McCain The Pain

I've expressed some of my beefs dealing with Obama.  Most of which center on the messiah-esque aura given him by the media.  As a third party voter, probably for life, I have issue with McCain.  They are not as numerous as those for Obama, due in large part to the fact that the media wasn't in love with McCain the way they were for Obama.  I might feel a bit different if we got Fox News.

My first beef with McCain, and this goes for most of the Republican candidates, was the way he blew off Ron Paul during the debates.  I consistently referred to Ron Paul as the Al Sharpton of the Republican party.  He had no chance, so he felt safe to speak his mind.  He on occasion said some nutty things, but he also made valuable points.  The Republicans treated his comments with such disdain, when it appears they didn't quite understand his points.  They seemed to prefer throwing down the straw-man, because dealing with Paul's points would take too much effort.  For all his short-comings, Paul added some needed kick into the Republican race.

My other issue with McCain is his choice of Palin.. This was obviously a last ditch attempt to woo some voters.  It backfired, because McCain failed to consider the choice deeply enough.  I think he figured he was going to lose, so he might as well go out big.  Unfortunately he goes out looking somewhat foolish.  He would have been better served by selecting a running-mate who had better credentials and gone out with some honor.  I also feel a different choice would have provided him a more credible shot overall.  It became hard to take his campaign too seriously with Palin on board.  I don't doubt my opinion is somewhat colored by the SNL skits, but that's part of the picture.  I don't really care that much about the stuff being revealed post-campaign.  To me that's just dirt that doesn't matter that much.

That's pretty much it.  It's certainly easy for a cynical person like me to get more annoyed at the popular candidate.  It's probably as self-esteem issue, but I like it that way.

More on Obama

Actually this isn't so much about Obama as it is about the media adoration of Obama, AKA Obamania.  It's definitely swelled with last night's victory over McCain.  There are only a couple things things that irk me.  When people fawn over other people, I am deeply troubled.  There isn't a single person who can solve our problems and to put somebody on a pedestal like they are the messiah who will save his people does a disservice to the citizens and the object of adoration.  Granted, this election is historic and has unleashed powerful emotions from many people, understandably so.

My first issue is about the historic-ness of the event.  It is historic, though I don't like how it's been framed by some.  I keep hearing on the news how great it is we finally elected a black president.  The way it is said, it's as if we've had a black candidate in every election since the mid '60's and America finally had the moral courage to take a chance on a black man.  Obama is the first legitimate black candidate EVER!  Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have made their efforts in the past, but they never got very far.  They struggled with the fact that they were running to be black presidents.  Their appeal was mainly to black voters.  Obama reached out to all voters.  He didn't run on a 'black platform'.  There's also Alan Keyes from the Republicans, but like I said in an earlier post, I think he's nuts (the real kind).  The election is historic and I'll go with that; I just don't like the references to Obama breaking the black ceiling.  I know some voted based on his color, but that didn't carry him.  I think he really connected with a lot of people.  I don't fall in line with his philosophy and that will be an issue (that infamous spread the wealth comment just doesn't work for me).

I'm tired of being shown footage of other places in the world.  I know that people in these places may feel a connection with Obama.  It just seems that the news agencies are trying to show the US that we made the right decision, because these foreign folks are celebrating.  Honestly, I don't want their approval.  We were voting for our president, not theirs.  Getting it right is up to us to decide.  It's that I mind knowing that some people around the world are happy about the outcome, but it's being played way too much.  Along with that, I'm tired of seeing the news people near tears.  Too many are treating this like it's a holy communion.  It's an election; historic as it is.  Before we start celebrating too much, let the guy get in office and do something first.  The history doesn't count for another 20 years when there's some perspective.

That's my final post on Obama, at least for a while.  I'm not trying to be down on the man.  I do want to give him a fair chance, though philosophically we are divided.  I certainly doubt the country is going to fall apart.  It will hard to beat Bush at his own game.  I have a natural repulsion to things/people gaining overwhelming popularity.  It took me until 1.5 months ago to finally get an iPod.  I'm sure it's a personality disorder.  I will discuss McCain in a little bit.  I have less to say, because he spent so much time behind in the polls and the media didn't fawn over him that much.  His public image couldn't get under my skin as much as Obama.  I had less feeling that McCain was getting shoved down my throat.

Meet El Presidente

So we now have a new president.  I must admit I'm a little POed that the race got called before I even got back from Ryan's birthday party.  It wasn't much of a surprise.  I haven't decided how I feel overall.  I'd be torn if either candidate had won.  I guess that's the price when I prefer to not be part of an in crowd.  I think overall Obama can do a good job, but there are things that have bugged me for a while.  Most of it is the aura that seems to surround Obama.

1.  The Rock-star status he's been given.  I wrote earlier that he's treated like the messiah returning in glory to redeem the people.  I remember when he spoke in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention.  He was this big deal for not accomplishing that much.  Not that I'm in position to become a senator or anything.  He was just a state senator running for the senate against...NOBODY!!!!  I know Alan Keyes got in the race...LATE, plus that man is certifiably nuts.  To me, that's not an accomplishment that deserves the acclaim that appeared to be given to Obama.

2.  The Oprah endorsement is an issue, not that it's necessarily Obama's fault.  Oprah kind of bugs me as it is, because she promotes things like 'The Secret'.  She generally does a poor job of taking the role of Devil's Advocate, much less bringing on voices that would adequately question the notion.  If I were in Obama's position, I'd probably take the Oprah endorsement.  I'm really just bugged when it comes to Oprah, because she's never endorsed a candidate before, then all of a sudden Obama is this magical candidate.  Let me just say, if he'd been white (as opposed to half-white) Oprah would have passed over him.  As Steve Salerno has stated on his SHAM blog, this is considered racism (the idea of voting for Obama because he's black - you'll have to read the comments to get to this point).  I think Oprah would have gone with the Dem anyway, but the endorsement would have been held back.  Personally, I'm OK with Oprah endorsing Obama in a general sense, though the celebrity endorsement thing bugs me on all sides, but that's another story.  Basically, I'm bugged by the BS of Oprah trying to come off that it's not race and Obama is some transformative figure.  Maybe I'm just cynical, but that really set me BS detector off.

3. Obama does give me the same feeling I get when I see Kevin Trudeau on TV.  I think I'm just distrustful when people sound a little too positive about things.  It just doesn't seem natural to me.  A lot of it is just politics, because politicians speak in ways that make listening to their speeches like reading horoscopes.  They sound specific, but they're really general and can be applied to just about anything.  Change we can Believe in vs. Country First.  To me that's all the same and meaningless.

Overall, I'm going to give Obama a fair chance.  He does seem to have the personality where he's be open to outside information, certainly way more than Mr. Bush has been.  I think McCain would have been too closed, much more like Bush, in that area.  I think I would trust McCain's decisiveness in a crunch over Obama.  Maybe we should let Prop 8 fail, then Obama and McCain can move to Cali and have a kid who will balance these traits perfectly.  Obama's pick of Biden as a running mate was brilliant.  I wanted to give Biden a chance in the primaries, but he sunk to fast.  Obama certainly showed wisdom in his choice, where McCain showed complete desparation.

Kim asked me this weekend, for the umpteenth time (since dodge the question every time), if I could only vote for McCain or Obama, who would it be.  Usually I said something like 'I have more than two choices'.  I finally gave her a real answer and told I'd probably go with Obama.  I still stand by that and hope for the best.  I still tend to think that we're in for a one-term presidency.  We've had two 2-termers in a row and with the current situation, there's a lot on the table with extremely high expectations.

Being a third-party person, it makes it easier to accept the winner of the race.  I am really bugged by those of either party who act like the winner is not their president if he came from the opposing party.  Even if McCain had won, I'd still support him as president.  I'd piss and moan about some things, as I will with Obama.  I think I'd do the same had Bob Barr won.  I think complainers like me are necessary to keep us in from turning into dodos.

I do think the republicans made a mistake selecting McCain.  I don't think the field was that great on either side, but the republicans were pretty bad.  I wish that Ron Paul hadn't been so nutty.  He injected some great points into the debates and it's unfortunate that the other candidates didn't take some of those point more seriously.

As an aside, a fella in my toastmasters club called Palin as the running mate about a month before the announcement.  Very prophetic, if you ask me.

Anyway.  Cheers for Obama.

The Logic of Life

I finally got around to finishing another book.  It's only taken 6 weeks or so.  This last book written by Tim Harford comes from the pop-economics genre that's rising in popularity.  This genre tries to apply economic theory to other areas of life to explain why certain things happen.  In a lot of ways, it's the economics of human psychology.  This is a follow-up to Harford's previous book The Undercover Economist.  The major premise of The Logic of Life centers on the belief that people are rational.  Harford defines people who are rational as those who respond to incentives, whatever the incentive may be.

To start, Harford is a very good writer.  The topics that he covers could easily put the reader to sleep, but Harford has a writing style that keeps the subject matter interesting and meaningful.  He's obviously passionate about economics, but he is able to combine is passion with economic knowledge and the ability to communicate.

