Dems really running scared - Obama's damage control

Spin, sin, spin. Obama's puppeteers have sent out new "talking points" and all the little puppets are obeying:

Don't attack Palin. People love her. Attack McCain.

The NYT:

Fusing Politics and Motherhood in New Way

Sarah Palin’s baby shower included a surprise guest: her own baby. He had arrived in the world a month early, so on a sunny May day, Ms. Palin, the governor of Alaska, rocked her newborn as her closest friends, sisters, even her obstetrician presented her with a potluck meal, presents and blue-and-white cake.

From Daily Kos (to which I will not link) :

And remember boys and girls, it’s not about Palin...It's About McCain!

And from the pot-head with AIDS dementia at the Atlantic (to which I will not link):

I want to go on record again as saying that the decision to bring up a child with Down Syndrome is one of the most noble, beautiful and admirable decisions any person can make. That Sarah Palin is doing that says a huge amount in favor of her. The love obviously being shown toward tiny Trig is also about as profound an advertisement for genuine, pro-life Christianity as you can have. It means that, in this respect, Palin has walked the walk of the pro-life movement - in ways that many others have not. In my view, and I mean this as passionately as I mean my criticisms of her public record, this really is God's work.

[...]

Whatever is to come in the Palin story, the fundamental truth that will remain true is that John McCain made this vital decision in such a reckless, cursory, cynical way that his candidacy really should be over. If this is what he promises in executive decision-making, then no one can be comfortable voting for him this November.

This is the same sick freak who a few days ago was saying that Trig was Bristol's baby. Sickening isn't it? The thing is that the commies are on the defensive. That means: don't attack them. Just give them enough rope to hang themselves. And they will. They always do.

And it seems that Hillary won't do Obama's dirty work:

Clinton turns down hatchet job

Hillary Clinton may be the most obvious choice to throw into the ring against the new darling of American politics, Sarah Palin, but the failed Democratic presidential candidate is refusing the job.

"We're not going to be anybody's attack dog against Sarah Palin," a Clinton insider said yesterday.

Of course she won't. The Clintons may be crooks and liars but they aren't fools. Their religion is polls and they know which way the wind's blowing.

Funny how the leftist blogs and MSM are all starting to sound the same. Not really. Anyone with half a brain has seen that the DNC and MSM are one and the same organization.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

I was recently diagnosed with this because of being 20 pounds overweight for the past 20 years and having hereditary high cholesterol. Both of my parents had it. It usually only starts affecting people when they're over 60 but now it seems that it's starting to affect fat kids.

Heavy teens run risk of severe liver damage:

In a new and disturbing twist on the obesity epidemic, some overweight teenagers have severe liver damage caused by too much body fat, and a handful have needed liver transplants.

Many more may need a new liver by their 30s or 40s, say experts warning that pediatricians need to be more vigilant. The condition, which can lead to cirrhosis and liver failure or liver cancer, is being seen in kids in the United States, Europe, Australia and even some developing countries, according to a surge of recent medical studies and doctors interviewed by The Associated Press.

The American Liver Foundation and other experts estimate 2 percent to 5 percent of American children over age 5, nearly all of them obese or overweight, have the condition, called nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

[...]

As fat builds up, the liver can become inflamed and then scarred over time, leading to cirrhosis, a serious condition, which in years past was mostly caused by hepatitis or drinking too much alcohol. Liver failure or liver cancer can follow, but if cirrhosis has not yet developed, fatty liver disease can be reversed through weight loss.

The disease is most common in overweight children with belly fat and certain warning signs, such as diabetes or cholesterol or heart problems. However, it's been seen in a few children of normal weight.

Genetics, diet and exercise level all play a role. It is most prevalent among Hispanics, relatively rare among African-Americans, and more common among boys than girls.

The biggest problem with modern kids is that they sit on their fannies in front of computers all day long instead of running around outside like we did.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver can easily be reversed by losing weight through diet and exercise. I just bought an elliptical trainer. The trick is to burn the fat off the liver. You may not lose that spare tire but at least you'll prevent hepatosteatosis which is when the fat in the liver becomes solidified which in turn leads to cirrhosis.

Diet also obviously helps: fewer animal fats and more fish, fruits and veggies. Oh well, there goes the ounce of butter that I spread on one piece of toast, the ladles of drippings gravy on roasted and mashed potatoes, the brie, rocquefort, stilton and aged cheddar cheeses, the ice-cream and whipped cream. And here come the raw carrots and celery.

But everything in moderation. We are not meant to feast like royalty everyday - only on special occasions. I always said that I was born poor because, if I'd been born rich, I'd've dug my grave with my teeth at an early age.

PS Alcoholic fatty liver disease is different. It makes people lose weight due to malnutrition so that they are skinny but with a swollen abdomen - what we know as beer belly.

Just how rural is Alaska?

From "Our first telephone" by Leslie Leyland Fields:

Out here in the Alaskan bush we want it all: we want choice, we want privacy, and still we want to listen in.

