How Many Versions Of "Juno" Can This Blog Carry?

The Hopester declared the Palin "family situation" off-limits to his campaign staff. Fortunately, this blog answers to no master and John Sherffius, one of our great editorial cartoonists, had another take on unplanned parenthood Up North. Just imagine what the Dumbo attack dogs would do with a comparable "family situation" involving their opposition. In the meantime, The Geezer can work on his "knocked up"-jokes when he warms up a crowd. If this is (fair & balanced) poor taste, so be it.

[x Boulder (CO) Fishwrap]
Another Take On "Juno"
By John Sherffius

Click on image to enlarge.

[John Sherffius began drawing editorial cartoons for the Daily Bruin, the campus newspaper at UCLA. After two years of working as a freelance artist, after graduation, he was hired by the Ventura County Star in Southern California as a graphic artist and gradually worked his way into editorial cartooning for the paper. In 1998, he was hired by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as the newspaper's editorial cartoonist, a job he held until 2003 when he quit the paper over editorial differences. Sherffius bridled at editorial insistence that he tone down cartoons attacking Republicans. Sherffius then went to work for the Boulder Daily Camera where his cartoons appear regularly and are syndicated nationally by the Copley News Service. Sherffius won the 2008 Herblock Prize for Editorial Cartooning.]

Copyright © 2008 Boulder Daily Camera/John Sherffius

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The Mighty Quinnette Wants To Get The Puck Out Of The United States!

Colonel Mackey has nailed the real issue: "We can go forward or we go back" (to 1860). The Donkeys must go after The Mighty Quinnette's bat guano secessionist dreams. If this is (fair & balanced) agitprop, so be it.

[x the Huffington Post]
The Real Issue: Governor Palin And The Survival Of The Republic
By Robert Mackey

I was reading Jake Tapper's blog post on ABC News and became quite disturbed over Governor Palin's association with the secessionist Alaska Independence Party (AIP). I can slough off the baby rumors. I can live with the Governor's conservative ideology. What I can't stand for is the possibility that the first time since before 1860, there is a person of national political importance who believes that the destruction of the Union is a good idea.

A bit of background. I spent three years at Fort Wainwright, Alaska (in Fairbanks) as military police company commander and Provost Marshal (the military version of a chief of police). It is a stunningly beautiful region, filled with wildlife and a pristine view equaled by none in the U.S. Alaska is also the home of a very, very independent strain of Americans, who see themselves, in general, as the last frontiersmen (and women). It is a mixing bowl of ethnic groups, from Russian Orthodox Inuits in Sitka to Chinese and Japanese communities in Anchorage. And not a few fringe elements as well.

The AIP is one of these, but it is one that has substantial political support in the state. The AIP has one unifying goal for the organization (along with a long roster of party planks of a distinctly conservative bent): a "do-over" of the 1958 referendum for statehood. AIP states its objective as:

"The Alaskan Independence Party's goal is the vote we were entitled to in 1958, one choice from among the following four alternatives:

1) Remain a Territory.
2) Become a separate and Independent Nation.
3) Accept Commonwealth status.
4) Become a State.

The call for this vote is in furtherance of the dream of the Alaskan Independence Party's founding father, Joe Vogler, which was for Alaskans to achieve independence under a minimal government, fully responsive to the people, promoting a peaceful and lawful means of resolving differences."

In the 1850's, as pressure to end slavery was applied first by the Abolitionists, then the Free Soilers, and finally the Republican Party, South Carolina's powerful and slave owning elite began to panic. The distinct likelihood that their human chattel would be taken from them drove them to adhere to the idea of "State's Rights." "State's Rights" sounds so, so much better than "the right to own other human beings and work them to death whenever I feel like it." The 'Right' being defended was the right to own slaves; South Carolina was not irate over their inability to coin money or raise their own tariffs.

