Race and Obama vs. McCain
Margaret sent this to me. Raises an interesting point. Imagine if Democrats had been playing from the Republican playbook this year. There's plenty of material to make equally scary charges against McCain.
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A question of perspective :Obama/Biden vs. McCain/Palin, what if
things were switched around? Think about it. Would the country's
collective point of view be different? Could racism be the culprit?
Ponder the following:
What if the Obama's had paraded five children across the stage,
including a three-month-old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage
daughter?
What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?
What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?
What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe
disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his
standards?
What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair
while he was still married?
What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to
painkillers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable
organization?
What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five? (The Keating Five
were 5 US Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major
political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the
late 1980s and early 1990s.)
What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?
What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included
discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?
What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many
occasions, a serious anger management problem?
What if Michelle Obama's family had made their money from beer distribution?
What if the Obama's had adopted a white child?
You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected
reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close
as they are? This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and
minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative
qualities in another when there is a color difference.
EDUCATION BACKGROUND:
Barack Obama:
*Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in
International Relations.
* Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude / Joseph Biden:
*University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
*Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)<
vs.
John McCain:
*United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899
Sarah Palin:
* Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
* North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
* University of Idaho - 2 semesters – journalism
* Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
* University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism.
Education isn't everything, but this is about the two highest offices
in the land as well as our standing in the world. You make the call.
Blue States Are Leaving
I got this in email. Purty funny.
We've decided we're leaving.
We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren't aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.
To sum up briefly:
You get Texas, Oklahoma, and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches.
We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood.
We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.
We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss.
We get 85 percent of America 's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama.
We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.
Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.
Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq , and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.
With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners), 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal and MIT.
With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.
We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.
Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties. Wow...takes your breath away..........
By the way, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico .
Peace out,
Blue States
Muslims for McCain
I know, I know
I realize this is becoming like the Sarah Palin blog, but I just couldn't resist. She's just so funny. Eat your heart out, Harriet Miers.
Comparing Economic Plans of Obama and McCain
Interesting comparison of the economic plans of both candidates.
The Associated Press: Obama and McCain have big economic differences
Under Obama, the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers, those making roughly $600,000 or more, would see their taxes go up on average by $93,709 in 2009, according to an analysis done by the Tax Policy Center, because Obama would begin implementing his tax changes even before the scheduled expiration of the Bush cuts.
Under McCain, those same taxpayers would see an average reduction of $48,860, reflecting in part additional cuts he is proposing.
By contrast, the bottom 20 percent of taxpayers, those with taxable income of roughly $19,000 per year or less, would see their taxes cut by an average of $567 under Obama's program and $21 under McCain's plan, the tax center estimates.
For the 20 percent of taxpayers right in the middle of the income scale, making roughly between $37,600 and $66,400, the tax break would be $1,118 under the Obama plan and $325 under the McCain plan in 2009, according to the analysis done by the tax center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, two Washington think tanks.
Google Site Search Bookmarklet
I just found this little bookmarklet and thought it was worth passing along. I let's you search the site you're currently looking at using Google. Just drag the link below onto your links bar in your browser. Then when you're looking at a site you want to search, just press the new link button you made to search that site. Nice when the site doesn't have a search feature (that works).
Sarah Palin has got to be a sick joke, right?
I'm watching her acceptance speech. I guess ending the divisive politics in Washington isn't really on her agenda. "A whole new kind of culture war," CNN says. Great. Just what we need. "Hey, forget about Bush. Look at this crazy lady bitching everyone out. Cool." It's so "Commander in Chief."
She used the Democratic majority leader's dislike of McCain as evidence he's the right choice for president. So as long as "they" hate him he must be good? I guess we got the wrong man with Obama cause he said he thought Mrs. Palin was a fine person.
So Obama said he's going to lower taxes on 95% of working families, and she talked for 5 minutes about all the people he was going to raise taxes on. Same old BS, we'll lower taxes, they'll raise them, government = bad (except if we run it, which we are, but nevermind that). We'll kill every government program just to save you $50/yr. Vote for us.
The Republican energy policy sounds identical to the Democrats, they only change the order of all the things they are going to do so that clean coal and nuclear comes before solar and wind. Whatever. Who do I think's going to get it done? Not her. She seems like the type not to agree to anything she didn't personally author, like she's never had to compromise to get things done.
The thought of her becoming president is seriously frightening. Possibly enough to motivate me to donate more money to Obama. The thought of her being in charge of the military is so beyond ridiculous. To her, foreign countries are just the place where they keep our oil.
Oh, and I found out she used to go to and Assemblies of God church. Dear God help us. Ever seen "Hellhouse?"
Please dear God don't let it happen.
Gore’s Bold, Unrealistic Plan to Save the Planet
Gore's Bold, Unrealistic Plan to Save the Planet - TIME
But doing it in 10 years? If the earlier, personal solutions to global warming -- drive a hybrid, put in better insulation -- were far too little, Gore's goal seems far too much. Less than 28% of our power currently comes from carbon-free sources, and the vast majority of that is hydroelectric and nuclear. High-tech renewables account for less than 3%. Wind and solar are growing far faster than fossil fuels such as coal or natural gas, but considering that we don't even know if economical carbon capture and storage will ever be possible, it's hard to see how Gore's target is remotely attainable. This isn't negative thinking, or fiction put out by the oil industry. This is reality.
I'm confused. Gore wasn't talking about economical carbon capture, he was talking about using existing renewable energy technologies. And the science doesn't care if it's achievable. You don't get to adjust the facts to fit what we think we can do.
He's right. A number of scientists, though not all, warn that the world has a decade at most to reverse the growth in greenhouse gas emissions, or risk catastrophic climate change. But here's the fact that keeps me up at night: Gore and his allies could be right. We may simply be technologically and politically incapable of doing anything about it. Maybe we've already run out of time, and we just don't know it.
First, in no area of scientific theory will all scientist agree about anything. Second, the fact that they disagree does not avoid the fact that one side is right and one side is wrong. There is an objective reality out there that's happening now regardless of our opinion of it. We use evidence, observable data, to decipher who's right and who's wrong.
I watched Larry King where they had a full panel of commenters saying how ridiculous it would be to produce 100% of our electricity from renewable resources in 10 years. None of them were scientists. Geraldo Rivera was one of the commenters if that tells you anything.
Here's a few things we need to realize.
Your opinion does not matter. Climate change is happening or it's not happening independent of your opinion. This is not religion, you do not get to pick what you want to believe based on what you're comfortable with. The wind does not care what you think of it and not believing in it just means your picnic is over sooner than you thought. Or, if it's a tornado, your house is destroyed and the wind is neither happy nor sad about it. It is completely self-less, without purpose or meaning of any kind, and your opinion of it has no effect on wether it happens or not.
The economy is not part of the climate change equation. There is no constant in the equations governing climate change theory that represents the economy or money. Climate change does not give a crap what Wall Street thinks is economically possible/comfortable.
It would be way more convenient if climate change were not happening, not our fault, or if we could do nothing about it.
People are offended when you tell them their lifestyle is killing the planet. The planet doesn't care if you're offended.
Nobody talks about the science, the facts, the observables when people talk about climate change on TV. Everyone talks about what they believe or hope or think is possible, but never what we know. What you believe is irrelevant.
Fact: Global CO2 levels are rising.
Fact: Humans today produce billions of tons of CO2 annually.
Fact: The CO2 we produce does not go away to never never land.
Fact: Historically, CO2 levels and temperatures are linked.
Fact: Global temperatures are increasing.
Fact: Burning fossil fuels for energy is not sustainable indefinitely.
That's what we know. These are each undisputed facts.
I think it turns out that we are the posterity we have left this problem for. Sticking your head in the sand and humming won't work on this one.
Sign the Move On petition to show your support for Gore's call to action.
GW Bush Sewage Treatment Plant
Some friends of mine were responsible for putting this on the ballot. It'll totally pass.
The Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco has just recently submitted signatures to city election officials "hoping to place on the ballot an initiative that would rechristen the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant as the George W. Bush Sewage Plant."