Like shooting wolves from a plane

www.defenders.org

Screenshot from Defenders of Wildlife video.

Yeah, I know that's a horrific headline, but it's what Sarah Palin says is A-OKAY in Alaska! (If you want to learn more about how this cruel and disgusting aerial slaughter is carried out, click here. There's an optional video.)

Palin now is such an easy target, thanks to all her political baggage, it almost seems like an unfair fight. You know, like picking wolves (and bears) off with assault rifles as they struggle through the snow.

But then, she is in the running for the biggest and most powerful job on earth.

So, kaboom.

Which brings us to, via my friends over at Birth Pangs, your Palintology for the day.

First, the other reason, aside from Keith Olbermann, to subscribe to MSNBC. That's Rachel Maddow, who just got her own primetime show. Last night, she blasted the McCain-Palin camp's latest attempt to woo ''The Women's Vote'' by presenting former Hillary Clinton supporter and fundraiser Lynn Forester de Rothschild — as in Lady Rothschild, as in those Rothschilds — as a big deal female Democrat defector to the Republicans, ostensibly because Barack Obama is too ''elitist.'' Watch it:

Note that the non-elitist Lady yesterday referred to small town residents as ''rednecks.''

Now it turns out that Palin may not have fired Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan because he would not fire her ex-brother-in-law, in the scandal now known as ''Troopergate.'' Instead, she may have done it because he was trying to raise federal funds to deal with the obscene number of sexual assaults in Alaska, the state with the highest rape rate in America.

The last straw, the McCain campaign said, was in July, when Monegan planned to travel to Washington to seek federal money for a plan to assign troopers, judges and prosecutors who could exclusively handle sexual assault cases — one of the state's most intractable crime problems.

In a July 7 e-mail, John Katz, the governor's special counsel, noted two problems with the trip: The governor hadn't agreed the money should be sought, and the request was "out of sequence with our other appropriations requests and could put a strain on the evolving relationship between the Governor and Sen. (Ted) Stevens."

Four days later, Monegan was fired. He said he had kept others in the administration fully apprised of his plans to go to Washington.

Don't forget, Palin also cut funding for rape kits in her town — kits that reportedly contained emergency contraception, as well as the means by which police and victims might have evidence against attackers — which meant that victims had to pay out-of-pocket.

Either way, it doesn't look good. Whether he was fired for not carrying out a Palin family vendetta, or fired because he wanted to stop the rape epidemic in Alaska, it's still an outrage.

Like I said: Like wolves from a plane.

UPPITY DATE (29/9/2008): The rape kit thing may be just a nasty, unsubstantiated rumour.