Todd Palin's going to try the Arctic Man race this April. From The Hill:
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Now in its 25th year, Arctic Man is a race that pairs a skier and a snow machine racer for what looks a lot like waterskiing in the snow. The skier races down a mountain, links up with a snow machine, the machine pulls the skier at speeds up to 80 miles per hour up a slope, and then the skier races down to a finish line. With no shortage of danger, little wonder it’s one of the most popular events all year in the rugged northernmost state....
Held high in the Hoodoo Mountains south of Fairbanks, the course is accessible to spectators only by snow machine. But that doesn’t stop more than 13,000 Alaskans from attending, making the race grounds, temporarily, the fifth largest “city” in the entire state...
Todd Palin will race with his partner, four-time Arctic Man ski champ Peter Kakes. Sarah Palin is expected to be in the snowy stands.
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It's actually spelled "Petr" Kakes. See the Arctic Man website.
Here's a vid someone put together of last year's Arctic Man:
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Earth to Malkin: It's Newsweek.
(Sigh) And once again, there are times when conservatives suck.
I totally get why Malkin despises John McCain. What I don't get is how on earth she can be so gullible as to repeat Newsweek's narrative in this post.
Excerpt from Newsweek:
First off, this is pathetic. It's ridiculous to blame Palin for the Maverick thing. Everyone has called McCain the "Maverick." If he chooses to be stupid about it now, I think it's fair to say that nobody saw that one coming.
Secondly, this came from Newsweek. Ten to one McCain was misquoted. Even if he wasn't, Newsweek will always spin things to blame Palin when they really had nothing to do with her. And Malkin apparently fell for it.
Please, PLEASE tell me that conservatives aren't this flippin' gullible!
Now, when it comes to McCain, I have heard that he is also trying to say now that what he supported before wasn't really amnesty. If he really is trying to pull that stunt, he's done. People will put up with a lot, but bold-faced lies? Eeesh. I don't think so.
The comments on Malkin's article are, of course, full of anti-Palin rhetoric from short-sighted little babies who still can't get over the fact that Palin is campaigning for McCain.
I am so sick of these fair-weather supporters. If you're that stupid as to swallow a Newsweek narrative hook, line, and sinker, please, by all means, leave and go anti-Palin. Your support wouldn't stand up in a Presidential race anyway.
Bottom line on McCain: Palin promised McCain she would help him with his reelection soon after they lost in 2008 (at least, that's my assumption). It's the first thing she told Glenn Beck when he asked why she was stumping for McCain - "I keep my word."
She's keeping her word. And she's not going to do it half-heartedly. She said that she would help him, and that's what she's going to do. If people have a problem with that, so be it. She's keeping her word.
As for any hand-wringing by the anti-McCain crowd that Sarah is messing it up for them - Please. Give the people of Arizona some credit. They'll put whoever they want to represent them in Congress, Palin or no Palin.
I totally get why Malkin despises John McCain. What I don't get is how on earth she can be so gullible as to repeat Newsweek's narrative in this post.
Excerpt from Newsweek:
"Maverick" is a mantle McCain no longer claims; in fact, he now denies he ever was one. "I never considered myself a maverick," he told me. "I consider myself a person who serves the people of Arizona to the best of his abilities." Yet here was Palin, urging her fans four times in 15 minutes to send McCain the Maverick back to Washington.Malkin quotes this and posts the McCain campaign vid "Palin Power."
First off, this is pathetic. It's ridiculous to blame Palin for the Maverick thing. Everyone has called McCain the "Maverick." If he chooses to be stupid about it now, I think it's fair to say that nobody saw that one coming.
Secondly, this came from Newsweek. Ten to one McCain was misquoted. Even if he wasn't, Newsweek will always spin things to blame Palin when they really had nothing to do with her. And Malkin apparently fell for it.
Please, PLEASE tell me that conservatives aren't this flippin' gullible!
Now, when it comes to McCain, I have heard that he is also trying to say now that what he supported before wasn't really amnesty. If he really is trying to pull that stunt, he's done. People will put up with a lot, but bold-faced lies? Eeesh. I don't think so.
The comments on Malkin's article are, of course, full of anti-Palin rhetoric from short-sighted little babies who still can't get over the fact that Palin is campaigning for McCain.
I am so sick of these fair-weather supporters. If you're that stupid as to swallow a Newsweek narrative hook, line, and sinker, please, by all means, leave and go anti-Palin. Your support wouldn't stand up in a Presidential race anyway.
Bottom line on McCain: Palin promised McCain she would help him with his reelection soon after they lost in 2008 (at least, that's my assumption). It's the first thing she told Glenn Beck when he asked why she was stumping for McCain - "I keep my word."
