I may have shown bias in the past, but I have not been to blatant about endorsing a specific candidate or anything. Okay, maybe I have. Anyway, I was watching the debate last night and came out with some impressions.

The biggest thing I noticed is that McCain lies a lot. I know that all politicians lie, especially if you take into account things they promised they'd do and didn't or couldn't get done. But McCain lies about things that have already happened and are verifiable.

Examples: (Update 10/29 - math and fact-checking)

Oil Imports: John McCain continuously states that we send $700 billion to countries that "don't like us very much."

According to the DOE the US imports about 13,000 13 million barrels of petroleum per day. Assuming a cost per barrel of $100, which is probably fair for this year since we started high and are currently in the $40/barrel range, the cost of that petroleum is around $474 billion per year. So already he's a little off in saying that we send more money for oil to countries that "don't like us very much" than we actually spend on oil. It's only 47% more though, so lets call that hyperbole.

Also according to the DOE, the two countries of the top 15 from which we import petroleum that you could say we have uneasy relations with are Iraq and Russia. Since McCain would also say that Iraq is our friend, I'll give him the benefit of counting Iraq as our friend who "doesn't like us very much". That means that we import about 1200 1.1 million barrels per day from countries that "don't like us very much" for an annual cost of $42 million $41 billion. I don't know anyone who thinks that $42 million $41 billion is anywhere close to $700 billion.

(note: even after these corrections due to my mis-reading of the numbers as barrels/day rather than 1000s of barrels/day, McCain is off by a factor of 20. Not as bad as 20,000, but quite far from the mark.)

Taxes: We also heard about a guy named Joe the Plumber, AKA Joe Wurzelbacher. According to McCain, he's got a double doozey coming. Apparently he wants to buy the plumbing business he's been working for and that will put him over the $250,000 per year income level, meaning that, under Obaba's plan, he'll see an increase in his tax rates. And he's also supposed to be in for a fine for not providing health insurance for his new employees.

As it turns out, that part of Obama's plan is for personal income tax, so if he incorporated, the argument becomes completely different. So let's say Joe doesn't incorporate. He would need a gross adjusted income of over $250,000 per year in order to end up with higher taxes. That means that after paying his employees and buying the extremely expensive copper pipe he probably uses, he'd need to have a quarter of a million dollars left over. If I had that kind of income, I'd be happy to pay higher taxes. As Oliver Wendel Holmes said "I like paying taxes. With them, I buy civilization."

Joe would also get additional tax breaks under Obama's plan in the form of the elimination of capital gains taxes for small businesses and credits for creating new jobs if he decides to hire more people. So, while we haven't seen the results of Obama's plan, it really looks like Joe would have to be in pretty good shape before his taxes would go up. Actually, if he has enough money to buy a plumbing business, he probably makes over $250,000 per year already.

As for the fine for not providing health insurance. That's a little backwards. The Obama-Biden plan gives a tax credit to small businesses that do provide health insurance. So, if Joe decided not to provide health insurance to his employees, he wouldn't be fined, he just wouldn't get a tax credit. Talk about "mis-representation."

Overhead Projectors: Dang, have you seen this thing? It is totally not an overhead projector. Except that it projects things over people's heads. Do you remember going to the planetarium? Do you remember the giant, death-star-like thing in the middle of the room that shot beams of light everywhere? That's what McCain is talking about when he says "overhead projector." I haven't been to a planetarium since I was in grade school, but I'm honestly thinking about finding one and checking it out now. Here in downtown Minneapolis, we don't get to see much of the sky. I'd guess that it's worse in downtown Chicago.

So basically, McCain's point is that earmarks are bad. Well, it's hard not to agree with that in principal. On the other hand, Minneapolis wouldn't have light-rail without earmarks. There are thousands of projects in states all across the US that have been funded by federal earmarks. The Zeiss Universarium Model IX that was for Illinois (which didn't get funding by the way) is one. Alaskas Gravina Island bridge (which Palin got funding for but didn't get built) is another. One of the benefits of statehood and representation is getting funding from the Federal Government for local projects. Huh, I guess it isn't hard not to agree. Earmarks aren't inherrently bad, we just don't all agree how the money should be spent.

Anyway, I know polititians lie. They just shouldn't lie so obviously.

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I don't know about you, but I'm watching the smackdown tonight.

While Biden, who has been in the US senate since 1972, has to beware of his tendency to lapse into confusing verbosity, the event is being seen as particularly critical for Palin, the Alaska governor, whose knowledge of national and global issues has come under question in recent days.

"Come under question in recent days"... Yeah, that about sums it up.

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It has come to my attention, reading Pharyngula, that the nation has a new reason to be upset about the current economic situation. Hundreds of thousands of people are going to lose their homes because of predatory lending practices by bankers out for a quick buck. President Bush's crack financial team has decided to give these unscrupulous bankers a hot cash injection to keep them in the market to lend while bailing out the people who probably don't need help, leaving the original hundreds of thousands of future former homeowners without the homes they probably shouldn't have been allowed to buy in the first place.

