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What would Don Draper do?
Via Gawker.
UPDATE: In other Mad Men news, they’ve doubled their audience this season and Kyle Smith proclaims “there is no way it

Quote of the Day

“If you notice, since Britney started wearing clothes and behaving; Paris is out of town not bothering anybody any more, thank God, and evidently, Lindsay Lohan has gone gay, we don’t seem to have much of an issue.”

-LAPD Chief William Bratton in opposition to a proposal by Councillor Dennis Zine to enforce a ‘personal safety zone’ between celebrities and photographers.

The possibility that I’m going to the RNC convention in Minnesota…

…just plummeted.

By the by, whose bright idea was it to kick off the convention on Labor Day Monday?

No, please don’t

The other night over dinner (sidenote to New Yorkers, Restaurant Week ends tomorrow), Ari mentioned the new “suit with shorts” look that she’s seen around the city lately. The other ladies in attendance, PN and Lady Mathematician agreed: nightmare.

Song of the Day

“When I’m 64″ by the Beatles.

I’ve had the Beatles on my mind lately, more their early stuff like “She loves you” and “I feel fine” but today I’ve been thinking about this song, one of my favorites of all time. The video is from the film Yellow Submarine, and super trippy:

Can anyone spare a gall bladder?

My Dawnie Summers is in the hospital (but I’m happy to report she was well enough during my visit yesterday to give me the middle finger twice). I got all sad rereading her post about our last adventure at the Museum Mile festival back in June:

On our way back we spotted a sign that said “Race advisory” which we took as a warning that black people may be in the area.

We then spotted a chalking that said “there is no such thing as race,” which I assumed was written by a white person.

We saw another chalking that said “A man torn between two women, will lose them both.”

I raised my eyebrow and said “that is so not true.”

Karol then said “they forget to write ‘in the white community.’

Buuuurn. Who is the most racist person in the post? That’s right.
Whitey.

Good times. Get better soon, Dawn.

Rear view

The View’s Elisabeth says she won’t be seeing Oliver Stone’s “W” movie because she can tell what it’s going to be about from the trailer. Her dummy co-hosts actually argue with her that there’s really no way they can tell anything at all about a film from the trailer. I mean, really. That poor girl has to deal with chit-chatting with 3 of the dumbest women alive every day. With straight faces they’re arguing that we can’t know what Oliver Stone’s portrayal of George W. Bush will be like. Dumb.

The coolest thing about the vid linked above, though, is that Elisabeth mentions Evan Coyne Maloney’s awesome movie “Indoctrinate U.” If you haven’t seen it, make sure you do.

He can’t write good either.

Remember how Obama’s prayer was stolen out of the Western Wall and published? Yeah, not so much.

Of course you do

“I have friends in America who are Marxists and they’re working for Obama.”

Song of the Day

“Hey that’s no way to say goodbye” by Leonard Cohen.

This guy was almost president

Say what you will about George W. Bush, he’s unlikely to be photographed at a party with drunk college girls drinking beer through penis-shaped straws. Laura would never stand for that.

Rest of the pics at TMZ.

Hat-tip Dana Superstar.

Sizzle

Ken Wheaton sends along a review for the new global warming film called “Sizzle”. Apparently, Sizzle began as film about the “present dangers” of global warming but didn’t quite turn out that way:

This is where “Sizzle” shifts into a direction that perhaps Olson didn’t intend or foresee: The skeptics actually begin to win the day, at least onscreen, and Julia Bovey, spokeswoman for the environmentalist Natural Resources Defense Council, comes off as far less convincing than Olson may have hoped.

I do public relations work for a really great debate series in New York called Intelligence Squared U.S. (check out the Fall season here, and if you’re in the NY area I recommend snapping up tickets now, all the previous seasons have sold out). Before I began working for them, they held a debate on the motion “Global warming is not a crisis.” The audience votes before and after each debate and this particular debate saw a huge shift in audience opinion. Before the debate 29.8% of the audience agreed with the motion while 57.3% disagreed. 12.8% were undecided. After the debate 46.2% agreed with the motion, 42.2% disagreed and 11.5% were undecided. You can listen to the debate here, read the transcript here and see images from the debate here.

Global warming panic seems to be at an all-time high these days with everyone trying to get in on the “green” action. But the more people are exposed to other opinions on the earth’s warming and the human role in the phenomenon, the less they believe the conventional wisdom. More information=less hysteria.

Yep, sounds like the Democratic electorate

Edwards, Clinton are Top Favorites — and Top Unfavorites — For Obama Veep Slot

Dawn, get yer gun

Anti-gun nut Dawn Summers went shooting while I was in Italy. And she found that she quite liked it:

I was so surprised about how calming shooting was. I always imagined guns to be weapons of furious anger. It’s how they’re portrayed in all the shoot em up movies, anyway. Someone pisses you off, you get your gun and you give them what for. But the real life thing is just the opposite. You’ve got to be perfectly still, your eye trained on your single spot in the distance, and you’ve somehow got to squeeze the trigger without moving an inch. Anger could never shoot straight. Standing at the head of the range, a rifle on my shoulder, earphones blocking out the noise of the world, I marveled at how well suited shooting was to my temperament. I could wait, watch, and then, when everything was just right, I could destroy.

A short list of not-so-random thoughts

**The fabulous John Hawkins was in NY this weekend and I got a chance to lunch with him and Ms. Pamela Atlas. John has the round-up on his site and calls me “sweet”! I never get “sweet”! Other funny things about John’s post: he considers the Lincoln Tunnel a landmark (whereas I consider it the necessary evil that leads me to Atlantic City) and was alarmed at NY’s lack of refills, something I’ve blogged about before here.

**If you are a regular reader of my blog and a dedicated follower of my flickr photo page, and I know this, you can’t pretend not to know me when we run into each other on the street as that will make me feel all embarrassed for you. Just. Saying.

**Artichoke, the best pizza place in Manhattan, gets bad press for its long lines and sporadic hours, but we went there yesterday, for the second time in its short history, and had not a problem. The pizza really is unbelievable. Finally, a Manhattan pizza place that rivals Brooklyn.

**The hype around the new Batman movie is such that we keep hearing how it’s a 2-month wait to get tickets to see it in Imax in Manhattan. Except, I guess, if you’d like to see it today. Or tomorrow. Or any day really. Don’t believe the hype.

Fark headline of the day

Those Farkers are funny::

Islamic group vows more attacks during 2008 Olympics. Clearly, China needs to get out of Iraq.

Though the “who do you think you are, a Kennedy?” line is pretty good

The trailer for the Oliver Stone film “W” is out, and it’s a doozy. You’re not going to believe this but it looks like President George W. Bush might’ve been a bit of a slacker party boy in his youth. And, AND, it looks like he might have had a bit of a drinking problem! I know! I couldn’t believe it either! He’s been president for nearly 8 years and this is brand new information just coming to light now. Man, if only we’d known this around the 2000 and 2004 elections, how different things might have been.