Palin: Escape Plan

Palin: Escape Plan, originally uploaded by The Searcher.

Another great contribution from The Searcher. This one hitting a little close to home.

His original text to accompany the image:
"Biased Liberal Media: But what is this new direction?

Palin: Forward. That way. Away to the people that need me and who are so proud of this country I love to do.

Biased Liberal Media: Aren't you concerned people, even fellow Republicans, will think this looks like you're quitting?

Palin: I'm not quitting, I'm STARTING! How many times do I have to explain this to biased liberal media bias? I can't do the job the people of this GREAT country hired me to do for THEM with all of these restrictions and responsibilities and from that you know. In the words of General MacArthur said, "“We are not retreating, we are just advancing in a DIFFERENT direction.”

Biased Liberal Media: Isn't that quote actually from another general, Oliver P. Smith?

Palin: Now there you go ATTACKING me again, I really wish you'd quit it out, it is SO obvious that you're doing the politics of personal destruction and why you don't want me to spread MY message of liberty and jobs to the people I don't know. Also.

Biased Liberal Media: But you had a job, that you were hired to do. What is this new job?

Palin: Why is it so hard for you biased liberal bias to give ME, a woman from the GREAT state of Alaska that I love, the same respect as that other candidate? I'm not able to privvy you on internal campaign strategy that I KNOW how to do because, but the big game is JUST a year away, and it's time for me the point guard to PUT the focus on it where it belongs on it. Presidential elections only come around every two YEARS, you know."

He got the dialog style for her pretty spot on. The only thing he could have done better was add the words "also" and "such as" a few times.

Sarah Palin's "Reasons"

I just read Sarah's 4th of July "Thank You" to the troops letter. Really, it was mostly just a reiteration of a lot of the random things she said in her resignation speech.

I would like to write Sarah Palin myself. Maybe I should

Governor Sarah Palin
550 West 7th Avenue, Suite 1700
Anchorage, AK 99501

Dear Governor Palin,

I am writing in response to your July 4th letter wishing us a great holiday and reflecting on the previous 24 hours.

The problem is, Sarah-is that no matter how candid or heartfelt you believe them to be none of these reasons are actually reasons...so of course the media and bloggers plus everyone and their son and their left big toe too are going to speculate. Whether some of us want you gone or not is irrelevant in terms of whether or not resigning with no real reason is right. Whether anyone is happy to see you go or not is irrelevant when they call foul on your quitting. Because quitting an elected position, with no real reason given is a little sketchy; people have a right to point that out. Your constituents especially have the right and frankly the media has the responsibility to point it out. As someone with a degree in journalism, I would think that you would understand that.

Really Sarah, I wonder if you are aware of how bizarre the "reasons" you gave us are?

"Not wanting a second term" is a reason for not-seeking re-election. It is not a reason to quite with 16 months left.

"Not wanting to be a lame duck" is not a reason for quitting, it sounds like a bad case of hard feelings over the fact that there won't be a second term. But who, at this point, can you have hard feelings for over that fact? Basically only yourself since you're electing to not run. At this point in the game you, and only you have prevented your second term and thus created your lame duck status.

"Not needing a title before your name" is not a reason to quit with 16 months left. That's the reason you give for not-seeking re-election, sure. But that's not a reason to quit. If you didn't need that title in front of your name to begin with, you should never have run for the position of governor which generally requires you to complete a four year term.

"Being called to a higher call" MIGHT be a reason, if you'd actually tell us what it is. Running for another office? Getting a sweet ass deal with an oil company? Something. This is your only "reason" that might actually give a clue as to why you are really quitting. But until you tell us what that higher call is, we are all left to speculate. And that is our right, because you were elected to serve us and you are quitting without really telling us why.

"Accomplishing everything you wanted to" is a fat lie. Where is the damned gas line? What smaller government? (Oh, you mean turning down federal money for the first time in the history of Alaska at a time when every single other state was actually getting some too?) I would like you to go over your list of campaign promises and all of the big goals you publicly stated at the start of your administration and explicitly tell us what of those this administration has actually accomplished.

