Author's posts
Aug 04 2010
Prime Time
Keith. Rachel may not be back from her taping with Dave. The Boys.
Shark Week mostly reminds me of Gary Condit and Hair on Fire Presidential Daily Briefings after which I started to get all radicalized and unfit for polite company.
- Turner Classic– The Magnificent Seven.
Back in Junior High School my English teacher was obsessed by this film, thought it was the best movie ever made and we spent about 3 weeks analyzing the script in independent study groups where I had the good fortune to be in the same one as my bespectacled and brilliant object of desire.
Needless to say I don’t remember much about it but as I recall we hardly talked about Kurosawa at all.
- ESPN– World Series of Poker x 2!
- SciFi– Warehouse 13 (last week’s and premier). This week’s premier is a Eureka crossover episode.
- Toon– Unnatural History (last week’s and premier)
- Disney– Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Johnny Depp)
- Turner Classic– Bullitt, perhaps the greatest car chase ever filmed.
Later-
Dave has Michael Cera, Rachel Maddow, and Herbie Hancock. Jon has Will Ferrell, Stephen Laura Ingraham. Alton does punch. Viva Los Muertos!
Aug 04 2010
Evening Edition
Evening Edition is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 BP begins crucial well ‘kill’ in Gulf of Mexico
by Matt Davis, AFP
25 mins ago
| NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) – BP began Tuesday its long-awaited “static kill” to plug the worst oil leak in history, pouring heavy drilling fluids to hold back the gushing crude in its runaway well.
Delayed by a week due to Tropical Storm Bonnie, and again on Monday when a leak was discovered in the cap that had been sealing the well since July 15, the operation finally got under way at 2000 GMT. “The aim of these procedures is to assist with the strategy to kill and isolate the well, and will complement the upcoming relief well operation,” BP said in a short statement. |
Aug 03 2010
Economic Lies
Why We Really Shouldn’t Keep the Bush Tax Cut for the Wealthy
Robert Reich
Monday, August 2, 2010
The economy is slouching backward because consumers can’t and won’t spend enough to revive it. Congress is about to recess for the summer without doing anything to fill the gap. And it looks like the only issue it will be debating when it returns is who, if anyone, should pay more taxes next year – just the very rich, everyone, or no one? The cuts enacted by George W. Bush will expire in January, and with midterm election pending in November we’re about to be treated to months of tax demagoguery.
…
Unfortunately for supply-siders, history has proven them wrong again and again. During almost three decades spanning 1951 to 1980, when America’s top marginal tax rate was between 70 and 92 percent, the nation’s average annual growth was 3.7 percent. But between 1983 and start of the Great Recession, when the top rate was far lower – ranging between 35 and 39 percent – the economy grew an average of just 3 percent per year. Supply-siders are fond of claiming that Ronald Reagan’s 1981 cuts caused the 1980s economic boom. In fact, that boom followed Reagan’s 1982 tax increase. The 1990s boom likewise was not the result of a tax cut; it came in the wake of Bill Clinton’s 1993 tax increase.
Aug 03 2010
Racism- Part 1
“The thing a bigot most desires is the ability to express their bigotry in public and be applauded.”— ek hornbeck
I’ve confessed elsewhere that I’m about the whitest person you can possibly know. I can’t recall a single instance of hostility to me based on my appearance, sex, religion (or lack thereof). I’m a Freemason, past master of my lodge, and I know how to golf and sail and wear a tux and all kinds on gentlemanly skills that befit my class and status and have been schooled, tooled, and polished.
Anyone who can’t recognize the benefit of that in contemporary American society is a moron or a liar or both.
Never had a cop pull a gun on me or been cuffed or tased. Never worried about it.
Did worry about this-
I walked a lot in Syracuse because it was a pain in the ass to keep my car running and one day I was being overtaken by this guy. I picked up the pace a little bit, but since I was smoking Kools at the time there was a limit to that.
Of course it also made our conversation easier when he bummed a smoke off me.
So I’m a racist. And if you can’t look around you and see the million, jillion incidents of prejudice and bigotry in favor of white folks like me, you’re a racist too and you ought to have one of those repentance moments Glenn Beck keeps talking about.
If I were rich, I’d be a Republican.
Aug 03 2010
Prime Time
Keith is back! Also Rachel (probably). The Boys are in town. You’d almost think things were normal and this wasn’t the Shark Week of August.
Not that my life is governed by TV or anything.
- AMC– The Ladykillers (much better than Forrest Gump and Philidelphia in my opinion), Repeat of last night’s Rubicon premier.
