Sep 08 2010
I just listened to Chuck Todd describing how NBC identifies likely voters-
NBC is only interested in 8 or above.
Likelihood I personally WILL vote in 2010? 100%.
Sep 08 2010
This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
September 8 is the 251st day of the year (252nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 114 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1966, The TV series, “Star Trek“, debuted on NBC-TV, on its mission to “boldly go where no man has gone before” and despite ratings and only a three year run that gave us 79 episodes, the series did exactly that.
When Star Trek premiered on NBC-TV in 1966, it was not an immediate hit. Initially, its Nielsen ratings were rather low, and its advertising revenue was modest. Before the end of the first season of Star Trek, some executives at NBC wanted to cancel the series because of its rather low ratings. The chief of the Desilu Productions company, Lucille Ball, reportedly “single-handedly kept Star Trek from being dumped from the NBC-TV lineup.”
Toward the end of the second season, Star Trek was also in danger of cancellation. The lobbying by its fans gained it a third season, but NBC also moved its broadcast time to the Friday night “death slot”, at 10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (9:00 p.m. Central Time). Star Trek was cancelled at the end of the third season, after 79 episodes were produced. However, this was enough for the show to be “stripped” in TV syndication, allowing it to become extremely popular and gather a large cult following during the 1970s. The success of the program was followed by five additional television series and eleven theatrical films. The Guinness World Records lists the original Star Trek as having the largest number of spin-offs among all TV series in history.
The series begat four televisions series and 10 movies with more to come. I knew I loved Lucille Ball for a reason.
70 – Roman forces under Titus sack Jerusalem.
1264 – The Statute of Kalisz, guaranteeing Jews safety and personal liberties and giving battei din jurisdiction over Jewish matters, is promulgated by Boleslaus the Pious, Duke of Greater Poland.
1380 – Battle of Kulikovo – Russian forces defeat a mixed army of Tatars and Mongols, stopping their advance.
1449 – Battle of Tumu Fortress – Mongolians capture the Chinese emperor.
1504 – Michelangelo’s David is unveiled in Florence.
1514 – Battle of Orsha – in one of the biggest battles of the century, Lithuanians and Poles defeat the Russian army.
1565 – Pedro Menendez de Aviles settles St. Augustine, Florida.
1565 – The Knights of Malta lift the Turkish siege of Malta that began on May 18.
1755 – French and Indian War: Battle of Lake George.
1756 – French and Indian War: Kittanning Expedition.
1761 – Marriage of King George III of the United Kingdom to Duchess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
1793 – French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Hondschoote.
1796 – French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Bassano – French forces defeat Austrian troops at Bassano del Grappa.
1810 – The Tonquin sets sail from New York Harbor with 33 employees of John Jacob Astor’s newly created Pacific Fur Company on board. After a six-month journey around the tip of South America, the ship arrives at the mouth of the Columbia River and Astor’s men establish the fur-trading town of Astoria, Oregon.
1831 – William IV and Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
1863 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Sabine Pass – on the Texas-Louisiana border at the mouth of the Sabine River, a small Confederate force thwarts a Union invasion of Texas.
1888 – In London, the body of Jack the Ripper’s second murder victim, Annie Chapman, is found.
1888 – In England the first six Football League matches are played.
1892 – The Pledge of Allegiance is first recited.
1900 – Galveston Hurricane of 1900: a powerful hurricane hits Galveston, Texas killing about 8,000 people.
1914 – World War I: Private Thomas Highgate becomes the first British soldier to be executed for desertion during the war.
1921 – 16-year-old Margaret Gorman wins the Atlantic City Pageant’s Golden Mermaid trophy; pageant officials later dubbed her the first Miss America.
1923 – Honda Point Disaster: nine US Navy destroyers run aground off the California coast. Seven are lost.
1926 – Germany is admitted to the League of Nations.
1930 – 3M begins marketing Scotch transparent tape.
1934 – Off the New Jersey coast, a fire aboard the passenger liner SS Morro Castle kills 135 people.
1935 – US Senator from Louisiana, Huey Long, nicknamed “Kingfish”, is fatally shot in the Louisiana capitol building.
1941 – World War II: Siege of Leningrad begins. German forces begin a siege against the Soviet Union’s second-largest city, Leningrad.
1943 – World War II: The O.B.S. (German General Headquarters for the Mediterranean zone) in Frascati is bombed by USAAF.
1943 – World War II: United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announces the Allied armistice with Italy.
1944 – World War II: London is hit by a V2 rocket for the first time.
1944 – World War II: Menton is liberated from Germany.
1945 – Cold War: United States troops arrive to partition the southern part of Korea in response to Soviet troops occupying the northern part of the peninsula a month earlier.
1951 – Treaty of San Francisco: In San Francisco, California, 48 nations sign a peace treaty with Japan in formal recognition of the end of the Pacific War.
1954 – The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) is established.
1960 – In Huntsville, Alabama, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally dedicates the Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA had already activated the facility on July 1).
1962 – Newly independent Algeria, by referendum, adopts a Constitution.
1962 – Last run of the famous Pines Express over the Somerset and Dorset Railway line (UK) fittingly using the last steam locomotive built by British Railways, 9F locomotive 92220 Evening Star.
1966 – The Severn Bridge is officially opened by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
1966 – The first Star Trek series premieres on NBC.
1967 – The formal end of steam traction in the North East of England by British Railways.
1968 – The Beatles perform their last live TV performance on the David Frost show. They perform their new hit “Hey Jude”.
1970 – Hijacking (and subsequent destruction) of three airliners to Jordan by Palestinians; the events to follow would later become known as Black September
1971 – In Washington, D.C., the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is inaugurated, with the opening feature being the premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass.
1974 – Watergate Scandal: US President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard Nixon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office.
1975 – Gays in the military: US Air Force Tech Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, appears in his Air Force uniform on the cover of Time magazine with the headline “I Am A Homosexual”. He is later given a general discharge.
1991 – The Republic of Macedonia becomes independent.
1993 – Chinese athlete Wang Junxia sets a new women’s 10,000 m world record of 29:31.78, breaking the former record by 42 seconds.
1999 – United States Attorney General Janet Reno names former Senator John Danforth to head an independent investigation of the 1993 fire at the Branch Davidian church near Waco, Texas in response to revelations in the film Waco: The Rules of Engagement that contradicted the official government stories.
2004 – NASA’s unmanned spacecraft Genesis crash-lands when its parachute fails to open.
2005 – Two EMERCOM Il-76 aircraft land at a disaster aid staging area at Little Rock Air Force Base; the first time Russia has flown such a mission to North America.
Sep 07 2010
Evening Edition is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 US church vows Koran burning will go on despite concerns
AFP
1 hr 39 mins ago
| WASHINGTON (AFP) – A Florida evangelical church vowed Tuesday to go ahead with plans to burn the Koran on the 9/11 anniversary despite fears it may fuel an angry backlash and endanger US and allied troops in Afghanistan.
