John McCain vs Barack Obama Mega-Politic-Thread of super fun awesomeness.

[gran guerrero]

am I the only one who saw what I just saw on the mccain's speech tonight?

During the intro video, I'm hearing John Mccain is this...this,, blah blah blah (slow montage of american pride lookin shit), then I hear...

But most of all he is, (cut scene to his mother, who says...) A Momma's boy!

Then cut back to montage, and deep voice guy in the background.

I'm on wtf mode right now, and I hope someone can explain what just happened.

[Epinephrine]

From Climate Alarmism to Climate Realism - Václav Klaus

Notes for the speech at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, New York, March 4, 2008

Not sure why you posted a speech by the Czech president who is an economist. I mean he doesn't even talk about whether or not climate change is real (he has no facts, he just quite bluntly states the IPCC is just wrong without any argument to the contrary), he just thinks that economic development = emissions, and that lower emissions = lower standard of living, an assertion which is wrong to begin with.



Either way all this talk about climate change is pointless. I'm never going to convince you guys here that global warming is happening because you won't look at the real facts, and will only cherry pick things which you think (sometimes wrongly) helps your baseless beliefs.

Should go back to talking about Obama vs McCain. At least politics can be talked about subjectively, unlike science.

[Money]

there is some serial shit in this thread but on to more serial matters, manbearpig. discuss.

[Jerome Scuggs]

But we DO know that it exists. 99%+ of all climate scientists in the world agree that it exists. A vast majority of other scientists who know about the how the world and ecosystems works (i.e. biologists, weather people) also agree that man made global warming is real. There is a very clear amount of scientific evidence from many, many, many measurements done using every single theory possible that shows that man-made global warming is real and is here. I honestly could care less what Al Gore said because we knew global warming existed before most people even knew he was an advocate. I definately care less what kthx thinks because I know he is just wrong and using ancedotal evidence (or stuff that he made up) to justify his views.

But still, there is disagreement to its causes, its solutions, and how we should go about trying to manipulate the situation. McCain and Obama obviously both agree that it exists - yet you'll find them trashing eachothers' plans.

True and false. The USA loses hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth each year in buying oil from around the world. This is productivity (or borrowed money from China and Japan) which is directly sent to oil producing countries to buy oil wealth. Think the trade deficit with China is big? The trade deficit with oil producing countries simply for buying oil is vastly larger.

By promoting energy independence and investing in clean energy with the goal of making it financially competitive with oil, this gives further incentive for money to stay within the USA rather than going to oil producing countries. I don't see how this could be bad.

We lose hundreds of billions in wealth from buying oil? True and false. Yes, we do spend billions on oil - but the oil is used to fuel our economy. If a billion dollars' worth of oil is used to create $15billion dollars' worth of products or services, is it really a loss?

As to the second question - true and false. When we buy products from other countries, you are giving them American dollars. Foreign countries have absolutely no use for American dollars - unless they use them to buy American goods. Even if the American dollars are instead paid to another country - that country will either use the American dollars to buy American goods or use them to buy goods from yet another country - yet, eventually, the dollars will return back to America.

We do have a large trade deficit with China - but that basically means that China now holds alot of American currency, as well as oil-producing nations. The Chinese can either spend the American dollars which will inevitably make their way back to American producers, or they can burn the money in giant piles, essentially giving away oil to America for no gain.

Finally, there's no time to wait for the market to make the world into an oil-free (well really carbon-free) world. Because the market only relies on prices to direct it's behaviour and because you obviously don't support intervention in pricing (i.e. carbon taxes, regulation), oil and coal will be used in the open market until there is absolutely none left in the world because as demand for them drops, the price drops and they will be somewhat competitive no matter what.

This is the real world, where people obviously just don't "rely" on prices. Prices might direct behavior, but it is one of many reasons. The environmental movement has led to shifts in producers' decisions and actions - sometimes even leading to a loss in profit. When it boils down to it, decisions are made for many, many reasons but they also take in more realistic and objective signals, like market prices.

