Circling the Wagoner

Under terms of the government’s bailout of the auto industry, General Motors and Chrysler were asked to submit their restructuring plans to administration officials for approval. Based on these plans, the Obama administration would determine if the companies are viable as ‘going concerns’ before offering additional government funds. GM’s CEO Rick Wagoner submitted his company’s plans on Friday.

The following is a transcript we obtained of a conversation between Wagoner and President Obama:

Obama: So let’s take a look at this plan.

Wagoner: I like your haircut.

Obama: The plan. I need to see the plan.

Wagoner: Here’s the plan.

Obama: Dude, this is just a napkin. And it has a piece of chicken on it.

Wagoner: I’ll need the chicken back.

Obama: Stop humping my leg.

Corruption is Bad, or Is It? Yes it is. Really? Yes

The Pope concluded his tour of Africa this week with calls to rid the continent of corruption and poverty and many other bad things. He is pictured here winning a Chrysler convertible during the half-time show. To sum up his speech in Angola (and taking some liberties with the text, in the interest of limited space and time): ‘Bad things are bad, and should be gotten rid of. Good things are good and we should probably keep them.’

Overshadowing this whole sentiment was the controversy over statements he made earlier in the week over the use of condoms to stem the spread of HIV around the continent, and ultimately lost was the lesser known controversy over corruption.

Transparency International, an anti-corruption agency, asserts that corruption is a major hindrance to development in Africa. [Their headquarters are pictured here. Admittedly, it’s hard to photograph their headquarters.] The Puke has obtained a copy of Transparency International’s Bribe Payer’s Index and other reports -- in exchange for a small payment and mostly non-sexual favors to a low-ranking employee -- and all of the reports basically say that corruption is a major problem, and it is indeed widespread and hurtful.

But Transparency International is not without its detractors. One of these is Translucency International, which offered a murky critique by saying that there is a large shape that looks like corruption, but may just be a lady taking a shower -- it’s just too hard to tell with all that steam. Also jumping into the fray was Transparency’s fiercest critic, Opacity International -- supporter of Robert Mugabe, Dick Cheney, TARP, the former Iron Curtain, the East River, and brick walls everywhere -- which argues that nothing is wrong and everything is, in fact, just fine and always has been, so why don’t you shut up?

The Quests for Truth and Blood

We are getting bored of reporting on the impending economic disaster and the imminent disintegration of the society of Man.

But the issue still remains, and so for a moment, we’ll concern ourselves with explaining the real reasons behind the massive economic meltdown that will doom you and your children and your children’s children to poverty, a broken-down society, and perhaps mild cannibalism.

[If you don’t have a head for detail, skip down a few paragraphs to The Quest for Blood.]

The Quest for Truth

So who is to blame? You’ve heard a lot about people buying houses that they couldn’t afford and predatory mortgage lenders who offered loan terms that were impossible to meet. But that’s not the cause of the problem. There will always be bad loans and people who can’t pay their bills, but they should never lead to the ruin of our economy and create the apocalyptic conditions for cannibalism down the road.

Rewind back to the days of the Great Depression. In 1933, Congress passed the Glass-Steagall Act, which regulated the way banks did business -- essentially separating investment banks (which took great risks with their capital for higher rates of return) and regular deposit banking. This was to ensure that banks did not use the money in regular people’s bank accounts for crazy speculation in, say, the derivatives markets or in the stock market or in high-yield securitized loan portfolios -- all of which could lead to the demise of our species. We hate to bore you with the details, but essentially, the law was designed to prevent the creation of a Citigroup or an AIG, and for 66 years, it prevented the creation of a giant market of the very same toxic assets that will perhaps be damning us all to living underground and, out of necessity, acquiring a taste for human flesh. In other words, this was a good law.

But in 1999, the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed by a bill called the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act -- named after the three assholes who introduced it: Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa), and Rep. Thomas Bliley (R-Virginia) – and it was passed so overwhelmingly by both houses of Congress that it did not even need the signature of then-president Bill Clinton (D-Penisville), though it received that too. This allowed Traveler’s Group -- an insurance company -- to merge with Citicorp -- a bank -- in order to create what they called a ‘financial supermarket.’ We can only assume all the legislators were entertained by hookers and fed mountains of cocaine while they were assured this bill would not lead to cannibalism and the demise of the human race.

