Open thread

We rarely do these any more because sometimes I feel like they're simply filler when a blogger can't be bothered to come up with anything good. But what the hell. It's Sunday night before a holiday. Well, today I went to the house country, I think it's called, in Virginia. My friend Matt takes riding lessons and bribed me into going to some horse open houses (yes, they have them), in exchange for driving me to a garden center where I could return some planters that I bought (the shopping woes of living in a big city without a car). Horse country was nice. A bit over the top, but also rather stunning in places. And the horses were pretty neat. I've only ridden a few times, including a harrowing ten minute ride from hell at the ranch-slash-trendy BBQ restaurant of a major Colombian drug family just outside of Bogotá (hey, some DEA agents took me there, don't blame me). Anyway, the horses were calmer in Virginia.

In other news, I just discovered, by chance, that United Airlines was getting ready to, again, wipe out tens of thousands of my frequent flier miles (I have a long history of United stealing my miles without warning). I had quite literally a week to go when I, by chance, logged into my United account. I quickly booked a Thanksgiving ticket before they ripped away some 75,000 miles. If you have any miles on any airline, and haven't flow them in a while, check your account. It could be as simple as buying a stupid magazine with some miles, or booking a ticket for the holidays, and you can extend the miles another year or two. They're free money - no reason to let United and the rest of the airline ilk rob you of them.

And hey, speaking United and ilk, I just read that United is upping the price of that first bag you check on their wonderful planes from $15 to $20! Why? Because they can. Read More......

Powell hits back at Rush and Cheney

Colin Powell hit back at Rush Limbaugh, subtly, this morning on CBS' "Face the Nation."

[Limbaugh] shouldn’t have a veto over what someone thinks. And he’s an entertainer. He is a radio figure, and he is a significant one. But he’s more than that. When the chairman of the RNC, Michael Steele, issues the mildest of criticism concerning Mr. Limbaugh, and then 24 hours later the chairman of the RNC has to lay prostrate on the floor apologizing for it, and when two congressmen offer the mildest criticism of Mr. Limbaugh, they too within 24 hours have such pressure brought to bear on them that they have to change their view and apologize for criticizing him -- well, if he’s out there, he should be subject to criticism, just as I am subject to criticism.

Powell seems to be suggesting that Steele shouldn't have apologized, but also he seems to knock Steele a bit, talking about him laying prostrate on the floor to apologize to Limbaugh. Then he takes Cheney on over Gitmo:

I felt Guantanamo should be closed for the past six years, and I lobbied and presented reasons to President Bush.

And Mr. Cheney is not only disagreeing with President Obama’s policy. He’s disagreeing with President Bush’s policy. President Bush stated repeatedly to international audiences and to the country that he wanted to close Guantanamo....

But Guantanamo has caused us a great deal of trouble throughout the world. And Mr. Cheney the other day said, well, we’re doing it to satisfy European intellectuals or something like that.

POWELL: No. We’re doing it to reassure Europeans, Muslims, Arabs, all the people around the world that we are a nation of law. It isn’t so much Guantanamo. It’s the people at Guantanamo. How do we deal with them? We can’t keep them locked up forever. This business about making the country less safe by bringing these people to our prison system, we have got two million people in jail in America. The highest incarceration rate in the world. And they all had lawyers. They had all had access to the writ of habeas corpus and they’re all in jail.

Read More......

GOP lawmaker slams RNC video mocking Pelosi as ‘reprehensible.’

A GOP lawmaker is apparently incensed that the Republican party made a "pussy" joke about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. At least there's one civilized human being among them. Read More......

Wait Means Never

Frank Rich in the NYT:

It would be easy to blame the Beltway logjam in gay civil rights progress on the cultural warriors of the religious right and its political host, the Republican Party. But it would be inaccurate. The right has lost much of its clout in the capital and, as President Obama’s thoughtful performance at Notre Dame dramatized last weekend, its shrill anti-abortion-rights extremism now plays badly even in supposedly friendly confines....

“This is a civil rights moment,” Wolfson said, “and Obama has not yet risen to it.” Worse, Obama’s opposition to same-sex marriage is now giving cover to every hard-core opponent of gay rights, from the Miss USA contestant Carrie Prejean to the former Washington mayor Marion Barry, each of whom can claim with nominal justification to share the president’s views....

