[I doubt that] Obama wore an earpiece that was clearly visible on HDTV.

(Enlarge.)

ADDED: Scrolling around and looking in different frames, I don't see it. I think this picture creates an illusion of a clear plastic earpiece, but I can't see it in other frames.

AND: I made the picture smaller, so you won't think I'm trying to make trouble even though I no longer believe there is a visible earpiece. Anyway, remember the suspicions about Bush in '04, the famous jacket bulge? Remember this old story about Romney? There has also been discussion over whether Palin wore an earpiece. And there's been speculation about Obama, based on performances like this:

ADDED: Live-blogging the debate, Jac (a big Obama supporter) said:

10:27 - Obama needs to be coached to stop beginning so many of his answers with dead air while he thinks of what to say: "Uhhh ... ehhh ..."

That would be a good time to listen to an inside-the-ear advisor. Glenn Reynolds links to this post and agrees with my just a reflection analysis. But then he links to this comment over on Volokh:

Actually, both candidates' hesitancy and quick changes of topic, often within the same sentence, are consistent with their being whispered to. I challenge you to sound coherent when someone's talking to you and you have to not repeat what they say but reformulate it into something that sounds good, while they're still talking.

On that theory, look at this: (Thanks to commenter jdeeripper for pointing me to that.) You know, just because the thing I saw wasn't there doesn't mean there wasn't something there that I didn't see. I would not be surprised to learn some day that all or most politicians have for years had their advisors helping them from deep inside their ear canals. Maybe the best politicians are just those who are most adept at translating the voice in their ear into fluid speech. AND: In the comments and around the web, this post is attracting anti-Althousiana. What I would really love would is a Chip Ahoy animation of Obama's ear as a vortex, like this one. For more information my vortex, read this and click the "vortex" tag.

Live-blogging the big "town hall" debate.

6:14 Central Time: I'm just setting up the post so you'll know I'm doing this again.

8:11: After they blame each other for the financial crisis, Obama tells us we don't want to hear them blaming each other. We just want to know how to stay in our homes and pay our bills. McCain sounds a little shaky and winded. He's wearing a shiny dark suit and a pink and red striped tie. Obama -- in an unshiny suit and a blue-purple tie -- seems relaxed. He's got a casual way of sitting on the stool.

8:20: The first 3 questions have been about the crisis, the third being, quite sensibly: How can we trust you guys who let us get into this trouble in the first place? McCain points to his record, and repeatedly tells us he's reached across the aisle. Does that make you trustworthy? The 2 men seem mainly to be recycling their old talking points more than speaking directly to the crisis.

8:28: An old woman emails in her demand that people be asked to make sacrifices. McCain repeats his ideas about cutting spending, and makes a second reference to an overhead projector that Obama procured for the Chicago planetarium. Again with the earmarks. What was the dollar figure on earmarks? I heard $1 billion. That seems like nothing compared to the $750 billion bailout. And what is the sacrifice? Not getting more earmarks? Obama reminds us of the way Bush told us after 9/11 to "go out and shop." Bush, it seems, could have demanded sacrifices, but Obama doesn't say what we should have sacrificed then or now, though he does advise us to be energy efficient. It's really not too inspiring, but I think Obama is trying to seem cool, solid, and not at all exciting. In the background, we see McCain writing, awkwardly, on a note pad, and maybe some of us think about McCain's sacrifices.

8:37: Tom Brokaw is in control! Obama will not be permitted to say something about taxes because "it's important." Ha ha. As I was writing "it's important," O said "it's important" again.

8:41: McCain thinks he's making a big funny by saying "I'll answer the question!" Because, you know, Obama didn't want to go on to the next question before. No one laughs, but he looks so happy with his wisecracks. "Too many lobbyists workin' there," he says, and I think he's trying to sound Palinesque.

8:44: McCain's plan seems to be to sound passionate and caring. And to say "Lieberman" frequently.

8:46: Jac is live-blogging too: "9:30 - Cringe-inducing word choice from Obama: "A lot of you remember the tragedy of 9/11..." He can safely assume we all remember."

8:47: I love Brokaw. Watch the damned lights! He finds it hard to believe the candidates aren't watching the lights. Obama pops up and says he's just trying to keep up with McCain. In other words, he did it first! That seemed a little dorky and childish.

8:50: I was just admiring Obama's elegant gestures with his long, thin hands, when McCain positioned himself in the background and made a hand gesture that can only be described as holding an invisible grapefruit in front of your chest.

8:55: Obama says that health care should be a right. (McCain called it a "responsibility.") Obama seems relaxed and smiling but also oddly pissed that McCain has been "throwing a lot of things out there."

9:01: We've finally arrived at foreign policy, and McCain seems very relieved. Obama takes the subject of Iraq and ties it to the economy: Iraq has a surplus, so why are we spending our money over there? He's made this argument many times, but it has more resonance this week.

9:05: What is Obama's standard for when we should intervene for purely humane reasons, where there are no American interests? I hear no statement of doctrine. What is McCain's doctrine? We should intervene whenever there is a genocide if we have the means to improve the situation. (That's why he stood up to Reagan about Lebanon.)

9:14: Obama says McCain has called him "green behind the ears." Some sort of moss or fungus?

9:27: The question is how we would respond to an attack by Iran on Israel, and McCain makes a strong connection to the military man in the audience who asked the question. Obama's answer recycles material about energy independence. He talks about negotiations and diplomacy. Okay, and then? What if there is an attack? Will you be there? I can't tell.

9:30: "What don't you know and how will you learn it?" A cute question. Cute and disturbing. Obama decides to just deliver his prepared closing statement. The last 8 years sucked. Can't get the same a different result doin' the same thing, so we need change. McCain says what he doesn't know is what we all don't know: the stuff that's going to happen in the future! [CORRECTION, made at 6:53 am: We'd really be screwed if evening doing something different made a different result impossible. I apologize for the accidental pessimism. I will endeavor to confine myself, in the future, to pessimism of the intentional kind.]

9:34: I began this live-blog with a big mug of lapsang souchong tea, but about 15 minutes ago, I switched to cognac:



9:42: Wow. Over 600 comments! I'll need to go in there and see what you folks are saying. For now though, let's do a little poll:

Who won?
	Obama.
	McCain.
	Both.
	Neither.
pollcode.com free polls

9:55: I was scrolling through my HDTV recording, looking to photograph the "invisible grapefruit," and I noticed that Obama was wearing an earpiece. I photographed the freeze-frame and have set up a new post to display it.

10:09: I reconsider the perception of an earpiece. I don't see it in other frames. I'm sure a real secret earpiece would be way less visible, inside the ear canal.

11:21: I'm reading the comments, and the general opinion is that the debate was very boring. It was boring to me, because they were saying things I've heard before. Maybe some people are listening closely for the first time, and for them, it might have been interesting. But it should have been new and exciting for all of us, given the events of the past week.

6:55 am: When I woke up this morning, I decided to concentrate my mind on the question which man won.... Ah, what am I doing in this old post? Making a couple corrections. My new morning perceptions will be in new post.

"When I stand here, it makes me human."

A-ha ha-ha:



Via ChordStrike, via Instapundit.

Here's the original version, where you have to figure out for yourself what's going on.

Crowdsurfing a baby to Obama.

From the Yes We Can (Hold Babies) blog, where they want cute babies with Obama, not abominations like this:



The babies know. Test your candidate with a baby today.

