Since it seems that SAT scores from the 80s are suddenly relevant to whether or not a person is qualified for the Presidency or Vice Presidency, and given that I'm contemplating a go at the GOP nomination in 2016, I guess I should reveal my score when I took the SAT way back in OCT of '86.
Verbal 680
Math 690
I am teh smart!
(and even though many on the left want this to be real, Palin's scores are fake, and easily proven so, sort of like a particular set of TANG documents that played a role in 2004, brought down Dan Rather, and helped birth Pajamas Media)
(dug around to see if I could find the actual score sheet, didn't turn up, but did find a bet slip from August 13, 1990 where I confidently laid $20 to win $400 on the Detroit Lions winning the NFC Championship, what was I thinking?)
(checking the Wiki, that bet wasn't that bad, they won their one and only playoff game since their 1957 championship season by beating the Cowboys and made it to the NFC Championship Game, but lost to the eventual Superbowl Champion Redskins)
(also, what the hell was I doing at Imperial Palace on a Monday morning?)
(ahhh, I remember now, celebrating my 21st birthday a few months late, no comment beyond that, this is a family blog . . .)
(speaking of the phrase, "I am teh smart", look what blog shows up number two on Google currently . . .)
Showing posts with label Sarah Palin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sarah Palin. Show all posts
11 October 2008
03 October 2008
"I mean: what's the problem here? Why is this so hard?"
Excitably Andy just won't let the 'Sarah is really Trig's grandma' crap go.
What is wrong with this man?
(and what's wrong with me?, every time I tell myself I won't click on a link to his blog, I end up going over there any way, he's insane, but compelling in an insane sort of way)
(and I'm not demonizing him because he no longer agrees with my politics, I'm calling him insane cause his behavior, especially regards to Palin, can only be described as insane)
(and I noticed I typed 'excitably Andy' instead of 'excitable Andy' as intended, but I think after some consideration that 'excitably Andy' makes as much, if not more, sense)
What is wrong with this man?
(and what's wrong with me?, every time I tell myself I won't click on a link to his blog, I end up going over there any way, he's insane, but compelling in an insane sort of way)
(and I'm not demonizing him because he no longer agrees with my politics, I'm calling him insane cause his behavior, especially regards to Palin, can only be described as insane)
(and I noticed I typed 'excitably Andy' instead of 'excitable Andy' as intended, but I think after some consideration that 'excitably Andy' makes as much, if not more, sense)
12 September 2008
03 September 2008
If I Were Tina Fey's Business Manager . . .
Ever since Gov. Palin was announced as Sen. McCain's pick, speculation turned to whether or not Tina Fey would play her on SNL.
She's not on staff anymore, but given the resemblance, she'd be a natural for the part, and poking around the interwebs, it seems expected, and if there isn't a Fey as Palin sketch in their first week back, I think folks will feel cheated.
What does that smell like? Smells like leverage, and lots of it. Lorne Michaels is a cheap bastard, but he's a smart cheap bastard, and he knows that for the duration of the election season he'll need Tina Fey to come in and deliver a sketch a week as Palin.
Don't know if they've ever solved their Barack problem, their first attempts were terrible, and I have no idea how they'll handle McCain, he presents them with some problems as well.
I'd say it's worth watching to see what happens, but we are talking about Saturday Night Live, and 'worth watching' and SNL really don't go together that often. Plus, they won't play fair with the politics, so whatever they come up with for Fey as Palin will be so absurdly offensive that the backlash from the first attempt might prevent any future appearances.
They could get away with offensive absurdity when they were a hip young show back in 1976, but now they are a venerable institution, a cash cow for NBC/Universal, and habitually play things safely, so I don't expect much from them.
But in the mean time, if Fey's business manager is at all competent, Fey will hold out for an unseemly pile of loot before coming back to the show temporarily. Afterall, she's a working mom with a wee one at home, so if she's going to give up a few rehearsals and Saturday evenings while also shooting 30 Rock, she's going to need serious compensation.
She's not on staff anymore, but given the resemblance, she'd be a natural for the part, and poking around the interwebs, it seems expected, and if there isn't a Fey as Palin sketch in their first week back, I think folks will feel cheated.
What does that smell like? Smells like leverage, and lots of it. Lorne Michaels is a cheap bastard, but he's a smart cheap bastard, and he knows that for the duration of the election season he'll need Tina Fey to come in and deliver a sketch a week as Palin.
Don't know if they've ever solved their Barack problem, their first attempts were terrible, and I have no idea how they'll handle McCain, he presents them with some problems as well.