Governor Palin, I do agree with you that sacrificing your title is best for Alaska. I agree whole heartedly with that, for now. I might change my mind when I find out why you actually sacrificed your title. But in spite of the fact that I agree with you, it doesn't mean that I think quitting was actually "the right thing to do" and I certainly can't say that it was until you treat us all with respect and tell us why you actually quit. I suppose that is asking too much though, since you've been completely honest and candid with Alaskans about very little for a very long time.

Sincerely,
An Alaskan who was never a fan, but remains perplexed and cheated none the less

Pictures of Change

A Story in Pictures from Feministe

I heard a man say recently that he'd been taught since he was a child that if men were capable of getting pregnant, then there would be no question about whether or not abortion should be legal. He then went on to say he'd since come to understand that this would be true most especially if old white guys could get pregnant.

These two pictures really kind of says it all, don't they?

I'm especially fond of the second. Of course those women surrounding Obama were staged there...but that's exactly the point! There is the actual recognition of the way legislation affects women. And it shows the change come to Washington!

The first picture on the other hand...well, it's just old white dudes doing what they do with no recognition of the affects that has.

More Coporate Madness

John seems pretty surprised by this news...and nothing against John, but he shouldn't be. OF COURSE they are organizing against labor. OF COURSE corporate America is going to do everything it can to continue to protect only the earnings of its executives. It's nothing new. We should have stopped trusting them a long, long time ago...

What he was pretty spot on about though? Not giving them another damned dime and redirecting that money toward the people who are really suffering. Why corporate America has been getting the bailouts when those are the same people who refuse to throw their support behind the government spending a damned cent on any sort of social programs is beyond me.

Oh, right. Trickle down economics, right? Save the big guys and the little guys will benefit too, right?

SURE...

Garrison Keillor on the Inauguration

A really well written and worthwhile piece all-around (what else would you expect from Garrison Keillor though?) A few lines stand out of which I am particularly fond:

"...but there is nothing so pleasant as being in a crowd of happy people when you are happy about the same thing they're happy about."

"It was more than Democrats feeling their oats or African-Americans celebrating the unimaginable, more than revulsion at the gang of bullheads who held power for too long. It was a huge gasp of pleasure at a new America emerging, a country we all tried to believe in, a nation that is curious and venturesome, more openhearted and public-spirited."

President Obama's First Weekly Address

And I am amongst all the other saps

Or, more things that make me smile.

Another Post about President Obama

I've been trying to think of what to write for most of the last 36 hours, but everything seems pithy compared to the monumental nature of the moment and to what I am feeling. So much has been said, that I can't really hope to repeat it,or to equal it, yet still I am filled with the same joy and the same hope that is overcoming so many and I feel the need to express it.

I got up early yesterday morning, caught the bus early and showed up on campus to watch inauguration with about 800 other people. It was fantastic. Even with the flub of the oath.

Yesterday morning, George W. Bush was still president. Today Barack Obama has been president, MY PRESIDENT, for 36 hours. It's amazing not only for the obvious historicity of the it all, but because it feels so personally meaningful. I've been a fan of Obama from the beginning, and now he is my president. The guy I supported from the beginning, campaigned for, voted for-- that's it. He's the winner. That a first for me in general, in terms of elections. I live in Alaska, and I'm very, very liberal. I tend to vote for the losers. But not this time. I feel for the 60 million people who didn't vote for him, yet I find myself still ardently declaring that Obama's election is far more a mandate that Bush ever had. The turnout on the National Mall yesterday exemplified that.

As I was explaining to a few friends last night, at the end of the celebratory party that T and I hosted, I am an optimist, and Obama ignites my optimism. But I am also very much a realist, and a pragmatist, and I know that President Obama is more pragmatic than I. I know he is not a miracle worker, I know he will make choices I won't agree with, and I know all the best choices will not be the easy choices nor the ideal choices. Yet still, my hope remains strong, and I believe that in four years time, I will be as pleased with the progress he has made en-masse, as I am with the baby steps he has taken in the last 24 hours. In four years time I feel confident that I will be working as ardently and as hopefully for the RE-ELECTION of President Barack Obama.

