My previous post on Donald Miller was pretty negative. I wasn't trying to confront Miller, but the statement "Jesus is not a republican."

Donald Miller posted a very very funny series of emails between him and Barak Hussein Obama.

http://donmilleris.com/2008/08/27/donald-miller-barack-obama/

John McCain tapped little-known Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential running mate on Friday in a startling selection on the eve of the Republican National Convention.

Two senior campaign officials disclosed McCain's decision a few hours before the Republican presidential nominee-to-be and his newly-minted running mate appeared at a rally in swing-state Ohio. [Associated Presss]

Some facts from today's news about Palin:

• She and her husband have 5 children, the youngest of which is just 4 months old and has Down's Syndrome.
• She's tough - She returned to the office three days after giving birth.
• Her oldest son is 18, in the army, and is scheduled to go to Iraq this September.
  
• She is known for exposing corruption among other Republicans.
• She played basketball in high school so intensely she earned the nick name "Sarah Barracuda"
• Scholarships from winning beauty pageants got her through college.
• She used marijuana when it was legal in Alaska (but says she didn't like it)
• She hunts, eats moose hamburger, ice fishes, rides snowmobiles, and owns a float plane.

Politics:

• City Council from 1992 to 1996
• Became Mayor in 1996 , where "Palin kept her campaign promises, reducing her own salary, as well as reducing property taxes by 60%."
• Became Alaska's youngest and first female Governor in 2006, and in 2007 had an approval rating above 90%
• She sold the previous Governor's jet on eBay (it was seen as a waste of tax dollars, as it was a private jet purchased with state funds).
• She's 3 years younger than Obama but has more experience in the government, and as the Governer of Alaska, has served as an executive, which BHO never has.

I'm watching CSPAN online right now in Denver's Invesco Field where the Obama will speak tonight. His stage setup, built by the company that brought you Brittany Spears' latest set.

It's a greek temple.

I may watch Obama's speech tonight, but I feel under-dressed. I'm trying to make a toga now so I can join the toga party from home.

Oh brother. Al Gore is getting on stage right now as I write this. Well, let's see if he can scare and guilt America even more tonight.

It's a brilliant set up really. Here's some snapshots I just grabbed from CSPAN. Depending the the camera angle the speaker looks like he's either:

• In front of a Greek temple
  
  
• Outside a building in Washington DC
  
  
• Preaching at the altar of a megachurch
  

Watch CSPAN live here.

I have really enjoyed Donald Miller's writings. I've read 3 or his books (Blue Like Jazz is the most popular).

Don Miller spoke at the DNC. Well, ok, he wasn't a featured speaker, but he spoke the closing prayer on Monday night.

Now, if you're giving a chance to pray on live tv in front of millions of people, you'll probably take it. So this isn't a criticism of the guy praying at the DNC. His prayer (see the video below) was fine. Quite good a political correctness for the most part. And it got me thinking.

Miller was one of the many people who repeated this concept or maybe the very phrase that still seems catchy because it was too large to print onto one of those WWJD bracelets:

Jesus is not a Republican.

Jesus also is not a donor to Feed the Children. Jesus isn't an iPod user. The statement is such a anachronism.

Perhaps your point is that Jesus isn't "just like me" or "just like you" - but then why bring in politics?

Are you trying to say that just because a politician or policy is from the Republican party that doesn't mean he/she/it is good? Then you should say something worthwhile about the politician or policy.

If you're declaring who is and who isn't endorsed by the Messiah, you're presuming that you have been commissioned by Jesus to declare his political will to the world, which is just the attitude you're trying to confront!

I'm beginning to think the statement doesn't have any meaning at all.

Unless, of course, you're trying to say Jesus is a Democrat, or a Libertarian, or a Communist. But... Jesus isn't a Democrat, Libertarian or Communist. He's not even registered to vote.

If you want to be like Jesus you need to stop voting. And wear sandals. And stop using toilet paper.

"Obama is one of those rare political figures that seems to grow smaller the closer we get to him" - Some guy I heard on the radio the other day

I wrote some time ago that normally each candidate will receive two bounces in the polls that are almost guaranteed:

1. Choosing a vice presidential candidate
2. Having their party's convention, officially accepting the nomination.
   

Somehow, Obama chose a VP that got him no bounce at all. In fact, in the days since choosing his VP, he's dropped in the polls, and McCain has taken the lead on the Gallup Poll for the first time!

