As the senior editor-in-chief and the main contributor, I reserve the right to indulge in some personal stories of a whimsical nature. I realize that this is not the sort of article I typically write but I also know that there is nothing you can do about it. You can’t even take back the time you have already spent reading this post so far. Therefore, you may now continue reading about my personal life and I will go back to pondering the greater questions of the world (after I have told my story).

I just got home from an awesome four day vacation at Disneyland. It was by far the best trip I have taken in a long time. The lines were so short we were able to walk up to many rides and get on without any wait at all. The ones we did wait for were usually less than 5 to 10 minutes. I think we did 13 rides yesterday along with a couple of shows and relaxed meals. Not even lines for food!

Anyway, those of you who have been longtime followers of the Brick already know that I have two children. I took the older one (4.5 years old) on Star Tours. This is a full motion flight simulation of a space ship ride with a clumsy robot pilot. At the moment when our impending doom seemed unavoidable (a scary collision with a comet) my daughter said:

“Mommy sure is going to miss us!”

I am convinced that she was completely sincere and these were her last words (she thought). There is nothing like experiencing a ride like that with someone who really believes we were in outer space. That is what makes these rides fun. I can’t wait to take her on Space Mountain and really scare the crap out of her. Does this make me a bad parent?

Is it just me or does this make the hair on the back of your neck stand up?

I took this picture today.  I am worried.

Since when, in America, is the availability of a basic staple a hook to bring in customers?

Be afraid.

Newsweek ran an article a few days ago titled, Unintended Consequences

The author describes how Eliot Spitzer got snagged by the fine print of the Patriot Act. Remember the Spitzer case? That one with the known terrorist plotting to destroy the U.S. government from the inside? No? That is because Spitzer is the guy who was caught paying for a prostitute and then resigned from his job as Governor.

Apparently, it is now common practice for Federal Prosecutors to use the banking data of millions of Americans to look for potential crimes. Not terrorism, like the Patriot Act would suggest, but general white collar stuff.

From Newsweek:

The new scrutiny resulted in an explosion of SARs, from 204,915 in 2001 to 1.23 million last year. The data, stored in an IRS computer in Detroit, are accessible by law-enforcement agencies nationwide. “Terrorism has virtually nothing to do with it,” says Peter Djinis, a former top Treasury lawyer. “The vast majority of SARs filed today involve garden-variety forms of white-collar crime.” Federal prosecutors around the country routinely scour the SARs for potential leads.

One of those leads led to Spitzer. Last summer New York’s North Fork Bank, where Spitzer had an account, filed a SAR about unusual money transfers he had made, say law-enforcement and industry sources who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the probe. One of the sources tells NEWSWEEK that Spitzer wasn’t flagged because of his public position. Instead, the governor called attention to himself by asking the bank to transfer money in someone else’s name. (A North Fork spokesperson says the bank does not discuss its customers.) The SAR was not itself evidence that Spitzer had committed a crime. But it made the Feds curious enough to follow the money.

When did we become a nation where it is acceptable for the authorities to randomly search databases looking for possible unreported crimes? It seems to me that if the police, FBI, DHS, ETC have nothing better to do than virtual busywork, maybe we should consider cutting back on their numbers. Clearly they have too many people to be busy enough with all the reported crimes.

As editor-in-chief I would like to extend my deepest apologies to the loyal readers of the Incontiguous Brick.  I have been away on a rather long trip and was limited to particularly poor bandwidth.  I was also severely sleep deprived and may have been under scrutiny from some unnamed three letter agencies.  And I was sick.  And…

Okay.  I was also quite lazy.  It shames me to say it but not only did I fail to produce any new articles for the Brick but my highly overpaid staff of unpaid volunteers did not step up to the plate and write a damn thing.  Of course this is unacceptable (I believe there was some excuse given regarding a broken hip… seriously?) and putative action will be taken.

The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution strongly defending how Israel has repelled rocket attacks.

