The Hope of Obama

These images are common bumper stickers right now. You can purchase them, if you are an Obama supporter, directly from the Obama campaign website, or here where there are a LOT of other images using the same imagery (Barack Obama as hope). In addition, you can get the first one from a proudly on the left website called turnleft.us. Now, I'm not going to criticize how the man runs his campaign, that's entirely up to him, but I have to say that he isn't doing a very good job appealing to evangelicals (which he claims he wants to do) by using this type of imagery. Evangelicals after all, place their hope in only one place. They do not place their hope in a country, or in a leader or in a President, but they place their hope in God. This is generally true for anyone from the Christian tradition. I can't speak to other belief systems, but since an overwhelming majority of Americans claim this one, for the purpose of this posting, it is sufficient. So, what's the big deal? Why would evangelicals place such a premium on hoping in God/Jesus you ask? Here:
1. But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine. We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield -- Psalm 33:18-20
2. But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength -- Isaiah 40:31
3. (and for this we labor and strive), that we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe -- 1 Timothy 4:10
4. while we wait for the blessed hope - the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ -- Titus 2:13
5. But Christ if faithful as a son over God's house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast. -- Hebrews 3:6
6. Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as he is pure. -- 1 John 3:3

What these versus preclude is for evangelicals to place their hope in anything other than God. Hope is one of the greatest things given to us by God. In 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, Paul speaks of the gifts of the spirit and ends the chapter with this verse: "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." Now, this refers to the idea that of all gifts from God, only these three remain at the end of time, so hope is of God and God alone. That is the clear inference. So, it would be very disturbing to evangelicals, who Obama clearly wants to woo, to see these bumper stickers since they are implying that Obama is hope. Now, whether that is Obama's or the Democratic Party's intent doesn't matter, because perception is everything in a world where political correctness rules.

Presidential election outcomes

How many votes need to change to change the outcomes of Presidential elections? Well, that's an interesting question to me and there has been a study done on just that very thing. You can view the full study here. The first 12 elections from 1789-1832 are not included due to the fact that electors were done differently before 1836. Since 1832, there have been 43 elections. The upcoming one will be the 44th since 1832 and the 56th overall. Just to show how important every vote is, there have been three elections decided by less than 1000 votes. Those are:

2000 - 269 votes
1876 - 445 votes
1884 - 575 votes

8 elections decided by less than 10000 votes:

1836 - 1288 votes
1916 - 1887 votes
1844 - 2554 votes
1848 - 3195 votes
1888 - 4801 votes
1840 - 8174 votes
1880 - 8418 votes
1976 - 9246 votes

5 elections decided by less than 30000 votes:

1960 - 11874 votes
1896 - 18602 votes
1892 - 24488 votes
1868 - 27122 votes
1948 - 29294 votes

8 more elections decided by less than 100000 votes:

1852 - 31739 votes
1864 - 32733 votes
1856 - 34363 votes
2004 - 57787 votes
1908 - 59955 votes
1872 - 67418 votes
1900 - 73232 votes
1860 - 73984 votes

That's 24 elections that could easily have gone the other way out of a total of 55 elections. I think that shows just how few votes can change the outcome of an election. So... everyone get out and vote. If you don't vote, then not only do you lose my respect, but your political opinions no longer matter to me either. The above clearly shows that every vote can make a huge difference.

Chavez and Russia

Okay, so nobody is paying attention right now. I read four different major news sources. Of those sources, I found this story only on Fox News this morning. It seems that Russia is increasing their relations with Venezuela politically, economically and militarily. Chavez is, of course, all for this because he is a Hitleresque kind of personality. Nonetheless, nobody seems to care, based on the fact that we have heard nothing out of Washington (perhaps Bush doesn't want to speak out against his buddy) and barely saw any coverage in the news. I think this is very important. This morning, Fox News is reporting that Russia and Venezuela are in talks to have Russia assist in the development of peaceful nuclear power for Venezuela. While I'm a proponent of nuclear power and think it should be used more throughout the world, especially in the developing world, everyone who believes a deluded dictator like Chavez would use this power peacefully, stand up and shout. Right, I don't think so either. Nonetheless, a nuclear Venezuela would be a huge threat to its neighbors, Brazil and Colombia specifically and even a threat to us. Those illegal rockets we found in Iraq would be all Chavez needs to launch a small nuclear device into the United States. I guess the curse of living in interesting times is that the greatest threats get ignored while our government spends time bickering over legislation that may or may not do anything to actually help the economy and is certainly a betrayal of free market ideals.

