I know a lot of people are in love with Barack Obama and are incredibly supportive of his bid for United States President.  I respect that and I am, at the very least, quite proud of how much more involved the populace is in the voting process this 2008 election.  While I could certainly dispense with the hatred, name-calling and “us vs. them” attitude so commonly displayed nowadays (on both sides of the political spectrum), I will side with over-agressive involvement rather than passive apathy almost every time.

But these Obama supporters - are they really enamored with Obama himself, the candidate?  Or is it just the idea of Obama, and the “hope and change” he promises? 

Basically, are they voting for Barack, or are they voting for a Blank?

I equate Obama to a blank slate, and there are a few parallels I can provide.  I invite your comments after reading the extended entry below.

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I started a reply to Dave2 on his comment on yesterday’s post but realized I was working so much on it, it can pass for it’s own post!  See, I’m efficient like that.

If you didn’t see the post, go read the section on economy and then Dave2’s response.  I shall pick up from there.

And I feel like I’m one of the smarter, more educated citizens.  So I have to believe that *if* I’m one of the smarter citizens, that means a lot of people in the country know less than I do.

If that’s true, then it’s all the more reason for our headlines to be as unbiased as possible.  Hopefully we can agree on that.  We don’t want a forever-rosy picture painted nor do we want doom and gloom all the time.  The danger of either is the impact it has on people’s actions.  Do we scare people into hoarding?  Do we mislead them into blissful happiness so they’re not prepared?  Do we pull the wool over their eyes?  Do we get them to vote one way or the other?

So when I look at the mainstream media, I see bad news and doom-and-gloom everywhere.  But when I do some of my own digging (and yes, listening to conservative talk radio some of the time) I find mention of facts that were conveniently left out of the doom-and-gloom headlines. 

I mentioned GDP in my economic treatise, and how it’s traditionally been the measure of what a recession is, and then Dave2 let me know that sane and modern economists don’t use that measure any more.  I was unaware of this.  After all, I don’t read the economist, where they say we’ve been in a recession since last year because they’re going to choose to use GDP per head instead of GDP for the nation.  Ok, they choose that metric instead; fair enough, I suppose.

If we can’t look at GDP, can we look at unemployment?  I can spin with the best of them.  What would this graph of our unemployment rates for the last 6 years make you think?

Maybe that unemployment is at near record lows right now for the last, what, 6 years?  This is straight from the US Dept of Labor Bureau of Statistics.  (I’m using http://www.tradingeconomics.com for the neat graphs.)

What about this graph depicting the job gains and losses per month?

This shows, in hundreds of thousands, how many new jobs (in yellow) per month there were in the US and now many less jobs (in red) per month there were.  This is for an 8.5 year span, basically from a year before Bush took office until right now.

Some might look at this and say - holy crap, Bush took office in early 2001 and “look what he did” to the job market.  That looks like more than a million jobs lost!  Or maybe you could look at the graph as a whole and notice how much more the numbers are in the yellow and it’s only for the last 4 months that the job losses were negative, and they’re WAY less negative than in 2001-2003. 

April 2008’s job losses were what, 20K?  There were more than a million new jobs in 2007 alone.  In fact, I don’t think we’ve had job loss since 2003.  So we’ve had millions new people get jobs in each of the years 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007, and we’re worried about a couple dozen thousand? 

How come these “sane” economists aren’t giving us the full story?  No, instead, they say “we’re in our fourth straight month of job loss” and they use the 80,000 number and the 20,000 number in the headline to SCARE people.  Why didn’t they do a headline in November 2005 saying “359,000 more people found jobs last month“?  Or in March 2007 saying “259,000 less people looking for jobs“.  I’ll tell you why.  Because it’s POSITIVE news.  The news agencies hates positive news.

So maybe we should look at interest rates?  Here’s the overnight, 2yr and 10yr interest rates over Bush’s term so far

I’ll be frank - I have absolutely no clue what this really means.  All I know is that it was probably a really good idea to borrow money between end of 2001 and beginning of 2005, a bad idea to borrow money from 2005 to 2008, and now it’s a good idea to borrow money again.  Is that about right?

What I *do* gather, is the following.

