The economic portion of the so called debate Friday night was a waste
of time. Neither candidate provided more than a vague set of conditions
for evaluating any proposal. They want us to put them in charge,
but have nothing to offer for dealing with the current
crisis.

But their lack of any solution shouldn't be surprising. If either had a
solution to the credit he would have been in Washington trying to get
Congress to
adopt his solution instead of debating in Mississippi. Hopefully,
President George W. Bush will solve the problem before they take office.

Sen. Barack Obama kept trying to bring up the issue of health
care which is
irrelevant to the credit crisis. In general Obama seems more
concerned with playing the blame game than ending the crisis.
The important thing now is to end the crisis.

Both candidates repeated the old religions of their parties.

Sen. John McCain says he is going to freeze federal
spending except for defense and entitlement programs. It'll never
happen. Republicans have been talking about that for decades
and haven't succeeded.

Most programs have too many supporters in Congress to be reduced.
Federal agencies often have regional offices, and the communities with
those offices will pressure their congressional
delegation to keep those offices open. The
communities or organizations that benefit will also lobby
for keeping the programs.

Sen; Obama claims he's going to raise revenue by closing corporate
loopholes. Democrats have been promising to do that for decades
and haven't succeeded yet. Congress creates new loopholes faster
than it eliminates old ones. Even if Congress did eliminate
loopholes no money could be raised by taxing companies that are already
losing money.

McCain has a better chance to freeze spending than Obama has to
eliminate corporate loopholes. The president can veto spending
bills. The president cannot force congress to close tax loopholes.

McCain is correct that Obama's spending program would
require a general tax increase rather than a reduction. If Obama
really believes that he can cut taxes and increase spending, those nice
young men in their clean white coats need to take him to the happy
home.

According to the Main Stream Media, Obama is supposed to be stronger on
economic issues. I saw no evidence of that Friday night.

Based on the comments the candidates made on the economic
situation during the debate we would be better off keeping
President George W. Bush for the next four years or bringing back Bill
Clinton. Many people have forgotten that Bush
brought us through the economic crisis that followed
the 9/11 attack.

The primary purpose of any bailout should be to help people keep their
homes to prevent mass foreclosures from further damaging the real
estate market. The more houses that are put on the market the
lower the value of other houses. A major decline in the value of
houses in general would reduce the assets of banks
that have more conservative mortgage programs. Such a reduction
could create problems for these banks.

Payment for the bailout should come as much as possible from those who
created the problem including both creditors and debtors, instead of
taxpayers in general.

The federal government should buy up bad mortgages at full current
value for
homes that haven't been foreclosed on. If the lender has
foreclosed on the property the federal government shouldn't pay
anything more than the current market value of the home. The
foreclosed
homes should be turned over to the Department of Housing and Urban
Development to be used in part tor a program to help military veterans,
school teachers, law enforcement officers and firefighters to purchase
homes.

Payment to companies should take the form of Treasure bills redeemable
under a schedule that would allow 10% to be redeemed in one year,
another 10% in two years, etc. Alternatively Congress might limit
redemption of the bonds to 5% per year. Companies could use these
T-bills
to compensate employees or pay future federal income taxes.
Companies accepting
federal aid should be required to pay an extra income tax on total
revenue over the next 20 years with only limited deductions allowed.
Congress should consider a surtax on high executives in firms
that are in trouble, possibly applying the tax to all income above some
threshold without allowing deductions. The IRS
should audit these firms each year.

Homeowners with bad mortgages where appropriate would
have to file for bankruptcy to get out of any credit card
debts. Congress would create a special exception to
bankruptcy law to allow them to file "emergency" bankruptcy.
Eliminately consumer debt would improve their ability to pay on
the mortgage.

Homeowners who would still have difficulty making mortgage payments
could be allowed to trade for one of the lower valued foreclosed houses
the federal government takes over.

The interest on the mortgage would be the same rate as on the T-bills
used for the bailout. Congress should consider requiring
these individuals to have mortgage payments deducted from their
paychecks along with the money withheld for income taxes. These
homeowners would be helping to pay for the bailout.

HUD would offer former residents of the foreclosed houses an
opportunity to regain these homes at the reduced value
under the same conditions as those in houses that haven' t been
foreclosed on yet. These individuals would also help pay for the
bailout.

The Great Depression lasted so long not because banks failed, but
because the bank failures eliminated the assets of depositors.
Bank foreclosures of houses and businesses, particularly farms, further
eliminated assets held by individuals that might have been used to turn
the economy around. The foreclosures didn't help the banks
because few could afford to buy the foreclosed properties.

The states of Michigan and Florida need to tell the Democratic Party to seat their delegates with full voting rights or face the prospect of not having a presidential candidate on the November ballot in those states. Alternatively, these states should seek a federal injunction preventing the Democrats from conducting a nominating convention unless it gives equal rights to the residents of Michigan and Florida. Allowing a small group of Democrats to deny voters in their states the equal right to participate in the presidential candidate selection process would be a violation of the oath state officials take to defend the Constitution.

