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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?
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.
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.
1. Evolution has nothing to say one way or another about the planet's origins. It doesn't even address the origins of life. It addresses solely how individual Species might originate.
2. At the time Darwin published his book, most people generally agreed that the earth was at least a few hundred thousand, possibly millions of years old. The concept of a 6000 year old Earth was introduced by Thomas Aquinas and largely ignored until the 19th century. And even he was simply speculating on the length of time since Adam left the Garden, based on genealogies given in the Bible, not on the age of the entire Earth, and certainly not on the relative age of the universe. Even amongst Christians, a 6000 year old universe didn't become an article of faith until the rise of radio preachers in the 1920s.
3. Evolution was widely accepted in 1859, when Darwin published his book. What was hotly debated was the mechanism by which species may evolve. The revolutionary idea Darwin put forth was that natural selection alone would be powerful enough to be that mechanism. There were many other theories being put forth at the time.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
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.
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.
> 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
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.