More Awards Shows.  The most boring form of television ever unless you have some action going.  Lots of premiers if you’re into that sort of thing.

• Bravo– Top Chef marathon (with premier)
• Discovery– Howe & Howe, Mythbusters (premiers)
• ESPN– High School Throwball, All-Star Game
• ESPN2– College Hoopies, Alabama-Birmingham @ Duke, Memphis @ Tennessee
• Food– Worst (Season Premier repeat), Dinner Impossible
• FX– Tropic Thunder x 2
• History– Aliens! and Doom, Doooooom I tells ya.
• Lifetime– She’s The One
• Turner Classic– Mr. Holland’s Opus, An Affair to Remember
• TNT– Bones marathon
• Travel– Man v. Food marathon (with premier)
• USA– The Bourne Ultimatum x 2, Ocean’s Thirteen
• Vs.– Tin Cup

Later-

• ESPN– Hoopies, Lakers @ Suns
• Turner Classic– Kiss Me, Stupid

Dave hosts Jennifer Connelly, Dr. Mehmet Oz, and Justin Townes Earle.  Jon has Jimmy Wales, Stephen Atul Gawande.  Conan in repeats from 12/2.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Gbagbo lays down terms for lifting siege of I. Coast rival

by Christophe Koffi, AFP

1 hr 13 mins ago

Madam Zelda!  Madam Zelda!  Is it true this house is haunted?

What Lies Ahead in 2011?

Joseph E. Stiglitz, Project Syndicate

2010-12-13

The gravest threat (and “downside risk facing the global economy”) comes from the wave of austerity sweeping the world, as governments, particularly in Europe, confront the large deficits brought on by the Great Recession, and as anxieties about some countries’ ability to meet their debt payments contributes to financial-market instability.

The outcome of premature fiscal consolidation is all but foretold: growth will slow, tax revenues will diminish, and the reduction in deficits will be disappointing. And, in our globally integrated world, the slowdown in Europe will exacerbate the slowdown in the US, and vice versa.

…

I am not so bullish on Europe and America. In both cases, the underlying problem is insufficient aggregate demand. The ultimate irony is that there are simultaneously excess capacity and vast unmet needs – and policies that could restore growth by using the former to address the latter.

…

In both Europe and America, the free-market ideology that allowed asset bubbles to grow unfettered – markets always know best, so government must not intervene – now ties policymakers’ hands in designing effective responses to the crisis. One might have thought that the crisis itself would undermine confidence in that ideology. Instead, it has resurfaced to drag governments and economies down the sinkhole of austerity.

New V.  Other premiers.  Tonight’s highight is the final 5 new episodes of Caprica back to back.  I’m still conflicted about it, the only ones I identify with are the Cylons and the Adamas.

• ABC Family– The Notebook
• AMC– Demolition Man x 2
• Disney– Wizards of Waverly Place The Movie
• Discovery– Dirty Jobs (last week’s and new), Auction Kings (premier)
• ESPN– College Throwball, Sugar Bowl: Arkansas v. Ohio State
• ESPN2– College Hoopies, Indiana @ Minnesota
• FX– Hellboy II: The Golden Army x 2
• Oxygen– Definitely, Maybe x 2
• Sci Fi– Caprica x 3 (all premiers)
• Speed– Monster Jam x 2
• TBS– Family Guy marathon, Glory Daze (premier)
• Turner Classic– Our Gang marathon until 8 pm tomorrow
• TLC– What Not To Wear x 2 (premiers)
• TNT– Gladiator (Joey?)
• Toon– Zathura
• USA– Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins ], [Semi-Pro
• Vs.– Wild @ Devils

Later-

• AMC– Crocodile Dundee
• Oxygen– Kate & Leopold
• USA– Hairspray (not the good 1988 version)

Dave hosts Tim McGraw, Shaquille O’Neal, and Keri Hilson.  Jon has Kirsten Gillibrand, Stephen Geoffrey Canada.  Conan in repeats from 11/24.

Well, you see, Aborigines don’t own the land.They belong to it. It’s like their mother. See those rocks? Been standing there for 600 million years. Still be there when you and I are gone. So arguing over who owns them is like two fleas arguing over who owns the dog they live on.

Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Pakistani governor assassinated in Islamabad

by Khurram Shahzad, AFP

1 hr 2 mins ago

Today is the six month anniversary of The Stars Hollow Gazette and while it’s not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things we could be doing worse.  We have an impressive array of Twitter followers (Facebook?  Pfui!) and a fair number of visits and page hits (not as grand as some, but better than others) and a panoply of content I’d compare to anyone’s.

Mostly favorably.

