Unfortunately, our previous dealings with Chase (they took our mortgage payment out twice last fall, leading to 4 months of ridiculous BS) made me suspicious immediately of their motives. Plus, I had heard the stories of fake mailings that purport to be from your mortgage company but in reality scam you out of you house. Two quick things that put me on guard.

THE OFFER

The offer did a good job at answering many of my immediate questions, particularly in a (rare) helpful FAQ. they were offering to lower our rate by 1% because the Fed rate had lowered and they didn’t want to lose our loan. I have to figure they took a hit during the recent ‘fee fiasco’ when so many people jumped ship from major banks to credit unions. The glut of lower mortgage rates couldn’t have helped either.

But the bonus was a (supposed) abbreviated process, no new assessment and no fees. Supposedly because they already had the loan and the info they needed, they could do this for free. Too good to be true?

I thought so, so I began looking around to see if others had received thus offer and if it had been legitimate. Amusingly, as I typed “Chase Mortgage”, Google suggested “… Rate scam” – so enough other people are out there with the same apprehension I have. But while there were a number of conspiracy theorists out there, most people were saying it was valid.

THE ‘CATCH’

Well, mostly none. After speaking with a rep, I found out that Chase is trying to not lose good accounts. So, in a proactive move, they are willing to take a 1% hit on the 2+% decrease in their interest savings to keep accounts. So this should be exceedingly simple – just lower our rate and have us sign the agreement, right?

Not quite. Unlike credit card interest rates, they cant simply just adjust the rate. There does have to be a new loan agreement drawn up and closed on. We did have some paperwork to do. We’ll end up eating some interest because new mortgages have a one-month payment grace period. But overall, it seems legit … until you start the process.

HEY CHASE, YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER

Once I started the process, I actually became more nervous this was a phishing scam. The too-good-to-be-true letter was on Chase stationary, came from their mortgage headquarters address (which I knew from the previous fiasco) and wasn’t full of spelling and grammatical errors.

But if you look at the list of others signs of a phishing scam, they nailed most of them.

1) information doesn’t match Chase info

The phone number didn’t come up as Chase when I did a reverse lookup, nor did the direct line number I was given by the rep I spoke with. They both came up as a marketing agency in Ohio. {flag #1} only after some thorough searching was I able to confirm this as a Chase call center.

2) Links in email that don’t match (spoofing)

I received 2 emails – one with a form I was supposed to fax back and one with my ‘login information’. The first contained a generic form with almost no referenced to Chase but DID ask me for my loan account number. {flag #2}

The second email was more troubling – it linked me to this URL: https://sdx.secure-dx.com/consumerdcx-chase

To me, that looks like a spoof URL. In reality, I was able to find out¹ it belongs to a company specializing in secure document transfer. Sounds good but why not have it under the Chase domain? {flag #3}

Once you go to the site, it has some Chase-like branding but appears to be slapped onto the site {flag #4}. Luckily, they don’t ask for any personal information here or I may have bailed.

Then I received another email from someone stating try were working with Chase on this deal, and needed authorization to access our records. Their email was using a company domain (www.servicelinkfnf.com) but her signature panel stated she worked for Chase. {flag #5}

Only the fact that I had noticed that company name in the list of service providers Chase uses prevented me from canceling everything. I was still not sure why they needed access before I had signed and returned the documents to Chase, so I am waiting to respond to this.

THE END-ALL

From start to finish, this offer made me nervous – first wondering how Chase was profiting from this change, then in the way they went about this process.

If not for my doing my own research and contacting Chase through an established phone number to verify, I might not have gotten past the letter and definitely would have bailed later in the process.

Chase’s procedures in this run afoul of many of the best practices to help consumers recognize and avoid scams – in fact, they seem to run contrary to Chase’s own guidance for fraud protection.

I really appreciate this offer – at this point it seems to be just what the say it is – but wonder how many people who could use this relief will ignore it because of its questionable processes. Chase – a common victim of scams – should know better than this, and should do a better job than this.

