ALL NIPPON SCAREWAYS

It was revealed that an ANA flight was about 30 seconds from crashing into a Hokkaido mountain before a warning went off, spurring pilots into quick action to avoid catastrophe. An air-traffic controller was blamed for the near mishap.

In another near-miss, an ANA flight taxied onto a runway where a JAL Express plane was about to land at Osaka airport in 2009 because a pilot misheard a flight number.

The Japan Coast Guard officer who made public controversial video footage of a collision with a Chinese fishing boat through YouTube, said he first sent the clip to CNN but they tossed the SD card in the trash because they didn’t know what was on it.

Now here’s a switch. Japan’s defense ministry apparently received notice from the Nagasaki government saying they’d be delighted to host some new submarines at the Sasebo base.

STATS

1,000

Estimated number of residents in Niigata who were forced to evacuate their homes after a World War II-era mine was found at a construction site

42.2

Percentage of people in Asia who believe “Japan’s influence on their countries has waned,” according to a survey by Dentsu

58,000

Signatures on a petition submitted by a group called “Save Kotomitsuki” asking the Japan Sumo Association to reinstate the former ozeki, who was kicked out of the sport for his part in a baseball gambling scandal

NOT COOL, DUDES

A 46-year-old woman who was arrested for sending a knife and a threatening note to a Tokyo elementary school was also charged with sending a stuffed animal with a knife stuck through it to anime voice actor Show Hayami.

Construction of an underwater observation station in Miyakojima is apparently killing off nearby coral, prompting a local environmental group to call for a halt to the project.

Toyota announced that it will shell out for repairs on the faulty cooling systems of about 650,000 Prius cars made between 2004 and 2007.

Reigning world figure skating champion Mao Asada is having a tough go of it under new coach Nobuo Sato. The 20-year-old opened the season with a career-worst eighth place at the NHK Trophy and then finished fifth at the Trophee Bompard in Paris.

Mr. Fish

Finds A Fish

This Truck

Hates Politics  

This Cop

Needs To Be Cuffed

Hopes high for Zac’s Japan in 2011



By Shintaro Kano    

While 2010 hardly started on a high note for Japan, it certainly has ended on one under new coach Alberto Zaccheroni.

”Some players still don’t realize how good they are, and some don’t realize how good we can become as a team,” Zaccheroni says. ”We are capable of getting much stronger,” said the Italian, who marked his debut as national coach with a home win against Argentina in October, Japan’s first victory ever over La Albiceleste in eight meetings.

The Samurai Blue came into the year with question marks about their chances in South Africa under Takeshi Okada, and after a poor buildup to the World Cup highlighted by a home defeat to South Korea on May 24, even the Japanese supporters-who are among the kindest in the world-started throwing their hands up.

Fears growing over land grabs

Foreigners buying here; Japan may be tardy overseas

By HIROKO NAKATA

Staff writer

When the news first broke in June that a Hong Kong-based investor had two years earlier purchased more than 50 hectares of forest in Kucchan, near the Niseko ski resort in Hokkaido, shock waves ran through local residents.

Then in September, the Hokkaido government confirmed that several other parcels covering more than 400 hectares were also in the hands of foreign investors.

Since then, fears have been growing that foreign interests are increasingly buying up aquifers in Hokkaido.

Welcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

Healthy Holiday Appetizers

Healthy Holiday Appetizers

Herb Crepes With Goat Cheese Filling

Marinated Salmon on Toothpicks

Salmon or Tuna Tartare

Potato and Onion Frittata

Heart Disease, Stroke Deaths Down

Still, Too Many Americans at High Risk for Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke, Researchers Say

Dec. 15, 2010 — Fewer people are dying from cardiovascular disease and stroke since the late 1990s, but the economic toll remains high and the number of inpatient cardiovascular procedures performed to treat the illness has increased, according to a report.

Every year, the American Heart Association, in conjunction with the CDC, the National Institutes of Health, and other federal agencies, pools the latest data to see where the nation is in winning the war against cardiovascular disease, the number No. 1 in the U.S.

Inhaled Steroids May Increase Diabetes Risk

Study: Steroid Inhalers for Breathing Problems May Slightly Increase Risk of Type 2 Diabetes

Dec. 14, 2010 — Using inhaled corticosteroids to treat chronic breathing problems may slightly increase a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a new study finds.

The study’s authors say the increase in risk probably doesn’t outweigh the benefits to people taking daily puffs of inhaled corticosteroids to control asthma.

But researchers are worried about the threat of diabetes when these medications are used to ease breathing in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, a condition for which the benefits of inhaled corticosteroids are less clear.

“For asthma, I’m not as concerned because they are so effective. They keep people out of the emergency room. They save lives,” says lead author Samy Suissa, PhD, director for the center of clinical epidemiology at Jewish General Hospital in Montreal.

Smoking Raises Rheumatoid Arthritis Risk

Study Suggests Smoking Is a Major Cause of RA

Dec. 13, 2010 — Add severe rheumatoid arthritis (RA) to the list of diseases linked to cigarette smoking.

Findings from a study, which appear in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, suggest that smoking accounts for more than a third of cases of the most common form of RA and for more than 50% of RA diagnoses among people who are genetically susceptible to the development of this disease.

Lack of Sleep Hurts Your Looks

In Study, People Who Got Enough Sleep Were Said to Look Healthier, More Attractive

Dec. 14, 2010 — Get enough sleep tonight and you’ll look better tomorrow — and healthier and more bright-eyed to boot.

This finding from a small Swedish study suggests that there’s now hard science to support the long-held belief that sufficient rest produces “beauty sleep.”

Up to now, “the concept of beauty sleep has lacked scientific support,” the study authors write.

Researchers in Europe enrolled 23 healthy volunteers between the ages of 18 and 31 to take part in the study. Each was photographed on two occasions — once after normal sleep of eight hours, and once after being deprived of sleep (31 hours of being awake after five hours of sleep).

Remote eye screening can help diabetics

(Reuters Health) – Eye clinics that screen diabetics who don’t make it into a specialist’s office may help identify eye problems early on, new study findings report.

A review of recent research found that relatively simple exams by non-specialists who don’t dilate the pupils are accurate at spotting early cases of the diabetes-related eye disorder known as diabetic retinopathy.

This type of screening “offers a quick, convenient and cost-effective way to screen for diabetic retinopathy,” study author Dr. Hugh Taylor at the University of Melbourne in Australia told Reuters Health.

Lower education level tied to heart failure risk

(Reuters Health) – The less education people have, the greater their risk of eventually developing chronic heart failure, a large new study finds.

Researchers say lower education levels are basically a stand-in for people’s overall economic condition, and that their findings add to evidence connecting poverty to heart disease.

The results, they add, also suggest that heart failure prevention for lower income people needs to begin early in life.

Stem cells used to make pancreas, gut cells

(Reuters) – Stem cells can be transformed into the pancreatic cells needed to treat diabetes and into complex layers of intestinal tissue, scientists demonstrated in two experiments reported on Sunday.

In one, a team turned immature sperm cells into pancreatic tissue, while another team turned embryonic stem cells into complex layers of intestinal tissue.

Both studies show new ways to use stem cells, which are the body’s master cells and which can come from a variety of sources.

FDA to reexamine metal dental fillings

(Reuters) – U.S. health regulators are seeking a second opinion on whether mercury-containing dental fillings pose a risk to dental patients, especially children and pregnant women.

Food and Drug Administration officials said that while there are no new scientific findings on such silver-colored cavity fillings, it wants feedback on methods it used to weigh available data and decide last year that the metal alloy is safe.

Tainted food sickens 48 mln each year: CDC

(Reuters) – Foodborne illnesses kill 3,000 Americans every year and make 48 million sick, and most are never identified, U.S. health officials reported on Wednesday as Congress prepared a major food safety overhaul.

Norovirus is by far the most common disease-causing germ, accounting for 5.5 million infections a year, or 58 percent of diagnosed illnesses, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Salmonella, which has caused a number of high-profile nationwide outbreaks of illness, comes second, causing 1 million infections a year, or 11 percent of the total.

“CDC estimates that each year roughly 1 out of 6 Americans (or 48 million people) gets sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die from foodborne diseases,” the agency said.

