Obama

So a while back, I listed three things I liked about McCain, personally and politically. Here's my list of likes and dislikes for Obama:

Things I dislike, politically:

1. Pharma/Health Care: the cost savings in health care aren't to be found (as the Democrats say) in administration. It's going to be in procedures, labor costs and drug prices. Considering the latter two are how my family sucks America dry earns its bread, it's pretty easy to be against Obama.
2. His stance on the war. Let's face it: I disagree with America.

Things I dislike, stylistically/personally:

1. Obama has little executive experience. His campaign is the largest organization he's ever run; he's been very good at it. How much credit can we give him? Caveats: Palin, McCain, Palin.
2. Obama has very little political courage. He has not fought against the Establishment (whoever they are) -- he's consistently gone along. Prediction: his calls for teacher pay/education reform will be the first to get traded away.
3. His stance on free trade. Considering that's the path to future American competitiveness, that's a bad thing.

Things I like, issues-wise:

1. I like his noises on transparency in government.
2. I hope he'll take on the teacher's unions -- I just don't think it will happen.
3. I think he'll fund NIH even more ridiculously lavishly than it has been better; I simply hope that NSF (representing the physical sciences) gets similar increases.

Things I like, personally:

1. He appears to be a genuinely thoughtful person and a half-decent writer.
2. He seems 'cool' and a hell of a lot less awkward and a better speaker than Bush.
3. I like how his faith informs him.

There it is. In a couple of weeks, I'll hit my 2 page list of things I don't like about McCain.

Shark steak

Dunno if anyone else will find this funny (other than Rich), but in a recent EW interview, Obama revealed his favorite fiction president was from "The Contender".



It's a great movie, in that liberal crusading way.

Not to distract... but its that time of year again....

Week one is upon us, and with it the pickem league is back with a vengeance.  I'll start by saying the SIMPLEST way to do this is for you all to enter your scores into the spreadsheet yourselves, but I'll start the year with the old ways, i'll post the games, you comment your scores in.  If any of you want to access the spreadsheet and add your scores on your own, let me know and I'll share the document...  Get 'em in early, things kick off thursday! (By the way, any of you out there who don't usually play and want to start let me know, any of you who no longer care to play, let me know, thanks!)

Thursday, Sept. 4

Washington @ NY Giants

Sunday, Sept. 7

Seattle @ Buffalo

Houston @ Pittsburgh

Tampa Bay @ New Orleans

Detroit @ Atlanta

St. Louis @ Philadelphia

Jacksonville @ Tennessee

NY Jets @ Miami

Cincinnati @ Baltimore

Kansas City @ New Orleans

Arizona @ San Francisco

Carolina @ San Diego

Dallas @ Cleveland

Chicago @ Indianapolis

Monday, Sept. 8

Minnesota @ Green Bay

Denver @ Oakland

Obama's Speech Inspired by Kennedy, Clinton, and Shepard

VEEPILF!!!

I am not going to vote for him but I want to ____ his vice president! I am huge proponent of the "sexy librarian" look.

Sidekick

“John McCain calls himself a maverick, but he votes with George Bush 95% of the time. That’s not a maverick. That’s a sidekick.”

Thanks Sen. Casey! The original "maverick" is nothing more than Robin to Bush's Batman.

Daily Kos gets the props for the pic.

The most irritating thing I heard tonight.

Former Virginia governor Mark Warner:

"In a global economy, you should not have to leave your home town to find a world-class job. "

Sigh. Well, I'll guess I'll head back to Aloha, Oregon then.

Caveats: Convention, hyperbole, non-literalness, annoying conservative guy, etc., etc.

Pre-Season NFL

Topic: Should there be a pre-season in the NFL? Discuss....

You're Invited: RSVP

First, Dick Morris spanks ins-Hannity on the Biden-Cheney analogy and then a producer in his ear reminds him of the talking points or he won't return as a guest.

Morris then rips into Obama's position that we could have been in a better position in the Russian-Georgian conflict if we hadn't invaded Iraq. Obama: “We’ve got to send a clear message to Russia and unify our allies,” Obama told a crowd of supporters in Virginia. “They can’t charge into other countries. Of course it helps if we are leading by example on that point.”

(Neo)- conservatives slam Obama by reminding all us that we always have moral authority against the evil-doers.

Dick Morris: "We went into Iraq at the invitation of the government, not as an invasion."

3AM? What about 3PM?

I hate to admit it, but, based on this photo Obama IS too inexperienced for that 3AM phone call.

Excellent logic

check this out from Andrew Sullivan via Daily Kos

Andrew Sullivan makes an excellent point.

In all the discussion of John McCain's recently recovered memory of a religious epiphany in Vietnam, one thing has been missing. The torture that was deployed against McCain emerges in all the various accounts. It involved sleep deprivation, the withholding of medical treatment, stress positions, long-time standing, and beating. Sound familiar?

According to the Bush administration's definition of torture, McCain was therefore not tortured.

Cheney denies that McCain was tortured; as does Bush. So do John Yoo and David Addington and George Tenet. In the one indisputably authentic version of the story of a Vietnamese guard showing compassion, McCain talks of the agony of long-time standing. A quarter century later, Don Rumsfeld was putting his signature to memos lengthening the agony of "long-time standing" that victims of Bush's torture regime would have to endure. These torture techniques are, according to the president of the United States, merely "enhanced interrogation."

No war crimes were committed against McCain. And the techniques used are, according to the president, tools to extract accurate information. And so the false confessions that McCain was forced to make were, according to the logic of the Bush administration, as accurate as the "intelligence" we have procured from "interrogating" terror suspects. Feel safer?

