Problems with Palin

[HydrogenBond]

The amount of money that is available for research is not a bottomless pit. If we spend part of this limited money on fruit fly research in Paris, that means less money for cockroach research in Dallas. We can't have everything, so one needs to set priorities to find the best way to spend limited resources.

 

Maybe we could have saved resources studying the fruit fly in Miami near the bananas. This connects a source. For one thing, you could save money staying local, allowing more money to study the cockroach in Dallas. Was that the best way to budget the resources to get the most bang for the buck? Palin is used to being a manager so her priorities are different. At this time, she like energy research. The fruit fly is not going anywhere. This does not reflect a dump on research only on the priority and cost value. If her motto was tax and spend, she would have supported everything since she would have seen a bottomless money pit.

[Moontanman]

The amount of money that is available for research is not a bottomless pit. If we spend part of this limited money on fruit fly research in Paris, that means less money for cockroach research in Dallas. We can't have everything, so one needs to set priorities to find the best way to spend limited resources.

 

Maybe we could have saved resources studying the fruit fly in Miami near the bananas. This connects a source. For one thing, you could save money staying local, allowing more money to study the cockroach in Dallas. Was that the best way to budget the resources to get the most bang for the buck? Palin is used to being a manager so her priorities are different. At this time, she like energy research. The fruit fly is not going anywhere. This does not reflect a dump on research only on the priority and cost value. If her motto was tax and spend, she would have supported everything since she would have seen a bottomless money pit.

 

Good Gad HB, you don't really think Palin really has a grasp on this stuff do you?

[REASON]

The amount of money that is available for research is not a bottomless pit. If we spend part of this limited money on fruit fly research in Paris, that means less money for cockroach research in Dallas. We can't have everything, so one needs to set priorities to find the best way to spend limited resources.

 

Maybe we could have saved resources studying the fruit fly in Miami near the bananas. This connects a source. For one thing, you could save money staying local, allowing more money to study the cockroach in Dallas. Was that the best way to budget the resources to get the most bang for the buck? Palin is used to being a manager so her priorities are different. At this time, she like energy research. The fruit fly is not going anywhere. This does not reflect a dump on research only on the priority and cost value. If her motto was tax and spend, she would have supported everything since she would have seen a bottomless money pit.

 

The point is that she had a condescending attitude toward the science in general that clearly she hasn't a clue about.

 

All you have to support to see a bottomless money pit is the war in Iraq.

 

Chose your spending wisely, I say.

[Moontanman]

It never ceases to amaze me, the ability of Conservatives to justify flushing 10,000,000,000 dollars down the rat hole of Iraq but they squeal about 100,000 dollars for research that could help everyone in some way. Swallowing camels and gagging at gnats, seems to be the Conservative way.

[Turtle]

Palin is used to being a manager so her priorities are different. At this time, she like energy research.

 

 

 

Nonsense. Palin's energy policy is nothing more or less than drill baby drill and as you so conveniently left out any mention of how it's now come out how she finagled that big pipeline deal she & Johnny are always bragging on, let me remind you.

...Despite Palin's boast of a smart and fair bidding process, the AP found that her team crafted terms that favored only a few independent pipeline companies and ultimately benefited the winner, TransCanada Corp.

 

And contrary to the ballyhoo, there's no guarantee the pipeline will ever be built; at a minimum, any project is years away, as TransCanada must first overcome major financial and regulatory hurdles.

Gov. Palin's pipeline project flawed - Decision '08 - MSNBC.com

 

 

Palin is nothing but a problem, from trying to ban books for fundamentalist religious reasons, illegally firing state employees for personal reasons, bilking taxpayers by flying her kids around with her, murdering wolves from a helicopter, consorting with her husband and his efforts to have Alaska secede from the Union, getting fancy clothes on someone else's dime and then claiming she's donating them after she's caught, unethical business practice benefitting the filthy rich on the pipeline deal, her ignorance about science, to putting lipstick on pit bulls. Never mind pit bulls kill more people than any other breed here in the good ol' US of A. The US needs Palin in the White House like we need another 9/11. :)

[Theory5]

 

Palin is nothing but a problem, from trying to ban books for fundamentalist religious reasons, illegally firing state employees for personal reasons, bilking taxpayers by flying her kids around with her, murdering wolves from a helicopter, consorting with her husband and his efforts to have Alaska secede from the Union, getting fancy clothes on someone else's dime and then claiming she's donating them after she's caught, unethical business practice benefitting the filthy rich on the pipeline deal, her ignorance about science, to putting lipstick on pit bulls.

