Palin lied ... again

Amy Gwin, 43, of University City, grew up in Alaska and competed in the Miss Wasilla, Alaska, competition in 1984 against repugican vice presidential choice Sarah Palin.

Gwin said Friday that she won the Miss Congeniality award in the competition, although Palin's wikipedia entry says she won the contest — and the Miss Congeniality award.

Gwin was a year behind Palin, now 44, at Wasilla high school, which had about 800 students. Gwin said Palin was "a high school star in a good way," a beauty who got good grades and excelled at athletics.
Gwin, who was president of her class, does not recall Palin holding school office.
The wikipedia entry on Palin said she was head of the school's fellowship of christian athletes and captain of the basketball team.

Asked about her classmate's new role as governor ...

Gwin said she was not surprised when Palin became the governor of Alaska, but is astonished that she got the repugican nod for vice president.

Asked whether she would support palin because she knows her.

Gwin said: "I wouldn't support her if she was my very best friend. I support Obama and don't share any of her (Palin's) politics. She's very shallow."

Not to worry Amy, they all are.
And they are all liars - it's in their nature.

It's too easy ...

Who can come up with the funniest caption?

Oh, I won't, it's too easy. I'll be good. Damn it's hard to hold back! Got to resist! Hell, why not?

"The official repugican wanking off to poster"

"Guns and T&A: what Neo-Con Amerika needs"

"Hey, Dick (Cheney) ... Look familiar?"

Found on the web

Quote from the web:

"Ya gotta love it.
The right wing nut jobs were praying for rain on the Obama convention.
Instead, they get a hurricane on McCain's convention.
If there is a God, I believe he's just made a statement."

You know Karma does tend to do that.

McPain's Biggest Blunder Yet

They just keep coming and building ...

Excerpt:

Another week, another Frank Luntz (R-Fascist) focus group of undecided voters - with bad news for McPain:

they don't like his beauty queen choice for vice president.

Only one person said Palin made him more likely to vote for McPain; about half the 25-member group raised their hands when asked if Palin made them less likely to vote for McCain.

They had a negative impression of Palin by a 2-1 margin ... a fact that was reinforced when
they were given hand-dials and asked to react to Palin's speech at her first appearance with McPain on Friday --- the dials remained totally neutral as Palin went through her heart-warming(?) biography, and only blipped upwards when she said she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere -- which wasn't quite the truth, as we now know.

What was McPain expecting?
What was he thinking?

Well it is obvious which head he was thinking with so the answers to those two questions is a bit obvious too.

Read the full article here

Iron Age beekeeping discovered

Science is cool!

Researchers have found evidence of a 3,000 year old beekeeping operation in northern Israel. The apiary, consisting of somewhere between 75 and 200 beehives, contains the oldest human-made beehives ever found.

From Science News:

(Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai) Mazar’s team has so far uncovered 25 cylindrical containers for bees in a structure that is centrally located in the ancient city at Tel Rehov.

High brick walls surrounded the apiary.
Beehives sat in three parallel rows, each containing at least three tiers. Each beehive measured 80 centimeters long and about 40 centimeters wide.

In the best-preserved beehives, one end contains a small hole for bees to enter and exit. A removable lid with a handle covers the other end.

Chemical analysis of two Tel Rehov beehives revealed degraded beeswax residue in the containers’ unfired clay walls. The researchers are now examining pollen remains and bee bodies found in charred honeycombs from inside the hives.

Read the full story Iron Age beekeeping

Horse Whisperer author poisoned by wild mushrooms

(Photo of Cortinarius Speciosissimus from Mycocheype)

Author Nicholas Evans and three family members are seriously ill after eating poisonous mushrooms in The Highlands.

There are about 10,000 species of mushroom found in Britain and Cortinarius Speciosissimus is known to be one of the most deadly. Found mostly in Scotland, where it grows in conifer woods, it causes damage to the liver, kidneys and spinal cord. As other members of the Cortinarius family are also dangerous none are recommended for human consumption.

Horse Whisperer author, Nicholas Evans, poisoned by wild mushrooms

South Carolina sheriff buys tank to conduct raids

Don't even think about running an illegal bingo game in Richland County, South Carolina.

The Richland County, South Carolina Sheriff's Department (that's them above) just obtained an armored personnel carrier, complete with a belt-fed, .50-cal turreted machine gun. Sheriff Leon Lott has charmingly named the vehicle "The Peacemaker," and insists that using a caliber of ammunition that even the U.S. military is reluctant to use against human targets (it's generally reserved for use against armored vehicles) will "save lives."

