Pharyngula

Posted by: MP2K | September 17, 2008 1:26 AM

She is qualified to shoot a moose, though.

Posted by: Michael X | September 17, 2008 1:27 AM

Maybe we can take John Stewart's advice and also have the V.P. mow the lawn.

Posted by: SC | September 17, 2008 1:30 AM

"Midnight Poll"

Posted on: September 17, 2008 1:00 AM, by PZ Myers

Aaah, the world still revolves around us.

Now it's 56% Y, 43% N. :/

Not too happy to see PBS getting into the garbage-poll business.

Posted by: Gerry L | September 17, 2008 1:32 AM

The only qualifications to be VP are to be at least 35 years of age and a native born US citizen. So, yes, she meets the minimum qualifications. The question is whether she is the best qualified to be VP.
Why aren't the dems pounding McCain for his statement (back before the convention) that she was the most qualified person for the job? Hell, Tina Fey is as qualified as she is.

Posted by: whomever1 | September 17, 2008 1:36 AM

Just watch a nice octopus cartoon instead of worrying about it:

http://interestingtimes.blogspot.com/
("I Never Liked Calamari Anyway")

Posted by: Zeno | September 17, 2008 1:47 AM

If by "qualified" one means the strict requirements of the U.S. Constitution, then any native-born adult over 35 years of age is qualified. So, yes!

By any sane measure of accomplishment, temperament, and sensible political philosophy, then the "hell, no!" option seems a better response.

Posted by: Craig | September 17, 2008 1:51 AM

Also, it's worth noting that this is last week's poll, which explains the huge number of respondents and the strange balance. I don't know if it's worth tackling a poll where 150,000+ responses already favor the wrong side.

Posted by: Sustainable Sean | September 17, 2008 2:01 AM

I don't think she's qualified, for many of the reasons above...though I will say I think she's more qualified than W was when he first became president. She's been in politics for a while now too so she gets a few kudos there (though not national level unfortunately). If nothing else, she'll make for some fabulous Saturday Night Live skits going forward :-)

Posted by: spgreenlaw | September 17, 2008 2:12 AM

You know the country is doomed when even the vanilla liberals who watch PBS think a fool like Governor Palin is qualified. If I may speak in earnest, "AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH."

Posted by: Scott from Oregon | September 17, 2008 2:17 AM

As the economy start to really get crumbling and as the backroom buys of the President's secret little "working" group of financers fails to jumpstart a Volkswagon...

I ask myself WHICH of the four present "contenders" had an inkling of what was coming down the chute.

I look back at all the debates and the ample opportunities each had (minus Palin) to make a simple forecast of what was coming and what the "fundamental" problems are/were, and I conclude that Obama, Biden, and McCain are either clueless to a scary degree or dictated to by "insiders", meaning Washington regulars who don't get elected but seem to pop up all the time in these election charades after the votes are counted...

We now sit 9.65 TRILLION in debt with over 90 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities, Our federal government is taking our tax money and shoring up private businesses whose CEO's are raking in wads, spending HUGE amounts running ships up and down the coast of Japan and blaming the market for the mess created by the Federal Reserve and the US Federal Government in tag team fashion.

The Dems are blaming the Repubs, the Repubs are pointing at the Dems, while we simple folks here in Oregon with a lick of common sense can see what the problem is and knew this was all coming years ago.

If y'all were to ask me, I'd say I don't see a single "qualified" leader in the bunch. Reminds me of last election.

Where are all the smart peole with common sense?

Posted by: spgreenlaw | September 17, 2008 2:21 AM

Scott from Oregon,

Common sense is a very uncommon thing during the presidential campaigns.

Posted by: Kel | September 17, 2008 2:33 AM

Of course, context is important for meaning. So eligibility is obviously not the question at hand, whether or not someone meets the criteria would be seen to long before their name is touted in public. A question on qualification is obviously referring to a subjective viewpoint of whether the individual has the personal characteristics in order to do the job to a satisfactory level.

But of course, don't let that get in the way of stating the obvious.

