The last presidental debate?

Another weird day, DOW down 700+ and gold barely budged a dollar after 2PM. What could be weirder than that?

The Phillies are probably in the World Series.

Things are weird alright.

I'd rather be watching the playoffs, but instead I'm listening to tonight's presidential debate - apparently, I am "Joe Plumber". I just want both of these b*stards to leave me alone. "Give someone affordability", - McCain is saying... to hell with the insurance companies I'm saying. They take up 1/7th the economy and spend their money on fatcat CEOs and lawyers and lobbyists and making sure that their clients don't get what they think they bought.

"I want to leave money in your pocket", McCain is saying. Suuuuuuure, I'm saying. Look me in the eyes when you say that, pardner, and keep your hands where I can see 'em.

And now emotional gobbledygook on abortion... It's the economy, stupids, I yell back.

"We have to improve our educational system to keep our military power", obama says. Oh, boy, I don't think I heard that right... "We need to recruit an army of new teachers", he says now. Umm... the military metaphors get under my skin.

And now, Obama proposes a tuition credit in exchange for community or military service. A wopping 4 grand. I suppose delivering pizza and making hats doesn't get you through college anymore. Pack it up for the Army, girl... sign right here... and go and sit on the group W bench...

Greg types in chat: Wow, both candidates are going to cut taxes, lower the deficit, and increase social services. We're so lucky this year... that no-one can add.

I am looking forward to the third party debate on Sunday... in the hope that there is someone making more sense out there.

16 days ago, the national debt cracked 10 trillion dollars. In the 16 days since it increased by 300 billion dollars. It's now at:



Update: I was right about Tesla falling into trouble in today's environment. That moral hazard issue, again. Printing enough money to save everybody is a pesky problem, isn't it?

Update 2:I wish I'd had 6 minutes with Obama and some face time on the news. I'd have suggested I was withholding my decision as to who to vote for until after the other parties debated. And maybe I'd have got someone to talk sensibly about capitalism without capital.

Labels: debates, election 2008, national debt

  ¶ 6:50 PM 0 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

  Fox news modifying the people meter on Ron Paul

I was enjoying watching today's fox news's debate people meter when...

Just as Ron Paul began to speak, a window appeared on the screen, and somehow, someone, made some changes to how the data was being displayed.

I hurredly took a few screen shots, but what actually was going on I can't tell.

Ron Paul's comments then ranked below the 50% line for the duration of what he had to say. What he had to say probably wasn't very popular but the duration and volume of the applause after he spoke seemed in line with most of what I'd heard today. WTF did fox news do? Does anyone have a higher quality feed or capture of what happened?

At no other time in the debate did such a window appear. There was an XP window on the screen for the first set of advertisements (about cialis) , which I found amusing, but...

WTF? Jeeze, fox, do you want to pander to the conspiracy theorists? And I sure wish you'd ask the questions I want answered.

Labels: debates, election 2008, fox news, Ron Paul

  ¶ 6:12 PM 5 comments

  My top ten presidental debate questions

I've noted elsewhere how much I like the msnbc poll, as it both educates and polls, and is at the same time, fair, and easy to understand. The candidates and issues are listed in alphabetical order; the results are shown in shades of green (good) to red (bad). I'd like the poll to also have a tab that showed the number of votes, and various other statistics (repeat votes, vote locations, etc), and for msnbc to publish its source code for this poll so it can be reused and re purposed– but I can't have everything.

The one thing I'd really like to have in that poll – and most others – is the ability to frame the questions myself in categories that I cared about, and for me to be able reach statistically significant numbers of people with those questions.

I'm tickled that 10 questions is trying to pull together a democratically created poll – but IMHO it's too little, too late. The questions need to be sent in via video, and uploading video from where I'm at is an exercise in tedium, even if I looked halfway good on camera. Still, I'd like to participate so I'll use this blog for my questions. Perhaps others will film questions like these.

My top 10 issues for 2008 at the federal level:

1)(Economy) The deficit

2)(Economy) The estate tax

3)(Economy) Alternative minimum tax

4)(Politics) Personal freedom

5)(Science) The space program

6)(Politics) Gerrymandering

7)(Health Care) Health Care

8)(Politics) Immigration

9)(War) the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations

10)(Politics) Enhancing the internet

My top 10 election 2008 questions

If I had control of a polling system, or of a presidential debate of democrats or republicans, these are the questions I would ask. To keep the question short and fair, with a maximum amount of screen time for candidate answers, I might skip the first background sentences entirely, and just ask the questions. I don't want to be as guilty of framing the debate as others are, and I'm doing enough merely by framing the questions thusly:

1)(Economy) In 1999, the budget of the federal government was in surplus, with the elimination of the federal debt seemingly feasible. Now the debt is past 9 trillion dollars and the yearly deficit stands at an amount so staggering I can't even print it. What would you do to cure the debt and restore a balanced budget?

2)(Economy) The estate tax, which used to raise 70 billion dollars a year, is due to expire in 2010. Would you reinstate it? If so, how would you change it?

3)(Economy) An increasing number of Americans are subject to the alternative minimum tax, rather than the normal income tax. What would you do about this situation?

4)(Immigration) How would you reform the H1B visa program?

5)(Space) The space shuttle is due to be retired in 2010, and the earliest a replacement is scheduled to come online is 2014. According to President Bush's Vision for Space Exploration, a return to the moon is scheduled for 2020. Do you think these dates are reasonable? Would you continue these programs as is? Cut the budgets? Increase them? Encourage private development of space vehicles? Go for the Moon? Mars? Or aim for the near earth asteroids?

6)(Politics) What, if anything, would you do about gerrymandering?

7)(Health Care) What percentage of the public's health care financing should go to drugs and what percentage to treatment?

8)(Freedom) How would you maximize freedom in America and the world?

9)(Internet) America has fallen far behind the rest of the world in internet deployment and speed. What would you do about that?

10)(War) How would you more effectively govern the occupied territories abroad?

I note that there are three places above where I do directly challenge the conventional wisdom while framing the question.

I can't contain my outrage at the size of the federal debt. I tried.

The Iraq war ceased being a war shortly after Baghdad fell, and became an occupation. I can't bring myself to call it a war anymore, and don't know how anyone can.

The depth of my space question represents my deep interest in science and space and my utter despair at finding a candidate that had ever talked about the issues there.

And perhaps it's a little unfair of me to hyperlink to the facts containing my assertions. (I haven't finished revising this posting to add all the hyperlinks I'd like to add, so please check back later)

I couldn't help myself but frame things that way, but I did limit showing my biases as best as I could. Hopefully that's good enough. I do have my own opinions on all these questions, and I will publish them in my blog over the next week. I look forward to any comments on the above, and hope that others will ignore the current framing of the national debates, ignore me, too - and formulate their own top 10 questions and publish them, in some format, somewhere.

Perhaps some answers - or better questions - will arise.

Labels: debates, economy, election 2008, online polling, politics, space, statistics

  ¶ 9:25 AM 3 comments

  Trying to find a way to be fair

In the course of writing over 700 blog entries with well over 100,000 reads to date, only once has a reader acknowledged me changing his mind... so I am under no delusion that writing in my blog is going to change minds.

... but if I didn't vent, I'd explode, and - as an engineer - I like to find constructive solutions to the problems the mainstream media has in reporting fairly on the issues, so here goes.

Update: I found a site that did a simple, scientific analysis of the recent debate, counting the words each candidate was allowed to say. It's rather revealing, but I'll let the numbers speak for themselves.

Open letter to the mainstream media, particularly CNBC

Your credibility is in the toilet.

Here are some some ways to have fairer reporting on electoral candidates.

0) Install an applause-meter at the debates. Show it, live, during the debates. Report on this measurable statistic for, say, the top 20 statements made by the candidates.

1) Track and report on the screen time given the candidates as well. Obviously this measurable statistic affects the statistic above... The combination of these two factors, displayed on screen in a NFL-sports style, would actually be pretty interesting, and revealing, I think. I'd be glad to help you program it.

If you don't do this, I figure somebody on youtube, will. It's easy enough to analyze the volume of sound coming from the recordings after all - 'course, MSM, you could always hire someone to ride the gain when things you disagree with are said... perhaps an applause meter needs to be wielded by an independent organisation, like the UN....

2) Require logins on your online polls. It does sacrifice anonymity somewhat, but would increase fairness.

3) Accept that the internet population is different from the population that answers the phone in your so-called 'scientific' polls, as is the population that knows enough about cell phones to send text messages. Report on all of it... do some real investigative journalism on who is voting online, cell, and phone - and publish that. PLEASE.


side note: I really like the innovative way MSNBC is polling across the candidates' positions in a matrix format. Probably my biggest issue with the phone polls is that they are very dependent on name recognition. This particular poll both informs and polls, and I like that, a lot. It also tracks who's voting and prevents voting twice on an issue+candidate, so it appears (at least at first glance) to be fairly fair....


4) Collect statistics on what sort of web browser and OS your online pollers are using. Hell, feel free to publish the geographic distributions of the ip addresses and cell phone numbers you are collecting as part of the polling process. At one level this is spam protection - at another level it would give the electorate a glimpse at what places are internet or cell phone strongholds for the candidates.

Now I realize that implementing these suggestions would take resources away from other tasks you have, like advertising, and live coverage, and punditry and spin... so here's a few ways to save some money on your coverage, and also improve accuracy.

5) Kill off 90% of your talking heads. When I see the hours and hours of analysis and false controversy created by your tacky network appointed pundits I can't help but think that the American people would be better served by you merely assembling footage of what each candidate actually said, and redisplaying it. I note that youtube users are already doing this - for free - and it's wonderful. I've now seen hours and hours and hours of footage of most of the major candidates, and have made my decision on who to support largely based on that.

(note to your execs - your coverage would then be cheaper, too)

6) Stop paying attention to candidate funding - entirely. If you've forgotten, America was a democracy, not a plutocracy, last I looked. Or maybe I missed the memo?

That's all I can think of for now. Thanks for listening.

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Labels: clinton, cnbc, debates, election 2008, fairness, fox news, mainstream media, msm, msnbc, republicans, Ron Paul

  ¶ 8:13 AM 7 comments