Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

ALASKA GOV. SARAH PALIN HAS TOUTED HER RECORD AS A REFORMER AGAINST EARMARK ABUSES

REGULAR REQUESTS TO CONGRESS AS MAYOR BY ALASKA GOVERNOR

The accompanying article by Seattle Times reporters Hal Bernton and David Heath with an Anchorage dateline reads as follows:

"As she introduced herself to the nation Friday as the Republican vice-presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin touted her record as a reformer who worked to end 'abuses of earmark spending in Congress`.

"But earmarks have never been a dirty word in Alaska, a huge state dotted with small communities that have enormous dollar needs for sewers, roads and other projects.

"Instead, earmarks -- pet projects that members of Congress fund but that no federal agency has requested -- have become a main stay of political life here, and one that Palin embraced from early on in her career as a mayor of Wasilla to the governor's mansion in Juneau.

"Just this year, she sent to Sen. Ted Stevens, R - Alaska, a proposal for 31 earmarks totaling $197 million -- more than any other state."

One of Palin's requests was for science research, such as $449,000 to assess halibut harvesting, certainly Palin's husband, a fisherman, would like that "earmark".  There's nothing like keeping harmony at home.

Gov. Sarah Palin represents not only a dark horse vice-presidential candidate choice, but also a potential Dark Ages re-run.

Sarah Palin has emphatically declared that she thinks global warming is a hoax.  Never mind that 57 Nobel Prize winning scientists have warned that global warming is a threat to our planet earth.

A September 4 headline from a page 2 Seattle Times article read:

CANADA'S ARCTIC ICE SHELF LOSES ANOTHER BIG CHUNK -- THE SIZE OF MANHATTAN

Charmaine Noronia of the Associated Press wrote:

"Toronto -- A chunk of ice shelf nearly the size of Manhattan has broken away from Ellesmere Island in Canada's northern arctic, another dramatic indication of how warmer temperatures are changing the polar frontier, scientists said Wednesday.

"Derek Mueller, an arctic ice shelf specialist at Trent University in Ontario said the 4,500-year old Markham ice shelf separated in early August and the 19 square mile shelf is now adrift in the Arctic Ocean."

John McCain claims that he despises "earmarks".  Having declared his emphatic opposition, he then selects Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin "queen of earmarks" as he touts her record as that of a "reformer".  This nomination along with his sharp rhetoric about Palin and her alleged opposition to "earmarks" calls into serious question his thinking.

Given the foregoing, did McCain simply pick a female for office to capitalize on allegedly "disenchanted" Hillary Clinton voters.  Such a choice makes no sense from that standpoint either given that Senator Clinton told her former campaign manager that she believes in "nothing" that Palin espouses based on Palin's record and statements.

Sarah believes the first man Adam was created by a rib from Eve, as recorded in Genesis, the first chapter of the Bible's Old Testament.

The review of the book "The First Man, Then Adam" by Irwin Ginsberg, published by Simon and Schuster reviewed by Gordon Melton in Fate Magazine, stated:

" ... This appears to be another of those miserably written subsidy press books cranked out by semi-literates who make a habit of taking the Bible literally, and ignoring all scientific advances since the 1800's."

Why, that sounds like a succinct analysis of Sarah Palin's thinking.