Sheriff Lott's New Toy

Now if that don't beat all! Remind me to call Leon later and tell him what an ass he is again, he forgets every so often and needs reminding.

Bright and shiney, oooh

We all know the naming of Palin was a political stunt, but could it be she is just a distraction for more than McPain's failings?

Something like this maybe:

The Dutch intelligence service, the Aivd, has called off an operation aimed at infiltrating and sabotaging Iran's weapons industry due to an assessment that a US attack on the Islamic republic's nuclear program is imminent, according to a report in the country's de Telegraaf newspaper on Friday.

Read the story in the Jerusalem Post

Remember October is but a month away and an 'October Surprise' would not be surprising at all given the shrub and the rest of the cabal's proclivities.

Beyond the Pale-n

Since the 'announcement'

* The news that Palin once backed the bridge to nowhere went national.

* It emerged that Palin has links to the bizarro Alaska Independence party, which harbors the goal of seceding from the union that McCain and Palin seek to lead.

* The news broke that as governor, Palin relied on an earmark system she now opposes. taken along with the bridge to nowhere stuff, this threatens to undercut her reformist image, something that was key to her selection as McPain's veep candidate.

* The news broke that Palin's 17-year-old daughter became pregnant out of wedlock at a time when the conservative base had finally started rallying behind McPain's candidacy.

* Barely moments after McPain advisers put out word that McPain had known of Bristol Palin's pregnancy, the Anchorage Daily News revealed that Palin's own spokesperson hadn't known about it only two days ago.

* A senior McPain adviser at the republican convention was forced into the rather embarrassing position of arguing that McPain had known about the pregnancy "last week" -- without saying what day last week he knew about it.

* It came out that repugican lawyers are up in Alaska vetting Palin -- now, more than 72 hours after it was announced that she'd been picked.

* Palin lawyered up in relation to the trooper-gate probe in Alaska -- a move that ensures far more serious attention to the story from the major news orgs.

* Don't forget the fact that Sarah was part of ted stevens' 527!

And the hits just keep coming ...

There is even a nude photo of a brunette in the early 1980s that face recognition software gives a 50/50 chance of it being her floating around the net.

I can't wait to see what is next.

Reporter tells it like it is

Rampant Paranoia in Minneapolis

Radio news host among protesters arrested at RNC for "conspiracy to riot", National Guard headed in?

Amy Goodman, host of the independent news program "Democracy Now!," was among hundreds who were arrested in St. Paul Minnesota today.
Also detained were Goodman's producers, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar.
The three were covering the protests at the Republican National Convention, but the Minneapolis Police Department charged them with conspiracy to riot.
Goodman has since been released, but her colleagues were still being held as of last night.
Video embedded above from Rick Rowley and Brandon Jourdan.
Democracy Now's news release about the incident is here.

More on the story: Editor and Publisher, San Francisco Chronicle, and Washington Post, excerpt below:

"I was down on the convention floor interviewing delegates when I heard that two of our producers had been arrested," said Goodman. "I ran down to Jackson and 7th Street, where the police had moved in."

Goodman said that when she ran up to find out what was going on, she was also arrested. "They seriously manhandled me and handcuffed my hands behind my back. The top ID [at the convention] is to get on the floor and the Secret Service ripped that off me. I had my Democracy Now! ID too. I was clearly a reporter."

Goodman, who was released after being charged with a misdemeanor, said that Salazar had been hurt in the face, while Kouddous had been thrown up against a wall and hurt his elbow.

"Nicole told me that as they moved in on three sides, she asked them 'How do I get away from this?' and they jumped on her."

Update: A group called Cold Snap Legal in the Twin Cities area is offering legal assistance to the hundreds of protesters who were arrested today at the RNC. Here's their Twitter stream, with lots of updates. Via that Twitter stream, a re-tweet from @tcdailyplanet, 830pm PT: "Credible report of a convoy of National Guard heading toward the Twin Cities on Highway 55 between 8 and 9 p.m., with at least 7 humvees."


So, it is obvious to all how the repugicans are abusing the system and their paranoia is screaming loudly enough for the entire world to hear.
There are multiple reports of arrests of 'protesters' daily in Minneapolis starting before their klan gathering even began.
While in Denver during the entirety of the Democratic Convention there was only one reported case of arrests of 'protesters' - actually armed terrorists planning on killing Obama, who the repugican U.S. attorney in Denver dubbed 'good ol'boys' and sent them away with a stern talking to.

