Waiting for another shoe to drop

Q- Why did God create economists?
A- So meteorologists would not look quite so bad.

There has been a lot of doom and gloom lately. A whole bunch of bankers and economists are now in Washington, trying to fix it. By Wednesday last week I had concluded that the Paulson plan had created more uncertainty than it resolved, and world governments were all competing now to offer the best deals for international capital for fear they would go the way of Iceland. Perhaps this weekend the uncertainty will end, although the gross distortion of the markets created by all this government activity will remain for years or decades.

"Who will get a handout? Who won't?" - has become the dominant economic thought.

Thursday's stock market took out those fears on the regional banks.

I have long advocated decentralization, local government, local ownership, and local responsibility for your actions. It's hard to look the guy you are screwing over in the eye at the behest of your faceless masters.

The course the world governments and corporations are on is the precise opposite, and when those efforts fail... ordinary people will have to pull together again for mutual support.

Some are calling for the G7 to incorporate the more successful economies of the third world. Gee, thanks for the invite to clean up the party mess....

I still believe that hyperinflation, at least in the conventional sense (1000s of percent) is impossible for the dollar. All the naysayers quote from both the Great Depression and the Weimar inflation, and in neither case were the markets so globally linked, and in the Weimar Republic case, the Mark was not backed by 12 aircraft carriers, a multitude of nuclear submarines, an uncountable number of ICBMs, and the best (if currently overstretched) air force and army in the world. Fiat currencies, backed by force, can hold up for a while.

Note that I find it depressing to have to say that. I would prefer to be saying that there was some strong sector in the US economy that would save us all, but the online advertising bubble has run its course, and nothing has shown up so far to replace it. Nanotech and solar? Maybe...

Nothing has appeared to stop this endless flow of fake money after bad. Over the past few years all the core statistics have been jiggered as to make objective evaluations of what to do invalid, much as they were in the Soviet Union before its collapse. Why not give up on GDP, and substitute some index of more use than the CPI? An orgasm index for men, and a "feelin-fine" index for women, perhaps, and a quality of life index, which would also factor in man's impact on the planet.

I desperately would like to see fish populations stop imploding for one thing, and to get better than 0 cents a word for what I write, for another. I have no idea on how to accomplish either.

Protecting house prices? What long term good does that do for those that don't own? Or, take, for example, the auto industry bailout incorporated (without fanfare) in the budget passed recently...

GM and Chrysler, due for a 25 billion dollar handout/bailout, are in merger talks.

These businesses are too big to fail? They are too big not to fail. When a corporation - or government - reaches a certain age and size, much like a person, it gets blocked arteries and mental problems. It's best that they die, or divest, and make room for something new to rise from the ashes.

Take a moral dilemma like this one, and smoke it for a while. Tesla Motors has developed a breakthrough electric sportscar and is building a 250 million dollar facility to produce an all electric sedan, heavily subsidized by two local governments, without help from the feds. What makes that investment less valid than the bailout from congress? Why should California be competing with the Federal Reserve? The Fed can print money, California can't. Who is making better investment decisions?

California's still in line for a 7 billion dollar bailout, because they can't get anyone to buy their bonds, perhaps due to their irresponsible spending? Debt, debt, and more Debt. When will adding on debt seem like an unsound option to anyone in power? High rates of inflation seem inevitable for the foreseeable future. Why buy poorly paying bonds from a bankrupt state with no worthwhile industrial outputs save movies and online advertising?

There is no sign of anyone finding a way to pay for anything except by printing money. I'd really like to know where the money for all this is going to come from... some change in government policies... some cutbacks... legal changes... somewhere....

Perhaps the Guvernator will legalize pot, like Mexico is trying to - tax it - and send the tax money to the schools and Tesla? That would almost make sense in this environment. It would mellow everybody out, and boost sales of chocolate and twinkies, and cut down on the pesticides in use in the national forests.

Regarding higher rates of inflation, there seems to be no valid hedge left (besides put options). I view the now global guarantee of banks by governments (australia
just joined the club), as the ultimate gun to the heads of lenders that would rather choose to be prudent, and raise interest rates and lend only to those creditworthy.

I would have liked it if McCain hadn't show up for the first presidential debate, and the other presidential candidates had. I still remember that the last time they tried, in 2004, the Libertarian and Green candidates were arrested, which I guess was disincentive enough for them not to even try this year.

