Tag: Open Thread

Mar 26 2011

Health and Fitness News

Welcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness 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.

A Better Way to Serve Eggs

Photobucket

If you avoid eggs because you think they’re bad for you, you should reconsider. It was never clear that dietary cholesterol had a significant impact on heart health; saturated fat in the diet is thought to be a bigger culprit (how big is also a matter of dispute these days). The government’s new dietary guidelines acknowledge as much, advising that eating an egg every day will not affect blood cholesterol or cardiovascular health.

Onion and Thyme Frittata

Frittata With Grated Zucchini, Goat Cheese and Dill

Ricotta and Spinach Frittata With Mint

Carrot and Leek Frittata With Tarragon

Spinach and Red Pepper Frittata

Mar 26 2011

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”

Rep. John Conyers: Marking the 100th Anniversary of the Triangle Factory Fire

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of New York City and one of the deadliest industrial accidents in the history of the United States.

This occasion has particular resonance in the present political landscape. Across this country, working men and women are under assault by the conservative agenda. We have all heard the reports from the states — in Wisconsin, Ohio, and my home state of Michigan, the labor movement is under siege.

Joe Ciricione: Hiroshima to Fukushima: The Illusion of Control

On March 11, there were 443 nuclear reactors operating around the world. On March 12, that number shrunk by four.

An earthquake, a tsunami and a record of poor safety management converged to create one of the worst nuclear accidents in history. The crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant is still unfolding and, after some progress earlier this week, has again taken a grim turn with signs that at least one of the reactors may have been breached. Even under the best of circumstances, it is likely that four of the six Fukushima Daiichi reactors are a total loss. Japanese officials are considering what some believe inevitable–entombing the reactors in mounds of sand and concrete, as was done at Chernobyl. If so, the four sarcophagi on the Japanese shoreline will become stark reminders of the limits of human control.

Leonard Pitts Jr.: Gay marriage is a matter of rights

We are gathered here today to look a gift horse in the mouth.

It seems a majority of the American people now favor allowing gay men and lesbians to wed. That majority, according to a Washington Post/ABC News survey released last week, is slender, just 51 percent. But even at that, it represents a significant increase from just five years ago, when only 36 percent of Americans approved.

Other polling organizations have reported similar trends, and for those who believe gay men and lesbians ought to be free to solemnize and formalize their relationships, that is very good news. It means they are – we are – winning the argument. That is cause for celebration.

Mar 26 2011

On This Day in History March 26

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.

March 26 is the 85th day of the year (86th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 280 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1964, the musical, Funny Girl makes its premiere on Broadway.

Funny Girl is a musical with a book by Isobel Lennart, music by Jule Styne, and lyrics by Bob Merrill. The semi-biographical plot is based on the life and career of Broadway, film star and comedienne Fanny Brice and her stormy relationship with entrepreneur and gambler Nicky Arnstein. Its original title was My Man.

The musical was produced by Ray Stark, who was Brice’s son-in-law via his marriage to her daughter Frances, and starred Barbra Streisand.

Don’t Rain On My Parade

Mar 25 2011

from firefly-dreaming 25.3.11

Essays Featured Friday the 25th of March~

Late Night Karaoke has ‘Bout to Get Fruit Punched Homie, mishima DJs

Six Brilliant Articles! from Six Different Places!! on Six Different Topics!!!

                Six Days a Week!!!    at Six in the Morning!!!!

Topsy-Turvy are slksfca‘s Friday Open Thoughts

Gha!

In Memoriam: Elizabeth Taylor from TheMomCat

dsteffen has another Brilliant edition of How Regulation Came To Be this edition its The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

from Timbuk3: The 100 Greatest Rock Songs of All Time!

Tonight #96

My Little Town Translator reminisces about Arthur Holloway  

Mar 25 2011

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”

New York Times Editorial: Let Them Eat Cutbacks

Food stamps are part of the social safety net, but they work more as the ultimate ground-level crutch for Americans staggering against poverty. During the recession, food stamps were an important factor in helping an estimated 4.5 million Americans stave off the official poverty (no more than $21,756 annually for a family of four) that engulfed nearly 16 percent of the nation. The stamps are win-win: $9 in fast economic stimulus for every $5 spent on food for a hungry family.

