Jul 17 2010

Le Tour: Stage 13

Le.  Tour.  De.  France.

Well everyone (umm.. is anyone talking about this besides me?) is talking about Contador’s 11 second move on Schleck up the New Cross Rib (also called The Jalabert Ascension for you SG-1 Fans).

Disagree with my translations?  It’s not my fault the French don’t speak a sensible language like… oh say Southern US English.

‘You all’ is just you.  ‘All you all’ is you and your cousins.  Yawl is a sail boat with multiple masts the stern most of which is behind the rudder.

I’m glad we’ve settled that,

So it’s age and guile (27) vs. youth and enthusiasm.  I’m pretty sure how that works out.  Today’s stage is even less interesting than yesterday’s, 122 miles from Rodez to Revel, 3 category 4s and 2 category 3s, overall descending.

Jul 17 2010

On This Day in History: July 17

Disneyland, Walt Disney’s metropolis of nostalgia, fantasy, and futurism, opens on July 17, 1955. The $17 million theme park was built on 160 acres of former orange groves in Anaheim, California, and soon brought in staggering profits. Today, Disneyland hosts more than 14 million visitors a year, who spend close to $3 billion.

snip

In the early 1950s, Walt Disney began designing a huge amusement park to be built near Los Angeles. He intended Disneyland to have educational as well as amusement value and to entertain adults and their children. Land was bought in the farming community of Anaheim, about 25 miles southeast of Los Angeles, and construction began in 1954. In the summer of 1955, special invitations were sent out for the opening of Disneyland on July 17. Unfortunately, the pass was counterfeited and thousands of uninvited people were admitted into Disneyland on opening day. The park was not ready for the public: food and drink ran out, a women’s high-heel shoe got stuck in the wet asphalt of Main Street USA, and the Mark Twain Steamboat nearly capsized from too many passengers.

Disneyland soon recovered, however, and attractions such as the Castle, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, Snow White’s Adventures, Space Station X-1, Jungle Cruise, and Stage Coach drew countless children and their parents. Special events and the continual building of new state-of-the-art attractions encouraged them to visit again

 180 – Twelve inhabitants of Scillium in North Africa are executed for being Christians. This is the earliest record of Christianity in that part of the world.

1203 – The Fourth Crusade captures Constantinople by assault. The Byzantine emperor Alexius III Angelus flees from his capital into exile.

1402 – Zhu Di, better known by his era name as the Yongle Emperor, assumes the throne over the Ming Dynasty of China.

1453 – Hundred Years’ War: Battle of Castillon: The French under Jean Bureau defeat the English under the Earl of Shrewsbury, who is killed in the battle in Gascony.

1586 – A meeting takes place at Lüneburg between several Protestant powers in order to discuss the formation of an ‘evangelical’ league of defence, called the ‘Confederatio Militiae Evangelicae’, against the Catholic League.

1717 – King George I of Great Britain sails down the River Thames with a barge of 50 musicians, where George Frideric Handel’s Water Music is premiered.

1762 – Catherine II becomes tsar of Russia upon the murder of Peter III of Russia.

1791 – Members of the French National Guard under the command of General Lafayette open fire on a crowd of radical Jacobins at the Champ de Mars, Paris, during the French Revolution, killing as many as 50 people.

1794 – The sixteen Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne are executed 10 days prior to the end of the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror.

1815 – Napoleonic Wars: In France, Napoleon surrenders at Rochefort, Charente-Maritime to British forces.

1867 – Harvard School of Dental Medicine was established in Boston. It was the first dental school in the U.S.

1917 – King George V of the United Kingdom issues a Proclamation stating that the male line descendants of the British royal family will bear the surname Windsor.

1918 – On the orders of the Bolshevik Party carried out by Cheka, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his immediate family and retainers are murdered at the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg, Russia.

1918 – The RMS Carpathia, the ship that rescued the 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic, is sunk off Ireland by the German SM U-55; 5 lives are lost.

1933 – After successfully crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the Lithuanian research aircraft Lituanica crashes in Europe under mysterious circumstances.

1936 – Spanish Civil War: An Armed Forces rebellion against the recently-elected leftist Popular Front government of Spain starts the civil war.

1938 – Douglas Corrigan takes off from Brooklyn to fly the “wrong way” to Ireland and becomes known as “Wrong Way” Corrigan.

1942 – World War II: The Battle of Stalingrad commences in modern-day Volgograd.

1944 – World War II: Napalm incendiary bombs are dropped for the first time by American P-38 pilots on a fuel depot at Coutances, near St. Lô, France.

1945 – World War II: Potsdam Conference – at Potsdam, U.S. President Harry Truman, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the three main Allied leaders, begin their final summit of the war. The meeting would end on August 2.

1955 – Disneyland televises its grand opening in Anaheim, California.

1962 – Nuclear weapons testing: The “Small Boy” test shot Little Feller I becomes the last atmospheric test detonation at the Nevada Test Site.

1968 – A revolution occurs in Iraq when Abdul Rahman Arif is overthrown and the Ba’ath Party is installed as the governing power in Iraq with Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr as the new Iraqi President.

1973 – King Mohammed Zahir Shah of Afghanistan is deposed by his cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan while in Italy undergoing eye surgery.

1975 – Apollo-Soyuz Test Project: An American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft dock with each other in orbit marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations.

1976 – History of East Timor: East Timor is annexed, and becomes the 27th province of Indonesia.

1976 – The opening of the Summer Olympics in Montreal is marred by 25 African teams boycotting the New Zealand team.

1979 – Nicaraguan president General Anastasio Somoza Debayle resigns and flees to Miami, Florida.

1981 – The opening of the Humber Bridge by HM The Queen in England.

1989 – First flight of the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber.

1997 – The F.W. Woolworth Company closes after 117 years in business.

1998 – A diplomatic conference adopts the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, establishing a permanent international court to prosecute individuals for genocide, crime against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.

2002 – Apple Inc. premiers iCal at Macworld Expo, therefore the date that appears default on Dock

2007 – Trans-Neptunian Object 2007 OR10 is discovered.

Jul 17 2010

Prime Time

Well, a Friday night lineup that makes me wish I had a date.

First of all you only get to watch Keith and Rachel the once because the real life jackbooted fascism of Joseph Arpaio is more compelling television.  AMC has Ghost Ship twice though why you’d want to see it even once is beyond me.  It’s also a ‘Classic’ since 2002 instead of the (presumably better) 1952 version.

TBS has Shrek the Third twice which makes some sense if you’re a Mike Myers fan (which I’m not).  Shrek in general always makes me wonder if Piers Anthony is getting any royalties.  Probably not given Hollywood’s general respect for intellectual property.

The usual schedule of Toons with Ben 10 and Generator Rex premiers and an interesting pair of Moral Orals at 10:30- Numb and Grounded.  There is Phineas and Ferb at 9 if you prefer that to Clone Wars.  SciFi has last week’s season opener of Eureka and a new episode, followed  by a new episode of Haven.

Turner Classic comes through as usual with a pair of very difficult cult classics- Tod Browning’s Freaks and Circus of Horrors.  You should watch them, or at least pretend to have.

Update: Great.  Keith is taking 2 weeks off.

Jul 17 2010

Obama Bans Abortions for High Risk Pool Women: Up Date

Yes, our Progressive, Democratic President who was elected on Democratic Platform that supports a woman’s right to choose has banned abortion to women who buy into the “high risk” health care insurance pool. That is if they are lucky enough to qualify, afford or be accepted into that pool.

From RHRealitycheck:

Obama Administration Applies Stupak Amendment to High Risk Pools

This week, a commotion  arose over the question of whether Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plans, also known as high risk pools, can include abortion coverage.  The Obama Administration responded immediately by imposing a total ban on abortion coverage in the pools that echoes the Stupak Amendment, even though nothing in the law requires such action.

PCIPs are temporary health insurance pools that states or the federal government must establish or expand in every state to cover people who do not currently qualify for individual health insurance because of a preexisting condition.  PCIP coverage will expire in 2014 when enrollees become eligible for the new health insurance exchanges that will become operational that year.  PCIPs will be funded with a combination of federal, state, and private money.

Women entering these plans are, by definition, those who have experienced serious medical conditions-so serious that insurers are unwilling to sell them insurance.  In other words, those who get pregnant are already at a heightened risk for needing an abortion for health reasons when compared to the general population.

There is noting in the health care bill that was passed to put such a restriction on women.

From the ACLU press release on this:

   

Even using their own private funds, individuals would not be able to buy policies that cover abortion in these pools. The only exemptions would reportedly be for women who have been raped, who are the victims of incest or who will likely die if they carry the pregnancy to term.

Planned Parenthood’s press release calls the rule “harmful to women”:

   “The very women who need to purchase private health insurance in the new high-risk pools are likely to be more vulnerable to medically complicated pregnancies. It is truly harmful to these women that the administration may impose limits on how they use their own private dollars, limiting their health care options at a time when they need them most. This decision has no basis in the law and flies in the face of the intent of the high-risk pools that were meant to meet the medical needs of some of the most vulnerable women in this country.”

The Center for Reproductive Rights notes:

 

“Contrary to assertions by the White House, there’s no current legal basis for the policy. The executive order issued by the President on abortion only addressed rules for segregating funds for abortion coverage in the healthcare exchanges and limits on community health centers.  The Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan policy similarly furnishes no legal basis for exclusions in the new high risk pools.

   “The proposal would not even permit policyholders to use their own private dollars to purchase coverage, as the Nelson compromise allows, and instead applies a Stupak-type ban like the one rejected by Congress.  Healthcare reform was a tightly bargained piece of legislation – and with this, the White House is threatening to renege on a fundamental part of its bargain with American women and families who truly need coverage.  Excluding abortion coverage from the high-risk insurance pools was not part of the negotiations during healthcare reform, and nothing in the bill compels this result.”

Kelli Conlin of the National Institute for Reproductive Health says:

   

Considering that the women in high-risk pools are already more vulnerable to medical complications it is outrageous that their coverage will not include – at the bare minimum – abortion care for health emergencies.    

   This latest ban goes even further than the objectionable Nelson provision (which became law during health care reform) in that it does not give states the option of deciding to cover abortion nor does it allow a woman to buy abortion coverage . This is not acceptable.

   We all know that many things can happen in pregnancy that are beyond even the healthiest woman’s control; coverage of abortion is an important part of ensuring that all women can access and afford the health care procedures they may need.

This is a betrayal of women whose health is at the greatest risk. This action is contemptuous of their lives. Shame on you, Barak Obama

Up Date: What digby said Forced Pregnancy For Sick People

There is a lot of legitimate outrage in the pro-choice community over the administration’s recent statement that the new high risk pools won’t allow women with pre-existing conditions to access abortion overage. Evidently, the Nelson amendment wasn’t restrictive enough, so they agreed to enact Stupak for the sickest, most vulnerable women out there. It was sadly predictable, considering the sturm and drang during the waning days of the health care debate, but it’s still jarring to see just how cowardly the Democrats are these days on this issue.

Conservative epistemic relativism defines this latest skirmish in the abortion wars. You see, they are working themselves into a frenzy over this, which might strike you as odd since the rules for the high risk pools didn’t diverge from the overall health care bill. But the forced pregnancy forces went crazy with misinformation — and the administration backed down in the face of it.

(emphasis mine)

She says it a lot nicer than I would

Jul 17 2010

Evening Edition

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 BP stops Gulf oil flow for first time since April

by Allen Johnson, AFP

Thu Jul 15, 7:18 pm ET

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) – British energy giant BP stopped the oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday for the first time in three months as it began key tests hoping to stem the spill for good.

Shortly after BP engineers shut down the last of three valves on a giant new cap placed on the blown-out well at around 2:25 pm (1925 GMT), senior vice president Kent Wells announced no oil was leaking into the seas.

“I’m very excited to see no oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico,” Wells told reporters, but cautioned it was only the start of a painstaking testing process set to last 48 hours to analyze the condition of the underground wellbore.

2 Foreigners among 30 dead in Iraq hotel blaze

by Shwan Mohammed, AFP

Fri Jul 16, 2:38 pm ET

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq (AFP) – Guests leapt desperately to their deaths from upper-floor windows as a fire tore through a hotel in northern Iraq killing 30 people, 14 of them foreigners, police and medics said on Friday.