Lies all around!

Why is it that people on the left are willing to believe their candidate is the second coming while lambasting the opposition for lying and the people on the right are willing to blind themselves into believing their candidate is angelic while also accusing the opposition of lying. Not only does this involve the politicians themselves, it involves us, the people. We constantly buy into our own candidates lies and blind ourselves to the truth that politicians don't care about us, they only care about getting elected. I see this attitude all too often. Perhaps this is why I do not write official endorsements. I pretty much always feel that, no matter who I'm voting for, I'm missing out on something. That's because I actually bother to do fact checking on occasion and so I know that both Presidential candidates, but worse than that, ALL political candidates have, are or will lie. It is a simple matter in politics. They make promises to get elected, but can't deliver them so they've broken a promise. In addition, they want themselves to look good and their opposition to look bad, so they exaggerate (lie) about their own and their oppositions positions in order to achieve that goal. I find it very sad that so many people vote for their parties candidate whoever it is rather than voting on principle. I think we all need to decide what we really believe and then do the best we can at determining which candidates best fit our beliefs and vote for them since it is impossible to find anyone who agrees with you 100 percent, unless you yourself are running for office, then there'll be at least one :)

Can you believe it?

Our government may very well give 700+ billion dollars to stupid banks that don't deserve it. Just so you know, that would be a larger amount of money than any expenditure in the federal budget. To show you what I mean, here is information on the fiscal year 2007 U.S. budget:

Receipts for fiscal year 2007 were $2.4 trillion. FY2007 on-budget receipts were $1.7 trillion. FY2007 off-budget receipts were $608 billion (Off-budget receipts include Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes, as well as the net profit or loss of the U.S. Postal Service).

Money collected:

* $1.1 trillion - Individual income tax
* $869.6 billion - Social Security and other payroll taxes
* $370.2 billion - Corporate income tax
* $65.1 billion - Excise taxes
* $26.0 billion - Customs duties
* $26.0 billion - Estate and gift taxes
* $47.2 billion - Other

Source: preliminary FY2007 year-end estimate from the U.S. Treasury Dept.

Here's more:
The President's actual budget for 2007 totals $2.8 trillion. Percentages in parentheses indicate the change from the 2006 budget:

* $586.1 billion (+7.0%) - Social Security
* $548.8 billion (+9.0%) - Defense[2]
* $394.5 billion (+12.4%) - Medicare
* $294.0 billion (+2.0%) - Unemployment and welfare
* $276.4 billion (+2.9%) - Medicaid and other health related
* $243.7 billion (+13.4%) - Interest on debt
* $89.9 billion (+1.3%) - Education and training
* $76.9 billion (+8.1%) - Transportation
* $72.6 billion (+5.8%) - Veterans' benefits
* $43.5 billion (+9.2%) - Administration of justice
* $33.1 billion (+5.7%) - Natural resources and environment
* $32.5 billion (+15.4%) - Foreign affairs
* $27.0 billion (+3.7%) - Agriculture
* $26.8 billion (+28.7%) - Community and regional development
* $25.0 billion (+4.0%) - Science and technology
* $23.5 billion (+0.8%) - Energy
* $20.1 billion (+11.4%) - General government

Much of the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan until FY2008 have been funded through supplemental appropriations or emergency supplemental appropriations, which are treated differently than regular appropriations bills. So, determining the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is complex. CBO has estimated that "war-related defense activities" in 2007 were "roughly $115 billion." (CBO, The Budget and Economic Outlook: An Update, August 2007, Box 1-1, available at )

So, we are about to give 700 billion dollars to banks while we spent 586 billion on Social Security, 549 billion on defense spending, an additional 115 billion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, 395 billion on medicare, 294 billion on unemployment. So, you get my point. Do we, the American people, really want to give more money to greedy banks who made bad loans to people who shouldn't have had loans to start with, more money than we have spent on any single budget line? Really?! I don't think so. How about this, we take the 700 billion and distribute it equally amongst the 300 million citizens of this country. For my family of four, that'd come out to about 9300 dollars. I could do a lot more in regards to putting money into the economy with that than these stupid banks will with what they're gonna get.

