That’s Right Nate

Usually, when I go a day without blogging, it means either I was very busy or I was working on something blog related. I was inspired yesterday to work on a Sarah Palin video. I went so far as to figure out how to get audio from Youtube (as well as video…just not together). My new computer does a great job of taking out vocals and I was going to use it to remove Billy Joel from Say Goodbye to Hollywood. Unfortunately, Billy Joel isn’t that easy to get rid of. When I burned the CD, there were his vocals. I tried a karaoke backing track, but it kept in too many backgrounds competing with my lyrics.

You guys definitely missed out. I will say, my singing voice is amazing. I have a 9 octave range and I consider myself one of the last of the great singer songwriters. Here are the song lyrics that I would have sung:

Sarah’s headin’ to Wasilla tonight
Left behind her spa class tanning bed.
Playing point guard on this team, call a screen
Higher calling’s what she said.
Say goodbye to Anchorage
Say goodbye, my baby
Say goodbye to Anchorage
Say goodbye you betcha.

Quitting’s not something easy to do
But the press has been so mean everywhere
She’s like MJ quitting the Bulls
When he decided baseball was his career
Say goodbye to Anchorage
Say goodbye, my baby
Say goodbye to Anchorage
Say goodbye, you betcha

Chorus:
Movin’ on is a chance you take
When you decide to run – for governor
You get one chance to run
Then you find that the chance you had
Is gone forever
Forever

So many people quit every day
Shelley Long
Comes to mind for leaving Cheers
Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes
You know Brett Favre retires every year.
Say goodbye to Anchorage
Say goodbye, my baby
Say goodbye to Anchorage
Say goodbye, you betcha

There’s a video of Billy Joel doing the original here, if you’re not familiar with the song. Needless to say, it was your loss.

I decided instead to make a montage, but between getting new blank CDs, finding pictures, editing, playing with a few new toys, and then dealing with Youtube’s obnoxious copyright policy where music is concerned, you’re looking at about 15 hours work. Phew.

Her speech was powerful as always even though myself and many others might not have understood her motivation at the time.  It may be easiest to put it into a sports metaphor and since Sarah is the ultimate hockey mom I think I’ll go with that.  When a hockey player has the puck and she’s skating towards the other goal, sometimes the other team will try and check her and when that happens she’ll want to pass the puck.   If no player is open she may do what is called dumping and chasing.   Where she passes the puck down the ice and attempts to retrieve it or have a teammate retrieve it before the other team gets to the puck.   However, when a player shoots thepuck across at least two red lines,  the opposing team’s goal line being the last, and a player on the other team other than the goalie touches the puck first it is called icing and the linesman will stop play and there will then be a faceoff in the defending zone of the team that iced the puck.   Of course this is all waved off if in the opinion of the referee the opposing team made no attempt to play the puck or the icing team was shorthanded.   Isn’t that just what Sarah Palin is doing?

Now for people who are perplexed as to what Sarah Palin is doing and calling her a quitter I say that Palin’s don’t quit things.  When Bristol became an unwed teen mother, the Palins weren’t about to abandon their fierce support of teaching abstinence only sex education.   When Todd accidentally signed up for the Alaska Independence Party instead of listing himself as independent, he didn’t quit.  Instead, he voted AIP for 7 years and Sarah Palin spoke at their convention.   When Sarah Palin was in college and decided Hawaii Pacific College, North Idaho College, University of Idaho, and Mantanuka-Susitna College weren’t right for her she could have dropped out.  Instead she  returned to the University of Idaho for her degree.   The Palins are nothing if not persistant.

There are several possibilities why Sarah could have dropped out of the race:

1. With Joe the Plumber announcing just this week that God told him not to run for political office, she saw the road to the White House as wide open now.

2. Billy Crystal of the Weekly Standard and City Slickers 2: The Legend of Curly’s Gold suggests that dropping out is Sarah Palin’s way of becoming a national Republican leader.  Afterall, of the current Republican leaders only Rush Limbaugh is fettered by a job.

3. This could be a preemptive resignation that would allow her to have an affair.  Most of Governor Sanford’s problems seem to arise from having an affair in office and this would give Governor Palin more freedom to play the field.  Todd seems like a great guy, but could anybody really tame her?

4. She’s been getting a lot of criticism while being governor of the largest state in the country and this move allows her to get away from the press and work on running for President in 2012 without the media spotlight of Anchorage.

5. This could be the first move in a gambit to pull Alaska out of the union.

Whatever her reason, Sarah Palin has made the right choice.  Her future looks very very bright.

