May 07 2011

Popular Culture (Music) 20110506: Todd Rundgren

For those of you who read my pieces (here, and my other two regular series, Pique the Geek and My Little Town), you know that I appreciate multitalented individuals.  This artist certainly fulfills that criterion.  Not only a talented musician himself, he is also a studio wizard, outstanding technician, and excellent music producer.

I am not his biggest fan, but I do appreciate his talent and like very much several of his original works.  Please do not take this statement as holding him in some sort of dislike:  I like him very much but there are others that I like better.  This is not to detract from his contributions, but rather to describe my musical tastes.

He has been around for a long, long time with no apparent sign of quitting.  Please come with us to examine the career and some of the better (in my opinion) work of this creative genius.

Todd Harry Rundgren was born in Philadelphia, PA on 19480622, and is still with us.  That makes him almost 63 years old, thus eligible for Social Security!  Tempus fuget.  Although I could not find any statistics, my recollections from photographs that appeared in Creem Magazine and other sources from the mid 1970s indicate that he is a very slight person physically, both in stature and in weight.  The latter seems to have increased somewhat in recent years, but that is not uncommon.

He pretty much started performing when I was ten years old, in 1967.  That would make him 19 or so, and did not really have much other than local success for quite a while.  Interestingly, whilst associated with the band that he and several others formed then, Nazz, his most remembered song was written and performed, but no one knew it except for mainly locals.  That song is the justifiably well received Hello, It’s Me from 1969.  He recorded it years later (1972) as a solo, and many people still remember it, even if they do not relate it to the name.

He was a real fan of the Beach Boys, and also of The Who.  That is enough for me, since I like the Beach Boys a lot and most of you know what I think about The Who (just the best rock and roll band, EVER!).  He had an extremely eclectic set of influences, and it shows.

He was also heavily influenced by the extremely underappreciated American artist Laura Nyro (19481018 – 19970408) who is hardly remembered at all.  I should do a piece about her, because she was marvelous.  I guess that she is best remembered for writing the song And When I Die that was a major hit for the mediocre band Blood, Sweat, and Tears.  They did not even get the Churchill quote right, and were only Top 40 stuff.

Anyway, Rundgren evolved and expanded musically.  He was under contract, and thus could not accept her invitation to work exclusively with her, but was still heavily influenced by her.  I have not been able to find any documentary evidence that they were involved romantically, but I would not say that it was implausible.  Certainly they had some sort of an emotional and mental link.

In any event, skipping over his very early works with others, he released his first solo record, Runt, in June of 1970.  The title reinforces the recollection that I have of him as being slight.  There is some controversy about whether it was really a solo record or one issued by a group with the same name.  Here is the lineup:

Todd Rundgren:  All writing, all major vocals, and all instruments except bass and drums

Tony Sales:  Bass guitar

Hunt Sales:  Drums

Note that this vinyl ran over 40 minutes, close to the limit of the technology at the time. He was always looking for a way to overcome that limit.

This album had his first big hit, We Got to Get You a Woman, and my old flamethrower FM station, the mighty KMAG in Fort Smith, Arkansas played it often as I was just turning into a teenager.  I was attracted to the song, but I did not know anything about the musical arts at the time.  Here it is, from 1970:

That was the studio version.  I could not easily find a live one, but I am sure that they exist.  Readers, please seek and post live ones in the comments.  By the way, this song is recognized as being heavily influenced by Nyro.

Even more telling is the wonderful Baby, Let’s Swing that is even more like her style.  I really like that song!  And he even mentions her name, with some extremely heartfelt words.  I think that they were lovers, at least on some level.  What do you think?  Here it is:

We shall skip a year or two (remember, I am more faithful to The Who for detail) and go to his really big album, Something, Anything?.  This was a remarkable record, from both a musical and a technological perspective.

From a technical perspective, the vinyl ran over 86 minutes!  That is twice as long as most vinyl records ever had done before.  Remember, 45 minutes or so was about the limit at the time (1972).  This genius found a way to use the RIAA curve that already compressed bass and use the idea to compress further midrange and highrange sounds onto a conventional, otherwise, vinyl record.

Without getting too technical, he used a stylus recording technique that placed the grooves of the record about twice as close as the standard at the time.  He recognized that the trade would be volume, and expressed as much on the liner notes, saying that it would not be as loud, nor have as much dynamic range as standard vinyl records.  At the time, excellent quality, low noise magnetic pickups were standard, as were cassette tape decks.  His recommendation, in the liner notes, was that if you wanted to play it loud, was to record it onto a high bias cassette, and play the cassette.  He did not mention that the compressed groove technology meant that the high frequencies on such records were compromised much faster than on “normal” ones.

I was fortunate to have a direct drive BIC turntable with an excellent, magnetic cartridge, a Kenwood KA-8100 direct coupled stereo amplifier, and a pair of Klipsch Heresy loudspeakers.  I did not need to rerecord the record to make it loud!  By the way, I still have the Kenwood (I affectionately call it Old Sparky) and the Klipsh loudspeakers.  The BIC pushed daises, but I still have an even better one if I want to play vinyl.

For me, the real benefit derived from the combination of the 200 watt per channel integrated amplifier and the horn loaded loudspeakers.  Old Sparky is still with us, and the Klipshes will be heirlooms for my great grandchildren.  I really need to do a piece on Paul Klipsch here, and soon.  The Klipsch design was so efficient that I many times put those loudspeakers in the rear seat of my 1967 Camaro (which I still have) and used my 8-track player to drive them.  You could turn it up so loud that you could not stay in the car.

But this is supposed to be about Todd, so here is more.

Here is the studio version of I Saw the Light.  I like that song.

Here is another version, with a bit more rotund Todd:

That one is not very good.  The acoustics are way off for my taste.  Have you a better live one?

Also from that record was The Night that the Carousal Burned Down.  You who read me on a regular basis probably know that I would have used the spelling “burnt”.  I think that it is a metaphor for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it is an excellent song.  Please enjoy it with me.

On a darker note, Black Maria seems to be quite threatening.   I have never been able to figure out his point, so if a reader has more insight please let us know.  Here it is.

What do you think?

