What You Think You Know Is Probably Wrong

Do you believe the Russia/Georgia conflict was started by the Georgians attempting to "reclaim" South Ossetia?  Well, as usual, Michael Totten has the real story with corroboration.

Its long and well worth the read.  Scratch that…it is a must read.

Unforced Error

I've called the Obama campaign the Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight recently. This is the biggest, glaring example I have seen of that. Obama's campaign has gone on the offensive on ads that discuss Obama and his association with Bill Ayers, the unrepentant 60s radical who believes his group didn't set enough bombs. What disturbs me the most is that the campaign is officially planning to coordinate economic attacks on television stations that air the ad:

Bauer’s letter called on the Justice Department to open “an investigation of the American Issues Project; its officers and directors; and its anonymous donors, whoever they may be.”

“This is a sad ploy to circumvent the First Amendment by a campaign who has no arguments with the merits of our ad. It’s the classic maneuver: If you can’t win on the merits, file a lawsuit,” said a spokesman for the American Issues Project, Christian Pinkston, who said his group's non-profit status allowed it to participate in elections as long as it does a majority of policy work, which it plans to do.

A spokeswoman for Keeney, Laura Sweeney, declined to comment on Bauer’s letter.

The Obama campaign plans to punish the stations that air the ad financially, an Obama aide said, organizing his supporters to target the stations that air it and their advertisers. (Emphasis added)

These are thuggish tactics the like of which I don't recall ever seeing before, at least not one directly coordinated by a campaign. They are frightened of this ad in a way that is making them react - or rather overreact - in a very bad way. This is going to backfire badly on the Obama campaign. More from Jennifer Rubin.

Bad News For Hippies

Long-term exposure to incense increases a person's risk for developing cancers in the upper respiratory tract.

"Given that our results are backed by numerous experimental studies showing that incense is a powerful producer of particulate matter and that incense smoke contains carcinogenic substances, I believe incense should be used with caution," said study author Dr. Jeppe Friborg, of the department of epidemiology research at Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark. "That is, frequent use in rooms where people live should be minimized, or at least sufficient ventilation should be secured. In our study, we find the increased risk of cancer to be present in individuals reporting frequent use of incense for many years, thus, repeated exposure for years should probably be avoided."

Bummer, dude.

Stretch Limo

Folks have been building stretch limousines for years, of course. They cut a car in half and add an extension, resulting in a huge vehicle. So, since that works so well, why not apply the same technique on a much large scale and produce a stretch cruise ship? That is exactly what Carnival Cruise Lines Royal Caribbean did.

It sounds like an unforgettable magic trick - sawing a cruise ship in half.

But this is no illusion, as the owners of this 916ft liner really did cut it open to extend its length by 73ft.

Such measures may seem extreme, but the £30million cost of the job is just a fraction of the £500million - and years of labour - needed to launch a new ship.

The Enchantment of the Seas now has an additional 151 rooms to rent. And it is currently cruising loaded up with passengers.

UPDATE: Got the wrong cruise line, sorry about that.

Two Things To Read

There are two interesting articles that deserve a read: one popped up over at Memeorandum, the other at Real Clear Politics. First, Joe Klein made a visit to a focus group:

–"Change" as a theme is over. Too vague. And Obama's rhetoric has begun to seriously cut against him. "No more oratory," one woman said. "Give us details." (There may be a racial component to this, by the way, as some white people associate soaring oratory with African-American leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesse Jackson.)

–What do they want? Given a list of 31 personal attributes the next President might have and asked to pick the eight most important, "Accountability" finished highest with 13 votes, next was "Someone I can trust" with 12, "honest and ethical" was third with 11. "Agrees with me on the issues" got one vote. They didn't care if the candidate was a Washington insider or outsider. "A dynamic and charismatic leader" got two votes…(Add: When Luntz asked them which was more important, "accountability" or "change," the vote was 17 to 4 in favor of accountability.)

There is a lot more and it is worth a read. The second item is from Stuart Rothenberg. He wonders about buyer's remorse:

Obama remains the favorite to win in November, but he has not yet come close to locking up the race, even with a political landscape that is slanted so completely in his party's favor.