Okay, now that THAT’S out of the way, let me explain. I don’t listen to radio very often around here, almost exclusively when I’m in my car. But when I do, the radio is usually tuned to WXPN, a local station that focuses on more independent (read: folk and singer-songwriter) music. However, there are times when WXPN is playing some programming (such as Kid’s Corner or during their pledge drives) that I have had to turn elsewhere, and my first two choices have been two rock stations – 93.3 WMMR and 94.1 WYSP.

Around Halloween, I started noticing something about those two stations – there seemed to be a ridiculous number of times that I would be listening and songs from a limited number of bands would be playing: primarily Guns ‘n’ Roses, Metallica and Nirvana. It was a little bit of a joke – any time I turned them on, I figured that the chances were about 50-50 that one of those bands would be on. But as I listened more and more, I found out that it wasn’t as much of a joke as I had thought. So, enter the OCD and I started tracking what I was hearing.

Lo and Behold, I found that WMMR and WYSP do seem to have a rather limited stable of songs that they play. From the day before Thanksgiving until the end of the year, I kept a tally in the car of what they were playing, and I found that 10 bands were accounting for almost 50% of all of the music I heard on these stations; in fact, SIX bands were accounting for almost 1/3 or more of all of the songs they were playing. See below for the stats (the ‘Big 6′ are in bold):

So, as you can see WMMR’s songs were from the ‘Big 6′ accounted for 29% of their airplay, with the top 10 ‘bands’ being over 40%; for WYSP, the numbers were even worse – 41.7% from the ‘Big 6′ alone, and a whopping 55% of their music (that I heard) coming from just 10 ‘bands’.  Pretty glum when it comes to hearing a variety of music – but great, I guess, if the bands listed are your favorites.  One thing I didn’t track was the number of times I heard the same songs by these bands, and that happened at least a couple times (such as Tom Petty’s “American Girl” being played 3 times out of 5 total plays).

The Trend Worsens

So, I figured I was done with this after finding out that I was right – commercial radio sucks because they play the same stuff repeatedly.  But then, in the first 3 days of 2009, I found out that it was even worse than I had feared.  I literally went 5 or 6 songs in a row between the two stations – and every one of them was from the ‘Big 6′ bands.  Every. Single. Song.

Since 1/1/09, WMMR has played 6 songs out of 11 (54.5%) from those 6 bands; WYSP has played SEVEN (7) songs out of 11 (63.6%) from that limited stable of bands – including two G ‘n’ R and 2 AC-DC alone.

Now, I love hard rock and with the possible exception of Nirvana, who I think is an over-rated (though still decent) band, I like these bands.  But I seriously find it both humorous and sad that these COMPETING stations play such identical playlists all the time.  Where are the new bands coming out?  Where are the newer or different songs from bands we like?

I tell ya – THIS is what happens when only a few companies control most of the radio stations in the U.S.

When I went in this morning and tried to at least turn the software back on, I found that my only choice was to buy a new subscription or buy their new software via their site – at about a 40% premium versus what I had already paid when ordering it from Amazon (which, unfortunately, will not be arriving until Friday).

To put it mildly, I was pissed. I’ve never had software of any sort with a subscription service — other than music services, that is — that turned off my software simply because I wasn’t paying a monthly fee. In fact, that is precisely why I don’t use those music services – I don’t want to rent my music. So, I didn’t want to RENT the software either – except that I didn’t know that I was until it was gone. Yes, I had seen the prompts that it was expiring, but those prompts never said that my protection would disappear the instant that it did. Instead, I thought it would work like every other software out there – including every version of Trend Micro before this one – and continue to function but deny me any future updates until I purchased a new subscription.

When I went to their customer service, the self-help was useless, so I used their live chat function. I have to admit that it was pretty convenient with a couple of small caveats: 1) the rep sounded like one of those voice-prompt systems (“I think you said that you are having a problem with your subscription. Is that right?”); and 2) you had to put in your serial number – which I couldn’t get because I couldn’t get into the software. Luckily, I was able to find the disc hidden deep in the closet, otherwise I would have been S.O.L.

