AP reports!:

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform -- not even in the state senate."

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.

Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.

He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

The AP report also showed how Palin's champions have exaggerated the Alaskan governor's 'acheivements':

MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.

THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state -- by population.

MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.

THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right -- change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington -- throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."

THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.

Sailor, we agree!

Look, she's a social conservative who will tell my family what to do and I don't want to swap kids over mooseburgers, 'kay?
She'd be the worst kind of cronyhack at a time when we're trying to get away from entrenched cronyism. It seems like her abuses of power are just entitlements for her on the "because i said so" order. Don't like her.

Oh, and she's totally the grandma and you can totally get pregnant weeks after giving birth to any kind of baby, premmie, downie, what have you. And that's fine! But stop denying choice to other 17yearold randy girls who a)probably didn't use contraception because sex ed had been discontinued in their school or they were church bullied into signing a pledge and b) don't have parents willing to claim the birth as their own or LET them choose a different route with the newer more sure-to-be-aggressive mccain/palin parental consent laws!

You're so welcome, Sailor! Everybody loves a z-z-z-zinger!

That PUMA rep on Hardball looked completely crazy, like an actual puma had slept on top of her.

should "slower" "dial it down" sailor?

You know your hall monitoring skills could really come in handy over at that hillaryclintonforum.net or whatever the hell it's called.

Scoff.

Dread springs paternal is one of the better ones to come down the pike in a while!
love it!

128 buzzed up yahoo votes?! the people really wanted to know where he was.
wow, you just never know...

DK is the real deal, always has been. His passion is so authentic and he gets it said when no one else dares to.

Unrelated: why are you disclosing you're a Republican?

leanne shear for president! this coverage rules.

Durst it the worst! He and his mooks killed music in the late 90s, taking rightful attention away from Pulp, Hole and what other few artful rock acts with albums out at that time; I loathe him and his rapestock.

you really need to dial it down and lay off the crazy juice, I mean, really, what the hell are you talking about?

aye aye sailor! I do love me some crazy juice though.
Was just playing a little devils advocate for that jerk billionaire, no biggie!
But hey summer hours and leaving work early! WHEEEEE!
Ships ahoy, sailor!

and hot damn joel mchale is super hot

i now love America "ok, she's not ugly, but she's no betty" Ferrara!

didn't this "pervert" give you guys 5 million so you could jump into the snark pool? I'm all for strict standards of journalism and reporting on the criminal doings and punishments of a clearly off-kilter and lonely man, but the adjectives you lard and tart him up with every time he comes up are, well, it's all just a bit unseemly, hey, kind of like the man and the website he helped start!

I mean, did he make you massage him, Radar?, he did, didn't he!? That bastard! And since that was in 2005, Miss Shah was only 16! Call him a perv all you want, do it for MIss Shah, it's only right!

but really what gay movies are being spoofed? There are no gay movies,
save for Too Fast Too Furious...

and speaking of gay brides, why is nick denton posting weather photos over on gawker? Is he courting drudge or just trying to be like him, again? Maybe writing about weather will bring him those missing 16 million vistors...
Now those two would make a cute couple! kind of like binky and the brain of animaniacs they really could try to take over the world.

the bride wore black is pretty funny

ughh,tell me about it

this is almost as funny as the Hills rundown you did a few months ago.
More Reflections from Ferrari! Do a weekly column already.

dont you mean "STOOPID" and dont you just want to link to the Atlantic cover story?

this was good, real good. And Salon, real true!

Ugh! I read this article not one hour ago. If your source trumps his "witness", then that that is just flagrant and so frustrating. It's the Washington Post, not Washington Times! Is there anything I can trust? Bring me the head of Dana Milbank and step off my bama.

first rate! Every music site should be linking to this.

times or wsj did an article on leahy cameo last week. He's a big batman fan who donated his pay to charity and took 14 takes to get one line right. Im sure Heath loved that. Link to it!

Can't wait till she promotes the book on Jimmy Kimmel.

Rogan does some douche V T's. To be avoided.

what??!?!!
Ugh! Why didn't I know about this? I could have gone!! Fuck my life right now.
"he keeps tellin' me you've, you've got time..." except I don't.

no, it's just as gould as it gets!