Yes this whole thing is just wayy out of hand. Palin is a horrible person and shouldnt be allowed anywhere near any office.

 

 

Never mind pit bulls kill more people than any other breed here in the good ol' US of A.

 

On an unrelated note, What is wrong with pit bulls? If you train them correctly ,IF YOU TRAIN THEM CORRECTLY, and keep them as companions then they are very nice dogs. if you neglect them, train them to be mean, and keep them as guard dogs, then they are a big problem. They are really misunderstood. Any animal or person, learns and acts according to its enviornment.

[jackson33]

Palin is nothing but a problem, from trying to ban books for fundamentalist religious reasons, illegally firing state employees for personal reasons, bilking taxpayers by flying her kids around with her, murdering wolves from a helicopter, consorting with her husband and his efforts to have Alaska secede from the Union, getting fancy clothes on someone else's dime and then claiming she's donating them after she's caught, unethical business practice benefitting the filthy rich on the pipeline deal, her ignorance about science, to putting lipstick on pit bulls. Never mind pit bulls kill more people than any other breed here in the good ol' US of A. The US needs Palin in the White House like we need another 9/11. :shrug:

 

Funny thing....This is exactly what this Country needs, a real person with real ideas, that has lived a life most only see in movies. She never asked for anything, but sought recourse for change by actually running for public office and guess what....she followed through.

 

Theory5; Would you bother to explain to me what "HORRIBLE PERSON" means to you. Is your problems, she won't stay home and bake cookies or that as an American, she voices her opinion. My be its because SHE married a HE, had five kids, yet managed a career, I'd say rather successfully. Is she just to good looking or that she doesn't fear the male dominated political arena. Something scares you...please tell me what.

 

Moon; Do you know that the French Navy, came to the aid of a struggling group of revolutionaries opposed to conceived oppression by a tyrannical King. That, with out that support our government as it is may never have become. That support cost a great deal of wealth and the death of the King who ordered it. What is right or wrong, has always been judged in the future and by the after effects. Iraq may POSSIBLY be the stabilizing factor in an area that for two thousand years has had no stability. It also happens to hold the fuel that drives the 60,000,000,000,000 (you like big numbers) dollar world GDP. One other rather boring fact, is the US has NOT again been attacked. Is it remotely possible, those that support terrorism (plenty) have had second thoughts on any follow up...

 

Since 'Pork Spending' is the real issue, do you honestly think all those issues which are attachments to needed legislature are worthwhile and even more important do you think those cost to the Federal Government, really go to the intended purposes.

[InfiniteNow]

Funny thing....This is exactly what this Country needs, a real person with real ideas, that has lived a life most only see in movies. She never asked for anything, but sought recourse for change by actually running for public office...

Oh, you've completely swallowed the story they've been spoon feeding, haven't you? :shrug:

 

If you want to understand Palin and her rise to power via the Insider Washington powers, I advise you read this great piece by the New Yorker:

 

 

The Political Scene: The Insiders: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

In subsequent speeches, Palin has cast herself as an antidote to the élitist culture inside the Beltway. “I’m certainly a Washington outsider, and I’m proud of that, because I think that that is what we need,” she recently told Fox News. During her first interview as John McCain’s running mate, with ABC’s Charlie Gibson, Palin was asked about her lack of experience in foreign policy. She replied, “We’ve got to remember what the desire is in this nation at this time. It is for no more politics as usual, and somebody’s big fat résumé, maybe, that shows decades and decades in the Washington establishment . . . Americans are getting sick and tired of that self-dealing, and kind of that closed-door, good-ol’-boy network that has been the Washington élite.”

 

Palin’s sudden rise to prominence, however, owes more to members of the Washington élite than her rhetoric has suggested.

