$2 Million to Kill Polar Bears, for the Sake of Ignorance
McClatchy has an important fact check on Sarah Palin’s latest interview with Charlie Gibson–noting her, um, fluid views on climate change.
Charles Gibson seemed a little confused about Gov. Sarah Palin’s answers on global warming when he interviewed her this week while strolling beside the trans-Alaska pipeline.
The ABC anchor has plenty of Alaska voters for company. Since entering the governor’s race here two years ago, Palin has shimmied back and forth on the key question of whether warming trends are natural or a byproduct of human activity.
Most interesting, though, is the description of where Palin got the money to sue the Federal government in an attempt to delist the polar bear as an endangered species.
Earlier this year, the state legislature approved $2 million for a conference inviting climate change skeptics here to hash out the causes.
"It is important to remember that climate change is occurring, but then it has occurred continuously for millions of years," wrote the legislature’s Republican leaders, House Speaker John Harris and Senate President Lyda Green. "And, so far, there are too many dissenting opinions to state matter-of-factly that it is being caused by humans."
The project was derided by some as a "conference to nowhere" and now appears unlikely to take place. Much of the money was later diverted to fund a lawsuit by the Palin administration against listing the polar bear as a threatened species. [my emphasis]
The reality-haters in Alaska wanted to host a party for similar reality-haters. But instead, the listing of the polar bear as an endangered species gave them their opportunity to challenge reality on a national scale. With the added bonus for them, of course, that if they won, they could continue to trash the polar bear’s habitat with abandon.
I realize Sarah Palin is suing the government for practical reasons, so, if she won, Alaska could continue to get rich off of selling the Japanese gas and oil, without worrying whether it’ll wipe out polar bears once and for all.
But at some level, isn’t she just going after the polar bears as a propaganda stunt?
Photo credit: Steve Hillebrand / USFWS
There is a lot of shit up there in IglooLand. Somebody needs to get to the bottom of it!
Thanks ew. AFAIK, McClatchy forgot to mention that Palin’s decision makes no fiscal sense for Alaska.
Animals & Money: Palin’s fiscal weakness for hunters
Watching bears brings in a helluva lot more money than hunting them.
digg
Besides, hunting endangered species is by definition crazy. It is a deranged predator that wipes out it’s prey.
Sarah would probably say that the polar bears demise is an “act of god”
Could not believe how Charlie Gibson saved Sarah’s fall when he asked her about the Bush Doctrine. He filled in the big blanks for her. Let her fumble.
Sarah the fundamentalist one step away from filling the shoes of another fundamentalist
EW have you watched this complete interview
complete interview on the View with McCain.
McCain “Roe vs. Wade was a mistake”
http://abc.go.com/daytime/theview/video
This interview is amazing but those gals missed an incredible opportunity when McCain challenged them and asked “how have I changed, how have I changed”
Did anyone hear McCain the last eight years push for the investigations of the false WMD intelligence, the outing of Plame, the politicization of the Dept of Justice, the Bush administration handing over endlessly requested and necessary documents etc etc. Hell no. McCain did his best to block these investigations and the enfocement of ACCOUNTABILITY.
Wonder why these gals were not brave enough to ask Cindy and John about adultery, John ditching his handicapped wife, and Cindy’s home breaking role?
Cindy McCain was asked about their houses Cindy’s response “you know that is something that is not part of the campaign” No one asked “why not” they allowed Cindy to shut down their valid question
Or perhaps:
Sarah the “fundamentalist” one heartbeat away from filling the shoes of another fundamentalist…terrifying
Bumpersticker:
Fundie Imans “heart” Sarah
Marcy,
This money was most likely part of the funds that were “rightfully” kept when Palin said “thanks, but no thanks” to Congress (”and I’ll keep the money”). After all, isn’t killing polar bears critical to maintaining Alaska’s infrastructure? (or at least to maintaining oil company profit infrastructure in Alaska)
Look at the bright side. At least there’s someone in Alaska’s government who is willing to consider the earth to be more than 6,000 years old. Maybe the Palins have agreed to disagree with the House Speaker.
This would be OT except that Ike is also related to climate change. Cat 2 force winds 50 miles inland ain’t normal. Casa Ockham survived with only minor damage. My family is safe and sound, but many folks in Texas weren’t so lucky.
The biggest problem for me and a million others is power outage. Mine went out around midnight.Ice cream for breakfast! Could be weeks before it is restored.
Posted from my Blackberry.
