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Obama's win was widely predicted, although most people underestimated his support (right now, it looks like he will take 364 electoral votes).

The biggest surprise of the night is in Alaska, where against all odds, they elected a convicted criminal to the US senate.

runs a positive campaign based not on mudslinging and personal attacks, but on a REAL platform?

Oh please. Obama's campaign was often petty and personal too -- see his attacks on McCain's houses and the dirty ad linking McCain to Limbaugh. Obama's REAL platform is peddling "change" and "hope". You might watch the 1972 movie The Candidate.

Clinton cut government waste and turned the economy around. Carter was a successful president who did much good for the country, considering the mess it was in when he got it. Bush Jr. was terrible, worse than Reagan. You may want ot look at this chart. Sure it is from the NYT, but the figures are correct.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/10/14/opinion/20081014_OPCHART.html

There is a huge difference between government run by people who believe government is evil, and government run by people who believe it can do good.

There is significant difference between changing your mind and crass opportunism. Although, I do admit there is a chance that McCain has genuinely changed his mind and decided to join the ranks of the fundamentalist lunatics. Either way (and for many other reasons), I don't think he is suited to be the president.

It's good that you have reasons for your actions. I'm not sure why McCain changed his mind or that it isn't opportunism. However, no one has said he done something specifically because of the way the other side would react which, to me at least, makes the opportunism a little less in comparison. We can disagree on this or the importance of the differences.

You are right in that both sides have used smears, but McCain has been far more egregious in this regard. He is using every nasty trick he can and some of his supporters are now openly calling for Obama's assassination. No, Obama is not perfect. I would actually prefer someone else. But, given the realistic assessment that there are only two viable candidates, I think he is by far the better one. You obviously disagree, but I would hope that your disagreement would stem from your views about which candidate has better policy ideas and better judgment, rather than all the garbage that we've seen hurled in this campaign. The garbage has largely come from the McCain side, either from him or from his supporters.

I still don't think your paying attention enough. McCain blasted one of his own supporters at a rally for making derogatory remarks about Obama. He has administered outright lies said about Obama and on one occasion told a voter that he didn't care for his vote when he said we needed to lynch Obama. You must be forgetting Obama's supporters who likened McCain and Palin to Nazi collaborators and segregationist policies of George Wallace and the murder of four little girls. Obama refused to admonish or condemn that act even after praising McCain for admonishing his supporters who got out of line. He was on national TV and was asked specifically if he would condemn those words and Obama refused to. How about the effigy of Palin being hung from a tree or roof top that no one in the media or Obama's campaign cared about more then to giggle until someone made one of Obama- then it was all about race and how McCain and his supporters are racist. You have Obama claiming that McCain would continue Bush's economic policy when he himself (most likely you too) can't even name what that policy is. It's like the trick question given to Palin about the bush doctrine, he has no doctrine to speak of and he had no clear economic policy until things started falling apart.

I can go on with loads more if you want. Here is a little article talking about some of it if you doubt what I'm saying. I'm not attempting to change your vote or anything, but you should at least know what your voting for.

To get rid of the electoral college, you would have to get rid of the States.

Not so. There is a very creative plan to work around the Electoral College, and use the popular vote, that is a real bill in many states right now. The way the STATE bill reads, it says that, by state law, if enough states pass a similar law, ALL of the Electoral College votes for that state be cast to the winner of the NATIONAL popular vote. Read about it here.

The cause of worldwide amphibian population declines is the Chytrid Fungus. However many do think that global warming is making the situation happen faster and to a more serious degree. Here is some quick links if you want to read more on the subject ...

From Nat Geo:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080401-frog-fungus.html

The NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/04/science/04frog.html

The CDC:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol10no12/03-0804.htm

The Bush administration started a crackdown on such activity after claims of voter fraud emerged. In a five year period only 120 people were accused of actual election fraud, and only 86 of those were convicted. Nationwide. That simply is not enough to sway elections. Unless you have some other evidence...
Article

Qwest lost pentagon contracts for refusing to illegal wiretap when it was asked to in February 2001 . The 9/11 attacks are a strawman argument for the executive branch grabbing as much power as they can.

As to impeachment, Pelosi has said impeachment is off the table for quite awhile. Kucinich has tried to start impeachment hearings but they got killed in subcommittees. The two parties may bicker at some level but they wouldn't actually want to oh, follow the law or anything when it comes to trampling personal liberties.

I thought it was fairly well established that the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping predates 9/11. The NSA was meeting with Qwest executives in February 2001, trying to pressure them into allowing it. They said no, other carriers buckled.

