In today’s hard economic times, closing state parks seems to be a remedy that many states have used or are considering.  A Las Vegas Sun article says Nevada legislators are considering closing all of the state parks in Nevada.

The Nevada Legislature is thinking of closing state parks as it considers how to patch an estimated $900 million budget gap, a move that would save a few million dollars while killing the economies of rural towns and stunting tourism efforts across the state, opponents of the idea say.

Gov. Jim Gibbons has suggested a 10 percent budget reduction for a number of agencies, including the State Parks Division. But the Interim Finance Committee could take that a step further. At its meeting in Las Vegas on Thursday, the committee is expected to consider following the lead of cash-strapped states such as California and Arizona, that have closed some or all of their state parks.

In Nevada, the proposal is the brainchild of Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, who says he is considering shutting down all state parks to save money.

Read the entire article: Would closing state parks to save money do more harm than good?

A report in Newsweek, Iceberg Ahead, looks at the current state of climate science and politics… and how things got to this point.

What went wrong? Part of the blame lies, of course, with those who obstructed the efforts of the IPCC and the individual scientists, including bloggers who tried to sandbag scientists with spurious FOIA requests, and the perpetrators (as yet unknown) of the hack at the Climatic Research Unit. Part of the blame also falls on the climate scientists themselves. Many of them—including perhaps Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC head—may have stepped too far over the line from science to advocacy, undermining their own credibility. Some scientists, as a result, are now calling for a change in tone from antagonism to reconciliation. Climate science, they say, needs to open its books and be more tolerant of scrutiny from the outside. Its institutions—notably the IPCC—need to go about their business with greater transparency. "The circle-the-wagons mentality has backfired," says Judith Curry, head of Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.

Read more: Iceberg Ahead – Climate scientists who play fast and loose with the facts are imperiling not just their profession but the planet.

.

Many scientists and others who are skeptical of anthropogenic global warming would like the answer to one question that, so far, has not been answered:

While there is laboratory evidence that carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide and global temperature have both been rising, real world proof that CO2 has caused the rise in global temperature does NOT exist.

While, at times,  there appears to be a rough correlation between CO2 and global temperature, correlation does not prove causation.

Even though anthropogenic global warming is an unproven hypothesis, it is likely that some historical warming resulted from carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere by humans. However, because of the physical properties of CO2, it’s done all the warming it can do.

Predictions of rising temperatures and the dire consequences of anthropogenic global warming are based on computer climate models.  The climate models include the assumption that global temperatures will rise as CO2 continues to rise.

Over the last decade, global temperatures have leveled off while CO2 continued to rise.  Temperature is trending below all of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predictions.

Joanne Nova, an Australian freelance science presenter & writer: Professional speaker, author, and former TV host, has prepared and published two excellent — and free — booklets on global warming.  The first, The Skeptics Handbook, has been translated by volunteers into many other languages, including German, French, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish, Turkish, Portuguese, Japanese, and Danish.

Carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas by absorbing infrared radiation in three narrow bands of frequencies, (2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers (µM)), meaning that most of the heat producing infrared radiation frequencies escapes absorption by CO2.  The main peak, 15 µM, is absorbed completely within about 10 meters of the ground meaning that there is no more to absorb.  Doubling the human contribution of CO2 would reduce this distance. Reducing the distance for absorption would not result in an increase in temperature.

The sun appears to have entered a less active period and is providing less warmth to the Earth.  The sun is in an extended solar minimum that was predicted to end in March 2008, nearly 20 months ago.  Since 2004 there have been 770 days without sunspots.  A typical solar minimum averages about 485 days.  Solar magnetic activity continues to drop.

A number of scientists are projecting that global warming is over, for now, and that global average temperatures will be dropping for the next 20 to 30 years.

“Tricks” apparently have been performed on more climate data than just the tree ring proxy information.  The figure below shows the adjustments made to the historical temperature record of Darwin, Australia.  The blue lines show the values for the original, “raw” temperature data. The red lines are the official NOAA/GHCN  ( National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — Global Historical Climate Network) data  after the values have been “homogenized” and averaged.  The black line are the values for the adjustment that was made (uses the scale on the right of the figure).