We got our first phone in 1989. It cost $5,000 and took a week to install. We had to do part of the work ourselves -- erect a fifty-foot aluminum pole with four guy wires, each a hundred feet long, tied into pilings that we sank and cemented into holes as deep as we could dig. It was a lot of work for something I didn't want. One of the great boons of living out on an island in the Gulf of Alaska had been having no telephone to answer.

Boy, that's even more remote than the village in South Africa that I grew up in. Mind you we were only 20 miles away from the nearest city. The islands in the Gulf of Alaska are hundreds of miles from civilization.

We got our first phone in 1959. I remember that day like it was yesterday. The huge black phone had a handle to crank which called the operator. It was a party line so you sometimes heard other peoples' conversations. The number was 460. I loved it and hated it too because all of a sudden other peole could intrude into your life.

I didn't get my own phone until 1980 and then I got an answering machine to deal with it. I didn't get a cell phone until 2004, a year after I moved to the boonies and realized that I needed it because of the long distances that I have to travel - just to call AAA in case I broke down.

Sarah's step mom-in -law sets the record straight

I just saw this on Inside Edition:

Faye Palin says (I paraphrase), "My words were twisted. Of course I support Sarah. I'm going to vote the Republican ticket - McCain and Palin."

Whew! That's a relief. For one minute there I thought that we'd lose the election without her vote. I take it back comparing her to Cindy Sheehan. Oh, okay, she still looks a bit like Sheehan. She even talks with that breathless whisperiness which seems to be de rigeur with the bleeding hearts ladies.

Hell freezes over

The Eugene Register Guard published 8 (out of a total of 9) pro-Palin letters to the editor:

Given choice, Palin chooses life

What a contrast: The Sept. 2 Register-Guard tells us that Bristol, the 17-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, is five months pregnant. She is giving her child life.

By contrast, Barack Obama has let it be known that should this happen to one of his daughters, he would not “punish” her by making her have the baby. Obviously, he has no qualms about “punishing” his grandchild by killing him or her by abortion.

Palin is a perfect fit for America

I’ve been watching with great interest the Democrats’ criticisms of Sarah Palin.

Aren’t these the same people who gleefully elected a peanut farmer who had no more experience than as governor of Georgia to the higher office of president? He was never even a senator or a congressman! Democrats didn’t seem to have a problem with him. I guess it was because he was male.

Palin’s critics seem desperate

A little bit better than 22 years ago, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s husband, Todd, was ticketed and punished for driving under the influence of alcohol.

At about the same time, Barack Obama was hanging in the ’hood and snorting cocaine. It appears to me that we have two glass houses here, and people should be careful about throwing stones.

Give Obama the same treatment

The Sept. 3 Register-Guard was a classic in left-wing bias. I didn’t see one single particle of fairness in the entire editorial section. It was all John McCain/Sarah Palin bashing.

Why not at least try to give the impression of fairness? How about giving Barack Obama and Joe Biden the same treatment?

The newspaper could start off by letting your readers know how Obama went to a racist church for over 20 years and only left when the radical, anti-American rhetoric of the pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was made public. How about his getting a $300,000 break on his home from a convicted criminal, Tony Rezko, or his close association with an unrepentant American terrorist, Bill Ayers?

Liberals are afraid of Palin

Wow! The liberals must really be scared of Sarah Palin.

Nine of the 10 letters in the Sept. 3 Mailbag were against her. Headlines across the country tried to make her out to be a bad mom and inexperienced politician.

Talking points from most network news outlets were trying to destroy this woman’s credibility. When I first heard Governor Palin speak, I was incredibly moved and felt a sense of pride that I haven’t felt for some time.

Republicans are energized

I read my paper Sept. 3 and saw all the negative letters concerning John McCain’s choice for his vice president. Only one of the letters was positive about Sarah Palin.

I and many of my fellow Republicans are so energized because of her being on the ticket. The rhetoric that she isn’t qualified to run our country doesn’t wash. First, she isn’t running for president, McCain is.

Palin should be disqualified

The New York Times and other sources report that in the 1990s, Sarah Palin’s husband, Todd, was a member for two years of the Alaskan Independence Party, a secessionist party. If true, this means that she’s married to someone who made the choice, as a mature adult, that he would be willing to renounce his citizenship in the United States of America. For this alone, she should be disqualified from serving as vice president.

Palin stands up for the little guy

The speed and viciousness of the attacks against Sarah Palin, a virtual unknown a week ago, make my head spin.

Here is a woman who is the chief executive of one of our biggest states, has successfully taken on corruption in Big Oil and Alaskan politics, has been married for 20 years, and is the mother of five. She will soon say goodbye to her son who is to be deployed to Iraq.

All families fall short sometimes

Perhaps Todd Messenger (letters, Sept. 3) does not realize that some years ago in Hawaii another unwed mother gave birth to a son and she named him Barack Obama. How many of us can say that this has never happened to anyone in our family? We all fall short.

Oregon may give the Democrats a surprise this year. Many of the people I know here have friends or family in Alaska or spent time there working in the oil-fields. There is a shared culture in small towns all throughout the Northwest.

Palin round-up

I once met Willie Brown who was mayor of San Francisco when I lived there. I didn't like him much but he is a very shrewd politician. Here's what he has to say about Palin:

The Democrats are in trouble. Sarah Palin has totally changed the dynamics of this campaign.

Period.

Palin's speech to the GOP National Convention on Wednesday has set it up so that the Republicans are now on offense and Democrats are on defense. And we don't do well on defense.

Suddenly, Palin and John McCain are the mavericks and Barack Obama and Joe Biden are the status quo, in a year when you don't want to be seen as defending the status quo.

From taxes to oil drilling, Democrats are now going to have to start explaining their positions.

Whenever you start having to explain things, you're on defense.

I actually went back and watched Palin's speech a second time. I didn't go to sleep until 1:30 a.m. I had to make sure I got the lines right.

Her timing was exquisite. She didn't linger with applause, but instead launched into line after line of attack, slipping the knives in with every smile and joke.

And she delivered it like she was just BS-ing on the street with the meter maid.

She didn't have to prove she was "of the people." She really is the people.

I found these two links at Right Wing Nation:

From the Australian Daily Telegraph:

We want a Sarah Palin....

It's not fair!

The Americans have got Sarah Palin. Why can't we have one of those? Mooseburgers may not be everyone's idea of the perfect feed, and some people might baulk at giving their kids names like Track or Trig or Bristol.

Also, the Alaskan Governor holds some views so far to the Right that she risks toppling off the edge.

As a friend of mine remarked on the day Palin accepted the Republican vice-presidential nomination: "It's interesting how the apparent contradiction of being simultaneously pro-gun and pro-life resolves itself through the great US institution of the shotgun marriage."

But, hey! The woman is interesting. She's got personality. She's real.

[...]

McCain may have chosen Palin because of her opposition to abortion and her appeal to evangelical Christians and the gun lobby - the Republican Party's base - but I suspect she will have wider appeal, partly because of her background. Americans love obscurity-to-greatness stories and this one is pure Hollywood.

But more importantly, Palin does not talk or behave like a stereotypical politician. She has a down-to-earth manner that normal people relate to.

And from the British Sun:

Palin shows us how it's done

WHY, why, why can’t WE have a Sarah Palin?

That was the question churning in my mind as I witnessed this astonishing American presidential race.

A week ago few in Britain had heard of Palin.

Today, the moose-huntin’ mom is the most talked-about woman in the world.

And with good reason.

Her sensational performance at the Republican convention may turn out to be the moment the White House slipped from Barack Obama’s grasp.

She was an electrifying mix of passion, energy, optimism and plain speaking. The exact opposite of the slippery, two-faced, depressing bunch of third-raters who parade on our Westminster stage.

From the British Telegraph:

Sarah Palin is extraordinarily ordinary

It was the most important Convention in American political history.

At the beginning, the Republicans looked weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. Their candidate was old, tainted by an unpopular war, a stricken economy, and an eight-year presidency that the voters were booing off the stage. Barack Obama was young, eloquent and renewing. He had the future and the big momentum.

Now, everything is in flux. Last weekend, I phoned around my Republican friends. Who is Sarah Palin and what do you know about her?

If cliche can be forgiven, there is an easy summary of their answers: gobsmacked.

[...]

America is different. Despite an increasingly urbanised society, the founding myths still overshadow the political system: virgin soil, the open frontier, log cabin to White House. Even though most recent candidates have been multi-millionaires with a campaign budget the size of a second-world country's GDP, Americans insist on believing that anyone can aspire to the presidency.

Enter Sarah Palin, a woman designed to be the central character in an epic.

Think Virgil, Wagner, Tolkien; the heroic journey through a menacing, God-haunted wilderness, in which success is bought at a terrible price. After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Not in our heroine's case.

She comes back from the wilderness to the checkout queue in one of the cheaper supermarkets, swapping stories about price increases with all the other housewives. Sarah Palin has a quality which will guarantee her a high place in politics. She is an extraordinary ordinary person. In old Europe, no one can understand her success. In America, her story has great political power. She is the most important vice-presidential candidate in American political history.

[...]

John McCain knows that this year, the Republican label is a liability. He wants to project himself as the candidate who is above party; hence the slogan "Country First".

Here, Sarah Palin is an asset. A lot of voters now associate Republicans with big money and a self-serving Washington elite. None of that applies to Mrs Palin. She will campaign as a Western populist, and she is a natural born campaigner.

She is also much brighter than Joe Biden, Mr Obama's running-mate, a garrulous blusterer whose intellectual self-confidence is not justified by his intellect. In the one debate between the two vice-presidential candidates, Mrs Palin should win easily.

And from Tammy Bruce in the San Francisco Chronicle:

A feminist's argument for McCain's VP

Whether we have a D, R or an "i for independent" after our names, women share a different life experience from men, and we bring that difference to the choices we make and the decisions we come to. Having a woman in the White House, and not as The Spouse, is a change whose time has come, despite the fact that some Democratic Party leaders have decided otherwise. But with the Palin nomination, maybe they'll realize it's not up to them any longer.

[...]

Palin's candidacy brings both figurative and literal feminist change. The simple act of thinking outside the liberal box, which has insisted for generations that only liberals and Democrats can be trusted on issues of import to women, is the political equivalent of a nuclear explosion.

