Two Things That I Hate About Politics

1. When someone labels someone as a liberal/conservative as if that were something dangerous:

"John mentioned me being wildly liberal. Mostly that's just me opposing George Bush's wrong headed policies since I've been in Congress but I think it is that it is also important to recognize I work with Tom Coburn, the most conservative, one of the most conservative Republicans who John already mentioned to set up what we call a Google for government saying we'll list every dollar of federal spending to make sure that the taxpayer can take a look and see who, in fact, is promoting some of these spending projects that John's been railing about."

- Barack Obama, Sept. 26th, 2008 in the First Presidential Debate

I would say that's a pretty good explanation and rebuttal by Obama after being defined as the most liberal voter in the Senate...

2. Somehow if you wear a US flag lapel pin, then you're patriotic:

Studies show that wearing a lapel pin is not correlated to levels of patriotism. Nor are middle names. 

Death and Taxes: McCain/Obama

I thought this was interesting...

In the latest AC360 podcast:

Income OBAMA MCCAIN

38-66K -$1042 -$319
66-112K -$1,290 -$1,009

227-603K +$12 -$7,871
603K+ +$115,974 -$45,361**

For each income bracket, shown is the difference per capita under the Obama and McCain tax plans versus Bush's current tax cuts. Negative amounts mean persons under that income bracket would pay less, whereas positive amounts mean an increase in taxes.

What first struck me is that the 603K+ bracket would be paying anywhere from 10-16% more on their taxes under Obama and 4-8% less under McCain. That's a huge swing. But notice the upper middle class tax bracket; they would be paying about $1,000 less in taxes under both Obama and McCain. This income bracket contains about 20% of the population and would be getting the same tax relief under both candidates. Interesting, considering that liberals love to attack the other side for not giving enough tax relief to those not in the top 2% in income. However, while Obama's plan would increase government revenue by 600 billion dollars, McCain's plan would decrease government revenue by approximately the same amount. 

Anyone with info on what the total revenue difference for each income bracket from the Bush Administration would be?

From the Tax Policy Center:

"The two candidates' tax plans would have sharply different distributional effects. Senator McCain's tax cuts would primarily benefit those with very high incomes, almost all of whom would receive large tax cuts that would, on average, raise their after-tax incomes by more than twice the average for all households. Many fewer households at the bottom of the income distribution would get tax cuts and those tax cuts would be small as a share of after-tax income. In marked contrast, Senator Obama offers much larger tax breaks to low- and middle-income taxpayers and would increase taxes on high-income taxpayers. The largest tax cuts, as a share of income, would go to those at the bottom of the income distribution, while taxpayers with the highest income would see their taxes rise significantly."

** Source: Tax Policy Center on AC360 Podcast

What Does 'Country First' Mean?

During the Republican National Convention, I saw a plethora of "Country First" signs. 'Country First' being the foil to Obama's 'Change" mantra. However, McCain has been little helpful defining this motto, and I think it raises the question: what does 'Country First' actually mean?

Does it mean focus on domestic issues rather than foreign policy? Are we going to enact a policy of non-interventionism around the world again? Are we going to focus solely on steadying the highly erratic economy?

Or does it mean we should focus on moral and traditional issues like abortion, capital punishment, taxes, etc.?

I took the liberty to email the McCain campaign about this to find out just what they're talking about. I'll post their response soon!

It's easy to confuse one lame football program with another

Apparently some paratroopers got Kenan Stadium confused with Wallace Wade yesterday...

Duke officials were a bit surprised when, at 6 p.m. Saturday, about an hour before the scheduled kickoff, two men parachuted into the Wallace Wade Stadium and landed at the 35-yard line with a game ball.

Problem was, the Blue Devils — who were warming up along with opponent James Madison — weren't expecting it.

“All we know is, they must have missed their jump site,” a team official said.

And they did — because the jump site was meant to be eight miles away.

North Carolina was scheduled to receive its game ball via aerial team at about that time in Chapel Hill. According to UNC assistant athletics director for promotions Michael Beale, the plane was in the air, but the jumpers from Virginia-based Aerial Adventures opted to cancel the leap into Kenan Stadium because of a bad weather front — which eventually delayed both games.

Evidently, when the clouds eventually opened, the pilot thought they were over the correct stadium, and the skydivers jumped — only realizing when they landed that they were in the wrong place.

The two men immediately scrambled off the field with the game ball. When UNC associate athletics director Rick Steinbacher was informed by a reporter of what had happened, he immediately called Duke officials to confirm the miscue, and offer his apologies.

“In about five years, maybe this will be funny,” Steinbacher said.

“Right now, I'm just glad no one was hurt.”

Thanks to the Charlotte Observer for the story: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/story/163718.html

To review:
Duke













and UNC:

Your Four Second Video...

The Internet is so awesome. I mean, whenever, I take a movie of something, I just instantly think , "Wow, I'll just post this on Youtube or Facebook."

But then I actually watch it when:
A) the hilarity of the event wears off.
B) I'm not inebriated.
Whichever comes first.

And I'll think to myself...Does anybody really care about a four second video clip that I shot that doesn't focus on a face/involves the line "Are you shooting a video?" ?

Fortunately, there's a lot of normal people out there who think exactly along these lines. Kudos to you! But for the 1% of the population that doesn't think past "Wow, I'll just post this on Youtube!", I just got a four second preview to the drunk New Year's Eve video I'm going to direct this year.

Copperhill, TN.

After getting really really sick of my music so far this summer, I've decided to switch it up a bit. I've been listening to a few podcasts, mostly news, but some others also.
The CNN Anderson Cooper 360 podcast is up there as one of the better ones. Unfortunately, I happened to catch today's segment about Obama myths, i.e. he's a Muslim, yada yada yada.

I'm kind of surprised at the way people talk about Obama regardless of whether they're voting for him or whether they know anything about him. Case in point, CNN did a special report about Muslim myths about Obama in Copperhill, TN (aka Smalltown, USA):

What concerns you about Barack Obama?

The safety of our country if Obama gets in. I do -- he is a Muslim, and I'm very concerned about that.

The fact is, he says he's not a Muslim. He says he's a Christian.

Yes, I know what he says. (Laughter)

(bold type is reporter; italics interviewee)

So we just had a normal citizen say that not only does she not believe what Obama says his religion is, but that religion is dangerous. Assumptions:

1) Obama is a Muslim.
2) Muslims are dangerous as politicians because they wouldn't secure the country.
3) Obama, as a politician, will lie about his religion just to get votes.

Wow. 12% still believe that Obama is a Muslim, 26% think he was born a Muslim. Not that it's surprising that that many people still believe these myths, but when confronted with the truth, the fact is so ingrained in their minds they would deny the truth.

But so what if he were a Muslim, what does that really do for him in office? Would he grant visas to al-Qaeda? Sounds dangerous. Or maybe he would actually talk to Iran or another Muslim country? We shouldn't talk to enemies. I honestly think that Americans would not want to overtly acknowledge how little religion has to do with your office....