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07-31-2008, 04:33 PM
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McCain's Obama Paris Hilton Ad
McCain expresses pride in campaign ad about Obama By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press Writer Republican presidential candidate John McCain expressed pride Thursday in a new campaign ad that compares Barack Obama to a pair of Hollywood celebrities, but defended his Democratic opponent after a voter said Obama "terrifies me." The ad intersperses images of Obama's appearance before cheering fans in Berlin last week with clips of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. It underscores McCain's oft-stated criticism that Obama is more a media phenomenon than someone prepared to assume the presidency, but also led some Republican supporters of McCain to complain the ad was childish. "What we are talking about here is substance and not style," McCain said, making his first comments about the ad after a voter questioned him about it. "Campaigns are tough, but I'm proud of the campaign we have run, I'm proud of the issues we have tried to address with the American people ... All I can say is we are proud of that commercial." In a conference call with reporters, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said McCain "kind of went into a ravine in Racine" for saying he was proud of the ad. "We can most assuredly tell you that voters around the country do not think there's anything substantive about this latest ad, do not think it's something that John McCain should be proud of," Plouffe said. McCain later praised his rival during the Wisconsin town-hall meeting when an 18-year-old woman criticized Obama. "I just have to say, Obama terrifies me," she said. "I just want to say I think you should call him on every shot. Don't let him get away with a single...we can't afford it." "I respect and admire Sen. Obama. We just have stark differences," McCain replied, ticking through his usual list of complaints about Obama, such as his refusal to support the Bush administration's decision last year to send thousands more U.S. troops to Iraq. With most national and battleground state polls showing McCain running slightly behind Obama, the GOP hopeful has been ratcheting up his attacks. At the same time, he has cut back on his interaction with the reporters traveling with the campaign — jettisoning his trademark looseness with the press and letting his staff and surrogates mix it up instead. McCain took direct aim Thursday at Obama's signature pledge to bring fundamental change to Washington. "If Sen. Obama doesn't have the strength to speak openly and directly about how he would address the serious challenges confronting America, how would he be strong enough to really change Washington?" McCain asked. "We don't need another politician in Washington who puts self-interest and political expediency ahead of problem solving." In Wisconsin, McCain and his wife, Cindy, also had coffee with Debra Bartoshevich, a former Hillary Rodham Clinton delegate to the Democratic National Convention who switched her support to McCain after Clinton dropped out. The state party has voted to strip Bartoshevich, a nurse from Waterford, of her status as a delegate after she announced she would vote for McCain in November.
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 save the cheerleader - save the world 
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#2
07-31-2008, 04:40 PM
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What do you think?
I think it is a slick ad. However, it is misleading if not outright untrue. Obama is not for more dependence on foreign oil. Here is what he is for in this area http://www.barackobama.com/issues/energy/ -- which essentially is alternate and/or cleaner energy sources. Also, Obama is not for drilling for more oil in the US because he realizes that even if we begin to utilize the largest estimates of the oil in the ground 10 years from now, it will not really make a significant dent (5-10% ) in what America consumes daily and it will eventually run out in 20-30 years, when we will have to look for alternate and/or cleaner energy sources  Does McCain think Americans are that stupid? As for the comparison to air headed celebrities - it is catchy and IMO fair game, though the comparison is unfair as Obama is far from dumb and he, unlike those he is compared to, has accomplished many things politically, though not nearly as much as McCain. Did anyone get a Hitler vibe from the ad? I kind of did with all the crowds screaming and the way it was shot.
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save the cheerleader - save the world
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#3
07-31-2008, 10:21 PM
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Children of the world the forgotten chimpanzee..in the eyes of the world you have done so much for me. ..SLN.
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07-31-2008, 10:35 PM
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#5
08-01-2008, 04:35 AM
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Note -- I am no huge Obama fan. It is the previous stated lying that gets to me. I think McCain is better than that and he ought to know how it feels because Rove and W did it to him in 2000. In any event, I have not seen a poll that indicates Obama was hurt by the ad or that McCain got any sort of bump from it. So, the ad apparently has not acheived its goal.