Because of that, it's hard not to wonder whether his party would be in a far more secure position to win the White House if Democrats in Denver were preparing to nominate Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner or any of a number of other Democrats, possibly including New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

On one hand, voters remain very unhappy with the Bush administration and with the direction of the country, and Obama remains one of the party's strongest messengers for "change."

But, if Klein is right, the "change" thing is beginning to wear very thin with undecided voters. That is a real problem for a candidate who is big on hopeyness but short on specifics - other than raising taxes, of course.

Moon (Bats) Over Denver

Or all over Denver, as the case may be. Zombie (with an assist from El Marco) has documented many of the opening ceremonies in the Mile High City. The ones that began even before the opening of the Democratic National Convention.

Somewhere, there are mothers weeping.

He’s Very Clean

For those too young to remember (apropos the last post), here's where the "very clean" reference comes from.

Groovin’ To The Oldies

It's Obama! It's Biden! It's a Blast From The Past! He's very clean, don't you know.

Joe Biden. This really is a joke, right?

UPDATE: Are we sure robots are NOT involved, AllahPundit?

The Nuance Of Moral Equivalency

Victor Davis Hanson comments on a pattern of blaming America exhibited by none other than the hopey-changey one himself. Hanson finds it less than inspiring.

Aside from the silliness of these statements, the problem for Obama, again, is that incrementally they really do start to add up—America's "tragic history," the mini-sermon on decline to the 7-year-old, waffling exegesis to Rick Warren about our own evil, the confessions to the cheering Berliners about our transgressions—and these doubts are enhanced rather than ameliorated by Michelle Obama's various rantings, and the creepy things former associates like Ayers, Wright, and Pfleger have said about America and its culture. Some disinterested observer from Mars might adduce that the Obamas at this point can't help it, since the 'everybody believes it' anti-American message they absorbed was of long duration and reinforced where they went to school, where they worshiped, and where they worked.

Hanson calls it Pavlovian, a knee-jerk response from Obama. I'd point out that Obama reveals his inexperience with things like this. Obviously, he has a real problem with the country he wants to lead and is unable to control his criticism. Regular voters - not the flying squads of true believers - will decide this election. Continuing to pander to the beliefs of the fringe left is not going to play well with the vital center.

So, by all means, Barack, carry on.

NIST Versus Rosie: No Contest

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released its long-awaited analysis of what happened to World Trade Center 7 on 9/11/2001. The troofers (including Rosie "Unemployed" O'Donnell) have long theorized that fire could not have brought the building down. The NIST begs to differ. Fire did, indeed, bring the building down. That opens up some rel concerns since many tall buildings may be inadequately designed to handle fires without suffering structural failure.

Today's report confirms that a fire was, indeed, the cause. "This is the first time that we are aware of, that a building taller than about 15 stories has collapsed primarily due to fires," Sunder told reporters at the press conference. "What we found was that uncontrolled building fires—similar to fires experienced in other tall buildings—caused an extraordinary event, the collapse of WTC7." The unprecedented nature of the event means that understanding the precise mechanism of the collapse is important not just to answer conspiracy theorists' questions, but to improve safety standards in the engineering of large buildings.

The final report describes how debris from the collapse of WTC 1 ignited fires on at least 10 floors of WTC 7 at the western half of the south face. Fires on Floors 7 through 9 and 11 through 13 burned out of control, because the water supply to the automatic sprinkler system had failed. The primary and backup water supply to the sprinkler systems for the lower floors relied on the city's water supply. Those water lines were damaged by the collapse of WTC 1 and 2. These uncontrolled fires in WTC 7 eventually spread to the northeast part of the building, where the collapse began.

After 7 hours of uncontrolled fires, a steel girder on Floor 13 lost its connection to one of the 81 columns supporting the building. Floor 13 collapsed, beginning a cascade of floor failures to Floor 5. Column 79, no longer supported by a girder, buckled, triggering a rapid succession of structural failures that moved from east to west. All 23 central columns, followed by the exterior columns, failed in what's known as a "progressive collapse"—that is, local damage that spreads from one structural element to another, eventually resulting in the collapse of the entire structure.

As the report points out, joints in these buildings are designed to resist the downward pull of gravity, not the lateral stress of a structural member expanding rapidly in a hot fire. Popular Mechanics continues to do yeoman's work slapping down the troofers with hard facts.

Found via Neptunus Lex.

Y R U S2pd?

Barack Obama's big plan to announce his VP choice via text message has brought out the mischievous in some people. A large number of people report receiving fake text messages announcing false names. There is little chance that things will get any better in the next few hours until the "big moment." So, by then, many people will pay no attention to the real announcement.

CHESAPEAKE, Va. – By the time Barack Obama is ready to announce his vice presidential pick, will anyone believe him?

In recent days, as speculation and anticipation has mounted, so too have phony text messages declaring Obama’s supposed running mate – from Evan Bayh and Hillary Rodham Clinton to Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps.

It’s a cruel twist in a prolonged game of guessing that has put political junkies and Democratic supporters on edge since the campaign announced last week that it would disclose Obama’s choice through text messaging, which is expected to happen by Saturday.

In the absence of real information, pranksters have filled the gap with guidance from the website Wonkette – and maybe Howard Stern, too.

What gets me about this story is that nobody in the Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight - er - the Obama Campaign  - saw this coming? Really? Nobody? In the attempt to look young and hip, they end up looking inept and clueless. Nicely done, folks.

Glass Mansions

It seems there are some interesting ties between Michelle Obama's employer and the Barack Obama campaign. The Washington Post reports:

Michelle Obama, an executive at the medical center, launched an innovative program to steer the patients to existing neighborhood clinics to deal with their health needs.

That effort, in time, inspired a broader program the hospital now calls its Urban Health Initiative. To ensure community support, Michelle Obama and others in late 2006 recommended that the hospital hire the firm of David Axelrod, who a few months later became the chief strategist for Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

Axelrod's firm recommended an aggressive promotional effort modeled on a political campaign — appoint a campaign manager, conduct focus groups, target messages to specific constituencies, then recruit religious leaders and other third-party "validators." They, in turn, would write and submit opinion pieces to Chicago publications.

One key recommendation from Axelrod's firm: "Respond quickly to opposition activity."

The medical center's initiative provides a window into the close relationship between the Obamas, their associates at the University of Chicago and Axelrod, the strategist most central to Barack Obama's rise. It also illustrates how that circle, and particularly Michelle, dealt with an intractable social problem that confronts many urban areas: How much care should large, nonprofit hospitals offer the poor in return for tax-exempt status?

This is interesting on a couple of levels. In a way it is just typical Chicago politics, where contracts are routinely steered to political supporters. In another, it gives a lot of insight into how Axelrod thinks politically: Astroturfing beats grassroots. Neither Michelle Obama or Axelrod would comment about this article as it was being written. Also a hallmark of Chicago-style political business ties. Read the whole thing.

Where's the changey-hopeyness? It isn't apparent in this deal. It also isn't apparent that the netroots understand that they are being cynically manipulated as part of a (well) paid political consultant's expressed strategy.

Bad - Really Bad - Move

On the part of the Obama campaign. They chose to attack John McCain for not being able to answer how "houses" McCain owns. Considering the fact that Obama obtained his mansion with the help of convicted felon Tony Rezko, this was a stupid - potentially politically lethally stupid - move on the campaign's part. They have opened the door to a counterpunch over Obama's ties to Rezko.

“Does a guy who… bought his own million-dollar mansion with the help of a convicted felon really want to get into a debate about houses?”

–Spokesman Rogers:

Says Obama lives in “a frickin’ mansion” that was “bought in a shady deal with a convicted felon.” Says they will hit harder on Tony Rezko.

People who live in glass mansions might want to heed that old proverb. The full quote from the McCain camp is actually a lot more pointed than the excerpt quoted above:

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said in response: "Does a guy who made more than $4 million last year, just got back from vacation on a private beach in Hawaii and bought his own million-dollar mansion with the help of a convicted felon really want to get into a debate about houses? Does a guy who worries about the price of arugula and thinks regular people 'cling' to guns and religion in the face of economic hardship really want to have a debate about who’s in touch with regular Americans?

