-- John McCain suspends campaigning to work on economy, requests postponing Friday debate; asks Obama do the same.

What the....

The dude's fuckin' crazy. He's been attacking the NYT (rather than dispute what the NYT is reporting) and he's been disputing the accuracy of polling data... reality does have an anti-McCain bias.

Meanwhile, in more serious news, A woman on the north coast of New South Wales in Australia is being held hostage in her own home by a large pig, Australian media report.

Uki woman Caroline Hayes, 63, says the pig is as big as "a Shetland pony" and that she cannot get out of her house because of its aggressive behaviour.

"It started knocking on my door at 4 am, head-butting the door, [after] some food," she told ABC television.

When she opened the door, she said, the pig pushed her back inside the house.

The offending animal, whom neighbours have named Bruce, also pulled a king-sized mattress out of her garage and ripped it up.

Ms Hayes, who describes herself as an animal-loving vegetarian, admits she and some of her neighbours had begun feeding Bruce.

Rangers from Murwillumbah Council tried to catch the large animal but the cage was too small.

Animal ranger Len Hing, who visited the scene, explained that Bruce's large size makes him difficult to control when hungry.

"He is a bald pig [weighing] about 80 kilos [176lb]," he said.

"I wouldn't like to see the pig go as a pet anywhere because he could become a potentially dangerous animal."

Rangers say the pig will be captured and taken to a piggery.

Actually, I think it's a win-win for him. If Obama agrees, McCain gets to look presidential (and he's gotten there first); if Obama refuses, Obama looks like he doesn't care about the economy.

I detect the smell of a turd blossom in this.

tell Bush that giving a speech tonight is a massive example of not helping in the least

He'd better not fuck with Bones tonight.

It is a prime time speech.

McCain gets to look presidential (and he's gotten there first)

I don't think requesting a time out looks presidential at all. I think it either looks like he's exploiting the economy to get out of the debate or best case, he can't keep up.

tell Bush that giving a speech tonight is a massive example of not helping in the least

Did you all see his press conference over the weekend? We talked a little about the language (" turns out there's a lot of interconnectedness in the market...") but when you watch it it's one of the scarier things I've seen in a long time. I mean, most junior high kids could sound more of top of things. I saw a clip of it again last night and it just gave me chills.

He'd better not fuck with Bones tonight.

It's supposed to be at 9pm, but I'm worried the networks will be breaking in before that. Bones being on Fox doesn't help things, either.

Huh, another detail [link]

The Obama campaign said Obama had called McCain around 8:30 a.m. Wednesday to propose that they issue a joint statement in support of a package to help fix the economy as soon as possible. McCain called back six hours later and agreed to the idea of the statement, the Obama campaign said. McCain's statement was issued to the media a few minutes later.

I don't think requesting a time out looks presidential at all.

ITA. I mean, if he's trapped in the White House by a large pig, he can't expect the pig to give him a time out.

I can't do that kind of number in my head, but quite often that does not save you that much money when the difference is that small. Also, how many years have you paid on your mortgage already? Cause if you have already paid five or ten years worth and go back to a 30 years mortage then you can lower your monthly payments and still increase what you pay over the lifetime of the mortage. You are not losing equity per-se in that kind of deal, but you basically turn your lifetime payments into paying a 40 year mortgage which costs you a lot in interest.