The Al Franken Decade

As a guest 'commentator' on Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update in early 1980, Al Franken announced that the 80's were to be the  'Al Franken Decade'.

He missed it by about 30 years.

30 years in which we might have enjoyed Al's dry but insightful humor in political roles of all sorts, maybe even President.

If Mr. Franken's current lead of 50 votes in Minnesota's senatorial recount holds, his decade may finally arrive.  Al's election to the Senate, I think, will bring the catharsis that Minnesotans have been seeking since that Prince of Boredom, Walter Mondale, left the political stage.  

Mondale was an intelligent, liberal, thoughtful man, and a credit to his state. Too bad he had the palatability of Lutefisk to everyone outside Minnesota.  Al Franken is more wild rice than fish soaked in lye, and can be expected to travel better as a result. 

I am sure he will do a better job for that state than the wrestler they made Governor once, maybe even better than the 'Terminator' we in California made ours.  (For insurance, he should marry a Kennedy.)

If, after a long and illustrious tenure as Senator from Minnesota, Al Franken decides to run for President, I hope he books Tom Davis as his running mate.  A Franken and Davis administration would be good for everyone - or at least good fun.  

And, if that 50 vote lead doesn't hold, and Al Franken isn't elected to the Senate...

Well, then, as the great Emily Litella used to say ... 'Never Mind!'

Poetry Break 2: Bush & Cheney

Withered Bush, dried-up Shrub

Tumbling across the Nation

With that big Dick, Cheney,

following in formation

Blowing West, to Crawford

Much brush there is to clear

Just don't take 'ol Dick up on

His offer to hunt Deer!

The Directions of Time

Towards the end of every year I become reflective.  For those of you who have learned vocabulary from TV commercials, that doesn't mean I shine in the presence of light, although I can do that too, with proper motivation.

No, in the waning days and hours of the year, I think about Time.  I don't think too long, and not too hard -I reserve that sort of thinking for Super Bowl odds, but I do reflect upon the subject.

For instance:  I am currently wondering whether the flow of time is unidirectional.  In other words, does time flow only in one direction, 'towards' the future?  Or can time 'reverse' flow and go in the other direction, 'towards' the past?  Can an object (or a person) move through time in either direction?  Or in both directions at once?

In the three physical dimensions, movement is not limited to one direction (reflect on it), so why should Time be?  If Time is truly a dimension and not merely a measure of degradation (see our old friend entropy), then it shouldn't be any more restricted in its movement than a physical dimension.  And, according to mathematicians, there are equations that pretty much prove that Time exists as a dimension.  Either it does, or the universe as we know it goes 'poof'.  Unless there are yet-to-be-defined mathematics that equate 'poof' to a happy continuous existence, I'll accept the former explanation.

So, then, which direction in Time are we moving?  

From all appearances, it would seem that Time is flowing in the direction of least resistance, in step with entropy.  We and all other objects in our universe are moving in a temporal direction that corresponds to the increasing disorganization of matter.  For many of us, a quick look in the mirror each morning supports this hypothesis.

But what's to say that must always be true?  

Doesn't Newton's Third Law of Motion state, 'for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction'?  What if this is true for movement in Time? 

If so, then movement 'forward' in Time is either a reaction to an opposite and equal force, or moving 'forward' in Time creates an opposite and equal reaction.  Either way, something (object or force) is going the other direction.

OK, this is starting to go beyond reflection, and my brain is protesting at the unusual exercise. Time to quickly wrap this up.  Hmmm, 'quickly'.  That implies another property of Time - speed.  Does Time move at different rates?  Does Time move 'swiftly' forward but 'slowly' backward, like a car?

Ouch, I can take no more!  I think I'll wait until I've seen that new Brad Pitt movie, 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button', before reflecting any further.  

According to the trailers and promos, his character grows younger throughout the film, in full reverse to everyone else.  Of course, if he were truly moving in reverse in Time, he would get stupider as he got younger.  Unless, the collection of experience is independent of the directionality of Time, which would mean that different objects or energies could move in opposite directions in Time, simultaneously.  Damn!  There I go again.  Stopping now...

