Stuff I missed, Part 1

In my self-imposed exile from blogging (partially brought about by happenings highlighted in my previous post), I missed quite a few items about which I would normally have blogged.  For the sake of my thousands of readers catharsis, here are a few of the high points:

1.  RIP, Geraldine Ferraro.  Regardless of her political stances, she was absolutely a trailblazer.  I doubt, though, that she would have been too impressed with the way that far too many people commemorated her by slamming Sarah Palin.  (Language warning for the previous link, because some amount of slamming of Sarah Palin apparently is required to use objectionable language.)  Really?   Is the death of Ms. Ferraro a mere tool to continue your crusade against the idea, nay, the possibility that a woman might have conservative leanings and be treated with a modicum of respect?  It's sad, really.  Wendy K over at NewsReal Blog calls this behavior "the death of dignity".

2.  Prior to that, Sarah Palin (yeah, I write a lot about Sarah Palin...if you've been here more than once, you know this) had issued a statement about the Supreme Court's controversial ruling upholding the right of Fred Phelps and his ilk to protest at military funerals.  I actually did start a blog entry on this one, but I never finished (there is, after all, a reason why this blog has a label entitled "I have no time management skills"), so in the interests of not having a bunch of stupid unfinished drafts lying around, I present some old thoughts of mine, with slight editing:

I think some Palin-haters just love to parse every little thing Sarah Palin says in the hopes that they can have a "gotcha" moment.  (Sadly, this includes a Facebook connection of mine whose utter contempt for Gov. Palin led to what was in effect the end of our friendship.)

This week's [week of February 28] favorite topic for the everpresent wordsnatchers was a tweet from Gov. Palin on Wednesday the 2nd relating to the Supreme Court's ruling with regard to the Westboro Baptist Church and their continual practice of making Christianity look really, really bad.  The tweet read as follows:

Well, according to some, obviously that meant that she was against the decision and therefore against free speech.  "PALIN MISINTERPRETS THE FIRST AMENDMENT!!!!!11!" I hear them shouting.  No, I'm not linking them.  Go find it yourself if you're that interested, 'cos these people are flat out wrong.

And how I know they're wrong?  Well, someone bothered, rather than to assume what Sarah Palin's opinion is, to ask her.  I know, what a concept.  Well, the Daily Caller got a response from Gov. Palin about what she meant.  And it's a good thing, as, well, as they point out, "Her quote was interpreted by many news outlets, including The Daily Caller, to mean that she disagreed with the Supreme Court’s ruling."  But they do post her take on this:

“Obviously my comment meant that when we’re told we can’t say ‘God bless you’ in graduation speeches or pray before a local football game but these wackos can invoke God’s name in their hate speech while picketing our military funerals, it shows ridiculous inconsistency,” Palin told TheDC. “I wasn’t calling for any limit on free speech, and it’s a shame some folks tried to twist my comment in that way. I was simply pointing out the irony of an often selective interpretation of free speech rights.”

And that's as far as I got.  Anyway, whether or not Gov. Palin's interpretation is correct, it probably deserves more of a real discussion than it ever got.

Moving on...

3.  How do you like this?  One of the very few entries I've actually posted this year linked to a news article about what turned out to be a hoax study.  So, once again, men will have to find some other way to justify staring at women's breasts.  I'm sure we'll continue to see coverage of this quest as it develops.

I think, after that item, we'll leave it at that for the moment.  More stuff I missed will undoubtedly be coming, if and when I ever get around to it.