Tag: Open Thread

Oct 20 2014

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

New York Times Editorial Board: Cuba’s Impressive Role on Ebola

Cuba is an impoverished island that remains largely cut off from the world and lies about 4,500 miles from the West African nations where Ebola is spreading at an alarming rate. Yet, having pledged to deploy hundreds of medical professionals to the front lines of the pandemic, Cuba stands to play the most robust role among the nations seeking to contain the virus.

Cuba’s contribution is doubtlessly meant at least in part to bolster its beleaguered international standing. Nonetheless, it should be lauded and emulated. [..]

It is a shame that Washington, the chief donor in the fight against Ebola, is diplomatically estranged from Havana, the boldest contributor. In this case the schism has life-or-death consequences, because American and Cuban officials are not equipped to coordinate global efforts at a high level. This should serve as an urgent reminder to the Obama administration that the benefits of moving swiftly to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba far outweigh the drawbacks.

Paul Krugman: Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.

Amazon.com, the giant online retailer, has too much power, and it uses that power in ways that hurt America.

O.K., I know that was kind of abrupt. But I wanted to get the central point out there right away, because discussions of Amazon tend, all too often, to get lost in side issues.

For example, critics of the company sometimes portray it as a monster about to take over the whole economy. Such claims are over the top – Amazon doesn’t dominate overall online sales, let alone retailing as a whole, and probably never will. But so what? Amazon is still playing a troubling role.

Meanwhile, Amazon’s defenders often digress into paeans to online bookselling, which has indeed been a good thing for many Americans, or testimonials to Amazon customer service – and in case you’re wondering, yes, I have Amazon Prime and use it a lot. But again, so what? The desirability of new technology, or even Amazon’s effective use of that technology, is not the issue. After all, John D. Rockefeller and his associates were pretty good at the oil business, too – but Standard Oil nonetheless had too much power, and public action to curb that power was essential.

And the same is true of Amazon today.

Dean Baker: World’s richest man tries to defend wealth inequality

Bill Gates’ critique of Thomas Piketty is revealing for what it overlooks

A review of French economist Thomas Piketty’s best-selling book “Capital in the 21st Century” by the world’s richest man is too delicious to ignore. The main takeaway from Piketty’s book, of course, is that we need to worry about the growing concentration of capital, in which people like Microsoft co-founder turned megaphilanthropist Bill Gates and his children will control the bulk of society’s wealth. Gates, however, doesn’t quite see it this way.

From his evidence, he actually has a good case. If the issue is the superrich passing their wealth to their children, who will become the next generation’s superrich, he is right to point out that the biographies of the Forbes 400 – the richest 400 Americans – don’t seem to support this concern. We find many people like Gates, who started life as the merely wealthy (his father was a prosperous corporate lawyer), who parlayed their advantages in life into enormous fortunes. The ones who inherited their vast wealth are the exception, not the rule. [..]

While philanthropy may prevent the direct inheritance of most multibillion-dollar fortunes, the charitable giving of billionaires is unlikely to go to efforts that could undermine the basis of their wealth or their peers’. We may not need to fear that the next generations’ Forbes 400 will all be descendants of this generation’s billionaires, but we do have to fear that the rules will continue to be rigged so that this group and its lackeys in the 1 percent continue to control the bulk of the country’s wealth. That is not a pretty picture, even if it is not the nightmare Piketty warns of.

Will Hutton: Ebola and failing markets tell us that we need to work together

Governments must heed the warnings of our brightest minds and reshape our societies to help those most in need

Last week, the world’s stock and bond markets swung wildly. They worried about the threat of world deflation, falling oil prices and further systemic weaknesses in the financial system. But perhaps they were most concerned about whether spooked governments had the will to do anything, even if those governments could agree on what that should be. If they can’t manage a co-ordinated response to Ebola or one against the cruelties of Isis, then it is hardly likely they are going to find common ground in managing the fissures in the world economy. [..]

Thus only last week, Janet Yellen, chair of the US Federal Reserve, joined one of her predecessors, Alan Greenspan, and the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, in arguing that the growth of inequality was not only wrong morally but having increasingly baleful economic consequences. Then there were the strictures of the managing director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde.

Inequality, they all say, fosters fear, creates too much demand for credit to compensate for squeezed living standards, drives asset price bubbles, catalyses financial instability, weakens banks and, by displacing too much risk on to those who cannot bear it, undermines the legitimacy of capitalism. You have to blink with incredulity – and then blink again at markets falling because they want to see purposeful government action.Thus only last week, Janet Yellen, chair of the US Federal Reserve, joined one of her predecessors, Alan Greenspan, and the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, in arguing that the growth of inequality was not only wrong morally but having increasingly baleful economic consequences. Then there were the strictures of the managing director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde.

Inequality, they all say, fosters fear, creates too much demand for credit to compensate for squeezed living standards, drives asset price bubbles, catalyses financial instability, weakens banks and, by displacing too much risk on to those who cannot bear it, undermines the legitimacy of capitalism. You have to blink with incredulity – and then blink again at markets falling because they want to see purposeful government action.

Rpbert Kuttner: A Revolt Against Austerity?

There was a bit of good news from Europe last week. Two of the nations that desperately need some respite from austerity essentially told German Chancellor Merkel to stuff it.

France, under pressure from Germany and the European Union to meet the E.U.’s straightjacket requirement of deficits of no more than three percent of GDP (whether or not depression looms) informed the E.U. that they will not hit this target until 2017. The government of President Francois Hollande, under fire for failing to ignite a recovery, now plans economic stimulus measures — and the target be damned. Under E.U. rules, France can be fined up to 0.2 percent of its GDP. The French seem to be saying, “So sue us!”

Italy, under Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, has followed suit, with a budget that plans cuts in labor taxes. Meanwhile, the European Central Bank is in open rebellion against the German austerity-mongers. The ECB would like to pursue a policy more like that of the Federal Reserve, giving direct support to government bonds to keep interest rates low. But the Merkel government remains adamantly opposed. Even the International Monetary Fund, traditionally the citadel of fiscal orthodoxy, has warned that Europe’s recovery policy is too tight, not too loose.

John Nichols: One Thing Hillary Clinton Understands About Politics in 2014

Hillary Clinton is never going to be confused for an economic populist. Her record as a key player in Bill Clinton’s administration, as a United States senator, as secretary of state and as a favorite on the corporate speaking circuit in recent years bends a lot more toward Wall Street than Main Street.

But Hillary Clinton understands something important-make that vital-about the politics of 2014.

Clinton recognizes that the issue that matters in 2014 is the economy (number one in the latest Gallup Poll) and that voters want “good jobs” that pay a family-supporting wage (number two in the latest Gallup survey). And Clinton knows that the clearest policy connection between where the economy is today and where it needs to be is made via support for a substantial hike in the minimum wage.

So when the presumed Democratic front-runner in 2016 swept into Kentucky this week to muscle up the US Senate campaign of Clinton-family favorite Alison Lundergan Grimes, Clinton was on message-far more on message, in fact, than most prominent Democrats who have hit the trail this month in an effort to save the Senate, win governorships and generally prevent the 2014 midterms from going the way of the 2010 midterms.

Oct 20 2014

On This Day In History October 20

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

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

October 20 is the 293rd day of the year (294th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 72 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1973, Solicitor General Robert Bork dismisses Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox; Attorney General Richardson and Deputy Attorney General Ruckelshaus resign in protest. Cox had conducted a detailed investigation of the Watergate break-in that revealed that the burglary was just one of many possible abuses of power by the Nixon White House. Nixon had ordered Richardson to fire Cox, but he refused and resigned, as did Ruckelshaus when Nixon then asked him to dismiss the special prosecutor. Bork agreed to fire Cox and an immediate uproar ensued. This series of resignations and firings became known as the Saturday Night Massacre and outraged the public and the media. Two days later, the House Judiciary Committee began to look into the possible impeachment of Nixon.

The Saturday Night Massacre was the term given by political commentators to U.S. President Richard Nixon‘s executive dismissal of independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox, and the resignations of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus on October 20, 1973 during the Watergate scandal

Richardson appointed Cox in May of that year, after having given assurances to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he would appoint an independent counsel to investigate the events surrounding the Watergate break-in of June 17, 1972. Cox subsequently issued a subpoena to President Nixon, asking for copies of taped conversations recorded in the Oval Office  and authorized by Nixon as evidence. The president initially refused to comply with the subpoena, but on October 19, 1973, he offered what was later known as the Stennis Compromise-asking U.S. Senator John C. Stennis to review and summarize the tapes for the special prosecutor’s office.

