The Opinionated Bastard

He’s behind, I thought of her last November. I paired her with Colin though.

Hat Tip: Patrick Ruffini

The ultimate 2008 ticket: Guiliani & Condi.

not that he’s actually done anything stupid yet…

But it’s coming.

You know, this is all Jimmy Carter’s fault. Back when he was President, and under his guidance, the Democratic party changed the rules about how it operates disenfranchising the “silent majority” in favor of the “focal minotiry”. At the time, it seemed like Jimmy was trying to throw the nomination to Jesse Jackson. The end result is that the more crazy you are as a Democrat, the easier it is to get the nomination.

It hasn’t been fixed yet. Probably won’t be either…

Patrick has another interesting analysis of the Pew Report.

This paints a clear picture of:

• Why Clinton Won and Bush Lost
• Why Gore Lost (yes, he really did), and Bush Won
• Why Kerry Lost and Bush Won
• Who the best choice may be for 2008

I won't bother excerpting it, it's short, and worth the trip.

So I guess Howard Dean came through town and I missed it.

Here's a picture of him having anal sex with Dean Bonzani. (not really, Dean #2 is just a bit close, personally, and has a maniacal grin)

Anyways, I think Howard Dean is the wrong choice for DNC chairman, as most Republicans I know put it when they heard Dean was the new chairman: “Well, I guess we'll win 2008 too”. The Democratic party did a great job of firing up their “base” in 2004, but their “base” keeps getting smaller...

So I nominate Steve Jobs. He's as much of an asshole as Howard Dean, but he might do something interesting with the Democratic Party. When Steve Jobs came back to Apple he said:

Shut up about Microsoft, already. What is Apple doing that’s great?

That’s how he turned Apple around, by making sure Apple was doing cool stuff.

So Howard, shut up about the Republicans, what are the Democrats doing that’s great? If the Democrats want to lead, they have to fucking lead, not whine about how mean the Republicans are. For the slow:

Shut up about Bush, what are the Democrats doing that's great?

Looks like Bill Clinton is now a kookoo fundamentalist too.

Just felt like a Rant. I’m in California on a business trip, and I’m in the worst part of California, the North Bay in San Francisco, so I’m surrounded by elitist-yuppie-scum who think they are so enlightened and liberal, when really they are the worst sort of snobs, Mercedes-driving-hippies. I got stuck behind this car on the freeway that was belching black smoke as it proudly proclaimed that it ran on “free used vegetable oil”. No doubt that was why it smelled like burnt french fries.

It’s only been 2 days of gritting my teeth while listening to this claptrap about how the US has killed 100,000 Iraqis (27,000, and that’s about 1/12th of what Saddam would have killed in a year), how our soldiers are nazis, how Iraq is Vietnam, how their free speech is being oppressed, all the same tired rhetoric I became a blogger to escape, and already I’m about to explode.

So here goes.

Technorati Tags: 2000 Election, 2004 Election, Bush, Gore, Iraq, Kerry, Vietnam

1. All that wiretap stuff I’ve been basically giving the Bush Administration a free pass on because they haven’t been abusing it becomes intensely scary with Hillary at the helm given her track record. It would be like Nixon all over again.

2. Hillary is the only candidate provably sane. That is, you’d have to be insane to run for president in today’s media environment. Except Hillary has been through the worst of it with the whole Monica thing. So running for President will seem like a walk in the park. So its not insane for her to run. McCain, Guiliani, Obama, etc. They all must be total lunatics to want to run….

Here are some numbers for y’all.

Total number of delegates to the Democratic National Convention: 4362

Number of delegates needed to secure the Democratic Nomination: 2182

Number of “Superdelegates” that Hillary already pretty much has a lock on because she or Bill raised money for them: 850

Number of delegates she’ll get from New York: 232

Total number of delegates Hillary had lined up the day she announced:

1082 (24.8% of the total delegates)

Hillary was halfway to winning the Democratic nomination the first day.

The only reason the press is writing about Obama is because they have to write about something between now and Super Tuesday.

If you’re interested in the details.

Here’s an interesting tidbit about the delegate rules for the Democratic Party:

AF = ½ × ( ( SDV ÷ TDV ) + ( SEV ÷ 538 ) )

What that above equation says is that your “allocation factor” is the average of your state size in terms of the electoral college, and “how Democratic” your state voted in the last 3 elections.

Bottom line: The Democratic Party has a rich get richer rule so that Blue States get more delegates then Red States. The part that bothers me is that because its directly correlated with the states democratic voting record in the previous Presidential election its effectively cumulative, so that means that every election, the Democratic Party moves more and more to the left. It’s also scaled by the electoral college so if a left leaning candidate polls well in a populous state, the effect is super magnified. This explains a lot about the last few elections. If it seems like the Democratic Party is run by New York and California, its because they are!

Thanks to my Qi Gong powers, I was able to forward through time to record an excerpt from Hillary’s Clintons Inaugural Address.

Well, it looks like Hillary is going to be our next President.

You probably think its a bit early to be calling an election that’s 15 months away. The Democratic primaries don’t even start until January 22, January 14th if you count the caucuses.

Dream on. The moment Hillary announced, she had the nomination in the bag. As of the first day of her campaign Hillary started with 20% of the delegates. No, wait, I forgot, she’ll obviously get New York’s delegates. She started with 25% of the delegates.

She only needs 50%.

The math works like this: The Democratic party have these things called “super-delegates”. A super-delegate is any national elected Democratic official, state party leaders, party hacks, and former Presidents. Hillary has spent the last 6 years either kissing up to them, raising money for them, or married to one of them. Despite their name, “unpledged delegates”, Hillary has bought and paid for those delegates. Hillary is the number two fundraiser in the Democratic party, and the number one fundraiser? Bill.

So what’s all this fuss about Obama then?

Deadlines. The political press has to write about something for the next 20 months. Of course, just because she gets the Democratic nomination doesn’t mean she’ll win the presidency.

Or does it? There’s only one demographic group that seems at all skeptical of Hillary’s ability to win the nomination:

Married White Males

Even Married White Male Hippies cringe when they think about President Hillary. I’ve thought about this, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s because Hillary reminds us of our wives. But not the happy wife that bakes us cookies, calls us Sweetheart, and kisses our forehead while we’re sitting in a chair reading the paper on Sunday. No when we think of President Hillary, we think of the evil wife. The wife that is mad at you because you forgot to take out the trash, or put down the toilet seat, or whichever one of those one million things you’re supposed to do but always forget. That wife. The wife that you just know has some secret evil plan in her head for revenge.

Hillary looks like our wives at their scariest, and she looks like that all the time. Doesn’t matter though. White Males don’t run this country, White Females do. White Females outvote White Males by 54% to 46%.

The demographics work out like this against say, Guiliani the former mayor of New York.

Hillary will get about 90% of the Black vote, 67% Hispanic of the Hispanic vote, 33% of the White Male vote, but 66% of the White Female vote, giving her 57% of the popular vote. In the electoral college? A landslide, possibly even a 50-state landslide.

