53% think John McCain is going to win.

53% of right-0f-center bloggers, that is.

The tendency to lean right is about optimism. Isn't it? (That's what Rush Limbaugh is always saying.)

Right-of-center bloggers also think that Sarah Palin is wonderful and a big plus to the ticket, that the media is heavily biased in favor of Barack Obama (who is dishonest, unqualified and unpatriotic), and that what the GOP ought to do to fare better in elections is to get more conservative.

I might agree with that last point, if "conservative" got the definition I like. Yesterday, we got a bit of a discussion going under the heading "It there is an Obama landslide, how will the GOP retool." I consider this the same question. McCain seemed to represent the idea that the party -- or at least its presidential candidate -- needed to be less conservative. His choice of Sarah Palin backtracked from that idea and muddied the campaign's politics. Not that her conservatism appeals to me. I would have liked strong national security and smart economic policy, with little to nothing done about abortion and gay marriage and the like. Why is that so hard to do?

Ah, it's so frustrating. Remember when it seemed as though Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney was going to be the candidate? Those were the days. Some people complained about Rudy and Mitt's incoherence about abortion -- I defended them -- but the reason for that incoherence was perfectly clear. McCain is incoherent about all sorts of things. Really, did you see him on "Meet the Press"? That performance was wretched.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can't take it anymore.

He's felled by "exhaustion."

What does it usually mean when we hear that someone is suffering from "exhaustion"?

ADDED: Here's an AskMetafilter thread that begins with the question "What does it mean to be 'hospitalized for exhaustion'? What do they do to you in the hospital, besides let you sleep?" Most of the commenters assume, as I would that it's a polite way of saying that the person is getting treatment for depression or a drug/alcohol problem. But a couple people write about personal experiences that make "exhaustion" sound like more than a code word.

"Barns for Obama."

That's the name of this ad. And it's not like there's a guy named "Barns." (Certainly, not Fred Barnes.) It's, literally, barns. And they are here to tell you Obama won't take away your guns.

Entrepreneurship is really cute.

Ginia Bellfante writes about the Olsen twins, who may seem like tiny, empty celebrities who don't work, but actually have an impressive fashion business and sound pretty smart (especially Ashley):

Mary-Kate’s contribution to the enterprise is a collector’s knowledge. She has been buying vintage Lanvin and Givenchy, among other classic labels of the mid-20th century, for a number of years... Ashley is the more entrepreneurial, the one who will tell you how much she admires Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

“I’m focused on building a true American brand,” she said, explaining why it was important to her that the line be manufactured in New York. “For me it was the control. I needed to make sure I could see the product being made. Things like this are successful when you really care, when you are paying attention to every single detail.”

The Olsens are known for keeping a tight grip on their image, but their general reluctance to talk to the press has left them ceding ground to tabloids eager to construct the narrative.... The magazines... became fixated on how the twins dressed, running picture after picture of the two in big, round glasses and loose, layered knits, implying something deranged and effortful in a look that suggested Janis Joplin.

“I was from L.A., and layering made sense to me,” Mary-Kate explained. “I was cold. I put on whatever was on the floor when I woke up.” The look seemed constructed to make her disappear, but it rendered an entirely different effect....

The Olsens seem to regard themselves above all as artist-moguls, and the challenges they describe are the challenges of businesspeople. They have to figure out how to deal with expanding the Row while still letting it feel like a quiet discovery for whoever is buying it. As Ashley sees it, her career is brand building, in fashion and beyond. “It is what I love. There are so many voids in the market, and I want to find those opportunities and make the most of them.”

Nice. I love them now. Here's their website. And here's their new book, "Influence," which has them talking not about themselves, but interviewing artists and designers they like.

If there is an Obama landslide, how will the GOP retool?

Some people have moved on to that question:

The prospect of defeat has unleashed what insiders describe as an "every man for himself" culture within the McCain campaign, with aides in a "circular firing squad" as blame is assigned.

More profoundly, it sparked the first salvoes in a Republican civil war....

"She does look more polished and more glamorous."

