Herb Week: Sage Advice

For most of the summer I've been featuring showy flowers from the LipsYard Garden. Over on the right side, next to the stone path to our neighbors, is the herb garden, making everything taste (and sometimes smell) better. This brings us to the start of Herb Week, where we'll honor these hardworking plants.

First up is Sage (Salvia officinalis.)

Perfect for seasoning meat, vegetable and egg dishes, and stuffings.

Sage also refers to a type of good, seasoned advice. We've been pointing out the failings and foibles of Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, and now, even the conservative pundits have begun to turn on her. Today, it's Kathleen Parker, a strong female voice from the right.

WASHINGTON -- If at one time women were considered heretical for swimming upstream against feminist orthodoxy, they now face condemnation for swimming downstream -- away from Sarah Palin.

To express reservations about her qualifications to be vice president -- and possibly president -- is to risk being labeled anti-woman.

Or, as I am guilty of charging her early critics, supporting only a certain kind of woman.

Some of the passionately feminist critics of Palin who attacked her personally deserved some of the backlash they received. But circumstances have changed since Palin was introduced as just a hockey mom with lipstick -- what a difference a financial crisis makes -- and a more complicated picture has emerged.

As we've seen and heard more from John McCain's running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem. Quick study or not, she doesn't know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion.

Yes, she recently met and turned several heads of state as the United Nations General Assembly convened in New York. She was gracious, charming and disarming. Men swooned. Pakistan's president wanted to hug her. (Perhaps Osama bin Laden is dying to meet her?)

And, yes, she has common sense, something we value. And she's had executive experience as a mayor and a governor, though of relatively small constituencies (about 6,000 and 680,000, respectively).

Finally, Palin's narrative is fun, inspiring and all-American in that frontier way we seem to admire. When Palin first emerged as John McCain's running mate, I confess I was delighted. She was the antithesis and nemesis of the hirsute, Birkenstock-wearing sisterhood -- a refreshing feminist of a different order who personified the modern successful working mother.

Palin didn't make a mess cracking the glass ceiling. She simply glided through it.

It was fun while it lasted.

Palin's recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I've been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I've also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there's not much content there. Here's but one example of many from her interview with Hannity:"Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we're talking about today. And that's something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this."

When Couric pointed to polls showing that the financial crisis had boosted Obama's numbers, Palin blustered wordily: "I'm not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who's more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who's actually done it?"

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

If Palin were a man, we'd all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she's a woman -- and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket -- we are reluctant to say what is painfully true.

What to do?

McCain can't repudiate his choice for running mate. He not only risks the wrath of the GOP's unforgiving base, but he invites others to second-guess his executive decision-making ability. Barack Obama faces the same problem with Biden.

Only Palin can save McCain, her party and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.

Do it for your country.

Brewers Rally

The Brewers are in Postseason play for the first time in 26 years! (Back when I started at WKTI) Today we're partying at the Summerfest grounds at the Miller Lite Oasis.

The Rally will run until 8pm (I bet it goes longer) and include live music from Reckless Kelly, appearances by past and present Brewer players, and Fireworks.

Here's Debbie and I ready for the Live Broadcast.

Here's the crowd waiting for the gates to open at 4pm.


Here's Andrea and Haley from the Brewers with the free Rally towels for the first 10,000 fans.


Mathew Blades, AJ and Erin pose before jumping into the crowd.

The crowd goes wild for the Racing (dancing) Sausages.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who has bet a case of Usinger Brats against the Mayor of Philadelphia's case of Cheese Steaks, gets the crowd pumped up.

Fans wave their Brewer Rally towels at the team.

Fragrant Iris Wafting Through the Air

Another flower in the LipsYard Garden making a go of it this fall is the Fragrant Iris (Iris.)

Not as showy as the "bearded" iris that blooms earlier in the season, these make up for the lesser 'looks' with a beautiful sweet scent.

