This is the best news of the week! Sad-sack boomer troubadour Jackson Browne—Jackson Browne!—is suing John McCain. Why? Because McCain has been using "Running on Empty" in an ad without Browne's permission. Browne says McCain's use of the song misrepresents Browne's own political beliefs, not to mention McCain's age: the senator was pushing 30 in '65, not 17. Not since Loudon Wainwright sued Walter Mondale ETC ETC ETC [HuffPo]

The Wall Street Journal got an advance look at the Republican candidate's proposals for supporting U.S. technology. After picking through the article to figure out exactly where he stands on what, we gave it the 100-word treatment:John McCain will unveil a technology agenda that bundles previously announced pro-business proposals with continued support for a hands-off approach to regulation.

The Times published two amazing corrections this morning, starting with one stating that the newspaper had erroneously called Republican presidential candidate John McCain a "fighter pilot" on Sunday and in "numerous other Times articles the past dozen years." Wow, a correction that spans more than a decade! When McCain was famously shot down over Vietnam, he was flying his usual plane, a small jet aircraft known as the A-4 Skyhawk, which the Times now refers to as an "attack aircraft." That's a safe and widely-agreed upon label for the plane pilots dubbed "Scooter" (heh), but the newspaper needn't have apologized for calling it a "fighter." Many in the aviation community regard it as precisely that, starting with the military's most famous training program, Top Gun.

This link to a ridiculously slanted Russian news story about the war in Georgia has 1,194 Diggs, but please don't pay it any mind. Pravda.ru is a joke, a web-only repository of mistranslated hilarity and boob pictures unrelated to any print publication. Russian newspapers can still be oppositional and independent—it's the TV Putin controls. We should probably worry less about wacky Engrish propaganda and more about the return of the Cold War! Russia's intention just might be to actually topple the democratically elected, adorably pro-American government of Georgia. (They say they won't go to Tbilisi, but they also said that about Gori!) George W. Bush's intention is to not get involved and hope a ceasefire happens soon. That funny little dance he did is not so cute anymore! If it spreads to Ukraine, what then? NATO gets involved at some point. That's a big problem. A big problem called the Cold War! Then what? Then we get President McCain. Because he's still stuck in the Cold War. And Obama dithered and hemmed and hawed in his response to this mess, while McCain said he would personally go to Moscow and deck that paper-hanging sonuvabitch Putin (more or less). Which is dangerous crazy rhetoric. And what does America like to hear during times of international instability in far-off places? Dangerous crazy rhetoric! Also fun to ponder right now: Russia's growing friendship with Iran, Georgia's oil reserves. Surprisingly, Dealbreaker of all things has a terribly informative roundtable on the entire situation that will allow you to sound reasonably intelligent at a cocktail party until you finish your third cocktail and find yourself unable to pronounce any of the names involved. And finally, if the John Edwards scandal had been reported on by the MSM back in 2007, none of this would've happened.

Kinda spooky crane shots through futuristic windfarms are the new adorable little girls sleeping at 3 a.m.. Or puppies, maybe. Both Barack Obama and John McCain used the same damn shot in recent ads, suggesting that their energy policies are both based on pissing off Ted Kennedy and his neighbors. They really ought to have someone vet stock footage, right? Our own Richard Blakeley spotted the matching footage and put together the damning clip that will swing this election to Ron Paul. Paul only uses fiercely independent stock footage the mainstream media are too scared to show you.

Some things are simply too fragile for this world, and so it goes with our newfound toleration for Paris Hilton. After building up unexpected goodwill with her on-point McCain rebuttal, Hilton has immediately moved to quash the memory of those kudos with a mercenary cash grab: she's rushing out a line of "Paris for President" T-shirts (to be sold exclusively at Kitson, natch). E's Marc Malkin has more on this flagrant abuse of the campaign finance system:

The Obama and McCain campaigns have released lists of their biggest bundlers, the 98 people who have helped raise more than $500,000 for the two presidential candidates so far. There are nearly 20 residents of the tristate region on the list, although McCain has a significant local advantage—12 people versus Obama's four. See the names and details for yourself after the jump.

Yesterday the Washington Post reported an odd and sort of complex story about "bundlers" raising money for John McCain. The gist: the biggest of these bundlers net GOP candidates huge donations from weirdos and losers who often have never even voted before. The almost-accusation: the bundlers are funneling their own cash to the candidates via third parties, which is illegal. Clinton donor Norman Hsu got in trouble for this. One small problem-the most unlikely of these donations went to Giuliani and Clinton, not McCain. The Post's lede and photo implicated McCain. Correction time! "Those donors — Rite Aid manager Ibrahim Marabeh, and lounge owners Nadia and Shawn Abdalla — wrote checks to Giuliani and Clinton, not McCain." Oh, but here's the important part: Ana Marie Cox found Nadia and Shawn Abdalla's lounge's MySpace page (watch out for the [AWESOME] song!) and it's AWESOME. We're just going to reprint their entire "About Me" section after the jump, because it's great.

