McCain puts Obama on the spot in final debate

Sen. John McCain played offense against Sen. Barack Obama during much of the final presidential debate as he challenged his rival on his policies, judgment and character.

Sen. Barack Obama says Sen. John McCain has made Bill Ayers the “centerpiece” of his campaign.

Obama said that he is the candidate who can bring “fundamental change” to the country and continued to try to link McCain to President Bush.

In one of the more forceful moments of the debate, McCain turned to Obama and said, “I am not President Bush.”

“If you want to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago. I’m going to give a new direction to this economy and this country,” the Arizona senator said.

Going into the debate, Obama was leading McCain by 8 percentage points in CNN’s average of national polls.

McCain asked Obama to clarify his relationship with Bill Ayers, a former 1960s radical who belonged to the Weather Underground.

“Mr. Ayers is not involved in this campaign, he has never been involved in my campaign, and he will not advise me in the White House,” Obama said.

McCain’s campaign has charged that Obama’s association with Ayers should cause voters to question his judgment.

Ayers was a founding member of the radical Weather Underground, a group that was involved in bombings in the early 1970s, including attacks on the Pentagon and the Capitol.

Obama said Wednesday that the fact the McCain keeps bringing Ayers up “says more about your campaign than it says about me.”

McCain again said that Obama has not repudiated comments made last weekend by Rep. John Lewis.

Lewis on Saturday compared the feeling at recent GOP rallies to those of segregationist George Wallace.

“I think Congressman Lewis’ point was that we have to be careful about how we deal with our supporters,” Obama said.

“I do think that he inappropriately drew a comparison between what was happening there and what had happened during the civil rights movement, and we immediately put out a statement saying that we don’t think that comparison is appropriate,” he said.

Asked why would the country be better off if their running mate became president rather than their opponent’s running mate, Obama said Sen. Joe Biden is “one of the finest public servants that has served in this country.”

Obama said Biden has a “consistent pattern” of “fighting for the little guy.”

“That’s what he’s done when it comes to economic policies that will help working families get a leg up,” he said.

McCain praised his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, as a “role model to women and reformers all over America.”

“It’s time that we had that breath of fresh air coming into our nation’s capital and sweep out the old-boy network and cronyism that’s been so much a part of it,” McCain said the first-term governor of Alaska.

Obama offered measured praise for Palin, whose qualifications have been widely scorned by Democrats. “I think that obviously she’s a capable politician,” Obama said, adding that she had “excited the base in the Republican party.”

McCain and Obama also went back-and-forth over the negative rhetoric that has dominated the campaign trail in recent days.

McCain accused Obama of spending “more money on negative ads than any campaign in history.”

Obama responded that McCain’s campaign had been running exclusively negative ads, and that the public found McCain to be running a more negative campaign than Obama.

McCain said he has a record of crossing party lines to get things done and told Obama that his “argument for standing up to the leaders of your party isn’t very convincing.”

Obama promised that he would “go through the federal budget page by page, line by line, and cut programs that don’t work” as president, echoing a vow his rival has made repeatedly.

McCain in turn promised an “across the board spending freeze.” He said he would balance the federal budget in four years, and went on to name specific programs including subsidies for ethanol when moderator Bob Schieffer pressed both candidates to identify specific budget cuts they would make.

The candidates also butted heads over tax policy during the debate.

Both candidates made frequent mention of “Joe the plumber.”

Last weekend, while Obama was canvassing for support in Holland, Ohio, the Democratic nominee ran into a man since dubbed Joe the plumber.

He asked Obama if he believed in the American Dream — he said he was about to buy a company that makes more than $250,000 a year and was concerned that Obama would tax him more because of it.

Obama explained his tax plan in depth, saying it’s better to lower taxes for Americans who make less money, so that they could afford to buy from his business. McCain characterized Obama’s plan as trying to “spread the wealth around.”

“We’re going to take Joe’s money, give it to Sen. Obama, and let him spread the wealth around. I want Joe the plumber to spread the wealth around,” McCain said.

He added, “Why would you want to increase anybody’s taxes right now? Why would you want to do that to anyone, anyone in America, when we have such a tough time?”

Obama countered that both he and McCain want to cut taxes, but that his plan would cut taxes for “95 percent of American families,” more than McCain’s plan.

McCain insisted that the government needed to help keep people in their homes, “putting a floor” under falling home ownership in the face of the mortgage crisis.

