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By now you’ve heard that John McCain has picked his vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin to run with him on the republican ticket in the general elections this November. The timing of his announcement did precisely what it was supposed to do: get people talking about McCain, rather than Obama, on his nomination day no less!
Shortly after Obama delivered a grand slam speech in Denver Thursday night, McCain announced that he would reveal his pick for the Vice Presidential office the following day. Specculation ran rampant throughout the night, but the secret remained secure until very near the end. The result was that the media and pundits everywhere were giving appropriate homage to Obama’s speech, but were obviously eager to jump into McCain’s VP nominee.
So far Sarah Palin appears to be a very interesting choice for the VP pick. The main problem, and indeed perhaps her biggest asset, is that she is virtually unknown to anybody on the national stage. Much as Obama was when he first started his candidacy.
So who is this Sarah Palin?
Sarah Palin is a native of Idaho, a life long member of the NRA, she is a journalist by training, and is a graduate of the University of Idaho. By way of political experience, she was the mayor of a small town in Alaska, and was elected the governor of Alaska two years ago in a land-slide humiliating the then seated governor. Sarah Palin fits in with the image of an Alaskan, she loves to hunt, fish, snow mobile, and she even owns a float plane, a valuable form of transport in Alaska.
Politically she has been called a “maverick”, for fighting against corruption in her own party, while at the same time maintaining openly gay friendships. She is a devout christian, and has an excellent family. Her son is scheduled to serve in Iraq in September, and she just gave birth to her fifth child in April, which was diagnosed with downs syndrome. For more in depth information about Sara Palin, visit Blog Critics Magazine.
What does this all mean for John McCain? While John battles a mild form of skin cancer, this increases the legitimate argument that the VP must be able to assume the presidency. Sarah Palin has little political experience, but ironically, she has more executive experience than John McCain, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden combined. I would love to see that in an ad somewhere.
Though with McCain selecting Palin to be his running mate, he has effectively stripped himself of the ace of spades: experience. McCain has repeatedly attacked Obama on his lack of experience in all matters. With Palin’s paltry two years experience, it makes it much easier for the Obama campaign to counter this with the same argument. Will this cost McCain? Time will tell for sure, it would seem the experience argument wasn’t a very effective one against Obama’s “change” anyhow, and it seems McCain’s advisers understand this.
Instead, McCain has chosen somebody that the American people can become enamored with. Sarah Palin is attractive, intelligent, dignified, and elegant. She has been hailed as a walking photo-op, and she is the kind of person that people are naturally drawn to. She holds a commanding yet approachable and friendly poise that is inherently matriarchal in its emanation. She is the kind of woman that working class blue collar man can get behind, unlike Hillary Clinton, who seemed entirely elitist and out of touch for many men. Sarah Palin could do much simply for the image of the United States abroad. She is the epitomy of an all-american girl, right down to her marriage of her high school sweetheart.
Sarah Palin is an inspiration for all of us, whether you agree with her policies or not. Her success in her family, her fight against corruption, and her acceptance of gays and lesbians with an open christian heart and mind. She represents what we all desire to be, successful and happy in all aspects of our lives. She ballances her life remarkably well, and as such we could all learn something about that from her.
Will she swing former Hillary supporters? Some, mainly those who are more concerned about getting any woman in the whitehouse, no matter their policies. But she isn’t a woman of the same flavor.
If there is anything that will be used against Sarah Palin, it will likely be in connection to her husband, who works for BR an oil company on the Northshore. If she can be linked to big oil interests, then Obama’s slogan of “Change We Can Believe In” will likely resonate even louder with the american people.
The events of the last week have been a long time in coming. Its been no secret that the two nations have been in dispute for some time. Finally the Russians have had enough. This is something literally ripped out of a Tom Clancy video game called Ghost Recon. The premise of Ghost Recon was a small team of Force Recon Marines are inserted into Georgia to stop a Russian invasion. The really interesting thing is, the story takes place in the year 2008.
Here is the video introduction to the game that was made in 2001. The game was phenomenal.
Maybe you should watch that one again. Scary isn’t it? Suddenly this isn’t a story anymore, this is life.
