Alaska produces 400,000 barrels of oil per day.

In 2005 America consumed 20,800,000 barrels per day.

That is about 2% of American oil consumption

Their revenue last year increased to 10 Billion from oil production.

The United States spends about $440 billion annually for energy. Energy costs U.S. consumers $200 billion and U.S. manufacturers $100 billion annually.

Alaska generates 10 billion in oil revenues, and Americans spend 440 billion. Palin claimed Alaska contributed 20% of Americas energy consumption, which would be 88 billion. There is a big difference between 10 billion and 88 billion.

These figures came from the CIA world fact book, and the solarenergy.org website.

John McCain stated that Sarah Palin knows more than anyone in America about energy. I think I now know more than Sarah Palin, on the subject...and so do you.

Your homework assignment is to use the tropes of Speculative fiction to write an alternate history of the future, one in which Obama wins, and one in which McCain wins, and then dies, and Palin inherits the Oval office. Focus on how life changes for everyday Americans, under a Palin Regime, like, how they are coping with radiation sickness, and the lack of food and pure water. Will contraception still be permited? Which will books be burned? Will Jews be forced to convert a gunpoint? Will every home have a bearskin rug? Will you be able to get Kosher Carabou dogs? Will McDonalds offer the McMooseBurger?

Under an Obama administration, explore solutions to the labor shortage engendered by every American  getting a college degree and a job designing or maintaining the new burgeoning alternative energy framework.  If poor children no longer die from untreated infections, will it put pressure on to rapid population expansion? Will this stress the education budget? Will McDonalds off er an Arugula salad? Will the neighborhood blight of forclosed houses come to an end?

Come on, engage in some thought experiments here. What kind of futures will each of these campaigns manifest for Americans?

'Being There' is a direct translation of the term 'Dasein' used by the German philosopher Heidegger to describe the essential nature of human beings. It is also the title of a novel by deceased writer Jerzy Kosinski, and the penultimate film starring Peter Sellers.

The rise of Sarah Palin is beginning to remind me of the rise of Chauncey Gardner.

On the day that Kasparov was defeated by Deep Blue, I suddenly remembered the film "Being There''. The chess champion Kasparov once said there was something about Deep Blue he did not understand, and it frightened him. There were moments when the computer seemed to be . . . thinking. Of course, chess is a game of mathematical strategy; Deep Blue has demonstrated it is possible to be very good at it without possessing consciousness.Sarah Palin has demonstrated that one can be very good at Politics without possessing consciousness.

The Turing test of Artificial Intelligence has always been: Can a computer be programmed to engage in a conversation that sounds human to another human? "Being There'' is a film about a man whose mind works likea rudimentary A.I. program. He's  been conditioned with a list of simple generalizations about the world, phrased in terms of the garden where he lived and labored all his life. He presents himself as a man of good breeding (he imitates the manner of the wealthy older man whose house he lived in, and wears the man's tailored suits) so his simplicity is mistaken for profundity, and soon he is advising presidents and befriending millionaires. His name is Chance. He lived all of his life inside the townhouse and walled garden of a rich recluse-- probably the bastard, cognitively impaired son. He knows what he needs to get through his daily routine: How to find his bedroom and bathroom, how to care for the garden. He is fed by Louise, the cook. The movie provides few other clues about him. He is able to respond to given cues, and can, within limits, adapt and learn.

Early on he says he is "Chance . . . the gardener,'' and is misunderstood as having said "Chauncey Gardener.'' Just the sort of WASP name fits his demeanor,  and soon he is telling the President: "Spring, summer, autumn, winter . . . then spring again.'' You betcha.

Soon the rich man develops much affection for his gentle, reassuring friend. The family doctor both perceptive, and doubtful about Chance's authenticity,  keeps silent after his patient tells him Chauncey "has made the thought of dying much easier.'' Chauncey is introduced to the president, becomes his unofficial advisor, and soon is being interviewed on television, where his insights fit nicely into the limited space available for sound bites.

