Deantastic! » John McCain

Go Out and Vote

Deantastic — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 07:37:32 +0000

In only seven short days, the American people will storm the polls to cast their ballot for their next president, the next leader of the Free World.

There’s been all this mudslinging between the Republican and Democratic campaigns. Nasty namecalling, adamant arguing about one another’s policies’ incompetence—all the stuff you’d expect to see on the campaign trail.

You can argue all you want about whose policies are better for the country.

But come November 4, it doesn’t matter whether you vote for Obama, McCain, Nader, Barr, or whoever you may be voting for.

What matters is you make your voice heard on November 4. What matters is you vote.

Please vote.

I’m not an American, but I know enough to know that whatever happens there will affect what happens here.

Which is why I’m asking you to vote, for your sake, for mine and for the world’s.

Let’s stop arguing who to vote for. What matters is that we vote. Suffrage is a right, but far more than that, it’s a responsibility. Rock ‘n’ roll.

[BTW, Dean Lozarie endorses Barack Obama for President of the United States. Obama, for a Deantastic America and a Deantastic world.]

I have the iPhone! (Plus more personal life updates)

Deantastic — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:25:33 +0000

iPhone 3G box

As an early birthday gift, my folks got me the iPhone 3G this week. Woot! It’s an amazing cell phone—a computer in your palm, really—and I was literally jumping for joy when I first coddled the device in my hands.

I won’t write a review. We’ve read enough of those. I’ll praise the iPhone instead. With the 2.1 update, reception’s pretty alright, push email is beautiful (although imperfect), and the variety of apps you can get in the App Store—many of them for free!—is amazing! I’m having fun lightsabering and lightering on the phone right now.

The fact that it’s also a pretty awesome iPod doesn’t hurt, either. With 8 gigabytes of storage—as much as my now neglected iPod nano—I now have enough space to stuff the phone with my music, videos, podcasts and whatnot.

Its 2-megapixel camera is not as bad as you think. It can’t take a lot of money shots, that’s for sure, but it’s perfect for capturing the everyday memories you want to preserve. What boggles me, though, is why Apple never bothered to include video capability on the iPhone, a supposedly ridiculously easy task for a tech company that has innovation plastered all over it.

All things considered, I’m a happy camper. (No unboxing video; my mom purchased the phone for me at 5 PM, while I was having Statistics at school.)

Math Jingle

Classmates during practice session

The section I belong to bagged Second Place for the Math Jingle competition during today’s Math Festival. Not bad, in my opinion, considering the fact that we only began practicing seriously at the end of last week. No video coverage (at least, not yet; my classmate took videos and will probably upload them to Multiply, like, soon), no pics of me emceeing at the program. Sad fez.

DSPC

Once every year, the Department of Education holds school press conferences in the division, region and national levels as a way for campus journalists such as myself to showcase their talents and potential. The Division Schools Press Conference for the division to which my school belongs will begin next Wednesday, and being my school’s representative for the Feature Writing competition, I’ve got a lot of preparation to do. This is probably going to spell a busy day ahead for me. Fushazzle. The things you do for [the] love [of writing].

Obama inches ever closer to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

It was thought to be an improbable campaign, but Barack Obama’s grassroots movement for change is now on the verge of winning the White House. After mopping the debate floor with McCain twice, he has a six-point advantage according to CNN’s latest polls. The Electoral College map shows that he has 264 electors on his side—just six shy of the 270 needed to clinch the presidency. I remember checking the map a couple of weeks ago, and back then Barack only had 250 electors. If 14 electors could be gained in a few weeks, then think of what could happen between now and November 4! With swing states trending towards the Democratic nominee, we can probably see where this race is going.

A Newbie's Unsure Promises or a Veteran's Mismanagement?

Deantastic — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 14:45:42 +0000

When America elects its next president come November, it will have to decide between two starkly different candidates—the seasoned John McCain, who believes in spending billions of dollars on the war in Iraq, but thinks twice about spending millions of dollars in education, or Barack Obama, who, in his charismatic speeches promises of a new direction for his country, for change we can believe in, but who many people believe does not have enough expertise to deliver his promises.

That is, in my opinion, perhaps the biggest dilemma voters face. Should they entrust the future of the world’s single largest superpower to a man who knows how to manage a country but in a wrong way, or to a young chap who promises radical change despite his short curriculum vitae?

What Obama says he can do

Barack, in his blueprint for change, promises reform in Washington. He promises to return the government to the American people, where it belongs. He promises that his administration will not be run by corporate lobbyists, and that the people’s voice won’t be drowned. Obama speaks of a more transparent government, so that taxpayers will know how their money is being spent.

The problem is, can Barack deliver these promises? Can he really lead an administration completely devoid of corporate participation? Can he really make the government transparent enough to earn the full trust of the people? At 47, Obama would be a very young—and relatively inexperienced—president. This is where most people get hesitant to put his name on their ballots. Can Barack really lead a world superpower with a resume that, as some people say, can be written on the back of his driver’s license, much less bring about the changes he promises?

What McCain says he will do

John McCain is an entirely different story. He’s 71 years old, at the other end of the chronological spectrum from where Obama is standing. First elected as a congressman for Arizona in 1982—more than a quarter of a century ago!—there is little doubt that he knows the inner workings of a government and, theoretically, would be a more-than-qualified president.

The problem people see with him is his policies. (Read this article from Blanca DeBree.) McCain infamously said a while back that he’d be perfectly fine for the troops to remain in Iraq for a hundred years. That means literally trillions of dollars more in taxpayers’ money better spent in healthcare and education, and thousands more lives better spent alive. He opposes tax cuts for farmers but is all for tax cuts for multi-billion dollar corporations.

McCain has participated in the Vietnam War, narrowly escaping death; he has served as congressman and senator, and would theoretically govern well. In terms of ability to govern, I have little doubt that John McCain is able. With regard to his policies, however, I have a lot to say. America’s been in Iraq for five years—five years too long, in my opinion. Many have voiced their fear that four years of John McCain would be like four years of George Bush, and that for the country to change, it needs a Democrat in the Oval Office.

That Democrat is the neophyte Barack Obama. The Republican: John McCain. It is a difficult choice to make. As for me, I would go with Obama. Why? Barack has been in the Senate, after all, and that has to count for something. He is an advocate of things the whole world wants to see, whereas McCain seems to want to satisfy only the wants of bigwig corporations. I’d rather a fairly good chance of radical and positive change than the certainty of failure and mismanagement.