Tag: Open Thread

Joe Biden Apologizes for Telling the Truth

By Carol Giacomo

It used to be that lying got politicians into trouble. For Vice President Joe Biden, it’s truth-telling that causes a stir.

The latest furor started after he spoke at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government last Thursday. Mr. Biden said American allies including Turkey, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates had extended unconditional financial and logistical support to Sunni fighters trying to oust the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad. [..]

There is little doubt that his basic facts are accurate, confirmed by news reports in The Times and other media and by Western officials. Yet Mr. Biden was forced to officially apologize to Turkey late Saturday after Mr. Erdogan demanded it. He issued another apology on Sunday after the United Arab Emirates also took umbrage. [..]

In the current instance, Mr. Biden should have exercised some restraint and not publicly shared his conversation with President Erdogan. But the basic truth – that Turkey and other countries enabled Islamic State and other extremists – can’t be wished away. The United States, Turkey, Qatar, the U.A.E. and other countries in the region have a mutual need to work together to counter ISIS or ISIL. That means owning up to the mistakes that have allowed the group to flourish and correcting them, including shutting down Turkey as a transit corridor for ISIS revenue, weapons and foreign fighters.

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 12 is the 285th day of the year (286th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 80 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1810, Bavarian Crown Prince Louis, later King Louis I of Bavaria, marries Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen.

The Bavarian royalty invited the citizens of Munich to attend the festivities, held on the fields in front of the city gates. These famous public fields were named Theresienwiese-“Therese’s fields”-in honor of the crown princess; although locals have since abbreviated the name simply to the “Wies’n.” Horse races in the presence of the royal family concluded the popular event, celebrated in varying forms all across Bavaria.

Oktoberfest is a 16-18 day festival held each year in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, running from late September to the first weekend in October. It is one of the most famous events in Germany and the world’s largest fair, with more than 5 million people attending every year. The Oktoberfest is an important part of Bavarian culture. Other cities across the world also hold Oktoberfest celebrations, modelled after the Munich event.

The Munich Oktoberfest, traditionally, takes place during the sixteen days up to and including the first Sunday in October. In 1994, the schedule was modified in response to German reunification so that if the first Sunday in October falls on the 1st or 2nd, then the festival will go on until October 3 (German Unity Day). Thus, the festival is now 17 days when the first Sunday is October 2 and 18 days when it is October 1. In 2010, the festival lasts until the first Monday in October, to mark the 200-year anniversary of the event. The festival is held in an area named the Theresienwiese (field, or meadow, of Therese), often called Wiesn for short, located near Munich’s centre.

Visitors eat huge amounts of traditional hearty fare such as Hendl (chicken), Schweinsbraten (roast pork), Schweinshaxe (ham hock), Steckerlfisch (grilled fish on a stick), Würstl (sausages) along with Brezn (Pretzel), Knödel (potato or bread dumplings), Kasspatzn (cheese noodles), Reiberdatschi (potato pancakes), Sauerkraut or Blaukraut (red cabbage) along with such Bavarian delicacies as Obatzda (a spiced cheese-butter spread) and Weisswurst (a white sausage).

First hundred years

In the year 1811, an agricultural show was added to boost Bavarian agriculture. The horse race persisted until 1960, the agricultural show still exists and it is held every four years on the southern part of the festival grounds. In 1816, carnival booths appeared; the main prizes were silver, porcelain, and jewelry. The founding citizens of Munich assumed responsibility for festival management in 1819, and it was agreed that the Oktoberfest would become an annual event. Later, it was lengthened and the date pushed forward, the reason being that days are longer and warmer at the end of September.

To honour the marriage of King Ludwig I and Therese of Bavaria, a parade took place for the first time in 1835. Since 1850, this has become a yearly event and an important component of the Oktoberfest. 8,000 people-mostly from Bavaria-in traditional costumes walk from Maximilian Street, through the centre of Munich, to the Oktoberfest. The march is led by the Münchner Kindl.

Since 1850, the statue of Bavaria has watched the Oktoberfest. This worldly Bavarian patron was first sketched by Leo von Klenze in a classic style and Ludwig Michael Schwanthaler romanticised and “Germanised” the draft; it was constructed by Johann Baptist Stiglmaier and Ferdinand von Miller.

