February 2011 archive

Regular Daily Features:

• News at Six in the Morning from mishima
• Television in Prime Time from ek hornbeck
• Music in Late Night Karaoke from mishima

Essays Featured Sunday, January 30th:

• Sunday Open Thoughts from Alma, Chicken Cacciatore
• Sunday Bread from Bill Egnor, Broa (Portuguese Corn Bread)

Essays Featured Monday, January 31st:

• Monday Open Thoughts from RiaD, Treehouses
• Breast Fetishes, Trust, Faux Rape from Miep

Essays Featured Tuesday February 1st:

• Tuesday Open Thoughts from puzzled, Million Man March in Egypt
• Imbolc: First Light in the Dark of Winter from TheMomCat
• Exciting News from RiaD
• Welcome to the Port Writers Alliance from ek hornbeck

Essays Featured Wednesday February 2nd:

• Health & Fitness News from TheMomCat, originally posted Saturday at The Stars Hollow Gazette
• Wednesday Open Thoughts from Youffraita, Rib Roast of Beef
• on kids & eating habits from RiaD
• Happy Birthday Tahoe!!! from newpioneer Come by & give Tahoe some love~
• Groundhog’s Day from Diane Gee Another Birthday Girl who needs a hug~

firefly-dreaming

Stocks are up but housing prices are down. While Wall Streeters are cheering that “The U.S. economy is back!” with the Dow, S&P, and the NASDAQ on the upswing, the housing market continues to sink.

As economist Robert Reich notes the upswing in the stock market is only good if you’re member of the elite 1% that owns half the stock traded on the market and part of the 9% that owns another 40%.  Plus the recent turmoil in the Middle East has  foreign investors “pushing more foreign money into the relatively safe and reliable American equities market.”

The average American isn’t a member of that club. For the average American the biggest investment they have are their homes and the housing market is a rumbling bear. That’s the real story about the economy.

According to the Wall Street Journal’s latest quarterly survey of housing-market conditions, home prices continue to drop. They’ve dropped in all of the 28 major metropolitan areas, compared to a year earlier. And remember how awful things were in the housing market a year ago! In fact, the size of the year-to-year price declines is larger than the previous quarter’s in all but three of the markets surveyed.

Home prices have dropped most in cities already hard hit by the housing bust – Miami, Orlando, Atlanta, Chicago. But declines increased in other markets that had before escaped most of the downdraft, such as Seattle and Portland.

Reich also  points out that there are a record number of homeowners facing foreclosure, are seriously behind in their mortgage payments and the number of American’s owing more on their home than the home is worth is increasing. Many will just walk away which will further increase the foreclosures and weaken the housing market.

Low wages and unemployment also plague the economy. No, the American economy is not back, at least for the average American.

Nothing unusual about Taco Bell’s meat, experts say

Ingredients what you’d expect from fast-food restaurants; no advertising rules broken

By Gregory Karp and Ellen Gabler, Tribune reporters

February 2, 2011

Soy lecithin (is) a byproduct of soy bean processing that is used as an emulsifier. That means it helps blend and bind substances that would otherwise separate like oil and water.

…

(A)utolyzed yeast extract. Made by breaking down yeast cells with salt, it’s a flavor-enhancing additive similar to monosodium glutamate (MSG), without the known side effects of MSG some people experience. It gives foods a full, savory, beeflike taste, Brewer said.

Maltodextrin is derived from starches, usually corn in the United States. It can be used as a sweetener and a thickener.

Isolated oat product is a binder, kind of like how an egg is used in homemade hamburgers or meatballs so they don’t fall apart in the pan. And soybean oil is used as a so-called anti-dusting agent, meaning it prevents finely ground, powdery ingredients from literally billowing into the air, as would happen if you clapped flour-coated hands.

Caramel color is caramelized sugar used to give the mixture a consistent brown appearance, Brewer said. Heating some of the ingredients, such as cocoa powder and chili pepper, causes them to change colors and potentially combine to turn the mixture a hue the customer wouldn’t like, she said. It doubles as a flavor component. Flavor experts identify caramel as a component flavor of beef that can be lost in processing, said Betsy Booren, director of scientific affairs for the American Meat Institute.

