...in an interview when referring to Margaret Thatcher being in power, and her play Top Girls:

"There is no such thing as right-wing feminism."

While there have been two notable things Palin has done as governor in her short tenure (raise taxes by a small margin on oil companies, and pass some ethics legislation... though now she's embroiled in her own scandal), that does not stop her from being a right-wing extremist on crucial women's issues. Being complicit in policies that strip away not only women's rights but human rights - this is not a feminist. A woman who would stand up with a man who doesn't support laws that ensure equal pay for equal work - this is not a feminist. A woman who would drill for oil regardless of the environmental costs, who sued to try and get polar bears excluded from protection because they were in the way of oil companies - this is not a feminist.

No way, no how, no McCain, and NO Palin.

1) There's an awful lot of Republicans named "Tucker," aren't there. Two prominent ones on this campaign alone!

2) I don't think Palin will be withdrawn as the VP pick for a number of reasons. Even as more and more disturbing things come out, such as the recent Huffington Post story, complete with video, about her extremely right-wing Christian views (everything she wants, apparently, is nothing less than the Will of God, and she actually told a group of kids freshly trained to be more or less missionaries that they needed to get to work converting everyone in the state) and her ultra militant pastor, who says that disagreeing with the President and with the pastor means someone will go to hell. Ahhh.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/02/palins-church-may-have-sh_n_123205.html

the Right doesn't care if one of their own has an affair - they are quick to forgive their own. Look at all the Republicans who have gotten away with it. The Right only cares if it's someone on the opposing team who has had an affair, which of course is reason to assassinate character, etc., and even start impeachment hearings.

I don't really care if Palin had an affair or not. That doesn't tell me about her leadership abilities. There's plenty in her policies and past leadership to criticize (and be scared of, as she is a very scary individual policy-wise, not to mention the straight-faced lying she seems to be doing more and more about her record) without worrying about whether she can keep her pants on or not.

Asking them to take the gloves off and start exposing the extremist policies and naked lies that the McCain camp have been spouting. This is a good starting point, but they need to keep going and keep the hits coming hard and fast.

I would take anything Tang Dynasty media provides as solid religious history with a pound of salt. They're run by the Falun Gong, which has played fast and loose with such things in order to boost the credentials of their self-proclaimed messiah (aka cult leader). I was first introduced to this phenomena when suckered into attending the Tang Dynasty "Chinese New Year Spectacular," which my husband and I later dubbed "The Falun Gong Show." It went so far as to imply (through interpretive dance, no less) that the infamous Tienanmen Square protests in which hundreds of students were murdered by the government were about defending Falun Gong from oppression by the Chinese government, despite the fact that Falun Gong didn't even emerge as a cult until the early 90s. I pretty much give any religious movement the benefit of the doubt until I can thoroughly research it, but in the years since I'm fairly convinced that Falun Gong can be innocuous but is typically harmful, especially to its elderly practitioners.

That's not to say that the information above is incorrect (I'm a religious scholar, and my specialty is South Asian religions, which doesn't include Taoism, so my knowledge is limited), but I like to call a spade a spade when I see one.

For those early commenters that seemed to think Broadsheet had it wrong - they don't. The conviction rate for rapists is very low, especially in Wasilla. The cost of test kits in Wasilla was quoted to be between $5000-14000 per year in 2000, but that same there was only a single rape conviction (http://www.disastercenter.com/alaska/crime/35.htm), suggesting that their conviction rate is very low. That means many, many victims would have the burden of paying for these test kits, and their rapists may never be convicted. This is aside from the fact that Alaska has one of the highest rates of rape in the country.

That is a system that's broken. And I do think Palin should be held responsible (oh, but wait, she had to hire an administrator to run the city for her).

I have no problem with a convicted rapist being responsible for the cost of the test kit, but the payment (and responsibility for paying for the kits in the first place) should be to the city or the state, NOT the victim. That's a lot of money in a small town where people don't earn top salaries, and a huge deterrent in victims stepping forward... as if there weren't enough already.

Transcripts of quotes can be deceiving - I'll bet Biden was pulling for a laugh there. I mean, it looks like classic self-depracating humor there.