McCain Seeing Stars

I don't know how many of you may have watched the final debate last night, but when McCain was trying to claim that Obama is earmark friendly, he brought up the clain that Obama wastes so much $ he's marked "3 million dollar overhead projector". He did the same thing in the second debate and I'd just like to clarify this as complete and utter nonsense. Think about it "Who honestly spends 3$ million dollars for an overhead projector?" It makes it seem as if Obama is dropping a metric ton of $ on something that every classroom in America has for less than 100$. Course you can argue that hey "NASA spent 1 million inventing a pen that writes upside down, when the Russins used a pencil", and therefore government just throws money away.

But, my friends, this is not the case. It's 3$ million for a replacement Zeiss Mark VI star projector for the Alder Planetarium, you're not going to do geometry straight on the glass with this guy. In addition to a highly specialized piece of scientific equipment, the piece of hardware they have now is over 40 years old, so this isn't just some new toy. I know this is just a small detail in the midst of the debate, but I think it's good to clarify some of these outrageous claims.

More info:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/10/16/repost-mccains-planetariophobia/
http://www.adlerplanetarium.org/pressroom/pr/2008_10_08_AdlerStatement_aboutdebate.pdf

Christmas in October

Or as I've said a few times today, today is like Christmas for Democrats:

West Virginia is now a "toss up" state

McCain has attended ACORN rallies

Paul Krugman is awarded Nobel Prize in Economics, after being blasted by the right a few years ago for spreading FUD about the housing market

Obama focuses economic plans and McCain abandons his

With the DOW almost going up 1000 pts today things are starting to look up.

Tax Plan Myths

In response to this site http://www.rightchange.com/issue_tax1.php

Mooseshit. If you make below 111k/yr you end up paying less taxes with Obama's plan. Course if you do or someday think you will make 600k+/yr, then McCain's plans works better for you:

Comparison between Obama and McCain tax proposals (Washington Post)
What Obama and McCain's tax proposals will do to your tax bill (CNN Money)
McCain and Obama Tax Plans Diverge on Wealth (LA Times)
Tax Deceptions (Newsweek)

If those sites aren't enough Greenspan has something to say about McCain's plan.

Even if I do start making 111k/yr my taxes still won't go up under Obama until I hit that magical 600k/yr mark, but even then I'm still not "rich" by McCain's definition...

Also, taxes? Who cares as long as "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" and we elect the guy who invented the blackberry but doesn't know how to use email, right?