I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears. I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists. But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war. I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity. Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God." Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not. She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes. Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth. Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air. Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be. I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression. If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain. Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?
Eve Ensler: Drill, Drill, DrillSeptember 2008
Eve Ensler: Drill, Drill, Drill
i heart eve ensler, even more so now than ever before. this woman has awed and inspired me for many years. i came to know her through the Vagina Monologues, which i was lucky enough to see her perform solo back in 2001, and have followed her work --literary and altruistic-- ever since. she is a playwright/performer/activist and the founder of V-Day, a global movement to end (sexual) violence against women and girls. they just celebrated their 10th anniversary, V to the Tenth, in New Orleans. google her if you dare and pass this piece along to the ones you love, especially those with a vagina! thanx. i hope these words find you all snug as bugs in rugs. take care and g'nite. <3, B.
taken from the Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-ensler/drill-drill-drill_b_124829.html, during yet another shameless, self-imposed media blitz brought on by severe tropical weather and political unrest :l
This is just shameful. This shows you what the Obama/Biden campaign is really all about.
Obama claims he is running a campaign opposed to special interest groups. What puts the lie to such claims is this button put out by the Obama campaign:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/SGeorge/Obama_polar_bears.jpg
Palin opposed listing of the polar bear as a threatened species before the Department of Interior made its decision to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act. Earlier this month, her state government sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over its decision. In a 5 January 2008 op-ed column in the New York Times she wrote: [Polar bears] are worthy of our utmost efforts to protect them and their Arctic habitat. But adding polar bears to the nation’s list of endangered species, as some are now proposing, should not be part of those efforts. This month, the secretary of the interior is expected to rule on whether polar bears should be listed under the Endangered Species Act. I strongly believe that adding them to the list is the wrong move at this time. My decision is based on a comprehensive review by state wildlife officials of scientific information from a broad range of climate, ice and polar bear experts. The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, has argued that global warming and the reduction of polar ice severely threatens the bears’ habitat and their existence. In fact, there is insufficient evidence that polar bears are in danger of becoming extinct within the foreseeable future — the trigger for protection under the Endangered Species Act.] http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/index.php/csw/details/palin_polarbear_climate_anwr/
I'm curious to know which officals and scientific evidence she consulted that suggests polar bears are not in danger of becomming extinct in the foreseeable future. Probably the same ones she consulted when making the satement:
“A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made,”
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/sarah_palin_vp/2008/08/29/126139.html
Then again, she also supports the barbaric areal slaughter of wolves. So not only is she anti-polar bear but she's anti-wolf to!
http://www.defendersactionfund.org/newsroom/sarah_palin.html
And this just in....which other of God's creatures would she not mind seeing extinct? Beluga Whales, for no other reason than their inconvenience to gas and oil development.
http://gov.state.ak.us/archive-24287.
htmlhttp://www.fakr.noaa.gov/newsreleases/2007/beluga041907.htm
This woman would be one line (a flat one) away from being President. She's a viper waiting to strike and everything Environmentalists hold dear. She claims to be pro-life, but supports the death penalty, and slaughter/extinction of endangered animals. Get the word out and make this more of an issue. Stop pandering for the black vote, the mexican vote, the female vote, the poor vote etc....start paying attention to the GREEN VOTE!!!! That's the vote that's going to decide this election because that's the vote that truly extends across party lines. Polar Bears for Change 2008!
Members of the Alaska delegation argued that ANWR isn’t the pristine refuge that environmentalists claim. “The opposition is based on premises we think are totally false,” said alternate delegate Frank McQueary. “It’s not what you see in the ads. It’s a barren arctic plain.”
Tom Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, agreed. “It looks like Mars and we want to dig on a part the size of a golf course. You get into that a lot easier than you do deep-water oil wells,” Donohue said. “If you’re not going to do it, you’ve got no credibility if you don’t go see it.”
SEE THE STORY AT THIS PAGE:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/09/03/will-palin-change-the-game-on-anwr/
WHO IS FRANK McQUEARY?
Frank and Linda McQueary were divorced in 1988. The sole issue arising out of the superior court's division of their property is the valuation of the "Diamond H" ranch, a horse stabling and riding business which the couple co-owned.
E-Terra believes that quality applications are a cornerstone of any successful GIS, and we are known for developing and implementing applications that are powerful, flexible, and easy to use.
E-Terra is dedicated to delivering value to our customers through integration and innovation of GIS, Database, CAD and Internet/Intranet technologies.
Our clients range from large public agencies to small businesses. We develop leading-edge software interfaces. E-Terra provides analysis, systems and data integration, data automation and conversion, installation and configuration, on-site software support, training and project management services.
E-Terra helps customers identify the most appropriate technologies and application to build and maintain rewarding GIS solutions. E-Terra provides fully integrated solutions-- not just specialized hardware and software systems-- which may include customized applications, information, project management and dependable delivery.
We maintain the highest level of technical skill and awareness of new product within our industry.
Mapping software; Mapping the Alaskan Wilderness...Do you see any conflicts of interest arising from a friendship with Frank McQueary?
Today, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) will offer an amendment to the Senate’s appropriation bill to transfer the $223 million that Congress had previously approved for a bridge in Ketchikan, Alaska, to fund reconstruction of a hurricane-damaged bridge in Louisiana. Dubbed the “Bridge to Nowhere,” the bridge in Alaska would connect the town of Ketchikan (population 8,900) with its airport on the Island of Gravina (population 50) at a cost to federal taxpayers of $320 million, by way of three separate earmarks in the recent highway bill. At present, a ferry service runs to the island, but some in the town complain about its wait (15 to 30 minutes) and fee ($6 per car). The Gravina Island bridge project is an embarrassment to the people of Alaska and the U.S. Congress. Fiscally responsible Members of Congress should be eager to zero out its funding.
Sarah Palin is suing the U.S. government over its classification of polar bears as a threatened species. Her real concern is that this classification will interrupt her oil pipelines in Alaska. An excerpt from an article in the Anchorage Daily News:
"'She's either grossly misinformed or intentionally misleading, and both are unbecoming,' said Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity. 'Alaska deserves better.'"
Siegel goes on to call Palin's suit "unconscionable."
See the full story here:
http://www.adn.com/polarbears/story/413710.html
I haven't posted anyhting thus far, but I just spotted this on youtube and thought it would be somethign worth getting out there. John McCAan's vice presidential pick is anti-polar bear! Seriously. She sued the Federal Government recently for putting the Polar Bear on the endagered speices list. Why? Because it was in part stopping the oil companies from drilling in the protected lands in ANWAR. But don't take my word for it. Hear it from the lady herself while speaking to Glenn Beck.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKwZNwdowa4&feature=related