Obama charged that McCain’s plan could end up being a giveaway to “the banks” rather than to homeowners.

The national general election poll of polls consists of six surveys: LATimes/Bloomberg (October 10-13), CBS/New York Times (October 10-13), American Research Group (October 11-13), Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby (October 11-13), Gallup (October 11-13) and Diageo/Hotline (October 11-13). It does not have a sampling error.

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Arctic ice ‘is at tipping point’

Scientists suggest the Arctic is already at a climatic “tipping point”

Arctic sea ice has shrunk to the second smallest extent since satellite records began, US scientists have revealed.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) says that the ice-covered area has fallen below its 2005 level, which was the second lowest on record.

Melting has occurred earlier in the year than usual, meaning that the iced area could become even smaller than last September, the lowest recorded.

Researchers say the Arctic is now at a climatic “tipping point”.

“We could very well be in that quick slide downwards in terms of passing a tipping point,” said Mark Serreze, a senior scientist at the Colorado-based NSIDC.

“It’s tipping now. We’re seeing it happen now,” he told the Associated Press news agency.

Under covered

The area covered by ice on 26 August measured 5.26 million sq km (2.03 million sq miles), just below the 2005 low of 5.32 million sq km (2.05 million sq).

But the 2005 low came in late September; and with the 2008 graph pointing downwards, the NSIDC team believes last year’s record could still be broken even though air temperatures, both in the Arctic and globally, have been lower than last year.

Last September, the ice covered just 4.13 million sq km (1.59 million sq miles), the smallest extent seen since satellite imaging began 30 years ago. The 1980 figure was 7.8 million sq km (3 million sq miles).

The 2008 graph shows a steeper decline than at the same time last year

Most of the cover consists of relatively thin ice that formed within a single winter and melts more easily than ice that accumulated over many years.

Irrespective of whether the 2007 record falls in the next few weeks, the long-term trend is obvious, scientists said; the ice is declining more sharply than even a decade ago, and the Arctic region will progressively turn to open water in summers.

A few years ago, scientists were predicting ice-free Arctic summers by about 2080.

Then computer models started projecting earlier dates, around 2030 to 2050; and some researchers now believe it could happen within five years.

That will bring economic opportunities, including the chance to drill for oil and gas. Burning that oil and gas would increase levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere still further.

The absence of summer ice would have impacts locally and globally.

The iconography of polar bears unable to find ice is by now familiar; but other species, including seals, would also face drastic changes to their habitat, as would many Arctic peoples.

Globally, the Arctic melt will reinforce warming because open water absorbs more of the Sun’s energy than ice does.

Pitt and Clooney at Venice debut

Clooney and Pitt were on the red carpet for the premiere

The Venice Film Festival has opened with the premiere of the Coen brothers’ dark comedy Burn After Reading.

The film, starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt, is showing out of the competition at the annual event.

Before the screening, the stars posed good-naturedly for pictures and signed autograph books for fans lining up along the red carpet.

There are 21 movies competing for the coveted Golden Lion this year, with entries from Ethiopia and Turkey.

The festival continues with a fly-on -the-wall film about fashion designer Valentino Garavani – billed as a glimpse into a world of bygone glamour.

The movie was directed and produced by special correspondent for Vanity Fair magazine, Matt Tyrnauer.

Conspiracy

Pitt and Clooney are joined by British actress Tilda Swinton in Ethan and Joel Coen’s latest offering.

Clooney plays a paranoid federal marshal who gets mixed up in a conspiracy involving a former CIA analyst’s missing memoirs.

Also involved are the analyst’s adulterous wife, played by Swinton, and a couple of gormless gym instructors played by Pitt and Frances McDormand.

Before the premiere, Pitt picked up an award that he won in Venice last year – the best actor’s prize for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

“You can run but you can’t hide,” Pitt joked as he accepted the award.

“It was an honour to receive this last year and it remains an honour to accept this this year.”

Among the favourites for the Golden Lion are Japanese directors Takeshi Kitano, with Achilles and the Tortoise, and Hayao Miyasaki, for the animated feature Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea.

The prize will be awarded on 6 September.

Other strong contenders include US director Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke, and French film-maker Barbet Schroeder’s thriller L’Inju: la Bete dans l’Ombre, or The Beast in the Shadows.