Morning potpourri

Bil Browning puts the puzzle together and thinks it means Obama will announce Evan Bayh as his running mate on Wednesday. While it may or may not come this week--I'm not as convinced about the necessity of avoiding the Olympic news vacuum--I've begun steeling myself for the eventuality that Bayh will be the veep nominee. It's a strictly factional calculation; Obama has to throw a sop to the DLC/Clinton wing of the party, and must pick a right-wing Dem to satisfy the Broderist media because he is, of course, the Most Liberal Senator in their imaginations.

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After being static for the last two months, the polls are starting to show some bend in McCain's direction with Pollster.com's national trend map showing a toss-up for the first time (though the electoral map continues to favor Obama). No, I can't explain it either. The only positive sign here is that, should the public succeed in electing someone with whom it disagrees on virtually every policy matter, it would remove any remaining guilt I might feel about the inevitable collapse of our civilization.

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I am certainly not immune to the occasional siren song of lowbrow vices but, regardless of what it may or may not mean, this song just fails as a song. There are many pop songs you could be forgiven for singing; the only way this dog is getting into your head is with a blunt chisel. A major summer hit? Tsk, tsk, kids these days. (Bonus fun: Katy Perry, under the surname Hudson, once released a Christian album as a teenager.)

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If you can't run out and buy Thomas Frank's new book today, you can check out an excerpt at TomDispatch to hold you over. There's also an excerpt in the current Harper's.

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British artist SJ Esau. I admit, I don't like the tune that much (the last half is interesting) but the video is worth the effort.