Are Christian Scientists either?

I've written before about Rita Swan of Children's Healthcare is a Legal Duty (CHILD) and the wonderful work they do, trying to end faith healing practices and religious exemptions in America. (Clearly, her passions are right up my alley.)

During my days in internet Siberia, she sent me a link to her recent Op-Ed on a Christin Science-created religious exemption in the upcoming health bill from the Senate HELP Committee. Here's the op-ed in full, with my comments following after.

Does one bizarre health care policy merit another?

By Rita Swan

Tucked into the health care reform bill passed by Sen. Harkin’s Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee is a mandate that insurers reimburse for “religious or spiritual health care” that is classified as a deductible medical care expense by the Internal Revenue Service. See S.1679, Section 3103(a)(1)(D).

The House Energy and Commerce Committee on which Congressman Bruce Braley sits has added a similar measure to the House health care reform bill. See Section 125 of HR3200.

The Internal Revenue Service allows bills sent by Christian Science practitioners for their prayers to be deducted from income tax as a medical care expense. The agency has declined requests to provide evidence that Christian Science heals disease.

Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy directed church practitioners to “make their charges for treatment equal to those of reputable physicians in their respective localities.” (First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 237) These treatments consist only of prayer.

These practitioners set their own rates, but sometimes their charges are indeed comparable to medical bills. In 1989, Christian Science healer Mario Tosto charged parents $446 for two days of prayer-treatment for Ian Lundman, an 11-year-old Minnesota boy with diabetes.

The boy died.

In Michigan, an insurance company balked at paying a Christian Science practitioner’s bill of $1,775 for her prayers on top of medical bills for the patient. The couple sued the company, which then settled out of court. Stephenson v. State Farm, 48th District Court, as reported in Michigan Trial Lawyers Association newsletter, October 1986.

The IRS has an extremely broad definition of deductible medical care. Any service primarily intended to affect “some structure or function of the body” is medical care. The “experience, qualification, or title of the person rendering services” is irrelevant.

Whether anyone besides the person paying for the service thinks it is medical is irrelevant. Bills incurred for anyone’s prayers or healing rituals are deductible medical care. (For verification, see these sources: IR Ruling 55-261, 1955-1 C.B. 307, IR Ruling 63-91, 1963-1 C.B. 54, and Fischer v. Commissioner, 50 T.C. 164, 194 (1968)).

Fortunately, most religions do not send bills for their prayers. And the IRS’s bizarre, loosey-goosey policy may not have cost the public a lot of money to date because taxpayers can deduct only medical care bills that are higher than 7.5 percent of their adjusted gross income and then only a percentage according to their tax bracket.

If, however, the federal government forces the insurance industry to pay for prayer, a new cottage industry will likely spring up and Christian Science practitioners will likely raise their prices.

Even more serious is that the Christian Science church will use the federal law as another argument that Christian Science “treatment” should be a legal substitute for medical care of sick children.

There will be more laws like West Virginia’s religious defense to fatal neglect of a child when parents withhold medical care and instead rely on prayer-treatment “if fees and expenses incurred in connection with such treatment are permitted to be deducted from taxable income as ‘medical expenses’ pursuant to regulations or rules promulgated by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. (West Virginia Code 61-8D-4a(b)).

Iowa’s religious defense to felony child endangerment and manslaughter at Iowa Code 726.6(d) has been justified on similar grounds.

The government should not be forcing anyone to pay for prayer. We urge Congress to remove all provisions in the health care reform bills that require insurers to reimburse for prayer or any other “health care” that is not evidence-based.

Rita Swan is president of Sioux City-based Children’s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty (CHILD, Inc.), a non-profit national membership organization established to protect children from abusive religious and cultural practices, especially religion-based medical neglect. For more information, visit www.childrenshealthcare.org.

If only we'd been Christian Scientists, instead of non-denominational cult members, I could have made money off all that faith healing I was giving away for free! PZ over at Pharyngula also wrote about Christian Scientist earlier this month.

Now I'm going to ask each of you to help. Yes of course I've drafted a new petition to Congress and the President for you to sign. You'll notice once there that you can Twit, Digg, Facebook or otherwise spread the word. Please do. This is one of the most important things I've asked of you. If this language sneaks its way through the final bill, it will make repealing religious exemption laws in various states much, much harder. This is a really important battle in the war for children's rights to health and safety.

Spread the word. Blog about this. Submit op-eds to your own papers, and when they get published, link them here. Change your Facebook status to a link for this petition and leave it that way, or Tweet this petition a couple times a day. I know information is very fast paced, and it can be easy to lose sight of one issue amongst the many, but I am asking you (nicely, and from the bottom of my heart) to keep this issue in your focus and on your mind. Go be little activists, please. Don't assume that jut because a family member, friend, or coworker is a theist they won't be interested in signing these. My mother is still a devout Christian (I think she's a Methodist at the moment) and my sister is a fundie evangelical: They both sign all my child protection petitions.

So, there's your first ATAT Homework assignment. Sign the petition, and if you're a verbally gifted type (or even just good at basic communication) write an op-ed or a blog post. Send them back here. Or just add a link to this petition as the closing line of your email. Just don't let this issue fade from sight among all the news stories cropping up each day. Keep this important and keep it promoted and maybe we can stop this train wreck before it happens.


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"No one you knew then is still alive. You know that, don't you?"
"If I can't do what I want, I'll at least do what I can."
- from "Mirror Dance" by Lois McMaster Bujold

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Intervention and Parents Rights

I've been listening to old episodes of the Non-Prophets Radio podcast. (If you're not listening yet, it's your own fault. I've linked and embedded tons of Atheist Experience videos. Okay, okay, I forgive you. Go subscribe to the feed now and let us never speak of this unpleasantness again.)

The issue of intervention keeps coming up. When does the government, or we the people, or the US, intervene in how a family raises its children or how another nation treats its citizens? One of the four hosts, Shilling, (no longer on - I told you, these were archives) essentially takes a non-interventionist stance the majority of the time. He suggests the long-range approach of educating a culture, and essentially waiting things out for self-correction. He cites the decrease in racism and homophobia in younger generations as an example of this working in practice. And I have to say I agree with him up to that point.

Because I think the long-range plan is important and I do think it will work. I think history in a large sense shows that, our culture at least, is getting progressively more liberal and egalitarian. Neato. Swell. But in the meantime, if we use only the non-interventionist long-range approach, kids aren't getting vaccinated. Unassisted childbirth is killing mothers and babies.* Honor killings are happening in the United States. Parents treat their kids with unproven "natural" remedies rather than with FDA approved medicines. A little boy gets named Adolf Hitler (and his sister is named Aryan Nation.)

When are we gonna stop talking about parents rights and start talking about kids rights? I think part of the problem with the debate is that we act as if the two interested parties were the parents and the government. And of course, we object to the idea of a government raising its children - that falls under the domain of parenting. But the real nature of the issue is between the rights of the parents and the rights of the children. The government acts as attorney on behalf of the child, not as a direct antagonist to the parent. I get that now.

I was raised to fear HRS, so when they came to do an investigation, I lied. When my friend's mother told my mom I wanted to live with them, my mom told me she was playing arm chair psychologist, and that it was a common problem among psych students. That it didn't mean anything (like trying to get hit by a car when I was six didn't mean anything; or saying I needed therapy or I was gonna kill myself at 14 didn't mean anything; or saying that I had an eating disorder and that I was going to die if I didn't get help at 25 didn't mean anything).

I have to intervene for the kids right now. Fuck the long-range-only plan. Well-meaning high-minded secular and moderate religious people who were trying not to step on anyone's toes or interfere with anyone's parental rights let me get beaten, brainwashed, and Bible-fed. I didn't get to form my own personality and identity as a human. I was raised in a cult, like being a borg or a clone. I'm having to figure this shit out (who I am, what I value, what my own personality is) now and I'm 26 and I have a 4-year-old kid. It's kind of terrifying sometimes to realize how little I know and how far behind I am. I got cheated out of a childhood and it's seriously affecting my adulthood. And now I find out there's no afterlife, so this is the only shot I'm ever gonna get.

We can't sit by and let other kids have their psyches destroyed. I can't really express enough just how crazy I am and how uncomfortable the inside of my brain is. I have a really high IQ. (I don't remember the number; it was over ten years ago. I was in Mensa but we quit paying dues.) If I'd been raised in a healthy home, I'd probably be a doctor or a lawyer or a civil rights activist or married. Not unemployed and semi-agoraphobic. This isn't a pity party. I'm good at getting through shit - I have a lot of practice. (And hey, unemployment checks are the bomb. I consider that my salary for writing on my book.)

It's just that I can't not care. I can't pretend kids aren't dying from medical negligence homicide (AKA "prayer"). I know there's this huge Quiverfull generation coming up now, and a lot of those kids are growing up in abusive homes; they're learning misogyny and rigid gender roles; and they're not getting a proper education. Let's stop that. Let's stop the people who do that. I don't want go so far as making people get a license to have a kid. I get why we can't do that (examples: majority Christian licensing board = no atheists getting baby licenses; eugenics). But we have to get these religious exemption laws off the books. We have to stop acting like it's okay for people to pray, when we know that prayer prevents positive action. We need to recognize and vocalize that faith is not a virtue. Faith is a vice.





* Both those stories are in Australia. The homebirth movement in Australia is largely due to my grandmother (and here)and Nancy Campbell. (On Nancy's Facebook she asks for money for a broken arm; yet she rolls with faith healers.)

** I have no idea what language the image captions are in. But it translates to: kids have a right to food, clean water, an education, passport or national identity (refugees), family, I think happiness?, exercise/entertainment, and to be clean; and a right to not be amputated, armed, enslaved, or abused. I think it speaks across culture and language - don't you?

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Sarah Palin: A Literary Critique

Sarah Palin's leaving Alaska for a "higher calling". Here for your snarking pleasure, I give you her farewell speech - with commentary.

What an absolutely beautiful day it is, and it is my honor to speak to all Alaskans, to our Alaskan family this last time as your governor.

The honor part was cool, but actually being your Governor? That part sucked.

And it is always great to be in Fairbanks.

Check. Fairbanks = always great.

The rugged rugged hardy people that live up here and some of the most patriotic people whom you will ever know live here, and one thing that you are known for is your steadfast support of our military community up here and I thank you for that and thank you United States military for protecting the greatest nation on Earth.

Anyone else feel like they just did wind sprints reading that? Oh, wait, what's that? You're not reading out loud in your best Tina Fey impersonation voice? *ahem* I do love the irony of Alaska being the most patriotic state (since even Texas Gov. Rick Perry had to admit he didn't really, actually want to secede from the Union).

Together we stand.

Got it - we're all standing here. No sitters welcome! Real Americans stand.

And getting up here I say it is the best road trip in America soaring through nature’s finest show.

Is it a flying roadtrip? Hey! I thought we were supposed to be standing! That's a decidely stationary position, which doesn't allow for road trips or soaring.

Denali, the great one, soaring under the midnight sun. And then the extremes. In the winter time it’s the frozen road that is competing with the view of ice fogged frigid beauty, the cold though, doesn’t it split the Cheechakos from the Sourdoughs?

All I'm going to say is, if it's that cold why did Palin try to reject $288 million in stimulus money for heating?

And then in the summertime such extreme summertime about a hundred and fifty degrees hotter than just some months ago, than just some months from now, with fireweed blooming along the frost heaves and merciless rivers that are rushing and carving and reminding us that here, Mother Nature wins.

Mother Nature: 1 - Alaska pipeline: 0

It is as throughout all Alaska that big wild good life teeming along the road that is north to the future.

So are we the wild life along the road, on the road trip, or soaring under the midnight sun?
Plus, "north to the future"?

That is what we get to see every day. Now what the rest of America gets to see along with us is in this last frontier there is hope and opportunity and there is country pride.

Sometimes quaintly referred to as "national" pride.

And it is our men and women in uniform securing it, and we are facing tough challenges in America with some seeming to just be Hell bent maybe on tearing down our nation, perpetuating some pessimism, and suggesting American apologetics, suggesting perhaps that our best days were yesterdays.

*pant, pant* Okay. When she says "our men and women in uniform" is she suggesting that the federal military forces from or stationed in Alaska are securing "hope, opportunity and country pride"? Because mostly I just thought they did military-type stuff.

But as other people have asked, “How can that pessimism be, when proof of our greatness, our pride today is that we produce the great proud volunteers who sacrifice everything for country?”

So the "proof of our greatness" and the source of our pride is that people volunteer to die for us? So does this prove the greatness of Jim Jones or the Taliban?

Now this week alone, Sean Parnell and I we’re on the, um, on Ft. Rich the base there, the army chapel, and we heard the last roll call, and the sounding of Taps for three very brave, very young Alaskan soldiers who just gave their all for all of us. Together we do stand with gratitude for our troops who protect all of our cherished freedoms, including our freedom of speech which, par for the course, I’m going to exercise.

She's shameless. She tells us about three young Alaskans who have died, then uses their deaths as a means of taking a jab at the media and being all "mavericky". She didn't even mention the names or unit of the soldiers.

And first, some straight talk for some,

See? I'm still campaigning!

...just some in the media because another right protected for all of us is freedom of the press, and you all have such important jobs reporting facts and informing the electorate, and exerting power to influence.

What the (mainstream) media is supposed to do is intentionally avoid using power to influence. But since she's a FOX News fan, she might not be aware of that.

You represent what could and should be a respected honest profession that could and should be the cornerstone of our democracy.

"I hate you - don't leave me!"

Democracy depends on you, and that is why, that’s why our troops are willing to die for you.

Now, I have a few friends who are active duty, reserves, or veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. They're great guys (away from a beer funnel) but I'm pretty sure they signed up to protect America, democracy, our freedoms, and college - not necessarily to die for Joe Scarborough or Bill O'Reilly. I could be wrong though - so any vets or service members wanna set me straight, please do!

So, how ’bout in honor of the American soldier, ya quite makin’ things up.

Sarah Palin's Conservative Politics 101:

• Love troops.
• Hate media.
• Use your patriotism to bludgeon fellow citizens.

And don’t underestimate the wisdom of the people, and one other thing for the media, our new governor has a very nice family too, so leave his kids alone.

Or I'll go all Dave Letterman on you!

OK, today is a beautiful day and today as we swear in Sean Parnell, no one will be happier than I to witness by God’s grace Alaskans with strength of character advancing our beloved state.

Translation: No one will be happier than I that I got to quit this lousy job midstream

Sean has that. Craig Campbell has that. I remember on that December day, we took the oath to uphold our state constitution, and it was written right here in Fairbanks by very wise pioneers. We shared the vision for government that they ground in that document.

Except the part about finishing my term as governor.

Our founders wrote “all political power is inherent in the people. All government originates with the people. It’s founded upon their will only and it’s instituted for the good of the people as a whole.” Their remarkably succinct words guided us in all of our efforts in serving you and putting you first, and we have done our best to fulfill promises that I made on Alaska Day, 2005, when I first asked for the honor of serving you.

Before I dropped you like a bad habit.

Remember then, our state so desired and so deserved ethics reform. We promised it, and now it is the law.

Having laws is just as good as having governing officials who follow them, don't you think?

Ironically, it needs additional reform to stop blatant abuse from partisan operatives, and I hope the lawmakers will continue that reform.

Ethics are for everyone ELSE.

We promised that you would finally see a fair return on your Alaskan owned natural resources so we build a new oil and gas appraisal system, an is an equitable formula to usher in a new era of competition and transparency and protection for Alaskans and the producers. ACES incentivizes new exploration and it’s the exploration that is our future. It opens up oil basins and it ensures that the people will never be taken advantage of again.

Like they were taken advantage of by the McCain campaign.

Don’t forget Alaskans you are the resource owners per our constitution and that’s why for instance last year when oil prices soared and state coffers swelled, but you were smacked with high energy prices, we sent you the energy rebate. See, it’s your money and I’ve always believed that you know how to better spend it than government can spend it. Don’t forget Alaskans you are the resource owners per our constitution and that’s why for instance last year when oil prices soared and state coffers swelled, but you were smacked with high energy prices, we sent you the energy rebate. See, it’s your money and I’ve always believed that you know how to better spend it than government can spend it

"Rebates" are allowed - it's only "stimulus packages" that can't be used.

I promised that we would protect this beautiful environment while safely and ethically developing resources, and we did. We built the Petroleum Oversight Office and a sub-cabinet to study climate conditions.

Of course, Palin thinks the earth is only 6,000 years old, so environmental concerns might be beyond her grasp.

And I promised I’d govern with fiscal restraint, so to not immorally burden future generations.

Except, of course, the financial shambles she left for Alaska's current generation.

And we did…we slowed the rate of government growth and I vetoed hundreds of millions of dollars of excess and with lawmakers we saved billions for the future.

Hey GOP 2012! Look, I rejected the stimulus! I have offered my state's future on the alter of future political success.

I promised that we’d lead the charge to forward funding education, and hold schools accountable, and improve opportunities for special needs students and elevate vo-tech training and we paid down pension debt.

I see a list of promises made to kids, and one fulfilled to the elderly. The children are our future!

I promised that we would manage our fish and wildlife for abundance, and that we would defend the constitution, and we have, though outside special interest groups they still just don’t get it on this one. Let me tell you, Alaskans really need to stick together on this with new leadership in this area especially, encouraging new leadership… got to stiffen your spine to do what’s right for Alaska when the pressure mounts, because you’re going to see anti-hunting, anti-second amendment circuses from Hollywood and here’s how they do it. They use these delicate, tiny, very talented celebrity starlets, they use Alaska as a fundraising tool for their anti-second amendment causes.

Guess she's still pissed about Ashley Judd's anti-aerial-wolfing ad. Listen, I know (and am related to) plenty of 2nd Amendment advocates. Not one them equates shooting wolves from an airplane with the right to bear arms in self-protection.

Stand strong, and remind them patriots will protect our guaranteed, individual right to bear arms, and by the way, Hollywood needs to know, we eat, therefore we hunt.

Then maybe you ought to alter your diet to include less NRA-laced items? And by the way, Hollywood? Loves guns.

I promised energy solutions and we have, we have a plan calling for 50% of our electricity generated by renewable resources and we can now insist that those who hold the leases to develop our resources that they do so now on Alaska’s terms.

I love how she keeps posing as if she's (still) in a position of authority. "On Alaska's terms".

So now finally after decades of just talk, finally we’re seeing oil and gas drilling up there at Point Thompson. And I promised that we would get a natural gas pipeline underway and we did. Since I was a little kid growing up here, I remember the discussions, especially the political discussions just talking about and hoping for and dreaming of commercializing our clean, abundant, needed natural gas.

Ah, when I was a little, I used to dream of artic drilling, and of removing the polar bear from the endangered species list. Then my mother would hug me and she would sing, "Drill, baby, drill."

Our gas line inducement act, AGIA, that was the game-changer and this is thanks to our outstanding gas line team, and the legislature adopting this law, 58-1. They knew, they know AGIA is the vehicle to drive this monumental energy project and bring everyone to the table, this bipartisan victory, it came from Alaskans working together with free market private sector principles, and now we are on the road to the largest private-sector energy project in the history of America. It is for Alaska’s future, it is for America’s energy independence and it will make us a more peaceful, prosperous and secure nation.

Because we all know how peaceful, prosperous and secure the oil-drilling nations of the Middle East are.

What I promised, we accomplished.

Accept when I promised to serve out my term. That one didn't count.

“We” meaning state staff, amazing commissioners, great staff assisting them, and conscientious Alaskans outside the bureaucracy - Tom Van Flein, and Meg Stapleton and Kristan Cole, so many others, many volunteers who just stepped up to the challenge as good Alaskans, but nothing, nothing could have succeeded without my right-hand man Kris Perry. She is the sharpest, boldest, hardest-working partner. Kris is my right-hand man and much success is due to Kris.

Poor Kris. This is probably the nicest thing Palin has ever said about her - that she makes an excellent man, of the right-hand variety.

So much success, and Alaska there is much good in store further down the road,

Once I'm out of office

but to reach it we must value and live the optimistic pioneering spirit that made this state proud and free, and we can resist enslavement to big central government that crushes hope and opportunity. Be wary of accepting government largess.

Except the part where Alaskan

It doesn’t come free and often, accepting it takes away everything that is free, melting into Washington’s powerful “care-taking” arms will just suck incentive to work hard and chart our own course right out of us, and that not only contributes to an unstable economy and dizzying national debt, but it does make us less free.

For every $1 Alaskans pay in federal taxes, the State of Alaska gets back $1.84 in federal spending - the highest in the nation. Alaska is deemed a "beneficiary state", meaning it could not survive without the federal government. Kind of makes her seem more whiny and ungrateful, and less mavericky, doesn't it?

I resisted the stimulus package. I resisted the stimulus package and we have championed earmark reform, slashing earmark requests by 85% to break the cycle of dependency on a stifling, unsustainable federal agenda, and other states should follow this for their and for America’s stability.

We need a common definition of "earmark". She (and McCain campaign) uses it to suggest "pork barrel" spending, but plenty of good projects get picked up as riders on other bills. Plus? Alaska got more earmarks than anyone else in 2008, so cutting back wasn't as hard as it might have been.

We don’t have to feel that we must beg an allowance from Washington, except to beg the allowance to be self-determined. See, to be self-sufficient, Alaska must be allowed to develop - to drill and build and climb, to fulfill statehood’s promise. At statehood we knew this. At statehood we knew this, that we are responsible for ourselves and our families and our future, and fifty years later, please let’s not start believing that government is the answer.

See: Beneficiary State. The federal government has *always* been the answer for Alaska - that's why they joined the Union in the first place.

It can’t make you happy or healthy or wealthy or wise. What can? It is the wisdom of the people and our families and our small businesses, and industrious individuals, and it is God’s grace, helping those who help themselves, and then this allows that very generous voluntary hand up that we’re known for, enthusiastically providing those who need it.

Check it: God's grace means keeping rich white people rich and white, and occasionally offering a "voluntary hand up" (as opposed to those enforced ones, when someone MAKES you move into a safer neighborhood, or FORCES you to take a free car).

Alaskans will remember that years ago, remember we sported the old bumper sticker that said, “Alaska. We Don’t Give a Darn How They Do It Outside?” Do you remember that? I remember that, and remember it was because we would be different.

Surely excluding others is the ultimate expression of patriotism, right?

We’d roll up our sleeves, and we would diligently sow and reap, and we can still do this to carve wealth out of the wilderness and make our living on the water, with strong hands and innovative minds, now with smarter technology. It is what our first people and our parents did. It worked, because they worked.

They worked, they weren't quitters. Not like Sarah.

We must be prudent and persistent and press for the people’s right to responsibly develop God-given resources for the maximum benefit of the people. And we have come so far in just 50 years. We’re no longer a frontier outpost on the periphery of the world’s greatest nation. Now, as a contributor and a securer of America, we can attain our destiny in the promise of our motto “North to the Future.”

Securer?

See, the pressing issue of our time, it’s energy independence, because there is an inherent link between energy and security, and energy and prosperity. Alaska will lead with energy, we will prove you can be both pro-development and pro-environment, because no one loves their clean air and their land and their wildlife and their water more than an Alaskan. We will protect it.

I find the best place to show my love of clean air and wildlife is from a helicopter, with a high-powered assault rifle. Can't you just see Mother Nature smile?

Yes, America must look north to the future for security, for energy independence, for our strategic location on the globe. Alaska is the gate-keeper of the continent.

Clearly, she's played Risk.

So, we are here today at a changing of the guard. Now, people who know me, and they know how much I love this state, some still are choosing not to hear why I made the decision to chart a new course to advance the state.

Or rather, some are still choosing to cry "bull!" at the reasons she's

And it should be so obvious to you. (indicating heckler) It is because I love Alaska this much, sir (at heckler) that I feel it is my duty to avoid the unproductive, typical, politics as usual, lame duck session in one’s last year in office.

By this logic, all elected officials should quit mid-term. At least they won't be lame ducks!

How does that benefit you? No, with this decision now, I will be able to fight even harder for you, for what is right, for truth. And I have never felt like you need a title to do that.

Then what did she need the title for? Certainly not to improve Alaska's state finances.

So let’s all enjoy the ride, and I thank you Alaska, and God bless Alaska and God bless America.

I'll give Sarah Palin this - I don't think she's pandering. She really, really buys the Buy-bull. And hey, check out the ethics you learn from that system!

So, as we all move forward together, let’s vow to keep championing Alaska, to advocate responsible development, and smaller government, and freedom, and when I took the oath to serve you, I promised…remember I promised to steadfastly and doggedly guard the interests of this great state like that grizzly guards her cubs, as a mother naturally guards her own.

Do grizzlies often abandon their cubs midwinter? Because if so, she's great at keeping her promises. And let's not forget that part of Sarah's plan for smaller government was requiring rape victims to pay the cost of their own DNA testing (in violation of the Violence Against Women Act introduced by now-Vice President Joe Biden.)

And I will keep that vow wherever the road may lead.

As long as it doesn't lead to Juno.

Todd and I, and Track, Bristol, Tripp, Willow, Piper, Trig…I think I got ‘em all. We will forever be so grateful for the honor of our lifetime to have served you.

"Lifetime" translates to: 30 months in governor's office.

Our whole big diverse full and fun family, we all thank you and I am very very blessed to have had their support all along, for Todd’s support.

Diverse? I realize that Todd Palin has Eskimo heritage. But Alaska isn't exactly known for its diversity.

I am thankful too. I have been blessed to have been raised in this last frontier. Thank you for our home, Mom and Dad, because in Alaska it is not an easy living, but it is a good living, and here it is impossible to lose your way. Wherever the road may lead you, we have that steadying great north star to guide us home.

Unless of course you get caught outside during the summer; then the sun shines too bright to see the stars.

I realize making fun of Sarah Palin is easy; that's part of what's so doggone goshdarn donchaknow fun about it! And please folks, when 2012 comes around, don't forget this video.

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