Mindful that Stennis was famously hard-of-hearing, Cox refused the compromise that same evening, and it was believed that there would be a short rest in the legal maneuvering while government offices were closed for the weekend. However, President Nixon acted to dismiss Cox from his office the next night-a Saturday. He contacted Attorney General Richardson and ordered him to fire the special prosecutor. Richardson refused, and instead resigned in protest. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General Ruckelshaus to fire Cox; he also refused and resigned in protest.

Nixon then contacted the Solicitor General, Robert Bork, and ordered him as acting head of the Justice Department to fire Cox. Richardson and Ruckelshaus had both personally assured the congressional committee overseeing the special prosecutor investigation that they would not interfere-Bork had made no such assurance to the committee. Though Bork believed Nixon’s order to be valid and appropriate, he considered resigning to avoid being “perceived as a man who did the President’s bidding to save my job.” Never the less, Bork complied with Nixon’s order and fired Cox. Initially, the White House claimed to have fired Ruckelshaus, but as The Washington Post article written the next day pointed out, “The letter from the President to Bork also said Ruckelshaus resigned.”

Congress was infuriated by the act, which was seen as a gross abuse of presidential power. In the days that followed, numerous resolutions of impeachment against the president were introduced in Congress. Nixon defended his actions in a famous press conference on November 17, 1973, in which he stated,

“…[I]n all of my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice. And I think, too, that I can say that in my years of public life that I’ve welcomed this kind of examination, because people have got to know whether or not their President’s a crook. Well, I’m not a crook! I’ve earned everything I’ve got.“

Oct 19 2014

Rant of the Week: Jon Stewart – The Last Perspiration of Crist

Democalypse 2014 – The Last Perspiration of Crist

Florida’s gubernatorial race heats up as Governor Rick Scott shows up late to a debate where Democratic candidate Charlie Crist is using a fan to strategically cool his balls

Fan Delays Florida Debate, and Mocking Circulates Online

By Lizette Alvarez, The New York Times

Clinging to caricature, Florida has once again stumbled into political farce. This time by way of a fan, a small black Vornado Air Circulator tucked discreetly – some said improperly – beneath former Gov. Charlie Crist’s lectern during Wednesday’s high-stakes governor’s race debate.

The fan delayed Gov. Rick Scott from taking the stage for seven minutes, in protest of an apparent rule violation. And it led to an almost immediate flurry of social media lampooning, helped along by Mr. Crist who asked, “Are we really going to debate a fan?” [..]

By Thursday, #Fangate, as it was christened on Twitter, had devolved into a predictable campaign montage of finger-pointing, backpedaling, face-saving and, finally, money-raising. That’s because the fan kerfuffle, while seemingly trivial, breezed into the middle of a neck-and-neck race between Mr. Scott and Mr. Crist.

Oct 19 2014

On This Day In History October 19

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

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

October 19 is the 292nd day of the year (293rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 73 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1781, hopelessly trapped at Yorktown, Virginia, British General Lord Cornwallis surrenders 8,000 British soldiers and seamen to a larger Franco-American force, effectively bringing an end to the American Revolution.

The Siege of Yorktown or Battle of Yorktown in 1781 was a decisive victory by combined assault of American forces led by General George Washington and French forces led by the Comte de Rochambeau over a British Army commanded by Lieutenant General Lord Cornwallis. It proved to be the last major land battle of the American Revolutionary War  in North America, as the surrender of Cornwallis’s army prompted the British government eventually to negotiate an end to the conflict.

In 1780, 5,500 French soldiers landed in Rhode Island to assist their American allies in operations against British-controlled New York City. Following the arrival of dispatches from France that included the possibility of support from the French West Indies fleet of the Comte de Grasse, Washington and Rochambeau decided to ask de Grasse for assistance either in besieging New York, or in military operations against a British army operating in Virginia. On the advice of Rochambeau, de Grasse informed them of his intent to sail to the Chesapeake Bay, where Cornwallis had taken command of the army. Cornwallis, at first given confusing orders by his superior officer, Henry Clinton, was eventually ordered to make a defensible deep-water port, which he began to do at Yorktown, Virginia. Cornwallis‘s movements in Virginia were shadowed by a Continental Army force led by the Marquis de Lafayette.