The book looks at similar kinds of things as Freakonomics, by Steven Levitt.  The highlight of the book was the chapter on marriage.  He shows how marriage has changed based on economic theory.  He even makes a case for divorce.  He doesn't necessarily advocate divorce, rather he shows how women have become empowered by work and education, and easier divorce.  This has resulted in making divorce less treacherous for women now than in the past.  Harford believes this has ultimately led to declines in domestic violence, as the woman has an out from a marriage.  Specific situations may vary, but the trend appears to exist.

Another interesting chapter is about rational racism.  This isn't where people consciously hate blacks, but where companies tend to overlook resumes of people with African-American sounding names.  This is caused by a few factors.  First, the hight number of resumes that many companies get, makes it difficult to do deep read of each resume.  Because, experience tends to show that folks with the African-American names tend to not have the required skills, generally due to lack of education, the recruiters know that a resume with a given name likely won't work.  One reason that it continues, is that it works.  It's not that it's a good thing, but companies can afford to discriminate because it doesn't affect they're competitiveness, where blatant racism (hating blacks) would.  The rational racism still allows them to get the right mix of minds.

Support for this comes from a computer simulation where students were assigned colors (green or purple) to be employees with other students as 'employers'.  The employees were to get jobs and the employers were to hire them.  Employers were to select students based on a cyber-die that were rolled for a 'test score'.  The employees had the option to get an education before each test.  Getting an education weighted the die so they had a higher probability for a hight score.  Employers were penalized for selecting employees who did not get an education.  In the end, the one color became discriminated against, because the employers learned, that color had a lower tendency to get the education.  Those employees in turned became less likely to get the education, because they knew they were being discriminated against because of their color.  It became a cycle, that at first was merely random.

Overall this is a good book.  It's one that I'll likely pick up again to reread and gain more insight.  I definitely think that better understanding economics in general, is a good idea.

Cato's Take on Obama's Health Plan

I'm not into universal health care as a policy.  I think it would be great if everybody could afford the healthcare they need.  Obama talks about Americans not wanting government to solve their problems, then he wants universal health care.  I don't want government to solve my problems, because I don't they are capable of really solving any problems in the free market.  Anyway, I thought this video was good.

Heartrending Pictures of AIDS

The pictures here are amazing and tragic. It does bring to mind 

the cruelty of life for some people made worse by many things 

out of their control. Though I feel the pictures show the impact 

of AIDS and the pain, they are still too clean. I think they still 

make AIDS look almost artistic, which I think damages the message 

a little. Kristen's storytelling, for me at least, is what makes the 

video so meaningful.

Fun with Prop 8

Halloween 1990 some friends and I went out for some halloween fun. John Haywood, a kid in our senior class, and his family were giving out money to trick-or-treaters. We decided it would be a good way to get some extra cash; just hit his house a few times and head straight for the bank. It turns out he was only giving out 1 quarter per person. It would take all night for it to be worth our while (We must have been expecting rolls off Benjamins or something). In the end we ended up just goofing off for the rest of the night. First we returned to his house and covered him in silly string. From there we went around and edited some political lawn signs. Another classmate had a dad running for the town council or some similar office. Conveniently his last name was Frick, which allowed us to be really efficient with our whiteout when we changed the name to Prick on a few signs.

In the last few weeks in California excitement has really boiled to a new level for a political season. Prop 8 has provided the most fun for halloween pranksters this year. Most common has been sign stealing; which appears to be happen mostly to pro-8 supporters, though it's occured on both sides. The most creative has been some folks who parked their SUV in front of a pro-8 supporter with "Bigots live here" written on the windows. The homeowner couldn't do much about this for three days when the police department finally towed it. There have even been reports of houses being spray painted with messages, usually against prop 8.

I am in full support of the political voice. There isn't anything more sacred in this country than the right to voice opinions, especially then it comes to the political realm. Take that away, the U.S. means nothing. I am ok with some of the "pranks". When a person feels so passionate about an issue that they would sacrifice an SUV to voice their opinion, then I'm ok with that. It's annoying and unpleasant for the resident, but they aren't taking away anybody's voice. What irks me most are the sign stealers and spray painters. As a libertarian, I support peoples right to do most anything as long as it does not directly infringe on anybody else's right. Sign stealing is a complete infringement on that right. From the news reports that I've seen, there have been some arrests for that and for the vandalism. Apparently some numbnuts have decided that they are so morally superior that resorting to damaging property is OK, because their position is the right one.

The one thing this country needs less of is the fundamentalism that keeps popping up. Whether it's from the christian right, gay left, or pick your group. What is most dangerous to effective democracy is self-righteous fundementalism. Unfortunately, it's all over the place and no once side is innocent. I'm reminded of Jon Stewart's appearance on Crossfire 4 years ago. It is this cancer that I think will upset this democracy before anything else. Enough rambling.