Predictions and other topics: Indiana: Clinton 55-45, North Carolina: Obama 58-42

I’ll be all over the place in this post; currently I am listening to the Tim Russet interview of Barack Obama on i-tunes. BHO seems to be doing quite well.

As far as my predictions: I am getting my raw poll data from Election Inspection. Consistently, the undecideds in this race have broken for the leader, though the trailing candidate gets a point or two.

North Carolina has more delegates at stake than Indiana, so overall, I expect Obama to ever so slightly pad his lead and actually end up slightly ahead of where he was prior to Pennsylvania (due to superdelegate pickups)

Note: I am a staunch Obama supporter and I am disgusted with some of the stuff that Hillary Clinton has done in this campaign. Nevertheless, she is smarter and more able that John “more of the same” McCain, and if she wins the Democratic nomination, I’ll vote for her.

Evidently, so will many others. As far as I am concerned, the race between Obama and Clinton is for the Presidency and not just the Democratic nomination. That is not to say that I won’t be campaigning come this fall.

Assorted Topics

I have a friend who is training hard for the Western States 100 mile race. Today, he describes a rugged 3 x 8 mile repeat workout; it is out and back on a 4 mile uphill workout. But I really liked this part of this post:

Mt. Mansfield is the highest peak in Vermont and the home of the Stowe ski area. There is a dirt road that leads to a sub-peak of Mt. Mansfield at about 3850′, about 400′ shy of the real summit of the peak. In the summer, the dirt road is used to rip off tourists, who pay some ridiculous amount of money to drive up to a small parking lot near the summit. From there, some highpointers even hike the mile or so to the real summit and claim they’ve summited VT’s highest peak.

Obama and the gas tax. Right now Obama is slamming Clinton over her gas-tax pandering. Of course, no one who understands economics is in favor of it. Robert Reich weighs in:

I know several of the economists who have been advising Senator Clinton, so I phoned them right after I heard this. I reached two of them. One hadn’t heard her remark and said he couldn’t believe she’d say it. The other had heard it and shrugged it off as “politics as usual.”

That’s the problem: Politics as usual.

The gas tax holiday is small potatoes relative to everything else. But it’s so economically stupid (it would increase demand for gas and cause prices to rise, eliminating any benefit to consumers while costing the Treasury more than $9 billion, and generate more pollution) and silly (even if she won, HRC won’t be president this summer) is worrisome. That HRC now says she doesn’t care that what economists think is even more troubling.

In case you’ve missed it, we now have a president who doesn’t care what most economists think. George W. Bush doesn’t even care what scientists think. He rejects all experts who disagree with his politics. This has led to some extraordinarily stupid policies. [...]

He goes to say that HRC isn’t GWB (and ok, she isn’t). But, more and more, she is acting like him.

What I don’t like Obama

Right now, Russert is asking Obama a tough question that is a fair question: he is asking about ethanol. This is a hard question for BHO because Illinois is a huge corn growing state and so ethanol is very popular here. Now Russert is talking about ethanol in terms of food shortages; Obama correctly pointed out that there are more factors in play when it comes to the food shortage aspect.

But BHO did say that ethanol was “transitional” and that we would have to eventually switch to other more effective biofuels (e. g. ethanol from switchgrass, wood chips, etc.) He is now talking about nuclear as well as clean coal technologies.

I am fine with this.

But here are a couple of points of disagreement:

I am very uncomfortable with our supporting the notion of a “Jewish State”. No, I don’t think that Judaism is any worse than any other religion, but I don’t like religious based states, and yes, that includes Islamic ones.

Yes, I do think that Israel is the closest thing to a democratic state in the Middle East, and if I were forced at gunpoint in that region, I’d choose to live there.

But we need to come to grips that this state was founded, in part, by expelling people from the region. Yes, others chose to leave even when they were asked to stay.

Of course, here is another continuing point of disagreement: in my opinion, BHO does way too much pandering on religion. I’ve grown to accept this as part of his “baggage”, though this is a selling point with others (see the video: dueling grannies, at least the first 2-3 minutes)

Here is what Obama himself says (“walk with god”? (eye roll here) At least he acknowledges that “religious folks don’t have a monopoly on morality”. That is one of the many reasons I can support him, even if we are very different in this area.

dusty2006jw has collected a nice series of these videos, including this one. These are all short.

Here he takes a shot at people like me.

Here says that doubts are ok. I agree. He agrees that he still has doubts. He still gives too much credit for religious beliefs. He mentions callousness (which I agree is a problem). But religion isn’t the answer for that; return to the Young Turks video above (Rev. John Hagee’s “LET THEM STARVE” comment)

At least he says that we don’t need to pretend to believe.

Here Obama talks about preserving the separation of church and state. He correctly points out that religious types had more at stake at keeping church and state separate. He could have also mentioned that this issue was one reason many Catholics kept sending their kids to Catholic schools: they didn’t want their kids subjected to Protestant type of religion.

To an atheist, it is all nonsense anyway; there is no deity to offend.

Here is the Young Turks Video which shows that religious types can be as callous as anyone else, if not much more so.

But, here is one of the reasons I back him. State Rep. Mark Cohen (of Pennsylvania).

[...]Those interested in fighting expressions of anger and hatred and isolation can always denounce or debate them. But denunciations and debate often do not deal with the core sense of anger. Every group has of aggrevied people has some core set of experiences and beliefs, and these experiences and beliefs are difficult to rebut.

The Obama approach is the one most likely to be successful. Inclusion of average citizens in the Obama coalition takes away a source of volunteers and fundraising for those consumed with counterproductive anger and hatred.