Thanks for checking in WO–kind of scary it maintained that much force that far in.
Happy you’re safe.
ditto glad you are safe. As well as all of the folks along the coast
Maybe we should be talking about lipstick on a chameleon
super poisonous ones
http://farm3.static.flickr.com…..61.jpg?v=0
re: WO, I checked the So. Padre Is. surf cams, but they were stowed during the blast. In an early time, I lived where there were a few landfalls of hurricanes, guys took nearly a week once to chainsaw a 4′ diameter hardwood tree that toppled blocking the street.
Re: AK, So far, I see Palin as an energetic shill for the scriptural dominionist view of resource stewardship. Too soon for me to know if she would work like Pombo to vitiate the Endangered Species Act.
There is interesting material in the department of oil and gas section of the department of natural resources website in AK. An Italian oilco has requested and evidently dog dnr and Pallin have approved, reducing by 2/3 the royalty for Nikaitchuq oil which Eni would have to pay to AK; the fact finding began in 2007, culminating in a decision January 2008. There are mining rationales in the company’s request for reduced financial burden; here is a lay link; and there is dnr’s ‘final preliminary determination‘ in January of this year in the Eni lease in Nikaitchuq. Eni has more plans for the offshore areas in future leasing action. Here is dnr’s lease documents page link.
The polarbear naysaying is dumbing down a smart issue, and those folks who are trying to get mileage out of disproven pseudoscience will find they are talking to a near empty auditorium. There is worthwhile material on polarbear extinction on the goldstandard nasa Goddard Institute site realclimate.org; during the past few months the realclimate scientists have conducted a thorough debunking of the stock fictions promulgated by the let ‘em die crowd and naysayer demiscientists, worth reviewing, but the refutations often require science or math to read to the footnote gloss degree, still, the best site on the topic on the net, aside from the legal environmental advocacy entities’ sites, q.v. I was disappointed, though, that the public comments remained secret in the EPA’s and AK’s fish and wildlife service EIR input process when the polar bear was listed recently finally. I live in a state that conducted a similarly scaled statewide EIR on a different topic some years ago, and the final documentation included one volume of all the timely submitted public comments in full. In our state, the state supreme court mandated that study take place, and when the entire process ended the overseeing agency provide the leading contributors complimentary copies of the full multi-1,000-page document. In these cyberTimes, these materials should be more uniformly available online. AK’s dnr seems to be making good progress in that respect, but still somewhat sparse appearing on a first time visit.
Anyone who claims that Alaska lacks funding is full of sh*t.
Look what they do with remote learning.
Any agency determined to get those docs online could do it.
Thought about Wm Ockham’s family, as well as sojourner and his family as I followed the news yesterday, and on into the evening. Very heartened to know that the Ockham’s are well; will be glad to hear when sojourner and other Texas/OK commenters confirm they’re fine, even if they don’t get to eat ice cream for breakfast
Ike = climate change. Not the last of it, either.
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Arguably, the State of Alaska is fundamentally an arm of oil corporations with the patina of a 48th state, romanticized by tales of gold claims, bush pilots, and dogsled races. It’s a mythic landscape onto which people project their deepest fantasies. For some, it’s ‘hardship duty’ on their way up the organizational ladder, even if Anchorage has a Nordstrom’s.
Alaska’s population is small enough that an ambitious, unqualified, obstinate and energetic individual — particularly one with a libertarian view — can throw his/her weight around to an unusual degree. And there’s enough oil revenue that government administrators aren’t confronted with the kinds of hard choices facing administrators in Baltimore or Cleveland, who must grapple with the economic “Ike” of mortgage fraud and foreclosures.
You wanna see skilled government administration?
Look at a poor state that actually has to tax its residents.
That’s not Alaska.
Alaska is a place where people go to live out their fantasies, and where a whole lot of people have made a whole lot of money doing it. (Oil economies enable that kind of make-the-money-then-leave mentality.)
Palin embodies some of the most emotionally potent Amercian fantasies that I’ve seen in my lifetime.
She conjurs up images of mighty, snow-covered mountains, vast herds of caribou, and unfettered ‘opportunity’ to make money.
‘Snow’ in Alaska means at least two things:
1. Stuff that falls from the sky in arctic weather conditions (and falls, and falls, and falls, and falls… for endless months).
2. Cocaine, generally delivered by boat, plane, or vehicle.
The first in response to natural laws; the second, in response to human desire.
