Politics

http://www.rove.com/election And in other news, http://FiveThirtyEight.com is now showing Obama's chances of victory at 98.1% I think it's all wrapped up at this point... Obama is the next President of the United States Hooray!

...on foreign policy, anyway: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9689 I'm something of a fan of the Cato institute, more on social than economic issues, so I suppose this doesn't come as a surprise to me. However, the Cato institute is generally regarded as being conservative-leaning, and while the article certainly criticizes Obama, it was interesting to see the final judgment was that Obama is better than McCain. This was also interesting: It's nice to see the idea that more experience isn't always better acknowledged. McCain may have more experience, but that doesn't necessarily make him the better candidate.

Linking a politician to atheists is a winning strategy in the US. http://www.wspa.com/spa/news/local/article/kay_hagen_sues_elizabeth_dole_over_campaign_ad/10464/ Not sure I agree with the lawsuit, but I do agree with the sentiment

The last poll had some flaws that were helpfully pointed out, and I am interested in the results so we're going to do this poll a bit more professionally this time. All the candidates who have filed with the Federal Elections Commission are listed, and you can only vote once. Furthermore, the voting is limited in time, so after the time is past we can actually get a winner and then do an actual "election." Select the one candidate you you would support as nominee for President of the United States from the Democratic Party. Obviously, it misses the point if you vote for someone you don't like because you don't like Democrats. Vote for the candidate you could honestly…

A short 10-minute scrap book of highlights: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/27508380#27508380 h/t Greg Laden

http://www.gallup.com/poll/111655/Americans-Split-Redistributing-Wealth-Taxing-Rich.aspx In this Gallup article it says that 58% of Americans are for spreading the wealth, while 37% of americans are against it. Mind you, this 'spreading the wealth' that gallup polled on was by levying heavy taxes on the rich and giving to the poor. Am I the only one terribly outraged by this? There is no way that is can be right to take someone's money, just because they have a lot of it, and give it to the poorer people. They earned that money, it is theirs, it is fundamentally wrong to take it, just to supplement someone who doesn't work hard enough/isn't smart enough to…

Okay here's the funniest story you will read regarding Joe the Plumber. It's the New York Times struggling to dish up some dirt on the guy. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/us/politics/17joe.html Oh my god, look at the smear! This guy is just a working stiff like the rest of us, he's not stumping for McCain! And yet here's the great and powerful NEW YORK TIMES hammering the guy for having a couple of liens or whatever. Hilarious! The far left is outraged over this guy, but I have no idea why. He's just a guy who wanted to ask a freaking question. The far left tried to tell us that we had to tolerate Cindy Sheehan's politics because she lost a son in Ira…

We've all heard John McCain and Sarah Palin asking this question on the campaign trail, trying to stir up fears in the populace and distract us from the issues. If it weren't so frustrating and infuriating, I would find their approach funny... but, it's not. We've had nearly 2 years to get to know the man and his family. Either way, people are still trying to raise doubts, and since they can't seem to compete on the real issues facing our nation and our planet, the focus has been on character, personality, and associations instead. In response to these attacks, the Obama campaign has released this video. Give it a look, let us know what you think, and how/i…

Second attempt after feedback... Obama –election scenarios What do you think is most likely out of these scenarios? option 1. Obama will be elected president, without vote rigging. And without knowingly deceiving the public. option 2. Obama will be elected president, without vote rigging. But with knowingly deceiving the public. option 3. Obama will be elected president, with vote rigging, and without him realizing that it’s being rigged. option 4. Obama will be elected president with vote rigging, and with him realizing it’s being rigged. And with him knowingly deceiving the public. option 5. Obama won’t be elected.

Fascinating story in Newsweek out today, talking about how closely the rest of the world is watching our presidential race. http://www.newsweek.com/id/166910 I no longer find this perplexing, but like many Americans I do find it somewhat troubling, and have a tendency to feel that they don't have any say in our elections just as we don't have any say in theirs (and kudos to our overseas SFN members for respecting our feelings in this regard). But I think it's important to understand how the world perceives us. We've been playing the game of world politics very badly of late. We're too insular, too unaware of what the world thinks of our actions and behaviors (even…

This race for president has somehow become a race to become vice president sine there have been 1 attempt and and 1 plan to assassinate Obama and most of us know McCain's going cold over the first year probably so, lets vote vice presidents!,im very sorry but just select the presidentual canidate thaat you belive has the best running mate, sorry.

Well, since no one else created this thread, I figured I would. Cast your vote for the next president of the US!

Taking a cue from George Will's new column posted just half an hour ago, I ran down this interesting article from OpenSecrets (Web site of the Center for Responsive Politics): http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/10/us-election-will-cost-53-billi.html Note that that's including all the primaries as well as Congressional races. But their total for the presidential races, including primaries is about $2.4 billion, which is about double the 2004 amount and triple the 2000 amount. Yow. According to George Will, though, that's about a billion less than Americans will spend this year on potato chips. Hmm. I guess that does put things into perspective a bit,…

What do you think is more likely out of these three scenarios? The extended versions of the options below - option 1. Obama will be elected president because the US and the world genuinely need this perceived positive change: accepting an intelligent black, result of a mixed marriage, Christian, outsider, who has taken drugs and had a ‘raised Muslim’ father. option 2. Obama will be elected president by vote rigging, to soften up the US international image on a surface level only. This would be useful for making US opponents more pliable. Getting them to more readily give up their nukes, power, alliances, and to sell their resources, etc. option 3. Obama wo…

I see there's been a lot of argument recently (here, and in the national dialogue) about throwing the word "socialist" around, and about what it actually means and whether it's necessarily bad. So I thought I'd bring up this particular example and give it its own topic, because, due to its current governor's central role in the name-calling, this might be especially revealing. Ok, so here's the deal: Alaska has zero state income taxes and zero state sales taxes. Instead, almost all of its revenue comes from the federal government (Alaska receives almost twice as much federal money as it pays in federal taxes) and from charging oil companies to use the land. This latte…

Check this one out. It is pretty much a given that the Clinton years were an economic boon. Yes, taxes were raised but the debt increases plunged, and even more importantly, the economy flourished. That really blows this gigantic hole in the theory that higher taxes stifle economic activity. Of course, with all of these new potential debt increases on the table, things look somewhat daunting. I see it as kind of a going-out present by the Rep administration. What are your thoughts on this? http://www.lafn.org/politics/gvdc/Natl_Debt_Chart.html

I'm puzzled what the following text means. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_United_States#Eligibility Can someone explain what this means? I thought that "eligible" meant that you are available for a political position, and other people can vote for you. But I seem to understand from the quote above that 5.3 million people are not allowed to cast their vote at all? Can someone explain the text in more simple words? I don't seem to understand. (I found this bit of information when searching for the answers to the questions in the post I put up just a minute ago. It seemed too much off topic to include it in that post.) I'm hoping that t…

Just a week before he comes up for re-election, Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens has been found guilty of bribery. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10076855-38.html http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=am_l8kAQbIXw&refer=us He was convicted by the Bush Justice Department -- the greatest prosecutor of white-collar criminals and elected officials in the history of this country (which followed a Clinton/Reno JD that didn't prosecute a single one, and deliberately avoided Democratic contributors!). This is the same department which was tragically unable to find sufficient evidence to convict Louisiana Senator and Democrat William Jefferson after…

I started this as a reply but I think I'll make it a new thread. How bad is this election? How are your friends and family members dealing with the stress? What kind of emails have you been getting from friends? I thought it was bad four years ago, but it's far worse this time around. I'm actually kinda glad I went through the whole argue-with-your-friends-about-politics thing the last couple times around, so I knew better than to fall into that trap again, but I've seen some real knock-down, drag-outs between some of my friends, and my in box has been flooded with "absolutely essential" information from partisan friends on both sides of this thing for months no…

Interesting article in Time magazine yesterday about what's behind and ahead of us on the price of oil: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1853775,00.html?imw=Y In a nutshell, they focus on the rather astonishing drop in demand in the US, which has fallen another 10% in just a matter of weeks. Furthermore, the Department of Transportation and many analysts are saying that the fall in US demand may be permanent. And the drop in demand apparently extends to foreign markets as well, including China, which has been hit hard recently by the looming US recession, resulting in Chinese factory closures at an unprecedented rate (there were several st…

The Dow rose 889 points today, the second largest one-day gain since earlier this month when it shot up 906 points. However, this cannot be described as a good month on Wall Street: http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/28/markets/markets_newyork/index.htm What does this bode for our economy? Are we headed for a second Great Depression? Or will we eventually ride this one out like we did the S&L crisis? I opt for the latter, but I think who we choose as President will greatly influence the outcome. We need a President that can reinstill our faith in the economy, get people to start spending again, and get banks to start lending again. Personally I hope…

http://www.economist.com/vote2008/?source=features_box_main McCain does not seem too popular internationally...

Well that's that, the bailout has been signed into law: http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/03/news/economy/house_friday_bailout/index.htm I'm going to wait for some analysis before I decide if I'm happy.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,444101,00.html What?? Why are we attacking Syria? This is completely absurd...

Obama is in Denver right now (watching it live), and is going on to Colorado State University to speak in a venue that holds 20,000. The lines to get into that venue are 2 miles long http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081026/NEWS03/81026007/1002/rss (whoops, how did this end up in computer science? my bad)