The hero survives challenges he may not understand, using words  both universal and meaningless. Are Chance's sayings noticeably less useful than when the president tells us about a "bridge to the 21st century?'' Sensible public speech in our time is limited by:
1-- the confines of the 10-second sound bite; 2-- never get pinned down to specific claims or promises;
3-- the abbreviated attention span of the audience.

If Chance's little slogans reveal how superficial public utterance can be, his reception reveals still more. He is WASP, middle-aged, well-groomed, dressed in tailored suits, speaks like an educated man, so he is automatically presumed to be a person of substance. He LOOKS the part. He is, in fact, socially naive ("You're always going to be a little boy,'' Louise the cook tells him, early in the film). But this leads to a natural directness than can be mistaken for confidence, as when he addresses the president by his first name, or enfolds his hand in both of his own. The movie argues that if you look right, sound right, speak in platitudes and have powerful friends, you can go far in our society. By the end of the film, Chance is being seriously proposed as a presidential candidate.

Louise sees him on television for the first time, and exclaims: "It's for sure a white man's world in America. I raised that boy since he was the size of a 'pissant' and I'll tell you he never learned to read nor write. No sir. Has no brains at all. Stuffed with rice pudding between the ears. Short-changed by the Lord and dumb as a jackass. Yes sir, all you got to be is white in America to get whatever you want. "

The movie's implications are alarming. Is it possible that we are all just clever versions of Chance the gardener? That we are trained from an early age to respond automatically to given words and concepts? That we never really think out much of anything for ourselves, but are content to repeat what works for others in the same situation?

So no computer will ever live. But to the degree that we are constrained by our own programming, neither will we. The question is not whether a computer will ever think like a human, but whether we choose to free ourselves from thinking like computers.

OpenLeft  is reporting:

"A whistleblower is coming forth against John and Cindy McCain, and the picture he is painting is not a pretty one.  You've probably heard about Cindy McCain stealing prescription drugs from her charity in the 1990s.  Today, Tom Gosinski, her former employee and a close friend of the McCain's, came out on the record about the entire sordid episode."

I searched google on Tom Gosinski, and there was a hit on an interview with the WaPo on 9/10/08--but when you follow the link, the content is gone. Anybody know the rest of the story?

IF I WERE a Billionare Saudi militant Islamic Extremist, sitting pretty in my Paki Cave and alternating my time between praying towards Mecca and googling on my IPHONE--I would be convulsed with laughter. My days would be filled by pious hilarity. My work is finished, I would say. The Infidels are cannibalising themselves. We can now disband. We have created a chain reaction that is self-perpetuating. They are now arguing about the two things we Muslims hate most, Swine, and Lipstick. They are finished. They are fouling their own nests. Tell your brothers to go home. Allah needs us no longer. The Infidels will slit each others throats.

Shine, Perishing Republic
by Robinson Jeffers

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens, I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth. Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence; and home to the mother. You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains: shine, perishing republic. But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening center; corruption Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's feet there are left the mountains. And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant, insufferable master. There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught – they say – God, when he walked on earth.

John McCain courted and received, an endorsement from Hagee (the extremist nut).

Hagee, in his book "What Every Man Wants in a Woman," wrote, "Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick."

John McCain chose the Alaskan Beauty Queen as his running 'mate' and she uttered the now famous, oh so witty line at the RNC acceptance speech: "...hockey mom. You know the difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom? Lipstick."

Lipstick and bestiality, of course is an old misogynistic metaphor for a proposition of dubious worth decorated to hide its dubiousness. It may now be pretty, but its essence remains unchanged. This has long been a popular metaphor--long, long before Hagee executed his rant on PMS and Sarah claimed to be a pit bull with lipstick.

But did she come up with the metaphor on her own? Had she read Hagee's book? Had her speechwriter? It seems awfully weird that her major claim to celebrity seems to be this one, single utterance. Where did it come from?

