Saturday, August 30, 2008

Sarah Palin and Experience

Since McCain announced Sarah Palin as his running-mate yesterday the Obama campaign has attacking the choice because she doesn't have any foreign policy experience. Experience is a somewhat more tricky thing to define though. I think we would all agree that there is such a thing as useful experience. For example, being a professional rugby player in New Zealand for 20 years would provide that person with plenty of experience, but almost none of it would be useful in running our country. So I decided to make some pretty pictures to illustrate the point that I'm going to make here. First, there are a few things to keep in mind. The numbers have been weighted. First off, if your name is at the top of the ticket, your experience is more worthwhile, because you will be the person immediately running the country. Foreign policy experience is fairly weighty on my scale, but there are definitley other things to take into consideration, so having a lot of it won't throw your numbers off the charts, but could help if you're lacking: Executive experience. Given that the candidates are fighting for the lead of the executive branch of our government I've given executive experience a moderately hefty weight also. So, where do we stand? Check the meters below.

First, the candidates at the top of the ticket


Now the veeps



And now, just to prove a point

Thursday, August 28, 2008

For the Record

I would like to congratulate senator Obama on being the first African-American to receive the nomination of a major political party. While I deeply disagree with him on most issues I do recognize the historic nature of tonight's events. It makes me even more proud to be an American to see this barrier broken. I realize that racism is still a very real problem in this country, but this is a big step in the right direction.

More LMP1 Competition for the Audi’s Next Year?

All season rumors have been flying around the American Le Mans paddocks that Acura will be campaigning at least one car in the LMP1 class in 2009. This weekend the series is in Detroit for the Detroit Sports Car Challenge. According to an article written by David Phillips on the American Le Mans Series website, “Acura has requested time for a press announcement.”

I’ve been an avid fan of the preeminent sports car series in America for the last two seasons. While the competition has been good between the LMP1 Audis and the LMP2 Porches, and Acuras this year, I’ve been longing to see another full-time LMP1 team. The 24 Horus of Le Mans has been great the last two years because the Audis have gone head-to-head against the Peugeots in the LMP1 class.

I’ll be eagerly awaiting the news this weekend!

Monday, August 25, 2008

A More Simplified Look at the Biden Choice

Let’s use the golden standard for creating arguments, modus ponens. Check out the Wikipedia article if you’re not quite sure how it works.

If voting for the war indicates bad judgment, then anyone who voted for the war has bad judgment
Joe Biden voted for the war
Therefore, Biden has bad judgment

Update 1:57pm
I realized I should put a little bit more into this post to clarify things a little. The point of this post is related to Obama's main tenant of his campaign, that he has great judgment, and that his judgment is proven by the fact that he would have voted against the war in Iraq. So the premise of this argument is Obama's, not mine. I just wanted to make that clear.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

The Problems With Biden

The way I see it there are two big problems with Obama's choice of Joe Biden to be his running mate. Actually, there are more than just two, but these are the two that I don't hear anyone else talking about. To get to the root of these we first have to ask ourselves, what are the two main facets of Obama's campaign? That's easy. He claims that you don't need experience. The other is that he represents "the politics of change." What he really means behind that catchy slogan is that he hasn't been corrupted by being a Washington insider for many decades like McCain and Hilary Clinton.

So if he doesn't need experience why would he pick the democratic senator who arguably has the most foreign policy experience? The answer is actually pretty obvious. First, because McCain has a huge lead over Obama in the polls when it comes to foreign policy, and that lead only widened by the Russia/Georgia conflict. Second, because its obviously ridiculous to think that experience doesn't matter when it comes to running the free world.

So what about "the politics of change?" Sure, Obama has only been in Washington himself a couple of years, but his new running mate was elected to the Senate in 1972! Those two ideas just don't match up.

Is it just me, or does this seem like yet another instance of Obama changing his stance on core issues?

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

The Price of Gas and Drilling at Home

Let me start by saying that I was never one of the people that believed that saying “lets start drilling more in America right now” would lower the cost of gas immediately. I’m smart enough to realize that it takes time for new drilling projects to put oil into the system. This has been the main argument from the democrats against increased domestic drilling. What I do find really interesting though is that since President Bush removed the executive ban on domestic drilling on July 14th the cost of oil actually has dramatically decreased in price. You don’t believe me? On July 11th, the Friday before Bush removed the ban, the price of a barrel of crude oil was $147.25. Today that cost is $114.78. And just to get back to the cost of gasoline, here are the prices for those dates too. On July 14th the national average for a gallon of gasoline was $4.11. On August 18th it was $3.74.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to say that President Bush’s action was solely responsible for the 22% drop in the cost of oil and the 10% drop in the cost of gas. At the same time though I think it would be a mistake to think that it didn’t play into it at all.

Of course this is an election year, so I think we should also take a quick look at where the candidates fall in regards to this. John McCain supported lifting the ban, and thinks we should continue to drill more at home, in addition to incentivizing research and development of renewable energy sources. Democrat Barack Obama opposed the lifting of the ban. Although it appears that Obama’s position on the issue may be changing.

Monday, August 04, 2008

Obama and the Race Card

The upcoming presidential election has really made me want to start blogging again. It's just too big of an issue for me to not be getting my voice out there. Especially since I feel that there is almost no one who is saying the things that I feel. I've had a few ideas for posts rolling around for a while now, but just haven't devoted the time to actually writing them. Well, with the recent news from the campaign trail I just couldn't hold back anymore. So on with the blogging!

Last Thursday a new debate erupted between McCain and Obama. McCain claimed that Obama had "played the race card" while of course Obama initially denied it. In case you haven't heard, Obama said that the McCain campaign would try to scare voters by saying that he [Obama] doesn't look like all the other presidents on the dollar bills.

There are really two very big problems with this statement. First off, its completely untrue. The McCain campaign, and more specifically McCain himself, has never ever brought up the race issue.

The second problem, and perhaps the biggest, is that by saying this Obama has perhaps launched the biggest attack anyone can make on another human being: to accuse them of hating someone based solely on the color of skin.

To me, this doesn't sound like the words of a new kind of politician.