The scent of Sarah Palin's success may be wafting away in the political breeze, too.

Pundit Sam Harris writes:

"Let me confess that I was genuinely unnerved by Sarah Palin's performance at the Republican convention. Given her audience and the needs of the moment, I believe Governor Palin's speech was the most effective political communication I have ever witnessed. Here, finally, was a performer who—being maternal, wounded, righteous and sexy—could stride past the frontal cortex of every American and plant a three-inch heel directly on that limbic circuit that ceaselessly intones "God and country." If anyone could make Christian theocracy smell like apple pie, Sarah Palin could.

Then came Palin's first television interview with Charles Gibson. I was relieved to discover, as many were, that Palin's luster can be much diminished by the absence of a teleprompter. Still, the problem she poses to our political process is now much bigger than she is. Her fans seem inclined to forgive her any indiscretion short of cannibalism. However badly she may stumble during the remaining weeks of this campaign, her supporters will focus their outrage upon the journalist who caused her to break stride, upon the camera operator who happened to capture her fall, upon the television network that broadcast the good lady's misfortune—and, above all, upon the "liberal elites" with their highfalutin assumption that, in the 21st century, only a reasonably well-educated person should be given command of our nuclear arsenal.

The point to be lamented is not that Sarah Palin comes from outside Washington, or that she has glimpsed so little of the earth's surface (she didn't have a passport until last year), or that she's never met a foreign head of state. The point is that she comes to us, seeking the second most important job in the world, without any intellectual training relevant to the challenges and responsibilities that await her...

...Palin may be a perfectly wonderful person, a loving mother and a great American success story—but she is a beauty queen/sports reporter who stumbled into small-town politics, and who is now on the verge of stumbling into, or upon, world history.

The problem, as far as our political process is concerned, is that half the electorate revels in Palin's lack of intellectual qualifications. When it comes to politics, there is a mad love of mediocrity in this country. "They think they're better than you!" is the refrain that (highly competent and cynical) Republican strategists have set loose among the crowd, and the crowd has grown drunk on it once again. "Sarah Palin is an ordinary person!" Yes, all too ordinary.
We have all now witnessed apparently sentient human beings, once provoked by a reporter's microphone, saying things like, "I'm voting for Sarah because she's a mom. She knows what it's like to be a mom." Such sentiments suggest an uncanny (and, one fears, especially American) detachment from the real problems of today. The next administration must immediately confront issues like nuclear proliferation, ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and covert wars elsewhere), global climate change, a convulsing economy, Russian belligerence, the rise of China, emerging epidemics, Islamism on a hundred fronts, a defunct United Nations, the deterioration of American schools, failures of energy, infrastructure and Internet security … the list is long, and Sarah Palin does not seem competent even to rank these items in order of importance, much less address any one of them...

...how has "elitism" become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth—in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn't seem too intelligent or well educated."

Read the entire piece by Sam Harris, including shocking revelations about Sarah Palin's church and their beliefs, HERE.

Green Thursday: A Driving Decision

First it was his seven houses. Now, Sen. John McCain has to explain his fleet of 13 cars.
Newsweek published the report stating McCain and his wife, Cindy, own more than a dozen cars, including three electric bubble-shaped cars, called GEM's that are popular in retirement communities. Good so far on the Green Front.

But the ones getting him into trouble are the foreign-made cars. The McCains own a Honda sedan and a Volkswagen convertible, despite the candidate's claims to always buy American-made cars. (I have nothing against foreign cars, we own two, it's not telling the truth I'm against.)

McCain bragged that "I've bought American literally all my life and I'm proud." Bad lie on the Campaign Front.

That was after explaining that his daughter, Meghan, bought her own Toyota Prius. Good on the Green Front.

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger blasted McCain for not being truthful with voters. "When he's in the midwest, he tells voters he supports the industry. That's really a nice campaign line. But it turns out that John McCain wasn't being straight with the people of Detroit."