The White House lent its voice to growing concern from military leaders that the incendiary move could trigger outrage around the Islamic world, as well as stoke a growing anti-Muslim tide of feeling in the United States. “It puts our troops in harm’s way. Any type of activity like that that puts our troops in harm’s way would be a concern to this administration,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, reiterating comments by top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus. |
2 Petraeus warns on Koran burning as Muslim world reacts
by Sardar Ahmad, AFP
Tue Sep 7, 12:19 pm ET
| KABUL (AFP) – The US commander of the Afghan war warned Tuesday that a decision by American evangelicals to burn the Koran on 9/11 would endanger his troops as the Muslim world reacted angrily to the plan.
General David Petraeus said the planned torching of Islam’s holy book by a Florida church would be a propaganda coup for the Taliban in Afghanistan and stoke anti-US sentiment across the Muslim world. Protests have already gone ahead in the capital Kabul and in Indonesia — the world’s largest Muslim-majority country — while Iran has warned that the burning could unleash an uncontrolled Muslim response. |
3 Ten million without shelter in Pakistan floods: UN
by Hasan Mansoor, AFP
Tue Sep 7, 12:30 pm ET
| KARACHI (AFP) – Pakistan’s devastating floods have left 10 million people without shelter, the United Nations said Tuesday, as authorities rushed to bolster river defences to save two towns from catastrophe.
“According to new estimates following the most recent flooding in Sindh… at least 10 million people are currently without shelter,” said Maurizio Giuliano, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs spokesman. He said the floods in Pakistan had become “one of the worst humanitarian disasters in UN history, in terms of number of people that we have to assist and also the area covered.” |
4 French workers stage mass protest against pension reform
by Dave Clark, AFP
1 hr 50 mins ago
| PARIS (AFP) – More than a million French workers took to the streets on Tuesday to challenge President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to raise the retirement age to 62, the centrepiece of his reform agenda.
The interior ministry reported the turnout at rallies across the country at 1.12 million, while labour leaders estimated it at more than 2.5 million, but either way the movement had grown since a similar protest in June. Labour unions called the showdown over the pensions bill, which Sarkozy insists he will push through as an “absolute priority” and which was presented to a stormy session in parliament even as the marches continued. |
5 Barclays picks American banker Diamond as next chief
by Ben Perry, AFP
Tue Sep 7, 12:39 pm ET
| LONDON (AFP) – Barclays on Tuesday chose US national Bob Diamond as its next chief executive, a banker infamous in Britain for pocketing huge bonuses as head of the lender’s highly successful investment banking arm.
Barclays said that British banker John Varley would step down at the end of March 2011 after more than six years at the helm. “I am honoured by the board’s confidence in me and greatly motivated by the challenge of leading Barclays during the critical period ahead,” Diamond said, in reference to the fragile state of the global financial sector. |
6 Beatles bands worldwide play tribute in US
by Patrick Baert, AFP
Tue Sep 7, 11:28 am ET
| WASHINGTON (AFP) – The resemblance was striking: four young men in suits and skinny black ties, all sporting an early-Beatles bowl haircut, with the same guitars, and of course, the songs that still make crowds go wild.
Except for one difference: instead of John, Paul, George and Ringo, this Fab Four featured Diego, Juan Carlos, Francisco and Heriberto. And it wasn’t Liverpool’s Cavern Club. This was a festival for Beatles-inspired music lovers on the banks of the Potomac River outside Washington. And these crowd-pleasers were not British but Puerto Rican. |
7 EU takes stand to boost growth, financial supervision
AFP
Tue Sep 7, 8:26 am ET
| STRASBOURG (AFP) – The European Union laid out ambitious goals on Tuesday to strengthen its economy as the European Commission proposed a joint EU-wide bond and ministers approved tighter financial supervision.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told the EU parliament in Strasbourg that the 27-nation bloc’s economic outlook was better today than one year ago thanks to the “determined action” of member states. But he warned that not all EU states were benefiting from the recovery — a view shared by economists who have pointed to the struggles of countries battling big deficits and debt such as Greece. |
8 Barroso urges ambitious Europe in first State of the Union
AFP
Tue Sep 7, 6:43 am ET
| STRASBOURG (AFP) – European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called on Europe Tuesday to match economic might with diplomatic muscle in his first ever State of the Union address.
In an event seeking to emulate the annual speech delivered by US presidents before the US Congress, Barroso expressed optimism about the economic outlook but urged a deepening of the single market in order to boost growth and jobs. The head of the European Union’s executive arm, standing before a blue lectern while holding his glasses, told the EU parliament that the 27-nation bloc needed to band together to speak with one voice on the world stage. |
9 Australia PM Gillard handed power by independents
by Torsten Blackwood, AFP
Tue Sep 7, 6:37 am ET
| CANBERRA (AFP) – Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard retained power by a tiny, one-seat majority Tuesday after winning the backing of two key independent MPs in the first hung parliament in decades.
The country’s first woman leader, who came to office in a party revolt just 10 weeks ago, scraped over the line to form a government with support from the “kingmakers” after 17 days of frantic post-election negotiations. “Labor is prepared to govern,” a tired-looking Gillard told reporters in Canberra. “I believe the Australian people, given the closeness of this vote, want us to find more common ground in the national interest,” she added. |
10 Pressure mounts in U.S. against Koran-burning plan
By Pascal Fletcher, Reuters
Tue Sep 7, 1:38 pm ET
| MIAMI (Reuters) – Civil and military leaders stepped up calls on Tuesday for an obscure U.S. pastor to drop his plans to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, as fears grew it would fan religious hatred.
Pastor Terry Jones of the small Gainesville, Florida-based Dove World Outreach Center church, which has announced the Koran-burning for Saturday, said he was praying about the event but showed no immediate signs of backing down from his plan. The planned public torching of the Muslim holy book on U.S. soil already has triggered angry protests in Afghanistan, where U.S. troops are fighting Taliban militants, and U.S. military commanders said the event could endanger Americans’ lives. |
11 U.S. says not considering NATO Afghan troop request
By Phil Stewart, Reuters
1 hr 17 mins ago
| WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States does not plan to contribute to a NATO request for 2,000 troops for the Afghan war, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, even as the head of the alliance held out the possibility of U.S. participation.
The NATO commander in Afghanistan submitted a request last week that alliance officials said called for another 2,000 soldiers, including 750 trainers. Colonel Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said the request referred to a long-standing NATO requirement focusing on training Afghan forces. |
12 Car bomb kills 20 in Pakistan after Taliban threat
By Muhammad Hashim, Reuters
2 hrs 29 mins ago
| KOHAT, Pakistan (Reuters) – A suicide bomber rammed his car into a police residential complex in Pakistan on Tuesday, killing at least 20 people, officials said, in another blow for a country grappling with devastating floods.
The blast in the northwestern garrison town of Kohat came hours after the Taliban threatened more suicide attacks on a government and security forces already overwhelmed by the worst flooding in Pakistani history. A number of houses collapsed from the force of the blast and rescuers sought to dig out their occupants. |
13 Congress Republicans wary of Obama economy plan
By Thomas Ferraro and Steve Holland, Reuters
1 hr 48 mins ago
| WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republicans in the Congress showed little willingness to help President Barack Obama approve $350 billion worth of measures to boost the economy with midterm elections less than two months away.