Everyone but the repugicans sees the pattern here.

Hanna is coming for the weekend

Hurricane Hanna slumped to tropical storm strength while grinding away at the Bahamas and other Atlantic islands on Tuesday, and forecasters said it still poses a hurricane threat to the U.S. East Coast.

The storm snapped trees and kept Providenciales, capital of the Turks and Caicos islands, without power.
It hurled rains that caused flooding across Cuba, Haiti and Puerto Rico, where at least one university student died in a rain-swollen river.

Hanna's maximum sustained winds slipped to 70 mph (110 kph), but the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said it could regain hurricane strength of 74 mph (119 kph) within a day.
Forecasters say it could hit the U.S. coast by Friday or Saturday.
"Right now, the uncertainty is such that it could hit anywhere from Miami to the outer banks of North Carolina," said Jessica Schauer Clark, a meteorologist at the U.S. National Hurricane Center. "So people really need to keep an eye on it."

*****

Well, there goes my weekend plans.

And Ike is forming up out in the Atlantic. oh, joy!

Stupid or crazy - both actually

Eagle Forum Alaska sent a questionnaire to Alaska’s gubernatorial candidates. Sarah Palin gave the following responses:

On the right to choose:

SP: I am pro-life. With the exception of a doctor’s determination that the mother’s life would end if the pregnancy continued. I believe that no matter what mistakes we make as a society, we cannot condone ending an innocent’s life.

On abstinence education vs. sex education:

SP: Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.

On hate crimes legislation protecting minorities:

SP: No, as I believe all heinous crime is based on hate.

On spousal benefits for same-sex couples:

SP: No, I believe spousal benefits are reserved for married citizens as defined in our constitution.

“Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?”:

SP: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.

*****

All women have the right of choice even Sarah Palin and she made it but she wants to deny other women that right - typical of one who is delusional.

Willful ignorance equates to stupidity and not knowing about sex can kill you and that is what she wants - you not to know about sex.

Protecting minorities ... okay here is something that she has a point about, granted it isn't a good one but it still holds true - if all are protected then there is no need for special protections for minorities, ah, but the rub is all are not protected.

Benefits for same-sex couples - you bet, they should have the same benefits as the rest of us and by the same token the same burdens as well.

The Founding Fathers are spinning in their graves at the wing-nut fundamentalists attempts to rewrite history to fit their absurd fantasies.
The Pledge was not written by the founding fathers in fact all of them had been dead many years before it was written.
But it is not the Pledge that Palin is referring to (remember that rewriting of history thing of theirs), it is the 'under god' insertion into the Pledge from the 1950s that she she harping on.
I am sure the founding fathers of 1776 were all there for that in the 1950s - hell, the youngest of them would barely be 200 years old then.

Oh, and as an aside, did you know the word 'fundament' the root for fundamental, literally means asshole - the actual hole itself ... kind of an appropriate term for those called and claiming themselves to be such, don't you think?!

Significant 'Bounce'

Even as the repugicans begin spewing in Minneapolis.

Americans are looking at Obama even more favorably.

"The Democratic National Convention significantly boosted Americans' views of Barack Obama as a strong leader who "shares your values" and can manage the economy and Iraq."

Full Story Here.

This is not surprising given the caterwauling from the right-wing mouthpieces to the contrary and the very telling reaction of one of their own namely Pat Buchanan as he broke ranks with the dogmatic line when he gushed over Obama's speech.

Tut was a daddy?

Professor Robert Connolly, an anatomist who is working with Egyptian authorities to analyze the tomb of the Egyptian Pharaoh, says that preliminary tests on the mummified remains of the two still-born babies indicate that Tutankhamun may have fathered them both.

Full Story Here.

Palin is just another hypocrite ... Surprised?

Palin is just another hypocrite is what the headline of several news articles and blog entries is.

My question ... Is this any surprise to anyone?

Palin an avid and outspoken abstinence only crowd ranter has a 17 year-old daughter knocked up (five months gone) ... here again any surprise there?

Those stupid enough to believe that abstinence only bull-hockey in lieu of education about sex and some of the things can my happen due to having sex frequently find their beliefs are in error.

And the children of such idiots are the most likely to suffer from that error.

Just like the preacher's son/daughter is the wildest child on the block so are these children of abstinence.

But, this really is a non-issue.

Palin is a hypocrite there is no doubt, it is just the list of her hypocrisies is so expansive and extensive this 'issue' is hardly worth a mention.