Citizens of Australia, Britain, Canada and several Asian and South American countries were among those killed in Thursday night’s blaze in Sulaimaniyah, which raged for seven hours before being brought under control, officials said.

A preliminary report prepared by the city’s hospital said people from 12 nations had died and a medical official said the bodies of the foreigners were identified by colleagues from the respective companies they worked for.

3 27 killed in Iran mosque attacks claimed by Sunni rebels

by Jay Deshmukh, AFP

Fri Jul 16, 1:09 pm ET

TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran was Friday probing twin suicide bombings in a crowded Shiite mosque which slaughtered 27 people in an attack a shadowy Sunni rebel group said was to avenge the execution of its militant leader.

Thursday night’s bombings, which reportedly targeted members of Iran’s elite defence force, the Revolutionary Guards, struck the Jamia mosque in southeastern Zahedan.

It drew condemnation from the European Union, the United Nations and US President Barack Obama.

4 Omega imbalance can make obesity ‘inheritable’: study

by Marlowe Hood, AFP

Fri Jul 16, 3:54 pm ET

PARIS (AFP) – Overeating combined with the wrong mix of fats in one’s diet can cause obesity to be carried over from one generation to the next, researchers in France reported Friday.

Omega-6 and omega-3, both polyunsaturated fatty acids, are each critical to good health.

But too much of the first and not enough of the second can lead to overweight offspring, the scientists showed in experiments with mice designed to mirror recent shifts in human diet.

5 Jobs says iPhone issues overblown, to offer free cases

AFP

Fri Jul 16, 4:57 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Apple chief executive Steve Jobs said Friday that reception problems with the new iPhone 4 had been overblown but apologized to buyers who experienced issues and offered free cases as a fix.

Jobs, speaking at a press conference for a select group of journalists at Apple headquarters, said other smartphones have antenna problems similar to those reported with the latest iPhone model.

“We’re not perfect,” Jobs said. “Phones aren’t perfect either.”

6 Oosthuizen high and dry as gales lash Open

by Allan Kelly, AFP

Fri Jul 16, 5:19 pm ET

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland (AFP) – Farmer’s boy Louis Oosthuizen forged a five-stroke, second-round lead in the British Open here Friday through a combination of his own talent and the merciless forces of nature.

The 27-year-old South African, who looks to Ernie Els as his mentor, defied heavy rain showers and cold conditions over the Old Course during the morning to post a 67 and a 12-under total.

He then put up his feet as the rain relented and the wind whipped up, forcing a 65 minute play suspension and blowing his main rivals, notably overnight leader Rory McIlroy, off course.

7 Contador shakes Schleck, Rodriguez wins 12th stage

by Justin Davis, AFP

Fri Jul 16, 1:29 pm ET

MENDE, France (AFP) – Alberto Contador fired a warning shot at yellow jersey rival Andy Schleck on Friday with a daring attack that allowed him to steal precious seconds off the Tour de France race leader.

Defending champion Contador went into the 210.5km stage from Bourg-Peage to Mende, where the finish was one kilometre after the punishing 3.1km ‘Jalabert’ climb, with a 41sec deficit to the Saxo Bank team leader.

But a quick glance at Schleck less than halfway up told the Spaniard he had to take his chance — although what looked like a promising attack allowed him to steal only 10sec off his main rival.

8 Photos ‘show Himalayan glaciers receding’

by Sebastian Smith, AFP

Fri Jul 16, 10:43 am ET

NEW YORK (AFP) – When British climbing legend George Mallory took his iconic 1921 photo of Mount Everest’s north face, the mighty, river-shaped glacier snaking under his feet seemed eternal.

Decades of pollution and global warming later, modern mountaineer David Breashears has reshot the picture at the same spot — and proved an alarming reality.

Instead of the powerful, white, S-shaped sweep of ice witnessed by Mallory before he died on his conquest of Everest, the Main Rongbuk Glacier today is shrunken and withered.

9 Capped BP Gulf well under scrutiny

By Kristen Hays and Ross Colvin, Reuters

4 mins ago

HOUSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The cap on BP Plc’s stricken Gulf of Mexico oil well appeared to hold on Friday, but officials intensified monitoring after a critical test showed pressure rising slower than they hoped.

BP began pressure tests on the well after choking it off on Thursday for the first time since the April 20 rig explosion that triggered the leak. Underwater robots scanned the sea floor for signs the undersea well was damaged.

“We’ve seen no negative evidence of any breaching there,” said Kent Wells, BP’s senior vice president of exploration and production.

10 Defiant Jobs stands by iPhone 4, dishes out cases

By Gabriel Madway and Poornima Gupta, Reuters

2 hrs 44 mins ago

CUPERTINO, California (Reuters) – A defiant Steve Jobs on Friday rejected any suggestion the iPhone 4’s design was flawed, but offered consumers free phone cases to address reception complaints that have hurt Apple Inc’s image and shares.

At a rare, 90-minute press conference, the Apple chief executive asserted that reception issues were a problem shared by the entire smartphone industry, naming specifically rivals Research in Motion, Samsung Electronics and HTC Corp.

Jobs maintained there were no problems with the iPhone 4’s wraparound antenna design and accused the media of trying to “tear down” a company that had grown so successful.

11 Consumer prices drop, sentiment sours

By Lucia Mutikani, Reuters

Fri Jul 16, 4:45 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Weak energy costs pushed U.S. consumer prices down for a third straight month in June while consumer sentiment dropped to a near one-year low in July, highlighting the sluggishness of the economic recovery.

However, prices excluding food and energy rose 0.2 percent, their largest monthly gain since October, the Labor Department said on Friday. Analysts said that suggested deflation risks were easing and called it further proof the economy was not slipping back into recession.

“We are seeing some loss of momentum in growth, but it’s not the start of a double-dip. The core inflation number should lessen deflation fears, the economic recovery is still intact,” said Jim O’Sullivan, chief economist at MF Global in New York.