Sarah Palin strikes me as a kind of political cocaine; she’s what happens when people want to deny the complicated, overwhelming complexities of the world. So much easier to seek emotional gratification, rather than admit we’re losing ground in a complicated, globalized, environmentally impacted planet.
Reminder: this woman won less than 700 votes in a town of less than 10,000 a mere twelve years ago. Two-thirds of the town’s **registered voters** didn’t even bother to vote in that election. I’d love to see the list of major corporations lining up to hire this woman… because I’m skeptical that many international corporations would find her self-importance and insistence on her own rightness all that useful.
Alaska is a weird, strange place.
It’s a fantasy, wrapped up in a dream, enfolded in desire.
If Sarah Palin were from Omaha, or Peoria, or Butte she wouldn’t have half the appeal that she’s been able to generate from the fantasies and myths that people conjure up when they hear the word ‘Alaska’.
Sarah Palin is a Category 3 political fantasy.
She needs to be exposed as such, and the sooner the better.
SOOOOOOO Dugg!!!!!
this female is an ignorant menace. Daisy Duke type.
MukLuk Muffin.
God spare us!
I may have come up with the term, “Conference to Nowhere,” or rick Steiner. Probably doesn’t matter, as the name was inevitable.
I’m headed off to the next skirmish in the battle of Palingrad…
The wheels on the straight-talk express are spinning wildly. Even the august NYT has decided to practice journalism. The McCain campaign “twisted” Obama’s words, and “falsely claimed” about tax issues. And this:
More evidence for you, massacio and PJEvans:
http://blog.beliefnet.com/crun…..ready.html
Conservative Palin supporter begins to call her ‘Sarah the Unready’.
Over at TIME’s Swampland, Karen Tumulty has a post that references the NYT’s head nod today at the shameful GOP campaign conduct; she also references Mark Shields weekly NewsHour commentary about the destructiveness of the GOP lies
http://www.time-blog.com/swamp….._plan.html
Shorter: let’s hope more people come to their senses and start expressing deep worry (and yes, even contempt) at the way the GOP continues to lie to every one of us and act as if they think we’re brainless bots good for nothing more than generating tax revenues for the Neofeudalist Nirvanna they’re so intent on building for themselves.
They, the press, are starting to get the meme right too. Not just dishonest and destructive; but at such a critical point and time and election in the nation’s history. Huge problems face us and we get this shit from the Republicans? Proff of the malice and incompetence that put us where we are today. That is the killer stake in the heart of the Goopers, and it is starting to take hold.
So true.
If I had 20 lifetimes, I doubt that I could do all the research on the social, economic, educational, and other factors feeding into this weirdness.
But yes, this election is critical.
Or Que Sarah Sarah?
Palin Docrtine: In response to any scary adult sounding question, you don’t plead ignorance, or take a pass: you go with your gut, and you keep bullshitting until the inquisitor just gives you the answer & then you act as ambivalent & coy as you can to allow for the spin that you’re ignoring the insult implied in the question.
In other words: ignorant bone-headed gut reactionism, committing a nation of 300 million plus to a single option chosen in less time than it takes to blink.
How is that NOT the “Bush Doctrine”?
Point of clarification: I supposed you were speaking of the ‘Bush InDoctrinated’, which is very much like the Bush Doctrine, provided it’s a weekday and you are approximately more than 5 degrees west of the Greenwich Meridian, sir…?
janeWade — haven’t read the DKos alert, but trust me… there is a pipeline that roughly follows the Trans-Canada Hwy (us Yanks tend to call it the ‘Al-Can’). Money, money, money.
There are plenty of Canucks who read and comment here, and I suspect that they will verify that the Canadian government — even the head-up-the-assers — are not so flaming stupid that they’d sign over the rights to pipe natural gas right out of their own country.
Also, as I live south of Vancouver, BC (one of the world’s most beautiful, cosmopolitan cities if you ask me), I rather suspect that ‘Canadian money’ is often code for ‘Chinese, Indian, Taiwanese…’ CommonWEALTH has nuances that escape me entirely, although I get the occasional reminder from the biz journals and the latest ‘financing’ on large, brand-new skyscrapers now looming in the Puget Sound region.
Palin can want that Canadian natural gas till her heart turns to bubble gum.
I wouldn’t insult our Canadian friends/readers/commenters by even remotely supposing that any regional or national government of Canada will ever be stupid enough to sign all that money over to Yanks, nor to even Yank-owned multinationals. I’ve been wrong before, but given what I know of human nature, i’d say odds are not in Palin’s favor. Ever.