Obama’s plans for billions of dollars in tax breaks for businesses are policies that Republicans typically embrace, but the party has little motivation to give the Democratic White House a win with polls showing them gaining seats in Congress — possibly winning both houses. Obama will announce his plans to stimulate the sagging U.S. economy — including the tax breaks and new spending on transportation projects — in a speech on Wednesday in Cleveland. |
14 Call for Sept 11 truce over New York Muslim center
By Michelle Nichols, Reuters
2 hrs 9 mins ago
| NEW YORK (Reuters) – Families of September 11 victims are arguing whether to call a truce on the anniversary of the 2001 attacks on the United States as debate rages over plans for a Muslim center near the World Trade Center site.
Rallies for and against the Islamic cultural center and mosque are set for Saturday in New York after a memorial ceremony at the site known as Ground Zero for the 2,752 people killed when al Qaeda militants flew hijacked planes into the twin towers nine years ago. Critics say the planned location two blocks from Ground Zero in downtown Manhattan is insensitive, while supporters say politicians have wrongly commandeered the emotionally charged debate ahead of U.S. congressional elections on November 2. |
15 Iran says it is self-sufficient in gasoline: state TV
By Hashem Kalantari, Reuters
Tue Sep 7, 1:15 pm ET
| TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran has raised its gasoline output to attain self-sufficiency in the strategic product and foil sanctions targeting its energy needs, the state television’s website reported its oil minister as saying.
Massoud Mirkazemi’s comments on Tuesday appeared to contradict previous remarks by other energy officials who had said major refinery capacity increases were required before self-sufficiency could be achieved. “We attained a production of 66.5 million litres a day in the country’s refineries,” Mirkazemi said, according to the IRIB website. |
16 French unions test Sarkozy in pensions strike
By Brian Love, Reuters
1 hr 16 mins ago
| PARIS (Reuters) – French trade unions said 2.5 million people took to the streets Tuesday to protest over pension reforms that President Nicolas Sarkozy says he is determined to implement on the way to elections in 2012.
Tapping into growing unease over austerity as Europe emerges deeply indebted from recession, French union leaders demanded the center-right government heed their call to backtrack or run the risk of an escalation. “If they don’t respond and they don’t pay heed, there’ll be a follow-up and nothing is ruled out at this stage,” Bernard Thibault, leader of the large CGT union, told a Paris rally. |
17 NATO aims to oust Taliban from Kandahar by November
By David Brunnstrom, Reuters
Tue Sep 7, 11:53 am ET
| BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Afghan and NATO forces are planning an offensive to clear Taliban insurgents from areas around the city of Kandahar by late November, the NATO commander for southern Afghanistan said on Tuesday.
Some 10,000-12,000 Afghan soldiers and 5,000 police backed by thousands of international troops will focus operations against an estimated 1,000 insurgents in districts west of the strategic city, British Major-General Nick Carter said. “It will happen in the next two to three months, but our expectation is that by mid- to the end of November that we will have rid those areas very much of the Taliban,” he told reporters in Brussels by video conference from Afghanistan. |
18 Australia’s Gillard scrapes back to power
By Rob Taylor, Reuters
Tue Sep 7, 1:17 pm ET
| CANBERRA (Reuters) – Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard secured a wafer thin parliamentary majority on Tuesday, ending a political impasse but hardly cheering investors worried about the fragility of her government and its plans to tax mining profits.
Gillard’s Labor Party, which was punished by voters in August 21’s inconclusive elections despite a robust economy, secured enough support from three independents and one Green lawmaker to form a one-seat majority in the lower house of parliament. Her narrow victory means Labor can implement its proposed 30 percent mining tax, a prospect that dented resources stocks and the dollar, as well as pursue a $38 billion telecoms project, which supported shares in phone company Telstra. |
19 Australia’s Gillard scrapes back to power
By Rob Taylor, Reuters
Tue Sep 7, 1:17 pm ET
| CANBERRA (Reuters) – Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard secured a wafer thin parliamentary majority on Tuesday, ending a political impasse but hardly cheering investors worried about the fragility of her government and its plans to tax mining profits.
Gillard’s Labor Party, which was punished by voters in August 21’s inconclusive elections despite a robust economy, secured enough support from three independents and one Green lawmaker to form a one-seat majority in the lower house of parliament. Her narrow victory means Labor can implement its proposed 30 percent mining tax, a prospect that dented resources stocks and the dollar, as well as pursue a $38 billion telecoms project, which supported shares in phone company Telstra. |
20 China seeks to avoid shouting matches with U.S.
By Chris Buckley, Reuters
Tue Sep 7, 10:19 am ET
| BEIJING (Reuters) – China wants to quell tensions with the United States through quiet talk, not shouting matches, a top diplomat told White House advisers on Tuesday, aiming to pave the way for a visit by President Hu Jintao early next year.
Chinese officials made the conciliatory public comments in meetings with the U.S. National Economic Council Director, Larry Summers, and Deputy National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon. Both were in Beijing for talks. Washington and Beijing are drawn together by economic and diplomatic interests, but this year has brought bouts of friction over Internet policy, Tibet, U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, China’s currency and Chinese territorial claims in the disputed South China Sea. |
21 Six months on, little progress in Iraq govt talks
By Suadad al-Salhy and Serena Chaudhry, Reuters
Tue Sep 7, 8:57 am ET
| BAGHDAD (Reuters) -Six months after Iraq held an election that many hoped would usher in greater stability and peace, voters like Naseer Challoub are running out of patience with politicians, and also out of faith in democracy.
The March 7 vote produced no clear winner as Iraqis divided their ballots between two main Shi’ite-led blocs, Kurdish parties and a cross-sectarian, secular alliance that promised to look after the interests of minority Sunnis. Since then, the politicians say they have failed to make clear progress in talks on a coalition government while persistent attacks by insurgents as U.S. troops end combat operations has spread fears of a return to broader violence. |
22 US church to go ahead with Sept. 11 Quran burning
By MITCH STACY, Associated Press Writer
21 mins ago
| GAINESVILLE, Fla. – A Christian minister vowed Tuesday to go ahead with plans to burn copies of the Quran to protest the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks despite warnings from the White House and the top U.S. general in Afghanistan that doing so would endanger American troops overseas.
Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center said he understands the government’s concerns, but plans to go forward with the burning this Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the attacks. He left the door open to change his mind, saying he is still praying about his decision, which was condemned Tuesday by an interfaith coalition that met in Washington to respond to a spike in anti-Muslim bigotry. |
23 Top US commander: Burning Quran endangers troops
By KIMBERLY DOZIER, Associated Press Writer
Tue Sep 7, 11:32 am ET
| KABUL, Afghanistan – The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warned Tuesday an American church’s threat to burn copies of the Muslim holy book could endanger U.S. troops in the country and Americans worldwide.
Meanwhile, NATO reported the death of an American service member in an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday. The comments from Gen. David Petraeus followed a protest Monday by hundreds of Afghans over the plans by Gainesville, Florida-based Dove World Outreach Center – a small, evangelical Christian church that espouses anti-Islam philosophy – to burn copies of the Quran on church grounds to mark the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States that provoked the Afghan war. |
24 Grim outlook for Democrats puts House up for grabs
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer
23 mins ago
| WASHINGTON – Their control of the House in peril, Democrats are playing defense all across the country. Disgruntled voters, a sluggish economy and vanishing enthusiasm for President Barack Obama have put 75 seats or more – the vast majority held by Democrats – at risk of changing hands.