She's keeping her word. And she's not going to do it half-heartedly. She said that she would help him, and that's what she's going to do. If people have a problem with that, so be it. She's keeping her word.
As for any hand-wringing by the anti-McCain crowd that Sarah is messing it up for them - Please. Give the people of Arizona some credit. They'll put whoever they want to represent them in Congress, Palin or no Palin.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Happy Easter!
Happy Easter, everybody, Bill and all the rest who actually take time out to pop in and see what I have to say.
My favorite "Easter" passage is found in Luke 24:25-27. It's a piece of the Emmaus road story -
There is nothing new under the sun.
There's no point in getting all caught up in these details. The important thing is that He rose and we're celebrating. Do I care what day? Not really, although I know it has some prophetic significance. But it is fascinating to study the history of these things. It was a hobby of mine for awhile.
Okay, now that I've completely bored you with all of that, He is risen! He is risen indeed.
On to the videos.
Why I chose this one, I don't know. I'm up for some feel-good fluff this morning, I guess:
My favorite "Easter" passage is found in Luke 24:25-27. It's a piece of the Emmaus road story -
Then he [Jesus] said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:I put Easter in quotation marks because the word comes from a pagan holiday, the feast of Ishtar, I believe. Ishtar was the Babylonian goddess of fertility. This fit nicely with the spring theme, hence all of the bunnies and eggs. In the really ancient days of Babylon, babies were sacrificed to Ishtar.
Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?
And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
There is nothing new under the sun.
There's no point in getting all caught up in these details. The important thing is that He rose and we're celebrating. Do I care what day? Not really, although I know it has some prophetic significance. But it is fascinating to study the history of these things. It was a hobby of mine for awhile.
Okay, now that I've completely bored you with all of that, He is risen! He is risen indeed.
On to the videos.
Why I chose this one, I don't know. I'm up for some feel-good fluff this morning, I guess:
Sarah and the Big Apple
Article by Warren Adler on Gather:-----------------
If you want to give people apoplexy in the circles I travel in on my daily rounds all you need to say, however bland or unthreatening, is that you admire Sarah Palin. Their faces flush with indignation, their fists clench, their eyes dart fire and anger, and one has the impression that you are suddenly relegated in their view to the absolute lowest rung of Dante’s inferno.
Since I have never learned the art of social diplomacy and my tongue sometimes acts independently of my natural sense of caution, I find myself in a perpetual single-issue state of conflict with some of my dearest friends and relations.
Thus, I have learned every single laundry list argument against Sarah, a repetitive drumbeat of invective, most of it emotional, indignant and overwrought and, from my perspective, baffling. Here are some samples:She is stupid and uneducated trailer trash. She is a lousy mother, who allowed her daughter to become pregnant. She exploits her children by showing them by her side at public appearances. She should have had an abortion when she learned that she was carrying a Down Syndrome child. She has no experience in governing.
Alaska is a rural backwater and being elected Governor is no big deal. Katie Couric showed how dumb she was. She wants to censor books. Her voice is too high pitched. She talks funny, slangy like a teenager. She is an ignorant phony, a dangerous fascist. She likes to hunt. She dresses like a floozy. She is too religious. She is too patriotic. She is not really a supporter of Israel even if she had an Israeli flag in her office and wore crossed flags, Israeli and American, when she addressed those dumb Tea Party morons.
She is a far right Neanderthal. She had a ghostwriter for her book. She is money hungry, a racist, shallow, corny. I just don’t like her. Don’t ask me why. God forbid she becomes President. She has no experience.
It goes on and on. No defense is acceptable. If you ask why people from outside my orbit cheer her wildly, they will tell you that the people who are ecstatic supporters are flag waving brain dead far right racists, just like Nazis, ignorant, uninformed and clueless.
Yipes. I am not exaggerating. Sometimes I let the rant just flow. When I try a defense I normally get shouted down by people who, on other issues, profess worshiping the concept of free speech, justice, morality, and fairness.
No rebuttal is acceptable. If I tell them, however softly, that she has a degree in journalism, that her father is a beloved High School English teacher, that she has learned the art of politics, campaigning and governing at the grass roots, having been a member of Wasilla City Council they shrug with disinterest and opine that Wasilla is just a backwater hick town as if real people didn’t live there.
If I tell them that she has earned her political bona fides as a comeback kid after losing her bid for the Lieutenant Governor of Alaska, to beat the heck out of the good old boy network in Alaska to become Governor, they will look at me blankly. If I tell them she has served on a key energy committee of her state and fought and won a battle to run a natural gas pipeline from Alaska through Canada to the American midwest they will turn away in boredom.