Which only underscores what a buffoonish clown she is.
But she’s a dangerous one.
After all, she’s fully Bush Indoctrinated. They tend to be vindictive, imperious, and more ‘tar baby’ than ‘tar sands’ if you follow my meaning…
My meaning being that i rather suspect if this plays out in any fashion that the Wingnut Minders can’t fully control 24/7/365, she’s going to make McCain look like the dumbest aging white guy in the northern hemisphere.
Oh, my God.
Couldn’t we at least borrow Australian PM Kevin Rudd till Jan 20th??
FWIW, in the city of Brisbane, Australia people are currently being asked/told to limit showers to 4 minutes.
FOUR minutes.
That’s it.
Water shortages are a fact of daily life.
Not for nothing was Rudd elected and his very first act was to create a portfolio for Minister of the Environment.
And we in the US get Sarah Palin — a political Category 3 of Denial, Defiance, and Delusional Stupidity.
I never thought it possible that I could despise John McCain as much as I have come to over the past week.
You know, Very old guys have fallen for youthful folly before; always looks pretty dumb, doesn’t it. But do we really want a bimbo for Veep? Not after Jr. High….
URGENT ACTION REQUIRED TO SAVE THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..24904.html
Please act by the deadline September 15th, this Monday.
– Tom
Has anybody noticed that the FACT that Palin has been exposed as a serial liar has not impacted her popularity with a certain segment of the American electorate?
I suggest we stop calling it “lying” and speak to these idiots in a language, perhaps the only language, these morons understand.
I suggest we start calling it “Bearing False Witness”
No, actually it HAS affected her favorables. They’re down below 50 in the DKos tracker.
I am sooo happy you keep track of such things for us, Marcy. I think you are totally AWESOME! Thanks for all you do.
The people who like Sarah and John, and intend to vote for them: has anyone asked if they’d vote for either for their mayor or their governor or their congresscritter, or is it just that they believe that being President somehow magically makes you right about everything, regardless of how ignorant and dishonest you might be?
Good point, and one IMO which contains a hint of a better one:
what underlying coalitions are being measured in the apparent disconnects among the approval [and disapproval*] ratings of:
[a] Bush as a ‘good man’ who means well
[b] Bush as CEO of the US government*
[c] Congress in general*
[d] Repod candidates for the House & Senate
[e] Dem candidates for the House & Senate
[f] the Judiciary in general*
[g] the Boss man of the Fourth Branch*
[h] the national government in general*
being on the whole a reflection the extent that national governance is heavily influenced by American blind Parsi-ism [after the story Kipling related of the differing impressions among a group of blind Parsis groping a pachyderm].
Such that what is being measured in each case is:
[a] the size of the coalition of hard core non-convertible Islamin-ChrisCo religiots, winger clingers, assorted Zombies, & cock-eyed optimists
[b] the ratio of the first 3 elements in [a] against those c-e optimists PLUS a fringe outcropping of thinking adults
[c] the ratio of [a] plus that fringe against a few diehard hold-outs clinging to their Constitutions & faith in the possibility that things might get better**
[** emptywheelers oscillate in the space between the marginal group in [b] & the latter coalition in [c]- often within a single thread, sometimes within the same post]
[d] the extent to which deification can fade on close inspection
[e] the ratio on particular ground of resilients to the despairing
[f] the ratio of those who read the Constitution for comprehension & think about it for application, against those for whom it like the Holy Bible is too sacred to open by any but holy men
[g] like the implications of string theory, this measure provides evidence of the extent our tools are inadequate to provide any meaningful measure of the power & reach of mystery
[h] a coalition of those who hate what it does with those who cannot bear it’s existence.
One last related thought: Yay tho my efforts in support of his candidacy grow day by day, the greatest among Senator Obama’s blasphemies & naive misconceptions was that he could ‘bring home’ to the party of progress the Southern white bigot base Reagan ’stole’ from the Dems.
I find myself, once again, in awe of your commentary sir/madam.
One point about reading comprehension and the Bible:
The Bible has a lovely subject/verb/object construction:
“Father Abraham took his wives and his flocks and journeyed down to Israel …”
Abraham > took… journeyed > to Israel
Now consider most legal writing, most scientific writing, and most technical writing; brain tangles, a lot of it.
And we see the result…. mass confusion, mass frustration, and angry efforts to make the complex ‘dead simple’.
