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

September 25 is the 268th day of the year (269th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 97 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1789, the Bill of Rights passes Congress.

The first Congress of the United States approves 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and sends them to the states for ratification. The amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, were designed to protect the basic rights of U.S. citizens, guaranteeing the freedom of speech, press, assembly, and exercise of religion; the right to fair legal procedure and to bear arms; and that powers not delegated to the federal government were reserved for the states and the people.

The Bill of Rights is the name by which the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution are known. They were introduced by James Madison to the First United States Congress in 1789 as a series of articles, and came into effect on December 15, 1791, when they had been ratified by three-fourths of the States. An agreement to create the Bill of Rights helped to secure ratification of the Constitution itself. Thomas Jefferson was a supporter of the Bill of Rights.

The Bill of Rights prohibits Congress from making any law respecting any establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, guarantees free speech, free press, free assembly and association and the right to petition government for redress, forbids infringement of “…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms…”, and prohibits the federal government from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. In federal criminal cases, it requires indictment by a grand jury for any capital or “infamous crime”, guarantees a speedy, public trial with an impartial jury composed of members of the state or judicial district in which the crime occurred, and prohibits double jeopardy. In addition, the Bill of Rights states that “the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people,” and reserves all powers not specifically granted to the federal government to the people or the States. Most of these restrictions were later applied to the states by a series of decisions applying the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was ratified in 1868, after the American Civil War.

The question of including a Bill of Rights in the body of the Constitution was discussed at the Philadelphia Convention on September 12, 1787. George Mason “wished the plan [the Constitution] had been prefaced with a Bill of Rights.” Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts “concurred in the idea & moved for a Committee to prepare a Bill of Rights.” Mr Sherman argued against a Bill of Rights stating that the “State Declarations of Rights are not repealed by this Constitution.” Mason then stated “The Laws of the U. S. are to be paramount to State Bills of Rights.” The motion was defeated with 10-Nays, 1-Absent, and No-Yeas.

Madison proposed the Bill of Rights while ideological conflict between Federalists and anti-Federalists, dating from the 1787 Philadelphia Convention, threatened the final ratification of the new national Constitution. It largely responded to the Constitution’s influential opponents, including prominent Founding Fathers, who argued that the Constitution should not be ratified because it failed to protect the fundamental principles of human liberty. The Bill was influenced by George Mason’s 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights, the 1689 English Bill of Rights, works of the Age of Enlightenment pertaining to natural rights, and earlier English political documents such as Magna Carta (1215).

Two other articles were proposed to the States; only the last ten articles were ratified contemporaneously. They correspond to the First through Tenth Amendments to the Constitution. The proposed first Article, dealing with the number and apportionment of U.S. Representatives, never became part of the Constitution. The second Article, limiting the power of Congress to increase the salaries of its members, was ratified two centuries later as the 27th Amendment. Though they are incorporated into Madison’s document known as the “Bill of Rights”, neither article established protection of a right. For that reason, and also because the term had been applied to the first ten amendments long before the 27th Amendment was ratified, the term “Bill of Rights” in modern U.S. usage means only the ten amendments ratified in 1791.

The Bill of Rights plays a key role in American law and government, and remains a vital symbol of the freedoms and culture of the nation. One of the first fourteen copies of the Bill of Rights is on public display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

 275 – In Rome, (after the assassination of Aurelian), the Senate proclaims Marcus Claudius Tacitus Emperor.

303 – On a voyage preaching the gospel, Saint Fermin of Pamplona is beheaded in Amiens, France.

1066 – The Battle of Stamford Bridge marks the end of the Viking invasions of England.

1396 – Ottoman Emperor Bayezid I defeats a Christian army at the Battle of Nicopolis.

1513 – Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa reaches what would become known as the Pacific Ocean.

1555 – The Peace of Augsburg is signed in Augsburg by Charles V and the princes of the Schmalkaldic League.

1690 – Publick Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick, the first newspaper to appear in the Americas, is published for the first and only time.

1775 – Ethan Allen surrenders to British forces after attempting to capture Montreal during the Battle of Longue-Pointe. At the same time, Benedict Arnold and his expeditionary company set off from Fort Western, bound for Quebec City (Invasion of Canada (1775)).

1789 – The U.S. Congress passes twelve amendments to the United States Constitution: the Congressional Apportionment Amendment (which was never ratified), the Congressional Compensation Amendment, and the ten that are known as the Bill of Rights.

1804 – The Teton Sioux (a subdivision of the Lakota) demand one of the boats from the Lewis and Clark Expedition as a toll for moving further upriver.

1846 – U.S. forces led by Zachary Taylor capture the Mexican city of Monterrey.

1868 – The Imperial Russian steam frigate Alexander Neuski is shipwrecked off Jutland while carrying Grand Duke Alexei of Russia.

1906 – In the presence of the king and before a great crowd, Leonardo Torres Quevedo successfully demonstrates the invention of the Telekino in the port of Bilbao, guiding a boat from the shore, in what is considered the birth of the remote control.

1911 – Ground is broken for Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts.

1912 – Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is founded in New York, New York.

1915 – World War I: The Second Battle of Champagne begins.

1929 – Jimmy Doolittle performs the first blind flight from Mitchel Field proving that full instrument flying from take off to landing is possible.

1942 – World War II: Swiss Police Instruction of September 25, 1942 – this instruction denied entry into Switzerland to Jewish refugees.

1944 – World War II: Surviving elements of the British 1st Airborne Division withdraw from Arnhem in the Netherlands, thus ending the Battle of Arnhem and Operation Market Garden.

1955 – The Royal Jordanian Air Force is founded.

1956 – TAT-1, the first submarine transatlantic telephone cable system, is inaugurated.

1957 – Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, is integrated by the use of United States Army troops.

1959 – Solomon Bandaranaike, Prime Minister of Sri Lanka is mortally wounded by a Buddhist monk, Talduwe Somarama, and dies the next day.

1962 – The People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria is formally proclaimed. Ferhat Abbas is elected President of the provisional government.

1970 – Cease-fire between Jordan and the Fedayeen ends fighting triggered by four hijackings on September 6 and 9.

1972 – In a referendum, the people of Norway reject membership of the European Community.

1977 – About 4,200 people take part in the first running of the Chicago Marathon.

1978 – PSA Flight 182, a Boeing 727-214, collides in mid-air with a Cessna 172 and crashes in San Diego, California, resulting in the deaths of 144 people.

1981 – Sandra Day O’Connor becomes the 102nd person sworn in as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and the first woman to hold the office.

1981 – Belize joins the United Nations.

1983 – Maze Prison escape: 38 republican prisoners, armed with 6 handguns, hijack a prison meals lorry and smash their way out of the Maze prison. It is the largest prison escape since WWII and in British history.

