I don’t have much new to report today. I’d just like to update a post I threw out earlier. This is the previous McCain household.
Also, in an effort to be a bit more non-partisan – not by much – I’m linking two campaign ads and underneath of them there is a link to Politico.com’s analysis of their veracity.
The most important thing for me is that the McCain advertisement has taken quotes referring to Obama’s willingness to tax the wealthy and made them appear to be talking about the middle class. You really do need to read the Politico analysis to get the full grasp of this.
The McCain campaign has, rather successfully, been able to paint Sen. Obama as elitist, and not like you. You may remember this from the Kerry days. What these two short articles point out though is that Sen. John McCain III is the man who owns six homes, including one on Coronado Island in San Diego overlooking the Pacific. Much of this has been covered over because of his admirable service and his unfortunate imprisonment. It has also been pointed out that he declined promotion to Rear Admiral (though I am no authority on this story) which is quite a compliment. Back and I were just in San Diego for a wedding and we went to Coronado Island. It is every bit as expensive as it looks. Too be fair, she did make him sign a prenuptial agreement back in ‘80.
I feel like I’m doing the man a disservice by pointing these issues out but at the same time I feel that some of the McCain ads out there have been… just silly. I’m particularly tired of the talking point that claims that “tire pressure is not an energy policy.” As if that is what Obama had said… and have you seen the “The One” ad? Groan.
Anyway, here is a video about McCain’s “just another guy” lifestyle that I found after reading the two politico ads.
Bonus Video: The catch is at the end. I bet he was pissed at Russert for this interview.
Has anyone ever seen Minority Report? It’s okay to admit. While not a flawless movie it is interesting. In the movie there is something that has been done in many of other near future movies, for instance Demolition Man. Automated Driving. I’m going to throw into today’s post two present day articles about transportation. One from a recent Sen. Obama speech and the other from Engadget. I’ll start with the Engadget since I already mentioned automated driving.
The article itself doesn’t point out the uses beyond the pedestrian traffic warnings but I immediately thought of a conversation I had with a friend when we were in college. I had mentioned how my family was talking about how nice automated driving would be but we couldn’t figure out how the task could be accomplished without an expensive infrastructure upgrade. This friend jumped in rather quickly and said “Radio transmitters, simple.” He explained that that car could have a transmitter and receiver that would be calling out its position to to tags along the road and in other cars. The car would be sending and recieving information and allowing the onboard computer to evaluate and moderate the driving. It was really the first time I’d heard a simple workable solution. This led me to think of loop holes that I in turn filled with solutions from movies like Minority Report. One thought I had was what would happen when I driver got off the highway? Well if you watch Minority Report the car isn’t always computer controlled. If you were on a street without it, you’d just have to take control.
Flash forward to this article on Engadget. The EU has set aside a section of frequency for mobile communication. There is a GPS system right now called the Dash that reports to the user direction and traffic but also reports back to the server the conditions that particular car is experiencing. In this way others with the Dash service are receiving real user information. The more of these in use the better the information will inevitably be. This section of the spectrum could thus be implemented for many car technologies.
Now the comments on the article from readers are interesting as well. These bring up many of the ideas that I had been thinking about. How this will open up other ways of traffic control. Imagine being shown potential light changes a block away? No more need to rush if you know that it is impossible for you to make that next light. William, a commenter, also pointed out that there is a track in California that is used for car studies like this. If you’re thinking “great this is the end of speeding,” think again. At this track they have cars traveling one foot apart at 80 mph. This revolutionary way of driving would transform the idea of public transportation. Many people dislike trains and planes because they don’t want to rent when they get to their destination. In America, we like our independence. If this were implementable the problem would be solved and lets face it beyond the actual technical hurdles there are many problems to surmount.
Unfortunately, I don’t see it as implementable on a wide scale in a country such as ours. It would require infrastructure spending that we’re unwilling or unable to part with. It would require taxes the likes of which this country is uncomfortable with. It will take a dozen bridge collapses and the failure of the highway system nationwide to get America to spend and that would be understandably too late. Further, we would have a difficult time implementing this on a small scale on current highways. It would require all participants to have the enabled cars and it would also have to be isolated from other traffic to keep other cars from interfering. No, I’m afraid, I won’t be seeing this sort of innovation stateside for many many years, if at all.
Case in point: high speed trains. It takes a little over an hour – give or take – from Milwaukee to Chicago. An hour from Milwaukee to Madison. 1.5 to Rockford. Yesterday, I threw out a Twitter post – www.twitter.com/forthandback – about a mention of high speed rail by Sen. Obama in an article from ABCNews.com. His mentioning of it took me back to a month ago when I decided that I’d rather drive into the northern suburbs of Chicago than catch the train. ForthandBack was meeting my sister and parents who have cars, who could have very easily picked me up Back and I up. The problem is the ride would have taken the same amount of time and caused a hassle. On the way out of Ravinia Park I went off on how it was past time this country had something that actually cut travel time. Americans won’t give up the freedoms that driving provides without substantial returns. Imagine a high speed train from San Diego to LA to San Francisco. Three major Californian population centers that could be connected by trains that could transport travelers easier and faster than car or plane. The same goes from my Milwaukee thought. If the rail took a mere twenty minute ride to Chicago that day I opted to drive, I’d have been on it.
