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McCain Picks Gov. Palin As Running Mate
Many readers have written to tell us about McCain's choice of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his VP choice. "Palin, 44, a self-described 'hockey mom,' is a conservative first-term governor of Alaska with strong anti-abortion views, a record of reform and fiscal conservatism and an outsider's perspective on Washington. [...] If elected, Palin would be the first woman US vice president, adding another historic element to a presidential race that has been filled with firsts. Obama, 47, is the first black nominee of a major US political party. The choice of a vice president rarely has a major impact on the presidential race. Palin will meet Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a debate in October."
I worked with her last year, doing some linux consulting work for the State of Alaska. I'd definitely tap her :)
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
The Republican ticket is now complete, with John McCain picking Sarah Palin, the Republican Governor of Alaska as his running mate. And sure, she is hot (safe for work) but it would appear she is also a proponent of teaching creationism alongside Evolution in public schools. I don't mean to start a flame war here (ok maybe just a little) but seriously, how can anyone take a candidate seriously when they shamelessly pander to the stupid lobby?
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
Skin color and ethnicity should matter in an election, but Obama is half-"white American" half "Black African." While that technically makes him half African-American, he does not share the full cultural heritage that is commonly understood by the term "African-American."
His dad was from Africa, not the son or grandson of a sharecropper and not the descendant of slaves from pre-Civil-War America.
I will grant you that he grew up in the '60s and '70s in a time where his skin color gave him distinct disadvantages, but that's not the same as having parents and grandparents who faced the same obstacles.
Barak Obama has far more in common with lawyers from Harvard than your average African American.
Thankfully, for today's generation and the ones to follow, the cultural differences are becoming more about economic differences rather than differences in skin tone and whether your ancestors were property.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Face it, though, neither Palin (a self-admitted creationist) nor Biden (a proponent of stronger police powers) is a 'nerd-friendly' pick.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
I've heard discussions that Gov. Palin has had some difficulties with mainstream conservatives. Considering that McCain has almost no chance of winning this election, could picking Palin have been more about taking her out of the picture?
After all, how many candidates from losing presidential tickets - presidential or veep - have been endorsed for office by their parties afterwards?
This could be the GOP's way of holding on for Pawlenty and Romney to run at later times when there is a chance of the republicans winning the white house.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Well, given the title, I am tempted to assume you're joking. But the capacity of Republicans and their supporters for self parody can't be down played. Perhaps you're actually serious. Next you're going to be going on about Palin's experience and readiness to be president in a job that is, as they say, a heart beat away.
I think that the opposite of your claim is true: McCain is doomed. He just destroyed the "Obama doesn't have the experience to lead" meme. Sure Palin is a hard right social conservative. But she also happens to be an ex-beauty queen with an ethical scandal in Alaska. The social conservatives claim that women should be at home, not running for the Vice Presidency. Of course they're a bit inconsistent on this. I think that you'll find that Palin and her big breasts are a huge liability for McCain. If nothing else, she'll emphasize that he's very old.
she is also a proponent of teaching creationism alongside Evolution in public schools
I don't see anything wrong with teaching the history of humanity's understanding of the planet's origins. For a long time, consensus was that the planet was 6,000 years old. Without learning about creationism, it is harder for students to grasp the extent of the impact that Darwin's On the Origin of Species had on the development of biology.
I suspect:
Personally, I wouldn't mind the ticket being reversed: Palin/McCain. But given what we've got, Palin's speech this morning was far more inspirational and motivating than Obama's. And she didn't even have a crowd of 80,000 at Invesco field to drum up the energy.
I'm not attempting to equate them as equal in numbers. I'm just making a case against the 'point where religion and science meet' arguement of the OP. There's virtually nothing teachable in science that doesn't intersect with some religious doctrine.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Where did you read that? My bill of rights reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.."
Meaning that they can't make laws against or for religion (any of them). Which is really hard to interpret... wait, no it's not. Public schools should be a place where EVERY religion (and non-religion) is accepted. I don't remember any part of the Bible saying the Earth is the center of the solar system or the universe either. I may be wrong.
