Republican presidential candidate John McCain announced his vice presidential running mate yesterday, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, 44.
Casey Mayville reports for Government Technology, “Elected governor in 2006, Palin became Alaska’s first female governor, as well as its youngest. She will be the first politician from Alaska to run on a national ticket in a campaign for vice president.”
“Palin has made efforts to expand the use of technology in Alaska. In 2007, Palin announced a new online training program for workforce development. The Work Ready/College Ready program helped to assess skills and offered training courses,” Mayville reports. “‘The skills needed to enter many vocations are similar to the skills needed to get into college,’ explained Palin at the time. ‘Work Ready/College Ready lets students know what level of skill they need for the occupations they’re interested in, how well they match up in those skill levels and it provides training to reach their goals.'”
Full article here.
More about Alaska’s “Work Ready/College Ready” program that was announced by Sarah Palin last August via GovTech here.
Carrie Tait reports for The Financial Post,” Ms. Palin, 44, is a lifetime NRA member who is in charge of a conservative state. She’s bullish on drilling offshore and opening up more of the contentious Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to exploration and production. ‘People are realizing, too, there’s been some deception, I think, from some on what ANWR is all about. Of the 20 million acres up there, we’re looking at 2,000 acres as a footprint,’ she said in the interview. ‘With new technology, with directional drilling, maybe that footprint [will] shrink even more.'”
MacDailyNews Note: CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo talks with Sarah Palin about ANWR drilling, which also touches on technology, in an 11:41 video interview here.
Stefanie Olsen reports for CNET, “Mead Treadwell, a technology-focused venture capitalist and chair of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, a federal advisory commission to President Bush and Congress on Arctic research issues, said he met Palin when she was the mayor of Wasilla, a small town in Alaska. Treadwell said that she has long been open-minded about the need for technology to solve problems.”
“‘We’re a natural energy economy and you can’t drill on- or offshore without bringing the best technology, like 3D seismic technology to find areas for drilling, directional drilling to exploit it, and satellites. She’s supportive of new tech,’ Treadwell said,” Olsen reports.
“Palin’s father-in-law was at one time staff officer at the Alaska Science and Technology Foundation, the state’s seed capital fund for technology. According to Treadwell, she was critical of her incumbent Republican rival Frank Murkowski in 2006 when he shut the foundation down. In her inaugural address as governor, she emphasized the value of research into science and technology,” Olsen reports.
“Despite Alaska’s absence of a big tech industry, the state’s chief industries, oil and gas, as well as some telecommunications, require cutting-edge technology. Treadwell said that in discussions with Palin about balancing development vs. the environment, she typically points to technology as a solution,” Olsen reports.
Full article here.
While we’re still exploring exactly which tech devices Palin uses currently, Bridget Carey reported yesterday for The Miami Herald of “the BlackBerry-wielding Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who had bloggers buzzing early Friday about her tech-centric lifestyle. She’s also three years younger than Obama.”
MacDailyNews Take: Send Palin an iPhone immediately, Apple!
As for Obama’s V.P. pick, Joseph Biden, 65, Carey reports, “The technology issue isn’t so much of his wired lifestyle as it is about his past stances on technology issues like Internet freedom and privacy. Biden has spoken out against peer-to-peer networks that allow the sharing of music and other copyrighted material. On the topic of Internet privacy, he is in favor of allowing communications companies to hand over a user’s personal information to the government, but with the intention to crack down on child porn and piracy.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Michael R.,” “Dennis,” and “Jen” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Note: If anyone has links to articles and/or photos of Palin and technology (listening to her iPod, using a Mac, or even a ratty old Dell) or any of the other candidates – Biden, McCain, and/or Obama – please send them to the MacDailyNews Webmaster (link below) for inclusion in this or future articles.
For every petty smear you Liberal WIn-At-Any-Cost Bastards commit against Sarah Palin, another 1,000 of us move to McCain-Palin.
Keep that in mind while you still have some regular women (not a handful of barren loudmouthed dykes) left in your party.
Sarah Palin is a working mother of five who believes in the sanctity of human life, the constitution (right to bear arms), and fighting corrupt politicians.
I’m voting for McCain-Palin guaranteed.
