Citizen of the World

Today Obama spoke in Berlin (see video below).

McCain was quick to disparage Obama on calling himself a "citizen of the world" stating that "John McCain serves America."  

Lest we forget, Presidents Kennedy, Bush, and Reagan have also called themselves citizens of the world.  Cheap shot, Johnny.  

I consider myself to be an American, but also a citizen of the world.  What happens in China, Iraq, or Mexico can affect us all and we must not forget that fact.

Speaking of American citizens, is John McCain even a natural born citizen?  

The Death of Wikipedia?

Today Google made Knol public.  Knol is like Wikipedia except that it is for profit (both the authors of articles as well as Google make money from ads displayed).  

I tried it out and have to say I like the interface better than Wiki already.  

I also went ahead and created the first Knol article on our next president.  

You can view it here.  

It's time for some campaignin'

Jib Jab is back.

What we can learn from India

The world's biggest democracy is corrupt, there's no doubt about it, but the description of their problems is shockingly similar to our own situation:

"India's public campaign-finance laws are not enforced, and candidates are regularly backed by donors and corporations that expect favors in return."

Our public campaign finance laws are not enforced either.  Case in point: McCain violated his own campaign finance laws.

Our any of our politicians backed by large donors?  Who do you think helped elect George W. Bush?  

Oil prices down 15%

Oil prices have dropped by over 15% in the past 2 weeks.  While this is good for the stock market (my 401k is up by thousands in the past couple days), we can't ignore the fact that oil is still 4 times the price it was just a few years ago.  

Gas my be under $4 now, but its not time to buy a new pickup truck.  

McCain: Worse than Bush?

Hopefully we will never know the answer to the title of this post, but in order to inform the undecided, we need to visit this issue.  Would a McCain presidency be worse than Bush?  

When George W. Bush was first elected president in 2000, we were at the peak of the internet boom.  The business cycles has since been on a downward spin, most likely because we have not had a positive technological shock since the dot.com boom of the late 90's.  Whether we will have another such shock in the next 8 years is anyone's guess, but it is likely as these cycles run over 15-20 years.  

No matter if Bush or Gore was elected president, we would likely have faced a minor recession sometime over the past 8 years.  What would not have been predicted, however, is the massive cost of the Iraq War, which has been a major factor in the spike in oil prices, the fall of the dollar, and the loss of our rights to privacy, jury, and other freedoms.  

How would John McCain or Barack Obama confront such issues?

When it comes to the Iraq War, currently McCain is more gung-ho about it than even George Bush.  While the White House has recently flirted with the idea of setting a vague timetable for withdrawal, McCain remains steadfast that we should maintain permanent bases in Iraq, against the wishes of the Iraqis and more than 50% of Americans.  McCain's wishes would likely lead to at least a $1,000,000,000 level of spending over his presidency, from this issue alone.  

When it comes to oil prices, McCain favors "offshore drilling" and not much else.  Offshore drilling was already allowed, oil companies did not choose to partake in it.  All Bush just did was open up some more areas.  That point is moot, since we do not have enough refineries to keep up with this, so even if we did strike oil (this would take 5-10 years), we would have to have it made into gasoline by another country and then re-import it.  Even conservative oil-man T Boone Pickens does not see oil as the future.  Instead, he proposes we use a combination of wind power and natural gas.  I also think that geothermal power, nuclear power, and solar power have to be added to the first two to be our new backbone of electricity, which could power a new generation of vehicles.  McCain talks about alternative energies, but seems to be continuing Bush's legacy of paying lip service to alternatives while just drilling for more oil to further fuck up our planet.

McCain worse than Bush?  Maybe, but hopefully we will never know the answer.

Army loses powerful recruiter

Today the Army likely lost a powerful recruiter: the Detroit Lions.

In April, the Lions drafted Caleb Campbell in the seventh round. Unlike any other player drafted in recent memory, Caleb attends West Point. At the time, the Dept of Defense had indicated that if the safety was drafted, he would be allowed to serve his committment as a recruiter, while playing for a team. So the Lions drafted him at 218 overall.

The Dept of Defense has now reconsidered its policy and says that Campbell must remain in the Army until at least 2010.

This is a big mistake. The Army often struggles with its public image; having a potential NFL player as an official recruiter is bound to get at least a few kids to sign up.

Now, instead of having his dream fulfilled of being in the NFL, Campbell could now be sent to Iraq. Also, since the Army went back on its word, it looks even more disengenuous to the public at large.

And what standout high school football star is going to go to West Point now and play his heart out?

Dark Knight a fantastic movie

The Dark Knight is a fantastic movie, all of the buzz surrounding it is well deserved.  Without a doubt, this is the best Batman movie ever.  Go see it.