What Caught My Eye Today

Just out of curiosity, what was so fascinating about yesterday's post? I usually get handful of hits on any given day, but yesterday was off the charts. At any rate, I'm starting off today's posting with a shout out to the 2008 Mavericks Surf Contest in my home town...

Surfing - One of the Bay Area’s most powerful winter tempests in recent years became a boon to the world’s elite surfers as waves reached heights treacherous enough for the much-anticipated Mavericks Surf Contest to begin tomorrow. With yesterday's announcement, the 24 surfers invited to the contest were put on notice to make their way to the legendary surf spot about 20 miles south of San Francisco for the weekend event. The winner will receive $30,000 while second place will get $12,000, third place will get $7,500, fourth place $3,5000, fifth place $2,500 and the sixth place competitor will receive $1,500. The Mavericks contest has been waged five times since its inauguration in 1999. It wasn't held last year because the seas were never quite suitable. Most surf contests have a specific day, but the Mavericks contest just sets a window of time so that the contest can be held on a day when the conditions are just right. If you happen to be in the vicinity, do the locals a favor and watch the contest online (http://www.myspace.com/maverickssurf). The roads are already too congested and it's not like you can actually see what's going on from shore anyway. The contest is held nearly a half mile offshore.

Air Travel - Millions of air travelers may find going through airport security much more complicated this spring, as the Bush administration heads toward a showdown with state governments over post-Sept. 11 rules for new driver's licenses. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who was unveiling final details of the REAL ID Act's rules on Friday, said that if states want their licenses to remain valid for air travel after May 2008, those states must seek a waiver indicating they want more time to comply with the legislation. Chertoff said that for any state which doesn't seek such a waiver by May, residents of that state will have to use a passport or certain types of federal border-crossing cards if they want to avoid a vigorous secondary screening at airport security. Oh goodie. I was afraid that some aspect of flying the friendly skies might actually be getting better. Now we can add longer security lines to the litany of things that suck about air travel.

Middle East - Two items of note on President Bush's trip to the Middle East...

A teary-eyed President Bush stopped in front of an aerial photo of Auschwitz on Friday at Israel's Holocaust memorial and said the U.S. should have sent bombers to prevent the extermination of Jews there. The issue of bombing the Nazi death camps or the rail lines leading to them has been debated for years — and the lack of action was interpreted by some as a sign of Allied indifference. The Allies had detailed reports about Auschwitz toward the end of World War II from escaped prisoners. But they chose not to bomb the camp, the rail lines, or any of the other Nazi death camps, preferring instead to focus all resources on the broader military effort. I wonder what future Presidents will say about our inaction in Africa. Funny how history tends to repeat itself.

The Bush administration will notify Congress on Monday of its intent to sell $20 billion in weapons, including precision-guided bombs, to Saudi Arabia, moving up the announcement to coincide with the president's arrival in Riyadh. Officials said the new timing was "appropriate" and "symbolic" as it would come within hours of Bush's arrival in Saudi Arabia, the penultimate stop on his current Middle East trip. Although administration has staunchly defended the sale as critical to U.S. interests, its desire to sell Saudi Arabia sophisticated weaponry has raised eyebrows from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who say the transfer of Joint Direct Attack Munitions technology would lend it highly accurate targeting abilities that could threaten Israel. I'm no expert when it comes to international affairs and the complex game of checks and balances that exist in the Middle East, so this may come off as a bit naive on my part. Perhaps, if we stopped providing weapons and weapons technology to the Middle East, maybe they would not use said weapons to kill each other.

2008 Presidential Race - In an attempt to give equal time to both major political parts, I offer you headlines from both the GOP and the Democrats.

GOP - About a dozen senior campaign staffers for Rudy Giuliani are forgoing their January paychecks, a sign of possible money trouble for the Republican presidential candidate and last year's national front-runner. Giuliani's campaign manager is one of those who now is working for free. He disputed the notion of a cash-strapped operation and said Giuliani continues to bring in money; several fundraisers are scheduled this week in Florida. The former New York mayor has yet to win a contest and is counting on a victory in delegate-rich Florida on Jan. 29 to prove his candidacy is viable heading into the multi state contests slated for Feb. 5, where he believes he can prevail in states such as California and Illinois. So if money isn't an issue, why is his campaign manager skipping his paycheck? Call me a skeptic, but I find it hard to believe this dude is doing all this simply because he's a nice guy.

Democrats - Hillary Clinton called for Congress to pass an economic stimulus package that could cost as much as $110 billion to help low-income families keep their homes, to subsidize heating costs this winter and perhaps refund some taxes. The proposal, Clinton's campaign said, would provide 37 million Americans with energy assistance. Hundreds of thousands more families would get help to avoid foreclosure, according to the proposal. Clinton's economic advisor didn't say how they would pay for the new plan, but he insisted it was a one-time expenditure. Advisers said they would not raise taxes or cut other programs, likely meaning it would be added on to the national debt. Since when has a little think like the national debt ever stopped Congress or the President from spending money that the Treasury doesn't have? If that was the case, we would have been out of Iraq a long, long time ago. Still, its stuff like this that makes Clinton look like presidential material. At least that what her campaign hopes.

The Universe - I figured that with all these stories about obscure places like the Maldives and Gibraltar that I've been laying on you this week, maybe it was time to visit the other end of the spectrum. The deeper astronomers gaze into the cosmos, the more they find it's a bizarre and violent universe. The research findings from this week's annual meeting of U.S. astronomers range from blue orphaned baby stars to menacing "rogue" black holes that roam our galaxy, devouring any planets unlucky enough to be within their limited reach. Scientists are finding that not only are they improving their understanding of the basic questions of the universe — such as how did it all start and where is it all going — they also keep stumbling upon unexpected, hard-to-explain cosmic quirks and the potential, but comfortably distant, dangers. One example is an approaching gas cloud discussed at the meeting Friday. The cloud has a mass 1 million times that of the sun. It is 47 quadrillion miles away. But it's heading toward our Milky Way galaxy at 150 miles per second. And when it hits, there will be fireworks that form new stars and "really light up the neighborhood." Now before you plan that trip to Vegas for one last bender before Armageddon, you should know that the chance of a "rogue" black hole swallowing the earth is about one in one quadrillion (that's a thousand billion or 1 followed by 15 zeroes). And that gas cloud deal. Yeah, that's about 40 million years from happening.