Obama: Public Financing Is For Suckers And Candidates Who CanÂ’t Raise $100 Million A Month And His Grandmother Didn't Raise Any Suckers
— DrewM

Back before he realized he was an internet money raising machine, Obama promised to “aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election”.

Now? Change!

WeÂ’ve made the decision not to participate in the public-financing system for the general election. This means weÂ’ll be forgoing more than $80 million in public funds during the final months of this election.

ItÂ’s not an easy decision, and especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections. But the public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents whoÂ’ve become masters at gaming this broken system. John McCainÂ’s campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs. And weÂ’ve already seen that heÂ’s not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations.

The system is broken? ItÂ’s the same damn system you promised to take part in before the gravy train started rolling in. And to say he has to forgo public financing because McCain is taking all this dirty money is hysterical. McCain is taking in a fraction of the money Obama is. Yes, the RNC is taking in a lot more than the DNC but itÂ’s harder to coordinate that money with the McCain campaign (somebody wrote a law about that not too long ago).

On the merits of this, I am with Obama. I, unlike McCain am a First Amendment absolutist and donÂ’t think there should be limits on how much people can donate to campaigns, so you wonÂ’t find me supporting the idea of public financing. Still the outright opportunism Obama is displaying is something youÂ’d expect from you know, a mere mortal of a candidate, not someone who is supposedly going to change everything about politics.

I wonder if McCain will make this an ongoing issue. Doing so might play well with moderates but a lot of talk from Maverick about campaign financing will only remind conservatives of an issue a lot of them disagree with him on.

Me? IÂ’m putting 5,000 Quatloos on McCain to harp on this a lot in the coming weeks. Never bet against McCain doing something that will annoy conservatives.

UPDATE: Obama's spokesman claims the two campaigns met to talk about reaching a deal but couldn't come up with an agreement. McCain's people call bullshit.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:41 AM | Comments (43)
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Gas/Diesel fuel taxes are going up soon
— Purple Avenger

Bank on it. When the Transportation Secretary starts talking like this, you don't need a crystal ball to see what comes next:

Americans drove 1.4 billion fewer highway miles in April than they did in April 2007, the Department of Transportation said Wednesday...

... Americans have driven nearly 20 billion fewer miles overall this year and nearly 30 billion fewer miles since November, the department said.

Peters expressed concern that the cutbacks have resulted in the collection of fewer taxes on gasoline.

Here in South Florida, we've been under "water restrictions" for quite a while. Apparently they were starting to have some effect and water usage had declined. Not surprisingly, the Palm Beach water district sent out notices a while ago that there was going to be a hearing on hiking the water rates to compensate for the loss of revenue from the reduced water usage. Of course the proposed water rate surcharge passed -- no good deed goes unpunished.

This effect is the "dirty little secret" conservation keeps when there's anything taxable or sold by government agencies involved. If you're successful, and do manage to effectively conserve something, then its not going to reduce your costs at all, because the government depends on a steady revenue flow. You the consumer will get nothing but a warm fuzzy feeling that you did some good for Gaia -- your bills aren't going down at all.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 06:25 AM | Comments (32)
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A "News Organization" and CBS Report: Global Seismic Activity Worse Than Eveh
— Dave in Texas

UPDATE: CBS pulled the story. Page not found. According to commenter Gary the "news organization" complained to CBS that they didn't write it.

More adverse effects of global warming, now it's causing stronger earthquakes.

Geoff gives them a pass on their rudimentary knowledge of heat transfer (their grasp of which is at least as poor as my own). But he does point out their multiple layers of fact checking missed that their scientist expert has a PhD in laser holography (as opposed to, say climatology, geology or heat transfer), and is a bit of a goofball.

He plays classical guitar exceptionally well, enjoys windsurfing (he calls himself a speed addict here), takes time to practice meditation, telepathy and astral travel. His hobbies include challenging paradigms and paradoxes in geophysics, studying puzzling properties of electro-photonic glow (Auras) using Kirlian camera, learning to see human aura, discovering purpose of life, as well as organizing controversial seminars.

It's a nice takedown, with an explanation of how surface temperature doesn't much impact the temp of the Earth's mantle, as well as a link showing summertime earthquakes occur less frequently (theory, meet problem).

No charts or graphs though. Which is a damn shame.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 06:04 AM | Comments (46)
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Maybe Chris Dodd needed that Countrywide loan to pay for his new residence...In Iowa?
— Russ from Winterset

Let's face it. Chris Dodd is pretty much a non-entity in politics. I mean, come on, who gives two craps & a stroke about Chris Dodd, except for Mrs. Dodd his kids and possibly a few siblings and close cousins? I mean, yeah, he's a Senator and all that, but he's from Connecticut. Excuse me? Connecticut? Is that even a state? I always figured that Connecticut was a theme park where they do historical re-enactments, kind of like Colonial Williamsburg, but a quick check of my Rand McNally road atlas tells me that yes, Connecticut is a state. Whoda thunk it? I see from the atlas statistics that Connecticut ranks 29th in population among the states with about 3.4 million people (one slot ahead of Iowa, which has about 2.9 million people) and it also ranks 48th in size with 5,018 square miles. Five thousand square miles? Dude, the military's got bases bigger than the Whole State of Connecticut. What's their State Motto: "Connecticut - Kicking the Shit out of Delaware & Rhode Island and taking their lunch money since 1789"?

