September 2015 archive

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

Germany annexes Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland region; America returns to manned spaceflight for the first time since the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster; Pope John Paul the First is found dead.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.

Albert Schweitzer

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.

September 29 is the 272nd day of the year (273rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 93 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1547, Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, is born this day near Madrid.

Cervantes led an adventurous life and achieved much popular success, but he nevertheless struggled financially throughout his life. Little is know about his childhood, except that he was a favorite student of Madrid humanist Juan Lopez, and that his father was an apothecary.

In 1569, Cervantes was living in Rome and working for a future cardinal. Shortly thereafter, he enlisted in the Spanish fleet to fight against the Turks. At the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, he took three bullets and suffered permanent damage to his left hand. Later, he was stationed at Palermo and Naples. On the way home to Madrid in 1575, he and his brother Roderigo were captured by Barbary pirates and held captive in Algiers. Cervantes was ransomed after five years of captivity and returned to Madrid, where he began writing. Although his records indicate he wrote 20 to 30 plays, only two survive. In 1585, he published a romance. During this time, he married a woman 18 years younger than he was and had an illegitimate daughter, whom he raised in his household. He worked as a tax collector and as a requisitioner of supplies for the navy, but was jailed for irregularities in his accounting. Some historians believe he formulated the idea for Don Quixote while in jail.

In 1604, he received the license to publish Don Quixote. Although the book began as a satire of chivalric epics, it was far more complex than a simple satire. The book blended traditional genres to create a sad portrait of a penniless man striving to live by the ideals of the past. The book was a huge success and brought Cervantes literary respect and position, but did not generate much money. He wrote dramas and short stories until a phony sequel, penned by another writer, prompted him to write Don Quixote, Part II in 1615.

Cervantes died in Madrid on April 23, 1616. In honor of the date on which both Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare died, UNESCO established April 23 as the International Day of the Book. (Shakespeare and Cervantes, however, did not actually die on the same day, as the April 23 date for Shakespeare is Julian calendar (Old Style) and the April 23 date for Cervantes is Gregorian calendar (New Style) as those were the calendars in effect in England and in Spain, respectively, at that time. The Gregorian calendar was then ten days ahead of the Julian.)  

The New Kid

I’m prepared to give Trevor the benefit of the doubt, I really am.  I don’t expect the old Daily Show and I very clearly remember how flawed it was.  Firebreathing liberal my ass.

The New York Times sent a reporter to the final rehersal show last Thursday-

This new “Daily Show” will be a substantially different program, based simply on the man now sitting in its anchor’s chair.

And yet, to gauge from this taping and the preparations that preceded it, “The Daily Show” has hardly changed at all. It features a new set, subtracting the familiar globe that hung over Mr. Stewart’s head while adding an elegant, expansive desk.

There is still an opening act in which Mr. Noah lampoons the events of the day (in Thursday’s case, Pope Francis’ visit to the United States); in-studio and field segments featuring “Daily Show” correspondents; and interviews with cultural and political figures, like the test evening’s guest, the CNN host Fareed Zakaria.

Even the familiar opening theme, composed by the rock musician Bob Mould, is sticking around for the time being.

But the program’s success or failure rests largely on the comedic chops of a performer who, despite his international reputation, is still learning how to fine-tune his act for an American audience.

As Mr. Noah explained at Thursday’s show, his goal is to optimize his jokes so that “no matter where you are, they cross borders, like Syrian refugees – and then get them accepted in more places than Syrian refugees.”

…

Mr. Noah was more assertive in a later, smaller meeting with his executive producers as they reviewed scripts for the test program.

He wanted to reshape a segment in which he and the correspondent Jordan Klepper discussed the pope’s travels in America, to emphasize that this news was overshadowing the also momentous visit to the United States by President Xi Jinping of China.

“We’re commenting on the fact that everyone is only covering the pope,” Mr. Noah explained. “Everyone’s going mad over the pope. What I found interesting is the fact that the Chinese president is there, and no one’s talking about it.”

Steve Bodow, a longtime executive producer for “The Daily Show,” agreed with Mr. Noah’s point. “The pope is the Donald Trump of international relations,” he joked.

…

(H)e scored a few laughs in what could have been an airless interview with Mr. Zakaria, who has appeared on “The Daily Show” 19 times.

“Yes or no,” Mr. Noah asked, “do you think Bernie Sanders stands a chance?”