What we are talking about is the fact that the 1860 planter elite was afraid that the bad old Federal government was going to come and take their property from them. Oddly enough, the AIP makes the same argument in their party platform —

"To support and defend States' Rights, Individual Rights, Property Rights, and the Equal Footing Doctrine as guaranteed by the constitutions of the United States of America and the state of Alaska.
"To foster a constitutional amendment abolishing and prohibiting all property taxes," "To support the privatization of government services.
"To oppose the borrowing of money by government for any purposes other than for capital improvements."

Simply put, the AIP wants the public land owned by the American People (read: ANWR) to be turned over to Alaska to be used as it sees fit. I can only suppose the fitting use involves digging oil wells, gold mines and other efforts to pull every remaining resource in the state out of the ground. If they can do it as part of the USA, great; if not, they want to do it as a Commonwealth or as an independent nation.

Last week Governor Palin, who presumably still adheres to the values and ideals of the AIP, was named as GOP Vice Presidential candidate. While much of the media attention has focused on her daughter's pregnancy and other soft issues, many of the real questions have been ignored, to include her involvement with the AIP.

While many of the AIP planks are fairly benign ("To provide for the development of unrestricted, statewide, surface transportation and utility corridors as needed by the public or any individual," and support for home schooling), the simple fact remains that it is a political party aimed at forcing a re-vote on statehood. It is, in effect, a secessionist movement, just like that which caused the Civil War.

And the United States is facing a situation where for the first time since 1860, we could end up with an elected official who is in favor of breaking up the Federal Union. On one side, we have a person who has favored, by her membership, secession from the American Republic on the basis of "States Rights." On the other, we have a black Presidential candidate who could finally heal the open scar of slavery and civil war, who could be President of the United States on the 150th anniversary of the firing on Fort Sumter.

We can go forward or we can go back. That is what this election is about

[Robert Mackey, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army (Retired), is a combat veteran of the invasion of Panama, Desert Storm, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Mackey was Assistant Professor of Military History at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and served on the Army Staff and Joint Staff at the Pentagon. He is a regular contributor to Military History and World War II magazines, and is the author of The UnCivil War: Irregular Warfare in the Upper South, 1861-1865. Dr. (PhD, Texas A&M University) Mackey is currently a terrorism consultant in Washington, DC.]

Copyright © 2008 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

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Bipartisan Humor

This blog must be fearless. A parody of "Juno" that mocks the Dumbo hypocrites is fine. However, a parody of "Alfred E. Newman" that mocks The Hopester balances the scales of justice. If this is a (fair & balanced) takeoff, so be it.

[x Accordian Guy Blog]
"Juneau"

Click on image to enlarge.

[x Mad Magazine]
Alfred E. Obama

Copyright © 2008 Mad Magazine

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"Northern Exposure" Comes To Life: The Mighty Quinnette Is A Wacko From Up North

The "Hockey Mom" (aka a pit bull wearing lipstick) ought to get the puck out of here. As usual, Eags knows whereof he speaks/writes when it comes to the portion of North America north of California. The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave cannot survive a gun-totin', book-banning, anti-science "Republican Woman" True Believer. The Mighty Quinnette is a real ditch, or, uh, something that sounds like that. The Geezer is bad enough, but a female Know-Nothing is beyond the pale. Let her go back Up North and amuse her fellow inmates in the frozen waste. If this is (fair & balanced) horror, so be it.

[x NY Fishwrap]
Palin’s True North
By Timothy Egan

Long before the slogan known to 48-hour libertines — What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas — became commonplace, I heard a variant of that in Alaska, and not just at closing time in fishermen’s bars.

Distance breeds isolation, and in Alaska that often means an arm’s-length code of personal privacy. The state is full of people who have left behind marriages, debts and places that simply weren’t big enough to contain their personalities.

As she showed Wednesday night with her acceptance speech, Governor Sarah Palin fits the mold of a certain kind of Alaskan — “take it from a gal who knows,” as she said. The state has a unique political ecosystem, as quirky, odd and compelling as the big land itself.