The idea of feminists willing to look to the right changes not only electoral politics, but will put more women in power at lightning speed as we move from being taken for granted to being pursued, nominated and appointed and ultimately, sworn in.

It should be no surprise that the Democratic response to the McCain-Palin ticket was to immediately attack by playing the liberal trump card that keeps Democrats in line - the abortion card - where the party daily tells restless feminists the other side is going to police their wombs.

[...]

On the day McCain announced her selection as his running mate, Palin thanked Clinton and Ferraro for blazing her trail. A day later, Ferraro noted her shock at Palin's comment. You see, none of her peers, no one, had ever publicly thanked her in the 24 years since her historic run for the White House. Ferraro has since refused to divulge for whom she's voting. Many more now are realizing that it does indeed take a woman - who happens to be a Republican named Sarah Palin.

"When Barack's berserkers lost the plot"

Nick Cohen at the British Guardian:

My colleagues in the American liberal press had little to fear at the start of the week. Their charismatic candidate was ahead in virtually every poll. George W Bush was so unpopular that conservatives were scrambling around for reasons not to invite the Republican President to the Republican convention. Democrats had only to maintain their composure and the White House would be theirs. During the 1997 British general election, the late Lord Jenkins said that Tony Blair was like a man walking down a shiny corridor carrying a precious vase. He was the favourite and held his fate in his hands. If he could just reach the end of the hall without a slip, a Labour victory was assured. The same could have been said of the American Democrats last week. But instead of protecting their precious advantage, they succumbed to a spasm of hatred and threw the vase, the crockery, the cutlery and the kitchen sink at an obscure politician from Alaska.

For once, the postmodern theories so many of them were taught at university are a help to the rest of us. As a Christian, conservative anti-abortionist who proved her support for the Iraq War by sending her son to fight in it, Sarah Palin was 'the other' - the threatening alien presence they defined themselves against. They might have soberly examined her reputation as an opponent of political corruption to see if she was truly the reformer she claimed to be. They might have gently mocked her idiotic creationism, while carefully avoiding all discussion of the racist conspiracy theories of Barack Obama's church.

But instead of following a measured strategy, they went berserk. On the one hand, the media treated her as a sex object. The New York Times led the way in painting Palin as a glamour-puss in go-go boots you were more likely to find in an Anchorage lap-dancing club than the Alaska governor's office.

On the other, liberal journalists turned her family into an object of sexual disgust: inbred rednecks who had stumbled out of Deliverance. Palin was meant to be pretending that a handicapped baby girl was her child when really it was her wanton teenage daughter's. When that turned out to be a lie, the media replaced it with prurient coverage of her teenage daughter, who was, after all, pregnant, even though her mother was not going to do a quick handover at the maternity ward and act as if the child was hers.

Hatred is the most powerful emotion in politics. At present, American liberals are not fighting for an Obama presidency. I suspect that most have only the haziest idea of what it would mean for their country. The slogans that move their hearts and stir their souls are directed against their enemies: Bush, the neo-cons, the religious right.

[...]

When a hate campaign goes wrong, however, disaster follows. And everything that could go wrong with the campaign against Palin did. American liberals forgot that the public did not know her. By the time she spoke at the Republican convention, journalists had so lowered expectations that a run-of-the-mill speech would have been enough to win the evening.

As it was, her family appeared on stage without a goitre or a club foot between them, and Palin made a fighting speech that appealed over the heads of reporters to the public we claim to represent. 'I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion,' she said as she deftly detached journalists from their readers and viewers. 'I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country.'

[...]

In Britain, the most snobbish attacks on Margaret Thatcher did not come from aristocrats but from the communist historian Eric Hobsbawm, who opined that Thatcherism was the 'anarchism of the lower middle classes' and the liberal Jonathan Miller, who deplored her 'odious suburban gentility'.

Aint that the truth, as Shakespeare said.

I was surprised to see this article in the Guardian, that bastion of leftist elitism. But I'm sure, as my British Jewish friends will attest, that Nick Cohen has suffered from leftist elitist anti-semitic prejudice many a time and knows exactly whereof he speaks.The commies didn't get Thatcher and they will definitely not understand Palin.

Loony left says "Palin in hiding"

The pot-head blogger with AIDS dementia (sorry but I don't link to it/him) says:

This is incredible, totally incredible. A vice presidential candidate isn't going to be available to the press for two weeks? Two weeks? In September. We have this total unknown who could be president of the United States next January. And she's in hiding for two weeks.

I guess he/it has forgotten that Palin is still governor of Alaska and that her 19 year old son leaves for Iraq next week. Actually he/it only posts "talking points" from DNC/MoveOn/Soros and this is THE talking point for today.

Palin ad

Pinched from Ace:



Also pinched from Ace. Bristol Palin with her "redneck" fiance, Levi Johnson, kissing baby Trig. I bet Levi makes a good dad.