At any rate I couldn't care much less whether or not ID is taught in school as long as the kids understand that evolution is the theory that makes the most sense out of our existence to the most people at this time.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
Michael Palin will make an excellent vice presidential candidate. Awesome.
Sadly no, but think of the possibilities! Debates with fish slapping! Gilliam really could run though, boy, what a ticket that could be. Python for President!
Because they've outgrown misogyny but not racism?
In a word, yes.
Blame the two-job economy if you'd like, but there are far greater forces working in favor of eliminating sexism than racism.
AND, no one has been able to link Palin directly to the firing in question. Not through phone logs, witnesses, or anything else.
It also appears that Hillary voters are moving to Palin in a big way, according to some of their blogs.
Well, for starters she is a creationist (though it sounds like she is promising to keep out of the debate, even though her personal opinion is that both should be taught), which has a definite science angle to it.
So far the only bits of tech policy anyone has mentioned out of her has to do with oil drilling, which she in favor of (married to an oil industry peep and lives in a state that gets stipends from anyone drilling there)
Palin is running for Vice-President that should be ready to take over in any instant in case the President dies of is incapacitated, given McCain's age and cancer history that's not a far-fetched scenario.
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
Why do we consider Sen. Obama the first black nominee? He is half black. If he were living in Africa, he be considered white. Just something I have been wondering.
I've no idea if the cop deserved to be fired; let's assume he did. That's not the controversy.
The controversy is that she claimed she never pressured the commissioner to fire him. Then when tapes come out of one of her aides doing exactly that, she claims she didn't know about it, that one of her aides tried to get her ex-brother-in-law fired entirely without her knowledge, right before she fired the commissioner for entirely unrelated reasons.
It's like "US Attorney Scandal: Hillbilly Edition".
You do realize that McCain is going to be 72 and has now outlived his father and his grandfather, both of which died of sudden heart attacks.
So basically, the candidate you are voting for is his successor- which is a person who is a first term governor with a state having the population of the city of Memphis,TN. Not to mention that is an entirely republican state so she doesn't even have any cross-party experience.
Yea, this is a great move, but for the Democrats. Once people realize that you would have a token VP with absolutely no experience who is touring state funerals until our own president dies of old age, they're going to be really excited to back that party. Not to mention that many in the republican party are upset about the choice of a woman.
Quite honestly, the democrats couldn't have hoped for a better choice. An old man and a completely unknown inexperienced governor of one of the smallest populations for the VP spot. And yes, they are pandering to female voters. She is no Hillary Clinton, and women are smarter than that. They were voting for Hillary for her policies, not the fact that she was a woman. Democratic women abhor what Palin claims to stand for. Quite frankly, I'm overjoyed at this choice, they just assured the democrats a win in November.
Between less than two years as governor of a low population state (after being mayor of a town of 8,000), and twelve years in the Illinois/U.S. Senates, I'll take the Senator for having experience that matters more in Washington. Obama knows how to actually pass legislation in Congress. Palin will find Washington a bit different than Anchorage.
Hell, you want to compare executive experience? Obama built a campaign machine from scratch that defeated the Clintons and the Democratic Party's establishment over eighteen months. That's an accomplishment in itself that qualifies him.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
I learned about different belief systems back in public high school in my world history class.
There's a big difference between learning about various religions in a historical perspective (or even a modern cultural one) in a history or social studies class compared to having a particular religion's beliefs taught as a science class without any credible scientific basis.
I don't mind my children learning that the Aztecs used to tear out their enemies hearts in human sacrifices. Now I would have a problem with the same school teaching my children that it was a scientific fact that they absolutely had to perform human sacrifices in order to not remain in darkness forever next time there was an eclipse.
Or do you want your children to learn that it's turtles all the way down ?
But don't listen to me. I'm just an evil conservative.
I think you're confusing Conservative and Liberal with being conservative or being liberal. Conservative (little c) generally means you want less drastic change -- you're content with the status quo (in my original post, this was a two century run of white male vice presidents - which as it happens has more to do with culture than with race, I'd suspect). I'm conservative about some things and liberal with others.