There is a more snappy one about STDs.  It is sort of a Happy Jack like, silly song, called You Left me Sore.  Please enjoy it with me.

The song of his that caused me to write this piece is now being used on an advert for some firm that I do not remember.  It is called Bang the Drum all Day, and here is a live version.  You know that I like live versions.  He is really quite good, and yes, that is him banging the drum.  If anyone knows what product that is being hawked currently using this song, please respond in with a comment.  The song was originally released in 1983.

He is so prolific that I can not possibly do justice to him with a mere single piece, but I have lots left to cover to try to give a complete treatment of The Who (I have only treated through The Who Sell Out), so this will have to suffice.  However, there are still some highlights left to go here.

He finally pulled another band together, called Utopia, in 1973.  It underwent a number of personnel changes before finally ending in 1992  They were really actually quite good, but for my taste quite a bit overproduced.  I know that many die hard Rundgren fans will disagree vehemently with me, but that is OK.  I just found it to lack some of the charm that his earlier work had.  It is a matter of personal taste, and I am not indicating that Utopia were a poor band:  just one less to my liking.

Here is Utopia Theme, a very long piece, from Todd Rundgren’s Utopia, released in 1974.  Again, please do not get me wrong, it is excellent, but to my taste too ponderous for what he was trying to do.  I guess what I mean is that is seems not to be at all spontaneous.  Please do not condemn me for my opinion.  It sort of sound to me like King Crimson, but I like Crimson better.

Now I shall reveal a little about Todd the chameleon.  This is also why he was such a good music producer, because he knows how to get certain sounds from people who were never associated with the originals.  These are not really covers, since that term implies performing a piece with one’s own style.  These are more like copies, and after a couple of them you will see what I mean.  For comparison, I have included the original artists’ version, but in no particular order.  I tried to set up a poll so that you could vote for which was the original and which was the copy, but the cover of the record was visible, so it would be too easy.  Anyway, here is some of his work.  This is why the album from which they were taken was called Faithful, released in 1976.

Here is the first one, Good Vibrations.

Strawberry Fields

How about a harder one?

I would not have included this one except for the big Ox to his right, playing bass.  Yes, indeed, that is John Entwistle!  The sound and video quality is low, but it WAS John!

I shall add one last song, Rain.  He does it well.

For you real Todd Rundgren fans, I realize that this is an extremely slight treatment.  I would wager you, though, that there are now many more fans of his, and if so, I am glad.  He is really a very, very good artist who ended up in relative obscurity.  I hope that the real fans fill in, in the comments, what I left out, and that those of you who just now are coming to know his genius say so in the comments as well.  The comments are always the best part of anything that I write, and I would be interested to get a feel for how many people have not heard of him (I suspect that you at least have heard some of his songs).

Warmest regards,

Doc

May 07 2011

Where are the Jobs?

(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

GRAPH: An Average CEO At America’s Big Corporations Earns 200 Times The Salary Of A Navy SEAL

   In the wake of their successful assault on Osama Bin Laden’s hideout, ABC News did a short feature on the Navy Seals. The report tells us that the people who hold this highly demanding and dangerous get paid about $54,000 a year. It then adds that:

   “The base salary level [of Navy Seals] is comparable to the average annual salary for teachers in the U.S., which was $55,350 for the 2009-2010 school year, according to the Digest of Education Statistics.’ That is one possible comparison. There are other possible reference points. For example, the CEOs of Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan both pocket around $20 million a year.

GRAPH: Income Inequality In U.S. Worse Than Ivory Coast, Pakistan, Ethiopia

Photobucket

Exxon Makes $30.5 Billion, So GOP Votes Unanimously To Give Them Tax Breaks

The War on the Middle Class

Former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich shares is thoughts on the rise in pay for CEO’s and the rise in unemployment number

May 07 2011

Evening Edition

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Kadhafi regime hits out over rebel war chest

by W.G. Dunlop, AFP

1 hr 2 mins ago

TRIPOLI (AFP) – Moamer Kadhafi’s regime reacted angrily Friday to a decision by world powers to provide funding to Libya’s rebels, asserting that plans to tap assets frozen abroad were “piracy.”

Meanwhile, rebels were bracing for a ground assault by Kadhafi forces on the besieged western port city of Misrata as NATO warplanes struck regime targets further to the west.

The fund, agreed at a meeting of the International Contact Group on Libya on Thursday, is intended to provide an emergency lifeline to the rebels, whose provisional administration has no source of financing to replace receipts from oil exports, which have come to a virtual halt.

AFP

2 36 die in Syria ‘Day of Defiance’: rights group, army

AFP

37 mins ago

DAMASCUS (AFP) – Syrian security forces shot dead at least 26 protesters on Friday as thousands rallied on a Day of Defiance” against the Syrian regime, a rights group said, and authorities accused “terrorists” of killing 10 soldiers and policemen.

The violence came as the European Union agreed to impose sanctions on 13 Syrian officials involved in the regime’s brutal crackdown on protests and will meet Monday to discuss whether to target Syrian President Bashar Assad as well, diplomats said.

The Syrian rights group, Insan, put the day’s toll at 26 killed but said it expected this to rise.

3 London bombings inquest clears UK agencies

by Robin Millard, AFP

Fri May 6, 11:31 am ET

LONDON (AFP) – There is no evidence that the security services could have prevented the 2005 London bombings, a coroner found on Friday while warning that changes were necessary to help prevent further such atrocities.

The exhaustive inquests examining the deaths of the 52 victims of the Al-Qaeda-inspired July 7, 2005 suicide attacks on three underground trains and a bus found they were all unlawfully killed.

The coroner, judge Heather Hallett, said the evidence “does not justify the conclusion that any failings of any organisation or individual caused or contributed to the deaths”.

4 BP cedes Arctic project to Russia partner

AFP

2 hrs 38 mins ago

LONDON (AFP) – British energy giant BP said Friday it will cede the Arctic exploration part of its tie-up with Rosneft to its Russian unit under an arbitration ruling that may see it salvage the $16 billion deal.

The announcement is a part of BP’s strategy to preserve the share swap portion of its agreement with Rosneft and thus retain its foothold in the market of the world’s largest oil producer.