Here's a chart showing the history of the Gallop poll from 8/3/08 to today.




Theories:

• In Joe Biden, Obama picked the Democrat who shares certain characteristics the most with John McCain, after spending his campaign criticizing these characteristics in McCain. He's not going to win any McCain supporters, and will lose some of his own voters.
• The more we get to know Obama, the less likely we are to vote for him.
  
• McCain's continual advertising is being successful. He's got a few types of ads that are making the news:

1. Obama isn't a leader, he only has rock-star popularity.
2. While Hillary got more votes, Obama and the DNC made sure she was locked out of the race.
3. Obama's influences are nearly all negative: Slum lords, unrepentant terrorists, hate-America preachers, etc.

What about issues? What about talking about positions on what is important? It's difficult to do with Obama insists on holding multiple opposing views at the same time.

Obama is against and for:

• offshore drilling
• faith-based funding
• withdrawing all troops from Iraq
• and the list goes on

Obama has been announcing and delaying his Vice Presidential pick like he's about to reveal the mystery band at this summer's concert.

In his movement for change he's chosen another congressman who's been in Washington for decades, Joe Biden. McCain's campaign was ready, and released an ad within hours showing Biden himself criticizing Obama and saying McCain would be good for the country. A few facts about Biden:

• Elected to congress when he was 29. He won by less than 4,000 votes. That was 36 years ago. Biden is the ultimate Washington insider.
• As a senator, he voted for the invasion of Iraq. (Obama had an opinion, but he didn't have the intellegence to back up that opinion - I mean the information from the US intellegence agencies)
  
• Biden ran for President 20 years ago (twenty!), but lost his chances after he plagiarised a speech. (Luckily, Obama's repeated plagiarism hasn't been a problem for him.) [here's one video showing one time BHO plagiarised]
• He said he'd be honored to run with or against McCain. Prediction: As the VP pick for Barak, you'll wonder how this attack dog said he'd be honored to run with McCain.
• He's strong with experience and foreign policy.
• He won the election by higher percentages in the vote until 1996. Since then it's declined. (50%,58%,60%,63%,60%,58%)
  

Barak Hussein Obama's choice is an admission that experience and foreign policy are his weak points.

I find it interesting that Obama picked another Senator with no executive experience in business or politics. Neither of them has had to be the decision maker. Picking a governor, a mayor of New York city, or a business executive would have been showing that he and the people ... behind him think that executive experience is important. I have to wonder if they see a difference between the Legislative and Executive branches of US government.

After all the criticism that Bush has received from the Left, that he was inexperienced and didn't know about foreign policy so Cheney must have been pulling the strings... Hasn't Obama's campaign put him in the same place. Isn't it beginning to look like Obama may be 4 more years of Bush?

Here's the McCain ad released hours after the announcement.

Russia, Georgia, and Gas Prices
Gas prices have been dropping because oil prices are based on speculation:

• Bush lifted the Presidential ban on offshore domestic drilling.
• Republicans in the House were fighting for lifting the parallel congressional ban, despite a Democrat-ordered media blackout.
• Iraq is opening up their oil fields for the first time in decades, which should increase daily oil supply.
• American gas consumption is down.

However, Russia makes lots of money by selling oil. When oil prices drop, Russia makes less money. So Russia invades Georgia (a country that was formerly part of the USSR), and now controls an oil pipeline that runs through Georgia. They're not pulling out. They're threatening the oil supply to make prices rise.

Given Russia is apparently planning a war against Western Europe. After the invasion of Georgia, Poland accepted the US Missile Defense Shield, which contains missiles without warheads that just intercept attacking missiles. Russia's response was to declare that by doing this Poland is now a target of Russian nuclear bombs by aligning with the West.

So we finally saved up to by a new (but cheap) flat-top stove. They're delivering it first thing Friday morning.

At 10:30pm Thursday I put a post on Craig's List that someone could pick up our old but working stove for free. We figured that instead of letting the delivery guys take it and sell it for parts we could serve some 'neighbor'* by giving away our stove to someone who needs it (or even if they want to sell it for parts as a small business).

It's now 11:20 and I've exchanged 4 emails with someone who will be picking it up tomorrow.

Love Craig's List! We gave away our old (but working) fridge and stove. I've also found several contracts and my current job on Craig's List.


