Republicans took to ridiculing Senator Obama over a remark he made about making sure our tires are inflated by passing out tire gauges. Really. Are Republicans that stupid? It's a fact that properly inflating your tires will save you about $800 per year -- and America about 50,000 barrels of oil per day.

It's a sad day when someone proposes a way to take personal responsibility -- with no help from the government -- to do something good for the country, and the so-called 'Party of personal responsibility' rejects it. Obama is right when he says "It’s like these guys take pride in being ignorant." They really do.

It's so bad over on the McCain side that Paris Hilton is even making fun of the "wrinkly old white guy". It's pretty sad when someone John McCain dismissed as a mere celebrity comes off sounding more knowledgeable and reasonable on a issue than he does. But it does make for good entertainment!

My local rag did a comparison of Obama's and McCain's tax plans today. It's interesting to note that the middle class will do much better under a President Obama.

The [Tax Policy Center] also calculated that the wealthiest would see their incomes rise by 3 percent if McCain's broad tax cut plan became law.

The middle class would see income gains of about 2 percent under Obama but somewhat less if Congress were to accept the ideas of McCain, according to the tax center's estimates.

There we go. the middle-class -- and therefore America -- will be better off under a President Obama. Also from the Tax Policy Center's report,

McCain’s reduced individual and corporate rates could improve economic efficiency and increase domestic investment, but the larger future deficits would reduce and might completely negate any positive effect. In contrast, Senator Obama’s proposed new tax credits could encourage desirable behavior.

Basically, they're repeating something I've been saying for a long time: You can't raise revenue by cutting taxes -- that's laughable on the face of it. McCain is never going to balance the budget.

I trust Barak Obama to drive the US economy back into the black, just like Clinton did. McCain's ideas will never work. He's just peddling more of the same failed economic policies that we've seen for the last eight years.

The Post-American World

by Fareed Zakaria

Generally, I think Fareed Zakaria is a pretty smart cookie. But this book falls kind of flat. Basically, it's a "Don't worry, be happy" look at Americas future, but that hardly helps all the people that are losing their jobs and homes in the current dismal economy.

For example, in a chapter entitled "The Problems of Plenty," Zakaria writes, "But focusing on the gloom has left us unprepared for many of the largest problems we face: which are not the product of failure but of success." Like I said, tell that to the millions who have lost their jobs to outsourcing.

Having said that, Zakaria presents a masterful analysis of a world where America is no longer the economic top dog that it was up until the new millennium.

The fact that new powers are more strongly asserting their interests is the reality of the post-American world. It also raises the conundrum of how to achieve international objectives in a world of many actors, state and nonstate.

Zakaria answers that conundrum by positing that America must use its soft power to cajole and inspire other actors into doing what we want.

The book takes a hard look at the rise of China as a competitor. Zakaria writes,

For now, the forces if integration have triumphed, in both Beijing and Washington. The Chinese-American economic relationship is one of mutual dependence. China needs the American market to sell its goods; the United States needs China to finance its debt -- it's globalization's equivalent of the nuclear age's Mutual Assured Destruction. ... The reality of a globalized world forces America and China into an alliance that pure geopolitics could never countenance.

Zakaria also deals with the rise of India, but basically dismisses that country as far smaller, both in terms of population and GDP, than China. But again, how does that help the people put out of work when their programming and tech support jobs got shipped over there?

So how should America cope with a post-American world? Zakaria lays out six guidelines:

1. Choose: America needs to make some choices about its priorities. For example, we need Russia to cooperate against Iran and securing loose nukes, but we've taken a hard line on its lack of real democracy.
2. Build broad rules, not narrow interests: America needs to back -- and follow -- international rules and institutions so that, even as China and India become more powerful, they're encouraged to play by the rules, rather than set an example of cowboy foreign policy.
3. Cultivate good relations with all states: Pretty self explanatory.
4. Work with different institutions to solve different problems: "No one institution or organization is always right, no one framework ideal. The UN might work for one problem, NATO for another, the OAS for a third. And for a new issue like climate change, perhaps a new coalition that involves private business and nongovernmental groups would make the most sense.
5. Think asymmetrically: Don't resort to military force to resolve all our problems.
6. Legitimacy is power: "Legitimacy allows one to set the agenda, define a crisis, and mobilize support for policies among both countries and nongovernmental forces like private business and grass-roots organizations. ... American ideals still dominate the debates over Darfur, Iranian nuclear weapons, and Burma. But Washington needs to understand that generating international public support for its view of the world is a core element of power, not merely an exercise in public relations."

But, Zakaria continues, and rightly so,

Before it can implement any of these specific strategies, however, the United States must make a broader adjustment. It needs to stop cowering in fear. It is fear that has created a climate of paranoia and panic in the United States and fear that has enabled our strategic missteps.

Having spooked ourselves into believing that we have no option but to act fast and alone, preemptively and unilaterally, we have managed to destroy decades  of international goodwill, alienate allies, and embolden enemies, wile solving few of the major international problems we face.

To recover its place in the world, America first has to recover its confidence.

No truer words were ever written.

So all in all, Zakaria's book is worth reading. It's just his, "What, me worry?" attitude that bugs me. He almost had me convinced that America's best days are still ahead, with all his talk of the underlying "vigor of its society" -- and I'd like to believe that, but...

Parallel Worlds
The Science of Alternative Universes and Our Future in the Cosmos

by Michio Kaku

This is an absolutely mind-bending book. Michio Kaku does an excellent job explaining the current state of physics in language that even I could follow and understand. He does a much better job of it than even Brian Greene.

The book is interesting because Kaku approaches the subject from the point of view that life in the universe will one day cease to exist -- so what does my many-times great descendant do? It turns out, he could try to move to a separate, but parallel, universe where life could still exist.

Kaku goes through the physics of the big bang, and how the universe will end (in ice), and then moves on to parallel universes and worm-holes, all the while using pop culture and science fiction references.

Seriously, I'll never look at the world around me the same way. To think that electrons can be in more than one place at a time, that Shrödinger's cat can be alive and dead at the same time -- in two parallel universes -- is just wacky.

In addition, the book really makes you think about how fragile life on Earth actually is, while at the same time giving you hope that mankind will find away to muddle through. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and I highly recommend it as a summer read.

Well, once again we get some bad news on the state of healthcare in the U.S. (view report here). It turns out that the U.S. came in "last among 19 industrialized nations in premature deaths that might have been prevented by better access to health care."

The sad thing is, if our government wasn't in thrall to the insurance industry -- which the report says has very high overhead costs (all that lobbying is expensive, I suppose) -- Americans could have it all: The best healthcare in the world for all Americans.

The report estimates that we are overpaying for healthcare by about $100 billion per year and needlessly suffering 100,000 preventable deaths. That's just outrageous.

The next president is going to have to deal with a healthcare system that has entered crisis mode. We'd better pick someone who's up for a tough, grueling battle against the health insurance industry. Otherwise we're just going to get more of the same ol', same ol'.

America Our Next Chapter
Tough Questions, Straight Answers

by Chuck Hagel with Peter Kaminsky

I actually enjoyed this book. It's nice to know that not all Republicans are ultra-right wing, ideological idiots. And Hagel makes it clear that he's not having any of that,

Some say that speaking out against a policy -- even a failed one -- in times of war is somehow not supportive of the president or our soldiers. That is untrue and unacceptable. My colleagues and I are representatives of the American people and it is the Constitution that we swear to uphold and protect.

Our oath is to America, not a president or a political party or a policy. Congress is Article 1 in the Constitution. The country comes first: not a party or a president.

Fine words. Unfortunately Hagel voted with the Republican Party 80% of the time -- including voting for the Iraq War and against timelines for withdrawal. He's spoken out against the war, but voted for it time after time.

That said, he's got some excellent views on Iran, China and Israel, and closer to home, on universal healthcare. He apparently introduced legislation to create a Federal Health Care Board, to be modeled on the Federal Reserve Board which would do the following:

1. Establish a national standard for a basic health plan to cover all Americans. This would be a basic minimum policy and would have a set regional cost.
2. Establish a national protocol and standards for secure and universal individual electronic medical records.
3. Implement a structure fror the disclosure of pricing from providers and payers through an informational clearing house.
4. Establish a national standard for public health services (safety net providers).
5. Create loan forgiveness and scholarship programs for providers in underserved areas.
6. Establish a model for mandatory dispute resolution for malpractice claims.

That sounds good, but the devil's in the details -- and forgive me if I'm suspicious of any national healthcare plan put forth by a Republican, but... He is a Republican. And that's about as non-Republican a proposal as I've ever heard.

All in all, though, I like Chuck Hagel. I think he's got a fine vision of America. And if Barak Obama were to reach across the aisle for a running mate, I can't think of any other Republican I'd rather see get the nod.

Overshadowed by the controversy caused by the New Yorker cover, is Obama's op-ed piece in the New York Times outlining his plan for Iraq. It's a good one, and worth reading if you want to speak knowledgably about the issue.

Speaking of Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki's statement that they'd like a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops, Obama writes,

Instead of seizing the moment and encouraging Iraqis to step up, the Bush administration and Senator McCain are refusing to embrace this transition — despite their previous commitments to respect the will of Iraq’s sovereign government. They call any timetable for the removal of American troops “surrender,” even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government.

Damned straight. It's pretty hypocritical of McCain and the Bush administration to say they value Iraqi sovereignty, and then ignore it when it doesn't suit their political needs. But that hasn't stopped them before -- like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saying that the State Department had nothing to do with Iraq choosing U.S. oil companies to exploit Iraqi oil fields, and then we find out that the State Department actively encouraged the Iraqi government to choose them.

In any case, Barak Obama's plan for Iraq makes sense. You should read it. Now.

I was happy to see that my local right-wing rag, the San Diego Union-Tribune had a fairly balanced piece on the oil debate today.

They point out that,

President Bush has said more offshore drilling will help the American public, but his administration's studies have found that it won't have a significant effect on oil production or prices.

Of course it won't. Any new drilling on our coasts or in the ANWR would amount to only about 2% of the world's oil supplies. And anybody who thinks OPEC won't cut back on their drilling as ours comes online to keep the price high is dreaming.

Also, there's this idea that any oil drilled in the U.S. will stay in the U.S., which is bullcrap. It's going to go onto the global market to be bought by the highest bidder -- probably China or India.

Also in the article is a little reality check on our domestic oil companies,

The impassioned debate masks a little-known reality: About two-thirds of the recoverable oil reserves on the Outer Continental Shelf in the lower 48 states already are accessible for development.

So why aren't the oil companies drilling there? Because they're already making record-breaking profits. They don't need to. This whole debate is a scam for oil companies to add more proven reserves to their bottom line at the expense of some real energy reforms, like solar, wind, and yes, even nuclear power.

Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki just suggested that the U.S. needs to set a timetable for withdrawal. The surge must be working better than I thought...

Seriously, al-Maliki has hinted about this before, but we never picked it up. Americans are so convinced that our intervention is wanted, that we've been able to turn a deaf ear to hints that we're no longer welcome in Iraq.

And so it goes with every colonial power who has outstayed its welcome. In the last days of Britain's occupation of India, its last viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten said to Mahatma Gandhi, "If we just leave, there will be chaos." Gandhi replied, "Yes, but it will be our chaos."

I think it's past time the U.S. stops thinking it is indispensable in Iraq and lets Iraqis handle their chaos in their own way.

Marching Toward Hell
America and Islam After Iraq

by Michael Scheuer

Sheuer's critique of American foreign policy is scathing and spares no one. Basically, he argues that the American ruling elites have been too soft on terrorism and too worried about international opinion,

Our only defense against al-Qaeda-ism are changes in foreign policy and military or covert-action preemption, a notion that amounts to what was in Cold War thinking the then morally repugnant idea of the first strike.

Because of this reality the most senior U.S. political leaders and policy makers must abandon the leisurely Cold War approach to national security and learn to decide quickly, on less-than-perfect intelligence, and then act to protect Americans.

They must accept that this is necessary against the transnational threat and that if they miss and cause other deaths or physical damage -- so what? There is no coequal great power from which we need fear military retaliation, we can endure criticism from the international community and simply prepare to try again to defend America.

That's some pretty crazy shit. To argue that America can continue to cause collateral damage, and be none the worse for it -- as if that doesn't piss off the people we need to help fight the terrorists, just as the Iraqi Awakening Counsels came into being to fight al-Qaeda-in-Iraq because of the collateral damage form their terrorist attacks -- is pretty extreme.

Likewise, Sheuer skewers NGO's saying that, although they perform good work, they are essentially anti-American and anti-military and if they won't leave a battlefield, "they should be treated as expendables and take whatever firepower comes their way."

It's Sheuer's win at any cost attitude that really bugs me. It's not as if a bunch of hairy-eyed terrorists are going to topple America. Only we can do that -- by making bone-headed choices about foreign policy and domestic civil liberties. And we definitely don't need to fan the flames of jihadism anymore than we already have.

That said, Sheuer does make some good points about how our current foreign policy is stoking the fires of jihadism: our blind support for Israel and despotic Arab regimes, and our idiotic dependence on foreign oil are some examples.

Where the book falls flat are places where Sheuer asserts things like "[NGOs] are trying to limit in every way possible America's ability to capture or kill the enemy in sufficient numbers to give us a chance at victory." As if there aren't 1.4 billion Muslims out there and only 300 million of us.

The idea that "while suicide attackers cannot be deterred, the populations that aid and abet them may well be persuaded to reduce such support if they are punished with sufficient vigor," just flies in the face of common sense. Nothing would unite Muslims worldwide against America more than punishing innocent Muslims with "sufficient vigor."

So, it's a mixed book. Sheuer's got some good ideas on American foreign policy, and he's definitely on the right track with how they hate us for our policy and not our freedoms, but his solutions are pretty extreme and would ultimately make America less safe.