12 Bank of America, Citi results show hurdles ahead

By Joe Rauch and Maria Aspan, Reuters

Fri Jul 16, 5:17 pm ET

CHARLOTTE, N.C./NEW YORK (Reuters) – Bank of America and Citigroup shares fell as the banks’ results highlighted the sluggishness of the U.S. economic recovery and costs of potential regulation, offsetting better-than-expected quarterly profits on lower credit losses.

Following JPMorgan Chase & Co on Thursday, the banks reported on Friday that investment banking profits fell between 20 and 40 percent from the first quarter because trading dried up in the wake of the “flash crash” and the European debt crisis. That is a bleak sign for Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Morgan Stanley, due to report next Tuesday and Wednesday.

Revenue was down broadly at Bank of America and Citi from a year earlier and they, like their rivals, are grappling with how their businesses will be affected by the financial reform bill passed by the U.S. Congress on Thursday.

13 Obama export control reform plan faces some bumps

By Doug Palmer, Reuters

Fri Jul 16, 4:50 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s ambitious plan to liberalize Cold War-era restrictions on weapons and high-technology exports is moving closer to reality, but some lawmakers are balking at several elements.

Representative Donald Manzullo, whose Illinois district is filled with manufacturers who complain they are losing foreign sales due to outdated export controls, said he supports most of what the Obama administration wants to do.

But in remarks this week at the American Enterprise Institute, Manzullo said he was wary of the White House’s idea of consolidating export control offices at the State Department and Commerce Department into a single agency.

14 World simmers in hottest year so far

By Alina Selyukh, Reuters

Fri Jul 16, 5:23 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The world is enduring the hottest year on record, according to a U.S. national weather analysis, causing droughts worldwide and a concern for U.S. farmers counting on another bumper year.

For the first six months of the year, 2010 has been warmer than the first half of 1998, the previous record holder, by 0.03 degree Fahrenheit, said Jay Lawrimore, chief of climate analysis at the federal National Climatic Data Center.

A period of an El Nino weather pattern is being blamed for the hot temperatures globally.

15 Women priests and sex abuse not equal crimes: Vatican

By Philip Pullella, Reuters

Fri Jul 16, 12:58 pm ET

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The Vatican on Friday denied accusations that it viewed the ordination of women as priests and the sexual abuse of minors by clerics as equally criminal.

On Thursday, the Vatican issued a document making sweeping revisions to its laws on sexual abuse, extending the period in which charges can be filed against priests in church courts and broadening the use of fast-track procedures to defrock them.

But while it dealt mostly with pedophilia, it also codified the “attempted ordination of a woman” to the priesthood as one of the most serious crimes against Church law.

16 Goldman to settle with SEC for $550 million

By Rachelle Younglai and Steve Eder

Thu Jul 15, 6:55 pm ET

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc agreed to pay $550 million to settle civil fraud charges over how it marketed a subprime mortgage product, ending months of negotiations that rattled the bank’s clients and investors.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said the penalty was the largest ever for a financial institution, and leaves the door open for future civil suits.

But many investors viewed the $550 million settlement as just a slap on the wrist for a bank that earned more than $13 billion last year.

17 BP, scientists try to make sense of well puzzle

By VICKI SMITH, HOLBROOK MOHR and HARRY R. WEBER, Associated Press Writers

57 mins ago

NEW ORLEANS – In a nail-biting day across the Gulf Coast, engineers struggled to make sense of puzzling pressure readings from the bottom of the sea Friday to determine whether BP’s capped oil well was holding tight. Halfway through a critical 48-hour window, the signs were promising but far from conclusive.

Kent Wells, a BP PLC vice president, said on an evening conference call that engineers had found no indication that the well has started leaking underground.

“No news is good news, I guess that’s how I’d say it,” Wells said.

18 Even with leak stopped, Gulf’s pain may last years

By RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI, Associated Press Writer

Fri Jul 16, 4:40 pm ET

CHAUVIN, La. – The slicks on the surface will disappear quickly if the cap on BP’s blown oil well holds. But the oil will remain in the water, on beaches and in marshes, and in the lives of Gulf Coast residents like Jason Blanchard for years.

Up to 184.3 million gallons of crude has already spilled. Months from now, it could show up as far west as Corpus Christi, Texas, or as far east as North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Judging by a comparably sized 1979 spill off Mexico’s coast, tar balls and patties could keep washing ashore for decades.

And so, in the sleepy, bayou-embraced town of Chauvin, Blanchard is not expecting to return to his pre-oil-spill days anytime soon, if ever. The sixth-generation professional fisherman had just started making a living off speckled trout and redfish. Now he’s part of the massive effort to mop up the spill.

19 Utah identifies 2 allegedly behind immigrant list

By BROCK VERGAKIS, Associated Press Writer

2 hrs 49 mins ago

SALT LAKE CITY – Utah officials said Friday they have identified at least two state workers who apparently accessed confidential documents to create a list of 1,300 purported illegal immigrants that was mailed to law enforcement officials and the news media.

Gov. Gary Herbert said the employees work for the Department of Workforce Services, which administers food stamp programs and other public benefits. The employees have been placed on administrative leave, and the state attorney general will determine whether to file criminal charges.

“It’s a very small group. The people we’ve identified certainly have some strong political opinions and seem to be frustrated with some of the issues around immigration,” said Kristen Cox, executive director for the department. “I think it’s an immense hypocrisy to talk about taking people to task for being illegal and doing so by breaking the law.”

20 Apple CEO on antenna problem: ‘We aren’t perfect’

By JORDAN ROBERTSON and JESSICA MINTZ, AP Technology Writers

2 hrs 50 mins ago

CUPERTINO, Calif. – A perfect iPhone? There’s no app for that. Apple Inc. will give free protective cases to buyers of its latest iPhone to prevent reception problems that occur when people cover a certain spot on the phone with a bare hand.

CEO Steve Jobs apologized Friday to people who are less than satisfied with the iPhone 4, even as he denied it has an antenna problem that needs fixing.

“We’re not perfect,” Jobs said at a news conference. “Phones aren’t perfect.”

21 Fierce wind makes for brutal day at St. Andrews

By DOUG FERGUSON, AP Golf Writer

Fri Jul 16, 6:44 pm ET

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – Around the loop at the far end of St. Andrews, shots at the mercy of a vicious wind were flying in every direction as Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods and so many others struggled to survive in the British Open.