MDN Magic Word: “mother” (how appropriate!)
as someone who has always been a maverick let me make it perfectly clear my friends, I have always had the ability to make snap decisions on purely surface info. That helped me to be successful even though I was ranked fith from the bottom of my class. It helped me when I ejected Fromm the numerous planes I wrecked defending our country. I know have homes representing every plane I’ve crashed. I pick my wives the same way. When I came back from the big war. …. The great gook follies. My first wife went and got her hottness ruined. Fortunate for me my family creds allowed me to go out and replace her with not just new hottness and rich as well. I know hottness when I see it. That’s why I was able to review my latest GOP yearbook and find the hotness again as my vp pick. You see my friends thought my life I have always been able to deflect away from my weaknesses by moving the spotlight away from my own wrinkled skin cancered face. I learned from karl rove. He told me that when the heat is up deflect the spottlight to a hotty and a nation of brainless racist thugs will just stare at her hottness and it won’t matter how low we go nobody will notice…. Except those wacky liberal scum that we have always been able to laugh off no matter how serious the charge. Remember the case of treason? Of would have been much more serious if we had not picked a hotty….valerie plame who was a covert CIA operative. Trust me wait to you see my new supreme hotty court. Wink wink ; )
I think McCain picking Miss Congeniality as a running mate will have serious consequences for him. First of all, I’m sure he wanted to pick up some Hillary supporters. Every single Hillary supporter I’ve talked to is offended that McCain considers Palin to be Hillary’s equal just because she has a vagina. I’m sure she has a lot of good qualities, but she’s no Hillary Clinton. I think the beauty queen thing will kill his campaign. Women don’t like other women who are prettier than they are.
I feel she will bring McCain down. She’s only a governor & had the job for so little time.
@twilightmoon
Tax cutting for a state we only hear about in Geography courses , on the discovery channel, and for a state that has a smaller population than what’s on the island of NYC. She was a Mayor, So What. Maybe Obama might have less experience as You say, but he knows about whats going on in washington since he’s there to vote on critical decisions.
Say if McCain is elected & 2 years from now he Crocks and dies. Then Palin takes the jobs. Only thing she nows is how to offshore drill, & abortion. She doesn’t know D**k other than that and she might bring down the country even further. She’s a mother of 5 & one with down-syndrome. If she takes the stand for this country, she might as well wave good bye to those kids. She may be a really good person but isn’t ready to take McCain’s spot if anything happened.
Anyways, this should benefit the democrats so I really don’t care.
Obama for president 2008 !!!!!!!!
The brilliance of McCain’s VP pick is readily apparent by the copious amounts of shit in the pants of Democrats today.
Scared shitless in action.
<<Learn about this candidate a little she’s done a hell of a lot with her 10 years in public office>>
Yeah, she brought in the world’s biggest WalMart for a town of 7,000 and helped turn her town into one giant open-pit gravel mine. Nice credentials.
Now that I’ve rebutted, it makes me sick to see this site turned into another place where asshats scream political nonsense at each other. Grow up, okay?
“She’s no Hillary Clinton.”
You can say that again, Palin’s going to win.
@Sum Yung Gai – Only with better makeup
She has 5 kids because the state of Alaska pays between $1000 and $2000 per year per kid. Talk about your basic money maker.
She is against public education, preferring home schooling.
She has taken on Big Oil, but only to the extent she is demanding shipment of more natural gas, instead of having the oil companies sit on the reserves, waiting for the price to go up (this would be a good thing, but I suspect it’s more related to increasing Alaska Permanent Fund payouts than concern for the free market)
OTOH, a lot of Republicans in Alaska seem to hate her, so she probably isn’t all bad.
Still, the beauty pageant thing. I keep thinking McCain is an old fart, and we might be a heartbeat away from getting this:
@Alec Tanner “She’s no Hillary Clinton”
I don’t get why Dems seem to think that HRC is the be-all-and-end-all of female politicians…? If it weren’t for her husband and his career, she would just be another corrupt lawyer at another corrupt law firm.
And if she’s such an ideal feminist, when why is she still married to Bill, after all of that public humiliation that he inflicted on her?
@Women of America
Nobody on the Dem side has launched petty smears against Palin. In fact the only smears and sexist statements I see are from the young men proclaiming their support of the ticket because they like her breasts.
Sarah Palin is a politician first. If women want to be treated equally then they will be subjected to the same scrutiny as a male candidate. Our inquiries are no different than those aimed at Obama from your side (except we’re not questioning her patriotism).
Sarah Palin has a wonderful life story. How many children she birthed, however, has nothing to do with her qualifications to be President and the mental state of the man who made that selection.
Dear kenh
I’m a 67 year old Harvard professor and molecular geneticist, not a “dumb young kid with very little experience”. I’d be happy to debate statistics (or any other facts) with you any time. And, accept the apology for your foolish, immature comment.
The brilliance of McCain’s VP pick is readily apparent by the copious amounts of shit in the pants of Democrats today.
Scared shitless in action.
Can’t disagree with you there. Many undecided voters (where the election is won, by the way) are going to go for McCain-Palin now.
I think that Obama had a slim chance of pulling it off before. Even without the South and the heartland. Now, Obama just has no chance.
A significant percentage of women who would’ve voted for Obama will identify with and vote for Palin now.
McCain made a game-changing choice.
