Sarah Palin was lobbed a softball question at the right wing Tea Party Convention Q&A session, February 6, 2010.
Just to make sure she could remember all 3 talking points, Sarah double-checked the notes scrawled on her hand.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Even a co-worker on her employer’s network, FOX news, poked fun at Palin’s palm notes.
Republicans, you’re going to let this creampuff debate Obama?
Find a better candidate.
Sadly, this photo of Sarah Palin is a fake.
Sad because it’s quite representative of her.
I’m reading that Palin is leading other potential Republican candidates for the 2012 election. Are the Republicans really that hard up?
She would be a disastrous President. An international embarrassment.
Yet the U.S.A. just might elect this unqualified woman. They elected an incoherent named Scott Brown recently, in a protest vote.
BBC poses another good question about Americans: Why do people vote against their own interests?
… it is striking that the people who most dislike the whole idea of healthcare reform- the ones who think it is socialist, godless, a step on the road to a police state – are often the ones it seems designed to help.
In Texas, where barely two-thirds of the population have full health insurance and over a fifth of all children have no cover at all, opposition to the legislation is currently running at 87%. …
I can understand a Texan voting against Obama. But I can’t understand what they see in Palin.
It’s not just me. I traveled for months in Europe and Asia last year. Not one non-American I spoke with liked Bush, McCain or Palin. Why do Americans vote for these people?
Enlighten me in a comment.
On Wednesday two major news stories dropped the same day:
1) the unveiling of the Apple iPad and
2) President Obama’s State of the Union speech
We wondered: what would people talk about more? Was the announcement of Apple’s Tablet Steve Jobs potentially more captivating than Obama’s first State of the Union speech?
UPDATE: It looks like the claims in this post are false. See details in the COMMENTS.
Here’s the response we got back from Canada Post:
Over the holidays, a customer contacted us by email to ask us why private sector partners would be allowed to charge more for the same service provided by corporate offices. The reply they received contained misinformation and we would like our customers to know the facts – rates are the same at all Canada Post establishments both corporate and private sector partner locations.
It is very important to us that your customer experience is the same no matter where you choose to shop.
In fact, the agreement that Canada Post has with its private sector partners specifies that the maximum postal rates that they can charge are the Canada Post published rates. If a postal outlet charges prices that are over the Canada Post published rates, they are in violation of their contract. You should also know that the equipment used by private sector postal outlets is programmed with Canada Post’s published rates. Therefore, the rates should be the same no matter where you choose to get postal services.
We are very disappointed to hear of this experience and we are investigating the matter. If you have any questions or concerns about our rates, contact us at http://canadapost.ca/contactus
AND another response by email:
It is very important to us that the customer experience is the same no matter where our customers choose to shop.
With respect to the rates, all of our 6,000 automated post offices, corporate or dealer use the same Retail point-of-sale system software and corporate rating engine. Therefore they all charge the same rate for the same identical service.
Dealers cannot charge a higher rate for a postal service, as the system will not permit it and contractually they would be in default.
We will further investigate the matter that you brought to our attention.
Regards,
Pam Larose
Customer Service
Canada Post
==== original post from Jan 13th:
Postal rates in the Great White North were increased Jan. 11th.
I think we should avoid using Canada Post as much as possible. The pricing system they use is silly.
Not that prices are too high. My complaint is that there is no fairness to the pricing.
For example, in 2006 David Grant compared mailing costs for the same package:
Vancouver to Florida $6.65 Small Packet USA Surface
Vancouver to Florida $7.90 Small Packet USA Air
FedEx Ground Vancouver to Toronto $12.Vancouver to Toronto via Canada Post Regular Parcel is $10.34
Do those rates seem sensible to you? Who comes up with these pricing formulas?
More recently, a blogger mailed two identical packages via Canada Post, one week apart.
From a Canada Post postal outlet, cost was $11.74. Next week … a clerk at a Canada Post office said the $11.74 on the second package was not enough. He’d have to buy $6 more in postage.
WHAT!?
That story came in by email from George. It’s posted in the comments.
Veronika Strofski, Customer Service Canada Post, explains:
Only Canada Post Depots and Corporate Post Offices are obligated to follow the price of stamps and postal products that are legislated by Canada Post. Any commercial and private establishment (e.g. convenience store or pharmacy) may charge extra fees as a convenience to their customers. It is at their discretion to apply additional service fees to products that they sell. We suggest visiting a Corporate Post Office in order to avoid paying additional service charges ….
Why haven’t I ever heard about these extra charges?
Seems those extra charges do not exist.
I’ll forward these complaints to Canada Post’s current Ombudsman: Ms. Nicole Goodfellow.
As at most bogus organizations, there’s no email contact. Only phone. Or mail. She really doesn’t want to hear from Canadians.
… On another page I found the address: ombud@ombudsman.postescanadapost.ca
I’ve still not heard back from the Ombudswoman. Who’s the Ombudsman for Ombudsmen?
Bottom line: In Canada, avoid snail mail. Do as much as possible online. Or by FAX.
Thanks Dana.
On Sunday, January 10th, 60 Minutes did an interview with John McCain’s campaign strategist Steve Schmidt:
Sarah Palin comes off very, very badly.
Schmidt says it would be a disaster to elect her President in 2012.
Click PLAY or watch her Greatest Hits on YouTube.
Happily, Dana just let me know that Palin’s gone to work for Fox News TV, the bastion of those who actually still believe anything she says.
How appropriate.
You know driving is dangerous, but you still drive a car.
Getting killed by a terrorist is not in the top 10. Not in the top 1000 causes of death.
Why are we spending so much money and effort to stop the odd goofball trying to light his genitals on fire?
In 2002 the TSA had 13 employees. Today, 60,000 employees. Do you feel safer?
TSA and Homeland Security spending is obcenely wasteful.
From an excellent opinion piece by DAVID BROOKS:
… In a mature nation, President Obama could go on TV and say, “Listen, we’re doing the best we can, but some terrorists are bound to get through.” But this is apparently a country that must be spoken to in childish ways. The original line out of the White House was that the system worked. Don’t worry, little Johnny.
When that didn’t work the official line went to the other extreme. “I consider that totally unacceptable,” Obama said. I’m really mad, Johnny. But don’t worry, I’ll make it all better.
Meanwhile, the Transportation Security Administration has to be seen doing something, so it added another layer to its stage play, “Security Theater” — more baggage regulations, more in-flight restrictions.
At some point, it’s worth pointing out that it wasn’t the centralized system that stopped terrorism in this instance. As with the shoe bomber, as with the plane that went down in Shanksville, Pa., it was decentralized citizen action. The plot was foiled by nonexpert civilians who had the advantage of the concrete information right in front of them — and the spirit to take the initiative. …
Body scanners wouldn’t have caught Northwest bomber. Airport pat-downs are an exercise in futility.
How long before we in North America finally adopt Israeli security?
… Immediately after the first bomb goes off in the entrance of the airport. Before you take your shoes off.
A lone traveler on the American Terrorist “Watch List” flies from a Muslim country without luggage … and he was not flagged at any airport.
What does the Czar of Homeland Security have to say?
With commentary by (with great photoshop work) Michelle Malkin.
Clown alert: Janet Napolitano says the “system worked
… one thing I’d like to point out is that the system worked. …
So the whole process of making sure that we respond properly, correctly and effectively went very smoothly.
Janet Napolitano is the United States Secretary of Homeland Security.
She later went on NBC’s Today Show with host Matt Lauer and appeared to change her view to reflect that the security system had indeed failed.
OK, she misspoke. Anyone can do that once …
I’d forgive her if she hadn’t previously blundered about my country:
… “Yes, Canada is not Mexico. It doesn’t have a drug war going on,” Napolitano said. “Nonetheless, to the extent that terrorists have come into our country …it’s been across the Canadian border.” …
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is not fit for position, recent events prove
Loose lips sink ships, Janet.
One terrorist, once, tried to cross from Canada to the U.S.A. … One of your astute border guards caught him. Your system worked, that time.
I was a big supporter of Obama very early on in his bid to become President.
He’s still likely the very best man that’s ever held the job.
But let me go on record very early on to say he won’t win a second term.
On Dec. 24th the Democrats delivered a Christmas present:
… significant new financial support to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the beleaguered mortgage giants, no matter how badly they perform in the next few years.
The announcement came as the government approved cash compensation for the companies’ top executives of up to $42 million for their work this past year. The largest payouts will go to the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac chief executives, who each will receive up to $6 million over two years, according to financial filings made Thursday. …
I know $6 million, even $42 million is chump change. That corporate fat cat salaries is a specious issue.
But a number of talking points like this one makes Obama a sitting duck for any Republican who runs on a platform of fiscal responsibility.
The American voter has no stomach for increased taxes. That means the next President of the U.S.A. will be the Republican who runs on decreasing the Federal budget.
And how do you decrease budget spending? It’s obvious …
Whatever Republican candidate with the guts to bring American troops home soon can beat Obama. The U.S.A. can no longer afford to be policeman to the world.
That graph’s old and an oversimplification. There’s a more detailed breakdown of the 2009 budget here.
In the 40 years since U.S. President Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs,” the supply and use of drugs has not changed in any fundamental way. The only difference: a taxpayer bill of more than $1 trillion.
A senior Mexican official who has spent more than two decades helping fight the government’s war on drugs summed up recently what he’s learned from his long career: “This war is not winnable.” …
… Growing numbers of Mexican and U.S. officials say—at least privately—that the biggest step in hurting the business operations of Mexican cartels would be simply to legalize their main product: marijuana. Long the world’s most popular illegal drug, marijuana accounts for more than half the revenues of Mexican cartels.
“Economically, there is no argument or solution other than legalization, at least of marijuana,” said the top Mexican official matter-of-factly. The official said such a move would likely shift marijuana production entirely to places like California, where the drug can be grown more efficiently and closer to consumers. …
Wall Street Journal – Saving Mexico
California is one of 14 states that have legalized medical marijuana, anyway. It’s easy to be prescribed legal dope there.
Assembly Bill 390: The Marijuana Control, Regulation and Education Act … is the first bill ever introduced to regulate the sale and use of marijuana in the U.S. state of California. If passed and signed into law, marijuana would be sold and taxed openly to adults age 21 and older in California. …
Proponents are trying to take that to a statewide vote sometime in 2010.
I’m sure Arnold is thinking about it. An estimated $1.3 billion in revenue to the empty California tax coffers.
But the U.S.A. is one of the most conservative (backward) nations in the world. The romantic comedy “It’s Complicated” got an R rating, … “which experts say could limit the box-office potential of the Universal Pictures film — … largely from a sequence in which Steve Martin and Meryl Streep smoke marijuana.”
Producers have appealed.
This is a polarizing issue in a nation already split between Democrats and Republicans. It would be a gutsy move for Arnold to allow legislation to go ahead … if Californians vote to legalize. I think he should.
Rick McCharles 
