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The lesser of two evils.

That’s what this election comes down to.

I don’t agree with McCain/Palin on everything, but I can’t get behind Obama because:

• Has little to no discernible record in any position he’s held. Obama started campaigning for President 145 days after he started in the Senate, and so far we’ve not heard from ANYONE who is willing to speaking openly regarding his past- friends, college alumni, co-workers, grandparents, etc. Except for associations with Ayers, Rezko, Wright and a few other people (or organizations) with questionable motives we have absolutely no idea what sort of person he really is because nobody will actively stand up and vouch for him except for his wife, Biden, and the media. Isn’t it a little bothersome to you that Obama hasn’t been put under a microscope? Truth is, you probably don’t care to know, and would rather embrace an ideal instead, which is fine. (And he’s not Bush!.. but neither is McCain)
• I’m not buying that Palin is a remarkably stupid and unqualified individual. She’s got more experience than Obama, and has character witnesses spread all over the state of Alaska (who give her a great approval rating). The media overturned every rock, but she still came out smelling like roses- so now we’ll question her religious associations, something which, I might point out, should apply to Obama as well. And if you still like her besides that, well.. you’re just a big racist dummy.
• “McCain is an old man. He’s gonna die, and then we’re left with Palin.” This is a fairly weak argument; on one hand, you’re saying he’s more qualified than Obama. On the other, he’s a frail and senile old man who is constantly fighting cancer. So we’re supposed to vote for the inexperienced empty suit.. just in case? I thought we were supposed to be about issues, not speculating on that over which we have no control. I might also add that Obama is not the paradigm of healthly living.

There’s more of course, but that should be more than enough to get you thinking for now.

My new Favorite video- Bicycling on the 10/405 during rush hour.

I’ve thought about it myself…

Click here to read more about this stunt and the group responsible for it.

Softball Politics

Once again the internet rears it’s ugly little head in the 2008 presidential election.

Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff, a 19 year-old sophomore at Grinnell College has come out and stated that she was given a question to ask Hillary Clinton after the one she proposed on comparing energy plans wasn’t up to snuff.

“‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,” the staffer said, according to Gallo-Chasanoff, “because I don’t know how familiar she is with their plans.”

It gets even better. The staffer then opened a binder with about eight questions on it, one of which was specifically marked in brackets as “college student”. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who was picked to ask the question, “As a young person, I’m worried about the long-term effects of global warming. How does your plan combat climate change?”

This is a presidential campaign, not T-Ball. Has this happened before on both sides of the fence? Surely. Can campaigns be run like this in the future? Not if the unbiased eye of the internet is going to continue to roam freely.

Here’s how it all works:

• I found this story on CNN and blogged about it. I’m assuming more than a few others have done so already or filed it away mentally for later use. These people physically tell two others, or thousands (millions?) happen across it on the web. It no longer originates from one source.

• Campaign staffers forget about this incident and decide to bait the audience six months from now (who would remember such a thing?) because they are at a crucial corner in the campaign and can’t risk a wild-card.

• A few audience members doing their due diligence decide to look up past questions posed to the candidates and run across this post or the CNN story. The wheels start turning.

• In the middle of a Q&A session in the most important state for the candidate, Joe Average decides to flush the suggested question down the toilet and go for the throat on something he knows the candidate is going to have a hard time with. In public, on live TV, with no net.

• This nervous, flip-flop answer gets replayed on YouTube and their opponent’s websites for the rest of the campaign. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I’ll be curious to see if anyone on the campaign trail “gets it” in 2008. I fear that most are kept so insulated they can’t see past the next debate.

LA on fire.. again

LOS ANGELES — More than 300,000 people have been ordered out of their homes because of wildfires in seven Southern California counties. President Bush declared an emergency to speed up the delivery of federal aid, and the Department of Defense agreed to send six Air Force and Air National Guard water-dropping or retardant-dropping planes Tuesday to aide the massive firefighting effort. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday ordered the California National Guard to make 1,500 guardsmen available to support firefighting efforts.

MALIBU — All public schools remained closed in Malibu Tuesday as firefighters worked to contain a 3,800-acre fire that damaged or destroyed some two dozen homes and businesses and prompted hundreds of evacuations.

A community meeting has been planned for 7 Tuesday evening at Malibu High School, 30215 Morning View Drive, at which officials will brief residents on evacuations and road closures, the city of Malibu reported. Another community meeting is planned for 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Agoura/Calabasas community center, at 27040 Malibu Hills Road, in Calabasas. Further fire-related information is available online at www.malibu-ca.gov.

The so-called Canyon Fire, which began at about 4:50 a.m. Sunday, may have been sparked by power lines felled by strong Santa Ana winds, authorities said. Gusts of wind up to 60 mph pushed the flames into canyons dotted with multimillion-dollar homes.