Vioxx harmful even after patients stopped taking it

(Reuters Health) – Merck’s withdrawn painkiller Vioxx may have continued to cause blood clots and perhaps deaths even after patients dropped it, U.S. researchers said Monday.

The drug was recalled by Merck in 2004 after a colon-polyp prevention study showed it increased the risk of heart disease and death in users. But over the five years it was on the market, researchers estimate it caused nearly 40,000 deaths.

The new findings, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, are based on data made available by Merck during multibillion-dollar litigation against the company.

Major push could end malaria deaths by 2015: WHO

(Reuters) – The world could stop malaria deaths by 2015 if massive investment is made to ramp up control measures, including wider use of insecticide-treated mosquito nets, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

Progress has been made over the decade, with deaths estimated to have dropped to 781,000 last year from nearly one million in 2000, the WHO said in its World Malaria Report 2010.

German doctors declare “cure” in HIV patient

(Reuters) – German researchers who used a bone marrow transplant to treat a cancer patient with the AIDS virus, have declared him cured of the virus — a stunning claim in a field where the word “cure” is barely whispered.

The patient, who had both HIV infection and leukemia, received the bone marrow transplant in 2007 from a donor who had a genetic mutation known to give patients a natural immunity to the virus.

Nearly four years after the transplant, the patient is free of the virus and it does not appear to be hiding anywhere in his body, Thomas Schneider of Berlin Charite hospital and colleagues said.

With Mammograms, Timing May Matter

For Women Who Get Regular Mammograms, Scheduling the First Week of Cycle Seems Best, Study Finds

Dec. 14, 2010 — Women who have regular mammograms should consider paying attention to when they are scheduled. New research finds the timing of mammograms could affect the accuracy of results.

”Try to schedule it during the first week of your menstrual cycle,” says researcher Diana Miglioretti, PhD, a senior investigator at Group Health Research Institute in Seattle, who led the study. “The first day of your menstrual cycle is the day you start to bleed.”

Breast-Conserving Therapy Better Than Mastectomy?

Breast Cancer Patients Live Longer After Breast-Conserving Therapy, Study Shows

Dec. 17, 2010 (San Antonio) — In a surprising finding, a large study suggests that women with early breast cancer who undergo breast-conserving therapy live longer than those who have a mastectomy.

Still, both treatments work well, with about 93% of 62,770 women who had lumpectomy followed by radiation — and 87% of 51,507 women who had a mastectomy — alive more than four years after diagnosis.

“We found that lumpectomy followed by radiation therapy is very safe for women of all ages with early-stage breast cancer,” says E. Shelley Hwang, MD, MPH, a breast cancer surgeon at the University of California, San Francisco.

Screening for Ovarian Cancer Saves Few Lives

New Model Suggests Screening Less Useful Than Previously Thought

Dec. 13, 2010 — Like breast cancer, the survival rate for ovarian cancer can be high when the disease is detected early, before it spreads.

But unlike breast cancer, early detection of ovarian cancer is rare.

The long search for effective screening strategies to identify ovarian cancer in average-risk women before symptoms occur has proved disappointing.

Now a new understanding of the complexity of the disease further dims hopes for effective early screening in the near future, Duke University researchers say.

New Genes Linked to Endometriosis

Genetic Variants Affect Women’s Risk of Developing Endometriosis, Researchers Say

Dec. 13, 2010 — Women with one of two genetic variants may be more likely to develop endometriosis, according to a new study that may offer new clues about the cause of the mysterious condition.

Researchers say it’s the first study to show a genetic link to the disorder that affects between 6% and 10% of women of childbearing age.

Endometriosis is the abnormal growth of cells similar to those found inside the uterus on other areas of the body, such as the ovaries and bowel. The growths can lead to inflammation, pelvic pain, painful menstrual periods, and infertility in some women.

“We’ve known for some time that endometriosis is heritable, but until now we have been unable to find any robust genetic variants that influence a woman’s risk of developing the disease,” researcher Krina Zondervan, a Wellcome Trust Research Career Development Fellow at the University of Oxford in England, says in a news release.

Men With Breast Cancer Face Worse Prognosis

Men Often Diagnosed at Later Stages, Have Higher 15-Year Death Rates, Researchers Say

Dec. 13, 2010 (San Antonio) — Men who are diagnosed with breast cancer are more likely than female patients to die in the next 15 years, researchers report.

“This may be due to a difference in tumor characteristics and treatment,” says study leader Hui Miao, a PhD candidate at the National University of Singapore.

Male breast cancer is rare, accounting for less than 1% of all breast cancers in the U.S. Given its scarcity, few studies have assessed its prognosis “and we know of no recent studies looking at trends in survival,” Miao tells WebMD.

Gene markers may make prostate test more accurate

(Reuters) – Scientists have found a way to personalize a common prostate cancer test by looking at genetic variations, which should make it more accurate in predicting a man’s risk of developing the disease.

Screening using prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood tests is controversial at the moment because it is difficult to define normal PSA levels, so cancer is missed in some men while others get false positive results.

Improving the accuracy of the test by customizing it to individual genetic profiles should catch more men with cancer who currently slip through the net, and avoid unnecessary biopsies in those at low risk, researchers said on Wednesday.

Increase in SIDS on New Year’s Day

Study Suggests Drinking by Caregivers May Play a Role in Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Dec. 17, 2010 — New Year’s Day brings a dramatic spike in cases of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and researchers say New Year’s Eve drinking by caregivers may be to blame.

An analysis of almost 130,000 SIDS cases nationwide over more than three decades revealed a 33% increase in deaths on New Year’s Day.

More babies die of SIDS on New Year’s Day than on any other day of the year, University of California, San Diego sociology professor David Phillips, PhD, tells WebMD.

Smoking bans may benefit kids with asthma

(Reuters Health) – Children with asthma who live in areas with “smoke-free” laws may suffer fewer bouts of coughing and wheezing as a result, a new study suggests.

The findings, reported in the journal Pediatrics, add to evidence that smoking bans in workplaces, restaurants and bars have produced health benefits. But until now, most research has focused on adults.

In the current study, researchers found that children and teenagers who lived in U.S. counties with smoke-free laws were no less likely to have asthma than kids in counties without such laws.

Gene scan shows childhood brain cancer is different

(Reuters) – A study of the genetic map of brain tumors in children shows they have many fewer mutations than similar tumors in adults — meaning it may someday be easier to treat them, researchers reported on Thursday.

The study of medulloblastoma, the most common type of brain cancer in children, also turned up some new mutations, the researchers reported in the journal Science.

“These analyses clearly show that genetic changes in pediatric cancers are remarkably different from adult tumors,” Dr. Victor Velculescu of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, whose team led the study, said in a statement.

Young kids with asthma may lag in reading skills

(Reuters Health) – Young children who start school with asthma may lag behind their peers in developing reading skills, a new study suggests.

The findings, according to researchers, do not prove that asthma per se is the reason for the gap. But they say it is possible that the lung disease affects young children’s ability to keep up with their peers when it comes to reading.

The study followed 298 New Zealand children through their first year of school. Just over half of the children with asthma had fallen at least six months behind their peers in reading achievement at the end of the year. That compared with a little more than one-third of children without asthma.

Study Gives ‘Striking’ Snapshot of Stroke Prognosis

Two-Thirds of Medicare Patients Face Death, Hospital Readmission in Year After Stroke

Dec. 16, 2010 — Nearly two-thirds of Medicare patients who are discharged after having a stroke will die or be readmitted to the hospital within a year, according to a new study in the journal Stroke.

The findings are “striking,” says study author Gregg C. Fonarow, MD, the Eliot Corday Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and Science and the director of the Ahmanson-UCLA Cardiomyopathy Center in Los Angeles.

Alzheimer’s study finds HDL good for brain, too

(Reuters) – In addition to being good for the heart, high levels of so-called “good” cholesterol may protect against Alzheimer’s disease, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

They found people over 65 who had the highest levels of high-density lipoprotein or HDL were 60 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease over four years than people with the lowest HDL levels.

And it did not seem to matter if people had high HDL levels naturally or if they took widely used drugs called statins to increase “good” cholesterol levels, the researchers found.

