Vice Presidential debate: A net win for Biden, and a resurrection for Sarah Palin

By Pablo Fanque,

All This Is That National Affairs Editor

The Senator and Governor clashed in last night's debate on energy, drilling in Alaska, global warming, the wars in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, income taxes, The Failed Presidency (although they both took shots at 43 and Dick Cheney), corporate tax breaks and a number of other issues. They agreed on Israel (they're our peace-loving buddies) and same sex marriage (neither of them support it...the idiots).

Sarah Palin made a few minor mistakes, mispronounced the Afghanistan commander's name, and ignored many questions, but she absolutely outperformed expectations. It was like this was hardly the same woman we saw fumbling questions as harmless as what magazines she read in her Katy Couric interview.

Biden was clearly in better command of the facts and figures. He was less irritating, more charming, and yes, Presidential.

Palin brought up Alaska, her mayorship over and over, drilling and energy probably too often. She used the word "Maverick" about McCain and herself at least ten times during the debate. Finally, Biden explained at the end, how they weren't really mavericks at all on the issues that mattered, but were really just parading around in Maverick costumes.

Biden did not go over his time limits, did not bully or intimidate her, and made no verbal gaffes or infelicities. He was prime-time Smilin Joe, courtly, respectful and engaging. Unlike John McCain in the last debate, he often looked at the Governor and smiled (Palin to be fair also looked at him; she also mugged for the camera and winked). Biden was acidic in his excoriation of McCain's position on the Iraq war, and called him the "odd man out" for his refusal to accept a timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Joe was good.

Sarah Palin, apparently at the urging of McCain officials, pronounced Nuclear Nukuler numerous times. She dropped the G from almost every gerund, and often used folksy vernacular like "betcha" instead of bet you, and even dog-gone-it.

They were mostly very civil, and spent their time attacking the other guy's Presidential candidate. Palin said Obama had voted to raise taxes 94 times. Biden's rebuttal disagreed with that number and trumped it: "by the same reckoning," he said, McCain voted "477 times to raise taxes."

I don't think The Governor changed anyone's mind. Biden may have changed a few. For either side, there was no net harm. With McCain-Palin slipping steadily in the polls, this can only mean real fireworks for next week's town hall Presidential debate at Belmont College in Nashville, and the October 15th domestic debate.

Finally, for all the talk about Gwen Ifull being a partisan and in the OPbama camp, she performed masterfully, treated each candidate very well, and did not lob any bombs Palin's way she wasn't tossing at Biden too. Unfortunately she never lobbed the gotcha bomb at Palin. I wonder if she felt constrained after all the controversy over her book and politics.

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Larry Flynt makes porn movie with Sarah Palin playing the skin flute, and, at last, video of Palin's flute performance in beauty pageant surfaces

Complementing the You Tube video clip of Governor Sarah Palin in the 1984 Miss Alaska swimsuit competition, the same contributor (DJMojorisin. . . obviously a doors/Jim Morrison fan) has now released Sarah's talent performance on the flute. See the video below.

Speaking of flautists, The New York Daily News reported today that Larry Flynt, the founder of Hustler, has created an X-rated film that stars a Sarah Palin lookalike playing the skin flute, among other acts:

"Larry Flynt is using the power of porn to express his views on Sarah Palin. The Hustler founder and freedom of speech advocate has produced an X-rated movie using an adult-film actress who resembles the Republican vice presidential candidate."


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Levi Strauss's controversial Trouser Beast: "Unbutton your beast"

The latest Levi's ad campaign is both bizarre and funny. Click here to see the animated version and to link to the site where you can send the beast to your frenemies.
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Sara Silverman video: "Don't Let Florida Mess This One Up"

The ever-funny and foul-mouthed Sarah Silverman explains why you need to tell your grandparents how to vote for Barack Obama:


The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.
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Governor Sarah Palin, naked and verbatim

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Perhaps the choicest quote, among many, from Governor Palin's interview with Katy Couric:

Q. “ You've cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?”

A: “That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land--boundary that we have with-- Canada. …Well, it certainly does because our-- our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They're in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia-- … We have trade missions back and forth.

We-- we do-- it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his ugly head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where-- where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is-- from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to-- to our state.”
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It's snowing, it's snowing. On Mars. Pioneer Lander sees snowflakes.

In a mindf***er of all mindf***ers, the Phoenix Mars Lander has detected snow falling from clouds over Mars, NASA scientists said Tuesday. Coupled with other recent discoveries on Mars, we now know that life on Mars is at least a remote possibility. Klaatu is possible.

