Senseless in Seattle

The city officials in Seattle think they are righteous for not using salt to melt the ice on the roads? But what are the consequences? How many people in Seattle will be in accidents? Will ambulances be able to get to accidents quickly? What are the effects of sand? (not good according to one commentary)

Seattle refuses to use salt; roads "snow packed" by designTo hear the city's spin, Seattle's road crews are making "great progress" in clearing the ice-caked streets.
But it turns out "plowed streets" in Seattle actually means "snow-packed," as in there's snow and ice left on major arterials by design.
"We're trying to create a hard-packed surface," said Alex Wiggins, chief of staff for the Seattle Department of Transportation. "It doesn't look like anything you'd find in Chicago or New York."
The city's approach means crews clear the roads enough for all-wheel and four-wheel-drive vehicles, or those with front-wheel drive cars as long as they are using chains, Wiggins said.
The icy streets are the result of Seattle's refusal to use salt, an effective ice-buster used by the state Department of Transportation and cities accustomed to dealing with heavy winter snows.
"If we were using salt, you'd see patches of bare road because salt is very effective," Wiggins said. "We decided not to utilize salt because it's not a healthy addition to Puget Sound."
By ruling out salt and some of the chemicals routinely used by snowbound cities, Seattle has embraced a less-effective strategy for clearing roads, namely sand sprinkled on top of snowpack along major arterials, and a chemical de-icer that is effective when temperatures are below 32 degrees.
Seattle also equips its plows with rubber blades. That minimizes the damage to roads and manhole covers, but it doesn't scrape off the ice, Wiggins said.
That leaves many drivers, including Seattle police, pretty much on their own until nature does to the snow what the sand can't: melt it....
"We never use sand," said Ann Williams, spokeswoman for Denver's Department of Public Works. "Sand causes dust, and there's also water-quality issues where it goes into streets and into our rivers."

Bush Lacks Free Market Principles

Despite his statement to the contrary, Bush is not a free market guy. If he was, he'd realize it's the free markets that are causing the Big Three to lose in the market. Their costs are too high, mostly due to the unions.

There is a big difference between reluctantly supporting a failing banking system and supporting a failing manufacturer. Normal healthy companies rely on lines of credit. If these companies can't get loans to do business that can have bad effect on the economy.

Bush says sacrificed free-market principles to save economy

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President George W. Bush said in an interview Tuesday he was forced to sacrifice free market principles to save the economy from "collapse."

"I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system," Bush told CNN television, saying he had made the decision "to make sure the economy doesn't collapse."

Bush's comments reflect an extraordinary departure from his longtime advocacy for an unfettered free market, as his administration has orchestrated unprecedented government intervention in the face of a dire financial crisis.

"I am sorry we're having to do it," Bush said.

But Bush said government action was necessary to ease the effects of the crisis, offering perhaps his most dire assessment yet of the country's economy.

Chicago Politics, Corrupt?

The governor of Illinois was arrested on corruption charges after FBI agents found him trying to get bribes to fill Obama's vacant Senate seat. The Chicago Tribune article, never mentions that the governor, Rod Blagojevich, is a Democrat. And people wonder why the newspapers are going bust?

Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, were arrested by FBI agents on federal corruption charges Tuesday morning.Blagojevich and Harris were arrested simultaneously at their homes at about 6:15 a.m., according to Frank Bochte of the FBI. Both were awakened in their residences and transported to FBI headquarters in Chicago.In one charge related to the appointment of a senator to replace Barack Obama, prosecutors allege that Blagojevich sought appointment for himseld as Secretary of Health and Human Services in the new Obama administration, or a lucrative job with a union, in exchange for appointing a union-preferred candidate.....

California is America's Canary on Obamaism

California's decline into financial misery wasn't hard to predict. It should serve as a proverbial canary in the mine for the rest of the country as to the direction that Obama has promise to take the country.

The theory goes that if you promise lots of goodies to people who don't pay much in taxes and pay for those goodies by taxing "really rich people that don't need the money" you will get elected. The few rich people can't outvote hordes of people looking for a free handout.

So the modus operandi has been:

• First demonize business as being mean and greedy. This allows you to tax them more.
• Heavily tax and overregulate business
• Force employers to pay for costs such as healthcare, daycare, and whatever you can dream.
• Heavily tax the "highest earners"
• Increase spending and welfare payments. Get voters addicted to free goodies

Unfortunately what happens is all the taxing and regulating makes it more expensive to do business in California. So they leave. It may be impractical to leave all at once, but it's a trickle. First it starts with relocating the headquarters to somewhere more business friendly (like Texas or Communist China). Then follows the rest of the business.

Politicans constantly think that companies and the "rich" have to suck up and pay the costs. When they leave, the states are left with the spending commitments, plus their revenue stream has dried up. This is the same path that Obama wants to take. Most glaring will be CO2 taxes (or Carbon offsets or Carbon cap and trade, or whatever other spin they give). If you think American industry is suffering now, wait until they raise their electricity prices.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a fiscal
emergency Monday and called lawmakers into a special session to address California's $11.2 billion deficit. The state's revenue gap is expected to hit $28 billion over the next 19 months without bold action. The emergency declaration authorizes the governor and lawmakers to change the existing budget within the next 45 days.
Without quick action, the state is likely to run out of cash in February.
Schwarzenegger and Democrats have proposed a combination of tax hikes and spending cuts, but Republican lawmakers are steadfast in their refusal to raise taxes.
Lawmakers failed to reach a compromise during the special session Schwarzenegger declared last month, pushing the problem to a new Legislature that was being sworn in Monday.

AIDS Overblown? Finally the press allows dissent

I've been saying AIDS has been overblown for years. AIDS is relevantly preventable. There's only going to be so much money donated. Donations to AIDS hurts donations for cancer research. Cancer doesn't discriminate. A lot of the AIDS cases and deaths in Africa are sometimes other diseases, reclassified as AIDS in order to increase numbers, in order to increase funding.

Global AIDS crisis overblown? Some dare to say so

LONDON – As World AIDS Day is marked on Monday, some experts are growing more outspoken in complaining that AIDS is eating up funding at the expense of more pressing health needs.

They argue that the world has entered a post-AIDS era in which the disease's spread has largely been curbed in much of the world, Africa excepted.

"AIDS is a terrible humanitarian tragedy, but it's just one of many terrible humanitarian tragedies," said Jeremy Shiffman, who studies health spending at Syracuse University.

Roger England of Health Systems Workshop, a think tank based in the Caribbean island of Grenada, goes further. He argues that UNAIDS, the U.N. agency leading the fight against the disease, has outlived its purpose and should be disbanded.

"The global HIV industry is too big and out of control. We have created a monster with too many vested interests and reputations at stake, ... too many relatively well paid HIV staff in affected countries, and too many rock stars with AIDS support as a fashion accessory," he wrote in the British Medical Journal in May.

Paul de Lay, a director at UNAIDS, disagrees. It's valid to question AIDS' place in the world's priorities, he says, but insists the turnaround is very recent and it would be wrong to think the epidemic is under control.

"We have an epidemic that has caused between 55 million and 60 million infections," de Lay said. "To suddenly pull the rug out from underneath that would be disastrous."

U.N. officials roughly estimate that about 33 million people worldwide have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Scientists say infections peaked in the late 1990s and are unlikely to spark big epidemics beyond Africa.

In developed countries, AIDS drugs have turned the once-fatal disease into a manageable illness.

England argues that closing UNAIDS would free up its $200 million annual budget for other health problems such as pneumonia, which kills more children every year than AIDS, malaria and measles combined.

"By putting more money into AIDS, we are implicitly saying it's OK for more kids to die of pneumonia," England said.

His comments touch on the bigger complaint: that AIDS hogs money and may damage other health programs.

By 2006, AIDS funding accounted for 80 percent of all American aid for health and population issues, according to the Global Health Council.

In Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda and elsewhere, donations for HIV projects routinely outstrip the entire national health budgets.

In a 2006 report, Rwandan officials noted a "gross misallocation of resources" in health: $47 million went to HIV, $18 million went to malaria, the country's biggest killer, and $1 million went to childhood illnesses.

"There needs to be a rational system for how to apportion scarce funds," said Helen Epstein, an AIDS expert who has consulted for UNICEF, the World Bank, and others.

AIDS advocates say their projects do more than curb the virus; their efforts strengthen other health programs by providing basic health services.

But across Africa, about 1.5 million doctors and nurses are still needed, and hospitals regularly run out of basic medicines.

Experts working on other health problems struggle to attract money and attention when competing with AIDS.

"Diarrhea kills five times as many kids as AIDS," said John Oldfield, executive vice president of Water Advocates, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that promotes clean water and sanitation.

"Everybody talks about AIDS at cocktail parties," Oldfield said. "But nobody wants to hear about diarrhea," he said.

These competing claims on public money are likely to grow louder as the world financial meltdown threatens to deplete health dollars.

"We cannot afford, in this time of crisis, to squander our investments," Dr. Margaret Chan, WHO's director-general, said in a recent statement.

Some experts ask whether it makes sense to have UNAIDS, WHO, UNICEF, the World Bank, the Global Fund plus countless other AIDS organizations, all serving the same cause.

"I do not want to see the cause of AIDS harmed," said Shiffman of Syracuse University. But "For AIDS to crowd out other issues is ethically unjust."

De Lay argues that the solution is not to reshuffle resources but to boost them.

"To take money away from AIDS and give it to diarrheal diseases or onchocerciasis (river blindness) or leishmaniasis (disfiguring parasites) doesn't make any sense," he said. "We'd just be doing a worse job in everything else."

S&P 500 breaks new lows

The S&P 500 close at 752.44. It's down almost 50% for the year. That's the lowest it's been since 1997. Yep, 11 years of gains have been erased. That means if you started working from any point since 1997, and have been duitifully investing in a 401K, you are negative. If a fund option was "Bury it in my backyard", you would have a better return than everyone else.

It's down over 22% since Barack Obama got elected. While Obama didn't cause the financial crisis, noone can claim that there isn't uncertainity of what an Obama administration will do. The market will sell into uncertainity.

Back in 2002, there was fear it would go to 500. It stopped at 768 and climbed. We'll see what happens this year.

Civic Review: Checks and Balances

So a civics reminder. The constitution was designed with checks and balances. While the judicial check on legislatures is well known (declaring things unconstitutional), there is a check on the judiciary. It's called a constitutional amendment.

That's what voters decided to do in California with Proposition 8. The new constitutional amendment should supersede any vague language about "due process of law".

However, the liberal judiciary is still trying to push it's nose in the way.

"The California Supreme Court today denied requests to stay the enforcement or implementation of Proposition 8, and at the same time agreed to decide several issues arising out of the passage of Proposition 8.

"The court’s order, issued in the first three cases that had been filed directly in the state’s highest court challenging the validity of Proposition 8, directed the parties to brief and argue three issues:

(1) Is Proposition 8 invalid because it constitutes a revision of, rather than an amendment to, the California Constitution?

(2) Does Proposition 8 violate the separation-of-powers doctrine under the California Constitution?

(3) If Proposition 8 is not unconstitutional, what is its effect, if any, on the marriages of same-sex couples performed before the adoption of Proposition 8?"

Who needs a democracy? We can just be ruled by a few judges.

Pirates Ho!

The level of pirate hijacking has increased to level not seen in recent memory. Ten years ago, when I would tell people that there are still pirates, people were surprised. They mostly prowled in the Straits of Malacca near Singapore. Now the lawless country of Somali has given these pirates a place to stay.

Among the recent prizes, the Somali pirates have gained a Russian ship full of T-72 tanks and Saudi supertanker.

"This year, 39 ships have been hijacked in the Gulf of Aden, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday that pirates off Somalia had taken in an estimated $25 million to $30 million in ransom in 2008."

Where's the Navy? We hear about all of these ships moving to the area, yet we hear about the attacks continuing. The Indian Navy, today, sunk a "mothership". Probably because the Indians can see pirate ship and sink it. The Americans and the British probably have to get permission from the top ranks who are busy weighing the political implications of actually doing something. What good is a weapon if you are not allowed to use it?

I understand the size and the speed of the Pirate ships can be difficult from the relatively slower capital ships. However, what is preventing the Navy from arming some merchant ships and creating some bait. The pirates are in open top speed boat. Have the ship fire some larger exploding shells which rain metal scrap onto the open boat. Is it that hard?

Can we finally agree that inaction only breeds more brazeness. You only can negotiate diplomatically with rational people.

An Auto bailout is a Union Bailout

I am very supportive of the American auto industry, I've only owned American cars. I think their quality is better than their reputation. However, I am wary of an auto bailout. An auto bailout is a union bailout.

The reason that US auto makers are not competitive and their quality lags is that the UAW has had a strangehold on the auto makers. Union imposed costs and regulation have made the auto makers uncompetitive. They have selectively increased costs to GM and Ford, but Honda and Toyota are not subject to their agreements. That means Honda and Toyota can not only make cars for cheaper, they can cut wasteful spending and improve production processes. Toyota's manufacturing system is world reknown. GM couldn't even think about replicating it because the union contract would stipulate that X number of worker are required to do a certain job.

A bailout won't make GM more competitive. It'll buy them some more time. 3 years later, they'll need bailing out again. Let them go into Chapter 11 and break the union contracts. Emerge a stronger company. Delta did. So can GM.

The Coming Judiciocracy

While this decision went in favor of the Supreme Court, this decision was scarily a 5-4 decision to allow the Navy to train using sonar. Do they really want handcuff our Navy? It's a decision that should be 9-0. Imagine what the court would be if even Anthony Kennedy was replace with a Ginsberg clone?

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that military training trumps protecting whales in a dispute over the Navy's use of sonar in submarine-hunting exercises off the coast of southern California

"In contrast, forcing the Navy to deploy an inadequately trained anti-submarine force jeopardizes the safety of the fleet," the chief justice wrote. He said the "overall public interest tips strongly in favor of the Navy."

Joining Roberts' opinion were Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Justice John Paul Stevens did not join the majority opinion, but said the lower courts had failed to adequately explain the basis for siding with the environmental groups. Justice Stephen Breyer would have allowed some restrictions to remain.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented, saying the prospect of harm to the whales was sufficient to justify limits on sonar use

Politics as Marketing

Today, there's been a lot of discussion recently as to what the Republicans need to do to get back on track. Politics isn't terrible much different than marketing. The reasons why someone buys a product is similar to why someone will vote for you.

Why would someone want to vote for a Republican? What is their message? What's their value proposition? What do they stand for?

If you look at the years when they had control, 2002-2006, it would be pretty hard to spot. High spending, pork projects, high deficits, a war without proper leadership, odd judicial appointments, amnesty for illegals, and the inability to fix social security or taxes.

Now the Republican Party needs to restructure.

Kill Karl Rove's "Big Tent" Republicanism

The big tent, is the idea that if the Republican party moves to the left a bit, they will keep the conservatives and pick up moderates. Wrong. In marketing, this is called brand dillution. It's like saying that Porsche would get more in sales if they made minivans as well. Porsche stands for something: frickin' fast cars. That image is lost if they made minivans. The same principle applies to the Republican Party.

Increase Party Discipline

Stop coddling the liberal Republicans. Liberal Republicans, such as Olympia Snowe, Lincoln Chaffee, and Arlen Spector, were often a thorn in any effort to pass any substantive conservative legislation. Instead of cultivating party discipline, the party waffled. These liberal Republicans constantly took Democratic positions, but then the RNC supported their reelection. Bush memorably campaigned for Arlen Spector in 2004 in the Republican primary, fearing that Toomey couldn't win the general election. The party might have lost a fight, but they would have been willing to show that they were the party of principle and new energy, not politics as usual. They won that battle and Spector was reelected, but four years later, the Republicans who then had 56 seats, now have 43 at most. Republicans seem to be a party that is intent on winning the battle but losing the war.

