Trig Truthers vs. Trig Deniers -- more proof of a colossal waste of time.

Against my better judgment, I again published all of your comments for my previous blog post, because I do not want to be accused of preventing any debate. Even though I wasn't really ASKING for debate -- I was stating my OPINION based upon what I know and have covered in the past about the subject of our quitting ex-governor. But here's the deal and I ask you to read this VERY SLOWLY AND CAREFULLY.... you will never be able to prove or disprove the facts of this case. NEVER. Only Sarah and God know the truth. Why can't you accept that and move on?

I am not, nor do I claim to be an investigative journalist. This is a blog. I do this in my free time and nobody pays me to write MY OPINION. And you are all still missing the point. So much in fact that I'm finding myself pretty much writing the same thing again and again, now for the fourth time.

You can't prove Trig isn't her baby. You can't prove that he is her baby. Only God and Sarah will ever know for sure. My position is that it doesn't matter because I already believe her to be unelectable, deceitful, ethically squishy, etc. -- insert whatever negative statement I've already made about her dozens of times in the past on this blog. All this uproar trying to prove what we already know about the character of Sarah Palin is a ridiculous waste of time and effort for you as well as me. She isn't fit to be dog catcher. WE GET THAT ALREADY.

You can lay out reams and reams of what you consider to be proof or evidence and you know what? You will NEVER convince the  unthinking masses who adore her of your case. Because most of them, given all the evidence of what a negative person she is, still love her. They don't care. You will not find the definitive piece of evidence that wakes them up from their mindless zombie stupor EVER. They have fully drunk of the kool aid. Continuing along the path of what you feel to be the 'truth about Trig' ONLY ENTRENCHES THEM FURTHER.

The only way to stop more unthinking people from joining the enslaved Palinbot masses is to STOP TALKING ABOUT TRIG. Focus on her real instances of ethical lapses, her real instances of illegality concerning SarahPAC and the Alaska Fund Trust -- real news, not what I and many other rational people see to be salacious gossip. You just don't seem to get that. In fact, saying what I just did, in the previous post and again just now only seems to make you send more and more comments, some full of links to what you feel to be another piece of the puzzle or what you believe to be the definitive evidence that will finally solve the riddle or even sending comments full of ad hominem attack against me personally. I don't have to prove or disprove anything. Both this post and the previous post are OPINION. Some have sent demands for correction or retraction. This isn't the LA fucking Times -- it's my blog. Get over yourself. I wrote what I did because I feel that it is true to the subject matter. Yes, I've seen a signed statement from her doctor and not the one you keep sending me links to.... I am well aware of that one. What I saw was completely different. I cannot prove it or point you to it, nor will I because what I saw wasn't publicly available. You can either accept what I say as true or not. Your choice. But again what reason do I have to lie? What I saw was part of a disclosure process in a lawsuit owing to my previous job as a litigation support technician. It is a point of personal ethics that I cannot disclose all the details of this or any other case I worked on. I can't and I won't. I can only say I saw it. It looked real to me and you just have to take that at face value. It doesn't really mater to me whether you do believe me or not, but it does prove to me that I am correct in the premise of the blog post and that you continue to miss the point of it.

My point is and still remains that by continuing on this track of reasoning or trying to come up with proof for or against whether or not Sarah is Trig's mother -- IT ONLY ADDS MORE FUEL FOR PALIN TO KEEP BEING A MEDIA WHORE. What is so hard to understand about that? I gave evidence of that in the post yesterday concerning her claiming victim status yet again in the discussion over 'Journolist' in yet another one of her batshit crazy facebook 'press releases'. Once again proving my point because the issue was over whether liberal journalists should go after her on the Trig issue and the owner of the mail list told them to leave the issue alone. And they did, yet Sarah is still able to play the victim for a story about a non-story. Amazing, isn't it? Until we get on to the business of holding her accountable for ethical lapses, for breaking the law with SarahPAC and Alaska Fund Trust or when she decides to make another incendiary call to her Palinbots for violence against her perceived enemies, she will continue to use you as more fodder for her climb to the gossipy top. You are helping her become more of a monster rather than banishing the monster from the kingdom. My post is a call to focus on the real issues where she gets in trouble for breaking the law, not for you to continue to try to prove your point while proving my point. And I think I'm done here. If you aren't getting it yet, I am sorry but there is probably no hope for you.