Obama has long been, as he says, a fierce advocate for gay equality. The Windy City Times has reported that he initially endorsed legalizing same-sex marriage when running for the Illinois State Senate in 1996. The most common rationale for his current passivity is that his plate is too full. But the president has so far shown an impressive inclination both to multitask and to argue passionately for bedrock American principles when he wants to. Relegating fundamental constitutional rights to the bottom of the pile until some to-be-determined future seems like a shell game.

As Wolfson reminds us in his book “Why Marriage Matters,” Dr. King addressed such dawdling in 1963. “For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait,’ ” King wrote. “It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ ”

Read More......

Charlie Crist refuses to say if he'd welcome Cheney campaigning with him

Oh Charlie.

Pressed by a Florida reporter on whether he agrees with NRSC chief John Cornyn’s recent claim that he would be “proud” to campaign with Cheney, Crist said:

“Would I be proud to? Nobody’s offered. Let’s see. I don’t want to deal in hypotheticals. I think the vice president did a great job for President Bush.”

Crist says the former Veep did a “great job,” but he won’t say whether he wants to be seen with the man.

Read More......

State Dept to provide benefits to same-sex and opposite-sex partners

Excellent.

Among the benefits are diplomatic passports, use of medical facilities at overseas posts, medical and other emergency evacuation, transportation between posts, and training in security and languages.

It's very interesting that they're the benefits to gay and straight unmarried couples. Arguably, this is one way to get around DOMA. By including unmarried straight couples, per se the benefits have nothing to do with marriage since those couples can get married under law. The benefits deal with family, and nothing in the law says that families can't get benefits.

This is a good first step by the Obama administration. We should thank them, while not letting them off the hook for their most important promises: DOMA, DADT, and ENDA.

As an aside, State's approach, letting same-sex and opposite-sex unmarried partners all get the benefits, opens up the question of whether the federal government can do this across the board, not just with their own employees, but with American citizens at large. Can the agencies off their benefits, such as Social Security benefits, tax advantages, etc. to unwed partners? Read More......

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

Despite it being a holiday weekend, expect some news from the shows today.

Colin Powell is supposedly going to fight back against Limbaugh and Cheney. We already know Ridge already took a swipe at Cheney (because CNN has been hyping it for days.) Newt makes an appearance, too. So, one more time, the Republicans really getting attention are the leaders of that party: Cheney, Rush and Newt.

With Mullen on Stephanopoulos, we'll probably get a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" question.

Jon Kyl on FOX has potential for some real crazy talk. He's a real right wing whacko and, on FOX, he won't be restrained.

Here's the lineup:

ABC's "This Week" — Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

___

CBS' "Face the Nation" — Former Secretary of State Colin Powell; author Alvin Poussaint.

___

NBC's "Meet the Press" — Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.

___

CNN's "State of the Union" — Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge; Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala.

"Fox News Sunday" _ Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

Read More......

Hit the road Jack

Read More......

British investors push back against Shell, again

Well done. It's unthinkable to imagine so little action has been taken against the pay committees or executives after such poor showings.

Shell was engulfed in controversy at its annual meeting in the Netherlands on Tuesday when 59% of shareholders opposed its remuneration report. Bonuses were paid to directors despite performance targets being missed.

Last night, Abigail Herron of Co-operative Asset Management, which controls investments worth £18bn, said: "Legally, Shell can do what it wants on this one, but on moral grounds, the bonuses should be paid back to shareholders."

Alan MacDougall, managing director of the investor activist group Pirc, was equally forthright, saying the bonuses should be "returned forthwith". He also believed Job should step down. He said: "Job was chairman of the committee that decided to use its discretion to award these bonuses, so he must carry the can.

"Shell is another example of how executive pay and performance are so often misaligned."

Too many such examples yet too little action. Read More......

Over 18,500 species new to science

It's hard to imagine so many species going undetected or at least not being classified as a different species. If you click through the photos (there are only four, unfortunately) one is even from Cardiff, UK, as opposed to a remote jungle or reef somewhere far away. Interesting finds.

They include a tiny snake no more than four inches long, a snail with a shell that twists in four directions and a palm tree that flowers itself to death.

These are just some of the more than 18,500 species formally described as new to science in 2007 – the latest year such information is available.

From this inventory, researchers involved in the task of naming and describing newly discovered species drew up a list of the "top 10" animals, plants and microbes that illustrate the wondrous – and often bizarre – diversity of life on Earth. They include a bacterium that lives in hairspray, a stick insect that is nearly two feet long and a pea-sized seahorse.

Read More......