Photo, above: ​The latest in a string of infrastructure projects in Georgia is a twisted cascade of concrete forming a checkpoint at the border with Armenia. Work has begun at Ninotsminda on the structure, which will be over 100 meters wide and will divide traffic from both directions into a total of eight lanes.   http://www.hastaladesign.com/?cat=9632

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Senator Barack Obama, moments before the first presidential debate on September 26th, 2008.

Monday 905P Eastern Time (605P Pacific Time):   Mona Charen, NRO, in re: Romney campaign ads: in Virginia, insipid and not to point. Challenged Obama on his China policy; no mention of critical issues. Bland! He's leaving ripe opportunities on the table Where's the campaign?  Virginia's two main economic underpinnings: military, and Washington, D.C.  Fairfax to find an Obama lawn sign.  Harry Reid's remarks are contemptible:  he's one of the highest-ranking leaders in the country – on the floor of the Senate said some fellow called him to say that Romney hadn’t paid taxes in years.   Scurrilous lies, soon disproven.  Reid also claimed that Romney "sullied " the Mormon faith. Astounding.  Have we been taken over by aliens?  Where did all those contributions to Romney go? Is he really running a campaign? Polite, not too sharp; unusual approach. And the Senate majority leader: the word "smear" comes to mind.

Monday 920P Eastern Time (620P Pacific Time): Larry Johnson, No Quarter, in re: Fast and Furious. Report, investigation, pointing to the AG, his lieutenants, everyone at DOJ, ATF: seeding guns, automatic weapons, all along the Mexican border to gangsters to see where they'd wind up. Beyond belief.  International reports that these weapons are causing mass destruction and will continue to do so for years. Involved drug gangs; the Federal govt does not speak with one voice.   My bz partner use to be head of intl operation in DEA; these operations need to undergo a review at the highest levels across the top of the govt. This was not done without supervision from above.  Univision tracking 100K weapons in Mexico: compared serial nos w Fast and Furious – 57 bought by straw purchasers; one linked to mass murder of teenagers in 2010.   Mexico has grounds to bring a civil RICO case in the US vs the govt and seek damages. Univision released report as a signal that the next Mexican govt will be much more aggressive in pursuing it than is the current one.    There is no way that Eric Holder, the Attorney General of the United States, did not know of this.

Monday 935P Eastern Time (635P Pacific Time):   Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and Lara M Brown, Villanova, in re: One thing is clear: Barack Obama is running the kind of presidential campaign that provides short coattails to any Democrats running down-ballot.  That reduces any chance House Democrats might have to regain a majority in this election cycle.

Gallup's approval numbers for Obama are back to 46 approve and 46 disapprove; trial heat numbers now 49 O and 44 R. Tomorrow, trial heat will likely drop. Also, Gallup is moving from registered voters to likely voters this week, which could well mean that they'll be tied by the time of Wednesday's debate (R may pick up 2 pts when that screen is implemented). In short - by end of week, Gallup and Rasmussen are likely to be "converging" on what the race "really" looks like.

Thurston Howell/Gilligan's Island: never cut off from his golf clubs or extremely privileged life. Congratulations to the Romney campaign.  Looking at 1888 and 1892 elections: how amazingly close they were; how much came down to the execution of the ground game, not the overall message. Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison.  Obama is like Grover Cleveland in 1888.

TBILISI (Reuters) – An opposition coalition led by a billionaire tycoon claimed victory in a parliamentary election in Georgia and initial results released on Tuesday put it ahead of President Mikheil Saakashvili’s ruling party in the former Soviet republic.

Monday 950P Eastern Time (650P Pacific Time):   Melik Kaylan, Newsweek International, in re: elections in Georgia. Saakashvili is facing a competent opponent: the oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, the richest man in Georgia, whose holdings (all in Russia) are greater than the entire budget of Georgia. Huge opposition marches up and down Rustaveli Avenue (Tbilisi's main boulevard, named after the heroic Medieval Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli); Saakashvili fears that Ivanishvili is a running dog for the Kremlin, will create chaos in Georgia and then invite the Russians to move in and "impose peace."  Perhaps useful for Ivanishvili now to order his minions out into the streets to create chaos.  Saakashvili has succeeded in making the police incorruptible and transparent - he famously fired all the traffic police overnight in the beginning of his term, as all bureaucrats aged 40 and over were incorrigibly Sovietized and corrupt. Ivanishvili, head of Georgian Dream party, refuses to criticize Putin at all.  Looks as though the current ruling party will still hold the majority in the Parliament, but perhaps won’t dissuade Ivanishvili from bringing his people out in the streets.

BusinessWeek: Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili’s opposition coalition unexpectedly gathered the most votes in a parliamentary election yesterday. Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream group won the balloting for party lists, according to some exit polls, while Saakashvili’s United National Movement claimed a stronger performance in single-member districts. The parliamentary majority may still go either way, with official results to be released today.

Georgia, a key link in energy-transit routes between Europe and the Caspian, fought a 2008 war with Russia in a failed bid to regain control of a breakaway region. Ivanishvili, accused by the Georgian government of ties with Russia where he made his fortune, vowed to end the rule of Saakashvili, 44, who allied the country with the West and has a year remaining in his presidential term.

