Big Numbers

In case you were wondering Paul Krugman is teaching ECON 553 this fall (yes that's the five hundred level, yowza) and yes the slides make my head hurt.

McCain is a Liar

See for yourself.

Read This Now - Palin's Trooper-Gate Rundown

Yes Sarah Palin is generating an inordinate amount of press coverage lately, especially considering she has yet to give an interview or hold a press conference (McCain has been shy recently too, more later) but this is a substantive story that you should know about.

TPM has compiled everything you need to know about Palin's ongoing trooper-gate investigation and scandal.

Are You Ready For Some Foosball?!

Over here on the lighter side of life things would be going a lot better if the 'Skins had had a decent showing to open the season.

Not that it'll brighten your spirits, but Tom Boswell has a well written piece on the new west coast offense and the fact that QB Jason Campbell is being asked to learn yet another new system. One of the interesting tidbits that Boswell works in is the nature and difficulty of matching the right type of QB for the offense that's being run. Campbell was probably the right guy for Coach Gibbs' scheme but doesn't look to be the QB that will fit into Zorn's new overhaul.

Also if you want to see which games are on TV throughout the country check out this site with cool google maps mashups going on (via Kottke). Last time I was there it seemed to be behind and not quite running right, still a neat idea though.

Read This Now - Media Calling Out McCain Campaign's Lies

HuffPo has a brief piece on the media finally starting to declare enough with John McCain's campaign of lies. They have a list of links to the stories which I think isn't complete, it'll be really neat if they keep updating it but I'm not holding my breath.

Giving A Good Speech

I've always liked this speech, it still gives me goose bumps when I watch it. Yes, it's from a movie (The American President) and yes you're damn right it was written by Aaron Sorkin. But the important bits are really important and very true and yesterday Obama finally came close to owning them.

Watch the clip and just replace Bob Rumson's name with John McCain's or Bush or Cheney or any other recent Republican name. The bottom line is it's the truth and we could use a little more of that.

John's problem isn't that he doesn't get it, it's that he can't sell it. We have serious problems to solve and we need serious people to solve them, and what ever your particular problem is I promise you John McCain is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things, and two things only: making you afraid of it, and telling you who's to blame for it. That ladies and gentleman is how you win elections.

Sounds about right doesn't it?

Read This Now - The Revamp

Those of you who come by the actual front page of this blog have seen the Read This Now section in the upper right corner and have probably noticed that it has petered out recently.

I like the idea of being able to throw up links to stories and other bits and pieces that I think should be passed along, really that I think everyone should see, without having to write an actual post about them. However, going into the layout settings in order to update makes the sideboard section for Read This Now cumbersome and I think that the folks who actually pay attention to this blog do so via rss readers where a sideboard update isn't visible anyway.

So from now on there'll be actual posts with the Read This Now heading when I want to pass something along. They'll be one sentence and a link at least for the most part. So off we go...

You should read Andrew Sullivan on McCain's integrity, and you should remember that Sullivan has in the past been a McCain booster.