summer vacation

Tired of the usual summer vacation trips to the Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore, theme-parks, etc? Consider these vacation destinations, Beautiful Messes: A Travel Guide to Man-made Disasters.

back from DC

and the domain name is back. i transfered www.melo-online.com to another domain service and I didn't have the forwarding info set up correctly before I left for DC. whoops. If you go to my site via the blogspot address, you probably didn't notice anything.

Anyway, I'm back from DC and i took pictures (what a suprise :) Check them out here: http://picasaweb.google.com/melorenzen/DCCFUnited

Fight the Smears

This presidential campaign is a historic one, but not only because of the Democrat's nominee being a bi-racial man. Its historic because of the prevalence of the web and email's influence on basic knowledge of the candidates. The web played a roll in the Kerry v Bush election, but in the last 4 years the number of people using the web has grown considerably, as it will continue to do.

I've noticed from my own experience that when people are forwarded email, odds are they will believe what they read. I'm forwarded a lot of stuff from family and friends, which are well intended, but usually the email forwards are alarmist in tone. People believe things they read in email forwards that they would never believe if a stranger told them the same thing in person. Anything can be written and forwarded along without any source citations or facts to back them up, yet people still give these forwards credence.

This has become an issue with Barack Obama's campaign. I've received many email forwards questioning Obama's integrity, mostly from people saying 'can you believe people believe this crap?' but I can see from the body of the email that its been forwarded around, a lot. Usually I just roll my eyes and hit 'delete' but now that this is a general campaign, the Obama campaign is becoming concerned, and rightly so. 13% of voters believe that Obama is Muslim. I've gotten several email forwards based on that very notion, even though it was highly covered that Obama's Christian pastor said controversial remarks that were broadcast 24/7 on the cable news networks. While Obama's religion does not matter to me, I would support him whether he was Muslim or Christian, that does scare a lot of people who are still being scared by Bush Co. with 9/11. I've also received email forwards with excerpts from his book taken out of context. Many of the supposedly controversial remarks he made in his books were reflections by other people, or were so butchered they don't look anything like what he wrote. I've read both of his books, and neither of them lead me to believe there was anything about him to be concerned about. It was actually the opposite, I became a believer and supporter of him after reading his books.

His campaign has (smartly) created a new website, FightTheSmears.com to clear up rumors and smears against him, his family and his campaign. If/when you receive an email that makes claims about Obama, check the website and forward the truth to the person you received it from and the people they forwarded the message to. Get the word out.

making mccain exciting

can you tell the difference?

Take The Bush-McCain Challenge. I failed pretty badly.

how will mccain or obama affect your taxes?

If you make less than $161,000 a year, which its safe to say most Americans probably do, you will get lower taxes with Barack Obama as our president. Everyone gets lower taxes with John McCain's proposal, but it leans absurdly in favor of those Americans making more than $603,000 a year. If you make less than $38,000 a year, John McCain only gives you a tax break of $113. If you make less than $19k a year, you get $19. Aren't those the income groups that could use the most help? Barack Obama does a lot more to help those in need. His tax increases may seem like a lot for the lucky few who make more than $603,000 a year, but his proposal just lets the tax cuts for the wealthy, the ones that King George W Bush put into place when he took office, expire.

Both of their proposals increase the budget deficit, and its unlikely that their exact proposal will be passed. But it definitely gives you an idea of their mindset when it comes to taxes.

Here's how the average tax bill could change in 2009 if either John McCain's or Barack Obama's tax proposals were fully in place.

	MCCAIN	OBAMA
Income	Avg. tax bill	Avg. tax bill
Over $2.9M	-$269,364	+$701,885
$603K and up	-$45,361	+$115,974
$227K-$603K	-$7,871	+$12
$161K-$227K	-$4,380	-$2,789
$112K-$161K	-$2,614	-$2,204
$66K-$112K	-$1,009	-$1,290
$38K-$66K	-$319	-$1,042
$19K-$38K	-$113	-$892
Under $19K	-$19	-$567

Source: CNN.com

Fox Ambushes Bill Moyers

Ian posted this video on the comments section of my blog and I thought it was too good not to post here too. Bill Moyers totally pwns Bill O'Reilly's producer.

YAY!

Yes We Did!

Barack has enough delegates to be the Democrat party's nominee. Soon enough Hillary's supporters will lick their wounds and support Barack Obama's presidential campaign. They just need some time to understand that their nominee, who ran her campaign with the assumption that she would be handed the party's nomination back in Iowa, will not be the nominee after all.

I hope and hope that he is not persuaded to pick her as his running mate. She would not be a VP, she would be a Co-President. It just isnt in her nature to play second fiddle. She'd continue to draw up controversy and say outlandish things to get more face-time in the news. It could never be about anyone but herself. She needs to go back to the Senate where she can play a very important role: getting his legislation passed.