For the past two months I have been posting the new campaign ads as they are released. I subscribe not only to the various campaign feeds but also to various other feeds from across the political spectrum in addition to three independent sources. On any given day, I have a score or more television, radio or Internet spots hit my desk. And I began noticing something the past couple of weeks, or actually not noticing something. There is a paucity of Barack Obama ads compared to McCain or even Nader. I’ve wondered why the number of Obama ads were so few. I even commented on it once or twice before. Now I know why. The Obama campaign is not releasing the negative attacks ads. It is largely only releasing the positive ones. I am a bit peeved (okay I am furious) because I actually had cut Obama some slack noting the positive nature of his ads.

I really do try to take an objective view point on these ads. I feel a bit abused. I post them so people across the country and across the world can see how the US Presidential race is being waged. The US Presidential Race is really 51 separate races and ads are created to target specific states or regions or demographic groups. An ad in Boston is often different from an ad shown in Kansas City. With the Obama campaign withholding some of its ads, those of us covering his media campaign did not get the full picture. Simply put, Obama manipulated media observers and the blogging community. Once again Obama shows how deceptive he can be and why I don’t trust him.

From MSNBC:

Obama’s stealth ad campaign: Over the past week, we’ve gotten our hands on a number of negative TV ads Obama’s been running against McCain in key states like Ohio and Michigan. This is in addition to the tough spot, uncovered by Politico [*** UPDATE *** Actually the spot was uncovered by the Washington Times' Christina Bellantoni, who reported on it yesterday and was linked to by Politico] , that Obama’s airing in Indiana. Clearly, the Obama campaign isn’t interested in telling the media about every single McCain attack ad they’re running. Perhaps this is because Obama’s brand can’t afford to be tarnished too much if he’s seen as constantly running negative TV ads. So the campaign simply puts them on the air in key markets, doesn’t tell the press about them, and layers those ads with positive ones being run nationally during the Olympics. Also, by not releasing to the media, it forces the McCain camp to wait a day or two before they see the ad. McCain’s camp is much more comfortable unveiling their negative ads, perhaps because they want the free press that comes with them. But make no mistake, Obama’s running plenty of negative TV ads, particularly in the industrial Midwestern states. In fact, one of Obama’s biggest candidate strengths — which doesn’t get the attention it deserves — is that he plays political hardball as well as his opponents; he just sometimes does it under the radar.

The emphasis is mine. I’m pretty angry. I cut him some slack and I feel once again thrown under the bus. The above ad is an Obama campaign ad currently being run in Indiana.

I have created a new category called US Campaign Ads so as to make it more convenient for the readership to access. They have been filed so far under the individual candidates. I hope you find this service useful and enjoyable.

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A Palo Alto institution has apparently gone stale. Mrs. Fields Famous Brands LLC will file for bankruptcy protection. For those of us who attended Stanford, Mrs Fields cookies were one of our joys. They formed such a part of study breaks with late afternoon runs down to University Avenue in search of chocolate chip with macadamia nut treats. From Wall Street Journal:

Mrs. Fields Famous Brands LLC, which serves up fresh-baked cookies and TCBY frozen yogurt at more than 1,200 franchises across the country, is planning to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, according to a regulatory filing.

The company was trying to negotiate a restructuring agreement with its senior noteholders, but warned in June that it might have to seek protection from creditors if it couldn’t complete the deal out of court.

In the Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Mrs. Fields indicated it would file a prepackaged bankruptcy reorganization plan with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. Michael R. Ward, Mrs. Fields’s interim co-chief executive, confirmed the company’s plans Friday.

Under a prepackaged bankruptcy, Mrs. Fields would file for Chapter 11 protection having already developed a plan to repay its creditors and exit from bankruptcy. Mrs. Fields’s restructuring plan calls for its noteholders to exchange their $195.7 million in notes for $90 million in cash, $50 million in new senior secured notes and 87.5% of the company’s new common stock. The noteholders are expected to recover 86.5% on their claims.