Falling Into Christmas

By this time in a usual year, I would be donning my Christmas garb, practicing my hearty ho-ho's, and looking forward to lots of good things to eat and drink.

Which is another way of saying I'd be well into the spirit of the season and comfortably ahead of schedule in shopping.

In a normal year my thoughts would turn to Christmas preparation (anticipation being reserved for kids), oh, about December 1st.  It would be just the occasional thought.  Come Dec 10th I would be more or less focused, and by Dec 15th rabidly on task.

But this year I seem to be stepping off my back foot, or stepping while the rug is being pulled out from under me.  I seem to be falling into Christmas...

Just a few days ago I was still thinking of the usual chores of life, made slightly more complicated by this economic 'meltdown' (maybe that is the global warming they've been talking about, cause it sure isn't warm right now).

Now I am incredibly late in my duties and experiencing the angstiest of Christmas angsts ever.

I hope my family will forgive me if I just give up right now and sit by the fire and drink a nice merlot.  This is a holiday about love, warmth, and peace, after all, and not frantic dashing here and there, standing in long, long lines, and combating gridlock traffic.

I hope they will accept that I am fallible and only getting more so. 

And I hope they like gift certificates...

Merry Christmas !!!

Close-captioning for Dyslexics

I happened into a bar this evening for a bit of refreshment.  Playing on the big screen was a football contest between the New York Giants and Seattle Seahawks.  Since the ambience of the bar called for constant music, the sound was turned off on the TV, with captioning enabled.

Now captioning has been with us for decades, so the art should have long ago become a science, but you wouldn't have believed so from this night's telecast.

Incomprehensible gibberish played in white lettering across the black captioning box.  Every now and then a recognizable word or couple of words would pop up, but mostly I was left wondering if the captions were in Aramaic, or maybe Cherokee.

Phrases such as '..thud do and 10' gave me some hope I would grow to comprehend, but then a new line beginning with the hopeful 'Al:' would devolve into a random scrabble-fest of unknowable content. 

Stymied.

I won't say which network aired the game, but its initials do not stand for 'Not Bad Captioning'.

Luckily for patrons of noisy bars and for deaf football fans everywhere, the game can be enjoyed without 'expert' comment. 

Poetry Break 1: Bernie Madoff

50 billion dollars dancing

On Bernie Madoff's lap

Such a sunny fellow

Such a peachy chap

Give him all your savings, he gives you back some rope

More than enough to hang yourself

When you run out of hope

50 billion dollars dancing

In Bernie Madoff's lair

He's a trusty fellow

Hope he gets the chair

R.I.P. Deep Throat

Mark Felt, the man known as 'Deep Throat' for his role as confidential Watergate informant to investigative reporters Woodward and Bernstein, has left this world at 95.  Felt, a former high-ranking FBI careerist, admitted in 2005 to being the reporters' source, after years of silence.  The revelation met with a general 'ho-hum' from some and a mutter of subdued approval from most.  

Now that Mr. Felt has passed away, some critics have come out of the woodwork to speculate that his motives may have been selfish and not as honorable as previously assumed.  They speculate that he spoke out of anger of not getting the FBI top job after J. Edgar Hoover, or that he was placing the FBI ahead of, and somehow above, the President (as if that would be a bad thing!).

I say the critics have it wrong.  Back in 1973, the FBI clearly had gathered substantial information about the break-in at the democratic campaign headquarters at the Watergate hotel.  Just as clearly Nixon and his staff were pressing hard behind the scenes to keep that information from congress and the public.  

Under normal circumstances, the FBI would have pursued the leads, but with the President's pressure play stifling this option, there was really only one alternative.   So off to that DC garage in a trench coat went Mark Felt, passing information to reporters who would do what the FBI couldn't.

I choose to view the man as a patriot and frustrated law enforcement lifer who couldn't bear to allow anyone, even the President, to break the law and manipulate the FBI to cover it up.  He should get equal credit with Woodward, Bernstein, and the Washington Post, for stopping Nixon's machine and giving us at least a couple of extra decades of relatively corruption-free executive government.  Too bad there haven't been any like-minded individuals around (in the FBI or the press) to keep Bush-Cheney in line.

