At a Sarah Palin book signing a teen was spotted wearing a political t-shirt, and asked a political question, fumbled the answer, and then blames the “liberal” media for picking on her.

Here’s a link to the interview:

Now you can clearly see she’s at a book signing in which the book is political in natures, for a person who’s political in nature, and is wearing a t-shirt political in nature. Now if she didn’t want to be asked questions, she could have just passed being on TV, but nope, had to talk.

And don’t you just love the catch phrases they repeat from Fox News.. “big government,” “uphold the constitution,” “back to basics,” “fresh air.” I wonder if these people even know what they’re talking about when they use these phrases. I wonder if they could tell me what part of the constitution isn’t being upheld now? Probably not.

At a different Sarah Palin book signing..

Notice again all the catch phrases used, with no actual substance. No one can actually point out a single example that supports their view, just regurgitate Fox News sound bites.

And these are the people that think they’re going to “get their America back” in 2010? I just can’t put into words how sorry I feel for these people.

I have to admit, I’m not perfectly versed on all the issues myself, but I at least know that worrying about Russia invading Alaska is pretty low on the list of current US threats. Also someone should tell her rabid followers that she’s not a Governor anymore, she quit.

So in her blog, she blames the “liberal media” for “ambushing” her… So another conservative fumbles with the media and blames them.

So conservative people, women especially, what questions are we allowed to ask?

Here are one’s I know we can’t ask.

• What magazines/newspapers do you read?
• Did you know your idol, stood for your “protest” t-shirt?
• Why did you settle your lawsuit?
• Anything about your 5th baby, because that’s sexist.

I’m sure there are more, but those are off the top of my head. So casual questions are bad, I mean knowing that you read Cosmo would be evil. Asking you bout your politically charged t-shirt is bad. Asking you to expound on your ideas are bad. Asking questions about your womanhood, is bad. So what’s left.. Can we ask you what your favorite color is or is that more “gotcha” journalism?

Where the problem for the Teabaggers is going to be, is that Mrs. Palin is being elevated to “stardom” and will be subject to the same criticism that President Obama was subject to, how he has “blind followers” and he’s a “celebrity”… but I guess your reap what you sow.

Here recently the President was visiting Japan, and has struck up controversy again. President Obama was bowing to the Emperor Akihito, as is custom and courtesy in Japan, and set off a storm of criticism.

This apparently is showing the world how weak we are, by being polite. Apparently we’re too smug a nation to respect other peoples customs and show common courtesy in another country, but be damned if you don’t show respect while you’re here in this country.

Of the things to worry about President Obama doing or not doing, this is hardly on the top of the list, hell this shouldn’t even be on page one.

What’s really funny about this whole thing is, these are the same people that would be up in arms, if a foreign leader came to visit us, and didn’t shake the hand of the President, unless it was President Obama, then they’d be clapping.

Respect is a lot like tolerance it’s a two way street. For the last 8 years we’ve lost the respect of a lot of the world, and if you think that doesn’t matter, well I feel sorry for you. US business have to do business with these countries, and the free market, and capitalism that’s held so dear by this country will be more and more difficult to do when we’ve pissed off half the globe.

To get respect you’ve got to give it, not demand it. Holding a gun to a persons head doesn’t earn you respect, it fosters fear, and eventually that fear goes away, then you have nothing.

Her book is about the difficulties of being a pageant girl, and the horrible things they made her do. Also talks about how she felt like a piece of meat as she was inspected.. etc… etc.. etc… Well first off. What did you expect? You’re doing a beauty pageant. Did you think they were going to judge you on algebra problems? I know in recent years the Miss USA contest has tried to be more than beauty, but there’s only so much you can do before turning it into a game show.

Now I know how some of this pageant stuff works, I’ve photographed some of them. Most of the girls in these things aren’t in there by choice, and have overbearing mothers that force them into this lifestyle. Some Mom spending thousands some even hundreds of thousands of dollars to have the perfect daughter. Singing lessons, dance lessons, cosmetic surgery, braces, teeth whiting, all kind of crazy stuff, and most of this happens before they’re 16. So it’s not like she didn’t know what she was getting into when she ran for Miss California or Miss America. So I’m sorry dear, but you can’t complain about being treated like a piece of meat, you entered a beauty contest.

You can do a search on Google for her and find news stories about what’s going with her. There’s been lawsuits, slander, libel and all kinds of other accusations. She was on Larry King recently, and pretty benign interviewer, and she was threw a hissy fit during the show, and left. He had only asked one question, "Why did she decide to settle the lawsuits?" Apparently that was too tough a question for her, glad he didn’t ask her what her favorite magazine was, because after he ask that, she wouldn’t talk to him, and took off her mic. After she refused to answer the first question, he tried to ask if her motivation for settling was part of the talks, and she wouldn’t even answer that. You can stick to your guns about gay marriage, but be damned if you answer that question.

Another interesting moment was on Hannity, who wrote the forward to her book, by the way, talked about her and Sarah Palin being friends. The conversation then was followed up by how the media was attacking her, and how the media as a problem with conservative women. No Mr. Hannity it’s not about her being a conservative, it’s about her being dumb as a stick.

