Fort Union

Once the largest army post in the southwest, Fort Union is now little more than a shadow of its former self set among beautiful grasslands north of Las Vegas, New Mexico. For 40 years in the second half of the 19th century, it was the Santa Fe Trail equivalent of an interstate truck stop and regional warehouse.

Alas, NewMexiKen found his Nikon was in need of a charge. These photos were taken with my iPhone.

Click each photo for a larger version.

Seems like good advice

NewMexiKen photo taken August 31st, Pecos National Historical Park

Best line of the campaign, so far

All across America there are quiet storms taking place. There are lives of quiet desperation. People who need just a little bit of help. Now, Americans are a self-reliant people, we’re an independent people. We don’t like asking somebody else to do what we can do ourselves but you know what we understand is that every once in a while somebody’s going to get knocked down. Every once in a while somebody’s going to go through some hard times. When we least expect it tragedy may strike. And what has always made this country great is the understanding that we rise and fall as one nation, that values and family, community and neighborhood, they have to express themselves in our government. Those are national values. Those are values that we all subscribe to. And so that the spirit that we extend today and in the days to come as we monitor what happens on the Gulf that’s the spirit that we’ve got to carry with us each and every day. That’s the spirit that we need in our own homes and it’s the spirit that we need in the White House. And that’s why I’m running for president of the United States of America.

Because if there’s a poor child out there, that’s my child. If there’s a senior that’s having trouble, that’s my grandparent. If there’s a guy who’s lost his job, that’s my brother. If there’s a woman out there without healthcare, that’s my sister. Those are the values that built this country. Those are the values we are fighting for.

Barack Obama, Milwaukee, September 1, 2008

3 cents

Canadian airline Jazz Air thinks the answer to that question must be less than 3 cents. The airline recently announced that they were removing life vests from their airplanes in order to save on fuel costs. They can get away with using seat cushions as flotation devices since their flights mostly stay within 50 miles of the shore.

How much will this move save them on fuel costs? The life vests weigh about one pound apiece. I don’t know how long their average flight is. Let’s say it’s 1,000 miles. Using a fuel cost per pound to fly 1,000 miles of 3 cents, based on this online exchange, and then removing the life vests saves the airline 3 cents per seat per flight — not exactly big money.

Steven D. Levitt

Staggeringly irresponsible

In this particular case, there are two huge problems with what McCain did.

The first is the most obvious: in choosing a Vice Presidential nominee, McCain is choosing someone who might well end up taking over as President. This would be true for anyone, but it’s especially true in McCain’s case, since he is a 72 year old cancer survivor. Anyone who “puts country first”, as McCain is fond of telling us he does, would have taken care to ensure that that person was up to the job, and had no unpleasant secrets like, oh, past membership in a fringe secessionist organization. Not bothering to do the most basic due diligence before naming her as his running mate is staggeringly irresponsible.

The second is that McCain was willing to take a huge gamble not just with our country, but with his own political interests. As I said earlier, gambling with the country is worse, but gambling with your own interests is a different kind of bad judgment, and worth noting in its own right. If you are selfish enough to put your own interests above the interests of your country, that’s awful. But it doesn’t move you into the realm of the wholly unpredictable, the people from whom you truly never know what to expect. (It’s like being one of those dictators who are nonetheless rational enough that things like deterrence can work with them: you are bad, but bad in a way that makes it possible to anticipate what you might do next.)

Being willing to take a huge and reckless gamble with your own interests is not like that. It’s not cool and collected selfishness that leaves room for some hope that if your interests and the interests of your country align, you might end up doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. It’s sheer impulsive stupidity: an unwillingness to think, in even the most basic ways, before you act. That’s a terrible trait in a President.

Hilzoy, The Washington Monthly

Best line of the day, so far

“McCain has been running for president for ten years! Ten years! He has had ten years to do due diligence on His running mate! Yet here we are!”

Brad DeLong

The Second of September

Hall of fame basketball coach John Thompson is 67 today. Funny how things stick in your memory. I can remember a photo of Thompson in a basketball magazine when he was a player at Providence College. It was one of those silly posed photos — they had him with a basketball in each hand, held like a pair of softballs.

Terry Bradshaw is 60, Mark Harmon 57 and Jimmy Connors 56 today.

Harmon’s father was “Old 98,” Tom Harmon, a football great at Michigan and for the L.A. Rams. Mark himself played quarterback at UCLA, where he graduated cum laude.

Keanu Reeves is 44.

And Salma Hayek is 42. Ms. Hayek received a best actress Oscar nomination for Frida.

It was on the morning of September 2, 1945, that the Japanese officially surrendered to Gen. Douglas MacArthur aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. MacArthur signed the articles at 9:07 am Tokyo time, ending World War II. President Truman declared Sunday, September 2nd V-J Day in the U.S.

Or maybe it is about Sarah Palin

In a way Sarah Palin HAS put her own personal life in play. The religious right she strongly represents claims an abiding interest in the conception of everyone else’s children, the sanctity of marriage, abstinence education and so on.

In my opinion that opens Palin to scrutiny for moral hypocrisy, a character trait that should be found unacceptable in a national leader.

It’s not about Sarah Palin

And it’s certainly not about her family.

It’s about John McCain’s failure to either vet her properly or, if as the campaign claims, they did vet her, than it’s about their failure to do it well or to understand what they found.

McCain has, and has always had, poor judgment. That’s the whole point. He is not mentally stable enough to be president of the United States.

Best line of September, so far (but there should be many to come)

“McCain’s selection of the first secessionist VP candidate since Jefferson Davis tapped Alexander Stephens”

Devilstower