GOTV gets dirty

...and I'm not talking about mudslinging.

Circlet Press, a publisher that describes itself as the "intersection of erotica and science fiction, fantasy, and futurism," has decided that there may yet be a way to get apathetic voters engaged with politics: offer them free porn.

Email a copy of a receipt from a campaign contribution, and Circlet will send you a sci-fi themed, erotic novel. Now's a little late to be mounting a last minute fundraising drive, so it's unclear how much of a difference Circlet thinks it can make. Since it's McCain who's in desperate straits, he's best hope there really are a number of sci-fi fans out there, ready to campaign for Tigh/Roslin rather than sticking with Roslin/Airlock. Either way, it should be a fun demographic dust-up.


(h/t to i09)

Liveblogging the last debate

10:07: "I think [the Supreme Court] has made a lot of bad decisions... I'm a federalist, let the states decide." Sounds like the Supreme Court is going to get a turn in the bathtub, once McCain finishes drowning the government.

10:04: I believe McCain just equated cosmetic surgery with organ transplants.

10:01: Yes, McCain, it's surprising that Obama is claiming to be levying a fine of $0 on Joe, the much maligned plumber, but use your words to express your disbelief. Holding perfectly still with your mouth open and blinking rapidly is a little too literal.

Barring any big moments, I'm signing off. Looks like it will be status quo ante bellum, with Obama's coolness playing well opposite McCain's agitation.

9:47: Look, I'm a fan of nuclear power, much more so than for "clean" coal, but "No problem" is a little flip, McCain

9:33: Obama talks about the "Kill him" remark, McCain takes umbrage that Obama doesn't recognize that "the best people in the world" come to his rallies. Then he says he's quite put out about the t-shirts people wear at Obama rallies.

9:25: People yell "Kill him" at Palin rallies because Obama didn't agree to Town Hall debates?

9:24: Obama said McCain never breaks with Bush on economic issues. McCain responds with a list of non-economic breaks.

9:23: The FoxNews line got the only laugh of all three debates.

9:21: The more defensive and desperate McCain looks, the better off Obama looks. As long as he stops smirking.

9:19: If McCain is proposing dropping the tariff on sugarcane ethanol, he must really be pulling out of Iowa

9:17: An across the board spending freeze?!? Really?!? So we, what, just stop paying Medicare doctors if treatment rates go up?

9:17: McCain is sill shilling for PUMAs.

9:15: Obama going through the budget line-by-line is still a laughable idea. Plus, without a line-item veto, it's hard to see what he'll accomplish.

9:14: Good to have someone point out that the $700 billion isn't meant to be a gift.

9:11: McCain hates redistribution. But if he keeps characterizing it as "spreading the wealth around" I fail to see how that's an effective attack.

9:08: "Senator McCain, do you want to ask Senator Obama a question?"
"No."
Wait, really? I'm calling an Obama win right now. What a terrible first impression.

The numbers are in, and the libertartians are losing

Mostly, I get my distilled datasets from FiveThirtyEight.com's sabermetric analysis, but there's something pretty thought-provoking at the end of the NYT/CBS poll that was just released.

The poll shows a 51-39 split for Obama and McCain, respectively, when third party candidates are counted. The real interesting data comes when you look at who's defecting for third parties.

	Democrats	Republicans	Independents
Barr/Root	0	0	2
Nader/Gonzales	2	2	4
Other	0	0	1

I'm not exactly what message the GOP is supposed to get when more partisans are deserting for Ralph Nader than for the Libertarian candidate and Ron Paul write-ins put together. Not abolishing government in favor of reducing it to the size where they can drag it into the bathroom and restrain it with a governmentally mandated seatbelt, perhaps?

That's hardly the worst of it for the Republicans.

	Republicans
McCain/Palin	81
Obama/Biden	11

One in ten registered Republicans are planning to defect to the Dems. That's five times as many as are planning to shift to Nader, and, if you want to get cute, infinitely many as are going to vote for Barr at this level of significance. So what message is the GOP establishment supposed to take home? Be more like the Democrats?

All these guys are doing a fine job planning the revolution, but, even with McCain in crisis, no one's really fleeing the two-party system. And, even as an ardent Obama supporter, I can't say that a world where dissatisfied voters just ping-pong back and forth between the two established parties is one I really enjoy living in.