Conservative, these days, often gets mixed up with war-loving Neo-cons, while Liberal is a peace-loving, communistic hippy. It hurts to see descriptions of thinking become insults, and then have that be the understood definition.
There's good and bad to both sides: conservatives generally want you to do it yourself without the government's help (and everyone's taxes) -- America offers you the opportunity, it's up to you to grasp it. Liberal thinking is that not everyone really gets that opportunity without some effort on other people's part. Both sides have merit...we can neither be too hard nor too soft.
Alot of people don't understand how the Parties work in the Upper Great Plains, Alaska, Mountain States. OK, where the media lives, you have your Red and Blue states and politicians. In less populated states the politicians are different. There are anti-abortion liberals, pro-life Conservatives, pro-abortion welfare advocate Democrats who go hunting and not for a photo-op.
She is an awesome pick for McCain, Biden was terrible, terrible, I'm a moderate and I've been on the fence, I like Obama's technology and space stances, I like McCain's foreign policy. Biden is a nail in the coffin for me and Obama, if McCain had gone with someone bad, like Jindal, I would have sucked it up and voted Obama, now, back on the fence.
Fighting with the Alaskan Republican party is not the same as fighting with the National Republican party.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Yeah, but Quayle want creationism taught in schools like Palin does [wired.com]?
Quit being disingenuous. If you want to try and pick apart someone, try using their entire comment, not just the part that serves your agenda. Palin's comments were:
"Teach both. You know, don't be afraid of education. Healthy debate is so important, and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both."
"I don't think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesnâ(TM)t have to be part of the curriculum."
She added that, if elected, she would not push the state Board of Education to add such creation-based alternatives to the state's required curriculum.
Members of the state school board, which sets minimum requirements, are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Legislature.
"I won't have religion as a litmus test, or anybody's personal opinion on evolution or creationism," Palin said.
So there. She doesn't endorse creationism any more than evolutionary theory. God forbid (if you'll pardon the expression) we let open minds hear both sides of the debate and make up their own minds what they believe, right? I mean, it's so much easier if you just silence once side of the issue and put the other camp out of business. Then the kids believe just what you want them to believe without ever having had the choice. You seem to be in favor of censorship when it suits your agenda.
She's saying both sides deserve to be heard. You seem to be in favor of censoring one side because you don't agree with it. Somehow, if a creationist were advocating that evolution be banned, I have a funny feeling you'd be all lathered up about it. Yet you have no problem with the same being applied in the opposite direction. Back where I come from, that's called 'hypocrisy.'
And, for the record, I have this issue at home with my kids right now. My wife is religious, although not a zealot. She leans towards creationism. I'm not very religious and I lean towards evolution. I'm seeing to it that my daughters grow up hearing both points of view. They can then make up their own minds. As parents, we should have enough confidence in the upbringing we've given our children that they'll make the "right" choice, whatever that happens to be.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
> I think that the opposite of your claim is true: McCain is doomed. He just destroyed the "Obama
> doesn't have the experience to lead" meme.
Not really. Obama is putting that sort of crap out today and you are faithfully echoing it. I expect it to abruptly stop as soon as somebody with a clue in camp Obama manages to get a handle on this unexpected event. Both Palin and Obama have about the same experience in high office, Obama entered the Senate in '05 and effectively left to campaign for POTUS in early '07. Palin was elected Governor of AK in early 07 and was doing that 100% until today. Palin can claim a few years experience on various statewide offices, Obama can claim a few years in the IL legislature. And Obama is at the top of his ticket, not the sidekick. So if Obama keeps talking about lack of experience he invites media outlets to do stories comparing the candidates and he loses that argument.
> But she also happens to be an ex-beauty queen with an ethical scandal in Alaska.
