Battleground States

I'm looking at a very interesting electoral map of the US. It shows the solid republican states, the solid democratic states and the tossup (battleground) states. The Republicans own a solid strip of middle west states, going from Texas up to North Dakota, plus the old confederacy. The Democrats can count on California, Illinois, New York, New England and Maryland. The electoral votes are evenly split, 150 democrat, 153 GOP, 235 swing votes.
Should be a hotly contested election. New Hampshire, unlike the rest of New England, is a battleground state.

Kay Bailey Hutchinson vs Ed Markey on ABC

George Stephanopolis had republican Hutchinson debating democrat Markey on his Sunday morning pundit show. The guy doing the labels managed to promote Markey to senator (he is truly just a US rep from Massachusetts). Hutchinson came out for doing something real about the fuel price spike, namely drilling for oil and building more nuclear power plants. Markey tried to explain the great fuel price spike was Bush's fault. Didn't bother to explain just what Bush had done to cause the great price spike, but he was very positive that it was all Bush's fault. Then Markey went on to explain the need for government subsidies for "alternate" energy. According to Markey nothing gets down unless subsidized by the taxpayers. Like ethanol, which gets subsidies, tariff protection, and a federal law requiring addition of 10% ethanol to all motor gasoline. The corn farmers love it. Price of corn passed $7 a bushel the other day. It was $3.50 two years ago.
America has been the land of problem fixing since George Washington's day. Got a problem, we will invent a solution. Are we short of fuel? Fine, lets produce more. And lets work on fuel, the kind you can put in your furnace or your car. "Alternate" energy doesn't work in either place. The republicans have it right, more fuel production is the answer to the great fuel price spike.

Tanker Tangle

Boo Boo. Major Boo Boo. The General Accountability Office, GAO, just declared the USAF jet tanker competition was unfair, and ought to be redone. That's gonna set the program back another year, and soak up more millions of dollars redoing all the paperwork. Plus generate more hard feelings no matter whether Airbus or Boeing gets the contract in the end. No wonder SecDef Gates fired the Air Force civilian head and chief of staff last month. This is a disgrace to the Air Force. Once upon a time I was an Air Force officer. I used to look back with some pride on my service. That's harder to do now.
The tanker selection is not rocket science. It's just buying off-the-shelf jet transport planes, and replacing the seats with fuel tanks. Deciding between Airbus and Boeing is something the commercial airlines have figured out how to do. If Delta and Southwest can pick between them why can't USAF? Why cannot USAF have some Air Force Manual on airplane buying, and comply with it?
Were the Air Force officers on the selection board so unprofessional as to take out personal grudges on the bidders? And the senior Air Force leadership let them do it? Reading between the lines in Aviation Week one gets the impression that Boeing had pissed off a number of Air Force people.
Why did the Air Force ask Boeing to bid a small aircraft and Airbus to bid a big one? And then cite the advantages of large size after selecting Airbus? There are obvious advantages to big planes and to small planes, and after operating jet tankers for half a century, the Air Force ought to be able to decide which size tanker best suits their needs. The request for proposal should have specified the aircraft size.
In fact, Airbus and Boeing jet transports are so similar that passengers are hard pressed to tell which one they are flying in. The only real selection issue is price. The hungriest company will offer the best price. The competing price quotes did not appear in Aviation Week, let alone the clueless MSM. Did the Air Force keep the price secret? Does the Air Force even care what the price is?
The Air Force officers responsible for this bungle should be disciplined, and they oughta outsource the next selection to the commercial airlines.

How much oil is offshore?

Today McCain and President Bush came out in favor of exploring for oil off the US coasts. They cited oil reserves of 10 billion barrels and up. Bringing that amount of oil onto the market would make a serious reduction in the price of gasoline.
Barack Obama opposes off shore drilling. He doesn't think there is enough oil out there to make a difference.
Barack Obama is a nice guy and all, but he isn't the right guy to ask about the size of oilfields. I want to hear what ExxonMobil, Atlantic Richfield, Gulf, BP, Chevron and the rest of them think. If the majors want to spend the humungous sums of money needed to bring in an offshore field, that means they think there is oil in it. If the majors want to drill it, they think there is oil down there. When big oil, who has been risking money on drilling for 100 years now, wants to bet on a gusher, I'll put my money down alongside of theirs. Barack Obama is just a politician, and he doesn't know oil like the real oil guys do.
I can't put alternate energy into my car or my furnace. I need the real thing.

Bye Bye Hummer

Nightly business report is doing interviews with Hummer dealers. Seems that sales are indeed off, even the dealers are admitting it. One dealer was explaining that the Hummer gas milage was really better than people think, as good a 12-14 mpg, on regular gas. Hell, my '99 Cadillac DeVille gets twice that and runs knock free on regular. Hummer is the vehicle that makes Caddy look economical? That's gonna sell Hummers?

Cluelessness on the News Hour

Last night Ray Suarez was chatting breezily with a youngish Wall St broker type. They traded market jargon back and forth and sounded very hep. Then the broker guy said something like "Of course the market for mortgage backed securities froze up last fall and still hasn't unfrozen" Wow. Understatement of the year. A better description of the situation is that investors wised up last fall and won't touch mortgage backed securities with a ten foot pole. And there is no reason to believe investors will ever buy them again.
Buried in the fine print of mortgaged backed securities is language that means "If the mortgages "backing" this security default it will cost you, the security owner. The security will loose value and/or reduce dividend payments. And by the way, said mortgages are all sub prime. "
Now that investors understand the fine print (burned investor hand teaches best) they have resolved never to get mixed up in them again.
I expect Hell to freeze over before that market "unfreezes".
Ray Suarez never called him on it. Was Ray merely being polite (he is a nice guy) or was he clueless too?

So how do they know the tomatoes are contaminated?

It's tough trying to make a living growing tomatoes. FDA is blaming the salmonella outbreak on tomatoes, from somewhere. Sales have dropped to zip. Fresh ripe tomatoes are piling up unsold, un eaten and going bad. Growers are losing money thru no fault of their own. How do they know the salmonella came from a tomato? Were they able to culture salmonella from an uneaten tomato? If so, could they read the packer's name and lot number off the cardboard carton?
Or, did they merely ask the victims to list everything they ate, and discover that all ( or a lot) of the victims listed tomatoes? Since tomato is about the most popular veggie in America you'd expect nearly everyone to list them. Guilt by association.
FDA isn't talking. Wonder what they are really doing