After weeks of wrangling, Wired had finally gotten commitments from high-level surrogates from both the Obama and McCain campaigns to participate in a debate about technology yesterday afternoon. So how did it go? It didn't. The McCain campaign cancelled a few hours before the event, with no plans to reschedule. While McCain's personal indifference to technology , difficult-to-defend tech policies, personal vendettas and general oldness all come to mind as reasons for this decision, more likely than not they just didn't see this as the most effective way to, you know, win. Oh well. [Wired Epicenter — Thanks, Nick and JosephGerardi1]

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During the last debate, we caught CNN analyst Jeffrey Toobin watching a live feed of playoff baseball while on the air on his laptop. Tonight's debate? Facebook. Either he's messing with us (are you messing with us, Toobs?), or he's really good at multitasking and really bad at being discrete. Either way, that's some fine reporting. Also: I just added him as friend on Facebook. Approve my friend request, Toobs! [David Cho]

Tonight is the final part of the talent portion of the Mr. President 2008 pageant, which I've been reading is like the most important one in our lifetime or something, but I think they say about that about all of them. Regardless, if you're stuck at your computer and can't get to a TV, don't worry, you don't have to miss this momentous occasion, the final talking points battle between good and evil (which is which is up to you). Feel free to get political and talk about the debate in the comments, but be civil, or we'll splatter your head with the Maverick Banhammer of Hope. Here's everywhere you can watch it go down live online.

AU: Some of these won't work for us Aussies, but some will, if you're keen to follow who K-Rudd will be sucking up to come 2009...

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Whereas a live online stream of the first presidential debate was a bit harder to pin down, our pick for tonight's at 9PM Eastern is Hulu. Its live stream of the final two presidential debates is actually Hulu's first ever live broadcast, which is something they might do more of following the debates. (Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it'll be in HD.) But there are, of course, other options.

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Chris Matthews and the CNBC crew did their best to report last night's vice presidential debate between Biden and Palin, but it appears that a rogue squadron of mavericks was able to sneak into the shot with a VP write-in of their own. I can't speak for anyone else here, but if an internet meme gets elected to office, I'm so moving to Canada—for real this time. [Fark]

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Even if politics and Presidential debates bore you to the point where you need to nap like a 72-year-old, credit is still due to C-SPAN for making the whole process slightly more interesting with its ambitious Debate Hub. The social media-packed, live-blogging saturated, video clip bonanza, pulls content from a variety of sources—including YouTube, ADD microblogging tool Twitter, and C-SPAN's spin-free video coverage—and crams it all into a clean little web page. At the conclusion of each debate, C-SPAN guarantees to have all video clips linked to the official transcript, as well as a tag cloud detailing each debate's central themes. Dare I say it, this could be the future of covering live events. It's liveblogging, on steroids!

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Tonight at 9pm ET the first debate between John McCain and Barack Obama takes place. In the interest of keeping political discussion alive in America, here's a link to CBS, where we know the debate will be streamed live, at least within the US. Here's a link to NBC, which hosts much debate-related video, but doesn't quite say outright that it'll be streaming live. ABC also has a link to election coverage, but they don't seem to say much about this streaming video thing at all. Watch, discuss, get excited or pissed off. If the network's commentary is too vanilla-bean for your uppity self—or if your sorry arse is out of the country and blackballed from US video service—hit up Gawker's liveblog of the debates. When you've had enough of democracy in action, come back here for your fill of Lego Millennium Falcons, boob-related iPhone apps and other timeless objets du awesome. [Gawker]

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