Evening Edition is an Open Thread

Now with 39 Top Stories.

1 One fifth of world’s plants threatened by extinction: study

AFP

54 mins ago

Well, last week we said goodbye to H.G. Wells and thwarted her nefarious plot to destroy humanity by using the Minoan Trident to set off the Yellowstone Super Volcano.  Claudia seemed more comfortable with her destiny as a Caretaker and Myka quit because she couldn’t stand the stress anymore.

Oh and Arnie got another one of those shoulder sling flesh wound thingies, on the other side this year I think, from shooting at H.G.’s Corsican Brothers Vest.

I don’t nap through all the episodes you know.

This week we return to the Stargate Universe with, uh…, Stargate Universe Season 2.  When last we saw our band of embattled refugees they were still trapped on The Destiny, a Stargate sowing ship now transiting galaxies and taking them farther out of range by the minute.  In addition to being pursued by nameless aliens and their evil anal probes they are now locked in battle for control of the ship with a boarding party of Lucien Alliance mercenaries.  I once had my Sci Fi friend try to explain to me exactly who was pregnant by whom, but with the consciousness shifting communicator and a rather casual attitude about intercourse it’s really hard to keep track of.  I will note with some skepticism that while they somehow managed to salvage an unlimited supply of ammunition they don’t seem to have remembered to bring along a single condom.  It would really make much more sense if they were using Zats and Staff Weapons because you could probably figure out some way to recharge them, but bullets don’t grow on trees.

Next week Caprica cranks up again and it’s all on Tuesday instead of Friday because Sci Fi got stuck with WWE Friday Night SmackDown.  While the Sci Fi connection may be tenuous at best, it’s another good reason to hate Linda McMahon.

Two NCIS premiers, No Ordinary Family Series Premier, and you can see if Sarah Palin shows up to get booed again.

• ABC Family– Melissa & Joey, The Princess Diaries
• AMC– Dirty Harry, Magnum Force
• Bravo– Inside the Actors Studio with Betty White, Flipping Out (premier)
• Discovery– Swords: Life on the Line, The Colony (premiers)
• ESPN2– [Packers ] @ [Giants ] (hard to pick a favorite in this one)
• Food– Chopped Champions marathon (including Championship Season Finale premier)
• Oxygen– Bad Girls Club, Hair Battle Spectacular (premiers)
• Speed– Monster Jam
• Turner Classic– The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, Anna Karenina (Vivien Leigh night)
• Toon– Unnatural History, Sym-Bionic Titan (this week’s), Clone Wars (this week’s), King of the Hill

Later-

• AMC– Dirty Harry (again)
• FX– Terriers (this week’s)
• History– Ice Road Truckers, Swamp People (this week’s)
• Turner Classic– Caesar and Cleopatra (Vivien again)

What do you know- Dave hosts Jon Stewart performing against himself (well, actually Stephen) and N.E.R.D..  Jon has Arianna, Stephen Ross Douthat (should be good for a laugh).  No Alton.

Boondocks– The Trial of Robert Kelly.

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March 31, 1968

There is division in the American house now. There is divisiveness among us all tonight. And holding the trust that is mine, as President of all the people, I cannot disregard the peril to the progress of the American people and the hope and the prospect of peace for all peoples.

So, I would ask all Americans, whatever their personal interests or concern, to guard against divisiveness and all its ugly consequences.

Fifty-two months and 10 days ago, in a moment of tragedy and trauma, the duties of this office fell upon me. I asked then for your help and God’s, that we might continue America on its course, binding up our wounds, healing our history, moving forward in new unity, to clear the American agenda and to keep the American commitment for all of our people.

United we have kept that commitment. United we have enlarged that commitment.

Through all time to come, I think America will be a stronger nation, a more just society, and a land of greater opportunity and fulfillment because of what we have all done together in these years of unparalleled achievement.

Our reward will come in the life of freedom, peace, and hope that our children will enjoy through ages ahead.

