US Politics

Not My Monkeys

3 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

pebbly

I saw someone on Facebook, saying that Australians had no right to comment on the US elections, because we cannot vote there.

You make an excellent point, random person. Yes, we cannot vote in the USA. It truly is a case of not my monkeys, not my circus.

But you know something? Though I do not live there, I still care about the people who have to work, live, sleep, eat, poop etc, in that country.

Perhaps I should not care, but I do.

I feel that neither of the choices were good. But I still cannot quite believe that a delusional orange combover got elected president.

It was a terribly depressing day especially as I was sitting here watching it with an actual American who was visiting my country. The day afterwards, we went to Canberra for a visit to Parliament House – we’d both never been – and the Doug Anthony Allstars concert. We needed a good laugh, and we certainly got one that night.

Our politicians are not much better, but at least if we get sick we will not go bankrupt, and we are protected with a safety net if we lose our jobs.

I wish better things for your people, America. I always have. So many of us have.

I will be back on Wednesday with part 1 of our trip report.

US Elections, US Politics

This Day Is Still Infamous To Me..

1 Comment Posted on by Snoskred

monkey

August 29, 2008. That date will forever be stamped in my mind. 6 years ago..

August is a month with a lot of those dates – the 12, my Dad’s birthday. The 16th, the death of Elvis.

Probably the image above has given away what I am talking about. Those are the feet of John “Walnuts” McCain and Sarah Palin, as seen on the day that John McCain announced she was going to be the vice presidential candidate.

Thank the deities, the horrible possibility of that woman being one heartbeat away from the nuclear codes never came to pass.

I am sure one day a woman will be in that position, a woman will even be president. But they will deserve to be there, not be picked just because someone is desperate to shake things up in a campaign, barely vetted or asked any questions before being thrown into the spotlight a mere 2 days after first meeting the presidential candidate.

sp1_500x333

If you have never seen the movie Game Change which tells the story of how Palin came to be chosen.. the story of the campaign staff trying to prepare her for media interviews and epically failing.. the story of how she pretty much melted down under the fierce spotlight and the pure perfection of Tina Fey portraying her on Saturday Night Live.. the story of how she wanted to give a speech after they lost the election and was firmly rebuffed by campaign staff and when she wouldn’t listen to them, by John McCain himself as no vice presidential candidate gives a speech when they lose..

It is such a great movie that it joins movies like Tootsie, Groundhog Day, Mrs Doubtfire, The Devil Wears Prada, Notting Hill, Pretty Woman, and many others on the quite long list of movies I cannot possibly flick away from – once I stumble on them playing, I’m stuck there watching them until they end.

It has Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin and she is absolutely amazing. even better than the Tina Fey impersonations and Tina Fey looks scarily like a doppelganger of Sarah Palin. It has Ed Harris who is downright unrecognisable as John McCain. It has Sarah Paulson as the long suffering Nicole Wallace, and it has Woody Harrelson as Steve Schmidt.

We’re only just over two years away from the next US election and the long, seemingly never-ending primary season will begin in January 2016. Fingers crossed any memorable dates next time will be for good reasons.

Movie Reviews, movies, Sarah Palin, US Elections, US Politics

Keeping Confidences.

1 Comment Posted on by Snoskred

Some of you would know that I’ve been involved with AKMuckraker and The Mudflats since September, 2008. We’ve been through a lot in the past few years, many stressful situations which we have worked through together as well as the rest of The Mudflats Admin & Moderation team. I consider her to be a good friend.

AKMuckraker (Jeanne Devon) and her good friends Ken Morris and Frank Bailey (A former aide to Governor Palin) have collaborated together on a book. It was released yesterday in the USA.

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Also released yesterday were several “tweets” from Rebecca Mansour, a current aide of Sarah Palin.

What a top aide to Sarah Palin really thinks about Mitt Romney, Bristol Palin, Erick Erickson and more

Though whether she is still an aide remains to be seen – Palin has a habit of throwing people under the bus for much less than Mansour is guilty of.

During the time I have worked with AKMuckraker, there have been times when she has shared confidences with me. Never in a million years would I think to share those with anyone else, not even the admin & mod team, without her express permission. Certainly not with someone I’ve never met whether or not I trusted them.

When someone tells me something and tells me to keep it in the vault, with me, it is LOCKED IN THAT DARNED VAULT and it isn’t coming out until that person tells me otherwise.

Mansour betrayed Sarah and her family, and thoroughly deserves to be thrown under the bus. When someone trusts you and allows you to be a part of their “inner circle” you have a responsibility to keep your mouth firmly zipped..

