Sarah apparently feels that it is her mission to make Alaska available to True Believers in the Last Days as they will gather here before the Tribulation to await the Rapture . . . Yikes !

Unfortunately, she is no friend to agriculture in the 49th state, we lost our very good Agricultural Director a few months into her reign, he was replaced by The Daughter of the Woman who Babysat Sarah when she was a Child . . .

So I guess all the True Believers can just sustain themselves on oil rather than food while awaiting the Rapture . . .

The left continues to lend credence to the story that McCain picked Palin when anybody with a 3 digit IQ knows that Karl Rove strategically picked Palin. She is another example of the Rove genius. The Palin phenomenon, combined with Obama's failure to challenge the alleged success of the "surge" and his comments to Letterman about letrting the voters decide based on facts indicate that Democratic Part strategy is non-existent and Obama is not likely to carry as many states as Kerry did.

"What big teeth you have, Grandma." "All the better to eat you with." She is truly a wolf in women's clothing.

A great satire--you'll laugh out loud--of Bush, Palin, the Moral Majority, etc.: "The Department of Homeland Decency: Decency Rules and Regulations Manual." It's motto: "We are marching proudly backwards to the future." It explains all you need to know to live well in this new age of decency. It's available at bookstores everywhere.

And yet it is clearly a mistake for the media to keep attacking her; it only makes her "sympathetic" in the minds of so many americans. I've often wondered if we actually ever had a truly evangelical presidency (Bush's administration was only sort of and didn't really do what the evangelicals really want, an overturning of all of our rights)if americans would WAKE UP and finally say "NO!" to conservative nonsensical policies.

I wouldn't get too worked up about Palin. Like other Republicans, this is just to prop up and stir fears on both sides to keep us distracted from the real issues. Once she's in office, she will just put this culture issue on the backburner. In any case, most of the theocracy forced on this country for the last 8 years has already been done. Obama could also be questioned on his support for extending Bush's faith based policies once elected. Palin may help finish SMASHING what's left of the lower/middle/working class and drag more US troops into more endless wars which I think is more worrisome but she'll lay off on going gung ho theocrat. Besides, failure to "Christianize" is used to succeed in SMASHING the country economically.

"Theocracy"..."bloody inferno", or , as Nelson Algren wrote in 'Walk on the Wild Side', "Army-Gideon!". Get real. Sarah Palin is a rational, sensible, pragmatic lady who will be interesting and effective as Vice-Prez, if she is elected.

Clearly only a party with no concern at all for their own country would put such an inexperienced, unknown, intellectual featherweight up for the second highest office in the land. The GOP cares only about remaining in power. The fact that in the last 8 years they have proven to be utterly unfit for the challenge of governing, that they have failed at everything and at every level, is lost on their cheerleaders. The Palin pick is a transparent attempt to attract disenfranchised women, evangelicals, security moms and others merely through her identity rather than her dismal lack of qualifications and experience; it is the ultimate insult to America. Yet her apparent acceptance underscores the lack of discernment in about half of the voters in this country.

WC DEVINS: I agree with everything you have said on this matter, and then some. When souls leave the body they must answer for how they behaved. I'd be interested in hearing the testimonies of those who cleaved to the right and under the guise of believing in Jesus, demonstrated every form of prejudice and LOATHING of their fellow man, and especially WOMAN.

While as some say this woman has stirred debate away from "THE ISSUES," her reference point being founded in a highly repressed religious orientation influences all other policies. There IS no longer a separation of church and state in the U.S. as it's the contorted-by-religiosity group who have supported such heinous candidates. And while it's disgusting that Democrats will cleave to the right in search of the "centrist" votes, and it's deplorable that too many have gone along with insane Republican policies, the Christian Right/Reich is what any freedom-loving person with a basic understanding of a representative republic OUGHT fear most! To put this lady into the # 2 slot is a SIN against reason and any semblance of democracy.

It must be remembered that the framers of the US Constitution worded it the way they did to PREVENT the ascention of a Christian theological state.

Walk in peace.

"...her teenage daughter's choice to continue her pregnancy..."

Okay, I'm willing to buy your assertion that her daughter was given a choice for the moment... but I want some proof that's the case.

*Perhaps* she had a choice to become pregnant... but to "continue" her pregnancy? All background on Palin leads me to believe this statement is in need of a reality adjustment.

"Barack Obama plans to expand President Bush’s program to provide federal assistance to faith-based groups." WSJ, July 08.

Separation of what and what now?

Guess it all depends on your definition of "change we need." Do we need an expansion of anything that begins with "President Bush's..."?

WC DEVINS: Thank you for the recognition. I have a theory that the split of the atom has created something of a fissure amid the family of mankind. Lately, this election is also causing so much contention, even on our own little CD community site.