Monday 1005P (705P Pacific Time):   .Taegan Goddard, Political Wire; John Fund, American Spectator; Larry Johnson, No Quarter,  in re:  The Fed has soaked up 75-80% of our debt; some will come due in the coming administration and the Chinese will be the beneficiaries.   Romney shd say that we were $8 trillion in debt, will soon be $16 trillion in debt.  Polling has shown the Obama campaign to have been successful in deprecating Romney as out of touch and in favor of he rich  Blue-collar white women – "waitress moms" – usu tilt toward the Republican Party, but now are beginning to favor Obama. A relatively small number of citizens are in fact focused on the politics/issue. We’ve become an event-driven culture. For Mr Obama to seal his lead on Wednesday: no-drama Obama – "It'll take time to get out of this"; create no gaffe, try to get on to the next debate.

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What’s wrong with Mitt? “Lousy candidate; highly qualified to be president,” one top Romney official told Politico on Friday. “The candidate suit fits him unnaturally. He is naturally an executive.” Sources close to the presidential candidate added there’s nothing wrong with the campaign: it’s the candidate himself who doesn’t have what it takes as a political candidate. “He’s a great leader, but he’s not a great politician,” another top aide said. “As much as we complain about politicians, we like a good politician. He doesn’t have the hand-on-the-shoulder thing. He’s not quick-witted. He’s an analytical, data-driven businessperson.”

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Monday 1020P (720P Pacific Time):   .continued.  President's team has accomplished something remarkable by steering attn away from the economy. Obama needs both to avoid making waves on Wednesday – and channel Bill Clinton

Monday 1035P (735P Pacific Time):   .Aaron Klein, Investigative Radio/WABC, in re:   What is the Free Syrian Army?  and who pays for it?

Monday 1050P (750P Pacific Time):   . Gordon Chang, Forbes.com, in re: Consumption is the last hope for the Chinese economy, and it's about to take a tumble. Elite and deft, Xi aimed high early in China. . . .  An early move to rural China offers a window on the political savvy of Xi Jinping, who's on the cusp of taking over as China’s supreme leader.  . . . Disgraced Chinese official’s son defends him: Bo Guagua, 24, made his most explicit defense of Bo Xilai, a former Communist Party official in China, since a sordid political scandal involving the entire Bo family broke in the spring. Bo Xilai reportedly worth over a billion dollars, although is salary is $19,000 a year. The whole country is going off the rails: Senkaku Islands fight with Japan ("Nuke 'em!"), and cyberattacks all over the world - incl trying to get in to the Pentagon's nuclear launch codes.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2012/09/30/the-coming-collapse-o...

Photo: The Rongguofu mansion in Zhengding, part of a profitable film enterprise that Xi Jinping promoted during his tenure as party secretary in the village.

Monday 1105P (805P Pacific Time):   The First Frontier: The Forgotten History of Struggle, Savagery, and Endurance in Early America by Scott Weidensaul; 1 of 4

Monday 1120P (820P Pacific Time):   The First Frontier: The Forgotten History of Struggle, Savagery, and Endurance in Early America by Scott Weidensaul; 2 of 4

Monday 1135P (835P Pacific Time):   The First Frontier: The Forgotten History of Struggle, Savagery, and Endurance in Early America by Scott Weidensaul; 3 of 4

Monday 1150P (850P Pacific Time):   The First Frontier: The Forgotten History of Struggle, Savagery, and Endurance in Early America by Scott Weidensaul; 4 of 4

Monday/Tues 1205A (905 Pacific Time):   Reza Kahlili, author, A Time to Betray, in re: Iran is using a video to deflect from criticism of nukes. What's the timeline for nuclear confrontation - summer 2013?   

Monday/Tues  1220A (920 Pacific Time):  Kirk Johnson,  , in re: wave energy

Monday/Tues  1235A (935P Pacific Time):   . Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and Lara M Brown, Villanova, in re: One thing is clear: Barack Obama is running the kind of presidential campaign that provides short coattails to any Democrats running down-ballot.  That reduces any chance House Democrats might have to regain a majority in this election cycle.

Gallup's approval numbers for Obama are back to 46 approve and 46 disapprove; trial heat numbers now 49 O and 44 R. Tomorrow, trial heat will likely drop. Also, Gallup is moving from registered voters to likely voters this week, which could well mean that they'll be tied by the time of Wednesday's debate (R may pick up 2 pts when that screen is implemented). In short - by end of week, Gallup and Rasmussen are likely to be "converging" on what the race "really" looks like.

Thurston Howell/Gilligan's Island: never cut off from his golf clubs or extremely privileged life. Congratulations to the Romney campaign.  Looking at 1888 and 1892 elections: how amazingly close they were; how much came down to the execution of the ground game, not the overall message. Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison.  Obama is like Grover Cleveland in 1888. 

Monday/Tues  1250A  (950P Pacific Time): Exeunt.  Michelle Jamrisko, in re: ISM manufacturing number – 51.5 – is good for September; good news.

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Music (using New York City broadcast times)  

9:00 hour:  Cowboys and Aliens.

10:00 hour:  Appaloosa; Call of Duty.

11:00 hour:  Last of the Mohicans.

midnight hour:  Call of Duty; Cowboys and Aliens; Land of the Dead.