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* The eastern press continues to be confused and conflicted as it tries to get its collective self around the Alaskan state of mine.  The latest is a stakeout on several churches in Wasilla

** Meanwhile, the political investigative press has no problem in dissecting and digesting the latest new on NYC Dem Congressional Committee Chairman Charlie Rangle.  He failed to report income from his Dominican Republic ocean side resort hideaway.  Plus, it was purchased with a nice interest free loan.

*** Vice President Cheney is in the republic of Georgia as aid is delivered by U.S. naval ships via an eastern Black Sea post that is close to the loading terminus of a trans Georgia oil pipeline.

**** Bob Woodward has a new tome on the workings of the outgoing administration.  Surprise, that administration was interested in what world heads of state were saying.  Most schools of Journalism call that good reporting; others brand it spying.

***** The Obama campaign and the DNC are recruiting a paid army of voter registration workers.  Unregistered young, mobile, poor, and new US residents are the targeted demographic.  It is well known in California that that profile means Hispanic La Raza power at the polls.

****** Professional political pollsters do not work for free, but have a worse record of predicting reliable results than the local weather forecasters. 

Yes, we know it all along:

- Childhood immunizations to not cause autism.

- As many as 20% of Hillary Clinton spring primary voters are leaning to the McCain ticket in the fall.

- Extreme weather, like hurricanes, is always newsworthy and is used to come without a political conventional wisdom label.

- Lehman Bros, Fannie Mae Freddie Mac and People’s Bank of China play in the same league and have the same needs.  Quick cash and credit equivalents.

* Change is coming. So is __

** Google Chrome browser

*** Drilling for Oil in the Arctic

* It seems there are two big glitches in the T. Boone Picken’s plan to put wind generated electrical power onto the national grid:  distance and capacity.  Electrical power is best used immediately close to the site of generation.  The electrical grid is not designed for high volume, long distance transmission.  Natural gas lines are.

The post conventional wisdom of the professional national press and pollsters continues unchanged. The powerful B & B attorney partnership charisma machine continues to be fueled by mega bucks.  The mass of volunteers, like families with kids with special needs working for the other side, are given no reckoning.  Further, Alaska is far from the Boston, NYC, Washington, D.C. axis of power.  Talk about a change challenge to the continuing cultural divide between the east and the West!

** So, Google is now on the the desktop with a browser and it works well with Vista.  Fast is good.  Google apps will continue to flow from the Lab to the rest of us.

*** It appears that the widely reported melting of the Polar Arctic Ice Cap is not quite the sure evidence of global warming a once advertised by the advocates of the theory.  New interpretation of satellite images say “OOPs, not so fast. 

It seems that shallow water pooled on top of the floating ice pack has been misinterpreted a open sea water.  In addition the prospect of using the long fabled NorthWest Passage that shortens the freighter run from Rotterdam to Yokahama by 5,000 mile is still a bit of a pipe dream.  Shifting summer ice continues to a formidable Arctic hazard for most surface ships. So, the Arctic Polar Ice Cap is almost a floating island just as we begin a long winter of refreezing as the Polar bears continue to thrive.

Meanwhile, the Siberian version of the Northwest Passage appears to have a significant choke point for summer time open water freighter traffic.

So, why all the doom and gloom from the pages of the nytimes? 

Today, Thomas Friedman, Maureen Dowd, and Andrew Revkin are at their dypeptic drumbeat worst as they continue their respective personal rants formed by their pessimistic views of the state of the world.  Tom is increasingly bitter about the state of the environment and the prospects for peace, Maureen continues to mischaracterize and denigrate the national political change agents with her wicked literary prose, and Andrew continues to slog on in his blog about the sad state of research and policy in the emerging science of global weather and climate studies.

What is to be done?  Some have suggested a boycott of the various messages from the “Anger Liberals” of the old Left. There are good reasons that the circulation and the readership of the nytimes is falling like a rock.  The popularity of the press is low and sinking because of it writers and pundits.  The nytime’s own David Brooks has said it best:  on the PBS News Hour coverage of the RNC from St. Paul , Brooks opined “ The public does not like or trust us.”