But the main point here is - you're right. There is no time to wait. Which is why, in the market now, innovations and ideas are being deployed and refined. Businesses have been finding ways to save energy and pollute less since even before people were aware of "environmentalism". While politicians decide on what to do, where to do it, and to what extent, actors in the market are already toying with those ideas - and countless more. While Ozarka reducing their use of plastic by 30% in each water bottle, and McDonald's using all-recycled paper in their bags might not add up to much individually - in the long run, millions of little things like that begin to show an impact.

Because every time you save a small amount of energy, that's energy you then don't have to replace with alt. fuel.

In the time that god knows how many businesses had developed god knows how many small tricks to save energy and lower environmental impact, the government has managed to... forced us to switch to CFL bulbs, and then gloat about it as if they stumbled on some brilliant idea.

You're absolutely right - now's not the time to be dragging our feet. But, perhaps just as importantly - now is definitely not the time to attempt a massive re-organization of the market economy. Letting the market continue its processes and letting consumers adopt new innovations as soon as they can afford it will lead to the most satisfaction. It will lead towards less and less dependence on oil and energy, while avoiding potentially disastrous market distortion. You're right - we won't be free and happy if we are dead. But, conversely, we won't achieve energy independence if we manage to wreck our economy. Lord knows how much faster our move towards a greener economy would be progressing if 60% of our GDP wasn't seized by the government in the form of taxes, regulation and such. I could never prove this, but how much tax-money that went to fund the Iraq war came from people trying to develop cleaner tech, and how did it affect them? We might never know - and perhaps that is bad enough.

[DoTheFandango]

HEY I CAN COPY COOL THINGS TOO
"Global Climate Change is real" -- MY roommate.

[kthx]

In the time that god knows how many businesses had developed god knows how many small tricks to save energy and lower environmental impact, the government has managed to... forced us to switch to CFL bulbs, and then gloat about it as if they stumbled on some brilliant idea.

Are those the ones that have extremely high levels of mercury.. lol

[Jerome Scuggs]

Ok, a dilemna:

Suppose we find a way to see the future and it turns out that a pregnant woman's fetus will commit a capital crime, punishable by death. What would a Republican do?

[kthx]

Well the answer is that there is no future. Global Warming is going to destroy the planet and soon unless we stop our evil carbon polluting ways! Life on this earth will cease to exist. Dense jungles will slowly become deserts, deserts will become even bigger deserts, and big deserts will get so big that they will touch the edges of other deserts to form the deserts so large that life will cease to exist on earth! And, this large desert that was once the heartland of America, there will be the skeleton of Erathia, laptop battery flashing on low energy, a large white box inside the monitor holds his last post to be, cursor slowly blinking after a well thought out post that could have warned man kind about the impending doom of his gluttonous ways of energy use. But alas, had only Erathia had the energy left in the scorching wasteland of America to hit enter, this terrible tragedy might had been avoided, and civilization would have prospered.

Or maybe, your just over fucking reacting to something that isn't real. The planets temperature and weather change over time naturally, wind conditions that appear every X number of years like El Nino prove this. The planet does what it wants, when it wants, and there isn't jack shit that humans have done, or could do to change the course that its going to take. And to think that humans have the power to change something that even in our infinite wisdom and technological prowess we can't fully understand is ridiculous at best.

[Epinephrine]

You're absolutely right - now's not the time to be dragging our feet. But, perhaps just as importantly - now is definitely not the time to attempt a massive re-organization of the market economy. Letting the market continue its processes and letting consumers adopt new innovations as soon as they can afford it will lead to the most satisfaction. It will lead towards less and less dependence on oil and energy, while avoiding potentially disastrous market distortion. You're right - we won't be free and happy if we are dead. But, conversely, we won't achieve energy independence if we manage to wreck our economy. Lord knows how much faster our move towards a greener economy would be progressing if 60% of our GDP wasn't seized by the government in the form of taxes, regulation and such. I could never prove this, but how much tax-money that went to fund the Iraq war came from people trying to develop cleaner tech, and how did it affect them? We might never know - and perhaps that is bad enough.

You have a point, business is moving in a certain direction, but to a large degree whether or not a lot of the alternative energy businesses succeed today relies on some degree of price distortion. The reason why alternative energy has had any real start in the world is chiefly due to government subsidies either directly or from tax breaks.

