God help us...! Sarah's going to run for President...!

sometimes i think i live in the most bizarre, screwed up country in the world...

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will resign her office later this month, according to several sources familiar with her decision, freeing her to build a national political team and travel the country in support of an expected 2012 presidential bid.

The first term governor is stepping down "so that she can take the fight for her issues elsewhere," according to a Palin aide.

i hate to wish anyone ill, but i have to say i hope she makes a bigger fool out of herself than she has already which i honestly don't think she will have to work very hard to do... talk about delusions of grandeur, grandiosity and sheer over-the-top you-gotta-be-kidding-me insanity...

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Ted Stevens and the return of the rule of law

how encouraging...!

Senator Ted Stevens, Alaska’s dominant political figure for more than four decades, was found guilty on Monday by a jury of violating federal ethics laws for failing to report tens of thousands of dollars in gifts and services he had received from friends.

The jury of District of Columbia residents convicted Mr. Stevens, 84, on all seven felony counts he faced in connection with charges that he knowingly failed to list on Senate disclosure forms the receipt of some $250,000 in gifts and services used to renovate his home in Girdwood, Alaska.

Mr. Stevens, a consistently grim-faced figure, frowned more deeply as the verdict was delivered by the jury foreman, a worker at a drug counseling center. Mr. Stevens’s wife and one of his daughters sat glumly behind him in the courtroom.

In a statement issued after he had left the courthouse, Mr. Stevens was defiant, urging Alaskans to re-elect him to a seventh full term next week.

He blamed what he called repeated misconduct by federal prosecutors for the verdict. “I will fight this unjust verdict with every ounce of energy I have,” he said.

boo-frigging-hoo...

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Two headlines, one extremely serious and the other seriously and un-friggingly-believable

extremely serious...

Nouriel Roubini: The world is at severe risk of a global systemic financial meltdown and a severe global depression

Urgent and immediate necessary actions that need to be done globally include:
1) another rapid round of policy rate cuts of the order of at least 150 basis points on average globally;
2) a temporary blanket guarantee of all deposits while a triage between insolvent financial institutions that need to be shut down and distressed but solvent institutions that need to be partially nationalized with injections of public capital is made;
3) a rapid reduction of the debt burden of insolvent households preceded by a temporary freeze on all foreclosures;
4) massive and unlimited provision of liquidity to solvent financial institutions;
5) public provision of credit to the solvent parts of the corporate sector to avoid a short-term debt refinancing crisis for solvent but illiquid corporations and small businesses;
6) a massive direct government fiscal stimulus packages that includes public works, infrastructure spending, unemployment benefits, tax rebates to lower income households and provision of grants to strapped and crunched state and local government;
7) a rapid resolution of the banking problems via triage, public recapitalization of financial institutions and reduction of the debt burden of distressed households and borrowers;
8) an agreement between lender and creditor countries running current account surpluses and borrowing and debtor countries running current account deficits to maintain an orderly financing of deficits and a recycling of the surpluses of creditors to avoid a disorderly adjustment of such imbalances.

seriously and un-friggingly-believable...

Palin pre-empts state report, clears self in probe

Trying to head off a potentially embarrassing state ethics report on GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, campaign officials released their own report Thursday that clears her of any wrongdoing.

to say that we live in interesting times is perhaps the most profound understatement of the century...

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Ted (Intertubes) Stevens indicted

do i detect a little whiff of accountability in the air...?

A federal grand jury has indicted longtime Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska, on corruption charges after more than a year’s investigation, a federal law enforcement official has confirmed to The Times’s David Johnston.

The Justice Department plans to hold a 1:20 p.m. news briefing on details of the indictment.

Just a year ago, federal agents raided Mr. Stevens’ home following questions about renovations at the home. A few months before that, an Alaska businessman Bill J. Allen admitted to bribery, and in court papers acknowledged making $243,000 in possibly illegal payments to a state lawmaker identified only as “Senator B.” That abbreviation referred to Senator Ted Stevens’s son, Ben Stevens.

The sprawling federal investigation has ensnared several local and state officials, as well as federal officials. The Anchorage Daily News has a breakdown of those who have been charged and/or convicted.

The 84-year-old senator is up for re-election this year while under investigative scrutiny, a matter that had not gone unmentioned by Democrats. His opponent, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, has been campaigning hard against the longest-sitting Republican member of the Senate, and Democrats were hopeful that Mr. Begich would be a serious contender.

i'm happy to see ANY accountability for ANYONE, but when i start to see the really big fish like rove and his murderous former boss getting the book thrown at them, i'll pop open that bottle of hard, sparkling cider that's been cooling in my fridge for the past several years...

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"We don't even take the trouble to be united."

exceptionalism, clarified...

We are Americans, and so until recently, we knew that we were the best. Because so many people wanted to be us, we could act as we pleased — and we did, because we were the Great Exception; we were America the Blessed. Hence...

• [O]ur complacent belief, so long borne out by the facts, that American movies and American brands would always sell.

• [T]he Kyoto Protocol did not apply to us, so that we could spew out all the greenhouse gases we liked, and use a pig's share of the world's resources.

• [W]e could seize war criminals in any part of the globe and whisk them off to The Hague.

• [W]e insisted that should we ever commit war crimes, we would remain immune to prosecution in that court.

• [T]his president and his two attorneys general have quite literally legalized torture

• Bull your way ahead. If you meet obstacles, overcome them with arrogant bluster. If this fails, proceed to vicious, mendacious brutality.

• Americans not only voted for [George Bush], but after he proved himself to be a criminal, they reelected him.

• Why not do whatever suited our whims?

• "They hate us," we whisper to one another in amazement.

• What if we had to follow the rules that everyone else does? Well, why not put off that pain as long as possible?

• [W]e don't even take the trouble to be united.

• Alaskan towns are tilting in the melting permafrost, but who cares down in the Lower 48?
  

• Republicans and Democrats hate each other.
  

• Automobiles isolate us.
  

• Generations of advice-givers have made us believe that profit best defines the successful life.

it's tough swallowing a heavy dose of truth on a sunday morning...

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