What are Sarah Palin's Prospects? Pablo Fanque speculates on the mid-term elections and beyond

By Pablo Fanque
All This Is That National Affairs Editor

As we all know,  the vice-presidency in modern politics has not exactly been a golden path to the Oval Office.  Sure, George Bush (Sr.) pulled it off, Dick Nixon was finally elected after eight years in the political wilderness, and Harry Truman and LBJ were catapulted into office by the sudden deaths of the Presidents under whom they were serving. 

Recent unsuccessful vice presidential nominees — like Jack Kemp, John Edwards, Joe Lieberman, and Dan Quayle — never got within miles of the Presidency.  The only two losing vice presidential candidates to win a nomination--Walter Mondale and Bob Dole--were trotted out as sacrificial lambs with no chance of surviving against wildly popular incumbents.  They were both thoroughly trounced in the general election.

What does this mean for Ex-Governor Palin, who was not only a losing Veep candidate, but eventually resigned little more than halfway through her only term as Governor of Alaska?  It's hard to say.  None of these other also-rans attached themselves to a populist movement like the "tea party."  None of them ever stumped as hard as she has for fellow Republicans.  And none of them had amassed the vast mega-million personal war-chest that Palin has collected in the last year.  Whatever you think of her, she has garnered some good ink, a lot of tea-party love,  and political I.O.U.s from GOP candidates and their supporters.  Does that translate into traction as a candidate?  Probably not, but it's too early to tell.  Sarah Palin is unique, her fans are especially dedicated, and the voters seem particularly cranky.  I suspect we will know much more about her prospects after we see what happens in the 36 Senate, 435 House, and 37 gubernatorial elections coming up on November 2nd. 
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David Bowie Space Oddity (2009 Remastered) - Major Tom - The Right Stuff...

I remember when this came out (around the same time Lou Reed's Walk On The Wild Side appeared).  It felt like something new that just might take root...
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The Huffington Post's funniest news moments ever

By Pablo Fanque
National Affairs Editor


On Huffington Post:  The funniest news moments ever.

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jack brummet poem: the mission

The army
Has two duties——


To break things, and kill people.
Everything else is fluff and overhead.
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Happy Mother's Day

Paul Revere and the Raiders, Pacific NW rock legends, perform "Hungry"

Pacific Northwest rock legends Paul Revere and the Raiders perform "Hungry" I saw the Raiders three times--the first time in about 1969 at Tiffany's Skate Rink in Kent, Washington, and also at The Teen Fair at Seattle Center (the teen fair was a kind of cleaned up acid test for kids). Despite their kooky uniforms, and syncrhonized dance moves, they charted dozens of times in the latre sixties and early seventies.


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David Hidalgo and Los Lobos perform "Kiko and the Lavender Moon"

Here is the amazing Los Lobos tune "Kiko and the Lavender Moon," however, the only good version on YouTube was this one, with someone's cat performing tricks. This is David Hidalgo and The Wolves at their absolute peak (and they've had many amazing moments, from their first album 20 years ago to now).


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A milestone of sorts--4,000 entries on All This Is That

We started All This Is That five and a half years ago, in late 2004, and on Friday we posted our 4,000th article. 

ATIT has published every day since the beginning, from Seattle, Vancouver, Victoria, NYC, LA, Orange County, San Francisco, Berkeley-Oakland, Boston, Austin, Jensen Beach and the Everglades in Florida, Bucerias Nayarit, Mexico, London and Sheffield England, various locations in Turkey, Rhodes, Crete, Santorini and elsewhere in Greece, Montana, Idaho, Eugene and Portland Oregon, and in Udaipur Araungabad, Mumbai/Bombay, and Pune India.

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Machete! With Steven Segal, Robert DeNiro, Jessica Alba, Don Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Cheech Marin, Lindsay Lohan, Rose McGowan

I've been waiting for this movie since the Grindhouse fake trailer...the cast is just unbelievable.  And this guy knows how to make action movies...
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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says bin Laden is, and has been holed up in Washington, D.C. (or as we call it here, the Other Washington)

By Jack Brummet

All This Is That Foreign Policy Analyst

In response to the hints and allusions-- emanating from the U.S. and in an upcoming documentary--that Osama bin Laden is alive and well and living in Iran, Iran's president Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that that the terrorist leader is probably living in in Washington, D.C.

In an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, The President of Iran responded to a claim in new documentary "Feathered Cocaine" that bin Laden has been living comfortably in Tehran, Iran, for years.  Your question is laughable," Ahmadinejad said with a smile.   "I heard that Osama bin Laden is in Washington, D.C.," he added.

As you know, at any given time, Ahmadinejad will say just about anything.  I realized tonight that Ahmadinejad is not dissimilar to Momar Qaadafi, and the outlandish things he used to say 20 years ago.

Anything's possible, of course, and for all we know, bin Laden could very well be holed up in a supporter's spacious Georgetown townhouse at this very moment, enjoying a dirty Sapphire martini with three olives and a few of his wives.

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Poem: Into The Wind.

Into The Wind
by Jack Brummet



Three pearl grey and ivory herring gulls
Fly south into the wind
Over Puget Sound, wheeling, tumbling,

And losing ground
As shifting currents
Scour the air.

They don’t actually want
To migrate south
So much as not go north.

Something in the gulls'
Inner compass says steer clear
Of Ketchikan, Skagway, and Nome.
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two Jack Brummet drawings - Faces Nos. 136 and 144

click drawngs to enlarge

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