The French and American armies united north of New York City during the summer of 1781. When word of de Grasse‘s decision arrived, the combined armies began moving south toward Virginia, engaging in tactics of deception to lead the British to believe a siege of New York was planned. De Grasse sailed from the West Indies and arrived at the Chesapeake Bay at the end of August, bringing additional troops and providing a naval blockade of Yorktown. He was transporting 500,000 silver pesos collected from the citizens of Havana, Cuba, to fund supplies for the siege and payroll for the Continental Army. While in Santo Domingo, de Grasse met with Francisco Saavedra de Sangronis, an agent of Carlos III of Spain. De Grasse had planned to leave several of his warships in Santo Domingo. Saavedra promised the assistance of the Spanish navy to protect the French merchant fleet, enabling de Grasse to sail north with all of his warships. In the beginning of September, he defeated a British fleet led by Sir Thomas Graves that came to relieve Cornwallis at the Battle of the Chesapeake. As a result of this victory, de Grasse blocked any escape by sea for Cornwallis. By late September Washington and Rochambeau arrived, and the army and naval forces completely surrounded Cornwallis.

After initial preparations, the Americans and French built their first parallel and began the bombardment. With the British defense weakened, Washington on October 14, 1781 sent two columns to attack the last major remaining British outer defenses. A French column took redoubt #9 and an American column redoubt #10. With these defenses taken, the allies were able to finish their second parallel. With the American artillery closer and more intense than ever, the British situation began to deteriorate rapidly and Cornwallis asked for capitulation terms on the 17th. After two days of negotiation, the surrender ceremony took place on the 19th, with Cornwallis being absent since he claimed to be ill. With the capture of over 8,000 British soldiers, negotiations between the United States and Great Britain began, resulting in the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

Oct 19 2014

Punting the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with George Stephanopolis: The guests on Sunday’s “This Week” are Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins; and Archbishop of New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan.

The roundtable guests areL Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol; Republican strategist Mary Matalin; EMILY’s List president Stephanie Schriock;and television and radio host Tavis Smiley.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr. Schieffer’s guests are: Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN); and CBS News Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook.

The guests on a special panel discussing Ebola are: Richard Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association; Dr. Robert Wah, president of the American Medical Association; and Jean Ross co-president of National Nurses United.

The guests on his political panel are: Gerald Seib, The Wall Street Journal; Susan Glasser, Politico Magazine; and Michael O’Hanlon, Brookings Institution.

Meet the Press with Chuck Todd: The guests on Sunday’s MTP are: Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases;  Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA); and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO). The rest is anybody’s guess.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Ms. Crowley’s guest are Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX); and Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Her panel guests are: Kevin Madden; Ana Navarro; LZ Granderson; and Penny Lee.

Oct 18 2014

Health and Fitness News

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

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

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

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Halloween Treats for Adults

Caramelized Brown Butter Rice Krispies Treats photo rice-krispy-still-videoSixteenByNin_zpsb442b934.jpg

These are easy to make treats for adults. There are several others you can find here that are a bit more complicated for the daring.

TMC

Halloween Waffles

You need a waffle iron for these. They are great served with  Maple syrup, apple sauce or pumpkin butter

Peanut Brittle

The only thing even remotely tricky about it is getting the sugar to the tint of brown you want — not too light, and definitely not too dark, which can happen in a flash.

Caramelized Brown Butter Rice Krispies Treats

Browning the butter elevates these plebeian snacks into something more toothsome, and it adds just an extra couple of minutes to the process.

Microwave Pralines

The microwave makes this quick easy but it’s still very hot

Chocolate Truffles

Of all chocolates, truffles, at their richly creamy, intensely bittersweet best, are the ultimate chocolate confection.

Oct 18 2014

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

David Sirota: Fracking for the Cure?

Helping find a cure for cancer or “pinkwashing” carcinogenic pollution?

That is the question being raised upon the news that one of the world’s largest fossil fuel services firms is partnering with the Susan G. Komen Foundation on a breast cancer awareness campaign, despite possible links between fracking and cancer.

According to energy services firm Baker Hughes, “The company will paint and distribute a total of 1,000 pink drill bits worldwide” as a “reminder of the importance of supporting research, treatment, screening and education to help find the cures” for breast cancer. The firm, which is involved in hydraulic fracturing, is also donating $100,000 to the Komen Foundation in what it calls a “yearlong partnership.”

