Oz Mudflats

Have a safe and happy holiday week everyone – and in the words of that famous red-nosed reindeer…

My computer is back up and running  just in time to stop everything and get the house ready for Christmas.  I leave you for the weekend in the company of  a few Russian Snowmen who can evidently see Sarah from their house!

Nostrovia!
OzMud

There are a few sounds in this world that one should never hear. One would be the crunching sound of metal on metal just after handing over the keys for your new Ute to your spouse. Another would be hearing your 5 year old say ‘uh-oh’ just after you’ve told him no, he can’t take his glass of red cordial into the lounge where there’s new tan carpeting. But probably worse than either of these would be the popping sound of a firecracker coming from inside your computer tower – especially when it’s accompanied by the unique smell of burnt wire.

It was just after we’d installed World Of Warcraft, an act I’m now convinced offended the Blogging Gods so much they blew up my computer just to put me in my place.

I’m in the market for a good sacrifice. If any of you know one, please post the instructions below. I’m off to see if I can find a cheap one on E-Bay.

Spouse has taken my poor, fried computer into the shop and I’m at his desk with the seat so tall my feet don’t reach the floor.

The original Tim Tam is a chocolate bikkie, covered in chocolate, filled with chocolate cream. It’s touted as Australia’s favourite chocolate biscuit, selling on average 400 million packets per year in a country whose population is just over 21 million.

The name Tim Tam comes from the horse that won the Kentucky Derby in 1958. Arnott’s (pronounced are nuts) has been making this bikkie commercially since 1964. The recipes for the chocolate itself, the bikkie base and cream fillings are family-owned.

To quote Arnott’s:
The chocolate used to make Tim Tam biscuits has been specially developed by Arnott’s to give a slightly caramel taste. The cream flavour is a delicate mixture of vanilla, butter and chocolate that complements the biscuit base and the chocolate. It’s this unique cream which sets Tim Tam apart from any other chocolate biscuit.”

They are to die for. The chocolate coating, filling and bikkie somehow manage to melt on your tongue in one synchronized moment of breath-taking ecstasy you want to never end.

You never forget your first Tim Tam. I was in a shop queue with my (now) spouse. Packets of these bikkies were in stacks the length of the queue. I remember spouse smiling, taking a packet from a stack, opening it and saying “here – try this” As I bit through the creamy chocolate into the fluffy biscuit the flavours exploded in my mouth like fireworks on a hot night. I thought I would be arrested and deported right there in the queue – I didn’t care.

Mark my words: Wars will be fought over this bikkie one day.

These are the current flavours:

Tim Tam Original
Tim Tam Chewy Caramel
Tim Tam Double Coat
Tim Tam Classic Dark Chocolate
Tim Tam Love Potions Double Chocolate and Raspberry
Tim Tam Love Potions Chocolate Mud
Tim Tam Love Potions Sticky Vanilla Toffee
Tim Tam Latte
Tim Tam Mocha, Double Coat
Tim Tam Chilli Chocolate

On the other hand, Australia sadly lacks See’s Candies and I have been without Chocolate Bordeaux’s for over ten years now… if not for Tim Tam’s and Pavlova, I would never have survived 🙂

OzMud
aka Lynn-in-Australia

PS Gryphen writes The Immoral Minority here

All the newspaper articles reporting Trig’s birth say the bub was born a full month early. Sharon Leighbow, Sarah Palin’s official spokeswoman, on April 18, 2008 told Anchorage Daily News and Channel ktuu news here  that Trig was one month early ‘”to the day”.

This puts Sarah Palin, a 44 year old woman and mother of four at 36 weeks pregnant on two 8-hour commercial flights, four days apart, with the second flight occuring after she’s leaked amniotic fluid, and no one on either flight crew can recall a pregnant and or stressed woman on their manifest.

My Irish mother, at age 24 went to her dentist to have a tooth extracted without telling anyone her water had broken and she was having contractions. She was determined to not go into labour with the added pain of a bad toothache. So, she bravely mopped up the amniotic fluid, took a bus downtown, and when she cried out in pain the dentist assumed he’d hit a nerve – not that she’d had a contraction. Two hours later she took a taxi to hospital where she delivered my older brother.

I get that anomalies happen. But that can’t be the case with Sarah Palin, not in the way she describes, and I can tell you why I believe this in just one word:

Physics.

