Obama's overspending...

Currently in the US until next week I can tell you there's not much in the news...OK, that's a lie...not much in the news except wall-to-wall election coverage! (Oh, and the Titans going "7 and 0" on monday). Barack Obama's campaign is set to broadcast a half-hour ad tonight (on CBS, NBC and Fox) and the cost is likely to be around $6million and "underlines Mr Obama's dominance of the airwaves. Even before this he had been outspending Senator McCain by three-to-one in the final weeks of the campaign." [Link] Evan Tracey of the Campaign Media Analysis Group said:

"This is more than message imbalance"..."This is, in media terms, a rout. John McCain is in a shouting match against a guy with a megaphone."

Superb full coverage of the spending HERE from the BBC, the amounts raised and spent are truly staggering and by now are over one BILLION US dollars. What is clear if you scroll down that page is that the secret of Obama's success (and probably what will put him in the Whitehouse) is the level of support from 'the people'...almost half of the USD0.66 billion that the Democrat party nominee has raised is from donations under $200, in fact the only bad thing happening - the only bad sign - is the level of support from the law industry (triple the amount lawyers or law firms have donated to McCain) they obviously feel their pay day is coming...

Overspending...

Hehehehe...more great Peter Brookes cartoons in The Times (follow link by clicking on image) I love the one about the Deep Doo-doo deck! The opposition leader Mr Cameron, commenting on Brown's golden (fiscal) rules accused Mr Brown - using Brown's own words, of trying spend their way out of a recession...adding:

"He’s not got a plan, he’s just got a giant overdraft."

...which is similar to the way I try to explain the situation to anyone who'll listen i.e. that Brown has a massive credit card that he just keeps on using, of course the main difference being that it won't be him having to pay for it!

Odd objection...

A new film by Christian Molina, Diario de una ninfómana (translation: Diary of a Nymphomaniac...I bet you guessed that didn't you?) seems to have caused a stir in Madrid. El Periodico reports that the EMT, Madrid's public transport company have refused to put the posters advertising the film on their vehicles or bustops...thereby - as is often the case with this sort of issue - giving the film far more publicity than it would have got anyway! They say, amongst other things, that it is 'gratuitously provocative' and of 'dubious legality'. It may be provocative but "of dubious legality"? I'll have to find out what they mean. The poster is up at other sites around the country and shows a girl in knickers 'touching her sex'...hmmm, maybe erotic art would be a better way of describing it....or maybe I'm biased :-)
A synopsis from Anna Oms on the IMDb (Internet Movie Database) says:

"Val is an attractive, well educated and well off 28 year old. Whats more shes very sexually liberated and constantly on the hunt for new encounters to satisfy her endless sexual curiosity and desire. She sleeps with whoever she wants, whenever she wants to, ending up making sex into a lifestyle; a lifestyle that leads her to find both love and a career in prostitution. In both she experiences the extreme." [sic]

Molina offered the EMT a blank version with just the film title but they refused that too which would seem to suggest that the word nymphomaniac was as much a problem as the image: Christian argues that had the 'N' word been 'assassin' there would have been no objections; one assumes he's correct and one assumes also that it would be the same with words like Terrorist, or 'Sex-pot' however some words do get a different reaction e.g. would advertising for a hypothetical 'Diary of a Paedophile' be banned? Would other such 'bad-buzz-words' also have been allowed? He goes on to say - with a touch of hyperbole methinks - that the EMT's action is reminiscent of the censurship suffered under Franco.

Enough of that: in the film Catalan actress Belén Fabra (she played Olga in Canciones de amor en Lolita's Club) plays Val.

Oil output obstructionist...

Obstructionist...but not on purpose (one assumes!) It was no surprise to see confirmed in black and white the fact that Venezuela's daily oil production has fallen by 25% since Hugo Chavez has been president. Half of the oil now produced (from a total of 2.4 million barrels/day - down from 3.2) is sold the nations that are buddies with Hugo and they pay the Venezuelan state only 30% of the actual market price (3 month payment terms) and the remainder they pay in instalments spread over decades...