Also, around the same time in the late 1990s, credit default swaps came into being. They were conceived as a way to insure lenders, especially banks, against loan losses. In 2000, Congress passed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which exempted credit default swaps from regulation. The act was introduced by Sen. Phil “Anybody see a pattern here?” Gramm (R-Texas), and cheerled by Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, who argued that the market would regulate itself because he read as much in the writings of Ayn Rand.

What followed can only be described as a financial orgy as banks took more risks in financial markets, falsely comforted by the fact that they could also buy credit default swaps as insurance. AIG was making large profits by selling credit default swaps well beyond their ability to insure the loans that they covered. Between the years 1999 and 2007 sub-prime loans increased from 5% of all new mortgages to 48%. Holy effing crap! There were a whole lot of other reasons for this, but the main reason is that financial institutions started borrowing more and more money to buy these things, until some of them were borrowing $32 (or more) for every $1 they actually had –- just so they could buy these ridiculous loans. Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers were two of these. And all the major banks were borrowing at least 25 to 1 to finance the same crap – with the money that regular, hardworking people keep in the bank or in their 401(k)s.

There was another regulation passed during the Great Depression called The Uptick Rule. This was a rule instituted by the SEC to prevent market players from manipulating the value of stocks while selling those same stocks short. It led to the destruction of capital at banks and other financial institutions in 1937, and so the SEC decided to put an end to it. Then, in 2007, the SEC decided capital destruction was cool again, and eliminated the rule. Market manipulators have been destroying bank stocks ever since and bringing the financial system to its knees.

Then came the collapse of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and the black hole we call AIG. Wachovia and Washington Mutual then contributed with the two biggest bank failures in American history. (Technically, Wachovia didn’t fail because it was bought by Wells Fargo, but the point remains.)


The Quest for Blood

If you’ve read the above paragraphs, congratulations. You are one bored human being.

If you haven’t, let us recap a bit:
It seems that the government had decided sometime in the last 10 years or so that it wanted to bring on another Great Depression, and so repealed every law that had been instituted to prevent exactly that. We admit that 60 or 70 years is a long time and that people forget what exactly the purpose of such laws may have been. So could we suggest maybe a Post-It note be placed on these laws from now on, so that maybe the people in the future will know that they’re really, really important? Or maybe we can put a stamp on certain laws that says, ‘THIS LAW WAS PUT IN PLACE TO PREVENT THE DEMISE OF OUR SPECIES OR POSSIBLE CANNIBALISM. DON’T EFFING REPEAL IT.’

So let us list the people responsible: Senator Phil Gramm (R-Texas), Alan Greenspan, and just about every top executive at AIG, Citigroup, Wachovia, Washington Mutual, Bear Stearns, and Lehman Brothers, every Treasury Secretary from Robert Rubin to Henry Paulson, SEC chairman Christopher Cox, and throw in current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, too, who insisted in 2007 and 2008 that the sub-prime crisis would not present much of a problem for the economy.

These people should all be disemboweled and hung by their necks in the middle of every city square in the United States. Their innards should be exposed to the disastrous rays of the sun until they’re baked and cured beyond any semblance of human form and flesh.

You might think that seems a bit harsh. Certainly, they broke no laws. And after all, Alan Greenspan already looks like a rotting corpse, and if the ancient, foul, beaten Earth could walk and talk, it would look and sound like Phil Gramm.

But it is not exaggerating to say that millions of lives have been destroyed -- millions of people have lost their jobs, and millions more have lost their savings in the stock market as a result of what these people have done. That is not even to mention the effect this crisis will have in poor countries, where political instability and famine are sure to be the near-term results. And we cannot yet say that the worst is over. This boulder has been rolling down from the very heights of the highest mountain, and we have no idea where the bottom is, or if the economy and our society can even survive the destruction on the way down. There is no crazed murderer or serial killer languishing in any prison in this country, nor any terrorist hiding in the hills of Afghanistan, who has done damage that even compares to what these people have done.