Negligence and irresponsibility are never an excuse

Okay, so go to the link below and read the story and watch the video:

A link to the story and video is here

Now, everyone knows that children can get their hands on all kinds of things and can get into all kinds of trouble. What has happened in this case is inexcusable, assuming the facts as reported are accurate. The father, obviously negligent, leaves his loaded gun on the bedroom nightstand and goes to sleep when there is a 2 year old child in the house. The mother, warns her 2 year old about the weapon when she catches him reaching for it. Okay, so the father was irresponsible, the mother was negligent. I have no problems with people owning guns and keeping them in their homes. I do believe in the right to bear arms. However, with every right comes responsibility and these people showed none. The father should have properly stowed the weapon or at the very least made an attempt to unload it while the mother should have taken it and placed it on a high shelf out of the child's reach the second she saw him reach for it. This is such an obvious case of a preventable tragedy that I doubt you'll even have gun owners and gun rights activists on these people's side. At least not in regards to the accident. This is straight forward case in my opinion. You have two parents who showed extremely bad judgment and maybe criminally negligent judgment (the outcome of the case has yet to be decided).

Democratic Party platform - abortion

I was reading the Democratic Party platform document online yesterday. While there was a lot of stuff in it that sounded good, there were a few things that made me pause and wonder. The most disturbing ones of those to me was in their statement on abortion. I am not making an argument for or against abortion in this post. I just had to say something about this statement. The statement from the platform is this: we believe in a woman's right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of their ability to pay. Now, I'm not going to speak one way or another on the first part of this statement, but I have a lot to say about the second part. In case you are confused, I'm talking about the "regardless of their ability to pay" part of this statement. So, this is what I'm hearing when I read that. We think that a woman should be able to choose an abortion and that it should be safe and legal (ok, I'm with ya so far, I can see that point whether I'm inclined to agree with it or not), but we also think that a woman has the right to an abortion even if she can't afford to pay for it. Ok, you've lost me now. This seems like a ridiculous statement on its face. So you are saying that if someone goes out and gets pregnant, but has no insurance and can't afford to pay for an abortion that the government should pay for it for her. This I can't agree with. This would mean that you'd be asking people to pay for abortions using their tax dollars and since a large portion of American taxpayers are opposed to abortion, this violates their freedom to choose because it forces them to pay for someone else's abortion. So, I am not for an abortion regardless of ability to pay. In addition, I was raised to take responsibility for my actions. This means to me, in this case, that if I'm responsible enough to have sex, then I should be responsible enough to accept the consequences of my actions. If you can't afford an abortion then you certainly can't afford a child and therefore, you shouldn't be having sex. Maybe this is naive of me, but what happens if this statement were enacted into law? First off, as mentioned above, millions of people who oppose abortion would now have to spend their tax dollars specifically for abortions, but that isn't even the worse part of this. It seems to me that if this became law, you aren't really helping people out with their abortions so much as removing the only incentive to not get pregnant in the first place. After all, the government gives a lot of money to unwed mothers, so there isn't a lot of incentive not to get pregnant as it it, but people who don't want children yet are still likely to avoid pregnancy if they can't afford the abortion. This law removes that and therefore, there is no incentive to not get pregnant because the incentive is replaced with this attitude: Oh, I can have sex, if I get pregnant the government will pay for the abortion. Is this really the message you want to send the American people? Don't be responsible with your lives because when you screw up, we, the government will take care of you. Perhaps it is the message you want to send. If so, do you really think that this kind of attitude will help make abortion safe, legal and rare? I have news for you, enacting legislation that would do this would make abortion safe, legal and common.

