>> ^dag:
Oh god back to the pork-barrel ear marks. Projector for a planetarium sounds like a good earmark to me.


Neocons always bring up things like that as "big spending", but they never complain about the trillions their party spends on terrible foreign quagmires.

>> ^dag:
Oh god back to the pork-barrel ear marks. Projector for a planetarium sounds like a good earmark to me.


Adler Planetarium needs the help. I remember taking a field trip there in 3rd grade and being bored out of my mind, and I like science!

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Oh god back to the pork-barrel ear marks. Projector for a planetarium sounds like a good earmark to me.

So... I fought against some... just not this one... and apparently 'improving' this bill seems to me adding whatever earmarks it takes to get it to pass... Job well done Senator.

It's interesting how JM keeps bringing up small stuff, like earmarks...it's easier to pay attention to specific things than huge numbers.

JM still hasn't looked at Obama...oops, just did when he called him Jim.

95% Bush voting... keep hammering it home.

^ Your accusations of vagueness on Obama's part are a bit silly.

What you seem to really mean is "Obama's plans aren't simplistic and absolute".

McCain is very specific when he says "I will veto every bill with an earmark" -- but he doesn't seem to be taking into account what kinds of good can be done with earmarks.

In fact, I doubt it's a promise he'd ever be able to follow through on, since all of Congress loves their earmarks, and the Republicans at least would sooner impeach a President McCain and deal with a President Palin who'd be willing to go along with them (especially since she loves earmarks).

So which would you have, well thought out plans that are upfront about the level of uncertainty to them, or simplistic policy plans that are so unrealistic as to seem like empty campaign promises?

I'd rather go with the guy who says "I want to try to implement something like this (and thumps down a 400 page plan) if I can" than the guy who says "I will deliver mountains of gold for you, if you just vote for me!"

>> ^imstellar28:
does it really matter? anyone who is voting for either party has already lost sight of what's really at stake.
can anyone explain to me the differences between Obama/McCain's stance on:
1. preemptive warfare
"McCain supports the Bush Doctrine and Obama opposes it"

2. increasing the size of government
McCain talks the conservative game of smaller government but has supported all of Bush's expansion of the national government
Obama wants to expand healthcare and other social programs, but says that will come at the expense of other programs (subscribves to PAYGO philosophy)
Not so clear on this one

3. FISA
Obama pissed off liberals with support of FISA
McCain seems to be obfuscating his opinion

4. federal bailouts of businesses (such as feddie mae/frannie mac)
Obama - help homeowners shore up mortgages rather than bail out companies
McCain- too big to fail, bail out companies not speculative homeowners who are whining now

5. the federal reserve
neither cnadidate represents change on this issue (although it is a bit fringe for most americans to care about)

6. personal liberties
is this the FISA question again, or are we talking abortion? too vague to disinguish differences

7. bringing all troops home from all 741 military bases
Ridiculously leading topic that assumes that isolationism is the correct strategy

8. foreign policy in afghanistan
Obama - get Bin Laden, secure AFghan/Pakistani borderlands
McCain - get Bin Laden, but not in Pakistan. Iraq matters more

9. stance on the georgia/russia conflict
Obama - 'there needs to be active international engagement to peacefully address the disputes over South Ossetia and Abkhazia, including a high-level and neutral international mediator, and a genuine international peacekeeping force – not simply Russian troops.'
McCain - Georgia conflict is the ‘first serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War.’ [RIGGGHHHT?!?] Russia's evil!

10. the ICC
Obama - consult with military commanders and examine the track record of the Court before reaching a decision on whether the U.S. should become a State Party to the ICC
McCain - 'the ICC was not set up for countries such as the U.S.'

11. inflation
gonna guess that they're both against it

12. income taxes
McCain- continue Bush cuts for wealthiest Americans, give a few pennies to those at the bottom
Obama - let Bush tax cuts expire, give tax breaks to 95% of Americans
graphical representation

13. the war on drugs
Obama - reduce sentences for dealers, needle exchange, nothing about foreign policy
McCain - stronger borders, tougher penalties and sentences, funded wars against drug producing countries (i.e., Colombia)

14. offshore drilling
Obama - can be part of energy plan if it helps gain approval
McCain - we're gonna drill our way outta this in just 2 years, wait 5 years, no 10 years (ok... never)

15. the patriot act
Obama - YES to re-authorization, NO to expanded wiretapping
McCain - YES to re-authorization, YES to expanded wiretapping

16. the graham-levin amendment
Obama - no guantanamo, yes to habeas corpus, no torture, no forced testimony
McCain - no guantanamo, no habeas corpus, no torture (but not really)

17. supported school of economics
Obama - Chicago school of economics
McCain - admitted he doesn't know much about economics

18. creationism
Obama - "religious commitment did not require me to suspend critical thinking" from Audacity of Hope
McCain - doesn't believe in it but VP Palin sure does

19. agricultural subsidies
Obama - limit subsidies, try to get them to small farmers and not corporations
McCain - opposes subsidies, gets in the way of free trade agreements

20. social security entitlements
Obama - remove $97K cap, no privatization, no new commission
McCain - personal savings accounts, maybe raise the cap above $97K

21. the bureaucratic class
Got bored just thinking about researching this

22. national debt
Obama - repeal Bush cuts, end Iraq War, pay-as-you-go system, balanced budget
McCain - debt bad, balanced budget, stop pork and earmarks

I am more informed now, hope you are. Although that took way too long and I am a bit tired of it. If you want more, you can always start here: On the Issues.