But both parts of the revised agreement are subject to Rosneft’s approval and the state-held company has previously ruled out working with TNK-BP — the British firm’s much smaller and less experienced local subsidiary.

5 Button takes over F1 in rain as Vettel crashes out

by Gordon Howard, AFP

Fri May 6, 12:33 pm ET

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AFP) – Defending world champion Sebastian Vettel was unhurt and unfazed about his prospects on Friday after a major crash during practice ahead of Sunday’s Turkish Grand Prix.

On a day of heavy rain followed by dry conditions, Briton Jenson Button, the 2009 champion, topped the afternoon times for McLaren after Spanish two-time champion Fernando Alonso had dominated the rain-hit morning for Ferrari.

Button clocked a best lap of one minute and 26.456 seconds at the Istanbul Park race circuit to outpace German Nico Rosberg of Mercedes and the 2008 champion Lewis Hamilton in the second McLaren.

Reuters

6 New EU sanctions on Syria as 27 protesters killed

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Reuters

29 mins ago

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian security forces killed 27 protesters on Friday demanding an end to President Bashar al-Assad’s rule, rights campaigners said, and the European Union agreed to impose sanctions in response to his crackdown.

Activists and witnesses said demonstrations broke out after the main Friday prayers in cities across the country of 20 million people, from Banias on the Mediterranean coast to Qamishly in the Kurdish east.

The bloodiest confrontation took place in the city of Homs where 15 protesters were killed, activist Ammar Qurabi said.

7 Oil gutted in record weekly drop

By Matthew Robinson, Reuters

4 mins ago

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil fell on Friday to cap a frenzied trading week that sliced prices by a record of more than $16 a barrel on demand worries and a move by investors to slash commodities exposures.

Oil bounced up early, then began to erase gains as the dollar rose. Crude turned negative late, extending Thursday’s shock-inducing collapse, when Brent fell by as much as $12, a record, in a furious, high-volume session that saw wave after wave of selling as key technical levels were broken.

Selling pressure on oil and other commodities came on several fronts throughout the week. Investors weighed factors from the death of Osama bin Laden to the impact of higher fuel and commodity costs on consumer nation economies to the monetary policy in major economies.

8 Goldman sees new oil rally after predicting drop

By Dmitry Zhdannikov and David Sheppard, Reuters

Fri May 6, 1:27 pm ET

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Goldman Sachs, which in April predicted this week’s major correction in oil prices, said on Friday that oil could surpass its recent highs by 2012 as global oil supplies continue to tighten.

The Wall Street bank, seen as one of the most influential in commodity markets, said it did not rule out a further short-term fall after Thursday’s near record drop, especially if economic data continued to disappoint.

But the bank reaffirmed its traditional long-term bullish view of oil, helping crude to pare some of its earlier heavy losses on Friday.

9 Special report: Big Pharma’s global guinea pigs

By Ben Hirschler, Reuters

Fri May 6, 11:14 am ET

LONDON (Reuters) – The Polish port city of Gdansk is famous for its shipyards. Hungary’s fifth largest city, Pecs, is known for its ancient architecture and brewery. Neither is particularly renowned for medicine. Yet when AstraZeneca Plc tested its big new drug hope Brilinta on heart attack patients in a major clinical study, it was hospitals in these places that enrolled some of the highest number of patients anywhere in the world.

In fact, Poland and Hungary together accounted for 21 percent of all subjects studied in the pivotal 18,000-patient trial — more than double the United States and Canada combined.

A few years ago that would have been unthinkable. Major drug companies, with an eye on the commercial promise of the world’s largest and most profitable market, would have run half their tests on a major cardiovascular medicine like this in U.S. hospitals under the supervision of U.S. doctors.

10 Sony CEO apologizes to gamers

By Isabel Reynolds, Reuters

Fri May 6, 9:22 am ET

TOKYO (Reuters) – Sony Chief Executive Officer Howard Stringer apologized to users of its PlayStation Network and other online services, breaking his silence on the biggest Internet security break-in ever.

Stringer’s comments, which did not specify when services would resume, come after criticism of his leadership since Sony revealed hackers had compromised the data of more than 100 million accounts used for accessing games and music over the Internet.

“As a company we – and I – apologize for the inconvenience and concern caused by this attack,” Stringer said on Sony’s U.S. PlayStation blog late on Thursday.

11 U.S. and China race political calendar to curb irritants

By Glenn Somerville and Chris Buckley, Reuters

Fri May 6, 6:12 am ET

WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) – Top officials from the world’s two largest economies meet next week to try to tackle irritants in their relations, a task that will only grow tougher as domestic politics seize the stage next year.

The United States and China have a lengthy list of long-standing irritants on both the economic and diplomatic fronts, requiring careful management to ensure none boil into a dispute that damages a still-fragile global recovery.

By 2012, jockeying for position ahead of U.S. presidential elections and orchestrating the succession of Chinese President Hu Jintao will preoccupy policymakers in each country, so the window for advancing a complicated agenda is relatively small.

12 Little-known Republicans get spotlight at debate

By John Whitesides, Reuters

Fri May 6, 12:01 am ET

GREENVILLE, South Carolina (Reuters) – A handful of little-known Republican presidential candidates touted their conservative credentials and vied for a brief shot at the political spotlight Thursday during the first debate of the 2012 White House campaign.

With the Republican Party’s most high-profile contenders skipping the event, the five participants used the nationally televised forum to slam President Barack Obama’s leadership and attack what they called his misguided policies on the economy, healthcare and foreign affairs.

“The issues that have come up while he’s been president, he’s gotten them wrong strategically every single time,” former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, the lone top-tier candidate at the debate, said of Obama’s foreign policy.

AP

13 Witnesses: Syrian forces kill 30 protesters

By ZEINA KARAM and ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY, Associated Press

24 mins ago

BEIRUT – Syrian security forces opened fire Friday on thousands of protesters demanding regime change, killing more than 30 people in a sign that President Bashar Assad is prepared to ride out a wave of rapidly escalating international outrage.

The U.N. said it is sending a team into Syria to investigate and the European Union is expected to place sanctions on Syrian officials next week – both significant blows to Assad, a British-educated, self-styled reformer who has tried to bring Syria back into the global mainstream over his 11 years in power.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the U.S. was pressing the Syrian government to cease “violence against innocent citizens who are simply demonstrating and trying to state their aspirations for a more democratic future.”

