Day: October 9, 2008

U.S. Debt Clock Has Run Out of Digits

Buck Banks

debtclock.jpg

It’s been a fixture in New York’s Times Square since 1989, when it was erected to highlight the country’s $2.7 trillion record level of debt — and each American family’s share of it. But according to the BBC, when the debt surpassed $10 trillion last month, the clock ran out of capacity.

The clock’s owners say two more zeros will be added, allowing the clock to record a quadrillion dollars of debt.

Douglas Durst, son of the late Seymour Durst – the clock’s inventor – hopes to replace the Manhattan clock with its lengthier replacement early next year.

For the time being, the Times Square counter’s electronic dollar sign has been replaced with the extra digit required.

How did they gain the extra digit? The dollar sign is now a sticker — a cheap-o fix to the problem, but one consistent with the time in which we live.

According to the BBC, some economists believe the $700-billion bail-out plan for U.S. financial institutions could send the national debt level to $11 trillion.

It’s Official: Bush is Transitioning Out of the White House

Trish

Another reason to celebrate! As if this day weren’t wonderful enough, it just got better.

Unlike us, W seems down in the mouth about his impending freedom to cut brush from sun up to sun down.

Bush’s role was diminished just a bit more today when he signed an executive order that officially begins the transition of his administration to either Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. John McCain, the two men battling to succeed him.

The executive order creates a transitional coordinating council consisting of ranking officials from key White House agencies, including intelligence, defense, homeland security, budget, justice and other departments. Those officials will start working with the Obama and McCain camps so that whoever is elected can begin preparing to take over the reins of government on Jan. 20.

Hear that? He’s really leaving! Here’s your hat, Georgie, what’s your hurry?

Unlike us, W seems down in the mouth about his impending freedom to cut brush from sun up to sun down.

Like many presidents in their last months, Bush has visibly aged and has a thinner schedule than his first seven years in office. He hasn’t held a news conference since July 15 and his spokeswoman says it’s partly because he doesn’t want to get entangled in the presidential race.

Well boo frickin’ hoo. But is it humility that’s keeping him from butting into the campaign or that fact that no one wants him to?

He is no longer the undisputed leader of the GOP. Administration officials check in with John McCain’s campaign nearly every morning to walk through schedules and talking points to ensure the party message matches.

Hardly seems necessary to me but it certainly confirms the lockstep nature of the McCain campaign and Bush White House. Like we needed that confirmed.

A Toast to Our Favorite Newlyweds

Trish

Forgive us for being a little giddy around here but today is a very special one at Pensito Review. It’s wedding bells for our own Editor-in-Chief, Jon Ponder.

Jon and his partner, Page, are finally tying the knot after only about 29 years. Why wait so long, you ask? They wanted to be absolutely sure they knew each other well enough, of course. No seriously, Page and Jon probably would have been married about 28 years ago had such unions been legal. But hey, what’s the rush?

Here’s to Jon and Page! May the next 29 years (and beyond) be just as wonderful as the first!

Esquire Endorses Obama

Buck Banks

barack-obama.jpg

For the first time in its 75-year existence, Esquire magazine has endorsed a presidential candidate. Why did the publication choose to endorse Barack Obama for president?

We thought this election would be a serious fight over the future of this country, but only one candidate showed up.

In what at times reads like a back-handed endorsement — perhaps because they are utterly unpracticed in the endorsement game — Esquire’s editors finally get to the point in a really long paragraph:

In truth, though, Senator Obama is the only one of the two candidates who seems to believe in the idea of a political commonwealth, that there are those things — be they the guarantees in the Bill of Rights or mountains in Alaska — that we own together. Barack Obama stands, however inchoately and however diffidently, for the notion that a common purpose is necessary for common problems, that “government,” as it is designed in our founding documents, is our collective responsibility. It is this collective responsibility that built America into a great power without peer in the history of the world. And it is this collective responsibility that has succumbed to nearly thirty years of phony rightist populism, corporate brigandage, and the wildly cheered abandonment of a common American civic purpose. It is shocking that in America an argument for salvaging the common good is regarded as a radical notion by anyone, but that is where we are. And that is what Barack Obama seems to stand for. After all, as a young man with his potential, he could have headed straight to midtown Manhattan and made a fortune. Instead, he took a church job working for poor people in Chicago, and for his troubles, he and those poor people have been viciously jeered by the likes of Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin. Such is their regard for the common good. And such is Obama’s promise. And in that, however inchoately and however diffidently, Obama stands not only against Bushism, but against Reaganism, which gave it birth. And that is more than enough.

Yep, more than enough.

Poll: The Early Line 10/09

Buck Banks

Obama/Biden: 47%
McCain/Palin: 41%
Undec 9%

–After a tightening earlier in the week, Obama has re-opened a 6-pt. lead over McCain. This was likely driven by the fact that Obama has expanded his lead among women voters. He now holds a 9 pt. advantage over McCain with women. He also has a 2 pt. lead over McCain among men.

–Among the 66% of voters who say the economy is their #1 issue, Obama has a 13-pt advantage. And he holds a 6-pt. lead – 44-38% – on the question of who’d do the best job handling the economy. In yesterday’s poll, the two were tied on this question.

–Palin’s approval ratings are also sliding and she has almost a 1-1 fav/unfav rating, with 46% rating her favorably and 43% rating her unfavorably.

Today’s Diageo/Hotline tracking poll, conducted 10/6-8 by FD, surveyed 852 LVs and has a margin of error of +/- 3.4%. Party ID Breakdown for the sample is 41%D, 36%R, 18%I.

Poll: Obama Opens Double Digit Lead in Gallup Daily Tracking Poll

Jon Ponder

National polls in the presidential campaign are mainly useful as barometers of public sentiment, rather than reliable predictors of who will win. As a barometer then, there’s a storm warning for the McCain campaign in the new numbers from the Gallup Daily Tracking poll. Barack Obama has opened up a double digit lead — 52 percent to 41 percent — over McCain for the first time since Gallup began daily tracking in March.

Interestingly, the period covered in the poll is Oct. 5-7, so the result does not reflect changes in voters’ sentiments after the debate on Tuesday, which Obama won, according to most polls and pundits. (In the CNN snap poll after the debate, only 30 percent of respondents liked McCain’s performance, as opposed to 54 percent who thought Obama won.)