Tag: Open Thread

On This Day In History February 16

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.

February 16 is the 47th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 318 days remaining until the end of the year (319 in leap years).

On this day in 2006, the last Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) is decommissioned by the United States Army. The Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) refers to a United States Army medical unit serving as a fully functional hospital in a combat area of operations. The units were first established in August 1945, and were deployed during the Korean War and later conflicts.

The MASH unit was conceived by Michael E. DeBakey and other surgical consultants as the “mobile army surgical hospital.” Col. Harry A. Ferguson, the executive officer of the Tokyo Army Hospital, also aided in the establishment of the MASH program. It was an alternative to the system of portable surgical hospitals, field hospitals, and general hospitals used during World War II. It was designed to get experienced personnel closer to the front, so that the wounded could be treated sooner and with greater success. Casualties were first treated at the point of injury through buddy aid, then routed through a battalion aid station for emergency stabilizing surgery, and finally routed to the MASH for the most extensive treatment. This proved to be highly successful; it was noted that during the Korean War, a seriously wounded soldier that made it to a MASH unit alive had a 97% chance of survival once he received treatment.

The MASH unit made its way into popular culture through the 1968 novel M*A*S*H by Richard Hooker, the 1970 feature film based on the novel, and the long-running television sitcom (1972-1983) based on the movie. A 1953 film, Battle Circus, also took place at a MASH.

MASH units continued to serve in various conflicts including the Vietnam War. In October 1990 the 5th MASH, 44th Medical Brigade, XVIIIth AirBorne Corps, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, deployed to Saudi Arabia and was the first fully functional Army Hospital in country. This unit moved forward six times, always as the first up hospital for the region. In March 1991 the 5th MASH was operationally attached to the 24th Infantry Division to provide forward surgical care (often right on the front battle lines) to the combat units that attacked the western flank of Iraqi Army. In March 1991, the 159th MASH of the Louisiana Army National Guard operated in Iraq in support of the 3rd Armored Division during Operation Desert Storm.

In 1997, the last MASH unit in South Korea was deactivated. A deactivating ceremony was held in South Korea, which was attended by several members of the cast of the M*A*S*H television series, including Larry Linville (who played Frank Burns), and David Ogden Stiers, (who played Charles Winchester). MASH units have since been replaced by the U.S. Army’s Combat Support Hospitals.

Worldwide, the last MASH unit was deactivated on October 16, 2006. The 212th MASH – based in Miesau Ammo Depot, Germany – was the first U.S. Army hospital established in Iraq in 2003, supporting coalition forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom. It was the most decorated combat hospital in the U.S. Army, with 28 Campaign streamers on the organizational colors. The 212th MASH’s last deployment was to Pakistan to support the 2005 Kashmir earthquake relief operations. The U.S. State Department bought the MASH’s tents and medical equipment, owned by the DoD, and donated the entire hospital to the Pakistani military, a donation worth $4.5 million.

The 212th MASH’s unit sign now resides at the Army Medical Department’s Museum in San Antonio, Texas.

MASH in M*A*S*H

Out of necessity, the “4077th MASH” unit depicted in the television series was considerably smaller than many of the MASH units deployed by the United States in the Korean War. In the series, about four surgeons depicted as being assigned to the unit, the administrative staff consists of the C.O. and his assistant, and few soldiers were shown to be present. By comparison, the 8063rd Mobile Army Surgical Hospital had personnel including twelve nurses, eighty-nine enlisted soldiers of assorted medical and non-medical specialties, one Medical Service Corps (MSC) officer, one Warrant Officer and ten other commissioned officers of assorted specialties. On one occasion, the unit handled over 600 casualties in a 24 hour period.

Punting the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition

Punting the Punditsis 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:

Up with Steve Kornacki: Preempted for Winter Olympic coverage.

This Week with George Stephanopolis: The guests on “This Week” are: North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory; Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti; Climate Central chief climatologist Dr. Heidi Cullen; ABC News Senior Meteorologist Ginger Zee, and ABC News Chief Business and Economics Correspondent Rebecca Jarvis who will discuss the ice storms in the south and drought in the west.

Author and former Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe; Sports Illustrated senior writer Pete Thamel; and Outsports.com co-founder Cyd Zeigler will talk about the Michael Sam, the college football standout poised to become the first openly gay player in the NFL.

At the political roundtable are ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl; Fusion’s “AM Tonight” host Alicia Menendez; Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan; and editor and publisher of The Nation and WashingtonPost.com columnist Katrina vanden Heuvel.

Special guest actor Kevin Spacey in an exclusive interview on the second season debut of the Nerflix  political drama “House of Cards.”