The reality is that the only person who can stop Hillary is well, Bill. Bill’s health isn’t so good these days, so the chances of the press catching him with an entire girl scout troop, which is about about what it would take to derail the Hillarydozer is about nil.

Which is a bit scary for me, because despite her carefully crafted image as a moderate, Hillary’s voting record makes Ralph Nader look like Richard Nixon. Of course, she is the Senator from New York so perhaps she’s merely reflecting her constituency, but her image as a moderate has chiefly been crafted by the fact that sometimes, when it doesn’t matter, she’ll appear in the same room as a Republican! It seems that just being in the same room as a member of the other party passes for “bipartisanship” and “moderation” these days. Meanwhile, she’s said things like: We just can’t trust the American people to make those types of choices…. Government has to make those choices for people

We’re going to have to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.

Don’t even get me started on what she did the last time she was in the White House, and acting as Bill’s hatchet-man. Whenever I want to scare a Republican who is defending President Bush’s use of domestic wiretapping, it just takes two words: President Hillary. It scares Republicans in the same way you can use President Nixon to scare Democrats, and for much the same reason.

Ok, but maybe one other person can stop Hillary. Condoleeza Rice. With Condi in the race, the demographics work out like this: 50% Black, 67% Hispanic, 33% White Male, 50% White Female = 45% of the popular vote for Hillary, 55% for Condi. One catch. Condi isn’t running. She hasn’t given the Sherman pledge, named after General Sherman: “If nominated, I refuse to run. If elected, I refuse to serve”. In fact, she refused to give the pledge, she’s merely stated that she has enough work to do as Secretary of State.

Which is true enough. The only way Condi could get elected at this point would be if the War in Iraq showed radical improvement, which would only happen if she devoted 100% of her energy to helping fix it. It could happen though, as the “surge” seems to be going well. (Interestingly enough, despite the media coverage, we haven’t sent more troops to Iraq, we’ve merely redeployed the ones that were already there.) But I doubt that will happen in time.

So I leave you with this:

 Resistance is Futile. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our collective. You will adapt to service us. This is the Opinionated Bastard, warning you all: praise the Borg Queen, or suffer her wrath. Because starting Jan 20th, 2009, there will be only two types of Americans; Hillary’s servants, and members of the Vast-Right-Wing-Conspiracy. (You know, people who want to make a profit, own a gun, or pay less taxes; those scum). But fear not, because it takes a village, and our beloved Queen will re-educate them to the glories of the Collective in special concentration camps villages she’ll set aside in one of those “flyover” states. Like say, Arizona…

The Borg are a registered trademark of the Democratic Party Paramount. Used without permission.

Oh no. Obama won and Edwards came in second. Now we'll have another few days of media nonsense "Clinton campaign in crisis, etc.". Iowa is a freaking media circus. Here's a hint: They're not writing "big boost for Obama from Iowa", they're writing about the Borg Queen.

You know what the end result will be? 16 Delegates for Obama, 14 for Edwards, 15 for Clinton. WikiPedia

That's right, where it counts, Clinton came in second! The percentages actually worked out to be 29.47% for Clinton vs. 30.00% for Edwards, so don't take the "Edwards came in second" thing too seriously.

Clinton still has most of the superdelegates locked up, according to WikiPedia again, she has 175, Obama has 75, and Edwards has 46.

Looking at the raw numbers on CNN, this does seem like the Iowans were impressed with Obama. He consistently did well across most of the sate.

But still, its the freaking Iowa caucuses. Winning it is practically the touch of doom!

Past non-incumbent "winners": Muskie. "None of the Above", Gephardt, Harkin, Kerry, and now Obama.

Past incumbent winners: Mondale, Clinton (lost the first time round, ran unopposed in '96), Gore.

I think its interesting that Clinton did worse in the more populous counties and better in the more rural counties. I think that's because the Borg Queen's strategy has always been to play to the center.

DesMoines Register has the best map. I couldn't find one scaled by population though.

Whatever. Here's the kiss of doom for Obama: "Obama campaign manager David Plouffe agreed that the outcome came down to "record turnout and lots of independents and first time voters."

Oh, you mean what all the other campaigns call "losers who never show up on election day? Those guys?" Kind of amazing they showed up for the caucus though, come to think of it. Who knows? Maybe Obama will be able to motivate the mythical 'first time voter'. You know, the ones that were going to push Kerry over the top?

Well, at least this nonsense will only last until Jan 8th, when people actually get to vote in New Hampshire.

Edwards told supporters, "The status quo is yesterday. And change is tomorrow. And tomorrow begins today, right here in New Hampshire."

(ABCNews via, of all people, Fake Steve Jobs)

The mind boggles. Someone on FSJ put it pretty well: The only reason Edwards exists as a presidential candidate is because he has a white penis.

All I want for next Holiday season is a decent presidential candidate. I hear McCain is doing better.

From Patrick Ruffini:

I’m not saying I buy this entirely, but let me play Devil’s advocate. Even if he wins New Hampshire as he seems certain to, I’m not sure that Obama has much better than even odds for the nomination.

The key to this analysis lies in the Democratic calendar. From Wednesday morning until February 5th, the Democrats have only two delegate-awarding events: Nevada on January 19th and South Carolina on January 26th. Assume that Obama’s momentum hits its high water mark on Wednesday. He has to keep it up for 27 days under withering assault from the most ruthless political machine in Democratic history. And with an expected win in S.C., Obama can’t squeeze much more juice from the orange for the next four weeks.

Unlike New Hampshire, Obama simply can’t ride momentum from state-to-state-to-state for the next month. There are 11 days from the New Hampshire primary until the Nevada caucus. Of all the early states, Nevada has been the most Clinton-friendly (though there hasn’t been any polling since early December). Four days before, a full week of settling out from New Hampshire, will be the Las Vegas debate, which will be covered as yet another make-or-break moment. It will happen during a lull in their calendar, so it will leave a bigger mark than New Hampshire’s drive-by debates. And let’s remember that the debates (with one glaring exception) have been Clinton’s strong suit.

So if you do this right, you can have the democratic results in one browser tab and the republican results in another tab, then click to switch back and forth. The nice thing is that you can see the three big cities that affect Iowa: Omaha, Des Moines, and Iowa City.

My conclusion? Iowa doesn't mean anything.

Someone else talking about delegates instead of percentages.

Money quote:

Obama will probably win New Hampshire tonight. And he is in a very good position to win his party's nomination. But don't count Clinton out. She's the insider, the candidate of the establishment - and they have a habit of winning.

Clinton won New Hampshire.

Caucuses are just too fucking weird.

However, Edwards is dead. He's going to hang on until South Carolina, but even if he wins South Carolina, everyone will just say "oh, that's his home state".

Clinton's Best Anti-Obama Slogan: "Where's the Beef?" Gee, if only she had gone around saying that about Kerry...

Meanwhile, on the Republican front, McCain won. Which is good news, because of all the candidates, he's the only one who hasn't been packaged like a soft drink. McCain campaigns by having town meetings and interacting with people, even people who disagree with him.

