News and Views From my kids accomplishments, to my heretical perspective of the world

I must be either in the Twilight Zone, or I’m asleep and will wake soon. I just imagined that the Arizona Cardinals are going to the Super Bowl. What a ridiculous idea!

Derek had a checking account with Chase a few weeks ago that he decided to close out. He had just $5.59 in the account, and by accident he withdrew $5.60.

For that one cent overdraft, Chase charged him a $25 fee. Jocelyn may argue that this is justified, but you can’t convince me that it costs the bank $25 to process this. I went in and talked to the branch manager about it, but she was adamant and unsympathetic. She told me “Other teenagers have checking accounts without overdrawing them”. Nice attitude.

Maybe Chase should set up a virtual “Take a penny, leave a penny” dish on their website for situations like this. Their current policy surely doesn’t breed good will.

This quiz of basic American Civic Literacy is a sobering test of how much US citizens know about their government.

71% of Americans failed the test (less than 60% right). Less than 1% of the test takers scored above 90. How well do you know how our government was established and functions?

I’m proud to say that I missed only one question (32/33, or about 97%), but I’m sure I wouldn’t have done nearly as well if I hadn’t been teaching a US Citizenship class for the past 5 years.

The statistics show pretty similar grades among liberals and conservatives, men and women. The biggest difference is between low and high income. People making over $75,000/year averaged 55%, while those making less than $30,000/year averaged 40%. However, both those grades are failing. Whites averaged a little better than other races, men a little better than women, Republicans a little better than Democrats. But every group failed the test.

What does this mean for our country? How can we trust voters to make reasonable choices? And politicians didn’t do even as well as the average American. How can we trust them to run our government?

How well do you understand our government? Are you “civically literate”?

Tom Bradley ran for governor of California in 1982. Bradley, a black man, was leading in the polls by over 10%. However, he lost the election.

The so-called Bradley Effect was named after this event. In several other elections in the US the actual votes received by African Americans was significantly less than polls predicted.

There are some theories on why this happens, with the most popular being that voters might be embarrassed to sound racist and so lie to pollsters. When they get in the voting booth, inner bias takes over.

Polls show that Obama has a 3% – 7% advantage (depending on the poll). If the Bradley effect affects this race, that may not be enough.

Nature magazine recently published an article that analyzed the position on and approach towards science of the two major party presidential candidates.

As one excerpt, it’s interesting to compare Obama’s Science and Technology team of advisers with McCain’s:

Obama’s:
Dan Kammen, University of California, Berkeley
Don Lamb, University of Chicago
Gil Omenn, University of Michigan
Henry Kelly, President, Federation of American Scientists
Sharon Long, Stanford University
Jason Grumet, Bipartisan Policy Center
Harold Varmus, (Nobel) Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

McCain’s:
James Schlesinger, Former secretary of defense
James Woolsey, Former Central Intelligence Agency director
Robert McFarlane, Former national security adviser
Carly Fiorina, Former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard
Meg Whitman, Former chief executive of eBay

On the one hand we have real scientists. On the other hand, former CIA agents and former CEOs.

Last night on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart asked why they won’t let Sarah Palin talk with the press? What could a Vice Presidential candidate possibly say that could hurt them?

Then he cut to Joe Biden telling about how Franklin Roosevelt got on television after the stock market crash to calm the nation.

Ouch! Two mistakes in one statement. Roosevelt wasn’t in office when the stock market crashed, and there was really no television until well after he was gone.

But I bet Sarah could match that if they would give her a chance.

In an editorial published today, arch-conservative George Will said:

“It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?”

The article is focused specifically on McCain’s reaction to the financial crisis, but calls it a “harbinger” of a McCain presidency: “For McCain, politics is always operatic, pitting people who agree with him against those who are “corrupt” or “betray the public’s trust,” two categories that seem to be exhaustive — there are no other people.”

To be fair, Will as recently as August 24 talked about “Obama’s Economic Fairytale“, so he hasn’t developed a “crush on Obama”. He’s clearly still in the conservative camp, but it’s refreshing to hear anybody on either side criticizing their own candidate.

Who knows, maybe next we’ll hear Jon Stewart or Maureen Dowd belittling Obama! (Don’t wait up for it!)

This is a bi-partisan plea. Both Obama’s and McCain’s campaign’s continue to release ads with lies and half-truths.

McCain keeps insisting that Obama plans to raise taxes on the middle class, which is untrue.

Obama says that McCain wants to cut Social Security benefits in half, which is not true.

McCain runs an ad stating that Obama was being disrespectful of Palin, calling her a “pig”, dismissing her as “good looking”, and just “doing what she was told”. All false and based on statements totally out of context.

Obama keeps referring to McCain’s joke that making $5 million was the definition of “rich”, as if it were a policy statement.

McCain claims that Obama wants to teach comprehensive sex education to kindergartners, when the bill actually focused on teaching them how to avoid sex predators.

An Obama ad running in Michigan says that McCain refused to support loan guarantees for the auto industry, which had been true, but McCain changed his position long before this ad came out.

Come on, guys! I don’t expect you to always say nice things about each other, but let’s try to keep a little closer to the truth! It makes you both look bad.

A couple of days ago, Bill O’Reilly (Fox) talked about the Palin daughter’s pregnancy, saying: “It is a personal matter… It is true some Americans will judge Sarah Palin’s family… We hope things calm down,”

A reasonable position.

But back in December, talking about Brittany Spears’ 16-year old sister’s pregnancy, he said, “…the blame falls primarily on the girl’s parents.” And he has a picture of the parents with the word “Pinheads” underneath. Wasn’t this a “personal matter” too?

See it here.

Imagine that, a guy gets a law degree, his total political experience is to serve 8 years on the Illinois State Legislature, then one term in the US Congress, and then he has the audacity to think he’s ready to be president. How ridiculous! Sure, he delivers a good speech, but he really should get a few years more experience before he takes on such an important position. Imagine the audacity of that Abraham Lincoln guy!