According to NASA, a laser-driven instrument collecting data on the interaction between the atmosphere and surface of Mars detected snow from clouds two and a half miles above the Lander's landing site. The snow vaporized before reaching the ground. . .not so surprising considering the climate.

"Nothing like this view has ever been seen on Mars," said Jim Whiteway, of York University, Toronto, lead scientist for the Canadian-supplied Meteorological Station on Phoenix. "We'll be looking for signs that the snow may even reach the ground."

Spacecraft soil experiments also have provided startling proof that minerals and liquid water have interacted in Mars (processes that routinely occur on Earth).

The Phoenix Lander touched down in the Martian arctic on May 25 this year. The data suggests the presence of calcium carbonate (e.g., chalk), and particles of what might be clay. Carbonates and clays on Earth form only with water in the mix.

"We have found carbonate," said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA). "This points toward episodes of interaction with water in the past." "We are still collecting data and have lots of analysis ahead, but we are making good progress on the big questions we set out for ourselves," said a Phoenix investigator, Peter Smith of the University of Arizona.

"The Phoenix lander started digging trenches into Martian soil after touching down near the planet's north pole on May 25, revealing a white substance that scientists said was ice in June. Scientists now want to examine whether that ice ever thaws to assess whether the environment has been favorable for life, a key aim of the mission."

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Alien Lore No. 138 — Messages to our cousins in the cosmos

For the last forty years or so, we've beamed messages into the cosmos in hopes of contacting our cousins—if we actually have cousins—way Out There. We take our best guess and fire off something we hope they're smart enough to decode or understand. Some of this stuff is pretty strange, to say the least.


photo courtesy of Nasa/Jet Propulsion Lab

The Pioneer Plaques are identical, gold-plated plaques attached to the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft. With a picture of the solar system (which they would presumably understand), a picture of the Pioneer, and a picture of "a hyperfine transition of neutral hydrogen," we were sure that whoever was smart enough to recover our spacecraft would Get It.


The Pioneer Plaque attached to Voyager 10, photo courtesy of Nasa/Jet Propulsion Lab

According to NASA, The Pioneer Plaque "is designed to show scientifically educated inhabitants of some other star system, who might intercept it millions of years from now, when Pioneer was launched, from where, and by what kind of beings. (With the hope that they would not invade Earth.) The design is etched into a 6 inch by 9 inch gold-anodized aluminum plate, attached to the spacecraft's attenna support struts in a position to help shield it from erosion by interstellar dust. The radiating lines at left represents the positions of 14 pulsars, a cosmic source of radio energy, arranged to indicate our sun as the home star of our civilization. The "1-" symbols at the ends of the lines are binary numbers that represent the frequencies of these pulsars at the time of launch of Pioneer F relative of that to the hydrogen atom shown at the upper left with a "1" unity symbol. The hydrogen atom is thus used as a "universal clock," and the regular decrease in the frequencies of the pulsars will enable another civilization to determine the time that has elapsed since Pioneer F was launched. The hydrogen is also used as a "universal yardstick" for sizing the human figures and outline of the spacecraft shown on the right. The hydrogen wavelength, about 8 inches, multiplied by the binary number representing "8" shown next to the woman gives her height, 64 inches. The figures represent the type of creature that created Pioneer. The man's hand is raised in a gesture of good will. Across the bottom are the planets, ranging outward from the Sun, with the spacecraft trajectory arching away from Earth, passing Mars, and swinging by Jupiter."

The Voyager Record, is literally a metal record...an LP...a long-player. It even includes Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode."


Photograph of the Voyager Record photo courtesy of Nasa/Jet Propulsion Lab

The 12 inch gold-plated copper discs contain "greetings in 60 languages, samples of music from different cultures and eras, and natural and man-made sounds from Earth. They also contain electronic information that an advanced technological civilization could convert into diagrams and photographs. Currently, both Voyager probes are sailing adrift in the black sea of interplanetary space, having left our solar system years ago."

The Arecibo Image is a short binary message beamed into space. When decoded, it creates an image that looks similar to an 80's video game.

Dr. Frank Drake, of Cornell University, wrote the message, with help from Carl Sagan, and others. The encoded message has seven parts:

1) the numbers one (1) through ten (10):

2) the atomic numbers of the elements hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus which make up DNA

3) the formulas for the sugars and bases in the nucleotides of DNA/the number of nucleotides in DNA

4) a graphic of the double helix structure of DNA

5) a graphic figure of a man, the dimension (physical height) of an average man, and the human population of Earth

6) a graphic of Earth's solar system

7) a graphic of the Arecibo radio telescope and the dimension (the physical diameter) of the transmitting antenna dish. [Ed's note: Arecibo in Puerto Rico sends messages to the universe, and is the site where SETI attempts to track blips in the universe and link them to other intelligent beings.]

It will take 25,000 years for the message to reach its target of of stars (and, presumably, an additional 25,000 years for the return trip for any reply). Interestingly, the stars the message is aimed at will no longer be there when it arrives. According to a Cornell News press release of Nov. 12, 1999, the real purpose of the message was not to make contact, but to demonstrate the capabilities of newly installed equipment.

The Teenage Message was beamed into space in 2001. It starts with some radio-transmission Doppler-tuning and then segues into theremin music, and ends with more binary images, including a logo for the Teenage Message program itself.




According to SETI, in 2001, "a group of Russian teens from Moscow, Kaluga, Voronezh, and Zheleznogorsk participated directly and via the Internet in composing a Teen-Age Message (TAM) to extraterrestrial intelligence, and in the selection of target stars. Their messa was transmitted in the Autumn of that year, from the Evpatoria Deep Space Center."

"Two previous interstellar radio messages (IRM), one transmitted from Arecibo in 1974 and the one from Evpatoria in 1999, had digital format and represented binary scans of one (Are) or 23 (Evp) black-and-white stylized images. But one might suppose that transmission of analog IRMs is also possible. So, before composing the message's content (as well as trying to decode future signals from ETI), let us try to determine such a message's possible format and structure."

Television Signals are a longstanding science fiction trope in which greys, or "Martians," or aliens intercept television shows and are so impressed with a show that it becomes the basis for their entire civilization. You may have seen some variation of this story on The Twilight Zone. If our TV signals really do become extraterrestrial messages, who wouldn't love to see the results?



I'd like to see the Hee Haw or the Andy Griffith Show as the basis of a civilization, or maybe Celebrity Boxing, F Troop, The Beverly Hillbillies, My Mother The Car, or maybe even Cop Rock.
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Poem: Summer leaves in autumn hit the winter of their life

The crisp dappled grey, mottled rust,
And crumbling mustard leaves and fronds
Tumble to the beckoning loam.

They sink to the brown earth
Like we all do
Sooner or later,

But they get to do it every year,
Reincarnated green in the spring
For one more run at life above the earth.
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Photos from The Sarah Palin protest in Anchorage

Contrary to what you may have heard, Sarah Palin is not universally worshipped in Alaska, or Anchorage, or Wasilla. Here are some photographs from a massive--by Alaska standards--protest in Anchorage.

It isn't the largest protest ever (as the organizers claim)...that honor goes to the native Americans who held a protest a few years ago. . .but it does come in second, and as you can see from the photos, The Governor is hardly universally worshipped.


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Carbou! Sarah Palin photographed with a caribou she dropped

click the huntress to enlarge

Vice President candidate Governor Sarah Palin is shown here photographed with a Caribou she bagged. I believe that is one of her children in the photo as well--it's either Twelvegauge or Ricochet.


I can't actually find any information on whether this photo is real or not. There are other photos of her with a dead moose, so I am presming this one is probably kosher. If not, hey, Sarah!, sue us!


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Painting: our flag was still there, despite the machinations of the false patriots

click to enlarge old glory

Yeah, it's a little tattered around the edges after the economic upheavals of the last year, and particularly the last weeks; it's become a little stained with Senator's McCain's prevarications and delusions, and with his incessant need to wave the flag constantly, like Betsy Ross sewed it just for him; and The President himself who has poked a few holes in it, but thankfully has only 112 days left to besmirch it. . .as everyone of those rascals, miscreants, scallywags, enemies of the state, and false patriots says whenever they're about to stop jabbering. . ."God Bless America."
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An Apocalypse Now ad for Palin-McCain

click the Apocalypse Now ad to enlarge

I am offering this song free to the G.O.P., to go along with their apocalypse now ad.

[to the tune of my old boy scout song, can't get to heaven]

Oh you can't get to heaven
(Oh you can't get to heaven)
In Barack Obama's car
(In Barack Obama's car)
Because Obama's car
(Because Obama's car)
Can't go that far
(Can't go that far)

Oh you can't get to heaven
In Barack Obama's car
Because Obama's car
Can't go that far
I ain't a going to grieve
My Lord no more.
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