Bias in the media

I generally won't make partisan statements on this blog, I try to just ask questions and try to provoke thought. I never ask anyone to agree with me. However, having been challenged on the statement that the media is biased, I'll offer some thoughts on that very thing. First of all, bias is subjective. You commonly hear people say that the media isn't bias and they use statistical numbers to back themselves up, usually consisting of studies done on how many stories were done on or about a particular person/candidate, etc. and whether or not those stories were positive or negative in order to determine bias. This entire system is bogus. First, the number of stories done on or about someone is completely irrelevant because a story can be positive or negative, so the number doesn't matter (although I suppose a significant numerical difference could make for some kind of argument, albeit slight in my opinion). However, regardless of this, the determination as to whether something is positive or negative in nature and therefore bias, is based solely on the discretion of the person doing the analysis. Therefore, a Democrat could look at the exact same data as a Republican and come to an opposite conclusion. Why? That's how people's minds really work, that's why. So, to clarify my statement about bias in the media. There is now and there always has been bias in the media. Anyone claiming differently is denying history and has bought a fiction, created by the media sometime after World War II, that the media is meant to disseminate information in a non-bias form for you to be informed. This is a hogwash. If you want to be informed, go to the library and read some books. In fact, media bias goes back before the creation of this country, but for the sake of space, let's stick to U.S. media history. In the first days of this country's history, the Federalists and the Anti-federalists published pamphlets for mass distribution to convince people that their side was right. The most famous of these pamphlets have be republished over the years as the Federalist Papers (which I suggest reading if you really want a lesson in constitutionalism). Nonetheless, these pamphlets were shortly followed up by newspapers designed to support one party or the other. In the early days, most New England papers were Federalist in nature and south of Pennsylvania, most papers were supportive of the Jeffersonian Republicans. These traditions continued for decades. As the parties changed, the papers changed allegiances or died out being replaced by new ones. By the time of the Civil War, newspaper editors were beginning to mold the papers in their individual images, which had the effect of making papers seem less loyal to a particular party since their writings were more particular to the whims of their editors. This didn't come fully into play until the late 19th and early 20th century period with publishers like William Randolph Hearst and the like. However, papers remained completely biased, they just didn't always cowtow to a particular party line. They were biased to the thoughts and ideas of their editors. In fact, Hearst was a major FDR supporter in 1932 when he was elected, but because he was angry at FDR for not supporting the troop pension legislation in 1935, all of Hearst's newspapers became anti Roosevelt and anti New Deal. This doesn't happen today you say? Of course it does. Now, you say, but my news source isn't biased, only that one over there is. So, we come back to my earlier statement that bias is subjective. Of course your news source doesn't appear biased to you because you likely chose that news source because it tells you what you want to hear. Therefore, any news source that tells a different story must be bias. In reality, both news sources are using elements of the truth, but they (or their editors) are choosing to rely more heavily on one aspect of a story over another. This is how bias is created. Of course, before cable news, the networks used to do the same thing. You could count on one to be Democrat and one to be Republican (not always the same one, but...) and then one would "try" to play the middle. This was all in order to compete with each other. However, with the advent of 24 hour news, the media sources all began to spout the same information largely because, in order to compete, they had to get their information from the same sources. Therefore, the networks are no longer distinguishable from each other. However, in order to do 24 hour news, even cable news began to fall into the trap of getting its information from the same sources and now CNN looks a lot like the networks. So, in the late 20th century, Rupert Murdoch saw an opportunity. It seemed that he noticed that the majority of television media had moved to one position which left a hole that needed filling, and in marched Fox News. Murdoch wasn't necessarily conservative (although he probably is), he just saw a great business opportunity and took advantage of it by making a network that was bias on the opposite end from the majority of the media. So, if you want good information, I suggest watching CNN and then flipping over to Fox News and perhaps reading your local paper, but also read USAToday, or if you read the New Republic, also read a more conservative equivalent. This is the only way to make sure that your thinking isn't tainted by one side of an argument. Don't say you wouldn't be that stupid because if you only get your information from one source, whether it be a traditional media outlet or a source (blog, whatever) on the internet, then you can easily fall into the trap of believing or arguing for something, not because you have any real conviction in that area, but because that's all you've ever heard being argued and so it seems natural to you to agree with it. I'll reiterate my point. The media is and always has been biased. Our job is to read enough different sources to figure out which side what we read is on, then find something else to read as well in order to filter out as much of the bias as we can. Or, we can just all be lemmings, you are free to choose as you will. I choose not to be a lemming.

