John McCain: Missed 374 votes (61.8% of total)
Barack Obama: Missed 263 votes (43.5% of total)

As I've said before, missing a few votes when you're running for president is understandable. But at some point you have to at least attempt to do the job you were elected to do.

I disagree, if you can't do your job (one that you're being paid for), quit.

Lashing out at the "estate tax" is nothing new for most Republicans -- though it would seem to be for Sen. John McCain. One way you can tell is by simply contrasting his Tuesday remarks to small business owners -- in which he described the tax "one of the most unfair" in the entire code -- with his historical opposition to a total repeal of taxation on all inherited wealth that many of his Senate GOP colleagues have long lusted after.

Quick, someone go make some sandals!

Democrats say that electing John McCain would bring the equivalent of a third Bush term, while Republicans say these charges are just political spin. Here is where Mr. McCain and Mr. Bush stand on key issues.

McCain's so called town halls are actually rallies hosted by the local Republican Party. The host, Chris Myers, identified himself as a local leader and claimed that New Jersey is going to go red because of the 2000 people in the gym. (About 1% of us were Obama supporters, someone held a sign up at the end, no one interrupted McCain's speech.) However if McCain can't fill a small gym in his only trip to New Jersey this month, his candidacy is in trouble.

The seating was staged. There were about 20 people with Veteran's hats and all were seated directly in line with McCain's podium in the front and back. Your cameras from home would make it appear that half the people there were veterans. In reality it was about 1%. Mixed into the Veterans was one angry woman who had a sign claiming she was a Hillary supporter voting McCain. This one sign was placed directly in the spot where the cameras were most likely to pick it up. She was planted there. It also appears that there was one singular woman who pulled the same stunt Thursday night at the so called Fox News McCain town hall meeting in New York. These people aren't real Clinton supporters, this too is staged.

As first reported by Threat Level, Chuck Fish, a full-time lawyer for the McCain campaign, also said McCain wanted stricter rules on how the nation's telecoms work with U.S. spy agencies, and expected those companies to apologize for any lawbreaking before winning amnesty.

But Monday, McCain adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin, speaking for the campaign, disavowed those statements, and for the first time cast McCain's views on warrantless wiretapping as identical to Bush's.

[N]either the Administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the ACLU and the trial lawyers, understand were Constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001. [...]

We do not know what lies ahead in our nation's fight against radical Islamic extremists, but John McCain will do everything he can to protect Americans from such threats, including asking the telecoms for appropriate assistance to collect intelligence against foreign threats to the United States as authorized by Article II of the Constitution.

The Article II citation is key, since it refers to President Bush's longstanding arguments that the president has nearly unlimited powers during a time of war. The administration's analysis went so far as to say the Fourth Amendment did not apply inside the United States in the fight against terrorism, in one legal opinion from 2001.

Burgers, fries, onion rings and milkshakes are popular because don't have to wait long to satisfy your hunger, they taste darn good and they don't cost a fortune. You can't live on them for long, though. Just ask Morgan "Super Size Me" Spurlock. Indeed, fast food is at the heart of one of the modern society's most pressing health challenges: rising obesity rates. And you can't make a McDonald's menu healthy just by adding a salad option. There are more calories in a Premium Southwest Salad with Crispy Chicken than a double cheesebuger (450 vs 440), and that's without the 100-170 extra calories that come with the dressing.

The reality is, if you want to lose wait and reduce your chances of a heart attack, you can't make McDonald's or any of its competitors, a central part of your diet. And so it is with McCain's approach to the climate crisis. While he recognizes the need for actions that "only Congress can enact and the president can sign," beneath all that talk of embracing clean energy is a faith in the free market. And even though McCain recognizes that "the profit motive basically led in one direction — toward machines, methods, and industries that used oil and gas," he continues to insist that profits will supply the way out of the trap they created in the first place.

...

The common theme is the inability of free market forces to do what's in the long-term interest of civilization as a whole, even with the collective talents of industrial researchers and engineers at our (their) disposal. So when you hear McCain proclaim that "the federal government can't just summon those talents by command — only the free market can draw them out," it's probably a good idea to remember that it wasn't the free market that won the last couple of world wars. Or put humans on the moon. Or got rid of small pox. Or laid the foundation of the internet, for that matter. It was all government.

Even if you're not in denial counting on the market to correct itself early is crazy.

Presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain called for the release of political prisoners in Cuba following Fidel Castro's resignation Tuesday.

All three candidates also said the United States should look for ways to encourage Democratic reforms in Cuba.

...

"Cuba's future should be determined by the Cuban people and not by an anti-democratic successor regime," Obama said. "The prompt release of all prisoners of conscience wrongly jailed for standing up for the basic freedoms too long denied to the Cuban people would mark an important break with the past. It's time for these heroes to be released."

Representatives of the major Democratic candidates accepted invitations to participate in a discussion of science in the next administration. Senator McCain's campaign sent their regrets that they could not attend on such short notice, while Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul did not respond to the invitation at all.

From Clinton's camp came Thomas Kalil, Special Assistant to the Chancellor for Science and Technology at UC California Berkeley. He's also former Deputy Assistant to President Clinton for Technology and Economic Policy and former Deputy Director of the White House National Economic Council. Obama sent Alec Ross, a social entrepreneur for One Economy Corporation which is a non-profit working to bring new technology to poor communities. I immediately noticed although Ross is the younger, more charismatic speaker, it's obvious he lacks experience and familiarization with science policy.

The good news is that both reps highlighted large increases in funding for basic research. Unfortunately, neither provided any practical blueprint for how this might be accomplished. Actually, at times the forum reminded me of a Jr. High School campaign speech--chock full of promises for more soda machines and longer lunch periods with no sense of how to follow through. Both sides criticized the Bush administration, but made little distinction between their science policy platforms.

"I do not believe one U.S. soldier being killed every day is success," said Dave Tiffany, who described himself as a full-time anti-war activist. He demanded to know from McCain "how long you want us to be there."

The two went back and forth several times, with McCain insisting that what matters most is ending American casualties, not their presence in Iraq. He said he would be fine with keeping troops in Iraq for decades as long as they weren't being harmed, similar to the arrangements that exist in South Korea, Japan and other countries.

"A thousand years. A million years. Ten million years," McCain said. "It depends on the arrangement we have with the Iraqi government."

McPwnd. Person in charge of John McCain's MySpace presence decides to use Mike Davidson's MySpace/CSS hack, but fails to credit Mike, and directly hotlinks his images. Result: "Today I announce that I have reversed my position and come out in full support of gay marriage ... particularly between passionate females." Oops. Remember, folks: hotlinks are bad.

Not to mention that bandwidth theft is just poor netiquette.