Will the crosshairs be over you next?

Sarah Palin, always the victim, is now claiming she has been slapped with a "blood libel." She claims that the "mainstream media" is accusing her of "accessory to murder" in the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and others. She claims her comments had "no connection" to the shooter and any connection between her violent imagery and the shootings is "impossible." It's all a "blood libel" by her opponents to "shut her up."

Look, I understand why Sarah Palin uses tough-guy violent imagery in her campaigns. She's a woman, and she's afraid that some people will think she's not tough. Especially within her constituency where gun laws, hunting and national defense are outright obsessions.

But how can you say that the use of violent imagery and rhetoric had zero influence on the shooting? I could agree if you said it probably didn't, you could go so far as to say it almost certainly didn't. But zero? That's impossible to prove.

Violent imagery has been used in politics forever. States in question are "battleground" states. Campaigns are often called "fights." But using actual crosshairs? Saying things like "Don't retreat. Reload?" Those probably go a little bit farther than she intended when trying to sound tough. They could be confused by some people to mean "if we can't beat them at the polls, don't let that stop you." It's probably harmless. But why take the chance?

Nobody is trying to shut Sarah Palin up. Again, she's misinterpreting the First Amendment that protects her freedom of speech. She thinks it protects her from criticism.

No rational person thinks she should be stopped from saying whatever she wants. Nobody is saying she shouldn't be able to use whatever imagery she wants to create whatever public persona she desires. Short of saying "Please go out and kill anyone that disagrees with me," she can say whatever she wants. The First Amendment actually does protect that.

But in her over-the-top violent imagery and her absolute unwillingness to back down from it one bit, she's displaying the worst possible character trait for someone in her profession. Poor judgment. Judgment is all we elect people for. It's the only real qualification a politician can have. And this woman continues to show poor judgment over and over and over again.

Congrats to Change100

I always thought that Change100 had the best online/blogger name of all time.

Now she also has the 2011 PCA Ladies Event Championship!

Congrats!

Craziness

Things are absolutely crazy here lately. As I predicted my two projects are coming to a head at the same time, so before the end of the month I have to commission projects in Kalamazoo Michigan and Conway Arkansas. I'll be spending a week in Michigan for sure, hopefully I can get Arkansas done much quicker because I have remote access and can get some stuff done from here.

I'm definitely not complaining. Being busy is sure better than being unemployed. I'm really getting a good handle on this product and I'm the first one from the group that got hired when I did so I'm getting the bulk of the work while the others catch up. The only reason I'm ahead is I was willing to put myself out there. When they asked for volunteers to go on that first trip everyone else ducked their heads and I said "I'll go." The best way to learn this stuff is to do it, and even though I was almost entirely clueless, I jumped in with both feet. Luckily I didn't sink.

This work gives me a pretty good feeling actually. Before I was in an industry that I didn't especially like, mostly because it always felt like it was headed straight down the toilet. The new job is actually helping places manage their energy better, mostly by monitoring their electricity usage. It's a growth industry, and it's actually green.

Hurray for me. Now back to work. I'm supposed to be working remotely on a server in Arkansas, but I got cut off and the guy who needs to reconnect me had to run an errand. So I thought I'd pop a quick post to let everyone know where I went.