Oh, sure, the financial system as we know it is collapsing like cheap perfume, and Rock Band 2 might be the best Rock Band since Rock Band 1, but no story is outgunning the Sarah Palin news cycle as it roars down the highway through the American psyche (in the carpool lane, of course). Says The Trail: she's an "online political earthquake," with 130,000 related videos on YouTube, more Wikipedia views than Michael Phelps, and countless blog posts. Those who aren't interpreting Palin's image in their own predisposed minds are doing so with Photoshop (as seen in Mediashift Idea Lab's PG-rated gallery).

Fashionistas are casting elevator eyes from her head down to her toes. Gawker checks the roots of the Luv Guv's "iconoclastic updo," while Palin's $375 rimless eyeglasses by Kazuo Kawasaki "have flown off the shelves and are on back order," reports Marketing Pragmatist. Knockoffs of her specs and her hairdo are hot. Celebrity-shoe-fetish site The Daily Pump reports on her ruby slippers--they're Naughty Monkey's "Double Dare" pumps (see here). And let's not even get into the lipstick. Or the Halloween costume (courtesy of Creepy Los Angeles). It all makes sense, observes Venus in Combat Boots: "the nomination of Sarah Palin is kinda like buying a new pair of shoes to spice up a boring wardrobe: They're super cute and fun at first, but after awhile your feet start to hurt." More seriously, Amy Wilson looked at Yahoo's Palin photo slideshow and concuded "these pictures...tell us so much about the expectations that we place on women in our culture."

In sports, a video has emerged of Palin as a 24-year-old TV sports anchor at KTUU in Anchorage, complete with a pre-updo 1988 mullet and (even back then) a refusal to say the letter "g" at the end of words like "shootin" and "hittin." Says Deadspin: "If McCain wins, we will have the only Vice President who has once given Iditarod highlights." Dearsportsmom.com celebrates hockey mom Palin as "one of our own," and Youth Sports Parents hopes her candidacy will elevate the issue of youth sports in the national debate (first topic: banning the parents). Non-sports parenting blogs are using Palin's momitude to explore issues in working motherhood.

Yes, everyone wants a connection--literally for the prank/hacker group "Anonymous," which hacked into Palin's personal email and posted messages online, where sites such as Inquisitr reluctantly display them (with sober disclaimers like The Inquisitr does not condone email hacking.). "Serves you right for using Yahoo mail," quips Digital Daily. Cloud Ave. notes that the mail break-in could be seen as an argument against keeping important data online but reasons that it's really an issue of password security. The messages are mostly personal matters but include some government affairs (a draft of an email to Governor Schwarzenegger!), says Technologizer. Concerns about the legality of the "shadowy" email account seem to have blown over.

And, let's not forget the politics. At a Town Hall event this week with John McCain in Michigan, Palin took questions from the public for the first time, though Fox News Embed says the event was pre-ticketed. The Caucus blog says Palin "showed herself to be a crowd-pleaser" (duh). ABC News Political Radar notes that McCain seemed happy to have Palin jump in, "notably on energy issues, which McCain's campaign has been promoting as her strong suit." Political Animal notes that when Gov. Palin was asked about her "perceived lack of foreign policy experience,'' she responded without specifics but an invitation for people to challenge her grasp of global facts and play "stump the candidate." She may want to get fitted for a stronger suit for the next time that one comes up.