Late to the party again...

But The "Tea Baggers" on April 15th here in Alaska count among themselves one Chuck Heath, father of Sarah "Caribou Barbie" (Heath) Palin, observed at the Wasilla Tea Party wearing a grin and a "Joe the Plumber" sweatshirt, according to the Anchorage Daily News.
Question: Is there anything so galling as a former public employee who lives on a handsome retirement (payed for by the local taxpayers), and who so gleefully attends tax protest demonstrations? Word is that Chuck was an exceptionally good teacher, so I'm sure he feels he earned his retirement. fine. Why protest against others getting theirs?

Our local publicly-owned electric utility here in Alaska's Matanuska-Susitna Valley has completed its annual membership meeting, board elections and bylaw referendum. In other places news of this sort would rarely make the shopping fliers, but this is the Wasilla-Palmer-Mat-Valley, so its BIG news. The relatively new "liberal" majority on the Matanuska Electric Association (MEA)board was re-elected, even after ordering manager Wayne Carmony to cashier Bruce Scott and Republican political gadfly Tuckerman Babcock. MEA has long served as a Laundromat for Republican patronage jobs, which explains Scott and Babcock's tenure there. Frankly, it couldn't have happened to two of more deserving practitioners of the professional sinecure. Tuckerman, who ran for Alaska State House as a conservative "let the private sector do it" candidate back in 1990, never so much as threw a paper route, and has probably never known a "private sector" job. I'd say good riddance, but the slippery smug and unctuous Tuckerman will re-emerge in some other form, shape-shifter that he is.

A University of Miami study indicates that religious people tend to "live longer than the norm for their demographic group." This should perhaps be unwelcome news to secular humanists like myself. Upon reflection, however, the secularist and non-theistic among us must consider that the average religious person spends 3 - 6 hours per week in Sunday School and church,or on the way to and from church. We non-religious put those hours to other uses: taking a walk, watching football, reading, doing chores, having a mimosa in the hot tub, making love, sleeping in or writing blogs, all kinds of relatively more productive endeavors. I figure the religious have to live 2 - 8 years longer than we un-churched just to make up for all the time they wasted - in church.

I should call this "Bill's Blog-A-Fortnight"...

Or "Think Again, Every Two Weeks or So." Anyway:
In her plaintive response to President Obama’s plan to redirect funds from the anti-ballistic missile program to defense programs deemed more worthy, Governor Palin claimed: “Alaska's strategic location and the system in place here have proven invaluable in defending the nation....”
If, by “invaluable” our governor means “not of value,” she is spot on. The “mid-course” missile defense program is – according to the Pentagon – rife with technical problems, waste, cost overruns, and mismanagement. The billions we’ve spent on this program only show that we’ll buy a system that, even under ideal test conditions, fails more often than it works. Cold fusion would be neat to have too, but the technology for it, and the missile “shield” placed in Alaska has yet to prove feasible, much less cost effective.
The fact that Ted Stevens brought the system, and the billions of federal dollars which go along with it, to Alaska has more to do with Palin’s complaint than Obama’s funding decision, or North Korea’s recent (unsuccessful) missile launch. After all, defense spending is the gift that keeps on giving for Alaska, as it has been for decades. Besides, our governor still has national aspirations.