I'd say it's worth watching to see what happens, but we are talking about Saturday Night Live, and 'worth watching' and SNL really don't go together that often. Plus, they won't play fair with the politics, so whatever they come up with for Fey as Palin will be so absurdly offensive that the backlash from the first attempt might prevent any future appearances.
They could get away with offensive absurdity when they were a hip young show back in 1976, but now they are a venerable institution, a cash cow for NBC/Universal, and habitually play things safely, so I don't expect much from them.
But in the mean time, if Fey's business manager is at all competent, Fey will hold out for an unseemly pile of loot before coming back to the show temporarily. Afterall, she's a working mom with a wee one at home, so if she's going to give up a few rehearsals and Saturday evenings while also shooting 30 Rock, she's going to need serious compensation.
If I Ever Write a Post Like the One Below, I Invite You ALL to Come Over to My House, and Slap Some Sense in to ME . . .
Below is the entirety of Andrew Sullivan's liveblog of Palin's speech, annotated by me (in red, and alternate font), for your convenience and elucidation (I suggest reading it from the bottom up):
11.10 pm. Reality television has become our politics.
Yeah, whatever, cry into your beer (I almost typed bear, I think either would be correct) tonight Sully, you just saw The One get schooled.
11.06 pm. Both Huckabee and Palin have used the t-word. Of course, they are not criminally liable, as Bush is.
More moral equivalency crap, at Gitmo the inmates get proper medical attention, food, water, even counsel, some rough interrogation techniques have been used (and some of those techniques are questionable, and should be stopped, but that doesn't mean all interrogation is torture, or the experiences are anywhere close to being comparable), but there is no equivalence to what McCain experienced over his five years in captivity, and to suggest so may make a person popular in the DC-NYC cocktail party crowd, but it sounds on awful lot like the usual lefty America-hating tripe, from someone who is supposed to have a 'conservative soul'.
11.05 pm. Every time the camera pans to McCain's mother, she seems mortified. I don't really blame her. Can you imagine what she was thinking as a tiny special needs baby is passed from person to person for the cable news.
OK, now you're just projecting you jerk. I'm gobsmacked. I can not even begin to describe how full of contempt Sully sounds with that little blurb, and how contemptible I find his attitude.
11.03 pm. However admirable it is to be a mayor, is it really necessary to drip contempt for people who work as community organizers? It seems to me that Palin doesn't quite have the stature to be putting down someone who has won millions of people's votes. This is a much more partisan speech than I was expecting.
Winning primary votes now equals executive experience, that's good to know for future reference. And again with the worshipful attitude towards community organizing, very 'Conservative Soul' of you Sully.
11.00 pm Styrofoam pillars; and self-designed seals. And her lip curls.
And your point, Sully?
10.58 pm. Now it's about big government - which Republicans have exploded in size. But no one can notice the actual record of the GOP in growing government and increasing debt. That would be too much accountability.
Yeah, how dare they not offer an extensive mea culpa at their own convention about all the bad things the GOP has done, I don't recall any of the Democrats owning up to their part in various government debacles . . .
10.56 pm. Obama wants to reduce American power and prevent energy production. The mockery of Obama from Palin is striking. I don't recall anyone mocking McCain at the DNC.
Sully doesn' recall anyone mocking McCain, in a sense he's right, instead the Democrats were too busy running against 'Bush's 3rd term', besides, if Obama had actually done anything before they could mock his policies more, but in the absence of policy, they have no choice but to mock the celebrity and lack of credentials, which is what they mocked, not him personally.
10.53 pm. Drill, baby, drill! I may be just revealing that I'm out of touch, but I don't see why laying pipelines is now a core rallying cry of American conservatism.
There's a 'laying pipe' joke in there somewhere, but I'm not touching it.
10.50 pm. I have to say that the affect is of someone running for high school president.
Yeah, you already implied that with the Tracy Flick comment, jerk.
10.49 pm. Piper is poking Trig in the eye!
He forgot to mention the moment she used a wad of saliva to slick down Trig's hair.
10.48 pm. Ethics reform is her first policy proposal.
Policy, schmolicy, she's an unkown quantity, if she just got up there and was wonky the whole time, she'd have lost the audience, she needed to introduce herself to America, and she did.
10.47 pm. She has this weird tick of scrunching up her face to make a forceful point. Kinda Tracy Flicky.
If looking like a young Reese Witherspoon is a bad thing, then I don't want to be right (and for the record, I look nothing like Reese Witherspoon)
10.44 pm. Palin echoes Giuliani's attack on "cosmopolitan" elites. All the buzzwords are there. Elite. Elite. Elite. This is a culture war speech - and she is becoming a symbol of red America. This is what they have to do top win: divide and polarize again. We are half way through, by the way, and we have not heard a single policy proposal. But we have heard contempt for someone who works as a community organizer in the South Side of Chicago.