Even worse – if this is what she was saying to someone she never met, what the heck is she saying to people she knows?

Apparently the person who was tweeting with her had 122 tweets from her which he was willing to sell. The people he ended up giving them to (nobody would buy them) have not shared all of them but you can view the ones they did share here and here.

My personal favourites with the irony in bold –

19:23:35: Listen: I tell you things I wouldn’t tell anyone tho I have press hounding me for the info I tell you. I trust you even tho I’ve never met u

19:28:55: Nothing we can do when someone behaves stupidly.

Ain’t that the truth!

Angry Snoskred, anonymity, internet, Internet Safety, Sarah Palin, The Mudflats, The Vault, Who Is Snoskred

Journey Into Insanity

1 Comment Posted on by Snoskred

Sarah Palin’s book “Going Rogue” is set to be released this week.. She’s going on Oprah, and doing Barbara Walters, and travelling around the country in a bus, which if you think about it, is quite insane for someone who just wants to be left alone by the media.

Some of the pages from her book have been released – Wonkette has a few. I am not sure if this book is one long run on sentence with full stops in there only because the editor insisted on putting them in there or what the heck is going on with it, but the truth is this book seems like comedy gold. Fingers crossed William Shatner will do a reading of it.

So while The Mudflats will be going a bit craizy this week, I will let you in on a little secret. Below you will find the location I’ll be going to in my head when things just get a bit too nutty.
glassyak3

Sarah Palin, The Mudflats, US Politics

Sarah Palin Resigns

Leave a comment Posted on by Snoskred

Can anyone say.. quitter?

AKMuckraker has an article with all the info on Huffington Post – What Is Sarah Palin thinking? One Alaskan’s Perspective.

Her resignation speech was.. freaky.. to say the least.

It happened to be the day after Telstra accidentally disconnected our home phone while connecting the new home phone at the new place, so I had no internet and I got SMS’d by one of the Forum Admins (shoutout to Char!) to let me know what was going on.

So I took the sim card out of my iPhone, plugged it into the Telstra wireless thingy, and got on the web to find absolute chaos – The Mudflats server had crashed after being totally hammered. The Mudflats is on a server separate to all the other blogs so thankfully it didn’t take everything else down like it used to.

I called Serverguy on the Skypee, and it was about 6am his time, he heard the Skypee and arrived to find out what was going on and baby the server through a very difficult day online.

We are all just stunned. Completely stunned.

Nobody knows why she has done this – there are plenty of rumours swirling around. To be honest, at this point I don’t think I really care why – I am just happy for the people of Alaska and hopeful that the new guy might actually be able to step out from under Sarah’s shadow and do some good for the people – some of whom are struggling to survive, some of whom have recently experienced flooding and do not have homes to live in right now.

Sarah Palin, US Politics

Welcome Slash Dotters..

2 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

I’ve read through the comments here, and I just have a couple of things to point out.

In the case of AKMuckraker, previous to Doogan outing her, there was no connection between her real life identity, and the identity of AKMuckraker. You couldn’t google and find a link between the two. It simply was not possible.

He spent three months obsessively asking people who AKMuckraker was. He did this because she posted this blog post – Are You People Nuts? Lessons In Email Etiquette – this post came about as a direct result of his own actions.

The actions? Rep Mike Doogan replies to emails in a very inappropriate manner as a matter of course, it seems. But in that case he had collected up 30 or so different email addresses, and then emailed them ALL with the email addresses viewable to everyone. That is a clear breach of the privacy of those people who wrote to him.

Now AKMuckraker had a right to inform people about that, in my opinion. If you write an email to your representative, you expect there to be a level of privacy. Apparently this sent Doogan quite over the edge and began his obsession with her.

He chose to send out her identity in a newsletter to his constituents, many of whom may never have heard of AKMuckraker at all. That is the part which is most inappropriate in my opinion.

There are many reasons people want to remain anonymous on the internet. Alaska is a quite a small place in the scheme of things and like a lot of small towns to have true freedom of speech you don’t want to use your real name.

Other reasons someone might wish to remain anonymous –

* Because it is a standard identity- and privacy-protection precaution
* Because they have experienced online or offline stalking, harassment, or political or domestic violence
* Because they wish to discuss sexual abuse, sexuality, domestic abuse, assault, politics, health, or mental illness, and do not wish some subset of family, friends, strangers, aquaintances, employers, or potential employers to know about it
* Because they wish to keep their private lives, activities, and tastes separate from their professional lives, employers, or potential employers
* Because they fear threats to their employment or the custody of their children
* Because it’s the custom among their Internet cohort
* Because it’s no one else’s business

Bear in mind also – remember Kathy Sierra? Remember Dooce? Remember Abby Lee? What person in their right mind would knowingly put themselves out there for the kind of treatment those people went through?