Gettelfinger cast McCain as an enemy of auto workers for supporting trade deals that he said would ship jobs overseas. "We need a president who's committed to rebuilding the auto industry in America, not a president who buys foreign cars and then falsifies the truth when he thinks auto workers aren't watching." Ouch!

The magazine reported that the only car in McCain's name is a Cadillac. The others are in Cindy McCain's name. Another Japanese car -- a Lexus that Cindy McCain drives with the plates 'Ms BUD' -- is registered to the beer distribution company that she heads.

The Obamas own a single car -a 2008 Ford Escape Hybrid. Campaign and Green Good.

Every Green Thursday we post items vital to the survival of the planet.

A Sweet Smell Around The World

Yet another late bloomer in the LipsYard Garden, the Tuberose (Polianthes tuberosa.) The tuberose is a night-blooming plant thought to be native to Mexico. It smells very sweet, and is often used in perfumes. The Aztecs called it Omixochitl, or bone flower. Its a prominent plant in Indian culture and mythology. The flowers are used in wedding ceremonies, garlands, decoration and various traditional rituals. It's Hindi name is Rajnigandha. In Singapore it is called Xinxiao, which means "that on which the moth rests." In Indonesia it is called Bunga sedap malam, meaning fragrant night flower. In Tamil Nadu it is called Sambangi, and traditionally used in all type of garlanding especially in south Indian marriages. In Cuba it is called Azucena. If you've traveled to Hawaii, the Lei they put around your neck at the airport is made from Tuberoses. It's a flower known 'round the world.

Not so well known 'round the world is Sarah Palin, the woman who could potentially become second-in-command of the United States of America and who received her passport only last year. She's getting a crash course in global affairs.

The Governor of Alaska is meeting with seven world leaders and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in New York City this week, while the U.N. General Assembly convenes.

Her whilrwind schedule includes a day of separate meetings with Kissinger, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. On the second day she has a joint playdate with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko, and then it's off to one-on-ones with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

She has even penciled in a meeting with Bono from U2, who will probably prove the most accessible to the Alaska senator. Who better to teach of world affairs than a rock star?

Hockey mom Sarah is going to be in for an eye-opener, as icky subjects are sure to come up, including but certainly not limited to: violence and political unrest in Pakistan (Throw in some shaky relations with Italy for good measure!), war between Georgia and Russia over a contested province, the struggle against persistent Taliban forces in Afghanistan, and a little bit of US troops still stuck fighting in Iran to top it all off.

Is she in over her head? Duh! For her sake I hope there's not a quiz at the end of the week.

The McCain campaign was very reluctant to allow reporters to cover Palin's meetings with foreign dignitaries this week.

The lipstick wearing pitbull has yet to hold a press conference, and the McCain camp barred the press from all these meetings, until the TV shows threatened not to show any footage, so they were allowed in to get a glimpse (40 seconds. Really!) before being ushered back outside.

There's a new player in the LipsYard Garden; The blue cornflower (Centaurea cyanus.)

You may also know it as Bachelor's button, Basket flower, Bluebottle, Boutonniere flower, or (my favorite) Hurtsickle.

In folklore, cornflowers were worn by young men in love; if the flower faded too quickly, it was taken as a sign that the man's love was unrequited.

(former site of the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska)

Sarah Palin's love of taxpayer money is anything but unrequited. The Republican Vice Presidential candidate may say she stopped the "Bridge to Nowhere," but still took the hundreds of millions in Federal Funding for it. She also took $25 million and had her State Transportation Department build a "Road to Nowhere."

Thats right. Even though she 'stopped' the "Bridge," there's still a 3.2-mile gravel road leading to the site. What's it being used for? 5K and 10K road races, and hunters.

Sarah Palin herself is the real "Bridge to Nowhere."

Mum's The Word

Another late bloomer in the LipsYard Garden is the mum (Chrysanthemum.)