Protein reversed memory loss in Alzheimer’s mice

(Reuters) – Boosting levels of a memory-related protein reversed memory loss in mice with Alzheimer’s disease, a finding that could lead to new approaches to treating people, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

They said raising levels of CREB-binding protein (CBP) — a protein needed to create long-term memories — improved memory in mice bred to develop Alzheimer’s, a fatal brain-wasting disease that affects memory, thinking, behavior and the ability to handle daily activities.

“We can reverse the learning and memory deficits by increasing the level of this protein called CBP,” said Salvatore Oddo of the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, whose study appears in the in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Interactions cause seniors to drop antidepressants

(Reuters) – More than half of older Americans taking an antidepressant for the first time were already taking another drug that could interact with it and cause side effects, researchers reported on Friday.

And a quarter of patients who suffered side effects stopped taking antidepressants altogether, the study by a team at Thomson Reuters, the University of Southern California, Sanofi Aventis and elsewhere found.

“We found a concerning degree of potentially harmful drug combinations being prescribed to seniors,” Dr. Tami Lee Mark of Thomson Reuters, parent company of Reuters, said in a statement.

Many Adults Report Troubled Childhood Experiences

Exposure to Difficulties During Childhood Could Increase Risk of Health Problems in Adulthood, Researchers Say

Dec. 16, 2010 — More than half of adults surveyed reported experiencing one or more difficult childhood experiences, such as domestic violence or verbal abuse, indicating that troubled childhood experiences could be common, according to a CDC study.

Adverse childhood experiences, such as physical abuse, sexual abuse, parents going through a divorce, a family member being in jail, and being mentally ill or abusing drugs, have been associated with an increased risk for several health problems, including heart disease, depression, cancer, and diabetes. By identifying and documenting the prevalence of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), health care providers can boost their efforts in child abuse prevention and other parenting programs as a means to reduce ACEs.

When the news breaks the journalist: PTSD

(Reuters Health) – Chris Cramer, 62, was a fledgling war correspondent when one spring day 30 years ago he got much closer to the battle than he’d ever intended.

Just back from Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, his boss at the BBC had asked him to fly to Tehran, where militants were holding dozens of Americans hostage at the U.S. embassy.

But as he went to pick up his visa in London on April 30, 1980, he jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire: Six gunmen stormed the Iranian embassy, taking Cramer and 25 other people hostage.

“I lasted two days before I became sick — well, I actually feigned a heart attack to get out,” said Cramer, now global editor of multimedia at Reuters in New York.

While the experience left his body unscathed, his mental health was in tatters.

Goodbye to folic acid deficiency?

(Reuters Health) – A scan of the Canadian population reveals that, thanks largely to fortified foods, almost no one is deficient in folic acid, and forty percent have relatively high — maybe even too high — levels of the B vitamin in their blood.

Despite the lack of deficiency, however, 1 in 5 women of childbearing age did not carry in their blood the amount of folate (the natural form of folic acid) recommended to prevent birth defects, the benefit for which the vitamin is best known.

So while many men, the elderly, and children may have a lot of folic acid, Canadian women of childbearing age often don’t have enough, and should continue to take supplements, study author Cynthia Colapinto of the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute told Reuters Health.

Is marriage bad for your physical fitness?

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – People who stay single, or become single again by divorce, may be somewhat more physically fit than those in wedded bliss, a new study suggests.

The research, which followed nearly 8,900 adults over several years, found that both men and women who got married during that time tended to experience a dip in cardiovascular fitness, as measured by treadmill tests.

In contrast, men who got divorced during the study saw a modest increase in their fitness levels.

The findings, reported in the American Journal of Epidemiology, do not prove that a change in marital status directly causes the change in fitness — for better or worse.

Staying active really does beat middle-age spread

(Reuters Health) – People who keep up an active lifestyle into middle-age gain fewer pounds and inches over time — and the benefit may be even greater for women than men, a new study finds.

The fact that consistently active people gain less weight over the years may not come as a surprise. But little in the way of research evidence actually supported that notion.

Most studies on physical activity and weight have focused on exercise as a way to shed excess pounds, rather than a way to ward off the padding that so commonly creeps up with age.

The new study, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests that becoming active at a young age, and then keeping it up, can indeed thwart mid-life love handles

High vitamin D may not protect against frailty

(Reuters Health) – Older women with low blood levels of vitamin D may have an increased risk of frailty — but the high vitamin D levels that some experts recommend may offer no special protection, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that among 6,300 elderly women followed for 4.5 years, those with relatively low blood levels of vitamin D at the outset — below 20 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL) — were somewhat more likely to become frail than those with higher circulating levels of the vitamin.

However, there was no evidence of any extra benefit from having vitamin D levels at or above 30 ng/mL — a level that some researchers have advocated for optimal health.

“People tend to assume that more is better,” said lead researcher Dr. Kristine E. Ensrud, of the University of Minnesota and VA Medical Center in Minneapolis.

Less sugar, equal taste from healthy cereal

(Reuters Health) – Kids who start the day with a bowl of sugary cereal are consuming almost twice the sugar they would take in eating healthier options — which, incidentally, they would be just as happy with, a new study finds.

Specifically, kids served sugary cereal poured themselves more than 24 grams of refined sugar. Those given low-sugar cereals were more likely to reach for table sugar, but still consumed about half the amount of sugar overall — and more fruit.

Plus, kids who ate either sugary or low-sugar cereals were equally likely to say they enjoyed their breakfast.

Obesity Linked to Lower Vitamin D Levels

Researchers Suggest Obese People May Need More Vitamin D in Their Diet

Dec. 17, 2010 — New research adds to the evidence linking obesity with lower levels of vitamin D, and the finding could help explain why carrying extra pounds raises the risk for a wide range of diseases, researchers say.

The study suggests that people who are obese may be less able to convert vitamin D into its hormonally active form.

“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”.

Bruce Fein American Exceptionalism Is Un-American

“American exceptionalism” — the narcissistic soundtrack of several presidential aspirants for 2012 — is Un-American. The boast betrays ignorance of the Founding Fathers and the tarnished history of the United States. In any event, to overlook faults because other nations are more flawed is juvenile, and leads nowhere.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney scribbles in, “No Apology: The Case for American Greatness,” that, “This reorientation away from a celebration of American exceptionalism is misguided and bankrupt.” Congressman Mike Pence (R. Ind.) similarly addressed the Detroit Economic Club on “Restoring American Exceptionalism: A Vision for Economic Growth and Prosperity.” And the brilliant but sub-literate Sarah Palin, features a chapter in her book, America by Heart, entitled “America the Exceptional.”

Although none of the three specifically define the term, “American exceptionalism” conveys three wrong or empty ideas: that Americans are blessed with morally superior DNA which immunizes them from the vices or ill-humors of human nature; that the history of the United States is morally irreproachable; or, that the United States, despite its warts, is less immoral than other wretched countries.

John Nichols: Obama Gets His Tax Deal, Reanimating Reaganomics

Supply-side economics prevailed-at least politically-late Thursday, as the US House grudgingly approved President Obama’s deal with congressional Republicans to extend Bush-era tax cuts for billionaires, creates broad estate-tax exemptions for millionaires and shapes economic policies based on tax cuts rather smart investment in job-creating infrastructure projects, schools and an engaged public sector.

The House vote ended two weeks of wrangling over the deal that was generally popular with Republicans who almost giddy at prospect that a Democratic president would make tax cuts so central to his economic agenda, but was sharply criticized by leading Democrats and Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders as a reanimation of Reaganomics that would widen the gap between rich and poor, starve federal, state and local programs of needed resources, expand deficits and potentially undermined Social Security.

Gail Collins: The Gingrich Who Stole Christmas

The calendar is collapsing. Only a week until Christmas! Only a month until the beginning of the presidential election!

Yes, the race for the White House is practically under way. Already, there are at least seven Republican presidential primary debates on the schedule. The way this is going, the Republican presidential hopefuls will eventually be on television every single minute. Possibly they can be convinced to do something more entertaining than talk about earmarks. Maybe race around the world in teams of two, or compete at ballroom dancing, or agree to all be locked in a house together for several months with no contact with the outside world.

I know; you’re liking the last one already.

But today let’s look at their books. Almost every potential Republican presidential nominee has written at least one, and they could make excellent stocking stuffers for the public affairs mavens on your shopping list.

