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Sarah Palin is the reversal of something I once heard as a description of Robert Redford, "All men want her and all women want to be her."  Before you get all hot and bothered, know that I moderate comments and will simply spam away any thing huffy.

Selecting Palin was political gold.  Beyond the discussion of like or dislike, qualified or not, consider what she brings to the political landscape:

• PTA turned Mayor turned Governor
• Mother of five
• Mother of a special needs child
• Son about to go to war
• Soon to be Grandmother
• Married to a burly sportsman/outdoors man
• Moose hunter
• Christian
• Female
• Conservative
• Supports Drilling in ANWR
• Attractive
• Funny
• Well spoken
• Reputation for Reform
• Great nickname
• Relatively unknown

All of these add up to a Vice Presidential pick worthy of a strategist the likes of Morris, Atwood, Rove or Carville.  Don’t get me wrong, these are not reasons she should be the Vice President, these are reasons she is a great pick to be running for Vice President.  The ability to lead the country and the ability to look like you can run the country are not the same thing.  That changed back in the 60’s when Kennedy debated Nixon on TV.  Think back, if we had TV in the 30’s that we would have elected a President who was in a wheelchair?  Get real.

Palin is a brilliant choice in part because of this list.  Come to think about it, Obama is a great choice to run for President for his on list.  If you think from an actual experience perspective, McCain/Biden have a lock, but from a "Cult of Personality" perspective, the youngsters have a lock.

Sarah Palin has one thing that no candidate in history has had in their favor, I call it "The Naughty Liberian Affect".  Most guys have already through this one through, the backdrop my be different, but the core is in tact.

You walk in the library at school and there she is, Ms. Palin.  You know her nickname is "Barracuda" but you still think of her as the "Naughty Liberian".  As you look at her, she smiles.  Then without warning but very slowly, she takes off her glasses, lets down her hair and flip it out…

The rest of it I will leave to you to fill in. 

Thinking of this I wonder what would happen if she did this during the debate with Senator Biden?  Considering his history of gaffes, maybe he would blurt out "Well heck yeah baby!" or simply say "I quit, no way I can compete with that."

Love her or hate her, Sarah "Barracuda" Palin has made the race fun to watch and reminds people of the first rule of strategy.

If you find yourself in a fair fight, your strategy sucks.

WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.

According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.

"He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington," Zebari said in an interview.

Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops - and that it was in the interests of both sides not to have an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in its "state of weakness and political confusion."

According to the New York Post’s Amir Taheri

This is one of those things I REALLY hope is not true.  There are so many things wrong about this.  First, congressmen have no purview in negotiating foreign policy with external governments.  Second, he can call the war illegal all he wants, but it within the UN mandate.  Lastly, to extend a war for personal political gain is simply wrong. 

If what he really wanted was for the war to end, he should have been pleading that case, not asking for a prolonged engagement to benefit his own agenda.

How does one make a fine dining taco?  I guess I would slice Kobe beef, season with saffron, add morels and sliced truffles with some moose cheese.  The stuff it into a roughly made corn tortilla fused with caviar.  That would make it expensive, not fine.  To make it fine dining I suppose I would have to make it about a third of the regular size, swirl stuff some sort of pretentious mango creme fraise salsa around the plate. 

The block party was an amusing twist.  I would love to know the production details.  There is still a part of me that has to wonder how soggy a corn dog has to be to be worse than a bad pasta salad.  Come on now, how do you screw up pasta salad.  The one thing you should have been able to do is bring some love to good old pasta salad.  The other part of me wonders if Erik got Corn Dogged just to give another chef a free pass and keep a story line going.  For the sake of good TV things like that happen. 

Keep reminding yourself that it is a medium for selling advertising first, a show second and a competition third.  How long do you think any of the contestant chefs (I can’t bring my self to use the made up word the show uses)  would last a second if they said, “Wow, Kenmore is such junk” or “Gladware, are you kidding me?”

I am sure the producers have already picked their perfect 6 to 8 people they would love to see in the finals, maybe even leaning toward their dream team of 4 or 2.  They can boot people for the oddest of reasons as long as compliance with the challenge comes first, quality of the food comes second, and skill is third, and show value fourth.  Beyond that, break ties any way you wish.  We have had three seasons of waiting for the bad guy to get beat, so far the score is 2-1 against.  This year the anticipated face off is novel.  What happens when two people who are involved have to pick who goes home.  Someone ends up packing…twice.

Fresh out of High School and that last summer break, you pack up your child and send them out into the world. You have had 18ish years to prepare them for the world, and now you send them out into it. Your biggest concern is for their safety and that maybe they will call home now and again.

But what about their faith? Have you, your church and their youth group been enough? Are they strong enough? Do they know where to find the answers? Do you? How do they deal with the first “God is dead” statement they hear from a professor?

Morrow provides a handy and engaging resource for just this dilemma. Designed not just for full reading but also a flash-point resource, the book is packed with Godly wisdom, practical advice and “been there, done that” experiences. For situations that demand more information he provides a wealth of resources for further exploration and the end of each chapter as well as a synopsis of each chapter for quick review.

Written for the new college student this book has value for anyone who has ever been stymied, stifled, cajoled, ridiculed or ostracized for trying to defend the faith. It will be even of greater value for those who don’t even know were to start. It is a magnificent work in helping you to think Christianly, live Godly, build your faith and defend God and his word.

Buy it at Amazon.com

If you don’t cook then the QuickFire would not have been as impressive to you.  The next time you cook, look at the recipe and think “What could I remove to make this better?”  Last night I roasted a chicken.  It was chicken, butter, carrots, zucchini, mushrooms, fingerling potatoes, rosemary and thyme (salt and pepper did not count) from the new Top Chef Cookbook.  I could have replaced the butter with olive oil without a lot of impact, but what else could I have removed?

Once again a nice spin on the Elimination Challenge.  Cook food inspired by the diet of a specific animal; gorilla, bear, vulture, lion or penguin.  Now of course we all thought when they first named the teams they would be cooking these animals, but PETA can relax…bummer.

It demonstrated once again that this is a competition as much as it is about the cooking.  There are a certain set of unwritten rules.  Break these rules and odds are you will be the one going home.

1 )  Duets never work, pick one idea and do it well.

2 )  New is bad.  If you have never cooked X in any shape form or fashion, you are better off putting a new spin on something you already know.

3 ) Gnocchi is the devil.  No matter what you try to do with a gnocchi, you will pay a price.  Better to shape it different and call it a potato dumpling.

4 ) Tom likes butter, Ted likes bacon, Padma like alcohol, Gail likes food, Rocco likes Rocco, Bourdain hates his own mother.

5 ) Sugar and Salt may look the same, but they are not, happens almost every season.

6 ) Being a complete Jerk will get you to the top 5.

7 ) Call your food what it is, and be brief.

8 ) Taste your food.

All it all it was a good episode.  They toned down the relationship as a central plot point.  Bravo did give the couple their own blog, so it all seems a bit contrived.  And the BLEEPING language was toned down quite a bit.  Maybe it was just first show jitters.  Best of all, I feel I can keep watching.