I hope there's still a debate tomorrow.

[catsittingstill]

McCain apparently doesn't feel ready for the debate tomorrow--he has latched on to the current market crisis/Paulson plan as an excuse to beg off.  As if the deregulation candidate is going to have something helpful to contribute to the discussion about market bailouts.

Foreign policy was supposed to be his strong point.  If he thinks he can't handle the foreign policy debate, heaven knows what he's going to come up with to get out of the domestic policy debate.

And I notice they had to dumb down the Vice-Presidential debate into a short answer format for Palin.  I don't think Biden should have let them.  If she's not sufficiently knowledgeable to talk coherently on pre-provided questions for five minutes at a time, I don't see how she's going to be ready to be Vice-President.

Just my thoughts.
 In other areas, one of my friends described some of the practices that got deregulated Wall Street into bailout territory again (leverage, credit-default-swaps, etc) as "financial power tools."  The implication being, I think, that the only people who get into trouble with them are Joe and Jane Six-Pack out in the garage-- people who don't know how to use them or don't have the patience and caution to use them properly.

I will note that the people who got into trouble with the "financial power tools" are the cream of the crop--the very best of the best that Wall Street had to offer, not Joe and Jane Six-Pack at the broker (though they may very well get hurt too).  And yet it still turns out that they must be taken to the hospital, at public expense, to have their financial feet sewn back on every decade or two.

On the other hand, I know a shop teacher who uses real power tools every day of his life.  I bet he's been teaching shop for 40 years.  And he has all his extremities--no stitch marks.  Real power tools don't necessarily mean you have to have your limbs sewn back on several times in a lifetime.

I don't think "financial power tools" gives the right impression.  I think "financial russian roulette" comes closer.

Comments

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

The best comment I saw was a document done up in the form of a handwritten note, saying (approximately):

Dear Debate Commission,

Please excuse my son Johnny's absence. He is feeling poorly. We took him to our spin doctor and he says that John has a bad case of sagging poll numbers and needs to stay home in bed for the next six weeks.

His little sister Sarah has the sagging poll numbers even worse, so please excuse her as well.

Sincerely,
John McCain's Mom

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

ROTFL!

I did think that a perfect counter by Mr. Obama would be to offer, since Mr. McCain was indisposed, to debate Ms. Palin instead. This would be a marvelous opportunity for her to demonstrate that she would be ready for the job if Mr. McCain were *really* indisposed.

[sffilk.livejournal.com]

No matter if there is a debate or not, I will not watch. I've learned that no matter what whomever says, it's going to be "more of the same garbage" with whomever is in charge, and we'll be paying for it. And I, for one, am sick and tired of that, which is why I cheerfully try to avoid all political commercials, interviews, debates, etc.

[patoadam]

Yes, I have successfully avoided all political commercials and convention coverage. I will pay attention to the debates, because once in a while a question might get through for which a candidate does not have a canned response. For objective information about the candidates, I look at Wikipedia and www.factcheck.org.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Well, I hadn't thought about checking factcheck.org--thanks for the suggestion. I have checked politifact.com a couple of times. I'm not sure I agree that Wikipedia is necessarily objective--wouldn't it depend on who had edited it last?

[patoadam]

Thanks for mentioning politifact.com.

I have found that on popular, controversial subjects, a great deal of careful, impartial consensus building takes place on Wikipedia. Sure, you could edit the entry for Sarah Palin to say that she asked the librarian to ban "Little Red Riding Hood", and you could find a web page to support the claim, so that it would meet the minimal Wikipedia standard for verifiability, but it would only last for a few milliseconds.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I don't have a TV, so I miss a lot of the political commercials and such. I want to see the debate mostly because I think the guy I like will do better than the guy I like less--like a football game.

However I will point out that if you're wondering if a politician is really crazy--like wants to go to war with Russia, or believes that Christians are better than non-Christians, or something, that can show up in the debates (in my limited experience). And I care about that stuff.

I certainly don't buy into the idea that both candidates are the same and it doesn't matter who wins.

[sffilk.livejournal.com]

You're entitled to your opinion. I just happen to respectfully disagree with it.

[patoadam]

I agree in general. I think that most politicians of both major parties tend to act in the corporate interest rather than the public interest because a large percentage of campaign contributions come from major corporations. I hope that Obama will be different because he isn't accepting contributions from lobbyists or PACs, and because he is young enough that maybe he hasn't been corrupted yet.

Time will tell, assuming he is elected.

Quick notes

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

"I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude. I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America..." [*]

[corrected] The League of Women Voters used to run the debates; they pulled out because the parties took over and turned the debates into PR.

On other notes, yes, it appears that LJ's automatic conversion of text URLs to links has been disabled, probably to suppress link spam.

Re: Quick notes

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've seen that pseudo-spam; it's very funny :-)

I knew about the League running the debates before and refusing to run them anymore because the parties wanted too much control. I realize the debates aren't as useful for voters as they could be. I still want to see them.

Regarding the links, the little window that comes up when you click on the button to add a link in "rich text format" is now completely blank, and there's no way for me to add a link except typing it in by hand. Even hand-typing the html in the html window sometimes doesn't work, so I've had to type them in the clear so people can copy them and paste them into their browsers.