Comments on Elizaphanian
As a rule of thumb, I've found that people who say they're eccentric, usually ain't.
... and as for Palin - harsh; self-absorbed; power hungry - yes. Eccentric? I don't think so.
Nine months ago I said that Caribou Barbie would go down in a blaze of sleaze before completing her third term. Well, I confess to having overestimated her.
Her gamble is that these stories will be old hat come the primaries. Her slim chances of a nomination depend on Obama doing extremely well - in that case the more able Republican candidates might wait until 2016. Otherwise it would appear that even Fox News is writing her off.
What 'blaze of sleaze'?
I don't see her as eccentric, just as a right-wing populist, where (in the US) "right" and "left" has little to do with economics, but with so-called "social issues". Bush had those same "conservative principles" and look what he did with them. I doubt that Palin would be different. For eccentrics who might actually intend the right things economically, look for libertarians, not those who preach "family values".
"Her decision follows a week of extraordinarily bad publicity, from within her own state over ethics inquiries and across the national landscape as top aides on her vice-presidential campaign and supporters have been engaged in a highly public feud that has spilled out in vociferous tones online on blogs and on television. Bloggers in Alaska, critics of the governor as well as former Palin supporters, suggest also that pending releases of e-mails among the Palins were about to expose her to further questions about her finances and governance issues."
From: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.c...ignation&
st=cse
"A few weeks ago, Dennis Zaki posted on his popular website (http://www.alaskareport.com/) a cryptic message about a pending bombshell that had to do with an investigation into Palin's finances.
Last week, local blogger Linda Kellen-Biegal (http://divasblueoasis.com/) successfully raised roughly $6,000 to pay the cost associated with a freedom of information request of emails between the Palin administration and local talk show host and close friend of Palins, Eddie Burke. The emails were due to be released in a few days.
In addition, Palin has come under intense criticism from various groups for everything from ignoring state business to hiding state business.
In rural Alaska, native leaders have been furious at Palin's inability to focus on their challenges. Meanwhile, last Sunday, Juneau Economist and reporter Gregg Erickson wrote a scathing op/ed about how the Palin administration had become the most secretive administration in his twenty nine years of watching state government.
All of this combined with the brutal press this week probably pushed Palin over the edge.
A ten thousand word article written by Todd Purdum in Vanity Fair, outlining Palin's behavior on the campaign trail with John McCain set political toungues wagging and launched a fierce debate inside the Republican Party."
From: http://www.andrewhalcro.com/
pali...xit_stage_right
Al - I was really wanting you to point out something substantiated, not just accusations. Obviously the fact that there have been serial frivolous ethics complaints costing her personally upwards of $500k is a major factor in the decision - but all 15 have so far been dismissed as without merit. Is there anything official showing that she's done anything wrong? Or are you just running with the herd?
The other day my therapist told me I was "different".
Is that "different" in the sense of "special"? :0
There is far too much smoke for there to be no fire. Just because an official investigation doesn't find fault, doesn't mean nothing wrong has been done - as pretty much any British or indeed German official enquiry shows, cf. de Menezes, Hutton.
There are a whole load of contradictions and inconsistencies. Let's wait and see what happens.
Oh Al, really, "There is far too much smoke for there to be no fire"??
So, on 9/11 (when there was indeed lots of smoke) and there are indeed lots of unanswered questions, some of which being put forward by very respectable scientists and academics, "There is far too much smoke for there to be no fire".
Or on climate change, when there are indeed lots of unanswered questions being put forward by very respectable scientists and academics, "There is far too much smoke for there to be no fire".
You seem to think that she's finished as a political figure; I very much think the opposite. I'm happy to wait and see too.
Sam, are you seeking to change style / content of church worship?
And what would be so bad about 'needing' therapy?
A conversation piece tomorrow?
Hi Trojan - this isn't really the forum for discussing that (all sorts of issues like PCC approval etc) but the short answer is no; a slightly longer answer would involve talking about the nature of liturgy. Some old posts of mine that are relevant:
http://elizaphanian.blogspot.com...wn-
curtain.html
http://elizaphanian.blogspot.com...in-
worship.html
http://elizaphanian.blogspot.com...ue-
worship.html
Are you a Mersea churchgoer?
Therapist friend! How come you've gone anonymous? Happy to pursue the conversation tomorrow, but the short answer is the context of the reference - I would agree that everyone needs therapy, but the sense of 'need' being discussed was a rather more pejorative one, as in 'this guy is really screwed up'. More tomorrow 
PS for the avoidance of doubt in the minds of people reading this conversation, 'therapist friend' is not Sam's therapist!