• More people have jobs than ever before
• Lots of people spend what they shouldn’t (the credit crunch)
• Lots of people gambled on buying houses they shouldn’t (subprime debacle)
• Those people who gambled on buying houses they shouldn’t (with “interest only” loans, no less), now faced with either losing their house or going deeper in debt buying more things they shouldn’t, ended up trying to get a bailout and complaining that they’re stuck in the mess they put themselves in.
• The democratic nominees think that one way to fix this is to take away more money from successful Americans (raising taxes and a windfall profits tax)

Maybe we need some social networking site that allows people / bloggers to counter the headlines seen across the nation.  When someone claims “20,000 jobs lost in April” in a headline, something like digg or reddit allows people to point to it and expose more of the data.  Maybe it should be called perspect or wholestory.com or something, I don’t know.  I just wish it were easier for people to get MORE data without it being condensied into the headline the masses depend on for their daily opinion. 

As far as who owns the influential news sources, your claim is news to me (pardon the pun).  I didn’t know CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC and CBS were owned by conservatives (you didn’t say that; I’m inferring it).  I’ll have to check it out, but I can’t guarantee the timeline in which I do.  My quick searches resulted in a left-leaning list so far and how the Jews own it all, whatever THAT means.

You might think I’m crazy, but even crazy people are right some of the time.  A broken analog clock is right twice a day.  A blind squirrel sometimes finds a nut.  The nation elected Carter  in 1976, for Pete’s sake.  But neither Obama nor Clinton can handily beat McCain by themselves.  So they’re going to have to pair up.

Or maybe they’ll have an “Oprah moment” and go with “O!” but make it “OH 2008!” as their campaign.

I must say, that has a nice ring to it.  If they end up using this idea, I want some royalties.  I don’t need money, but if they just exempt me from all the new taxation they’d bring, I’ll be happy.  With a Democrat-controlled Congress, there’s no limit to all the things they can “get done”!

Wait, I got it!  HillObama 2008!

Anything with “bama” in it HAS to be good…

And thanx to NYCWD for this photo, which clinches it:

Well, those of you in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont… you can vote.  It’s been a long time since a Texan’s vote counted, and we have so much crossover voting and assumptions going on, it’s hard to make heads or tails of it.

Polls say one thing and reality is often another.  Why do we even allow polls anyway?  Or better put, why do people believe or trust polls?  They’re wrong so often.  There’s that Zogby poll that showed Obama ahead of Hillary by as much as 13 percentage points and then lost by 10 percentage points.  There’s the other one that showed the two neck and neck but Obama won handily.

Stop trusting polls!

And then there are the things that don’t get into the mainstream news.  Some of it has no place, granted, but I’ve collected some stories I’ve learned over the last couple of weeks here for your review as you consider who to vote for.

