“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: Eating the Irish

What we need now is another Jonathan Swift.

Most people know Swift as the author of “Gulliver’s Travels.” But recent events have me thinking of his 1729 essay “A Modest Proposal,” in which he observed the dire poverty of the Irish, and offered a solution: sell the children as food. “I grant this food will be somewhat dear,” he admitted, but this would make it “very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.”

O.K., these days it’s not the landlords, it’s the bankers – and they’re just impoverishing the populace, not eating it. But only a satirist – and one with a very savage pen – could do justice to what’s happening to Ireland now.

Katrina vanden Heuvel: The GOP: Gobbling Up Our Blessings

Thanksgiving may be a time to give thanks for our blessings, but in Washington, the resurgent Republican conservatives want needy Americans to have fewer of them. The new Republicans have the same old leaders – and their passion hasn’t changed. It isn’t about offering a hand up to the afflicted – it’s about handouts to the connected.

In the lame-duck session now convened until the end of the year, Republicans have continued their strategy of obstruction – opposing the New START treaty, opposing repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” opposing consideration of immigration reform, opposing even passage of appropriations for the current year. Their passion is focused on getting one thing done. They will run through the wall to extend the extra tax cuts enjoyed by those, largely millionaires, earning more than $250,000 a year.

Forget about deficit reduction. According to Republicans, these tax cuts – costing an estimated $700 billion over the next decade – need not be balanced by spending cuts, or “paid for” in the Washington parlance.

Robert Reich: Sarah Palin’s Presidential Strategy and the Economy She Depends On

Monday night, Sarah Palin watched from the audience as daughter Bristol danced on ABC. Twenty-three million other Americans joined her from their homes. Tuesday, the former vice-presidential candidate started a 13-state book tour for her new book, “America By Heart,” which has a first printing of 1 million. Her reality show on TLC, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” is in its third week. Last Sunday she was the cover story in the New York Times magazine.

It’s all part of The Palin Strategy for becoming president in 2012 – or 2016 or 2020.

Nicholas D. Kristof: Bless the Orange Sweet Potato

As we all prepare to gain a few pounds over Thanksgiving, I promise not to be a buzz kill wagging my finger about starva … well, never mind. You see, this is that rarest of birds: a happy column about hunger.

And our hero, appropriate for this season, is a high-tech and heroic version of the vitamin-packed, orange-fleshed sweet potato. Along with a few other newly designed foods, it may help save hundreds of thousands of children’s lives each year.

If there’s any justice in the world, statues may eventually be erected of this noble root, the Mother Teresa of the dinner plate. But, first, the back story. We think of starvation as a shortage of calories, but researchers are finding that the biggest reason people die of malnutrition is simply lack of micronutrients.

Paul Krugman: Economics: Not Nice, Not Fair, Not Pretty

Whenever I mention that World War II ended the Great Depression, I get a lot of mail accusing me of being a warmonger.

Allow me to make a point: Economics is not a morality play. It’s not a happy story in which virtue is rewarded and vice punished.

The market economy is a system for organizing activity – a pretty good system most of the time, though not always – but not according to any moral significance.

The rich don’t necessarily deserve their wealth, and the poor certainly don’t deserve their poverty.

E.J. Dionne, Jr.: The Thanksgiving Wars? No Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving. That is not a political sentiment. Yet this year, everything seems partisan and even this most unifying of national holidays has become an occasion for ideological warfare.

The idea now popular in conservative circles is that all past interpretations of Thanksgiving are tainted either by malign forms of multiculturalism-did those white colonists really need help from the Indians to get their act together?-or by dangerous inclinations to socialism

David Coleman: Pat-Downs Hit Middle America Where It Counts

The recent outrage expressed by white males and females over intrusive airport pat-downs may have an upside. At least at the nation’s airports, non-minority airline passengers who seek to board an airplane are being sensitized to the indignities that are a routine part of the lives of some men of color who merely walk or drive down a street.

Robert Scheer: Fail and Grow Rich on Wall Street

Welcome to the brave new world of post-bailout capitalism. The Commerce Department announced Tuesday that corporate profits are at their highest level in U.S. history, and the Fed released minutes of an early November meeting in which officials predicted a stagnant economy and continued high unemployment.