Unfazed and without reflection , Brooks’ partisan commentary colleague, 71 year old, Mark Shields previously upstaged by David Gergen and Paul Gigot, continued to prattle on about the obligation of professional press people like himself to vett the background and suitability of the children public service folks Sarah Palin to stand proudly in the public kleg lights. 

I am reminded of the time some Santa Rosa public high school civic teachers( one was a former small time journalist) picketed and harassed the chairwoman of the local School Board at the beginning of a new school year.  Their labor issue and the public’s right/obligation to know trumped a single citizen’s right to privacy and sanctity of her home.  When was the last time you felt good about having your home picketed by noisy advocates ?

Meanwhile, tonight Sarah Palin, the 44 Y/O PTA mom and soon to be grandmother from Wasilla, Alaska, will Stand and Deliver on state in St. Paul, Minnesota. Levi Johnston is also said to be a standup kind of person.  For 38 minutes on stage Palin accepted the nomination of her Party, defined herself to the nation, chided the live mic, trip wire prone national media, defended her “little state”, exposed the lack of executive experience of the other candidate team, skewered those who pretend to objectively perform live “dissections” of new faces on the national political scene.

In prime time, Palin ran the table set up a series of bright, forceful, articulate, and funny warmup speakers and left folks like the embarrassing Mark Shields of PBS to slowly twist, turn and trip on his own misanalysis.

“To wrest from nature the secrets which have perplexed philosophers in all ages, to track to their sources the caused of disease, to correlate the vast stores of knowledge, that they may be quickly available for the prevention and cure of disease—these are our ambitions.” --- Sir William Osler.

“Geography is destiny” --- John Gilman Coit and many others.

* The results: Michael Phelps is a swimming phenom; the U.S.A women gymnists are too cute for words; the men’s volleyball team is toughness personified; and the Chinese are on the march to modernity using the serious game rules of economic hardball.

** Eastern upstate New York, southern Vermont, mid Massachusetts and eastern Connecticut were on the week long circuit.  Ct. is cute, traditional, and Congregational to the core.  The Deerfield area, the lower Connecticut River, and the Long Island Sound “Shore” around New London and Groton were cool, clear, correct.

UConn at Avery Point has a Department of Marine Science with a picture window marine view.  But, Scripps, Woods Hole, or Bar Harbor it is not.  The U.S.C.G. Academy and the Nuclear Submarine facility are small national treasures with free open to the public museums.  Shipping, trade, and freedom of the seas are the themes of the area that includes Mystic Sea Port.

The amount of ferry traffic across the sound is impressive.  The Native American Indian’s have seized the opportunity of transporting gamblers and gamers directly by water from NYC to their Connecticut reservation casinos. So, the core of the area is culturally mixed.

.

*** Meanwhile, the country has yet another opportunity to get to know “ the Obama story”.  This time the stage setting is Denver, Colorado.  Not too shabby for a man with roots stretching from Kenya, to Indonesia, to Kansas, to Bainbridge Island, WA, to prep school in Hawaii, to Occidental College in California, to to Chicago, to Harvard.  The national election is Obama’s to lose.  He has the money, the media friendly charismatic presence, the image of a outsider with a photo op family, a wife from central casting, youthful vigor, and the Kennedy family endorsement.  Time will tell if he, his staff, his advisers, and his volunteers can sustain their collective post convention momentum. 

Further more, the marathon fact squad is in town. No, that team is not led by the certifiably silly members of the 4th estate--- but by the serious and bright Mitt Romney, fresh from the Olympic Games.  Meanwhile, Bill Clinton stands ready to step onto center stage and continue to make his case for ?---?.  Let is be noted that the role of Commander and Chief of the U.S. military is no small matter.  President Harry Truman, a WW I combat veteran, desegregated the Armed Forces by executive command in 1948.

