Negative Political Ads are here

Now that the primary is over, and the opponents know who they have to slam, let the slamming begin.  Sunday morning WMUR (good old channel 9, the voice of NH) was just wall to wall with very aggressive and very negative ads, mostly by Democrats slamming Republicans.  It was solid. 

Rush hour in Martian Orbit

We have two Mars orbiters arriving at Mars later this month (21 and 23 September) .  NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (Maven for short) and India's Mangalaan Orbital Mission (MOM for short.  NASA spent $671 million on Maven.  India's MOM is famous in technical circles for getting to Mars for about one tenth that.  Both orbiters still have one heavy duty maneuver before they can be considered to have "arrived"  That is the Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI)  a 34 minute burn of the rocket engines to slow the orbiter to Mars orbit velocity.  That's a long burn, especially for an engine that has been floating in vacuum, unused, for nearly a year.   To make the MOI dicier, the maneuver must be executed by the onboard microprocessor, since radio signals from Earth take 20 minutes to reach Mars.  15 years ago a gross software fault caused a Mars Orbiter to crash on Mars from a failure of the MOI maneuver. 
   Maven carries instruments to verify a Mars creation theory.  Now that we have good evidence of free surface water in the distant Martian past, the theory suggests that the water vapor escaped into interplanetary space due to Mar's weak gravity.  Maven's instruments will measure the flow of gases and ions in the upper Martian atmosphere, hoping to show that water is still escaping and measure the rate, as a way of figuring how long surface water lasted on Mars, before it escaped into space.
  To add to the fun, Siding Spring, a comet, will swing by Mars on 19 October.  It is believed that Siding Spring is a new comet, on it's first trip into the inner solar system.   It is thought that new comets are chunks of ice and gravel that have been floating in interstellar space ("the Ort Cloud") since the beginning of the solar system, and Siding Spring represents matter from the dawn of time, or at least the birth of the solar system which is a long time ago.  Scientists are eager for any information the Mars orbiters can gather from Siding Spring. 

Anti Terrorist Operations

John Kerry spent some TV airtime explaining that what we are doing in Iraq and Syria are "anti-terrorist operations" NOT a war on ISIS.   Sounds like Kerry just wants to do some fireworks displays and go home.  "Operations" are something you can just declare to be over.  If he were to call it a war, then the country would expect victory, which he has no desire to produce. 

Lone Ranger

Another Netflix.  Didn't bother to see it in the theaters.  Good thing too.  It was terrible.  Nobody did anything heroic or romantic or even very interesting.  Nobody was very funny.  Johnny Depp, who can be very funny, didn't get any decent lines.  Armie Hammer, who played the Lone Ranger, did such a super nerd act that it was painful to watch rather than funny.  It went on and on, for ever.  Nobody ever said "Hiyo Silver", no William Tell overture.  I'm not a real Lone Ranger fan, but I do remember the comic books, the TV show, and the black & white movies.  This flick didn't touch any of those bases for nostalgia or for laughs. 
   I didn't bother to watch it to the end, I switched it off and watched Obama's great Tuesday night speech.  Not sure if that was such a great idea.  IMDB estimates Disney spent $215 million to make this disaster and it only grossed $89 million.  I thought Disney was smarter than this.  They must have got the John Carter crew to do 'em another turkey.

What Obama did say last night

Not much.  He spoke for only 15 minutes, which is not much.  He came on TV right at 9 PM as promised.  Thinking this ought to be an important speech I took written notes.  He did give a partial goal, to "degrade and destroy" ISIS, which is something of a question beggar.  If you destroy them you don't have to degrade them.  He did not say what we want to do with the land that ISIS has conquered already.  He mentioned the US pullout of 140K troops from Iraq as if that was a good thing.  "The US is safer, BUT we still face a threat."  That's luke warm, on one hand things are safer, on the other hand the barbarians are at the gates.  What's a citizen to think about that?  Do we kick back and relax or do we go out and buy firearms?
   "ISIL is not Islamic and not a state".  That's a stretch.  They worship Allah and they control more territory than the Bahgdad government or the Assad regime in Syria.  He did call them terrorists, which is new for Obama. 
   Obama worried about ISIS fighters with US or European passports, who could fly into New York without visas.  Doesn't worry me much, I'm sure pass ports can be bought somewhere if they need them.  Plus with 3000 miles of seacoast and 5000 miles of land border, you don't need paperwork to get into the US.  You just walk in, or come by boat.  Little kids from Honduras can do it, so can anyone else. 
   Obama said we had flown 150 airstrikes against ISIS so far.  Actually that's not too shabby, considering we have been at it for 30 days or less.  That's about four airstrikes a day.  Back in the Viet Nam war, my wing only managed two strikes a day, flying off a nice big air base with 10,000 foot runways, road and rail supply from Bangkok, daily Log Air flights and 90 fighter-bombers.  It's harder when flying off an aircraft carrier. 
  Of course you want to do some checking.  If, Obama said "air strike" when he actually meant "sortie" then we got trouble.  150 sorties isn't much.  We used to fly 70 sorties a day out of Korat, going up to bomb "Route Pack 6" (Hanoi). 
  I did hear Obama say we would fly air strikes into Syria.  I also heard him say another 475 troops were going to Iraq.  That brings the troop total up to 1500 US troops in country.  I also heard him say "no boots on the ground"  which makes ISIS feel nice and secure. 
  Obama asked for Congressional support, type and kind unspecified.  He did not ask for a declaration of war (we don't do those any more) or an Authorization for the Use of Military Force, or even a supplemental defense appropriation bill.  If he doesn't ask for something, he won't get it. 
  Then Obama gave a lengthy riff about American exceptionalism, the first I've ever heard him do.  He spoke of some great things from American history, and called them good. 

