With the convention on, I thought I'd take a minute to remind TTPers that a couple of friends could use a hand, and provide links to help you help them. Rep. Allen West in Florida has appeared here before. He's in a new district thanks to redistricting, and the big-money left has targeted him. If you want to keep his voice in national politics, he needs you.

Then there's Jack's long-time friend and adventuring companion Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (CA-46). Beyond his association with Jack and principled record, Dana has also done a lot of work pushing to open space to commercial companies, which we're now seeing in SpaceX et. al. He didn't talk about it at the Seascape Rendezvous, but it's a big deal to our collective future. Won't you thank him?

Paul (internet tech, privacy, economics). Citizen K (hydrocarbon industry), and "devry" (online security, economics, Personal Plan B) are aboard. We also congratulate TTPers edd7, hardcharger for freelance link suggestions that met the test.

To simplify your scans, I've divided the links into sections: Economos (global economy), Techne Logos (tech), Polis (domestic politics), Stratiootika (geopolitics & military), plus 1 Good News This Week item to brighten your week and/or make you better. Enjoy!

Polis

jkatzman: I thought Chris Christie missed an opportunity this week. His speech was completely focused on talking to the delegates and the party, more than to the nation. The way he started on such a personal note, and his interesting point re: love vs. respect, could have led down a different path. A similar speech that focused on the personal, "as-lived" consequences to people of each failed policy, and kept coming back to his Love vs. Respect theme, could have been aimed at the nation, and become a campaign centerpiece.

Instead, I give you Ann Romney:

• We Have Ways of Treating Dissents in the USSA. prosenberg: Former Marine Brandon Raub was grabbed by FBI, Secret Service and local enforcers, but ordered to a psych ward rather than jail. Why? For his Facebook posts. (See also video). I presume many of you can remember how this was used in the USSR - snd of course, a far more violent Occupy Philadelphia type got a complete pass from the SS. Finally, another judge let Raub out, citing an absolute lack of justification for ever putting him there. No one will be fired over this, and the Facebook surveillance system will remain. By the way, the same trick was used a couple of years ago in New York, to shut up a cop who was exposing corruption.



• High-Ranking Mexican Drug Cartel Member Makes Explosive Allegation: 'Fast and Furious' Is Not What You Think It Is (Aug 9/12) jkatzman: He says it was an operation to benefit the Sinaloa cartel, not to track guns. "Obama And The Sinaloa Drug Cartel" had suggested as much but with different rationales, back in October 2011.



• ATF official also holding private-sector job, Congress members say (Washington Post). prosenberg: Well, isn't this special: The guy responsible for all those Fast & Furious deaths (but hey, it was on the other side of a border) was working for JP Morgan at the same time!



• Koutoulas: Holder's DOJ "Biggest Enabler Of Financial Crime In U.S. History" (Real Clear Politics, Aug 23/12). jkatzman: Detailed takedown re: the Corzine MF Global case, or lack thereof. Next stop: state Attorneys-General.



• Wall Street's Leadership Vacuum (BusinessWeek, Aug 23/12). "When an institution or industry loses its legitimacy, it loses the benefit of the doubt." Lack of "leadership" is a bellwether for that.



• Story the Media Won't Tell: Obama Is Losing (Breitbart Big Journalism, Aug 25/12). edd7.



• Battleground state trouble for Mitt Romney (WaPo PostPartisan, Aug 1/12). jkatzman: Well named column, but think of this as a look at things your fellow Americans need to be convinced of. If Breitbart is right, some of these polls must begin changing soon, even assuming media under-reporting.

Techne Logos

• Lightweight Portable Security (Distrowatch). prosenberg: Free security for suckers, written by the same guys who gather up all your Internet traffic without warrants. (JK: Though, mind you, it's approved for use by Pentagon personnel)



• Gallium Nitride (Raytheon). jkatzman: A better material for computing semiconductors, transmitters, and receivers. It's being built for military uses, but could begin showing up in your electronics a few years from now.

Economos

citizenK2: Hurricane Issac is nothing new to us on the Gulf Coast, and didn't even ht Category 3, but I thought I'd might make a few aware of what happens when a tropical storm enters the Gulf of Mexico.

1. As of noon Monday, 24% of offshore oil production has already been shut in. Add 8% of natural gas production to that. As storms ramp up, more shutdowns come.



2. Expect 2.5 million barrels per day of refining capacity to shutdown at present track of this storm. If the models shift just a little more to the west, add another 2 million barrels per day shut down. This is slow methodical process of complex refineries and process units being shut down one by one, and later brought up the same way. It's during the shutdown & start up phase of refining/petrochem where reactions are more likely to go awry. Modern refining is full of chemical reactions - not just boiling oil.



3. Expect oil/gas production platforms to be toppled during significant storms. Don't worry about oil slicks, worry about loss of production or a long time. Older platforms with low production will not be replaced, due economic factor of replacement costs.

Elsewhere...

• The Bundesbank against the World (Der Spiegel, Aug 27/12). jkatzman: Recall "Inflation lobby is about to win the argument" from our very 1st Team B post, in July.



• QE3 and the looming currency war (WSJ Market Watch, Aug 29/12). jkatzman: Schiff was talking about competitive devaluation years ago.



• Why New Jersey's largest bank was forced to sell now (Fortune, Aug 27/12). jkatzman: Interest rate risk. Something many more banks may soon have problems with.

Stratiootika

• U.S. Force Posture Strategy in the Asia Pacific Region: An Independent Assessment (CSIS, Aug 15/12). jkatzman: Congress asked them, so.... Just remember that there aren't 2 players here, there are many.



• Preparing for Today's Undersea Warfare (USNI Proceedings, June 2012). jkatzman: Good overview of changes and evolution over the decades.



• Allies and Airpower in Libya (USAWC Parameters, Spring 2012, PDF format). jkatzman: What does the Libyan experience tell us about when and if the model we used to topple the Taliban can work elsewhere?

Over The Hump: Good News This Week

hardcharger: Ennio Morricone's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, played expertly by... The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. It works really well, and will make you smile.

Smiles are good, and we can't pass by this week without remembering Neil Armstrong. See American Thinker's "Neil Armstrong: 'There Was Work to Do'". Its title indirectly references Armstrong's excellent take on why the mission succeeded for the Johnson Space Center Oral History Project. They. Built. That.

For The Constitution!

Joe Katzman