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Sarah Palin's $159,050 Conflict of Interest
While you read this, Alaska's First Dude, Todd Palin, is riding a snowmobile -- I'm sorry, snow machine -- 1971 miles from Big Lake to Fairbanks. In the course of performing this awesome feat, his Arctic Cat's powerful two-stroke engine will emit the same amount of hydrocarbons as an automobile driving from Chicago to San Francisco and back 150 times.
A small price for the rest of us to pay to honor the indomitability of the human spirit and one man's ability to sit and hold on.
It's not just a blaze of glory and aromatic hydrocarbon. A conventional two-stroke engine emits as much as a quarter of its fuel unburned, directly into the air. This week, as a participant in the Iron Dog™ snow machine race, Todd Palin will release as many cancer-causing and smog-forming pollutants as a Chevy Malibu driven around the Earth at its equator 28 times.
Seems like a lot of work, just to get away from Sarah Palin.
But Todd's not just doing it because he hates his home life and likes things that make loud noises and emit benzene. He does it because it's there. And for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and gifts from corporations who do business with the Governor's office.
For riding a snowmobile.
Something you could train a bear to do.
The Emperor Nero used to clean up at the Olympic games. It was eerie. He won everything. According to Suetonius, he once won a chariot race despite falling off and not finishing the course. That's how good he was. He also never wore the same clothes twice. So he would have fit right in with the Palins there also.
I'm not insinuating anything. I'm just saying.
The total purse value of this year's Iron Dog™ is $159,050. The sponsors include the petroleum giants Tesoro and Conoco-Phillips; State Farm, Wells Fargo, Frontier Airlines, Alaska Airlines and the Alaska First National Bank.
The Iron Dog™ has fewer than 40 entrants a year, and one of them is always Todd.
Does this smell? I'm probably the wrong person to ask. I hate the cold and I think motor sports is an oxymoron. But he is Alaska's First Lady, and Tesoro is an oil company.
Let's say this was Louisiana in the '30s. If Texaco sponsored a pancake-eating contest, and Huey Long's wife kept winning it, there would have been talk.
To be fair, Todd can't win the whole purse. There are lots of little door prizes just for rookies and women and steak dinners for Cutest Hat. Just like in Jack London days.
And, to be fair, Todd doesn't always walk away from the camping trip with the hundred grand first prize. He's only won four times.
Once after Sarah was elected to the Wasilla City Council, once after she was elected mayor, the year she was appointed to the Alaska Oil and Gas Commission, and the year she was elected governor.
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People in outlying Alaskan towns are freezing to death because they can't afford heating oil. Governor Palin refuses to help them.
Yet she supports her husband and the oil companies wasting oil and money driving nearly 2000 miles cross country to prove what? Which driver is the toughest?
Apparently making her husband feel like a man is more important than keeping her constituents from freezing to death.
I think it's an interesting display of arrogance that some from a colder part of the country want to change what the majority of people elsewhere call something. I've always heard of it as a snow mobile. A snow machine has always been one of those things that cleaned the roads or that made snow on which to ski.
Just because it's far colder in Alaska than most other parts of the country does not give them license to change the lexicon.
Financial Umbrage Conservatives Keep Using. :)
Palin + Incompetence / national embarrassment * Joe the Plumber = your average Republican
Excellent! Of course, a square root and/or a logarithm would not be misplaced ...
Oh Comeon, she Doesnt have a Conflict of interest... all her interests Directly coincide with everything she does. lol Its exactly as she plans it.
Now... doing anything for purely public service motivations would be a conflict of interests for her.
The more we learn about this family the more we get to know just how corrupt and self-serving they really are.
He only wins after his wife wins. This is not true at all. In the years they won their respective events / elections Todd won before Sarah, as the race is typically held early in February.
1992- Todd wasn't racing yet / Sarah wins Wasilla City council seat E
1995- Todd's 1st win after placing 5th in 1993 and a DNF in 1994 / Sarah wins 2nd election for the same city council seat.
1996- Todd gets a DNF / Sarah wins the Wasilla mayoral election.
1999- Todd gets a DNF / Sarah wins the Wasilla mayoral election again.
2000- Todd's 2nd win / Sarah is still mayor her term ends in 2002.
2002- Todd's 3rd win / Sarah looses the Republican Lieutenant Gubernatorial Primary Election.
2003- Race canceled / Sarah serves as the public member of the Alaska oil and gas Conservation Commission.
2004- Todd gets 2nd place / Sarah's 1 year appointment to the commission ends in Jan.
2005- Todd gets 2nd place / Sarah is getting her Gubernatorial campaign in order.
2006- Todd gets 2nd place / Sarah wins Gubernatorial election.
2007- Todd's 4th win / Sarah just became Governor.
2008- Todd gets 4th place / Sarah looses as the Republican running mate in the presidential election.
Seek the truth for yourself: http://www.irondog.org/previous_races/champions.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_history_of_Sarah_Palin
http://www.aogcc.alaska.gov/WhoWeAre/terms.shtml
http://www.irondog.org/racers/bios/2009/22.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin
Who CARES. Chris Kelly's post was hilarious and these people are completely self-serving and deserve to be ridiculed.
Ahem... Snow Mobile.... Snow Mobile.... Snow Mobile.... SNOW MOBILE!!!!
snow mobile.
It is SNOW MACHINE and not snowmobile or snow mobile.
No offense, LoveAK, but here in the midwest, a "snow machine" is a big honkin piece of machinery used to create snow on what pass for ski slopes in Ohio. People ride snow MOBILES on white stuff generated by snow MACHINES.
Uh,loveAK,I have to agree with WindmillSlayer;here in Michigan,it's "snowMOBILE",as it is in WI,MN,SD&ND,MT,ID,CO,WY,IL,NY,CT,VT,NH,MA,ME,PA,and virtually the entire snowbelt area of the Lower 48 states. Heck,even our Canadian neighbors,at least those near the Midwest U.S. use that term. I've been around them since the late 1960's,and that's all they've ever been called;except when the term"Ski-Doo" was used in a generic sense back in the late sixties and early seventies around here. "Sled" is a common reference nowadays.
I do disagree that a trained bear could ride one-it couldn't-and current two-stroke technology makes TP's engine one of the cleanest burning and most efficient around. Today's two- and four-stroke snowmobile engines are computer-controlled,fuel-injected,and much more efficient,while producing much more power,than the engines of 40,30,and even 10 years ago. Check your facts a LOT more carefully before making such generalizations,Mr Kelly.
It's a SNOWMOBILE.
Never heard it called anything else BUT, until the Cult of Sarah arrived. As everyone else has stated, snowmachines make snow.
I live on a mountain in western NC and we are fortunate enough to have a great ski resort here. I taught skiing there for about 10 years. We had to depend on making snow as we do not get enough naturally to maintain the ski slopes for the entire season.
The machines that make the snow: snow machines
The machines that we ride on to go up the slopes: snowmobiles
End of subject, as far as I'm concerned!
Is Levi Johnston still out of work? I have a great idea! Tesoro or Conoco-Phillips should hire him as a snowmobile rider and have him compete against Todd. Then he could beat Todd and Palin would have no conflict of interest, as long as he continues to remain single and not marry her daughter Bristol or support his kid either, I guess. This would also reduce Alaskan unemployment statistics.
Or maybe they could both get endorsements from sponsors. Todd for being Scarah's husband and Levi for getting her daughter pregnant.
Good article. Since Palin, as governor, works with the petroleum giants who sponser the race, Todd should be barred from entering the Iron Dog Race due to a conflict of interest. But remember how Halliburton, Dick Cheney's former company, got all those no-bid contracts for the war in Iraq? It seems like the well-connected can be blatant about their questionable ethics because in general the media ignores it. Thanks for being an exception to the rule.
It keeps going, and going, and going...
But just like recycled email jokes, the joke that is sarah isn't all that funny anymore (despite the new material that comes along daily). If only there were a spam filter large enough for the whole annoying travesty.
This line made me laugh hysterically:
"A small price for the rest of us to pay to honor the indomitability of the human spirit and one man's ability to sit and hold on."
I don't like Sarah Palin either.
BUT
before I start criticizing Todd for spewing megatons of harmful emissions while taking part in a race I'd check the facts.
A modern day direct injection two stroke engine, the type of which powers Palin's machine, burns cleaner than most four stroke engines employed in most cars like your Audi. So your comparison falls apart. From what orifice did you pull that 150 times Chicago to San Fransisco figure from?
If you don't like her or the fact that her husband engages in competitive motorsports, just say so. Don't resort to decades old stereotypes so you can smugly look down upon her.
Hey, I bet you wouldn't dump on Danica Patrick for doing what she does now would you? But then she looks better in a two piece than Todd does in a one piece (snowsuit).
I would dump on Danica if her husband (unless it were me -- I wish!) gave taxpayer money to Motorola & Go Daddy.
He's getting money for being the gov's husband.
I'm sorry but this is just silly. This is why Alaskans don't like outsiders; you just don't get it.
Silly? Yeah, i guess us continental 48'ers and our silly laws against bribery are really weird to our northern bretheren.
You really are a scion of Mme Palin. You deflect criticism you don't have an answer for with vague personal attacks. I guess you live in the "real America" too?
If you want to talk about "vague" read your own post and comment on that. Jack river had a succinct comment."...this is just silly."
Your response sounds, and looks, like it came out of a bong.
Outsiders sure don't like the person you elected as governor. Thanks goodness she's gone back to your state, at least for a while.
This woman is a sad comment on everything Conservative.
You ought to see the way the fawn over her at that silly pink website...Team Sarah
http://www.teamsarah.org
But be careful...if they don't like what you say they BAN you from the site...nothing like having an open conversation. True conservatives.
BTW, Wells Fargo is one of the sponsors...the same Wells Fargo Bank that got bailout money?
Geesh!!!
Ok by me if our gov't gives bailout money (through Wells Fargo) to make sure SP is the Rep candidate in 2012.... It's like ensuring an 8 year Presidency with Obama...
What a "hoot" that site is - especially the term "made up of diverse members" -- am waiting for Sarah to agree to debate Ashley Judd who's challenged her to discuss the killing of wolves, environment, etc. in Alaska - Sarah fails to mention she wants to open up aerial hunting to black bear mothers and their cubs as well - nice -- guess her love of family doesn't extend outside the human race --
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