Mr. Zakaria started to give a verbose reply when Mr. Noah cheekily interrupted him. “It was a one-word answer,” he said to laughter.

There will be noticable changes not all of which are going to make people happy-

(W)hen it comes to lampooning the media, it’s likely that we’ll see Noah move away from the cable news cycle that Stewart so loved to target. At a recent TCA panel, Noah explained that, while “The Daily Show” was in part a response to the “emerging 24 hour news cycle,” the media landscape is very different now.

“Half of it is online now,” he explained. “Now you’ve got the Gawkers, the BuzzFeeds. The way people are drawing their news is soundbites and headlines and click-bait links has changed everything. The biggest challenge is going to be an exciting one I’m sure is how are we going to bring all of that together looking at it from a bigger lens as opposed to just going after one source-which was historically Fox News.”

…

Not only will online media outlets serve as fodder, but they will also be intrinsic to the show’s growth. Recently we learned that Noah had hired a separate online team, headed by comic Baratunde Thurston, to lead production of original online content that will run in tandem with the show. And as late night shows increasingly compete for clicks and YouTube views as much as they do for Nielsen ratings, and given Noah’s remarks about wanting to pivot more to focus on online media, its safe to say that Noah’s “Daily Show” will be a much more digital-friendly, multi-platform experience than its predecessor.

…

If Noah’s stand-up routines are any indication, we can expect race to be one of the primary lenses he looks through in order to help make sense of the world around him.

“America is the one place in the world where I just innately understood what was happening because South Africa and the United States of America have a very similar history,” Noah told journalists on Friday, when asked about coming to terms with racial politics in the U.S. “It’s different timelines, but the directions we’ve taken and the consequences – dealing with the aftermath of what we consider to be democracy, and realizing that freedom is just the beginning of the conversation, that’s something I’ve learned. I’m not now trying to understand what segregation or institutionalized racism is.”

…

At Friday’s press preview, Noah repeatedly made reference to his outsider’s point of view, suggesting that his fresh perspective on U.S. politics and culture would be contrasted with the writing staff’s more seasoned views.

“For the writers, they’ve got a history with all of these people,” Noah explained of watching the Republican debates with his staff. “I’m watching the debate and someone says something about something one of the politicians did 10, 15 years ago, and they’re like ‘that’s like the time that happened.’ And I’m the person going ‘why is that funny? Who is that person? What is important about that?'”

Some people think it’s a good thing–

Trevor Noah is under a lot of pressure. On Monday night, the 31-year-old South African comedian takes over the Daily Show from one of the most beloved late night show hosts of the last decade, Jon Stewart. It’s a tough act to follow.

Unlike Stephen Colbert, who was encouraged to bring a fresh sensibility to the tired Late Show when he took over from David Letterman earlier this month, Noah will have to walk the very difficult line of figuring out what bits of the Daily Show to leave unaltered – so that he doesn’t alienate its very loyal audience – and what to change.

…

Yes there is a solid foundation at the Daily Show, but Noah shouldn’t stick too closely to Stewart’s script. If he’s going to make the show his own, he needs to experiment. One thing we already know he’s going to do differently is make music a bigger part of the show (although apparently the theme song is staying the same). But he should also introduce new segments, new sketches and probably consider cutting the Moment of Zen because it’s so quintessentially Stewart.

…

No matter how good Noah is, there are going to be some fans who abandon the show now that Stewart is no longer shepherding it. But that shouldn’t be a hindrance to his success. Noah should see it as an opportunity to attract a new range of viewers – ones that might have found Stewart’s forthright comedy alienating – and bring them in.

That was from The Guardian, which I’ll note squealed like a pig on Corbyn just like the rest of Fleet Street.  “Ones that might have found Stewart’s forthright comedy alienating”?!  Oh, you mean Republican corporatist bigots?  Get me some of that ignorant, racist, authoritarian, Dominionist demographic so highly prized by multi-nationals and your local assault weapon emporium.

Yet I don’t think I am ready to give up on Trevor before we see what he does.

While there is much reason to hope that Noah will bring a fresh perspective, it would be a mistake to miss the very real ways that Noah’s leadership is likely to significantly change the show.  Even though Comedy Central has pushed a few promos that suggest the show will be the same, but different, it’s more likely to be mostly different and a little the same.