Says Simon Doonan, creative director of Barneys New York, one of several fashion experts looking at a set of pictures of Sarah Palin before and after her $150,000 makeover. Doonan adds: "Putting aside my own political beliefs, anyone feeding the economy and buying fashion right now gets the thumbs up from me."

Ha ha. I make a mental note to buy more clothes.... to help people.

Anyway, the photo essay at the link solidly establishes that the money needed to be spent and was spent exceedingly effectively and efficiently. Try to imagine the ridicule Palin would have been subjected to if she'd gone out dressed like this.

John McCain on "Meet the Press."

Did you watch? To me, McCain sounds exhausted or sick. Maybe he has a sore throat. He let out an immense sigh when he was in the middle of talking about Colin Powell . At one point, he misspoke and said, emphatically, "We've got to get government spending out of control." (He immediately corrected himself, but still...)

Whenever he found the chance, he would stress that Barack Obama has a far-left ideology, and whenever he needed a different argument -- such as when Brokaw confronted him with his own statements in favor of making the rich pay more taxes -- he would resort to the argument that different times require different solutions. How can you use these two rhetorical strategies alternately? It's incoherent. I'll write more about that when I have the transcript to work with.

What did you think?

UPDATE: Now, we've got the transcript. (Video here.) Let me show you what I mean about incoherence:

MR. BROKAW: Well, let me ask you about that business about spreading the wealth around ... which has been a favorite phrase now of the McCain campaign. And also your vice presidential candidate has used the word "socialist" and "socialism." ... Do you honestly think that Barack Obama would have as his advisers--Warren Buffet; Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve under Ronald Reagan, who is widely credited with saving the economy at that time; Bob Rubin, former Treasury secretary; and even Chris Buckley, the son of the godfather of the modern conservative movement--both endorsing his economic policies and help shaping them if they thought he was a socialist of some kind?

SEN. McCAIN: All I know is that Senator Obama's record is very clear. It's his record, not Volcker's record, not anybody else's. He started out in the lefthand lane of American politics and has remained there. He has been judged the most liberal United States senator. Biden's number three. "Joe the Biden" is number three. Bernie Sanders is number two. And, and I respect that. But let's not, let's not call it anything but it is.

MR. BROKAW: Well, he...

SEN. McCAIN: He's voted for tax increases, against tax cuts, has advocated raising capital gains tax. Another, another anchor, Charlie Gibson, said, "Why would you want to raise capital gains taxes and--when you know that that could decrease revenue?" He said, "It's a matter of fairness." He said to "Joe the Plumber," it's "spreading the wealth around." I, I--his political philosophy is very, very different about what he believes is future of America's concerned.

MR. BROKAW: Well, can we, can we...

SEN. McCAIN: I believe the worst thing you can do is raise taxes.

MR. BROKAW: Can we share with the audience, then, a couple of...

SEN. McCAIN: Sure. Sure.

MR. BROKAW: ...your comments about taxing wealthy Americans?

SEN. McCAIN: Sure.

MR. BROKAW: This is from April 11th, 2004. It's MEET THE PRESS...

SEN. McCAIN: Mm-hmm.

MR. BROKAW: ...and this is what you had to say about wealthy Americans and taxes at that time.

(Videotape)

SEN. McCAIN: I voted against the tax cuts because of the disproportional amount that went to the wealthiest Americans.

(End videotape)

MR. BROKAW: And then this is what you had to say on "Hardball" back in 2000 to Chris Matthews.

(Videotape, October 12, 2000)

SEN. McCAIN: Here's what I, I, I really believe, that when you are--reach a certain level of comfort, there's nothing wrong with paying somewhat more.

(End videotape)

SEN. McCAIN: That's what--listen, even the flat tax people somewhat pay more. Even--you put into different, different categories of wealthier people paying, paying higher taxes into different brackets. I mean, and the, and these are different times, my friend. These are times of the biggest financial crisis we've faced in America.

Note the "my friend" that slips out as McCain tries to switch to the "different times" rhetoric that, as I said in the post, is incoherent with the argument that the 2 candidates represent starkly different ideology.

