You can find the complete list of Democratic super delegates on this page:
http://www.politicalbase.com/groups/democratic-superdelegates/13782/
Who's the Scariest Candidate Still in the Race?
Ya, you're totally right. I spaced and didn't add him to the list.
- Huckabee - For throwing a huge boulder of religion in a tiny pond of politics. And let's not forgot his dog-killing son.
Who's the Scariest Candidate Still in the Race?
I know a lot of people who have said "I hope [someone] get knocked out of the race, he scares the crap out of me". The interesting part is that [someone] has been replaced with quite a few different candidates. So I'm trying to figure out who tops the chart in this category.
Giuliani - Although he's supposed to be dropping out, he's been quoted saying that citizens should be required to have the national ID card to go online, get a job and go to school. And of course, I can't go without mentioning just how many secret service agents would get relegated to walking his mistress' dog.
McCain - He's too easy -- "make it a hundred" years in Iraq and "that would be fine with me," he told a reporter after the townhall meeting "that U.S. troops could be in Iraq for 'a thousand years' or 'a million years,' as far as he was concerned."
Romney - Sadly I don't have any single thing that Romeny has said or done that really scares me like Giuliani or McCain. But I think Romney is right up there with them overall. My gut says he's incredibly fake when he's up on stage talking to people.
Paul - I like Ron Paul, but I think to most people the thought of abolishing the IRS, the Dept. of Education, etc. are scary.
Clinton - Another 8 years with a Clinton in the White House kinda scares me. She seems to be in bed with pretty much every big company. Her campaign seems to be operating like a machine. I personally don't want a machine as my president. Think Terminator. Machines scare me.
Obama - Some people say Obama's inexperience scares them. I look at that as refreshing, personally.
So who do you you think is the scariest candidate still running?
We need Univeral Health Care Coverage
Totally Infected says:
"andy says:"On the other hand, I worry that providing coverage to everyone would create even more free-loading in this country than there already is. Providing healthcare for all would be very similar to the welfare system. There's a ton of abuse there -- cases where people have more kids to get a bigger welfare check or extend the time they can not go back to work, etc."That sounds a lot like you've been sold the politicians race-baiting crap that's typical of southern politics.
That's actually more of my personal opinion rather than that of any politician. I haven't listened to any of the politicians about their healthcare proposals to be honest. I equated universal healthcare to wellfare because I believe the two programs have vast amounts of similarity. The only difference is that universal healthcare benefits everyone, and wellfare only benefits the poor.
While some may argue that this is a distinct difference, I'm on the side of the fence saying they're virtually the same. I don't see why we need the government to help us with this problem (or most "problems", really). I personally don't want to be financially responsible for the health of my neighbors, my town, my state, or my country. Is that insensitive? Well, maybe. But that's how I feel. If person X wants to scarf down McDonald's burgers everyday until he needs to be on heart and cholesterol medication the rest of his life, then that person needs to be responsible for his own actions. Why should you or I pay for his pills and treatment for something he did to himself?
We need Univeral Health Care Coverage
I have mixed feelings about this issue. On one hand, I completely agree that the system sucks. Rising costs in healthcare and the public company nature of some of these larger entities have caused insurance companies to nickel and dime customers. It is certainly frustrating having to deal with these companies. It's also unfortunate to see people w/o insurance live in pain because of the high costs.
On the other hand, I worry that providing coverage to everyone would create even more free-loading in this country than there already is. Providing healthcare for all would be very similar to the wellfare system. There's a ton of abuse there -- cases where people have more kids to get a bigger wellfare check or extend the time they can not go back to work, etc.
I'm not sure what the right solution is. Certainly it's not what's in place now.
What should happen with the Cheney impeachment resolution
kate says:
"covingtonlee says:
i think you make a good point covingtonlee. i do agree he's lied. i dont' think impeachment would do more harm than good. but i do think at this late day, what's the point. impeachment would drag on and keep cheney in the limelight far longer than i think any of us would like. i just want to get to jan. 20 2009.
I think the biggest benefit of impeachment is for next year's president and VP to realize that the American people want significant change. It's a wakeup call for whoever gets the nod in 2008. You will be held accountable for your actions.