But it is John McCain’s biggest gamble to hope that there is enough of Palin’s Last Frontier in the rest of the country to carry his ticket to the next frontier.

Of course, she nailed the speech. She faced only an artificial media challenge; “Sarah Barracuda” has been able to talk to an audience, and throw an elbow — well — since high school.

As was self-evident among the sea of pink-faced delegates in St. Paul, the Republican base loves Palin. They love that she carried a Down Syndrome baby to term – “living out pro-life values,” as James Dobson said. They love that she told her church it was God’s will that a natural gas pipeline must be built in Alaska. And they certainly love that she knows her way around a gun.

As Rush Limbaugh said on Wednesday, “Palin is twice the man Obama is.”

But Palin’s style may not play outside of Alaska.

The governor isn’t so much a tough-minded reformer — see her sidling up to indicted Senator Ted Stevens, the earmarks directed to her hometown or the pressure from her governor’s office against a bad-boy former brother-in-law and trooper — nor is she some Annie Oakley throwback.

She is, though, a very recognizable Alaskan.

Among Alaskans, drunken driving, teenage pregnancy, shooting wildlife out of season and courting an independent political party whose founder once said, “the fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government,” are not disqualifying issues. They’re dinner-table stories.

Every home seems to have a freezer in the garage stuffed with moose meat and 10 pounds of alder-smoked chinook. Owning a small amount of marijuana is protected by the privacy clause of the Alaska constitution, the courts have ruled.

A bush pilot, flying low over a glacier in a wicked snowstorm, once asked me to reach into his glove compartment for a map. A flask of whiskey fell out, and he took a swig – without missing a beat.

But what many of us find, um, memorable, the rest of America may see as alarming, or at least strange. The CBS news survey on Tuesday, taking into account the Palin nomination, showed Obama with a 14-point lead among women. And a fresh Gallup poll suggests that the Palin pick has not helped McCain with Democratic or independent women, to date. It’s hurt.

Shooting wolves out of airplanes is something Palin backs with zest. But most Americans have never seen a wolf, let alone considered shooting one from a Piper Cub.

Palin may be the only nominee on a national ticket since Teddy Roosevelt who knows how to field dress a moose, as Fred Thompson said on Tuesday. But most Americans have never killed a moose, let alone gutted one.

Nationwide, hunting and fishing have been in steady decline for years now. Even in Pennsylvania — the setting for “The Deer Hunter” — license tabs for deer are down nearly 25 percent since the mid-’80s.

When Alaska’s congressman-for-life Don Young brandished a walrus penis bone on the floor of the House years ago, everybody in Alaska got a big chuckle out of it — that Don Young, such a character!

But if he tried that at a school board meeting in suburban Denver, he’d most likely be arrested.

For all-time weirdness, it’s hard to match two-time Governor Walter J. Hickel. He always said he had a “Little Man” inside his head. No matter what his critics said — Wally listened to the Little Man.

I’m not sure of it, but the Little Man may have been the inspiration for one of Wally’s nuttier schemes — to build a $150 billion pipeline carrying freshwater from Alaska glaciers to the arid reaches of Southern California.

In Alaska, this idea was given serious thought. In the Outside, as Alaskans call the rest of the country, it was a joke.

They say Alaska is what America used to be — true enough, in my experience. But it may not be what America wants to be.

[Timothy Egan, a contributing columnist for The Times, writes the weekly "Outposts" column on the American West. Egan — winner of both a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 as a member of a team of reporters who wrote the series "How Race Is Lived in America" and a National Book Award (The Worst Hard Time in 2006) — graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in journalism, and was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters by Whitman College in 2000 for his environmental writings. Egan is the author of four other books, in addition The Worst Hard Time — The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest, Lasso the Wind: Away to the New West, Breaking Blue, and The Winemaker's Daughter.]

Copyright © 2008 The New York Time Comapny

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