I’m sure I’m not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America.

It’s the shoes.

Apparently the announcement shoes are Naughty Monkey Double Dares. Sorry, boys, but they’ve sold out in red since the announcement! There’s some controversy about the debate models, but they might be by Payless.

Barbadian diaspora blogger Doan Mind Me uses humour (and a touch of local parlance) to downplay his concerns:

The potential vice-president of the United States of America did not just get up in a televised debate and give a “shout out” to somebody. Ya lie! I mean I already knew she was sorta ghetto, what given the chile names and the pregnant teenager but still she like she was trying to prove her bona fides last night.

Look there is a time and place for everything. A live nationally televised debate was not the place to give shout outs. It tells me your vocabulary is limited or you don't have the sense to know when to use certain types of language. Leave that sorta talk to the fellas on ESPN and Sportsnet and people like me dat duz blog.

The glaring double standard is also not lost on him:

How it would look if Obama was giving a presentation and say yea I wanta thank my boy O-G Joe Biden for hooking me up with these figures and Michelle for the slamming PowerPoint slides. Everybody would be looking at the man like he gone off or something. Plus you would hear how he inarticulate and he ghetto and he sound like a rapper and all sort of stuff so. But let Palin do that and suddenly she folksy and cute and represent the everyday Joe sixpack.

Get the bleep outta here!

Living in Barbados has a similar take on the situation:

It was a fascinating contrast on display. In the past weeks we had been led to believe that Governor Palin was “gaffable”; an almost total “ditz”–not too smart; more than a bit folksy in her spoken manner (saying “Darnit” a lot); trying to sound ordinary by talking about “Joe Six Pack”, and hockey moms; out of her depth on any of the serious issues that we expect to hear top politicians talk on about. But, she had shown that she could learn a script, though unfortunately could not do more than recite the words (”She's a nauseating puppet”, my wife said in her text message from St. Kitts last night), and sometimes not in the right order. What was she saying by the repetition of the “all of the above” approach? Was this something on the brief that she needed to read to find out that there were some substantive arguments to make? Did she under that she asked for widening the constitutional role of the vice president? Maybe her wink at the camera was an ominous warning.

Ah, the wink. A ploy that did not sit well with Jdid:

Oh and what was with the winking? Looka me an she ain't nuh friends, we ain't share no inside joke, so either she got an involuntary tick in she eye or she was trying to get fresh wid me pun tv. And she coulda at least wink at muh when the wife wasn't sitting next to me.

Tongue in cheek, Living in Barbados says “you have to admire the single-mindedness of Gov. Palin”…

No matter what the question, she turned it back to her answers, and the two pillars of almost all her replies were “energy” and “tax reductions”. Ms. Ifill asked about a bankruptcy bill; Gov. Palin gave a cursory reply then came back with “I think that this is important to come back to, with that energy policy plan…” She spoke with energy, on energy issues, on energy plans, on renewable energy, about energy-producing states, about energy independence, and on and on. But there was very little substance to the answers.

…but he seems genuinely impressed by how Senator Biden handled the debate:

I admired Sen. Biden for not blinking doe-like in the same fashion as Katie Couric, but it was a hard thing not to do. Staying with the reported strategy, he did not focus much on Gov. Palin, but on the Bush-McCain nexus, including a nicely aimed kick at Vice President Cheney, whom he said “has been the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history”.

He surmises:

What I saw also were clear attempts to connect to ordinary people. These two candidates are really reluctant heroes in not choosing to run for the highest offices, but were plucked onto the wagon to give each side something that was missing and would hopefully seal enough votes for the presidential candidates. Sen. Palin has her simple family story and told it often. Gov. Biden too has a simple family story, even though he now has a better life than with which he began.

For Living in Barbados, there was one defining moment of the entire debate:

When he (Biden) choked on recalling these difficulties of his own life, it was notable that Gov. Palin did not offer a word of common sympathy or acknowledgment, but came back with: “People aren't looking for more of the same. They are looking for change. And John McCain has been the consummate maverick in the Senate over all these years.” That for me was more telling than the rest of the debate. Gov. Palin had been too coached to respond to anything that was being said to her and her pat answer says volumes about what is really at work.

Jdid chimes in:

Oh and just because.
maverick, maverick maverick maverick, maverick.
Sorry just had to get that out my system.

As if the debate itself weren't enough fodder for bloggers, Sarah Palin went and attacked Barack Obama over William Ayers. Trinidad and Tobago diaspora blogger Mocha Soul Child has this to say:

After her stunning victory of a mediocre performance at the debates, Palin launched another attack at the Obama camp. It was clear from the debate that Palin does not support negotiations with “terrorist states” without preconditions.

If, she had followed that line of reason, I would be inclined to say she had a real debatable question in her hot little hands.

But instead of taking the high road, she lays it in the gutter, casting doubt on his patriotism, instead of debating the issues. The fundamental statement the McCain-Palin ticket seem to be making is “He's not one of us.” Why else would you attack Obama's patriotism and his Americanness, when there are plenty of real issues they could address such as the value of meeting with enemy nations without preconditions?

Why attack Obama on his patriotism, when it would be so much more salient to question him on foreign policy? It tinges on the the verge of something far nastier, something no one who supports senator Obama can even acknowledge for fear of alienating white voters, but is there, just as the blatant sexism in this race to the white house.

As an article in The Huffington Post writes:

“The statement came after Palin had recounted a “providential” moment she experienced on Saturday: “I'm reading on my Starbucks mocha cup, okay? The quote of the day… It was Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State [crowd boos] and UN ambassador. … Now she said it, I didn't.

She said, ‘There's a place in Hell reserved for women who don't support other women.'”
Actually, Albright didn't say that. The accurate quote is, “There's a place in Hell reserved for women who don't help other women.” “

Women around the world have responded to Palin’s comment and have blogged about it.

Canadian blogger, Ashtraygirl, writes that the women cheering after Palin made the comment was “pathetic.”

“Palin cites a quote from Madeleine Albright that she saw on her ‘Starbucks Mocha Cup' *insert clapping and faint cheering here* why are you cheering at the mere mention of starbuck's?? Pathetic.”

She further adds one statement:

“She's really giving Ann Coulter some competition for my most hated harpy.”

Journalist Larisa Alexandrovna from Ukraine writes that many notable people must be in hell, if Palin’s statement is true.

“I would not support Palin for litter box duty, let alone for anything relating to government. This obviously means I will be going off to hell soon, which in Palin's tiny, pink pom-pom and fluffly shot-gun (and shot-gun weddings) world is likely a collection of sane, decent, honest people. In other word's, Palin's hell is likely populated with people like Ghandi, MLK, Thoreau, etc. By all means, let me go forth then.”

While Jewish American Jill Miller Zimon writes that Palin may have misquoted Albright to garner votes.

“In the above context, it’s the difference between Sarah Palin suggesting that women must vote for her because she’s a woman or else they will go to hell, and Madeleine Albright, via the quote attributed to her by Palin, but misstated, that suggests that women should provide assistance to other women whenever they can or else they should feel eternally miserable.

One little word? One big change in import.”

In another blog, Women Against Sarah Palin, women from around the globe have contribute their opinions on why they’re against the Republican candidate. Jennifer, an American living in Switzerland, writes that Palin is a representation of what women have fought against.

“The nomination of Sarah Palin is a very obvious and painful slap in the face to every American woman. To have chosen a woman who is the antithesis to everything for which we have fought is surely an abominable insult to every one of the women and men who have helped the advancement of woman in America—and around the world.”

And for Helen Philpot, an 82-year-old blogger and American, her dislike of Palin is simple.

“Look. I am going to say what everyone at CNN, CBS, ABC and NBC is thinking but is afraid to say. Governor Palin is a stupid, conniving bitch. And it’s not because she is a strong woman - I like strong women… worship them… It’s actually the opposite. She is a weak, pathetic woman who thinks big hair, winking, baby talk and self deprecation is somehow becoming of a woman who wants to lead the free world. My god, where is Margaret Thatcher when you need her!”

The race to the White House also includes Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party, Bob Barr of the Libertarian Party, Cynthia McKinney of the Green-Rainbow Party, and Ralph Nader of the Independent Party.

You can read more about the six men and women (and their running mates) at Project Vote Smart.

Because of little attention paid to the third-party candidates in the mainstream media (where most of the world's bloggers get their information), there is little discussion in the blogosphere. But some content is worth repeating here.

We begin with last month's article on Global Voices Online by Pakistani blogger Teeth Maestro about his peers' reactions to the first presidential debate. Buried in the responses was this comment:

To be an effective leader one must also display honesty, compassion, & guts. Stand with Ralph Nader, Ron Paul, & Cynthia McKinney.

Of course, Ron Paul is no longer running in the election; Wikipedia has the facts, namely that Paul withdrew from the Republican Party before announcing his support for Chuck Baldwin.

The essence of the anonymous commenter's words remain valuable; that independent candidates hold as much worth as the Democratic and Republican parties.

This is echoed by Marcy Newman, an American blogger known for her pro-Palestinian activism, who writes in the first sentence of a Sarah Palin commentary:

This rant on Palin does not mean I support Obama/Biden. I don’t because on foreign policy they are one in the same. I support Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney.

Unfortunately, as Michael Merritt of PoliGazette recently remarked in the wake of Bob Barr attempting to remove Obama and McCain from the Texas ballot for failing to submit their nomination sheets by the deadline…

Libertarians and other third parties have always typically found obstacles to ballot access, usually the ridiculous numbers of signatures needed to even get on the ballot. Even then, they are often challenged on the veracity of these signatures.

Coming full circle, we turn to the United Kingdom and former Liberal Democrat Councilor Nich Starling who blogged about Pravda on Democracy in America. He begins with the following:

The comedy news channel Russia Today is always worth watching for five minutes if you need to be reminded how good CNN, Sky News, BBC or even Fox News is.

The story Russia Today is running with today is how undemocratic the US is for not giving Ralph Nader equal coverage with Obama and McCain, with the under current of the story being that the US is not a good democracy because it does not allow candidates equal access to the news media.

It is fair to presume that none of the independent candidates will work in the corner office, so where's the harm in writing more stories on the voices who won't win the votes?

The biggest problem I see with this ad is that I really think it only "works" because the person talking is blond and white. Consider what mainstream reaction might be to a dark skinned Latina with an accent talking about the same situation. Would hate groups organize to get her fired? Would the government inject her with drugs? Or maybe pay her to be sterilized so if she is raped again she won't have the little problem of pregnancy?

But in spite of the problems, I do think it's really important that this stuff is finally being brought out into the mainstream view. What do you think? Is there a place for ads like these during the election season? Do you find them compelling? Would they change your vote one way or another?

via/culture kitchen

Although I’ve been following the Palin fiasco each day, I hadn’t planned on blogging about it. Mostly it’s been for my own personal daily dose of humor. I thought about it a bit when Rania began blogging about her last month. But now the anticipation of the vice presidential debate has pushed me over the edge. That and Tina Fey’s HI-larious spoof of Palin on Saturday Night Live. (If you have not watched this video, click on this link. It is unreal.)

I’ve been dying to see the debate tonight between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. Mostly for its entertainment value. I’ve been subjected to these little “first person” opinion pieces on Al Jazeera where they let one American narrate why they support a particular candidate. This one features a woman who says she was a democrat, but now because Hillary Clinton is not a nominee she’s voting for McCain. Why? Because Palin is a woman. Since when does having a vagina make one more qualified to lead a country? (Let us not forget the dangerous policies of Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, Benazir Bhutto to name a few women who made the world a worse place.) Feminism does not mean supporting a woman because she’s a woman. Feminism is an ideology that Americans like to water down to the lowest common denominator. Palin is no more a feminist than Clinton is; both have retrograde politics that actually serve to harm women. If you want to see a real feminist politician Cynthia McKinney and her vice presidential running mate Rosa Clemente are your candidates. Anyway here is American moron #1:

Apparently, Katha Pollitt says that the debate will not be as lively as one could hope for given that McCain had the format changed to accommodate Palin’s inexperience:

The McCain campaign, tacitly acknowledging how out of her depth she’ll be no matter how many all-nighters she pulls, demanded – and, shockingly, got – special modifications to the VP debate format so that there would be no follow-up questions. After all, it wouldn’t be right to expect Palin to compete on normal terms with Joe Biden, who has the totally unfair advantage of being deeply versed in domestic and foreign policy and knowing how the world’s business is done. Lower standards for potential leaders of the world’s most powerful country, in the name of diversity. That’s what Republicans stand for now.