Sam:
People will believe what they want to believe. I suppose there is quite a lot of smoke about aliens, Elvis being alive and Father Christmas, too.
(On Palin, there is also quite a lot of evidence.)
So let's make two bets: I say that Caribou Barbie will neither make it to the Senate nor onto a future Republican presidential ticket. If she doesn't make it by 2016, you accept that it just ain't going to happen. Price: one DVD of the winner's choice.
I also say that Caribou Barbie will be indicted by a grand jury for something by the end of 2011. She might manage to escape conviction - so did OJ - but she will at least be indicted. Price: one DVD of the winner's choice.
I'll take the first bet; I think the second is too open to political manipulation - if you change it to conviction then I'd take it.
NB I'd be astonished if she ran for the Senate; I'd also not be surprised if she _chose_ not to run for the presidency, but I think that she will - I think she'll run in 2012 and win. But I'm not very good at predictions of that sort!
Sam:
On this last comment, I hope you're right (at least at one level): we now have someone in the Oval Office whose established track record before office is precisely what he is enacting as President, but since I have policy differences with him, I would like someone on my side of the aisle. I keep coming back to the fact that she decided to keep her autistic son rather than do the women's lib thing. I don't know that I agree with her on everything, but I haven't found any common ground with the current occupant of the West Wing.
Chris
Then one bet it is. Check out this, too:
http://www.happyplanetindex.org/...oad-
report.html. Unrelated but very interesting.
Hi Sam, never saw Palin as right for immediate US presidency ... life's complicated enough ... but I agree with this:
"she is an independent eccentric and it scares the willies out of conventional consensus opinion - because she has the capacity to be a game changer. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
It's pretty much the same game-changing furrow as I am ploughing on my own less grand scale - you too, depite your "conservatism". ie from my perspective you are "behind" me in that furrow, and Palin is behind you ... but it's the same furrow.
This is wjhy we have to talk about how "game-changing" ideas make progress, progress ahead of / in competition with "game-fitting" ideas. (ref our meme thread.)
Ian - what does talking about being "behind" achieve? or (in the other post) "caught up"? That's a remarkably linear understanding - and you're not a linear thinker!
Dead right. Hence my "scare quotes" around the word ....
Talking about making progress there is a time linear sense (in natural usage) .... things get better .... as you say I'm not a linear thinker, just have to use the language available.
The point was to say that from any one human perspective, we always believe we know something more than "the other guy" - an admission. Everyone sees everyone else they disagree with as "behind" in a that trues sense of conservatism. I think you're missing something, you think I'm missing something ... it's only natural. I think Sarah Palin is missing something, she'd probably think I'm missing something.
And of course that "scare" means you conveniently missed my point.
How game changing "ideas" make progress.
Sam
No,I am not, agree not correct forum, but obvious that there was a considered reason for your actions, which I suspect relate to implementing change. Which can be difficult , painful but often rewarding. Going from dog collar & robes ?? to loud shirt ? you were trying to articulate something.
Trojan - the Hawaiian shirts only come out in an explicitly very informal context, part of what I see as 'broadening the base'. You're right that there were considered reasons, but they weren't about abandoning formal liturgical choral worship, which remains my preferred way of doing things.
Ian - I think the game-changing ideas progress when the context is right for them, I'm thinking of Pirsig as a kulturbarer (sp?), it's iterative. Could do with a separate thread on that. BTW thanks for the Ron Kulp link, I'll pursue that.
I find your attachment to Gov. Palin very strange, as she evinces none of the honesty or forthrightness that you yourself do. Her resignation is a strange mish-mash of motives, all of them mercurial and, apparently, obfuscatory at the least. First, she declared that she would not run for governor again, thus making herself a "lame duck" -- one of the more enduring and not-at-all factually-based myths of American politics: that an exiting executive cannot get anything done. And then, citing her self-inflicted lame duckness, she stated that she would resign her term as governor 18 months early. This is nothing if not the political equivalent of "I'm taking my ball and going home!"
The citation of the ethics complaints by "outsiders" that "cost the state millions of dollars and thousands of employee hours" are likewise false or, when not false, exaggerations of a deliberately mendacious nature. Of the 15 ethics complaints filed against her in her tenure, only one was filed against her by non-Alaskans (a watchdog group arguing that the $150,000 worth of clothes and such given to her and her family by the RNC during the 2008 election constituted an illegal contribution under Alaska law). Likewise, the majority of complaints were filed by Alaskan Republican Party members.
