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Next Tuesday, millions of Americans will head to the polls to cast their vote for president of the United States of America. Voting is a remarkable historic privilege, and a weighty obligation for all Americans. But for the numerous voters that are single-issue, life-issues voters, voting also represents a life-or-death choice.

For those voters every election is a referendum on abortion — the quiet genocide. So for those voters, in one corner stands Senator Barack Obama, a pro-choice, Planned Parenthood-backed Democrat. And in the other corner is anti-abortion Senator John McCain, who has the support of every pro-life organization on record.

But what seems like a binary choice between opposition figures is not quite so simple. That’s because between the two candidates, Senator McCain alone thinks killing babies for science is morally righteous.

Part of McCain’s pro-life credentials is very orthodox. When he spoke with Rick Warren at the Saddleback forum in August, McCain was asked “What point is a baby entitled to human rights?” He responded, “Life begins at conception” which is a common refrain in the pro-life camp.

Conception takes place when an egg is fertilized. When a sperm enters the egg, to McCain and many pro-life advocates, a life begins. Fertilization (or conception) marks the beginning of a human’s life in the “life begins at conception” worldview.

But part of his beliefs veers off course from the pro-life orthodoxy. McCain supports embryonic stem cell research through his policies, advocacy and Senate votes. Embryonic stem cells are a collection of cells within a blastocyst, which is the name of a fertilized cell 8-14 days old. Because blastocysts have certain unique biological properties, many scientists believe embryonic stem cell research could lead to medical breakthroughs.

Most pro-life, “life begins at conception,” people decry embryonic stem cell research, because the research requires extracting the stem cells from the blastocyst in a process that “kills” the embryo. If that embryo is a person, then the termination is murder.

As recently as September, when taking part in the Science Debate with Obama, McCain said, “While I support federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, I believe clear lines should be drawn that reflect a refusal to sacrifice moral values and ethical principles for the sake of scientific progress.”

The notions of moral values and ethic principles dominate the entire abortion conversation. While Senator Obama is not against abortion, he does not believe abortion involves killing babies. To Obama, and most pro-choice advocates, abortion involves terminating fetuses that are not-yet-people. When pro-lifers call pro-choice politicians “baby-killers” that is not a statement of intent, rather one of result.

But for McCain to support embryonic stem cell research while believing that blastocysts are people, with full personhood, allows for only two conclusions. The first is that the Senator elected to take two oppositional stances, where there is no possible room for harmony, on sanctity of life issues. But it’s unethical and inconceivable that any policy-maker could hold such an intellectually impossible belief.

So the second, and only remaining, conclusion is that John McCain believes science is more valuable than life to the extent he wants to aggressively fund the murder of babies for research.

From Time:

According to a former senior American official, it appears another locale can be added to the international roster of interrogation sites — one both more obscure and potentially more controversial than the alleged sites in Poland and Romania. The source tells TIME that, in 2002 and possibly 2003, the U.S. imprisoned and interrogated one or more terrorist suspects on Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean controlled by the United Kingdom.
…
[CIA Director] Hayden’s attempt to set the record straight [about the US’ practices on Diego Garcia] has failed to quiet British protests about American activities on the island. Instead, an All Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition has begun an investigation, raising a variety of pointed questions about the island with Gordon Brown’s Labour government. Speaking to the BBC, Labor MP and Foreign Affairs Committee member Fabian Hamilton said this week that, “I think it’s important the British government makes plain its … deep concern that it’s not being told the truth and that our territories are being used for these purposes.”
…
Hamilton’s Committee insists that Britain can no longer take at face value America’s assurances that it is not torturing prisoners, and, in a clear reference to Diego Garcia, said the U.K. now bears a “legal and moral obligation” to make certain that no British territory abets American rendition flights or interrogations.

Google’s strength has always laid in their user experience: Fast load times and a dead-simple interface made for an irresistible search engine. But the need for growth has pushed them to compromise the very qualities that make them attractive in the first place. My search results now include rating and commenting components, two features that sound like they may be good additions. But instead, these new features are bad for 3 reasons.