Richard RJ) Eskow: Negotiating Against America: Why Obama Shouldn’t Listen to David Brooks

Uh-oh. David Brooks is offering the President advice again. Since we’re told that Brooks is one of President Obama’s favorite columnists, there’s always the chance that his latest idea will gain traction in the White House. Brooks is smart, and he’s a good salesman, so his ideas may resonate with a lot of other powerful Democrats, too.

That would be a very, very bad thing indeed. He’s using new catchphrases to dress up some very bad, very old, and very unpopular ideas.

Two old paradigms ain’t worth forty cents.



The Brooks proposal may sound fresh, but it’s really only a mash-up of two stale notions: That “bipartisanship” happens whenever well-heeled Democratic and Republican politicians cut a deal, and that “transformation” is always exciting and positive – no matter what you’re transforming from or to.

Les Leopold: The Wall Street Tax Debate That Never Was

This tax “reform” bill is as stunning for what it ignores as for what it proposes. . .

What is entirely missing from the debate and from the bill is any recognition that a large portion of the super-rich gained their wealth from the financial sector. And that money is highly suspect:

Wall Street elites “earned” much of it by creating bubbles and toxic assets that had little or no real economic value to begin with–and that ultimately crashed our economy. (If you still have any doubts, please see The Looting of America.)

Have we forgotten how angry we were only a year or so ago when we realized that our tax dollars were going to bail out financial industry high rollers? Remember how galling it was to see $13 billion in tax dollars go to Goldman Sachs to cover its bad bets (at full value) with AIG? And how appalling it was that afterwards when that money went right back into their enormous bonus pool?

It’s hard to believe that just a short while ago I naively thought the country was ready to rein in Wall Street.

Johann hari: The Right to Protest Is Under Serious Threat in Britain

So now we know. When Britain’s politicians complained over the past few decades, in a low, sad tone, that our young people were “too apathetic” and “disengaged”, it was a lie. A great flaring re-engagement of the young has take place this year. With overwhelmingly peaceful tactics, they are demanding policies that are supported by the majority of the British people — and our rulers are trying to truncheon, kettle and intimidate them back into apathy.

Nicky Wishart is a 12-year-old self-described “maths geek” who lives in the heart of Prime Minister David Cameron’s constituency. He was gutted when he found out his youth club was being shut down as part of the cuts: there’s nowhere else to hang out in his village. He was particularly outraged when he discovered online that Cameron had said, before the election, that he was “committed” to keeping youth clubs open. So he did the right thing. He organized a totally peaceful protest on Facebook outside Cameron’s local offices. A few days later, the police arrived at his school. They hauled him out of his lessons, told him the anti-terrorism squad was monitoring him and threatened him with arrest.

The message to Nicky Wishart and his generation is very clear: don’t get any fancy ideas about being an engaged citizen. Go back to your X-Box and X-Factor, and leave politics to the millionaires in charge.

Michael Moore: Dear Government of Sweden …

Dear Swedish Government:

Hi there — or as you all say, Hallå! You know, all of us here in the U.S. love your country. Your Volvos, your meatballs, your hard-to-put-together furniture — we can’t get enough!

There’s just one thing that bothers me — why has Amnesty International, in a special report (described in detail here by Naomi Wolf), declared that Sweden refuses to deal with the very real tragedy of rape? In fact, they say that all over Scandinavia, including in your country, rapists “enjoy impunity.” And the United Nations, the EU and Swedish human rights groups have come to the same conclusion: Sweden just doesn’t take sexual assault against women seriously. How else do you explain these statistics from Katrin Axelsson of Women Against Rape:

– Sweden has the HIGHEST per capita number of reported rapes in Europe.

– This number of rapes has quadrupled in the last 20 years.

– The conviction rates? They have steadily DECREASED.

Axelsson says: “On April 23rd of this year, Carina Hägg and Nalin Pekgul (respectively MP and chairwoman of Social Democratic Women in Sweden) wrote in the Göteborgs [newspaper] that ‘up to 90% of all reported rapes [in Sweden] never get to court.'” . . .

So imagine our surprise when all of a sudden you decided to go after one Julian Assange on sexual assault charges

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.

December 18 is the 352nd day of the year (353rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 13 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1918, the House of Representatives passed the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, along with the Volstead Act, which defined “intoxicating liquors” excluding those used for religious purposes and sales throughout the U.S., established Prohibition in the United States. Its ratification was certified on January 16, 1919. It was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933, the only instance of an amendment’s repeal. The Eighteenth Amendment was also unique in setting a time delay before it would take effect following ratification and in setting a time limit for its ratification by the states.

Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

The amendment and its enabling legislation did not ban the consumption of alcohol, but made it difficult to obtain it legally.

Following significant pressure on lawmakers from the temperance movement, the House of Representatives passed the amendment on December 18, 1917. It was certified as ratified on January 16, 1919, having been approved by 36 states. It went into effect one year after ratification, on January 17, 1920. Many state legislatures had already enacted statewide prohibition prior to the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment.

When Congress submitted this amendment to the states for ratification, it was the first time a proposed amendment contained a provision setting a deadline for its ratification. The validity of that clause of the amendment was challenged and reached the Supreme Court, which upheld the constitutionality of such a deadline in Dillon v. Gloss (1921).

Because many Americans attempted to evade the restrictions of Prohibition, there was a considerable growth in violent and organized crime in the United States in response to public demand for illegal alcohol. The amendment was repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment on December 5, 1933. It remains the only constitutional amendment to be repealed in its entirety.

 218 BC – Second Punic War: Battle of the Trebia – Hannibal’s Carthaginian forces defeat those of the Roman Republic.

1271 – Kublai Khan renames his empire “Yuan”, officially marking the start of the Yuan Dynasty of Mongolia and China.

1642 – Abel Tasman becomes first European to land in New Zealand.

1777 – The United States celebrates its first Thanksgiving, marking the recent victory by the Americans over General John Burgoyne in the Battle of Saratoga in October.

1787 – New Jersey becomes the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

1793 – Surrender of the frigate La Lutine by French Royalists to Lord Hood; renamed HMS Lutine, she later becomes a famous treasure wreck.

1878 – John Kehoe, the last of the Molly Maguires is executed in Pennsylvania.

1878 – The Al-Thani family become the rulers of the state of Qatar

1888 – Richard Wetherill and his brother in-law discover the ancient Indian ruins of Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde.

1898 – Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat sets the first officially recognized land speed record of 39.245 mph (63.159 km/h) in a Jeantaud electric car.

1900 – The Upper Ferntree Gully to Gembrook Narrow-gauge (2 ft 6 in or 762 mm) Railway (now the Puffing Billy Railway) in Victoria, Australia is opened for traffic.

1912 – The Piltdown Man, later discovered to be a hoax, is found in the Piltdown Gravel Pit, by Charles Dawson.

1915 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson marries Edith Bolling Galt Wilson while president of the United States.

1916 – World War I: The Battle of Verdun ends when German forces under Chief of Staff Erich Von Falkenhayn are defeated by the French and British, and suffer 337,000 casualties.

1918 – The United States House of Representatives approves the Eighteenth Amendment to repeal Prohibition.

1932 – The Chicago Bears defeat the Portsmouth Spartans 9-0 in the first ever NFL Championship Game. Because of a blizzard, the game was moved from Wrigley Field to the Chicago Stadium, the field measuring 80 yards (73 m) long.

1935 – The Lanka Sama Samaja Party is founded in Ceylon.

1944 – World War II: 77 B-29 Superfortress and 200 other aircraft of U.S.

Fourteenth Air Force bomb Hankow, China, a Japanese supply base.

1956 – Japan joins the United Nations.

1958 – Project SCORE, the world’s first communications satellite, is launched.

1966 – Saturn’s moon Epimetheus is discovered by Richard L. Walker.

1969 – Capital punishment in the United Kingdom: Home Secretary James Callaghan’s motion to make permanent the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965, which had temporarily suspended capital punishment in England, Wales and Scotland for murder (but not for all crimes) for a period of five years.

1971 – Capitol Reef National Park is established in Utah.

1972 – Vietnam War: President Richard Nixon announces that the United States will engage North Vietnam in Operation Linebacker II, a series of Christmas bombings, after peace talks collapsed with North Vietnam on the 13th.

