I'm glad Chris Rock compared Sarah Palin to Michael Vick.

[dkf]

I think what she did is WORSE than Michael Vick. She went one step farther than killing them herself. She made it legal and indeed encourages everyone else to shoot little wolf puppies in their dens and she wanted to even PAY them for it.



Vicious: Sarah Palin’s War on Wolves

by Marybeth Holleman, Anchorage, Alaska

This past June, on a cool morning in southwest Alaska, fourteen wolf pups were pulled from their dens and shot in the head, one by one, by state biologists sanctioned by Governor Sarah Palin. At a month old, these pups had opened their eyes and ears less than two weeks earlier. They had ventured from the dark safety of the den once or twice. They had grown into rolling, tumbling, play-fighting puppies for whom their only care was, when would they next get to nurse?

Under Palin, private citizens kill wolves from planes under the guise of predator control. They run the wolves to exhaustion, and then shoot them. Under Palin, for the first time in 20 years, wolves are also gunned down from state-chartered helicopters. Palin authorized $400,000 in state funds for advertising to persuade Alaskans to vote against a ballot initiative that would have curtailed aerial hunting. Her propaganda was successful; the ballot measure failed.

Under Palin, for the first time since Alaska’s statehood in 1958, it’s legal to do land-and-shoot killing of bears and their cubs. Under Palin, predator control has spread from one to five regions of Alaska, to over 60,000 square miles, more than at any time since statehood. Nearly 800 wolves have been shot from planes, and some 2,000 are killed every year by other methods. And that’s just the reported deaths. Palin even went so far last year as to put a bounty on wolves—she wanted to pay $150 for a foreleg of each dead wolf. Thanks to Friends of Animals, Alaska Wildlife Alliance, and Defenders of Wildlife, her wolf bounty was ruled illegal by the courts.

http://boards.msn.com/MSNBCboards/thread.aspx?threadid=788428

[Raine]

1. Perfect comparison

I agree!

[roguevalley]

27. they share the same mentality, vick and palin. they are both evil

to me.

[K Gardner]

2. You should put a graphic warning in your title.

[dkf]

4. Oh, now I see what you are talking about. I think the wolf is just sleeping.

They are snuggling.

Sorry about that.

[K Gardner]

7. *whew* !! Thanks for clarifying.. now maybe I can sleep without seeing what I thought I saw !

[lligrd]

3. k&r

[ColbertWatcher]

5. Chris Rock on Letterman was spot on! Thank you for posting this!

This is a clip from Youtube that starts in the middle of his segment, where he's talking about Bill Clinton.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsep_xcWOQ8

[Cirque du So-What]

6. The comparison needs to go farther than wolf hunts

considering the ordeal that the Iditarod represents to sled dogs. Could the complexion of the participants possibly have anything to do with which practice is acceptable and which is deplorable?

[TooRaLoo]

8. DAWWWWWWWWW

How on earth could anyone KILL them? I just can't fathom! :grr:

[calico1]

9. I agree with everything you stated about Palin.

But I still think Vick is a piece of shit.

[Jennicut]

10. As the owner of a black lab I want no excuses for Michael Vick

He let dogs rip each other apart and then buried their bodies in his backyard. A disgusting man. Palin is horrible to animals as well but this whole thing that Chris Rock said was so so wrong. Vick belongs in jail.

[dkf]

11. She wanted humans to hack off a Wolf's front paw as a trophy for a reward.

Both are sick.

She will be responsible for thousands and thousands more deaths than Michael Vick could ever imagine or dream of.

[Jennicut]

12. Sick people. This is needless abuse.

Aerial hunting is so not real hunting either. Lets chase around a poor wolf and then when it gets tired enough we will blast it with a shot gun.

[Lilith Velkor]

13. If he had actually done that, it would have been a bitingly funny comparison

Instead, he compared what Vick did to hunting moose. Epic fail.

[Pithlet]

14. He's a comedian. Moose sounds funnier. People associate Palin with moose.

We all know what Palin is. Anyone who's paying any attention knows she's a twisted animal torturer. Anyone who supports her would have hated the joke no matter what he said. He didn't fail. I thought the joke was hilarious, and perfectly apt. Yeah, if he'd said wolf, I think he would have hit harder politically. But, that's not his shtick. He skirts the edges politically. He's not Daily Show type comedy. He goes for the quick laughs. Nothing wrong with that. I agree with those who think people are making way too much out of this.

[depakid]

16. Curiously, comedians seem to have become one of the last bastions of critical thought

in the American mass media.

[ReadTomPaine]

19. Jesters survived in absolute monarchy... often subtly mocking the rulers and the ruling class..

It's got a long tradition.

[depakid]

22. Shakespeare's fool...

;-)

[backscatter712]

24. The wise rulers let their jesters do their thing.

The court jester was used as a defense against sycophants - when that ambitious kissass is blowing smoke up Your Majesty's ass, it's the jester who makes a performance and ridicules the sycophant's proposal and makes it a laughing stock.

Too bad our current President didn't take that to heart...

[Lilith Velkor]

18. Good point - moose is a funny word.

It was still an unfunny joke. That doesn't make me a Palin supporter, despite any insinuations you care to make.

[Pithlet]

23. I didn't insinuate any such thing!

I only said it was a shame that we had so many people slamming him for his joke, because I feared that the more vigorously people argued that what Vick did wasn't the same thing, wasn't the same thing, wasn't the same thing, the more validity it gave to the argument that what Palin does is okay, is okay, is okay, even if that's not what those making that argument intended. Yeah, Rock said Moose. But that's not all Palin is about. We all know that. She's about dragging wolf babies out of their dens. She's about wearing them down, and shooting them on the spot. I'd say that's pretty Vicklike. We can't forget that. If we all argue over this stupid joke, then people might well forget that. My point. Not calling you a Palin supporter for crying out loud. Don't distort what I say, please.

I do realize that it could be construed that he was supporting Vick, and yes, this did drag out some Vick supporters. I still say we're making too much out of his joke. I still think he meant it as a slam at Palin. That's how I took it. I say we ignore the Vick supporters, because Vick is filth and his actions are indefensible, and we aren't going to convince his supporters anyway.

[Lilith Velkor]

25. I humbly apologize for misreading you.

I know he was just making a joke, but the implied support of Vick was the very thing that made me wince rather than laugh.

Hope we're cool.

[Pithlet]

26. I can understand that.

I do think that was meant to highlight just how awful Palin is, and how hypocritical laws are, rather than defend Vick, but I can see reading it the other way, too. I'm sure it didn't help that there actually are Vick defenders. It's okay, we're cool :)

[dkf]

15. The national audience only knows about the moose killings, not the wolf cub killings.

Actually its too bad he didn't educate everyone on it.

[Lilith Velkor]

20. Yeah, but that's not his job.

Maybe a journalist will take the opening and inform people of what an irresponsible moron Gov. Palin is for encouraging people in her state to kill predators when they already have a caribou overpopulation problem.

[TexasObserver]

17. Yes, Palin is much, much worse than Vick.

Vick was killing animals he owned. She's killing animals in the wild, and encouraging others to do so, not for need, but for the "fun" of it.

Her action is as a public figure. Vick's was as a private person.

The treatment of Vick was partly because he killed a DOG and dogs are pets to most Americans, because he's black, because he's wealthy, and because he's a football star. While I don't approve dog fights, and don't approve anything Vick did, I also don't care for seeing him sent to prison for his misdeeds.

When it comes to killing animals, our nation has one view of killing the animals that are on the "special" list, like cats and dogs, and another of killing wild animals and animals raised for food.

[mystieus]

21. Chris Rock was okay but I did not like how he brought race into it.

[Pithlet]

28. Well, it is interesting.

Now, I know the scope of the offense isn't quite the same, nor is his fame quite as large. But that ex baseball player who went on to appear on Sex and the City who beat his ex girlfriend's cat to death certainly doesn't seem to be getting vilified nearly as badly in the press as I think he should be. I just have a feeling that if he were black, we'd be hearing a whole lot more about it. I don't have a way to prove it. Just a feeling I have. I do sometimes wonder if Vick got slammed as bad as he did because of his race. Now, don't get me wrong. I don't want to seem like I'm defending him, or that I think he should have got less time in jail, or that I'd feel less about what he did if he were white. I wouldn't, of course. But, there were times when I thought, "enough about Vick". I thought the press coverage was over the top. Sometimes, race is an issue. I think Palin gets a pass because she's white. I don't have a doubt about that. If it were black people going up there and chasing those poor wolves and making those babies little orphans? I don't know if they'd be getting a pass. If it were Obama getting laws passed that made such a thing legal? Oh, boy... I think THAT is the gist of the commentary Chris Rock is making. That is what the joke is about. At any rate, I don't even think it's meant to be taken that seriously.