* I still think neighbor should be spelled neighbour.

2008 colder than last 5 years
Global cooling is becoming more and more visible as global temperatures drop. This winter is projected to be extra cold. Proponents of the Hysteria of Global Warming say this is no indication that warming isn't happening.

Global warming = rising temperatures. But somehow "rising temperatures" is true, even if temperatures are dropping. Why are we expected to suspend common sense and basic logic for this? Doesn't this smack of propaganda?

McCain pulling ahead in the polls
There are lots of polls, and they ask different questions to different people and get different results. For example, when all registered voters are included, Obama is more likely to lead. But when people who are actually likely to vote, McCain is stronger. Obama's been ahead in almost every poll. One by one the polls are starting to show McCain with the national lead. If we see Obama behind, we'll quickly see him turn negative. [source]

Obama unveils Marxist class envy

Obama's latest ad says you should vote against McCain because he owns more property than you. Because... we want someone who has proven they cannot manage money? By the time I'm McCain's age, I'd love to be able to invest in Real Estate. Wouldn't you? Besides, Obama is no pauper.

Ok, a break from politics:

Pandora, our favorite free online radio, going under
The Copyright Review Board hiked royalties and is going to hike them again. Even though Pandora is projected to make $25 million in the next year, 70% of that will have to pay for royalties, which doesn't leave enough money to keep the services running. The Copyright Review Board seems to want to kill Internet radio.

I think this will just push it underground - Napster became more and more illegal because the copyright folks kept trying to shut it down, rather than trying to compromise. Now they've compromised and Napster and lots of other companies are legal. Why not try to compromise? People tend to be greedy and power-hungry. [source]

T-Mobile Android phone out this year
Android, Google's cell-phone Operating System (OS), is an Open-Source platform that should allow for cheaper and better cell-phones. The first one to come out in the US is going to be the HTC Dream phone (that's the hardware) with a full touch-screen and a slide-out keyboard, with T-Mobile later this year. Will I get it? I like the idea of a touch screen and a full keyboard, but this is the first phone (so subsequent phones will be better) and I'm already spoiled with a Blackberry. [source]

Obama a victim again
Sorry, back to some political news: Obama and McCain answered, separately (Obama still refuses to share a stage with McCain) answered the same questions from Rick Warren, pastor and author of The Purpose Driven Life.

Obama gave long 'broader perspective' responses rather than direct answers, avoiding too many specifics and answering in big-picture, lets-work-together-regardless-of-what-we-believe (but I'm not telling you what I believe). McCain answered the questions directly and bluntly, in his straight-talk-express and let-me-tell-you-about-me-in-Vietnam style.

The Obama campaign said McCain did better, so he must have cheated and listed to the questions, calling McCain, his staff, and the secret service with them liars. But really? Just because you didn't get your way it means someone must have cheated? Obama said to Warren on live TV during the event that he "cheated" on the orphans issue and looked up information about it online. Obviously they were briefed as to the scope of the questions beforehand.

Obama's most embarrassing response was to the question of when human rights are applied and how that relates to abortion, and he said "that's above my pay grade." (Contrast that with McCain's response: "At the moment of conception.")

Really? You fumbed on the life & abortion issue - you've never been asked that before? You've never thought that through? Why do you have to claim to be a victim again? If you keep crying 'wolf' we won't believe you if the other side does cheat. [source]

If you missed it, here's a video that put together Obama and McCain's responses to the question. Please excuse the end where the person who created the video does annoying edits on Obama's response. Just stop the video after McCain is done.

A question from a reader:
Moveon.org - What do you know about it? -- Jen

First, a note: there is now an organized effort by pro-Obama groups (my guess is moveon.org) to silence disagreement, they scour the web and report blogs they disagree with as 'spam' or 'inappropriate' which results in all the anti-movon or anti-Obama blogs beings shut down automatically by google's system. So this blog may go off-line for a while soon as a result of this post.

Moveon.org is a liberal political organization. The name came when a few individuals did not want Clinton impeached for purgery under oath before the Supreme Court, and wanted to "move on."

George Soros (a multi-billionaire) and others now control moveon.org, and put millions and millions of dollars into it. Soros has given $5 Billion to the "Open Society Institute" which passes his money on to moveon.org and other even more radical organizations. Moveon only supports liberals and only attacks moderates and conservatives, but is a "non-partisan" group, thus able to collect unlimited funds and exhert unlimited influence on politicians. This is only possible through laws that passed due to Soros' lobbies.