It sure would be nice to see some more options on the national debate stage than a choice between fascism or socialism.

It's astonishing how hard you have to work to hear these other points of view in the tumult, even with an RSS news feed. Here's Ralph Nader, running independently and now on the ballot of 45 states, Ron Paul, running nowhere but behind the scenes, the Green Party, and Chuck Baldwin, of the Constitution Party, and Bob Barr, of the Libertarian Party....

But, noo... A or B, A or B, A or B, crieth the MSM!

I'd like to hear from more real bankers, brick and mortar bankers, regional bankers, someone like Jimmy Stewart in "It's a wonderful life", to get the straight dope. The only one I know (retired, father of a friend), just stuffed his savings into a coffee can.

According to wikipedia, U.S. Treasury statistics indicate that, at the end of 2006, foreigners held 44% of federal debt. The statistics that I trust (shadowstats) are saying that the monetary base jumped 16.8% over the past year (and roughly the same the previous year) and according to the M3, that almost all of that expansion, up to august, came from international sources.

This indicates, strongly, that foreigners now hold well over 50% of the US debt. (I await confirmation from other sources)

What we have is an untenable situation. Governments have piled up so much debt that even a modest increase of interest rates would break their budgets, so out come the guns and tanks.

The independent evaluators of risk are scared silly. That includes me.

Yet, I also think that the size of the gold market - physical gold - is now so small as to be a hedge only for the most lucky and connected of individuals. Gold, despite its cachet among gold bugs, is just another commodity now, its glory days are long past, and, still, getting hold of physical gold is harder than buying liquor, which has more intrinsic value.

I'm stocking up on scotch. I don't think wuffie will pay for anything any time soon.

If I had a trillion dollars

(apologies to the Bare Naked Ladies for appropriating their song)

If I had a trillion dollars (instead of the Treasury)
If I had a trillion dollars, I'd buy an RV (and tow a Tesla off the back)
If I had a trillion dollars, I'd fix the roads and bridges (but I might focus more on trains)
If I had a trillion dollars, I'd walk away from my house
If I had a trillion dollars, I'd build a whole bunch of nuclear plants (and a lot of solar panels too)
If I had a trillion dollars, I'd buy everyone, absolutely everyone a beer (one of those nice micro-brews)

I still have a few more lyrics to add to that.

---

I still plan to fiddle while Rome burns, knowing full well what Nero accomplished on his return to Rome. There's absolutely nothing I can do to affect whatever happens next, so I plan to keep my head down, write no long term contracts, keep my own house in order and contribute to my local (Nicaraguan) economy as much as possible. I don't really want to participate in an economy where terry childs is still in jail and his management isn't. There seems to be a long way left to go before that happens.

Jamie Johnson was so inspired by his stay in San Juan Del Sur to have gone right into the studio, and lay down 5 songs. My favorite is Rainstorm, because it accidentally ties into a lot of my own story. Have a listen, on headphones.

Labels: banking, Barack Obama, chuck baldwin, economy, gold, John Mccain, msm, music, nicaragua, Ron Paul

  ¶ 6:50 AM 6 comments

  Mccain proposes 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030

As reported in the NYT, McCain just proposed that the US build 45 new nuclear power plants before 2030.

The article - and apparently McCain - failed to note that nearly all of the existing 109 nuclear power plants in the US will be past their design life by then. So - if we were a sane country and actually paid attention to what engineers and mechanics told us about hardware - we'd actually retire those 109, leaving us with a net deficit from where we stand today of 64 plants, which (stay with me here, I know that basic addition and subtraction are hard for the average politician or reporter) leaves us with more oil and coal dependence than what we have today.

I anticipate that we will run the existing plants past obsolescence until another accident inevitably occurs.

This reminds me of something of something McCain said during the debates earlier in this electoral season. he said:

"We have got to achieve energy independence, oil independence in this nation. I will make it a Manhattan Project, and we will in five years become oil independent."

This statement is not only absurd on its face, but the Manhattan project is the wrong metaphor. The Manhattan project spent billions of dollars, and labored for 5 years to produce two - count 'em - two bombs - that ultimately capped world war II. The aftermath and spin-offs from that research and development led to the first commercial nuclear power plants, but it took a very long time to ramp up, with the peak of construction in the late 60s.