The party could become a victim of its own successes during the past two elections, when candidates were swept into power by antipathy for President George W. Bush and ardor for Obama. Now, eight weeks from Election Day, the Democrats are bracing for the virtual certainty of lost House seats and scrambling to hold back a wave that could hand the GOP the 40 it needs to command a majority Obama, grasping for a way to turn the tide, on Wednesday plans to propose $30 billion in new investment tax breaks for businesses to go along with tens of billions in spending he called for on Labor Day to invigorate the slow recovery. But even if Congress acts on the requests – a long shot in a highly charged political season – there’s little time left for Democrats to salvage their election chances. |
25 AP sources: Former FBI man implicated in CIA abuse
By ADAM GOLDMAN, Associated Press Writer
24 mins ago
| WASHINGTON – A former CIA officer accused of revving an electric drill near the head of an imprisoned terror suspect has returned to U.S. intelligence as a contractor, training CIA operatives after leaving the agency, The Associated Press has learned.
The CIA officer wielded the bitless drill and an unloaded handgun – unauthorized interrogation techniques – to menace suspected USS Cole bombing plotter Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri inside a secret CIA prison in Poland in late 2002 and early 2003, according to several former intelligence officials and a review by the CIA’s inspector general. Adding details to the public portions of the review, the former officials identified the officer as Albert, 60, a former FBI agent of Egyptian descent who worked as a bureau translator in New York before joining the CIA. The former officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because many details of the incident remain classified. |
26 EU decries ‘barbaric’ plans to stone Iranian woman
By BRIAN MURPHY and NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writers
26 mins ago
| TEHRAN, Iran – The international crossfire over Iran’s stoning sentence for a woman convicted of adultery intensified Tuesday with a top European Union official calling it “barbaric” and an Iranian spokesman saying it’s about punishing a criminal and not a human rights issue.
The sharp words from both sides provide a snapshot of the dispute: Western leaders are ramping up pressure to call off the sentence for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani and Iran is framing it as a matter for its own courts and society. The case of the 43-year-old mother of two also spills over into larger and even more complex issues for Iran’s Islamic leaders of national sovereignty and defense of their system of justice. |
27 Chicago Mayor Daley won’t run for re-election
By TAMMY WEBBER, Associated Press Writer
18 mins ago
| CHICAGO – Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, who has presided over the nation’s third-largest city for 21 years, like his father did before him, announced Tuesday that he will not run for a seventh term, saying the time “just feels right.”
Daley, 68, said he had been thinking about not running for several months and became comfortable with his decision over the last several weeks. “It just feels right,” Daley said at a news conference, his smiling wife Maggie standing by his side. “I’ve always believed that every person, especially public officials, must understand when it’s time to move on. For me, that time is now.” |
28 Boise State gains ground in AP Top 25
By RALPH D. RUSSO, AP College Football Writer
28 mins ago
| More AP Top 25 voters are buying into Boise State as the No. 1 team in the country.
Boise State gained seven first-place votes and closed in on No. 1 Alabama and No. 2 Ohio State as the top three teams in the first regular season Associated Press football poll held their spots from the preseason. The Broncos remained third after a thrilling 33-30 victory against Virginia Tech on Monday night, receiving eight first-place votes and 1,399 points from the media panel, 13 points behind the Buckeyes. |
29 Mozambique government reverses bread price hike
By EMANUEL CAMILLO, Associated Press Writer
Tue Sep 7, 10:41 am ET
| MAPUTO, Mozambique – Mozambique’s government is reversing bread and water price increases that had touched off deadly riots, the planning minister said Tuesday.
Protests last week in the capital, Maputo, over hikes in the costs of bread, water and electricity turned violent, with demonstrators clashing with police. The health department put the death toll at 13. Planning Minister Aiuba Cuereneia told reporters after a Cabinet meeting that the 20 percent increase in the government-set price of bread – which had followed a year of steady increases on the staple in this impoverished country – that went into effect Monday would be reversed. A loaf will cost five meticais, or about 14 cents. The reverses are immediate, he said. |
30 Indonesian volcano erupts again; strongest yet
By BINSAR BAKKARA, Associated Press Writer
Tue Sep 7, 8:26 am ET
| TANAH KARO, Indonesia – An Indonesian volcano shot a towering cloud of black ash high into the air Tuesday, dusting villages 15 miles (25 kilometers) away in its most powerful eruption since awakening last week from four centuries of dormancy.
Some witnesses at the foot of Mount Sinabung reported seeing an orange glow – presumably magma – in cracks along the volcano’s slopes for the first time. Vast swaths of trees and plants were caked with a thick layer of ash. “There was a huge, thunderous sound. It sounded like hundreds of bombs going off at one,” said Ita Sitepu, 29, who was among thousands of people staying in crowded emergency shelters well away from the base. “Then everything starting shaking. I’ve never experienced anything like it.” |
31 Study: Aid after 2005 quake won trust in Pakistan
By CHRIS BRUMMITT, Associated Press Writer
Tue Sep 7, 6:23 am ET
| ISLAMABAD – The influx of foreign aid after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake significantly increased survivors’ trust in the West, according to new research that also suggests hard-line Islamist charities did little to help despite the publicity they generated.
The research is one of the first empirical studies of the effect of foreign emergency relief in Pakistan. It also raises questions about whether the ongoing U.S. relief mission for the victims of this summer’s devastating floods in the country could also alter Pakistani perceptions about America. In short: Does helping out people in a crisis make them like you? |
32 Australian Labor Party wins enough support to rule
By ROD McGUIRK, Associated Press Writer
Tue Sep 7, 12:34 pm ET
| CANBERRA, Australia – Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard barely retained power on Tuesday when the last two independent legislators made kingmakers by deadlocked elections ended a tense 17-day standoff and agreed to join her government. Her next challenge? Keeping the unlikely bedfellows of her coalition together.
Gillard managed to persuade sufficient independent lawmakers to support her center-left Labor Party to form the first minority government in the House of Representatives in 67 years. Australia’s first female prime minister promised the government will be stable over the next three years, although the defection of a single lawmaker would bring down her administration. While Labor expels lawmakers for failing to vote along party lines, Gillard must get three disparate independent lawmakers plus one from the Greens party to support her legislative agenda. |
33 No recession here: Election spending sets records
By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer
Tue Sep 7, 11:12 am ET
| WASHINGTON – Turns out politics, for all its focus on the gloomy economy, is a recession-proof industry.
This year’s volatile election is bursting with money, setting fundraising and spending records in a high-stakes struggle for control of Congress amid looser but still fuzzy campaign finance rules. Based on the latest financial reports, House and Senate candidates in this election cycle raised nearly $1.2 billion, well ahead of the pace for contests in 2008, 2006 and 2004. |
34 US expects to spend big in Afghanistan for years
By DESMOND BUTLER, Associated Press Writer
Tue Sep 7, 6:47 am ET
| WASHINGTON – The U.S. government’s financial commitment to Afghanistan is likely to linger and reach into the billions long after it pulls combat troops from the country, newly disclosed spending estimates show.