So, libertarian-leaning, crunchy, or pomo- conservatives, what now? Bow your heads and pray "Next year in the Ballot-Box, not the blogosphere?" Cause from where I'm standing, this year is as much a failure for you as for the GOP.

[I realize the formatting is fouled up, by my HTML skills have proven insufficient. If anyone has suggestions, feel free to comment.)

Shining a spotlight on Apple's shenanigans

Apple will be releasing a new line of notebooks tomorrow, but, if you want to take a break from checking for Chinese leaks on tech specs, developer Peter Hosey has just finished updating the iPhone App Graveyard, (h/t Ars Technica which memorializes the apps that Apple has kicked off the App Store, and thereby placed off limits to everyone whose iPhones and iPod Touches aren't jailbroken.

Some of the dead are victims of copyright problems like Tris (a Tetris remix) while others fell afoul of Apple's apparent no-absurdism policy (I am Rich, an app that cost $999.99 and displayed a glowing, red jewel on the iPhone screen above the words "I am rich"), but only one of the dead apps has me boggled.

Freedom Time displayed a countdown to George W. Bush's last day in office above the words "...until the end of an error." Apple dropped the app, claiming it was defamatory. (They also supposedly booted a Bushisms app, which only showed actual Bush quotes for the same reason. It does make you wonder if Bush can sue himself for defamation of character.)

Steve Jobs responded to criticism by saying,

I think this app will be offensive to roughly half our customers. What’s the point?

It's puzzling that Jobs thinks that his business won't succeed if he allows anyone to sell anything that might annoy some fraction of his target population, particularly when he could make money when Democrats buy the app.

Ah, well. Guess that puts the kibosh on writing an app to display the image below whenever the user navigates to the iTunes store.

Shame on you, Maureen Dowd's editor

When you're as famous as Maureen Dowd (though she's been getting her butt kicked by Gail Collins on the witty, incisive op-ed front for more than a year), it's easy to lose your grip on your ego. That's why the NYT has editors to check the pomposity and indulgence of columnists.

So where was Dowd's editor when she decided to write half of Sunday's op-ed in neologistic Latin? Sample pararaph:

Vilmingtoni, in Ohionem, McCain’s Mean Girl (Ferox Puella) defendit se gladiatricem politicam esse: “Pauci dicant, O Jupiter, te negativam esse. Non, negativa non sum, sed verissima.” Talk about lipsticka in porcam! Quasi Leeus Atwater de oppugnatione Busii Primi ad Dukakem: “non negativus, sed comparativus.”

Sorry, Dowd. Pixtrem transiluis. (You have jumped the shark)

Spelunking in the Uncanny Valley

The android is modeled on a real five-year-old and was created by the Intelligent Robotics Lab at Osaka University. The researchers are focused on using androids to create "geminoids," android doubles remotely controlled by their dopplegangers to lend a human presence to telecommunication. Even leaving aside the uncanny valley problem, the utility of transporting specific robots to teleconference is kind of insane. This will only really work with some kind of cheap matter fabbing unit on site. Till then, just revel in the strangeness, and hope the geminoids dont have a plan.

(h/t to io9)

I need hyperlinks in meatspace

My day started off terribly, since I had forgotten the NYT had collapsed the Metro Section into section A, and spent quite a while looking for it.

Therefore, I'm especially appreciative of online media and hyperlinks today and will now proceed to furnish a number of them. David, Kate, Ferny, and I are guest blogging at HuffPo today. HuffPo has set up a symposium here on the recent YPU debate R: Blogs are good for democracy.

My post is here, so enjoy! (But please keep the number of comments mocking my previous HuffPo post on Harry Potter to a minimum)

She came, she dimpled, she conquered

I know it was unreasonable to expect Joe Biden to not drag out all of his wonky answers, even when contrasted with Palin's quick, folksy remarks. I know it was unreasonable to expect Joe Biden to anticipate that Palin's flag pin would be that much bigger and sparklier than his. I even know it was unreasonable to expect Joe Biden to do the smart thing and say he'd cut government subsidies to rather than raise taxes on Big Oil and Big (Evil) Corporations.

But for the love of anything, was it really unreasonable to expect Biden to look out at the audience, not at Gwen Ifill! Do the Dems just hate winning, or do they really not see the need to give any kind of media coaching?

Why won't someone tell the Dems it's not deceptive to use a little lipstick?