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save the cheerleader - save the world Last edited by strandinthewind; 08-01-2008 at 04:38 AM..
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#6
08-01-2008, 05:03 AM
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As for McCain, does he not remember this: The anatomy of a smear campaign By Richard H. Davis | March 21, 2004 Every presidential campaign has its share of hard-ball political tactics, but nothing is more discomforting than a smear campaign. The deeply personal, usually anonymous allegations that make up a smear campaign are aimed at a candidate's most precious asset: his reputation. The reason this blackest of the dark arts is likely to continue is simple: It often works. The premise of any smear campaign rests on a central truth of politics: Most of us will vote for a candidate we like and respect, even if we don't agree with him on every issue. But if you can cripple a voter's basic trust in a candidate, you can probably turn his vote. The idea is to find some piece of personal information that is tawdry enough to raise doubts, repelling a candidate's natural supporters. All campaigns do extensive research into their opponent's voting record and personal life. This so-called "oppo research" involves searching databases, combing through press clips, and asking questions of people who know (and preferably dislike) your opponent. It's not hard to turn up something a candidate would rather not see on the front page of The Boston Globe. It's not necessary, however, for a smear to be true to be effective. The most effective smears are based on a kernel of truth and applied in a way that exploits a candidate's political weakness. Having run Senator John McCain's campaign for president, I can recount a textbook example of a smear made against McCain in South Carolina during the 2000 presidential primary. We had just swept into the state from New Hampshire, where we had racked up a shocking, 19-point win over the heavily favored George W. Bush. What followed was a primary campaign that would make history for its negativity. In South Carolina, Bush Republicans were facing an opponent who was popular for his straight talk and Vietnam war record. They knew that if McCain won in South Carolina, he would likely win the nomination. With few substantive differences between Bush and McCain, the campaign was bound to turn personal. The situation was ripe for a smear. It didn't take much research to turn up a seemingly innocuous fact about the McCains: John and his wife, Cindy, have an adopted daughter named Bridget. Cindy found Bridget at Mother Theresa's orphanage in Bangladesh, brought her to the United States for medical treatment, and the family ultimately adopted her. Bridget has dark skin. Anonymous opponents used "push polling" to suggest that McCain's Bangladeshi born daughter was his own, illegitimate black child. In push polling, a voter gets a call, ostensibly from a polling company, asking which candidate the voter supports. In this case, if the "pollster" determined that the person was a McCain supporter, he made statements designed to create doubt about the senator. Thus, the "pollsters" asked McCain supporters if they would be more or less likely to vote for McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate child who was black. In the conservative, race-conscious South, that's not a minor charge. We had no idea who made the phone calls, who paid for them, or how many calls were made. Effective and anonymous: the perfect smear campaign. Some aspects of this smear were hardly so subtle. Bob Jones University professor Richard Hand sent an e-mail to "fellow South Carolinians" stating that McCain had "chosen to sire children without marriage." It didn't take long for mainstream media to carry the charge. CNN interviewed Hand and put him on the spot: "Professor, you say that this man had children out of wedlock. He did not have children out of wedlock." Hand replied, "Wait a minute, that's a universal negative. Can you prove that there aren't any?" Campaigns have various ways of dealing with smears. They can refute the lies, or they can ignore them and run the risk of the smear spreading. But "if you're responding, you're losing." Rebutting tawdry attacks focuses public attention on them, and prevents the campaign from talking issues. We chose to address the attacks by trying to get the media to focus on the dishonesty of the allegations and to find out who was making them. We also pledged to raise the level of debate by refusing to run any further negative ads -- a promise we kept, though it probably cost us the race. We never did find out who perpetrated these smears, but they worked: We lost South Carolina by a wide margin. The only way to stop the expected mud-slinging in 2004 is for both President Bush and Senator Kerry to publicly order their supporters not to go there. But if they do, their behavior would be the exception, not the rule. Richard H. Davis is president of the Reform Institute and a partner in Davis Manafort, a political consulting firm. He was a fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics in 2002. He was campaign manager for John McCain in 2000 and has worked in every presidential campaign since 1980. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/edi...mpaign/?page=2 ______________________________________ I will say this -- Obama appears to be above the lies. Can you think of any instance where he has done these half truths like the oil thing in the ref. ad?
