Okay, suggested by Quinn.

But now that you're here, Recommend this one.

And the one on Paris Hilton. Come on, they're repossessing hotels as we speak, the least you can do.

And the one on posting drunk (and violent might I add?).

And the one on Obama pushing crack to lepers in Chicago. Oh wait, just something about the bailout, anyway, rec 3 times and do a shot every time I mention "financial".

And the nostalgia trip on Spiro Agnew or "Baby's got back"".

That's right, Rec each and every one of them. Don't worry, it won't mean they come back to life, just that I know you were there. And that's all that matters. Togetherness. During these tough times. A little reach out to show we care. Do it for Elvis. Do it for me. Love and OOO's and XXX's. Des.

I once heard Sarah Silverman take on the rude claim that Pamela Lee Anderson would be nothing without her tits. "Oh that is so wrong, she'd be Paris Hilton!!!"

And it's even more wrong the way Paris has been slighted this fall. While Sarah Palin herself credited Hillary's 18 million cracks in the ceiling, and some think it was Tina Fey that provided real life inspiration, it was Paris herself that launched the snowmobiler's chances from her poolside.

Is our collective memory that short? In a few decisive seconds, Paris chooses her next vacation spot, comes up with a hybrid energy policy, and with that taken care of, chooses her VP - no summer-long exploration team, no waffling about "who likes me best, who might be mean to me". Uno, dos, tres: "See you at the debates, bitches".

Worried about Obama painting the White House black? Paris already chose pink. Think she'd have trouble taking on Katie Couric or Charles Gibson? Think she's make the most important debate of our lifetimes a snoozefest? Make that a no way. 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling? Paris has more than that in her bumper.

As for thinking out of the box in a time of economic crisis, she's got street cred - if she could sell wine in cans to Italians, she could sell ice to eskimos or worthless mortgages to Saudis. She understands viral marketing, new media and having fun, which are the best ways to pull ourselves out of this crisis. Housing payments coming due? Fly to Maui. No place to sleep? Cool, let's go clubbing, you can crash at my pad. She understands the judicial system better than any of the "real" candidates, she knows how to work a trust fund to the max, and she doesn't need some 1950's beauty & talent contest schtick - she's got videos, her own fashion line and one hellacious scream. Worried about candidates dying? No prob, been there, done that. And she even did a reality show down on a farm - she understands the Simple Life. She's the Great Communicator.

So it's time to give credit where credit's due, the maverick who doesn't have to keep repeating it (and if someone was doing shots every time a certain word was spoken, she'd be first in line). Deliver canned lines with gusto? Check. A true celebrity we can believe in? Check. She was p3wn3d by the other candidates stealing her act, especially the old scary white dude, but we can right the wrong, we can write in Paris and vote the real deal. Paris is back with a kinda feeble team up with Charlie Sheen, but she belongs in the real White House solving real problems for real people. And even for us as well.

And just in case you think the Sarah Palin thing was a coincidence, note that her name is a mashup of Paris Hilton and Rihanna. Hardly an innocent mistake.

So get thee to a voting booth and do the right thing. And we're stealing back the lame PUMA bit - it's now Party Up My Ass. See you at the elections, bitches.

By now there's been considerable discussion around the Internet about Google Goggles, which makes you solve math problems to prove you're not too drunk to post.

What's the point? If I wanted to be restrained and moderate, I wouldn't drink so much. If I didn't want to post drunk, I would have stayed in the bar. (Presuming I wasn't posting from the bar, which is kind of premeditated, but occasionally fun). If I wanted to be sensible, I'd be doing what normal people do, which is go out and have fun.

And I think of how far our techno-optimism has been diluted since the 1960's. Back then, George Jetson would arrive in his hovercraft, greeted by his wife at the door with what can only be described as one Rockem-Sockem space martini, slippers by his dog Astro, and then off to his recliner. Updated for internet, we would expect Robbie the Robot to bring his laptop and assist George in deciding whether to begin his letter with, "You blithering idiotic waste of cybernetic thought cycles" or something more down to earth like, "Dear Dipshit..." Instead, fast forward a few decades and we have what can best be described as home electonic monitoring & supervision, under protective custody because we simply can't be trusted to be ourselves. If you get the idea of Google Goggles, we're the ones who don't trust ourselves. Oh my. Well how about we all kill ourselves and start over then. I mean, I'll reluctantly agree that it's probably a good thing we stopped encouraging drinking and driving, what with the occasional misfortunate fast deceleration. (Though the accompanying ban on drinking in boats bothered me - first, what's a boat if not to drink in. Second, if you can manage to run into something on a huge lake drunk, you probably shouldn't be behind the wheel of anything sober.) But now we don't trust ourselves to drink and speak? Like, will there be a Party Edition of Google Goggles, perhaps tied to Amazon Kindle technology? Wouldn't it be grand to just have a muzzle with Rubik's Cube as the lock? Could make calling a taxi home a little difficult, but you can always point and grunt. (Come to think of it, might even improve pickups at your local meat market, I suppose - none of that embarrassing slurrish small talk as the desperate evening wears on - just point and click).

