Makeup, Please!

I tried to avoid jumping on the bandwagon for bashing the Republicans for their decision to clothe Sarah Palin and family. I tried to stay off this one because, quite frankly, the punchlines write themselves and even if they hadn't, every comedian, political commentator, and even some Joe The Plumbers have made their own.

But...

Well, I just couldn't resist this little gem.

The highest paid staff member on the McCain campaign is Sarah Palin's make-up artist, it emerged today, in a fresh blow to the vice-presidential candidate's image as an average "hockey mom".

Just as Mrs Palin was struggling to defend herself against criticism of her $150,000 wardrobe budget, it was revealed that Amy Strozzi, who once did makeup work on the television show "So You Think You Can Dance?", received $22,800 for the first two weeks of this month, more than the candidate's chief foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, according to a filing report.

She tried to dance away from the controversy with a "oh gosh, oh gee, not me" at a speech today claiming that her favorite clothing store is a secondhand clothing store called "Out Of The Closet."

...

Yep, you can write your own punchline for that one too.

Oh, Stephen Colbert had the best political joke of the week I've seen so far too. For your amusement...

Random Thoughts On Random Stuff

I'm a little under the weather so I'm enlisting the assistance of my Google Reader for some stuff to write about tonight.

NEWS: Guillermo Del Toro To Fly Solo On 'Hobbit' Directing Duties
REACTION: Wow. The article goes on to state that GDT actually has turned down an offer from Peter Jackson to assist as director or even to man a second unit himself. That's nutty stuff. I can't decide if it's incredibly ballsy on the part of GDT or if it's just a slap in the face to the man who actually managed to make Tolkien's work an amazing visual reality.

NEWS: Palin Porn On The Rise [no pun intended]
REACTION: Earlier this week, I Shared a story from my Reader that involved details on Larry Flynt's planned Palin-a-like porn including a three way with a Hillary-a-like and a Condy-a-like. High quality faire right there. But in case you were concerned that this was an isolated feature, check out this listing from Craigslist I found on one of the LA blogs I visit: "NEED SARAH PALIN LOOKALIKE ASAP FOR ADULT FILM (LA). Looking for a Sarah Palin lookalike for an adult film to be shot in next 10 days. Major adult studio. Please send pix, stats etc. ASAP. Pay: $2000-3000. No anal required."

Well, I don't know about you but I'm very happy to hear that there's no anal required because after hearing some of her beliefs on gay marriage, foreign policy, and Joe Sixpacks among other things, I'm quite convinced she has a nice, big stick already lodged up her ass.

NEWS: Lamar Odom Doesn't Get Points For Performance
REACTION: I missed the Lakers' first televised preseason game this week but apparently Lamar Odom played pretty poorly or to quote Phil Jackson, "He looks like he's either curling or doing some other kind of sport. He's not playing basketball." Wow. Did he really look that bad? Or was this just another typical Lamar game? Combine this with his early training camp bitching about coming off the bench, I expect his expiring contract will be danged early and often to every team in the league soon.

I couldn't find a headline for this one but how about the news that broke this week from a couple of Seth Petruzelli interviews where he heavily implied that EXC paid him to stay standing with Kimbo rather than try to take him down. Granted, that's not an out and out "fixing" of the fight but it's not far off. Paying a fighter to take one stylistic approach to a fight is a very dangerous road to walk. Some will view it as EXC trying to make it a "more exciting fight" but some will, very accurately in my opinion, assume that they were trying to get him to fight a gameplan that would play into Kimbo's hands. Interesting, no?

And I guess that'll do... oh wait... there's one other exciting piece of news, huh?

NLCS STARTS TOMORROW! GO DODGERS!

The Battle Lines Are Drawn

Politics is a fascinating beast if you take the time to study it. As a former Political Science major [who changed majors because I missed a midterm because I wasn't going to class - whoops], I've always been intrigued by the field. I feel a little guilty because I haven't been following the Democratic National Convention very closely this week. I hear that there have been some amazing speeches and I'm hopeful that I'll still be able to track them all down online to watch in the near future.

But that's not the reason for this post.

I just opened Yahoo to discover that John McCain has selected his VP candidate and, in the process, ensured that whoever wins come November, history will most assuredly be made.

And don't think for a second that McCain doesn't know that.

I'm not going to belittle Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's sure-to-be-impressive resume for the second highest post in the land buuuuuuut...

Well, if ever a selection reeked of a political maneuver, it's this one. And that's not to say that Obama didn't do the same thing in selecting Biden - because of course, he did, but it was a little more subtle. Biden has worlds of experience in Washington and has experience in the areas where Obama is likely to take a hit - so that makes them a good match.

Without having done much research this morning, McCain's selection strikes me as a blatant grab for Hillary Clinton's supporters - or more specifically, those who supported Hillary because they felt, as a woman, they had an obligation to do so to put a woman in the White House. This move by McCain smells like him trying to grab that sense of obligation and steer it in his direction. After all, we've heard for weeks now that Hillary's voters haven't swayed to Obama yet [it's bitter grapes in my opinion - they'll see the light before it's over] so McCain making a final grab for them makes perfect sense.

It's quite genius and whether you like it or not, you at least have to respect the initial brilliance behind it. But it's quite transparent so if she turns out to be a flop or grossly underqualified, it could be the final nail in the political coffin of the former POW.

I saw somewhere this morning that 67 days remain before the election. That seems unreal to me. The drawn-out primaries really shrunk down the actual campaign time to where it hasn't even felt like an election year so far. But I'd imagine it's going to get kicked into overdrive right about now.

Should be a fun run. I'm looking forward to it.