@R2 “Nobody on the Dem side has launched petty smears against Palin”
You obviously don’t read the Huffington Post or the Daily Kos.
“And if she’s such an ideal feminist, when why is she still married to Bill, after all of that public humiliation that he inflicted on her?”
Probably because she loves him and wants to maintain the vows that say he’s her husband until death do them part.
If anything, the scars of the past she carries on her back and the fact that she was able to hold that marriage together only reinforces her strength, IMO. If I ever get married and go off the reservation the way Bill (frequently) did, I hope my wife is strong enough to stay by my side, too.
lurker,
Palin didn’t get an 80% approval rate – which is off-the-charts, if you don’t know – by being a pretty empty suit.
Palin is the real deal and that’s why Dems are fsking losing their shit today.
Just fling yourselves off buildings in effete Manhattan and San Francisco, so you take each other out, okay?
Leave the country to the real Americans who built it.
“You obviously don’t read the Huffington Post or the Daily Kos.”
If the Democratic party and Barack Obama are responsible for everything that’s said on those sites, then I guess we should start holding the Republicans and John McCain responsible for all the smears that plague the web on their side, too.
I don’t think you want to go there with some of the nasty stuff you guys like to spread about Barack Obama.
Ken,
Harking back to your first(ish) post telling us you’re a 59 year old black belt who regularly sends younger packing, you’ll find that people like yourself who get into proper fights in street situations tend to lose.
The reason for this is that, because you’re not in a controlled studio situation, you get an adrenalin dump and this affects your whole system throwing your carefully rehearsed moves out by just enough to render them ineffective. That’s why if it was just you and me, I’m vicious enough to fancy my chances of beating the living crap out of you (and I am a lot younger than you).
The way around this is to learn proper streetfighting moves which tend to be more vicious and basic enough so as not to suffer from adrenalin charged nerves.
I am having a difficult time listening to the same people who have given us the one of the worst presidents in history for the last eight years. Tell me who they think should be a great choice for the next four. Kind of like a Dell user telling me why I should keep buying a Dell ( that has been riddled with malware since purchased ), instead of buying a Mac.
The bottom line is that anyone that honestly thinks we need to continue to let this country continue down the same path we have been on for the last 8 years, should be ashamed of themselves.
Should read: “who regularly sends younger guys packing”
This is my take on things like drilling in the ANWR.
Don’t try to make the right decision. There is no right decision.
Instead, assume 200 years from now 99.9999% of the people on the planet believe you made the *wrong* decision.
Which decision can you then correct?
If you drill now, and 200 years from now 99.9999% of people believe you should never have drilled there, can you “un-drill” it?
On the other hand, if you don’t drill now, or for the next 200 years, and then 200 years from now 99.9999% of people believe you should drill there, can you then drill?
Put this way the answer, I believe, is obvious. There are some mistakes you can’t undo. There are some you can.
Datatdude: “But question: If it were your decision, and you were putting your country first, would you put an untested small-town mayor a heartbeat away from the presidency?”
Democrats, please keep pushing this angle. It will show your stupidity and ignorance. She’s Governor of the State of Alaska. Oh , that’s right, most Democrats don’t know there are 50 states, in fact, your candidate thinks there are 57 states in the Union. Look it up, Obama said it.
Also, keep dissing the citizens of Alaska because in the same vain your dissing America. This will show your true colors just as your candidate has during the Democratic campaign in which he referred to middle class America as “bitter” religion and gun fanatics. Keep up the good work Democrats!!!!!
I see a possible landslide in the making! McCain/Palin 48-2.
Barack Obama is the person who can lead our nation now. As he
said in his speech Thursday, “ENOUGH!”
@R2 “Probably because she loves him and blah blah blah”
What a double standard… if the Clintons were Republicans you guys would have been laughing your asses off at statements like that, calling HRC a “Tammy Wynette wannabe” or a “Stepford Wife”. Quit while you’re behind.
As for HuffPost and Kos, I never said that there were official Dem Party outlets, but reading them gives one some valuable insight into the mindset of the typical “hope-n-change” voter.
McCain = war hero with decades experience, maverick, known for working across the aisle
Palin = working mother, maverick, the only one with executive experience in the race
I fail to see how the guy with 3 years in the Senate who spent most of that time on the road campaigning and the old guy known mainly for plagiarism are going to win – when it was already basically tied before.
Palin tilts the balance so far in McCain’s favor, it’s no wonder that Obama supporters are apoplectic today.
MDN MW: “over.” So true, so true.
You Merkins are so fscked. Doesn’t matter who wins, your country is in the toilet. Go ahead–teach Creationism in schools, Intelligent Design–call it as you will–makes no difference. You’re so far along on your way to irrelevance that the world won’t even notice as you slide completely into obscurity.