I would disagree on inflation being a fair tax, it discourages savings and hurts people on fixed incomes. Also, consider where the money is being inflated from: The banks down. The money is created by the Fed, and it hits the richest people first, giving them an unfair advantage over the working classes. Meanwhile, the working classes see an increase in prices because of more demand on the market (the exact same thing as the value of the money going down, since prices are just an exchange ratio), but no increase in their wages. The inflation tax disproportionately hurts anyone who depends on the value of the money--the lower class, people on fixed incomes, the retired, and those saving to invest in capital, among others.

Inflation of a backed currency is (kind of) fairer because it actually costs money to produce (you have to do productive work that is valued by the market), and is sold on the market, not handed out (but yes, that doesn't mean it can't be damaging, because of the 1600s new world explorers, Europe saw inflation rates on gold currency of 100-200%).

It should be noted too, that is the argument that was used to take us off the gold standard- the use as a money was supposedly propping up it's value, and it's non monetary use was estimated at something like a tenth of the value. However, the prices never fell when we went off of it. Point is, there is no proper supply of money, so long as it remains fairly static. As for industrial uses of gold, that is what helps it keep it's value, and I don't think the industry would be affected as much as one might think, prices would adjust accordingly to reflect the new supply. We might not see much of a change in relative gold prices in the long term.

I should have noted, I am not all out for a gold standard, but we, the US (and other countries) really need to make it a legal tender for government debts, and drop all related taxes on it (and silver, and platinum, and most all valuable metals for that matter). If this crisis makes the money go the way of Zimbabwe (this is the first real crisis we have had on a fiat currency), we need competitive alternatives.

Just search Google for New Zealand Subsidies, here is one article.
As for controlling prices, that is part of the function of speculators who help keep the prices stable. I don't know as much about farming subsidies in particular (this CAP?) my guess is that the supply is elastic enough that rising prices could be fairly quickly satisfied on the free global market.
Also an interesting, maybe relevant article

Finally, as a side note, when special interests prosper, I think it means that there are not enough representatives for the population. Few representatives = less votes to buy = less money needed to get your way.

That's debatable. Nobody claims that derivatives were the root of the current financial disaster. It's simply the gasoline that was poured on the spark.

Greenspan strongly advocated for derivatives to not be regulated and he got his wish (believing that the markets would self-regulate). Naysayers claimed that the derivatives would be too opaque and could lead to a domino effect. Warren Buffett referred to them a few years ago as financial weapons of mass destruction. Just read this very informative article in the NY Times for details about how the libertarian ideal was absolutely wrong in this case.

Before diving into the numbers, here is a detailed article about how derivatives had been predicted to fail extraordinarily in difficult times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/economy/09greenspan.html?bl

Here is the Economist's take on the bailout bill: http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?source=hptextfeature&story_id=12305249

And finally here is the Economist's explanation of why the bill could work (yes, with numbers): http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12305746

It isn't a scholarly work. The only thing I could find for free would be transcripts of presentations made on the floor when Bernanke and Paulson were trying to convince Congress to pass the bill. Do you REALLY want me to find the links to those transcripts?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118781024289705455.html?mod=home_health_right

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_10/007290.php

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/06/nyregion/06health.html?pagewanted=print

The NY Times had an interesting story last week about creatures that dine on blood.

Apparently, most obligate hematophages tend to be very small- insects and such, because blood is not an ideal source of nutrition. In particular, blood has almost no dietary fat, so a large hematophage like a vampire bat, "must consume the equivalent of half their one-ounce body weight in blood every night or risk starving to death."

Also, apparently blood is about 95% water, and so to keep from gaining too much water weight, vampire bats "urinate freely as they feed." That's a detail that seems to be missing from most vampire movies.

"for married couples with incomes of $50,000, two children and both parents working, income taxes would be cut by $284 more under Mr. Obama's plan -- by $1,005, compared with $721 under Mr. McCain's plan"

"From $100,000 to $250,000, they'd be fairly even under Obama and McCain."

"For married couples with incomes of $500,000 with two children and both parents working, the Tax Policy Center found that Mr. Obama would raise income taxes by $3,363, from $110,955 now, while Mr. McCain's plans would leave taxes unchanged."

Please note that the tax INCREASE for those making $500,000.00 per year is less than 3%, or only 0.6% of their total income, hardly an incomprehensible burdon!

So, McCain and the Republican machine continue to use scare tactice to convince the middle class that democrats will raise their taxes to provide welfare for the poor, but these numbers show that is patently false (surprise!). The middle class bears NO weight of the tax cuts. The only people impactd are the really rich people who control the Republican party and want the middle class to vote for their interestes instead of their own.

It boggles my mind how many in the middle class believe them every four years!