1996 – The last of the Magdalene Asylums closes in Ireland.

2003 – A magnitude-8.0 earthquake strikes just offshore Hokkaido Japan.

2008 – China launches the spacecraft Shenzhou 7.

Obama invokes ‘state secrets’ claim to dismiss suit against targeting of U.S. citizen al-Aulaqi



By Spencer S. Hsu

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, September 25, 2010; 1:49 AM  

The Obama administration urged a federal judge early Saturday to dismiss a lawsuit over its targeting of a U.S. citizen for killing overseas, saying that the case would reveal state secrets.

The U.S.-born citizen, Anwar al-Aulaqi, is a cleric now believed to be in Yemen. Federal authorities allege that he is leading a branch of al-Qaeda there.

Government lawyers called the state-secrets argument a last resort to toss out the case, and it seems likely to revive a debate over the reach of a president’s powers in the global war against al-Qaeda.

Empty Your Medicine Cabinet

With prescription-drug abuse on the rise, what do you do with old bottles of painkillers?  

Newsweek  

The numbers on prescription-drug abuse aren’t getting any better. Stats released by the government last week show an increase in the percentage of Americans using prescription stimulants, sedatives, tranquilizers, and painkillers for “nonmedical reasons”-up from 2.5 percent in 2008 to 2.8 percent last year. That’s 7 million people. Most worrisome: the biggest users are in the 18- to 25-year-old set, some of whom probably popped their first Vicodin in their early teens.

USA

Gas Blasts Spur Questions on Oversight of Pipelines



By ANDREW W. LEHREN

Published: September 24, 2010  

At a Christmas Eve gathering in 2008, a natural gas explosion in a suburban Sacramento neighborhood killed a 72-year-old man and injured his daughter and granddaughter. Investigators determined that Pacific Gas and Electric was to blame for a leak, but federal and state regulators never cited the utility for safety violations.

It was one example of what many experts and studies say is weak oversight of gas pipelines in the United States, a problem that has contributed to hundreds of pipeline episodes that have killed 60 people and injured 230 others in the last five years.

Federal workers become flash point in midterm elections



By Lisa Rein

Friday, September 24, 2010; 11:51 PM

From her sixth-floor office at the National Science Foundation in Arlington County, Carter Kimsey earns $155,500 a year helping to conceive and oversee federal research grants to the nation’s smartest scientists.Kimsey doesn’t see herself as overpaid. But now, the 63-year-old civil servant and almost 2 million other federal workers are in the cross hairs during this midterm election season. With 14.9 million Americans unemployed and private-sector wages stagnant, Republicans hoping to win back Congress in November have seized on the salaries and size of the federal workforce as symbols of overspending by the Obama administration.

Europe

Family fiefdoms blamed for tainting Italian universities



By Michael Day in Milan Saturday, 25 September 2010

The decline of Italy’s universities, none of which currently appear in the world’s top 200, is a constant source of lament among the country’s chattering classes.

But the reason for this sorry state is laid bare by new research that shows the extent of nepotism in higher education. The grip of family fiefdoms is being blamed for a nationwide brain drain.

The investigative magazine L’Espresso and the newspaper La Repubblica have revealed the astonishing degree to which lecturing jobs are kept in the family in Italy’s sclerotic higher education system.

EU defense ministers advocate military cooperation as austerity measure

European Union defense ministers have taken a step towards agreeing on intensified military cooperation in the 27-nation bloc at a meeting in Belgium. The move could save billions from national defense budgets.  

DEFENSE  

European defense ministers meeting in Belgium have discussed the need to step up military and defense cooperation in a bid to cut billions of euros from domestic defense budgets.

German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg was among those who championed the idea of closer cooperation on defense at the meeting in the city of Ghent, but acknowledged that any such plan would face significant obstacles.

“We should join our forces more, but we also have to see the hurdles,” Guttenberg said. “These are national hurdles. In Germany, for example, parliament has to agree to every foreign mission.

Middle East

How far away is a Middle East peace deal? It could be as little as 13 miles

With Jewish settlements the biggest barrier to any agreement, Catrina Stewart visits Ariel, deep inside the occupied West Bank

Saturday, 25 September 2010

Unfurling a large map of the West Bank, Palestinian cartographer Khalil Tafakji picks out Ariel, a large Jewish settlement that lies deep in the occupied West Bank.

With his finger he traces an outline of Israel’s vision for annexing this area that would, he says, effectively carve a Palestinian state into two halves.

A small town of 20,000 residents, Ariel is just a short drive from Tel Aviv and the Mediterranean coastline along a purpose-built highway. It boasts an impressive sports centre and a new theatre that is to open shortly, and its college was recently upgraded to a university.

US and Iran fire salvos at the UN



By Kaveh L Afrasiabi  

NEW YORK – The United Nations was turned into a battleground for the United States and Iran on Thursday as President Barack Obama justified sanctions by accusing Tehran of failing to come clean on its nuclear intentions, while hours later his Iranian opposite number President Mahmud Ahmadinejad insinuated that the US government may have instigated the 9/11 atrocities to rationalize the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

With his calls for an independent UN committee to investigate the attacks in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, Ahmadinejad may have set the clock back, given the UN’s backing of US anti-terrorism efforts that in retrospect deserved critical scrutiny.

Asia

Afghan women break barriers in a male bastion: the army

Despite social taboos and other hurdles, a group of 29 become the first to graduate from an officer-candidate program mentored by U.S. troops. Officials hope to eventually go from a few hundred to 30,000 female soldiers.

By Laura King, Los Angeles Times

September 25, 2010

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan – One by one, each smartly uniformed member of the class stood at full attention, brandished a graduation certificate and uttered the ritual call-out: “I will serve Afghanistan!”

But for the first time, the proud group of newly commissioned army officers was made up entirely of women. The 29 second lieutenants were the first female recruits to complete a 20-week officer-candidate program mentored by U.S. troops.

 Power struggle rages in North Korean regime

A fierce battle is being waged behind the scenes for control of North Korea as Kim Jong-il prepares to anoint his successor, it has emerged.

By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai

Factional in-fighting has broken out between Chang Song-taek, the rogue state’s second-in-command, and a group of senior reform-minded officials, according to a source who has recently met people at the highest levels of the North Korean government.

The battle between the two sides comes as Kim Jong-il, the 68-year-old “Dear Leader”, is in frail health and no concrete succession plan has yet to emerge.

Chang, 64, is married to Kim’s sister and “always believed the crown would be his [one day]”, according to the source. His ambition may yet be fulfilled, since many observers believe he could take charge of North Korea as a regent while Kim’s third son, the 28-year-old Kim Jong-un, gains experience.

