Some random thoughts from the debate:
- I’ve twittered about this before, but I honestly am glad that Obama got a new projector for the Adler Planetarium. The planetarium is a monument in it’s own right, alongside the Museum of Science and Industry, the Shedd Aquarium, and the Field Museum; the longer it operates the better. Also, it appears to have increased in price by $1m since the last time McCain mentioned it, making it perhaps the safest investment in the United States.
- Obama’s performance was pretty bad, but the fact that ACORN and Ayers are even being discussed marks a return to the “flag lapel-pin” bullshit of the Pennsylvania Democratic debate.
- I missed the first 20 minutes, but in what I saw neither one of them mentioned the fact that we’re on the cusp of a second global depression or appeared to have any clue what to do about it.
- Given how precarious our economic situation is (and how bad the “real-world economy” was before the credit crisis), a spending freeze by the Federal Government would make the depression longer, deeper, and more painful. The fact McCain is still pushing that madness after today’s events—and worse, fruitcakes like that CBS News “undecided voter” are buying it—makes him very dangerous in his own right.
- Neither candidate has the right answer for education. It’s very simply this: teach the scientific method, logical reasoning, and intellectual rigor as soon as possible. That is the fundamental particle of education, and the fact that we don’t drill it into students’ minds as soon as possible is why we suck. Period. Every other education program we have—vouchers, Head Start, charter schools, NCLB—is only even worth considering in relation to how it helps or hurts the transmission of the basic ideas of the Enlightenment. Since we’re not transmitting those ideas anyways, talking about those other programs is a waste of time.
- McCain’s plan for more teachers (recruit veterans from the war and let them skip certification exams!) is 100% pure crazy.
James Cape 
Also FYI the statement put out by the planetarium after the second debate said that they didn’t even end up getting the new projector; Obama had asked for money for it but didn’t get it.
teach the scientific method, logical reasoning, and intellectual rigor as soon as possible.
A wonderful summation of what is missing from the “teach for the test” type of schooling. I think that those are difficult to teach, though.
hmm,ha. looked in the cope-a-scope today and behold, now even the drive-by media is reporting that: 11 states investigating voter registration fraud by acorn, more to come. also proof that labamba gave acorn 800 thousand for turning out the vote, and did legal work for them. also his ayers storys have fallen apart at the seams. what more will we find out about this lad?
marku:
Don’t you get tired of being wrong?
ACORN is required by law to turn in every voter registration card they receive. If they don’t, they have their ability to conduct voter registration drives revoked by the government.
They are required to turn in everything because of another set of practices—like at my old university, where the College Republicans were conducting a registration drive in 2004, and then throwing Democratic registrations in the trash. This is happening again this year in Las Vegas, BTW.
I’m fairly certain you’d be screaming bloody murder in the other direction if ACORN got to decide which voter registration cards they turned in and which ones they threw out.
What “Ayers story”? The one where he worked on a charity with someone that was a violent asshole in the 1960s? Did he came back from Indonesia in order to join the Weather? What the fuck does Ayers have to do with anything?
yoi, a little birdie just told me they were caught trying to intimidate tv stations in w.pa. who were running nra ads. thats not the way america works. but wait, now they have tried to silence radio talk show hosts right here in pittsburgh. thats not the way america works. now we here that gov. swindell and murtha the blowhard have railed that we are all racists. thats not true. i voted for lynn swann for gov. yoi, now joe the plumbers are coming out of the woodwork. seems labambas tax plan will hit hardest in the small business community. seems this lad just does not have it.
Wow, my very own troll. I feel loved.
A little birdie just told me that most Republicans are alienated, closeted, dumbasses who try to mask their self-loathing through blind hatred, their emotional disconnect from fellow human beings through illiterate xenophobia, and their poor education through claims of victimization—because $DEITY knows that if there’s one group that suffers in America more than any other, it’s dumbassed, alienated, closeted white men.
A little birdie told me, so it must be true.
Another thing you should get rid of in your education system is the oath to the flag of the US each morning at school. Here we would call that indoctrination.
I think it’s dangerous because you give a signal to young people that the USA are something divine and can’t fail, resulting in the arrogance the rest of the world now as to cope with. I’d also advise to teach a bit more about the rest of the world. I’ve heard of soldiers in Iraq shooting at someone’s legs because he didn’t do what the ordered him in English. They were convinced that everyone at the world could speak English.
Please learn from criticism! It’s not that black-white as a lot of people seem to think; Bush was terribly wrong with his ‘If you’re not with us, you’re against us’ statement.
I have to say though that in Europe there seems to be an enormous ‘Obamania’. Not much people would vote for McCain here. I think there would be a serious diplomatic problem with Europe when he would be chosen. Another thing is that a lot of people here seem to be convinced that Obama can’t lose. McCain is thought of so badly that they think the US Americans couldn’t be so stupid to elect him.
I have to say that there are Europeans here who do support McCain. Here in the Netherlands we have the political party VDD — nickanamed ‘the liberals’, although their major goal seems to improve the income of the richests — where most of the people seem to support McCain and the PVV of Geert Wilders, the creator of the anti-islam movie ‘Fitna’ asked in the parliament questions about the choice of the public broadcasting companies, which recieve government fundings. He also seems to support the old senator.
I know the oath is pretty bad compared to the rest of the world, and has an even worse history in a “nationalistic assholes think alike” sort of way. But you’ve got to remember that Obama not wearing one of those little U.S. flag lapel-pins was considered an issue worth bringing up in the Democratic debates.
Hell, the ACLU has to sue in order to get the pledge changed to remove the “under God” bit added by Eisenhower after a sermon about how America is like Sparta. So it’s baby steps, starting from square negative one.
Bush has been terribly wrong about just about every major decision he’s made: stem cells, education policy, Iraq, Afghanistan, terrorism, law enforcement, intelligence, Iran, North Korea, Israel/Palestine, Lebanon, energy, emergency response, taxes, fiscal policy, and financial regulation.
Every single one of these issues has either blown up in a catastrophic way or quietly failed at some point during his presidency. And I’d still put money down that two thirds of the people who voted for Bush in 2000 wouldn’t go back and change to Gore if they could. So voting dumb—even in hindsight—is something of a tradition.
My out-of-my-ass guess is that Obama will lose 4% from conflicted racists who are searching for any excuse not to vote for the black guy and will find one by Nov. 4, and another 4% by fraud and voter suppression. So unless he’s safely up by 8% going into the election he probably will lose.