No, the few critics popping up now are wrong.  Mr. Mark 'Deep Throat' Felt will go down in history as a hero - perhaps even as the patron saint of whistle-blowers.  Rest easy, sir.

The Infrastructure of Love

The Beatles once sang in a tune, 'money can't buy me love'.    You can argue otherwise, but I tend to agree with the Fab Four.  Strictly speaking, love can and does happen, even when the lovers are penniless.

But there is no doubt that money does enable love.  It allows the proper setting of romantic atmosphere - candlelit dinners, adventurous travel, lavish gifts, and whatever else the love-struck human with available cash can conjure to please the object of their affection.

This begs the question whether the current depression will have any effect on love.  Will we love less? Will love be less successful?  Or will love conquer all, and usher in a new age of non-commercial romance?

Hope and our romanticism makes us believe the answers should be No, No, and Oh Yes.  The pragmatist in us tells us the answers likely will be No, Yes, and Not In This Life Bubba.

We won't love less.  Nothing can stop the love.  Not even Bernie Madoff.    But love won't be as easy to realize, without the usual props that money helps provide.  And we are too attuned to wrapping love in gifts to ever stop commercializing it.

So, during this economic crisis, will we continue to feel love, but act on our feelings less often, making fewer commitments?  Maybe.  

I could be wrong, and we may enter into a period of wildly enthusiastic love as a means of escaping our problems.  Love can work that way, and as emotional crutches go, it's got to rank above excessive drug use and hyper-evangelistic religion.  And unlike those two common fallbacks in a crisis, over-indulging in love has fewer immediate pitfalls.  Love is unlikely to kill your liver in a month, or lead you to give all your money and belongings to a cable channel televangelist.

Or, we may be temporarily doomed to romantic dreaming, until we again have the means to build the intricate, intimate, infrastructure of love.

Hurry the recovery!

Morning Babble-On 5

Ah Wednesday!  Half way to the weekend ...

Sole-O Diplomacy - After years spent attempting to perfect the 'shoe bomb', radical islamic terrorists have been shown the way forward by an Iraqi TV reporter.  Getting an American president to duck (twice) from shoes (allegedly size 10) tossed by an indignant newsie was a public relations coup. One of a magnitude that has left Osama bin Laden Kermit-green with envy. We can expect elite shoe-tossing squads to form soon.

Free Money - A new low in both interests rates and governmental sense and reason was reached on Tuesday, when the Fed announced it would cut it's prime rate to 'between zero and .25 percent'.  What's next?  Maybe Ford, GM, and Chrysler will announce an incentive deal for negative 0.99% financing.  Under the plan, the longer the loan period, the less you pay! I can gel with that.  Meanwhile banks will likely raise the rates they charge consumers for credit cards by 5%. Again.

Will the last honest person please turn off the lights - Are there any honest brokers left on Wall Street?  There must be at least one.  Ironically it is probably someone nobody trusts, unlike Bernie Madoff, who everyone trusted.  Anyway, if you are there, please turn off the lights when you leave.  Cancel the mail, close shop, and take up a job at Ford, GM, or Chrysler. 

20 Megawatts

It is raining here in Los Angeles this evening.  The skies clouded up at dusk, building into a solid grey overcast, and now we are getting it.

Odd, then, that I should be telling you about a milestone in clean energy our family reached not long ago.  

We passed 20,000 kilowatt-hours of power generated by solar panels we installed back in 2003.

That's 20 megawatts we've poured into the 'grid' that otherwise wouldn't have been there.  Useful, stuff, especially if more people were doing it.

But there is a catch.  It's expensive.   And even though we generated all that power, we may never see the cost of the system paid back.  That's because our Department of Water and Power (DWP) charges a minimum fee for connection to the grid.  Even in months where we generate more power than we use, giving the DWP extra energy to sell, we end up paying for the privilege.

Of course, our monthly energy costs are lower than they would be without the system.  The power generated in excess of what we use goes into the grid and as it does it spins our electrical meter backwards, taking power off the scale.  That energy 'credit' helps keep the electric portion of our energy bill manageable.

