More than a few people have noticed that Biden was on hand to offer a lot of post-debate analysis and reaction on the news shows, whereas Palin is incommunicado, as per usual.

Wasn't that why Giuliani was in Mississippi. Because he can actually string together a coherent sentence? Which, I have to think, must have chapped McCain's ass because he doesn't really like Rudy, does he?

For my math Ph. D., I had to pass one foreign language exam, with the language being my choice of French, German, or Russian. That's pretty standard for math programs -- some require two languages. But the exam is pretty easy -- they just give you a few pages of an article in the language to translate into English, with the help of a dictionary. Two of my friends passed the French exam without ever having taken a French course. (And one of them had Japanese as his first language, and his English isn't all that great.) What they're looking for isn't so much "proficiency" as "if you really must figure out what someone's saying, you can."

I wonder how low the bar is set at this point for pundits to declare "Palin did what she needed to do in this debate", when it ends? Is not speaking in tongues sufficient? Will she declared to have debated successfully in the debate if her sentences flow into coherent paragraphs?

Will she declared to have debated successfully in the debate if her sentences flow into coherent paragraphs?

Given that she didn't even manage that in her Couric interview....

A part of me wishes it would turn out that she's sort of a pool hustler who has been throwing her early interviews so that she by comparison wins the debate when she finally cuts loose.

But it's not the way I'm betting.

Will she declared to have debated successfully in the debate if her sentences flow into coherent paragraphs?

I think at this point, given the ability, or lack thereof, she's exhibited, that's setting the bar pretty damned high.

She's really beginning to piss me off with attempting to use the faux charm and hair toss and "I'll get back to ya," flippancy as a cover-up for the fact that she is completely not qualified for this. At all.

And yet... so many women in this country "relate to her." And that this is what the rest of the world is seeing-- that this incoherent yahoo is who a major party chooses to potentially be one heartbeat away from the highest office in the land. It makes me want to absolutely weep.

I swear, if I was a woman in high political office in this country, regardless of party, I'd be planning to make Sarah Palin disappear. Some of those women, they know how to dispose of bodies, I'm sure.

Oh, and more adventures from living in North Florida. My best friend was practically frothing at the mouth yesterday-- over the summer, a neighborhood boy her son plays with (who attends Catholic school) was basically proselytizing at the pool-- telling my friend's son how abortion was murder. Eleven years old. So A had to have the talk with her son about what abortion was and how different people believe different things about it, but that it wasn't murder. Things settled down,

So now yesterday, the boy's sister, who is nine, was telling A's eight year-old daughter that she was voting for McCain because Obama encouraged women to murder babies while they were still in their mommy's bellies.

So A finally called her and said, "Look, this is what your kids have been saying to mine and while I respect that you have your views and that they're based in your faith, I'd really appreciate it if you asked them not to discuss such things with my kids."

To which the mom responded, "But it's true!"

A: "No, actually, it's not. But that's besides the point. I said I respected your viewpoint, even if I don't agree with it, now I'm asking for the same respect in return. I would simply prefer to be the one to choose when to tell my eight and eleven year-old children about choices such as abortion and what might lead a woman to make such a choice."

The joys of living in such a red corner of the state. *sigh*

I swear, if I was a woman in high political office in this country, regardless of party, I'd be planning to make Sarah Palin disappear. Some of those women, they know how to dispose of bodies, I'm sure.

While the woman herself is blatantly unqualified, I'd bet that the Secret Service agents assigned to protect her are not. (Hey! There's one government department Bush didn't fill with incompetent cronies! What a coincidence...) Better if they make her disappear in a metaphorical, washed-up-career sense.

And yet... so many women in this country "relate to her." And that this is what the rest of the world is seeing-- that this incoherent yahoo is who a major party chooses to potentially be one heartbeat away from the highest office in the land. It makes me want to absolutely weep.

I honestly don't think that Palin, when the votes are tallied, will have have garnered McCain any votes he didn't already have sewn up. I don't think that undecided voters are swinging her way, because she's IGNANT. I don't think that disenchanted Hillary voters are willing to vote for a candidate who has only ONE thing in common with them -- having a factory-installed vagina.

The people who "relate to her" were already going to vote for the creepy old guy anyway. I'm sure of it.

Steph is me.

Someone is driving slowly around our neighborhood and just parked on our cul-de-sac for twenty minutes. They're Sunday morning driving around looking at real estate, right? Not crazed stalkers who are casing my house and are going to load up my instruments and dog in their white SUV?

Okay, good.