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr. Scheiffer’s guests are Gov. Pat McCrory (R-NC); and Jim DeMint, president of the Heritage Foundation’

University of Missouri defensive end Michael Sam’s spokesman Howard Bragman; Cyd Zeigler of OutSports.com; Jarrett Bell, NFL Columnist for USA Today Sports; and Donté Stallworth, an NFL wide receiver and current free agent will discuss the implications of Sam’s announcement that he is gay.

Joining him for on the panel are Neera Tanden of the Center for American Progress; Bob Woodward and Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post; David Sanger of The New York Times, and John Harris of Politico.

Meet the Press with David Gregory: The guests on Sunday’s MTP are 2012 Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney;  scientist and educator Bill Nye “The Science Guy”; Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Vice Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee; former American Figure Skater Brian Boitano and Bravo’s Host of “Watch What Happens Live” Andy Cohen.

Guests at the roundtable are NBC News’ Chuck Todd, Republican Strategist and former White House Communications Director Nicolle Wallace; Associated Press Chief White House Correspondent Julie Pace; and Democratic Strategist and former Senior Adviser to President Obama David Axelrod.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Ms. Crowley’s guests are Senator John McCain (R-AZ); businessman Steve Forbes and Austan Goolsbee, former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Her panel guests are CNN Political Commentator Kevin Madden; The Root‘s Corey Dade, and democratic pollster Margie Omero.

Health and Fitness News

Welcome to the Health and Fitness NewsWelcome to the Stars Hollow 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

One Pot of Beans, Four Dinners

One Pot of Beans 4 dinners photo 10recipehealth-master675_zps802e6330.jpg

This year I found a bag of pintos that I had bought on a whim more than a year ago. I simmered them with onion and garlic, and they softened beautifully. Not only did I enjoy the beans with their broth on their own but I used them for several other filling and satisfying main dishes. With pinto beans you can go Mexican or Mediterranean. They resemble borlottis, so in addition to the vegetarian chili and the tostadas I made, I used them in a few Italian dishes that normally call for borlottis or cannellini, all comforting, sustaining dishes for cold winter nights.

~Martha Rose Shulman~

A Big Pot of Simmered Pintos

A simple pot of savory beans can be a meal or the first step in another dish.

Pasta e Fagiole

A classic Italian bean and pasta soup makes a delicious meal.

Vegetarian Chili With Winter Vegetables

A thick satisfying dish with sweet flavors and a comforting texture.

Bruschetta With Smashed Beans, Sage and Kale

Seasoned greens and a bit of cheese turns bruschetta into a meal.

Tostadas With Beans, Cabbage and Avocado

A great buffet dish that skips frying the beans in lard.

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

Heidi Moore: The Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger is not a marriage made to last

Two troubled giants, loathed by the public and facing plummeting profits, are heralding a brighter future. Don’t believe the hype

In mergers, as in marriage, the couple may be running toward each other – or away from something else.

The latest escapees from reality: widely loathed US cable providers Comcast and Time Warner Cable and their proposed $52bn merger. It would be the third-largest media merger of all time, and in its size and scope it sounds like a decisive and confident move between two powerful companies looking to grow even larger.

Don’t be fooled. The deal is a desperation move: a combination of Time Warner Cable’s eagerness to escape an ugly takeover offer from rival Charter Communications; a classic double-crossing manoeuvre by an acquisitive Comcast; and the nation’s two largest cable companies looking to preserve profits after spending years squandering every competitive advantage given to them.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: 10 Reasons to Call for More Than $10.10 as a Minimum Wage

Yesterday President Obama signed an executive order raising the minimum wage for some federally contracted workers to $10.10. This move illustrates the fact that we need a higher minimum wage for all workers. It also promotes the bill by Sen. Tom Harkin and Rep. George Miller which would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 by 2015.

Make no mistake: The president’s gesture was a good one, and the Harkin/Miller bill is very important. But, as is so often the case nowadays, strategists on the left run the risk of prematurely accepting preconceptions about what is “politically possible.” If economic debate becomes strictly a defensive game on the left, the “Overton window” of acceptable debate will keep shifting toward the right.

The minimum wage is an excellent case in point. There are strong arguments for raising it even more — perhaps considerably more — than is currently being discussed, and the independent left should be making them.

Daniel Denvir: Governors won’t save the Republican Party

Last year the Republican National Committee conducted an official autopsy after the defeat of presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. It came to the somewhat comfortable conclusion that the party’s biggest problem was its image. “Young voters are increasingly rolling their eyes,” it wrote, while “many minorities wrongly think that Republicans do not like them or want them in the country.” The solution touted by the RNC? Practical Republican governors – “America’s reformers in chief” – who would save a party dominated by right-wing crazies in Washington.