The two things which have excited me most, and are most clearly completions of campaign promises are a big part of what's been duly covered by the news today, and are both executive orders: The Ethics Order and The Presidential Records Order. The first establishes strict ethics guidelines for all executive appointees including bans on all gifts from lobbyists, and creating strict rules regarding allowed between undertaking lobby work and government work. The second reverses some of the huge steps the Bush administration had taken to inflate the executive privilege and remove certain presidential records from the public record (at the discretion of the president and their heirs.) Repealing those orders, and establishing clear guidelines for how and when documents can be withheld from the public record really is taking a huge step toward establishing the transparency that we have been promised and so deserve.

I'm also completely in love with the new whitehouse.gov and have already added The Blog to my Google Reader!

Things that make me smile...

OK, just one thing. At least at the moment.






Winner of the best animated gif of 2008. With good reason.

To Seat or Not to Seat...That is the Question.

I confess. I'm torn. I don't have anything brilliant to say. Not even a rant really. I'm just torn.

As an Obama supporter, I don't want them seated. As someone who wonders what's the point in having rules if they aren't going to be enforced, I don't want them seated.

But, as a voter, who desperately wants my voice to be heard, and feel that it has too often been taken wrongly, I cringe at the thought of other's not having theirs heard. Especially at the hands of some higher up persons who decided when their elections should or should not be held.

It seems unfair to have the delegates all seated as they would have had Hillary one two legitimate contests, because regardless of how she or her campaign wants to paint the picture, neither of those contests were normal, or even fair. The people campaigning at the time had agreed not to in either of those states. She chose to go ahead and do so.

At least in Florida, all the candidates were on the ballot. Though Obama didn't campaign there, at least his name was on the ballot. He didn't campaign there, but then again, no one campaigned here in Alaska. I'm willing to let Hillary call Florida a solid win. I guess I'm OK with her getting the lion's share of delegates in that contest, if the delegates are seated.

But Michigan is different. I don't care how she paints the story, that was not a normal and fair election. There is no viable way she can really claim triumph there, simply because people voted for the only person on the ballot. And I'm not accepting the argument by Clinton's legal team that Obama shouldn't get any Michigan delegates because he took his name off the ballot.

That's not a legitimate argument because he, like most of the democratic candidates, believed they were acting in accord with the rulings passed down by the DNC. Moreover, as has been repeatedly pointed out, everyone, including the Clinton campaign, was fine with the rulings handed down by the DNC (to not accept the results of Florida and Michigan) until it became such a tight race. The fact that Clinton left her name on both ballots and continued to campaign in Florida makes me wonder if perhaps, in the back of her mind somewhere, she wasn't trying to be prepared for exactly this sort of scenario.

To deny Obama any Michigan delegates would be to punish him for actually following the rules. Since when is justice really complete by punishing those who follow the rules and awarding those who dance around them?

I don't know what the DNC is going to do this weekend. It will be interesting. I hope it demonstrates (at least) a modicum of justice for both the candidates AND the voters. It's all just a mess. And not what the democratic party needs to be dealing with just now.

Speaking of being irked....

Multinationals Make Billions in Profit out of Growing Global Food Crisis

Shell and BP made close to $6million in profit per hour in the first quarter of last year. 6 million an hour. That's staggering. Simply staggering. But they aren't at fault. Don't you remember? They just testified before Congress saying they weren't!

Also mentioned in this article, and also something about which I've been bitching for the better part of the year: FOOD SPECULATION. See, it's all a game. A stupid game that is making some people lots of money and resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide, especially children. But the game persists because we insist on believing that economic laws are irrefutable.

"Fundamental Laws"

You know all of this talk has me irked. But then, it has everyone irked, right? Of course it has. People don't like paying nearly $4.00 a gallon for gasoline. And for many (myself included) this turn toward Peak Oil is yet another sign that we need to work on living more sustainably. That's why it's all over the eco-blogosphere.