1973 – Soviet Soyuz Programme: Soyuz 13, crewed by cosmonauts Valentin Lebedev and Pyotr Klimuk, is launched from Baikonur in the Soviet Union.

1978 – Dominica joins the United Nations.

1987 – Larry Wall releases the first version of the Perl programming language.

1989 – The European Community and the Soviet Union sign an agreement on trade and commercial and economic cooperation.

1996 – The Oakland, California school board passes a resolution officially declaring “Ebonics” a language or dialect.

1997 – HTML 4.0 is published by the World Wide Web Consortium.

1999 – NASA launches into orbit the Terra platform carrying five Earth Observation instruments, including ASTER, CERES, MISR, MODIS and MOPITT.

2002 – 2003 California recall: Then Governor of California Gray Davis announces that the state would face a record budget deficit of $35 billion, roughly double the figure reported during his reelection campaign one month earlier.

2006 – The first of a series of floods strikes Malaysia. The death toll of all flooding was at least 118, with over 400,000 people displaced.

2009 – The 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, held in Copenhagen, Denmark, closes, with the signing of the Copenhagen Accord.

Holidays and observances

   * Christian Feast Day:

         o Flannan

         o Gatianus of Tours

         o O Adonai

         o Our Lady of Expectation

         o Sebastian (Eastern Orthodox)

         o Winibald

         o December 18 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

   * Eponalia, feast of Epona, celebrated during Saturnalia. (Roman Empire)

   * International Migrants Day (International)

   * National Day (Qatar)

   * New Jersey Day (New Jersey)

   * Republic Day (Niger)

Top CIA spy in Pakistan pulled amid threats after public accusation over attack



By Greg Miller and Karin Brulliard

Washington Post Staff Writers

Saturday, December 18, 2010; 1:20 AM  

U.S. officials said Friday they are increasingly convinced that Pakistan’s intelligence service deliberately exposed the identity of the CIA’s top spy in Pakistan, triggering death threats and forcing the agency to pull him from his post.

The allegation marks a new low in the relationship between the CIA and its Pakistani counterpart at a time when both intelligence services are under pressure to root out militant groups and the CIA is waging a vastly accelerated campaign of drone strikes.

The CIA officer was rushed out of the agency’s massive station in Islamabad on the same day that President Obama issued a new warning to Pakistan’s leaders that “terrorist safe havens within their borders must be dealt with.”

Assange begins mansion arrest, but his ‘source’ feels the heat



By Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent Saturday, 18 December 2010

Bradley Manning spent yesterday, his birthday, alone in a tiny, bare prison cell, without a pillow or sheets on his bed, in weak health and wracked with anxiety at the prospect of a prison sentence of 52 years.

The young American soldier has faded into the background as international ructions continue over the hundreds of thousands of pieces of classified material from the US government that he is supposed to have supplied to WikiLeaks.

Now the fate of the whistleblowing website’s founder, Julian Assange, who has very much held the centre-stage, lies in the hands of the 23-year-old former army intelligence analyst.

USA

Soros vs Murdoch: The battle for the soul of America

Two billionaires – one liberal, the other conservative – are at war. The prize is the future of the US.  

David Usborne reports Saturday, 18 December 2010

Who knew that Rupert Murdoch and George Soros, two billionaires of not so tender years, had it in them? But consider.

While the one means to impose a right-wing “dictatorial democracy” on America, the other is a “master puppeteer” bent on collapsing the dollar and forming a socialist world government.

Cartoonish this may be, but a joke it is not. These two behemoths of media and finance might, as they approach retirement, have restricted themselves to brandishing their ideological differences over an occasional dinner at their clubs in New York and London.

Early Tests for Alzheimer’s Pose Diagnosis Dilemma

THE VANISHING MIND  

By GINA KOLATA

Published: December 17, 2010

Marjie Popkinthought she had chemo brain, that fuzzy-headed forgetful state that she figured was a result of her treatment for ovarian cancer. She was not thinking clearly – having trouble with numbers, forgetting things she had just heard.

One doctor after another dismissed her complaints. Until recently, since she was, at age 62, functioning well and having no trouble taking care of herself, that might have been the end of her quest for an explanation.

Last year, though, Ms. Popkin, still troubled by what was happening to her mind, went to Dr. Michael Rafii, a neurologist at the University of California, San Diego, who not only gave her a thorough neurological examination but administered new tests, like an M.R.I. that assesses the volume of key brain areas and a spinal tap.

Europe

Europe’s big three form EU budget freeze pact

British Prime Minister David Cameron has secured an alliance with France and Germany in a quest to keep EU spending under control. The move has angered eastern European member states.

FINANCE | 18.12.2010  

Ahead of tough budget negotiations next year, British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy published a text Saturday stating their stance against overspending.

“All around Europe, countries are tightening their belts to deal with their deficits. [The EU] cannot be immune from that,” Cameron told a news conference on Friday at the close of a two-day EU summit, which set up a permanent crisis fund for the euro.

In hills outside Paris, tapping vast oil reserve presents risk but promises profit

A large supply of oil found underground in France’s agricultural region could bring the country closer to energy independence – but the ‘fracking’ process to obtain it could have environmental costs.

By Anita Elash, Correspondent

Paris

The rolling hills to the east of Paris are known for their cash crops. Large quantities of vegetables and grain, champagne and brie have been produced here for centuries.

But as the world’s thirst for petroleum sends industry searching for oil in increasingly unlikely locations, this bucolic region could soon become the stage for a fight that pits potentially huge economic benefits against fears of environmental destruction.

Oil industry estimates claim that there are between 50 billion and 200 billion barrels of oil trapped in shale rock more than a mile below the surface, in an 87,000-square-mile geological formation known as the Paris

Middle East

Baghdad Christians forced to flee homes

The Irish Times – Saturday, December 18, 2010

MARTIN CHULOV in Baghdad

THOUSANDS OF Baghdad Christians have been forced to flee militant attacks after the siege at a Catholic cathedral in the city in October, the United Nations said yesterday.

The UN High Commission For Refugees said at least 1,000 families had fled Baghdad and Mosul since September 1st for the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. A further 133 families had registered with the organisation in Syria, as had 109 individuals in Jordan.

Fr Hanna, the leading Assyrian Catholic priest in Beirut, said that 450 recently arrived families had contacted with his office and plan to ask the UN for help.

In Israel, a rabbi who argues that anti-Arab measures are un-Jewish  

Arik Ascherman, a Harvard grad who helped found Rabbis for Human Rights, is struggling to present an alternative voice amid rising anti-Arab and anti-foreigner sentiment in Israel.

By Ben Lynfield, Correspondent / December 17, 2010  

Jerusalem

At first glance, Arik Ascherman seems more like a soft-spoken university lecturer than a combative crusader for the rights of the “other,” be they Palestinian or African refugee.

Yet the American-born rabbi is embroiled in two of Israel’s main conflicts today: the struggle with Palestinians over the West Bank and, within Israel, a rising tide of anti-Arab and anti-foreigner sentiment. The latter is starkly illustrated by an unprecedented rabbinical edict calling on Jews not to rent or sell property to non-Jews.

Asia

US envoy Bill Richardson warns of Korea tinderbox

An unofficial US envoy visiting North Korea has warned that the situation on the peninsula is a “tinderbox”.

The BBC 18 December 2010  

The envoy, Bill Richardson, made the comments after talks with officials in Pyongyang, whom he asked to exercise “extreme restraint”.

He said he had urged them to let South Korea go ahead with planned live-firing exercises on an island which was shelled by the North last month.

Pyongyang has been threatening to strike back if the drill goes ahead.

On Friday, Russia – which shares a border with North Korea – summoned US and South Korean envoys to urge them to cancel the exercises, saying Moscow was “deeply concerned” about rising tensions in the region.

Africa

Ki-moon: Gbagbo presidency a ‘mockery of democracy’



ABIDJAN, CôTE D’IVOIRE Dec 18 2010  

The United States, the European Union and Côte d’Ivoire’s West African allies demanded Gbagbo hand over power to his adversary Alassane Ouattara, after a day of bloodshed on the streets of Abidjan left between 11 and 30 people dead.

Ouattara’s supporters had vowed to return to the streets to renew a bid to seize control of state television but, despite reports of sporadic gunfire, the sprawling seaport was eerily quiet following Thursday’s violence.

“People are scared to come out because there were victims yesterday. The fear is still there,” said Moussa Camara, a militant from Ouattara’s RHDP, guarding his party’s downtown headquarters.

Mugabe vows retaliation against West  

 

By Sapa-AP  

Under current empowerment laws, black Zimbabweans are slated to acquire a 51 percent stake in businesses. During a party convention Friday in the eastern city of Mutare, broadcast live on state television, President Robert Mugabe warned British and U.S firms “unless you remove sanctions we will take 100 percent.”

Western countries imposed targeted restrictions on Mugabe and his party elite to protest violations of democratic and human rights in a decade of political and economic turmoil in the southern African nation.

Latin America

Venezuela parliament gives Hugo Chavez more powers

Venezuela’s parliament has granted President Hugo Chavez special powers to deal with the aftermath of devastating floods.

The BBC  18 December 2010  

Mr Chavez will be able to pass laws by decree, without needing the support of congress, for 18 months.

His critics say the move will turn the country into a near-dictatorship.

They accuse him of taking advantage of the floods to strengthen his grip on power before a new congress is sworn in in January.

This is the fourth time Mr Chavez has been given such authority since he came to office almost 12 years ago.

He had asked to able to rule by decree fo

Ignoring Asia A Blog

Those of you who read this column know that from time to time I write about TeeVee adverts.  It seems as if some of the worst ones come out during the holiday season, many but not all connected with extracting money from you for gifts.

Before we get going on these new ones, please remember back a couple of months when I wrote about the Tide laundry detergent advert that featured the daughter asking her mum if the mum had seen her green shirt.  The mum thought back to wearing it and stained it with food.  Then she lied to her daughter saying, “Honey, that’s not my style”.  This advert has been modified and now the mum says nothing to the daughter about it.  I consider this a small victory for decency in advertising, and credit this column with at least a bit of influence.  Thank everyone for the support.

OK, before we start I admit that not all of these are specifically Christmas adverts, but many of them are.  There are just so many bad adverts out there that I could not resist including some that are not really Christmas ones.

Now for the current crop of adverts.  The Federal Express one tops my list of annoying ones, this time the one where the manager combines office parties with work when they are short for time.  The boss is leading songs for a birthday celebration for some coworker, and in the midst of For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow sings to some other worker, “… I need to speak with you privately; I found your resume in the printer.  Everyone!  I found your resume in the printer…”.  First of all, except in extremely rare cases I dislike singing adverts.  Second, there is comedy and there is stupidity.  This is more like the latter.  This is just a very poor advert.

Perhaps even more offensive is the one for BMW that has the petulant, disagreeable ingrate of a little boy rejecting his parent’s offers for gifts.  First, when he is smaller, he does not like the toy train set that his mum suggests for him.  Rather than having a bit of gratitude when she says that the set that she probably come closer to affording was still pretty good, he says, “No, it’s NOT!”  Later in life, when his dad is with him at the musical instrument store and suggests a different guitar than the Les Paul that the son wants, the dad stupidly says, “…it’s just as good as the one that you want.”  Again, the petulant little ingrate says, “No, it’s NOT!”

This part is wrong on several levels.  First, the petulant ingrate part.  More importantly, what I call the stupid man persona in adverts.  Of course the cheap instrument is not in the league of a Les Paul!  My mum, actually a feminist before there were any very much, hated the stupid man persona theme in adverts.  I think that her lesson to me was that sexual stereotypes that involve negative images are inherently evil, and I agree.

The saving grace of the advert is that the snotty nosed little ingrate, once he could buy (lease, rent, whatever) an automobile for himself picks out a BMW.  That begs lots of questions, such as these:

Did the ingrate make his own money to get a status symbol?

Does he have deep psychological issues that forces him towards blatant consumerism?

Finally, and this hit me immediately, did he inherit the funds necessary to obtain this particular automobile because his mum and dad were careful with their money when he was young?  I used a lot of space for this particular advert because I think that actually shows the worst things in people who buy things because they are only satisfied with what they perceive to be the very best, especially in the snob appeal category.  BMW should reconsider the ramifications of this advert, and find a new agency.

There are a plethora of adverts that air during this season that have nothing to do with Christmas, but rather to do with the health insurance companies jockeying for market share for Medicare enrollees to move to their plans.  Because there are so many of them at this time, they all offend me, but the one that starts out with

I made a very important telephone call today

The “little old lady” goes on to explain that she needed additional coverage than Medicare provides, and so saw an advert for AARP and its insurance products.  AARP is blatant here, implying that that organization is the one that actually provided the insurance (unless you read the extremely fleeting fine print at the bottom of the screen).  It goes on and on, singing the virtues of the plan and glossing over the fact that a major health insurance carrier is actually providing the coverage.  At the very end, the three actors form some sort of a bizarre chorus, the first saying

When I found out that AARP endorses these plans

I had only one thing to say

Sign me up!

Personally, I think that FTC should examine these claims and the implied falsehoods in them.  The fine print, as I said, explain that Big Insurance underwrites these plans, but the implication is that the sainted AARP does.  This is, in my opinion, as close to false advertising as can be found.

Another advert that I find offensive is the automobile one that glorifies felonious destruction of personal property, and by extension even  manslaughter.  I can not recall the automobile company behind it, but it the one where the folks from next door throw snowballs at a guy who obviously works with the father of the snowballers, and says, “See you at work”.

Then he gets up on a hill and rolls down a snowball, obviously intending for it to grow and do damage.  He has to take his snazzy car and push it to the limit on frozen roads to outrun his creation, and finally it crashes into the car of his neighbor, embeds it, and throws it off of a tall precipice.  Then the thrower takes the parking place.

This is just wrong!  I know that adverts are supposed to be funny, but that is NOT funny.  In court, if this fantastic scenario were actual, the person would be accused and convicted of premeditated destruction of property, and if the driver happened to be in the vehicle that was bowled over, first degree manslaughter if not murder.  This is not an advert, it is an indictment on the hearts of the agency folks who created it.  They need a new agency.

What is with the Joseph A. Banks adverts?  This is not only a Christmas phenomenon, but the adverts are more common lately.  Every single advert indicates that prices are, for only a day or two, slashed to unreasonable levels.  I just saw one where gloves that sell for $79.99 will be available tomorrow only for $19.99, and that “everything in the store is 50% to 70% off.”  Now, I do not know about you, but unless they were Kevlar blast gloves, $79.50 seems high for gloves.  Now, $19.99 is a little more reasonable.  Perhaps they are loss leaders, but when a store can discount EVERYTHING from 50% to 70%, I tend to think that the store is very much overpriced.  This continuous sale goes on all of the time, sometimes for a more restricted set of items.  For a while they were running “buy one, get three free” for men’s suits.  Let us say that a given suit costs $750, and you get the three extra for an average price of $187.50.  Now, if they are not losing money making these sales, those $750 suits are really less than $200 suits.  Once again, it is snob appeal for these “designer” suits that drives people to buy them.  However, I would think that folks who really can afford $750 suits would not be satisfied  with a $200 quality suit, even if they get four.

That reminds me of Fink’s Jewelers in Fort Smith, Arkansas many years ago.  About every three of four months they would advertise a “going out of business sale”  where everything had to go at what they indicated were ridiculously low prices.  For some reason, they took several years to go out of business.

How about a couple of adverts from the past?  I assure you that all but one of them are Christmas themed.

First, the 1987 Budweiser one.  I like this advert very much, and even though it certainly pitches a product, the pitch is minor.

Coca-cola has a long history of really good Christmas adverts, dating back to the 1920s and 1930s.  Here is a relatively recent one.  Yes, the Geek in me realizes that penguins and polar bears do not share hemispheres except at the zoo.

Ii looked for the classic “Mother, please, I’d rather do it myself!” Anacin advert, but could only find a very poor quality copy.  Here is a different one for the same product.

Personally, I think that she was taking something different than an OTC pain reliever, but that is just me.  I know when I take aspirin for aches and pains it NEVER puts a smile on my face like that.  Perhaps it was really something mentioned in The Geek’s Drugs of Abuse series from a year or two ago.

Well, enough for now.  I have Christmas cooking to do and need to find a good recipe for English toffee.  I have a pretty good idea, but if any readers have a really good recipe, please send it to me in the comments.  The twist that I am going to use is to substitute hickory nuts for almonds, since I got quite a good supply of hickory nuts this fall.  I have to get everything cooked by Monday so I can ship it then.

If you have any favorite of despised adverts, let us know about them in the comments.

Warmest regards,

Doc

Crossposted at Docudharma.com and at Dailykos.com

Yes Virginia, Frosty the Snowman (Jimmy Durante), Frosty Returns (Jonathan Winters).  Nutcracker again.  Mid-season finale of Sanctuary so I’ve been distracted trying to catch up with the storylines.  Evidently we’re now exploring the mysteries of ‘Hollow Earth’, a network of tunnels and caverns created by a race of beings at war with the Vampires and those who still carry ‘The Source Blood’ and battling Jekyll and Hyde for access (am I too old to be be a fanboy?  No, no not at all).  You know what’s the best thing about Fridays?  Prison Porn instead of O’Donnell.

• ABC Family– The Incredibles, WALL-E, Mickey’s Christmas Special (this week’s repeat)
• AMC– Miracle on 34th Street x 2
• Bravo– Something’s Gotta Give x 2
• Disney– Wizards of Waverly Place, Fish Hooks (premiers), Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation
• Discovery– Gold Rush marathon (with premier)
• E!– The Soup (premier)
• ESPN– Hoopies, Heat @ Knicks (‘bockers having their best season in years), Suns @ Mavs
• ESPN2– College Throwball, Villanova at Eastern Washington (Division 1a Semifinal)
• FX– Grandma’s Boy, Pineapple Express
• MTV– Get Rich or Die Tryin’ x 2
• Oxygen– You, Me and Dupree x 2
• Sci Fi– Sanctuary (did I mention it’s the mid-Season Finale?)
• Style– Little Miss Sunshine (another movie suffering from over exposure)
• TBS– My Cousin Vinnie
• Turner Classic– Holiday Affair, In the Good Old Summertime
• TNT– Christmas in Washington, The Wizard of Oz
• True– Conspiracy Theory With Jesse Ventura marathon (with premier)
• USA– Elf (another movie I could see less of)

Later-

• AMC– All I Want for Christmas
• FX– It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (repeat of this week’s Holiday Special)
• Oxygen– Just Friends
• Sci Fi– Sanctuary (Instapeat)
• TBS– Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
• Turner Classic– Little Women
• TNT– Yours, Mine and Ours (not the good 1968 version)
• Toon– Fairly recent American Dad, Childrens Hospital, The Office (the good one)

Dave hosts Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro.  

When the left tire mark goes up on the curb and the right tire mark stays flat and even? Well, the ’64 Skylark had a solid rear axle, so when the left tire would go up on the curb, the right tire would tilt out and ride along its edge. But that didn’t happen here. The tire mark stayed flat and even. This car had an independent rear suspension. Now, in the ’60’s, there were only two other cars made in America that had positraction, and independent rear suspension, and enough power to make these marks. One was the Corvette, which could never be confused with the Buick Skylark. The other had the same body length, height, width, weight, wheel base, and wheel track as the ’64 Skylark, and that was the 1963 Pontiac Tempest.

Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 WikiLeaks chief Assange fears US charges

by Beatrice Debut, AFP

2 hrs 45 mins ago

2 WikiLeaks’ Assange vows to clear name as freed on bail

by Alice Ritchie and Danny Kemp, AFP

Thu Dec 16, 7:34 pm ET

3 World pressure mounts after Ivory Coast bloodshed

by David Clark, AFP

2 hrs 9 mins ago

4 Ivory Coast faces chaos as protesters defy crackdown

by David Youant, AFP

Fri Dec 17, 4:56 am ET

5 Euro rescue pledges fail to dispel market unease

by Roddy Thomson, AFP

2 hrs 3 mins ago

6 Europe throws euro fresh lifeline

by Roddy Thomson, AFP

Thu Dec 16, 5:18 pm ET

7 Euro rescue pledges fail to dispel sickness fears

by Roddy Thomson, AFP

Fri Dec 17, 10:10 am ET

8 Fresh Spanish public debt, bad loan figures pile on pressure

by Katell Abiven, AFP

Fri Dec 17, 8:51 am ET

9 Moody’s slashes Ireland credit rating

AFP

Fri Dec 17, 7:00 am ET

10 Japan labels China’s military a global concern

by Shingo Ito, AFP

Fri Dec 17, 6:18 am ET

11 US foie gras industry has its ducks lined up

by Paola Messana, AFP

Fri Dec 17, 3:26 am ET

12 SEC expands mortgage probe: sources

By Matthew Goldstein and Rachelle Younglai, Reuters

34 mins ago

13 Irish debt downgraded as EU eschews crisis

By Padraic Halpin and Jan Strupczewski, Reuters

Fri Dec 17, 9:25 am ET

14 WikiLeaks’ Assange says fears U.S. extradition

By Avril Ormsby, Reuters

Fri Dec 17, 12:46 pm ET

15 Exile or sanctions, Ivory Coast’s Gbagbo told

By Tim Cocks and Andrew Quinn, Reuters

1 hr 39 mins ago

16 Kabul silent over Obama’s Afghan war review

By Jonathon Burch, Reuters

Fri Dec 17, 9:14 am ET

17 Special Report: For Wall Street, dumb money pays

By Jonathan Spicer, Reuters

Fri Dec 17, 8:12 am ET

18 California gives green light to carbon trade

By Peter Henderson, Reuters

Fri Dec 17, 8:25 am ET

19 U.S. arrests 4 in widening insider trading probe

By Matthew Goldstein and Grant McCool, Reuters

Thu Dec 16, 7:28 pm ET

20 Democrats abruptly drop spending fight

By Andy Sullivan, Reuters

38 mins ago

21 Industry embraces CFTC’s swap trading plan

By Ann Saphir and Rachelle Younglai, Reuters

Thu Dec 16, 5:31 pm ET

22 CFTC delays tough commodity speculation crack-down

By Christopher Doering and Ayesha Rascoe, Reuters

Thu Dec 16, 4:36 pm ET

23 Analyst view: CFTC limits speculative commodity positions

Thu Dec 16, 3:59 pm ET

24 WikiLeaks chief says US preparing to indict him

By KIRSTY WIGGLESWORTH and RAPHAEL G. SATTER, Associated Press

1 hr 1 min ago

25 What will the big new tax law mean for you?

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press

21 mins ago

26 Fancy ATM skips the folding cash, spits out gold

By KELLI KENNEDY, Associated Press

15 mins ago

27 Lab scans bones that may belong to Amelia Earhart

By SEAN MURPHY, Associated Press

15 mins ago

28 Congress rushes to finish bills before holidays

By DONNA CASSATA and ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press

30 mins ago

29 Global pressure grows to end Ivory Coast impasse

By MARCO CHOWN OVED, Associated Press

57 mins ago

30 Senate leaders drops $1.3 trillion spending bill

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press

Fri Dec 17, 12:58 pm ET

31 Arizona, Nevada sue BofA over loan modifications

By BOB CHRISTIE, Associated Press

42 mins ago

32 Musical ‘Spider-Man’ on Broadway delayed again

By MARK KENNEDY, AP Drama Writer

Fri Dec 17, 12:01 pm ET

33 ‘Ratlines’ threaten White House Afghan war plans

By ANNE GEARAN, AP National Security Writer

Fri Dec 17, 6:10 am ET

34 Accountants on edge waiting for tax-cut changes

By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer

Fri Dec 17, 12:19 pm ET

35 Typewriter fans descending on Philly for ‘Type-In’

By JOANN LOVIGLIO, Associated Press

27 mins ago

36 Think tank plans study of how US treats detainees

By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press

1 hr 15 mins ago

37 Iowa GOP lawmakers vow to try to oust 4 justices

By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press

1 hr 22 mins ago

38 South Beach food festival maestro keeps heat up

By MICHAEL HILL, Associated Press

Fri Dec 17, 1:57 pm ET

39 RSV-Passe? Custom’s decline spells hosts’ vexation

BY JENNIFER PELTZ, Associated Press

Fri Dec 17, 12:17 pm ET

40 Officials: CIA gave waterboarders $5M legal shield

By ADAM GOLDMAN and MATT APUZZO, Associated Press

Fri Dec 17, 6:30 am ET

41 Farms find holiday sales important revenue source

By LISA RATHKE, Associated Press

Fri Dec 17, 3:29 am ET

42 Almost no oil recovered from sand berms

By CAIN BURDEAU and HARRY R. WEBER, Associated Press

Fri Dec 17, 2:05 am ET

43 Calif. regulators OK major greenhouse gas rules

By JASON DEAREN, Associated Press

Thu Dec 16, 11:49 pm ET

44 Military jury: Prison, dismissal for Army birther

By JESSICA GRESKO, Associated Press

Thu Dec 16, 11:07 pm ET

45 Witness: Emanuel’s renter wanted $100K to move out

By DEANNA BELLANDI and DON BABWIN, Associated Press

Thu Dec 16, 9:04 pm ET

(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

This video was made by a former OFA volunteer out of frustration with OFA and the White House. The White House and OFA have been corralling support for the status quo that exacerbated the current economic crisis not to affect real change.