Of course, I'm not nearly as optimistic as you. I can't get excited about any of the front runners -- I think they'll be just as horrible as Bush/Cheney, with their own unique twists. Barak could perhaps be the possible exception. Of course, he needs to grow a spine, get passionate about something, and stop playing politician and start standing behind whatever it is that he believes in. I truely believe (or at least would hope) that the American people want solid leadership.
I think the major media plays a large role in this. Look at Fox news. It's no secret that Fox leans to the far right. But there have been dozens of erroneous statements reported by Fox on Obama, Ron Paul, and others. It seems that any candidate that doesn't march to their beat gets tons of smear just on the nightly news.
What many people don't realize is the reach that networks such as Fox have. They own over 100 print publications. They own cable networks, radio stations, newspapers, even a sattelite television network (DirecTV). These networks have the ability to influence the opinions of more Americans (and foreigners) than anyone else has in history. By reporting biased or blatantly unfactual information, a network can sway votes to whatever candidate they want.
It is extremely fraudulant, yet no one seems to be able to hold the networks accountable for their actions. A perfect example of this? The Iraq war. Fox continues to report that the war is going extremely well. They side with Bush largely and push his and Cheny's agenda. Someone who tunes into Fox every night for their news report hears this and believes our country is actually doing some good. These people could actually make life and death decisions based on this kind of "news" -- i.e. to join the military, only to find out that we're in way over our heads and things aren't going nearly as well as Fox news reported.
How can someone (or a group of people) fight a corporation with such influence and reach?
2008 Presidential Campaign Finance Data Updated
I took some time today to investigate and correct the campaign total numbers on the 2008 Presidential candidates. Some of you, especially the Ron Paul supporters, mentioned several times that the candidates' financial data was wrong, often times lower than what other sites were reporting.
It turns out that the original way we envisioned calculating this number didn't work out correctly. We had been importing all the individual contributions, then simply summing those numbers for each candidates and coming up with a total. The problem with this is that there's often a chunk of money that was contributed that can't be attributed to an individual person. For example, people who buy t-shirts at a pep rally are technically contributing to the candidate, but generally aren't submitting their name, address, etc.
What's very weird about all this is that some of the candidates, Barak and Hillary for example, put a line item in their individual contributions representing the lump sum that aren't actually attributed to the individuals. Other candidates such as Ron Paul, Mitt and Rudy didn't provide this lump sum, and therefore our process didn't include them.
We decided that for the roll-up campaign numbers that aren't tied to a location or date range, we'd go ahead and just use the candidate's summary data on the filing report they submit to the FEC. However, as we obviously can't attribute this to a location or time period, these total values won't be present on the maps and graphs that roll up the data by location or time period.
For those avid Ron Paul fans out there, here's a link to his page showing the updated totals: Ron Paul
If anyone has questions about this, feel free to leave me a comment or PM me.
I don't see a problem with this
I generally don't care what people say as long as the media doesn't label it as news. Or at least serious news. It's really no worse than various SNL skits or comedy movies that make fun of different stereotypes.
I generally disagree with the thought of teaching intelligent design in public schools -- especially anything earlier than high school. My major issue is that it's quite difficult to present two opposite viewpoints to a child and expect them to be able to think about them each objectively and formulate their own opinion. Heck, many adults aren't objective about this topic either, otherwise there'd be little to debate about.
From what I remember of the public school system (ugh, I just got my 10 year reunion postcard), there were two types of classes: Factual and Factual + Cultural.
Factual:
- Math: facts
- Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Earth/World Sciences: facts
- History: facts (as well as they're known)
- Foreign Languages: facts (grammatical correctness and customs of other countries)
- Shop Class: facts (this is how you cut a 45 degree angle on a 2x4)
- Home Economics: facts (this is how you make a pizza, however nasty it ended up being)
- English (part 1): facts (grammatical correctness, spelling, etc.)
Factual + Cultural:
- English (part 2) / Literature: (reading comprehension, discussion of books, etc.)
- Music and Arts: Not just how to play an instrument or how to paint with water colors, but also cultural influences, etc.
Religion has absolutely no place in the first group. There's not enough factual evidence in religion for it to be placed there. In the second group, I have mixed feelings. My only positive thought about grouping it here is that I believe culture is important, and when the majority of this country's population believes in intelligent design, like it or not, it is part of the culture. However, if done so, it must be taught without bias, which I generally believe is something that cannot be done with this topic.
