January 2011 archive

Rahimullah Yusufzai is a Senior Analyst with the Pakistani TV channel Geo TV, and the Resident Editor of The News International in Peshawar, an English newspaper from Pakistan. He’s worked as a correspondent for Time Magazine, BBC World Service, BBC Pashto, BBC Urdu, Geo TV, and ABC News. Mr. Yusufzai has interviewed Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, and a range of other militants across the tribal areas of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Here Yusufzai talks from Peshawar, Pakistan with Real News Network’s Paul Jay about the real U.S. objectives in Afghanistan, and notes that the U.S. now has more than 100,000 troops in AfPak fighting at the most a couple of hundred Al Qaeda members, with only 50 of them in Afghanistan.

“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”.

New York Times Editorial: Can You Trust the Market?

The stock market was up in the first week of 2011 – following rallies in 2009 and 2010 – but many investors are still wary. According to the Investment Company Institute, a mutual funds trade group, 2010 was the fourth year in a row that individual investors withdrew more money than they added to funds that invest in American stocks. Some $80 billion was withdrawn in 2010, on top of nearly $240 billion in the three years before that.

Why the retreat? One explanation is reasonable doubt about the economy. Of late, profits, and related stock-market gains, have been fueled not by increased revenues but by layoffs and other cuts – an unsustainable pattern. Another explanation is a loss of faith in financial markets. The Dodd-Frank reform law could help restore that faith, but the new Republican majority in the House has vowed to try to block the law’s implementation, including regulations to make deal-making by banks more transparent. Some Democrats may join in.

Paul Krugman: Climate of Hate

When you heard the terrible news from Arizona, were you completely surprised? Or were you, at some level, expecting something like this atrocity to happen?  

Put me in the latter category. I’ve had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach ever since the final stages of the 2008campaign. I remembered the upsurge in political hatred after Bill Clinton’s election in 1992 – an upsurge that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing. And you could see, just by watching the crowds at McCain-Palin rallies, that it was ready to happen again. The Department of Homeland Security reached the same conclusion: in April 2009 an internal report (pdf file) warned that right-wing extremism was on the rise, with a growing potential for violence.

Conservatives denounced that report. But there has, in fact, been a rising tide of threats and vandalism aimed at elected officials, including both Judge John Roll, who was killed Saturday, and Representative Gabrielle Giffords. One of these days, someone was bound to take it to the next level. And now someone has.

E.J. Dionne, Jr.: Turning the Tables on Health Care

Rule One of politics: When you have the advantage, don’t allow your opponents to turn the tables.

House Republicans violated this rule when they decided to make repeal of the health care law their first major act in the 112th Congress. The mistake will haunt them for years.

It was a surprising error from a leadership that showed shrewd judgment and exceptional discipline during President Barack Obama’s first two years. John Boehner is now speaker of the House because he and his party focused on demonizing everything Obama did and winning the public argument over both the health care plan and the stimulus. . . .

Already, that impending vote had forced the GOP to fudge its pledge to respect the minority’s rights, since the leadership ruled out any amendments to its bill. The inconsistency led Boehner to produce one of the lamest sound bites of his career. “Well, listen, I promised a more open process,” he said. “I didn’t promise that every single bill was going to be an open bill.”

In other words, he was for an open process before he was against it, and it depends on what the meaning of the word open is. Not a good start.

Monday Business Edition

One of the things we know about Loughner is that he’s a Gold Bug.  This is the derisive term given to people who think that ‘money’ has some unique and special snowflake identification with a particular commodity.

Money is a medium of exchange and a store of value.

Let’s examine that ‘store of value’ part.  What Gold Bugs are arguing for is an arbitrary limit on the supply of the primary medium of exchange.

Leverage says that financial institutions can create unlimited amounts of fictional exchanges of perceived value.

So that horse hasn’t only left the barn, but the barn has burned down so there isn’t even a door to close.

Any commodity’s price is fundamentally related to it’s economic utility unless speculation, sentiment, and marketing distort the market.  Diamonds should be dirt cheap because they’re actually a very common gem stone.

On the other hand you have pork bellies, cotton, and oil,

William Jennings Bryan had at least to his credit that he didn’t want to crucify the economy on a cross of gold.  Limiting your medium of exchange wastes resources that could otherwise be put to productive use.