Just as daunting was one thing that didn’t move – the name of Louis Oosthuizen atop the leaderboard.

It stayed there over the final 11 hours on a Friday when the mood of the Old Course turned foul. Oosthuizen finished his 5-under 67 just as the flags starting whipping and the grandstands creaked from gusts that topped 40 mph, forcing a round to be halted for the first time in 12 years at the British Open.

22 28 killed in hotel fire in Iraq’s Kurdish region

By YAHYA BARZANJI and REBECCA SANTANA, Associated Press Writers

Fri Jul 16, 6:04 pm ET

BAGHDAD – A fierce blaze at a hotel without fire escapes sent some desperate guests plunging to their deaths in a northern Iraqi oil boomtown, killing 28 people.

Half of those killed were foreigners, a reflection of the thousands of migrants who have flooded the Kurdish region in northern Iraq in recent years in search of economic opportunities. Kurdistan, which has been spared the brunt of violence in Iraq, has prospered even as the rest of the country remains mired in sectarian bloodshed and political woes that have slowed investment.

The fire began late Thursday night in the city of Sulaimaniyah and lasted well into Friday morning as firefighters battled the deadly blaze in the five-story Soma Hotel for nearly five hours.

23 Less-confident consumers could stall recovery

By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer

Fri Jul 16, 5:01 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Consumers are having second thoughts about the recovery.

Shoppers are losing confidence, becoming more concerned about low pay and a weak job market than about bargains. And their worries are threatening to drag down the economy.

A report released Friday showed that consumer confidence fell in July to its lowest point in nearly a year. A volatile stock market, near-double-digit unemployment, lackluster wage gains and a stalled housing market have raised fears that the recovery is on the verge of stalling.

24 Sunni group claims Iran mosque blast killing 27

By NASSER KARIMI and LEE KEATH, Associated Press Writers

Fri Jul 16, 6:59 pm ET

TEHRAN, Iran – A Sunni insurgent group said it carried out a double suicide bombing against a Shiite mosque in southeast Iran to avenge the execution of its leader, as Iranian authorities Friday said the death toll rose to 27 people, including members of the elite Revolutionary Guard.

The insurgent group, Jundallah, has repeatedly succeeded in carrying out deadly strikes on the Guard, the country’s most powerful military force – including an October suicide bombing that killed more than 40 people. The new attack was a sign that the group is still able to carry out devastating bombings even after Iran hanged its leader Abdulmalik Rigi and his brother earlier this year.

Shiite worshippers were attending ceremonies marking the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Hussein, when the first blast went off at the entrance of the mosque in the provincial capital Zahedan. The male bomber was disguised as a woman, local lawmaker Hossein Ali Shahriari told the ISNA news agency.

25 Ex-Manchin aide Goodwin tapped for Byrd seat

By LAWRENCE MESSINA, Associated Press Writer

Fri Jul 16, 5:22 pm ET

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Gov. Joe Manchin appointed former chief counsel Carte Goodwin, a member of a prominent West Virginia family, on Friday to succeed the late U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd.

Manchin announced Goodwin’s appointment during a packed afternoon news conference at the state Capitol.

“I know he’s going to make us all proud,” Manchin said. “I know that West Virginia is better off because he’s passed this way.”

26 Minor earthquake shakes up US capital’s movers

By KAREN MAHABIR and JESSICA GRESKO, Associated Press Writers

Fri Jul 16, 5:45 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Earthquakes are so rare in the Washington area that even a geology student wasn’t quite sure what was going on when a minor one hit early Friday. Was it a truck passing by? A low-flying plane?

Gerasimos Michalitsianos, who will be a senior at the University of Maryland, College Park, was sitting on his couch looking at e-mails when the 3.6-magnitude temblor occurred.

“I didn’t actually know that I was in an earthquake,” said Michalitsianos, who is studying postseismic relaxation, how the ground changes following major earthquakes.

27 Ice Age baby mammoth on display at French museum

RAFAEL MESQUITA, Associated Press Writer

Fri Jul 16, 12:00 pm ET

PARIS – After tens of thousands of years under the Siberian frost, a baby woolly mammoth is taking a summer vacation in southeast France.

Baby Khroma, one of the oldest intact mammoths ever found, went on display in a French museum Friday – after it underwent special tests to ensure it was no longer bearing the anthrax believed to have killed it.

Khroma is on display at the Musee Crozatier in Puy-en-Velay in a special cryogenic chamber kept at 18 degrees C (0.40 Fahrenheit).

28 Congress acts, but bank bill has work ahead

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer

Fri Jul 16, 1:16 pm ET

WASHINGTON – In the end, it’s only a beginning.

The far-reaching new banking and consumer protection bill that President Barack Obama intends to sign on Wednesday now shifts from the politicians to the technocrats.

The legislation gives regulators latitude and time to come up with new rules, requires scores of studies and, in some instances, depends on international agreements falling into place.

29 Goldman paying $550M to settle civil fraud charges

By MARCY GORDON and DANIEL WAGNER, AP Business Writers

Fri Jul 16, 7:58 am ET

WASHINGTON – Resolving a high-profile government case linked to the mortgage meltdown, Goldman Sachs & Co. has agreed to pay a record $550 million to settle civil fraud charges that it misled buyers of complex investments.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced the settlement Thursday with the Wall Street titan, just hours after Congress gave final approval to legislation imposing the stiffest restrictions on banks and Wall Street firms since the Great Depresssion.

For Goldman, it was a chance to put behind it a case that had tarnished its reputation after it emerged relatively unscathed from the financial crisis. For the SEC, emerging from the embarrassment of a series of lapses, the charges and the settlement were a high-stakes opportunity to prove it could be tough on Wall Street.

30 Ship junked 200 years ago uncovered at WTC site

By VERENA DOBNIK, Associated Press Writer

Fri Jul 16, 4:26 am ET

NEW YORK – The ship was buried as junk two centuries ago – landfill to expand a bustling little island of commerce called Manhattan. When it re-emerged this week, surrounded by skyscrapers, it was an instant treasure that popped up from the mud near ground zero.

A 32-foot piece of the vessel was found in soil 20 feet under street level, amid noisy bulldozers excavating a parking garage for the future World Trade Center. Near the site of so many grim finds – Sept. 11 victims’ remains, twisted steel – this discovery was as unexpected as it was thrilling.

Historians say the ship, believed to date to the 1700s, was defunct by the time it was used around 1810 to extend the shores of lower Manhattan.

31 Ex-officer testifies in military gay policy trial

By JULIE WATSON, Associated Press Writer

1 hr 53 mins ago

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – A former Air Force officer testified Friday that he did not violate the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy but was discharged for being openly gay after a service member snooped through his e-mails.

Former Air Force Maj. Michael Almy took the witness stand to support a federal court lawsuit filed by a Republican gay rights organization challenging the constitutionality of the military’s ban on openly gay troops.

The non-jury trial has forced the federal government to defend a policy that President Barack Obama is pushing Congress to repeal.

32 Top Texas criminal judge warned but keeps job

By PAUL J. WEBER, Associated Press Writer

1 hr 55 mins ago

SAN ANTONIO – The top criminal judge in Texas was spared her job but still punished Friday by a state panel that reprimanded embattled Judge Sharon Keller for turning away a death-row inmate’s late appeal hours before his 2007 execution.

Keller, the presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, had faced removal from the bench. But the State Commission on Judicial Conduct instead slapped her with a “public warning,” one of the least severe sanctions at its disposal.

The resolution to what became a three-year saga seemed to leave neither side satisfied. Keller sought nothing short of an exoneration, and her critics grumbled over the panel letting her off with a light rebuke.

33 Immigrant deaths in Arizona desert soaring in July

By AMANDA LEE MYERS, Associated Press Writer

2 hrs 8 mins ago

PHOENIX – The number of deaths among illegal immigrants crossing the Arizona desert from Mexico is soaring so high this month that the medical examiner’s office that handles the bodies is using a refrigerated truck to store some of them, the chief examiner said Friday.

The bodies of 40 illegal immigrants have been brought to the office of Pima County Medical Examiner Dr. Bruce Parks since July 1. At that rate, Parks said the deaths could top the single-month record of 68 in July 2005 since his office began tracking them in 2000.

“Right now, at the halfway point of the month, to have so many is just a very bad sign,” he said. “It’s definitely on course to perhaps be the deadliest month of all time.”

34 Texas officer appeals excessive force suspension

By JEFF CARLTON, Associated Press Writer

2 hrs 11 mins ago

DALLAS – A white east Texas police officer shown on dashboard camera video slamming a black handcuffed suspect face first onto the hood of a squad car has appealed his two-day unpaid suspension, officials said Friday.

The arrest was the latest incident to spark outrage in racially charged Paris, about 90 miles northeast of Dallas, where the Nation of Islam and the New Black Panther Party led protests last year after murder charges were dropped against two white defendants accused of fatally striking a black man with a pickup truck.

The video shows a squad car pulling up to the site of a Nov. 10 roadside arrest. Paris Police Officer Jeremy Massey, who is wearing sunglasses, a cowboy hat and is not in uniform, is standing alongside his unmarked pickup truck holding a handcuffed suspect, 18-year-old Cornelius Gill.

35 NY governor signs law limiting stop-frisk database

By MARC BEJA, Associated Press Writer

Fri Jul 16, 7:18 pm ET

NEW YORK – Gov. David Paterson signed legislation Friday that would stop New York City police from storing the names of hundreds of thousands of people who were stopped and frisked without facing charges, calling the practice “not a policy for a democracy.”

Paterson signed the law over vehement objections of New York City’s mayor and police commissioner, who said the city was losing a key crime-fighting tool.

“This law does not in any way tamper with our stop-and-frisk policies,” Paterson said. “What it does is it disallows the use of personal data of innocent people who have not done anything wrong. … That is not a policy for a democracy.”

36 Judge allows Nevada wild horse roundup to resume

By MARTIN GRIFFITH, Associated Press Writer

Fri Jul 16, 7:12 pm ET

RENO, Nev. – A government roundup of wild horses can resume in Nevada, a judge ruled Friday, dealing a setback to animal rights activists who had hoped to halt it after 13 mustangs died.

Federal land managers hailed U.S. District Judge Larry Hicks’ order, warning that more than 500 horses in northern Elko County could die of dehydration in the next week if the roundup didn’t continue. On Wednesday, Hicks issued an emergency order stopping the gather.

U.S. Bureau of Land Management spokesman Doran Sanchez said the condition of the horses is “deteriorating rapidly,” and the roundup will resume Saturday morning. BLM officials blame the deaths on the drought and not the roundup.

37 Ala. man remembers going over Niagara Falls as boy

By CAROLYN THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer

Fri Jul 16, 6:52 pm ET

NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. – Fifty years ago, Roger Woodward earned bragging rights as one of the few people to survive a plunge over Niagara Falls.

Not that he ever used them.

For sure, the 7-year-old miracle boy who tumbled over the brink after a boating accident is part of the colorful folklore of the Falls. His story is told in the same breath as the fame and fortune-seeking adventurers led by schoolteacher Annie Taylor’s 1901 barrel ride with her cat.

38 Group: Dragging of slain SC man is a hate crime

By MEG KINNARD, Associated Press Writer

Fri Jul 16, 4:43 pm ET

NEWBERRY, S.C. – For the New Black Panther Party, it’s simple: A black man being shot to death by a white man and dragged for miles behind a pickup truck is a racial hate crime.

For local authorities and residents in this city of 11,000 in central South Carolina, it’s not so clear: The suspect and the victim were apparently friends, often eating lunch together at the turkey processing plant where they worked. Investigators say they spent several hours together before the gruesome slaying. And some speculate whether it started with an argument about a woman.

Federal authorities haven’t yet decided whether to classify the killing of Anthony Hill, 30, as a hate crime. State authorities are still investigating and monitoring news conferences by the black activist group, which plans a rally Saturday on its insistence that Hill was killed for his color.

39 Speed dating gets a revival among 20-somethings

By RYAN McLENDON, For The Associated Press

Fri Jul 16, 2:43 pm ET

NEW YORK – Looking for love? Got five minutes and some Ray Ban wayfarers?

