Pebbles and Bomb Bomb

Welcome to the Terrordome. Ladies and Gentlemen, your 2008 Republican ticket.


Mooseburgers and Budweiser, that's the ticket.

Now that McCain has picked someone with less experience than Dan Quayle for vice president, will that put all the foaming at the mouth about experience to rest? Any Hillary voter who would vote for McCain because of Palin does not give a steaming pile of moose dung about experience. It is possible, however, that they are a feminist bigot, or a racist scraping the bottom of the barrel for excuses.

Personally, I feel that the number of people who would fall into this category is rather small, but the NBC-Fox-McCain campaign likes to emphasize the views of a few wackos. (Besides John Sidney, that is.)

Anyone else notice that Palin looks a bit like Janine Turner from Northern Exposure?

The economic situation

Mike Whitney's interview with Michael Hudson, How the chicago boys wrecked the economy.

This interview is very interesting and almost certainly very important. Will the economic troubles in the US turn into a total financial meltdown? Maybe, maybe not. But many aspects of the current situation defy common sense, and survive only because powerful people are able to make it so. If that power dissipates, watch out.

Note that Obama's economic team includes those who are part of the powerful elite that can impose there will on the financial system.

End the War Convention Edition

Obamamania continues. But the number one priority is still end the war.

The sooner we can end the war, the better. "Your son died because we had to wait six months to leave Iraq while we had an election."

Joe Biden's son appears to be fixing to join John McCain's son in Iraq. I wonder whether that was a factor in the choice.

I have a Fosters (Aussie brand, but American beer brewed by union labor in Texas) and a microbrew pale ale cooling in the fridge for the great man's speech. Bill Clinton set a high bar for Obama. I tell ya, if I were McCain, I would be scared about Bill Clinton getting out on the stump, telling people that Barack Obama will return our economy to its strong position like when he was president, and that by the way, Barack is a year older than Clinton was when he was elected.

One of the PBS guys said something like "Reminds you of what it is like to have a president who blah blah blah". I don't remember what he said, but it wasn't very significant. Now if he would have said "Reminds you what it is like to have a president who isn't a complete idiot", or "Reminds you what it is like to have a president who is sharp as a tack, extremely articulate, and totally engaged in the job," it would have been meaningful. But there was probably a Bush functionary waiting to pull the plug if he said something like that. (Maybe it did happen, and what we got was cover up babble after 10 second delay.)

What the fuck was CBS doing putting Romney on for the Democrats. I sure as fuck hope they don't put Edwards on during the Republicans. Would Hillary or Bill go on during the Republicans? If so, maybe they could remind viewers of the Ron Paul convention.

Hey guys, don't forget to end the war.

Wise words from Jesse Jackson

Here is a Jesse Jackson quote from Counterpunch:

America is at a turning point. We continue to pursue a war that is producing needless deaths, draining us of our financial resources and robbing us of our moral authority. Our national infrastructure crumbles - levees in New Orleans, a bridge in Minnesota - and we fail to make the investment necessary to fix it. We are failing our youth and jeopardizing our future greatness by letting our educational system deteriorate and responding by expanding our prison system: second-class schools, first-class jails.

We need the leadership Barack will bring. However, the burden of fulfilling the Dream, mending the broken promise, falls on all of us. I recall the story of a meeting that labor leader A. Philip Randolph had with President Franklin Roosevelt regarding a long list of discriminatory practices blacks were facing in society and the workplace. He clearly presented the case to the president, who listened carefully and responded. Roosevelt said: "I can't just give you the rights you seek. I wish I could. I agree with everything you've said to me. Now go out and make me do it." Barack will set the tone. He will provide the vision and inspiration to move forward. But it is up to us to do the work, to demand the change that must come if the Dream is to be fulfilled. We must make it happen.

Make it happen folks. Reread the first paragraph. Jesse is not talking about anything racial in that paragraph, he is talking about fundamental moral issues and quality of life for everyone. In 1988, Jesse ran a very strong, issue oriented campaign, but America was not ready for a black president, particularly not one who hadn't been run through the filter of white institutions like Harvard, Columbia, and Occidental colleges. America has changed, to a certain extent because the older, more racist generation has died.