Still, if Governor Schwarzenegger wants his 'million solar roofs' dream to succeed, he'll need to create incentives that work.  That will mean battling both the greed of the private utilities and the sluggish bureaucracy of the public ones (like our DWP).  Rebates must be offered and paid promptly (ours still hasn't been - after 5  years), and there should be no such thing as paying to provide power.  If you generate more than you use, then you should pay nothing - or maybe get paid for the excess (but let's not hope for too much).

Economic snafus aside, though, it feels good knowing we are helping...

Every little megawatt counts!

Paranoia Normal

What horrific crisis of the soul befouls our American news media these days?

That brief phase of euphoric hope that warmed even the cold-pressed hearts of the press after Obama's election win? Gone. Vanished into the greedy, needy, rush for news that grabs attention.

There are plenty of depressing actual facts to report, so you would think that would be enough.

But no, our media feel the need to serve up heaping helpings of dire speculation on a dismal future.  It's as if they want society to collapse into chaos so they have something interesting to report - and maybe sell tickets to.

It's paranoia sold as a commodity.  Let's not buy.

Morning Babble 4

T.G.I.F. has never been a more apt sentiment than this week.

Die Detroit Die - Is it just me, or does it seem to everyone that our congressional representatives are behaving like spoiled, quarreling children at recess?  Now, I am not personally in favor of a carte-blanche bailout to the Big Three, but I think they deserve a little more respectful attention than our reps have given them.  And who is responsible for the latest snafu?  The party of business, of course, the GOP, the Re-pub-li-cans!  It might be up to their lame duck President to save the day. Woo-boy, are we in trouble...

Oh My, Chicago, Oh My - Some things never change.  The City of Broad Shoulders, famed for its entrenched political machines, seems destined to forever carry that weighty ethical burden.  This latest (and perhaps greatest) involving an arrested and amazingly corrupt Governor, may in fact be a problem for the whole state of Illinois, but everyone will blame Chicago and it's rough and tumble politics.  This whole mess makes shamed ex-New York Governor Elliot Spitzer's peccadilloes look positively lame by comparison, in a Clintonian sort of way.  And no-one blamed New York City politics for that one.  

Watching The Jobs Fly - Away that is.  What on Earth was Bank 0f American thinking?  That already giant banking enterprise took full advantage of the woes of other banks and brokerage firms in the economic meltdown, and bought them up to make itself even more powerful and massive. But now we hear they are laying off up to 35,000 workers over the next three years.  I'll bet that wasn't listed in the takeover plans!  The absolute worst example of corporate greed and callousness to come out of this whole mess.  

Toys For Boys - Not Less, But Fewer

This is shaping up to be a miserable Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or whatever you might be celebrating this season.  Miserable, that is, for 'boys' old enough to shave, and even worse for those able to remember the Reagan administration from direct experience.

And pretty darn frustrating for wives, lovers, mothers, and friends who can no longer find that 'perfect' gift.

A recent exploration of the local malls revealed a dearth of stores hawking the kind of goods that older boys love to get as presents.   The Sharper Image is gone, gone, gone.  Brookstone is still there, but somehow just doesn't fill the gap left in the shopping continuum.  The Discovery Store seems mostly gone - the web site doesn't even provide a store locator, meaning one less option for last-minute gifts.  The Apple Store is present and accounted for, but how many iPods does a boy need?

So. Fewer weird, all-but-useless, yet interesting electronic gadgets for us this year.  No quiet air filtration fans to remove allergens from our playrooms.  No vibrating chairs with built-in iPod chargers and drink coolers.  Looking happy and surprised when getting gifts will be tougher.  

The picture is brighter for girls, though, if that aforementioned mall exploration is any judge.  No shortage of stores selling apparel of all styles for that demographic. 

At least we poor, gadget-bereft males can take solace in providing our wives, lovers, mothers, and friends with the perfect gift.

More Fewers and Fewer Lesses

In less time than it takes for you to read slightly fewer words than there are in this sentence, some highly-paid writer, somewhere, will mix up their use of the adjectives 'fewer' and 'less'.