As a result, Barack Obama has chosen to cut his losses and get out of dodge before things start to really go south.

In the wake of an epic financial meltdown that threatens to derail the U.S. economy for years, Barack Obama announced he was ending his run for President of the United States, declaring to a stunned nation, “Man, this is bullshit.”

In addition to returning all his campaign donor's money, he will be providing discount coupons on qualifying flights to Canada.

 

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Back in 2007 when John McCain was running against other Republicans for the post of Presidential Nominee, he made some statements that now cause me to doubt his faith. Not his faith in God, of which I have no doubts, but his faith in his running mate.

I am prepared. I am prepared. I need no on-the-job training. I wasn't a mayor for a short period of time. I wasn't a governor for a short period of time.For 20-some years, including leading the largest squadron in the United States Navy, I led. I didn't manage for profit. I led for patriotism.

This statement strongly implies that he should not trust Palin in any national security issue. And, in case you think I'm making this up, there's a video. (The Huffington Post has a slightly more in-depth article and, regardless of your opinion of their political views, it makes you think.)

I wonder what she would think about that if she were to follow this type of thing.

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I guess I've fallen behind on reading XKCD. That and I was in training most of the week the RNC was here. I wish I had read this comic earlier so that I could have had a little fun in St. Paul.

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Gizmodo has a good run-down of some possible issues the Obama campaign may have now that he's announced Biden as his running-mate. Since Gizmodo is chiefly interested in the technological impact of the next presidency, their concentration of coverage was obvious.

While Obama has looked like a very good candidate from a technology point-of-view, Biden is a Luddite. He's on-record as against BitTorrent, encryption, and net-neutrality and he's a good friend of the RIAA. Since the RIAA wants to make platform-shifting illegal under the DMCA, that raises some issues in the community.

While this isn't enough to turn my support against Obama, it definitely brings in a feeling of the lesser evil to the ticket. On the other hand, Obama has said that he wants to have multiple points-of-view in his oval office and cabinet. This could be a good way to temper any automatic pro-internet knee-jerks Obama might have. If it works, then good for him. I'd have a tendency to ignore his technology advice based on past experience.

I have a rant about net-neutrality, but that's another post.

Image from Gizmodo.com

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Last week at the Olympics additional evidence was recorded that the President is a bit pervy.

Not that there's anything wrong with a good spanking, but it helps if that's what the recipient is actually expecting rather than a short lesson on volleyball playing.

And everyone should remember what happened in Germany.

Again, there's nothing wrong with massages, but its less wrong when you're not walking to your seat at the G8 summit. On Camera.

The UK, at least, has an internet-based sense of humor about the whole thing. Click through to the Guardian for more LOL bush.

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Despite your opinion about whether George W. Bush is a good president or not, you have to admit that he's not a very good speaker. I admire the fact that he improvises a little with his speeches rather than reading everything off cards like we did in High School or like most people do with their PowerPoint presentations, but I think he should spend a little time practicing.

Despite your opinion about whether Steve Jobs is a good manager or not, you have to admit that he's a great speaker. He spends hours during the weeks before an event working on his talk. His keynotes always come across as natural, not forced, and he always gets exactly the reactions he's looking for.

I heard a quote from President Bush this morning on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me that I decided had to be my whiteboard quote of the day:

You're making the choices about whether you want to drive a little extra more or not drive extra more.

This is exactly an example of the little things that make the Liberal Elite feel that they deserve a president that is smarter than they are and that they don't have one. When I went searching on Google to find the quote, I ended up at the Whitehouse.gov press release site where, among other things, they have transcripts of speeches. I know there would be issues with revisionism if these speeches were edited, but there was the statement right in plain text. The other quote I heard was in there too. It's not as much a miss-statement as it is a duh-statement:

The feed stock for gasoline is oil. So when you hear "my gasoline prices are going up," you got to understand the main reason why is because oil prices are going up

I don't know if it makes me an elitist, but I think I deserve better.

 

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Turns out justice can be served by this administration on occasion.

Howe said she couldn't comment on the reasoning behind Pitt losing her $89,920 job, but said the information MnDOT sent "corroborated our investigation.''
- StarTribune

I'd still think you would want to check on reports that your job candidate was fired for failing to do her job and misappropriation of state funds before hiring her. But maybe that's just me.

 

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I know the current administration is bad about responding to crises, but they didn't have to show that their hiring was specifically tailored to create crisis response problems.

We know President Bush kept reading his picture book when the Trade Towers were hit. We know it took a week to get water to New Orleans. What will the TSA miss in the near future?

Pitt, 44, of Red Wing, was fired last November from her high-level job at MnDOT after she failed to return from an unauthorized, state-paid trip to Washington, D.C., during the I-35W bridge collapse crisis. The bridge collapsed Aug. 1 and Pitt didn't return to Minnesota until Aug. 11. Various state investigators later determined there was no work-related reason for her to be in Washington and that her trip there was unauthorized and at taxpayer expense.
-- StarTribune

 At least there's an investigation. That means someone thinks there's a problem.

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