‘Money’ is electrons in a database and photons on a screen.  It’s worth what you can get for it.

Sad to say Gold Bugginess is not limited to fringe lunatic assassins.  Perfectly respectable Republican lawmakers in Georgia and Virginia think this is a good idea too.

Business News below.

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.

January 10 is the 10th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 355 days remaining until the end of the year (356 in leap years).

On this day in 1901, a gusher signals start of U.S. oil industry

A drilling derrick at Spindletop Hill near Beaumont, Texas, produces an enormous gusher of crude oil, coating the landscape for hundreds of feet and signaling the advent of the American oil industry. The geyser was discovered at a depth of over 1,000 feet, flowed at an initial rate of approximately 100,000 barrels a day and took nine days to cap. Following the discovery, petroleum, which until that time had been used in the U.S. primarily as a lubricant and in kerosene for lamps, would become the main fuel source for new inventions such as cars and airplanes; coal-powered forms of transportation including ships and trains would also convert to the liquid fuel.

Crude oil, which became the world’s first trillion-dollar industry, is a natural mix of hundreds of different hydrocarbon compounds trapped in underground rock. The hydrocarbons were formed millions of years ago when tiny aquatic plants and animals died and settled on the bottoms of ancient waterways, creating a thick layer of organic material. Sediment later covered this material, putting heat and pressure on it and transforming it into the petroleum that comes out of the ground today.

(emphasis mine)

There had long been suspicions that oil might be under [“Spindletop Hill.” The area was known for its sulfur springs and bubbling gas seepages that would ignite if lit. In August 1892, George W. O’Brien, George W. Carroll, Pattillo Higgins and others formed the Gladys City Oil, Gas, and Manufacturing Company to do exploratory drilling on Spindletop Hill. The company drilled many dry holes and ran into trouble, as investors began to balk at pouring more money into drilling with no oil to show for it.

Pattillo Higgins left the company and teamed with Captain Anthony F. Lucas, the leading expert in the U.S. on salt dome formations. Lucas made a lease agreement in 1899 with the Gladys City Company and a later agreement with Higgins. Lucas drilled to 575 feet (180 m) before running out of money. He secured additional funding from John H. Galey and James M. Guffey of Pittsburgh, but the deal left Lucas with only a small share of the lease and Higgins with nothing.

Lucas continued drilling and on January 10, 1901, at a depth of 1,139 ft (347 m), what is known as the Lucas Gusher or the Lucas Geyser blew oil over 150 feet (50 m) in the air at a rate of 100,000 barrels per day (16,000 m3/d)(4,200,000 gallons). It took nine days before the well was brought under control. Spindletop was the largest gusher the world had seen and catapulted Beaumont into an oil-fueled boomtown. Beaumont’s population of 10,000 tripled in three months and eventually rose to 50,000. Speculation led land prices to increase rapidly. By the end of 1902, over 500 companies were formed and 285 active wells were in operation.

Production began to decline rapidly after 1902, and the wells produced only 10,000 barrels per day (1,600 m3/d) by 1904. On November 14, 1925, the Yount-Lee Oil Company brought in its McFaddin No. 2 at a depth of about 2,500 feet (800 m), sparking a second boom, which culminated in the field’s peak production year of 1927, during which 21,000,000 barrels (3.3 GL) were produced. Over the ten years following the McFaddin discovery, over 72,000,000 barrels (11.4 GL) of oil were produced, mostly from the newer areas of the field. Spindletop continued as a productive source of oil until about 1936. It was then mined for sulfur from the 1950s to about 1975.

America’s first documented oil spill

Perhaps There Should Be A Look At Firearms Laws  

Gun control activists cite the shooting rampage as a reason to impose stricter background checks and reinstate an assault-weapons ban. Others say citizens should be armed for self-protection.

Focus turns to Arizona’s gun laws

Reporting from Tucson – It was a busy day at the Tucson Mountain Park shooting range Sunday, where the aroma of gunpowder filled the air one day after 20 people were shot, six fatally, at a shopping center.

