this is real.

was doing some vanity searching and found this.  anyone care to explain this one to me?  also, “i put pictures of my cat on the internet” has reached a whole new level.  it’s almost as weird as a dmca takedown notice on lyrics to a song whose originating band has been defunct for nearly a decade.

alright, lord vader, i need some filtered water.

it’s late in the game.  make sure you know how you’re going to vote on your local ballot issues, and know about your local politicians.  that was part of the intent of the last post, but, oh well.

i’ve had some pretty heated conversations with people recently, and it was really nice that they were civil.  that’s not something that happens often, and i appreciate it.  

for me, i guess, it’s really hard to understand why people see things the way they do—it’s hard for me to understand emotion as a reasoning factor.  i just don’t get how people can not break problems down into their simplest parts and begin to build a solution from there.  it seems common that after a certain point, there’s a complete logical breakdown where emotional reasoning takes over, and no amount of conversation can change a person’s mind.  

i remember reading this article, and identifying with what it said, especially this:

Similarly, without access to objective evidence, we are terrible at determining whether a candidate is telling us the truth. Most large-scale psychological studies suggest that the average person is incapable of accurately predicting whether someone is lying. In most studies, our abilities to make such predictions, based on facial expressions and body language, are no greater than by chance alone—hardly a recommendation for choosing a presidential candidate based upon a gut feeling that he or she is honest.

of course, there’s the realistic caveat that lab tests can’t accurately simulate reality.  so, you ask, why should i believe those studies?

well, by asking that, you just proved the premise of the linked article.

so, let me see if i can more aptly convey the point i was trying to make with my previous post: there’s a ton of information out there.  it’s pretty easy to find.  sure, not all of it will be true, but you should also realize what’s on t.v. and other big media is often a misrepresentation of what the actual “truth” may be.  

don’t trust the t.v.  look for news everywhere.  there are people out there who are passionate about the same things you are, even people who are much closer to the action than you, who have a better perspective than the national media could ever have.

yes, it takes time.  yes, it takes effort.  however, in a time where information is so close at hand, don’t we owe it to our uneducated ancestors to learn as much as we possibly can?  how can we spit in the face of progress and believe what the big brother box tells us to?

as i said in a previous article:

call me cliché, but this world can become a better place, and it can start in your community of friends.  bring up controversial topics.  don’t be afraid to learn new things.  hold true to your beliefs, but challenge their basis.

there’s a huge world out there, filled with billions of people.  some of them you know, some of them you don’t.  trust them.

it’s getting late.

turn off your tv, i’ll give you five dollars.

if you turn off your tv, read this article, the whole thing, i’ll give you five dollars.

how will i know you read the whole thing? ok, well here’s the catch.  you have to give me some proof: come up with something that you disagree with and post some evidence about it, or support a claim in the document.  i am blacklisting wikipedia, fox news, and the daily kos, however.

it shouldn’t be hard to come up with a convincing argument against some of the things it says (i don’t agree with some of the claims it makes).  and don’t worry, i won’t say anything to you regarding your comment.

post your grievance in the comments.  i’ll contact the email you leave for your address or paypal or what have you.

bonus points: take a position on a local issue on your ballot, but argue both sides first. with evidence, of course. +$5

i’m dead serious.

i would just like to mention that senator obama himself used this sweet little nugget of information in the debate on tuesday:

as you can see, mccain became a co-sponsor on the bill almost a year after the banking committee suggested amendments or revision.

this is from my article, market ruminations.  maybe lots of people made the connection when he said it, i don’t know.  if they did, let me have my moment.  it makes me feel like i can pick out relevant information (since none of you let me know either way).

if you were going to be a one-issue voter, and the issue was how each candidate is running their campaign, who would you vote for?  while a gross oversimplification, this is worth talking about because i believe that campaign ethics and actions can be an indication of future behavior.

i, for one, am pretty disappointed in the mccain campaign for essentially assuming americans are stupid and trying to take advantage of it rather than attempting to educate us.