To be honest, this really pisses me off. I really DON’T like the idea of renting my software and then losing it when I don’t pay for an extension of the subscription – I think that’s a model that has been shown to fail in the past, and will continue to do so in the future. But worse is that without warning, this software left me completely exposed and unprotected like a small nerdy freshman walking naked into his first day of high school. I think that’s a really shitty thing for a company to do, and I really am having a hard time justifying staying with them. If it weren’t for the well-known problems with switching internet security suites and the fact that I am completely unprotected and the fact that I detest Norton even more than this, I would switch from this software. As it is, I might still do it just because I’m so peeved.

So peeved, in fact, that I actually searched out the email addresses of 3 of the executives of the company and sent them the letter below. We’ll see if it has any effect, or if I’ll be asking for recommendations of what to buy next when Trend Micro goes back to the store.

Dear Ms. Chen, Mr. Negi and Mr. Chang,

I am writing because a recent experience with you product has severely affected my opinion of your product.  I discovered Trend Micro many years ago while fleeing the well-known anti-virus/Internet safety applications.  I was immediately impressed with your product and have been a loyal user since – my wife and I have ordered at least 8 editions of your software for our computers and the computers of relatives, as well as recommending it to numerous other people.  You can find several reviews I wrote of your product on Epinions.com under the username “martytdx” – including one that had over 5,000 views (http://www0.epinions.com/content_162006208132).  In fact, I had just ordered my copy of Trend Micro Internet Security Pro 2009 and was waiting for it to arrive when my current subscription expired.

Imagine my surprise when I sat at my computer and discovered that not only had my subscription expired, but that the software had stopped working!!  When I went to discover what the problem was, I found that I was cut off from all functionality of the software – and was also suddenly left open to all manner of attacks, as it had expired overnight, turning off both my firewall AND my anti-virus while I slept.  When I tried to open the software to find out my options, I unfortunately found that they were extremely limited – I couldn’t do anything other than CANCEL or go to your site to renew my subscription.  However, I didn’t want to renew through your site, as the cost was about 40% higher than the retail cost – AND I ALREADY HAD A COPY EN ROUTE.  I hadn’t ordered the product until recently because a) I hadn’t known the new edition was out; and b) I thought that I still had some time — I hadn’t expected this.  So, for the delay of a few days in purchasing, your programming practices had left my system suddenly and completely unprotected until I turned on Windows’ mediocre firewall protection.

I was surprised and rather disappointed to find out that the expiration of my subscription did NOT do what most similar applications do – that is, suspend any further updates but allow the user to continue using the product … at least for a period of time.  I have never used another product – yours included, which took an action to prevent the user from even continuing even a minimum of protection upon expiration.  Worse, I looked at the documentation and to my knowledge received no notification at all that this would be the case.  Worse was that the software had unexpectedly left my entire system completely vulnerable to any number of attacks, all without my knowing that it would happen – in fact, expecting the very opposite.  To have my legs cut out from out of me, in a sense, was both unexpected and unwelcome – suddenly, my computer is unprotected by the software I trusted, and I find that deplorable.

Contacting your customer support rep, Paula Torres, via online chat was helpful but not satisfying.  He was of limited help, mostly because there was little he could do but apologize and offer platitudes about my situation.  He did recommend that I download and install your trial edition of the 2009 software.  While this gives a practical solution, it does little to assuage my apprehension about continuing my use of your products.  I find myself disinclined in renting your software for another year, forced into a subscription service to merely use the product that I have already purchased.  Ironically, I was already willing to buy the full-install of your new product – I had already done so, in fact, based on the positive reviews I had found on your latest version.  Now, I really doubt that I will keep this latest product and will instead look at your competitors who will give me more flexibility in the use of the license I buy – not holding me hostage like the pay-music services to maintain a subscription to use a rightfully-purchased program.  And I will be sure that I inform those who I have directed toward Trend Micro to likewise reconsider their options as well.

