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We’ve got a couple of new additions to our collection of Kaaawa Morning Dogs. These guys (and their people) recently moved into a new house in Kaaawa. We’ve seen them running on the beach a few times recently, and yesterday managed to arrange an introduction. That’s Fisher on the left, and Shiloh on the right, closer to the camera.

Which raises a question–Is this the only blog invited to be part of the Democratic Convention’s State Blogger Corps to regularly feature our favorite cats and dogs along with the obligatory commentary and news?

HorsesAss.org, the Washington State blog selected for the Blogger Corps, collected recent poll data showing George W. Bush to be perhaps the most unpopular president in history (at least in the history of polling).

Here’s a historical footnote concerning John Lehman, now the principal investor behind the Hawaii Superferry:

Many conservatives invoke the name of President Reagan as an example of a wise and ultimately vindicated conservative. Flashback to March 1983. That month Reagan made his “evil empire” speech and announced the “Star Wars” ABM program. Conservatives in the U.S. were impressed. So was the Soviet general staff. Then, as now, the Russians correctly saw ABMs, not as a defensive weapon, but as the way to make a surprise nuclear attack and then mop-up the few missiles an opponent would be able to fire in retaliation.

In the Pacific, Reagan’s secretary of the Navy, John Lehman, ordered provocative naval exercises near Kamchatka. In April of 1983, U.S. naval aircraft violated Russian airspace over the island of Zeleny which made the Russians ready to overreact to any threat, real or perceived. Into that charged atmosphere flew Korean Airlines flight 007 which was shot down one sad night in September by a Soviet military afraid to let any provocation go unpunished.

In November came NATO exercise Able Archer. Unlike previous exercises, senior NATO leaders took part, a “realism” not missed by the KGB. The Soviets, whose own war plans included the option of starting war under cover of an exercise, were at heightened readiness. In East Germany, tactical nuclear weapons were loaded onto attack aircraft. We’ll never know if an off course flight or an accidental explosion could have motivated a local commander to release weapons, but the Warsaw Pact was ready for war. The really scary thing is that nobody in the West had a clue.

I suppose if you’ve played through such scenarios, taking the financial risk of failing to do a required environmental assessment is small potatoes.

For your reference file, the 2008 edition of the Directory of State, County, and Federal Officials is available from the Legislative Reference Bureau. When you need to know who to contact in a local government office, this is the reference you want on hand.

Thanks to the Supreme Court of Hawaii Blog (Unofficial) for the link to this account of another sovereignty argument being aired in a Maui courtroom. Personally, I’m not a fan of such sovereignty claims, an issue that I’ll probably have to probe more fully at some point. But that doesn’t make the news any less entertaining.

Same thing with UFOs. And there are now a bunch of additional UFO files recently released by the British Ministry of Defence. The U.S. has also released similar old records.