• McCain is very old.
  Ok, maybe you’ve heard that already.  Reagan was older when he started his second term, but still, McCain is pretty old.  But as Reagan said he wouldn’t hold Mondale’s youth and inexperience against him back in 1984, maybe McCain should play the same cards.  With both Hillary *and* Obama, because you can say “35 years of experience” all you want, but Hillary is just not presidential with her experience.  I will say that Obama’s lack of baggage is something I can support.  I’m not for life-long politicians in general.  Our founding fathers were business owners first and politicians begrudgingly.
• One of Hillary’s biggest financial supporters is Wal*Mart
  I don’t care one way or another.  But Hillary supporters who hate Wal*Mart might want to know this.  Even though she “returned $5,000 contribution” last year.
• Obama’s middle name is Hussein
  But who gives a flying pancake?  And who cares if he was in a turban? There are some who think he might be the antichrist and closely portrays the AC depicted in the Left Behind series.  But I’d lend more credence to the thought of “fear-mongering” if people are trying to get his middle name mentioned at any cost.  Some of the claims are downright creative and insane ”Barack = Iraq, Hussein = Saddam Hussein, Obama = Osama” and the adding up of his name = 666 (so does Reagan’s).  I will say this though: his ties with Louis Farrakhan and his ability to totally entrance people with his speech with very little substance behind it does scare me, antichrist-like or not.  I also don’t like his association with Dorothy Tillman and the thought of a potential lawsuit against US for “slavery reparations” paid to African Americans, just because they’re African Americans.  Sure, Obama was against these reparations before elected to Senate, but has since changed his mind.
• If you attack “big oil”, you attack yourself and other middle class Americans
  A friend sent me a link to this article by Ben Stein and even I didn’t know this stuff.  Essentially, Hillary keeps attacking “big oil” and the $40b or whatever profits Exxon Mobil made, but 99% of those profits go into pension funds, money markets, and stock portfolios of average Americans, NOT billionnaires sitting in the back counting their money. So if Hillary wants to go in and take their profits like she’s alluding to, she’s really stabbing hard-working americans in the back pocketbook.  If you have a 401K or IRA or any kind of savings plan, you might want to look to see how “big oil” has prevented your savings from going to nothing.
• Don’t be fooled by Democrats wanting to “stick it to the rich”
  As mentioned in a post last week, seven of the eight richest CEO’s have 100% of their political donations going to the Democrats.   I believe that both Hillary and Obama will actually be sticking it to the middle class by way of taxing us into bankruptcy.  McCain isn’t any better here, either.
• Can the economy afford more entitlements?
  I wish I had more time to research this and really understand the numbers.  I know it might sound backwards, but I don’t think that a hard economy means more handouts.  I think a tough economy means those who are working need to keep more of their paychecks.  By doing that, the hard-working Americans can afford to buy more, spend more and stimulate the economy.  By taxing the hard-working American an increased amount (which McCain, Obama and Hillary are all likely to do), you limit what they can spend and instead someone is promising to send it to someone else, but in the form of entitlement.  Entitlement doesn’t help the economy because it just takes from person A and gives to person B.  If the money is in person A’s wallet, it can go with person A to the grocery store or the hardware store or the furniture store, pay for goods and services, and then create a job for person B.
• Tons of people are cross-voting
  At least, they’re calling into the radio stations and saying they did so.  Lots of Republicans have now voted Democratic in the primary and put their vote in for Hillary because they think McCain can beat her easily.  As I mentioned last week, this was up for debate but the idea of it left me feeling icky.  So while I didn’t do this, I know tons of people are.  I’m planning on going to the Republican Caucas tonight.

Anyway, happy voting!

Fairness in Voting - The Texas Ethics question 

I kind of have an ethics question.  By “kind of” I mean, I think I already know what I’m going to do, but the topic has been on my mind lately so I thought I’d stir up the pot a little in my little corner of cyberspace and get your opinion on it.

I’m in Texas.  Texas is having it’s primaries next week (March 4th, 2008).  Obama and Clinton are in a tight race, although it seems Obama has been getting a ton more endorsements in recent days.  Both candidacies recognize how important Texas and Ohio are for delegates to secure the nomination.

McCain pretty much has the Republican nomination wrapped up (as far as I can tell).  It’s not like he needs just one more vote.

Take a look into my brain and see my thoughts on the matter:

If I vote for McCain, then I’m speaking out my voice for a candidate who will already likely be the nominee.  Is there someone listening to my thoughts?  Oh, never mind. Where was I?  Oh yeah, voting.  I’m hungry.  Anyway, I *really* don’t want Hillary as President, and I’m relatively certain that McCain could beat Hillary hands-down in an election.  I’m really hungry.  Will I do ok in my first Guitar Hero tournament tomorrow?  I don’t know.  Stop thinking about that, there are people listening to us now.  Back to voting dilemma.  I don’t know if McCain could beat Obama, and I don’t want HIM as President either.  Maybe if I vote for Hillary in the primary, it’ll help her win the nomination and then McCain could beat her in the general election.  I wonder if they’ll serve food at the GH tournament?  It is a restaurant / pool hall / bar type of place, and they have good food.  Mmmm, food.  Hey, Kirstie Alley? How’d YOU get in here?  Hold on a sec, lemme get rid of these voyeurs…

On one hand, I don’t want Hillary to be President.  On the OTHER hand, I *really* don’t want Hillary to be President!  If I vote for her, and she gets nomination, and McCain beats her, then I’ve helped my cause.  But if for some unforeseen reason, she DOES get elected President (McCain goofs, lies, or dies), then I will have helped the one thing I don’t want to happen.

And I don’t think I could take that.  Even though according to at least one survey I’ve taken, I’m more in line with Hillary than Obama.

Fairness in Advertising - the Class Envy Card

The second part of this post is Fairness in Advertising.  Obama has a semi-famous radio spot and TV ad in which he says “some CEO’s make more in 10 minutes than our average workers make in a year.”

That really doesn’t seem fair - and for many reasons.

First, he’s promoting class envy.

Second, he’s conveniently leaving out other rich folks, like Oprah, sports figures, and movie stars.  If he were more fair, he wouldn’t be targeting just rich CEO’s (who are evidently easy to hate).

Third, the math seems way off.  The poverty level for a family of 4 is 20K/yr.  If a CEO made that much in 10 minutes, that would make his annual salary 1.05 billion dollars.  I’ve never heard of a CEO making more than a billion dollars in salary.  Even if you throw in bonus and stock.  But maybe *my* math is off, and maybe I’ve been living under a rock.  I’ll try to give benefit of the doubt and make some adjustments:

• I’ll move to 2007’s definition of poverty level for 1 person instead of family of 4 ($10,210)
• I’ll assume the 10 minutes means out of a 40 hr work week
• I’ll remove weekends and holidays from the calculation
• 40 hrs = 2400 minutes; 5 days a week * 52 weeks - 3 wks vacation = 245 work days per year
• These “rich CEO’s” therefore make $2.45 million per day, or $600 million per year

I did a little searching on how much CEO’s make in a year (total compensation) and the one I found real quick was Forbes’ richest Executives list for 2004, and the top person was Mark Reuben w/$147m, then George David at $70m, Richard Fuld at $67m, etc.  This doesn’t seem to jive with the above numbers.  I went to 2005’s numbers and the top guy (Terry Semel with Yahoo) was at $230m.

Ooh, wait, I did find someone.  Steve Jobs, who claimed to take  a $1 paycheck, actually took the top CEO pay spot at $646 million for 2006.  I finally found someone Obama was talking about!  And  you know what, I STILL DON’T CARE!  I’m *glad* Jobs made a ton of money - he deserves it!  He’s brilliant, savvy, creative and I’m afraid to say, very good looking.  Good for him!

But if Obama is going to promote class envy, maybe he should even the stakes a little.  I wonder how well his ads would do if he made mention of any of the following:

• Michael Jordan makes more in one Ball Park Franks Hot Dog ad than the average working American makes all year.
• Tiger Woods makes more in one round of golf than 10 IT Directors’ salaries combined.
• Oprah Winfrey makes more in 1 minute of her show than the average worker in America
• Simon Cowell makes more per insult than an average firefighter in an entire year.

What, they’re saying the same thing… right? 

And here’s the second talk-back section

I recently read the108’s post on “How to save the world,” and it references recent studies, books and papers comparing the actual cost of the Iraq War (claimed to be $2 tillion) and how much it would cost to complete specific projects that, although sounding impossible in nature, might have an actual price tag and could be achieved if only the money were spent on it.  I saw the same article by the Kielburgers first published by the Toronto Star, and although neither article had references I could check, I’ll proceed with the assumption that the numbers are accurate.  Besides, the discussion isn’t about the accuracy of the numbers, it’s about the appropriation of funds.

The projects and price tags mentioned include:

• Eliminating extreme poverty around the world ($135b)
• Achieving universal literacy ($5b/yr)
• Immunize every child, everywhere ($1b/yr)
• Fighting AIDS epidemic ($15b/yr)

As I composed my comment on the blog, after a while I realized it was just.. too.. long.. for.. a comment.  So I put it here instead.

Read the108’s article first.  Then come back here.  I’ll wait.

(time passes)

Ok, welcome back.  I’ve put my thoughts in the extended entry, below

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We take a break from the normal Valentine’s Day messages you’re probably reading on the blogs and present to you an important safety issue. 

I don’t think our country can take any more Ill Eagles.

Please don’t get me wrong.  I’m not against immigrants.  I’m not against non-white races.  I couldn’t care less what someone’s heritage, home country, gender, or religion is, when it comes to sizing up someone’s worth.  I think the actions of a person speak louder than their skin color.

Reverse Discrimination

I know that as a white male, I get unfairly judged before I’m heard.  I already know the prejudices that abound in our nation - as soon as a white male such as myself speaks out about something illegal, he’s branded a racist pig.  I don’t think people can see the real me because of the blinders they have on because of my skin color.  “He’s white and male, so he’s probably rich too.”  “Just look at him, over there in his mightier-than-thou whiteness, whitening up the place like some whitey.”  “I bet he hates non-whites, because you can just tell; he’s white.”  “Of course he hates immigrants; all the powerful people don’t like letting go of power, like all those white people do.”

Therefore, I’m very used to having people assume all sorts of untrue things about me when I have an opinion about the law. I’m used to people misunderstanding when I say something like “if it’s illegal, then maybe we should stop it” and instead hearing “round up all the hispanics because we don’t want them here.” 

There must be some global translator somewhere turning the phrase “let’s secure our borders” into “I hate Mexicans.” 

And it’s not just happening to me.  Everywhere, people are performing all sorts of lexibotomies, removing some words from our vernacular in favor of other NEW words.  Words that don’t hurt so much.  All of a sudden, the term “illegal” is so… so… offensive to people.  So the phrase “illegal immigrant“ is changed here and there to “undocumented worker.”  Or “unauthorized migrant.”  Or “paperless immigrant.”  And I’m reduced to being a racist when I use the proper term “illegal alien” as though I were being insensitive, rude and callous by calling a spade a spade.  Soon they’ll be called “oppressed immigrants” or “valuable unclassified asset“.  Shoot, why don’t the politicians who want them here illegally just call them “next generation entitlement-hungry voters?”  Heck, let’s just call them “liberal meal ticket.“  You think 20 million votes wouldn’t sway any election one specific way?

Look at this quote from the paper.  How much you wanna bet the guy said “illegal alien” and the reporter decided to omit the word and put in a “better” word instead.

Why stop there?  Maybe we should eliminate the horribly and incredibly offensive word “murderer” from our vocabulary.  Doesn’t that word offend you?  Doesn’t it shock you?  Isn’t it an ugly word?  Maybe we can refer to people who take other people’s lives from now on as “life un-enablers.”  After all, they’re just un-enabling someone from using their life force - the word “murder” is so harsh and condescending.  We don’t need to be passing judgment with our words, now do we?  How insensitive!

You’re too good at your job so stop doing it

So you might guess that I was more than shocked at the outrage displayed locally in Austin at Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton’s GALL at actually putting in the resources to - get this - catch people doing illegal things.

Imagine this scenario:

• Police bring in someone doing a crime.  Maybe it’s a DWI, maybe it’s theft.  Maybe it’s a murder.  Who knows? 
• They are brought to jail.
• The person has no ID.  They have no fingerprints.  They have no verifiable identity in the States at all.
• The person gives some unverifiable name.
• The person stays in jail a while.
• The person might get set free; might not.

What Sheriff Greg Hamilton did is offer up a single desk for ICE (federal immigration agents) to be there when suspects are charged and booked, so that they can check if the person brought in is an illegal immigrant.  These agents already have a job and already do their job.  Hamilton just wants to help them do their job and save time and money.  They’re not profiling and they’re not going out to “find illegals” (even though that’s their job).   You should see the debate and community response.  He just wants it easier for the in-house check to be done when someone is brought in and charged with a crime.

Hmm…. “crime.”  That’s another one of those harsh words that conjures up horrible thoughts and shouldn’t be used, lest we offend the criminals.  Maybe we should use “lawbreaker” - oh wait, no that sounds even worse!   In the video, one of the people against the agents having a 24×7 space in the jail says, quote “what they’re gonna be doing now, is checking them, even before they’re convicted.”  WHAT?  The guy is against checking if someone is a criminal (illegal immigrant) before we convict them of another crime they’ve commited?  What is going on here?

Am I a racist? 

Maybe I’m a little upset at some of this.  Maybe I *am* racist.  If I were, could I really tell?  Maybe you can help me decide.

