I have a terrible feeling that the results of this election will be moot.  At some point the debt crisis is going to pitch the world economy into the abyss.  Our professional political class seems oblivious to the crisis.  Eventually events will overwhelm us, and then it's every man for himself.  I wish I could maintain even a glimmer of hope, but I can't.  Tell me what difference the Supreme Court is going to make when the government is broke and can't afford to enforce it's dictates.  Anyone?  The only silver lining I can see is that I'll no longer be morally obligated to obey the laws of an increasingly capricious government.  Prepare yourselves.  The worst is yet to come.    

Things are looking good in New Mexico with former congresswoman Heather Wilson likely to get the GOP nomination.  She is perhaps the only candidate with statewide name recognition and a sterling reputation for hard work.  Wilson was able to defeat Democratic candidates again and again during her tenure as representative from the 2nd district.   

"Who's the visionary now, foul salamander?  Bwa, ha, ha, ha, ha!"

We don't have this problem in New Mexico.  Our public trains and buses are mostly empty.  But we still need them, of course.  We wouldn't want to deny welfare moms a chance to go to the casino on the first of every month.  Except that the "poor" prefer to go by taxi.  Never mind.  

I'm feeling the urge to scratch.

It just occurred to me that it's the first of the month!  The cab business will be booming tonight as we take the "poor" to bars and casinos for their monthly bash at taxpayer expense.  

I'm waiting for the candidate who takes a stand against moral poverty.    

Mostly we would like to change them back.

The quality of the prose, the syntax, grammar, and spelling were obviously spruced up by a literate person.  Few slaves were educated enough to speak like this.  Nevertheless, the sentiment rings true.  You can see similar attitudes expressed from writers like William Faulkner and W.E.B. Du Bois.

Of course, the left will never admit that such sentiments existed.  Any such expression would be anathema to their Manichaean worldview where black is noble and white is pure evil.  I wish I could link pictures from the current billboard campaign in Minneapolis (calling James Lileks).  Whites are apparently guilty of racism in perpetuity!  Unlike the Catholic view of original sin, white racism can never be expunged.  Never!   

I keep a jar of coins on my desk.  I call it change you can believe in.  At least coinage gives the illusion of hard currency.  The problem is that the other kind of change is based on script, and paper is notoriously ephemeral.  Consider the things we consign to paper:  money, contracts, and documents.  The only thing backing them up is trust.  The problem with change as it is espoused today is that "trust-fund" is bankrupt.  We have every right to be cynical.    

The two nations are dangerous for different reasons.  Ahmadinejad has stated publicly the regime's intention to wipe Israel off the map.  He appears to be speaking for the "millennial" faction of the Iranian government.  At least with Pakistan the ruling elites are western educated and western oriented.

The danger with Iran is that the leadership might actually try to make good on the threat.  The problem with Pakistan is that it's unstable.  What would happen if the nuclear program fell into the wrong hands?  Or for that matter what would happen if a single bomb went missing?  I'm told that the US has contingency plans to remove the Pakistani arsenal should the regime fall to radicals.  The alternative is for India to invade Pakistan, knock it out, and seize the nuclear program.  Neither plan fills me with confidence.     

The problem is that if you are attempting to subvert a government in hopes of regime change, a conventional attack from across the border might have the opposite effect.  An attack, especially by Israel, could very well rally the people around the current regime.  I suspect that this is why, at least for the present, the war has been conducted by covert means.

This is an assumption, not a fact.  "Spooky" has told me that no one knows for sure how deeply these facilities are buried.  It's an unknown variable in the equation.  I'm not saying it's an insurmountable problem, but it does add complexity.     

And if you want to know what's going on within conservative think tanks on this subject, I can offer you two books by Ilan Berman.  The first is called Winning the Long War with a foreword by Newt Gingrich.  The other is called Taking on Tehran with a foreword by Tom Ridge.  Dry but very informative stuff.     

I can offer you the following based on a conversation I had with a "spook" who must remain unnamed.  The gist of his explanation runs something like this:

Israeli intelligence is aware that the Iranian leadership is deeply divided by faction.  Israeli policy, at least in part, is to exploit this factionalism in an attempt to bring down the regime.  Any public statements offered by Israel should be regarded as an attempt to play these factions against one another.  There is a game afoot here that is only understood deep within the bowels of Israeli intelligence.  Opinion on this matter is therefore a matter of speculation, and little more.

I suspect there is a fixed line somewhere in the sand that once crossed will force Israel to act.  The Iranians have already stated that they will attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz should it come to military action.  Senior US diplomats have already stated that we have contingency plans for such an event.  We can fairly assume that any attempt to close the strait will quickly build to crisis levels as the world's oil supply is threatened.  

Shooting a household appliance earns +10.  Shooting an appliance owned by your ex earns +20 additional.