As well, for every virtuous person, there is another who absolutely doesn't give a shit as long as they make profit. It is these people who will continue to pollute as much as they want to or can, and it is these people who will make enough profit by undercutting others who would spend more on green technologies and thus undermine businesses and individual who ARE trying to be more environmentally friendly.

As well, I hardly think Obama is striving to get rid of oil overnight. I believe his platform has always been (as outlined directly in his acceptance speech) is to give tax incentives for emerging green technologies to develop to the tune of $10 billion a year, and probably until the industry becomes self sufficient (which is generally what most practical environmentalists would want). This is a drop in the bucket, considering the the billions already spent on other silly projects like the whole corn ethanol thing which actually causes more emissions than oil, and is just another disguise for farm subsidies.

Obama's entire spiel about 10 million jobs and so on is just rhetoric, or at best a rosy outlook of a possible future spurred by a very modest investment in tax breaks of a future industry. Still, it does signal a seriousness of the administration to change things around. Whether it is by methods which won't directly cost any tax dollars (i.e. regulation to stop the worst polluters, or at least regulation to create an environment where businesses will have more of an incentive to move to less polluting methods much like the very successful drive against acid rain and sulfur regulations and CFC regulations of the 70s and 80s) by changing the law, or by making sure the massive government itself strives to be more efficient in it's own use of energy, thus instantly opening up a huge market for producers who could sell to the government and achieve economies of scale.

[kthx]

As well, for every virtuous person, there is another who absolutely doesn't give a shit as long as they make profit. It is these people who will continue to pollute as much as they want to or can, and it is these people who will make enough profit by undercutting others who would spend more on green technologies and thus undermine businesses and individual who ARE trying to be more environmentally friendly.

So you basically agree with Al Gore's carbon credit bullshit.. amazing.

Epine I don't know what you really believe in, I don't know if you really think you are correct in this matter...

But this is THE opinion people should have...

."I don't mind trying to doing things more environmentally friendly, unless it is going to destroy the nation that I live in."

Epine.. do you agree with like... the hardcore PETA people.. who think that you eating meat or using an animal to haul a wagon or plow a field, or to race them is a terrible thing..

Well basically you are an environmental nutjob version of a hardcore PETA person. You think that the environment should be placed above that of human life and comfort. Because.. in your lifetime, and in my lifetime.. global warming won't have any impact in our lives. Unless you are that much of a humanitarian that you are thinking of the future generations... who will no doubt come up with new technology that we can't even fathom to solve the problems we are stumped by today.

[Fit of Rage]

I'm gonna...

...wait for it...

... wait for it...











LOL

If your response is to call him a nutjob because you don't agree with him and more importantly, because you don't give a rat's ass about the environment or future generations.

[Summa]

Considering you've just massively discredited yourself with that one paragraph, I'm going to assume that your credibility in other parts like climate science is far off too.

China only has about $1 trillion invested in US bonds.

yeah you're right here, checked my source and it was some radical liberal conspiracy theory rant (kinda like what all of wark's sources are). checked elsewhere and i get in the range of 1-1.6 trillion mb on this one screwed the pooch

EDIT: and was it just me or did parts of mccain's speech sound copy/pasted from obama's but with just a touch of difference @ the end? ie education and energy blurb (@ the end of education he attacked obama and then said he wanted to do essentially the same thing and @ the end of energy he said he wanted to drill...that was rly the only difference) and wark thats just the most silly comparison i've heard in a while. hes saying business is doing fine as is, they are making great profits (since thats all a lot of businesses care about) so why should they change course w/o incentive. and i even further think mccain's economics do not work out after tonight. he says he wants to put a LOT of money in a ton of different places and still cut taxes....yay 4 bushonomics

[DoTheFandango]

have you guys ever listened to explosions in the sky?
if so, listen to it while high as shit, then watch John McCain talk on mute.
Bad trip man,.

[Vihta]

Interesting speech
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6G3Qefbt0n4

Just the beginning?
http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/25/real...ion=2008072508

USA
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3173/...e09ea2.jpg?v=0

[castromarx]

do you agree with like... the hardcore PETA people.. who think that you eating meat or using an animal to haul a wagon or plow a field, or to race them is a terrible thing..

I do.