Politics

Obama made this statement in Israel this afternoon: Two sources posted within the last hour: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/07/23/obama-incorrectly-claims-membership-of-senate-committee/ http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/07/23/1218024.aspx Unfortunately Obama is not on the Banking Committee. This one really irks me because it should have passed his internal "stink test". You simply cannot say something like that without realizing it's false. You can't not know what committees you're on. It's just not reasonable. I may be jumping the gun a bit posting this so quickly. Perhaps there's a reasonable explanation. (I want to che…

After the recent run on IndyMac, Wachovia is being raided by security investigators and Merrill Lynch is reporting a $4,900,000,000 loss, their fourth straight quarterly loss with a yearly total comprising some $19,200,000,000. But no, it's not a depression. Clinton, you know, after he left office... that was a depression. This isn't a depression. Nope.

The Wall Street Journal had an interesting piece today about how much things have changed regarding off-shore drilling. Editor Andrew Cline of the New Hampshire Union Leader makes the claim that drilling is largely safe, and supports this with some numbers, and also an interesting turnaround by an anti-offshore drilling environmental group that now supports drilling off the coast of California. The numbers he brings up are intruiging. This next bit is really a sidebar, since it doesn't in itself say anything about the safety of such drilling, I was just stunned by sheer size of these pollution numbers, which the author was misleadingly using t…

Mitt Romney is, IMO, a very credible candidate for the VP spot. He's obviously smart & competent, actually, I now think he was a better candidate than McCain (from the republican side, at least). Apparently, this guy, Bobby Jindal, is a serious candidate. He's pro life with no exceptions (his words), he supports creationism/ID in the classroom, and he supposedly encountered a demon and practiced an exorcism (Jindall, B. 1994. "Physical Dimensions of Spiritual Warfare", New Oxford Review). wow.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/06/22/1161113.aspx Obama wishes to cut down on excessive energy speculation by closing the so-called "Enron loophole", allowing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to fully oversee the oil futures market and investigate cases where excessive speculation may be driving up oil prices. This would occur by banning trades of oil futures on unregulated offshore exchanges while working with other countries to adopt similar legislation. McCain says he'd also like to close the "Enron loophole" and blasted Obama for stealing his idea, or something, all while getting in a few jabs at Clinton for signing the bill into law in t…

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1824132,00.html?imw=Y Obvious that Gore will not be a VP candidate! He compared this goal to getting to the moon, but I think it makes the moon shot look like a walk in the park. I hope we finally start moving in this direction, but is this a realistic goal?

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,566841,00.html Mission accomplished? Time to go home? Well, McCain wants to stay there for another 100 years... Obama's approach seems to be making a lot more sense.

http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed7/idUSN1819664920080718 I see no good reason for McCain to tell everyone about this possible secret trip to Iraq. Comes off as being a smart ass and reckless IMO. Maybe the media would reveal it anyway, but I thought with his military background he would understand that it is a danger to all those in Iraq to expose something like that.

Or at least, that's what I'm gathering from his latest speech: http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/07/the_debate_of_the_day_is_iraq.php I can't help but be reminded of Futurama's Zap Brannigan: But seriously, where does McCain expect to get these soldiers? Are we just going to take the troops used for the surge in Iraq and make them do another surge in Afghanistan?

Kucinich's bill was referred to the House Judiciary Committee by a 238-180 vote. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=hr110-1345 Rock on!

Why is it that in all the talk about reaching tipping points in both subject events , very little mention is made of the effect of relentless & exploitive population growth & the "footprint " each new individual makes on the environment & any attempts to control this ? Is it because of such debate is considered being politically incorrect as it would arouse the ire of pro life , pro euthansia or certain religious entities ?

At risk of misleading people with the subject line, this isn't so much about whether the economy isn't as bad as people think it is, as it is about recognizing that we've kinda had it easy before now, thanks to low energy prices, a strong dollar, and deficit spending. I didn't post anything on the Phil Gramm comments last week for the same reason I didn't post anything on Wesley Clarke's McCain comments, and was proud of the board for not falling for that stuff. But the larger question raised by this particular comment seems worth discussing. The ABC News piece linked below is worth a read (or watch the 3-minute video). Kate Snow spoke with a business professor …

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hZDPDG3HNjIv0GWUaM1t0BED3UoAD91R3E4G1 Isn't it about time they sent the Sergeant at Arms to arrest him? Isn't this contempt of Congress?

Some chatter today about the possibility of Schwarzenegger accepting a cabinet post as energy secretary -- in the Obama administration! http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/11714.html The chatter was entirely Schwarzenegger's, not coming from the Obama camp, but I think it's an interesting idea, and I'd love to see a Republican, especially one of Schwarzenegger's variety, in the Obama cabinet. I think he bring excellent balance and even some useful realpolitik experience to a challenging arena. One down side is that he's not a scientist or engineer, and it would be nice to see Bush's appointment of Samuel Bodman (who has a PhD in Chemical Engineering…

Retroactive immunity for telcos who participated in Bush's domestic spying program was passed in the Senate today. The bill now goes on to an ecstatic Bush who can't wait to sign it. In other words, it's a done deal: http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSWAT00975320080709 This is truly a sad day. Among other things this means civil suits against these companies, by the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, will never reach the Supreme Court. To me, this represents Congress and the Executive colluding to sidestep an important check provided by the Judicial branch. I weep for our civil liberties.