I said $5000 in tax credit, and $12,000 in new taxes. Perhaps I should have said $12,000 in new taxable income, to be totally clear. So, I don't know what Times article you're referring to, but the one I found also said this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/opinion/06krugman.html?ref=opinion

"...[T]he people gaining insurance would be those who need it least: relatively healthy Americans with high incomes. Why? Because insurance companies want to cover only healthy people, and even among the healthy only those able to pay a lot in addition to their tax credit would be able to afford coverage (remember, itâ(TM)s a $5,000 credit, but the average family policy actually costs more than $12,000)."

"Meanwhile, the people losing insurance would be those who need it most: lower-income workers who wouldnâ(TM)t be able to afford individual insurance even with the tax credit, and Americans with health problems whom insurance companies wonâ(TM)t cover.

"...the McCain plan would also lead to a huge, expensive increase in bureaucracy: insurers selling individual health plans spend 29 percent of the premiums they receive on administration, largely because they employ so many people to screen applicants. This compares with costs of 12 percent for group plans and just 3 percent for Medicare.

In short, the McCain plan makes no sense at all, unless you have faith that the magic of the marketplace can solve all problems. "

That's Paul Krugman. Since he won a Nobel in economics, and more importantly (in my book) he successfully predicted our current mess before anyone else of prominence on the Right OR the Left, I consider him to be someone who knows what he's talking about.

And McCain's plan to remove state border restrictions is even worse. That means insurance companies won't have to insure based on area - now they can shop for the healthiest people in the country, compete for them, and leave all the people who really need coverage high and dry. Plus, now states won't be able to exert force on insurance companies - it'll have to be at the Federal level, if at all.

In other words, more deregulation, which worked just fine for the stock market, not.

For a realistic comparison of McCain and Obama's plans, go here: http://health-insurance-carriers.com/blog/health-care-john-mccain-vs-barack-obama/

Single payer systems also happen to be great in practice. That's the main reason why the residents of other nations live longer than us, with a higher quality of life.

I certainly don't think their system is rainbow and flowers. The problem is, theirs is at least flourescent light and a peanut-butter sandwich. Ours is a black bag over the head and a reach for our wallet.

Gather ten random citizens of the UK or Canada, and ask them if they'd prefer to have our healthcare system instead. I'd bring earplugs so you aren't physically hurt by the explosive volume of their shocked laughter. Our US insurance might not cover it.

• I don't want the Government involved in medical decisions. This gets stated as if we were in the back in the 50s where medical decisions were made by doctors and patients. They're now made by insurance companies. At least with the Government, I have some input.
• The Government's inherently inefficient. Not in healthcare. Our largely private system is the most inefficient in the world. The most efficient healthcare systems in the US are the ones run by the Government: The VA system and medicare.. Some will reject this out of hand, since it's the NY Times and Krugman, but there is good empirical data showing this and good economic theory that predicts the inefficiency of private healthcare. One reason is that healthcare doesn't operate like other markets. One of them is that there's no rational basis for choice among competitors - choosing the right healthcare plan is ultimately about predicting your future health (am I more likely to need coverage for this or that?), so the market doesn't always choose right. Another is that a government system doesn't need to spend lots of money on marketing (which is where private systems spend their money). A third is that we, morally, are required to give healthcare to those in crisis. But a private system forces crises (by undervaluing preventative and early care), making ER visits the norm for some.

• I don't want the Government involved in medical decisions. This gets stated as if we were in the back in the 50s where medical decisions were made by doctors and patients. They're now made by insurance companies. At least with the Government, I have some input.
• The Government's inherently inefficient. Not in healthcare. Our largely private system is the most inefficient in the world. The most efficient healthcare systems in the US are the ones run by the Government: The VA system and medicare.. Some will reject this out of hand, since it's the NY Times and Krugman, but there is good empirical data showing this and good economic theory that predicts the inefficiency of private healthcare. One reason is that healthcare doesn't operate like other markets. One of them is that there's no rational basis for choice among competitors - choosing the right healthcare plan is ultimately about predicting your future health (am I more likely to need coverage for this or that?), so the market doesn't always choose right. Another is that a government system doesn't need to spend lots of money on marketing (which is where private systems spend their money). A third is that we, morally, are required to give healthcare to those in crisis. But a private system forces crises (by undervaluing preventative and early care), making ER visits the norm for some.

Um. I want healthcare? I'm talking about the people that DIE because the insurance companies deny healthcare to people who cannot foot the bill of an expensive procedure and ask the insurance companies for help.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE2D91031F93BA25751C0A96E948260&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=all

Yes, I want healthcare. So do you right? But that's a pipedream to you? That one day when you NEED healthcare or you die... That's what I mean.

But that wasn't what you said. You said

"Take all, richest 2% all foot the bill."