“Natural smoke flavor” can be added by burning wood chips, capturing the smoke and piping it into the oven where meat is cooking, similar to how you burn wood chips to give smoky flavor to meats on a backyard grill, Booren said. The same aroma can also be captured in a viscous liquid that can later be sprayed onto meat to give it a smoky flavor, the method probably used for ground beef, she said.

“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”

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Science, yes. But don’t forget the poor

In a speech to the National Academy of Sciences shortly after taking office, President Obama, while faced with a teetering economy, vast numbers of unemployed and uninsured, and two seemingly endless wars, nonetheless paused to embrace a vision of the future. He spoke of President Lincoln’s commitment to science and innovation, even in the midst of great turmoil and uncertainty. . . . . .

So it came as no surprise, then, that a central theme of President Obama’s State of the Union address last week was the modern extension of Lincoln’s commitment to science and innovation and of his insistence that we add “the fuel of interest to the fire of genius.” . . . . .

But while Lincoln was committing himself to the advancement of science and innovation, he remained focused on ending the nation’s more immediate and immobilizing crises. President Obama must do the same; it is today’s job market, not tomorrow’s, and the victims of our historic chasm between great wealth and deep poverty, that deserve his primary focus now.

We live in a country with nearly 15 million unemployed, and many millions more underemployed. A country where job creation can barely keep pace with population growth, where for a staggering number of people, the pain of recession continues without any real relief. These are people who cannot wait for a decade-long economic transformation; they need relief – and jobs – now.

And yet, with more Americans now mired in poverty than at any time in the last 40 years – a record 47 million – the president did not include a single mention of poverty or the plight of the poor in his speech.

Laura Flanders: Killing the Internet Not Just a Problem in Egypt

As we speak, Egypt is struggling with a near-total Internet and communications shut-off, and not just Egyptians are grappling with the implications. Can the flow of social media information to an entire country simply be cut? Apparently, yes. And that’s not just an Egyptian concern.

It’s very much an American concern, in that a US-based company seems to be the maker of the Internet off-switch. As Tim Karr of Free Press notes, the US company Narus was founded in 1997 by Israeli security experts. Based in Sunnyvale California, Narus has devised what business fans call a “social media sleuth.”

As boosters put it: “Narus is the leader in real-time traffic intelligence for the protection and management of large IP networks…. Used by the world’s service providers and governments, Narus has developed and patented state-of-the art algorithms to detect network anomalies and manage unwanted IP traffic. Additionally, Narus has the unique ability to precision target and fully reconstruct all types of IP traffic, including e-mail, Web mail and instant messages.”

Maureen Dowd: Bye Bye, Mubarak

If only W. had waited for Twitter.

And Facebook. And WikiLeaks.

Revolutionary tools all, like the fax machine in the Soviet Union.

The ire in Tahrir Square is full of ironies, not the least of which is the American president who inspired such hope in the Middle East with his Cairo speech calling around this week to leaders in the region to stanch the uncontrolled surge of democracy in the Arab world.

Egyptians rose up at the greatest irony of all: Cleopatra’s Egypt was modern in ancient times and Mubarak’s was ancient in modern times. The cradle of civilization yearned for some civilization.

President George W. Bush meant well when he tried to start a domino effect of democracy in the Middle East and end the awful hypocrisy of America coddling autocratic rulers.

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.

February 2 is the 33rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 332 days remaining until the end of the year (333 in leap years).

On this day in 1925, dog sleds reach Nome, Alaska with diphtheria serum, inspiring the Iditarod race.

During the 1925 serum run to Nome, also known as the “Great Race of Mercy,” 20 mushers and about 150 sled dogs relayed diphtheria antitoxin 674 miles (1,085 km) by dog sled across the U.S. territory of Alaska in a record-breaking five and a half days, saving the small city of Nome and the surrounding communities from an incipient epidemic. Both the mushers and their dogs were portrayed as heroes in the newly popular medium of radio, and received headline coverage in newspapers across the United States. Balto, the lead sled dog on the final stretch into Nome, became the most famous canine celebrity of the era after Rin Tin Tin, and his statue is a popular tourist attraction in New York City’s Central Park. The publicity also helped spur an inoculation campaign in the U.S. that dramatically reduced the threat of the disease.