Only in the minds of Dems. The Dems in the legislature manufactured a 'scandal' because the anti corruption efforts were starting to interfere with their (not that she wasn't also at war with the totally corrupt Repubs like Stevens, etc.) feeding at the public trough. And even then the worst case in this supposed 'scandal' is that the story is true. She got a brother in law who was beating her sister fired from his State Trooper position. I wanna see the NOW gang taking a position on that one. Should be fun.
Because of course they WILL oppose Palin, we all understand 'diversity' is celebrated in everything except thought. NOW, the race hustlers, they all say one thing but what they really mean is "we support SOCIALISTS of every race, religion and sexual orientation."
Would I want Palin as POTUS now? No, she is a little green. But assuming the Presidency is different. If the unthinkable happened McCain would already have a functioning administration, all the Cabinet positions would be staffed with (hopefully) competent folk, etc. And assuming she in the loop she would be getting a crash course in the things she needs to know to assume the office. And give her a couple of years in office and, yea she will be ready to be President in her own right. She already seems to know the things that can't be taught easilly and appears to be a fast study by observing her fast rise through the ranks.
On the other hand Obama is just as green and has zero accomplishments to his name other than getting elected to the US Senate.... by defeating Alan Keyes. Wow. Just Wow. Got handed editor of the Harvard Law Review as a Equal Opportunity hire and published nothing. Taught in a University and published NOTHING in a publish or perish world... and somehow didn't perish. Worked as a socialist agitator (what other name do you piy on somebody putting the teachings of Saul Alinksy into practice?) and can't point to a single action where he actually accomplished something noteworthy.
The only executive experience he could claim was on that Annenberg Challenge fiasco where his own final report says the money spent accomplished exactly zero improvement in the schools. And since the original grant proposal was written by a terrorist[1] (William Ayers) who kept the lead active role in handing out all that money to political cronies instead of helping improve education (the stated goal in the proposal) Obama really wants to make the whole experience disappear from his resume.
[1] No sane person would disagree with the statement that Ayers was a domestic terrorist. Ayers, as late as 2004 repents none of his acts, thus isn't really debatable that he should be labeled a terrorist in the present tense.
Democrat delenda est
McCain destroyed the "Obama doesn't have the experience to lead" meme just as much as Obama destroyed the "McCain, more of the Same" meme with Biden's VP choice.
Biden is just as much is entrenched as part of the D.C. problem as they come and believing the "Obama = change" is much harder than believing in Santa Claus.
The thing this girl brings to the table is:
1. She is the only conservative of the 4.
2. A lively debate as part of the political process.
That being said, I believe that she would offer more change beneficial to the populace than Obama if she were to be promoted to commander in chief because of some health issue of John "I was a POW for 5.5 years" McCain.
Obama doesn't believe in the 4th ammendment.
Biden wants to police the internet.
2 reasons I wouldn't be happy if Obama gets the keys to the White House.
The Creationism vs. Evolution battle has been fought and she's not a 'Creationism only policy' freak so that talking point doesn't hold any weight with me.
While they're at it, they might as well teach the Flying Spaghetti Monster myths in school too. People will believe what they want to believe and no amount of evidence will sway that opinion.
Cases in point:
-9/11 conspiracies
-Moon Landings
-UFOs
-Bigfoot < Yes, bigfoot has been a hoax as uttered on the deathbed by the guy who took the picture.
I'm not voting for either, I just think this election cycle just got a bit more interesting.
Part of me is rooting for McCain/Palin to win just to watch Hillary shriek.
Too bad that both of them will get clobbered in the debates.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
"Senator Obama, what do you wear: boxers or briefs?"
Neither, bikinis.
And strangely enough, Palin's record is eerily like Quayle's. Looks great on paper, but rather innocuous. Nothing jumps out. And alas, that's what's needed in a VP. She votes firmly with the party line. Nary a rebellious thought in her head. Just like Quayle.
Actually I'll say, as a compliment, Palin is rebellious. She took on a Republican governor when she ran for governor. She also took on Republican Senator Ted Stevens over the Bridge to Nowhere. However as she's anti-choice and pro drilling I couldn't support her, even if I was Republican.