The following illustrations and fetal information, (obtained from West Virginia Women’s Human Health & Resources) represent the normal growth of a baby which will have a full-term birth weight of between 6 and 10 lbs. Sharon Leighbow set the timeline don’t forget. This means Trig was born exactly 4 weeks premature. That put Sarah at 35-36 weeks pregnant at the time of her trip to and from a forum held in Texas for the Republican Governor’s Association. The same ADN article puts Trig’s birth weight at 6.2 lbs.

This is a normal pregnancy at 30 weeks – If Sarah gave birth at exactly 4 weeks early, this is how pregnant she would have been when this photo was taken:

This is a normal pregnancy at 33 weeks. This is how pregnant Sarah would have been when this photo was taken:

And finally, this is a normal pregnancy at 36 weeks – the exact time Sarah would be getting on and off airplanes, walking to and from airport gates, getting in and out of public transportation, using public toilets and being seated in public restaurants. This is the bulk Sarah would have dealt with on her flight back to Alaska and yet not one of the flight crew realized she was pregnant – at all:

Sarah Palin asks us to believe outrageous things at face value. She asks us to believe without offering a thread of evidence to help us believe her. 

Sarah Palin asks us to believe that a woman whose amniotic fluid has leaked just hours before, and is now on an airplane ride home, in a cabin with changing atmospheric pressure, was not noticed waddling to and from the loo. Her bulbous belly never once bumped into another seated passenger. Her frame fit neatly into her airplane seat, the tray fit perfectly atop her belly and the bub never kicked, jostling her glass of juice or plate of food.

Sarah Palin asks us to believe she never had a moment of discomfort in the twenty-some hours it took for her and Todd to travel over 2,000 miles to get home. Her ankles weren’t swollen, she didn’t have indigestion or gas and she didn’t need to run to the loo every half hour even though there was this 6 lb baby pressing her bladder into a squashed pancake.

Sarah Palin asks us to believe a fully-licensed medical doctor, over the phone, told a 44 year-old pregnant patient in her third trimester, carrying a baby known to have Down’s Syndrome,  whose water just broke, to remain in Texas, deliver a 30 minute speech and then fly 2000 miles back to Alaska rather than check into the nearest hospital, because ‘it would be okay’.

Sarah Palin needs us to believe she never had one contraction either during or before the eight hour flight or the four hour car ride home,  but then went immediately into hard labour upon reaching the sanctity of Mat-Su Hospital.

She needs us to take her at her word blindly and without question because if we don’t, there’s a chance we won’t believe the porkies she has yet to tell. And I’m guessing the really fat, juicy porkies are right around the corner.

Fran Drescher, who’s done an applaudable job of advocating for kids with cancer, has tossed her hat into the political ring with a formal bid for Hillary Clinton’s Senatorial seat.

Complete story here:

To quote Ms Drescher:

“My title is public diplomacy envoy for women’s health issues, and I just got back from a four-country European tour of duty. I believe next I’ll be sent to the Middle East.”

Also an anti-cancer activist, Drescher has been considering a run for office. “I’ve been very successful in getting a bill passed in Washington,” she said. “I was thinking I’d take the next four years to lay some groundwork, but I’m throwing my hat in the ring.” What else makes her a good candidate? “I’m an authentic and honest person,” she said. “And I think Capitol Hill needs more of that.”

May I just say that I would fly to the US  just to witness a candidacy debate between The Nanny and The Ninny! 

Fran would eat her alive 🙂

This just made my day – you go Fran!

Diggers in Iraq - Oz Gov Army Photo

We call our Australian Soldiers ‘Diggers’.
It’s a nickname they gave themselves during WWI,
(ostensibly recalling a handle given gold miners in the mid 1800’s)
when the soldiers found themselves digging trenches.
Someone, in a moment of attempted bloke humour no doubt,
evidently remembered the name and gave it a shout out. Australian soldiers have been fondly called ‘Diggers’ ever since.

American soldiers have had Diggers by their side during two world wars,
the Korean war, the Vietnam war and the Gulf war.
 
Diggers are currently serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.
We are there by invitation.

Yours.

So you see Linda Kozak from Alaska
what happens in the United States
especially politically
is very much my business.

Actually, what happens on this planet is very much my business
and I will not be told to sit quietly in the corner while avarice-oriented people deplete it’s resources or bilk it’s citizens.

I want my great grandchildren to have plenty of green trees.
I want my great great grandchildren to know what a tree is without needing
to google an image.

