With all due respect Senators McCain & Obama, but what part of "No" do you not understand?

>> Tuesday, September 30, 2008


The people have spoken. We do not want this bailout. I heard today that the House website literally crashed because of the volume of emails that have come in opposing it. The American people don't want it. Period. Neither do we want a "revised" version of it. Period. No. Nada. Nein.

Why, you may ask, are the American People resisting this? Because we don't understand it? Right?

Wrong. There are a number of reasons, Sirs.

First and foremost, the American People are sick to the teeth of getting screwed by this government. We have been lied to, cheated by, and abused by this government for entirely too long and we've lost our trust and respect for you. We don't believe a single word you say to us. Not to mention the fact that the most unpopular president in the history of this nation is the one making the demands that this be ram-roded through Congress. I'm sorry, but even this president's own party hates him. Who does he think he is? He's in no position at this point to make such demands, especially to the tune of a blank check on the backs of the American Taxpayer without any assurance of repayment or benefits to the people who are handing out the loan. The man is arrogance personified, and I think that, as much as anything has contributed to the defeat of this bill yesterday.

Second, you don't hold a gun to the American Taxpayers' heads, demanding $700 billion and indebting them, their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren and then tell them that they have to fork it over ASAP without a reasonable time frame in which to discuss it and look at other alternatives, and perhaps come up with better, more lasting, and equitable solutions. We need more time to digest this and to understand exactly what it is that we're being asked to do. We also need more assurance that we're going to see a return on our investment and in a timely fashion. We need to have assurance that WE will benefit from this and not just the fat cats on Wall Street. And we DON'T need to hear that we need to fork it over immediately without the benefit of intense scrutiny and modification if we see the need for such. You've ram-roded too many things down our throats before that turned out to be bogus. We're not buying it this time.

Third, we want to hear what REAL economists have to say on this issue, not politicians, and especially not politicians who are trying to appeal to the public in order to get elected or re-elected. We want an honest assessment of the situation and the possible solutions that will benefit not only Wall Street, but the entire nation, as well as the global community.

So with all due respect, Senators McCain and Obama, you can take this Wall Street, Fat Cat, bailout and shove it where the sun don't shine. We've HAD it! We're DONE. Give us REAL solutions. You owe us at least that.

Read more...

It's time for a little diversion! Let's dance!

My new blog friend, Willow, over at Willow Manor is getting ready for a big dance over at her place, so I thought I'd better get some practice in. And what's a better diversion from all the political brouhaha than dancing? Besides I need to brush up on my waltz!

Read more...

The People Win!

>> Monday, September 29, 2008


Congress finally listened to the American People, grew a pair, and told George Bush and the corporate feudal lords to PISS OFF!

Finally, The People's Voice is heard! This is a historical day in America!

Read more...

SNL does it again: Katie Couric and Sarah Palin

>> Sunday, September 28, 2008



Read more...

The World's most beautiful music: Concerto for coloratura soprano and orchestra in F minor, Op. 82 by Reinhold Glière

Reinhold Moritzevich Glière, (January 11,1875 – June 23, 1956) was a Ukrainian, Soviet composer of German-Polish descent. He was the teacher of the famous Russian composer, Sergei Prokofiev.

I have only recently been introduced to this composer and this lovely Concerto for Coloratura Soprano, and it immediately rose to the ranks, in my estimation, worthy of being dubbed some of the World's most beautiful music. Sung here by the gorgeous Russian Soprano, Anna Netrebko, it has a distinctly dark Russian flavor, yet at the same time, it is lyrical and uplifting.



Read more...

Oh...my...god...

>> Saturday, September 27, 2008

The video is self-explanatory.

Read more...

Seriously folks!

>> Friday, September 26, 2008



Question for the day.

Let's say you have a large company and the CEO of said company screws up big time and bankrupts your company. Do you send him/her packing with a $13,000,000 dollar severance package?

Then why are the American people being forced to do it for Wall Street?

Read more...

So glad you were born...

>> Wednesday, September 24, 2008




Happy Birthday to my dearest friend and my greatest love.

Read more...

The Truth, straight from the San Francisco Chronicle

>> Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Bailout tests how much the American public will tolerate theft

Sean Olender

Tuesday, September 23, 2008


Treasury Secretary Paulson's edict to create a $700 billion fund to buy worthless mortgage securities from agitated wealthy bond investors is nothing short of a final step on the path to the end of the republic. The secretary claims he can only be effective if his decisions are beyond judicial review.


Our government and its owners appear to be testing how much the American public will tolerate. A few years ago, no one could have imagined that the silent majority would quietly accept thefts of this magnitude from a government that stopped tiny payments to single mothers with poor children in the name of welfare reform because the program's $10 billion cost was breaking the federal budget.