It is irksome because a select few are making huge profits off of our misfortune and because it means overall badness for the planet. (to which people are going to continue to contribute, in spite of $4, $5 and $6 a gallon gasoline.) I don't believe the oil execs for a minute...of course they're happy about this. And of course they have more control over what is going on than they will admit. They are raking in record profits!

It's irksome because this crisis is being manipulated in attempt to open more land for drilling in this country (and my state) instead of being the appropriate impetus to look for other options.

But really, that wasn't what irked me to the point of posting just now. This turn of phrase is : "The fundamental laws of supply and demand are at work." What irks me most about that is that people really operate on the supposition that laws of modern economics (capitalist economics especially) are as irrefutable as the laws of nature.

Come on people! They aren't. Economic laws are made up! They are nothing more than cultural constructs. The law of supply and demand works only because we believe that's how it works. They work because people want to make a lot of money, and a really good way to make money is by imposing an inflated monetary value on something that may or may not really have any real use value. When something does actually have a a real use we see it as all the more legitimate a reason to inflate it's monetary value.

It's not gravity. It's not evolution. It's not chemistry. It's culture.

The law of supply and demand is a cultural meme that is self propagating because we believe it should be and allow it to be. Oil and rice and wheat are costing more not because they really MUST cost more when the supply is lessened, be it by natural or fabricated causes, but because we believe they should. Because we believe something should cost more, we allow the commodities traders, oil execs and other profiteers to continue to price it higher.

Commodities pricing has nothing to do with the actual use value of an item, and everything to do with it's fetishized value. The whole thing is a game. And like all games, we as humans developed the rules. That means the rules can change.

Damn Straight!

"religion is the reason our political discourse is so scandalously stupid in this country. "

Thanks to Tasha for passing this onto me. A supremely well written piece from the Huffington Post about all the things that should be said, but can't be said by any politician in this country. Specifically a look at Obama and how is caught in this mess.

For those who don't want to read the whole thing, here's the good stuff (in my opinion):

"Like every candidate, Obama must appeal to millions of voters who believe that without religion, most of us would spend our days raping and killing our neighbors and stealing their pornography. Examples of well-behaved and comparatively atheistic societies like Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark--which surpass us in terrestrial virtues like education, health, public generosity, per capita aid to the developing world, and low rates of violent crime and infant mortality--are of no interest to our electorate whatsoever...

...Despite all that he does not and cannot say, Obama's candidacy is genuinely thrilling: his heart is clearly in the right place; he is an order of magnitude more intelligent than the current occupant of the Oval Office; and he still stands a decent chance of becoming the next President of the United States. His election in November really would be a triumph of hope.

But Obama's candidacy is also depressing, for it demonstrates that even a person of the greatest candor and eloquence must still claim to believe the unbelievable in order to have a political career in this country. We may be ready for the audacity of hope. Will we ever be ready for the audacity of reason?"

Politics in Local Medicine

This really irks me. As I understood the situation (from the inside gossip to which I used to be somewhat privy) this has everything to do with her lower than average c-section rate. At least it did when Alaska regional Hospital withdrew her privileges three years ago while I was working in another private practice in the same hospital. I can't imagine that it's any different in this situation.

What is most absurd about the whole thing is the level of patient satisfaction her patients have with her. They LOVE her. I have heard that echoed time and time again. More than that, I know some of her patients personally, and they love her. Not only that, in addition to be loved by her patients and having a lower c-section rate than the average OB-GYN in Anchorage she also has a low rate of complications. Those two things when combined equal nothing more than a good thing. It's good for her as a provider, it's good for her moms and it's good for their babies.

Everyone is excruciatingly aware of the overly high rate of cesarean deliveries in this country. It is also no small secret that a huge proportion of these deliveries, when not done at the mother's discretion for her convenience, are done out of fear of a malpractice suits. This fear of lawsuit is frequently what requires a woman to have a repeat c-section. That is a woman who has once delivered via c-section has been required, by most of the medical dogma and standards for the better part of the last 30 years, to deliver all subsequent babies by c-section instead of being given the option to deliver vaginally. (Known as a VBAC- Vaginal Birth after C-section) At one point in time, when different incisions were used to deliver c-section babies, the risks were greater. Things have changed though.