I want pollies like Sarah Palin to stop looking at publicly-elected jobs
as free rides full of free goodies and actually look at the job description
before putting their hand up.

I want pollies like your governor  to stop taking government money
for building roads that go nowhere
from taxpayer-driven federal funds which might have instead been used
to build a new school or hospital or help save yet another animal put on the endangered species list by some ignorant beaurocrat who thought putting petrol in his SUV
was more important than the long-term health of our environment.

This is my planet too
Linda Kozak from Alaska
and if my involvement makes you uncomfortable
*
*
*
 feel free to move.

All the Palins ever had to do was just produce little Trig’s birth certificate. Let a local television station run a feel-good piece with hospital staffers and the nurses who took care of Gov. Sarah and newborn Trig during the labour and after the delivery, and let the media do their job.

It didn’t have to be an intrusive piece. It just had to give the normal details one expects to read about any woman of note bringing a new life into the world. Only one other female Governor in the US had given birth during her term of office – and there were good-natured jokes about how Ms. Swift ran the state from her hospital bed for ten days prior to delivery:

New York Times in May 18 2001:

Acting Gov. Jane M. Swift of Massachusetts, who has been running the state’s government from her hospital bed since May 8, gave birth tonight to twin girls, an aide said.

Ms. Swift, 36, delivered by Caesarean section at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, her spokesman said. Lauren Alma Hunt, weighing 6 pounds, was born at 9:11 p.m. Sarah Jane Hunt, 5 pounds, 4 ounces, was delivered a minute later. Both babies were 17 1/2 inches long.

Their immediate conditions were not known, but Ms. Swift gave the O.K. sign as she was wheeled out of the operating room, her spokesman said.

Ms. Swift is the first woman in the nation to give birth while serving as governor. She and her husband, Charles Hunt, 47, have one other child, 2-year-old Elizabeth. Mr. Hunt has one grown son from a previous marriage.

*          *          *          *          *

There were photos available of Ms. Swift in her hospital bed ‘being Governor’.

Reporters who waited in the halls for the babies to be born continue to mention this experience in other articles. Hospital officials continue to congratulate themselves for the good job their hospital and staff did in delivering Gov. Swift’s twin daughters:

September 03, 2008 4:36 PM

Rick Klein, from ABC News’ The Note, Reports: Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska, earlier this year became the second sitting governor in US history to have given birth while in office.

Former Gov. Jane Swift, R-Mass., was the first. In 2001, after ascending from the office of lieutenant governor when Paul Cellucci became ambassador to Canada, Swift gave birth to twin girls, her second and third daughters.

(As a reporter for The Boston Globe, I was at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston waiting for those bundles to be delivered.)

*          *          *          *          *

By contrast, the stories released about Trig’s birth all looked like this:

Reuters

Fri April 18 2008

Yereth Rosen reporting:

ANCHORAGE, Alabama (Reuters) – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin gave birth to a baby boy early on Friday, becoming the second U.S. governor to have a baby while serving in office.

Palin’s labor began on Thursday, about a month early, while she was attending a Republican Governors’ Association meeting in Grapevine, Texas, said spokeswoman Sharon Leighow.

Palin, the first woman to serve as Alaska governor, was able to deliver a keynote luncheon address on Alaska energy issues on Thursday before flying back to Anchorage and delivering the baby on Friday morning, exactly a month before her due date, Leighow said.

The baby, named Trig Paxson Van Palin, is the fifth child for Palin and her husband, Todd.

The Palins knew through prenatal testing that “he would face special challenges, and we feel privileged that God would entrust us with this gift and allow us unspeakable joy as he entered our lives,” the Republican governor said in a statement.

And then the strangest thing… the Governor’s spokeswoman, Sharon Leighbow, launched an accounting of Sarah’s travel plans, including the unsolicited, qualifying statement that Sarah would never have boarded a plane if she’d thought it would endanger her child.

I suppose the implication here is for the reader to work out that since she did board a plane, she was, therefore, in control and knew ahead of time that nothing could possibly go wrong. But would any reporter ask a woman who has just gone through childbirth such a question? Really? This came up during an interview on the morning of Trig’s birth?

What an odd thing to focus on in the midst of this historic event! Then you notice that no one from the maternity ward commented on their role in caring for Gov. Sarah and newborn Trig. No one from the delivery room commented on their role in caring for Gov. Sarah and newborn Trig. Not one hospital attendant, administrator, board member, Chairperson or CEO commented on the role their hospital played in caring for Gov. Sarah and newborn Trig on this rather historic event in US and Alaskan history.

