Normally I don’ spend a whole lot of time checking out world expos. I spent a part of my youth trawling the aftermath of expo 1967 (Montreal if you didn’t know), expo 1889 holds a special place in my heart (Paris and the creation of the Eiffel Tower), 1939 – hey world of tomorrow is always a theme here (New York if you really don’t know) and that’s about it. But this year, 2010 is in Shanghai. And I wouldn’t mention it but for a thought provoking column in the Los Angeles Times, informing that Dow Chemical sponsored the US Pavillion.

What?

Have we sold out our whole America is the greatest democratic nation in the world to a corporate sponsor? It’s bad enough every sports stadium has become some corporate named behemoth, confusing sports fandom the world over.

Here’s the part that stopped me:

The cause is a 1990s law that restricts federal funding for international expositions. This silly bit of isolationism meant the pavilion had to be built by a nonprofit group and given to the U.S. as a gift. State governments were asked to contribute to the nonprofit, but only three — Texas, Tennessee and Hawaii — came through. As a result, there’s a map in the lobby that leaves 47 states unidentified — an appalling symbol of disunity. (Chicago and San Antonio also contributed.)

The other donors were corporations. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who stepped up fundraising after she took office, and the companies that wrote checks should be commended — without them, the U.S. would have been AWOL. (That may be unthinkable, except that it has already occurred: In 2000, the U.S. was a no-show at the World Expo in Hanover, Germany. And in 2005, when the Expo was held near Nagoya, Japan, Toyota’s hometown, only the automaker’s largess made it possible for the U.S. to participate.)

So, some dimwits in Congress decided that public funding, meaning tax dollars, shouldn’t be used for nation building. Unless of course it has something to do with Iraq. Meanwhile, the LA Timers reports:

By contrast, the U.S. pavilion has all the appeal of a suburban multiplex. (It was designed by Clive Grout, a Canadian who specializes in “attraction” architecture.)

But the real problem is inside the building, where bland ideas reign. On giant video screens, spokespeople for corporate sponsors such as Chevron and PepsiCo spout platitudes about the future, and a little girl gets her neighbors to help her turn a rubbish-strewn lot into a garden. When a thunderstorm appears over the garden, seats in the auditorium shake and a bit of rain falls from the rafters. It’s a cute gimmick, but the exhibition designers used it five years ago in Japan, that time to spice up a video about Benjamin Franklin.

Bland and boring. Our marketing at work in the global economy.

Continuing the transparency project that would be getting a lot more press that it is if we weren’t confronted with a potentially deadly economic crisis, the Obama Administration has rolled out a very accessible means for people to follow what Secretary of State Clinton is doing.

When you get there, you can click on any of those icons showing the stops along the way, and up pops a dialogue bubble with video, pics, links to other stuff. Pretty cool stuff.

If you zoom all the way in, you can see Hillary’s suite in the Parc de Vermont just off Lac Leman. She’s got a great view.

No you can’t. Continue Reading

Shelly Sindland hosts Fox 61′s contribution to our Sunday morning diet of news and opinion.

Connecticut joined the ranks of the truly progressive as same-sex marriages are now being performed around the state. Shelly interviews the first couple married in the state, just re-elected State Rep. Beth Bye(D) of West Hartford and her wife, Dr. Tracey Wilson. Following that Shelly gives some equal time for opponents’ comments.

Next up is J. Paul Vance Jr., who announced he was running for Mayor of Waterbury when he filed his campaign committee papers in July. Vance makes an announcement late in the interview and Shelly delivers some red meat in this segment, so check it out.


Shelly wraps things up with a look at what is in store for the new President. Joe Biden told supporters to expect that President Obama will be “tested” within the first six months of taking office with some foriegn policy crisis. National security expert Scott Bates, V.P. The Center of National Policy weighs-in with his perspective, including his experience during several visits to Iraq.

Gen. David Petraeus’s reason for not voting in past presidential elections is not logical, patriotic or brave.

The issue was raised by the media in the days following Gen. Colin Powell’s endorsement of Sen. Barrack Obama. Petraeus was asked who he would endorse, and his answer was that he didn’t vote for presidential candidates because he would have to do the bidding of whomever became commander and chief.

On its very face, this is an illogical response—especially coming from a man named one of the world’s top public intellectuals by Foreign Policy magazine. The voting booth is a sanctuary for the anonymous expression of our conscience as citizens. Neither Gen. Petraeus’ vote nor Joe the Plumber’s vote is part of the public record, unless and until they wish to disclose how they voted. I can readily see why a top-ranked military official would not want to make his choice of candidate public. In that case, all that’s required is to tell the interrogator that the information they seek is private, and leave it at that.

