new high not-dead-yet blood alcohol level of .491. I have the feeling that this is one of those Beamanesque records not soon to be surpassed. I am in awe. Unrelated: Pointless gimmick drops oil $15/barrel.

Jake Tapper provides a nice money quote from Barack Obama’s interview with Terry Moran of ABC News: In Baghdad yesterday, after a day spent witnessing the reduction in violence in Iraq, Obama was asked by ABC News’ Terry Moran if he was wrong.. “Here is what I will say,” Obama said, “I think that, I did not anticipate, and I think that this is a fair characterization, the convergence of

That’s what someone named Dave Johnson is wondering over at Seeing the Forest: July 21, 2008 Racist? Is this headline, Obama’s moneywoman was a subprime mortgage queen, racist? Just asking. I’m thinking it evokes the older “welfare queen” image. Because, you know, calling Penny Pritzker a subprime mortgage queen is like calling her a welfare queen. I guess. If by welfare you mean hundreds of millions in government tax breaks.

The Politico’s Carrie Anne Budoff tucked this nugget into her dispatch from Amman, Jordan: At a morning background briefing, reporters parried with senior advisers on the characterization of [Barack] Obama’s speech Thursday in Berlin as a campaign rally. The outdoor speech at the Victory Column could draw thousands of people, similar to the size of Obama events in the United States. “It is not going to be a political speech,”

O, most baleful Christian! Batman star Christian Bale was arrested Tuesday over allegations of assaulting his mother and sister, police and British media said. British media had reported that Bale’s mother and sister complained they were assaulted by the 34-year-old actor at the Dorchester Hotel in London on Sunday night, a day before the European premiere of his latest film, “The Dark Knight.” Probably jealous of Heath Ledger. UPDATE: Per

Two dead Israelis worth 200 dead Palestinians and five live ones: In an UN-brokered and decidedly unbalanced trade, Israel turned over the remains of 199 terrorists, the living Kantar and four others in exchange for the mutilated bodies of two Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. Captured by Hezb’allah inside Israel in 2006, the young Israelis did not long survive capture by Hezb’allah, certainly not long enough to be

“You see the activity taking place, the people in the shops, the traffic on the streets, clearly there’s been an enormous improvement,” he said. Oh, wait: that’s Baghdad.

Shelby Steele on Jesse Jackson and Obama: And Mr. Obama is so successful at winning gratitude from whites precisely because Mr. Jackson was so successful at inflaming and exploiting white guilt. Mr. Jackson must now see his own oblivion in the very features of Mr. Obama’s face. Thus the on-camera threat of castration, followed by the little jab of his fist as if to deliver a stiletto of his own.

When will enough be enough? If just one life is saved by outlawing heavy machinery, won’t it be worth it? How many more, Mr. Speaker?

It turns out that the denizens of the Daily Kos are just as humorless as the presidential candidate they support.  Newsbusters notes that the Kos Kidz were able to bully the Austin American-Statesman into pulling a mildly satirical article on the Netroots Nation conclave in Austin.  Apparently, some could not find the humor in a piece referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as “arguably so left-leaning that her parenthetical should be D-Beijing.”  Or