The ethics investigations' total cost to the state were just over US$275,000 -- money that was owed by contract to the legal firms conducting the investigations whether they performed work during that time or not. Please allow me to reiterate that -- outside auditors performed the actual investigations, not state employees, costing the state absolutely no work-hours from its employees whatsoever, for a total cost of a fraction of that Palin cites, and that from moneys that would have been paid no matter what.
The most involved of the ethics complaints that was investigated was the one Palin filed against herself regarding "Troopergate" -- whether or not she abused the power of her office in harassing her brother-in-law, a state trooper. She filed this complaint because, in so doing, the ethics investigation by statute superseded an investigation by the Alaska State Legislature that found she had indeed abused her office in this matter.
In spending hundreds of thousands of dollars defending herself, it is revealed that Palin did so unnecessarily -- most of the complaints, according to the ethics board, could have been addressed by her simply drafting a letter in response to each one detailing her position and reasoning on each decision called into question. She chose to hire an expensive, out-of-state lawyer -- hardly a fiscally responsible act, unless one ascribes to the maxim that a politician with national ambitions must never explain oneself.
Rather than manage the transition of power, Palin has been fishing. She behaves at no time like a statewoman and always like a rather petulant country aristocrat. The wounds she complains about are self-inflicted, from making herself a lame-duck governor to choosing to abrogate her duty to her electorate to choosing to instigate the financial costs to her family.
Palin gives lip-service to ideals you hold dear. But in all ways, her conduct gives the lie to her rhetoric. I would think that, as a priest, you would find such hypocrisy, used as it is to violate the trust of the duty she has to the people of Alaska, to be utterly appalling.
Well said, Erik!
Sam: THe second bet. A grand jury indictment is not purely political, by the way:
"A grand jury is meant to be part of the system of checks and balances, preventing a case from going to trial on a prosecutor's bare word. A prosecutor must convince the grand jury, an impartial panel of ordinary citizens, that there exists reasonable suspicion, probable cause, or a prima facie case that a crime has been committed." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_jury)
In Alaska that means 12 to 18 members, at least half of whom must decide there is a case to answer - abstentions count as no case to answer.
Bet or no bet?
Al
PS - Off on holiday for two weeks.
So guys, Sarah Palin is a bad politician because she uses hypocrisy ?
That's some standard you're setting for politics (and governance and management of getting anything done).
Since when did betting on the outcome of a 50/50 bet prove anything about the quality of anyone's reasoning or character ?
Great comment, Erik! I would just like to add that during her short tenure as mayor, the tiny town of Wasilla saw its debt balloon from $1 million to over $25 million. Sam, you really ought to learn to look past politicians' soundbites and see if they actually walk the walk.
I think what people like is the way she walks
Ian: Everyone with principles is a hypocrite. Just some are troubled by it and reflect on their words and behaviour - Obama, also McCain. Others, like the Clintons and la Palin, don't.
And no, a bet in itself doesn't prove anything. But if I though it was a 50/50, I wouldn't be up for it.
So, now I really am off on holiday.
Hi Erik - can you source some of those perspectives please (I'd like to bring your comment up front in a post on its own); specifically on the costs to AK of the ethics investigations.
Ethics investigations cost Alaska $296,000. That's the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska's biggest newspaper.
From Palin's resignation speech: "Every one – all 15 of the ethics complaints have been dismissed. We’ve won! But it hasn’t been cheap - the State has wasted THOUSANDS of hours of YOUR time and shelled out some two million of YOUR dollars to respond to “opposition research” – that’s money NOT going to fund teachers or troopers – or safer roads."
Ian, she's just not a hypocrite. She's a liar.
See the link I put in the new top post; the $300k figure is only for part.
And that $1.9 million she cites is money due in the normal course of duties, whereas she framed it as additional costs. I find your "that's politics" excuses in the post up top of the site to be rather lame and, well, sad.
Sad? Then name your perfect politician.
BTW Sam - I think we need a "hypocrisy" thread - been a theme of mine as you know.
(You coming back to the mimetic idea thread ?)
Perfect? I'd say there's none. Damn sight better? Henry Waxman comes to mind. But really, it's sad not for her, but you: setting the bar as low as it can go.
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