The Democrats order that Barack Obama be given Michigan delegates demonstrates the Democrats have complete contempt for the electoral process because Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot. Michigan at the very least should sue the Democratic Party to force it to assign delegates based on the will of the voters rather than the will of authoritarian party leaders.

In Nazi Germany and the old Soviet Union a political party offiicial could be more powerful than government officials. In communist states the head of the communist party has often been the most powerful person in the country because he determines who holds the government offices. In the United States, government officials elected by the people are supposed to be more powerful than political party officers.

At one time in the U.S. political party leaders chose political candidates in secret to insure the candidates would serve whatever special interests controlled the party. State governments created the political primary system to eliminate this form of corruption and insure popular control over the candidate selection process.

In a true democracy. anyone should be able to run for office who meets the legal qualifications. However the existence of two major parties makes it difficult for anyone to win an election without the endorsement of one of the two parties. Primary elections are a means of preventing private groups from taking over the election process and limiting who can run for office.

The Democatic Party is attempting to circumvent the popular selection of candidates by claiming it can tell states when they can hold presidential primaries. Allowing political parties to order state governments to follow party orders rather than the will of the people in the respective states is a direct assault on the idea of government by the people and a movement to the type of political system of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
Both major parties have small groups within them whose members believe their party should adopt a strict ideological approach to issues as is common with political parties in totalitarian states. If Congress is not going to act to insure that the presidential nominating process is open to all, the states must act. Congress is the only body that has the constitutional authority to control when state governments can set presidential primaries. If party leaders believe limits on when primaries can be held are needed, they should ask Congress to impose such limits. The political parties should not attempt to dictate to the states like the Nazi Party and the Communist Party did.

Ivan Dixon is probably best known for playing the character a James Knichloe on the 60's tv series "Hogan's Heroes' which was one of the first series to have a black actor as a major regular character. However, his efforts to integrate television began before "Hogan's Heroes". His first tv role was in a 1957 episode of "Armstrong Circle Theater". He appeared in numerous other tv shows prior to "Hogan's Heroes" including the pilot episodes of "I Spy" and "Man From U.N.C.L.E.".

Dixon's role on "Hogan's Heroes" was significant in part because it would have been unlikely that a black soldier would have been given the assignment of participating in a spy operation stationed at a German POW compound. During WWII black soldiers were seldom given anything more than assignments in mess halls or graves registration. Exceptions included the Tuskegee Airmen and the truck drivers assigned to the Red Ball Express. It would have been unlikely that a black sergeant would have been the top sergeant in an otherwise white unit.

The color of the character Sgt. Kinchloe was rarely even mentioned in the show. In contrast to black actors in movies from an earlier era, Kinchloe was a serious character. The dumb comic type roles such as Sgt. Schultz and Sgt. Carter were assigned to white actors.


Dixon later became a director. His credits include 7 episodes of "The Walton's", 9 episodes of "The Rockford Files" and 13 episodes of "Magnum, P.I."

His honors included four NAACP Image Awards, the National Black Theatre Award and the Paul Robeson Pioneer Award from the Black American Cinema Society.

Dixon had been suffering from complications due to kidney failure and died of a hemorrhage Sunday at Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte, N.C. according to his daughter Doris Nomathande Dixon.

Born in 1931 in New York, Dixon graduated in 1954 from North Carolina Central University in Durham.

In addition to his daughter, survivors include his wife of 53 years, Berlie Dixon of Charlotte, and a son, Alan Kimara Dixon of Oakland. At Dixon's request, no memorial or funeral is planned, the family said.

Hungarian scientist Ferenc Miskolczi has discovered the greenhouse gas equation Arthur Milne developed in 1922 contains a serious flaw. Milne mistakenly solved the differential equation involved by assuming an infinitely thick atmosphere. Miskolczi was working for NASA at the time and NASA suppressed his report which contradicted NASA's claims.

Miskolczi resigned in protest, stating in his resignation letter, "Unfortunately my working relationship with my NASA supervisors eroded to a level that I am not able to tolerate. My idea of the freedom of science cannot coexist with the recent NASA practice of handling new climate change related scientific results."

Miskolczi rewrote the equations and the modified equations don't indicate a runaway greenhouse effect. His equations indicate a limit to any greenhouse effect. Thus even if there is a greenhouse effect it cannot do what the Rev. Al Gore of the Church of Global Warming claims it will do.

Research by Stephen Schwartz also challenges claims of a runaway greenhouse effect.

I haven't studied differential equations for a few decades, but I do remember that guessing at values for variables is sometimes used to solve differential equations because of their complexity. However, there are two values that should never be used, infinity and zero. These two numbers have special mathematical properties that make them unsuitable for this purpose. For example, you may remember learning that division by zero is impossible. However, there is one special case in which division by zero is possible, zero divided by zero. The test to determine if division is correct is multiplication. Zero multiplied by any other number is zero so zero divided by zero can be any number.

In the real world it might be possible to a zero amount of any commodity, but not an infinite amount. An infinitely thick atmosphere would also be infinitely massive, i.e. a super black hole. In an infinitely thick atmosphere it wouldn't make any difference what the gases were because the gravitational attraction would be so high that radiation could not escape.

In fairness to Milne, his research dealt with stellar atmospheres rather than planetary atmospheres. Milne unsuccessfully attempted to develop a competing theory to Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

Reporting on the issue of "global warming" demonstrates that often the only difference between reporters and prostitutes is that prostitutes understand what type business they are in. Many reporters are allowing themselves to be used by politicians and others to con the viewers and readers the reporters are supposed to be serving.
30 years ago as a graduate student I took some journalism courses. At that time reporters were encouraged to get more than one opinion on issues and to avoid taking sides by reporting allegations as facts. A phrase like "according to" some source should precede or follow whatever claim the source is making.
Many reporters willingly repeat the allegation that "greenhouse gases are causing global warming" as if it were an accepted fact instead of a subject of controversy. News stories will state that "CO2 causes global warming" without presenting any evidence to support the allegation. Those who support this hypothesis cannot provide evidence because the process doesn't exist.
The situation is occurring in spite of the fact that it is easier for reporters to find alternate opinions than it was 30 years ago. In the 70's reporters had to contact other news sources and ask for other opinions. Today reporters can use internet search engines to find quotes from other sources, including experts who aren't well known, with just a few mouse clicks.
Good reporters should be skeptical of their sources and recognize that people who willingly talk to reporters are usually attempting to gain acceptance for their points of view. Such sources may get away with misrepresenting the facts when reporters don't bother to check the validity of statements. Reporters who don't understand the issues they are reporting on are particularly vulnerable.
Why should reporters who don't understand science be skeptical of the claims about "greenhouse gases causing global warming"?
First, those making the claim admit that average temperatures only increased by 1 F (0.5C) during the entire 20th Century. Average temperatures can vary by more than that from one day to the next or from a shady area to a sunny area only a few feet apart.
In an era when even priests and preachers can be crooks, there is no reason to assume scientists will tell the truth.
Those scientists who believe in global warming sometimes claim that those who disagree are being paid to do so by oil companies, etc. If these scientists don't believe scientists as a group can be trusted to tell the truth why should reporters? Have reporters checked to see how many of those scientists who support global warming claims are being paid to do so.
The scientist as con artist is an old movie plot that is based on fact. There have been recent cases of scientists being caught presenting false data to support their claims in addition to those who claim they can provide miracle cures for diseases.
The claim that a minor atmospheric gas (0.036% of the atmosphere) can determine air temperatures sounds too much like magic to be taken at face value.
Statements by global warming claimants about punishing those who disagree with them should raise a red flag with any real journalist who supports freedom of speech. Such statements made by individuals in authority positions can indicate fear that someone will find out they are wrong. Scientists who believe they are correct welcome challenges.
If the idea of "global warming" is valid why do those who support it feel they have to exaggerate everything. Many of their claims sound too much like the traditional Hollywood disaster movie plot to be believable, particularly the claims of the great exaggerator, Al Gore.
Journalists have criticized the U.S. military for "planting" stories about the Iraq conflict. NASA's Gavin Schmidt has been running an ostensibly private website supporting NASA's claims about global warming for some time. If the claim about global warming is valid, why does the government need to set up a propaganda site to plant information supporting the claim?
S.. Fred Singer who was the first director of the National Weather Satellite Service has questioned claims about global warming for years. John Coleman who founded the Weather Channel recently called the global warming claim the greatest scam in history, but reporters ignore him because they have already made up their minds and aren't interested in facts. How many of those who call themselves journalists have bothered to check with these well known experts?
Real journalists report both sides of controversial issues. Propagandists only present one side.
Perhaps it is unfair to compare reporters to prostitutes. Prostitutes are professionals who are paid by those who utilize their services. Reporters who present only one side of an issue don't get paid by those who use them.

Many Americans seem ignorant about what the job of President of the United States involves. The debate over who to nominate largely ignores the fact that the President is the nation's Chief Executive Officer.

Democrats are preoccupied with the color or sex of their candidates. Many Republicans are preoccupied with which candidate is "conservative" enough.

Too little attention has been paid to who has the most relevant experience to be an executive. Democrats had the candidate with the best resume, Gov. Bill Richardson, but they have rejected him in favor of media stars Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton who have never run any large organization. We can evaluate Richardson on the basis of how he ran the Department or Energy or how effective he has been as a governor.

Republicans at least considered experienced executives, even if they devoted more attention to their ideological views. We can evaluate John McCain on how he ran the Navy fighter wing he was in charge of. Governors Mitt Rommey and Mike Huckabee could be evaluated on how they handled their governorships.

Ignorant voters blindly assume that a candidate who agrees with them will be able to implement policies they support. The reality is that even the most well meaning candidate cannot automatically gain support for his or her proposals. Gaining approval for an agenda requires experience.