Via Metafilter, where someone reminds us of how the babies tried to warn us about Bush:



Listen to the wisdom of babies.

We're less satisfied then ever.

Only 12% of us were satisfied in 1979, the lowest level of satisfaction in Gallup polling history, until now. Only 9% of us are satisfied with "the way things are going in the United States at this time."

Speaking of cute kids for Obama.

"Yes We Carve"... the kids and their barack-o'-lanterns.

Cute!

Exposed to criticism, the University of Illinois backs away from its limits on political speech.

Inside Higher Ed reports:

The controversy over political expression on campus stunned professors. Many colleges, especially public institutions, distribute reminders in election years about permitted and barred political activity. These policies typically bar the use of college funds for campaign activities and may direct employees to be sure that their public statements about candidates do not imply an endorsement by the institution.

At Illinois, however, a memo went out to employees at all three campuses barring employees from wearing political buttons on campus, having bumper stickers on cars parked on campus, or attending political rallies on campus. Because many professors do wear buttons and attend rallies, the policy infuriated faculty members. The American Association of University Professors condemned the limits for “their chilling effect on speech, their interference with the educational process, and their implicit castigation of normal practice during political campaigns.” The rules were not enforced, but the university also declared them to be policy.

Yes, it's important for universities to be clear about the specific thing that is wrong, properly stated above as: 1. appropriating university resources for use in a political campaign and 2. creating the appearance that the university itself is endorsing a candidate. The problem arises when a state university, concerned about those 2 things that are to be proscribed, bars things that seem similar, as if it's good to be extra careful. But these additional things are tremendously important political free speech. You don't include them just to be safe. You take extra care to exclude them with crisply drawn lines.

Now, universities, learn from the University of Illinois' embarrassment and rewrite those policies.

***

Here's the policy at the University of Wisconsin. Help me rewrite it.

Dana Milbank would like Sarah Palin to stop fighting and accept defeat graciously.

Dana Milbank witnesses Sarah Palin's strengths and surrounds them in ugly disapproval:

"This is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America," she told the Clearwater crowd. "I'm afraid this is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country." The crowd replied with boos.

Milbank doesn't repeat the charge that it's somehow racist to talk about Obama's association with Bill Ayers, but he does immediately start talking about how it's racist to make anything out of Obama's association with Jeremiah Wright:

McCain had said that racially explosive attacks related to Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are off limits. But Palin told New York Times columnist Bill Kristol in an interview published Monday: "I don't know why that association isn't discussed more."

Either Palin's political judgment is different from McCain's or her judgment is being exercised at a different point in time. Is it racist for her to want to use this material? But Milbank doesn't say it is, only that the material is "racially explosive." If Palin dares to talk about such things, what bad things people might think.

Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

Hmm. I'd like to see the video of that. Now that the press has been attacked as biased, how will it defend itself? By connecting the candidate to the "ugliness" of the gathered throng, which it will describe: It shouts abuse, and some hurl obscenities. (Obscenities are always hurled, never merely thrown, tossed or lobbed.) The press will find that one guy who "shouted a racial epithet" and called a black man "boy." (Do we really know that guy is a Palin supporter and not a dirty trickster?) Look out, Sarah, if you inspire noise from the crowd, the press will choose which words to report. You might want to keep them soothed and calm.

McCain's swoon is largely out of his control...

Swoon... McCain's the girl around here. Palin's the real man. Is Milbank making a gender-tinged remark?

... the result of an economic collapse that ignited new fears Monday when the Dow Jones industrial average closed below 10,000 for the first time in four years....

But the campaign has reacted with recriminations (the St. Petersburg Times reported that the Florida Republican Party chairman, after questioning Palin's aptitude, was told that he couldn't fly on her plane) and now Palin's rage.

Yes, dammit, why can't Palin simply resign herself to the fate of the campaign? The stock market has crashed, therefore Obama's time has arrived. Yet Palin responds with "rage." Anger is stage 1. Get with it, lady. You belong at stage 5, resignation, where the nice, genteel Mr. McCain is.

"One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," she said. ("Boooo!" said the crowd.) "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,' " she continued. ("Boooo!" the crowd repeated.)

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

If Palin excites the crowd, the press will listen hard for the nastiest remark. She'd better rein it in then, Milbank hints, or the press will keep hearing these things and calling her ugly. She needs to be more like McCain and back out of the states that the polls show they are losing. Obama has won the election, and it's long past time for the little lady from Alaska to accept defeat gracefully.

***

By the way, should we assume that Palin didn't realize that McCain had declined to use Jeremiah Wright against Obama? Maybe she did know, and she intended to imply that McCain has not run a sufficiently vigorous campaign and to set herself apart as someone who could have fought to a victory but came in too late and weighed down by an inadequate running mate.

Her political interests are different from him, and I've been getting the impression that she is running with her eyes on 2012. (And with this post, I create the "2012 campaign" tag to go with the old "2004 campaign" and "2008 campaign" tag. The campaign blogging never stops.)

"A professor's opinion: Not Shakespeare is the thing, but the commentary on him."

An aphorism that made me think:

A blogger's opinion: Not MSM is the thing, but the blogging on it.

Wow. She handled that well.

I have the feeling we are entering a new era.

IN THE COMMENTS: Cyrus Pinkerton accuses:

Althouse throws out some red meat for her hysterical rightwing base. A mindless feeding frenzy ensues. Good stuff, Althouse!

My response:

My point is -- call it red meat if you like -- that Palin did not grovel at the accusation of racism. She just went right for the point that she had to make... which was never racist. What's new is that she didn't bother to respond to the charge. She wasn't cowed by it. It was utter bullshit of course, and her response treated it as the bullshit it was.

Cyrus:

It's new that Palin is unresponsive to questions from the press? Really?

Meade:

Unresponsive to the charge of racism. Think about that, Cyrus. It is Palin, not Obama supporters, who is post-racial.

"The usual Althousian misogynistic exceptionalism."

Ann Bartow agrees with something I said -- and quotes it in full -- after "extracting" it from this "much longer" post supposedly "larded with the usual Althousian misogynistic exceptionalism." She offers no reasons for why that description applies to the rest of my post. She just hurls the insult. So, to respond in kind, let me say: Lame! Pathetic! Unscrupulous!

IN THE COMMENTS: Some object to the insult to me, but Electric Citizen objects to the insult to lard:

Lard o'mercy.

Every baker knows that despite lard's heavy reputation (it is pig fat, after all), nothing makes a flakier or better-tasting pie crust. Lard also makes the lightest and tastiest fried chicken: buttermilk, secret spices and ancient cast-iron skillets are all well and good, but the key to fried chicken greatness is lard.

Michael H. is all:

Electric Citizen - One of my earliest childhood memories was of my father's mother, a German immigrant, making doughnuts in her kitchen. She would make the dough, let it rise, roll it out, and use two glasses to punch out doughnut shapes (one for the doughnut, a smaller on for the hole).

She'd drop the doughnuts into a vat of hot lard atop her old gas stove. After a few moments, she'd turn the half-cooked doughnuts over with wooden dowels, then a minute later spear the hot doughnuts and drop them onto a plate. She'd sprinkle them with sugar, and as soon as they had cooled just enough to be picked up by small fingers, my cousins and I would each grab one and run to the porch.