Yesterday one of the largest of the troubled high-risk mortgage lenders collapsed after depositors made a run on the bank to withdraw their money. Depositors with $100,000 or less get their money back from the FDIC. Any depositors with more than $100,000 in the bank will apparently get 50 cents on the dollar from the FDIC. All of this at taxpayer expense. While no one disagrees that this was a troubled institution that may ultimately have collapsed anyway, some observers are saying that the immediate trigger for its demise can be directly attributed to Senator Chuck Schumer of New York. Schumer says he was just doing his job, warning regulators that the bank …

... For breaking the truce agreement. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7501025.stm This is a great story. Hamas is actually organized enough to police the Gaza strip in order to fulfill an agreement made with an alleged enemy.

This is a three and a half minute video of Newt's 3 way strategy to deal with energy. Well, I'm sure it doesn't belong to Newt, but you get the idea. He mentions we have enough coal to put Saudi Arabia to shame and talks about clean coal. I've never heard of this. Anybody have any info on it?? I found it sobering. The left won't like it because he doesn't believe alternative fuels can do anything in one decade. The right won't like it because he doesn't believe oil is the long term solution and he accepts global warming as an issue to be dealt with. In short, he's for releasing our reserves to punish speculators, drilling and searching for oil in th…

Obama is apparently planning to vote for the wiretapping law as it is following the House's passage last week. The Senate is currently debating the bill, which is expected to pass the Senate and be signed by the President. Some interesting commentary from the Obama web site: http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/rospars/gGxsZF/commentary This might get under the skin of some of his base, but I think he deserve a lot of credit for a thoughtful and measured position here, as well as a very forthright responsiveness on the subject. No duck-and-cover act here. He lays out exactly what's right and what's wrong about it, what parts of it he's got problems…

Anyone following this (I really haven't)? Is it as big of a landmark as the hype would suggest? As far as its immediate impact in national politics, I did like this nugget from McCain: For Obama's part, he has refrained from taking a position on it, about the ban only saying (in an April debate), "I confess I obviously haven't listened to the briefs and looked at all the evidence." He supports individual (rather than merely collective) rights to bear arms, but also "common sense local laws." He was quick to disavow an aide's claim that he thought the ban was Constitutional.

An interesting New York Times editorial today suggests that perhaps the main reason Obama has been getting so much of its money from small donors is because it just hasn't had time for the big wallets yet. In fact one Obama staffer actually said so: Well they seem to be finding time for them now. The Times piece focuses on a fundraiser in Atlanta last night. http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/08/obama-campaign-reaps-gilded-haul/ My my. So much for campaign finance reform.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aH0_cYGS8Avc&refer=home America is now the 2nd worst performing country in the G8, after Italy. A weak dollar doesn't bode well for a country with a massive addiction to foreign imports, including oil. I'd attribute this to decades of Milton Friedman-inspired economic policy blowing up in the country's collective face (and that includes such policies introduced by Clinton). Massive deregulation precipitated massive corruption which in turn precipitated massive devaluation. Of course none of this is going to deter free market advocates who think that the economy was overregulated even under Bush.

Couple articles: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-everglades25-2008jun25,0,3721951.story http://in.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idINN2436313220080624?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0 The state of Florida has arranged to buy back 187,000 acres of farmland currently owned by US Sugar corp. It's the biggest restoration purchase in Everglades history and a deal likened by Gov. Charlie Crist as being comparable with the founding of Yellowstone. This story came completely out of the blue. A huge surprise even locally. The land in question is just a few miles from where I live, and my wife and I have spent considerable time wa…

Is it time to throw 'under the bus' under the bus? http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08184/894024-51.stm The Wikipedia entry on the phrase has an amusing sidebar, fleshing out a tidbit from the above article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throw_under_the_bus ROFL! There's also a great example from the same entry: Anyway, the Wikipedia article cites an NPR story saying the phrase has been used in over 400 political stories over the last six months. Time to throw it under the bus!

According to ScienceDaily, Political Participation Is Partially Rooted In Genetic Inheritance. It seems that about 53% of the variation in voter turnout is due to genetics. Two genes in particular seem to account for 10% of the variation. The same genes apply to various social and political behaviors, including going to church. I take this to mean that churchgoers are more likely to vote (this is mentioned in the journal), biasing the results in their favor (interesting side effect). Let me pre-emptively add that you are not controlled by your genes, they just influence your behavior. In this case, many of the genes are linked to fear, trust, and social interactio…