Aside from being a participant in a beauty pageant, I wasn't aware that we are voting for someone who is visually "appealing" -- after all, "merit" has no place in American politics. And we all know how "conceited" you have to be to even have a shot at one of these contests -- if you even dare calling them that. Walking around in an overly flamboyant and flashy outfit, bikini on high-heels, lingerie (in some of the shows) and pronounced lack of intellectual fortitude (not accusing the participants but rather the banner in which these contests are run under). Funny how she represents herself as a "Feminist" [with a twist of conservatism] despite that the real Feminists "
regard beauty contests for women as 'cattle markets', degrading to both viewer and contestant, which enforce society's objectification of women."
By the way, there are many seamstress and beauty pageant consultants who are "gay" so I suppose her run-ins with the disdained group of people by the conservatives has not eroded her relationship with the gay and the lesbian community despite all the stories that portrait her otherwise. Oh, the hypocrisy...
Slippery slop. Women with liberal leaning won't fall head over heels for her. She is everything they are not and do not seek in their candidate. Voting solely on gender is a clear sign that you are mentally and psychologically unfit to take a trip to the voting booth.
Yes, yes, besides her husband's auxiliary job as a supervisor at BP for 18 years and she being a big oil industry drum beater... I say she is a ditz when it comes to the topic of energy. Here is why: On Friday night (and again on Sunday) Palin sat down with the CNBC anchor, Maria Bartiromo, to discuss energy policies. For those of you who are not familiar with this Wall Street hack, Bartiromo falls somewhere between sordid of one of those Right wing radio goons and charlatanry Kudlow's soundbites (of the same network). It doesn't take more than a few interviews to realize this woman [Bartiromo] does not have an ensemble of journalistic integrity to be on such an influential network -- just another corporate cohort to fuel the state of media bias.
Onward to the actual interview... 2 minutes into the unvetted chit-chat between these two and it became apparent that Palin is simply parroting the same rhetorical talking points promulgating in an echo chamber of neo-cons for the last six months. She must have hammered the notion of Alaska being capable of contributing tremendously to the current "problems" by literally eliminating the foreign oil dependence. Meanwhile, Fartiromo [sic] just sat there like a red beet perennially concurring to every word she was mustering and if that wasn't enough, she even joined her crusade like two sorority sisters acceding on each other's remark, and occasionally acting bewildered and cried as to "
why don't they allow for more drilling?" Ya, a pinnacle of journalistic indecency and she has an audacity to claim, "
I ask the tough questions in a civilized manner."
Either Palin is willfully ignorant, criminally uneducated, or like most politicians selling policies for a benefit of her sponsors. What makes her effective is the ability to produce a rapid-fire screed of the same slogan although rearranged in not so calculating fashion but rather congenitally regurgitating a comparable message in a subliminal way. So much so that you wouldn't even notice the her premise was being reiterated perhaps more than 20 times in a span of entire discourse..
The gist of her rave revolved around how much oil we can extract from the resources available, particularly in Alaska. Obviously ANWR was brought up but once again, Fartiromo failed miserably to counter her assertion by demanding how much of these resources would alleviate the overall price of oil. Despite Fartiromo who is not shy of asking "tough" question, I am very comfortable with numbers.
When Palin's over the top braggadocio suggested how much Alaska is resourceful enough to free us from the yoke of foreign dependence, what she conveniently hid from the American people was that all the accumulative oil production under the US jurisdiction, including Alaska, will only have a minuscule impact on prices. First, when she mentioned to lifting the ban from ANWR, she was referring to the area called
1002 ANWR, not the entire region which she kept comparing to the size of LAX airport (and every other interview on that matter she's been on since earlier this year).
The latest report by DOE estimated that if we consider all the regions in North Slope (land) and OCS-Alaska (sea), we should be expecting around 35 billion barrels of oil by 2050. The break down for 1002 ANWR's share is around 5-6 billion barrels, OCS-Alaska region which comprises Beaufort and Chukchi Sea would be 8-9 billion barrels, and NPRA and Foothills are about 7 billion -- by the way, the actual proven oil in Central North Slope is less than 4 billion.
The ironic part of the report is that it projects a set of "
optimistic assumptions" which must be met in order to for the new developments to be economical. One of the main factors is for the gas prices to stay high!!! WOW... So we are going to drill all over place but the actual operation would be sound
if and only if the prices remain high!!! So why on earth are we going to drill if the prerequisite for such action is to have a higher, if not stay on current mark, prices!!! Aren't they advertising that the drilling here in the US will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and hence curbing the prices yet the prices must stay high so we can extract? Catch-22 anyone? But of course, Fartiromo was going to ask that question from the governor, wasn't she?
Then Palin burst in to promoting the oil industry agenda by mixing the discussion about how much "high oil prices" has helped "her state" (as if they were going to do the same for everyone else) -- from an increase in employment and budget surplus -- and we all should follow the same foot step and drill here at home. Ya, helped "your" state of Alaska at the expense of everyone else paying for it, Mrs. governor. These people have no shame.
Now, stepping back and observing the issue from the bigger picture, even if we extend the oil production to every other inch in this country, the entire oil reserve under our belt does not comprise more than 2.5% of the entire world oil supply. The oil companies do access to the majority of areas to lease and develop; as a matter of fact, according to DOE estimates, the majority of OCS regions are leasable and ready for development. Lifting such ban does not curtail oil prices because the supply hardly adds any significant amount to the over all oil reserve.
Every idiot who knows little about the future and commodity market understands that the oil prices are bound and set on the global stage. It doesn't matter whether it costs the oil company $4 to extract oil (i.e. some of the Saudi Arabia fields) or $35 offshore at some remote locations. The price of the oil is set on the future markets (NYMEX and ICE Futures with more than 90% of global share). So just because an oil company delivers crude oil off your state's shore lines, doesn't mean they are going to sell it for $50/b. No buddy, they are going to sell it at the market price, $120/b. And you thought they are as patriotic as you would like them to be.
So the whole equation is tied to the "overall" oil production and a mere 2% increase (drilling here) will have a minimal effect on the future oil prices. Not to mention that the whole promise of price reduction will not come in to play for years from now -- not at least for 7 years. By then the prices has shot up so high that a mere 5% price reduction (if you are extremely generous), will yield no satisfactory result. I am sure you are perfectly capable of doing a simple math, aren't you? The whole brouhaha is being orchestrated by the oil companies to get the last drops and sell it at the highest profit.
Palin, at one point even implied that Alaska is nothing like what you have seen on TV. Although the proximity of conversation was around the talk on ANWR (again she didn't mention "1002 ANWR area"), I assume she was referring to that particular area [1002 ANWR area not ANWR itself] which appears to be barren at first glance. However, it does not diminish its viability in sustaining the ANWR's ecosystem. Nevertheless, her meretricious babble was way all over place to realize she had accidentally depicted Alaska and ANWR as having absolutely no aesthetic natural beauty. At the end she didn't clarify why she made that statement when ANWR and other places in Alaska are one of the most pristine areas in the entire country.
There was no one to remind Palin that despite all the horror news the environmentalist groups put out (500 minor and major spills a year), the seminal reason behind refusal to drill in ANWR or OCS is that it will have a minimal fallout when it comes to the actual oil prices. By pandering to environmental safety, these people seek to deviate the gist of the counter-argument and appeal to the emotion of impressionable minds (that there are these evil environmentalists that are keeping you from filling your tanks with cheap fuel).
After this interview, she lost all the credibility and respect that she never had. She turns out to be nothing more than a mouthpiece for the next generation of conservatives.
Of course, to sum it up, 8 months of governorship, 9 months on maternal duties and some how that translates to an "executive experience." Bush spent 8 years prior to his presidency as a governor of Texas; look where we all ended up.
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Sorry about that. But it is easy to confuse you and jallman, you know.