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save the cheerleader - save the world
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#7
08-01-2008, 10:17 AM
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~Suzy
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#8
08-01-2008, 10:25 AM
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This ad shows McCain is getting desperate...I can't blame him. It seems there's this movement that refuses to budge for Obama. During the Democratic Primaries I noticed everytime Hillary tried to say even something that remotely critiqued Obama, she was booed or reprimanded for it. I just dont get the big deal really. I was going to vote for Hillary, she looked pretty moderate compared to Obama AND McCain. Now, I must say my vote goes to McCain, but he needs to STOP with stupid ads like this! Obama will trip himself up in the debates. He couldn't debate to save his life.
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~Alex 
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#9
08-01-2008, 10:43 AM
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Again, I am for extracting all the oil from the earth now because that seemingly is the only way the clutches of the oil lobby can be removed from world. And, what I don't get is why Americans are so loathe to see that. And, why politicians don't realize that the American economy would soar with the R&D and implementation of the new devices - sort of like when PC's took off.
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save the cheerleader - save the world
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#10
08-01-2008, 11:17 AM
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#11
08-01-2008, 11:25 AM
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As for the raising of taxes on electricity:
Obama's Celebrity Cred July 30, 2008 A new McCain ad calls Obama a celebrity (true) who says he'll raise taxes on electricity (false). Summary McCain's new ad claims that Obama "says he'll raise taxes on electricity." That's false. Obama says no such thing. McCain relies on a single quote from Obama who once – and only once so far as we can find – suggested taxing "dirty energy," including coal and natural gas. That was in response to a reporter's suggestion that a tax on wind power could fund education. Obama isn't proposing any new tax on electricity or "dirty energy" as part of his platform, and he never has. It's true that a coal/gas tax would raise electric rates, but so would a cap-and-trade program to restrict carbon emissions. Cap-and-trade is an idea that both McCain and Obama support, in different forms. Neither candidate characterizes cap-and-trade as a "tax." Analysis Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain once again goes after Barack Obama, his Democratic counterpart, in a new television ad titled "Celeb." The ad is airing on a few national networks and in 11 "key states," according to the campaign. False Claims 4 U McCain 2008 TV Ad: "Celeb" Chant: Obama! Obama! Narrator: He's the biggest celebrity in the world. On-screen image: Britney Spears and Paris Hilton Narrator: But, is he ready to lead? With gas prices soaring, Barack Obama says no to offshore drilling. And, says he'll raise taxes on electricity. Higher taxes, more foreign oil, that's the real Obama. McCain: I'm John McCain and I approved this message. The ad opens with shots of massive crowds shouting Obama's name. As the female announcer informs us that "he's the biggest celebrity in the world," the camera cuts to quick images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. The announcer then asks whether Obama is ready to lead before informing us that Obama opposes offshore drilling and "says he'll raise taxes on electricity." The cheering crowds are replaced by ominous music as the suddenly serious announcer intones, "Higher taxes. Foreign Oil. That's the real Obama." The McCain campaign sent reporters a set of "ad facts" to accompany the new spot. But the campaign's sole source for its charge that Obama wants to raise taxes on electricity is a short Feb. 19 interview that Obama gave to Carlos Guerra, a reporter with the San Antonio Express-News. Obama does in fact say, "What we ought to tax is dirty energy, like coal and, to a lesser extent, natural gas." But that quote is out of context. Obama and Guerra are discussing possible ways to fund education. Here's the pertinent passage, in full: Guerra: Have you considered other funding sources, say taxing emerging energy forms, for example, say a penny per kilowatt hour on wind energy? Obama: Well, that’s clean energy, and