When the democrat party got into trouble over the last few elections, moveon.org was there to bail them out with money and compaigning efforts. Moveon was more liberal than the democratic party at the time. But, with more money than the DNC, they essentially bought out the entire party. One democrat refused to move further to the left and survived, Joe Lieberman, who ran with Gore as the Democrat's VP candidate. He used to represent their values so much they wanted him to be the second most powerful person in the country. He hasn't changed. The Democrat party has.

When Lieberman was up for re-election, moveon and the DNC put millions of dollars into defeating Lieberman in the democrat primary for his senate seat. Yup, they turned on their own, because he refused to change his views under pressure to become more left, more socialist. This was the threat moveon (and thus the DNC) apparently put up against any democrat who didn't do what they told them to do. Today most Democrats on the national scene do what they're told resulting in very little disagreement and critical thinking among them. Just look at the news headlines, and what Obama, Pelosi, and others are saying - always exactly the same thing at the same time.

Lieberman lost the democrat primary but he won in the general election anyway, running as an "Independent Democrat."

The Democratic party now has very little in common with their historical hero JFK. JFK didn't promote Marx's and Obama's idea that government should be the solution to meet all of our needs: "And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." Midway through his presidential term, JFK proposed a sweeping across-the-board tax cut. He also stood very strongly against cooperating with communist countries. Compare this to Obama's willingness to sit down and talk 'with no preconditions' with Americas greatest enemies.

Many consider the DNC to be a "wholly-owned subsidiary of moveon.org." This would essentially mean that half of the nations political force is run by George Soros, it's chief financial backer, who has set his life's goal to ruin elected officials who disagree with him "by any legal means necessary." Legal? He's also given over $10 million to two groups created to commit voter fraud, and also funds groups working toward a one-world government.

Is the democrat party wholly-owned by Soros?

Take as an example, moveon's full page ad when General Petraeus tetified before congress calling him "General Betray Us." It was hard to find a single Democrat who would criticize the ad, or anything that moveon.org has done. Hillary Clinton has said she lots due to Soros' organizations harassing her supporters so Obama would win, but she only said it at a private fund raiser.

Then again, would you criticise the group that keeps you in office, calls those it disagrees with traitors, and turns on its own who won't comply to try to force them out of politics?

Some argue that moveon.org isn't really that crazy. Perhaps not, but it's just one of many organizations that do Soros' bidding, leaving voter fraud and other illegal activities other organizations funded by him and his buddies.

A few links that document some of these facts:
http://www.thevanguard.org/thevanguard/columns/031128.shtml
http://ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=275181103776079

Hillary?
Hillary never actually dropped out of the race for president. Nor did Obama get enough votes and delegates to lock in the nomination. The Democrat leaders have appointed themselves "super delegates" so if they disagree with the voters in the primary they can elect whoever they want, and outpower the voters. Enough "super delegates" said they'd vote for Obama, it didn't matter that Clinton won the popular vote.

So she "suspends" her campaign and endorses BHO (not HBO, Barak Hussein Obama). Lots of her supporters are understandably upset and plan on voting for McCain. Hillary's people and Barak's people worked out a deal yesterday.

Hillary will speak on Tuesday night of the convention. Bill Clinton will speak on Wednesday night of the convention. Hillary's name will be placed in officially as a nominee. My guess? The Clintons
(or people they officially don't know) leaks some incredibly negative news story to the media the day before Hillary speaks. Hillary appears extremely presidential in her speech, but defends Barak against the media's attack, and when the vote is taken at the convention, more people actually vote for Hillary and while she appears humble, her people are working behind the scenes to get the nomination, and kick Barak Obama out, maybe offering him the VP slot.

Colorado
Yesterday McCain took the lead in Colorado over Obama for the first time.

Future Poll Numbers
Barak will soon have a more significant lead over McCain because

• He'll get a boost from the Democrat's convention later this month.
• He'll get a boost from chosing his VP

But then McCain will have his convention and pick his VP, so he'll get a boost a few weeks after Obama, so going into the election it will likely all even out.