Businesses close unprofitable stores or product lines all the time. The Republicans need to do the same.

An Uncertain Future

Despite wishful predictions, Barack Obama was elected president. However, I see an uncertain future. Some thoughts and comments:

• With the election of Barack Obama, we've witnessed what I call, "The American Idolization of Politics" (Pop Idolization for all you Brits). People voting for the most important job in the world based on a good smile and flowery rhetoric. Some people voted because they always vote Democrat or they "wanted to a part of history" (bandwagon voters).



• How will Barack Obama govern? All the pundits were debating whether he would govern from the left or from the center. It's anybody's guess because he has no track record.



• This is a victory for the mainstream media. They have proven that they can put someone in the White House, no matter how inexperienced, no matter who his previous alliances were, and no matter how many times he had broken a promise. The media savagely attacked Palin for a lack of experience while their own Presidential candidate had just as much. Although I'm not a fan of campaign finance limitations, I can't imagine what the media would have said about McCain had he broken a promise to take public financing while Obama kept one. I wonder what was on the Rashid Khalidi tape that the LA Times sat on. Was it Obama laughing at anti-semetic jokes?



• I'm not hopeful about the economy, especially in the next several months. Who wants to invest money when the capital gains taxes rates are uncertain? Business hates uncertainty.



• Will Barack be tested at Biden predicted? Where will it come from? Russia trying to gain control over a former Soviet state? Palestine and Israel? Iran or Syria? China and Taiwan? Will his years as a law school professor provide valuable experience?



• How will Barack handle having to make tough decisions? He either signs a bill or he doesn't. He can't vote "present."



• Will people turn sour to Barack once the country is magically changed into a utopia within 6 months? He's already trying downplay expectations. In his acceptance speech, he said that "There will be setbacks and false starts" and "We may not get there in one year or even in one term." (He's already reelected himself).



• Various ballot initiatives indicate the country hasn't lurched to the left. Gay marriage bans passed in California by 52% and Florida by 62%. Affirmative action was banned in Nebraska by 58%, and is leading in Colorado. Arkansas banned adoption by unmarried couples (gay) by 57%. On the downside, severely limiting abortion in South Dakota failed 55%-45%, Colorado's attempt to define life from conception failed with only 27%. Washington allowed doctor-assisted suicide with 59%



• I am curious as to how Obama in the popular vote compared with the total of all the votes for a Democrat in the House. Did he outperform or under perform?



• If amnesty is given to millions of illegal immigrants, will the Democrats be able to cement their majority for years by adding another 10 million voters? Will they push through sameday voter registration?



• How radical will Obama's judges be? Obama could be voted out in 4 years, but his judicial appointments could be around in 30 years. Will the Supreme Court continue to think that your property can be confiscated for any purpose it sees fit? Will it revisit Heller? We know Roe won't get overturned.



• I think Sarah Palin has future. If her main criticism was a lack of experience, certainly more experience will erode that concern. She was not completely typecast as stupid, like Dan Quayle was.

Update: Attacks on Sarah Palin have continued. She is being blamed in the press for causing the loss of the election. The left is trying to destroy her chances of a political future on the national stage. While she can come back from criticism of lack of experience as I noted, if she is tarnished as being a loser or a failure, then her future is much more in jeopardy. Her best bet may be to become the Senator. If she returns to Alaska as governor, she will fall away from the spotlight. If she is able to continue to play a role in national politics, then these criticisms will lose their effect.

Election Predictions

With the election tomorrow, McCain seems to be trailing heavily in the polls. For the popular vote, Rasmussen says Obama by 6%, Zogby says 7%. Gallup says 8%, and CBS News has a landslide 13%. The only close one is Investors Business Daily/TIPP, which has Obama by 2%, with nearly 9% undecided. Electorally, yahoo says it's going to be a blowout:



So does electoral-vote.com:


However, I take a different view. I find it hard to believe that Obama is going to win in battleground states that went to Hillary Clinton by a significant margin. I believe some Clinton supporters will either stay home or vote McCain. That combined with the traditional Republican voters, you don't need a huge percentage of Clinton defectors to win. If 10% stay home, then Obama will lose roughly 5% of the overall vote. Clinton won Ohio and Pennsylvania by about 9%.




I also don't think McCain will lose any state that Dole won in 1996. McCain hasn't run the greatest of campaigns, but he's better than Dole and Obama is worse to the electorate than Clinton was in 1996. I also don't think that Obama will win any state that Bush won by 9% or 10%. I refuse to believe that the demographics and voting principles have changed that much. That means Virginia or North Carolina should stay with McCain despite conventional wisdom.

The pessimist in me says that the polls are underweighting McCain somewhat, but not enough to win. So this is the worst that I think that McCain will do:



Conversely, millions of people will press the lever for a Democrat regardless of who it is. Here's the best I think McCain could do:



Interestingly enough, a tie is a real possibility:



Finally, my prediction and/or hope. To recap my philosphy, McCain wins: states that Dole won + battleground states that Hillary won by a margin + states that Bush won by 9%.

The Real Polls Come Out

The talking heads always say, "the race tightens as the election draws near." No it doesn't, but the polls do. This is because the polls for weeks have been lying to demoralize Republicans. Then at the last minute, the produce a real poll in order to retain their reputation.

Not unexpectedly, the Drudge Report now says " ZOGBY: MCCAIN MOVES INTO LEAD 48-47 IN ONE DAY POLLING".

Confession of an Obama Blogger

Reprinted in full..

sarah p Says:
October 27, 2008 at 5:04 am

Ok, I want to clear my conscious a little. Hopefully you could make a blog post to help some fellow clinton supporters out.

I work for a campaign and can’t wait for this week to be over.

I was doing it for a job. I was not a fan of any candidate but over time grew to love HRC.

The internal campaign idea is to twist, distort, humiliate and finally dispirit you.

We pay people and organize people to go to all the online sites and “play the part of a clinton or mccain supporter who just switched our support for obama”

We do this to stifle your motivation and to destroy your confidence.

We did this the whole primary and it worked.

Sprinkle in mass vote confusion and it becomes bewildering. Most people lose patience and just give up on their support of a candidate and decide to just block out tv, news, websites, etc.

This surprisingly has had a huge suppressing movement and vote turnout issues.

Next, we infiltrate all the blogs and all the youtube videos and overwhelm the voting, the comments, etc. All to continue this appearance of overwhelming world support.

People makes posts to the effect that the world has “gone mad”

Thats the intention. To make you feel stressed and crazy and feel like the world is ending.

We have also had quite a hand in skewing many many polls, some we couldn’t control as much as we would have liked. But many we have spoiled over. Just enough to make real clear politics look scarey to a mccain supporter. Its worked, alough the goal was to appear 13-15 points ahead.

see, the results have been working. People tend to support a winner, go with the flow, become “sheeple”

The polls are roughly 3-5 points in favor of Barack. Thats due to our inflation of the polls and pulling in the sheeple.

Our donors, are the same people who finance the MSM. Their interests are tied, Barack then tends to come across as teflon. Nothing sticks. And trust, there were meetings with Fox news. The goal was to blunt them as much as possible. Watch Bill Oreilly he has become much more diplomatic and “fair and balanced” and soft. Its because he wants to retain the #1 spot on cable news and to do that he has to have access to the Obama campaign and we worked hard at stringing him a long and keeping him soft for an interview swap. It worked and now he is anticipating more access. So he is playing it still soft.

This is why nothing sticks.

The operation is massive, the goal is to paint a picture that is that of a winner, regardless of the results.

There is no true inauguration draft or true grant park construction going on. There will be a party, but we are boasting beyond the truth to make it seem like the election is wrapped up.

