Did "Family Guy" go too far?

link in title.

I'm a little confused about why America keeps listening to what Sarah Palin has to say, but I found this tidbit interesting. Apparently the popular cartoon show "Family Guy" featured a character with down syndrome in their latest episode. Palin found it especially offensive, as it was an obvious dig towards herself and her family when the character proclaimed that her mother was the "former governor of Alaska."

At first, I saw why Palin would find this offensive. Mental and physical disabilities are extremely touchy. However, after watching the clip of the show and the AP video, I'm starting feel like Palin is overreacting. She isn't the only one to be made fun of by the often borderline-inappropriate show. And the "joke" was literally two seconds of the entire show. I didn't find it particularly funny or necessary, but I also don't think Palin should really be focusing her attention on fighting this. Is she just looking for things to criticize these days? What do you think? (p.s. it makes a lot more sense if you watch the short video in the link)

Sarah Palin to become Fox News Commentator

Sarah Palin, former Vice Presidential Candidate, has signed a deal with Fox News. She will be appearing on Fox as a political commentator, joining other well known "Republican-turned-TV talking heads" like Mike Huckabee and Karl Rove.

This, according to political analysts, implies that she will not be running for the Presidency in 2012. Democrats seem to be rather sad about this, because they know that Obama would not lose to Palin.

I'm not really sure what to say about this one. Considering Palin's credibility among the intellectual communities, Fox may be hurting itself. Then again, this is a terrific example of Narrowcasting. It would certainly appeal to the rather large Fundamentalist portion of the country, but who knows? We'll just have to wait and see.

Palin in Foreign Policy

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0909/Palin_presses_White_House_on_Afghanistan.html

Sarah Palin. Most likely the first thoughts about her would be her inept stupidity. Notably, how she thought that Afghanistan was a neighboring country. Amazingly Palin is able to string together something competent about foreign policy in Afghanistan in a speech yesterday. Imagine that! Surprisingly, she actually makes some decent points about how we should go into Afghanistan rather than stay in Iraq. "Iraq is no longer the central front in the war on terrorism. Afghanistan is. ".... But when did she learn foreign policy? She can hardly manage a state. And where was this speech when Bush was in office. Looks like another case of band-wagoning when things look good. I'm pretty sure everyone thinks that we 'ought to get out of Iraq, not much to restate the obvious Palin.

-Weilu Jia

Now that that crazy old flu thing is fading, we can start worrying about some other things!

No, I'm not being weird, I was just trying to make a sarcastic title about that thing that Zach Agoff mentioned. Anyway, we've got lots more to deal with. Who will replace Souter on the supreme court? According to Obama "a pragmatist, not a radical", well that's not too revealing so let's move on. How about... this! This is pretty great

http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/05/04/palin-joins-old-pal-mccain-to-rescue-gop-from-extinction/

Palin is coming back into our lives. I know I missed her. While I guess it would be pretty cruel to keep her out, I still think it's pretty crazy to have the old dynamic duo back to try and clean up a mess that they definitely helped make. And now Palin has joined the "panel of experts". I would be very interested to have a good interview with some of these GOP guys and ask them some questions. Isn't bringing Palin back into the mix just gonna remind people of the embarrasing interviews and Tina Fey-enacted satires? I'll be surprised if this new Council really does anything at all. To me, it seems like the time to join up with the government and try to make some changes, not make more organizations to complicate the climate.

I'm Helping, Dontchaknow?

Sarah Palin has saved McCain's campaign, and McCain is ahead in the polls. McCain could win this election by a landslide. Oh wait, my apologizes, good people. What I meant to say was that Sarah Palin looks as if she has done more harm than good to the McCain Campaign.

Recent studies by a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Sunday indicated that Palin has steadily been growing less popular among voters and may be costing McCain the election. With such a close race, it makes one think about what might have happened if McCain had chosen someone else? Democrats rejoice at the news of this survey, while Republicans are disappointed at the results.

Who would have thought that a Governor from Alaska, with little to no experience or qualifications for the Vice-Presidency would have generated bad beat? That someone who cannot speak for herself publicly, people tell her what to say, confuses her, and then she doesn't know what is what anymore, would create such a fuss and would potentially cost McCain the election.