McCain (R) and Lieberman (D)?
A great article at Rasmussen mentions that McCain "is what Obama symbolizes – a person who rises above party, confronts the special interests, and wants to change the way Washington works. " Obama has never risen above politics, and never accomplished anything while in office, other than running for the Democrat's nomination. But McCain has no charisma, people don't see that so easily. In the senate, McCain has often worked with Joe Lieberman, the Democrat who ran as the Democrat VP with Al Gore.

Now it looks like Lieberman may be McCain's VP pick. If so, it will be the first cross-party ticket since Abraham Lincoln!

Olympics
One of the results of believing that the government can and should be the answer to all problems (like Obama), is that it can get to the point of the government cheating to preserve their image. China has been doing this a lot lately.

• The fireworks outside the stadium (out of sight) for the opening ceremony were computer-generated videos broadcast as live video.
• The little girl who "sang" the anthem was just lip-syncing. Another little girl sang, but she couldn't be seen because her teeth weren't straight, so they lied and presented a "perfect" but fake image.
• Their gymnastics winners are actually under-age. The Chinese government issued them new passports to say they were old enough.
  
  Here's a video from the onion about this.
  

For all of you my friends who aren't news junkies, and don't want to hear about politics, here's a daily update:

• Nancy Pelosi from San Fansisco (right) is the Democrat leader of the House of Representatives in DC. She dismissed the House for a 5 week vacation on 7/31/08 so she could go market her new book.
  
  Meanwhile, House Republicans stayed in DC to protest the vacation and demand Pelosi return the House from vacation to vote on the comprehensive energy bill which allows for offshore drilling so we can drill for oil in our ocean-spaces.
  
  Pelosi, as the Speaker of the House, ordered the lights turned off, the microphones disconnected, and CSPAN and all other video cameras off, but they're still there, refusing to leave until the energy bill gets voted on.
  
  
• Barak Obama went on his world tour and was even scheduled to visit wounded American soldiers in a Hospital in Germany. He cancelled that stop when he was told he wouldn't be able to have the film crews take video footage for campaign commercials.
  
  
• John McCain has come out with a strong condemnation of Russia's attack on Georgia (the country, not the southern state). So strong of a condemnation, that he upstaged the Bush administration in addition to the vacationing Obama. Yes, Obama is on a week-long vacation in Hawaii
  
  
• Gas prices are down. Oil prices are decided by speculators, who buy and sell future estimates on oil prices (just think of it as a stock market on "futures," future estimates of things). When it looks like there will be higher supply or lower demand in the future, prices drop. When it looks like there will be lower supply or higher demand, prices rise. Reasons for the price drop:
  
  • At $4/gallon some of us drive less, and the poorest of us now can't drive at all to go to work or buy groceries, so we use less gas
  • With oil prices so high, it became worth it to start exploring and drilling for oil in parts of the world where it had previously been too expensive.
  • Bush removed the presidential ban on US offshore drilling.
  • The House Republicans are fighting to remove the parallel congressional ban. If that gets lifted, oil futures will drop immediately on the prospect of adding new oil resources to the market.
    
    
• McCain and Obama are virtually tied in the polls. Obama has had a 3-point average lead, but there's reasons that this may be a false lead that I'll get into another day.
  

It's incredibly simple to allow visitors to comment on your news stories. Some popular stories have tens of thousands of comments from visitors. So why don't all news sites allow comments?

Web comments and talk radio alike introduce this problem to the media. You can only sell your spin if shut down the readers' right to react.

This is only a problem, of course, when your motivation isn't to spur thought and discussion, but to push your agenda on your readers.

Take today's CBS article on Energy Policy, for example, which allows no comments and is just an Obama promotion,verses Reuter's article on Obama's attack on McCain.

The second article has (at the time of this writing) 95 comments. It's a much more responsible and balanced article. It has to be, or your visitors will correct you.

I rarely get stressed out by my work load. I've usually worked in an environment where many people look at the work load and quit, or just ignore it and do the work they want to, rather than the work that has to get done.

That doesn't stress me out. I want to know what has to be done, by when, then I'll figure out how to get it done.

But this afternoon I had series of emails and phone calls with people who were all very stressed out. That stresses me out.

Now I'm off to climb a 14er, forfeiting any time I could have been putting toward teaching high-schoolers on Sunday. I'm just not convinced that the 14 mile hike of climbing Long's Peak is the best place to prepare an attention-keeping presentation.