Our goal is to continue to make you lose your moral. We worked hard at persuasion and paying off and timing and playing the right political numbers to get key republican endorsements to make it seem even more like it was over and the world was coming to an end for you all.

There is a huge staff of people working around the clock, watching every site, blogs, etc. We flood these sites. We have had a goal to overwhelm.

The truth is here. I could go on and on, but you get the picture.

I am saying this because I know HRC was better for the country, and now realize this. I was too late by the time I connected to her. To me Barack was just a cool young dude that seemed like a star. I didn’t know him or his policies, but now I understand more than I care to and I realize his interests are more for him, and the DNC and all working like puppets with dean. I always thought a president wanted the better good for the country. The end result I see is everyone dependent on the government, this means more and more people voting for the DNC. This means the future is forever altered. I don’t see this as america, so I am now supporting John Mccain.

Sarah Palin is a huge threat, and our campaign has feared her like you can’t imagine. If it seems unfair how she has been treated, well its because she has had a team working round the clock to make her look like a fool.

this is a big conspiracy and I am so shocked that its not realized.

We released a little blurb the other day that the Obama campaign was already working on reelection and now putting our efforts towards 2012. This was to make it seem like it was above us to continue caring about 2008. Trust me, its a lie. David is very smart, but its a sticky ugly not very truthful kind of intelligence.

Its not over yet, but I think the machine is working. And its a hill to climb.

I will be quitting my post on nov 5th and my vote will be for John Mccain. Fortunately, my position has been a marketing position and I don’t feel I had any part of anything I would feel guilty for. But I look forward to getting out of this as the negativity and environment upsets me.

I wish you all well, and goodluck.

PS my name is not really sarah. but I am a female and I understand your plight.

"Is Barack Obama really a socialist?"

Couldn't have put it better.

CSM - This "socialism-lite," however, is as specious as is classic socialism. And its insidious nature makes it even more dangerous. Across Europe, this "mild" form of socialism acts as a parasitic ideology that has slowly drained entrepreneurial energy – and freedoms – from its free-market host.
Could it happen in America? Consider the words of longtime Socialist Party of America presidential candidate Norman Thomas: "The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened." In addition to Medicare, Social Security, and other entitlement programs, the gathering political momentum toward single-payer healthcare – which Obama has proclaimed is his ultimate goal – shows the prescience of Thomas's words.

Some Hillary Supporters are Smart

Googling something else, I came across the below from a Hillary supporter, which predicted the Palin pick plus gave her high marker...

Sarah Palin Would Make A Great VP Pick For McCain - June 22, 2008

f McCain is smart, he'll pick Sarah Palin as his VP.

McCain-Palin would be a great ticket.

The article above says insiders will convince McCain he should ignore Palin because she hasn't been in office long, and because Alaska is already guaranteed GOP territory.

That's a colossal mistake.

The Obama ticket can never call anyone inexperienced, because Obama is the least qualified candidate who's ever run for president. It's true.

Palin's been governor of Alaska for 2 years, and already has racked up serious accomplishment that's given her a 90% approval rating (the highest of any governor in the nation).

She's smart, tough, hardworking, and a great mom (5 children, including a son who's joined the military).

The Politico article's also wrong in saying picking Palin won't make Clinton supporters flock to McCain -- it's not as simple as that. Any Clinton supporters who are PUMAs or DeMcCrats or whatever you want to call them, already support McCain on some level, and are just looking for an excuse to jump over and leave the Democrats for good. Any excuse will do for some people. So, having Palin on the ticket -- a woman who is qualified to be president, albeit not THE MOST QUALIFIED PERSON, PERIOD to be president (which is Hillary Clinton) -- is just the excuse some people need to ignore generations of party affiliation and vote Republican for the first time in their lives.

We don't think this would happen with Senator Hutchinson, or Carly Fiorini. There's something different about Governor Palin, though. When you start reading about her, you can't help but like her, even if you don't agree with her 100% of the time.

She's a great governor, a terrific person, and, in our book, the best choice for McCain's VP.

It would also force a serious blunder from Obama -- if McCain picks Palin, our best bet is Obama will feel pressured to pick Claire McCaskill or Kathleen Sebelius as his VP, which would be a disaster. There are two people who PUMAs truly despise, outside of the Dean/Brazile/Pelosi/Reid circle -- and those two are Bill Richardson and Claire McCaskill. Sebelius did a terrible job delivering the Democrats' response to the State of the Union address - but, more than that, any woman but Hillary Clinton would be seen as a major slap in the face to all Clinton supporters. So, how does Obama effectively counter Sarah Palin?

He doesn't.

There's no one he could pick that would match her.

Staying in Droves - The Vaunted Youth Vote

Year after year, we hear about how the "youth vote" will change the race. Young people supposedly inspired by the Democratic candidate will come to the polls in droves. Year after year, it never materializes.

This year, not only has the news media touted the likely turnout, but polling companies have included higher than usual percentages of youth and people with their polling data, leading to large polling leads for Obama. Early reports indicate that they are lagging, once again.

Of course they are. Many don't have a vested interest in the government... they don't pay any taxes or rely heavily on any services. So as much as they might think Obama is cool, they don't like standing in line even more.

ReviewJournal - Analysts have predicted that new voters, young voters and Hispanic voters will turn out in record numbers in this election. But as Nevadans continue to flock to the polls, turnout among those three groups is lagging, at least in the early going.

While turnout statewide was nearly 25 percent through Sunday, it was just 20 percent among Hispanic voters, 14 percent among voters under 30 and 15 percent among those who didn't vote in the last three elections, according to an analysis of state early voting records through Sunday prepared by America Votes, an organization that works to mobilize voters....

Traditionally, older people, whites and people who vote consistently tend to turn out at the highest rates overall, said David Damore, a political scientist at UNLV. But this year, much has been made of the idea that the youth vote, the Hispanic vote and first-time voters would turn out at unprecedented rates, galvanized by a heightened political climate and the candidacy of Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

"I would have expected those numbers to be a little higher," Damore said. "At the same time, the people who come out for early voting may tend to be the tried and true."

Prince Charles imiatates Al Gore

Prince Charles has some time ago decided that the gravy train back to a better public perception runs on "climate change" (climate change is previously known as global warming until the world stopped warming).

Now he says the "climate crisis" is more important than the financial crisis. I think the phrase "extremely out of touch" is a polite way to describe Prince Charles. If he becomes King, I wouldn't be surprised for the British to vote out the monarchy.

Prince Charles says climate the real crisis

TOKYO (AFP) – Prince Charles urged the world Tuesday to fight climate change, saying that while the global credit crunch will be temporary, the effects of the "climate crunch" were irreversible.

The Attacks on Sarah Palin.

The attacks on Sarah Palin have been with such vitriole, not seen since Clarence Thomas. I'm not surprised however.

The Left has marketed conservatives to be rich, greedy, mean, racist, sexist, male, and white. If more minorities or women are allowed to be a prominent conservative, it would destroy that carefully crafted image. So they have to politically destroy everyone that comes onto the national stage in short order.

The Financial Crisis

The S&P 500 is down 42% for the year, and 30% in the last month. We're in the midst of a financial meltdown despite the government's efforts to bailout distressed industires.

We've all heard it started with subprime mortgages. But there hasn't been enough discussion on what ever happen to banking standards? Newspapers have touted "the end of capitalism" and "massive federal takeover of banks." You don't need a massive federal beaucracy. We just need some basic standards... a mininum downpayment, a real job with disposable income. The easy money exacerbated the housing bubble. Sure, money was cheaper, but more people could bid higher on a house. If you were playing a poker game, and tripled everyone's chips, betting would increase dramatically.

We need industry standards when the collapse of an entity will have external negative effects on others. When a bank fails and is bailed out by the government, or the FDIC step in, taxpayers are ultimately penalized.

