Whether or Not She's 82

This blogger has a point:

http://margaretandhelen.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/bitch-there-i-said-it/

"Sarah Palin Is A Bitch...There, I Said It"

"Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?

Well it’s NOT you girl…

Look. I am going to say what everyone at CNN, CBS, ABC and NBC is thinking but is afraid to say. Governor Palin is a stupid, conniving bitch. And it’s not because she is a strong woman - I like strong women… worship them… It’s actually the opposite. She is a weak, pathetic woman who thinks big hair, winking, baby talk and self deprecation is somehow becoming of a woman who wants to lead the free world. My god, where is Margaret Thatcher when you need her!

But what really makes me mad is the hypocrisy. She claims to be a Washington outsider and yet is the worst kind of politician. She will say anything and avoid answering any question instead choosing to spout whatever line or soundbite some adviser put into her mouth a few hours earlier. And exactly when did sounding like a hick make someone “more like us”. Last time I checked we were a country striving to educate our children to be intelligent and honest. I think I would die if my daughter came home from school and said something like “I gotta tell ya. Change is a comin’.” At the very least I would remove the Beverly Hillbillies from her approved TV viewing list.

And then there is Alaska. Have any of you been to Alaska recently? Although the largest State geographically, it has less than a million people - about 700,000. (The city I live in now is bigger. )Fewer population issues exist for lawmakers to address. And because they make so much money from the oil companies, the Alaskan government actually gives it citizens an annual dividend check (this year $3,200). Exactly what Governor wouldn’t be popular under those circumstances? No wonder they can afford to elect a governor who ony has an undergraduate degree in journalism and a few beauty pageant awards. By the way, when you got that journalism degree did they teach you that some journalists actually ask hard questions like what newpapers do you read?

Fact: Sarah Palin is stupid. Maybe not stupid by Alabama standards but stupid enough that she managed to get herself elected Governor while never bothering to educate herself on little things like the Constitution, foriegn affairs or appropriate debating practices. She is stupid enough to have accepted a VP nomination for which she is completely unqualified and stupid enough not to admit it - even though the future of our great nation could be irreversibly damaged by the decision.

When exactly do we all get to call “bullshit”?

She loves to talk about being a mother but the last time I checked, having your newborn on national TV at 11PM instead of in bed wasn’t considered “good muthering“. Neither was making your child’s unexpected teen pregnancy the talk of the nation because you desperately wanted to be a politician in Washington DC - or isn’t that exactly what you said you didn’t want. From where I sit, it appears you would sell your soul for the position. Kind of the way that Elisabeth girl on The View sold her soul for fame. Please god get her off the airwaves - she became famous because she ate a rat… but I digress…

Oh and my favorite - my husband Todd (the first dude) and I sit around the kitchen table wondering about the cost of college like many of you… oh really. Your oldest son went from high school into the military. Your next oldest is pregnant with plans to be married to some hockey jock at age 17. Seems to me you’ve got lots of time before you have to worry about college tuition especially being college doesn’t seem to be a priority in your family.

You refuse to give live interviews and then whine when your taped interviews get edited. Then you have a chance to be live in front of the nation during a debate and you respond by not answering the questions (proudly not answering the questions I might add) but rather by reading the cue cards given to you by a group of white old men who sold their souls to the political system when you were in…. I don’t know - 2nd grade maybe. Your insulting to a United States Senator who is so respected that his home state has elected him to office 6 times. And while I am on the subject of the debate - shame on Gwen Ifell for not making her answer the questions. Damn I miss Tim Russert.

Sarah Palin is an ignorant, ranting, whining bitch. There I said it. But lots more are thinking it.

Please take your ridiculous hair, your over lipstick-smacking mouth, your Lenscrafter look smarter glasses and your poorly fitted designer jackets back to Alaska. And when you get there, shove a piece of the pipeline up your considerable ass. I’ll be damned if we’ll put our children’s future in your hands. And the same thing goes for McCain - the ass wipe who gave her this national platform effectively pushing the woman’s movement back into the dark ages - knowing McCain that might have been his plan all along."