Africa

UN warns Sudan over referendums

Meeting in New York addresses concerns over preparations for next year’s planned independence vote in the south.

Last Modified: 25 Sep 2010

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, has warned Sudan that two looming self-determination votes, which could see the breakup of Africa’s biggest nation, must be “peaceful” and “free of intimidation”.

At the start of a meeting at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Friday, Ban said that the international community has “clear expectations” about the polls.

“We expect the referendum to be peaceful, with an environment free of intimidation and infringement of rights … we expect both parties to accept the results and to plan for the consequences,” Ban said.

The UN chief said the “stakes are high for Sudan, for Africa and for the international community”.

South Africa strike sends students beyond the classroom to learn

South Africa’s strike by teachers has prompted students to fall behind in preparations for exams. They’re turning to mobile phone programs to catch up.

By Ian Evans, Correspondent / September 24, 2010

Cape Town, South Africa

Turn on your cellphone and the lesson will begin.

That’s the unusual instruction given to thousands of school children in South Africa who have turned to mobile handsets to plug gaps in their math curriculum after a nationwide strike by teachers.

The bitter three-week strike by teachers and other civil servants over pay ended three weeks ago. However, students have protested across the country, complaining they did not have enough time to prepare for exams.

Latin America

Mexico drug war toll: 10th mayor slain, another wounded  

 

By Tim Johnson | McClatchy Newspapers  

MEXICO CITY – As if Mexicans needed more evidence that criminal groups are trying to hijack the political life of the nation, it came with a ferocious triple-whammy punch in the past 24 hours.

Assailants shot and seriously wounded the mayor-elect of a town in the border state of Chihuahua Friday afternoon, less than a day after commandos in Nuevo Leon state executed a sitting mayor, making him the 10th municipal chief slain so far this year.

Ignoring Asia A Blog

I apologize for being away last week; Translator was a bit under the weather.  Not really ill, but feeling poorly enough that I could not have monitored comments for the hours that I always promise after publication.  I would rather post nothing at all than not be available to respond to comments, because I respect my readers and know that the comments are usually the most interesting part of the post.

Tonight we shall discuss the final spinoff of Star Trek that appeared on TeeVee. Enterprise (after the first couple of seasons renamed Star Trek:  Enterprise) is, in my opinion, held in much lower esteem than it should be.  I always liked it, but since SyFy has been running it, I have come to appreciate it even more.  It sort of lost its way halfway into the run, but the final season more than made up for it.

Before we get started, I have a couple of comments about other TeeVee events.  They are both positive.

First, hats off to Keith Olbermann for using EXCELLENT music in his closeouts of major stories recently.  Tonight he used David Bowie’s Changes to add a bit of emphasis to the story about the Republicans’ turnaround on using reconciliation as a legislative tool.  In the past few days he used the well known I Can See for Miles and the very obscure A Legal Matter, both by The Who, to make his points.  I wonder if he picks the tunes personally.  If he ever gets around to reading my poor posts, I would be interested to know.

Second, I really like the new “That’s Logistics” advert by UPS.  The full version is just great (the song I mean), but not really original, since it is set to the tune of the old Dean Martin hit, That’s Amore.  The voice quality of the female singing it is tentative, but perfect for the piece, and the syncopation becomes more and more complex as the advert proceeds.  By the last few bars it sounds for all the world like the way that The Beatles (and later The Plastic Ono Band) arranged some of their tunes.  Please comment and let me know if I am just imagining.

Now for Enterprise.  It has been criticized for having poor stories (there were some, just like all TeeVee shows) and for having poor casting (I am not a big Scott Bacula fan, but he made a fine Archer, and the others were great).  The other criticism is that there was poor character development.  I strongly disagree.  It took a while, but by the time that end of the run came, if you are into the Roddenberry universe, you have come to know these people better than those from the other spinoffs, and in some cases even The Original Series (henceforth referred to as TOS).  For example, except for being Irish and having his parents killed, who knows anything about Reilly?  And except for one, old boyfriend, what is the story about Christine Chappell?

I want to focus on two stories, both of them multiple part ones, near the end of the series.  One had to do with the Eugenics Wars, first mentioned in Space Seed in TOS.  (This is the episode that was the basis for the motion picture Star Trek:  The Wrath of Khan).  The other one had to do with no fewer than four TOS episodes, all of which recognized are as some of the best of TOS.

The first story was represented by the episodes Borderland, Cold Station 12, and The Augments, and later with another two, Affliction and Divergence.  It had to do with the “leftover” embryos of augmented humans that were not destroyed after the Eugenics Wars.  It turns out that they were kept in cold storage at Cold Station 12, and at the time the Laboratory Director was one Dr. Arik Soong.  This becomes important later, since his lineage developed Lt. Cmdr. Data in Star Trek:  The Next Generation (afterwards referred to as TNG).  Arik, his progeny, and Data were all played by the brilliant Brent Spiner.

The significant contribution that this storyline was to explain why the Klingons looked different (cranial ridges) in TOS (no ridges) and even the first motion picture that had them (with ridges).  It almost seems like describing coins (with rays, without rays, and I challenge you numismatists there to tell me to what coin I refer.  Hint:  It is the same size, composition, and mass as a currently issued one).  This is not a trivial question.

When TOS was made, they were on a very thin budget.  Betwixt Leonard Nimoy’s ears and Grace Lee Whitney’s beehive hairdo, there was barely enough money to go around to powder the faces of the rest of the cast.  Thus, when the Klingons made their debut, they were pretty much human looking actors with very dark makeup (not even the proper color for the black actors who later played them to a great extent), with beards right out of The Beverly Hillbillies glued onto them.  The change was never explained, and even an episode of Deep Space Nine tried to do it, but chickened out on the issue.  In that episode, some vintage footage of The Trouble with Tribbles, perhaps the most famous episode of TOS, was shown, and someone asked Mr. Worf about the difference.  I thought that he would explain it, but in that perfect Michael Dorn way, he averted his eyes and merely said, “it is PERSONAL!”

Since I do not want to repeat every scene, let it suffice to say that the Klingons were attempting to create their own race of augmented people, and, since Klingons are more adept at battle than at medicine, botched it, creating a horrible plague instead.  Dr. Phlox was able to create an agent to halt the disease in the first, non infective stage, but had to use human DNA to do so.  Since Archer was the only human handy, he provided the material for the treatment.  Under the storyline, the Klingons were still infected, but the plague was suppressed in the first of four stages, so they were not infectious and the germ was arrested, but not killed.  Because the augmented people carried human DNA, some Klingon physiology was changed, and, you guessed it, it showed up mostly as the lack of cranial ridges for several generations.  Evidently, the Klingons finally found a way to remove the human DNA and the infectious agent, and became ridged again.

Those of you who read me faithfully, both here and on my Pique the Geek series that posts on Sunday evenings at 9:00 Eastern know that I like connexions betwixt things.  The two part set, In a Mirror, Darkly, has more than I can count.  I am sure that I shall miss a few, but here is what I gathered.  Please bear with me from time to time, because I will have to mention specific scenes for this to make sense now and then.  You would be hard pressed to argue me out of my position that this might be the greatest Star Trek story ever, including TOS and all spinoffs, AND the motion pictures (by the way, I liked the newest movie only a little bit).

It starts off with a clip from Star Trek:  First Contact (the actual motion picture clip).  As the Vulcans land and introduce themselves, Zephran Cochrane takes his plasma pistol and kills the first Vulcan, and then they overrun the Vulcan vessel.  For only these two installments, the opening credits were radically altered to emphasize the violence of humans.  That is the first connexion, this with First Contact.  There are many, many more.

Even in the opening credits, the sabre and Earth (Terra) was used.  This was the symbol used in the seminal TOS episode, Mirror, Mirror.  In that TOS episode, Kirk was transported into an alternate universe wherein the people were somewhat similar, but the culture was one of huge suspicion and conquest.  But wait, as they say on adverts, there’s more!

There was another TOS episode, The Tholian Web, that had to do with the Starship Defiant, NCC-1764, being lost into what Spock called “Interphase Space”, essentially the meeting of two universes in a small volume of space.  In modern physics jargon, we would say that two “branes” were penetrating each other.  (Remember, I do not call myself “Doc” for nothing, and it is not out of the bounds of physics).  The Defiant was slipping in and out of our brane, and Kirk with it.  Not only that, but the spatial rifts were affecting the neurons of the crew both on Enterprise (the TOS one) and on the Defiant as well.

People became insanely violent, and Bones finally found a drug that would bind to the neuronal receptors responsible for the delusions and stop them.  Those are my words, in the mid 1960s Bone’s words were essentially “to paralyze that part of the brain”.  Neuroscience has come a long way since then.

In The Tholian Web, they finally transported Kirk back to Enterprise as Defiant disappeared and they left the region of space, after foiling the Tholians.  Not until Enterprise did we ever see them again to my recollection. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Now we go to the alternate brane, with the NX-01 as the fastest ship.  They go to the Tholian hideout where Defiant is stored, and then we meet Trip.  This is another connection to TOS.  When we first meet him, he has an eye almost drawn shut on his right side, and he tells T’Pol to wear her radiation indicator.  He tells her that he has absorbed enough delta rays (a fictional thing) to shorten his life by a decade for every year by the warp engines.  This is a direct connexion with the seminal The Menagerie, the only two part story in TOS.  In that, Captain Pike (played by Jeffery Hunter) was exposed to massive delta radiation while trying to evacuate trainees.  However, there is a contradiction, because in The Menagerie, the Admiral told Kirk that Pike would live as long as anyone, but without being able to move or speak.  This has NEVER been resolved.  No matter, but nice effects to have Trip with mostly the same affliction, but not as severe.

There was a power struggle betwixt Archer and the former Captain that was not too important for the story.  They finally used a Suliban cloaking device to get NX-01 into Tholian space undetected, and found the Defiant, over one hundred years from the future.  It turns out, in the storyline, that the Tholians used powerful weapons to cause the branes to coalesce for a while.  Finally, the NX-01 crew transported onto the Defiant.

What they did not explain on the program is what us fans already knew.  The crew, insane, killed each other.  Archer had to have help to get the captain and his first officer off of the bridge, the first officer’s hands clearly clamped around the captain’s neck.  According to TOS, this was because of the unstable space causing neuronal breakdown, and treated as explained before.  Too bad that Defiant did not have as good of a physician as Enterprise had.

So, only the away team were living, and they found lots of bodies hither and thither.  But there were some workers (slaves of the Tholians) stripping the vessel, and one very interesting slavemaster.  More on that later.

The away team went to work to get Defiant back into service, but the Tholians were webbing Enterprise NX-01.  As the captain saw that it was useless, he ordered everyone to abandon ship and tried to fire on the Tholian web.  It was useless, and the ship was destroyed.

Now, there was a big difference betwixt the original TOS The Tholian Web and the web that these ones spinned.  In TOS, the ships had to come into contact with each other, then stretch out the energy field.  In this iteration, they signaled each other and the web sort of bounced off of the hulls of the Tholian ships.  I think that it just has to do with better special effects in 2005 versus the late 1960s.  In any event, the Enterprise crew finally gets Defiant up and running, except for warp drive.  It turns out that another old nemesis from TOS, a Gorn, was responsible.

The Gorns were only showed once in TOS, in the episode Arena, where Kirk had to fight one on a desolate planet in the first season.  The Gorn, a reptilian race, was played by an actor in a rather cheesy suit, but in the Enterprise episode the computer animation was much more convincing, if less charming.  Once warp drive was restored, Defiant engaged battle with rebel forces, destroying them.  Archer, then drunk with the lust for power, killed the admiral and claimed the leadership of the Imperial Fleet.

T’Pol and Soval, along with Phlox, decide to sabotage the Defiant, and of course are foiled.  Defiant finally goes to Earth and issues an ultimatum to the Imperial leadership that Archer will become the new Emperor, and with the advanced technology of Defiant would have no problem with it.  However, his consort, Hoshi, poisons him and claims the post.  Thus suffer those with lust for power.

This pair of episodes was notable for a couple of other things.  First, the entire bridge of the Defiant was rebuilt for a set.  Previously, only bits and pieces of Constitution class starships were built for spinoff episodes, and computer animation was used to fill in for the missing bits.  Second, they used original uniforms that Archer and several others quickly adopted.  If you look very closely you will see that the insignia is different than that worn by Kirk and the other Enterprise crew, but that is proper.  According to the TOS storyline, each ship had its unique insignia.  Since the insignia for Defiant was never shown originally, they just made one up for these episodes.  They payed so much attention to detail that even the bridge crew who killed each other in the TOS Tholian Web episode were in the proper places.  Nothing was ever said about why they became homicidal, but that was not necessary for these episodes, but put a bit of tension in the original.

I normally do not go into this much narrative when describing specific episodes of anything, but in this case it was important in order to show how much effort that the production staff put into these episodes.  Their attention to detail, agreement with previous episodes, some decades earlier, and canonical accuracy have to be respected.  I believe that if this much effort for excellence had been made earlier rather than the whole year with the Xindi war and the Temporal Cold War that Enterprise might have lasted a couple of more seasons.  These, along with the trilogy explaining the reawakening of the Vulcan culture, where T’Pau was first introduced (she was the High Council leader who was to marry Spock and T’Pring in the TOS episode Amok Time), were of much higher quality than many episodes that caused the show’s ratings slide, and by the time that these were released, it was too late.