we want to drive down the cost of that, not raise it. We need to give them subsidies so they can start developing that. What we ought to tax is dirty energy, like coal and, to a lesser extent, natural gas. But I think that the real way to fund education is for local communities to step up and say this is important to us. There are no shortcuts. When people say they want to fund education with lotteries, or do this or do that, what they are saying is that this isn’t a top priority. It should be a top priority and people should be saying, we get what we pay for. As we read Obama's response, he is rejecting a tax on wind energy, saying that taxing "dirty energy" is a better option, and then he is rejecting both notions by saying "the real way" is for local communities to "step up" and pay for education with "no shortcuts." Obama's phrasing does leave room for interpretation, but to our ears this is a feeble peg on which to hang a claim that Obama wants to "raise taxes on electricity." We asked the McCain campaign if it had any other information on which to base this "taxes on electricity" claim, and we received no response. We looked, but could find no instance of Obama making mention of a tax on electricity or any other reference to a "dirty energy" tax. In any case, no such policy proposals are currently part of his public platform. Cap-and-Trade Programs Are Hott! What was Obama talking about with his "dirty energy" remark? We asked campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor and got this response: "It was a reference to cap and trade. A position John McCain supports." And it's true that both McCain and Obama support cap-and-trade, which would indeed raise the price of electricity, whether one calls it a "tax" or not. Cap-and-trade programs are designed to decrease the use of fossil fuels by requiring that industries (including power companies) cap their total carbon dioxide emissions. Companies would receive credits for CO2 emissions; any company that managed to stay under its quota would be permitted to sell its additional credits. The cap (or total number of credits issued) would shrink over time. Obama has proposed auctioning the initial credits, a policy that he says will generate revenue that can be invested into alternative energy research. Eric Roston, of the nonpartisan Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, says that any cap-and-trade program will raise the cost of electricity. As he told FactCheck.org, "The goal of cap-and-trade is to make fossil fuels more expensive, which will make new technologies competitive with them." And since Obama would be auctioning credits, Roston says that it's "not unreasonable" to label Obama's program a tax politically. Of course, by that standard, John McCain also favors raising taxes on electricity. McCain's Web site prominently proclaims his support for a cap-and-trade program, and in 2003, McCain and then-Democrat Joe Lieberman jointly sponsored legislation that would have implemented a cap-and-trade system. Toxic Charges We usually try to avoid writing articles about Hollywood's latest gossip, but in this case, we felt that the McCain campaign's choice of celebrities is worth a brief mention. In a conference call with reporters, McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said the ad features Ms. Hilton and Ms. Spears because, on the listing of "three biggest international celebrities in the world," they rank second and third. We'll leave it to you to judge how up-to-date the McCain campaign's celebrity meter is. But we will note that, in a lucky coincidence, Spears and Hilton also topped an AP poll for "worst celebrity role model." That connection appears to be deliberate. When asked whether the campaign intended to imply that Obama is as "frivolous and irresponsible" as Spears or Hilton, Rogers replied, "I think that's exactly what we've been saying." If McCain's aides believe that Barack Obama is like Britney Spears, that's their prerogative. – by Joe Miller Update, July 31: Roston contacted us after the article had been published to clarify that it is reasonable politically to classify Obama's cap-and-trade proposal as a tax. We understood that to be his position, but have updated the article to reflect his clarification. Plus, the whole comparison to two blond hair chicks who have had legal troubles and one has mental problems. Why not compare him to Will Smith and George Clooney, two widely liked male stars. Why put two negatively viewed widely regarded as airheaded white girls with legal troubles -- seems like BS to me because Obama is not regarded as anything like these two girls.
