All You Need to Know to Run a Political Campaign

Why Voters Say they Don't Really Know Barack Obama (and Why They Don't Really Know Much about John McCain, Either)

Solving the Afghan Problem

According to the military a "surge" of just more troops in Afghanistan is not going to help. One big problem is the porous Pakistan border.

But a different type of surge is needed in Afghanistan, said Gen. David McKiernan, the top NATO commander there.

"There is no magic number of soldiers that are needed on the ground to win this campaign," McKiernan said. "What we need is security of the people. We need governance. We need reconstruction and development."

"Reconstruction and development" when have we heard this before. After the Russians pulled out, defeated by the US backed insurgents, the US just left Afghanistan to rot and gave no help to rebuild the country, leaving it ripe for the Taliban. Reconstruction and help with development would have helped Afghanistan develop into a decent country rather than degenerate into a fundamentalist Muslim state.

Another challenge is Afghanistan's unchecked drug trade, which reportedly is financing the violence.

"Ninety percent of the world's opium comes from Afghanistan, and much of that money ends up in the hands of warlords and other militants," Curtis said.

McKiernan said, "There is a clear linkage between 'narco' trafficking and financing of the insurgency."

Farmers had quit growing poppies when the Taliban made them quit. But with no Taliban they reverted to poppies as the best cash crop they had. One way to influence the financing of the militants is to subsidize the farmers to grow other crops. Even if it cost a few million, it would be cheaper than military action.

Source article here on CNN.

Thanks for the Jam

A jar of jam of unknown origin was found in the frig this evening as Wm was fixing his own dessert of peanut butter and jam on the remains of the Truckee Sourdough. (The dinner of eggplant casserole and assorted greens in southern style pot likker with bread for dipping not having been quite enough.) I finally deduced that some visitors from Colorado must have left it in the frig after their visit in June. So, thanks for the jam.

American Marten

Probably the animal I saw in the woods yesterday was an American Marten--another member of the weasel family. Cute--although I just saw it stretched out running.

Gold Lake

We took the PW up to Gold Lake for a few days. It was cool and breezy and nice to just sit next to the water. The last day I saw a couple of deer on the hillside, a doe and a 3 point buck with soft velvet antlers. Just as we were getting ready to leave I saw a reddish brown weasel looking animal about twice the size of a cat running fast across the road from the lake side to the hillside. The only animal that fits the description is a Pacific Fisher, very shy and seldom seen.



Is that William or some ghostly apparition?

Failed State?

The German newspaper Die Tageszeitung a few days ago called Belgium the "most successful 'failed state' of all time."

With Flemish nationalism on the rise, Belgium teeters on the edge

Obama/Reagan

Just saw this and couldn't resist for independents who loved Reagan.



Not an official campaign ad, just something made up on You Tube.

Jellyfish for Dinner

There is a plague of jellyfish, for lots of reasons, most having to do with man. So we need to learn to eat jellyfish. The Chinese do.

Granola

Wm has been eating granola for breakfast a lot, so I thought I would break out the old recipe for

Homemade Granola
1 lg box oats
2 cups unsweetened coconut
1 jar wheat germ
2 cups soy flour
2 cups milk powder
2 cups ground/chopped nuts
2 cups sesame seeds
2 cups sunflower seeds
4 cups honey mixed with 1 cup of oil
Mix all together and toast in large pan in 350 degree oven about 15-20 minutes or until lightly browned. Stir to prevent scorching. Store in airtight containers.

I started making this back when we lived in Groveland at White's Gulch before we moved to Cherry Lake. I remember I had made Valerie a bowl of hot cereal out of it, to make it softer, and as she was eating it she commented, "coconut." I was rather startled that she, at about 18 months, could recognize the taste of coconut in her cereal. I remember I just told her, "yes, Valerie the cereal has coconut in it."

As the youngest grand baby approaches two I find myself thinking back to Valerie and Jon at two or so. Fond reminiscences.

Bogus Anthrax Investigation

There are so many things that smell about this investigation, it is hard to know where to begin.
1. Cheney and others were taking Cipro prior to the attacks and others were told to take Cipro prior to any mailings.
2. Anthrax was subsequently mailed mostly to "liberal" news sources and Democratic members of Congress who were blocking/slowing progress of the US Patriot Act.
3. Immediate leakage of the idea (McCain on Letterman) that the source of the anthrax was probably Iraq.
4. Subsequent leaking of information to ABC that the anthrax had bentonite in it making it surely from Iraq by four lying sources. The anthrax had no bentonite and no tests ever indicated that it did.
5. After the anthrax was determined to have come from a US source, our weapons lab, years were spent on potential suspect Hatfill who was recently given >$5 million for the harassment.
6. An employee of the weapons lab commits suicide.
7. A therapist/counselor comes forward loudly and vocally with wild accusations against the deceased, that he had been horribly mentally unstable with the intent to murder others since 2000.
8. The friends and co-workers of the deceased claim they had no problems with him at work, that he was a devout church goer and volunteer for the Red Cross who had become depressed with what he felt was harassment by the FBI.
9. Other scientists have said that as a specialist in vaccines the deceased did not have the skills to make weaponized aerosol anthrax.
10. The head of the lab says that this cannot be the end of the investigation, that there are too many more questions.
11. Why was an unstable person allowed to keep a high security clearance?
12. Who leaked untrue information to ABC?
13. Where did John McCain get his information?
14. Why was Cheney taking Cipro?
15. The FBI plans to close its investigation within days.