My fervent dream is a McCain-Clinton matchup. But if that happens, my wife and I will have dueling yard signs...

I'm really glad McCain is doing so well. It's pretty much what got me started blogging again, because 8 years of the Borg Queen was too depressing to contemplate.

When Bill was in office, Hillary was the hatchet man.

Now that Hillary is running, Bill is the hatchet man.

Whatever you think about Billary, they're a team. It's called marriage.

One wonders why none of the political pundits has figured this out yet. Bill can attack any of the other candidates, and come off as an offended husband defending his wife. Hillary did the same thing when Bill was running and in office.

Hillary may be evil, but she's pretty fucking competent.

One good thing about Hillary is that hopefully she's ended the "quiet, demure wife-of-the-candidate" stereotype.

It's just bizarre reading all these people in the blogosphere who are mad at McCain because he's supposedly soft on immigration.

McCain is from a border state (same state I am from). McCain is not being soft, he's being realistic.

I'm sorry, but everyone I've ever talked to about immigration who didn't live in CA, AZ, NM, TX, or FL was completely clueless.

Did you know that a good portion of the illegal immigrants go home for Christmas?

Policy, Smallicy. Who cares.

Which of the candidates has the best website? That's the important question.

Originally written for the Noise about 2 weeks ago:

Reviewing the Presidential Candidates...Websites
I admit it; besides being a political geek, I’m also a web geek. I make my living being a web geek. So in the last election (2006), I ended up voting for the candidates with the best website. Going to the candidate’s websites and seeing what they said about themselves and their plans was the best way to figure out what they were about, and who to vote for. Because honestly, how much media coverage do you think there is for the Arizona Corporation Commissioner race?

I did the same thing in the 2004 election on the national level. What the candidates were about was more obvious in that election, but visiting each candidates website helped solidify impressions in some cases, or refute them in other cases. I didn’t see any reason to trust Bush about Kerry or Kerry about Bush, but I could trust Kerry about Kerry, and Bush about Bush.

Given what a mess this primary season has been on both sides, I thought I’d review not the candidates, but their websites. So without further ado, let’s go look at their websites:

Hillary Clinton: www.hillaryclinton.com

Hillary’s website starts with a splash page for you to signup as a supporter. This kind of stuff has always annoyed me. Its bad website design because you really have to hook people in with the first page. Putting a page in front of your website actually decreases the number of people who will read your site by a huge amount; it’s counter-productive. Especially a form that wants your name, email and zip code as most people won’t read down to see that you can click a link to skip that step and go directly to the website. Once you’re there, the website seems geared towards people who are already supporters. So as someone looking to be convinced that Hillary should get my vote, I started out annoyed.

However, Hillary has a pretty good website overall. She has a pretty good biography, and her take on the issues is presented well, with position outlines supplemented with speeches. Her most detailed issue is on Health Care, you get the feeling that her health care platform paper was cribbed from some 1,000 page piece of legislation that has been sitting in her desk drawer for the last 8 years. Key speeches are presented with both transcripts and occasionally video, and you can read about what Hillary is doing every day. One interesting feature of her site are the related sister sites: hillaryhub.com and facts.hillaryhub.com. These sites are devoted to news about Hillary and spin. Her site links to a YouTube channel where video bits are getting posted almost daily.
Of the 3 Democratic candidates I looked at Hillary’s website was probably the best.

Barack Obama: www.barackobama.com

The first time you go to Obama’s website, you get the same annoying signup form as on Hillary’s site with a cloyingly sweet picture of his family. The second time you go to his website, it mercifully skips his signup form, which is probably good because the picture on that form is just awful.

Obama’s site is very pretty and has very nice graphics. They’re almost too nice though. I was reminded of the time I was in Italy and I was in my hotel room for 3 days before I realized that the strange metal sculpture on the back of a door wasn’t a sculpture at all: it was a coat hook. You can take design too far some times, and at times I found Obama’s site a puzzle to navigate. It’s a pretty icon, but what does it mean?

Obama’s biography section was weak, no surprise there, and for someone who is famous for his eloquence, there were few speeches and those presented only as a transcript only...or are they? It turns out that the best way to get access to Barack’s speeches is through something called BarackTV. It’s easily the best feature of Obama’s website.
But video can only take you so far. We have complicated issues facing us as a country, so I want some position papers. Heading over to the issues section on his website at first glance his take on the issues seemed deep, but when I downloaded them and read them, they reminded me of John “I have a plan...to have a plan” Kerry. That is, his positions talked mostly about what problems he saw rather than what he was going to do about it.

I would guess that Obama’s website is geared towards getting visitors to watch him speak. Since I wasn’t willing to do that, I wasn’t overly swayed by his site.

John Edwards: www.johnedwards.com

John Edwards has the same annoying signup thing as Hillary and Obama but his picture isn’t quite as annoying as Obama’s. Like Obama, visiting the site again lets you skip the form. Which doesn’t quite help, because the first thing I saw on the home page was a slideshow image complaining about being ignored by the media in favor of Hillary/Obama. Sorry John, but you’re just coming across as whiny.

Something about the color scheme of the site just grated on me, but I persevered. I was momentarily hopeful when I saw a link on the main page to his 80-page “book” The Plan to Build One America (quotes are mine not his. When did 80 pages become a book?). After downloading and reading it though, I found it mostly content free. It was better then Obama’s, but still too vague to mean much. You can tunnel down through the issues on the website, and they’re well connected to speeches and debate questions.

The best feature of his website is the blog section, and Edwards has internet links to pretty much every social networking site on the planet.

So a fairly good effort, but somehow, not very inspiring.

John McCain: www.johnmccain.com

Same old signup thing, though McCain’s has a giant “Donate Today” button on it, and the skip link is less prominent. Once you get in the site is very easy on the eyes; its probably the best-designed and most usable of all of the websites I reviewed. One thing that especially stood out was the use of sidebars; as I poked around on the site, related information to what I was looking at would be well presented adjacent to what I was browsing. McCain had a lot of “best of” out of all the websites: He had the best biography, presented in both text and video; the best presentation of his views on health care; and the presentation on Iraq. Additionally, he had two unique features: he was the only candidate to have sections and content specifically geared towards Undecided voters, and comments on his blog are open, even people who don’t like him are welcome to post. I thought that was pretty ballsy, but that’s similar to how he’s been conducting his campaign: all town hall meetings all the time.

Given how he’s been running his campaign I would have expected him to have videos of every single town hall meeting available, but since none of the other candidates have seen fit to do that, I can’t really criticize him for it. Best Republican site.

Rudy Giuliani: www.joinrudy2008.com

Rudy didn’t have the annoying signup splash screen. Instead, you go directly to the home page. Once there, if anything, his website reminds me of one of the TV network websites like abc.com. That is, he seems more like a television channel then any of the other candidates. Want to know about the issues? You have to watch a speech, because he doesn’t have much text about the issue.