So we need to pass new laws -– laws that designate these people as Enemies whose existence presents a systemic risk to our economy, to our civilization, and to the human species as a whole. Then, when cannibalism becomes the order of the day, we will be able to look back and at least know that someone was held responsible for our misery.

Hog Duty in Iowa

Generally speaking, ideal conditions of living must be achieved as a function of both time and place. For example, you may be extremely fortunate to have been born in Beverly Hills, CA, but maybe not if you were born there in 1769 as the bastard son of a Franciscan monk. That would be an example of being lucky in place but not in time. Alternatively, you could have been born during the Florentine Renaissance –- but in an Ottoman slave camp. Time: yay. Place: boo.

There are, of course, varying degrees of luck with respect to both variables. If pig odor is a problem where you live, then it’s pretty fair to say it doesn’t matter what the time is. The Age of Reason or 4 PM last Sunday would both smell like shit. Read Candide all you like, and you’ll still have trouble being optimistic. In fact, spoil your senses watching TV, smoking crack, and eating chocolate cake while dancing to Hannah Montana songs, and still, the swirling stench of pig poop will be ruling your life like an abusive foster parent.

So, in order to help out some people who’ve been screwed by the Fates of Place but not so much of Time, it makes perfect sense that the budget bill passed by Congress last week sets aside $1.8 million for ‘swine odor and manure management.’ Sure, make fun of Congress all you want for writing poop into law, but if you lived in olfactory hell, downwind from a pack of squealing shit machines, you’d almost certainly find no humor in any of this -- and neither do we.

Jay Harmon, Professor of Agriculture at Iowa State University (with a Ph.D. in some kind of shit), is a man who takes his duty very seriously. He has perfected the methods of ‘management’ in the Poo Sciences and really thinks the whole problem can be flushed down the toilet if we throw the right crap at it. He suggests things like not living near a pig farm (which we’ve already discussed), planting shrubs, installing ventilators, something called ‘broadcasting manure’ (which I’m pretty sure Cable News has already taken care of), building walls, chimneys, storage covers, etc, etc, etc... Well, we don’t have to get into all that poop jargon to know that this guy knows what time it is when it comes to chocolate hog patties, and we can feel safe that our tax dollars are well spent.

So put down Candide and the crack pipe, and for god's sake stop bouncing to that teeny bopper crap -- your Luck of Place is about to get better. But seriously, only a little bit. You still live in Iowa, near a pig farm.

The Daschle Dump

I am so glad that Tom Daschle took it in the neck! Tom Daschle, the former U.S. Senate Majority Leader, was nominated for U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services by President Barack Obama. In the process of vetting and confirmation, some tax issues popped up, like... he didn't pay his taxes. So today, Daschle withdrew his name from consideration. Nice! You might be asking why I am an Anti-Daschlite, well let me tell you why: 1) Please just look up at his picture. Those are the single douchiest glasses in the history of optometry. What exactly is he thinking?!?! Red glasses!?!? Unless he is a stand-in for Dame Edna in the road show, "Dame Edna: The Joke was Barely Funny When Milton Berle Did It," a grown man should not wear red glasses. Especially not in public, and most especially if you want to be in charge of health care reform. Also, those glasses make him look so uppity and smarmy. 2) Do you know what his tax issue was about? He "forgot" to pay taxes for the car and driver he received from his buddy for the past few years. Let me ask, how many of you out there in Ptero Bloggerland have a car and driver? Give me a minute... I am counting the hands...oh, yeah, NONE! 3) Tom Daschle is a lobbyist (not a registered lobbyist but working for a lobbying firm). Your friend Obama said very clearly that there would be no lobbyists in his administration. Obama nominated him anyway. Bull. Also, Daschle's wife -- huge lobbyist (yes, she is seven feet tall). I am glad that Daschle has been dumped. Now bring in Dr. Howard Dean for HHS. He will bring a whole barrel of crazy to D.C.! Final word: did I mention the movie Doubt and long fingernails? Well, it seems we get a lot of Google hits for "Doubt" and "long fingernails," so I am trying to whore a little traffic our direction. Thank you.

