PENTECOSTALISM AND AK-47s: Dolly Parton endorses Sarah Palin?

Well, if Oprah can endorse Obama, why not?

UPDATE: Reader David Olmeljer emails: “What I find even more revealing is that a description of the Sarah Palin exchange is highlighted on Dolly Parton’s official website.” I don’t think it’s actually official, though it’s clearly sanctioned. The story made Country Music Television, too.

MICKEY KAUS:

If Ohio is still in play, then I’m one of those who looks at the RCP electoral map and thinks, not “McCain’s path to 270 … is narrowing,” but “jeez, Obama could still easily lose,” even if the polls showing his non-trivial national lead are right. He’s got to win one of seven decidedly iffy states (Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Colorado, Missouri). You want to rely on Colorado?

The race could still go either way, and may well turn on things that aren’t even in the news at the moment.

UGH: Signposts on the US Government’s Trail of IT Failures. “Large IT projects in agencies from the FBI to the Census Bureau spectacularly — and, it seems, regularly — crash and burn, much to taxpayers’ disgust. . . . It seems there are certain aspects of government culture that make IT failure more likely. It just may be that failure is built into the system.” From a civil-liberties perspective, perhaps this is a feature, not a bug.

L.A. TIMES: John McCain agrees with Web group on opening debates more; Barack Obama silent. “The campaign of Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin has endorsed a proposal by a diverse coalition of Internet pioneers to drastically change some aspects of the current string of presidential campaign debates. . . . Ironic that the GOP campaign, which has taken some PR hits, especially McCain himself, for being allegedly less tech-savvy than the campaign of Barack Obama, would be first to respond and agree with the new openness coalition.”

MORE ON BIDEN, PALIN AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL STATUS OF THE VICE PRESIDENCY, from Josh Chafetz. Chafetz concludes: “Regardless of which candidate, and which vision of the vice president’s role, prevails, it should give us pause that both vice presidential candidates have some pretty strange ideas about the history and structure of the office to which they aspire.” What should give us pause is the general level of constitutional illiteracy that prevails, not only among the general population, but even among members of America’s political class.

And here’s my article on the subject.

IT’S THE ELECTION COVERAGE “GET” OF THE WEEK! Roger Simon interviews Obama’s teleprompter.

UPDATE: Oops, sorry, this is subscriber-only. I thought that at least the low-res Flash version was free to nonsubscribers, but I was wrong.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Or maybe not. Some readers say it’s working for them. Andrew Shimmin writes: “I (a non-subscriber) was able to watch the flash version for free. Had to click on the “Flash Video” link on the page you linked, but it worked (maybe PJTV decided not to disappoint your readers). Here’s the Flash link. Try it if you like.

IN NEW YORK, A PREFAB INSTANT SUBURB:

Tourists press up against the construction fence on the corner of 53rd and Sixth, staring speechless as a giant crane lifts an entire bathroom into the air and deposits it in what will be a master bedroom. Cellophane House is five stories tall, with floor-to-ceiling windows, translucent polycarbonate steps embedded with LEDs, and exterior walls made of NextGen SmartWrap, an experimental plastic laminated with photovoltaic cells. Its aluminum frame was cut from off-the-shelf components in Europe, assembled in New Jersey, then snapped together in 16 days on a vacant lot next to the Museum of Modern Art — joining four other full-size houses onsite through October as part of the exhibit Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling. It looks as if a suburban cul-de-sac took a wrong turn at the Holland Tunnel.

I remember reading a Robert Heinlein essay from the 1940s on how absurd it would be to have your car hand-built in your driveway by a collection of artisans, and how homebuilding as practiced was equally absurd. I think he was right.

MORE ON THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS’ dumb political speech ban. Er, it’s the ban that’s dumb, not necessarily the political speech that’s being banned . . . .

BITES FROM THE APPLE: A roundup of Apple computer news, including the new HD Apple TV. If I could get PJTV on it, I’d buy one!

BITES FROM THE APPLE: A roundup of Apple news, including the new HD Apple TV. If I can get PJTV on it, I’ll buy one!

THEY’RE STILL COVERING FOR HIM, but The New York Times has a story on the Bill Ayers / Barack Obama connection. It ran on Saturday, natch.

Yeah, of course it’s a whitewash, but that’s better than the black hole that the NYT’s coverage has been so far. Now they’ve admitted it’s a story.

More on the Times whitewash from Stephen Green (“I don’t know of anyone with a substantive worry that deep in his heart, Obama wants to blow up the Pentagon or even just stick it to the man, baby. Instead, the worry is that Obama has had some kind of relationship with an unrepentant domestic terrorist, which even Shane must admit Obama has downplayed.”) and Tom Maguire. (“Mr. Shane closes with various acquaintances of Mr. Obama assuring us that he is not likely to be making bombs in the basement of the White House. Glad we cleared that up. Now, how about the question of whether Bill Ayers has a hard-left educational philosophy shared by Barack Obama? My guess is that soccer moms (and dads) would be interested to learn about that.”) Both posts are must-reads.

UPDATE: More thoughts from Fausta Wertz.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Sarah Palin seems to be making this an issue, by accusing Obama of “palling around with terrorists.”

MORE: Reader John Vecchione:

I think you do your readers a disservice by quoting the idea that Obama is hiding the Ayers relationship is the real problem. He’s running for President, I’d down play it too! I’d also apologize. Here is the thing that eats at me. What did Ayers see in him? How did such a young man come into Ayers circle and why was he embraced? Dorhn, Ayers, Wright all saw something in Obama that made them want to be with him and promote him? These are not people who like promoting pro-America candidates.