So at first glance his website seems content free for someone like me. But if you dig deeper, you can find a gem: The news items, press releases and blog posts are all tagged, so you can click a tag and instantly see all the content on the site relating to that subject which includes press releases, speeches, and blog posts.

So perhaps there’s better coverage of the issues, but you’ll have to dig for it.

Mitt Romney: www.mittromney.com

Mitt’s site started with a slightly less obnoxious splash page with prominent “Contribute” and “Volunteer” buttons, though the “skip to site” button was well labeled. Once there, the site is somewhat generic, but you really get a sense that Mitt is involved with his family: the blog is called ‘5 Brothers’ and host posts from Mitt, his brothers, and his wife. Unlike the rest of the candidates blogs, which are obviously written by staffers, the Romney blog feels like one of those “holiday newsletters” you get folded up inside Christmas cards.

Mitt’s site has a pretty good TV section, with clips sorted well in to section, and lots of them. Not quite as good as Obama’s, but fairly well done. The issues section is mostly an overview with a video for each, but Mitt has some interesting charts.

One gets the impression that Mitt’s website is geared towards getting people to feel like “part of the Romney family". I wasn’t really impressed with his issue coverage, they felt like overviews; even worse then Obama.

Mike Huckabee: www.mikehuckabee.com

Of all the candidates, Mike Huckabee had the worst website. His website was practically content-free on the issues, and the most prominent picture on his website is of him and Chuck Norris. I found it hard to take him seriously as a candidate before I saw his website, I take him less seriously now. The only reason I even looked at his site was because my editor insisted.

What I would like to see:

While every candidate has links to all the social networking sites and YouTube, I don’t think any of the campaigns have really leveraged them effectively. Meanwhile, video is king! Every candidate had lots of videos on their website. Some were well integrated into the website, some were just, well, there. This is clearly the YouTube election, but its not yet the MySpace election.

Except for McCain, who as I noted above allows pretty open commenting, once you enter a candidates website don’t expect to see a lot of disagreement with the candidate. Most comments are filtered and restricted to being positive on the candidates websites. That makes most of the websites seem stilted and artificial. I’m not sure it wouldn’t be better to dive in like McCain has done, and link not only to supporters, but detractors as well. Long term, what you really want is to have every stump speech in every location available on the candidates website or YouTube. It’s free, and why not? Given that I prefer the town hall format to canned speeches anyways, I think this would help extend the discussion to everyone. Yeah, it’s harder to maintain a “focused message”, but I think American’s are immune to “focused messages” these days anyways.

The interesting thing really about all the websites is really how much they reflect the candidates personalities: Hillary is all geared up to confront spin, and her issue coverage is as dry as a legal brief; Obama is all great design and looks, but no substance, and Edwards while more substantial then Obama, is uninspiring. On the Republican side, McCain seems most concerned that you understand where he’s coming from and why; Guiliani seems like a TV commerical for a fast food restaurant, and Romney is all about his big family.

Meanwhile, if the election were based on websites, I would have to call McCain and Hillary the frontrunners.

Today I go to exercise the greatest privilege in the history of the world.

The right to vote.

In the history of the world, this moment in time is but an eyeblink. But in this moment in time, the most important men and women of our age come to us, the citizens, and say "This is what I think is the best way to run the country. What do you think?" We choose our leaders based not on their blood, but on their ideas and the quality of their character.

People call voting a "right".

It is a privilege.

McCain knew it was going to come.

We knew it was going to come.

The great McCain smear article by the New York Times.

The best they can dig up is that McCain once knew a lobbyist, who...drumroll...happened to be female...and younger!

Yeah, who ISN'T younger then McCain? To quote McCain: "I'm older than dirt!"

This is their headline: "For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk"

Translation: "McCain Too Honest, Nothing to See Here"

Meanwhile it turns out the NYT got most of their facts wrong.

So if just knowing a lobbyist or a crook is bad, that makes the corruption score:

Obama: 100

Clinton: 1,000

McCain: 2

Way to go, NYT.

The whole Keating 5 issue is a dead horse, and of the 3 possibilities for President, McCain is probably the most honest.

Here's what the AZ Republic had to say about the issue.

This is pretty clever. McCain has a Basketball Picks application setup on his website. Its pretty fun!

Change smange (notice how Obama never promises to change things for the better?). McCain is the candidate of fun!

Here's the transcript of Obama's speech on racism. I have to say, its a great speech.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all

He goes on to say:

he profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

A reporter from Chicago who Knew Obama when talks about his experiences.

Read it here

So I linked to Obama's speech about "race" earlier.

While I liked the speech, upon reflection, I think that ultimately it was a loser. This came to me while reading this article over at Politico titled Obama's racial problems transcend Wright.

It talks about the fact that Obama's race has mattered in the election, that many of his "string of victories" have come in states with large black populations. Obama has been winning a large percentage of the black vote. In a word, duh. If I was black, I'd vote for him. I live in Arizona, I'm voting for McCain, my wife has a Vagina, she's voting for Hillary.

But getting 87 percent of the black vote won't help him in the general. A little political math here: Most Blacks are registered Democrats. So they're going to have a huge effect on the primary. In the general? Republicans weren't going to get those votes anyways, he's getting 87 percent of the votes that were already a lock for the Democrats. In states with more typical breakouts of black and non-black voters, Obama has lost.

So if people vote by "identity", which is political speak for people voting along racial lines, Obama loses.

All political wonks know this, and I knew it before I started reading the Politico article.

But the interesting thing about Obama's campaign during his high water period was that people weren't voting by identity, or at least white people weren't. But as the Politico article has made clear, the honeymoon is over for white voters with Obama. Wright's poison saw to that.

So those voters are going to Obama and rightly asking "He's your pastor, he's baptized your kids, your book title was stolen from one of his sermons. Yet this guy thinks 9/11 was just punishment? He thinks America is evil? What's all this about?"

Obama's answer was essentially: It's a black thing. You white people wouldn't understand. Besides, you white people have your own things. We need to move away from people having things.

Fair enough as a sentiment. But I think he's blown it because now he's rubbing people's noses in the fact that he's black. If he had more of a record, perhaps more voters could transcend that. But he doesn't. Wright's charisma of hatred cancels Obama's charisma of hope.

I don't know what exactly Obama should have said. But I don't think that It's a black thing. You white people wouldn't understand. was the right answer.

Here's McCain on ForeignPolicy "An Enduring Peace Built on Freedeom":

McCain is the only candidate who isn't a lawyer.

Meanwhile, whizbang has had some follies with the law.

Over on Politico, there's this article titled: Obama readies plan to reshape the electorate

If your plan to get elected requires "reshaping the electorate", you're going to lose.

Dear Obama,

We decided we didn't want to be reshaped.

--The Electorate

Even the article says:

Every four years, Democrats claim, and reporters write, that a massive voter registration and field operation will reshape the electorate in their favor.

Rassmussen Reports Notes: Winner Take All? Clinton Wins!

Given that the real election is Winner Take All, if the Democrats ran their party like, well, it was a Presidential Election? Clinton would be far ahead.