Dennis Miller is Bloodthirsty

Dennis Miller said on his radio show that he can't vote for Obama because he thinks that Obama would have more reservations about sending young American troops to get killed than McCain would.

He is probably right about Obama and McCain's consciences, but I would see that as a reason to vote for Obama.

Also, a reason to ignore Dennis Miller in the future.

Johanna Neuman asks, "Where's Condi?"

Blogging for the LA Times, Johanna Neuman wonders why Condi is so lethargic about responding the the Russia-Georgia conflict.

Rice, a former Stanford professor specializing on the Soviet Union, is oddly absent from public view.
...
Rice went to Tbilisi, Georgia, in July, trying to calm the situation ... Publicly, she talked about Georgia's "territorial integrity." State Department officials said she privately warned the Georgians not to provoke Russia.

But critics told the Wall Street Journal that Rice may not have responded quickly to Russia's muscle-flexing on Georgia's border because she has been focused elsewhere -- preoccupied with Iraq, Iran and the Arab-Israeli conflict -- and delegated the Soviet account to more junior officials.

Or maybe there was "nothing actionable" in the intelligence reporting, just like in the August 6 pdb.

She is 3 1/2 years into the job and she can't deal with more than one country at a time? Even after she just went to Georgia in July? That is a strange kind of preoccupation. Who are those critics?

Again, if she delegated the issue, why didn't she delegate the trip?

Either she is happy with what the Russians and Georgians are doing, or she is clueless about what to do. Guess where my money is.

Bancroft-Hinchey Really Disses Rice

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey really lays into Rice in Pravda:

Perhaps you are the most hated US Secretary of State, the most ludicrous and ridiculous figure to have insulted international diplomacy and the most incompetent, insolent, useless waste of space ever to have occupied your office.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Matt Cooper Disses Condi

So I am not alone in the Condi anti-fan club. Matt Cooper of Plame fame inveighs against Madame Secretary's legendary incompentence. Juicy quote:

Her mismanagement of her coordinating role is pretty amazing.

Other than that, he goes pretty easy on her:

Sometimes you have to go by results. Rice has many wonderful qualities, but being a great secretary of state, arguably, isn't one of them.

Uh, it isn't arguable.

This Land is Their Land

Tuli Kupferberg of the Fugs has put some fascinating stuff on you tube. For example,



Also, Masters of Nicotine.



My son heard these and said, "Dad, turn that crap off."

Bored in Beijing

The Olympic opening ceremony was visually stunning, with choreography by Lt. Gen. Zhang Jigang. Following the performance was the traditional march of the athletes around the stadium. NBC in their coverage showed George and Laura Bush watching the ceremony. During the performance, Bush was watching through binoculars. During the march of the athletes, he was fidgeting, restless, checking his watch, and generally looking bored out of his fucking skull.

Get it together, man. It's your last Olympics as President of the fucking United States, you just saw an amazing performance, and you are in the Bird's Nest, an architectural masterpiece. Look alive! You have a few hours with no deficit, no Iraq, no economy, and no Cheney. What's the deal, you got Condi Rice waitin for you back at the hotel?

Or maybe you drunk?

Cheney Sent The Anthrax

Sheldon Rampton, in his article for Counterpunch, points out that ABC News claims that four separate sources told them that the anthrax attacks were linked to Iraq. Now the FBI says Bruce Ivins acting alone was responsible for the attacks. Rampton calls out ABC for protecting the identity of its so called sources. Is ABC so timid they enjoy being played for suckers? Or are they part of the conspiracy? Or should Jake Tapper, Jonathan Karl, George Stephanopolous, and the rest of their gang of journalistic eunuchs just admit "We are not journalists, we just play them on TV." And play them quite badly.

This whole business of feeding out lies in support of a particular political goal smells a lot like the Plame scandal, which we know came straight from the office of Dick Cheney. If it quacks like a Dick,....

Tired

It is August 6, 2008, the sixty third Hiroshima Day, and I am tired.