A soldier addresses Obama

HT the American Thinker:

Oprah cooks her own goose which laid the golden egg

From Oprah's "Community":

Posted on Sep 5, 2008 10:46 AM
“The item in today’s Drudge Report is categorically untrue. There has been absolutely no discussion about having Sarah Palin on my show. At the beginning of this presidential campaign when I decided that I was going to take my first public stance in support of a candidate, I made the decision not to use my show as a platform for any of the candidates. I agree that Sarah Palin would be a fantastic interview, and I would love to have her on after the campaign is over.” – Oprah Winfrey, September 5, 2008.

Here are the first 9 replies out of 2,315 so far:

Well, I am not surprised. As someone who HAD enjoyed everything Oprah for years I had become very disappointed in some of her decisions on the political front and this one is not exception.

You have Obama on not once but TWICE during this current race, openly campaigned for him on your show and we now have another "historical" candidate in this race and for this one you REFUSE to have HER on!

How very disappointing, how sexist, how very partisan and political on your part!

I sure hope you and your staff change your mind but I won't hold my breath.

All this decision does is reinforce my decision from a year or so ago to..

1) stop watching your show

2) stop "drinking the Oprah kool-aid" on all things in the world

3) stopped reading my Oprah magazine and when it was time to renew a year ago I did not. Each and every time I get a renewal form for it in the mail I not only not renew, I write a letter and give the exact reasons why I will NEVER renew the magazine!!!

How dissapointing you would choose YOUR personal political views on this race and YOUR candidate and not on this race as a whole....

Mary

Cincinnati

[...]

This is very dissapointing Oprah. I was a huge fan of yours for the longest time. We had pictures taken with you after the Chicago Marathon a number of years back. Our group of girlfriends thought you were "the bomb". I wish you had decided to stay out of the political spotlight. Why are so many celebrity types liberals? Some of my favorite singers and actors always come out for the democrats. It's weird to me. And why does the media want Obama so badly? Oprah, you've had the support of women, strong conservative women who have helped to make you the huge success you've become. I think you owe us a show with Sarah Palin. And not after all this is over. It's pertinent now. You know that. If your candidate is truly the best, then you have nothing to fear. But so many viewers will respect you more, if you give time to this interesting, strong, and captivating woman. That's what you have always applauded. You've empowered so many of us over the years with that message. I hope you will rethink your decision to wait until after the election to invite her to the show. Thank you.

[...]

Oprah, thank you so much for responding. I have watched your show, listened to your advice and benefitted from your giving Spirit over the years and I am heart sick that you are not going to have Sarah Palin on your show prior to the election. Everyone knows you are an Obama supporter and that is terrific for you (and for him), however, hasn't your message over the years been to raise women up to be the fullest, best person they can be? Was it all a lie? This is so hypocritical of you and I'm shocked at your position. In Marianne Williamson's book....she describes a President that is strong, honest, patriotic and true...and then she reveals that this President is a woman!! We ~we may very well be getting closer to that day and you are turning your back on it.

Please don't be afraid Oprah. Honor the present moment and be fair. It is not disloyal to have the other side on your show- it is Fair and with journalistic integrity to present all sides of an issue.

When you close your eyes...take a deep breath and ponder this situation, I pray your heart will lead you to do the right thing and practice what you have preached all these years.

Colleen

[...]

"I made the decision not to use my show as a platform for any of the candidates." Is this a correct statement? I took it from your above statement. So if this is the case, why did you have Barack and Michelle on your show? Please don't say it was before he announced that he would run for President because I am sure that he had already made that decision. Just because he did not announce it to the public does not mean that he wasn't on that road. I am just disgusted at your statement. You most certainly used your show to platform the Obama's. Who do you think you are fooling? Nice Oprah. Way to be honest with your viewers.

[...]

This statement is laughable! Oprah, you are where you are at because of your show! If you were Plain-Jane average citizen would your endorsement of Obama have even mattered or been big news? I think not. You are trying to paint your show as non-partisan by not having Gov. Palin on? The minute you stepped on the stage with Obama, you, and your show, became political.

[...]

Oprah, look at this very website. It is saturated with advice and encouragement for women to live their lives to the fullest! Do you only mean certain women? I am sick to my stomach at your hypocracy Oprah- You have saddened so many of your Loyal fans.

[...]

I feel so used.

[...]

I posted a reply to another topic (about Palin begin nominated), but I'll post to this one because it's more appropriate.

While this is only my second posting, I've watched Oprah since the original book club began. I understand that she supports Senator Obama and that's been all right with me until now. Oprah has alway sought to inform women. Apparently she is afraid that informing us about Gov. Sarah Palin would be ill-advised. She doesn't trust us to make our own decisions. Now I'll have to find something else to tune the TV to when I'm cleaning house in between getting home from work myself and my family getting home.

Diane

[...]

Dear Oprah and Staff,

I find your released statement a real stretche of the truth. You cannot say that you made a decision to not use your show "as a platform for ANY of the candidates" when you had Barack Obama on in 2005 (http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/oprahshow1_ss_20050119) and in 2006 (http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/oprahshow1_ss_20061018) oh and that time he came with his wife too, (http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/oprahshow1_ss_20061018/10).

We all know that Barack is YOUR candidate, and that you have stumped for this man and put in a lot of time and effort to raise many dollars for his campaign, so please do your viewers the common courtesy and tell the truth.