Chrysanthemums were cultivated in China as a flowering herb as far back as the 15th century BC. An ancient Chinese city was named Ju-Xian, meaning "chrysanthemum city". The flower was introduced into Japan probably in the 8th century AD, and the Emperor adopted the flower as his official seal. There is a "Festival of Happiness" in Japan that celebrates the flower.

In addition to the red mums on the right side of the garden, we also have a yellow mum on the left.

Mum is also the word about the Bush administration, especially if you are a Republican. He got 8 minutes via satelite at the Convention in St. Paul, then not another mention.

A good friend told me about a "Thankyou President Bush" bumper sticker he had seen recently. Who would be foolish enough to put this on their car? Pick a category: Iraq War, Economy, Health Care, Environment, Unemployment, Katrina, Education. Who has anything to thank President George W. Bush about? Do we really need four more years of this with John McCain/Sarah Palin?

Go Ahead, Aster Anything

This year we received an Aster (Aster novae-angliae) from our neighbor, Penny.

It's finally blooming, and will continue to flower through October.

Asters come in white, purple, lavender, pink or red. Mr. Bee seems fond of purple.

Here's a real group of blooming er, something or others.

We've had to wait all summer for the Aster to bloom. Now I can hardly wait for the vice presidential nominee debate on October 2 at Washington University to burst forth in florets of that confused "What the heck is the Bush Doctrine" look. Should be a real "twist in the wind" event.

Even those on the conservative side of the aisle are starting to wince around Sarah Palin.

Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska became the nation's most prominent Republican officeholder to publicly question whether Palin has the experience to serve as president.

"She doesn't have any foreign policy credentials," Hagel said in an interview. "You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don't know what you can say. You can't say anything."...

"I think they ought to be just honest about it and stop the nonsense about, 'I look out my window and I see Russia and so therefore I know something about Russia,'" he said. "That kind of thing is insulting to the American people."

Green Thursday: Sarah Palin Bad For Whales

by GARANCE BURKE The Associated Press

Gov. Sarah Palin may eventually have said "no thanks" to a federally funded Bridge to Nowhere.
But a bridge to her hometown of Wasilla, that's a different story.
A $600 million bridge and highway project to link Alaska's largest city to Palin's town of 7,000 residents is moving full speed ahead, despite concerns the bridge could worsen some commuting and threaten a population of beluga whales.

Local officials already have spent $42 million on plans to route traffic across the Knik Arm inlet, a narrow finger of water extending roughly 25 miles northeast of Anchorage toward Wasilla. The proposal exists thanks to an earmark request by Republican Rep. Don Young, whose son-in-law has a small stake in property near the bridge's proposed western span.

A Democratic council member in Anchorage will try Tuesday to spike the city's sponsorship of the project, which Palin supports with some reservations. "This is basically an incredibly expensive project that doesn't help commuters, doesn't help create jobs and may drive whales to extinction," said Justin Massey, an attorney advising environmentalists opposed to the proposal. "It is also a project that serves the area where the governor is from, which is near and dear to her heart."

The Knik Arm was one of two bridge proposals in Alaska awarded more than $450 million from lawmakers who requested money for special projects in 2005, when Young chaired the House Transportation Committee. At the time, Palin's running mate for the Republican ticket, Arizona Sen. John McCain, derided both projects as wasteful. He called Young's highway bill a "monstrosity" that was "terrifying in its fiscal consequences." "I want no part of this," McCain said in a July 2005 statement. "This legislation is not - I emphasize not - my way of legislating."

The governor initially championed the first so-called Bridge to Nowhere, which would have connected the southeastern Alaska town of Ketchikan to its airport on nearby Gravina Island. She later pulled the plug on the project after it became a national symbol of extravagant federal spending.

Palin's record on the Bridge to Nowhere has emerged as a central point of controversy in the campaign over her recent public claims that she had opposed it, aligning herself with McCain's anti-earmarks philosophy. Palin still supports the second bridge, officially named Don Young's Way in honor of the congressman.

