Polls Speak on McCain's Dramatic Pause

I recently commented in this blog that I thought McCain's dramatic suspension of campaigning to deal with the Big Bailout would backfire on him.

Apparently, the latest polls on this subject show exactly that. The article is worth a full reading.

Most of the public didn't buy it. Obama's overall poll lead widened slightly.

The first debate was supposed to be right in McCain's wheelhouse; he was expected to mop the floor with Obama on national security and foreign policy. That obviously did not happen.

Perhaps most tellingly, today's Times-Bloomberg poll shows the following: among undecided voters who viewed the debate, 44% thought Obama was more presidential and 16% thought McCain was more presidential.

By George, Will Is Right

George Will is deeply conservative. He is also has one of the finest minds and most clearly expressive pens of any political journalist I have ever read. I have also found him to be reliably fearless.

His judgments on political matters are routinely comprehensive and well considered; the only time his passion really bubbles to the surface is when he writes about baseball.

His recent column in the Washington Post is well worth the read. Therein, he observes the the presidential candidates' reactions to the financial crisis and finally passes judgment on them. Thereby, he joins an increasing number of thoughtful (as opposed to fulminating) pundits who recognize that John McCain's volatile nature does not bode well for an effective presidency.

Will is uncomfortable with many of Barack Obama's stated views (as am I), but he, in the end, comes to the same conclusion: you can fix inexperience, but it is nigh impossible to fix personality and character.

Palin vs. Putin?

Watch this (you may have to sit through a 30-second ad first).

Then look me in the eye and tell me you would feel comfortable with Sarah Palin as the President of the United States under ANY circumstances.

The First Debate

OK, I'm biased. But I think my bias comes from a serious study of the issues and the players.

John McCain did better than I thought he would do in the first debate.

Judged purely from the viewpoint of debate alone, i.e. by how well arguments were made, not how closely they agree with my personal views, I also think McCain lost every round.

I came away from the debate with the impression that Barack Obama is more intellectually capable and a far better communicator than John McCain is.

I also came away with the impression that John McCain's worldview is very much yesterday; somewhat simplistic and tinged with paranoia. In my opinion, that view (shared by Dubya) is THE direct cause of most of the mess we've made of foreign policy.

As I listened to McCain speak, it was often incredibly easy to imagine George Bush saying the same things.

If the next four years are gonna be like the last eight...I don't even want to think about it.

John Warned Us

In his second political memoir, "Worth the Fighting For: The Education of an American Maverick and the Heroes Who Inspired Him", John McCain wrote:

"I have craved distinction in my life. I have wanted renown and influence for their own sake. That is, of course, the great temptation of public life. ... I have never been able to conquer it permanently, but I have tried."

Don't say he didn't warn us. John McCain is about John McCain.

An Old Heartbeat Away From the White House

Sarah Palin gives a rare interview to a broadcast network, and makes it obvious why she rarely gives interviews. It's not likely Katie Couric is a Mike Wallace in drag, either. More like a Larry King in drag (sorry for the visual).

Read the article here. Read it again, and ask yourself if this person is capable of leading this country out the multiple messes we are in if McCain vapor locks.

Campaign Whoppers On Both Sides

This article is an interesting summary of the falsehoods both sides in the presidential campaign have attempted to use as weapons in the fight for the White House.

Checking facts is always a good thing, methinks.

You Almost Feel Sorry For Him...But Not Quite

Is it possible that Dubya will go down as one of the most inept presidents in the history of this nation?

I mean...look a the score card for this eight-year doubleheader, folks. Dubya's wake is filled with:

- Lies to the American people (and anyone else he had to) in attempting to justify the unilateral invasion of a sovereign nation
- Prosecuted a failed war that killed hundreds of thousands (many of them innocents)
- Institutionalized torture (at Guantanamo)
- Suspends fundamental constitutional rights (did he listen to any of your phone calls?)
- A bankrupted Treasury and record "contributions" to the national debt
- Scandal after scandal caused by blatant partisan politicizing of government institutions (Dept.of Justice leads the parade)
- A record number of people and nations consider the US government to be a danger to world peace
- More time in the cellar of job approval polls than any president in the last century (28% of Americans think he's doing a great job...boggles the mind, doesn't it?)
- And now, as the finale...the biggest economic fraud/bailout/meltdown in the world, one that will cost generations of taxpayers billions of dollars

All on his watch.

How can the next president possibly top that? (Yeah, I know...scary thought.) Now, ask yourself...of the two current candidates for president, which one's thought processes most resemble those of George Bush?

Think about it.

