What Caught My Eye Today

Halloween - As scary as things are in the world today, do we really need a holiday to celebrate that fact? Aw. I'm just kidding. Happy Halloween, everyone. And know on with the headlines...

2008 Presidential Race - Despite John McCain's prediction of an upset, Barack Obama reached for a landslide, invading Arizona (McCain's home state) with TV ads and building a lead in early voting in key battlegrounds. Well what do you know; both candidates are predicting victory. I never would have guessed. Yet with the economy almost certainly in a recession and the country clamoring for change after eight years of Republican rule, even some of McCain's allies conceded the obvious. Okay, I have to draw the line here. For almost two flippin' years we've been subjected to relentless campaigning. And now, with still 4 more days until the actual election, we've got a bunch of jerks saying that its already over. I think me and the rest of the poor voters who are actually waiting until Election Day to vote have earned it.

Economy - Evidence of a recession piled ever higher with new figures showing Americans are spending less and gloomy about the economy. The Commerce Department reported consumer spending dropped a sharp 0.3% in September while their incomes, the fuel for future spending, managed only a small 0.2% gain. That followed a report a day earlier that the U.S. economy shrank by 0.3% in the third quarter. The accepted definition of a recession is two straight quarters of a shrinking economy. I suppose reports like this certainly back up the premise that the nation is probably in a recession (seriously, is there anyone out there who is delusional enough think we're not). Of course, I have a slightly different approach that I use to come to conclusions like this. Unlike the government, I don't have the luxury (or the desire, really) if sticking my head in the sand and hoping for the best. My approach is a little something that I like to call...LIVING IN THE REAL WORLD!!!

Afghanistan - Defense Secretary Robert Gates welcomed David Petraeus as the new chief of Central Command with responsibility for America's two wars, saying he hopes the general will help bring needed coherence to the U.S. and allied strategy in an increasingly volatile Afghanistan. Petraeus spent 20 months as the top U.S. commander in Baghdad. Now he will oversee U.S. military operations across the Middle East — from Egypt to the Persian Gulf — as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan. Gates called for the fastest-possible further expansion of Afghanistan's military and police forces, saying that is the long-term solution to its problems on the security, economic and political fronts. The United States has about 32,000 troops in Afghanistan, compared with more than 150,000 in Iraq. NATO allies have about 30,000 in Afghanistan. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if we had those 150,000 troops in Afghanistan instead of Iraq, this strategy thing never would have come up in the first place. You know what we should have done..."shock and awed" both Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time. What's another $600 billion dollars anyway? Pocket change. Heck that won't even buy you an economic bailout anymore.

Latin America - Okay, one more story on the presidential race...kind of hard to avoid them these days. Two in three Latin Americans either don't care who wins Tuesday's U.S. presidential election or don't think the outcome will matter, according to a survey in 18 countries. Funny how the rest of the world can grasp the obvious, while us Americans (okay the press) seem overwhelmed by all the pomp and circumstance of the upcoming election. The poll found that 29% of Latin Americans think a victory by Democrat Barack Obama would be better for the region while 8% prefer Republican John McCain. So where does that leave the other 63%? I'll give you 3 guesses, but you'll probably only need one. The rest essentially don't know or don't care: 29% did not believe either candidate was a superior choice for Latin America, while 31% said they did not know. The poll also found that one in three Latin Americans think Washington will not pay more attention to the region, regardless of who wins. In fairness to Washington, they barely pay attention to the people that voted them into office in the first place, let alone a bunch of folks south of the border...or north...or east...or west.