Impeachy keen.

Shocking. (for certain values of shocked)

So is this the october surprise?

"But Alaskan state Senator Gary Stevens, a Republican, said there were "some problems" with the finding.

"I would encourage people to be very cautious, to look at this with a jaundiced eye," said Senator Stevens, after the report's release was announced."

Politics.

Political payback in her own state. She made some powerful enemies there. It happens.

Impeachy keen.

I can't top this. But, good. I've known petty little people with a taste for power who acted just like this, but thankfully none of them ever got beyond local government.

How come the BBC doesn't use periods after Mr. and Mrs.?

Show some consideration for the working classes.

It's ironic, the reason why she's being taken down is because she did the right thing for the people of Alaska and didn't do any favors for the people that helped her gain power. She's completely guilty, but the only reason that this investigation happened is because the politicians of Alaska dislike her. Two examples:

1. After she lost the lieutenant governor race, she was given an oil oversight job. She instantly refuses to sign off on the program because of ethics violations.

2. She took the mayor's job after he got her a city council job. He rubber stamped her (a nobody) for city council. While in the city council she went against two initiatives that the mayor wanted passed. Then she ran for mayor, burned him, and took his job.

Either she's cold-blooded or acting in the interest of the people of Alaska. I don't think she's cold-blooded.

In every step of her political career she has burned the people that helped get her there. She forgot about them, or bit them on the hand.

I don't lack respect for her as the governor of Alaska. She actually did what she thought was right and put the people of Alaska first. She is in no way qualified to be president, and again, I have no idea why McCain picked a running mate who was under an ethics investigation.

"But Alaskan state Senator Gary Stevens, a Republican, said there were "some problems" with the finding.

Isn't he the son of corrupt US Senator Ted Stevens?

There are multiple sides to every story, of course. But you should choose the sources for those sides carefully.

I don't lack respect for her as the governor of Alaska.

What about as mayor of Wasilla, where she tried to fire the town librarian when, depending on who you believe, the librarian either declined to withdraw books at Palin's request or, alternately, didn't pass Palin's loyalty test?

I'm more concerned with this story than most people, for a lot of reasons, but I think that, even if this kind of thing is small potatoes to a lot of folks, it paints Palin in pretty stark relief. If she has sometimes managed to do the right thing, it was often for the wrong reasons. I guess that's a roundabout way of saying that I think she's cold-blooded. How else would you describe someone who, every step of the way, has burned the people that helped her get there?

Yes, the librarian thing is completely wacko. I don't respect her for that.

What it says about Palin is irrelevant, what it says about McCain is germane. Why would he pick such a poor candidate? Ultimately this election will have nothing to do with her. She excites people that weren't going to vote for Obama in the first place. I think only 2 percent switched from Obama because of her.

I don't think she's perfect, I just enjoy the irony of her own party throwing overboard.

I think only 2 percent switched from Obama because of her.

Given current polls I'd say that's very generous. Seems more likely the undecideds ran to Obama because of her.

Why would he pick such a poor candidate?

tin hat theory?

The Repubs decided, oh, some time ago (maybe 2 years since?) that they could NEVER win 2008. So they've pretty much done as much as they can to throw this election and hand the other side a ginormous shit sandwich.

please note, this is actually my boss' conspiracy theory, not mine, but I like it, so I'm totally stealing it.

She is the only reason people in my subgroup are interested in McCain. When McCain first became the frontrunner a lot, I mean a LOT of Republicans I know were very very unhappy.

When McCain first became the frontrunner a lot, I mean a LOT of Republicans I know were very very unhappy.

See, this is why part of me respects McCain. He reminds me of a few people I know who when pressed about why they're still self-identified Christians when told how illogical it is to be so and how there are lots of religious nutjobs out there, say, "But that's not who I am, and that's not how we're supposed to be, and I'm going to be the best damn Christian I can be so that you know we're not all like that."

However, he used to be a reformer, he used to be a maverick, and according to all reports of his actions after he lost the nomination to Bush, he stepped back from his maverick ways and fell in line.

That's what I don't respect about him. He sold out of his own ideals in order to get the nomination.

That's wrong.

Either she's cold-blooded or acting in the interest of the people of Alaska.

Or she's a person who may have done one or two good things, but on the whole, has abused power and governed incompetently, preferring kulturkampf antics to understanding and implementation of policy. This report sure makes it clear that she loves to abuse power, and hates accountability.

