Attention Whore Sarah Palin On 2012 Presidential Run: ‘It’s Not Too Late’

December 21, 2011 by 1 Comment

At the risk of giving her the attention she’s probably willing to strip for, I find it fascinating how hard she’ll work to try to get attention. How low will she go?

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin rekindled speculation about her 2012 plans Monday, offering a teasing response to a question about whether she or anybody else might still get involved in the presidential race.

“It’s not too late for folks to jump in,” Palin said during an interview on the Fox Business Network, according to advance excerpts. “Who knows what will happen in the future.”

Earlier in the year, Palin appeared to shut the door on her White House aspirations, at least for this election cycle.

“After much prayer and serious consideration, I have decided that I will not be seeking the 2012 GOP nomination for president of the United States,” said Palin in a statement on her decision.” As always, my family comes first and obviously Todd and I put great consideration into family life before making this decision. When we serve, we devote ourselves to God, family and country. My decision maintains this order.”

Palin may not be including herself in that list of “folks,” and it’s possible that she’s simply referring to other potential figures, such as real estate mogul Donald Trump, who have been irresolute about their presidential ambitions. Earlier this month, Trump removed himself as moderator of a Republican debate because he refused to rule out mounting a third-party run later in 2012 should the GOP primary produce a candidate he finds unacceptable.

The comment could well recharge the energy of her persistent supporters, who just last month launched an ad in Iowa urging Palin to jump in the race due to dissatisfaction with the current field. That sentiment has apparently lingered among the ranks of many conservatives, as Tea Party leaders recently told the Associated Press that they remained “disappointed” with their choices.

If Palin remains a sideline figure in the 2012 elections, her eventual endorsement, which she has said she intends to give, will no doubt be a coveted possession. On Sunday, the former vice presidential candidate said she wasn’t yet ready to decide who she would support. Real Clear Politics reported in November that her camp was considering backing former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who recently experienced a tumble in Iowa polls. Palin has also spoken favorably about former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, who has largely failed to register as a force in GOP primary surveys, even in Iowa, where he has spent the vast majority of his time attempting to appeal to the state’s social conservatives.

via Sarah Palin On 2012 Presidential Run: ‘It’s Not Too Late’.

Of course there’s no way she’s actually going to run, but she’ll whore her endorsement out for the right candidate (read: money) before going to a cushy highly-paid seat as a Fox talking head. The happy thing for Fox is she can make horse-imitator Ann Coulter look almost smart by comparison.

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Leesburg, Virginia Allows Nativity, Luke Skywalker, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster

December 20, 2011 by Leave a Comment

When officials in Leesburg, Virginia, decided not to allow for the display of a nativity scene on city property, says New York Magazine, “pro-nativity demonstrators who cited freedom of speech and freedom of religion, after which the county backtracked and decided to allow any religious display on a first-come, first-serve basis.” Ho ho ho ho ho:

For the better part of 50 years, a creche and a Christmas tree were the only holiday displays on the Loudoun County Courthouse grounds. Then came the mannequin Luke Skywalker and signs celebrating the winter solstice. This month, a skeleton Santa Claus was mounted on a cross, intended by its creator to portray society’s obsession with consumerism. A pine stands adorned with tinsel—and atheist testimonials. “I can be moral without religion,” one declares. Members of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster are scheduled to put up their contribution this weekend. It’s a banner portraying a Nativity-style scene, but Jesus is nowhere to be found. Instead, the Virgin Mary cradles a stalk-eyed noodle-and-meatball creature, and the manger is surrounded by pirates, a solemn gnome and barnyard animals. The message proclaims: “Touched by an Angelhair.”

Freedom, as someone or other once said, means freedom for everyone.

via Seattle Columns – Savage Love – Dan Savage – The Stranger, Seattles Only Newspaper.

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Re-Elect Obama: Should We, or Shouldn’t We?

December 16, 2011 by Leave a Comment

In response to the endorsement of Obama’s re-election by the All Pueblo Indian Council, I suggested on Facebook that that endorsement was inconceivable. One commenter simply replied, “OBAMA 2012!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D ” I asked, Why? Her very enthusiastic response basically boiled down to, “Because he’s not a Republican, and he got a Nobel Peace Prize.” She named not a single accomplishment.

