Who's the idiot who loaded the entire Elton John collection on his MP3 player? Sure, "Island Girl" was a bit nostalgic at first. And who designed the random shuffle feature to torture me so? With 3000 songs on this thing, get out of the "J's" please!
The biggest issue for me in the 2008 election is America's energy future. We've heard too little about this, yet this economy runs on energy. We need electricity. We need fuel for our homes and cars. So, where do the Democrats and Republicans stand on this issue as we head into November?
Obama vs. McCain on energy. From Obama:
Obama has proposed an excess profits tax on Big Oil to finance a $1,000-per-family energy rebate to deal with high fuel costs.
Exxon-Mobil "makes in 30 seconds what the typical Ohio worker makes in a year," Obama said. "We need more jobs and economic development. Why don't we focus on clean energy and reopening factories and putting people back to work? Nobody is benefiting from jobs that are leaving the community," he said.
Sounds like populist rhetoric, not a plan. I know folks cringe at oil profits, but what does Exxon-Mobil have to do with the price of a barrel of oil? It's a global commodity!
And from McCain:
Outside Detroit, another depressed Rust Belt city, McCain became the first presidential candidate in recent memory to tour a nuclear plant. His energy proposals include building 45 nuclear power plants by 2030 to reduce the nation's reliance on oil imports.
"Sen. Obama has said that expanding our nuclear power plants 'doesn't make sense for America.' He also says no to nuclear storage and reprocessing. I couldn't disagree more. I have proposed a plan to build additional nuclear plants. That means new jobs, and that means new energy. If we want to enable the technologies of tomorrow like plug-in electric cars, we need electricity to plug into," McCain said at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Plant.
"Now, nuclear power alone is not enough. Drilling alone is not enough. We need to do all this and more. That is why I am calling for an 'all of the above' approach." Like Obama, McCain has multibillion-dollar, long-term plans to reduce oil imports.
All of the above. Do everything. This one sounds more comprehensive and forward-looking than raising taxes on Exxon-Mobil and mailing people a $1000 check. Because oil companies just pass along costs and taxes to the price at the pump, and once the $1000 is gone, it's gone. We'd still be importing oil. And who thinks we need to send more money to Saudi Arabia and Venezuela?