I will obviously have 30 days to make my decision – based on your trial software – and I hope that your response to this letter can change my mind about your products.  I sincerely hope to resolve this matter to everyone’s satisfaction.

Sincerely,
Marty DeAngelo
Haddonfield, NJ

Luckily, Chris Dodd stepped in and pointed out the scarier parts of Paulson’s plan including the Section 8 which stated that Paulson’s committee would be answerable to no other body – including the executive, legislative AND judicial branches of our government. That’s pretty scary stuff.

But what pissed me off was how they were ready to give carte blanche to the very executives who ran these companies into the ground.  The original plan had NO restrictions on executive compensation at all – but when people cried foul, the new plan that was up for the vote today added some.  At least in concept.

The new plan limited the compensation of how the companies could deduct the salaries of their top 5 executives:

If companies sell more than $300 million in assets in the auction, they will lose the ability to deduct the salaries of their top five employees that have exceeded $500,000. For participating companies there will also be a surtax of 20% on retirement packages of top executives who are involuntarily terminated from their firms, or lose their jobs as a result of the firm’s failure.” – Forbes.com

However, existing executives would NOT be prevented collecting on the golden parachutes they had already negotiated while they were pillaging the accounts during their bad decisions. So, in short – they took millions of dollars DURING the time when the economy was good and still managed to bankrupt their companies – and then would collect millions more for doing so and walking away.

In my opinion, the executives already got their money and screwed everybody from sideways. Any bill put out by congress to bail out these failed businesses (which I still feel is a bad idea in the first place, but understand in a macroeconomic sense), should contain two very important provisions – complete oversight of how the money is spent and complete restrictions on executive salaries – like the average wage of EVERYONE in the company. Or better yet – nothing.

Eric: I don’t know. You know, it seems like bad things are always happening to me, like I have bad luck or something.
Red: [slowly] Son, you don’t have bad luck. The reason that bad things happen to you is because you’re a dumbass.

It all started when, after Blair and Shari started coming down with pretty bad headaches, I checked both of the air conditioners and found black mold in both. I searched The Wizard of the current day (AKA “The Interwebs”) and found a bunch of treatments for cleaning up black mold in air conditioners including bleach. However, since our AC isn’t exactly easy to open (nary impossible), I tried one of the other methods – Lysol spray. Spray thoroughly where you can, then turn on the fan for a second. Turn it off and spray as the fan blades spin to a stop (this prevents it from spraying back in your face but allows you to spray the whole thing).

That seemed to work pretty well, but there was one other thing that I read that had stuck with me. It said that the black mold usually formed where pools of water formed in the tray of the AC. Lo and behold, there was a ton of water there that wasn’t draining and had black mold in it. I had sprayed it as well, but wanted to do as instructed to ‘get the water out of there so it couldn’t spread’. *DING* bad idea #1, although I hadn’t acted on it yet.

So, after forgetting my meds yesterday (and struggling through a day where I was really, really tired), I came home and we went out for some food. When we noticed the air conditioner, I remembered that I was going to drill a hole to drain the extra water out. So, I grabbed a drill and started to try to drill a hole in the pan from below. Now, I should have taken the difficulty in getting to a spot where I wouldn’t hit the compressor as a sign, but nah – I didn’t do that. I kept going even though I hadn’t turned off the air conditioner – *DING* bad idea #2. And lo & behold, as soon as I made my way through the pan, the drill bit and the fan blade connected in a horribly unpleasant manner – and I now had a broken fan blade.

SO, I went down to figure out how to fix the fan blade, and that’s when I learned that there NEEDS to be water in the pan because the suction of the fan blade pulls a little water from the pan to cool the compressor – which was really evident immediately as the compressor got very hot very quickly without the fan blade. Damn. Now I needed a repair shop because I couldn’t repair the fan myself.

