This stimulus act isn’t all it should be, maybe five-eighths of a loaf, but it is better on close examination than first appearance and media reports had suggested.

The King is Dead! Long live the King!  Read more…

Phil?
Yes John.
We're not going to Oxford tomorrow are we?
No we're not John.
Even if the deal is done?
Nope.
Good, I never could spell Mississippi.
It isn't a spelling bee, John, it's a debate.
Oh, so why did we cancel Phil?
So you could look presidential John.
Good, I like it when I look presidential. How we gonna do that Phil?
You're going to Washington. You'll see the President, you'll take some meetings and you'll make statements showing your leadership and strength.
Great, I can't wait. Got those statements, the ones where I'm a great leader showing great strength?
I'll try to find you some, and I'll bring them to you.
Oh, okay. Anything else?
No, we're done.

Ladies and Gentleman, please give a warm welcome to  Read more…

[Do read the comments. --lambert]

Given that this is Scientific American, I expect this is a reasonably neutral summary of the two candidate's positions -- and the questions both need to be asked:

Energy
Both John McCain and Barack Obama have called for a cap-and-trade system to cut carbon emissions, although Obama’s proposed reduction (80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050) is larger than McCain’s (65 percent). Both candidates, however, need to answer a crucial question: Why cap-and-trade when so many policy experts, seeing the troubles with carbon trading in Europe, now recommend a simpler carbon taax?

Both candidates oppose Yucca Mountain, the controversial proposed nuclear waste dump. McCain has advocated an “international repository” instead. What is the difference? Where does Obama propose to put the waste? The U.S. has spent 30 years studying Yucca; switching sites will restart the clock. What will nuclear plants do with all their spent fuel in the meantime?

Beyond these generalities, the candidates diverge. McCain would subsidize the construction of 45 new nuclear reactors, costing upward of $270 billion and taking 20 years to complete. Why invest that much public money in nuclear rather than solar or wind power, which could start pumping out watts much sooner? How would offshore oil drilling, which McCain has urged, help wean the nation off fossil fuels?

Obama has spelled out intermediate milestones for emissions reductions and specific targets for biofuels and other renewables. How would these goals be enforced? He has promised $150 billion over 10 years for energy research and development as well as a $10-billion-a-year venture capital fund. What would stop that money, as in so many past efforts, from being allocated by lobbyists rather than engineers? Does the energy industry really need more venture capital? Oddly, he has promised to “fight the efforts of big oil and big agribusiness to undermine” corn-based ethanol. How has agribusiness sought to undermine corn ethanol? If anything, it seems rather the opposite. And why sustain support for corn ethanol when it is the most ungreen of all biofuels?

However, both candidates' proposals seem inadequate compared to the scale of the task at hand. I'm not seeing any integration into Socolow's stabilization wedges, for example.

Readers?

John Sidney McCain.

One of the more frustrating things for me in this primary is the way that years of oppo that we've salted away on Republican sexual deviance and Republican torture and killing of animals has gone unused; and both issues speak directly to Republican abuses of power with easy-to-understand stories that cry out for accountability.

So what do we get? Oppo on 17-year-old girls and trash talk about special needs babies.

Gad. Both houses, plague.

And tonight, we can see how the boiz do with hatred for the old! Enjoy!

Some of you know that I am an, er, critic of Israel, but I am a big fan of parts of its English media, especially the newspaper Ha'aretz, and not just on its Mideast coverage. Here's an intriguing column by Bradley Burston on the US election. He's basically written Obama off.

Take a long walk in this land of dreams and all you'll see is Obama. Obama lawn signs, Obama bumper stickers, window placards, lapel buttons, anklets. In souvenir stores, Obama t-shirts compete successfully with longtime best-sellers touting Bourbon Street and carousing alligators.

Observations on Obama and McCain at Rick Warren's anti-establishment-clause summit...

Obama

Led off by citing Matthew about "the least of us." If you're going to play the religion card, this is the better sort of framing. Slippery slope, though, ain't it?

Says Bill Clinton was right about workfare. Over the course of the hour, Obama lists several things that Bill did right, such as Bosnia. Funny, when his wife was still in the race, you'd never hear that the Clinton era was so good! Also, he pops in "sexism" now and again as an issue. Just in time to repudiate all that misogynistic press against Hillary, right?

Tomorrow (Saturday) from 8:00-10:00PM EDT online, and on Fox News and CNN.

Just from the anticipation, my bucket runneth over.

The RNC has announced a $10 Million cash shortfall in funding for it's upcoming national convention. To help close the gap the Telecommunicating Association Companies of the United States (TACUS) has announced an effort to assist. "For the last 10 days of August we'll be donating a portion of our profits to help with RNC's expenses," said TACUS spokeswoman Fisah Wyretapper. "To show how grateful we are the republicans came to our rescue we're coming to theirs." Asked if TACUS would also be assisting the Democrats Wyretapper said, "No, but we'll be buying box lunches for some blue dogs."

Despite voting against raises in the minimum wage and years of denying worker's rights to organize John McCain struck a chord with some employees of an Ohio company recently. Following Obama's suggestion that Americans could improve their gas mileage by having accurate tire pressure McCain decided tire gauges would be a great way to mock him as part of the “it’s the Democrats fault gas prices are high” campaign.

I'm jumping on this announcement by candidate Obama, because I hope to subvert the impulses of some of my fellow Fellows and some of our readers to make of this moment a chance to accuse Barack Obama of being a liar, breaking a promise, not really being about reform, undermining efforts to reform our increasingly broken system of elections, and other ways not to like Obama that I'm not clever enough to even think of.

You don't need to go there; the VRWC is way ahead of you. As Roy notes, there is high comedy to be had in the deep disappointment of the McCain campaign, the Republican Party, and their right-winger supporters, most of whom have bellowed long and hard against any sort of limitations on the financing of political campaigns. Of course that was when they were the ones rolling in money.

Yes, I know, McCain has been an advocate, of sorts, and a sponsor, of sorts, of campaign finance reform, but when Obama states, as he does in the video message in which he announced his decision, that the entire system, including the so-called reforms of it, by which we finance our elections is "broken," he's right.

Here is as much of what Obama says on the video that I could get off the story as it appears in the NYTimes and Reuters:

If it sounds like I'm assigning you homework, it's because I am.

Not only can you get extra-credit points*, you just might feel a little better about your ultimate decision re: Election '08.

Here's the assignment: Please list out issues that matter to you, and what you think will happen under Obama vs. what you think will happen under McCain.

For example:

EDUCATION

Obama: No Child Left Behind is renamed, slightly liberalized, and slightly better funded. After a photo-op with the National Education Association, little focus is paid to education reform for the remaining four years.

McCain: A chunk of the unfunded mandate is targeted toward parochial schools. After a photo-op with representatives of the cutest little Baptist school you ever saw, little focus is paid to education reform for the remaining four years.

Links to sources that back up your projections will, y'know, bolster your case. Unlike my crappy example, which is mere unsupported speculation.

A request for the case against McCain.

So far, I'm seeing some substantive suggestions and also fresh examples of why it's hard to love some hardcore Obamaites.

The reason for my inquiry? I'm burned out from watching Obama's shitty campaign, and I'm simply too disaffected and too exhausted to be the rah-rah Beat McCain guy.

But McCain sux, too, and as we make our respective decisions, it behooves us to remind ourselves of who will be elected if we abstain, make a third-party statement, or even vote for the mythical moderate maverick.

What is the rush to end this thing? Why the hurry to have it over? What, exactly, are so many people concerned about? All the wrong things, apparently. There are more and better reasons for her to persist than not.

Hillary should continue her pursuit of the Democratic nomination because:

Part 4 of Misogyny, Sexism, & the Gender Gap in the 2008 Election

In choosing a nominee, the Democratic Party will not merely be deciding who deserves to win, or who would make the best candidate. It will also be a decision about which poisoned landscape the Party wishes to compete upon --- one in which toxic wildflowers of misogyny and sexism are in full bloom, or one in which the poisonous weed of racism is a constant part of the environment, and needs the merest watering to completely despoil the land.

100 Years of War in Iraq
(sung to the tune of "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall")

100 years of war in Iraq
100 years of war
You burn it down
Down to the ground
100 years of war in Iraq

99 years of war in Iraq
99 years of war
You burn it down
Down to the ground
99 years of war in Iraq...

Continue lyrics to "zero" years of war, then begin the negative numbers*, i.e.:

Minus one year of war in Iraq
Minus one year of war
You burn it down
Down to the ground
Minus one year of war in Iraq

++++

*Two negatives make a positive. Go figure.

++++

I'm glad to hear that Obama's finally getting ready to draw some contrasts between Himself and McCain.

Just one thing though: I do have just a little problem with the idea that neither candidate has been drawing contrasts with McCain, and that both should start.

In reality, Hillary's been drawing a sharp contrast all along.

As the MSM largely ignores what is truly occurring in Iraq, the bumper-sticker tactics of the Republican Party (and their minions) seem to be working.   Read more…

Excellent Times op-ed about John McCain, "the first real postmodernist candidate."

Frank Luntz-isms live on in the Bush White House.

From today's Presidential Radio Address:

Where do we start?   Read more…

Once you hear McCain warm-up guy Bill Cunningham's confusing assholery, stick around to hear Andrea Mitchell's LOLzy bloviations.

I’ve diligently read the posts here at the Mighty Corrente Building regarding Senators Clinton and Obama over the last months. And, until now, I’ve kept my trap shut. Please allow me to open it once again and say, “Enough!”   Read more…

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