"The other half - 1.2 million barrels per day - goes to America, Venezuela's only genuinely paying customer."

Hahaha...what a plonker; I know that we know that he knows that they know that his bullshit, wind-up, anti-imperialist comments are only hot air but it's great to know that he knows that we know that his country needs the very 'enemy' he continues to slag-off. Still, I'm sure the eggs and furniture that PDVSA (the Venezuelan state-owned petroleum company) are producing helps things along. Can you calculate the 'loss' that he has made (he is almost entirely personally responsible) by not being able to utilise the massive surge in oil price effectively?

The daily Telegraph reports more bad news for Chavez, not only is Caracas now the 5th most dangerous city in the whole world but "Venezuela now has more murders than Colombia - despite its neighbour being officially at war against Marxist guerillas." [Link]

El pueblo venezolano merece algo mejor.

Observant opinions...

Stating the obvious really but just as many are becoming super-rich during the current world financial crisis (I mean the money has to be somewhere doesn't it?) there are also those that foresaw and foretold it. From The Times' Money Central yesterday "The financial events of recent weeks have filled many of us with shock and panic. Surely no one could have predicted that we would be in this mess?"...[Link] Of particular prescience number 5 (Dr Roubini aka Dr. Doom), number 10 Ron Paul and a speacial mention for our very own Vince Cable (first on the list). Mr Cable asking Gordon Brown, 'then Chancellor, during Treasury Questions back in November 2003':

"The growth of the British economy is sustained by consumer spending pinned against record levels of personal debt, which is secured, if at all, against house prices that the Bank of England describes as well above equilibrium level. What action will the Chancellor take on the problem of consumer debt?"

"We have been right about the prospects for growth in the British economy, and the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cable) has been wrong."

Obliging onager...

"I have sinned against my brother the ass."...he didn't like his brother? ;-)

Today, October 4th, is World Animal Day and it is celebrated each year on this day; today all animal life is celebrated. The date was originally chosen for World Animal Day because it is the feast day of the man born as Giovanni Francesco Bernardone, now known as Saint Francis of Assisi, known to be a nature lover and is patron saint of animals and the environment. MISSION STATEMENT - WORLD ANIMAL DAY:

To celebrate animal life in all its forms
To celebrate humankind’s relationship with the animal kingdom
To acknowledge the diverse roles that animals play in our lives: being our companions, supporting and helping us; bringing a sense of wonder into our lives
To acknowledge and be thankful for the way in which animals enrich our lives

The quote that started this post was apparently his dying words: "legend has it that St. Francis on his deathbed thanked his donkey for carrying and helping him throughout his life, and his donkey wept." Clearly, after all those years, he thought that to sit astride an Assisi ass is a sin, hehehe. The photo is from the website of The Donkey Sanctuary, Sidmouth, UK (click on image)

Orbit observance...

Today is also the beginning of World Space Week the start and end dates of which are the anniversary of the launch of the first human-made Earth satellite, Sputnik 1, on October 4th 1957 - the success of which prompted the USA to pay more attention and so began the Space Race - and the signing of the Outer Space Treaty by USA, USSR and UK on October 10th 1967. What this did/does is preempt Star Wars :

"The Outer Space Treaty represents the basic legal framework of international space law and, among its principles, it bars States Parties to the Treaty from placing nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction in orbit of Earth, installing them on the Moon or any other celestial body, or to otherwise station them in outer space. It exclusively limits the use of the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes and expressly prohibits their use for testing weapons of any kind, conducting military manoeuvers, or establishing military bases, installations, and fortifications (Art.IV). Moreover, it explicitly forbids any government from claiming a celestial resource such as the Moon or a planet. Art. II of the Treaty states, in fact, that “[o]uter space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means."