Hobbes at Senate Hearings, Leaves without Covenant

Yeah, I wish.

I thought that Professor Garsten did a fine job lecturing on Hobbes's De Cive, but it was sweet of the Fed to give me an object lesson. So I'm supposed to consent to giving Paulson god-like powers over the economy and at the same time waive any ability to withdraw that consent or check his actions in the future. It's asking a lot, sure, but this is a crisis! Any form of division will delay us for too long! We need to put aside our petty factions and cede authority to one leader!

(I'd have titled this post "Leviathan Wept" but that title's been taken by author Daniel Abraham as the title of his excellent short story.)

I guess Congress didn't notice that the last time we passed a bill in crisis mode, with lawmakers not even bothering to read the bill (I'm looking at you, John McCain) didn't work out so well.

Frankly, whatever the merits of the original failout bill, I'm still blaming Congress for the Dow drop. If they (especially stop-the-presses-stop-the-debates McCain) hadn't built up the bill as a rush job, we could have actually read and debated it, which seems appropriate, given its importance and scale.



I realize I'm following up my last post with another real-life application of my Democratic Rhetoric class. Next week we read Woodrow Wilson, so stay tuned for the dissolution of the UN.

Gorgias visits Yale, Polus is alive and well and hacking at K2

My Democratic Rhetoric class read Plato's Gorgias (his dialogue attacking rhetoric from both a moral and a pragmatic angle) the week before Drew Westen, author of The Political Brain gave a lecture at Yale.

My professor was amazed by the similarity between the scenes, the charismatic orator in front of a crowd of eager, ambitious young people, promising that, if they followed his teachings, they would have

the word which persuades the judges in the courts, or the senators in the council, or the citizens in the assembly, or at any other political meeting?--if you have the power of uttering this word, you will have the physician your slave, and the trainer your slave, and the money-maker of whom you talk will be found to gather treasures, not for himself, but for you who are able to speak and to persuade the multitude.

Westen's thought-provoking book argues that Democrats could actually win elections if they used research on emotional intelligences and networks of associations to better target their messages. The book is worth reading for the close readings of major political ad campaigns alone, and Westen certainly covers the issues that plague the Dems (abortion, health care) with more coherence and less controversy in the frames and talking points he proposes.

But, as in Gorgias, the effectiveness of Westen's methods is called into question less by his description of his methods and more by blind spots where his method is, apparently useless. Gorgias is undermined by his consistent need to defend the morality of teaching rhetoric. He lives in fear of the inhabitants of the various towns who might banish him or worse, but if rhetoric truly gave him the near absolute powers he claimed, he should never fear an angry mob.

The weakness of Westen's method came out in the informal Q&A that followed his lecture. I had read the book and had noticed that many of Westen's proposed talking points included references to Scripture or the speaker's faith, Did he think, I asked, that irreligious candidates could still use his methods or be elected at all? Should the Democrats be imposing a religious litmus test on candidates for their own good?

Westen replied that he believed that atheists couldn't win. Further, he had been asked to run for Congress in his native Georgia and had turned down the Party Elders in large part because he felt his (fairly disaffected) Judaism would be a sticking point that even his rhetorical skills couldn't help him escape.

If Westen is right, I think this is a big problem for American democracy (not to mention any of my hopes for holding office). Westen's approach, ultimately, isn't built on manipulating others by using deceptive practices like priming, but, rather, to reassure voters that your positions are grounded in values that are similar to theirs. It's a shame if we can't trust anyone who doesn't worship our god to share the principles that we care about, particularly as faith in god has not, of late, been a particularly good guarantor of respecting any of his creatures.

Apocalypse Forestalled. Drat!

In an article titled "Ah Spring! Baseball, Colliding Protons" Dennis Overbye has a sad tale to tell. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), due to the recent liquid helium leak, will not be firing up again until April 2009.

...and I felt a great disturbance under the earth, as though hundreds of researchers had suddenly cried out in terror and run past their grant deadlines.

Until the LHC comes back online, refresh your memory of the LHC's methods and goals here, double check whether the LHC has released earth-devouring stranglets yet here, and hope that the LHC doesn't get pushed back past December 21, 2012, since the only thing worse than dying in the apocalypse knowing that you could have died in the cool, did-we-push-past-the-limits-of-what-Man-was-meant-to-know? apocalypse and got stuck in the lame, it-took-the-Mayan-gods-about-one-thousand-years-to-notice-we-stopped-worshipping-and-then-got-pissed apocalypse.