Just Thinking,

OK...I know it's a little one-sided, but it made me LOL

Just Thinking,

A funny little song for SP

why, if we have such creative people, are we in this mess?

Take a look...a few bad words, but what the hell? :)



Just Thinking,

IF NOT NOW, WHEN?

This country is in trouble.

Politically.

Economically.

Ethically.

Morally.

What the hell has happened to us?

Was it just 8 years ago that we were more concerned with whether or not 2000 was the change in the millennium than we were with nearly anything else? (The answer to the millennium question is "NO", it's 2001 according the Gregorian calendar we use in this country). Most of the world celebrated the millennium January 1, 2000 anyway, which goes to show how much group think influences our world...think of it...very (VERY) scary.

Did we worry about "Y2K" and how it'd blow up the world of computing...but the day came and went, and nothing much happened, so we forgot about it and moved on to more important things. Things like "Kathie Lee Gifford Calls it Quits on Regis & Kathie Lee". WOW! Earth Shattering.

There was also a little stir toward the end of the year when the Supreme Court effectively handed George W. the presidency. But most people just didn't believe that there was any "irregularity" in the elections - well, most lemmings anyway. It was the first time IN HISTORY, that the Supreme Court determined the election. Now if that's not scary, I don't know what is.

What is wrong with the "average" American? When the hell did we lose our ability to think in favor of...what? "Security"????

And throughout the last eight years, at every opportunity, our civil rights and the illusion of personal privacy have been eroded away without so much as a whimper. Impotent protests, but nothing loud or impressive enough to convince "Joe Sixpack" that it's bad to give up rights our founding fathers considered "unalienable".

This is, perhaps, the scariest thing of all. How docile we are as we lose the rights and privileges that our soldiers are supposedly out there fighting for.

For the first time in my life, I'm actually concerned that the world will not be ok. We won't be ok after all the dust has settled. We'll be diminished - and unaware of the realities unfolding around us. After all, the media tells us what to think - with direction from the government (just ask Dan Rather about that). Imagine...government controlled media?

I don't agree with everyone on politics at all. In fact, I generally spend a good deal of time avoiding the subject as it's too inflammatory for most people to be able to debate it without getting their personal worth confused with a differing opinion. I do support our right to be different, to think and speak our minds (although this isn't legal anymore if you protest the government). Check what goes on without anyone saying anything at all.. These things can run the gamut from benign to malignant...it's how protestors can now be thrown in jail and have their property taken away merely for the act of protesting. Now, they may not have actually done any of this (as far as we know), but it's legal for them do so for PROTESTING. Scary.

I don't know what will come of all this, but I feel like I need to tell all of you to get out and vote. It might not be the person I will vote for - or it might - but the point is: VOTE! We need to take back the responsibility that we've given up. We are our own worst enemies letting others tell us what is "best" for us, and doing nothing but quietly observe what that means.

Get out and vote...make a difference...it's your own damn fault if you don't.


Just Thinking,

SNL WEEKEND UPDATE

REALLY?!? Some really good points here...seriously messed up country is through the laughter!

Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers report the news...



Part 2 with Hall & Oates



Just Thinking,

(Not Really that) Funny Stuff

That's Not SO funny when it's mostly true. These are kinda long, (and NBC has thrown an ad at the start) but the fact is, they are worth watching as good satire (or is it?)

Here's Tina Fey and Amy Poehler goofing on Sarah Palin. It's scary...really



SNL on the last Presidential Debate...



And here's the Vice-Presidential Debate goofing...laugh, because if not, you will have to cry (seriously).



Just Thinking,

The View From Abroad

OK. Most of you know where my politics lie (or think you do), but here is an assessment of the phenomenon that is Sarah Palin, and a commentary on the sad state of the American citizenship.