Oh well, technology is so utterly predictable, always the let down. Instead of it helping us make those exotic drinks we always screwed up (or never had the right ingredients for), it instead insists on telling us we really didn't want one, and here's a non-caffeine sugar-free RedBull to boot.

Okay, that's it. I'm going to hit "Submit" now, and if you don't get out of my fucking way, I'm going to blow your display into so many goddamn pieces I'll be pulling pixels out of the living room furniture for months. There. Click. That was easy. A little bit of threat and attitude, and technology falls apart. I like being back in control. Even if I am a bit tipsy.

For all those who said it came down to judgment, that we knew the Administration was lying, that Bush wasn't to be trusted, well, forget all that.

Black lawmakers said personal calls from Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama helped switch them from "no" to "yes."
(OpenLeft)

[I thought of that this morning when I read]:
Having tried without success to unlock frozen credit markets, the Treasury Department is considering taking ownership stakes in many United States banks to try to restore confidence in the financial system, according to government officials.

Treasury officials say the just-passed $700 billion bailout bill gives them the authority to inject cash directly into banks that request it. Such a move would quickly strengthen banks' balance sheets and, officials hope, persuade them to resume lending. In return, the law gives the Treasury the right to take ownership positions in banks, including healthy ones. 

(OpenLeft)

Well fancy that, looks like they don't have to go back to Congress or the UN to just change their plan. Carte blanche to wave around all that money however seems fit. (Paulson's buddies at Goldman Sachs will no doubt be pleased, what with their impressive partying and late minute bonus handouts as  they were begging for government intervention). Kinda reminds me of all that Surge-y stuff a year-and-a-half ago, with Petraeus as the mythical hero, or how Mukasey had to be approved at Justice because he was just so smart and non-partisan, or how Alito was just so wise that he didn't answer any of those pesky questions because that's how an inscrutable oracle Justice-type does it, and of course the best one, Colin "Just Trust Me" Powell. Find the right point man to lead your charge, and the troops will just fall in line.

Like Obama. When the call went out to support the Authorized Use of Monetary Force, Barack was there, helping lead the charge, good for the full $700 billion. However Treasury's going to spend it, Obama'll make sure the money gets to them. Knowing full well the administration didn't have all its cards on the table, that the figure $700 billion was plucked out of thin air, that the "plan" was basically "give us lots of money and we'll figure out something", kind of like the plan going into Iraq. (Pssst - remember how that $700 billion was supposed to prop up the market and confidence? Which promptly fell on arrival of the news?)

In just under 4 weeks, we will likely elect Obama president, which seems certainly better than the more-and-more decrepit, clueless McCain (and 100 times better than his would-be successor Palin). But he will have been elected under one of the greater marketing shams of our time - the change that held no change, the foresight that held no special foresight, the "reaching across the aisle" that symbolized capitulation more than any real coming together and consensus and persuasion and epiphany. Obama and Palin are remarkably alike in one respect - they both have a penchant for biting the hand that feeds them, in paying more attention to their next boss, and not the one that brung them to the dance.

Obama is certainly not an empty suit. He is more something of a mystery, a man of many masters and none. In 3 months, he will find himself largely unconstrained - elected in what looks to be a rout, a solid majority in both houses, and in charge of the agenda. Will he be his own boss, or will it be his new friends in banking and finance, the Warren Buffets and Franklin Raines and other top dollar traders? Will Benjamin Bernanke come out and say we have enough money to do Universal Health Care the way Greenspan came out for Bush to say we could do surpluses *AND* a huge tax rebate? Well color me skeptical. Obama and Axelrod trained themselves at the knees of Mark Penn's niche marketing, and they will focus on the difference that makes a difference. And in times of economic crisis, that undoubtedly won't be you and me. We're last week's news. The new change is bigger than all of us. Hold on tight.