Hackers and the Prodigal Son

HACKERS
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Ok Alaska Joe. I'm back :-) [It was nice to know you missed me!]

My absence had nothing to do with politicians suddenly starting to behave. It was a personal issue. Just about the time of my last post I was rather viciously attacked by a hacker. He had pulled my email out of the ether (or more likely out of his own membership list ... he has several sites on the 'Net and I was, no: I AM, a member. I'll have to drop by one of these days. But by luck of the draw as far as I know, he pulled my email address, hacked the machine and stole the most recent couple months of email. That was critical professional correspondence (that was mixed in with the jokes and the anecdotes people used to send me before I stopped emailing them back). Then a message popped up on my computer telling me I should go here. (Only that time it was a live link to where I'm fairly sure was one of his sites and I think I know which one. He had to grab something there apparently because when we left it was like an antelope on speed. We shot and boomeranged around the 'Net so fast it would ... well, in fact it did, make my head spin! And then we ended back up on his site anyway (I don't think he realized that I realized that I knew where we were even with the dizzying trip to disorient me). We went from the site to what "felt" like an empty field with a very minimal Paypal station at one end and the company that the Hacker used to sell me "verbal books"! Just try to convince someone you didn't receive the product when the Paypal receipt ways "oral ebooks" or whatever! :-D He said he'd sell it to me for $70 and I could go home.

It was worth vastly more than that in many ways, so I said ok. But then instead of getting the product (I didn't really figure this guy was going to read me a book :-) ... I got another bill for $70. We continued this game, he raised it to bigger chunks than $70. When we got to $1,350 I quit. I couldn't possibly afford that ... but there was irreplaceable professional communications in there that I simply HAD to protect. But through a process of scribbling in margins I connected with the "night watchman" who was handling the process for the hacker ... as soon as he realized he asked me if this was one of those ["insert name of hacker here if he ever touches this blog"] deals. I said yes and he made an unremembered comment in disgust. They seemed like an ok outfit if one good person can be extrapolated that far, and he assured me they'd retain all the materials, etc. The next day I found little cracks in Paypal's armor ... it used to be a lot harder to get them to step into the middle of any such disagreement. But I finally got through and they opened an investigation and I got back my money and my emails! And I'd like to think I helped make the Paypal system a little easier to be willing to investigate in a case like that.

Unfortunately. The hacker was furious. And he attacked with major firepower. He is an excellent programmer and if I understand correctly, a "big name" in the hacker world as well. Plus in the little entreprenurial corner of the 'Net he is quite well known ... right on the periphery of the big time players. A guru wannabee. Claims to be an Internet millionaire. And he had some very effective "inventions" that truly may be game changers. Right when I.D. theft and the less enticing parts of Internet shopping are starting to overtake that initial enthusiasm is not when we need a reputation of being full of crooks and hackers. It is the frontier ... that little section of the 'Net ... and I'm a believer in humanity's need for a frontier. Scammers and spammers and Soapy Smith flim-flammers I can handle fine. But this man is a flat out crook. He claims to be a sociopath and accepts "sadistic sociopath" without any suggestion otherwise.

The kind of guy who would build a fire on the back of a turtle and get a huge rush out of watching the turtle bake in his own shell.

He is still here. A year and a half later and he was here virtually any time that I was. And I live on them. He killed off several ... I think we decided 5, but some of them required multiple trips to the shop. I have three hard drives that we had to pull out along the way in case the F.B.I. would like to take them into the clean room and see what all the hacker deleted and destroyed.

He has (despite every possible thing that anyone can think of to do to mine to prevent remote access ... he has it working. My desktop is his desktop. I just sat back last night and watched him move the cursor around and open and close files (and I think delete another batch but I'm not yet certain). Then I found out that he had a group of hackers wandering through all my computers where all of the family's dirty laundry is stored. Then I figured out that they were using my machine(s) for some sort of file sharing ... probably music. Probably the feds will finally show up ... and they'll arrest me for having an illegal music sharing station! :-) But I'm guessing 20 people had access to the depths of my soul (I keep it hidden in my hard drive). And I couldn't service clients with him there. Plus destroyed my time and billing programs. We had and office LAN which he destroyed and replaced with their own which they had the gall to call "Jailbirds R Us". There have been lots of much worse ramifications ... he's gotten his revenge for me messing up his (well -oiled process, I wasn't a unique case! I just have enough mouth to do something about it). Of course that turned out poorly as I lost not 2 months of emails, but 5 YEARS of "can't lose" emails. When he first showed up I tried to back up the system quickly before I had any idea he was "always on" (they have alarms of some sort that alerts them when a victim logs on ... or so I have hypothesized ... and I think I got agreement on that from him). So he wiped out my backup too. Then he destroyed access to the entire company data base (small company, but cranks lots of critical paper) and has probably averaged four of us over that time (not counting staffs). No only were the archive files critical, but all of our current "live" files were destroyed as well (actually I think they are still "there" somewhere. The hacker just destroyed any way to access them.)

So I dropped my blog, I dropped other stuff I was doing on the 'Net. I'm going to have to mend fences with all those friends I used to have but figured they'd never be friends again if the hacker got them ... I was highly contagious!

He ran my out of business. 22 years of a successful professional business and he destroyed it. He cost me nearly TWO (2) YEARS of income. Long story with lots of side paths, but essentially, he wouldn't let me get any work done and would make everything I did do take forever. I can work 4 hours on writing a report ... that he can destroy in 4 seconds. And he did that a lot. I did a lot of my work in the libraries. But he made everything take so long I couldn't charge for it ... I was just hoping that when I finally did get a project finished and to a client that I hadn't ruined a wonderful 20 year relationship because my stuff didn't get to him until three weeks after he absolutely had to have it. It was tough. But I have a small packet that proves much of the stuff I say, and I have lots more (screen shots, etc.) whenever they want it. I had to close it down. I couldn't afford to run it (and it was harder work than ever before because of the hacker).

I've been in touch with the "local" F.B.I. (~120 miles away) and the national folks (the hacker and I are on opposite sides of the country ... local law enforcement won't, probably can't, do anything.) But I hadn't seen much sign of him for awhile (although stuff was done that I was just sure I didn't do!) until last night when he decided to put on a show. My but I hope the federal men were watching! :-)

I do think it is safe now. Or I wouldn't be back here. Besides, I'd be Blogger would be about as good a co-plaintiff as one could have if he really did infect them.

So ... that's why I haven't been on for a year and a half or so. But now, I'm unemployed and broke ... so I can go back to blogging!


PRODIGALS AND SONS AND THINGS
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Which brings me to the "other" part of this post. Here we've got two brothers; a good brother who stayed at home to help his mother and father run the modest little farm and never got a chance to "go out and see the world".

But the BAD brother ... the one who took his half of the inheritance and squandered it while traveling and adventuring. He got to see the world! He had the opportunity to do a lot of things that kids that age seem to need to do to get it out of their system. Things that it will be too late to do when one is older. The older brother was ticked off and I was always on his side. Every bit of "fairness" in me screams that the wrong kid got the feast and the calf.

But I got to thinking about it one day. I remember that was Jesus himself who spun that parable. And he was trying pretty hard to convince people that "fair" didn't mean "an eye for an eye". He was trying to bring humanity an entirely new paradigm. In the driest description I can think of ... Jesus was attempting to replace justice with love. It took me a lot of years before I understood why Jesus would sound like an idiot who rewarded bad behavior. It was a dangerous thing to say considering that he was someone who has been looked up to more and used as an example than any other person before or since.

People followed his actions, he set the example that countless people have tried to follow; to "be like Jesus" and to make all decisions the way Jesus would make them. But he probably knew it wasn't really dangerous ... because people wouldn't understand and those few that did wouldn't do anything about it. And those very few that understood and tried to do something about it, would fail miserably.

Upon contemplation, I can see how devoted Christians would have a hard time imagining Jesus being furious with the return of someone very important to him, but that he had expected never to see again. So there must be some other message he is trying to convey.

As I kept getting older (it keeps happening too! :-) I had my own kids and thought about how I would react if my son, the younger of my two kids ...

[All who guessed without even being asked .... you are correct ... the prodigal son that Jesus made famous was the younger son!]

... took his "college savings" out of the bank and disappeared and years had passed and I had no idea whether he was even alive or dead ... and then, as I was knocking on old age's door I see him walking down the road towards home ...

I get it. I understand what Jesus was trying to do. Justice. Equality. Even fairness. Those we think of as the goals. The things to strive toward. The things to do to be a "good person' and even a "good Christian".

And they are wrong.

At least if they purport or wish to "follow Jesus". Nor are they inherently wrong. They might coincidentally be right. But stopped clocks are a couple times a day also. He was much more radical than trying to bring about a fair, just world.

Justice, equality, fairness ... that is what he was trying to get us to understand was not the goal. All those preachers who stand up and talk about how we have to strive for equality, and fairness ... and ultimately this will create "justice" ... which is the "god" of this "missed the boat" Christianity. Plato took Aristotle's hierarchy of good and evil and all the schools in the neighborhood where the Christians were hiding in those days were Platonic schools ... and we ended up with Plato's philosophical world view of simply moving "the Good" to the top of the pyramid and we suddenly have a hierarchical model of good and evil. The Socratic and pre-Platonic Greeks fought this "binding of god into a hierachy (because in Plato's system the hierarchy is what is really God). It was a giant philosophical debate and it set the path of Western history. But the "God is Everywhere" philosophy lost to one where God is a structure that "the Good" is the highest point on the structure. We went from a philosophy that said that a chair that you can sit in is far more perfect than one that exists only in some heaven of ideas. Plato (and picked up by the Christians) thought people were originally defective ... Original Sin. The early Greeks that that was nuts. A new-born infant is absolutely without sin! (Just a good thing they can't throw rocks :-) But Plato won and the Christian kids were taught Platonic philosophy and Christianity caught a couple of great historical breaks and became the dominant Western religion and that is why we are a Platonically based society today still guided primarily by Mosaic law.

Today's Christians pushing democracy and fairness and equality and, ultimately, Justice ... are teaching Mosaic law. The law of symmetry. Of the need for the karmic balance of Yin and Yang. Justice. An eye for an eye.

Jesus came to bring a sword. He was so radical he made the '60s protesters look like Sunday School teachers. He wanted to turn society upside down and shake it like it was a money changers' table in a temple.

We can't dispense justice. Our court systems have proven that even when they really try. Only a perfect, "sinless", person can stone a prostitute ... which was another example of Jesus saying "You will never know all the details and won't even come close to knowing enough of them to know which decision is just ... whatever the decision. If we had only "sinless" people ... we wouldn't have the problem. But we don't and we won't so we do.

"Only your father in heaven can judge people." Come on folks, get this through your heads! I would guess Jesus was often very frustrated :-)

Fairness. Such a positive goal. And it might be. It might be that if you took everything that happened to all the players in a situation starting at least with their birth and understood everything that had happened to each of them since ... then in a dispute between them one might possibly come close on getting "fair" right. Of course the punishment has to exactly match the net wrong that the badder guy did ...

I see why Jesus said that really ... if it needed to be done, only a god could do it.

No. I think what the Barefoot Prophet was trying to tell us was that we have to think beyond the concepts of fairness and justice. They may be important ... or at least nice ... but they may just be totally irrelevant. I'm not advanced enough to understand all he was trying to tell us by any means. In the Stygian darkness with my white tipped cane the best I can do was to think I see that he came to throw out the law of Moses. The Law of Moses was an earth changing event of its own and in its own time. Essentially, the Law of Moses replaced the Law of Might Makes Right. It was a giant evolutionary step from the Law of Power. A step that had guided us for Millenia and had served its purpose wonderfully .... for the incremental step it needed to be.

But my white tipped cane says that Jesus was just trying to get it through our "symmetry rules all" heads that Love trumps Justice. And if he isn't coming back until we are able to understand that ... he's not coming back for awhile.

It trumps fairness too. After thinking a lot about it recently (I have an 18 year old youngest son :-) ... I know!

And this is what I know: my son had done so many bad things and wasted so much of my money and left his brother to do the work of two ... and that I'm getting older and my days are even more precious ...

I know that when I see my son walking down the road to the house after not having even heard of him for years and believing that I would die without ever seeing him again ...

I will run out to greet him joyfully, yelling at anyone handy to kill the fatted calf as I go.

Headliner

December 5, 2008
Headliner

And so she goes. Just when I am convinced that I'm going to stop talking about Sarah Palin for awhile (because there are other very important things happening in the world and my writing time is limited) ... she goes and does something that makes it impossible to ignore her.

I'm not the only one having this problem. The national media, who would probably much prefer that she hole up in an igloo someplace, find that they can't avoid talking about her either. There are at least two reasons for this. One is that she keeps doing newsworthy things that are simply not things that people in the news business can ignore and, secondly, she simply has an uncanny grip on our imagination. This appears to be true even among the pundits who claim they can't stand her.

We start to write about Obama's economic policy is shaping up [2 + 2 = what?!?] and we realize that it is critically important, will have tremendous impact on the country's present and future, affects all of us dramatically ... and is highly boring; both to us and to our readers.

Then along comes Sarah Palin. On her way to meet with the President-elect, she takes a brief side-trip at the behest of a desperate Senator about to lose his seat and a Party desperate to not let the Democrats get a 60 vote majority. She then, spending less than a day on it, personally causes the election of the Senator and saves the Republican party. Having answered their call when they asked her to lend her "star power" and succeeding beyond all reasonable or rational expectations, she then she meets the new President to-be and a bunch of admiring Governors, dusts off her apron and scoots back to continue "fixin' up" a state that is, aside from her, in total political melt-down shambles. And, of course, to fix up another pot of moose stew for her hubby and kids.

And we realize that we have "just one more" Palin column in us demanding to get out. And our fingers start talking about her.

The thing is ... both (reasons) are true. She has that "I can't stay away fromness" that is so rare, and when that sort of charisma is contained in a beautiful woman we're all helpless: male, female, black, white, liberal, conservative, Palin-politics haters and Palin-politics lovers. It makes no difference. It is the Princess Di effect. Back in the day ... even stuffy people who wouldn't stoop to admitting knowing who Princess Di was couldn't help but to surreptitiously read the "entertainment magazines" at the checkout stand if they had her picture on it.

But unlike Princess Di or Paris Hilton or Britney Spears who were famous mostly for being famous, Sarah Palin is also legitimately important and is famous for doing valuable newsworthy things. It is a remarkable combination.

She isn't some "famous for being famous" celebrity out looking for a "cause" so she can actually do something important. Palin got famous by doing things that were important.

Nor is she important because of who she married. Princess Di would never have raised a headline if she hadn't "married well" :-) Frankly, although she has neither the beauty nor the charisma of the "crowd" I'm discussing, to a lot larger extent than supporters would ever want to admit, the same is probably true of Hillary Clinton.

Nor is Palin important because she is a knock-out. That just happens to come with the package. But she would be just as legitimately important if she ... well ... if she wasn't.

But Palin has become such a phenomenon, she tops the charts at search engines and YouTube and anywhere people go, that it has even the mainstream media types scratching their heads and continuing to write, in addition to "newsworthy stuff" she does, about her popularity itself. That "phenomenon" has become a newsworthy event in it own right which is something I cannot recall ever happening to a vice presidential candidate on the losing ticket!

Quickly now ... who was Bob Dole's running mate? That isn't what's happening to Sarah. In 20 years the question about the 2008 election will be: "Now who was the presidential candidate that Palin was running with? It's right on the tip of my tongue ..."!

This is particularly mind-boggling because of the image that the punditocracy attempted to paint of her during what they all seemed to believe was her "15 minutes of fame". Even following the election the media claimed that Sarah had lost votes for McCain!

Um. Uh ... media people? Knock, knock. Excuse me, but if she is so toxic then why did Saxby Chambliss beg her to come save him and why did the Republican National Party beg her to save Chambliss to save them from a 60 seat Democratic majority in the Senate?

And more to the point ... why did she succeed so dramatically?

You don't suppose that it is at all possible that it was the pressosphere who ripped Palin so badly before people had a chance to know otherwise that cost McCain those votes do you?

"I can't overstate the impact she had down here." So says the Senator who was about to be unseated in the run-off election. This election was crucial to the Republican party because it appeared likely that if Martin beat Chambliss ... the Democrats would have a filibuster-proof majority. Similarly, and for the exact same reason, the race was just as important to the Democrats. So all the big guns were unholstered. John McCain went down and campaigned for Chambliss ... but no one noticed. Mike Huckabee went down and stumped for him; as did Governor Romney and Rudy Giulani and essentially everyone who was anyone in the Republican party (and who, btw, are all in contention for being the "party leaders" and starting to jockey for possible 2012 presidential runs; which btw, polls now show Republicans care most that Palin runs in the next presidential election! ) ... but nobody noticed. "I went to see Mitt Romney a week ago and I think there were only about 100 people there." said one somewhat awed audience member interviewed after a huge "many thousands of people" Palin rally for Chambliss.

Al Gore went down and campaigned for Jim Martin. So did Bill Clinton. President-elect Obama taped phone messages and a radio ad and turned over his awesome vote-gathering machinery ("probably 100 or more of the Obama people came down"). Even the rapper Ludacris came down to help Martin. But nobody noticed.

Then, on the last day of the campaign, Palin swung by. She only did four short rallies in one day. And the entire world noticed.

Suddenly, Georgia was on everyone's mind. "When she walks in a room, folks just explode," Chambliss gushed after whomping Martin. "And they really did pack the house everywhere we went. She's a dynamic lady, a great administrator, and I think she's got a great future in the Republican Party."

And he kept gushing. He was grateful to all who helped ... but he made it crystal clear that it was Palin's appearance that "really did allow us to peak and get our base fired up". She has (another) serious fan in the Senate now. And the Republican National Committee isn't likely to ever think of her as a light-weight again.

She has done a better job of changing her "media-created" image (which is a remarkably difficult thing to do ... just ask Dan Quayle how to spell potato) in the few weeks since she has been out from under the thumb of the McCain staff than I can remember ever happening.

You have to hope that McCain had intelligent enough people working for him that they are now realizing what an incredibly dumb thing they did by keeping her under wraps. They bought into the ditz image also and were embarrassed that their boss had done something so foolish, so they tried to hide her as though they were ashamed to have McCain associated with her. If they had turned her loose ... well, we'll never know ... but I've a hunch that if they had ... it may well have been the vice-president elect who was drawing those huge crowds for Chambliss last week.

Rock Star Embarrassment?

November 25, 2008
Rock Star Embarrassment?

Thank you Kelly for sharing that sentiment :-) That is a reference to the note she added to the "Time to Take Campaign Posters Down" article in which she opines that "Sarah Palin is an idiot and an embarrassment to the state of Alaska." Actually, I mean that. I appreciate all opinions here. It would be nice to flesh it out a bit; for instance it might make a lot of difference to some folks to know whether Kelly is an Alaskan or just someone "out there" feeling sorry for us :-) But it certainly represents a fairly widespread opinion and one that begs for a response. So, Kelly, I hope you don't mind, but I'll use your comment as representative of that "mindset". I've been wandering blogs and online news outlets. Clearly there are a lot of folks saying essentially the same thing.

The mainstream online media outlets and the "linked-in sold-out" blogs talk about how Palin's approval ratings in Alaska have "plummeted" giving the implication that now that Alaskans have learned more about her they see her more clearly. This is the equivalent, I believe, of Kelly's comment about how Palin is an embarrassment.

So, I have researched the issue at some length to determine its validity. We are somewhat hamstrung in Alaska because we only have one statewide newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News. ADN is part of the McClatchy chain which means (given the number of times I've known a lot about something that McClatchy reports on, I can safely say) that the paper is inherently untrustworthy and at times it seems that it must be intentionally lying because the only other possibility would be stupidity at a level where they couldn't possibly compose understandable sentences. But, as long as one understands that and can work around it, it is still possible to find the truth in the nooks and crannies of small local papers with an online presence, independent bloggers, going to the cited sources of the ADN articles and finding out what was really said or done, and lots of other ways including just talking to people. So it is with some confidence that I can report that the idea that the people in Alaska are embarrassed by our Governor and that her popularity has "plummeted" due to the enlightenment of the citizenry such that they truly understand her better is total and utter balderdash.

It is true that Palin's approval rating in Alaska did drop. It hovered around 89% to 93% in 2007 (an insanely unsustainable number potentially unmatched by any Governor anywhere ever!) As late as mid-September, 2008, (after the Couric interviews!) it was still the highest of any Governor in the nation at around 85%. By late September, it was down to 68%. This is the "plummet" that folks keep mentioning. It is true that knocked her off top rank. She was, at that point, only the 4th most popular Governor in the U.S. (not quite what I'd call an embarrassment). In fact ... virtually any politician would sell their soul for ratings that high. (Palin is one of those rare politicians whose soul really isn't for sale. The Big Oil boys found that out to their chagrin.) But it does keep the evangelical right (of which I am not a member) happy, and gives her that "God is on my side" power that I personally find distasteful but has a substantive demonstrably positive effect.

But back to her "plummeted rating". I seldom do this, but I'm going to give some significant space here to the folks over at FemiSex.com. They are pro-female but definitely not generically Republican or right-wing. Indeed, most were Hillary supporters (which should give them at least a little more credibility with the Kelly's of the world than I have :-). I won't quote it all here, although it is tempting to do so. If you'd like to, it just takes a click on this link! The article is discussing a posting by a "Palin-hater" about her plummeted rating:

"It is ... wonderful as an exemplar of how the press inflicts fatal blows to female candidates. … Proof Positive that the Media inflicts violence upon women candidates by a sustained pile-on of besmirchment ...

Up until the media told us all over.. and over.. and over.. and over.. again what a dolt, sinner, adulterous, contriving, ambitious, book-burning, vicious Bitch Palin is ... Palin had an 80 % approval rating in Alaska by her constitutes.

LET ME REPEAT THIS: UNTIL THE MEDIA SAVAGED PALIN, SMEARING HER DAILY, SHE HAD A SOLID 80% APPROVAL RATING ...

Then came a poll—a poll taken a mere three weeks after the Lefty Press gang-smeared Palin in a manner befitting their conduct towards Hillary Clinton.

Guess WHAT?????????? Palin’s approval rating fell 12 points. Now does any intelligent person think the manner in which she governed Alaska changed in three weeks? For crying out loud, the woman has been campaigning the entire time!! There is zero chance Palin committed anything policy-wise to make Alaska’s citizens turn against her by 12 percentage points.

And there is ZERO chance that her past efforts and successes and failures changed. (There is a 100% chance the media perpetuated lies about Palin, such as the continued fabrication that the woman tortured rape victims, and afterward put on witch-clothing and burnt books toasty at the public library, while having adulterous sex with an unknown entity, faked a pregnancy, and toasted male testicles on the remnants of her book fire.)

When a woman is in the mix, the press spins things into such ludicrous negativity, invents stories, and ABOVE all fails to outline the many positives ... Hats off MSM, u’ve done it again. First with Clinton, now with Palin. NO woman running for Top Doggie or 2nd Doggie is safe. We hear u loud and clear ...

-Now just try to tell me that Media did not Kill off Hillary. Tell me about how Joe Biden lied about being shot at in Afghanistan. Wait, you haven’t heard about that if you're in middle American and listen to the six o’clock news.

-Now tell me about Hillary’s sniper fire lies. Sure, that u can quote verbatim. Round the clock negative coverage kills female candidates. If I had a nickel for the # of women who’ve said to me: “I really liked Hillary, until I didn’t.” When they didn't occurred during the media hate frenzy towards Clinton.

There is almost no way anyone could hold up against such sustained smearing..."

I honestly don't know that the media is that anti-female. It certainly is possible. But it is quite clear that the press intentionally attempted to destroy her, whether it was because of her gender or, my theory: that the Obamamedia was scared to death when she showed up because her incredible charisma had crowds reacting like she was the world's greatest rock star and they thought that if they didn't destroy her she might be able to drag McCain across the finish line.

If they had treated Obama the same way they'd treated Palin ... McCain would have won in a landslide. I have never before witnessed such vicious lock-step attempts at utter character assassination.

But a funny thing happened on the way to her destruction. People paid [the ever so self-important punditocracy] less attention than they believed they should. Oh, it was enough to elect Obama. But Palin's star is continuing to rise like crazy. I also assume that she will be back up in the 80s statewide in her approval ratings soon if she is not already. (Even when she was "down" at 68% she still kept a 93% favorable rating with Alaska Republicans!) And her star is not just Alaskan any longer.

CNN reports: "Oprah wants her, and so do Letterman and Leno. Fresh from her political defeat, Sarah Palin is juggling offers to write books, appear in films and sit on dozens of interview couches at a rate that would be astonishing for most Hollywood stars, let alone a first-term governor. Sarah Palin continues to attract huge media interest despite her failed bid to become vice president.

[Governor Palin] crunched state budget numbers this week ... Meanwhile, her staff fielded television requests seeking the 44-year-old for late-night banter and Sunday morning Washington policy. Agents, including those from the William Morris Agency, have come knocking. There's even been an offer to host a TV show.

'Tomorrow, Gov. Palin could do an interview with any news media on the planet," said her spokesman, Bill McAllister. "Tomorrow, she could probably sign any one of a dozen book deals. She could start talking to people about a documentary or a movie on her life. That's the level we are at here.'

'Barbara Walters called me. George Stephanopoulos called me,' McAllister said. 'I've had multiple conversations with producers for Oprah, Letterman, Leno and 'The Daily Show.' Palin ...[has]... returned to Alaska with an expanded, if unofficial, title: international celebrity."

And! The lady has coattails! The Republicans are still scraping and scrounging to try to keep the Democrats from getting that 60 seat filibuster blocking majority they want so badly.

As McClatchy reports: There are still two undecided positions in run-off campaigns and those two will determine whether they get their 60 chairs or not. One of those elections is in Georgia. So, in an incredibly close and critical situation in which their degree of national power for at least the next two (potentially incredibly important) years hangs in precarious balance ... what do the Republicans do? They call Sarah!

It is a tight, tight election. So they reached about as far distance wise as one can go in this country to bring in who they call "the closer". Sarah Palin will be in Georgia on Monday campaigning (at least four big rallies are planned so far) for Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss.

So ... sorry, Kelly, but the idea that we are so embarrassed that we have a Governor who is so incredibly popular nationwide with the people (even if clearly not the lockstep media) that they beg her (and pay her way) to come clear to Georgia to win this thing for them just doesn't pass the smell test.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution entitled their article about it: "Ohmigoodness ... the goddess descends."

She is featured at the top of Chambliss's web site to help attract people to the rallies which are expected to be so packed you need to RSVP reservations!!! Chambliss spokeswoman Michelle Grasso said "She has a lot of support, a lot of fans down here. A lot of people are very excited that she's coming ... I think it's absolutely the way you want to end a runoff."

Democratic strategist Donna Brazile is campaigning for the other side [the big guns are out on both sides for this one]. Donna says "Saxby Chambliss is calling out the cavalry because he needs to motivate his base". So now even the top Democrats figure Sarah is the cavalry!

She's not skipping out on Alaska business ... she is going to be in the area anyway. She'll be meeting with Obama and other invited governors in Philadelphia in a big bipartisan attempt to figure out how to deal with the ailing economy.

And of course, she just returned a couple weeks ago from the Republican Governors Association meeting in Miami. Alaska governors often attend these functions, but it was a little different this time. Even McClatchy says: "She dominated media attention at the conference and did an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer. 'Poolside paparazzi' photos were even taken of her and circulated on the internet."

I have to agree with one of my commenters that I'm not 100% sure I'm thrilled to have a rock star governor. But are Alaskan's embarrassed by her? I don't think so.