All I know is, people only write operas about the first kind.

Lateblogging Tony Blair

No laptops allowed in the hall meant no liveblogging. (And, for a slapstick-filled hour, the changing rules books but no bags, nothing held in your hands, newspapers but no magazine supplements to the NYT, and finally, books allowed again necessitated several trips off the line back to my dorm. Thanks ever so, Scotland Yard.) Below are my thoughts on Blair's speech:

First: Blair is a consummate showman. Anyone who watched this interview without knowing who he is would assume he was a well-known actor or author, rather than a politician. Again and again he chose to go for the laugh line, rather than the applause line in his responses to questions. He was well-spoken and utterly at ease in a manner that seems foreign to American politics. While Obama and other politicians may be comfortable in interviews because of lengthy prep work, they (and the audience) are always aware of the (high) stakes. Blair seemed to have lowered the stakes to a more relaxed, Oprah-like level, never becoming flustered or too intense.

On to policy:

It figures that Yale put the Iraq question in the mouth of the student, the person Blair is least likely to take seriously. Blair doesn't regret his actions in Iraq, but never once does the phrase "weapons of mass destruction" (let alone "Downing Street Memo") escape his lips. Blair's ultimate objective is setting up a viable counter-narrative to that presented by extremist, anti-modernity Islam. Since he explicitly stated that this goal can not be achieved solely by applications of violence, the obvious question was: Why did Iraq become the front line of this narrative-war? Why was violence necessary there, but not other countries (like, oh, Saudi Arabia)?

These questions were neither asked nor answered.

Overall: Entertaining, but not particularly enlightening.

Real Sarah Palin facts

40% of registered voters have a favorable impression of Sarah Palin.
38% of registered voters have a favorable impression of Joe Biden.

It's a little surprising that McCain's August Surprise isn't any more popular than Joe "clean and articulate" Biden, but it gets worse.

17% of registered voters have a unfavorable impression of Joe Biden.
30% of registered voters have a unfavorable impression of Sarah Palin.

Her high unfavorables don't matter so much as long as she turns our the evangelicals, but she's not likely to turn independents or PUMA. And she's not boosting the "maverick McCain" storyline, either: 75% believe McCain picked her solely to win the election.

But I'm sure McCain and his staffers probably skipped over most of those numbers in favor of this one:
59% of voters believe McCain won't bring change to Washington. That's only five percentage points lower than the percent that believe Obama will bring change.

But, hey, what's to change? "The fundamentals of our economy are strong"

[All stats from today's NYT]

Word of the Day: Antimetabole

(h/t to Juliet Lapidos of Slate)

Antimetabole (according to Dictionary.com: An`ti*me*tab"o*le\, n. (Rhet.) A figure in which the same words or ideas are repeated in transposed order.

At the conventions alone:

We were elected to change Washington, and we let Washington change us. - McCain

In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers. And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change. - Palin

People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power. - B. Clinton

Great antimetabole of the past:

You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man. - Frederick Douglass

Ask not what your country can do for you —- ask what you can do for your country. - JFK

Fantastic rhetorical device, and I'm so delighted to be able to put a name to it.

What the Left does right

I'm a week late commenting (and complimenting) Sarah Vowell's op-ed which appeared in the Week in Review section of last Sunday's NYT. Here is how it begins:

ON Monday night at the Democratic National Convention, Caroline Kennedy introduced a tribute to her uncle, Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, by pointing out, “If your child is getting an early boost in life through Head Start or attending a better school or can go to college because a Pell Grant has made it more affordable, Teddy is your senator, too.”

To my surprise, I started to cry. Started to cry like I was watching the last 10 minutes of “Brokeback Mountain” instead of C-SPAN. This was whimpering brought on by simple, spontaneous gratitude.

Vowell relied on Pell Grant's to get through college. The grant wasn't enough to pay her way or to let her get out of working. It simply meant she had to work ten fewer hours a week.

Ten extra hours a week might sound negligible, but do you know what a determined, junior-Hillary type of hick with a full course load and onion-scented hands can do with the gift of 10 whole hours per week? Not flunk geology, that’s what. Take German every day at 8 a.m. — for fun! Wander into the office of the school paper on a whim and find a calling. I’m convinced that those 10 extra hours a week are the reason I graduated magna cum laude, which I think is Latin for “worst girlfriend in town.”