I just happen to be very similar to some of the greatest people ever

You always have to be suspicious when someone says, ‘I don’t mean to compare myself to Gandhi, Martin Luther King, or Nelson Mandela,’ and then proceeds to compare himself to Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela. You really have to wonder what two species of crazy had to mate to produce a specimen like Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. He said – and I’m not kidding – that he thought about what these great men had done in his situation, and how he was doing the same. For a minute, I started thinking what Gandhi did after he tried to sell a US Senate seat. Probably no one in India could afford it at that time, so he never really ran into any problems. It all makes sense though. Blago and Gandhi. They’re almost the same person if you think about it.

On a similar self-praising note, our favorite happy un-elected Senator, Roland Burris, said, ‘If there was no Martin Luther King Jr. and no Roland Burris, there would be no Barack Obama in the White House today. We must recognize, friends, that we all stand on each other's shoulders.’ Referring to oneself in the third person may be creepy, but tacking your name on to MLK’s with ‘and’ is pure genius and really just solidifies whatever argument he was making. It's like saying, 'If there was no John Lennon and no other random guy who wasn't even part of the Beatles, there would be no Beatles.'

But, in any case, is it possible to ‘stand on each other’s shoulders?’ Have you ever tried to stand on someone’s shoulders while they’re standing on yours? Burris is really getting all Cirque du Soleil on us now. He was also overheard to say, ‘I’m gonna grab you by the ankles and throw you in the air. Before you fall, some dude in tights will throw me into the air and then another dude in tights will throw him before he catches you, and so forth, so that there are always three of us in the air and one on the ground at any given point in time. How bendable is your back? Go find me some music by Enya or something.’

Reverend Rhymey

It's hard not to like this guy, the Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, a titan of the Civil Rights Movement, and one of the founders of the SCLC along with Martin Luther King, Jr.



But I say 'titan' metaphorically: he's really not so very tall and seems to have lost a few inches in his old age. Couldn't someone have gotten him a soapbox to stand on? You can barely see the guy over those giant mics.

And I'd like to add a few things to the end of his speech. If "Black will not be asked to get in back, when Brown can stick around, when Yellow will be mellow, when the Red Man can get ahead, man..." -- can't we also ask Green to stay lean? When will Blue debut? Peach reach? Maroon swoon in the afternoon? Purple nurple?

I call you to... do nothing

We’ve been hearing a lot of political commentary about how Barack Obama should ask all of us to help move the country forward, to call us to service, to tell us to do something. But what? Is there anything anybody can do to prevent us from slipping off the cliff into near certain disaster? And besides, most of us are almost complete idiots. What do we have to contribute? Doesn’t he know he’ll be talking to a country that elected George W. Bush twice? He should really be asking most of the country to take a seat and shut the eff up for the next four years.

In the previous two presidential elections -– the only two in which I exercised my electoral right -- I voted both times for Ralph Nader precisely because I wanted to throw my vote away (and I kinda liked the old coot) and because I had nothing else to contribute. This time I voted for Barack Obama twice, if you include the primary, and I had to go through the trouble of changing my voter registration from the Independent Whacko Party to Democrat in order to do it. It took well over an hour and a half. I consider that to be a seismic effort on my part. I’m not going to do anything else because that was exhausting and once again, I have nothing more to contribute.

I’m confident enough to know that I’m not a complete idiot but I really can’t make that assertion about the vast majority of people out there, including whoever might be reading this blog. So really, almost none of you should be helping, almost none of you should serve. I know everybody likes to think of JFK -– ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country, etc. –- but really, most people ask stupid questions, so most people should just ask not anything.

I’m sure Obama will say something similar to ‘ask not, etc.’ in his inaugural address and he’ll inspire us to hope and do something or other, but please realize that it’s just a speech. Just rhetoric. As a great man once said, ‘That's just what we call pillow talk, baby.’ You voted. Good job. Now shut the eff up.