Posted by: spgreenlaw | September 17, 2008 2:39 AM

DaveScot, dear boy, you've gone and found the letter of the law and yet missed the spirit of the poll. Of course legally she meets all qualifications, that is not in question. What the poll, and this post, are concerned with is whether or not the public considers her to be in possession of enough intelligence, experience, and sound reasoning capabilities to fulfill the role of VP and quite possibly the role of president. A thinking person will say no.

But then again I've forgotten the large segment of the population who judges a candidate on whether or not she is a good Christian who will bomb the fuck out of bad Muslims.

Run along and play with Dembski, now, and be sure not to trip on any fossils! I hear the devil has been planting them here and there.

Posted by: Lago | September 17, 2008 3:11 AM

Davescot

"eligible" is not the same as "qualified."

Posted by: King of Ferrets | September 17, 2008 3:13 AM

243 people say you should crash this poll PZ!

Posted by: nicknick bobick | September 17, 2008 3:15 AM

12:15 am 17 Sep and it is down to 52% Yes. Haven't checked to see if you can easily vote multiple times, but I presume you can if there are almost 300K votes on a PBS poll.

Posted by: Michael X | September 17, 2008 3:22 AM

Lago, I dearly hope our ripples make waves.

Because if McCain gets elected for example, I may actually have to become a politician. And my career (and integrity) is doing just fine without all that... ;)

Posted by: Kel | September 17, 2008 3:23 AM

The creationist retard DaveScot (#23) is not qualified to be a human.

Posted by: Kobra | September 17, 2008 3:25 AM

Man, these polls suck. I need to show them how it's done.

http://www.kobrascorner.com/voting-booth.php

Posted by: Ploon | September 17, 2008 3:31 AM

As of 9:30 a.m. Brussels time (GMT-1):

50% yes
48% no

I'm getting really, seriously scared for you guys.

Posted by: Cafeeine | September 17, 2008 3:36 AM

Davescot @23

Being qualified to run as P or VP is not the same as being qualified to SERVE as P or VP, or we wouldn't be having an election, we'd just raffle it away.

Posted by: LwPhD | September 17, 2008 3:38 AM

#37: LC, how can you just blithely claim that Palin's qualifications are similar to Obama's? Seriously? You think a college dilettante who's run some low population jurisdictions for a few years is comparable to a Columbia grad and Harvard Law Review president who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago? You think somebody who served about 200,000 people in Illinois' 13th Senate district is comparable to a mayor of

Inhofe ~= Feingold > Lincoln.

Which simply isn't true. Use your own brain, sheesh.

Posted by: Lago | September 17, 2008 3:50 AM

Oh, I never assumed you to be naive MikeX. I think I just like pointing towards the obvious when it gets more surreal than a Dali Painting.

Posted by: Vidar | September 17, 2008 3:55 AM

We're at 51% on "no".

Let's get this sucker to 99%

Posted by: lwp | September 17, 2008 4:01 AM

Hey, Vidar, I'm not so sure we can get that sucker to 99%. That would require about 16 million or so additional "no" votes. You up for that? I've put in my paltry 40,000 votes. I mean, I'm comfortable doing things Chicago-style, but not so much North Korea style. Know what I'm sayin'?

Posted by: Expat Yelli | September 17, 2008 4:07 AM

I know how most expat-Americans feel about Sarah Palin and unfortunately, right now, I know how most Europeans feel about Sarah Palin. She has offended almost everyone over here.

However, what I wanted to talk about was how offended I am that you put Midnight poll. It is not midnight everywhere you know!

(please feel the snark as you are reading my post)

Posted by: archgallo | September 17, 2008 4:11 AM

Looks like we're making an impact after all:

Yes 47%
No 52%

Posted by: LWP::UserAgent | September 17, 2008 4:22 AM

Anyone up for a little more automated fun?

