Focus on Politics

Bonus: He thinks the only reason people won’t vote for him is because he doesn’t look like the presidents on US currency.

I like how he starts off saying that just inflating your tires will save as much oil as we want to drill but after the audience just sits quietly hoping something intelligent will come out of his mouth, he adds regular tune-ups to the list. Maybe if we let him go long enough he’d mention tearing apart your car to reduce the dead weight.

Various people have been doing the math and the savings for inflating everyone’s tires is around 90 to 180 million barrels a year assuming an average 1.5 to 3% gain in gas milage.

It is estimated that there is over 1 trillion barrels of oil available to us if congress would allow us to drill.

I have an idea, how about we do things to reduce our dependence on oil while also doing our best to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

And let’s just skip the bad math.

Politico Reports

Yesterday in Missouri, Obama predicted McCain and the GOP would use racially-tinged attacks against him.

“What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me,” Obama said. “You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.”

An Obama spokesman denied that the line about “dollar bills” was related to the Democrat’s race.

What other part of Obama doesn’t “look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills?”

Let’s review

United States currency notes now in production bear the following portraits: George Washington on the $1 bill, Thomas Jefferson on the $2 bill, Abraham Lincoln on the $5 bill, Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill, Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, Ulysses S. Grant on the $50 bill, and Benjamin Franklin on the $100 bill.

Hmmm, a bunch of white guys. Some of whom were never president.

Apparently Obama is so sick of the GOP not talking about his race that he had to insist to his true believers that one day they would.

Because you know, Obama is otherwise perfect and there’s no reason to not vote for him based on issues that the GOP keeps yapping about. Deep down, the GOP doesn’t want Obama because he’s black. We know that because Obama says so.

media Bistro reports

“It’s not ‘faith’ if you are absolutely certain,” Obama said, noting that he didn’t believe his lack of “faith” would hurt him in a national election. “Evolution is more grounded in my experience than angels.”

Really, Obama? You’re lived this long, have had more given to you than most people and you think evolution is more grounded in your experience than angels? Apparently he’s experienced the changing of a species into an entirely new species more often than he’s experienced the work of angels protecting him.

How thankless can you be.

His lack of “faith” is hurting him a lot. Evangelicals won’t vote for him because his actions supporting abortions are repulsive. He doesn’t even have the faith to believe that the fetus has a right to life. He claims that getting pregnant because of having sex when you’re not supposed to is a punishment that you shouldn’t be forced to bear.

It was abundantly clear that his membership at Trinity was purely political. He has no strong religious affiliation. He’s Christian as far as Christianity supports his world view.

Which isn’t very far.

John McCain on teaching evolution

From his 2005 book “Character is Destiny”:

“Darwin helped explain nature’s laws. He did not speculate, in his published theories at least, on the origin of life. He did not exclude God, for Whom the immensity of time is but a moment, from our presence. The only undeniable challenge the theory of evolution poses to Christian beliefs is its obvious contradiction of the idea that God created the world as it is in less than a week. But our faith is certainly not so weak that it can be shaken to learn that a biblical metaphor is not literal history. Nature doesn’t threaten our faith. On the contrary, when we contemplate its beauty and mysteries we cannot quiet in our heart an insistent impulse of belief that for all its variations and inevitable change, before its creation, in a time before time, God let it be so, and, thus, its many splendors and purposes abide in His purpose.”

McCain is taking the politically safe route of rejecting the Biblical version of events as literal. If you don’t look into dating methods and believe the hype, or, just don’t care to argue, then it’s easy to just say “God works through evolution.” You don’t have to dig much deeper into the Biblical account to realize that even as a figurative narative, it doesn’t support evolution. The Bible claims that man came from dirt after the animals were created. Woman came from man. No where does the Bible leave room for the idea that man came from animals.

Darwin didn’t speculate on the origin of life but he did speculate on the origin of species. The problem is that he goes too far. Nobody challenges the idea that things change. What they challenge is the starting point. Unfortunatly a lot of people listen to “scientists” state things as fact without questioning the science behind the statements.

It takes a lot of faith to accept the entire package of Evolution.

If Evolution was simply “things change” then everyone would be an evolutionist because it’s obvious. But that’s not what it means to be an Evolutionist. It requires you accept a large number of unproven, untested, assumptions about origins.

Politically, it’s not prudent to challenge Evolution. It takes way too long to explain what parts of evolution you do and do not accept and simply isn’t worth the battle. People have so much unquestioning faith in science that they’ll think you’re a nut for pointing out what most people don’t care to hear or research.

It’d be nice if McCain would reject Evolution’s assumptions about the origins of life but that’s probably too much to ask. God will explain where science went wrong when the time comes.

One of the most annoying accusations that parents make when they find their kids trying various drugs like cigarettes or alchohol is that the kid is just trying to be cool.

No, they’re trying to relax because they’re having a hard time fitting in. Smoking and drinking are not the ways to fit in, they’re the cure to dealing with not fitting in. They’re the easily available, no prescription needed, cure to stress.

Many kids who are stressed out are prescribed anti-stress pills which typically make them more depressed because until you’re 25 your brain is not developed enough for the drugs to work they way they were designed. They can and do lead to suicide.

Parents get mad at their kids for doing drugs which aren’t going to kill them if used responsibly and instead opt for expensive prescription drugs that can cause their kid to commit suicide.

If drug companies would come out with a safe, easily accessible alternatives to cigarettes and beer you’d have less kids turning into addicts that ruin their bodies in the long run.

Of course, if parents would do their job and help their kid deal with stress without the drugs, drugs wouldn’t be an issue either.

