Stinque We Must

We had hoped to announce this under calmer circumstances, but events overtook intentions, so here goes:

Welcome to Stinque!

Stinque will be our new home from here on, and we're inviting everyone — bloggers and commenters — to come party with us.

Our intention for the site is simple: We want to embrace the traditions we've quickly developed at our old home, and allow them to continue evolving. While the primary focus remains politics, the name reflects the broader interests of our community: If someone wants to post or chat about sports, culture, Big Fucking Ocean Tornadoes, or even Project Runway, we want them to feel at home.

(We mention Project Runway here so that when we gag on somebody's finale liveblog, you can hold us to our promise.)

We hold no ill will towards our former hosts, and we don't want folks feeling like they have to choose sides. We just have Profound Creative Differences with their future plans, and thought it best to bow out now before we get all pissy about it.

We're Not the Only One Out to Lunch

We've been highly distracted with geek chores the past couple of days, and we're discovering that trying to catch up with the Financial End Times is like missing an episode of a primetime serial — we have no idea how that polar bear got there, but we imagine it'll make sense eventually.

So pardon us while we attempt to wrap our exhausted mind around this:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) warned his former colleagues that they would pay a price in November for backing the bailout now — and that John McCain could ride to victory over Barack Obama by persuading voters that the bailout is really the “Obama-Bush plan.”

Now step back from this a moment and consider: It's understandable that they want to run away from an unpopular president, and the Republican convention was the equivalent of outlaws trying to switch their black cowboy hats to white — but this is the first suggestion we've seen of throwing Dubya under the bus.

We're tempted to agree with Newt, just to see the attack ads — a Rovian snake swallowing its tail.

House GOP rises up against Cheney [Politico]

And in the Trunk, Bundles of Cash

[via Blogenfreude]

Saw Hu Jintao from window today (and got picture) — he jumped out of limo, shook the hands of a carefully-assembled group of chinese people, then bounded across park avenue to do some more. Bush, on the other hand, hid in his limo.

Eternal Sunshine of the Blogless Mind

If it seems like the world is vanishing from your grasp piece by piece, well, it is. One day your comments are taken away from you, the next week the whole posting engine goes south.

And while we would gladly accept $700 billion to fix it, fact is your money's no good here, just like the rest of the world. Either the Evil Hamsters deign to fix the database, or they don't. At least, being hamsters, it won't take much gold to sew their parachutes.

Besides, times are tough all over — just check out this headline from Business Week: Wall Street Bailout Could Crimp CEO Pay. Golly, that would be just awful, wouldn't it? It was only in 2005 that CEO pay was a mere 411-1 over working wages, and nobody wants to return to the dark days of 1990 when it cratered at 107-1. Fucking up the world economy is hard work, after all.

Let's face it: If we don't lend them a hand now, who will hire the gardeners for the McMansions? Topiary doesn't trim itself, pal.

No, no, we're fine, just something caught in our eye, that's all. But the moment we see Sally Struthers asking us for a few dollars to maintain an orphaned Lexus, god help us we're gonna lose it.