You don't want Sarah Palin or McCain/Palin on the show because you are afraid that it will affect the Obama/Biden campaign. There is nothing wrong with loyalty and your viewers have been very loyal for years so give it to us straight...don't become just another politician.

Holy cow! TIME links to me!

I turn my back for half a day and this happens. First I checked Sitemeter because the leftie Lang Report has linked to me for the past week and has been sending me lots of traffic which has generated a few nasty comments. But - lo and behold! - I see this. I'm getting traffic from TIME. (Red X marks the spot.)























So I followed the link and found this.




















That article has a thingy at the bottom called "Related blog articles." And there is my post "Hurricane Sarah" at the top followed by a bunch of leftie blog posts.




















I see the main article says "In partnership with CNN" so my only explanation is that someone at CNN reads this blog because CNN has linked to me three times before.

Taking a break from blogging today - open thread

I didn't take a break last weekend because I was so fired up and it was all Palin all the time. I need a break from reading and writing today.

I thought I'd do an experiment and make this an open thread. Post whatever you like: comments, links to your blog posts that you want me to read or links to other articles. Maybe Saturday isn't the best day to try this as everybody is busy with their families but it would be nice to be kept in the loop while I take a hike in our foggy forest.

After a week of brilliant blue skies and temps in the 70s, the fog has come back.

Palin rumors debunked

Here.

How Palin Beat Alaska's Establishment

One party states always end up corrupt. I saw that close up in San Francisco where there are only a handful of Republicans and the Democrats control everything. I see it here in Oregon (and Washington) where Democrats have been in power for too long.

Whenever one party is in control for too long, they become corrupt. The Democrats have been in control of Congress for nearly 60 years and have become totally corrupt (the GOP majority only lasted for 12 years from '94 to '06) and we see what a cesspool they have turned it into.

The Republican Party has been the majority party in Alaska since it became a state and the Alaskan GOP lost its scruples when it came into contact with Big Oil. They were doing dirty deals in smoky backrooms. Then Mrs Palin decided to take Alaska back from the good old boys.

Kimberley Strassel's article in the WSJ:

Every state has its share of crony capitalism, but Big Oil and the GOP political machine have taken that term to new heights in Alaska. The oil industry, which provides 85% of state revenues, has strived to own the government. Alaska's politicians—in particular ruling Republicans—roll in oil campaign money, lavish oil revenue on pet projects, then retire to lucrative oil jobs where they lobby for sweetheart oil deals. You can love the free market and not love this.

Alaskans have long resented this dysfunction, which has led to embarrassing corruption scandals. It has also led to a uniform belief that the political class, in hock to the oil class, fails to competently oversee Alaska's vast oil and gas wealth, the majority of which belongs to the state—or rather, Alaskan citizens. And so it came as no surprise in 2004 when former Republican Gov. Frank Murkowski made clear he'd be working exclusively with three North Slope producers—ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and BP—to build a $25 billion pipeline to move natural gas to the lower 48.

The trio had informed their political vassals that they alone would build this project (they weren't selling their gas to outsiders) and that they expected the state to reward them. Mr. Murkowski disappeared into smoky backrooms to work out the details. He refused to release information on the negotiations. When Natural Resources Commissioner Tom Irwin suggested terms of the contract were illegal, he was fired.

What Mr. Murkowski did do publicly was instruct his statehouse to change the oil and gas tax structure (taxes being a primary way Alaskans realize their oil revenue). Later, citizens would discover this was groundwork for Mr. Murkowski's pipeline contract—which would lock in that oil-requested tax package for up to 40 years, provide a $4 billion state investment, and relinquish most oversight.

Enter Mrs. Palin. The former mayor of Wasilla had been appointed by Mr. Murkowski in 2003 to the state oil and gas regulatory agency. She'd had the temerity to blow the whistle on fellow GOP Commissioner Randy Ruedrich for refusing to disclose energy dealings. Mr. Murkowski and GOP Attorney General Gregg Renkes closed ranks around Mr. Ruedrich—who also chaired the state GOP. Mrs. Palin resigned. Having thus offended the entire old boy network, she challenged the governor for his seat.

Mrs. Palin ran against the secret deal, and vowed to put the pipeline back out for competitive, transparent, bidding. She railed against cozy politics. Mr. Murkowski ran on his unpopular pipeline deal. The oil industry warned the state would never get its project without his leadership. Mrs. Palin walloped him in the primary and won office in late 2006. Around this time, news broke of a federal probe that would show oil executives had bribed lawmakers to support the Murkowski tax changes.

Among Mrs. Palin's first acts was to reinstate Mr. Irwin. By February 2007 she'd released her requirements for pipeline bidding. They were stricter, and included only a $500 million state incentive. By May a cowed state house—reeling from scandal—passed her legislation.

The producers warned they would not bid, nor would anyone else. Five groups submitted proposals. A few months before the legislature awarded its license to TransCanada this July, Conoco and BP suddenly announced they'd be building their own pipeline with no state inducements whatsoever. They'd suddenly found the money.