According to the RNC, such Republican governors are successful because they “deliver on conservative promises of reducing the size of government while making people’s lives better.” But this lesson – that business-minded conservatives can overcome the ideological divide – is not quite reflected in reality. In Democratic-leaning but Republican-governed states, government got smaller, and some people’s lives got appreciably worse: Slashed education budgets prompted a widespread outcry in Pennsylvania, and anti-union laws polarized voters in Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan. Indeed, the purple-state governors elected during the 2010 tea party surge – Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, Ohio’s John Kasich, Florida’s Rick Scott, Maine’s Paul LePage, Michigan’s Rick Snyder and Pennsylvania’s Tom Corbett – are among those most likely to face defeat in 2014.

This indicates that the Republican Party’s problems run deeper than Sen. Ted Cruz’s filibuster or Rep. Michele Bachmann’s contention that “The Lion King” might be gay-rights propaganda. People subjected to the small-government austerity at the heart of the contemporary conservative consensus sometimes simply do not like it.

Dave Johnson: No Fast Track to TPP: Fix NAFTA First

The big corporations and the Obama administration are trying to push through a giant new trade treaty that gives corporations even more power, and which will send even more jobs, factories, industries and money out of the country. This is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and they are pushing something called “fast track” in Congress to help push it through.

We have to stop this, and we should take the momentum we have generated in our push-back on this to demand Congress and President Obama instead fix NAFTA first. Then fix all of our trade relationships to help working people on all sides of our borders.

David Sirota: PBS Becoming the Plutocrats Broadcasting Service

In a world of screaming cable television hosts and partisan media outlets, PBS is supposed to be the last refuge for honest news. This is ostensibly why taxpayers still contribute money to the public broadcasting system. That money is appropriated to try to guarantee that there remains at least one forum for unvarnished facts, even if such facts offend those with money and power.

The problem, though, is that because our government spends so little on public media as compared to many other industrialized countries, our most prominent public media outlets are becoming instruments for special interests to launder their ideological agenda through a seemingly objective brand. Starved for public resources, these outlets are increasingly trying to get their programming funded with money from corporations and wealthy political activists-and that kind of cash comes with ideological expectations.

Joe Conason: : The Imminent Return of the ‘Clinton Scandals’

Hillary Clinton may well run for president in 2016. Or she may not. But while the nation awaits her decision, both jittery Republican politicians and titillated political journalists-often in concert-will seize upon any excuse to recycle those old “Clinton scandals.”

The latest trip around this endless loop began when Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican of extremist pedigree and nebulous appeal, deflected a question about his party’s “war on women” by yapping about Monica Lewinsky, the former “inappropriate” playmate of Bill Clinton. Then the Free Beacon, a right-wing Washington tabloid, published some old papers about the “ruthless” Hillary and the “loony toon Monica” from the archives of the late Diane Blair, a longtime and intimate Arkansas friend of the Clintons.

Suddenly, the media frenzy of the ’90s resumed, as if there had never even been a pause.

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On This Day In History February 15

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.

February 15 is the 46th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 319 days remaining until the end of the year (320 in leap years).

On this day in 1903, toy store owner and inventor Morris Michtom places two stuffed bears in his shop window, advertising them as Teddy bears. Michtom had earlier petitioned President Theodore Roosevelt for permission to use his nickname, Teddy. The president agreed and, before long, other toy manufacturers began turning out copies of Michtom’s stuffed bears, which soon became a national childhood institution.

The name Teddy Bear comes from former United States President Theodore Roosevelt, whose nickname was “Teddy”. The name originated from an incident on a bear-hunting trip in Mississippi in November 1902, to which Roosevelt was invited by Mississippi Governor Andrew H. Longino. There were several other hunters competing, and most of them had already killed an animal. A suite of Roosevelt’s attendants, led by Holt Collier, cornered, clubbed, and tied an American Black Bear to a willow tree after a long exhausting chase with hounds. They called Roosevelt to the site and suggested that he should shoot it. He refused to shoot the bear himself, deeming this unsportsmanlike, but instructed that the bear be killed to put it out of its misery, and it became the topic of a political cartoon by Clifford Berryman in The Washington Post on November 16, 1902. While the initial cartoon of an adult black bear lassoed by a white handler and a disgusted Roosevelt had symbolic overtones, later issues of that and other Berryman cartoons made the bear smaller and cuter.