So if the Democrats end up with Obama, that means they have so screwed up their Primary process, that they will have nominated a candidate that would lose in a real election.

If they can't run a political party, how can they run a country?

You know, what really bothers me about the whole "cling" statement of Obama's was that it touched a pet peeve of mine:

I've met a lot of working income people who've had more class than many of the upper income people I've met.

Upper income? Low Class. (Think Paris Hilton)

Working Income? Upper Class. (When my dad setup United Way at his work, the people making the least gave the most.)

I have to say, that I'm much happier with either Obama or Clinton as a possible President then Kerry.

John Mc Cain Addresses Wresting Fans

Seems like the obvious way out for the super delegates is to vote the way their state voted. That is, make the super-delegates winner-take-all in each state.

If only I had a spreadsheet with all the delegates broken out by type and by state...

As I get older, more and more, it seems to me that whatever people say, the exact opposite is true.

So Barack Obama is going around saying that McCain is running for George Bush's 3rd term.

Except that to me, of the two, Barack Obama seems like a left wing version of Bush.

It's what I call the "Wisdom Deficit". The Left didn't have it quite right with Bush. It's not that Bush was stupid. On the contrary, Bush was smart enough. What Bush wasn't was wise. Wisdom and Intelligence are two different things.

I went to Caltech. I'm a fucking rocket scientist, and I've worked with some of the most brilliant people in the world.

Some of the most brilliant people in the world can also be some of the stupidest.

For me, intelligence vs. Wisdom is the difference between Theory and Practice. You can come up with a brilliantly thought out theory; but it may be a disaster in practice.

Bush wasn't wise enough to be cynical about what the intelligence agencies were telling him. He wasn't wise enough to realize that when General Franks said "I'll plan the invasion, but the occupation is someone else's problem" that meant "You better find someone who can do this." Bush wasn't wise enough to keep watch on some of his appointees (FEMA, FDA, etc.). Bush wasn't wise enough to trust the American people with the real reasons for the Iraq War, so he took the WMD tactic. Bush wasn't wise enough to realize that he needed to sit down with the American people and guide us through the decision process. Bush wasn't wise enough to realize that when American's talk about winning the hearts and minds in a war, its not really the enemies hearts and minds we have to win over, but our own. Bush wasn't wise enough to take speechmaking lessons. Bush wasn't wise enough to realize that the smartest thing you can do some times is change your mind.

I think Obama might make a good president someday. But not now. Right now, he has the same problem Bush had. A deficit of wisdom. Obama doesn't seem wise enough to realize that many of his positions are just wrong, and he's surrounded himself with advisors who are well, clowns and fanatics.

I get that people are angry at Bush. But a left-wing Bush would be a complete disaster. Obama is a left-wing Bush. Same set of problems, just in a different direction. If you feel that the country would be best served by a confused drift to the hard left after Bush's confused drift to the right, Obama's your man.

But I don't think that the country needs confused direction to the Right or the Left. When I look at the candidates positions, it seems to me that in general, they're both right, and they're both wrong. What we really need in a leader is someone who can take the best of both sides and merge them together.

McCain has been my Senator for as long as I've lived in Arizona. I've run into him now and again, and he always had the time and grace for a constituent. When I talked to him about an issue, I learned something. When I disagreed with him and talked to him about it, half the time he convinced me I was wrong, and he always convinced me that he deeply understood the issue. McCain has been wise enough to change his mind.

I've always been proud McCain was my Senator, and someday I hope to be proud he's my President.

We have slightly different standards in Arizona then Chicago. But hey, you're ahead of Nixon!

Fortunately, however, there was one proposal that McCain put forward that could really make a difference. This was his call to require that all new cars sold in the USA be flex fueled.

Flex fuel cars can run on any combination of alcohol (including methanol and ethanol) or gasoline. The technology is readily available and it only costs about $100 per vehicle.

Making America a flex-fuel vehicle market would effectively make flex-fuel the international standard, as all significant foreign car makers would be impelled to convert their lines over as well. Within three years of such a mandate, there would be 50 million cars on the road in the USA capable of running on alternate fuels, and hundreds of millions more worldwide. Around the globe, gasoline would be forced to compete at the pump against alcohol fuels made from any number of sources, including not only current commercial crops like corn and sugar, but cellulosic ethanol made from crop residues and weeds, as well as methanol, which can be made from any kind of biomass without exception, as well as coal, natural gas, and recycled urban trash. Creating such an open-source fuel market would enormously expand and diversify humanity’s fuel resource base, protecting all nations from continued blackmail, robbery, and in some cases, starvation, induced by the oil cartel.

Methanol is selling today, without any subsidy, for $1.50/gallon on the spot market, equivalent in energy terms to gasoline at $2.80/gallon. Make cars that can choose between methanol and gasoline, and the power of OPEC to set high prices will be broken for good — everywhere in the world.

So break out the champagne. Amidst a pile of campaign nonsense, John McCain just set forth one policy that could save the nation.

Hat tip: Pajamas Media

I had a weird thought today.

Ok, so lets say Obama gets elected. Let's say he implements some political pandering nonsense like say, a windfall profits tax to punish those evil oil companies, for well, making money.

So Silicon Valley has a conniption, because most software companies make something like 65% profit. If this so called windfall profits tax was too broad, you could just bulldoze Silicon Valley. So they make an exemption for technology companies.

So Exxon buys Microsoft so they can avoid the tax.

Even though I think Obama is a lot better then Kerry, his position on the war really bothers me.

In a nutshell, Obama thinks that we never should have gone into Iraq; therefore we should pull out as soon as possible.

Fair enough. Despite the fact that Iraq had stockpiled 500 tons of Uranium, and that even Hans Blix found some weird shit in Iraq, I think even President Bush wishes he'd done things differently. Even if he still decided that we needed to go into Iraq, there are plenty of things we should have done differently.

But there's no Presidential Time Machine in the basement of the White House. If Obama is elected, he's going to have to deal with things as they are, not how he'd like them to be.

Obama is a lawyer. Lawyers seem to believe that the way to get things done is to talk about doing things. As near as I can tell, he has never had any real project management responsibilities except perhaps his experience as a community organizer. Even then, at most, he managed 14 people and its not clear that he managed any major projects during that period.

So he doesn't get something that I, as a middle manager, know instinctively. Schedules Slip.

Why 16 months? Why not 17? 18? 15?. I've tried to figure out where that number comes from and the best I've gotten is that Obama talked to one of his military advisers who said:

Well, if everything goes according to plan, we could be out in 16 months.

Let me say that again with the appropriate emphasis.

Well, if everything goes according to plan, we could be out in 16 months.

The problem with that statement is that nothing ever goes according to plan, especially in a friggin' war. If one of these $2.8 million Stryker's breaks down on the way out of Iraq, does that become 16 months and 1 day? Or will Obama just leave them there to rot? I have to say that if he does that, I'd like a refund on my income taxes paid over my entire life, because if the government is going to waste my money like that, fuck 'em.

Ok, so let's say that if a Stryker breaks down, that we delay 1 day.

Now we're at 24 months, realistically. Because never, in the history of the world, has anything ever gone according to plan. Trucks are going to break down, tires are going to go flat, the list of little things that won't go according to plan goes on and on. You have to make things not going according to plan, part of the plan. Think that's a paradox? Well, welcome to project management.

Even worse, I can tell you from my project management experience that when I say 24 months, that's only if you realize that the schedule will slip. If you're deluded enough to think that God and the Universe actually thinks that by saying 16 over and over and over again, that somehow, magically you'll hit your original schedule date, it will take 32 months.

That's right, if you hold to a schedule beyond all semblance of reason, things take even longer. Its only if you're lucky that it will take twice as long. That's the second paradox of project management.

Back when I was a consultant, a customer hired me to fix a problem that had been plaguing them for a year. I fixed it in a month. When they asked me how I was able to accomplish this "miracle". I told them:

You've been trying to do 1 month of work in 2 weeks. Your team is perfectly capable, but they've been trying to patch around the problem instead of fixing it. When I signed on, I told you it would take a month, and you didn't like it, but after a year of pain you said ok. So I went and fixed it, and it took a month.

The customer admitted that their own team had told them it would take a month to fix it a year prior, but they told them "that's too long, you have to do it in 2 weeks". So they spent a year being "2 weeks away".

If we try to pull out of Iraq in 16 months when we realistically need 17, 18 or 24 months, we'll be there longer then we would if we set a realistic deadline.

Of course, this isn't a project its a war, which means if we aren't realistic, we might have a third Iraq war. Or we might be there forever.

The thing that bothers me the most about Obama is that he doesn't realize what he doesn't know, and he definitely doesn't realize what his advisors don't know. Someone obviously pulled this 16 month number out of their ass, and Obama has continually avoided any attempt to learn better. Additionally, his campaign is so afraid of any question that's off the reservation that they keep him sequestered. Soldiers? Can't talk to them. Foreign Media? We'll provide flyers in German, but no foreign media to ask questions. Does it seem weird to anyone else that his own campaign doesn't trust Obama to talk?

Meanwhile, he stubbornly sticks to this "I was right in 2002".

A stopped clock is right twice/day. Him claiming he was right as a Illinois State Senator doesn't impress me. What might impress me is if he explained how he reached that decision. We don't give Top Secret briefings to state senators. What information did he use to base his decision on? Whatever was published in the Chicago Tribune? His Psychic Powers? Did he read Hans Blix's report? Scary stuff in there. Did he read the Duelfer report? Scary stuff in there as well.

I've read everything I could get my hands on before and after we went into Iraq and I have to say, I'm glad I wasn't President, because it was a tough call. The media likes to make it sound black and white, but it's not that simple. Saddam was both stupid and evil. There are plenty of stupid world leaders, and plenty of evil world leaders, but stupid and evil was a deadly combination.

(If you want to argue with me about this issue, I have one word: Camelpox. If you don't know what that means, you don't know enough to argue with me about this.)

But I don't get the sense that Obama has done anything beyond read the newspaper about Iraq. Everything I've heard Obama say about Iraq seems less informed than me. I'm just a concerned citizen trying to understand a difficult issue, not a full time politician. Obama should be more informed than me about this issue, not less.

Now that Obama is the Democratic nominee, he can get Top-Secret briefings from the government. He can get other briefings in his job as a Senator. Has he done so? No.

In essence, Obama seems to be relying not on the facts on the ground, or the information he has access to if he just asks. Obama seems to have used his psychic powers 6 years ago to make his decision on Iraq, and he's surrounded himself with advisors who agree with him. He's studiously avoided talking to anyone who might tell him otherwise.

Eisenhower famously told Kennedy that only the difficult problems would end up on his desk. Easy problems get solved long before they reach the desk of the President. As President, Obama will have to make decisions not based on what his psychic powers told him 6 years ago, but on the reality today.

I hope he comes to realize this.

Meanwhile, if Obama isn't using his top secret briefing could I have it? Because I would love to truly, truly understand the last 7 years of history.

LikeTelevision Embed Movies and TV Shows

Obama has become the Boy in the Bubble. Fake Interviews, he only speaks with a teleprompter.

What does Obama’s campaign staff think he might get infected with? Reality?

Obama is Scrooge!

Today, The Miami Herald reports of mounting pressure on Barack Obama from Cuban exiles over two campaign advisers tied to the Elian Gonzalez fiasco, Eric Holder and Greg Craig:

Greg Craig, a foreign policy advisor, represented Elian's father in the custody battle that ended with the boy being sent back to Cuba. Eric Holder, a member of Obama's vice presidential search committee, served as deputy attorney general when the federal agents seized the boy from his Miami relatives. His mother died at sea in the rafting trip to Miami.

Bottom line, giving a specific number (like say, 16) in a war is just foolish.

Out of Exxon, Microsoft, Apple, and Intel, who has the greatest profit margins? Microsoft, at 29%. Exxon is the least profitable of those three companies.

Don't take my word for it:

Yahoo Finance Key Statistics: Intel

Yahoo Finance Key Statistics: Microsoft

Yahoo Finance Key Statistics: Apple

Yahoo Finance Key Statistics: Exxon/Mobil

Look for "Profit Margin".

Obama is going to give everyone $1000 and pay for it by taxing those evil oil companies! Not!

You know, originally, I was just kidding about Exxon buying Microsoft so that they would no longer be an oil company. I didn't really think Obama would really be as stupid as say, Jimmy Carter.

I was wrong.

Obama needs more time in the oven. Like 4-8 years...

The McCain campaign is giving away "Obama Energy Plan" tire pressure gauges.

Pretty funny idea.

Get yours here!

John McCain went to Sturgis for the Motorcycle rally.

Obama, not to be outdone, will be giving a speech at Folsom Street Fair.

Both crowds are known for wearing leather, but for vastly different reasons.

From the Huffington Post of all places.

John McCain is a complete and well-formed man. Barack Obama is completing himself. As he moves to fit what he perceives to be a right-of-center country, he distances himself from the simple and authentic passion of a young candidate who once pledged "Change We Can Believe In."

Read it here.

So Obama has responded to $4/gallon gasoline and the economic slowdown with possibly the stupidest idea imaginable. A $500/person tax refund, funded by a windfall profit tax on those evil oil companies. (It's $1,000 if you're married.)

I can't believe anyone would be so stupid as to repeat an idea that didn't work during the Carter administration.

First off, oil companies may be raking in record profits, but that doesn't mean that they are super-profitable. I've already covered how Exxon is only making about 10% profit. It's 10% profit on a bigger number, so the total number is bigger, but their profit margins are still low. That's because Exxon still has to buy some of their oil from the Middle East. It's not Exxon raking in $119/barrel, its Saudi Arabia. Exxon might be making more money on domestic oil, but only if they own the oil fields.

Second, it would be a disaster. Per the Congressional Research Service:

Reinstating the windfall profit tax would reduce recent oil industry windfalls due to high crude and petroleum prices but could have several adverse economic effects.

Obama can read the same report, so the campaign quotes:

Therefore, a well designed mechanism can impose a fee on a small share of these windfall profits without affecting incentives for oil companies and without affecting the price of oil. Indeed, as the Congressional Research Service recently concluded: “[T]o the extent that a surtax on the corporate income of crude oil producers on their upstream operations could approximate such a [pure corporate profits] tax, this would not raise crude oil prices and would not increase petroleum imports in the short run. While the current corporate income tax is not a pure corporate profits tax, a surtax for oil companies would arguably be an administratively simple and economically effective way to capture estimated oil windfalls in the short run.

What that paragraph is trying to say is that the only way a Windfall profits tax could possibly work is if it was just an extra corporate income tax applied to the oil/gas industry. Which makes my scenario of Exxon buying Microsoft seem more likely. Of course, they omit the next sentence:

In the long run, such a tax is a tax on capital; it reduces the rate of return, thus reducing the supply of capital to the oil industry.

and they also ignore the conclusion:

In the long run however, all taxes distort resource allocation and even a corporate profit tax (either of the pure type or the surtax on the existing rates) would reduce the rate of return and reduce the flow of capital into the industry, adversely affecting domestic production and increasing imports.

In other words, we'll raise money in the short term, but in the long term, we're going to be even more dependent on Saudi Arabia. No doubt this would have an adverse affect on our economy, reducing the money available to the government in other ways. So it could easily be a net loss. (Shades of the Carter administration again)

The campaign also chose to omit the paragraph which preceeded it:

The $80 billion in gross revenues generated by the WPT between 1980 and 1988 was significantly less than the $393 billion projected. Due to the deductibility of the WPT against the income tax, cumulative net WPT revenues were about $38 billion, significantly less than the $175 billion projected. This report presents estimates of the amount of foregone oil production from 1980-1986 due to the WPT under three alternative supply price responses, reflecting three different assumptions about the price elasticity of the domestic oil supply function, a critical factor (statistic) in estimating lost oil output and increased import dependence. From 1980 to 1988, the WPT may have reduced domestic oil production anywhere from 1.2% to 8.0% (320 to 1,269 million barrels). Dependence on imported oil grew from between 3% and 13%. The tax was repealed in 1988 because (1) it was an administrative burden to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), (2) it was a compliance burden to the oil industry, (3) due to low oil prices, the tax was generating little or no revenues in 1987 and 1988, and (4) it made the United States more dependent on foreign oil. The depressed state of the U.S. oil industry after 1986 also contributed to the repeal decision.

In other words, it was an unmitigated disaster last time. It didn't raise the money it was supposed to, it increased our dependence on foreign oil, and it crippled our domestic oil companies. It was a stupid idea then, and a stupider idea now.

In the new flavor, its especially bizarre. Even if you think that gas/oil companies are evil, you have to realize that the cost of gas and oil are, to a large extent, a big factor of everything you buy. A Windfall Profits tax is going to make food and commuting more expensive. In essence, the Windfall Profits tax is going to fall most heavily on the poor. Having an extra $1,000 won't help, because everyone will be spending $3,000 more on gas...

I can only see only the following possible reasons why Obama would propose this:

• He's stupid. It's possible that Obama has bought into the whole Profit is Evil thing. Democrats have a tendency to view the economy as one large pie, with their stated goal to be to give everyone a fair share of that one pie. I'm all for economic justice, but the problem with that view is that the economy is really a collection of difference size pies. Rather then trying to get a bigger share of the one pie, what the Democrats really need to create more pies. So Obama could possibly think that by crushing the "evil" oil companies that everyone else will get a bigger share of the economy. What will actually happen is that the pie will shrink, and everyone will get a smaller share of the smaller pie.
• He's smart, but has another agenda. That is, he knows exactly what will happen, that it will drive up gas prices, and cripple domestic oil production if not our entire economy, but he's ok with that for some sort of misguided ecological reason. In other words, he buys into that whole whining thing about the US being only 5% of the population but 25% of the consumption, yadda, yadda, yadda. So he's going to make the US poorer instead of making other countries richer.
• He's cynical. He doesn't think it will actually pass, but he's trying to pander for votes on the left by saying "we'll tax those evil oil companies to help working families".

What do you think? Stupid, Cynical or Smart? Leave me a comment.

I sent about 3 different letters to the McCain campaign suggesting this.

The Virtual Town Hall Meeting

No need to thank me, John. Just as long as you turn the One, into the "Second Place".

So the Washington Times ran a survey article about Obama jokes.

Far be it for me to say that Obama and the Democratic Party are snobbish, elitist, humorless dweebs....when I can just cut/paste quotes from the article that demonstrate the point perfectly.

"The most effective weapon against a political opponent is humor, especially mocking," said Democratic strategist Mary Anne Marsh. "When it gets picked up by late-night comedians, it becomes part of the mainstream and reaches even more voters more effectively."

One Democrat said the McCain tack is working. "To a certain extent the ads are having some effect," said Tom Daschle, a former Senate majority leader and an Obama adviser.

Though if you want to read real vitrol, just go over to the Huffington Post and read a few comments.

Hey, DNC: Running for President is a Trial by Ordeal. If your guy can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen!

Presidential candidates only get 1/10th the mockery a sitting president gets. Rent Obama a sense of humor.

The McCain campaign pointed out today in response to an Obama ad that they weren't the first to run a negative ad, and their strategy was suddenly clear.

So first, McCain releases the Obama Love video, calling the media on their infatuation with Obama.

Then they run the "Celebrity" and "One" ads, which actually, aren't negative. Instead, they're actually sort of "The Emperor Has No Clothes" style of ads. As others have noticed, they show a lot of pictures of Obama, and they're good pictures. He's smiling, he's in front of adoring crowds, etc. It's actually surprising. But then they ask one question.

Is he ready to lead?

Suddenly, the media fawning over Obama goes from a plus, to a negative. Being in the tank for Obama will actually make Obama seem weaker, not stronger.

So McCain has managed to neutralize Obama's major advantage. The Media.

This is the man I want planning our strategy in the Middle East.

I dunno what the guys over at 538 are thinking. Whenever Democratic candidates start saying that they're going to get a lot of youth votes, and that youth votes are undercounted, that means they've lost.

Yeah, ok, if you were 14-17 in the last election, maybe you had an excuse for not voting. But if you didn't vote in Bush/Kerry, you're not going to vote in McCain/Obama.

Here's Obama's New Ad claiming that McCain is a bigger celebrity then Obama. (I'm like so totally fooled, Obama).

First off, the ad is lame. McCain's ads were funnier. Obama's is just whiny.

Second, do they realize that unlike McCain's ad, which just asked a question Is he ready to lead? Obama's ad is a negative attack ad.

Here's McCain's Ad.

You can compare McCain's playlist to Obama's here.

Weirdest pick?
GT: I couldn’t tell if it was cool or creepy for Obama to have “Yes We Can.” Maybe he’s in love with himself and wants to hear his speeches over and over as collaged by will.i.am.

So I did that hand gesture to my wife and I asked her, "What do you think it means?"

She said, "Asshole".

After 5 minutes of rolling around on the floor laughing, with her saying, "what? What?" I told her:

That's the new "I am an Obamanaut" sigh.

She said: "See, I was right."

Over here at OpinionatedBastard, we heartily endorse the Obamanaut sign.

Obama's Mindshare since 2004, according to Google:

The world:

Kenya wins with 100% of the searches.

The US:

Obama US, last 30 days:

Here's McCain:

Iraq is coming in at 66% of America's 100%.

The US for McCain:

Last 30 days:

It would be interesting if someone could compare these maps to the battleground states...

This is based on the difference between the Obama search percentages in a state and the McCain search percentages in a state over the last 30 days. It's not super accurate, because Obama leads in searches by 74/44 on whatever weird scale Google uses. So I'm subtracting two percentages that are in two different scales

But its fun to look at!

Ernie pointed out that oil is partially a function of the dollar which is a reasonable insight, but the dollar hasn't fallen to 10% of the Euro, demand vs. supply is still a big issue.

However, Ernie is wrong, as is Obama, about drilling not helping.

From FactCheck.org today:

We are issuing a split decision in the Obama vs. McCain dispute over whether proper tire inflation could save as much oil as expanded offshore drilling is likely to produce.

We find that proper tire inflation could save more than a billion gallons of fuel per year and do it several years sooner than expanded drilling could produce a single drop. McCain has exaggerated by representing Obama's suggestion as a silly notion or implying that it constitutes his entire energy policy.

But we also figure that expanded offshore drilling is projected to produce far more oil eventually than can be saved by proper tire inflation – nearly three times as much even by the conservative estimate of government experts, and more than 10 times as much if an industry-endorsed estimate is correct. And even taking into account additional fuel savings from tune-ups, which Obama also mentioned, he greatly exaggerated.

However, part of the reasons the Democrats are saying it would take 10 years for oil to show up, is that it would probably be true under a Democratic administration, because bringing new oil online means a lot of environmental impact statements, government review, etc. A Republican administration could make that happen in 2 years if they wanted.

So McCain/Obama are both shading the truth a bit on this issue, but the reality is that the Democrats don't want to drill because they want to break the national addiction to gasoline. McCain wants to break our addiction to foreign gasoline, but ease into it, because oil, unfortunately, underlies lots of our economy. The Gas tax hits the poor more then anyone else..

And the laws of physics aren't in our favor at the moment.

We can only hope that this Blacklight Power stuff is for real.

Great Article on Powerline about the New York Times screwing up the math about Corporate Taxes

You know, I see that kind of thing all the time. Obama generalizes a 3% reduction in gas usage by inflating your tires to everyone in the US, not realizing that only helps if you're driving on flat tires. (One of my 2-year-old cars auto-senses, so I never drive it on flat tires.)

So the Obamanauts are trying to spread the idea that McCain somehow listened to the questions ahead of time at the forum over this weekend.

Guys, both candidates knew the topics ahead of time.

From the McCain campaign's letter to NBC:

2.) In his official correspondence to both campaigns, Pastor Rick Warren provided both candidates with information regarding the topic areas to be covered, which Barack Obama acknowledged during the forum when asked about Pastor Warren's idea of an emergency plan for orphans and Obama said, "I cheated a little bit. I actually looked at this idea ahead of time, and I think it is a great idea;" 3.) John McCain actually requested that he and Barack Obama do the forum together on stage at the same time, making these kinds of after-the-fact complaints moot.

I notice that on DailyKos, even the Kosmonauts are unconvinced McCain cheated.

I'm going to throw in a personal anecdote here. I have run into McCain in our local nursery when he and his wife came up to buy some plants for their home in Sedona (I live in Flagstaff). He was gracious, polite, and knew his stuff when I talked to him. Talking to him about some things changed my mind about some issues, because he knew both sides of the issue.

Obama didn't do as well because he hasn't spent the last 20 years doing this kind of thing. End of story.

So let's see. By the time he was nominated, Clarence Thomas had worked in the Missouri Attorney General's office, served as an Assistant Secretary of Education, run the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and sat for a year on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the nation's second most prominent court. Since his "elevation" to the High Court in 1991, he has also shown himself to be a principled and scholarly jurist.

Meanwhile, as he bids to be America's Commander in Chief, Mr. Obama isn't yet four years out of the Illinois state Senate, has never held a hearing of note of his U.S. Senate subcommittee, and had an unremarkable record as both a "community organizer" and law school lecturer. Justice Thomas's judicial credentials compare favorably to Mr. Obama's Presidential résumé by any measure. And when it comes to rising from difficult circumstances, Justice Thomas's rural Georgian upbringing makes Mr. Obama's story look like easy street.

From the WSJ.

Listen to Micheal Moore

Every so often, Ann Coulter makes me laugh:

This week, Barack Obama's challenge is to select a running mate who's young, hip, and whose accomplishments in life don't overshadow Obama's. Allow me to suggest Kevin Federline.

Yow, that's bitchy.

A friend of mine asked me today about McCain since he knew I lived in Arizona.

My friend commented, "I used to think he was OK, but now he seems kind of crazy.".

I talked about the fact that I had run into him before in our local nursery while his wife was buying some plants, and that he had been very approachable, and very knowledgeable about the issues, and that he always knew both sides of the issue, and could show why he was on such and such a side of the issue, based on certain basic principles of his. That you get the feeling that McCain has certain core values, and that he makes decisions based on that. But also that he can change is mind as facts change.

Then I asked him, "Ok, so why does he seem crazy?"

"Well," he said, "it seems like he used to always complain about negative campaigning, and now it seems like he's been doing more of it lately. It's like there are two McCains."

"Ah," I said, "Well, that's absolutely true. But I blame not McCain, but both the media and Obama for that. McCain early on offered to do town meeting after town meeting with Obama. Obama turned him down. So now McCain has to campaign, and frankly, the media wants to cover the horse race. From the media's point of view, the ideal presidential campaign looks more like the World Wrestling Federation then anything else. So if McCain wants to get any media attention, he has to say negative things about Obama. It's how the system works. He hates it, he tried to change the rules, but he failed, in part because the other candidate wouldn't go along. Meanwhile, he does mostly town meetings with his campaigns. Sometimes, at those meetings, people stump him because they can talk about anything. Like I saw him get stumped when someone asked him while Medicaid pays Viagra, but not birth control pills. But now he's the one that brings that up."

"I can totally see how he's forced into that by the media," he said.

You know, as citizens, we get the campaigns we deserve. The way the Presidential campaigns should really work is that rather then have the candidates blow millions on these stupid 30-second ads that don't tell you anything, every other Saturday, a candidate should get 1 hour of free TV time to make their pitch. That Sunday, the other candidate should get a half hour to rebut the candidate. Then they should swap. Once/month, there should be a town hall meeting for at least 2 hours.

That's what we should be doing. Instead, we get this.