McCain Picks Palin for VP Slot…Who?

By Chief Contributor Frederic J. Rohner

By all accounts (including FOX News), now official Presidential Nominee Barack Obama did a pretty good job with his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention last night. But why praise Obama any further? MSNBC did more than enough of that last night:

So how does McCain combat all this praise for Obama the day after his speech before thousands at Mile High (Invesco Stadium)? Well, name his VP pick of course. And why not choose someone completely out of left field… a woman perhaps?

First term Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska has been chosen by McCain as his Vice President, and the pick is, to say the least, baffling.

Who is Palin? Well, she is a former Miss Wasilla and was a runner up for Miss Alaska in 1984. In 1996 she was elected Mayor of Wasilla City, and in 2006 she was elected Governor of Alaska, the youngest Governor in state history and the first woman to hold the office.

Less than 2 years, that’s how long Gov. Palin has held a prominent political position. As far as experience to be Commander-In-Chief goes, that’s pretty weak. But what kind of a Governor has she been? Being from Alaska, the first name that jumps to mind is Senator Ted Stevens, whose scandal will definitely be mentioned by Democrats, but Gov. Palin has her own scandal to worry about, as brought up by MSNBC:

“But Palin’s seemingly bright future was clouded in late July when the state legislature voted to hire an independent investigator to find out whether she tried to have a state official fire her ex-brother-in-law from his job as a state trooper.

The allegation was made by former Department of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, whom Palin fired in mid-July.”

So how intelligent a pick was this by McCain? A first term Governor with no foreign policy experience, who has been accused of corruption and is completely unknown to most citizens of the United States of America. Doesn’t the selection of Palin undercut all of McCain’s arguments regarding Obama’s experience (or lack there of)? Won’t she most likely be trounced by Biden in the VP debate? And won’t some commentators posit that Palin was only chosen because she is a woman, in an attempt to capitalize on the disillusionment felt by many Hillary supporters?

This campaign season just keeps on getting weirder and weirder.

Cuban Musician Arrested, Charged With “Dangerousness”

Punk rocker Gorki Aguila, of the band Porno Para Ricardo was arrested on Monday as his band prepared to record their next album. He was detained by communist authorities and has yet to be allowed a visitor. It is believed that he will be formally charged Thursday of “dangerousness,” which, under Cuba’s penal code, consists of behavior that doesn’t conform “to the standards of communist morality”. He could face a four year prison sentence if convicted.

The BBC article also characterizes “dangerousness” as “habitual drunkenness, drug addiction and anti-social behaviour,” all three of which form the major tenets of Punk Rock music.

In Ghana, there is no argument, the ocean is rising

Villagers in Totope, Ghana have been forced out of their homes over and over. Each time they must build new houses, only to abandon them a short time later. This is not the work of a repressive regime, or a band of criminals who terrorize the community. The people of Totope must leave their homes because of the quickly advancing Atlantic Ocean.

But within a few years, the folks who have called Totope home for generations will be forced to abandon it completely. They are running out of land to move their homes to. Totope is located between the Atlantic Ocean and the Songho Lagoon, and it is only a matter of time before the ocean and the lagoon meet, destroying this coastal community altogether.

MSNBC has the story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26405051/

“I don’t mean to be an asshole…” The Story Behind the Clinton Campaign Failure

Joshua Green over at The Atlantic has the story behind the epic failure which was the Hillary Clinton campaign. In-fighting, leaked memos, angry tirades, and an indecisive candidate unable to control her own staff or follow a coherent strategy.

Here’s the story, culled from memos, emails, and interviews with campaign staff.

It’s a terrific read, and entertaining as hell if you’re not a Clintonite. Enjoy!

Introducing the 106 MPG Air Car

The car would run on compressed air and is being developed by European company MDI. At speeds less than 35 MPH, the car would run purely on air, but will also contain an 8 gallon gas tank and combustion engine for higher speeds, topping out at 90 MPH. The air car has a range of 800 miles and it’s compressed air tanks can be “recharged” by plugging it into a normal power outlet for 4 hours.

The first models are planned as six seaters and could be available in the U.S. by 2010, costing around $18,000. These cars would be produced by New York based Zero Pollution Motors whose CEO, Shiva Vencat, is also Vice President of MDI. 

However, many skeptics are warning not to get our hopes up, pointing to possible safety concerns, the amount of energy required to charge the air compressors, and the fact that “no one’s really proven a six-seater passenger car [can get] any better than 75 miles to the gallon.”

Original article from CNN.

Two Articles on Global Warming

Over at RealClearPolitics.com, they have two articles up on global warming that are must reads, for entertainment as much as scientific value. But before going into that, is it not ironic that global warming (or climate change or whatever else) has reached a point of politicization that there are multiple articles on a site dedicated to politics and not science?

It’s now past ridiculous. Global warming has become just another facet of popular culture, like TMZ, or stupid questions like “boxers or briefs?”

Enough whining from the Rebel editorial staff, on to the articles:

From The Australian we have Arthur Herman’s Climate Hysterics vs. Heretics in an Age of Unreason. Once you’ve finished choking down that awful title, it becomes evident that this piece isn’t really about global warming as much as it is a rant about how eugenics was a bad science promoted by smart people, so climate change must be the same. And Arthur Herman is not a scientist, he is a historian whose last book was about the relationship between Churchill and Gandhi.

Next up we have the more modest and straightforward titled Convincing the Climate-Change Skepticsby John Holdren in the Boston Globe. Now Holdren actually has some scientific credentials, he is a professor in the Kennedy School of Government and the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard and the director of the Woods Hole Research Center.

And for the most part, those credentials actually make this a better editorial on the subject. It is structured like an argument rather than the rambling diatribe which Mr. Herman presents us. But, alas, Holdren gets sucked into the political portion of the debate:

“US polls indicate that most of the amateur skeptics are Republicans. These Republican skeptics should wonder how presidential candidate John McCain could have been taken in.”

By bringing up politics, Holdren does a disservice to his readers, and to this otherwise well written piece. His argument is a good one until this point, but by surmising that “most” skeptics are republicans (even if there is evidence to back up the claim) he once again brings politics into what should be a completely non-political issue. It is unnecessary, combative, and pugnacious; and once again the debate over how to solve climate change is slowed down by simple words like “republican,” “democrat,” “liberal,” and “conservative.”

Discussing eugenics and talking shit about republicans only serves to muddy the waters in the debate on global warming. It helps no one and gets us nowhere.

The World’s Oldest Jokes

Since it’s Friday, how about some news just for fun?

According to the BBC, archaeologists and other academics have compiled a list of the world’s oldest jokes. Here goes:

The oldest joke comes from 1900 B.C. in Sumeria (modern day Iraq):

Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap.

Next up, here’s an Egyptian joke from 1600 B.C.

How do you entertain a bored pharaoh? Sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile – and urge the pharaoh to go fishing.

Here’s a Roman joke from the 1st century B.C. about Emperor Augustus travelling across the empire and coming across a young man who looks just like him:

Intrigued, he asks the man: “Was your mother at one time in service at the palace?”

The man replies: “No your highness, but my father was.”

And finally, one from 10th century (A.D.) Britain:

What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before?

A key.

Oh, those lewd, rowdy, ribald Brits.