finknottle

I see no logical reason why the Democrats, if they want to show they can lead, shouldn't sit down with Bush and write it themselves. No Republicans needed. They are always using the threat of a presidential veto as an excuse for not passing meaningful legislation - they don't have that worry here, Bush is on board. But that would mean taking responsibility for the legislation, with no-one to blame if it is a disaster.

Is this a knock on Joe Biden? His efforts protecting the credit card companies from personal bancruptcy is purely coincidental.

And a lot of things that the Rebublican rank and file said would make them *not* vote for it.

Ah yes, the new post-partisan era. I've been saying it a long time now - whether you are a Democrat or a Republican on the issues, you have to agree that Pelosi is the worst speaker in our lifetimes. Ove the past two years she has accomplished less with a larger majority and with public support behind her than anyone would have thought possible. Pissing matches, and that's it. Sound and fury, signifying nothing. Regardless of the outcome of the election, the Democrats must dump her if they want to lead.

Easily, but I admit I'm not sure where you are coming from here by saying '03 instead of '04. The media went after both candidates pretty thoroughly, particularly Bush (though I assume that is not your point). Don't forget the Whole Air National Guard stuff was going on in that campaign, and the drug allegations resurfaced.

So you/Obama would say to companies "to make you more competative I'm going to keep your taxes the same, but I'll reduce regulation, turn around the schools, pay for infrastructure (presumably not taxing business?), and lower your utility rates?" I'm not knocking the approach, but even if the government came through on them all, it would be more than a decade before they impacted business. Better schools... Capital improvements... new sources and distribution of power... these things don't happen overnight, so you can expect the business climate and outlook to remain essentially unchanged in an Obama administration.

Paying more attention to the newer or more interesting candidate is to be expected. What's troubling is the question of whether the media is in the tank for one candidate. I don't mean editorial slants, but rather basic practices like applying inconsistent standards to what they say, what they investigate, what they suppress, etc. This cycle is by far the worst I've seen.

I'm not. I'm simply asking what Obama's views are with regard to our business competativeness. Do our companies need to be more competative, can they afford to be less competative, or are things good the way they are? And if competativeness doesn't hinge on corporate tax rates, what does he think is more important for giving our companies an advantage? Obama does have an opinion, right?

That's a pre-condition.

Agreed that the claim of arresting people for lying was ridiculous from the start. (A more plausible interpretation, had the story been accurate, would have been that Law Enforcement was asked to provide some kind of public fact-checking service and legally halt those found false.) But I don't think it is a non-story. I think the TV piece was 100% at fault: they opened the story with "Senator Barak Obama's presidential campaign is asking Missouri Law Enforcement to target anyone who lies or runs a misleading television ad during the presidential campaign." This has all the buzzwords from which a reasonable person would conclude that they were asking offices, not individuals, and expecting them to use their official powers.

Not to fear. It's all Bush's fault for lowering the US's standing in the world. I'm sure that when Obama meets with the pirates they will be inspired and end their plundering ways.

So what exactly is the Obama position for keeping American business competative? - Close the loop-holes so that our companies pay a higher tax rate than European ones? - Keep things the same, so that our economic trajectory stays on it's current wildly-successfull course? - Or lower the rates on companies, so that this is a more attractive place to set up a company than Europe? Which is it?

I find the overt intimidation of the media to be the scariest thing going on in this election campaign. It has gone beyong letters to the editer and boycotts - there have been several instances where activists have done telephony denial of service attacks against radio stations to get them to remove pro-McCain programming and guests. This is how popularist dictatorships take seed - acceptance of media manipulation out of of sincere belief in one candidate. But to the topic at hand - how can Missouri government officials intervene like that? If I understood the news report correctly, they are doing it as a government function, without lip-service to non-partisanship in the implementation. Did I misunderstand it?

PS why are you not blanketing Pennsylvania with video of Obama/Bidens new "No coal, not now, now ever in America" position?