What do they know about Obama that we don’t?

Maybe he just suckered them. But then, that takes us back to the perennial “who are the rubes?” question. . . .

ROGER KIMBALL: Data points from the Windy City. Including this one: “The Illinois State pension fund is $44 billion in debt. That’s the worst in the country.”

The problem of underfunded public pensions will make Fannie and Freddie look like small potatoes.

UPDATE: On underfunded public pensions, reader Dart Montgomery writes:

Is it time to substitute ‘over generous’ or ‘way above private sector’ or ‘unrealistic’ for ‘underfunded’? Or do we have to wait for governments to actually file bankruptcy before we can use those terms?

The press, at least, will wait at least that long . . . .

And reader George Anthony writes: “Why is it that no one is asking Obama, Dodd, etc. to return the campaign contributions they got from Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac?. Granted, its a drop in the bucket but if we taxpayers are being asked to kick in billions, the least they could do is return their ill-gotten gains. But I guess that might seen as if they were admitting they made a mistake (something Democrats never do) in supporting the sub-prime lending idiocy.”

FRED FLINTSTONE WOULD LOVE IT: A pedal-powered panzer.

JOHN TIERNEY: See a Pattern on Wall Street?

ON PAJAMAS TV: Daniel Blatt of Gay Patriot on gay marriage and the election.

IN THE MAIL: No Greater Love: The Lives and Times of Hispanic Soldiers.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS goes neocon!

WHAT’S THE MATTER with Harry Reid?

ON THE ATTACK: Palin: Obama Not Qualified to Be Commander-in-Chief.

Plus, the Palins release their tax returns. Some commentary results.

I’LL BE SHEDDING NO TEARS: “O.J. Simpson has been found guilty on all charges in the gunpoint robbery of two sports memorabilia dealers in a Las Vegas casino hotel room more than a year ago. Simpson faces up to life in prison.”

READER FRED LA SOR EMAILED LAST NIGHT THAT HE SAW AN AMERICAN CAROL:

I just saw An American Carol. You need to understand, I almost never go to movies — the last one I saw was Mystic River, more than 2 years ago (and that is one of the reasons I don’t go very often — seemed like a pointless movie if the violence and profanity were removed.) An American Carol has some genuine funny parts, and the silver-haired audience sitting around me enjoyed those parts as much as I did. Come to think of it, my hair is silver too. Some of the slapstick was a little over the top for me, but I don’t take slapstick well. The general theme of the movie is laudable, and I liked the vehicle it was hung on (a July 4th picnic where a grandfather tells his grandkids a parable of sorts). I purposely went to see it on opening day — something else I virtually never do — and was disappointed that in northern Nevada (Carson City) the theater was less than 1/4 filled. I hope it does better in other parts of the country. I encourage conservatives to give it a go. Even if you don’t like it, patronizing An American Carol is better than the typical Hollywood fare.

I saw a rough cut at the RNC and thought it was quite funny; I especially liked Kelsey Grammer as George S. Patton.

UPDATE: Reader Linda White emails: “I, too, was compelled to attend the opening day of An American Carol – the 3:30 pm matinee in Franklin, TN. I arrived during the previews so I couldn’t really tell how many folks were in the audience. I’m not sure political themes translate particularly well into slapstick comedy, but the message was clear: the external threat is being increased by home-grown ‘hate-America-first’ crowd. Also, there were a few script lines early on that were funny, but the audience didn’t seem to ‘get it’. Nevertheless, the audience spontaneously applauded the movie as it ended. Voight was really good as Gen. Geoge Washington. I’ll buy the DVD when it comes out.”

And Alex Nunez writes: “I wouldn’t place too much stock in An American Carol’s theatrical performance. It’d be great to see a big box-office number, but where I expect this to do really well is DVD. The studio’ll push it hard on every righty radio show and have ads on the blogs. Watching at home is so much less of a hassle that nowadays, I’m much more likely to click on Amazon and drop 15-20 bucks on a DVD I now own forever than I am to go to the multiplex for what’s become a pretty expensive evening. If Zucker and co. are smart, this’ll be on store shelves by December and in a lot conservatives’ stockings on Christmas day. Money has no identity, hence, if it makes a killing on DVD after a potentially lackluster theatrical run (I’m not trying to jinx it here, I’m just saying), it’ll be just as successful in the eyes of the people who financed it and help encourage the production of more films like it down the line.”

Good point. It takes a lot to get me into the theater these days, and I don’t think I’m alone. But I buy a lot of DVDs.

NOBODY TELL TED KENNEDY: Wind Farm Approved in New Jersey. “Regulators in New Jersey awarded the rights on Friday for construction of a $1 billion offshore wind farm in the southern part of the state to Garden State Offshore Energy. . . . The decision comes on the heels of decisions by Delaware and Rhode Island to allow the installation of offshore wind farms.”

I don’t know why anyone would object — looking at the photo, the windmills are quite pretty.

WHY DEMOCRATS REMAIN split over Obama.

FIRST U.S. CO₂ AUCTION nets $38.5 million.

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: Why McCain is wimping out on Fannie Mae and the CRA. “My bottom line: The McCain campaign is underestimating how absolutely furious conservatives are that free markets, and by extension Reaganomics and the last 25 years of American economic policy, are getting the blame for the housing and credit crisis. A real morale killer, they tell me. Over and over. Every day.”