Doctors and malpractice insurance carriers are scared of the complications that might arise from a VBAC. But really there is a lot of hard science and positive statistical evidence to indicate that there is little to no greater risk for a VBAC than for a first time vaginal delivery given an otherwise normal and healthy pregnancy.

Colleen Murhpy's privileges being revoked amount to simple politics. C-sections make a lot of money for hospitals and they also keep the malpractice bogey man at bay in the minds of some risk assessment and abatement professionals. The medical community in Anchorage can't handle another provider who offers the same services as they do, with a similar complication rate...but without the need for as much medical intervention. It makes those other providers look bad (and doesn't make as much money for the hospitals.)

This is a huge disservice to Dr. Murphy's career, and more importantly to the women who have chosen her as their provider. If her privileges are completely revoked at both major hospitals in Anchorage this will leave all of her patients without the provider they selected, and have come to know and trust, to be at their deliveries. It's disgusting.

I think it's time for some letter writing. Letters to the editor, letters to the hospitals and letters to the sate medical board. Hopefully her patients have the same idea as they are the best suited to be vocal supporters of Dr. Murphy during this time.

I should add that I don't actually know Dr. Murphy, aside from having met her once or twice. I'm sure she has absolutely no idea who I am...

Thoughts on Zinjabeelah and Pensylvania.

Oh...

That is the sound a vast exhalation coming out of my mouth. I once again feel Zinjabeelah, I agree with everything she is saying. This was yet another time that I felt the need to refer any of my readers to her words.

So frequently she say the things I am thinking, but so much better than I am able. Today is no different. Until her very last line.

Clinton scares me too. I don't trust her. I recoil at the thought of her being the nominee, but I can't...I just can't give up the hope that she would at least be better than the alternative...

I'm scared at the backlash that might come of a failed Clinton presidency...the backlash against democrats...the backlash at the thought of having elected a woman and seeing her make a bigger mess of things, or failing to even begin to clean up the messes we're in...

Yet still, after having seen my voice so muted in the only two presidential elections I've thus far voted in...I can't stand the thought of just giving up my voice this time...even if I am once again just voting for the lesser of two evils.

I just don't know if I have reached a point where my protest can be no vote at all...Especially after all we've been through the last 8 years...

I'm so saddened and frightened by what a potential Clinton nomination might do to the democratic party and the democratic voice...SOMETHING has to change!

Grr...

I don't care what people believe in their personal lives or teach to their children. It's their prerogative. But it pisses me off that crap like this is really possible, and that elected officials encourage it. People are really going to make it legal to teach things that don't even begin to resemble science as though it is tried and true science.

Monsanto's Harvest of Fear

Monsanto is best known by most American's for its nearly ubiquitous product, roundup. (scary stuff in and off itself, if you ask me.) This piece by Vanity Fair examines Monsanto's ventures into big-ag, and genetically modified crops. It is really a bit chilling

Democrats jumping ship?

I don't believe this for a minute. I won't be happy if Hillary wins the nomination. And, I feel more strongly that way now than I did at the beginning of the election. But that wouldn't for a minute make me abandon the democratic ticket all together? What the hell kind of democrat would you be if you voted for McCain over the Dem nominee JUST because your choice didn't win?

I mean, if you actually supported his platform more than the eventual nominee. But, when it comes down to it, no matter how much I prefer one of the other-- when you compare the platforms of Hillary and Obama they are in every way so much more similar than either will ever be to McCain.

Come on-- McCain is pro-war, pro-life, anti-universal health care, anti-woman...He's more of what the democrats have been bitching about for the last 8 years. How could anyone seriously consider voting for him instead of the democratic candidate?

HOW?

There must have been some serious error in that poll. That's all I have to say about that.