Sarah Palin: Thoughts?

[hypatias mom]

You're probably right on that one. And I realized that my count was off by one in my post above. There are two olderwhite males running for thde major oppososing parties' first and second positions.

[Ari Rahikkala]

Palin's recent conduct has been.. amusing, but slightly pitiable. Not in the sense I think she's a bad person, just that I think she's in a terrible situation that's making her look bad, and, well, that's certainly not enviable. My theory for why she's drawing blanks when asked questions like if she can name any supreme court cases she has any kind of opinion about or what newspapers she reads is that... one, she's been thrust to the national scale from a backwater state and is just incredibly nervous, and two, she's trying her hardest to pretend to have McCain's opinions, which is really difficult for her because her own opinions are so much farther to the right.

Then again, at the same time Joe Biden's running around the country giving speeches or something, and from what I've heard, nobody could care less. Not sure what I should think of that .

[Kaiser Loki III]

Joe likes to talk. Sarah is nervous, but fiesty.

Tonight should be fun to watch!

[Chrimigules]

If Biden can maintain the focus he had here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XberX_t-WvI) then he cannot lose.

[Ryan]

Driving through Columbia and Rensselaer Counties (NY) I saw more McCain/Palin signs in front of homes than I've seen anywhere else.

Fools! All of them!

[Gryphon Avocatio]

lol http://vetpalin.com

Hah! That's great.

Seriously, though, what is this woman doing? I feel my initial fears have indeed been confirmed: she is spectacularly underprepared to be VP. I would love to hear her say something that doesn't sound scripted/force-fed or isn't a gaffe, but I fear there just isn't that much in between. We can see pretty well why the McCain camp keeps her under lock and key...

The newspaper/magazine one was amazing to me. How do you not answer such a simple question? Why wouldn't you? Somebody asks me that and I immediately respond "The Economist, The San José Mercury News, the New York Times, The Guardian, BBC, El País..." I'll even read English bits of Dagens Nyheter. But hell, I don't read "all of them". Maybe that means Santa Cruz is a foreign country...

[Kaiser Loki III]

Somebody said she's the folkiest politican since Andrew Jackson.

Don't count all the working folks "clinging to religion and guns".

Mine eyes have seen the Glory of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.

[Oroigawa Koreyasu]

Oh yeah, something fun. If McCain gets elected and dies before February, Palin isn't an eligible president. She's still 44.

[Malliki]

The limit is 35... and she couldn't be VP if she wasn't eligible for the presidency.

[Oroigawa Koreyasu]

Or...wait...what?

*rereads post*

...Am I drunk?

[Malliki]

Dunno, your vice-Niftiness.

[Oroigawa Koreyasu]

My mind is slowly shriveling from the lack of laptop...

[Ryan]

Obama is ahead in the polls! Yay!

[Bayen]

If Biden can maintain the focus he had here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XberX_t-WvI) then he cannot lose.

[Erik Mortis]

'Drill by drill....'

[Chrimigules]

Why do they keep saying that when they won't see any effect for 10 years minimum, and the effect will be negligible...

[Gryphon Avocatio]

That is a very good question. Anybody who's taken at least a college-level introduction to economics knows that if we drilled today we wouldn't feel the effects for a long time (10 years has been cited, but it could be shorter or even longer).

There is some truth, though, that it would help us now. Not only do the markets react to actual changes in supply, they react to a perceived change in supply and to the possibility of change in the future (that is to say, if we know there will be more gas next year, then we don't have to charge as much for it now). That's right, if people think there's more gas, prices could drop. And if the Republicans are responsible it makes them look better, even if the drop (which would likely be temporary) is sort of based on a lie (or, at least, something that hasn't happened yet).

This goes hand-in-hand with the fact that the majority of people don't understand economics at all. It's all rather abstract. This is compounded by the fact that most people don't understand that it will take time for the product of any drilling to come to market (maybe it's not understanding, but ignorance). Anyway, this is why I think the Republicans keep arguing for drilling. In the short-term it might help, but it will be a while before we see the real effects.


(Also notice that prices have come down towards the end of the summer as demand has dropped and people have changed their habbits. It's the 70's all over again, without any government intervention.)

[Kaiser Loki III]

And Clinton said the same thing ten years ago. If we had drilled then, we'd have it now.

something that drives me bananas about American busines is the focus on the next month's numbers or the next quarter's.

Next year and next decade need to be considered. Most of us will be around (on the planet) then.

[Ryan]

Drilling won't have a lasting effect however on how we do business. What we need to invest in is sustainable and alternate energy sources. We will run out of oil in the next fifty years, probably less considering the exponential growth rate of the human population. We're talking about adding two more China's (population wise) by 2050. If you base that growth rate versus oil use and put them side-by-side in a histogram you have a clear picture that supply can't meet demand. Ever. There's simply not enough oil on the planet to do it.

If we stopped pissing money away on things like Iraq we could easily fund a revamping of our infrastructure to accommodate sustainable energy.

[Kaiser Loki III]

Why not do both?

[Ryan]

Because drilling has a severely negative impact on the environment.

I work in Environmental Management and Sustainability. But because I'm still in college I do internships for various environmental institutions spending a lot of time cleaning up the mess we've made from industrialization. We're intelligent enough and certainly rich enough to not do it anymore. Now let's be responsible enough to do the right thing this time.

[Kaiser Loki III]

But the caribou LOVE the pipeline, they snuggle up to it and stay warm!

[Oroigawa Koreyasu]

[Erik Mortis]

So anyone been watching McCain/Palin go on the offensive lately? Didn't McCain tell Palin not to bring up Ayers... and she did anyways... He can't even control her.

[Scott of Hyperborea]

I think you're talking about Wright; Ayers has always been fair game. I seriously doubt Palin is openly defying McCain at this point. More likely she didn't get the memo. Most likely of all, McCain wants to have his cake and eat it too, and is personally avoiding negative attacks to look honorable, but is using the VP to get the message out there.

[Bayen]

have his cake and eat it too

Hehe, I always thought that expression was funny.

[Erik Mortis]

What's the point of HAVING cake.. if you can't eat it... There is none...

[Malliki]

In Swedish it's "att både ha kakan och äta den", to both have the cake and eat it, that is, that you eat the cake but keep it too.

[b3n|<3r|\|]

In Swedish it's "att både ha kakan och äta den", to both have the cake and eat it, that is, that you eat the cake but keep it too.

It's still silly, because what the hell are you gonna do with the cake you get to keep? Eat it, that's all.

[Oroigawa Koreyasu]

Give it away?