Politics

http://redgreenandblue.org/2008/10/11/eu-bans-incandescent-light-bulbs/ How progressive of them. I can only hope that America gets a government who would go for this kind of thing soon...

I voted for Obama today - early voting. I relocated recently and I have never been very active in local politics. Consequently, I really was not familiar with the local candidates. With the positions that I was not familiar with, I decided to choose the candidates with this method: If one candidate was female and the other male, I chose female If one candidate had Jr. or a numeral after their name, I didn't chose them If the two did not apply, I chose democrat. My wife told me she mixed it up with the parties, but leaned towards libertarian locally. After further reflection, this seemed to make more sense. See why I chose more females? Hopefully, I …

I don't know if you guys have heard about this in other parts of the country, or if this is happening elsewhere (in fact I've missed the news the last couple days), but the Florida early voting situation is freaking insane. One of my wife's co-workers had to wait eight hours to vote yesterday. EIGHT HOURS! Holy cow! According to the article I linked below, as of about 24 hours ago almost half a million Floridians had already voted. Some counties have already doubled their 2004 totals. Part of the reason for the long lines is that it's a large ballot this year, with many referendums to consider, but I think it's mostly because people are afraid there are goin…

This is just a wild guess, but I think energy will be the next bubble. People will rush to put their money into companies that have a sexy idea and big promises for the future - but zero earnings. What do you think will be the next bubble? Do you think America will be able to generate another bubble?

This thread will probably cater to US citizens, but if you recently voted in your country's national elections, feel to post here too. I'm going to go ahead and give a gist of who I voted for as well, but feel free to just say you voted. I voted! In my case, I voted for Obama for president, Udall for Senate, and Polis for Congress. The respective predictions of these people taking office (courtesy http://FiveThirtyEight.com): Obama 93%, Udall 94%, Polis 99% So I have pretty good confidence that I voted for the winners

The Obama and McCain campaigns both have Twitter feeds: http://twitter.com/BarackObama http://twitter.com/JohnMcCain Obama primarily posts the rallies he's attending. McCain primarily seems to be posting negative comments about Biden, negative responses to his coverage he's been receiving in the press, or his latest attack ads.

I've heard that Americans can vote for more than just the president. You're also voting for a part of the house of representatives and senate (which together form the congress)? Is that a separate vote? (I mean, can you vote for a republican in the house of representatives, an independent in the senate, and Obama for president or something like that)? And if you are registered as a republican voter, can you still vote for a democrat? I've never understood why, in the primary elections, all democrats don't become a member of the republicans, and then vote for the softie-republican? Or why all republicans don't become a democrat member and vote for the hardliner-d…

(Mod note: Apparently you can't have an all-caps subject line. Go figure. This thread is about the political group, not the nuts from oak trees. Lol.) We haven't talked much about ACORN here, and I suspect it's because we will mostly be in agreement with the basic issues. And I tend to avoid small-time political wranglings as beneath us, but with the Supreme Court issuing a ruling on the subject on Friday I think it merits a thread. For background, here's a link to the Wikipedia article on ACORN: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACORN In a nutshell (all puns intended), they're a special interest group advocating various social issues for the "working poor"…

America has long been idealized as a place where oppressed people could go to begin a new life in freedom, recently exhibited xenophobia notwithstanding. The recent problems, if economists can be trusted, are in no small part related to real estate values falling. If America was to not have any numerical limit but were to allow any qualified individual to become a citizen, what would be the economic effect? IMO it would not take long to both increase real estate values and raise tax revenue to a level closer to what we are spending.

Rumor has it that Sarah Palin will show up on Saturday Night Live this week (Edit: Looks like this will be happening on 10/18 or 10/25). I mention it mainly for the political interest, though it's surely going to be a comedy bit. http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2008/10/10/palin-on-saturday-night-live-you-betcha/ What do you all think of all these politicians showing up on entertainment shows? I've always thought it was kinda bogus, though the appearances themselves can be amusing.

I wonder, really wonder, just how long it's going to be before people start reporting/reading this properly. For so long, people have watched this arbitrary figure of the deficit floating between 1 to 500 billion dollars, conveniently hiding the massive expenditures that get added to the national debt and true measure of the extra 10 trillion dollars that make it up. Any auditor would proclaim this as misrepresentation, because only the truly informed know what is really going on. I think that this is a big secret that is really going too far. What is your perspective on this issue? Do you see the media as not being completely forthright about this issue?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/16/al-smith-dinner-obama-mcc_n_135455.html It's good to see that the candidates can make fun of each other and themselves without it being personal. This was a really good idea at this point before the election. It lets the voters know that we're all still human. I thought Obama's speech was particularly funny. better quality mccain video:

Lets just think in some hypothetical political world the politicians unite to pass some energy reform bill that is to work in 12 years. This is how the plan would hopefully work as I see it and I just wonder if it would be possible. We open up the oil reserves in the U.S and pay for our dependent there. that money along with 250 billion dollars of taxes annually is invested in contracts with states or private sector to build a green America rich with alternative non fossil fuel use in 12 years. So what do you think could real energy alternative become a reality for the U.S in 12 years going from a budget of oil reserve consumed annually plus 250 billion annually f…

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=6022108&page=1 Two whistleblowers who were formally military intelligence operatives have come forward with claims that "hundreds of everyday Americans" had their private conversations intercepted. He said phone calls that included "phone sex and pillow talk" were often passed around the NSA facility as a sort of amusement for the operators working there. I miss my civil liberties...

