Tag: Open Thread

Oct 16 2012

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: If Roe v. Wade Goes

A Romney-Ryan victory could result in re-criminalizing abortion in much of America

It is no secret that Mitt Romney and his running-mate, Representative Paul Ryan, are opponents of abortion rights. When Mr. Ryan was asked at last week’s debate whether voters who support abortion rights should be worried if the Romney-Ryan ticket were elected, he essentially said yes.

They would depart slightly from the extremist Republican Party platform by allowing narrow exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the woman. Beyond that, they would move to take away a fundamental right that American women have had for nearly 40 years.

Dean Baker: The National Debt and Our Children: How Dumb Does Washington Think We Are?

While much of the country is focused on the presidential race, the Wall Street gang is waging a different battle; they are preparing an assault on Social Security and Medicare. This attack is not exactly secret. There have been a number of pieces on this corporate-backed campaign in the media over the last few months, but the drive is nonetheless taking place behind closed doors.

The corporate honchos are not expecting to convince the public that we should support cuts to Social Security and Medicare. They know this is a hopeless task. Huge majorities of people across the political spectrum strongly support these programs.

Instead they hope that they can use their power of persuasion, coupled with the power of campaign contributions and the power of high-paying jobs for defeated members of Congress, to get Congress to approve large cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other key programs. This is the plan for a grand bargain that the corporate chieftains hope can be struck in the lame duck Congress.

William K. Black: The Vampire Squid Has Feelings and Obama Is No Longer Her BFF

Matt Taibbi famously dubbed Goldman “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” Taibbi knew his metaphor worked a deep injustice on Vampyroteuthis infernalis, a small animal that feeds on carrion and excrement (I will let the reader explore the metaphorical possibilities). Goldman Sachs’ leaders were always secretly flattered by Taibbi’s metaphor. They like being thought of as hyper-aggressive and intimidating. Saying that an investment banker’s goal is to make money is to state the obvious and causes no embarrassment.

The news flash is that Goldman Sachs has revealed her new, softer side. She has become Ms. Good in the Sack and she wants us all to know that she has feelings and she is terribly hurt by the way she is being taken for granted, treated coldly, and made fun of as a “fat” feline. The cruelest blow is that Ms. Good in the Sack suffered these indignities at the hands of the handsome new guy who escorted her to the presidential ball. Her BFF, the tall, dark and handsome guy who was exotic without seeming too dangerous — the kind of guy her dad always warned her never to date — has betrayed her. No sooner had she gotten in a serious relationship with Obama that helped him climb to the top of the social order than she saw him flirting with that skank — Ms. Liberal.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: Morgan Stanley: Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself …

“Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste …”

“Some people,” my mother used to say, “are just no damned good.” This was from somebody who rarely used bad language around us, and it was usually said with an air of bemused resignation rather than white-hot rage. I’ve always leaned a little more toward the possibility of redemption myself. But the more I learn about Wall Street, the more I see the wisdom in Mom’s words.

The latest lawsuit against Morgan Stanley raises the question again: Are a whole lot of Wall Street executives “just no damned good”? The evidence is overwhelming: They cheated. They lied. They used racial discrimination to make a fast buck at the expense of African Americans, ripped off their own investors (including working people’s pension funds), and then took a huge bailout from the American people.

Then, once they were safely ensconced back on their plutocratic perch and raking in more unearned wealth, they quickly deployed huge amounts of that money — to subvert our political process. That way they can loosen regulations on their own industry while forcing us to accept an austerity program like the “Simpson-Bowles” plan, which imposes even more hardship on the majority while offering even more tax breaks to people like Morgan Stanley’s executives.

Did we mention that Erskine Bowles, co-author of that plan, is on the Board of Directors of Morgan Stanley?

Wendell Potter; Romney’s Talking Points on the Uninsured Are Like the Ones I Wrote When I Was an Insurance Industry Flack

I understand where Mitt Romney was coming from when he said last week that Americans without health insurance don’t have to worry about dying at home.

“We don’t have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don’t have insurance,” the GOP presidential nominee told members of the Columbus Dispatch editorial board. “We don’t have a setting across this country where if you don’t have insurance, we just say to you, ‘Tough luck, you’re going to die when you have your heart attack.’ No, you go to the hospital, you get treated, and it’s paid for, either by charity, the government or by the hospital.”

I have no reason to believe that Romney saw anything wrong with what he said. In fact, I probably would have said the same thing back when I was still a health insurance PR guy and trying to convince folks that the problem of the uninsured wasn’t really such a big deal.

Frank Bruni: Pop Goes the President

A candidate now needs to be up on Snooki as well as Bibi, and an up-to-the-minute playlist doesn’t hurt.

To the clamor for administration records concerning embassy security, I’d like to add my own request. I hereby subpoena President Obama’s iPod.

Nicki Minaj? For real? On Friday the president claimed that her voice was one of those occasionally streaming through his ear buds. I don’t buy it. For starters, she once rapped, facetiously or not, that she was voting for Mitt Romney and that Obama was a “lazy” noun-that-I-can’t-print-in-this-newspaper. On top of which, the president strikes me as more of an Adele guy, rolling in the deep of a post-debate funk.

But he’d been asked to weigh in on Minaj’s feud with Mariah Carey, and after praising Carey for fund-raising help, he hastened to throw some love in her foe’s direction. While Mitt Romney is on multiple sides of a single issue, Obama is on all sides of iTunes.

Oct 16 2012

On This Day In History October 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.

This Day in History: October 16 October 16 is the 289th day of the year (290th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 76 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1916, Margaret Sanger opened a family planning and birth control clinic at 46 Amboy St. in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, the first of its kind in the United States.

It was raided 9 days later by the police. She served 30 days in prison. An initial appeal was rejected but in 1918 an opinion written by Judge Frederick E. Crane of the New York Court of Appeals allowed doctors to prescribe contraception.

This was the beginning of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Sanger founded the American Birth Control League in 1921,  which changed its name to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. in 1942. Since then, it has grown to 850 clinic locations in the United States, with a total budget of approximately US$1 billion, and provides an array of services to over three million people.

Dealing with sexuality, the organization is often a center of controversy in the United States. The organization’s status as the country’s leading provider of surgical abortions has put it in the forefront of national debate over the issue. Planned Parenthood has also been a party in numerous Supreme Court cases.

In scanning through the articles on Margaret Sanger, I found this bit of trivia quite amusing

In 1926, Sanger gave a lecture on birth control to the women’s auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan in Silver Lake, New Jersey. She described it as “one of the weirdest experiences I had in lecturing,” and added that she had to use only “the most elementary terms, as though I were trying to make children understand.” Sanger’s talk was well-received by the group and as a result “a dozen invitations to similar groups were proffered.”

Oct 15 2012

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: No Shame

There are many unanswered questions about the vicious assault in Benghazi last month that killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. And Congress has a responsibility to raise them. But Republican lawmakers leading the charge on Capitol Hill seem more interested in attacking President Obama than in formulating an effective response.

It doesn’t take a partisan to draw that conclusion. The ugly truth is that the same people who are accusing the administration of not providing sufficient security for the American consulate in Benghazi have voted to cut the State Department budget, which includes financing for diplomatic security. The most self-righteous critics don’t seem to get the hypocrisy, or maybe they do and figure that if they hurl enough doubts and complaints at the administration, they will deflect attention from their own poor judgments on the State Department’s needs.

Paul Krugman: Death By Ideology

Mitt Romney doesn’t see dead people. But that’s only because he doesn’t want to see them; if he did, he’d have to acknowledge the ugly reality of what will happen if he and Paul Ryan get their way on health care.

Last week, speaking to The Columbus Dispatch, Mr. Romney declared that nobody in America dies because he or she is uninsured: “We don’t have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don’t have insurance.” This followed on an earlier remark by Mr. Romney – echoing an infamous statement by none other than George W. Bush – in which he insisted that emergency rooms provide essential health care to the uninsured.

These are remarkable statements. They clearly demonstrate that Mr. Romney has no idea what life (and death) are like for those less fortunate than himself.

Jonathan Turley: Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech

Free speech is dying in the Western world. While most people still enjoy considerable freedom of expression, this right, once a near-absolute, has become less defined and less dependable for those espousing controversial social, political or religious views. The decline of free speech has come not from any single blow but rather from thousands of paper cuts of well-intentioned exceptions designed to maintain social harmony.

In the face of the violence that frequently results from anti-religious expression, some world leaders seem to be losing their patience with free speech. After a video called “Innocence of Muslims” appeared on YouTube and sparked violent protests in several Muslim nations last month, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned that “when some people use this freedom of expression to provoke or humiliate some others’ values and beliefs, then this cannot be protected.” [..]

Of course, free speech is often precisely about pissing off other people – challenging social taboos or political values.

William K. Black: Ryan and Romney’s Secret Plan to Cut the Deficit — and Why Romney Opposes It

At Thursday’s vice presidential debate, Representative Ryan renewed his claim that he has a secret plan to cut the deficit while cutting all tax rates by 20 percent and not eliminating any tax deductions for which the middle class are large recipients. Oh, and Romney has also promised to increase military spending. [..]

There is, of course, no Ryan plan. There cannot be a Ryan plan because mathematicians are not like historians. The cruel joke about historians is that while God himself cannot change history; historians can. It is perhaps because they can be useful to God in this regard that he tolerates their continued existence and frequent errors. Mathematicians are useless to God, at least in the non-exotic realms of mathematics relevant to budgets, because they are so good at exposing errors and when they do so the error is beyond dispute. (Econometricians are God’s favorites among the quants.) No budget plan could meet all (or even most) of the policy constraints Ryan and Romney have promised they would obey. It is mathematically impossible. Romney and Ryan’s primary lie is that they have a secret plan to cut taxes, cut the deficit, and increase military spending.

Andrew Leonard: Romney’s magic economy plan

Mitt Romney gets a lot of guff from his critics for his unwillingness to spell out the details of how he plans to fix the U.S. the economy; how exactly his tax reforms will work, for example, or what precisely he will do in his first 100 days to boost job creation. But the best thing about the Romney agenda is that by his own admission, he doesn’t need a plan. Just getting himself elected is the ticket to prosperity. [..]

The notion that Romney could spur economic growth “without actually doing anything” invites mockery. The Atlantic’s Matt O’Brien memorably dubbed it “faith-based economic strategy.” At the very least it seemed to betray a breath-taking level of unwarranted hubris. But the key to understanding his boast is to ignore the low-hanging fruit (“without actually doing anything”) and focus on five crucial words: “We’ll see capital come back.“

Richard (RJ) Eskow: Town Hall Debate: Will Voters Ask the Medicare and Social Security Questions Reporters Haven’t?

If you support strong and effective government, then the unfamiliar glow you felt after last Thursday’s debate was the satisfaction of seeing your opinions forcefully defended by a national candidate. There hasn’t been much of that going on lately. But a deceptive question was asked in the vice presidential debate, while other important ones still haven’t been asked of any national candidate.

The president’s been undercutting his own party’s best message and keeps threatening to cut benefits for its signature programs. As for Mitt Romney and his running mate, there’s little left to be said: They’re both determined to undermine Medicare and Social Security. Even if they’re retreating from their most radical ideas now, you know those ideas will be back once they’re in office.

If what follows focuses more on the president than on his challenger, its because the Republicans are beyond redemption on this issue. But both candidates need to answer some direct questions on this topic.

Robert Kuttner: Muddled Ideology, Muddled Debate

The nation’s pundits have had a fine week, psychoanalyzing President Obama’s dismal performance in the first debate and Joe Biden’s effective if a bit over-the-top counter-punching in his match with Paul Ryan.

Maureen Dowd had it about right when she wrote that “Because Obama doesn’t relish confrontation, he often fails to pin his opponents on the mat the first time he gets the chance; instead, perversely, he pulls back and allows foes to gain oxygen.” Ouch.

But the psycho-biography school, fascinating as it is, mostly misses the point.

Romney and Obama have each muddled their views — but Romney does it in a way that helps him, while Obama’s muddling helps the Republicans. Let me explain.

Oct 15 2012

On This Day In History October 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.

October 15 is the 288th day of the year (289th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 77 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte begins his final exile on the Island of St. Helene.

Napoleon Bonaparte (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821) was a military and political leader of France and Emperor of the French as Napoleon I, whose actions shaped European politics in the early 19th century.

Napoleon was born in Corsica to parents of minor noble Italian ancestry and trained as an artillery officer in mainland France. Bonaparte rose to prominence under the French First Republic and led successful campaigns against the First and Second Coalitions arrayed against France. In 1799, he staged a coup d’etat and installed himself as First Consul; five years later the French Senate proclaimed him emperor. In the first decade of the 19th century, the French Empire under Napoleon engaged in a series of conflicts-the Napoleonic Wars-involving every major European power. After a streak of victories, France secured a dominant position in continental Europe, and Napoleon maintained the French sphere of influence through the formation of extensive alliances and the appointment of friends and family members to rule other European countries as French client states.

The French invasion of Russia in 1812 marked a turning point in Napoleon’s fortunes. His Grande Armee was badly damaged in the campaign and never fully recovered. In 1813, the Sixth Coalition defeated his forces at Leipzig; the following year the Coalition invaded France, forced Napoleon to abdicate and exiled him to the island of Elba. Less than a year later, he escaped Elba and returned to power, but was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815. Napoleon spent the last six years of his life in confinement by the British on the island of Saint Helena. An autopsy concluded he died of stomach cancer, though Sten Forshufvud and other scientists have since conjectured he was poisoned with arsenic.

Napoleon’s campaigns are studied at military academies the world over. While considered a tyrant by his opponents, he is also remembered for the establishment of the Napoleonic code, which laid the administrative and judicial foundations for much of Western Europe.

Oct 14 2012

Rant of the Week: Stephen Colbert

Meducation

Since America can’t afford all the teachers it would take to give children personal attention, doctors recommend psychostimulants to improve kids’ grades.

Oct 14 2012

On This Day In History October 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.

October 14 is the 287th day of the year (288th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 78 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1947, U.S. Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound.

Charles Elwood “Chuck” Yeager (born February 13, 1923) is a retired major general in the United States Air Force and noted test pilot. He was the first pilot to travel faster than sound (1947). Originally retiring as a brigadier general, Yeager was promoted to major general on the Air Force’s retired list 20 years later for his military achievements.

His career began in World War II as a private in the United States Army Air Forces. After serving as an aircraft mechanic, in September 1942 he entered enlisted pilot training and upon graduation was promoted to the rank of flight officer (the World War II USAAF equivalent to warrant officer) and became a P-51 Mustang fighter pilot. After the war he became a test pilot of many kinds of aircraft and rocket planes. Yeager was the first man to break the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, flying the experimental Bell X-1 at Mach 1 at an altitude of 13,700 m (45,000 ft). . . .

Yeager remained in the Air Force after the war, becoming a test pilot at Muroc Army Air Field (now Edwards Air Force Base) and eventually being selected to fly the rocket-powered Bell X-1 in a NACA program to research high-speed flight, after Bell Aircraft test pilot “Slick” Goodlin demanded $150,000 to break the sound “barrier.”  Such was the difficulty in this task that the answer to many of the inherent challenges were along the lines of “Yeager better have paid-up insurance.” Yeager broke the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, flying the experimental X-1 at Mach  1 at an altitude of 45,000 feet (13,700 m). Two nights before the scheduled date for the flight, he broke two ribs while riding a horse. He was so afraid of being removed from the mission that he went to a veterinarian in a nearby town for treatment and told only his wife, as well as friend and fellow project pilot Jack Ridley about it.

On the day of the flight, Yeager was in such pain that he could not seal the airplane’s hatch by himself. Ridley rigged up a device, using the end of a broom handle as an extra lever, to allow Yeager to seal the hatch of the airplane. Yeager’s flight recorded Mach 1.07, however, he was quick to point out that the public paid attention to whole numbers and that the next milestone would be exceeding Mach 2. Yeager’s X-1 is on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum.

Oct 14 2012

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:

Up with Chris Hayes: Joining Chris st 8 AM EDT are Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight), founder of FiveThirtyEight: Nate Silver’s Political Calculus; Thomas Stemberg, founder of Staples, managing general partner of the Highland Consumer Fund; Sarita Gupta (@saritasgupta), executive director of Jobs with Justice and executive director of American Rights at Work; Josh Barro (@jbarro), lead writer for Bloomberg View‘s “The Ticker;” David W. Moore, senior fellow at the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire, policy critic at iMediaEthics.org and former managing editor and senior editor of the Gallup Poll; Maya Wiley, founder and president of the Center for Social Inclusion; Zephyr Teachout, professor at the Fordham University School of Law; Monica Youn, Brennan Center constitutional fellow at the New York University school of law; and Alec MacGillis, senior editor for “The New Republic.”

This Week with George Stephanopolis: “this Week’s‘s guests are Ohio Sen. Rob Portman and Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden.

Jake Tapper moderates this special discussion, held before a live studio audience at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich; former Senator Chris Dodd; Senior Foreign Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz, moderator of this week’s vice presidential debate; presidential historian Richard Norton Smith; ABC News’ George Will; and Democratic strategist and ABC News Contributor Donna Brazile.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Guests are Sen. Lindsey Graham, Rep. Darrell Issa, and Rep. Elijah Cummings. Panel guests are Romney campaign advisor Bay Buchanan, Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation, Republican pollster Frank Luntz, David Corn of Mother Jones, and CBS News Political Director John Dickerson.

The Chris Matthews Show: This week’s guests are Liz Marlantes, The Christian Science Monitor; John Heilemann, New York Magazine National Political Correspondent; Nia-Malika Henderson, The Washington Post National Political Reporter; and Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Beast Editor, The Dish.

Meet the Press with David Gregory:  David Gregory will go one-on-one with Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert about politics, comedy and his new book: America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren’t.

This week’s roundtable will have a special discussion looking ahead to the final three weeks of the campaign: Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA); Mayor Kasim Reed (D-Atlanta); Fmr. Gov Jennifer Granholm (D-MI); GOP strategist Alex Castellanos; and NBC’s Tom Brokaw, who has moderated his share of presidential debates.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Ms. Crowley’s guests are Obama senior campaign adviser Robert Gibbs; Romney senior campaign adviser Ed Gillespie; former Florida congressman Robert Wexler and the former Chairman of the Florida Republican Party Al Cardenas.

Joining her for a panel discussion with  insights from the campaign trail and making sense of those tax reform promises with CNN National Political Correspondent Jim Acosta, USA Today‘s Susan Page, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, and Bill Burton of Priorities USA.

Oct 14 2012

What We Now Know

Saturday morning on Up with Chris Hayes, Up host, Chris Hayes discussed what we have learned this week with panel guests Amy Davidson, senior editor at the New Yorker; Goldie Taylor, contributor to Grio.com and MSNBC; Michael Hastings, contributing editor to Rollingstone; and Michael Moynihan, cultural news editor for Newsweek and the DailyBeast.

Romney: Uninsured? Head to the Emergency Room

Is BofA’s Foreclosure Review Really Independent? You Be the Judge

by Paul Kiel at Pro Publica

Late last year, the country’s bank regulators launched a massive program to evaluate millions of foreclosure cases and compensate homeowners who fell victim to the banks’ flawed or illegal practices. Regulators dubbed it the “Independent Foreclosure Review” to emphasize that the banks would not be making key decisions about loans they had made or serviced.

But a raft of evidence – internal Bank of America memos and emails obtained by ProPublica, interviews with two bank staff members who have worked on the review, and little-noticed documents released late last year by a federal banking regulator – throw the independence of the review into serious doubt. Together, they indicate that Bank of America – the financial giant with the largest number of homeowners eligible for the program – is performing much of the work itself.

Mitt Romney, On 60 Minutes, Cites Emergency Room As Health Care Option For Uninsured

by Amanda Terkel and Sam Stein at Huffington Post

Downplaying the need for the government to ensure that every person has health insurance, Mitt Romney on Sunday suggested that emergency room care suffices as a substitute for the uninsured. [..]

This constitutes a dramatic reversal in position for Romney, who passed a universal health care law in Massachusetts, in part, to eliminate the costs incurred when the uninsured show up in emergency rooms for care. Indeed, in both his book and in high-profile interviews during the campaign, Romney has touted his achievement in stamping out these inefficiencies while arguing that the same thing should be done at the national level.

Report Describes How Armstrong and His Team Eluded Doping Tests

by Ian Austen at The New York Times

An explanation emerged Wednesday, when the United States Anti-Doping Agency released its dossier on Armstrong, citing witness testimony, financial records and laboratory results. Armstrong was centrally involved in a sprawling, sophisticated doping program, the agency said, yet he employed both cunning and farcical methods to beat the sport’s drug-testing system.

The report also introduced new scientific evidence that the agency said suggested Armstrong was doping the last two times he competed in the Tour de France.

Mitt Romney’s Bain Made Millions On Big Tobacco In U.S., Russia

by Jason Cherkis and Zach Carter at Huffington Post

As the Soviet Union splintered in the early-1990s, Sushovan Ghosh packed his colleagues into a van and chugged across the collapsing nation, hitting depressed towns and famished cities, busted up factories and lonely kiosks. In each ragged destination, they stopped long enough to interview cigarette smokers.

Ghosh plied the citizenry with free cigarettes and, sometimes, McDonald’s hamburgers. [..]

Ghosh’s work for cigarette companies was chaotic, unbridled and, ultimately, deadly. To Mitt Romney and his colleagues at Bain & Co., it was a chance to rake in money. Ghosh said he reported directly to Romney, who was excited about the Russian market. “He was my boss,” Ghosh said.

Oct 13 2012

Health and Fitness News

Welcome 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

Fresh Spring Rolls

Spring Rolls

Spring rolls (also called summer rolls) can be like little portable salads. They’re traditionally filled with a mix of fresh herbs, rice noodles, vegetables and often a few cooked shrimp. The filling is unseasoned, but the fresh herbs are vibrant, and the rolls are served with dipping sauces. Still, I like to season the filling; it makes for a tastier roll that you can carry in a lunchbox or backpack and enjoy without a dipping sauce.

!Martha Shulman~

Spring Rolls With Carrots, Turnips, Rice Noodles and Herbs

This is a basic vegetable spring roll, vibrant with herbs and tangy because the vegetables and noodles are tossed with rice vinegar before being enclosed in the wrapper.

Spring Rolls With Tofu, Vegetables, Rice Noodles and Herbs

Putting dipping sauce on the inside makes these spring rolls flavorful and even more portable.

Spring Rolls With Beets, Brown Rice, Eggs and Herbs

Uncooked grated beets pair beautifully with spring roll seasonings, and the egg contributes protein.

Spring Rolls With Shrimp, Red Rice and Herbs

This looks like a traditional restaurant spring roll, but the seasoned vegetables and rice inside pack a surprise.

Spring Rolls With Spinach, Mushrooms, Sesame, Rice and Herbs

Choose whatever rice you like for these earthy rolls: Brown, regular basmati or jasmine rice will work.

Oct 13 2012

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

Michele Dean: The Week of Unhappy Men on the Internet

It’s been hard out there for unhappy white guys on the internet this week. Paul Ryan took some pictures and found himself instantly (hilariously) photoshopped onto the cover of Atlas Shrugged. Buzz Bissinger complained that he was “savaged” by fans and fellow journalists for endorsing Mitt Romney, and ended up throwing obscenities at Nation Institute Fellow Jamelle Bouie on Twitter and declaring, “Nobody comes close to what I write.” (Hey, sure, I shall begin icing that on a cookie immediately.) Men on reddit who take upskirt shots of-among other women in their general vicinity-the students in the high school classes they teach, are having their real identities outed. [..]

Though I speak only for myself, I don’t know if these men are “misogynists.” I certainly doubt they shriek and run at the sight of breasts per se. The problem is their fear of getting called out for doing anything that might be characterized as even vaguely sexist. That’s when they cut anchor and boot it, screaming the whole way about the injustice of it all. As Irin Carmon of Salon asked on (where else) Twitter: “The real question is, why are men so freaking sensitive?” What intelligent, not-sexist, not-misogynist, not-oversensitive adult people do when confronted with criticism is suck it up, consider it and reply with mature reflection. This is, apparently, too much to ask. For them, sexism is not a measure of disadvantage; it’s a personal character flaw. And one from which, by the by, they are more than happy to exempt themselves.

Gail Collins: Veeps Go Yeep! Nation Nods.

O.K. Forget everything that’s happened so far. Now it’s all about the next debate.

Obama versus Romney on Tuesday! That will be far more important than the conventions. Or the first debate, which President Obama sort of lost, in a game-changing moment that we are now prepared to completely forget because it’s all about the next debate.

Which will be so far more important than the vice-presidential debate that we can hardly bear to mention them in the same paragraph.

Although that thing on Thursday was pretty cool. Paul Ryan’s eyes! Joe Biden’s teeth! Paul Ryan’s water intake! Can that man hydrate, or what?

The New York Times: The ‘Moderate Mitt’ Myth

The way a presidential candidate campaigns for office matters to the country. A campaign should demonstrate seriousness of purpose and a set of core beliefs, and it should signal to voters whether a candidate shows trustworthiness and judgment. Those things don’t seem to matter to Mitt Romney.

From the beginning of his run for the Republican nomination, Mr. Romney has offered to transfigure himself into any shape desired by an audience in order to achieve power. In front of massed crowds or on television, he can sound sunny and inclusive, radiating a feel-good centrism. His “severely conservative” policies and disdain for much of the country are reserved for partisans, donors and the harsh ideologues who clutter his party’s base. This polarity is often described as “flip-flopping,” but the word is too mild to describe opposing positions that are simultaneously held.

Bill Boyarsky: No Room for the Poor in This Election

In 90 minutes of debating, Rep. Paul Ryan failed to explain why the Romney-Ryan budget plan wouldn’t inflict hardship on the middle class and the working poor. Actually, poor people weren’t mentioned much, even by his foe, Vice President Joe Biden. This debate was about the middle class, that somewhat amorphous demographic at the center of the presidential campaign.

It’s not surprising that Ryan, the Republican vice presidential nominee, didn’t mention the millions of Americans on Medicaid and other social programs who would be badly damaged if his government-slashing budget plan, supported by running mate Mitt Romney, becomes law. But I expected more from Biden, especially after he talked in the debate about how he was influenced by Catholic Social Justice doctrine, which advocates helping the poor.

Robert Sheer: The Enemy of My Enemy Is My President

Maybe I have been too harsh in judging Barack Obama’s economic performance. Instead of following George W. Bush’s lead in bailing out the bankers first, I wanted Obama to do more for beleaguered homeowners and less for the Wall Street swindlers who trafficked in toxic mortgages. But the president must have done something right, or the hucksters at Goldman Sachs wouldn’t hate him so.  

Ever since Bill Clinton appointed Goldman honcho Robert Rubin to be his Treasury secretary, the firm has been the top corporate supporter of the Democrats, according to the authoritative Center for Responsive Politics. And the investment paid off big time when Clinton followed Rubin’s lead and teamed up with congressional Republicans to reverse the sensible restraints on Wall Street that had kept the economy sound for six decades. Thanks to that decision, Goldman, a high-rolling investment house, was allowed to suddenly become a commercial bank and avail itself of the cheap money provided by the Federal Reserve to bail out troubled banks.

Peter van Buren: Don’t Ask and Don’t Tell

We had a debate club back in high school. Two teams would meet in the auditorium, and Mr. Garrity would tell us the topic, something 1970s-ish like “Resolved: Women Should Get Equal Pay for Equal Work” or “World Communism Will Be Defeated in Vietnam.” Each side would then try,  through persuasion and the marshalling of facts, to clinch the argument. There’d be judges and a winner.

Today’s presidential debates are a long way from Mr. Garrity’s club.  It seems that the first rule of the debate club now is: no disagreeing on what matters most. In fact, the two candidates rarely interact with each other at all, typically ditching whatever the question might be for some rehashed set of campaign talking points, all with the complicity of the celebrity media moderators preening about democracy in action.  Waiting for another quip about Big Bird is about all the content we can expect.

George Zornick: Paul Ryan’s Congressional Opponent: Debate Me Next!

On the heels of last night’s vice-presidential debate, Paul Ryan’s Democratic opponent for his congressional seat wants a second round-while he sits Biden’s chair.

Rob Zerban is facing a tough road to unseating Ryan, who won Wisconsin’s 1st district with over 68 percent of the vote in 2010-and the district has since been reapportioned to include even more Republicans.

Yet, the district is still fairly purple-Obama narrowly won it in 2008, and the redistricting only added a couple Republican points. Zerban has far outraised any other Ryan challenger over the years, though he still lags far behind Ryan in that category.

But most importantly, Zerban believes that by exposing Ryan’s radical views on the safety net-Zerban notably supports a Medicare-for-all plan, as opposed to Ryan’s partial privatization-he can win over voters in the district. He believes a debate would be the best chance to do that.

Load more