The Washington Post offers tips on how to keep your EV battery running in frigid temperatures. The link at the end of this graf is supposed to be a "gift link" (from me, Marie Burns, the giftor!), meaning that non-subscribers can read the article. Hope it works: https://wapo.st/3u8Z705
The Commentariat -- Dec. 30, 2012
President Obama appears on today's "Press the Meat." The interview took place Saturday afternoon. Watch for presidential double-speak on Social Security:
Cliff Notes
Lori Montgomery & Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "Senate negotiators labored late into Saturday over a last-ditch plan to avert the 'fiscal cliff,' struggling to resolve key differences over how many wealthy households should face higher income taxes in the new year and how to tax inherited estates."
Joe Weisenthal of Business Insider: "The deficit has been driven by unemployment, which means ... Closing the deficit is painless. It's not about belt-tightening, it's about putting more people to work, which is something that everyone loves.... Pain is entirely the wrong way to think about closing the deficit. If it's important to make it go away, we need to find a way of doing the exact opposite, putting people to work and making the economy grow." ...
... "The Great Scam." Paul Krugman: "... the Bush experience tells us something important about fiscal policy: namely, that when Democrats get obsessed with deficit reduction, all they do is provide a pot of money that Republicans will squander on more tax breaks for the wealthy as soon as they get a chance.... We're looking not so much at a Grand Bargain as at a Great Scam."
Josh Barro of Bloomberg News: "For Republicans, losing the political fight isn't a downside of the strategy. It is the strategy.... If they drag their feet and get smacked around enough on the way to the deal, they will be able to sell the idea that they had no choice but to cave.... A good fight -- or at least the show of one -- placates the conservative base and helps Republicans avoid primary challenges."
David Fahrenthold & Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: House Speaker John Boehner "has been a central character in the unhappy tale of this Congress.... It turned out that the very trait that brought Boehner to power -- an amiable, hands-off style -- became a flaw once that power was his. At key moments, rebellious conservatives simply deserted a speaker they liked, but did not fear. Now, Boehner will probably face another test on the way to a resolution of the 'fiscal cliff.' If leaders in the Senate strike a deal to end the current crisis, the speaker would then be required to get it through the House dominated by his skeptical caucus. That drama would play out in just the next few days, but its outcome could shape Washington politics for the next two years."
All in the Family. David Fallis & Dan Keating of the Washington Post: "In 2007, in the wake of the biggest lobbying scandal in decades, Congress limited the ability of family members to lobby their relatives in the House or Senate. But it declined to ban the practice entirely. Since then, 56 relatives of lawmakers have been paid to influence Congress. More than 500 firms have spent more than $400 million on lobbying teams that include the relatives of members.... In the past six years..., 36 congressional relatives -- including spouses, children, siblings, parents and in-laws -- have been paid to influence 250 bills passing through their family members' congressional committees or sponsored by the members. All of this is legal under the rules Congress has written for itself."
Pamela Constable of the Washington Post: "... a growing number of binational gay couples ... are caught between state laws that allow them to marry and federal laws that bar the U.S. citizen spouse from sponsoring the immigrant spouse for legal residency. Advocates estimate that more than 36,000 such couples are in the same situation. The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, known as DOMA, defines marriage as the legal union between and man and a woman. It denies gay spouses a long list of federal benefits, including access to pension and inheritance funds after their partner dies, as well as blocking their right to immigrate through marriage."
Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times: "President Barack Obama is urging the Illinois General Assembly to legalize gay marriage in his home state as lawmakers are poised to take up the measure as early as this week in Springfield."
Dan Freedman of the Danbury, Connecticut News-Times: "The National Rifle Association and the firearms industry are locked and loaded in a mutually beneficial financial relationship that funnels millions into the NRA's coffers, yielding legislative triumphs on Capitol Hill that boost gun sales." ...
... David McCumber of Hearst Newspapers: "Opponents of gun control are placing their hope in the overall dysfunction of the American political system; scared politicians; distortion of reality; and our inability to focus on a problem until it is solved." ...
... Andrew Reinbach in the Huffington Post on the history of the Second Amendment and militias. No, the Second Amendment is not about allowing individuals to rise up against a tyrannical government; it's about conscripting citizens to defend the nation against insurrection. Second Amendment screamers have it ass-backwards. ...
... Jeffrey Rosen of The New Republic: "For all of the hyperbole about the Supreme Court's Heller and McDonald opinions, it turns out that they may have played a constructive role in the framing the current gun control debate -- prohibiting complete bans on the right to keep and bear arms but allowing sensible regulations. It's too bad that a few overzealous judges have extended the decisions further than the Second Amendment or the Supreme Court requires." CW: it occurs to me that Judge Posner may have written his opinion on the Illinois gun law in the expectation the Supremes would overturn him. If so, that is a perverse & dangerous way to apply the law; innocent people may die while Posner's Snit remains law. ...
