I would like to give thanks this season for two things: One is knowing that Sarah Palin still holds “the same values and convictions” today (that apparently she held yesterday). Number two is the awareness that Slate Video was put on this Net to entertain us all with the mindless babbling of this idiot some call guvna… (pronounced the same, but spelled ‘gowno’ in Polish for a similar meaning).

Here is the original interview with Sarah Palin after she pardoned a turkey. (WARNING: If you don’t want to know where your Thanksgiving bird comes from, just skip to the second video).

And here are the deleted scenes:

My firm belief is that bloggers, assuming they remain within the reasonable limits of the law, should have the same First Amendment rights as mainstream journalists in the local and national press corps. This should also hold true in other countries, where perhaps the statutes have different names, but the need to facilitate open communication and dialogue still exists. The subject of bloggers and what legal rights are afforded them, comes up more and more in the mainstream discussion. Just last week, during the debate over the hack of Sarah Palin’s email, Bill O’Reilly of FOX News called for the arrest of the owners of WikiLeaks, for publishing the records of Palin’s email. As you can see below, even his own anchor, Megyn Kelly (known more for her short skirts than her reporting), disagrees with his imbecile notion that the WikiLeaks team should be “hauled away in cuffs.” Quite obviously, reporting news (assuming the reporter had no part in illegally obtaining the news), is protected under the First Amendment and O’Reilly embarrasses himself yet again by disagreeing with this fact (you can always tell when he’s on the losing side of an argument, because magically he’s out of time, when he should be responding and admitting he is wrong). Oh, and to boot, his site was hacked in retaliation for these comments. Apparently he thinks he’s smart or something… Does he not want protection from the law for all of the slanderous remarks he makes on his TV and radio shows?

John Timmer, of Ars Technica, has written a nice little piece discussing a couple of examples where bloggers have been prosecuted (or not) in various countries including Singapore, Malaysia and Morocco. The comments section to this article is also of interest, because the subject of scrutinizing a monarchy comes into play in Morocco. While Timmer discusses the court actions involved in these cases, there are a multitude of bloggers coming under greater scrutiny in other countries such as China and Russia where the bloggers never see the inside of a courtroom, or even the inside of a jail cell, as with this Russian blogger we reported on recently. The cops just shot him in the head while handcuffed in the back of the police car. Considering the growing trend of mainstream journalists blogging more, as well as bloggers being sourced where information which might not normally be available to the press, it would be wonderful if the mainstream media put more resources into reporting this subject of utmost importance to their future, as well as ours.

The next possible Idiot-in-Chief, Sarah Palin, has apparently been using her Yahoo! email account for official Alaska business. This was first revealed months ago, but only just resurfaced because she got caught! Hackers have infiltrated the account (big surprise), revealed some of its contents and now the Secret Service is asking the Associated Press for copies of the records (too convoluted to explain, just go here if you care that much).

Of course this explains how she became the Republican Vice Presidential Nominee! Everyone knows how much spam Yahoo’s filters don’t catch, well apparently Palin clicked on the email entitled, “Be McCain’s VP for a day” hoping it would give her a boost of sexual prowess. Palin was just looking for a hunting partner, but didn’t even blink when McCain asked her to be his soul-mate instead. This now makes sense why everyone was surprised when Palin was picked as McCain’s running mate, but the folks over at Yahoo! were too busy saying no to the merger with Microsoft to bother saying no to this sacrilegious partnership. Well, chalk up another win for Google: On the recommendation of Karl Rove, infamous for using unofficial email accounts for official business, Palin is now using Palinisafox@GMail.com.

Oh, by the way, here are a couple of screen shots of Palin’s actual Yahoo! email account thanks to Duncun.

UPDATE – Sunday evening – Apparently, because the 20-year old college student knew enough to be dangerous, but not enough not to get caught, his identity has been revealed and he has been arrested. You can read more on the technical details of this case here.

Either the producers at MSNBC were trying to sabotage Peggy Noonan, or she’s just another talking head to forget what it is that microphones do; they record what you say! Noonan has now issued an apology for her statement that the Palin pick is “political bullshit” and, as 23/6 reported, with the apology she’s now in the clear: “Whew. Crisis averted. Like the rest of them, Peggy knows why she’s hired, and she promises not to tell the truth (on a live mic) anymore.”

Need I say more? Here’s to hoping Katie Couric and the rest of those slackers pick up on this one, along with the rest of the cartoon characters they report on…