October 2010 archive

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

October 19 is the 292nd day of the year (293rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 73 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1781, hopelessly trapped at Yorktown, Virginia, British General Lord Cornwallis surrenders 8,000 British soldiers and seamen to a larger Franco-American force, effectively bringing an end to the American Revolution.

The Siege of Yorktown or Battle of Yorktown in 1781 was a decisive victory by combined assault of American forces led by General George Washington and French forces led by the Comte de Rochambeau over a British Army commanded by Lieutenant General Lord Cornwallis. It proved to be the last major land battle of the American Revolutionary War  in North America, as the surrender of Cornwallis’s army prompted the British government eventually to negotiate an end to the conflict.

In 1780, 5,500 French soldiers landed in Rhode Island to assist their American allies in operations against British-controlled New York City. Following the arrival of dispatches from France that included the possibility of support from the French West Indies fleet of the Comte de Grasse, Washington and Rochambeau decided to ask de Grasse for assistance either in besieging New York, or in military operations against a British army operating in Virginia. On the advice of Rochambeau, de Grasse informed them of his intent to sail to the Chesapeake Bay, where Cornwallis had taken command of the army. Cornwallis, at first given confusing orders by his superior officer, Henry Clinton, was eventually ordered to make a defensible deep-water port, which he began to do at Yorktown, Virginia. Cornwallis‘s movements in Virginia were shadowed by a Continental Army force led by the Marquis de Lafayette.

The French and American armies united north of New York City during the summer of 1781. When word of de Grasse‘s decision arrived, the combined armies began moving south toward Virginia, engaging in tactics of deception to lead the British to believe a siege of New York was planned. De Grasse sailed from the West Indies and arrived at the Chesapeake Bay at the end of August, bringing additional troops and providing a naval blockade of Yorktown. He was transporting 500,000 silver pesos collected from the citizens of Havana, Cuba, to fund supplies for the siege and payroll for the Continental Army. While in Santo Domingo, de Grasse met with Francisco Saavedra de Sangronis, an agent of Carlos III of Spain. De Grasse had planned to leave several of his warships in Santo Domingo. Saavedra promised the assistance of the Spanish navy to protect the French merchant fleet, enabling de Grasse to sail north with all of his warships. In the beginning of September, he defeated a British fleet led by Sir Thomas Graves that came to relieve Cornwallis at the Battle of the Chesapeake. As a result of this victory, de Grasse blocked any escape by sea for Cornwallis. By late September Washington and Rochambeau arrived, and the army and naval forces completely surrounded Cornwallis.

After initial preparations, the Americans and French built their first parallel and began the bombardment. With the British defense weakened, Washington on October 14, 1781 sent two columns to attack the last major remaining British outer defenses. A French column took redoubt #9 and an American column redoubt #10. With these defenses taken, the allies were able to finish their second parallel. With the American artillery closer and more intense than ever, the British situation began to deteriorate rapidly and Cornwallis asked for capitulation terms on the 17th. After two days of negotiation, the surrender ceremony took place on the 19th, with Cornwallis being absent since he claimed to be ill. With the capture of over 8,000 British soldiers, negotiations between the United States and Great Britain began, resulting in the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

Flight delays cost passengers $16.7 billion

FAA-funded study factors in time lost, secondary travel arrangements

By JOAN LOWY

WASHINGTON – Airline flight delays cost passengers more than inconvenience – $16.7 billion more – according to a study delivered to the Federal Aviation Administration on Monday.

The FAA-funded study looks at the cost to passengers for flight delays in 2007, the latest year for which complete data was available when researchers began working on the study.

Unlike past studies of the impact of flight delays, researchers looked more broadly at the costs associated with flight delays, including passengers’ lost time waiting for flights and then scrambling to make other arrangements when flights are canceled.

President Obama, aka Bush, is making sure that telecommunications companies are ensuring that their networks can be wiretapped. Change? LMAO

U.S. Pushes to Ease Technical Obstacles to Wiretapping

WASHINGTON – Law enforcement and counterterrorism officials, citing lapses in compliance with surveillance orders, are pushing to overhaul a federal law that requires phone and broadband carriers to ensure that their networks can be wiretapped, federal officials say

The officials say tougher legislation is needed because some telecommunications companies in recent years have begun new services and made system upgrades that create technical obstacles to surveillance. They want to increase legal incentives and penalties aimed at pushing carriers like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast to ensure that any network changes will not disrupt their ability to conduct wiretaps.

An Obama administration task force that includes officials from the Justice and Commerce Departments, the F.B.I. and other agencies recently began working on draft legislation to strengthen and expand a 1994 law requiring carriers to make sure their systems can be wiretapped. There is not yet agreement over the details, according to officials familiar with the deliberations, but they said the administration intends to submit a package to Congress next year.

Never mind “1984”, we may as well be living in the USSR.

Well, not you and me particularly, but with some historical figures.  This was sort of spurred by Keith Olbermann’s story about Michele Bachmann’s list of people with whom she would like to have dinner.  I could not imagine a dinner with only six to eight folks, including me, wherein I could meet everyone that I would want, so I have set up a series of dinners with diverse groups of folks that I would love to get to know.  By the way, K.O. will be in a future installment if there is enough interest in this series.

Tonight’s installment will include a dinner with physicists (or their historical counterparts) that are both living and dead.  Here are my rules:  1) I am not personally acquainted with anyone mentioned (a chance meeting, like on a flight does not count), 2) within certain limits, only a maximum of eight people can attend.  More than that would make highly interactive conversation difficult, and 3) there is no language barrier.

I understand a Senior League team was victorious in a sporting competition.  Hopefully the listings give you some idea where to switch so yu don’t have to listen to God Bless America all the time.  I’m not yet despairing of my brackets,  The Phillies showed almost Yankee like offensive powers last night.  This Series is pitching matched up, so you get the best pitcher against the best and so on.  Tuesday will be the third game in the series and it will be interesting to see how each offense performs against the ‘not so good’ pitcher.

Of course it’s the third game in the Junior League tonight and as you’ll recall the Yankees started their Ace first game, but the Rangers had to wait until tonight for theirs which means he’ll probably only pitch the once.  Once being of course in the first game in Yankee Stadium.  Lee has impressive statistics.  Opposed by Pettite who really is only the third best.  Again I think it comes down to offense in which I think the Rangers are less good.  If they can solve Pettite and put it away they’re likely to win.  If it’s close- everyone on the Yankees can hit.

But while it would ruin my 5 game prediction it doesn’t alter my opinion of the ultimate outcome.  Means the Yankees need to win on the road again and they’ve already shown they can do it.

Postseason ace vs. October pro in Game 3 of ALCS

By MIKE FITZPATRICK, AP Sports Writer

50 mins ago

NEW YORK – Cliff Lee’s left arm has been the most dominant force in baseball during the past two postseasons. Now, all that October success has earned him another matchup with the New York Yankees.

“They’re basically an All-Star team. From top to bottom, they have threats everywhere,” Lee said. “I’m not going to get intimidated.”

With the best-of-seven AL championship series tied at one apiece, the scene shifts to Yankee Stadium for Game 3 on Monday night, when a pair of pressure-proven pitchers will be back in the spotlight.

Broadcast premiers.  

• ABC Family– Mean Girls, Good Burger
• AMC– Friday the 13th & 2 x 2
• Bravo– New Real Housewives
• Discovery– Sr. v Jr. repeats (this year’s)
• ESPN– Throwball, Titans at Jaguars
• ESPN2– World Series of Poker (this week’s)
• Food– Unwrapped, Best Thing I Ever Ate (premiers)
• FX– Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
• History– Pawn Stars (2 premiers)
• Lifetime– The Two Mr. Kissels x 2
• Oxygen– Definitely, Maybe x 2
• Spike– Blade: Trinity x 2
• Turner Classic– Oliver!
• TLC– New Cake Boss
• Toon– Regular Show, MAD, Total Drama World Tour (premiers)
• Vs.– Avalanche @ Rangers (the hockey kind)

Later-

• FX– 30 Days of Night
• Sci Fi– Friday the 13th: The Series
• Turner Classic– The Black Stallion, Almost Famous
• USA– The Bourne Ultimatum x 2

No Dave.  No Jon or Stephen.  Or rather repeats from 9/21, 10/12, and 10/12.  Fortunately there is double Alton, Oats 2 and 1.