“Before getting homogenized, temperatures in Darwin were falling at 0.7 Celcius per century … but after the homogenization, they were warming at 1.2 Celcius per century. And the adjustment that they made was over two degrees per century …” – Willis Eschenbach, The Smoking Gun At Darwin Zero

American climate sceptics are now demanding a thorough investigation of NASA’s earth science programme, including the possibility that instruments on its satellites have been “tweaked” to give a “correct” result, and pointing out that the agency has repeatedly had to correct its data, going back to the 1930s. The common factor between CRU East Anglia and NASA is the destruction or withholding of research models and data which, if they are reliable, should be their pride and joy – documentation that would secure these institutions’ place in history, like Einstein’s equations. Telegraph.co.uk

“They’ve lost the raw data on which all the models, all the computer generated forecasts, the graphs and projections, are based.”

“Poor Al Gore”

Climate politics continue to be interesting.  Australia’s opposition Liberal Party has ousted its leader, Malcolm Turnbull, after the resignation last week of several senators from their “front-seat” positions.  The Aussie government’s climate change bill is now in jeopardy, raising the potential of an early general election in 2010.

The Climategate emails and documents are being investigated by a number of organizations, including an inquiry by Penn State University, where Michael Mann, creator of the discredited hockey stick graph – used by Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth – is a professor. Inquiries are also under way at the University of East Anglia, the source of the leaked material.  Government investigations are either ongoing or pending and there has been at least one civil lawsuit filed.

At a minimum, the emails document the violation of UK Freedom of Information laws.

Many believe that the leaker was not a hacker, but, rather, was an insider acting as a anonymous whistleblower by leaking the emails and documents, including information that had been unsuccessfully been sought under the UK FOI statutes.

The emails are not the only incriminating material.  Computer codes and their documentation show fudged numbers and “blatant data-cooking” that tell a story of twisting reality to a desired view.

Many of the fantastic claims in the media about climate change are likely predicated on the same sort of skewed science.

An article in the Wall Street Journal titled The Climate Science Isn’t Settled, by Richard S. Lindzen, professor of meteorology at MIT gives a more balanced view of the state of climate science.

Claims that climate change is accelerating are bizarre. There is general support for the assertion that GATA has increased about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the middle of the 19th century. The quality of the data is poor, though, and because the changes are small, it is easy to nudge such data a few tenths of a degree in any direction. Several of the emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) that have caused such a public ruckus dealt with how to do this so as to maximize apparent changes.

While I have been skeptical of global warming claims for quite some time, this Climategate fiasco appears to show  a conspiracy to doctor the evidence.

In my interest in climate change, I wasn’t looking for a conspiracy, just the truth.

While I have spent a bit of time reading some of the emails that were leaked earlier the week, I simply do not have the time – or desire – to delve deeply into the files.  There are many others around the world digging into this.

I think that there have been serious consequences that have resulted from the actions of some of the scientists whose correspondence has been leaked.  In their zeal to “prove” — at all costs — CO2 as the cause of anthropogenic global warming, other potential causes have been marginalized.  Evidence is mounting that changes in land use may have a significantly greater impact on climate change than rising CO2.  If true, mitigation and adaptation to successfully address human impacts on climate could be done at a fraction of the cost of  the drastic actions and expenses that are being called for today.  It may be that efforts could have been started a decade ago, but for an obsession on CO2 as the global warming culprit.

On Examiner.com, Thomas Fuller is writing a series of articles regarding the actions and communications of a group of climate scientists and paleoclimatologists known as The Team. Click here to read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 , Part 6, and Part 7.

My first post on this was Climategate.

I discovered just a little while ago that access to individual posts on this blog was unavailable and commenting was not available. This was because of something I did with some files on the server earlier today — not a web host issue. I knew that I should have checked after I was done, but didn’t.

It’s all back to normal now. It was only a 30 second fix, because it’s something that happened before and I knew where to look.

——

A couple of days ago, a park visitor from Spain was injured by a Yellowstone National Park bison (aka American buffalo).

“At approximately 11:25 a.m., the woman and her husband were using a pay phone in the Canyon lodging area with their backs to the road. According to witnesses, two bull bison walked down the road, passing within 20 feet of the couple. One of the bison left the road, walked up behind the woman and butted her into the air. The couple, who were facing away from the road, did not see the bison.”

