Saturday, October 25, 2008

John McCain's Palin: A Collage of Perspectives

The Republican Perspective

Colin Powell, President Bush’s former Secretary of State, said that her unreadiness to be president was a significant factor in his endorsement of the Democrat last week. Ken Adelman, a Republican hawk and former close friend of Dick Cheney who has become disillusioned with the Bush Administration, is backing Mr Obama. He said that the choice of Mrs Palin had made him switch sides.

The Ethical Perspective Part 1

The Governor of Alaska spoke hours before giving a sworn deposition in the Troopergate inquiry in a hotel in St Louis, Missouri, as a second investigation opened into whether she abused her office by trying to have a state policeman fired to settle a personal score. A first report issued earlier this month concluded that she violated ethics laws in attempts to get her former brother-in-law sacked.

The Voter Perspective

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll on Wednesday asked voters what concerns them about the Republican ticket, and Mrs Palin was the No 1 worry for them; 47 per cent had a negative impression of her, while only 38 per cent saw her in a positive light. Her inexperience and faltering responses to foreign policy questions has also helped to erase the “Palin bounce” that boosted the ticket in the fortnight after she was chosen: 55 per cent now think that she is unqualified to be president, a troublesome number given Mr McCain’s age.


The Ethical Perspective Part 2

Meanwhile a Republican election worker who claimed that a black man had carved a “B” into her cheek after seeing a McCain bumper sticker on her car has confessed that she invented the story. Mrs Palin telephoned Ashley Todd, 20, a white college student from Texas, expressing her concern. Last night Pittsburgh police arrested and charged the woman with making a false report.

The Venezuelan Perspective

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said US vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is a confused "beauty queen". "I saw the vice presidential candidate, there she was talking about 'the dictator Hugo Chavez.' The poor thing, you just feel sorry for her," he said during a televised broadcast. "She's a beauty queen that they've pulled out to be a figurehead. We need to say as Christ did: Forgive her, she knows not what she's saying," he said.

The Ethical Perspective Part 3

New reports of Palin's misspending government funds for personal financial benefit emerged from an Associated Press investigation this week. Palin charged taxpayers over $20,000 to pay for her daughters to travel with her to events to which they were not invited, including 64 one-way and 12 round-trip tickets, as well as the girls' own expensive hotel rooms. In all, previous reports have estimated Palin charged taxpayers more than $43,000 in travel expenses for family members.
If that weren't enough, it seems Palin lied on official reimbursement forms, saying the girls were invited when, according to organizers of the events, they were not. But it doesn't stop there. Apparently, after she was tapped as Sen. John McCain's running mate, Palin went back and amended the expense reports with language to make the travel sound like official business, as is necessary for reimbursement under Alaska state law.

The United States as a Union Perspective

The Alaska Independence Party calls itself the third largest organization in the United States. Its platform calls for the defense of "states rights," to "seek the complete repatriation of the public lands, held by the federal government, to the state and people of Alaska in conformance with Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17, of the federal constitution." Basically, the AIP wants a vote on secession. The AIP says that Gov. Sarah Palin used to be a member of the party. Earlier this year, Palin recorded a welcoming address to the AIP's convention. At the AIP's meeting, the AIP's vice chairman, Dexter Carter, extols Gov. Palin's virtues. He went on to recall Palin's service as a member of the party.

The Ethical Perspective Part 4

Gov. Sarah Palin is campaigning as a budget watchdog eager to shave frivolous government spending. That image took a hit Tuesday when The Washington Post reported the governor charges the state for travel expenses while living at her Wasilla home, and the Palin camp defended her conservative credentials. The newspaper reported that Palin billed the state for meal money while spending more than 300 nights at her Valley home during her first 19 months in office. The money is supposed to be used for when an official travels on state business, not for a commute from an Anchorage office to a home in Wasilla.

The Cosmetic/Hairstylist/Garment Industry Perspective

After Sarah Palin came under scrutiny for her wardrobe expenses, new details have emerged, which show that US Republican presidential candidate John McCain's campaign paid 3 makeup artists a total of $52,000 over 6 weeks.

It also emerged that the highest-paid McCain staff member for the first two weeks of this month was Mrs Palin’s make-up artist. Amy Strozzi, who once did make-up work on the television show So You Think You Can Dance?, received $22,800 for that fortnight, more than the candidate’s chief foreign policy adviser.

Palin's traveling hair stylist Angela Lew, the fourth highest paid individual during that time, was paid $10,000 over two weeks in October for what the campaign called "communications consulting."

Palin has come under scrutiny this week when it was disclosed the Republican National Committee spent $150,000 on her wardrobe at high-end department stores like Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue. Palin argued the clothes were bought for the Republican National Convention.
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Saturday, October 4, 2008

Karma bites O.J. Simpson in the Ass


Instant karmas gonna get you
Gonna look you right in the face
Better get yourself together darlin
Join the human race
How in the world you gonna see
Laughin at fools like me
Who in the hell do you think you are
A super star
Well, right you are


John Lennon, "Instant Karma"


Karma is one of the Eastern World's mystic concepts that is most known in the Western World. Karma is defined by Wikipedia as the concept of "action" or "deed" in Indian religions understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect (i.e., the cycle called samsāra) originating in ancient India and treated in Hindu, Jain, Sikh and Buddhist philosophies. Sir Issac Newton demonstrated the concept through his Third Law of Motion which states "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction". It has been encorporated into American idiom through the saying "What goes around comes around". Saint Paul spoke of it to the Galatians: "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap". Boy George sang of it in "Karma Chameleon", David Bowie in "Karma Man", Alicia Keys in "Karma".

If anyone looked at the AP Newswire Service from October 4, 2008 they would find a fine example of "Karma in Action" through the following:


Thirteen years to the day after being acquitted of killing his wife and her friend in Los Angeles, O.J. Simpson was found guilty of robbing two sports-memorabilia dealers at gunpoint in a Las Vegas hotel room.

The 61-year-old former football star was convicted of all 12 counts late Friday after jurors deliberated for more than 13 hours. He released a heavy sigh as the charges were read and was immediately taken into custody.

Simpson, who went from American sports idol to celebrity-in-exile after his murder acquittal, could spend the rest of his life in prison.


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