Fundraisers

Yesterday, Barack Obama spent the evening having dinner with Hollywood celebrities, hmm..., which cost the celebrities almost 30,000 dollars a plate to attend. That was followed by a concert by Barbra Streisand which cost concert goers 2500 dollars a piece. Now, you want to talk about greed and wasteful spending, all of this qualifies. I believe everyone has the right to spend their money as they see fit, so I'm not even really for limiting campaign contributions individuals can make, but regardless of that, Obama is running as a change candidate who wants to tax the wealthy. Obviously, the people in attendance at this fundraiser don't think he's going to tax them and they all qualify as wealthy if they can afford 30K dollars just to go eat. I don't even like to spend more than $30.00 to go eat for my family of four. This event supposedly raised about 9 million dollars for Barack. Good for him (I'm all for him being free to raise however much money he wants for his campaign), bad for his image since this is exactly the kind of frivolity people look at and despise. Now we move on to McCain, who had a fundraiser in Miami on Monday night that raised 5.1 million for his campaign. Again, good for him. However, he is running as a change candidate in regards to lobbyists, special interests and earmarks. I couldn't find much information about the Monday night event that was worthwhile (hmm... I wonder why, could it be that the media didn't want to report on a successful McCain fundraiser? No, that'd be biased reporting) but I know it made 5.1 million and supposedly a lot of Miami bigwigs and lobbyists were present. This would appear to be bad for his image as well but aside from one article in the Miami Herald, it doesn't appear that as many people cared about this event as they did the Obama one. Hmm... maybe the media finally decided Obama isn't the country's savior enough to report something negative. Oh, nope, that's not it. Because in every story about the Obama fundraiser, right in the first paragraph, they ALL state that McCain had a similar event the night before. So, in reality, they (the media) only care because McCain criticized Obama in his speech for this event last night and they want to make sure everyone knows that McCain made (about half as much) in a fundraiser the night before. It isn't really about criticizing Obama. At any rate, all of this is politically irrelevant because donors tend to give their money to both parties in order to be able to say "I gave you this much, what will you do for me?" Oh wait, that would be true of the donors at McCain's fundraiser, but not the one's at Obama's. Those are individual people who decided to forgo the $2300 individual donation cap by choosing to pay 30K dollars to go out to eat. Well, they aren't going to do the same for the Republican party like John McCain's lobbyist attenders will for the Democrats, I guarantee that, so the fundraisers aren't comparable after all. I guess that means Obama does have egg on his face for this one. Even if you won't see it portrayed that way in the media.

What is it about government that makes people believe in it?

I'd really like to know the answer to this question. Time and time again, government fails to provide, fails to achieve, fails to live up to expections. It simply fails. People are constantly pointing out these failures and making a huge issue out of them. So, why is it that people seem to think that government will ever succeed. It is like the old adage, "trying something the same way over and over and expecting a different result". Do we really think that different people in government or different ideas in government or more government will somehow magically be able to change government into something it is not? Outside of what government was meant to do (provide security and protect our rights) it almost universally fails. It even fails at these two things on occasion, but in almost every other way, it seems to me, that it almost always fails. I'd love to have some real examples pointed out where it hasn't. I have a few in mind, but I'd like to know what others think rather than my setting the table. At any rate, I am an independent, and the main reason I am is because I think that both political parties in this country are largely full of it. They both already know what it took me way too long to figure out. What is this you ask? Both parties know they are both almost always wrong, since the extremes are rarely the answer, and they both know that government rarely succeeds at solving anything and so they have to pretend to believe it does and spout good sounding promises to us, the people, in order to get elected. Of course, they also never live up to those promises. This is the way it seems to me, at any rate. Perhaps I'm cynical. I don't believe I am. I've simply come to believe that if you want something done, and done right, then "we the people" have to do it ourselves, because we can't and we shouldn't ever rely on the government to do it for us.