Noah himself has been one of the first to point out that Stewart and he come from vastly different perspectives.  He’s reminded interviewers that he is a 31-year-old half-black, half-white South African man who arrived in the United States in 2011 and Stewart is a 52-year-old Jewish man who grew up in New Jersey: “The way we look at the same story will be completely different,” he said. “We have different access to different jokes, different sides, different sensitivities … the most important thing is the place that you come from.”

…

Stewart and Noah are not the same sort of comedians. Stewart’s brand was self-deprecating, while Noah’s posture is cocky.  Stewart’s main angle was satire of media and politics; Noah has a history of mocking fat chicks and African Americans.  While Noah has since distanced himself from that sort of humor, and while he may well mature in terms of his comedy, it’s important to consider the fact that he comes into this job with virtually no history of political humor.

…

Stewart constantly targeted Fox News, a staple of “The Daily Show” that Noah has specifically said will now be absent.  Noah points to the shifting news media landscape that includes Gawker and Buzzfeed as new territory he will now mine. But let’s face it, Gawker and Buzzfeed are not the source of our nation’s problems the way that Fox News is.

Fox News commands a massive and loyal following that laps up their endless lies and misrepresentations.  They are a major player in creating the Republican extremism that depends on a politics of fear, hate, and delusion. In fact, Gawker and Buzzfeed could be considered helpful correctives to Fox News, so it is hard to see what sort of productive comedic angle Noah will pursue by covering them.  If Noah had said he planned to target Breitbart, The Blaze, NewsBusters or any of the other on-line Fox News-friendly media sources, then we might have been encouraged that he was opening the field but staying true to the concept.  But clearly that’s not the case.

When Stewart wasn’t targeting the disinformation machine that is Fox News, he was going after politicians.  Noah, in contrast, has made a joke of his confusion over the U.S. political process.  When he interviews Chris Christie later this week, we will get our first real glimpse of how he plans to address U.S. politics, but thus far his jokes have mostly been confined to his not understanding the U.S. system.

…

He still has “The Best F#@king News Team Ever.” While there will be three new additions to the team, many familiar faces will still be there, including Jordan Klepper, Hasan Minhaj, Jessica Williams, Lewis Black, John Hodgman, Al Madrigal, Aasif Mandvi and Kristen Schaal.  The team is likely to give Noah a lot of support in his new post-and the fact that they have appeared in a number of the promos suggests that Comedy Central is trying to reassure fans by reinforcing that fact.

…

A global, millennial angle on political satire would be a welcome move for a show that redefined the intersections between politics and entertainment.  It’s worth remembering that Stewart himself started out slow, as he moved “The Daily Show” away from the frivolous comedy that was common under host Craig Kilborn.  All signs suggest, though, that Noah may well be more like a combination of Kilborn and Fallon since we have yet to see him offer us comedy that is even a distant cousin to Stewart’s satire.  We can remain hopeful that he will indeed adapt into his new role and that we have not lost all of the political punch of Stewart’s legacy. But as Noah has said, “Just the mere fact that I’m gonna be there in the chair changes a whole bunch of the show, you know?”  Tonight’s debut will give us a glimpse into just how much.

It’s taken Larry about 6 months to work out the kinks.  I’ll try to give Trevor at least that long unless he’s really, really bad.

Tonight’s guest is Kevin Hart.  The rest of the week looks like this-

• Tuesday 9/29: Whitney Wolfe
• Wednesday 9/30: Chris Christie
• Thursday 10/1: Ryan Adams

The New Continuity

Tonightly the panel is Deray McKesson, Rory Albanese, and Mike Yard.

The dancing man

Peter Dreier, Salon

In his first three weeks as “Late Night” host, Colbert has had more serious guests (and more serious conversation) than Jimmy Fallon has had in the 19 months he’s hosted NBC’s “The Tonight Show” and the 12 years that Jimmy Kimmel has had his ABC nightly talk show.

But, in Colbert’s case, “serious” doesn’t mean dull. When he moved from Comedy Central, he didn’t leave his provocative political bite behind. Rather than play a character who parodies bombastic right-wing buffoon Bill O’Reilly (his previous incarnation), Colbert is now himself – a thoughtful, well-informed, religious, nice and clearly progressive individual with a sharp sense of humor. He can be sarcastic without being snarky, because his concern about the state of the world is a passion, not a pose. It’s his mix of talents, and the combination of entertainment and education, that allows the show to appeal to a broad audience and makes it more than a late-night version of “Meet the Press.” Colbert has done little to change the standard talk show format – the desk, the guests, the band – except that Colbert does his opening monologue sitting down.