This isn't socialism, it's fascism.


If the public allows this theft, then it will signal to powerful forces that they can essentially do anything, because the American public has become so mushy-headed that it will stand up for nothing. When power discovers that those from whom it would exact payment are powerless, its viciousness increases infinitely.


Our politicians appear on television and say, this is an emergency, so we have to do this now and talk about it later. And then later is too late.


It is not just a $700 billion bailout, it is a $700 billion fund that can have no more than $700 billion in liabilities at any one time. Maybe Goldman Sachs can sell mortgage-backed securities to the fund at 80 cents on the dollar and then the fund will liquidate the securities by selling them back to Goldman for 50 cents on the dollar. Then Goldman can sell them back to the fund for 85 cents on the dollar. That would be a good business, especially if no court can review it.


Our enemy has revealed itself, and it is our own government. The concentration of such outrageous power in government - the power to take the equivalent of half our annual federal budget and give it to anonymous investors - is nearly reaching the point at which it may not be revoked.


It is only natural that we, dreaming of the possibility of our own riches, acquiesced in some of these financial schemes. Of that, we should not be ashamed. Many Americans may now be thinking, "But suppose someday I am a wealthy bond investor worth $50 million?" But you are not a wealthy bond investor and the value of your house and stock investments is going to drop, regardless of how much tax money the government gives to wealthy bond investors. This bailout is essentially the federal government saying to creditors, "Because the American consumer appears to be refusing to pay his debts, we will buy your claims on the consumer, and exchange them for money created by issuing Treasury bills, which is our promise to extract that money from American consumers using our taxation authority."

Some day our children will call on us to explain how our republic was lost. I cannot imagine the shame of facing a grown child to explain, "Foolishly, I thought I would get some of the money, too."

Because the American public has not been introduced to methods for controlling its government for generations for generations, I will suggest one called a general strike. This fundamental democratic power is where everyone decides to send a message to the government by not going to work, to school, shopping, nowhere.


At this point in our history, very bad things are going to happen regardless of what we do. There is no government action that can alleviate the discomfort we must endure because of the wild speculation and reckless borrowing that ensued. What's coming is inescapable. This is the critical time when charlatans among us will promise they can save us from the inevitable if we only allow them the power they need to save us. They are lying. It is time to earn our freedom. It is time to remind the government that we are Americans and we have a history of subjecting tyrannical governments to unpleasant consequences.


Sean Olender is Bay Area attorney and writer.

Read more...

SAY "NO" TO WALL STREET BAILOUT!

>> Monday, September 22, 2008


If you have never been involved in a political issue before there has never been a more important or crucial time in history than NOW, for you to get involved.

At this very moment the fate of this nation and its economic future hangs in the balance. President Bush has proposed a Wall Street Bailout to the tune of $700 billion dollars at the expense of the American Taxpayers! What this means is that Washington wants to bail out the big lenders and financial institutions along with their CEO's--the very corporations who created the lending and housing market crisis with their greed and mismanagement and REWARD THEM with an unprecedented billions of American taxpayers' dollars, leaving us standing in the wake of the greatest debt in the history of this nation and leaving us vulnerable to foreign markets and economies. George Bush and his failed economic policies, along with his buddies in the huge corporate towers have bankrupted this nation and brought us to the brink of economic depression--something we have not seen since the crash of 1929--and now they want the American people to REWARD THEM for their mismanagement, crookedness, and carelessness to the tune of $700 BILLION of our hard-earned tax dollars!

CALL, WRITE, EMAIL, YOUR REPRESENTATIVES IN WASHINGTON NOW! Tell them "NO" to bankrupting our children's future!

Read more...

The World's most beautiful music: Borodin, String Quartet No. 2, 3rd mvt.

>> Friday, September 19, 2008

Today I'm giving my readers a break from politics, and returning to my "World's most beautiful music" series. (Which I'm sure is a relief for many of you.)

This morning I feature the 3rd movement of Alexander Borodin's String Quartet No. 2 in F major. This tender, delicate, melodic movement has always been a favorite of mine and ranks among the most popular pieces in the chamber music repertoire. Listen and you'll hear why.

Read more...

The largest rally ever recorded in Alaska's history: Women Against Sarah Palin


The following is from one of the women who attended.

Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was to be held outside on the lawn in front of the Loussac Library in midtown Anchorage. Home made signs were encouraged, and the idea was to make a statement that Sarah Palin does not speak for all Alaska women, or men. I had no idea what to expect.

