Drink Upstream

How Many Wars Are We Fighting?

Can anyone give me an exact count as to how many places in the world we have troops and/or weapons actively engaged in combat? I keep hearing about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but then something like this shows up in my Inbox, and I am speechless.

'Nobody Is Watching'

Today's Random Linkage

A Note from David Lamotte's sister, entitled Now What?  A Note to my Co-Liberals is worth reading.

(I wonder if the Lamotte family is adopting?  If you could have more than one family, I think I'd want to join theirs, too.)

Election Day Humor

Go vote!!

And laugh.

From the Onion: Bush: 'Can I Stop Being President Now?'

the Onion Candidate Profiles: Sen. McCain, Sen. Obama, Sen. Biden, Gov. Palin

From YouTube: Les Misbarack and A thank you to the campaign - (Obama)

Bible Verse of the Day: Ecclesiastes 10:2 (Thanks, Mom!)

And on a more serious note (from Matt): Why I Didn't Vote for Obama

Why I support Obama pt. 2

Thanks to Jared for the little bit of nagging that was required to get me to write this, and thanks to American Airlines for the fancy-pants upgrade that gave my wrists the room to write. Have you ever tried working on a laptop in coach when the dude/lady in front of you inevitably leans back? It’s like insta-wrist-cramp. Not fun.

 

As I’ve said before, I’ve been spending some time of late looking at why I support Obama. I’m looking for reasons/rationale beyond the fact that I generally support Democrats, and more importantly, I’m trying to avoid the omni-present “Why I shouldn’t vote for McCain” line of reasoning. 

 

Which brings me to a brief aside….

 

I have yet to find anyone able of presenting me with a coherent argument in favor of John McCain. Every Republican-centric blog I read, all of my conservative friends, they’ll all give you a veritable litany of reasons not to vote for Obama….but they seem light on why I should vote for McCain.

 

But I digress.

 

I don’t think there’s anyone who would be willing to argue that our next president, McCain or Obama will be inheriting a world and a country that is a vastly different place than it was eight years ago. While it is the general tendency of those of us that lean to the left to blame a great deal of those struggles on the failed Bush administration (if you’d like to argue that Bush has been a successful president on any front, be my guest), the reality of the situation is that there are a number of the most pressing issues of our time that our current president had nothing (or at least little) to do with. 

 

Regardless of blame; rising poverty, energy crises, economic woes, wars, terrorism, and healthcare; these are issues that our next president will be forced to deal with on day one, and ultimately, I think a positive resolution to some of these problems must come due to a combination of two main roads.

 

First off, these issues demand the application of new, innovative solutions. The Cold War is over. It isn’t 1985 any more, and we need a president with a 21^st-century vision, and I can’t help but feel that John McCain is fundamentally a 20^th-centry man with 20^th-century solutions to problems. For me, I look at Obama and I see the future. I see a country moving forward; understanding the past, appreciating what has come before, but fundamentally understanding that in order to succeed in the 21^st century,

America

will have to change. Notice, for example, Obama doesn’t speak the language of economic protectionism that is so typical of the Democratic Party. He doesn’t talk about protecting American jobs, or bringing back the ones lost to an evermore global economy, he talks about new jobs. Moving forward. It’s what we have to do.

 

The second road is related to the first. Our president must be willing to take this nation on a path to making some fundamentally difficult choices. As an example, the era of cheap gas is over. Our nation has to come to grips with this, and putting our heads in the sand and saying “drill baby drill” just isn’t going to get it done. Our next president must help this country through some difficult decisions about how we live our lives relative to the consumption of energy. New policy and programs will be important, but those sorts of initiatives are worthless if you can’t get the people to buy into them. Some folks might get sick of Obama’s big speeches and some might find his rhetoric off-putting, there are those of us that find him to be nothing short of inspiring, and an inspirational leader who can rally the people of this nation is exactly what we need to help us make some of these tough choices. It won’t be easy, it might not be altogether pleasant, but in the end, the difficult choices aren’t optional if we want to see our nation through to our children’s generation.

 

There you have it. Part 2. 

 

Notice I’ve not really said anything concrete about policy, nothing about who’s got the better healthcare plan, or the better economic model.

 

I think there’s a reason to that. In my eyes, while I constantly clamor for a discussion of the issues, for talks of policy, I think this election may be about more than taxes, healthcare, or even the wars we are fighting. I think this election is more about the vision for this country over the next decade or so, and to that end, I can’t help but support the candidate that seems to have his eyes pointed toward the future instead of the one who seems to be firmly planted in the past.

Joe Six Pack

Sarah and I had an enjoyable time watching the debate last night.  Though both of us are fairly adamant Obama supporters, neither of us wants to see Palin fall on her face.  I was glad to see that she didn't look totally out of her league last night.

I thought Biden was direct, clear and solid.

Palin was clear and folksy (almost to a fault, I told Sarah that if she winked one more time I was going to jump through the TV and poke her in the eye).