I could not find a single photo of a proud Todd (The First Dude) holding his newborn son. No photos of either big sister holding their newborn brother. No proud as punch grandparents.

There were no photo layouts of the family gathered around the new bub in a Sunday newspaper or woman’s magazine, not directly after the birth or in the ensuing months.

So forget the mind-boggling, bizarre report on the flight from Texas back to Alaska and just tell me, please – when Trig was born, where the Hell was everybody else?

Just in time for Christmas!  This unique handmade ornament –  a portrait, really – can be yours by going to this site and placing your order with FullFrogMoon! And each one is individually signed by the artist! 

They’re only $13.50 USD so get lots!

Just imagine – put these on your tree and pump up the volume on the Nutcracker Ballet and soon you too will have visions of Moose/Palins dancing through your head!

(Is it just me or is this just too weird?)

As few as six weeeks ago, everywhere that Sarah went, Trig, Bristol, Willow and Piper were in tow. Everywhere. On and off airplanes, in and out of convention centres, everywhere.

As few as four weeks ago, during interviews in their Wasilla home, Trig was always in a photo being carried by either Sarah herself one of the girls.

Where’s Trig now? He didn’t accompany mum to the Turkey Pardon Fiasco, the Governor’s Convention in Florida, or the Chambliss Campaign. I bet Obama would have liked to meet the little guy at his gathering in Philly but again, little Trig, the one time attached-to-the-hip Palin accessory of choice, was a no show.

I never saw an array of  ‘Thanksgiving photos of the Governor’s Family’ in the ADN even though at the Turkey Pardon Interview Sarah made a big deal out of being in charge of cooking the turkey for her whole family on the day.  

Her Staffers reported that Sarah kept Trig with her during April, May, June, July and August while she performed her duties as Governor, and yet there are no AP Wire or ADN  candid shots of mum and bub  in and around town as she did her job then or now.  So what’s the deal?

It’s 6 December 2008. Trig is fast approaching being 8 months of age. He’s a special needs bub. That means he has SPECIAL NEEDS. Surely his physical development is being monitored by someone? Who? Who’s looking after him medically? Who’s looking after him daily?

Is he crawling?

Can he turn over by himself?

Is he holding his head up?

Can he hold his own bottle?

Is he sleeping through the night?

Is he eating any solids yet?

 As the Republican Party’s calendar girl for mother of special needs kids, Sarah should be openly sharing her daily experiences so mothers of other special needs kids can feel more secure about their own.

So who’s looking after Trig and where is he?

Oh wait.

Bristol’s not around either, is she.

Well for a Governor who touts herself as the ultimate advocate for transparency in government, this is all clear as mud to me.

Anchorage Sept 2008 AP Photo

It’s obviously very windy.

Piper’s hair and your sleeves are blowing sideways.

The airplane steps look steep.

Bristol is having to bend to one side to see where to put her foot with her next step while balancing the bub on her hip.

Todd is behind her with a hand casually placed on each rail.

Can you please explain to us

why DAD isn’t carrying his own son

down the rickety steps?

This is how the rumours get started Sarah, because you and your family just do things that make the rest of us want to buy all of you gift certificates for group therapy..

CORRECTION: Willow is descending the steps holding Trig, not Bristol as previously stated. (My thanks to JC for finding this error.)

That said, it still does not explain why dad isn’t carefully carrying his own bub down the rickety steps.

Mea Culpa! Seems Sarah owned this scarf a full year before Wardrobe Gate

 Ok fine, I was one of the rowdy crowd who cried FOWL! FOWL! at the Turkey Shoot, erm, Pardon two weeks ago.

I, too claimed Sarah was wearing a Bergdorf Burberry Scarf purchased by the RNC on her recent (failed) campaign trek across the USA. But at least I’m in good company as Keith Olbermann made the same observation about the same scarf at the same event!

That’s ok, Keith also cited the WKRP flying turkey episode that I’d blogged about a full week before  so I’m extremely proud to know I share intimate memories of my youth with one of my political heroes. Too much? Ok truth is, I watch Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow because I can understand them!

But I digress. I’m here to eat humble pie.

I apologize, Sarah, for having doubted your integrity. Of course you’ve returned all the RNC clothing – all $150,000 $180,000 worth! I was out of line to think you would ever pull the turkey feathers over our eyes and I am truly sorry.

