Sarah Palin’s husband, Todd Palin, after his wife’s successful mayoral bid in 1996

if anything was learned these past 6 months, it was that you are an awful person [too]

We’re moderate, we modernize
till our hell is a good life

(even your friends look worried)

The Olive Garden yearning was best expressed by an anxious woman in a big white car who stopped this reporter as he was leaving the new restaurant last week. She rolled down her window and asked if it was open, then looked heartbroken when told that it wasn’t, that the parking lot was simply filled with the vehicles of Olive Garden staff members in training. “I’ve been watching it and marking my calendar until Dec. 11,” she said, her brief hopes for an early Italian dinner quashed.

In the Sioux City Journal, Olive Garden arrives

http://www.myspace.com/metallagher

The Article: How Obama Reconciles Dueling Views on Economy by David Leonhardt in the New York Times Magazine.

The Text: I. A Broken Economy

As Barack Obama prepares to accept the Democratic nomination this week, it is clear that the economic policies of the next president are going to be hugely important. Ever since Wall Street bankers were called back from their vacations last summer to deal with the convulsions in the mortgage market, the economy has been lurching from one crisis to the next. The International Monetary Fund has described the situation as “the largest financial shock since the Great Depression.” The details are too technical for most of us to understand. (They’re too technical for many bankers to understand, which is part of the problem.) But the root cause is simple enough. In some fundamental ways, the American economy has stopped working.

Dana Schutz is an artist based out of New York. In her paintings, she places characters into fantasy worlds she creates, making loose back stories for the characters and situations she depicts.

I remember I was hammering on a fence in the backyard when Dad approached. He was carrying a letter or something in his hand, and he looked worried. I continued to hammer as he came toward me. “Son,” he said, “why are you hammering on that fence? It already has plenty of nails in it.” “Oh, I’m not using nails,” I replied. “I’m just hammering.” With that, I returned to my hammering. Dad asked me to stop hammering, as he had some news. I did stop hammering, but first I got a couple more hammers in, and this seemed to make Dad mad. “I said, stop hammering!” he yelled. I think he felt bad for yelling at me, especially since it looked like he had bad news. “Look,” he said, “you can hammer later, but first-” Well, I didn’t even wait to hear the rest. As soon as I heard “You can hammer,” that’s what I started doing. Hammering away, happy as an old hammerdog. Dad tried to physically stop me from hammering by inserting a small log of some sort between my hammer and the fence. But I just kept on hammering, ’cause that’s the way I am when I get that hammer going. Then, he just grabbed my arm and made me stop. “I’m afraid I have some news for you,” he said. I swear, what I did next was not hammering. I was just letting the hammer swing lazily at arm’s length, and maybe it tapped the fence once or twice, but that’s all. That apparently didn’t make any difference whatsoever to Dad, because he just grabbed my hammer out of my hand and flung it across the field. And when I saw my hammer flying helplessly through the air like that, I just couldn’t take it. I burst out crying, I admit it. And I ran to the house, as fast as my legs could take me. “Son, come back!” yelled Dad. “What about your hammer?!” But I could not have cared less about hammering at that point. I ran into the house and flung myself onto my bed, pounding the bed with my fists. I pounded and pounded, until finally, behind me, I heard a voice. “As long as you’re pounding, why not use this?” I turned, and it was Dad, holding a brand-new solid-gold hammer. I quickly wiped the tears from my eyes and ran to Dad’s outstretched arms. But suddenly, he jumped out of the way, and I went sailing through the second-story window behind him. Whenever I hear about a kid getting in trouble with drugs, I like to tell him this story.

“Unfailingly loyal to Israel… “loading every plane” with weapons for Israel to explain what kind of president McCain will be.” — Joe Lieberman, explaining his support for John McCain

See Also: The Logic Behind Lieberman, Why John McCain’s Veep Choice Is So Tough, Bill Kristol: Looking For Joe-Mentum In All The Wrong Places, Wingnuts will fall in line behind Lieberman, and Kristol For Lieberman.

Technorati Tags: joe lieberman, republicans, john mccain, endorsement, israel, neo-conservative

From Democracy and Empire: Both Illusions:

“The statements made by Condoleezza Rice and George W. Bush about the recent hostilities between Georgia and Russia did not raise an eyebrow from Obama or McCain, nor did they raise questions from those that comment on all things political. The recent chiding given to Russia by Bush and Rice that this is the 21st Century and that sovereign nations do not invade other sovereign nations, was hysterically amusing, if the deaths of more than a million Iraqi’s and thousands of dead Americans weren’t involved, this would be a great plot for a big screen comedy hit.”

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Metric is a Canadian New Wave/indie rock band. Originally formed in 1998 in New York City, they are currently based in Toronto, Ontario and Oakland, California.

The band consists of vocalist Emily Haines (who also plays the synthesizer), guitarist James Shaw, bassist Josh Winstead and drummer Joules Scott-Key. Their first full-length album, Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?, was released in 2003 and earned the Juno Award nomination for Best Alternative Album. Live It Out was released on October 4, 2005 and was nominated for the 2006 Polaris Music Prize for the Canadian Album of The Year and once again the Juno Award nomination for Best Alternative Album.

i have finally moved to brooklyn:

you say you just don’t know
if you can take this city
cos the rent’s high
and the war’s on