Most of the time it's a case of 'less' being used when the correct option is 'fewer'.  As in 'the change affects less people', or, 'the downturn may end up  costing the economy less jobs than expected.'

Often the negative effect is barely noticeable, and the mistake can be tolerated.

Sometimes it can't.

I was watching a movie on TV the other day and one of those 'tags' popped up at the bottom of the screen.  

It read,  'Move Movies,  Less Commercials'.    

The tag popped up so often and for so long each time during the movie's run that I began wishing for,

'Less Movie, More Commercials'.

Maybe that was the plan all along.

The Big Three On Welfare

Well-televised 'negotiations' continue around the 'bailout' for the Big Three US automakers.  They wanted $25 billion initially, then $34 billion.  Now it seems like they will get $15 billion to start, with more later if they behave themselves.

Part of the deal is the appointment of a 'car czar' to oversee the bailout.  This czar will ride herd on the automakers to make sure they are 'responsible to the taxpayers'.   Like the defense industry is responsible to the taxpayers ...

So what does this mean?  Will cars be made by congressional committee?  Will we end up one day driving the US equivalent of the Yugo?  Or will we end up paying $5000 for a shift knob?

Given Congress's current plan - and it does belong to Congress, since President Bush is nowhere in the mix and President-to-be Obama is keeping his head down on this issue (smart man), I'd really prefer the Big Three just go quietly bankrupt.

After all, what have the US automakers done for us lately?  

Well, they have:

- Closed factories and sent jobs overseas since the late 80's

- Persisted with fuel and environmental unfriendly SUVs 

- Bought foreign makers and ruined them (e.g., Ford and Volvo)

- Were bought by foreign makers and nearly ruined them (e.g., Daimler-Benz and Chrysler)

- Killed the electric car at the exact moment the US makers had a lead in that technology (GM)

- Blocked every attempt to start a new automaker in the US since the 30's.

A sterling record, I must say.  But not sufficient to hate the Big Three enough to subject them to the ministrations of a 'car czar', or any kind of 'czar'.   When has an appointed 'czar' ever done anything right in US government (remember the 'energy czar(s)')?  

No. Better to let them go into bankruptcy and try to renew themselves.  If they can't, that's business, and maybe we can finally get some new car companies in the US who embrace technology and don't try to squash it.

The Muddle East

Will we ever get our policy in the Middle East right?

We act in the area as if our rightness should be obvious to all, and if not, we can make them pay attention with our might.  We have stubbornly believed that our power and economic cleverness can bring permanent, positive changes, even when it's been obvious those only last while we are physically present.  Once we go away, it's business as usual.

And why not?  Most middle eastern countries have millennia-long ties with their neighbors, and we are far away.  Once we are gone, they must live with these neighbors, so why should they side with us?

We must find ways to connect with these countries which don't require the constant in-your-face presence of military might.

We must also find ways to help our close allies like Israel live with their neighbors without our constant help.  That help has been alienating and Israel would do better with its Arab neighbors without it (once those neighbors agree to live peacefully, that is).

Both are tall orders, which is why they have gone so long without filling. But we must fill them, or continue to muddle on in the Middle East, bringing no permanent improvement despite all of our best efforts.

Walking in LA

It's almost a cliche to say that 'nobody walks in LA', but it holds more than a grain of truth.  Unlike New York, say, or even hilly San Francisco, Los Angeles does not favor those who travel on foot.  But there are those of us who attempt it, from time to time.

There are sections of LA that are made to be walked, sections that contain closely packed stores, restaurants, and other amusements, but these sections are widely scattered across the city, and long, near featureless blocks must be crossed to get from one to another. Where the pedestrian can go for hours in New York without a break in interesting sights, in LA a great deal of patience and perseverance is required.

In LA the walker must also be at peace with internal dialogue, since the spacious gaps permit a total submersion into thoughts, welcome or otherwise.  If you have an issue waiting in the green room of your consciousness, it will burst onstage at some point during a walk in LA, guaranteed.  Best then, to be of stable personality - or on a suitable prescription, before burning any shoe leather.