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save the cheerleader - save the world
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#12
08-01-2008, 11:34 AM
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Also, where are you getting the 20% from? But, even if that is accepted as true, that is still way more than any of the oil the US may or may not have by the wildest estimates. But, Amercians are just loathe to the idea that there is an alternative to oil. I mean if Brazil can do without oil, why can't America with her vast resources. Why didn't W push for this as he said he would do from the beginning? I suggest it is because Big Oil owns the world and certainly the current administration. Pu it this way necessity is the mother of invention. In Brazil, The Driving Is Sweeter March 29, 2006 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (CBS) Wouldn't it be nice if, one day, we didn't have to worry about the ups and downs of the gas markets? Well in Brazil, the fifth largest country in the world, there's a plan to become free from imported oil, not in the next 30 years, not in the next 10, but by the end of this year, reports CBS News correspondent Trish Regan. That's primarily because while the rest of the world was mapping the human genome, scientists in Brazil were mapping the DNA of sugar in an effort to create a cleaner, cheaper alternative to gasoline: sugarcane ethanol. They succeeded. Brazil's ethanol is about 30 percent less expensive than gasoline; according to the World Bank, it's about 50 cents cheaper per gallon to produce sugarcane ethanol. And although ethanol gets slightly less mileage, it's still cheaper on a per-mile-driven basis. "The way we figure it, ethanol will be cheaper than gasoline as long as the price of oil is over $45 a barrel," said William Bernquist, coordinator for research and development at the Sugar Cane Technology Institute in Piracicaba, Brazil. With oil upwards of $60 dollars a barrel, and no relief in sight, Bernquist predicts that ethanol will stay cheaper for some time. "We started our ethanol program in the '70s because of the oil crisis in the '70s," he said. "And so we had to survive." And "survival" meant finding a homegrown source of fuel, says Eduardo Carvalho, president of Sugar Cane Agroindustry Union. "We had no money to pay for the import of oil," he told Regan. As chief economic advisor to Brazil's finance minister in the 1970s, Eduardo Carvalho pushed for government subsidies to help the fledgling sugarcane industry take shape. Carvalho told Regan that it's a good feeling to know that by the end of the year his country will no longer have to rely on the Middle East for oil. "(It's) extremely important," he said. "We feel very proud." Beginning in the 1970s, every gas station in the country was required to have at least one ethanol pump and the government mandated that all gasoline be mixed with ethanol. "We began to blend increasing quantities of ethanol in our gasoline pool," Carvalho said. But, as the ethanol began to replace gasoline, that led to another development: a brand new kind of car called a "flex vehicle." The car gives you the option of using a gasoline ethanol blend or 100 percent ethanol depending on whatever is cheaper. In San Paolo, Brazil, ethanol is the cheaper fuel to use. Today, 70 percent of new cars sold in Brazil are flex vehicles, which cost no more than a regular car. With the fuel environmentally cleaner to burn and the car cheaper to run, you've got to ask whether there is any downside to the fuel. Carvalho says the biggest downside is the oil industry. "They aren't able to sell their product. … Basically, the people who produce oil, they don't like us … because we are getting their markets. … It's very simple." The U.S. has made inroads on ethanol, but the focus here has been on corn-based ethanol, which is more expensive to process. By any measure, the U.S. is still probably decades behind Brazil on this alternative energy front. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/...e1454613.shtml
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save the cheerleader - save the world
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#13
08-01-2008, 11:38 AM
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Here is a cool opinion piece on why America is dep. on foreign oil and will be until Wash., D.C. bucks Big Oil:
July 13, 2008 How to break free of oil Follow the lead of the few countries doing it By GAL LUFT When the Founding Fathers declared our independence, they could not have imagined that, 232 years later, the United States would be so spectacularly dependent on foreign countries. It would be roughly eight more decades before oil gushed from a well in Titusville, Pa., marking the beginning of the global oil economy. It took eight decades more for the United States to become a net oil importer. In 1973, when OPEC imposed its oil embargo, U.S. oil imports composed 30 percent of our needs. Today, they make up more than 60 percent, with a growing proportion of that crude coming from the world's least stable regions. At around $145 a barrel, the United States, by my calculations, will spend more on imported oil this year than it will spend on its own defense budget, and much of that money will flow into the coffers of those who wish us ill. Since oil dependence is so unappealing, you'd think that energy independence would