The woman was taken to the Lake Clinic where she was treated for minor injuries and released.

This quite an unusual event. Bison are not usually aggressive unless someone has encroached upon their space. We have seen numerous instances where people have gotten way too close to these critters and nothing happened. Park regulations require that a minimum distance of 25 yard must be maintained from bison.

Bison are very, very common in the Canyon area.

We still hope to make it to Yellowstone this year. However, we may not have as much time available as we had originally thought.

——

Climate change legislation — The Waxman/Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act pass by a very slim margin today in the US House of Representatives. I actually watched some of the debate on CSPAN. I’ve got just a few comments.

• They didn’t even have a properly collated official copy of the bill in the room during the debate. Three hundred pages were revised overnight and one of the House staff was in the process of inserting pages into the correct place in the “official copy” during the closing minutes of the floor debate.
• The debate on the floor was limited to 3 hours for a bill that may be one of the largest tax bills in the history of the country.
• While virtually every American would end up with higher energy costs as a result of the bill, as I understand it, it’s requirements would have negligible impact on global warming, if anthropogenic (human caused) global warming (AGW) were a proven fact rather than an unproven hypothesis.
• The premise of the bill is predicated on the assumption that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is a proven scientific fact. The earth has been warming up until the last ten years. Global carbon dioxide levels have been rising, at least in part due to human activities, even during the last ten years as global temperature anomalies have been stable or dropping. While it would seem obvious to blame rising temperatures on carbon dioxide produced by man, there is no proof that continued rising CO2 will result in a continued rise in global temperatures. The predictions of rising temperatures are the product of computer climate models that assume that anthropogenic global warming is a proven scientific fact rather than an unproven hypothesis.
• Our Representative, voted against it. I think I voted against him in 2008. He’s got my vote in 2010.

——

Climate change — I read material on climate change almost every day.

I am absolutely appalled at the gloom and doom, the-sky-is-falling alarmism that is in the media on a daily basis.

I’m not sure at what point I stopped simply accepting anthropogenic (human caused) global warming. I can say that for well over a year I’ve been reading a lot of climate change related material and have a much better understanding of the topic than I once had. My first blog post on climate was It’s not a hypothesis… It’s not a theory… it’s a CONSENSUS! last year.

Below is some of what I’ve come to believe and understand related to the Earth’s climate.

• Anthropogenic global warming is an unproven hypothesis.
• Even though anthropogenic global warming is an unproven hypothesis, it is likely that some warming has resulted from carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere by humans.
• There is no proof that continued rise in CO2 will result in continued rise in global temperatures.


Carbon Dioxide Absorption Peaks

• Carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas by absorbing infrared radiation in three narrow bands of frequencies, (2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers (µM)), meaning that most of the heat producing infrared radiation frequencies escapes absorption by CO2.  The main peak, 15 µM, is absorbed completely within about 10 meters of the ground meaning that there is no more to absorb.  Doubling the human contribution of CO2 would reduce this distance. Reducing the distance for absorption would not result in an increase in temperature.
• The science of climate change is not settled.  Science is never settled. There is always more to learn, more to add.
• Consensus on climate change is not science.  It’s politics.  Science isn’t done by consensus, as I understand it.
• For a scientist to be a skeptic on climate change is not a bad thing.  Scepticism and questioning are important aspects of science.
• The Earth appears to have been cooling overall for most of this young century — 2000 to 2009.
• The reports of the danger to polar bears are premature.  They are also recycled over and over again.
• The prediction of an Arctic free of  ice is  premature.  AMSRE-A Sea Ice Extent has 6 1/2 years of history. The sea arctic sea ice extent currently is higher than any of the other years at this point in the annual cycle. AMSRE-A (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer – Earth Observing System).
• Antarctic sea ice extent is getting larger.
• A recent survey found Arctic ice to be thicker than expected.  (radiobremen)
• The heat content of the world’s ocean is dropping – Q = mc∆T. (The Global Warming Hypothesis and Ocean Heat)

day 22

You’ve heard the claims:

“The entire global scientific community has a consensus on the question that human beings are responsible for global warming.” — Al Gore

“In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth’s climate is being affected by human activities…” — The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change, by Naomi Oreskes, Science 3 December 2004: Vol. 306. no. 5702, p. 1686

I’ve looked for the consensus.  I haven’t found it.  I’ll let you know if I do.