Boondocks– Series Premier A Huey Freeman Christmas.

Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Cars burned, fuel short in France pensions protest

by Roland Lloyd Parry, AFP

50 mins ago

Starting a new blog is a funny endeavor. Why do it? People ask about mission statements and intentions and they want to know: what will this accomplish?

Honestly, I don’t know. This might be the very first time in my life that I have no expectations. I don’t know what this place will become. I have no set idea on what is success and what is failure.

In fact, this isn’t even my blog. I’ve funded it, but I don’t own it. Ownership seems hard to claim in a venture so open to other people’s ideas and vision shaping and driving it.

Perhaps it is a bit experimental: I’m curious what evolves from chaos: there are few rules, no boss, and an eclectic group of writers, poets, musicians, and thinkers who may find themselves here from time-to-time.

For me, this is about finding a way to influence an entire planet in thousands of small and profound ways. But these are my own intentions and I do not speak on behalf of the others who may join in here. I can only tell you I am looking for ways to break communication barriers, discover common ground, and reclaim options over how this life thing goes forward.

With that said, I’d like to make some very necessary acknowledgments.

The Huffington Post Investigation Fund (dot org) is reporting that major Wall Street Banksters and Hedge Funds are getting into the kind of get rich quick real estate scams you normally find in a late night infomercial.

This particular confidence game is to purchase the right to collect back taxes, fees, and liens from cash strapped local governments at discounts on the dollar and then sick their high retainer, temporarily idle, forclosure departments on the homeowners to run up fees, fines, and forclosures.

I’ll quote it as I would any article of similar length, they allow crossposting but the embed code violates too many rules.

The New Tax Man: Big Banks And Hedge Funds

By Fred Schulte and Ben Protess, Huffington Post Investigative Fund

First Posted: 10-18-10 08:28 AM Updated: 10-18-10 09:40 AM

Nearly a dozen major banks and hedge funds, anticipating quick profits from homeowners who fall behind on property taxes, are quietly plowing hundreds of millions of dollars into businesses that collect the debts, tack on escalating fees and threaten to foreclose on the homes of those who fail to pay.

…

In exchange for paying overdue real estate taxes, the investors gain legal powers from local governments to collect the debt and levy fees. At first, property owners may owe little more than a few hundred dollars, only to find their bills soaring into the thousands. In some jurisdictions, the new Wall Street tax collectors also chase debtors over other small bills, such as for water, sewer and sidewalk repair.

…

Years ago, the big banks left the buying of tax liens largely to local real estate specialists and small-time investors. These days, banks and hedge funds, stung by the failure of many speculative investments, see tax liens as a relatively safe option that can yield returns of around 7 percent.

Some banks also are packaging tax liens as securities – in a similar way to how unpaid home loans are securitized – and selling them to investors.

If mortgage holders fail to pay overdue taxes, an investor could waltz off with a home worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for the price of paying the owner’s tax bill. Most homeowners eventually pay their debt.

…

Some two dozen states and the District of Columbia allow tax sales, which spare the governments from added expenses of hiring their own debt collector, or foreclosing and becoming a landlord. Local governments generally require minimal identification – for instance, a Social Security number. They allow bidders to choose whatever names they wish, and don’t check to see if bidders are using multiple identities.

In the Middle Ages this was called Tax Farming.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Paul Krugman: Rare and Foolish

Last month a Chinese trawler operating in Japanese-controlled waters collided with two vessels of Japan’s Coast Guard. Japan detained the trawler’s captain; China responded by cutting off Japan’s access to crucial raw materials.

And there was nowhere else to turn: China accounts for 97 percent of the world’s supply of rare earths, minerals that play an essential role in many high-technology products, including military equipment. Sure enough, Japan soon let the captain go.

I don’t know about you, but I find this story deeply disturbing, both for what it says about China and what it says about us. On one side, the affair highlights the fecklessness of U.S. policy makers, who did nothing while an unreliable regime acquired a stranglehold on key materials. On the other side, the incident shows a Chinese government that is dangerously trigger-happy, willing to wage economic warfare on the slightest provocation.