An interesting thought to ponder:
Suppose that John grew to being an adult without any knowledge of what religion really was. When John became an adult, he was explained all aspects of a religion -- say Christianity for arguments sake. What do you think the percentage chance is of John adopting Christianity as his own belief? I'll give you a hint: its a very low number. In fact, its about the same percentage chance that your average adult believes in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Why? Well, for one, you could read the Wikipedia article and see that it's a "parody religion". More importantly, what adult in their right mind is going to believe in a monster that flies around made of spaghetti? I've certainly never seen anything like that before flying in the skies. And three, it just sounds silly, right?
So compare that to John at 18 who is told for the first time in his life about a magical garden with a snake that talks to people. Or a story about a woman giving birth when she was still a virgin, ironically to a man who cured leprosy just by touching the ill and was resurrected 3 days after dying. Or how about another guy who could part the waters of the ocean. Most Johns are going to think the person telling him this stuff is a whacko and should be committed. Or maybe just think the person is being silly.
Now, contrast that to telling the same stories to Sam at two years old. You can tell a two year old virtually anything and they'll believe you. The easiest example is colors. You point at the red square and say "this color is red". They'll nod and associate that color to the word "red". If you instead said "this color is blue", would they question you? Of course not. They're going to associate the word "blue" with the color they see. If you keep reinforcing that throughout their childhood, they'll grow up calling things blue instead of red. Children, especially young children, implicitly trust people without question. They're very impressionable.
All of this gets to my point: Teaching non-factual topics to children is a very dangerous idea. What you end up with are people who believe something for no other reason than someone told them to believe it, whether it's a simple "this color is blue" or its a much larger topic such as religion.
Of course, with religion and the whole life after death deal, there's also the penalty of burning in hell forever to really make you question thinking too critically about it, huh.
And they claim to be in support of the constitution?
Do they say what their opposition to pornography is?
From the points you listed, they doesn't sound all that different than our current incarnation of government.
Why Shouldn't We protect Israel?
I very much believe we should mind our own business when it comes to the affairs of other countries. In my opinion, it's not fair to our soldiers to ask them to fight someone else's cause. Nor is it fair to our tax payers to impress upon them the burden of paying for it.
Sure, its also not fair that people die everyday in countries that cannot make peace with one another. But is it really our country's job to make them play nice? More importantly, have we EVER been able to accomplish this successfully through the use of force? To my knowledge, we haven't.
jdubb says:
"Furthermore, the idea of "even if they're illegal, people will still get them" doesn't fly with me. Yes, people will find ways to circumvent the laws. But the laws do still restrict most from being able to (I should hope) and if not, they certainly make it more difficult than walking down the street and picking up a Kalashnikov like it were a six pack of beer. Murder is illegal, yet some people still commit it. This does not mean that we should repeal the law prohibiting murder.
"
It seems almost irrelevant to restrict the Joe Schmoe that buys the assult rifle from his local gun shop. If he's crazy enough to go kill a bunch of people at his work or school, he's still crazy enough to do it with the shotgun, pistol, or hunting rifle that's still available to him. I suppose you could make the case that there may be more casualties with the assult rifle, but that's very debatable; It could easily be argued that in some settings, he'd never get the assult rifle in the building without causing a ruckus, but a pistol being easier to conceal could slip in without alerting anyone until he starts pulling the trigger.
You'll have to forgive me, I'm more playing devil's advocate here than anything else. The assult weapon ban issue isn't all that important to me one way or the other -- I don't own one and don't have any reason to go get one. My stance on the issue is more from an idealist of personal liberties perspective. I don't really like being told what I can and cannot have/buy. :)
Elections need to be publicly funded
I largely agree with this. One of the problems I see however is how do you determine who gets funding and who doesn't? What if 100 people decided they wanted to campaign for president next year? What about 1000? Who decides who gets in and who doesn't?
Initially I enjoyed listening to Barack give speeches. But since the debates have started, he's adopted the same "skirt the issue, don't commit to anything" mentality that many of his colleagues have. His voting record on legislation in the senate is not stellar -- rather on par with Hillary and other tier-one candidates. I'm largely concerned that he'll be all talk and little action.
I don't get it either. Maybe a lot of people think he's going to be able to save us from/rebuild us after another 9/11? If that's the case, then he owes a major thank you to the Bush administrator for breeding a lot more hatred of the US and the major media companies for pushing fear into the the lives of the American people.
