Sarah Palin responds with an 8-minute video statement to the criticism that has been leveled at her after the Arizona shooting. She claims:

Our exceptional nation, so vibrant with ideas and the passionate exchange and debate of ideas, is a light to the rest of the world.

Endnote: Interesting statistic quoted in the Washington Post:

According to the Brady Campaign, an advocacy group, "more Americans were killed with guns in the 18-year period between 1979 and 1997 (651,697) than were killed in battle in all wars since 1775 (650,858)."

Fellow citizens are a bigger threat to Americans than the world is? Okay, not really comparable, but still interesting.

Antibürokratieteam presents NY Times bias.

I had, for five months, people sitting outside my home, going into my garden in San Francisco, angering neighbors, hanging their clothes from trees, building all kinds of things -- Buddhas? I don't know what they were -- couches, sofas, chairs, permanent living facilities on my front sidewalk. (...)

If they were poor and they were sleeping on my sidewalk, they would be arrested for loitering, but because they have 'Impeach Bush' across their chest, it's the First Amendment.

This is so funny. And sad! Quotes are taken from the Washington Post.  Chris Jones at Redstate considers it "the funniest thing I've ever heard." Well, I would not got that far. I might be living in the supposedly humorless Germany, but I have heard funnier things.

JustOneMinute (via TMV) comments on this as well and quotes an article in the SF Chronicle about changing attitudes on homelessness in San Francisco, America's most liberal/progressive city and Nancy Pelosi's hometown. JustOneMinute concludes: "What's the old saying - a conservative is a liberal who has been thrown up on by reality?"

Hey, Nancy Pelosi was very supportive of Cindy Sheehan, when she camped close to Bush's ranch in Crawford... Now Pelosi and Sheehan seem to have different opinions about each other's tactics (camping and funding the Iraq war). According to an August article in the SF Chronicle Sheehan announced her intention to run against Pelosi in her SF district.

ENDNOTE: To balance the above criticism of the top Democrat in Congress, I would like to give big kudos to Senator Barack Obama for not wearing the American Flag pin like all (?) other ambitious politicians.

I like his reasoning that the pin has become a substitute for "true patriotism" and that he prefers to "try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testament to my patriotism." In Europe, especially in Germany, flags are not as prominently displayed as in the US. Very very few politicians wear (tiny) pins with the flag of their country.