Seems ridiculous to pin "earmarks" on any one candidate or party.

Whether you admit it or not, "you" vote for the clown who promises to bring home the most (vote-buying) pork. It's a consequence of a federal leviathan, wasting money collecting monies it has no right to, then urinating it away on nonsense.

Drive-by media have already made it obvious they're all shilling for the Obamessiah, so Cardinal Gibson's wooden, clueless jabs mean nothing. He "lost" his adversarial interview and now the olbyloon countdown to no ratings can dig through the scraps.

However, I will admit, that I don't know what to think of those that are aborted under current law. Since I think the law is faulty and that those abortions are wrong, should I ban use of the cells? Or since they are dead already should I support use of them? The same dilemmas followed the discovery of the Nazi research files following WWII. Should we learn about this or should we burn it with the rest of it? However, I DO support a program where natural child deaths will allow production of informative cell lines. It's like organ donation at that point.

BTW, with a democratic congress, a democratic senate, and a democratic president, an earmark IS a law, period.

Anytime a single party occupies all parts of a government, you can assume that failure with follow. That statement has never failed to date. So I watch the supreme court closely.

Generally speaking, the President doesn't have any control over earmarks. He can veto bills that contain them, but otherwise it's purely a Congressional thing.

Earmarks allow members of Congress to direct money to projects (usually to one in the state/district they represent), without going through the full appropriations process.

I was mostly thinking about the 2nd most mentioned earmark John McCain lists as pork: a study of the DNA of bears (with a joke about not being sure if it's a criminal or paternal issue).

There's a similar earmark Palin requested for her state: $3.2 million for a study of seal genetics.

In reading the full discussion, a lot of people were saying there isn't any reason to believe there's something wrong with either study (except McCain's grandstanding about it). But then some people claiming to be research scientists said using earmarks for studies is a bad way to get funding for research, since it bypasses the normal peer review process.

Just curious if you'd had experience with seeing something like that bypass the peer review.

Probably those particular ones wouldn't have gone through the DoD at all, though.

With stem cells, I'd be willing to bet the politicians have at least watched a Nova special on them, so they're not totally ignorant. Most of the conversation centers around the ban on creating new stem cell lines, and moral vs. practical considerations of lifting or retaining the ban (a conversation that very much echoes the abortion debate).

Is there something about stem cells that they should know that would change the nature of the debate? (e.g., we don't really need more lines, there's no ethical problem with getting more lines, they're not important to current research, etc.)

Earmarks vary so much is it not fair to say they fund this or that. EVERY administration has them and they fund every administration differentlly. I immagine that GWB had plenty of earmarks in defense and I imagine that those will continue with either candidate. The bad news is that that will mean more war, the good news is that that might mean a shorter war and that that might mean some substantial technological advances for us and the world as it has been in the past. In other words, every time NASA has had a deadline, it has produced technologies that we use in our houses (globaly) every freaking day.

If we never funded defense funding, we'd still be using swords. We are using more and more specific weapons. There may be a day when we can appoint a weapon to a specific person
and say "go" and it will. THAT is what we want.

As for biomedical earmarks, they are purely political. If a candidate pushes stem cells, in any form, know that he is following his advisers and their peers. None of the candidates understand what stem cells are or what they mean. Likewise goes for viral vectors for medicines.

What's the deal with earmarks that are going to fund studies? Are those bypassing the peer review panel process?

>> ^misterwight:
Welcome to SimGovernor 2008
Choose your difficulty:
1. Easy
2. Normal
3. Hard
4. Extreme
5. Alabama


did you mean
5.Alaska

>> ^misterwight:
I challenge anyone to find a clip of Obama or Biden referring to McCain as a "Republican't"


Or Repugnican, Rethuglican, even neocon, though I do think Obama used that word early in the primary.

The thing I don't get is that she was such a great Governor and such an energy policy expert that she was able to send out something like 3,200 dollars to each of her states residents. Yet, at the same time she was milking the Federal Gov. for earmarks worth $1000 per resident, dwarfing the national average. It seems to me that her policy amounts to little more than spend money you don't have and have the Fed. make up the loses.