Those of us who do throw caution and good judgement to the winds and take a walk in Los Angeles find that there is an upside.  More than one if you take the benefit that comes from exercise as a given.  Walking in LA allows us to see a city that is totally hidden from a car.  I believe it was the late, great comic monologist Spalding Gray who called the driving perspective a '35 mile per hour mentality', in that if something can't be seen from a car moving 35 miles per hour then it was effectively invisible.  

Walking cures this - in spades.  You would be amazed how many hidden stores, historic buildings, places of other interest, and nuances of culture are revealed to the curious pedestrian.  

As an example, on a recent walk through Pasadena (not LA that is true, but close and the principal holds) I noticed that Honda had an advanced R&D center right in Old Town, and that the Disney Store had it's 'world headquarters' in a mostly unmarked and unidentified sprawling complex on Raymond street.  A small plaque near the entrance was all that identified the place.

Not world-shattering news you say?  Maybe, but these are things you would never notice from a car, and I for one am interested why, for instance, Honda has an R&D center in Pasadena.   Is it because of the proximity of Caltech?  Or are they just hiding?

The Disney Store HQ certainly seems to be.  Hiding, that is.  Can't imagine why, and I have even less a clue as to why they would be hiding in Pasadena and not nearby Burbank, where other (also largely incognito) Disney offices abound.  Maybe Burbank said, 'Enough! No More!' ... ?

Those mysteries I may never solve, but there will be more, as long as I keep on walking in (and around) LA.

Ducks On Slugs

I have found a new measure of happiness.  

Happy as a lark.  Happy as a clam.  Happy as a pig in shit.   

These all pale in comparison to my new measure, which is also animal oriented:

Happy as ducks on slugs

Let me explain...

Ducks make interesting pets, but they aren't exactly affectionate.  They won't fight too much if picked up, but generally they keep you at a distance.  Like the two ducks in our family.

But they are much nicer when they are 'on' slugs...

The common gray garden slug, Deroceras (Agriolimax) reticulatum, is an irritating pest and a generally unloved creature.  It hides by day in some cool, moist spot and slides out at night to munch on your carefully-tended plants.  

Our 'pet' Khaki Campbell ducks, Sybil and Odysseus (OD), have a fondness for slugs edging towards mania, it turns out.  When I offer them slugs I've collected (on late night sweeps of the garden), they snap them up as happily as, well, larks, clams, or those pigs I mentioned.  Happier even.

Since I've been providing this slugfeast, Sybil and OD have been much fonder of me.  They waddle up in the morning looking expectant.  After gulping down the slugs they charge about in the grass probing every possible hiding place the ducks seem to know (instinctively?) slugs might use.  They even find a few and spend the day in what, for ducks, seems a good mood.

If I've provided enough slugs, the ducks might even get close and let me pet them without flinching (too much).  This goes against Sybil and OD's ducky instincts and is a true measure of just how incredibly Happy slugs make them.

So this Holiday Season, and for the New Year, let's all of us reach for a new level of happiness.  Not content to be merely 'as happy as humanly possible',

May We All Be As Happy As Ducks On Slugs!

Morning Babble 3

It's Thursday, which is usually one of the more peaceful and hopeful days of the week, coming as it does just before the clash of frantic catch-up work and weekend planning that is Friday.

Peaceful, but that doesn't mean there is nothing to wonder, worry, or complain about...

The price tag goes up - I guess the Big Three had to exact their pound of flesh for the humiliation meted out to then the last time they came to Washington.  They were sent home chastised on many levels, and shamed into shelving their beloved private jets.  Some were even bullied into publicly stating that would only accept $1 in salary for the next year.  No wonder then that they returned (in cheaper transport, including a hybrid car) to the Capital asking for $34 million in loans, up $9 million from the original $25 million requested.  Hmm, I wonder if 9 million is somewhere near the annual costs for upkeep on three corporate jets?  Revenge is sweet ...

Gas prices go down, down, down - This is a good thing, right?  Well, yes and no, but maybe not.  True, greed drove prices for oil (and therefore gas) to ridiculous highs this year - a year we now know was in recession, but the scale of the price drop has at least one serious implication.  All those SUV and truck drivers who parked their vehicles when prices were high, can happily hop back in now that prices have reverted almost to those of the good old days of pre-9/11.  Sure global warming is still a threat, but distant compared to the daily assault on the wallet high gas prices represented.  This return to excess might help perk up some of the auto industry's flagging sales, but it will also terribly confuse those responsible for leading the industry.  The sheer greed of sticking with high-profit SUVs and trucks might be too much for them, and low fuel prices might be a cue to do nothing, once again.

Implacable foes, back at it again - The past thirty years have seen some remarkable progress in international relations.  The cold war ended (more or less).  Apartheid ended and South Africa gained majority rule, and communist 'red' China is now just plain China and an essential partner in the US economy.  But there are some problems, it seems, that are harder to solve.  The smoldering enmity between India and Pakistan, which on occasion has turned to open armed conflict, is heating up again over the Mumbai attacks, just when it seemed to be cooling from the Nepalese conflict.  Both countries have nuclear weapons, and sadly, neither seem to be well-controlled by their governments.  At least that is the impression given by western (mainly US) media.  If India and Pakistan fall once again into direct armed conflict, it's hard to imagine how terrible the outcome could be.

A numbers game?

It seems there is no pleasing some people. And no lengths that some won't go to achieve their ends.  

California Congressman Joe Baca, leader of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has sent President-elect Obama a letter demanding he select more latinos for his cabinet.  Obama has already announced New Mexico governor Bill Richardson as Commerce Secretary, but that just isn't enough for Joe.  

According to an article by Bloomberg's Hans Nichols published on Yahoo News this morning, Baca warned that Obama's legislative agenda could be jeopardized if the president-elect doesn't nominate additional Hispanics.  "If it's just one, he's going to have to answer to a lot of the issues that come before us," Baca was quoted as saying.  

Wow, we have a democratic congressman threatening a democratic President with what amounts to legislative extortion - now there's an example of the subtle use of power.  

In the Bloomberg/Yahoo article, Baca came under criticism from another California congressional representative and former Hispanic caucus member, Linda Sanchez.  She said that for her, "... it's not a numbers game." 

It is entirely understandable that a group representing the largest and fastest growing demographic in the US - latinos, would want a proportional voice in the cabinet, but the importance of getting that voice doesn't justify hamstringing the new President before he even gets in office.  

Recommending is one thing, and welcome, demanding and threatening is another, and is not.

This first term, Obama needs freedom to choose the most practical team he can put together to manage the economic crisis, and no one - not even for laudable reasons, should compromise his freedom of choice through political threats.

To read the full article as seen in Yahoo, click here.

Jupiter and Venus - Dancing with the Stars

Okay, not stars, planets, but it is still dancing.  

Okay it isn't, but it is still an astronomical rarity that is worth watching.

What is it?

Take a look at the sky just at twilight.  See the moon and then look for the two very bright 'stars' close to it in the sky.  The brightest one is Venus and the other is Jupiter.  

You will seldom see these two planets in such close conjunction in the sky and they make quite a show along with the moon.  That is it.

Tonight they will be so close to each other they might appear to overlap.  Over the next few days they will separate again. Kind of like dancing, see?

You will have to look very low in the sky and just at twilight (dusk for those of you who only know twilight from vampire fiction).

Here is a link to help you find it:  http://www.wwu.edu/depts/skywise/planets.html

Tough Choices, Wise Choices ...

It's a rare politician who will embrace a former opponent and invite them into close council. It's rarer still for anyone to do that with a Clinton.

But, Barack Obama has done it, naming fierce campaign adversary Hillary as his Secretary of State.  This move was long expected by pundits, but barely believed.

The President-elect didn't stop at one bold move.  He has kept Secretary of Defense Robert Gates onboard from the Bush cabinet, which may make strategic sense but certainly wasn't expected given Obama's campaign focus on a change in Iraq policy.  

There will likely be more bold moves to come, but nominating Clinton may prove his boldest, toughest choice of all. Will it prove to be a wise choice?  As the cliche says, only time will truly tell the tale.

For now, we can be comforted that Obama's picks appear to be well-considered.  They couldn't have been easy to make.