14 Amnesty: Ghadafi’s troops suspected of war crimes

By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press

Fri May 6, 12:28 pm ET

TRIPOLI, Libya – Moammar Gadhafi’s forces may have committed war crimes in the rebel-held city of Misrata and the humanitarian situation is rapidly deteriorating there because of regime attempts to tighten its siege and block access by sea, Amnesty International said Friday.

Libyan troops have indiscriminately fired heavy artillery, rockets and cluster bombs at residential areas of Libya’s third-largest city during a two-month siege, in a clear breach of international humanitarian law, the group said in a report.

“Weapons designed for the battle field and not for residential areas are being launched into residential neighborhoods, killing civilians and really just creating a situation of terror,” said Amnesty’s Donatella Rovera.

15 Key role in bin Laden raid for secret choppers

By ROBERT BURNS, AP National Security

32 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Secret until now, stealth helicopters may have been key to the success of the Osama bin Laden raid. But the so-far-unexplained crash of one of the modified Black Hawks at the scene apparently compromised at least some of the aircraft’s secrets.

The two choppers evidently used radar-evading technologies, plus noise and heat suppression devices, to slip across the Afghan-Pakistan border, avoid detection by Pakistani air defenses and deliver two dozen Navy SEALs into the al-Qaida leader’s lair. Photos of the lost chopper’s wrecked tail are circulating online – proving it exists and also exposing sensitive details.

President Barack Obama traveled Friday to Fort Campbell, Ky., and met privately with the elite Army pilots who flew the daring mission. They are members of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, nicknamed the Night Stalkers, and he saluted them in public remarks afterward.

16 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110506/ap_on_bi_ge/us_severe_weather_flooding

By ADRIAN SAINZ and CAIN BURDEAU, Associated Press

35 mins ago

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – The Coast Guard closed a stretch of the swollen Mississippi to barge traffic Friday in a move that could cause a backup along the mighty river, while police farther south in Memphis went door to door, warning thousands of people to leave before they get swamped.

Emergency workers in Memphis handed out bright yellow fliers in English and Spanish that read, “Evacuate!!! Your property is in danger right now.”

All the way south into the Mississippi Delta, people faced the question of whether to stay or go as high water rolled down the Big Muddy and backed up along its tributaries, breaking flood records that have stood since the Depression.

17 No go for Uncle Mo in Kentucky Derby

By BETH HARRIS, AP Racing Writer

7 mins ago

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The pockmarked road to the Kentucky Derby claimed another victim Friday when Uncle Mo was scratched due to a mysterious stomach ailment, further dimming a race already short on star power and speed.

Uncle Mo’s defection also threw the Derby wide open.

“You’re never safe until you put that saddle on because anything can happen,” Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert said.

18 AP IMPACT: CEO pay exceeds pre-recession level

By RACHEL BECK, AP Business Writer

2 hrs 24 mins ago

NEW YORK – In the boardroom, it’s as if the Great Recession never happened. CEOs at the nation’s largest companies were paid better last year than they were in 2007, when the economy was booming, the stock market set a record high and unemployment was roughly half what it is today.

The typical pay package for the head of a company in the Standard & Poor’s 500 was $9 million in 2010, according to an analysis by The Associated Press using data provided by Equilar, an executive compensation research firm. That was 24 percent higher than a year earlier, reversing two years of declines.

Executives were showered with more pay of all types – salaries, bonuses, stock, options and perks. The biggest gains came in cash bonuses: Two-thirds of executives got a bigger one than they had in 2009, some more than three times as big.

19 Ouattara takes oath months after Ivory Coast vote

By SERME LASSINA and RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, Associated Press

2 hrs 45 mins ago

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast – Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara took the oath of office Friday, five months after the election that nearly ripped the African nation in two and left hundreds dead when the country’s strongman refused to concede defeat.

Ouattara spent much of that time barricaded inside a hotel, surrounded by troops loyal to Laurent Gbagbo, who used the army to terrorize the population. Gbagbo was removed militarily last month and is now under house arrest in a remote town 420 miles (700 kilometers) north of Abidjan.

The price of installing the country’s democratically elected leader was steep. More than a 1,000 civilians were killed, first by the army controlled by Gbagbo and later by a former rebel group allied with Ouattara that seized control of the country and toppled Gbagbo.

20 Gas price to drop as oil joins commodities plunge

By JONATHAN FAHEY and CHRIS KAHN, AP Energy Writers Jonathan Fahey And Chris Kahn, Ap Energy Writers – 1 hr 54 mins ago

NEW YORK – Just shy of $4 a gallon, average U.S. pump prices are about to start falling and could hit $3.50 by summer.

You probably won’t see a change at the gas station this weekend. But relief will come soon because oil prices fell 15 percent this week, the steepest decline in two and a half years. Oil hit a two-year high of $114.83 in Monday trading. It closed Friday at $97.18.

The plunge was part of a sharp sell-off across in commodities this week. Analysts say investors – demonized as “speculators” by some market watchers – got nervous that oil, metals and grains had risen over the past few months to unrealistic heights.

21 Mass. court makes key ruling on immigrant benefits

By STEVE LeBLANC, Associated Press

31 mins ago

BOSTON – Immigrant advocates are praising a decision by Massachusetts’ highest court that they said could help restore full subsidized health care to tens of thousands of legal immigrants living in the state.

A 2009 decision by the legislature to deny coverage to legal immigrants was the first major rollback to Massachusetts’ landmark 2006 health care law, which was used in part as a blueprint for the national health care law signed by President Barack Obama.

A ruling Friday by the Supreme Judicial Court does not actually decide the case, but it answers key legal questions that will allow it to proceed.

22 NYC mayor’s budget would cut 1 out of 12 teachers

By SAMANTHA GROSS, Associated Press

51 mins ago

NEW YORK – Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Friday unveiled a shrinking budget that would cut corners throughout New York City – from classrooms, where public school children stand to lose one out of 12 teachers, to jails, where officials are saving pennies by cutting items like bread, pepper and ketchup from the menu.

The $65.72 billion budget, which is likely to change before it wins approval from the City Council, also calls for a 12 percent cut to the city’s libraries, the closure of some city swimming pools and the loss of 20 fire companies – a step that the city’s fire commissioner said would slow firefighters’ response times.

Bloomberg placed the blame for the city’s financial woes on cutbacks handed down by state and federal legislators, and on what he said was a national movement against funding government efforts. Business tax revenues have surpassed the level they were at before the collapse of the financial sector, he said.

23 Retiring winemakers find it tough time to sell

By SHANNON DININNY, Associated Press

Fri May 6, 7:35 am ET

GRANGER, Wash. – When JoAnn Stear opened Eaton Hill Winery in the 1980s, she was among the pioneers of Washington’s modern wine industry.

But when the 82-year-old decided to retire, she found how difficult it is to sell and get out of an industry she helped to establish in the Northwest.

With no takers at her original price of $2.7 million, Stear recently accepted an offer of $1.2 million for the south-central Washington winery.

24 Rising big river poses threat to La. oyster trade

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press

Fri May 6, 4:41 am ET

NEW ORLEANS – Just a year after the BP oil spill crippled Louisiana’s oyster industry, the fishermen face a new problem. Freshwater is set to be diverted from the mighty Mississippi River into the salty waters where the shellfish grow, potentially killing them.

To protect people, homes and businesses along the big river, the Army Corps of Engineers plans to open at least one spillway, sending water out of the river. The tactic may ease the pressure on levees, but it will almost certainly kill the shellfish, too.

Fourth-generation oysterman Shane Bagala spent months skimming oil to make money. Earlier this week, though, he embarked on his first oyster run, returning with a healthy catch. But he became worried when he heard the corps was considering opening a spillway.

25 Reputed supremacist gets 10 years for Conn. plot

By DAVE COLLINS, Associated Press

Thu May 5, 8:06 pm ET

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. – A man accused of being a white supremacist was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in prison for what prosecutors called a dangerous plot to sell grenades and firearms to a government informant posing as a member of a Ku Klux Klan group.

U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall imposed the prison time on Alexander DeFelice of Milford, who was convicted by a jury in December of conspiracy and firearms charges. The same jury acquitted two alleged co-conspirators, while two other men pleaded guilty.

Prosecutors said DeFelice in 2009 and early 2010 arranged the sale of three homemade grenades, a rifle and two shotguns to the informant, a convicted felon who claimed to be a member of the Imperial Klans of America. The informant testified that he handed the firearms and explosives over to federal agents.

May 06 2011

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”

Paul Krugman: Fears and Failure

From G.D.P. to private-sector payrolls, from business surveys to new claims for unemployment insurance, key economic indicators suggest that the recovery may be sputtering.

And it wasn’t much of a recovery to start with. Employment has risen from its low point, but it has grown no faster than the adult population. And the plight of the unemployed continues to worsen: more than six million Americans have been out of work for six months or longer, and more than four million have been jobless for more than a year.

It would be nice if someone in Washington actually cared.

Dean Baker: Why Does Senator McCaskill Want to Bankrupt Our Children?

That is what people should be asking Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill along with her fellow senators who are advocated strict caps on government spending. The idea being pushed by Senator McCaskill, together with Tennessee Senator Bob Corker and several other prominent senators, would limit federal spending to 20.6 percent of GDP. It would require difficult-to-obtain super-majorities to exceed this cap. Spending would be cut across a variety of programs if the cap is not reached.

This proposal is hugely deserving of ridicule for a variety of reasons. First, it operates from a blatantly wrong premise — that government spending has grown out of control.

New York Times Editorial: Could It Have Been the Polls?

All but seven House Republicans voted for a budget plan last month that would eliminate Medicare’s guarantee to the elderly. It was always bad policy. But now that the vote has proved to be wildly unpopular, the party is suddenly running in the opposite direction.

On Thursday, Dave Camp, a Republican of Michigan and the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said he was no longer interested in pushing a plan that could not win support among the Democrats who control the Senate. Speaker John Boehner said Mr. Camp was just being realistic. Representative Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, suggested the proposal would probably not be a part of the debt-limit talks that began Thursday because President Obama “excoriated us” for the Medicare plan.

These Republican leaders are trying to make it sound as if they were shocked by the Democratic opposition. In fact, their real surprise was how much bitter resistance the Medicare idea encountered among voters – the ones they claim share their fervent desire to dismantle much of the federal government.

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Find True Centrism in the People’s Budget

The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) People’s Budget ~ the strongest rebuke to the Robin Hood in reverse “Ryan Budget” that was passed by the best Republican House Citizens United can buy ~ is receiving some well deserved national attention as the budget debate now moves to the Senate.

The Nation immediately recognized the sense and sanity of the progressive plan to create a budget surplus in ten years–through tax fairness, bringing troops home, and investing in job creation, and others are now praising its strengths too.

“The Courageous Progressive Caucus Budget,” writes The Economist.  “Mr. Ryan has been fulsomely praised for his courage. The Progressive Caucus has not. I’m not really sure what ‘courage’ is supposed to mean here, but this seems precisely backwards.”

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman describes the People’s Budget as “the only major budget proposal out there offering a plausible path to balancing the budget… unlike the Ryan plan, which was just right-wing orthodoxy with an added dose of magical thinking-[it] is genuinely courageous because it calls for shared sacrifice.”

George Zornick: The GOP Jobs Plan That Wasn’t

It’s been over three months since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives and strengthened their caucus in the Senate. The central premise of the GOP midterm campaign was that it could create badly needed jobs-the Republican National Committee drove a bus through the lower 48 states emblazoned with the slogan: “Need a Job? Fire Pelosi!”

Now, after focusing its initial legislative efforts on repealing “ObamaCare,” pushing Tea Party-backed dreams like a balanced budget amendment, and fighting to strip regulatory agencies of their authority, the GOP has finally released a job plan…that consists of a balanced budget amendment, the repeal of Obamacare, and several assaults on regulatory authority.

Eugene Robinson: Torture Is Still Torture

It wasn’t torture that revealed Osama bin Laden’s hiding place. Finding and killing the world’s most-wanted terrorist took years of patient intelligence gathering and dogged detective work, plus a little luck.

Once again, it appears, we’re supposed to be having a “debate” about torture-excuse me, I mean the “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including waterboarding, that were authorized and practiced during the Bush administration. In fact, there’s nothing debatable about torture. It’s wrong, it’s illegal, and there’s no way to prove that the evidence it yields could not have been obtained through conventional methods.

Leslie Savan: Torturism, the New Birtherism

Like the death of bin Laden, the death of birtherism was a long time coming, but when it finally came, it was swift and dramatic: President Obama rappelled down to the birther level to release his long-form birth certificate; at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner three days later, Obama and wingman Seth Myers broke down Donald Trump’s extraordinarily well-guarded ego, with jokes; and within hours, simply by announcing that bin Laden was dead, Obama sent Trump’s verkakte ideas to go sleep with the fishes.

If the narcissistic real estate mogul had become a 3-D avatar for the Obama-hating Republican base, you have to wonder where all their resentment and anger, augmented now by humiliation, go now?

May 06 2011

Another Warning for Third Way Democrats

Not that anyone noticed much, but last night Britain held local elections.  Guess who took a “Shellacking”?

Ed Miliband: Voters have withdrawn permission for Clegg to back Tory policies

Labour leader says people do not want ‘relaunch of coalition’ as desperate night for Lib Dems leaves them with only 15% of vote in local elections

Polly Curtis, Whitehall correspondent, guardian.co.uk

Friday 6 May 2011 13.21 BST

The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, indicated that the coalition had lost its mandate to govern after the Liberal Democrats suffered a disastrous night in the local elections, seeing their vote collapse across the north of England, Scotland and Wales.

…

Miliband told reporters in Gravesham, a key council in the south won by Labour: “The Conservative party does not have a majority in parliament and has only been able to govern because of the Liberal Democrats’ willing participation in a Tory-led government.

“People who once voted Liberal Democrat have withdrawn permission for Nick Clegg to back Tory policies on the NHS, on living standards and cuts that go too far, too fast.

“People do not want a relaunch of the coalition but real change. David Cameron and Nick Clegg must listen to the people.”

But will they listen?

Coalition ministers insisted the Lib Dem-Conservative government would refocus on its work – next week Clegg and David Cameron will launch a coalition document marking its achievements in the year since it was formed.

…

Coalition ministers vowed to plough on with their plans after a desperate night for the Lib Dems left them with just 15% of the local election vote – their lowest for nearly three decades – and came ahead of the AV referendum result, which they have acknowledged is almost certain to go against them.

The American people have voted for change in the last 3 elections- 2006, 2008, and 2010.

And we’ll keep on voting until we get some.

May 06 2011

On This Day In History May 6

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

Click on images to enlarge

May 6 is the 126th day of the year (127th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 239 days remaining until the end of the year.



On this day in 1994, English Channel tunnel opens.

In a ceremony presided over by England’s Queen Elizabeth II and French President François Mitterand, a rail tunnel under the English Channel was officially opened, connecting Britain and the European mainland for the first time since the Ice Age.

The channel tunnel, or “Chunnel,” connects Folkstone, England, with Sangatte, France, 31 miles away.  The Chunnel cut travel time between England and France to a swift 35 minutes and eventually between London and Paris to two-and-a-half hours.

As the world’s longest undersea tunnel, the Chunnel runs under water for 23 miles, with an average depth of 150 feet below the seabed. Each day, about 30,000 people, 6,000 cars and 3,500 trucks journey through the Chunnel on passenger, shuttle and freight trains.

Millions of tons of earth were moved to build the two rail tunnels–one for northbound and one for southbound traffic–and one service tunnel.   Fifteen thousand people were employed at the peak of construction.  Ten people were killed during construction.

Proposals and attempts

In 1802, French mining engineer Albert Mathieu put forward a proposal to tunnel under the English Channel, with illumination from oil lamps, horse-drawn coaches, and an artificial island mid-Channel for changing horses.

In the 1830s, Frenchman Aimé Thomé de Gamond performed the first geological and hydrographical surveys on the Channel, between Calais and Dover. Thomé de Gamond explored several schemes and, in 1856, he presented a proposal to Napoleon III for a mined railway tunnel from Cap Gris-Nez to Eastwater Point with a port/airshaft on the Varne sandbank at a cost of 170 million francs, or less than £7 million.

In 1865, a deputation led by George Ward Hunt proposed the idea of a tunnel to the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day, William Ewart Gladstone.

After 1867, William Low and Sir John Clarke Hawkshaw promoted ideas, but none were implemented. An official Anglo-French protocol was established in 1876 for a cross-Channel railway tunnel. In 1881, British railway entrepreneur Sir William Watkin and French Suez Canal contractor Alexandre Lavalley were in the Anglo-French Submarine Railway Company that conducted exploratory work on both sides of the Channel. On the English side a 2.13-metre (7 ft) diameter Beaumont-English boring machine dug a 1,893-metre (6,211 ft) pilot tunnel from Shakespeare Cliff. On the French side, a similar machine dug 1,669 m (5,476 ft) from Sangatte. The project was abandoned in May 1882, owing to British political and press campaigns advocating that a tunnel would compromise Britain’s national defences. These early works were encountered more than a century later during the TML project.

In 1919, during the Paris Peace Conference, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George repeatedly brought up the idea of a Channel tunnel as a way of reassuring France about British willingness to defend against another German attack. The French did not take the idea seriously and nothing came of Lloyd George’s proposal.

In 1955, defence arguments were accepted to be irrelevant because of the dominance of air power; thus, both the British and French governments supported technical and geological surveys. Construction work commenced on both sides of the Channel in 1974, a government-funded project using twin tunnels on either side of a service tunnel, with capability for car shuttle wagons. In January 1975, to the dismay of the French partners, the British government cancelled the project. The government had changed to the Labour Party and there was uncertainty about EEC membership, cost estimates had ballooned to 200% and the national economy was troubled. By this time the British Priestly tunnel boring machine was ready and the Ministry of Transport was able to do a 300 m (980 ft) experimental drive. This short tunnel would however be reused as the starting and access point for tunnelling operations from the British side.

In 1979, the “Mouse-hole Project” was suggested when the Conservatives came to power in Britain. The concept was a single-track rail tunnel with a service tunnel, but without shuttle terminals. The British government took no interest in funding the project, but Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said she had no objection to a privately funded project. In 1981 British and French leaders Margaret Thatcher and François Mitterrand agreed to set up a working group to look into a privately funded project, and in April 1985 promoters were formally invited to submit scheme proposals. Four submissions were shortlisted:

   a rail proposal based on the 1975 scheme presented by Channel Tunnel Group/France-Manche (CTG/F-M),

   Eurobridge: a 4.5 km (2.8 mi) span suspension bridge with a roadway in an enclosed tube

   Euroroute: a 21 km (13 mi) tunnel between artificial islands approached by bridges, and

   Channel Expressway: large diameter road tunnels with mid-channel ventilation towers.

The cross-Channel ferry industry protested under the name “Flexilink”. In 1975 there was no campaign protesting against a fixed link, with one of the largest ferry operators (Sealink) being state-owned. Flexilink continued rousing opposition throughout 1986 and 1987. Public opinion strongly favoured a drive-through tunnel, but ventilation issues, concerns about accident management, and fear of driver mesmerisation led to the only shortlisted rail submission, CTG/F-M, being awarded the project.

 1527 – Spanish and German troops sack Rome; some consider this the end of the Renaissance. 147 Swiss Guards, including their commander, die fighting the forces of Charles V in order to allow Pope Clement VII to escape into Castel Sant’Angelo.

1536 – King Henry VIII orders English language Bibles be placed in every church.

1542 – Francis Xavier reaches Old Goa, the capital of Portuguese India at the time.

1659 – English Restoration: A faction of the British Army removes Richard Cromwell as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth and reinstalls the Rump Parliament.

1682 – Louis XIV of France moves his court to the Palace of Versailles.

1757 – Battle of Prague – A Prussian army fights an Austrian army in Prague during the Seven Years’ War.

1757 – English poet Christopher Smart is admitted into St Luke’s Hospital for Lunatics in London, beginning his six-year confinement to mental asylums.

1801 – Captain Thomas Cochrane in the 14-gun HMS Speedy captures the 32-gun Spanish frigate El Gamo.

1816 – The American Bible Society is founded in New York City.

1835 – James Gordon Bennett, Sr. publishes the first issue of the New York Herald.

1840 – The Penny Black postage stamp becomes valid for use in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

1844 – The Glaciarium, the world’s first mechanically frozen ice rink, opens.

1857 – The British East India Company disbands the 34th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry whose sepoy Mangal Pandey had earlier revolted against the British and is considered to be the First Martyr in the War of Indian Independence.

1861 – American Civil War: Arkansas secedes from the Union.

1861 – American Civil War: Richmond, Virginia is declared the new capital of the Confederate States of America.

1863 – American Civil War: The Battle of Chancellorsville ends with the defeat of the Army of the Potomac by Confederate troops.

1877 – Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Sioux surrenders to United States troops in Nebraska.

1882 – Thomas Henry Burke and Lord Frederick Cavendish are stabbed and killed during the Phoenix Park Murders in Dublin.

1882 – The United States Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act.

1889 – The Eiffel Tower is officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris.

1910 – George V becomes King of the United Kingdom upon the death of his father, Edward VII.

1935 – New Deal: Executive Order 7034 creates the Works Progress Administration.

1935 – The first flight of the Curtiss P-36 Hawk.

1937 – Hindenburg disaster: The German zeppelin Hindenburg catches fire and is destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Thirty-six people are killed.

1940 – John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath.

1941 – At California’s March Field, Bob Hope performs his first USO show.

1941 – The first flight of the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt.

1942 – World War II: On Corregidor, the last American forces in the Philippines surrender to the Japanese.

1945 – World War II: Axis Sally delivers her last propaganda broadcast to Allied troops.

1945 – World War II: The Prague Offensive, the last major battle of the Eastern Front, begins.

1954 – Roger Bannister becomes the first person to run the mile in under four minutes.

1960 – More than 20 million viewers watch the first televised royal wedding when Princess Margaret marries Anthony Armstrong-Jones at Westminster Abbey.

1981 – A jury of architects and sculptors unanimously selects Maya Ying Lin’s design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial from 1,421 other entries.

1983 – The Hitler diaries are revealed as a hoax after examination by experts.

1984 – 103 Korean Martyrs are canonized by Pope John Paul II in Seoul

1989 – Cedar Point opens Magnum XL-200, the first roller coaster to break the 200 ft height barrier, therefore spawning what is considered to be the “coaster wars”.

1994 – Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and French President François Mitterrand officiate at the opening of the Channel Tunnel.

1994 – Former Arkansas state worker Paula Jones files suit against President Bill Clinton, alleging that he had sexually harassed her in 1991.

1996 – The body of former CIA director William Colby is found washed up on a riverbank in southern Maryland, eight days after he disappeared.

1997 – The Bank of England is given independence from political control, the most significant change in the bank’s 300-year history.

1998 – Kerry Wood strikes out 20 Houston Astros to tie the major league record held by Roger Clemens. He threw a one-hitter and did not walk a batter in his 5th career start.

1999 – First elections to the devolved Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly held.

2001 – During a trip to Syria, Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope to enter a mosque.

2002 – Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn is assassinated by an animal rights activist.

2010 – The second largest intraday point swing in Dow Jones Industrial Average history occurs.

Holidays and observances

   * Christian Feast Day:

       Dominic Savio

       Evodius of Antioch (Roman Catholic Church)

       Gerard of Lunel

       Lucius of Cyrene

       Petronax of Monte Cassino

       St George’s Day related observances (Eastern Orthodox Church):

           Day of Bravery, also known as Gergyovden (Bulgaria)

           Durdevdan (Gorani, Roma)

           Shen Gjergji (Albania and Kosovo)

           Yuri’s Day in the Spring (Russian Orthodox Church)

       May 6 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

   * Earliest day for Military Spouse Day, while May 12 is the latest, celebrated on the Friday before Mother’s Day. (United States)

   * International No Diet Day

   * Martyrs’ Day (Lebanon and Syria)

   * The first day of Hidirellez (Turkey)

May 06 2011

Six In The Morning

In Libya, a long-dead hero rises again in east

Omar Mukhtar, a resistance fighter executed by Italian occupiers 80 years ago, has become the spiritual leader of the Libyan revolution.

