I don't arrive at that conclusion lightly, but its very clear that I know the issues better than he does, and can spontaneously articulate those issues and their nuances better than he can. I would never make this mistake for example.

"Making sure your tires are properly inflated, simple thing, but we could save all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling, if everybody was just inflating their tires and getting regular tune-ups. You could actually save just as much."

This statement is clearly the result of a politician getting fed a few talking points with no real grasp of the complexity of fuel efficiency. He kind of half heard it, kind of understood the main point and "went with it"--a serious intellectual deficiency in almost every field of endeavor. In the real world, people go to great efforts to get precise answers and to acknowledge where there is ambiguity.

You can't even make a strudel with this lack of mental discipline.

Ironically, it was a timely comment, because I just tuned the bimmer, and I keep weekly records of miles per gallon. You actually have to get pretty far out of tolerance before you notice changes in fuel usage. What Barack Obama (Peace be upon his name) isn't saying is that modern cars, say those made after 2000, are remarkable feats of engineering that actively compensate for changing environmental and systemic conditions and have significant overcapacity engineered right into them. I changed my spark plugs much later than I had planned and when I removed them, after 130,000 miles (they were the originals), they displayed all the characteristics of a perfectly tuned engine--tan, no deposits, and virtually no corrosion. I changed my air filter as well. The comparison? No significant change in mpg, meaning less than one percent which could be attributed to variations in driving conditions (which are pretty consistent for this car...)

I changed the tires recently as well, but since I keep them religiously rotated, balanced and properly inflated, I didn't expect to see a difference, and I didn't. Interesting thing about tires--did you know that different makes and models have different rolling resistance? Yeah--you can have them properly inflated and they'll still use more fuel because their designed to. Tire design is a tradeoff between a number of factors, and sometimes you give up low rolling resistence for better traction.

My point is that the world is made up of details and the difference between a brilliant success and a dismal failure usually lies in those details. I just came back from California where burger restaurants are even more ubiquitous than they are in the rest of the U.S. No matter--we made a bee-line for In-N-Out. I'm embarrassed to admit that I consumed a double-double three days in a row. Why is the In-N-Out jam-packed every lunch hour, while you can hear crickets chirping just next door at their competitors? Its basically the same thing everywhere--bun, hamburger patty, cheese, lettuce and tomato, but small details create these huge disparities in patronage.

Barack Obama (Peace be upon his name) exemplifies the antithesis of the model of success in the modern world. Where everyone from lawyers, engineers and cooks is killing themselves to get the details right, he can't be bothered.

This is the guy you want to put in charge of the executive branch?

There is only one reason to support Barack Obama for president--he makes an excellent puppet for other interests. He doesn't have the skills, experience or predilection to actually challenge any information provided to him, and thus is a prime candidate for manipulation. He'll have the power to promote your interests while also being the perfect fall guy when it all goes to hell.

One could argue that McCain is no better, except that he clearly is better. McCain called the surge correctly because he didn't just accept the prevailing wisdom and political calculus, but did the due diligence to arrive at an independent conclusion. He may not know all that much about economics, but he's demonstrated the mindset of a successful executive--dig for the details that make the difference.