If I tell them she has managed to maintain a stable loving marriage, continued to raise her large family as a devoted mother, while managing an astounding career, they will shrug with indifference and point to her daughter’s pregnancy and her temerity in actually giving birth and not aborting her Down Syndrome child after tests revealed the condition.
As an aside, I try to avoid personalizing the discussion since many who criticize Sarah among my cohorts are divorced with serious dysfunctional family issues of their own. Nor do I dare reveal a personal opinion to my female friends, fearing for my life, that Sarah should be a poster girl for the women’s movement having managed to rear a family while pursuing a successful career, the dream of legions of career motivated women with kids.
If I tell them that she is typical of admired women who love the outdoors, many of whom hunt, fish, ride, hike, snowshoe and ski, they will zero in on hunting as a cruel and immoral practice while they prance in their leather shoes and eat their fill of dead animals. Of course, the wrath of vegans is not reserved for Sarah alone, although many consider her an archetype of evil red meat consumers.
Whether or not people think she can hack it as President of the United States is almost beside the point at this stage. Really folks, by any stretch of the imagination and fairness, does she deserve the calumny that is the daily diet of the so-called mainstream media. She seems to be the object of a perpetual roast.
Considering the environment in which I live and work, the very heart of the Big Apple, I am of course broadcasting from inside a bubble where the mindset is rigid and, despite all the heavy-duty yak yak, amazingly provincial.
Indeed, if I had my way, I would sentence all New Yorkers to spend time outside the bubble and visit places in other corners of America, visit the lunchrooms and diners where ordinary people gossip and break bread, visit the High Schools and land grant colleges out of the Ivy League orbit, check in to state fairs, flea markets, day care centers and nursing homes, attend PTA meetings, town councils, July 4th parades, military mess halls and places where cops and fireman, garbage collectors, doctors and nurses congregate.
I would urge them to listen and observe. America is a vast smorgasbord of divergent interests, where the New York Times and the bloviating progressive punditry do not hold sway and people don’t give a damn about what Hollywood actors think about politics.
Don’t get me wrong. I love New York and I love my New York friends, even those who are in the Sarah Palin booing section....
A few weeks ago one of my fellow questors and I walked toward Columbus Circle passing the posh Trump Tower, which stands facing the Circle and Central Park. Passing in front of the entrance, my companion noted a woman in a baseball cap busy on a cell phone standing beside a pretty little girl.
It was Sarah Palin and her daughter Piper. They were alone, out of context for us. In the Big Apple no less. There were no crowds, just a mom and her daughter. You’ve come a long way from Wasilla, I thought, as Sarah stood at the entrance to this plush establishment obviously waiting for a car to pick her up. Good for you, baby. Ignore the slings and arrows and your Big Apple detractors. Enjoy our crazy town.
Then it occurred to me how really lucky this pretty little girl was to travel around with her amazing mother and observe and learn things about people and the world that most kids will never get a chance to do. After all, Sarah could have left the child home as many busy ambitious career crazed moms often do, however reluctantly.
For some reason I felt good about America and the Big Apple, despite its contentiousness, its clashing opinions, its loud and ugly politics, and focused instead on the possibilities and the hopes and dreams of every one of us.
I wanted to say to her: Welcome to New York baby. Stick around. We’re not as bad or tough or heartless as we appear. And one day you might even make it here… and if you make it here you can make it anywhere.
Since I have never learned the art of social diplomacy and my tongue sometimes acts independently of my natural sense of caution, I find myself in a perpetual single-issue state of conflict with some of my dearest friends and relations.
Thus, I have learned every single laundry list argument against Sarah, a repetitive drumbeat of invective, most of it emotional, indignant and overwrought and, from my perspective, baffling. Here are some samples:She is stupid and uneducated trailer trash. She is a lousy mother, who allowed her daughter to become pregnant. She exploits her children by showing them by her side at public appearances. She should have had an abortion when she learned that she was carrying a Down Syndrome child. She has no experience in governing.
Alaska is a rural backwater and being elected Governor is no big deal. Katie Couric showed how dumb she was. She wants to censor books. Her voice is too high pitched. She talks funny, slangy like a teenager. She is an ignorant phony, a dangerous fascist. She likes to hunt. She dresses like a floozy. She is too religious. She is too patriotic. She is not really a supporter of Israel even if she had an Israeli flag in her office and wore crossed flags, Israeli and American, when she addressed those dumb Tea Party morons.
