FactCheck.Org

http://www.factcheck.org/
Check out McCain and Obama facts, ask your own. This time - we really don't have the luxury of ignorance, we really don't have the luxury of laziness.Don't just go here, go everywhere - If Only I Can Convince Everyone to Be Skeptical about Everything - that's all I want. The Scientific Method brought us from cave dwelling, club weilding brutes to this pinacle of achievement - it is tried and tested and true.I have confidence that if skeptical analysis of all the facts, prudent evaluation and verification is performed - then everything will be ok.
I'm not saying that it will be a landslide victory - but I have to believe that at least more than half the humans in this nation are at least self invested enough in their well being and future to - upon review of the facts of the matter - make the right choice.
Of course, if history has taught me anything - Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Byzantine, British, Japanese empires for example - is that people pretty much don't make the right decisions and are easily lead by the brutish and wicked. But - we have something none of those guys had - the Internet. That's gotta count for something.

the pitt bull with lipstick...

All my friends,

This is a forward of a forward.   I know not all of you are supporting the good guy this go round.  However, this is terrifying.

I tried to fact check it.   Snopes.com claims to have verified her identity.   There is a lot out there confirming it's veracity - some of the numbers she posts are estimates, etc, but I have cooberated several of the claims.    All the crazy right wing stuff - nothing scared me so much as her trying to ban books.   All I can say is that - if this is the mark of her character, Dick Cheyney's got NOTHING on this chick.  Please read on...(names/emails of all the forwards removed to respect privacy)

 

...

FYI This is an email sent to a friend of mine who knows Sarah Baracuda and lives in Alaska. It's worth reading....

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Message:

Dear friends,

So many people have asked me about what I know about Sarah Palin in the
last 2 days that I decided to write something up . . .

Basically, Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton have only 2 things in
common: their gender and their good looks. :)

You have my permission to forward this to your friends/email contacts
with my name and email address attached, but please do not post it on
any websites, as there are too many kooks out there . . .

[ This was already posted on Washington Independent comments area,
with a controllable hotmail account, and was obviously meant by the
author to be read. ]

Thanks,
Anne

ABOUT SARAH PALIN

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992.
Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a
first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her
father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a
first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more
City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the
residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she's like the most popular
girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and
won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because
she is a "babe".

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She
kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents
for seven months.

She is "pro-life". She recently gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby.
There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby.

She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out
there" and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.

Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a
champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin's kind of job is highly
sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his
work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or
so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their
major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything
like that of native Alaskans.

Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.

She's smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000
(at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about
670,000 residents.

During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running
this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been
pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had
gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had
given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative". During her 6
years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over
33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the
City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation
(1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a
regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she
promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they
benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration
weren't enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed
money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it
with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage
the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said
she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a
new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a
multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece
of property that the City didn't even have clear title to, that was
still in litigation 7 yrs later--to the delight of the lawyers
involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the
community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it
would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that
could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office
redecorated more than once.

These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.

As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus
in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will
make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she
proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she
recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while
she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's
surplus, borrow for needs.

She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas
or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren't generated by
her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on their merits, but on the
basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected
City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from
the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents
rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's
attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew
her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the
Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the "old boy's club" when she first ran for
Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys". Palin
fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as
Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people,
creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally
grateful and fiercely loyal--loyal to the point of abusing their power
to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the
case of pressuring the State's top cop (see below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla's Police Chief because he "intimidated"
her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top
cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure
and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that
an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn't
fire her sister's ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation
for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen
contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she
later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to
replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded
for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew
her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in
help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town
introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council
became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She
abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn't
like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything
publicly about her.

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got
the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one
of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no
background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great
job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the
high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the
structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this
Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party)
engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some
undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all
her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and
garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a
gutsy fighter against the "old boys' club" when she dramatically quit,
exposing this man's ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from
Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel
politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to
nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget
guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing
projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative
action restored most of these projects--which had been vetoed simply
because she was not aware of their importance--but with the unobservant
she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork".

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party
leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated
them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a
fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah.
They call her "Sarah Barracuda" because of her unbridled ambition and
predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly
stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made
point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's
mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and
experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package
of legislation known as "AGIA" that forced the oil companies to march
to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to
global warming. She campaigned "as a private citizen" against a state
initiaitive that would have either a) protected salmon streams from
pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the
state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the State's
lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior's decision to list polar
bears as threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a
heartbeat away from being President.

There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more
knowledgeable and experienced than she.

However, there's a lot of people who have underestimated her and are
regretting it.

