Did a substantive Sarah Palin show up? Darn right she did. And if you are an endangered species, look out.
As Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden gave a steady performance, Palin revealed herself to be an understudy of President Bush when she said she did not want to argue about the causes of global warming. Of course she did not want to argue about it on the national stage, because she has been doing as governor of Alaska what Bush has done in the White House: Say you want sound science and then ignore it.
I realize that there are conservative pundits who claim that because Sarah Palin did not faint, barf or say "I'll have to get back to ya!" that she knew what she was talking about. Fact is, she did not.The American public tuned in to get to the bottom of the phenomenon from Alaska and only one thing was abundantly clear from the get go and stayed that way right until the very end: the bottom wasn't that far down. If we'd taken a running leap into that swimming pool, we'd all be dead.
The elite, the most powerful, influential, and wealthy individuals among us, have essentially succeeded in creating the most important element in sustaining their perpetual control: eternally loyal, anti-thinking, slave-followers, fundamentally hostile to any kind of meaningful thought, perhaps as much as eighty percent of the world's population. For the purposes of keeping this article short enough for publication, my comments here are limited to Americans.
In 1932, in the midst of a disastrous economic meltdown, Franklin D.
Roosevelt made "the forgotten man" the centerpiece of his presidential
election campaign. Far more than we suspect, this year's election may
turn not on a forgotten man, but on a forgotten war in a forgotten
country.
The Backstory
In the spring of 1989, Debbie Smith was raped. While her husband was asleep upstairs, Debbie was kidnapped from her own back yard in Williamsburg, Virginia, dragged into the woods and raped. Her attacker left her with the threatening words that he knew where she lived, and she had best not tell anyone of her shame. But Debbie Smith would not be cowed. She immediately told her husband, a police officer, and the rape was officially reported.
Dear Senator Biden,
I don't have to remind you of the importance of this Thursday's debate
from a political perspective. But as you prepare, I invite you to
spare a few minutes to look at the opportunity from a moral and
religious perspective. You may wish to examine your conscience
regarding how you have acted on key foreign policy issues and reflect
on John 8:32: "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set
you free."
In the first debate, Obama did what he needed to do: convince a majority that he has what it takes. But there is room for improvement.
Trying to wring one last river trip out of our
summer here in the region known affectionately as "The State of Jefferson," a
few days ago our family decided to head south from Ashland through the rugged
Siskiyou Mountains to explore McCloud Falls in Northern California.
With Congress
rejecting the $700 billion bailout package, the Dow falling 700 points
and the U.S. economy on the edge of a cliff, no one is paying much
attention to Iraq. Money talks, and incomprehensible and endless wars
walk. From a purely financial perspective, that dismissive attitude
makes no sense. The Iraq war has already cost almost $700 billion, and
as Joseph Stiglitz and Linda J.