I do give he credit for sticking to her views, and stating an honest opinion, even if I feel it was a loaded question to begin with. However, anyone that has a command of the English language (is that OK to say conservatives? or is it the American language?) could have answered that without being PC, and without causing a ruckus.

I’m a little behind on some of the stuff I watch, so it’s hard to know exactly where an issue is developing.

As with any tragedy, the first few days (weeks?) are a little crazy. All kind of reports and information coming in, cross stories, misinformation, and all kind of assumptions and crazy conclusions. So here we are, almost a week after the Fort Hood shooting, and still a little light on the facts, but that’s not stopping people from making assumptions.

We’ve got conservatives coming out of the wood work calling for everything from “screening” all Muslims in the military, to kicking them all out of the military, to the extremes of deporting and killing all the Muslims. I have pictures of “Children of Men” where we have signs posted all over town, saying report the foreigners, big deportation camps, and down right cruel treatment of non-citizens, treatment that makes Gitmo look like a holiday vacation resort.

I don’t know if being Muslim was a factor in the Fort Hood shooting or not, but of course since 9/11, Muslims are the current “bitches” of the right wing. We only have a handful of Communist countries left in the world, so we don’t have the fear of the USSR destroying the world anymore, so we have to have a new bad guy, and the Muslims are it.

This is where my Atheism starts really going crazy. Almost every major conflict in human history, is based on religion, or at least had it as a significant factor. There’s a hand full of wars that weren’t but most of them are. Let’s just look at US history.

• Destroying native American culture, based on religion. After all we don’t want those pagans indoctrinating our youth.
• Revolutionary War, based on religion. After all we want the freedom to repress other religions, without being repressed ourselves.
• World War I and II, based on religion, those damn Jews need to be wiped out.
• Gulf Wars I and II, religious factors

And that’s not even counting things like Northern Ireland, and what’s going on in Israel, both religious based.

Are you sensing a theme here?

If we make the conclusion that the Ft. Hood shooter was an Islamic terrorist, then what? Be the compasionate Christan nation we’ve all come to know and love, and round up all the Muslims? I mean it worked with the dirty Japs during WWII, and the Native Americas right? So we can do it again. Hmm why didn’t we round up all the Germans during WWII? Guess without those slanted eyes it was hard to tell…

I’ve seen one point made in some of the comments I read. One posted pointed out that this is exactly what the real terrorists want. They want us afraid of Muslims, they want us, as a country, to react against Muslims, because as we do, it strengths their cause. Imagine the recruiting power Al Qaeda will have when the US, hates ALL Muslims… It worked for them already. Look what’s happened in the Iraq, and Iran, we empowered Al Qaeda and they got very strong for a while. What do you think would happen if we suddenly persecuted every Muslim in the US? Sounds like a good way to start another world war….

It was only a matter of time before the “OMG He’s a Muslim terrorist” filth started, and emphasis on the Muslim part. There’s already one conservative group calling for the dismissal of all Muslims from the armed services.

One thing I’ve noticed about Christians is their lack of knowledge about their own history. It’s funny that when a Christian goes crazy and kills someone it’s OK, they’re just ill, pray for them. If a Muslim goes crazy and kills someone.. it’s OMG he’s a terrorist, get them all!!.

So let’s take a brief look at Christian history.

• Overthrew Rome and, in part, destroyed the Roman empire.
• Crusades to take back “the holy land”
• The Dark Ages
• Spanish Inquisition
• Destroyed most of the Native America population
• Salem Witch hunts

Now this is, of course, only a partial list of the wonders of Christianity. Let’s not forget some of the more recent things. Bombings of abortion clinics. (Sure killing babies is bad, but killing doctors is fine), Blowing up Federal buildings, the Waco massacre. Not to mention all the fringe suicide pacts. Oh yeah, let’s not forget the Ku Klux Klan, the bible says black people are bad. Wasn’t Hitler a Christian too?… maybe.

But all that’s OK, we’re a Christian nation after all. Why would we let things like that stop up from hating another group.

This all goes back to the point I made a while ago about tolerance, how you have to give to get. You want to sing Christmas songs, you can’t get upset when someone wants to sing  Chanukah songs. The enlightened don’t see it that way though.

So I tell you what, I’ll support the removal of all Muslims from the Armed Services, right along with all the Christians. I mean if we’re going to hold one man accountable…

There’s a war brewing.. a war of prices.. Big giants such as Amazon and Wal-Mart and fighting for your dollar, and fighting hard. Prices are being cut to new lows. This is hailed by Republicans, as a prime example of capitalism at it’s finest. Business compete, consumer wins. And right they are. I mean who can pass up a deal for $10 a movie, or $10 a book? Unless it’s something you don’t want, right?

This is also the start of the America, Inc. nightmare. The dark side of capitalism, and no I’m not talking the Michael Moore kind, is the destruction of small business. This is one of the hypocritical stances that politicians have that drive me nuts. We can see the effect already. Look for your local CD/Record store.. If you’re lucky you have one in town, maybe two. If you do have one locally do you know where it is? Probably not. See as online music sales, illegal MP3s, and stores like Amazon have driven prices down, as well as the ease of getting CDs, they’ve driven many, many small businesses out of business.

