The contestants get a leaky-roofed repo house in a rundown 'hood. Reward challenges might include "living through a trip to the grocery store" and similar.

Elimination challenges...well, just let 'em take a good walk - whoever comes back in one piece is still in.

John McCain is running what may be the sleaziest, most lie-laden campaign for President I have seen in my lifetime.

It speaks to the utterly dishonorable character and moral cowardice of McCain, who has nothing of his own to run on (well, maybe a noun, a verb, and POW) and thus resorts to deliberate and escalating lies about his opponent.

It is becoming obvious that McCain was so badly damaged by his POW years, physically, mentally, and emotionally, that he is at best incapable of meeting the demands of the presidency. Bereft of ideas, lacking any sort of coherent vision for America, eager to "push the button" and wage war (nuclear clearly included) as a response to any international incident, overtly expressing his anger at anyone who dares question his puffed-up "victim" self-image, blatantly hostile to both the aspirations and the genuine needs of his fellow Americans, his presence in this contest literally endangers America and Americans.

And Palin is, if anything, McCain squared. That her aggressive ignorance comes in a somewhat "interesting" wrapper is immaterial. Her responses to Charles Gibson indicate that she has taken no substantive interest in affairs of state to this point. Her overly simplistic worldview is unsuited even to the post of small-town mayor, let alone national office.

America is a large, resilient nation. Two George Bush terms have badly damaged, yet not managed to destroy this society. Even one McCain term, though, may well be enough to finish the devilish job. Our choice as a nation is to either put on the brakes and begin a badly needed correction, one that will take years to undo the current level of damage, or to spin further out of control and watch our society crash and burn after being driven into the ditch by more Republican lies and malice.

In this case, there's a hidden arsonist to be apprehended.

No one pushes back this hard against an investigation that will yield a non-result. No one. Anyone who had nothing to hide would be demanding that the facts come out.

The conclusion we are to draw from this is very simple: Palin's dirty. What we don't know is how dirty, or in what ways.

It's also worth remembering, if only for context and perspective, that the whole Monica Lewinsky fracas came into being because of an investigation that started based on other things.

As I went about my morning reading, I found this:

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/09/regulatory-exem.html

A relevant pullquote:

As we learn this morning via Julie Satow of the NY Sun, special exemptions from the SEC are in large part responsible for the huge build up in financial sector leverage over the past 4 years -- as well as the massive current unwind

Satow interviews the above quoted former SEC director, and he spits out the blunt truth: The current excess leverage now unwinding was the result of a purposeful SEC exemption given to five firms.

You read that right -- the events of the past year are not a mere accident, but are the results of a conscious and willful SEC decision to allow these firms to legally violate existing net capital rules that, in the past 30 years, had limited broker dealers debt-to-net capital ratio to 12-to-1.

Instead, the 2004 exemption -- given only to 5 firms -- allowed them to lever up 30 and even 40 to 1.

Who were the five that received this special exemption? You won't be surprised to learn that they were Goldman, Merrill, Lehman, Bear Stearns, and Morgan Stanley.

As Mr. Pickard points out that "The proof is in the pudding — three of the five broker-dealers have blown up."

Individualized deregulation by quiet fiat from within the regulatory agency. Oversight turns into overlooking, and we the American people get to clean up the mess.

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

The more things change...

Mets and Yankees both out of the postseason? Good times ahead.

As a Cub fan living in Minnesota, I'm hoping for a Cubs-Twins Series, of course. Cubs-Red Sox might be OK too - I have a good friend and some clients from Boston.

Still - Cubs-Twins? Whatever will the Eastern Seaboard Programming Network do?

I made it to one game (a 9-2 Cubs victory) this year. I live in Minnesota. I will be ecstatic if the Cubs win it all. I lived through the 1969 collapse - and will hate the Mets forever as a result. I gasped as Bartman didn't quite interfere with the foul that Moises Alou may or may not have been able to catch, and Alex Gonzales' subsequent screwup that really cost the Cubs that game, and thus, the pennant.

Edward McClelland, you don't know what the hell you're talking about. In many ways. First off, you clearly don't get the game of baseball. Second, that you had to bring the unrelated Rezko non-scandal into this. How often do investigative reporters have to demonstrate that there is no tie to Obama in any of Rezko's issues with the law to have that matter to you, let alone why are you mentioning it in an unrelated piece?

Go watch the White Sox lose. They deserve a hack like you.

I don't find Palin appealing in any discernible way. Not physically, not in any term involving personality, and she is robotic (artificial, actually) to the point of being outright repellent. The nickname "Caribou Barbie" falls a bit short.

Now Tina Fey, on the other hand...