Sarah Palin: Dinosaurs and humans lived together.

I'm wondering how Saturday Night Live is going to handle this. From the Los Angeles Times:

Palin told him that "dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time," Munger said. When he asked her about prehistoric fossils and tracks dating back millions of years, Palin said "she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks (emphasis mine)...

(Story hat tip: Countdown with Keith Olbermann)

(Image: Pharyngula)

Fox "News:" Credibility-free zone.

SNL humiliates Palin--by quoting her near-verbatim

Can someone start playing taps over this candidacy, please?

Anchorage Daily News hammers Palin

Good for them. Go here for video of this chick's dishonesty.

HT: Sullivan.

Taxi to the Dark Side

Premiering Sept. 29th on HBO:



HT: Sullivan

Bill Maher on John McCain's foreign policy

I watched most of the debate last night. Some people would say that McCain was stronger on foreign policy than Obama, but I say McCain was more stubborn, and that Obama has an appreciation for the intricacies of Middle Eastern politics. Bill Maher might have put it best...six months ago:

I don't care if John McCain is better than Bush on global warming or torture or campaign finance, because he's exactly the same as Bush on the war. They both don't get the same thing.

That, as long as we're setting up shop in the heart of the Arab world, we're not keeping America safer. Bin Laden goes ballistic over cartoons in Danish newspapers. And "Goober" and "Grandpa" want to put up a Hooters in Fallujah.

They don't hate us for our freedom. They hate us for our fiefdom. Winning the war on terror comes down to this: what will make us safer from pissed-off Arab teenagers who are willing to die? There are a number of good answers to that question, but occupying their land for the next hundred years is not one of them.

Presidential debate: the overlooked point II.

Oh, and we all forgot about Katie Couric's interview with Sarah Palin for a while, didn't we? That's a relief. I hope she was watching so she can at least have an idea of how it's supposed to be done.

Presidential debate: the overlooked point.

McCain nodded to Ted Kennedy in his opening remarks, saying "the Lion of the Senate" was in the hospital and offering well-wishes.

Kennedy's fine, such as he can be with brain cancer. Yahoo! News reports he suffered a mild seizure and was treated and released.

My own thoughts on Sarah Palin

I've been blasting this...creature for quite some time, now, and I've been using a bunch of other people's quotes to do so. So following this barb from Kathleen Parker, I'll toss in my own:

"If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself."

Say it, sistah.

All right. I am in no position to criticize women in this country for pulling for one of their own. I respect that. But Sarah Palin is simply a less-qualified version of Hillary Clinton who looks better in a bikini (sorry for the mental image). Clinton at least has all kinds of national ties, had a form of access to the oval office, and saw how the real political world works. And that wasn't enough to qualify her, either. Her record in the Senate proved that she might be a competent Senator, but when it comes to being the leader of a whole campaign organization, she surrounded herself with stool pigeons and shameless dirtbags. Palin has been shielded entirely from talking to anyone spontaneously.

If gender or race were the only consideration, I'd be voting for John McCain. I'm not. Competence has to count, too.

Palin doesn't have it.

She's actually an insult to feminism, in that while she earned her right to be the mayor of Wasilla, and she won the governor's post in Alaska, she was picked for qualities besides whatever inherent skills or abilities she might have.

And I remember what Molly Ivins said about Newt Gingrich in a Rolling Stone piece: nincompoopery has never been a bar to high political office. So just because she won at the local level, where the media attention (let's be honest) tends to not be as good or as critical, that doesn't mean the BS will pass the sniff test of Dave Letterman or anyone else at the national level.

Just look at McCain himself. He's gotten by with being a good guy to have a drink with for all of these years. People deferred to him because of his POW status, etc. while not looking too closely at his political record (Keating Five notwithstanding).

But now that Wall Street is in danger of melting faster than Sarah Palin's ice caps, people are starting to do more than just take a snapshot of McCain's voting record. It's a non-stop prison searchlight. And what people are finding out is that McCain basically obeys anyone who pays him a lot of money to get the government off their cases. Including the latest generation of robber barons.

James Fallows on Palin-Couric

Money quote:

Couric deserves better ratings for the CBS news based on the steely relentlessness of her questions. Unlike Charlie Gibson, and unlike Joe Biden in a (possible!) future debate, she has no background complications of the older white man bullying the younger, attractive woman. She was a professional woman who has clearly earned her position grilling someone whose bona fides she cleared doubted.

Dave Letterman's pasting of John McCain

Epic. Win. I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. After the day I had at work, I needed this. Thanks, Dave.

From Countdown:



From YouTube:



Man, he just gets more and more steamed as it goes on. I'd really like to have gotten Letterman drunk afterward and heard what he had to say without cameras rolling.

Site of the day.

Klingons for Jesus.

Someone needs some fan mail. This is good.

Lieberman faces censure by Conn. Democrats

Looks like Joe "Benedict Arnold" Lieberman might be facing censure by the Connecticut Democratic Party. He lost his own primary in 2006, won his Senate seat on an "Independent" ticket, and caucuses with the D's in the Senate. But he's got his tongue so far up John McCain's ass, he can almost taste that beer Cindy's family brews. And speaking at the Republican National Convention was the last straw:

The resolution says Lieberman's actions are "extraordinary disloyalty to countless Connecticut Democrats without whom his career as an elected official would never have been possible" and calls on state Democrats to ask him to resign from the party.