What we won when all of our people united just must not now be lost in suspicion, distrust, selfishness, and politics among any of our people.

Believing this as I do, I have concluded that I should not permit the Presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing in this political year.

With America’s sons in the fields far away, with America’s future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world’s hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office–the Presidency of your country.

Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.

But let men everywhere know, however, that a strong, a confident, and a vigilant America stands ready tonight to seek an honorable peace–and stands ready tonight to defend an honored cause–whatever the price, whatever the burden, whatever the sacrifice that duty may require.

Thank you for listening.

Obama Seeks to Bridge Enthusiasm Gap with More Threats and Insults

By: David Dayen, Tuesday September 28, 2010 9:06 am

Hectoring the Base: It’s Not About GOTV, It’s About Laying the Blame

By: Jane Hamsher Tuesday September 28, 2010 9:49 am  

And why it doesn’t matter.

You cursed brat! Look what you’ve done! I’m melting! melting! Oh, what a world! What a world! Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness? Oooooh, look out! I’m going! Oooooh! Ooooooh!

The flying monkeys Villagers are all atwitter (and when aren’t they now days?  140 characters seems more than sufficient to capture their “wisdom”) about the upcoming unceremonious kicking out on his ass departure Mayoral campaign of Rahm Emanuel.  Jane Hamsher’s take at Firedog Lake is here.

So, Orzag, Summers, and now Emanuel.  Who’s next?

How about Axelrod?

It’s really hard to read this piece by Noam Scheiber at The New Republic any other way.  It reminds me of the hagiographies of Rahm we were seeing a month or two ago.

Should we celebrate like Munchkins?

While I do love me some heads on pikes and I think each one richly deserved (Scheiber’s obsequious beat sweetening butt kissing not withstanding), I think I’ll hold off for the moment and not just because Doughnut Holes are just as fattening as Doughnuts however much Homer pretends otherwise.

There is absolutely no indication this White House intends to stop hippie punching or change course (h/t Corrente).

We have a saying in the Corleones- a fish rots from the head down.

More broadcast premiers hardly worth watching (unless you’re a fan and then you don’t need my help).  Packers @ Bears.  Have I mentioned I’m only half troll?  You’ll need something to watch at 10 (and at 1).  I recommend King of the Hill, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and Squidbillies.

• ABC Family– Liar Liar x 2 (again, again, again, again, again, again) (again)
• AMC– Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002 is hardly a “classic”)
• Bravo– The Event (Series Premier repeat.  NBC is really whoring this one.)
• Oxygen– The Event (Series Premier repeat.  NBC is really whoring this one.)
• SciFi– The Event (Series Premier repeat.  NBC is really whoring this one.)
• Food– New Unwrapped, The Best Thing I Ever Ate, Triple D (premiers)
• FX– 27 Dresses
• History– Pawn Stars and American Pickers
• National Geographic– Ancient X-Files (2 premiers)
• Spike– No Country for Old Men
• TBS– Family Guy night
• Turner Classic– The Westerner, El Dorado
• Toon– New Regular Show, MAD, Total Drama World Tour
• Travel– Man v. Food marathon (thank goodness)
• TV Land– Tootsie

Later-

• AMC– Rubicon, Mad Men (this week’s)
• FX– The Grudge 2
• Turner Classic– The Violent Men
• TNT– Men of a Certain Age (Series Premier repeat)

Dave hosts Katherine Heigl, Daniel Dae Kim, and Runner Runner.  Jon has BillO, Stephen Ken Burns.  Alton does Tortillas x 2.

Boondocks– The Fried Chicken Flu.

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Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 North Korean leader names son as general: official media

by Simon Martin, AFP

1 hr 39 mins ago

Different from Luke Russert how?

Monday Business Edition

Republican Economics as Social Darwinism

by Robert Reich

Sunday, September 26, 2010

In the late 19th century it was called Social Darwinism. Only the fittest should survive, and any effort to save the less fit will undermine the moral fiber of society.