The announcement comes in the same month Baker Hughes agreed to begin disclosing the chemicals it uses in the fracking process, publishing them at fracfocus.org, the industry’s website. Health advocates and environmental activists have long prodded the industry for full disclosure – especially since scientific studies have raised the prospect of a link between oil and gas exploration and cancer.

Daphne Eviatar: Secret Order Cancels Guantanamo Hearing on FBI Spying — Government ‘Transparency’ in Action

I really hope family members of victims of the 9/11 attacks weren’t planning on attending the hearings scheduled at Guantanamo Bay this week. It’s bad enough that observers who planned to travel to Cuba to watch federal prosecutors try to explain why the FBI was spying on U.S. military defense lawyers had their travel plans cancelled. But it would be completely demoralizing to someone who suffered personally from the heinous mass murders that took place thirteen years ago to find that once again, all efforts to bring the five alleged perpetrators to justice had stalled, and once again, no one’s allowed to know why.

The judge’s order cancelling this week’s hearings remains under seal.

This is just the latest setback in the 9/11 prosecution odyssey, which also serves as Exhibit A of the colossal failure that is Guantanamo Bay. While the government has successfully prosecuted nearly 500 people on terrorism charges in federal courts since 9/11, only six military commission convictions have been upheld. The Pentagon said a 64-minute Guantanamo hearing in September cost the government nearly $150,000. The Guantanamo prison itself costs the U.S. government more than $443 million annually to operate — more than $2.9 million per detainee.

Joe Nocerna: Failures of Competence

For years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been the most trusted agency in the federal government. In 2003, when Gallup did a survey to determine what the public thought of various federal agencies, the C.D.C. topped the list, with 66 percent of respondents describing it as “excellent” or “good.”

Last year, a similar Gallup poll showed that the C.D.C.’s approval rating had dropped to 60 percent, which was still better than any other agency. The C.D.C. has seen the country through SARS and the swine flu virus. The general perception was not only that it did important, apolitical work, but that it was highly competent. “I used to call the C.D.C. the shining star of federal agencies,” says Lawrence O. Gostin, a global health expert at Georgetown Law.

And then came Ebola.

Gary Younge: With so many issues off the agenda, no wonder the midterms are a turn-off

Elections offer little chance of change as Republicans and Democrats steer clear of hot-button topics for party advantage

Midterm elections, or as Stephen Colbert calls them “the most tedious fall chore of all”, are a strange affair. Nationwide votes without national candidates (much like parliamentary elections) where the president’s performance is on the minds of voters even when he’s not on the ballot. Turnout drops but the consequences can be considerable and the outcomes memorable: 1994 brought us Newt Gingrich and welfare reform; 2006 was the beginning of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid; 2010 was the Tea Party and Obama’s “shellacking”.

But the forthcoming midterms seem stranger than most even when they should, theoretically, be as interesting as any. There is something at stake – a real chance the Republicans, who already have the House, could win the Senate. The key races are scattered across the country, from Alaska to North Carolina, and are and volatile. At the time of writing there are 10 states in play, in seven of which the two parties are essentially tied.

But precious few are interested. According to the Pew Research Center], in the first week of October fewer people followed stories about the midterms than they did stories about the bombing of Isis, the secret service scandal at the White House or the Ebola outbreak. Four years ago, when Pew conducted an identical poll at the same point in the cycle, twice as many were following the elections. A poll in 2006 revealed that 70% were talking politics with their family and friends, 43% were talking politics at work, and 28% were talking about it at church.

Joe Conason: Let Obama and the CDC Do Their Jobs

If the prospect of hanging concentrates the mind, then even the possibility of infection with Ebola should do the same-for all of us. Instead, we seem easily distracted by attempts to blame President Barack Obama and to scapegoat the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Republican politicians and media loudmouths have even demanded the resignation of Dr. Thomas Frieden, the CDC’s director, because he’s refused to endorse a West African travel ban.

They’re all dead wrong. [..]

we will need in the months to come is a fresh assessment of our foreign aid programs. We need to understand why our traditional stinginess does both our country and our children a terrible disservice. Our best hope for survival, in the long term, is to notice how small our world has become-and to recognize that protecting our fellow human beings everywhere is the only way to protect ourselves.

