July 2010 archive

Your morning Open Thread

On this day in 1930, construction of the Hoover Dam begins. Over the next five years, a total of 21,000 men would work ceaselessly to produce what would be the largest dam of its time, as well as one of the largest manmade structures in the world.

Although the dam would take only five years to build, its construction was nearly 30 years in the making. Arthur Powell Davis, an engineer from the Bureau of Reclamation, originally had his vision for the Hoover Dam back in 1902, and his engineering report on the topic became the guiding document when plans were finally made to begin the dam in 1922.

Herbert Hoover, the 31st president of the United States and a committed conservationist, played a crucial role in making Davis’ vision a reality. As secretary of commerce in 1921, Hoover devoted himself to the erection of a high dam in Boulder Canyon, Colorado. The dam would provide essential flood control, which would prevent damage to downstream farming communities that suffered each year when snow from the Rocky Mountains melted and joined the Colorado River. Further, the dam would allow the expansion of irrigated farming in the desert, and would provide a dependable supply of water for Los Angeles and other southern California communities.

Happy Birthday, Ringo.

Ringo Starr is turning 70 on Wednesday. It feels as though youth itself is now 70 years old.

I wasn’t yet 6 when the Beatles played their last live performance atop the Apple Corps building on Savile Row in London, January 1969. They split four years before I got my first Beatles album. Still, I can keep track of my teenage years by Beatles songs I happened to be enthralled with at the time. Forty years after they broke up, my 6-year-old son is learning to play “Eleanor Rigby” on the piano.

Ever since Ringo Starr  vowed, on a well-known cover of Buck Owens’s hit “Act Naturally,” that he’d become “the biggest fool to ever hit the big time,” the renowned rock ‘n’ roll drummer has done all right for himself. As a member of the Beatles and as a solo artist, Mr. Starr has sold more than a few records, won some Grammy Awards and even had a minor planet named for him. But on Wednesday Mr. Starr will reach a very special milestone: he turns 70 years old.

As you’d expect, he plans to mark the occasion with a little help from his friends, and anyone else he can round up. Finding himself in New York on the big day, he is celebrating with a private event in the morning at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square; Hard Rock International is honoring the day at locations around the world. (Details are at ringostarr.com.)

In the evening he will perform a concert at Radio City Music Hall with his All Starr Band, which includes Edgar Winter, Gary Wright and Rick Derringer.

Tougher than usual tonight.  I will actually be watching Warehouse 13.

Keith AND Rachel.  Letterman repeats, Leno has new content.

• Turner Classics– It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
• FX– AVPR: Aliens vs Predator—Requiem.
• ESPN– World Cup Primetime.

There should be Mets Baseball for me and Le Tour repeats if you haven’t already beaten your eyeballs bloody.

Later-

Jon has Julianne Moore pitching The Kids Are All Right, Stephen- Garret Keizer.  The always reliable Alton is covering mayonnaise (Miracle Whip guy myself).

Repeat of a new Chopped @ 1, might be worth watching at 10 pm.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Oil comes ashore in Texas as BP dismisses money worries

AFP

Tue Jul 6, 12:52 pm ET

An Alternet story from yesterday contemplates the reason for women dominating the rank of the Tea Party movement. According to a Quinipiac poll the the TP is 55% women and Slate 6 of the 8 Tea Party Patriots are women and 15 of the 25 state coordinators are women. Like the men, they are predominantly white, Christian and “middle class”. It ain’t just angry white men.

July 5, 2010 Why have American women become so active in the right wing Tea Party movement? Could it be that they are drawn to the new conservative Christian feminism publicized by Sarah Palin? Without its grassroots female supporters, the Tea Party would have far less appeal to voters who are frightened by economic insecurity, threats to moral purity and the gradual disappearance of a national white Christian culture.

Most Americans are not quite sure what to make of the sprawling right-wing Tea Party, which gradually emerged in 2009 and became a household name after it held nationwide Tea Party rallies on April 15th 2010, to protest paying taxes. Throwing tea overboard, as you may remember, is an important symbolic image of the colonial anger at Britain’s policy of “taxation without representation.”

(T)here’s something else in David’s column, which I see a lot: the argument that because a lot of important people believe something, it must make sense:

… Are you sure your theorists are right and theirs are wrong?

Yes, I am. It’s called looking at the evidence. I’ve looked hard at the arguments the Pain Caucus is making, the evidence that supposedly supports their case – and there’s no there there.

And you just have to wonder how it’s possible to have lived through the last ten years and still imagine that because a lot of Serious People believe something, you should believe it too. Iraq? Housing bubble? Inflation?

…

The moral I’ve taken from recent years isn’t Be Humble – it’s Question Authority. And you should too.

NASCAR in the Ardennes!

Well, it appears the major effect of yesterday’s crash fest in the rain is to let Chavanel take a 3 minute lead in Yellow and he is a major contender who could easily use this to put on an early move.

Garmin loses Vande Velde, is the most injured team by far, since the Schlecks don’t seem as badly hurt as early indications.

Most people will be starting bruised and sore.

There’s evidently some controversy about a ‘riders strike’ that resulted in that 3 minute gap.  I don’t think it’s necessarily that big a deal.  Lance is 6th overall and is part of the pack with all the other contenders who settled for the same time.

This happens all the time at the Tour and is generally held to indicate good sportsmanship.

To hear statements like–

“They put on a dangerous stage and so when they put it on like that that’s the results they’ll get,” said Horner.

“They got all their drama on the descent and they lost it all at the finish and they got what they deserved.

There?s no place in the Tour de France for a stage like this.”

seems a little strident.

I’m more with Lance on this one- “These hills around here and the Ardennes are legendary, it’s part of cycling. Liege-Bastogne-Liege has been around for a hundred years and they do that on the snow.”

Cobblestone Carnage today.  Seven slippery rutted stages in the sun, not quite so much fun in the damp.

Browsing the op-ed pages of the print media  and an open thread to vent. Pour a cup of coffee or brew some tea and contemplate the day.

Paul Krugman came down on Republicans who think they will get elected by punishing the unemployed by blocking Unemployment benefits.

By the heartless, I mean Republicans who have made the cynical calculation that blocking anything President Obama tries to do – including, or perhaps especially, anything that might alleviate the nation’s economic pain – improves their chances in the midterm elections. Don’t pretend to be shocked: you know they’re out there, and make up a large share of the G.O.P. caucus.

By the clueless I mean people like Sharron Angle, the Republican candidate for senator from Nevada, who has repeatedly insisted that the unemployed are deliberately choosing to stay jobless, so that they can keep collecting benefits. A sample remark: “You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job but it doesn’t pay as much. We’ve put in so much entitlement into our government that we really have spoiled our citizenry.”