Mrs. Palin has meanwhile passed an ethics law. She's tightened up oil oversight. She forced the legislature to rewrite the oil tax law. That new law raised taxes on the industry, for which Mrs. Palin is now taking some knocks, but the political background here is crucial.

The GOP machine has crumbled. Attorney General Renkes resigned. Mr. Ruedrich was fined $12,000. Jim Clark—Mr. Murkowski's lead pipeline negotiator—pleaded guilty to conspiring with an oil firm. At least three legislators have been convicted. Sen. Ted Stevens is under indictment for oil entanglements, while Rep. Don Young is under investigation.

Throughout it all, Mrs. Palin has stood for reform, though not populism. She thanks oil companies and says executives who "seek maximum revenue" are "simply doing their job." She says her own job is to be a "savvy" negotiator on behalf of Alaska's citizens and to provide credible oversight. It is this combination that lets her aggressively promote new energy while retaining public trust.

Today's congressional Republicans could learn from this. The party has been plagued by earmarks, scandal and corruption. Most members have embraced the machine. That has diminished voters' trust, and in the process diminished good, conservative ideas. It is no wonder 37 million people tuned in to Mrs. Palin's convention speech. They are looking for something fresh.

We need a loyal opposition. The problem is that the Democratic Party can no longer be called loyal. Nor could they really at any time be called the opposition because they've been very much in control in DC. Their Fifth Column has infiltrated all the bureaucracies in DC and the MSM is completely in their pocket. We're the loyal opposition even when we have the WH.

I wish McCain and Palin all the best in trying to reform DC. It must be done or else we will be well on our way to European-style serfdom and you can say goodbye to our republic based on the rule of law and say howdy to rule by faceless socialist bureaucrats who "know what's best for us" just as they do in Brussels. It is essential to keep Obama out of the WH.

Brilliant bumper-sticker

From The Catskill Commentator.

Michael Moore on Palin's "normalness"

Michael Moore realizes that Palin is a "tough opponent:"

But before everyone gets all smug and self-righteous about the Palin selection, remember where you live. You live in a nation of gun owners and hunters. You live in a country where one out of three girls get pregnant before they are 20. You live in a nation of C students. Knocking Bush for being a C student only endeared him to the nation of C students. Knock Palin for having kids, for having a kid who's having a baby, for anything that is part of her normalness -- a normalness that looks very familiar to so many millions of Americans -- well, you do this at your own peril. Assuming she's still on the ticket two weeks from now, she will be a much tougher opponent than anyone expects.

Moore better not visit Alaska - especially if he wears a fur coat. He might be mistaken for a big fat bear and be shot, dressed and stuffed by Sarah - and used as a rug in Palin's new office in DC like this one (which was shot by her father) in her office in Juneau.

Palin: "a backwoods polar-bear-strangling woman"

A snarky snobby take on Palin by a nattering nabob in the British Spectator:

What possessed McCain to take a punt on Palin?

Ah, just when you pro-Republican monkeys were beginning to think that John McCain was looking a pretty good bet, he goes and chooses a backwoods polar-bear-strangling Britney Spears manqué as a running mate.

[...]

McCain and his people will have sat themselves down and made a checklist of stuff their candidate was lacking but which might be provided by a congenial running mate. Youth and beauty, for starters. Also, a bit of vigorous, libertarian, unreconstructed stop-whining-you-pussies visceral anti-intellectual right-wingness to cheer the party faithful.

Well, I'll take a backwoods polar-bear-strangling woman over some smarmy limp-wristed academic as VP anyday. The nattering nabobs just don't get it, do they?

PS I really enjoy the Spectator. Most of its writers (like Melanie Phillips) are terrific but there are one or two creeps.

Cindy McCain's $313,000 outfit

Leftie bloggers are having a fit that Cindy's outfit cost $313,000!:

Friday may be the start of New York's Fashion Week, but couture has been in the Minnesota convention hall all week.

It kicked off on Monday with Cindy McCain and First Lady Laura Bush in Oscar de la Renta.

Vanity Fair editors estimated that McCain's fierce saffron shirt dress with the popped collar, diamond earrings, four-strand pearl necklace, white Chanel watch and strappy shoes totaled up to $313,100.

[...]

Throughout the convention McCain also kept recycling her accessories, including the four-strand pearl necklace and two rhinestone pins that say Navy and USMC — representing the military branches her sons serve in. Above those two is also a Blue Star pin, signifying she has a child on active duty.

Here's the offending saffron dress and the Navy/USMC brooches.

Mrs Palin's religion - updated

The leftists are ranting about Palin being a dangerously fanatical Bible-thumping Neanderthal. According to one leftist, she's a "holy roller:"

The Assemblies of God are Pentecostals, of course, the real "holy rollers"--ecstatic experience of the Godhead in your own body, rolling in the aisles, talking in tongues. When I got some exposure to them, they were extremely conservative and strict (no dancing, no lipstick, no short skirts) but Palin is evidence of how they've mainstreamed themselves.