Bookworm Room takes a calmer more reasoned approach to Michael Savage’s comments about kids with autism and arrives at the same conclusion: a lot of kids who are diagnosed with some form of autism are a product of an undisciplined household.

He gives three examples of kids who were labeled “autistic” and follows it up with the following

The common pattern in each of those households is that one or both of the parents feels an almost excessive sympathy for the kid when he (or she) is frustrated or unhappy. What the child wants, the child gets. One of the children I’m thinking of ruled the whole household. She dictated what was eaten, what wasn’t eaten, where people went, what they did, what bed time was, what toys and games were bought and rejected, etc. The parents thought that they were making her happy, but to an objective observer, the child was miserable. It was way too heavy a burden to place on a 10 year old, and she was a frenzied, hysterical tyrant who was unable to cope if anything didn’t go her way.

Supposedly 1 in 150 kids now has autism. What people don’t realize is that it’s not a chemical diagnosis. They don’t put the kid into a machine, look at their brain and see something amiss. They look simply at behaviors.

In many cases “autism” is a term used to define the behavior of what used to be called an “undiciplined brat.”

One theory floating around is that kids are under too much stress and it’s causing them to act out because they don’t know how to deal with it. The “cure” for these issues like ADD and Autism are typically downers. Anti-depresents. Chill pills. Stress relievers.

Why train the parents to be better parents to take responsibility in disciplining their child and helping their kid deal with stress when you can prescibe expensive pills that just make the kid physically unable to act up?

Bloomberg is reporting that energy is continuing to fall. As of this post it’s between $124 and $125 down about $4.

There a number of reasons it’s falling. The main reason is that oil is traded on a futures market. Meaning, people are paying now based on what they think it will be worth in the future. Southwest Airlines purchased a bunch of gas in the early 2000’s expecting prices to go up. George Bush recently stated that he is no longer an obstacle to offshore drilling which means there’s a good chance that in the future supply will be much higher which means the price will be lower.

Obama claimed that off shore drilling wouldn’t lower the price of gas because not one extra drop of oil would be available for about 7-10 years. It’s that kind of ignorance of how the markets work that has caused gas prices to skyrocket under the democratic controlled congress. Speculators know that as long as dems are in charge America won’t boost it’s oil production so the price goes up.

The other reason the price is dropping is because refineries aren’t making money. The oil is being purchased by speculators and then sold to refineries who then turn it into various products. When the price of gas goes up people stop using it which means fewer gallons are sold which means less profit even though the price per gallon is higher. Now the refineries are pushing back against the speculators so they can get the oil at a lower cost so they can sell gas at a lower price and make a profit.

There are a lot of easy ways to cut back on gas consumption and people are making use of them. American use of oil has dropped quite a bit. Less demand lowers the price as well.

The next big thing to hit oil is the electric car which is coming out in a few years. Americans will still need oil but there are a lot of alternative ways to generate electricity that minimize the use of oil with a focus on lubrication rather than burning it.

Hot Air has the scoop.

This is a flier paid for by the Obama Campaign to rally Americans to come see him give a speech. Wait, is that written in German? Oh right, he’s having a campaign rally in Germany and wants Germans to attend.

At a morning background briefing, reporters parried with senior advisers on the characterization of Obama’s speech Thursday in Berlin as a campaign rally. The outdoor speech at the Victory Column could draw thousands of people, similar to the size of Obama events in the United States.

“It is not going to be a political speech,” said a senior foreign policy adviser, who spoke to reporters on background. “When the president of the United States goes and gives a speech, it is not a political speech or a political rally.”

“But he is not president of the United States,” a reporter reminded the adviser.

“He is going to talk about the issues as an individual … not as a candidate, but as an individual, as a senator,” the adviser added.

Back in 2000 and especially 2004 foreigners wanted to tell Americans how to vote. Obama is apparently embracing this and somehow thinks that organizing a bunch of foreigners to come listen to him is going to reflect well on him.

There’s acting presidential and then there’s acting like you’re the president.

The Rocky Mountain News reports

The committee hosting the Democratic National Convention is using the city’s gas pumps to fill up on fuel, avoiding state and federal highway taxes, officials said today.

“There’s something there that just doesn’t seem right to me because, in a sense, you’re saying then that the officials who pass the laws are not willing to live by them, and that concerns me,” Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz said.

But the Republicans are doing it, too, right?

Faatz asked if it was customary to have “fleets for dignitaries” not pay for highway taxes if they’re using government fuel facilities.

Hickenlooper said it was.

“I believe this is only for elected officials, government dignitaries,” Hickenlooper told Faatz.

“My understanding is in Washington or wherever where this happens on a regular basis, that it’s standard operating procedure. I do know for a fact that they’re doing the same exact thing in Minneapolis,” which is hosting the Republican National Convention, the mayor said.

Is that a fact?

Teresa McFarland, a spokeswoman for the Minneapolis-St. Paul host committee, said they’re getting their gas at the pump.

“We’re not getting a tax break on fuel,” she said. “That’s not the set-up at this end.”

After the meeting, Faatz said it was wrong for the DNC host committee to get a tax break.

“I am just troubled by not having the payment of taxes for what I consider to be a privately funded party, and that’s what the host committee is: it’s a private organization,” she said.

“The DNC is not government. The RNC is not government,” said Faatz, who, at the time, had been told that the “same exact thing” was happening in Minneapolis-St. Paul. “They are political parties and they are putting on a huge party, and that is not providing services to each and every citizen each day.”

When Obama said the gas tax holiday was a gimmick he meant for the little people.