A rhetoric of inclusion, explanation, understanding, and mobilization undermines the intellectual isolation that so many of the most alienated suffer from.

In the 20th Century, the great American political communicators were William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan. All of them were able to change the world by redescribing it so that reality as they saw it was comprehended by many of the most isolated and most alienated members of society.

In the 21st Century, the great political communicator is Barack Obama. His skill is the greatest longterm threat to the marketing of the speeches, tapes, and books of Rev. Wright and his ilk. The more Americans believe that constructive change is possible, the less the market will be for statements of hatred of any kind.

The average person is highly suspicious of great anger. Howard Dean found that the rebuttal to his well-justified anger at the decision to fight a war in Iraq and the failure of the Democrats in Congress to fully function as an opposition party–that Dean is a basically angry person, angry at all too many things–was remarkably effective. As Democratic National Chairman, Dean has worked to erase the image of anger associated with him.

Those who fear anger should seek to mitigate or eliminate it. Only Obama offers the realistic possibility of doing it. [...]

Leonard Pitts: What do you think of this? Leonard Pitts will be speaking at the Roanoke NAACP banquet this coming June 6. What makes this special?

Remember that Leonard Pitts caught some heat when some low-life Neo Nazi published his home telephone number and address in hopes that he would get harassed by racists.

Anyway, the neo-nazi-idiot who harassed Pitts lives in Roanoke; he was bragging left and right at how he “scared” Mr. Pitts.

First May Sunday

Workout notes Beautiful morning; started out cool and got warmer (60’s). I went to the East Peoria Trail and started at 7:30. The first 10 miles took 2:18;I did see one of our walking group members out walking with her husband but mostly I had the trail to myself and there was no wind. I asked “how long can this last?”

Answer: not much longer. The second 10 miles took 2:14 and saw the wind pick up. But, there was also an influx of 8-10 mile an hour bicyclists; included were some couples, one single recliner, one tandem recliner, and a gaggle of rather attractive spandex clad women on hybrid bikes.

True, there is nothing wrong with that as that is what such paths are for, but on the downhill stretches, I did go through the old “zone out, only to get startled out of it” when a cyclist whizzed past me; all most all of the time they were very polite and gave a cheery “on your right” to warn me. There were only a couple of walkers and runners (that I saw anyway).

Overall, I was pleased with my 4:32 for 20 miles, given my 20 miler yesterday. And days don’t come any prettier than today: the grass and the trees were very green, blue jays and cardinals added color and song, and the small animals (e. g. rabbits) were as cute as ever.

Politics and double standards

From the New York Times, and editorial by Frank Rich:

the Rev. John Hagee, lecturing in front of an enormous diorama. Wielding a pointer, he pokes at the image of a woman with Pamela Anderson-sized breasts, her hand raising a golden chalice. The woman is “the Great Whore,” Mr. Hagee explains, and she is drinking “the blood of the Jewish people.” That’s because the Great Whore represents “the Roman Church,” which, in his view, has thirsted for Jewish blood throughout history, from the Crusades to the Holocaust.

Mr. Hagee is not a fringe kook but the pastor of a Texas megachurch. On Feb. 27, he stood with John McCain and endorsed him over the religious conservatives’ favorite, Mike Huckabee, who was then still in the race.

Are we really to believe that neither Mr. McCain nor his camp knew anything then about Mr. Hagee’s views? This particular YouTube video — far from the only one — was posted on Jan. 1, nearly two months before the Hagee-McCain press conference. Mr. Hagee appears on multiple religious networks, including twice daily on the largest, Trinity Broadcasting, which reaches 75 million homes. Any 12-year-old with a laptop could have vetted this preacher in 30 seconds, tops. [...]

Mr. McCain says he does not endorse any of Mr. Hagee’s calumnies, any more than Barack Obama endorses Mr. Wright’s. But those who try to give Mr. McCain a pass for his embrace of a problematic preacher have a thin case. It boils down to this: Mr. McCain was not a parishioner for 20 years at Mr. Hagee’s church.

That defense implies, incorrectly, that Mr. McCain was a passive recipient of this bigot’s endorsement. In fact, by his own account, Mr. McCain sought out Mr. Hagee, who is perhaps best known for trying to drum up a pre-emptive “holy war” with Iran. (This preacher’s rantings may tell us more about Mr. McCain’s policy views than Mr. Wright’s tell us about Mr. Obama’s.) Even after Mr. Hagee’s Catholic bashing bubbled up in the mainstream media, Mr. McCain still did not reject and denounce him, as Mr. Obama did an unsolicited endorser, Louis Farrakhan, at the urging of Tim Russert and Hillary Clinton. Mr. McCain instead told George Stephanopoulos two Sundays ago that while he condemns any “anti-anything” remarks by Mr. Hagee, he is still “glad to have his endorsement.” [...]

The Military Media Manipulation Scandal
From the New York Times:

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration’s war on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which inside information and easy access to senior officials are highly prized.

Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.

Since when did our media become Tass? Check out the video:

Clinton panders to the anti-intellectual voters:

Sen. Hillary Clinton is sticking to her policy proposal of a gas tax holiday, and the breadth of her now-famous statement that members of Congress are either “with us or against us” has been extended to economists. Today she joined George Stephanopoulos for a “This Week” town hall.

When asked to name a credible economist who backed her idea to use a windfall profit tax against oil companies to fund the suspension of a tax on gasoline, Clinton responded:

“I’m not going to put my lot in with economists”… Clinton added that the tax holiday would work “if we actually did it right.”

She continued the line of attack, criticizing more generally “this mindset where elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantage the vast majority of Americans.”

Go here to see the video. She is sounding more and more like George W. Bush.