McCain is going to balance the budget in 2008 while he lowers corporate taxes, continues to pass huge tax benefits for the rich and runs an expensive war in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places in between.  Federal revenues might be a little down what with the recession and the housing crisis and health care costs spiraling out of control.  Federal spending might be a little up what with the inflation and the huge bills for spending programs.  McCain views all efforts to discuss NFTA reform as somehow a moral failing in Barack Obama, who is going back on his word [although Jesse Helms could refuse to pay United Nations dues just because].  

How you might ask?  How in the world will McCain be able to balance the budget while dealing with all these big economic forces.  Its easy!  

Crocs.

Today I am leaving my usual sort of diary to enter into the world of tin-foil-hattery.  I am a scientist by training.  When I do write a diary, it is filled with citations and usually too long.  I qualify my speculations and express my opinions as such.  

Yesterday I posted such a diary on John McCain's wisit to the countries providing us our drugs,  Mexico and Colombia.  I discovered the many connections between those governments and their elected leaders and the funding of the "war on Drugs", now turned into a War on Illegal Armed Groups (IAGs).  While doing so, I came across the oddest factoid.  On July 2, while visiting Mexico on his July 4th Senate break, John McCain had a private dinner with Carlos Slim, by some accounts the world's richest man. link  This was only reported in the Miami Herald, whhich has a sister paper in Mexico City which covered McCain's visit with more attention to details.

Barack Obama spent July 4th in Montana, celebrating his daughter Malia's birthday and attending a parade link.  Here on Daily Kos were are engaged in a massive fit of buyer's remorse and we want our primary vote back.now that we don't have the Clinton's to kick around any more, we seem to want to kick the nearest Democrat.  Why oh why, when there is John McCain to mock?

Where in the world was John McCain on the Fourth of July, the only one he gets in his campaign for President?  Why he was down Mexico way, Cindy and Joe Liebermann at his side (along with his Republican BFF, Lindsey Graham), celebrating how well the war on drugs is going these days and figuratively delivering a big giant check for 400 million dollars.  And then back home to the McCain Compound in Sedona Arizona for a little campaign regrouping.  link

Are feminists, especially white women who supported Hillary Clinton, unfairly letting Michelle Obama down by not defending her from slanders in the media and the internet?

The Loud Silence of Feminists by Mary C. Curtis suggests this is true.

I'd like a little of that solidarity back now, not suspicion because someone of my race defeated someone of our sex.
Michelle Obama is being demonized for things she allegedly said on tapes that are rumored to exist. She is a victim of sexism and racial stereotypes.
Just as the Rutgers women's basketball team was miscast by Don Imus, Obama is being labeled something she clearly is not. Her achievements are being dismissed.
But in America, there's seldom a cost for disrespecting black women.
I'm waiting for feminists who speak of second-class citizenship and being pushed to the back of the bus to remember the civil rights movement that gave birth to those words. After all, it was a black woman, Rosa Parks, who took her seat up front and pulled others there, too.

Yes, I suffer from "bag lady syndrome"- the irrational fear of being poor and homeless in my old age.  I am afraid I won't have money for health care or necessities as I age.  I am less afraid than many women, since I have been working all my adult life, minus about 6 months when I didn't work to stay home with my infant children.  I saved and put away, but we are still not living in a home we completely own and I can't throw things out- junk like happy meal toys and soap from hotel.  Even my daughter fears becoming a bag lady.  

But this fear, "bag lady syndrome" is one reason Hillary Clinton resonated so well with American women voters, and why they can be persuaded rationally (or subliminally if needed) to vote for Barack Obama over John McCain.  

There has been a silent epidemic of deadly drug interactions.  If you weren't reading the local news in West Virginia you won't have heard about it.  But today they reported the 4th vet to die.  These are young men, combat vets taking prescriptions prescribed in combination by Army psychiatrists and they are going to sleep and not waking up.  The combination is Klonopin and Seroquel and Paxil.  Sometimes pain killers or even alcohol may have been involved.  

I have been struggling for almost a year now in the primary season that never ends to decide how to cast my primary vote.   My general election vote has never been in doubt- I will vote, donate and campaign for the candidate who emerges from the selection process.  Frankly, I never believed my vote would matter that much.  In 1960 the West Virginia Primary led to John F. Kennedy's nomination, but we have been late and irrelevant for quite some time.  

So finally, I have decided to vote for Barack Obama in the primary.  My reason for doing so is ultimately his electability.  Hillary Clinton is now unelectable vs. McCain, so I will throw my one vote to Obama, to stave off the landslide for Clinton which will emerge from West Virginia. Obama's failure to convince West Virginia voters is foreshadowing the very real difficulties he will have in winning the presidency. I will discuss the issues which are swaying voters in my State towards Clinton.

For at least four years, Christopher J. Ward, who is under investigation by the FBI, used wire transfers to funnel money out of the NRCC and into other political committees he controlled, then shifted the funds into his own personal accounts

Link
Link

Thats right- our big Democratic Party Scandals concern people who pay their own money for prostitutes, pay them a living wage and then have the good sense to be embarassed about their sexual habits and try and take the business out of town.