- ESPN– Mets @ Braves
- FX– Ghost Rider (for Nicholas Cage fans)
- History– Pawn Stars and American Pickers
- Oxygen– Barbershop
- TBS– Family Guy night
- TLC– Cake Boss
- TNT– The Closer (last week and new)
- Toon– Premier night, Adventure Time With Finn & Jake, Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, Total Drama World Tour, Stoked
- Turner Classic– Billy Liar, Darling (Julie Christie night)
- TV Land– Big
Later-
Dave has Will Ferrell, Damian Marley, and Nas. Jon has Mary Roach, Stephen Jimmy Cliff. Alton is doing edible oils again. I Know Why the Caged Bird Kills (introduction of Dr. Henry Killinger).
Aug 02 2010
Evening Edition
Evening Edition is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Crucial tests on eve of BP’s well bid
by Matt Davis, AFP
2 hrs 6 mins ago
| NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) – BP conducted vital tests Monday as it prepared to plug the Gulf of Mexico oil well, while coastal residents awaited the green light anxiously after more than three months of uncertainty and frustration.
Before the static kill bid can go ahead, engineers first had to inject oil through the cap on top of the well to make sure there would be no problem they pump in heavy drilling mud on Tuesday. “Today we will do the injectivity tests, we’ll look at that information, make any adjustments to how and if we move forward with the static kill tomorrow,” said BP senior vice president Kent Wells. |
Aug 02 2010
Monday Business Edition
Defining Prosperity Down
By PAUL KRUGMAN, The New York Times
Published: August 1, 2010
I worry that those in power, rather than taking responsibility for job creation, will soon declare that high unemployment is “structural,” a permanent part of the economic landscape – and that by condemning large numbers of Americans to long-term joblessness, they’ll turn that excuse into dismal reality.
…
We’re told that we can’t afford to help the unemployed – that we must get budget deficits down immediately or the “bond vigilantes” will send U.S. borrowing costs sky-high. Some of us have tried to point out that those bond vigilantes are, as far as anyone can tell, figments of the deficit hawks’ imagination – far from fleeing U.S. debt, investors have been buying it eagerly, driving interest rates to historic lows. But the fearmongers are unmoved: fighting deficits, they insist, must take priority over everything else – everything else, that is, except tax cuts for the rich, which must be extended, no matter how much red ink they create.
The point is that a large part of Congress – large enough to block any action on jobs – cares a lot about taxes on the richest 1 percent of the population, but very little about the plight of Americans who can’t find work.
Monday Business Edition is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Business |
1 Greek truckers end week-long strike
by John Hadoulis, AFP
Sun Aug 1, 3:48 pm ET
| ATHENS (AFP) – Greek truckers on Sunday called off a week-long strike that stranded thousands of travellers and nearly dried up fuel around the country at the peak of the busy tourism season.
“We have decided, by narrow majority, to suspend the strike,” the head of the Greek truck owners confederation, George Tzortzatos, told reporters after a union meeting that lasted over three hours. “Transporters will be back at the steering wheel as of tomorrow,” he said. |
Aug 02 2010
Prime Time
Happy Shark Week!
Sigh. I’ll not be hyping the aqueous skin toothed cartilaginous charms of this media event. Not while I have Summer X Games!
Oops.
- AMC– 2 Rubicon premiers followed by a Mad Men premier.
- ESPN– Dodgers @ Giants
- ABC Family– Love & Basketball
- Food– All Premiers
- FX– I, Robot
- TBS– Failure to Launch x 2
- Turner Classic– Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Confession
- History– Ice Road Truckers (last week and premier), Top Shot (premier)
- Oxygen– America’s Next Top Model
Later-
- Comedy– Futurama
- Adult Swim– Boondocks The Fried Chicken Flu (premier), Frankenhole (premier)
- Disney– Phineas & Ferb
A good night to sleep.
Aug 01 2010
Evening Edition
Evening Edition is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Engineers prepare to seal ruptured BP oil well
by Matt Davis, AFP
Sat Jul 31, 5:21 pm ET
| NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) – Engineers Saturday readied a plan to permanently seal a damaged Gulf of Mexico well, despite delays to the process caused by debris left behind by a recent tropical storm.
As the work continued, incoming BP boss Bob Dudley vowed that the oil giant would not abandon residents affected by the spill after the well is finally sealed. BP hopes to drown the well in an operation dubbed a “static kill,” in which mud and cement will be injected down into the ruptured wellhead via a cap installed on July 15. |
Aug 01 2010
The Week in Review 7/25 – 31
230 Stories served. 33 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.
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