* Wonkette live-blogged Barack Obama’s television infomercial last night on “poverty and murder.” All you need to know:

8:22 — Nevermind, the mother wasn’t the fourth Poor in his story. It’s Joe Biden.
8:22 — No — it’s Claire McCaskill.
8:22 — No — It’s Barack Obama. He is the fourth Poor in his own story.
8:23 — No, REALLY, It’s some guy named Mark, Louisville, lost job at factory, unemployment lines, can’t afford shit, THIS IS MOVING SO FAST, he wants to– THE END OBAMA SHOOTS A THREE POINTER.

* Playgirl editor forces Jezebel editor to consider Barack Obama’s penis.

* The New Gay takes 9:30 club patrons to task for dancing, homophobia, tallness.

* John Dickerson for Slate: Why is the McCain camp so happy?

* GWU blog The Colonialist finds something fishy within the new McCain attack ad.

* And in this newspaper:

- The Battle For the Mid-Atlantic: CP chronicles the last legs of the local campaign. Justin Moyer takes McCain; Franklin Schneider takes Obama.

- Which D.C. Pharmacies won’t stock your contraception.

- Loose Lips tells you to write-in for Carol Schwartz. Bring a pencil.

- And in arts: Maura Judkis on Richard Avadon; Aaron Leitko reviews Gang Gang Dance.

Photo of the 9:30 Club by rpongsaj.

* In case you missed her: Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz on Palin’s Katie Couric interview. “Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, in her third interview since joining the Republican presidential ticket, licked her finger and stuck it in the air, saying that Sen. Barack Obama might wait and “see what way the political wind’s blowing” on the Wall Street rescue package,” he writes.

* For those interested in competing in one of those high-stakes, emotionally wrenching reality television programs—and for those whose place of employment merely imitate them—Slate’s Joanna Weiss has your guide to how not to be the first contestant kicked off a reality show.

* New Columbia Heights has updates on the proposed neighborhood farmer’s market: At a recent ANC meeting, William Jordan proposed that the market be run by EMG Marketing Group and Change Inc. and be held three (!) times a week.

* Mr. T in D.C. bows respectfully to the employees of the Columbia Heights Subway sandwich shop:

I just wanted to thank them here today. By now, all the employees there recognize me, and know what kind of sandwich I usually get. . . . The two women who work there on weekday evenings are particularly helpful and pleasant. They recently told me they were from Eritrea; I wonder what their lives were like there? It’s not very far from lawless, violent places like Darfur and Somalia.

And in this newspaper:

* Arthur Delaney on D.C. Jail disaster readiness, terrorist threats, and the power of Google.

* Tim Carman tries to make a bagel, lies to City Paper staff.

* Mike DeBonis on the Nat’s stadium slush fund.

* … and the debut of Orr Shtuhl’s Beerspotter!

Image courtesy pingnews.

- As Obama clinches the nomination, Slate catches up on the Biden ring tones. They’ve got “articulate and bright and clean” as well as the old favorite, “You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.”

- Sick of the ‘ol convention twitter feed? Brightest Young Things is still live-blogging Project Runway.

- Behold: The Secret History of Pop Cesspool, Volume Eight. This time, P.C. engages in some mid-80’s clandestine pool jukeboxing.

- All Our Noise give us a back-to-school playlist inspired by Buffy.

- The Post’s Laura Yao critiques “The Re-Education of Women,” a new “guide to men” written by area man Dante Moore. “Maybe feminism is dead,” writes Yao, who fits in a number of funny Moore anecdotes before the kicker: “And so it is that in this messed-up world where relationships between men and women are plagued by misunderstandings, we are all to take lessons from a man who says his best decision as a teenager was to stop treating women well.”

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Every journalist, at some point in his or her life, must write the “I’ve seen something out in the world which confuses me” piece. Andy Rooney does it every week. Me, I’ve publicly scratched my head about umbrellas. But I tried to keep my whining to a couple of sentences, and Rooney’s done gassing in a couple minutes. Over at Slate, Ron Rosenbaum, by all accounts otherwise a man with a fine brain, has dedicated more than 2,000 words to his confusion about crosswords and sudoku.

Rosenbaum’s thesis, such as it is, is that people who do such puzzles are somehow doing harm to their own intelligence. To argue this point, he opens with the deadliest lede in creation, then frosts this dry cupcake with punny sprinkles for us to gag on:

Doing puzzles reflects not an elevated literary sensibility but a degraded letter-ary sensibility

What are some of the other defenses of the puzzle people? “It trains the mind.”…. I’d say that instead it drains the mind.

