Oh, how I love to hate on Sarah Palin

As I've been relatively busy as of late, some things have tempted me, but nothing has prompted me to return to the blogosphere. Now, however, since Sarah Palin's back in the media ranting nonsensically, I've decided it's time for me to write something again. First and foremost, I must admit that I love to hate Sarah Palin. So while I'm ranting about her, I guess I can't complain too much that this moron is back in the news because it gives me so much joy to trash her. I guess I like easy targets. What can I say? ;)

Ahem, now then. Well, we all know that Sarah Palin is an idiot. If you'd like to know precisely why, you should check out earlier posts of mine. This time her idiocy isn't regarding science...although, I think I might be able to make a case for that. No, this time, she's all fired up about some remarks David Letterman made regarding her daughter Bristol. Apparently, Palin is not familiar with the format of the jokes presented on the late-night talk shows because she first mistakenly assumed that when Letterman implied A-Rod impregnated her daughter that Letterman was referring to her daughter Willow who was at the game. Letterman later said he was referring to Bristol which makes more sense given that um...well...there's living proof that Bristol's had sex...and could probably be coaxed into more of it with an oh-so-famous baseball player. The fact that Bristol wasn't present doesn't really matter as jokes on these late-night shows sometimes don't quite fit the situation. Palin's second erroneous assumption is that Letterman was implying rape and/or statutory rape which is clearly not what he said...and um, once again, Bristol certainly isn't a virgin (and we've already cleared up that the comment was about Bristol, not Willow), so what evidence is there that Letterman was implying rape?

Now, as much as I hate Sarah Palin's gun-toting, conservative, environment-hating, science-ignoring attitude, I'll put on my feminist hat for just a second. I do think that she has a point about the comments. They were a bit over the top. Saying that someone is knocked up could imply that the woman has little control over the matter (although, I think you could make the case that it doesn't imply anything other than that conception took place as a result of intercourse). However, I am confused by Palin's hypocrisy. How can she decry Letterman's comments as degrading to women, yet be anti-abortion? She would have a woman's ultimate right stripped away from her, yet complain about comments that may or may not have been degrading towards women depending on how you look at it. To me, this is what gives her away. To me, it seems that she's missing her 15 minutes of fame and doing everything she can (including dragging her family into all this crap) and stirring people up to try to get Letterman fired to get back into the limelight. I would just say that she needs to toughen up her skin and learn to take a freaking joke, but like I said, I think she's just using this to put herself back into the mainstream media that she loves to complain about even though she secretly actually loves them. Anyway, as I said before, I'm not exactly complaining that she wants her 15 minutes back because that means I here ranting to you all about her and oh, how I love to hate on Sarah Palin. ;)

Now, if you want to know how I turn this into an argument about science...you'll have to comment or something because I don't think I want to be quite that mean and deface the "clean" image of my blog. ;)

I'm just not that into it, in fact, I'm actually quite repulsed by it

So, I just went to see He's Just Not That Into You last night and was horrified. First of all, I read the book and this post will contain spoilers for the book and the movie, so if you don't want to know, stop here. I don't often put on my feminist hat, but I'm putting it on for this post. The movie portrays women as obsessive, can't-define-their-lives-without-a-man psychos. I wish I had taken notes, honestly, to help me better berate this atrocious excuse for a chick flick. Not only did the movie make women look desperate (some guys, too...I guess they actually thought they were adding an element of "balance" which is laughable), but it even encourages their desperation with the positive outcomes of their psycho behavior.

Ginnifer Goodwin plays Gigi who is about as clingy, psycho, and desperate as it gets. Aside from the fact that I don't think she's attractive in the least, she hangs on to every single guy she goes out with by staring at the phone, obsessively checking her voicemail, pseudo-stalking said guys, and talking about nothing other than these douchebags. Apparently, her only goal in life is to find her "soul mate" (because her job at the Spice company must be completely fulfilling...). How obnoxious. And after displaying the appallingly obsessive behavior, she goes on a tirade against the guy who's been giving her relationship advice. Her basic message in the tirade was that she was better than him because at least she was trying to find a relationship when all he was doing was banging random chicks. As the story progressed, the movie would have you believe that she was justified in her tirade. So the message is apparently thus: it's better to be psycho about looking for a relationship than to be realistic and have fun while you're still young. Then to top off all of her female-degrading shenanigans, her loathsome behavior is rewarded in the end when the guy (Justin Long) who's been giving her guy advice decides that he's in love with her. WTF is that supposed to say? Ok, so let me break it down: you act really psycho and obsessive over guys and that will eventually land you a great guy and you're a better person for that than you are for banging random people and being guarded. Riiiiight.