 

<...>

 

As the Washington Post reported, Silver’s efforts in the capital helped Wasilla, a town of sixty-seven hundred residents, secure twenty-seven million dollars in federal earmarks. During this election season, however, Palin has presented herself as more abstemious, saying, “I’ve championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress.”

 

 

 

Since 'Pork Spending' is the real issue, do you honestly think all those issues which are attachments to needed legislature are worthwhile and even more important do you think those cost to the Federal Government, really go to the intended purposes.

 

Look at your own party first. I cite now for you the recently convicted Senator from Alaska, and many of his republican friends.

 

 

 

Maybe if you repeat a lie enough times enough people will believe it to make it true.

[InfiniteNow]

Don't forget, not only how ignorant she is about science, but how she wages war against it. :shrug:

 

 

The GOP ticket's appalling contempt for science and learning. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine

In an election that has been fought on an astoundingly low cultural and intellectual level, with both candidates pretending that tax cuts can go like peaches and cream with the staggering new levels of federal deficit, and paltry charges being traded in petty ways, and with Joe the Plumber becoming the emblematic stupidity of the campaign, it didn't seem possible that things could go any lower or get any dumber. But they did last Friday, when, at a speech in Pittsburgh, Gov. Sarah Palin denounced wasteful expenditure on fruit-fly research, adding for good xenophobic and anti-elitist measure that some of this research took place "in Paris, France" and winding up with a folksy "I kid you not."

 

<...>

 

With Palin, however, the contempt for science may be something a little more sinister than the bluff, empty-headed plain-man's philistinism of McCain. We never get a chance to ask her in detail about these things, but she is known to favor the teaching of creationism in schools (smuggling this crazy idea through customs in the innocent disguise of "teaching the argument," as if there was an argument), and so it is at least probable that she believes all creatures from humans to fruit flies were created just as they are now. This would make DNA or any other kind of research pointless, whether conducted in Paris or not. Projects such as sequencing the DNA of the flu virus, the better to inoculate against it, would not need to be funded. We could all expire happily in the name of God. Gov. Palin also says that she doesn't think humans are responsible for global warming; again, one would like to ask her whether, like some of her co-religionists, she is a "premillenial dispensationalist"—in other words, someone who believes that there is no point in protecting and preserving the natural world, since the end of days will soon be upon us.

 

<...>

 

This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just "people of faith" but theocratic bullies. On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity.

[jackson33]

It may be more likely, I was doing the spoon feeding, but the reality of what had happened with in the Republican Party up to the convention and what has happened since is ALL Palin.

 

I look at the President a little different than most, I guess. Traditionally they have not been the best or brightest in the society, but generally have had an ability to inspire or motivate the majority. Obama has this quality, Clinton had it as did Reagan, JFK, Truman and Teddy Roosevelt. I also look to my perception of character in that person, the people they tend to have learned from or you they will pick for advise.

 

I won't excuse the actions of Mr. Stevens or pretend he is innocent of fraud or the use of power to achieve unearned gifts. As the Governor of Alaska, in that performance, Palin had little choice in what Stevens did or how he acted to receive the obvious pork he DID get for her State. I will also give credit to McCain (possibly only Senator) to have never self sponsored a pork project for his State, but recognize that he didn't stop such programs coming to the Senate via the House and those programs sponsored by Representatives of Arizona and accepted by the Governors over the years. In representing your convictions you have to consider the convictions of others who serve and in the capacity of that service.

 

I think you know I am a self proclaimed agnostic. I hate the idea of Religion in Government or the governing of a society. BUT, I also have to respect the populace of a society and in the US its overwhelmingly a Christan Nation, a good share fundamentalist or literal belief in their Bible. Think 65% believe in Creationism to whatever degree, especially when Darwin Evolution or Science in general is involved. I have gone along with Bush 'Faith Based Initiatives' as will either McCain or Obama for reasons those funds are best spent by those already educated in the benevolence ideology.