Oct 18 2014

On This Day In History October 18

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

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

October 18 is the 291st day of the year (292nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 74 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1767, Mason and Dixon Draw a line.

Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon complete their survey of the boundary between the colonies of Pennsylvania and Maryland as well as areas that would eventually become the states of Delaware and West Virginia. The Penn and Calvert families had hired Mason and Dixon, English surveyors, to settle their dispute over the boundary between their two proprietary colonies, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

In 1760, tired of border violence between the colonies’ settlers, the British crown demanded that the parties involved hold to an agreement reached in 1732. As part of Maryland and Pennsylvania’s adherence to this royal command, Mason and Dixon were asked to determine the exact whereabouts of the boundary between the two colonies. Though both colonies claimed the area between the 39th and 40th parallel, what is now referred to as the Mason-Dixon line finally settled the boundary at a northern latitude of 39 degrees and 43 minutes. The line was marked using stones, with Pennsylvania’s crest on one side and Maryland’s on the other.

Background

Maryland’s charter granted the land north of the entire length of the Potomac River up to the 40th parallel. A problem arose when Charles II  granted a charter for Pennsylvania. The grant defined Pennsylvania’s southern border as identical to Maryland’s northern border, the 40th parallel. But the terms of the grant clearly indicate that Charles II and William Penn assumed the 40th parallel would intersect the Twelve-Mile Circle around New Castle, Delaware when in fact it falls north of Philadelphia, the site of which Penn had already selected for his colony’s capital city. Negotiations ensued after the problem was discovered in 1681. A compromise proposed by Charles II in 1682, which might have resolved the issue, was undermined by Penn receiving the additional grant of the ‘Three Lower Counties’ along Delaware Bay, which later became the Delaware Colony, a satellite of Pennsylvania. These lands had been part of Maryland’s original grant.

In 1732 the proprietary governor of Maryland, Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, signed a provisional agreement with William Penn’s sons which drew a line somewhere in between, and also renounced the Calvert claim to Delaware. But later Lord Baltimore claimed that the document he signed did not contain the terms he had agreed to, and refused to put the agreement into effect. Beginning in the mid-1730s, violence erupted between settlers claiming various loyalties to Maryland and Pennsylvania. The border conflict between Pennsylvania and Maryland would be known as Cresap’s War.

The issue was unresolved until the Crown intervened in 1760, ordering Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore to accept the 1732 agreement. Maryland’s border with Delaware was to be based on the Transpeninsular Line and the Twelve-Mile Circle around New Castle. The Pennsylvania-Maryland border was defined as the line of latitude 15 miles south of the southernmost house in Philadelphia.

As part of the settlement, the Penns and Calverts commissioned the English team of Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon to survey the newly established boundaries between the Province of Pennsylvania, the Province of Maryland, Delaware Colony, and parts of Colony and Old Dominion of Virginia.

After Pennsylvania abolished slavery in 1781, the western part of this line and the Ohio River became a border between free and slave states, although Delaware remained a slave state.

Oct 17 2014

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Trevor Timm: The government wants tech companies to give them a backdoor to your electronic life

The FBI chief’s call for ‘clarity and transparency’ on surveillance wouldn’t be so laughable if the government wasn’t so aggressively secretive

FBI director James Comey wants a US government-mandated backdoor into your iPhone and your Google account. But Comey doesn’t want to call his proposed privacy invasion a backdoor. He doesn’t understand how it would work. And he expects everyone who has been horrified by the NSA’s mass surveillance to just sit back, weaken their personal security and trust that the government will never abuse it. [..]

We know there’s no real need to worry about Apple and Android’s move: law enforcement has a half-dozen other ways to get at all the data out of your phone if it needs to solve actual crimes. This is just a basic security protection that, if implemented by Facebook, Gmail, text messaging apps and others, could go a long way to solving America’s cybersecurity problem. And it would leave everyone living in countries with authoritarian governments like those in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, China or Russia from having to worry about being spied on.

But Jim Comey, like the NSA, sees encryption for the masses as the enemy – not the type of tool that keeps your medical and bank records safe. He was on 60 Minutes this week calling Apple and Google’s decision a threat to national security, and, on Thursday, he gave first major speech as FBI director, which focused entirely on the dangers of people controlling their own security.

