Oh, Mother Earth Goddess Sarah! We Beseech Thee!

'Cause Governor Palin Didn't Give Us Half of What We Need!

Sorry, But Governor Palin Is Not Available For Compassion Today.
She's At A Photo-Op With Her Baby. Get It Somewhere Else!

I wish Joe Biden would see this little list. The focus on the Vice Presidential Debate will, of course, be foreign policy, but Sarah Palin has been rather hypocritical in domestic policy. She may not be the "mother earth" figure and humanitarian she pretends to be. Her speech yesterday focused on funding programs for special needs children (like her own), so I would love for Biden to ask why she cut funding for:

• Special Olympics Alaska (cutting budget in half, down t0 $275,000)
• The Fairbanks Community Food Bank
• An Alaskan drop-out-prevention program
• An addiction rehabilitation facility
• Statewide independent living centers
• Transition housing for homeless young adults, and...
  
• She erased funding for substance abuse education*

Granted, Mrs. Mooseburger, The Goddess Sarah, might have had to make drastic cuts in Alaska's budget. All government budgets are in terrible shape. BUT don't let her get away with telling the country how caring and compassionate** she has been. Let her explain those cuts, then tell us what a wonderful governor she's been.



Besides Mother Earth, here are a depictions of what Sarah Palin
is NOT (left to right):
Ceres: Goddess of Abundance Quan Yin: Goddess of Mercy and Compassion Minerva: Goddess of Wisdom

Sorry, there is no goddess of hypocrisy.


* She just wants to eliminate education on sex, drugs, and...we'll have to wait for Rock 'n Roll
**Remember "Compassionate Conservatism?" That was 8 years ago. People still don't know what Bush was talking about. Maybe it's time that Mrs. Mooseburger resurrected it.

Is Palin Dangerously Over The Edge - According to Dobson - or Is She "Super Mom!" ?

This was one of those "just had to post it pictures" and has nothing to do with the post.
Unfortunately.

Dobson "Waffles" on Palin

James Dobson of Focus On The Family fame waffled against his own theory when talking about Sarah Palin on Laura Ingraham's radio show. When asked about the burden of having a family and juggling the Vice Presidency, Dobson had this to say:

DOBSON: I think that is her choice. That’s a personal matter that’s in her own family. And she seems to be doing it well. She loves her kids, she loves her family. … When she was elected governor, she eliminated the position of chef at the mansion because she wanted to do the cooking for her own family. I mean, this is a very unique, special lady.

But not too long ago, THIS was Dobson's stance about working mothers:

DR. DOBSON: Some women are able to maintain a busy career and a bustling family at the same time, and they do it beautifully. I admire them for their discipline and dedication. It has been my observation, however, that this dual responsibility is a formula for exhaustion and frustration for many others. It can be a never-ending struggle for survival. …

On weekends, there’s housecleaning to do, clothes to be ironed and pants to be mended. … A little push in any direction and she could go over the edge.

If Palin should win (aaargh!) I can just see the headlines 6 months after the inauguration:

Sarah Palin Murders Entire Family With NRA Trophy!

Claims Voice In Her Head Was God's

Sorry, Dr. Dobson, you can't have it both ways. Either Sarah Palin will be a super mother or a super Vice President. One of the two has to suffer. If she gets elected, however, I think we all will suffer.

Just a thought.

The Last Day to Vote for The Fairies of San Francisco

O.K., so this is a grandiloquent, vain, selfish plea to help me gain some tiny (very tiny) and local (very local) fame as an amateur gardener (very amateur). Just click on the picture on the left and it will take you to the local nursery that's running a "most beautiful garden" contest. The only thing I can say with any certainty is that, among the 41 entries, mine's the smallest (about 10 square feet). So if you like to root for the underdog, the little guy, the loser (strike that), then vote for #14. If I win, I promise to let the world know!

And, no, this isn't a site to vote "NO" on Prop 8 (banning same-sex marriage in California), but you might want to consider that vote as well while you're at it. Discrimination against fairies, fantasy or real - is still discrimination.

Thanks

DFV

Washington Becomes a Satellite of Alaska

Proof That Cronyism Still Reigns!

(New York Times, Sept. 13, 2008)

Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal.

So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.

Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.

Throughout her political career, she has pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and sometimes blurred the line between government and personal grievance, according to a review of public records and interviews with 60 Republican and Democratic legislators and local officials.

Alec Baldwin was right when he said that McCain is not like Bush - Palin is. Will another high school friend become head of FEMA?

Poll Shows That Southern Evangelicals Are More Simon Legree Than Jesus

Is Obama Dead In The Southern States?

Or do they just want him tortured a bit?

WASHINGTON -- A new poll released Thursday (Sept. 11) finds that nearly six in 10 white Southern evangelicals believe torture is justified, but their views can shift when they consider the Christian principle of the golden rule. The poll, commissioned by Faith in Public Life and Mercer University, found that 57 percent of respondents said torture can be often or sometimes justified to gain important information from suspected terrorists. Thirty-eight percent said it was never or rarely justified. But when asked if they agree that "the U.S. government should not use methods against our enemies that we would not want used on American soldiers," the percentage who said torture was rarely or never justified rose to 52 percent.