The aroma of the doughnuts cooking in hot lard, and the melt-in-my-mouth sweetness of the fresh doughnuts has been so indelible imprinted that I cannot to this day, some 60 years later, smell doughnuts without recalling fond memories of my grandmother.

(Of course, she couldn't blog, so she never realized her full potential as a woman).

And suddenly, everyone is reminiscing about grandmas and cooking with lard.

Well, not everyone. Plenty are still going after Bartow. (And -- how unfair! -- there are zero comments chez Bartow.)

Ruth Anne says Bartow has used the old device of "insulting upward," which will get you traffic, but -- boo hoo! -- still no comments. I wonder why.

Henry said:

Can we assume from Ann Bartow's statement that what she doesn't quote she finds offensive? If so, here's what offends her (all quotes and emphasis from Ann's original post):

1. "It's unlikely that female lawprofs have a special disadvantage."

2. "You have 'disproportionate child care responsibilities' and you're a law professor and that's not your choice? Do something about it!"

3. Agreement! At least until Ann writes: "Stop whining, blaming others, looking for protectors, and blog... if you want to."

The inverse of these comments is that female law professors are at a special disadvantage, they're stuck with the kids, and they can't do anything about it.

In short, fish really do need bicycles and society is to blame.

Jdeeripper said:

Bartow also failed to explain what the hell "misogynistic exceptionalism" means.

Althouse is as exceptionally misogynistic?

Althouse thinks she is an exceptional woman and not like the other inferior women?

Althouse thinks she is so exceptional that only other people can be misogynistic not her?

I think she made the comment because 1. she didn't read the post in full and 2. she is winking to the other feminists that she knows Althouse is a traitor but she still wants to link to a post she partly agrees with.

Lurker80 said:

I find it interesting that Bartow linked to the whole Feministing scandal from 2006 as evidence that you are in part responsible for attacks against feminists. Amazing. As if feminists are not allowed to criticize each other. (Unless it's about Palin, because of course she's not a "real" feminist.)

Her link does bring back memories, though. I first learned of your blog through the Feministing controversy back when I was trying to determine whether I was a feminist at all. I'm so grateful that I stumbled upon this blog and learned that feminism is a broader category than Feministing and BitchPhD would have you believe.

Wurly said:

Margaret Thatcher? Misogynistic exceptionalism.

Jeanne Kirkpatrick? Misogynistic exceptionalism.

Sarah Palin? Misogynistic exceptionalism.

Basically, its a woman who succeeds on a foundation other than victimhood. That, in modern feminism's mind is "exceptional". The example that the "exceptional" woman sets--that you can succeed on your own terms without claiming the identity of a victim--sets back the cause of feminism, and is therefore misogynistic, because only modern feminism can speak for women. That's why Ann fits the category. Watch out Ann, I hear next week's Newsweek has a column explaining why you aren't really a woman.

Joan said:

I think Bartow thinks it's fair to call Ann misogynistic (anti-women) because as so many have noted already, Ann doesn't play along with the women-as-victim story.

I confess, I had to look up exceptionalism, and now I'm really stumped as to what Bartow means, because exceptionalism means (if I'm getting this right) that normal rules don't apply because you're special, that is, exceptional.

I think it is grammatically incorrect to use a negative modifier like "misogynistic" with "exceptionalism", which implies special treatment due to superiority. It's a contradiction in terms, unless Bartow means to say that it is Ann herself who wields her exceptionalism to further her misogynistic goals.

I've been reading here since the early days, and have never found Ann misogynistic although she does occasionally over-react to blogospheric slights. Labeling her with exceptionalism is a gross exaggeration, if that was Bartow's intention.

Does that represent Bartow's best work? That alone could explain why there are few prominent women law prof bloggers. If you came across Bartow first, you'd think, "Ick, who wants to read this?" and never click on her blog again. To be a successful blogger, it's not enough to have opinions, you have to express them clearly and support them as well. It also helps a lot if you don't whine.

Pogo said...

Misogynistic exceptionalism expialidocious!

Even though the sound of it
Is something quite atrocious
If you don't whine loud enough
You'll be called ferocious
Misogynistic exceptionalism expialidocious!!

Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay
Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay

Because I was afraid to speak
When I was just a lass
My mother said I was too weak
And the ceiling it was glass
But then one day I learned a word
That saved my pretty ass
The biggest word I ever heard
And I stuff it in my bra:

Oooohhhh, Misogynistic exceptionalism expialidocious!!

UPDATE: Bartow finally got a comment, savaging me for writing "Women are ... prone to"... but oops... I didn't write that. Bartow omitted quotation marks or indenting to show that I quoted a phrase from the article I was writing about. Let's see if Bartow takes the trouble to correct her lone commenter. If not... pathetic, lame, unscrupulous.... And I want an apology for making it look like I wrote something I didn't write. And the person I was quoting was only laying down the conventional argument. Sigh.

Late morning at the Talk to Strangers Café.

Come on, talk. I'll meet up with you later. I'm going to go listen to Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute talk about what sort of judges we might expect a President Obama/McCain to appoint. The event is down the hall from my office, and I'm hoping for lots of good discussion from UW lawprofs and students. If anyone says something truly interesting, I'll have my laptop and I may live-blog it.

But this post isn't about McCain, Obama, or the Supreme Court in particular. This is a café post, which means you're on your own. Talk about anything.

What John McCain said to Sarah Palin minutes before the VP debate.

"Have fun. Be yourself, and have fun."

Ha ha. This reminds me of something I say to students about taking my exam (upon which their entire semester grade rests). I say that they should enjoy it, that it should be an intrinsically rewarding experience. And I don't mean to be perverse or sadistic. I really think that in a well-structured, challenging exercise, you will do well to experience it as fun. Now, you ask, how do you do that?

Anyway, Palin's advice to McCain is: "Take the gloves off." Ha ha. I love the gender role reversal. The man wants fun and self-actualization, and the woman wants a good hard fight.

The stock markets are crashing again.

I guess we didn't throw enough money at it.

It's the first Monday in October. Can we pay some attention to the Supreme Court?

SCOTUSblog, as always, will be paying attention. In fact, they'll be live-blogging the release of the orders list here, and here are short descriptions of the 3 cases that are up for oral argument this morning. The most interesting one is Altria Group v. Good, a nice federalism/preemption case about suing cigarette manufacturers for those devious "light" cigarettes. (They measure low in tar and nicotine according to the standardized tests, but real-life smokers compensate by pulling harder and longer.)

The Bloomberg report provides the details. The suit is based on a state law fraud claim, and the Supreme Court said -- in a fractured 1992 case, Cipollone -- that such claims we not preempted by the federal cigarette labeling laws. And there is also the argument that the suits are preempted by the Federal Trade Commission standards for measuring the tar and nicotine in cigarettes:

That argument may be a tough sell. U.S. Solicitor General Gregory Garre, the Bush administration's top courtroom lawyer, is urging the court to reject it, saying state-law suits are
"complementary'' to the FTC's efforts to regulate cigarette advertising.

"It's not easy to argue that state tort law frustrates the purpose of a federal regulatory regime when the federal regulators are there saying, "No, it doesn't,'' said Paul Clement, Garre's predecessor as solicitor general. Clement stepped down in June, three weeks before the administration filed its brief siding with consumers.

Philip Morris says the administration's stance is a self-serving effort to bolster the Justice Department's own tobacco suit, which accuses cigarette makers of violating a federal racketeering law by marketing low-tar cigarettes as safer alternatives.