Is it not too much to expect that a person a heart beat away from the presidency speak the language of her country proficiently? On Palin’s linguistic deficiencies:

I began to notice the problem during Palin’s interview with Charlie Gibson - not coincidentally, her first major unscripted foray into the public speaking realm. When Gibson asked her whether she agreed with the Bush doctrine - and then had to explain to her what it was – she replied: “If there is legitimate and enough intelligence that tells us that a strike is imminent against American people, we have every right to defend our country.” Even to the untrained ear that sentence sounds awkward. “Legitimate and enough”? It can’t possibly be elitist to suggest that “legitimate and sufficient” would have come off as more literate.

That particular question in the Gibson interview was also horrifying to watch with respect to her inability to answer a simple question about U.S. policy. You can watch the interview and Palin’s incoherent bumbling about on Huffington Post. But the question of Pakistan struck me in ways that seem to differ from others. On the Huffington Post, for instance, and in other places people focus on her straying from McCain’s position on invading Pakistan. (I think this is why McCain had to chaperon Palin on a second Katie Couric interview later.) But what struck me was that Gibson had to ask her two or three times what Palin thought about invading Pakistan. Her answer was so completely incoherent that even Gibson finally said, “let me finish. I got lost in a blizzard of words there,” and then he asked her to give a simple yes or now answer. She didn’t. Or couldn’t. I’m thinking that she believes if she throws enough words around together in a big whirlwind she will be able to bullshit her way through an answer. And in spite of this: mish ma’oul! another American moron on Al Jazeera actually said “she’s articulate.” I kid you not.

For those of you who have not seen the interview with Katie Couric, here are a few highlights, accompanied by commentary from the Young Turks, which is also worth a chuckle. There are three videos. The first shows us that Palin doesn’t read any newspapers–and not only that: she cannot name any!:

The second one appears to show that Palin endorses Hamas victory when they were democratically elected in Palestine–not something I have trouble with, to be sure, but certainly something that puts her at odds with McCain not to mention most elected American officials:

The third one shows that she has no knowledge of any Supreme Court cases aside from Row v. Wade:

Perhaps average Americans can’t name Supreme Court cases either, but the point Palin is running for Vice President. Here is a starter kit for those “average” moronic Americans who want someone to lead them who is “just like them”:

For my British readers, let me explain something. Een mai cahntree, the supreme court has a particular aura and lore. One learns about the court as a schoolchild. A special tone of reverence often creeps into teacher’s voice. If nothing else one is taught pretty early and pretty thoroughly the following: Marbury v Madison (1803) set the precedent of judicial review; the Dred Scott decision (1857) upheld slavery; Plessy v Ferguson (1896) upheld segregation; and Brown v Board of Education (1954) ended it.

For the mildly curious American of Palin’s (and my) generation, round two of supreme court schooling might include United States v Nixon, in which the court unanimously ordered Richard Nixon to turn over the Watergate tapes, which forced Nixon’s resignation; Baker v Carr, which established the principle of one person, one vote; University of California v Bakke, in which the court initially upheld affirmative action; and of course Roe v Wade.

I am not saying that every American knows or should know these eight decisions. Lord knows most Americans probably don’t know how many justices sit on the court (now that I think of it, probably a good question for Palin). But it seems to me not too much to ask that someone who might be the vice-president or even president of the United States should know them, and many more important court decisions.

As a result of this supreme incompetence, even conservative columnists are now asking for Palin to bow out. Kathleen Parker writes:

Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there. Here’s but one example of many from her interview with Hannity:

“Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we’re talking about today. And that’s something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this.”

When Couric pointed to polls showing that the financial crisis had boosted Obama’s numbers, Palin blustered wordily: “I’m not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who’s more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who’s actually done it?”

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

Apparently, Parker got a lot of flack for that column and responded in a second opinion piece on the subject:

Mrs. Palin’s fans say they like her specifically because she’s an outsider, not part of the Washington club. When she flubs during interviews, they identify with that, too. “You see the lack of polish, we applaud it,” one reader wrote.

Of course, there’s a difference between a lack of polish and a lack of coherence. Some of Mrs. Palin’s interview responses can’t even be critiqued on their merits because they’re so nonsensical. But even that is someone else’s fault, say Mrs. Palin’s supporters. The media make her uncomfortable.

Or it’s the fault of those slick politicos who are overmanaging her.

“Let Sarah be Sarah” has become the latest rallying cry among my colleagues on the right. She’ll be fine if we just leave her alone, they say. Between prayers, I might add.

This issue of who is a Washington insider or who is a political elite among the media and voters interviewed on television is disturbing. These are the American morons I keep finding on Al Jazeera. They say things like “I like her, she is a mom just like me.” No, she’s a moron just like you. Since when do we want someone who is “just like us” to be the head of state. She’s not running for prom queen. She’s running for the second most important office in the nation. Why is it that these moronic Americans think that to be coherent, intelligent, well-read is a deficiency when running for the White House? We’ve had eight years of that, do we really want 4 more?

There is a funny piece on Dissident Voice today by William Blum that labels this phenomenon “Palintology”:

What’s the proper term to use to categorize a person who is … blindly patriotic, jingoist, an evangelical Christian creationist, gun and hunting enthusiast, National Rifle Association supporter; denies the science behind global warming, with a philosophy of “dig, dig, dig”, and in foreign policy: “bomb”, “bomb”, “bomb”; untraveled, uneducated, ignorant, a devoted book-banner, racist, opposed to equal rights for gays, fanatically anti-abortion, anti-feminist, and has a 17-year-old daughter pregnant and unmarried?

The proper American term is “white trash”. Or, as the honorable governor of Alaska apparently prefers, “redneck” — “Rouge cou” is what she called a business she registered.

And what do you call the person if on top of all that she declares in the year 2008 that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9-11 and that “a surge in Afghanistan also will lead us to victory there as it has proven to have done in Iraq”? The proper term is “scary” or perhaps “scary moron”.

And what do you think of this person when you learn that she believes that the war in Iraq is a “task that is from God”? I think this is actually a form of insanity. There are people in institutions all over the world charged with killing others, who insist that they were acting under God’s command.

And if the above is not enough to make you fall in love with the woman, consider that she believes that humans coexisted with dinosaurs 6,000 years ago; and have a look at a video of the vice-president/president-to-be undergoing an exorcism performed by a minister to free her body from “witches”.6 When we consider the flak that Barack Obama received because his minister is not in love with US foreign policy, imagine what Palin will get for having a minister who performs witch exorcism. Nothing.

Palin complained in her incoherent interview with Couric that she has never met a head of state, but she somehow thought this was a feather in her cap because she is a Washington outsider. This is also called a lack of experience–something people were saying about Obama until Palin came along. But with the United Nations General Assembly meeting last week she had the opportunity to meet foreign heads of state. After her meeting with Hamid Karzai, he told Al Jazeera that she was “capable.” Hmm…what does that tell us about Karzai?:

The Alaskan governor held brief meetings with Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, and Alvaro Uribe, Colombia’s president, in New York on Tuesday.

“I found her a capable woman. She had the right questions on Afghanistan. She was concerned and she said how she can help,” Karzai said after the meeting at a Manhattan hotel.

Karzai and Palin discussed security problems in Afghanistan, including cross-border attacks from fighters in Pakistan and the need for more US troops in Afghanistan.

After Palin’s meeting with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, the two found themselves in quite an imbroglio:

Zadari’s greeting to the Alaskan governor at their meeting at the UN headquarters in New York - described as “overly-friendly” by the Christian Science Monitor - has earned him a fatwa from some of Pakistan’s radical Muslims.

Benazir Bhutto’s widower tells Alaska’s first woman that she is “even more gorgeous in life” and says he can see why “America is crazy about you”. But what really got radical clerics backs up was his comment that he might hug the Moose-hunting governor if his aide insists hard enough.

For Palin, the incident appears to have confirmed jokes that her meet-and-greet sessions with world leaders at the UN were “speed dating” diplomacy.

But Zadari faces much harsher condemnation for his conduct. His remarks managed to unite both hardline Islamic leaders and Pakistani feminists in condemnation.

One radical Muslim prayer leader said the president shamed the nation with his “indecent gestures, filthy remarks, and repeated praise of a non-Muslim lady wearing a short skirt.” Meanwhile, Tahira Abdullah, a member of Pakistan’s Women’s Action Forum, criticised the president for failing to show decorum and behave like a “mourning widower”.

Of course, no visit to the UN would be complete without an American politician fawning of a leader from the Zionist state:

President Shimon Peres met Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin Thursday and the two exchanged some warm words. Peres was on hand to deliver a speech at an international conference organized by former United States President Bill Clinton.

Upon meeting the Israeli president Palin told him she has wanted to meet him and get to know him for years. She added that the only flag in her office, aside from the American flag, is the Israeli flag, stressing that she wants Israelis to know that she’s been a longtime friend of the Jewish state, and will remain such.

The outrage meter is not high here. It’s obligatory. I’m sure she believes it. I’m sure she’s as Zionist as the rest of them. But then again, aside from Nader and McKinney, what candidate isn’t? But like all right-wing evangelical Christians in the U.S., that enduring support for the Zionist state is usually coupled with anti-Semitism. Apparently, her church in Alaska is host to various anti-Semitic speakers:

Imagine, for a moment, that Obama had a similar record. Imagine that he joined a preacher onstage right after that preacher had spoken about “Israelite” control of the financial sector. Imagine that he had won his first local election against a man with a Jewish-sounding last name amid suggestions that his opponent wasn’t really a Christian. Imagine that he had sat in church this summer and listened without protest to a sermon blaming Israel’s agonies on the country’s adherence to Judaism. All this would likely have resulted in something near hysteria among both the professional media and the demagogues of talk radio.

Yet on Palin, the self-appointed defenders of American Jewry have been fairly quiet. That’s because, when it comes to the chosen people, those on the left are held to very different standards than those on the right. Palin, like many right-wing evangelicals, is wildly hawkish on Israel, and in American politics, that’s seen as synonymous with friendliness toward the Jewish people. Yet as Pat Robertson and many others have proven, promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories is not incompatible with fanatical Zionism. Palin would, in all likelihood, be an ally of that messianic fringe of the Jewish community determined to thwart any possibility of peace with the Middle East. That doesn’t mean her candidacy shouldn’t give other American Jews real reason to worry.

Of course, everyone who is supporting Palin is waving their feminist flags (though if I could control the feminist club they would never be allowed in in the first place). Gloria Steinem puts it this way:

Here’s the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing — the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party — are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women — and to many men too — who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the “white-male-only” sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won’t work. This isn’t the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It’s about making life more fair for women everywhere. It’s not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It’s about baking a new pie.

On the whole what this election is showing us is that it’s all about racism and white privilege as Tim Wise reminds us in his piece “This Is Your Nation on White Privilege”:

White privilege is being able to sing a song about bombing Iran and still be viewed as a sober and rational statesman, with the maturity to be president, while being black and suggesting that the U.S. should speak with other nations, even when we have disagreements with them, makes you dangerously naive and immature.

White privilege is being able to say that you hate “gooks” and “will always hate them,” and yet, you aren’t a racist because, ya know, you were a POW, so you’re entitled to your hatred, while being black and noting that black anger about racism is understandable, given the history of your country, makes you a dangerous bigot.

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism and an absent father is apparently among the “lesser adversities” faced by other politicians, as Sarah Palin explained in her convention speech.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren’t sure about that whole “change” thing. Ya know, it’s just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain…


White privilege is, in short, the problem.

Bill Maher called Palin a bimbo on his show “Real Time” last week. It’s an interesting discussion of Palin with Ralph Nader as one of the guests. Nader takes offense at Maher’s characterization of Palin as a “bimbo.” Nader says it’s sexist; Maher says it’s not and names off men he’d call a bimbo too. Just a point of correction, here, though: a bibmo is a specifically gendered word: “an attractive but empty-headed young woman, esp. one perceived as a willing sex object.” That’s the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition. Empty-headed, yes. Sex object, god, I hope not.

When Zardari met Palin he told her she looked “gorgeous” and that he now “know why the whole of America is crazy about you.”

©2008 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Women's Health & Justice Initiative and the New Orleans Women's Health Clinic (both located in Louisiana) put out talking points to address LaBruzzo's plans. The address the issue of "consent" in a very important way:

Post extendido - Leer más 'Follow up on John LaBruzzo's Plans to Sterilize Poor Women'...

Relationship experts Kathy and Gay Hendricks have written an article about Michelle and Barack Obama’s marriage - arguing that it will bring much-needed healthy role model of a relationship to the White House.

You can read their post here - but it’s actually the point made in the title - The Obama Relationship: A Major Benefit Nobody’s Talking About - which I’m most interested in.

Because, while I realise that how a person treats, and feels about, their spouse can show an awful lot about their character - and that the Obamas’ happy and healthy relationship is certainly a benefit, not a hindrance - I don’t think that a politician’s personal life reflects their ability to lead or make the correct policy decisions (just look at Slicky Willy). And I certainly don’t think that it should be a reason to vote or not vote for him/her.

That said: if Barack Obama was the Republican candidate, there’s no doubt in my mind that that the GOP would be making an awful lot of his 16-year-long, apparently faithful, marriage that’s produced two beautiful daughters. What with them being the party of ‘Christian family values’, an’ all.

The Democrats have made no such fuss over the Obamas’ marriage - and I, for one, am delighted about that. I’m glad that this is “the major benefit that nobody’s talking about”. Because even if Barack and Michelle are a good role model for a relationship - and I do believe that they are, as they truly seem to be equals and best friends who openly love and respect each other - I don’t think that should be a reason to vote them into the White House. And it’s nice to see that somewhere along the line, the Dems seem to have made the same judgement, too.

Statistically one in three U.S. women will have an abortion in her lifetime, the study found, but that risk does not apply to all women equally. Women who choose abortion are more likely to be in their 20s or 30s than in their teens or 40s; they're more likely to have children already; and they're also more likely to be black or Hispanic than white. The abortion rates in 2004 were 50 abortions per 1,000 black women and 28 abortions per 1,000 Hispanic women, compared with 11 out of every 1,000 white women.

I noticed two interesting things about this passage. First, since when was getting an abortion considered something that women were "at risk of"? And similarly, if having an abortion is 'risky' then why isn't what causes so many abortions (poverty, abuse at home, lack of resources, etc) considered 'risky'? Why isn't it considered a national health crisis that so many women in the U.S. are suffering through conditions that make 'risky' behaviors like abortion a necessity?

Second, the 'experts' quoted in the article just couldn't seem to figure out why it is that there is such a racial disparity between black/Latina women and white women. Maybe, say the experts, it's lack of education on family planning?

I personally wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that black/Latina women make less money that white women do (on average) and are always hit first during economic crisis (like the one we're in now) and may actually desperately want the the pregnancies that they experience, but can't afford to carry it through?

Could having a baby, in these cases, be privilege that black and Latina and all women of color, simply aren't entitled to because of draconian back to work laws and the racism that puts them on the lowest rung of the economic ladder?

via/TIME

Imagine my surprise when you find out that this is not true.

In reality, and had any journalist in the MSM outlets bothered to do their job instead of working for the Obama campaign 24/7, there was a state law forbidding charging victims of rape for their rape kits since 2000. As for where it all came from, the chief of Police( chief of police, not Palin) in Wasilla wanted to have the Insurance companies(Insurance companies, not the victims) to pay for them, with the intention of billing it ultimately to the rapists eventually. However, there isn;t a single piece of record that shows that a single victim's insurance was ever billed for it. If this practice still seems creepy or exclusive to macho,
rough-and-tumble Alaska, well, it happens to be the practice in other
states, too, like North Carolina (until recently) and … Illinois.

And can you guess who co-sponsored that bill in Illinois?

Can you say Barack Obama?

Have a nice day!