Anyway, I’ve personally posted some pieces that didn’t revolt me in retrospect and some which may merit future revisiting just to flaunt in my face how wrong and misguided I’ve been.

I’d like to make that as easy as possible without a kick ass search engine like jotter’s and so, since I haven’t written meta in a while, I’d like to talk to you today about Tags.

It gets Geeky below the fold.

Lots of premiers on Broadcast, none worth watching other than Robert E. Lee on American Experience.  LoDo is back (unfortunately).  So are Jon and Stephen (and there was much rejoicing).

You start running a respectable business and I won’t have to come in here and hassle you every night. You know what I mean? And I want the rest of you cowboys to know something, there’s a new sheriff in town. And his name is Reggie Hammond. So y’all be cool. Right on.

• ABC Family– Pretty Little Liars x 2, Greek (Season Premiers)
• AMC– Swordfish x 2
• Comedy– The Heartbreak Kid, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (4 premiers)
• Disney– The Game Plan
• Discovery– Sr. v. Jr. x 2 (premier ‘Making Of’), Gold Rush
• ESPN– College Throwball, Orange Bowl: Stanford v. Virginia Tech
• ESPN2– College Hoopies, Georgetown @ St. John’s
• Food– Triple D, Best Thing (premiers)
• FX– Men of Honor
• History– Pawn Stars and Pickers
• Lifetime– My Family’s Secret, The Craigslist Killer (World Premier)
• National Geographic– Hitler and the Taliban
• Oxygen– Bad Girls Club (premier), The Queens of Comedy x 2
• Sci Fi– V: The Final Battle marathon
• Spike– Die Hard
• TBS– Family Guy marathon
• Turner Classic– Shanghai Express, Morocco
• TLC– Cake Boss (last week’s and new), The Opener (premier)
• TNT– The Closer (Penultimate and Season Finale premier), Men of a Certain Age (premier)
• Toon– Regular Show (premier)
• Travel– Dining with Death (premier)
• Vs.– Blackhawks @ Kings

Later-

• AMC– 48 Hours (the funny movie and not the stupid documentary)
• FX– 21 (card counting at MIT), Archer
• Turner Classic– Crime and Punishment, The Shanghai Gesture

Dave hosts Brian Williams (ugh) and Paula Abdul.  Jon has Paul Giamatti, Stephen Ed Rendell.  Alton does Porterhouse and Pork Tenderloin.  Conan in repeats from 11/22.

You know what I am? I’m your worst fuckin’ nightmare, man. I’m a nigger with a badge which means I got permission to kick your fuckin’ ass whenever I feel like it!

Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Mediators shuttle between I.Coast presidents to end crisis

by Christophe Koffi, AFP

56 mins ago

Monday Business Edition

I have a Liberal Arts background, a History Major (also Methodist) like George Walker Bush.

And shucks, my discipline has no predictive nature at all-

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted, it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in which instinct has learned nothing from experience. – George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905

The hard sciences tend to rely on replicable independent observations supporting a predictive theory that can be tested by experiment.

You know, facts.

The social sciences have the luxury of being mostly observational.  If you’re honest.

Economics pretends to be a hard science, but it’s really just a bunch of assumptions represented symbolically so it can be disguised as Math.  It’s really as fuzzy as Philosophy.

Not so much a science as an argument.

Which brings me to this recent piece-

Academic Economists to Consider Ethics Code

By SEWELL CHAN, The New York Times

Published: December 30, 2010

Academic economists, particularly those active in policy debates in Washington and Wall Street, are facing greater scrutiny of their outside activities these days. Faced with a run of criticism, including a popular movie, leaders of the American Economic Association, the world’s largest professional society for economists, founded in 1885, are considering a step that most other professions took a long time ago – adopting a code of ethical standards.

The proposal, which has not been announced to the public or to the association’s 17,000 members, is partly a response to “Inside Job,” a documentary film released in October that excoriates leading academic economists for their ties to Wall Street as consultants, advisers or corporate directors.

…

Mr. Lucas added: “What disciplines economics, like any science, is whether your work can be replicated. It either stands up or it doesn’t. Your motivations and whatnot are secondary.”

Since economics emerged as a modern discipline in the late 19th century, its practitioners have resisted formal ethical codes, said George F. DeMartino, an economist at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.

…

A recent paper (.pdf) by Gerald Epstein and Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, found that many financial economists who weighed in on the Wall Street overhaul signed into law in July did not prominently disclose potential conflicts of interest.

Frauds and charletans.  Confidence men and bunco artists.

When will we replicate the results enough?

Business News below.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Pakistan faces fresh political turmoil

AFP

10 mins ago