Morris Michtom saw the drawing of Roosevelt and the bear cub and was inspired to create a new toy. He created a little stuffed bear cub and put it in his shop window with a sign that read “Teddy’s bear,” after sending a bear to Roosevelt and receiving permission to use his name. The toys were an immediate success and Michtom founded the Ideal Novelty and Toy Co.

At the same time in Germany, the Steiff firm, unaware of Michtom’s bear, produced a stuffed bear from Richard Steiff‘s designs. They exhibited the toy at the Leipzig Toy Fair in March 1903 and exported 3,000 to the United States.

By 1906 manufacturers other than Michtom and Steiff had joined in and the craze for “Roosevelt Bears” was such that ladies carried them everywhere, children were photographed with them, and Roosevelt used one as a mascot in his bid for re-election.

American educator Seymour Eaton wrote the children’s book series The Roosevelt Bears, while composer John Bratton wrote “The Teddy Bear Two Step” which, with the addition of Jimmy Kennedy‘s lyrics, became the song “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic”.

Early teddy bears were made to look like real bears, with extended snouts and beady eyes. Today’s teddy bears tend to have larger eyes and foreheads and smaller noses, babylike features that make them more attractive to buyers because they enhance the toy’s cuteness, and may even be pre-dressed.

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

Mark Bittman: A Valentine for Restaurant Workers

There is long-overdue support for raising the minimum wage. But among generally mistreated minimum wage workers there’s a subgroup of those whose wage experience is even more miserable and unfair.

The group is tipped workers, the majority of whom are restaurant servers. There is a minimum wage for tipped workers, called by those who know the “tipped minimum wage.” An informal survey on my part would indicate that many well-educated professionals, even high-ranking city officials, don’t know about this; that’s excusable, since almost no one talks about it. In any case, few who already know about the tipped minimum wage could guess how low it can go. Try. Are you ready?

$2.13. [..]

On Thursday, (Restaurant Opportunities Centers United) ROC-United had its annual “2/13” day of action, calling on us, and Congress, to “love your server” and raise the tipped minimum wage. Valentine’s Day is the second busiest restaurant day of the year, after Mother’s Day. Thank that server – who is not going out to dinner with her loved one, she’s waiting on you – and think about this: For 23 years the federal tipped minimum wage has stood at $2.13. Isn’t it time to change that?

Dan Gillmor: Comcast’s takeover of Time Warner is a horrible deal for consumers

America already had little TV and internet competition. Unless the government vetoes this deal, there will be even less

As Comcast pushes regulators to approve its just-announced deal to buy out Time Warner Cable, it’ll make one essential point: the acquisition won’t visibly change the competitive landscape for TV and internet customers.

Nice try. Regulators and competition authorities are supposed to consider the public interest when looking at such deals. In no way does the public interest benefit from this one (as Michael Hiltzik pointed out in the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday).

We’re talking immense scale with this deal. Comcast – which completed its takeover of NBC Universal a year ago in a deal that never should have been allowed in the first place – is the nation’s biggest cable company, with about 21m subscribers. Time Warner Cable, the second largest, has 11m. According to the Wall Street Journal, the combined company will sell off what amounts to 3m of those subscribers in order to keep its overall market share slightly below a mythical threshold that raises worries about too much market power.

Paul Krugman: Inequality, Dignity and Freedom

Now that the Congressional Budget Office has explicitly denied saying that Obamacare destroys jobs, some (though by no means all) Republicans have stopped lying about that issue and turned to a different argument. O.K., they concede, any reduction in working hours because of health reform will be a voluntary choice by the workers themselves – but it’s still a bad thing because, as Representative Paul Ryan puts it, they’ll lose “the dignity of work.” [..]

The truth is that if you really care about the dignity and freedom of American workers, you should favor more, not fewer, entitlements, a stronger, not weaker, social safety net.

And you should, in particular, support and celebrate health reform. Never mind all those claims that Obamacare is slavery; the reality is that the Affordable Care Act will empower millions of Americans, giving them exactly the kind of dignity and freedom politicians only pretend to love.

Chase Madar: Cecily McMillan’s Occupy trial is a huge test of US civil liberties. Will they survive?

For years, comparing American freedom to Russian tyranny seemed like an exaggeration. But maybe we’re not so different after all

The US constitution’s Bill of Rights is envied by much of the English-speaking world, even by people otherwise not enthralled by The American Way Of Life. Its fundamental liberties – freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, freedom from warrantless search – are a mighty bulwark against overweening state power, to be sure.

But what are these rights actually worth in the United States these days?  [..]