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;

use warnings;

use HTTP::Request::Common qw(POST);

use LWP::UserAgent;

my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;

$ua->agent("Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008072820 Firefox/3.0.1");

# Create a request

my $req = POST 'http://www.pbs.org/cgi-registry/poll/poll.pl',
[ site_id => 'now', poll_id => 'now-435', results => '/now/polls/results-435.html', q1 => 2 ];

$req -> referer('http://www.pbs.org/cgi-registry/poll/poll.pl');

for (my $i = 1; $i <= 1000; $i++) {

# Pass request to the user agent and get a response back

my $res = $ua->request($req);

# Check the outcome of the response

if ($res->is_success) {

if ($i % 10 == 0) {

print "$i\n";

}

}

else {

print $res->status_line, "\n";

}

}

Posted by: lwp | September 17, 2008 5:02 AM

I rather prefer Ferretzor's idea to mine. Here's a quick little way to make it easier for any of you in possession of a bash shell:

while [ 0 -lt 1 ]; do wget -o /dev/null -P /dev/null --post-data='site_id=now&poll_id=now-435&results=%2Fnow%2Fpolls%2Fresults-435.html&q1=2' http://www.pbs.org/cgi-registry/poll/poll.pl; done &

This backgrounds the job and sends all output to /dev/null . So, don't forget to kill it at some point...

Posted by: JohnE | September 17, 2008 5:29 AM

Unfortunately, the repuglicans spin and lie their way through another campaign. Only they could seriously say that the governor of Alaska is more experienced than a US Senator. Oh and after they watched in horror after Palin tubed the Charlie Gibson (who's not exactly Mike Wallace) interview have you heard their spin regarding the "Bush Doctrine" question? Some talking head was on CSPAN squawing smugly that it was a "trap question and therefor unfair". I wanted to puke. The sad part is the number of morons out there who will buy it. Oh and Palin's next interview--Sean Hannity at FOX--giving her the "fair and balanced" get well treatment because as her campaign has directly stated, she'll only do interviews they deem will be respectful and defferential to her. I sure hope Putin treats her with defference if it ever gets to that. How much you wanna bet Hannity will open with the Bush Doctrine and she'll have some sort of prepared but oh so sincere doublespeak about how she knew what it was but the klieg light got in her eyes when Gibson asked. Its so painfully obvious that McCain put about as much effort into vetting his VP that the Bush administration put into vetting the intel about WMDs in Iraq. Why can't America wake the f--- up and see that??!!

Posted by: moother | September 17, 2008 6:06 AM

@60: "The sad part is the number of morons out there who will buy it."

and this is the great problem with the great u.s. of a.

(at least) 50% incapable of a sound view of reality in the 21st century!

Posted by: Scrabcake | September 17, 2008 6:12 AM

On a side note, Palin reminds me of Kristy Masters(The catty prom-queen who ends up constantly pregnant and married to a construction worker) from Romy and Michelle's Highschool Reunion. I think it's the bangs.
Maybe that's why I don't like her.

Posted by: Lluraa | September 17, 2008 6:46 AM

While I would have liked to see that great Mormon, Gov Romney, I am very happy that Gov Palin is the vice presidential nominee.
What I like best about her is her "Pro Life" attitude. She believes that human life begins at conception and at that moment a new human life is formed. It even has its own DNA and therefore is a totally new and different human being from its mother and its life is sacred and to kill it would be the taking of another human life.

Posted by: LwPhD | September 17, 2008 6:55 AM

Lluraa,

I recommend that every time you have sex with somebody, that you go to a hospital. The rate of spontaneous abortion in humans is actually rather high. And every spontaneously aborted fetus is, as you say, a genetically unique human being. It's even got its own little soul and Jesus weeps every time a fetus dies that way. So, I suggest you go to a hospital and try to hire somebody with cell culturing skills so you can save every potential human life (and a soul that Jesus loves!) that you might bring into this world. There is a holocaust of aborted (naturally, but so what, it is probably the work of Satan) fetuses you could try to save. Perhaps the Congress could mandate automatic checkups after every bout of intercourse because after all, we mustn't let those "new human lives" be wasted.

Posted by: Richard Harris | September 17, 2008 7:13 AM

Sarah Palin is crazy. She believes in idiotic Bronze Age superstition. In Europe, she'd never get elected to public office. What the heck is wrong with Americans? (Rhetorical question!)

An idiot who believes in magic could become President of the USA. Look where the current idiot who believes in magic has taken the World. Can the rest of the World take any more of this sort of crap? Americans, please vote for Obama. He can't be as bad as Palin.