All comments for the first blog post and probably this one may be cut off because instead of you talking about the merits of MY point, you are trying to use it as another site in your web of convincing yourselves that those on the other side of the issue are wrong. Which wasn't the intent at all. Accept my premise that you are all, on both sides of this issue, wasting your time. Perhaps if you want to send me a link to YOUR blog attempting to prove or disprove the unprovable, I may follow it just for shits and giggles.... but I can no longer allow both sides to use MY blog to further the madness. Both sides need a dose of rationality and hopefully I may have helped to provide it. Highly doubtful because of how entrenched both sides of the issue appear to be on it. But I remain hopeful that everyone learn to focus on holding her accountable for REAL issues and REAL ethical lapses and REAL violations of law while leaving the gossip to the tabloids. Or Andrew Sullivan, who frankly I believe is damaging his own credibility as a REAL journalist by continuing to focus on this issue. Good luck.

-Laz

Trig Turthers -- ENOUGH ALREADY!

Media whore, Sarah Palin weighs in once again with yet another facebook 'press release' claiming there is "a sickness and darkness in today's liberal media" while trying to make it seem liberals were conspiring against her to publish the 'true story of Trig's birth', based upon a muckraking news release from Tucker Carlson's 'Daily Caller', a right wing website. Tucker's non-story of another non-story, already widely discredited by both the right and left, was about an alleged conspiracy by liberal journalists on 'Journolist', a media mail list server, to spread the story about supposed anomalies with the birth of her son Trig.

Wrote Ezra Klein who was the now-shuttered listserv's founder [admonishing a few independent journalists who were considering running with the story of the alleged controversy surround Trig's birth] : "Seriously, folks? Best case scenario, what's your outcome here: Her daughter, hounded by the tabloids, breaks down that it was her child, and her mother heroically took on the burden and welcomed the disabled boy as one of her own? Palin's relationship with her children -- however they may have come to her -- strikes me as pretty far out of bounds. By all accounts she's a wonderful mother, and devoted to her fifth son. Leave this be."

This is your evil, liberal, lame stream media controversy, Sarah? Here you have a member of the so called 'liberal media' telling his peers in the industry that it is out of bounds (because in my opinion it is). As I've said often times to otherwise normal people who seem to be aligning themselves with the 'Trig Truthers', what difference does it make? What laws did she break? The story of the circumstances surrounding Trig's birth already show her to have bad judgment, but WE ALREADY KNEW THAT, right? Some already think her a dishonest liar and batshit crazy. Proving this conspiracy theory makes her what? More of a liar? More batshit crazy? Thus why I keep saying to the 'Trig Truthers' their 'story' is a waste of time, and even professional 'liberal' journalists have said the same. Now I am saying the same, on the record, on this blog -- not just on facebook in discussions amongst friends.

All this alleged controversy does is provide her MORE FUEL TO PLAY THE VICTIM and keep a high profile in the media by allowing her to come out with yet another batshit crazy facebook press release claiming the liberal media is conspiring against her! Some 'Trig Truthers' may now point to my attitude making ME part of the conspiracy as well, but to what end? For what reason? To curry favor from Sarah herself? To get paid by Sarah for coming out on her side? If you think that then you obviously haven't read ANYTHING on this blog nor do you know ANYTHING about me and my position on Sarah Palin. Nor the fact that I'm firmly on the side of the children both Trig and Trip, as I've written in this blog. Nobody pays me anything for my opinion here OR on facebook and I don't care one whit what Sarah thinks about me. I imagine she doesn't even have any awareness about me, my opinion or even this blog.

Bottom line -- it doesn't matter. What do 'Trig Truthers' hope to prove? That Sarah herself is participating in her own conspiracy to cover up the details of Trig's birth? So what? We already have a signed statement from Sarah's doctor stating that she delivered Trig from Sarah. So what -- have them produce a birth certificate? Are you serious? What are you, teabagging 'Birthers' demanding Obama produce his birth certificate? Trig isn't even running for office and is only peripherally a public figure due to his mother and her position as a former politician and public figure. By continuing to pursue this story as some sort of conspiracy, all you are doing is keeping Sarah in the news for the stupidest of reasons and she gets to continue to play the victim! So please just stop it. Report on her real ethical lapses and any real violations of actual laws. Please stop allowing her to have a platform from which to promote her further craziness. Because after all, how can we make her go away if you keep bringing her back for the stupidest of reasons?

