Politics

I saw Joe Biden on Meet the Press this morning, and I was pondering his position on abortion, which I think is interesting. In a nutshell, he believes that abortion is wrong, but he supports the right to have that choice and he votes in favor of abortion rights. This is an interesting position, and I think a great example of the value of middle ground / common ground reasoning. I can understand how some, especially religious folks, see this as hypocrisy, and/or just plain wrong. For one thing, from a unilateral perspective it seems like something that just cannot be anything other than wrong. Life is life, right? And even from a non-unilateral position, when look…

England's most celebrated street artist is most certainly Banksy, who's pulled a number of quite interesting stunts like doctoring several copies of Paris Hilton's album and distributing them in music stores, but he's mostly known for his "graffiti". Banksy is revered as a cultural hero, and many municipalities meticulously protect and restore his artworks. Well, that's England for you... Back here in America we don't have a Banksy, but we have Shepard Fairey. There's two likely paths you've encountered his artwork: his now ubiquitous portrait of Obama, or his infamous "Obey Giant" artwork: (and yes, that's him putting those posters up) Well, I was qui…

Well, I guess the thread title says it all. Wow. I guess she scared a lot of people. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/04/palin-speech-pulls-in-8-million-for-obama/ Barack Obama's campaign says it has raised more than $8 million from over 130,000 donors following Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin's speech Wednesday night. The campaign also says it is on track to raise $10 million before John McCain takes the podium at the Republican National Convention tonight. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i6BkMiFClO-golI3_rj8iiidLNTAD9308008B Barack Obama's presidential campaign said it raised $10 million Thursday following t…

I thought it worth mentioning here that Bob Woodward's fourth book on the Bush administration, entitled "The War Within", is due out this week. Amazon has it listed for $20.38 on pre-order. This one is supposed to focus on 2006-2008, and it's already drawing some interesting attention in the media. According to this Fox News article, the book is less critical than #3 ("State of Denial"), but accuses him of failure to lead even as the surge succeeded. In my opinion, what makes Woodward's opinion so valuable is that he has an open mind, and is not predisposed to judge the president by his party or ideological affiliations. He looked at the evidence and h…

This is why I hate political conventions. Over 38 million Americans watching and nobody bothers to call him on his facts. Misleading people should not be a path to public office. Yeesh. Fortunately the reliable, non-partisan Anenberg FactCheck organization leaps to the rescue. Some highlights: Full, detailed analysis can be found here: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/factchecking_obama.html (I wonder if they'll get over 38 million hits. Somehow I doubt it.)

I am somewhat on the fence in posting this, because it is some rather obvious fodder for partisan comment, but frankly it's just too interesting a political story. What I'm referring to, for the benefit of our friends overseas who may not have heard (?), is that a major hurricane, about the same strength (possibly even stronger) of the now-infamous Hurricane Katrina, is barreling down on New Orleans. And it's due to hit just as the Republican convention is getting underway in Minnesota. In fact it's expected to make landfall at almost the exact moment that President Bush is scheduled to give his speech. No. Really. The irony here is astounding. The afterma…

Suppose you were selected to be part of a committee chosen to hire a President for the U.S.A. via traditional hiring methods. What requirements and qualifying restrictions would you include in your solicitations? What job experience and education would you expect to see in resumes submitted for the position? What qualities would an optimum candidate possess?

i'm doing my reserch on the toipc "Separatism in jammu & kashmir", hence need your views about the same. please answer this questionner http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pbKZDiJ0q9EIvrHyfAxXfdw

Last week bascule posted an interesting chart showing the two tax plans from McCain and Obama. Well someone put together a little Web app that allows you to input your marital status, number of dependents and income level and see which one would tax you more. http://obamataxcut.com/ This is the chart they used, which Bascule posted earlier: (Edit: Found bascule's original thread on this, and linked it above.)

Who are you voting for? I'm voting for Paris.

Hah, I beat the text messages. http://www.kmbc.com/politics/17267009/detail.html#

A friend of mine left this in my chair when I came to work this morning, and I thought I'd share it, see what you guys think. He left a note saying he doesn't believe this was actually written by the Chairman, but rather Porter Stansberry - to make a point. I don't know much about GM or how they've conducted business over the years. Maybe some companies are better at prolonging this, keeping their head above water, and maybe GM squandered their money but the exponential increase in retirees and health care costs are legitimate enough to suggest inevitable destruction, I would think, for any business. What do you all think?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/washington/21fbi.html According to a letter signed by Russ Feingold, Richard J. Durbin, and Ted Kennedy, new FBI guidelines would allow them to investigate Americans, conduct surveillance, pry into private records and take other investigative steps “without any basis for suspicion.” The plan “might permit an innocent American to be subjected to such intrusive surveillance based in part on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, or on protected First Amendment activities.” Why is it I feel like my civil liberties are eroding daily?

With his Wake Up America speech. I don't have a transcript or a link yet, because I'm watching it live on C-SPAN online, but damn! That's how you get people energized! http://www.c-span.org/Watch/C-SPAN_wm.aspx

Yeah, they look like undercover Republicans: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UxxhYa8K0s I like how they're there to spread a bunch of Swift Boat-esque BS, and how easily the reporter manages to weasel the real story out of them. I have a 17 page report! I'll be glad to e-mail it to you... the Ann Coulter approach to spreading lies. I also enjoyed how sober the response from Obama's supporters were. I mean, the first lady basically paints them as religious bigots, but she does it in such a nice grandma baking you chocolate chip cookies kinda way it doesn't even seem spiteful. And the girl at the end is awesome...

Does George Washington's warning about political parties resonate with Americans in 2008? Or will this just not make sense to people? "The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissention, which in different ages & countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders & miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security & repose in the absolute power of an Individual: and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction more able or more fortunate than…

http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=98343&catid=188 Unconfirmed reports! Possible white supremacists! Yeah, hard to say what's really going on, but if it's true, I can't say I'm too surprised...

The retarded "Recreate '68" people are standing around chanting random slogans at cops who have told them to get back. "When they say get back we say fight back!" and so forth. Watch it live: http://www.denverpost.com/dncall/ci_10284962

You hear this from time to time -- that the drinking age should be lowered. Usually it's college students singing the tune. What's unusual this time is that it's coming from college presidents. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/19/AR2008081902836.html?hpid=sec-education The rationale is that it will somehow lower the amount of binge drinking that takes place on college campuses. Uh, shouldn't these guys be preventing ANY drinking from taking place on college campuses? Hello! But holy cow, look at some of the names on that list. These are serious schools with real reputations. Is it possible they have a real point? It…

Looks like Hillary is no longer in the running for Obama's running mate. http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/campaign-for-clinton-ends/ Probably for the best. She just turns off too many voters. I think there may be more bad blood between Obama and Clinton than we were lead to believe. It's interesting that Bill Richardson, who seems to no longer be generating any veep buzz, is holding a fund raiser to help Hillary pay off her debts (something Obama has conspicuously avoided). It's especially interesting given that James Carville accused Richardson of betrayal when he endorsed Obama after dropping out of the race himself. The fundraiser has a…

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121936581501662161.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries personally I would've ignored this article except for the fact it showed up in the wall street journal. its kind of interesting, except it ignores that immediatly following WW2 the US had 120% of its GDP in debt and got out of it mainly through the post-war boom, although the 1970's certainly helped.

Rolling stone has named their pick for best ad of the campaign, and it comes from a freelancer: This guy did exactly what Obama's ads need to do: show the relationship between Bush and McCain and use Bush's horrible failures to sully McCain's image. The Obama campaign isn't doing that. The latest ad is okay... it shows McCain as being a rich douchebag who's out of touch with the American people, and so rich he doesn't even know how many houses he owns. It's nice to see the turnaround on this ad as this whole thing came out a few days ago, but still, I don't think ads like this are getting the job done: At the very end, we see the message: "We c…

Interesting piece in the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/20/AR2008082000065.html I think that's a good move.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/08/18/musharraf.address/index.html?eref=rss_topstories Why should you care? Pakistan is not only a nuclear power, but the 6th most populous country in the world. Musharraf has also been something of a crony to Bush, receiving billions of dollars in U.S. aid in exchange for being an "ally" in the war on terror. Musharraf was effectively forced out of office amid a faltering economy, a growing Taliban insurgency, and political pressure from Pakistan's coalition government, who united under the common cause of kicking his ass out of office. Does he deserve it? Hard to say... the situation in Pakistan seems eerily similar t…

Jared Polis is the Democratic nominee for Congressman for Colorado's 2nd congressional district, which just so happens to be the one I live in. He's amassed quite the personal fortune in the local startup community and runs a local startup incubator called TechStars. He's also openly gay. I think he's a pretty interesting individual and pretty much a shoe-in, given his constituency and the present political climate. Hopefully he'll be received well in Congress, provided he wins.