Republicans have wanted to destroy Social Security since it was invented… Remember George W. Bush’s proposal to privatize it? Had America agreed with him, millions of retirees would have been impoverished in 2008 when the stock market imploded.

Of course Republicans don’t talk openly about destroying Social Security, because it’s so popular. The new Republican “pledge” promises only to put it on a “fiscally responsible footing.” Translated: we’ll privatize it.

…

Republicans also hate unemployment insurance. They’ve voted against every extension because, they say, it coddles the unemployed and keeps them from taking available jobs.

That’s absurd. There are still 5 job seekers for every job opening, and unemployment insurance in most states pays only a small fraction of the full-time wage.

…

Finally, like Hoover and Mellon, Republicans want to cut the deficit and balance the budget at a time when a large portion of the workforce is idle.

This defies economic logic. When consumers aren’t spending, businesses aren’t investing and exports can’t possibly fill the gap, and when state governments are slashing their budgets, the federal government has to spend more. Otherwise, the Great Recession will turn into exactly what Hoover and Mellon ushered in – a seemingly endless Great Depression.

What are the results of Hoover/Mellon policies?

The Super Rich Get Richer, Everyone Else Gets Poorer, and the Democrats Punt

by Robert Reich

Friday, September 24, 2010

The super-rich got even wealthier this year, and yet most of them are paying even fewer taxes to support the eduction, job training, and job creation of the rest of us. According to Forbes magazine’s annual survey, just released, the combined net worth of the 400 richest Americans climbed 8% this year…

…

From another survey we learn that the 25 top hedge-fund managers got an average of $1 billion each, but paid an average of 17 percent in taxes (because so much of their income is considered capital gains, taxed at 15 percent thanks to the Bush tax cuts).

The rest of America got poorer, of course. The number in poverty rose to a post-war high. The median wage continues to deteriorate. And some 20 million Americans don’t have work.

Only twice before in American history has so much been held by so few, and the gap between them and the great majority been a chasm – the late 1920s, and the era of the robber barons in the 1880s.

Structure of Excuses

By PAUL KRUGMAN, The New York Times

Published: September 26, 2010

What can be done about mass unemployment? All the wise heads agree: there are no quick or easy answers. There is work to be done, but workers aren’t ready to do it – they’re in the wrong places, or they have the wrong skills. Our problems are “structural,” and will take many years to solve.

But don’t bother asking for evidence that justifies this bleak view. There isn’t any. On the contrary, all the facts suggest that high unemployment in America is the result of inadequate demand – full stop.  …

…

After all, what should we be seeing if statements like those of Mr. Kocherlakota or Mr. Clinton were true? The answer is, there should be significant labor shortages somewhere in America – major industries that are trying to expand but are having trouble hiring, major classes of workers who find their skills in great demand, major parts of the country with low unemployment even as the rest of the nation suffers.

None of these things exist. Job openings have plunged in every major sector, while the number of workers forced into part-time employment in almost all industries has soared. Unemployment has surged in every major occupational category. Only three states, with a combined population not much larger than that of Brooklyn, have unemployment rates below 5 percent.

Oh, and where are these firms that “can’t find appropriate workers”? … (T)he percentage citing problems with labor quality is now at an all-time low, reflecting the reality that these days even highly skilled workers are desperate for employment.

So all the evidence contradicts the claim that we’re mainly suffering from structural unemployment. Why, then, has this claim become so popular?

…

I’ve been looking at what self-proclaimed experts were saying about unemployment during the Great Depression; it was almost identical to what Very Serious People are saying now. Unemployment cannot be brought down rapidly, declared one 1935 analysis, because the work force is “unadaptable and untrained. It cannot respond to the opportunities which industry may offer.” A few years later, a large defense buildup finally provided a fiscal stimulus adequate to the economy’s needs – and suddenly industry was eager to employ those “unadaptable and untrained” workers.

But now, as then, powerful forces are ideologically opposed to the whole idea of government action on a sufficient scale to jump-start the economy. And that, fundamentally, is why claims that we face huge structural problems have been proliferating: they offer a reason to do nothing about the mass unemployment that is crippling our economy and our society.

