Get out (of work) and vote!

This is the newest message from Obama. Get out of whatever you're doing next Tueday and help him win. I guess Step 1 on the road to change is to avoid whatever responsibility you might have next Tuesday and do whatever you can to get yourself and others to vote for Obama.

The messages:

Vote next Tuesday!
...Admirable

Get out of work...
...Deplorable

Here's the ad: http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/dayoff

Why should the citizens of the US just put their lives on hold for a day just to vote him in? Let it be known I would be just as upset if McCain tried to pull this stunt...this is completely non-partisan. It kinda reeks of egotism and self-importance. In effect, his campaign is saying that working a phone bank or physically travelling to a battleground state is more important than your job/school day. Actually, that's exactly what they're saying. I wouldn't avoid work for McCain and I would hope few people would. Hell, I never even take sick days...

Another frustration stemmed from the tone - it said you can't 'make history' from your couch or while playing video games, which I agree with - who wouldn't? But then it says you can't make history from your job. Now, I don't think every single job in this country impacts history, but it definitely keeps the wheels turning and keeps us moving forward. I guess they're ok with half the country (his support according to polls) just pausing for a day.

I'm not suggesting the world will end if half the people didn't work/go to school for a day, but it's mainly the principle of the matter. It's not like someone's out there saying, "Ok, there's been a huge [insert natural disaster] and the area could really use your help. Please consider donating a day of your time to the people of this plight and let's work together to improve this situation blah blah blah." No, instead it's take a day off and help ME get elected.

It reminds me of an interview I heard about from a friend that aired on TV some time ago. The two opposing sides were represented as usual, but I don't know who they were. The Obama supporter made some statement to the effect of "Look at attendence numbers. Obama consistently attracts 15, 20, 25 thousand people at his rallys. McCain is lucky to draw half that." His implication of course was that Obama was obviously more popular with the American people and they're kicking ass. This attempt was foiled when the McCain supporter calmly interjected, "That's because McCain's supporters are at work."

'Nuf said.

I'll be working next Tuesday, but it won't keep me from voting. Where will you be?

Annoying "Facts"

So; only 12 days left in the election. I thought I'd take a quick minute to throw out one of the common party-lines from Democrats and voice my frustration over it. Note that I'm NOT saying that Republicans do not also have their own party lines. They most certainly do. In politics, who doesn't?

This one just grates on me because it panders to people as if they're idiots and it is consistently glossed over by any opposition; be it McCain in EVERY debate or opposing commentators on news channels. They never respond the way I think they should. And since I'm all-knowing, then they're wrong. (or was it a know-it-all? I forget...)

So there.

Back to topic - here's the "fact"oid. Americans consume 25 percent of the world's produced oil, but our nation holds less than 3 percent of the world's proven oil reserves

The very first time I heard that it made me immediately want to get on the Internet to disprove its implication. I admit, I automatically got cynical about it, assuming (rightly as it turned out) that it was completely misleading, despite being based on facts. What irks me about this statement is that it implies that we consume 8 times what we can make. Admittedly, the wordplay is clever and has obviously pulled the wool over people's eyes, because it never gets clarified by opposition.
When someone hears it or reads it, their mind focuses on the 25 and 3 percent numbers and 25 is a lot bigger than 3, so we must use more than we make. This couldn't be further from the truth, though it's exactly what they want you to think. In actuality, when you look at the numbers, you find that our proven reserves are about 30 billion barrels. These numbers are from 2008. As for consumption, we consume about 20 million barrels per day.

So, 25% = 20 million/day and 3% = 30 BILLION. Hardly using 8 times what we can make. In fact, if we were able to extract and refine all those proven reserves today, we could subsist entirely on our own oil for almost 4 years without any imported oil.

However, the facts are that we'll never have to do that. Canada has just had revealed that they have - get this - about 180 BILLION barrels of proven reserves. They're nice to us and we trade well with them, so there's no reason we wouldn't be able to trade for some of that lovely oil. When you add in their consumption of about 3 million/day and their reserves of 180 billion, then we can now last TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. That's right - a quarter a century. This obviously doesn't take into account any increases in usage, but if we're smart we would actually LOWER consumption while we INCREASE production.

Now, if that were to happen, we'd obviously not want to sit idly and let the 25 years run out without doing something, so we'd need to use that time wisely to rapidly develop alternative fuels and power sources, as well as utilize our UNproven reserves. Cuba has supposedly found lots of oil off their shores, which by the way, is off OUR shores. I believe the facts of that find are still waiting to be verified, but remember that Brazil also found a TON of oil off their shores recently. It's more than likely there off our shore too, just waiting to be drilled and refined.Who knows, if we were able to reduce our own consumption and have a big find ourselves, WE could export oil to others...what a concept. In fact, our increased production could probably bring the price of oil so far down that there'd be little profit or money in it for anyone and entrepreneurs would look to other fuels as their next big buck.