If we built office buildings out of matchstick and tissue paper, and they collapsed would we be wondering why? We have building code, because the collapse of a building has negative external effects. However, it doesn't unduly constrain building in the country.

So who's to blame? Many people, but we only hear about one.

The government: Ultimately the government has a lot of control over the banks. In an effort to buy votes, governments allowed banks and government sponsored banks, like Fannie Mae, to give out money to whomever. It's a lesson that you can't will things to happen politically without economic consequences.

Banks, Wall Street: Once they were allowed to banks got in. There is a herd mentality in banks. If Bank A is making an outsized profit with subprime mortgages, Bank B will feel the need to get in on the action. The current climate on Wall Street focuses in on the current quarter, not the long term health of the company. Executive are usually paid for the short term as well. If a CEO does well with subprime mortgages for several years, he'll get big bonuses. When that risky investment fails, he may get canned, but he'll keep those bonuses. The taxpayers have to come in a prevent economic collapse. They get to privatize profits and socialize the risk. This was most prevalent at Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac.

People: There were a lot of people trying to cash in on the housing bubble. When you see TV shows like "Flip this House", you know you are in trouble. Of course, this is never discussed, as politicans don't want to attack voters. They'd rather blame scapegoats and fat cats on Wall Street.

Debate Blogging

Okay so it's debate number two:

On the economy: Both have seemed respectable to the average viewer.... Obama is speaking well without a teleprompter. This is bad for McCain.

McCain criticism on Fannie & Freddie is good, but he didn't follow up with it much. However, he hasn't really differentiated him as much as he should.

McCain should mention that the existing tax cuts expire.

McCain is sounding smarter on national security as always, but Obama's got enough talking points at the tip of his tongue to seem credible.


Overall? Dead draw unfortunately. McCain didn't attack and differniate himself enough. Obama didn't implode. A draw benefits the party in front, which is currently Obama.



Final thought: I hate when they talk to the synchophats afterwards.

Can Bernanke Be Quiet?

The doom and gloom from Bernanke makes things worse. When he says “the economic outlook will be weak for a long time” then people are going to sell, horde money, stop spending, etc… and the economy will go in the tank. His comments will just worsen the problem.

Ghetto the Vote

"Get out the Vote" drives have largely revolved around getting people who don't pay attention to politics to vote for the Democratic candidate. Normally party activists will drive around in a big van and entice people with food or goodies and then take them to the poll and tell them to vote for Democratic candidate.

Procedures such as registering to vote earlier than election day and standards to prove residency hamper these types of drives. That's why the Democrats will always oppose any type of voter registration. They don't have enough civic minded people to vote for their candidates so they bribe the homeless.

CLEVELAND - Volunteers supporting Barack Obama picked up hundreds of people at homeless shelters, soup kitchens and drug-rehab centers and drove them to a polling place yesterday on the last day that Ohioans could register and vote on the same day, almost no questions asked.

The huge effort by a pro-Obama group, Vote Today Ohio, takes advantage of a quirk in the state's elections laws that allows people to register and cast ballots at the same time without having to prove residency.

Republicans have argued that the window could lead to widespread voter fraud because officials wouldn't have an opportunity to verify registration information before ballots were cast.

Among the volunteers were Yori Stadlin and Vivian Lehrer of the Upper West Side, who got married last week and decided to spend their honeymoon shepherding voters to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections.

Early today, Stadlin's van picked up William Woods, 59, at the soup kitchen of the Bishop Cosgrove Center.

"I never voted before," Woods said, because of a felony conviction that previously barred him from the polls. "Without this service, I would have had no way to get here."

Obama makes me scratch my head

Obama thinks Bush should move swiftly to address the financial crisis. Ummm.... what was the bailout, the addresses on TV, etc? The bailout was to restore confidence by buying the troubled assets that were causing a lack of confidence. We can debate the merits of the plan, but you urge Bush to do something when he has been.

ASHEVILLE, North Carolina (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Monday urged the Bush administration to move swiftly to address the financial crisis, saying contagion was spreading.

"Not only are we seeing the stock market go down but there is still a great danger of the credit markets locking up and we've seen that contagion is spreading to all parts of the globe," Obama told reporters in Asheville, where he is preparing for Tuesday's debate against Republican John McCain, his rival in the November 4 election.

"It is very important for (Treasury) Secretary (Henry) Paulson and Federal Reserve Bank Chairman (Ben) Bernanke to move swiftly and try to restore confidence as quickly as possible," Obama said.

NBC's Shameful spin

NBC's coverage of the campaign took a turn to the shameful. In a segment where they discuss the candidates past, they took a rosier view of McCain's time in the prison camp. From the narrator:

"McCain has given graphic accounts of beating and torture in a prison system he's called an extension of the battlefield. Tran Tron Doya (sp?) the former prison director remembers it differently". NBC proceeds to let the prison director would remembers McCain teaching him the word "lamp" but not beating him. NBC could have chosen a fellow POW, but chose not to talk to either of them.

VP Debate of the Century

A live stream of consciousness blog on the debate:

Palin....Why not couple tax about how Barack's spending increases can't be done without taxing the middle class.

Palin... +5 for mentioning the small businesses that make $250,000.

Palin shouldn't be talking about Obama voting for tax breaks for oil companies. It doesn't resonate with the people that may vote for her.

Why hasn't she mentioned that the tax cuts are about to expire and that Obama doesn't need to raise taxes.... he'll just let the existing ones expire.

Palin... stop talking about greed on Wall Street.

Biden.... Bankruptcy courts can rewrite contracts? (My attorney says yes)

Palin.... stay on the oil drilling.

Palin... nooooo not climate change.... a bit of a rambling answer... good point to mention that we produce the cleanest energy and if we don't produce, another country will.

Biden... isn't "funding alternative energy" corporate welfare... obama was against coal and nuclear.

Palin... stay on the drilling and energy. she's doing better here.

Both....capping carbon emissions..... nooooo.... you can't support global warming and cheap gasoline prices.

Biden... doesn't support gay marriage, but everything but. Palin gives a good answer here.

Palin... is getting better with foreign policy. Either she is more comfortable with the topic or she is getting less nervous.

The foreign policy has delved into a rehash of the standing political talking points.

She's good when she talks about what she's done or is doing as governor.

Biden will baby Obama on foriegn policy. "I'll be sitting in the room"

Palin fits in the executive experience.

What's your biggest weakness. It is a job interview! Good for Palin for ignoring the question. Gwen doesn't pick the winner. Biden's biggest weakness is his excessive passion. "I work to hard" "I'm too much of a team player"

Can both of them stop saying "maverick."

Biden picks to rebork Judge Bork.

Both closed pretty well. Palin didn't blow Biden out of the water, but she held her own against a very veteran senator. End result - draw.

Obama's vs. Palin's Experience - The tale of the tape

The media has been ripping into Sarah Palin's lack of experience while their own candidate has just as little. The major difference is that Palin is the VP candidate while Obama is the Presidential candidate. Since both of them are similar in age, what I've done here is to outline what both of them have done since high school.



Here are the results:



It all looks fairly similar.

• Foriegn policy experience - both have none. How many Presidents actually have foriegn policy experience before being elected: not Bush, Clinton, Carter, or Kennedy.

• Executive experience- Palin has two years, Obama has none. Having to implement law, run a state budget, etc is far more challenging that just voting on stuff.

• Major experience in economics or business - both have not much to speak about. Not many

While it's annoying to see the blatant hypocrisy in the media, it may backfire on them. With all the discussion about the importance of experience regarding Palin, it raises the value of experience as a criteria in general. In other words, Obama is going to get a negative side effect from it as it reminds everyone that experience is important.

Hurricane Ike sucks

We were lucky to suffer no permanent damage. While trees fell on our neighbors and people down the street got flooded, we manage to escape both fates. We had water nearly at our door.

The amount of national press that Hurricane Ike has gotten is quite minimal. I guess if we don’t descend into anarchy within hours, that means there’s no story.