The Mrs. Fields brand was born in 1977, when Debbi Fields opened up her first cookie shop in Palo Alto, Calif. The company turned to franchising in 1990 and has nearly 390 locations in the U.S. and 80 internationally, according to its Web site, plus hundreds of TCBY stores.

The company, however, has struggled with a heavy debt load and has racked up losses in recent months. Mrs. Fields posted a net loss of about $10.7 million for the quarter ended June 28.

U.S. corporate bankruptcies are expected to increase in 2008, after rising an estimated 40% in 2007. The majority of the increases are expected to occur in the agriculture, energy mining, and electronics industries, as well as in banking and real estate. Retail has not fared so well either. This past month, Mervyns Department stores filed for bankrutpcy protection as did Dry Cleaning USA.

Here is a recent article on the rise in bankruptcies in the United States from The Economist:

CAPITALISM without bankruptcy, it is said, is like Christianity without hell. With recession looming, the air in America’s bankruptcy courts is thick with brimstone and the coals are being heated in readiness for the many sad souls whose sin was to borrow too much. After several heavenly years, in which bankruptcies fell to record lows, going bust is back. How bad will things get?

If the debt markets are to be believed, companies could be in at least as much trouble as they were in the previous two downturns, in the early 1990s and at the start of this decade, after the dotcom bubble burst. A leading indicator is the spread between yields on speculative “junk” bonds and American Treasury bonds. A year ago, the spread was only about 280 basis points; the long-term average is around 500 points. This month the spread exceeded 800 points for the first time since March 2003, reaching 862 on March 17th.

(more…)

Truly, we are training morons. Never mind Jessica doesn’t know her world geography. Check out her spelling. She can’t even spell the name of her home state. I count seven spelling errors, four punctuation errors and one grammatical error and that’s overlooking the capitalization of proper nouns. How does this woman even send a letter?

I have to hope that this is a joke. No one could possibly be this dimwitted.

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The Matthew 25 Network, a Christian organization that includes Catholics, Protestants, Pentacostalist and evangelicals, has produced and released a new ad touting Senator Obama’s family values. The ad is a 45 second spot and is entitled “Families.”

The ad begins with pastor Brian McLaren saying, “As a pastor, I know you can learn a lot about a man’s character by how he treats his family.” That’s followed by Pastor KirbyJon Caldwell – one of President George W. Bush’s spiritual advisers — attesting that “Barack is a strong man of Christian faith who has been married to his wife Michelle for 16 years.”

Caldwell also says of Obama, “Throughout his entire career he’s stood by families.”

“Including his own,” notes his wife pastor Suzette Caldwell. Her husband then chimes in with a “Hmmmmph!”

The Matthew 25 Network is currently seeking funding to run in more states. So much for the ad. Jake Tapper of ABC News wonders if the ad is “obliquely raising the issue of Sen. John McCain’s infidelities during his first marriage.”

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The McCain campaign has a new ad out today. It is a 30 second spot and it is entitled “Maybe.” The ad is tailored to run only in Ohio though I expect versions will likely be made for other battleground states. It is an attack ad and I think points to the fact that US Presidential campaign has turned increasingly negative. The ad continues on the theme of Senator Obama as a celebrity suggesting that ” maybe the applause has gone to” Obama’s head. The ad then attacks Obama on taxes and on a lack of a record.

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The Dead Were Attending A Party

A bomb set by the FARC in the town of Ituango, Antioquia in Colombia has left seven dead and 54 injured including women and children. The attack came during a music festival. Colombian authorities detained one FARC guerrilla alias ‘Pájaro’ so far.

It is hard not see this as terrorism pure and simple. And yet the Presidents of Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua want to accord the FARC the status of belligerents and strike them from the list of global terror groups. In this they are not alone, the number of Europeans largely in Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and the Netherlands runs in the hundreds if not thousands. The FARC’s press agency is run out of Sweden. There are support groups for the FARC, largely allied with European far left organizations including the Communist Parties of various countries. There are also two FARC support groups in the United States. One in Madison, Wisconsin, the other Raleigh, North Carolina. These claim to be “Colombia Support” groups. The only thing they support is terror.

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12,000 calories a day.

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New Mexico is one of the Mountain West states that Senator Obama wants to wrest from the GOP. The last Rasmussen Reports poll for New Mexico is from July 25th. In that poll, Obama held a five-point lead over John McCain. It is likely that the race in New Mexico is now tighter. In Nevada where Obama also held a narrow lead, McCain has flipped it and now holds a slight advantage. New Mexico has the nation’s largest percentage of Hispanics and Obama is leading among Hispanics nationwide by a 2 to 1 margin.

This 60 second radio spot attacks Obama on energy and spoofs Obama’s “inflate your tires” remarks. Interestingly enough, it is the first GOP attack in recent memory that also references Obama’s “bitter and clinging remarks” made in San Francisco. The ad is paid for by the New Mexico Republican Party.

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Russia Said to Control a Third of Georgia
President Saakashvili says the Russian army controls around a third of Georgia, two days after both Moscow and Tbilisi signed up to a ceasefire. Tanks and troops deployed around three Georgian towns despite growing international pressure for the military to withdraw. A report with video from Euro News.

Russia To Help South Ossetia and Abkhazia To Secede From Georgia
It is pretty clear that this is retaliation for the West’s shameful role in breaking Kosovo off from Serbia. Recognition of Kosovo was a serious blunder. We needed to work with Serbia and we failed to do that. More from the New York Times.

German Chancellor Merkel Visits Russia and Georgia
German Chancellor Merkel is to meet Russian President Medvedev Friday and visit Tbilisi next week for talks with President Saakashvili on forging a long-lasting peace between Georgia and Russia after a bloody conflict. More from Deutsche Welle.

The Crisis of Western Diplomacy
The war in the Caucasus is a truly global crisis. Russia’s action against the western-looking Georgia testifies to an extreme craving for recognition and is reminiscent of the Cold War. It reveals the reality of the chaotic new world order — a result of the failures of President Bush’s foreign policy. A in-depth analysis from Germany’s Der Spiegel.

Secretary Rice Arrives in Tbilisi
Ms Rice, who is hoping to secure President Mikheil Saakashvili’s agreement for a French-brokered peace plan, earlier said: “It is time for this crisis to be over. Georgia, whose territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty we fully respect, must be able to go back to normal life.” The US warned Russia of the “profound implications” for their relationship caused by Moscow’s military action in Georgia. The report from the UK Telegraph.

Georgia and NATO
Fistful of Euros notes that “the Russian-Georgian war should remind everyone of a very important point regarding NATO and the European Union. Specifically, just as John Lewis Gaddis said about the Cold War, reassurance was as important as deterrence, and this made self-deterrence very important indeed”. I’ll add that I took a class at Stanford on International Security from Professor Rice. She noted then security at its core is about reassurance and enhancing the security of the opposing party. Enhance theirs and you enhance yours. We failed to do that with the Russians.

How to Stop Putin
An Op-Ed by Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post on how to deal with Putin’s Russia.

The Russia-Georgia cease-fire brokered by France’s president is less than meets the eye. Its terms keep moving as the Russian army keeps moving. Russia has since occupied Gori (appropriately, Stalin’s birthplace), effectively cutting Georgia in two. The road to the capital, Tbilisi, is open, but apparently Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has temporarily chosen to seek his objectives through military pressure and Western acquiescence rather than by naked occupation.

His objectives are clear. They go beyond detaching South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia and absorbing them into Russia. They go beyond destroying the Georgian army, leaving the country at Russia’s mercy.

The real objective is the Finlandization of Georgia through the removal of President Mikheil Saakashvili and his replacement by a Russian puppet.

Finlandization refers to the policies followed by Finland after the Russo-Finnish War of 1939-1940. Finland had been a Russian Protectatorate under the Tsars but gained independence from Moscow in 1918. Russia invaded Finland in late 1939 and fought a brief six month war known as the Winter War. After WW II, Finland regained its independence but at a price. To begin with Finland lost 10% of its national territory, primarily the province of Karelia. But Finland adopted a form of neutrality. Finland was technically neutral like Switzerland and Sweden but with a caveat. Finland pursue an international policy that would under no conditions antagonize Moscow. In effect, Finland was limited in what it could do without bringing in Russian interference. Finland was able to shake off Finlandization after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Finland has since joined the EU and it is considered the most European of EU member states. Referendums on Europe pass by a wider margin in Finland than anywhere else.

Finland is not a member of NATO. However, NATO’s relations with Finland are conducted through the Partnership for Peace framework, which Finland joined in 1994. NATO and Finland actively cooperate on peace and security operations and have developed practical cooperation in many other areas. Finnish cooperation with NATO is based on its longstanding policy of military non-alignment and a firm national political consensus.

One of my favorite historical ancedotes involves the start of the Russo-Finnish War of 1939-40. Stalin was demanding that Finland ceded Karelia and allow the stationing of Russian troops fearing a German attack on Russia through Finland. Stalin summoned the Finnish Prime Minister Aimo Kaarlo Cajander to Moscow and attempted to persuade the Finnish Prime Minister into making those concessions. Prime Minister Aimo Kaarlo Cajander would have none of it. After hours of negotiations that were going nowhere, Stalin got impatient and asked the Finnish Prime Minister how many troops were in the Finnish army.

Aimo Kaarlo Cajander answered back “200,000.” Stalin retorted that Russia had 400,000 troops on the border right now ready to go. The Finnish Prime Minister said nothing instead writing down a few notes on his pad. Not getting an answer, Stalin asked Risto Heikki Ryti what he was writing. The Finnish Prime Minister replied, “I’m writing the orders to give my men two bullets each.”

While Finland today is one of the wealthiest nations in Europe and the home to Nokia, Finland in 1939 was one of Europe’s poorest countries.

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Here is the Friday, August 15th, 2008 edition of what’s making news and interesting reads from around the world.

Home Repossessions are Up 24% in Britain
Homeowners in England and Wales are struggling as rising bills squeeze finances. Home repossessions rose 24% in the second quarter. The Ministry of Justice said lenders made 28,658 possession orders against borrowers in the second quarter of the year, a 4% rise over the first quarter. More from the UK Guardian.

The Run on the British Pound
The pound slid for an 11th day against the dollar, the longest run of declines in at least 37 years, on speculation a recession will force the Bank of England to cut interest rates. Details from Bloomberg News.

Harsh Chinese Crackdown Coming in Xinjiang After Olympics
The Asia Sentinel reports that China is planning to come down hard on separatists in Xinjiang who disrupted China’s start to the Beijing Games with a wave of bombings and attacks in China’s Far West region. Meanwhile, the Asia Times explores why China’s policies in Xinjiang are failing.

Crushing Dissent in Myanmar
Students in Burma’s universities have been painting red crosses on walls and traffic lights to signal disgust with the country’s ruling junta. But the regime is quick to crush even the slightest hint of resistance. More from Der Spiegel.

The US-Polish Defence Agreement
Poland won a U.S. pledge to help improve its defenses in exchange for basing 10 American interceptor missiles on its territory, an agreement reached amid heightened concerns about Russia’s threat to its neighbors. The full report in Bloomberg News.

Maoist Leader Set to Become Nepalese Prime Minister
After weeks of political infighting, Nepal’s special assembly will choose a new prime minister on Friday that is widely expected to be the Maoist chief Prachanda. More from Reuters.

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