-Laz

Turning A NIMBY Issue Into A YIMBY Issue....

(I was going to publish this as feedback to the commentary by Cristopher Constant at Alaska Dispatch in the article "Don't let nonprofits turn Fairview into a social services experiment" but decided that the scope of the issue merits a blog post on my part and that my opinion may be strong enough to ruffle some feathers of people I consider friends and an abuse of the trust placed in me as a member of the wider readership and management of those at Alaska Dispatch, so to spare them some measure of uncomfortableness at the prospect of publishing feedback that may be longer than the original article, I chose to publish it on my own blog instead.... my space, my nickel and all that. Only I can be held responsible for my own opinions.)

Christopher, I know you and respect your opinion on many issues, but please allow me to add my perspective as someone who lives near this project but perhaps lives in an even worse area for experiencing the plight of the inebriated homeless -- downtown Anchorage.

I live one block away from the People Mover Transit Center. My living room window literally overlooks it and the Downtown Inlet Inn, one of our hot spots for crime, violence and alcohol abuse. Many times this site is favored by some of the 'homeless' who are fortunate enough to be able to pool their money together so that a group or groups of them can get together to party. In fact, at this very moment, the Anchorage Police Mobile Command Center motor home is parked outside of the Downtown Inlet Inn dealing with who knows what sort of issue. This site is well known for the amount of police and paramedic calls that it generates practically every day. The situation for the homeless downtown is just as dire if not even more dire than Fairview. Frankly I would welcome a guided and directed program to have bought out the Downtown Inlet Inn. Then perhaps someone would actually be around to direct a program to help get these misguided individuals back to a more useful and productive life. Unfortunately that isn't happening for our neighborhood.

You think a lot of the drunk and homeless hang out in Fairview? You should come down and spend the day at the transit center with me. No matter where they camp or where they flop, eventually they all converge here, in various states of disarray and drunkenness. Often times during their walks around downtown they happen to end up in the narrow alleyway between my apartment building and the administrative office of the Holy Family Cathedral next door. Smoking weed, smoking crack, pissing, shitting, sleeping, assaulting, raping, drinking then leaving their empty bottles behind and yes, sometimes even dying. Right under my second story window.

It should be obvious from my tone that I do not approve of their own lifestyle choices. Many times I consider that they are not victims because of the idea that they are doing it to themselves in a world filled with free choices. And yet, in this city, were they to seek treatment for their problem, there are few place for them to go. Especially places that give them long term residential solutions where they can be held as responsible adults and actively participate in their own recovery from their circumstances. One imagines that there will be a guided and directed program to help them recover rather than allowing it to become a 'frat house' type of environment, filled with continuous partying and constant lawlessness. One would imagine that there would be reasonable rules and regulations for them to follow in order to retain residency and that if they violate those rules they would not be allowed to stay. I freely admit that I do not know all the details, but I think my assumptions are quite reasonable. This would be far more of an acceptable solution to the problem of homeless inebriates than what I have next door. In my neighborhood there are no solutions, only more temptations and troubles to compound their problems. I envy that your neighborhood is given the opportunity to try to help solve some of those problems and would wish that someone like RuralCAP could come and do the same with the Downtown Inlet Inn as opposed to what we now have.

I would like to think that it would be best for the mental health of the entire community to embrace such a program not only in your neighborhood but in ALL neighborhoods. From a semi-outsider's perspective I would feel proud to be chosen as the pilot test site for precisely this sort of treatment program. With the recent addition of the Copper River Seafoods Campus next door to the old Red Roof Inn site RuralCAP has selected, I would think it perfectly suited to provide jobs and an alternative to the dead end lifestyle choices many homeless inebriates are making in Anchorage. It may just be the godsend that many need to return some dignity and provide a way back to a more traditional means and method of existence, especially for native Alaskans who are currently experiencing life as homeless inebriates. I would think it would be best if ALL neighborhoods took this from being a NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) issue and embraced it in ALL of our neighborhoods as a YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard) issue. Why? Because the homeless are dying in our streets at alarming rates and despite their problems and issues, we ALL need to seek solutions to help them.