Iceland Is No Ireland as State Free of Bank Debt, Grimsson Says

By Jonas Bergman and Omar R. Valdimarsson, Bloomberg News

Nov 26, 2010 9:21 AM ET

Iceland’s President Olafur R. Grimsson said his country is better off than Ireland thanks to the government’s decision to allow the banks to fail two years ago and because the krona could be devalued.

“The difference is that in Iceland we allowed the banks to fail,” Grimsson said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Mark Barton today. “These were private banks and we didn’t pump money into them in order to keep them going; the state did not shoulder the responsibility of the failed private banks.”

…

“Iceland is faring much better than anybody expected,” Grimsson said. The Icelandic state’s liability on foreign depositor claims stemming from Icesave accounts at failed Landsbanki Islands hf should be put to a national referendum, he said.

“How far can we ask ordinary people — farmers and fishermen and teachers and doctors and nurses — to shoulder the responsibility of failed private banks,” said Grimsson. “That question, which has been at the core of the Icesave issue, will now be the burning issue in many European countries.”

(h/t Atrios)

I don’t have a Nobel Prize in Economics, but unlike Paul Krugman I don’t think this was inevitable.  I blame people and institutions.

I blame Vacuity and prestige schools that will accept and pass any legacy moron (like George W. Bush).

I blame Vanity and an academic atmosphere that prizes novelty and publication above scholarship, teaching, and facts.

I blame Venality and the greed of our upper class elites who can starve to death on mere millions because they can’t conspicuously consume as much as their billionaire brethren and are disappointed because they think it’s a birthright.

The Instability of Moderation

by Paul Krugman, The New York Times

November 26, 2010, 9:40 am

The brand of economics I use in my daily work – the brand that I still consider by far the most reasonable approach out there – was largely established by Paul Samuelson back in 1948, when he published the first edition of his classic textbook. It’s an approach that combines the grand tradition of microeconomics, with its emphasis on how the invisible hand leads to generally desirable outcomes, with Keynesian macroeconomics, which emphasizes the way the economy can develop magneto trouble, requiring policy intervention. In the Samuelsonian synthesis, one must count on the government to ensure more or less full employment; only once that can be taken as given do the usual virtues of free markets come to the fore.

…

I’ve always considered monetarism to be, in effect, an attempt to assuage conservative political prejudices without denying macroeconomic realities. What Friedman was saying was, in effect, yes, we need policy to stabilize the economy – but we can make that policy technical and largely mechanical, we can cordon it off from everything else. Just tell the central bank to stabilize M2, and aside from that, let freedom ring!

When monetarism failed – fighting words, but you know, it really did – it was replaced by the cult of the independent central bank. Put a bunch of bankerly men in charge of the monetary base, insulate them from political pressure, and let them deal with the business cycle; meanwhile, everything else can be conducted on free-market principles.

…

Last but not least, the very success of central-bank-led stabilization, combined with financial deregulation – itself a by-product of the revival of free-market fundamentalism – set the stage for a crisis too big for the central bankers to handle. This is Minskyism: the long period of relative stability led to greater risk-taking, greater leverage, and, finally, a huge deleveraging shock. And Milton Friedman was wrong: in the face of a really big shock, which pushes the economy into a liquidity trap, the central bank can’t prevent a depression.

(h/t Atrios)

Today is a half day trading day in the U.S. and unlike some shills for Wall Street I can’t imagine why you’d want to be long in stocks after Wednesday’s ‘irrational exuberance’.  Sell high, buy low is after all- basic.

Retail investors (it’s hard to call people who own stocks ‘normal’ because they’re a tiny minority) may still hold a majority of corporate equity but they have been leaving the market in droves because after the great financial meltdown of 2008, the Flash Crash, and the recent revelations of systemic Title Fraud and Insider Trading.

As I mentioned, most people don’t own stocks, they invest in mutual funds (Republicans and Blue Dogs like to call them ‘stocks’ to inflate the numbers of the ‘investor class’, but they’re really not), bonds, certificates of deposit, annuities, and other ‘safe’ investments.  Many people just keep their money in a bank because they live paycheck to paycheck and don’t have any surplus to spare.  What savings they have is in the equity of the house they’re living in and in today’s depressed market it’s not what it used to be.

But most people have bank accounts and a lot of them are really, really angry at the banksters.