We survived the New Hampshire primary

I went to the polls early yesterday.  Voting had started off heavy for an off year primary.  All the action was on the Republican side, the Democrats were all running unopposed, or at least with no serious opposition.  When the polls closed we have Walt Havenstein handily beating Andrew Hemmingway for the governor's nomination.  Walt is in his 50s, former CEO of BAE, a big Nashua aerospace contractor (started out as Saunder Associates in the 1960's, I worked there once).  Andrew is a nice very young guy, really too young to be an effective governor, he simply hasn't been around long enough to develop the connections a governor has to have to be effective. Walt now has to beat the incumbent democrat, Maggie Hassan. 
   Scott Brown took the Senate nomination, with something like 50%, far ahead of Jim Rubin and Bob Smith.  Polls predicted Scott's win.  He looks to be the strongest guy going up against incumbent Jeanne Shaheen.  I think Scott can take Jeanne, giving us a second Republican senator. 
  And, surprise, Marilinda Garcia swept the House nomination in my house district.  She got 50%, with Gary Lambert trailing at 20 something %.  This was unexpected.  Marilinda has campaigned hard, and has enjoyed some heavy duty out of state support, TV ad buys.  Certainly the strength of her primary victory makes her the strongest candidate we can put up against Anne Kuster, the democratic incumbent, who is looking kinda old and frumpy and dowdy.  Marilinda is young, slim (very slim) and good looking. 
   In the other congressional district, Frank Guinta won the primary.  Frank has some name recognition in the district.  He has been mayor of Manchester (biggest city in the state). He has been US rep from that district, until Carol Shea Porter beat him two years ago.  So it's a rematch, and who knows how it will come out.
   The Democratic incumbents,  Kuster, Shea-Porter, and Shaheen have been seriously critised in the press for NOT holding town meetings, get togethers with voters, with un rehearsed questions from the floor.  Whereas the three Republicans have been out pressing the flesh with voters for months up here, they have been able to handle questions and just about all the voters have had an opportunity to meet them in person. 

What Obama ought to say tomorrow night

He ought to set forth our objectives, our goals, in the Middle East.  What America wants of achieve.  You gotta sort out your goals before getting into methods (bombing, blockade, ground invasion, etc.  Included as a goal, is who gets control of the ISIS controlled Iraq and Syria.  Without goals, it's hard to enlist allies in a crusade.  Might as well use the good old word that we all understand and the Arabs all hate. 
Possible goals, listed from soft to hard.
1.  Stay out of it.  Let ISIS grab as much territory as it likes.  Obama personally likes this one, but fears the voters will turn on him and the Democrats if he voices it.
2.  Contain ISIS.  Prevent them from grabbing more territory but let them live and keep what they have.  Lotta people like this, it seems cheap and easy.  It leaves a deadly enemy in control of a lotta oil, lotta land, lotta people.  They could well bide their time, build up their strength and try something like 9-11 in a couple of years.
3.  Destroy ISIS.  Kill their leadership, drive their supporters into the desert, lay waste to their croplands, bomb their industry, "dehouse" their workers.  Seize their oil fields, refineries and pipelines.  Decide what to do with ISIS controlled territory.  Give it to the Shia Baghdad government? set up a new Sunni government?  give a goodly slice to the Kurds?  Since ISIS controls a swath of Syria as well as most of Sunni Iraq,  we will have to do something about Assad after we blow ISIS away and seize the ISIS lands in Syria. 

Obama may not want to express a goal.  Partly 'cause he fears he will be unable to get agreement on a goal that he likes, and partly 'cause he will get blamed if he fails to achieve a goal once he announces it. 

My bet.  Obama will not talk about goals,  and at best he will discuss/advocate for, some air strikes, big enough to look good on TV, but not enough to really hurt ISIS.  That will quiet down the domestic hawks.  Then he will call for allies, European and Arab to step up to the plate and commit troops, aircraft, money and jet fuel.   Which they will fail to do, 'cause they have no idea what the Americans are gonna do, and don't want to risk war unless they understand what's in it for them.