December 2010 archive

Yes Virginia, Frosty the Snowman (Jimmy Durante), Frosty Returns (Jonathan Winters).  Nutcracker again.  Mid-season finale of Sanctuary so I’ve been distracted trying to catch up with the storylines.  Evidently we’re now exploring the mysteries of ‘Hollow Earth’, a network of tunnels and caverns created by a race of beings at war with the Vampires and those who still carry ‘The Source Blood’ and battling Jekyll and Hyde for access (am I too old to be be a fanboy?  No, no not at all).  You know what’s the best thing about Fridays?  Prison Porn instead of O’Donnell.

• ABC Family– The Incredibles, WALL-E, Mickey’s Christmas Special (this week’s repeat)
• AMC– Miracle on 34th Street x 2
• Bravo– Something’s Gotta Give x 2
• Disney– Wizards of Waverly Place, Fish Hooks (premiers), Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation
• Discovery– Gold Rush marathon (with premier)
• E!– The Soup (premier)
• ESPN– Hoopies, Heat @ Knicks (‘bockers having their best season in years), Suns @ Mavs
• ESPN2– College Throwball, Villanova at Eastern Washington (Division 1a Semifinal)
• FX– Grandma’s Boy, Pineapple Express
• MTV– Get Rich or Die Tryin’ x 2
• Oxygen– You, Me and Dupree x 2
• Sci Fi– Sanctuary (did I mention it’s the mid-Season Finale?)
• Style– Little Miss Sunshine (another movie suffering from over exposure)
• TBS– My Cousin Vinnie
• Turner Classic– Holiday Affair, In the Good Old Summertime
• TNT– Christmas in Washington, The Wizard of Oz
• True– Conspiracy Theory With Jesse Ventura marathon (with premier)
• USA– Elf (another movie I could see less of)

Later-

• AMC– All I Want for Christmas
• FX– It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (repeat of this week’s Holiday Special)
• Oxygen– Just Friends
• Sci Fi– Sanctuary (Instapeat)
• TBS– Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
• Turner Classic– Little Women
• TNT– Yours, Mine and Ours (not the good 1968 version)
• Toon– Fairly recent American Dad, Childrens Hospital, The Office (the good one)

Dave hosts Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro.  

When the left tire mark goes up on the curb and the right tire mark stays flat and even? Well, the ’64 Skylark had a solid rear axle, so when the left tire would go up on the curb, the right tire would tilt out and ride along its edge. But that didn’t happen here. The tire mark stayed flat and even. This car had an independent rear suspension. Now, in the ’60’s, there were only two other cars made in America that had positraction, and independent rear suspension, and enough power to make these marks. One was the Corvette, which could never be confused with the Buick Skylark. The other had the same body length, height, width, weight, wheel base, and wheel track as the ’64 Skylark, and that was the 1963 Pontiac Tempest.

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Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 WikiLeaks chief Assange fears US charges

by Beatrice Debut, AFP

2 hrs 45 mins ago

This video was made by a former OFA volunteer out of frustration with OFA and the White House. The White House and OFA have been corralling support for the status quo that exacerbated the current economic crisis not to affect real change.

President Obama’s capitulation on the two year extension of the Bush tax cuts, the estate tax deal and cutting Social Security contributions that was made behind closed doors, has been more than enough for another OFA campaign aide, Sam Graham-Felsen, a media consultant and freelance writer who organized the grassroots strategy as chief blogger for the Obama campaign. In a Washington Post Op-Ed, he argues that it isn’t just the left that President Obama has left out but his most valued asset, the very people who put him in office:

“Obama [has] a vast network of supporters, instantly reachable through an unprecedented e-mail list of 13 million people. These supporters were not just left-wing activists but a broad coalition that included the young, African Americans, independents and even Republicans-and they were ready to be mobilized…Yet at seemingly every turn, Obama has chosen to play an inside game. Instead of actively engaging supporters in major legislative battles, Obama has told them to sit tight as he makes compromises behind closed doors.”

The problem is that President Obama has not only capitulated on everything from Health Care and Financial Regulation to this latest “craptacular bipartisan capitulation” as msblucow, the creator of the video so aptly states, but that the President has embraced the “politics as usual” which he campaigned to change because it’s easier. What Obama did with this tax bill is not a win for him or the American people. He did not “work with Republicans” he caved to their demands and he did it behind the backs of the Democrats. Not exactly the way to get re-elected.

“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.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Robert Reich: The New Tax Deal: Reaganomics Redux

More than thirty years ago, Ronald Reagan came to Washington intent on reducing taxes on the wealthy and shrinking every aspect of government except defense.

The new tax deal embodies the essence of Reaganomics.

It will not stimulate the economy.

A disproportionate share of the $858 billion deal will go to people in the top 1 percent who spend only a fraction of what they earn and save the rest. Their savings are sent around the world to wherever they will earn the highest return.