Finally, this was the very last Star Trek episode in which Majel Barrett (Gene Roddenberry’s widow) appeared during her lifetime.  She provided the Defiant computer voice, just like she did for all of the Enterprises.  She also appeared as the computer voice on the “reboot” Star Trek movie in 2009, but died months before it first screened.  She was in more iterations of the franchise than anyone, from The Cage, the original pilot shot in 1964 (playing the second in command), to Nurse Chappell in TOS and movies and in the cartoon series, to Troi’s mum in TNG and Deep Space Nine (ugh!).  Only Leonard Nimoy has lasted as long, but she was in more series and had more roles.

Well, I hope that the rambling nature of this post is not too distracting.  I thought that it was important to do into some detail to make my point.  Your viewpoints are always welcomed, and very much encouraged.

Warmest regards,

Doc

Crossposted at Dailykos.com and at Docudharma.com

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Stephen gave a great performance today.  It’s available on CSPAN-3.  Keith promised Thurber last night, as much as a full hour.  You can watch Rachel’s cheerleading if you want.  This is probably the last you will hear, from me at least, about Lawrence O’Donnell’s new show on Monday.  A more sold out partisan shill isn’t currently broadcasting; and yes, I’m including Glenn Beck and the rest of the Faux cast of clowns because they occasionally break character and let the truth slip out and Larry never, ever does.

There’s always King of the Hill.

Singapore Qualifying at 10 am tomorrow on Speed.  Formula 1 Debrief at 12:30 am.  Practice repeat at 1:30 am.

• AMC– Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (confusing and unsatisfying, but fun to watch)
• Disney– Phineas and Ferb (premier), Fish Hooks (Series Premier)
• Discovery– Man, Woman, Wild (Season Finale), Beyond Survival With Les Stroud (premier)
• ESPN– College Throwball, Texas Christian @ Southern Methodist
• ESPN2– High School Throwball, South Carolina- South Pointe @ Spartanburg
• Food– Chopped (Champions, Part 4), Meat and Potatoes (Series Premier)
• FX– When A Stranger Calls (not the good 1979 version.  Calling Saxby Chambliss), Prom Night (not the good 1980 version)
• Nick– Are you tired of Fred: The Movie yet?
• Oxygen– Something New
• SciFi– The League of Calamitous Intent Extraordinary Gentlemen, Haven (premier)
• TBS– You are Gumped
• Turner Classics– A Big Hand for the Little Lady (Fonda and Woodward, one of the very best, you owe yourself), The Sting
• TLC– Say Yes to the Dress marathon (and premier)
• TNT– I am Legend x 2 (Seen Omega Man?  Then you’ve seen this.)
• Toon– Sym-Bionic Titan, Generator Rex, Clone Wars (premiers)
• USA– Juno, Legally Blonde

Later-

• AMC– Unbreakable (What a twist!), Fallen
• Bravo– American Pie Presents: Band Camp, Little Miss Sunshine
• SciFi– Warehouse 13 (season penultimate), Haven (this week’s)
• TBS– The Terminal
• Turner Classic– The Cincinnati Kid
• TNT– Executive Decision (really mediocre)
• Toon– American Dad x 2, Childrens Hospital, The Office (the good British version)
• USA– Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde

Dave hosts Shia LaBeouf, Brian Regan, and Jimmy Eat World.  Alton does Porterhouse Steak.

Forty-six years ago, I started lending money in Larry Bingham’s back room. My first customer was a drover named Penny. He wanted two dollars on a Brindle cow at six percent interest. He said she gave six quarts of milk a day. You know what I made him do? I made him move that cow into my back yard for a whole week. And I watched him milk her every day. Sure enough, she gave an average of six and a half quarts a day, so I gave him the money at six and half percent interest. Not only that, I kept the 60 pounds of manure she left behind. When you show me collateral, madam, you better make sure it’s good collateral. For forty-six years, I’ve been lending money on good, old-fashioned principles. I stand here now to tell you one and all that I’ve never been offered a better piece of collateral that I hold in my hand now!

Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 DR Congo mass rapes ‘defy belief’: UN