So what you need to know is that there is no evidence whatsoever to back these claims. We aren’t suffering from a shortage of needed skills; we’re suffering from a lack of policy resolve. As I said, structural unemployment isn’t a real problem, it’s an excuse – a reason not to act on America’s problems at a time when action is desperately needed.

And for all their ‘Galtian’ Social Darwinist self reliance, what is the richest woman in the world doing?

Queen tried to use state poverty fund to heat Buckingham Palace

Ministers were asked if money earmarked for schools, hospitals and low-income families could be used to meet soaring fuel bills

By Robert Verkaik, The Independent

Friday, 24 September 2010

The Queen asked ministers for a poverty handout to help heat her palaces but was rebuffed because they feared it would be a public relations disaster, documents disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act reveal.

Royal aides were told that the £60m worth of energy-saving grants were aimed at families on low incomes and if the money was given to Buckingham Palace instead of housing associations or hospitals it could lead to “adverse publicity” for the Queen and the Government.

It seems our evil, greedy, immoral, hypocritical “betters” are all too willing to accept government handouts for “the right sort of people” and steal food out of the mouths of babies, the sick, and the elderly so they can line their pockets to impress others of their “class” with their conspicuous consumption and ‘flash cash’.

Business News below.

Well, I know someone who’s a big fan of The Amazing Race.  New Season starts tonight.  60 Minutes has Af-Pak (BREAKING!  War Reporters Shot At!  Quelle Horreur!), Park51, and Drew Brees.  New Simpsons and Family Guy (1 hour double episode with James Woods), also The Cleveland Show.

Sunday Night Throwball, Jets @ Aquatic Mammal (as opposed to semi-aquatic monotreme.  Where’s Perry?), but why are you watching that when there’s Sox @ Yankees on ESPN?  New Boardwalk Empire if you pay for premium (waste of money in my opinion).

• A&E– The Glades (premier)
• ABC Family– The Princess Diaries
• AMC– Pearl Harbor (just horrible), Rubicon and Mad Men (premiers)
• Bravo– House marathon
• Discovery– Dual Survival marathon
• Food– Network Challenge, Iron Chef America (premiers)
• History– Ice Road Truckers, Swamp People (premiers)
• Lifetime– The Brave One x 2 (ugh.  Doomed from the concept and not salvaged by Jodie Foster and Mary Steenburgen.  They need better agents.)
• SciFi– Ogre, Mandrake
• TBS– Disturbia x 2 (again and again)
• Turner Classic– Viva Zapata!, Viva Villa! (Mexican Revolutionary night)
• TNT– I Am Legend x 2 (You Damn Dirty Apes!  Not worth watching, even for Will Smith.)
• Toon– New Delocated
• Travel– Man v. Food marathon

Later-

• Comedy– Some classic Futurama
• MTV– House of Wax (the Paris Hilton one, not the superior Vincent Price classic shot in Dr. Tongue’s 3D House of Stewardesses Vision)
• SciFi– Abominable (title says it all)
• TBS– Sleepy Hollow (Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci)
• Turner Classic– Scaramouche (shhhh, no singing Bohemian Rhapsody in the peanut gallery)
• USA– The Bourne Ultimatum

Adult Swim has the 3.5 Season Premier of Metalocalypse, a new Childrens Hospital, and Episode 3 of Season 4.5 of The Venture Brothers– Every Which Way But Zeus (last week’s episode, Pomp & Circuitry, summary).

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Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Italian bank chief’s exit sparks concern

by Mathieu Gorse, AFP

Sun Sep 26, 3:43 am ET

260 Stories served.  37 per day.

This is actually the hardest diary to execute, and yet perhaps the most valuable because it lets you track story trends over time.  It should be a Sunday morning feature.

• Sunday 9/19
• Monday 9/20
• Tuesday 9/21
• Wednesday 9/22
• Thursday 9/23
• Friday 9/24
• Saturday 9/25