I got this email from a friend today who forwarded an email from Gary and Kathy Moore of Wasilla:

Kathy and I have been friends with her [Palin's] mom and dad since we moved up to Alaska in 1985. Her dad was Amy's 5th grade teacher. We can verify everything that falls beneath the Sarah Palin name below. The only correction I see, is that she now attends Wasilla Bible Church. I have read blogs that state: she belongs to a radical church. Kathy and I attend Wasilla Bible and it is not a radical church at all. It is much the same as any country church, but larger. Our pastor was educated at Multnomah School of the Bible in Portland Oregon. He bends over backwards to not have any political agenda! If it is not in the Bible, then you will not hear it from the pulpit.

If you have not heard this lady speak, you owe it to yourself to take the time to listen to her. She speaks from the heart. She knows the life of a common person. She actually knows what a gallon of milk costs in Wasilla, because she shops there! I think that you will be pleasantly surprised by a person, who for a change, is not an East Coast Lawyer, who speaks for hours and says nothing. She will give us something concrete and doable!! Many ideas sound great until we ask ourselves, are they doable, .. can they actually be done or are we just posturing?

Gary and Kathy Moore

Wasilla, Alaska

If Mrs Palin's "country church" is anything like the community church in our village, then it is a pretty mainstream evangelical church not some weird cult as the left is saying.

UPDATE: Here's a website of Sermons from Wasilla Bible Church. I read a few and there was absolutely nothing in them that was controversial, weird or outre.

McCain's speech

Cindy McCain was terrific. I'd never heard her speak at length before and was pleasantly surprised at what a good speaker she is.

Mac's speech was workmanlike. I don't need to be wowed by politicians. Yes, it was fun to be wowed by Palin. She's a great cheerleader but I prefer my Presidents to be more measured in their pronouncements and Mac hit the exact right tone and said all the right things. He confirmed that he is an old-fashioned cautious and modest conservative like Eisenhower - not a radical right-wing ideologue or a firebrand demagogue. He more than any other politician today has the ability to cut through partisan divisions and unite hardworking serious adult middle-class Americans (the backbone of our nation) during a time of war.

I am very happy with the GOP ticket this year. There is nothing about Mac that irks me. I admire and respect him more than any other politician and this election will not be a matter of voting for the lesser of two evils while holding my nose. I will give him my whole-hearted support.

McCain and Palin in Wisconsin today

Pinched from Right Wing Nation:

The McCain protesters

One of them was a Ron Paul supporter:

"I’ve been a Ron Paul supporter since the beginning of this campaign. Since before this campaign started, actually, I’ve been a fan of Paul. So I’ve got a lot of friends in the Ron Paul crowd. And he’s got a lot of delegates in there. More than the Republican Party is willing to admit. And the fact that I got into there is proof of that. One of Paul’s alternate delegates got me a guest pass."

Monogamy gene found in people

From New Scientist:

There has been speculation about the role of the hormone vasopressin in humans ever since we discovered that variations in where receptors for the hormone are expressed makes prairie voles strictly monogamous but meadow voles promiscuous; vasopressin is related to the "cuddle chemical" oxytocin. Now it seems variations in a section of the gene coding for a vasopressin receptor in people help to determine whether men are serial commitment-phobes or devoted husbands.

Hasse Walum at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues looked at the various forms of the gene coding for a vasopressin receptor in 552 Swedish people, who were all in heterosexual partnerships. The researchers also investigated the quality of their relationships.

They found that variation in a section of the gene called RS3 334 was linked to how men bond with their partners. Men can have none, one or two copies of the RS3 334 section, and the higher the number of copies, the worse men scored on a measure of pair bonding.

Not only that, men with two copies of RS3 334 were more likely to be unmarried than men with one or none, and if they were married, they were twice as likely to have a marital crisis.

When I first heard about this a few days ago, I thought "that makes some sense" because I've never believed the nonsense that "ALL men are promiscuous because we are basically cavemen and hunters." I've never been promiscuous and have known plenty of other men who are not. Yes, maybe men are dogs but some of us are faithful dogs.

What I mean by "I don't like Bush"

I said in a post last night: "I don't like Bush." That upset some people. I got an angry email from someone who has not read my blog long enough to know that I have often said that but have usually qualified it by adding that I admire and respect the Bushes, Sr and Jr. I know that they are both honorable and honest men and I would gladly welcome them into my home.

All that I mean by "I don't like Bush" is that he (both of them really) threw away what gains we had made during the Reagan years in limiting government. I realize that Dubya had to compromise with a Democratic controlled Congress but he pushed us even further into debt by initiating fiscally irresponsible things such as NCLB, the Medi-Care prescription program and war appropriations money separate from a balanced budget.

I think Bush Jr will go down in history as a great President for the way in which rose to the occasion and tackled the War on Terror. He did make mistakes at first such as allowing Rumsfeld to send in too few troops to do the job. Fortunately McCain kept nagging to increase the troops and now we are finally succeeding.

Bush will also go down in history as a decent, kind and loving man but we will still be stuck with some awful debts for years to come because of his rich man's insouciance regarding money.

So all I mean by "I don't like Bush" is that I don't like many of his policies. I also don't like the way he allowed Rove to cynically use divisive wedge issues and am convinced that we lost in 2006 because they came back to bite the GOP.