Would you put your hand up to be fired from your job because of your blog? To receive death threats – and the people sending them know where you live? Who knows how far those people who do not like what you wrote might go?

The bottom of the bottom lines is – AKMuckraker would never have written about Doogan if he were acting in a sane manner. He is the politician who was sending the crazy emails to 30 people at once. If he had been doing the right thing and treating the people who elected him professionally and with respect, AKMuckraker would not have exposed his behavior. And NOTE – It is actually his JOB to listen to what the people are saying, and respond appropriately.

I haven’t had time to collect links today but here are some from yesterday – I would like to highlight these –

Picture of Mudflats’ AK Muckraker Posted! <-- do not fear, just go and read it. ;) I would not be posting a link if it infringed on AKM's privacy, and AKM has commented on the post too. Lorelle Van Fossen, who to me is famous but may be unknown to many of you, is writing a series on this event - The Outing of a Blogger: Social Transparency or Violation?
The Outing of a Blogger: Is it Legal to Reveal a Blogger?
The Outing of a Blogger: The Fear of Being Found Out

More links will be added to this post once I work out what hasn’t been posted. Apologies for any double ups.

Dear Mr. Doogan (Don’t feed the bears)
A Final Thought About Rep. Doogan and Mudflats
“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
alaskan dem legislator outs blogger
Exposed
Mike Doogan- own version of 1st ammendment
Anonymous bloggers, journalism and politics
The pertinent point
Alaska Legislator Mike Doogan: A Tool Of The First Order
Headline Does Not Match Story, Part 14: “Anti-Palin”?
Mike Doogan was wrong!
Take action on behalf of MUDFLATS
Mike Doogan Fell
My Letter to The Ethics Committee
Anonymous blogging
Open Letter to Alaskan Rep Mike Doogan
Please look for a new book by Alaska writer Mike Doogan: “Indecent Exposure.”
Know Your Blogging Rights and Help Protect Anonymous Bloggers Everywhere
Suck. Suck. Blow.
ADN’s Ear Siding With Doogan – The World Has Gone Mad
Politician Outs Blogger
…it begins.

Angry Snoskred, anonymity, internet, Internet Safety, The Mudflats, US Politics

Politician Outs Blogger

6 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

I honestly cannot believe I am typing this..

Some time ago Alaskan Politician Rep Mike Doogan was sending some crazy emails to people who emailed him and AKMuckraker was one of the bloggers involved in exposing his craziness.

Apparently this did not sit well with Rep Doogan. He has been trying to find out who AKMuckraker was for several months now and he has finally managed to do it. He then sent out a message to people on his mailing list via his official legislative newsletter, advising them of the real name of AKMuckraker. It is possible that when he did this, he broke the law.

Whether or not people support AKMuckrakers opinions, I believe most people would support her right to remain anonymous. I feel it is a right that everyone on the internet is entitled to – people make the decision for their own reasons, some because they have been cyber stalked in the past, some to prevent being cyber-stalked in the future.

This may be the first known case of an anonymous blogger being cyber-stalked by a politician determined to find out their real identity and out them, though!

You can read the full story here –

In Exposing the Identity of Mudflats, Rep. Mike Doogan Exposes Himself.

There are also some other blog posts on this subject –
Progressive Alaska
Shannyn Moore
The Immoral Minority
Mamadance
Palin Gates
Think Alaska
We’re Not That Stupid

I have been supporting AKMuckraker for almost 6 months now – we have been hosting her blog and forums – we have a team of mods and admins who keep the forums running smoothly. I did not need to know her real name to do that (and in fact did not know her real name until today) nor did I care what her name was. I understand anonymous blogging – I do it myself for the reasons explained on my about page.

My support will not change – other than to do whatever it takes to make sure Rep Mike Doogan never wins an election again, and to also inform the worldwide media of what he has done. It is highly inappropriate.

Epic Fail, Rep Doogan. Epic Fail.

I may not be around much for the next week or so, I’ll be busy taking action on this. ;)

Angry Snoskred, anonymity, internet, Internet Safety, politics, US Elections

Mean Girl Sent Packing.

5 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

Mean Girl Sarah Palin was sent packing yesterday when millions of voters chose to say no to mean and yes to hope.

I still am not able to find the exact words to express how I feel about President Elect Barack Obama.  Thrilled would be in there. Relieved, also.