By the way, where were the clothes auctioned off? Which charities got the money? Is there a list? I’d like to make donations to the same charities, you see. Just post a list of their names in the comments and I’ll see they are passed around the blogosphere so others might make donations too J  

(Can I exchange this pie for blueberry?)

I was derailed today. And it’s another clear as mud moment in my life.

A lovely friend of mine, who for reasons which completely elude me, feels it’s necessary to do herself harm. She’s a cutter. I know this to be true as she bolstered the courage once, to show me some of her scars.

This time of year is hard for her. She had a miscarriage three years ago and has not recovered from the loss. In the past three years she’s tried to commit suicide at least twice. She has been seen by a psychiatrist, a psychologist and no less than two other therapists.

At the beginning of September, she and I spent a day making Christmas ornaments. She made one for her little lost soul, and was looking forward to hanging it on her tree. I took it as a good sign.

She’s been actively working through the self-harming pattern. She’s been buoyant and brave and even flown to NSW for a vacation with friends. She’s begun a new job and everyone adores her. She’s one of those incredibly sweet people you instinctively like and want in your world.

The day before yesterday my friend called to say she’d voluntarily admitted herself in hospital because she was afraid she would hurt herself. Really hurt herself. She was panicked. She wanted to be in a place where she felt safe. I was caught a bit off-guard as I didn’t realize she was still so vulnerable, but relieved at her decision to get help.

Last night she called to say she’d finally managed to sleep and her tone was positive. She gave me her number and we chatted about the storms we’re having in Southeast Queensland.

This morning her doctor discharged her. She called me, crying, and I kept her company while she waited for her mum. She was scared. I can’t begin to imagine what that must be like, to be afraid of yourself.

Out of all the educated, highly trained people taking care of my friend, her psychologist is the only one she trusts. And here’s the rub: Only the psychiatrist has the authority to issue medications or hospitalisations. And her psychiatrist thinks she’s faking, that all she’s after is attention. He’s officially diagnosed her as ‘A Borderline’ which evidently means ‘an attention grabber’ and dismissed her like yesterday’s bread.

I hope he’s right. Although I don’t understand how someone who hides cutting themselves is grabbing for attention, I do hope he’s right. Because if he’s not and my friend disappears from my world?  I won’t have any regrets when my knee accidentally makes contact with his testicles .

I’ve been following your site since the Wasilla Project posted the second of their four videos. You people are doing such good work and I’ve got fingers crossed that your legislators see the wisdom in your efforts soon.

To show my support, I’ve just made a PayPal donation to your truly worthy cause from my home in Queensland Australia.

My $20 (USD) donation cost $31.75 (AUD) and of course I’m happy to do it and will continue to encourage others to do the same – but – and I say this with love and respect – I think next time I’ll just send you a nice bottle of Olivia Newton-John’s famous wine. That way the bank won’t be the major recipient and I’ll know I helped someone stay warm for a night in the cold of Alaska’s heating oil crisis 🙂

Sincerely,
OzMud
aka Lynn-in-Australia

Ps. It’s white wine for salmon and red wine for moose, right?

We’ve all had a go at Sarah’s poor speech patterns. But what if the lady is actually doing the best she can with what she’s got to work with? The excerpt above is from a .pdf file that’s surfaced in the blogosphere. (Thanks DarleenMB for the link.) It purports to be an actual Sarah Palin background check albeit there’s no documentation supporting its authenticity. The hand-written date in the ‘Received’ stamp at the top of the first page reads 2003, but does not say by whom, for what purpose or for whom the vetting was performed. I did not find anyone claiming authorship, and the only other post I was able to access on the site was a well-orchestrated bit of flash humour.

Knowing how easy it is for Joe-the-average-guy to photoshop erroneous information into genuine documents, I am more than skeptical of this .pdf file. That said, I’m going to indulge in a small game of what if based solely on the premise that the intelligence quotient portion of this report is accurate, and Sarah Palin’s IQ is indeed a below-average 83.

What if Sarah’s IQ is 83? How much of her behaviour would this explain? A tonne! One informal definition of intelligence quotient, simply put, is the ability to focus. Another is the ability to solve problems. Both of these tasks seem difficult for Sarah in practice, as witnessed by anyone who has watched any of her television interviews.

