The Second Coming of Tammy Faye Bakker.

It's hard to tell anymore if Sarah Palin is running for Vice President or if she's leading a megachurch rally. Dig these remarks from one of her cloistered events, where after she's done complaining about the big bad media coverage, she unloads some sort of PTL rerun:

“But yeah, sometimes you do get depressed watching what it is that they’re reporting and the spin and some of the distortion of what our message is and what we stand for, sometimes that, that gets draining,” she added. “But it’s at events like these and our rallies that we are so energized and inspired and we know that we are not alone. We feel your strength and we feel the power of prayer, so many of you tell us that you are praying for us and praying for our country, and that’s why we so appreciate you being here.”

The view isn’t all glum from the trail. “We even saw today, thank the Lord, we saw some movement,” looking upwards and making a fist. Another bright note for her, she said later, was visiting “pro-America” areas of the country.

Seriously. Is this a political candidate or a preacher? How exactly is she feeling the power of prayer? Is it in the poll numbers that continue to show McCain-Palin trailing by 6-8% in the popular vote and 313-150 in the electoral college? Because, Sister Sarah, if so then that prayer isn't pulling for you...it's pulling against you.

And just what the hell does she mean by the "Pro-America" areas of the country? I'm guessing she doesn't mean Alaska, where her cronies -- including "first dude" Todd Palin -- in the Alaska Independence Party -- at whose conferences she's spoken -- are open secessionists. Other than in the fringe wacko militia circles that she runs in, where is this Anti-America area of the country? Does she mean Noo York Citeee? LA? DC? Places where the choice of wine fluctuates between Boone's and Mad Dog? What the hell is she talking about?

It may have been funny at first, but now it's just sad and predictable.

I don't know who started it. Maybe it was Janet Reno coming on to Saturday Night Live to break up Will Ferrell's Janet Reno Dance Party. Maybe it was DeNiro or Pesci coming on to the Joe Pesci Show. It all depends if the line is crossed when the real actor confronts the impersonation or if it's really when political figures take part in their own impersonation.

But enough already. It's become de rigueur, something akin to the Fonz walking through the Cunningham's front door to the hoots and cheers of the studio audience.

Now, apparently Sarah Palin, well-aware that her moment on the national stage is nearing its end, is jumping at the opportunity to become even more of a joke by appearing on Saturday Night Live even before the end of the election season.

I'm willing to bet the joke will revolve around her not actually being folksy and full of "you betchas," akin to the twenty-year-old sketch of Reagan as mastermind.

It's hard to win an argument when you look like a mad dog.

I watched that debate last night, and all I can say is that John McCain seemed like a frothing mad dog when he didn't seem condescending and smarmy. The shots of him while Obama was speaking were exceedingly unflattering. And you know what...Obama sat there looking cool, calm, and collected, while McCain looked like that guy down the street who's telling you all about the UFO he saw outside his trailer window and how the aliens gave him a butt probe.

Seriously.

In the matter of the last two weeks, the race in Pennsylvania has gone from sort-of battleground to a lopsided rout. As of today, he's polling 15 points behind Obama in Pennsylvania. Fifteen points.

Source is pollster.com.

Note to Senator McCain: the crazy routine isn't working. The wingnut base is already there...and you're getting closer and closer to having nothing but the wingnut base the more you look like an enraged, directionless, vindictive fool.

Also, it took almost no time for his surprise attack of "Joe the Plumber" to be unmasked as a plant. Talk about blowing up in your face. In the wake of the Sarah Palin disaster, this new misstep makes McCain look dishonest as well as rash.

Going off the rails on a crazy train...

Sarah Palin rallies are interesting things. For starters, they're more Sarah Palin rallies than they are John McCain or even McCain-Palin rallies. Check out this write-up from a Scranton-area paper after Palin's appearance in Joe Biden's hometown:

One anti-abortion Palin supporter at the event shoved two graphic photos of aborted fetuses in front of a Times-Shamrock reporter.“This is why I’m voting for her. They stand against this,” said West Wyoming resident Maryann Yorina. “They stand for babies. They stand for God.”