FLOW, For Love of Water, is a great doc that needs to be seen. It's astounding that Nestle can keep draining aquifers while they appeal their loss in the Michigan Supreme Court. I've not been near a plastic bottle of water since seeing this movie. Even if it is "one-sided", even a fraction of the facts will freak you out. Drink up!

Oh you can dance, raymond, you can dance.
Don't hate on ABBA's on superior melody-making skills.

Blasphemy!
Whitechocolatespaceegg rules.
Matador didn't push it at all and poor Liz got frustrated and then hired the Matrix, let a girl try to pay her bills, damn.

radar was first.

I love Renata Adler--Speedboat anyone?--but I'm lovin choire sicha even more

choire's been on fire these past two weeks!

the times book review just rightfully trashed it, too. He's cynical and just not that good and also weirdly never writes about homosexuality eventho he's a big mo.

and miss sicha would know! Just look at how chuck kaiser was dressed in their wedding photos, no wonder it lasted only six days.

i used to be a marine wife, sigh.

celebrity skin is one of the best albums of the 90s.

waaaaaahhhhhhhhh

yea! may i propose "seductively" as an adverbial corrective? No more radar, must work.

Maybe my sympathetic irritation is due to getting a bit of a snaggle in my lower teeth, but this unnecessary Dunst cliche (Perez much?) is beyond tired, and mean spiritied ( jeez, kick a girl when she's down). Isn't Radar supposed to go after the superficial banalities of celebrity like, say, veneers and whitening? Leave her natural smile alone. I come to this site to laugh, like I did had the Larry Craig book cover and captions, not to feel gross at cheap shots that require no thought. Isn't Shah the same writer that took Peter Travers to task for his cliches?
Crankily,
yoko

and he's not even kidding.

And that's sad, but it's still funny, though it's more seriously sad, so sad that unless the funny is found, all hope on everyone and everything is lost.

i don't know or care if it's generational but Parenne himself has zero class. Given a paycheck and a platform by this website not one week ago, he bites the hand that feeds him with one of those poorly written, unfunny RADAR R.I.P. posts on gawker. Yes, it's from a Portfolio article, and yes, it's no big deal, but it's just funny how Radar always is magnanimous giving gawker blogger after blogger work--there've been like four or five now, and they all turn in very sub par work IYO--even though all of them have gleefully called for its demise. So lame.

love it! Jew know what I mean?

and not just VH1 forgot their journalistic ethics: neither jezebel nor gawker cite radar. Must be nice to not have to fact check or care!

This had yoko laughing out loud, five times. Or, how you say, LOLing?
Seriously, this fucking ruled!

The mask is concretized meta. Protesting the criticism that she has nothing behind her figurative mask, her face, she actually puts on a mask to say, "yes, oh yes I do have something behind my mask, I have my face!"

Arnett's voice was everywhere before Arrested Development, he must have made some serious dime in voice-overs, i think there was even a Teri Gilpin, roz in frasier, duet for some product but yoko may have dreamt that.

What can Brown do for you is funny, doubt she got it, though.

Yoko loves Tina!!

Whatever warteetee--nice name, btw, hot!--yeah, it's such an inconsequential story when a billionaire--however closeted and so-far-unsuccessful with the web--picks one of publishing's most storied editors to go up against two of the internet's largest sites, one just valued at 200 million.

Guess you were more thrilled with Montag backing McCain, loser.

And look, I'm usually the first to yawn at maglomania "scoops" but this and Newsweek firing 100 staffers are both certainly news. So go grow your warts!

Yoko thinks this is hilarious. Maybe they couldn't identify her, because they couldn't
see her.
After all, she is 4'9'', like Tina Fey's husband!

Benihana! I mean, where else would one flip haters?

yay!

wow, this ramblin' girl just doesn't get it, poor, poor girl.

Answer the questions, claire!

why doesnt she get paid a residual every time it shows? Is it the standard one-year print contract of a certain amount? Is Dov industry standard or generous since they're models are more generously revealing? Did she get paid at all or just get a vibrator? Come back, little sheba and tell us how much you got for lubing up! Does a vertically integrated company put more verticality into your bank account? What up girl, yoko models and wants on that train...

yes, i am!

look, i hope she deserves the blurbs, yoko gives praise when due, but was just blind to the power of the pony story. The point is that the Gould didn't ask the question that was enticing in the intro, that's all.

