According to John McCain, yes.
For several weeks now, John McCain has been pounding Barack Obama for "forcing sex education upon Kindergartners at school." Obama has not disputed his support for sex education. Really?
According to media "investigations" on CBS news, yes.
What?!
First, let's take a second to note the fact that CBS hasn't even bothered to do any real research on this - they're just taking the National Review's word for it. READ the article, what isn't horribly twisted around is buried deep within the article. Meaning: Nobody is going to see it. And this is the problem I have with a lot of news media today. Biases aside, they just don't do the work to bring you information. A couple months back, I wrote to ABC about an investigation they did on earmarks, where they found that the Democratic congress was basically ruining America... Conveniently they outsourced the investigation to Citizens Against Government Waste, a group paid for by the Republican party, with distinctly strong ties to John McCain. Needless to say, I did not get a response to my email pointing out all those factual inaccuracies.
Anyway, back on to topic here. SEX EDUCATION FOR KIDS?! OMGWTF?!
Well, let me point out a couple things here:
a) The bill he supported was for comprehensive sex education- for 6th-12th graders. AND, "age-appropriate" sex edcuation for K-5 students. So, this includes things like "stay away from strangers," "don't let older people touch you in a bad way" etc... leading up to "your body will go through changes" for the fifth graders.
b) As always, the parents can easily opt-out of this. We ALL had the exact same thing growing up - your parents could choose to sign the permission slip for you to go to the Robert Crown sex ed center or whatever. Basically everyone's parents chose to have their kids go... because they're not stupid. Ignorance doesn't work so well in the real world.
c) It wasn't a big giant controversial issue like McCain is making it out to be. These are widely accepted standards for sex ed in schools, Obama just happened to be in the Illinois State Senate when they were passing the bill again.
Here's the ad
I think this is a good response:
Friday, September 19, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Lying, cheating... STEALing.
Realistically, we're not in any kind of "oil crisis." Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, ALL of them are pulling in tens of billions in profits. Yet somehow, they can't seem to lower gas prices because that's "just the way the market is."
But, as if the obvious collusion among oil companies isn't enough to rip you off and subsequently PISS you off, then they start in with these commercials. Paid for by ripping YOU off.
This "Energy Tomorrow" thing - I'm surprised nobody else is talking about it. You've probably seen this commercial - the lady comes on and talks about how we have enough oil reserves to fuel 60 million cars for 60 years - and enough gas to heat our homes for 60 years... but that some in our government just WONT let us drill for it.
There are some obvious distortions here:
a) They say in fine print for about 1 second that the figures come from the Dept. of the Interior - why's that important? The person that makes up those figures has been hired by President Bush and has strong ties to the oil industry.
b) Oil AND natural gas are added together for this information. There is not a debate in the public about natural gas - it is about drilling for OIL on the COAST in PROTECTED areas; so they are distorting/changing the base of the debate to prove a point. Common fallacy.
c) The figures they are using are how much we have IN ALL OUR RESERVES. Not in the protected areas. The amount in the protected areas in debate is a tiny fraction of her quote.
d) We have way more than 60 million cars - so the figure is completely misleading. In fact, there are more than four times that many cars. So, really there's enough oil to power all our cars for 10-15 years.. OVER time. This is essentially meaningless. Why? Well, the obvious answer is that it's not like they're gonna start drilling and then BOOM! Free oil for 10 years. This isn't some videogame where you pick up a pile of gold and it's suddenly all in your cache. This is more like winning a very small lottery, only a fraction of what it was advertised as, and having to receive the payments in small increments over the course of 40 or 50 years.
In other news, if you win and open up oil drilling, congratulations, you'll receive 2 cents off per gallon for a number of years. I'm sure that will really help those people who are struggling out there. "Hey mom, it now costs me only $49.90 to fill up instead of $50.00. Oh, boy, do I love Republicans! At this rate, I'll have a dollar in a few months!" Do they think everyone is just that stupid?!
The really upsetting thing, as I said before, is that they're using our money to run these ads. And in them, they're telling people that a majority of Americans agree. I would say nearly all Americans don't even understand. They are going to be mislead into thinking they agree because they want to do what can be done to lower energy costs; BUT they want real solutions, not some garbage scheme to get oil companies even richer.
Who profits from more oil drilling? The Americans saving a couple pennies over the course of years? Or the oil companies who can continue to rip you off and make tens of billions now with an even bigger supply? It's a distraction from green energy. An attempt to slow it down so that they can get every last penny out of petroleum before moving on.
Realistically, energy could be almost free. They could build a giant solar collector in the desert - they could build windmills across America (instead of paying farm corporations money to NOT grow anything to artificially boost prices). I say nearly free because you'd probably still pay energy companies for upkeep. But you ALREADY do that. And power plants today now are primarily based on coal and oil, they need a big staff to keep everything in check and transport the commodity and mine the commodity. But the sun shines, and the wind blows. It just does that for you. WHY wouldn't you take advantage of that like mankind has for so long? Because they've found a way to exploit people and they will continue to do it. This is so much bigger than energy...
They could divert funding to electric cars which could be powered by that nearly free energy. Then, travel would be free. People would have more money to spend. Or, what if you built your own windmill to power your house, and charged your car from your own wall outlet? The gas that costs you 200 a month... the money it costs you to power that home... All erased. More to invest in the market. Better economy.
That's the thing. Capitalism can so easily slip into Corporate-run government. If you desire progress and freedom and prosperity, you have to have a mechanism to keep the powerful in check. Think about it- how could we have new businesses if there were a handful of powerful corporations to take over every part of the market through buyouts, intimidation, taking over a bank and denying loans... or violence? How could we have new technologies if powerful corporations had so much influence that they were able to manipulate the government through lobbying and the people through false advertising?
My implication is not that there is some massive corporate conspiracy here... but the evidence clearly shows that things are trending that way. To be quite honest, I will suggest that this economic depression of which we're on the brink, should it happen, could potentially be the best or the worst thing for us. Obviously, yes, it's bad for people in the short-term, but maybe increased attention would clear the way for more government regulation - combined with all of this coming at a time where some reformer efforts are working to rid the government of special interests (such as the Coburn-Obama Transparency Act that makes government officials disclose their gifts from lobbyists to the public).
But, if you get someone like McCain in office, this could go the opposite way... Someone who doesn't believe in government regulation of the economy essentially would be handing over everyone in America to the big corporate power of the time. Companies that couldn't make it would be bought up by bigger ones. Corporate Darwinism. Except it doesn't mean they are the most efficient - it's just the effect of musical chairs. They had the power when the economy collapsed, so they took over. A handful of companies would inherit a workforce of desperate people, and a do-nothing President.
There is a lot at stake here. It's easy to say it all doesn't matter to our physical daily lives... but trickle-down economics does seem to work. Just, in the opposite way that Reagan was talking about. Instead of rich people getting rich and spreading the wealth, they kept it. Now, they have the unique opportunity to piss all over everybody. Trickle down economics, I guess.
But, as if the obvious collusion among oil companies isn't enough to rip you off and subsequently PISS you off, then they start in with these commercials. Paid for by ripping YOU off.
This "Energy Tomorrow" thing - I'm surprised nobody else is talking about it. You've probably seen this commercial - the lady comes on and talks about how we have enough oil reserves to fuel 60 million cars for 60 years - and enough gas to heat our homes for 60 years... but that some in our government just WONT let us drill for it.
There are some obvious distortions here:
a) They say in fine print for about 1 second that the figures come from the Dept. of the Interior - why's that important? The person that makes up those figures has been hired by President Bush and has strong ties to the oil industry.
b) Oil AND natural gas are added together for this information. There is not a debate in the public about natural gas - it is about drilling for OIL on the COAST in PROTECTED areas; so they are distorting/changing the base of the debate to prove a point. Common fallacy.
c) The figures they are using are how much we have IN ALL OUR RESERVES. Not in the protected areas. The amount in the protected areas in debate is a tiny fraction of her quote.
d) We have way more than 60 million cars - so the figure is completely misleading. In fact, there are more than four times that many cars. So, really there's enough oil to power all our cars for 10-15 years.. OVER time. This is essentially meaningless. Why? Well, the obvious answer is that it's not like they're gonna start drilling and then BOOM! Free oil for 10 years. This isn't some videogame where you pick up a pile of gold and it's suddenly all in your cache. This is more like winning a very small lottery, only a fraction of what it was advertised as, and having to receive the payments in small increments over the course of 40 or 50 years.
In other news, if you win and open up oil drilling, congratulations, you'll receive 2 cents off per gallon for a number of years. I'm sure that will really help those people who are struggling out there. "Hey mom, it now costs me only $49.90 to fill up instead of $50.00. Oh, boy, do I love Republicans! At this rate, I'll have a dollar in a few months!" Do they think everyone is just that stupid?!
The really upsetting thing, as I said before, is that they're using our money to run these ads. And in them, they're telling people that a majority of Americans agree. I would say nearly all Americans don't even understand. They are going to be mislead into thinking they agree because they want to do what can be done to lower energy costs; BUT they want real solutions, not some garbage scheme to get oil companies even richer.
Who profits from more oil drilling? The Americans saving a couple pennies over the course of years? Or the oil companies who can continue to rip you off and make tens of billions now with an even bigger supply? It's a distraction from green energy. An attempt to slow it down so that they can get every last penny out of petroleum before moving on.
Realistically, energy could be almost free. They could build a giant solar collector in the desert - they could build windmills across America (instead of paying farm corporations money to NOT grow anything to artificially boost prices). I say nearly free because you'd probably still pay energy companies for upkeep. But you ALREADY do that. And power plants today now are primarily based on coal and oil, they need a big staff to keep everything in check and transport the commodity and mine the commodity. But the sun shines, and the wind blows. It just does that for you. WHY wouldn't you take advantage of that like mankind has for so long? Because they've found a way to exploit people and they will continue to do it. This is so much bigger than energy...
They could divert funding to electric cars which could be powered by that nearly free energy. Then, travel would be free. People would have more money to spend. Or, what if you built your own windmill to power your house, and charged your car from your own wall outlet? The gas that costs you 200 a month... the money it costs you to power that home... All erased. More to invest in the market. Better economy.
That's the thing. Capitalism can so easily slip into Corporate-run government. If you desire progress and freedom and prosperity, you have to have a mechanism to keep the powerful in check. Think about it- how could we have new businesses if there were a handful of powerful corporations to take over every part of the market through buyouts, intimidation, taking over a bank and denying loans... or violence? How could we have new technologies if powerful corporations had so much influence that they were able to manipulate the government through lobbying and the people through false advertising?
My implication is not that there is some massive corporate conspiracy here... but the evidence clearly shows that things are trending that way. To be quite honest, I will suggest that this economic depression of which we're on the brink, should it happen, could potentially be the best or the worst thing for us. Obviously, yes, it's bad for people in the short-term, but maybe increased attention would clear the way for more government regulation - combined with all of this coming at a time where some reformer efforts are working to rid the government of special interests (such as the Coburn-Obama Transparency Act that makes government officials disclose their gifts from lobbyists to the public).
But, if you get someone like McCain in office, this could go the opposite way... Someone who doesn't believe in government regulation of the economy essentially would be handing over everyone in America to the big corporate power of the time. Companies that couldn't make it would be bought up by bigger ones. Corporate Darwinism. Except it doesn't mean they are the most efficient - it's just the effect of musical chairs. They had the power when the economy collapsed, so they took over. A handful of companies would inherit a workforce of desperate people, and a do-nothing President.
There is a lot at stake here. It's easy to say it all doesn't matter to our physical daily lives... but trickle-down economics does seem to work. Just, in the opposite way that Reagan was talking about. Instead of rich people getting rich and spreading the wealth, they kept it. Now, they have the unique opportunity to piss all over everybody. Trickle down economics, I guess.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
This Raises the Judgement Issue
Some interesting points about Sarah Palin, VP candidate
-No Federal Government experience AT ALL; less than 2 years as Alaskan Governor
-Currently under investigation for a firing scandal
-Recently asked "what is it exactly a Vice President does everyday?"
-Member of controversial Alaska Independence Party
-Claims she "hasn't followed Iraq war."
-Hasn't left North America other than a brief (staged) visit to troops in Kuwait and Germany.... but her team points out that Alaska is close to Russia, so she would probably be very good with Foreign Affairs...
Republican argument:
-She has years of experience in government (counting her years as mayor of a small town)
-She may have less experience than Obama, but that's not important because she isn't at the top of the ticket
Reality Check:
-Does not help McCain on the electoral map.
-Weakens the "National Security" argument that the Republicans are running on
-Looks like a ploy to win over Hillary supporters who have not warmed up to Obama.
-Despite media suggestions, staunch Hillary supporters are unlikely to vote for a ticket with extremist conservative elements such as McCain's opposition to equal pay legislation for women and both of the Republicans being staunchly anti-abortion.
Conclusion:
John McCain would have alienated the conservative base with Lieberman, Huckabee would have threatened McCain's margins with the "independents leaning Republican" who incorrectly perceive him as a maverick. Pawlenty isn't even popular enough in Minnesota to help McCain there, let alone the rest of the country.
Romney would have been a solid choice for unifying the Republican Party, but he wouldn't have given McCain any gains anywhere else where he needs them. He needs to win all Republicans + a little more this time. That's just the way the electorate is right now.
McCain needed someone with a lot of experience with the economy to reassure voters - he needed someone less partisan to reach out to Democrats, but conservative enough to hang on to Republicans, he needed someone with a clean history to counteract his years of questionable involvement with lobbyists and the Keating Five Scandal. To be honest, he probably needed someone popular in a swing state.
Palin was a bad choice. It shows a lack of sound judgment. It shows that the people he chose to investigate VPs weren't doing their jobs (already poor judgment by picking them for the task), and it demonstrates that McCain wasn't able to realize the consequences of choosing her.
Now McCain and his people are saying that they already knew about how Palin's husband had a DWI, how her daughter is pregnant, how she was involved in a firing scandal, how she took money from lobbyists, how she has a questionable past with the Alaska Independence Party.
The question is: WHY didn't they reveal that from the beginning then? They waited for the press to dig up the story, and now they just write off that voters are concerned about it because they "already knew" before selecting her. It shatters the notion that voters could trust a McCain administration. They've begun acting like George Bush's posse- playing right into Obama's message that McCain is just like Bush.
Voters will go to the polls on November 4. I guess we'll see how this plays out. It looks like McCain is down by more than 5% in national polls, and Obama is holding onto Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada right now according to those state polls.
My speculative previous post was based upon early polls out of Nebraska, but subsequent polls have changed my prediction. I no longer think that Obama has enough support in Eastern Nebraska to pull off an extra electoral vote. I will have to gain access to more polls, but currently it looks like
The late Tim Russert could be right after all. I still believe Obama will hold Colorado - defeating the tie possibility. He's been ahead there for some time now, the Democratic Convention was there, and he's got a really strong campaign effort in those Western states. Though the recent polls have been close, it looks like he could keep it.
Tim Russert was a genius. Should Colorado stay red, but Nevada flip blue... 269-269. Of course, all of this assumes Virginia will stay Republican- which may not be the case. Surprising perhaps all major media talking heads, Obama and McCain have continued to be locked in a tie in Virginia, and I've watched it flip slightly one way or another throughout the campaign.
For those who don't follow this stuff as closely - let me give you a quick calculation:
For those who would argue with my logic, I would say "get realistic." Republicans are not seen as good for the economy, and Democrats continue to keep large leads in the polls in Pennsylvania and Michigan. Those states are not switching. Obama has been far ahead in Iowa, Minnesota, and New Mexico for most of the election season. People try to throw those states in as swing states a lot, but it's kind of absurd because it doesn't match the trends. It just makes the election look more exciting on paper and makes everybody feel included. I think this is beneficial for turnout though, so I'm not opposed to media misrepresentation in this matter.
That said, the Democrats are sitting on 264 Electoral votes (260 if you consider New Hampshire to be a swing state), the Republicans are sitting on about 200 (197 if you consider Montana a swing state this time).
So, if there is a tie 269-269, the election goes to the House of Representatives, essentially guaranteeing the Democrats a victory since they have and are expected to keep a majority in the House. Here are the indisputable swing states this time around with their electoral votes:
Virginia (13)
Colorado (9)
Nevada (5)
Ohio (20)
Florida (27)
Realistically, Florida has too many ignorant old people, broken voting machines, and disenfranchised voters to actually go Democratic. So count it out.
Virginia (13)
Colorado (9)
Nevada (5)
Ohio (20)
Obama only has to win ONE of these states. McCain has to win ALL of them.
That's the gist of it right now. So just like Tim Russert said "Ohio. Ohio. Ohio." in 2004 -- and that became the deciding factor... I'm saying "Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, Ohio." Mostly because a) I'm not as cool as Tim Russert was. And, b) this is different - Kerry NEEDED Ohio. Obama has 4 swings this time and he only needs to connect once. Also, unlike Kerry, he's already ahead or at least tied going into these states. Kerry was slightly behind in Ohio but was hanging on to that losing-but-still-statistically-tied category in the polls.
So, if I had to guess, I'd say Obama is likely to get ONE of those states. If all of those fail, there's always the off-chance that Montana and North Dakota would flip, but unlike hyper-optimistic liberals, I really don't think that's gonna happen.
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