“We just want to make sure that in this campaign, that we uphold the standards of tolerance and truth-telling,” Sarah Palin said. “There have been things said, of course, that have allowed those standards to be violated on both sides, on both tickets. We want to uphold those standards, and again it’s not mean-spirited, it’s not negative campaigning, when we call someone out on their record.”

via The Huffington Post

Yesterday, the governor made the following comments to reporters about the Alaska trooper probe which concluded that “Her conduct violated AS 39.52.110(a) of the Ethics Act”.

Ms. Palin:

“Well, I’m very very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing,” Palin said, “any hint of any kind of unethical activity there. Very pleased to be cleared of any of that.”

You’ll have to excuse me, I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.

The follow excerpt is from one of those wrinkled and dusty copies that made their way home with me. While the column is humorous due to some of Britain’s antiquated regulations, it is alarming evidence why Britain is the world’s preeminent civil surveillance democracy.

From a column entitled “Trouble Helix” Harper’s Magazine March 2008 (abridged)

From a list compiled in 2006 by British police chiefs of more than 5,000 offenses warranting that the DNA of an arrested suspect be retained for life in a nation database.

violating king’s wife
violating king’s eldest daughter
violating wife of king’s eldest daughter
levying war against the sovereign in his or her realm
buggery
buggery with woman
buggery with animal
buggery with man in private
buggery with man other than in private
procuring a woman who is defective
procuring a woman by false pretenses
placing nonhuman embryo in woman
riding horse furiously in street
wantonly disturbing in habitant by knocking on door or ringing doorbell
keeping a disorderly house
rout
affray
voyeurism
sacrilege
using explosives to take fish
handling salmon in suspicious circumstances
cruelty to badgers
disturbing badger when it is occupying badger lair
fraudulently evading bingo duty
abstracting electricity
failure to remove disguise when required by constable
wasting police time

Click for detail.

I hastily painted this portrait today in response to Illustration Friday’s topic of the week: Homage. I have been wanting to depict Nelson Mandela for some time and he is as deserving of homage as any of us for his self sacrifice and humanitarian deeds. Respect.

In a new article for the New Yorker magazine, the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, Seymour Hersh, best known for his work exposing the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the horrific mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, says evidence indicates the bombing was a warning to Syria and its allies, including Iran.

Al Jazeera spoke to him about the bombing, why he feels the media failed on the story, and what it means for the Middle East.

link

The secular nature of Pervez Musharraf’s dictatorship disguises the fact that Pakistan as a nation was birthed in an environment of Islamic national identity. Pakistan from its inception was supposed to bring together the Muslim populations of the former British Indian colony into a viable nation state. While many of those who oversaw the formation of the new governmental structure were moderate, even secular lawyers trained in the British tradition, the overwhelming population of what was to become Pakistan traced their loyalty to a system of local elders and religious figures who more often than not referred to Shar’ia, or Islamic law, when pronouncing decisions of government. This duality is reflected in the resolution passed by Pakistan’s early leaders on the eve of what was to become the country’s constitutional convention. It proclaimed: “Sovereignty under the entire universe belongs to Allah Almighty alone,” and characterized Islamic values as essential in any new government.

But Pakistan is no homogeneous Islamic state. Its roots are deeply seated in tribal, familial and ethnic realities that most non-Pakistani observers are ill-equipped to comprehend. An illustration of this can be found simply by noting that Benazir Bhutto, the martyred symbol of democratic reform, in reality sat at the head of a political party, the PPP, which was born not from Pakistani society in general, but rather from the ranks of the 700,000-strong Bhutto tribe. The Bhuttos, an ethnic Sindhi group, possess an insularity that belies the image of democratic reform embraced by Benazir Bhutto herself. An ongoing rift within the PPP over Bhutto’s successor illustrates this: Benazir’s husband, Zardari, together with her son, Bilawal, have claimed the leadership of the party, citing a controversial and challenged ‘will’ which emerged following Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. Neither Zardari nor Bilawal are considered to be part of the Bhutto tribe, because Zardari is of Baluchi heritage and the son is traditionally linked to the family tree of the father. It is not the history of corruption that surrounds Zardari, or the inexperience of Bilawal (a student in the UK), which the Bhutto tribe finds objectionable, but simply the fact that a political party founded by, and for, the Bhuttos is now in the hands of someone outside the tribe.

link

Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) is urging the House Judiciary Committee to begin impeachment hearings against Vice President Dick Cheney, despite opposition from House Democratic leaders.

“In this time, at this moment, Congress must stand for truth,” Wexler said in a speech on the House floor Monday night. “A growing chorus of Americans is calling for accountability. The response from Congress thus far has been silence and denial.”

link