Senator [Soldier] McCain Lies AGAIN, Credit Crisis OVER, OVER 85% Efficient MSW to Energy

Have you ever heard of "the carpenters' dilemma"? It certainly seems to me that Senator John McCain suffers from a form of it.

You see, the carpenters' dilemma is that when the only tool one possesses is a hammer, a carpenter is likely, under such circumstances, to treat every problem as if it were a nail. It is not surprising that a person who comes from several generations of military tradition and tends to define himself as a, "military man", is all too likely to see every problem as having a military solution. Traditions in the military like, "no man left behind" or "victory at any cost" are deeply ingrained during training, but officers are supposed to be trained in making tactical decisions that serve the strategy of their commanders.

"Soldiers" (or in this case a navy pilot) tend to see something that they can call victory in narrow terms, defining it as total annihilation of the enemy or some form of formal surrender. This seems to be John McCain's view of the American position in Iraq. He seems to have forgotten that we won the war, that we are now an occupation force, trying to reshape the government in our own image, while making some amends for the vast destruction we inflicted during a brief war. He keeps calling for, "victory (with honor)," (although General David Petraeus has said he would not use the word "victory" himself) while, at the same time, he has no definition for victory that suits the circumstances.

During recent debate he also tried to hang tags of "naïve" and "inexperienced" on his opponent. He kept saying, "But what Senator Obama doesn't understand ..." as if repetition of the phrase would make it true. Unfortunately, if not immediately challenged, such repetitious nonsense is likely to be mistaken for truth by a large enough percentage of under-informed voters that it could make a difference. For those who were paying attention, most of the pundit agreed that Senator Obama amply demonstrated that he did, very well, understand.

Undaunted, Senator McCain continued on his attack path. For instance he said, "And this area on the border [between Pakistan and Afghanistan] has not been governed since the days of Alexander the Great.

I've been to Waziristan. I can see how tough that terrain is. It's ruled by a handful of tribes.

And, yes, Senator Obama calls for more troops, but what he doesn't understand, it's got to be a new strategy, the same strategy that he condemned in Iraq. It's going to have to be employed in Afghanistan."

Apparently Alexander the Great was a wiser commander than George W Bush, or Senator McCain. Much of Alexander's great success was based on swift tactical victories and quickly moving on. Of course he extracted promises of tribute and left behind enough scholars to teach the Greek language and handle the bookkeeping, but he didn't wait around as an occupying force to reshape their societies in the pattern of his Macedonian homeland.

Senator McCain, on the other hand, seems to want us to go and make the same mistakes in Afghanistan that we already made in Iraq. The good thing in all of this was McCain's frequent praise for, and reliance upon General David Petraeus, whose good judgment in Iraq led to the use of the additional troops of that "surge" to be organized into local positions which amounted to auxiliary police force maintaining law and order rather than searching of every crack and crevice for holdout Baathists, al-Qaeda sympathizers, or disgruntled Sunnis who have never been disarmed. (All of which helped, though not as much as hiring the Sunni tribes of el Anbar province as mercenaries for "our" side.)

Okay somebody has to mention it. Senator McCain has never been to Waziristan! I mean it. Never! Ever!!

Next "distortion" (why we don't call them "lies" I don't know, for this kind of distortion is nothing short of an untrue statement intended to mislead millions of people) was when McCain said: "...he has said that he would announce military strikes into Pakistan." Of course, Senator Obama never said any such thing. He said that given intelligence of sufficient reliability as to the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden and/or other senior al-Qaeda leaders, and absent the willing cooperation of the government of Pakistan, he would authorize military action to "take him out." That's hardly the same thing as pre-announcing military strikes on Pakistan.

Oh, yes, supposedly Senator McCain's great strength is in his knowledge of foreign policy but according to the transcript of the debate in the New York Times website he said, " the new president of Pakistan, Kardari(sic), has got his hands full." [Pakistan's new President is named Asif Ali Zardari.] Not to mention that Sarah Palin was caught on tape in a restaurant agreeing with Obama on the Pakistan raids, the tape of which was shown to Senator McCain during This Week with George Stephanopolous on Sunday, to which McCain only mumbled something about it being "unfair" to hold people's private conversations as representative of their actual official public policy. Gee, I guess that isn't "fair" is it Senator? It would be expecting too much to hold the same opinions in private as the ones one shouts in public, wouldn't it?

