Apathy Sketchpad

To be honest, I feel a little sorry for Sarah Palin. She was just minding her own business, being the slightly corrupt and occasionally lying govenor of an unimportant state, and to be honest the fact that she abused that position is not massively important to me. Such things happen, and I genuinely think her various transgressions are the result of incompetence, not malice.

Here is what I think happened: Sarah Palin is a victim of circumstance. Her meteoric rise to infamy is the fault of the people of Alaska and the Republican party rather than her own. Palin’s problem is that she has no internal barometer of her own ability to do any given job. When she saw an ad saying ‘mayor needed, job may involve constructing coherent sentences’ she (wrongly) assumed she could do it. When the gubernatorial elections rolled around she assumed she could do that too. Whether she asked to be considered for vice-president or whether someone approached her, I don’t think it ever occured to her that she might actually not be smart enough to run the entire country. And there will always be people like her, as evidenced by the paper Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognising one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments (link is to PDF, title will worry the self-employed). That’s why we have systems of exams and qualifications and job interviews — and indeed elections — in place to prevent the incompetent from being given important jobs they are likely to mess up. It doesn’t always work, but it’s usually effective. Think of all the cretins you’ve ever met. Was any of them a doctor or a teacher or an MP? Probably relatively few of them were.

But because now other people have put the idea into Palin’s head that she might actually be qualified to be President, it’s going to be very difficult to convince her otherwise which is, presumably, why she launched SarahPAC. A PAC is, I’m told, an organisation that collects money and turns it into political capital, and is often a precursor to a Presidential campaign. Exactly what else hers might be for is unclear, but given the timing, the five-page or so website, SarahPAC.com, is generally assumed to indicate that she’s planning a campaign for 2012.

I dont’t think we can make Sarah Palin go away, but I think we can ensure her campaign fails. I don’t think we can stop the far-right lunatic fringes of the Republican party from supporting her, but I think we can stop anyone else making that mistake. I don’t think contempt is appropriate, but I don’t think that pity is going to stop her. I propose that ridicule is the answer. People have to see how completely absurd it is that someone so utterly useless could become President.

That’s why my response to SarahPAC.com was to register PacSARAH.com and put up my own page. I like to think it is no less insane than hers.

PacSARAH.com. Spread the word.

From time to time I submit stuff to Newsbiscuit. More occasionally they use it. Their submission board is pretty awkward to work, though, so I thought I’d post my favourites on this blog also, where I can keep an eye on them. First, the ones they used:

• Large Hadron Collider “may destroy universe”, say stupid people (original submission)
• Department for Children, Schools and Families to ‘give up on schools’ (original submission)
• Labour to use ‘guest leaders’ (original submission)
• Halloween update; local youths ‘less frightening than usual’ (original submission)
• Book of phone numbers ‘left on doorstep’ (original submission)

(I do like my headlines-with-quotes-in.)

Next, some of the ones they didn’t. I’ll put most of them after the fold, since there are a lot of them. Also, some might be offensive if you’re easily offended. First, though, my favourite, from early to mid October:

Gordon Brown has new kitchen sink installed under anti-terrorism laws

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has had his kitchen refitted under laws brought in in the wake of the September 11th and July 7th terrorist attacks.

The refit was proposed in August, as part of a larger reorganisation of Number 10. Brown’s wife Sarah raised objections to the plans at an early stage, saying that the new system would make cooking difficult and that she didn’t like the colour. It seemed that the deadlock was unresolvable until September 17th, when the Prime Minister realised he could use existing anti-terror laws to push the installation through without first gaining his wife’s approval.

Critics have claimed that this is “a clear abuse” of the power handed to the PM’s office by these new rules. One backbench MP said that while he understood the need to have special new measures to deal with the new kind of threat faced today, the government had taken advantage of the fear to pass laws granting themselves more power than they had ever been elected to. Other recent applications of the anti-terror laws include freezing the assets of Iceland UK, resolving the double-booking of a conference room in Parliament, and the emergency resolution on Tuesday which mandated it was James’ turn to do the washing up.

Brown has insisted that neither he nor the government has abused the trust placed in them by Parliament, saying that there are “other kinds of terrorism” besides violent attacks on civilians, and that these might be said to include refusal to wash dishes or bad taste in kitchen units.

The House of Lords is expected to overturn the decision, but James Brown has said that as he’s already done the washing up, it’s too late to reverse the damage and a system must be put in place to prevent these situations from arising in the first place.

Read the rest of this entry »

Broadly categorised. Thanks to the sites linked here, especially the fantastic Jed Report. I’ve tried to limit it to stuff I think matters and provide sources where possible. Let me know if I’ve missed anything, or when he does some future dumb shit, and I’ll add it. (Wiki version)

Ignorance and/or Age

• He talks about “Czecholsovakia” and “the Iraq-Pakistan border” as if they’re real places, while running on foreign policy experience.
• He can’t use the Internet. (See above link.)
• Thinks America was founded as a Christian nation.
• Cannot work long days.

Lies

• Changes the sports team in his POW story to match local support.
• “Cross in the sand” story stolen from a book.
• Cheats in debates.
• Took press with him to monitor Hurricane Gustav after doing nothing about Katrina except eat cake.
• Said the FBI had background-checked Palin. The FBI don’t do that.
• Lies about Obama in adverts.
• Attacked Obama saying he would “slow” the ‘Future Combat System’ which McCain had promised to scrap.

Stupidity

• He forgot how many houses he owns.
• Gives ‘terrorism’ answers to ‘economy’ questions.
• Talks about change while voting with Bush 90-100% of the time.
• Mocked the daughter of a key contributer.
• Copied a speech from Wikipedia?
• Volunteered wife for topless beauty competition.
• Sells a pen for students with an incorrect apostrophe on.
• Has dumb Space Invaders game on website.
• Campaign wants to make the election about personalities instead of issues, which is a bit like Hillary Clinton making the primaries about penises instead of testicles.
• “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran!”
• Mocks Obama for taking positions he supports.
• Accepted nomination in front of an image of Walter Reed Middle School. The current theory is that they meant to use Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Walter Reed Middle School has been used in a Presidential Campaign before: that of Matt Santos, the fictional Democrat from The West Wing, who was based on Barack Obama, and beat an aging maverick Republican in the general election. That’s an image McCain wants to put across.

Uses POW status to get out of:

• Forgetting how many houses he owns.
• Not liking music after he was released. (Unless he gets the dates wrong.)
• Cheating in debates…
• …and on his wife.

VP

• Might want Alaska to become independant nation.
• Her children are named Bristol, Willow, Piper, Track and Trig.
• They met all of once before he announced her as running mate.
• He attacked Obama for being inexperienced, then picked a VP who has never been involved in national politics.
• Cindy McCain says Palin has foreign policy experience because Alaska is near Russia.
• Being investigated for corruption.
• She lies about her support for the so-called ‘bridge to nowhere’. McCain supports her in this.
• Also thinks America was founded as a Christian nation.
• She has promised to put the federal checkbook online. She needn’t bother — it already is. Barack Obama did it last year.