by Hui Min Neo, AFP

Fri Sep 24, 1:15 pm ET

2 Japan frees skipper at centre of maritime row

AFP

2 hrs 38 mins ago

3 Europe’s top bank HSBC unveils boardroom shake-up

by Ben Perry, AFP

34 mins ago

4 HSBC chief executive to quit in major shake-up: reports

by Sam Reeves, AFP

Fri Sep 24, 4:36 am ET

5 US Congress moves to punish China on currency

by Shaun Tandon, AFP

13 mins ago

6 Athletes arrive as Delhi races against the clock

by Adam Plowright, AFP

1 hr 51 mins ago

7 Ahletes set to arrive as things look up for Commonwealth Games

by Neha Lall, AFP

Thu Sep 23, 6:23 pm ET

8 Vettel sets the pace for Singapore F1 Grand Prix

by Martin Parry, AFP

Fri Sep 24, 12:15 pm ET

9 Gianfranco Ferre retro, Versace, Moschino geometry

by Gina Doggett, AFP

2 hrs 49 mins ago

10 In Milan, feminine wiles cede to Prada’s urban chic

by Gina Doggett, AFP

Thu Sep 23, 3:44 pm ET

11 Pakistani scientist sentenced to 86 years in US prison

by Sebastian Smith, AFP

Thu Sep 23, 4:30 pm ET

12 France protests pension reform

by Charles Onians, AFP

Thu Sep 23, 4:50 pm ET

13 Obama leads new UN pressure on Sudan over votes

AFP

Fri Sep 24, 12:04 pm ET

14 US executes grandmother despite protests

by Edouard Guihaire, AFP

Fri Sep 24, 7:30 am ET

15 Pelosi hedges on timing of Bush-era tax vote

By Kim Dixon and Donna Smith, Reuters

56 mins ago

16 No tax cut vote before election: Democrat

By Kim Dixon and Susan Cornwell, Reuters

Thu Sep 23, 9:32 pm ET

17 House panel cranks up pressure on China currency

By Doug Palmer, Reuters

58 mins ago

18 U.S. troops fight on despite end to combat in Iraq

By Jim Loney, Reuters

Fri Sep 24, 1:55 pm ET

19 Russian-U.S. space crew aborts return to Earth

By Conor Humphries, Reuters

Fri Sep 24, 1:53 pm ET

20 Catholic, Orthodox report promising progress on unity

By Boris Groendahl, Reuters

Fri Sep 24, 11:36 am ET

21 Ireland to fight back against attack on euro zone

By Andras Gergely, Reuters

Fri Sep 24, 10:55 am ET

22 Pelosi says tax cut vote possible before election

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer

1 hr 5 mins ago

23 AP-GfK Poll: Dems disliked, but so is GOP

By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer

1 hr 6 mins ago

24 Queen tried to get UK poverty fund to heat palace

By RAPHAEL G. SATTER and GREGORY KATZ, Associated Press Writers

39 mins ago

25 Colbert tells Congress farm work ‘really hard’

By SUZANNE GAMBOA, Associated Press Writer

39 mins ago

26 Ga. pastor’s youth academy preached sexual control

By GREG BLUESTEIN, Associated Press Writer

30 mins ago

27 Judge orders lesbian reinstated to Air Force

By GENE JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

13 mins ago

28 Troubles of US education get big screen close-up

By CHRISTINE ARMARIO and DORIE TURNER, Associated Press Writers

Fri Sep 24, 11:05 am ET

Fact- 75% of Charter Schools score NO BETTER THAN THE AVERAGE PUBLIC SCHOOL!  The 25% BEST Charter Schools score (wait for it) JUST AS WELL as the 25% Best Public Schools.  Explain to me how this is better except for teachers getting hosed and Capitalists putting more Tax Money in their pockets?

29 Former police chief investigated in S. Calif. city

Associated Press

1 hr 37 mins ago

30 Wis. regulators reopen ‘sexting DA’ investigation

By RYAN J. FOLEY, Associated Press Writer

1 hr 54 mins ago

31 Time crunch for Emanuel in Chicago mayor race

By DON BABWIN, Associated Press Writer

Thu Sep 23, 7:12 pm ET

32 Obama: US-Japan alliance a security ‘cornerstone’

By FOSTER KLUG and MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writers

Thu Sep 23, 7:08 pm ET

(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Colbert has more experience on this than the Representatives on the committee.

Up Date: Stephen’s punch line:

CONGRESSWOMAN JUDY CHU: Mr. Colbert, you could work on so many issues, why are you interested in this issue?

COLBERT: I like talking about people who don’t have any power. And this seems like some of the least powerful people in the United States are migrant workers who come and do our work but don’t have any rights as a result. And yet we still invite them to come here, and at the same time ask them to leave. And, you know, whatsoever you do for the least of my brothers, these seem like the least of our brothers, right now. And I know that a lot of people are the least of my brothers because the economy is so hard, and I don’t want to take anyone’s hardship away from them or diminish it or anything like that, but migrant workers suffer, and they have no rights.”

(4 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

There is a enormous and powerful difference between millions of people not voting for a particular party, and millions of people saying loud and clear to that party: “we guarantee we  will give you millions of votes, more than enough to tip the scale…… once you have done a or b or c or d or any combination of those things, and as soon as we see that you’ve done that you can relax in the confidence that you have won even before election day arrives, otherwise you’ve already lost and you might as well tell your corporate donors now that their money has been pissed away for absolutely nothing and that you were an utter and pathetic waste of their time, and quit campaigning”.

It takes planning, and it takes a determination to make decisions not out of fear but out of the power and leverage you know you have, but have only if you use it.

The best that can happen with this approach is beyond your wildest dreams, and the worst that can happen with this is that if nobody else does it while you do you won’t be defending yourself after the fact for having voted for people who could have done their jobs but wouldn’t.

Make it a credible threat. Not a bluff.

The democrats won the 2006 midterms effectively by running on an end the Iraq war platform. The first major thing they did afterwards was to betray the voters with the first emergency supplemental war funding bill passed by a democratic congress. The result was a folding of hands by the fake democratic antiwar movement who showed themselves to be really only interested in democratic wins, but not in progressive results.

The democrats have had years to “incrementalize” their way into producing good progressive results. They haven’t done so, and you now have an effectively republican congress and president.

That Democrats are politicians and being politician will do whatever it takes to win the votes they need means that the fear of republicans or the fear of losing ground is a phantom fear if enough people threaten the dems with extreme loss of votes unless and until they do something useful to win those votes back, which they will do because they are politicians and they need those votes to survive politically.

It’s an eyeball to eyeball poker game right down to election day, and it cannot be a bluff from the voters.

People have to be strong enough to say to the dems – “Look, if you’re going to ACT like republicans then we’re going to let republicans have your jobs your fools – now get busy and PRODUCE some useful progressive legislation or you’re history. Come back when you’ve produced, and I guarantee you my vote” – and mean it.

The dems will do it, and if on the off chance they’re too stupid to do it then they aren’t worth your vote anyway.

It’s called voting for results instead of promises.

Obama and the democrats might finally wake up and realize they need the independent and liberal votes they’ve thrown away since inauguration day last year, and that all the corporate donations in the world aren’t going to save them without those votes, and start producing some useful progressive legislation and pass it in time for the midterms.

They could have independents and liberals all across the country rewarding them for results instead of turning their backs on empty promises and the largest landslides in history this November with just a few simple moves.

Creating and passing an actual, real, universal single payer health care bill and rolling back the bailout of the insurance industry for example might do it all by itself, for example.

Although they could probably sew it right up it for themselves by also starting torture and war crimes trials for Bush and Cheney, while withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan and breaking up the big Wall Street investment banks and doing Ken Lay numbers on Goldman Sachs‘s Lloyd Blankfein and Magnetar‘s Alec Litowitz, while firing Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke, and Rahm Emanuel, and now Robert Gibbs, too.

They’ve got a whole month, after all.

Dems are smart people, right? They should be at least half as smart as all those independent and progressives who won’t vote for them unless they do those things, right?

After all, Obama and the democrats can’t possibly be stupid enough to actually believe that independents and liberals are stupid enough to to vote to continue being screwed by them, can they?

And really, all they really need to do is just one of those things and the republicans would be history in November.

This is not a sport. It is, however, the future of the country, and a choice of who rules it. Bought and paid for politicians. Or voters.

If Republicans got their way they would arrange for a trojan horse ‘democrat’ to be elected president who would let bush and cheney and most of the previous republican administration of the hook effectively pardoning them for torture and all their other war crimes, expand the number of US troops sent to the overseas occupations the republicans started, give tens of trillions of dollars to wall street and other republican corporate cronies while ensuring the Military Industrial complex remains the most profitable racket in the history of humanity ¹, and then fall all over himself bending over backwards to give the republicans anything and everything else they demanded and more while conning the democratic base with an ‘incremental bipartisanship’ fantasy story to coopt that base into supporting republican policies across the board while insulting that base at every opportunity, and generally just screw the working classes every ways possible, while sending out scare letters to that democratic base demanding support and votes because republicans are scary.

