Links For The Weekend

Stuff to read:

Kathleen Parker has clearly decided to let all of the dogs out. Here she alleges, in not so many words, that McCain chose Palin as veep because she gave him a hard-on. Or something.

Hey, did you guys catch the Presidential debate on HBO?

A great way to waste 15 minutes is to browse this photo-essay of Barack Obama by a photographer for Time. There's some fantastic shots in there, complete with some pretty detailed captions. (Keep clicking on the "Show more images" button; it goes on for a while).

Charles Krauthammer claims that he'd rather lose an election than his bearings. Too. Many. Jokes. Can. Not. Choose. Brain. Exploding.

Mosharraf Zaidi takes a brief vacation to Utopia. Hope he got a t-shirt for his troubles!

This is important because eventually, someday, a Pakistani minister of finance will have to actually stand up and say, “Enough! We don’t need the IMF to tell us we need to control spending; we need to control spending because we’re spending too much!” She will say, “We need to stop taxing the middle class, and start taxing the rich”. She will say, “The easiest way to fix the balance of payment situation is to punish the consumption of high-end luxury goods and services that Pakistan sells rupees to buy”. She will say, “The state needs to discern between taxing income, and taxing wealth, and we need to tax wealth”. Most important, perhaps of all, she will say, “I don’t care whether you fire me or not, Mr. President, Mr. Prime Minister, and Mr. Ambassador. I don’t care. I will speak truth, because I took an oath as a public servant to serve the public interest. Besides, I could never win an election anyway, and all the money I’ve made from banking will keep me and my children well fed for the rest of time”.

Blah blah blah Harbhajan and the Aussies again blah blah blah please for the love of God blah blah blah shut the fuck up blah blah blah does anyone outside these two countries blah blah blah even care about these teams anymore blah blah blah aren't South Africa blah blah blah the real team to beat in international cricket anyway blah blah blah.

Well, well, well. Look who decided to write again...it's Malcolm Gladwell! Listen up, Gladwell. Just because you're the best feature writer I've ever read in my life doesn't mean you can hop in and out of my life like this. I can't deal with this, ok? Don't ever leave for that long again, even if it is to write a book. Just promise me, ok?

Fear not, Pakistanis. There exists a way - an exceedingly simple way - out of your personal economic crises. Let these people be an example to follow:

The people of Karachi suffer yet another shock as the HBL cantonement branch of shahra e faisal was totally looted by two men who entered it at around 8pm on sunday night wearing uniforms of HBL security staff, tied the guards up and used gas cutters to break into 66 lockers. These robbers got away with sacks full of millions in cash and jewelry.

A really fascinating GM survey on nba.com. Some really interesting questions. Of course, the last one had to be this:

Which player in the NBA would you want taking a shot with the game on the line?

No points for guessing who completely dominated that one (hint: he's a prick).

If you think Pakistanis love their conspiracy theories, you have yet to meet the American right-wing. (Via Greenwald)

Arif has a very comprehensive post on the security situation(s) in Afghanistan/Pakistan.

Finally, check out these 15 highly innovative bus ads. (Courtesy Naqiya)