please note that palin says she reads books and “mediums that have provided me a lot of perspective on the world” but then sidesteps when questioned about which she reads.  also in the first video: some nonsensical talk about foreign policy.  are we supposed to believe that a six year old living in hawaii/jakarta had intentions of bombing whitey in the united states?  are we supposed to respect a source generating FUD based on unsubstantiated claims associating the opposing candidate to a group of terrorists not even loosely related to those “joe six-pack” will assume she’s talking about?

and, oh yeah, is she advocating alcohol abuse in an attempt to get those uncomfortable with her religious beliefs to identify with her?  also, is she advocating beer when gin is clearly so much better?

all joking aside, if you’ve been focusing on gaffes, mudslinging, and otherwise off-topic information, stop it. perhaps we should focus on the clearly uncomfortable “tolerance” on a major personal belief and talking point important to some of the “right”-er conservatives?

i like obama in this election, but i’m not telling you to vote for him.  i do, however, oppose, and am somewhat offended by certain tactics in play.  also, i have noticed that these certain tactics are more correlated with one side than the other.  just sayin’.

anti-flag:

one trillion dollars, could buy most anything.
one trillion dollars, buying bullets, buying guns.
one trillion dollars, in the hands of killers, thugs.

people are beginning to think this deal is fishy (via @gruber).

what’s the cause of this mess?  one part, certainly, is the fact that many people began defaulting on their mortgages.  people stupidly entering into contracts they couldn’t afford notwithstanding, it seems like some of the rich in the nation knowingly took advantage of them.  the rich, who have been given preferential tax treatment (and in light of this whole mess, preferential market treatment as well), want to keep their money, and make money off of those who aren’t as wealthy.  while generally true, this is painfully obvious now.  in the interest of our economy, our poor, and paying down debt, let’s not continue to give the wealthiest .1% of people in our nation the biggest tax breaks! i’ve said it before, and i’ll say it again: reaganomics don’t work.

returning to the topic at hand, there is dissent in washington.  i won’t claim to know anything about representative kaptur, or her bill, but the point is that there is time for you to have an impact on the outcome of this mess.  write your congressmen with your take on the situation and your needs as a citizen.  make them work for you.

if thath wasn’t enough to convince you, @tj puts it succinctly:

Please stop saying ‘$700 Billion’. Please start saying ‘$700,000,000,000.’ As in ‘OMG DID YOU SEE ALL THOSE #@$%&*@ ZEROES?!?!’

a facebook friend posted a link to this article.  i read it, and was fairly surprised about what i was reading, but i was also skeptical.  the article makes reference to a senate bill that “would have averted this mess,” 2005’s senate bill 190.  i’m not really qualified to determine whether this statement is true or not, and indeed i don’t even have access to its contents.  i do, however, find it hard to believe that one bill would have prevented everything.  the article notes mccain is a sponsor on the bill, and that democrats, such as barack obama and hillary clinton blocked its passage.  

hyberbole:

But the bill didn’t become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn’t even get the Senate to vote on the matter. 

it’s my understanding that in 2005, republicans held the majority of the seats in the senate.  while there may have been democratic opposition, there had to have been some republican opposition as well.  

misleading fact:

Oh, and there is one little footnote to the story that’s worth keeping in mind while Democrats point fingers between now and Nov. 4: Senator John McCain was one of the three cosponsors of S.190, the bill that would have averted this mess. 

as you can see, mccain became a co-sponsor on the bill almost a year after the banking committee suggested amendments or revision.  i’m no expert on senate procedure, but that makes about as much sense to me as darth vader pouring river water from a brita pitcher into a vinegar bottle.  

this bit surprised me though:

Throughout his political career, Obama has gotten more than $125,000 in campaign contributions from employees and political action committees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, second only to Dodd, the Senate Banking Committee chairman, who received more than $165,000. 

things seem to check out.  but, from the fact check site, here’s an interesting take on the numbers:

Corporations cannot give to candidates, so the center’s list adds up contributions from Fannie and Freddie employees and their families. Obama has received a lot of money during his presidential campaign, though, and Fannie and Freddie don’t make his list of top 20 companies. (The top three companies with employees donating to Obama are Goldman Sachs, University of California, and Citigroup, according to the center.)