The United States expects to spend about $6 billion a year training and supporting Afghan troops and police after it begins withdrawing its own combat troops in 2011. The estimates of U.S. spending through 2015, detailed in a NATO training mission document, are an acknowledgment that Afghanistan will remain largely dependent on the United States for its security. |
35 Group: Iraqi reporter’s killing highlights dangers
By MICHAEL ASTOR, Associated Press Writer
1 hr 5 mins ago
| NEW YORK – The killing of an Iraqi journalist, shot dead by unidentified gunmen Tuesday, highlights the dangers facing reporters in a conflict that has claimed more media workers’ lives than any since World War II, a watchdog group said.
Riyad Assariyeh’s killing coincides with the release of a Reporters Without Borders report entitled, “The Iraq War: A Heavy Death Toll for the Media,” documenting the deaths of 230 media workers since 2003. The report’s author, Soazig Dollet, said the killing of Assariyeh, who worked for state-run Al Iraqiya TV, was not surprising in a country where 99 percent of the killings of media workers go unpunished. |
36 LAPD chief defends deadly shooting
Associated Press
1 hr 36 mins ago
| LOS ANGELES – Police Chief Charlie Beck on Tuesday defended an officer’s shooting of a knife-wielding man whose death sparked a violent protest in which demonstrators pelted police with rocks and bottles.
Beck told the Police Commission that witness and officer accounts indicate that the officer who killed Guatemalan immigrant Manuel Jamines on Sunday acted “in immediate defense of life” and that he was warned in English and Spanish to drop the knife, the Los Angeles Times reported. The shooting prompted demonstrations Monday afternoon near MacArthur Park in an inner-city area west of downtown with a large population of Spanish-speaking immigrants from Central America. |
37 Pharmacy heists are up amid popularity of Rx drugs
By JUSTIN JUOZAPAVICIUS, Associated Press Writer
2 hrs 23 mins ago
| GLENPOOL, Okla. – Less than a couple months after Nick Curtin opened a pharmacy in suburban Tulsa in 2008, the store was burglarized twice in one week. And just last year a masked man robbed him at gunpoint, making off with 1,800 pills.
Curtin admits it could easily happen again and there’s not much he can do to stop it. “It’s one of those things; there’s only so many things you can do,” he said. |
38 UNICEF refocuses on poorest of poor children
By ANITA SNOW, Associated Press Writer
Mon Sep 6, 8:31 pm ET
| UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. children’s agency says it has failed to reach millions of the world’s neediest boys and girls in slums and remote countryside and is shifting to a strategy of getting critical health care services to the poorest of the poor.
UNICEF’s new approach would likely concentrate more on such initiatives as training rural health workers and building schools in remote areas, and less on building big modern hospitals and universities in cities, said Charlie MacCormack of the non-governmental Save the Children, which UNICEF consulted. It would cost less but also demand more planning and effort, he said. “This is a refocus for UNICEF, ensuring that equity reaches into the most deprived areas,” the agency’s new executive director, veteran American diplomat Anthony Lake, told The Associated Press. |
Sep 07 2010
(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
I agree with Atrios and David Dayen, this is an absolute must read to clearly understand the basis for the current jobs and economics crises.
We believe that the relative absence of proposals to deal with mass unemployment is a case of “self-induced paralysis”-a phrase that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke used a decade ago, when he was a researcher criticizing policymakers from the outside. There is room for action, both monetary and fiscal. But politicians, government officials, and economists alike have suffered a failure of nerve-a failure for which millions of workers will pay a heavy price.
Our guess is that the bubble got started largely thanks to the global savings glut, but that it developed a momentum of its own-which is what bubbles do. Financial innovations such as the securitization of mortgages may have made it easier for the bubble to inflate-but European banks managed to extend too much credit without such frills. However, it is clear that there were major failures in oversight. In particular, Ben Bernanke has admitted that the Fed failed to use its regulatory powers to rein in the excesses of the mortgage lenders-a tragic oversight. Greenspan disregarded the clear warning by a member of the Fed board that mortgage lending had become dangerously excessive. And the widespread securitizing of mortgage loans has made the mess much harder to clean up.
In a housing market that is now depressed throughout the economy, mortgage holders and troubled borrowers would both be better off if they were able to renegotiate their loans and avoid foreclosure. But when mortgages have been sliced and diced into pools and then sold off internationally so that no investor holds more than a fraction of any one mortgage, such negotiations are impossible. And because of the financial industry lobbying that prevented mortgages from being covered by personal bankruptcy proceedings, no judge can impose a solution. The phenomenon of securitization, created in the belief that a large-scale housing crash would never happen, has trapped investors and troubled borrowers in a mutually destructive downward spiral.
Richard) Koo is the chief economist at the Nomura Research Institute. Much of his book (The Holy Grail of Macroeconomics) is devoted to Japan’s long era of stagnation from the early 1990s onward. This stagnation, he argues, mainly reflected the balance sheet problems of nonfinancial corporations, which were stranded with high levels of debt after the Japanese real estate bubble of the 1980s burst. He argues that the United States now faces a similar problem, with debt problems concentrated not among corporations but among home owners, who ran up large debts both in the course of buying houses and through using them as ATMs-that is, using refinancing to extract cash from rising home values, and spending that cash on higher consumption.
In Koo’s analysis, simultaneous attempts by many private players to pay down their debts lead to a “fallacy of composition” that’s closely related to the famous (but too often overlooked) “paradox of thrift.” Each individual corporation or household cuts back on spending in an effort to reduce debt; but these spending cuts reduce everyone’s income and keep the economy persistently depressed.
These broader problems of debt and deleveraging arguably explain why the successful stabilization of the financial industry has done no more than pull the economy back from the brink, without producing a strong recovery. The economy is hamstrung-still crippled by a debt overhang. That is, the simultaneous efforts of so many people to pay down debt at the same time are keeping the economy depressed.
Tanks to David Dayen for his excellent choice of excerpts from the article and this comment at the end
It’s pretty obvious that Krugman and Wells are suggesting that government borrow, to sop up the paying down of debt from everyone else in the economy and cancel it out. Only this will create the kind of demand needed; in fact, Krugman and Wells assert that global budget deficits had more to do with averting a Depression than any financial bailout. But these mainly came from a crash in revenues through taxes and automatic stabilizers, not fiscal stimulus, which was too small. The writers put off their solutions for economic recovery until a future article, but you can pretty well figure out what they are.
I am looking forward to the article on their solutions, as should Obama and his economics team.
Sep 07 2010
Three posts and a video from Greg Sargent @ Plum Line.
10:34 AM Voters aren’t listening to Dem message about GOP and Bush
What if voters are simply not buying the central Dem message that a vote for the GOP is a vote to return to the Bush policies that ran the economy into the ground? What if the GOP has already achieved separation from the former president?
…
There are still more than two months to go until election day. Perhaps voters will grow more receptive to the Dem claim that the GOP wants nothing more than a return to Bush policies once they begin focusing harder on the choice before them. But for now, the data clearly shows the public is not listening to the core Dem message.
