The Bash-ville in Nashville, hey, that rhymes and doesn't make sense, you guys: John Sidney McCain and Barack Dumplin' Obama will engage in a public argument tonight via the most ill-conceived pseudo-debate format ever developed by campaign strategists. The only people who hold "town hall meetings" are candidates running for president and the Mayberry City Council, whenever they want to gauge public support for a new Cordish Co. entertainment douchetorium like the one they built up in Mt. Pilot.

But political strategists have crunched the numbers and decided you guys like hearing obese, smelly reg'lar 'mericans ask the candidates whut they'll do wunst they git up there to Worshington Deesee. HAHA, that's my elitist impression of Y'ALL, and I don't even have to preface it with, "If y'all worked at Burger King, I think it would go something like this," because you just handed me me my meatless Croissan'wich and Cheesy Tots if I am not mistaken. Aw, I'm just kidding, you guys, you're pretty and literally the smartest and you totally make six figures for displaying your awesome glutes and pecs at various trade shows, is how awesome you are. I will totally poke you on Facebook later.

Tonight's debate in Nashville comes amid Obama's rise in the polls among previously undecided moderates, so to appeal to those moderates, McCain and all of his surrogates are going around reminding people that Obama personally hijacked and flew his airplanes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, where Obama leads McCain 54 to 39 percent according to Quinnipiac. Because if there's one thing that appeals to moderates, it's xenophobia and racism, you guys, it's like catnip for the average moderate voter who is also the Grand Wizard of a Klavern in Alabama and likes sniffing the racist catnip. So, great strategy, there, I totally want Steve Schmidt to run my stunt campaign when I run for President of Racism.

To that end, the Pennsylvania GOP put out a press release calling Obama "a terrorist's best friend." John Sidney McCain's surrogates have gone back to saying "Barack Hussein Obama" a lot. In the last three days, the whole McCain campaign has turned into one of those racist emails in HTML format with giant red letters that old people like to forward to their whole address book. Soon, Barack Obama will be president, and those racist old people will begin their migration to wherever it is old racists go to die, and I'll be able to delete about twelve custom filters from my Gmail profile.

Substance-free travel writing: What with our radioactive economic meltdown, crumbling infrastructure and disease-ridden population, the United States has pretty much turned into exciting, Parkour-based District 13, only with less Parkour and more Rascal-riding obesity. Now that we live in a third world country with our open sewers and hardscrabble oxen-based agrarian economy, it's good to take a look at the first world, Dubai, to see who we'll be slinging the Islamic equivalent of vegetarian enchiladas for on the third shift at Ghazwan's Islamic Organic Mexican Bruncheonette or whatever.

Ten years ago, our oil-rich future Islamic overlords decided to dump all their dollars by giving them to space architects from the future. They're not literally from the future, because that would involve time travel and therefore be impossible, not to mention immoral if they haven't already gone back in time and stopped the parents of Hitler and also the respective parents of Bob Seger and Kevin Smith from ever meeting and "making love." But clearly they're the kind of futuristic people who ride around on recumbent bicycles, own solar panels and probably eat the neopolitan "astronaut ice cream" or something. Anyway, they set out to design an Islamic futuretown that resembles some kind of sterile, soulless Syd Mead painting:

Also, Daily Briefs looks like this on the Dubai internet:

Which, what the eff? I think I'm as reverential about Vishnu or whatever as the next ignorant Western atheist. Here are some study questions: Would you like to visit the Burj al-Arab Hotel? Would you order room service? Do you think Dubai looks like a shinier Bladerunner? Do you think it's as nice on the inside as it is on the outside? Do you wish the space architects would "manscape" the United States? Why or why not? How did Encyclopedia Brown know that Bugs Meany was lying about thirty-year Dubai oil production estimates? Turn your monitor upside-down for the answer:

˙sɹɐǝʎ ʎʇuǝʍʇ uı pǝʇsnɐɥxǝ ǝq oʇ pǝʇɔǝdxǝ ǝɹɐ puɐ ʎlʇuɐɔıɟıuƃıs pǝɥsıuıɯıp ǝʌɐɥ sǝʌɹǝsǝɹ lıo s,ıɐqnp puɐ sǝnuǝʌǝɹ s,ǝʇɐɹıɯǝ ǝɥʇ ɟo ʇuǝɔɹǝd 6 uɐɥʇ ssǝl ɹoɟ ʇunoɔɔɐ ʎlʇuǝɹɹnɔ sɐƃ lɐɹnʇɐu puɐ lıo ɯoɹɟ sǝnuǝʌǝɹ ǝsnɐɔǝq ƃuıʎl sɐʍ ʎuɐǝɯ sƃnq ʍǝuʞ uʍoɹq ɐıpǝdolɔʎɔuǝ