Ok, moving on. Then there's the scenario where Jennifer Anniston and Ben Affleck have been in a relationship for 7 years and still aren't married and one day after a discussion with the aforementioned pscyho (Ginnifer Goodwin), Jenn decides to demand to know whether Ben, who has never believed in marriage, ever intends on marrying her and breaks up with him when he doesn't answer (because clearly, taking relationship advice from the other chick who can't even land a second date is a good idea). But of course, when her dad has a heart attack, Ben comes to save the day and Jenn decides that she'll take him back sans the marriage. So, cheesily as it goes, Ben decides to propose to her despite the fact that he doesn't believe in marriage. Ok, so the second lesson that we are supposed to learn from this movie is that it's ok to guilt someone into marrying you. Riiiight.

Ok, next. Then we have the ridiculous story involving Scarlet Johansson who meets Bradley Cooper at a grocery store. Unfortunately, Bradley is married to Jennifer Connolly (who's been trying to give psycho girl dating advice). So eventually, after a seeing some painful scenes where Scarlet emotionally abuses some poor guy who's in love with her, Bradley caves to Scarlet's advances. He eventually tells Jennifer who blames herself (!!!) and then decides that she wants to save the marriage. So the last straw for Scarlet is when she's forced into the closet when Bradley's wife stops by his office in the middle of one of his trysts because, you know, him being married and doing her at the same time wasn't disgusting, but apparently sitting in a closet while the guy bangs his wife is just too much. The Jennifer Connolly decides that the last straw is when she finds out Bradley has been smoking behind her back, because, you know, having an affair is ok, but lying about smoking is off limits, buddy! I'm not even sure what convoluted, fucked-up message that scenario is supposed to send...Oh and I almost forgot, after Scarlet gives up on Bradley, she decides to date the guy who's been in love with her despite the fact that she doesn't reciprocate the feelings. So one moral of the story could be that, it's ok to bang a married guy, then decide it sucks and take it out on some poor schmuck that's head over heels for you. Hmm, I've learned a lot so far, haven't you? Then after Scarlet finally admits to herself and the poor scmuck that she's not in love with him, he falls in love with Drew Barrymore and the "happy ending" that we are left with is Ginnifer Goodwin and Justin Long happily ever after; Ben Affleck and Jennifer Anniston happily ever after; Drew Barrymore and poor schmuck happily ever after; Jennifer Connolly picking up the pieces of her broken life while a narrator implies that she's alone only to set herself up for something better (because being alone period is just not an option); then Scarlet Johansson being a lounge singer and having the narrator say some other bullshit about pursuing your dreams and finding something better (because once again, being alone is just NOT acceptable...it's NOT, do you hear me? huh?).

Now, my other beef with the movie is that it basically goes against everything the book was saying. The book is written as a collection of scenarios in which various girls make excuses for a guy's behavior that really, actually indicates that he's not into her and that she should just move on with her life instead of hoping that she'll be the exception to the rule. The movie is nothing but an entire collection of exceptions to rules and encourages the types of behavior that are expressly warned against in the book. I believe that would be the loosest interpretation of a book I have read yet! I mean, I thought the Harry Potter movies took some serious liberties! Geez.

Now don't forget: repeat it with me "Being alone is NOT ok".

Anyway, hope you enjoyed my scathing review.

I Very Strongly Dislike Winter

I haven't blogged in quite some time and even now, I don't really feel like I have much to blog about. Between all of the other RD.netters, they generally cover all the topics quite thoroughly, so I haven't bothered lately.

So, since I don't have any current events that I want to complain about, I'll just go on a tirade about more personal things. First and foremost, I hate winter. I hate going to work when it's dark and getting out when it's almost dark. I hate the cold and I hate it when it rains and is cold at the same time and I think this winter has been nothing but rain. I've also been having an endless stint of allergies since I've moved into a place with all carpet (well, I'm guessing that's the cause, anyway). As a result of the depression of winter and all these allergies, I've been feeling incredibly fatigued which is getting in the way of doing things I need to do and want to do.

Anyway, now that I've whined, I won't torture you any longer. My solution to all of that is to move to the equator.

Yay!!!

I'm so relieved that our country is not so incredibly backward after all!!!! Unfortunately for all of my European friends, I won't be moving over there just yet. :)

Way to go Obama!!!

On Socialism

I really intended to write a post about this before now, but better late than never, I suppose. In the late stages of the McCain-Palin campaign, they have started flinging around the word "socialism" and "socialist" along with the phrase "redistribution of wealth" with regards to Obama-Biden. From the American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, the definition of Socialism is as follows:

1. An economic system in which the production and distribution of goods are controlled substantially by the government rather than by private enterprise, and in which cooperation rather than competition guides economic activity. There are many varieties of socialism. Some socialists tolerate capitalism, as long as the government maintains the dominant influence over the economy; others insist on an abolition of private enterprise. All communists are socialists, but not all socialists are communists.