White House says no to funny jokes

A reporter asked White House Deputy Press Secretary Scott Stanzel yesterday if there were going to be any ‘practical jokes’ played on the incoming Obama team by Bush staffers. Back in 2000, Clinton staffers removed all the W keys from keyboards and also hid photocopied porn pictures in the white paper stacks for the copy machines so that anybody making copies would occasionally be surprised by booby shots even weeks after Bush took office.

But Stanzel said no, there would certainly not be any petty tomfoolery this time. ‘All the keys will remain on the keyboard. I can assure you that,’ he said. But continued, ‘There just won’t be any wheels on the country. This White House concentrated on the big things, like f***ing up the world and leaving a sh*t sandwich for an economy. Good luck, incoming White House team! Yah! [putting his hand up to receive high fives that were not forthcoming from the humorless press corps]’

Yes, World, You Need the USA

World, we've noticed: you just don't like the USA very much. Because we like to bully and invade other countries? Because if we don't get our way, well, we'll still get our way? Look, if we want to elect a halfwit as President, we'll do so -- twice. If we want to deny global warming even as we're planning beach holidays in Antarctica, we will. If we want to imprison people without cause, strip them naked and take pictures as we point to their naughty bits and laugh, we'll do that too. So it's not unexpected that everyone from Indonesians to the Dutch might hate our guts and maybe feel a gratifying sense of schadenfreude with regard to the monumental collapse of our economy -- like German ministers making statements that we were reckless in our banking and that our influence in the world is at an ebb, or the Chinese hinting that they don't want to lend us any more cash.

Well, guess what? You still need us, Germany. [As a side note, Germany, you really shouldn't be pointing fingers here. We remember a certain guy whose name rhymes with 'fitler.'] You still need us, France, China, Russia, Brazil, the rest of you.

Why? Well, your economies just won't work without us. And for one simple reason: we have the largest number of stupid people with a lot of money in the world. Other countries have stupid people, but our stupid people have money. Lots of it. And they buy your stupid crap. In order for the world economy to work on the scale that you all expect, we have to buy things like flying alarm clocks, inflatable toast, bars of soap with 'butt face' printed on them, DVD rewinders, umbrella shoes, and tons of other crap we train our stupid people to buy. Our stupid people are the engine of the world economy.

So, in 9 days when we inaugurate Barack Obama, you'd better start hating us less. Because we've got more George Bushes in this country, and we just might be stupid enough to elect one of them next time. Now, get back to work, World, and hurry -- we need another shipment of these can openers.

Which one of these things is not like the others?

Gov. Rod Blagojevich, the man who refuses to show his forehead because Google didn't offer him money for the ad space, was impeached today by the Illinois legislature. The vote was 114-1.

The State Senate will now decide if the governor will be removed from office. Of course, none of this stopped Blago from making Harry Reid look like a dumbass -- which, frankly, is not hard to do -- by appointing the smiliest man in Washington to Barack Obama's vacated US Senate seat.

The lone vote against impeachment was cast by Milton Patterson, pictured here (on the far right) with his college wrestling team. Said Patterson, 'I always have to stand out, whether it be voting in favor of a corrupt governor or being the short guy in a lineup of jolly, fat wrestling dudes wearing colorful, skimpy uniforms.'

Roland Burris Smiles, Wants to Sit Down

This guy will be a US Senator. How? Well, he was appointed by the corrupt governor of Illinois to Barack Obama's empty Senate seat. But Harry Reid said he'd block the appointment, you say? No matter. Roland Burris decided he was just going to smile his way to Washington, and keep walking and smiling, until everybody started to think that Harry Reid was the douche bag for not seating this guy in the Senate. Everyone on earth knows Harry Reid is a complete idiot, a guy who got out-maneuvered by the smallest forehead (and the biggest cahones) in America. Who would deny a seat to a 71 year old man who just wants to sit down? Shame on you, Harry Reid, for not letting this nice old man sit down with all your white buddies, even though there's an empty seat and it's raining outside.

Is Obama really in charge?