In the famous song 'Nicaragua' by Ed Sanders and Shockabilly, Sanders laments 'Why does my country so often stand on the side of the mean and the cruel.' On 45-08-06, the US wasn't on the side of the mean and cruel, it was the mean and cruel. Also, 45-08-09. Also, 03-03-19.

Let us put our own nukes aside, and stop fanning fears about those without nukes obtaining them. We can't say boo about nukes to Israel, India, North Korea, or Pakistan without being laughed at as the rankest hypocrites. Let's get our house in order, live up to our own values, and make the world a safer place.

Enders: No Roads Out, No Roads Home

David Enders has a dispatch in the Virginia Quarterly Review.

A ways down, he reports that the UNCR says 4.7 million Iraqis are displaced, including 2 million refugees.

Brilliant Foreign Policy Plan

Here is my foreign policy plan. Pick a country whose population has three distinct but cohesive groups. Invade it. Provide weapons and money to all sides. Incite a civil war between all three sides, or at least encourage them to hold onto their grievances. Then station a big chunk of your army in the crossfire between these three hostile groups.

Now start whining that a neighboring country, that is not doing any of this but is on good diplomatic terms with the government of the invaded country, is "interfering" in it. Threaten to attack the "interfering" country.

Finally, engage in the crudest attacks on those who disagree with this brilliant policy, and accuse them of wanting to surrender.

And secretary rice will play the piano while Baghdad burns.

Cascadaobserver has returned from summer vacation. My insightful commentary will return with the next post.
Meanwhile, MIT scientists find carbon free efficient solar energy process. MIT press release.

In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.

Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today's announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.

Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. "This is the nirvana of what we've been talking about for years," said MIT's Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a paper describing the work in the July 31 issue of Science. "Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon."

Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera's lab, have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night.

The key component in Nocera and Kanan's new process is a new catalyst that produces oxygen gas from water; another catalyst produces valuable hydrogen gas. The new catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water. When electricity -- whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source -- runs through the electrode, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced.

Combined with another catalyst, such as platinum, that can produce hydrogen gas from water, the system can duplicate the water splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis.

The new catalyst works at room temperature, in neutral pH water, and it's easy to set up, Nocera said. "That's why I know this is going to work. It's so easy to implement," he said.

'Giant leap' for clean energy
Sunlight has the greatest potential of any power source to solve the world's energy problems, said Nocera. In one hour, enough sunlight strikes the Earth to provide the entire planet's energy needs for one year.

James Barber, a leader in the study of photosynthesis who was not involved in this research, called the discovery by Nocera and Kanan a "giant leap" toward generating clean, carbon-free energy on a massive scale.

"This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind," said Barber, the Ernst Chain Professor of Biochemistry at Imperial College London. "The importance of their discovery cannot be overstated since it opens up the door for developing new technologies for energy production thus reducing our dependence for fossil fuels and addressing the global climate change problem."

'Just the beginning'
Currently available electrolyzers, which split water with electricity and are often used industrially, are not suited for artificial photosynthesis because they are very expensive and require a highly basic (non-benign) environment that has little to do with the conditions under which photosynthesis operates.

More engineering work needs to be done to integrate the new scientific discovery into existing photovoltaic systems, but Nocera said he is confident that such systems will become a reality.

"This is just the beginning," said Nocera, principal investigator for the Solar Revolution Project funded by the Chesonis Family Foundation and co-Director of the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center. "The scientific community is really going to run with this."

Nocera hopes that within 10 years, homeowners will be able to power their homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen to power their own household fuel cell. Electricity-by-wire from a central source could be a thing of the past.

The project is part of the MIT Energy Initiative, a program designed to help transform the global energy system to meet the needs of the future and to help build a bridge to that future by improving today's energy systems. MITEI Director Ernest Moniz, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems, noted that "this discovery in the Nocera lab demonstrates that moving up the transformation of our energy supply system to one based on renewables will depend heavily on frontier basic science."

The success of the Nocera lab shows the impact of a mixture of funding sources - governments, philanthropy, and industry. This project was funded by the National Science Foundation and by the Chesonis Family Foundation, which gave MIT $10 million this spring to launch the Solar Revolution Project, with a goal to make the large scale deployment of solar energy within 10 years.