The non-binding resolution, passed 404-1 on Wednesday, was substantially rewritten since its introduction in January to include a strident defense of recent Israeli tactics in the Gaza Strip. Ron Paul took a different view…

Ron Paul states - Madam Speaker: I rise in opposition to H. Res. 951. As one who is consistently against war and violence, I obviously do not support the firing of rockets indiscriminately into civilian populations. I believe it is appalling that Palestinians are firing rockets that harm innocent Israelis, just as I believe it is appalling that Israel fires missiles into Palestinian areas where children and other non-combatants are killed and injured.Unfortunately, legislation such as this is more likely to perpetuate violence in the Middle East than contribute to its abatement. It is our continued involvement and intervention – particularly when it appears to be one-sided – that reduces the incentive for opposing sides to reach a lasting peace agreement.

Additionally, this bill will continue the march toward war with Iran and Syria , as it contains provocative language targeting these countries. The legislation oversimplifies the Israel/Palestine conflict and the larger unrest in the Middle East by simply pointing the finger at Iran and Syria . This is another piece in a steady series of legislation passed in the House that intensifies enmity between the United States and Iran and Syria . My colleagues will recall that we saw a similar steady stream of provocative legislation against Iraq in the years before the US attack on that country.

I strongly believe that we must cease making proclamations involving conflicts that have nothing to do with the United States . We incur the wrath of those who feel slighted while doing very little to slow or stop the violence.

Ask most people and they would tell you McCain will probably be the republican candidate in the nest election. Fair enough considering his huge lead over other republicans. In fact, most of the news and polling data has focused on whether or not Obama or Clinton is more likely the beat McCain. But maybe this assumption is missing the mark.

Senator McCain has is facing not one but three major hurdles the next President (not even counting beating the democrats).

1. He might not be eligible. McCain was not born on United States soil. He was born in Panama on an army base to American parents. Most people look at this as a technicality but not the State Department. On the State Department website, it says:

McCain became a U.S. citizen at birth but not by birth. The difference is subtle but it could be enough to prevent him from being a constitutionally legitimate candidate for President. The Constitution states:

“No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”

When this was written, they probably were not considering how to handle military bases on foreign soil. Therefore, it is not entirely clear and that is the problem. The GOP does not want a candidate that might not be allowed to run. If this is not cleared up before the general election, I am sure the democratic candidate (either Obama or Hillary) will be sure to address it.

2. He might be in jail. Last June, McCain’s campaign was hurting. Giuliani had the ear of Fox News, Romney had money to burn and nobody was paying him any attention. McCain had very few donors and was polls were not looking good. Desperate to stay in the race for one last time (assuming he will be too old to try again in four years) McCain turned to the FEC. He applied for matching funds to pull himself through the rough times and it paid off big. However, now that he is likely to secure the GOP nomination, he has reached the spending limit. He can not legally spend any more on his campaign unless he is allowed to withdraw his application for Federal Matching Funds by the FEC. Although McCain did not actually receive or use any money from the FEC, he did use his matching funds status to get his name on the ballot in Ohio. This is likely to constitute actual use of the matching funds system. Uh oh… According the Washington Post, “knowingly violating the spending limit is a criminal offense that could put McCain at risk of stiff fines and up to five years in prison.”

“McCain applied for matching funds in June, when his campaign was struggling with poor poll numbers and few donors. His request was approved by the FEC in spring with $5.8 million in matching funds. McCain withdrew his application early this month after sweeping Super Tuesday, but the FEC said it had to check if McCain had used the matching funds to secure a bank loan.”

3. And then there is the possible perjury thing. In 2000, McCain said that he “definitely” spoke with Vicky Isman’s employer. A few weeks ago, he said that he had never spoken with her employer directly. One of those is not true. If it is the 2000 statement then perjury carries a potential maximum of 5 years in prison. I suppose if he wins the election from prison he could pardon himself.
When do you think the DNC is waiting to investigate that bit of trickery? I am guessing it will be after he is the official nominee and then they will be on it like white on rice.

Any angle you want to take, John McCain has some major hurdles in his future that will be addressed before he makes it on the November ballot. And that is why he is the long shot candidate of the republican party. Should make for an interesting brokered convention.

According to the CIA World Factbook website, the U.S. is at the bottom of the list of national balance sheets.

