Taxpayer funded ACORN, under investigation for fraud in a dozen states, is airing an ad claiming persecution and voter suppression by the McCain-Palin campaign but has not provided proof says the ad was paid for by contributions.

arrack Obama spent $3 million to broadcast a gauzy half hour infomercial on 7 networks last night symbolically on the 79 anniversary of the 1929 Stock Market Crash just as Rasmussen Polling reported that McCain is now seen by most people as best able of handle the current economy. Early reports of viewership of the infomercial are mixed with many apparently tuning in then out.

40% of U.S. voters say they are less likely to vote for a candidate on the basis of a Hollywood star’s endorsement. Only four percent (4%) say a star’s endorsement makes them more likely to vote for a candidate, while 55% say it has no impact on them at all.

alloween, Oct. 31st, the crescent Moon will sneak up on Venus for a close encounter of startling beauty. The gathering is best seen just after sunset when the twilight is pumpkin-orange and Halloween doorbells are chiming in earnest. Venus hovers just above the southwestern horizon, the brightest light in the sky, while the exquisitely slender Moon approaches just a few degrees below.

Look carefully at the Moon. You may see a ghostly image of the full Moon inside the bright horns of the crescent? That’s called “Earthshine” or sometimes “the da Vinci glow” because the polymath Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519) was the first person to explain it: Sunlight hits Earth and ricochets to the Moon, casting a sheen of light across the dark lunar

terrain.

The show continues on Nov. 2nd with Venus, the still-slender crescent Moon, and Jupiter arrayed in a broad line across the southwestern sky: sky map. This linear arrangement attracts attention almost as much as the luminosity of its points: Venus, the Moon and Jupiter are the brightest objects in the heavens, visible from light-polluted cities even before the twilight sky fades to black.

The real show begins one month after Halloween when Venus, the Moon, and Jupiter converge on a tiny patch of sky no bigger than the end of your thumb held at arm’s length: Dec. 1st is the best night to look, even better than Halloween.

Barrack Obama tied up a half hour of network and cable television last night to pull undecided voters to him spending $3 million on the infomercial. Ross Perot also aired a half hour infomercial complete with charts, graphs and a voodoo stick pointer. Apparently the tactic some something to do with ears. Obama suspended his stump speech about how parents need to turn the television off more at home.

he McCain campaign and, at its direction, the Republican Party, have banned use of footage of Rev. Wright from their campaign commercials.  Perhaps for fear of being accused of racism, they are not bringing up the single most compromising association in Obama’s past - his close liaison with Rev. Wright. McCain’s unilateral disarming is inexplicable to many Republicans. Leaving his most powerful weapon sheathed seems suicidal.

McCain’s determination, some say bullheadedness, may be “honorable” in some views but it is politically inexcusable.

One independent expenditure group — NationalRepublicanTrust.com- is ignoring MCCain’s admonition to bring the truth about Rev. Wright to the attention of the American people.  NationalRepublicanTrust.com has prepared a hard-hitting advertisement that features some of Wright’s worst rantings and explains the intimate relationship over twenty years between the preacher and the politician. The question is can it raise enough money to make it effective and overcome the even larger mistake of ejecting fund raising in favor of a pledge to only accept public financing effectively surrendering to a four to one disadvantage.

Cleave (kleev) verb tr., intr.:1. To split or divide. (past tense: clove or cleft or cleaved; past participle: cloven or cleft or cleaved) 2. To stick, cling. (past tense and past participle: cleaved) Sense 1: From Old English cleofan. Ultimately from the Indo-European root gleubh- (to tear apart) that is also the source of glyph, clever, and clove (garlic). And that’s also where cleavage, cleft palate, and cloven hooves get their names from. Sense 2: From Old English cleofian.

igures don’t lie but, liars do figure is one answer to the wide divergence in polls. Most notable are the gaps between ABC, CBS and NBC media polls and mainline pollsters including Zogby. Rasmussen and Gallup with the former having Obama ahead by twice as much as the latter. The distort generally results from weighting tallies with more responses from people who are likely to vote for Democrats than is warranted. Because of the attention they give their own polls it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy not to mention cutting into a candidate’s fund raising, endorsement, overall support and supressinf voter turnout.

It sets up the most damning words in politics, “You can’t win.”