Dianne Keller, who succeeded Palin as mayor in Wasilla, has said the new $600 million crossing could lower traffic congestion in the fast-growing community. A Federal Highway Administration study shows the project would cut down some area commutes, but could add to others as more people move to the suburbs.

The bridge is popular with property developers - including a group comprising Young's son-in-law, the former legislative director for indicted Republican Sen. Ted Stevens and three others - who own land across from Anchorage on the inlet's western side.

The National Marine Fisheries Service is evaluating whether the isolated beluga whales that breed and feed in the waterway's strong tides should be listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act. Palin has publicly urged the government not to list Cook Inlet beluga whales as endangered.

She clearly hasn't said 'no thanks' to this particular bridge.

Every Green Thusday we post issues vital to the survival of the planet.

An Apple A Day

Today we turn the LipsYard camera to the East, to our neighbor's mini Apple (Malus domestica) orchard.

The tree originated from Central Asia, where its wild ancestor is still found today. There are more than 7,500 known cultivars of apples resulting in range of desired characteristics. Cultivars vary in their yield and the ultimate size of the tree, even when grown on the same rootstock.

They've got a big crop this year, despite fears that there wouldn't be enough bees to pollinate the fruit.

In a case of Rotten Apples...

Evangelicals and social conservatives have embraced McCain's vice presidential pick for what they call her "pro-family," "pro-woman" values. But in Alaska, critics say Gov. Sarah Palin has not addressed the rampant sexual abuse, rape, domestic violence and murder that make her state one of the most dangerous places in the country for women and children. FBI statistics show Alaska leads the nation in these crimes with a rate two and a half times the national average, a ranking it has held for many years. Gov. Palin even agreed it is an "epidemic."

But all was not lost in Alaska. There were dedicated public servants who made the reduction and prevention of violence against women a priority. Officials in the Department of Public Safety were devising an ambitious, multi-million-dollar initiative to seriously tackle sex crimes in the state...but Palin's office put the plan on hold in July.

Days later, Palin fired its chief proponent, Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, after he declined to dismiss a state trooper Palin accused of threatening her own family members. Palin has said she fired Monegan because she wanted to move his department in a "new direction," and he was not being "a team player on budgeting issues." The dismissal is now at the center of a hotly-contested investigation by the state legislature. Now, under the umbrella of John McCain, Palin is refusing to cooperate, claiming the investigation is tainted by the Obama campaign.

Wait a minute, this has been going on in Alaska long before anyone ever even thought of her being Vice-President, plus there was a 12-0 vote to launch the investigation, and a majority vote in a Republican-led committee to authorize subpoenas.

Let's just toss this on the lie pile.

In the meantime, the victims of Alaska's absolutely scandalous rate of violence against women and children -- not to mention the one guy who actually cared -- are paying the price for a governor who puts her obsession with using the trappings of high office to settle personal scores ahead of protecting public safety.

A Growing Problem

Now that the torrential rains have ended, it's time to set the mower all the way up and attack the lawn. All the moisture (2 1/2" in the LipsYard raingauge over the weekend) has more than just the grass growing. There's these little orange guys.

They magically sprung up overnight.

The orange is a nice complement to the green.

Over the weekend, more trouble popped up on Wall Street. Lehman Brothers went belly up, Merrill Lynch got bought up by Bank of American. Insurance giant AIG is waiting in the wings to fail. The Dow's 500+ point drop yesterday was the biggest since September 11, 2001. John McCain advisor Donald Luskin is frustrated, not at Wall Street or the Bush administration, but at us middle class whiners and exaggerators. And he's not gonna take it any more!

"Things today just aren't that bad. Sure, there are trouble spots in the economy, as the government takeover of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and jitters about Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers, amply demonstrate. And unemployment figures are up a bit, too. None of this, however, is cause for depression -- or exaggerated Depression comparisons."