Likewise, I have seen erstwhile critics of Obama who are now prepared to jump on the bandwagon for his re-election, and the most common reason, if not the only one, is that the Republican would be worse.

My own feeling – and I volunteered for his campaign, and voted for him in the Democratic primary – is that no one with so abysmal a record in office deserves to be re-elected. That’s a gross over-simplification. I know the subject is fraught with complexities, but I want to get to one particular thread in the whole issue, and that is this:

What has he done – not spoken eloquently about, but accomplished – that you think justifies his re-election. Or, on the other side, what has he done or failed to do, that you think disqualifies him from re-election, or would, at the very least, make it hard for you to vote for him?

Please make up your list first, before reading mine, so you can follow the thread of your own priorities. And please make this a dialogue. I want to know what others think.

Here’s what I give him credit for, with qualifiers where necessary:

> (Belatedly) ending the war in Iraq (more or less).
> Getting health insurance reform that admittedly covers millions more people (while making government the enforcer, bringing new clients to insurers, who by all rights should have been eliminated)
> Makes damned pretty speeches.
> He sometimes greets the bodies of KIA soldiers when they return to the US, and allows their caskets to be photographed
> He got bin Laden (but did not bring him to trial)

Here are a few of the problems I see:

> No coherent environmental policy, or even posture, at a time when we should be operating on a state of environmental emergency.
> No energy policy that would take us away from Old Carbon or from dependence on other nations
> No effective use of the largest party majority (Democrat OR Republican) in Congress since, I think, the 1930s
> Constant capitulation to Republicans on budget talks
> Opposed the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell – and now tries to take credit for it because it happened on his watch
> Guantanamo is still in operation
> He appointed Geithner AND Summers to positions of leadership in his administration
> No prosecutions of those who crashed Wall Street have happened, and no investigations are apparently underway
> Has not ended Bush’s tax cuts for the richest, nor increased taxes or reduced subsidies on companies recording record profits
> Has not supported marriage equality
> he may (reports differ utterly) have requested the power to indefinitely incarcerate Americans without trial. It’s bad enough that we do this – still – to foreign nationals in Guantanamo. But this would effectively make this a police state. Obama supporters: you want the next Republican president deciding that Occupiers or environmentalists are terrorists and can be held indefinitely?

Unless the president accomplishes a number of significant – I would say revolutionary – steps in these matters before next November, I have no more intention of voting for him as I would any other president with a largely corporatist, anti-environmental track record.

How about you?

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Whither #OWS? Lefter or Broader?

December 16, 2011 by Leave a Comment

But Can OWS Do That?

Addressing a very important issue as the movement grows, this article asks, do we become more radical in a particularly leftist kind of way, or more inclusive?

The author says, “If you believe that the Occupy movement is still struggling for a mass base, as this writer does, then you’ll likely agree that Occupy needs to immediately focus on broadening its base and wage militant struggles for demands that will bring in the wider working class community.”

And further, “an Occupy movement that ignores these popular demands and fails to unite the vast majority–and instead fights for more radical demands that are now only embraced by a relative few–has no real revolutionary potential, since it ignores the basic needs of the majority of working people.”

What think you?

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Millionaires Are the Result, Not the Cause, Of a Good Economy

December 16, 2011 by 5 Comments

Some will say, “Go ahead and send in what you want to, even if we are not asking for it.” Such people come from a planet where the nature of its inhabitants differs rather markedly from that of human nature.

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Life is Enhanced By Taking Risks, Not By Playing It Safe

December 15, 2011 by Leave a Comment

How Alive Are You Willing To Be?

“What Will You Do With Your One Wild And Precious Life?”

How Safe Are you Willing To Play It?

How Domesticated Do You Want To Be?

Whose Permission Do You Need To Live?

How Does Your Safety Contribute To the Principles and People You Love?

Great things need doing. What great thing was ever accomplished without risk?

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Four More Years! Four More Years!

December 15, 2011 by Leave a Comment

No, I’m not talking about the presidential election. Just guessing what some faceless bureaucrat, with no oversight, will have the power to say when asked how much longer I have to stay in prison before I can be charged and tried for something, anything, in America.