be an easy sell. But in fact, very few policy ideas have been so ridiculed. A 2007 report by the National Petroleum Council, a privately funded group that offers advice from the oil and gas industries to the federal government, calls energy independence "unrealistic." A recent book, "Gusher of Lies," by Robert Bryce, a former fellow at a think tank funded in part by energy interests, described energy independence as a "dangerous delusion." And a 2006 Council on Foreign Relations task force went so far as to accuse those promoting energy independence of "doing the nation a disservice by focusing on a goal that is unachievable over the foreseeable future." Ignore them. Energy independence does not mean that the United States must be entirely self-sufficient. It simply means reducing the role of oil in world politics -- turning it from a strategic commodity into merely another thing to sell. Is energy independence a pipe dream? Hardly. In the electricity sector, it has already been accomplished. Remember President Jimmy Carter in his cardigan during the oil crises of the 1970s, urging Americans to save electricity? It took just one decade to wean the electricity sector from oil. Today, only 2 percent of U.S. electricity comes from oil, according to the Energy Department. Could we do something similar with transportation, where American cars and trucks still gulp oil-based fuel greedily? At least four very different countries are already making serious headway toward that goal. The first country, surprisingly enough, is Iran. The Islamic republic has lots of crude but little capacity to refine it, leaving Tehran heavily dependent on gasoline imports. The country's blustery president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is fully aware that this is Iran's Achilles' heel and worries that a comprehensive gasoline embargo could cause enough social unrest to undermine his regime. So Ahmadinejad has launched an energy-independence program designed to shift Iran's transportation system from gasoline to natural gas, which Iran has plenty of. "If we can change our automobiles' fuel from gasoline to [natural] gas during the next three-four years," he said last July, "we won't need gasoline anymore." His plan includes a mandate for domestic automakers to make "dual-fuel" cars that can run on both gasoline and natural gas, a crash program to convert used vehicles to run on natural gas, and a program to convert Iranian gas stations to serve both kinds of fuel. According to the International Association of Natural Gas Vehicles, more than 100 conversion centers have been built throughout the country: Iranians can drive in with their gasoline-only cars, pay a subsidized fee equivalent to $50 and collect their newly dual-fueled cars several hours later. Ahmadinejad's plan means that within five years or so, Iran could be virtually immune to international sanctions. While Iran is moving toward energy independence, Brazil is already there. It's a striking turnaround. Three decades ago, Brazil imported 80 percent of its oil supply. But since the 1973 Arab oil embargo, Brazilians have invested heavily in their sugar-based ethanol industry and created a fleet of vehicles that can run on the resulting fuel. According to the Sugar Cane Industry Union (Unica), 90 percent of new cars sold this year in Brazil will be flexible-fuel vehicles that cost an extra $100 to make but can run on any combination of gasoline and ethanol. Lest anyone think that can't be done in the United States, many of those new cars are made by General Motors and Ford. All it really takes to turn a regular car into a flex-fuel one is a fuel sensor and a corrosion-resistant fuel line. Discovering how to make hydrocarbons and carbohydrates cohabit in the same fuel tank isn't all Brazil has done. It also increased domestic oil production. Its efforts have not only broken Brazil's oil dependence but insulated the country's economy from the pain of this spike in global oil prices. Gasoline prices have nearly doubled elsewhere since 2005, but in Brazil they have been almost frozen. This year, more ethanol will be sold in Brazil than gasoline. Like Brazil, China has decided to replace gasoline with alternative fuels. But unlike the United States and Brazil, where the favorite substitute is ethanol, China has embraced a different alcohol: methanol. Several provinces in China already blend gasoline with methanol, a clear, colorless liquid also known as wood alcohol. Scores of methanol plants are under construction there. The Chinese auto industry has already begun to produce flex-fuel models that run on methanol. Shanxi, a province in central China that produces much of the country's coal, has even issued stickers granting cars that use methanol free passage on provincial toll roads. Both methanol and ethanol biofuels should be among our options. Ethanol packs more energy per gallon and is less corrosive than methanol. But methanol is cheaper and far easier to produce in bulk. While ethanol can be made only from agricultural products such as corn and sugar cane, methanol can be made from natural gas, coal, industrial garbage and even recycled carbon dioxide captured from power stations' smokestacks -- a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Israel offers a fourth testament to what leadership and ingenuity can achieve. Last year, it launched an electric car venture designed to turn