Instead of looking at this as a blight upon your neighborhood, I would hope that instead it turns into a wildly successful program of what could be done if enough people had the compassion to actually do something rather than decry this effort as yet another NIMBY issue. Think possibilities and compassionate action rather than maintaining a mindset that it will only be detrimental to your neighborhood. How proud would Fairview be if it turned into a very successful model for all sorts of similar buildings around Anchorage? You could take a small measure of pride by rightfully claiming that the site that turned an Anchorage-wide problem into something positive was first located in Fairview. And that would be a wonderful thing for all of Anchorage.


-Laz


(Randall Warner)

FILE: Too Big To Facebook....

A message for a blogging and facebook friend (and please indulge me by quoting her for a moment. I doubt she expected I'd make it a blog post, so apologies ex post facto.):

Ryan Jaimz Knight Boo. The IRS somehow managed to not have my new legal name, one that I've had for nearly two years, on file, and have thus delayed my refund. Despite the fact that I even have a SS card in said name. A phone call later, I managed to get them the corrected information, but now I have to wait ANOTHER four weeks for said monies. Boo. Boo. Boo.

I wanted to respond on facebook but at times some things are just too damn big for facebook, the concepts and words too sweeping for the passing (sometime) trivialities of facebook.... so my response/opinion is this:

Bureaucrats are being particularly trying this year what with us poor citizens having the audacity to insist upon things like three-figure tax returns on our income tax withholdings or people like me becoming millionaires off of our three-figure  unemployment checks.... ('neocon formatting') because you know it's the poor who have put America where we are financially what with all their taking out bad loans they couldn't pay for (in spite of rampant evidence of predatory lending and numerous abuses of the credit card system by banks) while trying to live above their means. ('/neocon formatting'). A-hem. Trying to clear my throat of the talking point.  Pardon me a moment while I spit, also, too.


Welcome to living life within the neocon narrative and the punishment the poor are now receiving as the last dying vestiges of the past administration and the whole ideology the GOP has foisted upon America, big smelly, steamy pile of shit that it is, since Reagan. It's not right, it's a huge mess, and the sooner we turn out all the dead wood in those agencies as well as replacing similar bad actors in congress, the sooner we ALL can get on with that hopey, changey thing. Neocons are doing everything they can right now to make those of us who don't fully buy into their bullshit, suffer. We get to live it. Lucky us. For just a little while longer, though. Say 2010 or at the latest, 2012.

Fight the good fight, Ryan. We all get through it. The best of us by retaining our humanity rather than giving in to the reptilian brain as they have. In the long run mammals survived. Dinosaurs, not so much. Let those crazy bastards ride their dinosaurs to hell, be it figuratively or literally as demonstrated by the blood made of extinct dinosaurs, now fouling our southern beaches. They (neocon GOP and by extension 'teabagettes') are their own dying breed. These are the noises they make when they become the instruments of their own extinction. Change IS on the horizon. Just continue to embrace your inner lemur.

-Laz

Poetic Injustice....

Oh look! A blog post. The following was written in a single night and is either a poem or song lyrics. Either way I wanted a forum to publish it and didn't want to put it up on a social network as I would like to retain ownership of it yet allow it to be shared. You have my permission to link to this or to share it, but if you do feel compelled to copy it elsewhere I ask that you please include the title, copyright notice and credit the original author as shown. Thank you.

'Sam Sorrow, a portrait of my uncle'

(C) Copyright 2010 Randall Warner

circle of life
an eagle
devouring
her own young

a predatory wolf
caught in steel trap
where freedom means
gnawing a leg off

sniffing at the rotting corpse
of a once great empire
now built upon broken dreams
and disillusionment

piled high with the hubris
of hundreds of years
of mercantilism, of greed,
of genocide and slavery

a formerly great nation
now morbidly fascinated
with violence, with war,
with death, and destruction

the body politic
crucified and bleeding
vultures circling, waiting
to peck out eyes

with faces hardened
in grim resolve
acting as wage slaves
reporting for duty

unsatisfactory satisfaction
with seemingly mundane
automaton-like repetitiveness
another monkey, another typewriter