Anyone into computers in the mid to late 90s can tell you of the computer store, the small shop you went to to buy computer parts. The stores that are all gone now. Music stores are all but gone now. Bookstores are on their way out now too.

Part of these changes are media related, as music went electronic it became easier to get, and didn’t require the purchase of an expensive CD, those of us old enough, remember buying CDs and hating all but 2-3 songs on the CD. Just as computer parts became easier to get, and overnight shipping became cheap as dirt. Not to mention no sales taxes if you order stuff online. Now books are undergoing a similar transformation. Cheap to get, easier to ship, even electronic in a lot of cases, both ebooks and audio books. How much longer before there’s no local bookstore anymore? After that the library? My niece is in 7th grade and isn’t issued textbooks.

Republicans love the free market. They want to, in the extreme, abandon all regulation and let “the market decide” what’s best. But the question has to be asked.. When is enough enough? in the 70s and 80s AT&T (aka Ma Bell) was such a huge company that the government had to break it up, broke it up into regional “baby Bells” and only recently has all those regulations been lifted. Which has naturally lead to merger after merger. I, personally, think the only thing that kept AT&T from become Ma Bell again, was cell phones. Cellular carries were well established at this point, and could fend off AT&T.

So when do we rein in the corporate beast? or do we? When we’re buying Wal-Mart health insurance, and Wal-Mart gas, and Wal-Mart pharmaceuticals, and Wal-Mart cars, and Wal-Mart car insurance, drive home on the Wal-Mart toll road, to watch the 11pm Wal-Mart news and WLMT channel 4 all Wal-Mart all the time… is that too much free market?

Of course the critics will say that the market won’t let that happen, but it has, it does, and it will. Bank that are “too big to fail” software companies that control 90% of the PC market. How much longer before Microsoft buys out Dell, HP, Lenovo, and does it all itself?

And in all this.. who gets hurt the most? Small business. The guys that the Republicans LOVE (allegedly). Love them so much that ruining small business was the major objection to President Obama shopping around the idea of year round school. Of course that more their hatred of President Obama than of their love for small business, but still. Love small business so much that they believe health care will destroy them, but it’s OK if Amazon and Wal-Mart destroy them… Go free market.

As consumers what do we do? Can we stem the tide, or we stuck in the ebbs and flow? I think a little of both. We can surely do the “high and proud” thing and buy our books, CDs, and other things from local businesses, or we can chose to take advantage of Amazon and Wal-Marts price war and give in to the corporate machine. Maybe do a little of both?

All I know is I got a couple of great deals on some DVDs here recently…..

Go Jon.. That’s really all I have to say about this.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/29/white-house-fox-news-meet_n_338111.html

Here again is an article about the Fox News/White House tiff. And AGAIN, it misses the point. The point isn’t that Fox News is biased, or that they shouldn’t be. What the point is when cross from reporting the news to making-up the news. No, I don’t mean made-up and in make believe… I mean made up as in, we’re sponsoring, promoting, funding, televising, and inciting protest against the government. I won’t comment on the oddity of conservatives actually protesting, since most of them think that this is stuff for the “hippies” and whatnot.. but I think there’s a fine line to cross when you move from reporting about Teabaggers, even with your biased, left or right, to creating the Teabaggers, the rallies, and everything else.

Of course that’s just my opinion, but really.. when was the last time you saw the MSNBC green party protesters?

Of course I think President Obama’s move was actually very brilliant. He generically called out conservative “talk” shows, but never called out Fox News. Now Fox News has hit the national spotlight and now they have to be, at least a little, more careful. I don’t expect any major changes, but I bet you’ll see a little more “balance” in their shows now. I think when the other media outlets came together with Fox, foreseen or not by the White House, it will cause Fox News to be held to a higher standard. Now that ABC, CBS, and NBC, have basically said, we’ll stand with you don’t let us down.

It’ll be interesting to see how much change is brought to Fox News. I don’t expect, nor anticipate any change in bias, but I do expect their news shows to step it up a bit. Unfortunately I don’t believe that any of their conspiracy shows will change at all.

Where is the border between a hate crime and a normal crime occur? If I punch a gay guy, is that a hate crime or just a crime. Or is it only a hate crime if the only reason I hit him was because he was gay? But what if I punched him just because? I do believe that crimes should be punished according to their veracity, but I am worried about where this will end… If I have a car accident and the other guy happens to be gay, does this suddenly become a hate crime?

The far left, seems to think all these questions and discussions are bating… Sounds like the right every time race is brought up, but these are things we should talk about. The far left’s answer to the my punching scenario is “don’t punch him” well that’s great, never thought of that, but sometimes we get put into situations we can’t control. If I’m getting robbed, and fight back and injure the mugger, later to find out s/he was gay, can the mugger now charge me with a hate crime?

This is a dangerous slope, heading us into a Orwellian society, and that’s kind of scary. Are Minipax next?

I believe that the punishment should fit the crime, not changing the crime to fit the punishment.