I’ve pinched the following from www.wilderdom.com (and of course it must be accurate because there’s a picture of Einstein on the front page!):

Kidding aside, I studied this subject a bit in college and again many years later when I had a child born with cerebral palsy. This information agrees with what I remember from my psych 101 classes and medical discussions concerning my son, so even if it’s not the latest information, it appears to represent the testing Sarah would have encountered in the 1980’s.

There was even a small chart representing population norms. However, there’s no year of publication with which to link this information. It simply appears (to me) to be reasonable:

This single blip on the radar would explain:

• why she needs to have so many (loyal) people by her side.
• her need to hire people with whom she has history, regardless of their abilities to fill the positions.
• why she hired a formal administrator (at $50k a year) to do a job she’d been elected to do.
• why she could not follow her RNC handlers advice on the campaign trail.
• why she created her Maverick image.
• her ease in telling one reporter one thing, and a second the exact opposite.
• her expectation the other Republican Govs would blindly fall into step behind her in Florida.
• her predisposition to string several words together without forming one complete sentence.

 I’m not sure where to stop. My brain is jammed and the orange [information overload] button is flashing. But seriously, so much of her behaviour just makes sense when it’s put into the context of She’s just not that smart, folks.

Take a step back and a good look: If Sarah has a low IQ, chances are she also has low self-esteem. She would need to be cocooned by people she trusts to feel safe. Like having a living security blanket. Even though she can bravely march onto a stage in the midst of thousands of fans, and confidently read from a prepared speech, when it comes to her own inadequacies, she would need the security of knowing that her staff’s first priority would be to protect her image – to shield her true nature from the public. Any other job description would be incidental.

She would be an on the surface people pleaser, telling her immediate audience what she thinks they would want to hear. And the next day with a new audience she would do it again, disregarding any contradictions she might make as inconsequential. And once any of her statements produced a reaction she liked, she would hammer that soundbite into speech after speech and interview after interview.

When she lost track of a correct answer she could always double back and play the Maverick card. It’s not that I don’t know the answer… it’s that I’m a Maverick and don’t have to give you the answer!

The best description I could ever give Sarah’s patter when giving an interview is that it’s very much like listening to someone stutter. The jerky half-sentences separated by and also, well there’s and, also too, remember, and if, if is stuttering, in my book.

The mumbo-jumbo cadence also buys her time to work out what to say. People who lie (or exaggerate) often, usually require more time than others to form thoughts as they need to run a story-check much the same way writers take a moment to use spell-check.

One thing which continues to irritate me about Ms. Palin’s fast-track to political fame is the over-the-top exaggeration process the RNC used to promote her qualifications. First because it’s just not necessary any more to grossly exaggerate a candidate’s virtues. The public, in general, is smarter these days. We can google. Second, because it empowered Sarah to think she was allowed to rewrite her own biography, and take out anything she thought unpleasant. And here’s a thought – people who can lie the way Sarah can, shouldn’t be encouraged to do more.

Right from the start she was introduced to the public as a woman who’d stood up to the big boys in oil and won. She did? I’m wondering if the big boys, you know, the ones who got a promise of $500 mil from Sarah know she filleted them like a salmon? And I can’t help wonder, now that she’s had to go back to being just a Governor, how statements like that are going to affect her ability to successfully negotiate with the boys in the future.

So yes, RNC, we acknowledge Sarah was indeed the Mayor of Wasilla.Thing is, at the time of her election, Wasilla’s population was roughly 5,000. Less than 700 people voted for her, approximately 200 more than voted for her opponent. Not exactly a landslide in a big city.

And yes, she in fact won the elected position of Alaska State Governor. But at the time of her win, there were less than 800,000 people living in Alaska, not all were registered voters, and her opponent was vastly disliked by an unprecedented majority of those who were registered voters. For you, the responsible folks in the Republican National Committee to tout her as someone who had the trust and respect of millions of voters in Alaska, well, it just makes me angry.

And quite frankly, Sarah should be angry too. You placed her high on a public pedastal and then walked away, leaving her to think that’s where she belonged. I’m not at all confused as to why Sarah is still campaigning for herself. You dropped tent and drove off without helping her down.

I’m tired of politicians treating all of us as if we’re idiots, that we’re disposable, and that people don’t matter, only winning matters..

Nobody in a position to speak on a national level told how Sarah left Wasilla $20 mil in debt, or that the reason she’s called hockey mom has nothing to do with a Stepford Wife image of mom driving a carload of kids back and forth to hockey practice, but because she used $15 mil of Wasilla’s money to build a hockey rink-slash-community centre – and then authorized it’s construction prior to a proper title search on the land,- leaving the citizens of Wasilla to this day – to pay for lawyers to deal with the mess.