This is the list…

	Rank Order - Current account balance
	Home Reference Maps Appendixes Download Datafile
	Countries for which no information is available are not included in this list.
	Rank Country Current account balance Date of Information 1 China $ 363,300,000,000 2007 est. 2 Japan $ 201,300,000,000 2007 est. 3 Germany $ 185,100,000,000 2007 est. 4 Saudi Arabia $ 88,890,000,000 2007 est. 5 Russia $ 74,000,000,000 2007 est. 6 Switzerland $ 67,890,000,000 2007 est. 7 Netherlands $ 59,280,000,000 2007 est. 8 Norway $ 55,820,000,000 2007 est. 9 Kuwait $ 51,490,000,000 2007 est. 10 Singapore $ 41,390,000,000 2007 est. 11 United Arab Emirates $ 36,110,000,000 2007 est. 12 Algeria $ 31,500,000,000 2007 est. 13 Sweden $ 30,190,000,000 2007 est. 14 Canada $ 28,460,000,000 2007 est. 15 Malaysia $ 25,930,000,000 2007 est. 16 Taiwan $ 23,800,000,000 2007 est. 17 Hong Kong $ 19,870,000,000 2007 est. 18 Iran $ 19,000,000,000 2007 est. 19 Finland $ 17,120,000,000 2007 est. 20 Venezuela $ 17,020,000,000 2007 est. 21 Nigeria $ 14,610,000,000 2007 est. 22 Angola $ 13,640,000,000 2007 est. 23 Austria $ 12,610,000,000 2007 est. 24 Libya $ 11,710,000,000 2007 est. 25 Luxembourg $ 11,300,000,000 2007 est. 26 Belgium $ 11,040,000,000 2007 est. 27 Indonesia $ 10,210,000,000 2007 est. 28 Brazil $ 10,200,000,000 2007 est. 29 Philippines $ 9,040,000,000 2007 est. 30 Thailand $ 8,619,000,000 2007 est. 31 Chile $ 8,184,000,000 2007 est. 32 Iraq $ 7,802,000,000 2007 est. 33 Qatar $ 7,733,000,000 2007 est. 34 Azerbaijan $ 7,535,000,000 2007 est. 35 Argentina $ 7,438,000,000 2007 est. 36 Israel $ 5,941,000,000 2007 est. 37 Denmark $ 4,699,000,000 2007 est. 38 Trinidad and Tobago $ 4,288,000,000 2007 est. 39 Oman $ 3,785,000,000 2007 est. 40 Korea, South $ 3,700,000,000 2007 est. 41 Egypt $ 3,115,000,000 2007 est. 42 Uzbekistan $ 3,045,000,000 2007 est. 43 Botswana $ 2,231,000,000 2007 est. 44 Peru $ 2,045,000,000 2007 est. 45 Bahrain $ 2,009,000,000 2007 est. 46 Burma $ 1,676,000,000 2007 est. 47 Gabon $ 1,626,000,000 2007 est. 48 Bolivia $ 1,325,000,000 2007 est. 49 Congo, Republic of the $ 1,094,000,000 2007 est. 50 Namibia $ 1,065,000,000 2007 est. 51 Cote d’Ivoire $ 1,056,000,000 2007 est. 52 Turkmenistan $ 689,300,000 2007 est. 53 Bangladesh $ 683,000,000 2007 est. 54 Morocco $ 433,900,000 2007 est. 55 Papua New Guinea $ 314,000,000 2007 est. 56 Equatorial Guinea $ 250,000,000 2007 est. 57 Yemen $ 178,000,000 2007 est. 58 Zambia $ 150,000,000 2007 est. 59 British Virgin Islands $ 134,300,000 1999 60 Cook Islands $ 26,670,000 2005 61 Palau $ 15,090,000 FY03/04 62 Macedonia $ 5,000,000 2007 est. 63 Tuvalu $ 2,323,000 1998 64 Samoa $ -2,428,000 FY03/04 65 Tonga $ -4,321,000 FY04/05 66 Comoros $ -17,000,000 2005 est. 67 Kiribati $ -19,870,000 2004 68 Swaziland $ -26,710,000 2007 est. 69 Lesotho $ -28,000,000 2007 est. 70 Vanuatu $ -28,350,000 2003 71 Gambia, The $ -31,690,000 2007 est. 72 Micronesia, Federated States of $ -34,300,000 FY05 est. 73 Anguilla $ -42,870,000 2003 est. 74 Belize $ -54,000,000 2007 est. 75 Sao Tome and Principe $ -58,000,000 2007 est. 76 Paraguay $ -82,000,000 2007 est. 77 Antigua and Barbuda $ -83,400,000 2004 78 Uruguay $ -100,000,000 2007 est. 79 Tajikistan $ -102,000,000 2007 est. 80 Burundi $ -137,300,000 2007 est. 81 Seychelles $ -141,000,000 2007 est. 82 Chad $ -144,500,000 2007 est. 83 Togo $ -165,500,000 2007 est. 84 Rwanda $ -172,800,000 2007 est. 85 Guinea $ -175,000,000 2007 est. 86 Malawi $ -180,000,000 2007 est. 87 Haiti $ -184,800,000 2007 est. 88 Cape Verde $ -218,000,000 2007 est. 89 Guyana $ -229,700,000 2007 est. 90 Uganda $ -241,000,000 2007 est. 91 Armenia $ -275,100,000 2007 est. 92 Benin $ -278,800,000 2007 est. 93 Eritrea $ -343,100,000 2007 est. 94 Laos $ -355,000,000 2007 est. 95 Zimbabwe $ -409,000,000 2007 est. 96 Cambodia $ -410,000,000 2007 est. 97 Malta $ -411,000,000 2007 est. 98 Honduras $ -446,000,000 2007 est. 99 Fiji $ -465,800,000 2006 est. 100 Cameroon $ -501,000,000 2007 est. 101 Mauritius $ -552,000,000 2007 est. 102 Moldova $ -569,000,000 2007 est. 103 Ecuador $ -600,000,000 2007 est. 104 Kyrgyzstan $ -677,300,000 2007 est. 105 Mozambique $ -726,000,000 2007 est. 106 Cuba $ -750,000,000 2007 est. 107 Burkina Faso $ -752,000,000 2007 108 Nicaragua $ -754,000,000 2007 est. 109 Panama $ -861,000,000 2007 est. 110 Albania $ -918,000,000 2007 est. 111 El Salvador $ -929,000,000 2007 est. 112 Tunisia $ -935,000,000 2007 est. 113 Kenya $ -980,000,000 2007 est. 114 Senegal $ -1,034,000,000 2007 est. 115 Sri Lanka $ -1,118,000,000 2007 est. 116 Madagascar $ -1,145,000,000 2007 est. 117 Vietnam $ -1,199,000,000 2007 est. 118 Cyprus $ -1,236,000,000 2007 est. 119 Costa Rica $ -1,259,000,000 2007 est. 120 Tanzania $ -1,422,000,000 2007 est. 121 Slovenia $ -1,429,000,000 2007 est. 122 Ghana $ -1,470,000,000 2007 est. 123 Jamaica $ -1,573,000,000 2007 est. 124 Georgia $ -1,582,000,000 2007 est. 125 Jordan $ -1,690,000,000 2007 est. 126 Guatemala $ -1,772,000,000 2007 est. 127 Ethiopia $ -1,851,000,000 2007 est. 128 Dominican Republic $ -1,993,000,000 2007 est. 129 Bosnia and Herzegovina $ -2,021,000,000 2007 est. 130 Syria $ -2,160,000,000 2007 est. 131 Serbia $ -2,451,000,000 2005 est. 132 Belarus $ -3,056,000,000 2007 est. 133 Estonia $ -3,092,000,000 2007 est. 134 Slovakia $ -3,119,000,000 2007 est. 135 Lebanon $ -3,337,000,000 2007 est. 136 Iceland $ -3,384,000,000 2007 est. 137 Croatia $ -3,836,000,000 2007 est. 138 Ukraine $ -3,890,000,000 2007 est. 139 Sudan $ -4,465,000,000 2007 est. 140 Kazakhstan $ -4,643,000,000 2007 est. 141 Colombia $ -5,132,000,000 2007 est. 142 Lithuania $ -5,320,000,000 2007 est. 143 Mexico $ -5,414,000,000 2007 est. 144 Czech Republic $ -5,701,000,000 2007 est. 145 Latvia $ -5,839,000,000 2007 est. 146 Pakistan $ -6,477,000,000 2007 est. 147 Hungary $ -6,681,000,000 2007 est. 148 Bulgaria $ -7,189,000,000 2007 est. 149 New Zealand $ -9,973,000,000 2007 est. 150 Ireland $ -12,600,000,000 2007 est. 151 South Africa $ -16,280,000,000 2007 est. 152 Poland $ -18,130,000,000 2007 est. 153 India $ -18,530,000,000 2007 est. 154 Portugal $ -18,530,000,000 2007 est. 155 Romania $ -20,950,000,000 2007 est. 156 France $ -35,940,000,000 2007 est. 157 Turkey $ -36,270,000,000 2007 est. 158 Greece $ -36,400,000,000 2007 est. 159 Australia $ -50,960,000,000 2007 est. 160 Italy $ -57,940,000,000 2007 est. 161 United Kingdom $ -111,000,000,000 2007 est. 162 Spain $ -126,300,000,000 2007 est. 163 United States $ -747,100,000,000 2007 est. This page was last updated on 12 February, 2008