We like our Presidents tall and not too thin.

This chart illustrates the proposition that the more substantial -- physically substantially -- man wins. Think about it:



(View that clip in its 4 minute context here.)

Say what you want about weight -- and give Barack some cheeseburgers if he needs to bulk up -- I think the chart mainly demonstrates the shocking advantage of height in politics.

You just know those men were lording it over others all their lives. Any short ones probably had to develop their bullying tendencies to get as far as they did.... like that little bastard James Madison, the shrimpiest President. 5'4" and 100 pounds? Like a 13-year-old girl with bulimia! Picture him in the school yard! And here's the woman who married him:



Now, what is it about these successful, little men?

The Needles Vlog.

I'm not needling you. I'm thanking you.

Vlog prep.

I've recorded the vlog -- promised here -- and it will take a little while to upload, but please use the time to study this relevant photograph:


(Enlarge.)

The Yellow Needle Café.

Don't be afraid to talk about anything.

"But he left me naked shorts, the best metaphor known to gnomes of Zurich since the snake in the tunnel."

But he left me naked shorts, the best metaphor known to gnomes of Zurich since the snake in the tunnel.

Just a William Safire sentence I like.

What do you look like in naked shorts? It's the koan of the day.

"Well, I was reading my copy of today’s New York Times and I was interested to read about Barack’s friends from Chicago."

"Turns out one of Barack’s earliest supporters is a man who, according to The New York Times, and they are hardly ever wrong, was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol. Wow. These are the same guys who think patriotism is paying higher taxes."

Sarah Palin, talking like... like blogging!

She's got the reference to a story in today's news, a swipe at MSM, implicit snark about recent attacks on her, an expletive ("Wow"), and 2 not entirely fair hard punches to her opponents' guts.

"you know i have the transmigrated soul of a composer" writes our favorite insect, blogging cockroach.

Yesterday's last post, with its showy outdoor insects -- bee and butterfly -- lured the cowering, timorous bug from the shadows. It's not easy hopping about on the keyboard, and these days there are new dangers. Here then, in full, is what blogging cockroach had to say:

ooh that is such a beautiful picture



brings a tear to my beady eyes to think
of a world of light and air and pretty flowers
while i'm stuck under the fridge in the dark
except when i can get to tommy's computer
--tommy is the boy whose computer i use--
and all that beauty makes me think of music too
--you know i have the transmigrated soul of a composer--
and i do wish tommy would put on the music i ask for

now, what music does that scene remind you of...
me, i think of a bartok string quartet
tommy's usually playing the ramones

anyway, speaking of air
tommy's mom got a new macbook air
you know the one you could wrap fish in
if you're not careful
tommy wants one too
says it will eat less space in his back pack
only trouble is i watched mom snap that thing shut
--whap--
i asked tommy how could he make sure
he wouldn't just slam that sucker shut when
i'm in the middle of a comment
he says there's lots of room between the keys
sorta like an old typewriter my great great great, etc.
grandfather had to hop around on,
but could also hide in when the time came
no room to hide near modern technology i'm afraid
my only hope would be to flatten myself out
next to the command key, which has a flower on it

anyway, i told tommy he could just leave me the fish
after mom mistook the computer for a freezer bag

she was wondering if she could get a glass of sancerre
to calm her nerves at the genius bar

I'm touched by the solace of the non-flower on the command key, and I wonder what a tear would look like in beady eyes of a cockroach. How can I show my feeling? I've added a thumbnail of the picture that moved the little beastie and a link to help readers understand his ancestry. A here's one more thing, evidence that I did trouble myself, yesterday, to look into the eyes of the insect...



... with apologies that it was an outdoorsy fellow, with a real flower.

ADDED: Yes, that's a moth, not, as I wrote, a butterfly. I talk about this mistake -- and blogging cockroach -- in the new vlog.

A smiling John McCain crushed under Palin's high-heeled shoe.

Nice illustration by Barry Blitt (the artist who did the famous Michelle-and-Barack New Yorker cover).

The accompanying column, by Frank Rich, is not Palin-friendly:

But the debate’s most telling passage arrived when Biden welled up in recounting his days as a single father after his first wife and one of his children were killed in a car crash. Palin’s perky response — she immediately started selling McCain as a “consummate maverick” again — was as emotionally disconnected as Michael Dukakis’s notoriously cerebral answer to the hypothetical 1988 debate question about his wife being “raped and murdered.” If, as some feel, Obama is cool, Palin is ice cold. She didn’t even acknowledge Biden’s devastating personal history.

The bitch! Hey, wait, does that mean she's cerebral now?

... She has more testosterone than anyone else at the top of her party.

And a guy.

Palin is an antidote to the whiny Republican image that [Barney] Frank nailed.

Frank's column is full of sexual imagery, but I think that one was unintentional. (And, by the way, the Blitt illustration is arguably sexual.)

You have to wonder how long it will be before [Republicans] plead with [McCain] to think of his health, get out of the way and pull the ultimate stunt of flipping the ticket. Palin, we can be certain, wouldn’t even blink.

"At Sarah Palin’s old church in Wasilla, they spoke in tongues. Maybe that’s where she picked it up."

Maureen Dowd makes the joke that Michelle Cottle used the phrase "prompts nasty quips" to distance herself from.

"Are you happy being a human?" "Yes, I am. Are you? Good. Then we are both happy."

The Turing test, applied:

The test will be carried out by human 'interrogators', each sitting at a computer with a split screen: one half will be operated by an unseen human, the other by a program. The interrogators will then begin separate, simultaneous text-based conversations with both of them on any subjects they choose. After five minutes they will be asked to judge which is which. If they get it wrong, or are not sure, the program will have fooled them. According to Warwick, a program needs only to make 30 per cent or more of the interrogators unsure of its identity to be deemed as having passed the test, based on Turing's own criteria.

There are 2 sample dialogues at the link, where one is a human being and the other is a computer. The test is aimed at determining whether the computer can sound like a person, but I thought that even though the computer didn't sound too human, that the person also sounded like a computer. Perhaps, the unseen human is rooting for the computer and therefore making his responses sound like a machine who's trying to be human.

Be hot.

Think nothing of it.

Be cool.

Think deep thoughts.

A poll about polls.

So what do you think of these little polls?
	Unscientific trash.
	They show Althouse doesn't know what to think.
	Althouse is trying to hide what she thinks.
	They reveal the complexity of issues.
	Amusing.
pollcode.com free polls

The UW Marching Band, accused of hazing, barred from performing at tonight's game.

The report doesn't say exactly what happened:

[UW-Madison Band Director Mike] Leckrone found out about the allegations at 3:45 p.m. Friday afternoon and informed the members of the suspension at around 4:30 p.m. ....

The band has a history of hazing. ... Leckrone said the allegations Friday were very similar to those in 2006.

The 2006 incidents included: demeaning and abusive demands for younger band members to run errands and refill beer cups for older members; women forced to kiss other women to gain access to bus bathrooms; highly sexualized banter and more, according to the university.

UPDATE: So the fans suffered twice: no band and the team lost the big game.

"I think there's a counterculture that really operates outside of the band structure that feels like this is the cool thing, this is what being part of the band is," [Lekrone] said. "We've stressed that's not the case at all."

Still, the latest incident is not the first time the band has been accused of hazing or lewd behavior. The culture of hazing has ebbed and flowed over the years, Leckrone said.

