If you don't have the guts to vote, then don't bitch about the government

from this morning's edition of her fanboy website comes this comment from an obviously Patriotic America:

Doug White, 42, of Covedale, said if Palin twwwstlij does run, it would inspire him to register to vote – for only the second time in his life. The first, he said, was to vote for President George H.W. Bush in 1992.

“I voted for Big Bush and didn’t check another name on the ballot – and haven’t voted since,” he said. “If she goes in 2012, I’ll do the same for her. She’s real. She speaks her mind. This country needs someone like that.”

Mmmmm, Arsenic...

Well, it's not exactly earthshaking news, but nevertheless it does raise more than a few questions about how life might exist in places we might think would be inhospitable...
Not coincidentally (or maybe conincidentally) astronomers just increase the number of stars in the visible universe to a number that has 23 zeros after it: 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
Yeah, I am now utterly convinced that little 'ol Earth (or Urantia, depending on what you read) is the only life-inhabited planet anywhere.

Is this why Congress and the Administration can't keep a straight face?

MEDIA ADVISORY : M10-167 NASA Sets News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery; Science Journal Has Embargoed Details Until 2 p.m. EST On Dec. 2
WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.

The news conference will be held at the NASA Headquarters auditorium at 300 E St. SW, in Washington. It will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency's website at http://www.nasa.gov.

Participants are:
- Mary Voytek, director, Astrobiology Program, NASA Headquarters, Washington
- Felisa Wolfe-Simon, NASA astrobiology research fellow, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, Calif.
- Pamela Conrad, astrobiologist, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
- Steven Benner, distinguished fellow, Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, Gainesville, Fla.
- James Elser, professor, Arizona State University, Tempe

I wish I could write like this

From our good friends right across the Bering Straits:
Spankin' Sarah Palin: A clown short of a circus

"I have already called Sarah Palin a pith-headed bimbo from the back of beyond, in this column. I shall now go one step further. By attacking the democratically elected President of the United States of America at a sensitive time in her country's history, she shows the tact of a boorish drunkard bawling obscenities at a funeral.
"If Sarah Palin is not some kind of a massive political joke in the USA, wheeled out to liven up the political scene from time to time with nonsensical and pastiche (one hopes) displays of sheer and utter ignorance, then it is worrying. It is even more so if anyone other than a manic depressive suffering from a chronic lack of lithium takes this...female...seriously.
"Hockey Mum Sarah ex-Governess of Alaska is famous for her shrill shrieking style, displaying a pitifully shallow persona which one hopes is stage-managed to give the rest of the world a good chuckle at the Americans' ability and unique quality to make fun of themselves, a real-life female version of Homer Simpson-cum-Belching Barney at Mo's, giving us ever-more hilarious soundbites as she sets herself up as the dumbest woman on Earth.
"Just occasionally, one encounters a bar-room idiot whose party piece is belching loudly before falling backwards off his stool, bouncing off the floor on his backside with a background provided by guffaws of laughter, yet who winks knowingly as he is carried out with his feet scraping along the ground and says "Don't worry son, most of it is an act".
"The act. It reminds one of Marilyn Monroe putting on the act of the dumb blonde. But an act it was, a character projected by a shrewd, intelligent and charismatic woman with the ability to invent a persona. Sarah Palin, however, is the real-life thing. And it is becoming patently obvious that it isn't an act.
"Sarah Palin, the one famous for ludicrous statements such as "I want to help clean up the state that is so sorry today of journalism. And I have a communications degree"; she is after all someone who "must have lived such a doggoned sheltered life", Sarah "We're all Arizonans now" Palin, cracking down on immigrants when the US of A is after all a country formed by...whom?
"And now she turns not only against the fibre and backbone of her country, but against its democratically-elected President, accusing him of being incompetent for not stopping Wikileaks. Where was she and where was her GOP before and during the 9/11 attacks? She accuses President Obama of not taking "steps" to assure the leaks were not published. What "steps"?
"Sinister Sarah Palin then goes on to insinuate that she is an advocate of cyber terrorism, questioning "Did we use all the cyber tools at our disposal to dismantle WikiLeaks?" Surely a more sensible question would have been why the material for the leaks was provided in the first place...and this has nothing to do with President Obama, but indeed speaks volumes about the State apparatus itself which goes beyond party politics. Her question also speaks volumes about her own inability to perform logical and strategic thinking.
"President Obama after all knows the difference between North and South Korea, he knows that Hawaii is the largest US island and not Kodiak and he does not use the expression "refudiate".
"If anything is a threat to the national security of the United States of America, it is this screaming, unrefined oaf with as much class as a searing release of flatulence followed by hysterical giggling at a state banquet. Is this what the people of the USA deserve?
"To attack the President of the country at a time when the USA needs to close ranks and stand together to consolidate the enormous strides his intelligent and respectful approach has achieved in building bridges, when her party's period in government bombed them, Spankin' Sarah Palin comes across as a pitifully inadequate anachronism from the times of the Far West.
"The United States of America has evolved. She has not."

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Pravda.Ru

The few, the proud, the moderated

I tossed this off in Mudflats (knowing noone reads THIS blog) and to my suprise, and pride, it says. in italics, Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Mark Springer says:


If anyone really doubts that her fanboy website isn’t pure and deliberate satire should consider the following statement from this article-
“For practically everyone, the written word is noticeably more coherent than the spoken word. Undoubtedly this general rule is due to the fact that when writing, there is sufficient time to develop cogent arguments and weave them into a logical narrative.”
The article is a long-winded rant against some guy Scarbourough (honest, I’m not sure who he is but I guess he is on the teevee) but the opening graf seems SOOOOOO apropos.
Her fanboy website really deserves a look now and then just for a laugh at the fine conjunction of loyalty and insolence which becomes more apparent with each passing day.

Mark Springer
Bethel

Assassinate Assange, she says

twwwstlij tells Obama, "Off the motherfucker".

I am not a number

Meanwhile

the New York Times rolls over on its tummy.

Hurrah, WikiLeaks!

The United States has developed into a society of state secrets, and i won't deny that there is a past as long as mankind where governments and hierarchy's depended upon secret knowledge to maintain their power and position.
"The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic poison which alienates the possessor from the community" Carl Jung
via Tony Gosling
I agree completely.
So, to WikiLeaks and its leakers, bravo for a job well done.
The New York Times, as usual, has breaking coverage of the now-public availability of this goldmine of US diplomatic cables.
Also, watch Cryptome for linked commentary and reviews.