In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world (this was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria), and everyone went to his own town to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 

"Glory to God in the highest,
      and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."

 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

The last of the election maps for the 2008 campaign is upon us, and Obama is now higher than ever.  Interestingly, however, there are some interesting trends shaping up for McCain, ensuring that Tuesday will be an interesting evening.  While I think Obama is certain to win, the race may end up being closer than many of us expect.

As we get closer to the election, the electoral college is beginning to indicate we may get a landslide for Obama.  The "Solid Obama" category is the highest its ever been, and Solid + Lean Obama is at 302 (a 9 vote drop from last week, but still impressive).

Map:

These excerpts were posted earlier this morning at campaignforliberty.com from Jackson's Farewell Address.

"The distress and sufferings inflicted on the people by the bank are some of the fruits of that system of policy which is continually striving to enlarge the authority of the Federal Government beyond the limits fixed by the Constitution. The powers enumerated in that instrument do not confer on Congress the right to establish such a corporation as the Bank of the United States, and the evil consequences which followed may warn us of the danger of departing from the true rule of construction and of permitting temporary circumstances or the hope of better promoting the public welfare to influence in any degree our decisions upon the extent of the authority of the General Government. Let us abide by the Constitution as it is written, or amend it in the constitutional mode if it is found to be defective...."

"The paper-money system and its natural associations--monopoly and exclusive privileges--have already struck their roots too deep in the soil, and it will require all your efforts to check its further growth and to eradicate the evil. The men who profit by the abuses and desire to perpetuate them will continue to besiege the halls of legislation in the General Government as well as in the States, and will seek by every artifice to mislead and deceive the public servants. It is to yourselves that you must look for safety and the means of guarding and perpetuating your free institutions. In your hands is rightfully placed the sovereignty of the country, and to you everyone placed in authority is ultimately responsible."

"But it will require steady and persevering exertions on your part to rid yourselves of the iniquities and mischiefs of the paper system and to check the spirit of monopoly and other abuses which have sprung up with it, and of which it is the main support. So many interests are united to resist all reform on this subject that you must not hope the conflict will be a short one nor success easy. My humble efforts have not been spared during my administration of the Government to restore the constitutional currency of gold and silver, and something, I trust, has been done toward the accomplishment of this most desirable object; but enough yet remains to require all your energy and perseverance. The power, however, is in your hands, and the remedy must and will be applied if you determine upon it."

For this week, Obama maintains his wide lead, as support for McCain continues to weaken across some of the more core Republican states.

9:09 - Well the debate kicked off with an excellent demonstration that neither candidate understands the financial crisis.  Their solution to the malinvestment and bust end of the business cycle is to regulate the economy further.  Guess what gentlemen, the regulation by government is what got us into this mess.  The only thing that will prevent this from happening again, and that will get us out of the current financial mess, is the dissolution of the Federal Reserve and the end of fractional reserve banking.  What each of you are proposing is putting a band aid on a gun shot wound.

 

9:16 - They're now brilliantly debating who does or does not support Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  They both support Fannie and Freddie.  Our archaic regulatory system is that it exists.  Government control is the most conservative political view under the sun, and both McCain and Obama support it.

 

9:19 - Bush brought us the deficit.  Obama is exactly right.  But his policies mathematically only serve to increase the deficit further while simultaneously stifling the economy.  Obama is not cutting spending according to his campaign commitments.  His spending commitments surpass any increased revenue.  Furthermore, he has made no commitment to cut military spending, and has even suggested we send troops into Pakistan.  McCain is maintenance of the horrible status quo, Barack Obama is the big spending villain on the level of FDR or LBJ merged with the current policies of George W. Bush.

 

9:24 - While cutting pork barrel spending is a good thing, it does not solve the financial problem.  The budget will not be severely effected if you cut all pork barrel spending.  You have to cut entitlement spending.  Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Housing, all have to go.  Why? The future debts of the United States surpass our total household worth.  Everything.  Whether you support these programs or not is irrelevant.  Their maintenance is mathematically impossible.

 

9:31 - Barack Obama thinks apparently President Bush didn't do enough by telling people to go out and shop after 9/11.  Well first, it's not that he didn't do "enough" he just was wrong.  Consumer spending has nothing to do with it.  The government should have gotten out of our lives to allow the market to thrive.  However for Obama, Bush apparently didn't do enough.  What would you have preferred senator? Should Bush have organized us into work brigades for a great leap forward?