I realize that the connotations of the word are negative because of those governments who have abused their socialist policies, but because these governments abused their power, I don't think they meet the true definition of socialism. So, what I want to know, given the above definition, is why is it so horrible to call Obama a socialist? Even if it were, true, which it's not, the clear motive behind socialism is not control, but concern for the common good of man. Why is it so horrible for us to care about one another? In America, selfishness has become the number one virtue. As I see it, that's the main appeal of being a Republican for those who claim that they are Republicans because of their economic policies as opposed to the social policies. The Republicans' appeal to the selfishness of the public is their only last stronghold. And it has worked at least somewhat. It has worked for many of those who are rich because they are too greedy to give any of their money to the government for the greater good. They think, "I made this money, I want to keep it all". Unfortunately, this appeal works for the working and middle classes as well because of the American Dream. All of us are going to get rich someday and when we do, we want to keep all of our money, too. Screw all of those people who are struggling to make their own American Dream. Granted, I understand that our welfare system has been vastly abused. I've seen it in action working as a Pharmacy Technician in college. I've seen people come through the drive through pharmacy window (which, by the way, was installed for those people who may have trouble walking, not those that are just too lazy to get out of the car and walk inside) in their Cadillac Escalades and Lincoln Navigators and hand me a Medicaid card and not have to pay a damn thing for their prescriptions, or if they were on more than 3 medicines, they had to pay $3 per prescription. I've seen it. It annoys me, too. But that doesn't mean that there aren't people who are in real need of help. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't try our hardest to reform our education system to try to give everyone an equal opportunity to succeed. If all those Republicans could just stop being selfish for a moment and think about what we could all do for one another if we work hard at reforming the government and our education systems, I think the world would be a better place.

And now that I've graduated college and work for the government, I've gotten a new perspective on the selfishness. So many people dislike government employees and complain about high taxes and the money that is used to pay these employees. This is especially common in the Republican party. Yet when something goes wrong, they complain that the government agencies didn't do enough in response or just that they aren't doing a good enough job in general. But what they fail to realize is that the government employees are paid much much less than their privatized counterparts and therefore the government can't compete for the best and brightest employees. Employee retention is worse and half the time, the agencies are understaffed and overworked. But no, we can't pay higher taxes and give the agencies that we depend on on a daily basis any more money because we're selfish and we made that money and we want to keep it all. By the way, government employees pay all the same taxes as everyone else.

As for the phrase "redistribution of wealth", do McCain and Palin really not see that wealth has been being redistributed upward for quite some time now? The oil industry has been making record profits for several years now. Increasing their profits from year to year several hundred percent. This is just one example. But I'm sure that they see it because both of their backgrounds mean that they are benefactors of it. So what they really mean is, "Obama could redistribute the wealth back downward, and we just don't want that, and neither do you" using that same appeal to selfishness, the new American virtue. When are they going to realize that the selfishness is what got us into this financial mess in the first place?

So in conclusion, I'm a "bleeding heart liberal" and I care about other people, even the ones who have abused the system because without everyone working together and without a positive outlook and attitude, we'll never get anywhere. It's time to make caring a virtue instead of selfishness.

Cross your fingers for the U.S.

Well, the election is tomorrow. I am very, very nervous! I guess all we can do is sit and watch! If McCain wins, I will be taking Wednesday off from work to mourn the loss of an important election and to decide which part of Europe I'm moving to. Not that I'm superstitious in any way, but *crosses fingers, legs, eyes, and any other crossable body part I can think of*

Please Consider the Following:

I would like to start by saying that I am fairly liberal (tending to vote Democrat) and that this entry will not be without bias try as I might to be objective on the matter.

I've been compiling some information (and opinions) on Sarah Palin and why she makes McCain-Palin a horrible vote to cast come November.

- When Palin was mayor of Wasilla, AK, she instated an official who cut funding out of the budget to pay for rape kits for victims of rape and victims were subsequently billed for their own rape kits. Granted, it was not Palin who actually made the budget cut or instated this practice, however, this shows the types of people who she would be instating into offices that are currently appointed rather than voted. If you read the above article, you will see that the person who she appointed to the position not only made the budget cut and instated those practices of billing the victims, but also fought it when the state legislature made it illegal for towns and municipalities to do so.

- Palin supports drilling in ANWR. First of all, I think it's imperative that we find alternative energy sources. Drilling for more oil will only delay the probelms for a little while and considering the amount of oil predicted to actually be obtainable from ANWR, it is a pointless endeavor to drill there, in my humble opinion. See here for an interesting article about ANWR.