Regardless of the paralells between Tom Clancy’s work of fiction and today’s headlines, the overall jist of the two are ironically similar. The Russians have worked hard over the last decade and a half to lull the United States and its allies into complacency. They adopted a representative form of government, sought entry into NATO, and decried the placement of the missile shield by George Bush. Thank goodness President Bush decided to build the shield anyway. For those interested, here is a great FAQ from the BBC about the European Missile Defence Shield.
What does this mean for the United States and its allies? It would seem that the Russians couldn’t have picked a better time to test the mettle of its opposers. The United States is spread thin in Iraq, Afghanistan, and South Korea. They struck during the Olympics in Beijing so as to minimize the public’s awareness of the situation. Quite frankly, it would seem the public consciousness is hardly registering the impact of these developments. Though who can blame us? We’ve had many wars in the last few years, many just desire to occupy themselves with something less trivial.
More to the point though, what can the US and its allies do? In our unprepared state we are not even remotely in an economic position to wage a war of the magnitude that would be required to fight a war against the Motherland. Secondly we are a very war weary nation. While I strongly believe in a nations right and indeed its obligation to defend itself and its interests, I cant help but feel a sense of apathy at getting involved in another war. Yet if war we must, then war we will. The real question is when?
Interestingly we owe a debt of honor to the Georgians. In the Iraq war, the three largest forces have been first and foremost the United States, with Great Britain coming in second, while Georgia maintained the third largest military presence in Iraq until recently when they had to recall their troops in the midst of increasing threats from Russia.
So how can we, the defenders of freedom, the unsoliticted hero of nations, the destroyer of tyranny, shrink from the fight? How can we stand up for our principles and freedoms and turn our back on a nation such as Georgia. Unfortunately I am afraid that we aren’t the super power we used to be. The US relies upon a volunteer army, and as such has a very small military force.
Additionally, if the conflict escalates, you can bank on Iran allying with Russia, who would likely accelerrate the Iranian nuclear capabilites. Israel would undoubtedly intervene if any serious Russo-Iranian alliance were to be struck up, and the dominos would already have fallen.
As for the moment, the world is watching and waiting. Moscow is sounding very much like Hitler did with the invasion of Poland; promising that they’re not going to stay, or that they’re just resolving an internal matter. Meanwhile the stories coming out of Georgia are confusing and difficult to confirm. A ceasefire was declared, and for a moment was in effect, but still Russia drove forward, deeper and deeper into the nation. The world may well put up with this, much to the misfortune of the Georgians. But then, much like we were during the blitzkrieg of Poland in World War II, we aren’t in a very strong position to do much. I’m afraid the true conflict may be further down the road.
In the meantime one politician is actually getting it right. John McCain has made a very sensible political move and has called Vladimir Putin what he is, “KGB”. While Bush is very fond of Putin on a personal basis, our next President, whomever he is, must not be permitted to feed the Great Bear. This signals a new age for Russia. The post communist depression is being lifted, the fires of nationalism are being stirred, and the youth are flocking to their leader. Sound like Hitler anyone?
Only time will tell for sure. Hopefully within the month we’ll have a better idea of what Russia’s plans are for Georgia, how serious they are, and how long they plan to stay. For now, the reports are too conflicting to say anything for sure.
All this being said, I am optimistic about the future of the United States. I believe in the divine nature and indeed in the divine destiny of this nation to bless the world by example, not compulsion. Not by intimidation, sanctions, threats, and other distasteful methods, but with benevolence and mercy, and a genuine goodness. I recognize that we are not a perfect nation, that we have often been found to be the aggressor, to be the cause of many of the problems, but if we stick to the principles and attitudes that the Founding Fathers put forth, then we shall ever prosper and be a shining city on the hill.
From an essay I submitted to my English teacher during spring semester. She had asked us to find two sources with differing opinions. The following isn’t necessarily a conclusive opinion of mine, but rather it strives to analyze two sides of one subject.