the blood of noses
sacrificed upon
corporate grindstones
needlessly

lives ground to dust
families neglected
sweat and toil
harvested for profit

too busy to love
too distracted to live
most often neglected
always denied

indentured servants
either a serf or a lord
a destitute existence
with little reward

and the rich get richer
while the poor just die
rabid wolves fleecing sheep
sheep paying for the privilege

we, like rubberneckers
watching while driving slowly,
past the carnage, the wreckage
of a horrible auto accident

as traffic piles up
causing chains of reaction
turning in slow motion into
an infinite loop of causality

repeating endlessly
lessons never learned
mistakes continually made
with clockwork precision

none seem awake enough
nor aware enough
to cry out loudly
to curse the injustices

to realize compassion
to take real action
to finally put a stop
to this vulgar parade

-Laz

The case AGAINST open carry firearms....

I support our second amendment, but I am against people feeling empowered to carry their legally permitted weapons openly and here is why: many aren't trained to retain total control of their own weapons and there may come a time when somebody is able to grab it away from them and use it against innocent bystanders.

Americans are used to seeing police openly carrying firearms. But because they are uniformed and easily identifiable and their position in society still commands some level of respect from most of society, most would never dream of overpowering or subduing a police officer in an attempt to grab their weapon away from them and then use it against innocents.

Not so for some schlub picking his nose in a Def Leppard t-shirt, who may or may not have had the proper training in order to maintain control of their own weapon. Some crazy asshole may get it in his head that Mr. Nose Picker doesn't look all that tough and that he could probably wrest Mr. N. P.'s crappy little 9mm away from him and then use it to cause some righteous anarchy.

And that is it in a nutshell. Gun control in this case means maintaining control of who is in possession of ones own weapon. I am not convinced that the majority of Americans are wholly prepared to do exactly that, which is why I'd prefer that those who choose to carry a legally registered firearm keep it concealed.

-Laz

Update: Slapshot Two: All Politics IS Local!

Here we go AGAIN. Yet another politician paying lip service to openness and transparency and taking a play straight out of the S. P. v. 1.0 playbook. Yes, our mayor Dan Sullivan has morphed into S. P. v. 2.5 by his response to the ethical dilemma that surrounded a $193,000 payout by him acting as Mayor Dan to himself acting as Trustee Dan, head of the Sullivan Family Trust. How does that work? Do you physically have to change hats? So what play out of her political tricks playbook, do you ask? Why the use of an internal ethics board or panel, to investigate possible ethics violations of course.

Flippy McQuitter would be proud. She practically invented this ruse to whitewash her spotty ethics record! I'm only surprised she hasn't released an important facebook press release weighing in on this matter and giving Mayor Dan her full support. Oh that's right. Meg quit. She would have to actually write something herself.

Now we have the municipal ethics board. In Alaskan terms that means a private 'impartial' local attorney. Appointed by and paid for by Mayor Dan Sullivan, saying 'yes what he did was probably unethical' and narrowly limiting that comment solely to the question of whether or not it was unethical to withhold disclosure of his status as head trustee of the trust that received the $193,000 from the municipal assembly before they were asked to vote for approval of the payout. Yes that is wrong. Now prepare for your meaningless slap on the wrist with some soggy angel hair pasta as the deputy municipal attorney, whose paychecks are signed by the mayor, also weighs in by representing that there was nothing fiscally unethical about the whole situation. Basing the opinion upon an obscure 1982 assembly resolution that because of the way it was written, couldn't be honored and should therefore be invalidated. Really?

Mind you I am not saying that either of them are not telling the truth, but one has to wonder if telling the truth or having a nice high five figure/low six figure job is more important than being 100% truthful? Does anyone actually believe that an attorney is going to risk a cushy municipal job if forced to tell a truth that would not be best to disclose if it reflected negatively on the guy who signs the paychecks? Really? At the possible risk of their job? I am NOT saying there is any wrongdoing here, from either the board or the deputy municipal attorney. What I am saying is that the municipality is handling a potential conflict of interest ethics investigation case by having it reviewed and investigated by those whose positions as municipal employees or hired private contractors paid for by the municipality already imply a built in conflict of interest between the investigators and those being investigated! They're asked to investigate the guy who controls the fate of their future employment. Just like Sarah and her phony rubber stamp kangaroo court Personnel Board.