Rosenbaum’s Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer shtick would be funny if he revealed any effort to actually understand what he’s discussing. He picks up a copy of Will Shortz’ Funniest Crossword Puzzles, then expresses bafflement because he read the first five clues and didn’t crap himself with laughter. [Nerd hat on]To the extent crosswords are funny, the humor is in the answers to the themed clues.[Nerd hat off] Later, Rosenbaum congratulates himself on his intellectual superiority after watching a fellow working a crossword that has the clue “Mauna ___.” “Whew, though one, dude,” bleats Rosenbaum. [Nerd hat on]The answer could be either LOA or KEA, and it’s perfectly sensible to delay filling out the answer there.[Nerd hat off]

The running theme in Rosenbaum’s piece is that people who do puzzles could better spend their time reading. “Need I suggest that those who spend time doing crossword puzzles (or sudoku)…could be doing something else that involves words and letters? It’s called reading,” he writes. (Here’s a fun puzzle: Imagine you’re Ron Rosenbaum and try to write about something without egregiously overusing italics. If you can do it, you win!) Is it too much to ask that reporters writing a piece spend a little time doing more research before embarrassing themselves in public? Rosenbaum, surely tugging on his suspenders as he guffaws, notes that the Times crossword offers a toll number for people to call to “buy a clue.” This is the Comstock Lode of pun-rich hilarity to him. “But couldn’t it be said that even people who don’t have to buy a clue, but spend their time pursuing clues to the meaningless puzzles, are clueless?”

Oh, Ron. Just drop me a line. I’ll clue you in for free.

* Upset the Setup gets upset at the hip-hop scene over at Chief Ike’s.

* In Shaw gives D.C. a housing pop quiz: Can you tell what year this report on D.C.’s housing problems was written?

* All Our Noise marks the album birthday of The Ramones‘ Adios Amigos. The record is now 13. Is this really cause for celebration? Whatever … at least there are sombrero dinos.

* Listen up, John McCain: Mr. T in D.C. tells you how to know when you’re officially old. The incontrovertible evidence:

For decades, I’ve consistently disliked dried fruit: raisins, craisins, prunes, you name it … All of a sudden, I’ve discovered a newfound taste for dried fruit … I’m snacking on raisins as we speak! I keep a box in my desk for when I get hungry, and at home I’ve been experimenting with those more upscale, resealable packs of dried fruit. I’ve tried out a couple of different kinds of raisins, dried mango, pineapple, dates, and have a bag of dried blueberries I’m dying to open … I may even try the ultimate in geezer confirmation fruit: prunes.

* Slate’s Christopher Beam imagines alternate scenarios that would explain John Edwards‘ alleged late-night visit to his alleged lover and their alleged love-child. My favorite:

Edwards had come to return Hunter’s sari, which she had left the time he came to return her bomber jacket, which she had left the time he came to return her charm bracelet, which she had left the time he came to return her first edition of Pulp’s His and HersDifferent Classes, which she had left on the campaign bus in Reno.

Photo by NCinDC

* Good morning! Slate’s got all your military sleep-reduction news.

* The Brightest Young Things discuss when rompers go wrong.

* Mr. T in D.C. sets some rules for TV watching at the gym. In: CNN and 80’s music videos. Out: Entertainment Tonight and Fox News. This writer humbly submits the perfect gym entertainment: Discovery Channel’s Cash Cab.

* The Post has a great profile of the man accused of stealing a rare Shakespeare first folio from the University of Durham:

Scott, a tall, thin man, has never really had a job, but he said his mother (whom he referred to at one point as “Lady Bountiful”) bankrolls his trips—and his gold Versace ring, his diamond Rolex and a succession of exquisite cars: a Rolls-Royce, an Aston Martin, a Lamborghini, a silver Ferrari.

Speaking in a hotel with a plate of langoustines in front of him—lobsters couldn’t be found—Scott said he remembered the moment he realized how much better the best was. He was 18, and he had slipped his feet into handmade Italian leather shoes.

* Tonight’s picker-uper: Lenny Campello of Daily Campello Art News will give a talk tonight at 5:30 p.m. at Smith Farm’s Healing Arts Gallery on Frida Kahlo and pain.

Photo by Mr. T in D.C.