They may be grabbing media attention with their claims, but the counterattack by McCain is devastating. Up until now they have pretty much kept off of Rezko, even if Hillary did not. But now the forum is a national one, not a Democratic party internecine one. This will backfire on Obama.

By the way, whatever happened to a different kind of politics and promises of change from Obama? Looks like old-style political hardball to me. No hope of change there.

UPDATE: Via Glenn Reynolds, the counterpunch. (Glenn also points out that this was a bad move on Obama's campaign, this ad shows why.)

Who Is Leading Whom?

A fairly surprising bit of reporting from Andrew Romano of Newsweek's Stumper blog. It seems that the supposed big money advantage that Obama has over McCain doesn't exist. In fact, McCain will have considerably more cash going into the general election than Obama - by a rather large margin.

For all the pundits who predicted that Democratic nominee Barack Obama would crush McCain in the general-election money race, this should come as something of a surprise. After all, Obama raked in a record-breaking $280 million during the primary season; McCain's receipts totaled a measly $120 million. But as the last few months of federal fund raising disclosures have shown, "the real surprise" of this year's cash chase–as I wrote on July 11–is that "it's much more competitive than anyone expected." And the latest numbers are no expection.

While Obama netted a massive $51 million in July–again clobbering McCain, who racked up $27 million–the important statistic to look at is the combined amount of cash-on-hand for each candidate and his party (i.e, how much is actually available to spend on getting the nominee elected). In this case, the totals are nearly identical: the Republicans finished July with $96 million in the bank ($75 million for the RNC, $21 million for McCain) versus $94.3 million for the Democrats ($25.8 million for the DNC, $65.8 million for Obama). Bottom line: neither candidate is struggling financially.

There's more, do hop over and read it. As Romano points out, McCain will not have to fund raise during the general election. He opted for public financing and will be getting large monthly checks as a result. Obama will have to continue raising funds right through election day. McCain is currently outspending Obama by large margins in key states. Admittedly, the results are mixed so far, but things are not quite what many predicted, either.

You Can’t Get Blood From A Stone

But Shell Oil appears to have found a way to get oil from a rock. The Denver Post describes a promising technology to extract oil - a lot of oil - from oil shale in the American West. There are many unanswered questions and many details that need to be worked out, but this is pretty promising. Shell's test site yielded about a 65% recovery rate for the oil. Versus about a 25% recovery rate for traditional methods. The resultant extracted oil is of an extremely high quality.

GARFIELD COUNTY — The ramshackle collection of wellheads and electric cables hidden in a pine-covered draw west of Rifle doesn't look like much now, but until three years ago it was the home of the oil industry's equivalent of the Manhattan Project.

Over five years here, Shell Oil conducted a series of secretive experiments that have the potential to blow open the status quo of North American oil production, unlocking the vast reserves of oil shale that underlie Colorado's Western Slope.

Early attempts failed miserably. But beginning in 2002, Shell drilled a honeycombed series of wells, then lowered in giant heating elements, raising the temperature of the shale to 650 degrees Fahrenheit for 12 months. Out flowed an abundance of high-quality shale oil.

"It was our 'eureka' moment," said Tracy Boyd, a spokesman for Shell, smiling as he showed off the historic spot. "Now we know we have a technology that works."

Now that and similar technologies have become fodder in the increasingly contentious energy debate, holding out the possibility that, in an era of $4-a-gallon gasoline, America might just be sitting on oil reserves equal to a 100-year supply of the country's imports.

The fight over oil shale has become a major issue in Colorado's U.S. Senate race as well as a regular talking point for Republicans nationwide. At the White House in June, President Bush blasted Democrats for "standing in the way" of oil-shale development and hurting ordinary Americans.

The latest to enter the fray is Orrin Hatch, the powerful Republican senator from Utah, who accused Democratic Senate candidate Mark Udall of siding with "an elite, anti-oil crowd" by helping impose a moratorium on commercial leasing regulations for the shale deposits. (Utah is one of three Western states with oil-shale reserves.)

The technology still needs to be proven at an industrial scale and there are serious issues about the environmental impact, especially on water resources. Read the whole thing. The early battle lines are already forming both in the short term of this election and in the long term, decades away. But this appears to be promising. Certainly more promising than this incident over in Zimbabwe.