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.

Nothing like non-mainstream-media eyewitness reporting.

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.

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.

Hat Tip: Strange Maps

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.

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.)

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.

But its fun to look at!

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...

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.