Troubling Information

IT IS STRONGLY RECOMMENDED THAT YOU READ THIS DOCUMENT IN ORDER, FROM BEGINNING TO END, AS DEFINITIONS ARE BUILT ON TOP OF ONE-ANOTHER, AND UNDERSTANDING OF THESE DEFINITIONS IS NECESSARY TO FOLLOW LATER INTERPRETATIONS AND ANALYSIS

As we send our young men and women overseas in a war zone to fight for democracy and freedoms, including freedom of the press, we've really got to have a mutually beneficial relationship here with those fighting the freedom of the press, and then the press, though not taking advantage and exploiting a situation, perhaps they would want to capture and abuse the privilege. We just want truth, we want fairness, we want balance.

The rumors that Trig Palin was actually the son of Bristol Palin were started last spring by Republicans in Alaska that don't like Sarah Palin. None of the well-trafficked left-wing bloggers ran with this rumor. It appeared in diaries submitted by users and on lower trafficked blogs that are not usually associated with the blogosphere. We used good judgment and respect in not racing off to push unfounded rumors affecting a 17-year old girl. Andrew Sullivan is not a part of the left-wing blogosphere. He is a reformed Republican.

But more offensive than this false charge that the 'leftosphere and their pals in the MSM' pushed this rumor is the idea that 'decent Americans of all political stripes [should] respect their wish to keep the young couple out of the news.' It is the Palins that decided to put the young couple in the news. And not just the news. This will become a topic of discussion in every country in the world. Everyone will now know that Bristol Palin had underage, out-of-wedlock sex, and became pregnant. They'll know it in Buenos Aires and in Khartoum. They'll know it in Ho Chi Minh City and they'll know it Saskatoon. That's not the fault of the 'leftosphere' or the fault of Andrew Sullivan. It's the Palins fault for accepting the nomination to be vice-president. Bristol Palin is going to have a baby in December or January. Did they think the world wouldn't notice? . . . .

This is an invasion of stupidity into the body politic. John McCain probably never asked whether Bristol Palin was pregnant because that would be rude. He probably asked, "Is there anything else that you can think of that might embarrass the campaign?" And the Palins probably furrowed their brows and thought very hard and then said, "Nope, nothing we can think of."

But even if they did tell John McCain that their seventeen year-old daughter was pregnant and then decided to wait until Hurricane Gustav made landfall to divulge that information, it still isn't our fault that sheepherders in New Zealand will know all about little Bristol's premarital sex. That's their fault for not protecting their daughter.

We rely on elected officials not to use the power of their office to pursue personal agendas or vendettas. It's called an abuse of power. There is ample evidence that Palin used her power as governor to get her ex-brother-in-law fired. When his boss refused to fire him, she fired his boss. She first denied Monegan's claims of pressure to fire Wooten and then had to amend her story when evidence proved otherwise. The available evidence now suggests that she 1) tried to have an ex-relative fired from his job for personal reasons, something that was clearly inappropriate, and perhaps illegal, though possibly understandable in human terms, 2) fired a state official for not himself acting inappropriately by firing the relative, 3) lied to the public about what happened and 4) continues to lie about what happened.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin began building clout in her state's political circles in part by serving as a director of an independent political group organized by the now embattled Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.

Palin's name is listed on 2003 incorporation papers of the "Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service, Inc.," a 527 group that could raise unlimited funds from corporate donors. The group was designed to serve as a political boot camp for Republican women in the state. She served as one of three directors until June 2005, when her name was replaced on state filings.

Palin's relationship with Alaska's senior senator may be one of the more complicated aspects of her new position as Sen. John McCain's running mate; Stevens was indicted in July 2008 on seven counts of corruption.

-- Matthew Mosk on washingtonpost.com's The Green Zone weblog, September 1, 2008.

WASHINGTON -- Days after he cracked that being rich in the U.S. meant earning at least $5 million a year, Republican presidential candidate John McCain acknowledged that he wasn't sure how many houses he and his wealthy wife actually own.

"I think -- I'll have my staff get to you," McCain responded to a question posed by Politico, according to a story Thursday on the publication's Web site. "It's condominiums where -- I'll have them get to you."

Later, the McCain campaign told Politico that McCain and his wife, Cindy, have at least four in three states, Arizona, California and Virginia. Newsweek recently estimated the two owned at least seven properties.

-- Douglass K. Daniel, "How Many Houses Do the McCains Own? Republican Candidate for President Not Sure Himself," Minneapolis Star-Tribune, August 21, 2008.

Some of the richest people I've ever known in my life are the most unhappy. I think that rich is -- should be defined by a home, a good job and education and the ability to hand to our children a more prosperous and safer world than the one that we inherited. I don’t want to take any money from the rich. I want everybody to get rich. I don't believe in class warfare or redistribution of the wealth. But I can tell you for example there are small businessmen and women who are working 16 hours a day, seven days a week that some people would classify as, quote, 'rich,' my friends, who want to raise their taxes and raise their payroll taxes. Let's have -- keep taxes low. Let's give every family in America a $7,000 tax credit for every child they have. Let's give them a $5,000 refundable tax credit to go out and get the health insurance of their choice. Let's not have the government take over the health care system in America.

So I think if you're just talking about income, how about $5 million. But seriously, I don't think you can -- I don't think, seriously that -- the point is that I'm trying to make here seriously -- and I'm sure that comment will be distorted, but the point is -- the point is -- the point is that we want to keep people's taxes low and increase revenues. And my friend, it was not taxes that mattered in America in the last several years. It was spending. Spending got completely out of control. We spent money in a way that mortgaged our kids' futures. My friends, we spent $3 million of your money to study the DNA of bears in Montana. Now I don't know if that was a paternity issue or a criminal issue, but the point is -- but the point is it was $3 million of your money. It was your money.

And you know, we laugh about it, but we cry and we should cry because the Congress is supposed to be careful stewards of your tax dollars. so what did they just do in the middle of an energy crisis when in California we are paying $4 a gallon for gas, went on vacation for five weeks. I guarantee you, two things they never miss, a pay raise and a vacation. And we should stop that and call them back and not raise your taxes. We should not and cannot raise taxes in tough economic times. So it doesn’t matter really what my definition of rich is because I don’t want to raise anybody’s taxes.

-- John McCain at the Saddleback Church Civil Forum, Lake Forest, CA, August 16, 2008.

The sky is continuously blue all across.
There's no breeze: In other words,
We're not being chilled in any way at all.
We're sitting under a ledge of a sort of roof.
We each have our separate chair.

-- Iz Gold, 8/10/2008

Wicked boys fight like dogs and other brutes, by which they not only do each other great injury, but by such conduct they disgrace the human form and christian character. Here are seen two boys thus shamefully engaged. What a sight they present! Boys endowed with faculties capable of serving their Creator, and of planning means for each others' happiness are here seen wallowing in the mud and dirt, and striving to do each other harm! Perhaps one of these boys has for an excuse, that the other abused him and provoked him to such a degree that he could not endure it. Good children who happen to fall into the society of bad boys should immediately avoid their company, suffer abuse rather than resent it, render good for evil, and by so doing they will put to shame their enemies and gain the victory. Bears and lions, we know, sometimes growl and fight,

But children, you should never let such ugly passions rise:
Your little hands were never made to tear each others' eyes.

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

-- Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan