Noxious numbers: Palin’s handouts and racial overtures

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Alaska’s rank as the state with the most welfare recipients. At 6 percent, Gov. Sarah Palin’s state had nearly triple the U.S. average, according to the new U.S. Census.

Hey conservatives, whadda think of your golden girl now!?

$2,000,000

The total that blowhard South Carolina Sen. Joe Wilson raised in the six days after he shouted “You lie!” to President Obama during his speech on health care.

Hey conservatives, what would  you have contributed if he would have added “boy!”? (Which was asserted by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.)

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Like that is the answer

Politicians can be so painfully predictable — and cowardly.

Congressmen, such as Sen. Chris Dodd on new financial regulation, seek more government to make themselves look good, like they did something to help their constituents.

In this case, Dodd wants a “super-regulator.” Like that is the answer. (See: Homeland Security.)

Obama, in his emerging style, is trying to rush, rush, rush legislation through to his signature, like he is changing things. (As Jon Stewart so aptly pointed out, why is this debate in the present tense? It should have been hashed out at least six months ago when the economy was in ruin.)

The cowardly part is that neither plan — not Dodd’s consolidation of regulators such as the Fed and FDIC,  or Obama’s, which in another emerging style, doesn’t have a focus – take the lobbyists and big business out of the equation and support me and you.

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Unqoute” Vietnam protest sign

“Nixon: Pull out like your father should have.”

A friend of a friend who was at Vietnam War protests in the 1960s reminisced on humor in one particular sign.

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Two Tank Milestones – This is the 201st post; and September marks the beginning of the third year of this hacky expirement.

Snap.

My (very) amateur photography skills from Madeline Island on Lake Superior, in downtown Duluth and at the State Fair in St. Paul:

The lagoon on the north side of the island.

Sarah stands atop a rock ledge overlooking Lake SuperiorAs the sun set, a sailboat glides between Bayfield, Wis., and Madeline Island.

Sunflowers dominate planters in downtown Duluth.

The likely century-old police headquarters in downtown Duluth.

An August sunrise -- yep, you read that right, sunrise -- with a thin layer of fog near Pine City.

The State Fair's swinging chairs ride at dusk.

The blury skyline of St. Paul seen from the Space Tower at the State Fair.

Tyranny with a different face

Amid false talk of weapons of mass destruction and unfounded links to September 11, anti-war critics enthusiastically called the Iraq War a bellicose effort for oil.

Now, about six years later, Chinese and British oil companies have signed contracts to extract oil when exploiting poor Iraqi people that live in the areas, according to the New York Times. Also, 10 more oil fields will be bit out this fall.

Capitalism advocates will hoist this up as a “free market” out from under the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. But when Iraqi people remain poor and unemployed as multi-national corporations reap multi-billion profits it’s just tyranny with a different face.

The anti-war critics were right.

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