I recommend reading the whole article, which is moving and well argued. The Pell Grant Vowell recieved changed her life, without representing too large a fiscal burden for the government (Vowell has since paid back her Pell Grant many times in the form of the increased income taxes she pays on her increased income).

The Pell Grant program is one of the best governmental programs I can think of. It's not a hand-out or a "special right," it just helps hard-working, motivated students clear one bureaucratic hurdle so they can succeed on their own merits. Government governs best when it clears obstacles out of the way of hard-working people who are doing the right thing but just need a boost.

So next time you go knocking the Dems, think about a world without Pell Grants. It's a world that makes it that much harder for poor students to go to college and compete academically with their peers, a world that makes it harder for children to escape the misfortunes or poor decisions of their parents. It's a world in which Assassination Vacation was probably never written.

I don't think any of us prefer that world.


UPDATE: I've just noticed that both posts that I've tagged "verklempt" are about Teddy Kennedy. Just mentioning.

Pandering? For me? You shouldn't have!

Science Debate 2008 prepared a list of 14 questions for the candidates, and today, Barack Obama's answers went up (h/t i09). Among the highlights:

As president, I will lift the current administration’s ban on federal funding of research on embryonic stem cell lines created after August 9, 2001 through executive order, and I will ensure that all research on stem cells is conducted ethically and with rigorous oversight . . . I believe that it is ethical to use these extra embryos for research that could save lives when they are freely donated for that express purpose.

Specifically, I will implement a market-based cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions by the amount scientists say is necessary: 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. I will start reducing emissions immediately by establishing strong annual reduction targets with an intermediate goal of reducing emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

And my favorite:

[I will] strengthen the role of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) by appointing experts who are charged to provide independent advice on critical issues of science and technology. The PCAST will once again be advisory to the president. (emphasis added)

Needless to say, PCAST got booted under Bush.

I'd rather leave (Bristol's) baby in the corner

...because I'd rather talk about this.

Arguing that religious faith is pertinent inasmuch as it relates to character is one thing, but (according to this NYT profile her mayoral campaign took it way too far.

The traditional turning points that had decided municipal elections in this town of less than 7,000 people — Should we pave the dirt roads? Put in sewers? Which candidate is your hunting buddy? — seemed all but obsolete the year Ms. Palin, then 32, challenged the three-term incumbent, John C. Stein...

“Sarah comes in with all this ideological stuff, and I was like, ‘Whoa,’ ” said Mr. Stein, who lost the election. “But that got her elected: abortion, gun rights, term limits and the religious born-again thing. I’m not a churchgoing guy, and that was another issue: ‘We will have our first Christian mayor.’ ”

“I thought: ‘Holy cow, what’s happening here? Does that mean she thinks I’m Jewish or Islamic?’ ” recalled Mr. Stein, who was raised Lutheran, and later went to work as the administrator for the city of Sitka in southeast Alaska. “The point was that she was a born-again Christian.”

Palin wasn't just skillfully using the wedge issue for personal gain; it appears that questions of faith make too big a difference in her governing:

In her speech to the Wasilla Assembly of God in June, Ms. Palin said it was “God’s will” that the federal government contribute to a $30 billion gas pipeline she wants built in Alaska.

Her religious rhetoric is not just a veneer to sugarcoat policy choices, it is the basis of those choices. Time is reporting that:

Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.

Please let me know when the talking heads leave Bristol alone and start discussing these choices. When faith trumps facts on issues of public policy, you're damn right it's a character issue.

Mental Health Break: It was a dark and stormy night...

This blog has been dark for a few days as I moved back to school and caught up with many of these guys. Normal blogging will resume tomorrow, but one delightful item had to be addressed today.

For those unfamiliar with the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, it is named for Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who began his novel, Paul Clifford, with the following famous (and wretched) line:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

Since 1983, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Competition has sought out the worst opening line to a work of fiction (the line is not required to actually be part of a novel and is usually invented specifically for the competition).

So, congratulations to Mr. Garrison Spik, the winner of the 2008 contest, who was profiled in today's NYT. His opening line follows:

Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped ‘Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J.’

Welcome back.