That's what Bushonomics are reduced to? After eight years of being told the next tax cut for billionaires would unleash the long promised economic Mecca, after two straight Presidential terms where critics of Bush's trickle-down mythology were soundly ridiculed as ignorant socialists, after being told We the People don't understand complicated money stuff and we should just shut up, work harder, shop our brains out, and trust conservative economic philosophy, the best case scenario our millionaire conservative cheerleaders can make in the end is 'it's not as bad' as the Great Depression?

"Vote Republican and it won't be as bad as the Great Depression!"

There was a time when our nation was at peace, its economy driven by technical innovation and stable markets allowing the accumulation of investment capital. Interest rates and unemployment were near historical lows, wages and productivity rose almost as steeply the stock market. Talk of investment banks going broke or market meltdowns was rare to non existent. And no one had to write columns begging people not to compare the economy to the Great Depression. It was called the Clinton Years.

A Pair of Pears

Our friend Jim brought us some Bartlett Pears (Pyrus communis) and boy, are they delicious!

While the cultivation of pears has been traced back in western Asia for three thousand years, there is also some speculation that its history goes back even further and that this marvelous fruit was discovered by people in the Stone Age. Whatever their origins, pears have been revered throughout time.

Called the "gift of the gods" by Homer in his epic, The Odyssey, pears were also a luxurious item in the court of Louis XIV. The early colonists brought pears to America, and while the first pear tree was planted in 1620, much of their pear supply was still imported from France. Like many other fruit trees, pears were introduced into California and Mexico by missionaries who planted them in their mission gardens.

Interestingly, with all of the respect that pears commanded, until the 18th century they did not have the soft juicy flesh that we now know them to possess. It was during this time that a lot of attention was given to the cultivation and breeding of pears, and many varieties were developed that featured pears' distinctive buttery texture and sweet taste. Today, much of the world's pear supply is grown in China, Italy and the United States.

Then there's another pair. John McCain and Sarah Palin, the Republican ticket for the White House.

Frank Rich from the New York Times weighs in on America's cutest couple:

"WITH all due deference to lipstick, let’s advance the story. A week ago the question was: Is Sarah Palin qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency? The question today: What kind of president would Sarah Palin be?

It’s an urgent matter, because if we’ve learned anything from the G.O.P. convention and its aftermath, it’s that the 2008 edition of John McCain is too weak to serve as America’s chief executive. This unmentionable truth, more than race, is now the real elephant in the room of this election.

No longer able to remember his principles any better than he can distinguish between Sunnis and Shia, McCain stands revealed as a guy who can be easily rolled by anyone who sells him a plan for “victory,” whether in Iraq or in Michigan. A McCain victory on Election Day will usher in a Palin presidency, with McCain serving as a transitional front man, an even weaker Bush to her Cheney.

The ambitious Palin and the ruthless forces she represents know it, too. You can almost see them smacking their lips in anticipation, whether they’re wearing lipstick or not.

...Since St. Paul, Democrats have been feasting on the hypocrisy of the Palin partisans, understandably enough. The same Republicans who attack Democrats for being too P.C. about race now howl about sexism with such abandon you half-expect Phyllis Schlafly and Carly Fiorina to stage a bra-burning. The same gang that once fueled Internet rumors and media feeding frenzies over the Clintons’ private lives now express pious outrage when the same fate befalls the Palins.

But the ultimate hypocrisy is that these woebegone, frightened opponents of change, sworn enemies of race-based college-admission initiatives, are now demanding their own affirmative action program for white folks applying to the electoral college. They want the bar for admission to the White House to be placed so low that legitimate scrutiny and criticism of Palin’s qualifications, record and family values can all be placed off limits. Byron York of National Review, a rare conservative who acknowledges the double standard, captured it best: “If the Obamas had a 17-year-old daughter who was unmarried and pregnant by a tough-talking black kid, my guess is if they all appeared onstage at a Democratic convention and the delegates were cheering wildly, a number of conservatives might be discussing the issue of dysfunctional black families.”