McMillan is one of over 700 protestors arrested in the course of Occupy Wall Street’s mass mobilization, which began with hopes of radical change and ended in an orgy of police misconduct. According to a scrupulously detailed report (pdf) issued by the NYU School of Law and Fordham Law School, the NYPD routinely wielded excessive force with batons, pepper spray, scooters and horses to crush the nascent movement. And then there were the arrests, often arbitrary, gratuitous and illegal, with most charges later dismissed. McMillan’s is the last Occupy case to be tried, and how the court rules will provide a clear window into whether public assembly stays a basic right or becomes a criminal activity.

Thomas S. Harrington: Hypocrisy in Sochi: On Slamming Russian Repression, But Rarely Our Own

Oh, what fun it is to mock Putin and his attempts to present a civilized and modern face to the world.

In the Boston Globe this week, David Filipov who is manning the paper’s “life on the street” beat in Sochi, explains with clear scorn and condescension how, in Putin’s Russia, those that want to protest against the government are relegated to doing so in “protest parks” far from the cameras and the crowds.

Funny how in 2004, at the Democratic National Convention in Filipov’s home town of Boston, neither he nor anyone at his famously “liberal” paper made much fuss about the “free speech zones”-chain link cages with constant video surveillance-that were set up as the sole place where protestors against the political order could say their piece during that key political event.

Indeed, the “free speech zone,” a patently illegal absurdity in the context of the most elemental reading of the US constitution, has become a ubiquitous part of our life in the US, justified, of course, in the name of “security”-or as the more suave disdainers of basic constitutional rights like Obama like to put it, in the name of the “necessary balance” between security and freedom in our society.

Andrea Bower: The Difference Between a Farmer and a Global Chemical Corporation

We are witnessing a strange, though remarkably predictable public discourse, where State lawmakers claim that those “truly serious about supporting local farmers” must abolish Counties’ rights “forever,” and transnational corporations call themselves “farmers.” Legislators attempt to contort the “Right to Farm” into a mechanism for chemical companies to evade health and environmental concerns, as water grabs by these same companies undermine the actual rights of farmers. Meanwhile, the Hawaii Farm Bureau advocates the interests of a few mega-corporations as synonymous with the interests of local farmers (despite never having asked the farmer members that they professedly speak for).

The intentional blurring in the difference between farmers, and the global corporations that use Hawaii as a testing ground for their new technologies, demands some clarity.[..]

Whether one is skeptical, hopeful, or a mix of both about the science and technology of genetic engineering, we must differentiate between what is good for Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, Syngenta, BASF and Bayer, and what is good for farmers and farmworkers. As we debate various policies related to the agrochemical corporations’ experimentation in Hawaii, we do a grave disservice to the future of food and farming locally and globally when we allow the relationship between farmers and mega-agribusiness to be obscured.

On This Day In History February 14

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.

February 14 is the 45th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 320 days remaining until the end of the year (321 in leap years).

On this day in 1884, future President Theodore Roosevelt’s wife and mother die, only hours apart.

Roosevelt was at work in the New York state legislature attempting to get a government reform bill passed when he was summoned home by his family. He returned home to find his mother, Mittie, had succumbed to typhoid fever. On the same day, his wife of four years, Alice Lee, died of Bright’s disease, a severe kidney ailment. Only two days before her death, Alice Lee had given birth to the couple’s daughter, Alice.

Roosevelt left his daughter in the care of his sister, Anna “Bamie/Bye” in New York City. In his diary he wrote a large X on the page and wrote “the light has gone out of my life.”

A short time later, Roosevelt wrote a tribute to his wife published privately indicating that:

She was beautiful in face and form, and lovelier still in spirit; As a flower she grew, and as a fair young flower she died. Her life had been always in the sunshine; there had never come to her a single sorrow; and none ever knew her who did not love and revere her for the bright, sunny temper and her saintly unselfishness. Fair, pure, and joyous as a maiden; loving , tender, and happy. As a young wife; when she had just become a mother, when her life seemed to be just begun, and when the years seemed so bright before her-then, by a strange and terrible fate, death came to her. And when my heart’s dearest died, the light went from my life forever

To the immense disappointment of his wife’s namesake and daughter, Alice, he would not speak of his wife publicly or privately for the rest of his life and made no mention of her in his autobiography.

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

Norman Solomon: Resisting the Surveillance State of Mind

We must not let the NSA’s snooping define a new era in which privacy is a relic

Eight months after whistle-blower Edward Snowden set off a huge uproar by shedding light on the National Security Agency’s unscrupulous surveillance practices, we are still learning about the vast extent of the snooping. Such revelations are vital to inform the public and enable a democratic process that could hold the government accountable. But they are accompanied by a very real danger: We may come to see privacy as a thing of the past.

The mind-boggling scope of the NSA’s surveillance continues to make front-page news as a political story. But its most pernicious effects are social and psychological. We are getting accustomed to Big Brother. Our daily lives are now accessible to prying eyes and ears no farther away than the nearest computer or cellphone. Unless we directly challenge the system of mass surveillance now, the ruling elites may understand our complacency as consent, with results that extend the reach of surveillance and its damaging consequences. Even as it grows more familiar, this bulk collection of data is corroding civil society.

Mass surveillance amounts to a siege that subtly constrains our freedoms and injures social relations. Freewheeling civic engagement is in the line of fire. The surveillance state generates fearful conformity.

E. J. Dionne, Jr.: How a Couple of Austrians Messed Up Washington

One of my favorite moments during the 2012 Republican presidential contest came when Ron Paul, fresh from his strong showing in Iowa, triumphantly told his supporters: “We’re all Austrians now!”

I imagined many Americans scratching their heads and wondering: Why do we want to be Austrians? They live in a nice country with stunning mountains and all that, but aren’t we perfectly happy to be Americans?

Of course those in the know, particularly Paul’s enthusiasts, understood the libertarian presidential candidate’s reference: that Americans were rejecting the economic ideas of John Maynard Keynes that encouraged government intervention and provided intellectual ballast for the New Deal. Instead, they were coming around to the principles of the anti-government economics of Austrians Friedrich A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. [..]

So let’s give Ron Paul credit for unmasking the true source of gridlock in Washington: Too many conservatives are operating on the basis of theories that history and practice have discredited. And liberals have been more reluctant than they should be to call the ideological right on this, partly because they never fully got over the shell shock of the Reagan years and also because they have a strange aversion to arguing about theory. When it comes to government policy, the Austrian economists paved the road to paralysis.

Amy Goodman: People of Color Are Losing Their Right to Vote

“I found myself standing in front of railroad tracks in South Florida. I was waiting on the train to come so I could jump in front of it and end my life.” So recounted Desmond Meade, describing his life nine years ago. He was homeless, unemployed, recently released from prison and addicted to drugs and alcohol. The train never came. He crossed the tracks and checked himself into a substance-abuse program. He went on to college, and now is just months away from receiving his law degree.

Meade, however, will not be able to practice law in Florida. As a former felon, he cannot join the bar. That is one of his rights that has been stripped, permanently, by Florida’s draconian laws. In a democracy, if one wants to change a law, you vote for lawmakers who will represent your views. Yet, as an ex-felon in Florida, Meade also has lost the right to vote for the rest of his life.

It’s called “felony disenfranchisement,” and is permanent in 11 states: Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, Tennessee, Virginia and Wyoming. It’s enforced in differing degrees, like a patchwork, across the U.S. In 13 states and the District of Columbia, you get your rights back upon release from prison. In others, you have to get through your probation or parole. In Maine and Vermont, prisoners retain the right to vote, even while incarcerated.

Alec Luhn: Women Break an Olympic Barrier, Keep Reproductive Organs Intact

Women competed in the ski jump for the first time at a Winter Olympics on Tuesday. So far, their uteruses seem to be intact.

The inclusion of women’s ski jumping ninety years after men first competed in the sport at the inaugural Winter Olympics marks the end of a long struggle against those like International Ski Federation (FIS) president and IOC member Gian Franco Kasper, who said in 2005 that ski jumping “seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view.”

He was referring to the pseudo-scientific belief that repeated impacts could dislodge female reproductive organs. “I’ve had people ask me had my uterus fallen out yet,” American ski jumper Lindsey Van, who has been at the forefront of the fight for inclusion, famously said about such claims.

John Nichols: Congressional Republicans Call Obama ‘Lawless’ for Issuing Executive Orders. That’s Just Wrong.

Reasonable people can and should debate the limits of presidential power, particularly when it comes to issues of war and peace, and questions about spying on Americans or politicizing positions of public trust. Any serious discourse on executive overreach would find plenty to criticize in the approaches of all recent presidents-including President Obama.

But “reasonable” and “serious” are not the words that come to mind as the most powerful and prominent Republicans in Congress attack their president’s decision to issue the latest in a long line of executive orders with regard to federal contracts and contractors. [..]

And if by chance, some of the critics might argue that Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson were “lawless,” then how long would those critics have asked the victims of discrimination to wait for reluctant Congresses to act to eliminate Jim Crow laws and barriers to the American promise that outlined in the immortal declaration that “all men [and women] are created equal.”