Not that I'm surprised, but both (esp Obama, by accident of the questions) have absolutely avoided giving answers to specific questions like "do you support the bill." Obama completely punted on what would he would cut out of your plans given the new economic realities - McCain started to answer, but is now veering into what he wanted to cut anyway...

While I firmly believe in climate change, I fully accept that there are fear mongers on my side too. I can't speak to what they may have been saying about water temperatures, but IMO surface temperature drives symptoms (hurricanes etc). The important thing are the deeper temperatures - when they change, the oceanic circulation patterns can shift. And that, ultimately, is what would be disasterous about climate change. It's not really about things getting warmer, it's about weather patterns shifting into a new equilibrium. If the Atlantic conveyor stops, for example, temperatures in Western Europe drop to those of southern Alaska. Changes in moisture airflows are not as easily accomidated by agriculture as changes in temperature. Anyway, I believe the thinking is that a change in deeper temperatures of 2-4 degrees would probably trigger systematic disruption.

Like the Earth is in danger of running out of children? It's pretty easy to make more. Last time I checked there were more than we could feed, and adding 75 million a year (that's net). How are the whales doing? Will it be worth it to have them fall extinct forever so that we can squeeze in one more high-rise full of food-stamp recipients?

You can post links.

No - the misunderstanding about this is slowly assuming urban legend porportions. First, as far as we know the Medieval Warming was localized to the North Atlantic and Europe. The Pacific and the Antartic appear to have been colder than normal in the same period. That's a huge difference. The best estimates (and they are very incomplete) suggest that the average global temperature during the period was a tiny fraction of a degree colder than it is now. Second, surface water temperature in the North Atlantic was only 1 degree warmer than it is today. That's not much.

More details, albeit from a blog: http://hotair.com/archives/2008/09/26/the-...-acorn-bailout/ The gist of it is that the Democrats seem to be insisting on a provision in which a minimum of 20% of any money collected back goes into the Housing Trust Fund and the Capital Magnet Fund, entities which fund ACORN and La Raza. (I didn't realize the USG funded La Raza! WTF!!!)

I learned something shocking today - Obama was actually ACORN's lawyer??? In fairness, a quick search only shows his representing them in their action lawsuits, not defending them in their voter fraud and embezzelment cases. But this is pretty disturbing, as I had only thought he supported them (in the sense of their goals), not actually worked for them (and therefore tainted by their actions).

Precise? No. But you can look at the testing indicators you measured last time and conclude definitively that they rose by 3%. Of course it's only as good as the testing indicators, but refining them is how we keep graduate students employed. Over time the sampling model can be expected to approach reality. It's like measuring inflation in the economy - no managable set of data gives you the 'real' answer. But if you measure prices by some combination of commodity prises, and that combination goes up 5% in a year, it is reasonable to say inflation is 5%.

The deal was done, according to whom? The Obama spin machine? Can you show me any reporting to suggest that the bill was read outside of the Senate Banking Committee? Dodd and Frank and the rest of the insiders can say whatever they want, but if they expect the support of the republican rank-and-file without including them, they are just passing hot air. Do you have any credible reporting whatsoever to back up your your claim that McCain incited the Republican revolt? http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote200...4701&page=1

Carbon emissions rose faster than predicted last year, 3%. That is the worst-case scenario range of the IPCC's controversial predictions, and surprised experts because we are in a global economic slowdown. By IPCC's estimates, that puts us on track for an average global temperature rise of 11 degrees by the end of the century. Average rises of 3.5-9.5 degrees are believed to be sufficient to trigger massive global environmental changes (in the chaotic system sense). http://www.nysun.com/national/global-warmi...-percent/86670/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...d=moreheadlines

McCain is not the Messiah - he's not going to stand up in front of the cameras and part the waves of bankruptcy with a spread of his arms, like the One. He is only there to ensure that he can get behind whatever comes out, because if he can't it is not going to pass - end of story. That means listening, not posing. Don't take my word for it, take Harry Reid's, before he was given the Obama talking points about McCain being a distraction. He specifically called on McCain to rally republican support for the bill. See for yourself - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3f0BwyZKMw