Fast forward to yesterday morning. I called the suggested repair shop, and found out that repairs would take 3-4 days and cost at least $150. Well, with the heat wave we are having this week, that was simply not an option. So, instead I had to run out and buy a new AC (I’m hoping to fix the other one as a backup). By this time, it was already 9:30 and I was late to work, but we needed the AC so off I went.

I picked up one that had been rated 5-stars everywhere I looked and brought it home. To find out it wasn’t a simple plug-and-play AC … oh no, I had to build the cabinet for it, install the cabinet into the window, level the AC, etc. etc. The whole process took me almost an hour-and-a-half in the heat, and caused me to miss a meeting – all because … I’m a dumbass and a) didn’t think to look a little closer about the water in the pan and b) didn’t think to turn off the AC (and fan) before drilling into it.

As an extra karmic kick-in-the-ass, it turns out that something is wrong with this AC (it rattles something awful when the cover is put on), so I need to take it out and return it. But that will have to wait until I’ve thought everything through – I’ve already made enough half-witted mistakes this week.

1) My grandfather is dying.

He’s been on his last legs for weeks now, but keeps hanging on – in spite of himself. He’s said that he’s ready to go, but he wants to die at his own home. Unfortunately, we can’t take him out of the hospital because of the recurrent infections he’s getting. Worse, my uncles — who have lived with him for most of their entire lives — are saying that they don’t want him to come home because (depending on who you get the story from):

1. the expense for care is too much — which is bullshit, since he has money (or at least had; besides, we all agreed we would help out.
2. they can’t care for him all be themselves — legitimate, but again we all agree that we would help.
3. other, more selfish reasons — no comment

Whatever the real reason, the effect of them saying that he can’t come home to die has opened up some major anger issues, which isn’t saying much since much of my father’s family stands on the line between grumpiness and rage most of the time anyway. My thought is simple — money or effort regardless, whatever it takes to bring the man home to the house where he’s lived for 50 years should be done. PERIOD.

SUNNY SIDE: At least the whole family is coming together accusing my uncles of being asshats. That rarely happens.

2) Nutty relatives

If you saw my last post (pre-edit, especially), you saw that there were some images that were quite amusing from my cousin’s wedding, courtesy of my wife and photographer-extraordinaire, Shari. Everyone seemed to love them – everyone, that is, except one unnamed relative. And she went ballistic. Not just angry, but raging, ‘quick, hide the knives’, ‘Run! It’s Godzilla!’, fire-breathing angry. And my wife bore the brunt of it, undeservedly so. Unfortunately, it’s always been one of my favorite relatives, but what I saw and heard has done all but sever our relationship completely. Shari is willing to forgive, but I’m not sure I can.

BRIGHT SIDE: Everyone else loved the pictures and what Shari’s done.

3) Computer Meltdown x2

My wife has been working on two computers for a while – one for regular software stuff (Office, Firefox, Outlook, etc.), and one that she uses exclusively for photo processing. She also has dedicated backup hard drives and separate monitors for each (Apple monitor for the photo PC, shitty monitor for the other, etc.). Well, in quick succession she has:

• fried a graphics card
• had one of our backup drives fail (though she recovered her data
• discovered that her photo PC can’t handle the newest versions of Lightroom and Photoshop, because her RAM is too slow and her graphics card – while new – is only a PCI, which means comparatively slow.
• had to start using my stepson’s computer because at least he had a modern processor and PCIe video slot – although she had to replace HIS fried video card, too (which is why he wasn’t using it).
• Had to move all of her Lightroom files to the ‘new’ PC because it was her new Photo PC – which took 36 hours. No, I’m not kidding.

So, she’s missed 3 days of production time fooling with all of these computers.

NIFTY SIDE: The new setup is working much better now that it’s finally ready. Even if Blair wants to use it all the time to play games now that there is a working graphics card on that machine.