Posted by: druidbros | September 17, 2008 7:25 AM

Oh Lluraa,
Do you like to throw your head up against a brick wall? Cuz as far as I can tell you have been doing just that for years.

The 'Pro-life' stance you claim to uphold is bogus. Do you believe in capital punishment? And if you really believe that a zygote (a fertilized egg) is a life then why dont you and your ilk protest at fertilization clinics?

You are nothing but a fool.

Posted by: tilia | September 17, 2008 7:32 AM

I'm really shocked this needs to be pharyngulated...

Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | September 17, 2008 7:42 AM

The rate of spontaneous abortion in humans is actually rather high.

Not just that. About 2/3 zygotes don't make it even to 10 days for a variety of reasons, which means there are eleventy billion "human lives" on discarded feminine hygiene products. They must be saved! "Pro-life"-ers: start collecting used Tampax! Maxi-Pads for Jesus!

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT | September 17, 2008 8:02 AM

Nick wrote: It even has its own DNA and therefore is a totally new and different human being from its mother. - Lllllllluuuuuurrrrrraaaaa

Like a cancer you mean? They start as single human cells with their own unique DNA too.

The difference Nick is that when the embryo is allowed to flurish it matures into a fetus and then a baby and then the other stages of human development. So see Nick it is part of the human species from the moment of conception.

Lluararatarda

Tell me about Chief Sitting Bull's great great great great ...> great Grandpappy Lehi.

Posted by: celticfeminist | September 17, 2008 8:03 AM

For hell's sake. I shouldn't be shocked or disappointed after the past eight (or 30 ...) years of sheer buffoonery and jackssery, but I am. I'm shocked this is even a question, when it should be self-evident that she's as qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency as ... well, me.

Come to think of it, now I'm really pissed off that I wasn't picked as a VP candidate. Sheesh.

Posted by: Wowbagger | September 17, 2008 8:11 AM

...I get especially galled when people make bizarre claims, like Palin being the only VP candidate ever who is able to dress a moose...

Wow. I read this and thought, 'why would you want to dress a moose? I know people put clothes on their cats and dogs, but a moose? And why would anyone claim that as a valuable skill?' - and then I remembered that 'dress' also means to butcher.

Sarah Palin should stick to what she is qualified for - being the guest of honour at the opening of a new SUV dealership.

Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | September 17, 2008 8:18 AM

Emmet, it isn't only Christians who are prolife

Which might be relevant if one lived in, say, Turkey, but in the US and Europe, it is predominantly right-wing Christians, including Catholics and Fundagelicals, who want their theological position made law, and forced pregnancy rammed down the throats of people who don't share their views.

Perhaps a comment like you made shows how close minded and myopic you and your fellow posters are.

That bent the needle on my irony meter, even though I'm using a particularly thick bar of scrap irony from your previous comments as a shunt.

Posted by: druidbros | September 17, 2008 8:27 AM

Cmon Lluraa answer the questions !!!! Or what are you afraid of?

The 'Pro-life' stance you claim to uphold is bogus. Do you believe in capital punishment? And if you really believe that a zygote (a fertilized egg) is a life then why dont you and your ilk protest at fertilization clinics?

Posted by: Wowbagger | September 17, 2008 8:31 AM

at - stop at fertilized eggs. Duh.

Posted by: raven | September 17, 2008 8:32 AM

Over 35 years of age - check Natural born U.S. citizen - check Resident within the U.S. 14 years - check

She's qualified. See U.S. Constitution, Article 2, Section 1.

There are a bunch of homeless guys down at the park. They push shopping carts around all day while clutching brown paper bags shaped like bottles. Some of them hold long conversations with people only they can see.

According to the moron, they qualify to be president or VP as well. Whatever, it isn't obvious that they would do a worse job than McCain, Palin, or Bush/Cheney. In fact, they might be so busy raiding the white house booze supply that nothing gets done. A distinct improvement over the last 8 years.

Posted by: andy | September 17, 2008 8:41 AM

416833 votes cast now. 41/57 yes/no
poll breaking is fun!
(also, it appears to let you vote more than once)