“He who wishes to fight must first count the cost.

When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men’s weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be dampened.

If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength.

Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain.

Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor dampened, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity.

Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue…

In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns.”

~Sun Tzu, the Art of War

From the Washington Post:

“Do you want to know who is bailing out America’s biggest banks and financial institutions from the consequences of their folly — by acting as the lender of last resort and controller of the system? Why, it’s the sovereign wealth funds, owned by such nations as China and the Persian Gulf oil producers. The new titans are coming to the rescue, if that’s the right word for their mortgage on America’s future.”

I wonder if the China’s leadership has ever read Sun Tzu. Oh crap, he was Chinese.

Here are two articles from last week that talk about the same plans…

and…

Can you say, “Human Shield”? How many Russians does it take to prevent an attack anyway? Is there some kind of formula to work that out?

On Super Tuesday, Obama dominated the independent vote. He also raised $32 million in January, mostly from small individual contributions. He utterly crushed Hillary this past weekend. Clearly he’s running a very effective campaign. What can learn from it?

Read these two links:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/obama_and_paul_the_kings_of_the_web_election.php

http://techpresident.com/blog/entry/21119/is_the_obama_campaign_a_model_for_online_politics

There are commercially-available databases, built up from data on magazine subscriptions, warranty cards, supermarket purchases, etc etc. They break populations into demographic and cultural groups. From there, they can predict people’s attitudes, based on their group.

The Obama campaign bought the databases and used them for targeted marketing. They had tailored messages for different groups. Depending on their data, they would phone, or send mail, or send someone knocking. For their supporter database, they knew who was strong, who was weak, and they followed up.

By contrast, what did the Ron Paul campaign have?

My meetup got a walking list from the campaign, which was simply a list of Republican voters. Free public information. They gave us a neighborhood to walk that basically wasn’t walkable - it was a bit rural, houses were far apart, dogs were running loose everywhere. A lot of these people were diehard Bush supporters.

After that, we picked our own neighborhoods. We picked dense upscale areas that had friendly people. But now we had no information at all. We didn’t even know who was a registered voter…but we still got better results than that first time.

The phone lists they gave us were the same thing: people who’d voted in Republican primaries. Those phone calls didn’t go very well either. If the campaign had done their polling properly, they would have known better:

“Every exit poll and detailed pre-polls showed Republicans were the least likely to vote for Ron Paul. States with open primaries showed him getting three to five times as many votes from Democrats and independents as from Republicans.”
http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory154.html

Now, I know those pollsters are wicked expensive. Don’t know how much time they need to ramp up, either. Maybe there wasn’t  enough money to justify it until the Teaparty, and by the time they get the database, design and execute the polls, and use the results to tailor some scripts, maybe it’s Super Tuesday already.

But for next time, let’s remember this. The Obama campaign, and probably others, did sophisticated database marketing. We flew a blimp. I loved the blimp, I saw it in Myrtle Beach and it was downright imposing, but I don’t think it really got the job done. It was an illusion of power. In a campaign, information is the real thing.