 

9:45 - Despite the angry rhetoric on both sides, which very effectively gives off the appearance of a real debate, listen very carefully to what each candidate is saying.  Energy, entitlements, the economy.  They're agreeing on everything.  The only thing they disagree on is which one of them will actually do it.

 

10:00 - Obama wants to take our troops in Iraq and move them to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Darfur.  If you think logically, Obama's proposed foreign policy commitments far exceed those of Bush or McCain.  Obama has just declared that we have a moral obligation to police the world.  That includes Darfur, Congo, North Korea.  We have had 8 years of people dying for George Bush's morals.  We don't need to send troops to die for Barack Obama's morals, or John McCain's morals. 

10:03 - John McCain just said we should do "whatever we can."  Once again, the two candidates agree on everything.

 

10:11 - Obama just committed us to attacking Pakistan if we had to get Osama.  Senator Obama, it is not worth destabilizing a nuclear power to get anyone.  Someone needs to teach you a thing or two about Pakistan, India, and nuclear weapons.  It is far worse to commit yourself to destabilizing Pakistan than simply not being able to pronounce the word "nuclear" like Bush and Palin.  Obama has proven that he knows about as much about foreign policy as McCain knows about the economy.

 

10:19 - Of course, no night would be complete without a condemnation from both candidates on the defensive actions of Russia against the Georgians.  Gentlemen.  Georgia was the aggressor.  They broke the agreements and the South Ossettians asked the Russians to help.  Even if Russia had attack, the United States, who attacked Iraq preemptively, has no right to condemn the similar actions of others.  We have lost any semblance of moral authority we ever had, and we have no right to be nannying the Russians.

 

10:32 - The last question is strangely appropriate.  "What do you not know?"  Based upon the answers I have heard tonight, the answer clearly is "everything."  Neither candidate proposed a single thing that would be beneficial to the citizens of this country.  The outcome of this race is irrelevant.  In the words of the Who, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." 

This close to the election, given the current polls, it may be safe now to say that Obama is going to win.  The "Solid Obama" category is now at its highest point in the past 30 weeks.

Here's the Map:

First, there's a great editorial from Maureen Dowd in today's New York Times featuring the work of Aaron Sorkin.  Read it here.

Secondly, Ron Paul has made an impressive return to the media spotlight.  Yes, I know for many of us he never left.  However, he has been on every major news source this past week, multiple times, discussing the collapse of the financial sector, the Fed's bailouts, and the SEC's new regulation.  Now that all he had warned us about back in May has come to fruition, he's getting a second look from the media, and plenty of TV time.  While I'm not a big fan, one of the best discussions yet was on Glenn Beck's program.  You can watch it here and here.

"Monetary history shows that this type of system will not last, the question is that will the new system be a free society, or a totalitarian society." - Ron Paul

Last,  Obama has returned to the top, narrowly beating out McCain who's post-convention bump has past.  However, the big story is not that Obama is ahead, but is instead the incredible amount of states in the swing column.  This week  the swing states are now at their highest point in the campaign.

Electoral College Map:

Graph:

      A few years back I stumbled upon an index of indexes, the State of World Liberty Index.  The index is simply a combination of economic and social indicators of freedom from the Frasier and CATO institute's Economic Freedom in the World Project, Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom, Freedom House's Freedom in the World, and Reporters without Borders' Press Freedom Index.
     Since first discovering the index, I've attempted from time to time to contact it's creator to update the index values, and improve upon it's measures.  However, I've been unsuccessful, and I believe the e-mail on the website is no longer operable.
    For 2008, I've taken the method used in the original State of World Liberty Index and simply updated it's values.  There are many improvements we can make to this system, such as using more nuanced measures of political and social freedom, but the existing index does result in some interesting figures, particularly when comparing it to the same index from 3 years back.  As a reminder, the index is measuring liberty in each of these countries from a year ago.  With all the recent nationalization moves in the United States, we should expect it to be much lower today than the index demonstrates.  The U.S. has already fallen 5 spots since 2006.

In the top tier with index scores >80 we have, in rank order:
1. Bahamas
2. Estonia
3. Iceland
4. Canada
4. Cyprus
4. Switzerland
4. Uruguay
8. Mauritius
8. United States
8. Lithuania
8. Ireland

In the bottom-most tier, we have only North Korea, with a score of 15.

The remaining countries lie somewhere in between, as depicted in the below map.  The bluer the country, the more free it is.  Green is somewhere in between, yellow is less free. As it transition toward red, liberty decreases.  In addition to this map, I've posted the excel spreadsheet under my Papers and Projects page, and would be happy to provide more information upon request.