As many here in the Northeast already know, it’s hot. Temperature in many places are in triple digits, coupled with high humidity and stagnant air. It can be life threatening. The entire region is under a heat alert and many cities have poor air quality alerts.

Most people know to wear cool, loose clothing, drink plenty of non-alcoholic, decaffeinated beverages and stay in the shade, air conditioning or a room with windows open and fans. Take cool showers. You should also limit exercise to very early morning hours. Although in this heat with temperatures already pushing 90 at 7 AM, it might be a good idea to forgo exercise altogether, especially for those on medication for hypertension, cardiac disease or diabetes. Many cities have cooling centers for those without air conditioning and places, like NYC, are extending the hours of municipal pools and beaches keeping lifeguards on duty until dusk.

If you have pets, keep their water bowls full with clean fresh water, keep them indoors or provide an airy, shaded place. Limit their exercise, as well, to early morning and after sundown.

Relief is expected on Friday when a cold front pushes through bringing thunder showers and cooler temperatures for the weekend. Meanwhile stay cool and wet, inside and out.

Your morning Open Thread

On this day in 1930, construction of the Hoover Dam begins. Over the next five years, a total of 21,000 men would work ceaselessly to produce what would be the largest dam of its time, as well as one of the largest manmade structures in the world.

Although the dam would take only five years to build, its construction was nearly 30 years in the making. Arthur Powell Davis, an engineer from the Bureau of Reclamation, originally had his vision for the Hoover Dam back in 1902, and his engineering report on the topic became the guiding document when plans were finally made to begin the dam in 1922.

Herbert Hoover, the 31st president of the United States and a committed conservationist, played a crucial role in making Davis’ vision a reality. As secretary of commerce in 1921, Hoover devoted himself to the erection of a high dam in Boulder Canyon, Colorado. The dam would provide essential flood control, which would prevent damage to downstream farming communities that suffered each year when snow from the Rocky Mountains melted and joined the Colorado River. Further, the dam would allow the expansion of irrigated farming in the desert, and would provide a dependable supply of water for Los Angeles and other southern California communities.

Happy Birthday, Ringo.

Ringo Starr is turning 70 on Wednesday. It feels as though youth itself is now 70 years old.

I wasn’t yet 6 when the Beatles played their last live performance atop the Apple Corps building on Savile Row in London, January 1969. They split four years before I got my first Beatles album. Still, I can keep track of my teenage years by Beatles songs I happened to be enthralled with at the time. Forty years after they broke up, my 6-year-old son is learning to play “Eleanor Rigby” on the piano.

Ever since Ringo Starr  vowed, on a well-known cover of Buck Owens’s hit “Act Naturally,” that he’d become “the biggest fool to ever hit the big time,” the renowned rock ‘n’ roll drummer has done all right for himself. As a member of the Beatles and as a solo artist, Mr. Starr has sold more than a few records, won some Grammy Awards and even had a minor planet named for him. But on Wednesday Mr. Starr will reach a very special milestone: he turns 70 years old.

As you’d expect, he plans to mark the occasion with a little help from his friends, and anyone else he can round up. Finding himself in New York on the big day, he is celebrating with a private event in the morning at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square; Hard Rock International is honoring the day at locations around the world. (Details are at ringostarr.com.)

In the evening he will perform a concert at Radio City Music Hall with his All Starr Band, which includes Edgar Winter, Gary Wright and Rick Derringer.

An Alternet story from yesterday contemplates the reason for women dominating the rank of the Tea Party movement. According to a Quinipiac poll the the TP is 55% women and Slate 6 of the 8 Tea Party Patriots are women and 15 of the 25 state coordinators are women. Like the men, they are predominantly white, Christian and “middle class”. It ain’t just angry white men.

July 5, 2010 Why have American women become so active in the right wing Tea Party movement? Could it be that they are drawn to the new conservative Christian feminism publicized by Sarah Palin? Without its grassroots female supporters, the Tea Party would have far less appeal to voters who are frightened by economic insecurity, threats to moral purity and the gradual disappearance of a national white Christian culture.

