Posts tagged Sarah Palin

Beware The Cuckoo’s Egg

32
3 months ago
by filistro in
186274

Cuckoo’s egg in a reed warbler’s nest

The cuckoo does not build a nest or rear its own young. Instead it lays its eggs, one by one, in the nests of other, smaller birds. When the chicks hatch, the larger cuckoo chick imme­di­ately pushes the smaller babies out of the nest to their deaths and then ben­e­fits from the tire­less efforts of the lit­tle par­ent birds who exhaust them­selves, often to the point of their own death, by feed­ing the rav­en­ous inter­loper until it has grown much big­ger and stronger than they are.

This, in a rather sad way, is what has hap­pened to the Tea Party. (more…)

You Can’t Hide Your Lyin’ Feat

64
8 months ago
by Monotreme in

Source: AzureGhost, polit​i​cal​gates​.blogspot​.com

Those who know me, know that I like to run half-​​marathons. The dis­tance (13.1 miles) is not too great, and as a friend said this morn­ing, “I can run a half-​​marathon and still mow the lawn that after­noon.” I’ve tried the marathon dis­tance, run­ning some­where between 15 and 20 of them (I’ve lost count).

When you’re a run­ner, scrupu­lous hon­esty is prized. That’s why a lot of us perked up our ears when Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Paul Ryan (R-​​Janesville, WI) claimed to have run a marathon in under three hours (called a “sub-​​3″ by run­ners). My PR (per­sonal record) is 4:12, a num­ber that’s burned in my mem­ory. Every time I run I have that num­ber in mind. An “aver­age” marathon time nation­wide, across all age groups, is about 4:15. For­mer Sen­a­tor John Edwards posted a blaz­ing 3:30 (the bet­ter to run away from com­pro­mis­ing sit­u­a­tions, appar­ently); for­mer Pres­i­dent George W. Bush owns a much-​​more-​​than-​​respectable 3:44:52; for­mer Gov­er­nor Sarah Palin has a damn good 3:59:36; and for­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Al Gore has a rather piti­ful 4:54:25. As About​.com snark­ily sug­gests, “If you’re hop­ing to beat a politician’s time and think Bush and Palin’s marks are a lit­tle out of your league, Al Gore’s time is a lot more achievable.”

On the Hugh Hewitt [HH] radio show, Ryan [PR] makes a smooth claim that he was a fan­tas­tic run­ner as a young man. From the transcript:

PR: No, I was stu­dent gov­ern­ment and ath­let­ics, honor soci­ety, you know, that kind of thing. I was kind of a com­bi­na­tion. I was class pres­i­dent my junior year, I was the school board rep my senior year. I let­tered in var­sity, you know, my first year in high school, mostly soc­cer and track. I was a dis­tance run­ner and a soc­cer player. So kind of well-​​rounded. I can’t, I can play a cow­bell. That’s about it for instruments.

HH: Are you still running?

PR: Yeah, I hurt a disc in my back, so I don’t run marathons any­more. I just run ten miles or yes [ed.: he said ‘less’].

HH: But you did run marathons at some point?

PR: Yeah, but I can’t do it any­more, because my back is just not that great.

HH: I’ve just gotta ask, what’s your per­sonal best?

PR: Under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-​​something.

HH: Holy smokes. All right, now you go down to Miami University…

PR: I was fast when I was younger, yeah.

(more…)

The 2012 Republican Primary Field: October, 2011

61
1 year ago
by Monotreme in

Once a month, we give a run­down of the Repub­li­can field for the 2012 Pres­i­den­tial nomination.

In June, there were 11 can­di­dates and poten­tial can­di­dates judged by Intrade investors to have a bet­ter than 1% chance of secur­ing the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion. Through­out July and August and Sep­tem­ber the “more than 1% on Intrade” club still num­bered nine, with about half unde­clared can­di­dates. Now there are seven, all offi­cially declared. In a sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ment, this month’s run­down has none of the unde­clared can­di­date hoo-​​hah that sul­lied pre­vi­ous months. The time for late­com­ers and maybe-​​candidates seems to have truly passed, and the advance­ment of the pri­mary cal­en­dar has the side effect of solid­i­fy­ing the field.

Still, the “any­body but Rom­ney” move­ment seems strong, but its adher­ents have fallen into a sulky silence. Could Newt be next month’s anti-​​Romney? There’s a dis­con­nect between the polls and polit­i­cal futures markets.

As with past months, I gath­ered Real Clear Pol­i­tics aggre­gated poll aver­ages and Octo­ber 19 Intrade prob­a­bil­i­ties for each can­di­date, rounded to the near­est whole num­ber. (more…)

Open Mic October 7

39
1 year ago
by Logarchism.com in

The End of an Era: Steve Jobs 1955–2011

Another week with no Repub­li­can debate. Chris Christie said he absolutely, pos­i­tively was not a can­di­date for Pres­i­dent; if the pat­tern holds, pun­dits will now observe that he left the door open, and spec­u­late on when he will announce. Sarah Palin, per­haps try­ing to steal Christie’s moment in the spot­light, declared she is also not a can­di­date. SCOTUS began its new term. Sen­a­tor Harry Reid launched a nuclear test, so to speak. The Nobel com­mit­tee gave an award for dark energy. The com­puter indus­try, and the world, lost a vision­ary.

So many things to talk about, and the ball’s in your court. What’s on your mind?

Don’t see an arti­cle on a par­tic­u­lar topic, but want to talk about it some­where? This is Open Mic. Talk about what­ever you want, but stay respectful.

We cre­ate a new Open Mic every week to give a clean slate, but feel free to add to this topic at any time.

The Ideology Gamble

109
1 year ago
by Michael Weiss in

Los­ing with Chris­tine seems like a funny way of winning.

Last year, peo­ple all over the polit­i­cal uni­verse were call­ing Repub­li­cans crazy for reject­ing the more mod­er­ate Mike Cas­tle, Sue Low­den, and Jane Nor­ton for the more extreme Chris­tine O’Donnell, Shar­ron Angle, and Ken Buck. After all, those three Sen­ate seats would have been enough to shift the major­ity from the Democ­rats to the Republicans.

The response from many in the Tea Party wing of the Repub­li­can Party is that it’s bet­ter to lose with a “real” con­ser­v­a­tive than to win with a RINO. Is that posi­tion really all that crazy? It’s worth inves­ti­gat­ing, given that this year’s lead­ing Pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates, other than Mitt Rom­ney, have all been work­ing dili­gently to find just how far off the right end of the polit­i­cal spec­trum they can go. (more…)

The 2012 Republican Primary Field: September, 2011

30
1 year ago
by Monotreme in

Once a month, we give a run­down of the Repub­li­can field for the 2012 Pres­i­den­tial nomination.

In June, there were 11 can­di­dates and poten­tial can­di­dates judged by Intrade investors to have a bet­ter than 1% chance of secur­ing the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion. In both July and August, the “more than 1% on Intrade” club still num­bered nine, and only five had declared: Texas Gov­er­nor Rick Perry, for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov­er­nor Mitt Rom­ney, Min­nesota Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Michele Bach­mann, for­mer Utah Gov­er­nor and Ambas­sador to China Jon Hunts­man, and Texas Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ron Paul. The club still num­bers nine. Wis­con­sin Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Paul Ryan, who had a Wis­con­sin Spring about the time of our August run­down, is off the list and appar­ently not run­ning. For­mer House Speaker Newt Gin­grich has clawed his way back in. For­mer Alaska Gov­er­nor Sarah Palin is still teas­ing us.

As with past months, I gath­ered Real Clear Pol­i­tics aggre­gated poll aver­ages and August 17 Intrade prob­a­bil­i­ties for each can­di­date, rounded to the near­est whole num­ber. (more…)

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