Go Away, Your Fifteen Minutes Are Up

Remember Sarah Palin? Today, she visited a rustic Alaskan turkey abattoir to grant a ceremonial "pardon" to a bird...while she blithely babbled on about her holiday plans and her political critics, one of her constituents was behind her, forcing a struggling turkey head-first into a gore-crusted metal funnel serving as a combination meat-grinder/ guillotine.

The executioner kept pausing in his work to turn around and gawk at Ms. Palin, extending the suffering of the poor turkey for long, grindingly painful moments. On the TV news, they blurred out the blood and gore, but you can see the whole bloody mess here. It's hard to stomach.

Is a high-spirited publicity romp through a charnel house considered "mavericky"? What political purpose does using a trough-full of turkey guts as a speechifyin' backdrop serve? Is she seeking the LeatherFace vote in 2012?

I hope this incident is a swan song for Sister Sarah, but sadly, it's probably not.

Too Much To Ask For?

Imagine walking into a job interview at Pizza Hut and being asked by your potential employer what you expected to do at Pizza Hut- you answer, sincerely : "I will be the boss of making cheeseburgers."

Do you think you'd get hired?

Very recently, Sarah Palin was asked by a grade schooler what the Vice-President's job is. She replied, incorrectly: "They're in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for [the questioner] and his family and his classroom."

In real-life, the American Constitution only allows for the VP to cast a Senate vote in the case of a tied vote amongst Senators. The only other Constitutional duty assigned to the Veep is to outlive the President, (something that Palin can certainly do).
That's it. The Vice-President is not supposed to have any legislative power at all. I wonder if Palin can name the three Branches of American Government without using a teleprompter?

The good folks at Alternet.org have compiled a list of the 11 Dumbest Things Sarah Palin Has Said, which is pretty eye-opening stuff. In her remarks, there's a recurring theme that the Presidential Election will be decided by God- this, to me, smacks of the archaic doctrine of Divine Right and displays a medieval Crusader mentality- you know, the Crusades from way back in the old days when European Christians kept invading and attempting to occupy specific areas of the Middle East.
How did that work out?


One thousand years later, the religiously insane are still fighting over who controls Jerusalem.

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This just in: The GOP has spent at least $150,000 on Sarah Palin's wardrobe over the last several weeks. That's the sort of excess one expect from Madonna, not from a faux- populist Republican who is running on a shaky platform of fiscal responsibility and "small-town values". With $150,00 I could live comfortably for five years and I'm guessing that a family of four could do well for at least a year or two.

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I don't expect much from political leaders anymore but there are a few things that I'd like to see in the next administration:

- I'd like a President who is smarter than me. There are billions of humans on Earth who meet this qualification and none of them are named George W. Bush or Sarah L. H. Palin. Barack Obama and Joe Biden both meet this simple requirement. McCain may have once fit the bill but he's showing his age- this campaign appears to be killing his brain. Retirement beckons. The man deserves that much.

-I'd like to see "God" banished from politics. I don't want a leader who puts our national fate into the hands of a nebulous Cloud Being that may or may not exist. The last thing America needs is a President with an imaginary co-pilot and an army of "prayer warriors".

- The McPalin campaign insists that Obama is a Socialist. I wish that were true.

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Wouldn't it be great if all eligible citizens were allowed to vote and those votes were actually counted? Why not abolish the Electoral College entirely and just elect our President on a straight-up national vote?

Wish, wish, wish...

Stukas Over Dixieland

The Junkers JU-87 Stuka Dive Bomber was, for a time, one of Nazi Germany's most fearsome weapons. It was, among other things, equipped with an incredibly loud, air-powered siren that would increase in volume and pitch as it descended at great speed on a target, the sound was intended to strike terror into the hearts of it's victims and it worked admirably, if one is inclined to admire terrorism.
(I am not.)

Speaking of high-pitched, fear-inducing sirens, Sarah Palin was in my hometown today; she held a rally at the very same NASCAR track that I worked at earlier this year.
She and McCain had a rally together in Virginia Beach earlier this morning, with Palin continuing up here this afternoon.

This is remarkable because my state, in my lifetime, has NEVER voted for a Democratic Presidential candidate- most years, the GOP doesn't lift a finger to contest Virginia- it's a given that it'll go Republican. This year might change that. McPalin wouldn't be visiting if they weren't afraid.

Speaking of fear, what the heck are McPalin talking about at these rallies? It can't be McPalin policies, because they, by their own admission, don't have any.
This morning, McCain’s policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said, “I have no comment on anything, to anybody.”
It's three weeks before the election and McPalin's campaign platform is "no comment"?

That's pathetic.

So anyway, what are they talking about at those rallies?

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It should be noted that the Stuka was quite effective at destroying slow-moving or immobile targets such as homes, factories, railroads, people and bridges.
Look around your American neighborhood. Did a Stuka dive bomber foreclose your home, close the local factory and shut down your Amtrak station? Did the Luftwaffe bomb New Orleans?

It should also be noted that the Stuka was no match for a true fighter plane such as the American P-51 Mustang or the British Spitfire. The JU-87 was a slow, unwieldy aircraft that was all but incapable of protecting itself in an aerial dogfight.

It had two primary functions:

1) Terrorize
2) Destroy

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So anyway, what are they talking about at those rallies?