All so that he could guarantee himself a lucrative post presidential career continuing to work for his constituents.

I hope republicans never get their way. They’re scary.

¹ U.S. War Spending Now Exceeds That Of All States

If Republicans got their way fear would rule, and people would be terrorized into voting only out of fear rather than using their vote as the the only leverage they have to force concessions and progressive legislation out of the democrats.

If Republicans got their way fear would rule, and people would roll over and accept any amount of bipartisan bullshit and lies from Democrats instead of using fear to rule the Democrats and turn them into winners while destroying the Republicans.

If Republicans got their way fear would rule, and people would be bullied into accepting that nothing would ever change, instead of taking control.

That’s kind of how we got in this MESS, in the first place … by letting Republicans GET their Whiny Way … for far TOO Many Years.

“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.

Paul Krugman: Downhill With the G.O.P.

Once upon a time, a Latin American political party promised to help motorists save money on gasoline. How? By building highways that ran only downhill.

I’ve always liked that story, but the truth is that the party received hardly any votes. And that means that the joke is really on us. For these days one of America’s two great political parties routinely makes equally nonsensical promises. Never mind the war on terror, the party’s main concern seems to be the war on arithmetic. And this party has a better than even chance of retaking at least one house of Congress this November.

Banana republic, here we come.

On Thursday, House Republicans released their “Pledge to America,” supposedly outlining their policy agenda. In essence, what they say is, “Deficits are a terrible thing. Let’s make them much bigger.” The document repeatedly condemns federal debt – 16 times, by my count. But the main substantive policy proposal is to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, which independent estimates say would add about $3.7 trillion to the debt over the next decade – about $700 billion more than the Obama administration’s tax proposals.

New York Times Editorial: Tea Party’s Big Money

Tea Party supporters and their candidates like to imagine themselves as insurgents, crashing the barricades of Washington to establish a new order of clean and frugal government. In earthbound reality, many of the people pulling the Tea Party’s strings are establishment Republican operatives and lobbyists. Some have made money off the party for years.

One example is Sal Russo, a gun-for-hire who has worked for former President Ronald Reagan, former Gov. George Deukmejian of California, former Gov. Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey, former Gov. George Pataki of New York, and many other Republicans. As The Times reported on Sunday, Mr. Russo saw a sure thing last year, establishing a group called the Tea Party Express to support candidates in the midterm elections and raise cash at the same time.

Robert Reich: GM Has No Business Using Our Money On Campaign Contributions

General Motors has given $90,500 to candidates in the current election cycle, according to the Federal Election Commission.

Hmmm? Last time I looked, you and I and every other U.S. taxpayer owned a majority of GM. That means some of the money we’re earning as GM owners is being used to influence how we vote in the upcoming mid-term election.

To put it another way, we taxpayers are paying some people (GM executives) to tell us how we should vote for another group of people (House and Senate candidates) who will decide how our taxes will be used in the future.  

GM spokesman Greg Martin justifies the expenditure as a competitive necessity. “We’re not going to sit on the sidelines as our competitors and other industries who have PACS are participating in the political process,” he told the Wall Street Journal.

In other words, now that we taxpayers own GM, it’s in our interest that GM use our money to affect how we vote, lest we mistakenly decide to support candidates who, once in office, enact legislation that helps GM’s competitors and not GM.

David Sirota: What the Pot Legalization Campaign Really Threatens

Here’s a fact that even drug policy reform advocates can acknowledge: California’s 2010 ballot initiative to legalize marijuana does, indeed, pose a real threat, as conservative culture warriors insist. But not to public health, as those conservatives claim.

According to most physicians, pot is less toxic-and has more medicinal applications-than a legal and more pervasive drug like alcohol. Whereas alcohol causes hundreds of annual overdose deaths, contributes to untold numbers of illnesses and is a major factor in violent crime, marijuana has never resulted in a fatal overdose and has not been systemically linked to major illness or violent crime.

So this ballot measure is no public health threat. If anything, it would give the millions of citizens who want to use inebriating substances a safer alternative to alcohol. Which, of course, gets to what this ballot initiative really endangers: alcohol industry profits.

That truth is underscored by news this week that the California Beer and Beverage Distributors is financing the campaign against the legalization initiative. This is the same group that bankrolled opposition to a 2008 ballot measure, which would have reduced penalties for marijuana possession.

Eugene Robinson: The Party of Nonsense

The Republicans were doing pretty well for themselves as the Party of No. So why did they decide to rebrand themselves as the Party of Nonsense?

   All right, I’m being slightly disingenuous. Inquiring minds demanded to know just what the GOP proposed to do if voters entrusted them with control of one or both houses of Congress. But if the “Pledge to America” unveiled Thursday is the best that House Republicans can come up with, they’d have been better off continuing to froth and foam about “creeping socialism” while stonewalling on specifics.

   The problem with the Pledge is that the numbers don’t remotely add up. The document is such a jumble of contradictions that it’s hard to imagine how it could possibly pass muster with anyone who survived eighth-grade arithmetic-unless, perhaps, the Republicans have something in mind that they’re not prepared to talk about quite yet.

E. J. Dionne, Jr.: Tempest in a Very Small Teapot

Washington – Is the tea party one the most successful scams in American political history?

Before you dismiss the question, note that word “successful.” Judge the tea party purely on the grounds of effectiveness and you have to admire how a very small group has shaken American political life and seized the microphone offered by the media, including the so-called liberal media.

But it’s equally important to recognize that the tea party constitutes a sliver of opinion on the extreme end of politics receiving attention out of all proportion with its numbers.

Yes, there is a lot of discontent in America. But that discontent is better represented by the moderate voters who expressed quiet disillusionment to President Obama at the CNBC town hall meeting on Monday than by tea party ideologues who proclaim the unconstitutionality of the New Deal and everything since.

Dana Milbank: The GOP breaks its ‘Pledge to America’

It took the Republicans just three minutes to violate their Pledge to America.

In a lumber yard near Dulles International Airport Thursday morning, House Republicans handed out copies of their pledge, which, among other things, promises to rein in an “arrogant and out-of-touch government of self-appointed elites.”

Yet moments after taking the stage to face the cameras, Republican leaders appointed themselves arrogant elites. They compared themselves to the founding fathers and likened their actions at Tart Lumber Co. to the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia.  

More Fear Factor enthusiasm

As we get closer to the election hardly a day goes by without Institutional Democrats demonstrating another “Profile in Courage” while they piss off anyone who might be inclined to vote for them.

