I've written many letters to the editor to my local newspaper, some in response to a particular gentleman, a right-winger who always has his facts wrong. As someone who is a student of history, I've frequently pointed out those mistakes in response to them, pointing out, of course, that you simply cannot be right if your 'facts' are completely wrong. After all, they're the basis for your whole supposition. Nevertheless, there have been letters from other people who insist this person was right DESPITE the fact that he had his facts all mixed up, especilly the historical analogies that any fool could look up in an encyclopaedia. He tells the truth, they say, even though nothing he says stands up to any scrutiny, and has been debunked. It's crazy. You could no more shake those ideas from their minds than you can send manna from the heavens.

She hates animals, which is why I've despised her for well over a year (yes, I'm one of those 'animal nuts'): the aerial slaughter of wolves, and bears (even sows and cubs!) is WRONG and obscene. Choosing oil companies over polar bears is despicable; allowing Big Oil to profit at the loss of one of the most magnificent wild animals in this land is unconscienable and shows a complete disregard for life and doing what is right. Choosing a gold and copper mine over clean water, which also contains some of the world's best salmon runs makes no sense, especially when the salmon are a renewable resource that provide 10,000 Alaskans a year jobs, but the mines are a finite resource that will only employ 5,500 a year. Once the salmon are gone, they're gone, but the pollution remains. She'e an environmental, ecological, and wildlife nightmare, and she's only had the management and ocntrol of one state.

She's shown herself to be a blank slate in foreign affairs, with no idea of nor any concern about the consequences of any of the actions she's already taken. The effects of what she's done to Alaska are far-reaching in a state already feeling the catastrophic effects of global warming, which she doesn't believe is man-made. Even the lake in front of her house is dead: no fish can live there. This is what she wants to do to the rest of the country.

Imagine someone with her disregard for the health and well-being of an entire people, its land and wildlife, having sway over all of it. Then image someone who is absolutely clueless about foreign affairs, the world, the government, and EVERYTHING, in charge of ANYTHING in our government.

John McCain is a bigger idiot than I ever gave him credit for.

How could you expect Sarah Palin to express any kind of human sympathy towards Joe Biden when he choked up over his personal loss? That takes a heart, as well as character, and concern for others. Palin has none of those. Her cold-blooded endorsement of the aerial slaughter of wolves, as well as black bears (cubs and sows, too) should tell you all about her lack of compassion. Her anti-polar bear stance, which puts Big Oil over protecting the bears and allowing them to free-fall towards extiction, should tell you about her lack of humanity. It takes a special kind of person to show absolutely no understanding nor compassion for Biden's great loss and tragedy, and Sarah Palin has shown herself to be that type of person in spades. Someone like that has no business running a card game.

Thanks for finally bringing up the facts on this study! Anyone with half a brain should realize what this is actually about; however, since we're talking about people who are anti-environmental and anti-conservation, and who also have no conception of how important science is, it should surprise no one that McCain gets so many laughs with this. What's sad is that it's at the expense of one of our national symbols.

Actually, the truly sad thing is that if our government funded its departments as it should, as it did once, Congressmen wouldn't have to use earmarks to fund studies like this one, which should be within the Department of the Interior's budget in the first place, as roads, bridges, etc., should be within the means of Department of Transportation's budget, and so on. The budgets of our nation's interior workings have been boned and trimmed to the gills: yet McCain is proposing to FREEZE SPENDING IN EVERY NON-ESSENTIAL DEPARTMENT IN THE GOVERNMENT FOR ONE YEAR! What does that mean, exactly? What is non-essential? Everything but Treasury, State, Justice, and the Pentagon? Do education (remember, McCain has called for abolishing the Department of Education and is no friend to education funding), Interior, Transportation, HHS, or anything related to roads, bridges, health, animals, plants, or the workings of our infrastructure and protection of our lands, animals, plants, water, and air count as essential?

Does anyone realize what a threat McCain/Palin is to our nation's wildlife anyway, given Palin's views on aerial hunting, polar bears, protecting salmon runs, and beluga whales, among others? His choice of her as a running mate should have raised an outcry among those who've been up in arms over the Bush administration's anti-environmental, anti-conservation and anti-science record. That, coupled with this little laugh line, is enough to make people like me cringe at the very thought of those two being elected.

Our nation can't afford them.

Neither can its wildlife.