Even if there is a consensus, it’s of little value if the underlying basis of the consensus is faulty:

It is amazing that some political leaders proclaim the debate over global warming is “over” when some of the meteorological community’s best minds continue to clash over the nature and magnitude of a phenomenon that could entirely offset the effects of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. (Climate Change Reconsidered , the 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), page 17)

The hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming and the predictions of future temperature rise are heavily dependent upon computer models that do not incorporate many of the significant complexities of Earth’s climate.  See The problem is in the modeling.

Is consensus science or is consensus politics?

1

I overheard it the day before the election.

“That Obama scares me.”

I tried to believe that his fear was of the changes that are going to occur as a result of this election.

I really would like to believe that.

But I know better.

It was fear of something different, of someone different.

“HE isn’t like us.” “HE looks different.” “HE sounds different.” “HE can’t be a real American.” “HE pals around with Bill Ayers, a domestic terrorist.” “HIS preacher teaches hate.” “HE’s a Muslim.” “I can’t vote for him, HE’s…, HE’s…, not white.”

“THAT Obama scares me.”

“THAT one.”

Despite the misinformation campaigns, the hate ads, the robocalls, and racial bias, the American electorate overwhelming elected THAT one — the SENSIBLE one — the RIGHT one.

Yes, WE can!

Yes, WE did!

The change is started.  It’s going to take some time.

Some people aren’t going to like it.

It’s not going to benefit everyone.

I’m not going to like everything about it.

But the nation was off course.

The nation needed a new heading and there will be a new hand on the tiller.

Yes, we can!

I’m not afraid of Barack Obama — Never was.

Note: This commentary is not intended to imply that all who voted for McCain and against Obama were racist.  In my view, race was not an issue for the majority of those who voted for the Republican candidate, but there were many voters who were influenced by race and/or the campaign ads and speeches that were designed to foster fear — and that is what this post is addressing.

“I’m not prejudiced, but…” or “I’m not racist, but…”

The “but” says it all to me…, regardless of what comes after the “but.”

Everyone has prejudice to some degree.  When I was a teen in the 60s and very early 70s, I often said, “The only thing I’m prejudiced against is prejudice.”  Older now, I acknowledge that I’ve had my share of prejudices, some of which I still struggle with.

When someone says, “I’m not prejudiced,” I’m skeptical.

I was watching a video online the other day when a guy actually said, “I’m not prejudiced or a racist, but there ain’t any way that I’m going to vote for a black man.”

The best I can say about that is that it’s partially honest. Because of his prejudice, he is unable to vote for a black person.  It’s too bad that he can’t get past that and vote on the issues rather than the color of a man’s skin.

On an individual basis, I do not care who anyone else is voting for. That’s their personal choice — and, unless they tell me otherwise, I choose to believe that their choices are for reasons other than race or ethnicity.

Hopefully, more people than normal will be able to answer, “Yes,” if someone says, “I voted! Did You?” — and , hopefully, the result will not be significantly influenced by prejudice.

What comes to your mind when you hear someone say, “I’m not prejudiced, but…?”

Image shared on Flickr by allison chase

Whether we like it or not, race is an issue in 21st century America.

If it wasn’t an issue, no one would have said anything in the current election about who played the race card first — because there wouldn’t be a race card.

If race wasn’t an issue, pollsters wouldn’t be asking questions to determine what percentage of whites have negative perceptions about blacks.

If it wasn’t an issue, no one would be saying anything about Barack Obama being black. He would just be a relatively young politician trying to become president. Being the first black man nominated by a major political party as its candidate for president of the United States of America would not be such a big deal.

And Barack is just as much white as he is black — and it really shouldn’t make a difference.

Image shared on Flickr by jurvetson

If race didn’t matter it would be just as correct to call him white as it is to call him black.