"You get 18- or 19-year-old kids who don't always use the best adult judgment," Leckrone said. "They think it's part of the organization. I think it's a hard thing to break down."...

Heather Watter, who played trumpet in the band from 2003 to '06, said she quit before her fourth year in part because she wanted to focus on her studies and in part because she said she didn't like the atmosphere of the band, which she said revolved heavily around alcohol.

"I heard of people my freshman year that seemed pretty quiet and shy who were getting completely drunk and doing things they wouldn't do otherwise," she said. "It seemed like they were forced to drink."

But she said she was never the subject of any serious hazing and said she avoided situations where she might feel uncomfortable.

"There is pressure to do that kind of stuff so maybe some people don't think they can escape that pressure," she said.

And then there's the way Sarah Palin keeps saying "also," also.

I want to assure you that you haven't yet noticed everything there is to observe about the way Sarah Palin talks. Language Log writes::

One of the things that marks Sarah Palin as a linguistic outsider is her use of also. In part, this is just a matter of frequency.... Relative to the rates seen in large and representative corpora, Gov. Palin used also about 5 to 10 times more often than expected...

But the most striking thing about Gov. Palin's affinity for this word is how she used it, not how often. 13 out of her 48 examples (27%) were sentence-final...

Lots of examples at the link, such as "I'm sure that we're going to see more success there, also."

And 18 of Gov. Palin's other alsos (37.5%) were, we might say, peripheral — initial, or between clauses, or among a pile of adverbs at the start or end of a clause, e.g....

That's 65% of her alsos on the edges of clauses....

[I]t's not at all clear to me whether this is an individual quirk, or a matter of regional or cultural variation. And if it's more than an individual quirk, is it an innovation or a survival?

Hmmm. I used to know a guy who used the word "too" in the beginning of sentences, which always seemed weird to me. I think "also" feels right at the beginning, while "too" feels right at the end, but I have no idea how I acquired this feeling. I went through a phase when I used to say "as well" instead of "too" or "also." I knew it was an affectation -- how, I don't know -- and I eventually got over it.

Anyway, odd speech patterns can affect what we think of a politician. They can draw us in or make us suspicious, and different people react to different things. Most national-level politicians speak in what seems to me to be a very standard (and boring) way. We tend to find that reassuring. They seem smart enough. It's risky to sound different. It can be charming, and it annoys the hell out of some people.

MORE: Some outfit called Global Language Monitor, analyzing the VP debate, says Palin spoke at a 9.5 grade level, and Biden spoke at the 7.8 level.

This strikes me as pseudo-linguistics, done by computer and particularly unreliable when a transcriber is making decisions about where to end and begin sentences and paragraphs, but I'm noting it because it's reported at CNN and getting some discussion in the blogosphere.

In any case, even if the science were sound, it wouldn't mean Palin is smarter or more effective than Biden. It's hard to speak spontaneously in crisp, clear sentences, and it's often completely self-indulgent or deliberately obfuscatory to string a lot of clauses together.

Ukrainian playing cards.

Nice!

"... this clown's blog, stating more or less that Palin gave him an erection? Little starbursts my ass."

Andrew Sullivan cannot get enough of needling Rich Lowry for writing:

I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can't be learned; it's either something you have or you don't, and man, she's got it.

Now, of course, that's rather silly, but certainly no sillier than Sullivan's endless murmuring over Obama's attractiveness.

So, finally, O.J. Simpson will go to prison.

Convicted of armed robbery and kidnapping:

The jury of nine women and three men deliberated for 13 hours, mulling weeks of testimony as well as hours of surreptitious audio recordings of the planning and execution of the event by Thomas Riccio, a memorabilia auctioneer who arranged the confrontation.

There were no blacks among the jurors, a concern of the defense that Mr. Simpson’s attorneys said would likely be part of an appeal. Eight of 12 jurors were black when he was acquitted in 1995 on charges that he stabbed to death his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman....

“We don’t want people going into rooms to take property,” Mr. Roger said in his closing arguments on Thursday. “That is robbery. You don’t go in and get a gun and demand property from people.”

Four of the 24 witnesses who testified were the other men who had accompanied Mr. Simpson and Mr. Stewart, all of whom have accepted plea deals from prosecutors in exchange for testimony. Two of them, Walter Alexander and Michael McClinton, carried guns in the incident, and one, Mr. McClinton, testified that he did so at Mr. Simpson’s request.

Mr. Simpson said he did not know that the two would carry weapons and never saw any guns displayed during the incident....

[Simpson's lawyer Yale] Galanter attacked that issue in his closing, noting that Mr. Riccio’s recorder had picked up police officers at the crime scene seeming to exult in their chance to prosecute Mr. Simpson. He also noted that Mr. Riccio alone testified that he had made more than $200,000 in fees from the news media in exchange for interviews and rights to his recordings.

“This case has never been about a search for the true facts,” Mr. Galanter said. “This case has taken on a life of its own because Mr. Simpson’s involved. You know that, I know that, every cooperator, every person with a gun, every person who signed a book deal, every person who got paid money, the police, the district attorney’s office, was only interested in one thing: Mr. Simpson.”

Did O.J. Simpson get a fair trial?
	Yes! He committed robbery and kidnapping.
	Yes! He's a murderer.
	No. Those old murders infected this trial.
	Let the appellate court determine if there were errors.
pollcode.com free polls

One more round of the old question: Why aren't there more female lawprof bloggers?

Law.com has a big piece -- written by C.C. Holland -- on the old topic of the lack of women bloggers, specifically law bloggers. She -- I had to use Google to figure out C.C.'s a she -- details 3 theories:

Theory #1: Women law bloggers are out there, you just don't see them....

One explanation for the apparent lack of female voices is that while they're out there, they're not as well-promoted as the male bloggers. "Folks tend to link to their friends, and it's especially hard for a newer blogger to break into that closed circle," says [Mary Dudziak, a professor of law, history and political science at the University of Southern California and founder/editor of the Legal History Blog.]

I think any law professor starting a blog can email other lawprof bloggers and get an early boost. It's much harder for someone who is a lawyer to say look at my blog, but lawprofs have a huge advantage over other bloggers that should irritate nonlawprof bloggers.

It's unlikely that female lawprofs have a special disadvantage. Everyone knows that women lawprofs aren't equally prominent in the law blogosphere, and the tendency among lawprofs is to want to remedy gender inequality, and so women lawprof bloggers have a second advantage.

I remember the first time I emailed Glenn Reynolds in the hope of getting a link. It was back in 2004, after I wrote a post identifying a serious law-related error that a presidential candidate had made in a debate and that no one else had pointed out. I'd been blogging for 6 weeks, putting up posts every day that I was proud of and that I thought showed a distinctive writing style and point of view, but I hadn't thought it was appropriate to ask Glenn, whom I'd never met, to pay any attention to me before that. Glenn linked, and he also emailed something like I didn't know you had a blog, which surprised me, as the mere existence of my blog didn't seem like anything notable. But I got the impression that there was an eagerness to pay attention to women lawprof bloggers.

Theory #2: Women don't have the same time to blog as men. "Regardless of what we say about women's equality, women with families have disproportionate child care responsibilities which leaves them less time to pursue things like blogging," notes Kathleen Bergin, co-author of the First Amendment Law Prof Blog and associate professor of First Amendment and constitutional law at South Texas College of Law....