- Along with supporting drilling in ANWR, her state also sued the federal government for placing polar bears on the endangered species list citing that it could inhibit energy development, i.e. drilling for oil. Global warming is pretty much undeniable. One can argue causes, perhaps, but you can't argue that it's happening. This being the case, polar bear habitats are decreasing as it is and drilling for oil will only decrease their habitat more. What more right do humans have to occupy this planet more than any other animal or organism? The possible human-driven extinction of another animal for a short-term solution to a long-term problem is disgusting and I can hardly believe that anyone would consider it. Well, actually, I can believe that people would consider it and I would even venture to say that I know what their motives are, but I certainly don't agree with them. We need a renewable energy source, (and to be more environmentally conservative while we're at it) end of story.

- Palin asked the librarian in Wasilla if she would be ok with banning books should the need arise. No books were actually banned, but the underlying motives seem fairly obvious to my (admittedly probably biased) eyes. Being that she is an ultra conservative Penecostal, it shouldn't come as a surprise that she probably had a religious agenda in wanting to ban books. She apparently also sent letters to the librarian and other appointed officials asking them to resign as a "loyalty test". What type of a boss does that? I certainly wouldn't want to work for someone who was constantly dangling my employment (and therfore welfare) in front of my face.

- Palin's religious views play too large of a role in how she has and will govern. There are indications that she is a young earth creationist which would be extremely dangerous for our education system and is also suggestive that her education is lacking. Intelligent design and creationism are not science and should never be allowed to be taught in a science classroom and this could become more of a real possibility should she and McCain be elected. Not only is her view on science pervaded by her religion (despite the fact that her father was a public school science teacher), but her views on abortion as well. She is quoted as saying that her daughter made the right decision in choosing to have the baby, but she wants to take that right to make that decision away from women in the first place. I don't know about you, but I'm of the opinion that if someone doesn't want to have a child, they shouldn't be forced to have it. Chances are that if you have a child that you don't want, you're not going to be a good parent and we have enough children living in horrible situations as it is without forcing women to bear children they definitely don't want. Not only that, but women would still attempt to have abortions illegally even if it were to be made illegal which would only cause more unneccessary deaths to women who are actively perhaps contributing to society and to the country and it's economy. I could probably go on and on and on about why banning abortion is just ridiculous so I'll stop here. What's next, banning all forms of birth control? I wouldn't be surprised knowing that she is a supporter of abstinence-only sex education (which obviously worked so well with her daughter).

- Not only is her biology a little lacking, but apparently her history is also. When asked if she was offended by the phrase "under God" in the pledge of allegiance, her response indicated her lack of knowledge of U.S. history (which would seem pertinent when vying for the spot of Vice President of that same country). As a note, the link in the article that I linked to supplying the interview doesn't work, but a transcript of the interview can be found elsewhere if googled. On a lighter note, if you read the comments at the bottom of the article, the one by solarbear is fun for a good laugh. For more about Palin's religious views as interpreted by a rival of hers, see here.

Now, there's been some amount of criticism from some that the media is focusing too much on Sarah Palin and not enough on those who are actually running for President and that it's just a distraction, but I couldn't disagree more. For one thing, John McCain is 72 and has a fairly significant risk of dying (strictly due to age) during his term should he be elected, so this woman would be the one who would be Commander-in-Cheif should he die. That is a scary thought, indeed.

I'm greatly amused by this quotation from Bill Maher, "I think this is pertinent because McCain has been running this campaign based on 'we're at war; it's a dangerous world out there. The Democrats don't get that. I, John McCain, am the only one standing between the blood-thirsty Al Qaedas and you. But if I die, this stewardess can handle it.'"

Ok, momentarily back to the serious stuff. Another thing to consider is that McCain is simply using Palin as a strategy. This is disturbing for several reasons. First of all, it suggests that McCain is disengenuous and only seeks to win the election by pulling stunts like making it the battle of the minorities rather than about the issues. It's disturbing, too, because Sarah Palin is allowing herself to be used (no matter what her motives are). So all of this being the case, how can anyone trust John McCain's decision-making abilities when these are the decisions he makes? And why would anyone want to trust him after he's revealed what a sleazy, run-of-the-mill politician he is?

One last thing to consider (and I think this may be one of the most important points) is that Sarah Palin, given her experience, would NEVER have been chosen were she a man (white or black). It is so gravely insulting that John McCain thinks the American public to be this incredibly blind, stupid, and ignorant. It's even more insulting to women (as if he hadn't done enough of that already).

John McCain and Sarah Palin are not the right choice for anyone, Democrat or Republican. I would urge you not to vote for them whether or not you are willing to vote for Obama. Vote for someone independent or write someone in, but don't vote for McCain-Palin. Our country would surely be in world of trouble (more than it already is).

Here's a letter to John McCain that I rather liked.

And here's some humour for those of you who need a bit of it after all of that (I know I do).