In fact, it's lame to do a q and a with someone, not ask about something, and then drop that something in the intro. Bye.

DRATCH! and Jane Krakowski on 30 rock and Lisa Kudrow and every female on the Comeback, especially Mickey!!

It's so pointlessly dumb and moot, one of Hitchens' rare missteps. Stick to atheism and spa treatments, girl, but yoko still loovvvvvees you...

Smart to have one of this town's nastiest writers interview one of it's nicest, but only if the real question promised in the intro ("problem is the blurbs are really good") would've had the temerity to be asked: so, does sloane think she deserves such high falutin literary comparisons so early in the game? Who cares about the backlash about her being the most popular publicist in town, isn't the real one about her "mordant and mercurial wit" and whether you can really have one if you're collecting ponies a la Miranda July and then writing like Anna fucking Quindlen?!

what, was this penance for Emily Gould? Maybe she could go blog about her real feelings on the matter, you know, privately somewhere...

also, those ponies and their horrible backlighting made for some garishly ugly pages in radar's last issue.

I'm just sayin'!

yoko wants on! Get a picture of his ass up here now, right cheek preferable. Yoko doesn't like tats and hates carebearsandlittleponies. Toxic toys for toxic tots.

Hmmmm. It seems that poor Maggie's declining page views coincided exactly with the period that Denton took over the editorial reins at that increasingly dull site. Perhaps Denton should fire himself?

It is full of raging lunatics armed with Big Gulps and Whoppers. It is. Foreals.

Yoko loves Lady Horne's posts, oh yes she does!

yoko loves lucianne!, hates her politics, but loves to party with this bon mot dropping bon vivant. Lucy G gets down!

Hillary has really moved yoko in recent months, at 61, I guess she has a shot at 69. She could end up being a lefty thatcher type, but it looks like the K.O is coming down for now. But don't rule out the superdelegates! And it's not comparable to the popular vote/electoral college dichotomy. Political parties are private entities and as such are allowed to...yoko is tired of trying to spur life onto the comment boards, it would take much time and energy to give a poli sci 101 course right now and yoko doesn't have it. If anyone lets themselves be fooled by the media's dumb analysis of super, er, automatic delegates, then they should lose their right to vote.

Or what about Alec Baldwin?

yoko just has to admire these noble attempts at reviving that ol' horse the fameometer! Whereas the Ticker (anyone? anyone?) came and went, this old broad has been around since radar 2.0 and radaronline 1.0 and just won't leave the fucking building. You gotta hand it to her, created by mad scientists just like Frankenstein (and yoko, truth be told), she's determined to muscle back and has worked her way on to the billboard a few times and now has, gasp, items being written about her. If there were a meta-fameometer, her stock would surely be rising!

A sober yoko was there, even more annoyed at first than she was at Siouxsie: dealing with this crowd sans sauce?! 15 minutes, she promised herself. She ended staying over 2 hours, her laughter rising in proportion to her strangely increasing buoyant mood. Ash chuckled ruefully at her choice of gag gift, a vintage (03!) Von Dutch hat, hee hee, yoko funny, he managed weakly.

Impervious to Leif's infectious charms, yoko didn't touch a drop. And, that, that's a good thing. Poor Madge, hep and bot don't mix, poor, poor girl.

yoko remembers a viral mazursky in the near masterpiece "Into the Night" starring Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer, at her most stunning. Oft-overlooked, the movie is one of the most sane takes on LA and has David Bowie, whom Yoko remembers from back in the day, managing to act quite nicely. But its mazursky--"she's not here, Diane"---who really shines in the gum-snappin' role of a hollywood director. Stretch onward and upward, Paul, yoko loves you forever and forgives you for Scenes from a Mall.

yoko loves echo, and has been at those heathside gatherings and shared in the frustration. Spare us the Cutter! Wonderful analogy, yoko can't wait to check out this new band...thanks radar reviews!

Wow, you mean on average I could make $11.75 before taxes and be unethical AND help some gross sweatshop site whose workers flee when offered a living wage? Great! Is there a Hungarian 1099 form to fill out or do I just have to say "print is dead" every time someone brings up magazines?
Ugh, Denton. Hate her!

Jenjermax, a flack at the ready! Can yoko be one your clients? You're such a go-getter and yoko has lots of ass-blasting pr problems...

A sober yoko was there and, cranky at not being able to have a pre-show beer, found herself transfixed and her mood completely transformed by the power of Siouxsie's performance. She and her band rocked Irving Plaza. Totally fun.
And the songwriting on Mantaray is above and beyond any piece of shit released last year; she completely trounces the 20-something twats. Only Courtney Love is a more fun front woman. But Siouxsie's discipline and skills have the edge over Love's bombastic bravado.

"HOW DO WE SLEEP WHILE OUR BEDS ARE BURNING?!"

oh yoko remembers, she won't ever forget. From our conscience to our grandkid's beds literally burning on this future scorched earch, let this timeless rally cry ring on and on and on...

Earnest makes yoko sad.

But you know, maybe this site--which I'm sure any day now is about to just explode with paid premium ads!, oh I saw you Lipstick Jungle flash your wares here for a day-- should alway have a space for "ads by google" because the hilarity and despair of this post is hammered home by the subsequent "Australian aborigine Ringtones" ad below it. I mean are you fucking kidding me?!

yoko loves this! Beckerman gives such good detail and color, though the copy errors diminish the post just a little...."wearing and American flag pins on their lapels" and "the organization how labor unions..." shame....
more marty!

Watch your back, Stephanie Smith, cause there will be blood.

Oh yoko knows choire's a guy, but she also knows she's just a big ol'girl. One who lusts after Chucky K, too!

Yoko loves 30 Cocks! What breadth and depth to that talented cast...
Yoko hopes Smiley continues his love for the show into a 3rd and 4th season, even though its ratings aren't much better than FNL.

yoko loves refinery 29!

yoko loves this post! It's the perfect Radar post, the good values part of radar, not the "rehabs-crowded-after-Christmas" part of Radar, thought that post was funny and has its place, but more of the former and less of the latter.

Well done, Miss Sicha!

But yoko regrets to inform you that this post is missing a link to Maya Rudolph playing the Castro translator years back in a glorious SNL sketch in which she says "stagFLAtion" over and over in a Castro - Carter interview. Would've made the post just zing!

Gotta go record the wind,
yoko

yoko spies a copy error. Please replace alcohol with alcoholic. Yoko scrubs clean.

yoko love balk. wow. so i guess assigning stories should forever take into account who has the most rabid fanbase sure to post. unbelievable.
CLAYMATES!!! Do the moms know about the world wide web? I'm sure claymates know how to claypost. Go gayken go, do it to it.

nauseating. Wonder if it was the same private rent-a-cop sent to his apartment now protecting her as she makes out with her next indirect victim. Yoko loves a misunderstood black widow as much as the next girl but this spidery waif needs to sit home and keep out of the press. Yoko wants to read chuck kaiser's scoops in peace.

toats on the clueless allusion.

Oh. My. God.

415 comments?! And 14 already here? Someone call publishing and change the site's name to radaronhicks.com, which really has a double resonance if you think about, triple even. Yoko like.

hey, you're welcome, balk! Look forward to reading those reviews...one last quibble though: Wild Turkey dropped a frickin' load of F-bombs in that review. Made Yoko nervous, very nervous.

And oh! I now understand something!: one wants commenting on a site because the more comments a site, like say radaronline, gets, the greater the scroll-down potential to have more ads, see more ads, and, consequently, make more revenue, buy more products, is!

It's like, the column just goes deeper and deeper, growing longer and longer and then, ooooh, aahhh, you feel your colic just start to calm down...

Hiccups and kisses,
Yoko

but my FAVORITE venue is, and always will be, the cover of the new issue of RADAR magazine!--on newstands and at bookstores now! (like Barnes and Nobles where, I hear, Radar consistently is a customer favorite and even sells out, yea!)--riding shotgun on an A-Bomb with my buddy W!

Um, let's not forget to cross-pollinate and promote, k?

SYNERGY NOW!