When I think of Leon Panetta, I don't think Change, and I certainly don't think Spy. I think Clinton. I think Clinton and I think of all the Clintonistas surrounding Obama before he even takes office. Then I wonder who really selected Panetta as CIA Director. Frankly, the name Panetta makes me hungry for lunch. I'd like a Panetta with olives and oregano, maybe some sun-dried tomatoes. I think I'll order lunch early today.

Boring, Corrupt, Richardson

Without being racist, think of a Hispanic name. Now think of the most Hispanic name you can think of. (When I do it, I come up with 'Omar Quintanilla.' If you came up with 'Jose Rodriguez,' you’re a borderline racist.) Now take that most-Hispanic name and think of its absolute opposite. I believe that no matter how you do this, you should come up with the name of Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico, who happens to be the country’s most prominent Hispanic politician. Due to his owning the least Hispanic-sounding name on earth, the rules of identity politics dictate that Richardson must affect an accent when he says words like Latino or aburrido -- softening Ts, rolling Rs – and that he must spend too much time tanning his face in the muy caliente sun of his home state –- all this to convince voting Hispanics that he’s one of them.

But none of this makes poor Bill Richardson interesting, which is why no one paid attention when he ran for president (even though he was the most qualified candidate in the whole field), and why Obama passed him up for VP and position after position in the cabinet until he came up with Secretary of Commerce. A boring job for a boring pol. Well, he’s withdrawn from that because of a federal investigation. Turns out he’s corrupt. Yawn.

Caroline in the Senate

All the signs seem to be pointing to Mr Magoo –- uhh, I mean, NY Governor David Paterson – leaning toward Caroline Kennedy for Hillary Clinton’s vacated Senate seat. A bunch of sources are reporting it, so it’s probably true. I am going to take a firm stand here and say I oppose this appointment. Does that mean I think she won’t make a good senator? No, it’s nothing against her. Beside the fact that this whole business of governors appointing senators just plain stinks –- need I take up space with the Illinois governor's Slavic surname here? -- Caroline simply doesn’t deserve to be appointed. No one should inherit a seat, no matter how well her family is regarded or how cute she was as a kid. If she wants to be a senator, she should make her case to voters and run in the next election. In making her case so far, she’s been getting hammered in the press for, you know, ummm... what I mean is... her, you know... Palin-esque performance in interviews. And rightly so. If you enter the fray, be prepared to take an elbow-smack to the eye socket. This is politics, not a gingerbread bake-off. (I'm assuming gingerbread bake-offs are relatively tame affairs. If anybody knows different, post a comment.)

On this subject, Susan Dominus has a Times piece from yesterday, with what she calls a ‘thought experiment.’ The problem is that it has nothing to do with thought. She posits that JFK, Jr, if alive today, would have been ‘embraced’ by Democrats, because it would seem as if his taking the office were ‘the natural order of things’ -- unlike poor little Caroline, who’s been raked over the coals because she lacks the requisite type of reproductive organ. Excuse me, Susan, but don’t use the shrill cry of SEXISM in this cowardly way, hiding behind rhetorical stunts like hypothetical scenarios and experiments in un-thought. John-John took a lot of hits for failing bar exams and running around with celebrities. If you're going to assume something, assume that the hits would have come much harder and faster if he had ever asked to be appointed to a Senate seat after having flailed about like a flipperless seal in media interviews. You’re a journalist, Susan, so act like one. When you have an opinion, state it, support it, and take the heat when that opinion sounds like it came from a cocaine-sniffing monkey.

Stones in Springfield, Ill

Astronomers have confirmed that the two giant orbs visible from the International Space Station are, in fact, Rod Blagojevich’s balls.

In a surprise announcement today,
Governor Bla-f***youandyours-evich put his gargantuan gonads on display for the Senate Democratic Caucus by appointing a successor for Obama’s vacated Senate seat.

Now it’s time for Harry Reid’s shriveled raisins to do their work.

Bristol Palin's New Baby

Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston -- 7 pounds, 4 ounces. Welcome to the world, ya little bastard. There are no pictures yet, but the Washington Post is reporting a possible $300,000 photo haul for the irresponsible teenage couple.