Most Americans are not quite sure what to make of the sprawling right-wing Tea Party, which gradually emerged in 2009 and became a household name after it held nationwide Tea Party rallies on April 15th 2010, to protest paying taxes. Throwing tea overboard, as you may remember, is an important symbolic image of the colonial anger at Britain’s policy of “taxation without representation.”

Browsing the op-ed pages of the print media  and an open thread to vent. Pour a cup of coffee or brew some tea and contemplate the day.

Paul Krugman came down on Republicans who think they will get elected by punishing the unemployed by blocking Unemployment benefits.

By the heartless, I mean Republicans who have made the cynical calculation that blocking anything President Obama tries to do – including, or perhaps especially, anything that might alleviate the nation’s economic pain – improves their chances in the midterm elections. Don’t pretend to be shocked: you know they’re out there, and make up a large share of the G.O.P. caucus.

By the clueless I mean people like Sharron Angle, the Republican candidate for senator from Nevada, who has repeatedly insisted that the unemployed are deliberately choosing to stay jobless, so that they can keep collecting benefits. A sample remark: “You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job but it doesn’t pay as much. We’ve put in so much entitlement into our government that we really have spoiled our citizenry.”

 The Associated Press owes China an apology according to Glen Greenwald this morning, that is if the press continues to follow the Bush regime’s definition of what constitutes “torture”.

China sentenced an American geologist, Xue Feng, to  eight years in prison for spying and collecting state secrets. During his detention, Feng was tortured as the article points out by

stubbing lit cigarettes into his arms in the early days of his detention.

But, but…according to John Yoo of torture memo fame:

Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death. For purely mental pain or suffering to amount to torture (under U.S. law), it must result in significant psychological harm of significant duration, e.g., lasting for months or even years.

(emphasis mine)

So why, as per Glen, does the AP owe China an apology? Heh. Hypocrisy, thy name is the “Press”.  

I have stuff. Lots of stuff and not just the tangible kind that you can put your hands on and touch. When I suggested to ek hornbeck that we start this site and began working on diaries that I should write to help fill the pages as we attract readers and participants here, I began by looking at some of the “stuff” in my bookmarks and went WOW, I need to “clean” out all this stuff. Then I said “Wait, I  now have a place to put this “stuff” that I am about to “delete” forever into the infinity of cyberspace”.

The Commission for Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, better known as the “Cat Food Commission” has targeted Social Security and Medicare for some serious reductions that will put many senior citizens and future senior citizens in jeopardy of being relegated to homeless shelters or the streets. Sound harsh, over the top? Well listen to the co-chair former Sen. Alan Simpson, who was hand picked by President Barack Obama, in the video below the fold. And how about Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi who purposely put a “requirement that the House will vote on the deficit commission’s recommendations in the lame duck session if they pass the Senate“?

The Sunday morning taking heads are a sure way to start you day off aggravated. About the only one i am really interested in watching this afternoon when it gets in to the high 90’s here in NYC with humidity to match, is Fareed Zakaria GPS. His guest today are Niall Ferguson & Paul Krugman, economists with opposing views.

Harvard economist, Nail Ferguson:

(The) leaders of most of the world’s major economies. They are doing what Harvard historian Niall Ferguson espouses: fighting to get their debt under control and cutting spending before their countries become the next Greece.

NYT’s and Nobel economist, Paul Krugman:

(A) handful of nations who are staying the course and spending. Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman says he fears we might already be in the 3rd depression — because governments haven’t been spending enough.

As dry as economics can be, these men make it not just understandable but “entertaining”.

Fareed will also be discussing this stunning statistic: the billion dollar price tag for each Al-Qaeda member.

h/t Elliot @ FDL

The “park” and its benches are open. It is quite a liberal place, very liberal in fact and not ashamed to say so. We hope to give a space to those who want to feel comfortable expressing their views and ideas, a comfortable place for give and take, discussion, agreement and disagreement. None should expect a Utopia, we all have our own views and ideas, there will always be conflicts and opposition.

Besides the current news, this is an environment for creativity, a place to put your “stuff” for others to enjoy. A place for music, art, fiction or just chit chat about what ever moves the moment, a place to stream your thoughts on life, the universe and everything.