Robert Parry Is Hillary Clinton a Neocon-Lite?

Most Democratic power-brokers appear settled on Hillary Clinton as their choice for President in 2016 – and she holds lopsided leads over potential party rivals in early opinion polls – but there are some warning flags flying, paradoxically, hoisted by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates in his praise for the former First Lady, U.S. senator and Secretary of State.

On the surface, one might think that Gates’s glowing commendations of Clinton would further burnish her standing as the odds-on next President of the United States, but strip away the fawning endorsements and Gates’s portrait of Clinton in his new memoir, Duty, is of a pedestrian foreign policy thinker who is easily duped and leans toward military solutions.

Indeed, for thoughtful and/or progressive Democrats, the prospect of a President Hillary Clinton could represent a step back from some of President Barack Obama’s more innovative foreign policy strategies, particularly his readiness to cooperate with the Russians and Iranians to defuse Middle East crises and his willingness to face down the Israel Lobby when it is pushing for heightened confrontations and war. [..]

One key question for a Clinton presidential candidacy will be whether she would build on the diplomatic foundation that Obama has laid or dismantle it and return to a more traditional foreign policy focused on military might and catering to the views of Israel and Saudi Arabia.

On This Day In History February 13

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.

February 13 is the 44th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 321 days remaining until the end of the year (322 in leap years).

On this day in 1633, Italian philosopher, astronomer and mathematician Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome to face charges of heresy for advocating Copernican theory, which holds that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Galileo officially faced the Roman Inquisition in April of that same year and agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence. Put under house arrest indefinitely by Pope Urban VIII, Galileo spent the rest of his days at his villa in Arcetri, near Florence, before dying on January 8, 1642.

Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly known as Galileo, was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism. Galileo has been called the “father of modern observational astronomy”, the “father of modern physics”, the “father of science”, and “the Father of Modern Science”. Stephen Hawking says, “Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science.”

The motion of uniformly accelerated objects, taught in nearly all high school and introductory college physics courses, was studied by Galileo as the subject of kinematics. His contributions to observational astronomy include the telescopic confirmation of the phases of Venus, the discovery of the four largest satellites of Jupiter (named the Galilean moons in his honour), and the observation and analysis of sunspots. Galileo also worked in applied science and technology, inventing an improved military compass and other instruments.

Galileo’s championing of Copernicanism was controversial within his lifetime, when a large majority of philosophers and astronomers still subscribed to the geocentric view that the Earth is at the centre of the universe. After 1610, when he began publicly supporting the heliocentric view, which placed the Sun at the centre of the universe, he met with bitter opposition from some philosophers and clerics, and two of the latter eventually denounced him to the Roman Inquisition early in 1615. In February 1616, although he had been cleared of any offence, the Catholic Church nevertheless condemned heliocentrism as “false and contrary to Scripture”, and Galileo was warned to abandon his support for it-which he promised to do. When he later defended his views in his most famous work, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, published in 1632, he was tried by the Inquisition, found “vehemently suspect of heresy”, forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.

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.

Wednesday is Ladies’ Day.

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

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Allison Kilkenny: “Sky Raper”: US Drones as Tools of the Patriarchy

Journalists Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald posted a disturbing report at their new site The Intercept on Monday about the NSA’s secret role in the U.S. assassination program. It’s a fascinating read, and I recommend you read it in its entirety, but I wanted to explore a very specific passage in the report-an interview with a former drone operator for the military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) who also worked with the NSA.

The former drone operator explains that remotely piloted Reaper and Predator vehicles are often given cute little nicknames. For example, those used in Afghanistan were called “Lightning” and “Sky Raider.”

Badass!

But then the source candidly reveals there’s a subset of nicknames. The “Sky Raider” was also referred to as “Sky Raper” because “it killed a lot of people.” [..]

The act of rape is about power and violence-two favorite hobbies of the military, and the patriarchy that relies on the military to invade and conquer in order to acquire even more power in order to fuel future acts of violence.

Sky Raper. It’s sort of beautifully succinct in a really fucked up way.

Katrina vanden Heuvel: For Pussy Riot Members, No More Taking Freedom for Granted

IF an appearance on The Colbert Report is a measure of success, then Pussy Riot has arrived.

Fresh out of prison, Nadya Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, two members of the Russian punk protest group, were in New York last week for a whirlwind tour. After winning over Colbert and his audience, the duo spoke at Wednesday’s all-star Amnesty International concert at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, where they were introduced by no less than Madonna. [..]