11:57 AM Axelrod: Voters aren’t (yet) buying our Bush message
Now this thesis is being confirmed by none other than White House senior adviser David Axelrod, who acknowledges to Sam Stein that Dems have failed to communicate this message adequately:
Perhaps this is where we have been failing to communicate,” said Axelrod. “[A] large number of people [don’t] believe that a Republican Congress would go back to the policies of George W. Bush, even though their own leaders have said as much in public. Pete Sessions said we want to go back to the same exact agenda that was there before this president took office. So our job in the next eight weeks is to make sure that people understand that, that they understand the stakes.
2:13 PM David Plouffe to Dems: Don’t despair, get to work!
Thanks to his work as the architect of Barack Obama’s stunning victory in 2008, few political strategists command the respect of the Dem rank and file to the degree David Plouffe does.
So Plouffe is now trying to buck up despondent Dems by starring in a new video, to be emailed out to supporters by Obama’s political operation, telling them that all is not lost and that Dems can do far better this fall than the pundits are predicting — if they get to work:
(W)hat’s also interesting is Plouffe’s insistence that rank and file Dems understand that finding a way to muster up some enthusiasm may be the difference between winning and losing…
So you know what to do, otherwise Tinkerbell WILL DIE!!!!
Sep 07 2010
h/t HEATHER @ Crooks & Liars for the video and the transcript here
Sep 07 2010
“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.
The Labor Day weekend is over marking the “official” end of Summer and vacations, not just for the kids and those who have jobs that can afford a vacation but the Government. It is time for the White house and Congressional Democrats take the lead and start acting like the the party of the people and not the corporate shills that have been cowed by the Republican extremists that are determine to do nothing but block any real move toward a real economic recovery and critical legislation that would create jobs. It is well past time for some heads to roll, especially the quartet of Rahm Emanuel, Timothy Geithner, David Axelrod and Larry Summers who have given President Obama some horrendous advice. Rahm Emanuel’s penchant for telling people to “fuck off” isn’t going to help get out the vote for the Democrats, in particular, his latest invective was directed at the UAW. It is time for President Obama to tell the Democratic leadership that their very jobs are on the line and start taking some really bold steps and get the Blue Dogs in line by telling them they will lose their coveted committee chairs if they don’t.
For your consideration and discussion here are some of the opinions of the “Not Your Usual Suspects” and some of the “Usual” ones as well. For starters I give you Michael Moore’s rant from yesterday about Rahm’s “f-bombs” and a history of the UAW, Happy Fuckin’ Labor Day!
Dear Rahm Emanuel:
Happy Fuckin’ Labor Day! I read this week that – according to a new book by Steven Rattner, your administration’s former “Car Czar” – during White House meetings about how to save the tens of thousands of jobs that would be lost if GM and Chrysler collapsed, your response was, “Fuck the UAW!”
Now, I can’t believe you actually said that. Maybe Rattner got confused because you drop a lot of F-bombs, or maybe your assistant was trying to order lunch and you said (to Rattner) “Fuck you” and then to your assistant “A&W, no fries.”
Or maybe you did mean Fuck the UAW. If so, let me give you a little fucking lesson (a lesson I happen to know because my fucking uncle was in the sit-down strike that founded the fucking UAW).
Before there were unions, there was no middle class. Working people didn’t get to send their kids to college, few were able to own their own fucking home, nobody could take a fucking day off for a funeral or a sick day or they might lose their fucking job.
Then working people organized themselves into unions. The bosses and the companies fucking hated that. In fact, they were often overheard to say, “Fuck the UAW!!!” That’s because the UAW had beaten one of the world’s biggest industrial corporations when they won their battle on February 11, 1937, 44 days after they’d taken over the GM factories in Flint. Inspired by their victory, workers struck almost every other fucking industry, and union after union was born. Had World War II not begun and had FDR not died, there would have been an economic revolution that would have given everyone – everyone – a fucking decent life.
Jacob Weisberg: Obama’s Moral Cowardice
The president needs to find his principles.
Barack Obama‘s redecoration of the Oval Office includes a nice personal touch: a carpet ringed with favorite quotations from Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, both Presidents Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King Jr. The King quote, in particular, has become a kind of emblem for him: “The arc of the moral Universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” For all the carping about his every move, the only big problem with the Obama presidency is the gap between what’s written on his rug, and what’s under it-the distance between the president’s veneration of moral leadership past and his failure, so far, to exhibit much of it in the present.
Obama has had numerous chances to assert leadership on values questions this summer: Arizona’s crude anti-immigrant law, the battle over Prop 8 and gay marriage, and the backlash against what Fox News persists in calling the “Ground Zero mosque.” These battles raise fundamental questions of national identity, liberty, and individual rights. When Lindsey Graham argues for rewriting the Constitution to eliminate the birthright-citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment, or Newt Gingrich proposes a Saudi standard for the free exercise of religion, they’re taking positions at odds with America’s basic ideals. But Obama’s instinctive caution has steered him away from casting these questions as moral or civil-rights issues. On none of them has he shown anything resembling courage.
A very pertinent comment by sTiVo at Open Left and high lighted by Daniel De Groot in Comment on Neoliberalism:
The thing about Britain is that their debate is closer to the real meat and potatoes of what this argument is all about. Ours is frustratingly diverted into “Like or Dislike Obama” or “Is the Tea Party Racist” and other tangential questions.
Britain makes it clear: it’s really about social democracy vs. neoliberalism.
It is important that [Open Left] understand this. This is the debate that is barely allowed to be mentioned on our side of the pond but it’s the crucial distinction.
When Paul Krugman argues for Keynesianism he’s taking the social democratic side of this argument. But he’s not allowed to say so, or at least not willing.
The mistake of our side in the past period was in not understanding how strongly our opponents believed in the other side of this argument. It was indeed their central rationale. It wasn’t “just politics”.
When Barack Obama made his famous remarks about Ronald Reagan being transformational, it was misinterpreted as being political, an attempt to reach out to the other side. It actually was, as some feared, philosophical. It really did mean, sincerely, that except around the edges, he thought that Reaganism-Thatcherism was irreversible. Just as Bill Clinton does, just as Tony Blair does.
The Third-Wayers are serious about this. Seriously deluded, perhaps, but dead serious. There was never an attempt to triangulate the “independent center”, those who still believed in Reaganism but were distressed by the partisan cultural meanness. That was sincere. Those who were played were the Democratic base. They would have to be satisfied with corporate-style knockoffs of social-democratic ideas (health care being the most obvious example). Labor reformers would have to be mollified with “we don’t have 60 votes”. And symbolic gestures devoid of content like inviting Pete Seeger to the White House.
Why didn’t this work? Why are the Dems SO wounded by a bad economy? A better economy was absolutely crucial to the Third Way plan. They didn’t think it would get this bad. If it hadn’t gotten this bad, they might have been able to pull it off. People would be working, the craziness wouldn’t have gained so much traction, people would have been able to laugh at Sarah Palin, Dems would have been fat and happy. But that way depended on bubble economics, which the neolibs mistaken thought was permanent. They may not even believe they depend on bubble economics, they may even delude themselves that they truly stand in the middle. But when push comes to shove, they never move to the left.
(emphasis by De Groot)
David Sirota; What a Second Stimulus Should and Shouldn’t Look Like
Recounting the findings of a new study by the Keystone Research Center, the Denver Business Journal reports that “the unemployment rate would approach 16 percent nationally — more than 6 percentage points higher than the current jobless rate — if not for the federal stimulus program.” This comports with data released earlier by the Congressional Budget Office and with the opinions of both liberal and ultra-conservative economists.