Others said Palin represents a fresh start for the country because she’s not from Washington. Meg and Peter Siegel, vacationing in Pennsylvania from Vienna, Va., said they feel like they know Palin.“She gives an accurate representation of middle America,” Siegel said.

Note that these three rally participants seem to think Palin is the driving force of the ticket, with the first actually stating she's voting "for Palin," apparently under the mistaken impression that the vice-president bullies the President around (understandable I suppose after 8 years of Cheney). I also find it humorous that the couple vacationing from Vienna, VA, a few stops from DC on the Orange Line, are pleased Governor Palin isn't from Washington (although McCain's quarter-century tenure there doesn't seem to faze them). I disagree with them about whether her over-the-top mimicry of aw-shucks lunch counter locals is an "accurate representation of middle America." Outside of redneck stereotypes (see Hee-Haw, Dukes of Hazzard, and Beverly Hillbillies), I've never seen a speech so full of gosh-darnits, you betchas, and the like...and that includes Bobby Bowden post-game interviews.

Beyond that, you get the sense that she is drawing -- and intends to draw -- only the hard-core true believers. At this point in the campaign, she and McCain have to hope the die hard Republican base shows up, because if the Black Helicopter, Obama-as-Muslim, International Jewish Banking Conspiracy, registered Democrats-as-traitors wack-jobs don't come out, McCain-Palin will simply be trounced and what's worse is that the Senate and House races will be lost.

So she needs to energize the fanatics who haven't managed to develop critical thinking skills or are so hard-line that they are the 27% who still approve of Bush's job handling...

Update: I took this video from the Daily Kos website...it's a great look at Palin's core supporters and what happens when you waste your mind.

Talk about burying the lead...

The Washington Post has this bombshell of an article on their website. The headline reads "U.S. Forces Nine Major Banks To Accept Partial Nationalization," which is pretty amazing. Here's the first paragraph:

The U.S. government is dramatically escalating its response to the financial crisis by planning to invest $250 billion in the country's banks, forcing nine of the largest to accept a Treasury stake in what amounts to a partial nationalization.

Throughout the rest of the article, which spans three pages on the web, you might think you'd find out which banks are being "partially nationalized." But you'd be wrong.

What kind of hack reporting is this?

Note: not liberal or conservative reporting...just plain bad reporting.

Sports, for a change of pace.

I'm getting kind of sick of hearing about how tough the SEC and Big 12 are. For starters, the Big 12 is a joke of a conference. Texas v. Oklahoma was supposed to be a major game, but these two teams have combined to beat a who's who of Palookaville. Excluding Oklahoma, here's a list of the powerhouse teams Texas has beaten this year: Florida Atlantic, UTEP, Rice, Arkansas, and Colorado. Those teams' combined record? 12-17. As for Oklahoma, they ascended to #1 whooping it up on teams like Chattanooga (?), Cincinnati, Washington, TCU, and Baylor -- a sorry group that might seem a bit more respectable at 15-16, until you realize that TCU (6-1) has played only one team from a major conference, and that was Stanford.

Also in the Big 12, Missouri supposedly was good, but Missouri has exactly 1 win against a decent team (Illinois), and that win is getting less respectable with each Illini loss. South East Missouri State? Nevada? Buffalo?

Now why are all the columnists ragging PSU about its schedule? Sure it hasn't been stellar, but I'm not seeing anything in the Big 12 that looks as good, let alone better.

As for the SEC, lately we've been told by the ESPN talking heads that the SEC is too good for its own good, that it cannibalizes its teams through the season, etc. Just because crappy conference teams are beating the good conference teams does not mean the conference is difficult; it means the quality of play is inconsistent. That's true of nearly all conferences. Auburn, which was supposed to be so damn good according to the pundits, is a colossal flop. Tuberville most likely is done after this season. LSU was revealed to be a paper tiger (though we're talking cardstock, not tissue paper) by Florida this weekend. Perennially overrated Tennessee has at last sunk into utter incompetence. Only Alabama remains, and they've not been tested except by Georgia (Georgia failed that test miserably); they're not likely to play another halfway decent team until they play LSU.