So Obama has TWO things going against him in states like Tennessee and Alabama: he's black and he's against torture. Yesterday, we saw that racism is still in the picture when FRC took very slow action against a racist "political satire" display of "Obama Waffles" and now we learn that 60% of Southern Evangelicals (for the most part, read Southern Baptist Convention) approve of torture. Big surprise. Have we forgotten about the first 65 years of the last century? Did they not exist? Was Jim Crow a figment of someone's imagination? And deeper in history: wasn't the Southern Baptist Convention formed because of a pro-slavery stance? Will Obama lose the election because of his policies or because of his race? Or a combination of both? There is something strange about people who:

• Say they are Christian
• Are against Abortion
• Support the Death Penalty
• Support Torture
• Say they are Pro Life
• Act racist
• Apologize for Slavery (150 years after the fact)

Obama doesn't have a chance with them. I hope he doesn't waste too much valuable campaign time on them.

Update: FRC Doesn't Have a Clue

Sarah Pulliam, Christianity Today:

Spokesman for Family Research Council J.P. Duffy said that those in the organization did not look closely at the box until someone brought it up. Duffy said the executive director thinks the box is racist and if Joe Biden were portrayed, it would have been fine.

The booth was set up yesterday and displayed large posters of what was on the front and back of the waffle box. Several organizations like Summit Ministries and the Witherspoon Fellowship set up booths, but the booth selling waffles was the only satire product.

"We have dozens of booths and we don't know what kind of material they have. Obviously we don't necessarily approve of the material," Duffy said. "We may have given them permission to purchase a booth, but if there's anything like that that crosses the line, we ask them to cease and they did."

Duffy's statements are pure, unadulterated bullshit. Publicity for Obama Waffles started on September 5th! They received a favorable review from bloggers BY September 12th. Creator Bob DeVoss told reporters that Obama Waffles had been called racist before. The display for the boxes was up FOR AT LEAST 24 HOURS. The Summit had an attendance of about 3000. It would have been difficult (or bizarre) if Duffy or someone like Tony Perkins had not seen the display. The "someone" who "brought it up" was Eric Herman of American Atheists. Therein lies irony: FRC hates atheists. Herman probably knew that he wouldn't get anywhere with FRC, so he told reporters to look at the display and the boxes. Duffy then heard the objections from reporters - not atheists.

And DeVoss said that the boxes had been "selling like hot cakes." Yep, they'd been there for a while; at least long enough to satisfy their sales.

And who were buying them? Collectors of "Campaign Memorabilia"? People who just wanted to buy a box of waffle mix? If Lou Dobbs was pictured buying one box (yes, he was), then Lou Dobbs' cable program may be slanted, shall we say, a little too much toward the right.

Family Research Council and Focus on the Family (co-sponsors) will undoubtedly blame the media and Democrats for painting them in such an unfavorable light. They will scream "Christian-haters!!"

Too bad.

Just a thought.

Post Mortem

From working at conventions before (book conventions), I can safely say that the costs of display, setup, rental and staffing (travel expenses) were at least $25,000. In order to break even, the makers of Obama Waffles would have had to sell at least 2500 boxes! And unless they had storage facilities in Washington, DeVoss would have sent to the exhibition only about 300 at most. This was a publicity stunt that paid off.

Question: who's funding this stuff? 4-color boxes are hellishly expensive to produce unless you have a breakpoint at about 10,000. How long has their website been up?

Facts? Who Needs Facts When You've Got Sex and Guts!!

Let's face it, the Republicans are running this race on sex and guts: Palin's sex and McCain's POW guts. Ann Coulter has made it quite cxlear that she'll vote for the Republican ticket because there's a woman on board. She's referred to Palin as "our poor brave Sarah" when it comes to the media and every introduction of John McCain recounts (ad nauseum) his record as a courageous Viet Nam hero put to the test by all sorts of tortures. Palin has overtly lied about more than several of her qualifications. The latest stretch of the imagination is this:

PALIN: Let me speak specifically about a credential that I do bring to this table, Charlie, and that’s with the energy independence that I’ve been working on for these years as the governor of this state that produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy...

But, as the non-partisan FactCheck.org points out, Palin’s claim about Alaska producing 20 percent of America’s domestic energy supply is “not true. Not even close.” In fact, “Alaska’s share of domestic energy production was 3.5 percent.”

And even if Palin confused "energy" with crude oil, she would have been off by quite a margin: 14%, not 20%. And this is a woman whom John McCain touted as knowing more about energy than "anyone else in the entire United States." And McCain and the economy:

As the Wonk Room has noted, McCain’s tax cuts would produce the highest federal deficit in 25 years. After inheriting Bush’s $407 billion deficit, yearly deficits under McCain would increase sharply, beginning with at least $505 billion in FY2009.

McCain has not specified how he would pay for his tax cuts, though he claims he will balance the budget in his first term. Recognizing that McCain’s math doesn’t add up, McCain’s top economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin has said, “I would like the next president not to talk about deficit reduction.”

When will the American public realize that being entertained with sex and guts is not the same as watching a candidate who is backed by facts? I'm reminded of lyrics in the musical Chicago: "Give 'em the ole razzle-dazzle, razzle-dazzle 'em. Give 'em a show with lot's of flash in it and the reaction will be passionate." Palin and McCain are little more than 8' glossy cardboard cutouts. If elected, these cutouts will be running the country.