Sad wonder, then, that cuts in food stamps are the latest proposal heading for the House Republicans’ budgetary chopping block. An attempt to set them back at the levels of 2007 – and cost a family of four $59 out of their $294 monthly allotment – is part of welfare “reform” legislation being proposed by leaders of the powerful Republican Study Committee. This group, embraced by two-thirds of the House majority, is the conservative engine driving much of the deficit-slashing mania to extremes.

Paul Krugman: The Austerity Delusion

Portugal’s government has just fallen in a dispute over austerity proposals. Irish bond yields have topped 10 percent for the first time. And the British government has just marked its economic forecast down and its deficit forecast up.

What do these events have in common? They’re all evidence that slashing spending in the face of high unemployment is a mistake. Austerity advocates predicted that spending cuts would bring quick dividends in the form of rising confidence, and that there would be few, if any, adverse effects on growth and jobs; but they were wrong.

It’s too bad, then, that these days you’re not considered serious in Washington unless you profess allegiance to the same doctrine that’s failing so dismally in Europe.

Eugene Robinson: Dazed and confused by the Libyan mandate

Is it just me? Am I the only one who’s utterly confused about the rationale, goals, tactics and strategy of the U.S.-led military intervention in Libya?

Thought not.

I call it a U.S.-led operation because, people, let’s be real. Without U.S. diplomatic leadership, there would have been no U.N. Security Council resolution. Without U.S. military leadership, there would have been no coordinated shock-and-awe attack to put dictator Moammar Gaddafi’s rampaging forces back on their heels. On Thursday, after days of bickering, we heard a grand announcement that NATO will take command of at least part of the operation. Don’t believe it. The United States will be functionally in charge, and thus on the hook, until this ends.

So what the hell are we doing? I realize that President Obama and his advisers have answered this question many times, but I feel it’s necessary to keep asking until the answers begin to make sense.

Mar 25 2011

On This Day in History March 25

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.

March 25 is the 84th day of the year (85th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 281 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in history, two tragic fires occurred in New York City. In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire claimed 146 lives and 79 years later, in 1990, the Happy Land fire killed 87 people, the most deadly fire in the city since 1911.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City on March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city of New York and resulted in the fourth highest loss of life from an industrial accident in U.S. history. The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers, who either died from the fire or jumped to their deaths. Most of the victims were recent immigrant Jewish women aged sixteen to twenty-three. Many of the workers could not escape the burning building because the managers had locked the doors to the stairwells and exits. People jumped from the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, which fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers.

The factory was located in the Asch Building, at 29 Washington Place, now known as the Brown Building, which has been designated a National Historic Landmark and a New York City landmark.

Fire

The Triangle Waist Company factory occupied the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors of the Asch Building on the northwest corner of Greene Street and Washington Place, just to the east of Washington Square Park, in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. Under the ownership of Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, the factory produced women’s blouses, known as “shirtwaists.” The factory normally employed about 500 workers, mostly young immigrant women, who worked nine hours a day on weekdays plus seven hours on Saturdays.

As the workday was ending on the afternoon of Saturday, March 25, 1911, a fire flared up at approximately 4:45 PM in a scrap bin under one of the cutter’s tables at the northeast corner of the eighth floor. Both owners of the factory were in attendance and had invited their children to the factory on that afternoon. The Fire Marshal concluded that the likely cause of the fire was the disposal of an unextinguished match or cigarette butt in the scrap bin, which held two months’ worth of accumulated cuttings by the time of the fire. Although smoking was banned in the factory, cutters were known to sneak cigarettes, exhaling the smoke through their lapels to avoid detection. A New York Times article suggested that the fire may have been started by the engines running the sewing machines, while The Insurance Monitor, a leading industry journal, suggested that the epidemic of fires among shirtwaist manufacturers was “fairly saturated with moral hazard.” No one suggested arson.