All that said, I think that I'm beginning to really solidify some of my chief arguments in support of the Obama/Biden ticket.  In an effort to firm up my thoughts on this, I'm planning on spinning up a series of posts on the issue.  Please, feel free to jump down my throat....

Without further adieu, I present:

Why I support Obama/Biden, part I

One of the things that's stuck out in Palin's recent interviews, debates and speeches is her consistent call that she's not one of the "Washington Elite", but rather, she's a "Joe-Six Pack American".  Now, I've got no problem with the desire for a candidate to say "I'm like you".  I think it's effective and important to make an attempt to relate to the people that are potentially voting for you.

And to tell you the truth, I think Palin is "Joe Six Pack American".....and that scares the crap out of me.

The presidency (and vice presidency for that matter) is a job of monumental proportions.  A job that "Joe six Pack American" is flat out not qualified for. 

Do you want a Joe Six Pack Cardiovascular Surgeon doing that bypass on your dad?

Do you want a Joe Six Pack Lawyer defending you in a courtroom?

Do you want a Joe Six Pack financial advisor working to get you through this mess on Wall Street?

Hell no.

You want the best and brightest....as you should.

The top two jobs in this country shouldn't be filled by everyday, run of the mill folks, they should be reserved for the best and brightest.  And if you look at Obama, he is the best and brightest, and McCain/Palin flat out aren't.

His academic record stands second to none (compared to McCain's "undistinguished, but acceptable" academic record), and all you have to do is hear him speak to understand that he's a well-read, bright guy.  On top of that, he comes from a place that is hardly elite.  While he may have ascended to the ranks of the political elite over the course of his career, there's no question that he's got a background that screams anything but elite. 

(Note:  Here's an interesting discussion comparing the backgrounds of the two candidates)

I understand that being the "best and the brightest" isn't qualification enough for the presidency, so bear with me.  There's more to this.

Middle is Gold....

For a self-proclaimed mixed-bag moderate, this is kind of disappointing, but not surprising.

I'm particularly interested in the 'Reason Number 2' bit, arguing that the fact that congressional districts are overwhelmingly R or D not because of gerrymandered borders.  Rather, they are a product of our choice to live in and amongst like-minded individuals....

Interesting Stuff....

Economics Baby....

I'm smart about a lot of things, but economics often escapes me. I find that my economic opinion is pretty easily swayed by the rhetoric and statistics of both sides, and I think the wishy-washiness is largely a product of my lack of hard education in the field.

With that in mind, give this a read. I think it's a really solid, rational response to the conservative economic policies put forth by the Republican party. Give it a read if you've got a few minutes:

A Debate Worthy of a Great Nation in Trouble

Hack it!

Most of you know that I spend the majority of my day working in the realm of computer security.  Round about every four years, the discussion of the security of voting machines comes up again.  This topic is a natural intersection of my political fanboydom and my profession, so I always make it a point to check out what folks are saying. 

I stumbled on this today, and if you've got about 20 minutes to watch both parts, I'd recommend it.  It'll give you a real sense about how genuinely vulnerable voting machines are to tampering. 

Now I understand that no system is perfectly invulnerable, but there is some real cause for concern with most modern voting machines.  In the past, it took a fairly sizable cohort of folks to maliciously influence the outcome of an election.  With current machines it really only takes one malicious user to create fairly serious havoc in a precinct. 

If we are serious about transparency in our electoral process, we've got to open up the software and processes associated with these machines and make them available for public, professional scrutiniy.  Until then, it's really a crap shoot.

Run for the Fallen

One of my favorite political and media critical commentaries comes from Moblogic.tv. Their writer-editor-producers manage to swing effortlessly from humorous episodes one day to poignant and moving the next.

Today's episode is of the poignant and moving variety.

Also, you should check out one from several weeks back called Ten-Foot Pole. Or you can look at the series on the Sean Bell verdict, culminating in the arrest of the show's host, Lindsay Campbell.

The U.S. Doesn't "Torture" And Other Simple Rights and Wrongs

Warning: This is an obvious, long-day-of-traveling, everyone-else-has-already-said-it post. But I thought it an issue worth raising on our nearly defunct blog.

"In a world where some no longer believe that we can distinguish between simple right and wrong, we need your message to reject this dictatorship of relativism."

President Bush flattered Pope Benedict yesterday with these words during a joint public appearance. If you remember, the Pope's first message upon his election introduced us all to the "dictatorship of relativism", while he called the Roman Catholic Church to return to the doctrinal standards of the faith. The phrase was well-tuned towards Europe, Latin America, and Africa, where dictators have often used the Catholic Church for their own means or disposed of church leaders when they got in the way. Time and again, doctrinal standards become subservient to the Fatherland, los Descamisados, or whatever idealized national identity is at the time purported by an authoritarian regime; Marxism, Nazism and Jingoism sweep up churches, student groups, the disenfranchised, and great crowds of "people with guns" so that the core of doctrine is discarded for a more permissive interpretation.