John McCain's been hammering home his "Obama's a celebrity" angle for weeks now. The not-so-hidden message behind those ads is an old and effective one-Obama is the candidate of Europeans and Hollywood nutjobs. Get it? Now Democrats are upset that Obama's not fighting back hard enough. Meanwhile, the polls remain infuriatingly even. Attached, a graph of InTrade market predictions closing prices for Obama over the last couple months, measuring how likely an Obama victory is. As you can see, the polls are nearing a statistical tie but Obama's still the odds-on favorite to win. Here's the thing, though-nothing that happens in the campaigns between now and the conventions means a damn thing. We're in stasis. Silly season. It's media Groundhog Day, replaying and debating the same stories and narratives over and over again. Sometimes they'll switch the players around-now McCain's on top! But we're still in the post-primaries hangover. Once that campaign finally ended, Obama got his requisite little bump and then things evened back out. But the campaign stories now are just an excuse to pass the time. The citizens who care about politics were already energized by the primaries. As those dragged on, the likely voters all made up their minds. The undecideds and uninformed maybe grew briefly interested or invested, but by the end they were burned out. The campaigns they don't want to energize everyone again until the final leg of the battle, so for the most part they're treading water (Obama) or just throwing shit out to see what sticks (McCain). The majority of Americans, even the ones who probably will vote this year, are not going to pay attention again until the conventions provide something interesting to look at. Those of us who are still obsessing over every little campaign detail are just torturing ourselves. The polls will remain in stasis until Denver and St. Paul, then we get to actually see where this godforsaken nation is heading. In the meantime, enjoy your stupid Paris Hilton videos and tire gauges and trips to Sturgis and surprisingly pleasant Entertainment Weekly interviews (McCain loves Viva Zapata, the forgotten Elia Kazan/Marlon Brando collaboration. Obama says Shrek 3 was "not as good at the original.").

An Atlanta actuarial firm "which specializes in morbidity and mortality calculations" gives John McCain "a 'healthy expectancy' of 8.4 years, taking into account his four bouts with melanoma of the skin." As for Barack, he can "expect 21.9 years of good health—a forecast shortened by 10 percent or so by his history of cigarette smoking." (Oh, and as you probably suspect, this fave photo of right-wing bloggers isn't real.) [AJC]

Remember how John McCain mocked Barack Obama by comparing the Democratic presidential candidate to Paris Hilton, implying both of them were vapid celebrities and royally pissing off Hilton's McCain-bankrolling family? It turns out Paris has a sense of humor about the whole thing, and made an actually-pretty-funny video about it for Will Ferrell's Funny Or Die. It's after the jump. And it's funny because Hilton implies she has a sophisticated knowledge of an important geopolitical issue LOL! Also, protocelebrities take note: This is a example of how you take some mildly negative PR and spin it so masterfully your image ends up better polished than ever.

First we were forced to give reluctant props to reality wannabe Khloe Kardashian, and now this: Paris Hilton has starred in a new video rebutting John McCain's "Celeb" ad, and it's...sigh, not that bad. Sure, we can give the lion's share of credit to writer Adam McKay (though he didn't help Step Brothers any), but the dim-bulb heiress totally nails her lines, forcing our grudging admiration. Just one bit of advice, Paris: though your proposed energy plan is intriguing, you'd better stay away from Tyra as VP.

It seems Jews prefer John McCain over Barack Obama—at least the ones in the market for silly, politically-themed yarmulkes. In that enormously relevant demo, McCain beats Obama 56 percent to 44 percent. [NYDN]

Remember that story in the Wall Street Journal last week about how maybe elite Barack Obama was too skinny for lardy everyday Americans? Sure you do, it was a total water cooler piece and we all ate it up like the obese news gluttons that we are. It had great details, like how the Democratic presidential candidate drinks Black Forest Berry Honest Tea, and great quotes, like that one Clinton supporter who said "I won't vote for any beanpole guy," LOL. Well, it turns out that "beanpole quote" came from a sort-of jokey anonymous reply to a message board topic the Journal reporter herself created, and was the only remotely quotable line in that thread. And the Berry Honest Tea detail originated in a memo put out by Obama rival John McCain's campaign manager. Whoops! Today's it's correction time:

Our old friend Monty got a shout-out tonight on the Colbert Report. Not only did this illustrate that his story has made that critical third leap — from blog to cable news to cable fake news — the segment also surfaced a highly plausible new theory as to what Earthly form Monty took before he became a demon hellspawn. Kiss the dog, raccoon, pig and vole theories goodbye! Click the video icon to view.

John McCain's feud with the New York Times is sometimes blamed on the newspaper's humiliating demand for a rewrite of an op-ed piece he had written or the February scoop on the Republican nominee's relationship with a female lobbyist. One could attribute the campaign's petty digs at the newspaper's business woes to the candidate's Scots-Irish irascibility or to the cannier calculation by McCain's new aides that an attack on the liberal media is a reliable way to stimulate an otherwise lethargic base. But there's one point the pundits have missed: McCain's grumbling morning reading of the Times reveals more about his age than any other characteristic.

If there's one class of people that consistently draws the ire of the Republican party, it's celebrities. Perhaps mindful of the fact that all the cool kids in Hollywood vote Democrat, the GOP is forever on the attack against celebrities, their political views, and all they represent, and John McCain's attention-getting "Celebrity" ad is just the latest example. Yessir, there's nothing the Republican party hates more than celebrities.

Just as we suspected, the Hilton family is pretty pissed they donated money to John McCain only to have him make their little Paris out to be some kind of trivial celebutard in an anti-Obama attack ad. Between Paris Hilton's parents and her grandpa, the family has donated close to $60,000 to McCain and a Republican party senate fund over the past few years. And yet they apparently got zero corrupting influence in return! What's the point of even being a Republican plutocrat? The Hilton patriarch has dispatched a series of angry telegrams to McCain headquarters demanding answers:

A clearly flailing John McCain has just released his new Obama attack ad and boy, is it a doozy! Employing a risky "Obama is awesome...but is he too awesome?" strategy that seems designed to fail, McCain calls Obama "the biggest celebrity in the world" (because if there's one thing America hates, it's celebrities) and plays footage of Obama's massive rallies and beatific smile that could have come from an Obama b-roll itself. The only signs that something is amiss are the split-second shots of Britney and Paris spliced into the ad — inclusions that have baffled the reps for both washed-up celebutantes. Says the Huffington Post:

• People may have won the bidding war for the first photos of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's twins. Total cost: $10 to $15 million. Reportedly. [JustJared]