Thinking of historical comparisons (that are, of course, completely uncomparable)

It seems to me that people's memories are very short. As a historian, I was thinking about something recently. The Marshall Plan, or the European Recovery Program (ERP) was established to rebuild Europe following WWII. It took over for previous aid that had been being given to European countries since 1945. The Marshall Plan lasted for four years, from 1947-1951. This made a grand total of six years of official assistance to European countries after the end of the war. Now, I was thinking, if it took us six years to rebuild Europe after WWII, where we were always seen as liberators and we didn't have extremists trying to derail our every effort, it seems that we are ahead of the game in Iraq. After all, six years of official aid to friendly countries, followed by, now, almost 60 years of a permanent military presence with bases in Germany and Britain specifically. So, in Iraq, "official" operations ended when? In May of 2003 if the "Mission Accomplished" sign is to be believed, which for the purpose of this exercise in thought will be accepted since that was the end of "conventional" warfare. So, we are five years removed from the end of the conventional "war" and finally things look like maybe they are getting cleared up over there. We can only hope this is true. After all, U.S. forces are supposed to be pulling out from patrolling the country into traditional military bases and then begin pulling out of the country entirely. Iraq and the U.S. both agree that the long-term goal is the removal of all U.S. troops and that the "long-term" goal is to be as soon as possible, not indefinitely. So, six years of reconstruction in Europe followed by 60 years of military presence that has no end in sight versus 5 years so far of reconstruction, with more to come I hope since we do have a responsibility to clean up our mess, and followed by an as yet to be determined date of withdrawal. Hmm... that seems like maybe a better deal than the Europeans gave us since they basically reneged on their own security needs, leaving them up to us. This of course was all to hold off the aggression of the "evil empire" as Reagan put it. At least Iraq is expressing an interest in taking over their own security needs, which I'm all for. We should get out as soon as we can and get out we will (as opposed to Europe where we still provide long-term security needs), but in cooperation with the Iraqi people and government, not simply because being there is unpopular.

Will I ever see everything?

As the parent of two young children, I know how hard it is to find time to work out and keep in shape. So, today, while driving down the road, I saw a young woman with a jogging stroller. She was on rollerblades and pushing the stroller in front at a good pace. However, as my car passed by, I noticed that she was not rollerblading along with her baby in the jogging stroller, but was in fact carrying her very cute dog. This whole spectacle made me laugh. I just can't help but wonder who pampers a dog so much that it can't run alongside them, but must be pushed in a baby's jogging stroller. I supposed some people's pets are like children to them, so this is fine by me. However, every time I think I've finally seen everything, something else comes along that proves I never will.

What's going on with Chavez?

Interesting turn of events going on in South America. The Russians are cozying up with Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. This week, they have "maneuvers" planned for the Russian and Venezuelan militaries. This may seem innocuous enough, but it comes on the heels of Russia's invasion of Georgia (a U.S. ally). Now, today, Bolivia kicked out the U.S. ambassador over some spying charge and the U.S. reciprocated. That was this morning. Now I read that Chavez has done the same this evening. This is not an accident. I am certain that Chavez, the Russians, somebody has been planning this for awhile. It might not even be accidental that it would occur today, on the anniversary of 9/11. Nonetheless, I don't think we'll see the repercussions of these acts tomorrow. I suspect whatever Chavez is planning, we may not see it until closer to the election or even until after the election. But the world certainly became a lot more interesting.

A quote I found interesting and perhaps appropriate for 9/11

"It needs but one foe to breed a war, not two, Master Warden," answered Eowyn. "And those who have not swords can still die upon them." - J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, Book III, The Return of the King.

Special thanks to "Atlanticblog.com" for having this quote on his site.

Energy Independence for the United States

In today's USAToday, you can read a story on OPEC lowering production (raising prices because they are greedy) and on each candidates plans for energy independence in this country. See the USAToday article here: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2008-09-10-candidates-energy-policy_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip ... At any rate, I read the article and considered what each candidate had to say on the environment. Since I disagree with both of them, I guess I'm a logical person to point out the obvious. The first obvious statement (even though the majority of people have had their heads in the sand and the wool pulled over their eyes) is that while climate change is real, man-made global warming is not. If you'd actually bother to do the research yourself rather than listening to the media and politicians, you'd discover this to be true as well. At any rate, both candidates believe it is real and want to impose a carbon trading system on the country similar to what exists in Europe. The European carbon trading system has not been successful at lowering carbon dioxide emissions and it has been very successful at raising energy costs across the continent. So, why would any of us want this? I can only hope that Congress begins to sober up and defeats any measure to enact this by the time either of these guys proposes such legislation (faint hope).

So, who is more right? It isn't really a question of who is more right. They are both wrong. Obama focuses on government action to force companies and polluters to give up their evil ways. However, this achieves only one goal. Higher prices. McCain wants to focus on market influences to achieve similar goals. While this is unlikely to result in higher prices, it also ignores the fact that the market will not create the necessary incentive without continued 4 dollar a gallon prices. People have changed their driving habits and their buying habits in recent months due to 4 dollar gas. They've even begun to insist on more fuel efficient cars and the market is responding, but gas prices have also fallen over recent months and as long as that trend continues, the market will cease to insist on immediate options for gas prices. Both candidates also want to use biofuel. While I'd love to see biofuel use, it can't be done with any traditional fuel. Also, biofuels are actually causing more harm than they are helping. How you ask? Well, in the U.S., ethanol is made from corn and we are the world's largest corn producer. Do you wonder why the price of corn has gone up and why there have been significant food shortages worldwide this year? That's right, because the world's largest corn producer has diverted the corn to ethanol rather than providing the world with food. Hmm... so we should all get sugar cane ethanol from Brazil you argue. Sounds great doesn't it, although Obama would make it horribly expensive by placing a tariff on it and McCain would simply import it. Both believe in subsidizing it. Ouch. Secondly, Brazil's dirty little secret when it comes to ethanol is that they produce more and more ethanol (not by diverting current crop use as is the case in the U.S. but ...) by cutting down the rain forest and using the land as crop land for their sugar cane. Hmm... not so inviting to environmentalists anymore, is it? At any rate, the true answer to energy independence is being ignored by both candidates in order to get votes from their constituents. I guess I can't blame them for that, but I do hope that once in office they'll wise up. It is a slim hope, especially if Democrats control both houses of Congress and the Presidency, but it is a hope nonetheless. So, what's the answer?

ALL OF THE ABOVE! You have to drill for oil, NOW! You have to build more nuclear power plants, NOW! You have to research and provide incentives for alternative energies, NOW! (Oh and by the way, you have to allow them to be built as well, ask Massachusetts and Ted Kennedy about not allowing alternative energy to be built if you really want to know what I'm talking about) You have to provide government incentives to people and companies to try new things (this is not government regulation and spending) I'm talking tax credits and cuts. This is also not a carbon trading scheme which would only raise prices. Finally, you have to let the market do its work as well by not regulating, by getting people to understand that electric and hydrogen powered cars are the future and by providing incentives for "gas" stations around the country to start changing pumps for hydrogen and to make other infrastructure improvements nationwide. Oh, you also have to drill in Alaska, sorry folks. Any drilling that doesn't include the nation's largest known oil reserve simply wouldn't make a dent. That's it. Neither candidate wants to do all of this, or even any of it. Anyway, that's how I see it.

Is Sarah Palin a book banner?

Go to this link and read the list and the article below:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/palin/bannedbooks.asp

If you still believe Sarah Palin is a book banner, then you can probably also be convinced that Barack Obama is a Muslim. The fact is that asking a question in a town meeting suggests the mayor was receiving pressure from somewhere else and wanted to clarify, publically, the library's position. Since nothing else was ever done and since the Alaska Library Association states that no books have been banned in Wasilia, I'd argue the list is nothing more than what it looks like. A fabrication meant to make people who don't do their research dislike the Republican VP pick. If you need more convincing, then pay attention to the books in the list and realize that the events described regarding Palin's supposed book banning occured in 1996. That being the case, the list could not possibly include several books, especially the Harry Potter series books, the first of which was published in 1997. So, I often use Snopes.com and similar sites to confirm or reject many emails and I recommend others do the same before passing along what is obviously nothing more than a smear campaign.