When reporters from Fox 5 stopped by the McCain-Palin headquarters today, they were excited to find BlackBerry phones being sold for $20 each. Because the phones came with dead batteries and no chargers, it was only after the reporters had returned to their office and had charged the phones when they realized what $20 actually bought them.

Hundreds of e-mails from early September through early November, and more than 50 phone numbers—including private cell phone numbers belonging to politicians, campaign leaders and journalists—had been left on one of the BlackBerry phones. Whoops! Not to worry though—after the McCain-Palin campaign had been notified, they assured everyone that procedures were being carried out to fix the situation. [MyFox]

To make matters worse for McCain, Thompson points out that France, the scourge of Republicans and veterans alike, now has broadband that's four times as fast—and half the price!

Admittedly, there's a bit of fuzzy matching required to join McCain's vehement opposition to the 1996 Telecommuncations Act and his subsequent statutory castration of its powers with the slow increase of our cable modem's actual download speed. However, there's no disputing the fact that McCain has done nothing to grow broadband penetration. (Even that comedic allegation that he helped invent the BlackBerry doesn't do anything to support any kind of breaching of the digital divide.)

In fairness to anyone who thinks we're reporting this lopsidedly, we have previously shared reports about Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden's opposition to net-neutrality legislation, and his Hollywood-backed war against citizen-pirates. And the reason we haven't discussed Sarah Palin's stance is simple—she's a clean slate, baby. Not a word on any of this.

But as you might imagine, Thompson uses his main point—McCain's consistent and ongoing hampering of the kinds of technological innovation that are commonplace in other countries—as a good reason to repeat what we have also recorded on Giz, that Barack Obama's attention to these matters will not be so blas&#233, that in fact he has interesting ideas, not just that America needs a cabinet-level CTO or that there should be true neutrality on the internet, but that, for instance, rural-phone subsidies are used to provide rural broadband (which would basically includes free phone service anyway).

Thompson makes the point that Silicon Valley has gone O, saying that 555 employees of Google have donated to Obama, compared to 26 for McCain. He says the market freedom that McCain wants is "freedom for his country to fall further and further behind as AT&T and the other telecom leviathans sit back, ignoring your customer service calls and just watching the $90 monthly checks roll in." That's harsh, Nick, but it also sounds pretty damn accurate. [Washington Monthly]

The question was: Where did you meet your spouse? A fact that is readily available in the now flooded stream of Palin info on the web—they met in high school, and that's all it took to start the shitstorm. The 4chan post also further illustrates that the whole thing was done by someone well over their head:

yes I was behind a proxy, only one, if this shit ever got to the FBI I was fucked, I panicked, i still wanted the stuff out there but I didn’t know how to rapidshit all that stuff, so I posted the pass on /b/, and then promptly deleted everything, and unplugged my internet and just sat there in a comatose state

Read the complete post over at Wired, and pick up an excellent primer to making sure your email and other online accounts are as secure as possible with this great guide by our friends at Lifehacker. [Threat Level, Lifehacker]

When Todd placed McCain and Obama bobblehead dolls on the Surface, the national map would change colors to show each candidate's specific chances. Put on the Obama bobblehead, and the map turns varying shades of blue. Use McCain, and it turns red. Then he turned Dark Helmet and made the bobbleheads fight each other, revealing the true reason he ordered them up in the first place. The off-screen newswoman didn't seem too impressed, quipping, "Now the five-year-olds are glued to the television," but I'm 22, so the joke's on her! [MSNBC]