The only practical effect of adding $858 billion to the deficit will be to put more pressure on Democrats to reduce non-defense spending of all sorts, including Social Security and Medicare, as well as education and infrastructure.

It is nothing short of Ronald Reagan’s (and David Stockman’s) notorious “starve the beast” strategy.

In 2012, an election year, when congressional Democrats have less power than they do now, the pressure to extend the Bush tax cuts further will be overwhelming.

Worse yet, the deal adds to the underlying structural problem that caused the Great Recession in the first place.

Paul Krugman: Wall Street Whitewash

When the financial crisis struck, many people – myself included – considered it a teachable moment. Above all, we expected the crisis to remind everyone why banks need to be effectively regulated.

How naïve we were. We should have realized that the modern Republican Party is utterly dedicated to the Reaganite slogan that government is always the problem, never the solution. And, therefore, we should have realized that party loyalists, confronted with facts that don’t fit the slogan, would adjust the facts.

Which brings me to the case of the collapsing crisis commission.

The bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was established by law to “examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States.” The hope was that it would be a modern version of the Pecora investigation of the 1930s, which documented Wall Street abuses and helped pave the way for financial reform.

Instead, however, the commission has broken down along partisan lines, unable to agree on even the most basic points.

Eugene Robinson: In Afghanistan, on track to nowhere

The good news is that President Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan is “on track.” The bad news is that the track runs in a circle.

There have been “notable operational gains” in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, according to a National Security Council-led assessment released Thursday, but this progress is “fragile and reversible.” This sounds like a bureaucratic way of admitting that we take two steps forward, followed by two steps back. Indeed, the review acknowledges that after nine years of war, “Pakistan and Afghanistan continue to be the operational base for the group that attacked us on 9/11.”

What’s not reversible is the human toll of Obama’s decision to escalate the war. This has been by far the deadliest year for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, with 489 killed. It has also been a brutal year for Afghan and Pakistani civilians caught in the middle of what increasingly looks like a classic war of attrition – except with missile-firing robot aircraft circling overhead.

Julian Assange is the big media story, but the unsung hero, the person suffering the most is probably Brad Manning.  Unfortunately, while Manning suffers in solitary confinement, as he has for the past 7 months, and we scour the leaked material for which he might be responsible, the subject of Manning’s torturous, stringent, long term confinement are noted with horror and contempt, but is anything being done to challenge them?  Put another way, where is the Great Writ, the writ of habeas corpus, for Brad Manning?

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

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

December 17 is the 351st day of the year (352nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 14 days remaining until the end of the year

On this day on 1865, the first two movements of Franz Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony”, Symphony No. 8 in B minor, is performed in Vienna, Austria.

(The symphony) was started in 1822 but left with only two movements known to be complete, even though Schubert would live for another six years. A scherzo, nearly completed in piano score but with only two pages orchestrated, also survives. It has long been theorized that Schubert may have sketched a finale which instead became the big B minor entr’acte from his incidental music to Rosamunde, but all the evidence for this is circumstantial.[1] One possible reason for Schubert’s leaving the symphony incomplete is the predominance of the same meter (three-in-a-bar). The first movement is in 3/4, the second in 3/8 and the third (an incomplete scherzo) also in 3/4. Three consecutive movements in exactly the same meter rarely occur in the symphonies, sonatas or chamber works of the great Viennese composers (one notable exception being Haydn’s Farewell Symphony).

Japan defence review warns of China’s military might

Japan has unveiled sweeping changes to its national defence polices, boosting its southern forces in response to neighbouring China’s military rise.

The BBC 17 December 2010  

Japan, which shares a maritime border with China, said Beijing’s military build-up was of global concern.

Japan will also strengthen its missile defences against the threat from a nuclear-armed North Korea.

The policy document has been approved by the cabinet and will shape Japan’s defence policy for the next 10 years.

Japan is changing its defence policy in response to the shifting balance of power in Asia, analysts say.

A Charlie Brown Christmas (the classic).  Not so many premiers.  Larry King’s last show.

• ABC Family– Finding Nemo (again), The Incredibles (not as recently)
• AMC– White Christmas x 2 (again and again, in Technicolor!)
• Animal Planet– The Blue Planet: Seas of Life marathon
• Bravo– Real Housewives marathon (with premier)
• Comedy– Wedding Crashers
• Disney– High School Musical 3: Senior Year
• Discovery– Brew Masters, Oddities (premiers), Sr. v. Jr.
• E!– Honey
• ESPN– High School Hoopies, Lew Wallace (Ind.) v. Simeon (Ill.), Findlay Prep (Nev.) vs. Yates (Texas)
• ESPN2– Women’s College Volleyball, Penn State v. Texas, California vs. USC
• FX– It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia x 3 (1 Hour Holiday Special premier and Instapeats)
• History– Aliens AND Nazis (with premiers)
• Lifetime– A Diva’s Christmas Carol
• National Geographic– Drain the Ocean (actually kind of interesting)
• Sci Fi– Ultraviolet
• TBS– Fred Claus (again)
• Turner Classic– Judge Hardy and Son, Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever (Andy Hardy day)
• TNT– Hoopies, Hawks @ Celtics, Spurs @ Nuggets
• USA– Burn Notice x 2 x 2 (premiers and Instapeats)
• VH1– SNL marathon