I'd prefer a politician propose something more like the Liberty ship construction project, where, by constant refinement of the production techniques, Henry Kaiser and teams of engineers throughout the country cut the manufacturing time from 230 to only 42 days, over less than 3 years. That was just the time from start to finish - as ships were being laid down in parallel, by 1943 we rolled 3 new ships off the quay every day.

We need to get away from custom designs and into mass production.

Mass production used to be an American virtue. Perhaps it isn't anymore. Perhaps all we are capable of anymore is massive, wasteful, one-shot projects, full of sound and fury, accomplishing nothing. A few hundred handmade fighters here, a few dozen bombers there...

A mere 45 new nuclear power plants won't help.

About my only hope for this energy "debate" would be for Obama to propose a reasonable number of nuclear power plants, like, 1000... and to truly retain the American lifestyle, one with a high performance electric car in every garage, 10,000 might be the right number.

Some level of realism regarding our energy requirements is called for. I'm not expecting any until we are reduced to watching television by candlelight.

There are alternatives - like solar and wind - that would benefit also from a "Liberty Ship" approach. Right now, solar cell production is being impacted by chip manufacturing more than anything else. Although the silicon shortage is easing - demand outstrips supply. If the cost of supply were to drop from its present level, solar power would become far more competitive.

I note that any nation could (theoretically) get into the silicon manufacturing business. I wish more would try - after manufacturing, the biggest expense is transport - every nation, particularly those located near the equator, should have sufficient supplies of sand to start with. Creating solar cell grade silicon is less demanding than chip quality...

I do wish we could invent a machine that could be powered by a politician's promises, but more, I wish Americans still understood the advantages of mass manufacturing.

Labels: Barack Obama, election 2008, energy, John Mccain

  ¶ 8:01 AM 23 comments

  Republican debate, msm framing unbelievable

ABCNEWS declares Huckabee and Paul winners of today's debate

Yea, I thought. On the day all the major central banks had to pump massive cash into the system and two days after another major bank had to take 10b dollars in losses related to mortgage lending... someone in the press bothered to think that the credit crunch and housing collapse were real issues, bothering real people, and that some politicians had solutions....

Then I went and checked all the other news about the debate on news.google.com. As I write, that's 731 articles worth, in all the national papers.

I forced myself to read the top 20 articles above, and it's like there were only three people on stage, all in a beauty contest...

If Lew Rockwell's blog hadn't pointed at the abcnews article that "loved the focus on the national debt" I'd have missed hearing anything about what concerns me most.

All I can say is, watch the show for yourself. Or read the transcript. Decide for yourself. Don't waste your time reading 20 freaking articles written in the mainstream press, as I just did.

Or, if you just want to hear from Ron Paul, here's his excerpts. What's he saying that the rest of the MSM can't hear or publish?

Aside from this major quibble, the format was far too short per question, but many of the questions were good, and the time was allocated a bit more fairly to all the candidates than I've seen before in this election.

Labels: election 2008, John Mccain, Mitt Romney, msm, Ron Paul, Rudy Giulliani

  ¶ 4:41 PM 0 comments

  Presidental politics and the LAMP stack

I was curious as to what software was powering the presidential campaigns this year, so I did a brief tour of the top websites with LWP's http HEAD command.

It's kind of neat that Romney's otherwise wealthy campaign is using Linux, and no wonder that Fred's technologically clueless one is using IIs, and perhaps I could draw an inference that Hillary's campaign is so uncool because it's not run on a Mac? (Why don't any of the campaigns use a Mac as a web server?) Obama's running on a Personal Web Server, whatever that is.

Democrats

www.hillaryclinton.com Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
www.barackobama.com Server: PWS/1.1.29
www.richardsonforpresident.com/ Server: Zope/(Zope 2.7.8-final, python 2.3.6, linux2) ZServer/1.1
www.dennis4president.comServer: Apache/2.0.52 (Red Hat)
johnedwards.com Server: Apache
joebiden.com Server: Zope/(Zope 2.7.8-final, python 2.3.5, linux2) ZServer/1.1

Republicans

www.mikehuckabee.com Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
www.mittromney.com Server: Apache/2.0.52 (Red Hat)
www.joinrudy08.com Server: Apache/2.2.4 (Unix) PHP/5.2.0
www.ronpaul2008.com Server: Apache/2.0.52 (Red Hat)
www.johnmccain.com Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
www.fred08.com Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0

The final tally: Of the top 6 Republican campaigns, half use a redhat derived Linux, half use IIS. Of the top 6 Democratic campaigns, 1 uses IIS, another uses PWS (Microsoft I think), the other 4 use Linux, or at least, Apache.

I could draw two conclusions from this. Either: Open source is a clear win in the presidential arena for all candidates - or: there is a marked preference for Microsoft in the top-ranked-by-the MSM contenders.

Now, of all the campaigns running, Ron Paul's is the most interactive and untinged by broadcast mediathink. Rudy Guilani's web page has, first on the page, "watch our new ad", and "get your Rudy bumper sticker, only 9.95", while Paul's has a flash message that circulates between donate, supporter messages, discover and imagine, who is Ron Paul, and pointers to videos, and even a supporter spotlight.

Ron Paul's campaign and supporters are almost entirely powered by at least three parts of LAMP - Linux, Apache, and PHP. I can't easily determine from here what the database back ends are, but I would assume it's either postgres or mysql on that side, too.

www.ronpaul2008.com Server: Apache/2.0.52 (Red Hat)
www.teaparty07.com: Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
www.ronpaulblimp.com Server: Apache/2.0.52 (CentOS)
www.ronpaulgraphs.com Server: Apache/2.0.52 (CentOS)
www.ronpaulforums.com Server: Apache/2.2.3 (Red Hat)

Now, if I wanted to be truly fair and journalistic and geeky this morning, I'd survey a few other candidate's supporters' websites, and talk about how google news, myspace and youtube and technorati actually work to bring you the news you are looking for, but I have a few other things to write, and some Blimp handlers to find so I'll leave this at this for now.

Labels: Barack Obama, election 2008, Fred Thompson, hillary clinton, joe biden, John Mccain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Rudy Giulliani

  ¶ 6:56 AM 0 comments

  Too tired to go on tonight

As of 10:11PM, the Ron Paul campaign has got 3.55 million in donations for the day. Odds are good they won't crack 4m by midnight, but I expect by morning that barrier, too, will have been exceeded.

I have blasted the MSM a lot in this blog lately, and I can imagine a few ways that the spin will go down tonight and tomorow, but I'm too tired to write more tonight. I confess to chuckling a little about what the talking heads will say without writers to back them up... Before I sign off, though, I just wanted to point to this google trends graph of interest in the top candidates from netizens. You'll note the wide disparity between demand (internet queries) and supply (news stories).

Earlier this week, I deleted the flash player from my machine because I couldn't stand filtering television anymore.

In the course of events today it was sadly easy to forget the imposition of martial law in Pakistan, the mass arrests of judges, and chaos there.

In the back of my mind today, I kept wondering, what would Ron Paul have done differently, there? He may well inherit that whirlwind one day.

Good night, and good luck.

Labels: election 2008, hillary clinton, John Mccain, Mitt Romney, msm, Ron Paul, Rudy Giulliani

  ¶ 6:46 PM 0 comments

  Ron Paul - A reluctant conversion

I had planned to spend my spare hours this week working through my answers to my top 10 questions for America.

Instead I went back and read the Oct 21, 2008 republican debate transcript, and watched the video, twice, to try and see some sign of sanity in the Republican party. While putting myself through this torture I wished, like the vodka pundit, that I'd kept a bottle open during the debate and the replays, or watched the red sox, or done anything else but worried about the future of the USA.

The post-debate doublethink was the worst, the bullshit chest-deep on the spin-room floor. First, seeing the Fox commentors dismiss the results of the text poll, consistently, after ignoring what evidence to the contrary exists and never investigating their own claims. Then seeing the MSM ignore that poll entirely, and seeing msnbc report the booing of Paul as their lead story - as if Fox and BushCo hadn't picked the audience in the room. Going into this debate, I didn't know who the network pundit Luntz was, so I googled him. I've thought the phone polls skewed for decades; but what Penn and Teller had to say about Luntz's street polling techniques depressed the hell out of me. If the MSM would just run a scientific study of how the various polling techniques (street, phone, text message, and internet) actually represent reality, I'd be a lot happier. They've had 6 months to research the problem(s). For now I'll weight what non-MSM people actually say over what any poll of any type claims to be a result.