The sled dog was the primary means of transportation and communication in subarctic communities around the world, and the race became both the last great hurrah and the most famous event in the history of mushing, before first aircraft in the 1930s and then the snowmobile in the 1960s drove the dog sled almost into extinction. The resurgence of recreational mushing in Alaska since the 1970s is a direct result of the tremendous popularity of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, which honors the history of dog mushing with many traditions that commemorate the serum run.

Epidemic

The only doctor in Nome and the surrounding communities was Curtis Welch, who was supported by four nurses at the 24-bed Maynard Columbus Hospital. In the summer of 1924, his supply of 80,000 units of diphtheria antitoxin (from 1918) expired, but the order he placed with the health commissioner in Juneau did not arrive before the port closed.

Shortly after the departure of the last ship of the year, the Alameda,[when?] a two-year-old Alaska Native from the nearby village of Holy Cross became the first to display symptoms of diphtheria. Welch diagnosed it as tonsillitis, dismissing diphtheria because no one else in the child’s family or village showed signs of the disease, which is extremely contagious and can survive for weeks outside the body. The child died the next morning, and an abnormally large number of cases of tonsillitis were diagnosed through December, including another fatality on December 28, which is rare. The child’s mother refused to allow an autopsy. Two more Alaska Native children died, and on January 20 the first case of diphtheria was diagnosed in three-year-old Bill Barnett, who had the characteristic grayish lesions on his throat and in his nasal membranes. Welch did not administer the antitoxin, because he was worried the expired batch might weaken the boy, who died the next day.

On January 21, seven-year-old Bessie Stanley was diagnosed in the late stages of the disease, and was injected with 6,000 units of antitoxin. She died later that day. The same evening, Welch called Mayor George Maynard, and arranged an emergency town council meeting. Welch announced he needed at least one million units to stave off an epidemic. The council immediately implemented a quarantine, and Emily Morgan was appointed Quarantine Nurse.

On January 22, 1925, Welch sent a radio telegram via the Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System and alerted all major towns in Alaska including the governor in Juneau of the public health risk. A second to the U.S. Public Health Service in Washington, D.C. read:

“An epidemic of diphtheria is almost inevitable here STOP I am in urgent need of one million units of diphtheria antitoxin STOP Mail is only form of transportation STOP I have made application to Commissioner of Health of the Territories for antitoxin already STOP There are about 3000 white natives in the district”

Wings versus paws

At the January 24 meeting of the board of health superintendent Mark Summers of the Hammon Consolidated Gold Fields proposed a dogsled relay, using two fast teams. One would start at Nenana and the other at Nome, and they would meet at Nulato. His employee, the Norwegian Leonhard Seppala, was the obvious and only choice for the 630-mile (1,014 km) round trip from Nome to Nulato and back. He had previously made the run from Nome to Nulato in a record-breaking four days, won the All-Alaska Sweepstakes three times, and had become something of a legend for his athletic ability and rapport with his Siberian huskies. His lead dog Togo was equally famous for his leadership, intelligence, and ability to sense danger.

Mayor Maynard proposed flying the antitoxin by aircraft. In February 1924, the first winter aircraft flight in Alaska had been conducted between Fairbanks and McGrath by Carl Eielson, who flew a reliable De Havilland DH-4 issued by the U.S. Post Office on 8 experimental trips. The longest flight was only 260 miles (420 km), the worst conditions were – 10 F (- 23 C) which required so much winter clothing that the plane was almost unflyable, and the plane made several crash landings.

Aftermath

The death toll is officially listed as either 5, 6, or 7, but Welch later estimated there were probably at least 100 additional cases among “the Eskimo camps outside the city. The Natives have a habit of burying their children without reporting the death.” Forty-three new cases were diagnosed in 1926, but they were easily managed with the fresh supply of serum. (Salisbury, 2003, footnotes on page 235 and 243)

All participants received letters of commendation from President Calvin Coolidge, and the Senate stopped work to recognize the event. Each musher during the first relay received a gold medal from the H. K. Mulford company, and the territory awarded them each USD $25. Poems and letters from children poured in, and spontaneous fund raising campaigns sprang up around the country.