A bookkeeper on the eighth floor was able to warn employees on the tenth floor via telephone, but there was no audible alarm and no way to contact staff on the ninth floor. According to survivor Yetta Lubitz, the first warning of the fire on the ninth floor arrived at the same time as the fire itself. Although the floor had a number of exits – two freight elevators, a fire escape, and stairways down to Greene Street and Washington Place – flames prevented workers from descending the Greene Street stairway, and the door to the Washington Place stairway was locked to prevent theft. The foreman who held the stairway door key had already escaped by another route. Dozens of employees escaped the fire by going up the Greene Street stairway to the roof. Other survivors were able to jam themselves into the elevators while they continued to operate.

Within three minutes, the Greene Street stairway became unusable in both directions. Terrified employees crowded onto the single exterior fire escape, a flimsy and poorly-anchored iron structure which may have been broken before the fire. It soon twisted and collapsed from the heat and overload, spilling victims nearly 100 feet (30 m) to their deaths on the concrete pavement below. Elevator operators Joseph Zito and Gaspar Mortillalo saved many lives by traveling three times up to the ninth floor for passengers, but Mortillalo was eventually forced to give up when the rails of his elevator buckled under the heat. Some victims pried the elevator doors open and jumped down the empty shaft. The weight of these bodies made it impossible for Zito to make another attempt.

The remainder waited until smoke and fire overcame them. The fire department arrived quickly but was unable to stop the flames, as there were no ladders available that could reach beyond the sixth floor. The fallen bodies and falling victims also made it difficult for the fire department to approach the building.

The Happy Land fire was an arson fire which killed 87 people trapped in an unlicensed social club called “Happy Land” (at 1959 Southern Boulevard) in the West Farms section of The Bronx, New York, on March 25, 1990. Most of the victims were ethnic Hondurans celebrating Carnival. Unemployed Cuban refugee Julio Gonzalez, whose former girlfriend was employed at the club, was arrested shortly after and ultimately convicted of arson and murder.

The Incident

Before the blaze, Happy Land was ordered closed for building code violations in November 1988. Violations included no fire exits, alarms or sprinkler system. No follow-up by the fire department was documented.

The evening of the fire, Gonzalez had argued with his former girlfriend, Lydia Feliciano, a coat check girl at the club, urging her to quit. She claimed that she had had enough of him and wanted nothing to do with him anymore. Gonzalez tried to fight back into the club but was ejected by the bouncer. He was heard to scream drunken threats in the process. Gonzalez was enraged, not just because of losing Lydia, but also because he had recently lost his job at a lamp factory, was impoverished, and had virtually no companions. Gonzalez returned to the establishment with a plastic container of gasoline which he found on the ground and had filled at a gas station. He spread the fuel on the only staircase into the club. Two matches were then used to ignite the gasoline.

The fire exits had been blocked to prevent people from entering without paying the cover charge. In the panic that ensued, a few people escaped by breaking a metal gate over one door.

Gonzalez then returned home, took off his gasoline-soaked clothes and fell asleep. He was arrested the following afternoon after authorities interviewed Lydia Feliciano and learned of the previous night’s argument. Once advised of his rights, he admitted to starting the blaze. A psychological examination found him to be not responsible due to mental illness or defect; but the jury, after deliberation, found him to be criminally responsible.

Found guilty on August 19, 1991, of 87 counts of arson and 87 counts of murder, Gonzalez was charged with 174 counts of murder- two for each victim he was sentence maximum of 25 years. It was the most substantial prison term ever imposed in the state of New York. He will be eligible for parole in March 2015.

The building that housed Happy Land club was managed in part by Jay Weiss, at the time the husband of actress Kathleen Turner. The New Yorker quoted Turner saying that “the fire was unfortunate but could have happened at a McDonald’s.” The building’s owner, Alex DiLorenzo, and leaseholders Weiss and Morris Jaffe, were found not criminally responsible, since they had tried to close the club and evict the tenant.

Mar 25 2011

Under The Radar: More Outrageous and Stupid

The outrageous onslaught against workers, women and our intelligence continues.