Sarah Palin has again emerged as a Republican hero.  She told the lawmakers in Wasington, “Thanks, but no thanks” on their education to nowhere.   Palin accepted only $530 million of the $914 million appropriated to Alaska as part of the recent economic stimulus plan.  The biggest chunk of the funding that she rejected was $160 million for education.

As Governor Palin  told reporters, “I told congress thanks, but no thanks on that education to nowhere.  It doesn’t take a lot of fancy book learning to drive a snow mobile or shoot a moose.  If the people of Alaska want our kids to learn something, we’ll teach them ourselves.”  Palin did accept the parts of the stimulus for programs to build bridges, roads, and aviation projects which she deemed far more useful.

Of course, we at Thatsrightnate.com enthusiastically cheer Sarah Palin as an opponent to wasteful spending on things like text books and vocational training.   You don’t need vocational training in Alaska just go find something to shoot and feed your family with it.   This was a wasteful spending project that would simply confuse Alaskans with a lot of book learning.  People forget that having attended 7 different colleges and universities, this is one governor who knows a lot about education.

They have a saying in Alaska, “Do you know what the difference is between a hockey mom and a wolf?  They don’t shoot hockey moms from lowflying airplanes.”

One of the best things about Sarah Palin as governor of Alaska is that she dramatically increased my favorite sport–aerial wolf hunting.  In aerial wolf hunting you need a low flying airplane like a cub, a pilot, and at least one guy to sit in the back with a shot gun.

In aerial wolf hunting you chase a wolf around until he’s completely exhausted.  You can shoot at him from the airplane, but it is hard to get a killing shot that way.  Usually you have to land in order to finish the job, but if the wolf is clever enough it’ll crawl off and bleed to death on its own when you’re landing.  Heck, sometimes you don’t really feel like landing so all you can do is wing them and move on.

Sarah has been the sports biggest advocate in Alaska and was even offering a bounty of $150 if you brought her back a wolve’s paw. In order for this sport to really make it Sarah needst to bring it to the lower 48 states and we need a television contact–maybe ESPN.  I really think aerial wolf hunting could become for the next decade what mixed martial arts has been for this one.

Having a beauty queen for a mayor may sound odd, but in the town of Wasilla, Alaska Sarah Palin was just one of many colorful residents that inhabit Wasilla, Alaska.  While having a popula of 8,000 the Palin administration had a number of difficult situations to deal with.  Palin describes herself as an accidental politician who only reluctantly got into politics after incumbent Mayor Vincouer refused to put in a stop sign despite promising to do so 5 years before.

It was Palin who saw a health care crisis in town and managed to land a doctor from the lower 48 to take care of the town’s sick and injured.  Though ultimately unsuccessful, Palin spearheaded an effort to convince a group of Japanese businessmen to build a golf resort in Wasilla.  This gave her both experience with foreigners and business experience.

Palin believes in the power of the press and it was under her leadership that citizens were able to save the town’s newspaper–The Wasilla News and World Telegram.  She also worked closely with the town’s largest employer Minnfield Communications so she knows a thing or two about business.

While liberals may talk down her experience as mayor, it is clear that Sarah Palin learned a lot during her time as mayor and it is that experience thatwill make her a great Vice-President.

The recent story of China drilling for oil less than 12 miles from the Florida coast may have been discredited, but I have learned that as early as January of 2001, the Russian company Sibneft began setting up operations for oil drilling in the region of Chukotka is less than 5 km from Alaska.  I believe that translates to about 10 miles.

As Americans concerned about our oil independence we must demand that the American government also begin exploring the Chukotka region for oil.  Chukotka is closer to major cities in Alaska than it is to Russia and it quite possibly contains not only oil, but gas, gold, and diamonds.    We must balance our efforts to conserve oil with increasing supply by drilling in places like Chukotka.

There are 2 main criticisms of drilling in ANWR.  First, they say we’ll destroy an entire ecosystem.  Secondly, the Department of Energy report issued last month said, “If Congress were to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, crude oil prices would probably drop by an average of only 75 cents a barrel.” Even worse, they’re talking about 20 years from now before the price would drop.

The thing is though just think if somebody had decided to allow drilling there 20 years ago.  75 cents less would mean gas costing $3.50 instead of $4.25.  That’s a huge savings for somebody like me getting nine miles to the gallon.  Currently, the dumocrats are blocking drilling claiming that the oil companies already have millions of acres of land that they own the rights to, but haven’t started drilling already.  If we don’t get the price of oil down soon, Americans are going to have no choice, but to take drastic steps like buying smaller cars and even using public transportation.