Brokaw pushes him on the use of the term "socialism," pointing out the inconvenient fact that "the $700 billion bailout ... has the United States government buying shares in American banks, in effect nationalizing those banks to a degree" and needling him about "your own mortgage plan of spending $300 billion to buy bad mortgages from banks, having taxpayers who have done the responsible thing, in effect, subsidize people who've done the dumb or wrong thing."

McCain again resorts to the "different times" gambit:

Because we are in a financial crisis of monumental proportions. The role of government is to intervene when a nation is in crisis. A homeowner's loan corporation was instituted in the Great Depression. They went out and they bought people's mortgages, and, over time, people were able, then, to pay back those mortgages. And the Treasury actually made some money.

The question wasn't whether it was a good idea. It was how can you call Obama "socialist" when you support things like this? You should have to say something along lines of: Well, it's socialism all right, but sometimes that's just what we need and it works out pretty well, so it's fine.

Or you could say: We're just blowing off steam when we call it "socialism," Tom. You know that. It's like when I called Cindy a ... whatever, Tom, I know Cindy's a human being, and Obama's not a socialist. It's a figure of speech.

MR. BROKAW: Let me ask you quickly about your $300 billion bailout of, of mortgages. Some people have said, look, if there's a homeowner out there who's done the irresponsible thing and a bank is looking at that foreclosure and saying, "Hey, I don't have to work this out. I can just get the government to pick it up," why should a taxpayer in Waterloo, Iowa, or in Akron, Ohio, have to subsidize somebody who has done the dumb, wrong thing?

SEN. McCAIN: Well, in simplest terms, if their neighbor next door throws the keys in the living room floor and leaves, then the value of their home is going to dramatically decrease as well. And again, this has been done before. As I said, during the Great Depression and...

MR. BROKAW: And that's when Republicans called it socialism under FDR.

SEN. McCAIN: Well, look, in the Great Depression, there were some things that worked and some things that didn't work. But for the government to do nothing in the face of a massive crisis of proportions that we have not seen, I mean, it's hard for us to imagine how, in, in retrospect, how serious the Great Depression was, but the fact is that Senator Obama, by the way, opposes that, that; and I want to use some of the $750 billion to go and buy those mortgages and that, I think, will stabilize the market. It's not the only thing that needs to be done, but I think it's a vital first step so Americans can realize the American dream.

So, McCain has nothing on the ideological point about socialism. He's gone completely over to the pragmatic side of wanting to do whatever works. And yet, he's not persuasive that this idea would work. It's a big, outrageously expensive program that spares people from the consequences of their poor decisions. But let's just do it, because the times are difficult.

"How is Senator Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?"

WFTV’s Barbara West asks Biden a series of hard-core right-wing questions:



Ha ha. Wow. You don't usually get questions like that. Biden can't believe it. But, you know, Biden handles it perfectly well. I don't see him losing his cool. He's fine. Good questions. Good answers. Ah, but what is lame is cutting off all future interviews with the station. Pussies!

Here's how it looks on Drudge:



Ha ha. Drudge. I love Drudge.

"[Sarah Palin] is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone. She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else."

"Also she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: divas trust only unto themselves as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."

So said some unnamed McCain advisor, and Andrew Sullivan is powerfully enthused:

If McCain doesn't trust her, why should anyone else?

But the one thing we know about the adviser is that he is untrustworthy. He's stabbing Palin and McCain in the back. Why take his word for anything?

She doesn't have a "relationship of trust" with anyone, not even her own husband? Aw, come on, that just reads as implausible on its face. And "diva"? She's the candidate. She should be demanding, and she should be served.

Who is this weasel, calling her a "diva"? What are his political interests? I think they show through as he whines about Palin's future prospects on the eve of McCain's probable loss.

IN THE COMMENTS: jdeeripper said:

"Diva" is a sexist, homophobic code word, a dog whistle whose use is cynically calculated to play upon deep seated sexual fear and patriarchal hatred.