When Big 10 teams beat each other up, it's because the conference is weak; when SEC teams do it, it's because the conference is strong.

Make no mistake, the Big 10 is down this year, yes indeed. Michigan lost to Toledo at home. Toledo. In the Big House. Ohio State, in the midst of running through its schedule of teensy tiny schools in Ohio, got pounded on national television by USC. Only one Big 10 team remains unbeaten, and that's Penn State. I can't defend the strength of schedule with Coastal Carolina, Syracuse, and Temple on the schedule, but my point is not so much that PSU's opponents are so much tougher, but rather they're on par with the so-called "tough conference" leaders. Penn State's victims are a combined pathetic 17-27, so there's no gloating there.

I'm not happy with the Big 10 this year; they should be pounding non-conference opponents, at least the ones who are from little baby conferences. However, you've got losses to Utah, Toledo, and Notre Dame from Michigan; to Notre Dame from Purdue; to Ball State from Indiana.

I don't care that Ball State is ranked at this time; a Big 10 team should not lose to Ball State.

That being said, here are a few predictions:
1. Alabama will lose to LSU.
2. Texas will not lose to Missouri; they'll lost to Oklahoma State.
3. Notre Dame will go 7-5 and be invited to a BCS bowl, where they'll get their overmatched asses handed to them.

4. Florida will win the SEC.

5. Missouri and Oklahoma State will play each other for the Big 12 title.

6. Penn State will win the Big 10.

7. USC will win the PAC-10.

8. No other conferences matter. BYU will get waxed in their bowl game, which will be the first time they play a decent team.

by the way...Penn State's two national championships? Playing as an independent, the Lions suffered through years of complaints of "weak schedules" etc to beat Georgia and heisman winner Hershel Walker in 1982 and Miami and heisman winner Vinny Testaverde in 1986.

Scenes of Eternal Depression

As I've stated before, I'm pretty old. Old enough to remember when people didn't shop at malls; they went to this place that was called "downtown." I remember my parents stuffing us in the car and driving to a place called Altoona, because that was the big urban center in the area (a whopping 60,000 people or so; less now) and therefore had the largest downtown. Then sometime in the mid-1970's the Logan Valley Mall became the dominant shopping area. And slowly downtown emptied out first of shoppers then of businesses.
The Kaufman's store located on the left of the photos is not related to the Kaufmann's department store chain that is now part of Macy's empire and along with Hecht's lost its individual identity to the Macy's brand. Incidentally, the Kaufman's building no longer exists; it was demolished a year ago. The large brown-brick building in the distance at center was a huge department store named Gable's, which was the centerpiece of the downtown.

Altoona's downtown is one block from the railroad tracks. In the heyday of the Pennsylvania Rail Road, Altoona was an important stop, mainly as a center for car repair and engine building shops. There's a railroad museum across the tracks from the downtown, next to the more or less moribund Station Mall, a small one-story mall that never could compete with the larger Logan Valley Mall and perhaps never intended to, as it was anchored at its high point by a grocery store and a Hills Department Store (think of a K-Mart before they launched the Super K or Giant K or whatever). As with most rail towns, Altoona has seen its high mark receding into the distant past, but it clings furiously to the memory. The downtown is plastered with murals and posters depicting the glory that was the railroad.

The one above is an older one that was done while the downtown still had some shops and shoppers roaming around in it. As the downtown has become ever more desolate, the murals have become more ambitious, compensating for the fact that the lifestyle they allude to is gone forever, if it ever existed before anyway:

The downtown is currently full of empty storefronts with great historic (and some not so historic) bones. The train still stops twice a day -- once going east, once going west -- and the station -- which also doubles as the bus terminal -- is at least more permanent than the trailer that sat next to the tracks when my family boarded the train for an Arizona vacation in 1979.