenly, the emergence of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression gave Americans an opportunity to see the two major-party candidates under heightened stress. It was a rare chance to see the two senators encounter the type of pressure that comes with the job description of president of the United States.

Even though each ultimately voted for the same solution – the $700 billion bailout – their demeanors could not have been more different. Sen. John McCain magnified the aura of crisis, “suspending” his campaign to return to Washington, where his role in negotiations was at best tangential. Sen. Barack Obama was a portrait of calmness and deliberation, reminding Americans that it is possible for a leader to juggle more than one task at a time. [More

Boybands for Obama – Boybama

Pandering to the old white women vote. I don’t like the premise of the video, although it’s funny, so much as the subtleties about how the economic turmoil disproportionately affects women (not just white women).

According to the latest Gallup poll, white women are evenly split between Barack Obama and John Mccain, whereas white men are going for McCain.

Rich for McCain, Super-rich for Obama

The regular rich support McCain, the super-rich support Obama. Why? The rich care about taxes, the super-rich are so rich that taxes don’t matter as much as social issues.

People worth $1 million to $10 million:

• 75 percent support Sen. McCain
• 15 percent support Sen. Obama
• 10 percent are undecided

The reason? Taxes.

• 88 percent said tax policies were “important” in making their decision
• 45 percent said social issues
• 22 percent said health care
• 11 percent cited the environment

People worth more than $30 million:

• 66 percent support Sen. Obama
• 33 percent support Sen. McCain.

The reason? Social issues.

• “Social issues” ranked first
• 67 percent said “policies dealing with wars”
• Supreme Court nominations and health-care issues ranked third
• 16 percent said tax policies, ranking it last.

[Source: The Wall Street Journal.]

Maybe this difference has something to do with the nouveaux riches clinging to the American Dream — believing that if they can make it and become a millionaire, anyone can with enough work and skill.

Thus, people who don’t make it are just lazy or unqualified, so the rich shouldn’t have to give up their hard-earned money to pay taxes that fund social programs like welfare, education, health care, which help out those who they think aren’t working as hard as they are. This perspective is completely detached from reality.

Of course, working families are working — often 80 hour weeks at two jobs just to keep up with skyrocketing housing costs. Nevertheless, they’re still struggling with mortgages, health care premiums and sometimes groceries. Times are getting tough. Jobs are lost. People are struggling. Nouveaux millionaires don’t care. They made it, fuck you, give me Bush/McCain tax cuts.

The super-rich are trust fund babies who know better. They know that skill and hard-work don’t control income. It’s all about opportunity (luck) and who you know (background).

McCain camp’s motherfucking politics of hate

[Source: Harpers]

After all his politics of hate,

he wonders why we gets comments like this:

Chicago Tribune endorses Obama

While this is the first time that the Tribune has endorsed the Democrat presidential candidate, Obama is from Illinois, so I’m not too surprised:

FROM THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE EDITORIAL BOARD
Tribune endorsement: Barack Obama for president
2:33 PM CDT, October 17, 2008

… On Nov. 4 we’re going to elect a president to lead us through a perilous time and restore in us a common sense of national purpose.

The strongest candidate to do that is Sen. Barack Obama. The Tribune is proud to endorse him today for president of the United States. …

The change that Obama talks about so much is not simply a change in this policy or that one. It is not fundamentally about lobbyists or Washington insiders. Obama envisions a change in the way we deal with one another in politics and government. …

This endorsement makes some history for the Chicago Tribune. This is the first time the newspaper has endorsed the Democratic Party’s nominee for president.

The Tribune in its earliest days took up the abolition of slavery and linked itself to a powerful force for that cause–the Republican Party. The Tribune’s first great leader, Joseph Medill, was a founder of the GOP. The editorial page has been a proponent of conservative principles. It believes that government has to serve people honestly and efficiently. …

The Republican Party, the party of limited government, has lost its way. The government ran a $237 billion surplus in 2000, the year before Bush took office — and recorded a $455 billion deficit in 2008. …

It is, though, hard to figure John McCain these days. He argued that President Bush’s tax cuts were fiscally irresponsible, but he now supports them. He promises a balanced budget by the end of his first term, but his tax cut plan would add an estimated $4.2 trillion in debt over 10 years. He has responded to the economic crisis with an angry, populist message and a misguided, $300 billion proposal to buy up bad mortgages. …
We are proud to add Barack Obama’s name to Lincoln’s in the list of people the Tribune has endorsed for president of the United States.[Read it all]

LA Times endorses Obama

First time since Nixon that the Times has endorsed a candidate for president (and the first time, a democrat):

Barack Obama for president
He is the competent, confident leader who represents the aspirations of the nation.
October 19, 2008

It is inherent in the American character to aspire to greatness, so it can be disorienting when the nation stumbles or loses confidence in bedrock principles or institutions. That’s where the United States is as it prepares to select a new president: We have seen the government take a stake in venerable private financial houses; we have witnessed eight years of executive branch power grabs and erosion of civil liberties; we are still recovering from a murderous attack by terrorists on our own soil and still struggling with how best to prevent a recurrence.