OK, I know that our favorite hunchback and flamewar instigator, lauraw, is from Connecticut, and there were probably a few historical figures who lived in that quaint little state as well. Fine. I'm not saying that Connecticut is "DC without a crack-smoking Mayor". I'm just saying that a state that's famous for nutmeg ain't exactly on the top of everyone's vacation wishlist, ifyouknowwhatImeanandIthinkyoudo.
more...

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 02:00 AM | Comments (46)
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Mongol: Unauthorized Biography on Film (genghis)
— Open Blog

Subtitled: Where the hell did this come from

I know Ace frowns on personal posts, but I need an excuse to test out this newfangled site. Apparently this is an epic talkie by “award-winning Russian filmmaker Sergei Bodrov” about the rise of Genghis Khan (aka Temujin, aka Jenjhis).

According to the filmÂ’s website:

…”MONGOL delves into the dramatic and harrowing early years of the ruler who was born as Temudgin in 1162. As it follows Temudgin from his perilous childhood to the battle that sealed his destiny, the film paints a multidimensional portrait of the future conqueror, revealing him not as the evil brute of hoary stereotype, but as an inspiring, fearless and visionary leader”

LIES! IÂ’m nothing, if not hoary and evil. Alas, the movie doesnÂ’t tell of my great downfall into obscurity and third-rate open-bloggership, but weÂ’ll have to await the sequel. I knew nothing of this outrageous movie until recently, but news travels slowly to my isolated yurt.

I was really hoping for Samuel L. Jackson to portray me

(Has anyone actually seen this movie? Apparently it was released on June 6th and I've only seen one brief ad on FNC about 3 days ago, really late at night. It doesn't seem to be playing anywhere here in the Pac Northwest. Reviews, please.)

Posted by: Open Blog at 01:40 AM | Comments (27)
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Obama Foreign Policy Adviser: The Messiah Isn’t Naïve, He’s Just Stupid Or Something
— DrewM

Remember Obama’s AIPAC speech where he said "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided” and then had to back track a day latter when he realized that pissed off the Palestinians and overturned like 40 years of US policy?

Turns out thatÂ’s not proof of anything bad about ObamaÂ’s foreign policy judgment and experience, such as they are because words don't matter unless they are helpful to Him. Otherwise, don't worry about it.

Democrat Barack Obama misused a "code word" in Middle East politics when he said Jerusalem should be Israel's "undivided" capital but that does not mean he is naive on foreign policy, a top adviser said on Tuesday.

Â…Daniel Kurtzer, who advises Obama on the Middle East, said Tuesday at the Israel Policy Forum that Obama's comment stemmed from "a picture in his mind of Jerusalem before 1967 with barbed wires and minefields and demilitarized zones."

"So he used a word to represent what he did not want to see again, and then realized afterwards that that word is a code word in the Middle East," Kurtzer said.

This is supposed to make people feel better about ObamaÂ’s grasp of key issues, how exactly?

The fact that someone didn’t know that ‘undivided’ or ‘divided’ would set off a firestorm on one side or the other when applied to Jerusalem should disqualify that person from blogging on the subject. But here’s a guy running for President on a platform of being the superior candidate when it comes to diplomacy and it’s no big deal he didn’t know what he was saying?

Also, this wasnÂ’t some off the cuff remark, it was part of a major speech to a group he knew he need to score with and yet this kind of slapdash language gets though?

Remember, this is ObamaÂ’s national security and foreign policy teamÂ…

I am not sure which one Kurtzer is.

h/t The Corner

And thanks to Slu for the non-photoshop photo.

Posted by: DrewM at 05:15 PM | Comments (39)
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Yes, Finally: Cheetos Porn
— Ace

Sort of Content Warning, except it's a bit too ridiculous to take seriously as porn, unless you're really, really into Cheetos.

Make sure you read the "Cheetos Manifesto," in which he lays out his artistic vision regarding sex with Cheetos.

Is he serious? Nah. Just some spot-on parody of our outre artists.

Thanks to dri.

Posted by: Ace at 04:20 PM | Comments (37)
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Lemon Country: Japan's Booming "Elder Porn" Porn Industry
— Ace

It's either this or tentacle-rape.

Being soundly defeated by the US military may wind up paying economic dividends, but it also means your sexual impulses will be simultaneously repressed and bizarrely perverted.

I can't wait to see the kind of porn Al Qaeda's putting out ten years from now.

Although, given the fact they jerk off over decapitation-porn now, maybe I can wait after all.

Thanks to iwillnotsubmit.

Posted by: Ace at 02:39 PM | Comments (39)
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Obama's Shifting Positions on Iraq Seemed to Coincide With How Invested Tony Rezko Was in Iraq Dealings at the Moment
— Ace

Hmm...

Posted by: Ace at 02:32 PM | Comments (10)
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Okay, the Site's Going...
— Ace

So I'll direct people over to the new improved site, which actually isn't really all set up yet, but it sure the hell is more stable.

It's at ace.new.mu.nu.

Pixy sez: Don't panic, this is just a temporary URL. All the mu.nu sites are changing over to the new software, and to make it easy for everyone I set up a system that automatically copies everything posted on the old blogs to the same address at new.mu.nu.

As soon as I finish tweaking a few things for Ace, we'll be pointing ace.mu.nu and aceofspadeshq.com straight to the new site.

Do let me know if you run into problems, so I can get them fixed for you. Unless you're running IE6, in which case I might not be able to help. There are some things that just don't work in IE6.

Oh, and I might end up removing the inline comments. On small blogs they work great, but on a busy moron blog they slow down the main page and aren't all that useful. The comment counts and the recent comments list will remain - and work.

Posted by: Ace at 02:01 PM | Comments (118)
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