Category Archives: Security

McCain Truth Squad caught lying

The Alaska Report has more damning evidence that the GOP is twisting the truth and backpedaling to get Palin out of a bi-partisan investigation.

It was alleged at a press event this week by the McCain camp that the Palin Administration did not authorize the trip, and that Monegan was fired for trying to go on the trip anyway.

Attached is the travel document from the Governor’s Office authorizing Monegan to go on that trip. That document was left out of the presentation by the “Truth Squad” earlier this week.

Alaskans are apparently getting a bit tired of being pushed around by GOP shock-and-awe lawyers:

“They’ve sent outsiders up to Alaska to mislead the public about a bi-partisan investigation, and personally attack anyone in their way,” said State Rep. Les Gara (D-Anchorage). “The Governor agreed to this Legislative investigation until the day she joined the McCain ticket, and attacking Alaskans to get out of this commitment is plain wrong.”

Amazing to see that the investigation was passed by bi-partisan unanimous vote, Palin said she wanted to be held accountable, and yet McCain’s campaign is doing everything it can to sue everyone into silence.

Political partisanship has nothing to do with the current outrage of many Alaskans. McCain-Palin Stormtroopers have dropped into Alaska and taken over the department of law. Alaska has become a battlefield in the war for the White House. Senators Hollis French, Bill Wielechowki, Kim Elton, Investigator Steve Branchflower and Walt Monegan are the public targets. The Alaskan Constitution, the Rule of Law, and the Citizens of Alaska are the collateral damage. It isn’t too dramatic to say we are having a Constitutional Crisis when our Attorney General, Talis Colberg, is instructing Alaskans to break the law by ignoring subpoenas.

This is Alaska. This is Alaska under the GOP…

The Battlefield Alaska article lays out ten excellent reasons why the GOP are smoking crack if they think the investigation is partisan or should be postponed:

Top Ten Reasons the Investigation into Sarah Palin is Fair

1. It began with a 12-0 vote of eight Republicans and four Democrats.

2. The President of the Senate, a Republican, voted in favor of the investigation.

3. The Speaker of the House, a Republican, voted in favor of the investigation.

4. The investigation began in July, well before Governor Palin was placed on the national ticket.

5. Governor Palin pledged over and over to cooperate with the investigation. Here’s a quote from a KTUU story July 18, 2008. “We would never prohibit, or be less than enthusiastic about any kind of investigation. Let’s deal in the facts, and you do that via investigation.” And another from Sharon Leighow, Governor Palin’s press secretary in an Anchorage Daily News story from July 29, 2008. “The governor has said all along that she will fully cooperate with an investigation and her staff will cooperate as well.”

6. The Project Director, Hollis French, was not a member of the committee that started the investigation.

7. The Republican senator that supplied the crucial vote in favor of subpoenas has a John McCain for President sign in his yard, and he represents the area around Governor Palin’s home town.

8. At the meeting when subpoenas were issued, every member present from the House Judiciary Committee voted to support the Senate’s subpoenas, including the Chairman, a conservative Republican, and the vice-chair, a conservative Republican.

9. The investigator, Steve Branchflower, who is actually gathering the facts and writing the report, has no ties to either party.

10. Because filing a complaint against yourself, and then moving to have that complaint dismissed, is not a good way to get to the truth. (“Palin Calling for an End to Investigation She Requested” ABC News)

Ok, lying-Truth Squad, let’s hear your responses.

The Onion on Palin’s email

The Onion – America’s Finest News Source has some funny one-liners on the Palin hack:

The son of a Tennessee state representative hacked into Gov. Sarah Palin’s Yahoo! e-mail account. What do you think?

“This is outrageous. Clearly it’s the responsibility of the government to infiltrate people’s e-mail accounts, not rogue private citizens.”

“I’m sure it won’t be long before they crack McCain’s elaborate system of cans and strings.”

Cans and strings…hilarious.

Man bored with train tickets faces jail

The Deutsche Welle tells a strange story about a man who refused to stop riding without a ticket:

From October 2006 to February 2007, he was caught riding the train without a ticket 102 times, often several times on the same day. The court, fed up with imposing fines and suspended sentences, finally decided to get tough and gave him a 22-month holiday behind bars.

Throwing himself upon the mercy of the court was likely not an option this time. It is not as if the man was riding ticketless due to a lack of financial means. According to his own statement, he repeatedly dodged fares “pretty much out of boredom.”

Boredom as a defense? Maybe something was lost in translation. Wonder if tried to argue how ticket sales should be made more entertaining.

Smart Diesel Car

Nice to see the Smart car finally getting back to its roots. It was invented in Switzerland and meant to be a high-efficiency vehicle, but ten years later they are just beginning to incorporate the efficiency into models:

The diesel version has a fuel consumption of only 3.3 litres per 100 kilometres with a carbon dioxide emission figure of only 88 g/km.

After running a test with 100 electric-powered Smarts in London, the car maker also announced the mass production of Smart electric-drive for 2010.

Strange how the inventor wanted a hybrid so many years ago, but Daimler refused and marketed it as a compact vehicle only.

On its tenth birthday the Smart finally appears to fulfil the destiny marked out by its inventor Hayek. Daimler has just announced that from October 2008 all the petrol-engined 45 kW/61 hp and 52 kW/71 hp Smart fortwos would be fitted standard with micro hybrid drive (MHD) and fuel-saving start-stop systems.

It took ten years and Toyota executive leadership to make the obvious obvious to Daimler. Talk about conservative.