Bush in a dress, or Cheney in heels? Reasonable people can disagree.

She is the only reason people in my subgroup are interested in McCain.

That is exactly why she is on the ticket. (I won't say McCain picked her, because reports have said he wanted Liebermann or Condi before he wanted her.) The religious right was never interested in John McCain, and without the religious right the GOP cannot win. She was their sop to the religious right. Also, they thought Hillary's voters were more interested in gender politics than other politics, and that they'd pick up some of them just because of Palin's gender.

I suspect even bunnyfire will agree with me up to this point.

The fact that Palin turned out to be somewhat shady, and also dumb as a bag of hammers, was unexpected, I think. I really don't think the national GOP knew much more about Sarah Palin than the rest of us did when they foisted her on McCain as his new running mate, thereby sinking his chance of becoming president. It was a tactical blunder, and I'm kind of sorry for those who got caught in it. Most of all I'm sorry for Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston, who are now committed to a shotgun wedding in front of the whole nation.

Either she's cold-blooded or acting in the interest of the people of Alaska. I don't think she's cold-blooded.

It wasn't in the interests of the people of Alaska for Palin to interfere with a state employee's employment for personal reasons.

It wasn't in the interests of the people of Alaska for Palin to inquire about banning library books, and then fire the librarian.

So yeah, I think she's cold-blooded.

Most of all I'm sorry for Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston, who are now committed to a shotgun wedding in front of the whole nation.

Dollars to donuts those two poor kids get hauled up in front of the preacher man within the week.

Bristol and Levi have minds of their own. They'll be okay.

How come the BBC doesn't use periods after Mr. and Mrs.?

It's called open punctuation and it is now standard form here. Most businesses use it as house style. It makes web pages easier on the eye and helps sight-impaired people who have software that reads the page aloud to them - too much punctuation can impede the software.

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Sorry to keep repeating myself but i have been avoiding all of it, politics, picking sides, getting caught up and involved in the exigent crap.
Quoting a classic Friday, for me it's "just the facts, ma'am" and so i don't see why LT's times post or this is anyway necessary when some things have been so obvious, except to try and inform people who continue to deny facts, by their detailed and mounting unimpeachable factual corroboration.
What little i know is she has never functioned with interests of the greater good or her constituencies as her foremost or primary priority, and whether that is because she is simply incapable or unqualified or purposefully ignorant, there was been much additional harm perpetrated under the guise of whatever agenda script she's been handed to espouse.

i feel bad for McCain in that before he has had to compromise what his beliefs were for the sake of running, that his record does reflect positive intentions in dealing with some important issues that did make him a "maverick" to the respect of those outside his party lines. He use to say and speak of common decencies and sense in his awareness of the many flaws of others in his party and how they have conducted themselves.
And before i knew anything of his personal life, conduct and history, i thought he was a decent guy i wouldn't mind hanging out with in a generic setting. That has changed, but that's not an aspect that matters to how i vote.

It's about who is best able and qualified for the job and he is not, and she should never have been seriously considered for that reason.
What all of this has done, at least, is reveal some of the serious problems people who are swayed for reasons that have nothing to do with abilities and qualifications and the interests of the greater good and majority of the population have, and how easily manipulated they are because they have no interest in the truth as far as facts are concerned, and that has been exploited by the party they profess to be supporters of.

i know a lot of people don't bother to click and follow links, but reasonable decisions and opinions cannot be formed in the absence of information, and hermetic enclosures that let people exist in a vacuum sealed tight by the willful need to believe what they want to believe.

Outside this country, removed from immediate personal impact, a world shudders at what seems to be frightening idiocy.

Facts say significant amounts of money have been mishandled and are intended to continue to be misallocated despite the interest of the close, far and greater good of people affected, which at this point is the world.

People i know who have voted Republican have done so for their own best, mostly financial, interest, and that they have been repeating back to me facts i've repeated to them time and again as a new discovered revelations. "Did you know--?"

People who vote Republican because of non-financial interests have suffered as the rest of us, some to a greater degree, and yet still continue do so because of the manipulations of their own party and those who would form their opinions for them.
There is great tragedy in that.

When people to toss around the word "evil", i wonder if they at all understand how evil manifests on this tangible plane of existence where humans interact with humans, that they can physically see, touch and experience.