By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times

May 6, 2011

Reporting from Benghazi, Libya- In eastern Libya, the spectral image of an elderly, bearded man in a skullcap or Bedouin cloak is everywhere – on bumper stickers and posters, military vehicles and checkpoints, even press IDs issued by the rebel government here.

“He is the godfather of all of us,” said Salim Ismael, a retired army officer now training rebel recruits. “He is our inspiration, the spiritual leader of the Libyan revolution.”

The figure is Omar Mukhtar, a 20th century resistance hero executed by Italian occupiers 80 years ago – and, improbably enough, depicted in a 1981 Hollywood all-star epic, “The Lion of the Desert,” starring Anthony Quinn as Mukhtar. A box-office flop, the film has a devoted cult following here.

Creative commandos: the ‘cocky’ killing crew of SEAL Team 6



Elisabeth Bumiller May 6, 2011

There were 79 people on the assault team that killed Osama bin Laden, but in the end the success of the mission turned on some two dozen men who landed inside the al-Qaeda leader’s compound, made their way to his bedroom and shot him at close range – all while knowing that the President of the United States was keeping watch from Washington.

The men, hailed as heroes around the country, will march in no parades. They serve in what is unofficially called SEAL Team 6, a unit so secretive that the White House and the Defence Department do not directly acknowledge its existence. Its members have hunted down war criminals in Bosnia, fought in some of the bloodiest battles in Afghanistan and shot dead three Somali pirates on a bobbing lifeboat during the rescue of an American hostage in 2009.

Killing unarmed Osama bin Laden ‘doesn’t serve justice’ – Rowan Williams

‘It is important that justice is seen to be done’, Archbishop says reacting to the death of world’s most wanted terrorist

Owen Bowcott

guardian.co.uk, Friday 6 May 2011

The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the killing of an unarmed Osama bin Laden by US special forces left him with a “very uncomfortable feeling”.

Rowan Williams also criticised the way in which the Obama administration has appeared to change its account of the raid. Asked about any moral justification for the al-Qaida leader’s death in Pakistan, he said: “I think the killing of an unarmed man is always going to leave a very uncomfortable feeling, because it doesn’t look as if justice is seen to be done.

“I think it’s also true that the different versions of events that have emerged in recent days have not done a great deal to help.

Robert Fisk: Is Shane Bauer really an enemy of Iran?

The journalist, a fearless defender of the Middle East’s dispossessed, is about to go on trial in Tehran for alleged espionage

Friday, 6 May 2011

Journalism is not an exact art, so the Americans who go on trial in Tehran for “espionage” next Wednesday are called the “hikers”, seized by Iranian border guards as they trekked close to the frontier in Iraqi Kurdistan almost two years ago. Shane Bauer and his fiancée Sarah Shourd, along with Shane’s friend Joshua Fattal, were on holiday, enjoying the beauties of the great Ahmed Awa waterfall in Iraq when their vacation turned into one of those macabre and frightening dramas that Iran often seems to present to the unwary.

Syria protests: Baniyas fear amid Deraa pullout reports

Syrian activists are preparing to take to the streets on Friday for what they are calling a “day of defiance”.

The BBC   6 May 2011  

Tanks are reported to have withdrawn from the city of Deraa, where a human rights groups says the government has carried out a 10-day “massacre”.

But security forces are reported to have gathered in other urban areas, including the coastal town of Baniyas.

More than 500 Syrians are thought to have been killed during attempts to quell seven weeks of protests.

At least 2,500 others have been detained as part of a violent crackdown that the US has described as “barbaric”.

‘The Entire Ukraine Is a Brothel’

Kiev’s Topless Protestors

By Benjamin Bidder in Kiev, Ukraine  

The Rock is New Zealand’s most beloved radio station, although not necessarily the country’s most sophisticated. “Music is the ONLY thing we take seriously,” is the station’s fitting motto. Recently, The Rock offered its male listeners the chance to win a trip to an exotic vacation spot in eastern Ukraine. In addition to 12 paid nights, the prize includes 2,000 New Zealand dollars (€1,000) in pocket money. The grand prize, however, has to be chosen on location by the winner himself: a wife.

“Win a trip to beautiful Ukraine,” announces the contest title, “And Meet Eastern European Hot Lady Who Maybe One Day You Marry.”

May 06 2011

GOP Strategy: Give Oil Companies More Tax Cuts

(4 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Americans are struggling to make ends meet, can’t find jobs and are making less money than they did in 1997. What is the House GOP solution? Tax cuts and subsidies for drilling to oil companies that are the most profitable.

Today, the Republicans in the House of Representatives celebrated this massive redistribution of wealth from American families to oil executives. With the support of 7 oil-patch Democrats, 234 Republicans voted to block a bill to eliminate a $1.8 billion annual subsidy that treats oil drilling as “domestic manufacturing”:

   House Republicans rejected an effort by Democrats Thursday to use a procedural maneuver to force a vote on a bill to repeal a key oil industry tax break.

As they did in March, House Republicans voted unanimously to defend these wasteful, unaffordable and unfair oil subsidies, even though several members told their constituents they want to end them.

May 06 2011

DocuDharma Digest

Regular Features-

Featured Essays for May 5, 2011-

DocuDharma

May 06 2011

First Republican Presidential Debate Open Thread

It’s awfully hard to get excited about an event that AP will not cover at all and Reuters will pay scant attention because of restrictions that Faux Noise and the Republican Party have placed on it to avoid making their candidates look stupid.

Sorry, that Taggart Transcontinental has already left the station.

Still, at 9 pm ET in the grossly misnamed (at least on this occasion) Peace Center in Greenville, South Carolina, the 5 dimmest bulbs in the half candlepower constellation that is the Republican field this cycle- former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, Representative Ron Paul, former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, will take the stage.

It would be a lot more fun pointing and laughing if it weren’t for the fact we already have a Republican President.

I’ll be watching Stanley Cup action (Canucks @ Predators), King of the Hill, or napping, all of which are far more restful on the eyeballs, but if you care to comment there’s a space for that below.

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