We need a leader who demonstrates thoughtful calm and grace under pressure, one not prone to volatile gesture or capricious pronouncement. We need a leader well-grounded in the intellectual and legal foundations of American freedom. Yet we ask that the same person also possess the spark and passion to inspire the best within us: creativity, generosity and a fierce defense of justice and liberty.

The Times without hesitation endorses Barack Obama for president. [More]

Obama is hilarious

Barack Obama and John McCain roast each other at the 63rd annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner.

The Al Smith dinner is a charity event organized by the Catholic Archdiocese of New York for the benefit of needy children. An estimated $4 million was raised.

The event often draws politicians as speakers and, by long tradition, presidential candidates appear as headliners every four years. In this case, the evening of humor came one night after an intense final debate of the presidential campaign.

He pokes fun at himself, John McCain, Bill Clinton, Michael Bloomberg, Chuck Schumer, Rudy Guiliani…

“It is a honor to be here with Al Smith. I obviously never knew your great grandfather but from everything that Senator McCain has told me … the two of them had a great time together before prohibition.”

“The mayor of this great city, Michael Bloomberg, is here. The mayor recently announced some news, made some news by announcing he’s going to be rewriting the rules and running for a third term which caused Bill Clinton to say, ‘You can do that.’”

“While the collapse of the housing market has been tough on every single homeowner, we all need to recognize that it’s been eight times harder on John McCain.”

“Contrary to the rumors, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and I was sent here to save planet earth.”

“What you may not know is that Barack is actually Swahili for ‘that one.’”

“If I had to name my greatest strength, I guess it would be my humility. My greatest weakness, it’s possible that I’m a little too awesome.”

“Who would have thought that a cross dressing New York mayor would have a tough time winning the Republican nomination? It’s shocking really. That was a tough primary, you had there, John.”

“Fox News the other day accused me of fathering two African American children in wedlock.”

Washington Post endorses Obama

Adding to the list of conservative-leaning papers that endorse Obama:

Barack Obama for President

Friday, October 17, 2008; Page A24

THE NOMINATING process this year produced two unusually talented and qualified presidential candidates. There are few public figures we have respected more over the years than Sen. John McCain. Yet it is without ambivalence that we endorse Sen. Barack Obama for president.

The choice is made easy in part by Mr. McCain’s disappointing campaign, above all his irresponsible selection of a running mate who is not ready to be president. It is made easy in larger part, though, because of our admiration for Mr. Obama and the impressive qualities he has shown during this long race. … [More]

Yes, we can …

Yes, we can hold babies.

Yes, we carve (pumpkins).

Yes, we can has.

Yes, we can around the world.
Yes, we can can.

Yes, we can.

Obama’s up by 14 percent in the latest NYT/CBS poll.

McCain’s transition team leader, William Timmons, is a former consultant for Saddam Hussein. That’s it! No more crap about Bill Ayers. Obama never hired him especially not to lead the very important transition between the old administration and the new one when all the major policy initiatives go down.

Plus, the Weather Underground never tried to hurt anyone (they only hurt themselves). They bombed empty buildings to “bring the war home” during Vietnam. Sure, the United States listed them as terrorists, but so was Nelson Mandela until earlier this year.

Palin’s reading list

You probably heard that when Katie Couric asked Sarah Palin which newspapers she reads, Palin responded, “All of them, any of them.”

The writers of the Daily Show compiled a list of exceptions, along with why she doesn’t read them:

* Washington Post: “Too ‘inside the beltway’.”

* Wall Street Journal: “Maybe if it was ‘Main Street Journal’.”

* Superfluous Bridges Quarterly: “Thanks but no thanks!”

* The Economist: “No one would believe me.”

* The Paris Review: “I haven’t really read it since Plimpton passed away.”

* Architectural Digest: “I’m just not that hungry.”

* Wine Spectator: “Too passive. I’m more of a wine reformer.”

* Sports Illustrated: “That’s a lie. There are no drawings in there.”

* Fortune: “Too elitist.”

Listen to Palin’s response when Couric asked about the newspapers she reads:

Palin, however, clarified what newspapers she reads in an interview with Fox News, and of course, she claimed to read the Economist

Her response: “I read the same things that other people across the country read, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and The Economist and some of these publications that we’ve recently even been interviewed through up there in Alaska…”

The Daily Show is right: I don’t believe that Palin reads the Economist.

What do Hoffa and Springer have in common?

Teamster President Jim Hoffa is campaigning with Jerry Springer for Barack Obama in Ohio:

That’s a bizarre combo, huh?

Harder Better Barack Obama