Alex Anderson, 24, was armed with a 9-millimeter Taurus, the same caliber as the gun that authorities say Jared Lee Loughner used in the shootings. Anderson, who works at the Home Depot next to the Sportsman’s Warehouse where the gunman’s weapon was purchased, has a permit to carry his gun concealed but no longer needs that, thanks to a state law passed last year.

This topic was suggested by our good friend and regular supporter of this series from The Big Orange, Ottery Scribe.  It is really a fascinating subject, and rich with lore and tradition from the old countries.  As a disclaimer, I must say that I do not really enjoy either of them except for an occasional 12 year old Old Charter, diluted with some cold water.

I actually used half a pint of bourbon just before Christmas, to plump the raisins that I use for my trademark Lizzies fruit cookie.  Look back to just before Christmas for links to the recipe for them.

Some premiers.  New Simpsons, Cleveland, Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers Series Premier.  Nature has a Born Free follow up, Masterpiece Theater an Edwardian costume piece.

Duty. A starship captain’s life is filled with solemn duty. I have commanded men in battle. I have negotiated peace treaties between implacable enemies. I have represented the Federation in first contact with twenty-seven alien species. But none of this compares with my solemn duty today… as best man. Now, I know, on an occasion such as this, it is expected that I be gracious and fulsome in my praise on the wonders of this blessed union, but have the two of you considered what you were doing to me? Of course you’re happy, but what about *my* needs? This is all a damned inconvenience. While you’re happily settling in on the Titan, I will be training my new first officer. You all know him. He’s a tyrannical martinet who will never, *ever*, allow me to go on away missions.

• ABC Family– A Bug’s Life, Liar Liar
• AMC– Exit Wounds x 2
• Bravo– Real Housewives marathon (with premier)
• Disney– Hannah Montana, Shake It Up (premiers)
• Discovery– Auction Kings marathon
• ESPN– College Throwball, Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl: Boston College v. Nevada
• Food– Challenge, Worst, Iron Chef America (premiers)
• FX– Hellboy II: The Golden Army x 2
• History– Ax Men (last week’s and new), Top Gear (premier)
• Lifetime– The Craigslist Killer
• Nick– News special on Haiti
• Sci Fi– Star Trek Generations, Star Trek Nemesis
• Style– The Dish (premier)
• TBS– Just Married x 2
• Turner Classic– This Is the Night, The Match King
• TLC– Sarah Palin’s Alaska x 2 (premier, Season, and perhaps Series, Finale)
• TNT– Hitch x 2
• Toon– Young Justice League, Clone Wars (this week’s)
• USA– The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
• Vs.– Tin Cup x 2

The Venture Brothers– Home Insecurity, The Incredible Mr. Brisby

Later-

• AMC– Money Train
• Sci Fi– Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Star Runners
• TBS– Mean Girls
• Turner Classic– Friends and Lovers, Umarete Wa Mita Keredo (shhhh)
• TNT– Why Did I Get Married?
• Toon– Robot Chicken (Season Premier)
• USA– The Golden Compass

I take it the odds are against us in a situation this grim.

You could say that.

You know, if Spock were here, he’d say that I was an irrational, illogical human being by taking on a mission like that. Sounds like fun!

Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

Economy looking dismal? You’re running low on hope? Motivation next to non-existent? Job market worse? Bills piling up on you? Collection agents hounding you? They repo’d your car and wall street took your house? You’ve had it with sleeping on the sidewalk? Your dealer won’t front you anymore?

You know in your heart that your impoverishment is all your own fault for being too lazy and shiftless to even pick up the phone, don’t you? Ask any television anchor or politician or any other self help guru and they’ll all tell you that.

But there is one solution left you haven’t tried yet, or you wouldn’t be wallowing in that pit of self pity.

Before you jump, try out your last resort, the one option that has been time and time again historically proven to always work, every time! Without fail!

Bend over, pull up your socks, grab your bootstraps, and get yourself some…

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Joyful south Sudanese vote en masse in referendum

by Peter Martell, AFP

1 hr 1 min ago

Republicans 2: The New Batch

The key, Jon, is the leader John Boehner, I mean, this man can go from zero to snot on 6.4 seconds. Yet, the Republicans are in the capable hands of “Captain Blubber Pants”

Samantha Bee