Gunnar Kaasen and his team became celebrities and toured the West Coast from February 1925 to February 1926, and even starred in a 30-minute film entitled Balto’s Race to Nome. A statue of Balto by Frederick Roth was unveiled in New York City’s Central Park during a visit on December 15, 1925. Balto and the other dogs became part of a sideshow and lived in horrible conditions until they were rescued by George Kimble and fund raising campaign by the children of Cleveland, Ohio. On March 19, 1927, Balto received a hero’s welcome as they arrived at their permanent home at the Cleveland Zoo. Because of age, Balto was euthanised on March 14, 1933 at the age of 14. He was mounted and placed on display in the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

Not even worth remarking on.

I don’t know if you’d be particularly interested in hearing anything about me. My life, I mean… Most of it doesn’t add up to much that I could relate as a way of life that you’d approve of… I’d like to be able to tell you why, but I don’t really… I mean, I move around a lot because things tend to get bad when I stay. And I’m looking… for auspicious beginnings, I guess… I’m trying to, you know, imagine your half of this conversation… My feeling is, that if you could talk, we probably wouldn’t be talking. That’s pretty much how it got to be before… I left… Are you all right? I don’t know what to say… Tita suggested that we try to… I don’t know. I think that she… seems to feel we’ve got… some understanding to reach… She totally denies the fact that we were never that comfortable with each other to begin with… The best that I can do, is apologize. We both know that I was never really that good at it, anyway…

I’m sorry it didn’t work out.

• ABC Family– Gone in 60 Seconds
• AMC– Exit Wounds. Demolition Man
• Bravo– Top Chef (last week’s and new)
• Disney– Sky High
• Discovery– Howe & Howe (Season Finale premier), Sons of Guns x 2, Desert Car Kings (premiers)
• ESPN– College Hoopies, Syracuse @ Connecticut, Duke @ Maryland
• ESPN2– College Hoopies, Virginia Tech @ NC State, Missouri @ Oklahoma State
• Food– Throwdown, Restaurant: Impossible (premiers)
• FX– Tropic Thunder, Step Brothers
• History– Bigfoot! (premier)
• Lifetime– Reviving Ophelia
• National Geographic– Restrepo: Afghan Outpost
• Sci Fi– Face Off x 2 (premier + Instapeat)
• TBS– Are We There Yet? x 2 (premiers)
• Turner Classic– Five Easy Pieces, Terms of Endearment (Heeeere’s Johnny)
• TLC– Toddlers & Tiaras (premier)
• TNT– Bones marathon
• Travel– Man v. Food marathon (thank goodness, with premier)
• USA– NCIS marathon
• Vs.– Islanders @ Penguins

I know you like me. I know it. For the last year or two, you’ve been pretending like you hate me. I love you very much. I love you as much as I love anybody, as much as I love myself. And in a few years when I haven’t been around to be on your tail about something or irritating you, you could… remember that time that I bought you the baseball glove when you thought we were too broke. You know? Or when I read you those stories? Or when I let you goof off instead of mowing the lawn? Lots of things like that. And you’re gonna realize that you love me. And maybe you’re gonna feel badly, because you never told me. But don’t – I know that you love me. So don’t ever do that to yourself, all right?

Later-

• ESPN2– College Hoopies, Nevada @ Utah State
• Turner Classic– Easy Rider (more Jack)
• Travel– Man v. Food marathon (thank goodness, with premier)
• USA– Fairly Legal, Royal Pains (this week’s)
• Vs.– Skiing Freestyle World Championships
• VH1– BASEketball

The governor of Louisiana gave me this. Madame Tinkertoy’s House of Blue Lights, corner of Bourbon and Toulouse, New Orleans, Louisiana. Now, this is supposed to be the finest whorehouse in the south. These ain’t no pork chops! These are U.S. PRIME!

Dave hosts Kate Walsh, Jim Gaffigan, and Boxer Rebellion.  Jon has Matthew Perry, Stephen Sean Kelly.  Conan hosts Kobe Bryant (sexual predator) and Jamie Kilstein.

What the hell is wrong with freedom? That’s what it’s all about.

Oh, yeah, that’s right. That’s what’s it’s all about, all right. But talkin’ about it and bein’ it, that’s two different things. I mean, it’s real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. Of course, don’t ever tell anybody that they’re not free, ’cause then they’re gonna get real busy killin’ and maimin’ to prove to you that they are. Oh, yeah, they’re gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it’s gonna scare ’em.

CLASHES HAVE BROKEN OUT BETWEEN PRO AND ANTI GOVERNMENT FORCES IN TAHRIR SAQUARE

This is a Live Blog and will be updated as the news is available. You can follow the latest reports from AL Jazeera English and though Mishima’s live blog, our news editor.

The Guardian has a Live Blog that refreshes automatically every minute.

Al Jazeera has a Live Blog for Feb 2

As you can see we now have the live feed from Al Jazeera English and I am posting this at early so everyone can watch the events in Egypt as they happen.

This is day eight of the protest in Egypt demanding that President Hosni Mubarak step down. Late last night on Egyptian state television, Mubarak said that he would not run for reelection on September but would not step down. His tone and words at times were aggressive and confrontational condemning the demonstrators, echoing the speech given by former Tunisian President Zine el Abidine ben Ali the day before he fled by private jet to Saudi Arabia.

President Obama said he spoke to Hosni Mubarak after the Egyptian president’s announcement to serve out his remaining term, and told Mubarak an orderly transition of power in Egypt ‘must begin now’.While the meaning of the last phrase was deliberately vague, it appeared to be a signal that Mr. Mubarak might not be able to delay the shift to a new leadership.

Mubarak’s speech did little to quell the demands for his immediate departure. The opposition leaders have vowed to keep up the protests and said they would get bigger until Mubarak is gone. Angry Chants of “Erhal! Erhal!”, or “Leave! Leave!” could be heard and scenes of protesters waving their shoes and using them to beat pictures of Mubarak were common.

New V!  Other premiers.

I spent my whole life not knowing what I want out of it, just chasing my tail. Now for the first time I know exactly what I want and who… that’s the damnable misery of it.

• AMC– Tombstone x 2 (must be Wyatt Earp’s birthday or something)
• Bravo– Real Housewives marathon (with premier)
• Comedy– Onion SportsDome (premier)
• Disney– 16 Wishes
• Discovery– Dirty Jobs (last week’s and new), Auction Kings (premier)
• ESPN– College Hoopies, Purdue @ Wisconsin, Vanderbilt @ Florida
• ESPN2– College Hoopies, Baylor @ Oklahoma
• Food– Cupcake Wars, Chopped (premiers)
• FX– Step Brothers, Lights Out x 3 (premier and Instapeats)
• Oxygen– Juno (is everyone as tired of this as I am?), Stick It
• Sci Fi– TNG marathon
• Speed– Monster Jam
• Turner Classic– The Private Life of Henry VIII, A Man for All Seasons
• TLC– What Not to Wear (last week’s and new)
• TNT– I am Legend (‘Sorbent Booms are people!  People!!!)
• Toon– Open Season
• Travel– Bizarre Foods With Andrew Zimmern (last week’s and new)
• USA– White Collar (premier)
• Vs.– Penguins @ Rangers, Coyotes @ Sharks

Later-

• Oxygen– The Next Karate Kid
• Turner Classic– Anne of the Thousand Days
• USA– Royal Pains, Fairly Legal (this week’s), White Collar (Instapeat)
• VH1– How She Move

Dave hosts Matthew Perry, Chris Elliott, Mitt Romney (ugh), The National.  Jon has Michael Steele, Stephen Michael Lewis (dueling Michaels).  Conan hosts Jennifer Aniston, Nick Offerman, and Peter Bjorn & John.

There’s no normal life, Wyatt, it’s just life. Get on with it.

Don’t know how.

Sure you do. Say goodbye to me. Go grab that spirited actress and make her your own. Take that beauty from it, don’t look back. Live every second. Live right on to the end. Live Wyatt. Live for me. Wyatt, if you were ever my friend – if ya ever had even the slightest of feelin’ for me, leave now. Leave now… Please.

Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Egypt’s Mubarak agrees to step down — but not yet

by Jailan Zayan, AFP

9 mins ago

Regular Features-

• Muse in the Morning by Robyn
• Six In The Morning by mishima

Featured Essays for February 1, 2011-

• Sunday Train: Quiet Progress Edition Two ~ Sustainable Power and Feed-in Tariffs by BruceMcF
• Latest Wikileaks Revelation by ek hornbeck
• Haiti Developments by ek hornbeck
• Welcome to the Port Writers Alliance by ek hornbeck
  

• Reporting the Revolutions: Day 5 with Up Dates by TheMomCat
  

• The Week in Editorial Cartoons – Comedy Central Presents… Michele Bachmann by JekyllnHyde

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