There is no higher office than 'community organizer', yeah, right.
10.40 pm. We've just seen a picture of a seven year old cradling and stroking the hair of a Down Syndrome infant. This, apparently, is relevant to deciding who should be the next vice-president of the United States.
A no win situation, had Trig not been there, Sully would have been all, 'See, she's ashamed of her special needs child, what a disgusting parent'
10.39 pm. I'm just slack-jawed that, so far, the entire speech has been basically about her family. She seems as if she just won a reality show and is introducing her folks. And they have passed the baby now to four different people - including another child. Slack-jawed.
How dare she flaunt her damnably fertile uterus, it's an insult to LGBTTTIQQ folks everywhere!
(and if it's not clear already, the portions of this post that are slap worthy are Sully's, my annotations, on the other hand, deserve hugs, kisses, and pats on the back)
11.10 pm. Reality television has become our politics.
Yeah, whatever, cry into your beer (I almost typed bear, I think either would be correct) tonight Sully, you just saw The One get schooled.
11.06 pm. Both Huckabee and Palin have used the t-word. Of course, they are not criminally liable, as Bush is.
More moral equivalency crap, at Gitmo the inmates get proper medical attention, food, water, even counsel, some rough interrogation techniques have been used (and some of those techniques are questionable, and should be stopped, but that doesn't mean all interrogation is torture, or the experiences are anywhere close to being comparable), but there is no equivalence to what McCain experienced over his five years in captivity, and to suggest so may make a person popular in the DC-NYC cocktail party crowd, but it sounds on awful lot like the usual lefty America-hating tripe, from someone who is supposed to have a 'conservative soul'.
11.05 pm. Every time the camera pans to McCain's mother, she seems mortified. I don't really blame her. Can you imagine what she was thinking as a tiny special needs baby is passed from person to person for the cable news.
OK, now you're just projecting you jerk. I'm gobsmacked. I can not even begin to describe how full of contempt Sully sounds with that little blurb, and how contemptible I find his attitude.
11.03 pm. However admirable it is to be a mayor, is it really necessary to drip contempt for people who work as community organizers? It seems to me that Palin doesn't quite have the stature to be putting down someone who has won millions of people's votes. This is a much more partisan speech than I was expecting.
Winning primary votes now equals executive experience, that's good to know for future reference. And again with the worshipful attitude towards community organizing, very 'Conservative Soul' of you Sully.
11.00 pm Styrofoam pillars; and self-designed seals. And her lip curls.
And your point, Sully?
10.58 pm. Now it's about big government - which Republicans have exploded in size. But no one can notice the actual record of the GOP in growing government and increasing debt. That would be too much accountability.
Yeah, how dare they not offer an extensive mea culpa at their own convention about all the bad things the GOP has done, I don't recall any of the Democrats owning up to their part in various government debacles . . .
10.56 pm. Obama wants to reduce American power and prevent energy production. The mockery of Obama from Palin is striking. I don't recall anyone mocking McCain at the DNC.
Sully doesn' recall anyone mocking McCain, in a sense he's right, instead the Democrats were too busy running against 'Bush's 3rd term', besides, if Obama had actually done anything before they could mock his policies more, but in the absence of policy, they have no choice but to mock the celebrity and lack of credentials, which is what they mocked, not him personally.
10.53 pm. Drill, baby, drill! I may be just revealing that I'm out of touch, but I don't see why laying pipelines is now a core rallying cry of American conservatism.
There's a 'laying pipe' joke in there somewhere, but I'm not touching it.
10.50 pm. I have to say that the affect is of someone running for high school president.
Yeah, you already implied that with the Tracy Flick comment, jerk.
10.49 pm. Piper is poking Trig in the eye!
He forgot to mention the moment she used a wad of saliva to slick down Trig's hair.
10.48 pm. Ethics reform is her first policy proposal.
Policy, schmolicy, she's an unkown quantity, if she just got up there and was wonky the whole time, she'd have lost the audience, she needed to introduce herself to America, and she did.
10.47 pm. She has this weird tick of scrunching up her face to make a forceful point. Kinda Tracy Flicky.
If looking like a young Reese Witherspoon is a bad thing, then I don't want to be right (and for the record, I look nothing like Reese Witherspoon)
10.44 pm. Palin echoes Giuliani's attack on "cosmopolitan" elites. All the buzzwords are there. Elite. Elite. Elite. This is a culture war speech - and she is becoming a symbol of red America. This is what they have to do top win: divide and polarize again. We are half way through, by the way, and we have not heard a single policy proposal. But we have heard contempt for someone who works as a community organizer in the South Side of Chicago.
