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It's the Palin Roast! A.k.a. "The Vice-Presidential Debate." Although there's no back-and-forth between the two candidates so it's more like two interviews being conducted at the same time: one with Biden, and one with Palin. A friend of mine (Rob Lawton) has pointed out that expectations of Palin are so low, she'll be judged a success if she can manage not to set the podium on fire. I think she might just do that. Set the podium on fire. More fun with Palin in a minute, but first, some Englishmen explain the economic crisis.

Pidgin.

No, it's not a bird.  It's an instant messenger that works with all the ones you already use.  It can run AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Gmail, Facebook chat, and Myspace chat.  All at once.  For free.  With no ads.  And it will run on your operating system, whether you use Windows or Linux.

Two thumbs up.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2VFRt5W4FM[/youtube]

Obama is running on a platform of hope and the Israeli national anthem is "The Hope" (Hatikva).  Coincidence . . . ?

Credit to my sister Amy for this one.

It's "cheating."  A bunch of church ministers want to engage in political activities.  They should have the right to do that, right?  Wrong.  The problem is their tax-exempt status.  These churches make money.  Some of the mega-churches in the bible belt make millions of dollars every year.  They have never paid a penny of taxes because the US government allows churches to be tax-exempt.  So far so good, except if you agree not to pay federal taxes, then the government has a right to put some limits on you.  Specifically, political activities cannot be tax-exempt.  The reasons for this are obvious, and very important.

If we allowed tax-exempt political campaigning, it would be a disaster.  Think of the hundreds of millions of dollars raised by political campaigns every year.  The law preventing this was passed in 1954, and for good reason.

So what are the churches really trying to do?  They're trying to cheat.  They want tax-free political campaigning.  There's a reason it's not allowed, and there's a reason why most religious leaders choose to stay politically neutral.  Of course, many of the issues of our times are informed by religion.  Abortion.  Charity.  Same-sex marriage.  Almost every religion has an opinion on these things, and the preacher has the right to preach the religious message.  But when you start endorsing candidates with tax-exempt money, you're breaking the law.

But I'm not tax-exempt, so while I'm at it, here's my two shekels worth.

Oh wait, there wasn't one.  Because he needs to go "save the nation."  Letterman may just be a funnyman--an old, slightly stodgy funnyman--but he makes three really good points: