Thanks, Alaska

Today the state government of Alaska announced that it was making 24,000 of former Governor Sarah Palin's email messages available to the press and the public for examination. Note that I did not write the term "emails," and you never should either. You don't get mails; you get mail. That doesn't change just because you put an "e" in front of the word to scare old people and idiots who think the computer's going to bite them if they hit the wrong key.

Back to business; my focus tonight is not grammar, it's idiocy, as per the norm. Today's example of how not to do something involves the method in which the state of Alaska is making the Mama Grizzly's email available. When you've got 24,000 electronic transmissions, the obvious means of distributing them is by printing them all out. So that's what Alaska did. Either they have more trees than bandwidth or the current governor has been bought and paid for by the powerful Xerox lobby.

But I suppose it could've been worse. They could've...

• ...recorded all the messages onto player piano reels.
• ...asked the captain of the Exxon Valdez to transcribe the messages into the oil still crusting up the state's sand and soil.
• ...read them live over shortwave radio.
• ...sent them via carrier pigeon.
• ...posted them to a giant billboard so Russia can read them via binoculars.
• ...dispatched Paul Revere to bring them to the British.

Regardless, I want a copy. I'm low on toilet paper.