It’s the same in Europe where ex-soccer star Eric Cantona is urging people to do something about it-

Join a World-Wide Bank Run in December — Move Your Money

Robert E. Prasch, The Huffington Post

November 24, 2010 04:03 PM

(O)rganizers are calling for the use of a new weapon, one available to any of us with a bank account. It is the simple act of removing all of our money from the banks, and doing so en masse on the same day — December 7th.

…

Of late, the famously mercurial temper that Cantona exhibited on and off the soccer pitch has been redirected from rivals and unruly fans. A prominent target is French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s proposal to create a ministry, museum, and mass public debate on “national identity,” all of which Cantona publically ridiculed as “idiotic.” His sights are now trained on the banking and financial system that he — correctly — holds responsible for France’s current economic problems. This is important because Sarkozy and the EU leadership is using this crisis to erode welfare state protections even as ostensibly scarce public monies are deployed to shore up the banks most responsible for the problem.

Which brings us to the economics of a mass withdrawal of deposits from the banks. Will it bring about an actual bank run or financial crash? Certainly not. For one thing, an organized and deliberate action such as Cantona proposes lacks the element of panic so characteristic of bank runs. Additionally, the banks and the central banks overseeing them will have time to prepare for the event, and should be able to reallocate their holdings of cash, reserves, and other assets in advance. If necessary, banks can always borrow short-term funds on the inter-bank market or even directly from the central bank. A mass withdrawal should, however, shrink the profitability of banks, as retail deposits are normally considered cheap and stable sources of funds with which to finance loans. Large European banks, relative to their American peers, are more dependent on retail deposits, so they will especially miss these funds when the time comes to calculate profits and bonuses.

But what of the politics? Here in the United States it is now overwhelmingly clear that a dozen or so of the largest financial institutions responsible for the crash and ensuing recession have gained, not lost, by their irresponsible decisions. They repeatedly tell us that they have “learned lessons.” This is true, they have: Learned that their past decisions have enriched senior management beyond belief. Learned that their market share is now substantially larger than before the crash. And learned that the government has deemed them Too Big To Fail (this latter designation lowers their cost of funds and enhances their profitability). Showing admirable “bi-partisanship,” Republican and Democratic administrations have worked hard and seamlessly to bring about these “lessons.” This summer, the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform and Consumer Protection Act enshrined the perspective of financial elites that reform should be primarily symbolic. In a sentence, over $12,000,000,000 of stock market, real estate, and other asset values disappeared, while rates of home foreclosures and unemployment soared, with virtually NO political or legal consequences. I might be a cynic, but I hope to never be as cynical as those who engineered these outcomes.

Now Prasch may not be aware of it, but this is an idea I’ve heard circulated among the blogs since at least early this year.  There’s nothing new about it.

But I would like to encourage my readers to consider it if they haven’t already.  There’s really no reason to keep your money in a major bank unless it’s more than the $250,000 the FDIC will insure, and at that you may be exposed to more risk than you realize.  If your money is in a Credit Union or a Savings and Loan or a Local or Regional Bank your checks still get cashed and your credit and debit cards still work and most of them will change your pennies to folding money without charging you 10% for the privilege.

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.

November 26 is the 330th day of the year (331st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 35 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1942, Casablanca, a World War II-era drama starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, premieres in New York City; it will go on to become one of the most beloved Hollywood movies in history.

n the film, Bogart played Rick Blaine, a former freedom fighter and the owner of a swanky North African nightclub, who is reunited with the beautiful, enigmatic Ilsa Lund (Bergman), the woman who loved and left him. Directed by Michael Curtiz, Casablanca opened in theaters across America on January 23, 1943, and was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Bogart. It took home three Oscars, for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. The film featured a number of now-iconic quotes, including Rick’s line to Ilsa: “Here’s looking at you, kid,” as well as “Round up the usual suspects,” “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship” and “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”

 43 BC – The Second Triumvirate alliance of Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (“Octavian”, later “Caesar Augustus”), Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, and Mark Antony is formed.

783 – The Asturian queen Adosinda is put up in a monastery to prevent her kin from retaking the throne from Mauregatus.

1476 – Vlad III Dracula defeats Basarab Laiota with the help of Stephen the Great and Stephen V Bathory and becomes the ruler of Wallachia for the third time.

1778 – In the Hawaiian Islands, Captain James Cook becomes the first European to visit Maui.

1784 – The Catholic Apostolic Prefecture of the United States established.

1789 – A national Thanksgiving Day is observed in the United States as recommended by President George Washington and approved by Congress.

1805 – Official opening of Thomas Telford’s Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.

1842 – The University of Notre Dame is founded.

1863 – American Civil War: Mine Run – Union forces under General George Meade position against troops led by Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

1863 – President Abraham Lincoln proclaims November 26th as a national Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated annually on the final Thursday of November (since 1941, on the fourth Thursday).

1865 – Battle of Papudo: The Spanish navy engages a combined Peruvian-Chilean fleet north of Valparaiso, Chile.

1917 – The National Hockey League is formed, with the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, Quebec Bulldogs, and Toronto Arenas as its first teams.

1918 – The Podgorica Assembly votes for “union of the people”, declaring assimilation into the Kingdom of Serbia.

1922 – Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon become the first people to enter the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun in over 3000 years.

1922 – Toll of the Sea debuts as the first general release film to use two-tone Technicolor (The Gulf Between was the first film to do so but it was not widely distributed).

1939 – Shelling of Mainila: The Soviet Army orchestrates the incident which is used to justify the start of the Winter War with Finland four days later.

1942 – World War II: Yugoslav Partisans convene the first meeting of the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia at Bihac in northwestern Bosnia.

1944 – World War II: A German V-2 rocket hits a Woolworth’s shop on New Cross High Street, United Kingdom, killing 168 shoppers.

1944 – World War II: Germany begins V-1 and V-2 attacks on Antwerp, Belgium.

1949 – The Indian Constituent Assembly adopts India’s constitution presented by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar.

1950 – Korean War: Troops from the People’s Republic of China launch a massive counterattack in North Korea against South Korean and United Nations forces (Battle of the Ch’ongch’on River and Battle of Chosin Reservoir), ending any hopes of a quick end to the conflict.

1965 – In the Hammaguir launch facility in the Sahara Desert, France launches a Diamant-A rocket with its first satellite, Asterix-1 on board, becoming the third country to enter outer space.

1968 – Vietnam War: United States Air Force helicopter pilot James P. Fleming rescues an Army Special Forces unit pinned down by Viet Cong fire and is later awarded the Medal of Honor.

1970 – In Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, 1.5 inches (38.1 mm) of rain fall in a minute, the heaviest rainfall ever recorded.

1977 – ‘Vrillon’, claiming to be the representative of the ‘Ashtar Galactic Command’, takes over Britain’s Southern Television for six minutes at 5:12 PM.

1983 – Brink’s-MAT robbery: In London, 6,800 gold bars worth nearly £26 million are stolen from the Brink’s-MAT vault at Heathrow Airport.

1986 – Iran-Contra scandal: U.S. President Ronald Reagan announces the members of what will become known as the Tower Commission.

1990 – The Delta II rocket makes its maiden flight.

1998 – Tony Blair becomes the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to address the Republic of Ireland’s parliament.

2003 – Concorde makes its final flight, over Bristol, England.

2004 – Ruzhou School massacre: a man stabs and kills eight people and seriously wounds another four in a school dormitory in Ruzhou, China.

2004 – Male Po’ouli (Black-faced honeycreeper) dies of Avian malaria in the Maui Bird Conservation Center in Olinda, Hawaii before it could breed, making the species in all probability extinct.

2008 – The first of many attacks on Mumbai, India are fired. These ten coordinated attacks by Pakistan-based terrorists kill 164 and injure more than 300 people in Mumbai.

Holidays and observances

   * Christian Feast Days:

         o John Berchmans

         o Pope Siricius

         o Stylianos of Paphlagonia (Eastern Orthodoxy)

         o Sylvester Gozzolini

   * Day of the Covenant (Baha’i Faith)

   * Earliest day on which Cyber Monday can fall, while December 2 is the latest; observed on the first Monday after Thanksgiving. (United States)

   *  Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Mongolia from China on July 11, 1921.

Well, it’s that holiday time of year again when all you want is some mindless entertainment to spare you from dealing with your relatives and TV programmers screw with you by replacing all your familiar favorites with sappy specials and marathons of your least liked shows made more inpenetrable by the one line crawl of uselessness that TV Guide channel has become.