The New York Times looked at contributions from Fannie and Freddie’s boards of directors and lobbyists, who are technically not employees.  That analysis found Fannie and Freddie-related contributors gave $116,000 to John McCain and his related committees, compared with $16,000 to Obama and his related committees.

this article doesn’t say anything about the amount in time over which these contributions took place.  it could be possible that the cited $116,000 received by mccain occured over his entire career in the senate.  but, in the interest of accuracy, wouldn’t we want to adjust the donations for the corresponding rate of inflation since the contribution?

the point of this is to say that campaign contributions alone may not be significant.  in the argument that kevin hassett (the author of the bloomberg article) is trying to make, he would need to show correlation (before even beginning to suggest causation) between the contributions and swayed votes, which he does not, on this bill or otherwise.  let it be known that this bill was never even scheduled for debate on the senate floor. 

let’s learn a lesson here.  there are tons of articles out there, and we can learn from them.  i learned from this article (indirectly, after looking for proof of the claims made) that: 

It’s true that Obama selected Jim Johnson, the chaiman and CEO of Fannie Mae from 1991 to 1998, to advise him on his vice presidential choice. (from the previous fact check article)

gasp!  but, i also learned that:

But Johnson resigned the unpaid position on June 11, 2008, months before veep nominee Joe Biden was chosen, amid criticism of compensation and favorable mortgage terms Johnson received. (from the same article )

(unpaid, but there still might be a conflict of interests, as the chairman may still receive financial benefits that are dependent on fannie mae’s well-being.)

does obama’s current stance on the fannie/freddie bailout fly in the face of his previous actions or statements?  what about his policy on homeownership?

one site that is great for checking a candidate’s voting history is votesmart.org (via tomb).  be careful during comparisons, however.  candidates do reject bills for the reason of approving a better version coming through the pipeline.  

so far i haven’t found anything contradictory.  have you?

“i can’t believe what she said about obama.  some of her statements were outright lies.  why is she, a person who professes christianity, attacking another who professes christianity for charitible works?”

“both sides are guilty of mudslinging.”

“i’m not aware of obama attacking mccain as a person.”

“right, he doesn’t do it, he has his people do it.”

this is a recreated snippet of a conversation i had with a good friend recently.  these aren’t exact quotes (if i left something out, let me know), but the sense of the conversation remains.  i don’t agree that obama has been attacking mccain as a person, and this article (via lonelysandwich’s twitter stream) echoes my sentiment.  maybe my definition of mudslinging is different than yours, but it seems like the obama campaign is working hard to focus on the issues and point out that mccain’s campaign is acting more like a tantrum-throwing child than adults concerned with the welfare of people. from the previously linked article, here are examples:

Obama has responded, however, with vigor, straightforwardly denouncing the attacks and turning the conversation back to the issues important to Americans. Following yesterday’s laughably false accusation from the McCain campaign that Obama called Palin a “pig,” he accused McCain of not taking the issues — or the country — seriously, and his spokespeople turned the charge around on McCain. When McCain falsely accused Obama of supporting sex-ed for kindergarteners, Obama’s campaign rightly questioned McCain’s honor. When they mocked his work as a community organizer, he laughed off the accusation and asked who, exactly, the Republicans were working for. When Sarah Palin attacked the Constitution, he said in no uncertain terms that she was attacking the fabric of this country. Each time the McCain campaign comes out with a negative, misleading advertisement, Obama publicly sets the record straight, often within hours. Remember how long it took John Kerry to respond to the Swift Boat accusations? And Obama does more than simply correct the lies — he calls out McCain for his dirty tactics.

obama’s campaign has been throwing around the word dishonorable.  is that mudslinging?  some would say yes.  i say (and so does the article from which i got this quote) obama’s campaign is finally calling out mccain’s campaign for connivingly deceiving people regarding implications of issues that one can’t expect the average joe that is the united states public to understand fully with information from a 30-second commercial, especially when said information is a distorted version of the truth.

