PSoTD

That we were on the threshold of winning the war on terror - as if one could even theorize that for at least a generation of peace - you would be right to call me a fantasist. Did World War I end global confrontations? Did the Civil War end racism? Did World War II end the dictator state?

The Hall Institute of Public Policy actually looks into this.

I wonder why someone at Democratic National Headquarters is searching for "lydian asset management" and "lawsuit"...

In case you're wondering when they are:

First presidential debate: Friday, September 26 University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS

Vice presidential debate: Thursday, October 2 Washington University in St. Louis, MO

Second presidential debate: Tuesday, October 7 Belmont University, Nashville, TN

Third presidential debate: Wednesday, October 15 Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY

At some point the 15% rule has to be destroyed and replaced with something more open and more effective for voters. One of the criteria for inclusion in the debates:

The CPD's third criterion requires that the candidate have a level of support of at least 15% (fifteen percent) of the national electorate as determined by five selected national public opinion polling organizations, using the average of those organizations' most recent publicly-reported results at the time of the determination.

One of these years there's going to be a candidate that comes close, but doesn't quite make, this arbitrary 15% number, and then CPD is going to look like the clique at the country club. This year we're destined to hear from Nader, Barr and others about the unfairness of this debate policy, and I suspect it will have a lot more resonance with voters after watching two primaries chock full of debates where the stage was crowded with candidates. The debate process still worked. The real benefit is that more ideas, and less posturing, came out when there were more candidates - the number of candidates required the candidates to focus on making themselves stand out as opposed to tearing down the sole opposition. Yes, there was some ganging up on the leader, but even that was kept in check by the candidates to prevent the perception of a candidate only being there to "pile on".

Fringe candidates prove themselves as fringe rather quickly. Passable ideas find acceptance amongst all candidates, and some common ground is determined. In the past I would have preferred otherwise, but now I want to see more candidates than two at the debates. CPD needs to figure out a new standard.

It's actually... within a 4 hour drive!

That's local government planning.

In 12 years, Minnesota will have more retirees than schoolchildren. By 2030, one in five Americans will be at least 65 years old.

The graying of America is a given. The question is, will we be ready for it?

The Central Minnesota Council on Aging recently surveyed 156 cities and townships in 14 Central Minnesota counties to find out.

“What we were finding is that most communities are very surprised at current and projected senior population rates,” Lori Vrolson said. Vrolson is CMCOA’s executive director. “It appeared to be new information for many communities.”

The shift to an older population is unprecedented in this country. Advances in medicine and public health have brought U.S. life expectancy to an all-time high of 78.1 years.

The shift is being accelerated by the aging of the baby boomers. The first boomers retired last year. They will be followed by 80 million more in the next 20 years.

CMCOA wants communities to think about what that will mean for them.

“What types of impact is that going to have on a community’s infrastructure, and how are communities going to prepare for that?” Vrolson said. “We hope communities will look at seniors as an asset and a resource. If a community is designed to be a good place for an older adult to live, it’s going to be a good place for the younger generations as well.”

The happy talk has to go. You hear a LOT of people talking like they're going to retire with essentially the same standard of living as they had when they were at full earning capacity. And you hear a LOT OF FINANCIAL ADVISORS talk as if Americans should expect to save enough to meet that expectation.

Don't get me wrong. It does happen, people do it. People play in major league baseball and fly in space and win the lottery, too. Just because SOME people can do it, because of their circumstances, doesn't mean most people can do it, because the reality is, they won't... because they can't. The American worker can't support two economic engines at the same time - the process of saving as much money as possible for the future, and the processing of spending as much money as possible to maintain the economy of today. Some process loses. Look at the credit balances, it is pretty clear which one does.

So the happy fantasy talk of a rich retired future, whereby one lives at the same standard as they did when they worked and received value-based and cost-of-living raises, is going to end. Remember who tried to sell you this rich future bullshit, and don't listen to them anymore, because they weren't trying to accord reality with finance in their advice.

We manage to think of lots of ways to use government to prep Americans for adulthood, with schools and recreational programs and lots of laws to protect the unworking young. We really haven't done the same for the post-work protections - nor have we done nearly enough to figure out post-work population cost reductions.

There's a huge population just shy of retirement, that won't have enough money to support themselves without help from their families, and government hasn't done shit to figure out some ways to create revenue-building ways to provide more cost-effective supports, such as with housing. A lot of retirees are going to sell their homes to get their money out of it. Then they're going to need to live somewhere else and pay rent, or live at their relatives'. Why couldn't the government commit to building cost effective retirement communities that the government could generate revenue from, and that could reduce the economic pressure on retirees? Not the Del Webb live on the golf course kind of place, but nice communities with decent housing and convenient shopping and car-free options for transportation?

Have fun making sense of yesterday's White House press briefing...

Q Has President Bush been told that $4 a gallon is now the new normal? Does he expect prices to fall below --

MR. FRATTO: We heard it's not the new normal. He hasn't heard -- no one has --

Q Start -- with a cup in your --

MR. FRATTO: Sorry, Ann --

Q We can hear you better without a cup of water. (Laughter.)

MR. FRATTO: I don't think anyone would have told the President that $4 a gallon is the new normal, and we certainly hope it's not the new normal. It is very, very difficult to try to predict gasoline prices as to where they're going in the future. No one was predicting that we would continue to see gasoline prices increase beyond where they are today.

Q So does President Bush believe that gasoline prices may fall below $4 or go back to $3 or back to $2?

MR. FRATTO: No, no, the President isn't making those kinds of predictions. What he's saying is that we have a situation where we have rapidly increasing and increasing for, you know, pretty much as far as we can see, global demand for oil. And right now as long as we keep the sources of oil off the market, we're not going to see increases in supply. And as anyone who has taken an Econ 101 course knows, that if you don't increase supply and you only increase demand, prices are going to rise.

Q Does the President believe the price of gas -- there is a chance it would drop below $4 a gallon?

MR. FRATTO: All I could say is that we would be hopeful that it could, but the best way to ensure that it does is that we take some of these necessary measures and send a signal to the market that we intend to bring supply on and that we intend to continue as we've done on the conservation side through increased fuel economy standards and through the increased use of alternative fuels, so that we can try to lower the demand on oil as we're increasing supply.

Nice textbook example for sounding clueless and trying to BS a non-answer.

Quite often, a "better way" is only accepted by a small minority until the value of that idea is demonstrated powerfully for the uninformed majority.

I believe that is exactly what Rasmussen has captured here.

Just another reason not to watch Fox News.

Webb out of the VP Sweepstakes. Weird. It sure seems like a lot of Democrats are not that anxious to be on the ticket as VP this year. Webb didn't thrill me as a possibility, so this is not such a big deal, but... I still suspect it's going to end up being Biden, which would REALLY NOT thrill me.

Will the Air Force pay the bill for this problem in Wyoming?

While there is a dispute between the U.S. Air Force and the Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities over the amount of contaminated groundwater on the city-owned Belvoir Ranch, who picks up the tab for the cleanup shouldn't be in question.

The area in question is located on the west side of the Belvoir Ranch, southwest of Cheyenne, in a place that was used as a nuclear missile launch site by the Air Force between 1960 and 1964. The military used trichloroethylene to remove oil from metal machinery at the launch site. The estimated hundreds of thousands of gallons of chemical used for cleaning seeped into the groundwater, causing potential health problems for city residents.

The city has been able to effectively deal with the chemical by spending $20,000 a year to remove any trace of the chemical from our drinking water. Cheyenne spent about $600,000 for an aeration basin when the chemical was first discovered a decade ago.

...

The city gets about 25 percent of its potable water supply from groundwater wells. Add the fact that the Belvoir Ranch will be developed someday with recreation and other opportunities. This all means the water contamination problem needs to go away - and the sooner the better.

The cleanup won't come cheap. The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality believes that such a cleanup will costs millions of dollars. That's money the city doesn't have, unless it plans to burden ratepayers with higher water and sewer rates. That wouldn't be fair.

The Air Force is responsible for this water contamination, and it should be the Air Force that foots the bill, not the ratepayers in Cheyenne.

The Air Force has always been a good neighbor to Cheyenne, and we know it will do the right thing by picking up the tab for a problem it created some 45-plus years ago.

BTW, the comments posted there are somewhat dumbfounding.

From the history of the United States flag:

This Flag became the Official United States Flag on July 4, 1908. A star was added for the admission of

* (46th) Oklahoma - November 16, 1907

This was the official flag for 4 years. The Presidents to serve under this flag were Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909), and William H. Taft (1909-1913).

There's no chance I'm ever going to personally know either Michelle Obama or Cindy McCain, but this polling is very sad. Based on what we know so far, how could people NOT like Michelle Obama?

I wonder if Linda Kaiser's friends will give her shit for providing one of the stupidest quotes of 2008. It's nice to have a brain? And why does Pennsylvania so often have to be identified with statements doomed to be seen as examples of public dumbassery? Seriously, there are lots of thoughtful people here that can give a comment that won't embarrass the rest of the state's residents.