We’ve been without power for 16 days now. It sucks. What’s been frustrating is that it seems Centerpoint Energy is not managing the crisis well. As Entergy finished their repairs, they offered crews to Centerpoint, which turned them down. Meanwhile their priorities seem off. Devastated and unlivable areas of Galveston were getting new utility polls and power line while there was no one there to use it.

1st Debate Reactions

I think in the beginning of the debate, regarding the economic crisis, there was a lot of back and forth, and there wasn’t a clear winner. I don’t think the current economic crisis will have a huge effect on the election. Obviously a recession would hurt Republicans, and allowing a financial crisis would cause a recession, but even if the crisis happened, it would take some time before the recession happened. It’s like standing outside on a pretty fall day and someone tells you that it’s going to be really hot the next summer. It’s hard to imagine.

When the debate moved to foreign policy, McCain began to show real leadership. He appeared much more knowledgeable about the Georgian crisis and how it can affect other ex-Soviet states such as the Ukraine. He was a able to explain the Iranian situation and put Barack on the defensive for his desire to meet with Iwannajihad.

Lastly and maybe most importantly, McCain closed a lot better than Obama. Obama was talking about how people in the world don’t like us. That won’t reasonate with the marginal voter. That resonates with the university professor crowd. The guy on Main Street in Ohio doesn’t really care about whether “The World” likes us.

A Little Gouging Would Help Us in Houston

In the press, we keep hearing about "price gouging"...i.e., those evil capitalists trying to take advantage of people in need.

However, a little gouging helps prevent shortages. After Hurricane Ike, important and easily available commodities such as ice were in very short supply days after the Hurricane hit. By preventing price increases, there isn't a large incentive for an ice supplier in Dallas to make the trip down.

I would have gladly paid a much higher price for ice, but the Stage-one thinkers in government prefer the "no gouging" soundbite.

Yahoo Watch Continues

The saga continues:



I'll give you a hint which party the article says is better.... and it's not Republicans.

"...historically, the initial reaction of the market to a Republican presidential victory confirms this thesis.... However, a closer look tells a far different story."

Will I have to Start Yahoo Watch?

A few hours after pointing out Yahoo's bias, I am back at it again. First, is an innocent looking cover, about frequently asked question.

Then it links to a FAQ on Slate where almost all of the FAQs are negative. They either the reiterate a rumour or try to make people aware of something by making it a frequently asked question.

Out of 23 questions, 17 of the questions and answered portrayed her in a negative light, including the first 13. Five were neutral. Only one portrayed her in a good light. 17-1-5.

The overall message was: she's not qualified; she hasn't done what she claims; she has a lot of skeletons in her closet. The media is trying with all it's might to shoot down Palin.

I listed the question, a summary of the answer, and my take on the question and answers message.

1. How long has Palin known John McCain? Not long. Says he didn't vet her. She's not qualified.
   
2. Did Palin tell the McCain campaign that her daughter Bristol was pregnant before she was picked as the vice-presidential nominee? Probably not. Implies she's sneaky
   
3. Did she recite her speech at the Republican National Convention from memory after the teleprompter broke? Despite rumours, No. Implies she's not really a good speaker after all
   
4. Did she oppose the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere"? Not until after it was already dead. Implies she is not so bullish against pork spending.
5. What command experience does Palin have as head of the Alaska National Guard? None. Implies she has no defense experience.
   
6. Cindy McCain and others have asserted that Alaska's proximity to Russia has contributed to Palin's foreign-policy knowledge. What dealings has she had with Russia? None. Says she has also no foriegn policy experience.
7. Did Palin fire a public official because he wouldn't fire her brother-in-law? Yes. Says she's corrupt and for nepotism.
   
8. Was she ever a member of the Alaskan Independence Party? Maybe. Questions her loyalty to the US.
9. Was there a recall attempt against Palin when she was mayor of Wasilla? No, but it was considered! Implies she isn't liked. Wants to give credence to the charge.
   
10. Did she want to ban books from the public library as mayor of Wasilla? Yes (but only ones with offensive language). The phrasing of the question is improper as it implies she is against all books. A common charge of religious people is that they are anti-science.
11. What was her position on the surge? Not enthusiastically for it. Implies she is weak on defense.
12. What's Palin's record on environmental issues? Shit. Implies she hates cute animals.
13. Does she oppose federal earmarks? Only a little. Says she isn't anything special on spending.
14. Did she really stand up to big oil? Kinda.
15. What is her record on ethics reform? Good. A positive light.
    
16. Does she believe in evolution? Yes.
    
17. What are Palin's views on abortion? Against it.
    
18. Is Palin's church anti-Semitic? Possibly. More mud slinging
19. Did Palin ask her daughter Bristol to get married before news broke that she was pregnant? Maybe. Implies she is decidingly embarassed. reminds people that her daughter is pregnant.
20. Did Palin elope with her husband while pregnant with her first child? Maybe.Implies she was irresponsble
21. Did she fly all the way from Texas to Alaska this April after her water broke? Probably. Implies she's irresponsible.
22. Palin competed in beauty pageants in the early 1980s. What was her talent? Playing flute.
23. What's her workout secret? Jogging
    

Yahoo's bias is blatantly obvious

I'm definitely getting tired of Yahoo's election bias.

Earlier it was "Separarting fact from fiction on what Palin said." You would certainly never see that similar story about Obama.

Before that it was a story "Is the Edwards scandal, worse for Republicans?" Basically, they raise the question in order to bring up the fact that McCain got divorced 30 years ago.

Now they are trying to tell voters that "values don't matter." They ask a question and answer it in the headline.



They go on to say, "The abrupt shift to bare-knuckled partisanship in the middle of this week's convention appeared to indicate that Republicans intend to rally their rural and socially conservative base with culturally-tinged attacks painting Democrats as elitists..." Remember it's only partisanship is Republicans are attacking Democrats. The Republican base also live in urban areas as well. Liberals like to think of Republicans as hicks, who are too dumb to know what is best for them.

Meg Whitman for Veep?!

While I also support Mitt Romney for McCain's VP pick, I think Meg Whitman would be another good pick (provided she's prolife). She was the CEO of eBay from March 1998 to March 2008. Why not someone from the business world? It would boslter McCain's business credentials and perhaps gain the support of women. Ebay is also a very accessible company. Negative attacks won't be very effective, as opposed if she was a CEO of a pharmaceutical company.





A more businesswomen who is more touted in the press is Carly Fiorina, the former head of HP. However, her tenure ended up with her being canned by the board. Rightly or wrongly, that firing would be plenty of ammunition for ads. Also, all the Democrats have to do is show the stock price chart:



Of course, other losing picks: Joe Lieberman, Tom Ridge, Charlie Crist.

The Red Herring Spin

So Edwards is caught in a lie, which bodes poorly for Democrats. However, the media allies spin it by telling everyone that "it's worse for McCain" because he got divorced 25 years ago. No one knows what happened with McCain's first marriage except McCain and his wife. However, he didn't repeatedly lie to the people.

The message is "forget about Edwards: look over here, look over here"

So, below is the headline from Yahoo with a link to a story in Slate:

The Two Edwards

The best news of the week: we'll never have to hear the Two Americas speech again.

John Edwards, purveyor of class warfare, admitted to an affair that only the "junk tabloid", the National Enquirer persued. Even as the case developed, all the mainstream media outlets were quite mum on the matter.

Perhaps we can give a "Two Edwards" speech. One Edwards pretends to care about his wife who has cancer. The other Edwards cheats on his wife who has cancer.


Update: He can't stop lying!!

His statement:
"When a supermarket tabloid told a version of the story, I used the fact that the story contained many falsities to deny it. But being 99% honest is no longer enough."


From the LA TimesThe Associated Press reported today that Edwards told reporters, "The story is false. It's completely untrue, ridiculous." He said the story was "made-up."