Yesterday we saw the rare Double Axelrod.  After half an hour of pleading on a conference call with bloggers, showing all the “Vote for Us or Republicans will eat your babies” finesse we’ve come to expect from Joe Biden and Bill Clinton and Ed Rendell (Rachel Maddow has a little more finesse, but not much), David Axelrod “Political Genius” (firstly, you should hear that like “Wiley Coyote- SUPER Genius” and secondly, that arrogant bastard would be the first one to tell you), finally let Susie Madrak get a word in edgewise-

“Have you ever heard of hippie punching?”

Long pause.

“You want us to help you, the first thing I would suggest is enough of the hippie punching. We’re the girl you’ll take under the bleachers but you won’t be seen with in the light of day.”

David Axelrod, “Political Genius”-

“To the extent that we shouldn’t get involved in intramural skirmishing, I couldn’t agree more. We just can’t afford that. There are big things at stake here.”

Madrak replied that Axelrod was missing the point — that the criticism of the left made it tougher for bloggers like herself to motivate the base. “Don’t make our jobs harder,” she said.

“Right back at’cha. Right back at’cha,” Axelrod replied, a bit testily, an apparent reference to blogospheric criticism of the administration.

Dave, the only thing at stake here is your phony baloney job and the only reason that it is at stake is that you’re a craven cowardly fool.

Case in point (told you it was a Double Axelrod day)-

Democrats have also decided to not deal with the Bush tax cut repeal. Speaker Pelosi couldn’t rally her caucus, mostly because of conservative Democrats worried about midterms. Someone needs to explain what the hell having a majority is if so called Democrats are going to slither away without making the case for middle class tax cuts.

If any Congress deserved to get blown out of Washington it’s the 111th. I know it will usher in ugliness from the Right. However, if Democrats won’t stand on a line to make the case they’ve stood on throughout history, which is standing up for the middle class, then they don’t deserve the majority.

…

Not even bothering to make the fight is the height of political cowardice and malpractice. It’s leaving a move on the board against Republicans un-played that Democrats need and the electorate wants to hear from them. Make the case, drive it home hard, then let the people decide who has their economic back.

If Democrats in “difficult” districts can’t make the case against extending Bush tax cuts for the top 2%, while resoundingly raising their voice for middle class tax cuts, then these Democrats deserve to lose, because the district is too red to help the Democratic agenda actually manifest real progress that matters.

And why should we expect any different?  It’s only wildly popular, like oh… say, the Public Option as opposed to Individual Mandates to spend 20% of your annual income to buy crappy non-coverage from Insurance Industry leeches.

And yet they bitch and moan about the lack of “independent” support after they did everything possible to fold the Veal Pen organizations into Obama for America and the DNC, screwed over the Unions on EFCA, sold out Women’s Reproductive Rights, and have shown a distinct lack of “fierce advocacy” for the GLBT community.

In 2008 we sent “Democrats” to Washington with filibuster proof majorities and gave them complete control of Congress and the White House and they have whimpered and whined like cowardly babies because they are too lazy and stupid to do their jobs.  Well in the real world that gets you fired you pampered privileged pantywaists.  I hope you’re all unemployed long enough to use up all your benefits just like every working class Joe you shafted.  You’re miserable excuses for human beings and a waste of the air you breathe.  Contribute to reducing Global Warming by shutting your big, fat, yaps.

We voted for change and we’ll keep voting until we get it.

Assholes.

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

September 24 is the 267th day of the year (268th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 98 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day on 1789, The Judiciary Act of 1789 is passed by Congress and signed by President George Washington, establishing the Supreme Court of the United States as a tribunal made up of six justices who were to serve on the court until death or retirement. That day, President Washington nominated John Jay to preside as chief justice, and John Rutledge, William Cushing, John Blair, Robert Harrison, and James Wilson to be associate justices. On September 26, all six appointments were confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

The U.S. Supreme Court was established by Article 3 of the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution granted the Supreme Court ultimate jurisdiction over all laws, especially those in which their constitutionality was at issue. The high court was also designated to oversee cases concerning treaties of the United States, foreign diplomats, admiralty practice, and maritime jurisdiction. On February 1, 1790, the first session of the U.S. Supreme Court was held in New York City’s Royal Exchange Building.

 622 – Prophet Muhammad completes his hijra from Mecca to Medina.

1180 – Manuel I Komnenos, last Emperor of the Komnenian restoration dies. The Byzantine Empire slips into terminal decline.

1645 – Battle of Rowton Heath, Parliamentarian victory over a Royalist army commanded in person by King Charles

1664 – The Dutch Republic surrenders New Amsterdam to England.

1780 – Benedict Arnold flees to British Army lines when the arrest of British Major John Andre exposes Arnold’s plot to surrender West Point.

1789 – The United States Congress passed a Judiciary Act that provided an attorney general and The Supreme Court.

1789 – The United States Post Office Department is established.

1841 – The Sultan of Brunei cedes Sarawak to Britain.

1852 – The first airship powered by (a steam) engine, created by Henri Giffard, travels 17 miles (27 km) from Paris to Trappes.

1869 – “Black Friday”: Gold prices plummet after Ulysses S. Grant orders the Treasury to sell large quantities of gold after Jay Gould and James Fisk plot to control the market.

1877 – Battle of Shiroyama, decisive victory of the Imperial Japanese Army over the Satsuma Rebellion

1890 – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints officially renounces polygamy.

1906 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt proclaims Devils Tower in Wyoming as the nation’s first National Monument.

1935 – Earl Bascom and Weldon Bascom produce the first rodeo ever held outdoors

under electric lights at Columbia, Mississippi

1946 – Cathay Pacific Airways is founded in Hong Kong.

1947 – The Majestic 12 committee is allegedly established by secret executive order of President Harry Truman

1948 – The Honda Motor Company is founded.

1950 – Forest fires black out the sun over portions of Canada and New England. A Blue moon (in the astronomical sense) is seen as far away as Europe.

 1957 – Camp Nou, the largest stadium in Europe, is opened in Barcelona.

1957 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends 101st Airborne Division troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce desegregation.

1962 – United States court of appeals orders the University of Mississippi to admit James Meredith.

1968 – 60 Minutes debuts on CBS.

1968 – Swaziland joins the United Nations.

1973 – Guinea-Bissau declares its independence from Portugal.

1979 – Compu-Serve launches the first consumer internet service, which features the first public electronic mail service.

1990 – Periodic Great White Spot observed on Saturn.

1994 – National League for Democracy is formed by Aung San Suu Kyi and various others to help fight against dictatorship in Myanmar.

1996 – U.S. President Bill Clinton signs the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty at the United Nations.

2005 – Hurricane Rita makes landfall in the United States, devastating Beaumont, Texas and portions of southwestern Louisiana.

2008 – The Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago is topped off at 1,389 feet (423 m), at the time becoming the world’s highest residence above ground-level.