Palin's popularity rating may prove to be the cause of McCain's downward spiral, but this is just one survey. Perhaps more surveys will pop up, but as of now, it could only possibly be suggested that Palin dragged McCain down with her.

England likes to blow up Sarah Palin's image

The town of Battle, England demonstrated a traditional event where they blow up a likeness of a political character. In this case, the term "blow up" is used quite literally meaning to explode.

The people of Battle, England created an effigy of Governor Sarah Palin holding a machine gun with a slogan at the base saying "too hot to handle." After this effigy was created the people blew it up with fireworks and other explosives.

click here to see the picture

Organizers of the event stated that this "was not meant to cause offense."

The townspeople of Battle have been doing this since 1646. In recent years, the people have done the same thing with their last prime minister and Tony Blair.

Is Obama an Extremist bent on re-writing the Constituion or is Palin just confusing facts with garbage?

Sarah Palin accused Obama today of wanting to "re-write the Constitution." The potential VP attacked Obama's remark that he had made to a radio interview in 2001. Obama had stated on air that he wanted to "redistribute change." Palin assumed that Obama was talking about redistributing the wealth in America through the enforcement of the Supreme Court. but as more facts were revealed, it came to be known that Obama was discussing the courts in the context of the civil rights movement, and was not referring to taxes. In addition to the proper context of the qoute, Obama also stated that he thought that civil rights leaders shouldn't rely on the court system alone to affect social changes, and that calling for any redistribution of wealth belonged to the legislators.

Palin continued to say that a vote for Obama is a vote to allow a powerful, slightly executive portion of the government to sieze your property and your personal income and to distribute the wealth around with everyone else. Is Sarah Palin saying that a former constitutional law professor would allow and possibly encourage judges to "confiscate your property and your hard, all of your hard-earned money and then re-distribute that"? Further investigation of the matter showed that Obama's quote was taken out of context and that much of what Palin had said was a conjecture.

The Palin Factor

It is obvious that Sarah Palin is quite popular, as shown in part by this appealing action figure of Palin in a schoolgirl outfit with a visible pink bra, but how will her popularity shape the election?

According to this article, Palin draws an even larger crowd that McCain does and her support is still growing. She argues energetically in her speeches, and her fellow Republicans love her for it. There are also those who are embarrassed to support Palin in public, but will in secret give her their votes. Her contribution to the campaign is obvious, and she is a power to be reckoned with.

But of course there are those that are still against her. The elite of the Republicans are critical about Palin's lack of President of the United States quality (But this really isn't all that many people...), and the Democrats are all too willing to pick at her many flaws. Conservative David Brooks of the New York Times even called her a "cancer" to the Republican party.

She is immensely popular with Republicans and laughing-stock of the Democrats, but what matters more is her effect on Independents. Will she be able to draw in enough Independents to win an unexpected victory? Well, even if she doesn't, she will be remembered as the woman who almost saved McCain, and according to the article, "represent the future of the GOP."

(This is a time that I'm glad to be a Democrat so that I have Barack Obama representing the new generation instead of Sarah Palin representing my new generation.)

Palin seeks federal ban on gay marriage

I just read this article that said that Palin wants there to be a federal ban on gay marriage, rather than McCain's views to make it a state issue. I think this is bad for the McCain campaign to get some moderate votes, and he was already having some trouble with that like Moeka said earlier. At least someone in this election is taking a firm stance, because I can't really tell Biden or Obama's stance on this issue from what htey have said. I wonder if they really aren't for it, or want more votes, and the same for McCain because leaving it to the states doesn't give a concrete answer even though they've all said they are against it. It'll be interesting to see how this news affects McCain's poll ratings.

http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20081020/Palin.Gay.Marriage/

Original Article ^

Why McCain/Palin Supporters Should Be Ashamed

The article basically says it all but in short--the McCain/Palin campaign is doing a disservice to the country by not only blatantly lying to the country (about taxes, Obama, and the Bridge to Nowhere), but is distracting from the real issues. We need to pick leaders who know the issues, and just because this is a weak-point for the GOP ticket does not mean that they should shirk from them (case in point: Palin did not know what the Bush Doctrine was on the ABC interview tonight--this is a basic tenet of the Bush foreign policy that led to the Iraq War; if you do not know what it is, you should not be on the National Security Council!).

For Any of You Who Think Palin is All Anti-Pork...