The rally was organized by a small group of women, talking over coffee. It made me wonder what other things have started with small groups of women talking over coffee. It's probably an impressive list. These women hatched the plan, printed up flyers, posted them around town, and sent notices to local media outlets.One of those media outlets was KBYR radio, home of Eddie Burke, a long-time uber-conservative Anchorage talk show host. Turns out that Eddie Burke not only announced the rally, but called the people who planned to attend the rally "a bunch of socialist baby-killing maggots," and read the home phone numbers of the organizers aloud over the air, urging listeners to call and tell them what they thought. The women, of course, received some nasty, harassing and threatening messages.

I felt a bit apprehensive. I'd been disappointed before by the turnout at other rallies. Basically,in Anchorage, if you can get 25 people to show up at an event, it's a success. So, I thought to myself, if we can actually get 100 people there that aren't sent by Eddie Burke, we'll be doing good. A real statement will have been made. I confess, I still had a mental image of 15 demonstrators surrounded by hundreds of menacing "socialist baby-killing maggot" haters.

It's a good thing I wasn't tailgating when I saw the crowd in front of the library or I would have ended up in somebody's trunk. When I got there, about 20 minutes early, the line of sign wavers stretched the full length of the library grounds, along the edge of the road, 6 or 7 people deep! I could hardly find a place to park. I nabbed one of the last spots in the library lot, and as I got out of the car and started walking, people seemed to join in from every direction, carrying signs.

Never, have I seen anything like it in my 17 and a half years living in Anchorage.The organizers had someone walk the rally with a counter, and they clicked off well over 1400 people (not including the 90 counter-demonstrators). This was the biggest political rally ever, in the history of the state.I was absolutely stunned.The second most amazing thing is how many people honked and gave the thumbs up as they drove by. And even those that didn't honk looked wide-eyed and awe-struck at the huge crowd that was growing by the minute. This just doesn't happen here.

Then, the infamous Eddie Burke showed up. He tried to talk to the media, and was instantly surrounded by a group of 20 people who started shouting O-BA-MA so loud he couldn't be heard.Then passing cars started honking in a rhythmic pattern of 3, like the Obama chant,while the crowd cheered, hooted and waved their signs high.

So, if you've been doing the math? Yes. The Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was significantly bigger than Palin's rally that got all the national media coverage! So take heart, sit back, and enjoy the photo gallery. Feel free to spread the pictures around to anyone who needs to know that Sarah Palin most definitely does not speak for all Alaskans! The citizens of Alaska, who know her best, have things to say.






Read more...

Couldn't resist this one--thanks Steph!

>> Monday, September 15, 2008

Read more...

The Bush Doctrine: Let me Google it for you, Sarah.

>> Friday, September 12, 2008

The Bush Doctrine is a term used to describe various related foreign policy principles of United States president George W. Bush, enunciated in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. The phrase initially described the policy that the United States had the right to treat countries that harbor or give aid to terrorist groups as terrorists themselves, which was used to justify the invasion of Afghanistan. Later it came to include additional elements, including the controversial policy of preventive war, which held that the United States should depose foreign regimes that represented a supposed threat to the security of the United States, even if that threat was not immediate (used to justify the invasion of Iraq), a policy of supporting democracy around the world, especially in the Middle East, as a strategy for combating the spread of terrorism, and a willingness to pursue U.S. military interests in a unilateral way. Some of these policies were codified in a National Security Council text entitled the National Security Strategy of the United States published on September 20, 2002. This represented a dramatic shift from the United States's Cold War policies of deterrence and containment, under the Truman Doctrine, and a departure from post-Cold War philosophies such as the Powell Doctrine and the Clinton Doctrine.

The first usage of the term to refer to the policies of George W. Bush may have been when conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer used the term in February 2001 to refer to the president's unilateral approach to national missile defense.

The main elements of the Bush Doctrine were delineated in a National Security Council document, National Security Strategy of the United States, published on September 20, 2002, and this document is often cited as the definitive statement of the doctrine. The National Security Strategy was updated in 2006.


Source: Wikipedia

Next Lesson:
NATO and the implications of forming an alliance with the Ukraine and Georgia resulting in a war against Russia.



Any questions?

Read more...

I'm longing for the day...


I'm longing for the day when the arts are prized above mere entertainment.

I'm longing for the day when the word "intellectual" isn't synonymous with "elitist".

I'm longing for the day when the written word is valued, once again.

I'm longing for the day when recognition for great achievement is prized above celebrity.

I'm longing for the day when the quest for knowledge walks hand-in-hand with the quest for truth.

I'm longing for the day when sports celebrate human achievement rather than mimic human conquest.

I'm longing for the day when people are truly color blind.

I'm longing for the day when spirituality takes the place of religion.

I'm longing for the day when war is no longer an option.

