Starbucking for an Emmy.

“Many of you are already fans. Some of you urged us to watch the show at the very beginning. We know you’ll clutch this golden Buffy to your bosom with pride. But others of you — and we’re addressing you, Emmy voters, directly here — ignore us like the petulant little pills you are.” Salon chooses Battlestar Galactica as the recipient of its third annual Buffy award for the most underappreciated show on television. (And, in case you have any doubts about the selection committee, they also had the sense to pick The Wire the first time around.)

George the Revelator.

He’s a smooth operator, it’s time we cut him down to size. The indignities of dial-up being what they are, I have yet to see the whole thing. Still, this Monty Python-ish and Dubya’ed up remix video for Depeche Mode’s version of “John the Revelator” seems worth a look-see, DM fan or no. Update: Thanks to a brief and random wireless connection, I watched it all. (Poor Tony Blair.) Ok, the Revelations bit at the end is a bit shrill, and Afghanistan is not Iraq, but I did like the crusader outfit and particularly the 7x7x7 cube of lies.

The Republicans’ Wage War.

“[W]ages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation’s gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947, while corporate profits have climbed to their highest share since the 1960’s.” An examination of the economy by the NYT reveals the bitter fruit of Dubyanomics for 90% of the nation: “At the very top of the income spectrum, many workers have continued to receive raises that outpace inflation, and the gains have been large enough to keep average income and consumer spending rising…[but e]ven for workers at the 90th percentile of earners — making about $80,000 a year — inflation has outpaced their pay increases over the last three years, according to the Labor Department.

Dubyamesticated.

“He’s no longer offering himself as the alternative to Bush. Now he’s positioned himself as Bush’s heir, a turnaround that makes some people, including McCain sometimes, more than a little uncomfortable.” In their Sunday magazine, the WP surveys the sad primary-induced transformation of John McCain from mythical maverick to Dubya stalwart.

Internal Armitage.

“He was basically beside himself that he was the guy that f—ed up. My sense from Rich is that it was just chitchat.” A new book by Newsweek‘s Mike Isikoff and The Nation‘s David Corn outs former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, a moderate by Dubya administration standards, as the man who leaked Valerie Plame’s name to Bobs Novak and Woodward. (Woodward’s former boss, Ben Bradlee, telegraphed as much in March.) “Armitage, a well-known gossip who loves to dish and receive juicy tidbits about Washington characters, apparently hadn’t thought through the possible implications of telling Novak about Plame’s identity. ‘I’m afraid I may be the guy that caused this whole thing,’ he later told Carl Ford Jr., State’s intelligence chief.

Sold under Sin.

“The closing shot of last night’s ‘Deadwood’ episode was never meant as a series-ender. But that’s what it was, and for a number of reasons, it was both appropriate and troubling: Ian McShane’s Al Swearengen kneeling on the floor of his office, cleaning up a bloodstain.” Notwithstanding two stopgap two-hour movies (bleah), Deadwood rides off into the sunset, joining Arrested Development, Twin Peaks, Freaks & Geeks, Farscape, and countless others in that graveyard on the hill for shows done in before their time. (I actually haven’t caught the last episode yet, being here in Hawaii, but chose not to avoid the spoilers nonetheless.) “From the odd quirks of its language to the vivid scrappiness of its setting to the undeniable soul at its core, there will never be another place quite like Deadwood.” Happy trails, [expletive deleted].

Pre-Modern Balladeer.

What we do understand, if we’re listening, is that we’re three albums into a Dylan renaissance that’s sounding more and more like a period to put beside any in his work. If, beginning with Bringing It All Back Home, Dylan garbed his amphetamine visions in the gloriously grungy clothes of the electric blues and early rock & roll, the musical glories of these three records are grounded in a knowledge of the blues built from the inside out…Dylan offers us nourishment from the root cellar of American cultural life. For an amnesiac society, that’s arguably as mind-expanding an offering as anything in his Sixties work. And with each succeeding record, Dylan’s convergence with his muses grows more effortlessly natural.” In the new Rolling Stone and on the eve of Modern Times (due out this Tuesday), author Jonathan Lethem interviews Bob Dylan. (Via Ed Rants.)