Palin should step down, conservative commentator says

I also loved this parody on youtube.

The Associated Press: Obama and McCain have big economic differences

Under Obama, the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers, those making roughly $600,000 or more, would see their taxes go up on average by $93,709 in 2009, according to an analysis done by the Tax Policy Center, because Obama would begin implementing his tax changes even before the scheduled expiration of the Bush cuts.

Under McCain, those same taxpayers would see an average reduction of $48,860, reflecting in part additional cuts he is proposing.

By contrast, the bottom 20 percent of taxpayers, those with taxable income of roughly $19,000 per year or less, would see their taxes cut by an average of $567 under Obama’s program and $21 under McCain’s plan, the tax center estimates.

For the 20 percent of taxpayers right in the middle of the income scale, making roughly between $37,600 and $66,400, the tax break would be $1,118 under the Obama plan and $325 under the McCain plan in 2009, according to the analysis done by the tax center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, two Washington think tanks.

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She used the Democratic majority leader’s dislike of McCain as evidence he’s the right choice for president. So as long as “they” hate him he must be good? I guess we got the wrong man with Obama cause he said he thought Mrs. Palin was a fine person.

So Obama said he’s going to lower taxes on 95% of working families, and she talked for 5 minutes about all the people he was going to raise taxes on. Same old BS, we’ll lower taxes, they’ll raise them, government = bad (except if we run it, which we are, but nevermind that). We’ll kill every government program just to save you $50/yr. Vote for us.

The Republican energy policy sounds identical to the Democrats, they only change the order of all the things they are going to do so that clean coal and nuclear comes before solar and wind. Whatever. Who do I think’s going to get it done? Not her. She seems like the type not to agree to anything she didn’t personally author, like she’s never had to compromise to get things done.

The thought of her becoming president is seriously frightening. Possibly enough to motivate me to donate more money to Obama. The thought of her being in charge of the military is so beyond ridiculous. To her, foreign countries are just the place where they keep our oil.

Oh, and I found out she used to go to and Assemblies of God church. Dear God help us. Ever seen “Hellhouse?”

Please dear God don’t let it happen.

But doing it in 10 years? If the earlier, personal solutions to global warming — drive a hybrid, put in better insulation — were far too little, Gore’s goal seems far too much. Less than 28% of our power currently comes from carbon-free sources, and the vast majority of that is hydroelectric and nuclear. High-tech renewables account for less than 3%. Wind and solar are growing far faster than fossil fuels such as coal or natural gas, but considering that we don’t even know if economical carbon capture and storage will ever be possible, it’s hard to see how Gore’s target is remotely attainable. This isn’t negative thinking, or fiction put out by the oil industry. This is reality.

I’m confused. Gore wasn’t talking about economical carbon capture, he was talking about using existing renewable energy technologies. And the science doesn’t care if it’s achievable. You don’t get to adjust the facts to fit what we think we can do.

He’s right. A number of scientists, though not all, warn that the world has a decade at most to reverse the growth in greenhouse gas emissions, or risk catastrophic climate change. But here’s the fact that keeps me up at night: Gore and his allies could be right. We may simply be technologically and politically incapable of doing anything about it. Maybe we’ve already run out of time, and we just don’t know it.

First, in no area of scientific theory will all scientist agree about anything. Second, the fact that they disagree does not avoid the fact that one side is right and one side is wrong. There is an objective reality out there that’s happening now regardless of our opinion of it. We use evidence, observable data, to decipher who’s right and who’s wrong.

I watched Larry King where they had a full panel of commenters saying how ridiculous it would be to produce 100% of our electricity from renewable resources in 10 years. None of them were scientists. Geraldo Rivera was one of the commenters if that tells you anything.

Here’s a few things we need to realize.

Your opinion does not matter. Climate change is happening or it’s not happening independent of your opinion. This is not religion, you do not get to pick what you want to believe based on what you’re comfortable with. The wind does not care what you think of it and not believing in it just means your picnic is over sooner than you thought. Or, if it’s a tornado, your house is destroyed and the wind is neither happy nor sad about it. It is completely self-less, without purpose or meaning of any kind, and your opinion of it has no effect on wether it happens or not.

The economy is not part of the climate change equation. There is no constant in the equations governing climate change theory that represents the economy or money. Climate change does not give a crap what Wall Street thinks is economically possible/comfortable.

It would be way more convenient if climate change were not happening, not our fault, or if we could do nothing about it.

People are offended when you tell them their lifestyle is killing the planet. The planet doesn’t care if you’re offended.

Nobody talks about the science, the facts, the observables when people talk about climate change on TV. Everyone talks about what they believe or hope or think is possible, but never what we know. What you believe is irrelevant.

Fact: Global CO2 levels are rising.
Fact: Humans today produce billions of tons of CO2 annually.
Fact: The CO2 we produce does not go away to never never land.
Fact: Historically, CO2 levels and temperatures are linked.
Fact: Global temperatures are increasing.
Fact: Burning fossil fuels for energy is not sustainable indefinitely.

That’s what we know. These are each undisputed facts.

I think it turns out that we are the posterity we have left this problem for. Sticking your head in the sand and humming won’t work on this one.

Sign the Move On petition to show your support for Gore’s call to action.

Some friends of mine were responsible for putting this on the ballot. It’ll totally pass.

The Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco has just recently submitted signatures to city election officials “hoping to place on the ballot an initiative that would rechristen the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant as the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.”

makes me a bit nauseous.

YouTube - McDumb As Bush