If we don’t turn this around, we will be — like the polar bears — simply ‘dead’.
Irrespective of our race, religion, economic status, beliefs, sins, saintly acts, etc.
More of our problems involve reading problems and cognition than we generally credit. There’s a generally overlooked ‘underlying condition’ — the fact that at least 30% of the adult US population doesn’t read well enough to make their way through a legal decision. (And, given how badly some judges write, that’s not surprising. I wish the next SCOTUS nominee would be asked more questions about how they approach writing decisions, and who they think they’re writing for…but I digress.)
Which means that as information has become increasingly complex, the work of journalists has actually become far more challenging.
I guess that I’m mostly in the Coalition of Those Who Think Public Life Matters — at least, enough to ask the kinds of questions that Wm O poses @30. Why ARE 5 million people sitting without power after a weather event linked to climate change?!
I don’t even want to watch Palin or McSame try to spin this mess…
Well, I’m sitting here in the middle of 5 million people without power. I’m thinking a whole lot of people are going to be asking questions abour readiness to face crises. Sarah “I don’t a clue about anything except the lies I tell” Palin isn’t reflecting well on old John McCain.
Texas has 32+ power plants that export huge amounts of energy. Look at that grid that was posted when Katrina hit. They need to cevlop alternate routing better.Bet the store are out of generators. Some RV generators are good and cheap. Makes the case for solar stronger?
roTL has a couple of fun links indeed. I think bloggers can take some credit for the “dishonorable” language.
I think so, too.
Including our very own EW — Steve Benen today has an article about ‘why the DISHONESTY IS THE STORY’… hmmmm… think I read something alluding to that very question around these realms last week or so…
Heh.
And some would think it’s all Trash Talk around here… 8^}
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(((((((((( jacqrat!!!))))))))))
I meant among the Fundie Christ-ies. Perhaps if we called it “Bearing False Witness” they would recognize it for what it is: Antithetical to their belief system, instead of writing it off as a sexist (?) distortion.
We need to attack her strength, which is base-boosting among the evangelistas. Her weaknesses are so obvious that hyping them is worse than pointless, it is seen as piling-on. They have already seemingly accepted the cluelessness, as it is perfectly in keeping with the Fundie mindset.
Palin’s plans for a natural gas pipeline may not be all they are cracked up to be. Below is a link to a dkos diary titled ”ALERT: Palin’s Pipeline is a Climate Crisis Acceleration Machine”. According to this diary, the pipeline Palin wants to build ends in the oil fields of Canada where the gas will be used to extract oil from the tar sands in Alberta. A trunk line to Valdez would make the gas available to the world energy market. The pipeline would also deliver gas to Alaskans, who appear to need it badly, but that is just a side benefit. There are no plans to connect the pipeline to the lower 48 states. The pipeline would also require a massive tax subsidy from the federal government. So with Palin’s much-touted plan the energy companies get the gas they need to extract oil from the tar sands and gas to sell on the world market, the state of Alaska gets gas for its citizens (a good thing) and massive tax revenues, and we get the bill. Sounds like a typical Republican proposal, doesn’t it?
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…..297/589573
Lipstick on the Governor’s policies!
ed koch is right. ’she’s plucky. she’s perky. and she scares the hell outta me.”
NYT today
Throughout her political career, she has pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and sometimes blurred the line between government and personal grievance, according to a review of public records and interviews with 60 Republican and Democratic legislators and local officials.
One of her strong assertions in the Charlie interview last night was defending her role in the trooper stuff. Several times she claimed he had threatened the “first family.” I think she interpreted that to mean her dad, if I recall the details. The world of lawyers has a phrase to describe her: Often wrong, but never in doubt. Yep.
Mr. Klynn, imitating a certain nasal voice, “I told congress, ‘Thanks but no thanks,’ for that bridge to Nowhere.”
He then asks, “How many times is she going to keep on saying that?”
MLederman has an article showing SPalin’s methodology of enlisting antiscience to plead for reversal of the protected status of the polarBear, by using offsite privately owned email servers. Waxman better keep the oversight committee experts’ time reserved; if Palin is the one taking Cheney’s reins, OCIO may be teaching OVP employees the art of editing .pst files before the backup tapes are overwritten.
One thing about this in-depth look at Alaska politics: it makes you think that granting statehood was apparently not so good an idea. Now, I know that’s not always been the case, but damn, is every senior elected official for the state right now a corrupt sack of shit?