Palin's Kuwait Gun Practice (VIDEO) & Arial Safari.

Perhaps McCain’s surprising selection of Sarah Palin as VP was motivated by the desire to appeal to a, uh, younger male demo? I thought originally it was to win over angry Hillary supporters, but after reading about Palin’s curious fascination with the brutal and controversial sport of ”Arial Safari” I’m beginning to wonder.

Here’s how it goes. You get in a plane and fly into protected wilderness. Then you shoot large animals (like wolves and bears as they attempt to run from the plane) with extremely high-powered long distance rifles, blowing your prey into pieces all over the freshly fallen snow.

Sound fun? Well Sarah Palin thinks so. Palin won a “victory” a few days ago for the small constituency that is in favor of this bloody and un-sportsmanlike sport, by funneling $400,000 of taxpayers money to a large-scale marketing campaign.

I’m not opposed to hunting, but it seems that there is usually a purpose—i.e. saving the animal to eat, or at least a trophy?? In this case the animal is left to die and that’s the whole game.

This seems in keeping with her strong affiliation with NRA and her thoroughly anti-environmental politics. Going against even the extremely conservative Bush position, she feels that science is wrong when it comes to the facts of melting sea ice, polar bear habitats and global warming.

Palin has also allegedly broken the law in order to defeat a Clean Water ballot measure this summer. It is against the law for a governor to officially advocate for or against a ballot measure. But Palin took what she calls “personal privilege” to discuss one of this year’s most contentious initiatives.

Palin also used state Department of Natural Resources resources to lobby for defeat of the Clean Water Initiative under the pretense of creating a state run website to “educate” citizens. The citizen group Alaskans for Clean Water is filing suit.

But one thing you can say. Sarah Palin knows how to handle a gun. Watch the recently circulated video which is gaining hits like mad, showing Palin at a gun practice in Kuwait.
She not only wants to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, but actually vowed to sue the EPA if it dared to declare polar bears an endangered species. It's hard for most people to understand this sort of hatred for the great mammal species struggling to hang on at the edges of this continent. (alternet.org)