In addition to some great musical guests (including Paul Simon and Pearl Jam), and a mix of interesting (Stephen Curry, Amy Schumer) and dull (George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson) interviews with sports and showbiz folks, he’s asked telling, insightful questions to a variety of public figures that give the show an air of gravitas (Colbert likes to display his knowledge of Latin) that other talk shows lack.

Although Hillary Clinton apparently turned town an offer to appear on the show, Colbert has already interviewed presidential candidates Jeb Bush, Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Colbert’s conversation with Vice President Joe Biden – which focused on their shared experience of losing family members to early and unexpected death – was a remarkably heartfelt and intense moment. As with his interview with an upbeat Sen. Elizabeth Warren (“the game is rigged”), you could sense Colbert’s not-too-subtle effort to convince Biden to run for president.

…

His interview Friday night with 18-year old Nobel Prize-winning activist and author Malala Yousafzai was amazing. Although she was on the show in part to plug the new documentary “He Named Me Malala,” she captivated the audience with her discussion of her efforts to get the U.N. and world leaders to invest in education for young girls, her confrontation with the Taliban, and her willingness to forgive her attackers. Her radiant sense of humor and her ability to perform a clever card trick were unexpected bonuses.

Colbert also interviewed Global Poverty Project founder Hugh Evans and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon about the world’s income inequality. This is clearly an issue close to Colbert’s heart. He co-hosted the Global Citizen Festival in Central Park on Saturday.

Unlike most talk show hosts, Colbert did haven’t to rely entirely on his notes to ask Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk about his plans to make outer space a tourist destination. Musk told Colbert that Mars is a “fixer-upper of a planet.”

Colbert is still getting into his groove. When Donald Trump refused to say whether he thought Obama was born in the United States, Colbert let him off the hook too easily. The interviews with Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, novelist Stephen King, and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick lacked the drama and spirit of his other exchanges.

Tonight we have Michelle Obama, Mindy Kaling, and John Legend.

This Week’s Guests–

• Tuesday 9/29: Ellen Page, Jesse Eisenberg, and Dominic Wilcox
• Wednesday 9/30: John Oliver, Elizabeth Gilbert, and Bill Withers and Ed Sheeran
• Thursday 10/1: Claire Danes, Evan Spiegel, and PewDiePie
• Friday 10/2: Morgan Freeman, Ruth Wilson, and Sean Murray

Still a failure.  Let’s just lie about it shall we?

U.S. Air Force instructs airmen on exactly how to praise the F-35

by  Clay Dillow, Fortune Magazine

September 25, 2015, 4:40 PM EDT

The Pentagon’s embattled F-35 jet fighter program received some much-needed good press last week when a group of U.S. Air Force F-35 pilots heaped praise upon the aircraft. This week those remarks-made at an event showcasing the fighter aircraft at Andrews Air Force Base-appear somewhat less genuine.

An eight-page internal Air Force memo marked “not for public release” is nonetheless making the public rounds this week, potentially erasing any P.R. bump last week’s showcase may have imparted on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. Simply titled “Public Affairs Guidance,” the document details how airmen should “articulate the capabilities of the aircraft and (explain why we need the F-35)” to members of the news media, lawmakers, and other “opinion leaders”.

…

One particular response in the leaked media script directly addresses an earlier leaked memo unearthed and partially published by defense blog War is Boring. In that memo, an F-35 pilot details the many shortcomings (and defeats) of the F-35 when pitted in mock air-to-air “dogfights” with a much older F-16-one of the many older combat jets the F-35 is slated to replace. The memo instructs airmen to repeat the assertion the Air Force made at the time: That the F-35 is designed to attack stealthily from a distance rather than up close, and that the mock air-to-air trials in question weren’t even designed to evaluate the F-35’s dogfighting skills (the editors at War is Boring who saw the leaked memo say otherwise).

…

This summer alone the program has had to defend itself against both the leaked dogfighting memo and a scathing analysis from think tank National Security Network. The security analysis concluded that the F-35 will perform poorly against “near-peer” enemies and suggested the Pentagon find a way to reduce its planned purchase of more than 2,400 jets for the Navy, Marines, and Air Force.

…

The program faces another potential image challenge in the days ahead as Congress continues battling over the U.S. federal budget. If the gridlock continues, a government shutdown or a continuing resolution capping defense spending at fiscal 2015 levels would almost certainly derail the Pentagon’s plan to ramp up F-35 production in the next year.

The Pentagon needs that production boost in order to push down the per-aircraft price and fend off the oft-repeated criticism that at roughly $100 million per copy (depending on which version) the F-35 program is simply too expensive.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.- Margaret Mead

It’s too early to celebrate the end of TPP (secret meetings next week) or the stopping of Keystone XL (sure, Hillary’s against it… now) BUT Shell Oil is done drilling in the Arctic this season and says they’ll never come back.

Shell abandons Alaska Arctic drilling

Terry Macalister, The Guardian

Monday 28 September 2015 04.27 EDT

Shell has abandoned its controversial drilling operations in the Alaskan Arctic in the face of mounting opposition.

Its decision, which has been welcomed by environmental campaigners, follows disappointing results from an exploratory well drilled 80 miles off Alaska’s north-west coast. Shell said it had found oil and gas but not in sufficient quantities.

…

The company has come under increasing pressure from shareholders worried about the plunging share price and the costs of what has so far been a futile search in the Chukchi Sea.

Shell has also privately made clear it is taken aback by the public protests against the drilling which are threatening to seriously damage its reputation.

Ben van Beurden, the chief executive, is also said to be worried that the Arctic is undermining his attempts to influence the debate around climate change.

His attempts to argue that a Shell strategy of building up gas as a “transitional” fuel to pave the way to a lower carbon future has met with scepticism, partly because of the Arctic operations.

A variety of consultants have also argued that Arctic oil is too expensive to find and develop in either a low oil price environment or in a future world with a higher price on carbon emissions.

In a statement today, Marvin Odum, director of Shell Upstream Americas, said: “Shell continues to see important exploration potential in the basin, and the area is likely to ultimately be of strategic importance to Alaska and the US. However, this is a clearly disappointing exploration outcome for this part of the basin.”

“Shell will now cease further exploration activity in offshore Alaska for the foreseeable future. This decision reflects both the Burger J well result, the high costs associated with the project, and the challenging and unpredictable federal regulatory environment in offshore Alaska.”

Shell Will Stop Drilling In The Arctic

by Samantha Page, Think Progress

Sep 28, 2015 9:25am

“This is a victory for everyone who has stood up for the Arctic. Whether they took to kayaks or canoes, rappelled from bridges, or spread the news in their own communities, millions of people around the world have taken action against Arctic drilling,” Greenpeace USA executive director Annie Leonard said in a statement.

…

Leonard took the opportunity to call on President Obama to prohibit any future drilling in the area.

“Today, President Obama can also make history by cancelling any future drilling and declaring the U.S. Arctic Ocean off limits to oil companies. There is no better time to keep fossil fuels like Arctic oil in the ground, bringing us one step closer to an energy revolution and sustainable future,” she said.

Shell backtracks on controversial Arctic drilling plan

By Yanan Wang, Washington Post

September 28 at 6:37 AM

(A) serendipitous moment arrived for environmentalists early Monday, when Shell announced that it will abandon its drilling venture in the Arctic waters off Alaska’s coast for the “foreseeable future.”

“Shell has found indications of oil and gas in the Burger J well,” said a company statement referring to its exploration in the Chukchi Sea, “but these are not sufficient to warrant further exploration in the Burger prospect. The well will be sealed and abandoned in accordance with U.S. regulations.”

…

“That’s incredible. That’s huge,” the Anchorage World Wildlife Fund’s Margaret Williams told the AP. “All along the conservation community has been pointing to the challenging and unpredictable environmental conditions. We always thought the risk was tremendously great.”

Or not (sigh).

You know, whenever one of these warnings about the end of the Universe, or Earth, or even just the Tri-State area (were you aware that we got issued an erroneous Tsunami alert last week?), and I have a deadline, there is always a fair part of me that hopes it’s true just so I can avoid writing.

It’s a hateful, horrible task that sucks out your soul photon by photon and I do love it so.

The ‘Super’ Blood Moon Non-Apocalypse Is Upon Us

By Chas Danner, New York Magazine

September 27, 2015

(M)uch of the U.S. will be able to witness the rare convergence of a total lunar eclipse and a so-called “supermoon,” which is when the moon appears a whopping 7 percent larger because it’s at the closest point of its orbit of the Earth.

…

A lunar eclipse is also referred to as a “blood moon,” due to the reddish-brown color the eclipsed moon gets after the sun’s light is filtered through the particulates in our atmosphere. Put another way, as Plait adds, “If you were standing on the Moon, it’s like you’re seeing every sunrise and sunset on Earth all at once,” or put even another way, its like projecting all the crap in our atmosphere onto the surface of the moon. Bonus: Tonight is a harvest moon as well.

Tonight is thus a harvest-super-blood moon, as well as the possible end of the world if you’re a believer of fringe religious theories suggesting that. But while astrophysicists are certain the world will end some day, NASA insists that won’t be tonight.

And here we all are still, fixed in our orbits like the Moon.  This is what I did for entertainment last night-

Yup.  Four hours doing squats behind a camera in the dark only it wasn’t so dark because I was in a parking lot behind a school that was brightly lit and under 24 hour a day surveillance as the helpful sign informed me.  I only got busted by the cops twice.

The first time they came by it was me and my camera and the Officer very helpfully suggested I must be out to watch the Blood Moon.

Why yes.  Yes I am.  Pay no attention to my home made digital clock (I’m not the tidiest of solderers).

I got there early, but right on time the SUVs with the kidlings arrived to see the show.  They paid very little attention, preferring to play flashlight tag (very distracting) and throw balls (even more distracting if you weren’t ready to think quick).

I admit it’s a rather slow moving event for a child, I on the other hand was quite busy, especially during those times when it was too dark for the viewfinder and you had to take Aperture Priority shots just to line up the camera.

I took over 300 photos of which I’ve identified 5 that are almost acceptable.  In addition to the pointing problem focus is also an issue, as far as I know my camera decides what it likes.

10:45 was peak eclipsish and everyone packed up the rug rats and headed home.  I bitter ended because I was (correctly) not confident in the quality of any of my shots.  The cops rolled around again when everything was as desolate as it was when I arrived.

How did it go?

Ok I guess.  Don’t believe them when they say that this is it until 2033.  There will be other Eclipses and other Super Moons, just not the two together.

Sports AND Entertainment

My family reads my blogs (yes, I have one) and my cousin’s kids as I think I’ve mentioned are big Nationals fans.  Therefore I will just quietly mention that The New York City Metropolitans are National League East Champions and link to this.  

It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.  Then it’s just fun.

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. –Aristotle

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Paul Krugman: The Blackmail Caucus, a.k.a. the Republican Party

John Boehner was a terrible, very bad, no good speaker of the House. Under his leadership, Republicans pursued an unprecedented strategy of scorched-earth obstructionism, which did immense damage to the economy and undermined America’s credibility around the world.

Still, things could have been worse. And under his successor they almost surely will be worse. Bad as Mr. Boehner was, he was just a symptom of the underlying malady, the madness that has consumed his party. [..]

John Boehner was a terrible, very bad, no good speaker of the House. Under his leadership, Republicans pursued an unprecedented strategy of scorched-earth obstructionism, which did immense damage to the economy and undermined America’s credibility around the world.

Still, things could have been worse. And under his successor they almost surely will be worse. Bad as Mr. Boehner was, he was just a symptom of the underlying malady, the madness that has consumed his party.

For me, Mr. Boehner’s defining moment remains what he said and did as House minority leader in early 2009, when a newly inaugurated President Obama was trying to cope with the disastrous recession that began under his predecessor.

Dean Baker: The ongoing epidemic of corporate crime

Volkswagen is just the latest scandal from an epic decade of white-collar criminality

Even those who have little respect for the state of corporate ethics must have been surprised by the news from Volkswagen. It turns out that the largest car company in world deliberately designed software to allow its cars to deceive emissions testing in the United States. [..]

We may never know the details of how the top brass at Volkswagen thought it would be a good idea to cheat on emissions tests, but they obviously decided that the savings from going this route was worth the risk of detection and the potential punishment. And if the only punishment is a stretch of unemployment for people who have spent years in high-paying jobs, they are probably right.

The fate of the Volkswagen executives responsible for this fraud is likely to rest largely in the hands of the German legal system, but it is unlikely that they would face serious consequences if they were in the U.S. legal system. Corporate crime is rarely taken seriously, even when it results in avoidable deaths, whether they are caused by excess emissions because of Volkswagen’s decision to circumvent the law or by GM’s cover-up of faulty ignition switches or by Toyota’s cover-up of faulty floor mats that made cars accelerate.

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.

September 28 is the 271st day of the year (272nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 94 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1928, the antibiotic Penicillin was discovered. It’s discovery is attributed to Scottish scientist and Nobel laureate Alexander Fleming in 1928. He showed that, if Penicillium notatum  was grown in the appropriate substrate, it would exude a substance with antibiotic properties, which he dubbed penicillin. This serendipitous  observation began the modern era of antibiotic discovery. The development of penicillin for use as a medicine is attributed to the Australian Nobel laureate Howard Walter Florey together with the German Nobel laureate Ernst Chain and the English biochemist Norman Heatley.

However, several others reported the bacteriostatic effects of Penicillium earlier than Fleming. The use of bread with a blue mould (presumably penicillium) as a means of treating suppurating wounds was a staple of folk medicine in Europe since the Middle Ages. The first published reference appears in the publication of the Royal Society in 1875, by John Tyndall. Ernest Duchesne documented it in an 1897 paper, which was not accepted by the Institut Pasteur because of his youth. In March 2000, doctors at the San Juan de Dios Hospital in San José, Costa Rica published the manuscripts of the Costa Rican scientist and medical doctor Clodomiro (Clorito) Picado Twight (1887-1944). They reported Picado’s observations on the inhibitory actions of fungi of the genus Penicillium between 1915 and 1927. Picado reported his discovery to the Paris Academy of Sciences, yet did not patent it, even though his investigations started years before Fleming’s. Joseph Lister was experimenting with penicillum in 1871 for his Aseptic surgery. He found that it weakened the microbes but then he dismissed the fungi.

Fleming recounted that the date of his discovery of penicillin was on the morning of Friday, September 28, 1928. It was a fortuitous accident: in his laboratory in the basement of St. Mary’s Hospital in London (now part of Imperial College), Fleming noticed a petri dish containing Staphylococcus plate culture he had mistakenly left open, which was contaminated by blue-green mould, which had formed a visible growth. There was a halo of inhibited bacterial growth around the mould. Fleming concluded that the mould was releasing a substance that was repressing the growth and lysing the bacteria. He grew a pure culture and discovered that it was a Penicillium mould, now known to be Penicillium notatum. Charles Thom, an American specialist working at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was the acknowledged expert, and Fleming referred the matter to him. Fleming coined the term “penicillin” to describe the filtrate of a broth culture of the Penicillium mould. Even in these early stages, penicillin was found to be most effective against Gram-positive bacteria, and ineffective against Gram-negative organisms and fungi. He expressed initial optimism that penicillin would be a useful disinfectant, being highly potent with minimal toxicity compared to antiseptics of the day, and noted its laboratory value in the isolation of “Bacillus influenzae” (now Haemophilus influenzae). After further experiments, Fleming was convinced that penicillin could not last long enough in the human body to kill pathogenic bacteria, and stopped studying it after 1931. He restarted clinical trials in 1934, and continued to try to get someone to purify it until 1940.

Tonight most of North America, especially the east coast, will enjoy the site of a full lunar eclipse. The full moon of September is also the Harvest Moon, the full moon closest to the Vernal Equinox. It’s also a super moon, when the moon’s closest to the earth in its orbit, thus the moon will appear brighter and larger than usual. Because of its proximity during the eclipse, the moon will take on a reddish hue as the earth’s shadow passes across its surface. This is known as a “blood moon.” This is the fourth blood moon over the last 2 years which is called a “tetrad” in astronomical circles. The last time this occurred was in 1982 and will not happen again until 2033.

Needless to say, the event has also brought out the religious fringes, who believe the event is a signal for the end of time. However, according to NASA, there is no current threat of the earth being destroyed by a comet or asteroid for the “next several hundred years.”

For those of you who are camera buffs, Huffington Post Science has some helpful tricks for photographing tonight eclipse

Smartphones have made it easy to capture all sorts of fleeting moments — from a seal riding a whale to the pontiff gliding past in his popemobile.