Yet, even today, 143 years after the end of the American Civil War, a person with any black ancestry is black — regardless of the percentage of their non-black ancestry…, and it really, really shouldn’t matter — but it does.

Barack Obama being black will not win him the race for the presidency.  However, if he loses, being black will be part of the reason he lost.

Imagine — just for a moment — where the polls would be if Obama was not black.

There are many, many white Americans who will not — cannot — vote for Obama because of his race and who will vote for McCain because McCain is not black.  Many of them will find other reasons to use.  Though they won’t admit it, many will be voting the way they do because race matters to them.  Unfortunately, I know a few people — just a few — that are making such rationalizations over this election — however, I am surprised at some people I know who are leaning towards voting Democrat.

One friend from long ago refuses to vote for a black man, even though she has legal custody of grandchildren who are of mixed parentage.  I can’t understand it.

Race matters to me in a different way.  I am absolutely enthused that we have progressed to the point where a black man is a very serious contender for the presidency of the United States. However, my vote will not be based on race, but rather on the policies and abilities of the candidates.

Race, as a topic, though, matters to me now because, despite the fact that it may make a difference today, I can see that we are moving to a place and time where, perhaps, it may not matter so much after all — as it shouldn’t!

———————–

just a few thoughts from a retired, somewhat overweight, white guy from Arkansas

]]> http://exit78.com/race-matters/feed/ 14 http://exit78.com/we-did-everything-right-and-now-we-may-have-to-pay-anyway/ http://exit78.com/we-did-everything-right-and-now-we-may-have-to-pay-anyway/#comments Tue, 23 Sep 2008 03:30:23 +0000 Mike Goad http://exit78.com/weblog/?p=825

To support his family during the
Great Depression, my wife’s grandfather
had to travel to places where there was
work.  He built this small “camping
trailer.”

We did everything right…, we thought.

We “bought” a house that we could afford on our budget and never re-financed, though it probably would have been smart in order to get a better interest rate…, or to pay it off earlier.  But now it’s paid off and that doesn’t matter.

We never bought more on credit than we could afford…, but sometimes it was close.

We did without the toys that others bought…, no bass boat, no four-wheeler, no recreational vehicle — until recently.

However, we did travel, sometimes on our own dime and sometimes on company business, with us paying Karen’s way and the cost for the side trips that we made.

And we saved, saved, saved — most of the time on a single income.

Our vehicles — except for one — have always been new, never used.  But we always drive them until they are just about falling apart — except for one, a different one — , so we generally get decent value out of them.

And we always, always pay our bills on time — except for that one bill that fell behind the couch back in 1978.

Creditors usually like us — we did everything right.

And now it’s likely we’re going to have to pay because others didn’t do it right…, and I’m just a little upset about it.

I’m not upset at the people who were able to finance more than they should have been able to.

Its.. not… their… fault!!!

I’m upset at the greedy bastards that let them finance more that they could pay for — the people who came up with variable interest loans and other creative financing schemes that were going to make the loans possible for those who were too close to the edge — the regulators that deregulated — the politicians that made it legal to deregulate.

I’m upset at all the people who worked to change the rules that said you had to live within what you could afford, that said you had to be able to afford whatever debt you took on.

The way we did….

Damn greedy bastards!

…blowing in the wind.

For some reason the title of this post reminded me of a classic song from my youth.

I didn’t intend the previous post asking about who I am voting for to be a trick.  Rather, I was presenting a stereotypical representation of what I could be like.  The regular visitors who responded, though, saw through it.

All of my statements were true.  They just weren’t the complete truth.

I did vote for Reagan for president and for George Herbert Walker Bush in his first election for the presidency.  I voted against Bush in his second term because he wasn’t doing what I thought he needed to do on the economy.  I never voted for his son.

While I can trace many of my ancestors to colonial America, my grandmother was 100% Moravian, her parents coming to America in the early 1900s…, and they were Catholic, which I didn’t know until recently.  Her husband, my grandfather, was an ardent denier of his Native American ancestry, which was actually pretty diluted as far as I can tell.  I grew up believing my heritage was entirely white, anglo, and protestant.

While I believe abortion to be a very bad thing, I don’t oppose it and I certainly don’t want things to go back to the way it was before Roe v. Wade.

