A Cubs catcher, returning from the minors, is back after having to have four fingers reattached last year.

Footnotes, Endnotes, and Parentheticals That Cost Me Marks on My Thesis.

That's brilliant. I was going to copy one to highlight, and I couldn't pick!

And now for something completely different: On the high velocity rotation of interred organic remains

Let us all doff our hats in astonished disbelief at the brazen arrogance of the people who have created the Carl Sagan Institute in Brazil.

That is, the Carl Sagan Institute…of UFOlogy. That's right, a cranky gang of saucernuts have appropriated the name and likeness of Carl Sagan without authorization to flog their belief that Jesus is a flying saucer pilot. They claim that Sagan was secretly a believer in visitations by Little Green Men, who simply publicly lied, and now they want to use his dead body to beg for donations.

Okaaaaayyy.....

Extraordinary idiocy requires extraordinary making-fun-of....

Hellaciously good post by Bonnie Fuller at HuffPo on Bristol Palin and her possible future.

Hellaciously good post by Bonnie Fuller at HuffPo on Bristol Palin and her possible future.

I'm not sure. I found it a bit... patronizing? towards 17-year-old girls. Who, admittedly, are not fully adults, but it still kind of grated. I'm not giving Palin a pass by any means, I just think that maybe Bristol has more agency than that article suggests.

Personally, I think the hysteria around Palin's kids is distracting from meatier issues that the left-wing press could hammer her on (secessionist, lack of experience, documented liar). Not to mention that some of the coverage is starting to sound suspiciously like the right-wing coverage of Hillary.

I can see where you're coming from, juliana, and you have a good point-- but then again, as an example, I see how many girls have been going batshit craxy over a fictional sparkly vampire boy and thinking he's just the Perfect Guy (not to mention their mothers) and I have to think Fuller makes some good points too. I think, though, I'm going to disagree on how much agency Bristol may have. I can't honestly see, given her family sitch as it's been portrayed, how she could have a whole lot.

Personally, I think the hysteria around Palin's kids is distracting from meatier issues that the left-wing press could hammer her on (secessionist, lack of experience, documented liar).

No disagreement there at all.

The best description I've seen yet for the whole Palin thing is "a Tennessee Williams play has broken out at the RNC."

Streetcar!

Streetcar!

Please, God, no Fred Thompson dropping to his knees and bellowing "Sarahhhh!" during his address tonight.

I think it's often difficult to remember that the *majority* of voters are people who struggle to make ends meet, who have turned to church and the bible, if they weren't already members and readers, for comfort and reassurance in times of economic and foreign upheaval, who watch tv news and read local papers, and who *believe* what they're told, both from the newsdesk and the pulpit. Whose teenaged kids are eligible for the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq, those kids having gone through middle and high school with no public sex education, and the parents are often reluctant to broach the subject themselves. As a parent, I know how very tempting it is to avoid those talks. So if the kids aren't getting adequate info in class, they're likely not getting it at all. Which of course results in teen pregnancies before marriage.

McCain is a war hero, a father figure who has survived *four bouts of cancer*, so God must really want him here on earth for a reason. And Palin is just a mom like us, who has kids who are in the military, fighting for God and country, a baby with Down's, which surely transforms her into something approaching sainthood, and a daughter who's pregnant. She really is just like us.

This is the McCain/Palin ticket *most* voters are going to see. It's the ticket that's being promoted, and will be promoted. Let the Democrats have their education and privilege, they think they're so smart. They're *not.like.us*.

Dubya won because he was folksy and approachable and non-threatening, even charmingly bumbling, like "us". Voters--heartland and Bible Belt voters--don't like candidates who are "not like us."