Evil, true evil, is most often a product of morbid self absorption, to the exclusion of how it affects others.
Evil also manifest as a product of apathy, when good people do nothing.
If your world is small, if you don't care or are oblivious to the consequence of your actions, if you care nothing for the moment after now and the achievement of your own ends, be it nihilistic destruction or immediate personal gain, you are far more susceptible to the machinations of evil upon this earth.

i feel badly for people who have been duped into thinking they are doing things with good intentions and the greater good, but like any personal problem, you cannot help someone who does not want to help, or is aware or can admit there is even a problem. i feel badly that they do not and cannot understand how they have been wronged and will continue to be so, because their suffering matters no less that of anyone else.

One things we should all be able to agree on is that totalitarianism only best and truly benefits those who have the power that dictates how things are done. People who want to live in a totalitarian society should find the one that puts then on the side that benefits or start their own.
Totalitarianism is more dangerous than dictatorship in that there are other people there to back you up or take the blame, to maintain the illusion that basic crimes against humanity are not the agenda or perpetration or intent.

Pettiness, disingeniousness, and hypocrisy should not be overlooked for what they are, a force that manifests evil to walk the earth, leaving wakes of wounded and dead, literal and otherwise.

Example after example comes to mind.
Living with open hypocrisy is what caused Marvin Gaye's death. Burdened by pettiness, people are provoked to actions they would never otherwise have done.

And i could try to tell you a story in the form of a parable or fable to try and illustrate in ways close and personal, simple human ways that show how harm comes to you and those you care for, even if you couldn't care less about anyone else, but i have written this all out off the cuff at this moment as i sit here.

Should this be a mess of typos and indecipherable grammatical errors, let me know where i can fix them and make myself understood.
But you do not have to bother to read this or try to understand.
You do not have to do anything.
Should you want to, i hope that which aids you is available and you make the effort to help yourself.
For yourself, if not all of us.

For the tl;drers, let me sum up in a shorter, quicker way:

Common decency is more than please and thank you.
Being considerate to your neighbor helps keep him from pooping in your yard. Not pooping in his yard first reduces the probability of this action. If he insists in pooping in your yard, you can do something about it, but figuring out why he's doing it in the first place goes further in preventing it from happening again.
Maybe he can be brought to realize why this is wrong. If not, you at least know why, and this gives you more options in keeping your own yard free from his poop and the poop of others.
Feel free to poop all over your own yard if you have a reason, but expect people who don't want to deal with it to do something about it or at least want to understand, so they too have options.

There are good reasons we try to avoid living with open sewage, whether or not we have a yard to poop in, and some of us don't have a yard, or inches to spare.

Political payback in her own state. She made some powerful enemies there. It happens.

This really doesn't work for me as an excuse, because (first) she gave them something to investigate - in the trooper firing, as in so many incidents like her attempts to control the library (and museum), she sought to abuse her power. The office of governor or mayor is not an invitation to unfairly fire people for personal vengeance. She acted outside her legal powers, and that's unacceptable. The fact that people would like to hold her accountable isn't reducible to simple "political payback." I'm sure that was a factor, but you don't get these results to a state-led investigation unless there are some indisputable facts to investigate.

It all points to someone who can't perceive the boundaries of power in the office she holds. This is not a representative of citizens, this is someone looking to use office to shape the world in the way she, personally, would prefer it. It's scary enough to compare her to Cheney. Think about her, though, as President.

She certainly is only on the ticket to pull in the radical religious right. And it's been interesting to see, here, on someone we know personally, how well it worked. I'd resent that kind of manipulation if I were one of those people, but they seem willing to take whatever crumbs the GOP wants to throw.

Offtopic

Most of all I'm sorry for Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston, who are now committed to a shotgun wedding in front of the whole nation.

Ugh, I hate this narrative so much. I come from a town that is much like Alaska in many ways except the temperature (and logging rather than oil drilling). About half of my friends got pregnant with their high school boyfriend, either senior year or a few months afterward. Most of them got married. Heck, all of them got married except for poor Cal whose boyfriend walked in front of a train. It's not rare. It's not a political decision. It's called "growing up in a small town". I wish that all my friends had the same access to future opportunities that I did, but I don't assume they were pressured in to making the choices they made.