I have a 700 billion dollar package

And it's not bi-party curious. It does however get them all to say yea!

Can't play, got homework

The un-people who have populated our town this week were split on whether to go to the movies or to David Blaine last night. The lure of Raschel Raschel: a young girl's erotic journey from Milan to Minsk not withstanding, most wound up hanging out by the rink in central park to watch the Dive of Death. We were not among them, but as has been widely reported on the blogs, we did make an appearance earlier this week. There was dangling and crowds.

David Blaine is great because all his stunts, at least now, have a focus on bringing the people together while -- many rungs up the ladder -- selling household cleaning products and japanese cars. The crowd at his Dive arena was the nicest group of people you could ever run in to. And the security guys were also really nice. The focus of the event was bringing people closer to David; creating a temporary community founded in storytelling and mystery. It was like sitting on upside-down Santa's lap.

If we don't know anything about privatizing gains and socializing losses, we will in the next few days.

Delaying the presidential debate on Friday would be yet another nail in the coffin for free information exchange and public accountability of our government. Though things are collapsing, isn't the point of government to be able to do more than one thing at a time?

Perhaps our elected officials should spend more time in their offices. Ditching election events on which rests the future of our public government for three days of signing a blank check for business constitutes a David Blaine like spectacle meant for network TV, and the media is playing right into it. Why not tilt heads and realize that the sideshow has become the circus, that campaigning and giving speeches is what these people are best at. That they don't run the country ever, that the businesses who are failing us run the country. The main event, writing laws and protecting our country has become a sideshow to the Senators, on which they clearly have not been focused. Why else is it necessary to drop everything just to author one economic package? My eyebrows are raised. What of the last 18 months during which these people have undoubtedly voted less and authored next to nothing?

The problems implied by suspending a campaign to do "real" work would be enough, if that's what McCain was doing. He was in NYC this morning speaking at the WJClinton foundation. He was on CBS news last night. And he can't show up Friday for an event on the books for months.