Saturday Reading

The pile of gluey tissues to my right and the steamy cup of Breathe Deep tea to my left are all the clues you need to know about my health. I don’t reckon that these germs will travel through the Toobz, so you can breathe easy. The picture here to the left is worth a clickthrough to the larger version. You’ll see Sarah Palin wearing some sort of fried egg/old-lady roses/cartoon cloud coat, and you get to see her daughter flipping someone the bird.

$300 million dollars to private American contractors to create psyop teevee for the Iraqis:

“The Defense Department will pay private U.S. contractors in Iraq up to $300 million over the next three years to produce news stories, entertainment programs and public service advertisements for the Iraqi media in an effort to “engage and inspire” the local population to support U.S. objectives and the Iraqi government.

The new contracts — awarded last week to four companies — will expand and consolidate what the U.S. military calls “information/psychological operations” in Iraq far into the future, even as violence appears to be abating and U.S. troops have begun drawing down.”

Blast from the near past. Obama and McCain exchanged letters over ethics reform in 2006. McCain was pissy about Obama even back then. Go read it and tell me that John’s not kinda c-r-a-z-y.

Pennsylvania Republicans join their comrades in working hard to get fewer people to vote:

Sue Nace thought election volunteers were joking when they told her she would have to remove her T-shirt to vote in the presidential primary last spring.

But it was no laughing matter to the poll workers-turned-fashion police, who said Nace’s Obama shirt was inappropriate electioneering – and made her cover the writing before casting a ballot.

Now, a political fight over what voters can wear to the polls is headed to court in Pennsylvania – with the Republican Party favoring a dress code and Democrats opposed.

The McCain campaign is working hard to keep voters from seeing the results of the “troopergate” report.

Almost all of McCain’s ads between now and election day are going to be attack ads. He’s losing, and the only way he can bounce back is to drag Obama into the mud. His agenda doesn’t sell with America, so all that’s left is fearmongering and mudslinging.

tremayne at Open Left says that McCain isn’t even trying to win at this point, simply hoping to do better than Bob Dole.