Poor quality of life making us shorter, just like in N.Korea

In the debates, John McCain cited the fact that North Koreans are 2 inches shorter than South Koreans as proof of the vileness of that regime. McCain overlooked one important fact: Americans are 2 inches shorter than Europeans due to a lower standard of living, poor health care, and inadequate nutrition. According to Tara Parker of the New York Times:

"While the conditions for North Koreans are troubling, Americans have a similar height gap to worry about, and it also appears to be due to a lower standard of living, poor health care and inadequate nutrition. Last summer, the journal Social Science Quarterly reported that Americans are, quite literally, falling short of Europeans. In 1880, Americans were the tallest people in the world. But by 2000, American men, at an average height of 5-feet-10.5-inches, ranked 9th, and women, at about 5-feet-5-inches, fell to 15th. Several Northern European countries rank the highest in height, with the Dutch coming in first, at just over 6 feet for the men and 5-feet-7-inches for the women."

When it Counts, Rob Andrews is Bush's bitch

yes to invade Iraq, yes to keep funding it without a timetable, yes to the handout. Fuck Rob Andrews.

bailout v. handout. whats the difference?

why is it that a family who takes a government check to keep a roof over their head is benefiting from a handout, but the bank who takes a government check to protect it from the consequences of bad investments is the beneficiary of a bailout?

perhaps its time to call it for what it is.

news: no huge bailout for the rich and the world has not ended

Patty's point: If we give them 700 billion today, whats to stop them from putting us in the same spot in the future - needing another handout.

My point: 700 billion is too much, no matter what. You'll wreck the economy with that kind of a money dump, and spending that kind of money helping rich people will guarantee we won't be able make major commitments to combating climate change, improving infrastructure, or providing people with health care.

brace yourself

by the narrowest of margins, the house refused to be bullied. now wall street is going to throw its temper tantrum . . . .

Here's a good reason to vote Obama

from the courier post:

"Money for the rescue plan would be phased in, he said. The first $350 billion would be available as soon as the president requested it. Congress could try to block later amounts if it believed the program was not working. The president could veto such a move, however, requiring extra large margins in the House and Senate to override.

Despite the changes made during an intense week of negotiations, the heart of the program remains Bush's original idea: To have the government spend billions of dollars to buy mortgage-backed securities whose value has plummeted as hundreds of thousands of Americans have defaulted on their home loans."

dress it up in as many fancy words as you want, the purpose of the bailout is to give rich people free money so they don't wreck the economy in something akin to the captain taking the first lifeboat off a sinking but savable ship.

it doesn't take a genius to figure out that printing 700 billion dollars and getting nothing for it is a recipe for disaster in the long run. and if this is the best compromise we're going to get, goodness knows we need a president with more loyalty to the american people than bush.

opensuse is no ubuntu killer

its bland, hard to install programs with, and i havn't been able to get my printer or graphics card to work.

i think the only people rooting for an ubuntu killer are people who have a problem with popularity - people who want to be using the next big thing, not the big thing. like fans of an underground band who move on after the band gets big, assuming that the band didn't sell out.

next stop: linux mint, to see if i can't resolve some screen resolution issues - and if that sucks, i'm back to ubuntu.

my middle name is glenn, and i'm not an astronaut

you could have the best criticism of Obama in the world, but if you predicate it by calling him Barrack Hussein Obama - pandering to bigotry and and fear - you automatically have zero credibility.

the debate

the debate proved to me that obama is willing to sell out on nukes and be another interventionist war hawk to win president.

mccain proved to me that he is a good actor - projecting the whole 'i break with my party' shtick. the record says something else.

and how come these guys sat down with george bush to talk about the economy yesterday and i still have no idea why 700 billion is necessary or if it'll even be enough? The whole economy is being bet on this package, but I guess i'm to stupid to merit knowing anything about it.

on the merits, obama won - yet his performance left me unispired. how many times was he going to say "john's right"? you know there's youtube montage coming.

And you know what makes me sick - none of the leading left blogs are calling obama for his shortcomings, all while affirming their support the campaign. but i guess that would just give ammunition to the right blogs to say there is division on the left.

i'm still voting for obama. did anybody's mind change or get made up by the debate? i doubt it.

Sincere wish

I wish that somebody with more clout, good sense, and credibility than a minority of Republican congressmen would oppose the bailout and offer some alternatives.

why don't you read the damn thing

John McCain wants to call of the debates because the threat to the economy is SO serious, but he refuses to answer questions about the 700 billion Paulson proposal becuase he hasn't read it yet. the proposal is 3 pages long.

You'd think if the crisis was as serious as he says it is, he'd read the damn thing.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/25/115343/699/188/610030

and then theres the truth . . .

McCain is not on ONE single committee that decides the fate of the bailout. Nor do the committees meet at 8/9 pm on Friday night when the debates happen.

stunts and high stakes gambles

How would McCain lead? Look at the way he runs his campaign: lots of stunts and high stakes gambles.

Choosing Sarah Palin - a huge gamble. A now, calling for the debate to be postponed. A total stunt - why not have a robust discussion about the economy before the American people prior to any irrevocable changes? But this move too is a high stakes gamble - Obama says he'll be at his podium tomorow night. It's the political equivellent of calling McCain a pussy if he don't show. The drama McCain has added to the debate ensures it will be more widely watched. Maybe McCain will deliver - Obama is known to be far better with a big audience and a prepared speech than at responding to trick questions on the fly. But if he doesn't, he's going to look like a real smacked ass in front of alot of people.