You know, blogging takes time. It takes attention and concentration, and if you are living with people who want attention, it's going to be hard. If you need or love to devote time to your family, you can set aside time to write if you care enough to do it -- a couple hours late at night or early in the morning -- but the question is whether you will want to do that. And you will need to do that every day if you want to become a prominent blogger.

I think it is much harder for women to say to the men and children in their house that this is time I demand for myself and then to sit there staring at a screen and clicking on a keyboard. It looks so cold, this melding of human being and machine.

I think wives get annoyed at husbands who spend too much time staring at the computer. But men who want to do it claim that time for themselves. Women, I think, worry more about looking so self-involved and unconnected to the real, fleshly human beings in the house. They are more vulnerable to guilt and guilt-tripping that they are not loving enough.

I'm no expert on marriage, though I was married long ago, but I can imagine what a husband would say if he was witnessing my writing habits. I picture him telling me it's absurd to live like this. It's unhealthy. It's insane.

Wait. That's why I'm not married. Let me try again.

I picture a wonderfully delightful man who is always luring me away from the keyboard with sex, food, tickets to movies and music shows, travel plans, and ... whatever... long walks in the damned rain. Without Bad Husband or Good Husband in the house telling me/showing me what I should be doing with my time, it's easier for me to choose to do something I want and love to do.

Anyway, Theory #2 has some weight, but I would like to see women take responsibility for what they do with their time. If you care about doing something that you are not now doing, change something.

You have "disproportionate child care responsibilities" and you're a law professor and that's not your choice? Do something about it! Don't use it as an excuse and complain that the whole structure of society needs to change first.

Theory #3: Women are more prone to professional or personal attack, so they avoid blogging....

There's some truth to this, but again, I'd like to see some personal responsibility.

The internet is not going to coddle and comfort you. In fact, the internet wants you out of here. If you're going to be the sort of person who doesn't want to insist on her place when she can see that other people want her out of here, you're not going to get very far blogging.

Some blogosphere folk may want to make this a nice, inviting place for you, but they don't control the environment. It's a big, crazy world in here, and you have to stake out your place in it. There are plenty of people who are only too willing to use the techniques that work to exclude women, and you have to decide that you intend to stay. It takes some nerve, and there's a price to pay. It is harder for women. Do it anyway.

Stop whining, blaming others, looking for protectors, and blog... if you want to. If you don't, be honest. Admit it. Play with your kids, watch TV with your husband, read a novel, write a novel... Do what you want, but for God's sake, know what you want and admit it.

ADDED: Mary Dudziak responds to the article:

There are lots of women bloggers, including law bloggers. But it can be hard to break out of a particular niche and into the broader blogosphere. For good bloggers without a natural audience, it can be very hard to establish a readership.

The difficulty of establishing a readership is exacerbated when bloggers don’t read and link to women bloggers....

Dudziak tells bloggers that they ought to read, blogroll, and link to women bloggers more. You know, it's not that easy to link to blogs. Links need to be worth following, and you won't be a successful linker if you disappoint your readers by sending them to posts that aren't interesting enough. I don't want to link to something that is going to make readers think I'm trying to help women (especially if it looks like I'm trying to help those most privileged of women, women law professors). I'm not blogging to benefit other bloggers. I'm blogging to benefit readers.

AND: Glenn Reynolds links to this post and seems to disagree with my line "I'm not blogging to benefit other bloggers. I'm blogging to benefit readers."

Hmm. I'm more with SayUncle: "I do this to amuse me, not you."

Well, I agree with that too. I'm definitely in it for the personal satisfaction, and perhaps I flatter myself to think that by doing what pleases me, I will benefit you. But I do think that. I do think that blogging is about living freely in writing, in real time, in front of the world.

Glenn has a theory:

In that spirit, here's my own hypothesis: Men are genetically programmed to try to stand out through action, in the hopes of attracting women. It's true, of course that blogging is a relatively ineffective way of doing that -- but so are many other ways this urge manifests itself, like extreme Star Trek fandom. The point is the genetically programmed urge, which isn't programmed into women in the same manner. Is this true? Beats me, but it's amusing.

This theory suggests that it's much harder for women to achieve great things. We don't have the ulterior motive. We're only doing something because we think it's worth doing for its own sake. But, then again, it may be a different kind of advantage, to have no ulterior motives.

IN THE COMMENTS: C.C. Holland drops by and says:

Ann, thanks so much not only for this thoughtful, well-written response to my article -- but also for taking the time to Google me and establish that I have, in fact, two X chromosomes. (Much better than being called "gender ambiguous" by Above the Law.)

On a personal level, I do agree with your point about women not claiming time for themselves as easily as men and for handling the additional weight of guilt. Your comments about taking personal responsibility to overcome obstacles, of course, are dead-on.

Hey, take responsibility! You chose to be gender ambiguous, and Above the Law gave you what you indicated you wanted. I wasn't trying to show respect, just to gather information for my own purposes. I note that you marginalized me and interviewed other people instead of me, even as my name, apparently, kept coming up. I was curious to see whether a man or a woman was treating me thusly.

It's up to 882.

Come on! We can hit 1000!

Thanks to all the many commenters who hung out with me for the VP debate live-blog, some of whom are still hanging out there, trying to drive the comments into the 4 figures for the first time. There's some great stuff inside -- I front-paged some of it -- on-topic and off-... off-topic and off-color. There's the funny, and there's the search for a better, more Cuban, recipe for creole shrimp... and I'm sure we'll all find what we're looking for.

IN THE COMMENTS: Ruth Anne Adams said...

Why don't you sweeten the pot? Why don't you promise to vlog an egg salad sandwich or burned pasta or creole shrimp or something when we hit 1000?

I know! A pork-and-crap sandwich!

I'll do a vlog when it hits 1000, so give me some more ideas here. I don't really see why it should involve abasing myself however!

UPDATE: Whoa! We hit 1000!

"Run! It's Gosarah!"

This seems completely appropriate to me.

Via Boing Boing,

The bailout is in.

Are you happy about it?

Well, are you?
	Yes!
	No!
	I'll have an opinion when I see what happens.
pollcode.com free polls

"She was knock-out gorgeous."

Rush Limbaugh, just now, raving about Sarah Palin at the debate.

AND: Much more substantively: "If she weren't shackled to McCain, do you realize how great this woman could have been?"

ADDED: If you listen to Rush Limbaugh, you can see that the big right-wing idea is to save Palin from McCain and to have her as the perfect conservative in 2012. The serious right wingers are afraid of what will happen in the next 4 years with Obama, but they don't see much value in having McCain in there doing almost the same thing, stabbing them in the back. Better to stick the Democrats with the present mess, let Obama struggle with all this insane crap, and have Palin looming ahead as the true Messiah-ette. She'll be above the fray, principled, the veritable embodiment of... hope and change.

Sarah Palin is another one of these politicians who say "nucular."

And look, there's a Wikipedia entry on "Nucular":

Usage by politicians

U.S. presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, as well as Presidential Candidate Walter Mondale and Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin, have all used this pronunciation.

Ha ha. It's just the special, presidential way to say "nuclear."

Bill O'Reilly tries to work his gruesome magic on Barney Frank.

Frank is really good at standing his ground. O'Reilly had to keep ratcheting up, but it didn't work. He even resorted to accusing Frank of being less manly than -- of all people -- Cox.