Veepstakes

Simple post. Simple Question. Who would you choose as Obama's running mate? Leave your answer in the comments section.

Putting your money where your mouth is, legally

Dave's going to laugh at this, considering it's mostly used for commodities trading, but...

Last night (with the proceeds of a birthday gift from my better half), I bought 24 futures contracts for the Democratic candidate for the Presidency at 0.615 dollars per contract on the Iowa Electronic Markets. They will pay 1.00 dollar if the Democrat candidate wins. They will pay nothing if he/she loses.

While I don't find this (the prospect of an Obama presidency) to be a extraordinarily satisfactory outcome, I think there is somewhat of a win/win for my personal happiness.

McCain needs to reschedule his speeches...

ʇnoʇs s,ɹǝpunoɟ

ɥɔıɹ uıɐƃɐ noʎ ƃuıǝǝs ʇɐǝɹƃ 'ʎɐʍʎuɐ

ʇnoʇs s,ɹǝpunoɟ ɥɔnɯ ooʇ pɐɥ ı ǝqʎɐɯ

˙llǝʍ puɐ ǝʌılɐ sı ʎɹǝʍǝɹq ɐʞɐʍɐɥsıɯ ǝɥʇ ʇɐɥʇ punoɟ ı ʎɐpıɹɟ ʇsɐl pu ƃuıʇısıʌ ɹǝʇɟɐ llǝʍ

Colmes Grows a SACK!!

"in the 21st century nations don't invade other nations"

Remarkable.

Is there any hope for ND Football

Ever since he grew his long hair, I always thought Clausen kind of looked like an East German woman. Well this definitely proves he is the catcher of the team.

John Edwards

I have nothing to say. I'm simply stunned.

Well, okay, one thing. When you're a politician, you bet the reputation of yourself and your family. That's pretty big. You also ask for the support, time and money of your supporters. Edwards' affair is a huge betrayal (in my opinion) of those supporters.

Perhaps they don't care. In that case, coming full circle, I have nothing to say. I'm just stunned.

1,555,223 ways to please your man

'Cosmopolitan' Institute Completes Decades-Long Study On How To Please Your Man

The Straight Talk Express

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, often mentioned as a possible running mate for Republican presidential candidate John McCain, said Wednesday GOP candidates would do well to adopt a positive tone like that of McCain's Democratic rival, Barack Obama.

Wall Street is investing heavily in Barack Obama.

Barack Obama has collected nearly twice as much money as John McCain
BY DAVID SALTONSTALL
DAILY NEWS SENIOR CORRESPONDENT
Updated Tuesday, July 1st 2008, 4:23 AM

Zurga/Bloomberg
Wall Street firms have chipped in more than $9 million to Barack Obama.

Wall Street is investing heavily in Barack Obama.
Although the Democratic presidential hopeful has vowed to raise capital gains and corporate taxes, financial industry bigs have contributed almost twice as much to Obama as to GOP rival John McCain, a Daily News analysis of campaign records shows.
"Wall Street wants change and wants a curtailment in spending. It wants someone who focuses on the domestic economy," said Jim Cramer, the boisterous host of CNBC's "Mad Money."
Cramer also does not discount nostalgia for the go-go 1990s, when Bill Clinton led the largest economic expansion in history.
"It wants a Clinton like in 1992, but not a Hillary Clinton," he said. "That's Barack Obama."

In contrast to Mike's post I am not going to state that McCain's economic policy will be the end of the world; actually it is pro-business. But...

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=mccains_delusional_tax_plan

He proposes cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, costing $100 billion a year, but fails to eliminate a single corporate tax break. A 25 percent rate would be below the average rate of other industrialized countries and the lowest among G-7 countries by a significant margin.

But McCain does not stop there. He would let companies immediately write off all investment in equipment and technology. Companies would get an immediate up-front deduction for their investments, rather than being forced to deduct their costs over time. The change is very valuable for companies because a $100 deduction today is worth a lot more than $10 a year for ten years. For the same reason, it is very expensive for the Treasury -- to the tune of about $75 billion a year.

McCain's top policy advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin claims that such a write-off has no long-term cost. In fact, when Holtz-Eakin headed the Congressional Budget Office, it concluded that a similar, smaller proposal cost $440 billion over a decade. Reagan tax official Ron Pearlman labeled Holtz-Eakin's claim "so intellectually dishonest it's outrageous."

Maverick McCain stated that payroll taxes might be necessary to fix social security until his campaign reminded him that he was the Republican nominee. Moreover, despite the fact that his website is still selling Obama Energy Plan Tire Gauges, he contradicted his campaign with “Obama said a couple of days ago says we all should inflate our tires. I don’t disagree with that. The American Automobile Association strongly recommends it." Unfortunately, he did not add that it would return more barrels of oil than new off-shore drilling he proposes. 

I need feedback

Because I'm not going to fuss with the weekly picks if people have out grown it.  If no one expresses an interest I'll let it die on the table, if you would rather do something else football related (fantasy or a weekly picks league on Yahoo or something) let me know.  Thats all, you may resume political ramblings...

States Red Ink: Does this correlate to the Federal level? I think so!

States Red Ink: Does this article extend / correlate to the Federal level? I think so! If you are more Anti-Business at the Federal level (read if Obama is elected) are we headed for more trouble in the economy?

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2008/08/antibusiness_states_awash_in_r.html

Paris Hilton Responds to McCain

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

Now this is Funny!