On the day Barack Obama was elected President, I made the difficult decision to resign from a local association here. I thought this morning that I might have some regrets but actually it is the exact opposite. I just feel relief and happiness. I will have a lot more time for me and my stuff.

WordPress 2.7 is due out soon, and I am looking forward to spending some time testing it out in the hope it will work a lot better than recent versions. So far I have heard good things, which comes as a surprise to me.

Dexter Season 3 is in full swing in the US, and as Showcase chose not to show it here until January, I have been finding the episodes on the web. The season is a lot slower paced than season 2, but of course season 2 was the equivalent of hooking every rollercoaster in the world up to each other and riding it for 12 hours solid.

I hope to have some extra time to blog now. ;)

US Elections

What News From SnoskredLand?

9 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

Much news. where would I begin?

I could tell you about –

– my sister and nephews visiting, and a shopping spree of enormous proportions.
– being obsessed by the US elections.
– watching the episodes of Dexter Season 3.
– craizy live chats during the debates.
– learning a huge amount more about Simple Machines Forums thanks to The Mudflats.
– losing over 5 kilos thanks to Sean Hannity and his unpleasantness inspiring me to get on the exercise bike instead of throwing things around.
– sitting for over an hour with two bearded lizards on me.
– sooky kitties trying to sit on me with my laptop on my lap.
– endless washing chores.
– warm weather returning yay!
– daylight saving yay!
– The Other Half’s new Iphone.
– watching a new show called In Treatment on Showcase.
– getting a new frypan.

And much more. But instead let me tell you about something wonderful that happened and it is possibly safe enough now to mention it without Jinxing it. My Dad got a nasty flu / viral infection thing. He was away from work for a week, and so unwell that he was unable to smoke for all that time, and it seems that he has finally managed to give up smoking for good.

The same thing happened to me back in 2003 when I got pneumonia, I was so ill with it that the nasty withdrawals happened while I was completely out of my senses, delirious and sweating and unable to sleep lying down and demanding Garlic Prawns at 4am. When I was feeling better, I tried to smoke but just was not able to. Yay! It has been nearly 5 years (will be 5 years in December) and I have kicked the habit for good.

Oh, and before I go.. you can join us today at for a live chat during the Presidential Election at The Mudflats, click on Live Chat now available 24/7 right here in the top right hand corner). We’re using Mibbit, which has a built in translation option. I have been using it to remember me some Norwegian, which is one of the most beautiful languages on the planet in my opinion.

stuff, US Elections

Elections And.. Moose?

5 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

So you may recall I mentioned Mudflats the other day. It’s been a cool place to hang out since the end of August, when Governor Sarah Palin from Alaska was chosen to be the running mate for John “I tell lies more often than the truth” McCain.

WordPress.com isn’t exactly supportive of a site that finds itself as popular as Mudflats. When you have comments threads which are over 1,000 posts long and no way to subscribe to comments or even have the site remember where you were at when you hit shift and reload… there was a couple of weeks there where I had to copy the name of the last commentor and then hit find in page.

Eventually I got in touch with AKMuckraker and offered to host a blog and forum for her, for free. And that was because I truly believe in the community that has grown up there.

When Sephy and I set up Aussie Bloggers originally, I believe it took us two weeks. We set up The Mudflats Forums in two days. It would have been even quicker if we had installed the same version of Tiny Portal as we use on Aussie Bloggers, but for some reason it refused to install for us, so we had to go with the latest release and they’d changed some fairly important stuff.

So given Mudflats on wordpress.com was the number one site, I was expecting a busy few days once the forums were live – especially as we had no moderators at all when we opened. It was just Sephyroth and I (and AKMuckraker but of course she is very busy with the blog and Admin-ing a forum is a bit of a learning curve at the best of times!) and we intended to add moderators during the first day. I had a list of names that had stood out while reading the comments area. By the end of the first day I believe we were up to 7 mods. We now have 15 and we could do with at least another 7. A huge thanks to all those who are helping out with Modly duties. ;)

We had absolutely no idea just how busy it would be. On the first day the forums were open, over 550 people registered. There were hundreds of posts – so many I could not read them all, and I am a quick reader.. :) That night my sleep was broken into one hour chunks, worrying that things would go haywire while I slept, I kept waking up – and so I got up to check on things.

There’s currently – as I type this – 778 members. It is a wonderful community.  And it has Moose. Drop by and check it out. If you’re interested in the election, it is the place to be for the next 42 days. I’ll be there, and I won’t be getting a huge amount of sleep – there’s a lot to do! ;)

And I must give a massive amount of thanks to Sephyroth for helping me out with this. I couldn’t have done it on my own. And he found the great moose pic. :)

The Mudflats, US Elections