The future is no joke !

Prank gulibilty: Sarah Palin got pranked at the weekend. It is confirmed and I did not think it was necessarily funny. What I did find startling and unbelievable was to see how Palin had no idea this was a prank call. The McCainPalin campaign had four days to set up this telephone call and got it completely wrong. Can you imagine them dealing with National security ?

Comody desparation:

John MacCain appeared on Saturday Night Live with Tina Fey (the Sarah Palin double) to try to make people laugh. I do not find any of this funny and it made me cringe as there is just so much at stake in this election. Even if it was my favorite politician going up, I would not want to see them on Saturday Night live, especially as an act of desperation to try and gets youth votes. It comes across to me as pathetic!

Dirty tricks:

I knew the McCain campaign would go for every dirty trick in the book so I was not surprised to find three days before the election they go for a leak that exposes files from a distant relative of Obama, his half auntie, whose case for asylum was not granted in 2004. Where she comes from in Kenya about 1500 have been killed and although her case has to be dealt with "all appropriate laws be followed" as stated by Barak Obama, this case has been used repeatedly to try and smear a clean and spectacular Obama campaign. The disclosure may have violated federal privacy laws according to sources such as ABC news and even Fox News has had to write a story about a probe on whether disclosure of Obama's aunt's status was legal. At this point we do not know who disclosed this information but it seems suspicious. Whatever the outcome, this case will be dealt with outside the law.

The BBC states "Residing in the US in violation of immigration law is not a criminal offence and such cases are therefore handled outside the criminal court system."

Whatever the outcome I think undecided voters are going to suspicious of last minute story like this one. I believe Obama will win on Tuesday although it could be a rough ride if voting machines don't work properly or if there is confusion on the day (as in 2000 with the thousands of black disenfranchised voters reported by the BBC in 2001)

Voting machines (my biggest fear)

In the 2000 elections in the swing state Florida, hundreds of people accidentally voted for Buchanan due to badly printed voting forms and old machines that punch holes. Apparently all these void ballots which caused a public outcry by hundreds of voters helped Bush W gain the extra 541 votes. Indeed the polls in 2000 were close (3% error) around 51/50 leaning towards Bush making it a draw and it certainly was that way in 2000 except there was not recount to know the results. Today the polls are 52/41 leaning towards Obama (making him at least 10 points ahead in the worse case scenario). I feel more optimistic but the outcome is not in the bag and we are still placing our trust into those voting machines. We should watch very carefully what is happening. There have been record breaking numbers of people voting early, as they do not want a repeat of 2000. Many of these early voters are African Americans who in the past may not have found it important enough to ask for time off work to vote, but this time they are determined to get their votes counted and starting early. This is going to be a very important election as the future is in desperate for direction. I believe Obama has what it takes to start turning things around but unfortunately will face enormous challenges as we have been steered in the wrong direction for too long.

The Future is no joke .

Energy independence is top of the OBAMA list. This next section is a from postcarbon.org:

FROM POSTCARBON.ORG: (http://postcarbon.org/nine_percent):

The Financial Times has leaked the results of the International Energy Agency's long-awaited study of the depletion profiles of the world's 400 largest oilfields, indicating that,

"Without extra investment to raise production, the natural annual rate of output decline is 9.1 per cent."

This is a stunning figure. Considering regular crude oil only, this means that 6.825 million barrels a day of new production capacity must come on line each year just to keep up with the aggregate natural decline rate in existing oilfields. That's a new Saudi Arabia every 18 months. The Financial Times story goes on:

"The findings suggest the world will struggle to produce enough oil to make up for steep declines in existing fields, such as those in the North Sea, Russia and Alaska, and meet long-term demand."

The effort will become even more acute as [oil] prices fall and investment decisions are delayed. This is putting it mildly. Investment capital is being vaporized almost daily in a global deflationary bonfire of unprecedented ferocity. Oil production projects are being mothballed left and right. Inter alia, the IEA takes the requisite swat at "peak oil theorists," who, the agency somehow still believes, are saying that the world is "running out of oil." Of course that's NOT what peak oil theorists say, but a correct summation of their position would have to be followed with a statement to the effect that, "Our research supports their position," which would be just too embarrassing. Sadly, the IEA feels it must pull its punch even further. With adequate investment in new small oilfields and unconventional sources like tarsands, it insists, the world can still achieve higher levels of production. In other words, if the $12 trillion that vanished from the world stock markets last week were invested in new tarsands projects, then theoretically a few more years of total oil production growth could be eked out (not growth in net energy production, mind you, but in the gross—and I do mean gross—production of exotic, very expensive stuff that it's physically possible to run your car on, assuming you could afford to do so). Of course, any realistic assessment either of the likelihood of that level of investment appearing, or of the ability of new projects to really produce a sufficient rate of flow regardless of the size of the cash infusion, would end merely in a hearty belly-laugh. Evidently peeved about being scooped on its planned November 12 press conference roll-out of the study, the IEA has disavowed the Financial Times story. But if nine percent is even close to being the final figure, then it's absolutely clear: July 2008 was the all-time peak in world oil production. Don't expect anyone at the IEA to officially admit that fact until 2025 or so. But among those who pay attention to the evidence and the terms of the debate, further ink need not be spilled in speculation. Peak oil is history.