Falcon
Senator Biden, Boxer's or Briefs?
Is this really fair? I mean come on! Look at me! I'm a retirement aged man who needs as much circulation as possible to keep it up. Of course I wear boxers.
Governor Palin, boxer....
It depends on my mood. I'll leave it at that.
Booyah! The entire male and some of the female audience becomes distracted thinking on this one. How come? She's actually attractive and the "nasty" thoughts are no longer filled with wrinkled skin.
I don't have any religious beliefs, but I have no problem with the state using force to prevent you (or anyone else) from murdering other human beings.
Suggesting that an unborn child has no human rights until the instant of birth is absurd.
Suggesting that an egg gains full legal rights at the instant of conception is equally absurd.
This isn't an either-or situation. The answer isn't "pro-choice" or "pro-life".
I think that most all of us can agree that a clump of cells too small to be seen with the naked eye doesn't deserve any particular legal recogintion.
On the other hand, a unborn child that has developed enough that it could expect to survive outside the womb probably should have the same rights inside the womb as it would have outside.
In between these two points we can have reasonable laws the balance the interests of the mother with the interests of the unborn child.
If we'd quit listening to the people who say there is no middle ground then we could actually solve this argument and move on with life.
As a former 10 year resident of Fairbanks, Alaska, I can say, without exception, that I do not trust a SINGLE Alaskan politician.
Even the ones I DID trust, to some extent, have either been charged with some form of corruption or have been found guilty of it.
Most of the people that I know that still live up there pretty much feel the same way. Nepotism, corruption, and insider-backroom deals seem to be the norm up there.
Granted, I do not know much about this Palin person(aside from the fact that I loved the opening scene......"It's!"), but I am very leery when someone mentions Alaska and politician in the same sentence.
That's funny, they did just that about 5 hours before you made your post.
Obama campaign highlights Palin's 'zero' experience. Yeah, except that she has been in political positions 5 years longer (1992) than Obama has (1997), and has gone further up the executive branch. This is not the battle they want to fight.
Now see here...
Actually, you nailed it right on the head - it's possible for evolution to be proven "right" or "wrong" via testing. We can ask questions ("If I give bacteria some penicillin and don't kill off the entire colony, will the remaining bacteria evolve to have a greater resistance to that bacteria on the next go-around?") and receive answer ("Yup."). Creationism, on the other hand, is unprovable. There's no question we can ask it that it will answer usefully (i.e. The answer to the preceding question becomes, "Well, how complicated is the bacteria? We better ask The Creator, PBUH."). There's no way to prove or disprove it (For any organism that we can prove evolves, there will be a 'more complicated' one that will be considered 'impossible to evolve to').
That's why evolution is science - we can observe it, test it, apply it, and correct it or overturn it if we receive new data. Creationism does none of these things, which is why it's not science.
Now, as for Palin's stance on the subject, she did what I would expect any reasonable politician to do - she ran with what she knew, got corrected, and changed her position after receiving new data. Sounds pretty... scientific. I mean, hypothesis ("We should teach creationism!"), testing (Everyone else: "Creationism isn't science!"), conclusion ("Maybe we shouldn't teach creationism.").
To truly understand evolution
He said "Evolution is an extremely simple concept". The basic concepts of evolution are pretty simple to understand, so long as one does not come in actively not-wanting to understand.
A high school biology class of course needs to teach recessive genes. But evolution would still work even if there was no such thing as recessive genes. You can teach the basic concept of evolution without even getting into genetics. You start with the simple idea that tall people usually have tall children and that short people usually have short children. That a redheaded couple will have redheaded children, then you gloss over recessives and just say that dark-haired people generally have dark-haired children. You can even gloss past the word mutation just by talking about rare random changes or "birth defects". That a baby can be born with no head, and obviously it dies. And that sometimes a baby is born with six fingers, and that six-fingered people *do* have six-fingered children. Good changes survive and bad changes die. Then get into some other examples, like how a monkey might be born without all of that hair on it's body, and how it would have children that were also not-hairy, and how that leads to us. There are many small differences between us and monkeys, but we're really just tall not-so-hairy really smart monkeys.
