• Giuliani’s speech last night, which involved getting the crowd to shout “Drill baby drill,” was one of the slimiest speeches I think I’ve ever seen at a convention, laced with disingenuous fabrications rightly pointed out by Slate‘s Fred Kaplan. Wet Asphalt’s J.F. Quackenbush brings this characterization to Palin’s speech. But I thought Palin’s speech was better than expected, even if her barbs directed at Obama reminded me less of a vice presidential candidate (or even a hockey mom who likes to censor books) and more of a human resources manager scolding you for taking too much vacation time. Make no mistake: this was a circus. And I suppose we should be grateful that this crew played the 9/11 card sparingly. But Palin offered almost nothing on policy, few ideas, and little outside of Alaska grandstanding. We don’t know more than we knew before. And while one expects a surfeit of rhetoric at these affairs, if the Republicans can’t be bothered to frame their message within an action plan, then they have a serious case for “change” they they will need to make to the American public. Unless, of course, they think that the American public represents nothing more than a bunch of rubes. We’ll see what the polls say. But in the meantime, Joanne has more interesting observations.
• This morning, New York Sun editor Seth Lipsky announced that the newspaper may cease publication at the end of September because of lack of financial backing. In light of the fact that, for all of its tendentious faults, the Sun still runs a fairly comprehensive books section, this is certainly bad news for long-form reviews. (via Sarah)
• As widely noted, a new issues of The Quarterly Conversation is out.
• Hot on the heels of Tod Goldberg’s tie-in article, SF Signal has queried a number of people on the subject. (via Andrew Wheeler)
• New science: Daydreaming is essential to the human mind.
• RIP Bill Melendez.
• Writers on the rocks / Ain’t no surprise / Pour them a drink / And they’ll run to their lies / Got something to lose / So they just write the sober blues all the time (via Booklist)
• More bad news for Random House: Frank Warren has accepted £115,000 in libel damages.
• Thomas Frank on Norman Mailer’s Miami and the Siege of Chicago and political writing. (via Bookninja)
• The 50 greatest arts videos on YouTube. (Saw this earlier, but forgot to link to it. Hat tip to C-Monster for the reminder.)
• Yeah, who did vet Giuliani’s speech anyway?
• Early Word is tracking People book coverage on a weekly basis so that you can avoid a trip to the newsstand.
• The Publishing Contrarian takes on book covers.
• Finally, I do so love mikes that happen to be left on.

© 2008, Edward Champion. All rights reserved.