While many may consider a man of Petraeus’ stature the pinnacle of a patriot, the abrogation of duty to vote is decidedly not the action of a patriot. It is our paramount civic responsibility to vote, just as serving in the military is a high service and often a supreme sacrifice to our country.

One might also assume that Gen. Petraeus’ rise through the ranks had something to do with bravery, since he wears the Bronze star. However, it seems the dodge of a coward to not vote because you may have to serve a president you personally wouldn’t have chosen to lead the country. But wait. Isn’t that what military training aims to achieve—serving a higher authority with which you may not be in total agreement? Soldiers are trained to say, “Yes, sir!” even when their hearts say, “No.”

In the corporate world, which so dominates our culture and politics, men and women carry out the orders of CEOs who donate large sums to candidates and often put their subordinates in a similar position as Gen. Petraeus. Yet, do these people choose not to vote because they have to work under a CEO whose politics don’t coincide with theirs? Perhaps some take Gen. Petraeus’ tact, but most vote their conscience and have the guts to speak their truth or give a no comment.

The next President will be sworn in on January 20, 2009. Fox News Sunday Morning probed a question today that a number of people are asking. What will the transition period look like?

Host Chris Wallace: The core of the Bush Doctrine … [is] “we will not allow the world’s most dangerous regimes to get their hands on the world’s most dangerous weapons.”

Weekly Standard Editor and FNS panelist William Kristol has some advice for Barack Obama:

Kristol is a strategic player in Republican messaging and Fox News is devoted to influencing (if not controlling) the political debate. Given the status of the Presidential contest and the direction of the polls, are we seeing now the beginning of the loyal opposition’s strategy and message for the next cycle?

And should we commit to this core aspect of the Bush Doctrine as a permanent element to our national security policy and strategy? Continue Reading

The Hill reports on comments made at a breakfast by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen. Here is an interesting tidbit at the end of the report [emphasis added]:

[Adm. Mullen] … expressed surprise that there were no questions about the situation in Iraq during the hourlong breakfast discussion.
“Isn’t it amazing that there were no questions about Iraq? Clearly, the trends are in the right direction in Iraq. I am very hopeful that we will continue to draw down forces there,” he said. “It is still fragile and not irreversible.”

Interesting that the reporters were focused on Afghanistan rather than Iraq; and that Mullen wanted to bring it up.

Mullen made his remarks at a breakfast sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor, according to the report linked above.

The Monitor‘s online presence posts an account of Iraqi efforts at reconciliation that buttresses Mullen’s statement. It is definitely worth a few minutes to read it.
Excerpt:

This push has been enabled by improved security and a dramatic fall in violent attacks over the past year due to several factors: the US military surge, the decision by Sunni militants to join the US in fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), and a stand down of the Mahdi Army, the main anti-American Shiite militia.

Not to disagree with this assertion, but the Monitor gives no attribution for it. Does this constitute an editorial remark (by either the journalist or his editor) in the middle of a journalistic piece? Continuing:

“When we start this tribal reconciliation, it should be the seed of reconciliation for all of Iraq,” says [Sheikh Fayeq Hassan al-Taiee, a Shiite peacemaker], who began his efforts five months ago. “The Shiite and the Sunni people, each one stole the rights of the others, and now must solve that in a peaceful way. They should return to their senses; they found that killing is not a good way.”

Recall the use of the word “fragile” in Adm. Mullen’s remark in The Hill piece quoted above. The following appears a little further on in the Monitor’s piece [emphasis added]:

“The people realize more and more that they do not want to return to the ethnosectarian violence that had their country on the brink of civil war,” the former US commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, said in Washington Tuesday of the national trend. “With each passing day there is a little bit less of that fragility as progress takes on a slightly more enduring nature.”

Then another unattributed assertion:

It was only the deployment of the Iraqi Army and US-backed Sons of Iraq militia across Taji Province, that includes Tarmiyeh, that has enabled any chance of reconciliation.

Here is a google for Iraq “is still fragile and reversible”. It returns 74 hits.
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From McCain’s point of view, polls have been steadily deteriorating over the last two weeks. Simulations being run of possible outcomes show a steady and significant increase in the likelihood of a decisive Obama win. Consistent with this, my daily survey of polling and swing-state tilt may have reached a tipping point.

Today, two key states that had been leaning McCain are now leaning Obama – Nevada and Virginia. Missouri, Indiana, North Carolina, and Florida have moved from solidly McCain to leaning McCain.