That's not so bad as summarizing the basic idea of evolution, and that is shoehorned down into one pretty short paragraph at a super simplistic level. Given 15 minutes to talk with someone and you can easily fill out the explanation. The basic idea of evolution is fairly simple, and it's not hard to target it to almost any level of understanding from a kindergartener up to college-graduate-who-never-learned-it.
The only real problem is people who want NOT to understand it. Obviously people who don't want to understand it can never be convinced it's true no matter how much evidence you present. On the other hand I've run into a few people who have been misled by all the anti-evolution propaganda and have doubts about the validity of evolution, but so long as they are honestly interested in seeing and understanding the evidence then I have won them over as 100% converts to the truth of evolution after presenting a couple of examples should just how much and just how strong the evidence is.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
>Neither argument has been proven correct.
Science doesn't prove anything, it merely demonstrates. Proofs are for mathematicians and philosophers.
>And by correct I mean one animal/plant/insect changing from it's past form to a completely different present form.
1) Despite what TV SciFi will tell you (Star Trek, etc.), one animal can not evolve within it's own lifetime. Even in punctuated equilibrium, evolution happens over the course of thousands of generations.
2) Depends on what you mean by "species" or "form." The intellectuals of Darwin's day didn't believe in speciation for the same reason they didn't believe in alchemy - because it involved a change in "forms." But now we define elements by the number of protons contained in the nucleus, which can be modified. (That's how we make plutonium.) We've also redefined species. We now understand it in terms of reproductive isolation. Darwin said that if you asked the cattle breeders of his time if an Angus shared a common ancestor with a longhorn, they'd laugh at you - they're two different forms. Same thing with dog breeds - surely a dachshund and a St. Bernard are of different forms, right? Yet an Angus and a longhorn are of the same species, as are dachshund and St. Bernards. (Although that last pair is verging on a ring species...)
And, yes, speciation events (i.e., a single interbreeding population diverging into two different populations that are reproductively isolated) have been observed: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
> The statement that some dinosaurs evolved into Birds is NOT science either, it's just Darwin's Theory.
1) Theories are the very heart of science. 2) Darwin may have created the theory, but a gigillion others have banged on it since. For example, Darwin didn't know about genetics, and genetics has been banged on so much that Mendel would no longer recognize it. 3) IANAEB (I am not an evolutionary biologist, I'm just a philosopher), but: a) birds share several anatomic features with the fossilized dinosaurs we've found - they're more similar to dinosaurs than they are to mammals or lizards b) we've found fossils that are transitional between dinosaurs and modern birds c) a genetic analysis strongly suggests that T. rex's closest living relative is the chicken. Therefore: Along with the evidence we have for the Neo-Evolutionary Synthesis in general, we can abduct (not *deduct*!) that birds are descended from dinosaurs. (That is, birds and dinosaurs share a common ancestor, and we would classify the common ancestor as a dinosaur. Classification above the species level is somewhat arbitrary, and even species are fuzzy around the edges.)
> Teach both theories with evidence.
1) There is a great diversity in Creationist accounts - Old Earth vs. New Earth, just to give one. By contrast, there is a strong consensus among evolutionary biologists. There are disagreements among evolutionary biologists, but these are molehills that get turned into mountains because scientists want to spice things up a bit in their papers. They might argue about gradualism vs. punctuated equilibrium, but they can certainly agree on things like whether the Earth is a few thousand or a few billion years old. The Creationism "debate" isn't between two theories, it's between one theory and a very large sheaf of half-baked hypotheses/conspiracy theories.
2) While I won't argue that a given Creationist hypothesis isn't testable, I will say that, without exception, they have been disconfirmed by the available evidence down to an absurdly infinitesimal probability. (I'm going with a Bayesian account of theory confirmation here.) It's not logically impossible for one of them to be true (Quine-Duhem Thesis), but they'd require some drastic ad-hockery in order to bring them into line with available evidence. We're talking