Yesterday, Bush demanded 46 billion dollars more in emergency funding for the Iraqi occupation. Congress is going to give it to him, without raising taxes of course, but by printing money and further devaluing the currency. Gold is up 18% since June. The Canadian dollar, since 2002, is up from 61 cents to parity with the US dollar today. I see a lot of Canadian travelers where I live now, few Americans.

War is showing signs of spreading to Turkey, or so the MSM tells me. Military budgets throughout the world, after a long downward trend, are up.

The popular Redstate blog just banned Ron Paul participants. Almost amusingly, they did it based on the idea that their site is private property. Where news commentary becomes private property, I'll admit, is a grey area, but I note that sites like slashdot.org tolerate a great deal of controversy and have implemented a comment moderation system that is both effective in eliminating trolls and democratic – a technological solution to a real problem.

As if the current crop of politicians and news sites on either side had any understanding of science or technology, or any interest in allowing alternate viewpoints. Hey, redstate! The code to slashdot is free and open source, you can just use it – I know, to you, that that might sound a bit socialist – but implement it or something like it! Don't shut your readers and writers down!

I can't vote for Hillary Clinton, primarily because I'm strongly opposed to a hereditary aristocracy in America. I'd be against another Bush, Reagan, Carter, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, or Roosevelt for the same reason.

So, after sitting on the fence for a while, hoping someone better would show up, wishing that McCain didn't resemble Bernie, wishing that I could just drown my anger in drink or women or song... I just donated some money to Ron Paul.

I feel a little better about things, not much though.

Unlike some other paulites, I merely believe that he's pulling in the right direction, and that he (and I – and all citizens) deserve a voice in America. Also unlike some Paulites, I'd prefer that after losing in the primaries, that Paul sticks to what he's been saying - that he won't consider a 3rd party run - and go back to congress where he can continue speaking truth to power.

I would like Ron Paul to try to explain what a local government should do, and how, rather than what the federal government shouldn't. Most arguments I have with a libertarian start with “I live now in what some might call a libertarian paradise, and the roads suck. What would you do about that?” and go downhill from there.

Paul's speaking style drives me up a wall. His voice has a tendency to go up an octave to make a point and it grates on me. He's good, even great – edited down in snippets on youtube – but he's never going to go over well on television in a debate format. He does well in one on ones, and comes across on the written page well, in a campaign where I'm sure half the candidates and half their supporters are nearly illiterate.

The persistent allegations about Ron Paul's connections to a hate group really bother me. However it's a rare politician that can control who they shake hands with, and it's harder still to control who supports you - especially when you are not into top down control in the first place. I will pay close attention to further developments in this allegation, because it does worry me.

Paul's paranoia regarding a North American Union I find hard to take. Actually, on some days, I think adding the US to the rest of the Americas – voluntarily, as in the EU – would do a lot of good for most everybody - South Americans and Mexicans in particular - Imagine a CAFTA-esq treaty enforced between California and New York and you'll see what I mean. I'd rather have a voluntary association of states than an empire. On other days I remember the period 1850-1872....

But all these are nits compared to the egregious faults of the other candidates.

I remember back in 96 or so, when polygamous sexual behavior almost brought down President Clinton. Today, with most of the top candidates for president known for extra-marital affairs, it's no longer an issue for the MSM. It still is for me!

Frankly, when I see the squeaky clean and airbrushed Mormon Mitt Romney I feel a bit sorry for him - as he's one of the few that actually adhere to WASP morality in this election. As shown by the successes of the show Big Love, now in a third season - and of the other politicians in the race - polygamy is IN!

The sexual practices of Romney's religion were completely quashed years ago by a vile overapplication of government force. One saving grace of the current debate over gay marriage is that almost nobody advocates something as extreme as the Edmunds Tucker Act which both heavily fined and denied Mormon polygamists the right to vote, among other things.

Mitt! Unbend a little! Talk about the life and times of great grandpa! Talk about not what you can do for government but what government can do to you!

Ron Paul also adheres to conventional morality. He has had a stable marriage for 50 years. His position on abortion is stellar from my perspective - he's against it (I'm not) but all he proposes to do is remove this contentious issue from the federal realm, and return it to the states, which is far less invasive than what all the other candidates propose.

