Listen, Obamaphiles!
Outrage at McCain's "lies" is a total loser strategy.
Don't tell Thomas Frank: MoveOn.org, AT&T and PG&E, together again. (But it looks like quite a bill.) [Tks to reader J.]12:12 P.M.
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Why Biden Would Be Bad: There's a bit of C-SPAN tape that should surface quickly if he's named. ... Remember, it wasn't Biden's plagiarism that knocked him out of the 1988 race. It was "'I think I have a much higher I.Q. than you do''--a bizarre videotaped putdown that Biden immediately called into question with five (5) boasts about his academic record, four (4) of which turned out to be easily disproved B.S. ... [you got a better candidate?--ed Zinni! ] ... [via Brothers Judd ] 1:16 A.M.
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The Cruelty of Feiler: Comedian Bernie Mac died on a Saturday a couple of weeks ago. The following Monday, someone at the regular Slate editorial meeting--maybe me-- proposed a piece on him. The immediate, unamimous response: "Too late." Brutal! Work all your life, become a beloved public figure, go into syndication, then die tragically young--and you get, what, a day? ...
Screw that. Mary Battiata, an accidental fan of the Bernie Mac Show, explains its peculiar genius on Huffington Post. ... 12:44 A.M.
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Wednesday, August 20, 2008
WaPo story on Fannie Mae suggests 1) Paul Krugman was still at least deceptive when he glibly asserted the giant government-chartered company had "nothing to do with the explosion of high-risk lending a few years ago" ** and 2) government regulations, which Krugman and others say prevented Fannie & Freddie Mac from taking on too much risk may also have been at least partly to blame for the risky subprime-loan-backed securities they did purchase:
Internal documents show that even late in the housing bubble, Fannie Mae was drawn to risky loans by a variety of temptations, including the desire to increase its market share and fulfill government quotas for the support of low-income borrowers. [E.A.]
[via NewsAlert]
There Is Nothing Miraculous About a Tornado, Wolf Blitzer
A Huge Discovery About Prime Numbers—and What It Means for the Future of Math
Steve Jobs’ Dream Device Has Arrived, and It's Made by Microsoft
Photograph of John McCain on the Slate home page by Alex Wong/Getty Images.