The cunning of the Palin choice as a political strategy is that a candidate who embodies fear of change can be sold as a “maverick” simply because she looks the part. Her marketers have a lot to work with. Palin is not only the first woman on a Republican presidential ticket, but she is young, vibrant and a Washington outsider with no explicit connection to Bush or the war in Iraq. That package looks like change even if what’s inside is anything but."

Crabby Appleton

Another sure sign that Fall is just around the corner, the Crabapples (Malus) are turning red.

Looking like cherries, you want to just reach up, grab a handfull, and enjoy the goodness.

But unlike cherries, only the birds (and a few bees) would like the flavor. All crabapple fruits are technically edible, though most are bitter tasting. Perhaps Henry David Thoreau's essay "Wild Apples" described the flavor best: "sour enough to set a squirrel's teeth on edge and make a jay scream."

Just like the Crabapples, Sarah Palin isn't as sweet as she looks. NY Times Columnist Maureen Dowd has a few questions for the Vice Presidential Candidate, that she doubt's Charlie Gibson will get to:

1. What kind of budget-cutter makes a show of getting rid of the state plane, then turns around and bills taxpayers for the travel of her husband and kids between Juneau and Wasilla and sticks the state with a per-diem tab to stay in her own home?


2. Why was Sarah for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against the Bridge to Nowhere, and why was she for earmarks before she was against them? And doesn’t all this make her just as big a flip-flopper as John Kerry?


3. What kind of fiscal conservative raises taxes and increases budgets in both her jobs — as mayor and as governor?


4. When the phone rings at 3 a.m., will she call the Wasilla Assembly of God congregation and ask them to pray on a response, as she asked them to pray for a natural gas pipeline?


5. Does she really think Adam, Eve, Satan and the dinosaurs mingled on the earth 5,000 years ago?


6. Why put out a press release about her teenage daughter’s pregnancy and then spend the next few days attacking the press for covering that press release?


7. As Troopergate unfolds here — an inquiry into whether Palin inappropriately fired the commissioner of public safety for refusing to fire her ex-brother-in-law — it raises this question: Who else is on her enemies list and what might she do with the F.B.I.?


8. Does she want a federal ban on trans fat in restaurants and a ban on abortion and Harry Potter? And which books exactly would have landed on the literature bonfire if she had had her way with that Wasilla librarian?


9. Just how is it that Fannie and Freddie have cost taxpayers money (since they haven’t yet)?


10. Does she talk in tongues or just eat caribou tongues?


11. What does she have against polar bears?
    

Read the whole incredible column HERE

Green Thursday: The Power of Poop

With this being an election year, there's lots of "stuff" being flung by the candidates (and the media.) Wouldn't it be great if something could really be "done" with all of it?

The city of San Antonio announced a deal that will make it the first U.S. city to harvest methane gas from human waste on a commercial scale and turn it into clean-burning fuel. San Antonio residents produce about 140,000 tons a year of a substance gently referred to as "biosolids,"

(that's poop, to you and me).

Methane gas, which is a byproduct of human and organic waste, is a principal component of the natural gas used to fuel furnaces, power plants, and other combustion-based generators.

A private vendor will come onto the facility, construct some gas cleaning systems, remove the moisture, remove the carbon dioxide content, and then sell that gas on the open market.

Some communities are using methane gas harvested from solid waste to power smaller facilities like sewage treatment plants, but San Antonio is the first to see large-scale conversion of methane gas from sewage into fuel for power generation, he said.

Following the agreement, more than 90 percent of materials flushed down the toilets and sinks of San Antonio will be recycled. Liquid is now used for irrigation, many of the solids are made into compost, and now the methane gas will be recycled for power generation.

Think how much Rush, Sean, Mark, Charlie and all the rest could help the greening of the planet with their "methane" contributions!

Every Green Thursday we post information vital to the survival of earth.