But if you’re hoping to capture an Instagram-perfect shot of this weekend’s supermoon lunar eclipse, it will take a bit of preparation. After all, you’ll be shooting a darkened moon against the night sky. [..]

Keep your camera steady and your exposure long.

Whether you’re using a smartphone, a point-and-shoot or a DSLR, keeping it steady is essential. As Andreo explains, “Taking photos at night almost always drives up the exposure time, which means you need a stable tripod to mount your camera to in order to keep your pictures from turning out blurry.” If you don’t have a tripod, try resting your camera on a stool, or just try this hack that uses a piece of string.

Once your lens is steady, long exposure will help capture details of the moon’s surface despite the darkness. [..]

Get some magnification.

There are two kinds of zoom. One is desirable for this purpose, and the other is not. With a point-and-shoot camera, zoom until your lens is fully extended toward your subject. But then stop. After the lens is fully extended, your camera switches over to ‘digital zoom’ — which makes your photo look pixelated. It “just crops into your picture to make your subject take up more of the frame, but it isn’t true telephoto,” Leuchter explains. [..]

Pay attention to composition.

Unless you’re able to capture all the tiny details on the surface of the moon, you’ll need other objects in the shot to make it interesting. Snap while the moon is low on the horizon, and “try to find interesting objects to juxtapose with the full moon, like shooting through trees, or using silhouettes and other objects to show size contrast,” says Gerard. [..]

Use a self-timer

Sometimes you set up the perfect shot, but the act of actually pressing the button to snap the picture ruins it. A self-timer allows you to take a hands-off shot — you can even download an app that does it for you! Gerard explains that “using a self-timing feature helps to prevent vibrations in the camera by allowing it to settle before it takes the picture.”

Moon rise in the East at 6:36 p.m. The first shadow on the moon’s “face” will begin around 8:11 p.m. However, the total eclipse starts at 10:11 p.m. and peak at 10:47 p.m.  The process then reverses itself and the moon will be back in full view after midnight.

Check your local paper for community events for watching the eclipse. If the weather is overcast in your area, you can watch it here with NASA starting at 8 PM EDT, or you can join us here at 8 PM.

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.

September 27 is the 270th day of the year (271st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 95 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1922, Jean-François Champollion deciphered the hieroglyphs of the Rosetta Stone with the help of groundwork laid by his predecessors: Athanasius Kircher, Silvestre de Sacy, Johan David Akerblad, Thomas Young, and William John Bankes. Champollion translated parts of the Rosetta Stone, showing that the Egyptian writing system was a combination of phonetic and ideographic signs.

Thomas Young was one of the first to attempt decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, basing his own work on the investigations of Swedish diplomat Akerblad, who built up a demotic  alphabet of 29 letters (15 turned out to be correct) and translated all personal names and other words in the Demotic part of the Rosetta Stone  in 1802. Akerblad however, wrongly believed that demotic was entirely phonetic or alphabetic. Young thought the same, and by 1814 he had completely translated the enchorial (which Champollion labeled Demotic as it is called today) text of the Rosetta Stone (he had a list with 86 demotic words). Young then studied the hieroglyphic alphabet and made some progress but failed to recognise that demotic and hieroglyphic texts were paraphrases and not simple translations. In 1823 he published an Account of the Recent Discoveries in Hieroglyphic Literature and Egyptian Antiquities. Some of Young’s conclusions appeared in the famous article Egypt he wrote for the 1818 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

When Champollion, in 1822, published his translation of the hieroglyphs and the key to the grammatical system, Young and all others praised this work. Young had indicated in a letter to Gurney that he wished to see Champollion acknowledge that he had made use of Young’s earlier work in assisting his eventual deciphering of hieroglyphics. Champollion was unwilling to share the credit even though initially he had not recognized that hieroglyphics were phonetic. Young corrected him on this, and Champollion attempted to have an early article withdrawn once he realized his mistake. Strongly motivated by the political tensions of that time, the British supported Young and the French Champollion. Champollion completely translated the hieroglyphic grammar based in part upon the earlier work of others including Young. However, Champollion maintained that he alone had deciphered the hieroglyphs. After 1826, he did offer Young access to demotic manuscripts in the Louvre, when he was a curator. Baron Georges Cuvier (1825) credited Champollion’s work as an important aid in dating the Dendera Zodiac.