I am uncomfortable with gay marriage.  That’s not the same thing as being against it.  I’m not and that is a recent change, within the last week, for me.  I voted against it when it came up for a vote in a state constitutional ammendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.  I would not vote the same today.

In some small degree my vote is going to be about race and age. Barack Obama is a relatively young man of mixed ancestry who has taken much of the best of both cultures and is moving beyond it.  Electing Barack Obama would show to our young people and the world that the great potential of the American Dream is still alive and well, despite everything that is going on.

In general, I like John McCain.  If McCain had been the nominee in 2000, he would have had my vote.  However, today, John McCain is not the best choice for me — though he was the best out of all the Republicans, in my view — and part of that is because he is just too old.

The most important thing, though, for me in this election, is that we have a good turnout for this election, no matter who people are voting for.

If you aren’t registered to vote, do it soon!

If you are registered, please make sure you vote for the candidates of your choice!

I’ve made up my mind on who I’ll be voting for in less than three months.

I’d be interested in visitor comments on who they think I will be voting for.  Here’s some more information that might help:

I haven’t always voted, but in previous presidential elections where I did, I voted for Ronald Reagan and George Bush.

Before I went in the navy, I lived in the older George Bush’s congressional district in Texas and for some reason I paid atttention to what he was doing over the years.  I knew when he was ambassador to China and head of the CIA.

I can trace my ancestry back to the 1600s in Virgina, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Jersey — WASP all the way (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) — and if I ain’t, I’m not tellin’.

As a couple, we are better off than we were 4 years ago and 8 years ago.  I have benefited personally and professionally from the policies of the current administration.

I served in the United States Navy for just short of nine years and was honorably discharged at the end of my last enlistment.  I got most of my college education under the G.I. Bill.

I own a rifle and a shotgun and have fired the shotgun from my front yard.

We live in the south along a country highway and I drive a big red pickup truck.  We’re into camping and RVing.

I graduated from high school in 1970 from a southern school that was not yet integrated.  Our kids graduated from an all white southern high school in the 1990s.

When I was in high school, we were poor “white trash.”

I supported the invasion of “Iraq,” though I wasn’t sure we were doing the right thing.

I support controlled and responsible drilling for oil offshore and in areas like ANWR.  The technology is there to do it with minimal impact to the environment.

I believe that we need, as a country, to invest heavily in new nuclear power plants.  Nuclear power has a proven track record and we are going to need a lot of new electrical power capability if we are going to really move away from foreign oil.

I am a small investor in oil and natural gas production.  I’m not a speculator.  My investments are at the well-head.

I’ve been retired for over a year and a half.  When I was working, I didn’t talk about politics because most of the people I worked with had very different views.  I’m back contracting in the same office I retired from and, surprisingly, we are in much more agreement than we used to be.

A very small part of my reasons for voting the way I will be voting is based on the racial heritage of the candidates.

I think an abortion is a very bad thing.

I’m uncomfortable with gays getting married.

A very small part of my reasons for voting the way I will be voting is based on the ages of the candidates.

Please make a guess about who you think I’m going to be voting for.  After a reasonable period of time, I will let ya’ll know in a post who I will be voting for.

The top Democratic party candidates were all on the same stage.

Three guys — a white, a black, and a Hispanic — and a woman.

How many jokes have you heard that started out something like that?

This, however, was not a joke. It’s amazing — and it’s America!

What I am referring to, of course, is the Democratic debate in New Hampshire sponsored by Facebook. They were randomly arranged in the order I described earlier, John Edwards, Barrack Obama, Bill Richardson, and Hilary Clinton.

What was really neat for me is that the diversity of the field didn’t strike me until late in the debate when I noticed how much Bill Richardson’s Hispanic heritage showed. Then it was, “Oh, wow!”

I watched both debates. They were strikingly different in tone and in substance.

I don’t generally watch debates until after the conventions when the parties’ presidential and vice-presidential candidates face off. These debates, though, were an opportunity to see the major candidates for both parties in a very short period of time.

The Republicans fielded five white guys.

The Democrats sent three guys — a white, a black, and a Hispanic — and a woman.

How amazing is that?