Nobody in the lower 48 took the story of the road to nowhere seriously. Nobody took it as a sign there was more to come. Alaskan newspapers and reporters hung their citizens out to dry under a hot, summer sun while taking the be nice she’s our governor tack and tucking all Sarah’s dirt neatly away from national scrutiny.

If this report of Sarah’s IQ score is even remotely accurate, if there’s even one chance that Sarah Palin had the unmitigated gall to nationally portray her first grandchild as her own son, (see upcoming post) then we need to get behind the people in Alaska. We need to support the newly formed Alaskans for Truth and help them make their legislators do their job.

And we need to do it before Sarah finds a way into the Senate.

I’m off to make my donation to Alaskans for Truth all the way from Australia – have you made yours?

So I’ve just called my spouse to my desk to show him what Willie (my Widget) looks like at night:

The cutest bit is that when you mouseover the big moon on the left, the pop-up tag says SUNNY!

“Look how cute!”  I beamed with pride. “That doesn’t look anything like the moon outside. Where’s the smiley face?” he jeered. Earlier tonight, we watched the lunar alignment of the moon with Venus and Jupiter where the three formed to make a smiley face.

“You expected this little energex widget to look EXACTLY like the curent night sky?” I asked a tad sarcastically.

“What if i was a fisherman? What if I was depending upon that widget to tell me when and where to cast my nets tomorrow?” I stared, unable to speak. Spouse continued.

“What if I was lost at sea and needed to find the north star? What would your widget say then eh? What if I was a religious zealot and needed to know which phase of the moon we were in so I could plan the appropriate sacrifice? Does it show you where to get the closest, cheapest beer? Well? Does it? I thought not. It’s useless.”

As I watched him leave the room all I could think was… “Poor man – he’s been living with me way too long.”

One of my chat-thread contributions during the first week of October, just after the VP Debate: 

I’ve been listening to Sarah Palin’s interviews and speeches for almost 5 weeks now and I’ve just noticed my left eye has begun twitching. I’m certain there’s a correlation between the two.If she is elected I may need surgery. Or just go blissfully blind.

It’s inconceivable to me that the interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric were ‘prepared for’ as Sarah’s speech patterns tend to give her quite ‘unpreparedness’ away. When caught with a question she either is not prepared to answer or does not want to answer, she seems to rabbit on making little or no sense. I have two schools of thought on this. It’s possible Sarah thinks if she uses enough words the answer is bound to show up.It’s also possible Sarah thinks by using lots and lots of words, she can derail the question altogether. Regardless, her sentence structure.for a college graduate holding a four-year degree in journalism is deplorable. I think she may surpass GWB in the verbal gaffe, talent portion of this competition.

In the interview with Katie Couric:

COURIC: You’ve cited Alaska’s proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience.What did you mean by that?

PALIN: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land– boundary that we have with– Canada. It– it’s funny that a comment like that was– kind of made to– cari– I don’t know, you know? Reporters–  

COURIC: Mock?  

PALIN: Yeah, mocked, I guess that’s the word, yeah.

COURIC: Explain to me why that enhances your foreign policy credentials.

PALIN: Well, it certainly does because our– our next door neighbors are foreign countries.They’re in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia–

COURIC: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?  

PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth. We– we do– it’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where– where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is– from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to– to our state.

 *          *          *          *          *

Sarah-Speak reminds me of an episode on The Gilmore Girls where Lorelai was struggling to write a character reference for her ex-boyfriend:

RORY: … Maybe if you just put pen to paper… 

LORELAI: I tried that…ooh, was that a bad idea. 

RORY: Really why? 

LORELAI: Because my brain is a wild jungle full of scary gibberish…I’m writing a letter…I can’t write a letter…why can’t I write a letter?…I’m wearing a green dress…I wish I was wearing my blue dress…my blue dress is at the cleaners…the Germans wore grey…you wore blue… Casablanca, Casablanca…such a good movie…Casablanca…the White House…Bush…why don’t I drive a hybrid car? I should really drive a hybrid car…I should really take my bicycle
to work…bicycle, unicycle, unitard…hockey puck, rattle snake, monkey, monkey, underpants. 

RORY: Hockey puck, rattle snake, monkey, monkey, underpants? 

LORELAI: Exactly! That’s what I’m saying. It’s a big bag of weird in there

 *          *          *          *          *

 My thoughts exactly Governor. It’s a big bag of weird in there.

The VP debate left me with a really good feeling and a headache. The really good feeling came from watching and listening to Joe Biden. This was my first introduction to the man and after watching him handle Sarah Palin I felt much better about no longer backing John McCain.

My initial impression was “Ok, why isn’t he the lead on the Dem ticket?. I called one of my friends in the US who was having a really hard time voting for either party. A lot of women in the US were literally ‘distraught’ over Hillary’s loss and still waffling. But John McCain’s attempt at sweeping these women off their feet with his choice of Sarah Palin wasn’t going to get him votes from any women I knew. My friend and I chatted a good, long time and at the end I said to her “Don’t think of it as voting for Barack Obama. Think of it as voting for Joe Biden!”

The news hype leading up to the VP Debate was all about cutting Sarah slack because her two previous news interviews showed her to be an incompetent public speaker. She’d been secreted off to some special debate-training camp for a crash course in how to use talking points and we weren’t to expect too much.

Joe Biden, a seasoned public speaker and long-term senator who could easily rip Sarah a new one, was being publicly and repeatedly warned to ‘tone it down – give the lady a break” until I wanted to gag. If Sarah couldn’t handle a one-on-one debate with a peer, what on earth was she doing on the Rep ticket in the first place? You think some leader in a corrupt country in the middle east is going to “tone it down” because they’re negotiating with Sarah? pfft

The media kept explaining to us, ad nauseam, that all Sarah had to do to win this debate was to just not screw up really badly. Huh? This is the bar we set now for VP candidates?  They’re all attending the Bush Academy of Clown Politics? What have they done to my country since I left? I thought public debates between candidates were all about strutting your stuff; About how well you composed yourself while in the line of fire; How well you could answer tough questions off the top of your head without having a prepared, scripted answer rolling off the teleprompter, making you look like you knew more than you actually did.

Today, it appears, a national debate is about talking points and how often you can defer the actual question to one of your talking points if you don’t like the actual question posed. The singular answer heard round the world is found in this bit of transcript:

IFILL: Senator?

BIDEN: The charge is absolutely not true. Barack Obama did not vote to raise taxes. The vote she’s referring to, John McCain voted the exact same way. It was a budget procedural vote. John McCain voted the same way. It did not raise taxes. Number two, using the standard that the governor uses, John McCain voted 477 times to raise taxes. It’s a bogus standard it but if you notice, Gwen, the governor did not answer the question about deregulation, did not answer the question of defending John McCain about not going along with the deregulation, letting Wall Street run wild. He did support deregulation almost across the board. That’s why we got into so much trouble.

IFILL: Would you like to have an opportunity to answer that before we move on?

PALIN: I’m still on the tax thing because I want to correct you on that again. And I want to let you know what I did as a mayor and as a governor. And I may not answer the questions the way 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. As mayor, every year I was in office I did reduce taxes. I eliminated personal property taxes and eliminated small business inventory taxes and as governor we suspended our state fuel tax. We did all of those things knowing that that is how our economy would be heated up. Now, as for John McCain’s adherence to rules and regulations and pushing for even harder and tougher regulations, that is another thing that he is known for though. Look at the tobacco industry. Look at campaign finance reform.

IFILL: OK, our time is up here. We’ve got to move to the next question.

“Ok our time is up here?” That’s the moderator’s response to ‘I don’t want to answer the question I want to talk about what I want to talk about instead…’ ? Wow. Debate rules sure have changed.

Her answer though, led me to research her stint as mayor of Wasilla, a town, it turns out, which was debt-free until Ms. Palin took office. She left at the end of a 6-year term, in a blazing trail of financial debacles which the citizens of Wasilla are still paying off, today. The figure I found was $20,000. For a small town of 5,000 that’s a hefty debt. Add that to the million dollar hockey rink she built on land without performing a title search, which is now costing the citizen’s of Wasilla substantial legal fees to negotiate their way through and you have a not-so-fiscally-responsible record for Ms. Palin.

Does anyone ever make her accountable? Or does everyone just buy into her Fargo accent and cut her slack?

I watched the entire debate live, from my sofa in Australia. Watching Joe Biden handle himself and Sarah Palin reinforced my faith in the Democratic Party. I could get behind this ticket. Maybe I could even start cutting this Barack Obama guy some slack.