Effect Measure

By now everyone knows that Sarah Palin abused her power as Governor of Alaska in trying to settle a personal score with her ex-brother-in-law. Despite the fact that the official bipartisan legislative investigation cited chapter and verse of her unethical conduct and violation of Alaskan ethics statutes she has brazenly trumpeted her version that the reported absolved her of all guilt. Black is white. War is Peace. And this is 1984. There’s a persistent pattern of hypocrisy and lying worthy of the present Vice President.

Even her accusations against the brother-in-law now are in question. Among them was the charge, made in a letter to the Alaskan State Trooper’s Colonel Julia Grimes, that he “unfairly” hunted down and killed a wolf with his snowmobile:

Another example that Wooten likes to share with others regarding his unethical and illegal hunting techniques involves a wolf hunt where he illegally chased down the animal with his snowmachine to kill it unfairly. (Letter to Col. Grimes)

There’s two things about this. One is that it doesn’t seem to be true. A transcript of the investigation reveals that the incident, in which the brother-in-law indeed took part, had as its main figure in the wolf shooting (and then running over another wolf) Palin’s own father, who was the brother in law’s hunting companion on the day in question (see relevant part of the transcript here).

I said there were two things. Here’s the other (again):

Comments

#1 eddie
October 16, 2008

This is basic GOP behaviour; to accuse others of which they are most guilty. Same with the voter fraud fraud discussed over on dispatches. Same with the negative advertising and swiftboating.

If a repub ever accuses you of anything, they did it.
#2 Mike
October 16, 2008

“If a repub ever accuses you of anything, they did it.”

Cool idea. Sad, but very likely true.
#3 _Arthur
October 16, 2008

And, when caught doing something wrong (illegal), they will claim “Clinton did it first!”, like any child.
#4 Leni
October 16, 2008

Good christ, that footage was awful.

I wonder if there is a Starbucks cup with a quote about the special place in hell in reserved for people who move to rural areas and then actively kill the wildlife because it is a “threat” to them.
#5 Edmund
October 16, 2008

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/call_of_the_wild.html
#6 Jonathon Singleton
October 17, 2008

Revere, a mate and I had a few vodkas the other nite and talked ’bout how we viewed Yank culture back in 2002… We both were aware then governments (of all stripes) were lying to the public ’bout the reasons for invading Iraq! I knew, the day I was “packraped” by police and medical folk — Australians, who act like the Bush administration — that our democratic society was starting to become “sociopathic” and “dysfunctional”!

The reasons appears obvious and simple — Boomers ARE angry ’bout growing old and, in this paradigm, loonies took over State and federal government administrations…

EffectMeasure — American psychologists do the right thing (September 21, 2008) by revere

http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2008/09/american_psychologists_do_the.php

Reader posting by Jonathon Singleton | September 22, 2008 3:26 AM

Stephen Soldz, “caia, unfortunately the psychologists were not just ‘a fig leaf for U.S. interrogators.’ Rather, they designed, trained for, disseminated, and standardized the abusive techniques. They were the backbone of the ‘enhanced interrogation’ program. this idea of them keeping interrogations ‘safe, legal, and ethical’ was apparently made up as a fig leaf…”

Mr Soldz, thank you for your extraordinary personal efforts in this team effort to dissociate the APA membership from colluding with barbaric neo-nazi practices (war crimes against humanity) authored — and practiced these last eight years — by the Bush administration.

This welcome situation is not altogether different from the 1975 American Psychological Association resolution supporting the 1973 American Psychiatric Association removal of homosexuality from the DSM — thereby dissociating the science of psychology from the phobias of violent bigotry. Refer to APA, “Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality” @ http://www.apahelpcenter.org/articles/article.php?id=31

Stephen, I am also “…proud that APA members have now said “NO!”
#7 slovenia
October 17, 2008

Quite the monster, our Sarah. Imagine her in the White House–the ruthlessness of Cheney, the cluelessness of Dubya and the religious fervor of Falwell. If you pitched that to an editor as the premise for a dystopic SF novel, she’d laugh you out of her office.
#8 Claudia
October 17, 2008

The factcheck was interesting – its not as clear-cut as the ad suggests, but killing wolves and other predators of “big game” just so YOU get a chance to kill big game…hmmm? Doesn’t sit well with me. And from the sounds of it, doesn’t sit well with a lot of other people. There must be a better way to deal with this difficult issues. But despite all of that, she had the GALL to accuse her ex-bro-in-law for doing the same damn thing she supports? With her DAD? Ffs…
#9 Cathie Currie
October 17, 2008

I emailed FactCheck saying that they did not have their facts correct on wolf hunting — apparently the factcheckers do not listen to other factcheckers:

My email:
Your facts about wolf hunting ‘seem’ right but demonstrate that you are not from wolf country. I grew up in Minnesota, which is proudly wolf country, and I spent a lot of time tracking wolves when I was a teen.

Research has shown that wolves’ diet consists mainly of small rodents and rabbits. Wolves almost never kill moose and caribou except for culls of sick and injured animals. And wolves rarely get a chance at a healthy calf — caribou remain in herds, moose cows are devoted to their calves and fierce. I once nearly crashed into a moose’s knees when I shot out a white water rapids sluice in a canoe — we attempted to back our canoe up the sluice! Likewise, wolves retreat from any moose that is not literally on its last legs.

The interest in shooting wolves is complex, and it has more to do with entertainment and myths than reality. Robert Redford recorded an audio tape in the 70′s that is still commercially available on why people fear wolves and that the desire to kill them is motivated by generalized dread and anxiety, not economics. More akin to killing vampires than protecting livestock.

Hunting wolves from planes is what we used to call a ‘cheap thrill’ for a population that has a lot of planes and guns — and should be banned, not promoted. I’m not anti-hunting, and I like to shoot guns, but ‘fair game’ is an easily forgotten ethic for some people.