In 1853, the Bavarian Ruhmeshalle was finished. In 1854, 3,000 residents of Munich succumbed to an epidemic of cholera, so the festival was cancelled. Also, in the year 1866, there was no Oktoberfest as Bavaria fought in the Austro-Prussian War. In 1870, the Franco-Prussian war was the reason for cancellation of the festival. In 1873, the festival was once more cancelled due to a cholera epidemic. In 1880, the electric light illuminated over 400 booths and tents (Albert Einstein helped install light bulbs in the Schottenhamel tent as an apprentice in his uncle’s electricity business in 1896). In 1881, booths selling bratwursts opened. Beer was first served in glass mugs in 1892.

At the end of the 19th century, a re-organization took place. Until then, there were games of skittles, large dance floors, and trees for climbing in the beer booths. They wanted more room for guests and musicians. The booths became beer halls.

In 1887, the Entry of the Oktoberfest Staff and Breweries took place for the first time. This event showcases the splendidly decorated horse teams of the breweries and the bands that play in the festival tents. This event always takes place on the first Saturday of the Oktoberfest and symbolises the official prelude to the Oktoberfest celebration

In the year 1910, Oktoberfest celebrated its 100th birthday. 120,000 litres of beer were poured. In 1913, the Braurosl was founded, which was the largest Oktoberfest beer tent of all time, with room for about 12,000 guests.

I have very fond memories of Oktoberfest. If you ever have the opportunity to visit Europe, do it in late September because this is a must see and experience.

“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: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey; Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI);  Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; ABC News Chief Health and Medical Editor Dr. Richard Besser; and Julián Castro, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

The roundtable guests are; Democratic strategist Donna Brazile;, ABC News political analyst Matthew Dowd; and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer:Mr. Schieffer’s guests are: Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC; Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX); CBS News Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook; CBS News Correspondent Debora Patta; and former CIA Director and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.

His panel guests are: Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal; Susan Page, USA Today, David Rohde, Reuters; and David Ignatius, The Washington Post.

Meet the Press with Chuck Todd: The guests are National Security Advisor Susan Rice; former Secretary of State James Baker; Former Secretary of State/War Criminal Henry Kissinger and who knows who else, not that this isn’t bad enough.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Ms. Crowley’s guests are RNC Chairman Reince Priebus and DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Her panel guests are S.E. Cupp, Newt Gingrich, Neera Tanden and Marc Lamont Hill.

Now you can all sleep in, spend time with family and friends or, if the weather is nice, get some exercise and fresh air.  

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

The idea for this week’s recipes began during a week and a half I spent in Boston and New York in early September, when I kept noticing that pickled peaches were on many restaurant menus. Chefs were throwing them into salads and using the sweet and sour peaches to accompany meat and fish. I came back to Los Angeles and went right to the farmers’ market, intent on storing some of that summer bounty myself.

I then looked at the New York City Greenmarket website to see if the fruits and vegetables I wanted to pickle would still be available at the end of September in the Northeast. I was in luck; according to the site, peaches are available through September, and beans, corn and squash through October. I also wanted to make a pickle with green tomatoes, because this is the time of year when the last of your summer tomato crop may be on the vine, but it won’t necessarily ripen. When I went to my own farmers’ market in Los Angeles one grower had a huge supply of green tomatoes, right next to his ripe red ones. I bought a few pounds and made a cross between a relish and a pickle (the tomatoes and onions are sliced but the other ingredients are chopped).

~ Martha Rose Shulman ~

“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: How Big Brother Can Watch You With Metadata

Why did Bradley Cooper and Jessica Alba fail to record a tip when they paid their cabbies during New York City taxi rides back in 2013? Why was Cooper near a Mediterranean restaurant in Greenwich Village? Why was Alba at a ritzy hotel in Soho?

We don’t know the answers, but we do know exactly when and where the movie stars were going, and we also know there’s no record of them forking over any gratuity. What’s worrisome, say privacy experts, is that we know all of this not from some special government sting operation but from publicly available data about millions of people’s movements throughout New York City.

That information, released in an open records request, validates the concerns of those who argue that while consumers’ digital metadata may seem to be anonymous, it actually isn’t. It takes just one or two other pieces of information to turn seemingly anonymous tranches of metadata into specific information about individuals-and not just those who are famous.

Juan Cole: Rather Than Just Honor Nobelist Malala Yousafzai, We Should Listen to Her

Malala Yousafzai has become the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in history, sharing it this year with India’s Kailash Satyarthi, a children’s rights activist. [..]

There is always a danger that in honoring a figure like Malala Yousafzai, the world will drown out her more challenging views.  Martin Luther King, Jr. is now mainly lauded for his “I have a Dream” speech but his socialism, anti-imperialism, and opposition to the Vietnam War is little remembered.  Likewise, Lila Abu-Lughod has warned against the use of Ms. Yousafzai by powerful white men as a symbol whereby they can pose as champions of Muslim women against Muslim men- an argument first made powerfully in a another context by Gayatri Spivak.  The real Malala Yousafzai is harder to deploy for those purposes than is Malala the symbol. [..]

Honoring someone with the bravery and resiliency and ethical intelligence of a Malala Yousafzai is easy.  Taking her more challenging positions seriously and engaging with them is much more difficult.

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 11 is the 284th day of the year (285th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 81 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1982, The Mary Rose, a Tudor carrack which sank on July 19 1545, is salvaged from the sea bed of the Solent, off Portsmouth.

The Mary Rose was a carrack-type warship of the English Tudor navy of King Henry VIII. After serving for 33 years in several wars against France, Scotland, and Brittany and after being substantially rebuilt in 1536, she saw her last action on 19 July 1545. While leading the attack on the galleys of a French invasion fleet, she sank in the Solent, the straits north of the Isle of Wight. The wreck of the Mary Rose was rediscovered in 1971 and salvaged in 1982 by the Mary Rose Trust in one of the most complex and expensive projects in the history of maritime archaeology. The surviving section of the ship and thousands of recovered artefacts are of immeasurable value as a Tudor-era time capsule.

The excavation and salvage of the Mary Rose was a milestone in the field of maritime archaeology, comparable in complexity and cost only to the raising of the Swedish 17th-century warship Vasa in 1961. The finds include weapons, sailing equipment, naval supplies and a wide array of objects used by the crew. Many of the artefacts are unique to the Mary Rose and have provided insights into topics ranging from naval warfare to the history of musical instruments. Since the mid-1980s, while undergoing conservation, the remains of the hull have been on display at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. An extensive collection of well-preserved artefacts is on display at the nearby Mary Rose Museum.

The Mary Rose had no known career as a merchant vessel. She was one of the largest ships in the English navy throughout more than three decades of intermittent war and was one of the earliest examples of a purpose-built sailing warship. She was armed with new types of heavy guns that could fire through the recently invented gun-ports. After being substantially rebuilt in 1536, she was also one of the earliest ships that could fire a broadside, although the line of battle tactics that employed it had not yet been developed. Several theories have sought to explain the demise of the Mary Rose, based on historical records, knowledge of 16th-century shipbuilding and modern experiments. However, the precise cause of her sinking is still unclear, because of conflicting testimonies and a lack of conclusive physical evidence.

“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: A Global Economic Malaise

Large parts of the world seem to be on the verge of a recession. In many countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America, economic growth has already stalled.

Yet many finance ministers and central bankers who are meeting in Washington this week are unwilling or ill prepared to respond. In Europe, for example, officials from Germany continue to insist that countries that use the euro meet restrictive fiscal rules, and they are trying to prevent the European Central Bank from buying government bonds. Officials in Japan, meanwhile, have hurt that economy by raising a sales tax too fast.

Some countries, including the United States and Britain, are growing modestly, for now. But even these economies are not enjoying the kind of robust recovery that creates millions of jobs for the unemployed. And growth in the United States and Britain could slow down, too, if a lot of their major trading partners in Europe and Asia fall into a recession.

Paul Krugman: Secret Deficit Lovers

What if they balanced the budget and nobody knew or cared?

O.K., the federal budget hasn’t actually been balanced. But the Congressional Budget Office has tallied up the totals for fiscal 2014, which ran through the end of September, and reports that the deficit plunge of the past several years continues. You still hear politicians ranting about “trillion dollar deficits,” but last year’s deficit was less than half-a-trillion dollars – or, a more meaningful number, just 2.8 percent of G.D.P. – and it’s still falling.

So where are the ticker-tape parades? For that matter, where are the front-page news reports? After all, talk about the evils of deficits and the grave fiscal danger facing America dominated Washington for years. Shouldn’t we be making a big deal of the fact that the alleged crisis is over?