Thank goodness kindly uncle ek is here to highlight a few moments of blessed distraction as well as some of the potential pitfalls to be avoided.

I look on it as a public service.

My job is made a little easier because of a neat little network ‘day at a glance’ feature of Zap2it TV Listings.  Click on the channel name.  I’m going from my last diary to Paid Programming.  I’m putting the main meat below the fold because the table is too long for the Front Page.  It’s arranged by time and marathons (4 half hour episodes, 3 hour episodes, double features, themes, and Instapeats) may be noted earlier than you expect, but they do also include the running time so you know when they end.

Nothing like watching A Christmas Story 25 times in a row.

I’ll mention at this point a ton of research goes into these, 41 channels and nearly 150 links, not because I’m complaining but because it’s a little daunting to get them posted on deadline.  This one I’m rolling publishing because I’m still a bit tired from yesterday and I want you to have something to relax you from your early Black Friday forays.  Right now this covers until 10 am.  Expect an update before that.

Update: Now good through 7 am.

7 am

• ABC Family– To Grandmother’s House We Go
• ESPN– Sports Center marathon until noon
• Speed– Pinks- All Out marathon until 5 am
• TLC– What Not To Wear marathon until 10 pm

8 am

• A&E– Criminal Minds marathon until 4 am
• History– Pawn Stars marathon until 8 pm
• Turner Classic– My Forbidden Past
• TV Land– Jerry Mcguire

8:30 am

• FX– Firehouse Dog

9 am

• Discovery– Deadliest Catch marathon until 9 pm
• Nick– Spongebob Squarepants marathon until 3 pm
• Turner Classic– The Bribe
• Toon– Batman: The Brave and The Bold marathon until 10:30 am

10 am

• AMC– Airplane
• National Geographic– Alone in the Wild marathon until 2 pm
• Sci Fi– From Russia With Love (Connery)

10:30 am

• Toon– Ben 10 marathon until 2 pm

11 am

• Bravo– Real Housewives marathon until 5 pm
• E!– Bruce Almighty
• ESPN2– College Throwball, Louisville @ Rutgers
• FX– Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties
• Lifetime– The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
• Spike– No Country for Old Men
• TBS– Seinfeld marathon until 8 pm
• Turner Classic– Foreign Correspondent (Hitchcock marathon until 8 pm)
• TNT– The Last Castle

11:30 am

• ABC Family– Richie Rich
• VH1– Back to the Future (start of a triple feature, all 3 movies)

Noon

• ABC– College Throwball, West Virginia @ Pittsburgh
• AMC– Airplane II: The Sequel
• ESPN– College Hoopies (teams TBA)

12:30 pm

• Sci Fi– Diamonds Are Forever (Connery)

1 pm

• Comedy– National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
• E!– Bruce Almighty
• FX– Black Knight
• Lifetime– Never Been Kissed
• Turner Classic– Strangers on a Train

1:30 pm

• ABC Family– Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

(Depp)

• TNT– Outbreak

2 pm

• AMC– Volcano
• Food– Triple D marathon until 10 pm (2 premiers)
• National Geographic– Ultimate Factories marathon until 8 pm
• Spike– National Security
• Toon– Sym-Bionic Titan marathon until 3:30 pm
• VH1– Back to the Future Part II

2:30 pm

• CBS– College Throwball, Auburn @ Alabama
• ESPN– College Hoopies (teams TBA)
• ESPN2– College Hoopies (teams TBA)
• Turner Classic– Dial M for Murder

3 pm

• Comedy– Beerfest
• FX– Are We There Yet?
• Lifetime– Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit
• Nick– iCarly marathon until 8 pm
• Sci Fi– The Spy Who Loved Me (Moore)

3:30 pm

• ABC– College Throwball, Colorado @ Nebraska
• Toon– Generator Rex marathon until 5 pm

4 pm

• ABC Family– Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
• Spike– GoodFellas
• TNT– U.S. Marshals

4:30 pm

• AMC– The Perfect Storm
• Turner Classic– To Catch A Thief
• VH1– Back to the Future Part III

5 pm

• Bravo– Fight Club
• ESPN– College Hoopies (teams TBA)
• ESPN2– College Hoopies (teams TBA)
• FX– Are We Done Yet?
• Lifetime– Lucky 7
• Toon– Clone Wars (Series Premier repeat)