As a child (aged 5) I was sent to sleepaway camp and it was quite illuminating watching the spectacle known as "Color War" (an event much anticipated by campers who returned each summer) break out. As soon as the artificial "membership" on one of the two color-based teams began, fierce competition followed and friend was turned on friend all for the illusion of belonging to a specific (fabricated context) team. I believe an adult version (though it can be argued the vast majority of persons are just larger children, is there such a thing as a mature adult in America? It's NOT the majority of persons, that's for sure!) is underway today in the U.S. So be kind to yourself. I consider myself a spiritual being who remains aware of the law of karma and tries to act in accord with it at all times, but whether it's PMS or just a moon cycle, there are some on this site I've had a few coarse words for... it's HUMAN, although admittedly, I do rather like Dr. Spock!

(Most of the following was derived from a response to a Paul Loeb article on Palin, but is largely pertinent here as well).

For many years my politics were far left progressive, evn up through my 2004 at large stand for city council in Anaheim. For that reason, I am particularly dismayed by liberalism's disparagement of religion in the last half century of accelerated slide into secularism with its attendant fostering of the self-centered & liberine perspectives which fill our prisons, & poison our society with hedonism, drugs, & consumer-materialism.

I well understand the arrogance of a liberal who cannot abide the possibility of "reality" being significantly different from opinion. I used to adhere to such arrogance. I ran as a Green, have voted for Nader twice, have been married to an African-American woman (who's not voting for Obama)for 20 years (I know how "progressives" love "street cred")with whom I've raised our 6 children, & received the endorsement of Planned Parenthood (which I now fully repudiate) and the Mexican American Political Association (I still love, though disagree with, Nativo Lopez).

"Reality"? Some folks I'm sure you dismiss or disdain, perhaps "bitter & clinging to their guns & religion", believe life begins at conception and its willful termination is murder, not a "right". But that's just us "gun toting hillibillies" & "senile warmongers" denigrated by one of your supporters here.

Liberalism, descended from the 18th century Enligtenment, was a naive embrace of liberty and individualism which presupposed a society who's fabric was maintained by morality, religion, law, & the basic goodness of people. I lived for 13 years in South Central L.A. & the barrios of Anaheim, doing my small part to clean up the mess you ivory tower liberals engender and are safely removed from by your income. Drugs, hedonism, & materialism is liberalisms real legacy. The drives toward egalitarianism and against restraints know no bounds--that's why Truman's liberalism is so unlike Obama's. It just keeps pushing out, creating alienation and destroying community in the name of freedom as it goes along.

Thanks a heap, Marjorie

Craig Merrihue

Given the expanded powers of the executive branch, due primarily to Cheney and the lawyers he surrounded himself with, a Palin vice-presidency is very dangerous, especially considering McCains age and health. Can you imagine if this upstart evangelical becomes president, with all that consolidated executive power? Watching her sends chills up my spine. Prepare for a modern day version of the Inquisition if she ascends the throne.

We MUST start calling the Repulsive Party's ticket the McBush/Paliban ticket.

In Fairness to Sarah Palin…
(AV) The news this week seems to have been all about the Republican’s #2 nominee. Although she does not answer questions from reporters yet and has been strictly confined to say only the words that appear on her teleprompter, the photogenic Veep nominee, with the assistance of the mainstream media, has brought the McCain campaign back from the dead.
Those elitist left-wing pundits who point out that Palin favors teaching of creationism in public schools always fail to point out that she would allow teachers to present evolution to impressionable youngsters as well, as long as they say it is just a theory.
Families of special needs children are expected to vote for her since she has a Downs Syndrome child, even if she cut 60% of the money for special needs kids in public schools in Alaska.
And no one should talk about the governor’s insistence on abstinence only sex education when the cameras are on her pregnant 17 year old daughter.
While we’re at it, we must be fair to John McCain also. When he says he is against lobbyists, we must not mention that most of his top campaign staff are lobbyists. When he rails against corruption, we should not point out his membership in the ‘Keating Five’ during the last real estate melt down. And we must never speak of McCain’s special treatment while a P.O.W. or his failure to assist the families of those still missing with information on the fate of their loved ones.
Most of all, when McCain-Palin speak of change, we must never point out that their party (with considerable help from Dems) got us where we are now.

Vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is Spiro Agnew, packing a taser on a mission from God.

Sarah Palin's chief function on the GOP ticket paired with John McCain is to fire up the evangelical Christian and small town rural America culture factions of the traditional Republican base, while injecting gender as another omnipresent wedge issue into the presidential campaign (along side religion and race) - ostensibly also to appeal to disgruntled Hillary supporters. Governor Palin appears to be a very well scripted, unconventional choice to fill the traditional attack dog role.