Israel -- which obviously has tensions with the region's big oil producers -- into an oil-free economy. Israelis will soon be able to replace their gasoline-fueled cars with battery-operated ones, which they'll plug into the hundreds of thousands of recharging points planned to be erected throughout the country. Israeli motorists, the government hopes, will be able to swap their batteries in a matter of minutes at dedicated stations or recharge them at home or at work. "Oil is the greatest problem of all time -- the great polluter and promoter of terror," said Israeli President Shimon Peres, the project's political patron. "We should get rid of it." For each of the four countries, knocking oil off its pedestal is no longer a theoretical proposition but reality in the making. Despite the lip service our own politicians pay to the need to reduce our oil dependence, none of the solutions offered by Iran, Brazil, China and Israel are even under consideration here. Just go down the list. Natural-gas vehicles are nowhere to be seen. Brazilian sugar-cane ethanol is barred from the country by a steep 54-cent-per-gallon import tariff, courtesy of ethanol protectionists and their representatives in Congress. (No tariff is imposed on imported oil, of course.) For similar reasons, flex-fuel cars sold in the United States are certified to run only on ethanol, keeping methanol and other viable biofuels off the market -- even though they are cheaper and can be made from a wealth of coal and biomass resources. The kind of electric cars deployed in Israel have never returned to U.S. showrooms since General Motors' mass crushing of its EV1 -- the subject of the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?" It's time to get serious. Policies such as "drill more" and "drive smaller cars" keep us running on petroleum. At best, they buy us a few more years of complacency, while ensuring much worse dependence down the road when America's conventional oil reserves are even more depleted, whether or not we drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Real energy independence can be achieved only through fuel choice and competition. That competition cannot take place as long as (according to the Department of Transportation) we continue to put 16 million new cars that run only on petroleum on our roads every year, each with an average street life of 16.8 years -- locking ourselves into decades more of petroleum dependence. So let's remember the saying: When in a hole, stop digging. If every new car sold in the United States were a flex-fuel vehicle and if millions of Americans could plug in electric cars, gasoline would be facing fierce competition at the pump and the socket. Moreover, our money would have migrated from Exxon to Pepco, from the Middle East to the Midwest -- as well as to scores of poor, biomass-producing countries in Africa, Latin America and South Asia, including countries that don't yet hate our guts.This is the road to independence. http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/p...2/1004/OPINION
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save the cheerleader - save the world
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#14
08-01-2008, 11:46 AM
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#15
08-01-2008, 12:04 PM
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Here is an article from Snopes on Obama and taxes. It's not as bad as many emails circulating would suggest, but at best Obama plans on raising taxes but doesn't specify by how much.
Bear in mind, raising taxes on wealthy people DOES result in less job creating and leads to deflationary pressures, which is a microcosm of what we're seeing in the housing market. Obama's tax changes would have had minimal impact a few years ago, but now it would be enough to throw us into a full scale depression. Obama would likely NOT raise interest rates to help homeowners being foreclosed on, which would result in further dollar devaluation and reduced investment. Secondly, his capital gains tax increase would finish off the last remaining investment incentive. People invest for two reasons: to make money from either interest or equity earned from appreciation (capital gains). Taxing one while reducing the other would finish off what's left of our infrastructure. Perhaps that's something that hasn't been explained very well. When you lower interest rates, the value of the dollar goes down, however people's payments go up because the money that banks have to borrow becomes more expensive and the expense is passed on to consumers by way of higher interest payments. This is known as monetary policy. How the US increases or reduces our supply of money is by controlling interest rates. There is a tradeoff between investment and controlling payments on debt. Because Bernanke was trying to help out homeowners by keeping interest rates low, the dollar fell which made imports more expensive. Also, there is reduced investment, since the interest gain on investment is reduced. Therefore, we see the stock market volatility we've been seeing lately. What should have happened is that there should have been a capital gains tax decrease to compensate for the lower interest rates. It would have encouraged more investment. Anyway, here's snopes: http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/taxes.asp
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