5:30 pm

• Sci Fi– Tomorrow Never Dies (Brosnan)

6 pm

• Comedy– School for Scoundrels
• Oxygen– Titanic

6:30 pm

• TNT– Air Force One

7 pm

• ABC Family– A Boy Named Charlie Brown
• ESPN– College Throwball, Arizona @ Oregon
• ESPN2– Hoopies, Rockets @ Bobcats
• FX– Kung Fu Panda
• Lifetime– Beauty Shop
• Toon– Young Justice League (premier)

7:30 pm

• AMC– Deep Blue Sea

8 pm

• Bravo– Ocean’s Twelve
• Disney– I’m in the Band (premier)
• Nick– Victorious (premier)
• Sci Fi– Professional Wrestling!
• Style– Sweet November
• TBS– The Wizard of Oz
• Turner Classic– The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly
• Toon– Firebreather
• USA– Elf

9 pm

• ABC Family– Snoopy, Come Home
• Discovery– Swamp Loggers
• FX– Alvin and the Chipmunks
• History– Modern Marvels, Dogs (premier)
• Lifetime– No Reservations
• TNT– Michael Clayton
• True– Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura marathon until 3 am

9:30 pm

• ESPN2– Hoopies, Warriors @ Grizzlies

10 pm

• AMC– The Walking Dead (this week’s)
• Discovery– Swamp Loggers (premier)
• E!– The Soup (premier)
• ESPN– College Throwball, Boise State @ Nevada
• Food– Outrageous (premier)
• Nick– George Lopez marathon until 6 am
• Oxygen– Titanic
• Sci Fi– Sanctuary (premier)
• USA– Semi-Pro

10:30 pm

• Bravo– Ocean’s Twelve

11 pm

• AMC– Deep Blue Sea
• Discovery– Deadliest Catch
• Lifetime– Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit
• MTV– 8 Mile
• Sci Fi– You Only Live Twice (Connery)
• Style– How Do I Look? marathon until 3 am
• Turner Classic– Days of Heaven

11:30 pm

• TNT– Three Kings

Midnight 11/26

• Discovery– Swamp Loggers
• FX– Terriers (this week’s)
• TBS– Shanghai Knights
• USA– Along Came Polly
• VH1– Back to the Future Part III

1 am

• Discovery– Swamp Loggers (premier Instapeat)
• ESPN2– Hoopies, Rockets @ Bobcats (repeat)
• Turner Classic– Burn!

1:30 am

• AMC– The Walking Dead (this week’s)
• Bravo– Derailed
• Sci Fi– Moonraker (Moore)

2 am

• National Geographic– Ultimate Factories marathon until 6 am
• TBS– Antz
• TNT– The Negotiator
• USA– Over Her Dead Body

2:30 am

• AMC– Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter

3 am

• Disney– Horse Sense
• ESPN2– Hoopies, [Warriors ] @ [Grizzlies ] (repeat)
• Turner Classic– Strange Behavior

3:30 am

• ESPN– College Throwball, Boise State @ Nevada (repeat)
• Sci Fi– Sanctuary (premier Instapeat)

4 am

• TBS– Married With Children marathon until 7 am

4:30 am

• AMC– Blood of Dracula
• Turner Classic– Remember My Name

5 am

• Sci Fi– Stargate Universe (this week’s)

6:30 am

• Turner Classic– Across the Wide Missouri

Britain’s austerity plan leaves many bracing for painful changes

Prime Minister David Cameron plans to slash $128 billion in spending over four years, upending a culture of governmental responsibility in a nation that provides everything from free healthcare to aid for mothers.

By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Wimbledon, England – Britain is about to undergo an extreme makeover. And Festus Grant is worried.

The 71-year-old was crippled by a stroke early this year, and he doesn’t know how he would have coped without the “angel of mercy” who knocked on his door a few days after he came home to his modest flat after three months in the hospital.

The care worker from the Stroke Assn. helped him piece his life back together. She arranged follow-up trips to the doctor and signed him up for a shuttle service that takes him shopping once a week.

Passive smoking kills 600,000 a year, including 165,000 children, says WHO

Estimates from the first analysis of the true global picture say biggest impact is on young in the developing world

Sarah Boseley, health editor The Guardian, Friday 26 November 2010  

More than 600,000 people, including 165,000 children, die every year from passive smoking, a report from World Health Organisation experts says today.

The estimates from the first analysis of the true global toll are based on the best available data across 192 countries and the known effects of exposure.

The biggest impact on children is in the developing world. “Two-thirds of these deaths occur in Africa and south Asia,” the authors write in the medical journal The Lancet. “Children’s exposure to second-hand smoke most likely happens at home.

USA

G.O.P. and Tea Party Gains Are Mixed Blessing for Israel





By MARK LANDLER and JENNIFER STEINHAUER

Published: November 25, 2010

WASHINGTON – When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel came to the United States recently for another round of tense talks with the Obama administration, he got a decidedly warmer welcome from one of the rising Republican stars on Capitol Hill, Representative Eric Cantor, the incoming majority leader of the House.

But while Mr. Cantor and other newly empowered Republicans are eager to promote themselves as Israel’s staunchest defenders in Washington, the reconfigured American political landscape is a more complex and unpredictable backdrop for Middle East peacemaking.

Surviving Cameramen Recall Nuclear Test Shoots

Mushroom Clouds and Everpresent Danger

By Philip Bethge  

The atomic missile with the explosive power of 1.5 kilotons of TNT detonated precisely above the heads of the five United States Air Force scientists. At first the men felt only the heat from the explosion. But then the blast wave forced them to their knees.

George Yoshitake’s camera was clicking the entire time.

At 7 a.m. on July 19, 1957, the cameraman was standing with a small group of nuclear scientists on the Yucca Flat test site in the state of Nevada. A fighter jet had fired the missile at an altitude of five kilometers (3.1 miles), which was considered a safe distance from the ground.

Europe

EU bans bisphenol-A chemical from babies’ bottles

The European Commission has announced a ban on the use of Bisphenol-A (BPA) in plastic baby bottles.  

The BBC  26 November 2010

The commission cited fears that the compound could affect development and immune response in young children.

The EU ban will come into effect during 2011.

There has been concern over the use of BPA for some time, with six US manufacturers removing it in 2009 from bottles they sold in the US, although not other markets.

Britons ‘regularly’ fight for the Taliban  



Ghaith Abdul-Ahad and Jon Boone November 26, 2010  

British-based men of Afghan origin spend months in Afghanistan fighting NATO forces before returning to Britain. They also send money earned there to the Taliban.

A Taliban fighter in Dhani-Ghorri in northern Afghanistan said he lived most of the time in east London but went to Afghanistan for three months a year for combat. ”I work as a minicab driver,” said the man, who is a mid-level Taliban commander.

”I make good money there [in Britain], but these people are my friends and my family and it’s my duty to come to fight the jihad with them.

Middle East

Where tombs of the dead are homes of the living

The Irish Times – Friday, November 26, 2010

The poor of Egypt’s capital city see no point voting in elections on Sunday, writes MICHAEL JANSEN in Cairo  

THE City of the Dead is dead in the morning. Imam al-Lesi Street is lined with dusty a row of one-storey houses that are both tombs and homes.

Marble plaques give the names and dates of the deceased who inhabit these rooms; the living are squatters who do not identify themselves.

The doors of some buildings are open while others are bricked up or shut and padlocked. The street is hard, unpaved grit. An empty bus careens by. A woman in a blue caftan appears at the door of a house flanked by two stunted trees, the first person to appear.

Iran gangs move into meth market: UN  



Dylan Welch NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT

November 26, 2010  

IRANIAN drug gangs are turning Asia into a drug-trafficking dystopia, with a new United Nations report showing a threefold increase in methamphetamine seizures in the region last year.

More than 94 million methamphetamine pills were seized by police across the region in 2009, compared with about 32 million in 2008, says a report released yesterday by the regional office of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

The report also suggests that Burma, in particular the eastern Shan State, has become the largest single source of methamphetamine in east and south-east Asia.

Asia

Yeongpyong Islanders: ‘Once our home town was paradise. Now it’s hell’

Donald Kirk meets the refugees fleeing from the island devastated by North Korea  

Friday, 26 November 2010

Refugees pouring off the last ferries from hapless Yeongpyong Island described scenes of fiery destruction and vowed tearfully never to return.

“I’m very sorry to leave my hometown,” said housewife Choi In-young. “Once it was paradise, now it’s hell.