Sherrod Brown: For Our China Trade Emergency, Dial Section 301

TEN years ago this fall the Senate sold out American manufacturing. By a vote of 83 to 15, it established so-called permanent normal trade relations with China, paving the way for that country to join the World Trade Organization. As a result, Chinese imports to the United States fell under the same low tariffs and high quotas as those from countries like Canada and Britain.

Today, though, our trade relations with China are anything but normal. The 2000 agreement’s proponents insisted it would enable a billion Chinese consumers to buy American products. Instead, our bilateral trade deficit has increased 170 percent, largely because China has undermined free-market competition through illegal subsidies and currency manipulation.

Unless the administration takes punitive steps in response to China’s unfair trade practices, the American economy – and the American worker – will continue to suffer.

Sherrod Brown, a Democratic senator from Ohio, is a member of the President’s Export Council and the author of “Myths of Free Trade.”

Glenn Greenwald: How propaganda is disseminated: WikiLeaks Edition

This is how the U.S. government and American media jointly disseminate propaganda: in the immediate wake of some newsworthy War on Terror event, U.S. Government officials (usually anonymous) make wild and reckless — though unverifiable — claims. The U.S. media mindlessly trumpets them around the world without question or challenge. Those claims become consecrated as widely accepted fact. And then weeks, months or years later, those claims get quietly exposed as being utter falsehoods, by which point it does not matter, because the goal is already well-achieved: the falsehoods are ingrained as accepted truth.

I’ve documented how this process works in the context of American air attacks (it’s immediately celebrated that we Killed the Evil Targeted Terrorist Leader who invariably turns out to be alive and then allegedly killed again in the next air strike], while the [dead are always, by definition, “militants”); with covered-up American war crimes, with the Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman frauds — the same process was also evident with the Israeli attack on the flotilla — and now we find a quite vivid illustration of this deceitful process in the context of WikiLeaks’ release of Afghanistan war documents. . . .

John Nichols: Obama is Wrong, the Republicans are Right

The Obama administration’s Department of Justice is seeking to overturn the world-wide injunction against enforcment of the noxious “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. . . .

There have been lots of objections. But the loudest complaints are coming from Republicans. Not, unfortunately, all Republicans. But the Log Cabin Republicans — the gay and lesbian group that secured the injunction from a federal judge — are mounting the defense of the injunction. . . .

The Log Cabin lawyer is right: legally, logically and morally. The Department of Justice does have a responsibility to enforce the law, even when the law is objectionable. But it does not have a responsibility to defend a policy that a federal judge has soundly and unequivocally identified as an assault on the Constitution that violates the basic premises of a free and just society.

Monday Business Edition

This is the future Paul Krugman keeps warning us about.

Japan Goes From Dynamic to Disheartened

The Great Deflation

By MARTIN FACKLER, The New York Times

Published: October 16, 2010

For nearly a generation now, the nation has been trapped in low growth and a corrosive downward spiral of prices, known as deflation, in the process shriveling from an economic Godzilla to little more than an afterthought in the global economy.

…

The classic explanation of the evils of deflation is that it makes individuals and businesses less willing to use money, because the rational way to act when prices are falling is to hold onto cash, which gains in value. But in Japan, nearly a generation of deflation has had a much deeper effect, subconsciously coloring how the Japanese view the world. It has bred a deep pessimism about the future and a fear of taking risks that make people instinctively reluctant to spend or invest, driving down demand – and prices – even further.

…

After years of complacency, Japan appears to be waking up to its problems, as seen last year when disgruntled voters ended the virtual postwar monopoly on power of the Liberal Democratic Party. However, for many Japanese, it may be too late. Japan has already created an entire generation of young people who say they have given up on believing that they can ever enjoy the job stability or rising living standards that were once considered a birthright here.

…

Economists said one reason deflation became self-perpetuating was that it pushed companies and people like Masato to survive by cutting costs and selling what they already owned, instead of buying new goods or investing.

“Deflation destroys the risk-taking that capitalist economies need in order to grow,” said Shumpei Takemori, an economist at Keio University in Tokyo. “Creative destruction is replaced with what is just destructive destruction.”

Business News below.

Now with 48 Story goodness.