CLAIM VS FACT
."Hockey mom": true for a few years
."PTA mom": true years ago when her first-born was in elementary
school, not since
."NRA supporter": absolutely true
.social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, BUT vetoed a bill
that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships
(said she did this because it was unconsitutional).
.pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, BUT did nothing as Governor to
promote it.
."Pro-life": mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby
BUT declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life
legislation
."Experienced": Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has
residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska.
No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on
supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city
administrator to run town of about 5,000.
.political maverick: not at all
.gutsy: absolutely!
.open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at
explaining actions.
.has a developed philosophy of public policy: no
."a Greenie": no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores
and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.
.fiscal conservative: not by my definition!
.pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city
without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built
streets to early 20th century standards.
.pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on
residents
.pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city
government in Wasilla's history.
.pro-labor/pro-union. No. Just because her husband works union
doesn't make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim
that she is pro-labor/pro-union.

WHY AM I WRITING THIS?
First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed
voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting
programs in the schools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny +
Alaska), you will find references to my participation in local
government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I've always operated in the belief that "Bad things happen
when good people stay silent". Few people know as much as I do because
few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don't have a job she can bump me out
of. I don't belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no
fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will
cost me somehow in the future: that's life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100
or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah's
attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to
say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.

CAVEATS
I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in
spending & taxation 2 years ago (when Palin was running for Governor)
from information supplied to me by the Finance Director of the City of
Wasilla, and I can't recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust
for inflation? for population increases? Right now, it is impossible
for a private person to get any info out of City Hall--they are
swamped. So I can't verify my numbers.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the
population of Wasilla, ranging from my "about 5,000", up to 9,000. The
day Palin's selection was announced a city official told me that the
current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was
5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to
2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90's.

Anne Kilkenny
annekilkenny@hotmail.com
August 31, 2008

***
This is from one of our longtime community activists and she especially devotes
herself to issues around education.

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/3671/the-reform-candidate
Submitted by Michael Wrightson on Sept 1, 2008
A note to all by Anne Kilkenny

Energy Policy - is Congress really so dumb?!

Has anyone seen the 2 energy proposals out there - has any one paid attention to what the Republicans want to do?
What, is this even a question - are they nuts - no offense really - but - "tax breaks to oil companies for more exploration"?!?! - Oil Companies are making obscene profits - OBSCENE!!!! Not only do they NOT deserve any tax breaks, they need to be heavily taxed on their OBSCENE profits, AND that money needs to be used to subsidized home installations of solar electric and solar thermal collectors, heat pumps, energy optimization programs. We need to implement laws to foster plug in electric vehicles.
We must say no to any more offshore drilling - mainly because one has to be an idiot to think that it will help any time soon, or that it will have much effect at all once it comes on line, and because if one still wants to expand fossil fuel use instead of solar/wind/hydro and nuclear one's hopelessly ignorant of the major downsides of global climate change, particulate and green house pollutants, heavy metals in the water table, and soil, and the effects of global extinction events.
Say no to offshore drilling
say no to tax breaks for oil companies
say yes to solar electric (both commerical/industrial, and residential)
say yes to solar thermal
say yes to plug in electric
Say no to incandescent light bulbs
And we do need many more nuclear plants, but that will take time to have any beneficial effect too - solar/wind is immediate so start there!!
This is so obvious - I cannot understand how incredibly dumb and short sighted the average human must be to miss this plain and simply obvious understanding. Its almost like the human race WANTS to die off miserably over the next few decades, suffering horribly.
I don't know - if I didn't live on this planet, I'd say good riddance, seriously. I'm a big believer in "you made your bed now lie in it", unfortunately - I'm doing everything I can to not destroy the planet to not waste energy, and all that jazz, but the rest of the planet's a-holes are screwwing it up for everyone, including me, and this is a group effort. I don't want to lie in this bed that was made. I want to lie in the bed that is not all about suffering, death, and extinction.
Really - it's a good thing those "you get 3 wishes" fantasies are just fantasies, because I think wish #1 would be that everyone who thinks the answer to our energy needs is more fossil fuels (and anyone who wastes energy irresponsibly, AND anyone who doesn't bother to have an opinion at all or or stay informed) should be disappeared. I'm not saying killed or dead. I don't care where they go, just so long as they ARE NO LONGER ON THIS PLANET. Put them on the moon without a suit, in the sun, in an alternate reality, in a fanciful paradise with 70 virgins, behind pearly gates, in boiling lakes of fire, whatever, I don't care - just make them all GONE. They are killing all of humanity.
Which - well, is important in and of itself, but I am a part of Humanity, and that is where I draw the line.

anti-athiest site

To this site:
http://ignorantchristian.wordpress.com/2008/03/17/proof-this-is-a-christian-country/

I just posted the following:

I was just searching on google images for some symbol to use on some kind of facebook app - and I wanted to find something that really captured what I feel is the most important and best aspect of who I am as a person - and I came across your web site.Wanted to say Hi. The graphic I was looking for was something that would clearly announce me as an Athiest. Hi there from an Athiest. And I'm your totally flaming, flamboyant, totally out atheist. I am liberal, I respect life and people and other cultures, and I have gay friends and I hope they all get to get married, and I don't plan on having kids myself and I live with someone and we're not married, and I want universal health care and an end to the war in iraq and I support alternative and sustainable energy production and am opposed to burning fossil fuels, and I'm an environmentalist.I also am relatively educated, and I apply reason and the scientific method, am skeptical and only "believe" in that which is empirically provable, (even if I can never actually spell empiricle correctly without a spell check and am too lazy to look it up right now, LOL). I am not an angry athiest, nor do I belive in astrology or wicca or magic or the christian devil (whatever name christians give that imaginary being) - because, like I said, I am an athiest. I don't believe in any of the many hundreds of various gods that have been worshiped in human history, I don't just not believe in yours to piss you off or because I'm unamerican or not patriotic, in fact, I'm very proud to be an American, and very patriotic and love this country dearly (which is why I'm always trying to save it - even from itself - as any true patriot from John Adams and George Washington on up would do). I am not an angry athiest in that I was not "hurt by god" or "angry at god" for some bad thing that happened to me. My move from being raised in a christian household to agnostisism to athiesm was not precipitated by any abuses or hardships. It was simply that I am an avid reader, and I think and contemplate what I study - history and philosophy especially, as well as many of the natural sciences. And - the more I learned, the more I saw, the more insight into life and the universe around me I gained, the more it became clear that there is no need for a god or any supernatural phenomina, moreover, the universe is a beautiful and awesome thing just as it is, all the more so because it is made up of completely random and meaningless matter and energy which for no reason at all happens to have formed matter able to be self aware (i.e. us) as well as all the other things we can be aware of... and to have to lower it to the point of saying some ghost decided, "oh, I'll make all this" and turn it into some crafted thing is to diminish it's value and preciousness greatly.Also - of course, there is the fact that there is absolutely no incontrovertible verifiable evidence of anything supernatural, yet there is overwhelming, chokingly massive amounts of evidence that shows where ever one looks, provided they look using the right tools to peer into the tiny crooks and crevices of the universe we find no god, no supernatural elements but simply more of the facinating and naturally explainable universe.Oh, but while I am not an angry athiest, I am a fearful one, because my studies have also shown me that no matter how much so-called good organized and otherwise religions claim to have done, their harm is always much greater and in my opinion, there is no greater threat to continued human civilization and humanity itself as an animal in this biosphere, than religion and the belief in the supernatural.Thank you.

Letter to James Dobson

To James Dobson, Regarding:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080720/ap_on_el_pr/dobson_mccainDobson said in a statement to the AP. "Barack Obama contradicts and threatens everything I believe about the institution of the family and what is best for the nation. His radical positions on life, marriage and national security force me to reevaluate the candidacy of our only other choice, John McCain."Radical? Obama's position on life, marriage and national security are actually pretty center. Personally - being an athiest, I find him a bit too "relgious-y" for comfort, but he's still an inspirational guy. Position on Life? He respects life - that's why he's trying to end the war, and why he supports stem cell research - to help save lives. Respecting a woman's right to choose has been the mainstream, centrist, majority position for my entire life. Marriage? I think he supports marriage - he is married. I have been listening to him a lot and so far I haven't heard him saying he wanted to ban marriage. In FACT - to be honest, not only does he support heterosexual marriage, I think he also supports gay marriage. Which is great - he's super pro-marriage. I have a lot of gay friends and well, they're just like straights, there are some good relationships and some not so good ones, but you know - if marriage is your thing - gay or straight, who am I to stop you? And for that matter - who the {explective} are you?! Hahaha - check your whole organization on that one. As to his national security policy - Honestly - he's drifted a bit too far to the right to appease the righty zealots in this nation - I wish he was a bit more liberal and radical there myself. But McCain - his policies are similar to this current evil, wicked, criminal, treasonous administration. Now, I think McCain is a much better guy than the dastardly thugs who are currently in command of the white house. (I wish I did believe in hell b/c if there *was* a hell, all those guy's would be toasting in it, unfortunately there is absolutely no substantiated evidence for the existance of any supernatural agency or planes of existance). But - even though he's much better than what we've currently got - McCain is still thinking in this us/them mentality that has brought the world to where it is today. Hopefully - we'll all get some change we can believe in.

Want to send James a note
http://family.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/family.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=14190
select the "online form" link and have at it.