Every night like five million other people world wide, I take Vytorin- at least until tonight.  My cholesterol is high and my family history is one of cardiovascular problems.  I control my blood pressure with generic medications (a low dose diuretic and beta blocker, both generic), work on losing weight and blog to reduce some stress.  

Tonight the article published an article indicating that Vytorin has been shown to not reduce plaque formation in arteries, and may even marginally increase the plaque formation.  I am contacting my physician about this and maybe you should too.

Headline Charleston WV
More Coal Miners Developing Black Lung according to a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) expert's testimony to a WV legislative committee.

Today was sort of a down day for me- on "vacation" this week with lots of things to do and no interest in getting anything done.  I turned on Music TV after the news was just too depressing.  Children in Iraq blown up after getting toys from soldiers, people dying in typhoons and the entire rice crop of Bangladesh being destroyed, people dying because they didn't wear seatbelts, houses being foreclosed on- generally bad news.  

M-TV had an astonishing video on.  Absolutely blew me away.  An odd darkhaired bearded man singing in an operatic fashion with children in a game parlor fighting war.  The video had the children acting out the war in Iraq and the images were chilling.  Playing war including a carbomb nad children left dead on the street.  The song was "Empty Walls" from a new release called "Elect the Dead" by Serg Tankian.

November 10 is celebrated around the world as the US Marine Corps Birthday.  On this day in 1775 the Marine Corps was founded in the Tun Tavern Philadelphia when the Second Continental Congress voted to raise two battalions of Marines.  

On November 10, 1775, the Continental Congress commissioned Samuel Nicholas to raise two Battalions of Marines.  That very day, Nicholas set up shop in Tun Tavern.  He appointed Robert Mullan, then the proprietor of the tavern, to the job of chief Marine Recruiter -- serving, of course, from his place of business at Tun Tavern.  Prospective recruits flocked to the tavern, lured by (1) cold beer and (2) the opportunity to serve in the new Corps of Marines.  So, yes, the U.S. Marine Corps was indeed born in Tun Tavern.  Needless to say, both the Marine Corps and the tavern thrived during this new relationship.

There have been several diaries on the devastating floods in Mexico in  Tabasco link, link.  mariachi mama and mango on Ask a Kossak, community members in Mexico, have written asking for us to help but warned us to be cautious where to send money.  mango personally collected funds to redistribute in a regional flood in her area recently and many of her diaries were recommended.  This was great, but we can't be sure that this will be as effective in a flood of this magnitude, with a million people displaced.  At that level, you need volunteers AND organizations that know what they are doing.  Over a million people are displaced, 40% children.  Many will have lost everything they own as well as their crops for this year.  

Every now and then an individual comes along who challenges all the paradigms and shifts the way we think about science.  One such individual was Washoe, the chimpanzee, who passed away at 42 on Wednesday October 30.  Washoe was remarkable since she learned over 250 words of sign language, and taught sign language to three other, younger chimps who survive her: Tatu, 31, Loulis, 29, and Dar, 31.

Before Washoe, chimpanzees used to appear on morning TV shows and in circuses in demeaning costumes.  Usually these were young animals, adorable and not as dangerous as a strong adult chimp with canines and incredible musculature.  Washoe was central to a project intiated by Allen and Beatrix Gardener and continued by Roger and Debra Fouts at the University of Central Washington.  

Today Condeleeza Rice announced sanctions against Iran.  

The Washington Post reports:

The Bush administration plans to roll out an unprecedented package of unilateral sanctions against Iran today, including the long-awaited designations of its Revolutionary Guard Corps as a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction and of the elite Quds Force as a supporter of terrorism, according to senior administration officials.

The package, scheduled to be announced jointly by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., marks the first time that the United States has tried to isolate or punish another country's military. It is the broadest set of punitive measures imposed on Tehran since the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy, the officials said.

Yesterday I was one of 200 people who gathered to walk in memory of friends and family who died by suicide.  Those walking were part of a community walk in my small city called "Out of the Darkness" that was organized by The American Society for Suicide Prevention.   Yesterday’s walk was spearheaded by Rebecca Wells in loving memory of her beloved husband, Greg Wells.  On March 9, 2006, Greg took his life after a private eight year struggle with severe depression. Stay with this diary to the end, to learn about important legislation pending in Congress to provide better Mental Health care and help prevent suicide; and ways you can reduce suicide as a public health problem.  

Lawyers are taught one important rule- never ask a witness a question on the stand unless you already know the answer.  Could this be why the Department of Education has decided to sit this one out instead of having a sample of USA advanced Math and Science students take the 2008 Advanced version of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study.  This news is reported in the September 28 2007 edition of the journal Science.

The Washington Post has an article this morning that was bizarrely interesting to me.  General Petraeus has sponsored a 19 year old Princeton ROTC student, Wesley Morgan, to spend his summer embedded in Iraq as a blogger with reporters credentials.  

The good news is that bloggers are now recognized by the military as journalists, especially if they come from the same Ivy League school where Petraeus received his Ph.D. in military history. Mr. Morgan was given the call sign "Harry Potter" presumably so he could be "the boy who lived."