We haven’t posted a political thread in a while and as you know, I cannot comment on this one…so it is all yours. According to multiple studies, the 2008 election and campaigns are being more widely covered by the media than in any other election in U.S. history. Whether on TV, Radio or here on the web, people have been consumed with the process. There are so many reasons for this interest, which also extends around the globe. While in Guyana, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England….all in recent months…the newspapers, radio and televisions have all focused on our election. This one is a doozy. The Hoover Institution has posted some interesting opinions and articles on this…check out that site here.

I stole this picture from the U.S. Coast Guard website and wished I had one of my own when we got to do high surf training.

I have been lucky enough while working in Santa Rosa, then Sacramento and now with Fox News, to go out with the men and women of the Coast Guard as they conduct their amazing work. I went on high surf training off of Bodega Bay California (Unbelievable!).

We were chained-in with helmets and body suits on. We were told that if the boat capsized, it would right itself in 90 seconds, so hold our breath. When we hit each wave head on, it would knock us backwards like we had driven an SUV into a brick wall. I have spent time with other USCG operations, like the port protection team. We even did lives from Coast Guard Island in Alameda last year after boarding freighters that have just come to port, making sure there was no contamination or national security threat. Great stuff…I look forward to working with them in the coming year.

MEANTIME…check out this link. This is the Coast Guard’s top 10 rescues of 2007! LINK

Here are a couple of links that are in the news today that you might find of interest. The first works great this time of year, especially if you like to watch flights, or if you are making a trip by air for Christmas or New Years. This is a link to the live flight tracker, you can see all the planes in the air at any given time FLIGHT LINK

The second link comes from the Herald Tribune in Florida. The paper has compiled a nationwide list of licensed educators who states report have had action taken against their certificate. The types of behavior that lead to sanctions may include serious misconduct or relatively minor issues, including contract disputes or failure to repay student loans. NEWSPAPER LINK

HERE’S the video when I ate the plastic ware…potato based of course!

When you check out these links, don’t forget to come back to the blog. I will be providing more links and updates throughout the day! We first learned about the magnitude of trash and plastic in the Pacific Ocean from Tom Jones, he is the man who just paddled the length of California to draw attention to the problem.

You can link to my posts about him on the side of this blog, just click on ‘Tom Jones’. Now, as to the problem. Here is a link that explains and even provides maps as too why the trash (by some estimates two times the size of Texas) gets souped together 1,000 miles off the coast of California.

Besides ruining our land and water, plastics are also petroleum based. Yep, that means it is made from oil and in the last 20 years, we’ve doubled the plastic production in our country. This means more dependance on other countries and areas of the world that are in many cases turbulent, take for example our pal Hugo Chavez.

Here’s a link to Senate testimony in 2005 that explains our increased dependance on foreign oil and the dangers, including plastic production.

So, what can you do? My brother Arik has taken the step of removing almost all plastics from his little grocery stores and we believe he is the first in the country to go compostable. For example, his plastic ware in his deli’s is now made from potatoes. Called spudware, it’s actually stronger than petroleum based plastic and ’spudware’ can be buried in your backyard and in a couple of hundred days it becomes compost.

A few months back we focused on this transformation and many of these companies are American based. Their plastic products made from stuff like sugar cane and potatoes is amazing. Here’s a link to Excellent Packaging.

Here’s a few links to my past blogs on Barry bonds homerun chase!

• Barry Bonds — No. 757 and Counting
• Reporter’s Notebook: Bonds Needs One More to Tie “Hammerin’ Hank”
• Reporter’s Notebook: Still Waiting for Barry Bonds’ Record-Breaking Home Run
• Reporter’s Notebook: Waiting for Barry Bonds’ Record Breaking Home Run
• Covering the Home Run Chase: Barry Bonds Baseball

The fire (now officially called the Corral Fire) is 35 percent contained. The eastern flank considered most active at this time.

Air assault on fire grounded until sunrise; hand crews will work through the night. At least 51 structures destroyed, 5,000 acres burned. Six firefighters injured, one with “moderate burns.” He is being treated at the Sherman Oaks Burn Center. Full list of addresses of destroyed and damaged homes will be posted at 6 p.m.

Here’s a good link for the LA County Fire Department. They update all the latest numbers here first.  A list of damaged or destroyed homes has now been released and it can be found on the City of Malibu’s website.

Like many of you, I like to frequent sites on the web that always change, but still have some sameness about them. While I surf, I have my mainstays….hopefully this blog is one of yours. There are two interesting ones that News Corp is involved with — one I really like and the other has just launched.

FIRST….try out foxbusiness.com I like the site so far and the graphics are cool. I like it because it doesn’t overwhelm you with numbers and info.

SECOND….The video site started by News Corp and NBC Universal: Hulu.com launched Monday and features the FOX basics like The Simpsons, Bionic Woman, or My Name is Earl.

You can go to the site and watch the TV shows in their entirety. The images are clear and play pretty well, free of any stalled pictures or pixelated images. All this is free by the way and partner sites that have agreed to distribute Hulu’s material include MSN, Yahoo, and AOL.

I’ll post some more firefighter photos today!

This comes from Pepperdine:

Malibu Canyon Fire Update, October 21st, 2007 at 1:22 PM

The Malibu area is experiencing a significant brush fire under windy conditions. At this time, no pepperdine structures have been lost although the brush fire continues to burn around portions of campus. The L.A. County Fire Department is on hand with two strike teams and continues to monitor the situation carefully. Steps have been taken to shelter and place all faculty, staff, and students in the Tyler Campus Center, Firestone Fieldhouse, and Payson Library. Conditions can change rapidly, so all faculty, staff, and students are urged to stay in the three assigned locations and stay off campus roads.

All scheduled events on the Malibu campus for Sunday, October 21 have been canceled.  Malibu Canyon is closed from Mulholland to PCH and PCH is closed between Topanga and Kanan

A fire pic from FOXnews.com

So I am sitting here on a stunning day outside of a coffee shop in the newly renovated downtown Culver City area. The place really has become hip in the last couple of years, with a couple of studio’s near and some gret restaurants. Like many sitting under the shade trees sipping an iced cafe, I pop open my notebook and begin to surf the web.

However, sitting next to me, Humphrey Cheung, a writer/hacker from the online magazine, TGDAILY.COM

For a couple of hundred bucks, Humphrey has purchased the user-friendly hardware and software that allows him to watch what I am surfing…and also many others here in about a one-block area. Quickly he notices I have gone to foxnews.com, he see’s my latest e-mails on both Yahoo and Gmail. He knows which banking sites I have visited recently and can even get my flight information and hotel reservation. The only bright spot….he can’t watch me type live or get my credit card info from a secure account, but he can get it, if I decide to e-mail it to someone or they to me. Keep Reading …

Just a quick post this time. Some of my new found friends have welcomed me to blogging and while I appreciate their welcome, I have been blogging for nearly 5 years. I have a blog for family and friends which you wouldn’t know about, but here on foxnews.com I began back during the war and its buildup in 2003. I also blogged for the California recall that brought us Governor Arnold. Other stories I blogged on were from Venezuela; on Barry Bonds; big Katrina and Hurricane Rita; the tsunami; and the missile launch onboard the USS Lake Erie.   You can read some others here in the reporter’s notebook archive.

I am new to have my own daily spot and I owe a thanks to Taryn back in NY. By the way…of all the blogs, the one most popular was the min by min account of Tookie Williams. I believe it got something like 350,000 hits over a 24 hour period. I can always re-post it if anyone is interested. Thanks again for all of the welcomes and support.