There is no higher office than 'community organizer', yeah, right.
10.40 pm. We've just seen a picture of a seven year old cradling and stroking the hair of a Down Syndrome infant. This, apparently, is relevant to deciding who should be the next vice-president of the United States.
A no win situation, had Trig not been there, Sully would have been all, 'See, she's ashamed of her special needs child, what a disgusting parent'
10.39 pm. I'm just slack-jawed that, so far, the entire speech has been basically about her family. She seems as if she just won a reality show and is introducing her folks. And they have passed the baby now to four different people - including another child. Slack-jawed.
How dare she flaunt her damnably fertile uterus, it's an insult to LGBTTTIQQ folks everywhere!
(and if it's not clear already, the portions of this post that are slap worthy are Sully's, my annotations, on the other hand, deserve hugs, kisses, and pats on the back)
01 September 2008
I Blame Diablo Cody (and Jason Reitman) . . .
He's a superhunky bad-boy ice hockey player from cold country; she's a chestnut-haired beauty and popular high school senior.(from the NY Daily News, and given that lead paragraph, wouldn't be surprised if all three journalists with a byline on this article are barely out of high school, themselves)
Folks on the left have already started up about Sarah Palin's daughter being pregnant at 17, and how that is obviously proof that abstinence only education doesn't work since Palin is for that, but her oldest daughter, Bristol, failed to abstain (not bothering with links, but have been hearing this stuff all day on CNN, Bill Bennett sounded like he wanted to give Wolf Blitzer a beatdown for his snide tone over this).
First, schools don't influence teenagers choices when it comes to their sexuality, they'll screw or not screw largely based on opportunity, popularity, attractiveness, and their own hormone stew. "Protection", and the realization that actions have consequences aren't often at the forefront of a teen kids thoughts when making decisions about that sort of activity.
Second, parents have an influence, but they can't be everywhere, they can't prevent their kids from doing the stuff that kids have done since forever. All parents can do is accept that life happens, and embrace life when life is the result of that 'life happening'. That's what the Palin family has done, and that's commendable. Lefties have been bad enough about this with Bristol Palin proceeding with the pregnancy, imagine if she had slipped off to the closest planned parenthood office and 'taken care of' her problem. Chances are, someone would have leaked it, and then the lefties would be calling Sarah Palin a hypocrite because she had a daughter end a pregnancy (which would make as much sense as blaming Gov. Palin's support for abstinence only education, but would have been ten times nastier).
Third, I don't blame Bristol, I don't blame Sarah, I don't blame abstinence only education, I blame the realities of small towns, long cold Alaska nights, time to kill, and not that many different options for killing that time, and most of all, I blame Diablo Cody (and Jason Reitman).
How much you wanna bet Bristol had seen Juno before getting pregnant herself? (a shame they don't live in Juneau, then I could play with that pair of homophones, but sounds like the kids and husband have spent most of their time in Wasilia, and didn't move to the state capital, so no Juno/Juneau jokes). There were commenters on the left who were disappointed that the character Juno didn't do the 'smart thing' and end her unplanned pregnancy. Part of the reason why that little art house movie played well beyond the art houses was (besides being well done) was that it didn't preach one way or other regarding this issue, it just showed one kids choice, and one family's (humorous) struggle to deal with the consequences. So, for showing a teen make the hard choice and proceed with an unplanned pregnancy, and showing that choice within the context of a humorous film, she paved the way for stuff like this.
(hey, my contention is no more ridiculous than saying the presence or absence of abstinence only sex ed in public schools made a difference in the personal choices this teenaged couple made)
UPDATE: I think I should be clear (just in case on the off chance that someone might actually read this), Bristol Palin's uterus is none of my business, nor is it the sole responsibility of her mother, nor do the facts as presented show Gov. Palin to be anything but a caring parent who gets to be a grandparent a little earlier than planned. Beyond that, Obama's response was the correct one, to a degree. non-adult children of politicians should be off limits, adult children of politicians (along with any other relation or acquaintence) who themselves engage in political activity, need to be scrutinized, especially if they use their special access to a powerful personage for financial gain, or contribute to their powerful relation in engaging in questionable activities.
Family stuff, should remain family stuff, but just cause someone is a family member, doesn't automatically make all their actions 'family stuff'. Clearly, a teen pregnancy should just about be the definition of 'family stuff', and most voters get that, and those that don't will only end up hurting the candidate they hope to support by making this situation a big issue.
You like how I alluded to Biden's son and brother without ever mentioning their names?
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