[Moontanman]

I think it's important to note that it's now apparent that McCain is not going to be President and Palin is not going to be Vice President, all the news and controversies about them will soon be tomorrows fish wrapper. Sadly even though the Democrats have probably won they are inheriting a damaged system that may be beyond any quick remedy. In some ways I really wish the Republicans had won this election, they should be the ones to fix this mess but now the Democrats will catch the blame for any further problems generated by the fiasco of the last eight years and probably catch the blame for the entire deal in the next election. The Republicans will be in a situation to secure their power for another eight years by blaming this mess on the Democrats. Anyone who really follows politics knows the by the time the next election comes around this whole mess will be spun into a democratic bust, this would be wrong from any perspective. anyone with an ounce of brains knows there is more than enough blame to go around both sides but very little in the way of prevention or cure for either side to claim. It's doubly troubling that both sides would rather blame and back bite each other more than they would like to make this a great country. Being in power is far more important to each side than what it takes to capture that power. If anything ever destroys our country it will be the inability of either side to cooperate with each other for the good of the country rather than for the good of each respective side. I truly weep for my country, I fell our country has degenerated into an war of ideology's rather than a people with the common goal of providing our children with a safe and prosperous country to live in after we are gone. I say shame on both sides of the fence, shame on anyone who blindly follows an ideology instead of the truth, shame on any one who puts his party or religion, or cause above the good of our great country. Shame on you all, shame on all the right wingers and left wingers and anyone who thinks they have all the answers and are above reproach. Because you are not a God, you do not have a main line to a God like being and no one can be correct about everything. Only through cooperation tolerance and diversity can this country go forward into the future, diversity of thought includes everyone and it also includes everyone not only having a voice it also includes everyone having respect and security in the knowledge that how they think, live, and pursue happiness with not be marginalized due to some one else's agenda of intolerance, demagoguery, and desire for oligarchy. The main stream people of this country need to band together, forget party lines, and strive for the good of the country not the good of an ideology. Our children's future depends on us and what we do in the present. Will we let them down?

[jackson33]

moon; Biden has been setting up the public for what you perceive as a 'messed up government' or errors of the Bush Administration'. I should argue, Congress has played a big role during the past two years or maybe that the actual 'Housing Bubble' was in fact the first of social issues doomed to fail, but will save for another day.

 

The election will determine our future, its by no means over and either could win. I will admit the Republican Party has left the door open for a Democratic Congress, despite the fact they have a 9% approval rating, the lowest ever since such records have been kept. If you feel the Administration has failed, what must you think of Congress....

 

What you want today, I have to assume is what 'you want' for your kids and then their kids. I am sorry, but what I want for my kids is/was what they want. I want them to strive in every way possible to achieve anything they feel possible and never look back. If this happens, they achieve more than me, are happy in life or satisfied with all things, fine or if not will assume they failed in some manner. What taxes they have to pay, what wars they will have to fight or where society evolves to is also up to them. My torch was passed years ago and so far every one of them has been doing very well and might add most will probably be voting for Obama. Gathering of the 'main stream' is subjective to the gatherer. Right wing, left wing, socialist, capitalist, democrat or republican are meaningful words full of what makes people different, there is nothing wrong with any of them. When I hear Obama stand up and say we are all the same regardless whether we are this or that, it sickens me. We are in deed Americans, but in being American, gives us that right to be different. We are diversified, have heritage around the world and concerns for all people, as a National Society.

[Galapagos]

I was just stumbled across Matt Damon interview that was on the news a couple weeks ago:

YouTube - Matt Damon Rips Sarah Palin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6urw_PWHYk&feature=related

 

And I realized that I do not know the answer to his last question. Does Palin believe the Earth is 6-10,000 years old? I know she thinks religious ideas should be taught in public school, but does she herself subscribe to these beliefs? She certainly has shown herself to be ignorant enough, but perhaps she was just appealing to fundamentalist morons to get their votes.

Does anyone know if Sara Palin is a YE creationist? An ID fanatic?

 

 

 

 

edit-- @Inow's above post:

 

We never get a chance to ask her in detail about these things, but she is known to favor the teaching of creationism in schools (smuggling this crazy idea through customs in the innocent disguise of "teaching the argument," as if there was an argument), and so it is at least probable that she believes all creatures from humans to fruit flies were created just as they are now. This would make DNA or any other kind of research pointless, whether conducted in Paris or not.