Later-

• AMC– Ever After: A Cinderella Story
• Disney– Phineas and Ferb
• Turner Classic– The Hardys Ride High, Out West With the Hardys (more Hardys)
• VH1– Back to the Future Part 2

Dave hosts Matt Damon and Florence & the Machine.  Jon has Mike Huckabee, Stephen Amy Sedaris and Paul Simon (next week repeats, pre-empted between ek’s mas and New Year’s).  Stephen used to work with Amy on Strangers with Candy.  Conan hosts Marky Mark Wahlberg, Charles Phoenix, and Jenny and Johnny.

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Evening Edition is an Open Thread

Now with 60 Top Stories.

1 Armed clashes as Ivory Coast stand-off turns bloody

by Evelyne Aka, AFP

1 hr 44 mins ago

I was on my way to class at my high school, shortly after 10 AM. It was a cold, nasty NYC day and was snowing lightly.

I was at Clawson St. and New Dorp Lane waiting to cross and looking up at the gray sky. I saw a bright flash and a few minutes later the sky was raining debris and bodies. There was a loud screeching noise and a thunderous explosion. A lady from one of the houses saw me frozen by the tree on her front lawn and pulled me into her house. She was frantically calling for help. There were sirens everywhere.

For a about an hour I sat in this lady’s kitchen, drinking hot cocoa she had made me, listening to the radio and the sirens that went on forever. The debris had stopped falling and we went outside and there was an icy light rain. There was stuff everywhere, plane parts, clothing. I didn’t look too close.

The lady asked if she could call my parents to come and get me but I knew no one was home. I was going to go to class but since my teachers were already used to my absences, I decided to walk towards all the sirens. I headed towards Miller Field, which was a tiny air field then part of the active Army base at Ft. Wadsworth and were all the crash activity was. It was amazingly easy to get near. I suppose the police were really stretched thin. The Intersection of New Dorp Lane and Hylan Bl. was blocked off but it wasn’t hard to cut through side streets and yards to get close.

What I saw will stick in my mind forever, as it did last night, on the 50th anniversary of the terrible plane collision over Staten Island that took the lives of 134 people. The second plane crashed in a densely populated section of Park Slope, Brooklyn at 7th Ave, and Sterling St that killed 6 people on the ground, destroyed a church and 10 other buildings, heavily damaging several others. The church was the Pillar of Fire. The fires burned for three days.

There was one survivor at the Brooklyn site, an 11 year old boy, Stephen Lambert Baltz. He was coming from Chicago to visit his mother and sister for the holidays. He died the next day. He would be 60 now.

There are no markers or memorials at either crash site. The Park Slope neighborhood has been rebuilt. There is an apartment building where the church was. At Miller Field, which is now part of the Gateway National Recreation Park, most of thee original buildings and hangers, where the bodies and some of the plane parts were taken, are gone. There is a new high school at the end of the field that replaced the school where I was headed that day but no markers or reminders of that horrendous scene.

As I walked away and back towards home, I started noticing the debris, something I hadn’t done in my curiosity to get to the site. There were packages and boxes mixed in with unidentifiable plane parts. I don’t remember seeing any bodies other than the ones I had seen at Miller Field. It was dark when I got home and I remember how warm the house felt and how cold and hungry I was. My grandmother had dinner started but I grabbed a cookie and some milk anyway because my stomach was in a knot. It was easy to do because my grand mother was very hard of hearing and most of the time didn’t care much for what I did. Usually, no one ever asked me about my day, except that night my Aunt, who  worked in downtown Brooklyn, mentioned the chaos and how it made her miss her usual ferry. I said that I knew about it and that was when my Dad asked if I was OK. Not if I had seen anything, but just if I was OK. I said I was but that I was tired because I walked home, there was no bus and it was faster. Dad looked at me and said, “three miles”. I’m not sure if it was a statement or just rhetorical question, that was Dad’s way. I went up to my room and did some reading, listening to the radio, WABC, for awhile. I can’t remember if I slept. I know I was warm but still felt the cold.

On my way to school the next day, I passed a Catholic Church, Our Lady Queen of Peace. I was raised Jewish and by 13 I was pretty much agnostic, but my grandmother was Catholic. There were lots of people inside praying. I lit a candle, dropped a dime in the collection box and said the Sh’ma.  

It’s 50 years and I have seen far worse since then in my line of work but that day, today, was yesterday, forever. Blessed Be.