Speed dating, a party where groups of people have micro-dates over the course of an evening in a sort of amorous musical chairs is being rebranded as a younger, hipper alternative to online dating.

In Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood, an event called “The Internet Killed Your Social Skills” is drawing crowds every first Thursday of the month, filling a bar with a sea of 20-somethings in fedoras.

Jul 16 2010

Punting the Pundits

 What Digby said Goldilocks Triangulation

There’s a ton of discussion this morning about this article in which unnamed White House functionaries run to Politico to complain that nobody understands them. I think it pretty much speaks for itself, but there are some points worth discussing.

First of all, the central premise seems to be that liberals should be happy that Obama has “gotten something done” without regard to what that “something” is. But the fact is that professional politicians always rattle off a legislative laundry list while activists care about process, politics and policy — and average voters only care about the results. (The press cares about “the score”, however they decide to define it that day.) A successful president is expected to know how to manage all of that — and browbeating his voters is rarely a winning strategy.

Therefore, his political advisers should know that when the country is still reeling from unemployment and foreclosures after nearly two years, the passage of an inadequate stimulus bill, which unrealistic benchmarks and a giddy victory party ensured would be the only chance they got, the only people who will consider that a “success” would be beltway insiders. They should have realized that a health care bill that nobody in their right minds would have designed from scratch, the worst aspects of which liberals will be asked to defend for years to come, would be met with dampened enthusiasm by those who watched the process devolve from a sense of progressive purpose to an exhausting farce. They are expected to be able to predict that financial reform without accountability for what’s gone before, combined with the administration’s unwillingness to confront the civil liberties abuse of the last administration — indeed expanding on them in some cases — would show a lack of fundamental concern for justice among those who care about such things.

snip

Still, running to Politico to complain about the immature liberals would seem to be even more counterproductive than usual. Indeed, it’s so counterproductive that I have to assume this is a conscious triangulation tactic. After all, if what you are upset about is liberals failing to be properly supportive, it hardly seems wise to take to the Drudge Daily to complain about them, does it? But then even these anonymous whiners can’t be so stupid as to think browbeating a bunch of liberal bloggers has any meaning among anyone but the Village elite so that’s obviously what this is about — creating a Goldilocks meme among the media that says because Obama is criticized by both the immature bloggers and the radical tea party, he must be juuust riiiight. That won’t do the Democrats any good in the short run, but it sounds like a 2012 strategy in the making.  

Joan Walsh at Salon

White people to NAACP: Time to disband! White people to NAACP: Time to disband!

It’s good to learn that right-wing Caucasians know what’s best for blacks. Plus: Read Mark Williams’ racist letter

Ben Jealous, give it up. Your organization, the NAACP, is no longer needed. How do I know? I read it in a press release today from a group of “Nevada Conservative Leaders and Grassroots Activists,” which told me that “In 2010, the NAACP has outlived its usefulness.” Thanks, white people!

A lot of white conservatives are upset with the NAACP this week for daring to talk about racists in the Tea Party movement. The group passed a resolution asking the Tea Party to condemn the racists in its midst. It didn’t denounce the entire Tea Party, as simple-minded folk like Sarah Palin have claimed; it merely tries to take supporters at their word that only a tiny fringe of the movement harbors any racist sentiment, by asking those supporters to denounce that fringe. What’s the problem?

snip

Word to the Tea Partiers: You could learn from the NAACP, which has survived 101 years, despite plenty of strife from within and without. Tea Partiers seem so fractious they could kill their own movement before the voters get a chance to reject them in November.

Heather B. Hamilton at The Hill

Senate’s dereliction of duty a danger to U.S. leadership

As the Senate begins debate on the U.S.-Russia New START arms-reduction treaty, we must not lose sight of a glaring problem in our national security: the impact that the U.S. failure to join major multilateral treaties has on our capacity to exercise global leadership. This failure threatens to make us, in a sad parody of Madeline Albright’s famous phrase, the “dispensable nation.”

The world is not waiting for us. As it becomes clear the treaties we negotiate might never be ratified, our power to shape their formation will wane. The rest of the world will continue negotiating multilateral treaties to shape vital international issues – with or without the United States. This position is dangerous. Each of the threats we face today – terrorism, climate change, poverty, infectious diseases – can only be solved through global efforts and global rules.  

Joe Conason at Salon

Obama talks green jobs with Bill Clinton (finally)

The Washington press corps that used to bash Bill Clinton reflexively (and still cannot always resist the same old impulse) is suddenly fixated on a different kind of narrative: the highly popular former president as political savior for the current president and his endangered congressional majority. Polling data shows there is  substance in that storyline, but many news organizations exaggerated the meaning of Clinton’s meeting in the White House Wednesday afternoon with President Obama, other administration officials and a small group of corporate executives.

Depicted as an attempt to deploy Clinton to soothe corporate leaders who are furious at Obama, the Wednesday visit was actually devoted to a mundane subject: the energy efficiency loan guarantee program that Clinton has vainly tried to promote for many months as a source of fresh investment and as many as a million new jobs.

Jul 16 2010

enthusiasm

Golly gee, seems to be a big kerfluffle in DC as institutional Democrats finally start reading some polls and find out that Villain Shifting and Blame the ‘Thugs ain’t gonna fool none of the people none of the time this time.

Folks, you read it here years and months ahead.  ‘I told you so‘ schadenfreude is an unavoidable reaction.

Anyone who claims they care about ‘Electoral Victory’ is a liar.

Now that it’s too fucking late to do anything about bad policy what is going to stave off the inevitable defeat they richly deserve?

How about some firings Barack?

How about Rahm “Fuck You” Emanuel?  What about “Peter Principle” Timmeh and Larry “Always Wrong” Summers?

Do I want to see heads on pikes?

Metaphorically yes.  These people have failed so badly their firing is already inevitable and has been for months which is why they are trying to fluff their crash pads.  Why not before the election while you can get some bounce from it Barack?

We vote for change and we’re going to keep voting until we get it.

Jul 16 2010

Le Tour: Stage 12

Le.  Tour.  De.  France.

