Saturday 9 May 2009

Sarah Palin spins the pork


News this week:

The Obama administration … proposes to cut $524 million from the ground-based missile defense program, saying there are problems about the effectiveness of the system. Alaska-based missile interceptors will remain in place, but the program will not expand; no additional missile interceptors will be added.

There's a watchdog group who blog under the name Space Pork Kodiak, offering good insight into the realities that surround the launch facility. Sarah Palin spins and spins in favour of expanding the infrastructure of the Kodiak Launch Complex, but our friends unspin it:

"...the growth will not be number of launches or more business; just a larger white elephant marring the Narrow Cape landscape. Expand the infrastructure for less than one launch per year on average for the life of the facility.

KLC is NOT the "best equipped [launch facility] anywhere": it does not have the capacity to store more than one rocket at any one time. And, try getting your personnel to Kodiak when Mt. Redoubt erupts ash and all the flights are grounded; or the fog rolls in and flights from Anchorage can't get in for days at a time."

Things are complicated even further by a certain geological feature:

"The launch tower that was built at a cost of ten million dollars and used for only one launch stands almost directly on this fault [Narrow Cape fault]. Hence the name commonly used by locals to refer to it: "Faulty Tower"."

Other news:

Sarah Palin is turning down money for weatherization and energy efficiency grants.

Palin isn't backing down and said she still won't take the $28.6 million for energy programs.

Sarah Palin, foreign policy and defense expert, wants the Feds to continue to pour money into the "Faulty Tower".

Sarah Palin, the country's foremost energy expert, refuses to take federal money to make Alaska's buildings energy efficient.

When it comes to pork, Sarah Palin seems to be a bit fussy about which bits she's prepared to swallow.

But one thing is guaranteed: she'll make a pig's ear out of it.

Doesn't the picture look like it came straight from SarahPac? The background is uncannily similar...
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5 comments:

Dianne said...

Sarah's share of the pork will be the cuts that benefit her personal ambitions. Anything she does that appears to benefit Alaskans, IMHO, is very suspicious. Her national aspirations are ridiculous. I used to hope she would actually be the next repug candidate for POTUS because she would be beaten so badly. But, knowing how amoral the GOP is, stealing the election could be a possibility. This can't be allowed to happen.

Kodiak Rocket Launch Information Group said...

Palin's visit to the Kodiak Launch Complex was just more pandering to the extreme right wingers. She wants to refuse federal stimulus funds designated for energy projects that can help the Bush, but she wants MORE tax dollars for a facility that launches less than one rocket per years and has already cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.
It's a shame that the title of her newsletter, "Putting Alaska First", is ironic.

basheert said...

KRLIG:
Thanks for the explanation altho I'm sure most of us recognize what SP does is all about her and not about anyone or anything else.
Maybe she believes that people are so stupid they won't recognize what and how her actions affect individual citizens.
I truly believe that in the future some big bad nasty audit will expose what I think she is doing.
And the sad fact is that she is unelectable in the Lower 48 - sad as far as she is concerned. Day by day she becomes more irrelevant and her decisions are more driven by political pandering.
She is mentally unfit to govern. The American People spoke loudly in November. She can now remove her fingers from her ears.

jo said...

I was outraged to read these two twitters for miss know-it-all on 5-7-09:

"Outraged Obama;s budget includes major cuts to missile defense programs when N. Korea refuses to abide by UN reg."

and this one:

"Great Day! Another frivolous ethics complaint against me was dismissed I won against another false allegation too! More info to follow...."

Look at her gloat, all those exclamation marks. She directs you to the Gov. website, and Mr. McAsster is quoted:

“It’s staggering that the governor has accumulated more than half a million dollars of personal debt defending herself against a flurry of ethics complaints that have yet to substantiate a single infraction,” said Bill McAllister, the governor’s director of communications. “It’s obvious that these ethics complaints – usually announced with great fanfare, violating the confidentiality provisions of the law – are intended solely for damaging publicity and not for true accountability in government."

They do not violate confidentiality laws, the are not all without merit. If not a single infraction has been made, why then did she give by the vehicle, and pay for some of those 90 trips her kids took? Anyone with half a brain would know not to charge the state for free trips for your family and $60 a day to stay in your own house. Even if you do find some legal loophole, it sure the heck isn't ethical. Not all of these have been dismissed by her team yet either. I would also like to see an accounting of all this money owed.

As far as her being outraged by Obama, STFU lady.
get off the champagne against him, you know nothing you two faced b. Ask her a simple question like tell us what you think about the 747 Space ABL and find out she knows nothing at all about defense. I am so sick of this nasty excuse for a human.

She will be revealed for what she is someday, this can't last for ever.

Kyra said...

ethics complaints don't cost her anything to defend. the ethics committee examines the complaint and so far, has thrown them out so what is she talking about? the half million is probably for the errors on her disclosure forms (and probably her unpaid taxes and penalties and her attorney negotiating that with the IRS). until we see an itemized accounting I wouldn't believe anything. I wonder if she realizes she is required by law to provide that accounting (what do you bet we never see it?).