"I've been in love with the same woman for 30-plus years," Edwards added, about his wife Elizabeth, who is suffering from incurable cancer, "and as anybody who's been around us knows, she's an extraordinary human being, warm, loving, beautiful, sexy and as good a person as I have ever known. So the story's just false."

Umm... I think the fact that Edwards had an affair with the woman the Enquirer said he had an affair with makes it at least 90% true. So he's even lying now that he thinks he was being 99% honest. At least he said one thing true: "I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic."

Who McCain Should Pick for VP

VP speculation for both candidates is in high swing. Here’s a nice rundown for both McCain and Obama (at the bottom of the page). So far, McCain has been trailing Obama, and there are 3 things that may affect it:

1. VP Choice


2. Presidential Debates


3. News events over the next 3 years

McCain needs to nail the VP choice. If he goes soft with a Charlie Crist, I think he loses. My choice for McCain, not mentioned, would be Tom Coburn, the Republican Senator from Oklahoma. He’s a doctor turned politican after years of getting frustrated.

Pros

• He’s a strong conservative and will bring out conservatives


• As he is very strong against pork barrel spending, he makes up for some of the Republican overspending the last 8 years..


• He was first elected as Congressmen and kept a pledge to only run for three terms. He left in 2000 and returned to private practice. He ruffled establishment Republican feathers with his 2003 book, Breach of Trust.


• Adds credentials to anything related to healthcare.

Cons

• He’s not well known outside conservative circles. Nothing like being VP to make someone well known..


• He’s from a state that is already very Republican. However, the chance that someone would be a strong conservative Republican from a swing state is rare. I think McCain’s need for conservative credentials outweighs his need for a bump in any one state.

Cars Cause Droughts?

From Barack's Berlin lovefest speech:

"Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen -- a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world."

Definiton of citizen: a native or naturalized person who owes allegiance to a government and is entitled to protection from it"

"As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya."

Has the world gone mad? When a major Presidential candidate says something so ridiculous without notice or concern?

"This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands. Let us resolve that all nations -- including my own -- will act with the same seriousness of purpose as has your nation, and reduce the carbon we send into our atmosphere. This is the moment to give our children back their future."

We Are Now All Dumber

Obama's ability to answer a question is in a sad way, funny, but sad that he is close to becoming president.


Obama-Couric Interview

Couric: But what area do you feel least comfortable with?

Obama: Well, you know … I think that … there are so many issues in which I am not an expert but require you to be an expert. That the most important job that I will have as president is choosing excellent people to help to shape policy and provide me with a clear set of decisions. So …I'll give you … a very clear example.

I know quite a bit about healthcare, from a 4,000 to 40,000-foot level. But I'm not a doctor. I'm not a biochemist. You know, if you ask me about the human genome, I can vaguely describe it to you, but I don't know all the possibilities and potentials. So when I think about what I have to do as a president, my job is to be smart enough to choose really smart people, in fact, not to be intimidated by having people who are smarter than me, around me to give me, sound advice, and then be able to make those decisions.

But when it comes to foreign … you know, I feel confident in my ability to apply good judgment to a broad set of problems that are out there. It doesn't mean that I'm gonna be an expert on everything. It means that … I'm still gonna be consulting with people who have specialized in a particular area or particular region. But I think that I have a good feel for the nature of the problems that we have, the fact that the globe has gotten smaller, that we are all interconnected but that we still have a whole host of ethnic divisions and rivalries … that are people are still steeped in history.

We started talking about the issues here in the Middle East. Obviously … those long-standing grievances are not gonna go away immediately. And that the United States, one of the things that we can provide is leadership based on sets of values and ideals that recognize the equality of people; recognize human rights; recognize the importance of opportunity for all.

I believe those are values that are applicable to a wide range of problems. And that's why I think it's so important for the U.S. to return to the kind of leadership by example … that has made us … not only powerful, but also influential around the world.


"What you just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in the room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul." -- Billy Madison

Elizabeth Edwards:, Smug , Self-Righteous, and Wrong

Elizabeth Edwards was on the Colbert show touting universal healthcare and claiming its not socialized medicine. She blames the "free market system" for the state of healthcare. On to gas, she smugly says:

"Thanks to a free market system, we have $4 gas." Then she says that it will soon be $5 and $6.

While the problems in healthcare are too complex to expand on here, Edwards blames the free market for high gas, yet it is her own party which is artificially restricting supply. In the real free market, as the price of gas rose to $4/gallon, investors would want to drill to increase supply in order to make a profit. As a result the price would come down. However, the Democrats prevent additional supply via laws against drilling.

That's completely unfair.

Review of the Pickens Plan

If you watch cable news then undoubtedly you’ve seen T. Boone Pickens' advertisements for his energy plan.

Overview

T. Boone Pickens, famed oilman, has launched a media blitz touting his Pickens Plan (http://www.pickensplan.com/theplan/) as the way for the future in energy and a way to break our dependence on foreign oil. So I decided to give it a look. Considering almost no oil is used for electricity production, how will adding wind turbines effect dependence on oil? Pickens envisions that up to 20% of electricity can come from wind. This would offset an equal amount of gas fired generation. Then the natural gas that would have gone into electricity generation could be used to power cars, which offsets demand in oil.

Before we go into the analysis let’s discuss how electric generation operates. People’s usage of electricity changes dramatically over the course of a day and from season to season. From 2am to 2pm, the usage of electricity will increase by about 60-80%. As the day comes and people go to their jobs, the demand for electricity increases. So in order to meet that rise in demand, some power plants that are operating at a lower capacity will be “turned up” and others must be turned on. Of the power plants that must be turned on, only some certain types can start rather quickly….and these are mostly natural gas. The power plants that don’t shut off during the night are your coal and nuclear plants.


The Problems

Pickens wants to take $1.2 trillion and replace natural gas power plants with wind. The wind is fickle and often blows the most at night. Adding wind generation may not displace much gas generation, but the nuclear and coal plants that are operating at night.

The plan would still need to have combustion turbines to back up the wind generation when the wind isn't blowing or Americans must change their views about reliability of electricity in their homes. Texas only considers 8.7% of wind capacity, dependable. That means that if an area has 1000 megawatts (MW) of demand, you would need at least 11,500 MW of wind turbine capacity in order for you be confident your lights turn on when you flick the switch.

Another consideration is, why not nuclear? If you are trying to displace the gas generation that is operating around the clock, why try to displace that with wind, but rather than nuclear? Nuclear is much more dependable, fuel costs are minimal, and the emission are zero.

There are a couple of other temporary problems such as the fact that turbine manufacturers are at capacity and that there is a poor distribution for natural gas for cars. Now if a government is committed to spending over 1 trillion, then manufacturers could add capacity at a price, and you would see natural gas stations spring up. One might also be able to tap into the supply at home if you have natural gas heating.


What I liked

He “got the white off the paper.” He also presented his plan with detail and a degree of logic.

T Boone was rather realistic about costs. A 3 MW turbine will cost about $6-7 million. The $1.2 trillion included $200 billion in costs for transmission. When electricity is generated in the middle of nowhere, it must be transmitted to the cities. This can be very expensive as Texas is finding out! He did, however, ignore the cost of backup capacity or the cost escalation that would be seen if demand for turbines or transmission equipment skyrocketed.

The idea of displacing gas generation, even if it is not quite as ambitious, isn’t awful. If 10% of gas generation per year could be displaced somehow (combination of wind & nuclear) that could be used to fuel about 10 million cars.


The Gore Plan - (link)

Not to be outdone, Al Gore released a statement saying the US electric generation should be completely Earth-friendly by 2018. He estimated the cost between $1.5 trillion and $3 trillion. That’s about all the information that he gives. So Pickens estimates it costs $1.2 trillion for 20% generation to be by wind, and Gore will do 100% for $3 trillion. Essentially Al Gore is just blowing hot air to get attention. The plan is so poorly thought and so ridiculous that it is a sad day that it is not met with instant ridicule.