We are paying £37 Billion to bail out the banks. The wunch of fat cat city big bosses took £17 Billion as bonuses last year out of the, so called, profits. Can't we demand our money back!!! "Dear fat cats - you ****ed it up! We want our £17 Billion back so that the banks can keep running without us having to bail them out. You'll just have to make do with the hundreds of thousands of pounds you get in your basic yearly paycheck. Give us back our money!"

The Post has stepped forward for Obama, and it's an unusually nuanced and insightful endorsement. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/16/AR2008101603436.html Couple good quotes: It's also quite long and detailed. Check it out. I think they made some really fascinating points in there. It feels very much like my own sentiments.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems wrong to me that someone who earns $20 per hour and 50 hours per week would get taxed as much as someone who $1000 per hour and 1 hour per week. Not just that it seems unfair, it also seems like a stupid move. The result would be that people are less likely to want to work more hours than if they were taxed at their hourly rate. The only disadvantage that I can see is that it would be very difficult to find out how many hours of effort someone puts into their job.

This is the first debate I've seen with a real "WTF?" moment. Before this there was "that one" and Palin's blatant dodging of the question, but this debate had something truly awe inspiring: How much would Obama's healthcare program cost small businesses. Zero, explains Obama. "ZERO???" asks McCain. The look on his face is one of befuddlement, bemused in his realization that Obama has a pretty cool idea. Or at least, that's how I read him. He then proceeds to blink spasmodically, in a manner that reminded me of Bush in his first debate with Kerry: Of course, look at how much of an effect that had on the election...

I've been using this site for the past several months to track the polls: http://fivethirtyeight.com (538 is the number of electoral votes, btw) It was developed by a guy named Nate Silver who originally wrote a model for predicting baseball games called PECOTA. The model predicted the Rays would turn it around, going from losing 96 games to winning 90. They ended up winning 97. Who'da thunk it? PECOTA did. Now he's turned to predicting elections. His model runs 10,000 times a day, and analyzes the history of polls vs election results with a data set going back to the '50s. He predicts Obama has a 94.7% chance of winning... on election day.

I have received a call from someone asking to vote for Obama at least 10 times, usually at dinner time. I have had two visits to my door from Obama supporters. I have had one call from McCain supporters. This is worse than the Jehovah's witnesses. Enough already.

http://www.glassbooth.org John McCain shares a 75% similarity with your beliefs Barack Obama shares a 69% similarity with your beliefs Ralph Nader shares a 56% similarity with your beliefs

Had to bring this up. Christopher Buckley, son of William F. Buckley and columnist at the National Review, is endorsing Obama, essentially because Obama is smarter, more cool-headed, and has run a cleaner campaign than John McCain. He doesn't agree with Obama's overall philosophy, obviously, but he's basically saying that he trusts him not to screw things up too badly, and he doesn't trust McCain. Here's the link: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-10-10/the-conservative-case-for-obama/ Not the same as if WFB himself were saying it, but still pretty incredible. I guess it's part of an anti-anti-intellectual backlash from the right, with smart cons…

So, three weeks left. What if McCain changed running mates one week before the election? Think it would cause enough of a bounce to get more votes from those who liked McCain before Palin came along and gain him more electoral votes? Any thoughts, ideas, opinions are welcomed.

Straight from Obama's website: Obama’s Comprehensive Tax Policy Plan for America will: Cut taxes for 95 percent of workers and their families with a tax cut of $500 for workers or $1,000 for working couples. How can Obama cut taxes for 95% of workers when only 67% of them even pay taxes? Isn't that a lie? http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/1410.html http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/542.html

David Brooks is the New York Times' token moderate conservative columnist. This week he takes a look at how the Republicans have lost intellectuals. I think he's spot-on with this analysis. In fact it's gotten so stark that most young people today probably see the idea of "intellectual Republican" as being about as alien as the idea of a "conservative Democrat". http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/opinion/10brooks.html?em He goes on to talk about how Palin brings out the worst in this, and gets into how the Republicans have now lost the working class as well, because of poor policy. It wraps up with this gem: line[/hr] BTW, it's not really …