Ms Choi, greeted by her son at this nearby port city on South Korea’s west coast, said she was inside her home when North Korean shells roared into nearby homes on Tuesday afternoon, setting them ablaze.

International Jihadists Use Karachi as Hub

Pakistan’s Labyrinth of Terror

By Susanne Koelbl in Karachi, Pakistan

The circle had to be closed with blood, in order to wipe out the disgrace of the previous day. That’s the way of life here — the way of life in Karachi.

The six men were heavily armed, and yet they still managed to get through all the checkpoints and reach Club Road in the red zone, a highly secured district in the heart of the city. The head of the provincial government has his official residence here, not far from the American consulate, two luxury hotels and the police headquarters, where the office of the young inspector Omar Shahid is located. As the head of the anti-extremism unit, Shahid was at the top of the attackers’ hit list.

Africa

Tsvangirai in court over Mugabe’s provincial governors

The Irish Times – Friday, November 26, 2010

BILL CORCORAN in Cape Town

THE ZIMBABWEAN prime minister has turned to the courts to try and get his coalition partner, President Robert Mugabe, to adhere to the terms of the country’s faltering powersharing deal, it was reported yesterday.

According to Zimbabwe’s independent daily newspaper News Day , Morgan Tsvangirai is seeking an annulment of Mr Mugabe’s unilateral appointment of 10 provincial governors last month because he intentionally violated the country’s constitution.

Carter Centre urges Sudan rivals to end war of words



KHARTOUM, SUDAN

The non-governmental organisation founded by former United States president Jimmy Carter urged the National Congress Party, which leads the Khartoum government, and the former rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement that runs the south to tone down their rhetoric in the run-up to the January 9 vote.

“In the last few days, the NCP and SPLM have traded accusations of intimidation and manipulation of the registration process in northern Sudan,” the Carter Centre said in a statement dated Wednesday, November 24.

“These accusations and accompanying abusive language are creating a climate of fear and distrust,” it said.

Latin America

Kate Allen: Nicaragua’s hidden scandal



Friday, 26 November 2010

Connie was just nine years old when her father first raped her. The abuse continued until she was 14. She told Amnesty International that her father would regularly hit her so much that she was unable to go to school the next day. Why? Chillingly because he wanted her to stay at home so “he could abuse her as much as he wanted”.

Throughout those five years Connie felt powerless to say anything, or to speak up.

The abuse came to an end when, at 14, Connie became pregnant. At that point the police got involved and visited the house. Shortly after the police left (without taking action), Connie’s father tried to commit suicide and died in hospital shortly afterwards.

Ignoring Asia A Blog

Well, this is an easy pick.  I hate the ‘Boys with a passion, not just because they play in the same Division as my Giants, but because their fans are the most arrogant insufferable assholes it’s ever been my misfortune to share a saloon with despite their team’s sub-par mediocre performance for at least the last decade and a half.

And they’re no better this year, at 3 – 7 Dallass is at the bottom of the Division and their Quarterback is out for the season.

The Who ‘Dats on the other hand are 7 – 3 (sound familiar?) and while I’m not expecting a miraculous Super Bowl season like last year I would think they will administer the smackdown to a team that’s not by any measure in their league.

As I mentioned, you know how to root.

This one was really fun to put together with clips from the movie & Arlo performing “Alice” in the same Church 40 years later.

Transcript is here

Happy Thanksgiving

Now you’d think living in the armpit of New England as I do I’d be a die hard Patriots fan, but in fact I’m still kind of torqued off at them screwing over Hartford to blackmail themselves into a better Stadium (paid for with Tax dollars btw) in Foxboro.

And the Lions are customarily so hapless that they have the whole underdog thing going for them in addition to being the sentimental favorite of my Troll ancestors.  Thanksgiving Day dinner was never served at Grandma’s house in central Michigan until Grandpa was done watching the Lions (which was usually shortly after the start of the 3rd quarter).

The Patsies (as I like to call them) are 1 – 2 on Thanksgiving and will probably start without Brady.  It is however a matchup of an 8 – 2 team against one that is 2 – 8 and has a notable record of futility (6 straight and 8 of 9 since 2001).

As they say, anything can happen on any given Thursday.  This will be the 3rd game for the Patriots in 11 days.