Just over the half way point today, one more day to the Pyrenees.  Cavendish the Manx Maniac has another controversial stage victory which moves him up in the Sprinter’s standings and does nothing at all to change the overall picture.  Head butts are an interesting innovation, but I can understand the steward’s actions and HTC-Columbia is now less the services of Mark Renshaw.

Umm… what makes them controversial is that they’re dangerous.  This is not Roller Derby or Hockey where contact is allowed and encouraged, it’s more like NASCAR where it’s merely expected.

Otherwise there’s nothing to watch.

Yawn.  3 Threes and 2 Twos, one of them at the finish in this 131 mile jaunt between Bourg-de-Péage and Mende.  Neither Contador nor Schleck are predicting any change in their 41 second gap and they seem well positioned to fend off interlopers.

Tomorrow’s stage is even less interesting if that’s possible so if there is a move before the mountains it should be today.

Jul 16 2010

On This Day in History: July 16

On this day in 1945, at 5:29:45 a.m., the Manhattan Project comes to an explosive end as the first atom bomb is successfully tested in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Photobucket

If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one…

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Bhagavad Gita

J. Robert Oppenheimer

 622 – The beginning of the Islamic calendar.

1054 – Three Roman legates fracture relations between Western and Eastern Christian Churches through the act of placing an invalidly-issued Papal Bull of Excommunication on the altar of Hagia Sophia during Saturday afternoon divine liturgy. Historians frequently describe the event as starting the East-West Schism.

1212 – Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa: After Pope Innocent III called European knights to a crusade, forces of Kings Alfonso VIII of Castile, Sancho VII of Navarre, Pedro II of Aragon and Afonso II of Portugal defeated those of the Berber Muslim leader Almohad, thus marking a significant turning point in the Reconquista and medieval history of Spain.

1377 – Coronation of Richard II of England.

1661 – The first banknotes in Europe are issued by the Swedish bank Stockholms Banco.

1683 – Manchu Qing Dynasty naval forces under traitorous commander Shi Lang defeat the Kingdom of Tungning in the Battle of Penghu near the Pescadores Islands.

1769 – Father Junipero Serra founds California’s first mission, Mission San Diego de Alcalá. Over the following decades, it evolves into the city of San Diego.

1779 – American Revolutionary War: Light infantry of the Continental Army seize a fortified British Army position in a midnight bayonet attack at the Battle of Stony Point.

1782 – First performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera The Abduction from the Seraglio.

1790 – The District of Columbia is established as the capital of the United States after the signing of the Residence Act.

1861 – American Civil War: At the order of President Abraham Lincoln, Union troops begin a 25 mile march into Virginia for what will become the The First Battle of Bull Run, the first major land battle of the war.

1862 – American Civil War: David Farragut is promoted to rear admiral, becoming the first officer in United States Navy to hold an admiral rank.

1880 – Emily Stowe becomes the first female physician licensed to practice medicine in Canada.

1915 – Henry James became a British citizen, to dramatize his commitment to England during the first World War.

1918 – Czar Nicholas II, his family, the family doctor, their servants and their pet dog are shot by the Bolsheviks, who had held them captive for 2 months in the basement of a house in Ekaterinberg, Russia.

1931 – Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia signs the first constitution of Ethiopia.

1935 – The world’s first parking meter is installed in the Oklahoma capital, Oklahoma City.

1941 – Joe DiMaggio hit safely for the 56th consecutive game, a streak that is an enduring MLB record.

1942 – Holocaust: Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup (Rafle du Vel’ d’Hiv): the government of Vichy France orders the mass arrest of 13,152 Jews who are held at the Winter Velodrome in Paris before deportation to Auschwitz.

1945 – World War II: The leaders of the three Allied nations, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, US President Harry S Truman and leader of the Soviet Union Josef Stalin, meet in the German city of Potsdam to decide the future of a defeated Germany.

1945 – Manhattan Project: The Atomic Age begins when the United States successfully detonates a plutonium-based test nuclear weapon at the Trinity site near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

1948 – Following token resistance, the city of Nazareth, revered by Christians as the hometown of Jesus, capitulates to Israeli troops during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War’s Operation Dekel.

1951 – J.D. Salinger novel The Catcher in the Rye published by Little, Brown and Company

1951 – Cary Grant presses his hands and shoes into wet cement in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater.

1957 – United States Marine major John Glenn flies a F8U Crusader supersonic jet from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds, setting a new transcontinental speed record.

1960 – USS George Washington (SSBN-598) a modified Skipjack class submarine successfully test fires the first Ballistic missile while submerged.

1965 – The Mont Blanc Tunnel linking France and Italy opens.

1969 – Apollo program: Apollo 11, the first manned space mission to land on the Moon is launched from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

1973 – Watergate Scandal: Former White House aide Alexander P. Butterfield informs the United States Senate that President Richard Nixon had secretly recorded potentially incriminating conversations.

1979 – Iraqi President Hasan al-Bakr resigns and is replaced by Saddam Hussein.

1994 – Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collides with Jupiter. Impacts continue until July 22.

1999 – John F. Kennedy, Jr., piloting a Piper Saratoga aircraft, dies in a plane mishap over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, along with his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette.

2004 – Millennium Park, considered Chicago’s first and most ambitious early 21st century architectural project, is opened to the public by Mayor Richard M. Daley.

Jul 16 2010

Prime Time

At least at 10 pm the Mets are back and who knows, maybe Carlos Beltran.

Other than that the appalling content drought continues.

The Specialist is a horrible Sylvester Stalone movie, but since they’re all horrible it’s hard to even care.  ESPN has highlights from The Open which is celebrating 150 years at St. Andrews with a surprisingly easy round.  Double Good Eats, Fried Chicken and Edible Oils.  Vantage Point is so riveting FX is running it twice when once would be more than enough.  History at least has The Universe and How the Earth was Made.

I can’t understand why Tyler Perry is famous any more than I can understand why Ghost Hunters made it to 100 episodes.  Better Off Dead?

Futurama has a premier episode @ 10.

Later-

Last Jon and Stephen, even in repeats, for a week.  Jon 7/6, Stephen 6/29.  David has Kyra Sedgwick, Bret Michaels, and Jimmy Cliff.  Alton talks about Freezers.  John Houston night on Turner Classics– 16 Candles, Ferris.

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