WHERE THERE IS SMOKE...

THERE IS FIRE

When politicians want something, but don't want people to know their desire, they have friends tenetively offer their objective as a theoretical concept. Our Secretary of State, "Candy" Rice wants to be the Republican nominee for the Vice Presidential slot on the presumptive McCain ticket. This thought was first portrayed last fall, and even as early as 2 years ago, as a possible way to gain the minority vote for the GOP. It wasn't headline news. I only caught it as a brief question on one of the Sunday "newsmaker" shows that no one but the media ever watches. Then it was nothing. Zip. Nobody spoke of it again.

Well, the balloon has gone up again. Of course a State Department spokesperson is downplaying it and Candy hasn't said she wants to run. She also hasn't said she doesn't covet that position. A lack of denial, by her, means that her supporters have decided to "raise the flag and see if anyone salutes". If the reaction is negative, then it will be brushed off as fleeting thoughts of some misguided people. Technically, she won't lose "face" and any further political ambitions she might harbor would not be tarnished. On its face, she does have the credentials but don't you remember that she is also part of the group that encouraged Dubya to invade Iraq. Her judgment as the National Security Advisor to the President and later as the Leader of the State Dept. is questionable. But she, and her band of thugs, are the ones who torpedoed Colin Powell. He was against the invasion. It just couldn't be justified and would detract from our efforts to eradicate international terrorism.

I don't think she would be McCain's first choice for VP but as they say: "Politics makes strange bedfellows."

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Fed Worried About 'Prolonged And Severe' Downturn. That's "pol-speak" for RECESSION.

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In our local news, Alaska Airlines has announced plans for daily service to Maui from Seattle and twice a week service from Anchorage. Any little bit will help.

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Most of you only remember Vietnam as a short paragraph in your history books. There are those of us who remember it as current events. Our President should be among the later but he really has proven to be not very intellectual. His latest pronouncements seem deja vu to me, from decades long past.

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Every Fourth of July, we have a rodeo in the upcountry community of Makawao. In Hawai'i, cowboys are called paniolo and were here before there were cowboys in Texas. Click the link for an interesting article from Wikipedia about the history of cow punchers.

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Taken a couple of years ago by a visiting astronomer, this video will give you a ride from Makawao to Science City, on the summit of Haleakala

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A nice, short, aerial view of south Mau'i. Kihei, Wailea and even a brief glimpse of Makena.

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While this ad campaign has been discontinued and was only run in Mexico, it has caused quite a stir here in the States. Especially the west & southwest.

One commenter on an ultra-conservative website posted:

"In an Absolut world, a company that produces vodka fires its entire marketing department in a desperate attempt to win back enraged North American customers after a disastrous ad campaign backfires."

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A short while ago I posted links that showed where the ISS and ATV were located in real time, as they orbited the globe. Well Google (of course) actually has a site that lets you locate all Earth orbiting satellites. Live and in real time.

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Hope to see you folks again tomorrow. Thanks for dropping in.

Mahalo

Aloha

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