And why would you name your kid Tripp? Why not Gaffe? Or Blunder?

Or Getintopoliticswayoveryourheadandmakeanassofyourself?

Book Review: Sarah Palin

This is a review of former VP-candidate Sarah Palin’s memoir of the 2008 election campaign, It Was Nice to be Out of Alaska. I know what you’re thinking: that book hasn’t been written yet. Well, that would be a problem for lesser reviewers. As you already know, it's possible to review movies I haven’t even seen, and don’t ever intend to see. Is Tom Cruise wearing an eye patch in the preview? Is he still Tom Cruise? Yes and yes. Well, then the rest can be interpolated. In this case, is Sarah Palin an epsilon semi-moron? See, now you’re getting it.

You might think the Barracuda’s memoir is filled with a mix of cute little folk-isms and divisive rednecky slogans, but you’d be wrong. On the whole it’s a scathing indictment on our political system and a biting critique of our national character. For example, on page 23 (about a quarter way down the page), she writes, ‘…and the media got in the way of my plans to bring Jesus to Alaska. As the sun rises in the liberal East... etc, etc... egghead... etc, etc... maverick... etc, etc... like a flash of pure ecstasy across the sky.’ What she’s talking about there is not so much religion or even the media, but the lack of a coherent strategy to reduce the influence of money in politics, as well as the indifference and complacency of the average American voter. You’ll find a similar kind of ruthless rationality on page 1,637 (at the end of the last paragraph, 3-1/2 lines up from the bottom), where she writes, ‘Katie Couric is a poopoo-head.’ Eloquent, concise, painfully revealing. And then there are some telling personal vignettes, like when Todd forgets to wear a raincoat in 2007.

In the last line of the book on page 2,042, after all the policy wonkishness and rigorous analysis, the Governor betrays a hint of her burning ambition: ‘Homegirl has some street cred now, right? Am I right? Huh? Who’s with me?’ And we all know what that means. Palin in 2012. Write it down.

So, if you’re looking for an absorbing read and you want to re-live the 2008 election because it just wasn’t long enough, or if you’re looking for some ‘elite opinion’ served up cold and icy, this book is for you.

Next up, I Better Get Paid for This F***ing Book: The Rod Blagojevich Story.

Obama Libre?

Raise a glass of everybody's favorite ironically-named drink, the Cuba Libre, and celebrate: the Cuban Right Wing voting bloc in Florida has finally been broken. Obama won Florida by a decent margin, despite having signaled he would be willing to negotiate with the Castro regime with a mind toward ending the Embargo. This is heresy among right-leaning Cuban-Americans who hold sway over the Florida electorate and have delivered Florida to Republicans in all but four presidential elections since the revolution. Even Bill Clinton lost Florida in 1992. This bloc, and their associated lobby in Washington, would have the Cuban people starve to death rather than grant the Castro government any semblance of legitimacy. But attitudes change. There is some evidence that Obama enjoys a lot of goodwill among younger Cubans in the US.

Oh, the young. Always hopeful.

In Cuba Yoani Sanchez seems to think that it will be hard for the Cuban state to portray the new President as the enemy. Read her blog. The ice can melt on both sides.

So is Obama going to follow through on his pledge to engage Cuba? London’s Telegraph is reporting that an adviser to the President-Elect has said Obama will ‘move very quickly’ to relax travel restrictions for Cuban families in the US once he takes office. Will he then persuade Floridians that engagement is the right choice? That the Embargo (or The Blockade, as the Cubans call it) has not worked, and that US foreign policy cannot forever be a slave to irrational Cold War grudges? We'll see.

Violence in Gaza?

Israel bombs Gaza, Hamas threatens suicide bombings. This morning reminds me of the day we all learned that Clay Aiken is gay. File it under 'extremely unexpected.' Another surprise: A UN Secretary General calls for an immediate end to all violence and no one listens? Whoa! Did I just wake up in an alternate universe? Yet another surprise: Our President-Elect has no comment on a controversial issue. What next? A lot of angry Middle-Easterners? No way. Those people never get angry.