Below are simple links to other interesting stuff I've come across on the web in the last day or two; they may or may not concern literature or photography, or indeed the arts at all. You can click here to learn more about how I compile this list and what software I use, if you're interested.

The Great GOP Meltdown of 2008: And so it begins
A number of high-profile "Washington insider" reporters are all independently reporting this week that secret Soviet-style vicious power-position infighting has broken out among the top ranks of the Republican Party, as even the conservative newspapers start reporting a 10-point lead for Obama ten days before the election, and it becomes clear to all that there is simply no way left for McCain to win. My prediction? A literal split in the party after the election, and the formation of a new party: by either the Rove-led paleocon racist nutjobs, which will then continue to be a mere radical fringe party throughout time (the Greens for the far-right); or by the more rational Colin Powells, turning it into the new mainstream American political party for conservatives, and the GOP into the 21st-century equivalent of the Whigs. We'll see if my prediction comes true, I guess.

Another sign it's all over: McCain to skip his own election-night party
Two weeks before the election, there's a growing amount of signs that even the McCain campaign has officially acknowledged behind the scenes that there's simply no way left at this point to win, and that they should instead concentrate on shoring up their power base and get out still looking as arrogantly good as possible. How else, after all, to explain the news today, that for one of the first times in American history, John McCain as a presidential candidate will not be attending his own election-night party, but will instead broadcast a live message from a nearby small lawn with family and friends when it's officially time to concede? That to me sounds very much like a campaign team that has officially given up, and know in their hearts that there is absolutely no way that McCain will have good news to share that night.

With literally nothing left, Rove paleocons set up off-years "army" through "Joe the Plumber" obsession
Here's how you know that things are finally coming to an end: The Karl Rove 'paleocons' running McCain's campaign have finally realized they're never going to win, so are essentially using the only thing that's so far worked -- appealing to uneducated rural southern white racists with their "Joe the Plumber / Joe Six Pack" spiel -- and are now obsessing on it, creating an entire "real America versus fake" civil-war paradigm in order to build their minority "army" during the Obama administration. Just watch how much they'll beat this "Joe The Plumber" thing into the ground over the next two weeks; how the entire campaign is going to shift from trying to win anymore to at least organizing as many angry violent rednecks as possible, using them as a foot army of sorts for any dirty tricks they want to accomplish during the coming Obama administration that even they now admit will soon be upon us.

McCain in New Hampshire: Low turnouts, "feeling of depression"
A sad report from the Anderson Cooper blog on McCain's recent rallies in New Hampshire, one of the only close states left in the US that he still has a shot of converting: it's been smaller-than-expected crowds at them all, sometimes embarrassingly tiny, with a feeling of gloom and depression hovering over the entire thing. Even more depressing, the reporter calls the highlight of the night as when McCain rhythmically screamed "FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!" to the assembled crowd.

Rumor: Anti-Muslim hate DVD has become huge underground hit among "Joe The Plumber" nutjobs
You know those minority of Americans who have been expressing open public racial hate these last few weeks, simply because someone in a position of authority said they could? You know, the ones bringing Obama sock monkeys to McCain rallies...openly declaring him a Muslim terrorist...making posters of him surrounded by watermelon and fried chicken? Yeah, apparently there's this wacko conspiracy anti-Muslim terrorist-fearmongering DVD out right now called "Obsession," which one of these rich nutso paleocons has been paying millions to have included as "special advertising" in a series of Sunday papers, where it has apparently become a huge underground hit among these precise openly-racist "Joe The Plumber" types, who apparently are all now treating the DVD as if it were factual and true. J-sus. Great. Great. Just what we needed.

Greenspan: "I may have been wrong to put such blind faith in unregulated free-market capitalism"
See, here's the problem that none of these economists want to tell you about: that unregulated free-market capitalism only works if once every 25 years or so you have a giant global war, one that kills off tens of millions and decimates entire industries, entire nations, essentially "starting over" all these unregulated free-market capitalist systems. It's now time for one of those wars, and we're not having one, which is a big part of the problem with this global economic meltdown, which is what Greenspan could've never predicted, back in the Vietnam/Cold-War era when he first started instituting these unregulated free-market policies into the American system. As he himself put it at a Congressional hearing this week: "That is precisely the reason I was shocked, because I'd been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well." Right, until the end of the Cold War, precisely.

Chicago on Obama party: Probably $2 million, they think 70,000 people
Now, first, please know that the Obama campaign is picking up the tab for that extra $2 million in city services, not your taxes. That said, 70,000? Sheesh, over 100,000 showed up last weekend in St. Louis just for an everyday random rally on a Sunday; don't you think that the moment the first black man in American history is declared to be President, within the third largest city in the US, is going to draw a slightly bigger crowd than that?

McCain: "How dare you ask me to justify $150,000 in GOP money for pretty clothes for Palin?"
Sheesh.

Biden: "McCain's losing his sh-t. No, seriously. Losing his sh-t."
Joe Biden goes on the offensive this week, insinuating on a "Tonight Show" appearance that McCain is essentially losing his mind over these last couple of weeks of the campaign, and that the Karl Rove paleocons responsible for the Bush Years have essentially hijacked McCain as well, almost literally holding him "captive" and no longer letting him even express his own opinions in public anymore. Hmm.