Gas Prices

What are your feelings on gas prices? I am somewhat irritated and am not driving as much. I try to consolidate my trips and walk to the store more. I am irritated that I cannot fill my tank using the debit card anymore as the $50 limit only fills it 3/4 full.
I am more irritated at the odd circumstances I read, about why the price of oil has climbed so much and why oil company profits are up so much.
I read about peak oil and supply and demand and think OK, but why did the price increase so fast?
I read speculation about speculators and also that an amendment to restrict oil speculation is filibustered down in the Senate by guess who and I think "hmm."
I read that the price of oil will go down immediately if only oil companies are allowed to drill in sensitive places such as offshore and ANWR. Is it just like sticking a straw in and sucking oil out?
I read that the professional filibusters in the Senate are now filibustering ALL bills until they are allowed to have a bill for more offshore drilling.
I read that oil companies donated >$1 million to McCain after he came out in favor of offshore drilling.
I read that offshore drilling is perfectly safe now and that no oil was spilled with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Then I read just the opposite--with numbers and pictures.
I read that offshore drilling would have no effect for 10 years and then would effect the price of gas by only pennies.
I read that the special ships that do offshore drilling are booked up for five years.
I read that US oil companies have lots of rights to drill in many offshore locations that they are not utilizing right now.
I also read that US oil companies have not built any new refineries in about 30 years and that the current refineries are running at about 85% of capacity, down from last year.
I also read that we export about 10% of our domestic production of oil and oil products. What?
I also read that the right to offshore drilling and the leasing of these areas would just be added to oil companies books as production reserve to increase the value of their stock!

I think I am beginning to understand the reasons for the price and profit increase. Just count us all as contributors to the largess of modern day oil barons.

Update: House Republicans are now staging a sit-in on the House floor to be allowed to have a bill for offshore oil drilling.

Negative Ads

Remember, people say they do not like negative ads. But negative ads are effective. Right now with his untruthful negative ads about Obama, McCain is portraying Obama as someone you do not want to vote for. So who will you vote for? You will vote for someone other than Obama.
This is developing into a tight Rovian campaign. Negative ads, negative books, purging of voter lists, and more "problems" with voting machines and vote counting. The issues will be seldom addressed and for those who said it couldn't happen once and then that it couldn't happen twice, I say third time could be the charm/same.
Obama is going to have to go negative with ads on McCain in a big way. For the sensibilities of Obama voters it should be outside organizations that do it. But Obama himself is going to have to say harsh things about McCain also.
Do you know that the McCain organization had critical ads of Obama ready to go, accusing him of using the troops for political purposes, if he did visit troops in the German military hospital. So it would be heads Obama loses or tails he loses.
McCain has hitched his wagon to the low-road express.

Remodeled Ring

A few weeks ago I noticed that one of the prongs had broken off of one of the diamonds on my engagement ring. When I went to the jewelers they also noticed that there were further cracks in the setting. So I got a new setting and got the emerald polished also. Good for thirty years at least.

Mongol

Spent today with a contractor and solar guy visit and trying hard to draw up plans for the house remodel.
Tonight we went to the movie Mongol. Highly recommend this movie. The early life of Genghis Khan.

Military-Industrial Complex

Under Reagan we began the wholesale privatization of the military. Support for this was drummed up by horror stories of high prices paid for toilet seats and screwdrivers. If private industry just handled more tasks, the cost would come down. So Clinton continued this privatization with more and more tasks handed to private industry. But the best has been the Bush 2 administration. With no-bid contracts to corporations that support the administration using cost-added contracts the price of any military operation or item can really add up. We are actually paying hundreds maybe thousands of times what would be a fair price for goods and services and in many cases getting lousy goods and services. This is the joy of privatization or corporatization of our military. The Military-Industrial Complex: It's Much Later Than You Think

Oil Shale

So, vast deposits. Oil shale must be the answer. Except for a small caveat.

America's "vast," "immense" deposits of shale have the energy density of a baked potato.

Longer new article here.

Who is to blame

Lots of people have had their hands out taking money from people via bad loans, bundling loans and selling them as A+ securities, paying lower tax rates than you and I do, forming multi-state mega banks that sell you non FDIC investments, and then getting bailed out with more of our money. Their names are legion and found in the thousands of new multi-millionaires and billionaires in our country. But who opened the door to this greed? Who changed banks from trusted institutions who were individually responsible for your loan and your savings to faceless institutions who have no responsibility for what they do and no regulations to mitigate their behavior? Have you heard the name Phil Gramm?

My Pic for Obama VP

In the last month or so I decided Sen Jack Reed would be Obama's choice. Since he went to Iraq with Obama he has been getting a bit more press.
Update: Wrong so soon.

Bank Failures

So 2 more moderate sized banks go into FDIC receivership, on Friday afternoon so you will not notice. Estimates are that as many as 2200 banks will fail, far outstripping the assets of FDIC. To suppress the panic the FDIC will be backed up by the US Treasury. Is the US Treasury a magical pile of money that can keep regenerating itself? Or is there a bottom somewhere?

Update: How safe are you? Although FDIC insures your deposits up to 100K, if you have more than this in accounts with the same name in the same bank you will lose anything over 100K. Your bank is only required to have cash assets of the equivalent of 10% of what is in checking accounts and nothing of what is in savings accounts. Where is all the money? Out in bad loans, bad mortgages and crazy financial instruments too esoteric to understand but all OK in our current deregulated system.
Deregulation is the baby of good old Phil Gramm, who was in back of Enron and current crisis at UBS. He has written the economic policy of McCain and will certainly remain as a shadow adviser for more of the same. US Economy for the big bucks guys--suck until dry and then toss away.

More Girls

Indigenous peoples in the arctic who live on a native diet rich in large marine mammals are having many more girl babies. PCB's built up in the fat of these animals are building up in the women and are mimicking human hormones.