Sarah Palin is citing God in a lighthearted defense of writing crib notes on her palm for an interview at last month's tea party convention, reports the New York Daily News. She told an Ohio audience last week and in Canada on Saturday that she struggled to find a good comeback for ridicule she suffered over the incident, but now she has one. Continued on jump

"If it was good enough for God, scribbling on the palm of his hand, it's good enough for me," Palin said to cheers from the crowd, who laughed along with her.

She cited a line from the Bible as part of her remarks, which she said a supporter had sent her.

The passage, Isaiah 49:16, says, "See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands."

"I'm in good company," Palin said.

Palin repeated the line Saturday in Calgary, Alberta, where she spoke at a $150-a-ticket event that attracted a few Canadian political insiders as well as some of the business elite in Canada's oil capital. It was Palin's first speech outside the U.S. since she left the Alaska governor's office, reports Canada's National Post.

Palin, speaking in the same whirlwind style in which she appears to do most everything, streaked from one message to the next, and back again -- from the proper, limited role of government, to the Climategate scandal, to her love for Alaska, her love for the free market, and occasional, clever shots at the mainstream media.

"Our country so appreciates our neighbor to our north," she said launching into one of many such sweeping passages.

"And we Alaskans like to think we share a special bond with our Canadian friends -- we have a love of good hunting and good fishing. And great hockey. And we understand the importance of developing our energy resources. We understand the inherent link between energy and security, and energy and prosperity, and energy and freedom. And we understand how important it is to do it responsibly and to keep our part of the world safe and secure."

She also mentioned that when she was a child, her family had sought medical care in Whitehorse, Yukon, during a few years when they lived in tiny Skagway -- and called that "ironic" for reasons that she didn't make clear, though she is making a habit of criticizing Canada's universal health care system. The Calgary Herald quotes the reference in full:

"My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse. Believe it or not - this was in the ‘60s - we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn't that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada."

She appears to have updated her memory of the time, because she earlier had told The Skagway News the Heaths had taken the ferry to Juneau for the emergency care.