Palin Supports Teaching Intelligent Design in Science Class

Palin's remark is reported in full at the Anchorage Daily News

That's all

Liveblogging: Clinton/Biden

9:07 - coming in late from dinner, but luckily Bill's applause went way over

9:10 - "My 8 years in office convinced me Barack Obama is the man for this job." Apparently, those 8 years took about 8 months to kick in.

9:13 - "Barack Obama is ready to lead... is ready to be POTUS" Check. Bill's in the clear.

9:15 - You have to feel a little bad for Hil, as she watches hubby praise BO and his "excellent VP pick"

9:16 - "People across the world have always been more impressed by the power of our example than the example of our power" Fabulous line

9:20 - Nicola, Bill always hits his stride when he gets to talk about people. He's not putting that on, he really does get that energized by empathy

9:22 - "Third time is not the charm" got a smile from Michelle. No word on whether she was thinking of the Bush dynasty or the Clintons

9:23 - Comparing Obama's youth to his own is a smart (and gracious) move for Clinton

9:25 - Bill nailed it. And he's still a rock star

9:29 - From MSNBC: "Elvis was back in the hall tonight"

9:31 - I'd blog about the coverage during the gap, but I have to return this copy of Watchmen tomorrow, so I need to finish it tonight.

9:34 - It's a tough gig, speaking right after Bill Clinton, so it must have been hard to decide whether to give the slot to Mark Warner or John Kerry. Can't make them duller on delivery.

9:44 - Kerry's actually gotten off some good lines. I was a little harsh before.

9:46 - I actually feel a little bad for Kerry, too. It's not as tough for him as for Hil, but he must be a little jealous that everyone loves his talking points... as long as they come out of Obama's mouth

9:47 - Can retired servicemen and women still wear their uniforms? It seems like if the general the Dems just brought out were a man, she'd have suited up

9:50 - Looked it up, she is eligible to wear her uniform

9:55 - Biden won't be on for half an hour. I'm taking a break

10:21 - The shakycam effect on the Biden montage is strange

10:25 - Overall, the quality of the Biden vid is way below Hil's

10:26 - Michelle is crying as Beau Biden speaks

10:27 - I like Biden, but not part of Washington is ridiculous. It's not a bad thing to have an experienced veep to help push through your agenda

10:29 - News Flash: Obama is no longer the most popular person on facebook. Michael Phelps out touched him.

10:30 - Biden looks delighted. Finally a Dem without reason to be bitter

10:31 - Biden is choking himself up. Still manages to quip about his wife being the only one who can leave him speechless. Quoth my mother, "He's going to be a pip."

10:33 - Leave off, Will. That moment about his son was very real and sweet. I'm sure Biden's big mouth will give them other options

10:35 - Biden's mom is also in tears. It's a three-hankerchief speech

10:36 - "[My mom] told me to go out and bloody their noses" Cut to his adorable mother mouthing "It's true"

10:37 - I'll admit, "everyone is your equal" is a pretty creepy philosophy

10:39 - Second John/George "freudian slip" of the night. It wasn't funny enough to do twice

10:41 - "Work is more than a paycheck, it's respect" Dead on.

10:44 - John McCain was his friend, even though that was fairly restrained (for Biden)

10:45 - The Dems need to sync up on what data their drawing their percentage of time McCain voted with Bush. Biden just said 95%, but Kerry said 90% earlier.

10:46 - Would it kill Biden to say 'more of the same' in rhythm so he can stay in sync with the floor-chanters?

10:47 - "Any country that out teaches us today will out compete us tomorrow" Another good line

10:48 - It's not looking too good in Pakistan, "the central front of the war on terror." The coalition government is fragmenting, and the likely prez has a history of mental illness

10:51 - Way, way too hawkish on Georgia. I don't know what the Dems are thinking

10:53 - Biden's done, but Obama's on the way

10:55 - Obama's on stage, and the hall is going wild. Anyone got a stopwatch to contrast with Clinton?

10:57 - Hillary gives a very ironic looking "Thank you" to Obama's comment that she "rocked the house." Surprisingly, hothead Bill pulls off a better reaction shot for his compliment

10:58 - That didn't really merit trotting him out. Ah well, at least I get to listen to the Boss singing "The Rising"

10:59 - "The Rising" sure beats Hillary getting played out to "Love Train" earlier today

11:00 - MSNBC apologizes to me for spoiling Obama's 'surprise' appearance.

11:01 - Looks like all is over. Time to sign off and check out that episode of Project Runway I just taped