Tony Snow, Requiescant in Pace

Tony Snow, newscaster and Press Secretary passed away today from cancer. I always like his radio show a lot. He was a strong conservative, his own thinker, and critical of the Republican party when they needed criticism. As Press Secretary he brought a cheer, debating skill, and speaking ability to the post... all qualities which is predicessor lacked.

Mayfly No Longer Shortest Lived Creature

While the shortest lived creature is the mayfly, "media bias" is giving it a run for its money. Media Bias was invented in 2007 and was eliminated in the summer of 2008.

Explain?: This is in reference to the fact that all of the mainstream media claimed up until the Hillary/Obama battle that there was no media bias. Then if they took Hillary’s side, like Katie Couric, they suddenly saw the bias in the reporting against her.

Now that Hillary has lost, the media will unite behind Obama and the media will once again claim that there is no bias in the media.



P.S. I also thought I’d make mention of the crash and burn of Warner-Lieberman CO2 bill.

The Death and Rebirth of Media Bias

It semes that media bias was invented in 2007 and was eliminated in the summer of 2008. This is in reference to the fact all the mainstream media people claimed up until the Hillary/Obama battle that there was no media bias. Then if they took Hillary’s side, like Katie Couric, they suddenly saw the bias in the reporting against her (http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlDC/television/couric_gets_honored_in_dc_86823.asp).  

Now that Hillary has lost, the media will unite behind Obama and the media will once again claim that there is no bias in the media. 

I also thought I’d make mention of the crash and burn of Warner-Lieberman CO2 bill.

Won't Be CNN Headlines

May 27, 2008
Feminist Alice Walker’s daughter on how terrible of a mother she is:


Great example of how a woman was put on anti-depressants for a purely situational depression. (She and her husband moved to France. She didn’t speak French and her husband started hanging out a lot without her. Their marriage fell apart).

What else could be done with the money?

As we are poised to spend billions on tackling the uncertain issue of global warming, the question must be asked, what else could be done with the money?

There are a limited number of resources to tackle the world's problems. Should global warming be the number one issue? That's what the Copenhagen Consensus is asking:


WSJ -The pain caused by the global food crisis has led many people to belatedly realize that we have prioritized growing crops to feed cars instead of people. That is only a small part of the real problem.

This crisis demonstrates what happens when we focus doggedly on one specific – and inefficient – solution to one particular global challenge. A reduction in carbon emissions has become an end in itself. The fortune spent on this exercise could achieve an astounding amount of good in areas that we hear a lot less about.

Research for the Copenhagen Consensus, in which Nobel laureate economists analyze new research about the costs and benefits of different solutions to world problems, shows that just $60 million spent on providing Vitamin A capsules and therapeutic Zinc supplements for under-2-year-olds would reach 80% of the infants in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, with annual economic benefits (from lower mortality and improved health) of more than $1 billion. That means doing $17 worth of good for each dollar spent. Spending $1 billion on tuberculosis would avert an astonishing one million deaths, with annual benefits adding up to $30 billion. This gives $30 back on the dollar.

What Passes for Science These Days

Livescience.com -

The dire situations in cyclone-battered Myanmar and quake-tossed southwestern China and the impulse of many to offer relief have a lot to do with human nature. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors likely did it, and non-human primates do it......

• No mention of religion?

...Though the decision to help tends to be rooted in our evolutionary history and driven by emotions, a weighing of costs and benefits takes place, though not consciously...

• No mention of religion?

Empathy is a capacity we use freely with those close to us, but can disappear when there are competing interests," de Waal said. "For example, if letting in aid organizations undermines one's power (as may be the case with a military dictatorship), the empathy may be suppressed or not emerge at all."

• The only thing standing in the way of their empathy is their desire to hold power? Not that they lack empathy?

Greenhouse Gas Math Problem

The short answer. Those, like John McCain, who want to reduce face a little problem of math. McCain and others want to "reduce carbon emissions in 2050 by 60% of 1990 levels." Here the problem in a few easy steps:

• First, the population growth means the per capita carbon emissions reduction is much less that 60%, closer to 80%.
  
• Carbon emissions mainly come from transportation (about 10-20%) or electricity usage (80-90%) when fossil fuels are burned.
  
• The only way to reduce carbon emissions is to reduce fossil fuel combustion.

1. Ignoring some costs and consequential economic problems, here's what could be done without completely changing your lifestyle (what is suggested for you to do):
   
2. Everyone drive a hybrid - reduce carbon via driving by 50%
   
3. Everyone install solar panels - reduce carbon via electricity by 15%
   
4. Install more wind farms - reduce carbon via electricity by another 5%
   
5. Build more nuclear plants - reduce carbon via electricity by another 20%
   

Okay, so if everything that is suggested is done (ignorning costs) you get at best a 40% reduction. The other 40% must come from demand reduction. Less travel, less air conditioning, etc, will hurt both the economy and the nation's health (remember deaths caused by the heat wave in France?).

How's Castro Liking Retirement?

On February 18th, Castro "announced" he would permanently retire, in a newspaper article, and the press made a big deal about it. In all of the coverage I saw, not one person even speculated that he could be dead already and his death was being hidden to allow Raul Castro to consolidate power. The guy hasn't been seen in public for about 2 years and not one journalist even speculates a remote possibility that Castro might possibly be dead already. The only other possibility is that he is gone mentally and doesn't even understand his surroundings. Both scenarios make his newspaper articles ridiculous frauds.

I'd say in another 3 months or so, they'll announce that Castro is dead. My guess is August 13th, his birthday. Then they'll make a big specticle of his funeral with round-the-clock coverage.

Gas Tax Holiday

Reuters says "economists" slammed the idea of a summer gas tax holiday, and they go on to quote Greg Mankiw, Gilbert Metcalf of Tufts, the Brookings Institute, and Paul Krugman... all whom are global warming hysterics. Lower taxes will lower the price and increase usage, adding to "global warming" they fear.

However, the increased usaged is not just wasted gasoline, but will add to trade and improve the economy. It will be people going on vacation or going to the outlet malls who might not otherwise do so.

Obama: Bitter people cling to guns and religoin

More from the sage, Thomas Sowell:

 

Speaking privately to supporters in heavily left-liberal San Francisco, Obama let down his hair and described working class people in Pennsylvania as so "bitter" that they "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them."

Like so much that Obama has said and done over the years, this is standard stuff on the far left, where guns and religion are regarded as signs of psychological dysfunction -- and where opinions different from those of the left are ascribed to emotions ("bitter" in this case), rather than to arguments that need to be answered.

Like so many others on the left, Obama rejects "stereotypes" when they are stereotypes he doesn't like but blithely throws around his own stereotypes about "a typical white person" or "bitter" gun-toting, religious and racist working class people.

In politics, the clearer a statement is, the more certain it is to be followed by a "clarification," when people react adversely to what was plainly said.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2008/04/15/a_living_lie

Thomas Sowell On Cultures

Manuscript scrolls once preserved the precious records, knowledge, and thought of European or Middle Eastern cultures.  But once paper and printing from China became known in these cultures, books were clearly far faster and cheaper to produce and drove scrolls virtually into extinction.  Books were not simply different from scrolls; they were better than scrolls.  The point that some cultural features are better than others must be insisted on today because so many among the intelligentsia either evade or deny this plain reality.  The intelligentsia often use words like "perceptions" and "values" as they argue in effect that it is all a matter of how you choose to look at it.

 

When Europeans first ventured into the arid interior of Australia, they often died of thirst or hunger in a land where the Australian aborigines had no trouble finding food or water.  Within that particular setting, at least, the aboriginal culture enabled people to do what both aborigines and Europeans wanted to do-- survive.  A given culture may not be superior for all things in all settings, much less remain superior over time, but particular cultural features may nevertheless be clearly better for some purposes-- not just different.

 

http://www.tsowell.com/spcultur.html