I love Blue Texan at FDL but he is demeaning Trolls

From Think Progress with a h/t to Jon Walker at FDL

  • Buried Provision In House GOP Bill Would Cut Off Food Stamps To Entire Families If One Member Strikes

       Much of the bill is based upon verifying that those who receive food stamps benefits are meeting the federal requirements for doing so. However, one section buried deep within the bill adds a startling new requirement. The bill, if passed, would actually cut off all food stamp benefits to any family where one adult member is engaging in a strike against an employer

       snip

    The bill also includes a provision that would exempt households from losing eligibility, “if the household was eligible immediately prior to such strike, however, such family unit shall not receive an increased allotment as the result of a decrease in the income of the striking member or members of the household.”

      Yet removing entire families from eligibility while a single adult family member is striking would have a chilling effect on workers who are considering going on strike for better wages, benefits, or working conditions – something that is especially alarming in light of the fact that unions are one of the fundamental building blocks of the middle class that allow people to earn wages that keep them off food stamps.

The assault on women continues now targeting minorities and immigrants in Arizona and Wisconsin.

h/t to the Wonk Room for the first article.

  • Despite His ‘Pro-Life’ Crusade, Scott Walker Goes After Pregnant Immigrant Women

    Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has been criticized for going after students, teachers, seniors, and poor people in his attempt to balance the state budget without raising taxes or fees.

    ThinkProgress recently reported that Walker is also proposing to repeal Wisconsin’s Contraceptive Equity Law that requires insurance companies to cover prescription birth control. It turns out that while Walker wants to deny women the right to plan their future, he also wants to prevent undocumented women who are already pregnant from accessing prenatal care.

  • Arizona House approves ban on abortions for race or gender

    By David Scwartz

    PHOENIX (Reuters) – The Arizona House of Representatives on Wednesday approved controversial legislation that would make the state the first in the nation to ban abortions conducted due to the race or gender of the fetus.

    The bill approved in the House by a vote of 35-20 now goes to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, a Republican. Brewer has not said if she will sign it into law.

From Sarah Babbage at The American Prospect

  • Another Blow to Midwest Workers

    Yesterday, the Republican-controlled Michigan Legislature passed a bill that sets a dangerous precedent for jobless workers and continues Midwest governments’ assault on the vulnerable middle class. While the bill would continue extended unemployment insurance for those already unemployed, it cuts the time new claimants can receive benefits — from 26 weeks to 20. This would make it the first state to go below the national standard of 26 weeks.

Can Maine recall their elected state officials?

If they can, they should. LePage is just too stupid and offensive for words plus he has lousy taste in “decor”. From Think Progress

  • Maine Gov. Paul LePage Orders Labor History Mural Removed From State Offices

    Maine Tea Party Gov. Paul LePage (R) has ordered the removal of a 36-foot mural depicting Maine’s labor history from the lobby of the state’s Department of Labor offices, claiming they received “some complaints” from business owners. The Governor has also directed that eight conference rooms named after labor leaders – including Cesar Chavez – be renamed “after mountains, counties or something.”

    The directive comes amidst rising tensions between the LePage Administration and organized labor over the governor’s support for a right-to-work bill and efforts to roll back the state’s child labor laws.

    While the state’s AFL-CIO called the removal “mean-spirited”, a spokesman for the governor has said that the removal was not meant to “antagonize” labor, but rather to correct the office’s “one-sided decor.”

Mar 24 2011

from firefly-dreaming 24.3.11

Essays Featured Thursday the 24th of March~

KT Tunstall starts the day in Late Night Karaoke, mishima DJs

Six Brilliant Articles! from Six Different Places!! on Six Different Topics!!!

                Six Days a Week!!!    at Six in the Morning!!!!

Older women with longer hair is on mplo‘s mind in Thursday Open Thoughts

Cornucopia Thursday, a weekly feature from Ed Tracey brings a delightful collection of items and ….well, just plain whimsy…..

Gha!

Thought provoking Trunk Sniff’n Dust by Wendys Wink republished with permission by RiaD

I LOOKED INTO HER EYES an introspective look, from Xanthe

from Timbuk3: The 100 Greatest Rock Songs of All Time!