Love is blind, and so, to a large extent is politics. Far too many people (and especially politicians) are far too partisan to see beyond the symbol of their favored party. But if John McCain can't hold his own on Foreign Policy, he is fumbling, stumbling and falling down on the job on domestic economy issues. He was all but claiming responsibility for pulling members of the House of Representatives together by getting the Republican Congressmen to come to the negotiating table on the so-called "Wall Street Bailout" by purchasing approximately $700,000,000,000 of mortgages which are either in default or shaky. It seems that House Republicans were more afraid of offending their own constituents than of breaking ranks with their Presidential Nominee. Senator McCain's grandstanding by "suspending" his campaign to devote his attention to this issue looks like it has backfired on him.

Indeed when it came to a vote in the House on Monday, twice as many Republicans voted against the bailout bill as voted for it. Another "black eye" for Senator McCain and his claim to have convinced Republican house members of the "necessity" of passing this bill.

On Monday the Fed took action:

"Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve will pump an additional $630 billion into the global financial system, flooding banks with cash to alleviate the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression.

The Fed increased its existing currency swaps with foreign central banks by $330 billion to $620 billion to make more dollars available worldwide. The Term Auction Facility, the Fed's emergency loan program, will expand by $300 billion to $450 billion. The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan are among the participating authorities.

The Fed's expansion of liquidity, the biggest since credit markets seized up last year, came hours before the U.S. House of Representatives rejected a $700 billion bailout for the financial industry. The crisis is reverberating through the global economy, causing stocks to plunge and forcing European governments to rescue four banks over the past two days alone."

If it really was a "credit crunch" as was being stated publicly, the "credit crunch" should be over! What is pissing me off is that no one is paying attention to the fact that this is NOT "spending" the US$700 billion, it is "investing" the money in what admittedly are not the best of mortgage securities, but have the fundamental underlying value of the real estate mortgaged backing them. Some (small percentage) of the loans may turn up losing money. A tiny percentage might even be worthless, but as the house market recovers, and housing values recover, this will be a PROFIT MAKING set of investments because the Federal Government can afford to wait for them to mature (or be taken out by new financing from new purchasers).

This almost doesn't qualify as news, but Biodiesel Magazine reports that researchers under Dr. Patrick Murray at the National University of Ireland in Galway and in cooperation with Alternative Energy Resources have converted algae into biodiesel at "high rates". It would be good news except for the fact that spokesman John Travers declined to give any specifics about the research. Do you suppose he got the recipe from little gray space aliens was for him to secrecy? Could there have been Irish "little people" involved in these promises of pots of gold?

Better news from a higher and seems to be from an organization calling itself 3NRG Waste Management Inc, which appears to be a division of FLI. 3NRG claims to be able to find 85% of MSW (Municipal Solid Wastes) to divert away from ending up in landfills. That fraction encompasses various forms of recyclables and what they call the organic fraction consisting of mainly cellulose fiber. Their website actually calls the recyclables "clean recyclables" because in the early stages all of the wastes is put through autoclaves. Yes, giant autoclaves like doctors and hospitals used to sterilize surgical instruments. The FLI company also does wastewater processing and has floating pond covers of rather interesting design.

Another company worth a look is Full Circle Energy. Full Circle attempts to be just that. They go right from raw materials which can be coal or organic wastes, including tires, MSW, hospital wastes (normally considered "hazardous") to agricultural wastes (my favorite, manure) to a no-waste, no ash production of electricity. There is a very nice power point introduction to the company as well as an animated power point explaining the various steps in the process. This bunch has some "heavy hitter" companies in their corner, as well as some smaller allies. I'll be keeping an eye on them, and probably talking to them as well.

On the artistic side, although there have been several events in my social calendar lately, I'd like to mention just two. One is, unfortunately something that has already gone, which is a local production of "Nunnsense". The cast at the Arizona Broadway Theater (a local dinner theatre, only in existence for a few years) was the best I have seen at that establishment. In particular the young lady playing the role of Sister Amnesia was stunningly versatile. Mandy Rose is a name you should look for in the future. I believe her career could be both long and spectacular if she has the will and the determination to make that happen.

Lastly, the third book in the "Inheritance Series" was released. Brsingr is the newest episode in this trilogy. Christopher Paolini, came to prominence at the age of 19 when his first novel, "Eragon" hit the New York Times bestseller list. That swashbuckling, wizardry, dragons and magic epic was actually written when he was just 16 years old. Home schooled, he had graduated (home) high school at age 15. I am only a few pages into reading this latest, but I can tell you that it certainly appears to be living up to the prior stanzas, and my opinion of those was that they were the finest books of the last 50 years (if not longer).

Love and warm wishes,

Stafford "Doc" Williamson

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