FU - FairAndUNbalanced.com

Lots on Joe Biden's introduction of Paul Ryan to heavy machinery.
Paul, meet chainsaw. Chainsaw, eat Paul.

• Gregory Gonzalez at Mad Mike's America watched this week's debate. He was despairing last week, is feeling much better today, thank you very much. Take one Joe Biden and call me in the morning.

• Slant Right's conservative John Houk weeps over how very rude Joe Biden was to poor helpless Paul Ryan. What a difference a day makes. In the morning, we hear boasts about how young, muscular, virile, and tough this Ryan fellow is. That evening we hear indignation about how a kid was bullied by an old guy.

• The tactical debate question is how anyone is supposed to answer serial falsehoods delivered in machine gun stacato. Joe Biden became an anti-ballistic human fact checker. At News Corpse, Mark looks into just two examples of deliberate untruths.

• Jack Jodell at THE SATURDAY AFTERNOON POST analyzes the Vice presidential debate as point-counter point contrast.

• Tommy Christopher of Mediaite fame says Ryan was unfairly beaten because he had to fight against two opponents Joe Biden and Mathematics. Tommy also, usefully, provides a complete, yeah complete, transcript from beginning to end.

• S.W. Anderson at Oh!pinion calls attention to the harsh math of Romney Medicaid cuts.

• Infidel 753 looks to the VP debate as a political event.

• Tim McGaha at Tim's Thoughtful Spot reviews the VP debate and looks at the likely result on election day, with data from those who calculate the odds for cold cash.

• Bette Noir at Rumproast has fun with the issues as they were covered in the debate, then shares a reaction to the closing remarks. My sense of the last few minutes was that Ryan was recovering from the night's beating. He seemed to be getting stronger until the final statements, at which point he lapsed into the words his mom had made him memorize.

• Manifesto Joe of Texas Blues agrees that Joe Biden gently and cheerfully stomped his opponent into a soft squishy warm paste, but cautions that it will come to naught unless President Obama dines on whatever his running mate had for lunch that day.

• James Wigderson is offended by Joltin' Joe. He believes Biden was laughing inappropriately at serious topics. Um, James, he was serious, even passionate, about serious issues. He was laughing at the strange logic and falsehoods of his debating opponent. There is a difference.

Not everyone is focused on debates. There are other forms of campaign communication.

• Ryan at Secular Ethics listens to Democrats provide the Big Bird argument. He decides it's a cross between sounding dumb and sounding irresponsible.

• Papamoka at Papamoka Straight Talk has an example of a general trend in a Seinfeld campaign, in which the candidate firmly believes in whatever he thinks his audience wants.

• Max's Dad takes every conspiracy theory concerning the Kenyan socialist Muslim radical-Christian gay Communist ACORN sponsored pseudo-President and weaves them together into a unified narrative.

Some folks give some profound thought to policy and history beyond one campaign.

• Conservative intellectual Julian Sanchez is writing again (Yay!). He contemplates why so many intellectuals favor government solutions to society's problems. He suggests that it is a prejudice promoted by a sort of sociological phenomenon of natural section. I like the dispassionate tone and the assumption of a rockbed motivation of problem solving. His conclusion is worth examining, although I am skeptical. I'd like to see him apply a similar analysis of why conservatives have a predispositon to denying that problems exist or, when they are undeniable, that they are of any import. Here is a modest beginning.

• The Heathen Republican defends patriotism by arguing that America's record on slavery was pretty darn good. A weak, but understandable, reaction to a false choice between condemning wrong and promoting a beloved nation. I suggest his aim is more than a little off.

  An alternative is to insist that slavery was a horrible national condition, and that patriotism is defined by a dream, is measured by a journey toward a vision. This promotes a more genuine, less strained, pride and love while honestly addressing profound wrongs. The real contest in this nation is between those who celebrate the achievement of freedom as a completed accomplishment, and those who experience the American spirit as a hope and a direction.

• Here's an example, as Debra Dickerson goes video with resentment at the notion that there is no racial progress in America. We watch. We learn. Not just about race, but about a more mature way to be human.

• Nancy Hanks at The Hankster brings us a conference at which the political focus is less on personality or even policy than it is on social structure itself.

• Chuck Thinks Right goes FoxLogic on us, with frustration at all the bureaucratic documentation his son and friends go through to get a job. Could it be because of all those anti-immigration regulations? His conclusion: We oughtta do something about them thar immigrants instead of bothering good Americans.

And there are rumors that life exists apart from public policy.

• PZ Myers, writing for Pharyngula, takes a break from crushing Jesus people and discovers that religion is not the only source of irrationality. Well that's a relief. At least we're not alone.

• Kent Pittman, writing from Open Salon goes completely Dilbert for us with a true story at a former workplace.

• Vincent is back (Yay-y-y) at A wayfarer's notes. I wonder what sort of freakish evolutionary accident produced this fellow's mentality. He can write about writing and make it provocative and interesting. This time, he tells us about his adventures in book length authorship.