Such consensus should end the debate about whether or not Congress should pass another stimulus bill. It should – the only debate should be over the shape of that stimulus bill, and even that shouldn’t be up for debate, though, unfortunately, it most certainly is.
From both liberal and conservative economists – as well as from history – we know that direct government spending on things like infrastructure and education investment is a good way to prime the economy in the short term and the long term. So is spending on stuff like unemployment benefits and food stamps, which puts money into the hands of those who will spend it immediately on necessities. And, of course, we know from polls that spending on such priorities is far more politically/electorally popular than devoting more money to corporate tax cuts or to deficit reduction.
Thanks to Heather at Crooks & Liars for pointing out Washington Monthly article by Steve Benen The Bogus Narrative That Only Gets More Ubiquitous that points out the nonsense: Lindsey Graham Wants Obama to Come ‘Back to the Middle’ He Never Left on Sunday’s [“Meet the Press”
Lindsey Graham apparently thinks that President Obama hasn’t reached out to Republicans quite enough and that him “governing from the left” is the source of his woes and those of Democrats this midterm election. Former C&L contributor Steve Benen broke down this nonsense much better than I am capable of over at his blog at the Washington Monthly.
The Bogus Narrative That Will Only Get More Ubiquitous:
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) thinks he knows exactly what would improve President Obama’s political fortunes. Take a wild guess what he suggests.
“The only way the president could possibly survive is come back to the middle,” Graham said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” […]
Graham accused Obama as running as a centrist but governing “from the left,” acquiescing to the politics and agenda of the House.
The South Carolinian added that the White House’s agenda has been the “most liberal agenda of modern times.”
To prove his point, Graham noted that the administration has prepared to try terrorists in criminal courts on American soil. Of course, the Bush/Cheney administration did the exact same thing, without complaint from Republicans like Graham, but it’s “tone-deaf” liberalism now because, well, Graham says so. He added that the president is “certainly tone deaf on the economy,” though he didn’t say why.
It’s an absolute, guaranteed, mortal lock that if Republicans make huge gains in the midterms, as seems likely, Graham’s rhetoric will be the accepted conventional wisdom, if it isn’t already. Pundits, politicians, and the establishment in general will simply accept as fact that Dems would have fared far better if only they hadn’t governed “from the left.” Obama, we’ll hear, has no choice but to go “to the middle.”
And every time this nonsense is repeated, an angel will lose its wings. […]
The conventional wisdom will be that liberalism did Democrats in, despite all evidence to the contrary, and despite the fact that liberals were right, especially about the economy. And we’ll be reminded again as to why the accepted political truths are often neither conventional nor wise.
The sorry fact here is that as Steve acknowledges, I think this is already the Villagers’ conventional wisdom. I expect as he does for it to get worse if the Republicans get back either the House or the Senate.
Transcript via NBC below the fold.
You can read Heather’s link to the NBC transcript but for what was really said by Graham, David Gregory and David Ploffle, you can read this link to Bobblespeak.
Gregory: Lindsey President Obama says the economy is doing well but not well enough
Graham: now is not the time to raise taxes –
now is the time to cut taxes!Gregory: what coincidence
Graham: also we need to eliminate the stimulus
and stop giving people health careGregory: so will you repeal the big health care bill or not
Graham: that’s not the point – why aren’t Democrats campaigning on it?
Gregory: why don’t you?
Graham: Obama is a communist
Gregory: if Republicans are so concerned about
the debt why cut taxes?Graham: Rich people need lower taxes – some of them are having to install aquariums for less $500,000 – it’s so sad
Gregory: suppose Obama agreed to everything you want – would that make you happy?
Graham: I hope he does – but no
Gregory: why do you hate Obama so much
Graham: he raised the debt
Gregory: but your plans would make it worse
Graham: he’s governed from the left ditch
Gregory: so will you win in 2010?
Graham: if we call Obama a debt-raising sleazy socialist we win
Gregory: awesome – so you will take the House
and SenateGraham: of course – because people hate that marxist Obama
Gregory: but you obstructed Obama at every turn
Graham: right – therefore everything is his fault
Gregory: oh that’s clever
Graham: also he’s weak on terror
Gregory: but Tea Partiers are crazy
Graham: sure but we can agree on great ideas like a Constitutional amendment to ban all spending
Gregory: but you’re too liberal for most conservatives though – and you’re a little nuts
Graham: we need a Contract On America
Gregory: didn’t we have that from 2001-2009?
Graham: we are going show America a great coalition of psychotic tea partiers and closeted Republicans before we become Grease
Gregory: I love Travolta
Graham: oh me too
Gregory: experts say we should not have invaded Iraq
Graham: Saddam violated UN resolutions so
we had to attackGregory: I see
Graham: he was not a good citizen
Gregory: but most people think it was a mistake
Graham: sure we invaded Iraq by mistake but history will judge it was brilliant idea by getting al qaeda to go into a country they never were so they could be beaten and go back to Afghanistan
Gregory: can we withdraw from Afghanistan
next summer?Graham: Obama shouldn’t have said we withdraw regardless of conditions on the ground
Gregory: I should let my viewers know you are lying right now
Graham: ok dancing dave you got me
Sep 07 2010
While it’s different than the trial balloons there are 2 things wrong with Team Obama’s latest economic proposal.
The stimulus is too small-
Infrastructure
by Paul Krugman, The New York Times
September 7, 2010, 5:30 am
Beyond all that, the new initiative is a chance for me to air one of my pet peeves: the stupidity of the claim, which you hear all the time – and you’ll hear again now – that it’s always better to provide stimulus in the form of tax cuts, because individuals know better than the government what to do with their money.
Why is this claim stupid? Because Econ 101 tells us that there are some things the government must provide, namely public goods whose benefits can’t be internalized by the market.
And the tax cuts misdirected-
Why Obama Is Proposing Whopping Corporate Tax Cuts, and Why He’s Wrong
by Robert Reich
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
The reason businesses aren’t investing in new plant and equipment has nothing to do with the cost of capital. It’s because they don’t need the additional capacity. There isn’t enough demand for their goods and services to justify it. Consumers aren’t buying because they’re trying to come out from under a huge debt load, including mortgage debt; they have to start saving because their nest eggs are worth substantially less; and they’ve lost or are worried about losing jobs and pay.
…
Republicans and corporate lobbyists have been demanding tax cuts on corporate investments for one reason: Big corporations are investing in automated equipment, robotics, numerically-controlled machine tools, and software. These investments are designed to boost profits by permanently replacing workers and cutting payrolls. The tax breaks Obama is proposing would make such investments all the more profitable.In sum, Obama’s proposed corporate tax cuts (1) won’t generate more jobs because they don’t put any cash in worker’s pockets (as would, for example, exempting the first $20,000 of income from the payroll tax and making up the difference by applying the payroll tax to incomes over $250,000); (2) will subsidize companies to cut even more jobs; and (3) will cost $130 billion – money that could better be spent helping states and locales avoid laying off thousands of teachers, fire fighters, and police.
Yay Team.