The marriage and abortion issues bore me. I don't feel these problems need to be solved at a federal level. They don't cost me anywhere near as much money as war, debt payments, social security and medicare do. Abortion and Marriage are just weapons of mass distraction used to distract us from the real federal priorities set down by the constitution.

In politics, it may be hard to control who you shake hands with, but it is a great deal easier to control who you take money from. I am in utter admiration of how Ron Paul's campaign gets its donations, and who he gets them from, and astounded at the transparency of the process. In stark contrast, Clinton takes cash from anybody, even if they don't have it in the first place, and I shudder at the sight of the list of the donors that the remainder of republicans and the democrats tolerate.

I'm going to go and answer my 10 questions in this blog, but more slowly than I'd planned. I think...

I'm going to write a bit of code that might institute fairness in the phone polls, and get some surfing in, to clear my mind.

Note: I'm not done posting the links in this blog entry, please check back later.

Labels: citizen revolt, clinton, election 2008, John Mccain, msm, Ron Paul

  ¶ 10:37 AM 31 comments

  Fox News debate results

I thought McCain did well by campaigning on his record. He got a standing ovation, showing some of his old fire, for his zinger about why he missed woodstock - "I was tied up at the time".

Giulliani got in the most "real-folks" sort of commentary, talking about being a yankees fan and things like that. He's a very good demagogue with a common touch no-one else present has.

Mitt Romney also campaigned on his record... saying that we can do everything the democrats want done better, faster, and cheaper, basically. I didn't care for most of what he had to say.

Several third tier candidates invoked the constitution and what the business of the federal government was, a welcome change from previous debates. They all kind of blended together for me, however.

And Ron Paul? He came in a distant 4th. He evidently didn't clearly hear his first question, and didn't answer it directly, and every other question he turned into a statement about how reducing our commitments abroad would allow us to pay for better social programs at home. He got thrown a softball question about how and why he had refused medicare payments and the associated paperwork and despite that perfect chance for a homily story that could touch hearts - he turned that question, too, into a foreign policy question. I would have liked him to have answered his questions more directly. He stumbled over the question of a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage, but pulled himself together at the end:

"This should be a religious matter. All voluntary associations, whether they're economic or social, should be protected by the law. But to amend the Constitution is totally unnecessary to define something that's already in the dictionary. We do know what marriage is about," Paul said.

Guilliani said that marriage is also a civil matter and got a laugh by saying he'd performed 210 marriages in NY but wasn't sure if they were all between a man and a woman.

Mitt Romney said:

"The status of marriage, if it's allowed among the same sex individuals in one state is going to spread to the entire nation. And that's why it's important to have a national standard for marriage," he said. "My state's constitution was written by John Adams. It isn't there."

Mike Huckabee said:

"When our founding fathers put their signatures on the Declaration of Independence, those 56 brave people, most of whom, by the way, were clergymen, they said that we have certain inalienable rights given to us by our creator, and among these life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, life being one of them. I still believe that,"

I can't help but remember that Sam Adams and John Hancock were basically smugglers who would have been hung had the British caught them. And that they would have hung with the priesthood. And that I would have been glad to have hung with them all.

Giulliani got off a good zinger on Hillary Clinton:

"I've been very critical of her, but I want to tell her I agree with this one. Quote, Hillary Clinton, 'I have a million ideas; America cannot afford them all.' I'm not making it up. I am not making it up," Giuliani said to laughter. "No kidding Hillary — American can't afford you."

Fred Thompson, after being an unimpressive and slow starter all night, got in the last words of the night somehow. I just spent 5 minutes trying to recall what they were, then I flashed on that cialis ad I'd seen in the first segment, overlaid by the windows XP window. To close out the debate. .. Thompson said something about being the proud parent of his 4 year olds.

On the whole, as national debates go, it wasn't horrible. I think I'd rather have curled up with a hot woman, preferably one that believed in plural marriage, birth control, and voting with her feet. A good book would also have been preferable. I suppose I'm going to have to force myself to sit through more debates, lacking either of the above. Sure wish I could get some of my own questions answered.

Labels: debates, election 2008, fox news, John Mccain, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Rudy Giulliani

  ¶ 7:17 PM 1 comments