Those African airports

As the article notes, security at many African airports is more than a bit lacking. But it's not clear if great security would have caught the underwear bomber, and in fact, at the Amsterdam airport, it didn't.

I'm reminded of the time I flew in Africa back in 1999 or so. I was doing a project in Cote d'Ivoire, and took a side trip to Mali (truly a fascinating country, Mali). I don't recall if it was the flight between Mali and Cote d'Ivoire, or the flight within Mali, but at one point we walked through an airport metal detector that was visibly unplugged. Read More......

Cool telescope discovers five new worlds

And none of them have a Limbaugh. Read More......

Who said this?: "There are a number of things he was for on the campaign trail."

Speaker Pelosi on Obama.

Good to know that we're not the only ones who have noticed all the broken promises. Read More......

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) is retiring

Byron Dorgan isn't running for re-election this year. That will be a tough seat for Democrats to hold.

Dorgan has been in the news recently because he led the effort to end the ban on drug imports in the Senate insurance bill. But, his amendment was defeated because the White House lobbied against it (even though Obama supported that same legislation as a Senator and a candidate.) But the Obama administration flipped on this drug issue because Obama's top staffers cut a sweetheart deal with the drug industry's lobbying arm. Read More......

Are people really stupid enough to joke about terrorism at the airport?

Apparently yes.

A German man was temporarily detained at Stuttgart airport on Tuesday after he repeatedly told security personnel that he had explosives in his underwear, police said.

The 42-year-old man apparently was joking about the failed attempt by a Nigerian man to blow up a jetliner bound for Detroit on Christmas Day by igniting explosives concealed in his underwear.

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The NRCC's hot sweaty pecs

I'm not saying the NRCC is gay... Read More......

Richard Pombo is baacccckkkkk

Just when you think it can't get worse on Capitol Hill, you hear that ex-Rep. Richard Pombo is looking for a new office in Congress:

One-time House Resources Chairman Richard Pombo (R) will attempt a political comeback, running again for a California congressional seat, though not the one that he represented for more than a decade.

Instead, Pombo is scheduled to announce today that he will run for the seat left vacant by the retirement of Republican George Radanovich. Radanovich's San Joaquin Valley-based 19th District lies directly east of the 11th District, which Pombo represented for seven terms before losing the 2006 election to Democrat Jerry McNerney

Why is he returning? Because he "misses the policy issues." Really, such as his many attempts to kill the Endangered Species Act or his litany of other concerns such as selling off our national parks .

He misses the limelight, we get it. And the power. A lot. He tried hard to leverage his position for as much as he could in Congress. TPM has compiled a list of his ethics abuses. Just a sample of Pombo's illicit activities:

Pombo was videotaped claiming that disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff "never once lobbied me on anything." The AP promptly discovered in billing records that Abramoff had contacted Pombo personally twice, and his associates many more times.

Pombo's staff appeared frequently in Team Abramoff e-mails discussing free seats at sporting and entertainment events. For example, two tickets to WWF Backlash Live went to Pombo's press secretary in April 2000. Pombo was an important target of Abramoff because of his seat on -- and eventual chairmanship of, thanks to Tom DeLay -- the House Committee on Natural Resources.

Watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in 2006 prepared an epic thirteen-count ethics complaint against Pombo, for among, other charges, potentially violating "federal bribery laws by providing legislative assistance to Indian tribes in exchange for contributions to his campaign and political action committee, RICH PAC."

And he was listed in CREW's Most Corrupt Report both in 2005 and 2006.

How has he filled his time in the meanwhile?

Since leaving Congress, Pombo has worked for the Oregon-based public relations firm Pac/West Communications, which has worked to ease logging restrictions and at one time backed Pombo's efforts to overhaul the Endangered Species Act.

Gotcha.

We can be sure that Defenders of Wildlife and ethics groups will continue to aggressively remind the voters who Pombo really is. Read More......

Continental refuses to let Joan Rivers on flight, worried she might be security risk

The jokes just write themselves. Read More......

Australian climatologist: 'six decades, each decade has been warmer than the preceding one'

But remember, climate change doesn't exist. Better still, let's play the denier game and talk about the weather being cold on a particular day instead of throughout the year and laugh about how crazy the climate change people are. Should we be surprised that the deniers are more often coming from areas where News Corp is popular?

The Bureau of Meteorology also said 2009 was the second warmest year since detailed records began in 1910, with an annual mean temperature almost one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above average.

Senior climatologist Dean Collins said the average for the decade -- about 22.3 degrees Celsius (72.1 Fahrenheit) -- was 0.48 degrees Celsius (0.89 F) above Australia's 1961-1990 benchmark average and an indication of man-made global warming.

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"I don't know": Michael Steele on whether GOP is ready to lead

RNC Chair Michael Steele wrote a book. He's on a book tour. That means Steele is doing media. And, that's usually good for our side.

Yesterday, Steele had a rare moment of clarity. He said what most of us already know: The GOP isn't ready to lead. If the chair of the Republican National Committee doesn't have the confidence that his party is ready to take control of Congress -- and the chair of the RNC knows the GOP House leaders like Boenher, then, wow, they're in worse shape then we think. Via Hotline On Call:

Appearing on Sean Hannity's nationally syndicated show the same day his new book, "Right Now," hit store shelves, Steele said the GOP is set for "nice pick-ups" in the House. But, he said, at the moment there aren't enough candidates to take out enough Dems.