4) Shari destroyed a nerve in her hand

Okay, not really destroyed, but irritated it enough taking pictures at the wedding (she had left the quick-release for the strap on and the constant pressure inflamed the nerve) that she lost feeling in her index finger and had shooting pains going up her arm. 10 days later, she’s just now getting the feeling back, and the doctor says it could be 2-12 weeks until it’s completely healed.

BRIGHT SIDE: Um, it’s not me?

5) Dell, you can take this laptop and shove it

A few weeks ago, our laptop suddenly started showing a lot of Greek and Chinese characters all over the screen. It was like “The Matrix” but in black-and-white 480x360px resolution, EGA screens. Then applications wouldn’t open, or would hang miserably. After much going back and forth, the technicians at Dell came to the answer that our video card had fried and probably torched something else on the motherboard at the same time. At the very least, something in the BIOS got jinxed and we weren’t going to be able to fix it short of opening up the case and trying ourselves.

We inquired about just having a new graphics card sent to us to try to put it in. First they couldn’t find a card that would fit our model – and then after telling us how hard it was to install them, informed us that if we DID buy one and try to install it ourselves, and couldn’t, they wouldn’t be able to take back the card we just bought to put it in. We would have to buy a second card that they would then install. Hmm, that doesn’t sound smart, right? So we sent it back to them.

A couple of weeks and $450 later (money we really don’t have right now), we get the computer back and Shari starts loading up our software, etc. To find that their are no drivers loaded and no information about what the video or motherboards are. AND that the same problem is still there. That’s right – not fixed. Then she spent 3 hours and 8 (yes, eight) phone calls trying to get through to someone at Dell to help her. After endless phone tag, multiple disconnects, several ‘out of warranty’ claims, she was ready (and willing) to throw the phone and/or laptop at the wall in frustration. Let’s just say that she’s not a happy camper right now.

SHINY SIDE: We’ll probably get the Dell “We f’d up” courtesy coupon when they take it back to fix it again. And in New Jersey, if we have to send it back a 3rd time, they have to replace it. Fingers crossed!

This morning, it was 10:30 and they still hadn’t left the house. They were still going to see my grandfather, which meant that instead of meeting in Philly by noon, they wouldn’t be there until at least 1 or later. And we still had to go to the rehearsal party at my aunt’s tonight – leaving scant time for doing the Franklin Institute, let alone that AND the museum. My father is notoriously late and takes an hour to get ready for anything, so I’m a little frustrated. Why?

Because it’s frickin’ 12:30 already and they still haven’t started moving toward Philly yet. Suddenly, my ONE day with Caleb – a day I took off of work for – is becoming the ‘hi Caleb, bye Caleb’ event. At this point, Shari can’t even go because she has to go to the rehearsal dinner to take pictures.

I really wish people would get their frickin’ acts together sometimes.

Quite of the Day

“It’s not that I don’t enjoy getting involved in a great story, or caught up in an engaging article, but I have the attention span of a cat at dusk, cranked up on Shrimp Medley, during a massive bird migration.”
– from Coudal Partners

Howard’s slow start is usual, but somewhat annoying after his arbitration payday ($10 million this season). Not only that but he has not seen a pitch this season that I couldn’t whiff at. He needs to stop and look at a couple of pitches. Ruiz and Feliz are useless. Neither one is hitting worth a damn, and are even worse when hitting with players in scoring position (hence 4 and 8 rbi, respectively). Why Chris Coste isn’t starting at this point is beyond me, even with Ruiz’ slight edge in fielding. The Phillies answer to the departed Aaron Rowand – Geoff Jenkins – is underwhelming even his detractors (that is, me). I wondered what they were thinking – they didn’t need more power, the needed someone to get on base to compensate for the strikeouts they are famous for. Instead they got a strikeout threat with a career .267 average – and he’s not even doing that. And Eric Bruntlett is a bad fielder and a worse hitter – my blind grandmother could hit better than .174!