She is a far right Neanderthal. She had a ghostwriter for her book. She is money hungry, a racist, shallow, corny. I just don’t like her. Don’t ask me why. God forbid she becomes President. She has no experience.
It goes on and on. No defense is acceptable. If you ask why people from outside my orbit cheer her wildly, they will tell you that the people who are ecstatic supporters are flag waving brain dead far right racists, just like Nazis, ignorant, uninformed and clueless.
Yipes. I am not exaggerating. Sometimes I let the rant just flow. When I try a defense I normally get shouted down by people who, on other issues, profess worshiping the concept of free speech, justice, morality, and fairness.
No rebuttal is acceptable. If I tell them, however softly, that she has a degree in journalism, that her father is a beloved High School English teacher, that she has learned the art of politics, campaigning and governing at the grass roots, having been a member of Wasilla City Council they shrug with disinterest and opine that Wasilla is just a backwater hick town as if real people didn’t live there.
If I tell them that she has earned her political bona fides as a comeback kid after losing her bid for the Lieutenant Governor of Alaska, to beat the heck out of the good old boy network in Alaska to become Governor, they will look at me blankly. If I tell them she has served on a key energy committee of her state and fought and won a battle to run a natural gas pipeline from Alaska through Canada to the American midwest they will turn away in boredom.
If I tell them she has managed to maintain a stable loving marriage, continued to raise her large family as a devoted mother, while managing an astounding career, they will shrug with indifference and point to her daughter’s pregnancy and her temerity in actually giving birth and not aborting her Down Syndrome child after tests revealed the condition.
As an aside, I try to avoid personalizing the discussion since many who criticize Sarah among my cohorts are divorced with serious dysfunctional family issues of their own. Nor do I dare reveal a personal opinion to my female friends, fearing for my life, that Sarah should be a poster girl for the women’s movement having managed to rear a family while pursuing a successful career, the dream of legions of career motivated women with kids.
If I tell them that she is typical of admired women who love the outdoors, many of whom hunt, fish, ride, hike, snowshoe and ski, they will zero in on hunting as a cruel and immoral practice while they prance in their leather shoes and eat their fill of dead animals. Of course, the wrath of vegans is not reserved for Sarah alone, although many consider her an archetype of evil red meat consumers.
Whether or not people think she can hack it as President of the United States is almost beside the point at this stage. Really folks, by any stretch of the imagination and fairness, does she deserve the calumny that is the daily diet of the so-called mainstream media. She seems to be the object of a perpetual roast.
Considering the environment in which I live and work, the very heart of the Big Apple, I am of course broadcasting from inside a bubble where the mindset is rigid and, despite all the heavy-duty yak yak, amazingly provincial.
Indeed, if I had my way, I would sentence all New Yorkers to spend time outside the bubble and visit places in other corners of America, visit the lunchrooms and diners where ordinary people gossip and break bread, visit the High Schools and land grant colleges out of the Ivy League orbit, check in to state fairs, flea markets, day care centers and nursing homes, attend PTA meetings, town councils, July 4th parades, military mess halls and places where cops and fireman, garbage collectors, doctors and nurses congregate.
I would urge them to listen and observe. America is a vast smorgasbord of divergent interests, where the New York Times and the bloviating progressive punditry do not hold sway and people don’t give a damn about what Hollywood actors think about politics.
Don’t get me wrong. I love New York and I love my New York friends, even those who are in the Sarah Palin booing section....
A few weeks ago one of my fellow questors and I walked toward Columbus Circle passing the posh Trump Tower, which stands facing the Circle and Central Park. Passing in front of the entrance, my companion noted a woman in a baseball cap busy on a cell phone standing beside a pretty little girl.
It was Sarah Palin and her daughter Piper. They were alone, out of context for us. In the Big Apple no less. There were no crowds, just a mom and her daughter. You’ve come a long way from Wasilla, I thought, as Sarah stood at the entrance to this plush establishment obviously waiting for a car to pick her up. Good for you, baby. Ignore the slings and arrows and your Big Apple detractors. Enjoy our crazy town.
Then it occurred to me how really lucky this pretty little girl was to travel around with her amazing mother and observe and learn things about people and the world that most kids will never get a chance to do. After all, Sarah could have left the child home as many busy ambitious career crazed moms often do, however reluctantly.
For some reason I felt good about America and the Big Apple, despite its contentiousness, its clashing opinions, its loud and ugly politics, and focused instead on the possibilities and the hopes and dreams of every one of us.
I wanted to say to her: Welcome to New York baby. Stick around. We’re not as bad or tough or heartless as we appear. And one day you might even make it here… and if you make it here you can make it anywhere.
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