Of course the public wants to talk about lipstick. Lipstick they understand. Carbon sequestration, and securitization of leveraged derivatives they do not. They don't even understand Hadron Colliders. But lipstick on a pig or a dog they can grasp. It falls within the scope of their limited intellectual capacity.

You thought the culture wars were dead, didn't you. You buried your hatchet, but John McCain never buried his. I'm looking for my hatchet, but I forgot where I buried it. Here is another key to understanding the psychology of the current election dynamic. It derives from 'the Merchants of Cool.'

Several years ago Frontline aired a documentary that explored the relationship between the marketing and media mavens, and the youth demographic they were targeting. Based upon their research, they developed a strategy to sell 'coolness' based on a couple of abstract templates--archetypes referred to by the marketing mavens as 'The Mook' and the 'Mid-riff'.

Armed with this knowledge, go back over the past decade of Viacom media production, and see if  you can identify the archetypes. Britney Spears v1.0 personified the image they focused on. Young females want reassurance about their sexual power over males. Young males want to demonstrate their 'Prowess'. Hence the rise of programming like 'JackAss'. The merchant of cool are constantly researching the youth market in an endless feedback loop that resembles the process of evolution--almost grasped completely by the silly movie: 'Idiocracy'.

With McCain and Palin, the marketing archetype has been elevated to the level of a presidential campaign: with McCain (McNasty) the Mook, bragging about his days dating a stripper--and Palin as the Mid-riff--who was almost immediately photoshopped to put her head onto the bikinied image of a hot chick with an assault weapon.

In the culture wars--it's really the Mook and the Mid-riff vs the Poindexter.

In 'Idiocracy', anybody who spoke clearly(without cognitive dissonance) with just a little bit of knowledge was attacked and belittled for 'talking like a fag'.

If you missed the Frontline documentary, or want to revisit this excellent program, here is the link. LINK

Ask  yourself, why has at least half the nation gone NUTS for a woman they know nothing about--especially a woman with a veneer thin professional resume, in a cloud of deceptions and improprieties? Becaue the public has been conditioned. The public has been programmed. Their buttons have now been pushed. The Mook and the Mid-riff Rule! She Rocks. In their own words.

Yes, you should be afraid. You should be very afraid. Wake up from their Matrix.

Let's try this again. Sigh.

Lying is an evolutionary strategy. Examples of trickster plants and animals abound, in the natural world. There are flowers that pretend to be wasps. Insects that pretend to be leafs and sticks. Predadtory Lighting bugs that pretend to be fertile mates. There are Fish that pretend their tongue is a worm. There are snakes that try to make themselves look bigger than they are. This one reminds me of Sarah Palin. Satan is sometimes called the Father of Lies, but at the press conference where she first burst onto the American stage, Sarah revealed herself to be the Mother of Lies. Satan is sometimes called the Lord of the Flies, but there is a fly who pretends to be a bee; bees, whose work is all sweetness and light. Even butteflies get in on the act. There are butterflies that practice ''Batesian mimicry,'' disguising themselves as members of another butterfly family that is unpalatable to their natural predators.

The lineage of Iconic Liars may be traced through the subversive mythology of the trickster -- personified by Loki, baby Hermes, the young Krishna, Brer Rabbit and even Bugs Bunny -- the deceptively frail scamp who charms his antagonists but upends the world with his schemes. Tricksters are the heroes of servants and slaves, the powerless and the disenfranchised in general, who can vicariously participate in the trouncing of some large, dumb, powerful brute by the underdog with quick wits and an inexhaustible bag of tricks. Then there are the big-time literary liars, such as Iago, from Othello, and Swift's satirical 'Gulliver's Travels', which offers a kind of enlightenment through its deceptions. I do not expect enlightenment from the deceptions of Sarah Palin and John McCain, however.

Other literary liars of this ilk include Stavrogin, the demented anti-hero of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Possessed, and various nasty narrators in Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology.

