This Slate podcast is brought to you by Bing.com, the search engine that helps you make everyday decisions with the help of your friends.

Now, what your friends like on Facebook is in your search results on Bing.

Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest for the 22nd of July, Friday.

I'm John Dickerson, joined by Dave Weigel here in Washington, and Emily Bazelon, is up in New Haven.

We're sad to report that our colleague, David Plotz, is not with us.

The tubing incident that he talked about.

But we're happy to report he's still alive, which we were a little worried about earlier in the week. The tubing incident that caused the staff infection has caused basically a roller coaster of illness and recovery since David mentioned that. And so he is on the downward slope. The tubing gods are taking their revenge. But David is, David is vindicated in his loathing of tubing.

That's right.

He certainly is not going tubing anymore.

I'm never going tubing again after this.

Yeah.

I just don't take the risk of another Dave going tubing.

It's not a good pattern.

We're going to wash down all of the furniture in the office as well in case it's

somehow contagious. So today we're going to talk about the ongoing negotiations over raising

the debtors. Wait, did you say that Dave Weigel is with us? I did say Dave Wagell is with us.

He did. Okay. Hence his joke about another Dave going tubing.

All right. I just missed. People are just now recovering from.

So we're going to talk about the debt ceiling and lifting the debt ceiling, which is such a

moving picture that it's probably going to change even in the course of our conversation

here. We'll talk about the 2012 Republican field, and particularly we'll start off

with that with Michelle Bachman and news this week of her migraines, which may or may not be debilitating.

...