Naomi Klein: Climate change: how to make the big polluters really pay

By dropping Shell, Lego shows new ways to target the astronomical profits of the fossil fuel industries

When the call came in that the University of Glasgow had voted to divest its £128m endowment from fossil fuel companies, I happened to be in a room filled with climate activists in Oxford. They immediately broke into cheers. There were lots of hugs and a few tears. This was big – the first university in Europe to make such a move.

The next day there were more celebrations in climate circles: Lego announced it would not be renewing a relationship with Shell Oil, a longtime co-branding deal that saw toddlers filling up their plastic vehicles at toy Shell petrol stations. “Shell is polluting our kids’ imaginations,” a Greenpeace video that went viral declared, attracting more than 6m views. Pressure is building, meanwhile, on the Tate to sever the museum’s longtime relationship with BP. [..]

Internationally, there are hundreds of active fossil fuel divestment campaigns on university and college campuses, as well as ones targeting local city governments, non-profit foundations and religious organisations. And the victories keep getting bigger.

Paul Krugman: What Markets Will

In the Middle Ages, the call for a crusade to conquer the Holy Land was met with cries of “Deus vult!” – God wills it. But did the crusaders really know what God wanted? Given how the venture turned out, apparently not.

Now, that was a long time ago, and, in the areas I write about, invocations of God’s presumed will are rare. You do, however, see a lot of policy crusades, and these are often justified with implicit cries of “Mercatus vult!” – the market wills it. But do those invoking the will of the market really know what markets want? Again, apparently not.

And the financial turmoil of the past few days has widened the gap between what we’re told must be done to appease the market and what markets actually seem to be asking for.

Hannah Giorgis: The problem with the west’s Ebola response is still fear of a black patient

Ebola is now a stand-in for any combination of ‘African-ness’, ‘blackness’, ‘foreign-ness’ and ‘infestation’ – poised to ruin the perceived purity of western borders and bodies

Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to die of Ebola in the United States, was not the right kind of victim for the west: he wasn’t a pretty young woman smiling in sunglasses as a Cavalier King Charles spaniel named Bentley licks her cheek; he didn’t have a young, benevolent doctor’s face that looks “appropriate” plastered on newspapers; he wasn’t a kindly older nurse who told reporters how God had spared her. He wasn’t the kind of person to whom primetime news specials would dedicate 20 minutes and glorify with quotes from loved ones about his kind spirit or ceaseless determination to overcome an unfair affliction.

Thomas Eric Duncan was black, he was poor, and he was African.

A Dallas hospital turned away the uninsured Liberian immigrant after an initial exam concluded he suffered only from a “low-grade viral disease“, and the media turned him into the unsympathetic, undeserving face of a contagion with which the west is frantically grappling.

Peter van Buren: Seven Worst-Case Scenarios in the Battle with the Islamic State

You know the joke? You describe something obviously heading for disaster-a friend crossing Death Valley with next to no gas in his car-and then add, “What could possibly go wrong?”

Such is the Middle East today. The U.S. is again at war there,  bombing freely across Iraq and Syria, advising here, droning there,  coalition-building in the region to loop in a little more firepower from a collection of recalcitrant allies, and searching desperately for some non-American boots to put on the ground.

Here, then, are seven worst-case scenarios in a part of the world where the worst case has regularly been the best that’s on offer. After all, with all that military power being brought to bear on the planet’s most volatile region, what could possibly go wrong?

Oct 17 2014

The Breakfast Club (Something You Should Grow Out Of)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

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This Day in History

Arab oil embargo fuels energy crisis; Americans clinch revolutionary victory at Saratoga; Deadly quake hits northern California; Mobster Al Capone convicted of tax evasion; Playwright Arthur Miller born.

Breakfast Food for Thought

Revealed: how Whisper app tracks ‘anonymous’ users

The company behind Whisper, the social media app that promises users anonymity and claims to be the “the safest place on the internet”, is tracking the location of its users, including some who have specifically asked not to be followed.

The practice of monitoring the whereabouts of Whisper users – including those who have expressly opted out of geolocation services – will alarm users, who are encouraged to disclose intimate details about their private and professional lives.

Whisper is also sharing information with the US Department of Defense gleaned from smartphones it knows are used from military bases, and developing a version of its app to conform with Chinese censorship laws.

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