Posts (page 2)
Palin puts faith in God for 2012
Defeated Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has said she hopes God will "show her the way" on any future bid for the White House.
The Alaska governor said 2012 was too far off for her to decide whether she would run for the US presidency.
Mrs Palin, who was accused of going rogue during the election campaign, also admitted veering "off script", but denied harming the Republican ticket.
She has been touted as a possible White House candidate in four years' time.
In a wide-ranging interview with Fox News, the 44-year-old said: "I'm like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I'm like, don't let me miss the open door. Show me where the open door is."
'Open door'
The mother-of-five added: "And if there is an open door in [20]12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I'll plough through that door."
Mrs Palin admitted occasionally not having toed the line during the campaign, but added: "If I went off script once in a while, I can't for the life of me remember any one time where it would have harmed [Republican presidential nominee Sen John McCain], or the ticket."
She also said she neither wanted nor asked for the wardrobe costing at least $150,000 (£96,000) that the Republican Party controversially bankrolled for her during the campaign.
"I did not order the clothes. Did not ask for the clothes," she told Fox News. "I would have been happy to have worn my own clothes from day one."
Dismissing reports that she had been unaware Africa was a continent, Mrs Palin said: "Never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or is it a continent."
This week, Mrs Palin has also scheduled national interviews with other TV networks and she plans to attend the Republican Governors Association conference in Florida.
Correspondents say she has a range of political options, including seeking re-election as governor of Alaska in 2010 or challenging the state's Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski.
There is also a possibility she could run in a special election for the seat of Ted Stevens, Alaska's other senator.
His bid for re-election last week remains undecided, although he may be forced to step aside whatever the outcome after being convicted of corruption.
Hmmm.
So I'm like "God," (ya know, cos I talk to him and stuff) "Can ya please just smite her and stuff? Maybe while she's ploughing through one of those doors you're going to open for her?"
My "very good friend", Irish Robinson has had her achievements recognised again. Stonewall has awarded her their 'Bigot of the Year' award for 2008.
No doubt this is in recognition for her sterling work in advancing the acceptance of gays and lesbians in Northern Ireland (where she is minister for health in the non-functioning Mickey Mouse executive).
No. Not really.
It's because she has a record of blatant homophobia and, despite her position as an elected representative, sees fit to spout gibberish about "curing homosexuals".
Yes, I've blogged about this nut-job before. Oh, and here. Sorry for the repetition. I'm just incredibly angry about the lack of an sort of apology, or the fact that there was little or no censure from her government.
Possibly because she's married to the First Minister, Peter Robinson (only in Northern Ireland...).
The BBC broadcast the DUP's annual conference this year, where her husband got a few chuckles from the dinosaurs in attendence when he mentioned her lack of political correctness (see his speech here). It's not about being PC. It's about respecting people and treating everyone equally. And (ideally) it should be about keeping your personal religious views separate from work... especially when religion has had such a negative impact on society, as in Norn Iron.
I'm sure the Stonewall award will find pride of place on her mantlepiece.
Italy's PM, Silvio Berlusconi, has managed to screw-up his response to Obama's election victory, referring to Obama's "tan". Ahem. Obviously, the man's an enormous tosser and just doesn't know when to keep his trap shut. I was going to pull together a list of his best one-liners, but helpfully the Telegraph has done it for me.
My favourites from the list:
On Mussolini: "Mussolini never killed anyone. Mussolini used to send people on vacation in internal exile."
On business: "Another reason to invest in Italy is that we have beautiful secretaries – superb girls."
To a German MEP: "In Italy there is a man producing a film on Nazi concentration camps – I shall put you forward for the role of Kapo (a guard chosen from among the prisoners)."
On left-wing voters: "I trust the intelligence of the Italian people too much to think that there are so many pricks around who would vote against their own best interests."
On plans to base an EU food standards agency in Finland instead of Parma: "Parma is synonymous with good cuisine. The Finns don't even know what prosciutto is."
Before the 2006 election, which he lost, he said any Italian who didn't vote for him would be a "dickhead".
Tosser.
Many commentators (press and blogosphere) are taking great satisfaction from the meltdown and sniping among Republicans. My overwhelming reaction is one of relief that Obama won, accompanied by not a little satisfaction that Palin has to drag her nasty little ass back to Alaska.
This morning's Guardian hit the nail on the head for me, identifying the feeling as 'Palinfreude'. You can read the article in its entirety here, but some of my favourite exerpts include:
Liberals, indulging in what the writer Andrew Sullivan termed "Palinfreude", were presented with a smorgasbord, ranging from the tale of how McCain's pro-Palin foreign policy adviser had his Blackberry confiscated in the closing days of the race, to how the party had paid for Todd Palin's silk boxer shorts.
The fighting consuming the McCain and Palin camps threatened to derail broader efforts to overhaul the Republican party after Tuesday's decisive defeat, for which some insiders blamed Sarah Palin. Veterans of the right gathered in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, on Thursday for a summit on the movement's future, but even as they did so, the blame went on.
"Ladies and gentlemen, it is worse than I thought," Limbaugh told listeners. "What the Republican party, led by disgruntled and failed McCain staffers, is trying to do to Sarah Palin, is unconscionable ... There are country-club, blue-blood ... Republicans who want nothing to do with a firebrand conservative [who] can fire up people." He added: "We're going to be taking on two things here [over] the next four years: Obama, and our own party establishment."
It goes on:
The main ammunition in the war was a lengthening list of allegations against Palin: that she thought Africa was a country; that she failed to inform the campaign about a scheduled call with Nicolas Sarkozy which turned out to be a prank; that she refused to undergo coaching prior to her disastrous interviews with CBS anchor Katie Couric; that she couldn't name the three countries in the North America Free Trade Agreement; and that the party had spent up to $70,000 (£45,000) on "wardrobe items" for Palin and "luxury goods" for her husband, in addition to the $150,000 already reported. (Some of the claims were revealed by Fox, hence the boycott.)
The New York Times reported that when Palin met McCain in Phoenix on Tuesday night, she held the text of a speech she planned to deliver, in defiance of campaign convention, and had to be overruled.
While it's interesting to hear what the various aides have t say about Palin now, it's a 'gosh-darned' shame we didn't know all of this before the election. The fundamental blame for this debacle lies at the feet of whoever chose Palin as McCain's running-mate, and I'm not entirely sure it was McCain. She turned more people off his campaign than anything he said or did and we finally got to see the old McCain when he presented his concession speech.
I've been a fan of online to-do list generator "Remember the Milk" for some time. However, I found myself printing off the weekly schedule for when I was going to be away froma computer, and then inevitably, losing it or leaving it at home. I wanted mobile online access to the service and now my prayers have been answered.
RtM have released an app for the iPhone, which not only allows you to access your lists over the air, but also syncronises changes and permits offline access for when you have no signal (e.g. on the tube or on a flight).
The app is free to download from the iTunes app store - but it does required a pro account with RtM to work. This costs $25 per year, but for me it's worth every penny. If you want to try it out, you can download the app and take advantage of a free 15-day trial. Give it a go.
In the UK they've passed a law saying that smokers will not be allowed to become foster parents, do you think this is fair?
I know I'll probably sound like a rabid Daily Mail reader, but I think this is madness. They're crying out for suitable foster parents here in the UK, yet they now want to exclude vast numbers of potential candidates for this most difficult of jobs. Do they ("they" being the faceless authorities that make these decisions) believe it's better for a child to be raised in a care home than with caring foster parents, just because those parents smoke? I just don't understand it.
What next? Excluding people based on their political beliefs? The fact that they have poor fashion sense? That they pick their nose?
....except that it features a chimp on a segway. Epic.