“Errors” in media polling have rarely benefited a Republican candidate. Recent notable examples include: Dukakis numbers, the Perot numbers, there was always this presumption that the Republican was going to lose. Not just that the Democrat would win, but that the Republican was going to lose. There was a news report that concluded polls showed Kerry leading Bush 53 percent to 43 percent in 15 swing states.

Exit polls a voter who had just cast their ballot telling a total stranger who they had just voted for in the last election all favored John Kerry. Plus a lot of exit polling is done in urban areas, which is heavily Democratic. But by announcing exit polling early on election day later voters can be influenced. ABC, CBS, NBC were admonished  for predicting wins before the polls closed on the West coast  In 2004 those networks refrained from early predicting lest is bias later voters.

To be sure there are overt manipulations in the questionnaires and interviews too like asking questions designed to get positive response such as: do you support or oppose improving the quality of public education? Do you support or oppose universal healthcare? Do you support or oppose protecting the environment? The idea is that reinforcing “Yes” if applied in polling, marketing, fund raising, etc., leads to more agreement on following questions, and it works.

In the last 20-years polling has moved from the “jump” page into the headlines. Broadcast “news” outlets like ABC’s Good Morning America routinely announces its polls reflecting the network’s bias making news editorial. A few counties now ban announcing polling results within 14-days of an election citing abuses.

Psychologists call it the “herd instinct”, i.e., when one animal bolts and others follow without knowing the reason.

At any rate yesterday October 29, 2008 the polls are: Rasmussen poll released at 6AM EST has the presidential race at 50% Obama versus 47% McCain a dramatic tightening from the eight point lead of only three days ago. Zogby has the contest 49.9% to 45.1% a shift from a ten point Obama lead five days ago. Gallup has the race 49% to 47%. It reports 18% say they have already voted and as of last Monday the numbers of McCain and Obama supporters who say they wil vote early are roughly equal. puts the voting at 53% to 43% for Obama. 65% of those who say this will be their first time voting in a Presidential election say they are voting for Obama.

Most notable are the gaps between ABC, CBS and NBC media polls and mainline pollsters including Zogby. Rasmussen and Gallup with the former having Obama ahead by twice as much as the latter. The distort generally results from weighting tallies with more responses from people who are likely to vote for Democrats than is warranted. Because of the attention they give their own polls it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy not to mention cutting into a candidate’s fund raising, endorsement, overall support and supressinf voter turnout.

It sets up the most damning words in politics, “You can’t win.”

“Errors” in media polling have rarely benefited a Republican candidate. Recent notable examples include: Dukakis numbers, the Perot numbers, there was always this presumption that the Republican was going to lose. Not just that the Democrat would win, but that the Republican was going to lose. There was a news report that concluded media polls showed Kerry leading Bush 53 percent to 43 percent in 15 swing states.

Exit polls a voter who had just cast their ballot telling a total stranger who they had just voted for in the last election all favored John Kerry. Plus a lot of exit polling is done in urban areas, which is heavily Democratic. But by announcing exit polling early on election day later voters can be influenced. ABC, CBS, NBC were admonished  for predicting wins before the polls closed on the West coast  In 2004 those networks refrained from early predicting lest is bias later voters.

To be sure there are overt manipulations in the questionnaires and interviews too like asking questions designed to get positive response such as: do you support or oppose improving the quality of public education? Do you support or oppose universal healthcare? Do you support or oppose protecting the environment? The idea is that reinforcing “Yes” if applied in polling, marketing, fund raising, etc., leads to more agreement on following questions, and it works.

In the last 20-years polling has moved from the “jump” page into the headlines. Broadcast “news” outlets like ABC’s Good Morning America routinely announces its polls reflecting the network’s bias making news editorial. A few counties now ban announcing polling results within 14-days of an election citing abuses.

Psychologists call it the “herd instinct”, i.e., when one animal bolts and heads off others follow without knowing the reason.

A 36-year-old Wisconsin man took revenge on his roommate after she refused to have sex with him by urinating on her dog. He was arrested early Thursday morning for criminal damage to property and disorderly conduct related to domestic violence. The dog, although soggy, suffered no permanent damage.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates called Tuesday for the modernization of the US nuclear arsenal to strengthen deterrence at a time when Russia and China are upgrading their nuclear weapons. “Currently, the United States is the only declared nuclear power that is neither modernizing its nuclear arsenal nor has the capability to produce a new nuclear weapon.” Critics were quick to hop on Gates calling his proposal contrary to the 1968 nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

“To be blunt, there is absolutely no way we can maintain a credible deterrent and reduce the number of weapons in our stockpile without resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program,” he said.

Gates said the development of a new so-called Reliable Replacement Warhead was needed to ensure the long-term viability of the US stockpile and to revive a nuclear industrial base that is in decline.

To add teeth to deterrence, Gates said, the United States is pursuing new technologies that can identifiy “forensic signatures” of any nuclear material used in an attack and trace it back to its source. Such forensic signature would ensure identifying any country that used a nuclear weapon. Congress cut funding this year for the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, and candidates from both major political parties have called for deeper cuts in the US arsenal and defense budget.

The United States and Russia agreed in 2002 to reduce “operationally deployed” warheads to around 1,700-2,200 by 2012. As of January 1, 2008, the United States had about 5,400 warheads in its nuclear arsenal, about 4,075 of which were operational and most of the others held in reserve, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

“There is no way to ignore efforts by rogue states such as North Korea and Iran to develop and deploy nuclear weapons, or Russian and Chinese strategic modernization programs,” Gates said.

Russia budget problems and now collapsing crude oil prices has made it unable to maintain its conventional forces at Cold War levels. So it is increasingly reliant on its nuclear forces and maintains a fully functional capacity to manufacture significant numbers of nuclear warheads, he said.

“China is also expanding its nuclear arsenal. It has increased the number of short, medium and long-range missiles — and pursued new land, sea, and air-based systems that can deliver nuclear weapons,” Gates said. He sees a bleak future because of a nuclear brain drain. “No one has designed a new nuclear weapon in the United States since the 1980s, and no one has built a new one since the early 1990s,” said.

Clinton era budget cuts resulted in the National Nuclear Security Administration losing a quarter of its workforce since the 1990s, and half of the scientists at US nuclear labs are over 50 years old. The proposed budget cuts is spreading a sense of despair throughout the defense and military communities.

N nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed El Baradei said Monday that his agency was still unable to determine whether or not there were undeclared nuclear activities in Iran. “I regret that we are still not in a position to achieve full clarity regarding the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran,” the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told the UN General Assembly.

He urged Tehran to “implement all the transparency measures required to build confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear program at an early date.”

“This will be good for Iran, good for the Middle East region and good for the world,” he added.

He stressed he was confident arrangements could be made to enable the IAEA “to clarify the remaining issues while ensuring Iran’s legitimate right to protect the confidentiality of sensitive information and activities is respected.”

In his own address to the General Assembly, Iran’s UN Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee reiterated that the UN Security Council’s demand that the Islamic Republic suspend its unranium enrichment program was “illegal.”

“The Iranian nation will never accept illegal demands,” he added.

Most observers and analyst expect Iran to have a nuclear weapon by as early as 2009.

A French developed fully implantable artificial heart designed to overcome the worldwide shortage of transplant donors will be ready for clinical trial by 2011

ast Tuesday, October 21^st Russia, Iran and Qatar, that account for over 60% of global natural gas reserves, agreed to set up a “gas OPEC,” during a meeting in Tehran, Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said. The three largest gas exporters want to drive prices up, given the recent dramatic drop after the summer peak.

They have no power to change prices now, as gas prices are regulated by the oil and petrochemicals markets since there is no such thing as an independent gas market. The alliance established in Iran’s capital is in fact a “big gas troika.”

The OPEC-style gas cartel will be finalized on November 18 in Moscow which must mean the group’s charter will be adopted, a document which has been in the works for two years, ever since Iran initiated the idea.

The Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) comprising 16 member states has no charter, its decisions are not binding on its members and it is no more than a discussion club. Forming a cartel has been discussed since 2001.

Adopting a single charter has been the long-standing stumbling block for a “gas OPEC.” Iran wants the gas cartel to be modeled after the original OPEC, setting quotas for gas production thus pushing prices up while damaging the U.S. economy.

Moscow is at least preetnding to be trying to avoid aggressive policies suggesting that the new organization should manage joint gas projects and gas transportation issues.

Transporting natural gas is especially important for Russia and its gas export monopoly. It is crucial for Russia that Central Asian gas go through Russia on the way to Europe rather than bypass it via the Caspian seabed or go through its sly ally, Iran. US President Reagan blocking Russia’s gas pipeline into Europe nailed the Soviet Union’s economic coffin shut and pushed it over the edge into oblivion.