That implies that you want unlimited coverage, for everybody, at zero cost but for the top 2%. That shows a naivety level worthy of a precocious 3 year old, and I responded accordingly.

want

Healthcare.

Um. I want healthcare? I'm talking about the people that DIE because the insurance companies deny healthcare to people who cannot foot the bill of an expensive procedure and ask the insurance companies for help.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE2D91031F93BA25751C0A96E948260&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=all

Yes, I want healthcare. So do you right? But that's a pipedream to you? That one day when you NEED healthcare or you die... That's what I mean.

fact #1
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link #1 Barack Hussein Obama has pledged to increase taxes on capital gains from 15% to a stunning 20%.

fact #2
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link #2 "[Barack Hussein Obama] says he would delay NASA's controversial moon-to-Mars program five years in order to fund education initiatives."

fact #3
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link #3 Paul Krugman, an economist at MIT, states "If Mrs. Clinton gets the Democratic nomination, there is some chance -- nobody knows how big -- that we'll get universal health care in the next administration. If Mr. Obama gets the nomination, it just won't happen."

These so-called education initiatives are simply remedial-education programs that target African-Americans. Yet, we already spend more money per student in public school than nearly all other Western nations. Specifically, we spend 35% more than the Germans.

Lack of money is not the problem. The problem is African-American hatred of education. Many African-Americans regularly fail exit exams, which many state governments require high-school students to pass before they may receive a high-school diploma. Exit exams typically test knowledge at the 8th-grade level. A 12th-grade student who fails such a simplistic exam must be a student who has deliberately refused to learn.

Yet, Barack Hussein Obama and his close friend, Pastor Jeremiah Wright, claim that African-American failure in public schools is the fault of non-African-Americans. Obama claims that exit exams are racist. Obama intends to cancel exit exams and other educational standards.

Here is the clincher. Instead of using all that revenue (from gutting important government programs and greatly increasing taxes) on universal health care, Barack Hussein Obama intends to waste billions of dollars on remedial-education programs. He wants to cater to his core constituency: 90% of African-Americans regularly votes for him due to the color of his skin.

PS: In-person voter fraud doesn't happen in statistically significant numbers. Despite a five year crackdown by the Department of Justice, there were a whopping 120 prosecutions nationwide resulting in 86 convictions. (Sorry, registration required. Try news.google.com search for "In 5-Year Effort, Scant Evidence of Voter Fraud")

Only a handful of these were for double voting. A large chunk involved vote-buying in down-ticket races. Many were for illegal registration (legal resident non-citizens registering to vote), often filling out a "motor voter" section on a drivers licesnse application.

Remember, this big push to prosecute the non-existant voter fraud led to the firing of US attornies by the Bush administration.

Voter fraud is just a strawman argument rasied by Republicans to disenfranchise voters.

Obama said in 2002: "I know that invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East and encourage the worst rather than best impulses in the Arab world and strengthen the recruitment arm of al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars, I am opposed to dumb wars."

(reference)

The NY Times has a handy side-by-side comparison of the candidates on this and other topics. Also this article which quotes an Iraq expert saying this:

"The danger with Obama's rigid timetable is that it may not allow U.S. commanders to react to events on the ground... [meanwhile] McCain's policies lack the detail needed to confront the challenges of politics in Iraq. Policies developed to please the party faithful are not being subjected to close electoral scrutiny and do not match the complex political and military realties of Iraq."

The NY Times has a handy side-by-side comparison of the candidates on this and other topics. Also this article which quotes an Iraq expert saying this:

"The danger with Obama's rigid timetable is that it may not allow U.S. commanders to react to events on the ground... [meanwhile] McCain's policies lack the detail needed to confront the challenges of politics in Iraq. Policies developed to please the party faithful are not being subjected to close electoral scrutiny and do not match the complex political and military realties of Iraq."

I'm not sure that is an impartial assessment, given the web address.

Assessment? What assessment?

You think a that a guy who wrote a book called "Dow 36000: The New Strategy for Profiting from the Coming Rise in the Stock Market", published in 1999 is some kind of economic genius?

Or you think he didn't write the book? Maybe it was some other guy using his name in vain?

Or you think that he isn't an advisor to McCain? Check it: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/business/26supply.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin - or maybe you think that the NYT is "liberal media" and can be ignored.

Why does everyone seem to moderate my initial comment "funny"? Maybe you're all banking on an Obama win?

Funny. After taxes were cut in 2001, government tax receipts increased, substantially.

Cite please?

Sure. How's this one:

Mr. Bush signed the most recent tax cuts into law in the spring of 2003. In the past 33 months the size of America's entire economy has increased by 20%--or, as National Review Online's Larry Kudlow put it, "In less than three years, the U.S. economic pie has expanded by $2.2 trillion, an output add-on that is roughly the same size as the total Chinese economy."

In the 2 1/4 years before the 2003 tax cuts, economic growth averaged 1.1% annually; in the three years since it has averaged 4% per year, and in the first quarter of this year it was 5.6% on an annualized basis. Inflation-adjusted per capita GDP has grown 7.8% from 2003 through the first quarter of this year.

Read the whole thing. Sure, it's an opinion piece, but the facts are still facts.
Here's one from the NYT just for balance.

Or, you could just use Google. I searched for "government tax receipts bush" (no quotes), but I'm sure you could come up with your own search and find the same data.

I get frustrated when I hear about the housing industry being all Republicans fault. The NYT, not exactly a bastion for conservative literature wrote a story in 1999 detailing the flaws in relaxing the lending standards due to pressure by the Clinton Administration

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260

I am not saying it was all Clinton's fault but geezus some of these things take awhile to come to fruition. Much to difficult to ask people to look further than the end of their own noise.

Whoever is elected is in for a rough road and we most likely will not see the fruits of their labor for years to come.

They were wrong. part of the problem is Government intrusion into the market. The market should be allowed to determine what lives and what dies

What the hell do you think Greenspan did? Jesus fucking christ, that was his *entire policy*! And now what does he say? "Oh, sorry, I assumed self-interest would be enough for businesses to protect shareholders, but... I guess not." Translation: people are douchebags, and leaving the market to regulate itself is a recipe for disaster.

Mark my words, this disaster will see the end of popular support for libertarian economic ideals, for at least the next decade. And rightly so, IMHO.

The current economic situation is not the result of deregulation and "libertarian economic ideals". For starters, the government has had its grubby hand in this mess long before Hoover tried to suspend wages (ironically enough, Hoover's administration has been accused of a failure of laissez-faire economics) and has continued mucking around in it:

• The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977 has encouraged lenders to give credit to surrounding communities, particularly low and moderate income neighborhoods.
• The outpooring of federal money into companies such as AIG is anything but a hands-off policy. Look at how AIG is spending its newly acquired money, they're holding expensive parties at posh resorts. What a perfect use of government regulation and intervention.
• On that same note, the money from the $700b bailout was intended to buy up depressed mortgages but we're now learning that many banks are looking to expand and acquire other institutions with the money or, simply, hold on to the money. Banks aren't the only ones looking for action though, as Insurers, automakers and American subsidiaries of foreign banks are all lobbying the Treasury for a piece of the pie.
• Libertarians were harping on Fannie and Freddie back in 2003, knowing that it could lead to a problem in the housing market. This problem, is attributed to government intervention.
• Sarbanes-Oxley was supposed solve the most pressing problem at the time: accounting fraud. The SEC had its budget doubled, new laws imposed stiff fines and lengthy prison times were threatened. However, legislators were behind the curve and new problems emerged precisely because of our regulating authority's encouragement of unsound banking practices. This demonstrates that, no matter what, Government cannot foresee the future and will always be behind the curve in regulation.
• And then there's the Fed, which, with its low interest rates and steady supply of new credit, encouraged the housing boom.

America has never fully tested libertarian ideals in the economy, but has a history of criticizing them for government failures in the economy. Government has proven its inclination to reward private-sector failure with its 85 billion bailout of AIG. Bailouts, reregulation, and tax increases are not the solution; such measures are the root cause of our current crisis. The American public must come to recognize the true nature of our current problems in order to avoid further deterioration of our liberties.

One thing I find tiring is the assumption that a president is unilaterally responsible for the economy during their term(s) of office, when in fact it's generally the complete opposite.

If you take another look at the federal debt by presidency chart, and compare it with this chart showing the employment recessions of the past 60 years, you might notice another trend. When people lose their jobs, they vote in another president.

So it shouldn't come as a big surprise that presidents are willing to inflate the economy by going further into debt to remain in office. Reagan pushed the envelope harder than anyone prior, and he is one of the most heralded presidents in history.

And while it's easy to blame the Republicans, it should be noted that the trend should only be associated with the Republican party itself, and not conservative politics. It's easy to say conservatives screw up the economy and liberals fix it, but in Canada it's the exact opposite. Since we've had Trudeau as prime minister back in the Reagan years, it has traditionally been liberals screwing our economy and conservatives fixing it. (I know what's in the news, they say Harper has "sent us back into deficit", but Paul Martin only eliminated the deficit by diverting funds from health care, which now lies in ruin, and he didn't have troops in Afghanistan.)

Traditionally, the US is conservative-minded, and Canada is liberal-minded. Unfortunately our political bias does not determine the direction of our respective countries, it determines what politicians pitch to get elected, and that's all. Once elected, they do whatever they want.

Elections will never mean anything until elected officials are held accountable for fulfilling their election promises.

A good example of parent's point is Wells Fargo. They noticed over a year and a half ago that subprime was getting too risky so in Feb 2007 they closed parts of their subprime lending unit and tightened up lending standards and in July 2007 they announced they were closing their subprime lending unit completely.

They made fewer risky loans than other large banks and some people have said they didn't want or need the bailout money (I can't remember the source for that).

Many other banks did the same. Many small banks did just fine as well, not taking on undue risk. The ones that did took a huge gamble and now they're pointing the finger at the government to try to cover up for their own greed.

ick.

Actually, the government did force them to give these loans. Ever hear of the "Community Reinvestment Act"? Interestingly, Obama was the lawyer on a case to force Citibank to loan money. There was also the Republican attempt to add oversight to Fannie and Freddy that was blocked by the Democrats.

From 2003:''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

It's the perfect scam! They do what they want, regardless of cost and consequence, and then blame the other party for the inevitable actions that have to be taken to correct the costs! Brilliant!

I'm an independent, and I disagree with our (bi)partisan system, but historically the average income has been higher over the last 60 years with a Democratic president. Read this article before voting "I have to vote Republican because of the economy." Very informative article by Alan S. Blinder, former vice chair to the Federal Reserve.

Personally, I am voting for Obama not only because I think his tax and health care plans are better, but because he has the support of the science community. If Nobel prize winners support him, if Warren Buffet supports him, then he must be good for science, and good for education and technology and good for the economy. At least better than McCain, anyway.

Nope. One says "we'll just give people money, that'll fix it!" and the other says "we'll just cut taxes on businesses, that'll fix it!"

If you go to their websites you can download more detailed policy proposals.

• http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/
• http://www.johnmccain.com/Issues/jobsforamerica/

For an independent comparison of their plans for the economy in general, and more specifically taxes and spending, you might want to try this article and this article.

Nope. One says "we'll just give people money, that'll fix it!" and the other says "we'll just cut taxes on businesses, that'll fix it!"

If you go to their websites you can download more detailed policy proposals.

• http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/
• http://www.johnmccain.com/Issues/jobsforamerica/

For an independent comparison of their plans for the economy in general, and more specifically taxes and spending, you might want to try this article and this article.

Yellow Pages, MTV, New York Times, Reuters and many other high-profile companies managed to scale Rails.

That's interesting, the New York Times runs on rails? Oh no. No it doesn't. Not even close.

Yellow Pages?

A site that is so useless that I defy you to find a single person linking to it in the history of Slashdot. Zero hits.

Despite the fact that the Yellow Pages (paper edition) is incredibly well known. Everybody knows the Yellow Pages!

But yellowpages.com is so utterly useless it only gets linked a total of 2600 times in all of the Internet!!!. That's even more pathetic than Slashdot, which no one knows about, but is linked 50000 times. How well known are the two? "yellow pages" (quotes) = 244,000,000 hits. "slashdot.org" = 6,550,000 hits.

What were you saying about Rails again?

.
How does this translate into downplaying the threat?

October 23, 2008 (IDG News Service) Microsoft Corp. fixed a critical bug in its Windows operating system Thursday, saying that it is being exploited by online criminals and could eventually be used in a widespread "worm" attack.

Microsoft took the unusual step of issuing an emergency patch for the flaw several weeks ahead of its regularly scheduled November security updates, saying that vulnerability is being exploited in "limited targeted attacks." The company had already announced plans to rush out the patch.

"It is possible that this vulnerability could be used in the crafting of a wormable exploit. If successfully exploited, an attacker could then install programs or view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights," Microsoft said in a bulletin released Thursday morning. Microsoft releases emergency Windows patch to head off worm attack {Oct 23]

New Windows bug differs from 2006 flaw, Microsoft says [Oct 27]

Better a few guilty men go free on a technicality than allow officers to become a law unto themselves.

The largest US gang has a well documented record that would seem to indicate your statement is out of date.

As another everyday example, here's a big surprise, no?

I'm not intending to troll/flamebait here, but MY perception is there is very little accountability for the 'on the job' crew in blue amongst themselves. It is also my perspective that there is very little integrity once one subscribes to the original meaning of the thin blue line.

You should also include an SEC rule change that allowed Lehman and the rest of the gang to overleverage themselves. See http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/business/03sec.html.

And somehow you managed to miss the creative ways that subprime mortgages were turned into high-quality investments. See http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/magazine/27Credit-t.html.

Amazingly, both of those happened on Bush's watch. No wonder you missed them.

You should also include an SEC rule change that allowed Lehman and the rest of the gang to overleverage themselves. See http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/business/03sec.html.

And somehow you managed to miss the creative ways that subprime mortgages were turned into high-quality investments. See http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/magazine/27Credit-t.html.

Amazingly, both of those happened on Bush's watch. No wonder you missed them.

Uhh, wrong. here are a couple of links to help your pathetically bad psych 101 research. While the witness number may have been sensationalized (it was more like 11 or 12 confirmed witnesses), it's hard to say for sure who saw and didn't come forward.

Of course I don't expect you to pay any attention to evidence any more than the holocaust deniers, but at least the facts remain this time.

They ran tests on the machines and were able to hack them while standing in the booth to vote. With that hack it was imperceptible to the logs that anything was amiss... the safeguards were circumvented.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/28/us/28vote.html

"The California reports said the scientists, acting at the stateâ(TM)s request, had hacked into systems from three of the four largest companies in the business: Diebold Election Systems, Hart InterCivic and Sequoia Voting Systems.

Thousands of their machines in varying setups are in use.

The reports said the investigators had created situations for each system âoein which these weaknesses could be exploited to affect the correct recording, reporting and tallying of votes.â

Paper, pencil. Hand count. Done.
quis custodiet ipsos custodes

The problem really is that they will have to import women not the first aussie town to do that!!

I just don't understand why a good paper ballot is so hard to accept...

It's because elections are so much harder to steal if you have a "good paper ballot".

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel actually owned the company that controlled the elctronic voting in the election that he won, in a stunning upset, in every demographic, including many black communities that had never voted Republican before. Nebraska hadn't voted for a Republican for Senate in 24 years.

In Georgia, Democratic Senator Max Cleland (who lost 3 limbs in Vietnam, after he jumped on a grenade to save his fellow troops), was defeated by a Republican that alleged that Cleland was not patriotic enough. Even after the polls indicated that the voters did not actually believe this, the Diebold machines announced the Republican the winner. Surprise! And in another surprise, while the polls indicated that Democractic Governor Roy Barnes was winning, the Diebold machies announced that he lost as well to his Republican challenger. A whistleblower revealed that secret patches were applied to the machines late in the race, violating state law.

Here are other instances of Republicans winning through voting machine irregularities.

Explain how the tax structure favors the rich. Please don't avoid the fact that the rich pay a larger share of their income in taxes in your answer.

Rather than retype how our progressive tax structure is tilted to favor the rich, I will forward you two articles.

One, from 2001 -- the aptly titled "How Bush's Tax Cut Plan Favors the Rich" -- call this the "before" article. There was another 2001 USAToday story basically saying the same thing posted elsewhere in this slashdot thread.

Then there's this one, the "after" tax plan article, showing the Bush plan's efforts worked: "Income Gap Is Widening, Data Shows". And here's a third bonus link: this one: "Report Says That the Rich Are Getting Richer Faster, Much Faster". The lede:

The increase in incomes of the top 1 percent of Americans from 2003 to 2005 exceeded the total income of the poorest 20 percent of Americans, data in a new report by the Congressional Budget Office shows.

There is plenty more data available, should you really have any interest in how the richest are getting richer and the poorest poorer and the middle class disappearing due to Bush's focused effort to "spread the wealth" upward.

That is not even counting the tricks corporations play to not pay taxes at all...

Happy reading!
 

Explain how the tax structure favors the rich. Please don't avoid the fact that the rich pay a larger share of their income in taxes in your answer.

Rather than retype how our progressive tax structure is tilted to favor the rich, I will forward you two articles.

One, from 2001 -- the aptly titled "How Bush's Tax Cut Plan Favors the Rich" -- call this the "before" article. There was another 2001 USAToday story basically saying the same thing posted elsewhere in this slashdot thread.

Then there's this one, the "after" tax plan article, showing the Bush plan's efforts worked: "Income Gap Is Widening, Data Shows". And here's a third bonus link: this one: "Report Says That the Rich Are Getting Richer Faster, Much Faster". The lede:

The increase in incomes of the top 1 percent of Americans from 2003 to 2005 exceeded the total income of the poorest 20 percent of Americans, data in a new report by the Congressional Budget Office shows.

There is plenty more data available, should you really have any interest in how the richest are getting richer and the poorest poorer and the middle class disappearing due to Bush's focused effort to "spread the wealth" upward.

That is not even counting the tricks corporations play to not pay taxes at all...

Happy reading!
 

That wasn't the point of Joe's question. Joe stated he wanted to buy a business and hoped that his hard work would bring in more than 250K. Obama stated that he wanted to take that success and spread it to people that made less than Joe hoped to make with his business acquisition and hard work.

One very, very rarely makes an income of more than a quarter of a million dollars in a year solely through one's own hard work. One usually makes it by leaching, to some degree, off the hard work of others. (The exceptions are mostly matters of dumb luck - a superstar performer getting "discovered", for example.)

And the answer to the GP's question is, yes, Joe (who is not really a plumber, under city of Toledo regulations) would get a tax break even if he owned the business, as will the vast majority of small businesses, assuming an Obama victory and that his plan goes ahead pretty much as stated.

It's one thing to say you want to "tax the rich" to fund the government, it's another when you want to do it to give other people the money, i.e., "Spread the Wealth".

In our capitalist system, the government does a tremendous amount to help those who have wealth, get more. It's so basic to the system we rarely think about it, but how much concentration of wealth would there be without government-issued corporate charters, land and resource deeds, copyrights, and patents? Not to mention a reserve banking system that lets privately owned banks make money out of thin air, and an economic policy that uses the DJIA as a measure of economic success.

These government actions and policies are so successful at concentrating wealth that the top 20 percent own 90% of all financial wealth. And it stays in the family; the U.S. has lower intergenerational mobility than France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway or Denmark

The small effects of progressive taxation and social spending - spreading around the wealth that other government policies helped concentrate - act as a (small and inadequate) governor on the machinery of state capitalism.

Now, I would rather get rid of that machinery entirely, but I think that unlikely, at least in the near term. If we're going to have it, I'm all for decreasing the power of the government to help the wealthy become wealthier by adding some negative feedback to the system.

That's only part of the issue.
It might be hard for the generally science-minded Slashdot commenter to fathom, but Placebos actually work. For example in a recent slashdot post on unpublished medical trials, it turned out that in one trial Prozac was less effective than the placebo.

Wow.. And if you would have put a little effort in this, you wouldn't have come out looking like an idiot. We aren't talking about Delegates dumb ass. We are talking about the Super delegates. That aren't the same.

Here are some articles concerning the super delegates that we are talking about. There are/were in 2008, 842 super delegates that had no obligation whatsoever at all to any primary or caucus results. There were 796 unplugged super delegates when Dean made them chose over a risk of losing their voice at the convention. After Dean made his declaration, they _told_ Hillary to stop campaigning when Obama reached the number of delegates required. However, seeing how 441 of Obama's delegates where super delegates and by DNC rules had until the convention months later to decide, Hillary could have easily convinced some of them to goto her camp and Obama wouldn't have gotten the nomination. There is no guarantee that she could have but the rules said that the risk to Obama and the challenge to Clinton should have been there until the convention at the end of August when the votes where counted and if she could have convinced enough of the super delegates to vote for her, she would have had the election.

You cannot deny that. It is fact and hiding behind regular delegates as if your acting ignorant of the facts doesn't make you right or correct. As a matter of fact, rule 9a and 9b speak specifically of the super delegates and their roles in the very links you provided. Of course they listed them as unpledged party leader and elected official delegate as well as add on delegates but I assumed that since you were taking a stand on them that you know this or at least had the wherewithal to google for super delegate in which one of the first pages would have told you about this. I also like the way you think it is perfectly ok to punish democrats of a state that is controlled by republicans who change the timing of the election. That's a bit like citing the passenger of the car for speed and driving without a license because the driver got the ticket. But in the case of preferring Obama, I guess it is worth it, right? And no, I'm not making this up, after the penalty to Michigan and Florida for something that the democrats in the states had no control over, you find that they still favored Clinton over Obama. In fact, the results in Florida was 33.5 Obama to 52.5 Hillary and in Michigan it was 29.5 Obama to 34.5 Hillary. Now if you remember, they cut the delegates in half for Michigan and Florida so Hillary should have gotten 105 in Florida and 76 in Michigan and if the full count would have been listed, Hillary would have had 87 more for a total of 1983.5 which is only 135 below the minimum needed to win. When Dean made his demands, about 320 super delegate votes where up for grabs and some of the already committed super delegates have already switched pledged alliances. Deans own words were The party "cannot give up three months of campaigning and active healing time,"

Don't whine about the political slants of the sites either. I did a simple google search and those are the sites that came up. I'm not getting paid to educate you and I'm not going to invest the time to do it past what is easy for me. You can find the same information on other sites from going deeper into the google search or by even useing a different

Do you really want to live in a place where there's such a thing as "a perfectly legal stop to verify documentation"? That's not the America I grew up in.

Currently in New York City it is law that cops can stop you and search "backpacks or other large containers". The Second Amendment for years has only been available to the rich, well connected, or good-old-boy (former cops). The First Amendment can be restricted at the pleasure of politicians to avoid uncomfortable press in cities across America since the invention of the "First Amendment Zone"

Maybe that's what Governor Palin means when she says small towns are more pro-America, she means they are still protected by the Constitution.