The real story, however, isn’t their vocal, vehement opposition to Putin. It’s what they’re doing with their freedom. The women have been on an international journey of sorts- not to “breathe fresh air and enjoy ourselves” but to visit prisons in other countries and bring what they learn back to Russia.

Crystal Wright: Black history has become a commodity traded by Republicans and corporations

Those who truly want to honor the spirit of Black History Month should focus on creating equal opportunity for African Americans

Why do we have a Black History Month in America? As many have said, black history should be part of our national conversation 365 days a year, not just jammed into a single month. While it may not have been intended this way, this annual February event only serves to further separate black people from mainstream America.

Martin Luther King Jr’s dream was to see black people treated as equals in this country, protected by the constitution and given the same opportunities to achieve as their white counterparts, yet black history month runs counter to King’s goals of inclusion. Since 1976, when it was officially recognized, it has become a tool used by black activists to shame businesses, schools and politicians into showing blacks they “care”.

And companies seem only too happy to oblige, even though I doubt if any of them really care about black history at all. As February rolls around, we see corporations from McDonald’s to Northrup Grumman advertizing Black History Month. The ads usually begin with “we salute” or “we celebrate”, but they simply don’t want to be called racist for not acknowledging it.

Ana Marie Cox: The real problem with US Common Core: it further outsources education

New York is the latest to revolt against Common Core. What’s especially scary is more business intrusion into the classroom

There’s a pretty good chance that up until last week, you’d never heard of the Common Core national standards and curriculum. That changed recently when New York State became the largest state thus far to see a sharp reversal in the adoption of the standards. A bipartisan group of legislators proposed suspending the use of the Common Core assessment tests, based largely on the rebellion of the state’s largest teacher’s union. After endorsing a plan three years ago that would link teacher evaluations to student test scores, the union has now seen the actual testing results – available for the first time last fall – and isn’t so sure. [..]

What’s the harm?, you might ask. The money has to come from somewhere, right? Marketing is designed to discourage critical thinking. Its purpose is to insinuate itself into your subconscious and keep you from making your own decisions. It invalidates the workings of the mind and the heart. You can know Shakespeare’s sonnets backwards and forwards, but if you spend your spare time chasing the next Shiny New Thing, what good will poetry do you?

Suzanne Goldberg: Why Global Water Shortages Pose Threat of Terror and War

From California to the Middle East, huge areas of the world are drying up and a billion people have no access to safe drinking water. US intelligence is warning of the dangers of shrinking resources and experts say the world is ‘standing on a precipice’

On 17 January, scientists downloaded fresh data from a pair of NASA satellites and distributed the findings among the small group of researchers who track the world’s water reserves. At the University of California, Irvine, hydrologist James Famiglietti looked over the data from the gravity-sensing Grace satellites with a rising sense of dread. [..]

How governments manage those water problems – and protect their groundwater reserves – will be critical. When California emerged from its last prolonged dry spell, in 2010, the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins were badly depleted. The two river basins lost 10km3 of freshwater each year in 2012 and 2013, dropping the total volume of snow, surface water, soil moisture and groundwater to the lowest levels in nearly a decade.

Without rain, those reservoirs are projected to drop even further during this drought. State officials are already preparing to drill additional wells to draw on groundwater. Famiglietti said that would be a mistake.

“We are standing on a cliff looking over the edge and we have to decide what we are going to do,” he said.

“Are we just going to plunge into this next epic drought and tremendous, never-before-seen rates of groundwater depletion, or are we going to buckle down and start thinking of managing critical reserve for the long term? We are standing on a precipice here.”

Leslie Savan: Chris Christie Bullies Again

Governor Chris Christie says he’s been humbled, that he’s been doing some “soul-searching” after his staff got caught arranging traffic jams to punish political enemies.

But bullies bully out of weakness, and Christie is now weaker than he’s ever been. He can’t possibly give up his only real political asset-a talent for intimidation that makes victims want to be on his side to win his protection-when he needs it most.[..]

The attempt to put the squeeze on New Jersey mayors does double duty by also intimidating other potential witnesses and officials receiving subpoenas (the New Jersey legislators investigating the bridge scandal issued eighteen new subpoenas yesterday).

It’s all part of the web of fear that Christie has established throughout New Jersey. It’s aimed as much, if not more, at Democrats than at Republicans, and until the GWB scandal broke, that fear was passed off as the Christie miracle of “bipartisanship.”

Even though the former front-runner in the GOP presidential race now looks like he’ll never make it to the primaries, even though Christie boosters like Joe Scarborough say he should resign as the head of the Republican Governors Association, anyone who the governor’s office can conceivably touch still lives in fear of his wrath.

The bully can still steal their lunch.

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