However, the very idea of establishing some sort of gas cartel is bound to raise concerns with European consumers, further complicating Gazprom’s investments in Europe, as if European partners weren’t already wary of dealing with the Russian monopoly.

Gazprom’s gas supplies to Europe have been locked in to longterms contracts for the next one to three decades. Iran’s gas industry is so disorganized that, despite its huge reserves, the country has to export Turkmen gas under some of its export projects. Turkmenistan, for its part, has shown a rather cool attitude toward the gas OPEC idea.

Qatar is a new player on the global gas market. Most of its projects are still in the works and involve LNG deliveries also to Europe, and again, under long-term contracts. If it tries to limit those deliveries, its niche will be immediately seized by rivals - Libya, Algeria and others.

It follows from the above that there is no global gas market; there isn’t a European gas market either. There are no “global” gas prices - they are set individually for each contract (usually a long-term).

As a result, the potential gas cartel cannot influence gas prices through restrictive quotas. By restricting exports, gas-producing countries would only harm themselves by cutting their own incomes. The crude oil OPEC cartel can impose quotas but membes often cheat.

By a strange irony of fate, gas prices in Europe are based on the market value of crude oil and petrochemicals, which gas producers have no power over.

The disgruntled attitude of the three countries richest in the commodity is easy to understand. Oil prices have plummeted to half of what they were during the summer peak, and natural gas followed suit. Mr Miller and his counterparts are getting desperate because they cannot influence the process.

The Russian government must certainly realize that “gas OPEC” is a harmful idea. Energy saying earlier this month that the wording was inappropriate because Russia has no intention of regulating gas prices or production levels.

This article include information published by the Russian news agency in English - RIA Novosti, and other open sources and the authors and others analyses and opinion.

he buzzwords are “national security space?” Everyone is talking about it. No one seems to know what it is. There is no official definition and nations have their own opinions, ideas and definition. Space-based applications are increasingly important to the US and other country’s economic health and national security.

In 2001, the Rumsfeld Commission released a milestone evaluation and made important recommendations. Space has become much more crowded as China and India enter the field. Since 2001 the situation has deteriorated with many of the essential security-related space programs have failed to perform.

Recently the Allard Commission Report, concluded that “no one is in charge” of national security programs that utilize space which is not reassuring and projects continued erosion of the US position as a space leader. But, we must act soon!

Space now is where the oceans were after the turmoil of World War II. From 1973 through 1982 the Law of the Sea Convention defined the rights and responsibilities of nations in their use of the world’s oceans, establishing guidelines for businesses, the environment, and the management of marine natural resources. Sixty countries have signed compacts that replaced a set of 1958 treaties and 156 have joined the convention.

The treaty replaced the 17^th century ‘freedom of the seas‘ concept that limited a nation’s rights to a 3-mile limit beyond which was free to all nations, but belonging to none of them — the mare liberum principle. After World War I the Hague Convention failed to decide on so-called “ocean rights.” President Truman in 1945 extended United States control to all the natural resources of its continental shelf. By 1967 most nations were using a 12 mile coastal limit and a few had set it at 200 miles.

Such limits have led to disputes and conflict, and so it could be with space which is more like the 17^th century mare liberum dictum. That then is the bone of contention of today’s issue. Heretofor the USA and to a lesser extend Russia have defacto held sway and operated in space with impunity.

Just one week left to go until the election. To give you an idea of how long this whole thing has been going on, when John McCain started, he was just 47 years old.

ast Tuesday Russia and China signed a long-awaited deal to build a 44 mile oil pipeline from Siberia into China. It has a capacity to carry 15 million metric tons of crude oil per year that’s about 110 billion barrels a year at 7.33 barrels pe metric ton. Since China has reportedly agreed to pay $25 billion for the crude oil that’s about $44 per barrel. A great buy for China and needed cash for Russia. Meanwhile Iraq’s parliament is still wrangling about its oil policy and a bill is still stuck in committee. Elsewhere the French oil company Total said Tuesday that it was considering exploiting tar sands in the west central African country of Congo, where it is the chief oil and gas producer. In the U. S. political wrangling continues to paralyse production of domestic oil including vast tar sand and oil shale deposits.

NASA astronauts Commander Edward Michael Fincke and Flight Engineer and Science Officer Greg Chamitoff will cast their absentee ballots next Tuesday, November 4 while living and working onboard the International Space Station 220 miles above Earth and orbiting at 17,500 miles per hour.