Sep 07 2010
This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
September 7 is the 250th day of the year (251st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 115 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1813, the United States gets its nickname, Uncle Sam. The name is linked to Samuel Wilson, a meat packer from Troy, New York, who supplied barrels of beef to the United States Army during the War of 1812. Wilson (1766-1854) stamped the barrels with “U.S.” for United States, but soldiers began referring to the grub as “Uncle Sam’s.” The local newspaper picked up on the story and Uncle Sam eventually gained widespread acceptance as the nickname for the U.S. federal government.
In the late 1860s and 1870s, political cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840-1902) began popularizing the image of Uncle Sam. Nast continued to evolve the image, eventually giving Sam the white beard and stars-and-stripes suit that are associated with the character today.
snip
On this day in 1813, the United States gets its nickname, Uncle Sam. The name is linked to Samuel Wilson, a meat packer from Troy, New York, who supplied barrels of beef to the United States Army during the War of 1812. Wilson (1766-1854) stamped the barrels with “U.S.” for United States, but soldiers began referring to the grub as “Uncle Sam’s.” The local newspaper picked up on the story and Uncle Sam eventually gained widespread acceptance as the nickname for the U.S. federal government.
In the late 1860s and 1870s, political cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840-1902) began popularizing the image of Uncle Sam. Nast continued to evolve the image, eventually giving Sam the white beard and stars-and-stripes suit that are associated with the character today.
70 – A Roman army under Titus occupies and plunders Jerusalem.
1191 – Third Crusade: Battle of Arsuf – Richard I of England defeats Saladin at Arsuf.
1652 – Around 15,000 Han farmers and militia rebells against Dutch rule on Taiwan.
1776 – World’s first submarine attack: the American submersible craft Turtle attempts to attach a time bomb to the hull of British Admiral Richard Howe’s flagship HMS Eagle in New York Harbor.
1812 – Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Borodino – Napoleon defeats the Russian army of Alexander I near the village of Borodino.
1818 – Carl III of Sweden-Norway is crowned king of Norway, in Trondheim.
1821 – The Republic of Gran Colombia (a federation covering much of present day Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador) is established, with Simon Bolivar as the founding President and Francisco de Paula Santander as vice president.
1822 – Dom Pedro I declares Brazil independent from Portugal on the shores of the Ipiranga creek in Sao Paulo.
1860 – Steamship Lady Elgin sinks on Lake Michigan, with the loss of around 400 lives.
1864 – American Civil War: Atlanta, Georgia, is evacuated on orders of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman.
1876 – In Northfield, Minnesota, Jesse James and the James-Younger Gang attempt to rob the town’s bank but are driven off by armed citizens.
1901 – The Boxer Rebellion in China officially ends with the signing of the Boxer Protocol.
1907 – Cunard Line’s RMS Lusitania sets sail on her maiden voyage from Liverpool, England to New York City.
1909 – Eugene Lefebvre (1878-1909), while test piloting a new French-built Wright biplane, crashes at Juvisy France when his controls jam. Lefebvre dies, becoming the first ‘pilot’ in the world to lose his life in a powered heavier-than-air craft.
1911 – French poet Guillaume Apollinaire is arrested and put in jail on suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre museum.
1916 – Federal employees win the right to Workers’ compensation by(Federal Employers Liability Act (39 Stat. 742; 5 U.S.C. 751)
1921 – In Atlantic City, New Jersey, the first Miss America Pageant, a two-day event, is held.
1927 – The first fully electronic television system is achieved by Philo Taylor Farnsworth.
1936 – The last surviving member of the thylacine species, Benjamin, dies alone in her cage at the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania.
1940 – World War II: The Blitz – Nazi Germany begins to rain bombs on London. This will be the first of 57 consecutive nights of bombing.
1942 – Holocaust: 8,700 Jews of Kolomyia (western Ukraine) sent by German Gestapo to death camp in Belzec.
1942 – First flight of the Consolidated B-32 Dominator.
1943 – World War II: The German 17th Army begins its evacuation of the Kuban River bridgehead (Taman Peninsula) in southern Russia and moves across the Strait of Kerch to the Crimea.
1945 – Japanese forces on Wake Island, which they had held since December of 1941, surrender to U.S. Marines.
1953 – Nikita Khrushchev is elected first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
1963 – The Pro Football Hall of Fame opens in Canton, Ohio with 17 charter members.
1965 – China announces that it will reinforce its troops on the Indian border.
1965 – Vietnam War: In a follow-up to August’s Operation Starlight, United States Marines and South Vietnamese forces initiate Operation Piranha on the Batangan Peninsula.
1970 – An anti-war rally is held at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, attended by John Kerry, Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland.
1970 – Fighting between Arab guerillas and government forces in Amman, Jordan.
1970 – Bill Shoemaker sets record for most lifetime wins as a jockey (passing Johnny Longden).
1977 – The Torrijos-Carter Treaties between Panama and the United States on the status of the Panama Canal are signed. The United States agrees to transfer control of the canal to Panama at the end of the 20th century.
1978 – While walking across Waterloo Bridge in London, Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov is assassinated by Bulgarian secret police agent Francesco Giullino by means of a ricin pellet fired from in a specially-designed umbrella.
1978 – British Prime Minister James Callaghan announces that he will not call a general election for October, considered to be a major political blunder (see Winter of Discontent, United Kingdom general election, 1979)
1979 – The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, better known as ESPN, makes its debut.
1979 – The Chrysler Corporation asks the United States government for USD $1.5 billion to avoid bankruptcy.
1986 – Desmond Tutu becomes the first black man to lead the Anglican Church in South Africa.
1986 – Gen. Augusto Pinochet, president of Chile, escapes attempted assassination.
1988 – Abdul Ahad Mohmand, the first Afghan in space, returns aboard the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz TM-5 after 9 days on the Mir space station.
1996 – American Hip-Hop star Tupac Shakur is fatally shot four times on the Las Vegas strip after leaving the Tyson-Seldon boxing match. Doctors removed a failing lung and Tupac showed signs of progress in his recovery before passing away six days later due to hemorrhaging that the doctors were unable to stop.
1999 – A 5.9 magnitude earthquake rocks Athens, rupturing a previously unknown fault, killing 143, injuring more than 500, and leaving 50,000 people homeless.
2005 – First presidential election is held in Egypt.
2008 – The US Government takes control of the two largest mortgage financing companies in the US, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Sep 07 2010
Return to normalcy. Dave and the Boys are back. Keith and Rachel all night long.
Later-
Dave hosts Katie Holmes and Rich Harrison. Jon has Tim Gunn, Stephen Anthony Romero. Alton does Milk.
Boondocks, It’s a Black President, Huey Freeman. The opener of Season 3 and just a fantastic summary. I won’t spoil it, but if there is one ‘must see’ episode this is it (my second favorite is The Red Ball).
Where’s it gonna end, Briggs? Pretty soon, you’ll start executing people for jaywalking and executing people for traffic violations. Then you end up executing your neighbor ’cause his dog pisses on your lawn.
There isn’t one man we’ve killed that didn’t deserve what was coming to him.
Yes, there is. Charlie McCoy.
What would you have done?
l’d have upheld the law.
What the hell do you know about the law?
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