Now, truthfully, we can't start refining all that oil we have and Canada has overnight, but we've got to start somewhere, and we should. It's not about politics, it's about common sense. Why should we rely on someone else for something when we can produce it (or purchase from friendly countries) now? You can't simply turn the country from oil to alternative fuels overnight either, but obviously advancement needs to be made in those areas as well. If we could kick all the damn lobbyists out of DC then we could probably get some things accomplished. Environmentalists lobby against any sort of oil expansion whatsoever and oil companies lobby against alternative fuels. It's got to stop!!

Sorry - got slightly off topic. My point was that statement by Dems just gets under my skin every time I hear it and NOBODY ever says anything. So consider something said.

A missed opportunity last night...

Overall I thought both candidates did pretty well on the debate. Sarah definitely did MUCH better than McCain - hopefully McCain will actually prepare this time and be ready next Tuesday...but I don't want to get off topic.

I don't want to write a long review of the debate - each side will say their side won and such is the nature of politics. However, in a brief recap - she spoke direct, glossed over in a very political way when she didn't have all the information she needed, and overall she handled herself pretty admirably. Biden was very factual and threw out a lot of numbers and figures, and assuming they're all true, won on that front. He was cordial and respectful and at one point choked up a bit on a personal hardship issue. I thought he did just fine.

Despite his fact throwing, I think at one point Palin actually called his bluff. He essentially railed against McCain's claim that the surge worked in Iraq and it can work in Afghanistan. He claimed the general in charge of Afghanistan said that the surge used in Iraq simply won't work. Apparently he had said that yesterday morning. Palin fired back that in fact he said a surge could work, but it would need to be customized to Afghanistan's terrain and opposing forces. When it passed back to Biden, he changed topic, with a "Ok, you got me" look because he didn't have a comeback.

I did see one big missed opportunity with Palin last night, and it stemmed from a critism I had with her that she exhibited twice (maybe 3 times...). I don't know who was prepping her with Obama's record, but I can't rationalize why anyone would send her in there with facts about Obama's voting record about seemingly NEGATIVE votes cast, when McCain supposedly (according to Biden) made the exact same votes! You can't critize someone for voting one way, implying your running mate is 'better than that', when in fact he voted the same way. It's just not even believable.

HOWEVER, in the case of the last issue that I can remember, she missed her big opportunity. I'm paraphrasing here, but she said that Obama voted against funding the troops for some vote. Bad Obama. Biden countered with the fact that McCain also voted against because there was a timeline attached to withdrawal. This would seem to be a moot point - she failed to make her case that McCain was "above that". She just let it go. Wasted opportunity. Here's what I would have said:

"You know something, Joe? You're right. John McCain did vote against that bill, and it's for exactly the same reason you just outlined. It had a timeline attached to it. You see, folks, this is what is wrong with the current political state of Washington. You can't vote for something you truly believe in and want without compromising some part of it by voting for something you vehemently disagree with. When something is desired for a good cause, our representatives in Washington jump on it and start throwing in everything under the sun because it might go through. The problem is that it happens on nearly EVERY bill. Not even bills that are assumed to be critically important are left unscathed. Look at the most recent bailout bill that just passed the Senate. It was designed to sweeten the deal for taxpayers, which is good, but under that same umbrella various special interest groups were granted millions of dollars. Now what in the world do those have to do with bailing out the economy? Absolutely nothing. We have a major crisis here, and you can rest assured that when John McCain and I get into that White House, this kind of behavior will be reigned in. As Americans we should not stand for our representatives loading up billis with unnecessary pork just to satisfy a few people. There are people's financial futures at stake here and Washington wants to just slide these things in. It's ridiculous and we won't stand for it."

Now, of course, she would have never said the last few parts because McCain actually voted for the dang bill. I don't know whether he actually agrees with it or not, but he really had no choice. It was going to win anyway, so he had to vote with the majority. If it works, then he was as good as Obama; if it fails then he was as bad as him. It basically accomplished the nullifying of Obama's vote. But still, she could have still made the point I outlined and essentially nullified Biden's claim that McCain voted against troop funding when in fact there was a good reason, and then also that current Washington politics are frustratingly and unnecessarily complicated and pushed her issue of reform.

All in all though, good debate. Palin held her own and did very well. She didn't topple Biden, but she definitely wasn't expected to. I think she did, however, get over her rash of bad publicity lately.

Finally, you can bet that if the House votes today, which I believe they are, it will pass there too. Pelosi surely wouldn't make that mistake again...