The further beauty of trains is that, unlike cars, when cleaner energy becomes available more centralized transportation can change energy supplies at a faster rate. If they are electric trains -I’m not certain how high speed rail works though – then the electrical plant can be switched from coal to wind to I don’t know what. Notice, I skipped Nuclear since the biggest nuclear plants in the country use uranium that is enriched from the some of the biggest coal burning plants. The dirty underbelly of Nuclear power is a topic for another time.
But who am I kidding. I might be a supporter of Sen. Obama but I think this was an off-handed reference to something that would be nice but I don’t think it will be in his power to provide it even if he is around for eight years.
Added after publishing: I saw this today and had to add it to this post because I don’t know that Back is going to blog today. I just want to get it out there.
Back to your regularly scheduled blog post.
Hey two of my favorite subjects. Politics and a smoking ban.
We saw this over the weekend and found it absolutely hilarious. It puts the tired old “i hve to have a cigarette when I’m [insert activity]” into a funny light. Now, I’m not trying to make fun of a medical problem (addiction) but I do find it funny. Here is another good one:
I’m not sure where to go with this other than taking smoking out of bars might be good to take away one more excuse.
Sigh… I see reports like this and I want to talk about them. Unfortunately -possibly fortunately- Back cares little for politics. So I bring them to you, the viewer. Not a lot a little donor like me can do about it.
At least we have these guys to make it all humorous.
The authorities will be here soon so I need to get this out to the world before it is too late. Today, I have three topics articles that show which way this hand basket is traveling and my GOD! Are we in it?
McCain’s Sense of Humor
So the more I read about Senator McCain’s sense of humor the more I cringe for the possible next four years of press conferences. You thought it was bad when Bush was handing out nick names or swearing on a hot mic, at least he wasn’t making racially and sexually insensitive jokes…
I’m not sure how I feel about the whole New Yorker Cover-flap. I guess I agree with many that says hey its satire get over yourself but then I also think that at a time like this lampooning the idiots isn’t going to help our cause. Instead it is going to fuel the fire of the already hopelessly gullible.
Just when you thought Fox News was the reformist hard hitting news station you always knew it for, they’ve shown their true color… Ok so maybe they’ve always been like this. On a day which I have to read about Tim Russert passing away, I have to cringe knowing that there is one less good journalist and a whole army of idiots running around.
Now I’m sure you’ve seen it on Digg or perhaps somewhere else but I had to say something about this. I’ve heard friends use the term jokingly and it has made me uncomfortable. There are a few fools on Digg who are claiming that Michelle Obama said in 2004 that Barack was her baby’s daddy thus calling her “Obama’s Baby Mama” is fair game. You’ll see on Digg that there are an astute few who pointed out the fallacy in this argument but I’d like to reiterate it too. There is a far cry’s difference between “my baby’s daddy” and the unqualified slur of “baby mama.” Much in the same way it is unacceptable to use the term “boy” towards the Senator and presumptive Democratic Nominee as someone did a few months ago.
If you watch Fox News that is fine. You’re entitled. But to say that Fox isn’t partisan is just delusional. I’m fine with them being partisan. They’re allowed. You’re just not allowed to tell me it is fair and unbiased without me shaking my head and dismissing most of what comes from your mouth henceForth.
I had a lot of things I could say today. I’m going to write a post about how wedding gifts are in fact a societal loan system. There is also the fact that my high school lacrosse season ended today with my guys getting knocked out of the playoffs. Even the fact that Back is at this moment at the new corporate headquarters of ForthandBack International making things ready… But I’m not going to say any of those because instead I’m playing this video. It saddens me. It makes me wonder what makes it all worth it. Thank God I don’t live there but by God how does anyone live there? Obama 08. There I’ve said it.
I… I got nothing. Back has been drinking a lot lately… But then I’m fairly certain she wasn’t drinking when she wrote that…
Moving on, will this pre-election election ever end? Arghh… I said it after Ohio and Texas and I’ll say it again now: This isn’t good for the Democrats. Sure Clinton/Obama dominates the news cycle and the Clinton political machine is toughening up Obama but they are starting to destroy anything remotely resembling momentum.
This is like watching a couple slowly pull apart and break up. Everyone knows what is going to happen but the couple refuses to listen. Then the ugly fights come and their friends (you and I in this scenario) are forced to sit through and awkward dinner party in which they trade barbs but pretend to be friendly (i.e. the last few debates.) There is another debate tonight. I’m guessing this will be the night out at the bar when one member of the couple realizes it is ending and lashes out in a spiteful attempt to hurt the other and embarrass him (or her) in front of the people he (or she) cares about.
The worst part of the whole situation is that we all know that they are both going to show up at the summer BBQ in August pretending to be friends. One will be sullen but proud and the other will be victorious and acting as if the break up never happened, laughing with friends and pretending to be cordial.