The news from Dayton, Ohio is that the McCain choice for the Republican VP slot is Sarah Palin, the 44 y/o tough, straight talking, photogenic first term governor of Alaska.  Her policy strengths are energy, ethics, and national security.  An athletic, out-of-doors person, hockey Mom, she is the ultimate Washington D.C. outsider.  She is now part of the “A-A Maverick team” and is running a deep route pattern for the end zone.  BTW, basketball in Alaska qualifies as a contact sport contact sport.  The candidate’s husband is a native of the state, a blue collar union oil worker. The couple are gun owners who hunt and fish.  The NYC-Wash D. C. set will not be pleased. But, the Twin Cities will be welcoming.

In addition, SFGATE.COM reports that native son, Bernie Ward, former Roman Catholic priest, Cardinal Newman High School theology teacher, KGO God Talk radio host, and 3 year legislative aide to Barbara Boxer, has be sentenced by a federal judge to 7 years of jail time for the crimes related to a long history of events around charges of child pornography. Boxer, the liberal Democratic Bay Area attack dog is one of the most strident first responders to the news of the Sarah Palin selection.  Boxer has recently called Palin “arrogant”, “radical” and “dangerous”.  Who is the pit bull attack dog here?

Emma and Tessa Little are getting an early start on the Olympic Games of 2028.

For example:

* More NBC coverage was given to a former minor U.S.Olympian who had his passport revoked by China when he stated his goal of using the occasion of the Games as a
global podium for protesting Sudan human right violations in Darfur.

* A recently nationalized black African will be he standard bearer for the U.S. team at the Games opening ceremonies.

* Today, prior to entering China to attend the ceremonies, President Bush made public statements pointing to the PRC’s unsatisfactory record on rights.

* Some U.S. cyclists deplaned into the country wearing filtering air masks.

* Local food sources have been suspect and frozen Tyson’s chicken has been imported from Arkansas.

* We can only speculate on the source of water for locally bottled Coca Cola, of McDonald’s hamburger, of piazza in the Village, and Phelps breakfast fuel--- pancakes.

* Meanwhile, it has been announced that China is the second leading auto market in the world, that Chevys are flying off the show room floors, and the Marlbaro man is alive and well in China.  But, Viagra has not replaced rhino horn in the traditional Chinese medicine shops.

For example:

* More NBC coverage was given to a former minor U.S.Olympian who had his passport revoked by China when he stated his goal of using the occasion of the Games as a
global podium for protesting Sudan human right violations in Darfur.

* A recently nationalized black African will be he standard bearer for the U.S. team at the Games opening ceremonies.

* Today, prior to entering China to attend the ceremonies, President Bush made public statements pointing to the P’RC’s unsatisfactory record on rights.

* Some U.S. cyclists deplaned wearing filtering air masks.

* A small group of bicyclists departed the Adam’s Basin Inn B&B , on Washington between Spencerport and Brockport, after fueling up with a filling gourmet breakfast prepared and serviced by our host Pat Haines.and her husband.

* Pat’s husband drove us and our bikes to our departure site 27 miles downstream to the west.  Rural cobblestone farming country was the scene along Rt. 104 running parallel to the Lake Ontario shoreline.

* Our return bike route included no locks, but plenty of canal cross roads.  After a lunch break, a chat this a transcontinental biking Scots lass, were returned to the Inn after 8 hrs for a shower and and a planned dinner out at a family Greek restaurant in the Victorian center of the college town of Brockport.

* One highlight of the two night one day our trip out of Rochester was the opportunity of visiting the Canal authority workmen manning the barges, tenders and dredges docked at Adam’s Basin.  The bridge bells that sound the lifting of the bridges for the passing boat traffic adds to the authenticity of the setting.

Physical activity and music are part of the mix for the Little girls of Rochester who recently spent two weeks in California. San Francisco, Santa Rosa, and Santa Barbara were in the mix of family venues. See and hear the videos. The embedded version below requires a shockwave-flash plugin.

Emma and Tessa are now back in Rochester, NY and are in full time - full speed biking, swimming and skating modes.  Meanwhile the Buffalo Bills are painting the town of Pittsford and the John Fisher College practice field red and blue.  Live music is in the air every night of the week.