President Obama’s capitulation on the two year extension of the Bush tax cuts, the estate tax deal and cutting Social Security contributions that was made behind closed doors, has been more than enough for another OFA campaign aide, Sam Graham-Felsen, a media consultant and freelance writer who organized the grassroots strategy as chief blogger for the Obama campaign. In a Washington Post Op-Ed, he argues that it isn’t just the left that President Obama has left out but his most valued asset, the very people who put him in office:

“Obama [has] a vast network of supporters, instantly reachable through an unprecedented e-mail list of 13 million people. These supporters were not just left-wing activists but a broad coalition that included the young, African Americans, independents and even Republicans-and they were ready to be mobilized…Yet at seemingly every turn, Obama has chosen to play an inside game. Instead of actively engaging supporters in major legislative battles, Obama has told them to sit tight as he makes compromises behind closed doors.”

The problem is that President Obama has not only capitulated on everything from Health Care and Financial Regulation to this latest “craptacular bipartisan capitulation” as msblucow, the creator of the video so aptly states, but that the President has embraced the “politics as usual” which he campaigned to change because it’s easier. What Obama did with this tax bill is not a win for him or the American people. He did not “work with Republicans” he caved to their demands and he did it behind the backs of the Democrats. Not exactly the way to get re-elected.

“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”.

Robert Reich: The New Tax Deal: Reaganomics Redux

More than thirty years ago, Ronald Reagan came to Washington intent on reducing taxes on the wealthy and shrinking every aspect of government except defense.

The new tax deal embodies the essence of Reaganomics.

It will not stimulate the economy.

A disproportionate share of the $858 billion deal will go to people in the top 1 percent who spend only a fraction of what they earn and save the rest. Their savings are sent around the world to wherever they will earn the highest return.

The only practical effect of adding $858 billion to the deficit will be to put more pressure on Democrats to reduce non-defense spending of all sorts, including Social Security and Medicare, as well as education and infrastructure.

It is nothing short of Ronald Reagan’s (and David Stockman’s) notorious “starve the beast” strategy.

In 2012, an election year, when congressional Democrats have less power than they do now, the pressure to extend the Bush tax cuts further will be overwhelming.

Worse yet, the deal adds to the underlying structural problem that caused the Great Recession in the first place.

Paul Krugman: Wall Street Whitewash

When the financial crisis struck, many people – myself included – considered it a teachable moment. Above all, we expected the crisis to remind everyone why banks need to be effectively regulated.

How naïve we were. We should have realized that the modern Republican Party is utterly dedicated to the Reaganite slogan that government is always the problem, never the solution. And, therefore, we should have realized that party loyalists, confronted with facts that don’t fit the slogan, would adjust the facts.

Which brings me to the case of the collapsing crisis commission.

The bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was established by law to “examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States.” The hope was that it would be a modern version of the Pecora investigation of the 1930s, which documented Wall Street abuses and helped pave the way for financial reform.

Instead, however, the commission has broken down along partisan lines, unable to agree on even the most basic points.

Eugene Robinson: In Afghanistan, on track to nowhere

The good news is that President Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan is “on track.” The bad news is that the track runs in a circle.

There have been “notable operational gains” in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, according to a National Security Council-led assessment released Thursday, but this progress is “fragile and reversible.” This sounds like a bureaucratic way of admitting that we take two steps forward, followed by two steps back. Indeed, the review acknowledges that after nine years of war, “Pakistan and Afghanistan continue to be the operational base for the group that attacked us on 9/11.”

What’s not reversible is the human toll of Obama’s decision to escalate the war. This has been by far the deadliest year for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, with 489 killed. It has also been a brutal year for Afghan and Pakistani civilians caught in the middle of what increasingly looks like a classic war of attrition – except with missile-firing robot aircraft circling overhead.

David Sirota: Just-Released IRS Data Show Effects of Our Radical New Greed-Is-Good Culture

As the House considers a bill to extend the Bush tax cuts for the top 2%, slash corporate taxes and potentially make the Estate Tax more generous to billionaires than ever before, it’s instructive to put the move into a larger cultural/historical context. And thanks to newly released IRS documents, we can do just that.

As the Institute for Policy Studies reports, officials at the National Archives recently released a 67-year-old U.S. Treasury Department report detailing what the richest Americans once paid in taxes in the middle of the 20th century. IPS notes that “We have simply never had clearer evidence of just how much America used to expect out of individual wealthy Americans — and just how little, by comparison, we expect out of our wealthy today.”

Bill McKibben: Everything Is Negotiable, Except With Nature: You Can’t Bargain About Global Warming With Chemistry and Physics

The UN’s big climate conference ended Saturday in Cancún, with claims of modest victory. “The UN climate talks are off the life-support machine,” said Tim Gore of Oxfam. “Not as rancorous as last year’s train wreck in Copenhagen,” wrote the Guardian. Patricia Espinosa, the Mexican foreign minister who brokered the final compromise, described it as “the best we could achieve at this point in a long process.”          

The conference did indeed make progress on a few important issues: the outlines of financial aid for developing countries to help them deal with climate change, and some ideas on how to monitor greenhouse gas emissions in China and India. But it basically ignored the two crucial questions: How much carbon will we cut, and how fast?

On those topics, one voice spoke more eloquently than all the 9,000 delegates, reporters, and activists gathered in Cancún.

And he wasn’t even there. And he wasn’t even talking about climate.

Nate Silver: A Bayesian Take on Julian Assange

 The handling of the case has been highly irregular from the start, in ways that would seem to make clear that the motivation for bringing the charges is political.

   Does that mean, however, that the underlying charges themselves are spurious, trumped up, outright false, or otherwise dubious? (Some have speculated, for instance, that Mr. Assange may have been entrapped.) No, not for certain, of course – but it does have an impact on the probabilities.

   …

   What is less ambiguous here, however – as in the case of my bullet train analogy – is the underlying context. The handling of the charges suggests that the motivation for bringing them against Mr. Assange is political. If the motivation is political, then the merits of the charges might matter less. Even if they fail to result in a conviction, the authorities might nevertheless succeed in, in essence, incapacitating Mr. Assange for several months, and preventing him from releasing further documents through WikiLeaks. They might also injure Mr. Assange’s reputation among the public: certainly I have learned more about details Mr. Assange’s personal life in recent days than I would care to know.

Dan Froomkin: After Bucking Holbrooke’s Advice On Afghanistan, Obama Invokes His Name

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama asserted on Thursday that the White House’s questionable assessment of progress in Afghanistan “reflect[s] the dedication of Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, whose memory we honor and whose work we’ll continue.”

There’s little doubt that the president’s chief envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, who died Monday of complications from an aortic dissection, tried his damnedest to make Obama’s strategy work.

But the reality is that a year ago, when Obama was choosing between escalation and deescalation in the region, Holbrooke was one of several top advisors who cautioned him that the path he ultimately chose — sending in 30,000 more American troops — simply could not succeed.

Behind closed doors, Holbrooke was widely known to be one of the most voluble members of a high-level faction that Obama chose to spurn.

In Obama’s War, Bob Woodward writes that Holbrooke considered it a “central truth” that the war “would not end in a military victory,” but rather when the warring parties were “brought together diplomatically.”