... "Nouveau Bat Shit." What Will The NRA Think of Next? Alexander Zaitchik of Salon: "Silencers could give the next Adam Lanza even more time to kill -- but to the NRA, they protect kids' hearing."
Pat Garofalo of Think Progress on "what you need to know about the impending East Coast port strike."
Declan Walsh of the New York Times: "Al Qaeda and the Taliban have few defenses against the American drones that endlessly prowl the skies over the bustling militant hubs of North and South Waziristan in northwestern Pakistan, along the Afghan border. C.I.A. missiles killed at least 246 people in 2012, most of them Islamist militants, according to watchdog groups that monitor the strikes.... The militants do possess one powerful countermeasure. For several years now, militant enforcers have scoured the tribal belt in search of informers who help the C.I.A.... The militants' technique -- often more witch hunt than investigation -- follows a well-established pattern. Accused tribesmen are abducted ... at gunpoint and tortured. A sham religious court hears their case, usually declaring them guilty. Then they are forced to speak into a video camera.... Their endings are the same: execution by hanging, beheading or firing squad."
William Dobson in Slate: Russian President Vladimir "Putin's decision on Friday to deny his country's most helpless citizens a better future is the most craven example of his desperate search for a cure to his own sagging popularity.... His xenophobic, anti-American displays no longer work on a population that increasingly views him as illegitimate.... His approval ratings in the past several months are his lowest yet."
CW: This "Key Facts on Keystone XL" by Tar Sands Action, & linked in the Comments by safari, looks like a pretty good summary & is in line with other responsible critiques I've read.
News Ledes
New York Times: "Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was hospitalized on Sunday with a blood clot stemming from a concussion she suffered earlier this month, a State Department spokesman said." CW: Thanks to contributor Calyban for the heads-up. I hope all those sorry-assed Republicans who accused her of malingering are feeling ashamed of themselves.
Washington Post: "Opposition groups that monitor the [Syrian revolt] death toll said as many as 400 people -- more than double the typical daily death toll -- were killed Saturday. About half of them were civilians slain in an alleged mass killing carried out by government troops at a petrochemical university in central Syria, opposition groups reported."
NBC News: "Pakistani militants, who have escalated attacks in recent weeks, killed at least 40 people in two separate incidents, officials said on Sunday, challenging assertions that military offensives have broken the back of hardline Islamist groups. A car bomb exploded near a convoy of buses taking Shiite pilgrims to Iran, killing at least 19 people and wounding 30, officials told NBC News, the latest attack on the minority sect."
Earlier Sunday, 21 tribal policemen believed to have been kidnapped by the Taliban were found shot dead in Pakistan's troubled northwest tribal region, government officials said.
Reuters: "Israeli far-right leader Avigdor Lieberman was charged on Sunday with fraud and breach of trust, allegations that prompted his resignation as foreign minister two weeks ago, justice officials said. Lieberman, who has denied the accusations, remains head of the Yisrael Beitenu party that has formed a coalition with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party ahead of a January 22 parliamentary election. Israeli justice officials said Lieberman was indicted on charges relating to the promotion of an Israeli diplomat who had illegally given him information about a police investigation against him."
Al Jazeera: "The US has sent 50 troops to Chad to help evacuate US citizens and embassy staff in neighbouring Central African Republic where rebels have seized several cities and are advancing on the capital Bangui. Barack Obama, the US president, informed congressional leaders of Thursday's deployment in a letter on Saturday citing a 'deteriorating security situation' in the deeply impoverished nation."
Reader Comments (12)
Religion is boring, god knows. Especially when talked about. Can we move on to important stuff, please, like NFL quarterbacks?
Re: sling'n Sammys; Right on James Singer. RG3 is not the next Joe; watch Arron Rodger (sp) throw TDs for Green Bay tomorrow. SF 49ers have two good arms. Beware the old man in Denver and you gotta believe in Tom Brady up in Boston. There; I need a beer.
And may the Lord of All Things be on the right (correct? my?) side of of tomorrow's Seahawks game...and if S/He gets that one right, I may be encouraged enough to request a little intercession in the Rose Bowl as well.
And regarding the God stuff; maybe we're just talking, filling time with words, like we did in those late night sessions which I can no longer stay up for, running our metaphorical mouths in place, distracting ourselves while waiting for the people we've hired to set the country's course for the next year or so to actually do their jobs...
In the meantime, from the latest reports, while we may have accomplished little enough, it's still more than they in all their wisdom managed yesterday/today.