Tonight #97

Mar 24 2011

Evening Edition

I’ll be sitting in for ek hornbeck who is Live Blogging the NCAA Championship Games for the next few days.

  • West strikes deep in Libya, Misrata, Ajdabiyah besieged

    By Maria Golovnina and Michael Georgy

    TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Western warplanes hit military targets deep inside Libya on Thursday but failed to prevent tanks reentering the western town of Misrata and besieging its main hospital.

    Air strikes destroyed government tanks on the outskirts of rebel-held Misrata, but other tanks inside the city were not hit, a resident said, underlining the difficulty of the U.N. backed military mission to protect Libyans from Muammar Gaddafi.

  • Turkey and France clash over Libya air campaign

    by Ian Traynor

    Tension mounts over military action as Ankara accuses Sarkozy of pursuing French interests over liberation of Libyan people

    Turkey has launched a bitter attack on French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s and France’s leadership of the military campaign against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, accusing the French of lacking a conscience in their conduct in the Libyan operations.

    The vitriolic criticism, from both the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the president, Abdullah Gül followed attacks from the Turkish government earlier this week and signalled an orchestrated attempt by Ankara to wreck Sarkozy’s plans to lead the air campaign against Gaddafi.

Mar 24 2011

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”

Dean Baker: The Imaginary World in Which Washington Lives

It is a beautiful spring day in Washington. This is a nice respite from the horrors taking place in Japan and the ever-growing nuttiness of D.C. politics. Enjoying the weather provides a nice alternative to listening to the news or reading the newspaper.

The flood of nonsense in the traditional news outlets just continues to grow. At the top of the list is the steady stream of senators or members of Congress whose response to higher gas prices is to insist on drilling in every square inch of environmentally sensitive territory in the country. This is supposed to reduce our dependence on imported oil and lower the price of gas. Both sides of this assertion are absurd.

Glen Greenwald: The Manipulative Pro-War Argument in Libya

Advocating for the U.S.’s military action in Libya, The New Republic‘s John Judis lays out the argument which many of his fellow war advocates are making: that those who oppose the intervention are guilty of indifference to the plight of the rebels and to Gadaffi’s tyranny

snip

Note how, in Judis’ moral world, there are only two possibilities: one can either support the American military action in Libya or be guilty of a “who cares?” attitude toward Gadaffi’s butchery. At least as far as this specific line of pro-war argumentation goes, this is just 2003 all over again. Back then, those opposed to the war in Iraq were deemed pro-Saddam: indifferent to the repression and brutalities suffered by the Iraqi people at his hands and willing to protect his power. Now, those opposed to U.S. involvement in the civil war in Libya are deemed indifferent to the repression and brutalities suffered by the Libyan people from Gadaffi and willing to protect his power. This rationale is as flawed logically as it is morally.

Harold Meyerson: The mind-set that survived the Triangle Shirtwaist fire

The seamstresses were just getting off work that Saturday, some of them singing a new popular song, “Every Little Movement (Has a Meaning of Its Own),” when they heard shouts from the eighth floor just below. They saw smoke outside the windows, and then fire. As David Von Drehle recounts the ensuing catastrophe, in his award-winning book “Triangle,” just a couple minutes later the ninth floor was fully ablaze.

snip

Businesses reacted as if the revolution had arrived. The changes to the fire code, said a spokesman for the Associated Industries of New York, would lead to “the wiping out of industry in this state.” The regulations, wrote George Olvany, special counsel to the Real Estate Board of New York City, would force expenditures on precautions that were “absolutely needless and useless.”

“The best government is the least possible government,” said Laurence McGuire, president of the Real Estate Board. “To my mind, this [the post-Triangle regulations] is all wrong.”

Such complaints, of course, are with us still. We hear them from mine operators after fatal explosions, from bankers after they’ve crashed the economy, from energy moguls after their rig explodes or their plant starts leaking radiation. We hear them from politicians who take their money. We hear them from Republican members of Congress and from some Democrats, too. A century after Triangle, greed encased in libertarianism remains a fixture of – and danger to – American life.

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