Simon said:

Why would we not assume that CNN is lying? Is there any reason - any reason at all - to believe that there was an unnamed source who spoke to "Dana Bash, Peter Hamby and John King [of] CNN"? That this unnamed source said what is alleged? That what is alleged is even true? Because we think that they're "professionals"? Who is still malingering under the sad delusion at this late hour that the media is throwing straight dice?

Not me. A controversial claim resting on attribution to an unnamed source, that serves the agenda of the agency? Why should I not think it's a lie? I say they made it up. Name the source and give us the video of them saying it, or tell us why we shouldn't think you're lying. You don't get to behave the way you've behaved and ask for trust.

Zen, hula, and Althouse.

You may be thinking: It's always Ann Althouse. Why can we hear something about the other Althouses around the country? Okay! Let's start here, on a blog called The Dude Abides (subtitle: "An Existential Crossing Guard at the Intersection of Spirituality and Pop Culture"). The blogger, Cathleen Falsani, attends a hula class at the Zen Community of Oak Park, which was founded by Abbot Robert Joshin Althouse and his wife June Kaililani Ryushin Tanoue.

Over the summer, the Oak Park Zen Community consecrated a vast hula mound Althouse built in the back yard — two large, enjoined grassy knolls that together form the shape of a yin-yang symbol....

"Hawaiian spirituality is in some ways opposite of Zen because there are in excess of 40,000 gods and goddesses" in its pantheon, [Tanoue] explained....

There is a spirit in the dance, she said, that complements, rather than competes with, her Zen practice. "The sacred is how we treat our experiences, how we're open to them," Althouse said. "We don't create something sacred. We find it right where we are by the way we deal with experiences. I think hula is very much an expression of that, and obviously, I also think that Zen is a way to access that.

"Hula's operating on a lot of different levels, metaphorically and psychologically. It's very hard to pin these things down, but when you see it, you recognize it," he said....

"Like now, for example," she said, referring to the tense climate we're all living in right now, with economic, political, societal and spiritual uncertainty all around.

"It's a good example of transforming something by approaching it with a lightness of heart," Althouse added. "Having joy in the midst of chaos."

All right, then. Althouse says, have some joy in the midst of chaos.

"They should have picked a more ominous name, like KAOS or SPECTRE, instead of squirrel food."

"Something really scary. They are the biggest nut-based threat to America since Mr. Peanut tried to assassinate the GOP elephant to impress the Morton Salt girl.”

Stephen Colbert has a problem with the name ACORN.

3 polls about the way I'm voting on November 4th.

The first one uses, nearly verbatim, the text written back here by the commenter known as David:

Prof. Althouse is voting for Senator Obama because:
	She agrees with him on the substantive issues more than she agrees with McCain.
	She can't stand not to vote for the first black President.
	President Obama promises more interesting blogging over the next 4 years than McCain does.
pollcode.com free polls

The second one was written by me, on a lark, as a response to David and in the spirit of lighthearted fun.

What is Althouse's #1 motivation to vote for Obama?
	I want America to have cool new young image.
	Self-interest! The blogging will be swell.
	The complaints and criticisms if he loses will dog us for 100 years.
	Self-interest! I want a couple staunch new liberals on the Supreme Court to make my life as a lawprof more exciting.
	The kids are so darned cute.
pollcode.com free polls

But that may make you want to weigh in on this:

Did Althouse actually reveal her top 5 motivations to vote for Obama?
	At least 3 are true.
	At least 1 is true.
	All lies.
pollcode.com free polls

"Harsh, noteless, enormous noise, a growling, low-pitched, screaming sound … drain[s] out like a sob lasting fully a minute."

Roald Dahl described the pain of an axed beech tree, heard by "The Sound Machine." For some reason, we're fascinated by this question whether plants feel pain.

Almost 30 years ago, the trippy flower-power film The Secret Life of Plants claimed pot plants could read minds, cabbages were easily annoyed and a cactus could learn the Japanese alphabet. Then just last year, a parliamentary panel of philosophers, lawyers, geneticists and theologians in Switzerland, charged with devising new rules for genetic testing, published a treatise on preserving the "dignity of plants". Its edicts included that it was "morally impermissible" to decapitate a wildflower by the roadside without rational reason.