So if everything is all kosher and on the up and up, why not hire a truly independent investigator? I don't know about you but I for one am going to assume everything WAS NOT kosher and on the up and up. That's why. For instance -- how could three past Republican municipal administrations 'reduce the premium' on a non-existent life insurance policy? How does that work, exactly? Or, how does a $19,633 premium blossom into a $193,000 payout over 28 years time? Or, who was responsible for NOT telling the Sullivan family early on that Aetna rejected the muni's request for a policy on the basis that George M. Sullivan was no longer a municipal employee? I've read the supporting deputy municipal attorney's paperwork and understand the assembly wanting to reward the elder Sullivan for many, many years of good work for this city, but why didn't they, once they knew he wasn't qualified for a policy, move to change or modify the original assembly resolution to an annuity or perhaps even a retirement benefit of a fixed value? Why can't the municipality of Anchorage just give them the original $19,633 back, perhaps with some interest and just call it good, a simple misunderstanding? That would have been more fun! To see the mayor of Anchorage suing the municipality of Anchorage on behalf of his family trust for the municipality breaking an implied contract backed up by an assembly resolution. Oh that's right. Because there was no original policy, thus invalidating any promises made by the assembly in 1982 or by the municipality itself to the Sullivan family. So sorry! Here's your $19,633 back. Perhaps an even more important question is when was the family trust itself established? 1982? Or 2002 at the end of the Republican Wuerch administration after it looked like there might be issues with there being no policy or agreement other than an invalid assembly resolution? Was its establishment premeditated as well as predicated on the idea that someday they would be in a position to get a payout from the municipality even though no policy ever existed?

Yes. Politics in Alaska is the wild west, gentle readers. Not surprising since government jobs are the largest employer in this state. From what I'm seeing in my nearly thirty years of living here it seems most politicians aren't there to serve their constituents but rather to amass their own personal power base and build their personal fortunes. And that, speaking as one of those constituents, is just not right. In fact, it is downright unethical.

While I may write more on this subject in the future, I would say the absolute best source for a comprehensive look at the entire mess is Mel's excellent blog henkimaa -- or to keep updated on it all just search the Dan Sullivan tag. Between her site, the ADN reports and the writings of other progressive bloggers like Shannyn, Gryphen, Jeanne, Phil and myself -- Sullivan's goalie in the assembly, Dan Coffey, is going to be taking a lot of slapshots to the face. At least until we get answers. I hope he's ready.

Lastly to answer Sullivan apologist and former Bill Allen employed writer in his latest sad missive in the ADN by Paul Jenkins about 'lefty bloggers' and anonymous ones at that.... I'm a Republican. Look it up. You can also find my real name here and online. So your presumption on who would be 'attacking' your apparent hero was wrong. All citizens should demand and rightly receive openness and transparency from their elected officials and our government at all levels. That's just common sense. That's not partisan. Though you obviously are, Mr. Jenkins.

***** UPDATED *****
(added the link on Paul Jenkins name above to give background on Mr. Jenkins courtesy of Philip Munger at Progressive Alaska)


-Laz

Say Hello To MY Little Friends....

For lo these many moons I have been a lone progressive Alaskan voice wailing and gnashing my teeth at all things Murdoch.

Preaching, "don't link to their content" and "starve them out". And now, I have an idea I may have reached 'the promised land'. An updated list of advertisers supporting the Faux Noise machine! Comes in a spanky new facebook flavor, too. Can I get an amen? Bravo and Hallelujah!

Now can I get back to writing about local Alaskan stuff other than Flippy McQuitter?

Yes I CAN! Soon.

-Laz

HCR

It is done. Amen.

Well, the House side at least. One last 50 +1 = win vote in the senate and yes we can tell the last vestiges of batshit crazy Reganites, La Rouchies and far right teabaggers to finally STFU. Seriously.

The progressive revolution WILL be digitized. Live facebooked. Watching C-SPAN, munching on popcorn. And damnit if that isn't what America is all about I don't know what is!

-Laz

Mid-hibernation mumble....

It has been a good holiday and a wonderful start to the new year with many changes afoot. Or ahand. Health-wise I am stabilized somewhat. Still dreaming a miracle on health care reform. Anyhow, some magnificent dream woke me from my teddy bear slumber and distracted me. I will be back writing again soon. But first, another nap.

-Laz