New Hampshire and Ohio – until today leaning McCain – are now looking like tossups. Going back to the 269 to 269 post, it was clear that, barring an unpredictable flip in Michigan, Wisconsin, or Pennsylvania, there was no way to make the math work for McCain if he loses Ohio. Not possible.

Other than taxes, McCain hopes that foreign policy is his trump card, and the subject of tonight’s debate is foreign policy. Tonight may be McCain’s moment, the turning point after many false starts: the thwarted Lieberman gambit; the Palin gambit; the “I’d fire the Chairman of the SEC gambit”; the “I’m suspending my campaign gambit”; the “I’m going to Washington to get this legislation done” gambit; the “I’m postponing the Friday September 26th Debate” gambit.

If Obama can win the debate in the eyes of the people of Ohio or Florida, that is, if the trend continues to move toward Obama in one or both of these two states, it may be impossible for McCain to prevent a landslide loss.

If that happens, we’ll start talking about just how long Obama’s coat tails in the Congressional and Senate races are going to be, and whether the Republican Party is facing a real prospect of being in effect a regional rather than a national political party. Continue Reading

The weather that day was almost exactly like it is today, except the skies were even clearer.

The day before I had been in NYC, as I was several days a week back then. The weather was spectacular, and I planned on going downtown that afternoon.

Despite the fact I had lived in Manhattan for several years, I had never seen the view from the top of the world trade center and resolved that I would bring my camera and take the subway down. But my meetings ran well into the afternoon, and I had to get back up to Connecticut for some stuff Monday night. I had to come back into the city Tuesday evening, so I put off the sightseeing until the next afternoon.

Like this morning, I had been up late Monday night and slept in. When I got up and turned on the radio, I didn’t hear the expected programming. I quickly turned on the television. What I saw was confusing – how could an airplane hit the world trade center on a perfectly clear morning like this? Memory is a funny thing, but as I recall, the second plane came in and crashed into the other tower as I watched the first building burning on TV. It was about this time of day, a Tuesday.

It was impossible trying to reach my associates in the city. The circuits were busy. All any of us could do was watch, and listen, and wait, to try and find out what the hell just happened, and worry what it meant.

Stick to the subject, please.
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Former Clinton political operative Paul Begala articulates a pointed critique and points out a serious problem with the Palin pick:

For a man who is 72 years old and has had four bouts with cancer to have chosen someone so completely unqualified to become president is shockingly irresponsible. Suddenly, McCain’s age and health become central issues in the campaign, as does his judgment.

This is not just spin and political posturing. This raises real issues. Begala concludes:

For months, the McCainiacs have said they will run on his judgment and experience. In his first presidential decision, John McCain has shown he is willing to endanger his country, potentially leaving it in the hands of someone who simply has no business being a heartbeat away from the most powerful, complicated, difficult job in human history.

Well said.
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We need to make a strategic commitment to alternatives that address the many-faceted problems that now attend our economy and national security policy – oriented around the premise and necessity of inexpensive hydrocarbons – at their root.

Drilling is not going to effectively address this pitch, as three decades in pursuit of that national energy, industrial, and security strategy has demonstrated. It was arguably the best strategy while we were the global geopolitical, economic, and military hegemon (with apologies to the Soviet Union, which in the end was revealed as principally but a foil for the American military-industrial complex).

The cost of “petrol” in Europe is considerably higher than in the US. For example, using an average price per liter in July of USD1.0866 in the US, the equivalent amount of fuel in Western Europe was a bit higher than USD2.263, allowing for the weak dollar. Imagine what would happen here if gasoline were to rise to nearly nine bucks a gallon! Yet Europe is not a smoldering ruin. The reason is that the economy isn’t predicated on gas at prices so low that only oil-producing dictatorships offer it cheaper.

The reality is that demand for petroleum in the United States is heavily subsidized. Road building and maintenance are funded by property taxes at the local level; income and sales taxes subsidize road construction and maintenance at the state level; income taxes subsidize roads at the federal level. The interstate highway system subsidizes the trucking industry and that subsidy is passed along to the distribution network and the manufacturers and importers and exporters who rely on it. Our need and ability to provide the petroleum companies with strong positions in the global petroleum industry is massively subsidized by our ability to project military power from Groton, Newport News, San Diego and Seattle to the Suez Canal, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Caspian Basin.

Petroleum is a global commodity priced principally in dollars. Subscribers to the supply-side school of economics know that it argues that increasing the supply and lowering the price of a product increases demand, right?

So drilling for oil in environmentally sensitive areas is not going to alleviate the problem. At best, it will have a marginal impact on the price at some point in the future.

Incidentally, nobody is talking about dropping an oil derrick in Long Island Sound. Did the title hit your NIMBY button?
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