American literature has a rich heritage in the creation of liars who lie to punish the undeserving. In Billy, Budd, Herman Melville gave us a liar at least as evil as Iago. Claggart, the master-at-arms on a Man O' War, had it in for the young, good natured seaman, Billy Budd: "In Claggart was the mania of an evil nature, born with him and innate." Everyone on the ship loved Billy, except Claggart. Acting in the tradition of Iago, Claggart "circumstantially alleged certain words and acts which led to presumptions mortally inculpating Budd." In other words, Claggart lied to destroy Billy's reputation. Maddened by these false accusations, Billy struck down Claggart, killing the master-at-arms, and earning a trip to the gallows.

The psychological personality disorder that best explains liars is listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders under the Cluster B category, Narcissistic. Those afflicted exaggerate their accomplishments and, under scrutiny, exhibit considerable prowess in terms of self-protection. Thus, liars seem to have been naturally selected for survival based on their ability to shift the focus from them--who, after all, are lying--to either those who are accusing them of untruth or someone else who can be blamed for whatever the liar is lying about.

In his crime novel 'The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett gave us the twisted heroine Brigitte O'Shaughnessy. Quizzed by Spade regarding the death of his partner, O'Shaughnessy first gives up her own partner, who is a good choice to finger because he, too, has just been murdered. Spade, a cynical inquisitor, recognizes her prowess as a liar--when caught in a lie, she relies on another ploy, the non-confessional confession meant to place her under the mantle of honesty: "The lie was in the way I said it and not at all in what I said. It is my own fault that you can't believe me now." This  prompts Spade to say, "Now you ARE dangerous."

'Dangerous'. The word that comes to mind when I think about the two liars Sarah Palin and John McCain.

Lying is a strategy employed by many organisms on the evolutionary pathway. I suppose one could argue that when Sarah and John lie, they are employing an evolutionary strategy.

We have flowers that pretend to be wasps. We have predatory lighting bugs that pretend to be fertile mates. We have insects that pretend to be sticks and leaves. We have fish who pretend their tongue is a worm. There are butterflies that practice ''Batesian mimicry,'' disguising themselves as members of another butterfly family that is unpalatable to their natural predators.

We have snakes that pretend they are bigger than they actually are. This one reminds me of Sarah Palin.

Sometimes Satan is known as the Father of Lies. Sarah revealed herself, when she first burst upon the national scene, to be the Mother of Lies. Sometimes Satan is called the Lord of the Flies. There are flies who pretend to be bees; Bees, whose business is all sweetness and light.

Then there are the iconic liars, whose lineage may be traced through the subversive mythology of the trickster -- and personified by Loki, baby Hermes, the young Krishna, Brer Rabbit and even Bugs Bunny -- that deceptively frail scamp who charms and engages upends the world with his schemes. (again, sort of like Sarah and John) Tricksters are the heroes of servants and slaves, and the disenfranchised in general, the powerless, who can vicariously participate in the trouncing of some large, dumb, but powerful brute by the underdog with quick wits and an inexhaustible bag of tricks.' Then there are the big-time literary liars, such as Iago, and  Jonathan Swift is a "splendide mendax," a liar for the public good, offering a kind of enlightenment through the lies of ''Gulliver's Travels.''

I do not expect to find enlightenment in the lies of Sarah Palin and John McCain, however.

American literature does not take a back seat in the production of liars who lie to punish the undeserving. In Billy, Budd, Herman Melville created a liar as evil as Iago. Claggart, the master-at-arms in the novella, had it in for the young seaman, Billy Budd: "In Claggart was the mania of an evil nature, born with him and innate." Everyone on the ship loved Billy, except Claggart. Acting in the tradition of Iago, Claggart "circumstantially alleged certain words and acts which led to presumptions mortally inculpating Budd." That is Melville's way of saying that Claggart lied to destroy Billy's reputation. Maddened by the false accusations, the young sailor struck down Claggart, killing the master-at-arms, and earning himself a trip to the gallows.Other liars of this ilk include Stavrogin, the demented anti-hero of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Possessed, and various nasty narrators in Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology.The psychological personality disorder that best explains liars is listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders under the Cluster B category, Narcissistic. Those afflicted exaggerate their accomplishments and, under scrutiny, exhibit considerable prowess in terms of self-protection. Thus, liars seem to have been naturally selected for survival based on their ability to shift the focus from them--who, after all, are lying--to either those who are accusing them of untruth or someone else who can be blamed for whatever the liar is lying about.

Then of course there is Brigit O'Shaughnessy, the Heroine of Dashiell Hammet's 'The Maltese Falcon'. Quizzed by Spade about the killer his partner, O'Shaughnessy first gives up her own partner, who is a good choice to finger because he, too, has just been murdered. Spade, a cynical inquisitor, recognizes her prowess as a liar, as, when caught in a lie, she relies on another ploy, the non-confessional confession meant to place her under the mantle of honesty: "The lie was in the way I said it and not at all in what I said. It is my own fault that you can't believe me now." Which prompts Spade to say, "Now you are dangerous."

The same could be said of Palin and McCain.

 

 

Sarah Palin, as a Pentacostal, knows the Decalogue. Yet, she lies. She is a Liar. John McCain, who always puts country first, thinks he is putting country first when he lies to his countrymen. John McCain tells lies. John McCain is a liar.

This is the as God is My Witness--naked truth. This is the truth you swear to tell in a Court of Law. Will John McCain give depositions, under pain of prosecution, that everything they tell their countrymen they know to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the Truth, so help them, God?

Will they agree to these terms with their countrymen? If not, then what are they playing at?

The hardest tumble a man can make is to fall over his own bluff.  -- Ambrose Bierce.

We now all know that both John McCain and Sarah Palin are Liars. They tell lies. They stoop to decieve the people they would serve. Why? Why would they do this?

Fear.

They are afraid of something they think wouldn't happen if they told us the truth. What do they fear from us? That we will not surrender our consent. That we will not give our support. That we will not elect them to rule us.

What is it about the Truth they would tell, that, knowing it, they fear would cost them our consent and support? What is the grievous reality they are attempting to conceal from us?

That in fact, Sarah Palin is that paragon of pork eating, government handout beggar he has denounced from the well of the Senate for so many years that he has built his reputation upon it? Feet of clay.

Then here is the other lie they told--repeated ad nauseum by GW Bush, DICK Cheney, et.al. The LIE: that Sarah Palin is qualified to inherit the Oval Office should McCain succumb to an untimely demise. If she is so qualified as they claim from the rooftops--then they would put her in front of every reporter, on every News channel and every newspaper to take their case to the People for their elevation to the Chief Executive Office. That they do not--flags the claim as a lie.

Some of us hate lies for what they are: false. A lie attempts to suggest a reality that does not exist. It is a sandcastle in the air. It is a trick. It is a ruse. It is a figment of a twisted character that takes hold in the public imagination like a feverish disease.

Reject anyone who would lie to you in order to obtain your consent surreptiously. Otherwise your regret will never end.

Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority. --T.H. Huxley

Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion... or you shall learn nothing. --T.H. Huxley

Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly. --T.H. Huxley

The MSM finally pickup up on her claim yesterday that She and McCain would make Fannie and Freddie smaller and smarter--the context of her comments indicated that she assumed the two publicly traded mortgage backed security sellers were government agencies.

That is like saying she and McCain want to make GE smaller and smarter, or IBM smaller and smarter, or--maybe she and John McCain should make the USPS smaller and smarter.

Go after her--she is intellectually weak. If this was not the case she would be making the rounds of every talk show and sitting down with every newspaper in the country. She's a know nothing. Show it. Issue a formal challenge. Make her demonstrate her knowledge. Maybe Exxon Mobile has gotten too big and expensive for the taxpayers. Maybe Comcast and Verizon have gotten too big and expensive. Maybe McCain can make them smaller, too. Hammer the silly ignoramus. She's a pretender. She's a fraud.  She's an imposter. Prove it!

The MSM finally pickup up on her claim yesterday that She and McCain would make Fannie and Freddie smaller and smarter--the context of her comments indicated that she assumed the two publicly traded mortgage backed security sellers were government agencies.

That is like saying she and McCain want to make GE smaller and smarter, or IBM smaller and smarter, or--maybe she and John McCain should make the USPS smaller and smarter.

Go after her--she is intellectually weak. If this was not the case she would be making the rounds of every talk show and sitting down with every newspaper in the country. She's a know nothing. Show it. Issue a formal challenge. Make her demonstrate her knowledge. Maybe Exxon Mobile has gotten too big and expensive for the taxpayers. Maybe Comcast and Verizon have gotten too big and expensive. Maybe McCain can make them smaller, too. Hammer the silly ignoramus. She's a pretender. She's a fraud.  She's an imposter. Prove it!

There IS no list of the books she wanted banned. It was never published. She did discuss it with the librarian of Wasilla. But there is no list. There is a list circulating the blogosphere now that came from here: banned books in the USA.

But this list is now being used by Michelle Malkin as an example of Palin Derangement Syndrome. Don't fall for this trap.

'Being There' is a direct translation of the term 'Dasein' used by the German philosopher Heidegger to describe the essential nature of human beings. It is also the title of a novel by deceased writer Jerzy Kosinski, and the penultimate film starring Peter Sellers.

The rise of Sarah Palin is beginning to remind me of the rise of Chauncey Gardner.

On the day that Kasparov was defeated by Deep Blue, I suddenly remembered the film "Being There''. The chess champion Kasparov once said there was something about Deep Blue he did not understand, and it frightened him. There were moments when the computer seemed to be . . . thinking. Of course, chess is a game of mathematical strategy; Deep Blue has demonstrated it is possible to be very good at it without possessing consciousness.Sarah Palin has demonstrated that one can be very good at Politics without possessing consciousness.

The Turing test of Artificial Intelligence has always been: Can a computer be programmed to engage in a conversation that sounds human to another human? "Being There'' is a film about a man whose mind works likea rudimentary A.I. program. He's  been conditioned with a list of simple generalizations about the world, phrased in terms of the garden where he lived and labored all his life. He presents himself as a man of good breeding (he imitates the manner of the wealthy older man whose house he lived in, and wears the man's tailored suits) so his simplicity is mistaken for profundity, and soon he is advising presidents and befriending millionaires. His name is Chance. He lived all of his life inside the townhouse and walled garden of a rich recluse-- probably the bastard, cognitively impaired son. He knows what he needs to get through his daily routine: How to find his bedroom and bathroom, how to care for the garden. He is fed by Louise, the cook. The movie provides few other clues about him. He is able to respond to given cues, and can, within limits, adapt and learn.

Early on he says he is "Chance . . . the gardener,'' and is misunderstood as having said "Chauncey Gardener.'' Just the sort of WASP name fits his demeanor,  and soon he is telling the President: "Spring, summer, autumn, winter . . . then spring again.'' You betcha.

Soon the rich man develops much affection for his gentle, reassuring friend. The family doctor both perceptive, and doubtful about Chance's authenticity,  keeps silent after his patient tells him Chauncey "has made the thought of dying much easier.'' Chauncey is introduced to the president, becomes his unofficial advisor, and soon is being interviewed on television, where his insights fit nicely into the limited space available for sound bites.

The hero survives challenges he may not understand, using words  both universal and meaningless. Are Chance's sayings noticeably less useful than when the president tells us about a "bridge to the 21st century?'' Sensible public speech in our time is limited by:
1-- the confines of the 10-second sound bite; 2-- never get pinned down to specific claims or promises;
3-- the abbreviated attention span of the audience.

If Chance's little slogans reveal how superficial public utterance can be, his reception reveals still more. He is WASP, middle-aged, well-groomed, dressed in tailored suits, speaks like an educated man, so he is automatically presumed to be a person of substance. He LOOKS the part. He is, in fact, socially naive ("You're always going to be a little boy,'' Louise the cook tells him, early in the film). But this leads to a natural directness than can be mistaken for confidence, as when he addresses the president by his first name, or enfolds his hand in both of his own. The movie argues that if you look right, sound right, speak in platitudes and have powerful friends, you can go far in our society. By the end of the film, Chance is being seriously proposed as a presidential candidate.

Louise sees him on television for the first time, and exclaims: "It's for sure a white man's world in America. I raised that boy since he was the size of a 'pissant' and I'll tell you he never learned to read nor write. No sir. Has no brains at all. Stuffed with rice pudding between the ears. Short-changed by the Lord and dumb as a jackass. Yes sir, all you got to be is white in America to get whatever you want. "

The movie's implications are alarming. Is it possible that we are all just clever versions of Chance the gardener? That we are trained from an early age to respond automatically to given words and concepts? That we never really think out much of anything for ourselves, but are content to repeat what works for others in the same situation?

So no computer will ever live. But to the degree that we are constrained by our own programming, neither will we. The question is not whether a computer will ever think like a human, but whether we choose to free ourselves from thinking like computers.

Just in case any of you did not see the hilarious Daily Show Bio film of John McCain:

<a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=184113&title=John-McCain:-Reformed-Maverick" > Click Here</a>

The Federal Government is getting ready to assume control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and this tsunami sized financial techtonic event seems to be passing with little political notice.

How did we get here? How did it come to this? Most Americans don't seem to understand the role that Fannie and Freddie play in enabling money intended to be loaned for houses to get to people who want to borrow money to buy houses. It is one of the financial foundations of the global economy.

Because Americans are undereducated in matters of Finance and Economics, it was(in hindsight) relatively easy for someone to game the system. It is difficult to be certain how many in congress actually understood the implications of what they were voting for back in December of 2000 when they deregulated the futures market, but they basically allowed the following game to be set up and played.

The riskiest borrowers could be steered into sub-prime loans, often with zero understanding of what they were getting into. These risky loans could then be bundles into a tranche, and sold on the futures market. The fact that the riskiest borrowers were getting sub-prime loans was an essential part of the game--because then it was safe for hedge funds to buy PUT contracts on them--essentially betting that the underlying leveraged securities would default on the loan and be worth less in the future than they were at the time the contract was written. Goldman Sachs made a pretty bundle on these put contracts. Doesn't an ex CEO from Goldman Sachs have a prominent role in the current administration? It is important to remember that a similar game is played on the futures market with respect to Petroleum and other commodities such as corn and wheat. The speculators themselves now drive the price.

Anyway, that is the game that was played: a new variation on 'shoot the fish in the barrel'. It was an insiders game, of course.

The public at large is woefully ignorant of these facts, and the players involved. Most of the trail of this whodunit leads to the feet of Phil Gramm and the cronies he represented. But congress voted the legislation in, and, to date, hasn't done much to repair the breech. Maybe their own complicity is the reason why Dems have so far, refused to make much political hay from this. But they are wrong to do so. If they were asleep at the switch, they should admit it, educate themselves, and propose reasonable solutions(close the loophole). Most of these problems could be cured with sunshine and ventilation.

John McCain of course, continues to rely on Phil Gramm for cousel, and you can bet Gramm would be prominent in McCain's administration. That is definitely a case of putting the Fox in charge of egg production. Sarah Palin was out on the stump yesterday mouthing homilies about shrinking the size of Freddie and Fannie, and making them smarter and more effective. It is obvious that she understand little if nothing about Freddie, Fannie, and international finance.

But Obama, in his comments from the stump, has not reassured me that he 'gets it', either. Maybe he is afraid of sounding too much the nerdlinger professor. Someone HAS to educate the Public. A good place to begin is this article from Mother Jones:

<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/07/foreclosure-phil.html" >Foreclosure Phil</a>