Three people suffered minor injuries, the county fire department reported. About 1,500 people were evacuated Sunday as the flames tore through brush and began jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Malibu Presbyterian Church was among the buildings destroyed. Among the homes destroyed was the Kashan Castle, also known as Hodge Castle, a 10,500-square-foot hilltop landmark built in 1978.

Classes were canceled Tuesday at Pepperdine’s Malibu campus. City Hall was closed Monday, and remained closed Tuesday to the public. However, city staff will be on hand to respond to urgent matters, the city reported. American Red Cross shelters remained open at three area high schools: Agoura High School, at 28545 W. Driver Ave., Pacific Palisades High School, 15777 Bowdoin St., and Malibu High School, 30215 Morning View Drive. The Pacific Coast Highway remained closed between Topanga Canyon and Kanan Dume. Malibu Canyon and Topanga Canyon roads were closed between PCH and Mulholland Highway.

Busy.

What have I been up to? It seems like it’s been quite a while since I’ve been able to post here so I figured a little update would be warranted. Long story short, I’ve become a “blog master”.

http://blog.theexoticforum.com/

• I started this because I felt that my Exotic Car forum could use a little boost in the rankings. Surprisingly, there aren’t a lot of blog related to this so I’m pretty sure my efforts will pay off in a month or two.

http://inagoura.com/

http://incalabasas.com/

http://inwestlake.com

• These three are my real-estate test blogs. It’s really only one blog with three domains but I’ve managed to get to the top of the rankings in a very short time with little content. Pretty amazing considering RE agents will claw each others eyes out for what I’ve accomplished in little over a week.

http://harrison2008.com/

• I’m interested in how the 2008 election will take place over the web so I decided to start my own blog to “test the waters”. As far as search engines can tell, it’s the real deal. Hopefully with a few more tweaks it’ll start ranking a bit better.

Of course, there are more to come.. As Al Pacino stated in Scent of a Woman, “I’m just getting warmed up!”

Terrorism and Marketing

Seth Godin is usually willing to throw out some ideas and see if they stick- I don’t always agree but I can appreciate them as a catalyst. Today, six years after we all woke up (well, those of us on the West Coast anyways) to the twin towers crumbling he stumbles onto the root of our problems with the war on terrorism– Marketing.

Guns will always be available to us, bombs can be easily fashioned out of just about anything- but the reason why a rational person uses these weapons in committing acts of terrorism is because they’ve been sold a message. Laws can only go so far.

Seth covers it all in his post and the NYPD hit the nail on the head with their report of Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat, both of which I invite you to read if you haven’t already.

One new spin I’d like to introduce is the United States military work in Ethiopia, which follows the idea that if you build hospitals, dig wells and provide aid to a country the people within that area will have little to no motivation to rise against you:

“Achieving this indispensable integration of the military and nonmilitary dimensions of U.S. foreign policy will require much better coordination between the Department of Defense and other agencies of the U.S government than has occurred on Iraq. It will also require all actors, in Africa and the global system, to reconcile the pursuit of their own interests with the increasingly recognized common interest in overcoming war, poverty, ignorance, and disease. Here, too, U.S. unilateralism in Iraq war has created a tragic negative example that must not be repeated.”

Now I’ve never owned a pair of Birkenstock’s, I eat meat regularly and don’t think I have to stick it to ‘the man’- far from it actually- but I can admit that we’re no longer fighting a figurehead, we’re fighting an ideology. Bringing the biggest guns to the conflict only serves to unhinge the process and irritate the situation against an invisible enemy. In essence, we’re proving them right.

Why not try proving them wrong?

Live Earth, Big Waste

http://money.cnn.com/2007/07/03/news/newsmakers/live_earth/index.htm

I’ve been wondering why half of the parking lot here has been occupied by Satellite trucks, generators, catering trucks, mobile offices and random people coming in and out- they’re running the Internet broadcast through the datacenter.

I’m figuring there are a few more setups like this throughout the world. The concerts look pretty impressive as well, all NINE of them. The two billion people tuning in (no doubt they are all using hydrogen-powered televisions) should find it to be an entertaining event.

I’m all for leaving a very small footprint on the earth but anyone who has been to a concert knows how much garbage can be left behind and holding it in open venues only exponentially increases demand for things like water (or beer!) and all of that inevitably travels through our waste system at some point.

So we’re sucking up more energy, water, fuel (all those people working in my parking lot have to get there somehow, the artists, production staff and attendees have to get to the venues) and we’re doing this to promote conservation? Awesome.. maybe we should light a few forests on fire so that people really get the idea about natural resources.

I’m left wondering what happened to the Bed-In concept that Lennon and Ono perfected- it wouldn’t cost much, wouldn’t hurt the Earth and the message would probably reach the same amount of people (while still feeding the Ego of Mr. Al Gore). Of course, that would mean we’d get to see just how incredibly inefficient his own home is, which is a stark contrast to the personal home of President Bush, which actually utilizes green technology AND creates more power than it uses.

Apparently the mantra is do as I say, not as I do. Have fun watching the hypocrisy.. I mean concerts.