Marketing the Oliver Stone movie about Bush with an Obama Girl spoof trailer for a (nonexistent) movie about Sarah Palin.

Politics and marketing are getting complicated:

The video was created by political-satire site BarelyPolitical.com, a unit of New York-based Web-TV company Next New Networks. Barely Political also produced the popular viral Web video “I’ve Got a Crush on Obama.” The site was acquired by Next New Networks in 2007. Next New Networks has worked with Lionsgate in the past to promote such films as the Jet Li movie “War.” Lionsgate declined to comment on the new spoof video. Barely Political plans to release another video with deleted scenes and outtakes, likely to coincide with tonight’s vice-presidential debate.

Here's the video, which is pretty funny:



There's a second video here, but as you can see, unfortunately, Obama Girl is a terrible actress when she tries to play herself as the actress playing Sarah Palin. She needs to stay in cartoon mode, and she's fine in the trailer.

The actual political content of all this is pretty thin in my view. I suppose it's anti-Palin, but it also works in her favor in various hard-to-pin-down ways. Perhaps it all depends on whether you start out wanting to like or hate her.

Anyway, I guess it's pretty effective marketing for the Oliver Stone movie, since the video is very viral.

"Ifill Awful?"

Kaus asks and answers: "Why are we supposed to think Gwen Ifill was so bad? Sure she was bland. She's Gwen Ifill! But it was a pretty lively debate, and she got out of the way."

I agree. Gwen Ifill was surpassingly bland, as expected. And that book of hers that was supposed to have created a terrible conflict of interest? It's going to be bland too.

Fact checking the VP debate.

FactCheck fact checks:

• Palin mistakenly claimed that troop levels in Iraq had returned to “pre-surge” levels. Levels are gradually coming down but current plans would have levels higher than pre-surge numbers through early next year, at least.
• Biden incorrectly said “John McCain voted the exact same way” as Obama on a controversial troop funding bill. The two were actually on opposite sides.
• Palin repeated a false claim that Obama once voted in favor of higher taxes on “families” making as little as $42,000 a year. He did not. The budget bill in question called for an increase only on singles making that amount, but a family of four would not have been affected unless they made at least $90,000 a year.
• Biden wrongly claimed that McCain “voted the exact same way” as Obama on the budget bill that contained an increase on singles making as little as $42,000 a year. McCain voted against it. Biden was referring to an amendment that didn't address taxes at that income level.
• Palin claimed McCain’s health care plan would be “budget neutral,” costing the government nothing. Independent budget experts estimate McCain's plan would cost tens of billions each year, though details are too fuzzy to allow for exact estimates.
• Biden wrongly claimed that McCain had said "he wouldn't even sit down" with the president of Spain. Actually, McCain didn't reject a meeting, but simply refused to commit himself one way or the other during an interview.
• Palin wrongly claimed that “millions of small businesses” would see tax increases under Obama’s tax proposals. At most, several hundred thousand business owners would see increases.

Students and faculty protest political speech repression at the University of Illinois.

The Chicago Tribune reports:

The university's administration has sparked outrage by telling faculty, staff and graduate students that a 5-year-old state law designed to prevent state workers from campaigning for candidates on state time or with state resources meant they could not express support for candidates or parties through pins, T-shirts or bumper stickers while on campus. Nor could they attend any political rally or event on campus, the administration said.

"They're trying to control our bodies and our voices any time we're on campus. These policies are clearly a violation of our 1st Amendment rights," said Dan Colson, an English graduate student who, along with other students, professors and free-speech experts, has lashed out....

Tom Hardy, a University of Illinois spokesman, said Thursday that the university only wanted to inform its employees of the law and had no intention of enforcing it.

Informing people of the law when you have no intention of enforcing it? In other words, you want to scare people into shutting up. You intend to chill free speech.

The university, he said, would take no action against participants in the pro-Obama rally.

How about taking the action of rewriting the guidelines to express an interpretation of the law that you are willing to stand by?

"The purpose was to say, 'Keep these provisions in mind, exercise common sense, and everything will be fine,' " Hardy said of an e-mail sent to all employees and graduate students.

Talk about vague! The rule "exercise common sense" is itself not common sense. "Everything will be fine" is not at all reassuring.

"Academic freedom allows us to reveal our political views if we want," [English professor Cary] Nelson said.

Live-blogging the VP debate.

7:31, Central Time: I'm here, eating strozzapreti with burned tomato sauce, counting the last few minutes before the grand showdown.

7:39: Strozzapreti? "Priest choker"!

7:55: Are you going to watch on CNN, with the uncommitted viewers' reaction lines undulating at the bottom of the screen? Wow. That's crazy! I can't tolerate that distraction, and the "persuadable" voters they've assembled are... not people I feel like monitoring on a real-time basis.

7:58: What are you looking for, mainly? Honestly, I'm mainly looking to see if Sarah Palin can sound reasonably competent.

8:02: The 2 candidates stride out, both dressed in black. "Hey, can I call you Joe?" we hear Sarah say. Palin looks tiny behind her lectern. She's behind her lectern there, and here's where I am, chez Althouse:



8:06: Palin's flag pin is way bigger than Biden's. Biden has a brown dot on his forehead. Palin refers to "the fundamental" of our economy. She's speaking too quickly, sounding nervous.

8:09: Whose fault is the sub-prime mortgage meltdown? Palin says the moneylenders have taken advantage of people, and she mentions "hockey moms" a second time. Biden blames Republican deregulation. Biden's forehead wrinkles only way over on the side, while the whole center is smooth and flat. What do you think? Botox?

8:13: Palin says she might not answer the questions the way the monitor wants, but she's going to talk straight to the American people. She reveals her overarching strategy. And I note that she's speaking clearly and confidently. There is no stumbling or fear, as far as I can see.

8:19: Joe Biden is going to "eliminate those wasteful spending."

8:27: I'll bet a lot of people are tuning out about now, satisfied that Palin is competent and smart, but pretty bored.

8:29: I'm reading Andrew Sullivan: "Biden is just dreadful. He speaks in Washingtonese. She just issues the soundbites and wrinkles her eyes and tells stories. And that works. The speed and chirpiness she delivers overwhelms one's ability to even quite absorb what she's saying. And it has put Biden off-stride. It's Biden who seems over-crammed." It seems to me that both of them are spewing policy (and it's getting tiresome). "Chirpiness"... I don't know, Andrew... that reads as sexist to me. Why is she overwhelming your ability to absorb what she's saying? Is she working some voodoo on you... and on Biden?

8:34: Palin said "Senator O'Biden."

8:35: Palin razzes Biden on clean coal. Is he for it or not? Biden says he's for it, and his rope-line comment was about his support for exporting clean coal technology to China. That doesn't seem to fit the text of his remark (which he claims was "taken out of context").

8:37: Biden passionately expresses support for equal treatment for same-sex couples, and Palin opposes same-sex marriage, but says that in all other ways she's completely tolerant of adults forming their own relationships. Biden then is given the opportunity to disavow gay marriage, which he eagerly does. Okaaaay.

8:40: Palin is praising the surge and insisting on victory in Iraq. "It would be a travesty if we quit now." Biden complains that she didn't state a plan. On the split screen, when Biden is speaking, Palin looks like she's brimming with ideas she's just waiting to express. When she gets her turn, she says Biden's plan is a "white flag of surrender." She reminds Biden of how much he supported McCain and how he said Obama was not ready to be President.