1. The non-text elements on my screen just increased tenfold. Previously the Google logo, a search bar and possibly a Google checkout graphic were the only graphic intrusions that cost me load time (and cost Google serve time) or added elements to the visual presentation. The ranking and commenting added 30 graphic elements. Even worse, these new elements introduce colors and behaviors new to Google search. They all have the appearance of translucence, a design tactic not used previously on their search result. They also have non-uniform behaviours: Rolling over the up-arrow generates a green rollover, while the ‘x’ and comments bubble just get a darker grey.
2. By introducing an explicit ranking system, Google is introduced overt influence into their ranking system. Part of the strength of most search engines is the ease of use - anyone can enter a phrase and get back a relevant result. There is no require for a survey about your previous experience with similar searches. There is no financial cost for results. There is just a question and an answer. But now, Google is fostering a sense that you need to rank their responses to get better results. Perhaps they are right and that will lead to better search results (which is not a given) - where is a user’s incentive to substantially increase their investment for marginally better searches? Who is willing to go from a one-click search to a search improved 1% at the cost of 10 clicks? The answer, of course, is web surfers that have already migrated to other niche-search engines.
3. The lack of focus on the comments will provide nothing but noise, further degrading the value of the information on the page. What are the comments for? Am I supposed to comment on the quality of the specific results as they relate to my search? I could just as easily comment on the quality of the result in an objective setting, which has little value in the context of the search results. If I run a search for “funniest Obama joke” (which you’re not allowed to make, remember) I get a mix of videos, new stories and web page in my results. I could also, with these new features, get comments ranging from “This video is hilarious” (content-specific), “This site is so racist” (site-specific), or “A story about a cancelled debate doesn’t help me find a funny joke” (search result-specific). Given the range of likely results, the comments are almost certain to become noise.

Google has gained little with this adjustment, and given the feature release appears to be limited to select users right now, it’s unlikely the add-ons will make it to Google proper unadjusted.

From the NY Times:

Comedy has been no easier for the phalanx of late-night television hosts who depend on skewering political leaders for a healthy quotient of their nightly monologues. Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O’Brien and others have delivered a nightly stream of jokes about the Republican running for president — each one a variant on the same theme: John McCain is old.But there has been little humor about Mr. Obama: about his age, his speaking ability, his intelligence, his family, his physique. And within a late-night landscape dominated by white hosts, white writers, and overwhelmingly white audiences, there has been almost none about his race….Despite audience resistance, Mr. Stewart contended, his show had been able to develop a distinctive angle on Mr. Obama.Noting that the senator seems to emphasize the historic nature of his quest, Mr. Stewart said, “So far, our take is that he’s positioning himself to be on a coin.”…Jimmy Kimmel, the host of the ABC late-night talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” said of Mr. Obama, “There’s a weird reverse racism going on. You can’t joke about him because he’s half-white. It’s silly. I think it’s more a problem because he’s so polished, he doesn’t seem to have any flaws.”

Perhaps there’s a actual reticence comedians have to make fun of Obama. But McCain may just be an easier target. McCain revels in giving the press the sort of personal access that invariably exposes him to the risk of poorly-phrased quotes getting caught on camera. He offers that access because it results in more favorable press coverage, but the collateral cost may be ready-made comic materials. Obama, on the other hand, has run a very disciplined campaign that offers little casual press access. Less access results in less unscripted conversation, and less room for error.Again, it’s very possible that some jokes about Obama get discarded because of racial sensitivity or political ideology. But McCain’s offered a steady stream of pre-packaged jokes this campaign season and you can’t blame comedians from running with jokes that are practically prewritten.

From the Independent:

President George Bush signed off with a defiant farewell over his refusal to accept global climate change targets at his last G8 summit.

As he prepared to fly out from Japan, he told his fellow leaders: “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.”

President Bush made the private joke in the summit’s closing session, senior sources said yesterday. His remarks were taken as a two-fingered salute from the President from Texas who is wedded to the oil industry. He had given some ground at the summit by saying he would “seriously consider” a 50 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2050.

From CalorieLab:

For 2008 Mississippi has claimed the title of fattest state for the third consecutive year, while Colorado repeats as the leanest. Delaware rose the most places in the rankings over last year, while California dropped the most, according to a new analysis by CalorieLab, Inc.
…
The only state to get slimmer this year is not actually a state: the District of Columbia’s three-year obesity rate dropped by 0.1 percent.

While Colorado deserves some accolades for having the fewest obese residents, still nearly 1 out of every 5 Colorado residents is obese. In fact, if you look at the percentage of residents obese or just overweight (as determined by BMI), every state including Colorado is more than 50% overweight or obese.
As alarming as that may seem, the rate of fattening is terrifying. In 1995, the first year the CDC lists national BMI stats, national statistics reveal 10% fewer obese people, and 10% more people neither overweight nor obese than 2008. In 1998, the CDC estimated the national cost of obesity was between $50b and $75b. That same year, there were 8% fewer obese people in America than today. So what’s the cost today? According to obesityinamerica.org the cost of obesity today is $122b annually. The CDC pegs half the total obesity costs as medical expenditures paid by Medicare and Medicaid. If that holds, then this year every man, woman and child is spending $200 on obesity.

From the NY Times:

The Justice Department is considering letting the FBI investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing, relying instead on a terrorist profile that could single out Muslims, Arabs or other racial and ethnic groups.

What in the world is the Justice Department thinking? They ignored warning Bin Laden would attack the US with planes in April, 2001 then classify the congressional testimony related. They don’t investigate present cases filed against the government for fraud or criminal activity because of a backlog. They politicize the hirings of US attorneys, falsely prosecuting prominent democratic politicians to tilt elections toward Republicans.
In short they can’t legally fulfill their job as is, but plan to restore their reputation by racial profiling? Brilliant.

From BBC:

Tran Trong Duyet - a sprightly retiree and amateur ballroom dancer - must rank as one of John McCain’s more unlikely supporters.
Four decades ago, during the Vietnam war, Mr Duyet was in charge of the notorious Hoa Lo prison - the place where Mr McCain says he was brutally beaten and tortured during five-and-a-half years as an American prisoner of war.
…
“But I can confirm to you that we never tortured him. We never tortured any prisoners.”

It’s to our enduring shame that America has engaged in torture, and even more disgraceful that we’ve claimed actions we call torture acceptable when we practice them.

But as John McCain has rightly asserted many times, he was tortured. Unfortunately, some of the same techniques used to torture Senator McCain have been used by the US to torture. We are a torturing nation. There’s no way to parse or equivocate that. Though it seems likely most of the people responsible won’t be tried by the US anytime soon, the rest of the world may not be so lenient. The shred of redemption in this escapade is that various leaders within the American community can use this opportunity to dust off truths we’ve let languish too long and own them again, like my pastor did in an op/ed for the Orlando Sentinel:

• The Golden Rule: The U.S. will not use any method of interrogation that we would not find acceptable if used against Americans.
• One national standard: We will adopt a single standard for interrogation across U.S. agencies and departments.
• Rule of law: The U.S. will acknowledge all prisoners to our courts and the International Committee of the Red Cross and provide fully adequate judicial processes to provide detainees an opportunity to prove their innocence.
• Duty to protect: The U.S. will not transfer prisoners in our custody to governments when there is a likelihood that they will be tortured.
• Checks and balances: The U.S. will reaffirm the legitimate role of the legislative and judicial branches in understanding, reviewing, and in some cases setting detention policies.
• Clarity and accountability: All U.S. personnel deserve the certainty that they are implementing policy that complies fully with the Geneva Conventions and U.S. law.

Unfortunately America’s reputation will likely further suffer before it can begin recovering, with so many more stories coming to light (like our alleged secret prison ships in international waters used as torture house).

From ProPublica:

An Arab-language television network and radio station, founded by the Bush administration to promote a positive image of the United States, has aired anti-American and anti-Israeli viewpoints, has showcased pro-Iranian policies and recently gave air time to a militant who called for the death of American soldiers in Iraq.

So far, U.S. taxpayers have spent nearly $500 million to fund those broadcasts. The television station, called Alhurra, and the radio network, Sawa, were meant to provide an American perspective on world events and counter the wave of global criticism that had been building against the Bush administration since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

…

During a visit to Alhurra’s studios in June, reporters, producers, cameramen and technical staff were busy preparing broadcasts for an audience half-way around the world. Conniff, who is the president of Alhurra and Radio Sawa, sat in on a morning editorial meeting but could not understand it – his Middle Eastern staff discussed the day’s stories in Arabic and no one offered Conniff a simultaneous translation.

“There is no adult supervision there by people who know what is on the actual broadcasts,” said William Rugh, who served as U.S. Ambassador in Yemen and the United Arab Emirates. “You need bilingual managers who understand both languages and cultures and understand journalism.”

Financial accountability also appears to be lacking. In its four years, the network has been unable to provide full documentation to auditors to account for its spending, according to two people familiar with the records and a 2006 report by the Government Accountability Office.

Is there any other time when a $.5b waste of money would be largely ignored by the American public? Especially when that waste involves inadvertently airing calls for death to American soldiers? It’s a testament to the absolutely lack of confidence we have in American government that at this point stories like this just seem like business as usual.

From the NY Times op/ed section:

Campaigns generate headlines with the tough decisions they make. On Thursday, Barack Obama’s campaign made waves with an easy one. Mr. Obama’s decision to leave the public financing system elicited the predictable outrage among reformers (and the McCain camp), but it was probably the most obvious and inevitable decision he’ll make all year — justified both politically and ethically.

By freeing his campaign from the public system, Mr. Obama can continue to raise donations from his vast base of supporters, who have made his campaign thus far the best-financed in history. Mr. Obama is rightly counting on them to raise far more than the $84 million in public funds he could expect to receive from public financing.

Mr. Obama may be on slippery ground because of his previous commitment to stick with the public system. But given that his campaign essentially embodies the ideals of reform — to a degree no one seriously thought possible just a few years ago — it’s going to be difficult for the McCain campaign or the chorus of scolds to generate much traction on the issue. After all, Mr. Obama’s all but certain financial advantage in the campaign will be derived from donors of modest means — not wealthy vested interests.

Obama left the publicly funding election system for a system funded by the public. There are two chief complaints; that he said he would work with the Republican nominee to have a fairly funded fight and now he’s breaking his word, and that this sets a dangerous precedent. Obama has disingenuously claimed his reason for leaving is to level the playing field since history the Republican camp have used “527 groups” — third-party political groups that aren’t allowed to coordinate their efforts with the campaign, but are freed from all other financial limits. (The most famous being the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that ran a smear campaign against John Kerry in 2004 campaign.) The reality is that the Republicans haven’t really deployed any 527s this cycle, though they may, and the better and more honest reason would simply be that Obama would be foolish to turn down the likely hundreds of millions of dollars from small donors he’s likely to get.

In an ironic twist, John McCain who has been loudly complaining about Obama’s lack of ethics is actually violating federal election law during this primary season. He opted into the public system to guarantee a loan, then backed out of the public system without permission which is illegal. The Federal Election Commission is currently without enough members to vote on the matter, but the chairman (a Republican) has denounced McCain’s action and improper already.

So what does this all mean? Obama will campaign hard in more states than any other candidate ever has, and will campaign in every state in the union, which no one has ever done. He’ll do so in the faint shadow of his questionable reasoning, while McCain will continue to spend until the Republican National Convention money he is legally barred from spending. After the RNC, he’ll be limited to the $84m and whatever the independent 527s want to invest on their own advertising.

This also means that somewhere between $200m-$400m will be spent on the campaigning for this election, on top of the countless millions already spent. Ad into that what the various networks have spent on their staff, ad revenue, etc and we have an election cost escalating far beyond more countries’ GDP. The race of the president of the United States is certainly important, but that seems an obscene amount of money in light of the cheap costs dent poverty, disease or illiteracy around the world.

Image courtesy Jay D on Flickr.