Well, we aren’t, and once you understand why, you also understand what fiscal hysteria was really about.

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.

This Day in History

Martin Luther King accepts Nobel Prize; Women get right to vote in Wyoming; First US domestic passenger jet flight; General Pinochet dies. Otis Redding dies.

Breakfast Tunes

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 10 is the 283rd day of the year (284th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 82 days remaining until the end of the year.

On October 10, 1935, George Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess premieres on Broadway.

Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward’s novel Porgy and the play of the same name which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward. All three works deal with African American life in the fictitious Catfish Row (based on the real-life Rainbow Row) in Charleston, South Carolina, in the early 1920s.

Originally conceived by Gershwin as an “American folk opera”, Porgy and Bess premiered in New York in the fall of 1935 and featured an entire cast of classically trained African-American singers-a daring and visionary artistic choice at the time. Gershwin chose African American Eva Jessye as the choral director for the opera. Incorporating a wealth of blues and jazz idioms into the classical art form of opera, Gershwin considered it his finest work.

The work was not widely accepted in the United States as a legitimate opera until 1976, when the Houston Grand Opera production of Gershwin’s complete score established it as an artistic triumph. Nine years later the Metropolitan Opera gave their first performance of the work. This production was also broadcast as part of the ongoing Saturday afternoon live Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts. The work is now considered part of the standard operatic repertoire and is regularly performed internationally. Despite this success, the opera has been controversial; some critics from the outset have considered it a racist portrayal of African Americans.

“Summertime” is by far the best-known piece from the work, and countless interpretations of this and other individual numbers have also been recorded and performed. The second best-known number is “It Ain’t Necessarily So“. The opera is admired for Gershwin’s innovative synthesis of European orchestral techniques with American jazz and folk music idioms.

Porgy and Bess tells the story of Porgy, a disabled black beggar living in the slums of Charleston, South Carolina. It deals with his attempts to rescue Bess from the clutches of Crown, her violent and possessive lover, and Sportin’ Life, the drug dealer. Where the earlier novel and stage-play differ, the opera generally follows the stage-play.

The Porgy and Bess original cast recording was included by the National Recording Preservation Board in the Library of Congress, National Recording Registry in 2003. The board selects songs on an annual basis that are “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

On July 14, 1993, the United States Postal Service recognized the opera’s cultural significance by issuing a commemorative 29-cent postage stamp, and in 2001 Porgy and Bess was proclaimed the official opera of the State of South Carolina.

“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 most important national-security secrets case you’ve never heard of

Your phone records, your credit-card bills, your internet trail – the government has the power to summon it all on-demand, without telling you. Until now

The most consequential civil liberties case in years is being argued before three judges in California on Wednesday, and it has little to do with the NSA but everything to do with taking away your privacy in the name of vague and unsubstantiated “national security” claims.

The landmark case revolves around National Security Letters (NSLs), the pernicious tool for surveillance-on-demand that the FBI has used with reckless abandon since 9/11 – almost completely hidden from public view, even though they’re used to view the public’s private information. To wit, NSLs allow the FBI to demand all sorts of your stuff from internet, telephone, banking and credit-card companies without any prior sign-off from a judge or their unwitting customers. Worse, companies are served a gag order, making it illegal for them not only to tell you which of your info is being pulled – but to tell the public they’ve received such a request at all.

Which is why the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is in court on Wednesday, why Twitter is now suing the US government, and the reason that anyone who cares about his or her privacy should be just as aware of the three letters “NSL” as everyone has no doubt already become with the acronym NSA.

Timothy Egan: Why Do We Re-elect Them?

When you buy a new car, you dodge the sketchy salesman, read up on consumer ratings, get a feel for the ride. When you get married, you think about growing old with a person, love beyond lust, do a life gut check. And when you elect a federal lawmaker next month, you go against everything you believe in to reward the worst Congress ever.

How else to explain the confit of conventional wisdom showing that voters are poised to give Republicans control of the Senate, and increase their hold on the House, even though a majority of Americans oppose nearly everything the G.O.P. stands for?

The message is: We hate you for your inaction, your partisanship, your nut-job conspiracy theories; now do more of the same. Democracy – nobody ever said it made sense. Of course, November’s election will be a protest vote against the man who isn’t on the ballot, a way to make a lame duck president even lamer in his final two years.