Quote of the week from a liberal caller that I heard on talk radio: “It is the government’s job to create equality through taxation.”

Wow! What a horrible idea. With less incentive to work hard, this equality would drop to the least common denominator and the economy would crumble. Kind of like Obama’s idea of taxing the profitable companies that support this country and distributing the wealth to the people that don’t even pay taxes. This isn’t even a tax cut for them but simply a handout by redistribution.

Here’s John McCain’s take on this in one of his radio addresses:

Joe explained that he works for a small plumbing and heating company. He’s been thinking about maybe taking over the business when his boss retires. Problem is, that would make Joe one of millions of small business owners who face a sudden increase in taxes under my opponent’s tax plan.

That didn’t seem fair to Joe. He wanted to know why Barack Obama plans to raise taxes on folks who are trying to start or grow a business and create jobs for others. And fairness aside, at a time of serious economic crisis, punishing job creators didn’t seem like a real good way to kick-start a recovery.

My opponent’s answer showed that economic recovery isn’t even his top priority. His goal, as Senator Obama put it, is to “spread the wealth around.”

You see, he believes in redistributing wealth, not in policies that help us all make more of it. Joe, in his plainspoken way, said this sounded a lot like socialism. And a lot of Americans are thinking along those same lines. In the best case, “spreading the wealth around” is a familiar idea from the American left. And that kind of class warfare sure doesn’t sound like a “new kind of politics.”

This would also explain some big problems with my opponent’s claim that he will cut income taxes for 95 percent of Americans. You might ask: How do you cut income taxes for 95 percent of Americans, when more than 40 percent pay no income taxes right now? How do you reduce the number zero?

Well, that’s the key to Barack Obama’s whole plan: Since you can’t reduce taxes on those who pay zero, the government will write them all checks called a tax credit. And the Treasury will cover those checks by taxing other people, including a lot of folks just like Joe.

In other words, Barack Obama’s tax plan would convert the IRS into a giant welfare agency, redistributing massive amounts of wealth at the direction of politicians in Washington. I suppose when you’ve voted against lowering taxes 94 times, as Senator Obama has done, a new definition of the term “tax credit” comes in handy.

At least in Europe, the Socialist leaders who so admire my opponent are upfront about their objectives. They use real numbers and honest language. And we should demand equal candor from Senator Obama. Raising taxes on some in order to give checks to others is not a tax cut it’s just another government giveaway.

What’s more, the Obama tax increase would come at the worst possible time for America, and especially for small businesses like the one Joe dreams of owning. Small businesses provide 16 million jobs in America. And a sudden tax hike will kill those jobs at a time when need to be creating more jobs.

Fortunately, America has an alternative to the phony tax cut my opponent started talking about only months ago. The McCain-Palin tax cut is the real thing. Among our other serious tax reforms, we’re going to reduce every income tax bill in America, and double the child deduction for every family. We will cut the capital gains tax. And we will cut business taxes to help create jobs, and keep American businesses in America.

First the Badgers lose to Michigan after giving up a big lead, then the Brewers lose the second game of the series to the Cubs, and then on Sunday the Packers lose to Tampa Bay (and sustain more injuries). This could have been topped off by another loss to the Cubs today. However, the Brewers were able to pull through and beat the Cubs 3 - 1 to win the series and, thanks to the Marlins beating the Mets, secure a spot in the playoffs for the first time in 26 years! Sabathia, Braun and the rest of the Brewers helped clinch the National League wild card. World Series here we come!

Here’s the obligatory post letting my devout readers now that my Smugmug photo gallery has been updated. As a tribute to the coming end of summer, a shot of the leaves changing color:

Renowned scientist Stephen Hawking is going to unveil a remarkable clock that has no hands and shows time with the help of light. Known as the Corpus Clock, the machine has been invented by and designed by Dr John Taylor for Corpus Christi College Cambridge for the exterior of the college’s new library building.