So, let’s see – the ‘big’ free agent signings this year were Jenkins (.250, 1HR, 3RBI) and Feliz (.206, 3HR, 8RBI) for $8,000,000. The guy they let go – Aaron Rowand – is getting $9.6million and hitting .340 (although with only 1 HR and 8 RBI on a bad Giants team). And don’t get me started on the pitchers they let go (Lohse, Gavin Floyd, etc.). It’s phrickin’ nuts that they have bad hitting this year from most of this line-up! If not for Utley and Burrell, the team average might be hovering around the Mendoza line!!

Updates

I wrote the above during last night’s game. By the end of the game, Ryan Howard had hit the Mendoza line (.200) and Ruiz and also managed to make it above .200 (.212). But Feliz dropped to a paltry .203 and Taguchi has added his astounding .240 average to the mix.

To put the batting woes in perspective, here are the cumulative stats for the Phillies, including last night’s win against the Rockies, vs their stats if you pull out the only 3 performers they have (Utley, Burrell and Rollins in limited action):

Notice the difference?

• Candidates: Clinton, Huckabee, McCain, Obama, Paul
• News: CNN (1, 2), MSNBC, Fox, BBC

But the scope of that section is always fuel and climate, and while they might differ in how they will deal with those issues, it’s still just one small aspect of the environmental policy of this country. Paul does the best at speaking to something else on the site itself, while Obama does tackle some other issues in his downloadable “Read the Environmental Plan”. But I wanted to know more about what all of the remaining candidates felt about different issues regarding the environment: conservation, endangered species, clean air and water, national park lands, drilling and mine rights on Federal land, the EPA and BLM and more. And you know what I found?

ALMOST NOTHING.

After almost an hour of looking, it seemed like the only environmental opinions that any of the candidates had was a) Global Warming; b) Lowering Dependence on Foreign Oil. Don’t get me wrong – those are very important, but at this point in the race, I think we know how all of them feel – which is to say, they all want to lower both (a) and (b), while keeping jobs in the U.S. Their methods differ slightly, but the overall point is the same. So, what about the rest of it?

I finally found some information on the League of Conservation Voters website, particularly their 2008 Presidential Primaries Voter Guide, which gives the breakdown of each candidate on several additional issues. They scored all of the candidates on their environmental records and stances over a variety of issues:

1. Obama – 96
2. Clinton – 90
3. McCain – 26
4. Paul – 20
5. Huckabee – 0 (he hasn’t voted federally, so they don’t have a voting record to count).

But the real meat was their Presidential Profiles page, which actually goes more in-depth on how the candidates feel about the issues beyond the global warming and energy areas. For each candidate, they give an overall scorecard, followed by each individual category:

1. Global Warming and Energy
   • Mandatory Emission Caps
   • International Action on Global Warming
   • Fuel Efficiency Standards
   • Renewable Energy Standards
   • Efficiency Standards
   • Nuclear Energy
   • Liquid Coal
   • New Coal Plants
2. Public Health
   • Air Pollution
   • Superfund “Polluter Pays”
   • Chemical Security
   • Clean Water Act
   • Environmental Justice
   • Pesticides and Rural Communities
3. Natural Heritage
   • Oceans: Marine Life
   • Oceans: Offshore Drilling
   • Endangered Species Act
   • Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
   • National Forest Roadless Areas
   • Mining
4. Funding
   • Land and Water Conservation Fund
   • National Parks
5. The Larger Context
   • International Trade Agreements
   • Federal Pre-emption of State Laws
   • World Population
   • National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)

The great thing about this is that they sent the same questionnaires to all of the candidates, and relied on the answers given (supported by their voting records) for their scoring. You can read the text of each question from within the report, so you can get an idea of how the questions were framed, and understand how the candidates were answering. The fact that it touches on such a breadth of topics is great – it gives me a lot more information on who is thinking of which pieces of the environmental pie outside of the mainstream media’s focus – is fantastic. It’s just a shame that it took me so long to find this information – but I think it’s worthwhile to take the time to find out about what our next President might feel about the environment. Especially when they’re going to have a heck of a job cleaning up the mess that the Bush administration has made.