Dear American:

 

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

 

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

 

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American investment banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

 

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

 

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to

wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

 

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

On my wall, I have a quote from Pat Summit (the Tennessee women’s basketball coach) describing her theory of victory. “Here’s how I’m going to beat you,” she says. “I’m going to outwork you. That’s it.” And any team that plays Tennessee knows that’s usually what happens–they just flat get outworked on the court.

Now here is a photograph of the Obama headquarters in my district last Saturday. There is a line–out the door–of people waiting to get their canvas packages.

I have never seen people work this hard for any candidate. And, like Pat Summit, I believe all that hard work is going to pay off.

From The New York Times:

“Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.”

That’s how Garrison Keillor describes a certain Tina Fey lookalike. “If you want inexperience,” he concludes, “there were better choices.”

“You can learn a lot,” Yogi Berra once pointed out, “by just watching.” And by just watching this site, I learned from my co-blogger that today is a Big Day in the Pirate-talking world. So Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day.

. . . but if so, it’s worth watching again:

You’re standing in the grocery store aisle, trying to decide which brand of laundry detergent to buy. How can you make the choice that will be best for the environment? Check out the ratings on Good Guide.

Increasingly, all of us want to know about the impact of the products we buy–on our health, on the environment, on society. But, as Good Guides says, “Unless you’ve got a Ph.D, it is almost impossible to find out the impacts of the products you buy. Until now…”

Good Guides will offer you information you can use as you make buying decisions. You can even create your own personalized shopping list.

Bob’s at the Pentagon dedication of the memorial. I’m on my way to a church service at the church where first responders came for solace after their shifts were finished. Here in our part of the world, September 11 still brings back a rush of painful memories.

We’ll follow the example of the two national campaigns and get back to politics tomorrow.

Today, we’ll remember the senseless acts of violence that cut short too many lives.

Despite having a “D” or an “R” after their name.

That was true for Terrie Suit and me. We came in together in 1999–the only two women in our class. And, as the other members of our class were defeated or retired, we remained the Last Two Standing. (Albert Pollard, also a member of the Class of 1999, took a little sabbatical but has returned.)

We didn’t always agree. In fact, we passionately disagreed about issues large and small. But we liked each other. We talked to each other. And I like to think that on occasion, we might have made the wheels of democracy move a little more smoothly.

She strongly supported her party. I strongly supported mine. But we also strongly believed that sometimes we could put partisanship aside and try to work for Virginia.

I wish her luck in her new endeavor.

. . . but this sounds right to me.