All this of course has been commented upon by others before. From the personal contacts I've recently had with real life Hillary Clinton primary supporters however, I don't think there's much of a direct threat there of major defections by Democratic-leaning women voters. An interesting subtext of the Palin selection that has not received much notice or comment yet, and which reinforces my sense of how this may all play out, is Sarah Palin's open affiliation with a fairly new neo-con group called Feminists for Life.

Out there in Limbaugh Land, the customary right wing tactic for use against the women's rights movement consists of thinly veiled, misogynist ridicule: taunt them as Femi-Nazis, bra burning dykes who hate men and hate motherhood, angry social misfits seeking to scam the system for personal economic advantage against male wage earners by resorting to often fake or exaggerated claims of sex discrimination and/or sexual harassment. So-called social conservatives and their talking point spin meisters have labored long and hard to frame feminism as a dirty word, as dirty a word as liberalism.

So go make a quick visit to the Feminists for Life website. What I sense rumbling out there on the far right fringe of the political spectrum is a conscious effort by the heirs of Phyllis Schlafly to co-opt, and ideologically redefine, that which could not be fully discredited or destroyed.

Suddenly, the dreams of Susan B. Anthony so long deferred can be realized, and the crusading spirit of the Womens Christian Temperance Union can be revived and modernized. This election cycle, we're being told it's the paternalistic good old boys' system of the Democratic team that's trying to keep the glass ceiling intact, and it's Sarah Palin who's now supposedly the agent of change, striving valiently to break through at last so that women everywhere will benefit.

At the center of this neo-feminist, neo-conservative repackaging groundswell effort is the issue of reproductive rights. Trying to excorcise the ghost of Margaret Sanger from the history of the US womens' movement is rather like claiming to be a champion of civil rights for African-Americans - but just please don't mention that Frederick Douglass fellow.

Overturn Roe v Wade? In the name of some newfangled feminism?

No matter how slickly marketed towards its demographic target group, I just don't believe this new brand of snake oil is going to sell.

Bill from Saginaw

CRAIG MERRIHUE: You're an interesting "animal" to have in this forum. You remind me of the once-liberal thinker who became a Bush man and is credited with coining the phrase, "compassionate conservative." His name escapes me. He also "pioneered" the list of "America's 100 most dangerous professors."

The thinking here is black of white. You presume that a society that allots its members freedom is responsible for what they do with that freedom; and then see conservative constraints as the cure. It's as if only polarities operate in your sphere of orientation. What about shades of gray? Blaming the conditions of LA lawlessness on liberals is like fighting a war on TERRORISM. These are trite shields that never tap into the plurality of factors that CAUSE phenomena. It's like a kneejerk response. If freedom causes problems, just constrain everyone. I happen to believe that those who espouse conservative viewpoints do not trust THEIR OWN instincts. Perhaps they were raised on harsh Christian values that turned them against the natural urges of their own bodies (original sin, for instance). Perhaps where others can use recreational drugs and still maintain a hold on themselves, those who come apart then blame the drug and want a world where that option is no available to anyone else.

Ancient cultures along with many indigenous cultures made use of hallucinogenic plants as part of elaborate rituals. These were done to expand consciousness, to provide a greater empathy or sentience capable of connecting with the natural world. Given the blood on religions' hands, to claim that conservative policies work is a scary fiction. Just look at the state of the US while directed by twisted souls who claim the moral highground while shooting at living targets and stealing everything that rightfully belongs to the collective citizenry.

Those who turn against a path they once traveled should explore new ones before thinking they own the authority to tell the rest of us which path is "right."

You want to see a theocracy, go live in Iran. Or check out a secular theocracy and go live in North Korea. Otherwise, quit whining. Life will go on.

The rapture already happened...all the virtuous sinless christians were taken up to heaven....but the bus was empty.

This is obviously hell, were vicious, craven, psuedo-christian republicans rule

"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats

The most frightening aspect of Palin as potential president is her religious dogma. Her heartfelt hope is the "end of days" and the "rapture." What would a fanatic do (WWFD) when the power of the nuclear button is placed in her hands? What would restrain her? The thought that it would destroy the world? That, in Palin's ideology, is incentive, not deterrent.

Good grief, another Palin article? Enough~ please stop! This distraction is exactly what "they" want!

If Palin's daughter can "choose" to keep her baby, then why can't other women "choose" to abort?

I read a quote from a delegate at Minneaplois: "The right to choose does not mean pro-choice." Umm, WTF?

Vote third party so we can stop this endless back-and-forth between our two mainstream corrupt, corporate-controlled parties.