Sarah Palin winks during the vice-presidential debate on Thursday in St Louis, Missouri. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP

Cif America
Flirting her way to victory
Sarah Palin's farcical debate performance lowered the standards for both female candidates and US political discourse

Michelle Goldberg
guardian.co.uk, Friday October 03 2008 18.30 BST


At least three times last night, Sarah Palin, the adorable, preposterous vice-presidential candidate, winked at the audience. Had a male candidate with a similar reputation for attractive vapidity made such a brazen attempt to flirt his way into the good graces of the voting public, it would have universally noted, discussed and mocked. Palin, however, has single-handedly so lowered the standards both for female candidates and American political discourse that, with her newfound ability to speak in more-or-less full sentences, she is now deemed to have performed acceptably last night.

By any normal standard, including the ones applied to male presidential candidates of either party, she did not. Early on, she made the astonishing announcement that she had no intentions of actually answering the queries put to her. "I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also," she said.

And so she preceded, with an almost surreal disregard for the subjects she was supposed to be discussing, to unleash fusillades of scripted attack lines, platitudes, lies, gibberish and grating references to her own pseudo-folksy authenticity.

It was an appalling display. The only reason it was not widely described as such is that too many American pundits don't even try to judge the truth, wisdom or reasonableness of the political rhetoric they are paid to pronounce upon. Instead, they imagine themselves as interpreters of a mythical mass of "average Americans" who they both venerate and despise.

In pronouncing upon a debate, they don't try and determine whether a candidate's responses correspond to existing reality, or whether he or she is capable of talking about subjects such as the deregulation of the financial markets or the devolution of the war in Afghanistan. The criteria are far more vaporous. In this case, it was whether Palin could avoid utterly humiliating herself for 90 minutes, and whether urbane commentators would believe that she had connected to a public that they see as ignorant and sentimental. For the Alaska governor, mission accomplished.

There is indeed something mesmerising about Palin, with her manic beaming and fulsome confidence in her own charm. The force of her personality managed to slightly obscure the insulting emptiness of her answers last night. It's worth reading the transcript of the encounter, where it becomes clearer how bizarre much of what she said was. Here, for example, is how she responded to Biden's comments about how the middle class has been short-changed during the Bush administration, and how McCain will continue Bush's policies:

Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You preferenced [sic] your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future. You mentioned education, and I'm glad you did. I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and god bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right? ... My brother, who I think is the best schoolteacher in the year, and here's a shout-out to all those third graders at Gladys Wood Elementary School, you get extra credit for watching the debate.

Evidently, Palin's pre-debate handlers judged her incapable of speaking on a fairly wide range of subjects, and so instructed to her to simply disregard questions that did not invite memorised talking points or cutesy filibustering. They probably told her to play up her spunky average-ness, which she did to the point of shtick - and dishonesty. Asked what her achilles heel is - a question she either didn't understand or chose to ignore - she started in on how McCain chose her because of her "connection to the heartland of America. Being a mom, one very concerned about a son in the war, about a special needs child, about kids heading off to college, how are we going to pay those tuition bills?"

None of Palin's children, it should be noted, is heading off to college. Her son is on the way to Iraq, and her pregnant 17-year-old daughter is engaged to be married to a high-school dropout and self-described "fuckin' redneck". Palin is a woman who can't even tell the truth about the most quotidian and public details of her own life, never mind about matters of major public import. In her only vice-presidential debate, she was shallow, mendacious and phoney. What kind of maverick, after all, keeps harping on what a maverick she is? That her performance was considered anything but a farce doesn't show how high Palin has risen, but how low we all have sunk.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008

Just Thinking,

Some things that I just NEED to say

If these people are representative of the "average" American, we are in some deep trouble:



The sad truth is that they aren't all that unusual (on either side). Ignorance is out there people!

Just Thinking,