The Incredibly Inconvenient Global Dilemma
Two articles, two authors, two opinions, both are supported by mountains of evidence, websites, blogs, videos, and scores of believers, the singular topic is not a religious one, though it could easily be mistaken for one; yet the topic is something far more tangible, something much closer to home, it is global warming. Indeed it would seem that global warming is an issue that has finally transcended the radical, crazy scientist phase, and moved into the realm of popular culture and collective thought. It is a political force to be reckoned with, and the fundraising dream of thousands of scientists who feel that environmentalism has been a neglected science for years.
In my Jr. High and High School years we watched a news program frequently called Channel 1 News. This was a program who’s aim was to educate teenagers on current events. It was there that I was first introduced in depth to the concept of global warming, specifically that of man-made global warming caused by Co2 emissions. As a teenager the I felt the urgency of the message, the need to act now was present, but it seemed then as if nobody was. After all, they were talking about the entire planet. What difference could we possibly make?
Now fast forward to the year 2006; global warming has reached the national stage as it was thrust into our public consciousness by a movie with a familiar host, Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”. Now the household terms such as ‘carbon footprint’, ‘carbon tax’, and ‘carbon credits’ are widely known and understood. Legislation has been introduced, the Kyoto treaty has been pushed, and the political storm is brewing to stop global warming.
At the time of the film’s release I was serving an LDS mission in the southern state of Texas. Even there, in the relatively isolated world of a missionary devoted with singularity of purpose and mind to the spreading of my religion, did I hear about it. Coupled with Hurricane Katrina, and the numerous natural disasters that had happened the year previous, the subject of the Book of Revelations and its correspondence to weather was a popular one amongst the people I spoke with. I was amazed to hear the name Al Gore associated with this new phenomenon, though I had known he had been purporting the issue of global warming for years. Here was a man who was literally destroyed by the political and judicial system, it was a name that I had never expected to hear on the national stage again.
The premise of global warming is a dreadful thought, something ripped out of a science fiction book. Ice caps and glaciers around the world are described as melting at alarming rates. This would eventually bring about the extinction of thousands of different species around the world as the ramifications are felt throughout the globe. Oceans will warm and rise, hurricanes will become more frequent and more fierce, tornados will rage, and patterns of rainfall will change. Deserts will become jungles, and jungles deserts, while cities are inundated and flooded by water resultant from the melting of the ice caps in the two polar extremities of the earth. All this because of the follies of man and our modern machinations that produce Co2. It certainly seemed ripped from the biblical pages of Revelations.
Shortly after the release of Al Gore’s movie, was an opinion editorial written by Kathrine Ellison of The New York Times in which she expresses her fear of global warming. She goes on to explain that “I feel like a schnook buying fluorescent light bulbs – as Environmental Defense recommends – when at last count, China, India and the United States were building a total of 850 new coal-fired power plants.”
She continues by explaining her firm belief that global warming is real, that it is a menace seldom addressed. She attacked various politicians as not doing enough to end the disaster, and calls for “radical realism” to bring about new measures and regulations to be signed into law. But most importantly, she cries out for a leader to lead us in the front on the global dilemma we have aptly termed global warming. The hysteria in her tone of voice makes one want to head to the bomb shelter, as she mentions her beloved children and her desire to protect them. It would seem the world was going to end very, very soon.
Another voice in this hurricane of political action, or rather inaction is Miles Ketchum of www.justiceonline.com. He tells us that Co2 (carbon dioxide) makes up less than one percent of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. He points out that a famous graph often used by many to support the connection of rising Co2 emissions with the rise in temperature, known as the “hockey stick plot” as it resembles a hockey stick curving upward like a sideways L. This graph tracks data on a millennial scale, but towards the end connects our last century with the millennia, he states: “Comparing a modest increase in carbon dioxide levels due to human activities with the Earth’s cyclic, natural variations that play out over many thousands of years is just absurd.”
Mr. Ketchum goes through the most common claims of global warming advocates and quietly counters them. He advocates research for renewable energy, as only good would result from that, but ridicules those “same environmentalists who advocate shutting down coal power plants today are the same who were against clean nuclear power only a few decades ago.”