But while such fanciful claims continue to take root at the margins, scientists in Australia and abroad are quietly discovering plants are more sophisticated and complex than the wildest imaginings. Plants can navigate a maze, trade food for sex, sniff out and hunt down prey, use cost-benefit analysis, learn from past experiences and recognise friend from foe.

Ha ha. I enjoyed reading this article, especially after listening to the entire book "The Botany of Desire" last night while I slept. Ah, but did I understand it?

I woke during the chapter on marijuana, having slept through the apple tree, the tulip, and the potato. Michael Pollan was talking about a passage in Aldous Huxley's "The Doors of Perception." Here's that passage:

[T]hat very morning... I looked down by chance, and went on passionately staring by choice, at my own crossed legs. Those folds in the trousers - what a labyrinth of endlessly significant complexity! And the texture of the gray flannel - how rich, how deeply, mysteriously sumptuous! And here they were again, in Botticelli's picture.

... Draperies, as I had now discovered, are much more than devices for the introduction of non-representational forms into naturalistic paintings and sculptures. What the rest of us see only under the influence of mescalin, the artist is congenitally equipped to see all the time. His perception is not limited to what is biologically or socially useful. A little of the knowledge belonging to Mind at Large oozes past the reducing valve of brain and ego, into his consciousness. It is a knowledge of the intrinsic significance of every existent. For the artist as for the mescalin taker draperies are living hieroglyphs that stand in some peculiarly expressive way for the unfathomable mystery of pure being. More even than the chair, though less perhaps than those wholly supernatural flowers, the folds of my gray flannel trousers were charged with "is-ness." To what they owed this privileged status, I cannot say....

"This is how one ought to see," I kept saying as I looked down at my trousers....

And here's a little clip from "The Secret Life of Plants":



What is this post about? Ha ha. I always hated questions like that on the reading portion of the SAT. Does the test still have questions like that? Here, let me construct one for you.

What is the blogger's thesis in this post?
	Plants and people are weird.
	It's important to pay attention to things.
	Art is better than science.
	Just say no to drugs.
	The human mind needs weeding.
pollcode.com free polls

Politico can't even understand this political ad and thinks it's the worst ad of the season.

I completely get it. And I think it's excellent! And it makes a nice pair with this one:



(See all "10 worst ads" here.)

I have 818 posts tagged "Obama."

It's my third biggest tag. What are my 2 bigger tags? Certainly, "McCain" isn't one. He's languishing at 339. Does that show my bias? Indeed. I have a bias in favor of interestingness.

All you need is a lipliner pencil and some dark gray eyeshadow.

And you've got a funny, ultra-easy Halloween costume.

Tom Cruise roasts Matt Lauer.

So Matt Lauer got one of those Friars Club roasts, and you wouldn't care -- would you? -- but Tom Cruise showed his adorable face, and he was hysterically funny:

"You know, I was just taking his advice. He told me, 'Nobody wants to hear about your dopey movie. Go crazy. People will love you for it.'

"Matt's great at giving advice. When Katie asked him if she should leave the 'Today' show for CBS, he said, 'Absolutely, you should definitely do that. People will love you for it.'

"Jay Leno was No. 1, but Matt told [NBC exec] Jeff Zucker to cut his contract. 'You'll be ahead of the curve before his ratings go down and you'll look like a genius. People will love you for it.' Leno's ratings never went down.

"A few months ago, he was talking to O.J. Simpson and he said, 'Juice, those guys in Vegas have all your stuff. Don't be a p---y, just go there and take it. Trust me, Juice. People will love you for it.'"...

"Matt and I are so close now, that if we can't be together, we talk on the phone three, four times a day. I'll call him up and ask, 'Are you watching this?' And he'll just say 'yeah,' and we'll watch the whole show together on the phone."

More here:

Cruise ended with a toast: "To our friend who we wake up to every morning only because we had the channel on NBC before we fell asleep." He then told Lauer, "Lose my number, you glib putz." And then signed off by finally saying, "Cruise out!" which was kind of unspeakably awesome. Lauer jumped up to the mike: "Tom, can you stay? We can get a booster seat."