But you know, Obama is, in some way, I’m sure, better than any Republican, so we should re-elect him. Enthusiastically. Right?

Kudos are due to Senator Mark Udall, who attempted to remove the indefinite detention element of the National Defense Authorization Act. Alas, his amendment failed, 38-60. 15 Democratic Senators were among those who voted to be able to detain Americans indefinitely. Two Republicans opposed doing so. You can see their votes here.

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American Gulag

December 15, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Prison, by Wojtek Kozak

When President Obama signs the new defense authorization bill, it will, according to various reports, enable the government to abduct and indefinitely incarcerate any American thought to be a terrorist. We will have rights equal to the prisoners in our (still open) prison on Guantanamo.

Question: treason is defined as the act of betraying one’s country, especially by attempting to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government. Is there a word for legalizing the destruction of the principles on which a country is founded and under which a sovereign rules?

Goodbye Posse Comitatus. I’ll say one thing: under Bush and Obama, we are learning a lot more legal Latin – Magna Carta, Habeas Corpus, and now, Posse Comitatus – as each is excised from our lexicon.

For those who think Obama was threatening a veto of the NDAA because he was worried about the indefinite detention components, you must watch this video from Rachel Maddow. Indefinite detention Was His Idea. Having the military arrest US citizens on US soil Was His Idea.

But, you know, I’m sure Obama is better, in some way, than any of the Republican candidates, so we should re-elect him and give him Four More Years!

Chateau d'If

The Bastille

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Labeled an Anarchist

December 14, 2011 by Leave a Comment

labeled

Well. You can see why this philosophy is so reviled.

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Why Occupy Amazon? Who Doesn’t Love Amazon?

December 14, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Designed by John Stitch

A friend asked me on Facebook why I would want to Occupy Amazon. He grew up in an era and area of big chain and online bookstores, and didn’t see the point of this occupation. I wrote the following to him in response, and hope you find it interesting – and a conversation starter:

There are a number of tacks to take with this. There is an old joke that says that opening a bookstore is the best way to make a small fortune . . . out of a large one. Still, an independent bookstore, in my experience, is a good way to be exposed to all manner of new ideas. When there were a bunch of them, you would find the one that carried the books most to your taste. The buyers READ the books, and saw them as, I think, you and I both do: not mere tools to pry money from the pockets of consumers, but as works of art, of philosophy, carriers of ideas. Dangerous, in other words. The demise of independents means some of those voices are not heard, especially minority opinions.

I tend to believe that Amazon has kept some books in print that would otherwise have gone out of print. So they have not been all bad, and I have done more business with them than my friends in the book business would want to know.

Competition is good. I have nothing against it. I don’t think it belongs everywhere, but some people rise better to competition than to cooperation, and that’s fine.

But diversity is also good. The reason I roared at Amazon’s most recent tacky, sleazy action is because it was just pissing on an already disadvantaged competitor’s boots. Professional courtesy is also good.

You can, actually, buy e-books from independent bookstores. Which is what I intend to do from now on. They are Google books, and won’t work on a Kindle (I use an iPad, so no problem for me), but are otherwise equal in style and content, though the selection is sometimes not as great.

Also, our small towns and cities are hurting. They need tax revenue. Amazon pays none on purchases made with them, is my understanding. (Checking my own recent invoices, that is the case.)

I’m sorry you have grown up in a culture without independent bookstores. They have been a very important part of my intellectual development, my career, and a great source of good friends. If I went through my list of favorite books and authors, I could probably remember a bunch that were introduced to me by booksellers without whom I’d never have known about them. Amazon does sometimes make good recommendations. Their suggestion software is amazing. But it’s all based on what I have bought or read before; if I want to move forward into new territory, I need to speak with someone well-read. That may be a friend who is a bookseller. It might even have been someone who worked at Borders, since so much of their staff was taken from independent bookstores that failed to compete with them (often because Borders could get terms from publishers that independents could not get). But the personal human interaction is not something available from Amazon.

I don’t begrudge Amazon’s right to exist, or even to dominate. Bezos and company have put together an amazing resource. But independent booksellers offer benefits that Amazon doesn’t, and can’t. Amazon is trying to put them out of business. So I support an occupation, and will no longer do business with them unless it is absolutely necessary.

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