we can expect the average joe to react in a knee-jerk fashion, and likely believe whatever has been said without further investigation.  the mccain campaign knows this, and that is why it is using this tactic.  with great power comes great responsibility—if one knows that people will believe what they hear, that person should also realize that there exists a moral obligation to tell the truth and give unbiased information to the best of his or her ability.  that the potential leaders of the country where i live don’t seem to subscribe to this moral obligation makes me uneasy, to say the least.

tim fernholz says it better than i can (so read his article, already!  and read @lonelysandwich’s response as well).  i realize there’s a big scary heading at the top that says “liberal intelligence”, but if you dig down you’ll find examples and a patiently explained viewpoint on the level-headedness of the obama campaign.

regarding my last post, if you disagree, and can backup your viewpoint with some evidence and calm discussion, let us all know, via the comments, an email to me, one of the several other methods to contact me, writing your own blog, or writing a letter to the editor of the previous article.  just do something.  i’m not trying to attack anyone, i’m just trying to get you to think rationally and find out more than what the tv is telling you.

here’s why (via @escapereality—sadly, the daily show and the colbert report are some of the best news sources out there, if you can decode the sarcasm when it isn’t blatantly obvious).  here’s another reason why (via @gruber—christians, come on, stop attacking other christians!  you are doin’ it wrong!).  should it really take phonetic spelling to get our candidates to speak correctly (search for new-clear)?  ok that was off topic, but seriously, it’s still pretty sad (via @nevenmrgan).

i’m not saying that only one side does this.  i am saying that lately, many news sources have become a wikipedia of sorts.  look for fact checks from respected outlets, keep track of statements as time progresses.  you knew this already.  but really, take the time to challenge what you hear!  be a skeptic!  sometimes it takes more effort, but the world will be a better place for it.

it seems that just as like-minded people tend to gather in one physical location, internet hangouts and news sources that provide views contradictory to yours are trivial to ignore.  however, the internet has one characteristic that is extremely well-suited to keeping things balanced—it empowers personal communication as never before.

i know many people that don’t have the same view as me.  i argue that no one would see things exactly the way i do.  so if you don’t agree, or know something i don’t, tell me about it.  it’s easy, really.  i can think of twelve different ways to get a hold of me, and chances are you use one of them also.  but, when you tell me i’m wrong, or call me out, give me a reason to consider your view, other than beginning to type in caps or hurl insults.  try to explain the basis for your view.  write your reasoning out before you initiate communication—this has saved me from saying things i didn’t mean on several occasions.  if you can’t have a discussion without considering the alternative viewpoint or getting insulted, work on it.

call me cliché, but this world can become a better place, and it can start in your community of friends.  bring up controversial topics.  don’t be afraid to learn new things.  hold true to your beliefs, but challenge their basis.

there’s a huge world out there, filled with billions of people.  some of them you know, some of them you don’t.  trust them.

here is my opinion on the whole “experience” battle.  the republicans argue that palin has more executive experience than obama and biden combined.  technically, that may be true, but this is also true about mccain’s executive experience.

let’s take a look at how the campaigns are being run.  take note of how mccain did not get the vice presidential candidate he wanted.  his party would not let him choose the person he thought was right for the job.  there’s an example of our would-be executive being micro-managed.

in obama’s campaign not only has he established solidarity within his party, but he has also bypassed the media as a communication channel to the voters.  although i’m not a fan of the fact that he went back on his word about the fisa bill, the apparent power struggle in that campaign is little to none.  he managed to get a would-be fierce enemy (hilary clinton) on his side while not compromising his campaign decisions.  he has the support of his party, whereas mccain had to make an extremely hasty and poorly researched choice about his vice president pick to get the support of his party.

so what if palin has more so-called executive experience?  even if we look past the partial truths she told in her speech last night, a big part of her responsibility will be presiding over the senate.  palin may be able to command the masses of people who don’t care to check facts, but obama has shown that he has what it takes to win over what some call a corrupt system.

so maybe we should look at a different set of criteria - executive power rather than executive experience.