I'm longing for the day when reason and enlightenment rise above mere superstition.

I'm longing for the day when love overtakes hate.

Read more...

Matt Damon Rips Sarah Palin

>> Wednesday, September 10, 2008

What he says...

Read more...

The World's most beautiful music: Libera Me from the Fauré Requiem

>> Monday, September 8, 2008


Two years ago I had the joy of performing the Fauré Requiem with The Stillwater Chamber Singers in our fall concert, which was a concert for All Saints Day, honoring and remembering our loved ones who have passed on before us. Micah, (Steph's youngest son), invited his dad and one of his dad's friends to come down that same weekend and they attended the concert. Both of them were moved to tears.

Tonight, the Stillwater Chamber Singers start rehearsals for our new concert season, and our first concert is going to be another All Saints Day concert, since the last one was so successful. However, this year, Micah's dad won't be able to be with us because he passed from this life last June.

Today I am featuring the Libera Me from Fauré's hauntingly gorgeous Requiem, in memory of Bill Atwell and in honor of Micah, whom I have grown to love and appreciate more than words can express.

The bass soloist featured in this recording is James Morris.

Read more...

A citizen of Wasilla Alaska gives the low-down on Sarah Palin

>> Sunday, September 7, 2008


Just in case you want to check the validity of my source, you'll find a link that confirms it HERE.


ABOUT SARAH PALIN

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992.

Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a
first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she’s like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because she is a "babe".

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She
kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months. She is "pro-life". She recently gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby. She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym. She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out there" and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.

Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin’s kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their
major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything like that of native Alaskans. Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.

She's smart. Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000
(at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about
670,000 residents. During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator.
She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had
gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million.
What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a
multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later--to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.

These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city. As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's surplus, borrow for needs.

She’s not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise.
As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the
Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the “old boy’s club” when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys". Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal--loyal to the point of abusing their power
to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State’s top cop (see below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla’s Police Chief because he “intimidated” her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn’t like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness. Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the
structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a
gutsy fighter against the “old boys’ club” when she dramatically quit, exposing this man’s ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the “bridge to nowhere” after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects--which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance--but with the unobservant
she had gained a reputation as “anti-pork”.

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her “Sarah Barracuda” because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team.
When Sarah's mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package
of legislation known as “AGIA” that forced the oil companies to march
to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to global warming. She campaigned “as a private citizen” against a state initiaitive that would have either a) protected salmon streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the State’s
lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior’s decision to list polar bears as threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a
heartbeat away from being President. There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she. However, there’s a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.


CLAIM VS FACT

•“Hockey mom”: true for a few years
•“PTA mom”: true years ago when her first-born was in elementary
school, not since
•“NRA supporter”: absolutely true
•social conservative: mixed.
Opposes gay marriage, BUT vetoed a bill
that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships
(said she did this because it was unconsitutional).

•pro-creationism: mixed.
Supports it, BUT did nothing as Governor to
promote it.

•“Pro-life”: mixed.
Knowingly gave birth to a Down’s syndrome baby
BUT declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life
legislation
•“Experienced”: Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has
residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska.

No legislative experience other than City Council.
Little hands-on
supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city
administrator to run town of about 5,000.

•political maverick: not at all
•gutsy: absolutely!
•open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets.
Not good at
explaining actions.

•has a developed philosophy of public policy: no
•”a Greenie”: no.
Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores
and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.

•fiscal conservative: not by my definition!
•pro-infrastructure: No.
Promoted a sports complex and park in a city
without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system.
Built
streets to early 20th century standards.

•pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on
residents
•pro-small government: No.
Oversaw greatest expansion of city
government in Wasilla’s history.

•pro-labor/pro-union. No.
Just because her husband works union
doesn’t make her pro-labor.
I have seen nothing to support any claim
that she is pro-labor/pro-union.


WHY AM I WRITING THIS?

First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informedvoter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools.
If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny+Alaska), you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I've always operated in the belief that "Bad things happen when good people stay silent". Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don't have a job she can bump me out of. I don't belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that’s life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah's attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to
say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.


CAVEATS
I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending & taxation 2 years ago (when Palin was running for Governor) from information supplied to me by the Finance Director of the City of Wasilla, and I can't recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust for inflation? for population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of City Hall--they are
swamped. So I can't verify my numbers.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my "about 5,000", up to 9,000. The day Palin’s selection was announced a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000.
The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90’s.

Anne Kilkenny
August 31, 2008

Read more...

Hidden magic

>> Wednesday, September 3, 2008


Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.

~ Roald Dahl

Read more...
Share


Click to view my Personality Profile page

  Ourblogtemplates.com

Back to TOP