 

This was precisely what I was thinking. Hitchens hit the nail on the head.

[Moontanman]

moon; Biden has been setting up the public for what you perceive as a 'messed up government' or errors of the Bush Administration'. I should argue, Congress has played a big role during the past two years or maybe that the actual 'Housing Bubble' was in fact the first of social issues doomed to fail, but will save for another day.

 

There is lot more to the failure of the last 8 eight yours than the housing bubble, there is a lot more the economic crisis than the housing bubble. Don't be disingenuous and try to mitigate blame, as I said there is plenty to go around.

 

The election will determine our future, its by no means over and either could win. I will admit the Republican Party has left the door open for a Democratic Congress, despite the fact they have a 9% approval rating, the lowest ever since such records have been kept. If you feel the Administration has failed, what must you think of Congress....

 

I think the partisanship is destroying the whole system, both sides are to blame for taking sides in such an extreme way.

 

What you want today, I have to assume is what 'you want' for your kids and then their kids. I am sorry, but what I want for my kids is/was what they want. I want them to strive in every way possible to achieve anything they feel possible and never look back. If this happens, they achieve more than me, are happy in life or satisfied with all things, fine or if not will assume they failed in some manner. What taxes they have to pay, what wars they will have to fight or where society evolves to is also up to them. My torch was passed years ago and so far every one of them has been doing very well and might add most will probably be voting for Obama. Gathering of the 'main stream' is subjective to the gatherer. Right wing, left wing, socialist, capitalist, democrat or republican are meaningful words full of what makes people different, there is nothing wrong with any of them. When I hear Obama stand up and say we are all the same regardless whether we are this or that, it sickens me. We are in deed Americans, but in being American, gives us that right to be different. We are diversified, have heritage around the world and concerns for all people, as a National Society.

 

Jackson are trying to be obtuse? What do you think I want for myself and my kids? To be one the government dole? My kids are the best of me and my wife, I've taught them to work hard, excel at anything they do no matter what is it, hard work and persistence is their by words. The oldest is planning to teach government, the youngest is an economics major at UNC Chapel Hill, he's been on the Deans list since day one. all the diverse groups you mentioned are great within limits but when the group becomes more important than the country that allows them to exist then they become a problem. We as a nation need to stop all the bickering and finger pointing and really fix things. If the left and the right can't see that then we are doomed and my efforts to raise my sons as productive citizens has been in vain. Is Obama perfect, of course not, is McCain perfect, no again, no matter which one is elected we as nation have to demand an end to business as usual, business as usual is what got us into this mess continuing with business as usual will not do anything but ensure our children and their children live in a world of diminished returns for what ever effort they put into life. This bull **** bickering between idealogies must stop! Insisting on one being right and one being wrong will not end anything but us.

[Nitack]

Here is my problem... I am faced with a no win situation next week.

 

On the one hand we have the Palin/McCain ticket. Palin gets first billing in my book because lets face it, she is more popular and is most likely the only one of the two that will be alive at the end of 2012. President Palin is a crazy scary proposition. The woman is a religious fanatic. She is a young earth creationist who believes in suppressing science in order to make the world fit her religious beliefs. That is just scary. I want a president who makes logical and rational decisions. Believing in Intelligent Design and Young Earth Creationism is not logical nor rational given the ridiculous amount of evidence we have to support evolution and the origins of the universe. This woman is not an option and even if McCain were to survive, I would be afraid of her spending that time bolstering her resume to some day run for President. That being said, the latest buzz around DC is that the woman might be intentionally derailing the McCain campaign, or at the very least not interested in helping it, in order to set herself up for a run in 2012. That screams of an egomaniac and even more reason to keep her as far away from power as possible.

 

The alternative is no better and arguably worse. Obama is all about socialist entitlement programs that "spread the wealth" as he infamously said. We can't afford the system we have now though... and he wants to expand it?!?! :P<_< You only expand entitlement programs in two ways, you borrow money to finance them (oh so very bad) which will just set us up for a more nasty fall later on, or you raise taxes. Taxes are already approaching too high, where the dead weight loss/burden is almost to the theoretical tipping point where the economy takes a major downward spiral because it can not support the tax level. Wealthy Americans who are expected to shoulder the lion's share of the burden will start to relocate. Then we will see "rich" redefined as anyone who completed college. Medicare will be bankrupt in 2018, and by 2030 the Medicaid and Medicare Programs are projected to require all the receipts from the federal government, and that is just with the programs and promises we have made now. That does not even take into account the expansion that Stall-bama wants.

