palin; boy scouts

When news broke of Palin's preggo daughter a few days ago, I first rolled my eyes. I figured news would overblow it, giving the GOP a legitimate claim that the media is acting unfairly. It'd be distracting and annoying and irrelevant to her ability to be VP (especially compared to the 13 other things that have come out in the past week). But I still haven't heard a good answer to this question:

Should a parent willingly allow her pregnant daughter to be subjected to this kind of national shame?

It's just seems kinda icky. Lots of candidates turn down VP offers to protect their families. Palin seems intensely likable as a person, even if I think she could turn out to be the worst VP pick in several years, but this a seems like a bit of a character ding. Add the shotgun wedding (which seems unavoidably politically motivated) and her stupid stupid opposition to sex-ed classes.. and suddenly its not so irrelevant.

Anyway... she's solid and energizing on stage.. so there's that.

Concerning Thai politics:

Things seem to be sort of settling down here. Or maybe not. We sipped mochas across the street from the protest headquarters yesterday, and the whole thing just seemed a little funny. It's very real, and someone did die the other night, and there are a series of bounties out which I don't understand, and its the kind of uproar that led to a coup in 2006. But the headquarters looked like some sort of treehouse club — a bunch of young Thais sitting around behind a few weak lines of barbed wire looking angry listing to amplified propaganda with rags on their heads while tourists wandered by looking for coffee. I was more upset to learn today I couldn't buy beer from 7-11 until 5 pm. Yesterday's affair was very pleasant:


Also saw riot police protecting something the other night. I tried to snap a picture, but forgot about the flash and failed.. miserably:




Anyway.. we're having fun: