These days I try and keep my toe out of politics – particularly if it’s the politics of another country. However, when that country is the US and anybody voted into a position of power will therefore have a big influence on the rest of the world, then I’m interested.

Sarah Palin I worry about.

A “Hockey Mom” she may be, but she’s also a strong Christian, is pro-gun and anti-abortion (quite how those last two go together I don’t know).

Her Christian views means that she wants to promote creationism and, as a Mayor, even approached her library to ask how she might go about having books banned – details here from an article in Time Magazine:

[Former Wasilla mayor] Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. “She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” The librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire her for not giving “full support” to the mayor.

Mary Ellen Baker resigned from her library director job in 1999.

Palin also voted against having a bigger library built, but did raise taxes to pay for a new sports hall which even now is “in the red”.

And, although without any backing of the source of the information, there’s even a worrying list of which books she wanted to ban.

But, let’s move onto a different subject. Oil and the environment. Her husband works for BP and has stated many times that she does not believe Global Warming is man made and that “the jury is out”. No it’s not.

She has pushed to have a natural gas-pipe line from Alaska’s North Shore and even wants to drill in Alaska’s protected Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (something she mentioned in her speech last night). She collected $13,000 from lobbyists who represent oil and gas industries in her campaigns, including donations from employees of BP, Exxon Mobil, Anadarko Petroleum, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Shell.

There is a site named “Sarah Plain is Dangerous” (and from what I’ve read about her, I agree) which has more information. It’s not dribbling lunacy, but has source information on information it provides.

Besides, her daughter is called Bristol. Who in their right mind would do that?