The Haze Filter

Visiting The West Bank ::

This is very interesting:

Less than a day after I had arrived, I was awakened in the middle of the night by loud explosions. Israeli troops had rolled into town. This was soon followed by the rumble of military vehicles climbing their way up Jaffa Street. I looked out the window and saw the convoy stop right underneath my window. Of all the windows of all the buildings of all the towns in the West Bank, the Israel Defense Forces had to choose mine as the spot to rest their deafening hardware at 3am! My astonishment was soon interrupted by the sight of a white car barreling down toward the convoy at high speed. It came to a screeching halt, barely avoiding a collision with the head humvee. (Not to nitpick, but the convoy was moving uphill on the wrong side of the divided street.) Confusion ensued. Troops shouted orders and the two occupants got out of the car and raised their hands in the air. Three soldiers walked slowly toward them: one of them searched them; another inspected the car; the third fidgeted with his machine gun. I watched.

How Much Offshore Oil Do We Have Access To? ::

From McClatchy :

The Interior Department offered a wide range of estimates of how much oil might be within reach of U.S. offshore drilling in a 2006 report. It estimated that the Outer Continental Shelf could hold 115.4 billion barrels. However, it also estimated that recoverable reserves off U.S. coasts in areas now banned from production probably hold only about 19 billion barrels.

The figures differ widely because the higher number is a broader measure that includes "cumulative production, proved and unproved reserves."

The world consumes about 86 million barrels a day. The U.S. share of that is about 20.6 million barrels, 60 percent of them from foreign sources.

One thousand million barrels equals 1 billion, so if there are 19 billion barrels in the areas McCain would open to drilling, that's enough to provide about 920 days, or about 2.5 years, of current U.S. consumption.

As an aside, I have always assumed that a barrel of oil was 55 gallons, but a few days ago I heard a commentator on radio give the physical dimensions and that must have been a day when my brain was in gear because this stuck with me and I later checked into just what constitutes a barrel of oil. Turns out the actual quantity of a barrel of oil is 42 gallons and it is based on the size of a barrel of beer back when the black gold first began being pumped here in America. Interesting.

Now we can all go back to the endless pandering!

Gay Marriage In California ::

I have absolutely no problem with a state sanctioning a union between any two people who care enough about each other to enter into a marriage and I look forward to the inevitable day when gay marriage will become commonplace rather than a rarity!

Here's George Takei and his long-time partner, Brad Altman getting their license:

[photo courtesy of eonline]

Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin became the first to marry after having lived in a committed relationship for 55 years.

GOOD FOR THEM!

Replacing Russert ::

I see no one on the horizon who excites me. Why isn't anyone mentioning someone with integrity?
Say, Terry Gross of NPR's Fresh Air. I would never miss that one!

Former S.C. Senator Ernest Hollings Writes A Book ::

If GIs are put into Iraq to fight, there are too few. If they are put there to die, there are too many.

The title of the book is "Making Government Work" and here is another excerpt from chapter 15:

We have failed to learn from the past. We spent 10 years in Vietnam pursuing a policy of “Vietnamization,” hoping that South Vietnamese troops would take control of their own fate. It cost us 58,000 lives and 153,000 wounded. We still lost.

Now we’re trying to “Iraqify” Iraq with the same strategy. There is no education in the second kick of a mule.

Five years ago, I knew that invading Iraq was a mistake, and I took the floor of the U.S. Senate to tell my colleagues of my “Cambodian moment.”

Majority Leader Mike Mansfield had quietly opposed the war in Vietnam for years. He had a practice of writing memos against the war to Presidents Johnson and Nixon while publicly supporting the war on the floor of the Senate. But finally, when Cambodia was invaded under President Nixon, he snapped.

Going on television, he said Vietnam was a mistake from the get-go. The next day, he received a letter from an admirer who had just lost his son. He said: “I just buried my son to come home and watch you say that the Vietnam War was a mistake from the beginning. Why didn’t you speak out sooner?”

I realized I reached my Cambodian moment when I realized that we had gone from war to occupation, hoping for democracy to flourish in Iraq. I didn’t think our occupation was worth the life of a single additional GI.

My beef with Iraq is the command. We all know that the troops have performed admirably. But the command is lousy.

You can read more from this chapter at The State.

Gore Breaks For Obama ::

From the CNN blurb this morning:

"Americans simply cannot afford to continue the policies of the last eight years for another four," Gore, the party's 2000 presidential nominee, told Obama supporters at a rally in Detroit, Michigan.

Seems to me that the Dems are now solidly lining up behind Obama and I'm just curious as to how long the disaffected Clinton supporters will take to realize that Obama is right for the nation and deserves their support also!

I can't close this without snortling a bit at the repubs response to the Gore endorsement. Again, from CNN:

GOP spokesman Alex Conant reacted to Gore's criticism of President Bush. "This election isn't about changing the past, it's about changing the future," he told The Associated Press on Monday evening.