Author's posts
Aug 10 2010
Evening Edition
Evening Edition is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 BP moves to well kill, kicks off compensation fund
By Pascal Fletcher and Anna Driver, Reuters
1 hr 41 mins ago
| MIAMI/HOUSTON (Reuters) – BP advanced on Monday on the final lap toward permanently killing the source of the world’s worst offshore oil spill and kicked off a $20 billion compensation fund with a first $3 billion deposit.
A relief well being drilled by BP is on track to start this week a definitive “bottom kill” shutdown of the crippled Gulf of Mexico well, unless an approaching weather system disrupts the timing, the top U.S. oil spill response chief said. The biggest environmental response operation ever launched in the United States passed a critical milestone last week by subduing the blown-out deepwater well with injections of heavy drilling mud, followed by a cement seal. |
Aug 09 2010
Monday Business Edition
America Goes Dark
By PAUL KRUGMAN, The New York Times
Published: August 8, 2010
(A) large part of our political class is showing its priorities: given the choice between asking the richest 2 percent or so of Americans to go back to paying the tax rates they paid during the Clinton-era boom, or allowing the nation’s foundations to crumble – literally in the case of roads, figuratively in the case of education – they’re choosing the latter.
…
But isn’t keeping taxes for the affluent low also a form of stimulus? Not so you’d notice. When we save a schoolteacher’s job, that unambiguously aids employment; when we give millionaires more money instead, there’s a good chance that most of that money will just sit idle.
…
The antigovernment campaign has always been phrased in terms of opposition to waste and fraud – to checks sent to welfare queens driving Cadillacs, to vast armies of bureaucrats uselessly pushing paper around. But those were myths, of course; there was never remotely as much waste and fraud as the right claimed. And now that the campaign has reached fruition, we’re seeing what was actually in the firing line: services that everyone except the very rich need, services that government must provide or nobody will, like lighted streets, drivable roads and decent schooling for the public as a whole.
Monday Business Edition is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Business |
1 BP spends $6.1 bln on Gulf spill response
AFP
57 mins ago
| LONDON (AFP) – Energy giant BP said on Monday that it had spent 6.1 billion dollars so far in response to the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and confirmed that the damaged well was no longer leaking.
“The cost of the response to date amounts to approximately 6.1 billion dollars (4.6 billion euros),” BP said in an official statement. The costs include spill response, relief well drilling, the “static kill” and cementing of the ruptured well, grants to Gulf states, claims paid and federal costs. |
Aug 09 2010
Too short to quote.
Greenspan, Rubin, and Herbert Hoover
Robert Reich
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Herbert Hoover’s disciples are making noises even as America moves closer towards a double dip recession
Aug 09 2010
Prime Time
Haven’t I told you TV has jumped the Shark?
Can it be time for Throwball again? Cinncinati @ Dallas and the only interesting question about it is if Keith still has his gig.
Something, Something, Something… Dark Side.
- Spike– Rambo Night
- AMC– Rubicon and Mad Men premiers
- ESPN– New York @ Boston. All Hail the Great God Citgo!
- ABC Family– Wild Child x 2
- FX– The Ruins
- History– Ice Road Truckers (last week and premier ), Top Shot Quarterfinals (3 eliminations)
- Oxygen– America’s Next Top Model Marathon.
- SciFi– Silent Hill
- TBS– Meet The Parents x 2
- Turner Classic– Road to Morocco, Nothing but the Truth (Bob Hope night)
- Toon– Unnatural History, Children’s Hospital (premiers)
Later-
- Comedy– A Flock of Futurama
- MSNBC– Sex Slaves (soooooo unlike Network Whores)
- Turner Classic– Where There’s Life, Alias Jesse James (more Bob Hope)
- Adult Swim– Boondocks The Color Ruckus, Frankenhole (premiers)
- USA– The Condemned (‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin)
Aug 09 2010
Evening Edition
Evening Edition is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 US urges focus on clean-up, sea damage after BP spill
by Kerry Sheridan, AFP
Sun Aug 8, 12:46 pm ET
| WASHINGTON (AFP) – US officials on Sunday urged further study of the damage done to the environment by BP’s broken well, and said clean-up efforts must continue despite claims that much of the oil had vanished from the Gulf of Mexico.
“I think what we need to understand is there’s a lot of oil that’s been taken care of. There’s a lot of oil that’s still out there,” said Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen on CNN. “You need to keep a steady hand at the tiller here, keep this cleanup going,” he said, describing it as a “catastrophe for the people of the Gulf” and calling for a close study of the damage done to the environment. |
Aug 08 2010
The Week In Review 8/1 – 7
226 Stories served. 32 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.
Aug 08 2010
So bmaz is off the bus.
Obama’s Relentless Abandonment of Progressive Nominees
By: bmaz Saturday August 7, 2010 8:37 pm
Now if you listened to, and read Obama, and paid attention, you knew he was a centrist who worked by increment, compromise and seeking consensus as opposed to a liberal beacon that would take the country in a new and markedly different direction. Again, that said, the liberals and progressives who served as the ground force, heart and soul of Obama’s candidacy and election had every right to believe he would would at least include them at his table and utilize their talents in his Administration and appointments. There was an implicit deal made in this regard, and Obama purchased on it to his wild success. Now he has defaulted.
…
Maybe the pressure will get to the Obama White House and Warren will get the post she deserves and would be perfect for; but don’t count on it because Obama, Geithner, Summers, Rahm and the boys on the Obama bus just do not want her. And they didn’t want Christine Romer either, so they let the misogynistic, consistently wrong about everything he touches, Larry Summers push her out. It is becoming a broken record with this White House.
…
Some of the still starry eyed Obama fan boys who care about Liu and Chen (and both are incredibly excellent and worthy nominees) probably still think Obama will renominate them. But even if he did, why in the world would anybody believe it to be anything other than a ruse to get their support leading up to the fall election? Obama renominated Dawn Johnsen and then hung her out to dry twisting in the wind until finally ending the charade. It was a charade to sucker progressives, and there is no reason to believe he will not do it again. There is a track record with this White House, and it is not a good one; in fact, it is downright pathetic.
…
Maybe progressives ought to be considering someone like Elizabeth Warren for a much higher office than head of CFPB; or they can continue to be treated as “f**cking ret*rds” by the current denizens of the White House.
Aug 08 2010
Prime Time
Well, I’m going to call the end of Shark Week at 9 pm ET when Discovery switches to Croc Attack. It’s still all about animals eating humans, but Crocodiles are not Sharks.
- AMC– More Marion Morrison
- Comedy– Employee of the Month (not even the good Christina Applegate version)
- ESPN– Pro Football Hall of Fame Induction
- E!– Dick
- ABC Family– Mean Girls (more Lindsay)
- FX– Doomsday (28 Days Later meets The Road Warrior)
- History– How the Earth Was Made
- Lifetime– Mad Money (Diane Keaton not Jim Cramer)
- TNT– Deep Impact
- Oxygen– Liar Liar x 2
- Turner Classic– The Sea Hawk, Adventures of Don Juan (all Errol Flynn, all the time)
- USA– Pretty Woman
- Disney– Summer Belongs To You x 2
Yeah, it pretty much sucks. I’m going to give How the Earth Was Made another try so I can find the 30 seconds they talk about the Moon that I keep missing because I get distracted. If you really like that sort of thing there’s Deep Impact.
I have no idea who’s the target audience of Sports Award shows. They’re not Sports and they’re not Awards, why does anyone except your family care?
And when was beating women with coal shovels ever cool? What were they thinking?
Later-
- AMC– Cahill, United States Marshal (still more Marion)
- Turner Classic– Gentleman Jim, Edge of Darkness
- Comedy– Balls of Fury
Boondocks, Ballin’ and The Fried Chicken Flu, GitS: SAC Testation and Android and I (episodes 2 & 3 if you want to get in on the Mobile Armoured Riot Police series).
Aug 08 2010
Bullshit
As for myself, I deeply regret that once, on television in the days before the war, I foolishly – spontaneously – said that going ahead with the invasion might be the right thing to do. I was far more skeptical in print. I never wrote in favor of the war and repeatedly raised the problems that would accompany it, but mere skepticism was an insufficient reaction too. The issue then was as clear as it is now. It demanded a clarity that I failed to summon. The essential principle is immutable: we should never go to war unless we have been attacked or are under direct, immediate threat of attack. Never. And never again.
I’ll believe it when I see it.
Asshole. You’re responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
If I believed in hell I’d hope you’d rot in it for eternity. When are you going to quit moron? You’re too fucking stupid to be a pundit.
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