 

So I am left with no one who I can actually believe in. On the one hand we have a religious fanatic who might start a nuke war just to bring on her Armageddon and on the other hand we have a socialist who doesn't understand basic economics and that you can't spend more than you make. It is not a matter of choosing the lesser of evils, they both suck ***.

 

So what the hell do I do on Tuesday?

[Moontanman]

I share your indecision nitack, while I love to screw with the ultra Conservatives when ever possible I don't give the ultra liberals any more slack on other forums where I post. It boils down to the lesser of the two evils, yet again in my life i find my self faced with the lesser of two evils at election time, the direction the Conservatives seem to be hell bent on going, allying themselves with the religious extremists and attacking real science at nearly every term leaves me with no choice but to yet again vote Democrat. socialism is much better than a theocracy and Armageddon. Fortunately i doubt that Obama will be able to really bring about a government any more socialist than it already is, he might lean toward the common man a little more than the current powers that be that are leaning toward the extremely rich and powerful but both sides are socialist in the end. For me it boils down to who will do the least damage and who is more likely to stop current trends toward the anti-science, anti-critical thinking of the extreme right we see now. Obama is the only real choice. If I may I would suggest that you look closely at local elections, the rubber hits the road there and the left and the right have little meaning at this level, vote for who you think will do a better job locally and try to pick the lesser of the two evils for you in the national election.

[jackson33]

The main stream people of this country need to band together, forget party lines, and strive for the good of the country not the good of an ideology. Our children's future depends on us and what we do in the present. Will we let them down?

 

Moon, it was this statement that my rant was based on. "For the good of the children" has never made sense to me, and mainstream only applies to what YOU feel is mainstream....

 

As for partisanship; If you believe in something or honestly feel something is right or even prefer one candidate over another, how can you compromise (bi-partisan) those things. Its either/or and you are not going to change your mind, nor should you. Compromising an issue only means your unsure or prefer one issues conclusion for the sake of another, which is the problem today IMO. In "fixing" something, means something is broke. If broke in your mind, yet practiced by society is it then really broke.

 

You feel the Bush administration has been a failure (broke), but in my mind and probably a great many others, feel its been rather successful, we will both die feeling much the same having lived through it and backing out feelings with our perceived evidence. If you want to dissect the entirety fine, I'll say its been 75-25 in favor of a better American today than 8 years ago.

 

Plenty of blame; Regardless of an issue, it formed from ideas and has advanced over time. The Housing Bubble from the Johnson or Carter years, where the idea every person should have AFFORDABLE housing, yet progressed to where affordable was determined by government. The financial crisis stems back to the last one 1989, low interest rates held in tack by the Federal Reserve and where my 25% of 'bad' in the Bush administration comes from, holding domestic spending down. The bail out, which I oppose is going to fix nothing, resulting in an even deeper problem not far down the road when other programs (SS/Medicaid/Medicare/Welfare) begin failing.

 

 

Nitack/Moon; Next week....Its not the first time I have said this, but however you vote next week will resolve nothing. IMO both parties have been lining up the 2010 (Congressional) and 2012 (General) elections. There will be fighting from both sides from January 22nd on to those elections and all those political blogs will be as active as in the past month. Every decision by whichever person will be subjected to equal descent as anything during the campaign. Who ever the President, every appointment met with disapproval and every decision subject to attacks by one media or the other. There will be no compromise if McCain and no compromise needed if Obama. Congress will go it alone and is planning the next twenty years as we speak. As for voting, suggest you both simply vote for McCain or Obama and assume like has always been they will serve out their time. My personal opinion and from history, either has the same change of dieing in office and frankly I would take Palin over Biden any day. Remember if Obama, the line as it stands to day is Obama, Biden, POLOSI, REID AND BYRD.