Of the two, I am more inclined to agree with Mr. Ketchum. Though I must reiterate that it is my inclination only. At this present time, there simply isn’t enough evidence either way to determine if global warming is manmade, or even real for all parts of the world. The hottest year in the last century was 1998, since then there has been a cooling trend in the overall mean average world temperature. This could be a brief retreat of the effects of global warming, or it could be a full blown indication of global cooling.
As I researched this topic, I viewed Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”, and I did so skeptically. I had been viewing some anti global warming websites. However as I did so, I felt an overwhelming emotion come over me, one that evoked a fear for the future of our planet. Here I was a skeptic, and even I was sucked into the power of this film. I can only imagine how it affected millions who did not check the facts for themselves, sought out both sides, but instead chose to believe every word that Al Gore presented in what was essentially a glorified power point presentation. My own research after viewing the film showed that much of what Al Gore purported to be a reality was in fact at very worst, an exaggerated possibility.
The claim in the film that the earth’s oceans could raise twenty feet were the results of supercomputers crunching numbers and simulations for months trying to simulate the earth’s climate. Mr. Ketchum delightfully pointed out that our local weatherman is often incorrect in his prediction for the next day, let alone the next fifty years. The earth’s climate is too volatile, too easily influenced by events such as volcanoes, warming and cooling of oceans, and other natural disasters. How can we even hope or presume that our super computers could accurately portray the weather fifty years into the future?
The debate on global warming has been largely one sided for such a long time that the opposition is disregarded, and seldom quoted by the media. Instead global warming is accepted as the inscrutable truth, and those who don’t believe it are ignorant, or are shareholders of oil companies. Yet despite this fact, there is indeed a growing community of nonbelievers who reject the idea of manmade global warming. Among them is the President of the Global Federation of Scientists, A. Zichichi of Switzerland. He, along with ninety-nine other renowned and accredited scientists, climatologists, and other earth scientists submitted a letter to the UN Secretary General on December 13, 2007. This letter stated that there simply isn’t enough evidence to support the widely accepted consensus that man is the cause of global warming.
Though the debate about anthroprogenic global warming is only beginning to heat up, there is certainly no doubt about the money that is being spent on the efforts to increase awareness of the issue. Al Gore recently launched a $300 million television ad campaign across the United States to urge people to act now to stop global warming. That amount alone is atrocious, and though I am no expert on Mr. Gore’s money, nor his organization, I find it highly unlikely that he betted his whole nonprofit organization solely on those television ads. There is likely more money where that came from.
Additionally scientists and universities are benefiting from the craze as they seek funding for their various projects both from governmental and private organizations. It is a joke amongst those seeking funding to include the words “Global Warming Research” into their funding submissions, whether or not their experiments have anything to do with global warming.
Whether or not manmade global warming is real, I believe a very valuable opportunity may well be passed up. With gas prices being sky high with absolutely no promise or indication that they will ever come down again, the time to search for new sources of energy has come. It would not be a stretch for any scientist or engineer to request funding for alternative energy sources and describe it as a global warming project. The politician is also missing out on a great opportunity to propel himself into whatever office he desires with promises of new energy and its implementation.
A local talk show host, Doug Wright is often heard saying, “Where is the clarion call from the government to develop renewable sources of energy?” John F. Kennedy proclaimed that the nation would put a man on the moon before the end of the 1960’s. The nation was energized and excited as it moved forward, spent massive amounts of funds, created many new jobs, products, and new discoveries that we still benefit from to this day. Where is the bright politician that will harness the political behemoth that is the global warming movement for the development of renewable sources of energy?
Such an action could prevent the American people from falling into an ever deepening crevice of economic turmoil as once again, new jobs and industries are created, money is spent and flows through the economy, and new discoveries are made. At the very least it would remove the United State’s dependence upon foreign oil, and allow us to burst the shackles of our foreign masters.
At the very least, the age of the gas powered automobile will soon be coming to a close within the next decade as China and other developing nation’s satiate their thirst, creating less gasoline for consumption in the United States. If that certainly does not do it, then our own government may well act upon the will of the people and impose a carbon tax, making it even more expensive and therefore less popular an option to drive your own car to work every day.