"I can't give a number [of seats the GOP will win] yet, because like I said, we're just now beginning to look at the races," Steele said. Asked if GOPers will take back the House, Steele confessed: "Not this year."

"I don't know all the candidates yet," Steele continued, according to a transcript of the show. "We still have some vacancies that need to get filled, but then the question we need to ask ourselves is: If we do that, are we ready?"

In fact, when Hannity followed up on the point, Steele said he doesn't know if the GOP is ready to take back the reins of power.

"I don't know. And that's what I'm assessing and evaluating right now. Those candidates who are looking to run have to be anchored in these principles," he said, referring to 5 conservative ideals he lays out in his new tome. "If they don't [anchor themselves], then they'll get to Washington, and they'll start drinking that Potomac River water, and they'll get drunk with power and throw the steps out the window."

Republicans don't know how to lead. Witness George Bush and the GOP-led Congress. They led the country into a very deep ditch. Read More......

STFU

The Nation's "Notion" blog on health care reform and the inevitability of Democratic impotence:

You see, lefties? You can't hold your leaders accountable, because it's the nameless, faceless "system" that's to blame. Which is pretty much the same street-corner logic that leads millions of people to opt out of democracy altogether. Either the presidency matters or it doesn't. Either our leaders are accountable for the policies they create or they are not. And if they are not, let's drop the conceit of democracy and take the reform debate from there....

There have been many irrational, uncooperative participants in the health care debate: The industries that have profited immensely from the broken status quo, the just-say-no Republicans and the handful of conservative Democrats who have enlarged themselves by standing in the way of real reform, to name a few. The left, on the other hand, has embraced compromise after compromise -- and the result is we've all squandered a rare political opportunity to make sweeping changes rather than tinker at the margins. Forgive me if I can't fix my mouth to call that historic. But I'm just an idiotic left-wing blogger, so what do I know.

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Bankruptcies up in 2009

It's almost laughable that when the Republicans overhauled the bankruptcy laws, it was due to complaints from the lenders who were concerned about borrowers getting away too easily from their debts. As if "stop getting careless with with the easy money we're giving everyone with a pulse" really made sense. As I've said before, when the tables are turned, that industry would nail you to the wall. Too many in Washington - from both parties - went too easy on Wall Street when the timing was ripe for reform. The Republican economy once again delivers.

The AP gathered data from the nation's 90 bankruptcy districts and found 1.43 million filings, an increase of 32 percent from 2008. There were 116,000 recorded bankruptcies in December, up 22 percent from the same month a year before.

While experts believe some of the increase is due to a natural recovery as consumers and attorneys become accustomed to a recent overhaul of bankruptcy laws, the numbers indicate clear correlations to recession-weary regions. Arizona saw the fastest increase, a jump of 77 percent from the year before, followed by Wyoming (60 percent), Nevada (59 percent) and California (58 percent).

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The President is back at the White House and has a busy schedule. This afternoon, he has a meeting with all of his top advisers, Cabinet Secretaries and other officials who work on terror-related issues. They're going to be discussing the "Christmas Day incident" -- what they've learned and how to work better moving forward. Everyone from the Secretary of State to the Secretary of Energy and the head of the CIA will be there. And, Janet Napolitano, too. We'll be hearing from Obama after this meeting.

Tonight, Obama will be talking with the Democratic leaders from the House and Senate - in person (Pelosi and Hoyer) and by phone (Reid and Durbin). I suspect the health care bill will be on their agenda. It seems to be the only thing on the Hill's agenda -- besides jobs.

Besides that, it's another cold day here in D.C.

Let's get rolling... Read More......

Economists say economy far from recovered

Before the Republicans bully the Democrats into scrapping the idea of a second stimulus, maybe people ought to listen to economists instead of Wall Street. Yesterday Wall Street rallied on some good news but they may be getting ahead of themselves. There are definitely good signs out there though there's little to suggest it's here to stay for any length of time.

But Simon Johnson, an economist at MIT's Sloan School of Business, said that by propping up the financial sector, government efforts to date are only delaying another inevitable crash.

By giving large financial institutions the assurance that they are too big to fail, and thereby offering an implicit guarantee to excess risk-taking, the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have made the problem worse.

"The crisis is just beginning," Johnson said. "Have bankers won? In the short-term, absolutely. The immediate opportunity for change has already been missed."

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Body scans violate UK child porn laws

In addition, they fear the sale of celebrity body scans. I'm still wondering whether the machines are helpful of a big waste of time. If they're not effective and would not have stopped the Christmas underwear bomber, why bother? The Guardian:

Privacy campaigners claim the images created by the machines are so graphic they amount to "virtual strip-searching" and have called for safeguards to protect the privacy of passengers involved.

Ministers now face having to exempt under 18s from the scans or face the delays of introducing new legislation to ensure airport security staff do not commit offences under child pornography laws.

They also face demands from civil liberties groups for safeguards to ensure that images from the £80,000 scanners, including those of celebrities, do not end up on the internet. The Department for Transport confirmed that the "child porn" problem was among the "legal and operational issues" now under discussion in Whitehall after Gordon Brown's announcement on Sunday that he wanted to see their "gradual" introduction at British airports.

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