8:49: Biden is mugging and scratching his neck in an exaggerated way. I think he was trying to signal his objection to the things Palin was saying about Obama's willingness to sit down with Ahmadinejad.

8:51: Biden's heating up! Is he losing his temper?

8:55: At Drudge:



8:57: Well, let me ask:

Who's winning?
	Palin.
	Biden.
	It's not about winning and losing in the debate.
	Shut up! It's not over.
pollcode.com free polls

9:03: Palin enthuses over her Washington outsider status as she claims to hear Biden saying, essentially, I was for it before I was against it.

9:09: "Palin: 'Oh, man, it's so obvious that I'm a Washington outsider and just not used to the way you guys operate!' And then, Biden pats down his brow. On sheer theatrics, Palin definitely won that moment." LOL. That's Jac (my son), who's also live-blogging.

9:11: "There you go again. Say it ain't so, Joe." Palin was waiting to say that. Biden's error? Linking McCain to Bush. Palin seems supercharged. The question is education, and she's praising teachers and winking at her dad in the audience.

9:13: Palin gets a big laugh saying that she and Biden made "lame jokes" back in the beginning of the debate when they avoided answering the question what they wanted to do as VP. Clearly, she's really relaxed. The end is in sight, and she knows she's done well. She's stood her ground next to Biden. She hasn't stumbled, and he's seemed a bit boring.

9:25: Asked what he's changed his opinion about, Biden says he came to realize that judicial ideology matters. (Which is why he opposed Bork.) Palin says she's never had to compromise.

9:29: We've reached the prepared closing statements. So Palin has survived... more than survived. She won, I think most people will say. Now, she's able to say she likes to do these unscripted things. She quotes Ronald Reagan (again) and mentions "freedom" (again and again).

9:31: Biden gives his closing statement. He seems like a nice man. Did he ever attack her?

9:34: Huge crowd of family on the stage.

9:36: The final poll:

It's over now, so who won?
	Biden
	Palin
	Neither
pollcode.com free polls

POST-DEBATE: Let me highlight some comments. Stupe said...

Althouse can't just eat normal foods, she needs trendy.

She doesn't go to chain restaurants, and her cuisine needs to reflect her offbeat, edgy, urbane, t[r]endy life.

Is burning the sauce now a trend? Or do I create the trend? If so, I can't help but be trendy. Is there a strozzapreti trend? I just picked the pasta that had a shape that appealed to me. So just be yourself, Stupe, and believe it's all very trendy, and that might make you happy. Don't think about me. Or, hell, think about me until it drives you crazy.

Ruth Anne Adams said...

The hair in [Sarah Palin's] eye is bothering my husband.

Ha ha. That was bugging me too. I was distracted thinking about whether she was distracted thinking about whether it would be more distracting to disentangle her bangs from her (false?) eyelashes than to allow the bangs-eye combo to continue as a single unit.

Lisa said...

So far, she sounds smart, sane and Republican.

The left will hate her. The right will agree with her.

(Lisa said baby on a night like this...)

vbspurs said...

Does Palin have ice water in her bloodstream or is it me?

She's almost too un-nervous. It's making me nervous!

LoafingOaf said...

What a twitchy, nervous wreck Palin is!

Palladian said...

Sarah Palin's pussy is gnawing at LoafingOaf's brain again.

vbspurs said...

OOOOOOH. A little lesbian tension between Palin and Ifill just now. HAWT.

(It's late-night Althouse.)

Michael_H said...

I don't want to channel surf--anyone know the Brewers/Phillies score?

Ruth Anne Adams said...

Gwen's questions SUCK! Too complex. Easily ignored.

Trooper York said...

Phillies won 5 to 2.

Go 2 up on the series.

Michael_H said...

Ifill keeps cutting Palin off, then letting Joey Plugs run as long as he wants.

Really?

vbspurs said...

The 'Mos are getting their questions now. Surprising nod to Palin by Ifill.

I smell a skunk. Or a fish taco.

!!!

ex-prosecutor said...

If these were two lawyers, arguing, to a jury, she'd be killing him.

palladian said...

God, the only thing more boring than a Vice Presidential debate is baseball. I'd rather listen to Joseph Biden filibuster than listen to people talk about baseball. I'd rather watch "An Inconvenient Truth" 100 times than listen to people talk about baseball. SHUT UP ABOUT BASEBALL.

vbspurs said...

Nice! "Not sane or stable" about Dinner Jacket.

THE CASTRO BROTHERS. She just won Florida, que rico!!!

lem said...

Gwen went off the script to help Joe!

michael_h said...

Love the way Palin smiles as she's making notes while Joey Plugs speaks.

chip ahoy said...

No fair! They televise the back of Biden's head to show all the work was done in the front.

lawgiver said...

Cuda is landing some major body shots now. Joe's eyes are glazed, he's going downnnnnn!

john stodder said...

Palin is just so damn normal.

On TV it looks weird to be normal.

goesh said...

500+ comments - holy wow

Palin's faster pace makes her come across as very competent/intelligent, a bit smarter than Biden - she sure the heck exudes confidence - what happened to the dummy from up north???? gone, gone, gone

palladian said...

I love the milling around parts of C-SPAN broadcasts. So much better than listening to talking heads blabber.

ricpic said...

Sarah's happy.

Lefty freaks can't stand happy.

But normal human beings love happy and love Sarah.

joan said...

Karl Rove just ticked off 10 major gaffes by Joe Biden. It was hysterical.

schorsch said...

Regardless of who won, Biden's tactic failed. He was there to debate Bush and McCain, and to ignore Palin as if she wasn't worthy of his attention. She engaged him, specifically, and was therefore the only person in the debate that was actually occurring.

MORE FROM THE COMMENTS: patca said...

I am soooo relieved--and very happy. She was fabulous.

I feel like smoking a cigarette.

Influential sunset.

This sunset changed my mind about a key component of how I spend my time.



Later, I saw this:



It wasn't related.

Was it?

Here's the song that happened to be on the "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" channel of the Pandora app on the iPhone I was playing as I hurried home to blog the photographs. But first, I put some water on to boil and threw various ingredients into a pot to make a sauce, which I half-burned while tweaking the photographs. Now the post is done and so is the pasta. The burning will be considered one extra ingredient. Fortuitous.

On the brink of the VP debate, presenting Joe Biden as a big idiot.

Okay, funny, and I understand the urge to push back against all the presentation of Sarah Palin as an idiot, but do we really want a game of who's the bigger idiot? Because: 1. Your VP might be a bigger idiot, and 2. Maybe the American people really ought to focus on the serious question of whether we want conservatives or liberals in power. Palin is conservative. Biden is liberal. Let them put their beliefs in front of the American people so we can vote on it. We're all turning into idiots if what we do is stare at the debate looking for one or the other to say the stupidest thing.

Tantrums and tulle-fights.

I'm thinking about the big VP debate tonight -- and I will be live-blogging it -- but first, I just have to bitch about "Project Runway." Last night's episode was soooo annoying.

[Spoiler alert.]

They got to do evening gowns, inspired by flowers and foliage. That gives them the most possible room to show whatever brilliance they've got in them. And what did we get? Nothing but junk... and -- off the runway -- tantrums and tulle-fights. And after all that, no one is eliminated!

"If there's one thing that makes people enthusiastic, it's celebrities being condescending."

Said, re this: