I finally got around to studing the Aleutian Islands the other day, for no other reason than that I like to Know About Stuff.
The Aleutians, from a geological perspective, are a chain of islands formed largely by Pacific Rim volcanism (they belong to the "Pacific Ring Of Fire"). There are several active and recently active volcanoes in the chain.
The islands are lush and green, but alas, the good news mostly stops there. Their maritime location south of the Bering Sea means that they are amongst the most windy places on earth, which makes trees a rare commodity on the islands. This photo of the Adak National Forest is not a joke...that is the only clump of trees on that island. The furthest West point on the chain (The Commander Islands) is actually a small group of islands belonging to Russia, and the most Westerly island in the chain belonging to the USA is over 1500 miles from Anchorage, Alaska. The islands lie north of 50 degrees latitude, and their climate is a cool, moderated maritime climate, with non-stop winds, rain and fog. Aircraft operations in the Aleutians are impeded by the poor weather conditions; numerous stories exist of white-knuckle rides even on large planes. Airports are few and far between, seaplane harbors are almost non-existent, and the only fuel generally available for small planes is Mogas. If you have to have 100LL, operating in the Western Aleutians is certainly not for you.
The Aleutians became a strategically important archipelago in World War II when Japan invaded and briefly occupied 2 of the islands before being ejected by the USA. After World War II, the islands became an outpost for the Cold War, with the USA extending its military presence at Shemya and Adak and flying radar surveillance missions into the 1980's. The USA also tested nuclear devices underground on Amchitka Island in the 1960's and 1970's. In recent years the military has pulled back from both Shemya and Adak. Today Shemya is still operational, but occupied by a much smaller number of civilian contractors, with occasional military inspections.
Because the Aleutians are not exactly appealing tourist destinations, most of the informative web data about the Western Aleutians is from websites maintained by military veterans. Here is a photo site from a person stationed at Adak.
Some idea of the beauty and remoteness of the islands can be viewed in this photo album by a military veteran who recently visited Adak Island. He encountered a mixture of remoteness, lush unspoiled scenery, and former military buildings and facilities busy being reclaimed by nature.
The economy of the Aleutians is somewhat precarious. The reduction of military activity in the last 15 years (the military facilities on Adak and Shemya islands have both closed since 1990) has led to a big loss of revenue and population. Most recently, the economic plight of Adak led to its fuel supply being cut off.The fuel supply appears to have been restored via some sort of emergency agreement - for the time being.
Adak's plight could be ameliorated if the island stopped having to rely on fossil fuels for much of its basic energy needs. A study as long ago as 1979 compared the cost of JP-5 fuel against geothermal energy sources, at a time when geothermal heat generation engineering was much more primitive than it is today. The extraordinary winds on the Aleutian Islands could easily be harnessed to generate electricity, and the islands are of recent volcanic origin, which means that there is almost certainly a high geothermal gradient which can be tapped to provide hot water and/or steam supplies. A handful of large wind turbines installed in the hills close to Adak would probably suffice to provide electricity for the current size of the community for example.
The more Easterly island of Unalaska is currently exploring options for geothermal energy extraction; however, Unalaska has a much larger population than Adak, which since the departure of the US military bases, has collapsed to a community of only about 100 people.
As far as economic activity is concerned, the fishing industry in the Aleutians appears to be suffering via a combination of foreign factory ship competition and quotas, so other sources of revenues need to be found to avoid the islands becoming totally depopulated. Eco-tourism looks to be an obvious source of revenue; the islands are rich in flora, fauna (particularly seabirds) and are mostly unspoiled. The flora and fauna of the islands are currently being helped by special projects to depopulate some islands of rats and predators (mostly foxes) that were imported in the last 200 years. However, the overall climate is not exactly inviting, and the distances involved to travel to the islands, in common with most other archipelagoes, are great. The sole "local" airline, Reeve Aleutian Airways, ceased operations in November 2000. The Aleutians are not Hawaii or the Seychelles; visitors cannot sip Mai Tais under palm trees. On a bad day you may struggle to stand upright while facing into the wind, and shorts are out of the question for all but a few days each year...

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/business/economy/18car.html?em

...it would be good for people to read this cautionary tale about how government bail-outs sometimes just do not work. The British government poured billions of dollars into trying to keep British Leyland afloat in tne 1970's and 1980's. With hindsight, the money was largely wasted. Here is one snipped of this cautionary tale:

For Garel Rhys, head of the Center for Automotive Industry Research at Cardiff University in Wales, the trajectory of General Motors is reminiscent of British Leyland not only because of the former’s decision to seek aid to avert bankruptcy, but also for its slow, seemingly inexorable loss of market share. “Both had a history of being the biggest in their market but couldn’t adapt as they lost sales,” he said. “They couldn’t get customers back.”

The key criterion for agreeing to aid for GM, Chrysler (and possibly Ford) is not whether the companies need the money desperately (they do) but whether they can be re-structured to spend the money wisely on newer, more reliable and fuel-efficient vehicles. With hindsight, the Carter administration decision to exempt light trucks from fuel efficiency regulations in the 1970's will be shown to have been one of the worst decisions of that administration, since it gave the U.S. car companies the excuse they needed to avoid investing in newer more fuel-efficient engines, drivetrains and vehicles. Why do that when you can pump out SUVs and pickups using older technologies and make a fat profit?
The comments of Michael Edwardes, who was for a while the CEO of British Leyland, also ring true:

If Washington does go ahead and help Detroit, Mr. Edwardes said, it is crucial that the government overhaul the management of the Big Three. “Throwing money at them isn’t enough,” he said. “They need money and they need new management. They need both, not one or the other.”

As the dust settles on abridgements of civil rights for same-sex couples in several states, thanks to the voter proposition mechanism, I have gotten around to thinking about the whole approach to assuring equal rights for homosexual and bi-sexual people (and let us not forget bi-sexual people and trans-gender people, who appear to be overlooked just about all of the time).
This is not new...but the problem with fighting for "gay marriage" is that this, to use George Lakoff's thinking, is a flawed approach because in doing so, you are using the frame of the opposition. Opponents of gay marriage tend to see marriage as a sacred ritual and custom dispensed only by their church. The idea that gay people should have the same rights to marriage creates massive instinctive opposition, and no small confusion - a number of voters for Proposition 8 apparently voted Yes because they were convinced that churches would be forced to marry gay couples (which is complete BS - the state does not force any church to marry anybody).
The extension of the rights of gay people to marry in the conventional sense is a process that I have a problem with from a libertarian perspective. It is my belief that governments should not be in the marriage certification or management business. Marriage is far from the only model for human bonding. There is communal living (including polygamy and polyandry) for example. Governments should not be in the situation of influencing what religions choose to do in their ceremonies either. If churches only want to marry people who have never been divorced, then they should be free to impose that rule, without any interference by government.
The challenge is that the gay community has become fixated upon the current marriage process as a bridge to be crossed as they strive for equality. My take is that it's the wrong bridge to be tyring to cross, since it forces the movement to fight opponents using their frames i.e. "marriage is between a man and a woman - it says so in this book...". Having to oppose that frame puts the movement on the back foot immediately. Lakoff's #1 framing principle is that you always argue from your own frame rather than from the framing of others.
Currently, supporters of same-sex marriage have three options:

1. Wait 4 years and try again at state levels, and try again until demographics and attitudes move in their favour
A clear majority of young people are in favour of same-sex marriage, and much of the current opposition is clustered in older people. Cynically, those older people will die off over time, which will skew the voting balance more towards same-sex marriage. The challnge with state-level campaigns is that people in unaffected states tend to not get involved because the issue looks like it is "someplace else"
2. Push for federal legislation to allow same-sex marriages
This is the same approach that led to the Civil Rights legislation being passed in the 1960's. It is certainly true that if that process had been left to the states, some states might still have Jim Crow-era segregation laws. The challenge is that the proponents still have to fight opposition using their frames. The Obama administration is unlikely to be able to provide much support for this, not because it it is the wrong thing to do, but because the USA is currently in a massive recession, and Obama will no doubt be devoting most of his energy in the next 2-3 years to avoiding a major and lasting economic crash in the USA.
3. Re-frame the campaign
The movement should re-frame its strategy around passing legislation to allow governments to issue licenses for civil unions. These would be available to any couples who can demonstrate lack of legal encumbrance (like a prior union still in force) and informed consent by both parties (this latter condition will shut up the idiots who claim that same-sex marriage is a slippery slope that will ultimately allow a man to marry his dog).

(3) is going to take some careful drafting and positioning, since it not only requires state-level change, but also federal level change, since the IRS tax code bases domestic partner deductions on the existence of a marriage. The main argument against (3) is that linkage. However, the main problem with (1) is that it forces a state-by-state campaign, which as we can see, isn't doing very well right now. Indeed, now that several states have voted down same-sex marriage, religious opponents are talking about introducing proposition language for same-sex marriage bans in more states. However, (3) provides the opportunity for a country-wide campaign to settle this vexed issue once and for all. It also passes my libertarian test for minimal government involvement in social unions.

No, this posting is not about Terrell Owens of the Dallas Cowboys.
It is about the local newspaper in Terrell TX (note to breitbart.tv - Terrell is in Texas, not Oklahoma), the Terrell Tribune, which, uniquely strangely among newspaper outlets, decided to not report on the reality that Barack Obama had won the U.S. Presidential Election in 2008.
The newspaper's publisher apparently has not the slightest understanding of how a couple of sentences can make you look like a small-minded jerk:

The Terrell Tribune's publisher, Bill Jordan, declined an on-camera interview.
"We run a newspaper, not a memory book service," he said. "We covered the local commissioner's race. We thought that was more important."

I thought that the City of Duncanville's egregious campaign of harrassment against the Cherry Pit was dumb enough, but it seems that there is always somebody somewhere determined to demonstrate that they can go one better (or worse) when it comes to small-minded actions that transmit the wrong message about Texas to the rest of the world...

..and what have we learned about America?

1. Bigotry is still fashionable
State-level propositions designed to abridge the rights of homosexual people passed in California, Arizona, Arkansas and Florida. Shame on those states. I just struck you from my list of states to live in in the future. My boycott on spending money in Oklahoma also remains, especially since the very wonderfully bigoted Sally Kern won re-election to her state seat, although her opponent did reduce her winning margin considerably over the previous election cycle.

2. The African-American community has a hypocrisy challenge over gay rights
One would think a community that has spent hundreds of years struggling against discrimination in all of its obvious and subtle forms would have learned by now what the word means, and would be sensitive to attempts by majorities to tyrranize minorities. It seems that the African-American community has not learned this. According to exit polls, African-American community members supported Proposition 8 on the California state ballot by a majority of around 3 to 1.
As Pam Spaulding has pointed out, Proposition 8 was not passed in CA by the African-American community, which is less than 10% of the electorate in that state. An awful lot of people across the board voted for the proposition. However, the fact that a historically oppressed community voted so positively for a proposition designed to take rights away from another oppressed community should be a matter for some reflection and (dare I say it) shame amongst that community.
A lot of people have been pointing out that the right answer to this issue is more outreach to the African-American community. It is clear from reading some of the reports of the strategy of the "No to Prop 8" campaign that no serious outreach took place until almost the last minute. While I am all in favour of outreach as a strategy, I'm going to be blunt - why is this community so myopic that it seems unable to make the connection between the enduring violations of its human and civil rights and the same diminution of the civil rights of gay people?

3. The "No to Prop 8" campaign strategy was defective and poorly executed.
The campaign failed to address the issues head-on, preferring to tiptoe around the use of the word "gay". No attempt was made to frame the issue as a human rights issue by showing that gay people are, when you strip away perjorative labels, normal human beings like everybody else. There was no pervasive and compelling frame around which to organize the campaign.
Any progressive campaign of this type is going to have to work much much harder in the future. The more monolithic command-and-control model of religiously-based groups works in their favour when it comes to message discipline, organization and daily focus. Freethinkers, almost by definition, are like cats when it comes to alignment and discipline. The next time this issue comes up for a vote in any state, a campaign in favour of full civil rights for gay people needs to be focussed, unashamed, and needs to understand the George Lakoff Playbook (i.e. it needs to create its own frames and not be forced to argue using the frames of opponents).

4. What should the response of supporters of gay civil rights be?
A lot of discussion has been taking place about how to respond to the Yes vote on Proposition 8. A wide variety of options have been discussed including:
- Leave California and move to a more sympathetic state (MA to name but one)
- Boycott California as a state for business and travel
- Boycott businesses owned by donors to the Yes On Prop 8 campaign
- Lobby the IRS to have the tax-exempt status of the LDS church (a major donor to the "Yes on Prop 8" campaign) removed
All of these possible tactics have advantages and disadvantages. A campaign to remove the tax-exempt status of the LDS church is not likely to succeed, since it would have to show that a principal activity of the church is political lobbying, a test that is unlikely to pass in a court of law.
To cut a long story short, I personally believe that the only type of power worth having in a situation like this is economic power. Most large businesses offer benefits to same-sex couples (subject to state law) because they want the best employees possible, regardless of race, color, religion or sexual orientation. Those businesses understand that talent comes irrespective of sexual orientation, and retaining talent trumps issues of private morality.
I believe that the actions that have the best chance of success will include an economic boycott of any businesses run by funders of the "Yes for Prop 8" movement. This is a website that lists the major donors to the "Yes on Prop 8" campaign. People may have to do some research to associate the donors with businesses that they own or control, and I will try to do that and add those businesses to the list of businesses and locations that I already boycott. A lot of the businesses may be irrelevant for me since I do not live in California...I already refuse to go back to Kanab UT after they passed their "Natural Family Resolution" in 2006. I can certainly extend that boycott further.

...this article on FindLaw from John Dean explains very cogently why Republican control of the governmental process has been bad for the USA.
My summary: the country has been controlled (mostly) for the the last 7 plus years by a bunch of intolerant, bullying authoritarian shits who seem to think that the Constitution is an inconvenience to be ignored, and that dissent is treason.
Tomorrow I hope that the electors of this country will send a significant number of these defective authoritarians packing back to the job of being private citizens.

With less than 5 days to go to the election, I finally received the email I had been dreading from a friend, containing a new (at least to me) anti-Obama screed.
When I tried reading it (and believe me, it is really difficult to read badly-written nonsense at the best of times), I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
I may be fond of saying this, but if the author had shown up to my high school debating society in the UK with this level of argument, he would have been laughed out of the room. He offers no arguments, only assertions, with no supporting evidence, and the whole letter is nothing more than a waste of internet bandwidth.
I hate viral letters like this with a passion. They contribute nothing to political debate, of which there is way too little in the USA right now. All they do is make their way around the Internet, confirming the views of committed supporters or opponents, while seducing readers who lack the time, energy or wisdom to do basic fact-checking (which is a lot easier than it used to be thanks to to the Internet).
If I have time on Sunday while watching football, I may take the letter apart. There won't be much of it left after I have finished, I can tell you that already. In the meantime I have a friend who is pissed at me because apparently I engaged in a personal attack in my response asking him to not send letters like that to me again. Ah, the wonders of the electoral season...

Link: http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=12886

In which John Cole eviscerates Gov. Palin's latest stunningly ignorant and irrelevant ramblings about scientific research.
Is this really the best that the Republicans can use as talking points? We have a country tipping into recession against the backdrop of a failed misadventure in Iraq, a ballooning national debt after 7 years of GOP mismanagement, and a worldwide credit and debt crisis, and the Republican VP candidate thinks it is important to whine about fruit fly research earmarks? Sheesh.

Courtesy of Robert Guest's legal blog, we have two egregious examples of BS as legal authorities in Texas attempt to enforce the legislation of private morality and actions.
The owners of the Cherry Pit are being hit with yet more ludicrous charges as the City of Duncanville attempts to run them out of town.
Organized crime? Give me a break. Everything I have read and know about the Cherry Pit leads me to conclude that the owners are about as far from organized criminals as you can get. This is nothing more than bullshit harrassment by the City of Duncanville. Note to Duncanville; we are moving house in December and we will not be living in the city. We'll consider living in Duncanville when the city starts demonstrating a proper respect for privacy and private property rights.
Meanwhile...undercover police resources in Corpus Christi were deployed in order to address the profound menace of dildo sales. As Robert Guest observes:

You would think that a city with twice the national average for property crime, and 21 murders annually could find a better use of their undercover police.

Very true. If I was an elected representative in Corpus Christi, I would be asking some awkward questions about the direction of police resources.
Bullshit nonsense like this is what leads me to conclude that a much more libertarian approach to personal and private morality is badly needed in the USA.

Courtesy of the Toledo Blade, who did some research into the real life of the man referred to as "Joe The Plumber" by John McCain in the last Presidential debate:

"Joe the Plumber" isn’t a plumber — at least not a licensed one, or a registered one.
A check of state and local licensing agencies in Ohio and Michigan shows no plumbing licenses under Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher’s name, or even misspellings of his name.

The Blade goes on to note that Mr. Wurzelbacher is busily revelling in his new-found fame, busy granting interviews to all and sundry. Which might be good for his income if he is getting paid for the interviews - because, if the Blade is correct, he sure as hell can't officially earn money from being a licensed plumber.
You know, you can't make this stuff up...
UPDATE - It appears that state bodies have been running searches on Mr. Wurzelbacher's personal records, which is probably unethical, and may be illegal.
There has been a lot of criticism directed towards progressives, and the media, for "picking on" Joe, but my position is simple. By deciding to publicly engage Barack Obama by asking him questions, Joe, whether he realized it at the time, made himself a public figure. His subsequent agreement to interviews shows that he is happy to be a public figure. Whether he likes it or not, the reality is that if you become a public figure, you can expect your entire life to be examined - the good, the bad or the ugly. Joe cannot plausibly whine and complain about the examination of his life when he quite cheerfully converted himself into a public figure by engaging Barack Obama in public. If he didn't understand the downside, he should have engaged in some personal due diligence and reflection before sailing into action.

UPDATE 2 - Here is an excellent comment from tomj over at Firedoglake on some of the realities in Joe's story that just do not add up:

This has been such an amazing story from the beginning. The original premise was that Joe was going to purchase a business which had a profit of over $250k. Most people who know about buying businesses agree that a business is worth 5-10 times your profit, or in this case $1.25-$2.5 million.
The next thing we know, the media are camped out in front of a house which is not in perfect shape, looks like it needs some work. And yet reporters are somehow unaware of this strange combination of facts.
There was even an early interview with the guy sitting on his $200 fake leather couch with a 7-11 style jumbo soft-drink plastic cup on his cheap coffee table.
Yet somehow this doesn't set off alarm bells, at least in the on air reporting. Instead, someone decided to look up his personal information and guess at his income using public records.
Get a clue: people who can purchase a business for over $1 million don't inhabit neighborhoods like the ones I or Joe live in.
But what this episode demonstrates is the Republican's ability to somehow offload their rage onto folks who should not be enraged. This is not Joe's fight, at least on economic grounds. More than likely Joe just doesn't like the other parts of Obama's agenda, but nobody can argue about the social agenda in this economic climate.