There seems to be a gross misunderstanding among some of the public about the function of personal Websites. Websites have "owners," people -- like me -- who pay hosts to provide a place where the owner can publish, within the limits of the law & the requirements of the hosts, whatever content they desire.
Yesterday, a commenter wrote that he "presumed" he had "a right" to "argue with other members." (1) No one else has a "right" to publish on someone else's Website, including this one. (2) Here, "discussions" are good; "arguments," not so much. (See my remark on editorial policy below.) (3) There are no "members" here (though, ironically, I am thinking of establishing a sort of membership, the purpose of which will not be to discriminate among "member" and "non-members," but to allow all commenters to publish without worrying about being spammed, as my system has a bad habit of sidetracking legitimate comments).
As does every Website owner, either implicitly or explicitly, I set the editorial policy here. One of my policies is that we don't attack each other, though it is all right to disagree with one another's ideas. I am more liberal about personal attacks against me, some of which I find pretty funny. However, continued personal attacks -- whether true or not -- get tiresome. I can't argue with those of you who effectively call me an ignorant, biased bitch as has happened repeatedly over the past 24 hours. As opinion, such remarks are unimpeachable. Such scoldings are not, however, particularly useful. Even if one's sole purpose is to annoy others (that's working) or to hurt their feelings (not working) or to prove one's own superiority (eh!), I can't see that such goals have a particular societal benefit.
I would suggest that those of you who hold particularly low opinions of me and/or other commenters and particularly high opinions of your own intellectual chops find a place to comment where your brilliance will be better appreciated. It seems rather nonsensical for you to waste your time here.
Fed-up in Fort Myers
We awoke this morning to a glorious white world of snow and when the sun began its appearance the glistening pine trees looked just like glittering jewels. That's the thing about nature––the blizzard last night (like yesterday's blizzard of words) finally ceases and covers the earth with a soft blanket of snow; its silence is deafening. Makes everything clean again, sort of like starting over.
P.S. "We know there are known knowns: there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns: that is to say we know there are things we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know." —Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Defense Department briefing, Fe. 12, 2002
When the AllMighty shows up, I prefer to hide in my bat cave.
I'm more of the notion of "leave your religious dogmas at the doorstep and then come on in and get comfy." Mixing together personal history and experiences with a malleable human conscious will deliver infinite outcomes as we can observe in our rich and diverse community of human beings that we share this frangible planet with.
Speaking of, I'm not sure how it slipped by me that Obama had approved the "Southern section" of the Keystone Tar-Sand-Oil Pipeline in March. Why would you approve the southern section if you're not prepping for the whole fucking thing? I've read numerous articles that quote researchers explaining the idiocy of this whole project, where potential disasters far outweigh any potential benefits.
(One article for example, which has good links to further evidence, to comply with Sista' Elephante http://www.tarsandsaction.org/spread-the-word/key-facts-keystone-xl/)
The article linked yesterday from BuzzFeed is very troubling to hear that the head of the EPA is leaving on ethical grounds because of the evolutions of the Pipeline talks. If Obama caves to Big Energy (looks likely IMO), he's taking a permanent downgrade on my "decent President" meter. This is the same guy that has given speeches claiming we need to take action on Climate Change. He mentioned it in his acceptance speech for crying out loud.
So what's the plan going to be? We'll approve the Tar Sands Pipeline which is one of the dirtiest sources of energy available, but then invest in 'Clean Energy' so our conscious feels a little better. And to really show 'em we're serious, we'll even up the miles per gallon a few more notches while still lagging irresponsibly behind Europe or Japan.
(Great research, atte: pdf http://www.c2es.org/docUploads/Fuel%20Economy%20and%20GHG%20Standards_010605_110719.pdf)
Americans per capita are by far the biggest contributors to CO2 emissions and thus climate change. Our consumerism DNA pumps up the world economy while pumping out the toxins spewing out of the factories creating our goodies. True China as a country has overtaken us at the world's biggest polluter, but per capita we still dominate. And it must also be considered that the industrialized world essentially outsourced its pollution to China since its Western finance that has been driving the factories in China.
We can exalt Malthusian population control methods (the man's got a point but the argument is too simplistic) blaming pollution ills on Niger women's record-breaking birth rates...or we could point the finger both ways (theoretically, not physically) and get serious about our unsustainable lifestyles.
If this Tar-Oil-Sands Pipeline is approved, it's the final nail in the coffin. We're already going over the Climate Cliff (!!!) but the Pipeline would just tie down the accelerator. The Climate talks in Brazil (Rio + 20) and Doha this year didn't produce anything substantial, except continuing the Kyoto Protocol until 2020. Oh yeah, but that Protocol only includes responsible states that have actually ratified the treaty, and guess what, the US is too exceptional to be bound by international law. And China isn't considered "developed" yet so they're not involved either. Actually,
"The Kyoto Protocol was reauthorized for another eight years, though fewer countries signed on so it now only covers some 12 percent of global emissions" (http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/report/2012/12/11/47728/doha-climate-summit-ends-with-the-long-march-to-2015/)
Sorry for my tree-hugging rant. It's only irreparable Climate Change we're talking about.
Actually, just forget about it.
@safari: "Why would you approve the southern section if you're not prepping for the whole fucking thing?"
According to that font of accurate information, John Boehner, Obama "approved" the southern leg because it didn't require federal approval: "Today he's out in Oklahoma trying to take credit for a part of the pipeline that doesn't even require his approval. Now this is what I'm calling the Obama energy gap." Looks like Boehner was right: "The shorter [southern] portion only requires permits from state and federal agencies." Also, according to the linked Huff Post piece, "The line from Cushing will help relieve a bottleneck at the Oklahoma refinery."
Construction has already started on the southern leg. If I were of a mind to defend Obama on this, I would say that "approving" this portion is at least as good as hiring a crew to dig holes & another crew to fill them in: any make-work project helps the economy. In this case, the crew is just digging the holes, not filling them in, with narrow utility -- opening a bottleneck. However, I've made mistakes in the past when I've defended Obama's questionable motives & mixed signals. (You shoulda heard him talking out of both sides of his mouth on "Press the Meat" this morning -- I'll get up video sooner or later.) So I'd say you were right in your implied prediction that he's "prepping for the whole fucking thing." Maybe he'll pleasantly surprise us & decide otherwise, but I'm not counting on it.
Marie
P.S. Thanks for the links.
I appreciate your editorial policy statement. I hope I haven't violated your rules. If I have or do please let me know. If you ever decide to do like Juan Cole and do some fund raising, count me in.
Your site is a breath of fresh air.
Safari's point is well taken. However, the Koch brothers and others of their ilk will do whatever it takes to maintain the status quo.
Henry Enten in the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/28/democrats-republicans-polarisation-congress
On a scale of +1 = most conservative to -1 = most liberal.
The gap between Republican and Democrat in the House has gone from 0.47 in 1945 to 0.5 in 1977 to 1.1 in 2011. The rate of change has gone from 0.09/century in 1945/1977 to 2.5/century in 1977/2011. The republicans account for 0.5 of that 0.6 increase in 1977-2011, the Democrats 0.1. I thought that Republicans had gone off the cliff in 2010 but the teaparty would seem just a continuation of a modern Republican march to extremism in a straight-line graph from 1977 to 2011. From WW2 till 1977 America had become more liberal but 1977 marks the beginning of a Republican retrenchment which, at present rates, will be off the chart in 12 years
@Safari
When I read work would begin in the southern section of the Keystone pipeline a stream of expletives crossed my lips. It's discouraging. What's the point of voting and campaigning for a candidate? In the same week a study comes out proving that people intentionally run over turtles. Something I already knew, but science always has to prove the obvious.
This year I went to a far corner if the earth to see what is probably the only and last population of a rare parrot. Today I feel like "throwing up my hands" by the news of the week. I think my time may be better spent seeing and enjoying as much as I can of the natural world. It may not be with us much longer.
I hope your "bat cave" still has bats, and that they have not succumbed to white-nose syndrome.
@Marie - yes, I hope Mr. Obama will surprise us! But, at the moment I'm not feeling hopeful.
The rational behind the southern portion of the Keystone pipeline is to allow crude to flow from Cushing Oklahoma to the Gulf because at present Cushing is a choke point limiting the amount of oil production from northern North America, mainly Canada and North Dakota, that can be processed in American refineries. With the pipeline in place, crude surplus to continental requirements will be able to access world markets. Presently Americans pay the West Texas Intermediate price for oil which is $20/barrel below the international Brent price. Canadian heavy oil is sold at a $25/barrel discount to lighter American crude or $45 below Brent.
I think oil companies assume that the southern section of the pipeline will allow Gulf refineries to export more refined product and crude. The extra exports will make room for Canadian crude at Cushing and allow a higher price to Canadian exporters. Oil companies will make more money from American consumers as West Texas Intermediate prices rise closer to Brent.
Canadian heavy oil producers see themselves as subsidizing American consumers to the tune of about $50 million/day. If the Keystone is blocked then Canadian companies will have an almost irresistible economic incentive to construct an oil shipping terminal on the west coast. The growing Chinese oil market is far more attractive than the mature American market. With China as an alternate market to America, Americans will find themselves paying more as they have to bid against the Chinese consumer for Canadian crude. With or without Keystone, higher oil prices are coming. If you are concerned with CO2 emissions, shut down coal fired electrical power generation.