Brains at Waterloo.

Hah! The MP3 player is psychic this morning. John McCain's favorite band playing Rick Davis's (McCain's campaign manager) and Mark Buse's (McCain's chief of staff) (but for very different reasons) favorite song!

Quote of the Day:

"We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself."

-- The 2008 Republican Party Platform

This is modern conservatism:

The White House just asked the national debt ceiling be raised another $700 billion, for the proposed financial-sector bailout. If that happens, in 2008 alone, $1.5 trillion will have been added to the national debt: every penny borrowed from your children and their children. Stated in today's dollars, in 1979 the entire national debt was $1.5 trillion. George W. Bush and Congress have in a single year added an amount equal to the entire national debt one generation ago. And the year's not over.

McCain's Campaign Manager taking $15,000 a month from Freddie Mac for "doing nothing but being close to John McCain."

( A culture of ethical failure, continued. )

McCain's campaign manager pushed for de-regulation and encouraged "no doc" loan policies.

( This is more complicated than it looks. )

"Planting her three-inch heel directly on that limbic circuit that ceaselessly intones 'God and Country.'"

( Sam Harris on Sarah Palin )

John McCain must stop his sexist treatment of Sarah Palin!

( Sweet! Watch it! )

John McCain's chief of staff outed.

( Signorile bags another one. )

"Hispanics think they're better than blacks. They won't vote for one."

( Lord, make my enemies ridiculous! )

Obama has "disowned his white half," is a "magic negro," and the "affirmative action candidate."

( And yet, somehow, the speaker is not a racist? )

"Walking and chewing gum at the same time is part of the president's job."

John McCain today offered to "suspend all campaigning" in order to give the two candidates time to deal with the economic crisis, if Barack Obama did the same thing. He also suggested "delaying" the debates.

As Matthew Ylgesias says, "I think walking and chewing gum at the same time is part of the president's job." Recovering our financial footing, whatever state its in, does not hinge on our two presidential candidates spinning their way back to Washington to have their discussions with colleagues behind closed doors.

If Obama's smart, he'll do two things: he'll say that he's perfectly capable of assessing the issues on the merits from wherever he is in the United States. This is, after all, the Era of the Internet. And therefore, he's perfectly capable of sustaining a political campaign and fulfilling his responsibilities as a congressman; after all, the duties of a president are just as demanding.

The Obama campaign has responded with this statement:

At 8:30 this morning, Senator Obama called Senator McCain to ask him if he would join in issuing a joint statement outlining their shared principles and conditions for the Treasury proposal and urging Congress and the White House to act in a bipartisan manner to pass such a proposal. At 2:30 this afternoon, Senator McCain returned Senator Obama's call and agreed to join him in issuing such a statement. The two campaigns are currently working together on the details.

Note the timing. What this means is that Obama reached out to McCain, McCain made Obama think he'd taken the bait, and then he switched the whole deal around with this bizarre move.

Harry Reid pointed out that the Banking and Finance committees were doing just fine without McCain or Obama "injecting presidential politics into the process." Obama has apparently figured out that his job is to assess the situation and respond accordingly, not pretend to heroic. He'll show up at the debate, alone if need be, and debate the once admirable, now completely gnomic, John McCain or whatever surrogate McCain sends.

That's what I want in a President.



Oh, and my love affair for the Madness that is Kathryn Lopez (of National Review Online) goes on! She says: "Since Obama seems to want to go on with the debate. Many readers relay that they'd like McCain to just offer Palin step in for him." Yeah, right. The woman hasn't answered a single unscripted question from a reporter yet, but now maybe she should go up against Obama.

Sweet!

Not ten minutes after I make that post, my news feed tells me that Obama said this to a reporter:

It's my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess. It's going to be part of the president's job to deal with more than one thing at once.

You know what's cool about my life?

I was talking to Yamaraashi-chan, and the subject came around to boys. She's in that stage where she and her friends are figuring out what the label "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" meant. I asked her why she thought having "a boyfriend" rather than "boys who are friends" was an important process. The conversation went back and forth for a while, and at one point I said, "Besides, boys are pretty dumb sometimes."

"Boys are not dumb!" she said.

I looked at her over the top of my bifocals and said, "Kid, I've been a boy. I've dated boys. Believe me. Boys can be dumb."

She was predictably unfazed. "Well, the ones I like aren't dumb."

She'll learn soon enough.

"Uncanny valley plushie goatse."

What is it with people reading over my shoulders this week? (Hah! Just writing that made him look away.)

A couple of weeks ago I posted about, among other fun discoveries, a "love pillow," which was basically a mount for a Fleshlight, a soft, cushioned pillow to hump against while having a technologically enhanced wank.

The company that made them had started making pillow cases printed with your favorite anime characters on them, and the pillow came in two sizes: a standard sized and an extended length "body" pillow. It seems that the pillows were a best seller, because the product line today is mind-bogglingly more complex. The standard-sized pillow was vaguely shaped like a female body, but now along with the original design you can get ones with prominent buttocks (including one that is nothing but the lower half of a human torso). The pillow designs run from just-a-pillow (with mount sleeves and drawstrings) to bodies clearly meant to seem human, including one that is unquestionably sold to resemble a pubescent child. I guess we should be happy the store even sells its "Venus."

And as love dolls go, these are completely modular. Heads and boobs sold separately and mounted to the pillow with velcro. You have to look at the "how to use" illustrations in which exceptionally happy fully clothed men show how to hold these partial torsos for the best pleasure, and the four page "beginners" manga is a scream. There are some very disturbing accessories, including the crying 12 year old girl head that goes with the "cutie" body. If you're cheap, there's a simple pillow with a boob simulation wrap, over which you can put a pillowcase printed with, well, with whatever you want.

Perhaps equally disturbing is the maintence page, in which the manfacturer shows you how to open up the (ahem) front and rear sleeves and clean them as needed. The illustration is best described as "uncanny valley plushie goatse."

If ever there was a way to explain Japan's population crash, this is it.

And I admit to some sympathy with (well, most of) the purchasers. A lot of people started their masturbatory discovries face down, humping a pillow. This is just a way of doing so comfortably and pleasurably. Sex-- or even masturbation-- becomes a hobby when you work toward improving it and spend money on doing so. (I suppose it really becomes a hobby when you have a blog where you tell others how to do it better.) Besides, if you do it right and enough, it's aerobic exercise, ne?

Like Calvin's dad, only with different topics.

During a conversation about corporal punishment: "People used to think the gods gave us big butts so parents could spank their kids without doing permanent damage."

Yamaraashi-chan said, "People have big butts?"

I said, "Well, it has the largest muscle in the body."

"Why?"

"Because it connects our spine, pelvis and legs, kid. It's what keeps us upright. Because muscles can only contract and pull, the running muscles have to be in the back, so the butt is also the main muscle that powers running."

Kouryou-chan said, "But why do we have big butts?"

"If it powers our running, then the people with small butts couldn't run as far or as fast as the people with bigger butts. They were probably eaten by wolves."

"Daddy!"