(Audrey) Blondin said Lieberman's speech at the Republican National Convention, in which he praised McCain and criticized Democrat Barack Obama, convinced her that state Democrats needed to take a stand.

Traslation: speak at the RNC if you want, but not as a registered Democrat. And lest you feel sorry for Jiltin' Joe:

"Honestly, I thought that was the kind of thing that happened only in the former Soviet Union. I understand that people are unhappy, but, you know, I'm doing something that I really believe."

Makes me want to puke in my soup. This is the worst kind of politician; he's willing to throw away any number of years of party affiliation because he hopes to be a big player--maybe even cabinet-level player--in a McCain administration, if he can only lick Mac's fingers for a handout. He knows the Obama administration wouldn't give him the time of day in comparison. And then he goes and compares the Democrats to the commies for calling him on his bullshit.

And he's Jewish!!!

Uh, Joe, did you bother to look up the term "pogrom" before you compared your own party members to the people who used to persecute your kindred? Never mind resigning from the Democrats, resign from the Senate. Before you resign completely from the human race.

One more reason to vote for Obama:

The British journal Nature:

Do you believe that evolution by means of natural selection is a sufficient explanation for the variety and complexity of life on Earth? Should intelligent design, or some derivative thereof, be taught in science class in public schools?

Obama: I believe in evolution, and I support the strong consensus of the scientific community that evolution is scientifically validated. I do not believe it is helpful to our students to cloud discussions of science with non-scientific theories like intelligent design that are not subject to experimental scrutiny.

Sarah Palin: Teach the controversy (code for the anti-evolution crowd).

Vote.

Campbell Brown: Free Sarah Palin

'Bout time someone said it:

Now, the glory days of CNN are long gone, but Brown is right: if anyone's guilty of sexism when it comes to Palin, it's the McCain people. But hey, Mac himself once "affectionately" called Cindy a c-nt. Tough love, huh? Of course, when she can afford a $300,000 outfit, I guess it's all sticks and stones.

The next person I'd like to see make this call is Hillary Clinton. That'll never happen. Is Margaret Thatcher available for an interview?
---
Update: There's been speculation that Brown might have been regurgitating McCain talking points about how "tough" Sarah Palin is. Which opens them up to the reposte: there's a difference between being tough and being a bully.

Why we need to rethink our drug policy

This story from MSNBC, about a lady who had lived on the lam for 32 years (you read that right) after escaping from prison.

(Susan) LeFevre, who was just 19 when arrested on a heroin charge, said she never expected to get 10 years in prison when she agreed to plead guilty in 1974. She climbed a prison fence in 1976, helped by her grandfather.

"I felt like I wanted to vindicate myself," LeFevre said of the escape. "I wasn't involved in drug trafficking at all. I was a recreational user."

Never mind the concept of a "recreational" heroin user (I'm of the opinion that recreational and heroin are a contradiction), 10 years for possession?!? Only in America (and other third world-minded nations) could being an addict--which is a disease, I might remind you--be considered a crime.

Cripes.

And good for the judge for recognizing that 32 years of looking over her shoulder is punishment enough. I'm of the opinion that any judge who wants to sentence someone to prison should be forced to spend a week or two incarcerated themselves to see what it's like.

Open letter to Barack Obama: will you appoint an addiction specialist as our next drug czar, please? We've had enough meathead generals in that post.

The 12 lies of Sarah Palin

Direct from Andrew Sullivan. Don't trust this chick.

Vote.

Donate to Planned Parenthood in Sarah Palin's name

I'm bogarting this wholesale from my dear friend, Heather:

Instead of (in addition to?) us all sending around emails about how horrible she is, let's all make a donation to Planned Parenthood. In Sarah Palin's name. And here's the good part: when you make a donation to PP in her name, they'll send her a card telling her that the donation has been made in her honor.
Here's the link to the Planned Parenthood website:

https://secure. ga0. org/02/pp10000_inhonor

Be sure to use the pulldown menu for Honorary or Memorial Donations, rather than just 'Donate Online'.


You'll need to fill in the address to let PP know where to send the "in Sarah Palin's honor" card.
I suggest you use the address for the McCain campaign headquarters, which is:


McCain for President
1235 S. Clark Street
1st Floor
Arlington , VA 22202

Imagine the shoe on the other foot

A brilliant article on why Creationism should NOT be taught in public schools.

HT: RichardDawkins.net

Why do we want this person in charge of nuclear weapons?

An outstanding article from Sam Harris on Sarah Palin. Money quote:

There is no question that if President McCain chokes on a spare rib and Palin becomes the first woman president, she and her supporters will believe that God, in all his majesty and wisdom, has brought it to pass. Why would God give Sarah Palin a job she isn't ready for? He wouldn't. Everything happens for a reason. Palin seems perfectly willing to stake the welfare of our country—even the welfare of our species—as collateral in her own personal journey of faith. Of course, McCain has made the same unconscionable wager on his personal journey to the White House.

Remember: this chick believes the Rapture will occur in HER LIFETIME, and that it will begin in the Middle East.

Vote.

HT: RichardDawkins.net