Later, Lauer explained that he'd never been prepared for what a sensation the infamous 2005 interview would be, until he went home, "and someone told me what the word glib actually means. That burned my fucking ass!" Lauer also announced that he and Cruise have an interview scheduled for December. "So officially we have now buried the hatchet," he said. "But just between us, if he pulls that shit again, I will fuck him up. The guy is, like, five-foot-three. I will drop a building on his ass."

Do you love it when Lauer talks dirty to Tom?

This needs to be on YouTube, but it's not, so let's go back to Tom's wonderful old performance on "The Today Show" -- which will help you if you've lost track of the "glib" reference:



Ah! That never gets old.

I got so mad at George Packer last night.

As expressed in this post and its comments. Here I am in the comments:

I don't mind people attacking me for doing that post itself ["[I doubt that] Obama wore an earpiece that was clearly visible on HDTV"], which was done at the end of a long session of live-blogging. But what angers me are these broad statements about how insular and narrow-minded I've been, when I have spent the last year (and more) being incredibly balanced, to the point where my readers really didn't know which candidate I was going to vote for. [Links added.]

You know, I'm going to vote for Obama (94.67% chance), but these assholes make it a really distasteful exercise.

Later, I added: "Now I feel like voting for McCain... and pushing the inside the ear transmitter theory..."

That was after reading this, from Original George:

Before dismissing the idea that Sen. Obama was wearing or does wear a hearing device, in less than 60 seconds on the net, I found many, many websites advertising CIC hearing aids. Go here.

They fit entirely inside the ear canal. They cost about $1,000. They're the size of a large seed or piece of corn. Probably sold by every audiologist.

So....could there be a radio receiver that size? Why not?

And, lo and behold, another five seconds on Google, and up come many in-the-ear-canal radio receivers...like here.

The mistake the Professor made, if she made one, was not to invest a few minutes research. Best thing to do would be to call two or three manufacturers of these gizmos and see what they think.

Heck, if I were running for President, I'd use a radio so I could be fed reminders and tips, and I'd be gobbling Provigil. Anything for an undetectable edge. Lifts in the shoes, hair dye, Wheaties, whatever.

A night's sleep put me at some distance from my rage so that, even with harassment from the excessively early-rising marching band, I was feeling cool-headed enough. And then, reading more deeply into the comments, I was cheered by our little friend, our favorite insect, blogging cockroach:

i don t know about sir archy or even titus
but i am a 100 percent sorta brown blooded
american cockraoch born right here
in cambridge mass if you want to count
that as america which i am sure some of you don t
and i ve got to say i think that hatchet job
done to professor a was terrible
that s the trouble with blogging
it s supposed to be easy and breezy
but there are people who deconstruct every
breadcrumb that gets stuck under the letter r
for example that really happened and i couldn t
write a damn thing with r

railroad crossing look out for the cars
can you spell it without any r s...

anyway soon people started to say
i broke my right front leg off and other
stupid theories and my blog went to hell
until tommy came back from camp
and fixed the keyboard

tommy is the boy whose computer i use

anyway tommy and i took the blog private
and maybe i ll start again
but this sure is a cautionary tale

i have a confession to make
tommy subscribes to the new yorker
oh the shame
he s very bright and sophisticated for 12
hell he s bright and sophisticated for 34
so he started reading the new yorker
in the office of his fancy private school
and next thing he had to have a subscription
mom and dad got him one for his birthday

i m glad that hit piece is only online
as i would have to find and eat the page
if it were in the magazine
so tommy wouldn t see it
and while there are some magazines
with yummy casein coated glossy paper
i only eat the new yorker as a last resort

Homecoming Saturday.

The UW Marching Band began playing at 7 a.m. this morning. Insistent drumming and trumpeting permeates the neighborhood. I love the national anthem as much as anyone. No, I'm sure there are people who love it more than I do, but I love it appropriately well. Still, I don't want to hear it at 7:15 a.m. -- "by the dawn's early light," literally.

Ron Howard does a really cool pro-Obama thing.

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die