The Clock will be unveiled on 19th September by Stephen Hawking, cosmologist and author of the global bestseller, A Brief History of Time. Dr Taylor, an inventor and horologist, has put 500,000 pounds of his own money and seven years into developing the clock, which has been inspired from a design by a clock made by the legendary John Harrison, the pioneer of longitude. Of John Harrison’s many innovations, he came up with the ‘grasshopper escapement, explained Dr Taylor, referring to the device used by Harrison to turn rotational motion into a pendulum motion for timekeeping.
No one knows how a grasshopper escapement works, so I decided to turn the clock inside out and, instead of making the escapement 35 mm across, it is 1.5 m across, he said.

He calls the new version of the escapement a Chronophage (time-eater) a fearsome beast which drives the clock, literally eating away time.

The concept is that time, once gone, can never be regained. And, it is the chronophage that sits on top eating the passing time.

Article at the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7625815.stm

YouTube video of the The Corpus Clock & Chronophage after the break:
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Alberto Contador (Astana) said that the “climbs in the Pyrénées just weren’t steep enough.” He was waiting for the Alto de L´Angliru, the hardest climb of the Vuelta a España. Well, today was the 209.5km stage that featured the Angliru as the ultimate climb. And, Contador attacked as he promised with 5km to go and took the GC lead.

Here’s what Velonews writes about the Angliru:

Angliru the beast
The Angliru isn’t a stand-alone mountain, but rather part of a steep ridgeline running across Asturias, the lush, rainy northern province that straddles Spain’s northern Atlantic Coast.

Beloki suffered on the Angliru in 2002
Photo: Graham Watson
At 12.2km in length, the climb rises 1,248 m (4,090 ft) with an average grade of 10.3 percent.

The opening five kilometers aren’t terribly excessive, with an average grade of 7 percent, hardly anything that will cause the pros lose sleep. There’s even a false-flat at 5.5km that gives a short respite.

It’s the second half of the climb where the Angliru earns its reputation.

At 6.5km, the road narrows and hits its first serious ramp of 21 percent. From there, the average grade never falls before 12 percent to the summit.

The steepest part of the climb is the so-called Cueña les Cabres with about 2km to go. At 23.5 percent, it’s not a switchback but more like straight run up a wall. There’s another 21 percent ramp in the final kilometer before the summit.

“I went to see in early August and it’s very, very hard. It’s one thing to say but it’s something else to climb it. It’s a brutal climb,” said Mosquera. “Like I’ve always said, it’s where you win or lose everything. If you have a half bad day on the Angliru, the minutes can fall off in chunks.”

The climb is so steep that most will ride with 34×28, with critics calling it more of a gimmick than a true road climb.

“It’s a mountain bike climb with road bikes,” said Olympic champion Samuel Sánchez, who’s not racing in the Vuelta but lives near the climb. “I can see the Angliru from my house, but I’ve only climbed it once. It was on a bet when I was 16 and I made it up without touching the ground and I won 50 euros. I haven’t been up it since.”

For Sastre, the Vuelta won’t be decided on the Angliru, but rather on the climbing time trial at Navacerrada on the Vuelta’s penultimate stage.

“I climbed it in 2000, when I won the mountain jersey in the Vuelta. It’s a ‘media’ climb that few have actually climbed on their own. The fans see the ramps so excessive that they cannot help but push the cyclists,” Sastre said. “That year I made a pretty good time even though I remember if you climb out of the saddle the bike starts to slip. And the differences were minimal.”

Leipheimer remains an enigma so far in this Vuelta. He’s publicly vowed to help Contador, but he’s obviously riding to protect his interests. Even if Contador wins the Vuelta, Leipheimer is a very strong candidate to finish on the podium.

“I’ve never climbed the Angliru,” he said. “I don’t even want to think about it.”

Here is Microsoft’s attempt to compete with Apple in advertising. It is kind of funny in the sense of a what-the-heck-is-going-on thing. It is hard to tell if anything is actually advertised. The trick is to wait until the end and look for the symbol that Microsoft uses for Windows Vista.

… Brooke, who lives in Denver, is 24 and works in a local arts program. Dave, 23, lives in Connecticut, and isn’t doing a lot now. “I was recently working in an organic lettuce farm in Hawaii, and after that I was a camp counselor, and I’m currently unemployed,” he tells me. Nouri, 22, lives in New York and works for a documentary filmmaker — he’s here tonight as part of a project “making movies about protests and questioning the validity of both the convention and protesting and trying to find a place in that dynamic.” The three of them met when they were students at Wesleyan.

They all admire Obama and very much want him to become president. If that happens, I ask, what would they like to see him do?

“Tangibly?” asks Brooke.

“Well, yes — tangibly.”

“I just think that he has the capacity to really rally people together in a way that I haven’t seen before,” she says. “The other day, I went to the Denver Coliseum to see Rage Against the Machine and the Flobots. And I was astounded by their ability to musically rally a large amount of people towards peaceful protest. There was an amazing march that ensued after the concert; it was unbelievably peaceful and rule-y, as opposed to unruly, but focused and determined, and I feel that on a more general level I would love to see Barack rally a large amount of people, a very large amount of people, all together.”

“Rally them to do anything in particular?” I ask.

Brooke pauses for quite a while. “Well, build morale. Build a sense of empowerment.”

I ask about John McCain.

“Boo!” says Nouri. “He’s a warmongering, oblivious, ill-informed, bought-out politician.”

“Actually, I’d say he’d be a belly itcher and not a pitcher,” Brooke says. “And we would like a pitcher and not a belly itcher.”

The three break into giggles. “We want a pitcher, not a belly itcher!” then begin to chant. “We want a batter, not a broken ladder!”

“McCain’s a broken ladder,” Brooke tells me. …

Source: Byron York: Mile High Youth for Obama

Is this who you want determining the future of America? Could these young adults actually debate any of the issues? Do they know what “change” Obama is promising? Or, are they just part of the celebrity cult of Obama?

I’m glad that the Republican party seems to be returning to its roots of small government. The speeches tonight by Romney, Huckabee, and Giuliani all alluded to that fact.

Here’s a great quote that Huckabee brought up (however, he incorrectly attributed it to Lincoln rather than Ford):

“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”
President Ford’s Address to a Joint Session of Congress
August 12, 1974

The Weekly Standard says this:

Barack Obama’s spokesman says that Alaska governor Sarah Palin is too inexperienced to be vice president:
“Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin shares John McCain’s commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush’s failed economic policies — that’s not the change we need, it’s just more of the same,” said Bill Burton, Obama Campaign Spokesman.
Jen Rubin calls the “town of 9,000″ line “bittergate II”; Sonny Bunch writes:
“Please,” John McCain is praying right now AS I TYPE, “Let a Democrat say that an executive with 2 years of experience and no foreign policy expertise isn’t ready for the presidency. Oh pretty please. Because you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to take that soundbite, put it in an ad, slap Obama’s mug up there, and run it over and over and over again.”
Because Palin has exactly as much experience as Obama–arguably more, since she’s an executive. The only difference is that she isn’t running for president.
And here’s the official McCain campaign response:
“It is pretty audacious for the Obama campaign to say that Governor Palin is not qualified to be Vice President. She has a record of accomplishment that Senator Obama simply cannot match. Governor Palin has spent her time in office shaking up government in Alaska and actually achieving results — whether it’s taking on corruption, passing ethics reform or stopping wasteful spending and the ‘bridge to nowhere.’ Senator Obama has spent his time in office running for President.” –Jill Hazelbaker, McCain Communications Director

This sums up my economic beliefs very well:

When will people come to understand that a president is not like some wizard pulling levers and producing a great economy? I can recall President Clinton acting as if the Paula and Monica scandals were somehow preventing him from keeping the American economy on track. Folks, it ain’t like that. The economy represents the creation of value and productivity of efforts by American citizens in a system of relatively free exchange. The government is not doing the work.

Can the government facilitate? Yes. Can it occasionally make a very good and well-supported public works investment? Clearly. But the influence the government has is all at the margins. Not at the core. If you want the jobs and the economy you deserve, then find the people who are innovating, find the people who are generating value. Join them and forget politics, which is all too often a parasitical activity in an era of big government.

Go here to read the rest of it.