Here’s another scenario:

• Recently in Austin, a 5yr old boy was kidnapped right out of the back seat of his family’s car around 7:45am
• Witnesses described 2 hispanics in white hooded sweatshirts w/orange flames snatching the boy and putting him into a nearby volkswagon and driving off with 2 other hispanics.
• A HUGE state-wide Amber Alert was sounded and caused hundreds of tips to come in (the amber alert is an all-out blitz on radio, TV, huge highway signs, etc).
• The family received two anonymous calls demanding $300,000 for the safe return of the child.
• The boy was later found safe about 12 hours later by a man taking out his trash that night around 8pm.  It is presumed that the quick action of the Amber Alert freaked out the kidnappers into giving up their plans.

Welcome back home, Adrian.  I hope you weren’t too scared during your ordeal.  My thoughts and prayers went out to you as I heard of your horrendous day, and willed you to get home safe. 

What these stories DON’T tell you is that the kidnapper (Modesto Vences-Garcia) is the cousin of the boy’s father.

What these stories OMIT FROM THE NEWS is that the kidnapper is an illegal alien (oops, sorry, um, I meant unverifiable tissue mass)

What the stories DON’T mention is that the kidnapper had been in jail no less than three other times on other charges.  He has warrants on drug possession, drunk driving, and immigration violations.

Now I’m sure someone out there is going to say I’m a racist for bringing up that he’s illegal.  Please, bring it on.

Someone tell me how it’s racist or unfair to have stopped this thug the FIRST time he was brought into jail and have him deported.   Explain to me how it’s profiling when we take criminals and remove them from our society.

I apologize for the political bent and the abnormal passion I’m displaying towards this topic.  Oh wait, no I don’t.  I don’t apologize for my reaction to KIDNAPPING or REPEAT OFFENDERS or WANTING TO STOP CRIME from impacting my family.

Anyone for some levity?  Anyone got a lighter side?  My favorite recently was…

He was only doing the kidnapping that Americans won’t do.   (posted by Dov)

Call to Action 

How do you feel on this topic?  As you can tell, I feel pretty strongly.  I want to voice my support for Sheriff Greg Hamilton and I invite you to do the same.

In a similar vein, I submitted a “correction” form to Austin American-Statesman, control number 2008021403060224775 stating the following:

In many of your stories, you refer to illegal aliens or illegal immigrants as “undocumented worker” or “undocumented immigrant” or “paperless immigrant.” This is incorrect. They are _illegal_. Please refer to them appropriately in your news stories. To define new words is to distort the news and effectively lie to the public. I believe you to be intentionally playing down the importance of the criminal activity going on with illegal immigration. Laws are being broken and your paper is painting a picture of someone simply being “undocumented.” They are here illegally. They are breaking the laws.

I bet if they got an influx of letters and emails about the same thing, perhaps they’d stop lying. 

Politics
pahl-uh-tiks : from Latin; “poly” meaning many, and “tics” meaning blood-sucking parasites.

I don’t know why I have politics on the brain so much lately. One of the surest ways to lose reader interest would be to blog about politics. The only way to help stave off reader abandonment would be to A) make something about the post unique, B) create controversy, and C) point out ahead of time that you risk losing readers due to the topic and that you have a plan to avoid it.

The cool thing about controversy is you not only get interest from people who agree (heck YEAH! Man, youtellitbruthah!), you also get the dissenters and people who vehemently disagree (you pusillanimous piece of putrid pediddledom how could you think that?!?!). I call that a win-win.

Now onto the predictions. You’ve probably heard of certain ‘facts’ about presidential elections. “As goes Ohio, so goes the nation” is one of them, in that no President has ever been elected that didn’t first secure a nomination from Ohio. Another is a common rule that the taller candidate wins, although Bush/Gore in 2004 was a notable (and somewhat emotional) exception.   Another indicator is approval ratings, which also took a hit in the last election, but still has a strong track record.

So are we really deciding?  Or are fates decided beforehand, based on other factors? 

These kinds of ‘fact figures’ are extremely common in sports, and millions of people not only trust them inherently, they also strive to memorize as many as possible. People go monkey-bonkers over seemingly over-the-top stats such as ‘this running back ran for over 100 yards in any home game on a pre-season sunday that also had an odd number date and when it rained the previous two Saturdays’. Just listening to the commentators rattle off these things is mind-blowing when you think about the computational power and database it must take to keep track of the stuff. And what gets me is — people care about them!

Some stats are definitely worthwhile. After enough time, a stat gains strength and starts to become a trend.  A trend, if it is nurtured and weathers the hard times, can grow up and become worthy of prediction.

The trick is to identify which stats and trends are an actual sign of probabilty and not just errant data points.

I invite you to read the extended entry (below) for more interesting facts that might help us predict the next president based on astrological data.  Hint: Romney loses.

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I read recently that the Reason Foundation, a non-profit group asked the presidential hopefuls if they would sign on to the following idea - the Oath of Presidential Transparency:

If elected president, I will issue an executive order instructing the entire executive branch to make its spending data available to an online search engine.

Whoa - what a concept, eh?  Being able to pore through and see where all our taxpayer’s money is being spent?  It kind of sounds interesting - I mean, as a stockholder in a public company, I’m entitled to see reports on spending, income, etc.  Why not in the most public company of all?

To be fair, I can see some items needing protection in the interest of national security, but in general, I would think the more people are aware of where money is going, the more they’ll care where money is going.  If nothing else, it would reveal pork spending, “earmarks,” and maybe as a result politicians wouldn’t be so hungry to appease lobbyists if they knew their financial decisions were available for all to see.

What do YOU think?  Do you care where our money is spent? 

btw, so far, the following candidates have signed the oath:

• Barack Obama
• Ron Paul
• Sam Brownback
• Mike Gravel
• Dennis Kucinich

I already had many reasons to like Obama over Hillary, but this is yet another.  I wonder if McCain has the cajones to follow suit?

I saw this on Poppy’s place so I thought to myself… “maybe I should delve deeper into my own actual beliefs and see where the candidates stand.”  I really haven’t done ANY issues research on any of the candidates, and have been mostly relying on party lines to help me nudge one way or another, and I figured I’d check out the issues in more depth after the nominees were chosen. 

Pick your 2008 Candidate For President

About the only things I’ve learned over the last two weeks from the caucus and primary were:

1. I like Huckabee more than I thought I would, after seeing him speak.  To me, he looks like a cross between an older Kevin Spacey and a younger Richard Nixon.  Anyone else see this, or is it just me?
2. I liked Obama a LOT more than I thought I would, especially after hearing him speak.  I trust him.  He doesn’t seem to carry the typical political baggage with him.
3. Mitt Romney seems like an arrogant and corrupt fool just another typical politician.
4. Fred Thompson seems to be a lot smarter than I ever thought he could be, but a lot less presidential.  He seems like someone who actually needs to work on the plans and implement them, NOT be the officeholder.   He’d probably be a decent Vice President - less of the spotlight and more of the internal leadership and intelligence to get things done.
5. The Fair Tax is more important than ever to try to support and create awareness about.
6. McCain seems quite accomplished, capable, experienced, calm and I wouldn’t have a problem with his age, especially if he picks a great Vice President who can rise to President in 4 years.  McCain/Huckabee or McCain/Thompson for example.
7. I don’t see how Rudy could be qualified for the national position after being just a Mayor.  Governors seem to have a monopoly on Presidential career stepping stones.  Rudy should go for Governor and then President if it works out.
8. Edwards seems like the same old politician to me he’s always been, and don’t feel like I could trust him at all.  Issues aside, trust is all-important.  What point someone’s stance, if the stance changes based on a poll or the audience they’re speaking to?
9. I’m paying a lot more attention to where lobbyist’s attentions are placed.
10. Hillary is still… well, Hillary.  I have definite trust issues with her.  While I have no problem with a female President, it shouldn’t be THIS female.

Here are my results.  Note: I wrote the above list BEFORE taking the quiz.

So, this surprises me some.  Before this, I probably would have rated it Huckabee, McCain, Obama, Paul, Thompson.  But the quiz doesn’t take into account my polarizing issues, like my distrust for Romney or my “right choice” issue for Thompson.

Now, what would be nice for this quiz to do for poor little ol’ me would be to display all the questions again, with my answers, and show by candidate how much that candidate agreed or disagreed with me on that specific issue.  Then I could probably tweak the “care / don’t care” button as I re-discovered more about my own beliefs around the issues.