Whoo Hoo! WaMu Fails!

You know all the funny "fail" pictures you see floating around on the Internet? Well...add this one...



Biggest bank failure in history. An I did my part by moving almost all my money in my WaMu accounts to another institution last week. Together all of us WaMu customers managed to suck $15 billion out of the bank in short order. *HIGH FIVE to my team mates* WHOO HOO! SAFE AT HOME!

Bad Move, John. Very Bad.

UPDATE: It turns out this not the first time John McCain has pulled such a stunt.

You're in the tenth round of a fight for the heavyweight championship of the world and you suddenly shout, "Would it be OK if we took a break and picked up again next Tuesday? I've got something really, really important I have to tend to."

And this move is supposed to earn the respect of the crowd?

On what possible rationale does John McCain base this stunt? Does he really expect people to believe that this financial crisis cannot be resolved without his vast financial expertise? Does he think people will see this dash for cover as the mark of a real leader?

I don't know what he thinks. But I do know this much:

1) He's got a presidential debate scheduled for Friday. Asking to postpone it does not make him look especially brave. It does make him look either unprepared, desperate, or just scared. His stated reasoning: "I know when a crisis calls for all hands on deck..." Well, which is he? A deck hand or the captain of the ship?

2) The latest Times-Bloomberg polls show some interesting things. Things like Obama opening up a small lead in the overall contest. Things like the blush coming off the Palin rose, with more people thinking she is unqualified than think she is qualified. Things like people preferring Obama's ideas for the economy over McCain's by 46% to 32%. Things like people thinking Obama more likely than McCain to affect substantial changes in Washington by a 2 to 1 margin.

3) Obama weighs in thusly: "It's my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess. It's going to be part of the president's job to deal with more than one thing at once." To that I say, AMEN. I want to see these guys go head to head so I can make a better choice in the polling booth.

4) Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, had this to say about the prospect of the candidates returning to Washington to dive into the financial mess: "... it would not be helpful at this time to have them come back during these negotiations and risk injecting presidential politics into this process or distract important talks about the future of our nation's economy." I am no Harry Reid fan, but this time, he's got a valid point.

5) Suddenly, Bush invites both candidates to the White House for a meeting on the financial crisis. AT McCAIN's REQUEST. How wonderfully convenient.

If they gave out Academy Awards for Political Theater, you have to give the nod to McCain this year. First, choosing Palin as his running mate to pander to female voters and the sensational press. Now this little melodrama that may soon become a farce before fully blooming as self-satire.

Is this really the kind of man you want as President of the United States?

Finally, the Governator Gets One Right

I had such high hopes. *sigh*

Arnold Schwarzenegger is a major disappointment as California's governor, having evolved into the very sort of political creature he once insultingly denounced at the top of his lungs. His tenure has been marked by one faux pas after another.

But, he finally got ONE thing right. He signed a new law prohibiting drivers from writing, reading, or sending text messages.

This act, alone, has dissuaded me from my plan to tap dance on his political tombstone.

Why Is It OK to Split an Atom but Not An Infinitive?

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator, lies beneath the border between France and Switzerland, near Geneva. It is, by far, the most powerful device ever constructed for the study of sub-atomic particles. It's main ring is some 17 miles in circumference. At full "throttle", it can accelerate a "train" of protons (2808, to be exact) to 99.999999% of the speed of light. At that speed, the protons make the 17 mile journey around the main loop 11,000 times per second before being purposely obliterated in a head-on collision with another proton "train".

When the LHC becomes fully operational, 7000 scientists from 80 different countries will have access to the facility. They are all searching for the first physical evidence of a subatomic particle called the Higgs boson, the last unobserved particle in the standard predictive model. Mankind is spending billions of dollars to find it by splitting the one of the smallest known things in our universe.

Split an atom and you may win a Nobel prize. Split an infinitive and every bitty old English teacher everywhere will give you a stern look of disapproval (if you're lucky).



An infinitive has two parts: the word, "to" followed by a verb. To eat, to dance, to laugh, to sing, to bloviate, to prevaricate, to fulminate, to pontificate are all infinitives.

Splitting an infinitive is simply inserting an adverb in between "to" and the verb. Examples include: to carefully do, to quickly acquiesce, to blatantly opine, etc.

You can argue that splitting an infinitive might weaken a sentence or make it sound awkward, but my pet peeve with the old school is: how do you clearly express the negative without splitting the infinitive? (Yeppers, the word "not" is an adverb.)

For example...

"He learned not to phone while driving."

vs.

"He learned to not phone while driving."

The first sentence means he attempted but failed to acquire the ability to make phone calls while he was driving.

The second sentence means he learned that only morons make phone calls while they are driving and that if he had functional neurons left in his brain he should choose to avoid making phone calls while driving.

Not that phoning while driving is a big deal to me, or anything.

NEWSFLASH! The 10th edition of the Gregg Handbook finally clears the way with this declaration:

"Splitting an infinitive is no longer considered incorrect. However, it should be avoided when it produces an awkward construction and the adverb would function more effectively in another location".

Whew! Finally...we can get the word out CORRECTLY that EVERYONE SHOULD LEARN TO NOT PHONE WHILE DRIVING.

Not that phoning while driving is a big deal to me, or anything.

A Liberal Democrat on "Same-sex Marriage"

David Blankenhorn's article on "same-sex marriage" is DEFINITELY WORTH THE READ.

It is both reasoned and principled in its advocacy of a child's right to be raised by the parents, a man and a woman, who brought that child into the world.

To my anti-Proposition 8 readers: I am interested in hearing your foam-free comments on this article.

It's Been SO Long

I'm not normally a Steve Lopez fan, but the Times columnist wrote a rather amusing article about Sarah Palin's stomping grounds in today's edition. It won't win a Pulitzer, but it was light-heartedly insightful.

Lew Tobin, Nome resident, said something that just resonated with me, and not only about Sarah Palin.

"We've had so long a time of people who've gotten by on charisma," he said.

"We want someone who's smart again."

Those two simple sentences are about as concise a statement of my presidential concerns as could possibly exist. Thank you, Mr. Tobin.

Foreign Policy All Stars Advise Next President

You don't see this everyday: five former Secretaries of State gather on one stage to give their advice to whomever is the next President of the United States.

He should want to listen.

Henry Kissinger, Madeline Albright, Warren Christopher, James Baker III and Colin Powell. Republicans and Democrats. Very smart people. Either Baker or Powell could have my vote for President of they wanted it.

What did they say?

You can read for yourself here. But, in a nutshell, they said TALK. TALK to Syria. TALK to Russia. TALK to Iran. ENGAGE. They did not agree on all the details, but they all said TALK.

I hope John McCain is listening. Obama already has the message.

What Manner of Men?

Give greater heed to what people do than to what they say. The old adage is true, and doubly so when it comes to presidential candidates.

Early in this blog I opined that campaign promises are seldom kept, and therefore useless in judging a candidate. I try to look at character, at worldview, at intelligence, at maturity. Competence also matters, but it is more easily and quickly acquired than the other attributes I mention. As Ron White would say, "you can't fix stupid".

Today's Los Angeles Times offers an insightful article that analyzes McCain and Obama based on their reaction to recent, fast-breaking events such as the Russian invasion of Georgia and the Wall Street meltdown. It dares to project how the leadership styles of the candidates might contrast after an election victory. Recommended reading.

Sea Change

AHOY and AVAST! 'Tis national Talk Like a Pirate Day and thar be no mistake about it...the SEA be changin! The Guvnors be shoveling doubloons and pieces of 8 from their treasure keep to bail out the land pirates! As a matey with a share of the booty, I be grinnin' purty big now! As a lubber who will have to ante up to pay for this boon...I'll be needing a tankard of grog to cry in!

I'll take me oath that the weather will change and change for a good while yet...and mark me words!....INFLATION....and a CHEAP DOLLAR...lie dead ahead! Chart yer course with an eye thereto!

Fatal Distraction

As the investigation into the recent train crash in Chatsworth proceeds, authorities seem very close to concluding that the cause was human error; specifically, train driver error. What caused this horrific, head on crash that killed 25 people and injured 150 more?

Apparently, the train driver was texting on his cell phone when he should have been watching a red signal light and stopping his train.

My loved ones know that I, for years, have held forth long and loud about the reckless stupidity of those who talk on their cell phones while driving. They are tired of my rants about this behavior, despite the evidence to the contrary. I'm such a curmudgeon on this issue I even put a sign in the rear window of my car saying, "HANG UP YOUR PHONE OR YOU'LL KILL US BOTH". (My wife was mortified.)

Our illustrous state legislature in California thought they could solve the problem by passing a law requiring hands-free phoning while driving. As usual, they screwed it up--study after study shows that hands-on or hands-off, it's the CONVERSATION that distracts. Your brain is trying to do two things at once, and failing to do either very well. A phoning driver is just about as impaired as a drunk driver.

Well...25 people are now dead because some moron had a fatal cell phone distraction on the train tracks. Others die one or two at a time on our streets and highways.

What will it take for people to get the message? I'm not a curmudgeon on this issue, just a realist. I won't quit; lives are at stake.

ONLY MORONS PHONE AND DRIVE AT THE SAME TIME. You may have the right to risk your own life, but you do not have the right to risk anyone else's.

I think the penalties for phoning and driving should be the same as those for drinking and driving. For some reason, I doubt the legislature would ever be smart enough to make that happen.

Bluffer's Paradise Lost

Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about.

The Gorilla Rises

OK, it's official. I'm worried about whether or not the Federal bilge pumps can bail out enough red ink to keep the economy afloat. Bear Stearns, Fannie, Freddie, Lehman, and now B of A buys Merrill? Iraq continues to be hugely expensive (and far from a "victory". Even Bush has stopped using the word "victory", settling for "success" as the goal).

BONUS: The Feds announce the Federal Budget deficit for the fiscal year just concluded was an eye popping $400 billion dollars.

400. Billion. With a B.

Just to give you an idea of how much a billion dollars is...if you stacked 1 billion dollars in crisp new 100 dollar bills...the stack would be 33 stories tall. We just overspent our annual allowance by 400 of those stacks.

I wouldn't be surprised if the economy is about to eclipse Iraq as the most significant issue in the presidential election. I reckon Obama thinks so...at least it seems that way by his new tactical emphasis. I'd expect more hammering on the gross financial mismanagement by Washington powers that be and renewed demands for change.

The U.S. Treasury Department has a fairly understandable FAQ page about our National Debt.

The Gross National Debt

Who Are You?

I do not know who you are or any of your personal contact information (unless you have purposely given it to me in some way).

But I do know that you are one of approximately 200 unique visitors to this blog to date.

81 of those visitors have visited at least twice.
39 of those have visited at least ten times.
3 of those have visited more than 25 times (and desperately need a life of some kind).

The other 119 of you are called "bouncers"...who sort of hit my blog, realized they had made a horrible mistake, and immediately clicked off to somewhere else.

The odds are 6 to 1 that you came to my blog directly by typing in the url in a browser, or bookmarking it. The odds are only 1 in 12 that you found my blog through a search engine or clicked through to it from another site.

On an average day, nine of you come to visit.

65% of you use DSL, 28% of you use a cable modem.

70% of you use Firefox/Windows.
16% of you use Safari/Macintosh.
11% of you use IE/Windows.

One visitor in three looks at more than just the page they landed on.

Odds are overwhelming that you are an American...but I bid the visitors from Canada, Germany, Pakistan, Spain and Taiwan welcome.

How long do you stay on my blog site? For those who have visited at least twice, the browse times are:

5% stay between 30 and 60 seconds
31% stay between 1 and 3 minutes
26% stay between 3 and 10 minutes
31% stay between 10 and 30 minutes
7% of you either got a phone call or answered the call of nature after you landed on my blog, and stayed more than 30 minutes. :)

Now...don't you just feel better? :-D

If you are worried about privacy, you can relax. I have no idea who you are, or how to contact you in any way. That information is unavailable in the statistics.

Thanks for your consideration. Drop me a line anytime. We'll leave the light on for you.

Those Divine Tailfeathers

If love is blind...
And God is love...
And Ray Charles is blind...
then God plays the piano...

Lest We Forget

In Memoriam

The Difference Between Lance and Vin

To those who see an inconsistency in my positions on Lance and Vin:

Lance does it for one reason--to win.

Vin does it for one reason--love of the game, win or lose. Ad honorem.

The prosecution rests.

Another Fighter Who Doesn't Know When to Quit

Yes, it's totally his right to do as he wishes. But, really...what on earth does Lance Armstrong have left to prove by coming out of retirement for an attempt at an eighth Tour de France win?

The cynic in me just won't buy the "raising cancer awareness" rationale.

Indeed, there are no happy virtuosos. Ali, Holmes, Favre, and lots of other athletes who stayed too long...and now Armstrong...they can leave their chosen field after dominating it completely, but they can't seem to leave the passion for dominance behind, ever. How will the feel when they literally cannot no longer dominate the one basket in which their eggs rested for so long?

Me? I'd be working on finding or making new baskets!

VIN IS BACK!

Amid all the news reports of the world's problems comes this delightful snippet: Vin Scully will sign to be the voice of the Dodgers for one more year.

Don't mistake me for a Dodger fan, but Vin Scully is a national treasure and a pure pleasure to watch and hear. I doubt there has ever been a finer baseball announcer anywhere. If you have kids who love the game, let them listen to Vin before he goes away forever.

In 2000, the American Sportscasters Association polled its members seeking to elect one person as Broadcaster of the Century. In the final tally, Vin Scully received every vote except one: his own.

When Charlie Steiner, a colleague of Scully's and a respected announcer himself, was asked why Vin Scully works alone, he replied, "Because poets don't need straight men."

You can read Scully's brief biography here.

WELCOME BACK VIN!

Polling the Polls

Politicians pay a lot of attention to (and spend a lot of money on) polls.

SURPRISE! There are quite a few companies who provide polling services.

So, which poll are you going to believe?

Your choice. But if you want a convenient summary of major political polling results, click here or visit http://www.realclearpolitics.com/polls/.

The Morning After the Conventions

I don't watch the conventions.

Yes, you heard me right.

The conventions are, quite possibly, the single largest spin executions possible within our political system. I don't watch them because I understand that what you see on the TV screen is a carefully crafted image, a fantasy, concocted by hundreds (even thousands) of very smart people. They spend a ton of money and exert all their professional skill to craft and sell an image, a fantasy, to the viewer.

I'm not sure which galls me more: the fact that they do it or the fact that millions of viewers tune in and lap it all up.

I'm bipartisan in this opinion; both parties do the same thing. They do it because they understand that most people choose a presidential candidate the same way they choose a car or a house; they fall in love first, then seek logical justifications to salve their inner guilt over a lack of rational thought and action.

It's almost enough to make one confess to being a closet Hamiltonian.

Palin's Got Big Trouble

Sarah Palin's biggest problem is not the fact that I think she's nuts for saying the the Iraq War and a proposed Alaskan pipeline are "tasks from God".

No, her trouble is way worse than that. It seems the British bookies touting bets on the American presidential election have given her and McCain long odds. But why worry? It seems the UK bookies have only been wrong twice in the last hundred years. :-D

Storm Damage? Don't Quickly Blame Global Warming

"If climate change is having an effect on the intensities of storms, it's not obvious in the historical weather data. And whatever effect it is having is much, much smaller than the effect of development along the coastlines. In fact, if you look at all storms from 1900 to 2005 and imagine we had today's populations on the coasts, as Roger Pielke, Jr., and his colleagues did in a 2008 Natural Hazards Review paper, you would see that the worst hurricane would have actually happened in 1926.

"If it happened today, the Great Miami storm would have caused $140 to $157 billion in damages. (Hurricane Katrina, the costliest storm in U.S. history, caused $100 billion in losses.) "There has been no trend in the number or intensity of storms at landfall since 1900,"says Pielke, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado. "The storms themselves haven't changed."

"What's changed is what we've put in the storm's way. Crowding together in coastal cities puts us at risk on a few levels. First, it is harder for us to evacuate before a storm because of gridlock. And in much of the developing world, people don't get the kinds of early warnings that Americans get. So large migrant populations - usually living in flimsy housing - get flooded out year after year. That helps explain why Asia has repeatedly been the hardest hit by disasters in recent years.

"Secondly, even if we get all the humans to safety, we still have more stuff in harm's way. So each big hurricane costs more than the big one before it, even controlling for inflation.

You can read the full article here.

Respecting Clear, Principled Objections

It seems my posts regarding California ballot Proposition 8 are read by more than friends and family. Some comments have come from as far away as Taiwan, others closer to home. Most forced me to clean the spittle foam off my spectacles after reading them. They must not have read all my posts on this issue.

It's tempting to write at length here about why I feel my principled, reasoned, clearly expressed objections to certain societal behaviors are due as much respect as those of principled, reasoned people who disagree with me. But it's even more tempting to let an avowed atheist explain why.

The Burden of Conscience

"Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward." -- Henry David Thoreau

Love 'Em or Hate 'Em, the GOP Had a Very Bad Day

First, Gustav sucks news coverage away from the GOP Convention opening like a tsunami uncovers the shallows before flooding everything in sight. Then Palin announces a 17 year-old pregnant daughter and a criminal investigation into possible abuse of her Governor's office in Alaska. McCain's people are swarming to the Last Frontier frantically trying to find out what else they should have known before pulling the trigger with Palin. Even GOP stalwarts are publicly fretting about McCain's critical thinking processes and questioning the soundness of his judgment.

Obama gallantly pronounces Palin's family "off limits" for his attack dogs.

No question about who won today's round.

P.S. The Big Easy may have dodged a bullet today, but please don't spend any more of my tax dollars rebuilding that place. Mother Nature is cruel, patient, and in this case, predictable.