I've been away, hardly had access to internet. Many thoughts have come to mind over the last few days, I'll just list them below.

I've heard some people grouse, "Why do we bother rebuilding New Orleans? Why do people continue to insist on living there? It's a repeat disaster zone." I wish some would wake up and realize that New Orleans has been hit with hurricanes in the past, over many decades, and yet in just the past few years has the city suffered such devastating damage and fallout. Hmm, I wonder if it has anything to do with climate change? As a result of global warming, ocean temperature and currents are changing, contributing to the increase in violent hurricanes. But I suppose it's better just to focus on and judge the people, the victims, as opposed to soberly explore root causes.

So McCain met with Palin just twice before selecting her, hardly knowing her at all. Imagine the right-wing screech machine if Obama had made the same type of pick, one so obviously political, one where he barely knew the person he chose. They'd have a field day, and justifiably so. Given the circumstances, it's quite transparent to me that the VP was going to be Romney until McCain screwed up with the number-of-houses question. After that debacle, he could no longer confirm his elite status (folks, he's rich and no common man!) by selecting as VP a fellow elite. All those plans quickly went down the toilet, the campaign likely went into panic-mode to come up with a palpable #2, frantically spinning, trying to piece together something that resembled a credible story. Palin is the by-product of this rushed mash-up. And this is an example of McCain's judgment? Do we want four more years of this kind of decision making? As Obama said on Thursday, haven't we had enough?

In comparison, Dan Quayle now looks like a seasoned pro at the time he was chosen.

Like Palin, Cindy McCain was a former beauty queen. To what extent is this just a coincidence? What are the odds that a presidential candidate would have a former beauty queen as a wife AND as a VP? Did Cindy play a large influence in identifying and urging her husband to pick Palin? Stranger questions can be asked.

In announcing Palin as his VP, McCain stated as one of her qualifications that she's a "devoted wife and mother of five" kids. Oh, I see, so based on this litmus test there are millions upon millions of women in America that were quite close to qualifying as VP material....

Whereas GW exhibited naked cronyism during his reign, it appears as if McCain is going with naked political opportunism. Bush desired a bunch of "yes" men around him and rewarded anyone and everyone who expressed loyalty towards his inept administration. McCain appears to be much less reliant on yes-type folks (because given his temperament, he's likely to do what he alone believes anyway, regardless of what anyone else thinks) but instead will select stock players to satisfy roles that will help him advance. With Palin, he's cynically appeasing the hard-right base and lofting a symbolic fig leaf to any disenchanted Hillary voter at the margin that he believes he can lasso or frankly hoodwink.

Sarah Palin reminds me of former SNL Ana Gasteyer's character, Bobbi Moughan-Culp. Same manner of speaking, etc.